Why couldn't Shipwrecked be like RotG ?

[OrderedChaos]

I disagree completely with the OP. As someone mentioned already in this thread, I think the base game would feel way too crowded if it was packed with SW content, and the themes would clash way too hard.

 

Also, shipwrecked plays differently than vanilla because of how the world is layed out. In Vanilla you can rely on turtling down a little, and making short runs out to get this or that throughout the year. In Shipwrecked though, you really have to commit to hopping on a boat as most of the time you'll be gone at least an entire day and it kind of forces you to get better at being nomadic.

 

I don't think either of these gameplay styles is necessarily better than the other, which is why I appreciate shipwrecked being a standalone game.

 

Also how would you reconcile the weather events? Just have the effects from both in each season? That would be crazy imbalanced especially when summer would have the crazy heat waves, wild fires AND volcano rocks. Not into that at all.

 

I do agree that the game is a bit lacking in content right now, but it's much more fleshed out than either DS or RoG were on launch and you can bet it will become just as loaded with content.

[Mday]

Talavaj, I too have to disagree with a lot of what you have said.

I think the biggest issue here is that, it is a whole new world in SW. You are now in a tropical island with a whole different eco-system. Yes it is a DLC and in later patches we will be able to travel between the two world. Still, the world in SW is new and it make no sense to see all the old creatures from the old world.

 

Just so you know in case you dont, bottlenose dolphin exist IRL. I'm fine with the ballphine dropping bottles. In fact its one of the best ideas in the game for me.

 

Dog fish actually does more than that. They are there to steal your loot. They provide a distraction when there is a sea hound attack. You can actually kill them for food if you have the weapon.

 

Lobster is the equivalent of rabbit at sea. Similarly seaweed is the equivalent of berry bushes at sea. Why do we need these in SW? Just like DS/DST/ROG, they provide a mean to obtain food when the situation does not allow otherwise.

 

Stink Ray is another interesting creature in the game. It is a stink ray that actually stink in both ways. I just got to love it.

 

There are so many things that drops venom gland because they are the very same things that can poison the player. Similarly IRL scientist obtain venom from the poisonous creature to make anti venom.

 

Crab is crab, and rabbit is rabbit. I just spawned a few rabbit on the island of SW and looked at them closely. As far as I can tell the AI is different and the art work is different. I don't have a problem with crab being how it is.

 

Bearding doesn't seems to be the direct result from a creature having fur on it's skin, if you have at all notice that from DS/ROG. Surely bunnyman/splumonkey/rabbit all have fur. How about Wilson? That beard of his cannot be treated as fur. Among all the other creature that have fur(e.g pig), non of them drop bearding. So what is the true criteria in the world of DS that determent whether a creature should, up on dead, drop a bearding or not? It is clearly related to the magic, nightmare and insanity of the world.

 

And if you are still not satisfy with the above explanation, attached is a photo of a kind of species IRL. It is called Hair Crab. IRL even other crab species, including those we human catch by industry scale for reasons, do actually have some hair/fur attached to the shell, mostly on the lower body.

 

Looking at the item/creature list from ROG, I will say most of the content added from ROG is still more like "drop a meat/monster meat up on dead".

I remember playing ROG the the first time on day 1 release. It was like "what am I suppose to do with all these meat". Before ROG all you have as reliable meat source is rabbit or frog, birds, spider, and pigs. Tallbird exist but it was never at significant number. With ROG they have added a catcoon, moleworm, volt goat, warg, mosling and buzzard. Using your method of reasoning these are more or less just meat in a different packaging.

[Kror]

I will give you an example of something like that here: (as a reaction to you claiming catcoons being less original than the latest expansion)

Catcoons a mob in RotG based on a mixture of a cat and a racoon.

This is good game design, as it is not only original in its design cleverly basing many of its mechanics (throwing up furballs and respawning 9 times) on its source material but it also provides the player with comic value, utility in the form of companionship, items and unique loot that can be used to craft.

Is your complaint really just that the ocean mobs don't drop interesting enough loot?

 

I think due to how the op communicates their dislikes, nobody sees the point where he says "SW is lifeless". He mentioned catcoons. They have a lifecircle, they do stuff. You can stay there and watch a catcoon for a while and it does more than look cute, attack, follow or give cool loot.

 

Nothing in SW lives. There are a handful of mobs that attack each other and some follow you shortly. The apes are the closest to living beeings but they were to some degree already in the base game.

 

Stuff like pigs who have more of a dayly routine are less present due to ocean. If you cross the ocean, all you see are waves and things randomly moving or attacking. If you happen to met a coral biome, you are amazed by the colors. Then you see nothing living there.

 

Imo the weather is way more alive than in RoG, but it would be cool if the ocean would be less barren. And the land.

 

I like SW, but it's not a living thing. The creatures are loottables and the game got cool mechanis. It's missing the life that Don't Starve has.

 

All that is way exaggerated, but this should help to point out these things. Either the op is trying to do that or likes to get disagreement. The communication of the problems of SW is "not the nicest" to say the least. I'm a big fan of SW, but due to it's mechanics, visuals and sounds. The creatures are cute and add variety and value but they do not live.

 

 

Edit: I forgot to mention sharx beein attracted by droped meat. That's pretty cool.

[Mday]

The open sea IRL is indeed kinda lifeless thou, at least that is how it looks like when viewing from the deck of a ship. Most of the time it is just waves after waves and nothing else. It is the underwater world that is full of life and activities.

 

[Kror]

It is the underwater world that is full of life and activities.

 

Well there are dolphins, jellyfishes and dog fishes here, but they do nothing. The "activity" part is what is mostly missing imo. I bet cappy can pull off something like this, regardless of what the real world is like. Waves help much, but it strange that the nonliving things are the ones who "interact" with the world the most.

 

Edit: Tbh I couldn't even stand using the trawl net if it weren't for the vulcano event and hurricane season waves.

[Mday]

So what could a dogfish possibly do? Should it behave more like a dog? Befriend it and he can smell and track a bottle miles away, protect us, catch fish for us etc?

Jellyfish is just how it is IRL. I cannot think of anything else.

Dolphins, the AI already behave very much like it is IRL. It is just that they are kinda rare in the game.

Other things that could possibly encounter on the water surface include turtle, seal (not in the tropical thou?), squid(giant squid?). And sadly, tons of marine debris.

How about adding more event in the open sea? Birds, dolphins catching group of fishes? Pirate attack?

[Kror]

Dolphins are problematic imo. They became kind of "useless" since they added the ability to make bottles from next to nothing. And that they are extremely rare does not help this or ocean life either.

 

Jellyfish does not exactly act like IRL since they pulled it up to surface level, same for dogfish. All the fishes do not swim in the water, they are on top of it. Thats already a good design choice imo.

 

Right now the biggest interaction in the sea are sharx that come almost every time meat is dropped in the ocean, but you kinda want to avoid them, since they are not doable without taking damage (at least it seems to me that they can attack from very far away and the attack seems undodgeable with sea movement).

The biggest living thing at land are monkeys and most players want to avoid these too, leaving you with crabs, bees and pigs that usually don't even have something to attack or eat. Snake/spider wars, flurp/merm wars are the only think that happen on land imo.

 

I am confident that they will tackle this and there are already cool new things, but I can understand the op somewhat.

[Mday]

It is just a matter of drop rate then. May be reduce the drop rate a bit?

I don't find bottle very useful in my playthrough thou. I only use it once to unlock the seatrap thing and thats it. The spyglass cost a gold to craft which to me is totally not worth it. Life jacket for me is useless too. I don't have the inventory space to carry one and I would rather take the risk to keep my backpack and make a run. If I do sank I would rather respawn by my base, not at the spawn where there is almost nothing I could use. 

 

Some jellyfish does stay near the surface level thou. You won't find them floating but they are viable form above. Otherwise swimmer won't get sting by jellyfish.

 

It is actually possible to melee a single sea hound without taking damage. You could use a trident and kill it in 2 hits.

[Kror]

It's not just a matter of drop rate. The other things drop fish/meat which you do not need. That is just one "problem". If their loot is not valuable enough, they might just be common to make the ocean more alive. But as I said: I think they will tackle this issue.

 

Yeah some sealife are visible on surface but everything in shipwrecked is clearly visible on the surface and I don't think anyone would be like "What? lobsters are running around on the ground and are visible from the surface? Unrealistic!" They could do that with several things to follow your

 

It is the underwater world that is full of life and activities.

 

 

Well it's possible to kill the sharx but pretty much everything in this game is possible to kill with a spear and skill without taking damage (which you still can do if you lure them onto the coast). If you gotta spend ressources/drops to do that, you will most likely want to avoid those encounters early on, which is a shame for something that actually feels alive.

 

I hope cappy reads this thread thoroughly despite the negativity. They have designers which are better than our random ideas, they will tackle this. Klei won't let them do otherwise before release.

[Mday]

Oh well. It is up to the player how they wish to deal with the sea hounds isn't it?

I mean there are people who would just ditch the hounds on land, others will gear up and kill every single one of them by melee.

 

Put together the hounds on land and sea hounds and make a comparison, I think the difference is that, on land you have many ways to deal with the hounds. At sea you don't have that many choose because there isn't that many marine mob that you can use while facing 12 sea hounds.

[Kror]

I meant more like: Pretty much everything in don't starve was faceable with a spear and dodge. Seamovement (with seahounds only) change this. Ofc everyone can choose, but thats one less choice that is usually a wildcard.

The sea hound mechanics are a cool thing where the world feels alive and it's one of the things many players kinda want to avoid if it's not doable on the fly. Same for apes to some degree.

 

Isolated creatures take away interaction (like pigs alone on an island) and the sea is just worse in this manner. Dunno what e.g. the doydoys will be like but I can't wait for more npc interaction and life in this world.

 

Hope thats what the op was pointing at.

[Talavaj]

Is your complaint really just that the ocean mobs don't drop interesting enough loot? Like, seriously, is that what you have a problem with? Because just calling them "boring", "tedious", and "uninspired" doesn't communicate why you don't like them. I might have actually agreed with you if you said on the first page that they need to have more variety of drops instead of totally dismissing them as game entities, because that's the main thing that makes the difference between a tallbird and a Guardian Pig in the vanilla game.

 

But, since this is still in Early Access, I have good news! There's every possibility that the aquatic mobs will get unique loot in later updates, or more complex behaviour, or both. Compare Reign of Giants: The Poison Birchnut Tree, for example, was only added in the second update and didn't get its Birchnutter minions until the fourth update. For that matter, RoG didn't even have any actual giants in it until the second update, unless you count the Deerclops.

 

Also I don't see why you think frogs are dull. They're not the only mob that gangs up on you, but their speed and ability to briefly stun the player when they attack (which, when three or more of them all attack you at once, turns into stunlocking you) make them uniquely threatening to fight head-on in a way that Spiders and Killer Bees aren't.

No, my complaint is that there isn't a whole lot of compelling content in the game.

 

And yes, the fact they drop no interesting loot is a pretty big deal, because from gameplay perspective they are completely redundant.

There is no incentive for players to actually interact with most of the water creatures in the game.

I didn't bother for example to do anything with Dogfishes, because why ?

 

Now onto why I think the content is uninspired.

Take a Moleworm, it digs holes, you can "whack it" but not only that you can also dig it up and use it as a farm for minerals and relocate it near to your base but it also drops loot required to craft an item with a significant impact on the game.

See it already has a ton going for it, it is punny, offers unique interactions, and has vast gameplay implications.

 

Now take a Dogfish, it is a fish. It does nothing, has no behavior to speak of.

What is it based on really ? A dogfish ? Which is a type of shark, so why isn't it based more on either of its source materials ?

Boring, lazy design, does not incentivize players to do anything, has no gameplay values whatsoever.

 

Same with Dolphins, Crabs etc etc etc.

And this is a recurring theme in Shipwrecked, it is just not very cleverly designed, it does not have a lot of compelling stuff in it.

Heck even Rabbits you could catch alive and use to craft Earmuffs or Prestihatitator.

 

I'm well aware the DLC is in "early" access and things may change.

I'm just making this thread to make sure they know the current state of the content is an issue so that they just don't end up leaving it as is seeing nobody is complaining about it being lackluster.

[Mday]

Um interesting point.

Why don't we have a look at what kind of NPC interactions there are in ROG.

1) Pig in the forest may get to fight some spider/clockwork/killer bees depending on the world gen.

2) Beefalo in heat attack anything on sight which in effect means dead rabbit/bird/butterfly.

3) Tentacles killing spiders.

4) Tallbirds killing rabbit (this one is kinda rare due to world gen)

5) Hounds kill all the voltgoats in the world before you are able to find them.

 

and the rest involves lurkplant, treeguard, spiderqueen and etc.

 

Now in SW:

1) Pig kill spider/spiderqueen/killer bees/ hounds/snake/treeguard as usual.

2) Spider/monkey/snake fight each other every night

3) Whatever that is happening in the marsh at night.

 

That's it.

 

So it seems like the issue here is the lack of variety in mobs on land/ at sea, and their aggressive behavior against each other. After all when it comes to npc interaction, the only type that exist in ROG is mob fighting each other for reasons. Buzzard do stare at each other sometimes, but that is about it.

 

 

[Kror]

@Mday

 

Creature didn't just blindly fight in rog.

Catcoons threw up loot, sometimes eating things, jumping at trees. They also jumped at birds, which is a bit different than fighting.

Buzzards ate meat and didn't like if someone (even hounds) take it.

Gobblers

Moles

+ a bunch of other examples.

 

1. Pigs hardly fight in SW or eat stuff from ground since they are in the beach biome and do not met spiders, snakes usually.

2. That is true.

3. In the marsh, merms fight flurps once, until all are dead. Then the marsh is quiet forever.

 

Isolation makes possible interactions rare. Most things just run around, look at you, attack you.

[Lacost]

 

Crab - No really, it's a rabbit. But we couldn't think of anything to use them for so they are just meat, yeah and also they become Beardlings because uh, it's a rabbit.

Why are you trying to see only the negative things in SW? You are so blind trying to hate this game that you don't even realise how nicely the AI can behave.

 

Take the crabs. They are not just reskinned jackalopes. Once you come too close to them they scare off and will eventually stop and bury themselves. Now you can't get them out of the sand unless you wait long enough until it is poking out it's eyes. When the crab is doing that you can shovel it and briefly stun it, giving you time to kill it with a spear.

 

This behavior differs a lot how you are hunting them compared to rabbits. For rabbits you only place your trap next to their hole and let them run into it. Crabs however will not run to their dens once scared off and will even stop and bury themselves so traps on the holes are useless. You are far more reliant on tactical or passive placement of your trap or have to use companions or ranged weapons.

 

But why would you even do that for that small fish morsel? Because crabs drop very precious loot. You would have potentially noticed it if you would have looked closer.

 

They drop boneshards. Not by killing and eating them but by letting them rot and hammering the fishbone item you get. Crabs are harder to hunt put are by far more important than rabbits since you need bone shards on a regular basis in SW.

 

But the loot is still important on your much hated beard-crab. They don't drop only beard. They drop nightmare fuel to a very high chance. That is really important because nightmare fuel is rare in SW because there are no ruins.

 

 

You see there are a lot of differences you just have to look closer. You only see a hole in the ground and see a creature spawning from it that even turns in a beard form when insane and your first impulse is to shout: RABBITS!!  and you never look at them again.

 

 

Now tell me: How are crabs uninspired reskins of rabbits?

[Talavaj]

But why would you even do that for that small fish morsel? Because crabs drop very precious loot. You would have potentially noticed it if you would have looked closer.

 

They drop boneshards. Not by killing and eating them but by letting them rot and hammering the fishbone item you get. Crabs are harder to hunt put are by far more important than rabbits since you need bone shards on a regular basis in SW.

Bone shards are used to craft 4 clothing items in SW as far as I know, and can be gotten from a plethora of other sources, in much shorter time and in much higher quantities.

But yeah, whatever, sure. Let's call it a feature of Crabs.

 

But the loot is still important on your much hated beard-crab. They don't drop only beard. They drop nightmare fuel to a very high chance. That is really important because nightmare fuel is rare in SW because there are no ruins.

Or you know, maybe they.... just kept the literally same drop table Rabbit Beardlings had, including the "high chance" for nightmare fuel ?

Are you now literally just trying to sell the laziness of not doing anything with legacy content a "feature" ?

Mkay go for it...

[Lacost]

Bone shards are used to craft 4 clothing items in SW as far as I know, and can be gotten from a plethora of other sources, in much shorter time and in much higher quantities.

But yeah, whatever, sure. Let's call it a feature of Crabs.

 

 

You lack enough hound tooth in SW to constantly repair your clothes namely the captains and the pirates hat because they degrade so quickly.

 

Those two need bone shards or can be repaired by a sewing kit. The latter is far more expensive so it is better to craft those important hats anew ---> you need by far higher quantities of boneshards in SW than in RoG.

 

You can get boneshards from all the other fish but they are very hard to catch compared to the crabs where you literally just have to drop a trap and wait for it to starve in it.

 

So yes: Boneshards are a very important feature of crabs.

 

 

Or you know, maybe they.... just kept the literally same drop table Rabbit Beardlings had, including the "high chance" for nightmare fuel ?

Are you now literally just trying to sell the laziness of not doing anything with legacy content a "feature" ?

Mkay go for it...

 

You must not see the RoG balance and compare it with SW. SW has a different balancing. Beardlings dropping nightmare fuel in RoG is not really a big deal since you can get large quantities by attending a nightmare cycle.

 

So in RoG beardlings are hard to harvest for nightmare fuel and besides keeping a zoo there is not really an option to do it in RoG.

 

In SW however are far less sources of nightmare fuel. Evil flowers, shadow creatures and bearded crabs are the only three renewable ressources. I'm not stating farming the fuel on bearded crabs is the way to go in terms of efficiency but still it is a by far more valuable feature than in RoG.

[Mday]

I am all for improvement for mob AI/drop/items/balance.

 

However I do think that having a few "dogfish" in a game like DS aren't gona make the game bad. It is not like introducing the buzzard into the game make DST unplayable, and the "moleworm" of SW is yet to come.

 

I don't find moleworm that important in DS/DST. It is not like the moggles/ rainhat is very useful, and the cave aren't raining enough minerals all day long. Same thing goes with catoon/catcap and etc. So to me there are actually "dogfishes" all over the world in ROG.

 

I guess the fundamental issue here is not what it does or what function it serve in the game. I find it enjoyable to watch the dogfish doing their thing, so it is fine by me. If there will be more to do about them than of cause that is great. However chances are they may just become another catoon that offer the SW version of catcap, or instead give you something better than a Tam o' Shanter and make hunting tusky totally meaningless.

[mitboy]

[...]

Idk, I didn't really use Pirate or Capitan hat at all. 

Boomerang is great for beardlings. You can easilly kill them with it. 

[Mday]

Take the crabs. They are not just reskinned jackalopes. Once you come too close to them they scare off and will eventually stop and bury themselves. Now you can't get them out of the sand unless you wait long enough until it is poking out it's eyes. When the crab is doing that you can shovel it and briefly stun it, giving you time to kill it with a spear.

For those who haven't notice yet, here is one way to catch a crab that is out of the hole.

Works with rabbit too. Place in between the rabbit and it's rabbit hole and run towards it. 

[mitboy]

About the topic: I mainly agree with OP about integrating, however, I think the creatures are neat enough.

Crabs are new rabbits, and it's fine. 

Water beefalos are new beefalos, and it's fine.

Wildbores are pigs - fine.

The problems (for me) is not that they are uninspired or unoriginal, the problem is: they are replacements.

Jungle is the replacement of forest with new neat stuff, beach is glade with new stuff.

 

Instead of adding new content, we've got new game, with same (actually less, but it's still beta) amount of content.

 

Why can't we have old biomes with new ones? Why can't we have old beefalo on land and water beefalo in water? Why can't we have cave holes on islands? Why cant we have Yaarctopus and Pig king? Why can't wee have this weird jumping fish and tentacles? Why can't we have Jungle and two types of forest? Why can't we have two types of swamps? Why can't we have wildbores and pigs? Why can't we have carbs and rabbits. Last sentence made we want Crabbits in game,

 

 

Why should "atmosphere" prevent us from getting dense pile of content? Would you rather remove desert from RoG just because it's rainy or snowy?

 

 

 

[Mday]

@Mday

 

Creature didn't just blindly fight in rog.

Catcoons threw up loot, sometimes eating things, jumping at trees. They also jumped at birds, which is a bit different than fighting.

Buzzards ate meat and didn't like if someone (even hounds) take it.

Gobblers

Moles

+ a bunch of other examples.

 

1. Pigs hardly fight in SW or eat stuff from ground since they are in the beach biome and do not met spiders, snakes usually.

2. That is true.

3. In the marsh, merms fight flurps once, until all are dead. Then the marsh is quiet forever.

 

Isolation makes possible interactions rare. Most things just run around, look at you, attack you.

Um. Those catcoon/buzzard moves feel more like doing their own little thing than NPC interaction to me. However one calls it thou it is something that make the creature looks more alive, agree?

So may be if the dogfish can also go on and kill a few jellyfish from time to time, it will looks better?

 

I often build new monkey huts/ pig house/spider den near my base within first half year. So they do interact with each other while I'm at base.

 

I put the marsh event that way cause I would avoid getting into the marsh at night. Currently the only thing it offers is reeds which I only need 8 for a long while. So there is not much point getting in. I guess an obsidian camp fire right by the marsh may make it more interesting to camp near the marsh just for the night show. I am gona do this next run just to make things more interesting.

[Talavaj]

You lack enough hound tooth in SW to constantly repair your clothes namely the captains and the pirates hat because they degrade so quickly.

Now that Sharx drop hound teeth you don't.

Just throw a piece of meat into the sea and farm them until you get bored of it.

[Lacost]

Now that Sharx drop hound teeth you don't.

Just throw a piece of meat into the sea and farm them until you get bored of it.

 

I just dropped some meat in the 3 different layers of ocean and waited for it a whole day.

 

 

Nothing happened.

 

Can you explain a bit closer how you farm unlimited sharx by dropping meat into the ocean?

[Mday]

I just dropped some meat in the 3 different layers of ocean and waited for it a whole day.

 

 

Nothing happened.

 

Can you explain a bit closer how you farm unlimited sharx by dropping meat into the ocean?

I have been wondering this myself. If all it take is one meat to call in a sea hound I should have way more attack in my last play through. Abbie keeps killing 10+ sting ray each time I head to my slot machine and I've leave so many monster meat behind:C