Balance Comments

[RogerMeatball]

I am around 10 hours into the game and mostly receiving contracts for ingredients I haven't discovered, requiring equipment I can afford, and recipes I have not discovered.

At the moment I need a 3 star dandewheat beer and I haven't discovered more than a single dandewheat (1 star) recipe.

My home bar makes almost no money, though it's stocked with all the leftover 2 star brews I have previously delivered, and I'm starting to fail contracts because I can't fulfill their requirements and my loans are expiring.

It would be nice to have some reliable low level contracts to fulfill so I could always maintain enough cashflow to upgrade my airplane and hunt for the more challenging recipes and ingredients.
Or it would be nice to be able to reliably stop at bars and sell overstocked inventory at a reduced rate, which I have been able to do once, but only once.

Right now, it feels like I am stuck in the early game, unable to get into a flow, and finding that I waste an hour or more play time when a contract expires because I can't find the recipe.

[Humble]

I agree, there is should be basic contracts for proved brews in home start often, not rarely. I was very careful, not to get contracts, so I had to find other way to making profit without those contracts that asking me unreasonable when I do not had ability to collect harder resource at a time.

[Void]

Just being able to sell ingredients or brews at the trading blimp would alleviate a lot of this. I hit a similar situation about 6 hours in and can't bring myself to keep going - the game is fun, don't get me wrong - because it's such a grind of repeated failures and just hitting the "rest" button and maxing out the slider over and over to sell what's in the bar mega slowly.

We just need a better way to make money, even if it's only a couple of gold at a time.

[Laceon]

I didnt even find out how to get parts till 6 hrs in (trade blimp and enemies) they never told me... I feel you. They could do better to explain that you can simply pass time and sell drinks at your bar, slow but good profit revenue that i opt over contracts. Best thing to do early game i realized...

[Fizz]

Most of my income has been from sunken wrecks and beachside crates.
So instead of sitting around twiddling your thumbs, go out and explore.

[RogerMeatball]

Originally posted by Fizzymus:

Most of my income has been from sunken wrecks and beachside crates.
So instead of sitting around twiddling your thumbs, go out and explore.

lol nobody is twiddling thumbs. The point of this post is "I'm playing a lot, engaging with the mechanics the game puts on front of me, and there are roadblocks that seem at odds with the spirit of the game."

[Imladhrim]

Originally posted by RogerMeatball:

lol nobody is twiddling thumbs. The point of this post is "I'm playing a lot, engaging with the mechanics the game puts on front of me, and there are roadblocks that seem at odds with the spirit of the game."

I feel you. What I did was farm wheat and potatoes to sell to the farmer.
Visit other islands, looking for floating recipes in a a bottle etc. lvl 2 upgrades are not that expensive.

[Driak]

Bar is an underdevelopped concept. It should be your way to earn money. Maybe through a mini game or something. Dev should get inspired by dave the diver for instance.

[TheBarbaryGhost]

There's a ton of ways to make money. You should spend some time doing your companions quests. In the Roster menu, pair up a Pilot with another crew member they have an affinity for as their Co-Pilot. Then you'll see a new bar appear in-game, below the Co-Pilot's image, once you fill up that bar (by flying around with the two crew members paired up), you will unlock a new Quest back at the Hangar. Each of these quests either unlocks new positive traits for your crew or entirely new minigames, ranging from taking Tourists out on sightseeing flights, working as a taxi pilot, or even making bets on a completely unique board game! (most of which can be used to make $). There's even a few quests that are just downright hilarious. Like getting drunk and pranking the locals.

[Atova]

Originally posted by TheBarbaryGhost:

ranging from taking Tourists out on sightseeing flights, working as a taxi pilot,

Are these repeatable?? Would be great to be a taxi pilot!

[Void]

Originally posted by TheBarbaryGhost:

There's a ton of ways to make money. You should spend some time doing your companions quests. In the Roster menu, pair up a Pilot with another crew member they have an affinity for as their Co-Pilot. Then you'll see a new bar appear in-game, below the Co-Pilot's image, once you fill up that bar (by flying around with the two crew members paired up), you will unlock a new Quest back at the Hangar. Each of these quests either unlocks new positive traits for your crew or entirely new minigames, ranging from taking Tourists out on sightseeing flights, working as a taxi pilot, or even making bets on a completely unique board game! (most of which can be used to make $). There's even a few quests that are just downright hilarious. Like getting drunk and pranking the locals.

I got the pranking one first and didn't know you could unlock more stuff by doing them. I thought they'd just be little bits of fluff where the crew get to know each other. Feel kinda stupid for not engaging with the mechanics more, there's probably been plenty of money to be had doing various stuff.

[M1lh0u53]

There's a lot of these little things that people mention are adding up to make me think this game needed a little more time in the oven.

[TheBarbaryGhost]

Originally posted by Atova:

Originally posted by TheBarbaryGhost:

ranging from taking Tourists out on sightseeing flights, working as a taxi pilot,

Are these repeatable?? Would be great to be a taxi pilot!

I believe they are, I know for sure the Sightseeing Quest is, I haven't started the Taxi one yet. It's my current mission that I'm jumping on after I get off work today.

[Humble]

That's what ruin all for, sightseeing quest, but only if there is no pirate control over island, pirate make point drain very fast going down.

[lifetapstudios]

Thanks for all your comments, going back to the original point about recipes, i agree that the progression is not well curated and relies too much on RNG to get the recipes you need.
I think the contract frequency can be addressed in a tuning pass pretty soon, it might take a bit longer to decide on another way to acquire recipes, maybe a vendor, or quest reward.

[Atova]

Originally posted by lifetapstudios:

Thanks for all your comments, going back to the original point about recipes, i agree that the progression is not well curated and relies too much on RNG to get the recipes you need.
I think the contract frequency can be addressed in a tuning pass pretty soon, it might take a bit longer to decide on another way to acquire recipes, maybe a vendor, or quest reward.

That sounds great, when you discover a contract it would be great if you could keep supplying it ever so many days. There’s a few times where I have wondered how to make money with current contracts on offer that I can’t harvest.