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

[Hungry French]

3 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

Значит, эти игроки не очень опытны, тогда...? Я даже не думаю, что кактус и лёд настолько хороши, особенно по сравнению с другими вариантами. Имейте в виду, что такие вещи, как мясо, дают невероятно мощные возможности, и в вашем распоряжении множество источников мяса, особенно зимой.

Даже в DS можно было продержаться зимой на ягодах, грибах и моркови, если не лениться и исследовать окрестности. В вашем распоряжении множество источников пропитания, и их более чем достаточно, чтобы выжить, особенно если вы играете в одиночку, как в DS

So I'm talking about the fact that ice is too easily obtainable a food source. Which does not deteriorate at all. Don't run all over the map, don't kill mobs. Just mining a ton of ice. 
Cactus'es are just the mind and limitless vegetables in huge quantities that don't depend on rain or anything.

 

3 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

Вздох,

Ледники DST в высоком и среднем состоянии перемещаются на 1–3 метра, а в малом состоянии — на 1–2 метра. Это значит, что вы можете получить от 3 до 8 кубических метров льда. Это не всегда 7 кубических метров, как вы говорите.

Вот скриншот, на котором я добываю лёд из нескольких полностью сформировавшихся ледников. Обратите внимание, что из некоторых ледников было получено значительно меньше 7 единиц льда, а из некоторых — по 4 единицы.

Ahahah. I'm the lucky one. I broke about 10 mini glaciers and 7 pieces of ice fell from EACH ONE. Random surprises.

 

3 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

На самом деле это не так. В режиме «Дуэль» вы можете нанести до 3–4 ударов по Биргеру с помощью обычных ускорителей, доступных в режиме «Королевская битва».

Я даже не очень хорошо играл в эту игру, но мне всё равно удалось убить Биргер примерно за минуту, используя обычное снаряжение и допуская такие ошибки, как необходимость подбирать хамбат/трость. Если бы у меня было такое снаряжение, как магический/тёмный меч, я бы справился ещё быстрее. Время убийства в обеих версиях примерно одинаковое.

I did tests without running speed bonuses. 
DS Bearger died in 1 m. 30 s.

DST Bearger died in 1 m. 20 s.

3 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

Подобные вещи заставляют меня задуматься, а не играешь ли ты вообще в "Не голодай". Я давно не играл в эту игру, так как летнее время больше подходит для моего опыта, и я все еще знаю несколько игровых механик, характерных для этой версии, которые вы искажаете и которые я проверяю с помощью видеодоказательств.

Not lately. The current state of DS makes it... Unpleasant to play with... Even from a technical point of view, it is too bad against the background of DST. And she doesn't have enough content. 
If it had been updated... I wouldn't be sitting on this forum...

Although I haven't been playing DST lately)
I usually spend a lot of hours trying to make DST more like what I think is right.
Editing in the Tuning files there...
well, something more complicated like changing recipes, crafts, etc. The

Сhange in the amulet of nightmares really made me sweat... To figure out how to make sure that he doesn't give you more sanity than you can get when you're crazy. 
Of course I will play... But when I finish, everything is perfect with my capabilities. Excluding characters besides Wilson. Weakening other characters is already a separate job, which I don't think about. (Apart from the indirect weakening of the Vurt, because I really don't like the fact that Merms have 500 hp. The thing about pigs and merms is that they are rivals, but equal in strength)

3 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

Почему? Потому что вы считаете, что использование биггера для фарма — это «нечестная тактика», и разработчики не планировали использовать её в ваших интересах? Что на этонаводит? Может быть,по вашему мнению, это должно вредить только игроку и никому больше, и вы доказываете это тем, что так говорите?

I highly doubt that by creating Bearger. Klei deliberately made him the "lumberjack of the year."
His ability to destroy was even weakened, so that the player bases would suffer less...

Yes, I think it's not fair. Because you get a huge pile of wood without spending a lot of time and resources
on it... It just doesn't fit into the logging system... And it looks like it.. Stupidly.

4 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

Важно отметить, что в DS количество попаданий, необходимых для убийства моба, значительно меньше, чем в DST. Вы можетечасовой механизм с комфортом убивает за 5 ударов темным мечом и 6 хамбатами, что в большинстве случаев гарантирует, что они никогда не попадут в игрока более одного раза. Сравнениеперенесите это в летнее время, где вы не можете разумно сделать что-то подобное даже с отменой анимации. Даже при более низкой скорости атаки и отсутствии отмены анимации вы будете проходить большинство боевых столкновений значительно быстрее, особенно с такими персонажами, как Вольфганг. Это также значительно снижает затраты на оружие, потому что в DS вы проходите гораздо больше столкновений с одним оружием, чем в DST, если только это не дубинка.

But don't forget... Teammates exist...
and many characters in DS were weaker...
Willow couldn't one shooted the Tree Guards  using a lighter... Or Maxwell...

4 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

В качестве альтернативы можно было бы добавить значительные задержки при атаке, что особенно неприятно при плохом соединении. Мне и так не нравится, что в DS нельзя завершать атаки, но, по крайней мере, это согласуется с тем, сколько времени проходит до завершения атаки. Если бы это было в DST, это бы сильно раздражало игроков, особенно тех, у кого изначально плохое соединение

 

This is already Klei's problem. Their game already works terribly with caves at 0 ping.  And on the server.. The game is literally unplayable...

And by the way. In fact, even in DS, you cancel the attack animation. The full attack animation ends when the character returns the weapon to its original position.

4 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

С сожалением сообщаю вам, что Don't Starve Together не подстраивается под прихоти каждого игрока, играющего в одиночку. Она другая в DST, чтобы подходить для многопользовательской среды и поощрять разнообразие, которое не приводит к активному разрушению базы. Если вас это не интересует вы можете выбрать другого персонажа, который вам подходит.

I know... But it's not pleasant. And the overall game balance punishes diversity.

[Echsrick]

On 8/27/2025 at 11:48 AM, ElendoinGZO said:

Terraria type of “hardmode”

and that was there biggest mistake, following what that bad video game does...and loosing its self of what made the game dontstarve together, boss after bosse every update even if its not about stupid rifts had a boss

[AliceShiki]

On 8/28/2025 at 2:38 PM, Evelo said:

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.

I wouldn't be surprised if you were right, though well, if the % of players that bot around to sell items is consistent, then it doesn't fundamentally change the point that the playerbase of DST has been fairly stable over the past 3 years.

But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if there were bots just farming skins to sell them~

... I should actually sell my skins now that I think about it. I never really use any skins whatsoever, so leaving those skins in my inventory is just pointless.

[Hungry French]

1 hour ago, Echsrick said:

и это было их самой большой ошибкой, ведь они последовали примеру плохой видеоигры...и утратили то, что делало игру Dontstarve вместе с каждым обновлением, даже если речь не шла о глупых разломах с боссами

Terraria is a bad game... oh... It's not good to call DST the best game when it has so many problems...

Edited August 31, 2025 by Hungry French

[Echsrick]

1 hour ago, Hungry French said:

Terraria is a bad game... oh... It's not good to call DST the best game when it has so many problems...

yes i like waffles, no i dit not say i hate pancakes

[Maxil20]

3 hours ago, Hungry French said:

So I'm talking about the fact that ice is too easily obtainable a food source. Which does not deteriorate at all. Don't run all over the map, don't kill mobs. Just mining a ton of ice. 
Cactus'es are just the mind and limitless vegetables in huge quantities that don't depend on rain or anything.

I'm trying to tell you that there are other food sources in this game that are not ice and cactus flesh that you can use as effectively. If you want to be locked in a trace that they are the only food sources that matter, then I don't think I can help you on this.
 

3 hours ago, Hungry French said:

Ahahah. I'm the lucky one. I broke about 10 mini glaciers and 7 pieces of ice fell from EACH ONE. Random surprises.

Cool! 

3 hours ago, Hungry French said:

I did tests without running speed bonuses. 
DS Bearger died in 1 m. 30 s.

DST Bearger died in 1 m. 20 s.

I didn't know you didn't factor in speed boosts. In that case, you would still be wrong about bearger's kiting window (you can consistently get 3 hits on the non pound moves), and the time it takes to kill the boss.
 

I hit bearger ~2 seconds in, and it died at the 1:10 mark. That's ~70 seconds to kill bearger in DS, with the only damage source being the hambat, and no speed boosts, which means its still faster to kill bearger in DS than it is in DST.
 

3 hours ago, Hungry French said:

Not lately. The current state of DS makes it... Unpleasant to play with... Even from a technical point of view, it is too bad against the background of DST. And she doesn't have enough content. 
If it had been updated... I wouldn't be sitting on this forum...

I'm sorry you don't feel satisfied with DS being a finished game, with a massive QoL update releasing in 2023 and fixing a considerable amount of the issues that make the game much more playable.

3 hours ago, Hungry French said:

Although I haven't been playing DST lately)
I usually spend a lot of hours trying to make DST more like what I think is right.
Editing in the Tuning files there...

I'm glad you enjoy tuning the game to what you want, but don't enforce your view on what the game should be based on what you think it is. The meaning of this game differs from person to person, and your viewpoint on it isn't the "best" or "only" one.
 

3 hours ago, Hungry French said:

I highly doubt that by creating Bearger. Klei deliberately made him the "lumberjack of the year."

Are you seriously going to try to convince me the boss that has a massive AoE nuke in DS and still has it to some extent in DST somehow wasn't noticed and/or the idea that it could be used for tree chopping wasn't considered?
 

3 hours ago, Hungry French said:

But don't forget... Teammates exist...

Yeah? Because it's Don't Starve Together? The game where you can play with your friends?

4 hours ago, Hungry French said:

and many characters in DS were weaker...

All characters except Wes, Wendy, and Wolfgang (when Wimpy) Do 1X or higher damage multipliers with weapons, which means the hits to kill I mentioned are still the same and don't change.
 

3 hours ago, Hungry French said:

This is already Klei's problem. Their game already works terribly with caves at 0 ping.  And on the server.. The game is literally unplayable...

Players still consistently play with friends on servers, even with noticably high ping. It's not the greatest, but it's workable, and certainly isn't unplayable
 

3 hours ago, Hungry French said:

I know... But it's not pleasant. And the overall game balance punishes diversity.

The cast of characters are more diverse than they ever have been in DS. Doesn't that mean it encourages diversity?

[HopelessBot]

14 minutes ago, Maxil20 said:

The cast of characters are more diverse than they ever have been in DS. Doesn't that mean it encourages diversity?

Doesn't matter, he'll find a way to say DS>DST

Edited August 31, 2025 by irangod

[Hungry French]

7 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

Я пытаюсь донести до вас, что в этой игре есть и другие источники пищи, помимо льда и мякоти кактусов, которые вы можете использовать так же эффективно. Если вы хотите зациклиться на том, что это единственные важные источники пищи, то, боюсь, я не смогу вам помочь.

And here we can argue. Which food sources are as effective as ice and cactus ?

7 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

Я не знал, что вы не учитываете увеличение скорости. В таком случае вы всё равно ошибаетесь насчёт окна для кайтинга Биргер (вы можете стабильно наносить 3 удара не-фунтовыми приёмами) и времени, необходимого для убийства босса.

 

Я ударил Биргерса примерно через 2 секунды после начала игры, и он умер на отметке 1:10. На убийство Биргерса в DS уходит примерно 70 секунд, при этом единственным источником урона является хамбат, а скорость не увеличивается, то есть в DS Биргерса убить быстрее, чем в DST.

I killed Bearger in DST in 73 seconds.  The boss has 2 times more hp, but he is killed in the same time as in DS... Is it strange?

7 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

I'm sorry you don't feel satisfied with DS being a finished game, with a massive QoL update releasing in 2023 and fixing a considerable amount of the issues that make the game much more playable.

It is finished, but not completed... There are still enough bugs in the game, there are no updated textures from DST, there are no updated systems and mechanics.  There is no 64 bit support.  There aren't even any unique DST characters. 
Not to mention the new content of DST...
A New Reign generally has a lot of content that they wanted to implement in DS, but didn't...
There are tons of unrealized content in Shipwrecked and Hamlet in the game files...
And QoL... Yes, he's good. But you know. QoL is not a content update. And the updated Ancient Guardian  in DS is terrible... 
The stun system is not rebalanced to ensure that the duration of the boss fight is the same as before the rework...

7 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

I'm glad you enjoy tuning the game to what you want, but don't enforce your view on what the game should be based on what you think it is. The meaning of this game differs from person to person, and your viewpoint on it isn't the "best" or "only" one.

Иронично, что 90% обсуждений здесь делают тоже самое...

7 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

Are you seriously going to try to convince me the boss that has a massive AoE nuke in DS and still has it to some extent in DST somehow wasn't noticed and/or the idea that it could be used for tree chopping wasn't considered?

Maybe. Although Klei could probably have already been making advances to devalue the logging system as such...
Did Bearger ever destroy your base in DS? I think they wanted to make it an even worse version of Deercloops...

7 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

Yeah? Because it's Don't Starve Together? The game where you can play with your friends?

Yes. Only in DST there is no clear division between DS and DST. There are no separate game modes.

7 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

All characters except Wes, Wendy, and Wolfgang (when Wimpy) Do 1X or higher damage multipliers with weapons, which means the hits to kill I mentioned are still the same and don't change.

It's about the abilities of the characters. Many have started to apply more abilities with them.
Skill Tree's, Rework's... They left their mark...

7 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

Players still consistently play with friends on servers, even with noticably high ping. It's not the greatest, but it's workable, and certainly isn't unplayable

Of course, everyone has their own comfort limits... But 60 pings on the servers in DST feels like everything... 200-300 pings in any other game...

We can go to DST, for example, at 20 fps. But for many, below 60 is already unplayable. And for some, 144...

7 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

The cast of characters are more diverse than they ever have been in DS. Doesn't that mean it encourages diversity?

Does not encourage. Some characters are too weak than others. And character features can make gameplay more bland and replace existing mechanics...

 

[Swiyss]

On 8/27/2025 at 11:06 PM, Evelo said:

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.

I wanna be completely honest with you, I think there is just so much to deal with in the game right now that I would really NOT want anything coming towards me that would be the threat level of a boss that I HAVE to deal with otherwise I would lose something. There is still too much to HAVE to deal with, Klei needs to add enough items and structures and bonus treasures and stuff to first completely negate or 90% of the effects of seasons, hounds, hunger, sanity, health, spiders turning into queens, giants destroying your base  and all the trivial regular stuff. Belive me when I say this, it would definitely be way better if we get more comfortable playing against the current bloat of things to do Before they actually add more unavoidable uncompromising stuff. But this is just my opinion.

[Mike23Ua]

16 hours ago, Hungry French said:

Terraria is a bad game... oh... It's not good to call DST the best game when it has so many problems...

When comparing it to DST? Yeah.. Terraria is a bad game to use as an example.

I’d go so far as to say that The Survivalists is more like DST than Terraria, overall: It’s a really bad example & Klei should not strive to make DST more like Terraria, that’s not what DST Was, nor is it what DST should become.

No one sees me barging into the Terraria forums crying that Terraria needs to play more like DST…

And we shouldn’t have ever gotten a slew of bosses and Terraria “hard-mode” inspiration for DST either.

But it’s a little too late now… DST has become a boss fight simulator, I think their may legit be more bosses in DST Now than even a Dark Souls game had.

[Hungry French]

32 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Если сравнивать с DST? Да... Terraria — неудачный пример.

Я бы даже сказал, что The Survivalists в целом больше похожа на DST, чем на Terraria: это действительно плохой пример, и Klei не должна стремиться сделать DST похожей на Terraria, ведь DST была не такой и не такой должна стать.

Никто не видит, как я врываюсь на форумы Terraria и плачу о том, что Terraria должна быть больше похожа на DST...

И нам тоже не стоило вдохновляться множеством боссов и «хардмодом» в Terraria для DST.

Но сейчас уже немного поздно... DST превратилась в симулятор сражений с боссами. Думаю, в DST Now боссов больше, чем было в Dark Souls.

Yes. There are 26 bosses in DS 1. 
In DST 32.

If only they were at least as cool as in DS1... They don't even reach the DS 2 bosses. It's even scary to talk about DS 3, Elden Ring and Bloodborne...

[lowercase skye]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

But it’s a little too late now… DST has become a boss fight simulator

I'm gonna be honest, calling DST a "boss fight simulator" is as silly as when people in 2017 were calling it "a social game like Club Penguin" while ignoring all of the elements that don't line up with that idea. What do you do during the time from boss to boss, exactly? Does it perhaps involve... survival? I don't remember the seasonal hazards and hunger system disappearing while I was setting up my arena to fight the Eye of Terror a few days ago.

[Cruvimaster]

Don't Starve is dead, but it left many widows here on the forum. The devs themselves are tired of DS, but the widows want to revive it in DST.

[Evelo]

7 hours ago, astareus said:

There is still too much to HAVE to deal with, Klei needs to add enough items and structures and bonus treasures and stuff to first completely negate or 90% of the effects of seasons, hounds, hunger, sanity, health, spiders turning into queens, giants destroying your base  and all the trivial regular stuff.

Autumn

• Bearger spawns, can be lured away a fair distance and subsequently ignored.
• No negative weather effects that last long enough to be a problem

Winter

• Deerclops spawns, can be lured away a fair distance which will despawn when Spring arrives.
• Sources of Warmth: Scaled Furnace, High Insulating clothing (Beefalo Hat, Puffy Vest, etc), Thermal Stone
• Nights last longer causing sanity to drain for longer, normal sanity solutions apply.

Spring

• Rain, completely ignored by Eyebrella if Deerclops is killed or Rain Coat
• Beefalo in heat: Avoid them or wear the Beefalo Hat

Summer

• Ice Chester + Thermal Stones = Mobile cooling, or Ice Box + Thermal Stones on a boat
• Stay in caves all season to ignore over heating
• Cawnival has best seasonal clothes for staying cool.
• Above-Average Tree shade prevents overheating
• Watering Can great at putting out wildfires

Hound Waves

• Tooth Traps/Bramble Traps obliterate hounds
• Houndius Shootius or Winona Catapult plus some Walls/Statues to counter hounds
• Can be lured away to a beefalo herd or just far enough away to where they won't bother you.

Spider Queens

• Wait for them to turn back into T1 spider dens. Takes a while but they do it. Plus they are so slow they will never catch up to you.

Hunger/Sanity/Health

• Farming and Crockpots.

 

This doesn't seem like much to deal with considering you can ignore all mobs and there are solutions to ignoring Summer and Spring seasonal effects. Hunger, Sanity, and Health are non issues because of how good crop farming is. The only things you truly HAVE to actively deal with are Hunger, Sanity, Freezing, and Hound Waves. I'm not saying the new survival challenges should happen right out of the gate, give it to us after 1 full in game year or even 2 if you must wait that long.

[Maxil20]

14 hours ago, Hungry French said:

And here we can argue. Which food sources are as effective as ice and cactus ?

This discussion was had before in another thread, which I also responded in. You are free to reread this if you want my stance on food sources, as there are others that are not ice and cactus that I use on a day to day basis.
 

14 hours ago, Hungry French said:

I killed Bearger in DST in 73 seconds.  The boss has 2 times more hp, but he is killed in the same time as in DS... Is it strange?

At this point Given you have provided zero evidence of your kills, I will assume you are making numbers up (Especially because it has now changed from 80 seconds to 73) unless you provide a video of you fighting bearger with no speed boosts, a hambat only, and are not doing any tricks like animation canceling to kill the boss quicker. I've provided several of my own with your mentioned restrictions.

Also like, Even in a world where you do kill bearger in DST faster than in DS, what about all the combat that undeniably goes smoother in DS because the mobs have noticeably less health? Most combat sessions are very brief and don't pose significant issue compared to DST, especially in cases like the ruins, where clockworks have 3 times less health and are the mob you are normally going to fight the most of in there.
 

14 hours ago, Hungry French said:

It is finished, but not completed... There are still enough bugs in the game, there are no updated textures from DST, there are no updated systems and mechanics.  There is no 64 bit support.  There aren't even any unique DST characters. 

14 hours ago, Hungry French said:

Иронично, что 90% обсуждений здесь делают тоже самое...

("It's ironic that 90% of the discussions here do the same thing...", via google translate)

It's true a lot of people talk about their ideas of what they want DST to be, but that also doesn't mean that they force it upon everyone else. I make a megabase in my solo world, and I'm not going to suddenly go and tell people to just do that and nothing else. I just keep it to myself or show screenshots in the base/screenshot threads.

14 hours ago, Hungry French said:

Maybe. Although Klei could probably have already been making advances to devalue the logging system as such...
Did Bearger ever destroy your base in DS? I think they wanted to make it an even worse version of Deercloops...

Given that Klei fixed the pinecone glitch and left bearger chopping the way it is, I'm going to assume it's intended (especially since other DS methods, like the old bell, are already quite exceptional for logging already).
Bearger never smashed my base, because I played vanilla DS before getting RoG and was very familiar with "hear giant sound with the character giant approaching quote -> move very far away from your base".
 

14 hours ago, Hungry French said:

Yes. Only in DST there is no clear division between DS and DST. There are no separate game modes.

Well there's 5 distinct modes on the world creation screen (relaxed, endless, survival, wilderness, and lights out), which already show how people have distinct playstyles, but even apart from that, you're initially encouraged to start a 1 player world when booting up DST for the first time.
 

14 hours ago, Hungry French said:

It's about the abilities of the characters. Many have started to apply more abilities with them.
Skill Tree's, Rework's... They left their mark...

Again, this is in part because encouraging different playstyles. Don't Starve worked well with minimal different builds you could do because it's a survival game at heart, but DST goes beyond that and has a roster of characters that can suit people's various needs, especially in a world where you can't just solve all your combat problems with half of a dark sword and a few log suits/football helmets.

14 hours ago, Hungry French said:

Of course, everyone has their own comfort limits... But 60 pings on the servers in DST feels like everything... 200-300 pings in any other game...

We can go to DST, for example, at 20 fps. But for many, below 60 is already unplayable. And for some, 144...

I'm not sure what you expect me to say here. When I grew up playing DS/T on a not so great laptop, I didn't expect to be given optimal 60 FPS constantly. I am very used to poor visual performance, especially given my setup. I don't really mind that DS/T both cap out at 60 FPS since compared to other games it doesn't offer an extreme perspective change.

14 hours ago, Hungry French said:

Does not encourage. Some characters are too weak than others. And character features can make gameplay more bland and replace existing mechanics...

It certainly does encourage variety. You rarely see more than 2 people pick the same character on pubs, and even if they do, the ones that have skilltrees often have different builds. Most characters are pretty on par with each other (at least in terms of areas they shine at), so I'm not sure why some would be too weak when many can stand on their own merits. The only ones that really don't at this point are the ones that don't have their tree yet, or Wes because he is a challenge character.
 

Edited September 1, 2025 by Maxil20

[Swiyss]

On 8/31/2025 at 9:53 PM, Evelo said:

Autumn

• Bearger spawns, can be lured away a fair distance and subsequently ignored.
• No negative weather effects that last long enough to be a problem

Winter

• Deerclops spawns, can be lured away a fair distance which will despawn when Spring arrives.
• Sources of Warmth: Scaled Furnace, High Insulating clothing (Beefalo Hat, Puffy Vest, etc), Thermal Stone
• Nights last longer causing sanity to drain for longer, normal sanity solutions apply.

Spring

• Rain, completely ignored by Eyebrella if Deerclops is killed or Rain Coat
• Beefalo in heat: Avoid them or wear the Beefalo Hat

Summer

• Ice Chester + Thermal Stones = Mobile cooling, or Ice Box + Thermal Stones on a boat
• Stay in caves all season to ignore over heating
• Cawnival has best seasonal clothes for staying cool.
• Above-Average Tree shade prevents overheating
• Watering Can great at putting out wildfires

Hound Waves

• Tooth Traps/Bramble Traps obliterate hounds
• Houndius Shootius or Winona Catapult plus some Walls/Statues to counter hounds
• Can be lured away to a beefalo herd or just far enough away to where they won't bother you.

Spider Queens

• Wait for them to turn back into T1 spider dens. Takes a while but they do it. Plus they are so slow they will never catch up to you.

Hunger/Sanity/Health

• Farming and Crockpots.

 

This doesn't seem like much to deal with considering you can ignore all mobs and there are solutions to ignoring Summer and Spring seasonal effects. Hunger, Sanity, and Health are non issues because of how good crop farming is. The only things you truly HAVE to actively deal with are Hunger, Sanity, Freezing, and Hound Waves. I'm not saying the new survival challenges should happen right out of the gate, give it to us after 1 full in game year or even 2 if you must wait that long.

It makes no sense to tell someone to ignore bearger and lose it's drops + nucleation fluid + free tree chopping. Also makes no sense to ignore deerclops when you yourself told me the eyebrella is the best item for spring. If I want to play efficiently and take great advantage of these opportunities then I'm most definitely going to need a lot of time invested in it.

One example of what I'm trying to say is to go visit the lunar island for early stone fruit bushes, and not have to deal with gathering filler for my foods and also having free rocks very quickly (and the leftover ripe fruits could be turned into rot for 9 more stone fruits each). The time used to get out of my way to gather those items actually made the inavoidable hunger drain much easier for me. Preparation leads to success later.

However, if I'm here focused on doing the twins fight for example, or maybe taming a beefalo, I have all the time in the world to manage this action, which is way better for me, than having to be forced to fight the twins if it came to me right after a giant for example. And these unavoidable threats can lead to overwhelming your gameplay very quickly. Klei has also tried to make things look similarly uncompromising as well by making beefalo really hard to tame when they are in heat, requiring a lot of food/resources to maintain and also a lot of time. Similarly, the twins are only fightable in the night, limiting a bit your choices as well.

So no, even if they made it really late game, I still have problems with dealing with stuff and being interupted by an unskippable scenario by these things in the game. And don't get me wrong, I don't dislike them, is just that IF it were to be more than what we have I would feel overwhelmed.

Sometimes I get out of the ocean, after being raided by monkeys and dealing with the consequences of rng on fish spawning to try and get the fish I want, almost breaking my boat and losing my walking cane to monkeys, and I step into land to be greeted by frog rain/heavy rain. Having to track back to base to run in a specific direction until the rain stops trying to get my eyebrella, only to then get insane by the rain and start freezing and losing sanity. The only part of the world that leads to my base is blocked by a moonstorm that I just activated while in the lunar island, making it impossible to get to my base as I'm not wortox nor theres is a wormhole that leads there. After finally dealing with everything slowly but surely, dying even and reviving in a touch stone near spawn, I get summer treated, and now my base is covered by sandstorm since I haven't reached summer yet and had no desert goggles/brightshade helmet. I slowly reach the oasis, quickly fish for the desert goggles, and now I'm finally stable.

Now let's say that otherwise, I decide to not interact with optional content, and only do it if I'm 100% ready for it, do I have to calculate and considerate all of these options happening to me if I do them? Imagine if I were a new player, trying to really get what's happening would be infuriating already with optional content, imagine if they then added more of these unskippable threats? Just look at what happened when the team added the amazing great depth worm, one of my personal favorite bosses in the entire game, my first interaction with it in-game was a bliss, super cool because I don't usually make cave bases. And people STILL complained because it was unavoidable, and the only way to deal with it was to fight it, and the thing would also destroy your base just like deerclops.

But my point is, I'm super advocate of adding more of these threats, like the rabbit king, the ickers and masked mobs etc.. But make it too much and then the game would be overwhelmingly impossible to deal with unless you're a walking wiki with perfectly efficient time management skills. 

Edited September 2, 2025 by astareus

[GimplyGoose]

On 8/31/2025 at 7:56 PM, Maxil20 said:

It certainly does encourage variety. You rarely see more than 2 people pick the same character on pubs, and even if they do, the ones that have skilltrees often have different builds. Most characters are pretty on par with each other (at least in terms of areas they shine at), so I'm not sure why some would be too weak when many can stand on their own merits. The only ones that really don't at this point are the ones that don't have their tree yet, or Wes because he is a challenge character.

Funny story: I hopped onto a pub with only a single Wolfgang and no other characers. I hit random and ended up playing Wolfgang and a few minutes later another Wolfgang joined. All of us had identical skill trees. The server was populated by 3 Wolfgangs and no other characters.

I was in the caves headed towards the ruins when a Wolfgang runs at me with a horde of transformed splumonkeys and says "watch this" and immediately gets killed by the horde. I die right after partially due to how funny I found it (also I'm not great at timing dumbell throws).

[Evelo]

40 minutes ago, astareus said:

is just that IF it were to be more than what we have I would feel overwhelmed.

That sounds like a good thing to me. Surviving isn't meant to be easy. You should be overwhelmed. I think at least. But hey, everyone has their own opinion. I want the game to be brutal and unforgiving with no breathing room.
(Side note: beefalo taming is stupid easy especially now that you can feed them while mounted, just give them a lightbulb, grass, or twig often enough to not get bucked off. So long as you are riding, it will only gain domestication. Can easily tame one by day 26 consistently.)

[Swiyss]

38 minutes ago, Evelo said:

beefalo taming is stupid easy

Still takes a lot of resources and 15+ days, you can tell me it's 'stupid easy' but I'm not gonna believe you. Sure the QoL change on the feeding helped a lot, but it's still time consuming.

38 minutes ago, Evelo said:

That sounds like a good thing to me. Surviving isn't meant to be easy.

It's because when I say "overwhelming", I mean unbearable. Like those mobile games with 24/7 zombies going for you (Vampire Survivors). What if I wanna fish some wobsters? Do I have to be forced to fight 2 to 3 unskippable bosses in a season for that? That would be overwhelming, one is already enough. What if brightshades were like hound waves? I would detest that. I'm there trying to measure which giant pumpkin is heavier for my cute little late autumn base in the pig king biome and then suddenly 3 inkblights-type bosses would pop up from the ground and chase me, I wouldn't want anything added like that.

I like the threats being optional, but equally unforgiving and hard to deal with, and add consequences that YOU chose to have, rather than forcing rift-like dangers on me without me ever asking for it.

Now againAgain, the great depth worm was really needed and necessary, the cave was kind of empty before that as non of the seasonal threats from the surface would affect it too much, and it still need many more. So for Klei to measure how much of a unskippable threat these things are and take that in consideration while implementing them is still the best thing to do.

Also you can just, idk, play Wes if you want even more dangers, or you can try to minimize your resources in a fight, like trying to fight armored bearger with football helmet+hambat etc.. I do that every once in a while and it's overwhelming enough to have minimal resources. I myself fought the warbot and scion without teleports, without thermal stones, and without any boss gear, only healing and brightshade gear, and it was overwhelming enough for me to feel great about it. I'm definitely sure that Klei can add strong and unforgiving dangers without making it too much, and that "too much" for me is when I need to get out of my comfort zone like more than 4 times a season.

It becomes boringly annoying. I like the slow pace that exists if you choose to not do much. And I like the option that I have to just decide to do a boss rush for example, and try to beat every boss in a speedrun setting, I love speedrun, but if I don't wanna be forced to do it and the game keeps shoving it on my face because a developer thought that this was how the game was supposed to be, then I'm not gonna enjoy the experience. I believe that the game should let the player decide how much overwhelmed they can get, and that already exists, you can do many many more things to feel overwhelmed yourself, by tweaking settings and setting up rules yourself.

However, there also needs to exist at least some kind of pillar, some foundation idea of development that can't be bypassed. And I believe that one of them is the survival aspect of the game, if there is a character that can bypass all of the issues that surviving brings by just existing, then there should also be a character that can't do that. And if those survival aspects are set and stone, then new additions can't disrupt them randomly, unless it's given enough work for it, because nothing comes easy/cheap in this game and it has been like this since the beggining and still is until today (the inimical gestalt is there as proof of design).

For me, these pillars are already set, and it's time to add more of those, but not change the already existing ones. The base game IS fine and does not need any new changes from day 1 to 10 in my opinion (not stupidly big ones, but changes like the drying rack are much appreciated and should exist). And if rifts were to add a new biome or new area, then I'm fine with that and I believe almost everyone would also be, since that's literally what the intended design is for. But please don't advocate for random new threats outside of optional/late-game content, specially in an already hard-to-master and uncompromising base game like this. There needs to be more levels to DST, more end content, more requirements to advance and stuff like that. And people who say that the game is adding too many things in the late game and too little in the early game and that this is bad for the game are objectively wrong. There can be new biomes without them ruining how the experience goes (what if Klei adds a new random biome that just exists there, it's not great nor bad, it's just a new rocky biome for example, that would lose purpose very quickly, there needs to be intention in the design for it to feel great to interact with, specially in a game where the main pillars are already set and stone). New island? Sure. New post-rift biome alteration? Sure. But random -for example- Locust and Rats attacking my base added 15 years after the game's launch would be detrimental.

Edited September 2, 2025 by astareus

[hyoton123]

29 minutes ago, astareus said:

Still takes a lot of resources and 15+ days, you can tell me it's 'stupid easy' but I'm not gonna believe you. Sure the QoL change on the feeding helped a lot, but it's still time consuming.

It’s definitely easier, just a drag. It takes a lot less resources because you dont need to refill obedience every time. And no dismounting makes it very safe and convenient. And having recently played without a beefalo, it really is a pain to go without it. But it isnt any more fun to raise or maintain it. (not that i can think of a way to make it fun…)

[Swiyss]

Just now, hyoton123 said:

But it isnt any more fun to raise or maintain it.

Really? I think it's fun, I get happy knowing that I'm progressing it's taming process. Thinking about it now there could be some 2 to 3 visual indicator of when a beefalo is closer and closer to being tamed.