Hidden details and ambigous information

[narkoface]

Hi there!

First of all I kinda like Don't Starve's attitude that it doesn't hold your hand throughout the game. This gives a special taste to it.

But

On the other hand I feel like there are things that shouldn't be left undetailed. Of course if you dig enough on Don't Starve Wiki you can learn mostly everything. However in my opinion there are hidden details that can hurt the player's experience, especially for new comers. Mainly I have problems with World Generation Settings. Looking at the options I'm just full of questions what they mean or I feel mislead by some of them after I enter the world. So a little help with these would be great as I really couldn't find much information on them.

Options that should have a little description for each settings (in game menu like game modes have):

Start
Biomes
Land Loop
Land Branch
Starting Variety
Changing Resources

And I think mob options like Giants, Clockworks, Hounds or Beefalos should also have some kind of a description or at least a few words for their value settings because nobody on Earth would think about that if you set for example Clockworks from default to more then they will be literally all over the place.

So what do you think? is it fine the way it is?

[rezecib]

I definitely agree that world customization options could use some love. They already have hover text to show what the settings are called, it wouldn't be that hard to add a short sentence explaining what it does.

However, there are also a lot of other issues with world customization options... for most of them, one setting away from the default is either "this thing doesn't show up anymore" or "this thing is everywhere and anywhere". They could really be made a lot more useful, and the current one-off settings should probably be close to the minimum and maximum settings, with intermediate settings causing there to be more of those things in the places they're supposed to be. For example, setting Tallbirds to More means your world is completely coated in Tallbirds, when most people on setting that would probably just want there to be a few more Tallbirds in rocky land.

[Arlesienne]

Definitely.

I would have never guessed a "plus" starting area would mean three chests full of fairly high-end goodies. Food, clothes, armour, resources, you name it. NEVER, EVER set monsters to more. The difference between default and more is jarring. Just ask the host to spawn a bit more of mobs.

Land loop sort of means you get roads in loops. Branches is straightforward. More info would be appreciated. Also, I rolled my first world with "classic" rather than "together" biomes... and I noticed no difference. What's the deal with those, pray tell?

I would love to learn how to get more rockylands and swamps. Particularly swamps. I get so many meadows, dull coniferous and deciduous forests, savannahs... The more dangerous and also more interesting biomes are, like, one, most of the time (regardless of the map size, mind you). I would love to make sure I get a desert with a dragonfly setpiece too.

[rezecib]

@Arlesienne "Classic" is supposed to exclude RoG biomes (deciduous, desert). I just tested it now and it seems to be working.

Looping makes the world into a horseshoe shape, like a donut with a bite taken out of it. Branching means biomes are less likely to be in chains and more likely to branch out, so it kind of makes the world more "centralized".

There's no way to control how many of each biomes spawn. That would be really nice, though. One thing that the tallbird, etc, settings could also do is affect how likely the particular variants of biomes are, e.g. making a tallbird fort more likely.

The desert with the dragonfly should always spawn, unless you set it to "Classic". But maybe it suffers from the old pig king problem where sometimes it can't fit it in?

[Arlesienne]

The world I rolled is very strange (testing classic and plus start), because it HAS RoG biomes, just not the dragonfly (I will have to manually create the setpiece, I'm afraid). It does have the pig king village (no Glommer) like one screen away from the spawn, surrounded by coniferous forests with spiders, and one walrus camp between a tiny beefalo savannah and the other side of the swamp. It is really odd and a bit like the singleplayer adventure mode.

On a general note, I would love to be able to add more setpieces. Now I have to manually spawn tentacle traps, tallforts, the queens' gathering and camps. I have no idea how to add custom effects like the two season traps. One guy on Steam bragged about knowing how to increase their frequency, but nothing came of it.

[BeastNips]

17 hours ago, narkoface said:

Hi there!

First of all I kinda like Don't Starve's attitude that it doesn't hold your hand throughout the game. This gives a special taste to it.

But

On the other hand I feel like there are things that shouldn't be left undetailed. Of course if you dig enough on Don't Starve Wiki you can learn mostly everything. However in my opinion there are hidden details that can hurt the player's experience, especially for new comers. Mainly I have problems with World Generation Settings. Looking at the options I'm just full of questions what they mean or I feel mislead by some of them after I enter the world. So a little help with these would be great as I really couldn't find much information on them.

Options that should have a little description for each settings (in game menu like game modes have):

Start
Biomes
Land Loop
Land Branch
Starting Variety
Changing Resources

And I think mob options like Giants, Clockworks, Hounds or Beefalos should also have some kind of a description or at least a few words for their value settings because nobody on Earth would think about that if you set for example Clockworks from default to more then they will be literally all over the place.

So what do you think? is it fine the way it is?

Take a look at this thread containing some information and screen shots of maps generated using different combinations of Branch and Loop:

http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/151306/land-loop-and-land-branch

Very informative. If you want an easy life then set Branch to most and Loop to never. This basically gives you a map in which everything spills out from the centre with very few impenetrable barriers (sea, basically). It allows you to set up in the middle of the map on the convergence of the roads and have easy access to pretty much everything. 

Disclaimer: This is all based on the single player version of the game; the world generation rules may be slightly different in Together. 

[narkoface]

Thanks for the help and I'm also interested in a World Customization option for set pieces. As far as I know the only way to get more of them is to generate a new world and hope for the best :/

[AnonymousKoala]

24 minutes ago, narkoface said:

Thanks for the help and I'm also interested in a World Customization option for set pieces. As far as I know the only way to get more of them is to generate a new world and hope for the best :/

Boons I think controls that. 

[BeastNips]

56 minutes ago, AnonymousKoala said:

Boons I think controls that. 

I was under the impression Boons were the random skeletons with items around them. Set pieces tend to be things like chess tiles, reed traps and Beefalo graveyards. 

It would be great if we could set individual set pieces to 'more'. This is often what is really wanted if someone sets something like Chess Pieces to more; we want more sey pieces, not monsters all over the place. 

[Arlesienne]

Boons = failed survivors. Those spawn with random items. Setpieces usually present a danger. I always set boons to lots just for the slightly jumpscare effect of the skellies... and pray for setpieces. Usually, I just get a flourishing pig village (with fake berry or carrot farm plots), winter traps, rot traps, guardian torches. I have one server with a fire staff trap.

[BreadDestroyer]

Has anyone ever seen the imprisoned pig, crock pot camp, and pig fortress set pieces in their servers? Are they just rare or do they not exist in don't starve together?

[applebottom]

26 minutes ago, BreadDestroyer said:

Has anyone ever seen the imprisoned pig, crock pot camp, and pig fortress set pieces in their servers? Are they just rare or do they not exist in don't starve together?

I've seen the imprisoned pig in DST once in random server I joined. But aren't pig fortress and crockpot camp from adventure mode?

[Mobbstar]

58 minutes ago, applebottom said:

I've seen the imprisoned pig in DST once in random server I joined. But aren't pig fortress and crockpot camp from adventure mode?

^ These exact statements reflect my input. ^

[Arlesienne]

Hey, right after we were complaining about the lack of setpieces, I got a server with THREE queens' gatherings in one narrow area.
 One character CAN pass between the webbing, but narrowly.

Guess where I put my camp.

[leonseye]

On 6/14/2016 at 5:28 PM, Arlesienne said:

Definitely.

I would have never guessed a "plus" starting area would mean three chests full of fairly high-end goodies. Food, clothes, armour, resources, you name it.

It also has more monsters (perfect for me) and all spider nests start at tier 2 or 3, whether you've visited the area or not.

Also, the chests don't have any armor.  

1 chest that has basic tools (axe, pick, hammer, shovel, spear).

1 chest has some blueprints (most notably backpack and straw roll) and basic resources (logs, twigs, grass, flint, rocks, etc).  Also, there is some gunpowder in there, which is the highest level item out of any of the chests.

1 chest has food.  Lots of food.  And a couple Dragonfruit, as well as 1 Tallbird egg.

I like Plus a lot; you basically skip the first 2 days of resource gathering and get a more exciting game world overall, due to the increased enemies and day 1 spider queens.

[Arlesienne]

11 hours ago, leonseye said:

It also has more monsters (perfect for me) and all spider nests start at tier 2 or 3, whether you've visited the area or not.

Also, the chests don't have any armor.  

1 chest that has basic tools (axe, pick, hammer, shovel, spear).

1 chest has some blueprints (most notably backpack and straw roll) and basic resources (logs, twigs, grass, flint, rocks, etc).  Also, there is some gunpowder in there, which is the highest level item out of any of the chests.

1 chest has food.  Lots of food.  And a couple Dragonfruit, as well as 1 Tallbird egg.

I like Plus a lot; you basically skip the first 2 days of resource gathering and get a more exciting game world overall, due to the increased enemies and day 1 spider queens.

Welp. I have two plus servers, but only one actually brought higher-tier dens.

I had to manually

spawn an ancient guardian on Project Rosebud (along with two Maxwell lights for added decoration; sadly the stupid furball refuses to exit between them and just rams through like a brute). My GM's creed is "Start with a bang, then build up tension". So. Ahem. But the fact I just got rabbits, frogs and beehives nearby is a shame if plus is supposed to make the game more exciting.

[leonseye]

Wow @Arlesienne, it sounds like your worldgen gave you a dud.. : /

Yeah, I'd honestly start it over if I wandered the lands just to find a happy-go-lucky meadow of peaceful animals.

This does happen sometimes, unfortunately, but it's usually maybe 1 in 10 servers I create that it happens on (I make a lot for testing my fiance's character mod lately).

It's supposed to increase aggressive monsters, which is the main reason that I pick it.

[Arlesienne]

5 minutes ago, leonseye said:

Wow @Arlesienne, it sounds like your worldgen gave you a dud.. : /

Yeah, I'd honestly start it over if I wandered the lands just to find a happy-go-lucky meadow of peaceful animals.

This does happen sometimes, unfortunately, but it's usually maybe 1 in 10 servers I create that it happens on (I make a lot for testing my fiance's character mod lately).

It's supposed to increase aggressive monsters, which is the main reason that I pick it.

Hehe, this is the reason for the ancient guardian bumming around :D.

I envy being a betatester of your betrothed's mod.

[leonseye]

29 minutes ago, Arlesienne said:

Hehe, this is the reason for the ancient guardian bumming around :D.

I envy being a betatester of your betrothed's mod.

Well, if you like Jak & Daxter, she's a pretty well-known fan artist in that community and a few others.

So she made a Jak mod that's almost finished, I believe.  Not on the Workshop or anything like that yet, but I know that she has some interested in it already from the fandom community, so I'd be surprised if she doesn't upload it soon for better testing.

I'll let you know when that happens, if you like.  : )

[Arlesienne]

15 hours ago, leonseye said:

Well, if you like Jak & Daxter, she's a pretty well-known fan artist in that community and a few others.

So she made a Jak mod that's almost finished, I believe.  Not on the Workshop or anything like that yet, but I know that she has some interested in it already from the fandom community, so I'd be surprised if she doesn't upload it soon for better testing.

I'll let you know when that happens, if you like.  : )

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=689407416

This one? Definitely please do if it is alright. Heh, I would gladly take this to a PM in order not to off-topic too much here (guilty as charged). For instance I have always wondered for the odd mix of pointy ears and a supervillain goatee.

After all only the Mer of the Elder Scrolls world(s) have beards and we all know they are purchased from impoverished dwarves from the Third World...

[leonseye]

53 minutes ago, Arlesienne said:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=689407416

This one? Definitely please do if it is alright. Heh, I would gladly take this to a PM in order not to off-topic too much here (guilty as charged). For instance I have always wondered for the odd mix of pointy ears and a supervillain goatee.

  Reveal hidden contents

After all only the Mer of the Elder Scrolls world(s) have beards and we all know they are purchased from impoverished dwarves from the Third World...

 

No, that's actually another mod that may have been abandoned, and she wanted to do a few things differently so she went ahead and made her own.  I think it's based on Jak 2, as well.

I think she's having trouble uploading to the Workshop though, keeps getting a couple different errors.  Was going to post about it in the mod forums if the problems persisted, actually.  : P

[Arlesienne]

I see. If I can be of use or just root for you two, I appreciate a PM.