Beginner Tips and Maxwell

[Galactic_Kei]

I've just started playing the game but I'm currently already lost. Anyone have any beginner tips?
And also, should I, as a beginner with less than 2 hours and have survived less than an in-game week, play as Maxwell? I find myself to be really fascinated with Maxwell's play-style, even though I've just started the game.

[(P)ink-Lion]

ok first if you new and want to learn how to play, you should play as either willow, wilson or wendy as they are the most beginner friendly characters. once you have played with them for a bit you can try as maxwell but hes very much a glass cannon type character. he can deal alot of damage and is very powerful but has the lowest hp in the game tied with wes. if you really want to play maxwell you can but just remember to allways have some form of armour on you, especially with maxwell due to his low hp

as a general rule, you should allways have the following: a light source, a weapon, a food source and some armour.
light is important so you wont die when it becomes night, a weapon to defend yourself, if you do go as maxwell dont rely on the codex umbra as a weapon as you will die. a food source so you wont starve to death. and armour to help reduce incoming dmg in combat. the easiest basic type of stuff to have is: a lantern (or a torch/head lamp if cave are turned off). a hambat, log suit and football helmet and meatballs made in a crop pot. for more info u can DM me if u like :)

[Cheggf]

Maxwell is a rather unique character. If you play as him before learning the basics of the game you may not properly learn vital skills like sanity management, and could struggle when switching characters. You could still play as him if you're fine with that, just be aware that there might be a bit of a shock when you switch to someone else. He also has very low health, which could prove troublesome to a newer player.

[(P)ink-Lion]

Originally posted by bob644016:

Originally posted by !nk-nova:

ok first if you new and want to learn how to play, you should play as either willow, wilson or wendy as they are the most beginner friendly characters.

Just note that wilson is soon getting a rework with a 'skill tree' so that may change him a bit, and also, if you choose wendy, do not begin to rely on abigail. Its fine to use her, but you should also learn how to kite by yourself so you can play the other characters well.

Now, some beginner tips are:
If you're just starting out, play solo a bit. Others do not enjoy it when you can't survive, or you beg off of others for items and stuff. I feel like 20 hours of solo practice is good, but at the very least, do not ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ die to darkness, being inable to get 2 twigs and 2 grass in (at the very least) 3 minutes makes others think lowly of you.
Also, do not starve at the base because chances are theres an ice box with perfectly good food in it.
And, a super secret technique that klei doesnt want you to know about is walking away. You do not have to kill everything that challenges you, if you arent ready for it yet just walk away. Most creatures are slower than you, and ones that arent usually can aggro onto other things. At the very least, if you're in trouble, click to walk (so you dont stand still) and say something that alerts others that you need assistance, or if playing solo try to find a wormhole to go in, although you can get hit while going in so it isnt perfect, but most things do have an animation that periodically plays so you can use that time to skidaddle.
And a final general tip, once you know a bit about the game and how it works, i'd recommend the Klei Dedicated Servers. Theres usually some people on them, and as long as you dont piss them off someone will probably be willing to give you some tips.
And do NOT eat: mandrakes, mandrake soup, raw big meat, butter, glommers goop, nor raw red caps, green caps, or monster meat, and do NOT play the pan flute unless you know what you are doing, do NOT leave pigskin on the floor, and do NOT take random stuff from the chests or dead people and just hoard it, stealing 30 purple gems or a star caller staff will not make people like you. An exception to the dead bodies is if they left. Click on their skeleton, and then press tab to check the server list.
And for the third final tip, do not get discouraged if you die, as with most games, this is a 'learn from your mistakes' type game, just know what you did wrong and continue on.

Now, as a certified maxwell main myself, some tips are:
-Almost always wear armor. With about half the health of regular characters, getting hit can be detrimental without armor. 4 hits from a spider or a hound will be enough to do you in.
also never make a grass suit no matter what character you're playing as it is trash

-If you dont know yet (as most beginners do not know how), learn how to kite and farm nightmare creatures.
Its fairly simple, basically it spawns in, you dodge the initial attack (or if skilled and with low lag you can get a first hit off of it, but its really only good againts crawling horrors, as terrorbeaks are faster and can 2 shot you without armor), then you hit it, then it will reappear, and try to hold F as it can spawn on you, and then repeat the steps.
As maxwell, nightmare fuel is an essential resource. To get it, you must go insane. I wouldnt recommend trying to farm nightmare fuel with only a spear. At least get something good, the best being Glass cutters (really good with 68 damage and 150 uses, but as a beginner you probably wont know how to lunar rush), Dark Swords (you may get living logs, but a shadow manipulator can be somewhat hard to get, and also requires nightmare fuel too), and Ham Bats (probably the best one as it has infinite durability, 60-50 damage when fairly fresh, good for stuff like that and can be fairly easy to make), and also armor. Tentacle spikes are also good, dealing 51 damage and have 100 attacks, but with each nightmare requiring either 6 or 8 hits and can be somewhat hard to get, its not the best for farming it, but at least its better than a spear.
In the early game, i like to lead 2 or 3 bunnies close together, then shadow prison them, and then shadow sneak them. When you do that, they drop a guaranteed nightmare fuel, unlike just going insane.
Once you are established, a good way to farm it is to spawn 6 duelists or servants (although i like duelists more because they dont try to clog your inventory with trash and can help fight if a hound wave or smth comes). Then, once they disappear, use the shadow prizon or shadow sneak to go insane again.
basically just 'duelist/servant when high, prison/sneak when low'

-Try not to go insane when fighting stuff.
When you eventually fight bosses or tougher enemies, you'll probably have 5 duelists spawned, and may need to use the shadow sneak sometimes. At 50 max sanity and insanity at around 30, you'll go insane pretty fast if using the prizon/sneak. Some bosses, especially if done with a team, wont need you to use the shadows that often, but if doing done solo, make sure to have some cooked cactus on hand just in case.
Also, you get stuck in an animation when spawning shadows, so try to make sure you're safe before spawning them.

-The Magician's tophat is really good storage.
12 slots for 6 silk and 2 nightmare fuel, what's not to like? Well one thing not to like is other people can take your stuff you put in it. If playing with random people, i would not recommend making a magician's box. If theres another maxwell on the server, be aware they can take your stuff too, but most of the time maxwell's are dapper chads and would never betray a fellow gamer. Others can also make shadow chester, but most dont do that so you're probably fine there.

(somewhat joke ones??:)
-THE 'Paperboy cap' SKIN FOR THE PINETREE PIONEER HAT MAKES MAXWELL THE DAPPEREST PERSON YOU CAN EVER IMAGINE
i like that skin, the only problem is you dont have it when you start out. I wouldn't recommend weaving skins until you get all the DLC characters, and then i'd get the emotes, but after that go and get that skin cause it makes me look funny. Also get the maxwell 'Merrymaker' skin as it makes him look even better

-Don't be afraid to eat cooked monster meat
idk maybe im just weird but i like eating cooked mm, really the only drawback is the -3 hp from it.

Theres probably a lot more tips but its getting fairly long and im all out of ideas but i hope this is good for you. Also sorry if i said any super advanced and confusing stuff, or if its way too long, i just like adding detail and sharing some tips i know

yeah wilson rework does change some things but from the beta, it doesnt seem to add to many game breaking things, i would say the transmutation and beard storage are the two bigest changes from his rework so far and if you dont know much on what to do then it doesnt rly change much


with the tips u gave i would agree with most of it however:

- avoiding fighting is a good option in most cases, but if its from a nightmare due to insanity you should priorities killing it before working again, as if not they can spawn more and more if you remain insaine and will overwhelm you

- its fine to eat raw meat cos like the only drawback is sanity loss, if your playing as Maxwell you will gain it back quick enough, and if not so long as your not chugging it till your insane then its relatively safe

-so long as you make it clear to ppl then most people wouldn't get too mad at you screwing up as they understand your new, as a general rule of thumb if you don't know what something is, does or how to obtain it, then you shouldn't touch it till you get help from someone else. and even so, if you in someone else's base using their material's to do something just ask before doing something and this goes with building in any long term server. always ask before doing something that could cause somewhat drastic change

- dont underestimate a spear, it may be pretty bad compared to other weapons but early game it is a reliable mediocre weapon, i would say use a spear if your unable to get a hambat or dark sword.

- with wendy its true ppl would rely on her and develop bad righting habits but its allways good to have her. i would keep her un-summoned unless i an specifically needing her for something. so if im just fighting a couple of hounds for example i wouldnt use her but if i run into a spider quarry i would get her for some added protection

- my unpopular opinion on maxwell is to use only 4 dualist or servants at a time, i do find myself using sneak and prison when using them so just sacrifice a bit of dmg so i dont screw up by being distracted with nightmares.


also if you do decide to try and get some nightmare fuel then i would usually go into a dence forest, summon 3 servants and 3 dualist. so my sanity is bottomed out and shadows will spawn, and the player can deal with them while the dualist can handle any tree gaurds that spawn from the shadow servants chopping trees, that way in the end you can have quite the bit of wood as a bonus, the nightmare fuel you farmed for and some monster meat and living logs to make some dank swords and meatbollz out of
(also bob u seem educated would liek to play on a server with u sometime, would be interesting xD)

[Rando the Crit Clown]

The best tip you can get is not to look up guides & tips. The game is really easy if you know what you're doing, the fun comes from being surprised and figuring things out on your own.

[laslax]

The biggest and most important thing is to turn off lag compensation.

Because Maxwell relies on nightmare fuel and shadow items you need to learn how to fight nightmare creatures for their fuel, and how to make yourself insane.
Maxwell's workers are best used for harvesting logs, but can also be used for mining faster than other characters. Just make sure that when you summon them to spread them out and not have their work radius overlap with each other.
Try not to use Maxwell's duelists until you have at least Maxwell's magician hat. And make sure to wear shadow items (like the hat) when using duelists to boost their damage.
Because Maxwell (and Woodie/Wurt) are good at harvesting logs, you can easily obtain log suits which are as good as a football helmet.

Making the backpack is very important.
Don't starve is all about fighting enemies for their loot/meat. The most important things you should be making is weapons, armor and healing items such as certain foods and healing salves.
Max health is never really a big deal so don't worry about Maxwell's low health, but just make sure you ALWAYS WEAR ARMOR when fighting something (this is for any character).
I wont spoil the seasons except for saying that burning trees is the easiest way to warm yourself up, and that each one will try to kill you in a separate way. Make sure to check the crafting tab for the seasonal stuff, all of them are important for your survival.

[Rando the Crit Clown]

Originally posted by laslax:

Because Maxwell relies on nightmare fuel and shadow items you need to learn how to fight nightmare creatures for their fuel, and how to make yourself insane.

No you don't. You can use Shadow Sneak on bunnies and/or bunnymen to make them drop a lot of easy nightmare fuel. You can also get it from splumonkeys (who can also be affected by Shadow Sneak), or the terrors in the ruins. Those are all far better ways to get fuel than making yourself insane.

Originally posted by laslax:

Maxwell's workers are best used for harvesting logs, but can also be used for mining faster than other characters. Just make sure that when you summon them to spread them out and not have their work radius overlap with each other.

Why would you want to restrict what they can do, and have them work very slowly? Overlapping radii is when they're at their best.

Originally posted by laslax:

Try not to use Maxwell's duelists until you have at least Maxwell's magician hat.

Why is 28 damage worth using but not 20? The difference is so small.

Originally posted by laslax:

Making the backpack is very important.

It's pretty handy early game to help carry things around while you're still finding stuff, I guess.

Originally posted by laslax:

Don't starve is all about fighting enemies for their loot/meat.

No it's not. It's all about not starving, and doing whatever you want. Many players never engage anything in combat.

Originally posted by laslax:

The most important things you should be making is weapons, armor and healing items such as certain foods and healing salves.

The most important thing is whatever the current situation calls for. Weapons, armor, and healing are useless if you aren't planning on fighting something.

Originally posted by laslax:

Max health is never really a big deal so don't worry about Maxwell's low health, but just make sure you ALWAYS WEAR ARMOR when fighting something (this is for any character).

It is a big deal, just not a huge one. Healing is likely to be less than perfectly efficient, many enemies will oneshot you if you have no armor on like surprise depths worms, multihit attacks from things like Klaus are extremely dangerous, and you barely have any leeway on when you can heal since even with armor you'll still probably die in like 5 hits.

[laslax]

Originally posted by Rando the Crit Clown:

No you don't. You can use Shadow Sneak on bunnies and/or bunnymen to make them drop a lot of easy nightmare fuel. You can also get it from splumonkeys, or the terrors in the ruins. Those are all far better ways to get fuel than "making yourself insane".

Whatever... I was just saying what works for me, and each one drops 1-2 nightmare fuel.

Originally posted by Rando the Crit Clown:

Why would you want to restrict what they can do, and have them work very slowly? Overlapping radii is when they're at their best.

If they work on the same thing it only slows them down.

Originally posted by Rando the Crit Clown:

Why is 28 damage worth using but not 20? The difference is so small.

It passes certain thresholds for like spiders and such i believe, and more damage is always good especially since duelists are nightmare fuel hungry.

Originally posted by Rando the Crit Clown:

No it's not. It's all about not starving, and doing whatever you want. Many players never engage anything in combat.

Ok Wormwood/Warly.

Originally posted by Rando the Crit Clown:

The most important thing is whatever the current situation calls for. Weapons, armor, and healing are useless if you aren't planning on fighting something.

I did not mention the hambat for a reason.

Originally posted by Rando the Crit Clown:

It is a big deal, just not a huge one. Healing is likely to be less than perfectly efficient, many enemies will oneshot you if you have no armor on like surprise depths worms, multihit attacks from things like Klaus are extremely dangerous, and you barely have any leeway on when you can heal since even with armor you'll still probably die in like 5 hits.

Enemies with 75 damage don't one shot you if you wear armor if you didn't know.
Maybe for bosses like CC AG and FW will max hp actually be a problem, but you will obviously be using good armor for those fights. (95% DR is very OP just ask Wanda)

[laslax]

i should reiterate, Its better for one to do 15 chops before finding another tree than two doing 8 and one missing their chop before moving to another. They can body block each other too i believe.