Feedback about Drowning (Rework) - part 2

[Milordo]

We're back on part 2 of the Hostile Takeover update and I'm back too.

I stand still persistently and humbly ask Klei on adding/fixing some final tunes on the very promised drowning rework, aka personal floaters now, and finish it once and for all, so that we may don't need to come back at it again.

To recap from here: 

 

The mechanic itself has been touched only artificially (excluding only Wx), thus a nerf overall, while the real "rework" has been made through the new item, personal floaters, which had previously a completely different function in its original version during the first part of Hostile Takeover. Now it lets you float on water, by replacing your hand slot, while you gain slowly wetness, giving you the chance to save yourself by placing a boat (a design choice confirmed by Klei) or someone else on your team doing it for you. You will drown for real, only if you choose it or by being attacked by any physical attack, and leaving your personal floater on the spot. The personal floaters are infinite, no uses. 

A new fresh function has been introduced on this second part;

• "Boat placement is no longer blocked by items and birds. Items will be pushed away, and Puffins will fly away." 

Now, apart from the "placing boats while you're on your personal floater", Klei doesn't shares much their opinions with us on their decisions, thus I and we, are still left in the dark to only speculate it, if it was done because of the drowning feedback, or because it was something specifically requested longggg ago before all the drowning rework (I vote for the second one, because this change is exactly the same as the suggestion was).  

We're moving little steps by steps, and I can't stop enough to thank Klei on doing all of this. This is still a good step ahead in the right direction, however we're still left with the last problems and I don't know if Klei is still working on it or thought this was enough. It's not enough Klei, it's not enough. That's why I beg you on this second part of the update to finish it once and for all, and make the ocean finally more bearable, less flawed and most importantly, more fun.

What if I crash and drown with my personal floater in a cliff full of sea stacks and a rockjaw is approaching? The boat can't be placed and soon a rockjaw will hit me.

What if I crash and drown with my personal floater in a salt formation with tons of cookie cutters? They don't aggro on you but they will stay still on the location for a long time (yes it happened to me). The boat can't be placed there.

What if I crash and drown with my personal floater during a Crab King fight and his cannon towers and claws are on the way? The boat can't be placed there.
Should we then be able to place boats on structures, thus destroying them, and move all possible entites, aka animals and bosses? Obviously no, as it would lead to a full exploits party. What about crafting recipes? Why when I'm exploring the ocean or trying to survive, if I make some mistakes or most of the time in the ocean, the game forces mistakes on me, I must return to the first level of the game and farm more bees and mosquitoes for boat patches and personal floaters? These are still drowning issues plaguing the game/ocean.

Some possible solutions have been found.

Movement;

Spoiler

1) Give the ability to personal floaters to move very slowly in the water. Like, it's there Klei. We're so close to finally having it since 2019. Plus every time you move you loose 1% of durability for a certain amount of time, to make it more balanced.

2) If, for some reasons, you don't want to give the player a direct movement control in the water, there is the option of making the player's character float around with personal floaters, in some pseudo-random pattern / circle without any input from the player, to give still the chance of placing some boat in a good spot and rescue yourself. Of course this still depletes the personal floater of 1% of durability for a certain amount of time.

3) Similar to the second idea but instead of moving the player at random without their control, the player moves without their control towards land, or boats if it detects ones during the road. Like drifting.

Crafting recipe changes;

Spoiler

Problem = Not respecting a Don't Starve design core and gameplay principles. When you first face new (survival for the most) threats, the game directs and offers you resources and tools to defeat those threats. For example; for winter the game offers you in the first level rabbits, beefaloes, spiders, catcoons and koalefant for clothes, and rocks for thermal stones. This principle also extends to the other levels of the game such as lanterns and miner hats for caves. Ergo, each level will have and must have resources and tools to fight the new dangers presented by the same level. This is literally what Don't Starve teaches you from the start of the game. 

And sure, some items can be used and shared between levels but a safety base of various tiers of items to ensure you can overcome such difficulties of the level must be present, otherwise it will create a super weird situation where you have to rely on other points of the game and break the rhythm of the gameplay. In fact look at that, it's exactly the situation of boat patches and soon also of personal floaters. Whenever I or others start adventuring to the ocean, we prepare in advance tons of stacks of stingers, especially in a large group of 5-6 players. However if I or we loose them, accidentally burned them or consumed too much due to our mistakes (or drowned too much thanks to the boat net code...........), we are then forced to return akwardly to the main-land and do another long refill of stingers. This shouldn't happen at all. There should be a reasource or a point in the ocean that recharges you with boat patches and boat floaters. Yes, Klei. You gave us kelp patches but frankly with how the ocean is generated and how they're not the solution but a delay for sinking, they don't much.

 

Possible Solutions:

• A) You craft them with already existing ocean items. Simple but limiting because there aren't that many, as of now, and also difficult to fit the crafting logic of Klei (mosquito sacks are required for personal floaters due to their elasticity). Still, it's an option.
• B) New added animals or structures in the ocean to provide these items. A very good example of which I go quite crazy about it and it's very simple.....two new fishes! The puffer fish and the stinger fish! The puffer fish drops a new item (or maybe he himself is required) for crafting personal floaters while the stinger fish simply drops 3 stingers. These fishes also require some minimum of sea fishing rod gear to catch them, to match the game progress of the fishing rod with the game progress of the sea. And these are just two new fishes as possible examples. It could be even new weird structures alla Don't Starve that drops mosquito sacks and stingers? Or other new animals to fight in the ocean? Klei is spoiled for choice with this one.
• C) Implement literal mosquitoes and bees on ocean biomes. Examples; bees on waterlogged biomes with simply a more feral and damp reskin compared to normal bees(?) and mosquitoes on rough ocean with sea weeds? Or mosquitoes spawning in a new swamp biome for the ocean where you can see reeds and tentacles inside the water of the biome?
• D) You don't craft them, you can only found them on the level. Tecnicalllyyy it already happens with boat patches inside sunken chests but it's not enough and they're locked behind the pinchin' winch. Unless they can be designed to be findable in great abundance without a big progression wall, this option is not very desirable.

New edited found problem = Drowning items loss;

Spoiler

Proposed by @Popian a change to 5/15% or 6/15% with a minimum of 40% of max stack size, at worst dropping 80 or 96 individual items respectively when drowned. This will also affect the losses when drowning by the shore.

I have trust on Klei they will found a solution for this.

The last nitpicks are durability, since it doesn't make sense for this type of item to be infinite, and the idea of @Captain_Rage to have befriended Gnarwails push and rescue drowned players with personal floaters towards boats or land, but I'm even down to trade the durability nitpick in exchange to have fixed the personal floater "movement" and crafting recipe.

 

Please Klei, don't leave it unfinished. 

Edited July 23, 2025 by Milordo
New found problem in the drowning mechanic, thanks to a member of the community

[Jakepeng99]

4 hours ago, Milordo said:

The last nitpicks are durability, since it doesn't make sense for this type of item to be infinite, and the idea of @Captain_Rage to have befriended Gnarwails push and rescue drowned players with personal floaters towards boats

I had this idea too would be cool if it gets added

[Milordo]

Bump

[Popian]

I think the only change needed is to make the punishment less punishing:

• if you are going to drop an item that sinks, limit it to at most 50% of a stack
• if bundles must sink, have them wash up on a random shore with some chance that it's your shore
• a limit to the total number of items dropped to increase the chance you will be able to retrieve your items without needing to collect the resources again

[Milordo]

1 hour ago, Popian said:

I think the only change needed is to make the punishment less punishing:

• if you are going to drop an item that sinks, limit it to at most 50% of a stack
• if bundles must sink, have them wash up on a random shore with some chance that it's your shore
• a limit to the total number of items dropped to increase the chance you will be able to retrieve your items without needing to collect the resources again

I would agree with this, especially on making the punishment less well, punishing, but with how we have now personal floaters, it is truly necessary all these changes for the core mechanic?

[Popian]

1 hour ago, Milordo said:

I would agree with this, especially on making the punishment less well, punishing, but with how we have now personal floaters, it is truly necessary all these changes for the core mechanic?

There was already a nerf from dropping ~50% of item stacks you are holding to ~20%, but you can still drop all of the items needed to craft a grass raft or boat and oar. It could be seen as a "survival challenge" where you drop your light source and can't craft a torch as it turns night, but it seems like an unnecessary random inconvenience for someone who prepared only to go back to retrieve the same items that they had to collect again.

Bundles will affect ones stored on the boats without needing the unintuitive workaround to put them in backpacks, which could also catch fire.

 

On floaters, it could be said that you had time to repair the boat and if not move it to a clearing or deploy and get on your backup boat before it actually broke. If somehow you are unfortunate enough that the last resort didn't work it will at least not be as bad.

I agree that you should be able to encounter the resources in the environment that you will be using them in, but there is a Goldilocks issue in the quantity you will get them and it usually takes a few months to get new content. Maybe something like boat fragments dropping patches or cookie cutters dropping stingers will do?

Edited July 20, 2025 by Popian

[Popian]

On consideration, I find the 3/15% drop rate too much of a nerf to the survival aspect, but the potential to drop up to 120 individual items that may be deleted too harsh.

I propose a change to 5/15% or 6/15% with a minimum of ~40% of max stack size, at worst dropping 80 or 96 individual items respectively. This will also affect the losses when drowning by the shore.

[Milordo]

On 7/21/2025 at 1:48 AM, Popian said:

There was already a nerf from dropping ~50% of item stacks you are holding to ~20%, but you can still drop all of the items needed to craft a grass raft or boat and oar. It could be seen as a "survival challenge" where you drop your light source and can't craft a torch as it turns night, but it seems like an unnecessary random inconvenience for someone who prepared only to go back to retrieve the same items that they had to collect again.

Hmnn, that's true.

On 7/21/2025 at 1:48 AM, Popian said:

Maybe something like boat fragments dropping patches or cookie cutters dropping stingers will do?

Yes, absolutely. It falls on situation D) and I don't see issue with it. I approve it.

3 hours ago, Popian said:

On consideration, I find the 3/15% drop rate too much of a nerf to the survival aspect, but the potential to drop up to 120 individual items that may be deleted too harsh.

I propose a change to 5/15% or 6/15% with a minimum of ~40% of max stack size, at worst dropping 80 or 96 individual items respectively. This will also affect the losses when drowning by the shore.

Sure, edited and added to the feedback!