The game needs to advertise it's lategame items

[reallychina]

A recent topic asking about DST popularity made me think of reasons why it does not catch on as much as it would deserve.

I think a fundamental reason is that upkeep in a regular game (no ruins gear/no boss gear) is a miserable experience. While being miserable is part of a survival game and i am not suggesting getting rid of it, being miserable long term and in repeated playthroughs will turn off most reasonable people.

 

Having played in pubs recently and having watched streams, i noticed that many people do not do ruins rushes or don't even have caves enabled. I've seen many streamers delaying ruins or not using ruins and boss gear.

 

Yes that content is harder but most people won't have an incentive to do it because they don't even know the gear well enough and what can be done with it. I am willing to bet most people don't even know it exists.

 

But that gear, contrary to the popular opinion that it's rushed to increase pp size, makes the game much, much, much more pleasant and less tedious.

Consider first winter (edit: or ANY winter). Most people will not rush ruins, will not do dragonfly. What this means is that they will have to

• chop a lot of wood or find other fuel sources to keep up a firepit
• fuel that fire pit over and over
• have a low temperature thermal stone that will fizzle out a few steps outside base
• not be able to hotswap thermals because the fire will die out as they leave base
• depending on insulating gear
• have shadow hands trying to extinguish the fire, making you have to either push them or dedicate time to cook sanity foods
• fail to see the whole base clearly 
• have to stock up, restock light bulbs, fuel lanterns

If they do ruins/dfly they will be able to

• never chop a single tree unless it's for other unrelated items (sewing kit/boats/buildings)
• never build a fire pit
• have a high temperature thermal stone that will last infinitely more than the regular one (1 furnace and one star heats the stone higher and you can do 2 furnaces and star, which is even better)
• hotswap between your used thermal and the one that is being kept constantly overheated by furnace/star
• never need insulating gear
• never get shadow hands
• see the whole base clearly
• get crops grow faster (you lose 1/3 of crop growth every day if it's night, with starcaller light you have continuous growth)
• rarely if ever use lightbulbs if you have magiluminescence, walk faster, have head slot free for armor and hand slow free for weapon

Situation #1 is NOT fun. It's ok once, twice, thrice, but at some point any sensible person will say "** that".

What i am proposing is to find ways to present such gear to all players. One way could be tokenized rewards for a limited event - Say midsummer carnival could give you ethereal endgame/boss items that last 2 days or something. Another way, or something that could work along that, could be gifs on loading screen showing those items used (magi/starcaller) and explaining what they do. Maybe failed survivors setpieces with half used starcallers or even boss gear during an event (midsummer carnival)

 

I am not saying make those items easier to get or make the regular gamplay loop easier, i am saying aggressively advertise the endgame items in someway. 

 

[Hornete]

I was with you when I heard late game stuff being more known, the Fuelweaver/Celestial Champion Questlines are.. very unintuitive and i cant possibly see how anyone would ever discover and solve those questlines on their own.

And then you lost me with your reasoning being that most people dont rush the ruins. Though I do often see people rush ruins in pubs, usually it's some cocky Wx and I later see they died from the Ancient Guardian later in chat, haha.

Spoiler

Reminds me of a pub experience after the webber refresh where a server crowned me king with a thulecite crown because of my spider army, and the Wx that had ruins rushed got ticked off and started murdering my spiders, to no ones surprise, everyone else kicked them off the server. But I'm getting too sidetracked right now, xD.

 

[Mike23Ua]

Just go into advanced settings and change it so you can view all of the games craftable items- it doesn’t tell you how to craft these things, but at least it makes you aware that they all exist.

I don’t think everything should just be handed to the player on a silver plater that’s not the type of game DS was & it shouldn’t be the type of game DST becomes.

[reallychina]

2 minutes ago, Hornete said:

I was with you when I heard late game stuff being more known, the Fuelweaver/Celestial Champion Questlines are.. very unintuitive and i cant possibly see how anyone would ever discover and solve those questlines on their own.

 

I'm wasn't saying the questline should be explained, but that the items themselves must be advertised. If people knew how good some were (and played them for a while), they would become curious and search how to get them.

 

 

2 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

I don’t think everything should just be handed to the player on a silver plater that’s not the type of game DS was & it shouldn’t be the type of game DST becomes.

You wouldn't be handled anything. They'd be ethereal items that lasted a couple of days and could be received during events only. Item description and use can be portrayed in simple gifs.

[Theon]

9 minutes ago, Hornete said:

the Fuelweaver/Celestial Champion Questlines are.. very unintuitive and i cant possibly see how anyone would ever discover and solve those questlines on their own.

I would love to see a redesign on these questlines

[MondayNight]

Imagine a server where all 6-8 people rush Ruins... *we need more Ruins*

[DVGMedia]

Honestly I enjoy that klei added more tips that talk about exploring caves more. Klei did a good job on letting people explore which is what the whole game is based on. The ruins has a natural exploration route.

That is because the ruins is like the central hub of the caves no matter what biome you enter your cave from they end up going into the ruins if they explore deeper.

secondly majority of end game gear is not used. Only things used are the star staffs  magilumensiance and occasional crowns.

every other item is super niche. orange is only good for canes but thats late game
Greens are duping or making that hard to craft item cheaper
Thule armor is a tophat with 90 protection
vs crown being a chance to avoid stunlocks
Club is discount walking cane  but really good on targets that don't move.
pick/axe Gold tool that can do both chop and mine.
Like the 2 best items that benefit the base are bundling and the furnace

Most ruins gear is self orientated
secondly majority of players only ever really play up to maybe spring if the world is not an endless server
thats a good 4 to 5 hour game session.
and the world would reset the next day having them do it all again.

As you get better at the game though and decide to take more risks the game rewards you
as a good player you can rush things earlier to make your life easier
but its not needed at the same time.
What klei should do is hint at something more using the systems they have in place
 

[ArubaroBeefalo]

2 hours ago, Hornete said:

I was with you when I heard late game stuff being more known, the Fuelweaver/Celestial Champion Questlines are.. very unintuitive and i cant possibly see how anyone would ever discover and solve those questlines on their own.

And then you lost me with your reasoning being that most people dont rush the ruins. Though I do often see people rush ruins in pubs, usually it's some cocky Wx and I later see they died from the Ancient Guardian later in chat, haha.

  Reveal hidden contents

Reminds me of a pub experience after the webber refresh where a server crowned me king with a thulecite crown because of my spider army, and the Wx that had ruins rushed got ticked off and started murdering my spiders, to no ones surprise, everyone else kicked them off the server. But I'm getting too sidetracked right now, xD.

 

[reallychina]

2 hours ago, EsaiXD said:

secondly majority of players only ever really play up to maybe spring if the world is not an endless server
thats a good 4 to 5 hour game session.
and the world would reset the next day having them do it all again.

exactly. and that part (mainly winter) is a chore without good gear. repeat it 20x times and you get frustrated and bored enough to quit

[Mike23Ua]

31 minutes ago, reallychina said:

exactly. and that part (mainly winter) is a chore without good gear. repeat it 20x times and you get frustrated and bored enough to quit

If I had this mindset, I’d delete pretty much every game on my Xbox.

Let me explain: I’m currently playing a game called Tainted Grail: Conquest on Xbox Gamepass, this game.. much like DS/DST is a learning process, you live.. you die, you live again, you die again but along the way: You learn new strategies, you overcome what’s been killing you, & when something challenges you, you keep playing to prove to yourself you can overcome it.

With DS dying meant losing your saved world.. with DST it means losing all the craftables you’ve learned or at least reducing your health stats.

In TG:C dying means losing every card you had earned throughout the run of the game, however.. in future runs you’ll know who to talk to or what to equip once obtained etc.. so your future attempts “hopefully” go more smoothly.

Your wanting to make things more known to casuals- but I can promise you this: If a Casual spent 15-20 game days taming a Beefalo or fully upgrading a boat only to lose that Beefalo to a swarm of Bees or to have that boat destroyed by a Cookie Cutter group or RockJaw shark: There’s a very high chance that player is going to grow annoyed and quit the game.

But it’s the people who DO QUIT that the game was never targeted towards: While the ones determined to play will immediately start building a new boat to go back out to sea and then mass slaughter all those cookie cutters that ate their last boat.

We don’t need “previews” of what items do in a game like DS/DST players should still have to experiment and discover a few things on their own.

[loopuleasa]

with the new crafting menu, it's easier than ever

[Well-met]

are you trying to say the game is bad if you dont craft ruins gear before first winter

[planetearth]

Man non-rushing-ruins ds is what I have been playing for years and what I love. And so do like, a lot of people.

[oCrapaCreeper]

8 hours ago, reallychina said:

But that gear, contrary to the popular opinion that it's rushed to increase pp size,

this thread isn't helping with that at all

[reallychina]

46 minutes ago, oCrapaCreeper said:

this thread isn't helping with that at all

not my problem, is it?

3 hours ago, Well-met said:

are you trying to say the game is bad if you dont craft ruins gear before first winter

no. the game is bad if you don't do ruins and bosses at all.

[PandoPon]

From my perspective; rushing the ruins was one short way to ruin the thrill of the first few seasons - which in turn made me super bored with the gameplay of that world.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

9 hours ago, reallychina said:

not my problem, is it?

no. the game is bad if you don't do ruins and bosses at all.

so while learning the game you feel like playing a bad game? wtf