Issues Caused by the Crystal-Crested Buzzard and Opinions & Suggestions for the Developers

[adminaaassh]

First, let me briefly explain the mechanics of the Crystal-Crested Buzzard. They spawn and then follow the map’s biomes, slowly flying toward the player biome by biome, eventually gathering above the player. When there are corpses below, they will swoop down. They also become hostile toward nearby players, and their damage is extremely high.

Each corpse can only attract a limited number of Crystal-Crested Buzzards. Additionally, these buzzards will only move toward the player along connected biomes. So if the player uses teleportation or a Worm Hole to reach a non-adjacent biome, the Crystal-Crested Buzzards will recalculate their path and continue flying toward the player through connected biomes. Especially when multiple Crystal-Crested Buzzards are present, a solo player can sometimes end up facing more than thirty of them at once, making them extremely troublesome to deal with.

If a creature’s corpse is pecked at by a Crystal-Crested Buzzard, it will also transform into its corresponding mutated variant after a period of time.You will face greater danger and more frequent attacks.

Now that the basic traits are covered, let’s talk about why this creature is so disgusting that it makes players resent the developers. As I mentioned, because this creature deals very high damage, when a Hound Attack occurs and you kill all the hounds, you will attract a large number of Crystal-Crested Buzzards. Once you get close, they will attack you. Since Crystal-Crested Buzzards deal area-of-effect damage and can easily destroy walls and kill friendly creatures, they can cause massive losses to the player.

For example, any decorations made using walls can be completely destroyed, as well as various farms—such as Varg-based hound farms, Anenemy farms for Volt Goat Horns, or even beefalo herds. That is the impact of this creature. However, real gameplay scenarios are often complex and not just wide open empty spaces. If nearby creatures become hostile toward Crystal-Crested Buzzards, then in such situations your losses may be unavoidable.

For short-term players, these situations usually happen rarely and with low probability. But for long-term players, they are extremely deadly. Long-term worlds have many environmental structures and various designs, and some of these designs and decorations are extremely time-consuming to build. Certain special characters can also cause chain reactions—for example, if Wortox does not unlock specific skills, he is hated by friendly creatures.

So real scenarios are not simple empty fields, but rather many complex situations chained together. And there is a high probability of destruction happening in places you would never expect. This is especially problematic because this creature appears very frequently.

For long-term players, most of their time is spent moving between biomes, gathering resources, and building. For instance, if I want to build some decoration, I need to collect materials, go out to gather resources, pass through various farms, and do a lot of tasks. During this process, Crystal-Crested Buzzards make everything extremely annoying. Not to mention that in long-term saves, there may be new players who can also trigger interactions with the buzzards, leading to all kinds of unpredictable destruction.

Overall, considering the time long-term players invest and the items they need, being affected by Crystal-Crested Buzzards is a high-probability event due to quantitative change leading to qualitative change. When multiple factors stack together, it can be said that 80% of the time you are on the surface, you will be affected by Crystal-Crested Buzzards.

To use a simple analogy: you originally could walk out the door with peace of mind, but now the developers force you to put on gloves, strike strange poses, and walk out upside down. This makes people feel extremely annoyed and disgusted. Short-term players may not play long enough to feel heavily impacted, and the number of times they encounter this issue is limited—after all, they finish all the bosses and are basically done. Most of the livestreams I’ve observed are like this as well. But for long-term players, the various chain reactions and the constant possibility of destructive events appearing anywhere unexpectedly are the most nauseating aspects.

To put it bluntly, this is basically a low-budget version of the Wildfires mechanic. I believe some developers’ thinking may still be stuck in the single-player era. They keep adding content similar to low-budget Wildfires mechanics to emphasize what they consider the game’s “savage, wilderness adventure” core design, while adding more and more annoying mechanics. Over time, these things keep accumulating—such as the Great Depths Worm, Moongleam ignition, and now Crystal-Crested Buzzards.

I know some people will say that if you think carefully, there are solutions to all of these. But these designs only make the game increasingly troublesome and disgusting for long-term players. Going back to the analogy: originally you could walk out the door safely; now you must wear gloves and shackles, paint your body with tattoos, make a weird face, and walk out upside down. Sure, it’s possible—but it’s annoying and disgusting.

The developers seem to deliberately add these annoying mechanics without providing simple ways to deal with them, making the long-term experience increasingly painful. Yes, technically everything can be solved, but as I said, these designs seem to exist solely to disgust long-term players.

I mentioned before that there was a game-breaking bug that took nearly a year to fix, and only one person had reported it. From this, I believe most updates made by the developers barely affect short-term players, or affect them so little that they have no idea how disgusting these issues really are. But once you’re a long-term player, it feels like adding random illegal structures to a skyscraper—eventually destabilizing the center of gravity and causing cracks, leading to all kinds of problems.

Next, let me talk about how to deal with Crystal-Crested Buzzards. The simplest way is to not move—wait for them to finish eating the corpses, after which they will fly away and continue circling overhead. Alternatively, you can jump to other non-connected biomes to buy more time. Or you can wait for the Lunar Rift to end, which prevents Crystal-Crested Buzzards from spawning.

Another option is to simply kill a small creature, such as a Bee or Spider. Since each corpse only attracts a limited number of Crystal-Crested Buzzards, you can kill two buzzards at a time, causing two more to swoop down, and eventually kill all of them. You can also use the Brightshade Staff and safely deal damage while riding a beefalo. Or you can use two Brightshade Bombs—which damage the user and destroy certain structures—to instantly kill them. Of course, Crystal-Crested Buzzards do not come alone, so you will need to prepare many Brightshade Bombs.

By the way, there is another issue: endgame items like the Houndius Shootius and Winona’s Catapult can also be destroyed, because they assist the player in attacking. These items can no longer keep up with the current game environment and have become burdens, yet their costs are sometimes very high—another disgusting aspect.

Real gameplay is not a single character in an empty field. It involves many variables, including player skill, terrain complexity, base construction, and hostility relationships with other creatures. That’s why I say the developers lack comprehensive thinking and fail to consider these issues from different player perspectives and real gameplay scenarios.

In my view, the developers may design many more mechanics like this in the future—mechanics that are technically solvable but, in long-term single-save play, generate countless disgusting chain reactions. Just like I said before: what used to be a simple act of walking out the door now requires gloves, shackles, tattoos, a grotesque face, and walking upside down—pure annoyance and disgust.

PS: Many of the strange design decisions added by the developers in the past have already disappointed a large number of players. In my view, forum feedback posts are extremely rare. From what I’ve seen privately in many groups and video platform comments, as well as videos they’ve posted, many people are very disappointed with your designs. I know that you don’t really pay much attention to voices from mainland China. In fact, many interesting techniques have been shared through videos, including so-called “bug techniques.”

The only way you actively receive Chinese feedback seems to be through GitHub projects or automated tools that detect keywords, then collecting some shallow, useless suggestions in the monthly official feedback post and uploading them internally. Or perhaps by categorizing posts and using machine translation? I’m not sure. But judging from the information written in those feedback posts, I don’t believe a real person is doing the translations—because a human translator would understand our abbreviations for characters and items and extract useful information. I feel the employee responsible for collecting this information may not really understand Don’t Starve or other Klei games; their task is simply to collect data.

To avoid any misunderstanding, I want to clarify that my conclusions are not based solely on long-term player groups or partial sources. I’ve carefully observed these issues through various channels—joining groups via in-game lobby links, video creators’ groups, and conducting broader analysis before reaching this conclusion.

Of course, you can say I’m just talking nonsense—that’s fine. But don’t you have Chinese-speaking employees? Let them host an official livestream on Chinese video platforms and gather real feedback. They speak Chinese. You could also look into your Chinese Klei Ambassadors—I know several of them and am in their groups. From my observation, some ambassadors no longer even play the game, haven’t updated videos, and those who remain active are mostly disappointed with your design choices. Or you could ask the contributors of the Chinese wiki to provide feedback and share their real feelings about the game.

My opinion isn’t important, but developers can gather far more authentic feedback through their own employees and actions, rather than relying on a single feedback post to collect boring and useless information inside an information bubble. Additionally, I’m very dissatisfied with the fact that there are official English livestreams explaining updates, but no equivalent official livestreams on Chinese video platforms.

One last important point: in the English-speaking environment, Don’t Starve Together still has an “Overwhelmingly Positive” rating on Steam. But in the Chinese-speaking environment, the overall rating has dropped from “Overwhelmingly Positive” to “Very Positive.” This change happened within the last one or two months, and I believe it says a lot.

@V2C@JoeW

I hope the developers can make future updates more balanced and more considerate of all types of players.Rather than catering only to a specific group of players and turning the entire game into a single, one-sided mod.

At the same time, I know some people like to say, “How is this game supposed to be played?” But how a game is “supposed” to be played should not be decided by individual players. If a game focuses its updates on only certain aspects, then I want to ask: what is the cost?

For example, if the developers focus only on short-term enjoyment and drive long-term players away, who is going to pay for the money those players would have spent on skins or generated as future revenue? Are you going to pay for it? Are you going to personally take out $10,000, then contact a group of people, form an organization, and have everyone collectively chip in $10,000 each time to make up for the loss caused by abandoning those players?

Considering that long-term or hardcore players may be a smaller proportion overall, there are still quite a lot of them. And honestly, even $10,000 is probably an underestimate. How much is a skin bundle multiplied by 1,000 players? Or 2,000 players? How many US dollars is that?

If the developers truly intend to give up on a portion of the player base, then I hope that decision comes directly from the developers themselves—saying clearly, “We’ve decided to abandon certain groups of players,” or “We are unwilling to make certain updates,” or “We prefer to focus on short-term players.” Rather than having individual players speak on behalf of the developers and present their own opinions as if they represent official intent.

If you’re interested, you can click on my profile picture and review the posts I’ve previously published. My attitude toward the developers has actually remained largely unchanged, and I’ve also made fairly comprehensive summaries of their behavioral logic, raised many issues concerning the developers, and shared my past suggestions and opinions with them.

 

 

Edited December 18, 2025 by adminaaassh

[Your Chester]

Strongly support

It is a positive thing when players provide feedback. They want the game to improve rather than cause harm intentionally. Players who give feedback in a foreign language are those who truly enjoy the game. It would be a very negative situation if a game received no feedback at all.

Moreover, as far as I know, the majority of players of this game come from mainland China, accounting for at least more than half, including those contributing to the game's revenue. The players are genuinely engaged and enjoying the game.

[Cruvimaster]

Crystal-Chested Buzzards are an excellent replacement for the old Lunar Hail. They're not difficult to exterminate both times they appear. After that, the player has peace for a long period. They need an adjustment to protect the farms.

One suggestion would be a way to warn the player that they are coming with a cooldown. This is what already happens with Hounds, Deerclops, Beargers, Depths Worms, and Great Depths Worms.

Another would be to create a new version of the scarecrow with items from the Shadow Side. But I think the devs can come up with an even better creative solution for this.

I always see complaints that DST doesn't bring more survival elements. So I see these birds as an addition for that purpose.


 

Minor adjustments are all I think they need. Another way to eliminate them and a method to protect the farms would solve the problem.

[adminaaassh]

Here is the English translation, keeping the original meaning, critical tone, and structure intact while making it natural and readable:

---

The solutions you mentioned only treat the symptoms, not the root cause. In fact, a more accurate solution would be to properly improve the entire system itself—for example, weakening the area-of-effect damage, replacing Hound Attacks, adjusting the number of spawns and attack frequency, and giving players simple and effective ways to repel these creatures. While this creature is indeed extremely annoying and does need changes, the more fundamental issue lies in the developers’ long-standing design philosophy and attitude.

Based on my observations, the developers seem to want to cater to Don’t Starve Together’s “primitive, uncertain, wilderness adventure” atmosphere, while also avoiding a repeat of the old disease mechanic that effectively drove away entire groups of players. As a result, they frequently add strange new mechanics or creatures in updates. These additions usually don’t have the decisive, game-excluding impact that the removed disease system once had—but they still function like miniature versions of a disease mechanic. In theory, they can be dealt with, but in practice they mostly affect long-term players.

To put it bluntly, many of the late-game mechanics and creatures introduced recently are things that short-term players will either never encounter or only encounter occasionally, with very limited impact. However, for long-term players, the cumulative effect is significant.

This leads to a key question: even if the developers modify this creature, what will they design next? For example, will they add monsters in the ocean that chase players and slowly increase in number? The game already has more than enough creatures that actively hunt the player. If you add ten or twenty more mechanics or creatures of this type, will long-term players still be able to enjoy the game?

As I’ve said before, originally you could walk out the door normally. Then you needed to wear handcuffs. After more updates, you now have to walk upside down. As more and more mechanics are added—mechanics that barely affect short-term players but heavily burden long-term ones—you eventually reach a point where, just to function normally, you must wear handcuffs and shackles, cover yourself in tattoos, make grotesque faces, and walk upside down. You’re forced to constantly defend against new mechanics until you’re mentally exhausted, and you can no longer comfortably play with friends who have different levels of game knowledge or skill. Is this really the original intention behind these designs?

Another issue is that, due to a lack of understanding of normal gameplay and of Don’t Starve’s systems, some casually added mechanics can enable malicious griefing behavior. As I mentioned before, the Giant Whirlpool can throw a large amount of valuable items into the underground Ocean Detritus pile. A normal player may then need to spend an hour or more just to retrieve their belongings. While this may seem simple and not particularly impactful on its own, what will the developers design next? Will they add even more mechanics that allow malicious destruction of gameplay—and in extremely simple ways?

I’d also like to add that although the game still appears to be active, this does not mean that the vast majority of players overwhelmingly like the vanilla game—that is, the version of the game designed by the developers themselves. In reality, there may be far fewer such players than expected. From my observation of the Don’t Starve game lobby, nearly all listed servers use mods. Truly vanilla servers, without any mods at all, are extremely rare.

I believe this clearly indicates that a significant portion of players are dissatisfied with parts—or even large portions—of the vanilla game. This is something the developers seem to have overlooked and failed to properly analyze. For example, they could examine which mods players are using, why they use them, and which aspects of the vanilla game those mods are addressing or changing. These are things the developers could and should systematically study.

Finally, regarding the player base shrinking that I mentioned earlier: the Chinese wiki and the English wiki are no longer the same. The English wiki now rarely contains in-depth mechanical analysis and mostly only lists basic numerical values. All of this suggests that the player base is indeed shrinking, that deep and hardcore players are gradually disappearing, and that the game’s ecosystem is becoming increasingly shallow and monotonous.

[adminaaassh]

5 hours ago, Your Chester said:

Strongly support

It is a positive thing when players provide feedback. They want the game to improve rather than cause harm intentionally. Players who give feedback in a foreign language are those who truly enjoy the game. It would be a very negative situation if a game received no feedback at all.

Moreover, as far as I know, the majority of players of this game come from mainland China, accounting for at least more than half, including those contributing to the game's revenue. The players are genuinely engaged and enjoying the game.

Here is the English translation:

---

Actually, there are also explanations regarding this issue, and I personally believe the developers may not have a clear understanding of it. It’s possible that Chinese players do indeed make up a large portion of the player base, even though Steam statistics may not reflect this accurately. On Steam, Chinese-language users seem to account for only about one-third of the data, but within the Chinese community there is also a Chinese version of “Steam” called WeGame.

WeGame exists to better adapt games to the Chinese market and includes limited content modifications. For example, the player graves we can see in the game files are actually WeGame-exclusive content. Overall, it’s quite possible that Chinese players make up the majority of the game’s player base. According to information from WeGame, we can more directly observe recent trends in this game’s positive review rate and recommendation rate.

WeGame上的《饥荒：联机版》,Don't Starve Together

So in reality, the Chinese player base is split across platforms: part of it is on Steam, and part is on WeGame. This makes it appear as though there are relatively few Chinese players on Steam alone. However, judging from community activity and the overall ecosystem, I personally believe that the proportion of Chinese players is not as small as one might assume—and may even have become the majority by now.

Additionally, the game is available on several other platforms, but judging by the level of activity there—and the fact that they appear to only support the vanilla version—their overall share of the player base should be very small.

Another important indicator is the update frequency of mods on Steam. If we look at recently updated mods for Don’t Starve Together, we can see that a very large proportion of them are Chinese mods. I know that some non-Chinese players also deliberately use Chinese, but if you observe more carefully—such as by checking player names, switching to the Chinese language environment, looking at nicknames or descriptions in profiles, or even the nationality shown by player avatars—it’s actually fairly easy to identify which players are Chinese and estimate their proportion.

Edited December 18, 2025 by adminaaassh

[Cassielu]

19 hours ago, adminaaassh said:

I believe some developers’ thinking may still be stuck in the single-player era

你们俩互相机翻英文搁这说相声呢？

我不觉得他们守旧，我只觉得他们忘祖的不知天高地厚了。

威尔逊更擅长用小工具解决问题，而不是依赖正面战斗？奖励你使用所学的知识？整体氛围？来自域外都快把这些东西丢到九霄云外去了，什么丰富玩法通通给最简单最无脑最重复的即时反应战斗让步，这就是唯一解法，除此之外的东西都不许存在。亏科雷还有脸把这些到处讲，都写到给新家园的指导书里了，也没见他们自己有多遵守。

凭空刷出来一堆莫名其妙的怪物和你莫名其妙地死斗就能叫生存玩法的话，市面上就没有游戏不是生存游戏了。光环不打外星人他们就会射死你，是生存，空洞骑士不打死丝咒虫子它们就会打死你，是生存，我看CSGO也未必不能是生存游戏呢。还隔这“给饥荒补全生存玩法”，生个🔨存，原本生存游戏标杆现在连什么是生存都搞不明白了。

Edited December 18, 2025 by Cassielu

[dubushop]

Its inability to be prevented and its ability to destroy walls clearly demonstrates that the developers didn't actually play the game.

[Bumber64]

Someone just said Klei doesn't play their game. Take another drink.

[adminaaassh]

15 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

Someone just said Klei doesn't play their game. Take another drink.

It’s not that extreme, but honestly, their understanding of the game is still extremely shallow.
If we take Minecraft as an example, their perception of the game might just be: once you defeat the Ender Dragon, that’s the end—there’s nothing else beyond that. The game becomes nothing but combat, with endless mobs spawning to cater to some so-called sense of adventure, while everything else simply doesn’t exist.

They also don’t pay any attention to the player community at all—it’s like working behind closed doors. Have they ever actually cared about what people are saying in the comment sections of their Chinese update videos?

For long-term play, this game is actually very difficult to run with additional mods, because large mods tend to cause problems sooner or later in the late game. Another issue is that server costs go up significantly when using large mods. So from what I’ve observed, almost all long-term saves are basically vanilla, with only some optimization mods added—things like garbage cleanup or performance optimization mods.

When they add creatures like the old Great Depths Worm, do you think they ever consider the problems some players might run into? These are the kinds of things that, if you actually played long-term and thought things through even a little, you’d immediately realize would trigger a whole chain of issues. But instead, they just have a sudden idea, think some design sounds cool, and then put it into the game. Their way of playing the game, in my opinion, is extremely superficial.

Game mechanics that players have been used to for five, six, even seven or eight years—they can change them without a second thought. They blindly cater to short-term players, stuffing more and more late-game content into the game and adding a bunch of random, inexplicable features. It’s like piling illegal constructions on top of a moving skyscraper: the center of gravity has already shifted, and it could trigger all kinds of chain reactions at any moment.

They focus entirely on pleasing short-term players. They don’t manage the game like proper sandbox game stewards at all. They lack the ability to see the game as a whole. They don’t feel like game developers—more like mod developers.

There’s an item called Shell Bells that the developers added a long time ago. But the tones of these Shell Bells all have noise in them—they sound extremely unpleasant. Even so, some players still use them to compose music, much like how people use redstone in Minecraft to make music. On Chinese video platforms, there are even dedicated content creators who focus specifically on composing music using shell bells in DST, and they’re still uploading new content to this day.

Have the developers ever noticed this? Have they ever made any adjustments to improve the awful sound quality of the Shell Bells? Do they actually have the ability to look at the bigger picture? Do they understand what kinds of players the game has? Have they ever thought about these players and tried to bring more diversity into the game because of them?

【【饥荒】 用贝壳钟演奏《晴天》】 https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1hm421H7FS/?share_source=copy_web&vd_source=235c437a4647e069def9bff3967e6951

【【饥荒】 用贝壳钟演奏《饥荒登录界面背景音乐》】 https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV18bQPYcEHk/?share_source=copy_web&vd_source=235c437a4647e069def9bff3967e6951

The game’s cover art has been changed over and over again, and the main theme music has also been revised again and again, yet I’ve never seen them do anything for these players. Change the instrument tones? Make composing this kind of music easier? They’ve done nothing at all!

[adminaaassh]

In China, there’s a platform similar to YouTube called Bilibili. Even though its market value is only about one-tenth of YouTube’s, it’s still a major long-form video platform. The developers have an official account on this platform, and that account is still active today, with fans frequently discussing and leaving large numbers of comments under their videos.

Meanwhile, most of their other accounts in mainland China are basically dead—posts get very little response or feedback. So this platform account has effectively become their only dedicated channel for collecting feedback and opinions from mainland Chinese players. But how do they actually collect that information?

They don’t watch relevant Don’t Starve videos on the platform. They don’t watch player feedback videos about newly added creatures or recent updates. Instead, their monthly routine is to publish a single feedback post, then use tools to categorize and filter out what they consider “low-value” feedback, and send the remaining bits internally.

Honestly, with the time they spend doing that, they’d be far better off just reading focused discussion threads themselves—summarizing how many negative reviews there are, what those complaints are actually about, why those negative reactions exist in the first place, and why certain content creators feel resistant or hostile toward specific parts of their new updates. That would be far more useful than a single, dull feedback post.

科雷娱乐的动态 - 哔哩哔哩

科雷娱乐的动态 - 哔哩哔哩

科雷娱乐的动态 - 哔哩哔哩

科雷娱乐的动态 - 哔哩哔哩

冬季盛宴开席！+更多 - 哔哩哔哩

《饥荒联机版》：最温暖的夜晚_饥荒联机版

《饥荒：联机版》：永恒领域故事集——本性_哔哩哔哩bilibili_饥荒联机版_剧情

《饥荒联机版》“远古回响”更新预告动画_哔哩哔哩bilibili_饥荒

These are the updates from the feedback posts they published on their official account starting in September, along with the related videos. If they had even bothered to open a machine translator and actually look at how people are reacting in the comment sections, they would immediately understand just how miserable some players feel.

If they took even a little time to summarize and pay attention, they would be able to clearly feel the anger coming from the player base.

The reach and impact of videos are far greater than some useless feedback post. If they were willing to be proactive—hosting livestreams on this official account, having their Chinese-speaking staff communicate directly and collect feedback there, or even asking their Chinese streamer community to help gather opinions—that would all be far more effective than that garbage post.

If they spent a bit more time watching DST videos from Chinese creators and actually summarizing what they saw, they never would have ended up designing the things we see today.

水晶冠秃鹫-哔哩哔哩_bilibili

月亮秃鹫-哔哩哔哩_bilibili

The two links above are video search result pages containing keyword searches related to Crystal-Crested Buzzard, using only the proper noun. If the developers simply searched for these videos, clicked into a few of them, and used machine translation to roughly understand the comments, they would be able to see the real player sentiment toward this creature in the comment sections.

They could also ask their Chinese-speaking staff to translate the main points and arguments of those videos, and then have that person summarize the information from the comment sections—summarizing why some players dislike the developers’ designs, and why certain creatures provoke such strong feelings of disgust.

But they didn’t do any of that.

 

 

Edited December 19, 2025 by adminaaassh

[CrimsonStrider]

I don't see any reason to change buzzards at the moment.  I don't have any issues with them in my worlds. 

Don't do the things they attract their attention during a rift.

Kill them in a different area when they spawn. 

Adjust how you deal with hound waves.

Don't activate rifts. 

Turn them off in the option.

 

Edit:

Actually Im curious now based on another topic. On console we just got the buzzards and they only spawn on things that can mutate (spiders, hounds, pengulls etc)

 

People are mentioning bees and bilibili has them complaining about spawning on normal bosses and messing with loot.

Is that a change that happened at some point? Everything with a corpse draws them down now?

 

Edited December 20, 2025 by CrimsonStrider

[Bumber64]

6 hours ago, adminaaassh said:

If they spent a bit more time watching DST videos from Chinese creators and actually summarizing what they saw, they never would have ended up designing the things we see today.

They probably don't spend much time watching videos when they're supposed to be working. I suspect they only pay attention to comments during their own live streams, this Beta section (only during betas), and bug reports. Anything else needs to be brought to their attention by someone.

Maybe they don't even check the Suggestions section very frequently, though people seem to keep posting their ideas in General Discussion for some reason.

Edited December 20, 2025 by Bumber64

[wormwood123]

Lunar buzzards killed my beefalo herd because they killed a frog and they came down and then because they’re in heat attacked the buzzard and the buzzard ended them

[Lovens]

4 hours ago, wormwood123 said:

Lunar buzzards killed my beefalo herd because they killed a frog and they came down and then because they’re in heat attacked the buzzard and the buzzard ended them

That's sad, considering Klei never bothered to make beefalo renewable like volt goats, despite being asked so many times. And the solution to this kind of situation with the buzzards would be what, exactly? Never appear near the beefalo herd when they are in heat? It's not fun to be restricted when and how you engage with the content. I only don't complain about the buzzards because unlike other parts of the game Klei ruined for me, buzzards at least have a toggle in the settings. This toggle is never going to be turned on in any of my worlds, period. I'm fed up with this bs and I just want to play the game I bought and used to like. Too bad it doesn't exist anymore. 

[wormwood123]

2 minutes ago, Lovens said:

That's sad, considering Klei never bothered to make beefalo renewable like volt goats, despite being asked so many times. And the solution to this kind of situation with the buzzards would be what, exactly? Never appear near the beefalo herd when they are in heat? It's not fun to be restricted when and how you engage with the content. I only don't complain about the buzzards because unlike other parts of the game Klei ruined for me, buzzards at least have a toggle in the settings. This toggle is never going to be turned on in any of my worlds, period. I'm fed up with this bs and I just want to play the game I bought and used to like. Too bad it doesn't exist anymore. 

Oh lunar buzzards DO have a toggle I completely forgot about that because I never scroll past bosses! I still have my beefalo so I may have to release them for a time to repopulate 

[adminaaassh]

13 hours ago, CrimsonStrider said:

I don't see any reason to change buzzards at the moment.  I don't have any issues with them in my worlds. 

Don't do the things they attract their attention during a rift.

Kill them in a different area when they spawn. 

Adjust how you deal with hound waves.

Don't activate rifts. 

Turn them off in the option.

 

Edit:

Actually Im curious now based on another topic. On console we just got the buzzards and they only spawn on things that can mutate (spiders, hounds, pengulls etc)

 

People are mentioning bees and bilibili has them complaining about spawning on normal bosses and messing with loot.

Is that a change that happened at some point? Everything with a corpse draws them down now?

 

Although I’ve mentioned this before, I don’t mind bringing it up again: why isn’t simply turning off certain parts of the game a real solution? The reason is actually very simple.

Long-term players want to experience the new content added through updates. As a sandbox game, is the developers’ implication really that if you don’t change game settings, then you basically can’t play long-term saves—or you’ll be forced into an extremely painful experience? Playing in a constant state of high alert, guarding against every possible incident, eventually driving yourself and your teammates to near mental exhaustion? Collapsing under the pressure of endless potential chain reactions?

Let me use Wildfires as an example, since I know someone will bring it up. Many long-term players turn Wildfires off when generating a world. This feature is basically trash design left over from the single-player era—it could have been optimized and made more reasonable. Its existence is meant to satisfy a niche group of hardcore survival-focused players, and it’s really only suitable for short-term saves. Once you enable it, you’re forced to constantly prepare for fires that can happen at any time.

I know some people will bring up Ice Flingomatic and Ice Crystaleyezer. But does that mean I have to place these things all over the map—sticking them everywhere like wooden stakes driven into a clean canvas—just to guard against dangers that could happen at any moment? In the process, the entire map gets chopped into fragments, turning into something ugly and unpleasant, like a canvas covered in stakes.

If sticking 5 to 10 stakes into a canvas might be considered artistic, then what about more? Twenty? Fifty? At that point, the whole canvas becomes unbearably ugly. Or is the intended approach to only build one or two small bases and leave most of the map completely unchanged?

If that’s the case, then long-term gameplay becomes extremely limited. You could say that more than half of the enjoyment for long-term players is simply erased.

Why do so many long-term players choose to turn this setting off? Because they know the design is obnoxious—but they also know it was intentionally preserved to cater to survival-focused players. Over time, this became a habit. And because it’s a long-standing habit, it doesn’t trigger much backlash anymore.

But now, the creatures and mechanics the developers are adding are clearly becoming one small “Wildfires” option after another. If you turn them off, you miss out on new content. If you turn them on, you risk driving yourself insane trying to prevent endless disasters just to maintain a long-term save.

What’s worse is that the developers now seem increasingly inclined to add these kinds of designs and mechanics. In the future, there may be even more “Wildfires-like” systems. And once enough time passes, the developers likely won’t change them—because, as I said, some players may have already grown accustomed to that harsh, wilderness-style experience, and the developers will preserve it to protect those players.

There’s also another problem: some settings may not even be optional. For example, if they apply a Moon mutation to Waterlogged, making that area extremely unpleasant—if you disable Waterlogged generation, then you don’t get to experience Waterlogged at all. So what do you do then?

Sure, they might add more granular settings in the future, but my point is this: if an existing item, structure, or core game mechanic becomes fully Moon-altered and completely bound to that mutation—impossible to separate—and the resulting gameplay is deeply unpleasant, then what’s the solution?

One more thing, which I also mentioned in an older post: why rely on using code or console commands to modify settings or add things? Choosing that approach is effectively no different from cheating. It’s like in Minecraft—if you feel something is missing and someone tells you, “Just open the console, switch to creative mode, and spawn it in.”

The developers have been detached from ordinary players for so long that they may genuinely think using code and console commands is normal gameplay behavior.

If you want more detailed context, you can click on my profile and read what I’ve posted before.

Edited December 20, 2025 by adminaaassh

[adminaaassh]

Let me go deeper into this “stakes in a canvas” metaphor, because the developers are already doing exactly this.

Take underground earthquakes dropping Boulders as an example. Since Boulders can destroy structures, the developers introduced Support Pillars and Dreadstone Pillars. With default world settings, the surface already suffers from Wildfires, meaning the surface world is effectively already a canvas full of stakes. Long-term survival may require massive numbers of Ice Flingomatics and Ice Crystaleyezers just to function normally.

From a long-term player’s perspective, if both surface and underground settings are left at default, then both areas already qualify as ugly, stake-filled canvases. And yet, very few players actually build long-term underground bases. Meanwhile, Wildfires on the surface are usually turned off by long-term players by default. So it’s likely the developers haven’t even noticed these players.

Based on this trajectory, I believe the developers may design yet another system—because there’s still one major area left that hasn’t been “polluted” by disgusting mechanics: the ocean.

In the future, the ocean might feature frequent waves, similar to those in Don’t Starve: Shipwrecked. To fit the theme, lunar phases could affect tides, making waves larger, smaller, more frequent, or causing them to disappear under certain conditions. These waves could damage boats—pushing them, dealing one or two points of damage, or more. Boats colliding with each other could also lose durability.

At that point, players who build bases on boats, or who place large numbers of boats beneath Waterlogged areas, would be completely desperate.

To “counterbalance” this, the developers would likely introduce an ocean version of Support Pillars or Ice Crystaleyezers—devices that suppress waves in nearby areas. And in the end, the entire world would become one enormous canvas where stakes can be planted everywhere.

In my view, this is absolutely something the developers would design—for the lunar theme, for the “harsh wilderness” atmosphere, for their idealized vision of Don’t Starve adventure.

It’s like taking a person who can walk perfectly fine, deliberately breaking their legs, and then handing them a crutch while saying, “See? You can still walk.” It’s crude, unreasonable, and lazy.

Good design should come from a holistic understanding of the game and careful consideration of chain reactions. It should be the result of deep thought—not a sudden flash of inspiration that leads to dumping a pile of random creatures and mechanics into the game.

Ocean building decorations like this could end up being completely destroyed.

[Bumber64]

31 minutes ago, adminaaassh said:

To fit the theme, lunar phases could affect tides, making waves larger, smaller, more frequent, or causing them to disappear under certain conditions. These waves could damage boats—pushing them, dealing one or two points of damage, or more. Boats colliding with each other could also lose durability.

@Klei

[Lovens]

1 hour ago, adminaaassh said:

Although I’ve mentioned this before, I don’t mind bringing it up again: why isn’t simply turning off certain parts of the game a real solution?

At this point in the game I'd take anything really - even a toggle to turn off an annoying addition to the game that I don't like. I always liked DST because of this, I thought that anything I dislike I could at least turn off in the settings. But all the recent updates buried this concept by adding annoying plot arcs and global mechanics with no alternative options. Unfortunately there's no toggle for the "Evict Pearl from her island" stupid plot line, neither there's a toggle for "Make electric damage ignite plant-based creatures", and surely they won't make one for "Make Pearl immediately resurface after being drowned".  These are the three main things that have killed my enjoyment of this game and nobody at Klei bothered to provide any solutions for these annoying features, or allow players to turn them off in the settings, or at least play the game on the previous build without a mandatory update rolled out if one dislikes it. 



I opened my DST window about 52 hours ago, before the latest update went live. I hadn't closed it ever since. As long as my game window stays opened it won't update and I can still turn my stockpiled heavy seasonal fish and other supplies into additional Pearl's pearls, as long as I can manage. I know there won't be any use for all this heavy seasonal fish after the update happens. I have obtained 19 extra pearls this way so far. I don't play out of the enjoyment anymore - thanks Klei - my playing is driven by pure FOMO. Somehow in the game I thought would never induce any FOMO on me (because there are usually no time-gated limited events) I'm trapped in an infinite loop of drowning Pearl and repeating her quests, and I have never felt more miserable and frustrated with any of the videogames I've played. You ruined my Christmas, Klei. All thanks to your inconsiderate and oblivious developers who stole this possibility from me and didn't provide any alternative, once again ruining my enjoyment of the game.

I only regret not doing this earlier, before Hostile Takeover update. I should have never closed my DST window and never let it update even back then. I wish I could just go back in time and forever play the old version of the game, the one I paid my money for and the one I actually enjoyed. 

Edited December 20, 2025 by Lovens

[adminaaassh]

1 hour ago, Lovens said:

At this point in the game I'd take anything really - even a toggle to turn off an annoying addition to the game that I don't like. I always liked DST because of this, I thought that anything I dislike I could at least turn off in the settings. But all the recent updates buried this concept by adding annoying plot arcs and global mechanics with no alternative options. Unfortunately there's no toggle for the "Evict Pearl from her island" stupid plot line, neither there's a toggle for "Make electric damage ignite plant-based creatures", and surely they won't make one for "Make Pearl immediately resurface after being drowned".  These are the three main things that have killed my enjoyment of this game and nobody at Klei bothered to provide any solutions for these annoying features, or allow players to turn them off in the settings, or at least play the game on the previous build without a mandatory update rolled out if one dislikes it. 



I opened my DST window about 52 hours ago, before the latest update went live. I hadn't closed it ever since. As long as my game window stays opened it won't update and I can still turn my stockpiled heavy seasonal fish and other supplies into additional Pearl's pearls, as long as I can manage. I know there won't be any use for all this heavy seasonal fish after the update happens. I have obtained 19 extra pearls this way so far. I don't play out of the enjoyment anymore - thanks Klei - my playing is driven by pure FOMO. Somehow in the game I thought would never induce any FOMO on me (because there are usually no time-gated limited events) I'm trapped in an infinite loop of drowning Pearl and repeating her quests, and I have never felt more miserable and frustrated with any of the videogames I've played. You ruined my Christmas, Klei. All thanks to your inconsiderate and oblivious developers who stole this possibility from me and didn't provide any alternative, once again ruining my enjoyment of the game.

I only regret not doing this earlier, before Hostile Takeover update. I should have never closed my DST window and never let it update even back then. I wish I could just go back in time and forever play the old version of the game, the one I paid my money for and the one I actually enjoyed. 

Regarding Crabby Hermit, the developers’ current update is actually meant for players like you. They added new content and new decorations for Crabby Hermit, and one of the main purposes is to let you stop being tied to that single small island. Instead, you can give Crabby Hermit a new home elsewhere on the map and build decorations around it. The developers’ thinking is probably something like this: they don’t have to change old content, they can give themselves new work to do, and at the same time they can ease the emotions of players who previously built bases on Hermit Island.

That said, I can still understand why you feel disappointed. That island allowed for unique decorative designs, the Plugged Fissures created a distinctive atmosphere, and you invested a lot of time there. So this update is still essentially a “giant band-aid” update. However, judging from the comment sections of related content creators I’ve observed, the feedback for this update has been quite positive. From my perspective, a better update would have been to modify W.A.R.B.O.T.’s combat arena so it could be placed elsewhere, but clearly the developers are very unlikely to touch that area anytime soon.

What I mean is that we need to have a realistic baseline understanding of the developers’ capabilities—what they can do and what they can’t. The core problem with what they’ve been doing is that they don’t really understand the player community. When issues arise from careless design decisions, all they can do is provide this kind of compensatory fix, which rarely addresses the root problem. This update, at least based on the content creators’ comment sections and player feedback I’ve seen, is mostly positive, though there are still negative reactions—for example, the fire issues caused by Moongleam and the problems created by the Great Depths Worm. The fixes they provided for those simply don’t work.

That’s why I say they lack an understanding of their player base, lack an understanding of gameplay mechanics, and lack a big-picture view of the game. When problems appear, all they can do is apply band-aid-style updates—without changing old content and without solving the underlying issues. This has become their habitual way of handling things.

This update is clearly a positive one. Even though, in my view, it still doesn’t address the fundamental problems, it does give some players who built bases on Hermit Island a sense of compensation and a more favorable impression of this update.

But all I can say is that this update feels like a rare exception. When they add more strange creatures or mechanics in the future, how many times can they really pull off an update like this again? (Even though some players are disappointed with this update, and it indeed doesn’t resolve the issues those players are facing, the vast majority of player feedback is positive.) Still, this kind of update ultimately fails to solve the root problems.

And the problems caused by their various old designs and mechanics—including the Crystal-Crested Buzzard from the last update and the risks introduced by more creature mutations—still don’t have any good solutions to this day.

[adminaaassh]

Another point is that the developers’ updates can sometimes be extremely perfunctory. This is probably because there are different types of developers internally. Some lack a real understanding of the game, while others are simply careless or lazy. You can clearly see this difference in the last character skill tree update—some developers designed things that were honestly not very good.

A better example would be the Lunar New Year event updates from previous years. In one earlier New Year update, they added two items: Jubilantern Post and the surface Gilded Depths Worm. The Jubilantern Post directly reused the code from the underground Cracked Pillar of the Nightmare Werepig, and the Gilded Depths Worm reused the code from the normal underground Depths Worm. In other words, that New Year event update barely involved writing any new code at all—it was mostly copy-paste, with the remaining work handed off to the musicians and artists.

It gets even worse when you look at the Chinese Lunar New Year Year of the Dragon event update from the year before that. They added a boat racing event. But dragon boat racing is associated with the Duanwu Festival, not the Lunar New Year. To give a simple analogy, it’s like having people dress up as Halloween ghosts and go trick-or-treating during Christmas—it just feels awkward and nonsensical. Even more importantly, that race was basically a reskin of the Rat Year race, with no real innovation at all.

P.S. Their problem with code reuse is actually quite serious. The newly added Boulderbough is essentially just Evergreen’s code reused—it can even be force-grown with Applied Silviculture, shaking a bit afterward, yet serving no real purpose. There are many other examples as well: various decorative items, or the Valkyrie’s Elding Spear dash attack, which is lifted straight from The Forge. All of these are results of heavy code reuse.

While code reuse itself doesn’t automatically mean something is wrong, I believe that new designs should at least introduce something new. Constantly copying and pasting old content without meaningful innovation is not a good habit.

Many old game elements still have problems or are in need of changes. For example, Grass Gekko transformations or Twiggy Tree transformations can severely drag down game performance. If you cover most of the surface or cave areas with wooden flooring, the tree growth cycles still continue running in the background. There’s also the outdated Petrified Tree cycle, the Wildfires mechanic inherited from the single-player era, and the fragile yet extremely costly Houndius Shootius, which is completely out of step with the current state of the game. Honestly, all of these could be properly reworked and improved.（Because Grass Gekkos have an extremely small collision box, they can actually pass straight through any kind of wall. This includes map coastlines and even the edge of the world map. They can run around on the ocean or outside the map entirely. As long as you scare and drive them, no amount of walls will stop them—they can effortlessly cross any wall or coastline.）

The latest changes to Lunar Hail also seem likely to cause new issues. Many objects in the surface world can become coated with Moon Shards, and this does not only apply to things within the player’s view—it applies to all eligible objects across the entire surface world. Since Moon Shards are also removed simultaneously, the process of attaching and removing them may cause frame drops or even game freezes. This problem could become even more severe in multiplayer environments.

Edited December 20, 2025 by adminaaassh

[Waywarbler]

4 hours ago, Lovens said:

I opened my DST window about 52 hours ago, before the latest update went live. I hadn't closed it ever since. As long as my game window stays opened it won't update and I can still turn my stockpiled heavy seasonal fish and other supplies into additional Pearl's pearls, as long as I can manage. I know there won't be any use for all this heavy seasonal fish after the update happens. I have obtained 19 extra pearls this way so far. I don't play out of the enjoyment anymore - thanks Klei - my playing is driven by pure FOMO. Somehow in the game I thought would never induce any FOMO on me (because there are usually no time-gated limited events) I'm trapped in an infinite loop of drowning Pearl and repeating her quests, and I have never felt more miserable and frustrated with any of the videogames I've played. You ruined my Christmas, Klei. All thanks to your inconsiderate and oblivious developers who stole this possibility from me and didn't provide any alternative, once again ruining my enjoyment of the game.

This is just, so absurdly dramatic.

Surely at this point you should just spawn more pearls in with the console, instead of tormenting yourself like this?

[Lovens]

16 minutes ago, Waywarbler said:

This is just, so absurdly dramatic.

Surely at this point you should just spawn more pearls in with the console, instead of tormenting yourself like this?

Spawning things via console is no different from cheating and that defeats the whole purpose of the game. I liked getting extra pearls because I actually fairly earned them by repeating all 10 of her tasks again and again. I worked hard for each pearl. I set up teleports to her island, barnacle farms and fishing spots. I went out of my way on seasonal heavy fishing hunt trips which is a whole separate challenge because of how RNG works and how many gnarwails and sharks you get with those rare seasonal shoals. I had a whole system set up on her island with various tools and materials used for repeat tasks - seasonal clothing, salad bundles, fish storages, kelp for drying on racks, bugnets and even bundled butterflies so I could plant them in winter if needed. All meticulously maintained and executed every once in a while for a great reward, the shiny pearl. It felt as deserved as getting it for the first time, it felt earned. And it was even harder because you can't repair her house more than once so those three points need to be replaced by seasonal fish or other seasonal tasks. It's was also a challenge on its own was also to also deal with her broken AI post-drowning or short day times where she would go home too early and won't let you finish everything in time.

I couldn't replicate all that with console even if I wanted to. It's a whole game within the game that is now gone, forever lost just because Klei's developers don't care for unconventional game playstyles. They are not aware of unique and obscure methods to play the game, even the ones involving glitches. Klei is like a doctor who is confronted by a patient about their foot being itchy and instead of just treating it with a balm they decide to chop off the entire leg and replace it with a mechanical leg. Sure it works and won't be itching now. But it's not the same as having a real leg and the real leg is now forever gone. 

[Pruinae]

6 hours ago, Lovens said:

I only regret not doing this earlier, before Hostile Takeover update. I should have never closed my DST window and never let it update even back then. I wish I could just go back in time and forever play the old version of the game, the one I paid my money for and the one I actually enjoyed. 

You can downgrade game versions if you want, no need for despair. Google "How to Play Old Versions of Steam Games". You could even go to an update before Hostile Takeover, but idk the consequences of going back that far on a world so

Make sure to create backups of your worlds before messing with anything file related. It's also best to avoid messing with these things if you are on a bad headspace, as that may make mistakes more likely.

[adminaaassh]

3 hours ago, Lovens said:

Spawning things via console is no different from cheating and that defeats the whole purpose of the game. I liked getting extra pearls because I actually fairly earned them by repeating all 10 of her tasks again and again. I worked hard for each pearl. I set up teleports to her island, barnacle farms and fishing spots. I went out of my way on seasonal heavy fishing hunt trips which is a whole separate challenge because of how RNG works and how many gnarwails and sharks you get with those rare seasonal shoals. I had a whole system set up on her island with various tools and materials used for repeat tasks - seasonal clothing, salad bundles, fish storages, kelp for drying on racks, bugnets and even bundled butterflies so I could plant them in winter if needed. All meticulously maintained and executed every once in a while for a great reward, the shiny pearl. It felt as deserved as getting it for the first time, it felt earned. And it was even harder because you can't repair her house more than once so those three points need to be replaced by seasonal fish or other seasonal tasks. It's was also a challenge on its own was also to also deal with her broken AI post-drowning or short day times where she would go home too early and won't let you finish everything in time.

I couldn't replicate all that with console even if I wanted to. It's a whole game within the game that is now gone, forever lost just because Klei's developers don't care for unconventional game playstyles. They are not aware of unique and obscure methods to play the game, even the ones involving glitches. Klei is like a doctor who is confronted by a patient about their foot being itchy and instead of just treating it with a balm they decide to chop off the entire leg and replace it with a mechanical leg. Sure it works and won't be itching now. But it's not the same as having a real leg and the real leg is now forever gone. 

Rolling back to an older version of the game carries risks, so you need to back up your save files in advance. Rolling back also comes with real costs: you won’t be able to play online normally, and if you obtained various new items in a newer version, rolling back to an older version can cause all kinds of problems.

For example, the image below shows an issue that occurred when Ice Sheet was first introduced—rolling a save with the new Ice Sheet back to an older version caused visible cracks to appear. This means that once you roll back, it’s impossible to predict what might go wrong. In the worst-case scenario, the save file could be permanently corrupted.

So if you plan to play on an older version, make sure to copy your saves beforehand, and try to use a save that has never been opened in a newer version. This also means you won’t be able to experience any new-version content, and you won’t be able to play multiplayer (unless you and your friends all roll back to the exact same version—then multiplayer might be possible（I’m not sure whether using the same old version allows multiplayer, but from what I’ve heard, it probably doesn’t.）).

If you roll back to an old version, then update again, and then roll back once more, the chances of problems occurring become much higher—possibly even severe issues. Finally, avoid using versions that are too old.

Edited December 21, 2025 by adminaaassh