I’ll try to make this as concise as possible! I’m playing on a Mac, through Steam. Just to clarify, in case this seems overly negative: I’ve been having quite a bit of fun with the game, I love the setting and the premise and the artwork is beautiful. I particularly enjoyed the Curator’s story.
Bugs
I too have experienced my ship being bumped from one location to another between play sessions; this has occured a couple of times, always randomly. I’ve also found that when running from an enemy I’ve been unable to leave combat or close the associated window, which makes navigating a pain. Blue scintillack shows up in my action bar during combat even though I’ve already traded it away, although clicking it does nothing. When attempting to load a save, if I miss the ‘load’ button and accidentally click underneath it, the game will select a save from further down the list and load that. Lastly, on completion of the Saviour’s Rocks storyline, I was able to repeatedly turn in the quest at Venderbight and get the reward each time.
Comments and suggestions
Please make it easier to manage save games. At the moment, names of saves have the spaces and capital letters removed (so ‘Carnelian At Venderbight’ becomes ‘carnelianatvenderbight’) which makes navigating the list a complete pain. Also, attempting to delete saves is laborious as you have to re-open the load game menu after each deletion, so I’ve wound up with a large back catalogue of incomprehensible saves that will take forever to sift through and delete. I know that most games with permadeath assume that this is the ‘correct’ way to play, but as Merciful mode has always been listed as an option I’d like the ability to use it comfortably. I think an improvement would also be the ability to either turn off autosave (automatically putting you in merciful mode) or to have two autosave slots - that way we could run a permadeath game and still have some manual saves for those times we just feel like wandering about the ocean without risking life and limb.
I am really not a fan of the combat. It feels massively immersion breaking; one minute I’m creeping along in the murky dark, carefully plotting my route and managing my resources…and the next I’m whizzing backwards at high speed plinking a giant crab. It’s bizarre. It also feels like the only ways to defeat enemies is to have massive guns/irons and blow holes at them; there doesn’t currently seem to be much advantage to having high veils/hearts etc. I know it is still a work in progress, but battles feel very repetitive and creatures will trail you a really long way, making avoiding them a pain - I feel no different fighting a third-rate pirate than I do facing down a lorn-fluke. The current set up feels very at odds with the pace and tone of the rest of the game. More than this, however, I think it is a huge disappointment that the change from the old system has made the game inaccessible to a lot of disabled players.
From a narrative point of view, the world currently feels surprisingly flat. I know a lot of stories are still to come, so I suspect the repetitiveness of the ‘explore’ options and ship’s log will diminish as more things are added. My concern is more with the major storylines. With the exception of Varchas and to a lesser degree Hunter’s Keep, it feels like nothing really changes or develops over time; there are always the same riddle contests and carousing options, and things like the plot line of Station III feel less like gradually developing intimacy with a person or place and more like the game arbitraily closing the shutters and telling you to go somewhere else for a bit. (Incidentally I loved the writing about the long boxes - it was a really compelling and chilling set up). I like the feeling of being a captain out for adventure, scratching a living and uncovering strange things as they repeatedly visit islands - heading out for profit and slowly becoming entangled in something deeper and more complex, but only Varchas really made me feel like that.
The zee-bat gets very confused if there’s more than one undiscovered island in the vicinity, and sometimes reports that there’s nothing nearby even when you’re very close - it took me an age to complete my first admiralty comission to Gaider’s Mourn because my bat kept insisting there was nohing to be found even though I’d sailed very near to it several times, and often I’ll be looking for a new location and the zee-bat will report finding somewhere else (like the reef of roses), and continue to inform me of the unwanted island’s position at the expense of new info. Perhaps a ‘find somewhere else’ button would help?
Random events to progress the story are a great idea but are currently appear far too rarely, and it’s particularly frustrating that you need to do one event twice and another three times in order to complete everything. I must have explored Venderbight over a hundred times and never turned anything up - it was only when I got totally stumped looking for things for the curator and gave in and used a guide that I found out about it, and then I had to ‘camp’ for more than an hour to get the event to show up even once. I like the idea of randomly discovering things, but the probability seems so low at the moment that you wind up reaching for a guide and/or engaging in ‘gamey’ behaviour, which I wanted to avoid.
A minor note - and no spoilers, but the climactic event in the Saviour’s Rocks storyline feels incredibly weird and stilted in the context of the changes made to the game, but I’m assuming this is just a legacy of the old design.
Anyway, I’ve really been enjoying so many aspects of the game - I love my crew and can’t wait to learn more about them, the dark water and the music are all very atmospheric and immersive. I can’t wait to see how things progress.
I agree that combat against beasts really needs some tweaking. putting the engines in reverse as soon as you see a beast isn’t really giving you the feel of the hunt. maybe a change to the enemy AI, stats?? aggressive enemies attempting to use their submerge ability more aggressively to try and come up behind, or below, the ship, forcing you to maneuver - enemies with a more serpentine design (sharks, eels) could move in a zig-zag motion to try and avoid light and outflank ship, etc.
I still can’t get behind the combat at all. It still takes up most of the game for me, and I still haven’t seen a bit of the new content that’s come out since the update because I just don’t enjoy fighting to get to it. And constantly backing up and losing progress is still just the biggest drag in the world. I can’t bring myself to play for long enough to get to anything. I’m constantly bleeding money and I can’t make it back unless I get lucky and find the salt lions early enough.
I’m sad. I used to play all the new stuff ASAP and now I can’t play more than half an hour without giving up.
Still loving the game and the Carnelian changes. Enjoying the challenge of carefully navigating past an enemy if I don’t wish to fight, or being stealthy enough to get an all-important first couple of shots away. I’m finding it adds to the atmosphere and immersion well. Thumbs up!
I’ve just updated the game this morning via "New stories available!" but mistakenly clicked away before I had chance to properly read the notes. Is there any other way to access them? I did manage to half read a sentence about the addition of more trade resources and routes?
Which led me to ponder… a few hints (without being too obvious) for starting players about potential trade routes would work wonders. Echoes are very tight at the start of the game, so the option to gather some information from Wolfstack Docks about nearby ports that are usually keen on a certain commodity would be grand. Would help ease a new captain into trading a little more, perhaps, and then once more settled, discover new trade opportunities for themselves. edited by Ashe on 11/10/2014
Why have certain options disappeared when you defeat another ship? You can no longer send back prize ships and, even more annoying as I found it very useful, the option to let a War Trimaran go isn’t available either.
Edit to say I am still enjoying the game even when some of the changes don’t seem to be an improvement. Too much emphasis on combat changes and not enough new story for me. edited by reveurciel on 11/10/2014
I haven’t looked at all the new content yet but thanks for giving us more stories. I’m liking what I have seen so far.
One question though - in the game I am playing at the moment I completed the Spiders story but,(trying to avoid spoilers) due to certain changes in London, it looks like it will be more difficult to get what they want to start the story. Are there going to be alternative sources or will what they want change?
Returned to FL with Red Honey from the Isle of Cats but the Scholar has no option to be interested in it; I’ll file another bug report, but I fear that the FBG crew are tired of my emails by now…
I’m having exactly the same problem. [Trying to avoid spoilers] there doesn’t appear to be anything to do with the substance to advance the story without losing one’s Patron’s favour. I’d also expected the Scholar to be interested, but can’t see any options. I’ve tried taking the substance to some of the locations mentioned when submitting the relevant port report, but to no avail.
It works with the Abbess patron as I could hand over her substance to the Venturer, just couldn’t do the same with the King’s Claws. Also once you advanced far enough in the quest you’re suppose to find a gift for Leopold which directed me towards the Cumaean Canal, but there wasn’t an option to buy or take any sort of gift there. I even got 1 move in the Great Game and it wasn’t the gift either
Edit: Thanks for the info edited by Bardigan on 11/14/2014
Adam’s Doom is the whirlpool near the Canal. Adam’s Way is the area flanked by giant bee/fly statues at the mouth a blood river flowing from the Mountain of Light on the southern edges of the map, between the Crying Heights and the Southern Wall/Varchas.
It’s now possible to deliver the substance to the Scholar! Apparently there was a misplaced quality requirement. Just click New Stories Available and it should be fixed.
It works now! Including the bringing the "gift" to Pirate-King Leopold Raffles section of the quest. Thank you!
Although are there any real differences in results depending on who you choose as your patron? edited by Bardigan on 11/15/2014
Has anyone managed to plant any agents for the Voracious Diplomat? I’ve got four of the damned things but haven’t yet found a way to get rid of any! I’d assumed they’d be like blemmigans…
In London - he shows up in the sidebar. I think you need at least 10 fuel and some Admiralty Connections, not sure if there are any other criteria needed to get him to show up. But so far there doesn’t seem to be any use for him or his agents.
Huh - thanks. I wonder whether he’s hanging out with the Venturer, who has been MIA from my game for a long while now despite my hold packed with Scintillack and Romance Literature (Approved, even!)