Don't Stave - Survival or Adventure?

[Newax]

So, i'm a pretty big fan of Don't Starve, got quite some time played on both singleplayer and multiplayer mode, seen the game develop since the beta, even got myself some merch, and i've been watching how this game grows in the multiplie aspect these days, and i can't help but wonder:

Should this game be what it is now?

Now, i'm not saying that this game is in any way or shape bad, i love it to bits and often find myself coming back every now and then despite the first magical moments already being long gone, but looking at it these days, it kinda feels like it have left it's original genre for something different. It was originaly a survival game, and by all means it still is, but today, with new bosses and biomes appearing, it feels like the game leans torward being more adventurous.

I find it a bit ironic that the name of the game, "Don't Starve", hardly ever applies to the actual gameplay, as food is rarely a big problem, at least once you learn the basic mechanics. I feel like, maybe there should've been more pressure on the Surviving part of the game? Making food more scarce, having less monsters and more of the pure aspect of trying to survive, maybe expand on some mechanics like sanity, health states and etc? While the game is really fun in it's current form, letting you take on challenges of defeating powerfull bosses and having rare and powerfull loot in exchange, would this game be as fun with the survival being more on the focus? Less fun? Or even more fun than it is right now?

Feel free to share your own opinion about it

[Naveil]

Survival Game: usually sandbox, survive as long as you can, no specific goal.

Adventure Game: usually linear, usually story, specific goal

 

I can’t really see where the Adventure comes from. If anything, they’ve only been expanding on their core concept for the past few years. If you could elaborate on your OP, maybe we could have a clearer discussion.

Also, the title of ‘Don’t Starve’ sounds way more appealing than ‘Don’t Die’, ‘Don’t Get Eaten By Hounds’, ‘Don’t Freeze’, ‘Don’t Overheat’, or ‘Don’t Get Hit By The Head of a Reanimated Skeleton You Resurrected Several Hundred Feet Underground You Absolute Moron’

Just because the title implies something, doesn’t mean it has to be the main focus. Why can’t we play as Zelda in The Legend of Zelda? Why isn’t every stage in Street Fighter a street? And when half of your playerbase can’t make it past day 7, I think raising the difficulty bar isn’t a priority.

But hey! This is the internet. Hit me with your best counterargument 

[Sinister_Fang]

I like the Survival-Adventure aspect it's got going right now, but I do wish there was a bit more attention given to survival. Once you reach a certain point, survival becomes fairly trivial.

I think it would be neat if defeating the Ancient Fuel Weaver would create permanent changes to the world to increase difficulty. That way the difficulty can stay how it is for newer and intermediate players, but skilled players would have something new to test out their survival skills.

2 minutes ago, Naveil said:

Adventure Game: usually linear, usually story, specific goal

I'd argue that some of the best adventure games tend to be non-linear and have a bare bones story with a far off goal to keep you going. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a great example of a true adventure game. You actually have a real adventure in that game. It heavily encourages exploration and personal growth (be it mastery of game mechanics or collecting items and equipment) without the need of invisible strings pulling you from point A to point B.

[TheKingofSquirrels]

44 minutes ago, Naveil said:

I can’t really see where the Adventure comes from. If anything, they’ve only been expanding on their core concept for the past few years. If you could elaborate on your OP, maybe we could have a clearer discussion.

I think it's more to do with the fact that the survival element has pretty much disappeared. In the transition to mutliplayer, the game lost its permadeath mechanic, giving the player unlimited power to just die over and over again, which ultimately breaks the game (but that's a different argument). 

Essentially, it's no longer part of the Binding of Isaac and Spelunky kind of hardcore permadeath games, which is a shame. 

 

[Naveil]

1 hour ago, Sinister_Fang said:

 

I'd argue that some of the best adventure games tend to be non-linear and have a bare bones story with a far off goal to keep you going. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a great example of a true adventure game. You actually have a real adventure in that game. It heavily encourages exploration and personal growth (be it mastery of game mechanics or collecting items and equipment) without the need of invisible strings pulling you from point A to point B.

USUALLY

Quote

53 minutes ago, TheKingofSquirrels said:

I think it's more to do with the fact that the survival element has pretty much disappeared. In the transition to mutliplayer, the game lost its permadeath mechanic, giving the player unlimited power to just die over and over again, which ultimately breaks the game (but that's a different argument). 

Essentially, it's no longer part of the Binding of Isaac and Spelunky kind of hardcore permadeath games, which is a shame. 

 

 

Well, for one, teammates actually have to take a hit if you die, so it’s punishing you for your mistakes.

And two, should everyone die, the world is reset anyway. Keep in mind that more players is balanced off by more mouths to feed and higher mob HPs.

[MondayNight]

2 hours ago, TheKingofSquirrels said:

I think it's more to do with the fact that the survival element has pretty much disappeared. In the transition to mutliplayer, the game lost its permadeath mechanic, giving the player unlimited power to just die over and over again, which ultimately breaks the game

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3 hours ago, Naveil said:

..when half of your playerbase can’t make it past day 7, I think raising the difficulty bar isn’t a priority..

 

If any of you avid "I wan'it much-MUCH hardcore.. at the core" supporters out there (of which a hefty chunk actually playing DST.. alone) would spend a good amount of time in pubs (bonus if in the Survival variety) - and not "I am UBER PRO/Only players with 1k+ hours/Have 500+ comments of forums and prove you can legit-solo FW" private servers - just the regular open-to-all dedicated ones, you would see the actual skill level of 60-70% of playerbase: the ones that die mostly from hunger, normie spider, pig, Catcoon aaand, of course, your very own lovable Charlie. Thus, again, when you generally want the bar higher up, think how that majority will get even more shredded, rage-quitting and/or totally abandoning the game (most of my irl friends playing DS quit it mid-term so-to-say, citing the pointless of an endeavor that could, at any given moment, lose their beloved world via perma-death - and I concur).

 

Now, indeed, for late-game proficient players that mastered said world it would be fine if the bar was raised via killing Ancient Fuelweaver, making surviving harder: maybe hound attacks get randomized, without any warning, warrior pigs could amount ambushes/mini wars on the player(s), tentacles may spawn outside swamp (maybe even in bases) etc; and Charlie could have a bigger/more active role, some special attacks even at dusk or the like. Yet I believe there are much more important things devs could dedicate their time to (WorldGen problems, more world customization, characters balance to name a few) in near future if they deem so, beside new content/events, than cater to about 0.x% of total player base ("I'm too pro for this, need vanilla DST be harder").

[Cellby]

I forgot the game was called Don't Starve until I played with 3 friends who are fairly new to the game and one of them dies mid conversation just because she didn't notice her health was going down after starving.

Starting a new world with friends who don't know how to play is the toughest challenge. But it always pays off when the first hound wave happens because they always freak out. Hehehe.

[Auth]

I'm not sure I recognize a game with that title.

[Newax]

People seem to misunderstand what i'm trying to say here. I'm not saying that the game should be Harder, as i'm fully aware there are people out there who are having troubles with it.

What im trying to say is, how would the game play if there were less monsters and bosses and more pure survival? Instead of fighting hounds every now and then, you have to deal with things like sickness from being exposed to cold or rain for too long, or other similar effects that would impact your hunger or sanity?

10 hours ago, Naveil said:

Survival Game: usually sandbox, survive as long as you can, no specific goal.

Adventure Game: usually linear, usually story, specific goal

That seems pretty biased, i've seen survival games that aren't sandbox (Dead by Daylight, 60 seconds), and adventure games that arent linear (Gothic 3, Hollow Knight). Now, i know you said that Usualy these games are like that, but then again, Don't Starve isnt really your "usual" game, so why does it have to be like the others?

 

10 hours ago, Naveil said:

I can’t really see where the Adventure comes from. If anything, they’ve only been expanding on their core concept for the past few years. If you could elaborate on your OP, maybe we could have a clearer discussion.

In adventure games you explore, find and fight challenges, discover the unknown, basicaly what developers have been going for since forever, with ruins being more developed, new places with new set pieces being created, and similar. Once again, i'm not saying that its a bad thing, i personaly really enjoy it, as im a huge fan of discovering, i always try my best to reveal the entire map as soon as i can when starting new world, but is it something that should be changed or nah?