The problems with Dreamlight Valley- from an early adopter

[Mr. Bufferlow]

I think the major problem is they tried to come off as an actual story based game. By the time I realized there was really no more story for a significant gap, I was not too unhappy to do the little tasks around the valley. (at first)

Fast forward a year later and you end up with 2 weeks of something really interesting to do, and then three months of repeating the same old tasks you have done for 640 hours.

The valley is just too small to do meaningful revising and they should have made it clear where their assets began and ended and where the user could go nuts. I never really did major changes- because it was EA and fear of screwing up the story requirements- and there never really felt like I had a lot of space to experiment.

By the time I felt like I was willing to experiment, my furniture inventory was 600+, currently 900+ and the UI was just totally inadequate to really work with that number of items. The UI is the major stumbling block. It is designed to work well with 50 items or less- that includes recipes. Once you go beyond that with assets- it is literally worse than cutting out the pages of a catalog and searching the stranded pages to find what you want. Worse, it does not even save your place. No, you get to start at the beginning again for the next item you seek.

Obvious ways to improve:
Edit: Fix the UI so it works with the size of asset inventory. Clean up the recipes so they make sense- and probably increase the number of pots to put each group in.

They did an excellent job on the realms, but they are not really useful as part of the valley. I am surprised because the Frozen realm and the Beauty and Beast realm are both pretty huge. If you could easily teleport to them via the central fountain and build and landscape them as you see fit, it would add a huge area (that probably took hours of programming) for the users to mess with between updates.

That would make the whole design your whole valley thing workable. Anyway, I am probably done with DDV. It has been fun and enjoyed being around the regular loggers here, just not feeling paying more for a new "season" of the same basic pattern mentioned above.

I think DDV will stick around at least another year...they apparently have a lot of the programming done so likely will stick it out ...but it does not look good for the game long term.

[ThanatosX]

They could improve the inventory without too much change.
The drawer needs to slide to none/half/full screen and not scroll, while optionally sliding back to none/half so you can place.
No casual event driven game is going to stand up to 600+ hours of hardcore play, regardless of the amount of monkeys or typewriters to feed it. It is a sandbox at heart, a place for some things to happen. No big gameplay loops to grind through.
Would say you got your moneys worth at least, call it a win. More than some other games could claim.

[Aliebn]

I agree with your sentiment, I don't see how they can continue, if they do it won't be very far. I know i won't buy the DLC right away if at all, especially if there continue to be bugs, there has been enough time for them to iron those out and work on QOL updates. I'm not salty over it, I just don't see myself supporting it anymore.

[wesnef]

The item UI definitely needs better sorting options. And being able to mark Favorites (especially with the recipes) would be great.

[krystalnight0]

the game is amazing i do wish there are some changes when adding more people invoed and more lands

[Jellie Juice]

They need a lot of improvements that's for sure. There are so many things that can be improved upon I won't even bother making the long list. Will these changes ever happen? Time will tell. We'll see how this expansion goes. If they don't make quality of life changes to the game within the next year, I think a lot of people will eventually jump ship and I might be one of them.

[MadDawg2552]

Originally posted by Mr. Bufferlow:

I think DDV will stick around at least another year...they apparently have a lot of the programming done so likely will stick it out ...but it does not look good for the game long term.

As long as they continue to add new lands and new stories in DLC each year (or every 2 years), people will keep coming back to try out the new stuff.

They do need to focus on creating a fun gameplay loop that will keep the long-term player interested. Once you've completed everything, it's like you said. 2 weeks of something to do, 3 months of waiting for the next 2 weeks of stuff.

With so many new cozy games coming out, though, it's going to get some tough competition. The only thing it has going for it right now is the Disney license.