More survival content

[Jakepeng99]

12 hours ago, Waywarbler said:

"More survival content" feels vague to me. I'm not sure if there's a consensus on what exactly makes up a good survival challenge.

There some examples in the thread. 

[NeoDeusMachina]

For me, a survival element is a need that must be filled or a status you can get that threatens your survival. Examples are:

• Food (duh)
• Sanity
• Drinking
• Diseases
• Body temperature (weather)
• Wetness (-> hinders combat, induces sanity)
• Light/darkness
• etc.

Most mobs are just opponents, but I do not consider them to be survival elements. Mobs exist in many games, and yes, they try to kill you and bring your hp down to 0, but that still doesn't make it a survival element. At least, unless they actively seek you out to mess up with your base or life (e.g., deerclops, bearger, antlion), or steal from you items that could threaten your survival (e.g., monkeys stealing your lantern, slurpers removing your hat draining your food, marotters stealing your food).

The other normal mobs incl. giants that are just there somewhere in the world, I don't consider as much a survival element. You expose yourself to them by trying to do something else or for their loot, but then it's not just about survival.

So, either we need new mechanics that add depth to our survival, or mobs that threaten our survival by messing up with current survival mechanics, like some mob that pukes on you and makes you 100% wet instantly, forcing you to either wear wetness protection item at the cost of armor, or a shadow mob that has an aura of darkness around it that dims even the brightest light, idk.

Edited July 2, 2025 by NeoDeusMachina

[Radicaljoe]

It's so weird honestly. Rifts were the perfect chance to add a ton of environmental effects. But so far all we've gotten is glass rain and bosses. (Shadow rift stuff is fine actually, acid rain has a decent impact on the caves which is neat)

There's so many cool things they could change about the surface world post rift, but so far it just hasn't been happening. Imagine winters where whole biomes get frosted over and the glass pengalls arrive there in swarms daily. Or spring having actual lightning, there's maybe like 10 total strikes of lighting in a vanilla game per 2 years. Imagine like, sw hurricane season levels of lighting post rift. Summer could have spots of magnified sun. I I imagine the logic would be the summer sun being magnified through the glass in the atmosphere, which would make really scorched sun spots in some biomes, and light anything on fire that walked into those tiles.

And Autumn could uh, I dunno. Add in a lunar variant of the birchnutter, maybe one that uproots itself and chases the player around? Autumn is always the chill season so hard to do anything for it.

[Mike23Ua]

20 hours ago, Waywarbler said:

"More survival content" feels vague to me. I'm not sure if there's a consensus on what exactly makes up a good survival challenge.

Well there’s a lot of cool things Klei could do but just.. haven’t? Imagine if “Acid Rain” couldn’t just be solved with a simple umbrella/Umbralla whatever it’s called, and imagine if Acid Rain actually had more of a “long-term” impact on the game world, such as for example the ponds that fill up with Nitre becoming bubbling toxic pools of poison that expand like a gas bubble before exploding out poisonous gases you’d have to time traveling through the area carefully to avoid being caught in an acid burst.

(similar to how the lightning owls in hamlet worked)

Megabasers will whine that it’s destroying their pretty bases (even though no actual base structure damage will have happened) they would still be “annoyed” that the base they built near a bunch of underground ponds has now become highly dangerous due to the toxins.

I guess truth be told: as long as Klei caters to the Megabase mindset, and adds problems and then gives those problems permanent solutions: The game can never have any unique survival content that lasts for too long.

[lowercase skye]

31 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Imagine if “Acid Rain” couldn’t just be solved with a simple umbrella/Umbralla whatever it’s called, and imagine if Acid Rain actually had more of a “long-term” impact on the game world, such as for example the ponds that fill up with Nitre becoming bubbling toxic pools of poison that expand like a gas bubble before exploding out poisonous gases you’d have to time traveling through the area carefully to avoid being caught in an acid burst.

(similar to how the lightning owls in hamlet worked)

The Thunderbirds in Hamlet could be solved with a simple eyebrella.

[Capybara007]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

I guess truth be told: as long as Klei caters to the Megabase mindset, and adds problems and then gives those problems permanent solutions

what is the problem with people using those permanent solutions, i dont want boulders in my caves because they look bad so i build pillars, not because they are a threat against my survival

[Waywarbler]

4 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Well there’s a lot of cool things Klei could do but just.. haven’t? Imagine if “Acid Rain” couldn’t just be solved with a simple umbrella/Umbralla whatever it’s called, and imagine if Acid Rain actually had more of a “long-term” impact on the game world, such as for example the ponds that fill up with Nitre becoming bubbling toxic pools of poison that expand like a gas bubble before exploding out poisonous gases you’d have to time traveling through the area carefully to avoid being caught in an acid burst.

I mean saying acid rain is "solved" by the umbralla implies that the only concern with acid rain is the damage to you and your food/equipment. Acid rain also strengthens or weakens a lot of the mobs in the caves, with depths worms in particular moving faster and hitting WAY harder. Also, I like how it forces you to fight within the deployed umbralla's protective radius, since you can't really fight and hold the umbralla at the same time.

Not saying acid rain shouldn't have even MORE interactions, I'm just saying it's not like lunar hail, which (currently) only affects you and is completely nullified by the umbralla.