Archer Braun
Posts: 5
3/2/2015
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I sincerely want to extend my thanks to the Failbetter crew for the hours of enjoyment I experienced playing Sunless Sea. I found it an engaging and thought-provoking experience, and I think it holds a great deal of promise.
However, I'm not what you'd call a typical "gamer". I don't look for exploits, cheats or bugs. I prefer to be heavily invested in a story, and watch it grow and develop over time.
The latest patch sort of ruined that for me, however, and I realize my opinion on the matter is most likely that of a small minority.
Sunlight smuggling, in so many words, simply made this game playable. The decision to "nerf" it quite simply killed my interest in continuing. Purchasing new hulls, supplies, or any of the sundries that helped me to actually explore and move forward with the story suddenly became an incredibly tiresome burden. I wasn't invested in learning more about my officers, exploring stories between ports, or working to uncover hidden sections of the map any longer. I was simply now struggling to eke out a rather dull, joyless slog - just to afford to keep moving from one dull, joyless slog to another. A fatal mistake that results in a complete reset of the map, the loss of half of what I'd made and one or two heirloom items was bearable - SOLELY - because I knew there was a way to resume my progress with a new Captain that didn't involve an ungodly amount of mind-numbing boredom slogging it out all over again.
The death of this last captain, my Eighth, is the last. I guess I'm not going to learn how to finally defeat Mt. Nomad, or uncover any of the rest of the mysteries of this game...because they're now squarely out of my reach. I don't have the time to slog through countless low-paying jobs that don't take me anywhere near where I need to be to advance the story. I simply can't handle that frustration, coupled with the dread of more slogging. Which I thought was vaguely humorous because I've heard Sunlight smuggling described as a slogging grind. I, however, didn't find it to be so.
It's not likely you'll change your minds. I just wanted you to understand that this decision, while it doesn't kill my interest in the game (I'm still fascinated by the stories), has simply rendered it far too exhausting for me to try yet again. I'm a bit disappointed, but I'm sure I'll live.
That having been said, I hope you continue to innovate and create compelling content. I thought Sunless Sea was a fantastic game to play, and I enjoyed the living daylights out of it.
Best of luck to you.
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MisterGone
Posts: 139
3/2/2015
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Eh, the longest "slog" I had to deal with was dying a whole bunch at the start and not making any real progress. Once I figured out how to effectively NOT die, and worked at figuring out more and better trades (and there are, like 6 REALLY good ones in the game, not just Sunlight) it's been a steady progression that I hardly feel was as grindy as some people complain about.
But then, I'm used to the whole 3X Genre of eXplore (the map), eXploit (basic economics), and eXpand (your range) that games like this inhabit. They always start slow, and they always progress at a steady clip 'til you're shipping huge yields of goods while buying low and selling high and making plenty of cash.
Besides, the counter put upon Sunlight trading is hardly crushing. I went and did a couple trades now that it's in place to earn some quick money - like, maybe three surface trips and 25 boxes over those three - and walked away with managable menace and several thousand echoes in profit. If I had done that in a Steamer, it would have quickly gotten me to a Corvette with very little cost to myself as long as I didn't overreach.
People just get greedy with the sunlight trade, wanting it to serve as a replacement for all other trading in the game rather than using it as a boost to get a leg up and working on more traditional trade routes while doing stories.
edited by MisterGone on 3/2/2015
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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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SporksAreGoodForYou
Posts: 291
3/3/2015
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I think you're all preaching to the choir at this point, and sort of entirely the missing the point.
Archer is representative of a (large?) number of players of this game. Even if all these walls of text were to convince him to stay, and do things differently, it doesn't matter. You should look at his post not as a chance to explain how many other ways there are to make money, or how *you* never needed sunlight, but that this game is too "hard"/"boring"/"not fun" for a lot of people, without a mechanism to ease the suffering that is the general slog. Not everyone is a masochist, and some people just want to enjoy their game time, explore the amazing writing, and not feel like everything they do is going to inevitably lead towards death, and therefore replaying the same early stories again and again.
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MisterGone
Posts: 139
3/3/2015
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SporksAreGoodForYou wrote:
I think you're all preaching to the choir at this point, and sort of entirely the missing the point.
Archer is representative of a (large?) number of players of this game. Even if all these walls of text were to convince him to stay, and do things differently, it doesn't matter. You should look at his post not as a chance to explain how many other ways there are to make money, or how *you* never needed sunlight, but that this game is too "hard"/"boring"/"not fun" for a lot of people, without a mechanism to ease the suffering that is the general slog. Not everyone is a masochist, and some people just want to enjoy their game time, explore the amazing writing, and not feel like everything they do is going to inevitably lead towards death, and therefore replaying the same early stories again and again.
But isn't that, and what Archer said in his last post, a COMPLETELY different issue?
I've discussed the very same issue in other threads. There is a fundamental tonal conflict between the totally linear narrative elements of this game - which are basically only at their best once, the first time you get to experience them - and the mechanics of the sea and legacies - which heavily encourage replayability.
But that has nothing to do with the Sunlight trade, or the nerfing thereof.
That's like saying that you didn't like The Avengers because the movie theater raised its prices on popcorn the week it came out.
If you don't like The Avengers, that's fine. Because it's assumed you didn't like it because of some quality of the film's content. And it's OK to not like the movie theater jacking up the prices of popcorn too. But the two things are not directly related to each other. Tangentially? Possibly. Maybe the movie theater realized that the theaters would be packed with pre-ordered tickets, so in raising their prices they took advantage of that fact. But the extra $4 on the popped corn isn't the fault of Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson or Joss Whedon.
Blaming the "nerfed" Sunlight farming for the Narrative-Mechanics conflict is completely nonsensical.
More to the issue, while I get why some of the veteran members of this forum are trying to be magnanimous and attempt to justify this OP, a lot of this really feels like trolling. I'm more in agreement with Red's surmise on this at this point. The logic in the argument is all confused and expressed so poorly and vaguely and with a written tone that comes across as manipulatively antagonizing and very "Martyr-y". It's a tone asking to be abused by fans angered by what he's trying to complain about, not one of constructive criticism or trying to start an actual discussion. It's a tone that really sets my spidey sense tingling, because it's one of a person putting a "Kick Me!" sign on their own back, so they can see what people will do, and perfectly designed so that when that happens, they'll look like the victim while protesting "I have no idea how that got there, Principal Skinner".
Look at the flow of posts -
"Oh, I tried. I'm so beleaguered and this one specific thing is to blame! But I really tried. And now it's ruined. Ruined! You'll never have me to kick around any more!"
Then sticking around to push the same complaint forward until people start talking about it, despite the protestations at the start.
Then saying nothing to see if the antagonizing worked to start arguments amongst the pre-existing community after the complaint had been planted and the flames fanned.
People suggest compromises (modding the game files if it really bothers you, other ways to make money), better deny that really quick. That would be reasonable!
THEN, when none of that really worked turning around "At the end" and saying, "Oh, but it was this other issue that was really the problem that I totally never mentioned before, and only mentioned it specifically after Sporks laid out the more agreeable complaint." - see the post I'm quoting above where Sporks lays out the last thing Archer says but with fewer words - followed by "but I really liked it guise. Super seriously. That's why I have to stop playing it forever."
This is all trolling 101. Nothing follows, the reasoning shifts to suit the intent of the troll, compromise or moderation is ignored. I'm expecting the next post to be "Hah! I was totally trolling you! Look at my le epic Troll face and links to Rick Astley! Got you!"
And seriously look at the arguments:
Sunlight wasn't even that nerfed. Money wise, it wasn't nerfed at all. It didn't get its payout cut down. Mirror-catch boxes didn't go up in cost. You can go and collect lots of boxes really quickly and make several thousand echo in a single or multiple runs. And recieve few and really, quite manageable ill-effects as long as you just don't do it and only it 100 times in quick succession. In fact, the added "ill effect" actually helps to unlock new content.
Sunlight trading now functions in a way that makes it give a boost to a player's bank balance, but isn't a free money machine that makes more money that make even more baby money in an infinite loop like it was. It does make the game "easier", but not "easy" in its current iteration. Which is what the OP claims to have wanted.
And if the issue is "really" about replaying stories, then having a lot of money doesn't resolve that issue. Lots of stuff you need for stories can't be bought, can't be found in any other way other than doing other stories. And for the stuff you can buy, limited hold space means you can't carry everything all at once, so you're still going to be sailing around to map to procure stuff you need with your Scrooge McDuck vault full of Echoes. And you're still going to playing the stories again!
It isn't really a super speed catch up technique because you're going to spend a whole bunch of the time you could be doing stories to progress selling sunlight instead. It's just replacing one kind of grind with another - an even grindier grind that's less variable and more profitable.
None of these arguments make actual sense with the actual changes that have occurred.
This is either total trolling, or someone so bad at expressing themselves that they come off like they're a total troll.
Either way, congratulations Archer, you got me to write another post.
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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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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
3/2/2015
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Sorry the mechanics of the game weren't to your tastes - so long, and I hope you find something that suits you better!
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Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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SporksAreGoodForYou
Posts: 291
3/3/2015
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MisterGone, with all the love in the world, I think you're reading way too much into this. I just saw a very thoughtful guy saying he enjoyed a game for the first time in a long time, because of the narrative. He didn't enjoy scraping cash together, and sunlight meant he could not worry about money *at all* and just explore the beautiful, strange, delicious world. Money problems? Spend 30 mins running sunlight. Go explore. Repeat.
The "nerf" has prevented that, and he doesn't have the time/inclination to work around it, because that's not how he plays the game. Doing it his way, you can run some sunlight, play around with the different ships and engines and weapons and not worry about fuel or supplies and progress the stories in a very linear fashion, taking one island at a time, and enjoying each experience as a standalone story. "Today, Matthew, I'm going to be A Scourge of Spiders."* Whereas playing "traditionally", means you have to juggle multiple threads just to survive. That's not everyone's cup of tea. And hacking game files isn't either. I can identify with that. And I think it's ok. And very, very far from trolling.
Personally, I agree 100% that the sunlight exploit wasn't fixed early enough, and whether for good or bad, people have now come to rely on it as part of the core experience. You take that away, and you'll see people be upset. That's ok, too. Perhaps before the DLC comes out, they'll smooth the introductory experience, so that more people feel they have a fighting chance, and they're on the cusp of survival, rather than prolonged death spirals. Or they could just add a "storytelling mode" where all requirements drop massively (less terror/fuel&supply use, speed is faster or perhaps just quadruple the money you make from everything), so that people who want to get to the end can do so. Then, when you feel ready for a real challenge, you can stick it on regular mode. And then extreme is invictus, plus half money and double terror. Or something. I thought FTL handled that really nicely. Let the player set the challenge and explore the world as they will.
*name that reference!
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Diptych
Administrator
Posts: 3493
3/3/2015
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There's no need to quarrel, folks - no game can please all the people all of the time, if you'll forgive my mixing idioms. Anyone can stop or start playing whenever they want to, for any reason, and that's an end of it.
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Sir Frederick, the Libertarian Esotericist. Lord Hubris, the Bloody Baron.
Juniper Brown, the Ill-Fated Orphan. Esther Ellis-Hall, the Fashionable Fabian.
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Jascob
Posts: 40
3/3/2015
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MisterGone wrote:
Ever since the menace added to surface trading, I've never NOT gotten a wound nabbing sunlight at Aestival, whereas before I could occasionaly not get hurt. But then, I also haven't done the first step to building a colony there, so maybe that's part of that?
[spoiler] Once you take a necessary step to build a colony, i.e., obtaining protection from the light, you can no longer fill boxes at Aestival. [/spoiler]
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WormApotheote
Posts: 725
3/3/2015
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mavericknm wrote:
Furthermore, many of the questlines are unprofitable.
Er, what? Since when? I've been rolling in Outlandish Artefacts and Captivating Treasures practically.
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No, I don't pull the Eater of Names.
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Red-XIII
Posts: 51
3/3/2015
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Why do I get the feeling that I'm biting a cleverly disguised troll-bait on this one? (keep reading for an answer...)
OP, you've said it yourself - "you're not a typical gamer" "you prefer to be heavily invested in a story, and watch it grow and develop over time" (and let me take a second to disagree with the half-claim that "looking for cheats, exploits and bugs" has anything to do with being a typical gamer). And if you are not into enjoying the game the way it was intended to be than you may as well edit it AKA go for a rule override AKA cheat a single player game's rules. Whatever qualms you have about it, are in conflict with the above claim. If you do care about enjoying the game the way it was meant to be then try to appreciate it "as it is", if you don't than there's really nothing wrong in appreciating it "as it isn't".
Besides this I've got four more statements to make.
- I've got several frigates without selling a single box of sunlight. Wasn't a slow grind. Did it though questing and exploring. Those are profitable to the intended extent. You're either having an excessively low patience or not doing it right.
- The sunlight trade IS out of whack. Even now. Trust us, the "typical" gamers on this one. We aren't looking for bugs and exploits, but we sure do "look out" for them. And that one made so many "spidey senses" tingle that only the titans (like skyrim's "fortify you-know-what" exploit) can overshadow it.
- There's always the merciful mode. That is if you DO care about staying "in/with the game". This one is actually a developer-made override. And your refusal to use any overrides at all makes this whole thread look like an old and well know "hardest mode is too hard" trolling bait. I'm not saying that you intended it that way, but is sure looks that way regardless of what you intended. The "It was fun, and now it's not. So I'm leaving, but I'll stick around this thread." is another behavior pattern that isn't speaking in your favour. I'm probably not the most well suited person to be telling this to anybody (since I'm regularly being perceived as a trolling person), but if you indeed didn't intend it that way, then you might benefit from analysing your thought and behaviour patterns on this one. The position you're taking is notably desynchronized with logic and common sense (which is exactly why it works so well as a troll bait - the issues are so glaringly obvious to a lot of people that it gets difficult to not point them out).
- I've played SR extensively, and it's NOT the same genre as SS. There's a whole lot of skin-deep similarities, but the cores are vastly different. To keep it short - SR is a game of fighting, questing and trading (more or less in that order). NOT surviving and NOT exploring either. SS is a game of exploring, questing and surviving (yep, mostly in that order). NOT trading and NOT fighting. There are SOME elements of those "excluded by my claim" things in those games but their impact on the game process is supplementary at best.
In any event, I hope I'm not coming around as aggressive/offensive again. I didn't mean to insult/irritate anyone or to pick a fight.
edited by Red-XIII on 3/3/2015
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Jascob
Posts: 40
3/2/2015
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If you didn't mind grinding sunlight to gain Echos, would you be adverse to editing your save game file to accomplish the same goal? It's pretty easy with Notepad ++. Uh, so I've been told. You can also edit your stats. From what I've read.
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Gregg Johnson
Posts: 263
3/2/2015
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You can still make one big sunlight run. Just can't return to the surface again for a while...
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Jascob
Posts: 40
3/2/2015
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Yes, you did grind sunlight; it's just that the profit was so out of whack that you didn't consider it a "depressing slog over and over and over again" because you only needed to fill up a Dreadnaught or Merchant Cruiser a few times to make enough spending money to last a while. Now that the designers have fixed the sunlight trade, you feel that the other methods of making money are not profitable enough to justify your time.
If your time is so valuable and you like the game so much, it shouldn't be too much an affront to your dignity to consider editing your save file. Or you can stick with your current plan, whatever that is.
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babelfishwars
Administrator
Posts: 1152
3/3/2015
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Hey folks - just a reminder to stay friendly/polite. No lines have been crossed, but I'd rather wander in now (and test out my new colour) and stretch in an obvious fashion than have to actually return to being a moderator.
Sometimes people are wrong on the internet. There's no need to persuade people to like the game, or that they're wrong for liking the game for whatever reason. If people ask for advice it's lovely when people can help with gameplay suggestions, but generally 'I'm quitting because Y' threads don't end in good places.
So ... No. I think that's my point. :-)
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Mars, God of Fish; Leaning Tower of Fish
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Jascob
Posts: 40
3/2/2015
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Archer Braun wrote:
The designers didn't "fix" the sunlight trade at all. It wasn't broken in the first place. It did what it was intended to do.
If it wasn't broken, then why did they fix it? Don't answer that; it's not necessary.
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