It took a couple failed attempts before we found the right settings for an enjoyable game, but after that slightly rough start my friends and I are all having a pretty good time with it.

After trying several game modes and difficulties, my advice to anyone starting out is this:
-Play story on normal.
-Play with at least one friend, ideally 3 or 4
-Learn everything you can by eating random crap, messing around with crafting ingredients, and reading whatever the notes give you.
-F*** around and find out, just make sure to drop your tools and stuff before you drop dead so you can get it all back.
-Most importantly, know that you can disable leeches in the game settings once you're thoroughly fed up with picking them off every other second regardless of whether you're anywhere near water. Disabling leeches made everything so much less tedious and more enjoyable. It seems like it's also had the unintended side effect of disabling centipedes crawling out of the stuff you pick up, but that's not really a complaint either. It lets you disable spiders too, if that happens to be a concern for you.

So rough starts aside, I'm actually really liking it. The survival aspects are pretty nonsense so don't take it too seriously on that, but as a game it's a fairly unique experience with a lot of things going for it. Really rewards teamwork and paying attention to your surroundings. It's glitchy as hell, I'd say around bethesda level maybe higher with items glitching through the ground, objects being invisible to some players but not others, and in one instance a lock-up causing us to lose an hour of progress due to a corrupted save, but at least on my end (I'm not the one hosting) it hasn't been anything major.

Difficulty wise it might seem hard at first, but in a weird way it's more like it's you that levels up, not the character. Having already gotten a couple dozen hours in on two previous failed playthroughs, starting story mode on normal felt like New Game+ because we immediately knew what to look out for and how to deal with stuff. After sleeping in the mud for a week on attempt one, it was a pretty nice feeling to have a full camp with proper shelter setup day-one on the current game.

If you're into games like Ark or Icarus I'd say give this one a go. It might not be quite on their level, but it's been good fun in my opinion.

It took a couple failed attempts before we found the right settings for an enjoyable game, but after that slightly rough start my friends and I are all having a pretty good time with it. After trying several game modes and difficulties, my advice to anyone starting out is this: -Play story on normal. -Play with at least one friend, ideally 3 or 4 -Learn everything you can by eating random crap, messing around with crafting ingredients, and reading whatever the notes give you. -F*** around and find out, just make sure to drop your tools and stuff before you drop dead so you can get it all back. -Most importantly, know that you can disable leeches in the game settings once you're thoroughly fed up with picking them off every other second regardless of whether you're anywhere near water. Disabling leeches made everything so much less tedious and more enjoyable. It seems like it's also had the unintended side effect of disabling centipedes crawling out of the stuff you pick up, but that's not really a complaint either. It lets you disable spiders too, if that happens to be a concern for you. So rough starts aside, I'm actually really liking it. The survival aspects are pretty nonsense so don't take it too seriously on that, but as a game it's a fairly unique experience with a lot of things going for it. Really rewards teamwork and paying attention to your surroundings. It's glitchy as hell, I'd say around bethesda level maybe higher with items glitching through the ground, objects being invisible to some players but not others, and in one instance a lock-up causing us to lose an hour of progress due to a corrupted save, but at least on my end (I'm not the one hosting) it hasn't been anything major. Difficulty wise it might seem hard at first, but in a weird way it's more like it's you that levels up, not the character. Having already gotten a couple dozen hours in on two previous failed playthroughs, starting story mode on normal felt like New Game+ because we immediately knew what to look out for and how to deal with stuff. After sleeping in the mud for a week on attempt one, it was a pretty nice feeling to have a full camp with proper shelter setup day-one on the current game. If you're into games like Ark or Icarus I'd say give this one a go. It might not be quite on their level, but it's been good fun in my opinion.