There’s no point in catering to new players

[Mike23Ua]

The thing about DST is that it has so many customization options to drastically alter the way you experience & play the game.

From the preset you choose, to the character you select to play as, what you will do or how you will enjoy the game is quite literally entirely up to you.

Having been on these forums for awhile- I’ve discovered that there’s a rather alarming number of people who turn off Wildfires, because they see these things as too annoying/destructive or whatever- and while it’s fine for those people to turn them off, it also removes one of the core gameplay loop features.

Yet there are even OPTIONS to have Wildfires happen “Much More” Frequently, for those who are crazy enough to want to experience that.

I personally tune SeaStacks to less or even None, because smashing into those things while trying to explore the ocean is just no fun…

And that’s my entire point here: You will only interact with and do what you find to be fun, or challenging to yourself or whatever… but you will turn off or ignore the things you dislike.

I think there are ways the game could be changed to better cater to a wider variety of players..

Instead of Klei trying to make every single update like a generic pair of “one size fits all” gloves, what would probably benefit them greatly would be to make different colors & sizes for people.

An example would be that Klei coded the Lunar Rifts to try very hard not to spawn on or in your base, and that is only fine if your a Megabase builder who doesn’t want the big base you’ve built destroyed.

But what probably isn’t taken into consideration here: Is that survival players probably would enjoy the additional stress & chores of needing to defend/repair their base.

Moon Quay pirates and the Wonkey Curse are another excellent example- in their original implementation, pirate raids could happen anywhere at sea, which in turn- Helped players find the Island.. and the only way to get rid of your cursed trinkets which stayed with you even thru dying was to trade banana to the monkey queen.

Players cried that this was too uncompromising & unfair, so Klei Nerfed them into near non-existence & now it’s as easy as just dumping out your inventory, and dying to drop your Wonkey curse.

The bottom line in this scenario is that Klei is trying to design their game content in “one size fits all” but yet what I personally do not understand is that we have difficulty/content toggles & presets that are supposed to let us choose HOW we approach playing the game…

Yet these things go heavily under-utilized.

For example for me personally I would enjoy toggles to lower boss health, but at the exact same time I’d enjoy toggles for the “Harder” version of pirate raids and the Wonkey curse.

Just because I prefer not spending 40 minutes fighting a multiplayer focused boss, does NOT mean that I wouldn’t enjoy Pirate Raids & the Monkey Curse being more Harsh..

And that my dear friends is a short explanation of why/how “In a game that’s already full of options, it really does be needing more options.”

Edited February 7 by Mike23Ua

[_zwb]

29 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

But what probably isn’t taken into consideration here: Is that *masochists probably would enjoy the additional stress & chores of needing to defend/repair their base.

Fixed it for you

[O_Atoba_Azul]

Money, ever heard of it?

[goblinball]

7 hours ago, CaptainGold1 said:

People usually rage quit when they feel something is not "fair." A lot of things in DST can feel unfair to a new player because they don't know how they work. Getting one-shot by a bishop because you were too curious and got too close to the funny statue will feel unfair to someone who doesn't understand how clockwork bishops work. After all, how would you know it was going to kill you? Getting one-shot by a bishop because you knew how they work and yet decided to walk up to it without armor will feel more fair. After all, you willingly took a risk with the necessary knowledge and it didn't work out.

Sometimes ppl rage quit because they don’t know what’s killing them but frankly I think saying that this is “usually” why ppl rage quit is a bit innacurate. I’ve witnessed new players dying and rage quitting to things they already had encountered before and already knew were dangerous. Regardless of if they know what’s killing them or not, dying and losing all your stuff and having to go revive yourself is a frustrating process for a lot of players, even if they have great knowledge of the game.

 

7 hours ago, Reecitz said:

No need to waste your time typing; they're talking nonsense anyways. 

If you’re just going to be rude and not actually contribute anything to the conversation then do us all a favor and keep your mouth shut. 

[Retepeter]

alright I see this..... "unique" thread is still going on

klei is a company

companies need money

an no, skins just don't make enough money, 95% of the people I have talked to, a lot of them with over 1k hours have not bought any skins

as a comparisons, minecraft quite literally the most sold game ever, is still catering to new players, and still wants for people to buy it they even added a gifting feature a few months back, highlighting that they want the base game sold (and there are still microtransactions in the inferior version), you can not make money from microtransactions, (especially in a pay to play) game unless the microtransactions are relying on fomo and other manipulaton tactics, and the game is very broadly appealing and generic and quite frankly, more popular then dst

dst is highly stylised and unique, there are no limited time skins (except rewards for limited time irl collectibles) no battle pass, no lootboxes(except the old and unused trade inn that hasn't got a skin added to it since forge iirc) and every skin (except the collectable ones) can be gotten from weaving them or using the trade inn (yes it's random but the skins aren't even that good and you can sell commons on steam trade market and buy elegants if you're dedicated enough)

 

 

now if we ignore the money part, I'd love to know what makes it seem that dst is catering to new players? I can only think of the scrapbook, which is literally just the wiki built into the game, it just saves you opening your browser and if that's your problem then you should start cancelling the dst wiki first

Edited February 8 by Retepeter

[_zwb]

6 minutes ago, Retepeter said:

you can not make money from a f2p game

As far as I'm aware DST is not free to play

[Retepeter]

Just now, _zwb said:

As far as I'm aware DST is not free to play

sorry, I worded it incorrectly,

you can not make money from only skins and if there there are no new players to replace the old ones that are always quitting there will not be anyone to buy the skins 

[CaptainGold1]

On 2/7/2024 at 7:32 PM, goblinball said:

Sometimes ppl rage quit because they don’t know what’s killing them but frankly I think saying that this is “usually” why ppl rage quit is a bit innacurate. I’ve witnessed new players dying and rage quitting to things they already had encountered before and already knew were dangerous. Regardless of if they know what’s killing them or not, dying and losing all your stuff and having to go revive yourself is a frustrating process for a lot of players, even if they have great knowledge of the game.

So, then, why don't you make a mode that lessens the impact of dying? Your initial point is that "there’s nothing you can do to prevent new players from quitting" and then you go on to state a great way to make the game more beginner friendly.

I personally started my first DST world with a friend as an endless world and it was a great way to learn the game. Was it somewhat frustrating to die? Yes, but being able to revive easily made it more reasonable to stick with it. After learning the ropes, we began to play normal worlds. We probably would have had a lot less fun dying immediately over and over in new worlds because we didn't even know good food sources.

Your argument, that there is no possible, easy-to-implement way that can make the game more beginner friendly, frankly seems incorrect to me. Sure, I can agree that some people will just not play the game. But the type of people who actively seek out survival games, which I would assume is most of DST's playerbase, are the type of people more prone to want to learn a survival game's mechanics. Making that process easier is always a good thing because it makes the game easier to pick up.

The goal isn't to make every single person who picks up the game into a long-time player. The goal is to make more people into long-time players. This is very achievable, contrary to what you say. Klei can make additions to the game that keep more new players from quitting.