Less and less people playing dst?

[Mike23Ua]

11 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

The "average playerbase" has not left the game. Someone already posted a screencap of the Steamcharts page. 

How many players are actively playing DST? you can’t really count stats, I know I’ve personally been guilty of just letting the game run in AFK mode while I go watch the 5 hour long Snyder cut of Justice League movie, just so I can passively farm daily/weekly gifts, and insight when a character got a skill tree update.

You’ll often see a spike in higher player numbers during betas, content updates, the game going on sale.. (it was only 1$ on Xbox Live not too long ago and I bought it for 15 random people on my XBL friend list)

as often as DST goes on sale for dirt cheap prices Klei may as well just make it Free To Play at this point. 

And in very very VERY rare occasion, you might see player spikes when new pretty base/belonging skins are released for the base decorating side of the fanbase. 

But, my question still stands, how many players actively play and engage with the content of the game??

How often have you personally been able to join anyones game session at random and they’ve progressed far enough into the game to cause Moonstorms to happen? Let alone Wild Rifts!

Klei has all these fancy stats for how many “Dead Wilson’s” there have been but why don’t they actually utilize those stats for a greater good??

How many people have killed Dragonfly? How many have defeated AFW?

How many on Xbox have successfully been able to fight AFW or Misery Toad with a Weather Pain?

Klei needs to use their stats to see what weapons and items are being under-used and maybe make some behind the scenes balance adjustments under the hood.

Hell I once spent 6 hours exclusively playing the Curio Collector Mini-Games in DST… but does that actually count as playing DST??

[Cruvimaster]

18 hours ago, nimzowitsch10 said:

Feels like DST is in a slump in terms of updates and long time fans arent as excited for beta/updates anymore. Guess that is the life cycle for every game. 

People's priorities change over the years. That's all. In 10 years, many people have died, stopped playing video games or changed their tastes to other types of games. Life is like that.

[NPCMaxwell]

6 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

How many players are actively playing DST? you can’t really count stats, I know I’ve personally been guilty of just letting the game run in AFK mode while I go watch the 5 hour long Snyder cut of Justice League movie, just so I can passively farm daily/weekly gifts, and insight when a character got a skill tree update.

You’ll often see a spike in higher player numbers during betas, content updates, the game going on sale.. (it was only 1$ on Xbox Live not too long ago and I bought it for 15 random people on my XBL friend list)

as often as DST goes on sale for dirt cheap prices Klei may as well just make it Free To Play at this point. 

And in very very VERY rare occasion, you might see player spikes when new pretty base/belonging skins are released for the base decorating side of the fanbase. 

But, my question still stands, how many players actively play and engage with the content of the game??

How often have you personally been able to join anyones game session at random and they’ve progressed far enough into the game to cause Moonstorms to happen? Let alone Wild Rifts!

Klei has all these fancy stats for how many “Dead Wilson’s” there have been but why don’t they actually utilize those stats for a greater good??

How many people have killed Dragonfly? How many have defeated AFW?

How many on Xbox have successfully been able to fight AFW or Misery Toad with a Weather Pain?

Klei needs to use their stats to see what weapons and items are being under-used and maybe make some behind the scenes balance adjustments under the hood.

Hell I once spent 6 hours exclusively playing the Curio Collector Mini-Games in DST… but does that actually count as playing DST??

I bet if you agree to the information-collection setting in options, I BET that then Klei does a statistics of those things. (and I am curious about this statistics! Are people really that combat focused as the game / the forum makes it sound like?)

[Cheggf]

9 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

How many players are actively playing DST?

That's a very good question. Don't Starve Together gives you real life money for having the game open (on Steam), so it's already going to inherently have an artificially inflated number from bots & idlers.

[nimzowitsch10]

Feels like people think i'm attacking klei when i'm really not. I still love DST and still play it and wish it will become the biggest game ever.

I'm just asking do you guys have the same experience as me where it is hard to find people to play with and most friends have moved on to different games

There's nothing wrong with moving on to different games and it happens to every game just about.

[Cruvimaster]

7 minutes ago, nimzowitsch10 said:

Feels like people think i'm attacking klei when i'm really not. I still love DST and still play it and wish it will become the biggest game ever.

I'm just asking do you guys have the same experience as me where it is hard to find people to play with and most friends have moved on to different games

There's nothing wrong with moving on to different games and it happens to every game just about.

This happens with all games that last a long time. People stop and others start. It's the cycle of life applied to long-running games.

[Mike23Ua]

38 minutes ago, nimzowitsch10 said:

Feels like people think i'm attacking klei when i'm really not. I still love DST and still play it and wish it will become the biggest game ever.

I'm just asking do you guys have the same experience as me where it is hard to find people to play with and most friends have moved on to different games

There's nothing wrong with moving on to different games and it happens to every game just about.

Do you want to know why Minecraft and Fortnite are two of the biggest most played games in the world?

Its because instead of trying to do what Klei does with DST and trying to make a “One Size Fits All” Shoe we all have to try to get our feet inside, those two games above offer players many different types of shoe colors and sizes.

Take myself for example: When Fortnite first released and only had its one boring fortress building battle Royale mode, I absolutely hated the game with great spite, but as the years went on.. they added New ways to play Fortnite such as Zero Build mode where players CANT build structures, but the game world could still be destroyed and since prior to Fortnite I had came from a long long history of playing Battlefield games, I felt extremely at home with a map that I could “manipulate” being able to destroy parts of the environment for my own tactical advantages.

But BEFORE I could enjoy the game, they had to offer a new mode that prevented people from building huge fortresses all over the place.

Nowdays there’s even MORE ways to play FN, from Lego Survival to Racing, to playing full rounds of a different video game called Fallguys.

In short: All the cosmetics I had purchased on Fortnite, were useable in all these other “Games” and while I was still playing “Fortnite” maybe I was enjoying “Rocket League style Soccer” 

Minecraft does the same offering different ways to play, but with DST it’s the same tiring gameplay style over and over and over again.

Sure you can maybe try “lights out mode” but it’s STILL the same tiring gameplay with nothing truly different enough or unique enough about the mode to feel much different from the base game.

Ive heard of “gorge & forge” but I personally never got to play these limited time “events” but from what little info I could gather about them they were vastly different ways to enjoy a new type of gameplay, without having to play something that wasn’t “DST”

[Zima Blue]

I don't know about everyone else but I am just waiting for a good update. I don't really like this new beta so I'm waiting for the next one. 

[NPCMaxwell]

44 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Do you want to know why Minecraft and Fortnite are two of the biggest most played games in the world?

Its because instead of trying to do what Klei does with DST and trying to make a “One Size Fits All” Shoe we all have to try to get our feet inside, those two games above offer players many different types of shoe colors and sizes.

Take myself for example: When Fortnite first released and only had its one boring fortress building battle Royale mode, I absolutely hated the game with great spite, but as the years went on.. they added New ways to play Fortnite such as Zero Build mode where players CANT build structures, but the game world could still be destroyed and since prior to Fortnite I had came from a long long history of playing Battlefield games, I felt extremely at home with a map that I could “manipulate” being able to destroy parts of the environment for my own tactical advantages.

But BEFORE I could enjoy the game, they had to offer a new mode that prevented people from building huge fortresses all over the place.

Nowdays there’s even MORE ways to play FN, from Lego Survival to Racing, to playing full rounds of a different video game called Fallguys.

In short: All the cosmetics I had purchased on Fortnite, were useable in all these other “Games” and while I was still playing “Fortnite” maybe I was enjoying “Rocket League style Soccer” 

Minecraft does the same offering different ways to play, but with DST it’s the same tiring gameplay style over and over and over again.

Sure you can maybe try “lights out mode” but it’s STILL the same tiring gameplay with nothing truly different enough or unique enough about the mode to feel much different from the base game.

Ive heard of “gorge & forge” but I personally never got to play these limited time “events” but from what little info I could gather about them they were vastly different ways to enjoy a new type of gameplay, without having to play something that wasn’t “DST”

I still would adore an official 1 (or 2) vs team mode.

By that I mean the survivors being a team that tries to survive (and has to collect the things + escape via a teleportato) while 1 Maxwell (use NPC or playable model I don't care) has to sabotage them / plant traps /  summon mobs / steal their stuff / disassemble the teleportatoe again and so on)

alternative for the 2 vs team mode:

Maxwell AND Charlie (npc models or playable, Charlie would get a playable model for this so Maxwell and Charlie don't look too different from each other) are the antagonists with their own seperate set of sabotaging the others.

Winner is either the antagonist who killed the team, or the team that escaped via teleportato.

Also Maxwell and Charlie would NOT be killable, but they have pvp enable single-sided and can attack the teammembers.

[Primalflower]

2 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Edit: oh no wait I fell for him blatantly lying. That isn't what the Steamcharts look like, he put that dumb face on it on purpose to block the end of the chart:

There really are way less people playing. Instead of 45-75k players it's been at 10-40k. But your explanation doesn't make sense either. Why, after 10 years, would there abruptly be such a huge drop in players all of a sudden due to reasons that have been eternally true? 

Is steamcharts like, false? because im seeing totally different numbers

Very consistently peaks around 40k and dips to somewhere around 10k, for the past however long. Stupid face was somewhat deceptive but ultimately it does not seem to have hidden anything important?

[NPCMaxwell]

8 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

Is steamcharts like, false? because im seeing totally different numbers

Very consistently peaks around 40k and dips to somewhere around 10k, for the past however long. Stupid face was somewhat deceptive but ultimately it does not seem to have hidden anything important?

Could it be that steam charts are regional for what place you are located and it only shows your local numbers? (Let me check what mine looks like.)

----

 

edit: I have no idea where to find this, so nevermind x_x

[lowercase skye]

I'd like to mention that Steam player stats do not paint a complete picture considering just how popular DST is in China, which has its own game launchers rather than Steam.

[Mike23Ua]

Just now, finn from human said:

I'd like to mention that Steam player stats do not paint a complete picture considering just how popular DST is in China, which has its own game launchers rather than Steam.

If a game is very popular over in China, but not in the US then that game becomes KartRider: Drift.

(a game that just announced its closing down and terminating all services for all regions of the world except only where it’s still massively popular)

This news comes not too terribly shortly after a new battle pass AND a recentish Collaboration event with “BlackPink”

So…. DST being popular in China isn’t really saying anything.

[moneymonday]

2 hours ago, Cheggf said:

The "average playerbase" has not left the game. Someone already posted a screencap of the Steamcharts page.

Edit: oh no wait I fell for him blatantly lying. That isn't what the Steamcharts look like, he put that dumb face on it on purpose to block the end of the chart:

There really are way less people playing. Instead of 45-75k players it's been at 10-40k. But your explanation doesn't make sense either. Why, after 10 years, would there abruptly be such a huge drop in players all of a sudden due to reasons that have been eternally true? 

 

which one are you looking at? this is the 3 year one

I wouldn't be surprised if these graphs weren't 100% accurate, but there is still no downwards trend to be seen. and of course older players are leaving. we are just humans and humans get bored. they've already talked about this. to make a human want to play a game for that long you need to use some sort of predatory tactic.

[Primalflower]

1 minute ago, Mike23Ua said:

If a game is very popular over in China, but not in the US then that game becomes KartRider: Drift.

(a game that just announced its closing down and terminating all services for all regions of the world except only where it’s still massively popular)

This news comes not too terribly shortly after a new battle pass AND a recentish Collaboration event with “BlackPink”

So…. DST being popular in China isn’t really saying anything.

if this were the case every time then DST would have been closed for americans half a decade ago

[Keknutui]

2 hours ago, BezKa said:

Нас изрядно разозлила история с деревом навыков, и с тех пор мы мало играли вместе. В настоящее время мы проводим ознакомительный забег в Stardew valley для единственного друга, который не играл, и изучаем там новый контент. Однако недавно я на несколько часов сел по хозяйству в своем solo world.

Хотя после того, как мы закончим с SV, мы собираемся вернуться и продолжить играть в нашем последнем мире, у него больное поколение карт, и мы были прямо в середине игры.

С включенным модом no skill trees ofc.

I sometimes find it interesting to look at your posts about skill trees. 
I don't want to say anything bad in your direction, but I just don't understand why LITERALLY cut off a piece of the game to get another "fun"? DST is not a Don't Starve, many of its chips are made for multiplayer, and YES, there has been no hardcore in the game for 2 reasons for a long time. 1, you know how to play, and 2, that the skill trees are made to diversify both the character and the action in the game. Yes, it's probably strong, but damn, DST has never been a hardcore game. 
Do you want to object to me and tell me that this is not the case? Well, then... 2 bone armor and thermal stone have been in the game for almost 10 years, and they are still breaking some kind of game, and players have only recently started complaining about the "bad" balance of this game. Yes, the balance is not completely solid, but it is not at the level of some kind of mess, as many people usually like to overdo it

[BezKa]

5 minutes ago, Keknutui said:

snip

Let's not get off topic. Very short answer- it's not really about difficulty. It's a bunch of different things all together, which in my opinion are a net negative for this game. DST is not DS, but it was built on it, and rejecting core aspects of itself will only harm the game. Skill trees for me are such rejection.

[ShadowDuelist]

The gaming industry is growing exponentially, with more and more exciting new games to play every month. I think it's only natural that, after a while, once people have done most of what there is to do, they move on to different games. However, Klei has managed to keep their game fresh and attract new players, which helps keep the community alive.

From my perspective, this is a game that's always fun to return to.

I don't think the skill trees are what's driving players away. If anything, while it may have discouraged some, I believe it has actually attracted more old players to return than it has driven away. For example, I hadn't played for months before Winona's skill tree update, but her skill tree, with its interesting concepts like designing a pattern of teleporters, made me put another 100 hours into the game.

[Echsrick]

5 hours ago, NPCMaxwell said:

I bet if you agree to the information-collection setting in options, I BET that then Klei does a statistics of those things. (and I am curious about this statistics! Are people really that combat focused as the game / the forum makes it sound like?)

i for one am sick of the constand combat related stuff, like the giant worm? for sure was added because otherwise the update would not had realy much of a "big combat" goin for it, i actualy like the skill trees because they dont realy focus that much with it with combat stuff and more of the fun sand boxy kinda feel

[Evelo]

Fewer

Also yea probably. "No king rules forever." I still come back and play every now and then. Played for 300 hours once CK got reworked and now I am on hiatus for probably 2 or 3 patches.

[Frosty_Mentos]

On 8/31/2024 at 6:11 AM, nimzowitsch10 said:

@prezera I'm more referring to long time players, I know new players are picking up the game especially with that 1 dollar sale they had not too long ago. No need for the snarky response.

People grow up, people have lives, people get bored of playing things over and over again sometimes. People need to touch grass sometimes.

[Mike23Ua]

6 hours ago, prezera said:

to make a human want to play a game for that long you need to use some sort of predatory tactic.

no, to make a human want to play a game longer, they just need to offer that human more options than what DST currently offers it’s players.

For example: if you choose to play the game on “Relaxed Mode” how much about the game does that ACTUALLY change? Does it make hunger drain slower? Does it make enemies less likely to attack you?? (Similar to how WX78 gets  targeted slightly less often by clockworks due to being a robot) Does it make fighting Crab King any Easier??? 

The answer is NO, and now to understand that better if you were to choose “Survivor” Difficulty for Another game I’m playing- Bosses will spawn with less health, AND fewer attacks for the player to need to learn. Meanwhile- Play that same game on Hardcore mode and bosses take longer to kill, have 2-3 phase stages with new attacks that make it harder, AND if you get hit more than 5 times regardless of how much Health you have it’s Game Over.

Theres a REASON you see 500 threads complaining about reworking bosses or adding health/difficulty scaling to them.

But honestly from my personal experience, it’s not just the bosses that need to scale.. things like the “Moon Stone Event” could be significantly less frustrating for a solo player if it spawned less enemy mobs for them to try to prevent attacking the staff, or the staff had more health and could withstand more enemy attacks when the server can only have 4 max players playing.

Meanwhile if 6 or more are playing, the staff can break faster, more enemies spawn, etc..

My point is that DST needs a ton of under the hood adjustments, Adjustments that hilariously…..

Would probably be a #1 priority if Klei was to make a brand new entry into the franchise.

Take Rogue Legacy 2 for example- The developers received plenty of Feedback on how much people loved the gameplay but felt it was way way wayyy too difficult to play, so when the sequel was eventually released, it had more forgiving difficulty settings so people who couldn’t get past the intentionally very difficult original game, could now play and enjoy the Sequel.

And as long as there’s no real significant difference between modes- Then Klei’s really only giving players one way to play the game.

[NPCMaxwell]

10 hours ago, Echsrick said:

i for one am sick of the constand combat related stuff, like the giant worm? for sure was added because otherwise the update would not had realy much of a "big combat" goin for it, i actualy like the skill trees because they dont realy focus that much with it with combat stuff and more of the fun sand boxy kinda feel

I love Wormy, but I still get kind of sick that every update I have actively wittnessed so far was: We must add something REALLY BIG. [or change something REALLY BIG like crab king stuff]

[Maxil20]

There are a million and one reasons that people might have left/not play as much DST anymore, and a good chunk of those reasons, in my opinion, are entirely unrelated to DST, and are things like, interests changing or literally actually growing up from the sheer amount of time that’s passed.

I’ve been playing this game for ~9-10 years, and that’s a lot of time for things to change. When I started DST, I was toward the end of very late middle school-early high school. I had a ridiculous amount of free time I could kill and I didn’t have a lot of friends (and some of the said friends I had, turned out to be really awful people later down the line…). I could afford to just shove like 7-8 hours of DS/T every single day because I literally had nothing else to do and I didn’t worry about troubles nearly as much as I do now.

Nowdays? I’ve got a job I need to handle and focus on, multiple friendships from people that range from many different games, contending with the fact some of my friends were actually Not-A-Good people, helping friends that are good people but are in bad spots, and just in general trying to adapt to being an adult, which is really hard for me (ADHD/Autism does not make this easy…). It’s a bit funny, because now I have some of the best computer power I’ve ever had to play DS/T on (I played on a really bad 4 GB laptop when I started, then on my tablet which was genuinely better then the Laptop, then my PS4, then a better laptop, then a proper PC…) but I hardly have nearly enough free time I used to have even 3-4 years ago, much less a lot more games I can choose from to play.

None of it was really related to DST at all. If anything a lot of the rift content has made me happy with the future of DST as a baser myself (<3 polar bearger bin), but I just simply don’t have the endurance or time I had when I was younger to play it as much. I do still play pretty good sessions occasionally to do things (I clocked in an extra 80-90 hours on my 5+ year old world with the new ocean content), but its not nearly as extreme as when I clocked in over 100 hours monthly on that world for almost 7-8 months in a row.

In short, I feel it’s a very subjective answer. Some of it is totally just related to burnout or not being interested in DST anymore, which is fair, but there’s also just a lot of other circumstances which could cause people to not play as much as when they did years ago.

[Chesed]

I've been playing since DS early access release and still play.

Don't Starve is one of my hyperfixations. It's a chill game to have on while I'm talking to friends. I just like messing around in it - I enjoy fighting bosses and collecting things just because it's fun for me to do.

When I play with friends who are playing for the first time or are not experienced at playing it, it's quite a stressful game for them. By the time they have gotten good enough to survive and defeat bosses, they turn to me like "what do I do now?" and for most of them "just do whatever you want!" isn't really a satisfactory answer, and they move on to something else because they get bored.

It is what it is. I am the exact same with Minecraft, Project Zomboid, etc. - once I'm thriving, I get bored and want to play something else. Meanwhile I have friends who play these games for thousands more hours than I play DST and they never get tired of it.

Usually when DST recieves an update I rally people to play it until they get bored again, but I haven't really bothered this year. Nothing since Host of Horrors has felt like something they would be interested in. I don't think this upcoming update is much different either. I am checking out the skilltrees and smaller new content with one or two friends who are as obsessed as me, and waiting for a meatier backlog of Cool New Things™ to amass before I try to entice my larger group of less invested friends to play again. They don't really get excited over things like the Polar Bearger Bin, QoL updates, or Winona being able to pick up her machines like I do.