Arc conclusion soon?

[user1464576869]

1 minute ago, Nikki Darks said:

If one day all rift content got removed, the game would not be affected. That is just how much it is completely disconnected from base game. Almost all of the gear that came with rifts is almost strictly tied to rift content...

And what's the most strange, before this was even announced (the rift content), the community has been begging for more cave biomes, more overworld biomes, more ocean content, and yet we got this, content that's beyond disconnected from the game and ignoring the flaws people wanted fixed.

Hahah, you know, I've seen the newer content in discussions, but I've never been able to even get there to play with them myself to feel how they jive with the rest of the game. They seemed to have some small things to help everyday life, (rock trees, and oil goop chest..?) though now I'm hearing that the sentiment might be that they truly are more isolated than I thought.

[Nikki Darks]

6 minutes ago, user1464576869 said:

Hahah, you know, I've seen the newer content in discussions, but I've never been able to even get there to play with them myself to feel how they jive with the rest of the game. They seemed to have some small things to help everyday life, (rock trees, and oil goop chest..?) though now I'm hearing that the sentiment might be that they truly are more isolated than I thought.

I love the new rock trees and the ocean gem trees, really cool content. (Even though I absolutely despise the ocean and sailing) 

I am in the same boat as you, though. I only really engage with this new late game content when the beta drops to test it out, but I never really bother with it when actually playing DST. It all seems like (personally) unfun chores and difficulty spikes, which fair enough it is optional hardmode, just not my cup of tea.

I'll just be sitting in my corner, with my bernie, waiting for the Wickerbottom skill tree to make Maxwell unable to read her books and give her perks outside of books. Cope.

[Cruvimaster]

On 12/29/2025 at 3:48 AM, gaymime said:

 new bosses,

A new boss is the least I expect for the end of the Shadow Side arc, since we've only had bosses on the Lunar Side.

 

[Jakepeng99]

2 hours ago, Nikki Darks said:

If one day all rift content got removed, the game would not be affected. That is just how much it is completely disconnected from base game. Almost all of the gear that came with rifts is almost strictly tied to rift content...

And what's the most strange, before this was even announced (the rift content), the community has been begging for more cave biomes, more overworld biomes, more ocean content, and yet we got this, content that's beyond disconnected from the game and ignoring the flaws people wanted fixed.

There is some cool stuff in it like the bearger bin, Ive crystalliser (it’s weak but cool), and the infinite chests, but there is much better ways to do endgame content.

Instead of it being forced to be endgame, it should be like the ruins or fuelweaver, where technically they are endgame due to being difficult content, but you can do them whenever.

 

For example, imagine if the infinite chests were just something hard you had to farm for… maybe just make it not need a blueprint actually and it’s a post CC crafting material. Most the rewards from riffs is just quality of life stuff and decorations. Feels like they dedicated everything to very specific end game mega base players. 
 

In terms of survival players, riffs suck since all the challenges are just waiting. Either make a mega base or wait for something interesting to happen.

2 hours ago, user1464576869 said:

Hahah, you know, I've seen the newer content in discussions, but I've never been able to even get there to play with them myself to feel how they jive with the rest of the game. They seemed to have some small things to help everyday life, (rock trees, and oil goop chest..?) though now I'm hearing that the sentiment might be that they truly are more isolated than I thought.

Even try join a random lategame world and see how you find it.

 

to me, riffs feel weirdly balanced around solo play, or a friend group that you always play with when on the game. The world progresses too fast for people who hop on a public server every so often.

[Tigris Nano]

Not waiting for arc conclusion anymore. Id rather have some neat things like updated hot springs or chaotic creatures like crystal buzzards, bright-eyed frogs or random mutated birds. Those guys are much funnier than cc reskin and 2 consecutive damage sponges that we got as lunar arc ending.

[Waywarbler]

On 12/29/2025 at 6:00 PM, Nikki Darks said:

Planar weapons are only good for rift content.

You say that as though the Brightshade Sword and Shadow Reaper don't outclass literally every other weapon in the game out of sheer damage and/or convenience.

6 hours ago, Cruvimaster said:

A new boss is the least I expect for the end of the Shadow Side arc, since we've only had bosses on the Lunar Side.

Eh, Klei teased the lunar rift final boss in an intermission before Hostile Takeover. Later, we got a Charlie-focused intermission that clearly shows some kind of monstrous, transformed version of her. Surely that will be that shadow rift's final and only boss? (unless there's some kind of nightmare werepig revenant...)

[Nikki Darks]

7 minutes ago, Waywarbler said:

You say that as though the Brightshade Sword and Shadow Reaper don't outclass literally every other weapon in the game out of sheer damage and/or convenience.

Eh, Klei teased the lunar rift final boss in an intermission before Hostile Takeover. Later, we got a Charlie-focused intermission that clearly shows some kind of monstrous, transformed version of her. Surely that will be that shadow rift's final and only boss? (unless there's some kind of nightmare werepig revenant...)

They're not convenient if you have to jump through 50+ loops in order to obtain them. Having to spend hours and hours and hours and hours of grinding, boss killing, grinding, rift quests and grinding makes them the complete opposite of convenient.

Obtaining any rift item is inconvenient.

[Keknutui]

15 minutes ago, Waywarbler said:

Eh, Klei teased the lunar rift final boss in an intermission before Hostile Takeover. Later, we got a Charlie-focused intermission that clearly shows some kind of monstrous, transformed version of her. Surely that will be that shadow rift's final and only boss? (unless there's some kind of nightmare werepig revenant...)

I think we will definitely get the final boss divided into 2, as it was with the Warbot.

8 minutes ago, Nikki Darks said:

They're not convenient if you have to jump through 50+ loops in order to obtain them. Having to spend hours and hours and hours and hours of grinding, boss killing, grinding, rift quests and grinding makes them the complete opposite of convenient.

Obtaining any rift item is inconvenient.

Resources from Lunar/shadow rifts are difficult to extract only during their first cycle. Especially if you're playing alone.

[Jakepeng99]

11 minutes ago, Nikki Darks said:

They're not convenient if you have to jump through 50+ loops in order to obtain them. Having to spend hours and hours and hours and hours of grinding, boss killing, grinding, rift quests and grinding makes them the complete opposite of convenient.

Obtaining any rift item is inconvenient.

No, they are basically free with how cheap they become.

its so easy to repair that somehow it becomes cheaper than a ham bat.

For example, with shadow riffs, every Inl Blight fight gives you 9 repairs, which piles up really fast.

For lunar, bright shades come right to you. The pure brilliance is the only issue but can be stockpiled pretty easily. (Also Wickerbottom plus Wilson gives you an infinite amount)

[Keknutui]

22 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

No, they are basically free with how cheap they become.

its so easy to repair that somehow it becomes cheaper than a ham bat.

For example, with shadow riffs, every Inl Blight fight gives you 9 repairs, which piles up really fast.

For lunar, bright shades come right to you. The pure brilliance is the only issue but can be stockpiled pretty easily. (Also Wickerbottom plus Wilson gives you an infinite amount)

It seems to me that after the appearance of these guys, pure brilliance becomes a very accessible resource.

+

=

Edited December 31, 2025 by Keknutui

[gaymime]

8 hours ago, Cruvimaster said:

A new boss is the least I expect for the end of the Shadow Side arc, since we've only had bosses on the Lunar Side.

 

i'm not sure why you said this? the op said there wasnt anything that felt like a sign that there was a conclusion to the lunar arc. i specified that we had things that indicated it including a final-boss

[00petar00]

The biggest gripe I have with rifts is that there is so much that can be done to cave biomes (adding new ones and updating old) after that Ocean is also very empty and even surface biomes haven't been really focused on in so long.

The problem is that players have accepted that game is as is it is and don't expect massive improvements because of how much content there currently exists. We have gone over this a while back like 2019-2021 If I remember correctly we had so much more content added compared to in the last 2-3 years.

Skill trees have been dragged out and characters that lack them are subpar compared to the ones that do, it is a bit unfair for mains to have to wait so many years to get a skill tree for their character and this also is used as a big update so there is even less content added that every character can access.

I know that many people don't like rifts and it makes sense, we still have so much to deal with and it isn't even worth activating them because of how many new annoying things you have manage after (for surface rifts mainly) but we still do it because there's content and we don't mind the difficulty.

Rifts are a massive undertaking that has taken a toll on everything else DST could've been without them, a much more polished game If the focus was on the other areas that could use that developer effort to improve and it was too ambitious considering how the content for each update has dwindled over time but even If we had the previous amount it still would've been better invested in the current parts of the game that are lacking before doing something like this. 

The problem is that we are stuck with caves, ocean and rifts that are lacking and it will take literally a decade of development at current speed to do everything needed even If nothing else gets focused on which probably won't happen.

I'd go as far to say that even when ocean was added it was a mistake and I thought so at that time too because caves needed so much work and the current  literally sprinkled cave content updates is not enough and there needs to be massive amount of content added. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy ocean and the amount of content it has and the unique experience it provides but the same can be said about rifts. I don't see the point in adding more and more systems or mechanics without solving the current issues with caves, ocean and rifts have but caves should be priority for the next 3-4 years and ocean for 2 after that.

Edited January 1 by 00petar00

[nimzowitsch10]

don't even put "soon" and klei in the same sentence

[Milordo]

On 1/1/2026 at 1:54 AM, 00petar00 said:

The biggest gripe I have with rifts is that there is so much that can be done to cave biomes (adding new ones and updating old) after that Ocean is also very empty and even surface biomes haven't been really focused on in so long.

The problem is that players have accepted that game is as is it is and don't expect massive improvements because of how much content there currently exists. We have gone over this a while back like 2019-2021 If I remember correctly we had so much more content added compared to in the last 2-3 years.

Beautiful message in everything. I just want to quote specifically this because it exactly hits me deeply when I discuss about don't starve randomly on the internet with people and they say "what's the problem with Ruins? Aren't they perfect?" *hard facepalm* 

The pizza ketchup example. You are so used on eating constantly pizza with ketchup that when someone tells you it's far greater and good (and healthier) to eat pizza with tomatoes, you're "What's the problem?". 

[user1464576869]

1 hour ago, Milordo said:

Beautiful message in everything. I just want to quote specifically this because it exactly hits me deeply when I discuss about don't starve randomly on the internet with people and they say "what's the problem with Ruins? Aren't they perfect?" *hard facepalm* 

The pizza ketchup example. You are so used on eating constantly pizza with ketchup that when someone tells you it's far greater and good (and healthier) to eat pizza with tomatoes, you're "What's the problem?". 

I just had to look at your profile and it says location Italy hahah

[Mike23Ua]

DST COULD have been the next big “Minecraft” if Klei had made better decisions, added fun new content (for everyone that isn’t just gated behind some super late end game bosses) Could you imagine having to kill the EnderDragon in Minecraft just to be able to build a Chair?

Minecraft has remained relevant since its 2011 release because of how much it has changed, adding new biomes, mobs, resources, craftables, Re-Designing Old biomes to be more interesting, re-designing outdated gameplay mechanics from 2011 with new ones so the game looks & feels “new” again.

Sadly we don’t get that with DST, Klei opts to instead sale us Skins for existing items or structures when we all know gosh darn well that those “skins” would have looked so cool in helping add new content, new biomes, or just updating the visuals of existing biomes with a 2026 visual overhaul.

Then to make matters far worse, a lot of the newer survival focused gameplay elements are locked behind lengthy RPG style fetch & collect quests for NPC’s until your capable of fighting raid bosses designed to be fought by a group of players and have Zero options to scale downward for Solo DST players. & the more content they add into the game that only maybe 30% of the fanbase will ever actually realistically reach, the more boring and bare the other 70% of the fanbase will become when few or no new content gets added to the early/mid-game stages of gameplay.

I don’t think I’ve actually played a session of DST in idk maybe a year? When I couldn’t get any of my family or friends to play it, it just felt super difficult & lonely to play alone? I still log in to get daily skin logs or limited time event stuff, but as far as actually playing the game goes it just hasn’t been something I felt like firing up my Xbox to do.

Yet I can still come on these forums & voice my opinions because I was extremely hopeful (maybe a bit too hopeful actually) that eventually some day Klei would add interesting non-end game content content, or maybe some high quality paid dlc expansions, completely overhaul existing biomes, or simply add more randomized world generation options & difficulty balancing adjustment sliders to keep me playing.

I suppose at this point I’m holding out hope for a Don’t Starve 2 more then I am of ever seeing DST reach the same success levels as Minecraft by being a constantly updated game.

After last years non-existent roadmap, I’m not even looking forward to this years (assuming there will even be one.)

[Milordo]

1 hour ago, user1464576869 said:

I just had to look at your profile and it says location Italy hahah

Yup, sono italiano

And probably the only official one with a ds community. 

[Bumber64]

11 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

DST COULD have been the next big “Minecraft” if Klei had made better decisions, added fun new content (for everyone that isn’t just gated behind some super late end game bosses) Could you imagine having to kill the EnderDragon in Minecraft just to be able to build a Chair?

Minecraft was popular back when the ender dragon only gave you XP orbs, a nonsensical poem, and a trip back to spawn. Now you go back for an elytra so you can fly everywhere and never touch a horse or minecart ever again. (There's a happy ghast now, so that's probably already over as soon as you reach the nether.) DST's eyebrella is the equivalent: So practical that it actually ends up removing gameplay.

Minecraft is popular because you're playing with LEGOs in an endless world that you don't have to clean up afterwards. If you want a chair, you stick some signs on a stair block and call it a chair. Hostile mobs add excitement over creative play (though the game has been slowly killing its survival roots since mending enchants and sleeping at dusk).

I don't think the two games can really be compared because the closest you get with building in DST is a non-functional megabase that ultimately offers no protection. The chair is just a trophy in the form of pre-assembled lawn furniture.

DS lacked wider appeal with no-handholding survival mechanics (but it does deliver to its audience). DST lacks it as a game now focused on arcade-era boss combat and environmental threats that are permanently solved once you obtain the proper item. (Who is the audience? It's not metroidvania fans.) DST can't be the next Minecraft because the base-building is too lacking to make up for the other shortcomings. There's no LEGO fort with a retractable drawbridge and secret passages.

Edited January 4 by Bumber64

[00petar00]

On 1/3/2026 at 5:56 PM, Milordo said:

Beautiful message in everything. I just want to quote specifically this because it exactly hits me deeply when I discuss about don't starve randomly on the internet with people and they say "what's the problem with Ruins? Aren't they perfect?" *hard facepalm* 

The pizza ketchup example. You are so used on eating constantly pizza with ketchup that when someone tells you it's far greater and good (and healthier) to eat pizza with tomatoes, you're "What's the problem?". 

That's probably what hits me the most too because I want DST to be the best game but it won't because players have adapted to current state and the amount of content already being very good so they don't mind or pay attention to how the content updates have dwindled over the last few years but even around 2019-2021 that was still not even close to being comparable with DS DLCs that I have been asking out of desperation or hope from time to time on the forums.. I know that people don't want to spend money and the economy is awful but that is partly the problem why we are in the current situation, If people were willing we would get massive DLC like content updates for DS that would make the game much better.

Arguments against DLCs are that people don't want to spend money and the playerbase would be split but the solution to this would be only for host to own DLCs and everyone even without it could connect and play.

Rifts on their own are "okay-ish", they have always lacked content or at least alternative with surface rifts when we were told at the start that brightshades won't be the only creature to come out of them so we shouldn't be so against them parasitizing our whole world yet look at how long it took for more mobs to be added and they are still a big problem. Somehow surface gets the raw deal when it comes to rifts and caves luckily aren't too bad yet.

If rifts never existed we come to the conclusion that caves, ocean and surface biomes (in that order) would be much better to focus on for the next decade at current speed because you can't add new mechanics that need extensive work to fit the current game like rifts and I'd go as far to say that even ocean before them was a mistake, If DST focused solely on caves/surface for a decade I don't think majority of the people would complain If we didn't get ocean or rifts. I actually enjoy ocean but adding it and rifts on top just spreads the new content updates very thin.

I believe the reason DST turned out so good is because DS existed and a lot of things were literally "ported" over, a new game developer starting out and getting as much content comparable to recent DST updates wouldn't be positively rated on steam because their game wouldn't have such depth to start with.

On 1/3/2026 at 8:45 PM, Mike23Ua said:

DST COULD have been the next big “Minecraft” if Klei had made better decisions, added fun new content (for everyone that isn’t just gated behind some super late end game bosses) Could you imagine having to kill the EnderDragon in Minecraft just to be able to build a Chair?

Minecraft has remained relevant since its 2011 release because of how much it has changed, adding new biomes, mobs, resources, craftables, Re-Designing Old biomes to be more interesting, re-designing outdated gameplay mechanics from 2011 with new ones so the game looks & feels “new” again.

I have played minecraft in early beta and for a decade or so before quitting completely. That game is too unique and no game company can easily replicate it because graphics can't get old or stale so they have so much development that went into content over its existence that it is not possible for new games to even get close to matching unless they stay in early access for a decade or two. Minecraft has always lacked content at least when I played it and they never needed to do much so that is the main reason I quit playing. Modded versions like tekkit are the only option for people that want more which could've been the "basic" minecraft experience If they put the effort in to add more content so that you can never run out of stuff to do.

Vintage story has made many revolutionary changes to the voxel sandbox genre and it is already a superior game but they won't become as popular since it is much harder while minecraft is doing everything to make it easier to remove survival elements because they know that casual players just want to build.

To be fair to you I kind of have to agree that even minecraft added more biomes or changed world gen over time compared to DST so it is a bit funny when I think that minecraft is really slow and it isn't nearly enough.

Edited January 6 by 00petar00

[AliceShiki]

6 minutes ago, 00petar00 said:

Arguments against DLCs are that people don't want to spend money and the playerbase would be split but the solution to this would be only for host to own DLCs and everyone even without it could connect and play.

For what it's worth, while I do think this is technically possible, it's not how DLCs are usually implemented.

Because usually speaking, you don't need to download content you won't need to use, so Steam wouldn't download the DLC content if you didn't own it, so you wouldn't be able to play with it.

That said, fighting games do force you to download all characters, and the DLC simply serves as an unlock key to let you play with the character, so it should be in theory possible to do a fighting-game like implementation to make things work out... It's strange to think of this kind of thing happening in a game like DST though. I never saw any game implement a DLC like that outside of fighting games.

[00petar00]

4 minutes ago, AliceShiki said:

For what it's worth, while I do think this is technically possible, it's not how DLCs are usually implemented.

Because usually speaking, you don't need to download content you won't need to use, so Steam wouldn't download the DLC content if you didn't own it, so you wouldn't be able to play with it.

That said, fighting games do force you to download all characters, and the DLC simply serves as an unlock key to let you play with the character, so it should be in theory possible to do a fighting-game like implementation to make things work out... It's strange to think of this kind of thing happening in a game like DST though. I never saw any game implement a DLC like that outside of fighting games.

DST is already very minimalistic when it comes to disk space (perk of being an older game), we are in an era where games can be like 20-100+ GB. I don't think adding 1 GB for DST DLC would ever become a problem even If you never got to use it. If it is such an issue when DLC is uploaded on steam and someone that doesn't own it launches the game there could be a pop up whether to install it or not and explain that they can play with people that do own it.

[Maxil20]

1 hour ago, 00petar00 said:

Arguments against DLCs are that people don't want to spend money and the playerbase would be split but the solution to this would be only for host to own DLCs and everyone even without it could connect and play.

TBH I think even if it did split the playerbase, I honestly think that would be a really good thing. The base forest/cave worlds are there for players that want that experience, while a DLC experience on the level of SW/HAM could easily focus on a different set of players, without hurting the former's experience. Heck, players with strong dedicated servers could even do world linking and open up the endgame building so much more, like with what people did with merging SW/HAM.

I honestly think it would be interesting to explore, and would give an excuse for the devs to try out something different for a bit (much like how forge/gorge came to be in the first place)

[AliceShiki]

2 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

DST is already very minimalistic when it comes to disk space (perk of being an older game), we are in an era where games can be like 20-100+ GB. I don't think adding 1 GB for DST DLC would ever become a problem even If you never got to use it. If it is such an issue when DLC is uploaded on steam and someone that doesn't own it launches the game there could be a pop up whether to install it or not and explain that they can play with people that do own it.

Ah, I agree that the disk space wouldn't be a problem. I'm just pointing out that this specific implementation of DLC is something I plain and simply never saw outside of fighting games, so I wouldn't expect it to happen in any other genre.

On a side note, I still find it crazy that we're getting games over 100GB large now... Like... I dunno, at some point the devs should have just stopped and asked themselves... "Isn't this too large? Didn't we take the photo-realism too far?"

Like, I dunno, last I checked 250 GB SSDs are still sold on the market, so... Well, this kind of game does take way too much disk space for the average user, IMO... Even if it's a console user, the PS5 apparently comes with only about 650GB of usable space, so... It's crazy to even think of a single game taking over 100 GB of that to me.

I'm just rambling at this point, I guess, but... Well, I like that DST isn't a huge game and instead takes a reasonable amount of storage space~

[goblinball]

It’s funny how many ppl here wanted new threats and for survival difficulty to scale with progression and for dst to just be harder in general only for them to complain about rifts. You got what you asked for!! You want survival to be difficult again? Here’s bright shades, mutated enemies, new hazardous weather, new armor penetration mechanics and enemies that can one-shot you, ickers, etc etc.

I’m not trying to say you aren’t allowed to criticize rifts, just that making basic survival harder as you progress in dst is an inherently flawed idea that will NEVER work. Maybe in other games, sure, but dst’s gameplay formula just is not compatible with this. I’m shocked that klei listened to ppl’s pleas for this at all.

[00petar00]

On 1/6/2026 at 8:02 AM, Maxil20 said:

TBH I think even if it did split the playerbase, I honestly think that would be a really good thing. The base forest/cave worlds are there for players that want that experience, while a DLC experience on the level of SW/HAM could easily focus on a different set of players, without hurting the former's experience. Heck, players with strong dedicated servers could even do world linking and open up the endgame building so much more, like with what people did with merging SW/HAM.

I honestly think it would be interesting to explore, and would give an excuse for the devs to try out something different for a bit (much like how forge/gorge came to be in the first place)

My point is that first DLC If it is ever made for DST could be conservative and not "total conversion" like SW or Hamlet, we could have ocean or caves DLC that adds many more biomes, bosses and reworks current content instead of it being a completely new game and requiring of us to play differently like we do when we play DS on hamlet compared to reign of giants.

We have 2 shards that aren't even close to being used to their fullest potential and current content updates are very slow, DLC could revitalize the game because we are drip fed content every so often while a lot of players are probably willing to pay to get much more.