Why does the DST community seem so toxic?

[Rellimarual]

Well, yes, those people are definitely jerks, but I've played on public servers quite a bit without encountering any of that. It might indeed be because you're trying to join hosted rather than dedicated servers.

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

6 hours ago, Bunions said:

I think that there is a disparity between the style of gamer the art attracts and the skills required in part. Many times you get people who are social gamers or people who care more about the experience vice optimized game play or on the extreme end - min / maxing. 

Couple that with the fact that this game can be quite unforgiving and you have a clash between expectations and results, which leads to a fragmented community in part.

Well, if the game was balanced in such a way that the newbies aren't killed by things that are not of their fault (e.g. heat, because they joined in summer and got no help) and pros got challenges in the long-run to a point where even they, knowing all the mechanics, would still get a tough time from the game instead of claiming the entire world as their megabase, would probably result in much more understanding between the divided skill-set. And as such, anybody who truly does hate newbies for being newbies could be dismissed as someone who's just being way too salty and full of themselves... mostly.

And it could very well be done so in such a way; have the game cater to newcomers that are set in extreme conditions, like heat and cold or even rain in Spring as well as giants' attacks (Bearger and Deerclops), whilst making players overall more vulnerable with more difficult to avoid attacks from mobs, as well as more attacks, which could be semi-randomly selected from to make attack prediction of the player more obscure and voila... you're getting somewhere... probably.

[CaptainChaotica]

10 hours ago, CarlZalph said:

You're in luck!

The range for flings display themselves in the base game now whenever you're going to build something.

Oho, really?  'Bout time!  That's always been a kind of odd little oversight, to me.  Does it work for singleplayer too?  Probably not, as I'm still waiting to be able to keep gathering while my hands are full in regular Don't Starve, or have spacebar _reset_ a tooth trap instead of picking it up!* but you never know.

(also...my server is hosted...they're not ALL like that, really.  I just can't afford a dedicated one/don't know how to set them up/don't want random people messing with stuff I built while I'm not there...)

...Notorious

*Those are both basic little quality-of-life tweaks and have NOTHING to do with lore or the timeline, so, there's no reason at all why regular Don't Starve can't have it.  I'd also say there's no reason why singleplayer can't have juicy berry bushes, grass geckos, twiggy trees, meteors or beefalo taming, but that's just me...

[Sicko Hog]

2 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

I'd also say there's no reason why singleplayer can't have juicy berry bushes, grass geckos, twiggy trees, meteors or beefalo taming, but that's just me...

There's no reason why singleplayer can't have DST features, but there's also no reason it would need them.

The resource variants would be pointless, since through world hopping you can amass tons of grass tufts, saplings, and berry bushes, which you can then set up with a lureplant to auto-harvest themselves.

Meteors would be pointless, since you can easily get hundreds of Moleworms and dig up all the burrows infinitely, and moon rocks are only used for walls (unless they also implemented the moon-related features, which brings in more problems).

And Beefalo taming would be pointless, because why would you waste a ton of time and resources on taming an ornery and rider beefalo when you could just set up some coffee bushes and make a few cutlass supremes.

[Clwnbaby]

On 2/19/2017 at 11:36 AM, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

I'm a player with over 1800 hours of gameplay. I still ask that sentence at mid-late game servers almost every time and sometimes mistakenly so at early game. This hostility towards anyone who asks "where is base" needs to stop, because it creates prejudice and consequently toxicity.

No I feel the stigma against "where the base?" is well placed, and yes others can be a bit toxic about it but they don't have to be.  Me personally always answer that question the same way, "Where you make it."  Most people take it as a mean comment but it isn't.  Simply put it means play the game and when you find a place to live, albeit an already made base or starting your own, is where the base is.  Joining ANY day and immediately asking "Where the base?" means to me that you don't REALLY want to play the game, you only kinda want to play it because you won't even invest the minimal effort of exploring in your first few days when you start playing which is part of the fun.  If people want to help you Day 1 spawn they will reach out to you, and people DO do it, though VERY VERY infrequently; and that has more to do with you always end up helping a griefer more than I don't want to help you. 

[Rellimarual]

All they have to do is survive 7 days or so on their own and the request for the base location becomes a lot less objectionable. 

[CaptainChaotica]

10 hours ago, JellyUltra said:

There's no reason why singleplayer can't have DST features, but there's also no reason it would need them.

The resource variants would be pointless, since through world hopping you can amass tons of grass tufts, saplings, and berry bushes, which you can then set up with a lureplant to auto-harvest themselves.

Meteors would be pointless, since you can easily get hundreds of Moleworms and dig up all the burrows infinitely, and moon rocks are only used for walls (unless they also implemented the moon-related features, which brings in more problems).

And Beefalo taming would be pointless, because why would you waste a ton of time and resources on taming an ornery and rider beefalo when you could just set up some coffee bushes and make a few cutlass supremes.

And there's no reason why it necessarily SHOULDN'T have them, either! 

I'm not talking about _more_ resources here, I'm talking about simply having the _variety_.  I'm thinking, like...there would be a new entry added to the world gen settings, with "Classic Only", "New Only", and "Default" as the choices--the default would be random, so you'd have a chance of seeing _either_ version of each varied resource in each world.  Then when you hop worlds, you get a new randomly-picked subset of them. Meteors, I guess, aren't absolutely necessary (and there's a mod for them anyway! And I can attest that it works--poor Wolfgang almost got his moustache singed off by one the other day) but, okay...how about renewable mini-glaciers?  The eternal puddles may be annoying, but as soon as you mine one of those babies in _singleplayer_ it is GONE.  Off the map.  No matter how many more winters go by afterwards.  I'd be willing to import The Curse of the Puddles if it meant that resource became renewable.

And beefalo taming?  I've said this before and I'll say it again:  Beefalo taming would work BETTER on singleplayer.  Because:  _You never have to worry about anybody untaming your beefalo_.  Ever.  Because nobody else CAN come into that world!  You can shut down whenever you want, and your beefie will still be there waiting for you, exactly where it was. All that tedious long time it takes to fully tame one would feel less wasted, and no salt licks required!  (Although I'd probably still make one anyway, just to be nice.  I've played Harvest Moon, it'd feel weird to have a farm animal and not take care of it every day with a brush and whatnot.)

And...I've never survived long enough on Shipwrecked to even FIND the water beefalo, or any coffee plants.  Not all of us want to deal with wind blowing our stuff away or (shudders) poison...or those GOD.  DAMNED.  _MONKEYS_!! or treeguards that show up FIVE(!) at a time, with long-range attacks.  I just wanna slowly, over time, tame my own beefalo on land, and then ride it around like a badass--without even the slightest possibility of another player messing up my progress.  Is that so wrong?

(Yes, private servers friends only don't play on the Klei ones (I don't) etc...even by ACCIDENT somebody can click the wrong button near a beefalo, even a good friend. Even a _smart_ person. I'm talking:  You're all by yourself in this big bad world, REALLY by yourself, and you get a large furry animal companion.  That's all.  Also, grass geckoes...! They're cute!  Not for extra grass, really, just...to have more harmless creatures wandering around for background colour.  The desert is one of my favourite biomes, and it'd be nice to see some more stuff there.)

ANYway. Sorry to derail the thread for so long, guys, but...this is a subject close to my heart, and I hate it just being shut down like that.  I don't want fancy moon statues or big raid monsters or pets (although there is also a pet mod)--just the BASICS of the new stuff from DST to (have a chance to) (someday) show up in singleplayer!  Because it gets boringer faster when you're alone.  Sure, lots of this could be fixed by mods, as I've already mentioned--but I can't make them myself, and walking up to people who ARE good modders and demanding "MAKE ME THIS!" would be a dumb idea. : P  (The flashier stuff is what's getting modded over--pets, the Toadstool, moon statues...I imagine gather-while-hands-full and twiggy trees just aren't "cool" enough to get priority.)

AND because I believe normal Don't Starve still has some value to it and lots of people could stand to play that for a bit before leaping straight into Together before they even know the controls.  Hey, you want this to go back on topic?  There ya go--we'd get less "wares baiz?" if we had more people who _had_ to learn the basics on their own, first!

...Notorious

[isthisworkingnow]

5 hours ago, Clwnbaby said:

 Me personally always answer that question the same way, "Where you make it."  Most people take it as a mean comment but it isn't.  Simply put it means play the game and when you find a place to live, albeit an already made base or starting your own, is where the base is.  Joining ANY day and immediately asking "Where the base?" means to me that you don't REALLY want to play the game, you only kinda want to play it because you won't even invest the minimal effort of exploring in your first few days when you start playing which is part of the fun.

I ask where base is because it is Don't Starve Together not Don't Starve. I play this game to play it with other people otherwise I would play the original.

And just asking where base is doesn't mean I don't want to play- it means I don't want to wander aimlessly to look for the base or play the really slow and boring start. 

Due to the reasons above I will always take someone to my base and I have never encountered a griefer yet and, if I do I will kick them and deal with it because for every one griefer you get loads of nice people who just want to play the game with other people instead of making a base on their own.

[Ginosaji]

2 minutes ago, isthisworkingnow said:

I ask where base is because it is Don't Starve Together not Don't Starve. I play this game to play it with other people otherwise I would play the original.

And just asking where base is doesn't mean I don't want to play- it means I don't want to wander aimlessly to look for the base or play the really slow and boring start. 

Due to the reasons above I will always take someone to my base and I have never encountered a grinder yet and, if I do I will kick them and deal with it because for every one griefer you get loads of nice people who just want to play the game with other people instead of making a base on their own.

we're playing on a 20 slot public server and when the world is a couple hundred days old there shouldn't be any problem finding people and bases all over the place. there really isn't a reason to lead people to your base unless you wanna have people only hanging at your base eating your food, taking your resources and then die with them god knows where in the world, if they even leave your base at all. those people don't contribute anything to your base. they only ask "where da base?" and then pretty much just stay in your base and are using up all your resources and that's what Clownbaby means when he said people don't really wanna play. yea, it's true, when they just spend all day at your firepit, eating your food, using your structures like tents and never leave your base, it's not playing the game because there's more to it than just sitting in the base.

[Rellimarual]

Do you never have idiots who turn up at your base, somehow blow through all your pigskin on nothing, takes resources you need to make useless item like teleporter staffs that they don't even know what to do with, eat all the food without contributing more, hang around the base during firehound or Deerclops attacks even when you tell them multiple times to leave, stand around saying "I need bunny puffs" or "I need butter" over and over again even after you explain that if they want that stuff they have to get it for themselves, get other players killed with their incompetence then steal their stuff and refuse to return it, get killed over and over again and tantrum if everybody doesn't instantly drop everything to save them, demand world resets because they don't like winter or spring, expect you to give them hard-won Ruins gear even though they just joined, etc.? 

Just wondering.

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

2 hours ago, Rellimarual said:

Do you never have idiots who turn up at your base, somehow blow through all your pigskin on nothing, takes resources you need to make useless item like teleporter staffs that they don't even know what to do with, eat all the food without contributing more, hang around the base during firehound or Deerclops attacks even when you tell them multiple times to leave, stand around saying "I need bunny puffs" or "I need butter" over and over again even after you explain that if they want that stuff they have to get it for themselves, get other players killed with their incompetence then steal their stuff and refuse to return it, get killed over and over again and tantrum if everybody doesn't instantly drop everything to save them, demand world resets because they don't like winter or spring, expect you to give them hard-won Ruins gear even though they just joined, etc.? 

Just wondering.

That's awfully specific... Unless these are trolls, these players may be very young kids that may not comprehend reason consciously yet. I played with someone who's 8 and while they were pretty good at the game, they kept asking for rare items as if we always had a bunch of them expendable. Certain kids may just be like that.

From my perspective, it just further goes to reinforce the idea that the game should fit better the human behavior so that players would want to cooperate and help out each other, rather than the game not giving a crap and subsequently problems occurring (like for SOME reason, being able to light structures on fire as a player with a torch or otherwise). Some players simply don't care for their own reasons, so the game making them care could reduce this kind of idiocy that some players create. But for this kind of behavior, this might be very hard, if not impossible to do. Don't Starve may be very rage inducing and if single player already doesn't make some people cry out like 10-year old Minecraft players:

Then DST may do the same but even worse, despite perma-death not being within the game, because the effort you put in was destroyed not by the fault of you, but by the fault of others, often intentionally.

[Bunions]

3 hours ago, Rellimarual said:

Do you never have idiots who turn up at your base, somehow blow through all your pigskin on nothing, takes resources you need to make useless item like teleporter staffs that they don't even know what to do with, eat all the food without contributing more, hang around the base during firehound or Deerclops attacks even when you tell them multiple times to leave, stand around saying "I need bunny puffs" or "I need butter" over and over again even after you explain that if they want that stuff they have to get it for themselves, get other players killed with their incompetence then steal their stuff and refuse to return it, get killed over and over again and tantrum if everybody doesn't instantly drop everything to save them, demand world resets because they don't like winter or spring, expect you to give them hard-won Ruins gear even though they just joined, etc.? 

Just wondering.

Isn't that why they have the PvP setting? To help settle player disputes?

Meanwhile, last night I had someone call me a very rude name that I shan't repeat verbatim, but will relate the story because it was pretty funny.

Fellow joins my public server, named Brutality Mode - Difficulty Mods mind you. The server has a welcome message warning about the difficulty as well, and I usually say hello early on to get the ball rolling. Nearly always anyway, if I'm not busy or wanting solitude for some particular reason.

Well it's nearly dusk when the lad joins and he promptly complains he will have to run back to portal for light ( another courtesy feature) since torches require lubricant to make. I comment on how to get the lubricant, and that I also give 2 matches on server entry as an emergency measure. This fellow instead says: "Nvrmnd, I'm out" and proceeds to follows it up with a classic: "C u next tuesday" comment. 

I couldn't help but laugh, that's logic for ya. Join a server where the world and other players are out to get you on occasion, with ample warnings and safety nets, then get mad about it.

Ok!

This is why I do things like ring my base with a moat made of swamp and fill it with tentacles.

Pray for peace but prepare for war is my motto. 

I have to admit I find the whole thing enormously entertaining though.

[Starlogy]

3 hours ago, Ginosaji said:

we're playing on a 20 slot public server

Oh god, I couldn't imagine playing on servers that large. Extremely disorganized, not to mention dupe characters everywhere.

8 slots are probably the just right amount, as you can get a pretty good idea of what everyone is doing. Usually, half or more of the server is together, and you have a few lone wolves doing their own thing.

20 is too many. Tried it once, wanted to leave almost instantly.

also there were like 8 wendys it was just a big cluster**** of depression and ghosts

[hkhm]

4 hours ago, Rellimarual said:

Do you never have idiots who turn up at your base, somehow blow through all your pigskin on nothing, takes resources you need to make useless item like teleporter staffs that they don't even know what to do with, eat all the food without contributing more, hang around the base during firehound or Deerclops attacks even when you tell them multiple times to leave, stand around saying "I need bunny puffs" or "I need butter" over and over again even after you explain that if they want that stuff they have to get it for themselves, get other players killed with their incompetence then steal their stuff and refuse to return it, get killed over and over again and tantrum if everybody doesn't instantly drop everything to save them, demand world resets because they don't like winter or spring, expect you to give them hard-won Ruins gear even though they just joined, etc.? 

Just wondering.

this is so spot on.

i tend to be the host who has to be "mean" because we need those gears to make a fridge and a flingo. you can't just eat them and die. again. stop burning all the forests down. STOP leading all the fire hounds back to the base. why are you burning all my living logs?!?!

(i get called a rude name or slur before user logs off.)

so i try joining some other server so i can see what being a helpful guest is like... "why are you playing wes he's like so dumb BANNED!!!1!"

(i get called a rude name or slur before i am kicked or banned.)

maybe those klei servers will be okay... cool, only day 4! i'll join up and see what we can accomplish... why are these three new joiners voting to kick me, they've been here for, what? a minute...

(kicked, along with everyone else who had been building a bleak future on a public server, which has now been reset.)

back in the old days you only seized up with fear when a lone willow joined because base-burning was the meta for trolls and griefers. now, i always have a knot of dread when i play with anyone i don't know. it is also one of the reasons i build my main base in the ruins. and since i know exactly one person who only plays even semi-regularly, that is pretty much always.

[Sicko Hog]

I'm not gonna turn this into another argument, because I don't want to seem like an a-hole who doesn't want any fun features added to the game (even if I have my reasons, I feel like I come across like that), but:

5 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

but, okay...how about renewable mini-glaciers?  The eternal puddles may be annoying, but as soon as you mine one of those babies in _singleplayer_ it is GONE.  Off the map.  No matter how many more winters go by afterwards.  I'd be willing to import The Curse of the Puddles if it meant that resource became renewable.

Mini glaciers are already renewable in singleplayer. New pengull breeding grounds spawn every winter when you walk by the ocean, and that means more mini glaciers. Which makes the Puddle Curse in DST even dumber, since the game already had a way of renewing ice.

(I've also heard on the subreddit that new glaciers spawn in rocky biomes every winter, but I'm not sure how true that is.)

[Clwnbaby]

9 hours ago, isthisworkingnow said:

And just asking where base is doesn't mean I don't want to play- it means I don't want to wander aimlessly to look for the base or play the really slow and boring start. 

Case and point.....you don't want to play the game, you want to KINDA play the game.  Early exploration is part of the game, in fact ALL exploration is part of the game.  When people join they should try walking around a bit, find the things THEY need, get a feel for the world and where things are AND you SHOULD run into a base or two in the process.  "Wandering aimlessly" is a reflection of your play style not what you or others are/should be doing. 

[Mencken]

Sorry to hear about your experience.    It takes a little time to find the right mix of players, as a host myself I had the problem of inexperienced to experienced and am fixing that right now.   It isn't just experience either, you have players who just want a good time and take for granted all the hard work others do to keep everything.

As a host I'm developing a procedure for addressing difficult players, they tend to fall in some of these categories:

1.  Consumers.   They produce nothing, grab all the shiny stuff, eat all your food and then die in the wilderness.   Early on I remember going into a forest and literally finding it littered with bodies. What do they do?  Just return to base, restock and go back out.   No thanks.

2.  Whiners/Griefers.   I need this, I need that, give me your walking stick, etc.   Some asking is perfectly fine as long as you contribute, and try to bring in more than you use.

3.  Redesigners.   People who come into your private world and start changing your base without asking (often with horrible results).

4.  Wanderers.   They join, have their own private adventure somewhere far off, take good stuff and then die.

5.  Hoarders.   Need 40 teeth for your base toothtraps?   Gone.   Who has it?   No answer.   Then a player dies and there it is.

 

My system will be similar to what you have in sports, verbal warning, written warning, then expulsion.    I'm quite lenient and forgiving but if you are consistently draining resources and making others do your work, well, that is irritating.   I don't expect 100% effort/time supporting the team but at least give it 25-50%.   If you do that all of us have more time for fun, picking grass, setting traps and restocking does get a little dull sometimes.

 

The other annoyance is single player missions, why not organize a team of 2-4 players for those?   More efficient and less risk of wasteful deaths.   In my opinion a player should only die if confronted with a previously unknown circumstance or if they are undertaking a dangerous mission like killing the ancient guardian or rebuilding the pseudoscience station.  Yes, accidents happen once in a while and that is fine but I've seen players die twice in less than 3 minutes.

 

[brbrmensch]

On 2/19/2017 at 10:36 PM, EuedeAdodooedoe said:

people got more deviated to thinking that everyone should be a pro when playing DST as a result of the game's mechanics making newbies a total weight baggage to everyone else

yep, the game is not "don't starve together", it's more "everyone, don't starve", because you can survive any amount of days alone with no help at all, and adding even average player will only make things worse (bad resource and food optimization, deaths, unnecessary buildings), game has no rewards for playing together (although it's kinda nice for raid bosses, it'll still require experienced players, what i say is that game does not reward casual players for sticking [not always, of course] together, making their survival easier {if you can kite 3 treeguards, you continue fine, if 3 players can't kill 3 treeguards and still decide to do it, they'll all get hurt at least <dumb example, i know>}, i see this game as expansion of ds:rog to multiple players with some rebalance and weird ghost mechanic /also new stuff, but that was later/

what i'm trying to say is: the game is too singleplayer to coop with anyone, who is not your friend

[Electroely]

Even when you're better off surviving alone, playing a friend can be more fun at times. Which is what REALLY matters, considering this IS a game, after all.

[Bunions]

1 hour ago, Mencken said:

Sorry to hear about your experience.    It takes a little time to find the right mix of players, as a host myself I had the problem of inexperienced to experienced and am fixing that right now.   It isn't just experience either, you have players who just want a good time and take for granted all the hard work others do to keep everything.

As a host I'm developing a procedure for addressing difficult players, they tend to fall in some of these categories:

1.  Consumers.   They produce nothing, grab all the shiny stuff, eat all your food and then die in the wilderness.   Early on I remember going into a forest and literally finding it littered with bodies. What do they do?  Just return to base, restock and go back out.   No thanks.

2.  Whiners/Griefers.   I need this, I need that, give me your walking stick, etc.   Some asking is perfectly fine as long as you contribute, and try to bring in more than you use.

3.  Redesigners.   People who come into your private world and start changing your base without asking (often with horrible results).

4.  Wanderers.   They join, have their own private adventure somewhere far off, take good stuff and then die.

5.  Hoarders.   Need 40 teeth for your base toothtraps?   Gone.   Who has it?   No answer.   Then a player dies and there it is.

 

My system will be similar to what you have in sports, verbal warning, written warning, then expulsion.    I'm quite lenient and forgiving but if you are consistently draining resources and making others do your work, well, that is irritating.   I don't expect 100% effort/time supporting the team but at least give it 25-50%.   If you do that all of us have more time for fun, picking grass, setting traps and restocking does get a little dull sometimes.

 

The other annoyance is single player missions, why not organize a team of 2-4 players for those?   More efficient and less risk of wasteful deaths.   In my opinion a player should only die if confronted with a previously unknown circumstance or if they are undertaking a dangerous mission like killing the ancient guardian or rebuilding the pseudoscience station.  Yes, accidents happen once in a while and that is fine but I've seen players die twice in less than 3 minutes.

 

Some possible solutions:

1. Consumers - Axe* to the back of the skull.

2. Whiners / Griefers - Axe* to the front of the skull.

3. Redesigners - Booby trapped / fortified base.

4. Wanderers - If off on their own I am a live and let live kinda guy.

5. Hoarders (AKA Thieves is how you wrote it.) A combination of Axe* to the skull and good trap system.

 

Someone who dies repeatedly? I wouldn't / don't bother getting them up after the first few deaths. If insanity is a problem there are mods to remove the ghost San drain, or in game methods to deal with sanity loss (my preference).

 

I couldn't see expulsion / banning except in the most egregious of instances - like constant hate speech or something like that.

 

* Substitute Axe with weapon of choice.

1 hour ago, brbrmensch said:

yep, the game is not "don't starve together", it's more "everyone, don't starve", because you can survive any amount of days alone with no help at all, and adding even average player will only make things worse (bad resource and food optimization, deaths, unnecessary buildings), game has no rewards for playing together (although it's kinda nice for raid bosses, it'll still require experienced players, what i say is that game does not reward casual players for sticking [not always, of course] together, making their survival easier {if you can kite 3 treeguards, you continue fine, if 3 players can't kill 3 treeguards and still decide to do it, they'll all get hurt at least <dumb example, i know>}, i see this game as expansion of ds:rog to multiple players with some rebalance and weird ghost mechanic /also new stuff, but that was later/

what i'm trying to say is: the game is too singleplayer to coop with anyone, who is not your friend

If someone comes along and is friendly, asks for help, needs a hand, or wants to play co-op; I say bring it on. A person who is a drag (resource wise) because they are learning, is just another kind of personal challenge, one which I think should be welcomed. Given that they are making a genuine effort of course. A lot of young players fall into this category. 

 

Often times I will go off on silly wasteful adventures with these types of players just because it is fun for them. I am pretty self sufficient so I can handle myself fine, I view it as a challenge to help them along / achieve their goals. 99% of the time it's super fun for me too.

 

[CaptainChaotica]

12 hours ago, isthisworkingnow said:

I ask where base is because it is Don't Starve Together not Don't Starve. I play this game to play it with other people otherwise I would play the original.

And just asking where base is doesn't mean I don't want to play- it means I don't want to wander aimlessly to look for the base or play the really slow and boring start. 

Due to the reasons above I will always take someone to my base and I have never encountered a griefer yet and, if I do I will kick them and deal with it because for every one griefer you get loads of nice people who just want to play the game with other people instead of making a base on their own.

Well...even if nobody ELSE does, _I_ totally agree with you, isthisworkingnow!  You can run into jerks _sometimes_, true. But, guys.  Guys.

Being new is NOT THE SAME THING AS BEING AWFUL.

It _can_ be.  But it's not a 1-1 relationship!  Working is exactly right in a way--the game IS, indeed, _called_ "Don't Starve TOGETHER". Sometimes, new players just want to meet the other people so they can start the Together part!  Sure, you _can_ occasionally get useless/wasteful jerks, but not ALL the time...

And I, too, would MUCH rather deal with the _one_ occasional griefer than be a jerk to everyone just in case!  I _always_ give people directions to the base, and if it's winter or summer, I'll guide them personally.  Sure, you can run into griefers/idiots occasionally, but you'll never _know_ what each person is like until you actually MEET them! 

Hosted, public server right here, guys.  No password.  No friends-only.  No group-only.  _Exactly_ all of The Bad Signs that people will tell you to avoid when looking for a server.  Been running various worlds off and on since May 2016.

Only.  Been griefed.  ONCE.

You guys...are kinda starting to prove the original poster's point!  But in a different way.  I'd say noobiness and stupidity is more...just noobness and stupidity, than "toxic".  "Toxic" is, well...THIS!  Right here!  The vast majority of the second page of this thread!  Ya gotta give people at least a LITTLE bit of a chance...even the noobiest noob who ever noobed _can_ learn and improve!  I've personally seen it happen! 

But if you chase them away with crotchety, paranoid, insular meanness...they never will.  Heck, they might not even play the game again.  At all.

And no, I'm not ungodly naive or anything.  Maybe lucky?  but the times I've had _real_ trouble from a player, I can still count on the fingers of ONE HAND.

...and no, I'm also not an alien.  : P

I understand that some of you have actually HAD the bad experiences I've been lucky enough to avoid so far, and you do have reason to be this unpleasant.

Still...this is making me kind of want to campaign to redeem the phrase "Where's base?"--even if it's spelled horribly.  It just gets _way_ too much knee-jerk hostility.

...Notorious

[thistownneedsguns]

6 hours ago, Mencken said:

 

1.  Consumers.   They produce nothing, grab all the shiny stuff, eat all your food and then die in the wilderness.   Early on I remember going into a forest and literally finding it littered with bodies. What do they do?  Just return to base, restock and go back out.   No thanks.

 

in my experience these kind of people often don't leave even the base. they just cook food, mostly not thinking about what kind of food is needed, how to manage the spoil. just sit at the fire, of course they will take the wood out of the chests, but not getting new logs. after several hound attacks, you still need to tell them to leave the base. you need to ask them to pick some grass, or the berrys from the bushes.. all they wanna do is just cooking and open chests over and over as if something randomly spawns inside of them. 

they die when something like frog rain, deerclops is happening. 

[Arlesienne]

As a host of many a pub, the infamous Where Is Base can easily be solved by asking "Do you need a hand with anything or are you going off on your own?" a moment after the new person has joined. THEN @Muche's Moderator Commands. Why? Because you can reasonably safely lead somebody into your base if you get autocompleting commands letting you kick somebody who breaks your rules AND have their inventory drop to the ground.

To answer the OP's original question, no, I don't think the community is toxic. Even if I'm more of a Rousseau person, people can be really unpleasant in every situation, you don't need to say it's the game. You seem to have had a very bad luck, which happens, and then we move on. Servers with some reputation are the solution. The world @Weirdobob mentioned is amazing, believe me, and I only managed to get a little bit of loot for the crew before having to log out. You may say "600 days is the work of experienced players, a newbie can ruin it" - hey, sure, but isn't it worth taking the risk if you have Bob as the admin and he really works hard to ensure everybody's having fun? DST is a multiplayer game, which means you're typically supposed to cooperate with meatbags. You take this risk by buying the game and going onto other people's worlds instead of running a private game. Isn't it fun though? This little bit of social interaction adds special charm to the game and - while enjoying DS a lot - I will always pick DST over the singleplayer campaign due to the lack of loneliness you feel in DS. No, not your character's sanity drop when you have a giant land all to yourself and nobody answers. Your brain starts thinking bad thoughts. Because we're ultimately cheeky Chrises social monkeys. You take the risk of having silly or mean people every time you leave your bed. The game isn't to blame and the community - community as in the dedicated players who dig the lore, tinker around, frequent the forums - is decent as it is. For really toxic areas, ask in a PM, I can create a subjective list of games I love and still classify as crazy.

[SuperPsiPower]

Is there a petition where deadly feasts can be added back into the game so I can forcefeed it to a new player who follows me around, begs off me, finds my base etc.?

I just thought i'd be generous and share some of my secret recipes!

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

13 hours ago, brbrmensch said:

yep, the game is not "don't starve together", it's more "everyone, don't starve", because you can survive any amount of days alone with no help at all, and adding even average player will only make things worse (bad resource and food optimization, deaths, unnecessary buildings), game has no rewards for playing together (although it's kinda nice for raid bosses, it'll still require experienced players, what i say is that game does not reward casual players for sticking [not always, of course] together, making their survival easier {if you can kite 3 treeguards, you continue fine, if 3 players can't kill 3 treeguards and still decide to do it, they'll all get hurt at least <dumb example, i know>}, i see this game as expansion of ds:rog to multiple players with some rebalance and weird ghost mechanic /also new stuff, but that was later/

what i'm trying to say is: the game is too singleplayer to coop with anyone, who is not your friend

Eureka! What if the stuff brought onto the players every now and then requires players to stick together and fight together? Now THAT would truly be Don't Starve TOGETHER. Alone mode just having it tweaked to being possible to fight certain things on your own. For instance, the Ewecus was a fairly decent start for multiplayer action, however, with exploiting fire that makes mobs run around aimlessly instead of targeting their opponent and with the use of mobs like pigs or bunnies, this certainly makes things much easier and the whole multiplayer combat obsolete. Problem is, if 2 players are left on a server and one leaves, then the other needs to leave as well as as not to die due to being on their own and not being able to beat whatever comes their way. With this, perhaps PvP being enabled would just be an extra accidental challenge rather than a mode where everyone's for themselves. This would require paying very close attention to detail, of course.

2 hours ago, SuperPsiPower said:

Is there a petition where deadly feasts can be added back into the game so I can forcefeed it to a new player who follows me around, begs off me, finds my base etc.?

I just thought i'd be generous and share some of my secret recipes!

And here, you can observe the "MLG-too-pro-for-DST" player. Quite a rare species. They feed on the hatred of what they themselves once were. It's told that their megabase-elite-itis is very contagious towards those that may match their skill level.

2 hours ago, Arlesienne said:

As a host of many a pub, the infamous Where Is Base can easily be solved by asking "Do you need a hand with anything or are you going off on your own?" a moment after the new person has joined. THEN @Muche's Moderator Commands. Why? Because you can reasonably safely lead somebody into your base if you get autocompleting commands letting you kick somebody who breaks your rules AND have their inventory drop to the ground.

To answer the OP's original question, no, I don't think the community is toxic. Even if I'm more of a Rousseau person, people can be really unpleasant in every situation, you don't need to say it's the game. You seem to have had a very bad luck, which happens, and then we move on. Servers with some reputation are the solution. The world @Weirdobob mentioned is amazing, believe me, and I only managed to get a little bit of loot for the crew before having to log out. You may say "600 days is the work of experienced players, a newbie can ruin it" - hey, sure, but isn't it worth taking the risk if you have Bob as the admin and he really works hard to ensure everybody's having fun? DST is a multiplayer game, which means you're typically supposed to cooperate with meatbags. You take this risk by buying the game and going onto other people's worlds instead of running a private game. Isn't it fun though? This little bit of social interaction adds special charm to the game and - while enjoying DS a lot - I will always pick DST over the singleplayer campaign due to the lack of loneliness you feel in DS. No, not your character's sanity drop when you have a giant land all to yourself and nobody answers. Your brain starts thinking bad thoughts. Because we're ultimately cheeky Chrises social monkeys. You take the risk of having silly or mean people every time you leave your bed. The game isn't to blame and the community - community as in the dedicated players who dig the lore, tinker around, frequent the forums - is decent as it is. For really toxic areas, ask in a PM, I can create a subjective list of games I love and still classify as crazy.

If by "fun" you mean: having progress erased because we had to roll back, because a griefer destroyed a lot of stuff; having leeches that stay and drain resources who don't actually play the game; having to manage everything in the world yourself just so things don't get destroyed or littered around everywhere; being like a parent that has to take care of a bunch of 5-year olds, some of whom don't even want to learn anything and not having the time or patience to still be enjoying yourself whilst you have to look out for all of them; and having about half the content being unsustainable in terms of fun (be it mobs, items, structures, plants etc.), resulting in menial tasks being done over and over again, then I don't know what your standards of "fun" are, but that doesn't really sound fun and exciting to me.

Not trying to start a flame war, in case you're getting those kind of vibes, just being honest.