Beta Log Day 1 (2hrs played)

[Jaycorn]

Okay, before I start I want to preface this by saying that what the devs are trying to do here, is probably the most brave and honest thing I've seen a dev group attempt in the last couple decades I've been gaming. Looking at your game, and noticing where it falls flat - and then trying to do something about it - takes more guts than the majority of AAA trash that gets pushed out the door for a quick buck these days.

To go with that, there will be issues. The Devs made these new systems with the data they had in a vacuum, and this beta is our chance to help them by pointing out things they missed in their design meetings. I'm going to be approaching these issues with the mindset of "what makes the game fun", so if you're reading something down below and you go "Well, it's a game, it doesn't have to be realistic" TRUST ME I, KNOW THAT. Okay, let's go.

CRAFTING

So obviously big changes happened here, and in practice I think the new system mostly works. The big problems I'm seeing is where the system gets bogged down in tedious busy work seemingly just to slow down the players.

=Schematics=

The new system is an interesting idea, and one that I like generally. The big problems I'm seeing are:

-Schematics are filling up the inventory
-Schematics for low-tier items don't make sense
-RNG for schematics feels grindy, and slows the gameplay loop unnecessarily.

Let me go into some more detail. I start the game being able to make bandages, a water canteen, a hatchet, a shovel, and various building pieces like walls, roofs and containers.

Why can't I make a javelin? Or a dart? Or a slightly better hatchet?

Schematics definitely work for more complex things. I have dozens of things from IKEA, I still need an instruction manual for that bookcase I bought three of. But if I start the game being able to build a hatchet, I sure as hell should be able to tie a pointy rock to a stick without a diagram drawn in Rupu dung.

To go with that, the RNG on schematics is really bad. Even if the devs adjust so low-tier objects don't require schematics, if I need a certain schematic, I should at least be able to figure out where to go for a good chance of getting it. This is a survival game, grinding and drop rate chances are standard fare, but wandering aimlessly, killing the much-more-difficult-now-rupu for a chance to find a schematic for a walker I need isn't fun. It's slow, and awkward. Especially when you end up finding dart and hammock schematics instead and your inventory gets filled up.

Which brings me to my last critique: Schematics need to have their own part of the inventory or something. They're sheets of paper, or scrolls. Especially if we're getting schematics of pointy sticks, there needs to be a pocket or something we have to shove those in that doesn't take up space where my wood and fibre goes.

Now, I'm sure there's things planned for progression, later on. I heard about a book that can hold your schematics, for instance. But one of the things that makes early game challenging is the lack of storage space. We already have to choose what we carry. Having our progression system tied to our inventory is not good.

But I have some ideas on how to help with schematics. Again, I think it's a good system, it forces us to search the environment instead of just gathering and poopin' out gear to sell all day.

- Schematics need their own pouch or something early on. Something easy to make, and generous with storage. This will let us stay out longer to gather and fight without having to run all the way back home ever two or three encounters.

- Schematics should either have uses/durability (so we can use them more than once) or a better drop rate. Some schems already drop a lot, but not the ones we need the most often.

- Balance out that RNG. Especially if you insist on keeping things like darts on a schematic, you need to let us have a method of finding where the drops are consistently. In addition to that, important drops (like walker schems), need to have a guaranteed location. A big-ass Rupu mini-boss, a crash site swarming with angry bugs, that sort of thing. When it's time for use to make a walker or an important crafting station, RNG shouldn't be the thing holding us back, because it's frustrating without a payoff. If I fail to kill a mini-boss, I can get friends, prepare better, and feel AWESOME when I beat it and get my schematic. If I kill Rupu for half an hour and get 5 dart schems, a hammock schem and two shirt schems, but no walker schem? Bruh.

- There should be a mechanic where we can memorize frequently used schematics. Either you gather multiple and choose to study the schematic instead of using it up, or you use that book I've heard about to use schematics without loosing them. The book is actually a better idea, because you could lose the book if you die with it, so it makes the system more important. Either way, I see this being an issue that will just make high-level play tedious if it's not addressed now.

=Crafting Times=
FIXED (hotfix)
So, uh, crafting water takes a bunch more time now, huh?

This isn't a big one, the timer just needs some adjusting I think. I'm cool with it being slower than it used to, but it really doesn't have to be. Like some of the other design changes, I think this one is off track a bit. It's meant to slow us down and make us search for more wood and cactus, fine. But is that fun? Why slow us down there when you're slowing us down in other areas? Something to think about.

=Base Crafting=

Honestly, the only problem I'm having right now is that without packing, I can't move my things around inside my base. I'm not certain if a mechanic for that is planned, but especially since I lose materials when I disassemble a station or container, it feels like I'm being punished for updating the design of my shack when I finally get the materials to make it bigger or something.

My thought is to do what some other games like Valheim or Satisfactory do, and just make things that go IN a base - things like containers, beds, and crafting stations - disassemble for their exact cost without losing anything. This way the devs wouldn't have to make a whole new mechanic, and the result is the same as moving stations around when we had packing.

Bottom line, I should have to disassemble my couch when I want to move it three feet. Just let me move things, or make them free to disassemble. Easy-peasy.

Inventory

Right now, the inventory is basically the same, but I do have one major complaint, and it's that javelins don't stack. It's a small thing, but let them stack to at least 3 or 4 please! It's so rough to take up more than one inventory slot while I'm out gathering.

Environment

That new dust storm is amazing, and you should all love it. No notes. Oh! Except that it should make the Rupu hunker down too. I know that's harder to code for, but having the Rupu and wildlife run around like it's no big deal is weird to see, makes me feel like the gods are punishing me for have weak, squishy skin.

Conclusion

So after two hours of playing I can say that I'm enjoying the changes more than I'm hating them. The spirit of that core loop from before is there, and not having to worry about players is nice (although that wasn't really a problem in the Cradle before). I feel more restricted without a walker, and the RNG is screwing me very much right now in terms of finding the schems for one, so that's something to address I think. Getting a player into a walker within the first hour (if they're not just spending time cutting tress down or something) is hugely important in this game about walkers.

And I imagine that there will be a new tutorial at some point, but not having at least a checklist on the side was disconcerting, and I know how the basics of this game work. I didn't want to critique that too hard, because like I said, I assumed there would be a new one coming.

Anyhow, I'll add more to this when I jump on later today and do some more tomorrow. Until then, keep your chin up devs, this is the hardest part of what you're doing. I'm at least rooting for this to work. It made me reinstall the game. Best of luck!

[TōshiR0]

Excellent. This is the kind of post we need, the devs need, the whole game and community needs. Excellent. You summed up everything in a logical and fair way, pointing things that need adjustments and not HATING on them right away. A few questions, how does the game feels now, in this more pveish, survival new face? What is the walker function now, for example?

Cheers, and enjoy those awards! Keep them coming.

[Decado]

There’s two things that really phase me in survival games: excessive unnecessary grind for basic items and dealing with continual full inventories

[Jaycorn]

Originally posted by GhasGhost:

Excellent. This is the kind of post we need, the devs need, the whole game and community needs. Excellent. You summed up everything in a logical and fair way, pointing things that need adjustments and not HATING on them right away. A few questions, how does the game feels now, in this more pveish, survival new face? What is the walker function now, for example?

Cheers, and enjoy those awards! Keep them coming.

Thanks! I used to run a critique channel on Youtube yonks ago, and I have lots of Dev friends from those days.

I haven't been able to find schematics for walkers yet, so that'll come probably later tonight. Otherwise, I've always liked the PvE in this game, so I'm glad to see that feel is still there, but deeper if that makes sense? The Rupu are harder, the sandstorms make me look for cover occasionally, etc. There's lots to like here, but if you were a fan of the PvP-inundated game Last Oasis was, you're gonna hate it. Which is a good thing, I think. Those people made this game unplayable.

[Jaycorn]

Originally posted by Decado:

There’s two things that really phase me in survival games: excessive unnecessary grind for basic items and dealing with continual full inventories

Exactly what I wanted to focus on. It's an easy trap to fall into, too. If you're trying ot design a way to slow down the loop so people have to focus on the PvE, devs often accidentally make their core loop too grindy. There are other ways to achieve a slow-down.

[Decado]

Originally posted by Jaycorn:

Originally posted by Decado:

There’s two things that really phase me in survival games: excessive unnecessary grind for basic items and dealing with continual full inventories

Exactly what I wanted to focus on. It's an easy trap to fall into, too. If you're trying ot design a way to slow down the loop so people have to focus on the PvE, devs often accidentally make their core loop too grindy. There are other ways to achieve a slow-down.

They already made specific attempts to reduce true grind in previous seasons. They can’t go back to that, it’s unbearable.

To me so much of early last oasis was continually picking up crap like fiber. You could never get enough of the stuff and would blow through it quickly.

The other aspect is high material costs to lower necessary items - creates the annoying grind.

[TōshiR0]

Originally posted by Jaycorn:

Originally posted by GhasGhost:

Excellent. This is the kind of post we need, the devs need, the whole game and community needs. Excellent. You summed up everything in a logical and fair way, pointing things that need adjustments and not HATING on them right away. A few questions, how does the game feels now, in this more pveish, survival new face? What is the walker function now, for example?

Cheers, and enjoy those awards! Keep them coming.

Thanks! I used to run a critique channel on Youtube yonks ago, and I have lots of Dev friends from those days.

I haven't been able to find schematics for walkers yet, so that'll come probably later tonight. Otherwise, I've always liked the PvE in this game, so I'm glad to see that feel is still there, but deeper if that makes sense? The Rupu are harder, the sandstorms make me look for cover occasionally, etc. There's lots to like here, but if you were a fan of the PvP-inundated game Last Oasis was, you're gonna hate it. Which is a good thing, I think. Those people made this game unplayable.

You are welcome!! And please, keep this coming, we need people like you and not trolls that want just to kill this, because they are bored. This game is fantastic. Yeah, it has some mistakes here and there, but what i said in other posts, what i love is the atmosphere, the theme, the core mechanics. I mean... we don't have anything like this out there. And they are listening to us, i think, the ones who likes that, to "live" in this world. I can and will, everyday, kill just NPCs and feel involved in the scenery. Watching how a dubious person comes flying with a massive unreal advantage to take all of my honest work, that kills it for me, and im for one happy to see this go. Hope the devs keep on fixing this, so we can have the ULTIMATE nomadic, desertic, survival simulator i always wanted.

Please, if you reach those walkers, let me know! I want to know now whats the purpose of them now. Thanks for all!! again, keep them coming champ.

[Ezze]

My thoughts on Beta, 2 hours

Resources gobbled up just to replace items that dont last long enough. Water drain , better off dying than trying to keep up with it.

Recommendation, reduce the resources required to make these basic tools, gear. Schematics for basic gear kinda dont make sense.

[Str8J@cKIT]

The Fundamental errors and oversight made to create this version oF the game tells me either not much time was spent actually playing this bb version to test everything or a bunch oF no-liFe jobless idiots made this version thinking people will want to spend mindless hrs doing trivial ♥♥♥♥ like they do OR the devs have really no comprehension oF how to take the simple, common sense concepts that made the game so great on launch and get back to those.....Instead....this appears to be a thrown together, hastily created

[Jaycorn]

Originally posted by Lex Talionis:

The Fundamental errors and oversight made to create this version oF the game tells me either not much time was spent actually playing this bb version to test everything or a bunch oF no-liFe jobless idiots made this version thinking people will want to spend mindless hrs doing trivial ♥♥♥♥ like they do OR the devs have really no comprehension oF how to take the simple, common sense concepts that made the game so great on launch and get back to those.....Instead....this appears to be a thrown together, hastily created

This isn't helpful. I get the impulse to call out shoddy design, but we're in a beta. Design will always feel slapdash until it's refined, and like I mentioned at the top of this post: these devs have basically decided to change their whole game, because the systems they've been iterating on since launch were not good, actually.

Those systems lead to greifing, zerging, and a massively disjointed gameplay experience where the game would direct players to calmly gather mats and craft for their progression - but be constantly looking over their shoulders in case a rando decided it was time to ruin their day. Not a cohesive game at all, and that was right at launch.

The devs are trying something new, and from what I'm seeing, they definitely had a plan. Timers and RNG chances need to be tweaked, but they were always gonna need us to help with that.

[DNAStrands]

agreed

[chadzTheDonkey]

this kind of feedback is so very much appreciated. Balance right now is certainly in the early stages, and feedback like this is immensely helpful

[TōshiR0]

Originally posted by chadzTheDonkey:

this kind of feedback is so very much appreciated. Balance right now is certainly in the early stages, and feedback like this is immensely helpful

Yes!!! Awesome you are here!! Please, take this comments, they are worth it, as you said. Love your game. Love the atmosphere, the theme, everything. Keep it coming, please!!

Pd: a chance to make the beta longer?? Pleaseee haha

[Jaycorn]

Originally posted by chadzTheDonkey:

this kind of feedback is so very much appreciated. Balance right now is certainly in the early stages, and feedback like this is immensely helpful

Not a problem at all. I've been in and around games for decades now. If you ever want to come on stream and talk about it, lemme know! In the meantime, I'm gonna keep testing.