What New Players Really Need?/What exactly is stopping new players from playing DST?

[Gashzer]

1 minute ago, Mike23Ua said:

You do know there’s a setting you can toggle so that when you die your world instantly deletes itself right? No rollback option, no becoming a spooky ghost, just like classic DS die & say goodbye to your world.

Is it on by default?

[Mike23Ua]

53 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Is it on by default?

No.. but does it have to be?

[Gashzer]

2 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

No.. but does it have to be?

Yes actually it does, it being off by default means its not the normal way to play and new players arnt gonna go and make the game harder on purpose.

[goatt]

Spicy food is great to people who love it, but not so good for people who can't eat it which may or may not cause them to pass out.

The lack of guidance feature is the same. It's been portraited as self-discovery feature of the game. But the game now has attracted most of the players who like self-discovery. And I think that's why the game tries to change itself to attract another kind of players who doesn't like the frustrating self-discovery experience as much. Because, obviously, more new players = more money.

I think the recent roadmap has hinted this plan (of course it's my conspiracy theory, which I'm open to being proven wrong). The skill trees are to attract new players, but the side effect or downside happens to offend old players who cherish the survival aspects of the game, which was what happened in the beginning of the beta. Those complaints sank because the beta also offered something interesting to old players as a something like a distraction so that they don't complain as much. Distraction is the word I would use because it's a solution to a problem. People have realized it and complained about it (more guidance, more hints, more perks, less downsides). But since the community has a diverse level of players, those voices disappeared among praises and appreciation post, plus those anti-complaining posts that try to silence opposite opinions (beta branch is a feedback space, complaining, regardless of its validity, is a major form of feedback).

It's undeniable that DST is changing, not to improve for the old players or for the sake of the game itself or patch its flaws or finish untied ends. It's changing because it's found a new goal and way to attract more players.

Once you admit it, this post has become a lot more valuable. A lot of comments I've seen under this thread is still based on the old debates about self-discovery vs lack of guidance, survival vs easiness, DS vs DST. We need to think more like this post if we want to ride along the changing DST.

I think the dev team has moved on to a new goal. And again, all of above is my guess.

[Copyafriend]

16 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Yes actually it does, it being off by default means its not the normal way to play and new players arnt gonna go and make the game harder on purpose

This is true, i have said it many times and i’ll say it again: the default settings are always what should be discussed when talking about balance (unless you’re specifically talking about rebalancing the settings for some reason)

default matters, settings are a bandaid.

Simultaneously, i do not agree with your mentality against rollbacks and against the ghost forms for players to revive.

i think the xp system COULD have been good to incentivize people to try again, and try simpler characters first to dip their toes in so to speak. But its honestly a creative choice to leave it out, though skill points will be serving the same function so i suppose its a relatively moot point.

The ghost forms gives freedom to players and gives them an opportunity to find a touchstone before their world gets deleted, its a fairly intense moment for a new player (i was teaching my girlfriend (now wife as of last month yay me)), it was pretty cool moment that was tense and hopeful along with a “damnit” when she did not in fact find a touch stone.

as for rollbacks, most new players wont realize they’re there at first. And when they do, they know its cheating.

its not some shock that reloading a save in a permadeath game is cheating. But heres a big secret: i did the exact same thing in regular dont starve.

its called closing the application and it worked fine. 
 

dont gatekeep people enjoying the game because they’re doing it differently than you did back in the day, theres more than one way to enjoy the game, and the way you learned to is not necessarily the best

[BezKa]

45 minutes ago, goatt said:

It's undeniable that DST is changing, not to improve for the old players or for the sake of the game itself or patch its flaws or finish untied ends. It's changing because it's found a new goal and way to attract more players.

Hurts as hell. I wish that wasn't the case. I wish we could get improved DST instead of different DST in the upcoming years. I wish Klei would just tell us they don't want the game to continue being itself and they want to transform it into something else. Maybe that would finally kill the remains of my hope. I think I've went through all stages of grief like 3 times over the course of the beta lol. Still can't move on. 

Babbling again. Sorry.

[_zwb]

2 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Rollbacks shouldnt have been a thing 

If that ever happens then every single server would be password protected. This game has some serious griefer issues and rollback is the only tool players have to deal with it. Or through mods which means rip console players.

Your points are valid though, it does make things less threatening but people still get away with perma death and stuff before rollback with the power of Alt-F4, seems like rollback just made this an actual feature...

[Captain_Rage]

The devs said that events like The Forge and The Gorge might never return. Yet I hope they will. xd The same goes for the community puzzles. If we get another Metheus puzzle the feeling of novelty will most likely be gone, though. It would be hard to pull off such a nifty feat again. :v

The various community holiday events were super nice. Would be nice to see more of those, where fans were crafting and posting images of their creations.

[chirsg]

4 hours ago, Captain_Rage said:

The devs said that events like The Forge and The Gorge might never return. Yet I hope they will. xd The same goes for the community puzzles. If we get another Metheus puzzle the feeling of novelty will most likely be gone, though. It would be hard to pull off such a nifty feat again. :v

The various community holiday events were super nice. Would be nice to see more of those, where fans were crafting and posting images of their creations.

I don't understand why those game modes have to be hidden behind mods.

It should be accessible to us to host as a separate play style

[Spep]

I say its simply not knowing a lot of content even exists, because lets be real here, almost nobody would be able to figure out misery toadstool exists without guides, nobody would know how to trigger moon storms, nobody would know how to summon fuelweaver.

yeah sure, uncompromising survival game, but when a "new player" finally figures out how to survive to a theoretically infinite day count? that does not matter anymore, if they look up a guide, congrats! you have bad game design held up by a crutch, if they don't, well that content just does not exist at all, does it?

Lack of guidance is good when it is for survival, when its for optional content? all it does is make people think there is no content.

Is that a bad thing? probably. is there an answer that wouldn't jeopardize the core game? certainly. will it ever happen? realistically no.

[Ryusuta]

I can't speak for anyone else, but what kept me from playing the Don't Starve games for a long time was just how big and daunting everything seemed (and to be fair, WAS) about it. But more importantly, a lot of people seemed to feel that the best way to enjoy the game was to go in blind and learn by dying over and over again, which was MASSIVE turn-off for me. I'm aware that some people enjoy that sort of approach, but it's not for me at all. Don't get me wrong, I am all for hard games. But I've never liked the Dark Souls/ITBTG school of "You're expected to die because you don't know any better."

What got me to finally play the game was Salendrak's Beginner's Guide series on Youtube, which broke down the absolute essential information in an easy-to-digest way. That way, I had a decent enough baseline of information that when I would die in those early games, I knew I had it coming and wasn't just being punished for not knowing any better.

[D_Good_Fellow]

A game that lacks explicit guidance still has an obligation to teach the player through non-explicit means. This is extremely clear in the original Don't Starve where the game almost completely lacks any specific explanation or tutorial, but goes to great lengths to teach players indirectly. The nature of risk, reward, and punishment in the original game was balanced meticulously to challenge the player just the right amount to prompt them to learn. Permadeath meant that Players couldn't afford to charge at an unfamiliar enemy without risking losing everything, forcing a more cautious playstyle that the entire game was balanced around. Additionally, the loss-based reward/exp system encouraged failure in an engaging way too. I believe that Don't Starve was exceptionally good at teaching players how to play the game through indirect means. This makes being new to the original Don't Starve is a fun experience.

Unfortunately these kinds of things are extremely difficult to translate to multiplayer. Since player count will vary, every in-game challenge has to be balanced so that it will be playably fun for anywhere between 1-6 players. With that many variables, DS-style permadeath would have been disproportionately punishing to different players in unfair and unpredictable ways (as well as causing strife between players). DST challenges can't cut as close to the quick as DS challenges, so they can't be as consistently harrowing or as effective as teaching moments.

To compensate, DST communicates a great deal in far more explicit ways like the compendium features. Simply put, DST teaches players how to play by telling them rather than showing them. For video games this is an objectively less effective method of teaching, but as previously stated multiplayer makes it much harder to teach these kinds of things indirectly. Making the game easier isn't actually going to change this. The idea that easy=casual and hard=veteran is extremely misleading. The original Don't Starve is much more punishing than DST, but it's still more approachable for new and casual players imo.

My personal issue is that DST's direct methods of teaching are unintuitive and uninteresting. If Klei really wants to bring in new casual players, stuff like the cook book or scrap book aren't going to help much because they're just clunky versions of using the wiki irl. The scrap book is a bit more engaging in that it provides a motivation to actively seek out parts of the game you haven't experienced to fill it out, but because of the massive effort it would take to fully fill out the scrapbook this motivation doesn't really apply to new players anyway. 

[Jakepeng99]

I agree with the points you said, but i don't agree with your ways to bring back, or keep players. I agree ghost movement speed should be faster.

[Mortalbane]

As people said above, DS did a good job in teaching indirectly.
Everything worked together - permadeath, unlocking new characters, feeling that you are alone in a hostile world, where you have to pay attention and listen to every sound.
I understand why Klei refused to add multiplayer to it - because it would ruin everything.
And it did, so now Klei tries to reinvent the formula.
Unfortunately, it is simply impossible to combine all of the above with multiplayer.
You can't listen to every sound and be alert, when there is a chat or your friends are laughing and screaming, and can revive you.

The added progression via skill trees (to replace the hook of unlocking new characters) will keep the player in the game longer, but imo has no other benefits.
Since the game still doesn't teach you anything, and neither do those skill trees, new players will just have a few more autumns before they quit or go searching for guides.
If the goal is just to attract new players, who will buy the game - skill trees are good. They will keep you in game past the refund time.

Idk how helpful would that scrapbook be to me, if i had it back in the day. Since it has quotes, which aren't very helpful and heavily depend on the character. I know i wished for a compendium when i started, but i don't know if the crapbook can replace it.
The cookbook is a good idea, i just wish its pages could be more frequent. There is no way i will toss my food randomly into the crock pot to "figure out" all the recipes. Not to mention that the book doesn't tell us that, for example, dragonpie can be cooked with 3 twigs. 

The uncompromising DS nature formed a dedicated community of masochists, who are screaming in agony at every suggestion that tries to buff a character.
This is a joke and exaggeration =)
Or is it?
But new and casual players would like the opposite of what veteran players want. There are ways to please both categories,

My solution is to add tutorials and achievements, and make post-rift content significantly harder.
Instead of trying to reinvent DS, imo it's better to look elsewhere, for example at Valheim.

Tutorials - as in Valheim, some character can appear and teach you the ropes. It can be Wheeler - a survivor, who nobody cares about and who won't make it to be a playable character. But as a guide she is almost ideal.
She should teach you the basics - craft a torch, pick a carrot, make a rabbit trap, examine a tree. She could always say - "I'm a survivor like you, i did this and that, and that's why i'm still alive".
But she is just a survivor like you, she doesn't know everything, so she can't hold your hand through the game. She can hint, share her observations and make assumptions, which not necessarily are always true.
So, we get an enigmatic tutorial, which appears from time to time and hints that there is more to the game than meets the eye, and that you should keep looking.

Achievements - when implemented correctly, they can serve the same purpose. For example, i always suggest that the skill points should not take so long to get and they should not be saved between worlds, but instead a separate skill branch can be added - a character "mastery" of sorts. Perks of this branch are unlocked via achievements, they mostly give passive bonuses and are saved between worlds. This will give the desired rogue-like edge and progression, while making the skill trees what they usually are in games, and not a weird one-time feature to buff you.
Those achievements can start as simple "survive X days", but they should quickly get more vague and enigmatic, like "transform a pig into werepig". From such achievements you will learn that there is a mechanic in the game, that you can transform pigs yourself, but there won't be hints on how to do it.
Also there can be character-specific achievements that prompt the character's role or gameplay, making it easier to understand how to play this character and what is he capable of.

But we, the veteran forum-dwellers, know all that already. This doesn't affect us, so there is no need to complain about this stuff.
I think we should get a "new game +" with the rifts.
Much stronger and angrier mobs with new mechanics, lunar / inkblight corruption of the existing mobs, new hazards, like weather and poison / blight / sneezing / diarrhea - you get the idea. Everything should get harder, including survival, so that we can learn the game again.
And we will try to learn using the scrapbook =)
I really hope that this is exactly what Klei has in mind with those rifts.

Also i think character buffs are fine, as long as the new game plus puts everyone on their knees again.
Like my suggestion for Wormwood's mushroom perk to make mushrooms restore a tiny bit of hp, like 1 hp per shroom or so. This will help the new players, but experienced players hardly will rely on 1 hp heals.
For veterans the game is already easy, and no such buff can affect that. Once you learn to kite and know all the threats and how to prepare.

[Antynomity]

On 7/30/2023 at 9:28 PM, Mike23Ua said:

You do know there’s a setting you can toggle so that when you die your world instantly deletes itself right? No rollback option, no becoming a spooky ghost, just like classic DS die & say goodbye to your world.

And you think a new player would ever pick that? Lmao

[Mike23Ua]

Just now, Antynomity said:

And you think a new player would ever pick that? Lmao

It’s not meant for a new player, it’s meant for people like me who want that classic Solo DS feel.

[reddocc]

new players need more subliminal messages, more hints that there is something happening beyond of what they do

[Jakepeng99]

On 7/30/2023 at 9:28 PM, Gashzer said:

Yes actually it does, it being off by default means its not the normal way to play and new players arnt gonna go and make the game harder on purpose.

In the solo game you can revive too with touchstones, meat effigys and gimmicky amulets. In this there is 0 way to revive. In current dont starve together when playing solo you need to move as a ghost to touchstones, it was to port it to multiplayer. If it is on by default, then it is intended!

 

 

On 7/30/2023 at 11:01 PM, Captain_Rage said:

The devs said that events like The Forge and The Gorge might never return. Yet I hope they will. xd The same goes for the community puzzles. If we get another Metheus puzzle the feeling of novelty will most likely be gone, though. It would be hard to pull off such a nifty feat again. :v

The various community holiday events were super nice. Would be nice to see more of those, where fans were crafting and posting images of their creations.

They should probably just be an option always in the world creation screen. Events like Forge and Gorge were killing the game because they only did those and skins for a few years.