Why is this game so popular?

[LUCKYRODEO]

Just curious - Never have played it but seems like something that wouldn't have overwhelmingly positive in reviews...

Good for the game !!

Just curious :)

[Matthew Joseph]

Becouse is survival game,, people like it, advanced mechanic, nice idea, you cant find other game same or similiar

[Mqueze]

Its really unique in design with good mechanics and concept, guess thats why!

[wolfboygamer562]

You should play become a Starver today!

[wolfboygamer562]

jk

[Mr. Raider]

Mainly because it's very well made, has a lot of replayability and it's pretty hard.
Then there's the whole obscure lore behind it, which leaves a lot of space for theories.

[Matthew Joseph]

Mostly becouse is best game ever jai hoooooooo bayla bayla

[Kyflie]

Unique style, twisted lore, very community-friendly developers, huge content updates for free. It's a sandbox game, you basically do whatever you want, very funny to play with friends, lot of community made mods.

[Shame]

Game is unique and has a ton of potential. But the overwhelmingly positive reviews are quite misleading, as the game has a ton of issues, first of which you'll encounter is that it is in no way newbie friendly and actively requires you to read the wiki, which is not good game design. Some major survival games are well known and liked because everyone's on it, and most don't have a clue on how to even evaluate or criticise a survival game, so dying 100 times without making any progress after dozens of hours is just fine, nothing to see here! Haha funny player died instantly, good game!

If you manage to go through guides as need be and read the wiki every now and then and manage to survive indefinitely, you'll soon find out there are many aspects to the game that are simply grindy as all heck and way too easy, and I'm not the only one of this opinion. But do Klei give a crap? Hell no, here's more content that you will never engage with because of how functionally unreliable or useless it is, have fun!

[24/7🔴Triple B>Backpacks/Keys]

I too am surprised as a fan of the game. The game isn't really that new player friendly so I'm surprised that I can't really find a good chunk of people just giving negative reviews with under 2 hours saying "boring" or "this game is so stupid" because they didn't really have a chance to experience the fun of the game loop so to speak..

However it easily deserves its overwhelmingly positive, because it is a well made, hard and fun survival game with a charming art style and characters. Also people love playing multiplayer survival games which aren't janky pieces of crap like say ARK for a reference.

[VoodooKhan]

This is a more of a survival game than most I have played, all structures and items serve a purpose that can help you survive in different ways. Your not smelting bricks or laying foundations down like other survival craft games.

Characters and content/depth, strive to make it a year and watch your hard work disintegrate before your eyes, it is just a fun game-play loop... that's unique and executed well.

[Steefy_92]

Originally posted by Shame:

Game is unique and has a ton of potential. But the overwhelmingly positive reviews are quite misleading, as the game has a ton of issues, first of which you'll encounter is that it is in no way newbie friendly and actively requires you to read the wiki, which is not good game design

You are confusing personal preference with a design which is peculiar and intended - not to mention that this basically Klei's niche brand, try their other survial/sanbox games, it's just that they are tailored in such way. Sure the game leaves you with little to no clue what does what and what can do what but the design choice is that you discover that on your own, either by accident or experimenting.

Plus there is a plenty of tools in DST that original DS (with all expansions) provides handholding or hints.

So again, not bad design choice. It's one of those that makes audience either embrace it's quirkiness or not, simple as that (or as a lot people do, you go to wiki because you lack patience, focus or just don't get idea and spoil yourself - making game essentially breeze)

____

Also, while I understand this interpretation of the game is focused on multiplayer, for getting familar with it's mechanics and possibly enjoy it before random people spoil learning experience for you, you can attempt solo (and if there is solo scale mod, to scale hp of monsters down to solo version of the game)

____________________________________-

Is the game perfect? Far from it but it is one of the kind and that's what makes it so special.(plus the fact that modding community is quite lively and you can really modify game in major ways - make it harder/eaiser/more diverse./different/import SW and Hamlet content and etc)

[The_Technomancer]

Originally posted by Shame:

Game is unique and has a ton of potential. But the overwhelmingly positive reviews are quite misleading, as the game has a ton of issues, first of which you'll encounter is that it is in no way newbie friendly and actively requires you to read the wiki, which is not good game design. Some major survival games are well known and liked because everyone's on it, and most don't have a clue on how to even evaluate or criticise a survival game, so dying 100 times without making any progress after dozens of hours is just fine, nothing to see here! Haha funny player died instantly, good game!

If you manage to go through guides as need be and read the wiki every now and then and manage to survive indefinitely, you'll soon find out there are many aspects to the game that are simply grindy as all heck and way too easy, and I'm not the only one of this opinion. But do Klei give a crap? Hell no, here's more content that you will never engage with because of how functionally unreliable or useless it is, have fun!

Pretty much this. I'd say the majority of the difficulty of the game is based on knowledge alone. Many threats can be alleviated just be memorizing a simple kiting pattern, an item or two you should rush, and/or what day something happens on. You won't really figure these things out though without ridiculous luck/trial and error or just looking at the wiki/guides repeatedly.

It gets really bad in some aspects like insanity which the game is completely balanced around it being threatening. However, once you realize the shadow creatures are some of the easiest enemies to kite and kill in the entire game it invalidates the stat as a whole. The crockpot is another example of this by having tons of different recipes you can craft but only a handful are actually useful so just memorize the good ones. (Warly fixes this but only for himself really)

[Airvanz]

Some of this Comment make me hope live its more predictable maybe i will do well but Nope live just throw a Brick to my Face left me alone without clue, so need try to learn by myself or learn from another people that have more experienced than me

The crockpot is another example of this by having tons of different recipes you can craft but only a handful are actually useful so just memorize the good ones. (Warly fixes this but only for himself really)

then How you fix it? isn the Cook Book already fix it, its always good to try cook something else even just once with cook book and the Shadow monster its always good if you face one by one but not in a bulk of it, Uncompromising Mod do a very good job in term of Shadow Creature that make it huge thereat that not newbie Friendly mod at all then remember this is sandbox game too

[The_Technomancer]

Originally posted by Airvanz:

Some of this Comment make me hope live its more predictable maybe i will do well but Nope live just throw a Brick to my Face left me alone without clue, so need try to learn by myself or learn from another people that have more experienced than me

The crockpot is another example of this by having tons of different recipes you can craft but only a handful are actually useful so just memorize the good ones. (Warly fixes this but only for himself really)

then How you fix it? isn the Cook Book already fix it, its always good to try cook something else even just once with cook book and the Shadow monster its always good if you face one by one but not in a bulk of it, Uncompromising Mod do a very good job in term of Shadow Creature that make it huge thereat that not newbie Friendly mod at all then remember this is sandbox game too

I forgot about the cook book and while it does encourage you to figure out all the recipes there's still only a handful of useful ones. By "fixing" I meant warly's the only one that makes the crockpot actually interesting to use with his own useful recipes and not being able to eat the same meal repeatedly. As for insanity even a group of 2 or 3 shadow creatures can still be manageable and it really shouldn't go above that as long as you kill them on sight/aren't dealing with the nightmare cycle. I've heard of the uncompromising mod, I need to look into it more.

[Shame]

Originally posted by Steefy_92:

Originally posted by Shame:

Game is unique and has a ton of potential. But the overwhelmingly positive reviews are quite misleading, as the game has a ton of issues, first of which you'll encounter is that it is in no way newbie friendly and actively requires you to read the wiki, which is not good game design

You are confusing personal preference with a design which is peculiar and intended - not to mention that this basically Klei's niche brand, try their other survial/sanbox games, it's just that they are tailored in such way. Sure the game leaves you with little to no clue what does what and what can do what but the design choice is that you discover that on your own, either by accident or experimenting.

Plus there is a plenty of tools in DST that original DS (with all expansions) provides handholding or hints.

So again, not bad design choice. It's one of those that makes audience either embrace it's quirkiness or not, simple as that (or as a lot people do, you go to wiki because you lack patience, focus or just don't get idea and spoil yourself - making game essentially breeze)

____

Also, while I understand this interpretation of the game is focused on multiplayer, for getting familar with it's mechanics and possibly enjoy it before random people spoil learning experience for you, you can attempt solo (and if there is solo scale mod, to scale hp of monsters down to solo version of the game)

____________________________________-

Is the game perfect? Far from it but it is one of the kind and that's what makes it so special.(plus the fact that modding community is quite lively and you can really modify game in major ways - make it harder/eaiser/more diverse./different/import SW and Hamlet content and etc)

I disagree. The purpose of design is to indicate to the player the correct behaviors without making a huge exposition dump and confusing them further, while simultaneously making sure the player doesn't learn the wrong lessons. If that's not what game design is, then what is? You can be fine with various design aspects of the game, even if they are inherently bad, but that doesn't mean they are not bad for a typical player that will come in knowing nothing. It's not a niche, game design is about understanding human response to a given situation and making sure the game functions in a way that facilitates that understanding. Something I'm not sure you grasp yourself, but I wouldn't blame you, it's a difficult subject to tackle.

None of what you highlighted is true. What hints? Players don't examine things, not even signs that are blatantly visible and next to them. The fact that they don't is the game's fault, because the game doesn't highlight it to be interesting/important enough for them to do so. The amount of tools under every tab and every new tab Klei has introduced is just a bad idea to sort the crafting discovery. The hidden tabs may never be discovered, and the existing tabs are cluttered with items they never bothered to properly balance. Not to mention that all items you cannot craft and haven't learned about, even if extremely important, are not grabbing your attention and you just dismiss them as noise and unimportant. One solution is to put everything important in the default tabs and throw out all the junk, or put them under a different tab. Examples being beefalo tools, a whole bunch of stuff under survival tab, the weirdly-looking fight tab that doesn't grab your attention (same as structure tab beyond the chest crafting) at all and the bloated dress tab.

The game doesn't give you the option to look at the wiki. It REQUIRES it. It doesn't teach you most things and never will. The learning curve isn't steep, it doesn't exist. Needing to read the wiki is inherently bad game design. Good game design means seamlessly having the player learn the game solely by playing it. This game has none of that. Funny how you only have problem with me saying that this is bad game design and have nothing to say about the other points I made about the game being impossible to learn, things being too easy if you get to understand the game mechanics etc. I point all those things out as bad game design. Because again, if that isn't bad game design, then what is? Are you telling me you can just throw whatever and however into a game and call it "good game design"?