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An Open Letter to Klei


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I would like to add to this post and post something that I DO NOT want Klei to do... I do not ever want a Battle Pass for DST. This is a new trend that every most recent game you can name (and new even including Red Dead Online) has Adapted.

for those of you who are unaware what a Battle Pass is- it’s a limited time event that you pay into and then have to progress through to unlock items (most battle passes have you go through 70-110 ranks of leveling up within a short time period of 2-3 months allowed to get it done in.)

If players can complete the entire battle pass they usually get refunded the cost they put into it so that they may buy into the next one if they desire.

the biggest reason I DONT want this is because I have enough games to have to juggle between and prioritize in getting this content unlocked within its time frame, I defiantly do not need to also add DST to that list. 

Thanks.

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(I just told my sister - "You know you're real deep into a game when you'd rather discuss it on the forums than actually play it." Kudos to all of you here doing exactly that, haha.)
Sorry there's way too much discussion for me to keep track of it all, but there's a recurring talk of a 'hard mode' or increasing difficulty that I'd like to chime in on.

Something in general I'd like to say to all those that want something HARDER:
The game really does have two major aspects : survival and sandbox. I can definitely see players that gravitate more towards the survival aspect and have become proficient at all the existing challenges want new content to be exactly that - new challenges for them to overcome. But not every update will do this! The sandboxers deserve love, too. Character refreshes are honestly about improving quality of life, not about adding too much new content or challenge. If you think about it, most of the prior DST additions were bosses, so it's about time some one else had a turn. Besides, The Return of Them (lunar island & ocean) are sure to have more of what you're looking for, so keep your pants on for that. I love hl3bekliyenadam's analogy that these updates are a raw meal, not finished cooking yet.
And I'm thankful that Klei is cooking at all! I don't usually finish all that a game has to offer and then expect the creators to give me anything more without having to pay for it. But boy does it work to keep me reeled in - I've tried to kick my DST addiction several times and gosh dang it the updates keep bringing me back.
In the meantime, what I like to do when I want a new challenge is come up with one for myself. Before Warly came out I was playing other characters with a diet restriction (only cooked meals, no repeats, no monster meat or sticks allowed [unless required by the recipe]), or I played Woodie for a year without ever building a light source (which was not the best of my challenges, was mostly tedious, but stuck out in my memory). I think 'darkness only' is a kind of popular one too.

As for the idea of having a 'hard mode', it's definitely an option. But seeing as how Klei didn't want to bring shipwrecked to DST because they didn't want a pay wall to divide the playerbase, I can see a somewhat similar issue that might evolve here. I think the difficulty amping up as certain bosses are defeated is a pretty eloquent solution in terms of not having an option to check that would segregate players, but as somebody else said that could make things really annoying for the sandbox/builder-oriented players (if it affected the whole world at least, as I imagine it would). One thing I love about DST is the synergy of these two different play styles - often it's good to have an even split of builders and adventurers in a base, so some people are out killing things and getting loot and the other is maintaining the base and making use of that loot to provide supplies for more raids, keeps on in a positive feedback loop, yada yada. So maybe the loot from the bosses could be adjusted to equip a base against the aftermath difficulty - so then the base bodies who just want to farm in peace won't have to deal with it, but the adventurers (who want that extra survival challenge) who are going to be out and about will be, maybe? Of course this would discourage people from joining public year 2 servers even more than usual - unless it's just possible to survive the new conditions if you have the right strategy (kind of like joining in winter or summer right now but slightly harder). Then again, year 2 public servers are not the majority any ways so perhaps that wouldn't be much of a sacrifice at all.

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I love necro posting. :cool: I wanted to share a piece on this post since long but didn’t had the time. So there's that. :crushed:

I've seen veterans here on this post that have a certain mentality, and I would rather leave the game than them making decisions for me, we know that all veterans do not think the same and this post proves that. I don't see these people understanding each other for making a decision at all. And that’s the thing, they are all veterans, and no, we cannot just exclude some, since that would create a bias, even if it’s one that I would like because I have an idea of who the people are behind the mentions, it's still a bias. I'd rather go out of my way to say newbies would be a more cohesive group in regards of a general mindset. Some people have been here since a specific year, and have 1092389012 hours or something (idc), so one of these individuals thinks the game’s current state is actually fine, and this one thinks it needs severe improvement in order for it to be fine, and there isn’t much of a middle ground there. :|

Other than that, Canis’s suggestion about the safety of the leaks is way too dangerous as well, the leaks could be made anonymously and the damages could go unchecked, not to mention the repercussions and lack of trust in this system, ending it forever, losing a single account doesn't pay that enough, losing trust means losing the deal as it is the core of that suggestion.

As for the problems in this game, there's many. However, we need not to confuse between actual problems and improvement, Don't Starve Together could use massive improvement but I think the actual problems, on a technical level, are fewer than people think.

Things that DST should improve as a team-based game: PvP (lol), fighting in general, items being actually useful, sandbox/decoration (I think it’s deficient), biomes, unusable items, etc.

Improvement is a heavy concept I would avoid for now; it isn’t something I can just explain in short lines, it’s an entire forum discussion in every point I said. But problems? …

This is what I consider one of the huge problems DST has, perhaps the main one.

Spoiler

The learning Curve: I do find the learning curve really difficult for newer players EVEN TODAY, but laughable for veterans, but for the wrong and more toxic reasons, neither of these should exist in an ideal survival game whether it’s a “special” game or not.

This "survival" game isn't that intuitive like any other survival games. When I was a newbie I wanted to play but I got stuck in the dumbest stuff ever, basic stuff that shouldn't be difficult at all, I do think the crafting tab itself doesn't help, there's so many useless items to be crafted there that ruined the immersion for me, I got tired, I didn't have that level of patience so I just googled every item which is something I’ve never done for any survival game and I really think that means something.

I don’t think the character you play as has any relevance to completely newer players at all, you need to know how that character works on the first place, and I sure wasn’t going to guess that based on 3 lines. I had to look up everything because they were all Wilsons to me, I threw my papyrus as Wickerbottom and nightmare fuel as Maxwell and decided they were worthless characters, and I didn’t know how to summon Abigail, how people would be able to know? Tell me how you figured it out without google, It’s really dumb, there’s no way you would assume that from Wendy’s quotes, she says she needs space and that for Abigail to come out she must see how to play or something, in reality you have to kill a creature, you can’t stretch those quotes to make a logical conclusion of how to summon her (killing a damn creature is “playing”? Wendy may be messed up but we aren’t.).

This game enforces you to look up everything or rely on other’s people’s advice which can be dangerous, so this learning curve isn’t a curve but just progress by blocks, every detail you know, skyrockets you into progression and those are probably things you had to ask instead of assume, or you just got lucky. Trial and error is reliable but there’s not that much they can do.

In this thread I saw that a player from console that was stuck in the game, for not knowing what were those black things in the recipe, charcoal. Such a simple detail we overlook and dismiss, when the repercussion is quite severe, those sort of things shouldn’t be allowed as they ruin the immersion. And it’s not a dramatic statement, of course this thing doesn’t mean much by itself but Don’t Starve is full of these things, there’s severe lack of intuition.  

In summary, make the game more intuitive by adding more deductive information, maybe a tutorial of how to do the basics, maybe characters spawning with a flammable book that has info like “hey, you need to find rocks like these to actually live”, or be able to craft a guide with simple materials that sets objectives to them, like get 20 rocks/grass/twig, make a campfire at night, cook something on a campfire, make a science machine, meet a pig, who knows? Anything would be better, we need to smooth the curve. Because the only things people have to learn deductively by playing is kiting and boss/mobs patterns and that’s about it.

Does it make the game easier? No, I don't think so. Easier to get along with, perhaps, I get that some people like challenge as a new player, but I really don’t think most also likes dying and dying without getting to know how to play the game significantly better, we are assuming all deaths have something to teach you, which is very wrong, as soon as I tell people what they need for the basics, they get mad and ask how would they even know that, and I can only think, you can’t, I couldn’t, didn’t had that level of patience, what can I say? 

Hell yes to a progression system, juuust not exactly the one it is suggested, I personally think It’s annoying and pointless, at least the given example, I don’t go into darkness and I don’t stay insane if I don’t want to, so these are just punishments for occasional mistakes rather than impactful mechanics, but for any other progression system idea, thumbs up. :encouragement:

I can suggest something like this, as OPTIONAL for the time being:

Spoiler

I imagine, having to survive out of grass, logs, twigs, etc. Having to fight, I don’t know, enhanced clockworks with more attack patterns, acting as guardians, at every mine entrance, so you have to kill them with wooden swords and log armor to even enter the mine, just for it to be full of spiders so you have to go in the day, then having enough materials to enter the swamp but only getting 8 reeds because the swamp is so hard you can’t stay for long, then making a base and start preparing to invade other harder biomes to conquer them, eventually gathering specific resources to even have the ability to destroy a cave entrance and face even more strategic challenges, every biome a puzzle, then you defeat the fuelweaver and Charlie opens up a locked or hidden biome in which you can test your end game gear, all the strategies you’ve learned so far, on stronger, smarter mobs and get a structure or item that boosts the creation of a mega base project, base-building and world reshape, because mobs will come at you out of nowhere, explosive poisonous mushrooms from toadstool, earthquakes from antlion, not to mention Dragonfly and Bearger are now searching for food and will not care to destroy your world apart to satisfy their needs, Klaws thinks the same so he appears to destroy your entire world just because it’s fun and he can, and a bee queen has just awoken to make an entire honeycomb biome and build her empire by stealing all the flowers on the land. Deerclops is now scaring mobs into your base before he comes himself, he just doesn’t know when to quit, so you have to prepare constant, never ending, strategic defenses for mob raids which guarantees even a lot more fun end game. 

A leveling up system. Of course this breaks some DST boundaries, it kills some liberty in exchange of a natural progress, but this is the standard for survival games, when you get better, the world gets harder along, you seek high dangers because of higher pays. This is nothing more than a suggestion that could be ignored or at least be replied as bad or “meh” with non-dismissive, civil, constructive criticism of why it’s bad. It also doesn’t have to be my way, but another set of mechanics with the same concept.

I also don't think the "just wait and see! :mad:" mentality is alright at all, nor the "it's their game anyway, die :p" since they are worthless excuses for shutting someone up while offering no substance nor any contribution to topics, such a disgusting way to ask for reputation points, people should at least try to take their time to explain to other people why something is wrong, constructively or just have the courtesy of NOT getting invested if they are not prepared to engage in discussion, simple as that. People are also able to judge something before it comes out and maybe they could reflect better without harassment. :cheerful:

People can express their hate or love for something however they want, as long as they don’t go out of their ways to be personally rude to developers or other users, then if people have a disagreement, they argue with logic and not calling the other person a baby and telling them to leave the damn game if they don’t like something, those comments makes us question whether some people want the best for the game, because, you know, being disrespectful and sending people away because of their opinions and suggestions seems like the best way to show it. :roll:
That's all I wanted to share.

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On 9/21/2019 at 2:07 PM, Well-met said:

This thread is a mistake.

 

Unfortunuitly, I don't feel like risking a ban for a comeback.

On 9/21/2019 at 2:07 PM, Well-met said:

don't lecture devs when they've literally listened and fixed every single thing people hated about new willow and new woodie

No. For Willow, they gave her fire immunity after a compleatly massive backlash, And they never gave her the pyromaniacy she deserved. so now instead of "The Firestarter" She's "The One lass who brought a teddybear". and her downside is laughable at best, considering she can just stand in a fire to warm up.

And Woodie, while I do agree that he would have needed some comical buffs to make him a viable woodcutter long-term, All people wanted was for him to even stand a chance against maxwell in the cutting department and for werebeaver to be strong. instead, we got a 4-in-1 character who, on release, managed to be an even worse character than he was before, and now is a generalist character who mostly forgot why people liked OG woodie so much (atleast from what I've seen, I played Woodie twice before his rework).

And then Winona is still a pick-and-swap character with her catapults who trivializes every boss in the game, and went from having one of the worst, most uninteresting downsides in the game to a downside that barely even exists.

So far, the only rework that I've seen people mostly happy with, and feel is good, is Warly's rework. Instead of getting rid of his downside they doubled down on it while also giving him a myrad of powerful foods and spices, both of which are a natural extention of his playstyle and give him great utility for both single player and multiplayer play. My only real complaint is that he's a bit over-reliant on farms, which are really just god-awful to work with.

 

Also, I advice checking the date on threads, as I imagine most people where happy for this one to have finally bit the dust.

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2 hours ago, Theukon-dos said:

So far, the only rework that I've seen people mostly happy with, and feel is good, is Warly's rework. Instead of getting rid of his downside they doubled down on it while also giving him a myrad of powerful foods and spices, both of which are a natural extention of his playstyle and give him great utility for both single player and multiplayer play. My only real complaint is that he's a bit over-reliant on farms, which are really just god-awful to work with.

It's hard for Warly to raise Sanity from food like green mushroom, cooked cactus, dry meat. So during boss fighting Warly is hard to deal with his low Sanity.In SW, Warly could get more hungry from foods to offset his hunger consumption. But in DST, he only cooks quick.

Aa far as I know, most of Chinese players cold-shoulder Warly.

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6 hours ago, 359368170 said:

It's hard for Warly to raise Sanity from food like green mushroom, cooked cactus, dry meat. So during boss fighting Warly is hard to deal with his low Sanity.In SW, Warly could get more hungry from foods to offset his hunger consumption. But in DST, he only cooks quick.

Aa far as I know, most of Chinese players cold-shoulder Warly.

yes, that's what a downside means.

1 hour ago, DavePlaysDST said:

am i the only dst veteran that likes things easy? im not the only one right? right??

 

1 hour ago, __IvoCZE__ said:

 Dave, you aren't alone.

Well the issue so much isn't that the game's easy, nothing wrong with that, the issue is/was that all of the game's advertisement sold the game as an "uncompromising survival wilderness game", but all of the game's difficulty comes from not knowing what something does or how it works. just looking at the wiki can make the game much, much easier.

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