Before diving into this discussion, yes I did make this account just now just to make this post.
It’s now been almost a week since the update released. Me personally, I’ve had a lot of fun. The update was great and I liked the new things added along with it. But that doesn’t mean it was perfect or without any issues.
The issues both good and bad are what I’d like to discuss about in this post. First to start it off: Phenomenal update. Insane what a single guy can do in a rather short amount of time (think it took like 4 or 5 months from what I read?).
The issue I seem to have, is that when you do it once, you kind of seem to know the whole thing (Reference to sailing into the dark sea). Obviously there’s further insanity levels and the epicenter etc but most people won’t feel the need to sail to that point and will just stick to the first few insanity levels at most. The first few insanities and even the later ones all operate roughly the same: You sail in, dodge the waves and lightning bolts, find an island that might have some npcs guarding chests and a few structures (I’m pretty sure the structures are the same every time from what I’ve seen, could be wrong obviously). The islands themselves can vary in the size and height and the I guess you could say biomes…? of the islands, but besides that the islands follow the same linear build structure every time. Now this isn’t a bad thing on it’s own. I just feel like there isn’t as much replayability as I had hoped for. I go in and I already know what to expect every single time. I know the islands and atlanteans aren’t the only content you can find, such as you can also find sirens, which I think are a fantastic add and the occasional ghost ships that lead you to islands, cargo or abandoned ships. I just feel like there isn’t a point for me personally to explore the dark sea after I’ve achieved the items I wanted, as there isn’t anything to look forward to or exciting about the trip once you know it’s just those things on repeat. This is just a small little starting rant, as this can be so easily fixed by just adding basically anything.
The second rant would be about the overall mechanics of the dark sea you could say? From my experience, the dark sea was hyped up to be this massive mysterious and dangerous sea that you NEEDED a crew to explore with, otherwise you just wouldn’t survive. Fast forward to the actual dark sea and it’s quite easy to do solo. Now again, not a bad thing. Just wasn’t what I expected. To start off: The compass. Even though a great add, removes all fear of ever getting lost. Now obviously, who doesn’t like knowing where they are in a massive open sea, but I feel like adding a free navigation tool that points you straight towards the bronze sea again kills the threat levels a little bit. At least make it so it can malfunction at times and lead you the wrong way before returning to normal (Now this would be tricky as you would have no way knowing when it turned back to normal, so probably an unlikely and unwelcomed idea). The second part of this would been about the water poisoning, but I actually came to like it. Keeps you on your toes while sailing and exploring rather than just shutting your brain off and autopiloting. I’d like to see more environment status effects such as the water poisoning. Maybe perhaps once you sail further in, along side the water poisoning the air would get colder or thinner. For the cold air you would be forced to warm yourself up, be so with an added way of doing so, or by having magic/tools that provide heat. The thinner air could make your stamina regen slower, as there is less oxygen, it takes you longer to regenerate your stamina. Just a few ideas, don’t take these to heart.
I would of continued this rant further, but it’s already quite long and I doubt anyone’s even making it this far in. So I’ll be stopping it here and maybe continuing one day.
Once again, amazing update, thank you Vetex for the hard work you’ve put in, and I’m excited for future updates.
