Optional tutorial to aid new players

[goblinball]

13 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

do you realize that the difficulty in this game is not knowing stuff? DST isnt a hard game in terms of skill but knowledge

You say this like most new players don’t learn about the basics of survival through guides, the wiki, or friends; instead of just through gameplay (and the ones that don’t use outside resources very frequently get frustrated and quit very quickly). A tutorial teaching the basics wouldn’t “ruin the difficulty” or whatever, it’d just make the game actually enjoyable for new players without having to rely on slowly browsing through external resources just to get to the actual game. Never using outside resources and only learning about DST through trial and error sounds like absolute hell, and not in a fun or challenging way. 

[Capybara007]

8 minutes ago, goblinball said:

Never using outside resources and only learning about DST through trial and error sounds like absolute hell, and not in a fun or challenging way. 

There is people that enjoy it

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 minute ago, Capybara007 said:

There is people that enjoy it

that is actually one of the things that made me love the franchise back in the day but seems like every game should be mainstream and forced to be liked for everyone because niche games cant exists 

[Dextops]

2 minutes ago, Capybara007 said:

There is people that enjoy it

and there is a sizeable amount of people who don't
 

having an explanation like what maxwell did in ds would be fine enough or some basic controls the game tells you it doesn't have to be hand holding 

[Mike23Ua]

9 minutes ago, goblinball said:

You say this like most new players don’t learn about the basics of survival through guides, the wiki, or friends; instead of just through gameplay (and the ones that don’t use outside resources very frequently get frustrated and quit very quickly). A tutorial teaching the basics wouldn’t “ruin the difficulty” or whatever, it’d just make the game actually enjoyable for new players without having to rely on slowly browsing through external resources just to get to the actual game. Never using outside resources and only learning about DST through trial and error sounds like absolute hell, and not in a fun or challenging way. 

What we are trying to say: is what would a “Tutorial” teach a player? And at what point does the game stop guiding the player?

Its not hard to understand after dying a few times to darkness that you need a light source or your going to KEEP Dying. 

Your character making remarks like “Too, Dark! Can’t See!” Or “What was that noise?!” Followed by a message -You are Dead.. should be enough to clue them in.

When Winter starts “Brr too cold” “I’m F-f-Freezing!” Followed by watching your health drain away should be plenty of information..

So- What I would like is for the people who thinks DST needs a tutorial to explain and within great depth- Exactly WHERE does the Tutorial end & you start learning to play the game?

You can turn off many features of the game to learn things at your own pace now.. but to even KNOW you want to turn something off, you have to die to it enough/know what it does first.

[Capybara007]

Dont starve would sell more if it had a tutorial, but it doesnt, because klei wanted to make a game the way they like, adding a tutorial would bring more controversy than benefits. Period.

[Mike23Ua]

2 minutes ago, Dextops said:

and there is a sizeable amount of people who don't
 

having an explanation like what maxwell did in ds would be fine enough or some basic controls the game tells you it doesn't have to be hand holding 

Maxwell doesn’t actually explain anything in Solo DS he just spawns you near stuff and the game expects you to figure out what to do with it.

 

[Dextops]

2 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Maxwell doesn’t actually explain anything in Solo DS he just spawns you near stuff and the game expects you to figure out what to do with it.

 

he at least tells you to get light iirc its been a while

[ArubaroBeefalo]

46 minutes ago, Dextops said:

and there is a sizeable amount of people who don't
 

having an explanation like what maxwell did in ds would be fine enough or some basic controls the game tells you it doesn't have to be hand holding 

I mean, some lore background and telling the controls wouldnt hurt and i guess will be very welcome but also wouldnt be different of simply checking the settings

[HumanBean150]

I think a couple of people are making the assumption that knowledge about the game has a large impact on skill in the beginnings of learning the game.

As someone who started out by practically memorizing the wiki, I can strongly, strongly disagree.

Knowing that darkness kills you never stopped me from going out without a torch and dying multiple times. Knowing that warrior spiders spawn when you attack spiders on spider creep didn't stop me from doing it by mistake and losing half my health. Knowing all the ways to gain sanity didn't stop me from going insane and dying to shadows.

It's a wild gap between knowing about the game, and knowing how to play the game. Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together's difficulty both come from the number of things you may have to manage at once, not the lack of knowledge about the game world. 

Being killed by darkness and red caps may kill a player once or twice, but the real challenge is the learned skill of managing your Hunger, Health, Sanity, Temperature, Light Level, any mobs that may be attacking you, and whatever other gimmick your character has, all at once. 

I don't personally think a direct tutorial should be added. 

Maybe a guaranteed skeleton near the postern with a torch and a grass suit.

Maybe a highlight to essential items, such as the crock pot and football helm.

But to be honest, a tutorial would not help too terribly much. The player can learn how to kill a spider, how to use a crock pot, and how to make a light separately. 

But once you put them together, it's a whole new game. I would much rather some better indirect teaching, such as showing the player how useful armor is, emphasizing the importance of certain crafts, and explaining better the pros and cons of certain characters.

[GetNerfedOn]

On 11/5/2021 at 10:48 PM, Geo95 said:

This thread was a mistake.

in contrast, i'd say it was a resounding success.

You got accurate data, and opinions from more or less both sides of the argument. Sure, a few people got heated, or baited others with rather blatant statements, but at the end of the day if you filter through the rhetoric you can grab the data you need and work from there.

Keep making polls, young grasshopper. I look forward to your progress.

 

On another note there's this particular post by the devs I always bring up that explains in depth why the game doesn't have a tutorial or achievements. I'll look for it later and post it here.

[Maxposting]

On 11/5/2021 at 3:35 PM, Mike23Ua said:

AGAIN This is EXACTLY how players learned in DS Solo without having blinking on screen indicators telling them exactly what to craft or do.

Except thats how YOU learned. Majority of the players didn't use adventure mode simply to learn, it is supposed to be a challenge, not a tutorial system.

[Vixen Doe]

the general sentiment seems to be that most players enjoy the challenge the game gave them by not having a tutorial. why change that almost 9 years after the fact?

[Mike23Ua]

I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me in great depth exactly what all a “Tutorial” would cover & at what point does it stop holding your hand & make you learn on your own?? If the General response is Winter or When Deerclops shows up- Then adding such a Ridiculous feature would be a waste of time: Why? BECAUSE when Winter & Deerclops shows up is when most people Quit the game.

With that said: there’s an Ability to turn on/off/more/less pretty much anything in the game, USE IT & get comfortable with the various parts of the game & what it does.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

31 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

With that said: there’s an Ability to turn on/off/more/less pretty much anything in the game, USE IT & get comfortable with the various parts of the game & what it does.

exactly, some friends of mine really like the game but they dont enjoy the default difficulty so for learning they turned hounds to less and made all season, except autumn, short

they have time in the future to play default or in more difficult ways

[HumanBean150]

1 hour ago, Mike23Ua said:

I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me in great depth exactly what all a “Tutorial” would cover & at what point does it stop holding your hand & make you learn on your own?? If the General response is Winter or When Deerclops shows up- Then adding such a Ridiculous feature would be a waste of time: Why? BECAUSE when Winter & Deerclops shows up is when most people Quit the game.

I kinda agree with Mike on this one: anything a tutorial could teach, a player should be able to figure out on their own after maybe an hour of play time. 

It seems a little bit silly to introduce a tutorial only to teach something that doesn't carry over into the real game.

Like, honestly, what would the tutorial teach? 

The only thing I can think of is maybe a couple of the buttons like control, shift, and f.

Anything actually ingame would be much better off as subtle hints towards certain concepts.

 

[Mx-Pain]

[goblinball]

12 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

With that said: there’s an Ability to turn on/off/more/less pretty much anything in the game, USE IT & get comfortable with the various parts of the game & what it does.

Do you honestly expect new players to be able to navigate the world settings and enable/disable stuff they don’t even understand? While I think world settings are amazing, ultimately they do not supplement a tutorial, as new players won’t have even encountered half the stuff on the settings and might make foolish decisions such as setting beefalo or pig houses to none. Plus, the amount of settings dst gives you would be very overwhelming for new players, I can imagine them just not touching it at all because of a lack of understanding.

 

12 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

 

I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me in great depth exactly what all a “Tutorial” would cover & at what point does it stop holding your hand & make you learn on your own?? If the General response is Winter or When Deerclops shows up- Then adding such a Ridiculous feature would be a waste of time: Why? BECAUSE when Winter & Deerclops shows up is when most people Quit the game.

 

The tutorial should prepare you for winter and deerclops, perhaps teach the basics about warmth/insanity auras. Most people quit the game at winter/deerclops because the game does such a poor job of telling you how to survive winter. It can be frustrating to lose hours (20 in-game days equals 160 minutes, or 2 hours and 40 minutes) worth of progress because the game has tossed what may seem like an unbeatable hurdle at you and expected you to just “figure it out”. How are players supposed to notice the thermal stone, 1 specific item surrounded by many of others (and only available at an alchemy engine) and decide to craft that in preparation for winter? How are players supposed to figure out you can shave beefalo at night using a razor, or how you can feed a beefalo to lure it away from the crowd to make killing it a breeze? How are players supposed to figure out that the breezy vest is.... not good, to say the least? I never figured these out on my own, I had help from friends, and I don’t blame myself for not figuring this out, as the game does a terrible job of communicating to the player how they are supposed to play the game. It doesn’t even need to be super direct, just give subtle tips like “the thermal stone, once heated up, is great for keeping warm!” Or smth!

[Mantispidae]

I think if anything the starting game prompt that you should "give it a go" on your own private server could be a bit more of a shove in that direction, maybe by having a button that takes you either straight to the server set up or a prompt to just instantly generate an offline world for you with premade settings? Just a lil shove for new-new players to actually try and get to know the game before hopping into pubs.

Hell, maybe even make a special settings tutorial map seed (rather than a randomized one) that have a few things set up to help initially like set pieces and whatnot that help get your feet wet. I just think that maybe suggesting "go make your own server first maybe" isn't enough of a push for most people, and looking at the server settings right out the gate before you know what any of those things even mean can be equally as confusing. Having it ready to go for a newbie right out the gate streamlines the process so that people are more willing to take it but also still leaves the "learn as you go" aspect.

[fimmatek]

There is a small, yet great thing that I saw in another game, Sunless Sea. When loading the game, the following text appeares:

"Explore. Take Risks. Your first captain will probably die. Later captains may succeed."

I think DST could benefit greatly for something like that at the loading screen or somewhere where new players see it well. Because one of the core mechanics of DS/T is exploration, not the world, but the game itself. Players supposed to go out and see what they can do in this game, explore it and find their own ways to solve difficulties. I often see that people are afraid of dying and "failing", but the game is meant to kill you, untill you learn how to combat the dangers and survive indefinitely. 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

8 hours ago, goblinball said:

The tutorial should prepare you for winter and deerclops, perhaps teach the basics about warmth/insanity auras

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

man, i though the tutorial you were refering will be just controls and here is your crafting menú. Why not preparaning for summer too? And teach them how to defeat CC because noobs die a lot by darkness...

What a day to wake up and read the forums... i though the limit was saying that dst have paywall content or that the devs are pr0 games and now you come with a winter+deerclops tutorial

8 hours ago, goblinball said:

How are players supposed to notice the thermal stone, 1 specific item surrounded by many of others (and only available at an alchemy engine) and decide to craft that in preparation for winter?

Maybe that players didnt born to use their mental capacities but with other skills. They can have fun with other activities that doesnt burn their brains

[Mike23Ua]

A tutorial that teaches players how to play and deal with each weather season would not be a tutorial.. it would be direct hand holding.

I am 100% unbiased in my opinions- so… I also see where Klei ALREADY provides direct hand holding: Aka starting resources when you spawn so you have things like Grass, Twigs, Rabbit Earmuffs or Pretty Parasol already in your inventory if you join a world in progress during the games seasons- these items WILL keep you alive long enough to craft more/get better items.

I learned how to craft a Thermal Stone by the way from Single Player Dont Starve because it’s one of the many pre-crafted items you will already find in the world near a pre-crafted (and dying) campfire you spawn near throughout the games Adventure Mode.

DST does not have this “Adventure Mode” but- for those of you who never played- it was a campaign made up of 5 randomly generated worlds each world had its own unique gimmicks and challenges applied, and should you die in world 5… you start over again entirely at world 1.

The game you are playing is classified as a- Rogue-Lite type game, it is NOT Minecraft, it is NOT Dark Souls- It is more akin to other Rogue-Lites such as: Slay the Spire, Spelunky or Dont Starve Solo..

A Rogue-Lite= a game where what happens, what you experience, and how you will progress through the game is based entirely on your own skill and sheer dumb blind luck of what spawns, what your able to craft/obtain- These type of games are DESIGNED to Stack the odds against you when you least expect it..

And having anything beyond the “starting resources” would become direct hand holding in a game that was advertised as being a no hand holding uncompromising wilderness survival game.

So: DST can benefit greatly from a short and FORCED Adventures mode challenge on new players, they can’t play Online until they complete the 5-15 minute Adventure of pre-existing set pieces that teaches them the same things we experienced players learned throughout DS Solo’s Adventure.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

2 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

 

Again, adventure mode wasnt nothing close to a tutorial because wasnt accesible from a menú but SURVIVING until you find the maxwell door  so what a tutorial that appears when you already know the basics

Sure, you can learn stuff from there but you can also learn by just playing the sandbox mode and being curious about the recipes (not like that players that other user said that have hard time looking in the survival tapa to find something to... surviva. And thermal stone? What is it use? Is name thermal, pretty sure is to hit turkeys with it)

[Filip_G]

10 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

So: DST can benefit greatly from a short and FORCED Adventures mode challenge on new players, they can’t play Online until they complete the 5-15 minute Adventure of pre-existing set pieces that teaches them the same things we experienced players learned throughout DS Solo’s Adventure.

Haha. and when I said basicaly the same, I was a monster eh. What would be next, a big message on a loading screen saying "Warning for the brainless, summer is hot, winter is cold, spiders bite and big, noisy and ugly creatures are not your friends"?

[Mike23Ua]

20 minutes ago, Filip_G said:

Haha. and when I said basicaly the same, I was a monster eh. What would be next, a big message on a loading screen saying "Warning for the brainless, summer is hot, winter is cold, spiders bite and big, noisy and ugly creatures are not your friends"?

The difference would be: that instead of the game telling you what these things are or do- you discover it for yourself.

Like- you can set failed survivors to more for world Gen settings, these will spawn useful pre-crafted things into the world for you- now in MULTIPLAYER some other player has probably snagged them up as “free loot” but if you would have played ALONE (what is highlighted & that the game recommends you do before playing Online if it’s your first time playing..) all these “failed survivor” set pieces would be there just for you.

These things aren’t just “oh cool free loot” they ALSO teach you if you’ve never encountered a certain item, what that item does- ranging from everything from rope, and cut stone, to winter gear & walking canes.

My first encounter with a walking cane (& thus what it does..) was by picking one up off a failed survivor- from that point forward I learned “hey this thing makes me move faster… so how do I craft one of my own if I can’t just blindly luck up on it?”

Guess what I’m saying is: The game already has enough of a tutorial, you just have to be willing to learn/pay attention to it.