Stone slabs are too perfect of a fit as a resource for DST.

[Walrusst]

Think of the common near spawn problem you have in a DST world. "Ah yes, I haven't seen flint or grass for the whole day and I just spawned in." Klei's sorta tried to answer this problem with world renewal and bird resource drops, but this still is sort of leaving the player to the mercy of an invisible resource generator which players actually don't interact with.

What if I told you that one of the lowest reward structures well whatever I guess its better then nothing structures from the hamlet was possibly the best way to both solve late join resource starvation AND add flavor to biomes that players tend to be disappointed finding. 

So for those who don't know, stone slabs are a structure which you can flip to check under it every 8 or so days in hamlet, and they have a small chance of giving you things associated with the biome they are in. Some examples of how this might work in our constant is a savanah biome has a chance of spawning grass or grass tufts, sometimes a bunny's burrow/horde. The swamp would have valuables like rot, and spiky bush starters, but it could also shake the ground enough to spawn a tentacle 3 tiles away from you. A quarry is all about the rocks. The big thing is its a very low rate resource generator that makes sure a biome can still put out a little bit when its 90% harvested.

What I find the most interesting about this though is this could be used for three purposes:

• The first is simply that when a new player spawns, slabs they pass by have a chance of refreshing prematurely. This period would be a few days to a few minutes enough to guarentee there is something for a newbie to interact with within their first few minutes of joining.
• The second is making it so redundant exploration of biomes which are generally less interesting can play a role in world renewal, a visible, deliberate, player driven form of it. Say you could find spiky bushes under swamp stones, stones that seemingly have nothing under them could be a form of tentacle renewal, and grass tufts could be a rare drop of the Savannah biome.
• The third is the slab pool for disappointing and unimportant biomes can have exciting items in it, making it so trips through these areas feel like less of a waste. More meaningful terrain makes engaging with the world more fulfilling. The guano biome has almost nothing, but earthquake loot has been falling on that dungy floor for centuries... Surely here has to be something good under the rocks sitting on the guano floor?

These improve the late join/new player experience in a tremendous way, as this makes a world less barren for newbies, as the immobile slabs give you something to work with. When the world is picked clean of everything, there should always be at least somewhere you can go to get started.

A basic idea of some possible resource pools. This is non exhaustive, feel free to suggest your own, or claim that some of these are absurd. I don't mind, and I've made many revisions in response to criticism here.
[GENERAL CORE STRATEGY/TLDR Here: Some mix of world starter items in the core of the world, and precious items in dead ends that people dislike is what I was thinking of.]

• Florid postern (Flint/Grass/sticks basic stuff is prioritized for the florid postern slabs. Flint/rocks are the common drops in most places, but the postern ones skip the rocks in favor of the three resources you need to get started. MIND you, this does not guarentee you get all three, but it does give you a chance that one of your needs will be met.)
• Spider Rocklands (Special drop: Spider ambush, silk, nitre, and gold are extras here.)
• Rockland mole colony and second deciduous. (Stunned homeless mole drop unique being unique to these, otherwise biome appropriate.)
• Marsh (Rot, spiky bush sprouts, and rare a tentacles will spawn within a few tiles of you.)
• Pond Grasslands + non PK biome ponds (Seeds, sticks, uncommon trapped butterfly, rare trapped frog.)
• Guano biome [The cave biome with the 8+ bat spawners] (Gems and marble appear here, having been buried in the guano and deposited under the rocks, but gathering here causes noise that draws bats to your location and wakes them.)
• Green mush area, mixed mush area (Rot, spores, and rare mushrooms are extra here..)
• Mud pit (Lichen, gold, and rot are extras here, I'd love for there to be a lichen starter but no such thing exists.)
• Savanah (Grass, grass tuft, seeds, rabbit burrow with a carrot is a final rare result.)

Now of course, this is strong, but if its concentrated in places that are mostly nothing emptyness currently, an 8 days renewing gather point won't break the balance, Easily accessed ones would just give people who are craving basic resources a shot at getting the basic tool materials you need in order to go to more resource rich areas, and the dead end ones you wouldn't visit normally may have valuable things in them, but they are slow rate.

Now does this idea have much hope?
Probably not, people are very suspicious of including the smallest features from the DLC's, even if they really fall far from being core to the expansions experience.
But I hope I've made my case as to how well this could help player trust and cohesion when people join late in long games, where the world has likely been made relatively barren and where thieving/bickering becomes more common. It would add texture to wastes which otherwise are mostly empty, and it would make certain areas have new life when they can be a last ditch stop to visit a few times a season to find what you are missing.

[lowercase skye]

The general idea is fine, but I think a lot of the drops you've listed here are unfitting. Hamlet's stone slabs only contained stuff you would expect to find under a rock: smaller rocks, clumps of grass, bugs and snakes. In comparison, I think it'd be very weird to lift up a flat rock and find rabbits, carrots, uprooted plants that are half as tall as Wilson, a swarm of mosquitoes, bats, guano... it feels like things that are just thematically linked to the biomes, rather than something you would logically find under a rock there. Why would there be a picked carrot sitting fully intact underneath a stone? Why would a live rabbit lay under a heavy stone crushing it flat to the ground? Why would a batilisk poop and then kick a rock on top of it? Why would a swarm of bats all crush themselves under a flat rock?

[Walrusst]

Thats actually a fair complaint,  let me change things.

Well my explanations for the complexity don't need to be here anymore now that more people gave feedback and the complexity is gone.

[Swiyss]

I agree with you, I believe Klei can still focus on the new player experience from their last year's roadmap project, even if this year's roadmap is a bit different. I'm just concerned about what the devs think about additions like these. There hasn't been anything added in the past 10 years besides the cute marotters and some moon related rocks in these old biomes (correct me if I'm wrong).

The Reap What You Sow Update that added new veggies and fruits didn't came along with any of those in nature. Why don't we have a place for melons if there're melon seeds in this world? Do birds bring them from a far away land? Are they from The Gorge Island? We only have little bits of lore to back it up. And IF they come from far away, how were they not atleast randomly cultivated by birds themselves?

I believe that DST still has an absolutely GIGANTIC, I mean MASSIVE opportunity to add new things related to biomes, they just gotta be inspired to do so.

[Walrusst]

31 minutes ago, astareus said:

I agree with you, I believe Klei can still focus on the new player experience from their last year's roadmap project, even if this year's roadmap is a bit different. I'm just concerned about what the devs think about additions like these. There hasn't been anything added in the past 10 years besides the cute marotters and some moon related rocks in these old biomes (correct me if I'm wrong).

The Reap What You Sow Update that added new veggies and fruits didn't came along with any of those in nature. Why don't we have a place for melons if there're melon seeds in this world? Do birds bring them from a far away land? Are they from The Gorge Island? We only have little bits of lore to back it up. And IF they come from far away, how were they not atleast randomly cultivated by birds themselves?

I believe that DST still has an absolutely GIGANTIC, I mean MASSIVE opportunity to add new things related to biomes, they just gotta be inspired to do so.

Wait there was a new player focus on last years roadmap? With the rabbit king?
oh god I know two newbies who quit because of him.

[Swiyss]

1 minute ago, Walrusst said:

Wait there was a new player focus on last years roadmap? With the rabbit king?
oh god I know two newbies who quit because of him.

I think the scrapbook was mainly their journal to help new players.

[Walrusst]

Just now, astareus said:

I think the scrapbook was mainly their journal to help new players.

Fair, I forget it exists when I'm not mentioning better UI integrations of it into the game due to how it acts like a web banner ad most the time.

[Swiyss]

The rabbit king is basically a practice fight. Just dodge his kick and then kill the werebunnies souldiers. It's very easy when you get the hang of it.

2 minutes ago, Walrusst said:

Fair, I forget it exists when I'm not mentioning better UI integrations of it into the game due to how it acts like a web banner ad most the time.

Yeah I have 0 idea why they haven't put the scrapbook inside the game as an item yet. + the fact that you can't access it in the main menu.

[Walrusst]

12 minutes ago, astareus said:

The rabbit king is basically a practice fight. Just dodge his kick and then kill the werebunnies souldiers. It's very easy when you get the hang of it.

While this might be fair, I've seen 8x more rage at him than I have any of the giants.
People I introduced to this game universally tried to run away and two quit when he teleported 3 times (Since they were used to running away from other enemies they were still learning to fight, like spiders, treeguards, hounds,) the others simply kept trying till he caught up and killed them/one prematurely asked for revives and let themselves die cause they were tired of bosses spawning often. (Between spider queens, treeguards, and now the rabbit.)

You can escape him with shard changes when you don't feel ready, but that is something i only recently figured out by accidentally doing it once and watching him despawn. It doesn't feel intuitive, and I know a third person who had around 200 hours and had played the game for like 5 years at that point.... (More like 400 hours when you consider single player) who just decided the bossfight saturation in don't starve together was getting too high.

[Swiyss]

6 minutes ago, Walrusst said:

While this might be fair, I've seen 8x more rage at him than I have any of the giants.

Dude I raged at this chitter myself in the beta A LOT until I could kill him. mf is annoying asf. But if you're quitting because of him solely than you would quit the game anyways at a certain point so I don't believe that a single feature like this is an argument to be new-player friendly. It's like removing thunders and adding a big announcement from the skies saying "HEYO TRAVELLER, YOU CAN BUILD A LIGHTNING ROD AS TO NOT RECEIVE THE FURY FROM ZEUS!!!" like a mobile game.

[FillerText]

I would personally like slabs in DST just to have a bit more to look at(I think it should be limited to certain locations, though). Probably just as a different means for finding flint in the early game instead of it just randomly being there. I think it would feel a bit out of place in some biomes, and all those unique loot tables are a bit unnecessary.

 

Also, Considering it's related to Hamlet, I would like to mention that I would really love items like the Weevole mantle(a combination of clothing and armor) in DST. It's one of the few items I would consistently use over the Magi in DST, even if it's just for wet seasons. I think it's a really creative item design. 

It presents a very interesting question as to what combination of items you would rather use to deal with the humidity.

Umbrella with most hats(but have your hands taken up). Or a Weevole Mantle with the pith hat at the cost of using additional durability for a rather costly item(and losing other body slots)? Or maybe even tanking some rain by using regular headgear with it? Or using some other method?

I also found it to be convenient due to how often Hamlet throws sudden damage at you before you can react. Although it's not better than a convential armor, it is certainly nice. Maybe it would open up more potential for more dangerous sudden things in dst without making them unfair?

I also think DST's interaction with stacking armors would benefit Weevole Mantle greatly. The mantle's great durability, and a slight damage resist means it would extend the durability of your better armors, while strolling by. 

Of course, the elephant in the room is the balance concerns coming from it obviously just being really powerful to have both at once. But I really hope fun items akin to the mantle get added to DST later(albeit with tweaked stats, or much greater crafting costs).

[Walrusst]

1 hour ago, FillerText said:

I would personally like slabs in DST just to have a bit more to look at(I think it should be limited to certain locations, though). Probably just as a different means for finding flint in the early game instead of it just randomly being there. I think it would feel a bit out of place in some biomes, and all those unique loot tables are a bit unnecessary.

I went a little wild because its fun to do that when you speculate.

Anything we speculate on will be improved on before we ever see it mechanically, so you might as well write out what you are thinking and hope you get the broad strokes right.

Some mix of world starter items in the core of the world, world renewal items in more bland biomes, and precious items in dead ends that people dislike is what I was thinking of. Since, seeing a second deciduous means your chances of finding a powerful biome like bee hell just went way down.

I avoided places like the mosaic, the blue mushtree forest, the second meteor field, bee hell, the precious ocean islands, the badlands, the oasis, the pig king, and the ruins specifically which are intrinsically valuable deliberately, so there was a strategy to my writing.

Did I possibly overshoot how far we should go? Definitely, but my examples were broad window dressing I asked people to correct me on.
(Mind you, I did simplify the tables again in response to this.)

[Hungry French]

Well, it's pretty obvious. All DS content is ideally suited for DST, as well as DST content for DS, if it is properly balanced for solo/multiplayer

[Walrusst]

6 hours ago, Hungry French said:

Well, it's pretty obvious. All DS content is ideally suited for DST, as well as DST content for DS, if it is properly balanced for solo/multiplayer

I mean yes, but its hard to think of a better excuse to make it so there is a small number of helpful intractables to get started next to the postern/barren biomes to help newbies who get lost.
So why its "perfectly suited" is it helps the late joins disproportionately, as well as people who are just trying to get started after all the postern area floor rocks were taken by people who based a 3 days walk away.
Where as normally this is an issue.

I just setdressed it as something more grand that could be used to season empty areas more too.

[Tranoze]

If stone slaps are indestructible -> people will complain they cant build base near them because they cant remove them to build base as beautiful as they please.

If stone slaps can be mined (as normal) -> It will be gone before days 200 as people will mine them for flints

in the end it solve no problems, as people will use any resources available for them, even if it mean future players wont have access to renewable resources.

[Walrusst]

10 minutes ago, Tranoze said:

If stone slaps are indestructible -> people will complain they cant build base near them because they cant remove them to build base as beautiful as they please.

If stone slaps can be mined (as normal) -> It will be gone before days 200 as people will mine them for flints

in the end it solve no problems, as people will use any resources available for them, even if it mean future players wont have access to renewable resources.

I mean there is a middle ground, since as far as I remember they only gave like 2 rocks when you mined them with no flint. They could leave their dirt patch, which you could turf over if you REALLY needed to remove the slabs dirt patch, but otherwise if left out of memory for a long time the dirt patch would sprout a new slab (Or hell, you could have an animation of them sprouting out like a new tooth on a new moon or something, so you technically aren't supposed to witness their regrowth but you can if you want, with the only other normal way to see this animation being that florid postern first spawns can trigger the postern dirt patches to spawn a slab, not always, but can.)

That way the whole gambit of they can be removed/mined,  yet they are better to leave them alone, but if you are deliberate and have a good reason to remove them go ahead.
Since if you need to approach deliberate griefing to remove slabs that shouldn't be removed, its probably be fine.

Thats a problem I had thought about prior to making the post, but I didn't want to bloat my wall of text further.

[Tranoze]

Just now, Walrusst said:

dirt patch would sprout a new slab.

Tree/plants sprout is fine but rock i dont think so. Unless meteor. 
Tumble weed is perfect type of renewable resource to solve all problems you mentioned, but it only exist in one biome.

[Walrusst]

30 minutes ago, Tranoze said:

Tree/plants sprout is fine but rock i dont think so. Unless meteor. 
Tumble weed is perfect type of renewable resource to solve all problems you mentioned, but it only exist in one biome.

Tumbleweeds being great is part of what made me think about these.

What I was thinking of was something that makes sense for muddy/unstable soil (Where geological events could unearth something from below/stir the soil,) so more biomes could have this sort of gimmick. The idea of it being a new moon event is that people don't see it happening unless they deliberately investigate it.
A darker overworldy form of the vitreoasis.

Since, more areas having nerfed down versions of the tumbleweed dynamic, whether it be shovelable  guano heaps, more types of broken ship structures where the cargo slowly drifts to the surface, slabs, or whatever, would do a lot to fight barren world syndrome. Making the hound mounds a shovelable objects which lose their spawn rate as you harvest them but regrow as the hound waves pass.
Its just that tumbleweeds are what made me remember that slabs exist and are sort of that dynamic but nerfed.
Revisitables like the scrap heap which are sort of starting points for rebuilding a carved out husk since they can be used repeatedly. 

Its just that something more basic and place-holdery for now I suggested because to put it simply, I don't want to be too greedy with this, but it is something that would feel natural and widely applicable in wetter areas with soft soil, and suggesting a giant storm of new interrelated assets isn't something I'm incapable of, I just wanted to introduce the concept in a low asset way.

[Frosty_Mentos]

The incentive in playing in pubs is to share some small amount of resource like flint in order to let them find more of it, or till they get gold tools at least. If the world is old then there's stone trees to find to destroy, meteor field usually is full (though it needs improvements resource wise imo cause meteors just break everything around them.

Stone slabs could work with specific world scenario maybe. Since they're hamlet exclusive and what they provide is much more different and is a gamble for resources, they aren't all that reliable.

By the way, birds do drop some flint for new players.

[JaxckLl]

I like the idea of Stone Slabs as a way to refresh the Mosaic or Marshy biomes. However the point about them limiting construction space is very apt and they should be quite limited in which biomes they can appear. There's not really any way to prevent locusting by players in mature worlds that doesn't already exist, namely world Regrowth & new spawn gifts. Another idea would be to make the Pig King a source of Flint, giving players a constantly renewable supply that would only require a little bit of meat to access. As to how to make that work, have small meats (Morsals, Frog Legs, Eggs, Small Jerky) give flint big meat (Meat, Leafy Meat, Fish Meat) give gold and let us give meaty crockpot recipes for extra gold (1 gold per 50 hunger).

[Walrusst]

On 3/22/2025 at 2:21 PM, JaxckLl said:

Another idea would be to make the Pig King a source of Flint, 

A mole mayor somewhere in the peaceful parts of the caves.....

Edit: I'm also scared to bump this. So I'll edit this solution in.

Also a new idea for stone slab mining handling.
Stone slabs that have been mined turn to gravel pits that renew slightly faster but have a worse loot pool, and can sometimes give an extra drop if rummaged by a shovel. Extreme heat can melt a full gravel pit back into the slab, and gravel pits can be turfed over to temporarily remove them (Where as digging up the turf unhides the gravel pit again.)

This meets the full gambit of balancing them getting mined, player locust syndrome, world renewal, and being able to build over them.