Poll: how much information should the game give to new players? Is DST too hard to learn?

[Mike23Ua]

Certain things should be more easily accessible, such as for example: having more in depth and detailed descriptions of what the skill tree point your about to invest into actually does…. Rather than having to look that information up on some obscure corner of the internet through Wiki.

Im playing the new Wendy skill tree and I have no clue what “decorated” gravestones is even intended to do, I just know you upgrade the headstone with 4 flowers and then a very out of place and disturbing looking “happy” ghost comes out of his grave. But aside from making him Non-Aggressive, I have no earthly clue what this actually does or is intended to do…

I also think all crafting recipes should have more detailed descriptions too, and show all possible craftable items, (I change mine to this by default just so I can scroll through whatever new craftables Klei adds in each update) the player needs to know things like “trade with a monkey queen to obtain a blueprint for this”

Its vague, doesn’t give to many details, but DOES let them know that somewhere in the game world they need to find and trade with a monkey queen to craft dock tiles.

[Bumber64]

On 3/1/2025 at 2:15 AM, WilsonHiggs said:

10 seconds or minutes if you dont know that you can finish the fight with a couple of hits... isnt that hard to understand but if you always used the health bar i get that you never got into the situations im describing.

I don't see how you could fight a boss incautiously for several minutes. If you could do that, it wouldn't matter how close to death it was at any time.

You can get the max health from the scrapbook, IIRC, so you can already determine if you should engage to begin with.

[WilsonHiggs]

9 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

I don't see how you could fight a boss incautiously for several minutes. If you could do that, it wouldn't matter how close to death it was at any time.

You can get the max health from the scrapbook, IIRC, so you can already determine if you should engage to begin with.

Clearly you are playing with health bars since the beguinning 

While i was learning i had a lot of fun with these situations im describing which are killed with filthy mods

[Anis5240]

1 hour ago, WilsonHiggs said:

which are killed with filthy mods

ok and?????? no one forces you to play with said mods?????

[WilsonHiggs]

4 minutes ago, Anis5240 said:

ok and?????? no one forces you to play with said mods?????

But the topic is about adding them to the game

[IAmAFurrz]

i feel attack range is completely unnecessary, as the problem with new players is that they dont know how to dodge and attack back, not that they dont understand attack range. that part can be learnt with safe dodging

healthbar really isnt necessary, as in game scrapbook already gives such info for health and damage on weapons. only mobs that really need it are giants, and im still confused why klei still doesnt want to add that

the information is full in your face, the problem is that a lot of people's learning is slow, and they tend to go down a narrow path without figuring out what issues they get. if they're good learners they'll undoubtedly thrive in dst where scrapbook basically gives all the info they'd ever need

[Cheggf]

8 minutes ago, IAmAFurrz said:

i feel attack range is completely unnecessary, as the problem with new players is that they dont know how to dodge and attack back, not that they dont understand attack range. that part can be learnt with safe dodging

healthbar really isnt necessary, as in game scrapbook already gives such info for health and damage on weapons. only mobs that really need it are giants, and im still confused why klei still doesnt want to add that

the information is full in your face, the problem is that a lot of people's learning is slow, and they tend to go down a narrow path without figuring out what issues they get. if they're good learners they'll undoubtedly thrive in dst where scrapbook basically gives all the info they'd ever need

Health bars directly change the way you play the game & look extremely ugly.

[GetNerfedOn]

this should provide insight as to whether forumites use the scrapbook, but not new players.

Reminds me. Last year at the time when some people on the beta claimed Klei was being review bombed due to the Wendy beta, I checked the steam page for DSt and apart from people who were indeed leaving negative reviews due the Wendy beta, most negative reviews I saw at the time shared the common theme that the game was too hard. Seems to still be the case in fairly recent times:

Spoiler

 

 

Then again, I am obviously cherrypicking; this is a very small fraction of the 22 thousand negative reviews DST currently has, of which i'm not quite willing to sort through just to prove a point without going far more mentally compromised than I already currently am. But that's the gist of how negative reviews look, and i simply thought it was interesting lots of the negative ones i saw related to the topic at hand.

 

[IAmAFurrz]

5 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Health bars directly change the way you play the game & look extremely ugly.

yea its why i dont like them. only for bosses do i want the healthbar as it gives info for phase changes

[Well-met]

epic bar looks perfectly seamless and styled with DS's art

[Bumber64]

15 hours ago, WilsonHiggs said:

Clearly you are playing with health bars since the beguinning 

While i was learning i had a lot of fun with these situations im describing which are killed with filthy mods

Deflect with attacks when you can't defend your position. Good 'ol arubaro.

[WilsonHiggs]

3 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

Deflect with attacks when you can't defend your position. Good 'ol arubaro.

? You are the one who cant defend you position.  I already explained how it affects the gameplay, is on you on wanting to understand instead of saying "but you can do maths and prepare for every situation even when you are learning the game"

By your logic, why do you want health bars? Just count how many damage you dealt...

Feeling attacked for using mods that arent of the taste of the community. Good 'ol bumber

[Bumber64]

Just now, WilsonHiggs said:

? You are the one who cant defend you position.  I already explained how it affects the gameplay, is on you on wanting to understand instead of saying "but you can do maths and prepare for every situation even when you are learning the game"

By your logic, why do you want health bars? Just count how many damage you dealt...

Feeling attacked for using mods that arent of the taste of the community. Good 'ol bumber

No, you asserted that it made things easy because it lets you know when the boss is "a few hits away" from death or a phase change. The former is 10 seconds of the fight, and I already said the latter shouldn't even work like that for whatever benefit it gives.

I also pointed out that you can heal allies, but don't have a good way to know when to do so.

Care for a proper rebuttal, or are you just going to project some more?

[WilsonHiggs]

37 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

No, you asserted that it made things easy because it lets you know when the boss is "a few hits away" from death or a phase change. The former is 10 seconds of the fight, and I already said the latter shouldn't even work like that for whatever benefit it gives.

I also pointed out that you can heal allies, but don't have a good way to know when to do so.

Care for a proper rebuttal, or are you just going to project some more?

Easier=! Easy

Also i said that im against it being a setting for bosses. It kills the thrill but if someone doesnt appreciate is their problem 

Mobs could say a quote when they are full. Having bars for every mob looks very ugly and it actually makes things easier. Makes knowing which one hit to reduce their number easier and, if works like certain popular mod, it shows you when something is going to atack you, specially making easier to defend from shadows

I made my points, i dont care if arent enough for you since this is to share feedback for the devs, not to convince you of playing like i like neither to make me play like you like

[BezKa]

On 3/3/2025 at 1:11 PM, GetNerfedOn said:

most negative reviews I saw at the time shared the common theme that the game was too hard

Isn't this just the case of different people like different things? Didn't the internet as a whole have this big discussion of "difficult game is too difficult" ages ago about dark souls series?

Is changing the game experience that has worked for years and your playerbase liked to please people who did not like it really worth it? (Evidently yes in this case, otherwise Klei wouldn't do it.)

[GetNerfedOn]

1 hour ago, BezKa said:

Isn't this just the case of different people like different things? Didn't the internet as a whole have this big discussion of "difficult game is too difficult" ages ago about dark souls series?

Is changing the game experience that has worked for years and your playerbase liked to please people who did not like it really worth it? (Evidently yes in this case, otherwise Klei wouldn't do it.)

You can interpret it that way; I'm only pointing out what I've observed that might relate to the topic at hand

[YouKnowWho142]

Of course, I think the game is difficult especially to new players, but I think my main issue with the difficulty of DST is that you aren't really given any clues on how to progress. If there was a single person who figured out by themselves that they are supposed to do the moonstone event with the sun caller staff from the ruins and then use the deconstruction staff (also from ruins) on the resulting moon caller to put the gem in the archives located specifically tucked away behind the lunar mushrooms which is behind the blue mushroom biome in the caves, then I'd be very impressed. There are a lot of examples of this, I saw a lot of people both in the forums and outside the forums who complained about the lack of slingshot bands since a lot of people didn't know that you can possess the catcoon band (that whole system is complicated by itself, nobody is going to put a shadow atrium in a labyrinth chest post rift unless they know). Nobody is going to know that you need to do pearl's quests to get the moon altar from crab king, or even really that the astral detector will lead you to him.

This game has a lot of strange knowledge checks with no real clues that are a no brainer for people who are experienced but new players have no way of finding out naturally. If the spirit of Don't Starve really wanted to be kept, there would be more natural ways to discover how to progress, and I have seriously seen people say that part of what makes DST fun is having to check the wiki for everything. I think it's completely okay to leave the player in the dark and that is an essential part of the DST experience, but there really needs to be more ways to know what you're supposed to do because if you need to check the wiki for everything then something is wrong.

[BezKa]

22 minutes ago, GetNerfedOn said:

You can interpret it that way; I'm only pointing out what I've observed that might relate to the topic at hand

Yeah, just mentioning as food for thought, same as you.

[loopuleasa]

I actually had a IRL friend that was new at the game and we played a noob-locked pub (me and my gf had to stay on the same screen with him all the time)

And it is surprising how many things the game overloads you at first, I think a big issue and some low hanging fruit is having the two default pages of quick craft actually be filled with useful stuff