PSA: There are other ways to improve old things than to rework them

[Guille6785]

Title. There's just been a bizarre number of threads recently advocating for random old mechanics that are perfectly fine in the context of the DST gameplay loop to be outright reworked just because the OP feels like they have a couple flaws. Some crock pot dishes like pumpkin cookies feel rather pointless? What do you mean buff them? Nah, rework cooking entirely and make it more like the Gorge! Toadstool's drops are only really useful as decoration, and the RNG of the mushcaps is annoying? Rework the fight (somehow this will solve those issues)!

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with pointing out the flaws in old context, I'm just saying that suggesting that said content be reworked should never be brought up unless said content is fundamentally flawed (like the old farming system, which had virtually no room for improvement with its mechanics at the time). Similarly, this should also be obvious already, but some people don't seem to understand that reworking something doesn't even necessarily mean said thing will end up being better than the content it replaced or even that it will be good. I assume this is why Klei generally doesn't rework old mechanics; Crab King was a rare example of old content being reworked, and while I think most people would consider it an improvement purely because of how flawed the original fight was, there's still been a lot of people explaining why it failed at being a straight upgrade to the original fight; this is one of those cases where I would've much rather the original fight be directly improved as opposed to being reworked, and at the moment I don't think there are any mechanics that would necessitate a rework in order to be improved.

[Walrusst]

A lot of things really need iterative improvements now rather than revolutionary ones.

Crab king as an example, if the phases were timed out so players had more time to respond to the phase changes/tower respawns, it would probably feel less like a fight where sometimes some invisible spawn instantly deleted your boat.
 

Since a lot of the things that are obnoxious and intolerable to people making the major posts on bosses and the like often have complaints more in tune with the pacing.
The big thing, everything we've learned about the enemies pacing just disappears when we start again from square zero with our understanding.

Reworks are for when a mechanics impact directly runs counter to what the fundamental goals of a system or encounter were supposed to be. For the big oopsies.

[HowlVoid]

For toadstool specifically i think just merging the hats into one recipe would do it. Or have a new mushgnome npc that could you trade the recipes with.

We have pearl in the overworld, we can have funguy or fungus in the caves. 

As for reworking things, as you said klei has a good track record imo. So i feel that reworking especially devisive things wouldn't be an immediate detriment. At worst it's wasted developer time. 

*shrug*

Rework the ocean Klei! The Gnaw demands it! 

[Mike23Ua]

Reworking content is usually meant to be fun and to make something that was boring and too bland.. a little more unique and different.

One such example I can give to you is when Klei created the Icey Boss Fight Arena for the Mutant Shark. Players wanted them to add the sliding on ice and falling on your butt animations to other areas of the game that such animations fit into mainly walking over small frozen ponds, and pengul nests.

But the point still stands, reworking things that aren’t fun into something that’s better then it was prior to being reworked should be one of the biggest joys of being a game developer.

While I have no experience in game code or anything like that: I have made hundreds of Maps & had people play test and provide feedback on them so I can tweak those things and often I consider the feedback in the process..

(example if a cliff is too low and allows players to do something I did not intend them to be able to do, I raise the cliff higher or place barrels, walls etc to prevent the routes they had been taking, in this particular map you were meant to take a hang glider from a lower cliff and steer it into a water gyzer so it shoots you up high enough to reach the higher cliff with it, but players were instead able to just drive straight toward the higher cliff and bail out the glider to walk run up the rest of the cliff, in this case: I had to raise the cliff to also account for this wall run that when creating the way I intended players to reach this area: I did not even consider)

Sometimes things are changed in a way to be more engaging, or to feel more rewarding, take RWYS as an Example: Old DS farm crops were boring.. gave the player too much benefit for too little effort, RWYS crops are complex, require learning, has more player involvement & the results feel more rewarding.

[Walrusst]

17 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

For toadstool specifically i think just merging the hats into one recipe would do it. Or have a new mushgnome npc that could you trade the recipes with.

We have pearl in the overworld, we can have funguy or fungus in the caves. 

As for reworking things, as you said klei has a good track record imo. So i feel that reworking especially devisive things wouldn't be an immediate detriment. At worst it's wasted developer time. 

*shrug*

Rework the ocean Klei! The Gnaw demands it! 

Walters made me realize I enjoy ocean combat when my goal is to prevent enemy boarding actions instead of addressing them when they get on the ship.
Fighting on the tiny disk isn't fun, keeping the tiny dish away from threats that intrude on it is.

Its a shame the cookie cutters/sea weed just can't cope with walter...

[Prinha]

I agree.

And while we are at it:

An average of 30 to 80 people participating in a poll on this board is in no way any meaningful representation of the playerbase's preference. It's beyond silly to draw conclusions about what "players like/dislike" from these polls that pop up here in ridiculous numbers. 

At MOST it is a representation of people active on the DST boards who take part in polls.

[Swiyss]

It's insane, It's absolutely insane. You can go on my older posts on people's ideas of reworking crab king and I mentioned how dangerous that could be for the game. I tried everything to show people that the fight is not that bad, he just needs some little changes. But that's not really the problem, the real problem is that youtube people were complaining too much like jazzy and catperson. They made videos on their boss rushes or gameplay walkthroughs saying stuff like "now is time to fight the incredibly disgusting worst fight in the game boss" bla bla bla let's cheese him with bees like "everybody does anyway" and "idk why klei hasn't done anything yet". And as you know, influence goes a LOOOONG WAY when it comes to impacting the game, especially in english. So many other language videos like spanish, russian, chinese, korean, portuguese etc.. will probably never ever be aknowledged by Klei unless they have translators or people on the team that listens to them in that language.

And I was completely devastated when the rework came out. Watching the boss gameplay felt like hosted horror bosses all over again, where you're forced to use some strategy that's the best intended one. That's why I think bee queen is such a great boss enemy, because she does not give a F about you. She's strong and that's it, and that makes us scratch our head to check ways to kill her together.

Old crab king was SO much better for multiplayer. You had 1 person healing boats, another one fighting claws, another one freezing or canceling the boss casts etc.. The REAL THING they should've done in his fight is make crab king spawn a different bigger boat or allow us to use a bigger boat, make the fight have more complete processes (like crab king won't attack too often if claws are holding the boat) and finally just tweak the gems similar to what they did with the new one, just allow us to cancel his magic with sleeping, and allow sleep resistance. There was no need for crablings on towers and crab warriors with spider AI.

[cropo]

Reworked crab king is a straight upgrade for me no matter how you slice it. Old Crab King could have 1000 unique solutions to it, and reworked Crab King could only have one, and I would still prefer the reworked version. Old Crab King was really that bad to fight for me. Honestly, everything related to Pearl and Crab King is my most hated part of this game, some worlds I would literally just console-command the statue-piece in to skip the hassle entirely. I'd rather play with rain on permanently. Ugh, even thinking about that fight just gets me angry.

[Swiyss]

2 hours ago, cropo said:

Reworked crab king is a straight upgrade for me no matter how you slice it. Old Crab King could have 1000 unique solutions to it, and reworked Crab King could only have one, and I would still prefer the reworked version. Old Crab King was really that bad to fight for me. Honestly, everything related to Pearl and Crab King is my most hated part of this game, some worlds I would literally just console-command the statue-piece in to skip the hassle entirely. I'd rather play with rain on permanently. Ugh, even thinking about that fight just gets me angry.

why? I genuinely and honestly wanna know why because for me it's the complete exact opposite.

[cropo]

21 minutes ago, astareus said:

why? I genuinely and honestly wanna know why because for me it's the complete exact opposite.

Really hard to explain to be honest, I can't put it into words very well. I basically have to spend a lot of time doing the most obnoxious trading side-gig for a crab halfway across the ocean over and over again all to be rewarded with a pearl that makes the boss harder than its default state which you have to fight on a boat which is already an uncomfortable thing to do. You either need to time ice-staffs perfectly to avoid having your boat be one-shot, or make the fight even more difficult by doing a bunch of sailing to dodge the geysers, or play the boss fight like it's fortnite and be able to deploy multiple boats at a moments notice throughout the fight. The boss also heals itself, because eff me I guess.

I don't know, it's hard to explain it in a satisfying way. The whole sum of its parts just frustrates me to no end, I didn't feel any accomplishment or joy at all when I kill him, I think "ugh, ******* finally, now I can do what I actually wanted to do."


The new fight, at the very least was more enjoyable and has segments where you actually go "on land". The healing is immediately able to be stopped by hitting it consistently, rather than having some weird damage threshold you have to be sure to meet. The addition of the cannons allows your "gem customizing" to be partially offloaded onto them and sailing away to deal with them takes a lot of pressure off of the fight because Crab King now respects his phases and does not pull any crazy stuff while in its claw phase. While it does summon minions, something I whine about with Bee Queen all the time, I honestly felt like they were far more manageable to tackle because Crab King himself does not goop you down or attack during this time and the minions are initially more spread out and don't immediately zerg rush you.

Honestly writing this all up, I think I have 2 main problems with Crab King. The first is that I am doing what is in my opinion the lowest point of the DS IP to ever exist: Pearls trading quest, so I am already in a very sour mood by the time I get to Crab King. The second part is I am forced to use a super-pearl to buff Crab King, essentially requiring me to fight the equivalent of an enraged version of a boss in order to progress the game.  A non-pearl'd CK wasn't that big of an issue, still don't like the fight but it wasn't hair-pullingly frustrating. Idk I just really hate this part of Don't Starve the most out of any other part of the game, it all sums up into a net-negative experience for me whether I win or not.

[GrapeVruit]

14 minutes ago, cropo said:

Really hard to explain to be honest, I can't put it into words very well. I basically have to spend a lot of time doing the most obnoxious trading side-gig for a crab halfway across the ocean over and over again all to be rewarded with a pearl that makes the boss harder than its default state which you have to fight on a boat which is already an uncomfortable thing to do. You either need to time ice-staffs perfectly to avoid having your boat be one-shot, or make the fight even more difficult by doing a bunch of sailing to dodge the geysers, or play the boss fight like it's fortnite and be able to deploy multiple boats at a moments notice throughout the fight. The boss also heals itself, because eff me I guess.

I don't know, it's hard to explain it in a satisfying way. The whole sum of its parts just frustrates me to no end, I didn't feel any accomplishment or joy at all when I kill him, I think "ugh, ******* finally, now I can do what I actually wanted to do."


The new fight, at the very least was more enjoyable and has segments where you actually go "on land". The healing is immediately able to be stopped by hitting it consistently, rather than having some weird damage threshold you have to be sure to meet. The addition of the cannons allows your "gem customizing" to be partially offloaded onto them and sailing away to deal with them takes a lot of pressure off of the fight because Crab King now respects his phases and does not pull any crazy stuff while in its claw phase. While it does summon minions, something I whine about with Bee Queen all the time, I honestly felt like they were far more manageable to tackle because Crab King himself does not goop you down or attack during this time and the minions are initially more spread out and don't immediately zerg rush you.

Honestly writing this all up, I think I have 2 main problems with Crab King. The first is that I am doing what is in my opinion the lowest point of the DS IP to ever exist: Pearls trading quest, so I am already in a very sour mood by the time I get to Crab King. The second part is I am forced to use a super-pearl to buff Crab King, essentially requiring me to fight the equivalent of an enraged version of a boss in order to progress the game.  A non-pearl'd CK wasn't that big of an issue, still don't like the fight but it wasn't hair-pullingly frustrating. Idk I just really hate this part of Don't Starve the most out of any other part of the game, it all sums up into a net-negative experience for me whether I win or not.

Don't forget about the gems that made it's stats incredibly overtuned, like buffing his health, healing, freeze range, and claw summons. Most of the strategies I saw online only used purple gems, since it was the only buff that could be reliably canceled. I'm not sure why they decided to make 90% of all gems give the boss an insane amount of buffs.

[hyoton123]

22 minutes ago, cropo said:

 The first is that I am doing what is in my opinion the lowest point of the DS IP to ever exist: Pearls trading quest, so I am already in a very sour mood by the time I get to Crab King. 

It’s definitely not a great sequence of tasks, thats for sure!

[Swiyss]

57 minutes ago, cropo said:

I basically have to spend a lot of time doing the most obnoxious trading side-gig for a crab halfway across the ocean

Pearl's quest are made to make you immersed into this world. It's one of the NICEST things the game has. It's a granny, needing help to clean her island, and if that's not cute I think you have a real problem here buddy. Why don't you try playing more aggressive games? I supposed that's your thing if you don't like the crabby hermit.

For Pearl,

• you need to place berry bushes in her island, which are plenty in the overworld.
• you need to encounter a salt formation to farm cookie cutters, which gives you an opportunity to explore the ocean and find the moon quay and some other biomes. Her other items are really easy to get, wood, cut stones, ropes, lightbulbs etc.. So I don't see why is it obnoxious. I'm going to be farming wood anyway for my base, I'm going to explore the ocean anyways for waterlogged and salt for saltboxes.

Her other tasks are cute as well since it requires you to help her in the rain, in the snow, dry items in the racks, give her a fruit salad, destroy the lureplant there. I can't really see how that's obnoxious, for me that's a fun journey, and a great opportunity to relax and help this old granny out in her island all alone.

It's also extremely easy to find her island, since her location is shown after reading a bottled message. Yeah it's "across the ocean", but really most of the times in my worlds I've been getting her island to be actually pretty close to biomes. Idk if you play on a different world setting that makes the mainland smaller but that's not the case for me.

There's a bunch of videos that shows you that you can kill the celestial champion before day 20 on a random seed alone. Now imagine what you can do together, since that's how the game is meant to played. I've been on servers where the rifts were open and functioning on day 21. That's not obnoxious, it doesn't take that long.

And in my experience, I've been actually pretty overwhelmed at first to try to remember all the things you need for her quests. But as time went on, I realized that it was just another thing that I was doing automatically. It's really not that hard to remember what you need for her island after you did that once. Today, I have a very easy time organizing my trip there, and I can put her stuff in chester etc.. By the time I get to sail, I just use a grass raft and a driftwood oar which is easily obtainable after sailing for like 20 seconds, and based on what I explored of the map, 8 out of 10 times I guess correctly if there's going to be a salt formation on some areas or not. I rarely have a hard time finding salt honestly.

So I see your frustration about it, but I can't really reason with you, since all of those things are super simple, it's a list of ingredients that you got to complete. If you can't bring yourself to do even this small interaction (that you're never going to have to re-do since it's only once per world) for a bigger reward, than I think you should change your perspective about things.

57 minutes ago, cropo said:

over and over again

You can plan your trip to go there once and leave with the pearl. All before day 30 easily. And even easier on day 35 since you'll have the lure plant + rain + snow to do tasks and get the pearl faster if you don't like it that much.

57 minutes ago, cropo said:

rewarded with a pearl that makes the boss harder than its default state

You're only really going to fight this harder crab king once, and after that he gets very very easy without the pearl.

57 minutes ago, cropo said:

which you have to fight on a boat which is already an uncomfortable thing to do

I agree that fighting on a boat is uncomfortable at first, but I really got used to it to the point I can't really complain, I fell in love with how it works, having your friends use monkey bandanas and row for you while you are the captain of the crew is a very weird and funny pirate fantasy I got to experience and I won't take these moments for anything. Having everyone doing it's thing, like 1 people control the steering wheel, another person controlling the anchor, and a guys there shooting birds with a slingshot is very fun.

I think it's too much to ask to rework the way boat works. In my opinion, it's better to deal with this than to be angry at the game for having boats. I like the fact that it's realistic, you need a sail, an anchor, a steering wheel etc...

If it helps, I recommend changing the seafaring camera. That might help to make it feel a little bit less uncomfortable for you.

57 minutes ago, cropo said:

You either need to time ice-staffs perfectly to avoid having your boat be one-shot, or make the fight even more difficult by doing a bunch of sailing to dodge the geysers, or play the boss fight like it's fortnite and be able to deploy multiple boats at a moments notice throughout the fight. The boss also heals itself, because eff me I guess.

But.. current crab king also heals himself. And current crab king will also require you to constantly heal your boat or use a bunch grass rafts like "fortnite" as well, so what gives?

The ice staves wouldn't have to be timed perfectly in the old fight, that's not true. You could very easily count even 6 attacks before you even needed to start using the staff to cancel it. It made a whole animation that took 8 seconds, that's way more than enough time to react. 

57 minutes ago, cropo said:

"ugh, ******* finally, now I can do what I actually wanted to do."

Strange, I also used to say that, but without the swearing, and with an actual smile on my face from completing the challenge. I guess it really is a perspective issue.

57 minutes ago, cropo said:

The new fight, at the very least was more enjoyable and has segments where you actually go "on land". The healing is immediately able to be stopped by hitting it consistently, rather than having some weird damage threshold you have to be sure to meet. The addition of the cannons allows your "gem customizing" to be partially offloaded onto them and sailing away to deal with them takes a lot of pressure off of the fight because Crab King now respects his phases and does not pull any crazy stuff while in its claw phase. While it does summon minions, something I whine about with Bee Queen all the time, I honestly felt like they were far more manageable to tackle because Crab King himself does not goop you down or attack during this time and the minions are initially more spread out and don't immediately zerg rush you.

Yep I agree with everything. New crab king is easier. That's my problem with him. It gives me no more challenge other than myself making the fight harder by putting more gems. I did the fight once in beta to never have to change my strategy again..

And If I drown, I can just pick my stuff back up and build 2 more rafts. Same with the old one. But some people just can't take the fact that they lost I guess.

57 minutes ago, cropo said:

so I am already in a very sour mood by the time I get to Crab King

good thing you mentioned this. A lot of people might also feel that way and move their anger towards him.

57 minutes ago, cropo said:

it all sums up into a net-negative experience for me whether I win or not.

So. I lost old crab king because people couldn't contain themselves and blamed it on the game. Good to know. I forgive you though. I'll just never have my old boy crab king again. Sad to see his fight just got easier so that it could reduce the fire from people that couldn't handle the situation and blamed it on the design.

I'm more than entitled to say that old crab king was AS GOOD as fuelweaver is. His fight had a nice momentum, and it all felt really dangerous. This new fight is too much of a baby fight situation. He even lifts his freaking claws up for 5 seconds before he tries to heal himself. So cute man, he's trying to help you defeat him because you can't deal with your own emotions. isn't that fun?

[cropo]

1 minute ago, astareus said:

Pearl's quest are made to make you immersed into this world. It's one of the NICEST things the game has. It's a granny, needing help to clean her island, and if that's not cute I think you have a real problem here buddy.

I was already "immersed" in the world long before this mandatory departure from normal game mechanics was foisted on me. The reason it exists doesn't matter to me either, whether it was made to save the world or solve world hunger it is an abysmal undertaking that I don't enjoy a single second of.

3 minutes ago, astareus said:

Why don't you try playing more aggressive games? I supposed that's your thing if you don't like the crabby hermit.

I was; the game was called Don't Starve. Not Sim-city island-designer. It's like playing a game, and then being forced to do a scripted vehicle section, but at least most modern games that do this are very casual by nature and you can just roll your eyes and endure it for a few minutes. Can't do that with this game.
 

 

6 minutes ago, astareus said:

If it helps, I recommend changing the seafaring camera. That might help to make it feel a little bit less uncomfortable for you.

All of these things you say about "winning" and "improving the ability to win" against Crab King are for the most part true. Crab King is not an impossible boss, the problem isn't whether or not I win against Crab King. Even if I do win, the negative experience is still a negative experience.

 

 

7 minutes ago, astareus said:

But.. current crab king also heals himself. And current crab king will also require you to constantly heal your boat or use a bunch grass rafts like "fortnite" as well, so what gives?

Current Crab king does indeed heal itself, yes. Are you arguing that the healing he used to do, and the healing he now does, are the exact same mechanically? 

 

 

9 minutes ago, astareus said:

But some people just can't take the fact that they lost I guess.

Again a major misunderstanding here seems to be the winning or losing of something. I can lose a fight and say I had fun, I can win a fight and say I didn't have fun. Sometimes "being hard" doesn't always equate to an enjoyable experience. While Crab King is definitely easier than he used to be, he is also, for me, more fun to fight. I don't base how much fun I am having on how hard a boss is.

 

 

13 minutes ago, astareus said:

Sad to see his fight just got easier so that it could reduce the fire from people that couldn't handle the situation and blamed on the design.

Okay buddy Don't Starve.

Quit with the fake politeness if you're going to make aggressive comments. Just be honestly aggressive in your reply, this fake niceness makes your post feel pretty nasty in general.

[Swiyss]

1 hour ago, GrapeVruit said:

Don't forget about the gems that made it's stats incredibly overtuned, like buffing his health, healing, freeze range, and claw summons. Most of the strategies I saw online only used purple gems, since it was the only buff that could be reliably canceled. I'm not sure why they decided to make 90% of all gems give the boss an insane amount of buffs.

 This could have changed in the old fight. There was no need for a rework for this to be changed. I was even an advocate for this. I asked klei to make the gems better too, before this rework.

1 hour ago, hyoton123 said:

It’s definitely not a great sequence of tasks, thats for sure!

Yeah except that you're not locked into it. I usually do pearl and then do other bosses and continue to play until I find that is time to kill crab king. You don't need to do all at once, the game doesn't lock you into going from pearl to crab king, which is awesome. And the devs can't even change that, they gave you the freedom to play it however and whenever you wanted to.

I believe most problems when it comes to the celestial champion quest is that some people just can't seem to stop looking at the rewards without looking into the journey. That's why people are depressed these days. They just want the easy part without the serious dedication it takes to get there. And I understand that this is a game, not work or college, but it's a different game, and I like it that way. I like that it's hard and unfair. I like that it's time consuming and engaging. And if we keep making things easier because some people can't take a moment to take things slower and appreciate the time, then where are we gonna end?

Dude, go get some snacks, eat some popcorn and relax from your busy life by playing the game, you don't need to rush everything like a speedrunner as well.

I remember posts from people who decided to cheat the game and make it 400% speed, and couldn't go back to normal because they preferred the fast paced gameplay. Well good, DST is not fortnite or league of legends where you can hop in and hop out instantly. It's more like a mix between the slow pace of minecraft and the boss mechanics of terraria. For me it has the best of these both games, It can't be beaten. But it comes with this cost, of being kinda of a hard and unfair game. And the hard part about it is what makes it all great. The game is great at being good, and it's great at being bad to you. That's how GOOD dst is.

I've talked to people who would never play without actionQ. Then brother, what are you doing? Are you even playing the game? You're basically letting a machine play the game for you and just standing there looking, what's the fun on that? I like to pick up items individually, and I know that it's kinda boring to pickup a bunch of grass at once, but if you're not even playing the game itself, I don't think that's a way to enjoy it. I like to feel like I'm responsible to clean my world. I like to feel like I'm responsible to collect grass and do these chores. I won't get tired of this, because that's a world building situation that will make me reap rewards in the future, when I decide to build something beautiful with fences, but I prepared myself ahead by getting resources. And what's even more crazy to me is that, I do all of that after coming back from my real life tasks as well. And I enjoy every second of it.

Praise the developers of this game for making such a fun survival experience. Minecraft forums are always screaming for anything remotely close to what we get to have on a monthly basis.

25 minutes ago, cropo said:

mandatory

You are not forced to do pearl tasks. You can play indefinitely without even sailing.

25 minutes ago, cropo said:

Are you arguing that the healing he used to do, and the healing he now does, are the exact same mechanically?

No, you said that the old one was bad because it healed, but current one also heals. But the difference now is that anyone can kill him solo without needing a weather pain, when the game is meant to be played together. That's why he used to heal himself, because you're supposed to have 2 people hitting him, and you could avoid that with weather pains man, there was no problem in doing weather pains. The game shouldn't be balanced around being easier to do solo, it should be hard to do solo but easier to do in a multiplayer setting.

And it's not even that hard to press cast on a weather pain when the healing phase started, it really wasn't. It's 4 uses and that's it.

25 minutes ago, cropo said:

Again a major misunderstanding here seems to be the winning or losing of something. I can lose a fight and say I had fun, I can win a fight and say I didn't have fun. Sometimes "being hard" doesn't always equate to an enjoyable experience. While Crab King is definitely easier than he used to be, he is also, for me, more fun to fight. I don't base how much fun I am having on how hard a boss is.

I understand and I agree with you. But for me is the opposite. I use to reeeeeally enjoy the old one, but I just can't enjoy this new one. New crab king is like, just a boss I kill once and then never again unless I want more bumpers for a new boat.

25 minutes ago, cropo said:

Quit with the fake politeness if you're going to make aggressive comments. Just be honestly aggressive in your reply, this fake niceness makes your post feel pretty nasty in general.

I'm not an english speaker so I don't know what the **** are you talking about "pretty nasty". I just say what I think it's rational and stick to it. It is sad to see that old crab king got easier because you couldn't handle you butthurt doing some granny tasks. And you're even like, rolling your eyes to it, like do you even enjoy playing this game? And you can't blame pearl on crab king as well, pearl is something, crab king is another.

And you don't even need to enjoy pearl's quest, just do it once and get over it. It's not something focused for you to enjoy since you just showed me you don't like this npc interaction bs, so don't bother trying to change it to make it more fast paced as you want just because it doesn't fit your plate.

Man I'm also not against adding 1 or 2 tasks that are easy to complete, like they did with the sawdust task.

I'm also not against them making fishing more rewarding or simply better, since currently there's no reason to go out fishing for yourself since all fish does is reward you with food so you don't feel like you're doing anything useful anyways.

[hyoton123]

40 minutes ago, astareus said:

Yeah except that you're not locked into it. I usually do pearl and then do other bosses and continue to play until I find that is time to kill crab king. You don't need to do all at once, the game doesn't lock you into going from pearl to crab king, which is awesome. And the devs can't even change that, they gave you the freedom to play it however and whenever you wanted to.

I believe most problems when it comes to the celestial champion quest is that some people just can't seem to look at the rewards without looking into the journey. That's why people are depressed these days. They just want the easy part without the serious dedication it takes to get there. And I understand that this is a game, not work or college, but it's a different game, and I like it that way. I like that it's hard and unfair. I like that it's time consuming and engaging. And if we keep making things easier because some people can't take a moment to take things slower and appreciate the time, then where are we gonna end?

Dude, go get some snacks, eat some popcorn and relax from your busy life by playing the game, you don't need to rush everything like a speedrunner as well.

I am going to be a little mean here:

That is exactly how I play, very slowly and casually, and I think that a bunch of repetitive, low risk, gathering missions is one of the stupidest, most time wasting things in all of DST, and a horrible use of my limited free time, and it’s embarassing that you sit here and insist that gathering a firefly plus ten cookie cutter shells is a great experience. It makes for a good storyline- hey, give the crab hermit a jacket, clean up her island with the pinchin winch blueprint you bought from her with the bottle you used to find her- but thats all it is. No, gathering beefalo wool to make flooring is not engaging gameplay. Stuff like killing the lureplant and harvesting her bull kelp are fine, you’re there anyway and you get strong rewards in tantalizingly low supplies. Bringing a butterfly and net to plant flowers? Okay, i kinda see it. Adds honey to the rewards. Fertilizing ten berry bushes? A heavy seasonal fish????  These are good beginner bear ass fetch quests, not something i want to do every time i want to progress in a new world. And there arent *enough* other options. If i want hard and unfair, I wait for crab king to randomly sink my grass raft (this is kind of a joke but kind of not)

 

EDIT: eight berry bushes. Thats 20% fewer berry bushes than I wrote.

[cropo]

32 minutes ago, astareus said:

You are not forced to do pearl tasks. You can play indefinitely without even sailing.

Are you replying this way on purpose? If we were in a room and I asked you to tell me who isn't married, would I have to specifically detail that I was talking about people to stop you from listing tables and animals?

 

 

32 minutes ago, astareus said:

No, you said that the old one was bad because it healed, but current one also heals

 

1 hour ago, cropo said:

The healing is immediately able to be stopped by hitting it consistently, rather than having some weird damage threshold you have to be sure to meet.

In addition, the comment on healing was in relation to the point that Crab King is the sum of all his parts. The equation of that sum is different between both iterations of Crab King, so healing on one boss is completely different on another. 

 

 

32 minutes ago, astareus said:

That's why he used to heal himself, because you're supposed to have 2 people hitting him, and you could avoid that with weather pains man, there was no problem in doing weather pains. The game shouldn't be balanced around being easier to do solo, it should be hard to do solo but easier to do in a multiplayer setting.

This would take a bit to go into but I would like to point out that a lot of people initially made the switch to DST because it was getting content. For many who played Singleplayer, it felt as if Klei was neglecting it in favor of DST and many switched over because of that. I don't think content that is required to progress the game should be hard-balanced to be hostile towards solo players. But this is just a difference in opinion and if that's how you want the game balanced that's fair. I for one am sick of weather pains and any devaluing of their presence is a blessing for me.

 

 

32 minutes ago, astareus said:

I understand and I agree with you. But for me is the opposite. I use to reeeeeally enjoy the old one, but I just can't enjoy this new one. New crab king is like, just a boss I kill once and then never again unless I want more bumpers for a new boat.

And while I am sorry for your loss I'm sorry to say that the new Crab King has seriously softened the blow for me on the whole side-quest. If Crab King wasn't required for progression I wouldn't even be complaining about him. 

 

[Swiyss]

17 minutes ago, hyoton123 said:

and it’s embarassing that you sit here and insist that gathering a firefly plus ten cookie cutter shells is a great experience

I think it would be more embarrassing to pretend that. But I actually believe that, so it's not that embarrassing. I like it, I like to examine pearl and see willow saying "eh, I kinda like her". I like to collect berry bushes and see her eating it from them, I like to visit her after I'm done with her quests. I like to put some nice big meat to dry there instead of kelp, to see her saying "hoo, that's some nice drying meat in the making", I like to clean her island. I have a grandma irl too, and I remember of her when I help pearl, and that's not embarrassing. I have a dog too, and I've called chester the name of my dog multiple times by accident, because I see him in chester, and that's not Embarrassing to me, because it's true.

23 minutes ago, hyoton123 said:

These are good beginner bear ass fetch quests, not something i want to do every time i want to progress in a new world. And there arent *enough* other options. If i want hard and unfair, I wait for crab king to randomly sink my grass raft (this is kind of a joke but kind of not)

Okay man, than as I said. Klei could add yet another task for you guys, since you can't bother. And I'm not against that, I actually would like that to happen.

23 minutes ago, cropo said:

This would take a bit to go into but I would like to point out that a lot of people initially made the switch to DST because it was getting content. For many who played Singleplayer, it felt as if Klei was neglecting it in favor of DST and many switched over because of that. I don't think content that is required to progress the game should be hard-balanced to be hostile towards solo players. But this is just a difference in opinion and if that's how you want the game balanced that's fair. I for one am sick of weather pains and any devaluing of their presence is a blessing for me.

You were able to kill old crab king without weather pains. But yeah, I agree to disagree with you.

24 minutes ago, cropo said:

If Crab King wasn't required for progression I wouldn't even be complaining about him. 

Yeah if he wasn't even required to progress I would probably forget about him similar to what I currently do with frostjaw. That's why he needs to be there.

[Primalflower]

18 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

Nah, rework cooking entirely and make it more like the Gorge!

i just like gorge cooking thats all Im sorry Guille I did not mean  to Add to a Trend

[Swiyss]

3 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

i just like gorge cooking thats all Im sorry Guille I did not mean  to Add to a Trend

I also like gorge cooking, I wish there was more to cooking in don't starve other than putting ice, melon and a stick in a crockpot to inexplicably make melonsicle.

[hyoton123]

5 hours ago, astareus said:

I think it would be more embarrassing to pretend that. But I actually believe that, so it's not that embarrassing. I like it, I like to examine pearl and see willow saying "eh, I kinda like her". I like to collect berry bushes and see her eating it from them, I like to visit her after I'm done with her quests. I like to put some nice big meat to dry there instead of kelp, to see her saying "hoo, that's some nice drying meat in the making", I like to clean her island. I have a grandma irl too, and I remember of her when I help pearl, and that's not embarrassing. I have a dog too, and I've called chester the name of my dog multiple times by accident, because I see him in chester, and that's not Embarrassing to me, because it's true.

That’s cool, and I enjoy hanging out on one of the few areas with a fixed friendly NPC when I’m just hanging out, but I don’t want to suffer for Collect 10 Moonrocks And Marbles if I want to advance the questline, either. It’s not hard, it’s not time consuming as long as you can find the right pieces, but if you forget them then it is a trudge to get back and forth. ZZZZ.

 

It’s embarrassing because it’s bad gameplay. Like I said, menial tasks for pearl makes for a good storyline. It’s an awful experience. If the entire quest could be done on the island itself or setpieces around it, and all the other quests and interactions were optional, there’d be zero problem. 

 

Following it up with crab king is a cruel joke. I like new crab king more than old crab king, but that isnt saying much. The rest of the questline is excellent. (takes you to archives, ruins or ocean exploration for starcaller, moonstone for mooncaller, ruins or ocean for decon, (or skip with wilson)), mainland for the buried pieces, lunar island, moonstorm, then back to lunar island…now thats a quest.)

[readkey]

15 hours ago, astareus said:

It's insane, It's absolutely insane. You can go on my older posts on people's ideas of reworking crab king and I mentioned how dangerous that could be for the game. I tried everything to show people that the fight is not that bad, he just needs some little changes. But that's not really the problem, the real problem is that youtube people were complaining too much like jazzy and catperson. They made videos on their boss rushes or gameplay walkthroughs saying stuff like "now is time to fight the incredibly disgusting worst fight in the game boss" bla bla bla let's cheese him with bees like "everybody does anyway" and "idk why klei hasn't done anything yet". And as you know, influence goes a LOOOONG WAY when it comes to impacting the game, especially in english. So many other language videos like spanish, russian, chinese, korean, portuguese etc.. will probably never ever be aknowledged by Klei unless they have translators or people on the team that listens to them in that language.

And I was completely devastated when the rework came out. Watching the boss gameplay felt like hosted horror bosses all over again, where you're forced to use some strategy that's the best intended one. That's why I think bee queen is such a great boss enemy, because she does not give a F about you. She's strong and that's it, and that makes us scratch our head to check ways to kill her together.

Old crab king was SO much better for multiplayer. You had 1 person healing boats, another one fighting claws, another one freezing or canceling the boss casts etc.. The REAL THING they should've done in his fight is make crab king spawn a different bigger boat or allow us to use a bigger boat, make the fight have more complete processes (like crab king won't attack too often if claws are holding the boat) and finally just tweak the gems similar to what they did with the new one, just allow us to cancel his magic with sleeping, and allow sleep resistance. There was no need for crablings on towers and crab warriors with spider AI.

Maybe Klei can add a raid boss in the ocean that mimics the old crab king. I really hope there are bosses unique on the ocean, even seasonal ones, to bring more content to sailing. Maybe mix it with the Quacken in Shipwrecked? I love bringing in contents from the old modes and DLCs. 

[somethin]

8 minutes ago, readkey said:

Maybe Klei can add a raid boss in the ocean that mimics the old crab king. I really hope there are bosses unique on the ocean, even seasonal ones, to bring more content to sailing. Maybe mix it with the Quacken in Shipwrecked? I love bringing in contents from the old modes and DLCs. 

I wish we had more fast ocean boss that's not absurdly obnoxious to summon and fight (cough Malbatross cough)
I doubt it can be done though, consider the slow a** cookie boat we have.

[rain grass]

Make the boss's health change with the number of players

[Walrusst]

You know one minor improvement I'd love is being able to recharge the morning star off lightning rods/winownas generators.

It would give some very minor added value to winownas fast charge skills, and it would give a sort of content island locked melee weapon that doesn't meet any major damage thresholds a really funny utility where it could be used as a lantern type item in the spring/with certain party members like wickerbottom and winowna.

I know this is like my fifth concept towards trying to give it some level of inspired meaningfulness, but its an idea I look at fondly.