[li]i’ll add this:
i’ve whacked so many lifebergs i put 'em on the CITES list and only ever pulled one treasure out of the muck left behind.
Godfall only measures-out if you’ve got tons of cargo space and the capacity to reliably battle heavy critters.
otherwise, associated costs drive the profits down sharply.
granted, still better than many of the other available options, but hardly manna falling from the sky.
Yes, I agree that some work could be put into a tutorial. At the beginning some things are confusing - for example, the importance of fuel, terror, what the various stats actually do, etc., should be clarified better, and give some tricks on how to do it.
I don’t think the game punishes you for exploring. I think exploring is scary because it feels like you’re jumping into darkness - and it should be! But this is an exploring game so one should try it. I remember my very first game, I was so cautious and I was basically afraid to go beyond the Vanderbight-Hunter’s Keep-Mutton Island line, but then I tried my luck and it worked. Sure, I lost a couple (well, more than a couple) of lives but every time I learned more stuff, started to know the places and I could go farther every time, which of course created a virtuous cycle. In the last games I always managed to have a steady increase of income. My most recent one started after the emerald release, and even if I had quite a bad luck in the map shuffling (three tiles full of nothing except salt lions in front of London, Vanderbight and Whither) I manage quite well, so my first attempts to understand the game must have paid off.
I think you shouldn’t be afraid of testing various possibilities and routes, in order to learn how to optimize terror, fuel and supplies and to know the various destinations. If you die, it’s not so serious.
And do not play unforgiving!
A side note: I wonder if there would be the possibility to create a log (a player’s log, that survives with the captain) where you could write down where you can find/need a specific item. It could be more organic than just writing down into a piece of paper and it could ease the players also at the beginning because when they meet an island in a new run at least they can know what is profitable to trade (and what you can get) with that specific island…
[quote=Master Polarimini]Yes, I agree that some work could be put into a tutorial. At the beginning some things are confusing - for example, the importance of fuel, terror, what the various stats actually do, etc., should be clarified better, and give some tricks on how to do it.
I remember my very first game, I was so cautious and I was basically afraid to go beyond the Vanderbight-Hunter’s Keep-Mutton Island line, but then I tried my luck and it worked. [/quote]
See that’s exactly the point where I’m stuck, I get up to Withers (were I’m now grinding liefbergs, but that feels more like an exploit than anything else) and after that it feels like running into a brick wall. I die every time without actually gaining anything! And as I already said, since the map reshuffles memorizing where islands are is useless.
I completely agree, that would be great.
[li]
The map shuffling is going to take some getting used to and I understand that coming to the game completely cold is difficult and having people who have been playing for some time saying that it isn’t that bad could be annoying but the only way to learn at the moment is to play
A couple of hours ago I started a brand new game to try out the map shuffling for myself and to see how difficult I find the early game. Of course I can’t forget what I have learned in previous games, also I play merciful, and I have been lucky. My first visit to Mutton Island resulted in a Judgement Egg and one of my three battles with Lifebergs gave a Captivating Treasure. That gave enough money to buy a decent weapon and leave money to pay for most stories I might come across (hiring Officers in London, Salt Lions, getting the Cook when I am lucky in Venderbight; though not enough to save-scum the riddle) and to restock my ship and deal with terror.
So I left the coast and it turns out that my next random place to the East Of Venderbight is the Salt Lions and I have enough money to take advantage of that storylet. So i will probably do that for a while in order to get enough money to fully equip the ship. Then I will need to find what else is out there and the place the Admiral wants me to go but I’m going to take it slowly.
So with experience and a lot of luck the game can be easy at the beginning
@Yurana about the map, have you seen that you can pass the map as legacy when your captain dies?
I agree that it’s not the best choice because one would like to pass a stat in order to have two half-decent stats instead of one for the next character, but if it’s the shuffling that bothers you a lot, it could be one solution, at least at the beginning. Then, once you learn what this and that island does and what it needs, life will be easier because you will optimize the goods to transport and thus make money more easily.
I’m sure, though, that when most of the tiles will be implemented, exploring will be more forgiving. I agree that in this moment you need a bit of luck to have a map which is not too hard for a beginner.
@lady ciel, don’t tell me! I still have to find BOTH the location for the admiral’s mission AND the Smuggler yet!
edited by Master Polarimini on 8/4/2014
[li]never pass the charts!
your new captain doesn’t gain experience for re-finding old discoveries.
kills experience production / rate at which secrets gain.
much more expensive than it seems at face.
All I have to contribute is that at this stage of development I don’t understand why anyone would play Unforgiving Mode. Save that for when the game’s got all its content and they’ve worked out the balance, maybe. If you don’t want to just play it safe forever, Merciful Mode is the way to go.
I have never left Unforgiving mode. Part of it is because I’m something of an old-school player when it comes to roguelikes and therefore feel it’s only proper, and part of it is to test mechanics in a way that will remind me of the frustration level someone new might feel.
The fun of managing to outmanuever Mt. Nomad on various bits of scenery so that I could limp back to port with two Crew was an accomplishment and the sort of thing that helps take the sting out of all the YASDs along the way.
I can’t go back to not knowing some of the tricks of playing the game, but the permadeath at least makes it so surprise calamities at least sting some, thus calling my attention to how it might feel to someone new. Admittedly, the game that I reluctantly retired for Emerald had gotten a dreadnaught, so I wasn’t really playing from a newer perspective for a while, but I feel that not wanting to give up something that hard-earned isn’t too unreasonable.
Still, there’s nothing wrong with Merciful, especially while the game is in Beta. Please enjoy it that way, I just thought I’d give my thoughts on why I don’t use Merciful mode.
I know it deeply dents ones pride to hang up the Invictus medal, but if you’re new to the game, don’t know the map and are pretty much steam powered beastie food, just save. Save before exploring so it’s not the end of the world to steam into the great black nothing by accident. Save on trade routes so running into frigates, trimarans and the nomad won’t force you to start over and avoid them after the reload.
It takes away a lot of the paranoia unforgiving creates, hell I didn’t dare steaming north because for the first 4 hours I believed the cute snow animation to be the waxwind.
Just relax, take it easy and it’ll get easier, cash will start rolling in, you’ll buy bigger guns and better ships and before long you’ll have charted every island, slain every beasty, own a big ass ship and take a McDuckian swim in that pool full of echos at your mansion. Only took me a total of 165 save games ;)
@ nyrk:
I think a very good way to have some fun with Sunless Sea is to embrace failure.
Yes, that is not quite an easy task, I know. But it is rewarding and will keep you from sticking to close to Fallen London. Head for the unknown - and fail!
I recommend this: Read some nice stories by H.P. Lovecraft, "The Nameless City" for example, and enjoy the shivers running down your spine when Lovecrafts heroes loose their minds while facing the nameless terror that arises from the dark corners of the universe.
Having done so, go and play Sunless Sea. You best play at night when everything is dark and silent. And when you steer your boat through eternal darkness, on to ultimate failure, consider yourself one of these tragic heroes in the lovecraftian tradition!
I don´t know if this will work for you, but for me it works just fine.
In my opinion Sunless Sea is not about winning but about experiencing a dark story of madness and doom.
Sometimes I wish, there was kind of a Captains Log, so that I might write down the images that spring to my mind while fighting monsters and terror. Now that would make a real tale of the zea and a nice heirloom to my next captain…
Yeah but then the devs would have to add trade shuffling mwahahahahaha.
[li]
Heh…“steam powered beastie food” really does pretty much describe me. I love the little rewards you get for “discovering” various hazards. “You have discovered the pirates pillaging X island!” …Yay? ;-)
And I’m so glad I got around to reading to fora and wiki; I hadn’t realized the map shuffled and had gotten so frustrated trying to find those dang guinea pigs/rats again, since that seems like one of the best ways to earn a significant amount of echoes early on.
One of my Fallen London characters is exiled to the Tomb Colonies again, and I do like how the two games interact – names that I had kind of glossed over in FL are now places I’ve been!
I’m about ready to quit on Sunless Sea. Advancing is so slow and everything is unforgiving. It was bad enough before the map randomisation.
I am progressing, but it is far too slowly to be satisfying. Exploring uncharted areas is horribly unforgiving, the cost in terror and fuel means at best I can go out, discover a single location and then head back to London for some grinding to get in a position to set off again. I have managed to upgrade my weapon but that is it, I can’t imagine having the cash to upgrade my lodgings or my boat, I just managed to find Mt Palmerstone but couldn’t get back to London to repair and take on fresh crew.
I know folks like the game, I want to like it but being told "it gets fun eventually" is pretty damning. A game should be fun from the start! If I were to make suggestions to the devs it would be that the risks vs rewards is too far skewed against reward. It is far too easy to lose all your Echoes on a single event/trip and it will take so long to build them back up afterwards. I’d suggest that fuel & supplies should be cheaper, profit margins on trading should be higher (or at least every location should be buying and selling goods).
I’m off to try hunting lifebergs, sounds more exciting than transporting coffins.
[li]the devs wanted the game to be difficult, but they way overshot.
still, this is a beta, and the point of the exercise right now is to play and uncover those kinds of issues.
Hmm, it seems people either say the game is way too easy or way too hard. I’m definitely biased but I like it the way it is, sure some parts could be better but this is work in progress and this game has never been a trading game nor will it ever be as the devs have stated.
[quote=papa_spielt]@ nyrk:
I think a very good way to have some fun with Sunless Sea is to embrace failure.
Yes, that is not quite an easy task, I know. But it is rewarding and will keep you from sticking to close to Fallen London. Head for the unknown - and fail![/quote]
Fail better, one might say.
it’s the imbalance of it all.
in one game i get great random events like rain in a monsoon.
other game? you’d swear it doesn’t exist, no matter how hard you hit that port.
map shuffles the Salties next to London? no probs …
other maps … it’s grind-grind-grind-away … and some people do love grinding.
but most other folks want to move on already; do not enjoy days of mindless repetition.
and the great irony is that for a game that aspires to avoid trade for the promotion of exploration …
it’s difficult to scratch that exploratory itch because your butt’s been locked in grinding hell.
or random event lock-out hell.
or random "the admiral / bruiser / missions always send me to the same places" hell.
if trade is not the propellant, commerce not the grease that makes the engine’s turn, and the mission story is the only force behind which compulsion lies, then that fragment of the puzzle needs some serious uppage in the wattage. otherwise, time spent is in the gathering of things and not in the use of them.
[li][/li][li]
edited by Psst! on 8/11/2014
[quote=Psst!]it’s the imbalance of it all.
in one game i get great random events like rain in a monsoon.
other game? you’d swear it doesn’t exist, no matter how hard you hit that port.
map shuffles the Salties next to London? no probs …
other maps … it’s grind-grind-grind-away … and some people do love grinding.
but most other folks want to move on already; do not enjoy days of mindless repetition.
and the great irony is that for a game that aspires to avoid trade for the promotion of exploration …
it’s difficult to scratch that exploratory itch because your butt’s been locked in grinding hell.
or random event lock-out hell.
or random "the admiral / bruiser / missions always send me to the same places" hell.
if trade is not the propellant, commerce not the grease that makes the engine’s turn, and the mission story is the only force behind which compulsion lies, then that fragment of the puzzle needs some serious uppage in the wattage. otherwise, time spent is in the gathering of things and not in the use of them.
[li]
[/li][li]edited by Psst! on 8/11/2014[/quote]
[/li][li]
[/li][li]
[/li][li]This strikes a chord with me. Adding trade goods to every port wouldn’t turn Sunless Sea into a trading game, the profits don’t need to be huge, it just needs something to help players along. As it is, for me, exploring is something I have to build up to and most of the time it will wipe out those built up resources for little if any gain. If I’m lucky I can limp back to London and start building stuff up again.[/li][li]
[/li][li]Lowering the costs of fuel and supplies would help (though it is really fuel rather than supplies since they can be caught at sea). When the few ports that do sell fuel sell it at two or three times the London price and a journey is struggling to break even then I often simply cannot afford to buy fuel. With so little trade going on most times I set out to sea with almost no echoes and little chance of picking any up, which limits the refuelling opportunities. Opening up the cash flow to keep the ships moving, even if it meant raising the upgrade prices, would be nice.[/li][li]
[/li][li]It’d be nice too if there were places where ships could be repaired, crew could be recruited and terror reduced other than London. I’ve seen a few terror reducing options but they tend to be a bit unreliable/chancy. Being stuck way out from London with less than half crew is a misery that nobody should be put through. There needs to be some way to get extra crew, or some other penalty to having a low crew than the speed hit.[/li][li]
[/li][li]I’m sure there is a great game in here, it is just so frustrating to get at just now.[/li]
I do agree that the economy needs rebalancing somehow but it isn’t really a trading game and most items only give a few echoes profit. The big rewards tend to come from random events or completing stories
Crew - You can pick up crew out of London, but only one at a time - there are random SAY events in some ports. Or if you get to Demeaux Island a crew member costs an echo or two (can’t quite remember exactly how much but they are quite cheap), I think you can also get one at the Khanate as well but, like everything there, it is pricey. Or if the Admiral sends you to Codex you can get a crew member as well, but that raises terror (if I remember correctly).
I must admit to hovering outside Demeaux a lot when my crew drops below half, until I have enough crew to get back to London at more than half speed.
Cheap Fuel - Mount Palmerstone 9 echoes; the Iron Republic 8 echoes. Or pirate pinnaces give it as a random reward sometimes; Lifebergs can give 7 fuel and once you are strong enough to take them on the pirates in Gaider’s Mourn always give 1 or 2 fuel and supplies plus a random reward.
Repairing ships - there is an option when you defeat a bound shark to examine it - that gives a small hull repair and some terror on a success.
Reducing terror - if you are killing sharks or albino morays you get hunting trophies. If you take them to Abbey Rock each trophy gives between 4 and 8 terror reduction. There is also a SAY event in some ports which, if you have a sweetheart in London, gives a 10 terror reduction. Also there is an event at Gaider’s Mourn where you can side with the Khanagians that gives a Horsehead Amulet - when you go to the Khanate you can use it to reduce suspicion and terror slightly but that uses the horsehead and it is worth holding on to at least one to show to their warships.
.Edit - forgot to mention the Mangrove College either -10 terror or +8 supplies, but that option says that it might make them unhappy so I’m not too sure if there will be consequences.
edited by reveurciel on 8/11/2014