Discussion on difficulty vs consent

[MariaUshiromiya]

29 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

Most players would be lucky to see even 1 GDW per year. You have to spend the entire year underground to make that likely.

I was going to say, I've put the thing on tons in my cave base world and only got it every 50~ days.

A lot of Lovens point seem incredibly biased against the feature. I don't see why its so difficult to play around the encounter as if it could happen any time. This game gives you challenges to overcome, not to simply destroy you. It gives you a very long warning and the earthquakes are supposed to set up a lot of items for the boss to eat. You could simply just make an arena near your base when the worm comes along. I'm very sad with how many posts I read that list the difficulties of an encounter but no critical thinking on how they could play around it and strategize.

[Well-met]

20 hours ago, Evelo said:

I am in the extreme minority, maybe even the only one in believing, resetting the world is important to Don't Starve as a whole. Starting new worlds each update is vital imo.

Agreed, although I would clarify each major update

[gaymime]

1 hour ago, Well-met said:

Agreed, although I would clarify each major update

meanwhile i cant go more than a week without resetting half my worlds XD

[Lovens]

6 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

Most players would be lucky to see even 1 GDW per year. You have to spend the entire year underground to make that likely.

 

6 hours ago, Cruvimaster said:

For me, this is the hardest boss in the game. And the difficulty isn't in the combat. The difficulty is making him appear for me. My dream would be for Klei to allow summoning him after activating gunpowder.

I spent almost an entire year downstairs during my two last gaming sessions and got him twice. Yes, he is not a frequent visitor. No, that doesn't change that he is unpredictable and annoying to deal with, and forces you to engage with him when you are not ready. Not a single other raid boss does that, and even seasonal bosses who do it (Bearger and Deerclops) at least allow you to take a moment and leave them where they spawned, so you can return and prepare for the fight if you were not ready. You know, make room in your inventory to pick up the loot that boss will drop. Or to reheat your thermal if the fight is happening in winter. Or get some healing food if you happened to run out. Park your beefalo away so it doesn't die when you fight near it. 

I too would like GDW to be available around ~4 times per year with ~20 days cooldown, like all other raid bosses, and be accessible in a separate arena instead of waiting it happen and not knowing when. That would solve both the problem of accessibility of this boss and the fact it's forced upon unsuspecting players at the most inconvenient times with no good counter-measure to it. My main problem is that they designed a tough interesting raid boss and then threw it into the fricking hounds waves type of event. 

6 hours ago, MariaUshiromiya said:

I was going to say, I've put the thing on tons in my cave base world and only got it every 50~ days.

A lot of Lovens point seem incredibly biased against the feature. I don't see why its so difficult to play around the encounter as if it could happen any time. This game gives you challenges to overcome, not to simply destroy you. It gives you a very long warning and the earthquakes are supposed to set up a lot of items for the boss to eat. You could simply just make an arena near your base when the worm comes along. I'm very sad with how many posts I read that list the difficulties of an encounter but no critical thinking on how they could play around it and strategize.

Fair point about the earthquakes that are seting up the items for the boss to eat. This still doesn't solve the issue that dying to this boss is too punishing (it will eat items from your grave and you can't resurrect near it if you carried the amulet on you since amulet won't even put it to sleep, you will be spawn camped by the worm). This also doesn't solve the issue of the boss destroying any items forever after consuming it (no other boss in the game does it, let alone a recurring hound-like type of encounter). 

[Bumber64]

1 hour ago, Lovens said:

No, that doesn't change that he is unpredictable and annoying to deal with, and forces you to engage with him when you are not ready. Not a single other raid boss does that, and even seasonal bosses who do it (Bearger and Deerclops) at least allow you to take a moment and leave them where they spawned, so you can return and prepare for the fight if you were not ready.

Well, you're not forced to engage with it. If you just run away, you end up in the same situation as if it stubbornly refused to spawn.

I think most of the problems are fixed by sending it to a specific biome instead of despawning, then bringing the same one back each wave until you kill it.

The item destruction can be mitigated by reusing the lureplant digestion component. (Though that means you still probably lose your shadow maul if you take too long or it runs off with it.)

[Milordo]

20 hours ago, Lovens said:

----snip----

Respond me first, and genuinely please.

How many times did you encounter GDW? How do you fight him? 

After this I will give you my answer. 

Bonus --->

(You know already my post and mission to fix the 20% of GDW, no need to repeat myself)

Also, no about Lureplants. Klei changed them last year (dunno why) and they eat and delete items fast as GDW. I really don't know WHY. I'm angry about this change, as they were completely perfect eons ago, and nobody in the community is talking about.

20 hours ago, MariaUshiromiya said:

I was going to say, I've put the thing on tons in my cave base world and only got it every 50~ days.

A lot of Lovens point seem incredibly biased against the feature. I don't see why its so difficult to play around the encounter as if it could happen any time. This game gives you challenges to overcome, not to simply destroy you. It gives you a very long warning and the earthquakes are supposed to set up a lot of items for the boss to eat. You could simply just make an arena near your base when the worm comes along. I'm very sad with how many posts I read that list the difficulties of an encounter but no critical thinking on how they could play around it and strategize.

Plus this, but I'm waiting for Lovens response. Exactly what I would have said.

The arena to defeat him also doesn't need to be that big since it spawns on you.

14 hours ago, Lovens said:

Not a single other raid boss does that,

GDW is not a raid boss. It's a normal boss or seasonal boss if you wish. 

[HowlVoid]

Needing concent for an increase in difficulty is crazy work... 

Klei should add the ocasional big foot to stomp on peoples bases every 300 days. 

Klei: "consent this foot, BOOM"

On 11/4/2025 at 6:28 PM, Evelo said:

I am in the extreme minority, maybe even the only one in believing, resetting the world is important to Don't Starve as a whole. Starting new worlds each update is vital imo.

I can genuinely not spend more than 300~400 days on the same world before gettting bored to death. 

[MariaUshiromiya]

17 hours ago, Lovens said:

 

I spent almost an entire year downstairs during my two last gaming sessions and got him twice. Yes, he is not a frequent visitor. No, that doesn't change that he is unpredictable and annoying to deal with, and forces you to engage with him when you are not ready. Not a single other raid boss does that, and even seasonal bosses who do it (Bearger and Deerclops) at least allow you to take a moment and leave them where they spawned, so you can return and prepare for the fight if you were not ready. You know, make room in your inventory to pick up the loot that boss will drop. Or to reheat your thermal if the fight is happening in winter. Or get some healing food if you happened to run out. Park your beefalo away so it doesn't die when you fight near it. 

I too would like GDW to be available around ~4 times per year with ~20 days cooldown, like all other raid bosses, and be accessible in a separate arena instead of waiting it happen and not knowing when. That would solve both the problem of accessibility of this boss and the fact it's forced upon unsuspecting players at the most inconvenient times with no good counter-measure to it. My main problem is that they designed a tough interesting raid boss and then threw it into the fricking hounds waves type of event. 

Fair point about the earthquakes that are seting up the items for the boss to eat. This still doesn't solve the issue that dying to this boss is too punishing (it will eat items from your grave and you can't resurrect near it if you carried the amulet on you since amulet won't even put it to sleep, you will be spawn camped by the worm). This also doesn't solve the issue of the boss destroying any items forever after consuming it (no other boss in the game does it, let alone a recurring hound-like type of encounter). 

I don't see why you can't just leave your important items somewhere else, though I do understand how defeating it may feel. I too am not a fan of item deletion, it'd make more sense if it became a-part of the drop pool.

[ZeRoboButler]

I was under the impression that these were just the growing pains of getting more content, I mean we can't add stuff to the game without something being effected or changed, and change in most cases is good for a game of this age.

I guess I just thought that most people would approach the game the same way they learned it, through learning and adaptation, overcoming or finding solutions to their issues they encounter. Times change and I can accept that, I hope something can be worked out that feels more organic and based on player decision, baiting out the buzzards or having a some sort of Richter scale for measuring the size of the quakes letting you know when the G.D.W. will show.  

As long as the player can do something in regards to the threat I'm happy

• flooding in shipwrecked = sandbags and player made tiles
• poison = antidotes, toxin sacks and armor
• hay fever = wormwood, nettles or gas mask
• smoldering in summer = oasis, fig trees, flingos or wickerbottoms rain book
• temperature = thermals, character perks, food

I mean you could list it for hours... but player influence like this improves the experience. 

[Lovens]

3 hours ago, Milordo said:

Respond me first, and genuinely please.

How many times did you encounter GDW? How do you fight him? 

After this I will give you my answer. 

I have encountered GDW the total of ~15-ish times across all my playthroughs. Here's what I do remember:

1) GDW spawned near my base in my Toad arena in the megabase. This was before the warning of 60 seconds was implemented. My friend and I barely made it to the arena. I was Wanda, he was Maxwell. We attempted to fight it legit (I even brought a sacrifice beefalo so he could eat to stunlock it but the beefalo was killed by the segments before the head could even swallow it). I did a fair amount of damage to it without being hit, then got hit once and died. Upon death I was instantly sent to a loading screen as if we did a rollback (but we didn't). I was rolled back to where I was before the worm attack (in the muddy biome collecting lightbulbs, and the beefalo that died to GDW earlier was still alive. Simultaneously my friend stayed where he was still fighting GDW, and my items were on the floor near the beefalo remains where I died. To summarize: I was rolled back and all my items and the beefalo bonded to my bell were duplicated (including: polar bearger bin with all contents, CC crown, one bone armor, alarming clock, a couple of healing watches, a lantern and a life giving amulet). We rolled the world back to get rid of this glitch and GDW hasn't showed up in the next worm wave.

2) GDW spawned while I was in the ruins as Winona, and my friend was in the base as Wanda. I only needed a couple of teleports back to the base but I went the wrong way on my telepad network and ended up in AG arena. I panicked since we  only had 30 seconds and I suggested my friend uses the Lazy Deserter in the base to call me there. I touched the Lazy Deserter and the last thing I saw before screen fading out was GDW head emerging from the ground on me. Meaning I unloaded it on my teleport away and it just destroyed my telepad but we don't get to fight it. We rolled back and GDW didn't appear in the next wave. We sat there and I called depth worm upon depth worm with commands for ages and deleted when regular worms spawned, and couldn't get GDW again despite our best efforts. I didn't want to skip days and I didn't want to spawn GDW directly with spawn commands, I wanted to make it come through a depth worm wave like it's supposed to (back then it was spawning together with other depth worms). 

3) GDW spawned and I finally got to fight him as Winona solo in my world. I took some precautions and lured him through the trees I previously planted in my GDW arena so he can eat the logs that he chops and if he spawn Treeguards they can assist me in the fight. Ended up being swallowed once (somehow survived with bone armor and brightshade helm and jellybean eaten earlier in the fight), spawned one Treeguard only who helped me to finish it off. 

4) GDW spawned when my friend and I finished clearing the ruins in their world. I was Wicker, my friend was Wendy. We just had killed AG and finished looting the chest, stayed in AG arena praying that we wont die to it and it doesn't eat all the freshly obtained ruins loot we were carrying on us. Rocks and flint that came from AG fight earthquakes actually helped but it was a terrible fight. I had brightshade gear on and could only melee it for a bit, I don't think I had a bone armor on me but I nearly died. Fighting him with lag is NOT FUN. I could at best get 2-3 hits in and he would constantly hit me when I simply ran away from it. It was a stressful fight and after it ended we didn't even have any room to carry any of his loot so we had to leave it all behind. 

5) GDW spawned in another, different survival-based world where I played with a different friend. Characters: Wendy and Walter, horrible experience. Abigail doesn't help, nothing in the Wendy skill tree actually helps her fight it, can't even use the wreath for the night vision since I needed to wear headgear to protect myself. Beefalo is not an option either, I had to park it miles away. The fight took forever, it didn't help that it caught us off-guard when we were doing NMWP before after FW fight, so we had low sanity and ran out of healing food, and there was nothing in the muddy biome to help us cheese it. Walter had easier time hitting it with the slingshot from afar and lightbulbs helped temporarily bait it. 

6) GDW spawned in another world (same where I was Wicker and my friend was Wendy, except this time Wendy was prepared and set up Toad to appear in the arena and he killed this horrible boss for us quickly and efficiently so we didn't have to suffer through it. 

7) Fast forward, same friend but a different world, our duo megabase. First GDW encounter - we just reset the ruins for the first time and were clearing Military when the warning hit and earthquakes started flooding the screen with rocks and flint. Our AG arena is close to Military so we ran there, hoping for AG's help with the boss. This time I was hosting so my friend had lag and couldn't contribute to the fight significantly. It took us long enough to get to AG so GDW spawned in the labyrinth and chased us through it to AG arena, activating every single spider web on the way, Somehow AG managed to weaken it enough for us to finish off easily, and we didn't lose the horn - I picked it up and put into the backpack. Characters: I wanna say Wigfrid and Woodie since that's what we were when we started it but one of use could have switched to Maxwell or Wicker already. 

8) The rest of my experiences with this boss was just making Toad in our dedicated Toad arena near our base kill it for us, for the sake of the safety of our base and the rest of the cave world. It's too destructive and always comes at the worst wrong time possible, and you can't leave it for later, you have to fight it right away no matter how unprepared you are. I don't have many issues with the fight itself (apart from it being nearly impossible with server lag when host and other players are separated by a whole Atlantic Ocean). The damage could be a bit less punishing so one mistake doesn't make you lose the entire fight (and most your items) forever. 

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Also, no about Lureplants. Klei changed them last year (dunno why) and they eat and delete items fast as GDW. I really don't know WHY. I'm angry about this change, as they were completely perfect eons ago, and nobody in the community is talking about.

Last week I had a fresh DST playthrough with my other friend - vanilla world, default settings, minimum server/client mods. He's new to the game and I was just slowly introducing him to DST. Upon our first spring we encountered a lureplant and we spent a good minute around it watching it eat birds, spiders and harvest a couple of nearby twigs/grass. I specifically didn't kill it right away so he could observe its behavior and experience what it does. Then when I killed it, I still retrieved two alive birds, a couple of feathers, a spoiled berry and a couple twigs from the bulb, as well as rotten monster meat from the spider it ate. So I don't think that's true, and I haven't seen anyone complain about how lureplant farms stopped working (they would've if lureplants deleted all items immediately upon swallowing, like you say). 

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The arena to defeat him also doesn't need to be that big since it spawns on you.

I don't know man, whenever I fought it it always destroyed everything it went through in a radius of at least 5 tiles around it. The main issue is that it's a big/long boss with multiple segments, each one of them has a big AoE destruction attack, and the head also has AoE that destroys everything. You have to manipulate the boss and run around it and avoid its segments, so you can't contain it in the same small area, as, say, Bearger or Deerclops (these two you can pretty much fight in a 3x3-4x4 tile space and be fine). For GDW it feels like 10x10 is the most comfortable arena size which needs to be free of structures/unrenewable enemy spawners/unrenewable resources (if you care about these). 
 

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GDW is not a raid boss. It's a normal boss or seasonal boss if you wish. 

It is not a raid boss by its spawning habits and recurring nature. It is absolutely on par with other raid bosses in terms of difficulty, health pool, damage dealt and destructive capabilities. It simply is too much for what should have been a Varglet equivalent (how much hp does that have? 500? 700? GDW has like 5000, it's 10 times the Varglet). Also the ability to stunlock the player and render them immobile by both thorn attack and swallowing is way too much for this type of encounter (but again would have been fine if this was a raid boss with its own setpiece that players had to seek out themselves, not be forced to fight randomly). 

16 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

Well, you're not forced to engage with it. If you just run away, you end up in the same situation as if it stubbornly refused to spawn.

I think most of the problems are fixed by sending it to a specific biome instead of despawning, then bringing the same one back each wave until you kill it.

The item destruction can be mitigated by reusing the lureplant digestion component. (Though that means you still probably lose your shadow maul if you take too long or it runs off with it.)

If you want the loot you have no choice but to do it right away which is a major inconvenience. No other boss in the game is like that, players always can choose to fight or to do it later. Most bosses reset progress if you abandon the fight (Malba, Klaus, Toad, Dfly, BQ, NMWP,  Antlion) - and that's fine. But the initial decision to engage with the boss was always something players could do. Once again. no boss fights outside of seasonal are forced upon player like that, with despawning later. Deerclops does despawn at the end of winter though but you usually have plenty of time to deal with him. 

I would like to engage with GDW instead of cheesing it every time it comes when I'm unprepared. I would like to plan for this boss fight and engage with it with the mindset of defeating a strong boss, and not to just shrug off another annoyance that interrupted something else that I was doing. But GDW doesn't appear when I want it to, and appears it when I want to do something else - that's the biggest problem with this encounter. 

[hyoton123]

I dunno, obvious bugs aside that sounds like exactly what the greater depths worm should be doing. 

[Hungry French]

On 05.11.2025 at 20:46, NekoSoulx said:

То есть казуал — это игрок со старым миром и мегабазой? Я думаю, что эти «казуальные игроки» больше похожи на тех, кто изучил старую механику игры, но отказывается создавать новый мир и не хочет изучать что-то новое. Я думаю, что Klei New должна сосредоточиться на новых игроках, которые хотят создать мир с нуля, и этим людям нужно облегчить задачу. 

That's the way it is. Older players with large bases do not have problems with more than one characteristic, they often use bugs, cheese, simplifying mods and cheats to their advantage...

A hardcore player is one who craves and seeks difficulty. He craves death, hunger, and madness in the game... Although there are few such players among the DST. 
I've really met few players who have made difficult challenges for themselves or installed a lot of complicating mods in this community...

That's the point. Someone might call themselves a hardcore player, but in most cases they should say pro player.

On 05.11.2025 at 20:46, NekoSoulx said:

Серия DS всегда была сложной и разочаровывающей, но DST, на мой взгляд, должна быть другой. В упрощённом режиме нужно добавить ещё несколько функций, например, не оставлять предметы после смерти (по моему опыту, это одна из самых раздражающих механик для новичков).

DS is hard to call a series. Because we only have 2 games in 13 years...  This is Dilogy. And Klei clearly has no plans to expand it. 

Should DST be annoying and difficult? Definitely. This is a multiplayer version of the uncompromising survival game Don't Starve... That's the whole point of the game. If you want simple gameplay, then Klei can expand the functionality of the simple mode even more. Settings are the way to ensure that all players enjoy the game, and it doesn't matter if they want challenges or peaceful construction of their city. 
Forcing everyone into the same conditions only causes discontent and heated arguments...

19 minutes ago, Lovens said:

Я бы хотел сразиться с GDW, а не читерить каждый раз, когда он появляется, когда я не готов. Я бы хотел подготовиться к битве с этим боссом и сразиться с ним, настроившись на победу над сильным противником, а не просто отмахиваться от очередного раздражителя, который мешает мне заниматься чем-то другим. Но GDW появляется не тогда, когда я хочу, а тогда, когда я хочу заняться чем-то другим, — и это самая большая проблема в этой ситуации.

That's the beauty of this boss. Raid bosses are just loot bags that you need a key for. GDW doesn't wait for anyone - it comes by itself. And its complexity is overestimated. Just use the Morning Star and if you can't hit him, hit him only when he's eating... And everything. It's not that hard. 
I understand the moment when a few come. Making multiple bosses for multiple players is nonsense... Imagine how 6 Deerclops's come to your base...

[Bumber64]

5 hours ago, Milordo said:

Also, no about Lureplants. Klei changed them last year (dunno why) and they eat and delete items fast as GDW. I really don't know WHY. I'm angry about this change, as they were completely perfect eons ago, and nobody in the community is talking about.

Are you using a mod that prevents you from dropping items on death? I tried one once, until I realized that the mod author just lazily replaced the DropEverything function without bothering to check for anything else that uses it.

If cutless/frogs cause the items to still drop on hit, that's the issue. (You'd also be losing inventory items when swapping at lunar portal.)

[Mike23Ua]

On 11/5/2025 at 7:44 AM, loopuleasa said:

Less than 1% of players mess with world settings.

What matters is in-game actions.

Maybe the 1% who play on a PC do not mess with world settings…? But if you play on console, and ESPECIALLY on Xbox where we do not have dedicated servers: So Every single world you join unless your the host for it- Is hosted by another player who is the host, and the world that you join is set to that particular hosts liking.

I have joined worlds, played in them for 3 hours straight never noticing the host had certain features turned off until 3 hours later when I actually wanted to farm the very mob that was toggled off for its resources I now needed.

Leaving this server to join another greeted me only with a host who had there server set to 24/7 permanent winter.

When every single server you try to join us a random grab bag of what the host does or does not turn on I think it’s safe to say that more than 1% mess with world Gen settings.

With that said: DST could always use MORE of them, and perhaps even different “Modes” that actually change the core gameplay formula up with each mode.

For example: Did you know long ago before Klei decided to add resource regrowth to the whole of the game, that resource Regrowth was actually on by default on “Endless” Mode? But intentionally NOT turned on by default for a mode labeled as “Survival”?

[NotGabriel]

On 11/4/2025 at 3:33 AM, loopuleasa said:

DST is a game undergoing constant updates.

Some of those updates introduce mechanics to existing worlds that increase difficulty without most casual folks requesting it.

I noticed a spike on people who just like to chill on their world suddenly getting unsolicited difficulty additions (the great depth worm, the lunar birds).

Most casual DST players just like to hang out and escape from reality playing a cool game on a world they are attached to.

My point is this:

• If a new threat is added to the game, the design of its introduction needs to be unlocked via a deliberate action that requires input from the player to consent to the difficulty increase

The post-rift content requires you to enable rifts. That was fine. But by now most longterm worlds have rifts enabled as the default experience.

Many people signed that contract knowing what they get, without considering future updates.

I for one welcome future difficulty increasing mechanics being thrown at me, but I am in the minority.

New additional post-rift or pre-rift threats need the player to go to them, or do something to "stir the hornets nest" to launch the threat, instead of the threat being overlaid on top with a game update.

Many people also enable mods that lessen or increase difficulty, and that consent is done on the mod installation step.

The game is a good game as is, for many.

Adding new content on top needs to be designed carefully to not break existing experiences.

For an example, my girlfriend literally does not engage at all with the new skill trees, and that is fine. It's complexity that can be skipped.

Similarly, difficulty increases need to be encountered deliberately by way of player actions "looking for trouble".

 

 

Thanks for reading

This already exists, world gen settings. You can even adjust things well after a world is made.

[Frosty_Mentos]

Question. How do you actually improve this game in lategame?

We've got only one surface and one cave shard, much of the land usually is explored after a good amount of hours.

The game has been a great experience over the years and it's hard to complain much about it besides some BS mechanics that eventually get tuned proper-ish.

Could make hound waves to be more varied like raids or something, world difficulty only would progress with new areas discovered by players that interact with those things. Rift content is kinda a stump, in my opinion.

Without bringing in new shards or giga bosses I don't see what's there left to add but just make improvements on current game mechanics.

They added the whole sanctum technology of traversing rooms which is a cool thing, but we got a new biome now that fills up some void space we'll never get back for other same room mechanics.

Ruins were mentioned on MAYBE getting Sanctum treatment for more variability in exploration, which is cool, but gonna be a pain to those with ruin bases prolly or got too used to ruin layouts.

The needle is being threaded finely and haphazardly with these updates, because Klei can't please everyone and it's gonna only get more difficult in the future.

If you really wanna experience hardmode in DST play Wes with higher damage ratio received.

[Mike23Ua]

I think it is important that we ask the question “What is Hard Mode?” Because this is going to vary from player to player. To me playing as Wes doesn’t cut that cake.

But I’ll tell you what will: Something like the two mods for Minecraft- Brutal Difficulty, & Extreme Weather.

The weather one is pretty self explanatory: Unescapable, Unpreventable Natural Disasters that cause chaos.

But Brutal Difficulty? Ah yes.. Get hurt by a mob and you take limb damage, making your character for example limp & move slower if they have a hurt leg, you also have to deal with several new mechanics that do not exist in vanilla Minecraft, like Temperatures & Thirst.

But for some people: Wanda would be considered “hard mode” in her current form, having to fight against not being hit in Lag. And for other people: They feel Wanda should constantly be being pursued by Shadow Creatures as seen in her Animated short regardless of her Sanity levels.

Theres a lot Klei can do to dst that they haven’t done yet… and porting SW/Ham/Forge Mechanics is a huge start, but adding completely brand new mechanics (such as thirst or a bunch of new mob types that only show up based on your mental status) could extend the games life span for years to come.

Player Skill Level & Player Interest with the game is going to of course going to change overtime, that’s only natural.. but there’s a TON Klei could do to bring new life into for a game that sadly: Many people feel is finished.