Jump to content

Help for beginners?


Recommended Posts

51 minutes ago, Mukawama said:

Just a recall that in the original post he did not mention any issue/death related to sanity or ask for advice about it so maybe we are going a little off topic but you are right that sanity is frequently a problem for "new players".
However, at least in the way I play, I dont think that the presence of cactus justify to built the base in the oasis, of course cooked cactus flesh are cheap and great but I prefer to teach beginner to use wisely the sanity boost when you craft something for the first time, sleeping, top hat... By the way I am curious how long you can rely on cactus in winter when you are 3-4 players!

About your other points I think the biggest (and maybe only) disagreement is about the definition of "new players".
Bananasplit was talking about day 20... He does not survive winter and you are advising him the oasis because you think it is the best place for the summer?

There are a number of base locations for the overworld in an average map, but here are some of them and pros and cons of each.

At Florid Postern

Pros: Easy to meet up with late joiners, can revive in endless mode

Cons: Easy to grief in a public server, unlikely to be close to any unique resources

Near/in a Swamp

Pros: Easy access to reeds, which can't be moved.  Potentially 100 reed trap if you're lucky

Cons: Reeds aren't needed very much unless you're wicker or making a lot of night armor

At Pig King

Pros: Easy trading of meat for gold, easy collection of glommer.  Usually has a lot of pig houses for pigskin farming.

Cons: Gold isn't particularly rare, glommer is only there on full moons.  Could have werepig packs.

Firefly Desert

Pros: Hound mounds for teeth, tumbleweeds with all sorts of great loot.  Cactus too.

Cons: Firefly exists and hound mounds can be dangerous for new or unprepared players.  Knowing how to kite helps but sometimes you get 5+ in a single area.

Oasis

Pros: covered this already

Cons: No tumbleweeds, might be far from things like swamps and pig king.

 

I think cactus is a pretty potent short-term benefit for players who haven't survived winter yet, and being able to have one base and not worry about having 100% flingo coverage makes it a good long-term location.  Ultimately new players (I consider surviving deerclops to be close to the end of being "new" in don't starve, with intermediate skill being achieved once they survive bearager. Your mileage may vary.) benefit from simple, efficient strategies and I believe an oasis base both is helpful in the first fall/first winter but also sets them up for success later.  Due to how Goose/Goose spawns they won't be near an oasis base and I don't consider Goose/Goose to really be worth fighting from a reward point of view until someone wants weather pains for Fuelweaver.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Dragonfly desert also has cactus, and it has tumbleweeds during the winter if they don’t manage to get a good supply of grass and twigs laid up. It does kind of depend on what’s around it and how far out it is. Since it’s just two players, they could probably forage a lot of food from the meadows at the center.  But, yeah, all they really need to know is the meatballs-out-of-ice recipe to keep from starving.

Reeds aren’t relocatable, but really, how many reeds does anyone not playing Wicker really need? It’s sacrilege to say this  in some people’s minds, but basing not too far from the beefalo is a perfectly good strategy for beginners. The poop alone is enough fuel to keep them from having to chop so many trees, and it’s a defense against hounds until they can get traps up. 

No one needs berry bushes in the caves, btw.. There are so many mushrooms.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

56 minutes ago, Rellimarual said:

The Dragonfly desert also has cactus, and it has tumbleweeds during the winter if they don’t manage to get a good supply of grass and twigs laid up. It does kind of depend on what’s around it and how far out it is. Since it’s just two players, they could probably forage a lot of food from the meadows at the center.  But, yeah, all they really need to know is the meatballs-out-of-ice recipe to keep from starving.

Reeds aren’t relocatable, but really, how many reeds does anyone not playing Wicker really need? It’s sacrilege to say this  in some people’s minds, but basing not too far from the beefalo is a perfectly good strategy for beginners. The poop alone is enough fuel to keep them from having to chop so many trees, and it’s a defense against hounds until they can get traps up. 

No one needs berry bushes in the caves, btw.. There are so many mushrooms.

For a more advanced player I might recommend a firefly desert base.  If you pick tumbleweeds you'll get enough gears for flingos, though a strong argument could be made that oasis is easier for megabasing.  I did desert bases and "near swamp" bases before ANR, and they both worked well.

Night armor is honestly the main reed consumption when I play, and if I don't use night armor my reed use declines to near zero.

I used to base near beefalo but I think for some people having something else do the fighting for them delays them learning how to fight on their own, which means it's a strategy that doesn't allow the player to improve as fast as they could.

52 minutes ago, Rellimarual said:

One Other advantage of the PK biome is, if you’re lucky, catcoons. Easy meat that respawns  quickly.

Catcoons according to the wiki (so I'm not 100% trusting it's accuracy) will respawn 9 times and then take 15-40 days to respawn the den.  (Formula is length of season + days left in the season, so you want to kill the 9th catcoon on the last day of a short season.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would rather befriend a catcoon with a stick for a random item than killing it.

From my perspective the Oasis base isn't quite a newbie friendly place to camp due to at least two obvious cons: the desert storms in summer and lack of wormholes to get you in and out of there. Fast. Needless to mention that you would end spending a lot of time fishing in the hopes of finding a blueprint to make the goggles so you can freely move around. Hounds attack and you don't have goggles? Good luck with that!

Anyway, it really doesn't make any difference if Antlion is dead or alive cos in summer I would honestly rather do some caves spelunking than chilling outside. And if you worry about her getting angry cos nobody is giving her tributes then the clear "warnings" she gives shouldn't be a problem to avoid getting hit by falling rocks.

Like I said, I would rather camp near frog ponds and risk getting them agro on me than camp in Oasis. Fishing the entire Summer season in the hopes of finding a goggles blueprint... thanks but no thanks.

@Toros Keep in mind that new players don't tend to have the same mad skill set like Joeshmocoolstuff (aka. BluesyBuesy on the forums) that could solo kill all mobs and bosses with his fists if puts his mind to it, but quite the opposite. I get it you are a fan of the Oasis and everything is nice and comfy in there but should look at things from the new player perspective, a player that barely survives Autumn and dies in Winter way before "boogieman" comes to give them their first challenge and be a pesky annoyance. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/10/2017 at 11:04 PM, JellyUltra said:

Better advice: Never do this. It's a waste of effort and resources when you could just craft a spear and fight them yourself. Spiders are one of the easiest mobs to kite in the game, so fighting them is a good way to learn the combat system.

I like using trap near a nest when it's a nest i want to destroy, if there are spider warrior. This way i can have a chance to trap them and only have to fight spider. Trap are useful for this and anyway i usually have a lot of grass and twigs. Of course, it's not something to do to fight a lonely spider, of course if you haven't a lot of grass and twigs, keep them; But a trap could have it's use.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Toros said:

I used to base near beefalo but I think for some people having something else do the fighting for them delays them learning how to fight on their own, which means it's a strategy that doesn't allow the player to improve as fast as they could.

That is, indeed, the party line, out of some weird Spartan fetishization of combat, but the main use for beefs is to deal with hounds, and even the best players rarely kite a whole wave of hounds and will work toward setting up tooth traps. There’s no reason why a noob should have to learn to fight on hounds  instead of learning to kite one mob at a time first. You can’t use beefs for Deerclops or Bearger anyway without wiping out the herd, so fret not that the noobs will become soft and unmanly! They can learn to kite on spiders and treeguards, against whom beefs aren’t even helpful unless their butts are red.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know the struggle with character selection all too well. At least from a newbie's point of view.

Try every character and see how you like them. It was complete coincidence that my bud @Brikelz picked Woodie, and now the guy won't shut up about how much he likes him. And character choice really doesn't matter that much (except for Wigfrid and Webber, which changes norms. I'd suggest staying away from Wigfrid for right now, but it's not a bad idea to pick her, Webber's okay if you don't base near pigs).

As for the whole trap thing, I literally only use traps for rabbits when I want a prestihatitator (the fact that I got that right is amazing). Traps aren't useful past that, use them if you want to, but there's better alternatives.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Rellimarual said:

That is, indeed, the party line, out of some weird Spartan fetishization of combat, but the main use for beefs is to deal with hounds, and even the best players rarely kite a whole wave of hounds and will work toward setting up tooth traps. There’s no reason why a noob should have to learn to fight on hounds  instead of learning to kite one mob at a time first. You can’t use beefs for Deerclops or Bearger anyway without wiping out the herd, so fret not that the noobs will become soft and unmanly! They can learn to kite on spiders and treeguards, against whom beefs aren’t even helpful unless their butts are red.

 I cannot speak for the "party" but I prefer new players to have options.   As you said, hound waves become too large to fight effectively without tooth traps.  Fighting is just one solution, and most players naturally learn luring enemies into other mobs first.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Please be aware that the content of this thread may be outdated and no longer applicable.

×
  • Create New...