(Disclaimer: This is in no way meant to start a smear campaign towards Klei in any way. This was made as a way to help Klei find internal issues and fix them. In addition, this was proofread by several big names and experts in the community, just to deflect any bias accusations.)
Klei Entertainment.
Everyone's favorite video game company, without a doubt. They're genuinely great people that put the value of players over the value of money, unlike a large margin of the gaming industry. However, more and more of the community have started to worry in recent times, since Klei have made questionable decisions throughout 2019. The most prominent example is the recent Woodie rework. Even if we disregard it's rocky initial release, it still leaves Woodie mains with mixed feelings, and makes people that main characters like Wendy fearful as they don't want a complete reimagine of the character; They just an upgrade to make their character not suck. A "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality, if you will.
So, without further dilly dally, let's go through objective, un-biased, and common worries regarding Klei, and their methods of working on Don't Starve Together. Possible solutions to these problems will also be provided, in hopes that Klei will take this to heart.
Newcomer Bias:
Klei has seemingly made it apparent that they want to make a lot of mechanics easily accessible in early game, with a few notable exceptions (such as Willow still requiring beard hair for Bernie, and Warly's powerful crockpot recipes.). DST as a whole has become much easier with the addition to new characters, especially since a good portion of them don't have a downside. In the case of Wortox, he makes regaining health practically free. In addition, he has a new way of "dodging attacks". While this isn't a problem in of itself, he has 200 health on top of this, which allows him to be both a tank and a 'trickster' character. As for Winona, she has no practical downsides and has the ability to solo raid bosses with little to no combat effort on her end. The one time this year that Klei changed a character to flourish in mid-to-late game (Warly), it became absolutely broken in every sense of the word. For instance, a Wolfgang that's paired with Warly can do 600 damage per hit with the correct preparation. Six. Hundred. Damage. Even without Wolfgang's inherent x2 modifier, that's 300 damage for any other character. Back to Woodie, his rework has left Woodie mains disappointed. He is no longer "The Lumberjack" but now "The Canadian" that's a jack-of-all-trades character, which isn't exactly why Woodie mains picked him up in the first place. In short, people that have chosen to stick around for a long time and main a certain character are starting to feel alienated, or fearful for what's to come.
It also goes without saying, but veterans to DST have been begging Klei to make the game harder for a long while now, whether the difficulty be optional, or progression-based. For these players, the game becomes extremely autonomous, repetitive, easy, and worst of all, boring. While yes, Klei has a lot of stuff on their plate in regards to 2019 and possibly 2020, the questionable part of this is that they haven't said a single word regarding this issue. This is problematic to say the least, as yes, there are always new players, the veterans to the game are the die-hard fans that keep this community alive.
This goes into my next point quite smoothly.
Balancing Issues:
People are starting to question whether Klei themselves actively play their own game. The fact that this is even up in the air is a red flag towards Klei's method of balancing things as of late. For example (again), the Woodie rework. The initial release was a train wreck, however it got better when Klei implemented community-made ideas. This was also a thing with the Winona update to an extent, although nowhere near as severe as Woodie. To make sure that severe mis-steps don't happen again and make everything smooth sailing, let's propose this idea to Klei:
Have a closed beta branch available to a select few trusted veterans within the community (the klei forums), chosen by Klei. In this branch, said veterans are able to test out the new character/mechanic/whatever and give Klei feedback. If these people give the beta code to other people, or leak the contents of the closed beta, they should be punished. (For example: If you willingly leak contents in the closed beta, your klei account could get temporarily suspended for, say, a month. Also, you'd lose access to the closed beta.)
What's the difference between this closed beta and a public beta?:
-The Veteran Closed Beta has much fewer people playtesting, however these people have been playing DST for a very long time, meaning that Klei would get more precise and useful feedback, and less non-helpful feedback.
-Veterans are part of the community, and are not Klei staff, meaning that they are well aware of the intricate details of what people want, and know what will spark drama. In addition, they can be used as a "safety net" of sorts to prevent problematic mechanics and aspects before it reaches a public build, saving time.
-Veterans have a clear vision on what "balanced" means in terms of Don't Starve Together, and are above the "Skill Level Plateau", meaning that they are easily able to grasp new mechanics, and apply them to normal gameplay, which is a good trait to have in terms of playtesters.
-A good portion of the veteran community wants to see DST be a better game as a whole, meaning that most of them are willing to happily volunteer their time and effort for Klei, without the need of a paycheck.
To be transparent, here are some possible downsides to this idea that should be considered:
-Veterans are not Klei employees, and they may be a liability depending on the person. (Such as leaking content early.)
-If they dont have a deadline, people will playtest on their own time. If they do have a deadline, it's possible that they'll be unable to playtest.
In addition, for things like Character Updates, Klei can seek after veterans that main that character, since their thoughts are arguably more important than anyone else's.
Now, on to the next topic that constantly sparks debate and discussion.
DST's Difficulty curve. (or rather, lack of one.)
Granted, this is not an easily fixable thing, and will most likely take a long time to implement correctly, given the fact that Klei is currently working on a lot of updates. However, this needs to be talked about in detail because it is a valid problem with the game, and how Klei avoids talking about said problem, which is a shame since the terms "Uncompromising Survival" and "Trial and Error" has seemingly been lost to time. Survival games aren't meant to be easy.
In detail, here is a list of problems that most veterans have with DST:
-After Late Game, the player is usually never in any risk or danger; the game becomes less of a survival game and more of a base-building sandbox.
-In all stages of the game, it is easy to throw on a simple Football helmet and hambat and kite anything and everything that the game can throw at you.
-Insanity is laughably easy, and it has no real risk to a player that knows what they're doing, save for a select few situations.
-Most new and reworked characters lack an impactful downside.
Here are some possible solutions:
Make DST difficulty progression-based.
With the exception of hound waves, the difficulty of the game stays just about the same throughout the entire run. While each person has a different idea of difficulty, depending on who you ask, here's generally one that no one has a problem with.
When you accomplish a certain feat in the game, the world grows harder. For example, if you kill the Ancient Fuelweaver, Insanity would become more menacing to stay in, and Charlie could instantly kill players instead of hitting them for 100 (which is reduced to a measly 20 with a football helmet.)
An optional "Hardcore mode".
On world creation, there could be a "Server Difficulty" option to switch between "Default" and "Uncompromising". When the Uncompromising Difficulty is chosen and the world is generated, the following effects would take place.
-Dead players leave their dead body behind, in addition to becoming a ghost. Instead of giving a heart or amulet to the ghost, players now have to give the heart to the dead body. if they are attuned to an effigy, they can revive themselves. If the player was wearing a life amulet upon death, they'll be resurrected.
-Touchstones require to be touched by an individual player before they can resurrect with it. The way they'd resurrect would be similar to an effigy and/or singleplayer.
-When there are no living players in a server that are attuned to a meat effigy / touchstone, the world is deleted.
-Rollback is permanently disabled.
-In the server browser, worlds that have this setting enabled are marked with a special icon, and/or highlighted in red.
Of course, this mode would not be recommended for public servers. This Uncompromising Difficulty mode would be geared for those going out of their way for a challenge, and to make DST comparatively difficult to Singleplayer. Also, if Klei wants to add a temporary measure that they can get back to later, a "diet" version of the Uncompromising mode could make it so that servers only delete the world when nobody is left alive, and disables rollback.
Alternatively, we could borrow ideas from another survival game: Terraria. That game has something called "Expert Mode", which increases the stats of almost every enemy in the game, such as attack and defense, with a select few mobs gaining additional attacks. However, this is meant to be risk/reward, as Expert Mode bosses drop special and powerful drops that are usually used throughout the entire run.
All of these options have kept in mind the fact that newcomers struggle with the beginning of the game already. Hence, early-game is generally unaffected from these solutions unless the player goes out of their way to enable them. In addition, the "Uncompromising" mode could easily be implemented for the moment while Klei focuses on other things.
Those are all of the main problems that Klei and DST have that is currently upsetting the community. Klei is most likely reading this, as they do indeed lurk the forums. I encourage them to reply to this, whether it's assuring that they care, saying that we're wrong about a few points, or anything really. These are genuine concerns that a good portion of the community share, because just about every single one of us wants Klei - and DST - to be the best that it possibly can be.
With love,
Don't Starve Veterans.
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Speaking on my own personal bias now, as in, these are my (Canis') personal thoughts.
I have been a Woodie main for *at least* a year now. However, with this rework, I can't say that I want to keep playing as him. Yes, he's viable, but now he's just... bland.
Sometimes I (and other people on the forums) feel like they're not being heard in terms of initial character perks for these reworks. Yes, if it's small enough (or we create enough drama) Klei will most likely add it, but we shouldn't NEED to set the forums on fire just to have something added.
As of the Woodie update, my faith in Klei has been wavering, to say the least. Before this, I fully believed that Klei knows what they're doing, and they're fully transparent. However, the Woodie update was a kick in the rear end. I stopped being ignorant, and I realized that Klei has problems of their own, just like anyone else. They're not perfect.
However, I still love Klei, which is why I'm so hard on them.
I still really hope that we at least get a response, as opposed to the other threads in this vain. (Granted, most threads "in this vain" are mainly just rant/vent threads, which this thread isn't.)