More dangers.

[Mike23Ua]

1 hour ago, NoodlemanNed said:

ive found that lunar frog rains are easier to deal with compared to normal frog rain. While the buffed stats make it seem like it would be more of a challenge, there is another enemy that starts to spawn during lunar rifts. As much as people complain about brightshades ruining decorations, they completely neutralize combat related threats if you let them, and frogs happen to be especially vulnerable to them.

This is weird to me.. like it just feels disconnected and inconsistent..?

Lunar Rifts/Lunar Content should be working TOGETHER, so it makes no sense at all whatsoever why Deadly Brightshades can be used to kill Lunar Frogs, Lunar Deerclops, Lunar Bearger, Lunar Varg etc….

Especially for this to be intended as “end game” content…. Why is the solution to fighting Lunar Rift Mobs, Lunar Rift Threats?

With that said.. I wanted Lunar Frogs to “Explode” and with all the eyes/bubbles on their back, they probably should have.

Then there’s Wurt who gets full blown immunity to “end game” frog variants.

TL:DR- DST has some bonkers design choices.

[Waywarbler]

5 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Lunar Rifts/Lunar Content should be working TOGETHER, so it makes no sense at all whatsoever why Deadly Brightshades can be used to kill Lunar Frogs, Lunar Deerclops, Lunar Bearger, Lunar Varg etc….

Then there’s Wurt who gets full blown immunity to “end game” frog variants.

I agree, I think all "gestalt-possessed" threats should be on the same side, including bright-eyed frogs targeting Wurt.

I like the thought of the bright-eyed frogs continuing to chase and attack you while all the other frogs are distracted by a brightshade. Would be kinda funny if that happened JUST when you were getting comfortable using brightshades to deal with frog rain.

[W0l0l0]

10 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

This is weird to me.. like it just feels disconnected and inconsistent..?

Lunar Rifts/Lunar Content should be working TOGETHER, so it makes no sense at all whatsoever why Deadly Brightshades can be used to kill Lunar Frogs, Lunar Deerclops, Lunar Bearger, Lunar Varg etc….

Especially for this to be intended as “end game” content…. Why is the solution to fighting Lunar Rift Mobs, Lunar Rift Threats?

While I agree the easiest solution shouldn't be to use other Lunar Rift mobs, I do like how animals can turn on each other. Its nature (sorta); they serve their own interests first, and it always make the world of Don't Starve feel alive. I think we should strive for interactions between mobs to be more complex, and mobs turning on each other can be a part of that. Doesn't mean I necessarily disagree with the frog thing in particular. It should still be a challenge.

[JustAPineapple]

On 5/3/2025 at 8:41 AM, Edible Coal said:

what if we combine two ideas? foreseeable threats? basically theres one big event in each season the player have to deal with that is foreshadow early on, and you need to choose to ignore it (some dmg to the world or some punishment) or deal with it ( gets rewards for spending time)

it would balance the annoyingness and still makes the world feels dangerous

You mean like the ramping up effects of weather in non autumn seasons?

How it's only slightly chilly at the start of winter, enough to let you know it's getting colder and you should probably do something about that.

Or, perhaps, antlion with the sink holes you can run away from, and choose not to engage with by spending time away from base in the caves or something, and are rewarded for interacting with either passively or through its fight via desert stone and blueprints.

I feel like it's easy to take staple ds mechanics like these for granted, but between seasonal effects, bosses, hound/depthworm attacks, because they're all kinda "solved" problems for a lot of the community, especially here on the forums.

And so any addition like this, will eventually also become a "solved" problem. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but for me at least as a player when I feel like the novelty of a mechanic like this has worn off, it runs the risk of becoming a bother.

All challenges will eventually stop being challenges, and so if that "challenge" is constantly faced, can only be solved by interrupting whatever else your doing, and is too much of an interruption, (which I admit is wholly subjective) then it becomes annoying.

Take weather effects for example, while lasting a whole season, the items you need to deal with them effectively, Deal With Them Effectively, at least for the most part.

The thermal stone is perhaps too much of a one size fits all solution, but items like the Eyebrella for rain and summer are wonderful, you get them by killing the prior seasons respective (and ultimately optional) boss and in exchange the seasonal threat becomes Very easy to manage.

Why is this important? Well being able to easily manage the weather effects once you figure out how is important because there is more game to play and goals both personal and extrinsic to achieve, and unsurprisingly, I would like to play that game.

DST remains a game where you have a lot of player choice in what you do and how you personally progress, forced lengthy detours that aren't one and done (like perhaps the antlion, although that's only once a season and thus not that bad imo) don't have long lasting solutions that negate or heavily reduce the time spent dealing with the issue when it pops up (houndtraps/ice flingos/shade trees/insulating items/amassing hunger/sanity food/or even just leaving to deal with a boss later, or even use that living boss to your own ends like wood farming with bearger) then ultimately its just an added but of forced tedium preventing you from doing what you actually want to do in the game.

And personally? Those just aren't my thing.

On 5/3/2025 at 5:30 PM, Mike23Ua said:

DS & DST are designed in such a bizarre way, it’s suppose to be a sandbox survival game, but yet almost EVERY mob has an “Aggro range or attention timer”

As in: if you run far enough away from it (and in dst let’s just go ahead and admit that isn’t very far…) they’ll drop their aggro and happily start trying to return to their designated little area they’re meant to be in & patrol.

Not every mob is like this mind you, but the largest majority of them are.

Step on a spiders nest they come out growl/hiss walk back a few steps they retreat back to their nest, Merm, Bees, etc etc.. it’s all the same thing.

it ALSO doesn’t help that if you walk far enough away most mobs will line themselves up in a pretty little convenient straight line, so you can smack at one bee or spider one right after the other.

They could use “smarter AI” 

And what I mean by that is that if Rabbit King Overlord will chase you to the ends of the earth, then a Depressed Tallbird Momma who had her child stollen to be used for scotch eggs should probably equally never give up pursuing you too.

Theres also the completely undead mutant Deerclops being possessed by Gashalt.. and uhh a bunch of other things but you get the idea.

Spiders and Bees (especially the Shattered Spiders & the Killer Bee) should have smarter AI so that instead of lining up in a pretty little line to pursue the player, they instead attempt to circle in and enclose the player.

DST doesn’t feel like a modern day survival game, because the only thing Klei seems to actually want to update and change the behaviors of are character abilities and skill trees, and maybe a raid boss or two.

Personally I don't know of any survival game, let alone a sandbox survival game, that don't have de-aggro mechanics, besides maybe a couple gimmick Minecraft mods and packs.

De-aggro is a very important mechanic in a game like DST, if every enemy acted like the rabbit king (which is an optional boss you had to go out of your way to summon) then that would be a mess of running away from hoards of enemies, picking them off one by one, and spending a whole lot of time dealing with a problem created because you dared to walk past some spiders at night.

I don't think for an experienced player it'd be that hard mind you, killing hoards of enemies is something you do sometimes do in the game normally after all. But i do not think doing that constantly and unavoidably would be fun. It might be a interesting gimmick to play once, but dst was not made with something like that in mind, and it would be a incredibly disruptive change. It is a fun idea to think about though.