🔥 Are FIRE FARMS Crazy OP? - Don't Starve: Reign of Giants

Love 'em or hate 'em, it appears Fire Farms are here to stay. They are hands down the fastest way to mass farm in Don't Starve but why do some players swear by them while simultaneously chastising anyone who dares to use a mod or the developer console to enjoy Don't Starve?

Ratings are disabled so players can actually have an honest conversation in the comments without feeling pressured to choose the "popular" opinion. If you disagree/agree with my opinion in this video please let me and everyone else know why in the comments section below.

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A Fire Farm is an enclosed mob spawn point which is set on fire and then immediately put out by using Ice Flingomatics. The mobs take continual damage from the bursts of fire over time but items do not which means mobs will die but their drops won't turn to ash, thereby allowing the player to collect them after the 'farming' is completed.

About the Game:

DON"T STARVE is an uncompromising wilderness survival game full of science and magic.

You play as Wilson, an intrepid Gentleman Scientist who has been trapped by a demon and transported to a mysterious wilderness world. Wilson must learn to exploit his environment and its inhabitants if he ever hopes to escape and find his way back home.

Enter a strange and unexplored world full of strange creatures, dangers, and surprises. Gather resources to craft items and structures that match your survival style. Play your way as you unravel the mysteries of this strange land.

REIGN OF GIANTS

Don’t Starve: Reign of Giants is an expansion pack that adds new characters, seasons, creatures, biomes, and other challenges to Don’t Starve.

The entire world of Don’t Starve has been expanded and is now even more uncompromising! New mysteries, challenges and scientific innovations await your discovery. Manage your resources well, because the wilderness of Don’t Starve has learned some new tricks.

[xaosbob]

Frankly, I think people should play the game the way they want to. If you want to use exploits, LUA, or mods (I LOVE using mods, but generally not to make things "easier, " though some of that because I'm still only 200 hours in), use them.

It's a single-player game, the point is to have fun, so do what you want to have fun. Change it up when it isn't anymore. The way you play may not be fun to me, but that doesn't mean your way is wrong, it's just your way, not mine.

Hell, Klei themselves gives us broad control to adjust and tweak a lot of elements in vanilla (meaning unmodded, but including RoG and SW), adjusting worldgen, timescales, spawns, resources, etc., the way we like. So, if you want to make a fire farm...who gives a shit if it's OP, am I right?

By the way, thank you for the explanation. I've wondered what the term meant. Kind of cool. ;)

[chrissancho]

First rule of fire farm, don't talk about fire farm

[AEther]

My opinion is:

It's your channel, do what you want. Far as I'm concerned, you can exclude a method simply because it "rubs you the wrong way". Your channel, m8.

[allisonjenkins]

At the end of the day, its your choice. In my opinion though, if its built in the game, and they haven't fixed it? It's free game. Mods are one thing to look down on (I don't consider geometric placement, wormhole, or the season changing mods really cheating - more like just making those people who are really organized and time sensitive not have an OCD dilemma), but something built into the game - something some people had to find and figure out to get to work? I don't find that wrong at all. In the end, this is your channel and you run it the way you like it. Would people like to see exploits, even if just to know about them? Probably. Will people find other youtubers to explain it to them? Yes. So it doesn't really matter if you do them or not, if you want to do them, do them. If not, we'll do what internet people do best - google it :)

[KuraSourTakanHour]

I prefer fire spread rates in DST that seem more realistic. I've enjoyed the game without fire farms, so it would be ok for me if fire was changed to behave as in DST. Start a fire in DS with a huge grid of anything flammable and it's all violently burning in 2 seconds, as if the fire teleported everywhere

[MrKillzy]

It's an exploit. Period. Not to say that using an exploit is wrong, that's entirely opinion based on the person playing. I say if you're playing solo and you decide to use it, then that's your way of fun. If you decide not to use it, that's ok too. Having said that, it's still an exploit. Which is to be considered an unintended mechanic in the game that shouldn't be mistaken for legitimate gameplay method.

[iamvid]

I mean, unless you ruin rush, a fire farm is going to be hard to make just because of the gears. It's something that you really have to work for in order to make.

[Cassiopea]

I'm glad that in this video, you included your opinion on the matter and pointed out that it is essencially exploiting a bug in the game mechanics... But I am glad you explained exactly what it is for people who may have heard the term but never knew how it actually worked.

[JonathanMahadeo]

Thank you for taking the time to make great guides with thought put into them.
I stopped counting the number of YouTube guides that are just a video relay of wiki pages.

Personally, *I feel we should go the way that Bethesda fans feel about "bugs" and "exploits".*
For example, the bucket on a shopkeepers head, used to blind them, has never been patched out for several games.
As a result many players use self-control and exploit the game such that it remains fun for them.
This ultimately grants agency to the player.

[moldycarrot]

If you think about it, this tech is based on a mechanic which makes no sense, and essentially is bugged: Setting fire to a pig/rabbit house will make the inhabitant exit the house no matter if dead or not. This is clearly an oversight. I'd consider it an exploit even if you didn't use the fire farm. You could for example go raiding with the pigs, and when they die you just reset them by lighting their house on fire.

[franciscocoronado]

Finally someone who explains fire farms correctly and fully. Great video man. Subscribed

[zenaidaalejo]

In my own opinion fire farms are op
With fire farms you can basically kill every boss with no effort
They are easily made within the first 25 days
And its great for farming

[K-C-D-A]

A few corrections:

At one point you say something along the lines of 'health of an item keeps regenerating' and then say that its best to use Hay Walls for said purpose. Here's the catch, that statement is wrong. Burning is not health dependent, it is time dependent. If something is on fire long enough, without being put out, it will turn into its burned/ash state. While walls do take fire damage, they are structures that only really break when that burn timer ends. (or when you take a Hammer to it.) The health of the walls determine how tall the walls are, and at 0 HP, you can trample your walls with no penalty.

At one point you mention how the Fire Farm has been around for about 2 years now, and its really approaching 3 years now since it was posted in 2014. First discovered, and publicized by Ackzay (known as Whackzay on Youtube). That's not so much of a correction, but giving credit back to who discovered it. Just a small history lesson.

You mention that, "Fire Farms do not work in DST because of the difference in fire spread rates." That is not the reason. In DST the principle behind why Fire Farms work, is patched. You cannot force a Pig/Bunnymen to respawn/leave by burning the structure.

One thing you could have mentioned was Perma Freezing. Another reason why this works in Singleplayer. Basically if a mob is frozen and then has at least 1 tick of fire damage, it will not leave the frozen state until it is unloaded (or you relog/ect.)

You mention Fight Club at one point, and while it is correct mostly, there is another underlying reason why it is treated that way. The more knowledge of a Fire Farm spreads, the more bug reports get written up on the subject, resulting in the higher chance of a newly hired developer to stroll through the reports, and patch it, being un-aware of Klei's past stance of not patching it. I mean it's been reported hundreds of times, and developers have even popped into livestreams while a Fire Farm is in use, and the only response streamers used to get is the developer simply saying, "Neat." And leaving it at that. Maybe your theory about playerbase usage is correct, maybe it's not, maybe it's not patched in Singleplayer out of respect for the Veterans who've been here for 4-5 years of the game's life. Who can really say.

*I came into this video expecting to write alot more corrections, and I am gladly surprised at how few I wrote. Keep up the good work. (And press F to attack instead of clicking. It's easier, trust me.)

[hywd]

Is it overpowered? Perhaps. You do need many resources to make all those flingomatics/stone walls/hay walls, plus refueling the flingomatics.

I would put this exploit on the same level as the lantern glitch. Many of the pros with 2k-5k day bases use the lantern glitch because it's not practical to have a big base without making tons of firepits to function properly at night so many of them use the lantern glitch. But I believe it still has it's place in the game even if you were meant to burn resources every night to stay alive. The game is open to having this minecraft style, build a base your way freedom to it if you choose to do so.

I don't think all mods are cheats. Geometric placement and wormhole markers are some things I would have liked to have been put in the game. On the flipside, I've also seen players with 30+ mods that allow you to craft gears and pick onion plants --- all kinds of stuff to make the game so easy. I get why the players who use so many mods are not seen on the same level as players others whom don't use so many mods that make the game too easy.

I think spawning things through console is the worst. Worst than all the mods, it should be on it's own level. I get why some do it, they make videos and don't want to spend the time farming everything or wait for every giant and use that just to show people how to do things but spawning food/health items/resources at anytime you want really defeats the purpose of making the game challenging at all.

It's difficult to kill the giants with firefarms. Bearger and probably Deerclops would destroy the flingomatics and the stone walls. You won't be able to burn dragonfly to death.

[southlord]

"Your world - your rules" That is what I go by. :D

[oscarglad]

Feel like fire farms should be nerfed to the ground by making it so the pig has a normal respawn timer

[TheAz]

I’ve only played for a week and I haven’t use a fire farm but, I think the games main theme is progress.A fire farm is like a factory “put in little and get a lot out” I don’t think fire farms are bad, but people who use them shouldn’t point finger.
Hope that made sense!!!

[evanleishman]

The fire farm may be an exploit but it is up to the player whether they want to use it or not. That’s not even going into the effort required to make the fire farm. Unless you get some lucky set pieces then you have to go to the ruins which are challenging enough that you should be rewarded for your efforts. Lastly late game most people just want to build bases and have fun creating contraptions, etc... it is tedious to farm food when you just want to have fun with game mechanics and this basically enables the player to focus on building and creating rather than farming with traditional methods that are grindy.
My hardest efforts only yielded me a fire farm on day 136 so I think that it is a method that is worth the risk and effort required to create it (unless you are really lucky with set pieces)

[cannaJan]

I think that you should show all info, its up to individuals to decide if they want to use it or not.

[Anuwabu]

I think it's good that you showcase these types of methods since it draws attention to them. If it's got attention upon it and it's too fucked then they'll likely patch it out. This one looks like a definite developer oversight but if you start to go down path of judging techniques as legitimate or cheese, rather than having your focus be displaying information, then you'll need to be careful not to stray into the 'overpowered or not' realm.

In example if this is illegitimate then is a wall to block off dragonfly larvae also cheese? What about getting the ancient guardian stuck on an indestructible unpathable prop so that killing him becomes trivial?