The ruins have gotten more annoying

[cybers2001]

I was among the players that were excited for the big caves update that was teased last year, but the actual shadow rift update itself failed to capture my attention, as it missed most of the talking points (caves are still mostly dead biomes. Little reason to explore it) Getting back into the game again, I realized it’s actually just… worse now.

Unlike the void triplets, Rictus will follow you to the ends of the earth. This is even worse given that you might easily be caught without a means to reveal them, which can completely disrupt what you’re trying to do.

Previously, you’d carve safe zones within the ruins as you venture in and kill the clockworks. The only threat at that point becomes nightmare cycles. Well, now you can also get masques popping into your outpost, sniping hutch or your beefalo if you left them behind. Another annoying time-waster, as they *kite you* when you try to fight them. Why am I being kited by a rock lobster? What am I going to do with the masques littering the floor?

I used to not think much of the lurking nightmares, until I got stuck in a nightmare phase that spawned 3 of them. This is a mob with poor gameplay synergy with the others it’s often paired with: crawling horror and terrorbeak. It used to be clutch to fend off a wave of nightmares with a hit and run strat to whittle them down. With lurking nightmares, it’s absolutely not worth the time and risk.

My summer ruins clear routine used to be fun. I’d load up on glow berries and pierogi and just hack away until the whole biome was a parking lot. I’d kill every mob, hammer every broken clockwork and pseudo station, and loot every ornate chest. Now I get constantly attacked by masques, I have Ickers sitting on top of my crafting stations, I get sidetracked by rictus when I step out, oh and I still have to run around like a chicken when there’s boulders falling every 2 minutes. I completely avoid ornate chests as they seem to be ornery 100% of the time. How I ever get anything accomplished is a wonder.

Edited July 1, 2025 by cybers2001

[Jakepeng99]

I like fighting the lurking nightmares alot, but maybe the buff they get post riff is too much.

In my opinion, the lurking nightmare could be reworked: If there is a terror beak and a crawling horror on screen, they have a chance to combine together to make the lurking horror instead.

[cybers2001]

6 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

I like fighting the lurking nightmares alot, but maybe the buff they get post riff is too much.

In my opinion, the lurking nightmare could be reworked: If there is a terror beak and a crawling horror on screen, they have a chance to combine together to make the lurking horror instead.

Mobs don’t need elaborate attack patterns to be good design, especially if their function is to fight in packs. If all it had was a single lunge attack, like a warrior spider, it would immediately become a more interesting mob to complement the other two.

[WendyHater9000]

Some ppl on this forum complaining about update don’t add enough threats to make this game difficult.

While some people complaining game too hard after update.

Can’t we just get good, move on and get used to the new content?

This one is not even new, it’s a one year old content lmao 

Edited July 1, 2025 by kevindaze

[cybers2001]

8 minutes ago, kevindaze said:

Some ppl on this forum complaining about update don’t add enough threats to make this game difficult.

Has anyone actually said this?

[Dwight34]

Not just the ruins, I do think the shadow rifts are disproportionately dangerous and overwhelming compared to the lunar rifts. Above ground you basically only have as a threat the brightshade plants, lunar hail (just use the umbralla for a short time), slightly stronger frogs and reanimated bosses (can be cancelled with a simple torch).

Below you have waves of ickers spawning everywhere forcing you to be very careful where you step to not get oneshot (and I find it a bit dumb how they ruin the nightmare fuel economy, you get 5 fuel per icker and they spawn in massive packs which themselves spawn a lot, you can get hundreds of fuel so easily you'll never need to look at any other source again), very long acid rains, cave-in boulders (not very dangerous but I dislike the fact it trashes the place permanently so much), lurking nightmares becoming even more OP than before (and kicking you off your beefalo, which... why?), mimicreeps (funny but force you to build chests everywhere), the 3 Rictus already mentioned above that are quite tough, many turned mobs... 

And the fact you can't disable any of those through gameplay, only endure it makes it a bit too oppressive to my liking. The caves go from a quite pleasant place to live in to much much more uncomfortable. 

[SilverSpoon]

2 hours ago, kevindaze said:

Can’t we just get good, move on and get used to the new content?

This one is not even new, it’s a one year old content lmao 

So players were supposed to get used to the Void Masked Bunny add rabbit naughtiness, and now they're should get used to Inimical Gestalt's attacks causing PK if another player happens to be in its path.

[Echsrick]

if you have hutch, give him a spear and stand close to him for rictus

[Mr.Oshiro]

Take a look at those updates after the rifts, they are almost just making the world a mess. I just want to know when designers can understand that increasing game difficulty ≠ creating trouble for players...

[Cruvimaster]

I use bone helm and nightberry to avoid shadow creatures, mainly because of lurking nightmares. Mobs with void masques are quite annoying.

[cybers2001]

1 hour ago, Echsrick said:

if you have hutch, give him a spear and stand close to him for rictus

That’s a good tip I haven’t considered. Too bad it forces you to use spears, though. Would be a nice QoL for hutch if he supported other weapons, maybe with some planar bonuses if they are planar weapons, too.

[-Variant]

12 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

That’s a good tip I haven’t considered. Too bad it forces you to use spears, though. Would be a nice QoL for hutch if he supported other weapons, maybe with some planar bonuses if they are planar weapons, too.

Currently supports any 'sharp' weapons.

Spears, battle spears, and I believe you can use fencing Spears to last the longest.

[Echsrick]

22 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

That’s a good tip I haven’t considered. Too bad it forces you to use spears, though. Would be a nice QoL for hutch if he supported other weapons, maybe with some planar bonuses if they are planar weapons, too.

whats wrong with spears? there cheap to make and you usualy dont use hutch to try kill that much things anyways, just to make them visible, and as the other one said, fenching swords can be used too to make the spear last longer

[cybers2001]

33 minutes ago, Echsrick said:

whats wrong with spears? there cheap to make and you usualy dont use hutch to try kill that much things anyways, just to make them visible, and as the other one said, fenching swords can be used too to make the spear last longer

If you’re carrying twigs and grass in the ruins past your first clear, you’re wasting two inventory slots.

[Echsrick]

43 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

If you’re carrying twigs and grass in the ruins past your first clear, you’re wasting two inventory slots.

i ALLWAYS carry flint, sticks, grass, AND wood too, aswell as allways have a prebuild camp fire....you just never know

[Wawchik]

4 hours ago, Dwight34 said:

Not just the ruins, I do think the shadow rifts are disproportionately dangerous and overwhelming compared to the lunar rifts. Above ground you basically only have as a threat the brightshade plants, lunar hail (just use the umbralla for a short time), slightly stronger frogs and reanimated bosses (can be cancelled with a simple torch).

Below you have waves of ickers spawning everywhere forcing you to be very careful where you step to not get oneshot (and I find it a bit dumb how they ruin the nightmare fuel economy, you get 5 fuel per icker and they spawn in massive packs which themselves spawn a lot, you can get hundreds of fuel so easily you'll never need to look at any other source again), very long acid rains, cave-in boulders (not very dangerous but I dislike the fact it trashes the place permanently so much), lurking nightmares becoming even more OP than before (and kicking you off your beefalo, which... why?), mimicreeps (funny but force you to build chests everywhere), the 3 Rictus already mentioned above that are quite tough, many turned mobs... 

And the fact you can't disable any of those through gameplay, only endure it makes it a bit too oppressive to my liking. The caves go from a quite pleasant place to live in to much much more uncomfortable. 

Well isn't that what rifts are supposed to be though? It's not perfect but you get what I mean 

[SilverSpoon]

5 minutes ago, Wawchik said:

Well isn't that what rifts are supposed to be though? It's not perfect but you get what I mean 

Each one is cool. But It's just too many. Having ichor rain down on every path isn’t cool.

Edited July 1, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[cybers2001]

Why does the majority of the new content have to be in the ruins, though? The ruins and archives are the only biomes in the caves that felt polished. Why can’t we just open up a new void zone at one of the edges of the map that’s currently just a dead end? Or evolve the moonshroom/blueshroom border since that’s already a battlefield. The latter would make more sense lore-wise, too. As if the moonshroom biome is a blemish in the caves and the void is trying to reclaim that space.

[cropo]

I think the problem with that is they would truly have to add substantial content to this theoretical new biome rather than just add to existing, polished maps. 


Truth be told though I'm not disagreeing with your OP, everything can start to get a little frustrating.

[Antynomity]

On 7/2/2025 at 12:07 AM, Wawchik said:

Well isn't that what rifts are supposed to be though? It's not perfect but you get what I mean 

Kind of yeah, but all of them stacked on eachother isn't fun to deal with at all. Think a good change would be for rifts to randomly choose a threat they will spawn for their duration evrey time they appear, so you only have inkblights and then a random additional threat to deal with at any given time with a rift active, so that you can add more of them without it getting ridiculously tedious for the player.

[Juanasdf]

I just want an option to specifically disable void masques from spawning, too much trash on the floor accumulates over time, even without killing them, and it's pretty annoying to clean up.