A Positive Rant - I Disagree With The Current Discourse Around DST

[ElendoinGZO]

Long post warning!

 

Hey, first time poster, long time lurker here. I have been a fan of the Don’t Starve franchise for a long time - I joined around the time when single player was nearing release. I vividly remember the William Carter puzzles coming out, RoG teasers dropping, DST being announced and other ancient history events. I also haven’t played the game between the ending of the Return of Them arc and just about a month ago. I have kept up with the updates and story though; I have seen all the shorts, read some theories and went through most of the update breakdowns. 

 

I am saying all this to set up a perspective for you - I am looking at the game as not a hardcore pro daily player, but more of a relaxed veteran. Right now I am nearing the completion of the current build of the game and as an aspiring game designer, I wanted to leave some feedback for Klei on the forums. The thing is, most of the community here seems to be dead set on pointing out the game’s “flaws”, so I’m afraid any criticism of mine would drown in this swamp of negativity. That’s why I wanted to put together this post, in which I address the current gripes the community has, why I think some of them are misrepresenting the actual state of the game and also to sneakily point out the qualms I agree with. Now remember - I’m not saying your opinions are invalid. These are my views and if anything they should only serve as a catalyst for you, to reevaluate how you look at the game. I also swear I’m not a professional Klei glazer - believe it or not, a few years back I was in the same boat as most of you, but after the break, my perspective has drastically shifted.

 

So the main 3 things I see complaints about are:

1. The game is too bloated
2. The game has lost its unique atmosphere.
3. The game has become too boss focused and has lost its uncompromising survival label.

There are of course more points being made, but these are the ones I see repeated most commonly.

 

Regarding point 1:

This complaint seems to revolve around there being so much to do in the game, and so much being locked behind other content, that new updates don’t even reach the majority of the playerbase. Now first of all, I don’t even really think this is fully true. Although there are lots additions fleshing out the endgame, there are still notable updates in the last few years that have shaken up some of the base game experience. Waterlogged, A Little Drama (Klei I love you for the turf changes, this is the best thing that happened to DST), Moon Quay, skill trees and seasonal events all change some aspect of the core world and game. Second of all, I think all this steady end game content flow is more healthy than just randomly changing stuff up about the base game. Remember: if you’re reading this, you have most likely played this game for a long time. You will not get much novelty from replaying the base game, but someone who has just started their first playthrough is not likely to even get through their first Fall. It’s probably going to take them tens of hours to get through their first year, and so throwing some random difficulty spikes their way wouldn’t make their experience any better. I think it’s so cool that for someone who just got comfortable with the basics of survival in this game, they then discover that the experience has much, much more to offer - upwards of hundreds of hours of content. Klei has also taken great strides in smoothing out the rough edges of the game. I don’t know if this is a hot take, but I LOVE the Scrapbook. It has some implementation issues (i. e. no sorting by new, having to stop in the middle of a fight to examine something) but it helps so much in organically experiencing the game, all its “bloat” included. Don’t Starve has always been a Wiki type of game, as in you need to read a lot to be fully able to grasp it. The correlations section of entries in the scrapbook go a long way to remedying that problem, but I would go even further - make a “game mechanics” tab, that teaches the player some in depth stuff if they interact with parts of the game enough.

Now, bloat could also mean, that there is simply just too much stuff in the world - hey that’s the trade off. If you want the game to run on your PC or Console and also get new content, you unfortunately have to have it all shoved into the current map.

However, if by bloat, you mean stuff like the Sawhorse being locked behind the Crabby Hermit or boss rewards such as the Scrappy Chapauldron that have next to no use, then yes, in that sense the game can feel bloated. My first thought is just doing a big QoL patch with tons of buffs to niche items and cleaning up some of the odd progression, but I don’t know.

 

Regarding point 2:

So some of you may not know this, but before DST came out, the developers were very clear on one specific matter: There would NEVER be a multiplayer version of Don’t Starve. They didn’t want to break the vision they had for the game - how could you have a somewhat scary, isolating survival game in which everything is out to get you, when you’re playing with friends? DST is only a thing because there was constant nagging from the playerbase to let them play with friends. The change in how the game is played is *precisely* why over the years DST shifted focus from the spooky “lost in the forest”  atmosphere to more of the “adventure with friends” one. I think this is a part of DST finding its own identity in the franchise, since the game wasn’t like this in the beginning (the transition was also kind of sloppy). This is most likely why people have such an issue with the current presentation of the game - they don’t realise it has become its own thing. This oppressive survival game style still lives with DS standalone and its expansions, which mind you, came out AFTER DST released. It’s further proof that the old atmosphere of the game is not lost. It’s just not part of the sequel.

 

…

(although I’m still kind of salty there was no ARG when Return of Them finished, and am not a big fan of how Wagstaff was handled in DST)

 

Regarding point 3:

I’m gonna be honest here - I think this is just wrong. The whole point of the From Beyond arc was adding a Terraria type of “hardmode” for experienced players via Rifts. I like some parts of the rifts more, some parts less, but I cannot deny that they shake things up and make you prepare for new dangers that appear in the world. The Lunar Rift does this to a lesser extent, but upgraded bosses and Brightshades are definitely constant threats. Now I know some of you will say “But you can nullify all of it with this simple trick!”. So, that’s the point of a survival game - it’s finding those tricks that help you manage emerging threats. Finding out how to do those tricks on the internet is not an incorrect approach, but it’s not what the game encourages.

However, if you really hate how many bosses there are, I’m sorry, but I can’t help with that. Considering how DST changed (point 2), shifting to a raid boss based progression system is super fun and gratifying for me. It’s immensely satisfying to go from trying to adapt and survive to fighting a big bad boss and getting rewarded for it (this whole cycle repeats with the Rifts!). It helps that most of the bosses are unique, and you have to approach each one differently. 

 

So these were some of my thoughts on the “problems” with modern DST. Again I’d like to reiterate, that the game isn’t perfect. I have a ton of suggestions after my recent playthrough, that I might leave in the feedback forum later on. I just wanted to touch on some of the recent forum threads that seem to be popping up here every day. I couldn’t be more excited for the upcoming beta - I hope it has some resolution to the Charlie plotline and that the next roadmap provides us some much needed clarity for the game’s future. (what are the hopes with this btw? my wishful thinking is a DST expansion or a final arc, but idk)

 

Also, please, feel free to point out where I may be wrong, or where I misunderstood the community’s sentiments. I’m genuinely curious if there is something I’m missing.

[Uedo]

1. Bloat would be in relation to redundancy, not the definitions of bloat you have provided. There are too many things unfinished, incomplete or redundant, it makes you question why they were brought into the game at all.

2. Everyone, for the most part, is aware DST is it's own thing. The complaints are often that the direction of DST is not great. Forget DS. Most people are not referencing that and when they do they're often just talking about a tone or specific mechanics - which is purely design decision, two things can be true at once, yeah it can be a deliberate choice to move away from the aesthetic, but nobody said anyone had to like it - some do not. I don't see how helpful it is to say 'But it's it's own thing, it's not DS'. Ok? Are the people who are still dissatisfied, dissatisfied? Yeah. I don't think they care much for that sentiment.

3. I don't really understand why you're looking to challenge how people experience the game. I believe you feel the way you do, I believe people who make the statement too. Do you want them to change their mind? If so, I think they have specific requests, so I don't know how helpful 'But I don't think so' is for an answer either.


Glad you like things though.

Edited August 27, 2025 by Uedo
I missed a word

[Tigris Nano]

8 hours ago, ElendoinGZO said:

I LOVE the Scrapbook. It has some implementation issues (i. e. no sorting by new, having to stop in the middle of a fight to examine something) but it helps so much in organically experiencing the game, all its “bloat” included. Don’t Starve has always been a Wiki type of game, as in you need to read a lot to be fully able to grasp it

I agree with this, its great addition to game just like bestiary or guide in terraria which lets me open wiki in game instead of alt tabing or opening wiki on my phone or tablet

8 hours ago, ElendoinGZO said:

spooky “lost in the forest”  atmosphere

I think ds/dst loses its atmosphere the longer you play it. When you know how to survive in this world, any panic, fear of unknown etc just vanishes (just like in other games, its not just dst issue). Also those words made me want a screecher mod adaptation for dst. Would be funny one-time experience for 2-4 players.

17 minutes ago, Uedo said:

Forget DS.

Hungry French has awoken!

[oregu]

9 hours ago, ElendoinGZO said:

There would NEVER be a multiplayer version of Don’t Starve. They didn’t want to break the vision they had for the game - how could you have a somewhat scary, isolating survival game in which everything is out to get you, when you’re playing with friends? DST is only a thing because there was constant nagging from the playerbase to let them play with friends. The change in how the game is played is *precisely* why over the years DST shifted focus from the spooky “lost in the forest”  atmosphere to more of the “adventure with friends” one. I think this is a part of DST finding its own identity in the franchise, since the game wasn’t like this in the beginning (the transition was also kind of sloppy). This is most likely why people have such an issue with the current presentation of the game - they don’t realise it has become its own thing.

Bosses were not originally what anyone was playing DST for. Adding more and more bosses was a conscious decision by Klei did over the years which they believed would draw the most attention to the game and be the most fun for the players (otherwise, why would they add more and more bosses? Maybe they simply enjoyed making them? Dunno.) This was not simply a result of making the game feel more like a "less serious less spooky adventure." If anything bosses would supposedly amplify that "uncompromising, spooky experience" (but I don't think they do that, which is fine).. I would say when people were playing DST for fun with their friends back before the many updates, going on a boss rush with them to explore all the content was not what anyone had imagined when they thought of "going on a Don't Starve adventure with friends." Most simply enjoyed exploring the world of DST to their own accord. But you're right though, sure, in this way DST has become its own thing. What Klei wants to do with the game is ultimately their choice, but I really can't imagine anyone screaming for more bosses or saying that's the main reason they like the game. It feels like there's an unproportional focus on them when it comes to new major content. Every great added item seems to be added behind the boss, while for instance in DS good items were everywhere, you just had to know where and when to look for them. However, again, maybe that's just what the Klei teams enjoys; Making bosses. There's nothing wrong with that. It's fine if players actually quite enjoy that boss progression system as well, that's not really what I'm trying to get at either. I'm just sure it's just not what anyone probably had in mind if they were to know DST was going to be expanded this far.

[Mike23Ua]

It’s okay for people to “like” the new direction of the Dont Starve Franchise, after all SOMEONE has to like it in order for them to continue making any profit off of it.

But it is NOT right for the people who like the New Direction to tell fans of what it Once was to forget DS & accept what the franchise has become.

Ive seen this happen far too often with other franchises: Most namely Resident Evil- It went from being a limited ammo, resource managing, limited save points, puzzle solving survival horror game: to being a full blown Action Shooter with Quick Time Event button pressing mini-games & then it Reverted back to what Original fans loved the franchise for: Limited Ammo, Puzzle Solving, Survival Horror but it took YEARS of catering to “What was popular at the time..” Before the franchise went back to its roots.

I am seeing the same thing play out when it comes to DST… It’s gone from being a survival sandbox game to a full out raid boss simulator with chatty NPCs and lengthy rpg style quests.

I enjoyed Solo DS for its “Puzzle Solving” you needed to craft a small raft just to cross a pond blocking you from accessing another biome, or you needed a gas mask to travel through poisonous gas rainforests.. You needed to craft a Machete just to bust open temple entrances etc…

And to add to that: Every rock you flipped or tree you chopped had a chance to spawn a mob that could make staying alive harder for you.

I will never forget the time I was confidently living off coconuts in Shipwrecked until suddenly.. I wasn’t anymore. 😈

Thats what I miss about the franchise, that’s what I wish we could bring back to DST..

I miss thinking I could mine some vines just to build another small raft and get the heck up off the island I’m currently stuck on, only for that to become more complicated when poisonous snakes spawn from the vine I’m chopping and now: I gotta find a cure for poison too.

[Hungry French]

1 hour ago, Tigris Nano said:

Hungry French has awoken!

[ElendoinGZO]

43 minutes ago, Uedo said:

1. Bloat would be in relation to redundancy, not the definitions of bloat you have provided. There are too many things unfinished, incomplete or redundant, it makes you question why they were brought into the game at all.

2. Everyone, for the most part, is aware DST is it's own thing. The complaints are often that the direction of DST is not great. Forget DS. Most people are not referencing that and when they do they're often just talking about a tone or specific mechanics - which is purely design decision, two things can be true at once, yeah it can be a deliberate choice to move away from the aesthetic, but nobody said anyone had to like it - some do not. I don't see how helpful it is to say 'But it's it's own thing, it's not DS'. Ok? Are the people who are still dissatisfied, dissatisfied? Yeah. I don't think they care much for that sentiment.

3. I don't really understand why you're looking to challenge how people experience the game. I believe you feel the way you do, I believe people who make the statement too. Do you want them to change their mind? If so, I think they have specific requests, so I don't know how helpful 'But I don't think so' is for an answer either.


Glad you like things though.

These are all great points actually! I'll respond one by one.

1. That may be my problem, as I don't really see the stuff you mention here. I do see a lot of items with really niche use cases - I mentioned them in the original post. I also see some stuff that is unfinished (I assume you mean things like the Ancient Archive Seald Portal) but it feels like it mostly relates to future content? This might be copium on my part though; probably relates to the longer break I took.

2. I agree with mostly everything you said. It's just that I personally had found a lot new appreciation for DST when I changed how I look at it - by that I mean, when I understood that the old aesthetic just couldn't stay. I didn't mean to imply that people have to like it, becuase it's different, just that I don't think pushing for a return to the old formula is how the problem should be solved.

3. I think I worded this point poorly. I wasn't trying to impose any of my opinions on anyone and so I'll try to rephrase it a bit better here.
- The first part was simply meant to say that I disagree with the complaint of too much focus on the bosses. I think there is just enough downtime between them, in which you have to learn how to survive the new challenges the game is throwing at you, that it doesn't warrant the game losing the "uncompromising survival" label.
- The second part is where I think my phrasing was most off - it sounds a bit pretentious, now that I read throught it again haha. What I meant to say, is I understand people may not like the amount of bosses the game received - it's a fair way of looking at the direction of the game. My argument was, that they are spread in a way which doesn't hurt the pacing of the game that bad, and considering Klei's intended direction moving forward (which I acknowledge may not be everyone's cup of tea) most of them feel pretty well designed and implemented.

Thanks for the response - it helped a lot with understanding the community consesus.

[lowercase skye]

11 hours ago, ElendoinGZO said:

The game has become too boss focused and has lost its uncompromising survival label.

This one has always been confusing to me because everybody loves the ruins! The ruins are a completely optional challenge where you have to expend extra food and resources to get new items that can make your survival easier... and so are bosses. That's like, exactly what bosses are, optional challenges that make you expend way more food and resources than you would need to survive normally, so that you can get new items that proceed to make that survival easier. There's this weird dichotomy people have developed, of bosses and "survival challenges", but there has always been a large amount of overlap between these two things.

[Uedo]

1 hour ago, ElendoinGZO said:

These are all great points actually! I'll respond one by one.

1. That may be my problem, as I don't really see the stuff you mention here. I do see a lot of items with really niche use cases - I mentioned them in the original post. I also see some stuff that is unfinished (I assume you mean things like the Ancient Archive Seald Portal) but it feels like it mostly relates to future content? This might be copium on my part though; probably relates to the longer break I took.

2. I agree with mostly everything you said. It's just that I personally had found a lot new appreciation for DST when I changed how I look at it - by that I mean, when I understood that the old aesthetic just couldn't stay. I didn't mean to imply that people have to like it, becuase it's different, just that I don't think pushing for a return to the old formula is how the problem should be solved.

3. I think I worded this point poorly. I wasn't trying to impose any of my opinions on anyone and so I'll try to rephrase it a bit better here.
- The first part was simply meant to say that I disagree with the complaint of too much focus on the bosses. I think there is just enough downtime between them, in which you have to learn how to survive the new challenges the game is throwing at you, that it doesn't warrant the game losing the "uncompromising survival" label.
- The second part is where I think my phrasing was most off - it sounds a bit pretentious, now that I read throught it again haha. What I meant to say, is I understand people may not like the amount of bosses the game received - it's a fair way of looking at the direction of the game. My argument was, that they are spread in a way which doesn't hurt the pacing of the game that bad, and considering Klei's intended direction moving forward (which I acknowledge may not be everyone's cup of tea) most of them feel pretty well designed and implemented.

Thanks for the response - it helped a lot with understanding the community consesus.

No honestly, you didn't do anything wrong at all - I'm also not a monolith, I can only speak from what i've experienced. I'm sure a lot of people feel very different to me.

I didn't mean my final comment sarcastically or anything, there's lots of parts I really like about the game. I'm playing it now, I just think when the game became a bit of a money machine a lot of focus was lost. Quality took a dip in my opinion, which is fine, it happens, but my main gripe with Klei is the over promising. I'd love it if they just said theres not a lot of cohesion with things at the moment and they try to make content they think is engaging or something. We've just historically got promises of 'You'll love what's coming soon', followed by silence.

I just don't like being breadcrumbed, the game is fine overall - and constantly promising that it'll all make sense at some future point is just going to have a bad outcome, when yet again, they underdeliver.

I mean the comments on stream about 'Will be see Wagstaff again', I didn't like the faux surprise 'Oooo we'll have to wait and see!' - It's like, he's gonna appear as a big moon boss cause alters got to him right? You've shown charlie with a mask like face, it's gonna be the same for her but with the shadow side right? We're going to rescue her and him because Wagstaff will go good guy at the last moment right? It's all just very cliche. 

[Waywarbler]

55 minutes ago, Uedo said:

I mean the comments on stream about 'Will be see Wagstaff again', I didn't like the faux surprise 'Oooo we'll have to wait and see!' - It's like, he's gonna appear as a big moon boss cause alters got to him right? You've shown charlie with a mask like face, it's gonna be the same for her but with the shadow side right? We're going to rescue her and him because Wagstaff will go good guy at the last moment right? It's all just very cliche. 

Why do you seem like, completely certain that's what's going to happen? Did they say on stream that Wagstaff would be coming back?

AFAIK, Wagstaff got vaporized when the Scion exploded. IIRC, the Celestial Scion's Wagstaff-less death animation is called "self destruct" or something, which gives me the vibe the Celestial Scion took Wagstaff down with it.

[Uedo]

44 minutes ago, Waywarbler said:

Why do you seem like, completely certain that's what's going to happen? Did they say on stream that Wagstaff would be coming back?

AFAIK, Wagstaff got vaporized when the Scion exploded. IIRC, the Celestial Scion's Wagstaff-less death animation is called "self destruct" or something, which gives me the vibe the Celestial Scion took Wagstaff down with it.

Yeah, I remember it had Jason, and two people I didn't recognise, a man and a woman (I don't watch it much) - It came shortly after the scion stuff, can't remember if it was during beta or after it went live.

It was a question on the stream, the person who spoke made it kind of obvious, I think her answer was 'You'll have to keep playing to find out!' or something similar

 

47 minutes ago, Waywarbler said:

Why do you seem like, completely certain that's what's going to happen?

Sorry I didn't answer, because I watched the Live.

[Mike23Ua]

2 hours ago, lowercase skye said:

This one has always been confusing to me because everybody loves the ruins! The ruins are a completely optional challenge where you have to expend extra food and resources to get new items that can make your survival easier... and so are bosses. That's like, exactly what bosses are, optional challenges that make you expend way more food and resources than you would need to survive normally, so that you can get new items that proceed to make that survival easier. There's this weird dichotomy people have developed, of bosses and "survival challenges", but there has always been a large amount of overlap between these two things.

There’s a difference, Survival Challenges would be Global Map Navigation (GMN) : Weather, Mobs,  Needing to wear a “Mask” to travel through “Gas Biome” without you know dying. Having to *intentionally* turn yourself into Wonkey to avoid being mauled to death by Monkeys when entering hostile Monkey Territories.. or in order to disguise yourself as part of their Crew to Initiate a trade system you otherwise: Would not have access to.

Also on a personal note: FFS Klei reverse the Wonkey Curse Changes and make it so you actually have to return to the Monkey Queen to lift the curse…

Now let’s pretend that whilst out sailing the ocean (insert random oceanic mob encounters here) you come across an island with a trader monkey on it (similar to Wandering Trader but EXCLUSIVELY Accessible only if your transformed into Wonkey.) You can then inflict the curse upon yourself to trade valuable goods..

But upon doing so: You’ll need to actually travel all the way back to Monkey Queen to get your curse lifted.

BOSSES On the other hand: are literally just Tiny Arena Battles..

I think this accurately proves my point. 

[cybers2001]

I fully accept that DST is meant to be a derivative experience from DS, and various fundamental differences need to exist to properly support multiplayer, but...

The problem is DST is all we have now. The amount of content in DST blows DS out of the water, and with no plans to release new DLCs for DS, we don't really have a choice.

3 hours ago, lowercase skye said:

This one has always been confusing to me because everybody loves the ruins! The ruins are a completely optional challenge where you have to expend extra food and resources to get new items that can make your survival easier... and so are bosses. That's like, exactly what bosses are, optional challenges that make you expend way more food and resources than you would need to survive normally, so that you can get new items that proceed to make that survival easier. There's this weird dichotomy people have developed, of bosses and "survival challenges", but there has always been a large amount of overlap between these two things.

There's a difference here. First of all, for players who were up to the challenge, the popular thing to do for the longest time is ruins rush. You can hop into a fresh new Day 1 world and try to clear the ruins within 10 days. If you fail, you can just start over and lose maybe an hour or two in the process.

If I want to organically learn how to solo all the bosses up to Warbot, I'm committing to a 200 day world. If the intended experience is to just die over and over while learning a new boss, then there needs to be a warning attached like, "Hey, maybe don't fight this boss unless you're an admin and okay with rollbacks!"

Edited August 28, 2025 by cybers2001

[hyoton123]

I think I’m the only person who likes the sawhorse and chair being locked behind ocean exploration and ruins exploration? You should want to explore. It’s good for you! You might even like it!

[lowercase skye]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

Survival Challenges would be Global Map Navigation (GMN)

This has never been a specification as to what a "survival challenge" is.

48 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

There's a difference here. First of all, for players who were up to the challenge, the popular thing to do for the longest time is ruins rush. You can hop into a fresh new Day 1 world and try to clear the ruins within 10 days. If you fail, you can just start over and lose maybe an hour or two in the process.

If I want to organically learn how to solo all the bosses up to Warbot, I'm committing to a 200 day world. If the intended experience is to just die over and over while learning a new boss, then there needs to be a warning attached like, "Hey, maybe don't fight this boss unless you're an admin and okay with rollbacks!"

That's all fair, but this is an entirely different conversation from what I was talking about. Something being less intuitive or less forgiving is not relevant to if it's a survival challenge or not, which is the only thing I was saying.

Edited August 28, 2025 by lowercase skye

[Mike23Ua]

24 minutes ago, lowercase skye said:

This has never been a specification as to what a "survival challenge" is.

That's all fair, but this is an entirely different conversation from what I was talking about. Something being less intuitive or less forgiving is not relevant to if it's a survival challenge or not, which is the only thing I was saying.

That depends on what you consider qualifications for a “Survival Challenge”

Like I said: I play a ton of RogueLite/Roguelike games.

Beyond their punishing & at times unfair difficulty, these games usually offer the player a variety of ways to remain engaged, with things such as: Weather Hazards, Randomized Mob Encounters and of course: Environmental Hazards.

Here look listen: just do us all a favor and go play Rogue Prince of Persia, it just came out on Xbox Gamepass, yes it’s a straight up DeadCells ripoff clone (to be expected seeing as their the same devs who worked on Deadcells) but what I want you to understand is that beyond end of stage bosses… or the randomized enemy layouts, there’s also those highly annoying hazards you need to avoid & navigate (like rotating saw blades)

The Hamlet DLC & the Shipwrecked DLC both had these sorts of navigational hazards, even the base games story mode had them (maxwells tooth trap field anyone?) the closest thing you might get to anything like that in DST is idk.. Antlion sinkholes? Klaus Red & Blue Deer attacks?

A good majority of DSTs hazards are tied almost exclusively to an optional boss fight you need to go out of your way to summon.

What frustrates me to the ends of the earth is when Klei adds new content such as the Anenemy & then does not follow up with “Maxwell toothtrap” level minefields we need to carefully navigate using that new Content.

[lowercase skye]

3 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Here look listen: just do us all a favor and go play Rogue Prince of Persia, it just came out on Xbox Gamepass

i don't have xbox gamepass

[Evelo]

Your point 3 doesn't really say anything. Considering this is my biggest gripe with DST.

Yes I agree that Brightshades are a new survival element (and I love them because I hate them), but the 3 lunar revival bosses you can just walk away from, they aren't predatory, they don't chase after you if you kill the boss then run away before it revives. I personally am fine with bosses so long as they are actively attacking the player rather than just standing idle waiting for the player to come and kill them. The lunar rifts intentionally spawn away from numerous player built objects because Megabasers (reasonably mind you) got upset when their bases were being destroyed from the rifts.  The only non optional bosses we got since DST released was Antlion (as a way to replace Dfly in the summer) and most recently The Giant Worm. Varglet was included as a mini-boss which I also appreciate greatly.

The other survival elements besides Brightshades are really lackluster and just reskins of rain. Lunar Hail was even changed to not do damage anymore so it's completely ignorable, meanwhile acid rain is solved the same way as regular rain. The moon quay trinkets are survival kind of, the pirate raids definitely are (and I hate them, which is great, that's what I want). They aren't dangerous really unless you amass so much your entire inventory is full. So to summarize, over the course of 9 years of updates to DST, we got 5 new survival challenges and 2 reskins of pre-existing survival challenges. I'd like more environmental survival challenges instead of just enemies but if it is just going to be enemies attacking you, that's fine too because at least we are the prey instead of the predator.

[AliceShiki]

I don't disagree with any of your points, but I do want to point out that you should always remember that the forum is a tiny minority, like... There must be like, 20 regular posters here or something? I recognize almost everyone that is active here by now, and it's not like I'm that active myself.

Like... Here's the past 3 years of DST on Steam Charts.

 

There were certainly some really big peaks in playerbase, like around March~May 2023, as well as some smaller peaks over the years that probably hovered around 70k players, but... DST has also been having ups and downs on the playercount over the last 3 years quite regularly?

And honestly, a game as old as this one still getting 50k daily players regularly is quite impressive.

So uhn... Well, the forums are not exactly representative of the wider community, people seem to love the current direction of the game, because they're still playing after all those years.

Forum feedback is still pretty important though, that's why Klei holds Betas and all that, after all. So it's not like Klei will ignore what people are saying, just... Well, just remember that the doomer mentality plaguing these forums isn't exactly reflective of the wider playerbase.

[Bumber64]

18 hours ago, ElendoinGZO said:

The game has become too boss focused and has lost its uncompromising survival label.

[...]

I’m gonna be honest here - I think this is just wrong. The whole point of the From Beyond arc was adding a Terraria type of “hardmode” for experienced players via Rifts. I like some parts of the rifts more, some parts less, but I cannot deny that they shake things up and make you prepare for new dangers that appear in the world. The Lunar Rift does this to a lesser extent, but upgraded bosses and Brightshades are definitely constant threats. Now I know some of you will say “But you can nullify all of it with this simple trick!”. So, that’s the point of a survival game - it’s finding those tricks that help you manage emerging threats. Finding out how to do those tricks on the internet is not an incorrect approach, but it’s not what the game encourages.

I'm not sure how it makes sense to bring up rifts in response to too many bosses? There's only a few post-rifts bosses. Brightshades certainly aren't bosses.

What's true about rifts is that they're (normally) locked behind bosses. Can't get to the extra survival content without boss fights, and they took away lunar hail damage anyway.

[Tigris Nano]

6 hours ago, Evelo said:

I personally am fine with bosses so long as they are actively attacking the player rather than just standing idle waiting for the player to come and kill them

I would like to see ds-like boss thing where they are always around you (+hunt you down) but I think there will be 100 threads about complaining that. Imagine stuff like armored burger with his jumping butt slam (which you cant just dodge with running away when it jumps) slaughtering entire server and picking players one by one.

[Hungry French]

6 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

Я не совсем понимаю, зачем упоминать разломы в связи с большим количеством боссов. После разломов есть всего несколько боссов. Светлячки точно не являются боссами.

Что действительно верно в отношении разломов, так это то, что они (обычно) закрыты для доступа после победы над боссами. Без сражений с боссами вы не сможете получить доступ к дополнительному контенту для выживания, и они всё равно убрали урон от лунного града.

Klei hasn't managed to add a million bosses to the shadow rifts yet)

[oregu]

17 hours ago, lowercase skye said:

This one has always been confusing to me because everybody loves the ruins! The ruins are a completely optional challenge where you have to expend extra food and resources to get new items that can make your survival easier... and so are bosses. That's like, exactly what bosses are, optional challenges that make you expend way more food and resources than you would need to survive normally, so that you can get new items that proceed to make that survival easier. There's this weird dichotomy people have developed, of bosses and "survival challenges", but there has always been a large amount of overlap between these two things.

Ruins are a significantly different style of playing than bosses. Sure they both reward the player stuff for a challenge, but the method to get the stuff in question is completely different.

In other words, that''s like saying people who like playing dungeon-crawler games and those who like Soulslike games are one in the same. It's not guaranteed they will like one or the other if they enjoy one. I am more partial to ruins than defeating bosses. The only reason I fight AG if I were to ruins rush is cause it has way too many valuable materials, otherwise I wouldn't fight AG, for example.

[Uedo]

14 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Here look listen: just do us all a favor and go play Rogue Prince of Persia

Pretty Mid roguelike Mike

[Evelo]

13 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

Like... Here's the past 3 years of DST on Steam Charts.

I'm not trying to discredit you by any means, the game does definitely have an active community. However if you look at games that have a random drop system that can potentially be sold for real world money, the game has a large number of bots which inflate the numbers significantly with the sole responsibility of acquiring those drops to flip on the market place. If Klei for instance, made it so the steam marketplace didn't have items that could be sold drop at random, then the game would lose its bot base and the numbers would drop. While I don't know the exact numbers, I am guessing around 20-30% of the total player numbers are bots just idling in solo worlds for loot.

I could be wrong, and hope I am, but I've seen this pattern in numerous other games that it is just a staple of life with Steam Games and the Marketplace.