New players in the game and 50 ways to hold down the F button

[HondorDrache]

English is not my native language, I don't understand it very well and use a translator

 

In the comments under a recent post, I wrote: 

"there is no need to make newbies look like disabled people, for whom it is extremely difficult to just go and look through all the tabs in the crafting menu.   
new players are not blind kittens"

And comrade 00petar00 misunderstood me.

I didn't call anyone 'disabled'; many on the forum already do that quite well, claiming, for example, that the 'riding' tab for Beefalo in the crafting menu is incredibly non-obvious, since a newbie would never think to scroll through the crafting menu. We need to add a Beefalo skill branch to the character so that a newbie will finally say: 'Wow, it turns out you can ride a Beefalo in this game!'

Not only in DST, but in the gaming industry as a whole, new and casual players have started to be considered as clumsy/drunk/crooked people who can't even press buttons and don't want to, so we need to turn all games into 'clickers'.
NO, they are not clumsy, drunk, or crooked, and let's not simplify games just for the sake of simplifying games.
In DST, of course, there are plenty of non-obvious things, but not so much that 'opening the crafting menu and reviewing all the tabs is very difficult'.

If there are so many non-obvious things in the game, then maybe, after so many years, the game will finally have proper training for its basics? Just pop-up tips or an entire training level where you are visually taught the mechanics of combat, cooking, and more.

And I don't understand how skill trees will help get accustomed to the game (of course, if they are intended for that). Conditionally, faster mushroom growth for Wormwood won't tell you that Charlie can kill you in the dark. Apart from perks like faster gathering for Woodie, everything else is intended for more experienced players.
Skill trees are a good idea with terrible implementation.
Some characters, originally weak, such as Willow, Woodie, receive rework #2 without much choice between perk progression, except for, for example, Winona, while others, originally strong, such as Wolfgang or Wurt, just get a boost in numbers without a variety of strategies.

I can come to a boss as Wolfgang and hold the F button until the thing with 10k HP dies, or I can stand and click the attack button on Winona's catapults, I can stand with the F button held down on Wolfgang, or I can grind for hours to fill the entire swamp with merms or make a bunch of ent idols and eventually come to the boss and just stand AFK while my merms/ents kill the boss.

In all these examples, you seem to be doing different things, but essentially none of it goes beyond the first logical level of 'standing with the F button held down until all the creeps on the screen die', instead of 'I will build merm houses all autumn and winter to roll over everything alive in Constant, and with the skill tree, I'll just do it a bit faster'. Skill trees should provide new ways to play the same character, we have a good example with Winona and her lunar and shadow sides, well how did we come to Wurt's skill tree? And that in the same update.

Why not develop Wigfrid's shield mechanic into a separate full-fledged way of playing, rather than just an option on some bosses/mobs? Why not develop Wigfrid's strategy of playing through Beefalo and songs into something more interesting? For example, instead of just holding F on Beefalo with endless songs, you could go through a mini-game where you need to time pressing the notes to enhance/perform songs, or add more reusable songs so you use Wigfrid's inspiration as mana and think about whether 'should I use all the inspiration on this song to speed up the attack rate of an ally hitting the boss, or better give Wendy a shield dome, since she has low HP?'.

Skill trees should give characters new ways to play, not just make old strategies stronger and add situational new things.

The game should have a proper tutorial on its basics.

Yes, making new mechanics for a character is harder than 'catapults shoot faster' and 'when you get wet, your sanity is restored', but then let one skill tree come out in an update. Klei can't even do the technical part properly for two skill trees on time, and they have to finish them after the release of the update.
actually, you don't even have to make new unique mechanics, but design the trees so that depending on the progression, you are more inclined to the chosen strategy, so you have more options in progression, and we will not have: "I leveled up all of Wormwood's skills for combat on extra skill points, and now I can help the team with bosses during breaks between gardening" but rather "I spent all skill points only on skills for combat and will rush bosses as Wormwood together with Wolfgang".

Even if these new mechanics for characters will be even stronger than what we have now, it will at least be more interesting than what the developers are doing now, and what they are doing now (with some exceptions) 

is that they strengthen in one way or another the numbers for '50 different ways to hold down the F button', and I don't understand why skill trees exist in this case and why it's not just character rework #2

[arubaro]

1 hour ago, HondorDrache said:

And I don't understand how skill trees will help get accustomed to the game

Tbh, what i experience with my frieds with little ammount of hours playing is that skill trees just adds more stuff to the already overwhelming ammount of things to learn

[Swiyss]

Your post is great and I agree with most of these questions you have.

But I realistically don't think that don't starve should run too far away from it's identity. The game has always been "this enemy is better fought with armor than kiting" rather than "if you're extremely good at mmorpgs, this game is for you since it has a bunch of dashes". You can't even jump in don't starve, I think vanilla minecraft requires way more practice in fights than don't starve, especially in player vs player situations.

I would really like if don't starve had a mana bar and every survivor had spells but that makes no sense cause at the end of the day we're fighting ents and winter deerclops. If the enemies were more complex in terms of positioning it would make sense.

We have the celestial champion which have 2 attacks on phase 3, one that is horizontal and another one that is vertical. This type of attack dodging pattern is very cool, but it takes like 6 seconds between each attack because there needs to be time for people to come to attack him, and he needs to have a lot of health due to how many people there can be in a server. If there was an option to play don't starve together but alone, then Klei could add a boss with 1000 hp with attacks like :

Spikes that come up from the ground but only 3 little squares are safe to stand one. Similar to antlion fight.

Or a very fast slash attack from top to bottom that hits the ground very fast 3 times, like the crystal deerclops, and to dodge it, you need to walk very little to each side in timing.

It's cool to have bosses with lots of attacks, and some even are only made if the boss is low hp. We need a boss that has all of these attacks, and they can do them randomly. This way the bosses are more interesting. I hope new bosses are like this.

[HondorDrache]

50 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

Your post is great and I agree with most of these questions you have.

But I realistically don't think that don't starve should run too far away from it's identity. The game has always been "this enemy is better fought with armor than kiting" rather than "if you're extremely good at mmorpgs, this game is for you since it has a bunch of dashes". You can't even jump in don't starve, I think vanilla minecraft requires way more practice in fights than don't starve, especially in player vs player situations.

I would really like if don't starve had a mana bar and every survivor had spells but that makes no sense cause at the end of the day we're fighting ents and winter deerclops. If the enemies were more complex in terms of positioning it would make sense.

I gave an example with mana talking about Wigfried, who already has a similar mechanic, and 2 “spells” that consume “mana” Rude Interlude and Startling Soliloquy. I gave this as an example as an opportunity to make the strategy of playing Wigfried through a “bard on beefalo” more interesting. We don’t need to add any mana or spells to anyone, or go somewhere very far from the current concept of battles, but the game should provide a variety of tasks that you should perform in battle, Wigfried's skill tree is already on the right track: playing through electric spear / shield blocking / bard on beefalo.  
developers just need to develop these concepts and make subsequent trees according to a similar principle

[AliceShiki]

16 hours ago, arubaro said:

Tbh, what i experience with my frieds with little ammount of hours playing is that skill trees just adds more stuff to the already overwhelming ammount of things to learn

Honestly, I feel like new players really should start with Wilson (or Wendy) specifically to not deal with that.

The game already has way too much overwhelming stuff to learn. You really don't need character gimmicks on top of that. The basic characters are simply better choices for newbies.

I personally prefer Wilson for beginners on that matter, but Wendy being able to mostly skip combat mechanics makes learning survival easier for sure.

[Evelo]

18 hours ago, HondorDrache said:

Skill trees should provide new ways to play the same character...

I disagree with this completely. But different strokes for different folks yknow.

[HondorDrache]

1 hour ago, Evelo said:

I disagree with this completely. But different strokes for different folks yknow.

What are skill trees for then? why is this not rework number 2?

[grm9]

2 minutes ago, HondorDrache said:

What are skill trees for then?

making newbies think that they're achieving something even if they aren't through giving them perks for simply playing the game

[Gashzer]

1 hour ago, grm9 said:

making newbies think that they're achieving something even if they aren't through giving them perks for simply playing the game

This is what is needed tho.

Going from the skill perception thread, if it takes an average of 300hours to get skilled in DST you might as well be rewarded with more than just being able to kill bosses solo.

[HondorDrache]

Yeah, instead of adding a tutorial, we're doing a meta progression. from the fact that a beginner will receive low regeneration in the sun or the opportunity to craft reeds, he will not stop dying from deerclops every winter. the newcomer will take the skill "torches shine at a greater distance" will die once again from the hounds and will never enter the game again. skill trees do almost nothing to help you get better at the game, and they almost do not give you the skills to overcome the first difficulties that the player faces. while the beginner has not mastered the basic game, we load him with even more mechanics: "summoning ents" "bonuses for beefalo" "bonuses for flowering" "bonuses for mushroom plantations" maybe the game should at least explain a little how to play it before giving something like that, no?

[Milordo]

3 hours ago, HondorDrache said:

What are skill trees for then? why is this not rework number 2?

An order from the top of Klei to make more money and marketing. 

[HondorDrache]

23 minutes ago, Milordo said:

An order from the top of Klei to make more money and marketing. 

this is understandable, I said this in the context of the fact that most skill trees in the form in which they are now are simply meaningless, for example, with Willow you have no choice in perks, your whole choice is: “fart with shadow things or fart with lunar things”

[Captain_Rage]

Don't Starve already had a good approach. Explore, survive, experiment, die. Rinse and repeat while trying new approaches and figuring out how things work. These days DST has strayed too much from that approach. Still, most players would like learn the game fast if they tried different approaches but "the problem" is that players tend to get stuck in loops they set up for themselves. That is outside the scope of the game.

Still people whine about year-old "issues" on the forums that other players have figured out how to play around long ago.

[The Starver]

18 hours ago, Swiyss said:

vanilla minecraft requires way more practice in fights than don't starve

Yes. This is correct.

[Ridley]

7 hours ago, grm9 said:

making newbies think that they're achieving something even if they aren't through giving them perks for simply playing the game

They are achieving something. It is the same as with Don't Starve, only they are unlocking skill points that might entice them to keep playing and trying new things rather than new characters.

[Valase]

I disagree with this post, you made fair critics about the game not having proper tutorial (I also disagree with this, but I undestand where it comes from), but you missed your own mark when you said that skill trees fail to teach the basics of the game as if that was their objective. I will not discuss it further because I got such a burnout from those kind of posts.

[Evelo]

14 hours ago, HondorDrache said:

What are skill trees for then? why is this not rework number 2?

I believe skill trees are meant for minor boosts in power. They, if I were designing them, would not alter a character's playstyle in anyway, just provide bonuses to certain aspects of a character's strengths to really drive home their baseline unique abilities. The Bernie tree of Willow is a good example of this, allowing Bernie to function the same as before, however just boosts his stats to make him more useful in more scenarios.

Why this, I believe, should not be a re-refresh is again looking at Willow, you are locking practically essential aspects of a character behind a wall. It does not promote choice and player decision making if everyone is going to do it anyway. Looking at Winona's skills you see a lot of good: minor to large bonuses to her catapults, primarily in the 2nd row with larger AoE, faster attack rate, or lower energy consumption. There is actual choice and none of them are wrong because it comes down to player preference and playstyle. I prefer the AoE because I use catapults for mundane tasks. I can see the efficiency in using the faster attack rate against bosses as they are mostly single target focused and dealing more damage quickly is nice. No wrong decision. Nothing new is gained or lost based on your choice (in this row). Granted, there are flaws in her skillset list as well. Portability while being the only choice initially is still requiring players actually pick it in order to use it. It is not a baseline trait for someone just starting out.

So that is why I disagree. I want Skillsets to be entirely minimal and not pigeon hold anyone into taking a talent else they miss out on the flashy new thing. Bake the flashy new thing baseline and let the skills alter that flashy new thing in ways to allow for a choice in the matter. (Using an example with Willow's Apex Spells in the Affinity. If she had a non-affinity based apex spell baseline, then the affinities would change it to fit the player's preferred style. No choice can be wrong in this situation.)

[Mimekoke]

I read all of your messages and im not the type of guy to mass quote everyone in the forums but skill trees are undoubtedly the best update in DST and have been since the day they dropped not because they make the game easier or harder but because they make whatever character they're attached to funner to play. Not all skill trees make the character instantly more fun (simply because wolfgangs exists) but every other character I'd say have become substantially more fun to play with their skill tree and thats all that matters to 99% of players when it comes to gaming in the grand scheme of things.

[HondorDrache]

16 hours ago, Valase said:

I disagree with this post, you made fair critics about the game not having proper tutorial (I also disagree with this, but I undestand where it comes from), but you missed your own mark when you said that skill trees fail to teach the basics of the game as if that was their objective. I will not discuss it further because I got such a burnout from those kind of posts.

I discussed the topic of "skill trees for beginners" in order to refute this. 
even in the POST ITSELF it was:  
"And I don't understand how skill trees will help get accustomed to the game (of course, if they are intended for that). Conditionally, faster mushroom growth for Wormwood won't tell you that Charlie can kill you in the dark. Apart from perks like faster gathering for Woodie, everything else is intended for more experienced players." 
and if, on the contrary, you wanted to say that skill trees can teach something, then: "I will not discuss it further because I got such a burnout from those kind of posts" 
yeah, I love people like this, "you're SOOOOO wrong!!!! I would have made SO MANY arguments now, but I'm just tired of posts like this  " 
if you continue to fight individual statements without taking into account the overall picture, then “posts of this kind” will not disappear anywhere .

and if you wanted to say that skill trees teach beginners something, then... I would give sooooooo many arguments against each of your comments under each post on this forum, but I won’t do that 

10 hours ago, Evelo said:

I believe skill trees are meant for minor boosts in power. They, if I were designing them, would not alter a character's playstyle in anyway, just provide bonuses to certain aspects of a character's strengths to really drive home their baseline unique abilities. The Bernie tree of Willow is a good example of this, allowing Bernie to function the same as before, however just boosts his stats to make him more useful in more scenarios.

Why this, I believe, should not be a re-refresh is again looking at Willow, you are locking practically essential aspects of a character behind a wall. It does not promote choice and player decision making if everyone is going to do it anyway. Looking at Winona's skills you see a lot of good: minor to large bonuses to her catapults, primarily in the 2nd row with larger AoE, faster attack rate, or lower energy consumption. There is actual choice and none of them are wrong because it comes down to player preference and playstyle. I prefer the AoE because I use catapults for mundane tasks. I can see the efficiency in using the faster attack rate against bosses as they are mostly single target focused and dealing more damage quickly is nice. No wrong decision. Nothing new is gained or lost based on your choice (in this row). Granted, there are flaws in her skillset list as well. Portability while being the only choice initially is still requiring players actually pick it in order to use it. It is not a baseline trait for someone just starting out.

So that is why I disagree. I want Skillsets to be entirely minimal and not pigeon hold anyone into taking a talent else they miss out on the flashy new thing. Bake the flashy new thing baseline and let the skills alter that flashy new thing in ways to allow for a choice in the matter. (Using an example with Willow's Apex Spells in the Affinity. If she had a non-affinity based apex spell baseline, then the affinities would change it to fit the player's preferred style. No choice can be wrong in this situation.)

I also wrote in a post about similar development of skill trees: "actually, you don't even have to make new unique mechanics, but design the trees so that depending on the progression, you are more inclined to the chosen strategy, so you have more options in progression, and we will not have: "I leveled up all of Wormwood's skills for combat on extra skill points, and now I can help the team with bosses during breaks between gardening" but rather "I spent all skill points only on skills for combat and will rush bosses as Wormwood together with Wolfgang".
that is, provide more skills, more options for a certain, already existing style of play on a character.

[Evelo]

52 minutes ago, HondorDrache said:

I also wrote in a post about similar development of skill trees: "actually, you don't even have to make new unique mechanics, but design the trees so that depending on the progression, you are more inclined to the chosen strategy, so you have more options in progression, and we will not have: "I leveled up all of Wormwood's skills for combat on extra skill points, and now I can help the team with bosses during breaks between gardening" but rather "I spent all skill points only on skills for combat and will rush bosses as Wormwood together with Wolfgang".
that is, provide more skills, more options for a certain, already existing style of play on a character.

Yeah, so essentially we are in agreement. Sadly it does not seem that is the route Klei is taking though.
It isn't something new, just enhancing what already exists.

[Bumber64]

On 7/8/2024 at 6:10 AM, The Starver said:

Yes. This is correct.

Minecraft: Attack while walking backwards.

DST: Choose one.

That alone makes Minecraft combat take less practice by default. (And then you can cheese by standing on a nerd pillar, hitting around corners, or hitting feet.)

Once you get enchanted diamond armor (with mending, so you don't need to repair,) you can do the same tank and click mouse. (Assuming you don't use firework crossbows instead.) Craft golden apples if you need for bosses.

You can't tank every boss in DST, just as you can't tank ender dragon without risking falling into the void. (Unless you build an obsidian box, of course, but bed cheese is easy enough.)

[00petar00]

On 7/7/2024 at 12:39 PM, HondorDrache said:

In the comments under a recent post, I wrote: 

"there is no need to make newbies look like disabled people, for whom it is extremely difficult to just go and look through all the tabs in the crafting menu.   
new players are not blind kittens"

And comrade 00petar00 misunderstood me.

I didn't call anyone 'disabled'; many on the forum already do that quite well, claiming, for example, that the 'riding' tab for Beefalo in the crafting menu is incredibly non-obvious, since a newbie would never think to scroll through the crafting menu. We need to add a Beefalo skill branch to the character so that a newbie will finally say: 'Wow, it turns out you can ride a Beefalo in this game!'

I don't remember but this happened (my memory is bad).

On 7/7/2024 at 12:39 PM, HondorDrache said:

Not only in DST, but in the gaming industry as a whole, new and casual players have started to be considered as clumsy/drunk/crooked people who can't even press buttons and don't want to, so we need to turn all games into 'clickers'.
NO, they are not clumsy, drunk, or crooked, and let's not simplify games just for the sake of simplifying games.
In DST, of course, there are plenty of non-obvious things, but not so much that 'opening the crafting menu and reviewing all the tabs is very difficult'.

I don't know about you but when I drink (which is quite often) I don't want to click on things on screen but press buttons like holding F to attack. The problem with DST is that you need to figure out that holding F does something, a lot of new players will simply keep clicking on enemies which makes it much harder to fight and almost impossible to kite.

On 7/7/2024 at 12:39 PM, HondorDrache said:

If there are so many non-obvious things in the game, then maybe, after so many years, the game will finally have proper training for its basics? Just pop-up tips or an entire training level where you are visually taught the mechanics of combat, cooking, and more.

DST is a very unique game that it doesn't tell you what to do and I think that a tutorial teaching players how to attack, use crockpot and make meatballs/pierogi/trail mix, kill butterflies would be very good addition to the game. I understand that a lot of people see charm in DST not teaching you anything but that is only after the said player has suffered, I don't think anyone would mind a simple 5-10 minute tutorial on how to do the most basic things.

 

[grm9]

3 minutes ago, 00petar00 said:

a tutorial teaching players how to use crockpot and make meatballs/pierogi/trail mix, kill butterflies

that might make newbies think that these're useful so better not to do that

[00petar00]

5 minutes ago, grm9 said:

that might make newbies think that these're useful so better not to do that

?? It is useful to all players that don't avoid using crockpot like you. I am not saying that it is bad to avoid crockpot If you want to play in a specific way but that it is a very unique playstyle that most players won't enjoy. New players eat anything and are often on the verge of starving so crockpot is very useful to them.

[grm9]

3 minutes ago, 00petar00 said:

?? It is useful to all players that don't avoid using crockpot like you. I am not saying that it is bad to avoid crockpot If you want to play in a specific way but that it is a very unique playstyle that most players won't enjoy. New players eat anything and are often on the verge of starving so crockpot is very useful to them

showing that through an official tutorial might make them think that there's no reason to doubt that these're always useful if you can use them even though it'll be better for them to not use that if they'll want to do stuff fast