What is it about DST that brings out the Elitism in players?

[Thieverpedia]

In many of the servers I've been in, I've found so many players who act Elitist and apparently know a lot about the game, but some play just as badly as the newer players, base alone and suffer from lack of supplies, or are simply unwilling to help someone who asks for it, despite having the time.

What is it about this game in particular that turns some players into Elitist types that refuse to play nice? I get that there's a lot of new players and that can make things frustrating, but all it takes is teaching them, and we'll eventually have better players as a result. Even I manage to get into that Elitist mindset and have to constantly correct myself to help the new players. Thoughts?

[ShadowDuelist]

I don't think its elitism in all cases: some players are jerks and will behave as jerks no matter the game thats for sure, but for the most part, at least in my case and many other people I play with, you spend hours teaching the new players in pubs how to solve problems and statistically at least 2 out of 10 of those new players will just put all their willpower into either burning everything, or just not be willing to do absolutely anything on their own, and/or complain.

In the end after having this happened to you hundreds of times, sometimes you just want to progress and  play,  which makes you not be willing to help new players by default, regardless if they are interested to cooperate. The unspoken law is usually "if they could survive enough on their own to find you, they are worthy to become part of the team". And this rule comes more out of necessity rather than elitism.

[ItsPizzaTime]

Well we live in a world with people who all have different views on how they think things should be. Maybe this person was completely awful at the game before and now that they've learned a few new things they just know they are better and full of themselves. You could have come across someone who believes that everyone should be a natural born professional at every video game. Regardless of whether this is the case or they were just having a bad day, best thing to do is ignore and move on.

[Faintly Macabre]

Nothing about DST does this. This happens literally everywhere. Anytime there's a chance to compare one's self against others, you're going to have people who do so excessively.

[MondayNight]

You don't even need to go into DST to see this "elitist mindset" in glorious action - browse here forums a bit and you'ill surely come upon a lot of posts/threads that advocate it: if you do not strictly adhere to "the one and only optimal way of doing things" (validated by someone's favorite epically-elite youtuber or the like), you're a noob, veteran noob, sub-mediocre, clueless [insert more colorful derogatory appellatives] player. It's a wonderful interwebs world, ain't it?!

[Mikeadatrix]

13 minutes ago, xxVERSUSxy said:

You don't even need to go into DST to see this "elitist mindset" in glorious action - browse here forums a bit and you'ill surely come upon a lot of posts/threads that advocate it: if you do not strictly adhere to "the one and only optimal way of doing things" (validated by someone's favorite epically-elite youtuber or the like), you're a noob, veteran noob, sub-mediocre, clueless [insert more colorful derogatory appellatives] player. It's a wonderful interwebs world, ain't it?!

This.

I usually surround myself with what I like and want to be so I guess I end up missing the toxic side of the community, but not completely. What I mean, I was bored so I looked up some DST videos to kill some time and I came across some... lovely channels that promote this horrid elitism mindset. The worst part is that the most popular DST channel promotes this mindset so it spreads like a plague...

[Starlogy]

like @ShadowDuelist said, it's kind of hard to be inviting and mentor newer players when its literally like winning the lottery if they actually listen to you.

kids who are shown this game cause of their favorite youtuber (jackscepticeye and markiplier are good examples) will try to imitate their goofy behavior without actually experiencing the game and listening to others. needless to say, that makes me want to base alone in a forest most of the time.

[Rellimarual]

The only way to view random players you encounter on public servers is as the supreme challenge. If they are new/inexperienced/heedless, they will make the game much, much harder. I actually think the solution for “elitists” who are always complaining about how the game isn’t challenging enough and doesn’t pose enough threats once you have the basics nailed is to try to survive on a public server working with a bunch of newbs.

It’s always something, from the moment they join and demand that someone immediately drop everything to provide them with a personal escort to the base to the part where they refuse to listen when you tell them to vacate the base when there’s a threat incoming. You can try to teach them, but they mostly don’t listen, and then, for no good reason, they will make off with the stack of 25 pigskins you’ve painstakingly collected to make a pig village, then get killed by a spider who eats them or just leave the server with this or some other valuable resource in their inventory. Every once in a while you meet someone who knows what they’re doing or is willing to take simple instruction, and it seems like a miracle, almost as good as getting a reed trap.

So this, I would say, is the answer to two separate forum pleas. Most of the “elitists” just want to boss people around and show off how fast they can kill Dragon Fly anyway, so why not pair them with players who will be astonished at their every feat? Plus, surviving is SO much more difficult, and we all know the game is too easy for that crowd.

[CaptainChaotica]

16 hours ago, xxVERSUSxy said:

You don't even need to go into DST to see this "elitist mindset" in glorious action - browse here forums a bit and you'ill surely come upon a lot of posts/threads that advocate it: if you do not strictly adhere to "the one and only optimal way of doing things" (validated by someone's favorite epically-elite youtuber or the like), you're a noob, veteran noob, sub-mediocre, clueless [insert more colorful derogatory appellatives] player. It's a wonderful interwebs world, ain't it?!

...and that's how my ignore list came to be!  Thank goodness that's a thing...

(aka the "I'm-Too-Old-And/Or-Depressed-For-This-S***" clause)

I'm all for siccing utter noobs of the most annoying stripe on the Edgy Ricks of the world.  That oughta be comedy GOLD.  Can we stream it?  I'll bring popcorn!

...Notorious

[Ressayez]

you think this community, the community of a cooperative survival game is bad because you've met a few elitists?

lol

[axxel]

Call them out. Nobody is more annoying than a bunch of people pretending to be all-known and still failing to the basics. Since social interactions in games are easier to make than IR give people a chance to prove themself. It's better to have someone nice around learning things than someone is bossy about things. It's a sandbox game that lets you earn the experience and maybe a pretty base. 

[Auth]

Typically I like to join servers hosted by newer players. I don't try to boss them around, just give them advice and any helpful pointers I can while doing nothing but gathering crazy amounts of resources for them. I actually find it very off-putting, because sometimes, the newer players just sort of "melt" when you give them advice - they lose their own ambitions to do things and every time any decision comes up, they ask you because you seemingly know the answers. 

This is a very difficult subject, one could argue it needs the same thoughts of balance in it as actual game features. You have going too hard on new players, or going too soft on them, and due to the huge difference in every type of player, this is incredibly hard to weigh out.

On one hand, you have a certain type of "elite" person that believes that if you just don't know what you're doing, you need to get lost and you're a "dirty, disgusting willow main" (-Actual insult some elitist said) and on the other you have one that if you don't take their word as a law you are playing the game wrong. However, every game has this issue. Sheesh, if you think DST is something, try playing Mann Vs. Machine on TF2 with someone who has 100+ rounds under their belt. Those people basically breathe toxicity and usually twist the whole server into believing "I'm the veteran, sure I was carried every round I played but I know better than you!"

And yes. This happened with The Forge quite a bit too. Luckily, most experienced people weren't jerks about it. But I must say- it was pretty funny to see someone on level 2 go "Alright everyone! I'm going to be the tank because I know how to tank better than anyone else!" as they choose Maxwell.
No really, that happened. Many chuckles were had.

The main thing about discussions about elitists, is that people will often say "Just ignore them." but, the issue is, for anyone that's actually dealt with them, more often than not, you can't just ignore them. They're usually in your face, and if you don't listen to them and ignore them, like any typical toxic person, they then try to twist everyone else's point of view of you, since they can't twist yours. Whether this be having the whole server not talk to you, call you some big idiot crybaby on the forums or something, or just initiating a votekick against you, this isn't really something that you can just "ignore" and makes these little pricks on the cactus a bit harder to get around. 

There's also usually the issue that once people hit 10 hours they believe they're experienced enough to take on anything. While they can probably survive until summer, the issue is that at this stage of mind, they think they know everything there is to know because that's simply how Don't Starve works. You think you know it, you think you've got it down, you think you're ready, and then the game turns upside down and throws you against the wall for believing in yourself a little too hard.

One of the best ways for new players to learn is through their own mistakes, and the issue with this in DST is that due to some new mechanics and due to server owner's general fear of destruction, the punishments for actions like this are far less aimed at "I made this mistake, it's my fault and I shouldn't have done it that way" and often leave players thinking a certain mechanic is just "Unfair" or "Unbalanced". Think about it- in the base game, maybe you want to get charcoal, so you burn a tree. The fire spreads and burns down your base. Now you know you shouldn't do it so close. But in DST, fires spread much more slowly and usually something like this just gets you banned because the server owner panics, even though they can extinguish it all remotely easily. This often just leaves you with a stale taste in your mouth and not so much of a life lesson other than "Owners can be d-bags", and this is just another reason why I always suggest playing the base game first to new players.

Another issue with newer players without any experience in the base game - dependency. More often than not most players I've talked to will often say they don't even bother hosting their worlds if they don't know if someone will join them - and they can't even begin to comprehend the base game requiring you to do everything alone. Having the players thrust into a "Multiplayer first" function (Especially since buying the game gives you two copies, so usually your first playthrough will be with your trusty friend you gave the gift copy too), while it works for some games, doesn't work too well in a sandbox survival game. This sort of puts it in their mind that they literally can't do certain things by themselves, and makes them think the game is just downright unplayable without multiple people working.

So, this is how the new players think and work. Now that you know all of this, this can sort of be an explanation as to why certain people act the way they do. When people above said that finding a new player that's capable of understanding you is like winning the lottery, take it from me, someone who's joined servers hosted by new players and who's hosted countless new players,

They aren't wrong.

Now don't get me wrong, this is by no means an insult to newer players. We've all been there. But actually hitting someone without any of these issues and who has an open mind but not to the point they lose their own sense of adventure, is incredibly rare. 

The problem with just calling players "Elitists" or "Noobs" or "Just average" is that you're slapping incredibly general labels on everyone. That's not a great thing to do, especially in a game like DST because there's so many different players and playstyles that generalizing them is not going to function too well.

Well, this was a wall of text. Now that I reached the bottom I think I might have lost any point I was originally making. Whoopsies.

[spideswine]

On 2/6/2018 at 10:53 PM, Rellimarual said:

Plus, surviving is SO much more difficult, and we all know the game is too easy for that crowd.

People really need to differentiate annoying from difficult, noobs and even griefers won't get you killed(unless you don't expect them to grief, but you do), they'll just make you give up on basing, and play the game ignoring a huge chunk of it(everything that requires a base really).

(this isn't aimed particularly at this thread, I'm just tired of the notion that annoying=difficult)

[. . .]

Anyone who doesn't use furry or anime characters mods is an elitist

[Day One Webber]

22 minutes ago, SuperDavid said:

Anyone who doesn't use furry or anime characters mods is an elitist

[The Curator]

On 2/6/2018 at 7:22 AM, Thieverpedia said:

In many of the servers I've been in, I've found so many players who act Elitist and apparently know a lot about the game, but some play just as badly as the newer players, base alone and suffer from lack of supplies, or are simply unwilling to help someone who asks for it, despite having the time.

You are describing selfishness, not elitism. And your description of so called elitism, has elitist undertones in your word choice.

Which is amusing regardless that you are whining about elitism, when I recall the time when you ranted about how players that do not play on Lights Out servers are weak and "spoiled by the light". Which is amusing since you play on Lights Out servers using characters whose gimmicks negate the worst effects of darkness. And it's ironic that you also describe selfishness, because you mass gathering all the resources around the spawn in a Lights Out server and then making backpacks out of them was what got me killed in that server. 

The burning building complains about how hot the bonfire in the backyard is.

[Mencken]

I was in a game recently where a whole bunch of players announced they were going to rush the ruins early in the first Autumn.   One died before even going underground, the three others died in the caves.    I declined to join.   By day 20 I was the only player left on the server.

[LuxuryHeart]

On 2/7/2018 at 11:55 AM, Auth said:

Typically I like to join servers hosted by newer players. I don't try to boss them around, just give them advice and any helpful pointers I can while doing nothing but gathering crazy amounts of resources for them. I actually find it very off-putting, because sometimes, the newer players just sort of "melt" when you give them advice - they lose their own ambitions to do things and every time any decision comes up, they ask you because you seemingly know the answers. 

This is a very difficult subject, one could argue it needs the same thoughts of balance in it as actual game features. You have going too hard on new players, or going too soft on them, and due to the huge difference in every type of player, this is incredibly hard to weigh out.

On one hand, you have a certain type of "elite" person that believes that if you just don't know what you're doing, you need to get lost and you're a "dirty, disgusting willow main" (-Actual insult some elitist said) and on the other you have one that if you don't take their word as a law you are playing the game wrong. However, every game has this issue. Sheesh, if you think DST is something, try playing Mann Vs. Machine on TF2 with someone who has 100+ rounds under their belt. Those people basically breathe toxicity and usually twist the whole server into believing "I'm the veteran, sure I was carried every round I played but I know better than you!"

And yes. This happened with The Forge quite a bit too. Luckily, most experienced people weren't jerks about it. But I must say- it was pretty funny to see someone on level 2 go "Alright everyone! I'm going to be the tank because I know how to tank better than anyone else!" as they choose Maxwell.
No really, that happened. Many chuckles were had.

The main thing about discussions about elitists, is that people will often say "Just ignore them." but, the issue is, for anyone that's actually dealt with them, more often than not, you can't just ignore them. They're usually in your face, and if you don't listen to them and ignore them, like any typical toxic person, they then try to twist everyone else's point of view of you, since they can't twist yours. Whether this be having the whole server not talk to you, call you some big idiot crybaby on the forums or something, or just initiating a votekick against you, this isn't really something that you can just "ignore" and makes these little pricks on the cactus a bit harder to get around. 

There's also usually the issue that once people hit 10 hours they believe they're experienced enough to take on anything. While they can probably survive until summer, the issue is that at this stage of mind, they think they know everything there is to know because that's simply how Don't Starve works. You think you know it, you think you've got it down, you think you're ready, and then the game turns upside down and throws you against the wall for believing in yourself a little too hard.

One of the best ways for new players to learn is through their own mistakes, and the issue with this in DST is that due to some new mechanics and due to server owner's general fear of destruction, the punishments for actions like this are far less aimed at "I made this mistake, it's my fault and I shouldn't have done it that way" and often leave players thinking a certain mechanic is just "Unfair" or "Unbalanced". Think about it- in the base game, maybe you want to get charcoal, so you burn a tree. The fire spreads and burns down your base. Now you know you shouldn't do it so close. But in DST, fires spread much more slowly and usually something like this just gets you banned because the server owner panics, even though they can extinguish it all remotely easily. This often just leaves you with a stale taste in your mouth and not so much of a life lesson other than "Owners can be d-bags", and this is just another reason why I always suggest playing the base game first to new players.

Another issue with newer players without any experience in the base game - dependency. More often than not most players I've talked to will often say they don't even bother hosting their worlds if they don't know if someone will join them - and they can't even begin to comprehend the base game requiring you to do everything alone. Having the players thrust into a "Multiplayer first" function (Especially since buying the game gives you two copies, so usually your first playthrough will be with your trusty friend you gave the gift copy too), while it works for some games, doesn't work too well in a sandbox survival game. This sort of puts it in their mind that they literally can't do certain things by themselves, and makes them think the game is just downright unplayable without multiple people working.

So, this is how the new players think and work. Now that you know all of this, this can sort of be an explanation as to why certain people act the way they do. When people above said that finding a new player that's capable of understanding you is like winning the lottery, take it from me, someone who's joined servers hosted by new players and who's hosted countless new players,

They aren't wrong.

Now don't get me wrong, this is by no means an insult to newer players. We've all been there. But actually hitting someone without any of these issues and who has an open mind but not to the point they lose their own sense of adventure, is incredibly rare. 

The problem with just calling players "Elitists" or "Noobs" or "Just average" is that you're slapping incredibly general labels on everyone. That's not a great thing to do, especially in a game like DST because there's so many different players and playstyles that generalizing them is not going to function too well.

Well, this was a wall of text. Now that I reached the bottom I think I might have lost any point I was originally making. Whoopsies.

So much yes to the bolded.  

The first bolded the the bolded point about dependency is straight on.  New players rely on my advice so much that they ask it to do every little thing.  "How do I kill this spider?"  There is more than one way to kill a spider.  You can do traps, lure one out and just tank, or put on some armor and tank the whole nest.  It's about your personal style and strategy.  This is why they shouldn't rely on experienced players to make decisions.  Like my brother and I are two examples.  My brother likes to explore around and travel a lot while I build a nice nest egg.  If he were new and relied on me for advice, then that wouldn't be good at all since we have different playing styles.

That's also the problem with the general label of elitists and suggesting they play on their own.  New players should at least be able to survive on their own and get around.  However, some people on here will call you an elitists for that.  Thing is, it'll make their experience better along with everyone else.  Like, I can't imagine just sitting at a base all day using up the logs for fuel and eating all the food.  They can't leave that spot because they literally die a minute later.  That's got to be a crappy game experience and I feel bad for them.

Then the whole paragraph about elitists rings true.  There are some jerkass elitists on this forum to be honest.  The ones who nitpick about the tools you use and the strategy you use not realizing that everyone has a different strategy.  I remember some accusing Captain of being a horrible player when she had a world at 500 days!  This is because her base was small and she didn't do things ideal in their mind.  I was accused of not being the best player because I don't care to use golden tools (no really, this actually happened).

[JohnWatson]

I, too, am not an elitist and utterly despise them

wow, these elitists are really bad lol, good thing i'm not one of those uncivilised beasts

[Sicko Hog]

i want elitists to die