Let me preface it by saying that I have literally spend several days, morning to evening, playing Sunless Sea,and I love it to bits.
But this game needs a speedup button right now, because it wastes your time. This has nothing to do with atmosphere and mechanics, sailing for several REAL minutes is boring! Especially in a single-player game. It is just a waste of time. And there is even no music most of the time…
As I understand, most of the people have shift-tabbed on some occasions to do different things while the ship was sailing. This should not happen. This is not a good design. Please make a speed-up button, let us fast-forward the boring bits.
I started trading sunlight to buy a bigger engine, because I could not bear the agonizingly slow crawl of my ship through the zee. I bought a bigger engine. It did not help! It was still unbelievably slow. I installed a suppressor, a roaring beast of and engine and started running on FULL POWER all of the time - it helped, but not enough. Still too slow! And this equipment is not easy to come by. You can’t do it in the starter ship. Please give us a speed-up button.
I tweaked the numbers for engine power, tried to offset it with faster fuel consumption - it did not work, everything still felt wrong. It was to easy to get away from zee-beasts. Supplies did not matter anymore.
I increased maximum speed by a factor of 20. I wheezed past sombre islands at incredible speed like a rocket, laughing as buoys flashed by in emerald haze. The madness and terror of the zee have finally caught up with me.
Please make a speed-up button. Factor of 3, or maybe 5. Stop the madness.
I’ve tweaked the full power factor. Speed x 5, fuel consumption x 1 (instead of x2 and x1.75). It’s effectively become my speedup button, in the absence of them actually adding a real one.
And that’s an entirely fair point to take. But adding a speedup button doesn’t mean you have to use it. If you enjoy spending time puttering around a dark map, then continue to enjoy it. But from the small sampling of people I’m seeing giving feedback, one thing is extremely common - once you’ve cracked the survival mechanic (echoes, terror), the travelling between islands to do things takes too long, and is a causing them (and me, if I’m honest) to not want to replay. Even if the speedup button only appeared on your fourth captain, or only appeared with boats that have more than 40 cargo space, or was something you had to buy and fit in your auxiliary slot, or whatever. if failbetter want to keep the majority of "gamers" on the hook, they’ll need to work out how to make this more like a real game, while still allowing the incredible story to be uncovered.
While I can tinker with the json files, and potentially release that as a mod, it doesn’t solve the problem that sometimes, I do want to go slow. And that screaming around at 5x normal speed wrecks the scaling for SAY. But, there are times where I just need to get to Irem, and I’m in the Grand Geode, or Kingeaters from Frostfound, or whatever. The thought of just puttering up there for 5 minutes, knowing nothing can kill me, but also that there might be islands in the way, so I can’t just alt-tab (despite my ship having a first officer/navigator and engineer who should really take care of that for me), that I have enough money to not have to stop to pick up "cheap" fuel, that no monster is going to kill me - those are reasons I find the game frustrating. I want to read more. I want to do stuff. But at this point, the sailing is reducing my enjoyment. A speedup button would massively solve this issue for me, and plenty of others, and you would never have to click on it if you didn’t want to. I don’t know if this game dials home to failbetter with stats, but if it does, I’d love to know at what point of a game (and on how many of the games), people buy the supressor, and just go full power everywhere. I’m guessing it’s pretty high.
Take the Total War series as an example. they have speed up buttons in the real-time combat. I never use them. I’m happy doing everything at normal speed, and that can take long minutes to set up. But my friend hates it. He runs it all at high speed. Because he’s impatient. We’re both catered for.
I do NOT agree![/quote]
It depends on how long you’ve been zailing, I suppose. It’s most exciting in that irreplaceable part of the game, those first few hours when you’re still discovering places and the dangers of the zee. But once that’s done, it becomes a increasingly dull chore.
That said, I’d sooner support measures to make the Unterzee more dynamic and interesting before adding a cheap fast travel feature. Or well, I’d also support engine rebalancing so that they aren’t a net loss in efficiency and range. Would be nice if they were actually upgrades, instead of a trade-off between efficiency and convenience.
EDIT: A fast travel button is also rather cheaty, as it allows you to ignore terror and zee monsters/enemies entirely. edited by Shadow on 2/19/2015
I think that’s why “speed up” vs “fast travel” is preferred. The game mechanics would continue in exactly the same fashion. Just, it would cycle quicker. “Run at 2x 5x and 10x speed”. Terror accrues 10x more quickly. SAY takes only 6s instead of 60. Hunger goes up every 1s instead of every 10. etc etc.
I do NOT agree![/quote]
It depends on how long you’ve been zailing, I suppose. It’s most exciting in that irreplaceable part of the game, those first few hours when you’re still discovering places and the dangers of the zee. But once that’s done, it becomes a increasingly dull chore.
That said, I’d sooner support measures to make the Unterzee more dynamic and interesting before adding a cheap fast travel feature. Or well, I’d also support engine rebalancing so that they aren’t a net loss in efficiency and range. Would be nice if they were actually upgrades, instead of a trade-off between efficiency and convenience.
EDIT: A fast travel button is also rather cheaty, as it allows you to ignore terror and zee monsters/enemies entirely. edited by Shadow on 2/19/2015[/quote]
More dynamic zee would be nice. More varied monster tactics, perhaps. More varied and lethal weather. Perhaps just a few features that change place ingame, so it’s less predictable.
I don’t understand this very much. The Zee travel is potentially a most perilous moment, with the risk of enemies always appear, Terror increase and food/fuel decrease, and random storylets bother you.
Why would you want to decrease the tension by accelerating it?
Besides, if you go from port to port it’s -rare- that one travel lasts several minutes.
I guess the point is, I’m at a stage with my captain where I have too many echoes (no, I didn’t exploit the sunlight boxes, all just legit methods, e.g. lots of tomb colonist runs), a full complement of weapons (mt nomad dies quickly and and at no risk to me), but still have a few stories to wrap up. And these stories seem to send me all over the map. Which is great, except it isn’t. Doing the brisk campaigner, for example, she wanted stone’s attention. I went to Whither, from Mangrove college (which is in the very southeast for me), only to find I needed a watchful curio, so it’s literally to the other side of the map to irem to get one of those, and then back all the way to whither. and then off to find mushroom wine, in London. That took, like, 25 minutes of just sailing directly from port to port. Which isn’t fun.
Speed up wouldn’t reduce the tension or threat. It would literally just make the game run faster. If you enter combat (like, click a fight button) then it could return to x1, but if you’re just cruising by, keep it fast. And that’s entirely the point. I don’t go from port to port any more. there’s no need. I’ve finished up most of them, and don’t need the port reports for stuff.
While I understand lots of people don’t want or need this feature, you can’t ignore the fact that almost every person who’s posted saying "here’s some feedback" has mentioned it. And, as I tried to explain with my Total War analogy, just because it’s there, doesn’t mean you have to use it. But it’s clear that some people do, because once you’ve eliminated the threat of the zee, it’s simply not fun to to spend minutes wandering between ports you need to visit.
But, I’ll stop trying to explain. If your answer is "I don’t want it" then I think perhaps you’re missing the point and I don’t want to belabour it by just saying the same thing again and again. edited by SporksAreGoodForYou on 2/19/2015 edited by SporksAreGoodForYou on 2/19/2015
By bringing up my playtime, I was addressing Shadow’s statement that only new players enjoy the slow pace and that those who have been playing for a longer time simply find it a “dull chore.”
Right. But you play a little every day. The guys (like me) asking for this are those who binge on this stuff and can rack up 20+ hours in a week. And there are just as many players like that as those who play a small amount each day.
If we have the option to use manual saving, why not a speed up button too? Not something everyone would be forced to use, and I certainly wont ever touch it. Would be also be helpful if the game specifically tells new players to avoid it to experience the intended style of the game.
But we’ll probably get people complaining about “fast to finish” next considering the map isn’t really that big if you cut the travel times.
I support this, even if it does require some kind of unlock, it would be nice to be able to travel a little quicker (and have your terror, hunger, etc go up accordingly) to speed up the 20 minute runs to the opposite side of the map to get to my next quest.
I understand that, Sporks. I merely wanted to address the factuality of one particular statement in that comment – nothing more.
To address the overall issue myself, I think Mica is right that if it’s there, people – including new players – will use it, even to the detriment of the game experience. The devs have already talked about how if anything is present in the game that could be construed as "optimal", a number of players somehow feel obliged to take that route, no matter how tedious or uninteresting, no matter if it’s at the expense of story and atmosphere. From what I have observed in the weeks since release, that does seem to be true.
Mica suggests having the game tell new players to avoid such a button if it were implemented. Also from what I have observed, players don’t necessarily pay attention to what the game tells them to do (or not do).
In the end, I think that it’s something that would be very well suited to a mod, especially once modding is integrated in a more sophisticated manner. As a mod, it would be more accessible to advanced players than new ones, providing a new twist on the way in which the game can be played. As part of the game itself, however, I believe the unwanted consequences for all new players would overwhelm the potential convenience for a segment – sizeable though it may be – of experienced ones.
edit: as for making it some kind of unlockable function within the game itself, I think that sends entirely the wrong message about the "goal" of the game. edited by Fretling on 2/19/2015
No offense meant, Sporks, but what you describe as not being fun is exactly what I like best.
I’m at the same stage you described with my current captain: cash is no longer a worry, all enemies can be bested. So now I finally have time to play all the Officers’ storylines and myriad other small storylets. If that sends me three times around the world, well, great! That’s rather the point of the game, isn’t it? London’s the most boring place on the map, the less reason I have to return there all the time the better!
Again, I understand that not everybody’s playing the game the same way. And if they give you a speed-up button, good for you - but I wouldn’t ever use it!