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So I will be doing a second playthrough eventually where I just keep the ingredients without using them. So that the creature doesn't get stupidly difficult. Other than it's highest level of difficulty, I think it is a perfect way to build tension / light horror, and give the game some real spark. I also love its visual ties to the story.
I just wish there was an easy mode option that kept the monster as its least aggressive states throughout. So that I didn't have to kind of break immersion and actively do it myself mid-game.
Having heard about how ridiculous it was, that was exactly what I did in my first play through. So I had no real problems overall. On my second try and doing it 'properly' I am at 2 agents done and Milo appears literally every 30 seconds to two minutes. It's exhausting.
Isn't this how it works (or supposed to work) already?
You must be crouching in appropriate cover, hiding. I would like the option on a game mode where simply croching and holding still would be enough, even in an open field. Like making yourself small and helpless would placate the beast temporarily.
Ah right, now I get you. That's a fair suggestion for a no creature version.
Really? Where have the Devs gone?
http://steamcommunity.com/app/223510/discussions/0/846963165423382730/?tscn=1378156291#c846963165532692316
Nor did it become so ubiquitously, wildly popular because it forced bleedin' zombies down your throat at every turn without the choice of opting out.
Nor by, obviously, forcing a silly-looking quasi-cat genetic mishap on you, or going FUBAR without retrieve, brow-beating players into accepting being harassed, and their game activities being interrupted, frustrated, their progress (and personal time!) nullified!
I am fed up with this BS. It's always these fanatic adrenaline-junkie anti-choice goons that jump in whenever the mere notion of free choice and option is mentioned!
Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war if the idea of different strokes for different folkes come up - that's their knee-jerk reaction.
They want to brow-beat everyone - regardless of temperament or preference or justified cause or logical reasoning - into playing a game (any game) THEIR way. And THEIR way becomes the ONLY way, in their warped minds so intolerant and unaccepting of fundamental human differences. Bloody hell...
Then the dev becomes their befuddled pion, either intimidated or feeling reinforced in being mule-headed stubborn - first a choice is dangled at the end of the stick, then, once those screaming, inflexible fanatics and nay-sayers show up, the offer for and option (OPTIONAL, mind you!) fix and workaround is rescinded, wrapped in cowering silence...
*****
Finally got 'round playing this, and fuffing around, progress competently with the mapping of the island, discovering all there is, methodically, meticulously - but that bow-legged pseudo-cat creature is now getting on my t*ts, in all honesty.
Same issue as others - daft effing failed genetic experiment of a siamese cat-bull won't bugger off now, no matter what, and tools, weapons are useless window-dressing. Why in hell do we even have kinves and hatchets, silly, useless tin cans and inedible, unsalvageable half-rotten rubbish, like fruits? Why even waste time coding utterly useless junk into the game, rather than polishing up game assets that do bloody well serve a functional purpose?
(Besides reaching equally useless Steam achievements, that is, if that sort of thing swells your e-peen or fills your life... but I digress: to each their own, I suppose.)
Now this misshapen semi-feline mutt wouldn't bother me, certainly doesn't scare me in any significant way - but sure as sugar it annoys me as much as the game engine's shortcomings and some of the glitches and bugs.
It's not the weird little figment of the devs' feverish, psychotropic drug-induced siamese cat-accident that scares me - it's the thought of repeatedly losing yet another ingredient collected, but especially an hour's worth of exploration / mapping / cartography / triangulation that I increasingly loathe.
Cartography, which I'd find enjoyable enough (always have, including in real life - maps can be fascinating, whether historical artefacts or current ones, or ones drawn by yourself for orienteering, whether on foot or on mountain bike, on a private photography trip) - although in this case often more frustrating, again on account of a somewhat poorly half-developed proprietary game engine (what, there's a shortage of good ones already proven to work efficiently in countless games?): namely, triangulation often results in the most inconsistent, finicky pixel-hunting, worse than in any pixel-hunting adventure game I've ever encountered.
Often enough, the game engine repeatedly fails to pick up landmarks you, the player can clearly distinguish on screen, and you must hunt for that ONE bloody pixel endlessly - what makes it the worst pixel-hunting experience in any game we've aver played, is the fact that the pixel recognition spot is inconsistent! The pixel the game engine will recognise changes position! You must then resort to scanning horizontally across the small area where it's located - but in order for the engine to recognise it again, you must do this side-to-side scanning at speed. Which is just brilliant, because that renders left-clicking on the right pixel that much more difficult. Bloody aggravating.
This can obviously require 30 minutes of 'playtime.' Well, granted, we do have different ideas about what constitutes 'play,' playfulness, and all that, obviously. But I'm not sure how many people define 'playing' as consisting of pixel-hunting via an unpolished, inconsistent, unreliable game engine that you might find yourself growling curses and insults at while trying to accomplish the budding cartographer's task - words of increasingly fed-up frustration.
(Somethig along the lines of a rant-soliloquy such as this [paraphrased]: "It's right there in front of our eyes, under the mouse cursor, you useless piece of rubbish, half-ar*ed, two-bit dillettante coding done by johnson-wanking Joe-Bobs high as a bleedin' kite! How can you fail to see it?! Dear god, what's wrong with this crap? Oh bother, work, you broken tin-can code! No mod support?! Yeah, that was a bright idea for a nearly beta release of a game based on an amateur-developed proprietary engine! Well, I think I rather 'play' laudry,' than this, since that's at least useful and needs to be done. Or, if I want similarly pointless wasting of time, I could go stand in a queue somewhere without buying anything once I get to the counter... Which would waste as much time pointlessly, but at least I wouldn't have spent money for the 'privilege' of being frustrated by sloppy work." Et cetera, etc., &c., before shutting down the game and going for a joyride to shed the experience of 'playing,' and of having financially supported these 'auteur' devs. Ah, incidentally, they really should have paid a professional published text editor to correct their in-game writing efforts, so obviously intended as erudite and literary in those journal entries, and due to that, ending up more often than not with badly phrased, convoluted, but mostly awkward bits of loosely-woven bits of fiction - well, more like bits befitting the style and phrasing of the lower echelons of fan-fiction found on the 'interwebz,' to be brutally blunt.)
At this point, between the pseudo-Siamese genetic experiment gone awry, the sloppy engine, and the dilettante execution, what began as enjoyable hobby - playing this game - has turned into a rather underwhelming aggregate of 10% enjoyment, 30% tedious repetition, and 50% pointless frustration due to sloppy execution - all of it largely unfixable and mod-unfriendly, especially as far as game engine and any significant additions or improvements to the game are concerned.
Yes, of course, I know much of the rabid fan or bleeding-heart consensus will be: I should fall in line, tow it, and support Joe-Bob's johnson - because I we definitely need more sloppy work, never finished, never intended to be fully finished (to the extent that even modding and fixing it is essentially prevented by mod-unfriendly code).
All I can say to that, after having had my fill of half-ar*sed work, beta releases, and various sloppy attempts at a cash-grab and at striking gold (by rich, bloated big publishers and two-bit indie amateurs alike): less indulging in psychotropic drugs, less fapping of johnsons, and more finished, professional, conscientious work - released not at a point when the devs say 'Meh, good enough - ship it,' but when they are convinced it's well and truly finished.
Because most of your customers are not made of money, and many might even be intellingent enough to reach a point where they will have had enough paying for unfinished and unfixable sloppy work, rather than becoming ar*e-kissing, back-patting, all-forgiving fans and meek little lambs always eager to hand over their pocket money for a quick fix or for being acknowledged by devs or publishers or by a devoutly and unquestioningly following disciple-like co-dependent crowd always seeking a cheap thrill, sloppy seconds, a bone thrown their way, or some sort of fleeting validation of an otherwise shallow, largely meaningless, hollow, unfulfilling existence. (Well, once more: to each their own...)
The game can become very frustrating and inconsistent, and as more time and effort is lost (along with ingredients and painfully and needlessly long and tedious sessions of triangulation, made worse by the glitch-riddled engine), enjoyment turns to boredom and annoyance.
I've played games with no mid-mission saves, and hard though they may have been at times, occasionally leading to incredulous and disapponted cries when killed after achieving so much up till the point of death, but just before being killed, those games were incredibly multi-layered, feature-rich, long-lasting experiences that I remember to this day - I'm referring to titles like the Operation Flashpoint / ARMA seies, or Giants: Citizen Kabuto, or maybe the original Mafia: City of Lost Haven, or even Scarface: The World Is Yours.
Only quoting those and omitting many obvious favourites of ours because none of those had 'save-anywhere' feature, something Miasmata shares. All of those titles are as different from each other as they are different from Miasmata - but all of them are so much more, so much richer, all of them offered so much more replayable, long-lasting experiences replete with subtle details and humour or death-anxiety (or both at the same time, especially in the case of Giants: Citizen Kabuto) than Miasmata.
But in spite of occasionally frustrating deaths or mission failures I finished them all, and not only did I not end up regretting having played them, but they were among the rarer games I restarted and replayed, just to get the full experience again. Miasmata, I can tell, won't be in that select group, and by a large margin. I'll try to finish it, since it's a small, fairly-one-dimensional, shortish game, but then I'll be done with it (especially as significant development of it by way of mods is prevented by the devs' proprietary and limping engine) - and I'll be forever wary if I notice the word 'johnson' (or any synonym of it :=), or the names Johnson or IonFX, based on this dubious (and sloppy) first impression. I won't swear off them just yet, but wariness = that much more effort to convince me to throw my money (not to mention time! - since 'time is money') their way.
The first time's a 'freebie,' a chance easily taken, on good faith, now disappointed - the second time will be that much harder, and I (along with others, the millions and billions who decided to pass this up, as well as the few thousand who bought it on good faith, same as me) will have to be convinced before I believe that Joe-Bob Johnson's effort is not a waste of money, and especially time (and a frustrating waste at that).
I'll wrap this up, and toss this utter BS silent-cower rescinded offer of a fix by the dev (gone AWOL from this thread after the rabid nay-sayers showed up) on the rubbish heap, but first I reiterate what seems a particularly incomprehensible notion to adrenal gland junkies, life-devoid 'uber-gamers,' - and, apparently some devs: CHOICE IS NOT BAD! It's not 'lame,' or 'uncool' or whatever the hell else you care to throw at it.
Again: Minecraft didn't become so universally beloved, so successful, so popular to such a diverse player base through lack of options (including a 'peaceful' and a 'creative' mode!
Nor did it become the phenomenon it has by its devs hiding from the players and their preferences - they looked after the entirety of their supporters, the entire fan base, not just the least flexible and loudest screaming ones! (Please grow a pair to go with the johnson - I'm told boys need that... 'men' more so?!)
But maybe that's what's required: definitive, unambiguous harsher words that cut to the chase (or to the quick - sorry it has come to that).
Well, I personally said all, laid the cards out face up. Joe? Bob? Do as you will. Go for the win... or satisfy the unbending nuts who want no options, no free choice - and no player input. In which case, no room for preferences, or differences (of opinion, or of shades, or anything), or diversity.
Stick by rigid and largely inconsequential, arbitrary and artificial 'ideologies' and fabricated 'principles' in a market-driven field where success is determined by wholly subjective customer satisfaction - where the only conceivable way to satisfy all (or as many as possible) is to allow for as maby choices and options as you can manage - and see where it leads.
After all, I hear people love rigid views (and unbending judgements about what is 'right' according to any one mule-headed stubborn individual) shoved down their throats.
(And if you believe that, then dictators, too, tend to die a peaceful, blissful death surrounded by beloved and an adoring nation, no doubt... Well, yeah: maybe not. Maybe people do prefer options and the ability to choose freely, without being brow-beaten, or ignored. Puzzling, isn't it? I mean who knew? Who would've guessed?)
This might be a spur-of-the-moment post, unedited, rambling - but it's based on pent-up frustration, followed by reading of hundreds, perhaps thousands of posts, comments, reviews, complaints - not to mention sincere and honest pleas, now going unheard, ignored, after a solution was generously offered, then slyly withdrawn, now wrapped in obstinate and blindly uncaring, inconsiderate 'silent treatment.'
So here's a shout, in response - hope it jolts you out of your catatonic / comatose / communicatively shut down state, your recent anti-social bout, torpor, rut, creative block, or whatever it is.
Sorry about the 'tough love,' love... Heh. (Yeah, I know it can be tough, I really do. Well, time fo me to move past this, unburdened and indifferent - you can do the same... or fix it before you forget it.)
Personally I like the tension the creature adds and the heightened risk/reward of the exploration in the game as a result, but clearly from your post that's not something you like, so if you want to remove the creature one of the sample mods for Miasmod does this - the info is on the Miasmod page:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/223510/discussions/0/630800445647188169/
Summary is that you need to download Miasmod from here:
https://github.com/DarkStarSword/miasmata-fixes/releases/tag/miasmod-v1.2.1
And the sample mods from here:
https://github.com/DarkStarSword/miasmata-fixes/releases/download/miasmod-v1.0/miasmata-mods.zip
Copy ailurophobia.miasmod (fear of cats) from the sample mods into the Miasmata directory, run Miasmod and choose to "synchronise alocalmod.rs5" then the creature should no longer appear in the game.
There's also a mod to make the creature less aggressive if you don't want to remove it altogether:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/223510/discussions/0/613938693303760640/
In my experience, if you find yourself pixel-hunting for a landmark you either aren't in a very good vantage point and should move on or are trying to add a small distant landmark that you can't really see very well (if at all) anyway. Sometimes it's due to the landmark being obscured by foliage, which is just a case of not having a good vantage point.
I was guilty of pixel hunting to the extreme in my first playthrough - given how easy it was to get lost I wanted to get as many landmarks as possible every time I pulled out my map. It was only the next time I played that I slowed down and realised that was actually a mistake. The game gives you plenty of good vantage points if you stop to look at your surrounds. Countless times I've pulled out my map somewhere and found myself trying to pinpoint a landmark obscured by a tree, only to realise that if I moved a mere five meters I'd have a clear view of not just that landmark, but three or four others as well and the paths were so clear it was almost as though it was intentionally designed that way by a game developer... (and yes - there are other places where I swear they placed a tree just to remove what would otherwise be a good vantage point).
Just to qualify my position, I am one of the very few people who has actually reverse engineered and modded this game and am a developer (though not a game dev) myself.
For a game with a custom engine, the modding support (or lack there of) is about what I expected. It would be nice if the devs had released their internal tools (something we need to encourage more devs to do, no matter how bad they think their tools are), but given even engines as popular as Unity have failed to release any decent modding tools (pretty much everything has come from the community to mod Unity games), so it's not really a surprise here either.
Writing a good modding API to allow scripts to hook into the built-in code is difficult unless you design the entire engine to be scripted, but that's asking a lot of a team with a single programmer who just wants to code everything in C++. You've held Minecraft up as a shining example of a moddable game (EDIT: Actually looking at your post again you didn't, my apologies), but even there the modding support is actually really bad - there is no official modding support in the engine, the community had to figure out how to hook into the Java and as a result the mods tend to break every time the game is updated. The only difference here is that compiled C++ code can't be altered so easily and we have less of a community.
Could this have been done better? Absolutely! IonFX knows this too - Bob has told me that the lack of decent modding support in Miasmata is one of their biggest regrets and they want to try to have better modding support in from the start on their next game.