Don't Starve's Actual Design Problem, Which Happens To Be Minor and Also Not Really Klei's Fault

[StretchVanb]

Hey! Look! Lots of arguments about game design! I wonder what peoples' thoughts a-

Oh, oh no.

I try to avoid being too caught up in internet arguments, but I thought this would be worth posting on here after this long period of time here. As a guy who spent, like, 30 minutes in a game design class, I think I can say pretty definitively that I know absolutely nothing what I'm talking about.

 

Because I love organizing things, I'm going to separate this post into multiple sections. Keep in mind most of this IS subjective because it is about, well, art, and please try to avoid another flame war in the thread. Please. Thank you.

The Learning Curve

Spoiler

Ah, new players, the Hot Debate of the last 4 hours. Are the new players RUINING THE GAME? Is Don't Starve as a game series UNSAVEABLE and TERRIBLE game design?

 

Well, I suppose it depends on your definitions of those things, but the first thing I would like to talk about is the game's method of teaching itself to new players.

As mentioned by numerous people before me, this game is mostly made unique via it's preferred method of displaying new content to players- Death and hoping they memorize. This is, to anyone who's taken a Game Design 101 course, a really weird and strange way to do it. But it's not actually as terrible as you would think- It nearly perfectly mirrors how people learned about things in Real Life (TM) before we, y'know, learned the basics of what there was to know. So it would make perfect sense that it would appeal to lots of people- It grants a feeling of discovery and accomplishment even when you "fail". Giving players positive reinforcement when they die does encourage them to play the game more, and I think we can (hopefully) agree that the Game Being Fun is the most important aspect of game design.

Why, then, does anyone complain?

Well, the actual problem with the game's method of learning and teaching has nearly nothing to do with learning or teaching at all, but the feeling of helplessness it invokes into players. Or, at least I would imagine. Let's try a thought experiment.

Imagine playing a new game, a lot like Don't Starve but with new mechanics. How would you feel if you "failed" at the game because of something you didn't know about? I would imagine many people would say it would feel "unfair".

But as many "OG" players know, Don't Starve was actually billed as uncompromising. Which, well, should put us at a dead end, but it doesn't, actually. It turns out that the root of the feeling of "unfairness" has very little to do with unfairness at all.

As a game (mostly) focused on strategy, Don't Starve is an excellent example of something essential to many board games, as well as video games- Choice. Your CHOICE to play a specific character, to use a specific strategy, or to start gathering a specific resource drives the entire game and it's interactivity. What would happen if you could move your character around, but no matter what you did you died in 10 seconds, and there was no other content? I think we could argue that there isn't really much of a game there, and with this knowledge comes enlightment. Enlightment on why Noobs (TM) can sometimes feel angry about death.

Turns out, not knowing about something can effectively take your choices away. If you don't have any information about how to act, any two choices seem effectively the same, even though they might be different in game logic. So, if you don't know overheating exists, choosing to prepare equipment before summer or choosing to do nothing isn't a choice at all. You don't even have any idea that it's a choice you can make! And so the game, in that specific aspect, completely loses any interactivity.

This is a good thing in some respects, as it does remove a lot of complication from new players, but it also can make them feel cheated when they die, because they never got an option to do anything that could have changed it. It tears away the illusion of free will we enjoy on a daily basis in a very sudden and very surprising way, and a lot of people don't like that.

So, should we just give up on Don't Starve's discovery mechanics? Handhold players through the entire game, obviously or not? No! If we look at the problem here-A lack of agency- It becomes pretty obvious what the fix would be. Just give them some basic agency they can apply in any situation, and know about nearly immediately!

This is already a thing in some respects, such as movement. Any player knows they can run away from things.

Of course, adding a bunch of random mechanics just for this purpose seems pretty boring, but thankfully there's a much easier thing to do, and something Klei has been doing for ages- Just avoid instant death mechanics. Any time the player has time to respond, they have choices. Easy fix.

Honestly, the only mechanic I can think of that DOESN'T do this is probably overheating, like previously mentioned. Getting too cold seems pretty easy to fix, I mean, most people just assume it means getting near something warm, but cooling down is waaaay more complicated. I mean, you have to know summer exists beforehand and make a bunch of items to practically do anything during it. You CAN survive without them, but not without some serious high-level plays that your average medium-level player can't even comprehend. So, still the same problem. You could argue rain is the same, but given it's main threat is sanity loss, I would say sanity itself is more of the problematic mechanic. This, however, is alleviated with things like positive sanity auras and negative sanity auras- Just by walking around certain things, you can learn that your sanity can be regained, and the same thing happens when eating random foods, which you kind of, y'know, have to, to not Starve. Not to mention that Sanity as a mechanic provides a ton of tricks for advanced players, and can be resolved by early players if they manage to kill a nightmare creature, basically reinstating choice.

So why is this such a problem? I'm not sure. People have complained about Summer for ages, and honestly I would say that if there's a problem at all it lies there. Hound attacks are telegraphed, enemies can be run away from, everything else in the game still provides choice even if you don't know about it.

TL;DR: Don't Starve teaches things really well, except for Summer, which is annoying, which everyone already knew about, and Klei has tried to fix multiple times (Whirly Fan, anyone?).

The Only Actual Design Flaw I can Think Of

Spoiler

There IS still a problem with Don't Starve as a game, but it's only one very experienced players will ever face- The problem of complete knowledge.

Simply put, once you know everything about the game, all of your choices are taken away. The game can pretty easily be reduced to math, and well, that's kinda boring.

Thankfully, this problem is much simpler than the previous one, albeit much more present.

So, how do you fix this?

Well, Don't Starve is a roguelike game, and a tradition of the roguelike genre is r-r-r-r-randomization!

Randomization mechanics are sets of mechanics which add unpredictability to the game. This can already (kinda) be observed in Don't Starve with things such as the spawning of nightmare creatures, but other than that and world generation, the game is mostly deterministic. That measn that after exploring the majority of the world, any experienced player immediately will know the course of action to take, which is BORING but also understandable because designing a game to be infinitely playable is really, really hard.

Before you yell at me, because everyone knows how annoying randomness is in video games, hear me out.

So, my suggestion would be to add randomization mechanics, but only for challenges. Randomizing beneficial things to the player would absolutely be unfun, because players might feel cheated if they don't receive them due to randomness, and random difficulties-only could also just be annoyances. My suggestion would actually be to implement random opportunities- Chances for the player to get something benefical, but very riskily. This could be done with different forms of weather, different enemy variations, tons of stuff. But ultimately I'm not certain what exactly would help, and this issue is much less pressing then the previous one. If you've been playing Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together for long enough to know every single action that's optimal to take, you should probably try playing another game if only for your sanity.

TL;DR: Game is deterministic and so very easy to "solve" for experienced players, but this isn't too pressing of an issue.

TL;DR: Choices good, randomizer mechanics good.

[Mike23Ua]

I 100% agree with randomization- but luckily there are ways to (some degree) already do that, I change my seasons and weather to random.. it sure as heck beats “oh day 20 Winter is here let me go get X, X and Y to stay Alive” 

I enjoy Day 3?!?! And it’s Summer?! Oh crap.. I’m dead.

The game actually HAS that, and more importantly it also has modes players can play where dying is 125% meaningless: So they can literally die as many times as they want to to LEARN what works and doesn’t work… 

Thats important to note: Because in the original game you didn’t have that chance to roll your world back to a previous save, to haunt the portal for infinite Respawn (Endless), or to just die and Respawn skipping the whole ghost phase altogether (wilderness) In Solo DS dead was Dead- The end, thanks for playing now start over.

DST however has a multitude of ways of reviving.. so if the player is Unwilling to learn through many many meaningless deaths, they probably in all honesty shouldn’t be playing this game because it was never designed FOR THEM.

And Klei would be wise to remember that.. you don’t bend your games rules to the point it becomes something unrecognized by original fans.

I personally would enjoy more of the Randomization you spoke about, things that DS single players DLCs do pretty decently such as having biomes where random enemy mobs spawn out of the ground to attack (flurps in shipwrecked) or having trees have a chance to spawn a hostile mob like Snakes or Scorpions.. those are the small Randomization changes the single player game has that Klei for whatever reason- Refuses to refresh DST with..

I would LOVE chopping a tree while at low health and starving not knowing if a Scorpion or Snake was going to spawn from it.

Klei gave us world gen options and more people should USE those.. Die to X mob? Set them to less or None, Enjoy Y? Toggle more of it..

But as far as really changing up the gameplay adding the things like randomization like the snakes & scorpions from chopped trees, or an entire biome where flurps pop out the ground randomly.. Klei hasn’t done that yet..

And I don’t understand what they’re afraid of in doing that.. again I’ll repeat: DYING IN DST IS NEXT TO MEANINGLESS… so if the player isn’t willing to die a billion times and hopefully learn along the way-

Sorry this game and this franchise wasn’t designed for you.

I hate to sound mean or harsh, but when there’s literally a menu of things you can turn on/off more/less over & dying is NOWHERE NEAR as punishing as the original game… Maybe it’s time we stop trying to make the game further appeal to casuals & instead support the niche group people who enjoyed it for what it was?

[Zeklo]

Through the Ages seemed to be going in the right direction for randomization before being axed.

My 'qualm' with DST is the first year(?) is so vastly different from the rest of the gameplay. You gotta overcome hunger, sanity, monsters and winter... etc. But after that it's just free-form. No issue with that, but it's always been abrupt in my eyes.

[Milordo]

4 hours ago, StretchVanb said:

The Only Actual Design Flaw I can Think Of

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There IS still a problem with Don't Starve as a game, but it's only one very experienced players will ever face- The problem of complete knowledge.

Simply put, once you know everything about the game, all of your choices are taken away. The game can pretty easily be reduced to math, and well, that's kinda boring.

Thankfully, this problem is much simpler than the previous one, albeit much more present.

So, how do you fix this?

Well, Don't Starve is a roguelike game, and a tradition of the roguelike genre is r-r-r-r-randomization!

Randomization mechanics are sets of mechanics which add unpredictability to the game. This can already (kinda) be observed in Don't Starve with things such as the spawning of nightmare creatures, but other than that and world generation, the game is mostly deterministic. That measn that after exploring the majority of the world, any experienced player immediately will know the course of action to take, which is BORING but also understandable because designing a game to be infinitely playable is really, really hard.

Before you yell at me, because everyone knows how annoying randomness is in video games, hear me out.

So, my suggestion would be to add randomization mechanics, but only for challenges. Randomizing beneficial things to the player would absolutely be unfun, because players might feel cheated if they don't receive them due to randomness, and random difficulties-only could also just be annoyances. My suggestion would actually be to implement random opportunities- Chances for the player to get something benefical, but very riskily. This could be done with different forms of weather, different enemy variations, tons of stuff. But ultimately I'm not certain what exactly would help, and this issue is much less pressing then the previous one. If you've been playing Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together for long enough to know every single action that's optimal to take, you should probably try playing another game if only for your sanity.

TL;DR: Game is deterministic and so very easy to "solve" for experienced players, but this isn't too pressing of an issue.

TL;DR: Choices good, randomizer mechanics good.

I wanna add to your discussion balance and more options. You did a great discussion and analysis. On the point "once you know everything about the game, all of your choices are taken away" that's more the real issue here. Klei don't help either but the so called """"veterans"""" or pro, who are in the end not what they really are and only resort in doing maths or just call all their ways the " most efficient", have a deep thruth. The other options in the game simply stinks, just look and observe the bloated useless insane list of dishes and dresses that nobody will eat and wear it. You'll never dress a rabbit earmuffs because it's simply not a good choice even at the early game if you can do much better in less time giving you more reward.

Obviously there are exceptions, but if klei could do a big huge balance tweaks and reworks to atleast give option B, C ,D more reward and effort you can see that "knowning everything" will change into " i know everything but must see what the map offers me now and use it at the right time" which is the true difficult of the game, i wish klei would reinforce it. Because in the end, in a survival rouge-like sandbox, you want to do a mondane task the fastest and "efficient" way possible, that's why the game became what we have today.

( Great topics btw about the game design. You don't see often here in the forum)

[Yuuko]

The problem with the *other* discussion about DST being bad game design was that it was more an irrational attack on the game / Klei then a critique of the game.  You can say "Wildfire is a bad mechanic because XYZ" and people can debate about it reasonably.  But if you come in and say something like "wildfire is ruining DST! this game is awful because XYZ" you're going to get a lot of counter-hostility.  Largely because there are answers to everything in game, and if you think the game is unplayable because of a thing, even for new players, you're just wrong.

I think its unfair to say the game doesn't teach you anything through playing the game, but the game could do with giving a bit more info on things you've encountered within the game rather than relying on external wikis.  Also consoles could use a creative mode (and a good control set lol)

[AlternateMew]

5 hours ago, Milordo said:

Obviously there are exceptions, but if klei could do a big huge balance tweaks and reworks to atleast give option B, C ,D more reward and effort you can see that "knowning everything" will change into " i know everything but must see what the map offers me now and use it at the right time"

The way I like seeing this handled is by making no item useless. If it has a similar but weaker use than another item, then give the weaker item something the stronger item does not have. 

A series I saw this added and then sadly thrown away was Animal Crossing. There were normal, silver, and gold tier items. One game decided to keep normal as is, aka the stuff you use before you get the good stuff, other games had only normal and gold which was fine because of the work needed for the gold stuff. But ONE game. Made the silver and gold items have different uses. The silver shovel was for gems, the gold for planting money. The silver axe for decorative stumps, the gold for mass deforestation. 

DS/T almost has that. I can think of offhand examples, but bad ones. Beefalo hat and Bearger vest. Those are both high tier heat items, but with secondary boons (Beefalo don't attack you in heat and slower hunger drain). Spread the love and put useful secondary effects on lower tier items that higher tier items don't have. Then you can trade higher tier protection for lower tier protection but with a useful boon.

Some may also already exist. Please point them out for I am sleepy and not looking things up.

[Milordo]

2 hours ago, AlternateMew said:

The way I like seeing this handled is by making no item useless. If it has a similar but weaker use than another item, then give the weaker item something the stronger item does not have. 

A series I saw this added and then sadly thrown away was Animal Crossing. There were normal, silver, and gold tier items. One game decided to keep normal as is, aka the stuff you use before you get the good stuff, other games had only normal and gold which was fine because of the work needed for the gold stuff. But ONE game. Made the silver and gold items have different uses. The silver shovel was for gems, the gold for planting money. The silver axe for decorative stumps, the gold for mass deforestation. 

DS/T almost has that. I can think of offhand examples, but bad ones. Beefalo hat and Bearger vest. Those are both high tier heat items, but with secondary boons (Beefalo don't attack you in heat and slower hunger drain). Spread the love and put useful secondary effects on lower tier items that higher tier items don't have. Then you can trade higher tier protection for lower tier protection but with a useful boon.

Some may also already exist. Please point them out for I am sleepy and not looking things up.

Exactly! Exactly! 

[StretchVanb]

10 hours ago, AlternateMew said:

The way I like seeing this handled is by making no item useless. If it has a similar but weaker use than another item, then give the weaker item something the stronger item does not have. 

A series I saw this added and then sadly thrown away was Animal Crossing. There were normal, silver, and gold tier items. One game decided to keep normal as is, aka the stuff you use before you get the good stuff, other games had only normal and gold which was fine because of the work needed for the gold stuff. But ONE game. Made the silver and gold items have different uses. The silver shovel was for gems, the gold for planting money. The silver axe for decorative stumps, the gold for mass deforestation. 

DS/T almost has that. I can think of offhand examples, but bad ones. Beefalo hat and Bearger vest. Those are both high tier heat items, but with secondary boons (Beefalo don't attack you in heat and slower hunger drain). Spread the love and put useful secondary effects on lower tier items that higher tier items don't have. Then you can trade higher tier protection for lower tier protection but with a useful boon.

Some may also already exist. Please point them out for I am sleepy and not looking things up.

This would be an excellent way to at least delay the feeling of “too easiness” I imagine a lot of more experienced players feel after enough playtime. It, at worse, would give more choices to the player, which is very rarely a bad thing, ESPECIALLY when we’re talking about experienced players who already know all the correct choices. 
 

I suppose it could get out of hand and confuse new players, but simply making certain items more balanced doesn’t seem like that would have that effect, but of course I’m not certain about any of this.

 

I feel like something that might be fun, which is present in a few games (Dwarf Fortress anyone?) would be challenges that encourage certain base-building puzzles. However, because not all players enjoy base building and it isn’t necessarily the root of the game (unlike Dwarf Fortress), and making said mechanics too obtuse could exacerbate the feeling of new player “un-choice ness”, it might be best to make said base building puzzles optional.

 

A really good example of this is actually Terraria, but of course it isn’t quite perfect. By setting up your buildings in a certain way, you can gain access to teleportation, discounts, and other unique features. 
 

I believe Don’t Starve Together is easily at a point where a mechanic like this would be welcome, and would probably encourage a ton of new interesting mega bases and structure patterns. 
 

Basically, Don’t Starve Together is a puzzle game, and more puzzle pieces = good, in moderation

[Mantispidae]

I think this kind of design ultimately worked out better in regular DS, since for the most part- challenges you were given weren't so much reliant on if you had the right pieces of the puzzle but if you had the skill and preparation for it. You can beat deerclops with a spear and a grass suit with enough skill, but having the football helmet and hambat makes that skill requirement a peg lower- raising the chance for survival. You could beat winter with some strategic fire starting and some earmuffs but getting a thermal stone would help.

In DS this is more just a linear upgrade route for a lot of items, get the less effective stuff, work your way up to the better, and now you're more prepared for what you get. Since it was a "mess up and you die" situation, straight upgrades worked pretty effectively because they were essentially rewards for playing smart enough to get them, and you could still lose a lot.

However seen DST is a more communal and less "one mess up and its over" the end result is that the direct upgrade nature of some things feels more like dozens of worthless choices. Some of them aren't that bad- I don't like hambats because they spoil but that spoiling mechanic keeps weapon alternatives tempting. But at the same time I'd like to use ranged weapons like the darts but they're so expensive and tedious for what they are and the return value on them is pretty pathetic. In contrast I've been using the marble suits more rather than just log suits and rather enjoy them! They have a speed debuff as a downside but the increased defense is pretty cool in the right situations.

I think a lot of items work as good "not the best but it will do" items like the parasols and that's fine. But I also wouldn't mind a rework or addition of some items to make them seem more like proper alternative choices. I get that on one hand this could feel like "bloat" and some people just say get rid of anything that sucks and leave only the good items, but I like having stupid things I can craft for fun. Hell more than anything I like turning on mods that add MORE FOOD simply so that I can waste even more time filling out the cookbook with 500 useless dishes that are too niche to make regularly, half my files are are glorified cooking games. I'd love too see items that provide good alternative solutions to what the game throws at you vs. just having objective best choice for everything

[Mysterious box]

16 hours ago, AlternateMew said:

The way I like seeing this handled is by making no item useless. If it has a similar but weaker use than another item, then give the weaker item something the stronger item does not have. 

A series I saw this added and then sadly thrown away was Animal Crossing. There were normal, silver, and gold tier items. One game decided to keep normal as is, aka the stuff you use before you get the good stuff, other games had only normal and gold which was fine because of the work needed for the gold stuff. But ONE game. Made the silver and gold items have different uses. The silver shovel was for gems, the gold for planting money. The silver axe for decorative stumps, the gold for mass deforestation. 

DS/T almost has that. I can think of offhand examples, but bad ones. Beefalo hat and Bearger vest. Those are both high tier heat items, but with secondary boons (Beefalo don't attack you in heat and slower hunger drain). Spread the love and put useful secondary effects on lower tier items that higher tier items don't have. Then you can trade higher tier protection for lower tier protection but with a useful boon.

Some may also already exist. Please point them out for I am sleepy and not looking things up.

Not a dst thing but rabbit muffs block sound attacks in hamlet if I remember right.

[Hatty DeWitt]

Tbh my problem with the learning curve is that after you get to a point, whenever you die to something you don't know of, it will result in several hours of progress and it'll be long before you can apply your new knowledge. Plus, you might die to something else before that.

I'd say (even as a person with 500hrs of playtime) that learning Don't Starve is too much of a time commitment and very sluggish. Sure, when you restart you gain more experience with every other mechanic as well, even if it's not related to your death, but there's just too much stuff that can and will surprise players in the learning process and kill them several times.

I feel like the game is just too long to use permadeath so predominantly, specially during the learning process. Dying feels punishing even if you still have touch stones or life giving amulets. But one thing is to be punishing, another is to just waste hours of your time, that honestly, starts feeling like it could've been better spent with something else.

[WoodieMain45684]

6 minutes ago, Hatty DeWitt said:

Tbh my problem with the learning curve is that after you get to a point, whenever you die to something you don't know of, it will result in several hours of progress and it'll be long before you can apply your new knowledge.

I would agree if revive mechanics weren't already super prominent. In my experience, a player's willingness to continue usually burns out before they've exhausted their options (say their entire base was burnt down), even excluding revive mechanics they may not be aware of. Simply just touch stones and telltale hearts.

In short, what kills a world isn't their character dying, but the player's persistence dying. 

[Also rollback is a thing and is used as a psuedo revive often.]

[ArubaroBeefalo]

10 minutes ago, WoodieMain45684 said:

Also rollback is a thing and is used as a psuedo revive often

And the kind of server you chose, in some you revive at the portal and in others you can select a new character and pick up your stuff (if you are alone or with friends, in pubs your loot flies)

[Mike23Ua]

Sigh.. I’ll repeat this one more time- when you launch DST when you host a world.. you have OPTIONS to change many many many MANY factors about how your game is going to play: the first of those options are which MODE you want to play on.

SURVIVAL- Resources take longer to regrow, players who die become a spooky ghost constantly draining the sanity of any players who are still alive unless that ghost player gets revived, or leaves the game, when ALL players have died, a countdown timer starts to find a method of reviving or else your world gets deleted forever- Goodbye thanks for trying.

ENDLESS- Resources Respawn faster, Players who die becoming a ghost DO NOT drain sanity of all remaining players, and they can simply float back to the portal they spawned into the game from and revive themselves by haunting it, if all players die and become ghosts who cares??? You have no countdown timer till your world is deleted- just go haunt the dang portal and LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES.

WILDERNESS- If you happen to be of the “Lazy” type and can’t figure out how to open a world map and float back to the swirling black symbol that indicates the portal or simply just don’t want to.., you can pick Wilderness where Dying skips the becoming a ghost phase altogether and instead let’s you go back to the character selection screen Respawning in the same world somewhere on the map Randomly.

These are 3 main modes of play but outside of that: You can literally toggle On & Off, More or Less of almost every single mob, structure, boss or feature about your world.