The Dark Sea Update [Feedback Post]

Game Discussion
1

NOTE: 1.14.3 Polls and Questions added, please check them out!

With a new update, comes a new Forum post from yours truly to gather your feedback, this time on the Dark Sea update, so that we may improve the game with your suggestions.

As usual, I ask you guys to be impartial with your judgement on this update, do not hold back, but please don’t use a negative tone to criticise; it would also help if you came up with what could be done to solve the issues you may present.

Polls and Questions

A large amount of polls and questions this time.

Polls

What would you rate the Dark Sea Update based on what was promised?
  • Perfect
  • Good
  • Decent
  • Mediocre
  • Lacklustre
  • Horrible

0 voters

Do you think the Dark Sea Update has improved the PvE Experience?
  • Yes, it has by a lot.
  • Yes, but not by too much.
  • Barely has.
  • No, it has remained the same.
  • No, it became worse.

0 voters

Do you think the Rough Seas in the Dark Sea are too visually obstructive?
  • No, they aren’t.
  • They barely are.
  • They are, but they don’t impact my experience too much.
  • They are annoying.
  • They are.

0 voters

What do you think about Rain Poisoning?
  • I love it!
  • I don’t dislike it.
  • It’s a fair mechanic.
  • It’s a decent mechanic.
  • I don’t like it.
  • I dislike it.
  • I hate it.

0 voters

What do you think about Atlantean enemies?
  • I love fighting them!
  • I think they’re a fair challenge!
  • I think they’re a little too powerful.
  • I think they’re unfair.
  • I don’t like fighting them.
  • I hate them.

0 voters

What do you think about Sirens?
  • I love fighting them!
  • I think they’re a fair challenge!
  • I think they’re a little too powerful.
  • I think they’re unfair.
  • I don’t like fighting them.
  • I hate them.

0 voters

Do you feel like the Brig is mandatory for the Dark Sea?
  • No
  • A little
  • Not really
  • Slightly
  • Very
  • Yes

0 voters

Is the Dark Sea too time-consuming for what it offers?
  • No
  • A little
  • Not really
  • Slightly
  • Very
  • Yes

0 voters

Do islands spawn often enough? (i.e. 5 minutes of sailing should bring you at the very least to an island or two)
  • Yes
  • Sometimes
  • Barely
  • No

0 voters

Are the rewards sufficient for what the Dark Sea is?
  • Yes
  • Very
  • Slightly
  • Not really
  • A little
  • No

0 voters

Does the rain in the Dark Sea obstruct your view?
  • No
  • A little
  • Not really
  • Slightly
  • Very
  • Yes

0 voters

Does the fog in the Dark Sea obstruct your view?
  • No
  • A little
  • Not really
  • Slightly
  • Very
  • Yes

0 voters

Questions

Please quote the questions you are answering to.

  • Do you think the Dark Sea Update has improved diversity in terms of builds?
  • Do you think the Dark Sea Update has made min-maxing mandatory given the balance changes to items?
  • Do you think the Dark Sea Update’s jewels and the balance changes related to them have improved the mechanic itself and the interest in it?
  • What do you think about the Rough Seas present in the Dark Sea? Do you think they are too obstructive?
  • What do you think about Rain Poisoning?
  • What do you think about Atlantean enemies?
  • What do you think about Sirens? Are they too difficult to find?
  • What do you think about the Brig? Do you think it’s mandatory to use for the Dark Sea?
  • Is the Dark Sea too time-consuming? Should the length of the layers be lowered?
  • Do islands spawn often enough? Do they present any issues?
  • Are the rewards sufficient for what the Dark Sea is?
  • Does the rain in the Dark Sea obstruct your view? If so, by how much?
  • Does the fog in the Dark Sea obstruct your view? If so, by how much?

1.14.3 Polls

[v1.14.3] Do islands spawn often enough? (i.e. 5 minutes of sailing should bring you at the very least to an island or two)
  • Yes
  • Sometimes
  • Barely
  • No

0 voters

1.14.3 Questions

  • Has island spawning improved compared to the previous version?
  • Do sharks spawn too frequently in both the Bronze Sea and the Dark Sea? Do Giant White Eyes spawn too often in the Dark Sea when compared to other giant sharks?

Conclusion

Yes, this topic doesn’t have dodge reflexes, the progression of fishing rods and shovels, and ship balancing; fishing rods and shovels are rather a work in progress, but you can still choose to talk about them if you wish.

As for dodge reflexes, those require a topic by themselves, and the same could be said for ship balancing.

The feedback you give us even by just answering to the polls helps a lot, but don’t hesitate to voice your own opinions either!

3 Likes
2
3

The Atlantean items has so much potential for some builds.

Not really tbh.

Not sure, haven’t gotten into jewelcrafting much.

they are barely noticeable

Really annoying since sometimes the UI bugs out and you cant wash yourself. Also getting rain poisoning while halfway across a island is annoying.

A pretty nice challange.

I haven’t seen one in like 30 minutes buff spawn rates please.

Brig is def mandatory for dark sea since it has so many features you need in the Dark Sea.

Layers take too long to get in and get out of.

They rarely spawn and even if they do, you cant seem them because of the fog and rain.

They obstruct vision alot.

2 Likes
4

bringing sealeds from islands to your ship is insanely annoying when there’s multiple in one spot, you gotta go back and forth so many times

9 Likes
5

Honestly, if we could open them on the spot in exchange for potentially destroying the loot inside. I’d honestly prefer breaking, say, 2 others and taking 1 back down.

2 Likes
6

Not by much, it just increase powercreep with highrisk-highreward items

Yep

Abosuletly, now using side stats (size, speed, agility, intensity) is now as fair as using other 2 stats

For maxed player they dont do anything, but for newer palyers i think it will

Kinda annoying, thought poisoning will be ocean only thingy.

I used to think that big enemies are slow…I was wrong, they are fast.

Within my 2 hours i have found their island only once.

very biased opinnion - brig is the best ship. Mobile base.

I think it should be like this. The further you are, the larger the range.

Dark sea is empty see ngl.

Too little time have passed, but so far it looks meh for usual players, but good for minmaxer

You get used to it.

Cant see anything, but its the issue of isladns spawning.

1 Like
7

seems like a hinderance that only really happens when i’m fighting atlanteans :skull: (maybe it’ll be better now that it got fixed, haven’t played in anything but 1.14 servers)

Overall a big fan of the update, would just like to see a little more reward (my personal desire would be rare spell scroll chance bumped up to 2%, but i think any buff to loot would work)

8

Too early to tell imo, but more weapons, abilities and armour can only be improvements

Made jewels more of a long term feature, instead of a max out and don’t use feature.

Occasionally obstructive of obstacles, could be toned down a bit.

Annoying, but alright usually when just sailing. Possibly disable it in combat, having to hop into the cabin during a fight is annoying as hell.

Mutated Atlanteans are the only enemy I don’t try to solo, and even normal ones can pack a punch. I enjoy the challenge even if boats are a risk to fight. Promotes teamwork.

Yet to find any.

Yeah, its very slightly too time consuming imo. Especially because I won’t have hours every day to play, only being able to go to the lower ranges.

Islands can be difficult to find. Occasionally they can spawn as just a sheer wall, no way to climb.

New enchants are good, and theres enough rewards to last me a while before I get everything. Good enough if new items are added over time (A few each update perhaps)

Yes. To the point where if Kenton warns me of the Wave Crash event, It takes me a few seconds to spot the waves.

Imagine fort talos or titan caverns without a light on graphics 2

9

Spent about 3 hours in the dark sea yesterday and couldn’t find a single siren

layers are too long yes

They are a bit too rare and should have more enemies on them

dark sealed chests should give more galleons cause everyone is bleeding money from expeditions

It’s annoying but you can still see through it

Legit can’t see a thing without clearsight 5, this is more of an issue because of how small some structure spawnrates are

10

First server I was in had everything constantly flooded and the rough seas almost always covered the entire brig, nobody could see anything and it was really not fun to explore like that, I hope it doesn’t get that way in the far reaches either, honestly, it just looks dumb and annoying like that.
Second server there was little to no rough seas and sailing was shockingly smooth.

So… yesn’t???

I think that bugs associated with the bathing mechanic warrant it being temporarily disabled until they are absolutely 100% fixed, I’ve lost 1 or more people in every single because they were poisoned, and they literally couldn’t get rid of it because the prompt didn’t show up for them.

Too much hp and way too focused on M1s if they’re anything but a mage.

I wish I could find them more often, they have good drops and a decent hoard of dark sealed chests but I’m not sure how many times I’ve missed their song over the chaos everywhere else.

Well duh, it was very clearly and deliberately designed to be mandatory to have the brig lol.

YES.

Last night I climbed an island that went above the tornados and found 4 dark sealed chests total at the top that’d take me a good 20 minutes to get down.
I also encountered several more situations where I couldn’t recover sealed chests because of how they generated like a randomly generated cave in the center of a complete ring island.

So far, no.
I don’t know what all loot is in there and I don’t want to but 99% of what I’ve gotten are not all that great, I’ve found more than a couple items that do literally nothing but give me insanity.

On the note of the silver/gold cooking pots/cauldrons, though, they do NOT give enough benefit, straight up.
I think that instead of only boosting the effect of the consumable item, every use of it should give you many more of that consumable because of just how much of a pain it is to find those things.
like I’m talking 5 potions per brew for silver and 10 for gold and similar numbers for food items.

Better potions is good, don’t get me wrong, but a single use consumable is a single use consumable.

Same thing I said about the rough seas.

I noticed that fog works more like in Fantastic Frontier in the dark sea with an actual sphere around you that is impossible to see through.
It, on its own, obstructs view exactly as much as it is intended to because of that.
I don’t believe it would be an issue if the events players wanted to see generated often enough that players aren’t sailing for 10-20 minutes without finding anything but bad weather and abandoned ships.
(unless abandoned ships are buffed in some major way, ghost ships should only point to more noteworthy locations, nearly all of them just go to abandoned ships)

1 Like
11

So personally water poisoning seems to exist just to annoy people, maybe it should slowly increase in damage dealt rather than randomly do 35 damage

The worst part by far is how it can trigger while you‘re injured, making you go from 100 second till you die to 3

4 Likes
12

I agree, while the problems you just mentioned with being downed have been patched (water poisoning’s status cooldown now works right and you’re properly immune to damage when dying) I don’t really like "hey here’s some damage, better fix it fast!!!’ having the chance to happen just at any time abruptly.

On another note unrelated to the reply, one thing I forgot to mention was the tornados and lightning.
Both of these are super annoying hazards in an unfun way.

The tornados have way way way too much range, like twice what they look like they have and the lightning has no warning or way to avoid it whatsoever, the game just says “fuck you” and you take a shit ton of damage.

6 Likes
13

Red lightning actually has a telegraph, you hear lightning sounds when it’s about to happen.

Although they also love to sometimes be too quiet, and then blow up into my face for most of my healthbar

14

ok I’m sorry but nothing in the dark seas as it stands should have an audible telegraph like that.
everything is so loud and there’s CONSTANTLY thunder sounds.
(also hearing thunder doesn’t tell you where its gonna strike, you’re just as likely to sail straight into where it’ll hit as you are to dodge it if you turn)

1 Like
15

It needs to be louder the closer you are to where it strikes honestly

16

over the crashing waves, other thunder sounds, and tornados, I CANNOT pay attention to any particular weather noise in a meaningful way.
I can barely even tell where the damn singing is coming from.

3 Likes
17

You’ve encountered sirens?

Those things feel absurdly rare

On another note why is the fog so damn strong like you need a clear sight five brew to see anything

1 Like
18

I’ve encountered them 3 or 4 times but the last time my group found them we were escaping for one of us to get true captain so we ignored them.
(It was a success)

19

One more thing, I feel like there needs to be some sort of border for the next range, like some sort of visual to indicate you’re in the next range

3 Likes
20

Lower white eyes spawn rates PLEASE
I LITERALLY don’t see any other sea monsters

10 Likes