I wish I could refund the game (PS4) - Constructive criticism inside

[zoli2005]

Let me say first that I'm a HUGE fan of survivial games and I really wanted to like this one, the setup is exactly the type of games I was looking for right now.
But between the constant crashes on PS4 (combined with no auto-save) and the frustrating design choices I ended up wishing for a refund, something I rarely even do.

The crashes remain the biggest problem, it's the third time the game crashed while I was on sea, making me lose more than 30 min of progress each time (because I'm not going to compulsively manual-save ever 5 min).
I really don't see the reason to not allow auto-save in the first place, I play on perma-death so it's not to have it easy but if the game is so buggy the very least it could do is not allow people to lose progress so easily.

Now if it wasn't for the crashes, the extremely frustrating inventory management would have possibly worn me out on the longer term.
Let's say that I have a full inventory and an item in my hand, I want to take another item from my inventory in hand, instead of swapping both like any other game would do, it actually drops the item in my hand, without warning or reason, then picks up the one in my inventory.
I have lost so many tools because I keep unknowligly dropping them somewhere on the island.
I'm all for the making the game more realistic but this isn't, it's just broken design.

And while we are at it, why can't we drink coconuts directly from the inventory? or even from the ground? Why do I have to make 10 clicks and open the inventory 3-4 times to realize a basic action that I'll have to do over and over again?
Again this isn't realism it's a clunky, poorly thought-out UI.

I also wasted sooo much time in the building menu going left and right between all the tabs because the game doesn't remember the last tab I browsed and instead always opens on the same one.

Then we have the clunky physics, sometimes the raft is stuck on a rock and it doesn't want to move more than one milimeter a second and I have to waste 2 min trying to drag it around in all directions.
And half the time I am trying to climb on it I end up under it for some reason.

I could live with like 80% of all these problems because as I have said this is one of my favourite game genres but too much is too much.

I would have refunded the game if it was allowed on PS4 but since I'm stuck with it I'll take another look some time in the future and I wish these issues will be sorted, it's a shame to waste so much potential IMO.

[pinewoodro]

This game has never crashed on my PC and it is early access so there are bound to be a few issues.

[The Old Bear]

I would give it some time for updates to role in. The game is in early access and just came out on console. There should be a way to report the issue and send them your save file so they can isolate the issue and solve it even faster.

[thomlovessue]

I agree that the console version needs work, but the devs have been busy trying to update both. Either wait a while as stated by The Old Bear, or if you can't wait, try ther PC version. If the issue is money like it is for most of us, just wait; it will be worth it in the end...

[QueenPixxa]

Autosave would be a problem for me. I prefer to have the choice when to save. If something bad happens, and the game autosaves, I'd be stuck in that bad situation without having the chance to go back to before disaster strucks.

[V11CU96]

I still have affection for this game, I mean with SD it really depends how you look at it, for the price its fine, everything works pretty good, it has enough features and content, to keep most coming back for the odd play at least. still feels like it isn't quite rich enough in content compared to similar / rival games of this genre, but it has a very cool atmostphere and setting that many of the others lack. Its quite a relaxing game to play.

The tragic part of SD is really in its long 5 year EA dev cycle, which has.... well, been a bit of a mess quite frankly, alot of back and forth, sparse content updates that almost remove as much as they add. Some really rich and amazing content updates, spread out between rather dissapointing and rather superficial ones that just seemed like the team was just going through the motions with no real direction or objective.
Its when you consider the length of time this game was in EA for, and compare what it had in Version 1 to what it has now, its actually abit shocking how little it has to show for it over that time span.
So while its progressed well at a glance, its not progressed well if you consider it took 5 years to get it there.

Still - ultimately its still an enjoyable survival and perfectly good value for money,