GrimoireOfAlice
Posts: 1
2/19/2015
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So far I've sunk (lol) quite a few hours into this game. But now knowing the world as I do I find the progression system very poorly designed near nonexistant.
At current there is only one really worthwhile method of making cash. salt lions early and then Illegal smuggling of sunlight. And comparatively everything else feels woefully meaningless. Theres no reason to engage in other forms of trading because they just don't get you anywhere near a profit most of the time.
Then once you have grinded a sufficent amount of cash through the sunlight trade (and it really is a grind) the next course of action would be going to irem to buy enough secrets to max out your stats.
And now you can play the game... Sure you can choose to explore aimlessly and it's a lot of fun to do that at first. But once you get into the games progression system you realise there isn't one. It's grind sunlight, buy secrets and level up stats...
This is horrible design, it doesn't encourage exploring or lend anything to the sea farring adventurer.
So here are my suggestions:
Add more trade routes, unique to a few of the islands in each tier of the map and make them worthwhile! Use the sunlight trade as a base and increase the value of the trade route the further and more hazardous the area is from Fallen London.
Add progressive stat increases... If you succeed at a challenge, give the player a point up in that challenges stat but add in switches so that they can only do it once per challenge. This encourages exploration, finding new things and importantly challenging them! The current system merely encourages grinding cash and going to Irem.
Remove secrets for cash in Irem... As a potential alternative replace them with a trade good that becomes a secret once you take it somewhere else.
I really hope this helps, because sunless sea has the potential to become a really awesome game. Love the story so far and wish the progression system in the game lent more to exploring and adventurering than grinding and cash for stat-ups
edited by GrimoireOfAlice on 2/19/2015
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MisterGone
Posts: 139
2/20/2015
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As one of those folks in the middle, I just have to add that it makes the experience of Sunless Sea unique, but frustrating.
Honestly, the biggest issue I have with this game is that the traditional gameplay elements often seem VERY at odds with the narrative stuff (well that and the often terrible performance issues which impede enjoyment and the substantial number of bugs that makes this feel very unfinished right now).
The issue is that of player's prior knowledge. Not enough stuff is truly randomized in the game that prior knowledge isn't immensely important, but you only really get to experience story stuff in a genuinely interesting way the first time. Which makes the huge wall of difficulty that I think generally leads to successive early deaths until the player gets the hang of balancing their supply, fuel, and terror stats during travel while making enough money to stay supplied and hopefully slowly progress to bigger and better ships and equipment all the more frustrating - by the time you learn to get over this wall you've probably seen a LOT of the story content, and so subsequent deaths or alternate game finishers that you can choose or stumble upon feel a lot less interesting and far more frustrating since to see the next little bit of story you might have missed you now know you're just going to grind to get there again on the next character no matter what.
Hence why I get why sunlight smuggling becomes so preferred. I've been avoiding it myself, trying to figure out more natural but still lucrative trade routes while I try to get through areas and islands I wasn't able to finish up before, but then I run into other walls like the incredibly high stats required for most of the later skillchecks, and I see why the Irem + Sunlight Smuggle option becomes even more appealing. I've got my veils to +60, my pages to +70 and my Mirrors to +55 (with OKish Hearts and Iron scores) on my latest Poet, but the skill increases have begun drying up after getting through a bunch of bigger quests and exploring the whole map by now and learning to play cautiously has made me more risk averse, not more risk taking . . . but I still want to try to get through Frostfound at some point and Irem's looking like a better option every time.
It's just . . . having mostly linear stories (and they really are mostly pretty linear from what I can find, with usually only a few different final outcomes) with a game design (essentially all the "Rogue-Like" elements) focused on replayability results in an ever increasing need to NOT replay the game and try for different outcomes, not less.
I don't think the game "fails" due to this internal conflict it has. It's perhaps lessened a bit by it depending on the player type. Obviously those more interested in a weird Victorian naval Elite simulation (which was myself when I first read reviews, to be honest) are ending up more than a bit disappointed - the Economy kind of sucks for becoming a Merchant king, the combat is a smidge too simple and needs more diversity in how encounters can play out (It's either charging monsters or circling boats, both of which can be pretty easily beaten with kiting - no maneuvering really need apply). I can also imagine that those who just want to get to the story could be quite frustrated by the early game wall too - it's pretty hard for a good long time before you figure out how to survive long enough to really start cracking the further away islands. Much harder than any adventure game I've ever played (aside from a few old King's Quests which murdered me like mad).
I actually think it's those of us "in the middle" that have the best chance of enjoying the game to be honest. But only if we learn to get over our preference and adapt to what the game actually is, and have a lot of patience to boot.
It's certainly one of the most interesting games I've ever played, that's for sure, and I'd highly recommend it I think. I just don't know exactly to whom to recommend it to. Or if I shouldn't give them a bunch of disclaimers on letting go of whatever expectations they have first.
By the by, one of the ways I think this game could improve dramatically in a (theoretically) simple manner - change the spawn points for enemies whenever the player gets back to London, or whenever a certain number of days accrue (or possibly on reloading a game from a save). I like that the game alternates potentially different island locations and spawn locations whenever you start a new sea captain, but a big issue with the later game and a fully explored map is that you tend to know where all the dangers lie other than potential storms, and this makes it a bit too easy to predict and thus becomes more tedious. That prior knowledge becomes more precient, and leads to the conservatism that makes it easier and easier to want to just find the easiest way to break the economy and get to the end-game. If you really had to wonder whether or not the Polythreme Pirates might have moved or whether or not there were more lifebergs in the north on any particular outing, it would add a lot more spice to the later stages of a game, and induce more threat and thus propel the player back into a more risk-taking mode of thought.
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If you'd ever like to enjoy a good round of pugilism or discussing the higher mysteries, Reginald Drownheart may be the dapper gentleman for you!
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Reginald~Drownheart~
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Shadow
Posts: 49
2/19/2015
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The critique hinges on the perceived fact that sunlight smuggling is currently working as intended, and analyzes other issues from that perspective.
The sale of secrets at Irem is not problematic as 999 echoes are normally not so easy to acquire.
Secrets are normally earned through the accumulation of Fragments, which are in turn obtained from exploration and certain quests to a lesser (or not so lesser) extent. This is basic knowledge, and I find it weird that the OP is well-versed in the acquisition and sale of sunlight, and the connected trivialization of Irem's shop, but at the same time doesn't seem to know how secrets are more naturally earned.
It sounds to me you played some, OP, then found a sunlight smuggling guide and allowed that to ruin the rest of the game for you. :/
I can agree with you that progression needs to be revised and that more viable trading options wouldn't hurt, but not entirely for the reasons you describe. I'd wager the relatively harmless "harvesting" of sunlight on the Surface, the root of the problem you point out, will be addressed before long. Aestival is another source and nowhere near as merciful, which gives me the impression the Surface will feel more similar to it soon.
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In Her Enduring Majesty's Service
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Eldan
Posts: 18
2/20/2015
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I don't think it has much to do with powerplay. My problem is rather the opposite. Every so often, my captain dies. And then I have to do a dozen stories again that I have already done three or four or ten times. And that's just not interesting. My reaction should be "Oh, how curious!", not "Oh man, the Principles again, let's click through this so I can get the outcast."
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