Do you think Dst should be more popular

[minespatch]

The difficulty of Fromsoft games makes them gatekeeping from the getgo. If you wish to partake in the pleasures of success, you need the grit to withstand many deaths to achieve such a nirvana. 

I say yes and no. More word of mouth is always needed. 

[Spino43]

Nah, it's fine as it is at the moment, not too popular can be a good thing.

Games that are super popular tend to make extremely toxic communities, and I don't want that for dst.

[Cloakingsumo198]

I ain't gonna say no to more players/community members.

[CaptainChaotica]

9 hours ago, Waoling said:

I want more people from Endless series ( and humankind ) and fermi paradox fandom to come join Klei forum so I could talk more about other those games.

Well, I've never played any Endless, but I do have Fermi Paradox on my wishlist.  I'm getting it when it goes on (good) sale.  I can talk about it after that, I guess.

As for DST becoming "more popular"...I'll shorten down my original long-winded pretentious response to just:

Not if it has to sacrifice too much of its original self to be so.  (And by "original self", I mean dark tone, sketchy/desaturated colours, and overall difficulty.)  DON'T genericize it.  There are some levels of popularity that aren't worth it.  It's a balancing act:  I can see where you'd want more players, 'cos more money, but....PLEASE don't chase your original core audience away.

...Notorious

[Blunty_x]

Idc if it gets more popular. As far as I'm concerned china makes this game Insanely popular lol. I do wish we could cross play between consoles to open up the pool of possible pubs and meet new people we wouldn't otherwise. I'm PS5 and would like to play with Mike even though I don't agree with everything he says . 

In the end I believe that it's up to us long time and hard-core players, too teach the newbies, no lie everyone who ive played with and taught have gone onto love the game and some surpassing me in world days, even though I work alot and can't play as Much as I'd like 

2 hours ago, Cloakingsumo198 said:

 

Hey cloak on another note I've been playing on switch handheld to try it out, and I have to say I miss old Wolf, he isn't reworked on switch and I'm loving him again haha

[Mike23Ua]

Why does it need to be popular again? I’m over here imagining this beautiful woman in school who is popular, but in order to BE Popular that girl has to pretend to be everything she’s not.. and Then someone falls in love with that popular girl.. And SHE falls in love with them, But the girl realizes that the Man/Woman that loves them.. Is In love with who they APPEAR to be.

So the girl has two choices: 

A: She continues to live the life of a complete LIE dragging someone else’s heart along loving her for not being herself.

or B: She gives up her popularity and shows her true self to the heart that loves hers & hopes he/she will love the real her.

it’s pretty much the same thing as wanting DST to be more popular. Is it worth it?

[Bugsworth]

meh

[jan Mele]

9 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Minecraft is still one of the most popular games full stop.

It's more of a sandbox, imho

[Mike23Ua]

16 minutes ago, jan Mele said:

It's more of a sandbox, imho

Depends on how you PLAY it.. Minecraft actually has additional toggles you can check to alter your gameplay experience, you can make it harder by changing it so that running out of food makes you start starving, or when you lose health it doesn’t passively recover on its own, OR when you die the game deletes everything you had in your inventory.

You can also disable all the above and just goof off creating stuff in peaceful mode.

Don’t Starve Together is even further advanced than that- You can set Wildfires to happen more often or toggle them off completely, you can set more nightmare monsters or no nightmare monsters, you can toggle on/off/more/less of a good bit of the games content to customize your experience with the game.

Want to disable all seasons except Autumn, turn off all giants and hound waves, Time of Day and spend all your time just building Carrat race courses with your only concern being starvation? You can do that.

Want to increase the difficulty of your DS experience? You can do that too..

Both Minecraft & DST can be Sandbox or Survival games depending on your settings.

[Cheggf]

25 minutes ago, jan Mele said:

It's more of a sandbox, imho

Same with Don't Starve.

[Waoling]

DST isn't that hard, and you can always play on endless mode and social playstyle, there is rollback and you could just things up on the wiki, you wouldn't die unless you do something stupid, underprepared, fighting bosses, or from the elements.

[Cloakingsumo198]

11 hours ago, Blunty_x said:

Hey cloak on another note I've been playing on switch handheld to try it out, and I have to say I miss old Wolf, he isn't reworked on switch and I'm loving him again haha

Spoiler

"You will like new Wolfgang.. You will like new Wolfgang... You will like new Wolfgang"

It's already feels like it's been so long since the loss of old Wolfgang. I still catch myself obtaining absurd quantities of food whenever I play him only for it all to waste away since I don't need it anymore.

I still miss the speed boost.

Spoiler

I actually like new Wolfgang too it's funny how far we've come full circle. Since I think new wolf is stronger, easier, and has much better early game potential and it makes me laugh since those who wanted to see him fall from grace only got to see his rise higher.

One day server's will be full of new players and veterans alike harmonizing together oozing camaraderie.  This won't be because of a change in direction, it will be because of the ULTIMATE CHANGE TO UNITE OUR PEOPLE!!! 

Crossplay.

For years we've been divided by our platforms, we reside side by side here on the badlands but we are blind to each other's plights. But one day random's from ALL platforms will join together in our pub's to build their bases, rush ruins, kill bosses, and live in harmony.

[goblinball]

I don’t understand people who claim that fandoms and communities can ruin games.

[MondayNight]

33 minutes ago, goblinball said:

I don’t understand people who claim that fandoms and communities can ruin games.

Here's one pov sustaining that hypothesis: the larger the crowd, the more chances for higher numbers of trolls/"bad-faith actors" to come into proverbial play, seeding intentional dissent & discord in public discourse for $hit'n'giggles or with some nefarious agenda.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

7 hours ago, Waoling said:

DST isn't that hard, and you can always play on endless mode and social playstyle, there is rollback and you could just things up on the wiki, you wouldn't die unless you do something stupid, underprepared, fighting bosses, or from the elements.

compare ds franchise, which is true that arent skill intensive games, with popular things like lost ark, lol, etc

is a niche game and is intensive in other way that dont atract a wider public and even the players that enjoy these kind of games might not want to play if they dont have enough time or didnt rest enough (you really need to be focused on the game to perform)

[reallychina]

yes i think it should be more popular because it's a good game.

 

however i don't think it will become much popular as is because it makes a very poor effort (read: no effort) to hint/preview endgame items (mostly ruins).

the game is very unpleasant when you play without ruins/boss gear and i can see why most people just get tired of it and say **** that.

constant refueling of fire pits, running after shadow hands that extinguish it, chopping trees with axes for fuel, repairing thermal stones is very bad in the long run, using endothermic fires in summer etc

i'm not saying "it's very bad" as in tryhard/efficiency mode, i'm saying that from a gameplay perspective it becomes unpleasant very fast.

i was playing a winter with warly with a friend and we chose not to rush ruins and delay dfly for day 23 or so to kickstart farming. let me tell you that after playing with magi/starcaller and furnace every single first winter, this first winter was absolutely horrible. getting the furnace made it somewhat bearable but not having a constant starcaller on and not seeing your own base, running out of bulbs, having a thermal stone that would die on me as soon as i left base etc was very frustrating. I can't imagine playing a whole year without the special items, let alone multiple years/playthroughs.

 

it's not that you die without those items, it's just that you're miserable. while being miserable for a while may be part of the game experience, being miserable all the time ruins it.

 

My point is that i can totally understand why so many people lose interest while playing the regular way. The game should introduce previews of the items someway(2 day ethereal ruins/boss items that vanish after), idk. I'm not saying give those items for free, but somehow make players understand how it feels to play with them.

[GenomeSquirrel]

2 hours ago, goblinball said:

I don’t understand people who claim that fandoms and communities can ruin games.

Imagine asking where’s base, and getting icy silence or being strung around in a game that will kill you in minutes in most weathers

[Ornge]

21 hours ago, LinknAllie said:

I've already expressed my views on fandoms as a whole and how they are a plague for video games and other media alike.  When something becomes popular the fanbase ruins it.

That's such a bad mindset because it implies your not allowed to enjoy something if it's popular. You shouldn't feel bad for playing a game just because the fanbase "ruins it". If you follow this train of thought you'll never end up liking anything because the cOmmUnity ruiNs iT. Don't Starve already has some weird fan art made for it as well as people who constantly gatekeep how you play. Despite that annoying minority, several players still enjoy the game because they don't let a few bad apples dictate how they feel about a game. I never understood this idea that anything popular automatically = bad

[goblinball]

2 hours ago, x0-VERSUS-1y said:

Here's one pov sustaining that hypothesis: the larger the crowd, the more chances for higher numbers of trolls/"bad-faith actors" to come into proverbial play, seeding intentional dissent & discord in public discourse for $hit'n'giggles or with some nefarious agenda.

Yeah but that’s the community being obnoxious not the game itself. There’s always the option to just ignore the community or at least the bad parts (I left the official klei discord months ago, for example) if it really bothers you, but even then what happens in a discord server doesn’t lower the quality of a game.

[Mike23Ua]

1 hour ago, Ornge said:

That's such a bad mindset because it implies your not allowed to enjoy something if it's popular. You shouldn't feel bad for playing a game just because the fanbase "ruins it". If you follow this train of thought you'll never end up liking anything because the cOmmUnity ruiNs iT. Don't Starve already has some weird fan art made for it as well as people who constantly gatekeep how you play. Despite that annoying minority, several players still enjoy the game because they don't let a few bad apples dictate how they feel about a game. I never understood this idea that anything popular automatically = bad

I can answer this logically for you.. but your not going to like my honest answer.

The mindset that a more popular game makes the community ruin said game- Does not necessarily come from the community themselves… but rather: The Ideas that said community suggest to the developers they feel will improve that game, and the developers listen because it’s a Popular request, a Request from People whom we’re not the games original targeted audience.

Its like when if say for example DST grew more popular but drew in fans of I don’t know let’s just say Mario, people will request being able to leap up into the air above your enemies head and Ground Slam them to death in one hit, Or they would ask for an Extra Lives system, and THEN the developers implement that because well: It’s a popular request from a group of players who didn’t care to play DST for what it was.. and only showing interest in it at all when the game was modified into something else to become more popular.

While that’s an over exaggerated example: you should still be able to get the idea.

[MondayNight]

3 hours ago, goblinball said:

Yeah but that’s the community being obnoxious not the game itself. There’s always the option to just ignore the community or at least the bad parts (I left the official klei discord months ago, for example) if it really bothers you, but even then what happens in a discord server doesn’t lower the quality of a game.

True, game itself and the developer may not be to blame for what the community does, or rather its inherent minority of "rotten apples". But when almost every match/round/run (games "going big"/popular scenario) has at least 1-2-3 such "apples" spewing profanities at you, and/or trolling your endeavors in-game.. it chips lil-by-lil at your entertaining factor with said game. I had that happening to me with World of Tanks - it was so annoying to have almost in every match peeps from opposite team swearing at you or at members of your team, or your fallen teammates doing so, revealing your position just because you & others weren't on board with their "brilliant" yolo attack plan that got them dead. You can even ignore chat as a whole, you can hop from server-to-server and elude sabotage, but at some point it all becomes cumbersome when you solely desire a little bit of fun escapism.

And then there can be what Mike points above - aka dev changing game (mechanics, genre, difficulty, etc) to fit a new, vocal & apparent target demographic (in the name of "wider audience" concept) instead of initial "hardcore fans" that made game popular to begin with (ex.: Resident Evil series, going from Survival Horror & Puzzle to Action-Adventure Shooter).

[Ornge]

4 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

The mindset that a more popular game makes the community ruin said game- Does not necessarily come from the community themselves… but rather: The Ideas that said community suggest to the developers they feel will improve that game, and the developers listen because it’s a Popular request, a Request from People whom we’re not the games original targeted audience.

This entire argument hinges on the idea that the developers bend down to community will which is almost never true. When the wolfgang rework came out a lot of people immediately wanted it reverted, however this did not happen because the devs aren't puppets who will do whatever the community wants. They do what they believe is best.

9 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Its like when if say for example DST grew more popular but drew in fans of I don’t know let’s just say Mario, people will request being able to leap up into the air above your enemies head and Ground Slam them to death in one hit, Or they would ask for an Extra Lives system, and THEN the developers implement that because well: It’s a popular request from a group of players who didn’t care to play DST for what it was.. and only showing interest in it at all when the game was modified into something else to become more popular.

While that’s an over exaggerated example: you should still be able to get the idea.

What? Just because I played Mario odyssey before doesn't mean I want every game to work and play exactly like it. That's not how gaming communities work. If you want a real example, just look at the terraria update. Tons of terraria players came into the game from that update (I think DST was 14th most played game on steam at one point?), However this influx of players did not change the community in any significant way. No one was asking to add the terraria mana system, No one was asking to make Don't Starve 2d and pixelated. Even if they did, again ; the developers aren't going to add something simply because its a popular request. I don't understand how any of this justifies disliking a game because it's popular

[Mike23Ua]

Oh don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s not even about fans from another community- a lot of the times a games own fanbase will kill the game.

Lets just look at the Battlefield Franchise, I used to love playing that game.. I used to actually enjoy playing the bush camping sniper picking enemies off from afar as they try to take an objective and then raining mortars down on their tanks to aid my allies on the frontlines, HOWEVER: Said stupid community felt the Sniper players weren’t playing an important enough role &/or that they were too annoying to deal with-

So things like Sniper riffles requiring 2-3 shots to kill an enemy, Snipers Twinkling like stars from a million miles away that somehow the guy without a Sniper Rifle can still manage to see and hit with his assault rifle, Sniper Classes weapons of scouting and doing damage from afar while staying hidden from sight was changed so that they were given Close Range Semi Auto Snipers and some stupid Radio Beacon that they wanted you to get as close as possible to all the Action and plant so your team could spawn off of it.

Hence: a Scenario where a games own community killed something I enjoyed about the game.

Also I used to be a Wraith Main in Apex Legends, but all the fans crying Wraith OP please Nerf has had her Nerfed for 12 consecutive seasons.

Popularity doesn’t kill a game, it’s changing that game to be more appealing to the simple minded masses that kills it.

But: from a developer standpoint- They’ll do what rakes in the most money & keeps people playing the game, whilst giving the middle finger to people who may have enjoyed it for what it once was.

I no longer play the Battlefield games anymore, but at one time they were my favorite shooter franchise- until the community turned long range sniping into a absolute joke.

As for Apex Legends.. I just use characters who have Abilities that did what Wraiths used to do.. but better (quickly get team from point A to point B) so instead of using the severally Nerfed Wraith, I just swapped to people like Octane, Ash or Valkyrie.

And yeah I get it not everyone is going to understand this post, but you’ll only be able to understand it when a game you really enjoyed becomes ruined because it became popular and attracted in players that weren’t it’s original audience.

[LinknAllie]

3 hours ago, Ornge said:

That's such a bad mindset because it implies your not allowed to enjoy something if it's popular. You shouldn't feel bad for playing a game just because the fanbase "ruins it". If you follow this train of thought you'll never end up liking anything because the cOmmUnity ruiNs iT. Don't Starve already has some weird fan art made for it as well as people who constantly gatekeep how you play. Despite that annoying minority, several players still enjoy the game because they don't let a few bad apples dictate how they feel about a game. I never understood this idea that anything popular automatically = bad

I never said popular = bad.  Right now the Don't Starve fanbase is filled with a majority of normal people.  It's when the minority of cringe takes over the majority of normal.  That's why I don't like large fanbases.  Because when the singularity of cringe which can also be known as Twitter, Tumblr, or Reddit migrate to a game or show and become obsessed with it, they pump out their cringe, ruin people's view of that game and then it stays that way for a long time or forever even.  Smiling Friends is a more recent example of this.  The show was fine at first but then the Twitter users migrated.  They pumped out their fanart, ruined peoples view of the show, and now people can't be associated with the show without being associated with the cringe.  Minecraft was a big example of this with the Dream SMP crap.  It used to just be little kids making bad videos people could still laugh at because it's little kids being dumb.  Now with Dream Stans and the other cringe Minecraft has likely been ruined for some people.  It's sad to see when it happens.  

 

Then, there are the toxic communities.  My Hero Academia is certainly an example of this.  Recently I heard about how in the community there is a gigantic group of people sending the author death threats over him saying the main character and a side character aren't gay.  It's really sad hearing about it as the author never did anything wrong.  The communities are at fault for what was happening.  They get to involved in their little fantasies and think they are real.

 

The other case is tryhards ruining a game for new players.  Battlefield or Call of Duty are the only real big examples of this.  Noob stomping and smurfing. 

 

Try harding wouldn't be a big problem in DST as friend only worlds are a thing.  Toxic communities can be a genuine threat to KLEI and their business as the fandom could doxx, DDos, or do worse to them if they aren't happy with what they are doing.  Hell, that could even be happening right now and we don't know it.  

[Faintly Macabre]

9 hours ago, LinknAllie said:

Because when the singularity of cringe which can also be known as Twitter, Tumblr, or Reddit migrate to a game or show and become obsessed with it, they pump out their cringe, ruin people's view of that game and then it stays that way for a long time or forever even.

You know what's "cringe"? Unironically using cringe as a noun in 2022. And unnecessary us vs. them. And gatekeeping.

I got news for you: there are plenty of "not normal" people here. And thank god, too. The game probably wouldn't still exist without a lot of them.