If Klei let followers sail, what controls would you guys want for them?

[Masked Koopa]

Intro/Whatever:
I have long had the idea of Klei "fixing" the issue with the DST boats by allowing you to use Pigmen/Merms to help you. I think the boats are quite fun to pilot if you have friends, since one person can steer while everyone else deals with the sails, tries to lower the anchor in time/use an oar to avoid obstacles, etc.


I think letting followers do stuff like paddle, lower/raise anchors and sails, and maybe even patch the boat would help solo players experience boats in a less frustrating way. But I'm also not sure how you'd make the followers do those things without making it annoying for the player, so I wanna hear ya'lls thoughts. 

My Current Proposal:

• If a player is wearing the Captain's Tricorn:
  • When they man the steering wheel, their followers will automatically raise the sails and anchor.
  • When they stop using the steering wheel, followers will automatically lower the sails and anchor.
    • These behaviours only occur on starting/stopping use of the steering wheel. If you raise 2 of 4 sails, then steer, and THEN put on the hat, your followers will not raise the other sails.
    • The reverse applies as well - if you take off the hat before you stop steering, your followers will not lower the sails.
       
• Followers will automatically patch the boat whenever possible if they have the appropriate material.
• Followers have one "boating item slot". Giving them a different boating item will have them return the old one.
  • Includes:
    • Boat Patches (they will use this for both repairing leaks and boat HP)
       
    • Tree Jam and Trusty Tape
       
    • Oars of any kind
       
    • Boat repair materials
      • (They can use shell bits to repair shell bumpers.)
         
    • Cannonballs, letting them shoot at hostile enemies with a cannon.
       
• Alternatively - perhaps the followers can pull these items from some sort of pool.
  • Some options brought up were the boat's floor, a chest, or a dedicated chestlike structure.
     
• If a follower sees you are about to collide with something and is holding an oar they will try to slow the boat down
  • Or maybe they will try to paddle to the side of it, I'm still not sure on this one
     
• If a follower is holding an oar and their leader paddles in a specific direction, the follower will do the same.
• Followers will perform their tasks faster if wearing a bandana.
  • The bandana could possibly cause some changes in behaviour as well.
  • For example, maybe a follower wearing a bandana will treat a player wearing the captain's tricorn as their leader so long as both of them are on the same boat. (I.e if Wilson's pigman has a bandana and he gets on Wigfrid's boat, Wilson's pigman will obey Wigfrid's nautical commands so long as she wears the tricorn).
     
• Followers will now use the Fire Pump whenever anything on the boat catches fire.
  • Unlike Spittlefish, they know that a fire pit isn't dangerous and won't pump if it is the only fire on the boat.

Please leave thoughts :

Like I said I really want to know what you guys think, since I think agreeing on some sort of control/behaviour scheme could make Klei more likely to consider something like this, especially given the upcoming ocean update. I also made a list of questions ya'll could answer to help me incorporate your concerns/desires.

1. Are you happy with how sailing works right now?
2. What changes would you like to see made to followers on boats, if any?
3. Are you against any of the changes listed here?
   • Note: when I say against I mean that they would actively hinder your enjoyment of the game.
   • If you are against any of these changes, can you think of a compromise that'd fix your issue with them while facilitating their intended function?
   • If you can't think of a use for the change, PLEASE say so.

Edited April 5 by Masked Koopa
Spelling

[Survivalist83]

Yes! I think this is a great idea. It's such a feel-bad to run into a rock because you didn't have enough time to raise the sails; this could help a lot with that. It will help so much in early-game especially to be able to do this

I love the idea of having the captain's tricorn, jolly roger's hat, and bandanna give different perks. That way, you're incentivized to try out different combos of hats (e.g. 2 pigs with tricorns, and 3 with bandannas or something like that) or have different hats being used for different circumstances, depending on how it's implemented. I think this would be a great time to implement clothing not degrading on followers, too - or at least a way to repair it.

[Masked Koopa]

11 minutes ago, Survivalist83 said:

I think this would be a great time to implement clothing not degrading on followers, too - or at least a way to repair it.

Well I think in the case of Bandanas you get so many from monkeys it's kind of a non-concern, if anything it'd be a good way to use them up.
 

12 minutes ago, Survivalist83 said:

I love the idea of having the captain's tricorn, jolly roger's hat, and bandanna give different perks. That way, you're incentivized to try out different combos of hats (e.g. 2 pigs with tricorns, and 3 with bandannas or something like that) or have different hats being used for different circumstances, depending on how it's implemented.

My thought was that the Tricorn/Jolly Roger's hat wouldn't be worn by the followers, but by the players, as it indicates which player is the "captain". For example, maybe a pig would follow the directions of a player wearing a captain hat, even if that player isn't their "owner". Or perhaps some of the follower actions listed here would require the captain hat to be worn.

[Pet Rock]

1 hour ago, Masked Koopa said:

• Maybe the bandanna could activate some of these behaviours(?)
• Maybe wearing the captain's tricorn or jolly roger's hat could also activate some of these behaviours(?)

The bandana could allow followers to paddle the boat to avoid obstacles and speed up and repair the boat (with boat patches, trusty tape, glommer goop), while the Captain's tricorn would allow followers to shoot cannons, repair the ship with logs or planks, and raise and lower sails. I'm not sure what the polly roger hat would do.

One nitpick that I have is that followers should just pick up items on the boat and use them instead of needing to be given them. This would simplify the follower system to just using the various hats and eliminate a hidden inventory slot (visual indicators are important!). Followers repairing/placing bumpers might also be a bit excessive, as the followers would already do a lot compared to what they do on land. Followers should also only do things half as fast as players would.

[Valase]

1 hour ago, Masked Koopa said:

 

• If a player mans the steering wheel, followers will automatically raise the sails and anchor.
• If a player stops using the steering wheel, followers will automatically lower the sails and anchor.

those two would be quite a headache, as usually after you come back from land somewere, you will want to steer your sails away from the shore, then raise the sails/anchor.

and on to the second suggestion, you don't spend a 100% of your time on the stering wheel, you usually set it in the right direction and only steer again to avoid obstacles.

 

but it would be great to have a follower to patch up holes on the boat, especially when you use controllers.

[Masked Koopa]

7 minutes ago, Valase said:

those two would be quite a headache, as usually after you come back from land somewere, you will want to steer your sails away from the shore, then raise the sails/anchor.

and on to the second suggestion, you don't spend a 100% of your time on the stering wheel, you usually set it in the right direction and only steer again to avoid obstacles.

Hmm, you make a good point. Perhaps they would only do this if their owner is wearing the Captain's Tricorn? So you can use it to toggle this behaviour on/off?

 

13 minutes ago, Pet Rock said:

One nitpick that I have is that followers should just pick up items on the boat and use them instead of needing to be given them. This would simplify the follower system to just using the various hats and eliminate a hidden inventory slot (visual indicators are important!). Followers repairing/placing bumpers might also be a bit excessive, as the followers would already do a lot compared to what they do on land. Followers should also only do things half as fast as players would.

Well, the reason I thought of it being based on what items you give them was to allow you to designate roles to particular followers, so you can choose how many followers you want to focus on a certain task. I do see the concern about visual clarity though. But I'm also not sure if people would prefer having to dump a bunch of stray items on the floor of their boat.

As for the behaviour being excessive, I think ideally Klei similarly expand the abilities of followers when not on boats at some point as well. Pigs especially have been very much neglected in terms of capabilities, all they're capable of is fighting (poorly) and chopping (but not digging stumps, and also requiring light to not get scared at night, AND having a pretty poor matchup vs treeguards).

[SuperDonuts]

You should be able to be hold the steering wheel, and click the anchor or the sail so the follower interacts with them.

, I would also love if they could fish.

[Masked Koopa]

9 minutes ago, SuperDonuts said:

You should be able to be hold the steering wheel, and click the anchor or the sail so the follower interacts with them.

I think the concern with a model like this is that it'd add "complexity" to the controls Klei might not wanna deal with + that doesn't seem very controller friendly.

[SuperDonuts]

9 minutes ago, Masked Koopa said:

I think the concern with a model like this is that it'd add "complexity" to the controls Klei might not wanna deal with + that doesn't seem very controller friendly.

It could be even easier with a controller: when you hold the steering wheel, they can allocate some button to specific action: lower/raise sail, lower/raise anchor.

[Pet Rock]

1 hour ago, Masked Koopa said:

But I'm also not sure if people would prefer having to dump a bunch of stray items on the floor of their boat.

Maybe they could use chests? I didn't add that because I considered it excessive as well, but if followers are improved on land this would make more sense.

Something about followers placing kelp still bothers me though. I think players should be in charge of anything related to building.

[Masked Koopa]

Just now, Pet Rock said:

Something about followers placing kelp still bothers me though. I think players should be in charge of anything related to building.

I do see what you mean, I tried to avoid that via having them only "replace" (i.e they see a bumper get broken and put one there) but it would be a pretty big thing for followers to interact with the world to that degree. That having been said, this isn't Minecraft where the devs are against mobs altering the world, so it might be an interesting direction to go (i.e perhaps they could interact with the world in other ways when unhired like making farms or houses if they are homeless or something.

 

3 minutes ago, Pet Rock said:

Maybe they could use chests? I didn't add that because I considered it excessive as well, but if followers are improved on land this would make more sense.

I do think W.O.B.O.T could serve as a good indicator for Klei at least being open to more mob interactivity with chests. I know a lot of people have been quite let down with W.O.B.O.T's collection speed so making followers able to store but not sort items could perhaps link into chest interactivity further. Either way I think it's definitely a lot better than having to leave the items on the floor. Another idea could just be to have some sort of "Boat Equipment Storage" Structure that followers can interact with, something Akin to a tin fishin' bin but for everything boating related.

[Cheggf]

I can't imagine how the followers could help man the boat in Don't Starve. If they drop all the sails when you man the helm the boat is automatically going max speed which can be way too fast if you have a 2, 3, or even 4 sail setup. If they raise all the sails when you get off the helm you are completely incapable of doing anything on the boat other than permanently giving 100% of your attention to helming even though the majority of the time you don't need to be steering and can be doing things like sort through chests, cook meals, manage light, fish, etc.

[Hornete]

I don't think I would really like it to the extent you're proposing, I would be perfectly happy with them just doing actions along with you when possible (heaving masts, raising anchors and rowing)

[Masked Koopa]

34 minutes ago, Hornete said:

I don't think I would really like it to the extent you're proposing, I would be perfectly happy with them just doing actions along with you when possible (heaving masts, raising anchors and rowing)

Well the main goal with these changes was to let followers compensate for you being on your own, if that makes sense. If all they do is the same actions as the player it makes stuff like sailing not any less micro-management heavy for a solo player. When you have 2+ players being able to delegate tasks makes the boating experience much more smooth. My hope was to provide some of that experience to solo players, since iv'e seen quite a lot of solo players resent the level of complexity and micromanagement present in DST boats.

 

1 hour ago, Cheggf said:

I can't imagine how the followers could help man the boat in Don't Starve. If they drop all the sails when you man the helm the boat is automatically going max speed which can be way too fast if you have a 2, 3, or even 4 sail setup. If they raise all the sails when you get off the helm you are completely incapable of doing anything on the boat other than permanently giving 100% of your attention to helming even though the majority of the time you don't need to be steering and can be doing things like sort through chests, cook meals, manage light, fish, etc.

I think for myself one of the desired aspects of a boat is to be able to sail it full-force assuming you have a crew capable of handling it full speed, sort of like a race car, wheras someone with your preferences is moreso using the boat like a luxury limo where you can do other stuff as the boat goes from point A to point B.

That having been said, some way to control how many sails followers will raise could at least be a potential solution, or perhaps the idea with the captain's tricorn I mentioned earlier where wearing it is a prerequisite for followers raising/lowering all your sails. It'd fit quite nicely with the hat's reduced damage from collisions since you are more likely to be colliding with stuff if you're going at full speed.

I'll make a list of questions for you since I am genuinely interested in making this idea as good as it can be. It'd mean a lot to me if you could answer them, although if anyone here wants to answer em I'd appreciate it too . I could do a poll but I think the dicussion is more valuable since it lets nuance shine through.

1. Are you happy with how sailing works right now?
2. What changes would you like to see made to followers on boats, if any?
3. Are you against any of the changes listed here?
   • Note: when I say against I mean that they would actively hinder your enjoyment of the game.
   • If you are against any of these changes, can you think of a compromise that'd fix your issue with them while facilitating their intended function?
   • If you can't think of a use for the change, PLEASE say so.

I should like to say that i'd also like to avoid any reasoning along the lines of "I don't need this so nobody does". I'm not saying that this is your approach here, but I just wanna pre-empt that since it's a mindset I don't really ascribe to. The entire reason I made this post was in response to a lot of people having complaints about DST boats, and I think a lot of those complaints stem from them working best in private multiplayer, which is how I pretty much exclusively play the game. My hope is to allow people to experience boats in a way more similar to private multiplayer; even in a solo world, or in a public server where everyone is doing their own thing.

[Jakepeng99]

Let them use a fire pump.

 

Also a whistle to command them to stop what they are doing is good.

[Masked Koopa]

2 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Let them use a fire pump.

Ima be honest, I completely forgot that thing exists. That is an excellent suggestion though, I'll add it to the post tomorrow.

[Frosty_Mentos]

Captain hat should give pigs or bunnies or merms to have you send commands to followers imo. If they could operate sails it would make best use of them while they're on boat.

[goblinball]

Turn sailing into pikmin but on a boat tbh

[grm9]

could just replace examine with making the closest friendly creature do whatever LMB would do if you're on a boat with it, although tbh i don't think that's needed anyway

Edited April 4 by grm9

[Well-met]

they would be a hindrance and a huge developer time sink.

handling a boat solo isnt difficult to learn

[Masked Koopa]

Alrighty, I have edited the main post to be a bit nicer looking + I did my best at adding and addressing the concerns ya'll brought up.

[Mike23Ua]

I’d like for followers to be more like Atlas (particularly while handling a boat or boat activities) I’d also like followers to be able to Mimic the players actions, and be assigned a particular task to do. Like Monkey Mimic Mode In the Survivalists.

As an Xbox console player I’d absolutely LOVE more simplistic structure activating input.

(such as when the player is on the steering wheel it has its own Dpad button prompts to quickly perform actions, D-pad down to drop anchor, D-pad up to lower sails etc…)

Sure having to interact with each part of the boat is fun when playing in a group, but it’s a painful experience when playing solo.

I’m not entirely sure if followers would be able to fix that either.

[MikoFanboy]

I love your idea, but not just for solo 

On 4/4/2024 at 4:30 AM, Masked Koopa said:

I think the boats are quite fun to pilot if you have friends,

me and my friend experience of this is not really positive

the people that not steering often has nothing to do and they feel bore waiting for the boat to find something

the only good task they can do is like you said, deals with the sails, tries to lower the anchor 

basically waiting to being told to do this and that, and none of my friend like it (same with me)

I think that in addition to add this stuff, they should also make more activity for the other people while on boat 

 

 

[Masked Koopa]

45 minutes ago, MikoFanboy said:

I love your idea, but not just for solo

That's great to hear! And yes, I think these changes would probably have some utility even in multiplayer, even if solo was my primary target. I think these changes would also be a lot of fun in general, the feeling of having your own boat crew could be really neat.

59 minutes ago, MikoFanboy said:

I think that in addition to add this stuff, they should also make more activity for the other people while on boat

I'm not sure if this would count to you, but I reckon the work to create all the needed behaviours and animations could also potentially re-used to make NPC boats show up on the ocean. You could have parties of Merms going fishing - maybe they give you gold in exchange for ocean fish. Or perhaps Pigs bringing a cargo of treasure to Pig King, being chased by monkey pirates. Do you save the Pigs from the pirates in exchange for a reward, or do you slaughter both Pig and Powder Monkey and claim the treasure for yourself?

I should also like to point out that animations like raising and lowering the anchor or patching a boat use generic "work" animations, so this could even be a prime chance for Klei to let Pigmen and Merms pick from stuff like Grass Tufts, Berry Bushes, Saplings, etc.

I think this sort of feature could tie into the upcoming update quite nicely. Hell, if Wurt is one of the characters getting a skill tree, the hypothetical Merm boat could feature Fishermerms, with her having a skill to increase their spawn frequency and/or build houses for them. Of course the update may already be too far down the planning pipeline for this to be a realistic hope, or it may simply be a Skill tree focused update with a small set of ocean QOL changes with a couple changes to Frostjaw or something.

[CuteC]

Something like this would make the game feel more alive even if you're by yourself, also would make solo sailing better which I imagine isn't exactly a fun activity.