Seriously, we need to discuss Summer.

[T4T3RGR3NAD3R]

You can harvest cactus for cactus flowers. What you're saying is true for all seasons aside from winter. MacTusk seems to be the single exception. I think the problem lies within everything being a pain in the ass to do during the summer time. However, DST's new fire mechanics paired with waterballoons seems to fix this quite effectively. Seriously, do we need to discuss Summer?

 

Cactus flowers are really only useful in summer. If you pick them right at the end, I guess you can make salad or just eat them out of your icebox during fall. I feel as though Spring and fall both serve as sort of transitional seasons. Also, they do at least still have their unique giants. In addition \, it can be a bit easier to harvest volt goat horns with the extra rain, countered by the wetness and lightening/need for protective gear/structures. Fall is the only season where you can grow the birchnut population. Fall is absolutely your downtime season. Summer and Winter should be the particularly exciting seasons. Winter fits that criteria to a degree, as it has a bunch of mobs and other features which have been previously listed. It has risk/reward, the suspense of the raspy breath of the Deerclops carried on the wind while you and your basemates sit around the campfire, the thrill of a walrus hunt, the adventure of tracking the winter koalafant/koalaphant/??? and the meticulous act of grabbing up the pengull eggs in the night. Summer, now devoid of the dragonfly attack in multiplayer, has...cactus flowers. And overheating. And smoldering. Wow, isn't that exciting. Whoopee. I'm not looking for an easier summer. I'm looking for an enjoyable summer. You get your floral shirt, you put on your eyebrella, you hold an umbrella...and then you just wait until the end of summer. You don't need to prepare for fall. You don't need to do a ton to get food. You don't get any kind of unique feather for a dart. You just...exist, occasionally needing to put out a fire. The fact of the matter is that it just isn't fun. My friends just want to skip it. I don't want to as a matter of principal, but I'm not the admin and I'm the minority. If picking cactus flowers is really all that entertaining to you, then, by all means, enjoy picking cactus flowers. I hope that the addition of features for the majority of us, who aren't satisfied with doing so, doesn't somehow ruin that tantalizing experience for you.

[Flare2V]

Cactus flowers are really only useful in summer. If you pick them right at the end, I guess you can make salad or just eat them out of your icebox during fall. I feel as though Spring and fall both serve as sort of transitional seasons. Also, they do at least still have their unique giants. In addition \, it can be a bit easier to harvest volt goat horns with the extra rain, countered by the wetness and lightening/need for protective gear/structures. Fall is the only season where you can grow the birchnut population. Fall is absolutely your downtime season. Summer and Winter should be the particularly exciting seasons. Winter fits that criteria to a degree, as it has a bunch of mobs and other features which have been previously listed. It has risk/reward, the suspense of the raspy breath of the Deerclops carried on the wind while you and your basemates sit around the campfire, the thrill of a walrus hunt, the adventure of tracking the winter koalafant/koalaphant/??? and the meticulous act of grabbing up the pengull eggs in the night. Summer, now devoid of the dragonfly attack in multiplayer, has...cactus flowers. And overheating. And smoldering. Wow, isn't that exciting. Whoopee. I'm not looking for an easier summer. I'm looking for an enjoyable summer. You get your floral shirt, you put on your eyebrella, you hold an umbrella...and then you just wait until the end of summer. You don't need to prepare for fall. You don't need to do a ton to get food. You don't get any kind of unique feather for a dart. You just...exist, occasionally needing to put out a fire. The fact of the matter is that it just isn't fun. My friends just want to skip it. I don't want to as a matter of principal, but I'm not the admin and I'm the minority. If picking cactus flowers is really all that entertaining to you, then, by all means, enjoy picking cactus flowers. I hope that the addition of features for the majority of us, who aren't satisfied with doing so, doesn't somehow ruin that tantalizing experience for you.

 

Yes, it is true that Summer has less unique activities to it than winter. I just don't feel any discussion here is going to be all that influential as far as future content is concerned. Through the ages is apparently centered around improving the play experience of longer-standing games; I'd imagine the more obvious concerns such as "there's nothing to do during summer" are already being addressed as such concerns have been vocalized in the past.

[Nickolas2600]

In my opinion I feel like Klie shoulda made a diffrent raid boss instead of just using the dragon fly.

[T4T3RGR3NAD3R]

Yes, it is true that Summer has less unique activities to it than winter. I just don't feel any discussion here is going to be all that influential as far as future content is concerned. Through the ages is apparently centered around improving the play experience of longer-standing games; I'd imagine the more obvious concerns such as "there's nothing to do during summer" are already being addressed as such concerns have been vocalized in the past.

 

One of my main goals is to keep this thread afloat so that concerns about summer don't fade into obscurity like in other threads, as that way Devs won't brush them off. I do believe that the Devs want to create the best experience possible, but Summer has barely been addressed. I'm really hoping for confirmation that something is at least being discussed amongst the ranks of Klei, be it from this pool of suggestions or not.

In my opinion I feel like Klie shoulda made a diffrent raid boss instead of just using the dragon fly.

 

If it's going to be a year-round thing, they shouldn't take away from a season. They could at least give the dragonfly some kind of special attribute a/o loot in the summer.

[blaaaat]

You can harvest cactus for cactus flowers. What you're saying is true for all seasons aside from winter. MacTusk seems to be the single exception. I think the problem lies within everything being a pain in the ass to do during the summer time. However, DST's new fire mechanics paired with waterballoons seems to fix this quite effectively. Seriously, do we need to discuss Summer?

I assume I don't have to list the benefits and balances of winter, so...

 

Spring:

• Lots of rain, which needs preparation, but also is good for farming, mushroom picking, and getting milk. (Compare smoldering and withering, which only destroy).
• Frog rain, which also needs preparation, but gets you food for days.
• Lureplants
• Beefalo in heat, which with the beefalo hat is a great defense mechanism, for instance against frog rain.
• Flower spawning.

Fall:

• With the exception of red hound danger, the easy season. No rain, no heat, no cold. Pretty much everything multi-season is available and safe to gather.
• Easy birchnut season (and although it does nothing, the visual change of the birchnut trees is nice. All summer does visually is make it hard to create a good base layout because I can hardly see where I'm placing things).

Summer doesn't have balances. Cactus flowers don't make up for the season being the most destructive of all. Longer days would be useful but those days are murderous, so the benefit is overwritten.

[Nickolas2600]

perhaps summer needs more benefits? Like yeah heat is burning everything and withering crops but the crops I DO save could have special plants? or grow faster? 

[RalphKastro]

or grow faster? 

AFAIK, they do grow faster, but nothing compared to spring. 

[Nickolas2600]

AFAIK, they do grow faster, but nothing compared to spring. 

 

really? Sorry I never knew that!

 

[BipedalBear]

K here is my copy pasta from another forum topic:

 

Abstract(TL;DR): Add Pig Knight in summer igloo camp. Drop saddle,a movable pot and PogChamp https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kappa-everywhere-global-t/jafkphjeboadjffjfcigcdfdilpcacod?hl=en

 

 

I've thought about an idea back in RoG beta.As someone suggested about adding bears in summer where the walrus used to spawn, why not expand on that idea. Instead of bears, how about a place where you could fight a pig living in it's bricked house? So I brainstormed an idea on the bus:

 

As Don't Starve is based off of Fairy Tales(Alice???) and some Germanic old stories, I want to expand on the background of Willson's adventure. From Three Little Pigs, each types of pigs inhabited different houses;Guardian pigs live near their pig toches and grasses, village pigs live in their wooden houses, where is the third bred of pigs? They live igloo shaped brick-and-mortal houses of course!(suggestion: change igloo's sprite colour panels into red-orange-grey). Every summer, a pig would build a house on the foundation of Igloo, and when a player trespasses it's territory, it will come out and drive the player away. 

 

Here is the design of the boss:a pig on a saddled wolf. Remember back then Klei decided to release an expansion with beefalo riding? What if the saddle cannot be crafted? Instead, you have to kill this pig knight in order to loot it's saddle.The pig knight has 2 abilities: one is tied with varg(summon fire hounds) and one is tied with Moose(disarm player). It will drop a saddle(25%), a pot helmet(25%), a stack of stone walls(100%) and monster meat(100%). Pot helmet acts the same way as crock pots, except you can only place it on a camp fire and can pick up the pot after fire is extinguished. 

 

This way, you have to party up and do something to get that sweet beefalo mount.Think about this, you can swagger your status with a beefalo mount on top of a tam o' shanter and cane. Kreygasm 

Here is my suggestion, I might commission silhh to make the sprites. 

[Claretta]

I really love Summer. The game is quite easy after a while and summer introduces some nice pacing. It's OK to have a slow season. Some of my funnest games are when I was behind in Spring and had to really work hard in Summer. Certainly, being chased by 20 hounds in a circle at night while overheating, just waiting for day to come so you can lead them to beef or bees is hectic and fun.

 

The game needs more challenging moments like that. 

 

 

They don't do that for me and have never done that for me. They keep plants just fine - saplings, tufts, and bushes. But they hit crops once and then never again and I end up with gass instead of food. This unexpected event pretty much killed me my first RoG Summer and looking around I am not the only who was unpleasantly surprised. Even the wiki avoids the use of "crops" and only speaks of the aforementioned plants.

 

I mean, it might very well be a common bug that's yet to be fixed some day. I have seen posts that suggest the ice flingomatics can keep crops alive. But I've seen even more that say ice flingomatics are only good for plants and that's my experience too.

 

I have ice machines keep crops alive every game I play. The problem is that crops whither extremely fast, so the ice machines need to be set to active mode before summer starts, or else the heat will get to crops if you wait till summer already hits. (Good to build a temperature gage to anticipate it).

 

Also the machine must not be overloaded with too many structures to protect or else it might not get to the crops in time. So if you build a massive plant farm of 200 plants huddled around the one machine then crops on the edges will generally wither as the machine is already flat out working to keep the plants alive.

 

 

[T4T3RGR3NAD3R]

I really love Summer. The game is quite easy after a while and summer introduces some nice pacing. It's OK to have a slow season. Some of my funnest games are when I was behind in Spring and had to really work hard in Summer. Certainly, being chased by 20 hounds in a circle at night while overheating, just waiting for day to come so you can lead them to beef or bees is hectic and fun.

 

The game needs more challenging moments like that. 

 

 

 

I have ice machines keep crops alive every game I play. The problem is that crops whither extremely fast, so the ice machines need to be set to active mode before summer starts, or else the heat will get to crops if you wait till summer already hits. (Good to build a temperature gage to anticipate it).

 

Also the machine must not be overloaded with too many structures to protect or else it might not get to the crops in time. So if you build a massive plant farm of 200 plants huddled around the one machine then crops on the edges will generally wither as the machine is already flat out working to keep the plants alive.

 

Well, I'm glad you enjoy yourself, and the 20 hounds and temperature death are hectic and fun, but that's still available in Winter. Also, gears might not be available in multiplayer.

[RalphKastro]

The game needs more challenging moments like that. 

if the whole game could be as challenging, I would be a happy masochist. The big problem with summer is not the challenge, though. It's the lack of reason to actually care for summer. There's no reason to do much in summer. just stock up on some desert(ironic, eh?) base and binge sleep.

[jaunty]

Given that Autumn provides ample time and space to start from scratch, and most things are renewable in DST, I don't mind the potential destructiveness of summer, and I do like that it provides a decent test and goals for the previous seasons. But that's the only thing it provides, goals for the previous seasons. 

 

So I agree completely with t4t3rgr3nad3r that summer needs something unique to occupy the player during the season itself. We already have Autumn for safe all-season prep activities, so Summer is redundant if that's all it offers. I'ld like to see a few more things added, a target to go hunt, something for autumn, and possibly something to help with emergency survival. 

 

 

 

To offer a concrete suggestion, Merm Kings could appear in a random marsh pond during summer. If a King is in a marsh, then Merm raiding parties will appear and roam the adjacent biomes. 

 

The Merm Raiders would put up a Raider Camp set piece during summer. In addition to a few structures to smash for resources and maybe a partially used lean-to, the set piece would include a Tiki Torch that acts as a redeployable/reusable, low-fuel consumption, low-heat light source(ie. something good in autumn when you want to move around, don't need heat/drying/cooling, and are trying to stock pile fuel, also nice for base decoration)

 

The Merm King himself is confined to his starting pond, where he provides a boss fight for prepared players and slight "aid" for others. The aid would be in the form of a ranged water attack that soaks an unprotected player providing immediate heat relief but also a slight sanity hit and the usual issues with wetness. Regular fight mechanics could include puddles left from the water attack to slip in/slog through to make kiting more difficult, a ranged pull, regular melee, etc.

 

The king would drop assorted meats and a merm tadpole(Madpole) that can be used to create a new Rundown House or, with the help of some magic, turned into a Madpole-axe, a 50ish damage weapon that can be repaired by feeding it food. 

[Nickolas2600]

Summer needs more helpful things people keep acting like we need it to be harder, There is no reason to leave base that's the problem!  

[T4T3RGR3NAD3R]

Please forgive the semi-necro. I see these discussions get hyped up then forgotten time and time again. Anyway, should a dev pass through, could you please tell me if there's anything in the works to improve Summer?

[T4T3RGR3NAD3R]

*shameless bump for the good of humanity*

[RalphKastro]

On 29/11/2015 at 1:16 AM, T4T3RGR3NAD3R said:

Please forgive the semi-necro.

 

5 hours ago, T4T3RGR3NAD3R said:

*shameless bump for the good of humanity*

keep doing these and eventually somebody will notice and give his opinion.

[T4T3RGR3NAD3R]

1 hour ago, RalphKastro said:

 

keep doing these and eventually somebody will notice and give his opinion.

It's all for the good of DS

[Gingerbread]

summer seems to be the most boring season yet summer is my favorite cuz of long days. For single play DS, summer is not really different same summer, even more buffed version where you overheat in caves too. and everything withers in caves too. Dragonfly killing is just half a day and u got nothing to do in whole summer if u are looking to game like that though i consider summer  and autumn most suitable seasons for construction work or lets say improving base and trying to make it a mega base or going to spelunking (for dst its easy in summer in ds if you got a snow chester again its too easy). also dst summer is really good for spelunking.. just dont stand on surface go to caves (you dont overheat there too so spelunking is challenging and fun.) But i am agree, dragonfly should be replaced as a summer boss, keep that 27500 arena giant but give him a different name. Another idea would be beefalo riding. since days are too long u can ride beefalos forever in summer although we need longer taming duration as couple grass does not hold u on top of a beefalo for too long

[Snowhusky5]

my favorite thing about summer in DST is that there is no cave rain. Other than that, its pretty much all bad. What I usually do is simply prepare food and supplies, and jump into the caves for what is usually my first long-term trip on the first day of summer. I come back up after 5-10 days, and then just basically tend to my base until autumn.

[Zeklo]

I just really want the normal dragonfly back. A raid boss should be new unseen before content. Something that comes in Through the Ages. 

[RalphKastro]

2 hours ago, Zeklo said:

I just really want the normal dragonfly back.

I don't know if I suggested this here, but since I'm too lazy, and people are too lazy, neither will read the other pages of this thread, therefore I shall re-suggest it:

 

What if we had a nearly invincible Dragonfly during most seasons, that resorted to it's cheating completely fair use of the lava ponds and mostly remained in that area(maybe with some cold animation once it hits it's limit, then ran back to the pond.), used it to regenerate and defend itself and stuff, and then, in summer, it could just wander around, maybe even spreading it's children around(maybe they could act similar to the Canadian-Thing and try to make new nests for a possible overruling of the world. Y'know, because all bugs are Zerg.).

 

Maybe it could even drop in it's final form a piece of the recipe to Ye Old Mamafoot Summoner, which could both tie it to the lore(something about it ressembles the merm) and making killing it actually useful. Don't Starve is not a MMORPG, though. I don't see any use in making something huge and tanky just because. It's not about grabbing the shiniest loot, it's about getting enough to survive, and preventing your world from being overrun and getting a tool to help do that seem much more interesting in the survival aspect of the game than shiny gems for mostly superflous equipment that only helps in wrecking people's stuff in pvp(which is also pointless, because only people like @Flare2V and @SuperPsiPower seem to be that determined to take that thing on by themselves.).

 

Summer right now is pretty much what we do in real life: Turn on the air conditioner and lay in bed. But real life is not fun. There's a reason we play games.

 

Edit: Damn, I just can't make small posts about this stuff, can I?

[1Coldbeer]

There are lots of ways to deal with Summer if you don't want to deal with it, but don't want to leave it out altogether either... If you're the one opening the world then just make it as short as possible... it's more tolerable that way... also, I've seen the posts that talk about the Summer Camps... also a good way to deal with Summer (turning down the smolder factor helps too) build your endothermic fire pit next to a couple of crock pots and an ice box to keep everything cool... but I'm sure you guys all know this stuff

[BeastNips]

I don't think another giant would solve summer. It'll either be on a set day like Deerclops is now and therefore lead to one day of preparation and one day of fighting, or it will be random leading to the same result but the prep happens on the first/second day of summer. 

 

Players will have a secondary site set up quite close to base with an endothermic fire and supplies to fight the giant. It won't be much of an activity for the whole summer. 

 

The issue here is that I don't think there is much else to do in winter; winter just comes quite early in the game. You're still setting up parts of your base and moving certain resources (like spiders for example) closer to base; you're harvesting ice and building flingomatics; you're building farms ready for spring. Mactusk (unless you're farming every 2.5 days) and Deerclops don't take up a whole lot of time. 

To conclude: winter has a lot more to do than summer because you're earlier in the game. Any experienced group of players can pretty much handle anything (except freak occurrences like hound attacks during Deerclops etc) by day 56. The issue is the issue Klei is working on: the game becomes stagnant after a certain length of time. It's an issue with late game itself, not summer. 

The smoldering mechanic is a different issue, one that I think needs a re-think for multiplayer. I don't think it should be totally scrapped though.

Thanks, 

Beast 

[Ethlin]

Random ideas...

More special plants (Like the cactus flowers)

A unique monster type (Something for the "rocky" biome? Doesn't have much besides occasionally spiders)

A new summer giant (Since the dragonfly is sort of the "end-boss" and year-round now)