Should there be a tutorial for new players?

[Raspberry Shake]

I play on public servers a lot. However, I haven't had much of a issue with new players, until today. Storytime!

It was late spring. Summer was approaching, and we where almost ready to deal with it. We had everything we needed to survive. Logs, food, an endothermic, flingomatics, and a whole lot of ice. Then two people joined the server, a Wilson and a Webber. They came to base and everything wen't on as normal. Until night fell. The Webber grabbed almost a whole stack of logs, and threw them all in the endothermic. Then I grabbed a whole stack of logs, and threw them in the firepit for warmth. I lectured him about endothermic's for a bit, and they daybreak came, and the Wilson immediately started prototyping every single item he could. Even a bloody top hat. Then, when I was in the middle of telling him that it was a horrible idea, the Webber hit a beehive. Then we spent a while running in circles and hitting bee's. By the end of that...affair I was starving, and walked over to the icebox's to cook up some meatballs. Now, the day before the icebox's where packed with all kind's of food, and certainly enough to last at least half of summer. Now they where empty, all apart from one honey, 2 small jerky, and a couple of monster lasagna that the Webber had cooked up. Then I threw some profanity around, referenced the end of the Lorax, and left.

THAT SHOULDN'T BE HAPPENING.

[CaptainChaotica]

Wow, that's a SPECIAL type of new player--not only clueless, but greedy arseholes.  God damn.  I've had one sleep my tent AND lean-to away in a few days for sanity, deliberately go right up to a red-butt beefalo AND hit it, and stay in base while there were firedogs even though we kept yelling at him to follow us to the traps...and I've had people YOINK the meatballs right out from under my starving hands.

...not both of those in one person, though.  Wow.  Stealing all the food, overfilling the fires, using up all the supplies for sanity when THEY PROBABLY WEREN'T EVEN INSANE YET, _and_ getting killed?  Not sure if actual noobs or clever trolls, at that freaking point.  'Cos if they were setting out to DELIBERATELY ruin your whole game--without doing the immediately-recognisable griefer stuff such as hammering and burning--that is preeeeetty effective...

...Notorious

[6480]

While I understand how infuriating it is to deal with these kinds of players... the game IS the tutorial. I cannot think of anything necessary to cover in a tutorial besides dark=bad and fire/light=good. Nobody will sit through an hour long sequence where they learn just how to be corteous to other players, how to maximise resource efficiency, how to kite enemies, how not to aggro the most mundane and peaceful-looking creatures, what exactly should you be cooking in a crockpot... Any one who wants to know this information will look up one of the many guides online, anyone who doesn't care just won't.

And setting an official tutorial that's not extremely vague will show people that there is only one way to play. We already have techniques heaped upon techniques that are constantly being debated by players, from food management, farming mechanics, how to deal with hound waves, etc.

[Footman Crouch]

Sometimes you meet with very...interesting players in public like

Spoiler

^this

Why is it always Webber players that act like that.

[Raspberry Shake]

Just now, 6480 said:

While I understand how infuriating it is to deal with these kinds of players... the game IS the tutorial. I cannot think of anything necessary to cover in a tutorial besides dark=bad and fire/light=good. Nobody will sit through an hour long sequence where they learn just how to be corteous to other players, how to maximise resource efficiency, how to kite enemies, how not to aggro the most mundane and peaceful-looking creatures, what exactly should you be cooking in a crockpot... Any one who wants to know this information will look up one of the many guides online, anyone who doesn't care just won't.

And setting an official tutorial that's not extremely vague will show people that there is only one way to play. We already have techniques heaped upon techniques that are constantly being debated by players, from food management, farming mechanics, how to deal with hound waves, etc.

What I was meaning was something like a singleplayer world you HAD to survive a curtain amount of days on before you could play multiplayer.

[6480]

While a decent idea, it sounds like it would be unecessarily roundabout IMO. Any amount of days longer than what, 5 days (30 mins) would take up too much of someone's time for them to feel like the game that they just bought was worth it. And even a hopeless noob can make it through a couple days of random luck and blunders. What about people who had DS and bought DST? What about people who recommend the game to their friends, then say oh, you have to complete this mandatory tutorial before we can play together, sorry.

It just seems like Don't Starve's playstyle is generally just not set up in a way where a tutorial is very viable.

[MondayNight]

To me, as well, what was written in OP sounds more like mild/disguised griefing as they just seem "trying too hard" to be the village's... 'special' people. And that's why maybe just let them be on their own by making base in a secluded far-away place.

[Cellby]

Nah, dying is half the fun. Dying again and again and learning from your mistakes and restarting a new world is the whole Don't Starve experience. There could be some sort of levelling system, or a way to get exp. In The Forge people had lobbies allowing only a certain level and above to join. Lower level people STILL could join, but they will know more is expected of them, and the higher level ones would know which individuals need guidance. Levels won't look very elegant though, perhaps some sort of badge that shows next to your name? One when you survive your first winter, when you finish a whole year, when you've lived 500 days in the same server? Those milestones could be translated into numbers between 1-10 to show a person's experience at a quick glance. So servers could limit players at a certain level and only allow those who have survived a year.

This idea came randomly while reading this thread, so it's not very refined and I'm just thinking out loud. I avoid this issue by just...not playing on public servers. I don't trust strangers. A webber main could join at any moment.

[CaptainChaotica]

...and hope they stay there.  Problem is, they would probably go "Nah, your place is much better 'cos you already have stuff!" (proceed to take the stuff).  Aaand, I hate to further stereotypes, but...Dumbarse of Jerkface and Dumbarse (Attourneys at Law!) was...alsoawebberwtf.

Don't Starve tutorial...it's a nice idea in theory, but really hard to try and cover even all the basics really quickly, especially to a kid player (who might also not speak English as their first language).  My half-butted way of trying this is to say a specific thing right _when it comes up_.  Like, don't tell them all about darkness, how not to make wet goop in the crockpot, how you shouldn't kill firedogs in base, when to watch out for beefalo, AND how many resources for a task is too many and just wasting them...instead, tell them about darkness during their first day.  Tell them about beefalo if they happen to say they're going over to them.  Tell them about fire dogs WHEN fire dogs.  Etc.  Of course, the problem with this is (a) if they just don't listen or (b) they don't SAY before they do stupid things, but just do it.  But in general, I'd keep instructions specific to the situation of the moment.

It'd be nice if we could sit these guys down and kindly, politely, make them understand which things it's important NOT to do before they do them 'cos they'd be ruining something permanent and/or rare, but...I dunno.  I've run into some so young, instant-gratification type kids that I don't think they'd watch even the funniest, most edited, most memetastic tutorial video of even the BASIC basics, that was ever made.  (Real example:  "The beefalo are gonna have red butts for a few more DAYS?!  But I want my stuff back NOOOWWWWW!!!"  Seriously, he had this tone like "You're the grown-up, why aren't you MAKING the problem go away?!"  Kid, you're lucky it wasn't spring.)  I've had people who even refused to read _signs_.  Instead they asked me to TELL THEM WHAT IT SAID.  Even though that'd be the same damn amount of reading! 

Whether out loud or with typing, it takes TIME to get _any_thing into someone's head, even super-basics, and some people are like "I ain't got time for that!  TLDR!"  Infuriating, I know, but...there's not much we can actually do.  Unfortunately...this means they either never learn to socialise properly in the game environment and just stay obnoxious, or get their feelings hurt because of everyone always yelling at them and get disillusioned with the game and stop playing...when with PATIENCE, they could've loved it.  But you can't _force_ patience.  :\

...Notorious

[Sicko Hog]

A tutorial would completely go against Don't Starve's design. It's an uncompromising wilderness survival game where you learn how things work by dying to them. If they add a tutorial, they might as well just put an in-game wiki in there too.

[Clwnbaby]

All I can say about your story is "Welcome to Don't Starve Together"

[CaptainChaotica]

Let's be honest, here:  What we REALLY want, what we're actually talking about, isn't a tutorial to merely _teach_ new players.

It's some way to _seperate them away from other players_ while they're learning so they don't mess US up.  So they only wreck their own bases, use up their own resources, and die in ways that don't take out (or at least ruin the sanity of) multiple other people.

...unfortunately, the main way to do that is called "Don't Starve", it costs extra money, and it doesn't allow you to giggle and chat with your friends. 

Sure, you can make your own server and play alone for practice, but (a) you need to explain how to set that up and then (b) make it sound like something THEY'D want to do, rather than them being exiled to The Kids' Table at the party, aka what it is. 

The problem is that Don't Starve is ALREADY a really hard, complicated game, then Together adds a _social_ learning curve to it as well, which makes everything so much messier.  It's really overwhelming trying to learn both at once--being yelled at by more experienced players while you're still just trying to figure out the _controls_.  Singleplayer experience first would be ideal, BUT...

...Notorious

[FreyaMaluk]

5 hours ago, Raspberry Milk said:

I play on public servers a lot. However, I haven't had much of a issue with new players, until today. Storytime!

It was late spring. Summer was approaching, and we where almost ready to deal with it. We had everything we needed to survive. Logs, food, an endothermic, flingomatics, and a whole lot of ice. Then two people joined the server, a Wilson and a Webber. They came to base and everything wen't on as normal. Until night fell. The Webber grabbed almost a whole stack of logs, and threw them all in the endothermic. Then I grabbed a whole stack of logs, and threw them in the firepit for warmth. I lectured him about endothermic's for a bit, and they daybreak came, and the Wilson immediately started prototyping every single item he could. Even a bloody top hat. Then, when I was in the middle of telling him that it was a horrible idea, the Webber hit a beehive. Then we spent a while running in circles and hitting bee's. By the end of that...affair I was starving, and walked over to the icebox's to cook up some meatballs. Now, the day before the icebox's where packed with all kind's of food, and certainly enough to last at least half of summer. Now they where empty, all apart from one honey, 2 small jerky, and a couple of monster lasagna that the Webber had cooked up. Then I threw some profanity around, referenced the end of the Lorax, and left.

THAT SHOULDN'T BE HAPPENING.

there are tons of Yt tutos for that purpose , but id think we need a tuto necessarily. We should let people die and learn from their mistakes... Besides, you cannot blame the game for the people playing it.. Some people are just nasty.. Period.

[Starlogy]

I mean the game literally recommends you play in a solo world if you've never played before. That's all I could ask for, to be honest.

With what @JellyUltra and @6480 said, a tutorial would make the idea of a single way to play significantly more obvious. The whole point of dying and trying again is to figure out how the game works and how to avoid doing it again. People need to learn from their mistakes to grow as a player.

[Nino123]

agree. We all learnt how to play DST without a tutorial and we learnt from our mistakes. It would be against DS game philosophy.

Plus, teaching new players is a interesting thing to do. That's one of the game interest.

And finally, if they really have to watch a tutorial, they can find it on youtube (but, game will be really dull then).

[DVGMedia]

7 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

Sure, you can make your own server and play alone for practice, but (a) you need to explain how to set that up and then (b) make it sound like something THEY'D want to do, rather than them being exiled to The Kids' Table at the party, aka what it is. 

 Well when you first download dst it does tell you to play alone for a while to figure out the basics even before you join multiplayer world.  you can ignore these statements and join a multiplayer world anyway but to brand new players they are actually given this warning.

 

[CaptainChaotica]

Yeah, I know, I remember that.

But how many actually pay attention to it?  : P

Seriously, though, people impatient to just play already are very likely to "Yeah yeah yeah, boilerplate boilerplate, got it lemme go" and just click through stuff like that.  When was the last time you read a EULA all the way through?  The message in the game is much shorter than one of those, but STILL...

...Notorious

[Raspberry Shake]

Why not just have some kind of glorified tutorial in a achievement system? For example, one of the achievement's could be something like "cook meatballs", or "collect nightmare fuel", then they would know what was best to do, without feeling that they where being looked down upon. 

[Faintly Macabre]

2 hours ago, Raspberry Milk said:

Why not just have some kind of glorified tutorial in a achievement system? For example, one of the achievement's could be something like "cook meatballs", or "collect nightmare fuel", then they would know what was best to do, without feeling that they where being looked down upon. 

They definitely won't go for that. They hate achievements so badly that when Sony leaned on them to give the PS4 version some they made them as pointless and inane as possible.

[Raspberry Shake]

22 minutes ago, Faintly Macabre said:

They definitely won't go for that. They hate achievements so badly that when Sony leaned on them to give the PS4 version some they made them as pointless and inane as possible.

Well, it doesn't have to be achievements, just something to push them in the right direction without making it feel like a tutorial.

[FreyaMaluk]

14 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

Yeah, I know, I remember that.

But how many actually pay attention to it?  : P

Seriously, though, people impatient to just play already are very likely to "Yeah yeah yeah, boilerplate boilerplate, got it lemme go" and just click through stuff like that.  When was the last time you read a EULA all the way through?  The message in the game is much shorter than one of those, but STILL...

...Notorious

if people don't pay attention to a simple short message, why should we care if they are bad at the game? Besides, Steam has a very comprehensive guide section for noobs with tons of tips and useful info. I really don't see the need of extra facilitating the game just cuz some people don't wanna invest a lil bit of time through either experiencing the game fist hand or reading guides or watching tutos.

[CaptainChaotica]

Well...I believe the reason we, or at least the OP, care, is because when they're really inexperienced they can _mess things up for others_.  Like...well, the original post on this topic.  The fact that they only had a couple bits of knowledge ("prototyping raises your sanity"...but they didn't seem to know any OTHER way) caused them to use up all the camp's resources on stuff they didn't need. Then they also ate all the food.  I've also seen the noob-who-won't-listen type pick all the flowers by the beebox, sleep away my tent before I had a chance to use it even ONCE, drain everyone's sanity by dying all the time and then haunting a hound into a fire hound!

THAT'S the kind of damage that can happen from not listening.

Mind you, the noobs who _are_ willing to listen and DO have an ounce of patience, are fine.  It's just the occasional bad ones that can really drag everything down...

...Notorious

[FreyaMaluk]

5 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

Well...I believe the reason we, or at least the OP, care, is because when they're really inexperienced they can _mess things up for others_.  Like...well, the original post on this topic.  The fact that they only had a couple bits of knowledge ("prototyping raises your sanity"...but they didn't seem to know any OTHER way) caused them to use up all the camp's resources on stuff they didn't need. Then they also ate all the food.  I've also seen the noob-who-won't-listen type pick all the flowers by the beebox, sleep away my tent before I had a chance to use it even ONCE, drain everyone's sanity by dying all the time and then haunting a hound into a fire hound!

THAT'S the kind of damage that can happen from not listening.

Mind you, the noobs who _are_ willing to listen and DO have an ounce of patience, are fine.  It's just the occasional bad ones that can really drag everything down...

...Notorious

sure.. you can indeed instruct people with simple things here and there, but actually teaching everything for optimal survival is a task that I consider mostly personal..

If the server is public, then OP's author needs to be prepared for griefers and noobs destroying everything, cuz unfortunately that's a large section of players in public servers. 

I do believe it's just easier and way more fun on the long run to invest some time and find some regulars to play with. There are in Fb, Discord, and Steam many groups people can join for dedi servers or at least to find people to play with and avoid epidodes like the one described in OP. Plus, experienced players are surely way more tolerant if noobs are joining as part of a coordinated group or that's my experience anyways.

OP's author can always ask nooobs if they know the basics of the game in a public anyways and act as host for the whole server.. but that can be a bit exhausting, specially when u don't have a way to know if noobs are just inexperienced but friendly and coop or just griefers until it's too late.

[Mr.Mulk]

For me I wouldn't want a tutorial for a different reason.

I mentioned this in another thread somewhere, but when I first played DS a long time ago it had a special "magic" and mysteriousness which enhanced the experience greatly. The illusion of the magic would have been completely shattered by a tutorial, and even if it would have fast-tracked me to being a better player it would have damaged my experience greatly.

If a player doesn't care about this sentimentality for whatever reason, then they can already use the tons of Youtube tutorials and wiki for item research.

Also I understand that in DST specifically there are few things more annoying than complete newbs joining and sapping you for resources, or at the worst unintentionally griefing you. However, this can be solved by setting up with players of like-level skill beforehand via steam and the forums, and I'd avoid the giant pub servers altogether. If you absolutely must run a pub server, then be sure to put in the server title what skill level you're looking for. In my experience, this will immediately filter out 90% of the newbs.

[FreyaMaluk]

2 hours ago, Mr.Mulk said:

For me I wouldn't want a tutorial for a different reason.

I mentioned this in another thread somewhere, but when I first played DS a long time ago it had a special "magic" and mysteriousness which enhanced the experience greatly. The illusion of the magic would have been completely shattered by a tutorial, and even if it would have fast-tracked me to being a better player it would have damaged my experience greatly.

If a player doesn't care about this sentimentality for whatever reason, then they can already use the tons of Youtube tutorials and wiki for item research.

Also I understand that in DST specifically there are few things more annoying than complete newbs joining and sapping you for resources, or at the worst unintentionally griefing you. However, this can be solved by setting up with players of like-level skill beforehand via steam and the forums, and I'd avoid the giant pub servers altogether. If you absolutely must run a pub server, then be sure to put in the server title what skill level you're looking for. In my experience, this will immediately filter out 90% of the newbs.

Id think this is actually any different from what i mentioned before..... 

On 2/1/2018 at 1:14 PM, FreyaMaluk said:

there are tons of Yt tutos for that purpose , but id think we need a tuto necessarily. We should let people die and learn from their mistakes...