Why I don't recommend Sandrock

[Harris]

Last week I finished my 200-hours playthrough of Sandrock and gave it a negative review. And now, after the game released, it suddenly exploded. Unfortunately, I did not discover it from Steam awards notifications. I discovered it because of all the people going out of their way to contact me and tell me how much of a terrible person I am and wish me prostate cancer. One even went as far as to dig up my old review from years ago where I made a mistake of not setting comments to "disabled". What they wrote me was something along the lines of "Even though a developer acknowledged your feedback and told you it's incredibly valuable, you're actually wrong and your review is bs. Grow up kid".

Now, I'm not going to give a verbatim of a 8000 characters review, you are welcome to look that up if you'd like, but the bottom line is - Sandrock is flawed. It would be delusional to think it's not. For days after I wrote that I thought of many other things I either forgot to add or there just wasn't enough space to do so. And the main flaws I pointed out and the devs agreed with is bloat and "quantity over quality" approach of Sandrock. I am checking out the full release right now, and my criticisms stand, even taller than before in fact. Yes, we do get to build houses for 3 new families in the endgame now. But what's the point? They are all literally random NPCs without side-quests, voice acting, pretty much anything than a name and a short backstory summarized by "adventurer from Tallsky" or "grandmother of two". At this point, about half the people I see on the streets of Sandrock are either unnamed tourists or the characters outside the core cast that joined following a quest - like Catori's son or the pair of Geeglers. Sandrock is now large, but dead. And that goes for areas surrounding it. For example, what's the point of Dead Sea, if it's only needed for a single quest and the resources from this area are only ever used in 1 or 2 recipes? Yes, there is a factory and greenhouse now, but both feel glitchy, unwieldy and shoehorned on top of the existing systems. I ended up deleting the factory and doing things the old way. Yes, we now get a medal from Civil Corps - but we can't even wear it alongside the Sandrock Hero one. I seriously need to stop now, because this will turn into a second 8000 characters review before I know it.

I'd like people to realize that an opinion different to their own should not be seen as a personal attack or an attempt to invalidate their experience. I'm as much of a fan as the next guy, I got all the DLC for Portia and now Sandrock, because I'm excited to see what Pathea does next with the franchise. But being a blind fanboy only does the game a disservice. Like I said in the review, Sandrock got its diamonds, but they are buried too deeply under the sand for a lot of people to see and enjoy them. Sandrock tries to accomplish too many things at once. It sits on multiple chairs, but ends up falling clumsily to the floor. Yes, you can build a house, but it's ultimately a pointless affair as the rooms are mostly needed to store relics, which shouldn't be in your house in the first place since museum exists. Sandrock is at its strongest when it deviates from its nature as a shallow game. At such moments I get excited but also bitter - as I get a glimpse into what kind of game we could have received instead. Nia is a single, but perhaps the most prominent example of this. She got more background and personality than whole of Portia AND Sandrock, combined. I would gladly trade away 20 love interests from either game for just 5 deep characters like her. But that, unfortunately, is not an option.

So what I wanted to say is I enjoyed Sandrock. It was a great adventure and an emotional experience. But it was also a tedious experience - early game was a struggle, and I had the urge to stop playing multiple times, both because of tedious mechanics and because of some particularly obnoxious characters. While I ultimately had the willpower to sit through all the grind - I honestly don't think it's fair to expect many other people to have the same. Nor do I believe a game should take 50-100 hours before it becomes enjoyable.

[Pancakeparty]

Publicado originalmente por syzara:

Publicado originalmente por Ihateeverybody:

I mean. What is clown farming? It sounds like someone is actively giving them these things.

I know its not me. So by responding to the Post how are we aiding this endevor?

It's the people who give the OP the Jester award what makes the clown thing going.

Keep in mind this apparent troll managed to be the top post in our discussion group here on Steam for the last couple of hours. While I sincerely prefer talking about either issues or happiness. This whole review thing is neither.

The best one can do with this kind of person is ignore them tho, so no one else feels the need to give the OP yet another Jester. I mean him having 203 of them should be Spider Georg levels of enough already, and also be enough of a hint to assume the clown farming is real.

First of all this isn't a fan made forum for lovers of MTAS.

This is Steam where posting feed back and reviews on games you buy is one on the main functions of this platform. If seeing a perfectly reasonable review of MTAS hurts your feelings this badly, maybe have your anti virus block Steam to spare your feelings.

[syzara]

Publicado originalmente por Pancakesplease:

This is Steam where posting feed back and reviews on games you buy is one on the main functions of this platform. If seeing a perfectly reasonable review of MTAS hurts your feelings this badly, maybe have your anti virus block Steam to spare your feelings.

You're either a friend or an alt of the OP. Also you lack reading comprehension.

[Harris]

Publicado originalmente por Wolfe:

Simple, maybe it's not that bad, but it's not good enough that you'd suggest people spend money on it. But since you already did, might as well play it, since it's not that bad.
Or maybe, someone likes playing bad games, but doesn't recommend them to others, because most people like good games.
Or maybe, it takes that long to realize.... "This" is all there is to it? There's nothing else? Well... that's not recommendation worthy.

Exactly! All of these are spot on. Sometimes I keep playing to at least get my money's worth. Sometimes I want to give it a benefit of a doubt, like maybe it gets better down the line? And most of the time, it doesn't. Sometimes a game fits my niche taste but I have a reasonable belief it's not for everyone. Not because the others are inferior or anything.

At the end of the day, a review is not even about whether you personally like the game or not. It's about whether you'd recommend it to other people.

Publicado originalmente por Pancakesplease:

Also, not recommending a game doesn't mean someone "hates" it. It means it they feel it needs to improve in the areas that they mentioned before they can personally recommend it.

Absolutely this! I don't "hate" Sandrock. In a way, I even love it. My Nia screenshots are testament to that.

I just look at it and wish it was a better game than it actually is. I realize what these devs are actually capable of, I see potential, which was wasted on bloating the game beyond comprehension. And seeing it makes me sad.

I would like the devs to really take this piece of my (and to be fair, not just mine) feedback to heart. Because I'd like the next chapter of My Time to be an improvement, not a reskin.

Publicado originalmente por syzara:

It's the people who give the OP the Jester award what makes the clown thing going.

Don't give me Jesters then... problem solved?

Matter of fact, I really dislike them. It even feels disrespectful to receive them, in a way. It feels like people telling you "you're a clown" or "you're a joke" even though you made effort to produce a well-thought and eloquent piece of criticism they just failed to agree with.

It's just like it or not, Jesters came to mean "I disagree" around this parts. And I realize, in a certain way it's actually a good thing people receive them. It's a reward for bravery of sorts, for daring to speak against the hivemind. People should be rewarded for doing something like that. It prevents echo chambers from forming.

The whole idea of "farming" them I find kinda absurd though. Because, again, what am I supposed to do with those 240.000 points as it is? Convert them to bitcoin? Steam doesn't allow that unfortunately.

Publicado originalmente por Pancakesplease:

This is Steam where posting feed back and reviews on games you buy is one on the main functions of this platform.

Indeed. For this reason, I also dislike forum moderation of any kind, especially when the developer does it. Because just like reviews, quite a few players browse forums as part of forming their opinion before committing to purchase. So providing feedback and all kinds of opinion here is also important. Like you said, it's not a Sandrock fan club. I imagine I would be banned at their Discord for negativity inside their safe space. So I don't go there.

Publicado originalmente por syzara:

You're either a friend or an alt of the OP. Also you lack reading comprehension.

Please take a deep breath. Now count to 10. Now think about it. Do you really think it's absolutely impossible (as in - not a chance in the universe) for someone to agree with my take without being my friend, alt, dog or lover?

Is it really so hard to comprehend the fact you are in minority here while the majority wants to actually have a productive and cozy discussion rather than all that ad hominem and conspiracy theories nonsense?

[undefined]

Video game people are either children or overgrown children. You can't expect them to listen to reason and be able to handle criticism of the things they hold dear, whether those things are actual trash or not. You also have to understand the hive mentality that permeates the internet.

The entire culture of the internet is built on silencing opinions that don't align with the circle jerk. Rap music is popular, McDonald's is popular, network TV is popular. Does that fact make those things automatically good? Free thinking and forming your own opinions are not well received ideas online.

In short, you're asking way too much of this community. It's like politely asking a 2 year old to stop having a tantrum.

[Coltrek]

Harris » Reviews » My Time at Sandrock

"Sandrock feels awfully derivative - it just grabs about every single gameplay element and design decision from Portia and carefully copy/pastes them into a new game. The only meaningful difference here is the new desert setting, and frankly - it’s terrible and doesn’t work for a game like this."

Have you forgotten about the RPG, fighting, cards game, racing, etc, about they too are using the same formulas from the past projects and fine tuning it, the games like final fantasy uses the same techniques through out the series, but making adjustments.
I kinda agree with what the dev said about you.
You're just one person out of billions out there.

[Pancakeparty]

Publicado originalmente por syzara:

Publicado originalmente por Pancakesplease:

This is Steam where posting feed back and reviews on games you buy is one on the main functions of this platform. If seeing a perfectly reasonable review of MTAS hurts your feelings this badly, maybe have your anti virus block Steam to spare your feelings.

You're either a friend or an alt of the OP. Also you lack reading comprehension.

You lack comprehension, period. An alt or friend because I'm not trashing him like you and the other chuds are? Hilarious.

[PacificCloud]

It's sad that people will attack you for not liking something they like, while I don't agree with your takes with regards to the end game content, I think anyone who is literally attacking you over an opinion of a video game of all things needs to get some help.

It's so silly, how personally people take valid criticism over a product they have zero stake in, it is actually sad.

[Pancakeparty]

Publicado originalmente por Hadley:

Video game people are either children or overgrown children. You can't expect them to listen to reason and be able to handle criticism of the things they hold dear, whether those things are actual trash or not. You also have to understand the hive mentality that permeates the internet.

The entire culture of the internet is built on silencing opinions that don't align with the circle jerk. Rap music is popular, McDonald's is popular, network TV is popular. Does that fact make those things automatically good? Free thinking and forming your own opinions are not well received ideas online.

In short, you're asking way too much of this community. It's like politely asking a 2 year old to stop having a tantrum.

it's funny to see some of them losing their ♥♥♥♥ over one persons personal opinion about a indie game on steam.

[MangorushZ]

He's just farming for clown points, he must saw something great if he was playing for 200+ hours.

[Pancakeparty]

Publicado originalmente por MangorushZ:

He's just farming for clown points, he must saw something great if he was playing for 200+ hours.

Really, did you look at the rewards?

[NSpectre7]

Publicado originalmente por Harris:

Absolutely this! I don't "hate" Sandrock. In a way, I even love it. My Nia screenshots are testament to that.

I just look at it and wish it was a better game than it actually is. I realize what these devs are actually capable of, I see potential, which was wasted on bloating the game beyond comprehension. And seeing it makes me sad.

I would like the devs to really take this piece of my (and to be fair, not just mine) feedback to heart. Because I'd like the next chapter of My Time to be an improvement, not a reskin.

There are a few ways to take the overall opinion, and what you feel is fine, but not necessarily what others will feel. I'm all for discussion though. Perhaps this entire thread would have been better by asking a question like what would you change/add if you could rather than complain that people don't like your review.

That being said I'm not faulting you. I think not recommending the game is harsh as I think its probably one of the best farming sim games, but it definitely has flaws. Unfortunately the flaws are likely never going to get fixed. To me the problem seems to be with content. Everyone says the game was long but I thought it was incredibly short, and like you, felt that the content was spread a bit thin. I don't need my house to be customizable if I cant do anything with it. I don't need a barn, coop, or farm if its going to be a huge resource sink for little to no gain. The skill tree is cool, but does it need to be a tree when there are only three perks? DLC and expansions can fix this by adding more, or fixing the lackluster side content like animals or farming, but I'm not holding my breath as Portia was left in a pretty bare bones state. Perhaps Portia was ditched to start fresh with this and they will really take the time to polish this game, but we can only wait and see. Sandrock is such an upgrade over Portia that it makes me hesitant to doubt Pathea going forward, but it still has the feeling of an indie title.

Outside of content the biggest problem I see is the core game play loop. It's weird to me that manufacturing is the biggest focus of the game yet they don't do anything with it outside of the story. There doesn't seem to be a purpose to your builder unless someone has a job for you. No need for pipes, wire, or any of the rest unless your told explicitly that its needed. Sure I love it when the main quest kicks in, or one of the townsfolk want to upgrade their house, or need some furniture, but it doesn't happen often enough to warrant me sitting around and twiddling my thumbs the rest of the time. In other games you spend your time gathering resources in order to use most of them on an upgrade, a job, or any number of things. You feel like your actually playing the game. Not to mention that most of the upgrades and additions either open up new avenues for prosperity or uses for your hard earned resources. Spend the 50 iron you just mined on a sprinkler so you don't waste energy and time on watering your plants and can therefore get more iron in a day. Or maybe you want to upgrade your pickaxe so you can mine faster and higher tier ore. Perhaps you want to invest in new buildings or machines to make passive currency or items which can be used for more than cooking pointless meals? This game has none of that. Upgrading your work stations/tools is a necessity and a simple one at that. Once everything is upgraded to the current tier what do you make, what do you work towards? The system works better for automation games where there are less items or more generalized crafting recipes. Perhaps I'm playing wrong, or missing something, but I just don't understand how it wants me to play when the story is not in play. Maybe just adding in a town upkeep meter which can be filled with random parts and pieces would help. Treat it like the food drive where you can donate materials to make the town nicer and perhaps have stages. Donate a billion points worth of resources and the town upgrades to town level two and no longer looks like its held together by bubblegum and duct tape. Do that again to get town level 3...etc.

At the end of the day Sandrock is a fun game, and well worth the price I think. I love the story. I love that the characters are not whiny and depressed like other indie farming sims. I love the concept of building a better community. It's astonishing to me that I can think this game is broken at its core, yet its still better than most other farming sims. Making video games is hard, and they did a good job for the most part. I just hope they stick with it and give us some juicy updates.

[PacificCloud]

Publicado originalmente por NSpectre7:

My Nia screenshots are testament to that.

Bro same, I have been taking so many screenshots of the Builder and Nia. They are so freaking cute.

[󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡]

So I decided to look at the OP's profile and check their reviews and they have like 9 pages of game reviews and 70% to maybe 80% of them are all Negative. lol?

and quite a bit of the ones that are positive are the trash hentai games that probably don't even have animations.

They even rated RE1, RE8 and RE4 remake as negative, RE3 I can understand but nah, this person is a straight up troll.

I guarantee when they give negative reviews and stuff, they're hoping to farm Steam Points off reaction rewards or something.


(and yes, I will indeed, not subscribe to the thread.)
I don't need to be wasting anymore time other than pointing this out about the OP to everyone else.

[Spazfrag]

Publicado originalmente por 󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡:

So I decided to look at the OP's profile and check their reviews and they have like 9 pages of game reviews and 70% to maybe 80% of them are all Negative. lol?

What a small mind you have. lol?

Most of the reviews I leave are negative, if not then I should write more. The way I view things is that people need to be warned if a game is bad, but no need to warn them that a game is good.

I'd say Ad hominem, but that would probably go over your head.

[Harris]

Publicado originalmente por Coltrek:

"Sandrock feels awfully derivative - it just grabs about every single gameplay element and design decision from Portia and carefully copy/pastes them into a new game. The only meaningful difference here is the new desert setting, and frankly - it’s terrible and doesn’t work for a game like this."

Have you forgotten about the RPG, fighting, cards game, racing, etc, about they too are using the same formulas from the past projects and fine tuning it

Nobody expects a sequel to be an entirely different game, that's true, but I'm not merely talking about "using the same formulas". I am talking about reusing "about every single gameplay element and design decision from Portia".

With Sandrock, we can play bingo. If Portia had some mechanics or elements - Sandrock has it. The only thing Sandrock doesn't have that Portia had is conductive floor (which I'm kinda missing tbh)

Publicado originalmente por Coltrek:

You're just one person out of billions out there.

Which is awesome! This means my contrarian review won't make too much of a difference and won't drive Pathea out of business (it would be terrible if it did). I know plenty of people love Sandrock, hell I'm maybe even one of them. But I don't want success to go into devs' heads. I don't want them to settle for less and treat mediocrity as the new standard.

So I just went and pointed out the most apparent flaws that I've been facing throughout my playthrough. Because otherwise... I mean, have you even looked what negative reviews for Sandrock look like? Pretty much nothing there outside of some complaints about multiplayer. Someone might even get the impression it's perfect. It's clearly not, and I'd like this kind of feedback to be used for a better sequel in the future. So I'm glad the devs acknowledged it.

Publicado originalmente por NSpectre7:

I don't need my house to be customizable if I cant do anything with it. I don't need a barn, coop, or farm if its going to be a huge resource sink for little to no gain.

Yes! This could be said about pretty much every system. It's shallow and superfluous.

Not going to digest your post in its entirety, but it's great and I agree with it. Sandrock may be the best farming sim right now, but it's still pretty flawed in a way that I just can't give it a pass.

Publicado originalmente por PacificCloud:

Bro same, I have been taking so many screenshots of the Builder and Nia. They are so freaking cute.

In a way, adding Nia was a mistake. It illustrated what kind of character and experience the devs are capable of creating. And it made every other romance interest look bad in comparison. It showed how could Sandrock look like if they went for quality over quantity. Nia pretty much deserves a game of her own.

And this "what the game could have been instead" is something I find myself thinking a lot. For example, right now in my game is our marriage anniversary. You would think the game would have given us something cool for the occassion, right?

Well, no, I simply got a quest from her called "A Big Day" with the description "Tomorrow is an important day, perhaps something should be done to celebrate" and the goal to "throw a party". She also gave me a short line of dialogue with typos and without voice acting. It's like Sandrock is telling me that no matter how much would I wish it to be different, it is commited to staying within its lane of mediocrity.

Publicado originalmente por 󠀡󠀡󠀡󠀡:

So I decided to look at the OP's profile

I wonder why did you decide to do that? Not very nice of you. The fact my profile is open is not an invitation for you to come there and dig for dirt. It's merely there so that you wouldn't automatically dismiss my take with "lol private profile".