A bunch of misc. suggestions for the environment (Not by me)

[Tonguetyd]

 

Except you can get stuff you need to survive already from your nine million berry bushes, your farms, and your Pig King that you built your shelter around. .

If you can claim that you have mountains of Berry Bushes, Farms, Fertilizer for them, Meat for the Pig King, you need to "brave the enviroment".

 

[Doomfan64]

 

 

If you can claim that you have mountains of Berry Bushes, Farms, Fertilizer for them, Meat for the Pig King, you need to "brave the enviroment".

 

 

True, but there should always be a reason to leave your base after you finished it.

[InaneDugong]

True, but there should always be a reason to leave your base after you finished it.

 

To be honest, I've got a huge qualm here. So, someone tell me: where is the challenge in collecting 100 berry bushes? Where is the challenge in collecting the manure for those 100 berry bushes? At what point is there any challenge in constructing your base besides temperate mechanics only-just-implemented? And what are you going to do after that? Survive till day 1k? Wow, so hard with your 100 berry bushes which required a few dragon-slays to ascertain (best part: the turkeys go down well, too). 

 

 

Yeah, okay, the new tech level from caves is significantly more challenging than anything else we've had, but why the hell do we need a new biome with completely different and tougher mechanics in order for this game to be of any difficulty? I do have to wonder if all difficulty curves will be tackled with new biomes/scenarios in the future. I suppose I jest since, evidently by the new mechanics, Klei doesn't intend to leave the main world deserted and baron, but I still don't believe they'll refurbish the core gameplay.  

[Doomfan64]

 

 

Yeah, okay, the new tech level from caves is significantly more challenging than anything else we've had

Something I feel that I should point out is that there is no real reason to go after the Ancient tech level. There's no new boss mobs on the overworld so strong that you need thulecite gear or whatever to stop them. You can just completely ignore all of the Ancient content and not suffer in the slightest for it.

[Ridley]

Something I feel that I should point out is that there is no real reason to go after the Ancient tech level. There's no new boss mobs on the overworld so strong that you need thulecite gear or whatever to stop them. You can just completely ignore all of the Ancient content and not suffer in the slightest for it.

 

......They're coming this way as we speak.......

[InaneDugong]

Something I feel that I should point out is that there is no real reason to go after the Ancient tech level. There's no new boss mobs on the overworld so strong that you need thulecite gear or whatever to stop them. You can just completely ignore all of the Ancient content and not suffer in the slightest for it.

 

Yeah, I build a spear and roam the earth with just that usually. I'll build basic armour if I'm feeling lazy, and I'll grab a tentacle thing when I come across a swamp. This way, I put everything else into sanity/weather deters. The game is fundamentally broken in that upgrading to stronger weapons is often unnecessary. Tooth traps and minor urban planning/logistical strategies are enough to get through every enemy, every whether change, and every surprise, whilst techs are just a superfluous embellishment likening to Hats in TF2. 

 

Some people enjoy this aspect (that upper tiers are just for fun and messing around), and some players even find the Gameplay challenging, but I'm pretty bored of the occasional Hound invasion that brings me zero despair (unless I'm messing around and can't be bothered vacating burnable things of importance during summer), and the occasional Treant spawn that only serves to make me jump and get annoyed once every 150 days (and only as much if it spawns at Night; during the day I couldn't care less), and, eh, Deerclops and weather? I never encounter Deerclops for some reason - even when I spawn on a small map with many of them in custom features - and the weather is sort of not-exciting.  

And who the f*ck is Krampus? I survive on Meat alone almost-always now since I can't be bothered making plantations and I'm never bothered by that thing. Even with the new changes to traps, I'll simply carry around 3-4 Traps and resupply only with demand. Seriously, who is Krampus?

 

The funniest thing is: Caves - being the only real challenge in DS - is almost entirely a case of, once again, urban planning and logistical preparations in that, once you solve the sanity and light issue,  it's not a hard task to overcome -- but, without those two issues mechanics being dealt with first, is near impossible to conquer (going down into caves around day 5-10 is currently my favourite thing to do). 

 

 

 

......They're coming this way as we speak.......

 

What, Giants are meant to change the meta? I don't think so. Great, we have some boss units to go and seek for some kind of challenge - yet another challenge that we can deal with whenever it's convenient. If, when the day comes, the Giants come along every game and clobber my base, I'm be brimming from side to side--but who sees this happening? Seriously, whatever people are speculating Giants to be like, they can just forget it. They'll just be another Deerclops that you occasionally see when you go out of your way to find them and probably only when you're ready for the encounter. (Of the odd 500+ hours that I've played DS, I've only ever had my base invaded by a Deerclops once. It was close to the beginning of my experience, and I was tremendously impressed and excited. Since then, I've tinkered the settings to have as many spawnings of Deerclops as possible and yet I still haven't been bothered by them).

 

 

Actually, I wonder if they've been bugged. A few days ago I was playing vanilla, being bored and trying to finish a map in under 50 days with just Tooth Traps (lawwwwlllll), and I got the prompt 'sound effects' for the Deerclops and got pretty excited. Nothing showed up. I even tried CHASING after the fekking sound and couldn't find the b****rd. Seriously, am I just, err, lucky/unlucky?? I so much want to get smashed by the environment of DS - just something other than Summer/Winter - and yet, even when I build in a spiderden-filled Swamp of Merms and Tentacles, I find myself filling time by redecorating the interior and getting mad that Tentacles don't resawn but Merms/Spiders do. 

 

 

/Rant. 

[Mordimers]

I had the thought on how a bigger focus on biomes could work. Basically, if you leave a biome alone for too long, the dangers in there can prosper. When trees stand together in a forest for a while, the ground could fill up with roots, which would slow down a character walking along there. If trees stand in the influence area of spider turf, they would get covered in webs and stay like that even for some time after the web has been destroyed, and there is a chance that a spider might descend from a tree like that when you walk past. Also, the roots could connect with a Totally Normal Tree and cause it to turn into a treeguard of epic proportions. To stop root spread and spider spread, you'd have to chop trees, kill spiders and the like, and if there is an area that you don't attend to, it will get more and more dangerous. Similar systems could be thought of for most of the biomes. So if you never move through the world and only turtle in your camp, by the time you HAVE to go out to get some fresh resources, you'll have a horrible time.

 

Love those ideas. Roots + a decrease of sight and sanity in thick forest would be cool addition. 

 

I would like to see webbed trees just for estethics.

 

 

I don't agree that walls are redundant. Stone walls have uses and if you layout your base with long straight corridor you can place a tooth trap road of pain to your interior. I always use stone walls for potection and hay walls for emergency entrances. 

If you have an entrance to your base your walls won't be even attacked by mobs. Theyr purose is to funel mobs to have them when you want to fight them.

[InaneDugong]

Love those ideas. Roots + a decrease of sight and sanity in thick forest would be cool addition. 

 

I would like to see webbed trees just for estethics.

 

 

I don't agree that walls are redundant. Stone walls have uses and if you layout your base with long straight corridor you can place a tooth trap road of pain to your interior. I always use stone walls for potection and hay walls for emergency entrances. 

If you have an entrance to your base your walls won't be even attacked by mobs. Theyr purose is to funel mobs to have them when you want to fight them.

 

Yeah, I think we all like the idea of an interactive environment of some sort. That particular ideas is one of the better ones suggested in this thread. 

 

 

@Walls:  

What could possibly attack you that'd warrant such a defence? To me, that's a total over-investment and just some kind of novelty "for funzies". The tooth-trap road is a common one - and one that certainly doesn't need stone walls for, due to pathing and aggro priorities - but I still don't know what's attacking you that requires such a defence. Are you on day 1.5k or something and your world is overrun by queen spiders? Have you modded Hounds to come in the tens? Are you intentionally building in a pig village and holding your breath for le Full Moon? Because the only other creature I can think of that wants you dead does no give two shits about your walls. 

 

Yeah, they are redundant. They aren't redundant in the sense that they don't have some kind of purpose in reality, they're just redundant in the sense that their intended purpose is forgotten and lost in the Gameplay. Nothing attacks you wherein a wall is necessary to deal with them. Hell, nothing attacks you where you benefit from a wall directly - it's only through making funnels and tricky stuff involving pathing-exploitation that walls come in use at all. 

[Mordimers]

Yeah, I think we all like the idea of an interactive environment of some sort. That particular ideas is one of the better ones suggested in this thread. 

 

 

@Walls:  

What could possibly attack you that'd warrant such a defence? To me, that's a total over-investment and just some kind of novelty "for funzies". The tooth-trap road is a common one - and one that certainly doesn't need stone walls for, due to pathing and aggro priorities - but I still don't know what's attacking you that requires such a defence. Are you on day 1.5k or something and your world is overrun by queen spiders? Have you modded Hounds to come in the tens? Are you intentionally building in a pig village and holding your breath for le Full Moon? Because the only other creature I can think of that wants you dead does no give two shits about your walls. 

 

Yeah, they are redundant. They aren't redundant in the sense that they don't have some kind of purpose in reality, they're just redundant in the sense that their intended purpose is forgotten and lost in the Gameplay. Nothing attacks you wherein a wall is necessary to deal with them. Hell, nothing attacks you where you benefit from a wall directly - it's only through making funnels and tricky stuff involving pathing-exploitation that walls come in use at all. 

 

I see your point and I agree that there should be something that walls won't protect you from. Apart from that, walls are not impregnable and bats or spiders are for example are little pests that will attack your walls no mater what and will slowly destroy it. Also you can be walled ass hell but when big mean DC comes its all for nothing.

 

Imo walls are build only for defence against hounds. I personally sit in my protected base only when I suspect a massive hound attack.

[InaneDugong]

I see your point and I agree that there should be something that walls won't protect you from. Apart from that, walls are not impregnable and bats or spiders are for example are little pests that will attack your walls no mater what and will slowly destroy it. Also you can be walled ass hell but when big mean DC comes its all for nothing.

 

Imo walls are build only for defence against hounds. I personally sit in my protected base only when I suspect a massive hound attack.

 

Mmm, but a herd of Beefalo or a gander of Pengulls or Chester or Pigs or Bunnymen or Merms or Tentacles or.... This ongoing list of features will adequately deal with your Hound problem very conveniently. And, if all that shall fail, put on some basic armour and pickup your Tier 1 Spear - ~it's imbalance time!~. 

 

I do see that walls assist a camper from being hindered in their quest to make the grandest castle that DS has ever seen, but you never 'fully' block yourself in since they just punch down your walls then, and you 'always' use tooth traps to kill them if you don't block them out, and you 'can't' use early-game ranged weaponry to deal with them if they're nibbling down your walls (not without a stroke of luck). Hell, I remember using a fire-dart on a Hound once and the b***ard ran over my trees and farm-plots because I was counting on Burn Damage to stop the insane pooch (in which I soon realised that 'Burn Damage' does absolutely nothing in terms of scaling damage). The combination of mechanics and imbalances makes fortifications close-to redundant besides exploiting a handful of nonsensical utilities - and it's all merely in the name of convenience/laze. 

 

-.-

[Mordimers]

Mmm, but a herd of Beefalo or a gander of Pengulls or Chester or Pigs or Bunnymen or Merms or Tentacles or.... This ongoing list of features will adequately deal with your Hound problem very conveniently. And, if all that shall fail, put on some basic armour and pickup your Tier 1 Spear - ~it's imbalance time!~. 

 

I do see that walls assist a camper from being hindered in their quest to make the grandest castle that DS has ever seen, but you never 'fully' block yourself in since they just punch down your walls then, and you 'always' use tooth traps to kill them if you don't block them out, and you 'can't' use early-game ranged weaponry to deal with them if they're nibbling down your walls (not without a stroke of luck). Hell, I remember using a fire-dart on a Hound once and the b***ard ran over my trees and farm-plots because I was counting on Burn Damage to stop the insane pooch (in which I soon realised that 'Burn Damage' does absolutely nothing in terms of scaling damage). The combination of mechanics and imbalances makes fortifications close-to redundant besides exploiting a handful of nonsensical utilities - and it's all merely in the name of convenience/laze. 

 

-.-

 

Walls are only one way to deal with doggies. Imo it is better to just lure them to spier dens and carefully set lureplant farm. When I can I usually kite doggies to those places. Walls and big base are good when you need to repenish your food or you just went out of caves - sudden hound attack can be the end of you.

 

I like walls. I even make them out of thulecite!

 

Last point. When you have your base protected by walls and traps you can start to do other funny stuff rather just merely surviveing. 

[Doomfan64]

you can start to do other funny stuff rather just merely surviveing. 

This right here is the problem. The whole game should be survival, and it should be fun the whole time so you don't have to "stop surviving"

[An Artifact]

 

Actually, I wonder if they've been bugged. A few days ago I was playing vanilla, being bored and trying to finish a map in under 50 days with just Tooth Traps (lawwwwlllll), and I got the prompt 'sound effects' for the Deerclops and got pretty excited. Nothing showed up. I even tried CHASING after the fekking sound and couldn't find the b****rd. Seriously, am I just, err, lucky/unlucky?? I so much want to get smashed by the environment of DS - just something other than Summer/Winter - and yet, even when I build in a spiderden-filled Swamp of Merms and Tentacles, I find myself filling time by redecorating the interior and getting mad that Tentacles don't resawn but Merms/Spiders do. 

 

 

/Rant. 

Mmmmh... sir, I think your problem is that you are too good at this game.

[Joshpro8423]

So, where we at... Ahh, General Gameplay. I like the idea of a mode where the world is on a trajectory of destruction. I could really go for that. There's heaps of ways to go about it, like implementing a virus for flora that passes slowly across the map forcing the player to move camp when affected. There's heaps of ways to implement 'Destruction' that force certain actions from the player - or, rather, forcing 'an' action by the player.

Which means that once the world becomes too infected to live in, the player will be forced to assemble the Teleportato and make a new world. Sounds legit.

[An Artifact]

Which means that once the world becomes too infected to live in, the player will be forced to assemble the Teleportato and make a new world. Sounds legit.

Yeah, why not?

[Doomfan64]

Mmmmh... sir, I think your problem is that you are too good at this game.

Yeah, his magical "make the deerclops go away without having to do anything" power is too strong.

[Joshpro8423]

Yeah, why not?

I only recently used the Teleportato in a survival world for the heck of it, and I had no important reason to do it, so why not this be a reason?

[An Artifact]

I only recently used the Teleportato in a survival world for the heck of it, and I had no important reason to do it, so why not this be a reason?

Yeah, exactly.

[InaneDugong]

Mmmmh... sir, I think your problem is that you are too good at this game.

 

Yeah, his magical "make the deerclops go away without having to do anything" power is too strong.

Yeah, basically. I never asked for these powers, just so yas know. I dunno, I still reckon something weird goes on between smaller/ish maps and the spawning/scripting of the Deerclops. As I said, it hasn't bothered me more than, eh, twice in the entirety of my hundreds of hours playing DS? Bit weird. 

 

 

I only recently used the Teleportato in a survival world for the heck of it, and I had no important reason to do it, so why not this be a reason?

Yeah, the whole 'world-jumping' thing is currently somewhat pointless beyond resetting a completely dead or boring world. It's completely superfluous and not-in-the-slightest ominous.

 

 

Walls are only one way to deal with doggies. Imo it is better to just lure them to spier dens and carefully set lureplant farm. When I can I usually kite doggies to those places. Walls and big base are good when you need to repenish your food or you just went out of caves - sudden hound attack can be the end of you.

 

I like walls. I even make them out of thulecite!

 

Last point. When you have your base protected by walls and traps you can start to do other funny stuff rather just merely surviveing. 

 

Okay, sure, walls can come in handy in the most obscure of scenarios that consist of the player being completely caught-out, but what about otherwise? It's not like they're cheap--and the interface for placing them is so bloody tedious that I loathe setting any up (lest my OCD be denied its rights).

 

But hey, they are novel - you can't deny as much. All I'm saying is that they're really underpowered and sort of misplaced. 

 

As for the 'merely surviving' bit, why do walls make surviving in general any easier? They don't provide food, they don't provide heat/cold/cover from weather of any sort, etc--they are a pseudo defence. They'll buy you some time against attacks - which CAN make a big difference - but we're not talking anything special here. Not only that, but you need to keep spare bits handy so you can enclose the fort at a moment's notice (unless you're sensible and have Gate mod installed). 

 

Shrug. If the game were harder in terms of needing to defend one's base from, like, anything, I'd say they're a great feature and very handy, but I've literally had no use for them - particularly since the time Hounds pecked down my stone walls in a few hits and proceeded to trap me in my own base only to have walls stop me from escaping rather than helping (incidentally, this was the same time I first tried using Fire-darts and Sleep-darts for anything only to find them completely underwhelming to what I expected).

I love making forts and planning out defences Tower-Defence style with the PvE, but there's just no dangers to defend yourself from. Hounds, sure, but you see them once every blue moon (less often, even). Why bother when mobs deal with Hounds better than anything bar tooth-traps?

[Doomfan64]

I just got an idea to add to the "Things that expand their territory" thing.

 

We know that tallbirds raising smallbirds to make their own nests is a common suggestion, right? Well, I'm thinking that, every so often, if a smallbird is hatched during a certain point, there is a chance for it to be mutated. This mutated smallbird, when it grows up, will become a new species of tallbird that builds its nest in a different biome, and also has unique powers. 

[ConeyKrab]

Guess I'll throw some ideas around.

 

I'd advise against giant-based-pessimism based off of the Deerclops. He's going to be one of the four giants, so he's likely going to get an update. Pretend like the current version of him doesn't exist, and that we're getting a whole new creature with the DLC.

 

I like Maxwell's door's placement; It makes sense. He mocks you for using it, saying that you should've learned your lesson. I guess the feel of it is that out of desperation and curiosity, you enter it in hopes of escaping your current surroundings. You're sort of Maxwell's plaything, and he's punishing you for trying to escape.

 

I think we need some story, and an over-all direction. Perhaps no final boss or visible escape, but at least some sort of notion of progress. 90% of the game's story and lore are found outside of the game, and that strikes me as weird. I'm also puzzled as to what none of RoG's trailers/pictures have had puzzles. It seems like we have a lot of backstory to uncover, yet the opportunities to do so are dwindling. We just need some form of direction/closure, I think. It confuses me that they said that completing Adventure Mode was only the start, but we've yet to receive any indication of continuation.

 

The apocalypse idea sounds interesting, but ultimately it lacks ending. It'd be cool to watch the world actually fall apart, with only the teleportato left, but to simply escape to a new world with no form of reward or purpose just to do it again is more than anticlimactic.

 

Worlds need to be more random, but I never want to find myself thinking "there is literally nothing I could have done to prevent this from happening" when I'm about to die. Unfair needs to never reach impossible. If I'm remembering things correctly, when winter was first introduced, its start was not at a set day. I was kinda disappointed when it became a constant Day 21 thing. Perhaps there should be a check to tick for constant settings, but I like everything being a little different beyond control. Every/most entities in the game could have a sort of range, somewhat infrequent-average-more frequent. A world could generate with a certain amount of "points" (or infinite, if you're crazy) to "spend" on deviating from normal quantities/intensities/etc. For instance:

 

Perhaps your world's evenings are a tick or two longer; maybe Koalefants roam more freely; maybe pig civilization is flourishing; maybe it's barely getting started; maybe summer is hotter and winter is warmer; maybe one season is longer than usual; maybe spiders have more nests; maybe swamps stretch out longer and savannahs are smaller. All such variants and more can combine and intersect to create a more unique experience within every world, without anything *too* crazy happening most of the time. I find that current world options are overly extreme. To balance out less-reliable season changes, perhaps the changing period between two could be extended a bit aesthetically, without too large an impact on gameplay.

[An Artifact]

 

The apocalypse idea sounds interesting, but ultimately it lacks ending. It'd be cool to watch the world actually fall apart, with only the teleportato left, but to simply escape to a new world with no form of reward or purpose just to do it again is more than anticlimactic.

 

There have been recommendations regarding a sort of new game+ system that would subsequent worlds more challenging in interesting ways. So maybe if you manage to survive until acopalypse strikes, once you enter a new world you'd be greeted by Maxwell congratulating you, saying that he didn't believe you'd still make it, and then informing you that he put some forms of new challenges in that new world. How exactly those would look, I'm not quite sure, but it should be something rather unique and rewarding (possibly some story-related clues or maybe clockwork- or nightmare-esque areas that can't be found in any other world and possess some items and features that are otherwise unacquirable).

 

Regarding the other points you made, I especially like the "point" system you recommend; it reminds me of some rpgs where you can put some points into your characters trait at the start, only in this case, it's the world you put points into. Definitely like that. Also am fully behind anything new story-centric.

[InaneDugong]

The issue with the 'points' system is that they'd have to balance it around the current balance of features. Everything in DS is already balanced around a 'points' system but there is no clear concept of each feature's value within this system since it remains consistent from test to test. To implement a points system with the intention of keeping the overall gameplay and balancing identical, they'd have to start attributing values to what currently exists - which is hard when, say, all items have a purpose that you can't necessarily go without but require resources from all sides of the spectrum. 

 

Or maybe I'm wrong and it'd be really easy to implement. Hard one to postulate. 

 

 

As for more random factors: there's some ubiquitous consent to that but, sadly, it isn't across the board thus will probably never see the light (or winter) of day. Klei is beginning to implement random events, but it probably won't be anything over the top. 

 

 

Um, as for Deerclops, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE DAY CAME LAST EVENING - A DEERCLOPS AT MY DOORSTEP (in case everyone wasn't following my rants) - in which the bugger made an entrance and left before I could even introduce. Honestly, unless the AI is getting a fekking rework, I don't want to hear another person say "But... B-But Giants!"--the bugger is hopeless and, even with a 1-shot wonder ability, it has to TARGET ME FIRST. So, yeah, it'd seem that we're forever doomed with running>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>giants. 

 

 

Regarding storylines: I can do without as much. There are some amazing tales in existence that have no closure or debriefing of any sort and still persist as profound. See, from my perspective, novelty is something that can be found in the relationship between the protagonist and their interactions. 

Sadly, concerning 'protagonist-interactions', there's isn't a whole lot. The idea that everything novel has to be almost 'fan-fiction' and not inserted into the game is a real haphazard way of saying "we kinda wanna take that side of things slow... ". 

The thing to consider most here is that there is no ending except death currently. Anything would be an improvement on this. Whether they want to use the Maxwell machine for this, or the interactions and progressions of the environment of Don't Starve, or the process of jumping worlds, or even the stress on the achievement being mere-survival, it'd be nice to have something more than a real transparent Sandbox. In my opinion, at least.  

[An Artifact]

 

Um, as for Deerclops, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE DAY CAME LAST EVENING - A DEERCLOPS AT MY DOORSTEP (in case everyone wasn't following my rants) - in which the bugger made an entrance and left before I could even introduce. Honestly, unless the AI is getting a fekking rework, I don't want to hear another person say "But... B-But Giants!"--the bugger is hopeless and, even with a 1-shot wonder ability, it has to TARGET ME FIRST. So, yeah, it'd seem that we're forever doomed with running>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>giants. 

 

 

Sorry to say, but you seem to be one of very few people to have issues with this. For me, they guy comes almost every winter and doesn't leave before I make him.

[Ridley]

The reason it left you alone in adventure mode was because where he spawns he makes that his return point. When ever he goes to far away and can't find anything to kill or catch, he will go back to where he spawned and look there. When you ran from him, he gave up because you are not really worth it. Honestly, you are like a rabbit morsel to him.

 

 

I really don't know what is up with your other Deerclops experiences. People used to report this all the time, now only you do.