DST Training Server Concept

[Mencken]

A server staffed with 1 advanced player who will teach beginner/intermediate players the "ropes".   Drop the players into the world and guide them slowly through the process of surviving, establishing a base, planning missions etc.    It would be more of a hands off approach so the player could enjoy the experience first hand with background support.   Learn at your own pace.

 

Thoughts?

[asdrub43l]

what's the hourly rate ?

[Captain_Rage]

Don't Starve Together boot camp: "Adopt a new player, today!"

[RobertoRezende]

The idea is great. The easiest way to learn something is with a teacher / someone guiding you, but I think it would be hard to have a server dedicated to that. I can imagine that if you have a server that would reset whenever it is empty and teacher and students would join to learn how to survive the first days, that would work. But for more advanced "ropes", lets say "how to raid the ruins" you would have to have a well stablished server and someone should be upkeeping that world base, just for the next round of newbies to consume everything. That would be a hard and boring task I guess, unless, of course, you were playing in god mode.

 

[Mr.Tarunio]

11 hours ago, Mencken said:

A server staffed with 1 advanced player who will teach beginner/intermediate players the "ropes".   Drop the players into the world and guide them slowly through the process of surviving, establishing a base, planning missions etc.    It would be more of a hands off approach so the player could enjoy the experience first hand with background support.   Learn at your own pace.

 

Thoughts?

its a good idea for a mod, but also a server. your idea is like the tutorial from terraria on ps3.

[Arlesienne]

I run a server teaching handling giants within my group. It seems to be quite enjoyed, although it is fairly tedious to maintain. Well, I received from the community, I have to give back ;).

At any rate it is best to pick a certain theme you will teach. If everybody is learning to kite a treeguard, you can work with it, but if X wants to learn crockpot recipe efficiency (dragonpie from three twigs, anyone?), Y rushes to fight the dragonfly as Wendy and Z asks to bring more light to the caves once again, you need to use whispers and have a dedicated mentor to every person.

On Here Be Giants, we start with a treeguard, then learn the spider queen, the bearger (with poisons, among other techniques), the deerclops, the walled room dragonfly method and mosling farm. Nobody has stayed long enough to get to the bee queen and the toadstool yet, because it is a hop-and-drop server type, not real survival since you want to teach fighting giants instead of building a base. It does work though judging by the newbies' commendations.

[CaptainChaotica]

Heh.  A "Training Ground" server with just one player to teach a noob is exactly what I wanted to do when I gave my brother my extra copy of Don't Starve Together.  Made a server that only allowed two players, all the settings default, no mods, even actually _named_ it "Training Ground", everything.

...too bad it turns out he has almost no interest in the game apparently... ("Oh.  It's a 2-D Minecraft." was his summary upon seeing it.  HEADDESK.)  He's just...not gonna actually _play_ it long enough to find out what makes it different, I guess.    I even (accidentally) showed him a Deerclops attack and everything!

Server still exists, but I'm guessing nobody here would be interested.  : P

...Notorious

[minespatch]

2 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

"Oh.  It's a 2-D Minecraft." was his summary upon seeing it. 

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

Nooooope, if the game itself can't guide the player with just a slight ledge from other players, then you know it is broken.

DST's a great game, but its multiplayer execution requires execution \/_\/ and there's some other shenanigans like bad balance, the game becoming more of a world-management one than a survival one... Well, I've said all this before, so what am I even doing anymore...

I do wonder though why some people try to fight the "broken" aspect of the game. I mean, devs do listen to our feedback, just that at the moment ANR is taking quite a bit of their time and focus and there's a few of them working on the game at this moment, so, I guess we shouldn't really expect instant wish-fulfilment for the game.

[CarlZalph]

I had a similar idea but for combat done in a sandbox environment such that it would keep people from having a fear of the combat system.

I stopped working on it Oct 17 of 2016 due to a seemingly lack of interest.

http://imgur.com/a/yb6X0

[Tylordian]

 Maybe instead of a training server we could have a short tutorial at the beginning of the game? Maybe just show off the sanity, health, and hunger mechanics, and some simple strategies like preparing for winter.

[Destros09]

55 minutes ago, Tylordian said:

 Maybe instead of a training server we could have a short tutorial at the beginning of the game? Maybe just show off the sanity, health, and hunger mechanics, and some simple strategies like preparing for winter.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO No No No No No No No No NO

[Tylordian]

23 minutes ago, Destros09 said:

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO No No No No No No No No NO

Why? I mean I understand how it could ruin the aesthetic of the game, which I love, but if we are trying to get rid of idiots who don't know how to survive by themselves who dont bother to google anything or use common sense, we need to have some sort of basic tutorial.

[fimmatek]

I like the idea to teach players on a specific server, this way they can learn quite fast and efficient. 

I also think that DST however should not have a built-in tutorial. This way you have to learn, wxperiment yourself, the game is really about surviving as you try to live always longer and longer. You can make your own strategies, choose which playstyle you like the most, people will play different as it fits their skills. I just imagine a tutorial "First step: rocks, gold, logs, science machine". DST would be boring, too stereotyped. That's also why there aren't any achievements on steam...

I find the training server a good idea because it's not compulsory, only people who really want to would go there.

[CaptainChaotica]

Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction when he said that, Minespatch...

"But no!  It's...well...you can't tell the differences here because all you can see right now is an art style difference but it PLAYS totally differently, really!  And it's got all this atmosphere and lore and stuff too!  Here, let me show you!"

(he watches for maybe a minute)

(sees me gathering things and crafting tools)

...

Although he did perk up a bit when, conveniently, perhaps sensing that a little dramatic tension was needed, the Deerclops chose just THAT MINUTE to show up.  "Watch out!" he says, as he watches me just _barely_ dodge the ranged ice attack by like, a millimeter (as I run up and whack the Deerclops with my axe to get it off my stuff).  "That thing almost killed you!"

(He did legit sound halfway interested in the game at one point, which is why I gave him my extra copy.  I'd been wanting to give it to someone I actually knew _who didn't have it yet_ for ages, so...)

Anyway.  I'd totally do the Training Grounds server thingie, except I imagine most people interested enough in the game to post _here_ already know the bare basics.  Heh.

...Notorious

[Mencken]

No cost to the player, its fun to train new people so we both get something out of it.    If anyone is interested let me know.    

 

[Mencken]

15 hours ago, RobertoRezende said:

The idea is great. The easiest way to learn something is with a teacher / someone guiding you, but I think it would be hard to have a server dedicated to that. I can imagine that if you have a server that would reset whenever it is empty and teacher and students would join to learn how to survive the first days, that would work. But for more advanced "ropes", lets say "how to raid the ruins" you would have to have a well stablished server and someone should be upkeeping that world base, just for the next round of newbies to consume everything. That would be a hard and boring task I guess, unless, of course, you were playing in god mode.

 

World doesn't have to be empty, one section is where the "teachers" live, that is off limits to the players, but there are 23 other biomes.  Resource wise we have plenty.

[Mencken]

7 hours ago, CarlZalph said:

I had a similar idea but for combat done in a sandbox environment such that it would keep people from having a fear of the combat system.

I stopped working on it Oct 17 of 2016 due to a seemingly lack of interest.

http://imgur.com/a/yb6X0

What a shame I'd love to sign up for something like that!   My next project is to move to the PVP environment, like all new things I'm terrified of it, lol.

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

11 hours ago, Tylordian said:

Why? I mean I understand how it could ruin the aesthetic of the game, which I love, but if we are trying to get rid of idiots who don't know how to survive by themselves who dont bother to google anything or use common sense, we need to have some sort of basic tutorial.

What we need is the game to hint for those things itself. If you have to resort to googling half the content or scroll through wiki to learn about the game, there is something wrong with its learning curve.

I'd propose to keep posting more suggestions, or coming to agreements on discussions of topics so that once ANR is finished, the game can be patched up to have a better balance. I myself will be making a thread after ANR and newbie support will be one of the core hot topics of the thread.

Although yes, some people can't even use common sense when playing this game... They probably don't want to or don't learn about the game as well anyway, in which case they're a lost cause and we can't do anything about that.