The resentment from being killed three times by Inimical Gestalt in the past two days

[snmyx]

  I don't understand why my life experience has become worse after I fought so hard to defeat this extremely powerful new boss. This Inimical Gestalt has a damage of up to 169, which makes me dare not take it off once I put on the Enlightened Crown, otherwise I will be killed by the Inimical Gestalt in one hit.
  It even has a high health value of 2000 blood. I need at least 40 Pure Brilliance Rounds to barely kill it. The reward I get is probably only one Pure Brilliance, which is not as much as the Pure Brilliance consumed by making these ammunition. Fighting it is Negative returns.
  What's more terrifying is that its refresh speed is extremely fast, faster than the speed at which I kill them, and I can't kill them all.
  Now I am very entangled whether I should use the old version of the safe but limited Enlightened Crown, or the new version of the Enlightened Crown enchanted with Curse of Binding. If it is the former, then what is the point of the player fighting Celestial Scion? Its Battle Feedback and death effects will only make the player's gaming experience worse.

[NeoDeusMachina]

We help Wagstaff imprison and use lunar gestalts as a weapon, and it fails. We end up having to fight the entity we tried to emprison and enslave. It backfired. We defeat it, but we know what price Wagstaff pays for messing with forces he shouldn't have messed up with. We still choose to use the lunar jewels for our own gain.

To be honest, I'd say it's all coherent. We just keep pissing off lunar entities and try using their power for our own gain. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned from Wagstaff's experiments. Why do we expect lunar forces should reward us for what we have done and are still doing after defeating the Scion? The new gestalts feel like lunar forces are keeping an eye on us and are trying to punish us, and it makes sense. Just like the shadow forces, they're not on our side. At least, that's my interpretation.

Edited June 16, 2025 by NeoDeusMachina

[Pedrolar27]

5 hours ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

Why do we expect lunar forces should reward us for what we have done and are still doing after defeating the Scion? T

Because its a VIDEOGAME 

 

[Edible Coal]

i think is fine, but 2000 health and slow to kill is just not it

[NeoDeusMachina]

49 minutes ago, Pedrolar27 said:

Because its a VIDEOGAME 

 

Yes, and? What's your point?

We do get rewards, but they also come with downsides.

I wouldn't expect to be patted on the back every time I do something that is meant to have measurable, negative consequences on my world (like opening rifts, or fighting lunar or shadow "forces", for a lack of a better word).

I honestly hope there is not going to be a good ending to DST like some sort of fairy tale. I loved the ending of DS adventure mode - gave "the Constant" pretty much all of its meaning.

Edit: They mentioned in the latest Klei stream that they are looking at adding some body piece that cancels out lunacy but doesn't drive you insane (like the nightmare amulet) in the end of the shadow arc. So, maybe wait a bit before being outraged. There might be a neutral stance where you get the best of both worlds without having to deal with the gestalts and nightmare creatures. Let's see.

Edited June 16, 2025 by NeoDeusMachina

[Dingle]

17 minutes ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

Yes, and? What's your point?

Usually completing harder tasks in a videogame (with equipment) gives you better rewards, compared to easier tasks.

17 minutes ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

We do get rewards, but they also come with downsides.

Does every new reward need to come with a crippling downside?

Oh well, another item for the trash pile.

17 minutes ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

I wouldn't expect to be patted on the back every time I do something that is meant to have measurable, negative consequences on my world (like opening rifts, or fighting lunar or shadow "forces", for a lack of a better word).

I'm remembering that the brightshade gear used to be quite bad. You may as well just have used a hambat before they added repair kits and so on. Is this the kind of reward that you prefer, or did the old brightshade gear not have a big enough disadvantage for you?

Is this the intent? No rewards, just all these tasks that do nothing but make the world worse? Why?

17 minutes ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

I honestly hope there is not going to be a good ending to DST like some sort of fairy tale. I loved the ending of DS adventure mode - gave "the Constant" pretty much all of its meaning.

It had an ending, period. That's a reward, too.

17 minutes ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

Edit: They mentioned in the latest Klei stream that they are looking at adding some body piece that cancels out lunacy but doesn't drive you insane (like the nightmare amulet) in the end of the shadow arc. So, maybe wait a bit before being outraged. There might be a neutral stance where you get the best of both worlds without having to deal with the gestalts and nightmare creatures. Let's see.

Just wait a bit! Wait 3 months, maybe? I hope it doesn't become a 3 year wait or more. "Just wait a bit" has lead down that path before.

Presumably the crippling downside there is that you're sacrificing all other body slots to make both pieces of gear viable. I hope the shadow reward for body slot has backpack slots.

[NeoDeusMachina]

18 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Usually completing harder tasks in a videogame (with equipment) gives you better rewards, compared to easier tasks.

Maybe we should get rewarded with a crown-of-instantly-banish-all-shadow-aligned-creatures-in-a-2-screen-radius-to-oblivion for killing the final lunar boss. Would that be the kind of reward that would be considered more satisfying?

We have plenty of items that are useful to various degrees in different contexts. Try to be a bit creative. Go down in the caves with the new crown and see how it doesn't spawn any of the new gestalts there (be it intentional or not), and suddenly loses all of its "crippling" downsides. Where do you expect will be the end of the shadow arc?

Anyway, not sure how to address all the points you've made, as it seems like it's just going to spiral into a fully subjective argumentation that leads nowhere.

[Dingle]

38 minutes ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

Maybe we should get rewarded with a crown-of-instantly-banish-all-shadow-aligned-creatures-in-a-2-screen-radius-to-oblivion for killing the final lunar boss. Would that be the kind of reward that would be considered more satisfying?

Very weak counterargument, considering that we're talking about the item's crippling downside. Not about buffing it, otherwise.

Removing its crippling downside would save it from the trash heap.

Why not just use the regular enlightened crown? You're trading eating banana shakes for fighting the 2000 health enemies that can hit for 180.

38 minutes ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

We have plenty of items that are useful to various degrees in different contexts. Try to be a bit creative. Go down in the caves with the new crown and see how it doesn't spawn any of the new gestalts there (be it intentional or not), and suddenly loses all of its "crippling" downsides. Where do you expect will be the end of the shadow arc?

I've seen that. I assume it's unintentional. Do you think it's intentional?

Also a strange argument because that does remove it's crippling downside.

In any case, that doesn't sound "creative". You just go underground. In which case, great, it has a solid use. Unless its a bug. Someone was saying the code was there, it just doesn't work. So it sounds like a bug.

38 minutes ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

Anyway, not sure how to address all the points you've made, as it seems like it's just going to spiral into a fully subjective argumentation that leads nowhere.

Ok, fair enough.

[Crimson Hollow]

Absolutely fun times when you go to sleep with it and get killed during the wakeup animation

[NeoDeusMachina]

41 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Very weak counterargument, considering that we're talking about the item's crippling downside. Not about buffing it, otherwise.

Removing its crippling downside would save it from the trash heap.

Why not just use the regular enlightened crown? You're trading eating banana shakes for fighting the 2000 health enemies that can hit for 180.

Wasn't trying to make an argument, it was sarcasm. I don't think it is a crippling downside. I put it in the same category as the bone helm, which you get from a tougher fight than the warbot and scion in my opinion, at least solo.

I just don't think I should wear either at all times, since I risk clicking on one of the annoying lunar/shadow creature that spawns around while I try to access a chest in my base. I'd rather wear them when they are needed and can make a difference. For example, I often wear the bone helmet when I want to navigate the ruins/get the resources there without having to worry about the nightmare cycle, etc. For the enlightened crown, its 4 gems in at all times (still buffs damage to some degree) and put in the last one on a need to basis, mostly when fighting in darkness, unless I need the cowl to buff shadow weapon damage. I'd wear it at all times in the caves with how it works right now, if it wasn't for the lunacy filter being quite intense to stare at in the long run.

I honestly thought the fight with warbot and scion was fun, mechanically, and was the biggest reward I got from the update: something new to challenge myself with. The crown and the drones are just an added bonus. It's not like I really needed anything else to clear any content in the game at that stage of the game anyway.

[Reiko24]

Are they hostile on sight? Or do they attack you only if you are hostile/wear shadow equipment?

[hoxi]

It really doesn't help that Inimical Gestalts have so many bugs right now, including bugs related to targeting logics.

2 hours ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

I put it in the same category as the bone helm, which you get from a tougher fight than the warbot and scion in my opinion, at least solo.

Like this here. It's not actually on the same category as the Bone Helm because due to Inimical Gestalts having inconsistent targeting logics, they won't drop aggro if you equip a Brighshade Helmet or Enlightened Crown if you're at high enlightenment, which makes the upgraded crown always keep their aggro if they were already aggroing you, until you walk out of range.

3 minutes ago, Reiko24 said:

Are they hostile on sight? Or do they attack you only if you are hostile/wear shadow equipment?

They will only do that and behave somewhat similarly to Greater Gestalts when the player that they spawned for dies or despawns. They're a bit of a mess right now, I reported and explained it in detail here.

[Reiko24]

2 minutes ago, hoxi said:

 

They will only do that and behave somewhat similarly to Greater Gestalts when the player that they spawned for dies or despawns. They're a bit of a mess right now, I reported and explained it in detail here.

So basically they are not really a problem, and you can attack them only if you want to get more pure brilliance. Sounds fair to me. At least when they fix their bugs.

[Maxil20]

4 minutes ago, hoxi said:

Snip

I really hope the bug you reported does get fixed, I feel it will fix most of the issues I have with the gestalt targeting in the first place and make the crown much nicer to use (well, apart from the filter…)

[NeoDeusMachina]

8 minutes ago, hoxi said:

It really doesn't help that Inimical Gestalts have so many bugs right now, including bugs related to targeting logics.

Good catch there - Hope they improve targeting logics to be more consistent.

[hoxi]

50 minutes ago, Reiko24 said:

So basically they are not really a problem, and you can attack them only if you want to get more pure brilliance. Sounds fair to me. At least when they fix their bugs.

They're only supposed to be a threat if you're in enlightenment mode, if you're above 33% sanity, and you're not wearing gestalt protection gear (brightshade helm or enlightened crown). If you attack them of course, they can attack you regardless for some seconds, and will share aggro to nearby ones as well (currently this is the only way for them to aggro to anything that isn't the player they spawned for if that player never dies/despawns).

Current behavior is very much not like this though.

Edited June 16, 2025 by hoxi

[Mike23Ua]

Okay so I will never reach that point of the game, but from toggling rifts to ON I have at least gotten to witness how a defeated Deerclops corpse will have a Gashalt float over to & posses its body reanimating it back to life.

Therefore: I can safely assume that Klei is adding these new Gashalts to float around & “posses” other entities throughout the constant.

The problem your running into right now is that there really isn’t that many things in the game they can “posses” right now, and I’m predicting that will change later down the line when they’ve had enough time to develop the mechanics for it.

TL:DR- Your not actually suppose to directly fight the Gashalt itself, but rather whatever it posses- Which would explain why they have high health and damage when they do not have a host body to posses.

But again: that’s just my best guess.

Edited June 16, 2025 by Mike23Ua

[Antynomity]

22 hours ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

Yes, and? What's your point?

We do get rewards, but they also come with downsides.

I wouldn't expect to be patted on the back every time I do something that is meant to have measurable, negative consequences on my world (like opening rifts, or fighting lunar or shadow "forces", for a lack of a better word).

I honestly hope there is not going to be a good ending to DST like some sort of fairy tale. I loved the ending of DS adventure mode - gave "the Constant" pretty much all of its meaning.

Edit: They mentioned in the latest Klei stream that they are looking at adding some body piece that cancels out lunacy but doesn't drive you insane (like the nightmare amulet) in the end of the shadow arc. So, maybe wait a bit before being outraged. There might be a neutral stance where you get the best of both worlds without having to deal with the gestalts and nightmare creatures. Let's see.

I think this entire arc has shown that rewarding hard work with some upside and then mostly downside doesn't work and alienates players away from the game.

[snmyx]

On 6/16/2025 at 4:43 PM, NeoDeusMachina said:

We help Wagstaff imprison and use lunar gestalts as a weapon, and it fails. We end up having to fight the entity we tried to emprison and enslave. It backfired. We defeat it, but we know what price Wagstaff pays for messing with forces he shouldn't have messed up with. We still choose to use the lunar jewels for our own gain.

To be honest, I'd say it's all coherent. We just keep pissing off lunar entities and try using their power for our own gain. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned from Wagstaff's experiments. Why do we expect lunar forces should reward us for what we have done and are still doing after defeating the Scion? The new gestalts feel like lunar forces are keeping an eye on us and are trying to punish us, and it makes sense. Just like the shadow forces, they're not on our side. At least, that's my interpretation.

Actually, I asked this question from the perspective of gameplay. The focus of any game production is definitely to make players happy (This will attract more people to buy and play this game.), but I spent so much effort to defeat Celestial Scion, but my gaming experience not only did not get better, but it got worse. In the last two days alone, I've been killed twice more by the Inimical Gestalt. The first time was when I was fighting Crab King and used charged shooting, but I accidentally injured the Inimical Gestalt and was killed by it. After I was resurrected and was picking up my things, I accidentally picked up my Umbralla first, which resulted in me holding the shadow equipment in my hand, and the Inimical Gestalt killed me with one move. My teammate was killed 3 times. He used the character Wigfrid. Once he was killed because he accidentally clicked the mouse on the Inimical Gestalt when he was flipping the Chest in the base. The other two times were when he was fighting the Celestial Champion on Lunar Island. The Celestial Champion's AOE laser attack just happened to hit the Inimical Gestalt. The Inimical Gestalt developed hatred towards the Celestial Champion and attacked it. As a result, the Inimical Gestal's attack on the Celestial Champion could not cause any damage at all. Instead, my teammate was killed by the collision of the Inimical Gestal when he approached the Celestial Champion and tried to attack it. He had a Life Giving Amulet on him, so he was resurrected on the spot. As a result, because his own Enlightenment was too high, he was attacked by the Inimical Gestal and killed. Later, I went to Lunar Island to help him kill the Celestial Champion and get his things back.
So the purpose of designing the Celestial Scion boss is to make the player's game experience worse and more painful? But I actually play games for relaxation and entertainment...

[NeoDeusMachina]

5 minutes ago, snmyx said:

Actually, I asked this question from the perspective of gameplay. The focus of any game production is definitely to make players happy (This will attract more people to buy and play this game.), but I spent so much effort to defeat Celestial Scion, but my gaming experience not only did not get better, but it got worse. In the last two days alone, I've been killed twice more by the Inimical Gestalt. The first time was when I was fighting Crab King and used charged shooting, but I accidentally injured the Inimical Gestalt and was killed by it. After I was resurrected and was picking up my things, I accidentally picked up my Umbralla first, which resulted in me holding the shadow equipment in my hand, and the Inimical Gestalt killed me with one move. My teammate was killed 3 times. He used the character Wigfrid. Once he was killed because he accidentally clicked the mouse on the Inimical Gestalt when he was flipping the Chest in the base. The other two times were when he was fighting the Celestial Champion on Lunar Island. The Celestial Champion's AOE laser attack just happened to hit the Inimical Gestalt. The Inimical Gestalt developed hatred towards the Celestial Champion and attacked it. As a result, the Inimical Gestal's attack on the Celestial Champion could not cause any damage at all. Instead, my teammate was killed by the collision of the Inimical Gestal when he approached the Celestial Champion and tried to attack it. He had a Life Giving Amulet on him, so he was resurrected on the spot. As a result, because his own Enlightenment was too high, he was attacked by the Inimical Gestal and killed. Later, I went to Lunar Island to help him kill the Celestial Champion and get his things back.
So the purpose of designing the Celestial Scion boss is to make the player's game experience worse and more painful? But I actually play games for relaxation and entertainment...

I hear you, it can be frustrating. It's actually fairly common in survival games that dying results in a cascade of death when trying to corpse run, especially if going straight back. I could list so many games where that happened to me countless times. Even if I know I shouldn't just rush back to my corpse, I still get impatient and do that mistake, and it can quickly get very annoying and tilting.

I can tell you I died to those gestalts too, no later than yesterday. I was riding my beefalo in spring, with the nightmare saddle and everything. It was raining, I was wearing the eyebrella, etc. There was this 1 inimical gestalt and I thought I'd just quickly dispose of it on my beefalo. Free pure brillance. But then moonstorms were also active and I got hit by 2 normal gestalts and immediately fell asleep and fell off of my beefalo. I wasn't wearing any armor, and I got 1-shotted by the inimical gestalt. I honestly smiled and thought this was amazing. It made -me- happy. I had just been reminded that the world -did- become a more dangerous place after engaging in a long series of quests and battles that led to lunar forces unleashing those very powerful gestalts. I was cocky, wasn't wearing armor, wasn't paying attention to the fact that I could be put to sleep by any random gestalt, etc. Fault was mine, lesson (re)-learned. It might not be a popular opinion, but it is a valid one and I would be surprised if I was the only one out there who feels that way. Hard to say, forums are a very small fraction of the player base.

[Mounir]

I think it is only fair, considering that its counterpart, the bone helm, having limited durability and grants the player nightmare creature immunity, would immediately backfire once you take it off: an army of the NMC will bite your ass.

[Echsrick]

the problem is that the moon rifts are not worth it, you can kill moon champion and not give wagstaff the gem, that way you get the grown wich is a good item and not destroy the world with rift nonsense

[Capybara007]

19 minutes ago, Echsrick said:

the problem is that the moon rifts are not worth it, you can kill moon champion and not give wagstaff the gem, that way you get the grown wich is a good item and not destroy the world with rift nonsense

but infinite chests

[Echsrick]

26 minutes ago, Capybara007 said:

but infinite chests

just make more chest

[Capybara007]

35 minutes ago, Echsrick said:

just make more chest

"i cant kill this boss with spears"
"just make more spears"