Portation Orb based networks are in a significantly concerning spot for practicality

[Maxil20]

One of the main issues talked about during the beta is the relative expense of using portation orbs as a means of transport. Killing the bosses gave you ~10-12 orbs, and outside of socketing the focus with these orbs (which is a fair expense IMO), you also used 1 orb to travel to each focus. This was already quite taxing for solo play, and is almost entirely unfeasible in multiplayer if players wish to use their own orbs for personal warp purposes.

The recent update not only didn't really address this issue too much, it actually made it significantly worse:

-Past the inital sanctum raid, you are now required to kill the ancient fuelweaver for every sanctum reset. This effectively gates the network post rift for anything larger than a small size network, and for many people the fact it takes weaver alone to get more throws it completely out of the window for the vast majority of players. Keep in mind, you still need to kill the guardians in addition to this.

-Because of the weaver requirement, you also are now forced to wait 20 days, at minimum, to reset the sanctum. This means it is now significantly more impractical for a casual player to reliably stockpile a good network, let alone a multiplayer server. 

-It is slightly compensated by every sanctum reset providing a guarenteed 7 orbs to turn into 14 fragments compared to the normal ~10-12 you get from the boss initally, but with how much more convoluted the path is it's not a fair trade IMO

-Adding onto the last point, it also feels very strange that the intended method to get more orbs is to actively inconvenience the maze itself. You will punish yourself much more if you use the orbs to fix the waymarks than to keep the orbs and bring them to the smith to turn into the shards, especially since once you do fix a waymark, it's irreversible to retrieve the orb back.

I really don't like these changes. Using the network is already gated pretty heavily into progression (you need to both get an iridescent gem to power the archives to access the sanctum, and find the whirlpool to also access the area in the first place), and now it feels like it's so obscenely out of the way that not even the people who really go all the way will find much use in this. I can't envision myself going out of the way to tackle fuelweaver, and then tackle the guardian room, just to get effectively ~14 warps/load 4 focuses.

It bothers me personally because it feels like they really don't want the network to outclass warp based characters, but as a result it handicaps the "universal" solution so much that it feels like that you shouldn't bother playing any other character that isn't a warp one lategame, which I personally am not a huge fan of with how much it dilutes your choice of "good" characters. It also bothers me that for the "casual" player, the pre rift solution of upgrading 1-2 focuses and using a staff to warp and then post rift having pearl as yet another access point will likely be more than sufficient for most players, which only punishes the endgame megabase players who want several warp points across their map as a reward for pushing so far into the world in the first place. It doesn't feel very well thought out if this is meant to be something you build up in this case.

I still think the best solution is really simple: Split the Focus "orbs" and the Orbs used to warp to these focuses into separate items. If the orb shards were just used for socketing the telelocator focus and you used another item that was considerably cheaper to make and use, I don't think I would have any problem with this method at all. Pre weaver you could opt to be very selective with your ~4 focuses to warp to, and later on when you are fighting weaver consistently you could slowly but progressively expand the focus network. By the time you genuinely start to "outclass" the teleport characters, you will likely have a day counter in the mid to late hundreds if you are really going for a large network, and the teleport characters still have their niches (Winona can transport as many items as she wants, Wanda is a cross shard + group warp, Wortox needs practically no setup to teleport wherever he wants, and WX is less of a true teleport and more of a "be in multiple places at once" type of character).

*There is currently a "solution" of being able to decon loop a portation orb fragment to get a portation orb back (which I have to resort to as there is another oversight where you currently can't get new portation orbs if you fixed all of the ones in the sanctum...), which is very likely to get patched given how bizzare it is.

Edited June 6 by Maxil20

[Cassielu]

The game will punish you for repairing the Waymarks as it suggests. It's really strange. If only we had a way to destroy the normal Waymarks to obtain extra orbs.

But on the other hand, One orb can produce two Orb Fragments, so... you know what it is.

Edited June 6 by Cassielu

[Sofy Happy]

Players can farm Portal Stones easily with the Deconstruction Staff, much like Dragonfly Scales; one Deconstruction Staff effectively converts into five Portal Stones.

After activating the Shadow Rift, harvesting Boulderbough in the Geothermal biome yields 30 to 50 Emeralds in a single run. As long as this deconstruction recipe stays in the game, teleportation via sockets is actually fairly affordable.

Therefore instead of worrying about overpriced fast travel, people ought to be concerned whether devs will keep this existing deconstruction recipe intact instead of removing it.

Edited June 6 by Sofy Happy

[Uedo]

3 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

One of the main issues talked about during the beta is the relative expense of using portation orbs as a means of transport. Killing the bosses gave you ~10-12 orbs, and outside of socketing the focus with these orbs (which is a fair expense IMO), you also used 1 orb to travel to each focus. This was already quite taxing for solo play, and is almost entirely unfeasible in multiplayer if players wish to use their own orbs for personal warp purposes.

The recent update not only didn't really address this issue too much, it actually made it significantly worse:

-Past the inital sanctum raid, you are now required to kill the ancient fuelweaver for every sanctum reset. This effectively gates the network post rift for anything larger than a small size network, and for many people the fact it takes weaver alone to get more throws it completely out of the window for the vast majority of players. Keep in mind, you still need to kill the guardians in addition to this.

-Because of the weaver requirement, you also are now forced to wait 20 days, at minimum, to reset the sanctum. This means it is now significantly more impractical for a casual player to reliably stockpile a good network, let alone a multiplayer server. 

-It is slightly compensated by every sanctum reset providing a guarenteed 7 orbs to turn into 14 fragments compared to the normal ~10-12 you get from the boss initally, but with how much more convoluted the path is it's not a fair trade IMO

-Adding onto the last point, it also feels very strange that the intended method to get more orbs is to actively inconvenience the maze itself. You will punish yourself much more if you use the orbs to fix the waymarks than to keep the orbs and bring them to the smith to turn into the shards, especially since once you do fix a waymark, it's irreversible to retrieve the orb back.

I really don't like these changes. Using the network is already gated pretty heavily into progression (you need to both get an iridescent gem to power the archives to access the sanctum, and find the whirlpool to also access the area in the first place), and now it feels like it's so obscenely out of the way that not even the people who really go all the way will find much use in this. I can't envision myself going out of the way to tackle fuelweaver, and then tackle the guardian room, just to get effectively ~14 warps/load 4 focuses.

It bothers me personally because it feels like they really don't want the network to outclass warp based characters, but as a result it handicaps the "universal" solution so much that it feels like that you shouldn't bother playing any other character that isn't a warp one lategame, which I personally am not a huge fan of with how much it dilutes your choice of "good" characters. It also bothers me that for the "casual" player, the pre rift solution of upgrading 1-2 focuses and using a staff to warp and then post rift having pearl as yet another access point will likely be more than sufficient for most players, which only punishes the endgame megabase players who want several warp points across their map as a reward for pushing so far into the world in the first place. It doesn't feel very well thought out if this is meant to be something you build up in this case.

I still think the best solution is really simple: Split the Focus "orbs" and the Orbs used to warp to these focuses into separate items. If the orb shards were just used for socketing the telelocator focus and you used another item that was considerably cheaper to make and use, I don't think I would have any problem with this method at all. Pre weaver you could opt to be very selective with your ~4 focuses to warp to, and later on when you are fighting weaver consistently you could slowly but progressively expand the focus network. By the time you genuinely start to "outclass" the teleport characters, you will likely have a day counter in the mid to late hundreds if you are really going for a large network, and the teleport characters still have their niches (Winona can transport as many items as she wants, Wanda is a cross shard + group warp, Wortox needs practically no setup to teleport wherever he wants, and WX is less of a true teleport and more of a "be in multiple places at once" type of character).

*There is currently a "solution" of being able to decon loop a portation orb fragment to get a portation orb back (which I have to resort to as there is another oversight where you currently can't get new portation orbs if you fixed all of the ones in the sanctum...), which is very likely to get patched given how bizzare it is.

Walk to places?

I used to make two-way telelocator networks sometimes, in the mid game i'd run out of gems at times. I'd walk. Just walk - it's good for your legs

[JazzyGames]

1 hour ago, Uedo said:

Walk to places?

I used to make two-way telelocator networks sometimes, in the mid game i'd run out of gems at times. I'd walk. Just walk - it's good for your legs

The point is that they added a new universal teleportation method then subsequently made it too time-intensive of a grind to save time versus walking.

[Cruvimaster]

Klei created several problems by giving abilities to characters that should be for collective use. They did this with Wanda/Wortox and they did this with Warly. Teleportation points on maps are common in many types of games, but in DST, Klei took the more difficult route.

A simple example of recycling in-game elements to make them seem innovative during the skill tree is the case of Napsack. The item was supposed to be valuable for defeating the boss with the highest HP in the game. What does Klei do? Transfers this to Wormwood instead of improving the item.

[Pruinae]

5 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

-Adding onto the last point, it also feels very strange that the intended method to get more orbs is to actively inconvenience the maze itself. You will punish yourself much more if you use the orbs to fix the waymarks than to keep the orbs and bring them to the smith to turn into the shards, especially since once you do fix a waymark, it's irreversible to retrieve the orb back.

This is the most grating part to me, it makes no sense at all. You get punished for fixing the waymarks; once the sanctum is reset, they remain repaired and you are never able to get orbs again??? Why even let us repair them if we are going to lose the ability to create tp networks?

If the player decides they want to get the full 7 orbs every time, they have to jump through the new chasm to go back to the orchestrina, because - without repairing the waymarks - there is no way to backtrack through to the sanctum once you finish the jumping puzzle. Was the chasm added as convenience or as a band-aid?

The solution you offered makes a lot of sense to me.

About green gems, it is always finicky. Making green gems the best way to get more of these doesn't seem right, with all the other restrictions put in place, do we really expect this to be intended?

2 hours ago, Uedo said:

Just walk

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? I have 30k days in this world, let me just walk everywhere like I did from day 1???????????? what are you talking about 😭

Edited June 6 by Pruinae

[Jakepeng99]

It just seems extremely counterintuitive, being punished for repairing the orbs? Its really counterintuitive and missleading i kinda hope it gets reverted or heavily changed or something. Im not sure what it adds to be crafted with this item. Someone could just have had repaired the waymarks for whatever reason then everyone in the server is heavily punished by making this mistake.

Its brought me to the conclusion the old way to obtaining them was way better.

I know everyone googles stuff, but if you were to go in without much knowledge and want to discover the area yourself, it doesnt feel like good design to misslead the player this way since its made very clear you put these orbs on broken waymarks to fix them.

3 hours ago, Sofy Happy said:

Players can farm Portal Stones easily with the Deconstruction Staff, much like Dragonfly Scales; one Deconstruction Staff effectively converts into five Portal Stones.

After activating the Shadow Rift, harvesting Boulderbough in the Geothermal biome yields 30 to 50 Emeralds in a single run. As long as this deconstruction recipe stays in the game, teleportation via sockets is actually fairly affordable.

Therefore instead of worrying about overpriced fast travel, people ought to be concerned whether devs will keep this existing deconstruction recipe intact instead of removing it.

This is probably gonna be removed it makes no logical sense. A deconstruction staff is meant to deconstruct something, not construct something since the craft for the fragments is basically breaking it down. Even then this isnt an excuse, items shouldnt be balanced specifically around the decon staff. Imagine if they make shroom skin way harder to get from toadstool just becsause you can dupe them. 

5 hours ago, Maxil20 said:

Keep in mind, you still need to kill the guardians in addition to this.

Didnt they remove that requirement?

33 minutes ago, Cruvimaster said:

Klei created several problems by giving abilities to characters that should be for collective use. They did this with Wanda/Wortox and they did this with Warly. Teleportation points on maps are common in many types of games, but in DST, Klei took the more difficult route.

A simple example of recycling in-game elements to make them seem innovative during the skill tree is the case of Napsack. The item was supposed to be valuable for defeating the boss with the highest HP in the game. What does Klei do? Transfers this to Wormwood instead of improving the item.

Wormholes and tentapillars exists, but they are way too rng dependent on world spawn..

I wish there was a consumable item that replicated Shadow Winona's ability to teleport to any wormhole.

Edited June 6 by Jakepeng99

[Piekam]

2 hours ago, JazzyGames said:

The point is that they added a new universal teleportation method then subsequently made it too time-intensive of a grind to save time versus walking.

If anything, as its an end-game addition, those orbs should be an ingredient, mixed with lunar lences, some dessert stones, for an item with like... 10-20 uses.

Purple gems in the end-game arent hard to farm, cuz with moon storms and bishop statues you can farm them every night, so telelocators arent that expensive by then... imo Klei shouldnt limit this feature as much as they have, cuz for a nice and fun addition, even tho it might seem op, its not that worth the grind... its a good concept, similiar to the one people asked for with scion shards to work like that, but like, if you want it to be an end-game form of travel, let people have some freedom.

Also thoughts about if polished orbs should be craftable after the fight in the new smithy, using thulecite, moon rocks and orange gems? The new method of obtaining them is... questionable.

[Uedo]

2 hours ago, JazzyGames said:

The point is that they added a new universal teleportation method then subsequently made it too time-intensive of a grind to save time versus walking.

Ok, nice to know. I assume they designed it with their eyes open. Just because you disagree with something doesn't mean it isn't by design, what if they don't want you to grind?

1 hour ago, Pruinae said:

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? I have 30k days in this world, let me just walk everywhere like I did from day 1???????????? what are you talking about 😭

Yeah that's what I said, walk everywhere. I have worlds into the thousands too, I'm not gonna freak out because a game i didn't design made me walk sometimes.

Make your own game!

[Piekam]

13 minutes ago, Uedo said:

Ok, nice to know. I assume they designed it with their eyes open. Just because you disagree with something doesn't mean it isn't by design, what if they don't want you to grind?

I mean... this game always relied on feedback from community, and this is end game we are talking about so its fair that people keep talking their hearts out about what Klei could change to make the game even more amazing ya know, no need to get mad 😄

[JazzyGames]

I honestly would not take anything with the content in its current state as an indication of final intention. So many of the current mechanics (ie. Resetting sanctum with key) are placeholders until part 2 is released.

That said, this update really does leave us in an awkward spot regarding the orb fragment grind.

Edited June 6 by JazzyGames

[Piekam]

1 hour ago, JazzyGames said:

I honestly would not take anything with the content in its current state as an indication of final intention. So many of the current mechanics (ie. Resetting sanctum with key) are placeholders until part 2 is released.

That said, this update really does leave us in an awkward spot regarding the orb fragment grind.

true.

but just like how they changed the post-wagstaff boss drops etc, im thoughtfull they will tweak it based on our feedback and itll be great, no doubt

[Uedo]

4 hours ago, Piekam said:

I mean... this game always relied on feedback from community, and this is end game we are talking about so its fair that people keep talking their hearts out about what Klei could change to make the game even more amazing ya know, no need to get mad 😄

Absolutely, that's probably why i felt it really jarring to have someone go ??????????????????????????????????? as if it was the most confusing thing in the world.

Like attributing that someone is mad because they have a view you don't like, it says more about your position than mine - I was just giving my feedback too
Assuming makes an ass out of U and Ming!

Update: You can shopcat me if you like, but it's going live on the 11th and you KNOW it will be shipped as is, you can kick off but i'd recommend just making peace with it Jazzy - regardless of your opinion, whether you agreed or not, it would do little for my validation

Edited June 6 by Uedo

[Pruinae]

50 minutes ago, Uedo said:

Absolutely, that's probably why i felt it really jarring to have someone go ??????????????????????????????????? as if it was the most confusing thing in the world.

It was just the confusing design choice of how the tps work right now boiling over your "Just do X" comment, I didn't think anyone in the discussion was mad or anything, if anything I interpreted it as "this person maybe is being a lil smug lol" (but always a maybe, often hard to figure out comments on the forum), and that's because that is the advice I would give a friend who is killing something for that low % chance "Have you tried just dropping it?" (•̀ᴗ•́).

To me it didn't really seem you were trying too hard to genuinely argue about the subject presented by OP, I responded in kind and considered using the image below in that response, to better convey the message I was trying to send, but decided against it (it felt like too much for a forum response idk lol) and just went with the crying emoji

I do think people should take these forums less seriously 🤓 you can't even really tell what emoji that is lol

All in all, it is a beta and Klei has made major changes previously even if they only had 3 days before the release so we genuinely cannot say for sure in what way (if any) they will decide to go with this, if they just "ship as is" as you said, the way to amass them using green gems would be great for me so I wouldn't mind it at all, but I don't think that is what you meant, you probably meant "ship as is, but without the green gem part" but that doesn't have the same gravitas I suppose

I wouldn't mind if they made the grind for the item that you place to charge the telelocator worse (like, maybe even one or less telelocator per reset?), if the item to tp was separate and reasonable to craft, as Maxil20 suggested.

[Uedo]

28 minutes ago, Pruinae said:

It was just the confusing design choice of how the tps work right now boiling over your "Just do X" comment, I didn't think anyone in the discussion was mad or anything, if anything I interpreted it as "this person maybe is being a lil smug lol" (but always a maybe, often hard to figure out comments on the forum), and that's because that is the advice I would give a friend who is killing something for that low % chance "Have you tried just dropping it?" (•̀ᴗ•́).

To me it didn't really seem you were trying too hard to genuinely argue about the subject presented by OP, I responded in kind and considered using the image below in that response, to better convey the message I was trying to send, but decided against it (it felt like too much for a forum response idk lol) and just went with the crying emoji

I do think people should take these forums less seriously 🤓 you can't even really tell what emoji that is lol

All in all, it is a beta and Klei has made major changes previously even if they only had 3 days before the release so we genuinely cannot say for sure in what way (if any) they will decide to go with this, if they just "ship as is" as you said, the way to amass them using green gems would be great for me so I wouldn't mind it at all, but I don't think that is what you meant, you probably meant "ship as is, but without the green gem part" but that doesn't have the same gravitas I suppose

I wouldn't mind if they made the grind for the item that you place to charge the telelocator worse (like, maybe even one or less telelocator per reset?), if the item to tp was separate and reasonable to craft, as Maxil20 suggested.

Ah I do appreciate that, thanks for explaining - sorry if I came off in a particular way, I don't have any feeling toward this topic at all, it probably informs why my stance can basically be summed up to 'Oh, yeah, it be that way sometimes, oh well.' 

I didn't try hard to argue, you're absolutely right, but it was a genuine perspective I have and my purpose isn't to persuade, I don't care what someone wants to do - and dev feedback isn't for me to endorse if I just don't care about the outcome or if I don't particularly agree. 

Do remember though, that if we had to go through everything a person has said and clarify that each point is understood, it becomes rather cumbersome and boring, there's legitimately no social expectation for me to have to do this, you should engage conversation in good faith and by that I mean expect that the person you're talking with understands what's being said, otherwise you're moving the perspective from 'This person doesn't feel this way' toward 'this person doesn't agree because they don't understand the broader point', it's dismissive and it leaves you making assumptions, which ultimately leaves you with no factual information, just feelings.

I understood their point, I see what they're saying, they're right in essence. I would argue that Klei have demonstrated for quite a while now, that the feedback provided does not inform their plans, at least not to the degree people on the forums feel it should (which i'm actually very fine with). I would also argue, I see it as small potatoes - I just don't think it's worth the dev time to do it, who cares if that's more convenient for OP? It would make sense if they were requesting it, but they're not, they're telling the devs why their design choices are wrong, the argument is 'I can't make a teleporter network'..... Ok? 

I just don't personally see it as something I'd give time toward, outside of V2C saying sanctum waypoints should returned to a ruined state post-reset, I wouldn't expect more. But you never know, maybe they do care about it? I'm still firmly in my position, there's not really any compelling points outside of preference.

Update: I don't care if they remove the gem element or not. I'd prefer for me if they kept it, but, again, i'm really not going to mind if it's gone. Gravitas not considered regarding my statement. This again, goes back to assumptions, i'm talking in good faith, not trying to say things for effect - engage seriously or don't, but you'd get more information if you remove the assumption that i'm competing with you in some arbitrary back and forth? I'm assuming you asked me things so you could have the answer, and not for effect, please do the same

Edited June 6 by Uedo

[Jakepeng99]

6 hours ago, Uedo said:

Ok, nice to know. I assume they designed it with their eyes open. Just because you disagree with something doesn't mean it isn't by design, what if they don't want you to grind?

Yeah that's what I said, walk everywhere. I have worlds into the thousands too, I'm not gonna freak out because a game i didn't design made me walk sometimes.

Make your own game!

Our characters dont get unhealthy by not walking or something I don’t get what your trying to say besides Transportation doesn’t matter because walking exists.

Like before they made this change the teleportation was fine and still expensive and needs lots of setup, even more if you wanna use the tele location staff to not waste fragments.

[Uedo]

8 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Our characters dont get unhealthy by not walking or something I don’t get what your trying to say besides Transportation doesn’t matter because walking exists.

Like before they made this change the teleportation was fine and still expensive and needs lots of setup, even more if you wanna use the tele location staff to not waste fragments.

yes!