Disappointment with the Pearl's eviction is now even stronger after devs acknowledged the importance of player made builds in regards to the lost Y-axis mechanic

[Lovens]

Disclaimer: I originally wrote this post as a reply to another comment in a different thread. To avoid going off-topic, I made it into a separate post since it turned into a pretty lengthy reply. Please refer to another thread if you wanna read the start of this conversation.

9 hours ago, lowercase skye said:

Being upset about the way Hostile Takeover affected Pearl's island is entirely valid, but you've gotta stop presenting it as Klei having done something bad to Pearl the videogame character. What have they "done to poor Pearl," exactly? They allowed her to finally move on from this island that's been trapping her in the past, keeping her tethered to her lost love and clinging onto a false hope that he would one day come back. In reality, her idea of him is long dead, transformed into something that hardly resembles the man she knew. Now that she's moved on from this very-symbolic island, though, she can move in as a neighbor to these new people who are kind and care about her. She's no longer alone living in a pretty dollhouse of traumatic memories that we've constructed for her across miles of ocean, she's in our base and can interact with us every day!

When I say "Poor Pearl" I really mean the whole thing, and poor players like me who loved that part of the game. Here's what we got:

1) DST forever lost its unique and cool distinct landmark, a whole "location" if you will. A lot of charm in DST is that certain NPCs and points of interest reside in their designated "landmark spots". Just like Pig King is in Deciduous forest, Monkey Queen is on Moon Quay, AG is in its arena hidden behind a labyrinth, Moon Stone is in one of the evergreen forests, Oasis Lake is in the Oasis desert etc etc. Crabby Hermit was on Pearl's island. It was her dedicated place, it promoted exploration and promoted moving around the Constant even late game. There's a reason you don't get all setpieces and points of interest moved directly to your base. The game would be boring as hell if we could do that. Now we lost that unique landmark in the favor of turning it into a plain boss arena which could have been an addition to the game (like the Scrapyard), not a replacement of an existing landmark. 

2) Players got the whole "help Pearl to make her place better" arc and their efforts nullified. Her island was the only place in the game that actively guided players to build, plant, cultivate and enhance things, driven by the game plot and a set of little rewards. What was all of that for, in the end? Her home is now ruined, her favorite fishing spots are covered by ugly junk docks, her pretty garden is destroyed, and there are unremovable junk piles that regrow in the island every once in a while. Klei introduced a handicapped device to "relocate her" but even that is not given or hinted at to the player by the game. If you just follow the new storyline, Pearl gets evicted to Moon Quay (and that is only if you know what Wagstaff means when he says "inhabitable island") and you can just ignore her for the rest of the game. Nothing in the storyline rewards or encourages player to find and rescue Pearl from Moon Quay, it's purely optional. She is abruptly shoved there to make room for the new boss arena, swiped like old dust under a rug just so she is not in the way. By doing this Klei stomps on all the efforts players put into this place. Getting the chair blueprint from the dangerous ruins to unlock the sawhorse build furniture for her? Sailing half of the ocean in search of cookie cutters? Getting through the struggles of catching seasonal fish and timing seasonal tasks right? Going out of your way to bring flowers and berry bushes to plant on her island? Fishing out the junk around the island to tidy it up? All of it was for nothing. We got the pearl, we broke the pearl by killing CK and progressed the storyline further but this island was always a reminder of a finished accomplishment, a milestone in the game with all the things completed in it, it was like a board filled with gold stars that were then erased and thrown into a dumpster.  

Not only that, but a lot of her tasks were also repeatable for extra bundles of thanks. Some players, myself included, set up thematic builds on her island in order to repeat these tasks and get extra shell bundles. Things like kitchen with bundles of cactus salad ingredients, trawler nets for fish and fishing tanks, planted kelp around to dry on her drying racks etc. It was a fun cool reason to still visit the island and interact with Pearl and get an occasional heartwarming quote from her. 

3) If you wanna look at the "lore" side, I have to disappoint you here as well. Klei didn't "allow Pearl to move on". She was forcefully thrown out of the island by Wagstaff and put in the most random place on the map. If it all was about "moving on" from the abovementioned Crab King drama, she would have done it (or requested it) as soon as she saw the cracked pearl. If upon seeing the cracked pearl she'd unlock the rehomer kit and gave players a proper dialogue, I'd buy it. She could have THEN asked the player to be moved out of the island, telling them she feels lonely there and would like to see new places and have neighbors around her. Then of course it would all make sense. In reality, here's the picture: 

• Wagstaff invades her personal space by literally putting junk in her garden and on her private property;
• Wagstaff purposefully lies to her, tampering with a map we give him, suggesting her a new island that he for sure knows is populated by obnoxious monkeys (whose unnatural portal is there, duh?);
• Poor old deceived lady is forced to abruptly move out, she's glad to go anywhere just to not be around the annoying junk collector;
• She then lands on Moon Quay and nothing in the game prompts the player to go to that place and rescue her from there. An average player unfamiliar with the lore, without any external research, won't even know she's there. There is nothing in the Wagstaff dialogue that indicates she went there and not to any other island in the game, say, Lunar Island, or its satellites, or Frostjaw island. Or anywhere on the map really - the main land, after all, is also a big island. I know Wagstaff is looking for a map with Moon Quay on it specifically but he never explicitly mentions it in his quotes. He simply says "Give me a map with an island", and surely by the time you're so far into Lunar Arc, you will have other islands uncovered on it as well. The only way to know he means Moon Quay without any prior knowledge is accidentally give him a map without one discovered.

Nonetheless, "moving in as a neighbor to players" is purely optional and was a quick band aid Klei quickly slapped onto the game to shut up people unhappy that Pearl ended up on Moon Quay. They couldn't even make a proper rehomer kit - the one that exists in the game crams all her structures together into one ugly messy formation and makes it impossible to space them out to give her the same living conditions as before. The requirements to place it near water place the home way too close to the shore, restricting creativity when making this build. It barely leaves any room for her to walk around, let alone make a proper berry bush garden and flower beds for her hive. And you can't even replicate the original structure positions on her own island with this kit. If you compare it to a real life, it's like being forced into a tiny studio apartment from a private island mansion with acres of land. Poor Pearl (and we, poor players) were robbed by Klei in this update. And the fact that there is no player will, no choice here to oppose Wagstaff and evict him from Pearl's island, is even worse. By doing this Klei makes everyone who doesn't want to be a villain evicting poor lady, or to lose a unique game landmark, miss out on the final boss of the game. It really could have been executed so, so much better if they put more time and thought into that update instead of rushing it in like, what, two weeks? To complete the final Lunar Arc, the pinnacle of the story? What a sick joke. What a lousy and inconsiderate development of such meticulously crafted game with otherwise well-thought out art and lore!

__________________________________________________________________________________

What recently upset me even more about this whole Pearl's island destruction thing is that developers did acknowledge in the recent beta that some player made builds are impressive and are worth preserving: 

On 9/17/2025 at 11:00 PM, V2C said:

Hey guys, when we saw the images of the 3d structures using the bug/exploit, we were blown away too!  We asked around and were super surprised that none of us have ever seen these before!  That being said, the physics bug has been fixed, but we're going to try to find a way to preserve existing saved objects that are using this exploit, and provide a command for those who want to continue using it in the future.  Keep in mind that if you knowingly use this physics bug/exploit, we cannot provide any support for other errors caused by it.

We'll try to get a hotfix out so you can test your saves before the live build tomorrow.

So why does someone losing their glass castle warrantee a response from the devs and an attempt to preserve their creation, but my Pearl's island build now can forever rot in hell because Klei decided to turn the place into a boss arena? Why my efforts should be nullified and my creativity undermined? Who gets to decide what is beautiful and is worth preserving, and what is not? Who gets to judge that me spending more than 1000 hours on this build is less important than someone else spending 1000 hours of their time abusing the Y-axis glitch to build the aerial castle?

Here are, for the reference, screenshots of my now ruined build of Pearl's island and its boat bridge, that are forever contaminated by unremovable Wagstaff's junk after the Hostile Takeover update. Both junk piles and fences spawned in the garden and regenerate after being destroyed.  

[SilverSpoon]

To begin with, Hermit Rehomer is provided by Pearl, so it was her will that she remain on Crab Island. Whether it was Wagstaff or Klei who did it, she was forced off Crab Island against her will, and in some case player's will.

Personally I don't really like that doing against people's will and then considering that as "move on." If that was the storytelling Klei wanted, they should have done it deeply carefully and in stages. However, Klei didn't take enough time and cooking to rush out the Hostile Takeover update into Klei Fest.

Edited October 2, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[Cruvimaster]

For me, Klei's decision was a very good one. For me, the island was just a point on the map, completely useless after completing the quests. There are no unique resources, much less physical space to justify any effort there. Today, I have the NPC at my base and constantly interact with her, giving me a real reason to return to the island.

[Hollow soul 3]

Saying don't engage with it doesn't really work with a multiplayer game either. You don't always get the choice.

I think it sounds kind of pointless to help pearl to kick her out to help wagstaff to kill wagstaff. Can't say for sure though, I don't engage.

[Kehvran]

I like the fact that she is close to me now, I've always wanted to move Pearl close to my base, not gonna lie but it's a pain travelling all the way to her island just to trade bottles... I like the fact that she still interacts with bushes and racks, the only thing I miss is some new quotes about the new place and her stay on moon quay, maybe she could say "i hate this place, they steal my food" "give me some berry bushes you lazy youngster" lmao

Edited October 2, 2025 by Kehvran

[adminaaassh]

In fact, I’m not satisfied with the developers’ adjustments. What they actually did was just add a string of commands that merely preserved the statues in mid-air. But the cost of that was the permanent loss of this gameplay technique.
Once you use any code, it’s no different from cheating. The developers weren’t thinking from the players’ perspective — they considered changing game settings or using code as just a normal part of the game.
Moreover, when they implemented this fix, they didn’t even test it properly. The so-called “threat” they were trying to address wasn’t even one-tenth of one-tenth as serious as a malicious player wreaking havoc in your base.
Yet they still changed this technique in such a perfunctory way — that’s the part I’m most dissatisfied with.

 

[splorange]

I've seen a lot of complaints about the loss of pearl's island due to progression, personally I don't care much for the island itself but I do understand the value of being able to create your own cozy base on a remote island.

Back before the ocean in DST existed anywhere you went to discuss the game was flooded with requests for shipwrecked in DST, and I believe that was the influence that eventually convinced Klei to implement an ocean into DST. However, something that feels lacking and IMO the main reason why shipwrecked was so heavily requested is because people wanted to explore and base on islands.

This is where I think the current ocean kinda fails at. The selection of islands are unique but very sparse and mostly unhabitable; most of them are just setpieces. I do think the uniqueness of the islands is something DST excels at compared to shipwrecked, but when it comes to the amount of islands available it disappoints. I really don't think it would hurt to generate a handful of islands that are just existing biomes but separated from the mainland. If they wanted to go the extra mile they can add an island with a bunch of mactusk, island with lots of tallbirds, etc you get the idea.

Players are satisfied with the novelty of chilling and developing an island and pearl is about the only choice that offered that experience in DST. I'm doubtful that they will decide to majorly change the ocean after all these years but I hope they consider it. Maybe once we start seeing content for early and mid-game again.

 

[adminaaassh]

**“In fact, I don’t think the developers are currently thinking from the players’ perspective. They may feel that changing game settings, using codes to add or modify certain things, or setting specific states is reasonable. But as a sandbox game player, I believe the default should be that all updated content and items are playable, and both short-term and long-term saves should work normally. On top of that, it should be up to the players themselves to decide whether to install mods, make the game easier or harder, or choose between short- or long-term playthroughs.

From my point of view, making modifications through world settings or codes to achieve certain goals is, in plain terms, no different from cheating. Imagine this: you spend countless hours building a great wonder in a sandbox game, and then someone visits your save and asks how you created it. If you hesitate for a while and finally admit, ‘By using codes and changing game settings,’ all the sense of achievement and effort would instantly vanish, leaving you feeling uneasy. The admiration, envy, and respect in others’ eyes would disappear as well. These are the kinds of issues I believe developers should reflect on.

To me, the role of sandbox game developers should be like creating a vast, beautifully decorated plate. What items to place on it, where to place them, and how to use them—that should be entirely up to the players.”**

[Lovens]

Just now, adminaaassh said:

In fact, I’m not satisfied with the developers’ adjustments. What they actually did was just add a string of commands that merely preserved the statues in mid-air. But the cost of that was the permanent loss of this gameplay technique.
Once you use any code, it’s no different from cheating. The developers weren’t thinking from the players’ perspective — they considered changing game settings or using code as just a normal part of the game.
Moreover, when they implemented this fix, they didn’t even test it properly. The so-called “threat” they were trying to address wasn’t even one-tenth of one-tenth as serious as a malicious player wreaking havoc in your base.
Yet they still changed this technique in such a perfunctory way — that’s the part I’m most dissatisfied with.

 

That's very sad to hear. I didn't get into the details of how they "fixed it" but I think just reverting the "fix" that ruined such a fun and elaborate mechanic was a much better course of action, it's upsetting they didn't do it. Well, at least they acknowledged the importance of player-made builds, for once. I did not even get a single comment from the developers in regards to any of my concerns about Pearl's island and related builds, or the electric fires + moongleam controversy. Does it mean people have to use exploits when creating impressive builds to get developers attention to related issues? 

[adminaaassh]

In my view, an acceptable solution for the floating statues would have been to establish a proper Y-axis system or simply roll back the change. It was never really a problem to begin with, yet they treated it as one and “fixed” it. That’s what I find most frustrating.

If what you’re looking for is something like their so-called “fix” for the floating statues and the Y-axis system, well, that already exists — you can just use code to add a new island. But I don’t think that’s what you really want.

 

Press the ~ key to open the console

then enter: require"debugcommands"
After that, enter: d_spawnlayout("HermitcrabIsland")
This will generate a new Hermit Island.

Edited October 2, 2025 by adminaaassh

[Lovens]

45 minutes ago, adminaaassh said:

In my view, an acceptable solution for the floating statues would have been to establish a proper Y-axis system or simply roll back the change. It was never really a problem to begin with, yet they treated it as one and “fixed” it. That’s what I find most frustrating.

If what you’re looking for is something like their so-called “fix” for the floating statues and the Y-axis system, well, that already exists — you can just use code to add a new island. But I don’t think that’s what you really want.

 

Press the ~ key to open the console

then enter: require"debugcommands"
After that, enter: d_spawnlayout("HermitcrabIsland")
This will generate a new Hermit Island.

Just saw the console command part that you added. I doubt I will actually use it as it might mess up the world badly, but I'm curious to learn more about it. What does it do exactly - will it generate just the island terrain, or will there be another Pearl with original island objects (home, drying racks, bee hive, trees, plugged fissures)? Will all the hermit-related mechanics (like regrowing lureplant in spring) and task completion present as well? And what happens to the old NPC in that case?

[adminaaassh]

5 minutes ago, Lovens said:

Just saw the console command part that you added. I doubt I will actually use it as it might mess up the world badly, but I'm curious to learn more about it. What does it do exactly - will it generate just the island terrain, or will there be another Pearl with original island objects (home, drying racks, bee hive, trees, plugged fissures)? Will all the hermit-related mechanics (like regrowing lureplant in spring) and task completion present as well? And what happens to the old NPC in that case?

It will generate all the related islands and their attachments, but it hasn’t been thoroughly tested yet. I suggest you create a new save file before giving it a try.

[HowlVoid]

Ngl i didnt read all that but i think ive gotten the jist of what people are upset about. I dont think theres much point in a back in forth given its all subjective and relative to a persons experice. One thing that might be a fact, however, is if this didnt get addressed in the beta its probably not going to be adressed ever/for a long time. They would have to make time to think up and develope a solution (plus time for bug fixing).

So instead the only way i see to "solve" this (if they even see it as a problem in the first place) is to (develop a way to) avoid Wagstaffs quest completelty. So far there hasnt been any meaningful choice in which side you take, wether you take lunar or shadow. 

To keep it short, TL;DR

To nudge the developers into saving pearls island with a meaningful solution that also enhances the game; they should make choosing lunar or shadow a permanent choice. This would also provide a unique chance to really power up the rewards of each faction without the fear of overlap/stacking and the creation of "unique" worlds/saves.

End of TL;Dr

However with any implementation there will be people who dont like having to choose, but they can add a third choice where you can do some stuff and get "corrupted" lunar/shadow stuff thats weaker. Then youll have people who think theyve made the wrong choice and dont want to restart their world because maybe the synergy between their world and choice is weaker than they assumed (Cleanse option?). At the end of the day you cant please everyone. I dont see them doing this either cause its probably too late and the arc is near completion. 

Take this with a grain of salt as its more of an example of solutions needing to be found in future development rather than revisiting. They tend to only revisit if its going to be rather involved like RWYS (or if its an across the board impactful qol). I only say this cause ive been burned posting things thats not even on their radar anymore and they dont really have to tell us if they dont want to.

 

[Lovens]

7 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

Ngl i didnt read all that but i think ive gotten the jist of what people are upset about. I dont think theres much point in a back in forth given its all subjective and relative to a persons experice. One thing that might be a fact, however, is if this didnt get addressed in the beta its probably not going to be adressed ever/for a long time. They would have to make time to think up and develope a solution (plus time for bug fixing).

So instead the only way i see to "solve" this (if they even see it as a problem in the first place) is to (develop a way to) avoid Wagstaffs quest completelty. So far there hasnt been any meaningful choice in which side you take, wether you take lunar or shadow. 

To keep it short, TL;DR

To nudge the developers into saving pearls island with a meaningful solution that also enhances the game; they should make choosing lunar or shadow a permanent choice. This would also provide a unique chance to really power up the rewards of each faction without the fear of overlap/stacking and the creation of "unique" worlds/saves.

End of TL;Dr

However with any implementation there will be people who dont like having to choose, but they can add a third choice where you can do some stuff and get "corrupted" lunar/shadow stuff thats weaker. Then youll have people who think theyve made the wrong choice and dont want to restart their world because maybe the synergy between their world and choice is weaker than they assumed (Cleanse option?). At the end of the day you cant please everyone. I dont see them doing this either cause its probably too late and the arc is near completion. 

Take this with a grain of salt as its more of an example of solutions needing to be found in future development rather than revisiting. They tend to only revisit if its going to be rather involved like RWYS (or if its an across the board impactful qol). I only say this cause ive been burned posting things thats not even on their radar anymore and they dont really have to tell us if they dont want to.

 

A decent solution to my taste would be to give player an option to refuse building Warbot's arena in place of Pearl's island and make it possible to stand for Pearl and her place and evict Wagstaff somewhere else. Say, when he asks for the map and tampers with it, if you give it to him instead, he'll say something along the lines "I see, we hit a roadblock here. Let's try a different place". Then he vanishes and appears on on of the Lunar satellites, or on the main Lunar island instead, or on his own new island made out of junk which he would then allow you to expand with the docks. I don't care where he goes, just not to Pearl's island. 

This solution would give players the most important thing: freedom to choose and affect the storyline instead of blindly complying with whatever questionable stuff they are being forced into. Regarding to people who like Pearl's relocation kit: with such change relocating her could still be possible if players choose to proceed with her eviction. However the item will not be available to those who chose to preserve her original home place. 

[SpamBot0147]

1 hour ago, Lovens said:

That's very sad to hear. I didn't get into the details of how they "fixed it" but I think just reverting the "fix" that ruined such a fun and elaborate mechanic was a much better course of action, it's upsetting they didn't do it. Well, at least they acknowledged the importance of player-made builds, for once. I did not even get a single comment from the developers in regards to any of my concerns about Pearl's island and related builds, or the electric fires + moongleam controversy. Does it mean people have to use exploits when creating impressive builds to get developers attention to related issues? 

Yes, I was actually just about to say that the only thing I don't like about your post is that you make it seem like the Y axis situation was resolved, or even properly addressed. It was only acknowledged (as of so far).

[Echsrick]

thats just another reason why moon rifts are worse then shadow rifts

[Lovens]

6 minutes ago, SpamBot0147 said:

Yes, I was actually just about to say that the only thing I don't like about your post is that you make it seem like the Y axis situation was resolved, or even properly addressed. It was only acknowledged (as of so far).

I didn't say it was resolved, I only mentioned it was acknowledged. But even that now seems like a luxury to me - I (or anyone concerned about their bases during the previous two betas) never got a single word from the devs regarding Pearl's island destruction or moongleam controversy. None of these topics (and many more relevant comments that are buried in the beta update threads) featured a single dev comment regarding both issues:
 

 

 

[Cassielu]

Im Okay with that, Pearl's Island and Wagstaff's Arena basically equally unique and ugly distinct landmark  to me.

Look at that unnatural static layout overly embellished coastline and the square shallow ocean tiles, this was a mistake from the beginning.

[Evelo]

You already know my position on it Lovens. I don't understand mega basers and why yall do it. But I support it as a method of entertainment. Given the game has TONS of adjustable stuff in the server menu to make the experience how we like, I have no idea why we don't have more. It is an incredibly powerful tool Klei gave themselves, and seeing it underutilized is quite upsetting.

Edited October 2, 2025 by Evelo

[Jakepeng99]

2 hours ago, adminaaassh said:

In fact, I’m not satisfied with the developers’ adjustments. What they actually did was just add a string of commands that merely preserved the statues in mid-air. But the cost of that was the permanent loss of this gameplay technique.
Once you use any code, it’s no different from cheating. The developers weren’t thinking from the players’ perspective — they considered changing game settings or using code as just a normal part of the game.
Moreover, when they implemented this fix, they didn’t even test it properly. The so-called “threat” they were trying to address wasn’t even one-tenth of one-tenth as serious as a malicious player wreaking havoc in your base.
Yet they still changed this technique in such a perfunctory way — that’s the part I’m most dissatisfied with.

 

Off topic

[Ridley]

Those pictures are not what a ruined build rotting in hell looks like. And quite frankly, I think it is poetic that the Crab King statue now resides in a backyard junkyard.

[lowercase skye]

7 hours ago, Lovens said:

If you wanna look at the "lore" side, I have to disappoint you here as well. Klei didn't "allow Pearl to move on". 

Like, I'm sorry, but this isn't a difficult story to understand. You meet Pearl as a grumpy (or, well, crabby) hermit living alone at sea, waiting patiently at the spot she first met the Crab King even though a chunk of moon now sits in its place, and spends all day just fishing for food and sending out notes begging for him to come back to her. You befriend her, slowly prying past her hard shell and letting that sweet old lady inside back out. Eventually you fight the Crab King with the pearl, a gift he had given her long ago, and not only does he not recognize it but ends up breaking it in the process, which is what finally seems to give Pearl the message that he's not coming back. Once Wagstaff shows up and takes advantage of the survivor's trust, she's given the option to leave to another island and, after thinking about it for a bit... concludes that she's done waiting for the Crab King to come back, she's ready to move on and leave this place where her life centered around him. It's a very simple story about loss, isolating oneself, and finding the strength to move on. This reading that Pearl is being forced off of her favorite island that she loves so much because it's so so pretty and full of structures and her life is now a Finished Accomplishment is an incredibly emotionally charged one that does not actually line up with the events happening in the story at all.

Also, the Hermit re-homer is not a "band aid Klei put in to shut people up", that's a crazy bad faith statement. It was there in concept art and simply took a little bit to get added, would you also consider the Celestial Scion a "band aid Klei put in to shut people up who were complaining about the WARBOT not having enough phases" just because it wasn't there immediately at the start of a beta? A beta which, might I had, was notorious for lacking the majority of its content when it first came out? Pearl didn't even have dialogue on the Moon Quay at that point, she would just wander around acting as if she was still on her own island, of course it wasn't meant to stay that way forever until people complained, it was just unfinished.

[Lovens]

1 hour ago, lowercase skye said:

Like, I'm sorry, but this isn't a difficult story to understand. You meet Pearl as a grumpy (or, well, crabby) hermit living alone at sea, waiting patiently at the spot she first met the Crab King even though a chunk of moon now sits in its place, and spends all day just fishing for food and sending out notes begging for him to come back to her. You befriend her, slowly prying past her hard shell and letting that sweet old lady inside back out. Eventually you fight the Crab King with the pearl, a gift he had given her long ago, and not only does he not recognize it but ends up breaking it in the process, which is what finally seems to give Pearl the message that he's not coming back. Once Wagstaff shows up and takes advantage of the survivor's trust, she's given the option to leave to another island and, after thinking about it for a bit... concludes that she's done waiting for the Crab King to come back, she's ready to move on and leave this place where her life centered around him. It's a very simple story about loss, isolating oneself, and finding the strength to move on. This reading that Pearl is being forced off of her favorite island that she loves so much because it's so so pretty and full of structures and her life is now a Finished Accomplishment is an incredibly emotionally charged one that does not actually line up with the events happening in the story at all.

I saw that people mentioned that even after completing Warbot's questline she keeps mentioning Crab King. Oh, she's so not over him. She is delusional even after seeing the broken pearl and thinks she could still be closer to him: 

That doesn't matter though. I couldn't care less about lore inconsistencies. What matters to me the most is that my experience was ruined. My beautiful build was trashed and I have no option to progress towards finishing the Lunar arc without completely destroying my build. It's equally heartbreaking as watching people's Y-axis creations fall apart after supposed "bugfix", or somebody else's base burn because a stupid moongleam spawned offscreen and set a plant mob on fire. 

Quote

Also, the Hermit re-homer is not a "band aid Klei put in to shut people up", that's a crazy bad faith statement. It was there in concept art and simply took a little bit to get added, would you also consider the Celestial Scion a "band aid Klei put in to shut people up who were complaining about the WARBOT not having enough phases" just because it wasn't there immediately at the start of a beta? A beta which, might I had, was notorious for lacking the majority of its content when it first came out? Pearl didn't even have dialogue on the Moon Quay at that point, she would just wander around acting as if she was still on her own island, of course it wasn't meant to stay that way forever until people complained, it was just unfinished.

It is not bad because it was added late. It is bad because it restricts building freedom and doesn't even allow to replicate the original alignment of Pearl's structures relative to each other. It's a poor imitation of her place, it looks modded. It's not a genuine "relocation kit" because every placement of every structure is messed up and they are bunched too close together and are required to be placed too close to the water. If Klei put a bit more time and effort into it, they could have done it a lot better. They could have allowed players to at least restore her island back to the original state after the fight is done and place her structures where they were. They could have made separate placer for each one of her structures, allowing for building freedom and proper "relocation". Not to mention some of the unique Pearl's island features (plugged fissures with cool shells over them that did "Toot!" every once in a while are forever lost, nobody thought of making at least a replica of them or something similar to make up for the lost ambience of her unique place.

We got none of that. This landmark was unthoughtfully stomped on by the developers, and most players gladly boarded the destruction train. I feel like a 3 year old kid with a destroyed sandcastle that some jerk trampled over, trying to prove to them why that cool little build decorated with pretty shells was so important to me. 

[lowercase skye]

1 hour ago, Lovens said:

I saw that people mentioned that even after completing Warbot's questline she keeps mentioning Crab King. Oh, she's so not over him. She is delusional even after seeing the broken pearl and thinks she could still be closer to him: 

This was a bug that made her low friendship dialogue play even at full friendship. Lunar Rifts can be turned on in the world settings without having to do the Celestial Champion questline, meaning you'll almost certainly have a low-level friendship Pearl while Wagstaff is on her island, leading to a non-canon scenario where she leaves her island while still disliking the player and being snippy towards them. And that dialogue was triggering all the time because the code wasn't properly tracking her friendship when choosing which dialogue to play there.

Also I just checked in-game right now and this bug was not only fixed, but the dialogue in question has been entirely removed, like it just doesn't exist anymore at all.

1 hour ago, Lovens said:

It is not bad because it was added late. It is bad because it restricts building freedom and doesn't even allow to replicate the original alignment of Pearl's structures relative to each other. It's a poor imitation of her place, it looks modded. It's not a genuine "relocation kit" because every placement of every structure is messed up and they are bunched too close together and are required to be placed too close to the water.

I mean that's fair but I'm responding to the part of your post where you say it's a band-aid solution that Klei only added to shut up people for complaining, which is just a wrong statement.

Edited October 3, 2025 by lowercase skye

[Lovens]

6 hours ago, lowercase skye said:

This was a bug that made her low friendship dialogue play even at full friendship. Lunar Rifts can be turned on in the world settings without having to do the Celestial Champion questline, meaning you'll almost certainly have a low-level friendship Pearl while Wagstaff is on her island, leading to a non-canon scenario where she leaves her island while still disliking the player and being snippy towards them. And that dialogue was triggering all the time because the code wasn't properly tracking her friendship when choosing which dialogue to play there.

Also I just checked in-game right now and this bug was not only fixed, but the dialogue in question has been entirely removed, like it just doesn't exist anymore at all.

I mean that's fair but I'm responding to the part of your post where you say it's a band-aid solution that Klei only added to shut up people for complaining, which is just a wrong statement.

You got a fair point here about the dialogue bugs being fixed for the consistency, I didn't know that since I just stopped playing in the world where my pretty Pearl island build was ruined. I didn't even open it on prod after update - the screenshots were made from a test copy of it that I opened on testing. 

It's very upsetting to see that even fixing the dialogue is more important for devs than providing players with options to avoid this kind of destruction. This whole Pearl eviction arc feels like a bad dream that I still hope to wake up from sometime, back to the time when I loved DST and was excited about every new update, not feared and upset it will even further ruin my enjoyment of it. 

And now the thread asking for a simple toggle for electric fires on plant mobs (or a toggle for moongleams specifically doing fire damage on plant mobs) was closed. How convenient it is to simply shut up passionate players begging to just be allowed to build a base in peace and their decorations not be ruined, instead of actually doing what they asked for! 

Edited October 3, 2025 by Lovens