Great atmosphere and idea, but game just wastes my time too much on things

[Iso Koala]

I like all the atmosphere in the game, visuals, sounds, ideas etc, feeling of vulnerability.

But when I first spend 30 minutes on easy maps just to gather some parts to repair my car, 15 minutes to repair it, then spend 60 minutes on a mission along the 4-5 maps along it. Clear the mission objectives, next goal is "go back to garage". I fill my trunk with stuff and get ready to go. All powered up, lets gooo! Oops.... There some trap caught me and my car is upside down. No problem, I still have time, ill just teleport the car right here.... and when I do it, car immediately flies in the air, 500 meters away from me. Im in radiation zone already, GG, there goes 2 hours of stuff which I gotta do again, even though I cleared all the mission objectives, and my car is wreck again and I gotta do the same boring resource gathering again and again now, and then drive through the same 4 areas to the mission area, just to be told to teleport back home without doing anything there..... FUN!

And then I am told to gather 500 ingradients for new motor and such, and all those ingredients I need to drive through the 4 same zones like 20 minutes each time just to get 50-100 of them per run.... holy....

Now I put all the difficulty away, but feels like cheating. But its just too boring to drive through 4 different zones and 4 loading screens just to be back where you were at. Not fun.

Shame, the atmosphere is super good.

[botnak mega drill]

thats the gameplay loop i think i cant really know cuz i cant play the game cuz c++ is missing on my pc

[Anachronomalous]

Seeing your playtime juxtaposed against this thread is giving me mixed signals, which leads me to believe this is actually an "I died" vent thread in disguise.

But most of the complaints here are an issue of dying mid-run, which is just something you'll deal with less and less as you improve. Part of that is knowing how varying anomalies can screw you over, either in isolation or in combination, and understanding how to deal with them. Learning how to not take chip damage means the occasional nasty hit will matter much less. If you are spending massive amounts of time and resources mid-run repairing the car, it's a sign you're doing something wrong.

On top of that, remember that even with the RNG inherent to the genre, Pacific Drive allows for tons of mistake mitigation. You can bring repair kits of varying flavors in no small quantity, you can scan ahead in areas to know what to expect from varying zones and junctions, and of course if all else fails you can craft things mid-run like Crude Parts to slap back on the car instead of driving with an exposed body.
Bringing all this stuff is part of being prepared for the drive; if you need to dedicate some inventory space to putty, battery chargers, sealing kits, etc. then do that. Better to play it safe and make it back with slightly fewer stacks of plastic than dying with a full inventory.

Just take a deep breath and remember that there is no permadeath on the game's default settings, and you can always dust yourself off and try again.

[I Am The Law †]

for me, there is some problem with the grind in the game, which I solved with the help of mods, now I enjoy traveling, fixing and searching for especially valuable resources and paints. Change your attitude to the game, or the game for yourself.

[Iso Koala]

Originally posted by Anachronomalous:

Seeing your playtime juxtaposed against this thread is giving me mixed signals, which leads me to believe this is actually an "I died" vent thread in disguise.

But most of the complaints here are an issue of dying mid-run, which is just something you'll deal with less and less as you improve. Part of that is knowing how varying anomalies can screw you over, either in isolation or in combination, and understanding how to deal with them. Learning how to not take chip damage means the occasional nasty hit will matter much less. If you are spending massive amounts of time and resources mid-run repairing the car, it's a sign you're doing something wrong.

On top of that, remember that even with the RNG inherent to the genre, Pacific Drive allows for tons of mistake mitigation. You can bring repair kits of varying flavors in no small quantity, you can scan ahead in areas to know what to expect from varying zones and junctions, and of course if all else fails you can craft things mid-run like Crude Parts to slap back on the car instead of driving with an exposed body.
Bringing all this stuff is part of being prepared for the drive; if you need to dedicate some inventory space to putty, battery chargers, sealing kits, etc. then do that. Better to play it safe and make it back with slightly fewer stacks of plastic than dying with a full inventory.

Just take a deep breath and remember that there is no permadeath on the game's default settings, and you can always dust yourself off and try again.

In theory all those are true. But in practice, you need to spend a LOT of time farming the materials, if you actually want to bring all those repairs etc with you. And in the case of dying and losing that lots of extra stuff, makes it even worse since now those are gone too, unless you get back to your ghost, which is boring extra trip itself which gives you nothing more but just your old stuff back. I turned the crafting requirements to everything to 1/10 but kept the rest of the difficulty as default, so that I dont need to waste time grinding too much in the starter areas. Unfortunately, still need to drive through like 4 areas every single time you want to get some mid/late areas loot.

Btw, dont trust everyones played hours shown on Steam, they can be VERY off for people like me. I often leave games open on background even if not play them, and sometimes on laptop like leave the game on sleep mode and after a week of not using it notice "oh I have 140 hours in this game I didnt even remember starting", lol. This game actually shows actual playing times in the saves, I have half of what Steam shows.

[Raider Deci]

Kinda in agreement on this. Lot of materials to scoop up just to get going,im playing on normal though and dont planning on ramp up the difficulty

[Kain]

I have over 50 hours. I haven't lost a single drive that wasn't my fault. Even when the red storm arrives it isn't an immediate death and you can avoid all traps.

[Iso Koala]

Its not about dying, but the time the game demands to try again if you fail, is too long. Doing easy loot runs to get materials to fix your broken car, doing the repair work to get it fixed again, then finally driving through 4 zones to get back to where you were again... easily 1.5h spent and feels wasted time. I am ok to grind things to unlock new things, explore to find materials etc, but grind just to get back to your tracks is frustratingly boring to me. I guess I am just generally into crafting games.

Anyway, I turned the crafting costs to 1/10 and made it so that my attached car parts dont get permanently destroyed by damage (some still were stolen etc). Kept enemy difficulties, gasoline use etc the default. Made everything more enjoyable to me, even though felt like cheating, but at least I wasnt frustrated to spend time to nonsense. Beat the game and enjoyed 2/3 of it, just the time sinking things mentioned werent for my taste. Took me about 26h to finish, I can assume that if I had the normal crafting requirements and parts switching, would have taken 50+, or I would just have quit. Or tried to brute force the game just by using the basic poor armors.

[Lord Of War]

Originally posted by Iso Koala:

game just wastes my time too much on things

You just play a) inefficiently

Originally posted by Iso Koala:

But when I first spend 30 minutes on easy maps just to gather some parts to repair my car...
there goes 2 hours...

b) a bit slow too,

Originally posted by Iso Koala:

There some trap caught me and my car is upside down. No problem, I still have time, ill just teleport the car right here.... and when I do it, car immediately flies in the air, 500 meters away from me.

c) carelessly as well.

You'd think that by 40hrs+ mark (your time), you'd learn to read the traps, learn to avoid them and learn to maximize resources farm within short time. If you can't do that, then lowering difficulty is your only solution. Enjoy the ride

[BrotherMurus]

Originally posted by Iso Koala:

Its not about dying, but the time the game demands to try again if you fail, is too long.

I actually love the high-stakes of a long drive, makes your really think twice and strategize the materials that you need in one trip, at some point it is a good idea to start ignoring basic materials, anchor energy and spend the stuff in your locker to get the specific materials you needed, instead of wasting time in junctions hoarding. I love the fact that this game forces the player to review every action as all of them will cost you some thing later in a trip.

[Crusader765]

I'm not great at the game or very fast at doing things. However I've never died once maybe because I'm cautious and always have med kits. But yah farming materials is most of the game.