Absolutely Tiresome Unrewarding Gameplay

[Jagermaestro]

There is no active save because "development constraints". There is no way to recover from corrupt saves and there is no way to roll back massive mistakes in deformation and planting without starting from scratch. This alone should warrant this game having a mostly negative review. I don't know who is leaving reviews for this game.

Terrain deformation is terrible. Filling in terrain where there is water is a visual nightmare and there is no way to really tell what is going on under there. Water mechanics are likewise tiresome and strange. It moves more like a strange gelatin and is over engineered and ugly in anything but it's resting state.

Let's go over the path for resurrecting a tree, a simple, nearly meaningless task that requires immense lifting. Acquire something like 9 spirit skill points, finish Naiah or whatever's main quest, now you have the skill that you can't use until you unlock a pet, find a pet and bring it back, feed the pet an acorn and wait a day between feedings or get more pets. Insane. For what? To slow me down from re-birthing a few oak trees? Honestly this showcases exactly what your priority is here, dragging out your uninteresting action/unlocking game. I have around 3 fully mature oak tree and maybe 4 more nearly mature ones on day 14 and yet still I have very few acorns being produced. All I want to do is bring some trees back my man why is this such an issue to you guys?

The inventory is a problem, the developer acknowledged this. What is wrong with it? Every single pointless system in this game is what is wrong with it. Seeds rot, so there needs to be 3 piles, regular, rotten, dried (which comes after rotten...). I have an amazing idea for you, jettison that idea into space. Put it on the next space x launch it will probably just blow up in the atmosphere. Why is my inventory limited? So I have to be inconvenienced by that as well. It costs nearly nothing to create storage so it's not driving any economic concerns is it? Not that I would want that but essentially all it is, is frustration. Unlimited inventory, simplify the seeds, move on. Food is not an issue in this game at any point, neither is water, I have not died a single time to either in roughly 20 hours. I have not died at all from combat either. My soul has died a little from the incredibly slow movement and exploration mechanics.

Made a mistake putting down trees because none of the water mechanics or plant dynamics are well explained? Pick them up one by one and drag them about. Or just restart, it's honestly faster if you built an extensive garden thinking that brown soil would extend moisture further. That's canopy cover I have been told. Except I have a run now with several oak trees, some complaining of themselves not having enough light and there is barely an expansion of the moist level away from my irrigation. No plants have any meaningful effect beyond producing an ever more difficult scattering of seeds to pick up. Sorry there is an umbrella plant to produce an umbrella, the worlds most disappointing glider/sun protection.

Dust storms? Probably the worst mechanic ever created. Walls in my garden game. Thanks no thanks.

Wraith attacks? Not well explained, apparently they attack you, not your base. Solution? Don't hang out at your base when it's happening. Except there are a bunch of pointless defense buildings for your base, to fend off an attack that simply isn't a threat. The main problem I had here was having to run back while exploring but now that I know I don't have to do that the question becomes, what is the point...

Enjoy Souls like movement in a game with My time and Portia level combat. Glide like a poorly built paper airplane on your mushroom. Honestly it's more of a parachute, even though you could probably just throw yourself off a cliff and eat some cactus fruit that you should have plenty of if you do it right (plant them away from the base they are desert resilient), it would be faster. You can slide down dunes... that's... it's sometimes somewhat reliable but mostly just a gimmick.

This game doesn't want to let me do anything. I am sitting around waiting for acorns to fall from trees so I can use a spell that should be a default ability. No I can't get more acorns, I planted some, used others rebuilding gates, used others on quests and used even more resurrecting oak trees, I just now have to wait eons for them to drop and hope I am around and see them when they do before they rot. I can't leave my base to do anything. Additionally I can't move them and while some of them were green when I put them down they now don't have enough sun. Time for restart number 6?

Very chill, very relaxing game about bad combat and tiring fetch quests to do some gardening.

Screw this game.

[Phoenix Cat]

It's a chill relaxing game. Not made to be rushed. Meant to explore and look around. Some of your complaints can be adjusted in thr gameplay options. It's fine thst you don't like it. There are more of us thst do. Thus the positive reviews.

[Inkjet]

Hello!
I'm sorry that you've had a poor experience with Wildmender. I'll do my best to respond to your points.

Saving: You can save on demand by typing /save in chat. The game doesn't support multiple save slots per world at this time. While you can workaround this by manually backing up your save (simply copy the folder and rename it), I understand that many players would like a way to do this from within the game.

Lack of Acorns: After a dust storm rolls through, all plants, trees, and stones out in the world should drop anew for you to dig up. If you're short on acorns, I'd recommend searching out dead oak trees in the world again, as they may have dropped more (you'll find them buried near the oak trees)

Dust Storms: You can turn these off in the difficulty settings. Even if they're off, item drops will respawn at the time a dust storm would have rolled through.

Reviving plants: There is a way to revive plants in a large area, which is unlocked later in the story.

Thank you so much for taking the time to type up your feedback here! I'll make sure we have all of your points logged for review.

Thanks,
Jennifer

[Jagermaestro]

Originally posted by brnphoenix75:

It's a chill relaxing game. Not made to be rushed. Meant to explore and look around. Some of your complaints can be adjusted in thr gameplay options. It's fine thst you don't like it. There are more of us thst do. Thus the positive reviews.

And very few of them. I intend make sure potential customers know what they are getting into and the developers understand the issues. None of my comments above reflect anything about rushing, all of them are misplaced gameplay ideas. I'm sorry I don't like the game you do. I waited on purchasing this based on the previous negative reviews but thought perhaps the gardening elements make up for them. They do not.

Do you know how many people will run away from a casual game simply because it has no manual save? Plenty. I think they should be prominently aware of it before they make a purchasing decision. I included several other negatives I feel impact enjoyment as well, carefully worded and considered.

If your so confident in the positive reviews proving me wrong, then why did you come here to comment? My opinion irritates you that much that you can't go on with your day unbothered you sit in a discussion thread waiting to come to the rescue?

Or was it just serendipity you stumbled across this and had to react with virtually no actual meaningful point of view simply "calm down" and "everyone else likes it"?

[Jagermaestro]

Originally posted by Inkjet:

Hello!
I'm sorry that you've had a poor experience with Wildmender. I'll do my best to respond to your points.

Saving: You can save on demand by typing /save in chat. The game doesn't support multiple save slots per world at this time. While you can workaround this by manually backing up your save (simply copy the folder and rename it), I understand that many players would like a way to do this from within the game.

Lack of Acorns: After a dust storm rolls through, all plants, trees, and stones out in the world should drop anew for you to dig up. If you're short on acorns, I'd recommend searching out dead oak trees in the world again, as they may have dropped more (you'll find them buried near the oak trees)

Dust Storms: You can turn these off in the difficulty settings. Even if they're off, item drops will respawn at the time a dust storm would have rolled through.

Reviving plants: There is a way to revive plants in a large area, which is unlocked later in the story.

Thank you so much for taking the time to type up your feedback here! I'll make sure we have all of your points logged for review.

Thanks,
Jennifer

Thank you. I am aware of these work around and was when I wrote the post except for the dust storms influencing acorn drops. Unfortunately turning them on for acorns only puts me back in the same position with regards to not enjoying dust storms. I have excavated several areas completely of acorns, they either re-spawn very slowly in those areas or require dust storms to be on to re-spawn.

While I appreciate there is a story mechanic which revives large sections this doesn't really change the fact that you can work towards trying to get a revive skill that you then can't use. It is ridiculous to require this many steps to use a skill you unlock. At best the requirements of the skill should be viewable in the game so that I know not to waste my time on something so meaningless. Perhaps at the very least make the pet skill a requirement before allowing people to dump so many skill points into something so trivial...

[miauly]

I came here to chime in on the lack of past saves. I've restarted the game several times to figure out some mechanics, but I consider that being somewhat fine - it adds some additional difficulty when you get to know water and other plant requirements only when a plant matures, but that's an acceptable design choice.

However, in my last attempt I got my meadow mother tree destroyed by a wraith attack when I came to the base to check after a dust storm. And because there is only one save per game, this is essentially a permadeath approach to what is supposed to be a casual game. And it's not just permadeath, I played games with it like Don't Starve or Rogue Legacy quite successfully - it's a permadeath with no mechanics to properly prevent it, I aggroed and killed wraiths as soon as I saw them and they still wrecked my meadow mother without me having a slight chance to protect it. And the wraith attack timer does not change at all during nearly a game day (?) until the attack happens - that's a lot of time to try and hang outside of your main base. Yes, potentially another base can be made etc, but not being able to simply go back a day in a game that's casual - that's really not a good design approach. Moreover, I'd say that permadeath is only enjoyable in games where the gameplay itself is polished and tight around mastery of said gameplay and staying on your toes all of the time as to not get wrecked. When permadeath happens suddenly in a game where the gameplay is slow and easy and somewhat tedious and potentially calming because of all that - it really gets on nerves.

I definitely won't play the game again until it's possible to go back a save for the last 3-5 days at least.

[[Muse] Bubbles]

Hi miauly, yeah noted. Having manual save is something on our to-do list still, and of course it has taken a long while. You feedback is duly noted. Thanks so much for playing the game and for your feedback. We really appreciate it. In the meantime, have a great Holidays! Thanks so much again, Howard

[Iraya]

Originally posted by Jagermaestro:

Originally posted by brnphoenix75:

Do you know how many people will run away from a casual game simply because it has no manual save? Plenty.

Minecraft is the most popular game in the world, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

[rick.vanopdorp]

Strange, OP says they planted acorns and still run out. I on the other hand have plenty. Just some ideas off the top of my head:

1 don't overuse the acorns, you don't have to do everything you can with those. Choose
what you use your acorns for and make sure you always have some in spare.
2 don't plant all your oak trees on the same day. Instead plant them over the course of
several days. That way you get acorns to drop gradually over the course of several days,
makes the waiting feel shorter.
3 get some frogs. These little fellows pick up the drops from around the oasis, so less chance
to miss any. Also not sure but the spoiler timer may be a bit slower within the frogs
inventory.
4 sing for the trees if you can. It seriously reduces the time till maturation or the next drops
and basically costs you nothing.

[Tanyon]

I'm only about 3 or 4 hours in.. I can already tell the seeds spoiling is pretty annoying.. I mean my grandma had seeds for 50 different vegetables in little orange envelopes in our garage that experienced all 4 seasons and she used them to plan a garden every year for like 25 years.. never had an issue with them going bad.

So far I'm enjoying it.. the overall concept seems to be a lot like Planet Crafter.. which is nice.

I hope I do not experience what that player above did with his meadow mother tree dying or whatever that was.. that would tick me off for sure.

[Tanyon]

Originally posted by b12:

I didn't run into the lack of acorns problem and I seem to be past the point in the game where it would be one. A few times earlier on I didn't have an acorn to open up a teleporter.

I've been making almost all of my revival fluid out of witchwood seeds and have an abundance of extra acorns. I tend to revive a couple of oak trees anywhere I open up a spring that can keep them watered, so I routinely see piles of spoiled or dry acorns near those trees (and spoiled are still good for opening teleporters)

Yes I have not had a problem with Acorns either. Once I realized I could open more springs I went ahead and opened 3 more and have 2 acorn trees at each one I planted. I can not revive trees yet.. and I've not seen witchwood yet but I am so busy planting and trying to manage my oasis I've kinda let the quests go by the wayside which I should get back to.

[Sardeed]

On Duststorms,
They are sure annoying but none managed to destroy any plant only damage them to roughly half then they regen up again, what really grinds my gears is a bloody duststorm damages my sigil stones, like if i create a network i either need to repair all regularly and look if any git destroyed crating useless busy work, which is not hard gameplay or challenging gameplay but just tedious and boring, games are not jobs I play games to relax from my job, or see them destroyed and need to remember which way they where since I try to create a nice cozy and good looking garden.
They should be an easier way to fix sigil stones besides wasting tons of sandstone early game,
Option A:
turn them into weathered sigil stones that need double the initial magic to reactivate them with full life, dust weathers the sigil on them not the stone themself,

Option B:
AoE heals for structure via spell, ritual, plant or sigil stone costing magic.
edit: This option exists but i lost couple of sturtures and sigil stones until i found it.

Option C:
Stones do not care for puny dust.

If our buildings get destroyed by dust storms then no dead trees or buildings should even be able to still stand in this world.

Make Walls immune against dust storms but not tornadoes and wraiths, maybe add more sleeping places just a tent and some wall are kinda sad.


On inventory,
more would be better like a permanent craftable upgrade beyond the ring like a bag of holding we are magic druids for crying out loud, like first one is copper and plant fiber +10 spaces next is some of the rare stuff of meadow desert area additional +10 and so forth each areas rare resources would create another +10 permanent spaces maybe coupled with tools upgrade level.

Water is alright, i would be really impressed if you added the "From Dust" water and earth effects but that is proably a bit beyond the engine.

On plants,

Some way to get tips of crossbreeding beyond quests would be nice, like if you have grown a dozen or so of plant x the encyclopedia tells you that the plant is needed for hybrid z and if you have done the same with plant Y it tells you that they may be compatible.

Additionally AoE anti-tired spell or effect or sigil stone , hint hint, would be nice i, do not want to click on each exhausted or tired plant, that is just tedious time waste