What do you think of the intended experience in DST?

[layangan putus]

Before we discuss about the intended experience, there are things need to be mentioned about gamer behavior:

1. The first 1-2 hours (10-15 in-game days): One will decide to quit the game completely (clueless or frustated) or choose to learn - Very simple stuff, no hook so no fish. People will change character time to time to keep the game fresh.
2. Somewhere between 5-40 hours (37-345 in-game days): Some will experiment, check wiki and watch guides (understanding the game mechanics and learning more creatures & items) but the others will give up the game completely especially if there is no clear goal. (they think you are wasting their time - average people only play for 8 hours/week which is around a progress of 60 in-game days but surely they'd die couple times, no?)
3. The next 50-100 hours (375 days-750 in-game days) will decide whether this game worth playing or not:

• At this point, ones should have enough profound knowledges about the survival and ready to explore the world and to discover secrets - Some can already make the conclusion about the overall experience & move on to their next game;
• The problem is for most games: those hours are equal to 75%-90% of the journey in another game with clear narrative because the ending is just right there;
• In DST, those hours should be already the golden time (THE PEAK) to solve mysteries in the Constant & to embark for riskier adventures;
• The reality is new players will surely die and need to redo everything or hopefully use touch stone or whatnot and get sent back to square 2;
• On top of that, depends on how good players are (skill or friends) in solving the puzzles and recognizing patterns. The game cycle will keep repeating for a total of 300-1000 hours (2250-7500 in-game days) until the survivors really experience the intended design of DST meaning figuring all things and defeating all bosses

And here we are now in the state where experienced players manage to compress that hundreds if not thousands of hours to mere 1-2 hours. I don't mind spending another thousands of hours having that experience again but it's impossible (or is it?) so I choose to support the dev team "buffing" these characters via skill tree to shorten those hundreds or thousands of hours into 150 hours or less (need more information) for potential new members of the community. I believe those new skill trees will hook wider old members or audiences to spend more at least hundreds of hours in the game. Several things also come in mind after skill trees done to improve the intended experience:

1. 5-mins tutorial:

• Enter tutorial as Wilson
• Place a pair of "Trees-Axe", "Boulders-Pickaxe", "Twigs-grasses", "Spear-Healing" - The goal is learning the basic movement & equipments;
• Place several hound mounds, make sure the player can get at least 4 monster meats - The goal is learning how combat & looting works;
• Place a pig house & a science machine - The goal is learning the local ability and crafting;
• Put a sign that says, "Heal your new friend using all the meats" - The goal is learning the werepig interaction (pig skins are useful for spring and summer so at least the player should know how to get);
• Create medium forest with a clear road & place a trapped chest that reduces sanity & spawn 4-5 Spider Queens when opened (circled by obelisks) at the end of the road - So the tutorial can end (or what if the player manages to survive?) 

2. Clear hints for solving mysteries from the scrapbook?
3. Biomes rework and resources control (already made a post about it)
4. Balancing for the experienced players (maybe anticipate the game cycle & rework bosses)
5. New world gen and the engine used related to in-game verticality (I am not software engineer, it just comes to my mind)

[Well-met]

the intended experience is not having a planned route like you're suggesting.

[Castiliano]

BIG NO

Not having any traditional tutorial like the one you point out is part of the charm of this game. 

[Sacco]

Everyone experiences the game in a different way.

As for me, i started killing bosses like dfly and bee queen after the first 10/20 hours.

And i managed to kill fuelweaver before i even hit 100 hours (celestial champion wasn't a thing yet, so i just beat him when he came out)

I've always read the wiki for almost every single thing in this game, so i learned a ton of things very very fast.

I used to be the type of player who doesn't speedrun, but he's quick at doing everything.

Now i am just a chill guy, but years before i was on a rush every single time.

[Mysterious box]

6 hours ago, Sacco said:

I've always read the wiki for almost every single thing in this game, so i learned a ton of things very very fast.

This is a red flag though don't starve together suffers from the fact a player still can't organically learn most of it's mechanics without banging your head against every possible wall that exists and even then you'll still probably need the wiki or the ability to data mine.

The game has gotten far to big to rely on being vague at this point.

[BezKa]

The original DS is definitely meant to be played in "**** around and find out" way, where any tutorial will ruin the intended experience.

With skill trees and scrapbook now, DST no longer follows the same idea, and honestly, who cares anymore. If you're going to hold player's hand in any way in a game completely based and built on top of a game that had no such thing, you're going to keep tripping on the original premise anyway. Might as well add an assistant in the corner of your screen that will tell you what to do at all times.

The set pieces and clues in the crafting menu were more than enough to let a new player figure stuff out, and the very first character calls himself a scientist for a reason. The trailer is about acquiring forbidden knowledge ffs, Klei has told you at every possible point that knowledge is the thing this game is about. If you can't be bothered to seek it out, stop playing, you're not going to have fun anyway.

Thankfully we now got a bunch of little carrots you can get by afking by a fire pit and some berry bushes, so maybe you'll stick around to get killed by hounds. Yippie!

[Anis5240]

28 minutes ago, BezKa said:

cquiring forbidden knowledge

the real forbidden knowledge was the way how we all got into speedruns all along

[Sacco]

2 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

This is a red flag though don't starve together suffers from the fact a player still can't organically learn most of it's mechanics without banging your head against every possible wall that exists and even then you'll still probably need the wiki or the ability to data mine.

The game has gotten far to big to rely on being vague at this point.

red flag for what?

I've always been someone who wants to learn as much as possible about a game i like.

I just enjoy playing this way.

[Mysterious box]

20 minutes ago, Sacco said:

red flag for what?

I've always been someone who wants to learn as much as possible about a game i like.

I just enjoy playing this way.

I more so meant that a lot of the core features of the game more or less force people to use the wiki to learn them rather than being more straight forward I didn't mean that the way you play was bad or anything sorry if I gave that idea.

[Sacco]

9 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I didn't mean that the way you play was bad or anything sorry if I gave that idea.

I didn't mean that either, i just didn't understand what that red flag meant.

Anyway, yea you are right, dst is hardly without the use of the wiki.

But i have to be honest and say that i read through all the wiki, knowing about things i didn't even encountered yet at that period.

I didn't ever experience taht feeling of "i need the wiki so i can understand what to do but i don't want to spoil the entire game".