Why is progression just bosses and fetch quests now?

[aidancode]

When was the last time we had an actual survival challenge in the world of DST? Depending on what you count, it's either the ocean or Hamlet. And to me that's crazy! Don't Starve singleplayer had hugely memorable survival setpieces like Adventure Mode and the Ruins! Here we are finishing off half the From Beyond content arc and the last time we had a substantial survival expansion was the start of Return of Them! That's really sad since my favorite moments playing this game have been with things like the Ruins, Adventure Mode, sailing the ocean for the first time, these were the hugely impactful moments that define DST. Going back to Lunar Island to grab some gestalts seems like a crazily anticlimactic way to spawn the final boss than entering a hidden part of the ruins with a new mechanic! And that goes for both CC and AFW, each in their own unique way! Surely there must be some way to do something similar for this final arc. Going back to the idea many hold that WARBOT should be on a new island, why not add a very dangerous island with greater gestalts and mutated mobs everywhere as the final setpiece? Make it so a spark ark can be crafted into a locator for the island to organically show why we need to beat all 3 mutated bosses. That would be a way more memorable way to end off than the glorified bug net quest we got instead.

[Draggofroot]

I think maybe you can use the spark arcs to maybe induce Alter in sending another island down, because using spark arks to just locate it would be useless since you can just accidentally stumble upon it

[aidancode]

2 minutes ago, Draggofroot said:

I think maybe you can use the spark arcs to maybe induce Alter in sending another island down, because using spark arks to just locate it would be useless since you can just accidentally stumble upon it

I wouldn't say useless. The thought I had in mind was giving another use to spark arks without requiring that you spend yours as soon as you get it (provided you get lucky). But the logistics are less important than the idea.

[WhackE]

4 hours ago, aidancode said:

When was the last time we had an actual survival challenge in the world of DST?

Great depths worm, at least to me was one of the last real survival additions as of recent. It's not tied to any of the new challenges, it's not post rifts, it just occurs naturally out of the players control eventually, and it can pose a challenge for some people, and that's why I count it. 

but asking for new survival content when we've very clearly been shown by the updates for the past several years that's not what they want to make, makes me feel pretty sad, because others have been asking for a while. I'm completely with you here btw, I want new survival content too.

[00petar00]

Because most players don't like survival content when it gets added because it is usually very chore-like and once you know what to do you just need to repeat it over and over again. There is already a lot of survival content that you are forced to interact in the game but with bosses it is up to the player to engage.

I wouldn't mind a new island or biome with unique mobs but I don't think it would be a good idea to add one just for the new boss and we are unable to access it until we progress the story while it only blocks us when we are sailing since it takes space.

There can be new survival content but it shouldn't be obnoxious which it usually is and a lot of players that like that content want it forced upon everyone because to them it isn't real survival mechanic unless you are forced to deal with it. 

Just look at some of the recent additions, how many threads were there about boulders from shadow rift (until pillars were added which is a chore)? Great depths worm (deletes items and deals too much damage for being a boss before rift)? Hail? Brightshades? To be fair you can say that brightshades are annoying because they spawn endlessly but quite a few survival enjoyers defend this.

I don't think there would be pushback If caves were mostly redone to cut a lot of biomes without anything useful to find there and add new ones with unique mobs, items and resources.

[Jakepeng99]

9 hours ago, aidancode said:

When was the last time we had an actual survival challenge in the world of DST? Depending on what you count, it's either the ocean or Hamlet. And to me that's crazy! Don't Starve singleplayer had hugely memorable survival setpieces like Adventure Mode and the Ruins! Here we are finishing off half the From Beyond content arc and the last time we had a substantial survival expansion was the start of Return of Them! That's really sad since my favorite moments playing this game have been with things like the Ruins, Adventure Mode, sailing the ocean for the first time, these were the hugely impactful moments that define DST. Going back to Lunar Island to grab some gestalts seems like a crazily anticlimactic way to spawn the final boss than entering a hidden part of the ruins with a new mechanic! And that goes for both CC and AFW, each in their own unique way! Surely there must be some way to do something similar for this final arc. Going back to the idea many hold that WARBOT should be on a new island, why not add a very dangerous island with greater gestalts and mutated mobs everywhere as the final setpiece? Make it so a spark ark can be crafted into a locator for the island to organically show why we need to beat all 3 mutated bosses. That would be a way more memorable way to end off than the glorified bug net quest we got instead.

I know, i still dislike the riff content at its core.

They need to realise that bosses can be survival focused too. These bosses being deerclops, bearger, antlion, and malbatross. Ancient guardian is kinda close, its a survival challenge.

[Milordo]

8 hours ago, WhackE said:

Great depths worm, at least to me was one of the last real survival additions as of recent. It's not tied to any of the new challenges, it's not post rifts, it just occurs naturally out of the players control eventually, and it can pose a challenge for some people, and that's why I count it. 

This ^ for me :3 

For sake of longevity test, I created a only cave world during December 2024. I'm still playing it, so I can collect all the final final feedback for Klei because the poor worm is still at 80% done from perfection, but yeah. I have shivers and thrills whenever he spawns. I ******* love what Klei did with his warning phase.

[WhackE]

4 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

Because most players don't like survival content when it gets added because it is usually very chore-like and once you know what to do you just need to repeat it over and over again.

Ok so genuine question then. Why are people that don't like this content playing a game where that was once the entire focus, and the entire game is built on the foundation of the survival mechanics

[Jakepeng99]

1 hour ago, Milordo said:

This ^ for me :3 

For sake of longevity test, I created a only cave world during December 2024. I'm still playing it, so I can collect all the final final feedback for Klei because the poor worm is still at 80% done from perfection, but yeah. I have shivers and thrills whenever he spawns. I ******* love what Klei did with his warning phase.

I find the way to kill the worm sucks Since it randomly spawns. If you dont have all the items and stuff to kill it, you just have to run away and let it respawn since its almost unbeatable otherwise.

Its like if fuelweaver would randomly spawn. If you aint got sainity manipulation and stuff, you cant really beat it and would have to just run.

5 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

Because most players don't like survival content when it gets added because it is usually very chore-like and once you know what to do you just need to repeat it over and over again. There is already a lot of survival content that you are forced to interact in the game but with bosses it is up to the player to engage.

Dst new survival content used to make the game passively fun. To enjoy the new content nowdays, its alot of work then you have fun. So much waiting and walking in a game where time is important.

Exploring the ocean and passively finding content is more fun than doing a chore and specifically looking for something.

[Milordo]

11 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

I find the way to kill the worm sucks Since it randomly spawns. If you dont have all the items and stuff to kill it, you just have to run away and let it respawn since its almost unbeatable otherwise.

Its like if fuelweaver would randomly spawn. If you aint got sainity manipulation and stuff, you cant really beat it and would have to just run.

Ok, slow down. How do you kill it? What's your experience with it? Because it took me a bit, since it's new and innovative and all, to figure it out. I'm not dismissing entirely your point either, as said in my quoted comment "at 80%..", but impossible to beat it or it's just like ancient fuelweaver spawning on you seems a bit extreme. 

Edited May 26, 2025 by Milordo

[Jakepeng99]

7 minutes ago, Milordo said:

Ok, slow down. How do you kill it? What's your experience with it? Because it took me a bit, since it's new and innovative and all, to figure it out. I'm not dismissing entirely your point either, as said in my quoted comment "at 80%..", but impossible to beat it or it's just like ancient fuelweaver spawning on you seems a bit extreme. 

You have to feed it lots of items or minions to stun it. Its hard wired and pretty much the only way to kill it. 

 

I did the fuelweaver comparison because it would be like fighting fuelweaver without preperations.

[Milordo]

19 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

You have to feed it lots of items or minions to stun it. Its hard wired and pretty much the only way to kill it. 

 

I did the fuelweaver comparison because it would be like fighting fuelweaver without preperations.

You gave me a vague general response. It's not what I asked. 

How do you fight him? Where? How?

[aidancode]

16 minutes ago, Milordo said:

You gave me a vague general response. It's not what I asked. 

How do you fight him? Where? How?

Great Depths Worm Randomly spawns in Depths Worm waves very rarely. When it does show up it'll dig its way over to you, destroying anything in its path. If it happens to pop up where an item or mob is, it'll eat them. You can hit its head a few times while it's eating. It is incredibly tedious and hard to prepare for if you're not ready for it since you can't *just* kill it you need to bait it with something to digest.

[Milordo]

50 minutes ago, aidancode said:

Great Depths Worm Randomly spawns in Depths Worm waves very rarely. When it does show up it'll dig its way over to you, destroying anything in its path. If it happens to pop up where an item or mob is, it'll eat them. You can hit its head a few times while it's eating. It is incredibly tedious and hard to prepare for if you're not ready for it since you can't *just* kill it you need to bait it with something to digest.

Okay I'll go straightforward because now you gave me another answer and maybe I didn't express myself clear in previous comments and I don't want to deviate your post to a great depths worm post. I asked precisely before what Jakepeng does in his runs against great depth worm to have those problems. I didn't ask for "wiki" answers, I know already these things and I thought I made it clear before lol. I meant strategies, what you bring in your inventory, ecc...

Based only on my experience and what I learned blind, in my cave only run (no surface allowed) I made my base between the blue mushroom forest and the mud area full of lightbulbs. Thanks to these biomes I can have a lot of items to give big wormy boi to eat or I have always stacks of lightbulbs, twigs and grass. I don't know how you guys play the game but I'm pretty sure almost all players, including you, have twigs, grass, flints, logs and maybe rocks in their inventory. During my run I had so many stacks of rocks and flints that I didn't know what to do with them. Then the fight. During the fight you DON'T hit its head, that's wrong aidancode. You hit its tail. That's right. If you do the head you'll do it hard mode. With the tail you'll gain 5-6 hits (no joke), LESS sanity which is veryyyy important for a multitude of reasons of which I can list of and less mistakes since the head does shockwave damage when digging his way up and the tail doesn't do thorns damage. I still didn't try the followers/minions method but I'm sure if you prepare in advance some bunnymen villages, they'll do a lot of damage for you (but again didn't test/prove it). Another thing is you can cheese him through bridges, if you don't want to fight him fairly. Btw I never thought about it during Depth of Duplicity beta but we have also finally a "bearger lumberjack" in the caves. I was shocked how much logs and blue mushrooms big wormy boi made it for me, so now I also use him sometimes for chopping trees instead of killing him. Therefore you could also just put tons of normal trees for him, spawn tons of Treeguards and they will farm or atleast damage him a lot for you.

Finally, why are you two saying that it's bad when you can't kill him one second if you were not prepared.........when this happens and happened with Deerclops, Bearger, ecc...? It's not the end of the world if you can't kill him that one time you were not prepared. When you're not prepared for Deerclops, Bearger, ecc....you just bring them to a point, de-aggro them, go back to the base, make all the preparations and then kill them. Albeit the worm has little differences compared to them like de-spawning immediately, which is why -->

That being said, I'll repeat, Jakepeng criticism wasn't totally wrong either and I do have in the working the final final final feedback list for Klei about the worm for the next update.

[Maxil20]

4 hours ago, WhackE said:

Ok so genuine question then. Why are people that don't like this content playing a game where that was once the entire focus, and the entire game is built on the foundation of the survival mechanics

I think this is a very complicated question that I feel can go many ways, since I admittedly am the type who likes survival aspects but also loves to push the game to its absolute limits for funzies.

I one thing I liked about how DS handled survival was how it was split between the 3 DLC maps. You had ROG/Forest for your standard experience, you had SW with it’s tropical set of threats, and you had HAM for it’s semi tropical + also apocalyptic threats looming overhead. Each of these 3 maps had its own set of challenges, rules, and threats, and one strat in one DLC usually won’t work for the other two. Each map demanded different things from the player and forced you to experiment in different ways.

What I like about this system is the threats being worldbased makes it very easy to scale threats in one DLC without directly harming the experience of the others. If a threat occurs that I am not too fond of in Hamlet, for instance, I can fallback into the other two worlds and do whatever in them until I either want to handle the threat or its time based and goes away from a season change. I thought this system of merging was neat and gave survival players a way to experience harder content without impacting players who base build on the other DLCs so much.

In DST, that’s a bit more complex because both parties play on the same 2 “worlds”, so it’s a lot harder to make changes in one group without directly impacting the other. It pretty much always means when new content gets added that both parties get dissatisfied from said content, and needs to be fine tweaked to usually lean in one direction or the other. It’s not exactly elegant, and I feel leads to posts like this where a group is (understandably) not satisfied with the implementation of something.

I feel I would feel a lot less… Torn? if Klei properly maintained world options (and people were more open to them too…). I love a bunch of the shadow rift aspects, especially acid rain, but ickers/masques alone bother me to the point I keep the shadow rifts closed, and there’s no world settings for either to disable them so they’re just kinda Stuck being a nuisance.

[xhyom]

8 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

Because most players don't like survival content when it gets added because it is usually very chore-like and once you know what to do you just need to repeat it over and over again. There is already a lot of survival content that you are forced to interact in the game but with bosses it is up to the player to engage.

I wouldn't mind a new island or biome with unique mobs but I don't think it would be a good idea to add one just for the new boss and we are unable to access it until we progress the story while it only blocks us when we are sailing since it takes space.

There can be new survival content but it shouldn't be obnoxious which it usually is and a lot of players that like that content want it forced upon everyone because to them it isn't real survival mechanic unless you are forced to deal with it. 

Just look at some of the recent additions, how many threads were there about boulders from shadow rift (until pillars were added which is a chore)? Great depths worm (deletes items and deals too much damage for being a boss before rift)? Hail? Brightshades? To be fair you can say that brightshades are annoying because they spawn endlessly but quite a few survival enjoyers defend this.

I don't think there would be pushback If caves were mostly redone to cut a lot of biomes without anything useful to find there and add new ones with unique mobs, items and resources.

If you sum up 'survival content' as boulders falling from the ceiling and littering the floor with stuff that we have to clean up frequently, routinely, then yes, players will think that this is a chore and not a part of the game, so yes in that perspective 100% of players hate survival in this... survival game...

There's a lot more to survival than moving around for a while while things fall from the sky at standard intervals, and it doesn't necessarily have to be something that comes to you. A biome with different survival conditions is not comparable to garbage just taking up your time for the sake of it, we want survival content, not weekly checklists of litter cleaning.

Edited May 26, 2025 by xhyom

[FillerText]

4 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Dst new survival content used to make the game passively fun. To enjoy the new content nowdays, its alot of work then you have fun. So much waiting and walking in a game where time is important.

Exploring the ocean and passively finding content is more fun than doing a chore and specifically looking for something.

This is honestly kinda why I've been bored of DST. Nothing really happens until the player puts active effort into it happening. 

[Mike23Ua]

1 hour ago, Maxil20 said:

I think this is a very complicated question that I feel can go many ways, since I admittedly am the type who likes survival aspects but also loves to push the game to its absolute limits for funzies.

I one thing I liked about how DS handled survival was how it was split between the 3 DLC maps. You had ROG/Forest for your standard experience, you had SW with it’s tropical set of threats, and you had HAM for it’s semi tropical + also apocalyptic threats looming overhead. Each of these 3 maps had its own set of challenges, rules, and threats, and one strat in one DLC usually won’t work for the other two. Each map demanded different things from the player and forced you to experiment in different ways.

What I like about this system is the threats being worldbased makes it very easy to scale threats in one DLC without directly harming the experience of the others. If a threat occurs that I am not too fond of in Hamlet, for instance, I can fallback into the other two worlds and do whatever in them until I either want to handle the threat or its time based and goes away from a season change. I thought this system of merging was neat and gave survival players a way to experience harder content without impacting players who base build on the other DLCs so much.

In DST, that’s a bit more complex because both parties play on the same 2 “worlds”, so it’s a lot harder to make changes in one group without directly impacting the other. It pretty much always means when new content gets added that both parties get dissatisfied from said content, and needs to be fine tweaked to usually lean in one direction or the other. It’s not exactly elegant, and I feel leads to posts like this where a group is (understandably) not satisfied with the implementation of something.

I feel I would feel a lot less… Torn? if Klei properly maintained world options (and people were more open to them too…). I love a bunch of the shadow rift aspects, especially acid rain, but ickers/masques alone bother me to the point I keep the shadow rifts closed, and there’s no world settings for either to disable them so they’re just kinda Stuck being a nuisance.

Bro I’m going to ignore everything you just said (I actually read it, I just choose to ignore it..) and just point out that there are 5 different difficulty settings for DST for players to choose from before launching a game world.. there should be more survival based content in a game mode labeled survival, and like-wise there should be significantly less survival content in a more Sandbox-y mode.

On top of that- Klei added an Island into DST that had its own mobs, resources and weather effect.

Unfortunately… they’ve yet to add any additional islands similar to it- which I’m not going to lie is them either being incredibly lazy (& only doing bosses) OR it’s their inexperience with other games that do “Islands” with Island specific mobs, weather and resources.

I can list a ton of examples but today I’ll focus on Atlas, The Survivalist, and coming as soon as next month: 7 Days to Die.

Those three games have Biome Specific weather & challenges.

you can not traverse the hot lands in survivalists without heat protective gear or foods that cool you down etc.

Its important that I stress Biome & Island specific weather effects though.

A “Biome” weather effect would be like if Acid rain only drops down into the Lunar Grotto and nowhere else in caves.

an “Island” weather effect can span every biome that is on that island (Lunar Island or the entire Hamlet DLC.)

I think Klei actually CAN add new survival challenges that aren’t these huge scripted boss fights. They just don’t want to.. (maybe it’s too much work compared to slapping a new boss into the game every 4 months) 

[Wormboi]

4 hours ago, FillerText said:

This is honestly kinda why I've been bored of DST. Nothing really happens until the player puts active effort into it happening. 

Same. I dont have the motivation to do any of the rift stuff for this same reason.

[Jakepeng99]

4 hours ago, Milordo said:

You gave me a vague general response. It's not what I asked. 

How do you fight him? Where? How?

I said how. With items. Where is the point. He spawns whenever.

27 minutes ago, FillerText said:

This is honestly kinda why I've been bored of DST. Nothing really happens until the player puts active effort into it happening. 

Exactly. I want to make a seperate post on this. New dst you have to try to have fun, old dst you have fun doing whatever you want.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, xhyom said:

If you sum up 'survival content' as boulders falling from the ceiling and littering the floor with stuff that we have to clean up frequently, routinely, then yes, players will think that this is a chore and not a part of the game, so yes in that perspective 100% of players hate survival in this... survival game...

There's a lot more to survival than moving around for a while while things fall from the sky at standard intervals, and it doesn't necessarily have to be something that comes to you. A biome with different survival conditions is not comparable to garbage just taking up your time for the sake of it, we want survival content, not weekly checklists of litter cleaning.

To be fair even outside of some of the mistakes they made with rifts people would have always been upset with the introduction of new survival content mostly because people have become used to the status quo of survival. Which is likely why the devs are going so hard on bosses. Like what can they really do at this point survival wise that won't upset people.

Personally I'd like if the mainland got revamped with new threats in each biome as well as new benefits.

[Jakepeng99]

6 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

To be fair even outside of some of the mistakes they made with rifts people would have always been upset with the introduction of new survival content mostly because people have become used to the status quo of survival. Which is likely why the devs are going so hard on bosses. Like what can they really do at this point survival wise that won't upset people.

Personally I'd like if the mainland got revamped with new threats in each biome as well as new benefits.

It was just because people hated the ocean before it got fixed. Most survival content was in it.

[xhyom]

4 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

To be fair even outside of some of the mistakes they made with rifts people would have always been upset with the introduction of new survival content mostly because people have become used to the status quo of survival. Which is likely why the devs are going so hard on bosses. Like what can they really do at this point survival wise that won't upset people.

Same thing, this is summarizing survival as surviving waves of something, it's not necessarily about that, ruins are a great example of content that have a "survival" aspect required and it's not necessary for a ruin to fall on my head while I'm doing something else for that.

11 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Personally I'd like if the mainland got revamped with new threats in each biome as well as new benefits.

Well, for me, this is completely part of the survival aspect of the game, it's exactly what I would like too

[GenomeSquirrel]

29 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

It was just because people hated the ocean before it got fixed. Most survival content was in it.

What part of it actually got fixed?

[00petar00]

6 hours ago, WhackE said:

Ok so genuine question then. Why are people that don't like this content playing a game where that was once the entire focus, and the entire game is built on the foundation of the survival mechanics

I don't understand, when was this the entire focus for DST? You could make an argument for DS release it was the focus but that was a long time ago and DS in its current state is more sandbox focused. 

Eyebrella literally counters two seasons, star caller/moon caller staff have so many uses that you can literally never have issues with temperatures, trees can be burned to heat thermal stone in winter and you can spend long nights traveling, summer can be avoided by spending the time in caves, deerclops and bearger are never an issue and can easily be killed with any weapon, hound waves are a bit annoying but there's no difficulty there.

I don't need to go over every survival mechanic here but they are very easy to counter and they are designed that way.

How fun is it that you need to get X item to counter X survival mechanic on repeat every so often?

The real "difficulty" is when multiple issues pop up at once and it is true that it can ruin some plans If you aren't prepared but even worst case scenario is usually just going to cost you a life giving amulet that is very cheap to replace, what risk is there? 

Problem with adding survival mechanics that come to player is that there will be too much at some point and we have pretty close to reaching that limit for a survival sandbox game.

DST has been taking this direction for many years now and I don't believe they are about to change course now towards survival focused updates because most players will always be casual and companies exist to make money. It just so happens that I prefer this direction too with a more boss oriented experience because it requires player input as these bosses aren't coming to the player.

2 hours ago, xhyom said:

If you sum up 'survival content' as boulders falling from the ceiling and littering the floor with stuff that we have to clean up frequently, routinely, then yes, players will think that this is a chore and not a part of the game, so yes in that perspective 100% of players hate survival in this... survival game...

There's a lot more to survival than moving around for a while while things fall from the sky at standard intervals, and it doesn't necessarily have to be something that comes to you. A biome with different survival conditions is not comparable to garbage just taking up your time for the sake of it, we want survival content, not weekly checklists of litter cleaning.

In the post that you quoted I did say that there wouldn't be any pushback if biomes were added/replaced/updated and this is mostly needed currently in caves.

That's the direction that survival content can take and there would be no issues but from what I have seen on the forums a decent amount of players that advocate for survival mechanics only consider it real survival when it is chore-like and comes to the player.