My two cents. (Suggestions and Feedback)

[XRuecian]

Me and my friend bought this game on a whim and we enjoyed it for a good week. (Unfortunately after a week of surviving 100+ days, the game doesnt offer much more. But thats understandable, its still in beta.)

I had a few thoughts though, and figured i should voice them here.

My first real itch that i had, was that i wanted a way for my base to feel more secure at night.

I would really like a way to generate more light around my base at night without needing to create 4+ campfires.

I like to have stuff to do at night, and that is difficult when i require a mining helmet everytime i want to move.

(The mining helmet is great for night adventuring, but i dont think its right to need to waste fuel on it just to move around my base to harvest crops at night.)

I tried the jack o lanterns, but they were much too difficult to create for how little they offered. (Very little light, and only lasted 2-3 days.)

I think jack o lanterns should be permanent. (Or easily fuelable) They offer such small amount of light. So why should they have such difficult fuel? I think it would be nice to be able to plant a couple around my base so that i can wander just a few more feet away from my campfire. Or, be able to set up a 'roadway' of light, so that i can travel from one base to another at night.

I guess my base just feels very 'false' when as Soon as it gets dark, i might as well be out in the forest, because its no different. There is very little i can do except wait out the night, or pick one or two crops that happen to be close enough to see. Ive been using the mining helmet for now, but it still feels wrong to have to constantly pay resources for these helmets to move around my own home.

Im not asking for a mining helmet replacement. The mining helmet serves a good purpose when you need to venture out at night to gather tallbird eggs, or shear beefalo, etc. But something that can give me a little more room in my base, feels like what i need.

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Also, i created a feather hat, which was rather time consuming.

I was SO SURE that its purpose was to allow me to approach gobblers without them running away.

I was wrong. Consider it?

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Ive survived hundreds of days just from farming berries, rabbits, and farm plots.

The berries definately feel a little overpowered. Even though the bushes arent renewable.

(The cooked berries recover more than cooked corn does, and you dont have to pay anything at all for berries.)

I gathered 25 berry bushes (almost every bush on the map.)

These bushes alone were enough for me to survive indefinately.

The gobblers were annoying at first, but i figured out: If you put on your mining helm and pick berries at night, the gobblers will either: come out of the bush and fall asleep (free meat), or run into another bush, and disappear forever.

Basically, the gobblers are not enough of a problem to 'balance' the berries. The berries need to be nerfed a little more.

(Eventually, a fire hound died next to all 25 of my bushes and every single one burned. Which was funny.)

On my second long survival playthrough.. i spent the first two days gathering berry bushes again, and then i found a savanna with beefalo. I settled down a small base. I noticed i have about 30+ rabbit holes within a few screens of my base. I spent the next 50+ days killing rabbits, and picking berries. I had no reason to leave my base. I filled two chests full of berries and morsels. I could have went much longer, but i got bored.

The morsels aren't overpowered. But the rate at which rabbits spawn (or the proximity of the rabbit holes) are too high.

The rabbits should be spread out a little more. Or not respawn quite as fast.

The name of the game is don't starve. I did find it a little weird that you are much more likely to run out of rocks, than food. I think farming is too easy, and there should be ways to force players from leaving their base more often.

(Perhaps random crop sickness, where the crops stop growing for 5 days or something. Or an enemy that can poison you and cause you to lose hunger much quicker for a day or two, forcing you to use more of your food preserves)

I dont think the game should be completely unfarmable, but as it stands, you can survive indefinately with just a few farm plots. (I havent even used the turbo plots, just 8 of the tier 2 plots kept me going indefinately. I also never needed to refertilize them even after harvesting them over 40 times. Is this a bug?)

Haha, i know i had a lot to say. But dont get me wrong. I loved the game. I like the style. I hope that it will be able to entertain me more as the updates are released.

My favorite part of the game is that along-side of surviving, i also get to 'tech up' with research points and unlock more and more things to play with. I hope that this can be expanded on and perhaps be a little more difficult. As it is now, i unlocked every single item within my first 24 hours of owning the game. I think i wouldn't have gotten bored so quickly if it had been more difficult to unlock everything. (Or if there were more things to unlock )

[pokebirds]

if you have four campfires your base is WAY to large, and

sounds like all you did was camp. here is a list of goals i bet will make the game more interesting.

-make some beemines

-make a bee hive

-kill 50 swamp monsters

-make fish sticks

-get krampus sack

-murder her highness

-have a party with pigmen.

-put spider nest around you base at night ( you'll never get bored with that!)

-pick up 60 stacks of poo

-have a party with bees (put beehives around your base)

-BURN EVERYTHING

-DIE 15 TIMEZ!!!!!!!1!!!!

-hug some puppies (then murder them )

-make a bird cage

-give abagail a hug <3

-make a winter hat and put it on

-make a dapper vest

-walk up to a beefalo and slice your axe into it's smelly stuipid face.

-walk up to a pig and slice your axe into it's low IQ brain crainium.

-be a EVIL T-rex and only eat meat for an entire playthrough.

-be a tree huging hippie and don't chop down ANY trees, only eat fruit and veggies, and surrvive 50 days

-make a top hat

-make an entire set of gold tools

-break an entire set of gold tools

-succsesfully have a flock of doom of over 50 small birds for 20 days

-get 30 stacks of gold

-make 15 meat effigys

-find and keep all mandrakes on your map as a pet

-MAKE a pig village with 30+ houses

-eat nothing but monster meat for an entire playthrough

-make your camp in a swamp

that's my list of goals for you.

GOOD LUCK!

also, the feathered hat make birds spawn more.

Edited December 22, 2012 by pokebirds

[Arcadias]

For your first point, i suggest fireflies! Catch loads of them, then you can just drop them round your base to extend the lit up area, and they don't run out

They light up a resonable amount, and look pretty

Made a feather hat! That's a status symbol right there

Alot of things they're gunna be working on such as Winter will mean much of your food sources will die, so when that's added it will hopefully bring in some sort of struggle!

[XRuecian]

@pokebirds, i know it sounded like i was camping.

I only started camping though after i had already done everything else that i found to be fun.

I had a bee farm, pig village, 6 meat effigies, i had killed many tree guards with my spear. I emptied out a few marshes looking for tentacle weapons. I made every hat.

@Arcadias, i wanted to do fireflies, but as far as i can tell, those are not renewable, and it takes a long long time to capture enough of them, it just doesnt feel worth the time.

But, today i played again, for the first time (I havent played in two weeks, so both the Krampus update and the Spider Queen update are new to me. A few things seem better, for one, i notice that a campfire seems to make more light now, or has a higher burning tier than before. I definately can go further away now. I can also notice a much slower growth rate of farming plots, so its not quite as easy as before, which is good.

Ive been trying out the new "Test" World generation. I like it, it feels slightly more natural, rather than giant circle islands. Haven't had any problems surviving in it yet. Although there seems to be a ridiculous amount of tallbirds and graves in the world. (Encountered 7-8 tallbird nests within the first 5 days, and an entire biome covered with graves.