[Poll] On Character Unlockability Feasibility and Initial Availability

[GetNerfedOn]

[Cassielu]

We already have a better meta progress system, it doesn't need to come back.

[BezKa]

There should be a pop up suggesting you play DS first before trying DST. Only appears once and doesn't obstruct you from playing in any way.

[Cheggf]

24 minutes ago, BezKa said:

There should be a pop up suggesting you play DS first before trying DST. Only appears once and doesn't obstruct you from playing in any way.

If I bought a game and the first thing that happened when I opened it is it told me to go buy a different game instead I'd be pissed. Maybe if DSA came bundled free with DST that could work.

Quote

Would you be in favor of a partial character unlock system? (You get the choice of your first character, and unlock the rest through XP or Spools)

This would be completely pointless. The purpose of unlocking characters one by one is so that you are forced to play only a small selection of characters to learn them as you go instead of being faced with overwhelming choices. If you are instantly asked which character to pick you are faced with even more overwhelming choices since you have the same number of characters to pick from but now if you "choose wrong" you won't have the "right" character to pick, so everyone is going to google who to pick, and everyone is going to see that everyone is saying Wendy, and then everyone is going to pick Wendy and stay even more locked in to only playing one character than they are right now because they "made the right choice" and unlocked her first.

[Evelo]

49 minutes ago, Cassielu said:

We already have a better meta progress system, it doesn't need to come back.

We... do? What is it? As far as I am aware there is none.

[Echsrick]

35 minutes ago, Evelo said:

We... do? What is it? As far as I am aware there is none.

skill trees

[Crimson Hollow]

Oh no, no no no. 

I'd probably just stop playing if I am forced to choose from like 2 characters from the beginning.

[Dr. Safety]

I think it is fine how it is, but I would not be opposed to characters that are unlocked through merit. Obviously not with characters that exist currently, since you can't take content away from people who potentially spent money on skins. I think if they were to add new characters, they should be unlocked via some milestone or boss

[YouKnowWho142]

5 minutes ago, Dr. Safety said:

I think it is fine how it is, but I would not be opposed to characters that are unlocked through merit. Obviously not with characters that exist currently, since you can't take content away from people who potentially spent money on skins. I think if they were to add new characters, they should be unlocked via some milestone or boss

The issue with that is just going to be the same issue that was present with the skill trees, people are just going to go into a solo server and instantly meet the unlock requirements for the characters (unless you’re on console, at which point you’re just making it more tedious for them), unless the idea of new characters were limited to a world, which in itself would cause problems as dst is multiplayer 

[oregu]

most new players picks wilson or webber anyway, i dont see the issue as much. i am quite the opposite regarding this. i would want the DLC characters to be for anyone to play, that being locked behind spools seems to make no sense. anyone who wants the chars will feel inclined to unlock those characters first and it becomes a waiting game at that point unless u buy. imagine getting the game wanting to play a DLC char then discovering u have to unlock it. sadger. also a first world problem for me but the DLC chars arent available in offline mode because of it as well and thats also unfortunate. i dont even think the DLC chars are not much more difficult than the regular characters either, which is why some may think theyre locked but i dont think so. maybe im biased cause i played a lot though, anyone let me know

[Dr. Safety]

7 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

The issue with that is just going to be the same issue that was present with the skill trees, people are just going to go into a solo server and instantly meet the unlock requirements for the characters (unless you’re on console, at which point you’re just making it more tedious for them), unless the idea of new characters were limited to a world, which in itself would cause problems as dst is multiplayer 

People are always going to cheat though, and this isn't as egregious as skill trees as long as the characters aren't particularly strong. It would provide more of an incentive to engage with end game content at least once per character (assuming that the milestone take place in the end game that is)

[Kaisen_]

it’s a cool idea and I loved the original xp system for DS but in dst it’s kinda pointless as people would just c_skip(999)

same thing with the affinities, just spawn fuelweaver or champion in a solo world and get the affinities with commands

 

[WilsonHiggs]

Idk what is the best and, at this point, i doub klei would ever change that but one thing that made me engange with the game and motivated me to survive as long as possible was to unlock the entire roaster

[loopuleasa]

The original Don't Starve progression is superior because it normalizes trying again

But that only accounts for solo play

This game is now meant to be played with friends

[Evelo]

12 hours ago, Echsrick said:

skill trees

Oh yeah, I forget that is technically meta progression because of how little effort it is to unlock and how passive it is.

[Jam57]

I would be in favour of a character unlocking system that worked with a built in don’t starve alone version in together. If you got XP that went towards unlocking characters and their skill trees in that alone version but not for together. The skill tree points in alone would apply for together but the ones in together wouldn’t apply. 

[Walrusst]

The only one I think would be cool to add from here on out is if wonkey is in your compendium being able to spawn as wonkey would be hillarious.
Wonkey has a ghost sprite.

It might be out of kleis direction, it might be something mods already do, but I would love it nonetheless if wonkey got support.
It just reminds me so  much of how you had to do weird stuff to get webber in the original.

[lowercase skye]

18 hours ago, BezKa said:

There should be a pop up suggesting you play DS first before trying DST. Only appears once and doesn't obstruct you from playing in any way.

17 hours ago, Cheggf said:

If I bought a game and the first thing that happened when I opened it is it told me to go buy a different game instead I'd be pissed. Maybe if DSA came bundled free with DST that could work.

Yeah I'd find this off-putting too. Opening a game and getting an immediate popup recommending you go pay $10 for another game ($17 if you want experience with Reign of Giants too) doesn't sound like a good idea. You already spent $15 to buy this game, and there's a million things in Don't Starve that are horribly wonky and less polished and overall will make that experience way worse than just playing a DST world alone (like the game already suggests for you to do,) so it'd be asking you to bump up your $15 purchase to $32 for the sake of a having a worse experience before the polished one.

[Well-met]

the system we have works perfectly fine and there is no need to debate around it. You literally get spool for free and the required amounts are trivial

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, Well-met said:

the system we have works perfectly fine and there is no need to debate around it. You literally get spool for free and the required amounts are trivial

Trivial? You need to log in every single day and play the game for however long it is per week to get all the drops for 6 straight weeks, almost 2 months, just to get a single character. If you want all the characters it's 23 weeks of that. You need to open the game on 161 different days and play for, what would it be, like 230 hours or something?

[Wawchik]

On 3/12/2025 at 11:10 PM, Walrusst said:

The only one I think would be cool to add from here on out is if wonkey is in your compendium being able to spawn as wonkey would be hillarious.
Wonkey has a ghost sprite.

It might be out of kleis direction, it might be something mods already do, but I would love it nonetheless if wonkey got support.
It just reminds me so  much of how you had to do weird stuff to get webber in the original.

Maybe when you pick random character there'd be a chance to spawn as Wonkey? 

[Bumber64]

It was probably removed because of multiplayer. Too many Wilsons running around with new players. Better for everyone to try something different.

[DVGMedia]

On 3/11/2025 at 10:00 PM, BezKa said:

There should be a pop up suggesting you play DS first before trying DST. Only appears once and doesn't obstruct you from playing in any way.

The game does actually say to try playing alone first before joining multiplayer when you first buy and play 

[Cheggf]

3 hours ago, DVGMedia said:

The game does actually say to try playing alone first before joining multiplayer when you first buy and play 

It says to host a server by yourself before joining multiplayer games.