Is boss rushing ruining public server play or making things interesting for all?

[Frosty_Mentos]

I kinda wanna get into this because a server I'm in there's often rushers to do basically everything by the end of the year. It's hard to tell if it discourages people from playing as it feels like an antisocial type of behavior, or does it amplify interest to players to play in those types of 'advanced forwards' worlds with rifts open and all.

Sometimes I feel like for public play health - being allowed to do everything this fast might cause more harm than good. The idea of public servers is usually cooperation, survival might feel trivial to a veteran while new players scramble to get their things in order with or without help.

Then there's the veterans that just play their own game for themselves, doing everything and it feels like flexing. I'm not hating here on anyone if you do that, but I'm questioning if it's what the small forming communities in the game actually want or not - being bystanders as the world changes rapidly with moon storms, caves becoming more dangerous than usual and farming becoming a hazard.

The thing is - the world becomes a lot more dangerous with veteran involvement. The question I raise if for public play specifically the objectives for rift opening should be delayed by an in game year or two? Just so that whoever joins would have time to at least prepare or have help to prepare, public base and all to deal with these future threats.

Rifts don't add anything right now but new late game gear, they bring a lot more hazards for the valuables in exchange. Should rifts be delayed, or player mindset needs to change? Or nothing should change at all? I wanna know your opinions, for the sake of public world's health.

[00petar00]

Rifts make it worse for everyone that starts playing when they are activated. Depending on which dedicated server you play on there are servers with rules that forbid activating rifts until specific day count which is like 500-1000 or at least like 2 game years.

I think that with future rift updates it will be a bad idea to set such rules because players want access to rift gear even now it is a bit questionable because these items are quite good and cheap to repair while being very powerful.

DST doesn't incentivize cooperation between players you don't know because bosses don't drop items for everyone so only one player gets to learn blueprint or get the gear they want. It is true that killing bosses in groups is much easier but players that can activate rifts within first year or a season or two don't need help and don't want to roll for items or to wait for respawn. I think that it would help a lot If bosses respawned instantly or in a day or two but for some reason we have a 20 day respawn timer for most bosses.

Players will always want to activate rifts as soon as possible after they adapt to the convenience these items bring so it doesn't seem reasonable to try to limit players and stop game progression to accommodate other players and rifts are partially developer's fault because they made it that way so it is up to the developers to find the solution. 

There are exceptions here as some players activate rifts in a season or two and quit playing or they raid ruins and take all the loot and quit, these are the type of players that should be banned as it can be seen as griefing. 

Just to make it clear, everything I am talking about here is in relation to endless servers which should be obvious because activating rifts for survival servers that will reset once the player that activated them quits isn't really a problem.

[Jimothywastaken]

I used to ruins rush on pubs fairly frequently forever ago since it let me practice something i wasn't fully confident in my abilities with and when i was successful i was able to share the loot with other people instead of just deleting the world and trying again

 

these days i usually play pubs to socialize and try out silly strategies that while fun arent super mega optimal

[Keller Max]

I once connected to a server (A server with discord and such) and there was that one dude that instantly started clearing ruins, killing shadow pieces (was too ass to kill Fuelweaver though). The funny thing is that he never interacted with any other player. He was just doing his own things. He even hid all the ruins and boss loot when he DCed on a boat chest in the corner of the map. I've found it by a mistake. When we decided to reset the server eventually, he came back and did the same exact thing!

WHY?! Why are you connecting to a server if you don't want to interact with other players and just want to rush stuff? Why not just host your own singleplayer world?

[GenomeSquirrel]

Winter alone is dangerous/boring enough to end most public servers anyhow, go ahead, have fun

Although hammering pig houses as part of rushing is another concern, please don't do that.

[Gashzer]

I tend to boss rush on klei official servers and do my own thing because playing pubs removes temptation to rollback.

Also, other players add a good bit of RNG, if someone takes panflute I will need to get freeze rounds instead before fighting dfly. Or if I'm playing with a wormwood I will trade them camper tent/flutter strips for bramble husks, as bramble husks are extremely useful to Walter mains like myself.

I do interact with other players but I can totally get why some people go on pubs as a way to challenge themselves without needing to interact with other players.... and flexing is always enjoyable tbh.

[Cheggf]

Everyone disconnects as soon as it becomes winter, it has nothing to do with the bosses that have already respawned and been alive for the past 50 days.

[Walrusst]

3 hours ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

Winter alone is dangerous/boring enough to end most public servers anyhow, go ahead, have fun

Although hammering pig houses as part of rushing is another concern, please don't do that.

this is really kinda rare in my experience, usually the first season that causes concern for people is summer with people getting within 2-3 objectives of actually fighting an endboss in pub servers with the one exception being.
people always quit due to growing lag early summer and then you never actually fight one of the end bosses/even get to the first antlion quake.

Either that or people start falling asleep in spring.

could just  be the people who join my continents server are way more sweaty, given, I did connect to a different continent once to play with friends and I saw servers dieing in autumn suddenly without a base even being built.

[Guille6785]

imagine thinking that a public server will last anywhere near long enough for people to eventually kill the bosses at a """normal""" pace instead of everyone just leaving before day 30

[Wawchik]

It's kind of whatever, I don't think there are many people who spend more time playing on public servers than playing solo or with a friend, public servers aren't supposed to last very long anyway

Edited May 6, 2025 by Wawchik

[shaurun]

I don't mind people rushing bosses in public servers, and it's also funny to me to find some hidden loot stashes or bases. It also gives some vibe to gameplay: entering spring without eyebrella is fun, same way entering rifts opened without equipment. But perhaps that's because I rely on myself mostly and possess the experience to survive. I believe new players will have more fun with other new players, rather than with experienced.

[DVGMedia]

My thing is if they rush they have to replace the resources they used to do so.  And also get it set up for others to enjoy.  If you rush ruins go get fuelweaver setup to reset ruins. I don't feel the loot they bring is worth the collection.

I personally am a resource collector too but i always bring back what i use.

 

[Well-met]

I wish random starter season was the game default

Edited May 6, 2025 by Well-met

[hhh2]

1 hour ago, Well-met said:

I wish random starter season was the game default

Pubs would regenerate on day 1 until Autum or Spring.  Pubs don't like winter because gameplay slows down by standing next to trees and because twig & grass depletion.  Pubs dislike summer for similar reasons.

I wish DST would have kept in step with RoG and have the world generation choose between Autumn or Spring, though pubs would still disintegrate by day 30.

[Well-met]

1 hour ago, hhh2 said:

Pubs would regenerate on day 1 until Autum or Spring.  Pubs don't like winter because gameplay slows down by standing next to trees and because twig & grass depletion.  Pubs dislike summer for similar reasons.

I wish DST would have kept in step with RoG and have the world generation choose between Autumn or Spring, though pubs would still disintegrate by day 30.

that may be so but it'd still force new players to try to learn and cope with non-autumns, and eventually it would help get out of the permanent loop we're seeing now.

[Mike23Ua]

Depends on the “boss”

if it’s EoT/ToT it plays random date night with a unlucky player so yes..?

If it’s Dragonfly it sets in its biome minding its own business So No..  but also Yes? (rare exception for noobs wandering through her biome.) 

For Bee Queen you can’t even summon her unless you take Willow up on her dare of taking a hammer to the nest to F around & find out, so.. no? 

For Celestial Champion & AFW these are both 100% yes, as any random god tier player can join the world, kill these foes super early and in turn: force harsher environments down onto players who weren’t prepared for it.

Edited May 6, 2025 by Mike23Ua

[GenomeSquirrel]

8 hours ago, Walrusst said:

this is really kinda rare in my experience, usually the first season that causes concern for people is summer with people getting within 2-3 objectives of actually fighting an endboss in pub servers with the one exception being.
people always quit due to growing lag early summer and then you never actually fight one of the end bosses/even get to the first antlion quake.

Either that or people start falling asleep in spring.

could just  be the people who join my continents server are way more sweaty, given, I did connect to a different continent once to play with friends and I saw servers dieing in autumn suddenly without a base even being built.

I play exclusively in Klei pubs, people generally stop joining once a server hits winter

Contrary to what other people mentioned here, I find summer easy, head in and out of caves until you can make a lantern or equivalent, then you can just have a cozy time living there, i'll admit i never found post game content there yet, and I'm more used to a surge of lag the early days of the following autumn after people start joining again and spiders and accumulated items take their tool

[Queron81]

In the last weeks public servers are lasting longer than in the years before and I kinda like it. I don't mind if other players are "rushing" bosses (better than doing only a ruins rush and leaving the server after this, what causes the server to die). Usually you don't experience late game content on public servers, now you do. There are always enough servers still in the first autumn you can join, so I don't think this is a problem. Sadly sometimes the servers are lagging and then dying (especially in spring when it is raining, especially when frog rain is starting).

[Edible Coal]

the nature of pubs just makes it hard to play the game slowly, remember one season almost last two hour irl. and it can be easily reset by literally anyone 

i suggest you find long time servers or just open your own to experience games that last over 500 days

[Chewabacca]

I've been on a Klei pub where the rifts were both turned on, somehow. Nothing more dangerous to me than the norm that I could see came of it. Sure, there were rifts open here and there, but I just didn't go near them, they're not hard to avoid. And any enemies like brightshades that spawn in base would have spawned around a bunch of armed players ready to take them out. I think the only issue would have been any non-lunar Woodie players getting ganked by the moonstorms.

[David808]

If you want to fight a boss you can just open a new world so I don't really get bothered by it but if you ask people if they are going to rush or if you can join, some players just don't care, play themselves and at the end type in chat they've killed the boss. Yeah don't be like those.

[SapoLover]

There doesn't seem to be a point in pubs other than rushing things, you'll never see that world again anyway.

Kind of boring it's the ruins every time tho.

Edited May 7, 2025 by SapoLover
Makes sense tbh, ruins rushing is the easiest of the test of skill

[Walrusst]

13 hours ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

I play exclusively in Klei pubs, people generally stop joining once a server hits winter

Contrary to what other people mentioned here, I find summer easy, head in and out of caves until you can make a lantern or equivalent, then you can just have a cozy time living there, i'll admit i never found post game content there yet, and I'm more used to a surge of lag the early days of the following autumn after people start joining again and spiders and accumulated items take their tool

I mean for survival mode people won't join past day 15 its as much a resource issue as a season issue.

[Echsrick]

speedrunners ruin games, i have seen people KILLING MOON CHAMPION before THE FIRST WINTER like what?

[Radicaljoe]

So I will say it does ruin the experience for others, but specifically for long term public worlds.

Like, those worlds that usually reach day 800+ and have a discord. It will ruin those worlds and that's why they typically have the anti-rush rules in place. 

But Klei pubs have a lifespan of like 6 hours and I feel they are designed to just be places where you can do whatever you want. So klei pubs are fine.

I bring up the difference because both are types of public servers, anyone can join, one just has rules.