14 days in ..... getting (very) frustrating

[ghiblio]

Honestly when I first started I didn't mind the limited amount of questing and the time gated nature of the game, but now 14 days in it's starting to get increasingly frustrating when quest items take many many days to get therefore locking multiple quests. It's hard to stay patient when some days you can't get any quest items and can't make any progress at all.

Currently:
Charlotte Pine needs 4 relic ash
Jeremy Gruffle needs 8 relic ash (both very frustrating when you can only get 1-2 a day...)
Captain Billweather Snout needs a photo from Arjun Bhalla who's not even here yet...
Lee Berry Dennings needs 3 imp essence when imps have only been giving me coins or happy imp essence (very frustrating especially when the imps want things that take days to get the ingredients for)

Is anyone else feeling this way and finding it a big issue? Just sometimes feels like the balancing wasn't completely thought through, and wasn't given a ton of thought about just how long some of the quests would take especially when I'd still consider this to be early game.

(also unrelated but my birds are also being greedy and keep requesting things that also take a while to get ingredients for... which can also add frustration)

These are just my opinions! It's ok if you don't feel the same hahaha

[Chief Kay Strongbow]

Feeling the exact same way. Items take too long to get and it's really hurting my interest in the game. I'm okay with a casual gaming experience but you gotta give me something to do when I log in. One relic ash a day when I need 8? Or how about my birds wanting a food that could take several real life hours of rng digging dirt for me to have a 3 step recipe and I have to wait an hour in between each craft to receive my creation in the mail?

The progression is just too slow and I don't see myself playing long term when some of the most basic quests are taking several real life days to complete. And I'm only on day 8 so far, I only expect the quests to get longer at this point and if they do I don't see myself playing much more.

[Nefrarya]

I'm this close to quitting the game, at least until the Switch gets at least the first couple of updates (which will take weeks). There's a ton of bugs, RNG disproportionately affects how much money you can make or how many quests you get to do, I'm constantly either desperately hustling for money or running out of storage, the economy makes no sense, there is some very frustrating design choices (not talking about the time gates, I knew that before buying), the game doesn't tell you things when you need to know them, etc. etc. ..

I thought things would get better after an uneven start, but the game just seems to lock up more and more instead of opening up. I really want this game to work because it's a combination of a bunch of things I really love and I just settled into making this a part of my daily routine. But at this rate, it's just too frustrating.

(Keep in mind, I'm talking about the Switch version, updates on Steam might already have addressed stuff I'm struggling with.)

[Urfarah]

Originally posted by ghiblio:

Lee Berry Dennings needs 3 imp essence when imps have only been giving me coins or happy imp essence (very frustrating especially when the imps want things that take days to get the ingredients for)

You can recycle higher grade essences to receive a bunch of lower grade ones. Forgot the convertion ratio. So, at least there's somewhat of a solution for this one (not that the game would bother to tell you that though, the game doesn't tell you anything). Totally agree that, as it is, even with the current fixes, this game remains an exercise in frustration.

[Danc]

Sorry folks are having troubles with the pacing. Depending on the order that quests come up, there can be some unplanned for delays.

We are working on smoothing these out in future updates.

These quests do resolve eventually if you keep playing. Also totally fine to put it aside until more updates make their way through the non-PC certification process. We with that was faster. No progress will be lost!

[Joseph Grzeiskewicz]

Originally posted by ghiblio:

(also unrelated but my birds are also being greedy and keep requesting things that also take a while to get ingredients for... which can also add frustration)

Selling birds is another way to get relic ash.

Originally posted by Danc:

We are working on smoothing these out in future updates.

Yeah. gold shovel is too hard to get.

[Vincent]

Originally posted by Urfarah:

You can recycle higher grade essences to receive a bunch of lower grade ones.

Which NPC should I speak with to recycle essences, please?
I was thinking that the wood bear Francesca could do it but all higher imp essences are grey in my inventory with the recycling option.

Also its been five days since I haven't received an essence from imps, they always give money to me T_T . Some birds stopped reclaiming rare food that require imp essences today. I hope they are not bugged.

[Cakey]

And then your pick axe breaks and it needs 2 relic ash to repair 😂😭

For ash I sold and bought back the same bird with Mr. Kit... basically 5k and 10 quartz a relic ash. Painful, but now that's done...

[Retro]

I don't know why I feel i can play animal crossing for awhile but with this game i feel like since you get pieces of land day by day it feels like you're doing mobile phone quest, you can't really explore or enjoy anything you just come on to do your mission and log off..nothing really wants you to stay.

[Urfarah]

Originally posted by Vincent:

Originally posted by Urfarah:

You can recycle higher grade essences to receive a bunch of lower grade ones.

Which NPC should I speak with to recycle essences, please?
I was thinking that the wood bear Francesca could do it but all higher imp essences are grey in my inventory with the recycling option.

Also its been five days since I haven't received an essence from imps, they always give money to me T_T . Some birds stopped reclaiming rare food that require imp essences today. I hope they are not bugged.

I'm sorry, you are correct. Must've remembered it wrong. Could swear I had that option in my old save but I deleted it the other day and, since neither the baker, nor Francesca nor Flamey gave me the option in my new save (just checked after adding the few essences I had to my collection just to get their recipes and be extra sure), I don't know why I was so certain I could do that before.

That being said, this would certainly be a good option to add to the game since essence acquisition is annoyingly random.

[GoldHypercurve]

I'm having a pretty good time with this game myself, but the relic ash thing is my biggest frustration. I like being able to donate everything I get that is new, but since day 1 of me getting the rod I've had quests that require relic ash, so unless I want to put several bears on hold for more than a actual week I have to just burn everything I find. Then since its all common finds its only 1 relic ash per day, meaning it takes two weeks to complete those two quests.

I also understand it's possible to sell your birds for relic ash but they only sell for their level's worth of ash, so you'd need to buy and sell 14 birds just to complete these quests without burning relics, or you need sacrifice slightly less of birds you've invested in for a while. Even if you just bought and sold birds back to kit where I'm in the game you can only buy 3 per day, so even then it's still almost a week to complete these quests. Doing it this way also costs 140,000 old coins along with several other resources. Besides cost I don't really like the idea of selling the birds to kit for ash seems a bit too dark for me.

If we got more than one relic per day on the island these specific demands wouldn't seem that bad to me. But since it is only one per day the waits are just so long, and it feels off having a section of the map greyed out for a week+ just because it's not possible to get the resource any faster.

[thaumabond]

Originally posted by GoldHypercurve:

I'm having a pretty good time with this game myself, but the relic ash thing is my biggest frustration. I like being able to donate everything I get that is new, but since day 1 of me getting the rod I've had quests that require relic ash, so unless I want to put several bears on hold for more than a actual week I have to just burn everything I find. Then since its all common finds its only 1 relic ash per day, meaning it takes two weeks to complete those two quests.

I also understand it's possible to sell your birds for relic ash but they only sell for their level's worth of ash, so you'd need to buy and sell 14 birds just to complete these quests without burning relics, or you need sacrifice slightly less of birds you've invested in for a while. Even if you just bought and sold birds back to kit where I'm in the game you can only buy 3 per day, so even then it's still almost a week to complete these quests. Doing it this way also costs 140,000 old coins along with several other resources. Besides cost I don't really like the idea of selling the birds to kit for ash seems a bit too dark for me.

If we got more than one relic per day on the island these specific demands wouldn't seem that bad to me. But since it is only one per day the waits are just so long, and it feels off having a section of the map greyed out for a week+ just because it's not possible to get the resource any faster.

I definitely feel this. Although I don't feel quite as bad about the "dark" bit. I think one easy tweak would be to either make birds sell for double (2/4/8), for relics to appear more frequently (say at double the rate) or for quests to cost a bit less in relic ash, say -2 to -4 per quest.

[Sjors]

I hate that these long quests are all tied to RNG. Requiring 10 Silver ingots while I've only gotten 3 in 14 days is silly. Same for requiring 4 relic ash and then 8. I literally only got 1 quest today I could actually do, the rest is RNG rewards. It's absolute trash and ruins any sense of progression or fun.

[Nefrarya]

Yeah, I got two more bears tied up today for a total of 5 now, two didn't give quests, so I was also left with 1 quest that didn't even give a log.

[ella bee]

A little patience and all will resolve, and that's a good feeling you then get. Sometimes in life the waiting is what makes the fun.
I very much enjoy the pace. Most days spend an enjoyable hour or so. Today got the golden spade and discovered Arjun Bhalla. I don't mind the quite days when there is little to look for. It mixes it up, I find.

[father]

i agree. i was also very frustrated with the relic ash requirements but i managed to complete both already just by getting lucky and finding a relic that gave me 7 relic ashes when burned.