First thoughts!

Sunless Sea
61

[quote=dov]

  • When hunger strikes there is hardly any time to do anything about it, since unless I’ve very near to a port where food is available (Just London and Mutton Island, right? Maybe also Hunter’s Keep?) the crew will starve to death too fast.

This is definitely where planning ahead helps. After my disastrous first run, I started learning how to build up a slow start, by doing some Venderbight ferrying. From there, I started to learn how many Supplies I needed to safely make it there and back, by watching the Supply counter. That let me plan ahead to buy Supplies where they were cheapest.[li]

It’s all about provisioning for the whole trip. Know your limits, then push them as far as you dare. So, whilst dipping into starvation levels will generally get your crew Eaten, you’ll learn and build on it with your next ship. (That’s the roguelike way!)

62

So:

  1. Echoing others (just to add to the ‘bulk’ for FBG feedback: hunger is (1) really really fast and (2) then insta-fatal; the auto-fire responses happen without break. Possibly intended? If so, yikes.

  2. Can’t ‘right-click’ on officers at all; Mac build, so no actual right-clicking, but neither command-click nor control-click does anything.

  3. Much fun! Somewhere out there is ‘my’ land feature…[li]

  4. If the intent is that new captains need to spend a long time doing something like milk-runs to/from Venderbight, maybe say so explicitly? Otherwise as others have said, not clear how I actually make money here…
    edited by Ewan C. on 4/30/2014

63

That said, I figured out the Venderbight milk-run tactic pretty quickly. The colonist pick-up storylet is a pretty big hint.

It really depends on how far on the “roguelike” spectrum the game is intended to be; part of the experience in a roguelike is dying (repeatedly) and learning from the experience.

64

Answering the 4 burning questions:[li]

  • Half-speed - After some experimentation, I began to use full-speed whilst traveling between locations, and half-speed for docking or zailing in narrow channels or whenever I felt like I needed to change direction frequently. On a side note, I giddily spent some time spinning in circles by the bridge blocking off the Echo Bazaar from the channel until I remembered that I could decrease my speed.[/li][li]Zoom - I completely forgot I could do this and did all of my play throughs so far at the initial zoom level, although now that I’ve been reminded I will most likely zoom in while docked or near new locations (because awesome art!), and zoom out while zailing (because vast inky darkness!)[/li][li]I did make one manual save while docked because I wasn’t sure if quitting the game would auto-save my progress. I’d probably use that feature more often eventually just to be able to return to the happy days of yore in which my crew aren’t eating each other …[/li][li]I usually find myself turning up screen brightness in games with dark backgrounds (collected all the increase light radius items in Diablo’s light radius increasing incarnations, and turn up screen brightness in most dungeon-crawling games), but I did not find myself wanting to do this in Sunless Sea. It seems to be just about right, although I was a bit startled when the log would announce I had discovered something that was still off screen/in the dark for me (probably because I forgot the zoom… I suppose that one should never forget about the zoom).
65

First, the big questions people are answering:[li]

Half-speed: I don’t use it much, but it’s quite useful for both docking, and traveling in areas with lots of rock/reefs/coral/ect.

Zoom: I think I’e used it about once? Honestly, I keep forgetting it’s there, being so distracted by the game itself.

Manual Saves: Oh, these I use. Because it seems to autosave over your base save (The one that’s just the character name) whenever you dock, so having an alternate save is TERRIBLY useful.

Other than that, the experience was… interesting. My first playthrough went NORTH, and then I ended up eating my crew because I didn’t realize how fast you went through supplies. After a bit more trial and error and giant crabs, I figured out the Venderbight milk-run, though, to me, that got kind of boring, and not terribly profitable. So I spent a few playthroughs running out and LOOKING AT ALL THE COOL THINGS, almost getting run down by Mt. Nomad, getting crushed by a living iceberg near Whither…

By the way, the monsters thing is very much not limited to the Southern Archipelago area. I’ve spend a few games seeing maybe like a Bound Shark or two, and that’s it, for multiple runs out to the edges of what’s currently there. The most I’ve seen was once leaving London there were like six of the smaller giant crabs wandering around.

While I agree with the hunger issues people have mentioned, I wanted to bring up another one. Terror, while slow to build and not really problematic at lower levers, really feels like once it gets around 50-60 your crew are just lining up with the pots and pans to jump off the ship, like three or four such events within the space of a minute or two.

66

I can definitely second the Terror thing - I got hit with 5 Roused at Midnight events in about 2 minutes in my last run.

I’m curious about a lot of the stuff people have mentioned but the only halfway successful tactic I’ve hit so far is to run Colonists and Honey north to Venderbight, then strike east to Port Cecil to play some chess and hopefully get some scintillack and then back to London. Usually gets me a modest profit - depending on how much supplies I manage to eat my way through on the trip.

The other expense is the occasional run to Mutton Island for some R&R to reduce my Terror so my crew don’t all jump overboard.

But since I almost never see anything else on the ocean any more while doing that it gets incredibly boring.

I know there are some areas out there I haven’t explored yet - to the north and to the south east for sure, but every time I strike out in a new direction it ends horribly for me. That’s fun too but even when I do that the lack of any encounters on the Zee is a little boring too.

In two sessions of play now, I have met a total of about 8 giant crabs, 5 bound sharks, 3 morays and exactly 1 ship. The meeting with the ship ended badly too as they blew me out of the water in one shot. To be fair, my ship was in a bad state when I met them. :)

67

I wonder whether the menaces would be as menacey but less frustrating (not that they are particularly, casual word choice because because) if they were to have a scaled entrance? E.g. hunger kick in when you’re low rather than run out of stocks and hungry - but just be a vague grumbling as nervous sailors note how low stocks are. And then have the menaces more spread out, rather than all coming at once once you run out? Similar could happen with terror with a nervous member starting earlier and infecting others or whatever. :-S

Just thoughts.

-Anyway - does turning the light off do anything? Lower fuel consumption? Doesn’t seem to make me any less attacked, but there aren’t many options for me to test that atm.
-I’m thinking the things to do in the right hand side could be more obvious - at first thought just news things like the log book, then realised the purpose. -Similarly, on docking, could it open to the story page rather than locale, which is rather empty?
-Finishing a story closed the gazette - making me think I’d done everything and was meant to launch. (But could easily reopen.)
-Windowed mode - should the game auto-pause when you click something else? (It does mean I can risk collision but send it on its way while I type)
-I wondered whether the help thing could be minimised - as it’s a continuous presence I wonder if there’s a risk of becoming accustomed to things in that area of the screen, and thus not noticing new things popping up there. (And if you don’t want help, it’s a bright thing you can dismiss to bring in more dark).

  • If you manually close the Gazette having opened it via a side box (e.g. help me or Venderbight), the relevant box remains active (green outline rather than brown), and you cannot reopen the gazette via that button. Might fool people into thinking it’s unavailable.
  • when is the speed boost via fuel available? i had a full tank but no spare barrels, and it wouldn’t let me use it. :-S
  • arriving at docks - story is blank but if you then click the storylet button at the side, it fills.
  • are your echoes visible on the shop page? I can only see them in the hold. That’s a bit blargh - having to flit between the two. (update: OK, that’s weird, I can definitely see the balance now, I’m sure it wasn’t there before. Will try to keep an eye on this.)
  • is there a sanity measure? There doesn’t seem to be a penalty (yet) for eating my crew - this why would I ever choose the other option?
  • it appears I ate myself. Oi oi! Oh no, wait, that isn’t an innuendo. Anyway - perhaps there should be a warning when this condition appears, as I was in dock when it happened and was just trying to clear the side boxes. Would have closed out if I’d realised it was me, and thus not died.

Just more thoughts. :-)
edited by babelfishwars on 4/30/2014

68

I’m having a bit of a time figuring out the logic of when the Gazette closes or not. I’ve basically stopped using the “Close Gazette” button in favor of clicking back on the location storylet in the corner, just to make sure I don’t lose it.

69

The location storylet doesn’t close it for me? :-S

70

I’m really loving this, still not entirely sure what I am doing. I find steering really easy now but I haven’t explored very much as I tend to run out of supplies. Need to work out how to make my way to other locations that aren’t just placeholders before I run out of supplies:) Maybe I am just heading in the wrong directions.

71

Y’know, I must say, I didn’t expect quite so much Eaten. But then again, I probably shouldn’t be surprised in the slightest. This is the Zee we’re talking about.

72

The game looks and sounds beautiful, and it is all very atmospheric, but my enjoyment is being somewhat stifled by the issues with hunger and fuel that other people have raised. I know the game is supposed to be punishing, but it currently feels restrictive rather than difficult, if that makes sense.

I think this is made worse by the feeling that everything is very close together - I want to feel like a badass pirate adventurer, or a exploratory scientist or whatever, and yet it feels like a struggle to get any further than hunter’s keep.

Still, I can tell once things balance out a little more this is going to be taking up a lot of my time.

73

I don’t really agree; Terror is really really punishing as soon as it tips over 50. Your crew basically line up like lemmings to leap overboard, and reducing it is really really expensive and difficult. One point of Terror can cost 10-20 Echoes to reduce at port, depending on where you are. And quite a lotta stuff gives Terror, too, so it’s not easy to avoid. Hunger is probably more punishing in the short-term, but Terror is a nightmare to shake off and can kill off an entire crew really quickly. A quick trip up to Venderbight to make some more Echoes (to reduce the Terror I’d built up, in fact) ended with a total crew wipeout after six zailors jumped overboard clutching a kettle in rapid succession.

Anyway! That’s terror, what about the rest of the stuff;
re: email questions

  • Half-speed is pretty useful for maneouvering and docking, though I basically never reverse at all.[/li][li]I have the game zoomed out fully pretty much constantly. I’d probably zoom out further if I could![/li][li]Usually just rely on autosaves, if I think I got hella owned by the RNG (see; the above venderbight tale)[/li][li]I think the bright areas are bright enough, but there’s not much visual distinction between &quotbright&quot, &quotdim&quot and &quotdark&quot as far as I could really tell. Maybe I just have a really bright screen.

Other stuff:

[ul][li]Monster spawns seem to be really weird and messed up; there’s always a ton of crabs outside London on the first load after starting up the game, and then none at all on any subsequent reloads. Monsters seem a little sparse; on my most recent character, there was a giant crabstravaganza outside London, but other beasts only showed on two occasions- one lone Bound-shark near Port-Cecil, and two Lifebergs up North. Also, two Mt. Nomads. I killed them and all I got for my troubles was a couple of Secrets. Sad. I saw an enemy pirate ship once total, across like 5 characters. e: i just did a full loop of basically all the not-totally-unfinished areas and didn’t see one zee-beast! i saw two corsairs, but they were bugged and summoned the Hunter’s Keep maid storylet instead.
[/li][li]Unaccountably Peckish is listed as a Curiosity instead of a Quality for some reason.[/li][li]Some item descriptions stretch way across the page (on 1366x768 Fullscreen) and are only half-readable, like the description of the Artifacts (the one the Scholar buys for 100 echoes)[/li][li]The farthest right icon in the Curiosities bit in the Hold is cut in half, and I think the Story qualities bit in the Journal might be missing a scrollbar? You can’t read the descriptions of any of the qualities on mouseover, either.[/li][li]I have like 50 Secrets from Port Cecil and no idea what the heck to do with them, coz’ there’s never any officers in London for some reason. I did eventually get one but not for like an entire hour.
[/li][li]Codex up North has London’s shops for some reason. e; and so does Wither. Palmerston too!
[/li][li]The speedboost from burning extra fuel doesn’t really seem to last long enough or speed up fast enough to be worth the expenditure.[/li][li]The area around London should probably have a menace effect dampener, as well as the dock itself. I had two dudes leap overboard while entering Wolfstack Docks, and then another went canniballistic before I could reach the actual docking point. C’mon, London’s right there.[/li][li]As everyone else has mentioned already, zailors seem to have an incredible voracious appetite. The actual amount of food eaten doesn’t seem to depend on how many crew you have, either, which feels odd.[/li][li]There should probably be a cooldown of some sort on menace events; having a menace hit and then hit again before you can even move is a nightmare.
[/li][li]Pretty much every game over I’ve gotten has consisted either of autocannibalism or being informed by the bosun that I just committed suicide.
[/li][li]The game’s fun!
[/li][/ul]
edited by Spacemarine9 on 4/30/2014

74

I love the juxtaposition of your last two bullet points.

75

Just retired with my captain and did have a little note:

If you retire (not die!), why can’t you pass on the ship you have? It didn’t sink after all.

76

I had quite a successful life this evening - came away from the blaze at Hunter’s Keep with a new friend and after a longish time finding my feet and carrying passengers to Venderbight, tried pushing east and hit Demeaux Island.

It seems a little bugged at the moment. You can only run one storylet before the island locks up, and it’s clearly not (or not clearly) for story reasons. After you’ve done one thing you return to the top menu, with the introduction text and no options. Sad. Hopefully I can unravel place sometime in the future.

After that I explored some more and even made it back to London. My terror was pretty high by then, sadly, and I lost my remaining crew as they hurled themselves overboard on a run back to Venderbight.

Does anyone think the rate of consumption of supplies has been adjusted with the update that came through today? I’m sure I could get further on less.

And if you’re not already, I recommend keeping notes. I’ve started a spreadsheet with market prices at different ports, and the supplies consumed per journey, to help me plan in the future. Very helpful, and it adds to the immersion wonderfully.

77

I am extremely excited for the full build of this game. As it stands, it is beautiful, both visually and aurally. Even now, the writing we’re able to experience is, no surprise, incredibly rich and atmospheric.

I’ve made the Tomb Colony milk run several time, explored Mutton Island and Hunter’s Keep, and landed at the Port Cecil and the fungus farm out that way whose name I forget.

I am cautious by nature, and so kept my ship well stocked from the beginning until I was able to suss out the rate of consumption. I didn’t find it inordinately punishing, but did find it a deterrent to exploration. Perhaps in the future, difficulty could be something players select that affects things like fuel and supply consumption. Those looking for a harder survival game could have that and those keener on exploring the story wouldn’t be as constrained.

I really liked the Fragments -> Secrets mechanic, though I wouldn’t have minded another step where a player has to use contacts in FL or officers to actually convert the fragments into secrets. It wasn’t initially intuitive what Fragments were, or their relationship to Secrets.

I think the admiralty paying for port reports is very clever, and is a good way to encourage people to make many stops along the way, but doesn’t force it.

Menaces, while delightfully thematic, seem a bit binary right now. Either you’re cruising along with nothing worse than a bad dream, or your crew is eating one another or jumping overboard. I’d love further gradations, reminders that things are getting worse and worse. Almost a sense of drawing out our suffering, watching as we grow more desperate.

On the desperation note, I am DESPERATELY curious to learn more about Salt, Storm, and (?)Stone. Must. Find. More.

The seas felt quite empty. I ran across half a dozen crabs and a couple of eels, but most my voyage was as lonely as it was dark. Which was actually kind of nice, it enhanced the sense of isolation and gave a shot of excitement any time I did spot something.

I use half speed when docking or wending through tight spots, but honestly, I want more speeds! Especially with the awesome brass throttle they’ve given us. I want want to shout &quotAll reverse full!&quot when a giant sea monster comes for me, or &quot2/3 ahead, Mr Turner&quot (All my bosuns are named Mr Turner) That said, I’d only like this if it was tied to fuel consumption. Max speed is faster, but less fuel efficient. It’ll given more resource choices, getting there faster uses less supply, and induces less terror, but costs more in fuel. I might be over complicating things, but I think it’d be fun.

I’m really excited to see more of the game as well as how it gets tuned.

Edit! Actually answering the questions asked of us:

Half speed - yes! More speed options tied to fuel consumption please!
Zoom - not much. I wasn’t able to get much zoom in either direction, so I left it alone for the most part.
Manuel Saves - No. I am a fan of permadeath ala Don’t Starve and FTL. That said, I can imagine getting pretty upset about losing a character deeply involved with a longer story. Hmmm… On the fence about this.
Brightness - I was in a dim room, and the lighting seemed great to me!
edited by StormKoala on 5/1/2014

78

Had my first total loss. Turns out Khanate warships are a bit tougher than pirates. Who knew? :)

79

Stuck Sunless Sea into my laptop today, been playing it for the past few hours.

Quite happy with the experience so far, but I have to say the consumption rate of supplies does make me wonder if all my zailors are Northbound Seekers of the Name. That, and terror. Once it goes past around 50, the menace cards start autofiring, and my crew drowns in the Zee one by one while I madly attempt to reduce terror.

Have yet to engage any Zeemonsters in combat, though on my last voyage after a quick shimmy North for the sake of doing so I narrowly dodged Mt Nomad.

UI wise, I did notice a peeve… when you’re in the Gazette/journal looking at your inventory of items in your hold, there doesn’t seem to be a scroll option to arrange or move the list so you can move items around. Or see what items you have, or easily replace, say, an engine or gun mount. And while having the tooltip follow the mouse means we can’t miss the tag of what we’re pointing at is, it also makes it hard to see what, for example, that mount option on your beat-up tramp steamer is for.
edited by arashi_neko on 5/1/2014

80

Now would be an appropriate time to yell &quotKHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!&quot[li]