Lunar Hail Feedback

[Antynomity]

Let's cut to the chase

In the most recent beta Lunar Hail has seen a bunch of changes compared to it's old version and I have something to say about them.

 

Let's start with debris no longer falling from the sky during hail:

I think this is an overcompensation at best, personally I was not a fan of debris falling CONSTANTLY during hail but removing it entirely was the wrong choice.

Instead, how about making the mechanic more similar to cave-ins? Where during a random point during a Lunar Hail debris would start falling for a short amount of time (a bit longer than an average cave-in in the caves.) It would bring back the 'danger' to Hails, live up to the Hail name while not being a constant annoyance.

 

Up next is the build up of glass on structures/trees. Personally, I think the build-up on structures specifically is underwhelming. I think it'd be better to take a book out of Shipwrecked's Library of mechanics, as in flooding disabling your structures, and as a counter to this newly added needed maintenance outside of just cleaning them manually - a new structure immune to hail crafted with a Lureplant that would slurp up any glass off of structures in a sizable radius.

 

I don't have any ideas for the new bird unfortunately, I think it's current state is disappointing but at the same time making them attack you would be kind of redundant since you can just... Run away and deload them (I think?)

 

Now for something a bit more general... I dislike how Lunar Hail and Acid Rains have been entirely relegated to Rift content. With some tweaks to these weather types and some items I don't see any issue in just making these rare occurrences even with Rifts disabled. With the fact both of them now build up a source of two specific resources I think it's about time to make these happen without getting to Uber-Lategame, especially since on their own they aren't character-killing most of the time, and like I said you could tweak some existing or add new items to counter both of these with Rifts still disabled (it would also inarguably make the Rift experience itself better with more counters to Hail and Acid Rain.)

[Waywarbler]

2 hours ago, Antynomity said:

Up next is the build up of glass on structures/trees. Personally, I think the build-up on structures specifically is underwhelming. I think it'd be better to take a book out of Shipwrecked's Library of mechanics, as in flooding disabling your structures, and as a counter to this newly added needed maintenance outside of just cleaning them manually - a new structure immune to hail crafted with a Lureplant that would slurp up any glass off of structures in a sizable radius.

Glass disabling structures seems kinda pointless. In Shipwrecked, if you let your structures get disabled by flooding, there wasn't really anything you could do other than wait for monsoon season to end, or create replacement structures on non-flooded tiles.

Meanwhile with lunar hail, it would inconvenience you for a couple of seconds, and then you just mine the glass off whatever structure you're trying to use. Heck, the glass even goes away on its own after the hail ends.

With that in mind, I don't really see a need to craft a structure to clear off the glass.

[Renato59]

I agree that Acid Rains and Lunar Hails should not be locked under the Rift Content, if they were random (let's say after a couple of days there's a chance) with some kind of warning before like the characters saying "The moonlight sets the storm aglow" or the Acid Rain "The air feels denser than before", you get my point I guess. That would be a nice addition and adds more of a survival theme since they now can happen anytime.

[Dyzrespect]

6 hours ago, Antynomity said:

Instead, how about making the mechanic more similar to cave-ins?

I think cave-ins do a nice job of emulating cave-ins already, and by that I mean we have accepted that everything in the caves can be hit by falling debris. Anything left on the ground is accepted to be at risk of randomly being destroyed, and any creature not kept under a pillar is destined to die eventually. That is not the case for the surface, and it's why only the player was harmed with the previous implementation. Having mutated birds or grazers spawn from the shards on the ground to attack you or something seems more fitting to me, providing they only amalgamate around the player and don't attack other entities.

 

7 hours ago, Antynomity said:

With some tweaks to these weather types and some items I don't see any issue in just making these rare occurrences even with Rifts disabled.

I think my issue with this is that it's going to remove agency from people who don't want to experience cave-ins on the surface. The reason people disable Lunar Rifts in the first place is to stop Lunar Frog Rain and Lunar Hail. Maybe you mean that this can just be something that happens before you enable the Lunar Rifts, but still, having unstoppable random surface cave-ins sounds like 90% of the DST playerbase's worst nightmare.

[Renato59]

 

1 hour ago, Dyzrespect said:

I think my issue with this is that it's going to remove agency from people who don't want to experience cave-ins on the surface. The reason people disable Lunar Rifts in the first place is to stop Lunar Frog Rain and Lunar Hail. Maybe you mean that this can just be something that happens before you enable the Lunar Rifts, but still, having unstoppable random surface cave-ins sounds like 90% of the DST playerbase's worst nightmare.

That's a fair point most people would suffer through that, but isn't Don't Starve supposed to be a unfair survival game? Maybe it's a little excesive if it happens too soon, but after let's say 30 days, if can happen randomly would add some fun and annoying surprises.

[Draggofroot]

9 hours ago, Antynomity said:

Let's cut to the chase

In the most recent beta Lunar Hail has seen a bunch of changes compared to it's old version and I have something to say about them.

 

Let's start with debris no longer falling from the sky during hail:

I think this is an overcompensation at best, personally I was not a fan of debris falling CONSTANTLY during hail but removing it entirely was the wrong choice.

Instead, how about making the mechanic more similar to cave-ins? Where during a random point during a Lunar Hail debris would start falling for a short amount of time (a bit longer than an average cave-in in the caves.) It would bring back the 'danger' to Hails, live up to the Hail name while not being a constant annoyance.

 

You're just describing old Hail

[Dyzrespect]

14 hours ago, Renato59 said:

 

That's a fair point most people would suffer through that, but isn't Don't Starve supposed to be a unfair survival game? Maybe it's a little excesive if it happens too soon, but after let's say 30 days, if can happen randomly would add some fun and annoying surprises.

I think the problem here is you're neglecting that the rest of the game exists and you're looking at this in a vacuum containing only this Lunar Hail event. Probably 80% of the people who play this game struggle with getting past the first winter. Nevermind that having lunar hail before you introduce lunar corruption into the world wouldn't make much sense, but frog rain already exists, deerclops, antlion, so many other mechanics already that are already the "random annoying fun surprises". Plus you already get to experience old lunar hail all the time in the beginning of the game by just going to the caves and having cave-ins.

[Renato59]

3 hours ago, Dyzrespect said:

I think the problem here is you're neglecting that the rest of the game exists and you're looking at this in a vacuum containing only this Lunar Hail event. Probably 80% of the people who play this game struggle with getting past the first winter. Nevermind that having lunar hail before you introduce lunar corruption into the world wouldn't make much sense, but frog rain already exists, deerclops, antlion, so many other mechanics already that are already the "random annoying fun surprises". Plus you already get to experience old lunar hail all the time in the beginning of the game by just going to the caves and having cave-ins.

I never said I liked the old lunar hail, in fact I did not liked it, was such an annoying event, I like the new one better but as I said before, I feel like it could get some kind of hazard so it is a little more challenging.