Resurrect All the Things!

[Xaphedo]

Why isn't Mr All the Things here?

That meme is too obnoxious, thus I'll spare your eyes the pain and get to the point.

 

What's wrong, good fella?

To make it simple, we got ourselves a long-term problem: renewable resources live a fragile existence. This means that while they're renewable, 100% so, an insane Willow, a clumsy ghost, an hellish hound or even some dry weather (when seasons get updated) could incinerate 4+ straight hours of collecting twigs and grass and bushes all around your base.

Also, those beefalos could all meet the fury of a deerclops, and so would the few beehives your worldgen was generous enough to place.

 

Have you even looked at a Medium world? It's huge!

I know the world size isn't a problem and you could always "import" resources to your basecamp again (unless you manage to collect every turf in the world and then you screw up), but that's just not gonna happen. If that kind of damage was done to the base I invested so much in, I'd rather spawn in the turfs or a couple of beefs and honeycombs and call it a day. If we need to cheat in order to enjoy our game again, something's definitely broken.

 

That could happen in SP as well! Why are you making it look like it's a new problem?

Because it is. You see, in singleplayer your actions reflect on your world and no others'. If you screw up really bad, you restart the game and learn from your mistakes. Now, if a player screws up, him/her and other players have to potentially ditch all their hours of progress and start again, even if everybody else did all it could to prevent game-over catastrophes from happening.

 

What if everybody takes it as a chance to learn, Together?

That's not going to happen. If I now want to make a server and dedicate my heart and soul to it, and everybody has the potential to screw everything up really really bad, I carefully pick players I trust or that, at the very least, have already played a lot of DS.

New players will never have the chance to truly mix with more experienced ones, since they now represent not only a burden, but a very dangerous risk.

 

What about griefing? Couldn't fixing this encourage irresponsible behaviors?

Maybe: being "no big deal", some players may feel like they're not doing that much of an harm. And that would be kind of true, since the damage could actually be mended more easily. So it's more of a "who cares" scenario; and don't forget about your TheNet.ban(id) friend.

 

Alright, okay, we get it. What's your it's-going-to-be-totally-discarded-but-will-hopefully-influence-how-the-devs-face-this-issue suggestion?

Health. Health and maybe some nightmare fuel. HP as craftables is quite a neat idea, "pulling out" your life force in order to give it back to another living being. Some recipes could thus be added to the magic tab, requiring different amounts of health and allowing to "place", right there and then, a tiny beefalo (that would require a beefalo hat), a beehive (that would require quite a few stings) or a turf (that would require a decent number of the main product, be it berries, twigs or grass).

 

[Edit] I asked you what you asked me to ask you: can we play chess now?

No Hank, we can't. You know today is the day I try that "shoot you out of my cheek" thing again.

[Luxurious]

I knew this was going to come up sooner or later. As much as i would like to prove you wrong about new players being a burden, i simply can't. Since Klei gave out keys yesterday (i believe) new players started joining my public server and didn't know a first thing about Don't Starve. As harsh as it sounds, they are a burden and just another mouth to feed. They ended up dying and constantly asking me to revive them or give them tools and food while they muck around picking flowers all day. I have no choice but to make a private server since the era of "pros only" phase of testing has passed.

 

For now we could separate people into 3 groups:

 

1.Experienced players only: Only experienced players who aim to survive and build as long as possible are allowed to enter.

2.New players only: A group dedicated to new players who get to learn Don't Starve from the ground up with each other. (I recommend this group to new players since DS is all about exploration and discovery.)

3.Teacher + Students: Experienced and new players are welcome. This group is made so the new players who don't wish to die all over again without any help could learn to survive with experienced players assisting them in the server.

 

This is a good workaround (In my oppinion) as all people will get what the want. Part of the experienced players will be left in peace while the other half will a have a choice to help new players learn to play the game.

 

So what do you guys think?

[Xaphedo]

I knew this was going to come up sooner or later. As much as i would like to prove you wrong about new players being a burden, i simply can't. Since Klei gave out keys yesterday (i believe) new players started joining my public server and didn't know a first thing about Don't Starve. As harsh as it sounds, they are a burden and just another mouth to feed. They ended up dying and constantly asking me to revive them or give them tools and food while they muck around picking flowers all day. I have no choice but to make a private server since the era of "pros only" phase of testing has passed.

 

For now we could separate people into 3 groups:

 

1.Experienced players only: Only experienced players who aim to survive and build as long as possible are allowed to enter.

2.New players only: A group dedicated to new players who get to learn Don't Starve from the ground up with each other. (I recommend this group to new players since DS is all about exploration and discovery.)

3.Teacher + Students: Experienced and new players are welcome. This group is made so the new players who don't wish to die all over again without any help could learn to survive with experienced players assisting them in the server.

 

This is a good workaround (In my oppinion) as all people will get what the want. Part of the experienced players will be left in peace while the other half will a have a choice to help new players learn to play the game.

 

So what do you guys think?

I think we need server descriptions. Simple as that.

[rezecib]

Alright, okay, we get it. What's your it's-going-to-be-totally-discarded-but-will-hopefully-influence-how-the-devs-face-this-issue suggestion?

Health. Health and maybe some nightmare fuel. HP as craftables is quite a neat idea, "pulling out" your life force in order to give it back to another living being. Some recipes could thus be added to the magic tab, requiring different amounts of health and allowing to "place", right there and then, a tiny beefalo (that would require a beefalo hat), a beehive (that would require quite a few stings) or a turf (that would require a decent number of the main product, be it berries, twigs or grass).

I think berry bushes are actually the primary victim of this sort of stuff, particularly Willows who accidentally let their sanity drop and ghosts who haunt butterflies or other mobile things that catch on fire. There are usually only around 130 berry bushes per world, and often an established 4-person base will have 40 or so, so on sanity/haunt fire can take a huge chunk out of a non-renewable resource.

 

But also I feel a little resistant to the idea because it just seems strange, as in it doesn't feel right with the game to me. I'd actually rather just take the debugspawn approach to repairing damage that really shouldn't have happened in the first place.

 

For now we could separate people into 3 groups:

 

How do these groups form? How do you ensure that people are in the right group? It also seems to reinforce elitism and in general bad culture for the game. I get that being frustrated with new players messing stuff up can definitely also lead to a bad culture around the game, but I don't think exchanging one bad culture for another warrants a change like this, especially when it probably won't even solve the underlying problems.

 

Personally I think the only reason this is an issue in the first place is because we don't at the moment have the model that would make the most sense once there are lots of people playing: a traditional "make game, invite friends" model. That's how I am planning to play Don't Starve Together post-release. The whole server list is a whole different game. It makes sense when there are few people in the game, but once there are many, it's more about connecting with friends than seeing what's out there. If you do go to the server list, it'd probably be for lower-stakes messing around or checking out mods and such.

[Luxurious]

 

I think we need server descriptions. Simple as that.

Uhhh, well now i feel stupid. That's simpler and less tedious to do than to make separate groups while having the same effect. I have no counterarguement.

 

 

 

 

How do these groups form? How do you ensure that people are in the right group? It also seems to reinforce elitism and in general bad culture for the game. I get that being frustrated with new players messing stuff up can definitely also lead to a bad culture around the game, but I don't think exchanging one bad culture for another warrants a change like this, especially when it probably won't even solve the underlying problems.

 

Personally I think the only reason this is an issue in the first place is because we don't at the moment have the model that would make the most sense once there are lots of people playing: a traditional "make game, invite friends" model. That's how I am planning to play Don't Starve Together post-release. The whole server list is a whole different game. It makes sense when there are few people in the game, but once there are many, it's more about connecting with friends than seeing what's out there. If you do go to the server list, it'd probably be for lower-stakes messing around or checking out mods and such.

I wasn't trying to promote elitism or bad culture, i was just suggesting ideas to make the game less frustrating for people who don't "mix" in the server. I know what i said is rough, but it's at least better than what we have now. Xaphedo's suggestion is also simpler and better in the long run. You are correct, we should just hold out and wait till Klei make a model for it.

[the truthseeker]

Kicking and banning exist on servers. if a person becomes a problem ask the host to do that.

 

 

 

I will say pickables are limited when it comes to regrowth for the backbone of the game concept  and some minerals may or may not slowly regenerate solely in DST ATM, but we need more feedback from all players (even new ones who we have to see how the learning curve is) before balance is deviated more from the SP DS. 

[Toroic]

This is a non-issue, because DST is not meant for persistent servers where random people wander by.

A sufficiently established base makes survival very easy, and griefing will be impossible to stop.

Either do frequent restarts and one-off adventures, or make the server password protected for friends.

Any other choice is going to end badly.

[chromiumboy]

I agree with some points in the OP; while it's wonderful if you wish to mentor new players and assist them it getting to grips with Don't Starve, you should also have the option to play with people who have some experience so you can do some cool things together. As server admin you will have the power to kick or ban players, but this is a brutal way of achieving this goal.

 

So I would propose two things: that when Don't Starve Together is released a little splash screen will pop up the first time you try to play online. The screen would suggest that it would be best to proceed only if your comfortable playing the basic game, just like it does with Reign of Giants. Secondly, a radio button could added to the server creation screen which adds the tag 'New player friendly' just like how tags are added for PvP and and private servers. New player servers could also have an automatically reduced difficulty level. For example, mob health could be reduced to single player levels, and players can automatically resurrect near another friendly player after a certain period has passed and without the permanent health penalty.