Don't Starve Learning Curve

[KoreanWaffles]

disclaimer: I'm not trying to hate at all, (DST is actually one of my favorite if not my favorite game) I just want to express my criticism that I thought would be some good food for thought.
tl;dr

Spoiler

Don't Starve has a pretty bad learning curve. It's difficult to get into the game and once you become more knowledgeable, surviving and learning to don't starve becomes way too easy. Much of the interesting content such as caves/ruins, and boss fights are off limits for new players just because they're just not skilled enough. Once they are though, the whole survival theme falls apart because it's just too easy to survive.

     Exactly four score seven weeks ago, I bought this wonderful game Don't Starve Together.

     This was the first time I was introduced to the Don't Starve universe, and I remember my first play-through with my friends. Our game plan was to capture every single rabbit in the savannah for food. The only problem was, when you throw four novices together who can't fend for themselves, much less feed themselves, well, let's just say you're gonna have a bad time. We didn't use our rabbits in crock pots at all so we were all eating rabbits for 12.5 hunger a piece. Needless to say, we all starved by day 5 of winter.
Our second play-through was, well... I opened a summer trap on day 21. I don't think I need to say any more.

     Through my 700+ hours of gameplay, (totally did not fakes half my hours by idling for skins and leaving the programs running in the background) I've noticed how poor the progression and learning curve is in this game. Through my first hundred hours, I learned the game through experience playing Wendy (yes I was once a Wendy main). I learned how to survive on my own as a nomad, but never very efficiently. I would gather resources and prebuild structures, but I would hardly ever use my resources or place down my structures (I was kind of a hoarder hehe). No one ever pointed out my mistakes, so I never fixed them. v('_')v

     Looking back now, I would have never even thought about walking within a half mile vicinity of a giant, treeguard, or a houndmound. I didn't even know what the ruins were. I feel like that's a whole lot of wasted content. Even now with the A New Reign updates (love them by the way!), will the average player really know what they're supposed to do with a moon stone, or have the ability to slay dragonfly to craft a salad scaled furnace, or even acknowledge the existence of a whole new cave world, much less that a giant Toadstool resides somewhere in there? #maketoadstoolimpossibleagain

     It wasn't until I played for around 500 hours that I became a fully fledged veteran Wigfrid casual. After 700+ hours, I know every single numerical value in the game (please don't quote me on that), I can get to the ruins as early as day 3, acquire ruins gear by day 10, slay dragonfly by day 6 (definitely not using exploits), mastered the art of kiting, I'm pretty good at pvp, and really, I don't have to worry about surviving. Even now, I haven't mastered the game. I don't know how to werebeaver my way to the ruins on day 1, and I'm certainly no Webber grandmaster. I haven't even joined a Wes supremist cult DST steam group yet. The thing I'm trying to get at is there isn't a good feeling of level progression in this game. It took me hundreds of hours to finally consider myself a veteran player (and I'm still not a master!), but not everyone will want to commit or even can commit so much time into learning the game. Maybe it's just me though. Maybe Don't Starve doesn't have to be a hardcore survival game. Maybe Don't Starve is fine just the way it is.

     I would would to see everyone's thoughts, insights, and opinions about this topic. Discuss!

[Tree45]

Took me far far less time to consider myself good. The game as a whole I know almost everything about. I'd only say I mastered one character and that's also wig. Use to main Wendy as well so I'm quite good with her. Most other characters though im pretty novice.

 

To me the learning curve really isn't that high. That being said I've also wiki probably every page on DS/DST so maybe that skews my view. Without that it probably would have taken me far longer and a lot more mistakes to become as proficient as I am. When no pvp elements are included I think the learning curve for most games will be lower.

[AnonymousKoala]

The curve is die, die, realize what the game tried to tell you, survive the next time this happens, it happens again but worse, die, repeat. Until you get how it works. When you do, yes the game becomes very easy.

Now about the "wasted" content. Yes. Designing things for Casual players fails because so many things are like this. Is it bad? No, that's part of how the game was designed, with the goal to just nudge players in the right direction rather than tell them about something.

You can find all of these. The game doesn't tell you to do it, because it tells you nothing.

How do people find out about the caves? World gen screen, and then the sinkholes, which they will mine because "hey i can interact with this" and then enter because "hey i can interact with this". If they die(which they most likely will), some will eventually come back, some will not. An average player wouldn't beat DST dragonfly? Good. She wasn't built for that. 

And if not everyone want to commit...Don't force them. This isn't a game trying to be for everyone. Its a hard(at first), survival game that says its unforgiving and doesn't hold your hand. And it doesn't hold your hand, nor does it try to make you keep playing. It gives you a sandbox and a bucket, and leaves everything up to you. 

[t0panka]

Well said @AnonymousKoala and just to add to your post i think this "learning curve" is why DS is so awesome game and why we all love it so much + after "mastering" combat there is always crazy base building! I have 1300 hours combined and i still wanna make some crazy stuff that will take another 1300h

[FTR]

Dst missing a bit of end game content, but they clearly trying to improve it by adding things like Toadstool or more uses for dragonfly loot.

[knightzaid]

19 hours ago, KoreanWaffles said:

disclaimer: I'm not trying to hate at all, (DST is actually one of my favorite if not my favorite game) I just want to express my criticism that I thought would be some good food for thought.
tl;dr

  Reveal hidden contents

Don't Starve has a pretty bad learning curve. It's difficult to get into the game and once you become more knowledgeable, surviving and learning to don't starve becomes way too easy. Much of the interesting content such as caves/ruins, and boss fights are off limits for new players just because they're just not skilled enough. Once they are though, the whole survival theme falls apart because it's just too easy to survive.

     Exactly four score seven weeks ago, I bought this wonderful game Don't Starve Together.

     This was the first time I was introduced to the Don't Starve universe, and I remember my first play-through with my friends. Our game plan was to capture every single rabbit in the savannah for food. The only problem was, when you throw four novices together who can't fend for themselves, much less feed themselves, well, let's just say you're gonna have a bad time. We didn't use our rabbits in crock pots at all so we were all eating rabbits for 12.5 hunger a piece. Needless to say, we all starved by day 5 of winter.
Our second play-through was, well... I opened a summer trap on day 21. I don't think I need to say any more.

     Through my 700+ hours of gameplay, (totally did not fakes half my hours by idling for skins and leaving the programs running in the background) I've noticed how poor the progression and learning curve is in this game. Through my first hundred hours, I learned the game through experience playing Wendy (yes I was once a Wendy main). I learned how to survive on my own as a nomad, but never very efficiently. I would gather resources and prebuild structures, but I would hardly ever use my resources or place down my structures (I was kind of a hoarder hehe). No one ever pointed out my mistakes, so I never fixed them. v('_')v

     Looking back now, I would have never even thought about walking within a half mile vicinity of a giant, treeguard, or a houndmound. I didn't even know what the ruins were. I feel like that's a whole lot of wasted content. Even now with the A New Reign updates (love them by the way!), will the average player really know what they're supposed to do with a moon stone, or have the ability to slay dragonfly to craft a salad scaled furnace, or even acknowledge the existence of a whole new cave world, much less that a giant Toadstool resides somewhere in there? #maketoadstoolimpossibleagain

     It wasn't until I played for around 500 hours that I became a fully fledged veteran Wigfrid casual. After 700+ hours, I know every single numerical value in the game (please don't quote me on that), I can get to the ruins as early as day 3, acquire ruins gear by day 10, slay dragonfly by day 6 (definitely not using exploits), mastered the art of kiting, I'm pretty good at pvp, and really, I don't have to worry about surviving. Even now, I haven't mastered the game. I don't know how to werebeaver my way to the ruins on day 1, and I'm certainly no Webber grandmaster. I haven't even joined a Wes supremist cult DST steam group yet. The thing I'm trying to get at is there isn't a good feeling of level progression in this game. It took me hundreds of hours to finally consider myself a veteran player (and I'm still not a master!), but not everyone will want to commit or even can commit so much time into learning the game. Maybe it's just me though. Maybe Don't Starve doesn't have to be a hardcore survival game. Maybe Don't Starve is fine just the way it is.

     I would would to see everyone's thoughts, insights, and opinions about this topic. Discuss!

Don't starve is missing alot and right now it still a sandbox which can improve but a little guide on how to do stuff in the game would help alot of new players x3

[LtShinySides]

The whole point of the game is to let you discover the game for yourself. There isn't any tutorial or tips for a reason. It's kind of like groundhog day. Die and repeat until you got it down. The "interesting" content isn't unavailable it's just not known of. It's just like anything else in the game though. You gotta go down there and figure it out for yourself. Also your experience you described as Wendy is part of the fun. The alone in the wilderness feeling in a strange and original land is awesome. I personally don't find anything wrong with Don't Starve. It's got an amazing high amount of sustainability for players who like to last forever. It's flooded with creativity and it's pretty archaic honestly. The difficulty is reminiscent of old games on like NES and Nintendo 64. A difficult game doesn't make it bad. Difficulty is something I craved in games until this game beat me to death. 

[CaptainChaotica]

For me, Don't Starve is at that hard-to-reach sweet spot of "hard, but INTERESTING hard". That is to say:  It will beat you at first, but in such a way that you...instinctively feel you CAN get better, if you really try.  As opposed to too easy, which needs no explanation, or unfair hard/completely beyond your particular skillset, in which you feel there's no POINT in trying any more.

Interesting-hard is when something _challenges_ you, but doesn't completely wipe the floor with you. You fail, but you can think of a way you _could_ have not failed if you tried this other thing. So you try it, and you reach Level 2.  You do well for a while, then Level 10 throws you a curveball...which you then figure out your way past THAT, now that you know it's there.  Etc.

Don't Starve is one of those.  It's hard, but almost every one of its more routine dangers has a solution you _can_ do without being expert at video games (which I'm not).  "I died on the first night because of darkness?  Duh, I should've made a torch!"  "Dogs show up after several days and they won't stop chasing me?  Wasn't there something about a suit made out of logs in the fight menu...?"  "Winter is cold enough to hurt you?  Hey, I remember seeing those winter hats in the menu!"   The ruins, the Dragonfly, etc. are more for real "MLG PRO"s...but they're meant to be.

(Also love the Groundhog Day reference, LtShinySides.  YES. Definitely. Especially if you die quickly and often and keep waking back up as the same character. : P)

...Notorious

[GentlemanFridge]

I got ninja'd so hard here...

[LadyAzure]

I've spent hundreds of hours invested in DS. Playing it since it came out on PS4. I learned the hard way many lessons but most I learned on my own with others watching back when I used to stream. I've only ever played as Maxwell since the day I ruled triumphant in adventure mode. Now a vet I enjoy being able to see others playing and how they approach things. 

[DVGMedia]

On 10/6/2016 at 11:08 PM, KoreanWaffles said:

playing Wendy (yes I was once a Wendy main).

everyone else basically said what i was going to say aswell. But this got me..... got a problem with wendy?

[KoreanWaffles]

16 hours ago, EsaiXD said:

everyone else basically said what i was going to say aswell. But this got me..... got a problem with wendy?

No, but people bullied me when I played Wendy
It's not very nice when all your friends try to kill your Abby T-T
Sadlife

[AnonymousKoala]

8 hours ago, KoreanWaffles said:

No, but people bullied me when I played Wendy
It's not very nice when all your friends try to kill your Abby T-T
Sadlife

Get better friends, simple. or teach your friends but pfft that's dumb

[minespatch]

On 10/11/2016 at 6:06 PM, KoreanWaffles said:

No, but people bullied me when I played Wendy
It's not very nice when all your friends try to kill your Abby T-T
Sadlife

Nobody should bully you for playing a character you like. That's rude.

[CaptainChaotica]

Seriously!  What a stupid/petty reason to make fun of someone.

...Notorious