[Feedback]/[Suggestion] Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together

[nowherz]

Hello, I want to start this post by thanking Klei for still supporting and making updates for this game, you are a great company ! 

So, as a returning player, I would like to give a feedback on Don't Starve and Don't Starve Together which I find slightly unnecessary confusing. 
From what I've gathered when I was trying to figure out where to start playing again (back when I used to play, there was no DST but it was very kindly added by Klei to my Steam), DS is still the original experience with exclusive DLCs (currently available and upcoming), and DST is the multiplayer experience with several exclusive mechanics and entities that are listed in the wiki, with the addition of the cosmetic loot system, plus some upcoming very interesting looking limited time events such as "The Forge".

So, the problem I have with all that, beyond the slight confusion engendered, is that I can't seem to be able to experience everything at once, and I don't see any reasons, technical or economic, as to why it's not a given option to us, the players.

For exemple, I don't currently own the Shipwrecked DLC, which by the way has a really appealing theme for my taste and I'll most likely buy it at some point, but the reason why I feel annoyed by purchasing it is because playing a Shipwrecked playthrough (in which I'm assuming, the goal is still to survive for the longest time possible which would result in a possibly long playthrough) will make me miss out on some DST's stuff like customisation and, again something really appealing to me, the upcoming events system.

What I'm trying to say it that for me, everything seems a little bit contradictory and feels like it's trying to compete with itself. DST to me seems like a more complete and "alive" experience, but on the other hand, DS have some interesting exclusive content.
I don't see why we are not given a single client to play both these version of the same game (which would still be purchased separately) while benefiting from features on both sides. Nothing would have to change gameplay wise, people would still have the option to play offline which is already in DST, there would be a single player button to bring the map generation screen, thus allowing people to check / uncheck what DLC they want to use, and a multiplayer one that would work exactly the same way as the "Browse games" currently in DST. Also, since a lot of people seems to be against the port / implementation of DLC such as Shipwrecked in multiplayer, whatever have been designed to be experienced from a single player point of view could just be restricted to the single player map generator screen.
That way, people could use their cosmetics in their single player playthrough (DLC included) while being eligible to drop more of them, and the upcoming dynamic events system could potentially be more diversified and also benefit players that want to enjoy their single player / DLC playthrough at the same time.

I know that realistically speaking, none of these changes will be even considerated since people are happy enough with the current way, but I guess this is more a feedback regarding the future of the franchise and the potential of upcoming content that would benefit everybody.

[PicklePet]

I dunno about you, but I have a mediocre laptop and mediocre internet connection - and running either game by itself already pushes my gear to the limit. I don't even want to imagine how straining putting the two together would be on the client-side.

Also, seeing as how DST had to be completely rebalanced and probably a lot of the existing elements had to be most importantly reprogrammed, putting the two together would be more work than benefit. They have organically grown apart and the further they grow the harder and harder it would be to merge them back together, therefore I hope you don't mean the future of the Don't Starve franchise, but the future of Klei. And even then, I don't agree - I think that not forcing themselves to put all the their eggs in one basket for the convenience and simplification for players has allowed them more creativity. Shipwrecked would have taken way over twice as long to even reach a beta if they had to make a multiplayer version (and don't you think that would be expected if 'together' were a mode in the same program?) and Together has enjoyed a lot further rebalancing (like flint birds and twiggy trees).

And - the whole point of this upcoming event is going to be built around multiplayer. It literally says in the announcement something like "enemies that can only be defeated with teamwork".

I completely understand why and accept that DS and DST are separate. Makes sense to me. I mean, if anything I think it would be even more confusing for some one new to the series to start a single-player game and get a feel for it, then click a little box for 'together' mode and all of a sudden the mechanics of the game are different? Come on now.

And I don't think I've met any one who doesn't want Shipwrecked to reach multiplayer - there are just a lot of people who understand that will take years of work and they want shipwrecked to be polished off in single-player first.

[nowherz]

1 hour ago, PicklePet said:

I dunno about you, but I have a mediocre laptop and mediocre internet connection - and running either game by itself already pushes my gear to the limit. I don't even want to imagine how straining putting the two together would be on the client-side.

Also, seeing as how DST had to be completely rebalanced and probably a lot of the existing elements had to be most importantly reprogrammed, putting the two together would be more work than benefit. They have organically grown apart and the further they grow the harder and harder it would be to merge them back together, therefore I hope you don't mean the future of the Don't Starve franchise, but the future of Klei. And even then, I don't agree - I think that not forcing themselves to put all the their eggs in one basket for the convenience and simplification for players has allowed them more creativity. Shipwrecked would have taken way over twice as long to even reach a beta if they had to make a multiplayer version (and don't you think that would be expected if 'together' were a mode in the same program?) and Together has enjoyed a lot further rebalancing (like flint birds and twiggy trees).

And - the whole point of this upcoming event is going to be built around multiplayer. It literally says in the announcement something like "enemies that can only be defeated with teamwork".

I completely understand why and accept that DS and DST are separate. Makes sense to me. I mean, if anything I think it would be even more confusing for some one new to the series to start a single-player game and get a feel for it, then click a little box for 'together' mode and all of a sudden the mechanics of the game are different? Come on now.

And I don't think I've met any one who doesn't want Shipwrecked to reach multiplayer - there are just a lot of people who understand that will take years of work and they want shipwrecked to be polished off in single-player first.

Well, thanks for your input, you do bring up some interesting points, as I said, I know none of this will ever be considerate with the state that both these games are in, especially since more content are currently being developped for both of them. I guess this was all more of a still relevant feedback and a very late suggestion.

I indeed did not consider the performances of the game as a problem, back when I purchased Don't Starve, it was a browser game in the chrome store so I never really considered it as a demanding game, even after it came out on Steam. Still, I don't see how merging the two games would have any impact on performances, the game menu would be different and would allow to launch the two different versions, but both the map generation and gameplay would be exactly the same as it is right now. Having all the files available from one client doesn't mean that they are all loaded and used at the same time.

I guess I'll take your words for it about the reprogramming, which would indeed seems to be the biggest challenge, even though most of the work from a player perspective seems to be done, creating DST from DS was a probably a lot of coding/recoding, but recreate the single player from DST seems a little bit less effort. I guess based on how DST currently work, the main problem would be that the player would have to run a single player server which leads back to the performances problems that you mentioned. The balancing would certainly take a little bit of time but except for a couple of exceptions such as the thermal stones and the way armor works, if I didn't miss anything, it's mostly tweaking numbers and value, and it's not like they would have to make a lot of tests and gather hours of gameplay from their QA team, the numbers and value are already available from their DS client. People even made mods themselves in DST to rebalance it for single player.

About the DLCs developpement lenght, it would really depend on their approach. As I said, if a DLC or content would be designed from a single player point of view, it could just be restricted to the single player map generator, and maybe later when it's ready be added to the multiplayer one.

I know that the event system have been designed with multiplayer in mind and will feature coop based encounter, which is why I said that it could potentially make this system more diversified by having for example events based on something else than combat.

Then about the confusion that a player would encounter by switching from DS to DST from a menu, I don't really get it. You're talking about it like if they were more different than they are. The goal of the game is still to not starve and not die to ennemies / natural elements, the UI is the same, what else do you need ? These games aren't that complicated. There are many games currently on the market that have a campaign and a multiplayer version with completely different goal. I've never heard anybody being suddenly confused about playing a capture the flag or a team dethmatch in a fps for example..

 

Anyway, I don't think I'll come back to this post, I don't really like the way things are right now, and apparently I don't really know how to explain why. I did what I could about it, which was making this post. I guess it's overall good news for everybody if I'm the only one slightly bothered by this, I was just preoccupied by what's coming for both of these games and their future. It absolutely wont make me stop playing DS or DST, or any other Klei games I have, and I will still follow what they will bring to the video game scene with a lot of excitement.

[PicklePet]

Off the top of my head differences in the mechanics between modes:

DS: Tents skip forward to the next day and can be used with very little hunger left - DST: Tents slowly regen at the cost of hunger, making getting in with low hunger a very bad idea because you will not get a lot of use out of the tent and if you were trying to avoid sitting through the night (example: out of fuel on a cold winter night) it won't work.

Woodie: His wood meter works in reverse when he enters werebeaver mode - in single player chopping logs keeps beaver form up, in DST reaching full meter will return you to normal. And if your log meter hits 0, you begin to starve - which is very bad if you're not expecting it and you're somewhere barren, like the middle of the desert or swamp.

Willow: In DST she is not immune to fire.

DS: Sinkholes each lead to separate caves. DST: Sinkholes all lead to one underground.

 

And that's not even covering any of the added content like twiggy trees/grass geckos/juicy berries, telltale hearts, Toadstool, Bee Queen, Antlion, sandstorms, ancient fuelweaver, etc.

 

I certainly don't understand what it is that you want, but I think perhaps you should get to know the games a bit better before you try to give feedback on them? But hope you find peace either through pin-pointing your dissatisfaction and/or understanding why it is the way it is.