Guess what, it’s a rant post. If you don’t want to read it, click off the post.
Alright, so vetex has recently made one single change that somewhat pretty much ruined something for me.
Let’s take a look at the latest update, 1.14.37.
Changes
- Merchants and deckhand merchants no longer sell any items over Uncommon tier.
- You can now only redock your ship once every 5 minutes.
- Updated the renown tutorial tip and hints regarding deckhands.
Bugs
- [Fixed] Ship docking error.
- [Fixed] Merchants and deckhand merchants can sell blank crafted jewels.
I want to point your attention to the second line of changes. Ship redock now has a cooldown of 5 minutes. This was possibly to address the gem requirements changing on redock, or merchant shop rerolls.
You might think, “okay, so?” Now, I want you to consider something. I collect and record data on NPCs. What does this change mean for that? Well, let me show two examples.
EXHIBIT A: OUTFIT STYLES
Deckhand outfits. As we know, vetex added six new styles in the update, all of which have overlapping accessories with previously existing sets - some more than others.
Now, the easiest way to analyze this was to have a loyal deckhand swap outfits and redock, but guess what? I can’t redock rapidly to check any new accessories.
This is going to delay my deckhand outfit guide…
EXHIBIT B: CREW NPC NAMES
I haven’t finished my NPC name log yet. These are regular NPC names, used for the sailor crew and most normal NPCs, the Ravenna crew names, used for Ravenna soldiers, and the Redwake crew, which is used exclusively by them. This change means 6 names every 5 minutes. Great…
EXHIBIT C: OUTFIT TESTING
So, you know how NPCs don’t equip their given items (or swapped outfits) until you redock? Yeah, testing which outfits make my deckhands stylish is going to be a pain now. This is similar to exhibit A, but this is more widely impactful on the playerbase as a whole since many don’t know how the outfit would look. Hell, not even I can fully imagine an outfit on my NPCs.
Solutions:
Now, as vetex is the one who owns the game, I honestly can’t really do anything about this dissatisfaction. I highly doubt he’d care about my concerns anyways.
Still, there is a way you can help: Photography.
Send me photos of your crew, of your deckhands wearing the new outfits, of deckhands you just find out in towns. Send me photos. And in that way, maybe I can fill out my logs without looking through my thousands of photos (which are there as backup or guides).