Initial Exploration Is Boring

[Afr4y]

Look, this game is great, but there's one issue I have: if you want to survive, you have to find the right base location. You have to explore. But in this game, exploration entails holding w for an hour straight. Not fun. For someone like me, who has never survived past the first winter (in singleplayer ds, in dst i cant survive a week.) it becomes very tiresome cause that's basically all you ever do. you usually die before you can finish building your base. Klei has some issues

[ArubaroBeefalo]

the game is about exploration, if you dont like to explore or you die a lot (which is normal if you are new) the problem is yours. A lot of people who likes this franchise love exploring new fresh worlds

the game lacks of more set pieces and being less predictible when you reach certain biomes (you can know what are in a forest if you see a walrus camp or a moon stone, you can know what are in a savanna if is big, etc)

with hamlet they did a great job mixing biomes which made way more fun the exploration

[Afr4y]

it's not about being predictable or not. i just dont like endlessly pressing w so i can eventually get to play the game for real.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

2 minutes ago, Afr4y said:

it's not about being predictable or not. i just dont like endlessly pressing w so i can eventually get to play the game for real.

then use left click

[ADM]

Have you even considered that you do it the wrong way maybe ? If you haven't survived to winter yet it's probably because you simply explore too much or look for the wrong elements, simply find a location matching your needs, you will change your requirements later as you gain with experience : is there easy food ? what are the accessible resources around ? if I need anything, how far I have to go for it ? That is basically what a beginner should care about so far.

I myself just look for a nice location I know about (because all worlds share the same basic biome set, but with a bunch of optional ones so you don't get too many variation from one to another), and if I know it'll be nice by looking around, well let's just base here, so I don't waste all my autumn just exploring and prepare better for what's next, plus if you play multiplayer maybe someone gets the time to do a lot of exploration early instead of exploring too much yourself and accomplishing very little outside of discovering world. Try that, might just be the change you need.

[HowlVoid]

I understand your frustration but that's just how the game plays when you're new. We all started where you did and we all had varying degrees of frustration with different elements in the game. In sandbox survival games like this one you cant just expect to survive without putting in the leg work. 

1. Home is where the heart is: Basing in this game is 100% unnecessary. Structures are powerful components of the game, with the crockpot being the strongest. All you need is structures placed in key locations and you're good to go. I suggest familiarizing yourself with the dishes in the game.

2. Kiting, kiting, kiting: Kiting is extremely important to learn. Spend multiple death learning to kite.

3. The game isn't as hard as you think: If you had foresight Im sure you'd see yourself laughing at your past self struggling. Food is everywhere, healing is everywhere, bosses have exploitable a.i., items can be op, characters can be op, etc all you have to do is look for it. This is one of the few games where I recommend lots of research. This is one of the few games you can actually start enjoying once you know where everything is and what everything does. Especially if you are becoming extremely frustrated and unhappy. 

[Cheggf]

3 hours ago, Afr4y said:

if you want to survive, you have to find the right base location

Incorrect statement.

[Mike23Ua]

Base? What base.. 

Also- you can totally plug in an Xbox controller and use it for exploration instead of press W.

just putting that out there.

[SinancoTheBest]

3 hours ago, Afr4y said:

if you want to survive, you have to find the right base location

You are overplaying the importance of location there. You don't have to explore even 15% of the map to have a comfortable infinite survival. Base location is only useful at an advanced/meta level where you'd ideally want to base at the perfect location to reach everywhere at most efficient amount of time. Otherwise you can base virtually anywhere and survive without without exploring anything beyond the few biomes around you for some basic and advanced resources. 

[minespatch]

Just map out the edges until you find a comfort spot.

[Grim the]

45 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Also- you can totally plug in an Xbox controller and use it for exploration instead of press W.

You can do this with Xbox, PlayStation, Switch Pro, Steam controller, or any generic gamepad, not just Xbox. 

You can also connect them via bluetooth

[Muzarello]

i see a lot of people talking about bases, Just make some machines to prototype stuff and explore enough to feel free to leave stuff in a spot,  I was worried when I saw the title cuz lots of my friends don't like the exploration part just because they don't like the "explore till day 10, gather resources and fertilize,shave beef.." It's so strange to see people locked in gameplay loops when you can do so much in this game, you can even start in a plus world if you want to skip the science and alchemy search,don't feel guilty. 

[Pine G]

If you can't survive a week in DST, I think you should learn about strategies on how to make your early game exploration more useful.

[wigfrids hat]

hi, if exploring isnt really your bag you might consider changing your world-settings so that the parts that are troubling you are well, less troublesome. increasing grass and carrots and making your world smaller helps to make surviving less of a grind ^^ there is nothing wrong with making things a little more accommodating  for you

 

also "get gud" is a potato-headed statement to make at someone who is struggling and does nothing to help anyone

[RAFAEL-Y]

Don't you know this is a survival game？？？？？？ You need to find a way to survive.

[Aeglefire]

7 hours ago, Afr4y said:

For someone like me, who has never survived past the first winter (in singleplayer ds, in dst i cant survive a week.) it becomes very tiresome

What are you dying to the most? Maybe we can help you out if we know what's killing you.

[Resul]

Iam agree with you with exploration part. It is very uninteresting to explore the map. If this game have more dynamic survival elements then it could be my favorite survival game.

[BezKa]

I really like exploring. That's what I always miss in midgame.

[Captain_Rage]

Adapt or succumb to the wilderness. After playing for a while you should realize that you might need to adjust your prioritizes in the game. Rushing some goals can give the total opposite effect. Never reaching said goal, that is. Taking things slowly and progressively, like as with building a base, can get you a more reliable base faster than you think.

[MrDo]

Do not be unfair to him. The map should be fully open at the beginning of the game because exploring it is ridiculous. Whichever survival game you enter, the whole map will be open, you don't know. In fact, looting and killing mobs is a waste of time, a creative menu needs to be put left of the inventory, what is the need for boring things like this. Damn I'm so clever.

 

Sometimes I really don't understand people..

[CossonWool]

This thread sounds kinda elitist. Afr4y's got a point even if they arrived there by dying too often. A lot of players want to build bases or develop worlds rather than just explore.

For a lot of experienced players a good new world often starts with using the console to reveal the minimap to check if the world is worth keeping. Things like what biomes generate and where boss setpieces are located can make a world unenjoyable for simple reasons. For example, maybe you want triple mactusk biome, or maybe you don't like holding w for too long when walking between locations (or whatever button you know-it-all's use to move). The reasons might be different for newer players. For example, Afr4y seems to just want to know where to make base rather than care about boss locations or biomes.

Even thought I don't share the sentiment, it's easy to see how how people could get tired of the hour-plus exploring just to get a good understanding of a map before it resets, whether that reset is intentional or not.

[MondayNight]

14 hours ago, Afr4y said:

.. i just dont like endlessly pressing w so i can eventually get to play the game for real.

Then I have some bad news, OP: perhaps DST isn't a game for you and your fancies. Or any other game with "WASD" controls.

[Well-met]

in my opinion discovering what the random generation comes up with is the best part of the game

[Afr4y]

On 4/11/2021 at 6:52 PM, ArubaroBeefalo said:

then use left click

Hilarious.

On 4/11/2021 at 7:00 PM, ADM said:

Have you even considered that you do it the wrong way maybe ? If you haven't survived to winter yet it's probably because you simply explore too much or look for the wrong elements, simply find a location matching your needs, you will change your requirements later as you gain with experience : is there easy food ? what are the accessible resources around ? if I need anything, how far I have to go for it ? That is basically what a beginner should care about so far.

I myself just look for a nice location I know about (because all worlds share the same basic biome set, but with a bunch of optional ones so you don't get too many variation from one to another), and if I know it'll be nice by looking around, well let's just base here, so I don't waste all my autumn just exploring and prepare better for what's next, plus if you play multiplayer maybe someone gets the time to do a lot of exploration early instead of exploring too much yourself and accomplishing very little outside of discovering world. Try that, might just be the change you need.

I look for pig king, then i pick a spot in the closest dragonfly desert that is nearest to a beefalo herd. but I typically dont survive long enough to find a base location. I just lost a wolfgang world because I pulled up my map to pick a place to camp and died to a tentacle. WHY CAN'T SINGLEPLAYER WORLDS WORK LIKE SINGLEPLAYER MAKE A PAUSE OPTION YOU WANNA-BE DEVS!

Also, no one wants to play with me, multiplayer isn't an option.

On 4/11/2021 at 7:11 PM, HowlVoid said:

I understand your frustration but that's just how the game plays when you're new. We all started where you did and we all had varying degrees of frustration with different elements in the game. In sandbox survival games like this one you cant just expect to survive without putting in the leg work. 

1. Home is where the heart is: Basing in this game is 100% unnecessary. Structures are powerful components of the game, with the crockpot being the strongest. All you need is structures placed in key locations and you're good to go. I suggest familiarizing yourself with the dishes in the game.

2. Kiting, kiting, kiting: Kiting is extremely important to learn. Spend multiple death learning to kite.

3. The game isn't as hard as you think: If you had foresight Im sure you'd see yourself laughing at your past self struggling. Food is everywhere, healing is everywhere, bosses have exploitable a.i., items can be op, characters can be op, etc all you have to do is look for it. This is one of the few games where I recommend lots of research. This is one of the few games you can actually start enjoying once you know where everything is and what everything does. Especially if you are becoming extremely frustrated and unhappy. 

Dude, I know how to kite, I know lots of dishes, I scour the depths of the wiki to learn about the game, and I'm still bad. Also, my whole family has foresight, but I haven't had a vision in six years.

On 4/11/2021 at 9:37 PM, Cheggf said:

Incorrect statement.

Every guide I've ever watched says this. It makes since. You can't survive without a beefalo herd. You can't survive without a pig king. You can't survive without a dragonfly desert(well I guess you could base in oasis but I dont like it.

On 4/11/2021 at 9:42 PM, Mike23Ua said:

Base? What base.. 

Also- you can totally plug in an Xbox controller and use it for exploration instead of press W.

just putting that out there.

What do you mean "what base"? also, i dont have an xbox controller and I dont think you're getting the whole point with the "w" thing. It's just walking around.

On 4/11/2021 at 9:52 PM, SinancoTheBest said:

You are overplaying the importance of location there. You don't have to explore even 15% of the map to have a comfortable infinite survival. Base location is only useful at an advanced/meta level where you'd ideally want to base at the perfect location to reach everywhere at most efficient amount of time. Otherwise you can base virtually anywhere and survive without without exploring anything beyond the few biomes around you for some basic and advanced resources. 

But I can't do things unless I know EXACTLY what to do. It's a major pet peeve of mine.

On 4/11/2021 at 10:01 PM, minespatch said:

Just map out the edges until you find a comfort spot.

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On 4/11/2021 at 10:54 PM, Muzarello said:

i see a lot of people talking about bases, Just make some machines to prototype stuff and explore enough to feel free to leave stuff in a spot,  I was worried when I saw the title cuz lots of my friends don't like the exploration part just because they don't like the "explore till day 10, gather resources and fertilize,shave beef.." It's so strange to see people locked in gameplay loops when you can do so much in this game, you can even start in a plus world if you want to skip the science and alchemy search,don't feel guilty. 

What is a plus world? If it's some kind of in-game cheat, I won't do it.

On 4/11/2021 at 11:03 PM, Pinegrove said:

If you can't survive a week in DST, I think you should learn about strategies on how to make your early game exploration more useful.

The whole reason I've been exploring so much is because of the guides I've watched.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

15 minutes ago, Afr4y said:

WHY CAN'T SINGLEPLAYER WORLDS WORK LIKE SINGLEPLAYER MAKE A PAUSE OPTION YOU WANNA-BE DEVS!

Maybe you shouldnt be distracted in the swamp instead of being mad at others because of your mistakes

This game has a rogelite component which means that you will die a lot before learning. Dont expect to "complete the game" with few hours, it isnt that kind of game. Isnt a Final fantasy or a god of war 

16 minutes ago, Afr4y said:

I know how to kite, I know lots of dishes, I scour the depths of the wiki to learn about the game, and I'm still bad

Then why you die at day 7? Just keep playing. Every world will give you more information to survive longer in the next one. Dont give up

Also try easy characters like wendy, wigfrid, willow or wilson instead of wolfgang who will need more food

 

About the exploration thing... the game is about it...

Is like i complain about needing to click to kill players in csgo but i want to walk and also complain because others kill me before i explore the map¿?¿?¿?