Teaching Others to Survive?

[Awesomehylian]

I've started a server for members of a group I admin for. The issue is that I'm the only one who actually knows how to play, and it seems to me that DST is even more unforgiving than regular DS, even with the ability to not lose your entire world if everyone dies. There are more mouths to feed, sanity drains from ghosts, everybody needs light or gets lost, etc.

Any advice on how to properly go about a DST world when nobody knows how to play? I'm considering a Spring start just to keep mandatory bosses away for that much longer, but that's the only idea I have.

 

Thanks a ton!

[minespatch]

Let's see... Try this guide:

Unlike single player, if you have a group, you can use this guideline so you can work together as a team.

[Lumina]

Suggest them to try to play alone at least a little, so they'll learn some basics by themselves.

Learn them the most common food recipe and what to avoid (depending of your personal taste of course).

Encourage them to be active players. They harvest a farm ? They should plant seed so another plant will grow. They don't know what to do ? They should cut wood/go harvesting some things, it will always be useful. They don't have a thing they could need ? They should try to obtain it by themselves (and ask if someone needs it too).

[Vixrotre]

When I play with a newbie friend I set the world to Endless and turn giants and hounds to Less. Also mods! Because I'm a cheater. vuv I mostly use convenience mods, like craft pot, mob health showing, stats of weapons, armor and food showing, Global Positions so I can bring run to them with a torch when it's about to get dark or bring them back to life after they died from stupid things. Like eating mushrooms. Also No Respawn Penalty and Campfire Respawn.

[imsomony]

My go-to is always to recommend people play singleplayer DS for a while, but that's not everyone's cup of tea. They may not have found DS interesting, and only be playing because they can play with friends.

 

If no one else knows how to play, then you have to reconcile yourself to being the slow-and-patient leader in the worlds you're in with them. You teach them things bit by bit, and don't worry about the longevity of the world - the focus is on them learning, and enjoying/appreciating the learning process. Longevity is an end-game goal when it comes to new players. Old players have totally different goals, which can't be thrust upon the new folks because they don't understand, let alone know how to implement. 

 

If you don't want to be the slow-and-patient leader, that's OK. Not everyone can be or do that. Instead, you direct them towards guides, resources, videos, etc, to give them the basic understanding of how gameplay works. Let them know you would totally love to play with them, but you're not great at explaining the base mechanics, but so-and-so on YouTube/Twitch did it great and you think that would help way more. 

 

Worse comes to worse, make an Autumn/Winter world set to Endless. Let everyone run around, experiment, die, and resurrect. Think of the server as a testing ground, and whatever you do, don't personally become invested in it. Do what you do and grow your world/base, but remember it's expendable. Look at it as a play-test. That's all it can be for you, when others don't have the same experience or focus.

 

 

 

[Mencken]

On 9/6/2017 at 5:34 PM, Awesomehylian said:

I've started a server for members of a group I admin for. The issue is that I'm the only one who actually knows how to play, and it seems to me that DST is even more unforgiving than regular DS, even with the ability to not lose your entire world if everyone dies. There are more mouths to feed, sanity drains from ghosts, everybody needs light or gets lost, etc.

Any advice on how to properly go about a DST world when nobody knows how to play? I'm considering a Spring start just to keep mandatory bosses away for that much longer, but that's the only idea I have.

 

Thanks a ton!

If you want someone to help as another guide I can do it, been looking for something interesting to do and I know 4-5 players that are new are a real handful for one person.