Every time new players come in, I see the same questions and bug reports come up:
- My wheel of pain / animal pen / stable disappeared!
- Why doesn’t the game let me place this roof / ceiling?
- My thrall / pet / horse is gone! It’s not dead, but I can’t find it anywhere!
And every time this happens, older players have to share the “tribal knowledge”, because the game does nothing to teach newcomers about these things.
Now, I’m not complaining about having to teach newcomers. On the contrary, I’m always happy to do that. But the fact is that by the time a new player decides to ask a question, they already have a problem that can be hard to solve.
Finding a follower when you don’t know where you last set them to guard is a huge pain in the rear. Losing a wheel of pain can be a great loss to a low-level player who has just spent a considerable time farming up the resources for it and catching a few thralls to put on it. And even building stability problems can mean that the player has to tear down and rebuild parts of their structure.
I believe the game should have journey steps that teach the players to:
- use a repair hammer to check the stability and the decay timer
- command their follower to guard a certain spot
Additionally, there should probably be loading screen tips like “be sure to place your animal pen on foundations if you don’t want it to decay” and “if you tell your thrall to stop following you, they will return to the last place you set them to guard after a while”, along with “don’t eat yellow snow” 