burnout How do you go so long in solo worlds?

[Terra B Welch]

A question for people with really long solo worlds(upwards of 1000+), how do you all go so long without getting bored? Or at least long enough to do all the content without rushing?

I feel like I could manage a solo world to the endgame or even reach such a threshold if only my mind could focus that long. At most I've gotten to around 800 days before getting bored during my time playing DST. On average, I play about 300-500 days before I feel burnout and stop.

How do you all avoid the burnout from repetitiveness and keep a solo world going so long? I've wanted to take a solo world to the new RoT endgame content, but I feel like I'm going to burn myself out again in the process and quit out of boredom.

I'm talking vanilla here, no mods.

[Cheggf]

Keep doing new things instead of just repeating the same things over and over again for no reason. There's not really a lot of explicit "content" in the game so you'd have to come up with creative things yourself. You could look to other people's megabases for inspiration. 

[Mike23Ua]

Your not going to like my answer- but there’s now a lovely little menu full of things you can toggle on and off, more and less of: When I get bored of playing a world on default settings I will toy around with these menu’s to mix things up.

As a console player without access to mods- something as simple as being able to edit my existing worlds to play old events like YOTC or Hallowed Nights is Colossal for Me in helping avoid the boredom.

Most my worlds have never lasted up to 1000 days because I get bored of knowing where everything is at or I want to play as another character and I’m one of those types of people who refuse to use the celestial portal because I feel like if I didn’t do all the surviving as X character up to that point then I shouldn’t have access to all the work that Y character has done prior to swapping to X 

So in that case: I delete my worlds, and lately I’ve been deleting my worlds each time a new game content update comes out simply just because I prefer naturally generated content over the wacky ways Retro-fitting generates it.

[Nogard78]

Try doing things in new ways, for examlpe try clearing ruins using reanimated skeleton (I personally really enjoyed that), or try going for giant crops for display, or just go fishing and try to catch all of the fishes. And finally, build a megabase, there is something special when you build somethng from a scratch and then watch it everyday.

[Terra B Welch]

1 hour ago, Nogard78 said:

Try doing things in new ways, for examlpe try clearing ruins using reanimated skeleton (I personally really enjoyed that), or try going for giant crops for display, or just go fishing and try to catch all of the fishes. And finally, build a megabase, there is something special when you build somethng from a scratch and then watch it everyday.

I won't lie, as good as the new farming system is, babysitting crops sounds like it would bore me faster. :s

I'm pretty antsy when it comes to DST, I feel like I have to be doing something at all times, I actually don't like to sit at base for days on end.

I've also tried megabases, my brain can't focus on building long enough in DST to really get a megabase going.

[BezKa]

Take breaks. You'll notice that after playing on a different world for a while, or different game, or anything really, you'll start missing some of the stuff from your long term world. Then just hop on and hang around, wait for an idea to strike or just survive for a bit. 

I like grinding sometimes, I have forests dug out be Bearger I never picked up, so I just grab my Beefalo and krampus sack and get to work. It takes a long time and doing it will usually tire me out enough to want to do something else in the world.

I also got lots of long term goals, like making roads, arenas, decorations spaces and farms of different kinds. I'm usually too tired or just not feeling like getting to them, so after playing ds Hamlet or Shipwrecked I remember them and crave to do them. 

Fill the world with pointless stuff. You have to like your world to keep playing in it. 

[Terra B Welch]

1 minute ago, BezKa said:

Take breaks. You'll notice that after playing on a different world for a while, or different game, or anything really, you'll start missing some of the stuff from your long term world. Then just hop on and hang around, wait for an idea to strike or just survive for a bit. 

I like grinding sometimes, I have forests dug out be Bearger I never picked up, so I just grab my Beefalo and krampus sack and get to work. It takes a long time and doing it will usually tire me out enough to want to do something else in the world.

I also got lots of long term goals, like making roads, arenas, decorations spaces and farms of different kinds. I'm usually too tired or just not feeling like getting to them, so after playing ds Hamlet or Shipwrecked I remember them and crave to do them. 

Fill the world with pointless stuff. You have to like your world to keep playing in it. 

To be honest I only recently came back to playing DST after a significant case of burnout, went and played Terraria, tModloader, modded minecraft and subnautica over the past few months, my DST burnout happened shorlty before year of the beefalo.

Being back to DST again as of the latest update, I really wanted to get to the new content so I did end up making a new solo world, and hopefully between that world and a coop world with friends, I will at least get to experience the new content in a legit manner.

That being said, it seems I haven't rusted too much over the past several months, was still able to kill dragonfly by day 15 in my solo world and get several other things set up in time for winter. (I posted a pic on screenshot showcase)

My biggest challenge for me in the solo world to be honest though is at least reaching the new content before the burnout returns again, I am kinda rushing the solo world, whereas the coop world is more or less my friends and I going at our own pace.

Also I'm really antsy in DST, and for some reason, building doesn't help with that, I know it's weird but building doesn't satisfy my anstiness, usually fighting bosses, gathering materials or even exploring the world(either by foot or boating) helps combat the antsy feeling I have in this game.

[BezKa]

20 minutes ago, Terra B Welch said:

To be honest I only recently came back to playing DST after a significant case of burnout, went and played Terraria, tModloader, modded minecraft and subnautica over the past few months, my DST burnout happened shorlty before year of the beefalo.

Being back to DST again as of the latest update, I really wanted to get to the new content so I did end up making a new solo world, and hopefully between that world and a coop world with friends, I will at least get to experience the new content in a legit manner.

That being said, it seems I haven't rusted too much over the past several months, was still able to kill dragonfly by day 15 in my solo world and get several other things set up in time for winter. (I posted a pic on screenshot showcase)

My biggest challenge for me in the solo world to be honest though is at least reaching the new content before the burnout returns again, I am kinda rushing the solo world, whereas the coop world is more or less my friends and I going at our own pace.

Also I'm really antsy in DST, and for some reason, building doesn't help with that, I know it's weird but building doesn't satisfy my anstiness, usually fighting bosses, gathering materials or even exploring the world(either by foot or boating) helps combat the antsy feeling I have in this game.

You don't have to have long term worlds you know. 

If playing just enough to have fun and not get bored is good for you, do just that. Some games feel better if you don't stay long enough for all the lategame stuff, and some people just don't want to do the same thing for a long time. 

There's no sense in playing a game if you're not having fun with it. So even if you have to use mods/codes to get to the stuff you actually want to do (skip prep for bosses by spawning items and just fight) it's your world and your rules. Doing everything 'legit' isn't a big-brain-only-best-gamers thing. And doing a 1000 day base is not a goal, it's what some people do because they want to. 

[Terra B Welch]

11 minutes ago, BezKa said:

You don't have to have long term worlds you know. 

If playing just enough to have fun and not get bored is good for you, do just that. Some games feel better if you don't stay long enough for all the lategame stuff, and some people just don't want to do the same thing for a long time. 

There's no sense in playing a game if you're not having fun with it. So even if you have to use mods/codes to get to the stuff you actually want to do (skip prep for bosses by spawning items and just fight) it's your world and your rules. Doing everything 'legit' isn't a big-brain-only-best-gamers thing. And doing a 1000 day base is not a goal, it's what some people do because they want to. 

 

I won't lie, I've had a few modded DST playthroughs done, they were fun while they lasted but I did get bored after a time.

I think my favorite run I had for modded DST was my Island Adventures playthrough where I was wendy but had warly's crockpot and eating restrictions(with a 4 day memory timer) and the goal was just to fill the mod tab on the cookbook. Volt goat jelly and spices were banned in that run.

I might try something like that again, if only because I like warly's dishes and downsides, but right now I really want to get to the new content in a legit, vanilla setting, whether it be through the solo world, or via the coop one(when the host finally updates it. >.<)

[BezKa]

1 minute ago, Terra B Welch said:

 

I won't lie, I've had a few modded DST playthroughs done, they were fun while they lasted but I did get bored after a time.

I think my favorite run I had for modded DST was my Island Adventures playthrough where I was wendy but had warly's crockpot and eating restrictions(with a 4 day memory timer) and the goal was just to fill the mod tab on the cookbook. Volt goat jelly and spices were banned in that run.

I might try something like that again, if only because I like warly's dishes and downsides, but right now I really want to get to the new content in a legit, vanilla setting, whether it be through the solo world, or via the coop one(when the host finally updates it. >.<)

I wish you luck then! Burnout is normal, and you can either force yourself through it or wait it out. Either way you choose, I hope you get to all the stuff you want!

[TemporaryMan]

I can't speak for DST, but my DS world that made it it to 1000+ days did so by hunting wild spider dens, beehives and tentacles to extinction on the surface and all 3 caves, clearing the reed trap, building traps around the MacTusk camp, penning the tumbleweed spawn points, building a road network, and experimenting with a durian farm and wormhole/bigfoot log farm.  Just various little projects with breaks between, like BezKa suggested.

[Maxil20]

12 hours ago, Terra B Welch said:

A question for people with really long solo worlds(upwards of 1000+), how do you all go so long without getting bored? Or at least long enough to do all the content without rushing?

It’s really up to the person, and also how much patience/creativity you have : P.

I currently have a 10K+ day world, and a majority of it has been doing pretty bland tasks for most people, such as doing the ruins every summer or oasis fishing from 2019-2020. While this sounds boring to a bunch of people, I personally didn’t mind it. I always did it non reluctantly, and while dull it was certainly a calming experience.

Another thing that helps is getting creativity. Aside from experimenting with strats, learning things from others can improve your motivation a lot. For instance, when anenemies were originally discovered for their unique properties, I used them a lot. It improved a ton of my otherwise manual farms, and also kept me motivated to experiment with how they work. I also like looking at base tours for general decor ideas. They give me inspiration for doing little things here and there, and overall help with the flavor of a base.

It also helps to try working around things that you don’t personally find fun, in order to do things you do find fun. One example I have is how I upkeep my food supplies. I personally don’t like using the crockpot lategame, as cooking takes awhile and most foods spoil fairly quickly, but you still need to eat. I work around this by making bulk setups of food that lasts a long time (which means fewer bundle cycles) and can be gotten in large quanities. In particular, my beebox setup I’ve been slowly building up over 10K days (thanks, bee queen!) gives me enough food from just hunger alone to set me for over 180 days. That is far more then enough time to work on things I enjoy while not worrying about grinding food again. It also helps that honey itself lasts an extremely long amount of time, making it a perfect food for long build projects.

There’s also an argument to be made for changing settings or using/adding mid world. A lot of people might dislike that as it isn’t vanilla, but if it’s your world, it’s your rules! I know in my case once the March QOL dropped, I enabled the festive events (mainly for the shrines/festive lights), disabled wildfires (as countering them is unfun, in my experience), lureplants (as they make decor with natural turf much riskier), set klaus to lots (farming lights) and earthquakes (to avoid moleworm infestations + cave decor). It makes my experience more enjoyable, and at the end of the day, it’s important that you have fun!

One more thing, and this is a moot topic for people, but I also like doing things I haven’t really seen anyone else do, or you can’t really achieve otherwise. When people face bee queen, they usually don’t think about a setup that consists of 28 houndius and 24 catapults to fight her, since that’s very expensive and catapults are all you really need. But when you have the materials and you want to get the fight over with as fast as possible, why not do that? It’s more for bragging rights, but I enjoy going completely overboard when it’s fully unnecessary. 

Overall, just keep yourself motivated, and be up to change. And more importantly, take breaks! I know I definitely have had month-2 month long breaks in my world to play other games in my downtime, and it leaves me refreshed to go back into my world and play around with new content that might have been added while I was away.

[Yuuko]

I have a similar issue.  I play about 300~ days in a world and then stop.  Its usually things like summer wildfires, hound waves, and other super tedious tasks that make me stop.  Like I'd love to go and do some cool things in the world, but its like sit around and wait for a hound wave before I leave base.  Make sure to bring things to fight off hound wave while I'm doing whatever.  Oops now its summer, head to the caves so things don't just start burning down...  Get frustrated by all the tedious crap, log out, 2 months later I'll feel like playing DST again - log into the world, wtf is going on? idk idc I'll just wipe and reset.

[Electroely]

13 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

I have a similar issue.  I play about 300~ days in a world and then stop.  Its usually things like summer wildfires, hound waves, and other super tedious tasks that make me stop.  Like I'd love to go and do some cool things in the world, but its like sit around and wait for a hound wave before I leave base.  Make sure to bring things to fight off hound wave while I'm doing whatever.  Oops now its summer, head to the caves so things don't just start burning down...  Get frustrated by all the tedious crap, log out, 2 months later I'll feel like playing DST again - log into the world, wtf is going on? idk idc I'll just wipe and reset.

I find this a good case for changing world settings/using mods. Ever since I started playing with wildfires disabled I've been having a lot more fun with endless servers, and same has been true ever since I started adding mods to do things like disable grass gekkos (before the world settings option was added) and make the lazy forager refuelable. I wouldn't be playing this game as much as I do without these things.

I otherwise extend my playtime by giving myself various goals to accomplish - creating large amounts of bundled food, setting up a barnacle farm, survive a winter with only hot dragon chili salad (which didn't turn out bad at all!), etc. I'll usually try things like this before I even finish fighting the Ancient Fuelweaver.

[NightfallsCurse]

Simple.. DONT STARVE

[Baark0]

I have a world with almost 1300 days (only 6 days away rn), and I've been doing a lot of creative builds. I had another 1k day world before RoT where I did the same thing (lost it due to retrofitting not working). Late game DST is basically just a sandbox game, the adventure part of the game is disappointingly short, and after you kill a fuelweaver or 2, bosses start to become jokes as well. I wish klei ended up adding more lategame things instead of pretty much everything RoT brought (salt box, leafy meat, and infinite light sources are probably the only things I would miss from RoT). You could also try different methods to killing bosses. Try fighting enraged dragonfly, or fuelweaver while insane. Going longterm in worlds pretty much requires you to be creative and have ideas in mind for things to do.

[Terra B Welch]

6 hours ago, ShadowQueen said:

Simple.. DONT STARVE

Already got that down chief, it's moreso "don't get bored" rather then "don't starve"

[Mike23Ua]

34 minutes ago, Terra B Welch said:

Already got that down chief, it's moreso "don't get bored" rather then "don't starve"

Well ya know... if Klei would get the ball rolling with a ton of new biomes, mobs and updated combat mechanics- maybe that would help a lot.

I was thinking maybe they should add a “jump” button to DST so enemies can have ranged pulse attacks you need to “jump” over to avoid.. if you’ve ever played the Batman Arkham games: Basically the Solomon Grundy fight from Arkham City.

anything that breaks the pattern of hit, hit, hit move away from slow easily dodged attack, hit, hit, hit rinse repeat.

I want new biomes, I want new mobs with new fighting behaviors to fight, heck man I want more “horde” type waves besides just hounds.. maybe I want to get invaded by bats or spooky walking skeletons or something new for a change..

You are not alone in your burned out boredom- and I assure you Klei sees huge game changing concepts like elevated foundations of land thrown around in their forums- But how long is it going to take before we ever see any of that in game?? If we ever even see it at all.

I guess the biggest question is with Return of Them being completed but still two content updates due later this year: What’s next for DST?