The mod Don't Starve Alone might be broken in this beta.

[Swiyss]

This mod essentially removes all the lag from the caves server, but with this mod on is not possible to enter the caves. I'm asking Klei PLEASE find a solution for us solo players to make the game 0 ping while still being able to play with caves. The game has an Alone mode to play but still it makes you have 30 ping (at least for me).

[Well-met]

agreed, it's high time DST gets a real built-in local mode.

Those who make solo worlds have no need for the server-client system which adds input delay and longer loadings.

 

Edited September 5, 2025 by Well-met

[mkemal23]

I tried to playtest the game without DS Alone mod and it was just terrible. No matter how low your ping is, the slight delay or the slightly laggy movement is unbearable when you compare it to the 0 Ping DS Alone gameplay. 

It blows my mind how this game still does not have a true alone mode that makes the game run like singleplayer DS. 

I mean, I don't know anything about coding so sorry for my ignorance, but if modders can do it there is no way klei can't, right?  

[Swiyss]

10 minutes ago, mkemal23 said:

I tried to playtest the game without DS Alone mod and it was just terrible. No matter how low your ping is, the slight delay or the slightly laggy movement is unbearable when you compare it to the 0 Ping DS Alone gameplay. 

It blows my mind how this game still does not have a true alone mode that makes the game run like singleplayer DS. 

I mean, I don't know anything about coding so sorry for my ignorance, but if modders can do it there is no way klei can't, right?  

I had pigs and frogs twitching while walking instead of a seamless walking transition. I really hope either we get Klei to fix this game's lag or the mod can maybe get updated IF the owner decides to.

[hoxi]

36 minutes ago, mkemal23 said:

It blows my mind how this game still does not have a true alone mode that makes the game run like singleplayer DS. 

Well it probably doesn't help that they'd have to rework a decent amount of things that rely on having both shards at once, including the new big Whirlpool they added, rifts (which kinda break with the mod, same with Scrappy and Nightmare Werepig), and some other things.

But personally I think that's the wrong approach, having multiple shards running opens up a lot of things both for modding and vanilla mechanics (like they did with this update), even more now with this update adding support for transferring things between shards on a whim.

Ideally, movement prediction could be further improved, actual lag compensation could be added (i.e. have leniency with player positions and getting hit or not by attacks, depending on ping, that sorta thing), or even options for client authority that still allow public servers and so to be restrictive as usual if needed (for untrusted players it'd work as usual, for trusted players like friends, admins and the server owner, they'd get to decide if they got hit or not), which is a mod I've been working on for a while now.

 

36 minutes ago, mkemal23 said:

I mean, I don't know anything about coding so sorry for my ignorance, but if modders can do it there is no way klei can't, right?

Modders have no deadlines and complete freedom to do as they please on their own time and pace, that already helps a lot when doing literally anything like this. Not to mention the mod has some lingering issues, with things like rifts and the Nightmare/Scrappy Werepig spawn mechanic, maybe other things too.

Even without those issues in mind, the mod already changes some things from the expected gameplay due to how it functions. If you go to the caves and it's supposed to have been raining, then rain will just start, if it's acid rain, then things won't be infused as expected either (correct me if I'm wrong and if the mod doesn't simply run a single LongUpdate like DS did, although even if it did it in chunks and delayed loading, it'd still not gonna be the same as the base game and could still run into issues).

Now apply this to any other mechanic + other shards, especially if it's not a timer or if other conditions can apply, as another simple example, drying rack may never finish drying, or it'll always finish when switching shards. The only thing you can really do is keep track of time, but anything else in between and other conditions and factors is lost and inaccurate, and can lead to issues, and this only gets worse with mods that were designed for the usual gameplay.

 

23 minutes ago, astareus said:

I really hope either we get Klei to fix this game's lag or the mod can maybe get updated IF the owner decides to.

It's on the mod author to update the mod. As far as I'm concerned from looking at the code of each update for a while now, Klei do a lot to minimize breaking mods with updates. The thing with this update is that they further changed some foundational mod loading stuff like they've been doing somewhat recently for security reasons (still good to mention it as they did ask for feedback in that regard, which this thread does).

Edited September 6, 2025 by hoxi
Minor typo

[Well-met]

2 minutes ago, hoxi said:

Even without those issues in mind, the mod already changes some things from the expected gameplay due to how it functions. If you go to the caves and it's supposed to have been raining, then rain will just start, if it's acid rain, then things won't be infused as expected either (correct me if I'm wrong and if the mod doesn't simply run a single LongUpdate like DS did, although even if it did it in chunks and delayed loading, it'd still not gonna be the same as the base game and could still run into issues).

Now apply this to any other mechanic + other shards, especially if it's not a timer or if other conditions can apply, as another simple example, drying rack may never finish drying, or it'll always finish when switching shards. The only thing you can really do is keep track of time, but anything else in between and other conditions and factors is lost and inaccurate, and can lead to issues, and this only gets worse with mods that were designed for the usual gameplay.

and yet all of this loss is still well worth no input delay.

[hoxi]

4 minutes ago, Well-met said:

and yet all of this loss is still well worth no input delay.

Input delay wouldn't matter if you could have movement prediction enabled (which has no input delay as it's fully local) without running into issues. The issue is that due to lack of actual lag compensation, and some quirks, it's unreliably and a lot of people don't like playing with it (very reasonably so, I hated it too).

Edited September 6, 2025 by hoxi

[Well-met]

Well, I'm not savvy enough to pretend to understand networking but all I know is dont starve singleplayer is smooth and that's what alot of people want for dst too.

 

Edited September 6, 2025 by Well-met

[Swiyss]

5 minutes ago, Well-met said:

Well, I'm not savvy enough to pretend to understand networking but all I know is dont starve singleplayer is smooth and that's what alot of people want for dst too.

 

exactly, DSA makes me wanna actually play the game, I genuinely feel bad playing without it, it is not only me, I'm 100% sure that at least 20% of people play with this mod and Klei can also have a look at this data to confirm it. The real problem I face is that for some reason, even with playing offline and in Alone mode (without the DSA mod), my game STILL has a lot of lag. I understand that games like Minecraft also have local server and work similarly, but I barely have any problems with that game's update frequency, it is instantenous. Now I also don't know much about how this local server works in dst, but I would say that trying to find a solution to this, like improving the lag compensation feature, would really make the game shine again. Having to rely on that mod to play the game is annoying for me.

[hoxi]

12 minutes ago, Well-met said:

Well, I'm not savvy enough to pretend to understand networking but all I know is dont starve singleplayer is smooth and that's what alot of people want for dst too.

 

The problem with asking for that is that that doesn't solve or improve the experience for remote players, which, while yes, I'm aware that that's not solo players, remote players have the same issues, but even worse, so both could be addressed in one go.

I went with an approach to make the game playable for everyone, solo players and multiplayer, especially with people with high ping (i.e. living in another continent). Changing the approach from being:

• Always wear armor if there's danger nearby, in case you get hit a mile away (think of a random stray hound or something that you normally wouldn't bother to wear armor to dispatch of, or even some armorless strat).
• Just tank attacks with precise timing, or dodge way earlier to compensate.

To:

• Getting hit is the same as with 0 ping, so treat it as such based on what you see on your screen.
• (some other things are still susceptible to lag as expected, but you can't just delete lag)

Changes things quite a bit, and it works just as well for solo.

I'd rather people pushed for improvements to movement prediction (named lag compensation in-game), the addition of actual lag compensation, and maybe even client authority, rather than pushing for something as unrealistic as scrapping the shard system and reworking anything that works with it in mind.

Edited September 6, 2025 by hoxi

[Swiyss]

Just now, hoxi said:

scrapping the shard system and reworking anything that works with it in mind.

I also don't feel like this is the way to go but..

1 minute ago, hoxi said:

I went with an approach to make the game playable for everyone, solo players and multiplayer, especially with people with high ping (i.e. living in another continent). Changing the approach from being:

• Always wear armor if there's danger nearby, in case you get hit a mile away.
• Just tank attacks with precise timing, or dodge way earlier to compensate.

To:

• Getting hit is the same as with 0 ping, so treat it as such based on what you see on your screen.
• (some other things are still susceptible to lag as expected, but you can't just delete lag

I know that these 'solutions' work, but with DSA I can perfectly move my character at will milimeters away from getting hit almost instantly, this allows for so much better control. I can pick up items faster, do actions faster, move items in containers and inventory with 1 ms. This for me is the biggest reason I use the mod and could even consider playing without the caves just to keep playing with the mod.

[hoxi]

1 minute ago, astareus said:

I know that these 'solutions' work, but with DSA I can perfectly move my character at will milimeters away from getting hit almost instantly, this allows for so much better control. I can pick up items faster, do actions faster, move items in containers and inventory with 1 ms. This for me is the biggest reason I use the mod and could even consider playing without the caves just to keep playing with the mod.

Yeah, and that's what I was trying to say there. It is possible to have the experience be like that, even with 200ms, that you won't notice aside from inherent things like equipping an item and so.

The mod I've been working on changed the approach that way for some friends I play with from time to time.

It used to be the annoying and frustrating first approach, of assuming you'll take damage when it doesn't feel like you should (and disabling movement prediction isn't an option because of the huge delay with 200ms).

With the mod, they could just do combat as if it was with 0 latency because they're the ones to dictate if they get hit or not (which is why client authority setups for private games would do wonders for this game! That would apply for solo players!).

[Well-met]

1 minute ago, hoxi said:

Yeah, and that's what I was trying to say there. It is possible to have the experience be like that, even with 200ms, that you won't notice aside from inherent things like equipping an item and so.

The mod I've been working on changed the approach that way for some friends I play with from time to time.

It used to be the annoying and frustrating first approach, of assuming you'll take damage when it doesn't feel like you should (and disabling movement prediction isn't an option because of the huge delay with 200ms).

With the mod, they could just do combat as if it was with 0 latency because they're the ones to dictate if they get hit or not (which is why client authority setups for private games would do wonders for this game! That would apply for solo players!).

where could I find this mod at then?

[hoxi]

8 minutes ago, Well-met said:

where could I find this mod at then?

Still privated as it's a work in progress and I'm working on refactoring some bits of the code to make it easier to maintain. I'll see if I can get some footage soon.

The mod is mostly unfinished in that anything that doesn't have a simple attack or aoe attack, I have to do things manually to ensure it works as I described, and there's still a handful of entities I haven't covered yet (mainly some of the later bosses).

For me and my group of friends this isn't much of an issue because we play at a slower pace and take our time (when we already don't play too frequently), but I don't know how people would feel if it doesn't affect the things that would probably end up doing the biggest amounts of damage.

I've been considering releasing it publicly at some point soon, with a huge disclaimer that it's not finished and I'm working on it, and with notes of entities that haven't been covered yet. But at least I'd like to finish doing that refactoring I mentioned and make sure it's compatible with the latest release (after this beta goes live).

Edited September 6, 2025 by hoxi

[Crestwave]

1 hour ago, hoxi said:

actual lag compensation could be added (i.e. have leniency with player positions and getting hit or not by attacks, depending on ping, that sorta thing), or even options for client authority that still allow public servers and so to be restrictive as usual if needed (for untrusted players it'd work as usual, for trusted players like friends, admins and the server owner, they'd get to decide if they got hit or not), which is a mod I've been working on for a while now.

This was already added in the base game a while back, wasn't it? There's a remote authority mechanic which applies to admins and friends of the host and allows for things like fast-forwarding through animations and teleporting to match client position instead of rubberbanding backwards.

Though I believe it's still underdeveloped compared to other lag compensation solutions (hit validation is still server-sided), so I'm looking forward to your modded implementation.

1 hour ago, astareus said:

I understand that games like Minecraft also have local server and work similarly, but I barely have any problems with that game's update frequency, it is instantenous.

This is actually a really good comparison. Minecraft does not operate like DSA, it runs a local server and connects to it in singleplayer just like regular DST. Minecraft simply has comprehensive client authoritative support, which hides the lag.

DST is basically the only game I know of that's fully server authoritative (until recently anyway) with visual-only lag compensation. This does result in significant advantages (speed/fly hacks simply do not exist whatsoever, unlike other games which need anticheat) but also the obvious disadvantage of lag in solo play. The new kind of lag compensation should bridge the gap between the public and private server playstyles if it's developed well enough.

[woxd]

3 hours ago, astareus said:

The game has an Alone mode to play but still it makes you have 30 ping (at least for me).

lol I hadn't seen this topic and I posted almost the same thing in another topic, I totally agree btw

[hoxi]

17 minutes ago, Crestwave said:

This was already added in the base game a while back, wasn't it? There's a remote authority mechanic which applies to admins and friends of the host and allows for things like fast-forwarding through animations and teleporting to match client position instead of rubberbanding backwards.

Yeah, some of this stuff has been a thing for a while, and it does help, except that last bit about teleporting to match client position.

The server doesn't do that but rather is more lenient in not force teleporting the client unless there's a pretty decent mismatch (coffee in Island Adventures while on a boat tends to make it go off constantly unless you max out your speed without moving much, then move in the direction you wanna go, point being you need a lot of speed or some specific scenarios to cause enough mismatching).

Anyhow, movement prediction inherently causes some position desync due to letting the client with (basic) remote authority be the one that dictates when some actions buffered (whereas without movement prediction, they're buffered the moment you click on something).

I think there's also some issues with what dictates if you're a friend or not on the engine, and if your Steam friend list is private, the game isn't able to check if they're your friends properly.

28 minutes ago, Crestwave said:

Though I believe it's still underdeveloped compared to other lag compensation solutions (hit validation is still server-sided), so I'm looking forward to your modded implementation.

See, the thing is, I do think hit validation could normally still be fully server-sided, but while at least using "rewind" kind of lag compensation, which is something a lot of server-authoritative games do when possible. It varies from game to game, some do it by further delaying when an enemy hit lands (and if block is involved, check multiple times) based on a rewind value based on ping.

Here it'd probably need to be about altering the perceived player position (by the enemy) based on ping (i.e. player sent input to move in this direction at this time, compensate with ping so that they may dodge the attack), because of the way stategraphs handle attacks, with set timeframes.

Client authority on the other hand is something that can either be fully done on the client, or the server asks the client for validation, and there's also the case of having the server also verify things of course, and having the final say.

I use the first two, depending on the attack, and clients that aren't trusted are ignored and the game works as usual.

You need to be the owner, an admin, friend, to count as trusted (for now it's set to pretend all clients are trusted because it's a work in progress anyway and ideally it'd just be used in private settings). Something I haven't even looked into yet though, is adding support to manually add players that don't meet any of these checks to a list, as well settings to add all players, or none other than the owner, or so, etc.

 

36 minutes ago, Crestwave said:

This is actually a really good comparison. Minecraft does not operate like DSA, it runs a local server and connects to it in singleplayer just like regular DST. Minecraft simply has comprehensive client authoritative support, which hides the lag.

I played Minecraft a good amount recently after not touching it for years, with the same people I have around 200ms (this time, them hosting), and it feels like movement has gotten more way lenient and smooth than what I remembered it being (it was really twitchy a long time ago and you could get rubberbanded a lot).

Combat on the other hand feels like it's still fully server-sided, but not for player attacks, and I don't remember how it used to be. All I know is that this causes this weird effect of sometimes not being able to hit enemies if you don't hit them locally, while they will hit you "earlier" on your screen due to latency, and you can't reliably close the gap without blocking their path or making them not able to move directly towards you (or just using a shield to tank a hit safely, then attack, which is kinda what I did).

That said, it was still pretty enjoyable and fun.

[Crestwave]

2 hours ago, hoxi said:

Yeah, some of this stuff has been a thing for a while, and it does help, except that last bit about teleporting to match client position.

The server doesn't do that but rather is more lenient in not force teleporting the client unless there's a pretty decent mismatch (coffee in Island Adventures while on a boat tends to make it go off constantly unless you max out your speed without moving much, then move in the direction you wanna go, point being you need a lot of speed or some specific scenarios to cause enough mismatching).

Interesting, I wonder if they changed the functionality. I remember testing it right when it came out and I was able to c_teleport() across gaps on the client with remote authority. I just tested it again and indeed it rubberbands now.

2 hours ago, hoxi said:

I played Minecraft a good amount recently after not touching it for years, with the same people I have around 200ms (this time, them hosting), and it feels like movement has gotten more way lenient and smooth than what I remembered it being (it was really twitchy a long time ago and you could get rubberbanded a lot).

I'm sure that they've made improvements over the years, but note that Minecraft has a lot of configurable validation settings which could also be part of the cause. The three main settings are client auth, server auth, or server auth w/ rewind, then there are also a plethora of fine-grained options for specific mechanics like dismounting and block breaking.

[Hungry French]

9 hours ago, astareus said:

Этот мод по сути устраняет все задержки на сервере в пещерах, но с этим модом невозможно войти в пещеры. Я прошу Klei, ПОЖАЛУЙСТА, найдите решение для нас, одиночных игроков, чтобы в игре был нулевой пинг, но при этом можно было играть в пещерах. В игре есть режим одиночной игры, но он всё равно обеспечивает пинг в 30 (по крайней мере, для меня).

I feel like I have 200 ping without Alone...

7 hours ago, hoxi said:

Да, именно это я и пытался сказать. Даже при задержке в 200 мс вы можете не заметить никаких изменений, кроме тех, что связаны с экипировкой предметов и тому подобным.

Мод, над которым я работал, изменил подход к игре для некоторых моих друзей, с которыми я время от времени играю.

Раньше это был раздражающий и разочаровывающий первый подход, при котором вы предполагали, что получите урон, хотя на самом деле этого не происходило (а отключить прогнозирование движений было невозможно из-за огромной задержки в 200 мс).

С модом они могли бы просто сражаться, как если бы задержка была равна нулю, потому что именно они решают, получат они удар или нет (именно поэтому настройки полномочий клиента для приватных игр могли бы творить чудеса в этой игре! Это применимо и к одиночным игрокам!).

Ironically, 0 ping in DST feels like 200 in another game.
And 200 in DST... 500?... 600?...

 

[Lucas Rego]

Dude, if I cannot play on DS Alone anymore Im quitting, for sure! (And I have DST as a main game for my YT channel)

[Swiyss]

31 minutes ago, Lucas Rego said:

Dude, if I cannot play on DS Alone anymore Im quitting, for sure! (And I have DST as a main game for my YT channel)

pois é irmão tu vai ter que tirar as cavernas ou givar o mod a não ser q a Klei faça algo a respeito 😕

Talvez o dono do mod atualize ele de alguma forma pq é bastante famoso.

[mkemal23]

1 hour ago, Lucas Rego said:

Dude, if I cannot play on DS Alone anymore Im quitting, for sure! (And I have DST as a main game for my YT channel)

DsA is working with beta caves now so no worries.

Thankfully developer of that mod is super fast when it comes to fixing crashes or major bugs.

[Swiyss]

41 minutes ago, mkemal23 said:

DsA is working with beta caves now so no worries.

Thankfully developer of that mod is super fast when it comes to fixing crashes or major bugs.

good to know!

Still I hope Klei can make their own version of it.

[Hungry French]

2 hours ago, astareus said:

потому что, братан, тебе придётся убрать пещеры или сделать так, чтобы мод не работал, пока Клей что-то не предпримет 😕

Возможно, владелец мода каким-то образом обновил его, потому что он довольно популярен.

DST wothout caves 💀

2 hours ago, mkemal23 said:

DsA сейчас работает с бета-версиями пещер, так что не волнуйтесь.

К счастью, разработчик этого мода очень быстро исправляет сбои и серьёзные ошибки.

DST relies on people like him...

[hoxi]

16 hours ago, Crestwave said:

Interesting, I wonder if they changed the functionality. I remember testing it right when it came out and I was able to c_teleport() across gaps on the client with remote authority. I just tested it again and indeed it rubberbands now.

Yeah, they fixes some bugs and improved quite a bit in a relatively recent update (around some months now) in regards to remote player inputs and locomotion from them (and a bit for movement prediction as a result), and that was included there I think.