Please, please, PLEASE fix world generation.

[Faintly Macabre]

It seems like forest world generation keeps getting more and more broken as the game is updated and it's gotten to the point where it's too glaring to ignore anymore. Biomes spawn in fragments around featureless roads barely connecting them all, set pieces are placed in ways that look and feel jank and occasionally intersect each other to make it look so much worse, random bits of water or turfless ground pop up in spots where they obviously don't belong, and resources frequently under or overpopulate the map in ways that are clearly unintended.

These days I spend much more of my time than I'd like trying to make sure my new world gens aren't broken messes, resorting to things like using the console to get reports on the number of certain resources that have been generated (making sure there's a reasonable number of beefalo, tallbirds, hound mounds (these in particular frequently get mostly or even completely wiped out by the Dragonfly set piece), etc.) or spending a couple days exploring in a very specific, unproductive way to make sure I don't have a bunch of hideous Frankenbiomes. It's getting old, and my only other choice is to just play like I normally would and only discover these shortcomings after I've invested hours into the world, to great frustration.

Some people probably feel like these things add variety, but to me, they're very obviously the product of procedural generation that's been iterated on for too long without being properly revisited to make sure that the worlds being created are still coherent. Multiple biomes converging on a single point such that the Pig King is sitting a couple tiles away from both cacti and tentacle monsters just looks silly, and for some people, this lack of polish can get glaring enough to the point where it makes you just not really want to play anymore.

[Evelo]

We've needed a World Generation rework for... 10? years now. The fact I am able to know where every biome is located because of how I spawned is quite saddening. Or at least a reason I should stop doing loop worlds (even though I love them so much since we don't have Archipelago still)

[crushcircuit]

i would like to mention that Caves world generation has been like this since their inception, and ruins especially suffers from it. i really hope they rework both shards because they kind of need it badly ToT

[Swiyss]

If you don't know what the author of this topic is talking about, here's an example:

This screenshot was taken in the live winter update in January.

[RozeMeteor]

17 hours ago, Faintly Macabre said:

It seems like forest world generation keeps getting more and more broken as the game is updated and it's gotten to the point where it's too glaring to ignore anymore. Biomes spawn in fragments around featureless roads barely connecting them all, set pieces are placed in ways that look and feel jank and occasionally intersect each other to make it look so much worse, random bits of water or turfless ground pop up in spots where they obviously don't belong, and resources frequently under or overpopulate the map in ways that are clearly unintended.

These days I spend much more of my time than I'd like trying to make sure my new world gens aren't broken messes, resorting to things like using the console to get reports on the number of certain resources that have been generated (making sure there's a reasonable number of beefalo, tallbirds, hound mounds (these in particular frequently get mostly or even completely wiped out by the Dragonfly set piece), etc.) or spending a couple days exploring in a very specific, unproductive way to make sure I don't have a bunch of hideous Frankenbiomes. It's getting old, and my only other choice is to just play like I normally would and only discover these shortcomings after I've invested hours into the world, to great frustration.

Some people probably feel like these things add variety, but to me, they're very obviously the product of procedural generation that's been iterated on for too long without being properly revisited to make sure that the worlds being created are still coherent. Multiple biomes converging on a single point such that the Pig King is sitting a couple tiles away from both cacti and tentacle monsters just looks silly, and for some people, this lack of polish can get glaring enough to the point where it makes you just not really want to play anymore.

Yesterday i was casually trying learn Wurt after a two months break from the game just to discover my world only have 1mermhouse and 0 hound mounds after day 6. I just closed the game and went play Caves of Qud. I just want a worldgen with a consistent number of spaws and less bizzare things like goose setpiece inside the dfly desert... Even the world configs ain't clear, if we set spiders to less it still generate like 60+ nests in surface not counting the spider desert setpiece. Control over setpieces would be great as well, ah yes and lets not forget a option to pick which additional biomes we want as well, so we can actually control better our world size and not have to ever look at that second decidous again please.

[YouKnowWho142]

15 hours ago, Evelo said:

We've needed a World Generation rework for... 10? years now. The fact I am able to know where every biome is located because of how I spawned is quite saddening. Or at least a reason I should stop doing loop worlds (even though I love them so much since we don't have Archipelago still)

that sounds more like a consequence of you playing the game over a long period of time. Yes, the world gen needs a rework, but it helps to consider that the worldgen will always become predictable if you have enough knowledge about the game

[Swiyss]

6 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

that sounds more like a consequence of you playing the game over a long period of time. Yes, the world gen needs a rework, but it helps to consider that the worldgen will always become predictable if you have enough knowledge about the game

Okay so what? We're going to act like everyone here got into the game yesterday?

[YouKnowWho142]

Just now, astareus said:

Okay so what? We're going to act like everyone here got into the game yesterday?

That’s not what I’m saying? I don’t know what I did but you need to chill out. I’m not disagreeing that the world gen needs a rework, I’m saying that the worldgen is probably less interesting to people who already know it, just like most of the other content in dst

 

[Swiyss]

3 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

I’m saying that the worldgen is probably less interesting to people who already know it, just like most of the other content in dst

Ok but what are you implying with this? I don't get your point. Yeah that's obvious that we get accustomed to games generation overtime, but that can never be an argument against new biomes and new content. But then if you aren't against it, why are you pointing it out? Sorry if I don't understand your comment here.

People got used to fighting deerclops, and that's why Klei hasn't really touched her to make it easy, that's how it's supposed to be. But when biomes are buggy like this, I don't see why wouldn't it be a perfect opportunity to change how it's structured a bit to accommodate latest additions.

[YouKnowWho142]

4 minutes ago, astareus said:

Ok but what are you implying with this? I don't get your point. Yeah that's obvious that we get accustomed to games generation overtime, but that can never be an argument against new biomes and new content. But then if you aren't against it, why are you pointing it out? Sorry if I don't understand your comment here.

People got used to fighting deerclops, and that's why Klei hasn't really touched her to make it easy, that's how it's supposed to be. But when biomes are buggy like this, I don't see why wouldn't it be a perfect opportunity to change how it's structured a bit to accommodate latest additions.

I was responding to the person I was quoting specifically, not the topic as a whole. Obviously I think that the worldgen needs to be less buggy and the game would really benefit from new biomes and biome content

15 hours ago, Evelo said:

The fact I am able to know where every biome is located because of how I spawned is quite saddening

I was responding to this specifically, how they knew the worldgen the moment they started. I'm saying how that would naturally be the case with a lot of experience. 

I have no idea how you perceived it as me not wanting any worldgen changes when I specifically said otherwise

[Swiyss]

2 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

I was responding to this specifically, how they knew the worldgen the moment they started. I'm saying how that would naturally be the case with a lot of experience. 

I agree with @Evelo here.

We want replay ability. Boons are a great surprise to the game, and are great additions, and they make the game feel a tiny different every time. But the world generation of biomes itself has too many rules as to how it should work, making it very predictable after about 5 or 10 worlds played. We humans tend to search for patterns, and when we play a sandbox-like game, we want to run from these patterns, we want the game to feel new every time, and it's really saddening to see this hasn't been a motive for them to change world gen. Now I could put my finger around how this would be done, but I honestly got no interest in trying to create a new world suggestion unless the Devs are showing and willing to take action into actually making a better world gen cause we've been discussing this here for the last 3 years now and there are many many great suggestions out there already.

But the main point is, if stale world gen is bothering the player, then there should be a fix for it. And I would advocate for the additions of new fixed islands or new land biomes.

[YouKnowWho142]

1 minute ago, astareus said:

I agree with @Evelo here.

We want replay ability. Boons are a great surprise to the game, and are great additions, and they make the game feel a tiny different every time. But the world generation of biomes itself has too many rules as to how it should work, making it very predictable after about 5 or 10 worlds played. We humans tend to search for patterns, and when we play a sandbox-like game, we want to run from these patterns, we want the game to feel new every time, and it's really saddening to see this hasn't been a motive for them to change world gen. Now I could put my finger around how this would be done, but I honestly got no interest in trying to create a new world suggestion unless the Devs are showing and willing to take action into actually making a better world gen cause we've been discussing this here for the last 3 years now and there are many many great suggestions out there already.

But the main point is, if stale world gen is bothering the player, then there should be a fix for it. And I would advocate for the additions of new fixed islands or new land biomes.

I really don't understand how many times I need to explain this to you. I talked about why it would feel that way, not that it shouldn't be changed. I'm not saying that they only feel that way because they played the game a lot, only that it is the consequence to doing so. The worldgen isn't as stale to newer to intermediate players, but it doesn't mean the worldgen doesn't need changes.

[Swiyss]

5 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

I really don't understand how many times I need to explain this to you. I talked about why it would feel that way, not that it shouldn't be changed. I'm not saying that they only feel that way because they played the game a lot, only that it is the consequence to doing so. The worldgen isn't as stale to newer to intermediate players, but it doesn't mean the worldgen doesn't need changes.

Nah yeah I got it already. I was moving on with the topic with my last comment.

36 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

but it helps to consider that the worldgen will always become predictable if you have enough knowledge about the game

Like.. I just don't agree with this. Minecraft world gen is definitely not predictable. Maybe if you really really study how the cave gen system works, but even then it's kinda not possible because of how complex it is and I believe Klei has the brains and potential to do better world gens. It's all random and that could be the case for dst, less united and similar and more random and interesting.

[Well-met]

I too have noticed worlds have become extremely ugly below "Huge" size along the years.

strangely huge worlds seem fine

[Faintly Macabre]

3 hours ago, crushcircuit said:

i would like to mention that Caves world generation has been like this since their inception, and ruins especially suffers from it. i really hope they rework both shards because they kind of need it badly ToT

I'm a bit more tolerant of this because as you said, it's always been like that in DST, and I think it makes a little more sense in a cave system where narrow passages are more likely to form between bigger, more isolated caverns. That said, it could probably use a little work, too, because yeah, it does get a little much in the Ruins areas.

2 hours ago, astareus said:

Like.. I just don't agree with this. Minecraft world gen is definitely not predictable. Maybe if you really really study how the cave gen system works, but even then it's kinda not possible because of how complex it is and I believe Klei has the brains and potential to do better world gens. It's all random and that could be the case for dst, less united and similar and more random and interesting.

I think some predictability can be good, but I'd say that at least having the option to shake it up a bit more would be nice. That said, YouKnowWho is right that if you play the game for long enough, you're bound to see some identifiable patterns; Minecraft's worlds have an entire third axis to be built within by merit of being 3D, so it's much less obvious, but there are some things you can guess the general location of based on how an area is constructed if you look closely enough. But you're right that more variety is important, especially for a game now about a decade old.

Also, thanks for the screenshot. Should probably have gotten a couple myself.

35 minutes ago, Well-met said:

I too have noticed worlds have become extremely ugly below "Huge" size along the years.

strangely huge worlds seem fine

This has to do with ocean generation, I'm sure. The ocean has somewhat frequently had new biomes and set pieces added to it, and I'm sure that trying to squeeze everything in in a sane way has gotten much more difficult in a way that would be alleviated by a bigger map. Still, when your worlds are generating as an identifiably clunky and broken mess with the game's default settings, it's time to revisit some things.

[Wawchik]

2 hours ago, astareus said:

Okay so what? We're going to act like everyone here got into the game yesterday?

Most people can't tell where all of the biomes are by just taking a look at their spawn. I don't really see the issue in world generation being predictable/bizarre unless it's just too broken

 

2 hours ago, astareus said:

Nah yeah I got it already. I was moving on with the topic with my last comment.

Like.. I just don't agree with this. Minecraft world gen is definitely not predictable. Maybe if you really really study how the cave gen system works, but even then it's kinda not possible because of how complex it is and I believe Klei has the brains and potential to do better world gens. It's all random and that could be the case for dst, less united and similar and more random and interesting.

Minecraft is too different. Terraria has something similar with biomes generating with strict rules, but it's still different because exploring it feels really different 

Just because you guys play the game for 10 years doesn't mean devs should change world gen just to make you excited to play a game you've been playing for so long.

Also all of this isn't really on-topic, the post is about asking devs to fix world gen, not change it

[Swiyss]

2 minutes ago, Faintly Macabre said:

This has to do with ocean generation, I'm sure. The ocean has somewhat frequently had new biomes and set pieces added to it, and I'm sure that trying to squeeze everything in in a sane way has gotten much more difficult in a way that would be alleviated by a bigger map. Still, when your worlds are generating as an identifiably clunky and broken mess with the game's default settings, it's time to revisit some things

funny thing is that the world in the picture I showed is set to maximum size. currently I have a world on max size that I made last week that also has this problem. So it will also affect huge worlds.

2 minutes ago, Wawchik said:

Most people can't tell where all of the biomes are by just taking a look at their spawn. I don't really see the issue in world generation being predictable/bizarre unless it's just too broken

 

Minecraft is too different. Terraria has something similar with biomes generating with strict rules, but it's still different because exploring it feels really different 

Just because you guys play the game for 10 years doesn't mean devs should change world gen just to make you excited to play a game you've been playing for so long.

Also all of this isn't really on-topic, the post is about asking devs to fix world gen, not change it

okay they shouldn't. Let's just not change world gen to accommodate a whole ocean added, more than 4 islands and around 4 ocean biomes and 10 setpieces.

[Wawchik]

3 minutes ago, astareus said:

okay they shouldn't. Let's just not change world gen to accommodate a whole ocean added, more than 4 islands and around 4 ocean biomes and 10 setpieces.

Honestly, maybe I just never encountered something really insane, but I never touch world config and everything generates fine, the only problem I've encountered ONCE is lunar island generating literally a tile away from mosaic biome, which made it smaller therefore less resources. 

[lowercase skye]

3 hours ago, astareus said:

This is my dream world, honestly. Lots of places that look juuuust big enough for a grass raft and thus a knobbly tree. I wish I got generation this good.

[crushcircuit]

27 minutes ago, Faintly Macabre said:

I'm a bit more tolerant of this because as you said, it's always been like that in DST, and I think it makes a little more sense in a cave system where narrow passages are more likely to form between bigger, more isolated caverns. That said, it could probably use a little work, too, because yeah, it does get a little much in the Ruins areas.

oh certainly, it affects things on forest waaay more for sure. in my opinion, it makes the caves a bit frustrating to explore, especially since there's very little variety going on down there to begin with. lots of dead ends and extremely long land bridges. it kind of feels like caves might have been rushed initially and they never went back to fix it? not sure, I haven't been playing the game for that long.

it's crazy comparing screenshots of the ruins from don't starve to the ones in don't starve together lol

[Wawchik]

11 minutes ago, lowercase skye said:

This is my dream world, honestly. Lots of places that look juuuust big enough for a grass raft and thus a knobbly tree. I wish I got generation this good.

I'd probably base in such place too, having water at base is always a good thing 

[Faintly Macabre]

13 minutes ago, lowercase skye said:

This is my dream world, honestly. Lots of places that look juuuust big enough for a grass raft and thus a knobbly tree. I wish I got generation this good.

Legitimately good thinking, though I would prefer a solution to that issue that doesn't require worlds that look buggy and broken. A boss that can somehow punch holes in the surface as one of its attacks could be cool, preferably holes that are specially flagged in the code so that some item can fix them if desired.

[Swiyss]

23 minutes ago, lowercase skye said:

This is my dream world, honestly. Lots of places that look juuuust big enough for a grass raft and thus a knobbly tree. I wish I got generation this good.

yeah I thought about this exact base setup too with knobbly trees. But if you look very closely, you'll realise that it'll be more of a headache than a blessing since there will be at least 5 spots where the shade won't reach right in the middle, forcing you to get a crystaleyezer or flingo, but those can't reach that far since the base is elongated so you'll need a bunch of them. Or you can just disable wildfires in the settings.

[GimplyGoose]

I haven't really noticed any major issues with world-gen. If hound mounds get deleted by dfly's set piece, I just consider it a quirk of that world, I guess.

The only non-ocean surface set piece that was added recently was the scrappy were pig and I don't think I've noticed any issues with that. I guess I don't see how things would have gotten worse over the years like you are describing.

[Swiyss]

2 minutes ago, GimplyGoose said:

I haven't really noticed any major issues with world-gen. If hound mounds get deleted by dfly's set piece, I just consider it a quirk of that world, I guess.

The only non-ocean surface set piece that was added recently was the scrappy were pig and I don't think I've noticed any issues with that. I guess I don't see how things would have gotten worse over the years like you are describing.

This is from the same day of my other screenshot in a different world.

I posted this before but just reiterating it. That's like an instant reset.

There's unbreakable rocks on top of the oasis as well that can't be targeted for some reason.