It's not the shark, it's the (early) game combat.

[CasualMochi]

After several save files and a good amount of hours in the game I reached end game, fully armored my raft got a better weapon etc etc. And then it finally hit me.
Do I dislike the shark mechanic? no not really. It's their for a good reason.
Then why do I dislike the shark so much and I basically don't want to go through that again.
Well, it's the combat that is just horrible.

Example: The starter spear.
The spear is the first weapon you can make. The problem her is its attack speed, cooldown between attacks and range. Give me a pointy stick in real life and I can stab once a second at least, especially when not hitting anything and the pointy stick getting stuck. But in Raft an attack cycle takes 4 seconds. Combine this with the range. It's a spear, it is designed for to fight at range, why do I need to stand on top of the shark else you won't hit it. And 30 hits to kill it? I bet if you ever stab a shark with a pointy stick, it will flee and else go down in less then 30 stabs, especially in the nose.

And to be honest, now that I am mid game. the combat is the least fun part of the game. I almost would put the game in creative, but yheh you can't follow the story then and then all excitement and pressure is gone. And again, it's not the shark, or birds, or boars that ain't fun. I don't want to disable them. I want to fight them with a good combat system.

And I already hear the hardcore players already: Skill issue.
The combat is not hard. In the worst case scenario you just wait on your raft till the shark attacks your raft, stab it 3 times, repair foundation it attacked and wait till you can repeat the process 10 times so you can be at peace for 7 minutes if you leave the head. The combat is just a choir.

[>< V ><]

Escrito originalmente por MochiRoxStar:

Going into the water with 7 spears, waiting till the shark comes, stab it in the nose, wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. repeat 30 times.

What is this?

I can hit a shark 5 times with a spear during each pass. If you want to hit it once and then choose to wait for no reason whatsoever, then that's your choice. You found a way to kill the shark and then never used your brain to try and get better at it.

That would be my analysis.

[BORG]

Escrito originalmente por >< V ><:

Escrito originalmente por MochiRoxStar:

Going into the water with 7 spears, waiting till the shark comes, stab it in the nose, wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. wait till it swims away............. wait till it turns around.......... wait till it swims back......... wait till it attacks and stab it in the nose.............. repeat 30 times.

What is this?

I can hit a shark 5 times with a spear during each pass. If you want to hit it once and then choose to wait for no reason whatsoever, then that's your choice. You found a way to kill the shark and then never used your brain to try and get better at it.

That would be my analysis.

Legit. I read that and thought, "What the hell are they doing? That will take forever!"

Most of the people who have a problem with Bruce simply don't understand how to use the game's mechanics or are unwilling to explore different ways of doing things. Not only can you hit Bruce that many times, but if you cheese his janky swimming mechanics, you can get an extra hit or two in, thus killing him quicker.

[Blender McBiscuits]

My first playthough, I did on "Peaceful". Full gameplay except nothing attacks you, although they will fight back if you attack them. Made it much less annoying to play through and get the hang of the game. Now I'm on "easy", the only difference between that and harder levels I can see, is that combat is harder. Yeah the combat is kind of annoying in the game, so it's good to be able to switch it off or turn it down.

[CasualMochi]

Escrito originalmente por Pets Ducks Aggressively:

The shark is annoying starting game, yes. Could it be made better? absolutely
I'd like to see your suggestion on how you would rather the fighting gameplay to be - maybe raft just isnt the right type of game for you. (Not to take cheap shots, im curious as to what kind of fighting you'd prefer in a game like this)
Here is a link to an alternate mod that allows you to bypass part of the shark mechanic i think you have the issue with:
https://www.raftmodding.com/mods/sharkspy
Once you get a sharkhead, you can wear it and 'fool' the shark into not attacking you, but it may attack the raft.
Or: a healthbar mod, lets you see how much health something has left.
https://www.raftmodding.com/mods/health-bar

I couldnt find anything for Raft's fighting system, or anything to do with spears or bows, but hopefully one of these two mods may help with the issue

As said before and people keep referring too: the shark is not hard to beat, but the battle gameplay is just not fun. The battle system feels like a after thought other then a system that is well designed.

I also don't think people play Raft especially to fight Jeff so saying "this might not be the game for you" is kinda a weak argument.

How I would improve it? Make the controls less clunky, give the shark different AI behavior then simply jousting at you. It's a shark, it should come from different angles and ambush you. Not swim away and then turn around to go straight for you again so you can hit it's pretty nose. Make Jeff a true hidden manic that can strike at any time when you least expect it and you actually have to fight in multiple ways or dodge with different options depending on the situation and what you wanna do. And not a timed event that chomps on your raft as a resources sink and is a boring game of jousting in the water before you can make land or harvest resources under water.

[Nyota Mwuaji]

you can craft a bait and the shark will leave you and your raft alone for a time. also idk if it got changed, but after killing bruce, dont full harvest him and it takes longer for him to respawn. also once you get the stuff to armor the foundation of your raft, he basically cant do ♥♥♥♥ to it anymore

[CasualMochi]

Escrito originalmente por BORG:

Escrito originalmente por >< V ><:

What is this?

I can hit a shark 5 times with a spear during each pass. If you want to hit it once and then choose to wait for no reason whatsoever, then that's your choice. You found a way to kill the shark and then never used your brain to try and get better at it.

That would be my analysis.

Legit. I read that and thought, "What the hell are they doing? That will take forever!"

Most of the people who have a problem with Bruce simply don't understand how to use the game's mechanics or are unwilling to explore different ways of doing things. Not only can you hit Bruce that many times, but if you cheese his janky swimming mechanics, you can get an extra hit or two in, thus killing him quicker.

Read what you say here "but if you cheese his janky swimming mechanics." A good well designed game mechanic that is fun, doesn't need to be "cheesed" as you enjoy doing it.

I repeat once again, the shark is not hard to defeat, maybe if they make it harder it becomes more fun. But the current iteration is simple not fun. There is a difference between something being hard and something being fun. Remember those game where half of the gameplay was bashing a button on the screen that was more difficult to fail then to not to fail. It was not difficult at all, but hell I would give my left kidney to skip those parts as they are not fun.

I don't want to cheese it to bypass those section. I want those sections to be either fun to play or stripped out.

[Aleasha]

I have to agree with Mochi, the combat does suck for this game but otherwise I find it to be an enjoyable game. I am actually playing with my sister and even tag teaming the shark we seem to only be able to hit it once every 4 seconds. It also seems that if one person hits it the other can't seem to hit it until after about 4 seconds, do people share cooldown timers?

[76561198972294167]

Escrito originalmente por Aleasha:

I have to agree with Mochi, the combat does suck for this game but otherwise I find it to be an enjoyable game. I am actually playing with my sister and even tag teaming the shark we seem to only be able to hit it once every 4 seconds. It also seems that if one person hits it the other can't seem to hit it until after about 4 seconds, do people share cooldown timers?

Never experience that, must be a lag or something.

[BORG]

@MochiRoxStar you don't have to cheese it. It's the player's choice. The combat isn't perfect, but it's not terrible either. It's just different than what some people are used to and it doesn't appeal to them. Like anything, the more a player practices, the better a player becomes. All I was really saying is if a person wants to get things over with faster, it's an option. They're not going to revamp the combat system so players just need to adapt.

@Aleasha there's no cool down timers. The shark goes for whoever is closest. You're likely experiencing network latency or game lag.

[Porked!]

I think the main issue here is how unsatisfying the animation is. It's the fact that attack animations are pretty much just "do a weak poke, take a break for no reason, repeat". There's even a long, dead-pause in the animation. Why is that? They could at least show that the character was trying to pluck their tools out, adjusting their grips, looking for damages on tools, etc.

Anything is better than just a dead stare after each of those weird prodding.

[BORG]

I hope people are aware and realise Raft was developed by three Swedish students from Uppsala University. As the studio Redbeet Interactive, It was first released as a free download on indie platform Itch.io in 2016 and was released as an early access game on Steam on May 23, 2018.

This was a game created by people learning how to make games. The result is this game is not perfect nor should it be expected. They are done with this game and not going to revamp the combat system. The game is what it is as is. They have other projects and things to do. They already spent a lot of their time on this game to make it best they knew how. People need to accept that none of this is going to change. They've moved onto other things. Patches and hotfixes are about all we're going to get in future.

If people really want the combat to be different, they should develop or hire someone to develop a modification to change the combat system to behave how they want it to. That's the only solution.