Problematic winter and summer in DST

[Wyeth]

Hello and good day, player from the very first day here (remember science points? What "good" times we had),

 

I don't usually post a lot, but I recently was a bit let down with the game. Namely with the seasons (especially winter and summer) in DST specifically.

I honestly wouldn't have figured that the game would be put out of early access with these two seasons working the way they do. Mainly because they just empty out servers in a second and make late joining during these seasons (that account for a bit less than 1/2 of the game!) impossible or at the very least highly difficult. You can say that if there is a base in survival or endless near the portal this problem gets countered, but keep in mind this isn't always the case and in wilderness mode this isn't even an option at all.

I can't help but feel that servers just getting deserted whenever winter or summer hits (especially by new players) is a bad design for a multiplayer game.

The other thing which bugged me even in RoG is that summer and winter don't seem to do what they are supposed to do - change up the way you as a player engage with the world. In total the game only requires you to have 4 items to counter any seasonal effects.

Mainly Thermal Stone and Umbrella, with a winter hat or one of the cooling items as an optional side thing to make it even simpler.

Think about what this means: Any veteran player knows that getting a thermal stone is easily possible in the first 2-3 days of the game. It is not a big deal at all if you know how the game works... For a new player ... well they don't even know that they NEED it. They get surprised by winter and summer which in turn is made to be deadly if you don't have the according objects on you.

To summarize these mechanics are a non-existent challenge for a player who knows how to deal with them (aka know how to get a alchemy engine and thermal stone) but can act as a huge hindrance for a newer player. They don't even get time to LEARN or react to this because weather will kill you impossibly fast if you don't have the items you need when winter/summer hits the world.

On a personal note: I also really dislike the fact that temperature acts directly on your HP. We allready have a shortterm thing to take care off which will kill you if you don't - its called hunger. Why have a secondary mechanic that does the exact same thing and not even in an interesting way. To me that's just redundant design that adds little to the overall experience.

 

I would like to hear the communities thoughts on this subject - am I alone with this feeling, do you agree or disagree? What would be a better way to handle temperature, maybe something that will not make inexperienced players desert the world and let servers that are currently in winter/summer stay completely barren of players?

 

================= MY OWN SUGGESTIONS IN THE SPOILER TAG =================
==================== Read at your own disgression ====================

Spoiler

I got an idea myself which I will leave here to get the discussion going:

Thermal Stones: Either ditch them completely and make insulation completely clothes dependent OR make it craftable by some annual item such as the eyebrella from the deerclopses Eye (So super rare to get, and possibly only ONE time a year by ONE player) - In this scenario the stone would simply render you completely immune to any temperature related effects and be non-repairable.

Suggested Freezing Effects: Freezing does't affect your HP anymore, instead the more frozen you get the slower your movement and attack speed. Visualized by turning blue as if an ice staff or deerclops hit you. This will cap out on something like 40% speed reduction when completely frozen (temperature reached the lowest point). I would also add increased hunger loss and maybe a light sanity drain on the higher / highest level of freezing (This is mainly so that there is an additional way to balance the speed reduction without giving the player some incredible speed reduction like 80% which would be just super annoying and cause people to quit out anyways).

Suggested Winter Clothes Effects: Insulation would basically work the same way it always has. The more insulated you are, the slower the freezing effects creep up, so less speed reduction and a longer time to reach maximum freezing which would drain your hunger and sanity. I would however probably go a bit lighter on the speed at which you currently freeze.

Reasoning: In winter crops don't grow, grass doesn't come back, neither do twigs or berries. Food SHOULD be a concern in winter and optimally winter would force you to either have stockpiled food beforehands or force you to move further and further out as you have to scavenge food from the furthest corners of the world in order to stay alive. The freezing effect of decreased speed makes this process harder to do, less speed means that it becomes harder to scavenge the food and ressources you need (especially coupled with the non-regrowth in winter). It complements this aspect of winter and would truly mix up your playstyle.

At the same time this is severely less punishing for a new player. Joining a server in winter would no longer be so hard to do. You can join, you can learn and you have a good chance of at least EXISTING for more than 1-2 days even when starting from nothing. This ups the challenge for everyone, but doesn't punish a player for not kowing how to craft a thermal stone.

Additional Side-note: I am aware that food-wise you can simply survive on ice and monster meat to make infinite meatballs with two ressources you can basically have right outside your camp if you want to. I would definitely stop allowing ice cubes in the crock pot recipe for meatballs (or honestly either not allow ice as filler or make it so that using more than 1 ice results in wet goop or a "frozen meal" akin to how you get monster lasagnia if you put too much monster meat into a recipe).

Suggested Overheating Effects: Overheating doesn't affect your HP anymore, instead it doesn't affect you at all until you actually get completely overheated (reach 100% overheating), at which point you will get a "heatstroke". This will also neither kill you nor result in hurting your HP stat. Instead you will drop all items from your inventory and equipment slots and "pass out" for a short time (5~10 seconds possibly slightly random how long it actually lasts). So basically the effect that happens when you actually die (dropping all items), coupled with the effect when you sleep. Unlike sleeping this passed out state will deplete your sanity rapidly and not result in any HP gained or increased hunger loss though. Once you wake up your heat is reset to about 20%, making a successive heatstroke faster to happen if you don't cool down inbetween.

Suggested Cooling Effects: cooling items still work similiarly to what they did before (melon hat and ice cube hat makes you wet and keeps you cool, but depletes quickly, floral shirt would just slow down overheating). I think generally speaking the "cooling" items are a lot harder to come by and function a lot more short-term than the equivalent winter items. For example the hats make you wet and through that, insane, aswell as requiring ice (which is not obtainable during summer) or watermelons (which are also hard to obtain due to plant withering). Floral shirts are relatively easy to make but don't hold long and also don't STOP overheating, they just slow it. I think this is fair. The pinwheel only lasts for a short time and requires permanent movement. This all works pretty well in my opinion. The only adjustment I see could be that these items should only REDUCE body heat extremely slowly, but stop new overheating from accumulating instantly. Meaning: If you put on a watermelon hat or an icecube hat, your body heat doesn't immedaitely drop down to normal, but instead you will not get any more body heat and then slowly drain the accumulated body heat. This prevents wearing the hats for a few seconds to cool down, then going about your buisness again.

I would however change the "shadow" system to be more prominent. Currently trees spend shadow which stalls overheating... until you get a heatwave which is most of the summer, making this mechanic questionable and kina misleading. I would change it so that tree shadow actually put a hard cap on overheating, so they will always put a cap on overheating at the [current outside temperature -10%] while you are close to them. This means if your "body temperature" is above the [current outside temperature -10%] the tree will cool you down until you reach [current outside temperature -10%] . This ensures that you can never overheat while under a tree, but instead you stay very close to overheating (at least if its the maximum temperature outside) but you can actually "tree hop" and walk from tree to tree without getting heatstroke. Optimally, during maximum heat outside you should be able to walk 1-2 minutes (2-4 day segments) between "tree hops".

Additionally, juicy items, such as fruits could possibly cool your body temperature down during summer as a quick fix in a pinch.

Reasoning: I think summer allready does a lot more to mix up the playstyle, generally speaking. Plants wither and require fertilization, farms are harder to keep going, random fires can break out on burnable items in your vicinity. The suggested overheating effects play into this, by having you forcefully drop your inventory you can get a situation in which burnable objects start to fizzle and require extinguishing, which DOES hurt your HP a little - aswell as could theoretically result in actual burning down of parts of your inventory if you aren't fast enough to extinguish the dropped objects - its important to note that its important to take care that the "pass out time" isn't too long so this punishment is too severe as you can't get to your items before they catch fire.

As my suggestions concerning winter. This system would highlight the sanity system more, not be as abrasive to newcomers but pose interesting challenges for veterans. Again a player joining during summer will not have such a hard time and at least have a few days/weeks ingame to adjust and learn what he can do to battle the effects of summer (tree hopping, making pinwheels).

Still passing out is only dangerous in a dangerous situation and can be planned with and handled strategically. It invites risk-taking, without having you die for a single mistake (such as not looking out for that thermal stone duration).

 

Closing statement: I hope you enjoyed this read and I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the matter. I truly hope Klei will read this too and at least considers why I suggested the things I wrote. There are many ways to handle this problem, once it is acknowledged as a problem and I am sure Klei can find a solution that is as good or better as the suggestions I made here. Albeit it is unlikely to be seen/heard if there is no discussion happening in the thread. So I hope for the best and I hope I am not alone with these thoughts.

 

Regards,

Wyeth

[Tumalu]

I was going to argue against it entirely (Yes, it IS too rough to just join a server from scratch during summer or winter- but I think the solution to that is moreso a season notifier on the server select screen. These seasons are harder and it only makes sense someone joining from scratch or unaware of them will not make it; being able to make it through unprepared and unaware would be ridiculous) but then your suggestions actually weren't that bad. Maybe as an alternate setting. Heat stroke wouldn't allow you to get in a dangerous situation (and kill you if you were) so overheating would still be very bad, potential item loss, and the sanity drop could put you insane and in danger of nightmare monsters (whilst your equipment isn't immediately on you) so successive ones would be lethal still.

Winter might be a little underwhelming as you put it (it's also a lot easier in general to get decent winter gear and stay warm via periodical fires/burning something), but if you capitalized on the increased hunger/sanity drain as you start freezing, that could be pretty workable as well. And, in hindsight, -40% speed is actually pretty brutal, since you can't outrun anything and it'll take almost twice as long to get anything done. (you'd probably have the materials to just give up and make a campfire/torch something if you had to, though, as opposed to continuing to work)

Having an alternate setting to make the seasons like this in worldgen config or as a mod could be fairly interesting, actually.

While I agree that when you're not a veteran these seasons are a huge hindrance, that's because they're -supposed- to be liable to get you killed. It's just that, by the time they roll around, you're expected to already have a base and whatnot, not have just joined the server for the first time. I guess s'true that it's not great to have an entire season be a huge deadspot for new people joining the server, but if you want this to not happen you can set stuff up near the portal for them yourself.

And about not liking temp working on HP because hunger exists, honestly, once you've got a decent idea of where to get food, food is a major non-issue apart from long exploration trips. (However, ice and twigs seriously do need to be removed as filler options from almost all recipes they aren't required for. There's a concerning amount you can make with 2~3 ice or twigs. Butter Muffins, bunwiches, dragonpies all take 2~3 twigs happily, 3 ice and a monster meat is a ridiculous meatballs recipes, etc)

[TheKingofSquirrels]

I agree, here's a solution

GET RID OF WEATHER IN CAVES AND GIVE THEM INSULATION LIKE IRL

That way, new players can just pop into caves until Spring and Autumn.  

 

[Faintly Macabre]

3 minutes ago, TheKingofSquirrels said:

I agree, here's a solution

GET RID OF WEATHER IN CAVES AND GIVE THEM INSULATION LIKE IRL

That way, new players can just pop into caves until Spring and Autumn.  

 

The caves already save you from Summer. It wouldn't make any sense for it to not be cold in the winter though; we're talking a huge underground cavern, not a hole in the side of a cliff. It will get cold. Very cold.

[TheKingofSquirrels]

2 minutes ago, TheHalcyonOne said:

The caves already save you from Summer. It wouldn't make any sense for it to not be cold in the winter though; we're talking a huge underground cavern, not a hole in the side of a cliff. It will get cold. Very cold.

Wait, do you not overheat in caves anymore?

 

[Faintly Macabre]

2 minutes ago, TheKingofSquirrels said:

Wait, do you not overheat in caves anymore?

 

You can make yourself overheat with a fire or whatever, but not just walking around, no.

[Wyeth]

16 minutes ago, Tumalu said:

Having an alternate setting to make the seasons like this in worldgen config or as a mod could be fairly interesting, actually.

Yeah I would probably just try to mod this in myself if I had the time - maybe a good project when I got some spare time left. Also as kind of a "proof of concept" of the suggestions I made.

17 minutes ago, Tumalu said:

While I agree that when you're not a veteran these seasons are a huge hindrance, that's because they're -supposed- to be liable to get you killed. It's just that, by the time they roll around, you're expected to already have a base and whatnot, not have just joined the server for the first time. I guess s'true that it's not great to have an entire season be a huge deadspot for new people joining the server, but if you want this to not happen you can set stuff up near the portal for them yourself.

And about not liking temp working on HP because hunger exists, honestly, once you've got a decent idea of where to get food, food is a major non-issue apart from long exploration trips. (However, ice and twigs seriously do need to be removed as filler options from almost all recipes they aren't required for. There's a concerning amount you can make with 2~3 ice or twigs. Butter Muffins, bunwiches, dragonpies all take 2~3 twigs happily, 3 ice and a monster meat is a ridiculous meatballs recipes, etc)

I didn't try to imply that a person that is completely unprepared and doesn't know what they are doing should be able to SURVIVE winter or summer - just that there should be a time to learn from your mistakes (not die outright). So a new player who has no idea should still eventually die if he really doesn't know what he is doing, it just should be a struggle that he can learn from more than a flat out brickwall.

About hunger... you are making my point exactly! Hunger is a non-issue... but I think it shouldn't be. The game is called don't starve after all. So I would think a few changes could really make hunger relevant again... at least during winter and summer (I think the no ice as filler goes a long way when it comes to that, aswell as the freezing hunger loss increase).

[TheKingofSquirrels]

2 minutes ago, TheHalcyonOne said:

You can make yourself overheat with a fire or whatever, but not just walking around, no.

Oh, wow, that's changed since last I checked then.

And my logic was like how cavemen would take shelter in caves during Winter, but whatever.

[AniMike]

As a veteran player and once a noob, I can understand this issue, having played ds since alpha and dst beta release,  I can tell you that in dst, a lot of people die either 5 days in or the 1st winter when it's actually super simple to survive.  As a noob player in ds years ago, I didn't understand how things worked,  I had to either research information or ask help from friends and I think that's were the new players that play DST seem to lack, they need GUIDANCE,  it's not that the game is difficult,  it's just we as veterans need to pass on our knowledge to new players. Sadly, I can't even make group base in public matches anymore because of griefing, it seems that people who actually make it are the ones that go solo rather than helping others because you'd expect as a group to get more materials and have a base setup faster, get stuff done basically, nope. Instead, we got Moochers taking food and supplies without the support and the after results are sometimes the death of the group or leaving before before a season change.

My Suggestions for newbies? 

- Never join during a Winter Or Summer season unless you know that a player in that server is going to head to that portal and help you.

- Actually try and be part of a group and not be a Moocher.

-Join in servers that are either 0-10 days of a season(Expect Winter/Summer unless you got help), you'll have enough time to be ready for the next season.

- if your confused or wanna find new methods, or tactics in DST, ask ppl for help or look it up online on your computer / electronic devices.

 

[Faintly Macabre]

3 minutes ago, TheKingofSquirrels said:

And my logic was like how cavemen would take shelter in caves during Winter, but whatever.

In the side of a cliff or something, not hundreds of feet beneath the surface.

[Wyeth]

5 minutes ago, AniMike said:

As a veteran player and once a noob, I can understand this issue, having played ds since alpha and dst beta release,  I can tell you that in dst, a lot of people die either 5 days in or the 1st winter when it's actually super simple to survive.  As a noob player in ds years ago, I didn't understand how things worked,  I had to either research information or ask help from friends and I think that's were the new players that play DST seem to lack, they need GUIDANCE,  it's not that the game is difficult,  it's just we as veterans need to pass on our knowledge to new players. Sadly, I can't even make group base in public matches anymore because of griefing, it seems that people who actually make it are the ones that go solo rather than helping others because you'd expect as a group to get more materials and have a base setup faster, get stuff done basically, nope. Instead, we got Moochers taking food and supplies without the support and the after results are sometimes the death of the group or leaving before before a season change.

My Suggestions for newbies? 

- Never join during a Winter Or Summer season unless you know that a player in that server is going to head to that portal and help you.

- Actually try and be part of a group and not be a Moocher.

-Join in servers that are either 0-10 days of a season(Expect Winter/Summer unless you got help), you'll have enough time to be ready for the next season.

- if your confused or wanna find new methods, or tactics in DST, ask ppl for help or look it up online on your computer / electronic devices.

Hey, animike - I kinda tried to bring across that its a TWO-FOLD problem. The seasons are extremely easy to live through once you know how to get a thermal stone and clothes... it literally takes 1-2 days to get what you need for an experienced player... This is not good, its not even a danger of any sort. It's less a challenge and more ... just a thing that happens.

For noobs on the other hand you are saying exactly the thing that I see as a problem: No Guidance, but also even with guidance joining during winter/summer can be deadly... an experienced player just has a better chance to handle it (especially winter) and find his "footing" in a sense - but again I think this is something that should be adressed... half of the game you just can't join? What?

Also keep in mind there is wilderness too where teams are less frequent.

[MrNaxeros]

Here's probably the best solution for newbies: HAVE A TUTORIAL.

It might be hard to implement, but it sure will tell newbies that:
1. Summer and Winter are bad, unless you have a clue what to do;
2. If you do decide to join, advice them to wait in character select and ask for some sort of escort or help in general;
3. Give general info of what needs to be done asap;
4. Warn players of the threats of the season and how to protect against them.

Sure, the game is about learning from mistakes, but it works only in singleplayer. In DST it's just painful, because dedicated servers reset as soon as the "good" player leaves and there's no way to set up a big base in them, unless you play on them continously for entire 24 hours.

[Muche]

I recently read this old article about design theory of Don't Starve - http://web.archive.org/web/20131211211828/http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/intrinsic-vs.-extrinsic-rewards-in-kleis-latest-game-dont-starve (linked from http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/775-design-theory-article-over-at-penny-arcade/).

It seems to me that the main difference between DS and DST is that in DS all mistakes a player makes in the uncompromising wilderness affect only them; in DST players are forced to feel effects of other players' mistakes as well (sadly also possible griefing).

Also, are new players not willing to learn by experimenting & failing and expect to have all answers upfront? I'm referring to beefalo domestication and resource variants. I got the feeling that some players expect to have precise explanation how these new kinda-work-in-progress features work up on the wiki instead of finding out and updating the wiki themselves.

[Gelatous]

5 hours ago, Wyeth said:

I honestly wouldn't have figured that the game would be put out of early access with these two seasons working the way they do. Mainly because they just empty out servers in a second and make late joining during these seasons (that account for a bit less than 1/2 of the game!) impossible or at the very least highly difficult. You can say that if there is a base in survival or endless near the portal this problem gets countered, but keep in mind this isn't always the case and in wilderness mode this isn't even an option at all.

I can't help but feel that servers just getting deserted whenever winter or summer hits (especially by new players) is a bad design for a multiplayer game.

The other thing which bugged me even in RoG is that summer and winter don't seem to do what they are supposed to do - change up the way you as a player engage with the world. In total the game only requires you to have 4 items to counter any seasonal effects.

I was actually thinking the same thing. Even if you could join during Winter and somehow not die, a lot of players would simply prefer to go server-hopping and join a freshly generated Day 4 Autumn world instead of staying and watching the player count slowly decrease.

[Arlesienne]

I will start from the other end. There is quite a bit of good concepts on the original poster's side, but freezing and overheating should affect health as both are very detrimental. Possibly some sanity loss too.

When it comes to new players, it all depends on who you meet and the world. My group's aim is to help newbies out and so they get special treatment regardless of the season, but often, people just keep to themselves. Even worse, newbies rebuke your help or ignore you, only using the chat for emoticons, and then death happens. Harsh as it may sound, aiding such behaviour by decreasing the difficulty would be detrimental. DST ought to be about cooperation - the TOGETHER part is crucial. But nobody can force players to stick to this.

When I host, people help each other. Especially newbies. Often at their own expense. I do not even count how often I only eat something when I get "...I need substance..." while the kid over here is stuffing themselves full. It makes sense. Such behaviour - the protection of the most defenseless - is natural. It just needs two sides. Those who help and those who accept said help (and learn this way). As with any game with more than one player, there is no guarantee for that. Making winter and summer easier will not change much.

[Axehilt]

The point of the game is survival.  Without challenges that threaten survival the game wouldn't be a survival game, it'd just be "Base-Building With Friends".

While the majority of the game's challenges are trivial once you know how to deal with them, the point of the game is very much about figuring out how to deal with the next set of challenges and so removing any of those challenges is a bad idea.

Personally I view the game's biggest opportunities as:

• Ramp challenges faster.  Currently survival is measured in days, which is currently just a measure of "is today a day where I can dedicate 7 straight hours to playing DST?", which means survival has failed to be an interesting challenge.  I'd love for challenges to faster and dynamic, spawning a number of "tough challenges" relative to how you're doing (if you're doing well, more challenges happen; if not, the game backs off.) This would normalize session length to something more reasonable while changing the sense of 'scoring' from "Days Lived" to "Challenges Faced".  Both newbie and expert might survive close to the same 2 hours before dying, but the expert will have faced 60+ challenges and the newbie only 5.  Faster challenges also implies seasons cycle faster.
• Improved team play. The challenges themselves I think would increase the amount of teamplay that happens (if we all know we're going to die, we're more likely to try to cooperate to live longer,) but I think the game could use some mechanics which further reward teamplay. Most games achieve this by specializing players into roles in some way.  One simple form of this DST could use would be that the more you craft items in a particular category, the cheaper or better those items become.  This means I can still craft everything myself if I want to.  However a team that coordinates one player to be the chef (we give them all the food ingredients, and the food they create restores significantly better stats,) where others are the blacksmith, diviner, and scientist, is going to survive far more of those tough challenges than the server where everyone tries to do their own thing.  And again, these are not formalized: there is no "Chef" class, there is just the guy you've all agreed to hand all the basic ingredients to so he can make super-food.
• Matchmaking or at least a simple "joint-start" mode.  Due to this mode being more about teamwork, players would benefit from a joint start where the server fills up to 6 players before launching.  This will also happen way more often in a game where death definitely does happen within 2 hours.  If the game could also matchmaking similarly skilled players into the same servers, then that's optimal (since the number of challenges faced is based on how the entire server is doing, and you don't want newbies to be brutally maimed on a tough run, or experts to be bored on an easy one.)

[Wyeth]

1 hour ago, Arlesienne said:

I will start from the other end. There is quite a bit of good concepts on the original poster's side, but freezing and overheating should affect health as both are very detrimental. Possibly some sanity loss too.

When it comes to new players, it all depends on who you meet and the world. My group's aim is to help newbies out and so they get special treatment regardless of the season, but often, people just keep to themselves. Even worse, newbies rebuke your help or ignore you, only using the chat for emoticons, and then death happens. Harsh as it may sound, aiding such behaviour by decreasing the difficulty would be detrimental. DST ought to be about cooperation - the TOGETHER part is crucial. But nobody can force players to stick to this.

When I host, people help each other. Especially newbies. Often at their own expense. I do not even count how often I only eat something when I get "...I need substance..." while the kid over here is stuffing themselves full. It makes sense. Such behaviour - the protection of the most defenseless - is natural. It just needs two sides. Those who help and those who accept said help (and learn this way). As with any game with more than one player, there is no guarantee for that. Making winter and summer easier will not change much.

Hey just wanna clarify a few points I think didn't come through properly in my OP,

The suggested changes actually aim to make the seasons HARDER to survive, not easier. Just cause a new player can survive longer than half a day in summer / winter, doesn't mean they will survive the season. The goal of my suggestions is to make the game considerably harder for veterans but make it easier for newcomers to learn from mistakes without dying inbetween.

Maybe an example of the interplay of suggestions would help clarify this:

A new player joins the server during summer. He does not know how to handle summer, keeps overheating and getting heatstroked, very quickly he will become completely insane (as the suggestion included sanity loss on "passing out"), basically he will get heatstroked about ~ 2-3 minutes into the game if he does not seek shelter under trees, build a pinwheel or finds an endothermic fire. The thing is, he is not dead... he got probably a few days depending on how he acts, being heatstroked here and there while trying to scurry around finding food in the barren, withered land that is summer-world. Very soon he will be either killed by the nightmare beasts or simply starve to death.

The upside of this is that he even in worse case gets 3-4 days until he is completely done for, giving him time to inspect this situation and make decisions. It is unlikely that this player survives - it is however likely that he learns something from his mistakes and doesn't immediately turn away from the server or the game in general (which is the behaviour I am currently seeing on my own and other people's servers ESPECIALLY in wilderness mode).

On the flipside, for an experienced player this same situation is much more bearable, he will tree hop and build a pinwheel to keep the heat in check, letting him find food and ressources to construct the items he needs to get a more stable situation. At the same time, even an established player who is pretty "decked out" still has to wrestle with heat due to the lack of thermal stones. He can handle it but it's still a challenge, for him getting heatstroked is especially horrid because he would drop all his stuff, having considerably more things than a newcomer thats especially dangerous due to the time it takes to pick it back up, aswell as the occasional fire.

I hope that gives you a better idea of how I thought those mechanics would work together to create a MORE challenging but fairer gameplay experience for both newcomers and veterans.

[jamesl]

Thanks for creating an excellent thread, this conversation has been really fun to read. 

Personally, I agree that joining servers deep into Summer and Winter is not a great experience right now, specifically for newer players but also in general. Lots of the implementations you guys have suggested to fix this are very good and are definitely along the lines of some of the solutions we're considering. We have some smaller solutions we're trying that I think will help this quite a bit, but if it still kind of sucks after that then we might try a more comprehensive solution (like some of the ones you guys are suggesting). 

For the other side of the coin -- difficulty for veteran players -- we definitely want to be creating content in the future that will surprise and challenge veteran players and make the game more interesting for both new and experienced DS'ers. I feel pretty confident that some of our future challenges are going to present new learning opportunities for even the hardened veterans.

This is not meant to be a final say on the subject or anything, just wanted to post to say that I agree with large parts of the discussion here and to try to give you a bit of insight into some of how we're thinking about this. Very good thread, thank you guys and looking forward to reading some more of your suggestions here. 

[rezecib]

I think one of the major issues at play here that hasn't actually really been discussed is what play style(s) should the game be designed for? The play style that I really had in mind when DST was announced was playing it like single-player, but with your friends there. That is, everyone playing at the same time, in a small group. The current season design makes sense for this play style. One of the biggest issue right now with trying to do this style is coordinating players; you have to do it all yourself.

However, there's the alternative play style of drop-in-drop-out, where a server is long-running but players may be showing up for only part of the time, and have the ability to just skip out on a season. Wyeth's original suggestions seem to me to be considering the game from this drop-in-drop-out perspective. The idea of changing seasonal effects to be nonlethal on their own is a pretty interesting one for this context.

Ideally, these could actually be designed for separately, and allow a server to cater to one of the two play styles. Perhaps this would be good separated into the Survival game mode (for the first play style) and Endless/Wilderness modes (for the second), but expanding these game modes to also involve changes to season mechanics. From the first play style's perspective, I like Axehilt's suggestion of a matchmaking/lobby to get a synchronized start, but I think we'd need more support for continuing these games; DST has a lot of long-term goals and it would suck if you only felt like you could play if you could sit down for a solid 8 hours. Perhaps another tab in the server browser that tracks "running games" and allows you to send some sort of invite to all the players who were there to see if it can be resumed.

[Wyeth]

5 hours ago, rezecib said:

I think one of the major issues at play here that hasn't actually really been discussed is what play style(s) should the game be designed for? The play style that I really had in mind when DST was announced was playing it like single-player, but with your friends there. That is, everyone playing at the same time, in a small group. The current season design makes sense for this play style. One of the biggest issue right now with trying to do this style is coordinating players; you have to do it all yourself.

However, there's the alternative play style of drop-in-drop-out, where a server is long-running but players may be showing up for only part of the time, and have the ability to just skip out on a season. Wyeth's original suggestions seem to me to be considering the game from this drop-in-drop-out perspective. The idea of changing seasonal effects to be nonlethal on their own is a pretty interesting one for this context.

Ideally, these could actually be designed for separately, and allow a server to cater to one of the two play styles. Perhaps this would be good separated into the Survival game mode (for the first play style) and Endless/Wilderness modes (for the second), but expanding these game modes to also involve changes to season mechanics. From the first play style's perspective, I like Axehilt's suggestion of a matchmaking/lobby to get a synchronized start, but I think we'd need more support for continuing these games; DST has a lot of long-term goals and it would suck if you only felt like you could play if you could sit down for a solid 8 hours. Perhaps another tab in the server browser that tracks "running games" and allows you to send some sort of invite to all the players who were there to see if it can be resumed.

Very well summarized, have a like!

I think you are correct that the play-style focus is a problem. As I wrote originally I think mostly meant as a single player experience the weather effects are mostly fine, maybe not perfect, but in no way as devastating as they are in DST (where admittingly the goal is to play with a bunch of players in your world - one way or another). I was reacting to the thing I saw while joining random sessions and also running my own (Playercount dropping to 0 and new players incoming screeching to a halt whenever winter/summer hits).

I think this is especially a huge issue in wilderness mode, a small issue in endless (because people actually can run off on their own and do so frequently due to there not being punishments when someone dies for the others) and a almost a non-issue for most survival servers where you usually have a big "drop in" camp right at the start of the portal.

Synchronized start option is a good thing too, basically the server starts in a hibernated state, where people can join it but are stuck in some sort of lobby that displays players, characters and chat (pretty much the way character selection is right now, just that people who allready picke chars previously are obviously locked to their characters and outfits), along with a clear indicator that this server is in "start-up mode" and is waiting for more players. I would suggest a few options here:

- Either admins / server owners can start off the game manually from this lobby,

- Voting mechanic where people have to "ready up" to automate this process without an admin present (everyone in the lobby readied -> world starts, could be displayed as a small checkmark next to the names in chat, and instead of "join world/select player" you have a "ready" button)

- A fully automated starting process depending on player count (Should be clearly displayed "ONLY 3 MORE TO GO")

Having notifications for the players who originally been in a session when continuing it while in this "waiting state" is a great idea too that would surely help getting at least parts of the "old gang" back together. At the very least it would clearly show you how many sessions you have missed and where the server is right now.

So like if you got 3 notifications:

"SUPERWORLD" on day 21 - early winter; is about to start again : JOIN? / CANCEL SUBSCRIPTION"

"SUPERWORLD" on day 40 - spring; is about to start again : JOIN? / CANCEL SUBSCRIPTION "

"SUPERWORLD" on day 67 - late summer; is about to start again : JOIN? / CANCEL SUBSCRIPTION "

You would get a better idea what has transpired in your absence and you can simply cancel the "subscription" if you think its not worth it to even try to join in again cause too much time has passed.

Maybe also relevant to this suggestion: Simple option for automated Server resets? I see some dedicated server that have reached something like day 3000 and the world is pretty barren of natural ressources and highly developed (if you count filled to the brim with spiders as "developed"). If there was a clearly indicated "WORLD RESET ON DAY 200" that kinda thing wouldn't happen even if the admin is distracted - Creating more "usable" servers overall (Again kinda like how summer/winter create "downtimes" way too developed servers can cause "unusable" worlds).
 

7 hours ago, jamesl said:

Thanks for creating an excellent thread, this conversation has been really fun to read. 

Personally, I agree that joining servers deep into Summer and Winter is not a great experience right now, specifically for newer players but also in general. Lots of the implementations you guys have suggested to fix this are very good and are definitely along the lines of some of the solutions we're considering. We have some smaller solutions we're trying that I think will help this quite a bit, but if it still kind of sucks after that then we might try a more comprehensive solution (like some of the ones you guys are suggesting). 

For the other side of the coin -- difficulty for veteran players -- we definitely want to be creating content in the future that will surprise and challenge veteran players and make the game more interesting for both new and experienced DS'ers. I feel pretty confident that some of our future challenges are going to present new learning opportunities for even the hardened veterans.

This is not meant to be a final say on the subject or anything, just wanted to post to say that I agree with large parts of the discussion here and to try to give you a bit of insight into some of how we're thinking about this. Very good thread, thank you guys and looking forward to reading some more of your suggestions here. 

I am extremely glad to hear this.

I really love Don't Starve, and really fell in love with DST, I think the game has incredibly good, creative ideas and mechanics in many areas, which makes it especially frustrating to see things that may not function so well, especially when they are causing major server desertation, considerably lowering the fun to be had (myself I play mostly Wilderness PVP, because I like it when people have "all the options" and decide what to do on their own).

Thank you for caring. I am sure you guys can come up with a  solution that prevents all the issues raised in this thread, one way or another.

It's good to see that its possible to raise awareness of a long standing issue like this and it actually being recognized.

[Viru]

Spoiler

An easier start specifically for new players in Winter would be nice...

[CaptainChaotica]

Summer, in a way, is even worse.  You just automatically know how to make a regular fire, but you've got to make/get near a science machine to make even your first endothermic one! And that's assuming you find grass _and_ nitre in time. 

As for people joining in those inclement seasons...well, we did have three people join our server the other night _after_ we accidentally boobytrapped ourselves into an early summer.  One left right away, yes.  One died early.  But the third one stayed on and honestly tried to help, such as going on a food-gathering trip.  And if I had thought to BRING some stupid nitre with me, we wouldn't have both died of overheating halfway through.  : P

...point is, sometimes people who come on in a bad season don't immediately leave and do indeed try to make the best of it. 

That SAID, I do agree that it's really, really daunting for newbies. And some of these are _newbies_.  The following is an actual conversation I had:

WICKERBOTTOM:  We need to mine ice, we can use it as filler to stretch out our food.

ME:  We wanna save 15 pieces for a Fling-o-Matic, though.

WICKERBOTTOM:  Why?  What's that do?

ME:  Keeps your entire base from burning down in the summer.  From nothing but THE SUN ITSELF.

WICKER:  ...

ME:  And things wither.

WICKER: 

ME:  And just about everything can catch on fire.  Including animals!

WICKER: 

If even people who _know_ the regular game can get killed off horribly by the harder seasons, what about people like this?  Not everyone is a veteran of singleplayer Don't Starve before hopping on a Together server, and the trend is probably gonna continue.

...Notorious

[DarkXero]

Like ghosts, this suggestion can sound good on paper and then execute badly in practice.

If noobs die on day 5, instead of day 1, they could still hate the harsh season and leave the servers with that season. After all, why not just join on autumn? If seasons can't really kill you and are just a hindrance that contributes to get you killed, then veteran players (or noobs) can survive a harsh season via improvisation alone, instead of preparation.

It's certainly worth exploring to see what happens.

[t0panka]

I dont know why there is so much talk about "noobs vs veterans" and why is this even considered to be actuall feedback! "Noobs" need to learn like 5-10 things to survive those seasons so if someone really want to play this game he will learn these things in really short time and is ok to survive. Changing seasons for new players is beyond any logic since any new player can get "skill" for surviving seasons in really short time! And then what? All seasons will be waaay too easy for everyone! Please lets stop changing this game to be only for day1 players  this is ridiculous! No one is expecting to survive hardest part of the game when he starts playing! What game is changing mechanics just because new people cant survive? Should "hard difficulty" in other games be changed just because new people cant survive? NO! There is easy difficulty in those games for them so why change it in DST? Put your worlds to long autumn and learn to prepare and survive and maybe lets stop killing this game difficulty just because some people expecting to survive their first summer without problems! No one will start any new game where he has zero experience and put difficulty to "hard" and expect that to be easy mode! FYI:

- there are still world settings for new players

- in summer you can survive just with whirly fan lol

- caves are ridiculously easy in summer  even more than in autumn 

- someone who said you can make thermal stone in 1-2 days: i like to see that

- there is no way changing summer to be ok for new players and keep already small difficulty there is

- new players just cant join in hardest part of the game expecting to survive and then come here demanding developers to change whole mechanics because of that!

 

[Mikeadatrix]

3 hours ago, t0panka said:

I dont know why there is so much talk about "noobs vs veterans" and why is this even considered to be actuall feedback! "Noobs" need to learn like 5-10 things to survive those seasons so if someone really want to play this game he will learn these things in really short time and is ok to survive. Changing seasons for new players is beyond any logic since any new player can get "skill" for surviving seasons in really short time! And then what? All seasons will be waaay too easy for everyone! Please lets stop changing this game to be only for day1 players  this is ridiculous! No one is expecting to survive hardest part of the game when he starts playing! What game is changing mechanics just because new people cant survive? Should "hard difficulty" in other games be changed just because new people cant survive? NO! There is easy difficulty in those games for them so why change it in DST? Put your worlds to long autumn and learn to prepare and survive and maybe lets stop killing this game difficulty just because some people expecting to survive their first summer without problems! No one will start any new game where he has zero experience and put difficulty to "hard" and expect that to be easy mode! FYI:

- there are still world settings for new players

- in summer you can survive just with whirly fan lol

- caves are ridiculously easy in summer  even more than in autumn 

- someone who said you can make thermal stone in 1-2 days: i like to see that

- there is no way changing summer to be ok for new players and keep already small difficulty there is

- new players just cant join in hardest part of the game expecting to survive and then come here demanding developers to change whole mechanics because of that!

 

100% Agree. If you can't abide by the games cruel rules, don't play.