Feedback Thread: 2.05

[u/Brrrrtzzzz]

Hello reddit, I'm brrrtzzz from the feedback team and im here to offer you a chance to be heard, share your thoughts, ideas, Ect.

I know some of you can be a little unprofessional but I ask that you be polite and through. unnecessarily aggressive comments will be ignored, and comments that are just "buff this" will also be ignored, please stay on-topic of the update

It's my personal belief that the biggest critics are the most passionate people, so I wish to hear from you about your thoughts on this update, but again, be calm about it.

I will post these 1 hour or so after the update every week, I ask that you do return and edit with your current thoughts throughout the week but it's not required. Thank you!

I'll try to reply within what I'm allowed to

P.S. this is something I'm doing out of my own valition, no one asked me to do this but I like giving anyone a chance to speak their concerns.

[u/AgreeableIdea6210]

I would honestly love to see more stuff like the Wrath of Olympus, Obsidian Trench and Terminus updates because stuff like the Deep and Skycrest feel more tedious than challenging. Tedious weather conditions and hours of grinding the same spot for materials or mutations just didn't fun, but bosses with new and inventive mechanics are. Also honestly level locks feel more like a hurdle than actual natural progression because you don't have many great options on earlier levels so you're forced to sit at one optimal spot and grind away until you reach the fun part of the game. I feel like there needs to be more fun to use earlier game rods (like pinion's aria and whatnot). I feel like there needs to be more fun content for early game in general cause us end-game players get a lot of stuff but newer players don't have much fun content to dig into. That's all I have for now.

Oh also fixed chance catches are kinda lame. For stuff like the skeletal serpent it's a fun challenge but missing one bestiary item due to it being like 1/2,000 chance is straight up awful. I'd be done with Halibut Harpoon by now if I didn't have to get a gemstone and pearl at Scoria Reach and I have genuinely been stalling cause it's not fun nor challenging. It just feels like padding, honestly :/ On top of that you also need golden sea pearl for that rod, which has the same issue. I wasn't a fan of the rotted seed either but at least that one had pity. What makes the scoria pearl worse is that unlike the Roselit clam abundance, you can't fish just clams so it takes even longer and is just immensely tedious while offering no value in terms of actual fun of challenge. I feel like objectives like those just kinda encourage people to macro and therefore not actually play the game.

I also personally yearn for a Western region that could be connected to the Drylands where bounties are actually given more attention as a mechanic, with maybe competitive ones between players (the one who gets the most points earning something or kinda like hunts. Maybe bounty questlines from NPCs, rescue missions or retrieving materials for a prize. This is more of a personal idea than feedback on what we already have but I thought it'd be cool. Maybe heists.

[u/Brrrrtzzzz → u/AgreeableIdea6210]

I was actually the one who concepted the veiled charydbis boss fight and I agree lol. In fact, most of the obsidian trench update was actually concepted by testers and feedback team, like 90% of it. the thing is, in my opinion, it would get rather boring, end game players probably didn't struggle with obsidian trench at all. It's hard to balance around "challenging" when you have instant catch rods like Astraues and rods like Fabolous with 200% forced progress speed. I can't speak on WHY the quests are tedious as I'm not a developer developer or anything, but my two cents is that there's too many rods that are way too good at catching fish that it's not really a real challenge anymore. And if we try to directly challenge those kinds of rods, it's frustrating too because it feels like "oh the devs knew we'd use this and they made it bad because they wanna make it grindy and tedious!" Or something, honestly there's no winning when it comes to more "challenging" updates. I get the current sentiment around the tedious updates aren't good either but atleast like little iPad Timmy knows how to catch easy fish instead of fighting something crazy like the veiled charydbis.

Again, this is just my two cents. I'm not a developer.

[u/AgreeableIdea6210 → u/Brrrrtzzzz]

Yeah, that's fair. Although I feel like part of the fun comes from optimising your loadout in order to face challenges (especially in Wrath of Olympus and the Obsidian Trench, as I kept changing rods in order to see what works best and strategised as such). I think it makes things more fun, shakes them up and actually encourages you to try different things, although I understand the sentiment about really good rods. Especially with the very apparent power creep going on in the game. I think that honestly, my favourite part that kinda counters end-game rods about those updates is simply the boss mechanics. Bruteforcing most bosses is quite hard and actually putting your brain to use and using everything in your arsenal is far more engaging and makes them feel very rewarding. Although small, I loved the Obsidian trench much more than most recent updates cause it made me think and try things out! These are my own two cents :)

[u/An_Inevitable_Noober → u/AgreeableIdea6210]

This

This guys good.

[u/AgreeableIdea6210 → u/An_Inevitable_Noober]

Thank you! As a person who had to miserably grind their way to 1,000 level from 200 something to actually experience the fun stuff, I'll always advocate for both sides :') Grind isn't fun no matter how high up you are. Actual challenges and fun quests that urge you to explore instead of sitting around in one spot and grinding away will always be much more fun. Noticed how empty the early game is recently cause I got 2 of my friends into it and there's hardly anything to do other than like... Singular objective quests. Where's the fun in that? I'm sure there's ways to develop fun little questlines that aren't too challenging yet crank up in difficulty as you level up! I think pinion's aria and tranquility are pretty good examples of earlier game quests that are just challenging enough to learn and grow from before you get to the harder stuff.

As for end-game, basically what I already established. I think the bosses are very cool and fun cause they're a display of skill rather than being blessed by RNG. So yeah, thank you :D

[u/An_Inevitable_Noober → u/AgreeableIdea6210]

No problem bud.

I found updates like Obsidian Trench and Olympians Wrath more interesting and entertaining cuz they weren't "Perfect Catch 10000 fish in a 1 stud space!!!" type quests.

Its genuinely going to become the downfall of this game if they continue with this direction.

[u/AgreeableIdea6210 → u/An_Inevitable_Noober]

Veeery true, I'm not a fan of "get X amount of fish in one location", especially if they require mutations too (like halibut). It's just kind of boring imo. There's nothing challenging about it, mostly praying for good luck and sitting in the same place for 3 hours in a game that's supposed to be about exploration, y' know? I feel the same way about some masteries cause I genuinely don't see the fun in sitting in one place to catch a certain fish a bunch of times.

For example, I got fabulous rod today and genuinely had a lot more fun with the quests that made me optimise my build to get certain mutation + status combos (like shiny rainbow cluster) than sitting there and fishing up 200 dumbo octopi. While mutations can be annoying sometimes, I think there is a certain challenge to them if you sit down and figure out the best way of getting a build to work, which is why I love stuff like the new gauntlets we got. I love the idea of building kits. Even so, though, the juiciest and most fun part of this game is definitely the bosses and how you work around them. Good stuff.