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

[Bellium]

9 hours ago, Captain_Rage said:

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

I've gotta say this is a terrible argument against health bars. If you make the mistake of killing Warbot close to the side of the arena then you can end up with a single leg to hide behind, making scion pratically impossible (if it wasn't bad enough already). 

Anyway I'm all for giving console players QoL features that can be easily downloaded on PC, just make it a server side setting that you enable on world start up, and if you think it makes the game too easy just don't enable it, like PC players don't have to download mods.

[Cheggf]

2 hours ago, wormwood123 said:

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

Most other games that focus on bosses don't have mechanics like hunger and sanity. Should they be removed too? Pulling comparisons to other games is pointless. Don't Starve is not other games. 

[wormwood123]

1 minute ago, Cheggf said:

Most other games that focus on bosses don't have mechanics like hunger and sanity. Should they be removed too? Pulling comparisons to other games is pointless. Don't Starve is not other games. 

Don’t be dumb every game has unique mechanics. 

[NotGabriel]

On 10/8/2025 at 9:31 PM, Evelo said:

"(Toggle Feature for Console Players)"
Why just console?

More that it’d be useful for console players because health bar mods are so widely used on PC. It’s like how we wanted geometric placement forever and Klei finally delivered 

2 hours ago, Bellium said:

I've gotta say this is a terrible argument against health bars. If you make the mistake of killing Warbot close to the side of the arena then you can end up with a single leg to hide behind, making scion pratically impossible (if it wasn't bad enough already). 

Anyway I'm all for giving console players QoL features that can be easily downloaded on PC, just make it a server side setting that you enable on world start up, and if you think it makes the game too easy just don't enable it, like PC players don't have to download mods.

Exactly. I genuinely don’t understand the opposition to an optional feature. “Oh no I have to have discipline to not flip the switch on something I don’t like”

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, wormwood123 said:

Don’t be dumb every game has unique mechanics. 

Yeah like not having a healthbar and actually having to pay attention. 

[NotGabriel]

5 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Yeah like not having a healthbar and actually having to pay attention. 

If it were an optional feature you could still play that way and feel like the superior gamer to people who do have it on, I don’t see how this isn’t a win-win

[Cheggf]

6 minutes ago, NotGabriel said:

If it were an optional feature you could still play that way and feel like the superior gamer to people who do have it on, I don’t see how this isn’t a win-win

Thinking that anyone even remotely cares about "feeling like the superior gamer" is about what I would expect from someone who unironically uses "you control the buttons you press" as an argument. 

[Mike23Ua]

1 hour ago, Cheggf said:

Yeah like not having a healthbar and actually having to pay attention. 

When it comes to DST you have to look on an annoyingly dumb Wikipedia website to find out how many hits it takes to kill a mob with which weapon. Then the process of the entire game comes down to “hit this mob or boss a few times, step out of the way of its one slow attack, hit it some more till it’s dead”

But if mobs had health bars I would know important information such as: Which of Evil Bunny Lords Minions are lower on health & closer to dying, so I can focus on enemies on “okay which one is closest to being eliminated?” Style basis.

Games like Borderlands, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Splintered Fate, & even Fortnite utilize these health bars (or visual body damage) to indicate to the player what they need to prioritize attacking.

Information like this would allow me to for example: Decide if I want to use the durability of my weapon on Bunny Minion Guard, or the main Bunny Boss Himself. And knowing how close it is to actually dying, is a vital part of that process of elimination.

[Cheggf]

2 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

the process of the entire game comes down to “hit this mob or boss a few times, step out of the way of its one slow attack, hit it some more till it’s dead”

It sounds like you don't like the game's combat and a health bar won't do anything to change your experience. 

3 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

But if mobs had health bars I would know important information such as: Which of Evil Bunny Lords Minions are lower on health & closer to dying, so I can focus on enemies on “okay which one is closest to being eliminated?” Style basis.

Enemies don't randomly lose health for no reason. You already know this information if you pay attention. You can see every time they take damage, especially because the vast majority of the damage they take is directly from you doing it. 

[Mike23Ua]

2 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

It sounds like you don't like the game's combat and a health bar won't do anything to change your experience. 

Enemies don't randomly lose health for no reason. You already know this information if you pay attention. You can see every time they take damage, especially because the vast majority of the damage they take is directly from you doing it. 

Not exactly.. no. Enemy health can change not just based on my own hitting it in the face with a frozen meat stick, but also from other variables & factors: such as other players, followers, Abigail, Random Mobs that come over and be all like “Hey yeah we’re just gonna interrupt what’s going on over here and beat up all of ya’ll” 

It’s still a nice QoL to know how much health the enemy (or enemies) has left.

[NotGabriel]

10 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Enemies don't randomly lose health for no reason. You already know this information if you pay attention. You can see every time they take damage, especially because the vast majority of the damage they take is directly from you doing it

This argument falls apart entirely when you get to Nightmare Werepig. The community would straight up have NO idea he regen’d health constantly without healthbar mods or data mining lol

[Cheggf]

7 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Not exactly.. no. Enemy health can change not just based on my own hitting it in the face with a frozen meat stick, but also from other variables & factors: such as other players, followers, Abigail, Random Mobs that come over and be all like “Hey yeah we’re just gonna interrupt what’s going on over here and beat up all of ya’ll” 

It’s still a nice QoL to know how much health the enemy (or enemies) has left.

You can see when all of that happens. 

[Spicybullfrog]

18 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

When it comes to DST you have to look on an annoyingly dumb Wikipedia website to find out how many hits it takes to kill a mob with which weapon. Then the process of the entire game comes down to “hit this mob or boss a few times, step out of the way of its one slow attack, hit it some more till it’s dead”

no you dont you can look up the exact damage and durability values of every weapon in the game as well as the max hp of every creature by using the scrapbook
scrapbook scrapbook scrapbook!!!! guys it has useful information in it you can use it instead of going to a wiki i feel like im taking crazy pills whenever i see two people having a discussion and they act like the scrapbook doesnt exist because it was after their time 

[slendyproject]

52 minutes ago, Spicybullfrog said:

no you dont you can look up the exact damage and durability values of every weapon in the game as well as the max hp of every creature by using the scrapbook
scrapbook scrapbook scrapbook!!!! guys it has useful information in it you can use it instead of going to a wiki i feel like im taking crazy pills whenever i see two people having a discussion and they act like the scrapbook doesnt exist because it was after their time 

The scrapbook kinda sucks though. Why cant we open it from the menu? Why do I have to waste ingame time to read it in multiplayer? Why cant I see some of its info in the craft ui on items I am about to craft (there is plenty of space)? Why do I need to memorize values from it instead of the game just telling me as a tooltip (or a healthbar on bosses)?

[Mike23Ua]

1 hour ago, Spicybullfrog said:

no you dont you can look up the exact damage and durability values of every weapon in the game as well as the max hp of every creature by using the scrapbook
scrapbook scrapbook scrapbook!!!! guys it has useful information in it you can use it instead of going to a wiki i feel like im taking crazy pills whenever i see two people having a discussion and they act like the scrapbook doesnt exist because it was after their time 

The scrapbook wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for my (& others) constant complaining about a lack of information conveyed within the game.

And on that note: I actually can toggle off the health bars for games like Borderlands 3 & Dead Island 2, but enemies will still take visible limb damage (they’ll limp if shot in the leg etc) to show that I’m actually hurting them.

When it comes to DST there are very very few mobs that show a visible change in how hurt they are. Bearger being the only one I can think of right off hand where it’ll lose fur & become more scraggly looking when damaged.

I personally do not get the argument of having HP bars making the game too easy, you still have to hit the enemy the same amount of wacks, and dodge the same attacks, only with a HP bar you’d know if your wasting your time (& tool durability) or if your actually making any progress.

As someone who plays Exclusively on Xbox: I have fought both Dragonfly & Klaus having no clue they regenerated health points, so naturally it was a never ending fight until I finally got fed up & and looked it up on the Wiki to discover that if you flea the area to recover: They’ll recover too.

Something that HP bars would have told me instantly.

[AliceShiki]

2 hours ago, Spicybullfrog said:

no you dont you can look up the exact damage and durability values of every weapon in the game as well as the max hp of every creature by using the scrapbook
scrapbook scrapbook scrapbook!!!! guys it has useful information in it you can use it instead of going to a wiki i feel like im taking crazy pills whenever i see two people having a discussion and they act like the scrapbook doesnt exist because it was after their time 

Scrapbook is useless in multiplayer since it doesn't pause the game. For anyone that plays this game in pubs or with friends, scrapbook is essentially non-existent.

But yes, it is a useful tool for people playing solo. Not as useful as the wiki, but it's certainly convenient that it is there within the game itself.

[Evelo]

5 hours ago, NotGabriel said:

I genuinely don’t understand the opposition to an optional feature. “Oh no I have to have discipline to not flip the switch on something I don’t like”

Disease was optional, but so few used it that it was eventually removed. Now the people who played with it can never again play with disease.
This quote is about competitive MTG but it applies to DST and thousands of other things over the years. And your comment is similar in many ways with the reply #2 even though it isn't intentional. 

Spoiler

This individual, JWhite with a twitter... thing of @RealPokemoki wrote, 
"You have a favorite restaurant that you've dined at for many years now. You love it because they serve high quality food and are staffed by people who care about making the experience of eating at the restaurant good. One day, you notice a new item on the menu.

Slop.

"What's this for?" You ask the waiter.

"It's for the pigs. Pigs eat slop."

Over time, a 2nd flavor of slop shows up on the menu. Then a 3rd. Then you notice that some of the old menu items you use to love now come with a non-optional side of slop. All menu items are now designed with the pigs in mind, on the chance that one of them might try their hand at human food. The quality and preparation of the human food that's left on the menu also starts to degrade. When you ask the restaurant staff about it they inform you that they no longer have the resources to make sure the human food is prepared correctly; they're too busy making slop. You notice that some of the restaurant patrons that you've become good friends with have stopped showing up. You stop showing up. You are upset with the direction the restaurant is taking and post about it on social media. You get two types of replies.

1. I am a pig and I eat slop
2. The restaurant is doing so well and has so many patrons. How can you be upset? Getting more customers into the restaurant has to be a good thing. 

This 2nd comment is particularly frustrating because it naively assumes the entire restaurant clientele wants the same things. But you don't want 5 different flavors of slop. You want human food that is prepared by people who are passionate about food and who are about the experience of dining at the restaurant being a good one. It's something you use to be able to get here, but can't anymore. You don't care if there are more pigs eating at the restaurant now. You liked things just fine when there were no pigs and contrary to this sentiment, things have gotten worse for you as the restaurant has grown, not better."

I am also someone who stands by the thinking of, "Players will optimize the fun out of a game." Rendering an optional thing, non-optional to those kinds of players. It isn't the lack of discipline, it is the whole mindset that they derive fun from that leads to fun being snuffed out. The developers have to hand hold players in certain aspects to force fun in some instances. I can go on and on about optional features in DST that have had negative impacts on the health of the game. But frankly, like in the quote. I am showing up at the restaurant less frequently, I almost want to stop showing up entirely. I love DST but good lord it keeps moving away from what I love about it. And I had a long hiatus from when DST launched to the RWYS update when I came back in full force.

[NotGabriel]

32 minutes ago, Evelo said:

Disease was optional, but so few used it that it was eventually removed. Now the people who played with it can never again play with disease.
This quote is about competitive MTG but it applies to DST and thousands of other things over the years. And your comment is similar in many ways with the reply #2 even though it isn't intentional. 

  Hide contents

This individual, JWhite with a twitter... thing of @RealPokemoki wrote, 
"You have a favorite restaurant that you've dined at for many years now. You love it because they serve high quality food and are staffed by people who care about making the experience of eating at the restaurant good. One day, you notice a new item on the menu.

Slop.

"What's this for?" You ask the waiter.

"It's for the pigs. Pigs eat slop."

Over time, a 2nd flavor of slop shows up on the menu. Then a 3rd. Then you notice that some of the old menu items you use to love now come with a non-optional side of slop. All menu items are now designed with the pigs in mind, on the chance that one of them might try their hand at human food. The quality and preparation of the human food that's left on the menu also starts to degrade. When you ask the restaurant staff about it they inform you that they no longer have the resources to make sure the human food is prepared correctly; they're too busy making slop. You notice that some of the restaurant patrons that you've become good friends with have stopped showing up. You stop showing up. You are upset with the direction the restaurant is taking and post about it on social media. You get two types of replies.

1. I am a pig and I eat slop
2. The restaurant is doing so well and has so many patrons. How can you be upset? Getting more customers into the restaurant has to be a good thing. 

This 2nd comment is particularly frustrating because it naively assumes the entire restaurant clientele wants the same things. But you don't want 5 different flavors of slop. You want human food that is prepared by people who are passionate about food and who are about the experience of dining at the restaurant being a good one. It's something you use to be able to get here, but can't anymore. You don't care if there are more pigs eating at the restaurant now. You liked things just fine when there were no pigs and contrary to this sentiment, things have gotten worse for you as the restaurant has grown, not better."

I am also someone who stands by the thinking of, "Players will optimize the fun out of a game." Rendering an optional thing, non-optional to those kinds of players. It isn't the lack of discipline, it is the whole mindset that they derive fun from that leads to fun being snuffed out. The developers have to hand hold players in certain aspects to force fun in some instances. I can go on and on about optional features in DST that have had negative impacts on the health of the game. But frankly, like in the quote. I am showing up at the restaurant less frequently, I almost want to stop showing up entirely. I love DST but good lord it keeps moving away from what I love about it. And I had a long hiatus from when DST launched to the RWYS update when I came back in full force.

Theres a few nuances to the point though.

First of all, DST is not a competitive game. There is much less of an emphasis on the “balance”. Deerclops isn’t gonna flame me on social media for playing a certain way. Online competitive games rely on making sure everyone plays by the same rules, a cooperative sandbox survival game does NOT fit that same bill. The very prospect of having world gen settings and developers who are super friendly with modding tells you everything you need to know, it is ENCOURAGED that you play the game your way. Not the “right” way. Not the “intended” way. Your way. The whole slop analogy is kind’ve a slap in the face to the whole point of a sandbox game. The entire premise of a sandbox is options. And said analogy is assuming that your playstyle would become inaccessible overtime which I cannot stress enough WOULD NOT BE THE CASE WITH A HUD SETTING IN THE MENU. It really feels like the detractors in this thread are making a mountain out of a mole hill. I genuinely cannot see how other people having a feature infringes on your right to play a certain way. I cannot believe the removal of DISEASE got us to this point 💀

[AliceShiki]

11 minutes ago, NotGabriel said:

Theres a few nuances to the point though.

First of all, DST is not a competitive game. There is much less of an emphasis on the “balance”. Deerclops isn’t gonna flame me on social media for playing a certain way. Online competitive games rely on making sure everyone plays by the same rules, a cooperative sandbox survival game does NOT fit that same bill. The very prospect of having world gen settings and developers who are super friendly with modding tells you everything you need to know, it is ENCOURAGED that you play the game your way. Not the “right” way. Not the “intended” way. Your way. The whole slop analogy is kind’ve a slap in the face to the whole point of a sandbox game. The entire premise of a sandbox is options. And said analogy is assuming that your playstyle would become inaccessible overtime which I cannot stress enough WOULD NOT BE THE CASE WITH A HUD SETTING IN THE MENU. It really feels like the detractors in this thread are making a mountain out of a mole hill. I genuinely cannot see how other people having a feature infringes on your right to play a certain way. I cannot believe the removal of DISEASE got us to this point 💀

For the record, I disagree heavily with the slop analogy, but as someone who plays MTG myself, I get where they're coming from.

Basically, in MTG, the point is that they're now adding more and more crossover sets to the game, and the crossover stuff is selling better than anything else, so we're getting less and less stuff with actual MTG flavor in it, so people who like the cards with MTG flavor are feeling left out because there are less and less sets that they care about, and even if they make a conscious choice to not engage with any crossover cards, there is nothing they can do if their friends who are playing with them want to play with the crossover cards.

Now, moving back to DST, you can apply this logic to overall game updates. If the person wants a more unforgiving experience where the world is a threat to you and information is hidden, the more QoL, buffs and [dangerous content that doesn't actively seek you out] we get, the more this person feels left out, because the game starts feeling less and less for them, because the target audience is a different one who wants a different thing... That's essentially the gist of the analogy.

I don't agree with it at all, for the record. Like you said, you can just mod stuff in if you want things to be different (I think someone who works in Uncompromising Mode said that they haven't played vanilla DST in forever, for example?), or you can simply engage with the old parts you like about the game and ignore the new stuff... Or you can just play something else. It's not like DST has dailies to make you feel bad for not playing it anyways...

Not to mention the whole slop analogy automatically works with the assumption that the new thing is bad, instead of a different thing that you happen to dislike, which doesn't make it any better.

[Evelo]

2 hours ago, NotGabriel said:

First of all, DST is not a competitive game. There is much less of an emphasis on the “balance”.

There are numerous examples of non-competitive PvE games that still have "metas" and ways to optimize the game for success. You clearly missed the point of the analogy. Thankfully @AliceShiki understands (even if they disagree with it, which is totally fine). So at least I can have solace in that.

[NotGabriel]

38 minutes ago, Evelo said:

There are numerous examples of non-competitive PvE games that still have "metas" and ways to optimize the game for success. You clearly missed the point of the analogy. Thankfully @AliceShiki understands (even if they disagree with it, which is totally fine). So at least I can have solace in that.

For sure there’s metas, but the point is that it doesn’t matter, and neither does the existence of optional content. Your analogy implies that you’re forced to engage with every new thing or be left behind when the truth with DST is 80% of the playerbase doesn’t even engage with the majority of the content. 

[SilverSpoon]

Judging by their post history, this looks like the author’s first time here and they submitted a 100% well-intentioned suggestion, but I’m so sorry it ended with them being exposed to the foulest kind of toxicity in here. 

Welcome to the official Don't starve together forums.

Edited October 28, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[Spicybullfrog]

5 hours ago, NotGabriel said:

For sure there’s metas, but the point is that it doesn’t matter, and neither does the existence of optional content. Your analogy implies that you’re forced to engage with every new thing or be left behind when the truth with DST is 80% of the playerbase doesn’t even engage with the majority of the content. 

well, that doesn't apply to balance changes that affect all people universally though. The game has made so, so many changes to make things easier. 
the truth is that DST has to change and leave everybody who liked the first game for what it was behind, because the existence of multiplayer is fundamentally incompatible with don't starve's gameplay philosophy. multiplayer and "uncompromising wilderness survival where your mistakes cost you dearly" mix like oil and water and from the very start they've had to make massive compromises just to keep the game fun, since other player's punishments end up becoming your own. 

the "new direction" that the game is going in is just the logical consequence of a fundamental design contradiction that has existed since the very start, everything must be renewable so other players cant cripple your world accidentally, everything must be streamlined to smooth out the massive knowledge curve between players, everything must be simplified, refined, gutted if it doesn't fit the vision. for a very long time the developers said that they would never add multiplayer because of the issues it would generate and that even became a meme for a while. 

 

8 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

... Or you can just play something else. It's not like DST has dailies to make you feel bad for not playing it anyways..

dst does have dailies, actually, that's what the daily gifts and weekly drops are for
i think it's not a good answer to say "well, if you want the experience you came to the game to for the first place, you should just use external methods to change it to your liking!" 
they do have a right to be upset that the experience they may have spent significant real world money on changed to exclude them in favor of a different demographic; modding will never be a true fix to issues of this nature.

[Bellium]

11 hours ago, Evelo said:

snip

Calling content that's fully optional and exist for people who want and/or need it "slop" and any player who would enjoy said content "pigs" feel entierly counter-productive to well meaning and polite discussion. 

Not to mention as an allagory to MTG universes beyond it doesn't even work and this is just adding a quick thing for people who can't play with mods, vs an entire update dedicated to creating a new healthbar system or something.

[Mike23Ua]

12 hours ago, NotGabriel said:

For sure there’s metas, but the point is that it doesn’t matter, and neither does the existence of optional content. Your analogy implies that you’re forced to engage with every new thing or be left behind when the truth with DST is 80% of the playerbase doesn’t even engage with the majority of the content. 

Ah yes but see the problem with DST is that it isn’t just a Sandbox game. It is actually an “Uncompromising” Roguelite Tier Survival game.

Now I do not know how familiar you are with the RogueLite gaming genre: but it is most commonly known as being intentionally difficult, hard to master, & at times can even feel unfair or “uncompromising”

Now that I’ve said that: lets willingly run face first into a brick wall.. most RogueLite games are often short, and can be beaten within 30 minutes to an hour or two give or take, this is intentional: Because it makes the entire “Dying” process to where it does not feel too harsh when you do eventually croak to start over.

But DST is a game that heavily encourages long-term commitment to a singular game world. You are not hopping from world to world like you do in Maxwells Adventures Mode of the single player game, you stay in one long-term world & you attempt to survive & thrive there.

There actually is a world Gen setting you can enable so that if you die at all- your game world gets instantly deleted.

The problem I personally have with this mode is that none of the games actual content is balanced around this mode.. it isn’t even adjusted to be more enjoyable under this mode, and it makes you intentionally ignore most of the games content when you know that attempting to fight a boss you will most likely die fighting, can result in permanent world loss.

So I ask you this question: why would I EVER go fight Bee Queen, a boss that I have never in my entire time playing, managed to beat alone… if the risk of fighting her can mean my game save gets erased?

80% of content is ignored, because people only want to engage with the parts of the game they can actually handle & avoid “world deletion” by avoiding the parts they can not.