The curse of Moon Quay Beta suggestions

[thewalkingcamel]

So this update really contains a lotta surprising contents and I really loved it so far. With that said, I believe there’re still some parts of this update in need of adjustments:

 

- The curse mechanic. The monkeys themselves are not that troublesome to deal with, but you always accumulate accursed trinkets after a pirate fight, with no way to have this effect avoided or worn off by itself, you may only visit Queen of Moon Quay and pay your bananas to retain your character form, which almost feel forced when you’re a seafarer. Also the lack of guidance can hinder the gameplay of those yet to found the island. My suggestions:

 

1. make the curse slowly cease over time, similar to how poison in singleplayer DS works. Or make monkeys from pirate invasions not dropping accursed trinkets.

2. make the first pirate map read always reveal the location of the Moon Quay Island, similar to how the first message in a bottle reveals the location of the Hermit Island.

 

- Resource balancing. Banana bushes, monkeytails and palmcone sprouts are invaluable resources, yet the collectible form of these items are only rarely produced through the Unnatural Portal. The natural production of these resources can barely keep up with demand. My suggestions:

 

1. make Queen of Moon Quay produce these items when offered special tributes, when the player is bearing a curse, or when offered enough bananas. This is based on the fact that the queen don’t give consumables as other traders do, resulting in that there isn’t really much of a reason for players to revisit the Queen after getting all blueprints, except when they wish to remove accursed trinkets.

2. make palmcone trees drop their sprouts when fallen. This would make sense lore-wise also.

 

- Ocean trawler. It neither restores health on its own, nor accepts healing from players. I believe it should be improved on such an aspect so that it’ll work more stably somehow.

 

- Cannon. It costs a lot of palmcone scales but its performance is barely making up of its cost. Despite the fact that it has powerful shots, it lacks mobility severely. It cannot be rotated on land, its shots have a fixed and very limited range, and its cannonballs are costly and complex to craft. It just misses a lot, its ammo supply can barely keep up in combat, and loading with every shot can be tiring. Look at these comparisons: a houndius shootius is much more carefree to use and is much more deadly, while a catapult is a lot easier to build, and I’m saying this when taking the cost of switching characters into consideration if you don’t play as Winona. Seriously, I don’t see a reason to use this thing. My suggestions:

1. lower the needed number of palmcone scales in cannons down to 1.

2. switch the needed one gunpowder in cannonballs into one nitre and increase the produced number up to 8.

3. enable the player to rotate cannons by themself.

4. enable the player to load several shots at one time.

5. disable cannonballs’ ability of attacking walls.

[Areous]

- The curse mechanic. The monkeys themselves are not that troublesome to deal with, but you always accumulate accursed trinkets after a pirate fight, with no way to have this effect avoided or worn off by itself, you may only visit Queen of Moon Quay and pay your bananas to retain your character form, which almost feel forced when you’re a seafarer. Also the lack of guidance can hinder the gameplay of those yet to found the island. My suggestions:

 

1. make the curse slowly cease over time, similar to how poison in singleplayer DS works. Or make monkeys from pirate invasions not dropping accursed trinkets.

2. make the first pirate map read always reveal the location of the Moon Quay Island, similar to how the first message in a bottle reveals the location of the Hermit Island.

 

I also think they should make the cursed trinkets give us some signaling as you get closer to the island. Especially since there are pirate attack, which just means you lose an inventory slot without ever finding the island.  I believe one of the trinkets should act like the divining rod in DS, but not necessarily a radar. Maybe have the character reacts to the trinket vibrating as you get closer, almost like the nightmare phase amulet. So, you can find it since you, currently, have to find it or be screwed with part of your inventory.

[thewalkingcamel]

5 minutes ago, Areous said:

- The curse mechanic. The monkeys themselves are not that troublesome to deal with, but you always accumulate accursed trinkets after a pirate fight, with no way to have this effect avoided or worn off by itself, you may only visit Queen of Moon Quay and pay your bananas to retain your character form, which almost feel forced when you’re a seafarer. Also the lack of guidance can hinder the gameplay of those yet to found the island. My suggestions:

 

1. make the curse slowly cease over time, similar to how poison in singleplayer DS works. Or make monkeys from pirate invasions not dropping accursed trinkets.

2. make the first pirate map read always reveal the location of the Moon Quay Island, similar to how the first message in a bottle reveals the location of the Hermit Island.

 

I also think they should make the cursed trinkets give us some signaling as you get closer to the island. Especially since there are pirate attack, which just means you lose an inventory slot without ever finding the island.  I believe one of the trinkets should act like the divining rod in DS, but not necessarily a radar. Maybe have the character reacts to the trinket vibrating as you get closer, almost like the nightmare phase amulet. So, you can find it since you, currently, have to find it or be screwed with part of your inventory.

huh, that's a good one. It also makes sense I believe, as the trinkets're related to the Queen somehow.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

44 minutes ago, thewalkingcamel said:

2. make the first pirate map read always reveal the location of the Moon Quay Island, similar to how the first message in a bottle reveals the location of the Hermit Island

i like this idea

[test447]

Extra discoverability for the monkey island would be great. I can't imagine Klei isn't planning on adding that in somehow. They already fixed the discoverability for hermit island and crab king. Though maybe they aren't planning on it. They haven't made salt formations or the waterlogged biome any more discoverable than before. Though maybe that's just because there are multiple of them. Whereas for this monkey island there is only 1 of them.

[thewalkingcamel]

1 minute ago, test447 said:

Extra discoverability for the monkey island would be great. I can't imagine Klei isn't planning on adding that in somehow. They already fixed the discoverability for hermit island and crab king. Though maybe they aren't planning on it. They haven't made salt formations or the waterlogged biome any more discoverable than before. Though maybe that's just because there are multiple of them. Whereas for this monkey island there is only 1 of them.

That does make some sense to me. What I'm concerned about, however, is not discoverability, but hinderance to gameplay. As you see even if I'm not too interested in getting on the island, I may be attacked by pirates when in the ocean whatsoever, and if I fail to reach the island before too many pirates come to me I'll be stuck in Wonkey state. Wonkey's generally decreased stats and subsequent prevention of switching characters through Celestial Portal can be a matter, hence my statement of this pirate mechanic being somehow "forced".

[-Nick-]

Dock pilings should be able to be placed at the turf's edge when next to water. Like how you can place walls at the edges.

It would help alot with the look of docks and make them look less cramped.

[thewalkingcamel]

13 minutes ago, Nickolai said:

Dock pilings should be able to be placed at the turf's edge when next to water. Like how you can place walls at the edges.

It would help alot with the look of docks and make them look less cramped.

This is good, considering even walls're able to be placed at said location LOL