What's the point of joining a public server and playing solo+ignoring everyone?

[xixol]

Why wont you host a solo world for yourself, that is literally practically better because of lower ping

[Ailes]

I sometimes do that because it doesn't make me feel as lonely while still not getting stressed and tired out by interacting with people. At least I tend to avoid most of the hustle and bustle around base. From the looks of it it only requires halfway decent veterans that my help isn't really needed anywhere anyway. Most leave come winter or spring at the latest too, and the world is lost and about to be reset.

[ECS]

Well, when playing in a public server, you'll spend a good portion of your time alone, unless you immediately ask "where is base?" and have half the server hating you.
Generally people will want you to survive by yourself before joining them, and by that point, if i'm already surviving by myself, i won't always want to leave my stuff behind to join the other people.

Also, as Ailes said, most people leave in winter and you'll most likely be left alone in the server anyways, so it isn't always worth to join them if they'll soon leave you alone.

Now, speaking about me personally, i mostly play solo in a hosted server, but when i do join a public server, i'm usually trying to explore caves/ruins (since i can't host a server with caves), and when i do that, i go alone because most people are focusing on other stuff like building their base, exploring or just chilling.

I don't really see a problem with people joining and playing alone, as long as they aren't causing any problem to the other people.

[xixol]

Originally posted by ECS:

Well, when playing in a public server, you'll spend a good portion of your time alone, unless you immediately ask "where is base?" and have half the server hating you.
Generally people will want you to survive by yourself before joining them, and by that point, if i'm already surviving by myself, i won't always want to leave my stuff behind to join the other people.

Also, as Ailes said, most people leave in winter and you'll most likely be left alone in the server anyways, so it isn't always worth to join them if they'll soon leave you alone.

Now, speaking about me personally, i mostly play solo in a hosted server, but when i do join a public server, i'm usually trying to explore caves/ruins (since i can't host a server with caves), and when i do that, i go alone because most people are focusing on other stuff like building their base, exploring or just chilling.

I don't really see a problem with people joining and playing alone, as long as they aren't causing any problem to the other people.

My only problem with solo players that wont interact with anyone else under any circumstances is that they are usually much, MUCH more skilled than anyone else on the server and they just straight off wipe out all the content for half of Autumn that we could have enjoyed till day 150. Not being able to host a world with caves on might be the only sane reason I can think about (thanks for bringing it up though), but why would you join a server with players on while there are tons of empty dedicated servers with no players. Other players might grab some important stuff as a glommer panflute or they can destroy pig villages before you get to do it

[ECS]

Originally posted by RC | Shoroh:

they just straight off wipe out all the content for half of Autumn that we could have enjoyed till day 150.

Well, you 'could', but tell me... 'would' you really?
On most public servers i join, people don't even touch any of the bosses (aside from seasonal ones, most commonly Deerclops), don't do anything in the caves more than just grabbing some lightbulbs for their lanterns, don't sail to get any of the stuff outside of the main island, don't even touch the ruins, and in general enjoy only a small portion of the content the game has to offer (as i said, most of them are just building a base and chilling).

Speaking about my own experience, 95% of the time i try going for ruins i'm doing it alone, since no one else wants to, and if i die in there, i just leave, because i also don't have anyone to help me down there.

So i don't really think an experienced player "wiping out all the content" is that much of a problem if most people don't really touch it before the server becomes empty and gets reset.

There's also the fact that it's not uncommon for said player to just leave his advanced stuff (like ruins loot or boss loot) with the other players after he's done with his playing session, or just leaving them somewhere and telling people where they could find it. So, despite the fact they wipe out all the content, they can still provide other people with tools that they probably wouldn't get themselves, thus actually helping them.

So yea, i can see your concern, but from my experience, it's not often that an experienced player enjoying advanced content will detract from the experience of other people trying to enjoy the game (and i'm speaking as someone who has been in both sides, the experienced player enjoying advanced content and the group player just chilling in a base), especially because there's hardly anything that is "gone for good" in DST, most things can be regenerated in some manner.

Originally posted by RC | Shoroh:

but why would you join a server with players on while there are tons of empty dedicated servers with no players

Well, i don't know to be honest, sometimes i just get tired of playing alone, even if i am going to play alone, the fact there are people playing in it can make a difference. Or sometimes i might find someone willing to go in crazy advantures with me. Or maybe even to just show off, ya know xD (although with my lag the experience will usually be embarassing rather than impressive xD)

[Ailes]

People "wiping out content" happens on both sides. If I play solo-ish I make sure to not pick all grass and twigs and flint twenty miles around the portal or horde all stones there are. More often than not I actually use these to put up useful stuff like a fire pit or crock pot close to portal or on intersections of biomes or such, despite the risk of a random griefer torching it up. If I run into newly joined players I offer away some excess flint and stuff.

There might be a group of people who have a different use for materials like stones, but whether it's a better one is debatable, because I consider it pure waste building farms with them or even worse stone walls. If I can make sure that people get their hands on some thermal stones or whether we have a bunch of farms or walls that won't even serve any proper purpose I'll hold onto at least some numbers of stones for the thermals to give to fresh-ish players.

And that is just one example. I don't usually pick flowers either unless I have no materials for an umbrella during spring or summer, but noobs often do so for some useless garland or restoring sanity on the spot they might better have regained through clever use of the prototyping system or eating certain food, removing extremely helpful butterflies from spawning.

As ECS wrote in his last paragraph: Sometimes people like us want to play within a social frame of others without interacting with them nonstop. If I hang around 4+ other players at a huge base and everyone is skittering about that tends to stress me out a bit, despite me having played shooter games and MMOs with a lot more simulatenous players in the past. If I were to visit a completely empty dedicated server I would feel absolutely alone.

[ECS]

Ailes brought up a really good point. We experienced players know what content we can "wipe" or not, we have a notion of what is essential / important for other people and what use they need it for the most, and as such we only get what's necessary for us and leave the rest for other people, in order to not cause any harm to them or detract from their playing experience.

Meanwhile many of the less experienced players just go around hoarding all of the basic materials, which are by far the most essential things for everyone, starting out or not, and more often than not using it in very questionable ways, the flowers for a garland being a great example.

[13]

I personally rarely interact with people because I usually purposefully wait for servers to get nearly full / one day before a new season to join. I find the game quite boring sitting through the 2hrs and 40 minutes of autumn, so I'll join the day before winter so I can hopefully encounter a barren, challenging world. I'm a nomad by nature, so the reason I mostly join is to watch the chaos unfold. There's nothing more entertaining to me than a world full of a dozen or so newbies struggling to survive. I like to think of myself as the safety net. As long as I'm in a server, it won't reset (unless I really fail it and take huge risks). Even if all twelve of our theoretical guinea pigs are dead, I can always come up with a creative solution to revive them and get them sustainable. And if I can't? Then I've failed, and I need to git gud. That's the appeal to me.

[That guy with the Spoon]

i doubt you even have 12 players on the server once winter rolls around lol

[13]

Typically no, but there are exceptions. Sometimes they stick around. Those are often the most fun games as they struggle to learn and adapt. That's typically when I start communicating, when I'm actually needed. I stay out of the typical pre-winter banter.

[Ailes]

Originally posted by 13:

[...] There's nothing more entertaining to me than a world full of a dozen or so newbies struggling to survive. I like to think of myself as the safety net. As long as I'm in a server, it won't reset (unless I really fail it and take huge risks). Even if all twelve of our theoretical guinea pigs are dead, I can always come up with a creative solution to revive them and get them sustainable. And if I can't? Then I've failed, and I need to git gud. That's the appeal to me.

But it can suck really hard if said newbies leave the server without you ever getting the chance to revive them. Or if they just start a regeneration vote. I've seen people ask me to initiate one during early spring I think. Or during late autumn. When I asked why one guy basically said because they wanted a fresh start. Because they couldn't - apparently - take it seeing a fire pit and crock pot and alchemy engine at/near the portal. (Oh well, excuse me for not hording the materials but putting them to use in such key locations.) Or imagine a big base possibly being >somewhere<.

I can understand that sentiment in some ways, it's bascially why I avoid Endless mode like hell and always feel something inside me die if people brag about rushing ruins and stuff within 5 days or so, but I wouldn't want to screw over the other long-day players on the server. There was only one another aside from me at the time, and I asked him if he agreed to me starting this vote. In the end we did brought it through. But it felt wrong somehow. Yet the alternative might have been all these new players leaving again. I hate playing on empty servers even more.

[Freddy]

Sorry for being late to the party.

I haven't been around for too long. To me it looks like that the vanilla DST worlds are way to unfair to just work out. IMO food is not a problem, but the other basic materials run out and the common player starves in DST for resources.

To me it looks like the common player just find "quests" which are similar to other games:
- Secure basic resources (Minecraft)
- Fighting a specific monster (Any game with bosses)
- Make artistic buildings (Minecraft)
- Style their character (Animal Crossing)

Unfortunately the coordination is not high among regular players. Considering that, playing solo is very weak, because of my assumption of resource missing through the limitation and the healthier bosses than vanilla Don't Starve.

Circling back to the question, why join playing solo+ignoring everyone? Because people do not understand the problem of LIMITED resources and hope that together somehow the problem is solved. A lot of the guides I looked at (mostly text) leave out this problem. Like they do a qualitative analysis, but not a quantitative one. They tell you how you get from A to B, but they conveniently forget to tell you
- how long the road is
- if the means to get there is regenerative
- how it impacts others on the same road
- how long the resources needed take to regenerate
- how repetitive the process becomes (deterring people to actually take the road) e.g. how you need to kill multiple Deerclops to get everyone that hat from the material

When I look at it positively, I feel lucky that I know people I can discuss this with. But it does not change that the general player has got a lack of knowledge, will not communicate and a lack or resources in the world exist.

Why soloing then? They cannot take it to fail in the unknown and the learning curve is too steep for a game. Thinking about the children, I think it is possible to make a conjecture. Would a child follow a foreigner, even if he just asks for devotion and focus in exchange for future solid income? What do parents tell their child, when it tries something new which has nothing to do with their future job and fails once?

Then there is the online culture of memes and simple achievements anyone can do. But you need to share it. Sharing can be done by only doing little. E.g. joining a game, leaving a little of their own self behind and be maybe rewarded in the social part, because it's generally seen as good. This is really easy when soloing, but I point out that the resources are limited, which circles back to the lack of basic resources, which is my opinion.
Comparing this the simplier option is to get the achievement instead of learning or discovering the unknown.

There is a mod which respawns stuff (e.g. beehives, minable resources). I may look into that mod, if I need experience in lua scripts and have less important work. But it would not solve everything like the max hp penalty when reviving. There are more things to think about to make multiplayer actually alluring for everyone without thinking too much about it. Have a nice day!