New Player-Friendliness

[Soulk]

I advice klei making a tutorial for the game. With the basic stuff, u cant make ppl play with other when most new players will do annoying things, or at maybe integrate the vanilla version within DST if we look at the menu we see Browse Games and Host game, there is no hint for anyone.

With is would be great to change the Browse Games/ Host game options to one like the Original DS when you hit play gives you the option to either play Vanilla/Rog/SW then select the character, why not to implement a only Play button that send you to a new menu where you can choose:

*Online Games
*Hosted Games
*Turorial

[Raspberry Shake]

5 minutes ago, LuxuryHeart said:

I've said this many times.  It would be best if they played on their own for a while (Vanilla or Reign of Giants, it doesn't matter).  Just until they're able to collect food and not be co-dependent.

Though for the most part, I don't mind giving a few pointers within reason.  I just think there's no excuse for someone to act like a parasite and follow you around taking your loot.  There's also no excuse for someone just sitting at the base.  Of course I don't mind telling people how to do some things (like telling them to use spider traps or lure them out to tank them), telling them about mushroom, telling them how to make a spear, telling them to meet up to take the DeerClops together, etc.)  I also don't mind doing certain things for them (making Winter Hats, armor, umbrellas, etc.).

I agree with this, except for the Geckos.  Nothing is wrong with the geckos, they just give free grass!

Though I personally take disease off because I don't care to deal with it, and I base in the summer to avoid fires and Antlion (though new players won't know about basing in the caves).

You don't really need to play the single player game, but just play on your own world

[Soulk]

@Raspberry Milk that's what im saying, new people open the game and face a menu with 2 options Browse or Host, maybe change that approach for new players.
I think there is nothing wrong with gameplay, thats why klei made a Setting options for the world, u dont like grass gekko set default variety, you dont like desease set to none, dont like frog rain etc etc etc.

I think would be great to have a kind of tutorial for the game, just teaching that you need food, you can gather stuff like logs to make fire, there is a nigth monster called charlie so you need light at night, maybe guide the ppl to create a pot to cook and teach the meatball recipe, idk.

[Raspberry Shake]

Just now, Soulk said:

@Raspberry Milk that's what im saying, new people open the game and face a menu with 2 options Browse or Host, maybe change that approach for new players.
I think there is nothing wrong with gameplay, thats why klei made a Setting options for the world, u dont like grass gekko set default variety, you dont like desease set to none, dont like frog rain etc etc etc.

I think would be great to have a kind of tutorial for the game, just teaching that you need food, you can gather stuff like logs to make fire, there is a nigth monster called charlie so you need light at night, maybe guide the ppl to create a pot to cook and teach the meatball recipe, idk.

Or you could just do what my friend did, and make an endless world to discover everything on. That way you get a feeling of pide when you learn to cook monster lasagna.

[Soulk]

Just now, Raspberry Milk said:

Or you could just do what my friend did, and make an endless world to discover everything on. That way you get a feeling of pide when you learn to cook monster lasagna.

Thats also a good idea, but the thing is that the game doesnt provide any hint for new players, maybe guide them trougth a hosted endless mode to learn how to play by themself too, cuz i honestly like the game concept to slowly discover everything by yourself

[Maslak]

20 hours ago, Fill-Lips said:

Grass geckos are basically moving, automated grass saplings, sure they can wonder off into oblivion, but grass drops!

20 hours ago, spideswine said:

Grass gekkos spawn, so you learn to pen you grass next time and use the gekkos for grass instead(hell, they are generally better at it).

11 minutes ago, LuxuryHeart said:

I agree with this, except for the Geckos.  Nothing is wrong with the geckos, they just give free grass!

Gekkos should be alternative by default, not the only way in the long run.
There are reasons making gekkos not fine - they have pros and cons.
Pros:
Can be autofarmed and harvesting takes less time
Cons:
Can wander away and/or get killed
Having them spawn in caves is terrible - earthquakes will slowly kill them.

Lureplant farms are good because they can't spawn gekkos. But still, having some grass tufts farm that is meant to be harvested manually is almost a must. And not everyone wants gekkos, for the reasons I listed.

Disease is super dumb and most users agree on that.

[axxel]

About grass farming, I think it's not fine as it is. If you want mass farming grass, you have to pen them (grass tuft), which requires some work and materials. In contrast to the twiggy trees whose are powerful, grass farming is also riskier, so I do agree with OP. Also you can theoretically run out of grass in an "no giants world", no?

Well, disease was kinda interesting with ressource swapping and I believe it also prevented from running out of ressources.

[CaptainChaotica]

I'm sorry, I probably overreacted 'cos I have been in just a HORRIBLE mood lately in general. TemporaryMan, now that I think about it, I don't really remember you writing  jerky things _before_, after all... (then again, I don't lurk in every topic/subforum.  Still.)

I can very much agree on the Antlion--and this is BETTER than it used to be.  Your character says more warnings now and the holes themselves appear more slowly/spaced-out.  It used to be too fast to _quite_ outrun at normal speed, and somewhere around here I've got the sad screenshot of a sinkhole-hovering ghost to prove it. And if the Antlion starts attacking WHILE you're currently trying to even _find_ the oasis in the first place, as in, you're IN the sandstorm desert...yeah.  At _that_ speed you're dead no matter what.  (Why wouldn't you find the Antlion and also Oasis before the sinkholes start?  Two words: Random seasons.  Also I have a massive "talent" for exploring every direction BUT the one I need, for in-game _months_.  It's amazing sometimes, really.)

The reason disease doesn't bug me as much is because I generally don't do megabases; I tend to be kind of minimalist and leave-things-where-they-are (if feasible).  Even my longest-running server's Camp One-Foot-In-the-Grave (built nearish the dev graveyard setpiece, hence the name), I only ran into disease twice and nipped it in the bud quickly each time.  But I realise that I'm kind of in the minority--heck, I stay on the surface _even during summer_ (gasp!) and that for those who DO make super-organised megagases, disease is a much bigger thing.

As for the seasons and how to tell them...well, I randomise my seasons all the time these days (for fun) and one thing i do, with RoG on (which I practically never turn off) is WATCH THE TREES.  Seriously, birch trees are your best friends for figuring out what the climate is about to do next.  I also swear I can see the lighting change just a _bit_ towards the next season's colour when it's coming close, but not always, so... 

But Winter is easier to figure out (minus the Deerclops)--longer nights, your character will start freezing at night without a fire, etc.  Summer, however...?  Wildfires I MIGHT figure out because Don't Starve is just that insane and mean--however, "random creature you've never seen before is mad at you FOR NO FREAKING REASON and you have to appease it with beach toys you can get from fishing out of a pond in the desert that can only be reached through a sandstorm" is...less intiutive.  Heh.

...last but not least "What noob survives their first winter?" um...kinda...me? (raises hand but not very high)  I had "advice" from watching YouTubers who WEREN'T good at the game so I knew what _not_ to do, though.  My very first game of Don't Starve (vanilla singleplayer), I lasted until ALMOST Day 36.  What killed me off in the end wasn't the Deerclops or freezing...it was that I was in a super-dense forest when night hit and couldn't figure out where to put my fire.  Yep.  In the end, after all that..died of darkness anyway.  : P

...Notorious

[Chromo]

3 hours ago, LuxuryHeart said:

I've said this many times.  It would be best if they played on their own for a while (Vanilla or Reign of Giants, it doesn't matter).  Just until they're able to collect food and not be co-dependent.

This is what I made this post for; Klei made this game, expected old players to be the main target audience, with a few newcomers the vets might bring along. However, due to DST's outstanding popularity, many players who have never played before, don't have acquaintances that have, and might not even know there is a singleplayer version have come to the forefront of the community; they had no idea about RoG or Vanilla; it isn't their fault.

[TemporaryMan]

1 hour ago, CaptainChaotica said:

...last but not least "What noob survives their first winter?" um...kinda...me? (raises hand but not very high)  I had "advice" from watching YouTubers who WEREN'T good at the game so I knew what _not_ to do, though.  My very first game of Don't Starve (vanilla singleplayer), I lasted until ALMOST Day 36.  What killed me off in the end wasn't the Deerclops or freezing...it was that I was in a super-dense forest when night hit and couldn't figure out where to put my fire.  Yep.  In the end, after all that..died of darkness anyway.  : P

Same.  Sips may have been wrong about a lot of things, but his videos certainly taught me enough to survive my first winter.

[Chromo]

3 hours ago, axxel said:

About grass farming, I think it's not fine as it is. If you want mass farming grass, you have to pen them (grass tuft), which requires some work and materials. In contrast to the twiggy trees whose are powerful, grass farming is also riskier, so I do agree with OP. Also you can theoretically run out of grass in an "no giants world", no?

It does seem like a bit of a silly feature, without much thought put into it. With every update to Don't Starve after the beta, they have all left the main parts of the game alone. However, this seems like a purposeful attack at tradition. I mean really, how does somebody think "You know how bases stay in one place? Let's make some of it MOVE" and get it through all of the steps till full game integration???

6 minutes ago, TemporaryMan said:

Same.  Sips may have been wrong about a lot of things, but his videos certainly taught me enough to survive my first winter.

Oh man, I LOVED those videos! It always baffled me how he was so good, whereas I (This is quite a few years ago, mind you) couldn't survive past ~ day 30.

[Raspberry Shake]

10 hours ago, Soulk said:

Thats also a good idea, but the thing is that the game doesnt provide any hint for new players, maybe guide them trougth a hosted endless mode to learn how to play by themself too, cuz i honestly like the game concept to slowly discover everything by yourself

That's kinda what I meant. Sometimes I help out my friends, but only with trivial things like how you don't go out in winter with no clothes.

[CaptainChaotica]

Haha, SIPS!  Yes,that is indeed one of the early Don't Starvers I watched (although not his ENTIRE playthrough before I started playing; there are a _lot_ of episodes).  I love how in the intro episode, the second he sees a brick road, he goes "Is there civilization in this game?* Is it like Harvest Moon? Can I get MARRIED?!"  Brick road = Japanese dating Sim aspects ah, Sips. Never change.

The other early just-finding-out playthrough I watched was Jacksepticeye--and his vanilla Don't Starve playthrough was SO far back, he wasn't even using his real accent back then.  From him I learned "do's" like "put the rabbit traps right over their holes"....and "don'ts" like "don't live TOO close to beefalo"...

As for teaching others...putting aside the fact that many here would say I'm unqualified to do so because of my...all the nasty things they've said about me...I kind of walk this uneasy line between wanting to be helpful and share my knowledge...AND wanting to see brand-new players experience really basic early things of the game unspoiled.

...or in other words, don't tell them about darkness, hounds, or how _lethally_ important your sanity stat is...until they've had the chance to be surprised by them the FIRST time.  It's not so much that I want to see them _die_, as see them react genuinely. (Although since I've played Shadowgate and Zork, I might've figured out that pure blackness was dangerous on my own...CERTAINLY by the time I heard something horrifyingly _hiss_ at me.)

That said, I actually did a bit of a teaching session on my brother a while ago.  He was the one I'd given my free extra copy of DST to, and basically...I taught him whatever popped into my head about whatever we ran into, as we ran into it.  "Grass is very important. You need it for fires to not die of cold, to cook, and to craft a whole LOT of stuff.  If you see grass and you're low on it, pick it."  "This is a wormhole. It takes you someplace else on the map, but costs some sanity."  "Oooh, the desert!  This is actually really good!  Let's pick tumbleweeds--they pick up all kinds of stuff, and even when they don't, you still get grass and twigs off of 'em."  (few minutes of us both busily picking every tumbleweed we see.) "HOLY COW, a gear!  A gear on Day 1.  Do you have any idea how _rare_ that is?  They're very important and sometimes take multiple _seasons_ to find!  Well, for me anyway." 

So, my lessons were...grass, wormholes, why the desert is awesome, and the rarity of gears. Better than nothing!  : P

To finish...DST is a LOT more complicated than normal DS, so I feel new players should play the single version at least a little first...purely to get the _basics_ under their belts first.  Pass the general curriculum BEFORE you get an entire doctorate program thrown in your face at once, with the pieces in no particular order.  Somebody who hasn't even learned the controls yet isn't going to do well in an environment that has all of (mainland) DS's stuff AND TONS MORE..and especially not _also_ with potentially jerky other players yelling at them the whole time, or their friends constantly distracting them with socialising...  Don't Starve is a thing best started alone, then POLISHED with others.

...Notorious

*Well at the TIME, no, but...HAMLET!  XD

[TheKingofSquirrels]

On 06/12/2017 at 6:31 PM, Chromo said:

This is my first post on the forums; Hi!

What I wanted to address was how the game is becoming more and more difficult for new players to pick up.

Grass Gekkos and Disease:

Imagine you've just found out about DST, and bought it due to the multiplayer aspect. You've died a few times before, but have started to get the hang of the game. You've set up your base. It's not much - but you're proud of it. However, the next time you go back on the world, when harvesting the grass, an explosion of stupid little green creatures lights up your screen with horror and dread. "My grass!" you exclaim, in a state of shock. You'd worked so hard to get through the game far enough to have a quaint little base of your own, but alas, your crops have become sentient.

After an hour or so recovering from this cruel betrayal, you jump back in, as eager as ever. You survive the winter, barely making it through. However, now you can see a little black patch on one of your berry bushes. What should you do? Shrugging, you leave it alone, assuming it is just a graphical glitch, or something you shouldn't be bothered about. 

~~~~~

5 days have passed, and you are heartbroken. Half of your berry bushes are gone, with naught but a piece of rot for you to remember them. Through your teary eyes, you continue to play, barely scraping by, and making it into spring, and then summer.

A BIG point; the Antlion.

You've made it to summer! You couldn't believe your eyes when your world was met with a saturated hue, and frogs no longer threw themselves upon you from the clouds. A friend has told you about overheating and wildfires; you are prepared. Your base - now rebuilt after you tentatively herded your gekkos into a pen - is sustainable and ready for the world ahead. You couldn't be more proud of yo-

What was that?!

A piece of text, that your character has never said before, about the ground. A mole boss? Earthquake? You have no clue! As you've done many times before, you craft your spear and log suit, and prepare to fight.

But this was no fight.

Not at all.

This was the Antlion.

~~~~~~~~~~

Your base is destroyed; your keyboard has been broken; your computer has been pulverised, and - in a fit of unquenchable rage - you have burnt your actual house down. Such an innocent game that had a very good, albeit challenging, learning curve, has turned into the reason you have mandatory therapy 10 hours a week.

FIN

 

Now this is obviously a giant exaggeration of real-life events (this is just meant to be a hypothetical situation), but imagine if this had happened to you when the vanilla singleplayer came out all those years ago! The newest additions to don't starve, as far as I can see, have just been a nuisance, and have added next to no content that affected the rest of the game; this makes it incredibly difficult for new players to get started, and really puts people off of the game.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to write more on these forums for some time to come.

tl;dr : The newest mechanics added to the game have been more of a nuisance than a fun addition.

Nah...The game has always been like this. You play until you get to something you haven't encountered before and then you die.

When RoG was first introduced, I started in Spring season. I had no idea about new seasons. I just thought it was a rainy autumn, so I prepared for Winter...Then summer came.

It was a great experience though. That's part of the fun of it. 

However, I will agree with you with Disease. It's a mechanic I always turn off because it's not fully developed. 

Grass-geckos are fun tho.