Suggestion: Add Optional Mob Health Bars (Toggle Feature for Console Players)

[Well-met]

not gonna lie everyone I know who plays this game me included has been using Epic Healthbar for years and I can't imagine playing this game without it

[slendyproject]

2 hours ago, Cheggf said:

We should remove hunger & sanity from the game and instead add guns to it. If you disagree, you're just stuck in the past. Hunger and sanity are simply getting in the way of my poor-man's boss rush, while guns would help me do it faster. Get on it, Klei!

I am honestly tired of this disingenuous argument whenever anyone dares criticize anything about this game, someone here will pretend that its the same thing as removing *insert core mechanic*. My opinion is that if something makes the game harder but sucks as a play experince it should go. Not having boss healthbars falls under that because it literally makes the game feel unpolished. Hunger existing doesn't.

[Cheggf]

7 minutes ago, slendyproject said:

I am honestly tired of this disingenuous argument whenever anyone dares criticize anything about this game, someone here will pretend that its the same thing as removing *insert core mechanic*. My opinion is that if something makes the game harder but sucks as a play experince it should go. Not having boss healthbars falls under that because it literally makes the game feel unpolished. Hunger existing doesn't.

It's literally what he said. Read what I'm responding to. 

[Hungry French]

5 hours ago, Capybara007 said:

Забавно, что в 2025 году люди продолжают твердить, что «это не в духе Don’t Starve». То же самое происходит, когда кто-то говорит, что в игре могут быть достижения, а в ответ слышит только: «10 лет назад Клей сказал, что достижений не будет, так что они должны придерживаться этого видения». Don’t Starve уже не та, что была 10 лет назад

I don't see any problems with achievements)

3 hours ago, Well-met said:

не буду врать, все, кого я знаю и кто играет в эту игру, включая меня, уже много лет пользуются Epic Healthbar, и я не представляю, как можно играть в эту игру без него

Calmly. If the health of the raid bosses is comparable to seasonal ones, or at least with Werepig and Guardian.

[slendyproject]

11 hours ago, Cheggf said:

It's literally what he said. Read what I'm responding to. 

I did. They did not suggest removing core mechanics or anything remotely similar to it. I also in general agree with the sentiment that DST is a very different experience with different goals than DS is/was and it should probably change accordingly. I have been trying to get my friends into this game for years, and I consistently find that a lot of "uncompromising" features of the game come off as needlessly annoying and obtuse and make them discouraged.

The truth is it sucks being a new player in this game because you have no idea whats going on, and the game makes you feel like you are an additional obstacle and burden for your teammates. So yeah I think HP bars and achievements and whatnot could all be welcome changes to make the new player experience better. HP bars especially, the game already tells you the boss HP in the scrapbook, except you cant even open that stupid thing from the menus making you waste precious ingame time just to read it. Like just let people see the HP on screen when its relevant, instead of this weird half measure.

[Curly Bill]

I think an item that keeps track of how much damage you're dealing to a target would maybe be neat. Like a little medallion in your inventory that builds up every X amount of damage on 1 enemy. Maybe make it so it locks onto bosses, so you dont accidentally reset it when fighting multiple enemies

[Cheggf]

26 minutes ago, slendyproject said:

I did. They did not suggest removing core mechanics or anything remotely similar to it. I also in general agree with the sentiment that DST is a very different experience with different goals than DS is/was and it should probably change accordingly. I have been trying to get my friends into this game for years, and I consistently find that a lot of "uncompromising" features of the game come off as needlessly annoying and obtuse and make them discouraged.

The truth is it sucks being a new player in this game because you have no idea whats going on, and the game makes you feel like you are an additional obstacle and burden for your teammates. So yeah I think HP bars and achievements and whatnot could all be welcome changes to make the new player experience better. HP bars especially, the game already tells you the boss HP in the scrapbook, except you cant even open that stupid thing from the menus making you waste precious ingame time just to read it. Like just let people see the HP on screen when its relevant, instead of this weird half measure.

They are suggesting removing a core mechanic. They're suggesting removing keeping track of boss health and just having it be explicitly displayed to you. 

[SilverSpoon]

16 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

They are suggesting removing a core mechanic. They're suggesting removing keeping track of boss health and just having it be explicitly displayed to you. 

It was written as "toggleable" from the beginning. It wasn't added at edit.

First of all, was keeping track of boss health a core mechanic of the gameplay experience in DST and DS? What kind games are known and advertised keeping track of boss health as a core mechanic of fun? But you can toggle it off for people who enjoy that kind of thing.

Edited October 10, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[Capybara007]

8 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

They are suggesting removing a core mechanic. They're suggesting removing keeping track of boss health and just having it be explicitly displayed to you. 

"Core mechanic" 

[Bumber64]

Yeah, I assume most people just hit something until it's dead.

If you're using a weapon with a known durability, you know how much of that you need to go through before the end. However, all tracking falls apart if there's other damage sources you aren't in control of (e.g., shadow tentacles, followers, other players). Therefore, you just keep hitting it until it keels over.

Edited October 10, 2025 by Bumber64

[Well-met]

5 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

Yeah, I assume most people just hit something until it's dead.

If you're using a weapon with a known durability, you know how much of that you need to go through before the end. However, all tracking falls apart if there's other damage sources you aren't in control of (e.g., shadow tentacles, followers, other players). Therefore, you just keep hitting it until it keels over.

that sounds simple on paper until you realize dst giants take alot, ALOT of time to the point it greatly interferes with your need of light, temperature and hunger.

being completely blind to your progress and having no idea how long you have to endure a fight is not good videogame design period. As someone else said before, the only reason this worked fine in DS1 is because health pools are minuscule.

[AliceShiki]

I agree with the sentiment that most people just hit stuff until it dies.

Like, I'm sure some really experienced veterans actually do keep track of boss health by counting how many hits they landed or by paying attention to their weapons' durabilities and bringing enough weapons to make sure they last enough to end the fight, but... I doubt that this reflects the average player experience. Most people just bring enough resources to think that it should be enough to kill, with some extra excess for safety, then just keep smacking things until they die.

[Kaioh]

No need to restrict this to just console, adding it to the base game in general would be an improvement, even if it's just a toggle feature

[Spicybullfrog]

i agree with the sentiment that adding a direct health bar to the bosses does take something away from the experience. In many cases, the lack of feedback from the game is part of the experience, and makes it richer. It can complicate your plans if a boss is dying earlier or later than you expected, and you may have to improvise on-the-spot as a result.

one example of this idea is beefalo. If you knew the HP of your beefalo, you would have no issue utilizing its full health bar and even going down to low HP regularly; a obscured health bar makes you much more damage-averse, changing the way you interact with fights. 

plus, when the big tanky raid bosses do show up, there's usually plenty of visual indicators to show whether or not you're doing well against it. Toadstool will roar and drop loot, ancient guardian will bleed nightmare fuel, and crab king will visibly get more cracked as the fight progresses. The only odd one out i can think of is fuelweaver, and you arent summoning that one without external information anyways.

It's definitely a deliberate design choice to forgo the health bars, and having a toggle to add them in would fall under the umbrella of "please add a toggle to remove a game mechanic i dont like" - nobody would ever go without it because its an objective upgrade that affects your decision making process during bossfights

[Captain_Rage]

The whole concept behind the Rhinocerebros from The Forge was that the players had to subdue both enemies in a narrow time frame in order to defeat them or they would bounce back in a more dangerous form and mess up the fight hard. Adding healtbars (cheating) completely undermines events like The Forge where kiting, timings and paying attention in fights is imperative.

Spoiler

https://dontstarve.fandom.com/wiki/Rhinocebro

Here is another example why having perfect control over the situation in combat makes the game utterly boring. He literally says "I do want to kill the first phase close to the center of the arena so I am going to lure him over here in order to deal the finishing blow", turning an unforgiving end-game boss into one that lets you kite around with impunity :

Spoiler

 

 

The truth is that if a player is awful at the game no manner of bars on the screen will help him improve. You need to stay observant. There are players who suck and are still completely clueless after 2000 hours in the game and there are ones who get the hang of how combat mechanics work within their first 20 hours perfectly well without any mods or silly rollbacks. Saying that adding optional toggable mumbo jumbo because it would make the world a better place or that it won't undermine core designs of the game is delusional.

[Edible Coal]

i just think the artificial hardness of no visible health meter just isnt fun 

[SilverSpoon]

18 hours ago, Captain_Rage said:

The whole concept behind the Rhinocerebros from The Forge was that the players had to subdue both enemies in a narrow time frame in order to defeat them or they would bounce back in a more dangerous form and mess up the fight hard. Adding healtbars (cheating) completely undermines events like The Forge where kiting, timings and paying attention in fights is imperative.

It looks like you posted in the wrong place. You should post that in The Forge thread. What’s the point of bring up enemy that aren’t in DST while we’re talking about DST?

Include Rhinocerebros, there’s no event like The Forge in DST. 

18 hours ago, Captain_Rage said:

Here is another example why having perfect control over the situation in combat makes the game utterly boring. He literally says "I do want to kill the first phase close to the center of the arena so I am going to lure him over here in order to deal the finishing blow", turning an unforgiving end-game boss into one that lets you kite around with impunity 

The real issue is that the masked data can swing the difficulty so widely and you can’t even reset it.

18 hours ago, Captain_Rage said:

Saying that adding optional toggable mumbo jumbo because it would make the world a better place or that it won't undermine core designs of the game is delusional.

Why? If you want to enjoy that "core designs", just toggle it off. What's wrong?

On 10/27/2025 at 6:56 AM, Spicybullfrog said:

It's definitely a deliberate design choice to forgo the health bars, and having a toggle to add them in would fall under the umbrella of "please add a toggle to remove a game mechanic i dont like" - nobody would ever go without it because its an objective upgrade that affects your decision making process during bossfights

The game already lets you toggle off various threats, but not everyone does.

Edited October 28, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[Milordo]

11 hours ago, Spicybullfrog said:

Snip

1 hour ago, Captain_Rage said:

Snip

Thanks thanks thanks!!

[Cheggf]

5 hours ago, Edible Coal said:

i just think the artificial hardness of no visible health meter just isnt fun 

If anything is artificial it's adding healthbars lol

[Spicybullfrog]

6 hours ago, SilverSpoon said:

The game already lets you toggle off various threats, but not everyone does.

Many of the world options exist for accessibility purposes. It really depends on if the suggestion is to put health bars in the world settings, or to put health bars in your personal settings, like grid placement is. If it's the latter, then this would be a global thing that people would be using in any server, theoretically.

 

6 hours ago, Edible Coal said:

i just think the artificial hardness of no visible health meter just isnt fun 

I saw people talking earlier about bloated health pools and I just don't think it's true. 
i think people just look at the health and see werepig with 10K and assume its a raid boss that isnt balanced for soloing, but in practice it doesn't take any longer to kill than any normal seasonal boss. DST bosses have large periods where you're allowed to attack it completely unimpeded, which skews the fight length severely. 
obviously there are genuine raid bosses but they're few and far between and in my experience most of the time the reason the fight takes so long is because people use a ham bat instead of spending resources for a stronger weapon. 

i'm pretty sure deerclops actually dies faster in DST than in DS, since DS players not only can't move to cancel attacks, they also have to dodge a big sphere instead of a cone that you can sidestep. This leads to DS players getting 3 hits in between every attack and DST players getting a whopping six to eight depending on if youre cracked with attack cancelling.

[SilverSpoon]

8 minutes ago, Spicybullfrog said:

Many of the world options exist for accessibility purposes. It really depends on if the suggestion is to put health bars in the world settings, or to put health bars in your personal settings, like grid placement is. If it's the latter, then this would be a global thing that people would be using in any server, theoretically.

If that would take your agreement, I’m fine with adding an option in the world settings to force Health Bar off for everyone rather than as a personal setting.

Edited October 27, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[wormwood123]

On 10/9/2025 at 12:56 AM, Captain_Rage said:

.... making the game easier.

If the game wants a focus on bosses it should have boss bars like most other games as atleast an option. They could even make them where maybe you can’t see them unless you beat the boss. Or do cool things with ancient fuel weaver for example where if you’re low sanity shadows cover the boss bar

[HowlVoid]

I think this would be great, but more cues via changing models for bosses would be neat too (more rugged/wounds/scars). 

Though ive been more leaning to an item, maybe a new type of ocuvigil. Ive already had a good way of gauging boss health via weapon durability but its not exactly smooth.

I honestly dont see this making the game easier for me personally. I cant fanthom how it would affect me in that way since i usually calculate needed items/healing and practice fights (especially new ones) before engaging in a legit world. 

[cybers2001]

On 10/8/2025 at 11:34 PM, Curly Bill said:

Maybe a mid-late game item could work though? an item you can have in your hand to show like the level of hp for bosses/enemies? kind of like the Premier Gardeneer Hat, the Thulecite Medallion or even compass.

I always thought the WARBIS helmet should show health bars.

[Tigris Nano]

Well I would like to have some way to know how long do I have to punch stuff like dfly, scion, cc, warbot which are just huge damage sponges (btw 2 of them have chance to just instagib you and you cant even leave arena and prepare better unless you are wanda/woodie/already dead and in 3rd case your stuff gets blocked there with scion) but in other way than hp bar. Healthbar quite doesnt fit (unless as addition to warbis headgear ui) to game visual style I think. Visual/sound clues (like ones crabking and ds wagstaff have) would be better solution tho it would take much more time. Besides that I would reduce boss hp and maybe add damage reduction formula based on amount of players hitting boss (not hp amount because some bosses are already spawned like minotaur and there could be cases where player spawns boss alone, it gets less hp, then others kick in).

Edited October 27, 2025 by Tigris Nano