Improving Early Access Longevity

[arsibaba]

Hey

I've been absolutely in love with this game and even though I've finished off all that there is to do in early access, I still go and play from time to time albeit it is getting more and more tiresome and monotonous.

I wanted to recommend a couple of improvements that could be made (that would help the final game anyway) with the hopes that these requests are incremental to already established mechanics vs. requiring extensive development. The improvements would really help with the longevity of the early access:

1) Better loop for the morning/afternoon dive soundtrack: The music while diving is one of the main reasons I keep coming back to it. I love the soundtrack and would love if there was a way that track could loop better vs. feeling like it ends and starts from the very beginning again.

2) Allowing additional upgrades for weight / harpoon: There are 2 things to consider here. Higher weight will allow me to do longer dives and catch more things thus even allowing me to consider beating my current dive times. A better harpoon would allow the player to consider utilizing the net and tranquilizer gun a lot more. Right now, with the recent nerf on the harpoon, fighting sharks are a bit cumbersome. The current cap is quite limiting.

3) New recipes: New recipes that combine lower value fish will give an incentive for continuing to catch them (like the harlequin hind and coral trout are used for making the most expensive recipe in the game).

4) Gun upgrade: Would love a gun upgrade option that also increases number of bullets. This would again, create incentive for net guns and such. I realize this may require new mechanics to be introduced.

5) Please do away with the shock gun mechanic. Its stressful on the hands.

Thanks

[arsibaba]

One other thing. When you've played the games enough, given the limited set of maps so far, its becomes fairly predictable where to find things. I like that certain fish can only be found on certain depths so it would be good if they can move around within that depth. E.g. the White tip is always on the far end today during the day regardless of map. The tiger shark will almost always be found in the vicinity of the sunken ship. The saw tooth will always be right above it and in one other location. The Harlequin and Coral Trout are almost always together. There is always a giant trevally right outside the cave entrance etc etc.

While the fish moving around early game would be very annoying, once you have a lot of oxygen and ability to carry weight, it would be good if the fish can be found in different locations within the depth areas to encourage exploration.

[Disco-Stu]

would also be very nice from the Devs to reduce the current amount of money needed to buy the two last upgrades from 13k to 9999 plz

[arsibaba]

or simply allow us to hold more than 9999 please.

[VasG1]

I agree having things that cost over 9,999 but are not purchasable is kind of disappointing.

[Xelphos]

Originally posted by Disco-Stu:

would also be very nice from the Devs to reduce the current amount of money needed to buy the two last upgrades from 13k to 9999 plz

Not sure about the oxygen one, but the storage one has at least one more upgrade. Did some "messing around" and got the 13k~ storage upgrade, the next one is 27k. =P

[VasG1]

Oxygen is 15K for level 9...

[Kamo Kraken]

Originally posted by arsibaba:

One other thing. When you've played the games enough, given the limited set of maps so far, its becomes fairly predictable where to find things. I like that certain fish can only be found on certain depths so it would be good if they can move around within that depth. E.g. the White tip is always on the far end today during the day regardless of map. The tiger shark will almost always be found in the vicinity of the sunken ship. The saw tooth will always be right above it and in one other location. The Harlequin and Coral Trout are almost always together. There is always a giant trevally right outside the cave entrance etc etc.

While the fish moving around early game would be very annoying, once you have a lot of oxygen and ability to carry weight, it would be good if the fish can be found in different locations within the depth areas to encourage exploration.

My comment is not meant as criticism of yours - this is your opinion and I respect that.

It just so happens that my subjective experience is quite different from yours and since I'd like things to stay the way they are, I'd better pipe up.

I quite like the fish having predictable territories.

For one thing, I think that is more immersive, for another it makes harvesting certain types of fish a lot easier. I want to stock my fish farm with a breeding pair of my favorite fish ... and I'd hate to have to hunt them down all over the place. I understand you mean for them to range within a certain depth, but that still covers a lot of space.

It also serves to help me orient myself. My sense of direction is weird, I have a very hard time using inanimate objects as points of interest (this means I get lost in cities in real life, or at least I used to before GPS). Meanwhile, fish register as "noteworthy" in my brain and I can find my way around.

Then there's the simple fact that knowing where the dangerous fish are (especially early game) makes it easy to avoid them and reduces the stress factor. Overall, Dave The Diver is a very relaxing game, very forgiving and I think that is a big part of its charm.

As always, the above is no absolute truth, it's just how I feel. Maybe others feel the same, maybe they don't. The only way for devs to know, though, is if we talk about it.

[Wasler]

I have a bit fear that I have forgotten the game until "full release" or at least until next story/money-update. At the moment we are in EA, but the progress/money-wall is something which should not be TOO long
--> Initial euphoria then quickly fades into oblivion...

[ChrisPharmD]

Originally posted by Disco-Stu:

would also be very nice from the Devs to reduce the current amount of money needed to buy the two last upgrades from 13k to 9999 plz

I haven't played the game.

Does that mean you can't buy the last two upgrades or that you have to spend 9999 and then 3001?

[Xelphos]

Originally posted by ChrisPharmD:

Originally posted by Disco-Stu:

would also be very nice from the Devs to reduce the current amount of money needed to buy the two last upgrades from 13k to 9999 plz

I haven't played the game.

Does that mean you can't buy the last two upgrades or that you have to spend 9999 and then 3001?

You cannot buy the upgrades that cost more than 9999.

[absoluut]

This is a great list of potential improvements.

Other suggestions I would add:

* Change the Diving inventory page to a 'grid' system with sorting capabilities, instead of the list that is in the game currently. A gridded inventory system would make it a lot easier to manage inventory mid-dive and drop items you don't want anymore based on weight, category, etc.

* Decrease the size of the quest tracker on the left hand side to allow more (5+) quests to be tracked at a single time and include gathering lists from the Environmental Society, Gun Upgrades, etc. I found myself opening the To-Do list and Upgrade windows way more than I wanted to because I can't track more than 3 quests at a time.

* (i realize this opinion might be controversial but...) REMOVE ALL BUTTON MASHING MECHANICS. Button timing mechs, as opposed to mashing, are so much more intuitive and less annoying. I like playing this game to chill out, but it takes me out of the moment when I literally have to sit up in my chair to get the proper posture to button mash effectively.

* Improve visibility of crucial task icons during meal service. I can't tell you how many times my meal service got scuffed because I didn't notice we were out of wasabi until it was too late because icon is way on the far right of the screen with nothing to make it stand out.

Overall I've enjoyed the game a lot! Great game to kick back and chill with. However, I wish there was more story quests available right now or something that would make me want to grind out all the weapon and equipment upgrades. The game is not difficult enough to justify the grind to min-max gear at this point in time.

[arsibaba]

Originally posted by TacticalFurball:

Originally posted by arsibaba:

One other thing. When you've played the games enough, given the limited set of maps so far, its becomes fairly predictable where to find things. I like that certain fish can only be found on certain depths so it would be good if they can move around within that depth. E.g. the White tip is always on the far end today during the day regardless of map. The tiger shark will almost always be found in the vicinity of the sunken ship. The saw tooth will always be right above it and in one other location. The Harlequin and Coral Trout are almost always together. There is always a giant trevally right outside the cave entrance etc etc.

While the fish moving around early game would be very annoying, once you have a lot of oxygen and ability to carry weight, it would be good if the fish can be found in different locations within the depth areas to encourage exploration.

My comment is not meant as criticism of yours - this is your opinion and I respect that.

It just so happens that my subjective experience is quite different from yours and since I'd like things to stay the way they are, I'd better pipe up.

I quite like the fish having predictable territories.

For one thing, I think that is more immersive, for another it makes harvesting certain types of fish a lot easier. I want to stock my fish farm with a breeding pair of my favorite fish ... and I'd hate to have to hunt them down all over the place. I understand you mean for them to range within a certain depth, but that still covers a lot of space.

It also serves to help me orient myself. My sense of direction is weird, I have a very hard time using inanimate objects as points of interest (this means I get lost in cities in real life, or at least I used to before GPS). Meanwhile, fish register as "noteworthy" in my brain and I can find my way around.

Then there's the simple fact that knowing where the dangerous fish are (especially early game) makes it easy to avoid them and reduces the stress factor. Overall, Dave The Diver is a very relaxing game, very forgiving and I think that is a big part of its charm.

As always, the above is no absolute truth, it's just how I feel. Maybe others feel the same, maybe they don't. The only way for devs to know, though, is if we talk about it.

This makes sense. I think the original ask was way too much for early access anyway.
I think a good way to solve this would be to look at 'difficulty levels'. Instead of making it harder to fish by increasing hitcount, maybe difficulty levels can be based on 'fish finding and such'.

Just a thought.

['Strict]

Well I'd like it if you could upgrade the Harpoon tip as well, we can find them so why can't we craft them (this might be in the works for the full release though =)

Inventory as a grid: fully agree with that, takes forever when you fill up your inventory and you have to scroll down to find that 1-star fish you just killed to get rid off but then accidentally got too close to. (the exploding jellyfish)

I know they say they want to make the maps differfent each time, just not sure if they can make that work. I like how the shallow waters do change every now and then but I fear they don't have the resources to make this work for the whole map.

Fish moving around like someone suggested would be nice, after a few dives you know where everything is and it's kind of boring. Some said that they use the fish locations to learn the maps, I get that since my adhd makes it so that I don't remember pointless things (pointless to my brain) so I normally don't learn maps and such. In this game I don't know how to get to the sunken ship but when I do get there I know what enemy is around =)

And like someone else said, the Wasabi and the menu.....I think the menu is a bit small or too "weak" cause I don't really notice that I've sold all the sushi or that the wasabi is out until I see that noone is ordering the sushi anymore and that the red bars show up on the sushi that isn't the basic stuff =)

[Juspe]

thanks for help