The fact that Moonstorms and electrical attacks ignite plant mobs, causing fires, and that this can’t even be disabled in the settings, is far too destructive.

[SilverSpoon]

2025/09/19 Edit: The fact that Moonstorms and electrical attacks ignite plant mobs, causing fires, and that this can’t even be disabled in the settings, is far too destructive. 

This is causing the following problems:

• Plant mobs in the area where the Moonstorm occurs will be set on fire by the Moongleam.
• Unlike all other base destruction features, this is an exception that cannot be turned off in the settings, making some of the base designs previously possible impossible.
• This will cause a fire in the base, and Flingo will not be able to prevent the burning dot damage until the snowball hits, preventing the plant mob from living.
• Mobs panic when ignited and run around, so if the mob is fast, Flingo may miss the snowball and be unable to extinguish it.
• Moongleams have an AI that will continue to pursue mob they target, so one Moongleam can set a one plant mob on fire over and over, turning it into a walking fire spreader and eventually killing it effectively.
• Previously, Above-Average Tree Trunks provided fire protection by preventing wildfires, making them useful for building large bases in non-oasis deserts, but this benefit has now been effectively pointless.
• Among the plant mobs that can be set on fire, the following are seriously problematic:
  • Grass Gekko : Unless Resource Renewal setting is on, the grass source is finite and the Grass Tufts will eventually run out.Additionally, because Grass Gekkos drop grass, if a Grass Gekko is trapped, the ignited grass will quickly deal a large amount of damage to the Grass Gekko, potentially killing it faster than the player can cope.
  • Lureplant : Burning Lureplants drop ash instead of fleshy bulbs, making recovery impossible. Also, if Lureplants are placed close together as before, Chain Lightning will kill all of them in one hit.
  • Deadly Brightshade : Because Deadly Brightshade spawns by overwriting plant, if it catches fire, the entire farm will be wiped out.
    Also, while it was previously possible to protect plants in your base from Deadly Brightshade infection by keeping Deadly Brightshade outside your base, this is no longer possible because Moonstome kills Deadly Brightshade. Therefore, Embalming Spritz is the only way to use plants that can become Deadly Brightshade for decorative purposes.
  • Friendly Fruit Fly : Once ignited, Friendly Fruit Flies will fly around the farm, effectively burning down the crops. Since Scaled Flooring cannot be placed on farmland, Flingos are the only way to stop the fire from spreading. Also, since Friendly Fruit Flies only have 100 HP, it is likely that will be killed the Friendly Fruit Flies faster than Flingo can extinguish them.
  • Butterfly : Because the butterfly only has 1 HP, any electric attack will kill it before it catches fire, but Chain Lightning will ignite it because it does no damage, so the flower and its surroundings are always in danger of fire.

---

Edit: main subject of this thread is about Moonstorms are too destructive.

It wasn't like that in the past on beta, now Volt Goat Chaud-Froid and the Electrification Circuit now cause fires.

This is the huge L for Warly and WX-78. Since the Volt Goat Chaud-Froid effect only wears off with time or upon death, if you don’t want to start fires you’re forced to run from plant mobs until it expires. For WX-78, even just removing a circuit consumes charge, so every time he fights plant mobs he either has to waste charge swapping circuits or achieve No-Hit. Hey, were they such OP characters as needed a nerf like this? They don't even have a skill tree?

Even as things stand, for example the Elding Spear can start fires, Moongleams can start fires so if a Moonstorm passes over your base burn for no good reason, etc, making electricity cause fires is creating tons of backfires (because it's fire HAHAHAHAHA)

That’s because in this game a fire at the base is one of most ultra harshly penalty that almost always forces a rollback, yet the new conditions under which it can happen are far too without consideration and fuzzy.

This seems to require a fundamental changes… either rethink the penalty where electricity ignites plant mobs, or make burning enemies unable to ignite structures as same fire at the player and only burn drops, and so on.

Edit: Additionally, the number of “Plant Mobs” that can be ignited has increased since the update. I’ve confirmed that Grass Gecko, Bulb Light Bug, Grass Gator, Carrot, and Friendly Fruit Flie.

Edited September 19, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[Mysterious box]

Yeah while I don't think Warly triggering it is a big deal Wx doing it is considering you're expected to have that equipped long term...

[Crestwave]

1 hour ago, SilverSpoon said:

Since the Volt Goat Chaud-Froid effect only wears off with time or upon death, if you don’t want to start fires you’re forced to run from plant mobs until it expires. For WX-78, even just removing a circuit consumes charge, so every time he fights plant mobs he either has to waste charge swapping circuits or achieve No-Hit. Hey, were they such OP characters as needed a nerf like this? They don't even have a skill tree?

It's not a direct nerf, it's just the side effect of a mechanic with an extremely powerful upside (complete stuns). And hey, the lack of skill tree means they could totally become quite strong in the future.

Note that tree mobs (treeguards and mushgnomes) don't instantly burn their drops when killed while on fire; they smolder instead, giving you time to save them. If you lead them to a clear area, it's not really so bad.

Brightshades don't move so you can pretty much just wait for the effect to expire for goat jelly. For WX, the brightshades are likely under a flingo anyway so you can activate it in case you get hit.

1 hour ago, SilverSpoon said:

Moongleams can start fires so if a Moonstorm passes over your base burn for no good reason, etc

Moonstorm is a reason, I think it's strange how the mechanic has been trivialized to the point where people think of it as something that's just always there. Although I do think gleams could use some tweaking to not just light everything on fire constantly (e.g., only lighting stuff if they're wet).

[Sofy Happy]

Yes, the current design where plant-like creatures ignite when electrocuted is truly problematic. These creatures naturally tend to appear in bases and areas with flammable objects, and fire's devastating impact on bases is often irreversible. In multiplayer worlds, a single wildfire can be catastrophic - players may abandon entire saves after their base burns down, especially if they miss the rollback window.

It would be far better to change plant creatures' electrocution response to alternative effects: confusion states, attack reduction, movement speed penalties, or any other effect - just remove the combustion mechanic entirely.

[Jakepeng99]

4 hours ago, SilverSpoon said:

It wasn't like that in the past on beta, now Volt Goat Chaud-Froid and the Electrification Circuit now cause fires.

This is the huge L for Warly and WX-78. Since the Volt Goat Chaud-Froid effect only wears off with time or upon death, if you don’t want to start fires you’re forced to run from plant mobs until it expires. For WX-78, even just removing a circuit consumes charge, so every time he fights plant mobs he either has to waste charge swapping circuits or achieve No-Hit. Hey, were they such OP characters as needed a nerf like this? They don't even have a skill tree?

Even as things stand, for example the Elding Spear can start fires, Moongleams can start fires so if a Moonstorm passes over your base burn for no good reason, etc, making electricity cause fires is creating tons of backfires (because it's fire HAHAHAHAHA)

That’s because in this game a fire at the base is one of most ultra harshly penalty that almost always forces a rollback, yet the new conditions under which it can happen are far too without consideration and fuzzy.

This seems to require a fundamental changes… either rethink the penalty where electricity ignites plant mobs, or make burning enemies unable to ignite structures as same fire at the player and only burn drops, and so on.

 Bring an ice staff or something

[hyoton123]

Just like old times.

[Well-met]

you just need to get used to it

[Cassielu]

I prefer to view this as these characters now "having more" rather than simply saying that they have been "nerfed".

[-Nick-]

Its a nice use for flingos. They have been becoming less useful given most base locations have no risk of wildfires. I can only see lure plants and grass geckos getting effected by moon gleams? If so then place a flingo near or place them far away enough from lighting other things on fire?

Also don't fight with electricity when plant creatures are near base?

This feels like you are making this issue a mountain out of a mole hill.

Edited August 1, 2025 by -Nick-

[Reiko24]

52 minutes ago, -Nick- said:

 

This feels like you are making this issue a mountain out of a mole hill.

DST player base in a nutshell has always been like this. If only you saw how Krampi were treated when they were first added… 

[Captain_Rage]

For Willow it is definitely a nice change. Who fights in their base and keep their base cluttered for fires to cause a problem anyway? x)

[-Nick-]

2 hours ago, Reiko24 said:

DST player base in a nutshell has always been like this. If only you saw how Krampi were treated when they were first added… 

Atleast the krampus. It sorta had a reason for backlash. Especially with how low the naughtiness threshold was when he was first added.

With electricity igniting plant mobs, its such a uncommon scenario to come across. You aren't forced to fight with electric weapons. You aren't forced to fight plant mobs inside your base.

Only potential issue is moon gleams, but yet again. There's only so few plant mobs in game and the ones that would be in base are lure plants. A plant mob that is already highly susceptible to catching fire given their high wildfire targeting.

[Lovens]

Facepalm. So not only they ruined Wigfrid, they ruined Warly (and potentially every character who was using Volt Goat Jelly) and WX-78 along the way too in this update? Man, what a mess of a game. I can tell that none of the devs actually sat through and played with these changes. I wish I could just NOT update the game and stick to the version two updates ago. Does anyone know a way to do it? 

[SilverSpoon]

12 hours ago, -Nick- said:

Its a nice use for flingos. They have been becoming less useful given most base locations have no risk of wildfires. I can only see lure plants and grass geckos getting effected by moon gleams? If so then place a flingo near or place them far away enough from lighting other things on fire?

Also don't fight with electricity when plant creatures are near base?

This feels like you are making this issue a mountain out of a mole hill.

I'm never making this issue a mountain out of a mole hill. The reason this is big issue is that a base in fire is a disaster that doesn’t just punish the player who made the mistake, but it also inflicts harm upon the entire team. In co-op, one player drags the whole team down is about as fun as League of Legends. And, Yes, as you said, for the “Elite gamers” preventing an electrical fire is actually easy. But what about casual players who don’t? What about players who rely on existing character guide videos or other which don’t even mention electrical fires and therefore have no idea this can happen?

There’s a reason base arson is the one of most common griefing, and rollback isn’t a cure-all. I don't like that this game go to "Papers, Please" that game intentionally created on unpleasant design.

And I seriously don't want to put those ugly Flingos all over my base which took time and effort to design and filled with multiplayer memories. A big part of why Klei sells so many skins is to let players enjoy base design, right? So why inconvenience base design and sabotage their own business?

This feel like you are too dull to recognize this issue.

Edited August 2, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[Bellium]

10 hours ago, Lovens said:

Facepalm. So not only they ruined Wigfrid, they ruined Warly (and potentially every character who was using Volt Goat Jelly) and WX-78 along the way too in this update? Man, what a mess of a game. I can tell that none of the devs actually sat through and played with these changes. I wish I could just NOT update the game and stick to the version two updates ago. Does anyone know a way to do it? 

Saying they ruined these characters when there's a whole 2 plant creatures in this game that are threatening and don't require you to seek them out is a bit of an over reaction 

[Captain_Rage]

3 hours ago, SilverSpoon said:

I'm never making this issue a mountain out of a mole hill. The reason this is big issue is that a base in fire is a disaster that doesn’t just punish the player who made the mistake, but it also inflicts harm upon the entire team

It's not a disaster. It is a niche problem which can be avoided by using another weapon or not placing a new structure next to other buildings. Fire as a hazard has been in the game since the very beginning and this "problem" is completely avoidable.

[SilverSpoon]

1 hour ago, Captain_Rage said:

It's not a disaster. It is a niche problem which can be avoided by using another weapon or not placing a new structure next to other buildings.

You know what? I’m not claiming this is avoidable or skill issue or anything like that. In fact, I said that "for the 'Elite gamers' preventing an electrical fire is actually easy."

What I’m arguing is that electric shocks causing fires add zero entertainment to the game and only disrupt players’ experience("not placing a new structure next to other buildings." So what is the purpose Wood Fence and those a wide variety of skins?), and just suffering and kicking out of the game casual players.

Conversely please tell me, what's entertainment about electric attacks setting plant mobs on fire? If the goal is to give downside electric and to encourage(not force) players to consider options other than electric attacks, so why choose "Fire," one of the most harshest penalty in the game and punishes not just one player but the entire team? I say again, there’s a reason base arson is the one of most common griefing.

1 hour ago, Captain_Rage said:

Fire as a hazard has been in the game since the very beginning and this "problem" is completely avoidable.

Yeah, it has been suck from the beginning. In this game, fire hazard has been always suck that interfere with people's co-op, make griefers' jobs easier, and just rollback bait. If there was a "Fire Spread: Disabled" setting, I'd gladly make it the default in my server.

Edited August 2, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[hhh2]

Reminds me of single player's mechanics.  This is like a smell of single player's breath.  Those were lovingly cruel and many felt like they were conceived in a way that did not consider how the player might utilise them for survival or battle but conceived in an ecological way.  That was the type of design that made Don't Starve's gameplay distinct in the genre.

 

Edited August 2, 2025 by hhh2

[Mysterious box]

3 hours ago, SilverSpoon said:

Conversely please tell me, what's entertainment about electric attacks setting plant mobs on fire? If the goal is to give downside electric and to encourage(not force) players to consider options other than electric attacks, so why choose "Fire," one of the most harshest penalty in the game and punishes not just one player but the entire team? I say again, there’s a reason base arson is the one of most common griefing.

Now I'm not sure what level of casual you are speaking of when you say casual as that word definitely means different things to different people but it does introduce a level of chaos that can be considered fun on the lower levels of casual play as a static situation can get boring fast. For as much as more experienced players tend to enjoy being in control of every aspect of their worlds it's usually the unintended chaos that makes things appealing for more casual players.

This doesn't mean they want absolute madness and insane conditions popping up left and right but someone making a mistake and burning a plant monster with electricity definitely makes for a fun story and cautionary tale much like when someone accidently attacks a treeguard in the forest with a torch at light. Yes losing a lot of progress can be demoralizing but we have an abundance of tools to combat those issues it's just a lot of times people willingly choose to ignore them even after facing the consequences of doing so either due to it not being the mainstream way of engaging with the game or a strong belief that they don't need such preparations.

3 hours ago, SilverSpoon said:

Yeah, it has been suck from the beginning. In this game, fire hazard has been always suck that interfere with people's co-op, make griefers' jobs easier, and just rollback bait. If there was a "Fire Spread: Disabled" setting, I'd gladly make it the default in my server.

The thing is fire and destruction is in line with what it means to be a survival game it's meant to be up to the players in coop to work together to prevent incidents or work to recover from it not magician force that prevents real consequences.

[SilverSpoon]

55 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

This doesn't mean they want absolute madness and insane conditions popping up left and right but someone making a mistake and burning a plant monster with electricity definitely makes for a fun story and cautionary tale much like when someone accidently attacks a treeguard in the forest with a torch at light. Yes losing a lot of progress can be demoralizing but we have an abundance of tools to combat those issues it's just a lot of times people willingly choose to ignore them even after facing the consequences of doing so either due to it not being the mainstream way of engaging with the game or a strong belief that they don't need such preparations.

I think it is fine if it were just a small wildfire, but at any skill level player, having your base after all the time and effort you poured into it burn down isn’t “unintended chaos” or “a fun story and cautionary tale.” If it were right, then random strangers joining your server and torching your base is just fun, so server password would be pointless. I’ll say it again and again, there’s a reason base arson is one of the most common griefing tactics.

55 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

The thing is fire and destruction is in line with what it means to be a survival game it's meant to be up to the players in coop to work together to prevent incidents or work to recover from it not magician force that prevents real consequences.

Having hours of progress will be callously destroyed is not categorized as Survival game, but be categorized as Psychological Horror game like Getting Over It and Pogostuck(Jeez, if Forum boys want to play "Uncompromising survival," those games are more applicable than DST...), and because DST isn't one of those, it has a magical force that prevents real consequences called "Rollback."

Edited August 2, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, SilverSpoon said:

I think it is fine if it were just a small wildfire, but at any skill level player, having your base after all the time and effort you poured into it burn down isn’t “unintended chaos” or “a fun story and cautionary tale.” If it were right, then random strangers joining your server and torching your base is just fun, so server password would be pointless. I’ll say it again and again, there’s a reason base arson is one of the most common griefing tactics.

If your entire base burns down from a single fire it means you didn't put any preventive measures to it burning down while also building it in a way that a single fire could spread to every single item in your base I fail to see how this is unfair it's like complaining about spiders eating your pigskin while storing it exclusively on the ground a screen away from them. Now I get that pride might lead you to believe that with your experience you don't need to account for a potential fire but that's not the game's fault that's exlcusively the player's.

A player intentionally burning down a base isn't intended and even if it were changed a griefer would just move on to hammering the base or destroying it with character abilities as you mentioned we have a tool to combat griefers in the form of passwords.

2 hours ago, SilverSpoon said:

Having hours of progress will be callously destroyed is not categorized as Survival game, but be categorized as Psychological Horror game like Getting Over It and Pogostuck(Jeez, if Forum boys want to play "Uncompromising survival," those games are more applicable than DST...), and because DST isn't one of those, it has a magical force that prevents real consequences called "Rollback."

This is just baffling as it just isn't true dst is a roguelike survival game meaning hours of progress can be erased by you dying your entire world can be gone in seconds due to a player's mistake yes you can turn off resets and allow for infinite revives as well as perform rollbacks to undo mistakes but you'd simply be lying to yourself if you're trying to say that's how don't starve together's default experience is those are accessibility tools for people who don't want to or can't engage with the consequences of playing a rougelike survival game. Which really in that situation why not use your own advice and rollback if it goes wrong? Don't Starve together is very much a game where all your progress can be erased by simple mistakes that has never changed the only difference is you got better and learned what to avoid doing as well as how to better survive. If this were some unavoidable event that you have no counter play to I'd be on your side for this but there's plenty of counter play between fire fighting tools or just better building planning you can't just blame the game for player error.

Edited August 2, 2025 by Mysterious box

[SilverSpoon]

1 hour ago, Mysterious box said:

If your entire base burns down from a single fire it means you didn't put any preventive measures to it burning down while also building it in a way that a single fire could spread to every single item in your base I fail to see how this is unfair it's like complaining about spiders eating your pigskin while storing it exclusively on the ground a screen away from them. Now I get that pride might lead you to believe that with your experience you don't need to account for a potential fire but that's not the game's fault that's exlcusively the player's.

Previously, "a single fire" could be prevented by building under an Above-Average Tree Trunk, evacuating your base during Hound waves in summer and fall, or disabling Smoldering and Fire Hounds. Now, during Moonstorms the Moongrim can ignite fires, meaning players who actually took those "prevention measures" find their bases will be betrayed and arsoned by the devs. Even if that weren’t the case, the new electrical fires bypass many existing safeguards, imposing new inconveniences on players and spoil countless base designs built so far.

If something that was always fine suddenly becomes not fine in the game, then what else could be but the game's fault?

1 hour ago, Mysterious box said:

This is just baffling as it just isn't true dst is a roguelike survival game meaning hours of progress can be erased by you dying your entire world can be gone in seconds due to a player's mistake yes you can turn off resets and allow for infinite revives as well as perform rollbacks to undo mistakes but you'd simply be lying to yourself if you're trying to say that's how don't starve together's default experience is those are accessibility tools for people who don't want to or can't engage with the consequences of playing a rougelike survival game. Which really in that situation why not use your own advice and rollback if it goes wrong? Don't Starve together is very much a game where all your progress can be erased by simple mistakes that has never changed the only difference is you got better and learned what to avoid doing as well as how to better survive. If this were some unavoidable event that you have no counter play to I'd be on your side for this but there's plenty of counter play between fire fighting tools or just better building planning you can't just blame the game for player error.

I’m not saying that “DST ≠ survival game.” What I'm saying the things you mentioned, fire, destruction, and data erase aren’t the essence of survival, and can’t hide behind “survival” to excuse bad design that suddenly inflicts punishments without consideration, much less the most harshly one. 

As you said, neither you nor I should unilaterally decide the defaults for this game. But even you would disagree if devs announced, “This is a survival game, so from today on, Endless Mode and Rollback will be abolished." And now, from today on, electricity can burn bases. Then what exactly were players supposed to learn and be well?

Another important point, for 9 years, there are already filled with players and guides who assume that there is not electrical fire, so how much confusion do players must go through to learn this mechanism?

Edited August 2, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[Ugur01]

The plants that I know are affected by this problem are brightshade, lureplant and treeguard. Lureplant and treeguard are rarely fought mobs. For brightshade, do not use volt goat or circuit. For moongleams, it is rare for moonstorm to pick your base from all over the world, just use ice flingomatic for protection. They are not significant losses in exchange for the newly gained shock status, they are just minor issues that add flavor to the game.

Let me know if there is a creature I missed or a situation I forgot

[Mysterious box]

31 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

Previously, "a single fire" could be prevented by building under an Above-Average Tree Trunk, evacuating your base during Hound waves in summer and fall, or disabling Smoldering and Fire Hounds. Now, during Moonstorms the Moongrim can ignite fires, meaning players who actually took those "prevention measures" find their bases will be betrayed and arsoned by the devs. Even if that weren’t the case, the new electrical fires bypass many existing safeguards, imposing new inconveniences on players and spoil countless base designs built so far.

If something that was always fine suddenly becomes not fine in the game, then what else could be but the game's fault?

There are still other methods to protect against this but that aside it's just the nature of the game being ongoing and evolving in a meaningful way changes assuming meaningful changes do continue to happen those changes will eventually effect builds and the way we engage with the game wether it's fine or not is up to debate however.

39 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

I’m not saying that “DST ≠ survival game.” What I'm saying the things you mentioned, fire, destruction, and data erase aren’t the essence of survival, and can’t hide behind “survival” to excuse bad design that suddenly inflicts punishments without consideration, much less the most harshly one. 

As you said, neither you nor I should unilaterally decide the defaults for this game. But even you would disagree if devs announced, “This is a survival game, so from today on, Endless Mode and Rollback will be abolished." And now, from today on, electricity can burn bases. Then what exactly were players supposed to learn and be well?

Another important point, for 9 years, there are already filled with players and guides who assume that there is not electrical fire, so how much confusion do players must go through to learn this mechanism?

You can't simply pin fire, destruction, or data erasure as bad game design because they are core to dst as a series the goal is to avoid those things from happening not to actively pursue them so I don't see how that would be bad game design the series would have died a long time ago if it were as a large amount of threats can destroy things and we have a whole season deiticated to fire based hazards.

45 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

Another important point, for 9 years, there are already filled with players and guides who assume that there is not electrical fire, so how much confusion do players must go through to learn this mechanism?

While this is true this applies to various mechanics as well as skill trees that rewrite how characters engage with the game as does the sea, the rabbit king, pirate raids, the rift, the old rotting system, and various events in the world that originally weren't here this is just the nature of a evolving game and the only way to have prevented this is to have just not updated it in the first place.

That being said I don't think you're in the wrong for being upset that the change harms your current build but much like the previous changes I believe people will adapt and if not klei might change the interaction for the moon storms at least.

[Chewabacca]

4 minutes ago, Ugur01 said:

For brightshade, do not use volt goat or circuit

The issue with circuits is that it's quite possible that for a WX to already have an electrification circuit plugged in without meaning to use it on a treeguard/brightshade/lureplant specifically, and removing circuits is an ungainly process that requires them to have a circuit extractor in their inventory, depletes charge, and can make them lose durability on other circuits on top of the electrification circuit. It's way more of a hassle than just simply switching to a different weapon.