Map

[Lazarus]

Why doesn't this game have an ingame map with your location? This is so basic. The most frustrating thing in this game is not knowing where you are. miles and miles of forest and a few tiny lakes.

I think this is a HUGE turnoff to new players. People dont have 18hours a day to play your game and know the map like the back of their hands.

I mean the most exciting part of any game is running around blind for 25minutes and dieing of hunger when you dont see a single other dino. Wow, I had a blast!

[Sargon The Grape]

There are a lot of hills to get the lay of the land from, and fast herbivores like gallimimus who are ideal for exploration runs. I only needed an hour or so the first time I played on Thenyaw Island to figure out where most everything is, and I had picked out my favorite hotspots well before that point. You certainly don't need to play "18 hours a day" in order to establish a basic sense of where you are on the map.

Now, if the reason you're having trouble is because you're going straight for a more advanced character like Tyrannosaurus, that's on you. Start with something more basic while you're learning, like Gallimimus.

[dinosauriac]

When the environment design is actually finished and the game is further along you shouldn't need one. There are landmarks on Thenyaw Island to help orient yourself which are visible across the entire island, and at night there is the north star shining in the sky. Oftentimes you spawn in the forest or valley, so have to get to a higher vantage point to see the tall rock formations that act as waypoints in the world. Please note though that the "V3" level is still heavily work in progress so doesn't have many navigation helpers like these yet.

Discovering the environment is intended to be a large part of gameplay, giving you a map to where everything is would defeat the point. That said, the scent system added recently helps with locating food and will also lead you to water in the future. Rivers will be added that flow clear across the islands along with a lot more ponds, making water less scarce. Procedural randomized foliage is also being added right now so that there will always be plants to find, it's partially implemented on the development branch.

[Lazarus]

Originally posted by dinosauriac:

When the environment design is actually finished and the game is further along you shouldn't need one. There are landmarks on Thenyaw Island to help orient yourself which are visible across the entire island, and at night there is the north star shining in the sky. Oftentimes you spawn in the forest or valley, so have to get to a higher vantage point to see the tall rock formations that act as waypoints in the world. Please note though that the "V3" level is still heavily work in progress so doesn't have many navigation helpers like these yet.

Discovering the environment is intended to be a large part of gameplay, giving you a map to where everything is would defeat the point. That said, the scent system added recently helps with locating food and will also lead you to water in the future. Rivers will be added that flow clear across the islands along with a lot more ponds, making water less scarce. Procedural randomized foliage is also being added right now so that there will always be plants to find, it's partially implemented on the development branch.

Again, you expect people to learn based on landmarks, i dont think most people will give it that time. Good luck to you and your dev team. this game is just not for me as it seems more like a simulator.

This is supposed to be a survival game? cant think of any successful survival/open world game without a map. Especially one this cluttered in forests.Just does not make sense.

[Lazarus]

Originally posted by Just Monika:

There are a lot of hills to get the lay of the land from, and fast herbivores like gallimimus who are ideal for exploration runs. I only needed an hour or so the first time I played on Thenyaw Island to figure out where most everything is, and I had picked out my favorite hotspots well before that point. You certainly don't need to play "18 hours a day" in order to establish a basic sense of where you are on the map.

Now, if the reason you're having trouble is because you're going straight for a more advanced character like Tyrannosaurus, that's on you. Start with something more basic while you're learning, like Gallimimus.

If you are a new player, spawning in, no idea where to go. You run around for 25min and die from hunger or water. You think that is a stimulating experience? Good first impression? You think that player is going to stick around? probably 1 in 20 will not. Especially after they google the hotkey for the map and find there is not one.

[Lazarus]

Anyways, thought I would give my 2 cents, this is why i quit before and thought maybe updates may have changed it but no sadly not.

It honestly doesn't make sense though. If you put in a map you might gain some player base and you would lose no one. But by not having something this basic in an Open Forest World game, you are losing players like myself who dont want to waste their time lost in a wilderness whehn they are supposed to be having fun.

You're aiming too realistic, Video games are supposed to be fun, unless its a simulator.

If you took 100 random video gamers that never played and put them in this game next to a dev, all 100 of them would ask What is the hotkey key for the map.

[Why Watt]

Can I just interject into your notion?
1 / 20 gamers who do not read the damn store page would be turned away from ANY game.
Forget hours. Forget even a half hour, spend minutes of your time reading what game you are going to get into. Read the store page and suddenly nobody in those 100, who have actually sought to purchase the game, will ask how to check the map because they will know there won't be one.

No map is planned, nor has ever been planned, infact the game is intent to circumvent the need for one.

This game is intended to have zer0 hand-holding. If you want to survive in this game, use your brain and common sense. Think like bear grills. Wanna find your way? Get to high ground and look for landmarks. That's moreso what an actual survival game would aim to do, the 'survival sandbox' genre kinda butchers the central notion of survival.

Go about things using your gnoggin, methodically. Wanna learn the map, well as other players suggested you should go for something that doesn't risk much if it dies, like Gallimimus. A fast herbivore with plenty of endurance, the perfect choice for a beginner because it doesn't need to scavenger or learn to hunt, it doesnt need to trust anyone: it just needs to be alert and keep moving.

[Skooom]

Originally posted by KillersRsnowflakes:

If you are a new player, spawning in, no idea where to go. You run around for 25min and die from hunger or water. You think that is a stimulating experience? Good first impression? You think that player is going to stick around? probably 1 in 20 will not. Especially after they google the hotkey for the map and find there is not one.

If you're looking for water then wait till the game fully adds rivers and as for food, be a herbivore, unless it's on a V3 map then ur screwed

[Fried_potato]

god how dArE this survival game force me to learn a map and not instantly spoonfeed me survival hnggggg. or ya know you could just use the many fan made maps that are made about a day after any map is released to compensate the fact its still an early access game if you need a map that bad.

[Skooom]

a lot of discord servers have them, the maps i mean

[Puppet Pal Clem]

This game reminds me too much like dayz with it's tryhardness. I redownloaded the game, ran for about 20mins nonstop up a neverending hill. Fell asleep with my finger w half way up, after i got up the hill found nothing, went down the other end, walked into a vast open field with nothing (dont know where im going at all).

I mean the devs can keep the game hardcore, but i dont play for many weeks or months if i die and lose my progression. The game is very time consuming before you experience any fun, and if you die halfway to adult (or soon after getting it) you might end up ragequiting for a while.

[SeverelyHostile]

Originally posted by Lazrus:

This is supposed to be a survival game? cant think of any successful survival/open world game without a map. Especially one this cluttered in forests.Just does not make sense.

Oh man. Think, when you're lost in the forest, do you have map with you? Bo you have map with you 24/7? No.
Now think about dinosaurs. Those in order to get everywhere must have learn where they live. They couldn't make maps, or anything.
And the last one; in the internet you can find really good maps to thenyaw. Simply use those. Grab your phone, google "the isle thenyaw map" and navigate like that. If that doesn't help, it looks like you're too bad to play this game.

[Lazarus]

i can tell you are all fanboys, have fun with your 1k player base. No one playes this game for a reason, the fun factor is missing, this is more a simulator than a game. If you aren't obsessed with dino's, you wont play this simulator. Seriously, your player base is hilariously small. goodbye forever.

Oh and at every lake you see carnos and herbis teamed up, so much for your realism, RIP ISLE!

[Skooom]

Originally posted by Lazrus:

i can tell you are all fanboys, have fun with your 1k player base. No one playes this game for a reason, the fun factor is missing, this is more a simulator than a game. If you aren't obsessed with dino's, you wont play this simulator. Seriously, your player base is hilariously small. goodbye forever.

Oh and at every lake you see carnos and herbis teamed up, so much for your realism, RIP ISLE!

Some people actually do play this game for a reason, either getting more friends or just releasing stress. Not every lake has herbivores teaming with carnivores, some are abandoned, some with growing packs, others with herbivores nesting that absolutly will not allow any carnivore or just ignore the smaller ones since they aren't current threats. And if realism is a problem find a server with "realism" in it, it solves a lot of problems. Also as for fun, it's that chance to fight or having some dangerous situation that people can consider fun, since progression's being scraped people won't really need to rage quit after something like their allo has been murdered, because in survival you can be an allo all you want.

[Why Watt]

Originally posted by Lazrus:

i can tell you are all fanboys, have fun with your 1k player base. No one playes this game for a reason, the fun factor is missing, this is more a simulator than a game. If you aren't obsessed with dino's, you wont play this simulator. Seriously, your player base is hilariously small. goodbye forever.

Oh and at every lake you see carnos and herbis teamed up, so much for your realism, RIP ISLE!

Ok so everyone could reply to that testifying of all people I'm not a fanboy here lol. I ♥♥♥♥ on things in the game on a regular basis, offer constructive criticism on others. Example, most recent dev branch patch left me chuckling at how they failed to see why Diablo is a problem and nerfed it in a way that makes no impact.

The map is in no way correlated with other issues the game DOES have. The lack of a map isn't one of the things that makes it frustrating or leaves players feeling burnt out. The game needs a lot of work, likewise the devs need to work on improving public relations if they want to expand the playerbase, because their reputation is hardly savory.

The game shines in its spontaneous moments. Earlier I was a Utah, not being carebared or anything, and I watched two groups of trikes duke it out, and slipped in as the baby cried out in distress and gobbled it up while the parents were occupied. Less than 2 minutes latter I'm in a lethal pursuit with a Carnotaurus, juking for my life, against a foe with more endurance and speed; I was only at 2/3rds stamina, and had to rely on agility and thinking out an escape plan while a Carno, that would kill me outright, was right behind me. I was riding the adrenaline for like, 10 minutes after that ordeal. Especially since my hands were jerking mid-chase, causing me to veer off and slow down dangerously.

THAT is why the playerbase of ~1k is constant, because they, like me, got hooked on the adrenaline that comes from sheer terror, intense fights with a very high risk (hours of time with no real quick-way forward) to you and your adversary. No other game provides an interaction that is so unpredictable; all your threats are of other players, you have no idea whether you are talking to a saint or sinner, you don't know how much they know, if they are skilled with X dino, if they want to kill for pleasure or food or territory. The map, large as it is, makes encounters with other players very tense, weary. If another of your kind moves towards your rear, is it following you or is it preparing to attack?

The game is amazing in that sense... but yeah, I agree it needs work. The game is quite frustrating until you get a first 'hook' experience and turns away people that don't have those awesome moments that only come from this game.

As for herbis and carnis sharing a waterhole, that is more a reflection of what happens in real life than you might assume. Carnivores and herbivores don't magically kill eachother on sight, or flee, or whatever. A tiger can share the waterhole with deer and peacocks without anything being weird about it. Body language is how animals tell whether somehting is hunting or not. If a predator isn't prepared to hunt the prey item will likely be the one to come out on top, be it escaping or defending itself. Most of an animal's life is not life or death pursuits, but moments between. Those rare moments people like to film because it is action.
But tag-teaming is unrealistic. Tolerating, and oppertunistic cooperation is not.

[SeverelyHostile]

Originally posted by Lazrus:

i can tell you are all fanboys, have fun with your 1k player base. No one playes this game for a reason, the fun factor is missing, this is more a simulator than a game. If you aren't obsessed with dino's, you wont play this simulator. Seriously, your player base is hilariously small. goodbye forever.

Oh and at every lake you see carnos and herbis teamed up, so much for your realism, RIP ISLE!

Ehhhh.....idiot.