Should the game game give the player some guide for the more complicated stuff?

[JosePapp]

I love don't Starve to death and i have around 900 hours between both Singleplayer and Multiplayer. However i can't say that i didn't use guides from the outside to make further progress on my game. After playing with a friend that came in blind, i realized that a decent heap of content from the game was beautifully designed so that new players could figure stuff out on their own by browsing the crafting menus and experimenting with the items and mechanics. 

However i am somewhat concerned that some stuff isn't really easy to infer blind and vanilla, like the entire fuelweaver questline (namely the shadow pieces, which a player could spend hours oblivious to since it would be kind of rare for a player to hang out around clockwork statues on a new moon) or beefalo taming, which requires top notch knowledge of the mechanics behind it for it to work. 

Thankfully, DST has an amazing and insightful community, but i think it would be nice if the game threw some bread crumbs so that players get a little pushed into what to do on those instances (sort of like the cookbook streamlined cooking and the farmhat makes the new farm mechanics a bit more clear). For the beefalo problem, a native way to analize how far you're into taming could work, and maybe a hunger widget when you're riding them. for the more cryptic stuff like the shadow pieces, i believe leaving a hint through a rhyme of some sort deep into the ruins could work. Something that hinted at the fuelweaver needing a heart and relating that to clockwork statues.

What do you all think? Are there more things that you think could be streamlined without babysitting the players? (My best example of a balance between helpful yet not spoonfeeding is the cookbook).

[Mike23Ua]

I said this in a post about a similar thread but no: Step by Step hand holding would kill any enjoyment I have with this game.

What I WOULD however like is something Similar to the Spelunky Journal found in the game Spelunky: content in this journal remains blank until YOU figure out it’s purpose, which is exactly what the new Compendium Cookbook has been doing for the games various food recipes but I wish it extended into so much more, such as mobs encountered: Their A.I. behavior patterns, The best weapon to kill them with Etc..

Basically a Journal that only fills in the blank ??? Spaces when YOU discover it for yourself.

It would likely be a huge undertaking for Klei, and may ultimately not even be worth the time and effort to do, but I think it would help assist players as they learn for themselves, without those players having to resort to Wikipedia pages.

Character Inspection Quotes, discovery Journal logs, Cookbook found in Compendium etc- Basically if you want to cross a street Klei just turns on the Green Light and says Walk but still look both ways incase something is coming, they should never snatch you up in their Arms and run you across the street themselves.

[JosePapp]

For the record, i do not want step by step hand holding, (even pointed out the cookbook as an example) i want the game to have more nods for the more cryptic stuff. Not because it would hurt me personally but because i believe it's flawed that you'd have to outsource for the deeper stuff.

[Primalflower]

give me animated tutorials like oxygen not included please they helped so much please please

[minespatch]

4 hours ago, Lbphero said:

give me animated tutorials like oxygen not included please they helped so much please please

When I suggested that, I got backlash...

[.]

I think same. I really wouldn't solve the farm system without the threads shared here. To be honest, still didn't solved it very well.

[ZombieDupe]

There should not be overly complicated stuff. anything that has depth should give robust hints to the player. Giving hints isn't putting text to guide the player through the game. But it's also not leaving the player in the dark and not get anywhere without a wiki, both are equally bad. Give some good hints the player can and will discover for themselves, please.

[Sapientis]

DST is a survival sandbox, where all survivors happen to arrive at some point in their life after being taken from our real world (most of them unwillingly and unaware of what it even means). Any in-game guide would make no sense, the fact you learn everything from other players is in fact very analogical to how a new survivor has to learn the rules of the new world they arrive.

Having many clues in means of possible items to craft is a huge facility. Imagine having to come up with every recipe yourself, similar to Minecraft crafting. Shadow pieces are strongly hinted by Suspicious Marbles scattered over the world, Beefalo Taming has many items in Tools Tab, but it sure requires a lot of attention and devotion to fully tame a Beefalo and then keep it tamed (because one longer trip to ruins may end it and start a new herd with no hint which was partially tamed).

Edit: Yup, I guess an investigation tool for Beefalo Taming would be handy.

 

[Well-met]

dying unfairly on your first playthroughs is part of the learning process.

the game isn't over if you die. It's not like DS1.

it's fine.

[Dr. Safety]

I think the only thing that might need to be tweaked is to throw the spotlight on the rollback function for new players, but even then I don't think it is truly needed. I never knew about rolling back (or if it even existed) back when I started because the learning process for me was "Well we died of starvation on day 4. Better start over from day 1" and then "Wow I didn't know there were hounds that came after you on day 7. Guess I gotta start over at day 1 again" and so on. It might save the player some time by making them known about rollback but they should be fine without it.