Don't Starve Together Roadmap 2023

[Bughead]

IMHO, if this means more accessibility then i'm all for it. Keep it up for those in the back!

and also the lore yessssss. I'm so glad wagstaff is getting some attention for his not-so-sneaky plans.

[.]

11 hours ago, JoeW said:

Now - before you start getting worried, know that we understand that we’re stepping into some weird territory here. Our goal isn't to make the game easier, or even to make the game harder (overall). The goal is to make the game more interesting in the ways that those who love Don’t Starve and Don’t Starve Together will enjoy while also providing people who don’t know the game more opportunities to understand what the game expects of them.. 

But not all Don’t Starve Together players are the same. To some, DST is too easy, to some it’s too hard, and to others it “is what it is” and they don’t want it changed. Our goals here are to offer all players something interesting, fun and engaging and to improve the game in areas we think will have a lasting impact. This roadmap should result in a game that is easier to understand and harder to master.. 

Message recieved..

Hope you guys do the best. As always!

[Paxtonnnn]

I know everyone's already said it, but even if some of them started a small war in the replies, the art for this roadmap is incredible

[slendyproject]

12 hours ago, JoeW said:

We have a few areas that we want to focus on to accomplish this. In terms of content, we plan to delve deeper into the stories surrounding Charlie and Wagstaff, and explore the impact of their actions on The Constant. The introduction of late-game world challenges will change The Constant in ways that players will need to adapt to, either by working with or against them.

I wonder if this means that we will be able to pick a side between the two in some form.

[LiamAshvinn001]

12 hours ago, JoeW said:

 

• A secret bite-sized crossover

[00petar00]

I am overall happy about the decision to alter some of the game's artificial difficulty that comes with players not knowing what to do when they start playing and this will hopefully ease the frustration, game dies and lives by its playerbase and any player that decides to quit because of the anger and lack of understanding on what they should do is a loss to DST as a whole.

There are a lot of people on the forums that claim that DST should be harder and they read all the patch notes and watch youtube videos so they know every single change and the best strategies.

12 hours ago, JoeW said:

The introduction of late-game world challenges will change The Constant in ways that players will need to adapt to, either by working with or against them.

It is undeniable that DST is easy once you have the knowledge and experience so we need late game difficulty and this feels like a very suitable plan to change the Constant 

12 hours ago, JoeW said:

we plan to delve deeper into the stories surrounding Charlie and Wagstaff

I am very much hoping to see what happens with Wagstaff and especially Charlie.

I wish we had more of an idea on what these content updates are going to be and more importantly are they geared towards surface or caves, I am hoping that we get more caves content as it will be more difficult the better overworld is the less people want to go to caves and the players that don't have caves enabled or don't do anything except clearing ruins will be disappointed when content is released for them.

[ThymeSpirit]

13 hours ago, JoeW said:

Wilson now acts as a sort of guide through the progression of the game, without directly telling the player what to do, his new skill tree can guide a player toward long term goals as they explore the world

Wilson's skill tree teaches new players to:

1. Rely on torch instead of upgrading to a lantern or mining hat.

2. Rely on beard for warmth, an exclusive perk of Wilson and Webber, and never try other ways of thermal regulation that would work for other characters and for summer, like clothes and thermal stones.

3. Repeat the same strategy in every game, even if it leads to failure every time, because insight points are awarded for time spent, rather than for overcoming obstacles (this is supported by my personal experience too, when I was a noob in DS I resorted to "farming" experience by doing the same things and dying after ~10-15 days in order to get access to more characters).

4. Search "orange/yellow/green gems" and "fuelweaver" in the wiki, because it's literally just a name drop without any pointers on which direction to go.

To conclude: buffing the starting resources and telling the player "go defeat the endgame boss" (that has a very convoluted summoning process, likely impossible to figure out without looking at the wiki) is not "guiding the new players through the progression of the game".

[Malfario]

17 minutes ago, ThymeSpirit said:

Wilson's skill tree teaches new players to:

1. Rely on torch instead of upgrading to a lantern or mining hat.

2. Rely on beard for warmth, an exclusive perk of Wilson and Webber, and never try other ways of thermal regulation that would work for other characters and for summer, like clothes and thermal stones.

3. Repeat the same strategy in every game, even if it leads to failure every time, because insight points are awarded for time spent, rather than for overcoming obstacles (this is supported by my personal experience too, when I was a noob in DS I resorted to "farming" experience by doing the same things and dying after ~10-15 days in order to get access to more characters).

4. Search "orange/yellow/green gems" and "fuelweaver" in the wiki, because it's literally just a name drop without any pointers on which direction to go.

To conclude: buffing the starting resources and telling the player "go defeat the endgame boss" (that has a very convoluted summoning process, likely impossible to figure out without looking at the wiki) is not "guiding the new players through the progression of the game".

wilson teach players light is an important thing to have and something worth prepare for.

The fact that he can protect himself from cold with his beard implys there is a way to get cold and probably seasons with change of temperature, wilsons beard ease winter but wilson still has to defeat heat and rain without any perks, not to say that players relaying on the beard for insultation its a bald statement, wearing a winter hat or a beffalo hat is not something you have to practise for and need skill to do with other characters. (if we are going down the rabbit hole of characters that teaches new player bad habits,which i wont, i think the red hair got the spotlight).

And his alchemy tab hints players the existance of said materials and said boss fight provoking them to be curious, i can agree that simply saying "there is something called the fuelweaber that you should kill" might not be enough, but seeing we have 3 qols ahead of us and two updates for changing the core gameplay of the game, i think more clarity for the fuelweaber quest is to be expected.

To conclude: I think you are expecting wilsons rework to be a complete revolution for new players and a perfect tutorial of all areas of the game, when in this same post is mentioned that his rework is just a tease of whats to come, and its intended to not do more than add a few comoditys for new and veteran players, probably been complemented with said redesigns predicted for this year.

[Master_NiX]

Wilson with a backpack and an armor at the same time makes me think that it's gonna be a new perk for him, since it's one of the most requested things new players want.

[Antynomity]

1 hour ago, Master_NiX said:

Wilson with a backpack and an armor at the same time makes me think that it's gonna be a new perk for him, since it's one of the most requested things new players want.

JoeW confirmed it's not coming to the game.

[Master_NiX]

13 minutes ago, yourAnty said:

JoeW confirmed it's not coming to the game.

yea, but no one said anything about it being Wilson's perk.. right?

[Milordo]

4 hours ago, ThymeSpirit said:

3. Repeat the same strategy in every game, even if it leads to failure every time, because insight points are awarded for time spent, rather than for overcoming obstacles (this is supported by my personal experience too, when I was a noob in DS I resorted to "farming" experience by doing the same things and dying after ~10-15 days in order to get access to more characters).

4. Search "orange/yellow/green gems" and "fuelweaver" in the wiki, because it's literally just a name drop without any pointers on which direction to go.

To conclude: buffing the starting resources and telling the player "go defeat the endgame boss" (that has a very convoluted summoning process, likely impossible to figure out without looking at the wiki) is not "guiding the new players through the progression of the game".

YES, YES, THANKS. It's what I said and thought thousand of times. I really don't get it how spoiling a final boss name "Just kill god" could help new players blindly when his quest is one of the most convoluted things in dst, where you need to spoil yourself to figure it out (such as chester evolutions """"secret"""")

[goblinball]

4 hours ago, ThymeSpirit said:

1. Rely on torch instead of upgrading to a lantern or mining hat.

2. Rely on beard for warmth, an exclusive perk of Wilson and Webber, and never try other ways of thermal regulation that would work for other characters and for summer, like clothes and thermal stones.

 

The whole point of these perks is to make new player’s tools slightly better so they’ll actually be able to explore the alternatives to these.

Most new players use torches instead of lanterns because the caves are super intimidating to them. With a stronger torch (which is still worse than a lantern/miner hat, mind you). they might be more confident in their abilities and explore the caves more. Same thing with the beard. New players suck with winter, so they can never even explore how winter works and what counters it. With a better beard, it’ll be easier for them to discover things (such as getting a tam/cane from Mac tusk) that will help them with winter.

This is just a personal anecdote, but when I started playing DST I played webber a lot, and webber ofc also has an insulation beard. Webber’s beard really helped me in winter, but I never became over reliant on it and I still discovered other, better alternatives.

[Milordo]

3 hours ago, Malfario said:

And his alchemy tab hints players the existance of said materials and said boss fight provoking them to be curious, i can agree that simply saying "there is something called the fuelweaber that you should kill" might not be enough, but seeing we have 3 qols ahead of us and two updates for changing the core gameplay of the game, i think more clarity for the fuelweaber quest is to be expected.

To conclude: I think you are expecting wilsons rework to be a complete revolution for new players and a perfect tutorial of all areas of the game, when in this same post is mentioned that his rework is just a tease of whats to come, and its intended to not do more than add a few comoditys for new and veteran players, probably been complemented with said redesigns predicted for this year.

I repeat then, I hate I hate I hate I hate the new "game as service" system smuck of every 3 months a "free" update to keep the dopamine to players. It could have saved all of us waste of time, words, posts, discussions and hours of stress to klei if this "master plan to change core gameplay for new and old player" was all inside 2 giant updates after 7 months or so. How are we supposed to know what big plan Klei have, if they don't tell us immediately all the details? 

In 2019, this system was a saviour to Dst, as he helped the indie team company to resourge after the big hard fall of 2017-2018, and we all thank that. But I would really be glad and happy for Klei to abandon it, so they have more pace and focus on what they want and doing it good.

[Antynomity]

1 hour ago, Master_NiX said:

yea, but no one said anything about it being Wilson's perk.. right?

what good would that achieve as being a perk for wilson though it'd be a huge crutch for new players and would take them away from playing other characters due to their lack of this perk

[bagherthegamer]

Why is wilson weraing lig suit and backpack at the same time?

[Antynomity]

1 hour ago, Milordo said:

I repeat then, I hate I hate I hate I hate the new "game as service" system smuck of every 3 months a "free" update to keep the dopamine to players. It could have saved all of us waste of time, words, posts, discussions and hours of stress to klei if this "master plan to change core gameplay for new and old player" was all inside 2 giant updates after 7 months or so. How are we supposed to know what big plan Klei have, if they don't tell us immediately all the details? 

In 2019, this system was a saviour to Dst, as he helped the indie team company to resourge after the big hard fall of 2017-2018, and we all thank that. But I would really be glad and happy for Klei to abandon it, so they have more pace and focus on what they want and doing it good.

Wasn't something mentioned about this by an admin of the forum some time ago? unless it was fake, which I do agree, I'd much rather big, substantial updates instead of the drip feed of content, it'd  help the devs make every feature feel more connected and whatnot, I wouldn't mind decently consistent betas for said new content or whatever they would need help with.

I don't know how it would work in the current video game market since games a service is the main thing right now but It seems like more and more players, in this case consumers value products being different in any way possible at this point (not implying that DST isn't unique, it is.)

What I know for sure is that it would definitely work on me with my currently limited amounts of time. 

Whatever they decide to do in these updates this year though, I hope that they are good quality-wise, attract new players, and are really fun to play through, and hopefully we get to see more unique mechanics, especially later on which...  it seems like they want to do at least somewhat, which I can't wait for.

[slendyproject]

14 minutes ago, yourAnty said:

I'd much rather big, substantial updates instead of the drip feed of content, it'd  help the devs make every feature feel more connected and whatnot,

The main revenue the game is generating comes from skins, and people dont really buy skins for games that are not "alive" for lack of a better word. Players expect consistent updates to make the investment of buying skins (and their time spent playing it) worth it because if there isnt something always happening players leave, and if they leave nobody will be there to see your skin. To some extent that is also the purpose of these roadmaps, assure the players that the game is alive and things will keep happening constantly.

I doubt the game could get so many updates years after release if this wasnt the business model it used but I dont know for sure.

[Crowdingboar]

For the next update please make regular blow darts cheaper to craft in regards to the Azure feathers. Maybe change the Azure feathers to Black feathers for the default Blow dart. And maybe use the Azure feathers to make a freeze dart.

[Antynomity]

27 minutes ago, slendyproject said:

The main revenue the game is generating comes from skins, and people dont really buy skins for games that are not "alive" for lack of a better word. Players expect consistent updates to make the investment of buying skins (and their time spent playing it) worth it because if there isnt something always happening players leave, and if they leave nobody will be there to see your skin. To some extent that is also the purpose of these roadmaps, assure the players that the game is alive and things will keep happening constantly.

I doubt the game could get so many updates years after release if this wasnt the business model it used but I dont know for sure.

That's why I said I didn't know if it'd work in the current market.

[slendyproject]

29 minutes ago, yourAnty said:

That's why I said I didn't know if it'd work in the current market.

Well recent trends seem to forecast the whole live service thing dying down somewhat though dst probably has a stable enough player base to not have to worry about that.

[MondayNight]

So.. I suppose this

is a "prelude" for Elevation? Would be a good way to go further with Constant's topography and biomes.

And this

pretty straightforward: Compendium in-game book having some "tips 'n' tricks"/pseudo-tutorials for newbies' survival.

While this

aside obvious Alter/Wagstaff vs Charlie/Darkness saga continuing, perhaps also hits at some Insanity "reworked" late-game new mechanics (already prefaced by Pure Horror fuel & Dreadstone)? Curious if that stone-y tentacle/root likewise bears some foreshadowing regarding new in-game elements - I hope so, beyond artistic value for this particular promo piece.

Anyway, looking forward to April's new Beta.

[DajeKotlyar]

Why everyone think this is Wagstaff on the image? For me this shadow more looks like WX before becaming WX...

[gamehun20]

2 minutes ago, DajeKotlyar said:

Why everyone think this is Wagstaff on the image

because the person who became wx is now wx not the person they were before and wagstaff was mentioned in the roadmap and also they don't have the weird hair(see how it's not poking up at the top)

[Ardcrumb]

If I'm given the choice between wagstaff and Charlie I'm going wagstaff all the way, literally has w in the name