Due to the recent update, the world me and some of my dear pals played in had to be regenerated. And the world that we regenerated to turned out to be quite the bummer. Not only were we quite screwed for several reasons, but the bee hive amount in the world was the smallest I've ever seen: we only had 6 bee hives. I thought about it a little bit, just recently, and I remembered I looked at this image before:
This image is of Don't Starve vanilla version. Plenty of bee hives in one area with not a single killer bee hive. And I noticed that I have not seen this for a very long time, if ever when playing either of the games myself (although I did play whilst vanilla was the only thing around). This you won't see with RoG enabled. I tested it, I regenerated a world with normal RoG settings in DST and I made 10 tests. The results? Bee hive amount, without killer bee hives being present in the world NEVER exceeded 40. In fact it didn't even reach 40 (although it might be possible). The results were as following:
World 1
22 Killer Bee hives
73 Bee hives
World 2
131 Killer Bee hives
158 Bee hives
World 3
0 Killer Bee hives
33 Bee hives
World 4
0 Killer Bee hives
10 Bee hives
World 5
27 Killer Bee hives
68 Bee hives
World 6
0 Killer Bee hives
12 Bee hives
World 7
38 Killer Bee hives
49 Bee hives
World 8
0 Killer Bee hives
38 Bee hives
World 9
24 Killer Bee hives
49 Bee hives
World 10
0 Killer Bee hives
19 Bee hives
Now, if you look at the odds here too... it's pretty bad odds; you have approximately a 50% (or probably 50% chance based on code too) of your world sucking merely because of the bee hive amount. Remember, all of this was just me regenerating a world with default world generation settings. And this is just with bee hives; you might as well just have 1 walrus in the world, just 30 reeds in the world
You might argue that taking care of your world to make sure that your honey supply doesn't dissipate and having a low amount of something randomly, providing scarsity of one resource whilst possibly abundance of another could prove a great challenge, right? Well, this seems fine and dandy for single player. But not for multiplayer; griefers could easily eradicate a world of its bee hives, pig skin and reed supply. All it would take is exploring the entirity of the world and destroying it all as you see it. Because none of these resources are renewable; they are not part of world regrowth nor is there any way for them to return. Furthermore, I constantly see people leaving because the world is old; not because the base is fancy, but purely because the world is old. Old worlds are a mess and it has to do with the way that the resources in the world renew themselves. Not to mention that you're stuck with a ****ty world without losing your progress because there is no way to world hop or any way to regenerate the world without losing your local day count progress, recipes that you've unlocked and the stuff that you're holding in your inventory.
Warning: the following is a wall of text!
I've talked about the world hopping in another suggestion thread, so I'll just keep it to the renewability of resources in this one. There are way too many important (Mandrakes and pan flutes, Bee hives and honey (although you can still get bees from tumbleweeds and get honey from those bees, the chances of getting bees and the honey alone makes it just... a dumb and unreliable way of getting honey for all your honey nuggets, hams, honey poultices and taffy), Pig houses and pig skin, Rabbit hutches and bunny puff, Ancient guardian and his horn, Catcoon dens (can easily be whacked by a hammer, destroyed by a giant or rummaged through by a rook!), Clockworks (normal, marble covered and ruins ones are non-renewable, making for any WX incoming players as some whom gears need to be kept away from), Graves (They're a resource variant for a few things, but they're also the prime and the only SOURCE of most trinkets. The other day I tried to save some trinkets from being used for gold when I placed them in a place where they were being used as decoration nearby a "workshop" one of the players built for crafting statues. But low and behold, a lureplant spawned right there and the eyeplants digested these trinkets, which were never to be seen again. Plus, graves being limited digging source means long-term they're pretty much just waste of space (aside from ghosts as a challenge, but... they're not really that big of a challenge to begin with, even on full moons, but would be if you went grave digging on full moon or something) and have no real late or mid-game use. Plus, many of the trinkets you can get from graves you might not get at all because of the amount of graves you have in the world and because of the sheer random unluckiness of graves. Like... think about the potato cup! I say every world should have potato cups so long as you keep digging graves! This one went on for way too long... back to the point at hand >.>), Slurpers and their pelts, Thulecite and Thulecite fragments (remember that you can only renew it if you have thulecite on you (at least 4; 2 for the amulet, 2 (halved) for the thulecite crown)), Ancient altars (griefers can just destroy them and any rooks nearby are even worse), Slurtle mounds and 4 different resources, Light bulb plants and their light bulbs (might be part of world regrowth, I'm not entirely sure), Lesser glowberry plants and their glowberries (might be part of world regrowth, I'm not entirely sure), Ferns, Volt Goats and their horns and electric milk, Reeds even! and nearly every Non-man made turf) or nice resource variants (Spiky trees, Spiky bushes, Gold boulders, Any boulder in places where meteor showers don't happen, flint and rocks in places where meteor showers don't happen, Bones, Merm houses and fish and frog legs that you get from them (plus the challenge that they bring in), Warrior pig torches, Killer bee hives (with honey, honey combs and challenge that they bring in), Tentacles (and the challenge they bring in swamp), Splu monkey pods (for as annoying they are, their pods being destroyed and never coming back can result in loss of some good resource variants), Relics in the ruins (they're a good source of sanity, yet they can still be destroyed to never return), Thulecite walls in the ruins and Thulecite statues (the initial source as well as a resource variant for thulecite), Mushtrees and respective mushroom caps, Grass Gekkos and 2 types of resources they provide (grass and leafy meat), Totally Normal Trees and living logs from them as well as the evil flowers around them, Marble trees, pillars and statues and marble from them, Cave spider dens, Stalagmites and Hound Mounds) which are absolutely non-renewable, making for initial environmental looks being destroyed. And this is inevitable if you're hosting a public server, because of griefers, newbies or players who are annoyed of particular entities in certain places! And there are a few things which do renew, but in such a way that creates lag (Beefalo, Rock lobsters, Spiders and their nests). Heck, there's one type of resource which DOESN'T renew and still creates lag because of a supposedly unfinished feature (I'm talking about Spores of course). This is just the stuff I coulld recall; there might be other things which can easily be destroyed forever, cutting out a large portion of the content and giving a huge reason as to why some people might hate to play on late worlds; they can't experience things that have been destroyed and cannot respawn in a way that makes them completely destroyed. The funny thing is, there's easy ways of fixing these things. I don't know why devs have not went back to all of this and done it at the time when resources were first starting to be made renewable on their own, but here's what I've come up with that should prove for effective ways of making things renewable through world regeneration so that old world, apart from places where there's bases, still look like worlds from something like day 5 or 10:
* Mandrakes to respawn in the same place after being picked either within a few days or perhaps during the full moon or something
* Bee hives to respawn naturally if the amount of bee hives in the world is lower than 40 or 50 or so and perhaps whilst the amount of bee hives in the world is lower than something like120 or 150, 4 - 6 homeless bees nearby one another would get together after pollinating a certain amount of flowers to create a bee hive. Of course, the bee hives would need to spawn in the correct biomes as well as in places where there's free space. Bees perhaps could also repair their hives or have their hives repaired when they come back
* Pig houses to respawn in the places they have been hammered and if they have been generated by the world (if a structure gets built on top of a a place where a pig house had been hammered, those structures would get destroyed upon the pig house spawning or the pig house finding a free spot nearby to respawn) after a few days (perhaps 10) or during the full moon. Pigs being able to rebuild their houses if they're alive and their house gets hammered, or burnt and to attack the player or the thing that burns or hammers/hits with a hammer their house. For pigs to also stop their houses from smoldering.
* Rabbit hutches to respawn and the bunnymen acting in a similar manner as with pigs and pig houses, just involving bunny men instead of pigs where applicable.
* Ancient guardian to respawn on full moon if nightmare fuel is placed in each slot of the Large Ornate Chest and for the particular chest to be indestructable.
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* Clockworks of all types to respawn on full moon (in the state they were originally in, so if you free a clockwork from being covered in marble but don't kill it, a new one, in a marbled state won't respawn until you kill that one that is now free) if killed in the same place where they initially spawned.
* Graves to get back to undug state if dug up after every full moon
* Slurpers to respawn in multiple places after a while if there are none in the caves (ruins) and for them to multiply until there's 50 in the applicable world (server shard).
* Thulecite fragments to fall from earthquakes in ruins biomes (since there's ruins turf that cannot be dug up, these turfs could be perfect for thulecite fragments to fall at. Of course, make their drop rate pretty common as it requires 6 fragments to craft 1 thulecite and multiple of those to craft thulecite items, which in and of itself you can only do at ancient altars).
* Ancient Altars to be impossible to destroy by rooks or ancient guardian stomping through them and/or for them to respawn in a broken state after being destroyed, perhaps on the full moon or after a few days (and perhaps with a lightning strike, kind of like with Gmoose eggs :P). For them to also be repairable via thulecite and thulecite fragments if hit by a hammer or earthquake drops.
* Slurtle Mounds to respawn in a similar matter as with Bee hives or Killer bee hives, just involving Slurtles and Snurtles where applicable.
* Light bulb plants to be part of world regrowth if they aren't already
* Glowberry plants to be part of world regrowth if they aren't already
* Ferns to respawn in similar ways in which flowers do right now on the overworld
* Volt Goats to have similar herd creating mechanics as Beefalo already do and for them to respawn even if there's none left in the world, as well as for them by default to be more of initially. Their breeding limit being around 100 (by Default settings).
* Reeds to respawn in places where they have been burnt if they don't already and if the world has less than 80 or 100 reeds (by default that is), they would keep spawning if there's a reed nearby. This would ensure that the world could not be depleted of reeds in swamp for whatever reasons in the long run and it wouldn't be a drag of getting reeds from tumbleweeds, like with bees if all bee hives and bee boxes get destroyed.
* Non-man made turf could be made to simply be possible to craft. But I've a more fun way suggestion, which you've already done for marsh turf: killing certain bosses or certain creatures could have a chance or be guaranteed to yield a piece of turf. Perhaps the Toadstool could loot some fungus turf? Lureplants or grass gekkos could loot Grass turf? Beefalos could loot Savanna turf? Tree guards could loot Forest turf? Catcoons could loot Deciduous turf? Batilisks could loot guano turf? The reason why this is important is because everything but trees will respawn only if you have a particular turf down and whilst there's a lot of it and it might take griefers a long time to do it, they could easily just dig up and burn all of the turf or take a whole bunch of it with them and leave and over time, this could result in less resources of a particular kind in general in a world as well as it being impossible to restore the potential of these resources respawning, since the turf is non-renewable.
* Spiky trees to be part of world regrowth
* Spiky bushes to be part of world regrowth
* Gold boulders to be part of world regrowth
* Any other type of boulder to be part of world regrowth
* Flint and rocks in applicable places to be part of world regrowth (flint in Forest, Grass and Mosaic (where meteor showers don't reach), Rocks in Grass biome which is near pig village and in Mosaic (where meteor showers don't reach))
* Bones to be looted by hounds and/or be part of world regrowth
* Merm Houses to respawn and Merms to act in a similar manner as with pigs and pig houses and bunny men and rabbit hutches, just involving merms instead of pigs or bunny menwhere applicable.
* Warrior Pig Torches to respawn and Warrior Pigs to act in a similar manner as with pigs and pig houses, just involving warrior pigs instead of pigs where applicable. Also for Warrior Pigs (their torches rather) to be part of world options menu and for them to be guaranteed in the world so long as they're not set to none and for their numbers to increase/decrease depending on the options set in the world options before world generation.
* Killer bee hives to be guaranteed to be in the world so long as they're not set to none. Their hive respawn mechanics would be pretty much the same as with bee hives, but involving killer bees and not normal bees where applicable.
* Tentacles to respawn in a similar manner as reeds do. Probably in different numbers, however.
* Splu monkey pods to respawn andhaving the same protection mechanics as with Pig and Pig houses.
* Slurtle mounds to respawn andhaving the same protection mechanics as with Pig and Pig houses.
* Relics in the ruins to respawn in a broken state after a few days (e.g. 10)/on the full moon if destroyed.
* Thulecite walls in the ruins and Thulecite statues to respawn in the state/type as they were initially in on the full moon perhaps, if destroyed.
* Mushtrees to respawn via spores and to be part of world regrowth on respective turfs in caves (the cave server shard) if their numbers are below something like 50.
* Grass Gekkos to respawn if killed/there's less than a certain number of them in the world (e.g. 100).
* Totally Normal Trees to be what Tree guards turn into after not being bothered for a long period of time by anything and for the totally normal trees to regrow evil flowers around them over time (if there's less than a certain amount, such as 14 or however many).
* Marble trees to respawn on full moons/after a certain amount of days in the most broken form and to grow up to the most unbroken form over time.
* Marble statues to respawn on full moons/after a certain amount of days.
* Marble pillars to respawn on full moons/after a certain amount of days.
* Cave spider dens to spawn from the similarly shaped stalagmite if the amount of these types of dens are below 40 or so (with Default settings, that is).
* Stalagmites of all kinds to fall on applicable biomes (turf) during earthquakes, being kind of like a variant of meteors from the overworld.
* Hound Mounds to respawn near or in the same places as they were at initially.
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* Walrus camps to be guaranteed to be at least 2 in the world if on Default and 1 if set to Less.
* Beefalo to stop reproducing after there's about 100 or 200 of them in the world and for their herds to have a limit before a new herd is created (e.g. 10) and for a beefalo who goes on to make a herd of its own to go farther away from other Beefalo, all by Default settings. This could ensure that lag doesn't happen so much for players as there would be less instances of beefalo on-screen; herds would be smaller and more spaced out as well as Beefalo wouldn't overpopulate the world and being something to take care of.
* Rock lobsters to have similar breeding and herd mechanics as mentioned with Beefalo for the same reasons as with Beefalo.
* Spider dens to work as follows: Upon a tier 3 den turns into a spider queen, the queen doesn't leave an egg behind no matter the reason. Instead, when killed, the queen would loot 2 spider eggs in place of the current 1. A spider queen would not turn into a tier 1 nest if it is still aggroed onto something (it turning into a spider nest working similarly to how tree guards turning into totally normal trees would work). When a queen does turn into a tier 1 nest, the spiders she spawned would all retreat into the den and based on the amount she spawned would determine whether the nest upgrades itself to tier 2 or even tier 3. This would ensure that spiders don't overpopulate the world on their own and make Webber more useful with nests as if all tier 1 nests got destroyed in the world, Webber could craft some spider eggs by going into the caves and to the swamp and getting the resources needed to craft them. Or spider nests could also just spawn somewhere in the world in biomes they typically are found in (e.g. Forest, Marsh/Swamp) if there's less than 30 or so of them in the world.
* Things like rot, seeds, stingers, rotten eggs, feathers, charcoal, burnt trees, stumps, bone shards, manure, guano and possibly some other things to despawn if on the ground and if they haven't been within a field of view of a player within a certain amount of days (e.g. 5) or to despawn after 5 days if they haven't been picked up.
But going back to the initial point of initial world-gen bee hive amount: Instead of having RoG biomes take over certain biomes that would have bed in vanilla, just make more biomes spawn in the world in general! Making your world large or huge, I've noticed, doesn't impact much or at all on the amount of particular biomes are spawned into the world; it just impacts on the sizes of biomes which would have spawned in regardless, so why not just let us have more biomes in the world or have a setting which toggles it? All of what I've suggested seems like a huge change to current existing mechanics of the game, even though they might go unnoticed until you play in late game worlds, so, all of this/large portion of this/something like this could be implemented either in chunks or even have an pdate in and of its own (call it "Repairs", Klei ). Regardless, if you're going to update the game to a point where late game actually works well and on public servers, all of this can't go unnoticed and taken care of.
P.S you might notice I've coloured, balded in and underlined some stuff. It's so that the long wall of text is more interesting to read and so that people can look at some key elements without getting bored or miss the point or go down or up to a wrong line of reading what has been written, so I hope you like this better than just me rambling a chalky wall of text that none wants to read at all. Oh and if you still don't want to read the whole thing:
Tl;dr: Way too many things need to be made renewable in some ways so that late game worlds look more like early-game worlds and so that resources can't be destroyed/depleted by newbies, griefers or players who just can't bear with something being somewhere.