My critique of the blueprint/crafting progression

[Ambix]

I feel that from a gameplay perspective, the point at which you acquire the ability to craft most items is sub-optimal at best, which leads to many items being inherently superfluous.

The most egregious example is probably the titanium tools you acquire after completing the story. For the average player they essentially serve no purpose, and not just because of the lack of endgame content. They also serve little to no purpose for other activities like expanding your raft, farming achievements, or acquiring treasure. They might be useful in the very beginning of the mid-game when players are still actively looking for resources instead of just stockpiling them, however the titanium costs are so large that most would find themselves treasure hunting non-stop just to keep up with their hook usage. Additionally, the metal spear is still more efficient to craft and use because of it's cost and it's superior attack animation.

This extends to other advanced blueprints you acquire towards the end of the game as well. The point at which you gain the ability to build the electric furnace is LONG past the point you're doing any smelting whatsoever, and this is even for fresh worlds you just made and speed ran through.

This somewhat ties in to the perception that this game is excessively and pointlessly grindy. There is a certain point in everyone's playthrough where they find themselves constantly hopping from one island to the next in a mad struggle to feed their smelters and collection nets so they can then make more tools to feed their smelters and collection nets. The battery powered refinery, smelter, and windmill charger would have had the most impact at this phase of our game because they would halt the circular nature of our collection efforts, but we don't get them until it's far too late.

The only item progression that feels meaningful comes from the early game research table and the 2nd/3rd story islands, because those are the items that actually impact how you play the game. Upgrading the first water still to the solar distillery felt amazing. Suddenly you found yourself with the freedom to go do other things like designing a cooler raft. The same holds true for the engine and steering wheel blueprints you get from the vasagatan. Does anyone remember the first time they played and hit an island or another raft before reaching the vasagatan and then suddenly your collection nets are picking up basically nothing because they're out of alignment with the wind and you couldn't correct it? Pepperidge farm remembers.

The only solutions I can think of for this problem are A) add more relevant content (A new boss fight to use my cool new sword against for instance) or B) do away with most of the mid game machines and replace them with the newer ones, because arguably the mid game biofuel-centric machines are the main culprits behind forcing grindy gameplay patterns anyway.

TL;DR

The item progression in this game feels bad. When I beat the game and got the titanium tool blueprints my first and only thought was "Why?".

[Aidal]

A lot of this is a person by person basis, to argue with or against it is silly, some people don't mind, and even like things like this as it gives them a feeling of conquering/wealth. Others see it as a weird progression problem.

Valheim has a similar problem, there's a lot of grindy slog, some people like it, some people don't.

Sorry it feels rough for you my dude, I don't got any issues with it, but stuff like this is relaxing for me and my wife. Wish you all the best.

[Ambix]

The grind wasn't really the point. I'm not against grinding if the end goal is desirable. It took me 2 or 3 months to grind out the winterspring frost saber mount in wow classic.

My main point was the pointlessness of the late game machine and tool blueprints. They're pointless for literally everyone except a VERY tiny fraction of the player base that enjoys the act of farming materials just for the sake of it, and even then it's still better/more efficient to use scrap iron hooks / spears / axes.

[GingerShepherd]

yeah the trader rubs me the wrong way aswell. I'm not against grinding but the point of "Raft" as I perceived it was to be selfsufficient end efficient. I'm not gonna press "E" 60+ times to fill one recycler with plastic, just to get trashcubes, just to get bait, just to get sealife to sell and then STILL need trashcubes to buy ingredients that you don't really need and can't plant yourself.
Also I noticed that some things in the new update are just mods you could find on the raftmodding site, like the battery charge indicator. The Story content was enjoyable for the most part, but some blueprints are just useless with the sole purpose of stretching gametime by grinding.

[LtMackAttack]

I agree with the OP, in most survival games I play (Ark, 7d2d, Empyrion GS, eg.) the highest tier crafting stations/tools/weapons generally come before the actual end of the game. What's the point of grinding towards the high tier stuff, if you can't use until after you beat the game. For example, compare the medium storage box to the large box. I can stack 3 medium boxes that will allow me to store 60 item slots. Where as 1 large box will only hold 40 item slots. So why grind the titanium to build the large boxes. Plus the large is bigger (takes up more area) than the medium stacked 3 high. To me, it seems pointless. But that's just my opinion.

[Ambix]

Originally posted by Man of God:

but some blueprints are just useless with the sole purpose of stretching gametime by grinding.

Originally posted by LtMackAttack:

So why grind the titanium to build the large boxes.

I felt the same way about tool durability as well. Making flippers and O2 bottles for instance ends up costing you time and effort instead of saving it.

It takes about 10-15 minutes (or longer if you're drifting/not paying attention) to travel to an island, collect the vine goo, and smelt/craft it in to 1 set of bottles and flippers both of which break after maybe 3-5 minutes of continuous use.

I took my time going through varuna point and the efficiency of the flippers and bottles was so bad I ended up just doing without them halfway through.

I think that's a similar problem. If the cost/benefit of items is low enough most players just don't make them which makes them pointless.

I pretty much only craft stone axes just because I can make them entirely out of ♥♥♥♥ I gather passively in the collection nets which saves a ♥♥♥♥ load of time. Plus they last 50 swings instead of only 100 for the iron axe which is made with materials you have to go manually farm.

EDIT: MOM! MORE HOT POCKETS!

[crazycupmuffin]

There's a lot of good looking mods for raft. One being new storage options.