Name something DST should add to bring in/back more players.

[clickrush]

19 minutes ago, Dr.Medic said:

but first of all does it realy NEED more things? just for the reasons of "more is always better"? or does the player base realy NEEDS more players or is it alredy fine as it is? you know actualy the playerbase is just fine as it is realy and just add new things just because of new things= good? whitout preparing and carefully crafting an way to make it feel more of an adventure of earning the things you get all those questions have to be made before just adding things

I agree with this. If anything the game changes quite frequently and adds things, but the balance of certain things still seem a bit lackluster.

* Plenty of foods don't get usually made, because they are not worth the hassle (especially those that require several specific ingredients) and a few specific foods are too cost effective in comparison like Meatballs and Pierogi. I'm not sure if those recipes need to be nerfed or others buffed, but I'm sure there could be a better balance here.

* There are numerous utility items (typically, but not necessarily in the science tab) that never get crafted, because they provide things that you can just "know". I would suggest to give them a bit more utility, maybe through secondary bonuses. Some of them actually are useful in theory, like the compass, but then the thing is equipped in the hand slot and only has a 2.5d durability, removing those restrictions would possibly make it so people consider crafting it. There are many items like this. They just need some reasonable cost and effectiveness.

* Late game becomes essentially an almost endless series of chores if one reaches more advanced and refined food and crafting. I feel like the game could reconsider what late game should look like a bit. I'd like to suggest that some of the late game options that in theory should free the players of doing chores should be more powerful and cost effective. I'm speaking of Scaled Furnaces, Mushlights/Glowcaps etc. If you manage to kill those kinds of bosses, you already "proved" to the game that you can prepare well, unlock key features, explore, survive for dozens of days and longer, fight well etc. So getting a few static light sources that light up your base isn't the craziest payoff. Now they either don't provide much light at all (furnace) or they require maintenance and rather expensive fuel (mushroom lights). Just make some of these hard to get items more powerful so they actually free the hands of the players.

[pr0o]

I want more gothic and darker colors and more gadgets for the magic tab and of course I want characters that existed years ago and still await implementation (waverly, wilton, wallace, winnie) ...

[thegreatJash]

4 hours ago, LinknAllie said:

More stuff for the ocean (Whirlpools, Hurricanes, ect)

This. Also a nametag item/trinket so I can finally name my pet Koalefant.

[Dextops]

5 hours ago, Sub-Maxwell said:

I think more weather effects would be great. Blizzards in winter, floods in spring, hurricanes at sea, maybe tornadoes or a heat wave in summer? Definitely would lean towards a harder difficulty that more experienced players have been asking for, and would make the peaceful feeling of autumn even more relieving.

yeah i agree but i feel this should be after the first year in the constant because mid to late game is what really needs some more difficulty 

[Sub-Maxwell]

Another thing I thought about (although not necessarily something that’s going to bring people back) is more statues! My friends make fun of me for it, but I love making a huge collection of all the boss statues out of moon glass. Adding more statues of mobs like spider queen, the tree guards, varg, ewecus, koalefant, etc. would be cool for decoration, and their sketches could be recorded in some sort of journal similar in function to the cookbook. I know this a REALLY niche idea, but it’d make me super happy.

 

1 hour ago, Dextops said:

yeah i agree but i feel this should be after the first year in the constant because mid to late game is what really needs some more difficulty 

Definitely what I was thinking but forgot to clarify in my original post. Thanks!

[Terra_Zina]

Current DST feels more like Disney than Tim Burton, and it bothers me

[W0l0l0]

7 hours ago, AllFunNGamez said:

I think some sort of challenge would make it more interesting perhaps a dungeon of sorts where entering leads to multiple random paths and even new bosses. 

Giving you special loot each time you do it. It would make for a challenge and give added reasons to keep trying and trying again. 

That's almost exactly the ruins labyrinth. It could be expanded upon, but I feel at this point more work needs to be focused on making that content actually accessible. Otherwise Klei is just wasting effort.

The recent "Eye of the Storm" stuff looks great, but is largely untouched by many people because its not accessible enough. I value ways to fix this issue more than additional content ideas, because it's something I still can't think of an easy solution to, and it's becoming the main thing holding the game back in my opinion.

[xxXolot]

I somehow felt this thread gone a bit off-topic. Some suggestions do enhance game experience for people already playing, but we are really talking about bringing back players that haven't been playing for a while or new people trying to find a cool game. How would you advertise a game balance to people anyway? People who left the game due to frustration may come back upon hearing their exact issue with the game being fixed, but I think we can do so much more than that.

I think this game had good potential on the character and lore, but due to the cryptic nature of the lore in this game, people who enjoy the story aspect of a game often easily miss out the story behind this game. My friends who are all about character personalities / interactions and story never treat this game like it has a story! The characters actually have dynamics (had to specially find those awesome shorts on Youtube), they just think this as a game that can be played together, and they always felt they suck at the game so they don’t play it often, and they are not the the type of player to look at guides to be better at a game... I have been wondering, if they can have more easy way to learn the characters through game itself, they would love it more, unconsciously get better at it, able to enjoy the game fully, and also in turn pays for skins lol

For that reason I think a brand new story/mission mode that focuses on the characters themselves can breathe a new life into this game and reach out to a wider set of audience. This is pretty impractical as a suggestion because this kind of development will be a major commitment, as one will need to develop a survival NPC AI to make the surviving together feel genuine, and also need to write quite some dialogue for interesting character development, and mission mode balance and so forth. But just for the fun of it I am gonna put some random idea out there.

Maybe it can goes like this...

each character has a set of side stories that has different goals, like a mission mode. Side story example can be simple like:

• Wilson survives with Maxwell and they are not on good terms, eventually they get to know each other a bit better, goal being to survive for 2 seasons.
• Wolfgang somehow is stuck with Wendy to survive and needs to come to terms with his phobia, goal being defeating a couple boss or something.
• Warly trying to cheer up a small group of survivors by collecting ingredients and making their favorite food, goal being finding out what they like by make friends with them and giving said dish to each of the survivors.

Some advantage brought by this kind of mode:

• Shy people can play this like a single-player but still have a sense of Starve Together as you are still playing together with NPCs. (Ideally mission mode should be able to support multiplayer too though)
• Players who are afraid of dragging others down due to lack of skill can use this to practice specific parts of the game mechanics until they are comfortable with public sandboxing.
• Reduce the need to check wiki by NPC providing common survival hints.
• A medium to provide difficult challenges for players that are up to it.
• Also a medium to supply scraps of lore information. 
• Interaction dialogues and character dynamics, maybe even cutscene of dialogues!

That’s pretty much it, I know some people would think this game is not for my friends because they don’t “learn” the game, but I believe learning the game by other means that’s not pure trial and error / friends / guides can also be fun, and it reaches more audience because quite some people don’t dedicate time to gaming, use mission mode to learn is fun and is efficient for them, in turn they will be able to truly enjoy the game.

And I don’t really understand people who say that the game doesn’t need more people. Don’t you want to see your favorite game live prosper? Don’t you want more people to enjoy a game you love? Developers need more people playing the game to make money so they can keep supporting the game better. Maybe if we had more players in the last few years they wouldn't need Tencent support.
 

[Masked Koopa]

 

6 minutes ago, xxXolot said:

For that reason I think a brand new story/mission mode that focuses on the characters themselves can breathe a new life into this game and... (etc)

 

Honestly I think that's a fantastic idea, it sounds like it has potential for experienced players as well, since there are a fair few mechanics that are underexplored due to them not being optimal. It doesn't even have to be super grandiose, just some form of "get x" or "kill y" with lots of interesting lines has a lot of potential in my eyes.

[Mike23Ua]

Global Pause Button.

[JoSmoCoolStuf]

A mere humble tiny request:

• Add auto stack mod to Klei servers

This would save player's time from the tedious picking of countless items over the long run. Huge quality of life improvement. With reduced fatigue, players would probably play more often. Depending on the results of the experiment, remove or scale up as needed.

Mod examples: 

Quote

 

Auto Stack and Pick Up https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1803281169&searchtext=stack+pick

Anything you mine or chop or hammer poofs magically into a convenient stack to easily pickup! Thanks Charlie!

Antistun https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1216718131

 

 

[Knowbodie]

Fresh world generation and playstyle.

I think there comes a point where the forest world that we all are used to will get boring, no matter how much you keep adding to it. The early game procedures are more or less the same except for world generation. But once you've located all the places of interest, then a world is just like any other world.

Shipwrecked in my view is almost like a giant reskin of the original game, giving the core of the game a fresh view. Hamlet incorporates a vastly different playstyle which is why I liked it a little better.

Spoiler

Eyebrella -> Dumbrella

Rain hat -> Snakeskin hat

Insulated pack ->Sea Sack

Pretty Parasol -> Tropical Parasol

Prestihatitator -> Piratihatitator

Pig King -> Yaarctopus

Caves -> Volcano

Chester -> Packim Baggims

Exploration by walking -> Exploration with "water shoes"

...you get the idea

That said, both DLC's in their own way added a fresh environment with a different challenge offered at the early game. Hamlet worked with survival in a pig economy, Shipwrecked promoted a nomadic survival experience. DST currently has only one world to work with, which can get repetitive after a while. Not only that, but world hopping and linking allowed you to always have a changing environment, look, and feel. Bored of living in some bleak desolate forest? It's time for you to take a vacation in a "tropical paradise."

While world hopping and linkage will probably never be a thing in DST, and neither Shipwrecked or Hamlet, I still think offering some new world generation options other than "Together" and "Classic" is more than enough to keep the early game fresh.

Spoiler

-Totally different landscapes and seasons. This is essentially what shipwrecked did, it's no longer the same forest world. There are plenty of new mobs and resources to work with and different seasonal threats to face.

-Islands Generation! We have boats, it would be cooler if we used them more for exploration.

-Start on Lunar Island or caves (Would be super interesting, at least I think so. I know it's a thing, but you have to mess with game files)

-More setpieces and surprises. Make a pig king village spawn as an entire tribe of warrior pigs instead of the usual houses, or maybe even a world where there is a preexisting merm king. Have a giant crater that has a few lunar resources attached to that area. Add lakes and possibly mini islands within this lake.

-New biomes that are not always guaranteed. This could be a living tree grove, maybe a frozen island floating in the ocean with unique mobs/resources.

-Biome customization and possibly setpiece customization.

-Dynamic shoreline. The Shipwrecked shore is much better because the ocean and land feel more connected. There is actual sand and waves that could increase players' wetness if you tread in the shallow parts of it.

-Customizable secondary shard/dimension. It doesn't even have to be caves, could be an underground rainforest, sky world, or something creative. It would be nice to pick and swap to choose two of your favorite world types to link together, each with unique additions to the world.

In essence, I just think it be cool to hop into a random world not really knowing what to expect out of all the different world generation presets. The default forest experience seems pretty bland after a while because of the same playstyle and environmental look.

[Cheggf]

I think adjustments and small additions would be great. Rebalancing mob loot (e.g. giving rockjaws something other than fish), rebalancing items (e.g. repairable/more durable pick/axe, maybe even thulecite club & lazy forager), rebalancing some characters without giving them a major rework. 

But if more content were to be added, if the goal is to get the most players interested in it, it would be early game content instead of things like the Celestial Champion. Most players don't go for very long on worlds whether they choose not to or are incapable of it. Most people don't even kill FW, and the champion takes a lot more effort to get to than him.

[BezKa]

4 hours ago, Cheggf said:

I think adjustments and small additions would be great. Rebalancing mob loot (e.g. giving rockjaws something other than fish), rebalancing items (e.g. repairable/more durable pick/axe, maybe even thulecite club & lazy forager), rebalancing some characters without giving them a major rework. 

But if more content were to be added, if the goal is to get the most players interested in it, it would be early game content instead of things like the Celestial Champion. Most players don't go for very long on worlds whether they choose not to or are incapable of it. Most people don't even kill FW, and the champion takes a lot more effort to get to than him.

I think if Rockjaws dropped all the fish they frikkinn stole it would be a good alternative to fishing. Rockjaws are mostly stone after all, and the fish staying alive inside them for a bit isn't that far of a stretch. That way you don't lose these pesky ice breams you found on last day of winter and rockjaw decided to gobble up :/

 

[Well-met]

allow people to host their own forge or gorge server

(yes I know we have the workshop mods but vanilla features always get more attention by default)

[AllFunNGamez]

11 minutes ago, Well-met said:

allow people to host their own forge or gorge server

(yes I know we have the workshop mods but vanilla features always get more attention by default)

I agree these should no longer require mods I would even be open to the idea of them being unlocked once you complete the cook book for example or once you fight all bosses in the game you unlock the ability to add them to your world. It would be awesome to find a portal that leads to either one of the gorge or forge and upon completion you get spit out back to the constant your world is in with wither a Prize or something bad. 

For example complete the gorge receive one of ten special items that help you in cooking, finish the forge receive something that helps you fight. 

 

[-Variant]

On 4/27/2021 at 5:39 PM, Terra_Zina said:

Current DST feels more like Disney than Tim Burton, and it bothers me

It's certainly strayed from origins, I'm inclined to agree here.

[Warpspeed10]

Don't Starve Together: Together

New DST event. Whenever you come in contact with another player, you two stick together. You'll need to work in unison to move around and feed your joined stomach. This doesn't stop at two players though, eventually become a mass of body parts with all players inputting their own movement commands.

What better way to help a new player, than to become one with them?

[AllFunNGamez]

I might stand alone here but as a person who solely relies on Simply Foods like Meatballs and Perogies I feel like these recipes should be nerfed a bit. They overshadow a lot of other recipes.

[sphericalcow]

Fix the darn ping issue, then welcoming dedicated servers can actually make the experience nicer for more players.

[SkyistheGround]

On 4/27/2021 at 7:29 PM, xxXolot said:

Maybe it can goes like this...

each character has a set of side stories that has different goals, like a mission mode. Side story example can be simple like:

• Wilson survives with Maxwell and they are not on good terms, eventually they get to know each other a bit better, goal being to survive for 2 seasons.
• Wolfgang somehow is stuck with Wendy to survive and needs to come to terms with his phobia, goal being defeating a couple boss or something.
• Warly trying to cheer up a small group of survivors by collecting ingredients and making their favorite food, goal being finding out what they like by make friends with them and giving said dish to each of the survivors.

this is super cool!! personally a very big fan of lore and characters, so i'd like to add my own examples to this:

• (Not entirely sure about Wickerbottom's backstory, so this may end up being even more unlikely) But perhaps Wickerbottom and Maxwell are searching for the source of magic their books make, following clues littered around the Constant that lead them to a brand new place to explore, maybe even a new boss
• Morale is low among the survivors, and Wes has to cheer them up with balloons and performances. All the while trying to stay alive with waves of danger creeping in
• Walter is characterized as a very responsible guy, and he's implied to be older then some of the other child characters (check his examination for gunpowder) so maybe he can have a quest about keeping the base safe and getting the other survivors out of trouble

and maybe some variants of pre-existing quests can be made, such as:

• Wolfgang has to survive with Webber, who is a literal monster
• Wormwood is curious about his own origin from the moon, he and another character who may be interested (Maxwell has a quote about "knowing what that gem does" and WX-78 is interested in the moon in general)
• Wortox could be the one trying to cheer up the survivors... in his own way

these variants would have the same idea, but slightly different mechanics and playstyles since the characters are different

and i understand that is a lot of work but i find it fun to make ideas