Sumarice of everything i feel i need to share about the beta release (TLDR: Love the direction so far)

[Malfario]

This is one of those betas where the release has very little to talk about, a big ol Work In Progress or WIP if you will. Nothing wrong with that but i do feel like because of everything being so bare bones there is to little to talk about or even enough to make proper posts. 

However after playing around with it i do think i have some stuff that could be benefitial to point out early in development, so lets jump straight at it:

New byome, the heat mechanic its extremly cool and i really like a localiced byome threat that gets evolved in a post ridt world,Only buts about said threat is that  i do think its important to showcase the player visually that the weird stones are the things that are producing the heat(non that its dificult to figure out but i think it feels akward there isnt a visually effect of the stones being hot).

As well as making them renewable. Its the byomes main thing and i think it would be kind of lame if the player could just remove it, now i am not saying making them unavoidable, but maybe during earthquakes heating boulders could fell that formed new heat rocks, or maybe just have them spawn every so often in summer.

The new trees are...weird ? they are good don´t get me wrong, i have yet to test their growth cycles but they look like a very very good option for early game mineral farming, i can see myself getting a bunch of sproutes early if i pass near by them on the ruins rush, but they are none renewable (as far as i know) and they share porpuse with petrification late game. I think they could have a mechanic like the rock fruit bushes where the continues farming of them grants you a small income of sprouts.

On the late game part, Generally speaking i think its an overall good adition, i don´t think the trees compete with petrification and i am always up for new methods of farming resources and new ways to do stuff in general, I just think it could be nice if these trees had a unique use that we couldn´t get from other parts of the game, maybe they grew dreadstone if they are planted during a shadow rift or something.

Now, on the byome as a whole, i think the vibe needs great improvement, there isn´t any ambient effects or sounds that i noticed, the byome doesn´t even have a unique turf or new mobs!, compared with the lunnar island or even moonquay it feels a bit off how this byome its just a minor threat and a resource (not counting the boss), give some hot steam clouds coming out of the rocks, a strim of lava going thro the ground, a cool color cube, have mobs doing cool stuf interacting with the rocks and trees, maybe mouse creatures that make their nests in unheated rocks or something. Maybe the corpse of the new boss is just there and gets reanimated during the shadow rifts, and talking about the boss.

//EDIT: after revisiting the post two days later i feel like i need to clarify all the concerns with the byomes vibe are under the assumption this is obviously a work in progress, its obvious this byome is gonna get a lot more features, i just thought mentioning was of value because we dont know the scope of new things the byome is gonna have.

For obvious reasons we can´t really talk about the boss, we can´t even fight it yet, only thing i would ask so far is please allow this centipede to have cool loot, i´ve seen a post where it seems to be that the boss is just a new mean to obtain dreadstone, WHICH IS GOOD, AND I LIKE THAT, 80 DREADSTONE FROM A BOSS ITS SOMETHING I ONLY DARED TO DREAM ABOUT. But a unique drop seems in order, just for the sake of it, its fun and engaging getting a cool item themed after a boss fight, i am probably beating this guy up as soon as it shows its two faced ass in my world, 80 dreadstone is probably good enough of a reward if the boss can be killed relatively quick. But dreadstone is mainly used to face a threat you created by opening the rifts. A cool reward thats fun an powerfull on its own to use after beating a big bad guy its a big part of the fun for a boss fight, making it only resource gather method almost feels incomplete. All of this is just being said under the asumption the boss doesn´t have a unique drop which could be not true at all so sorry if all this rant was pointless.

At last the puzzle....Absolute enigma, seriously tho its greatly designed, from the very start you can figure out what is going on, super fun to figure it out while still being a big head scratcher, it feels incredibly unique to the game, very dont starvy if you will. Only thing is that it would have been nice to mention on the patch notes its uncompleted as i spent 2 hours trying stuff on the guards room trying to get to the last room, cant wait to see what awaits me at the end.

And thats about it, very very excited for this update, knowing this is probably just part 1 of ancient echoes and so far the main objective is to get the tech heavy stuff out of the way i couldnt be happier by the looks of this update, i ll stay up for future patches anxiously waiting the rise of worm boy in the new amazing looking byome and uncover the secrets of the ancient ones. 

Thanks for all the hard work klei.

Edited September 7, 2025 by Malfario

[Milordo]

Heyyy Malfario! Always good to see you!

1 hour ago, Malfario said:

New byome, the heat mechanic its extremly cool and i really like a localiced byome threat that gets evolved in a post ridt world,Only buts about said threat is that  i do think its important to showcase the player visually that the weird stones are the things that are producing the heat(non that its dificult to figure out but i think it feels akward there isnt a visually effect of the stones being hot).

As well as making them renewable. Its the byomes main thing and i think it would be kind of lame if the player could just remove it, now i am not saying making them unavoidable, but maybe during earthquakes heating boulders could fell that formed new heat rocks, or maybe just have them spawn every so often in summer.

The new trees are...weird ? they are good don´t get me wrong, i have yet to test their growth cycles but they look like a very very good option for early game mineral farming, i can see myself getting a bunch of sproutes early if i pass near by them on the ruins rush, but they are none renewable (as far as i know) and they share porpuse with petrification late game. I think they could have a mechanic like the rock fruit bushes where the continues farming of them grants you a small income of sprouts.

On the late game part, Generally speaking i think its an overall good adition, i don´t think the trees compete with petrification and i am always up for new methods of farming resources and new ways to do stuff in general, I just think it could be nice if these trees had a unique use that we couldn´t get from other parts of the game, maybe they grew dreadstone if they are planted during a shadow rift or something.

Now, on the byome as a whole, i think the vibe needs great improvement, there isn´t any ambient effects or sounds that i noticed, the byome doesn´t even have a unique turf or new mobs!, compared with the lunnar island or even moonquay it feels a bit off how this byome its just a minor threat and a resource (not counting the boss), give some hot steam clouds coming out of the rocks, a strim of lava going thro the ground, a cool color cube, have mobs doing cool stuf interacting with the rocks and trees, maybe mouse creatures that make their nests in unheated rocks or something. Maybe the corpse of the new boss is just there and gets reanimated during the shadow rifts, and talking about the boss.

And thats about it, very very excited for this update, knowing this is probably just part 1 of ancient echoes and so far the main objective is to get the tech heavy stuff out of the way i couldnt be happier by the looks of this update, i ll stay up for future patches anxiously waiting the rise of worm boy in the new amazing looking byome and uncover the secrets of the ancient ones. 

Thanks for all the hard work klei.

I'm trying to not spoil about everything, so I'm only here for the new biome.

Yeahhhh super agreed on making the threat renewable. Always an often common mistake by Klei. Who knows, maybe they will fix it. Maybe not....

The new trees, I adore them. They share petrification? Wow! Klei remember it! Totally surprised. (Or you're talking about them growing with rocks?) For me they are not weird weird. They're weird good. The strange and mystic ambience you would find on Caves....or Ruins. Yeahhhh about that....

The new biome should be on the Ruins, with nightmare fissures. Already talked about it on my post. 

I think also, maybbbee, new animals or other cute stuff, should not be implemented on the new biome. Let me express better. Sure sure, new stuff to add to the biome, of course. It is very barren at the moment, BUT. Maybe that's the ambience Klei wants to reach. Think about it, it's the preparation. The anticipation for the Atrium, since it's official now. The barren wasteland does make sense. I of course agree and can't wait for Klei to add more, BUT I think they should be subtle. I don't know how to explain it or how to express myself better, hope it was clear. Like I'll try to make an example, smog! Yeah! Smog! Sometimes the biome is covered by heavy thick hot smog, for clouding your vision and maybe reducing your hunger faster? 

I gave other considerations in my other posts. 

 

Anyway, yup excited too. Tooo excited I am. This is big! BIG! First Ruins update and second Caves update, it's beeenn so loonnggg 😭😭😭😭😭😭

[Gooba]

Ripple / Megablight is not a boss

[Uedo]

The fumaroles (spelling) are clearly based on deep sea vents, especially the miasma being localised to it. It wouldn't make much sense to have them regrow, It's clearly a design choice to have it demonstrate that the shadow stuff is seeping upward from the abyss. 

If they wanted to make it so that when they're destroyed they create a new shadow fissure that follows the same mechanics as the ink blight trio fissures, that would be thematic and make sense in my opinion.

 

[Milordo]

14 hours ago, Uedo said:

The fumaroles (spelling) are clearly based on deep sea vents...

...demonstrate that the shadow stuff is seeping upward from the abyss. 

AS RUINS.

Jeez, it's like this biome should be in the Ruins! I didn't think about it, it's true. Very abyss deep sea like. Thanks Uedo.

14 hours ago, Uedo said:

If they wanted to make it so that when they're destroyed....

At this point I think this is the better option

 

Edited September 9, 2025 by Milordo

[Beetrice]

But what if I don't WANT to go to the ruins for all of the shadow rifts content?

[Milordo]

4 minutes ago, Beetrice said:

But what if I don't WANT to go to the ruins for all of the shadow rifts content?

You talk to me or malfario?