Don't blame the problem on the endgame.

[Cassielu]

To be frank, the reason why people don't like Rift is not because it's endgame content, but because it's suck, full of meaningless and difficult elements, self-contradictory gameplay and junk rewards.

Now Klei needs to return to "the core of the game" simply only because they have never thought of making Rift suitable for the core of this game - otherwise Rift would have already been a part of it.

A large number of players who originally played endgames have hated From Beyond. A large number of people have had to turn them off, install mods to modify them, or give up on endgames altogether. Realy? I say the update should make players want to play it, rather than driving them away from it.

If Klei continues to design the early and mid-game content in the same way as they did for Rift, they will also fail. Don't blame the problem on the endgames.

Edited Thursday at 05:31 PM by Cassielu

[Wawchik]

The rift content taking so long to get to is one of the problems. I actually really liked Shadow rifts the first time I activated them. I felt like the world has changed at least a little, new creatures spawning everywhere was pretty refreshing. The issue is after around half an hour of gameplay I've seen pretty much all of the content Shadow rifts had to offer and then there was no point in playing further since that's when the game ends in terms of progression. Rifts aren't a bad concept at least in my opinion, their biggest issue is that they somehow lack content after years of development and are heavily unfinished

[Maxil20]

13 minutes ago, Cassielu said:

To be frank, the reason why people don't like Rift is not because it's endgame content, but because it's suck, full of meaningless and difficult elements, self-contradictory gameplay and junk rewards.

Most of the items in my endgame inventory that aren’t crafting components are the new items rifts add. What do you mean the items are “junk rewards”???

[DegenerateFurry]

No, I actually do like rift content, I just rarely get to it because it takes so long and I usually get bored of a world before I get to that point.

[Jakepeng99]

For me it’s the quest system to get there (always the same stuff needed), the change/removal of the gameplay loop I liked in dst (mainly with how durability and resource costs worked, where riff gear is now the most efficient equipment, old stuff like pigskin becoming redundant resources), lunar riffs being a lot of waiting to be able to do stuff, and this combining to restrict the options we have.

The bosses and concepts themselves are pretty good. Most interesting bosses by far.

[NewGamePlus]

1 hour ago, Cassielu said:

 full of meaningless and difficult elements, self-contradictory gameplay and junk rewards.

What exactly about the content is meaningless and self-contradictory? 
This is a sandbox game no? Outside of the initial immediate threats, its mostly left up to the player to define and achieve their own goals. Part of the content helps incentivize players to work towards a goal, but ultimately it is on the player to decide to pursue these or not. imo, its a bit reductive to call it meaningless when again outside of the initial threats, alot the content is horizontal and optional.
 

1 hour ago, Cassielu said:

A large number of players who originally played endgames have hated From Beyond. A large number of people have had to turn them off, install mods to modify them, or give up on endgames altogether. Realy? I say the update should make players want to play it, rather than driving them away from it.

Its hard to say just how many people truly dislike the endgame content but my guess is a vocal minority. 
The content isn't perfect, and lacks elements id like to see, but ultimately i find the content fun and engaging. My main problem is how long it takes to get to that side of the content. especially since i don't like using rollbacks, so my mistakes are really felt and ill gladly lose a world if i die.

I do believe this problem will be fixed though. This can be approached with either expediting the player to endgame, or simply adding more fun things in the mid game to where i don't mind it takes a while to get to that portion of the game. My guess is they'll do a mixture of both with the future updates, but predominately the latter.

1 hour ago, Cassielu said:

If Klei continues to design the early and mid-game content in the same way as they did for Rift, they will also fail. Don't blame the problem on the endgames.

They've done such ana amazing job lately with their updates and I look forward to every update moving forward. It seems like they have more focus in what they want to accomplish with the updates now. This statement feels rather unfair to them.

Edited Thursday at 06:33 PM by NewGamePlus

[Pruinae]

I quite like what we currently have for rift content, my only gripes are RNG related when it comes to getting to the rifts, like cookie cutter shells for pearl, celestial orb and the atrium's big tentacle. The only thing I don't really like are the Crystal-Crested Buzzards, but I can live with those.

[Malfario]

The only thing you achIeved with this post was expressing you didnt like the rift content, totally valid, and say that klei will fail at enhancing the core gameplay of the game because they didnt delivered during rifts,.

You drop a bunch of buzzwords deacribing the problems of the rift without really describing anything or giving any reasoning, you didnt offer any insight or actual feedback on how the new direction could go and what problems the rift had they should avoid. And you did it all insulting the work of the people who made this game. Your final and only tesis is that rifts were bad, new content will be bad, and the dst devs do a poor work and they better lock in.

You basically like millions of people now and before have scream mean things into the internet, without a care fo the effect they may have, you didnt achieved anything other than being mean and dissrespectfull, because we sure didnt have enough of that. And again, rifts arent perfect, and no one is free of being criticed, you can say whatever you want if you feel its true, but we can have better manners, we can be kinder, and maybe we should.

[Jussatoon]

Let's become better as people and refrain from falling for ragebait in the future, yeah?

[Pumking7]

To be fair I think this has more of a problem of Klei finishing updates and never coming back to change/rebalance certain aspects of updates that are deemed unpopular. I mean a good example is the lunar buzzards and how they were basically ultimate killers with no real way to counter them. This changed after 4 months when the buzzards were nerfed and given real preventative measures, with no balance change to stop their destruction in between this period. I think an even better (or worse depends how you see it) is the fire changes for electric damage and how this affected plant mobs. A highly unpopular change as moon gleams can just cause your base to set on fire from a random brightshade/lureplant placed for any reason, and its been a year and there is still no response on this.

I really hope they are honest with their word, from their 2026 roadmap, and do revisit previous mechanics or balance in updates or add new features from community feedback. We only have their word at the moment so I hope it is meaningful.

(I'm personally hoping for hostile takeover revisit, for why does the secondary boss in a long convoluted questline have very boring loot when its clear Klei didn't just lose their creativity proposing fun new items/mechanics judging from recent skilltrees. Is every lunar related boss punished to have boring/mediocre loot forever I don't know?)

[IanKSB91]

Maybe there could be a third option of activation so more people could get to it, instead of progressing through the questline or having it activated since the start of a world (which is what I do recently and it can be a either really fun or really stressing) there could be an option to have them activate by the second - third year, perhaps? that way it could feel slightly more progressive. Although that would require promoting that configuration option somehow or it could get ignored and nothing would change, it is quite complex now that I think about it more.

[Well-met]

DSE is klei's answer to all the problems people have with DST. 

we're almost done here

[Pumking7]

1 minute ago, Well-met said:

DSE is klei's answer to all the problems people have with DST. 

we're almost done here

I saw it more of an experimental game for DST that fully allows Klei to explore DST's limits with more survival aspects, its weird that Klei wants to now return to making midgame survival content, the content people have asked years for, right after announcing this new game though?

[Frosty_Mentos]

I will just say I think as of right now you are completely right on the weird quirks and additions added on that arc. It's so far strange and annoying. There are decent tools but the game doesn't really unlock new areas or anything of value for it.

I think if they really work well for early and mid game content, add restrictions, rebalanced, progression on opening up certain areas and resources by doing tasks and work as well as good world gen changes done we can expect some more use towards having endgame than what we have now.

In my opinion, shadow and lunar arc updates simply are a completionist thing than anything. New challenges provided by klei through resources gathered and gained to have an end goal of beating a super raid boss of sorts.

3 minutes ago, Pumking7 said:

I saw it more of an experimental game for DST that fully allows Klei to explore DST's limits with more survival aspects, its weird that Klei wants to now return to making midgame survival content, the content people have asked years for, right after announcing this new game though?

It's prolly cause their schedules are full, making new game with different gameplay loop, all these updates skins and events to deal with is keeping them busy a lot. They return to it cause much is needed to iron out after years of content updates.

[Jakepeng99]

2 hours ago, Cassielu said:

If Klei continues to design the early and mid-game content in the same way as they did for Rift, they will also fail. Don't blame the problem on the endgames.

Marotters, the fumarole biome, and the rabbit king (to an extent) are great additions, with the marotters being my favourite mob.

They have a lot of other stuff in the files that are very reusable like a pufferfish.

[Mysterious box]

I have some issues with the lunar rifts but overall I like them but there's no way I can find fault with the shadow rifts I consider them absolute perfection even if that's just my opinion on the matter. I'm willing to bet if publics servers had rifts on by default a lot more people would enjoy rifts than you think. The main reason they don't fit the dst gameplay loop however is because the majority of the game's player base doesn't play solo and as such usually only commit around 2 to 6 hours to a world at max. I've even spoken to some people who've never made it to summer for this reason. There's also a case of people being filtered out by the faction bosses even for those who do play solo.

[AliceShiki]

Personally speaking, I find Rifts cool, even if I don't really engage with them, since I'm not thaaaat good at the game, and I'm the best player in my friend group, so... Rifts is not that suitable to us.

Still, I like seeing the stuff at least, I find it cool. And if me and my friends ever play enough to properly engage with it, I think I'll have fun~

[Snapchrap]

2 hours ago, Frosty_Mentos said:

I will just say I think as of right now you are completely right on the weird quirks and additions added on that arc. It's so far strange and annoying. There are decent tools but the game doesn't really unlock new areas or anything of value for it.

I think if they really work well for early and mid game content, add restrictions, rebalanced, progression on opening up certain areas and resources by doing tasks and work as well as good world gen changes done we can expect some more use towards having endgame than what we have now.

In my opinion, shadow and lunar arc updates simply are a completionist thing than anything. New challenges provided by klei through resources gathered and gained to have an end goal of beating a super raid boss of sorts.

It's prolly cause their schedules are full, making new game with different gameplay loop, all these updates skins and events to deal with is keeping them busy a lot. They return to it cause much is needed to iron out after years of content updates.

Also developing a new game along side DST probably has given them a lot of ideas to explore since they've had years to explore and develop the world of DSE. With Klei wrapping up the current arc of the rifts, I can imagine they have a better vision of what they can expand on in the midgame of DST from their time with DSE.

[Ev1l]

My problem with lunar rifts is that they just take so loooooooonnnnggg to do anything. With shadow rifts you can just explore the caves at any moment and you'll encounter a dreadstone outcrop pretty soon. With lunar rifts you gotta wait for pure brilliance to spawn to be mined then wait for the rift to reach it's final stage to spawn Deadly Brightshades. By the time I get access to the brightsmithy my hype is already so dead. At least the mutated lunar bosses can be fought at any stage of a rift, if I had to babysit a boss while I wait for thr rift to reach it's final stage I WOULD... be pretty bummed.

[Mike23Ua]

4 hours ago, DegenerateFurry said:

No, I actually do like rift content, I just rarely get to it because it takes so long and I usually get bored of a world before I get to that point.

Yes & you have to repeat the entire overly long rpg questline in each and every new world you create.

Klei created a game franchise whoms popularity was earned through exploring randomly generated game worlds promising that no two play sessions will ever be exactly the same.

But DST contradicts this entire design philosophy by encouraging the player to live in a singular game world long-term.

it appears that “The Fog” in DSE will be similar to DSTs late game Moonstorms & Rift Mutations, Only for whatever reason: The Fog seems to be core gameplay content that is featured early into the game… where as Rifts/Moonstorms require a long amount of progression to reach.

LUCKILY there is a world generation toggle to toggle them on from the start without having to do the lengthy unlock requirements.

But the fact that it appears to be a core feature of DSE from the start, makes me SERIOUSLY Question why it has to be so severely late game to the point that very few players see or reach it in DST in the first place?

 

[Mysterious box]

42 minutes ago, Ev1l said:

My problem with lunar rifts is that they just take so loooooooonnnnggg to do anything. With shadow rifts you can just explore the caves at any moment and you'll encounter a dreadstone outcrop pretty soon. With lunar rifts you gotta wait for pure brilliance to spawn to be mined then wait for the rift to reach it's final stage to spawn Deadly Brightshades. By the time I get access to the brightsmithy my hype is already so dead. At least the mutated lunar bosses can be fought at any stage of a rift, if I had to babysit a boss while I wait for thr rift to reach it's final stage I WOULD... be pretty bummed.

Yeah that's my gripe too the issue is that they were too afraid of letting the rifts be too impactful on the world like the caves which they decided to go all out because I feel like they might figure people don't spend much time down there.

[Swiyss]

5 hours ago, Wawchik said:

The rift content taking so long to get to is one of the problems

I don't think this is a problem. Lots of games have really long end-games like The Forest, Terraria and even Minecraft. The problem is the journey not being enjoyable enough for some (I like the cc and afw quests a lot, it's actually my favorite part of the gameplay). Once we get to things like endgame loop content, it gets boring ash, dealing with brightshades for no further sense of accomplishment, fighting buzzards for no real reason at all, mutated bosses being completely optional and etc..

My suggestion is to make killing a buzzard drop a special core energy that can be put into the moon quay portal for like a bunch of new resources idk, something valuable. Brightshades sometimes getting "super-possessed" if you leave them too long and giving like triple the rewards or something. Lunar pengulls, mutated frogs, mutated spider etc.. dropping something unique that each can be used to do something cool or to decorate or to collect or to help gathering, like a trinket that gives and innate buff to everyday stuff, IDK. Klei needs to work on the REWARDS to make people feel great and motivated to play the end-game.

The current feeling I get with the end-game right now is like the surface has turned into a desert. Everything is either dead of zombified, contaminated or ruined. The feeling of endgame sucks and needs to be changed and I am really tired of saying this over and over the years. But here we go:

_Lunar hail can't be just a phase and then go away, it has to have phases, and get stronger overtime. They need to add thunders and some lunar dust effect every now and then. It has to be similar to rain where there is small rain, medium rain and thunder rain. More effects overall. They can even bring back the uniqueness of making a sound be something similar to an instrument, like how the tumbleweeds make an instrument sound, THAT'S what's missing.

_Lunar grazers need to leave something behind to indicate where the rift opened. They need to have some kind of pickable or mineable structure that stays for some days after the rift has closed. Some goop or slime that can be used for something else. Basically what I mean is a way to indicate the rifts presence through environmental hazards.

_Season implications: Summer storm should have it's visual effects reduced after the rifts are open, adding more lunar elements to it's already existing rush. Spring can have a bunch of Jungle and Folliage issues. This should literally be a thing and would liven up the world. We need the flowers to have patches of lunar blossoms every now and then and contaminated fleshly bulbs should expand further with brightshade influence. Totally normal tree trunks can spawn from trees, gaining a new lunar tree look to it like pretrified metal-ly oak, making it an event that happens every 50 days or something, a great way to farm living logs that would require a strong axe to chop and would spawn some kind of lunar bugs that bite you when you chop it to prevent you from doing so, then they could be replanted. Autumn could have deciduous biome generate werepig events, where they unite with scraps material (not the actual wagstaff scrap, but some stuff that they find around them) to create a religious altar, getting close would innitiate a fight sequence with stronger werepigs that could end up reaping you a moonrock trinket, giving that trinket to pig king would make him thank you for your actions by giving you a special item.

This is just basically out of my head and those are awesome ideas I would love implemented into the game. What Klei is missing is creativity to be honest, and Idk if that's because they have been working on DSE on the back for now, but I hope this can be changed and DST can have a greater focus after DSE is finished and launched.

Yall are not hearing me!

Edited Thursday at 11:32 PM by Swiyss

[Cruvimaster]

6 hours ago, Cassielu said:

A large number of players who originally played endgames have hated From Beyond. A large number of people have had to turn them off, install mods to modify them, or give up on endgames altogether.

First of all, it would be good if you could provide the source of validity for this large number of players. It doesn't seem credible to me that you have a statistical basis that represents the desires of 72,000 players. You don't even know a thousand players (I don't).

Here on the forum we have topics that demonstrate dissatisfaction with the subject. Are there at least 50 regular players who think the same way?

One of the problems would be the difficulty of accessing the rifts (defeating bosses considered difficult or in a long journey). But this can be solved by activating the rifts in the world settings at any time.

Saying that the "junk rewards" don't make sense, because the strongest items in the game are in this phase of the gameplay.

I'm not saying it's perfect. But I think what the game has become with the skill trees is much more problematic than the rifts (but this is my opinion and not that of a large number of players).

Perhaps the problem with DST is the same as with multi-season series (e.g., The Walking Dead), that is, it should have ended years ago, but it continues because it is profitable.

[Maxil20]

1 hour ago, Mysterious box said:

I have some issues with the lunar rifts but overall I like them but there's no way I can find fault with the shadow rifts I consider them absolute perfection even if that's just my opinion on the matter.

Literally my only gripe with the shadow rifts is the lack of world option customization for the various hazards. Masques in particular cause me a lot of problems on my cave shard that I can't exactly mitigate without entirely revamping various areas. I don't think they are flawed in that aspect and it makes sense from a survival aspect, but in terms of building it's pretty rough. Because of that, ive been forced to keep my cave rifts closed as there's no way I can disable just those and keep everything else on (which sucks as I like the other threats! Even ickers despite being infamous have counterplay because the places they drop out on are consistent and can be worked around long term!).

I am really hoping the final shadow rift update does fix the oversight of them lacking options since I think they're neat and it's a bit unfortunate the options haven't been kept up to speed.

[Hi.]

Rift content is pretty cool, when it was first added I didn't like it because it didn't feel any different, now I would say that is quite the opposite.