Default Resources are Far Too Low for Multiple People

[ezjm]

After playing tons of servers, hosting my own, messing with the settings often, I feel that the default resources for DST servers are too low. Under perfect conditions with 3-4 experienced people, it's just barely enough. Under most public servers you get anywhere from 2-12 people usually. When the number of people goes beyond 4, things start to get really bad: mainly being not nearly enough flint, and the world food just cannot regenerate fast enough if you have not yet made a lot of sustainable food, and that is if everyone is actually using the crockpot all the time.

Despite the warning 'You might want to start out playing alone first' before browsing servers, most people I meet on public servers are very new, most don't even know how much more efficient the crockpot is than cooking with fire, so typically dedicated servers I join with default settings are extremely 'picked', you can go 4-5 biomes without seeing a single flint or enough food to last you a day, and this is only on Day 5-10. The only servers that don't have this issue are the ones that turn 'World Generation' to Faster, and flint/rocks to more.

 

My main point is that under 'perfect' conditions, the resources are just enough, but that is not the typical server. The typical server has 3-5+ new people and 1-3 experienced people, and I feel the default settings should relate to the 'common' experience and not the more experienced people. It gets to the point where I don't want to join servers with more than 4 people because there's always an extreme shortage of something, usually food or flint. I'm hesitant to join servers with default settings unless it's one of my friends, otherwise the world is most likely picked over and a lot of biomes become completely pointless to even visit.

A possible solution is to scale the regrowth/respawn rate when the number of players gets higher. Or for the game to automatically spawn more stuff as more players join so that biomes that are completely picked over can become useful again. Anyone that feels this is too easy can always lower the settings. Most new players don't change the settings and their world gets ruined/picked over very fast.

[Diaboliko]

Dude, the game is super easy already. Especially if you don't have prepare to anything (even first hounds come for you only at day 7+, even if Im wrong, they are easily distructed). Finding no sticks or grass is like whatever... You can always find some by traveling a bit or going in caves. You only need 1 torch to survive any amount of nights (torch is OP), thats like the only thing you are looking for. Chances of not getting enough for a torch on default settings are high only if you need to get good. :>

You might wanna try joining servers with grass and sapplings set on 'more' or something like that.

[Ecu]

On 12/14/2016 at 9:40 PM, ezjm said:

After playing tons of servers, hosting my own, messing with the settings often, I feel that the default resources for DST servers are too low. Under perfect conditions with 3-4 experienced people, it's just barely enough. Under most public servers you get anywhere from 2-12 people usually. When the number of people goes beyond 4, things start to get really bad: mainly being not nearly enough flint, and the world food just cannot regenerate fast enough if you have not yet made a lot of sustainable food, and that is if everyone is actually using the crockpot all the time.

Despite the warning 'You might want to start out playing alone first' before browsing servers, most people I meet on public servers are very new, most don't even know how much more efficient the crockpot is than cooking with fire, so typically dedicated servers I join with default settings are extremely 'picked', you can go 4-5 biomes without seeing a single flint or enough food to last you a day, and this is only on Day 5-10. The only servers that don't have this issue are the ones that turn 'World Generation' to Faster, and flint/rocks to more.

 

My main point is that under 'perfect' conditions, the resources are just enough, but that is not the typical server. The typical server has 3-5+ new people and 1-3 experienced people, and I feel the default settings should relate to the 'common' experience and not the more experienced people. It gets to the point where I don't want to join servers with more than 4 people because there's always an extreme shortage of something, usually food or flint. I'm hesitant to join servers with default settings unless it's one of my friends, otherwise the world is most likely picked over and a lot of biomes become completely pointless to even visit.

A possible solution is to scale the regrowth/respawn rate when the number of players gets higher. Or for the game to automatically spawn more stuff as more players join so that biomes that are completely picked over can become useful again. Anyone that feels this is too easy can always lower the settings. Most new players don't change the settings and their world gets ruined/picked over very fast.

I completely disagree here.  I have sat down and personally created a base that could easily support 8 people food-wise and it wasn't all that large of a base either.  Regarding resources like gold, flint, stone.  The underground has tons of those resources as well.

I think the issue only manifests itself on public servers that are playing endless/wilderness modes instead of survival.  Private servers with say 8 friends can easily be done as long as you coordinate either each other.  You won't run out of needed resources for a very long time, and even when you do, nearly all the resources are renewable via some method as well.

Long running public endless servers, however, can have this issue as players have already stripped through all the base resources, leaving only the renewable ones long long ago.  This means as a new player, you are limited to bird drops, tumbleweeds, and cave-in drops.

I've explained on other servers though that the seeming intention by the way resources are design is that you will slowly run out.  The game doesn't really seem meant to be played endlessly on the same world.  Don't Starve was always designed as a challenge to see how long you can survive in the world.  In DST, this challenge essentially was expanded to include a small group of people trying to survive in the same world.  It has always been a game where you will eventually die and start over.

Limited resources are part of that.

[Tosh]

Get people to farm tumbleweeds if they don't have enough grass/twigs. I don't see the lack of flint as an issue as birds currently drop flint near new players on a server, and it forces you to use gold tools more. Once you get the hang of farming monster meat or bunny puffs you can turn it into a steady supply of gold. These are all things that can easily be taught to new players (maybe with the exception of bunnymen). If you're hosting the server yourself there's no shame in increasing the amount of resources, especially if it's to help newer players learn the game.

[Trenix]

I think there just needs to be better map settings which allow you alter regrowth in ways you want it to, like what gets replenished and what doesn't. For example, in long running servers I'd like to have flint and boulders reappear. Going to long running servers are depressing, barren, and an eye sore. Without caves it's even worse and gold is only available if you're lucky enough to find the pig king. Biggest pain is going in a server and not being allowed to create anything, because you need gold for a science machine and can't find it. Yeah there is a lot of problems with long running servers in this game...

[Ecu]

3 minutes ago, Trenix said:

I think there just needs to be better map settings which allow you alter regrowth in ways you want it to, like what gets replenished and what doesn't. For example, in long running servers I'd like to have flint and boulders reappear. Going to long running servers are depressing, barren, and an eye sore. Without caves it's even worse and gold is only available if you're lucky enough to find the pig king. Biggest pain is going in a server and not being allowed to create anything, because you need gold for a science machine and can't find it. Yeah there is a lot of problems with long running servers in this game...

I disagree.  As I've had experience developing options for games, I find that adding a ton of options and maintaining them all through updates to the game can easily escalate to sizable development time lost.  Rather than trying to support every possible way that a user may wish to play the game from an official standpoint, it is just better to offer an official and integrated modding system that allows people to customize those things they want tweaked for their own experience.

This is something already done in DST, so if you really want to have such in-depth customization options, I feel modding is the better solution.