Ocean biome review plus suggestions

[JosePapp]

I've been playing this game since before the sailable ocean was a thing, and now that it's been more than 5 years I figured it'd be nice to give some feedback regarding that area that I've gathered along with my playing buddy.

I will not be including the latest ice biome since I haven't experienced it yet.

 

Brine Shoal Biome (B tier)

First one to be added in. Salt is a cool enough alternative to ice boxes, if a little niche. Cookie cutter Caps are an ok sidegrade to football helms, if a little underwhelming.

suggestion: Make cookie cutter caps do small prickle damage to attacking mobs (like 10-34?) So they're a cooler item. 

Rough/ Sea Weed Biome: (C tier)

I honestly don't visit that one much if at all. The only incentives it has are the fire pump (which only works on boats) and the barnacles. Seedshells on their own aren't worth the hassle of visiting by themselves. 

Suggestion: an item on a similar vein to the speargun but crafted using seedshells could prove interesting as a slightly weaker but more plentiful blowdart. You could craft it with rope, 3 seedshells and two twigs and it could maybe be a 6-10 use 30 something damage ranged weapon. 

Alternatively, perhaps we could craft fish food ourselves by using barnacles, that way, they could prove a bit more useful.

Waterlogged (S tier)

The most complete out of the sailable biomes, it offers a lot of incentives to return: a renewable source of leafy meat, plenty of fishing opportunities, renewable fireflies and the opportunity to somewhat replicate it wherever you want. 

It also has an amazing atmosphere with mobs interacting with one another, (mostly in the form of eating fish)

Suggestion: Honestly it's pretty great as is. 

Lunar archipelago (A+ tier): The best of the non mainland islands, also tragically the first of the non mainland islands (it all went downhill from there). It has a cool theme and mechanics with lunacy, some fun crafts (the cutters and axes are the more worthwhile things) and interesting resources like stone fruit and anenemies. The atmosphere of it is also stellar. It is also where you fight the lunar final boss, the celestial champion.

Suggestion: Make it so the birds that land on it are their mutant versions, it'd make more sense thematically. Perhaps a few more crafts or interesting drops could be in order, but it's fine enough as is.

Moon Quay Island (C tier)

Amazing conceptually, botched in execution. It has renewable reeds, bananas (which definitely shouldn't grow in winter) and a lot of fun ocean crafts. However it's extremely small, so you only really need to explore it once or twice. 

The cursed trinkets being a negative incentive to get there doesn't sit right with me. It's a negative incentive after all.

Suggestion :

Make raid monkeys not drop cursed trinkets, but rather have them stash their goods at moon Quay Island. The resident monkeys WOULD drop trinkets (since you'd be attacking, hence the punishment) and the loot could have some higher tier items on it. Stuff like volt goat horns, life giving amulets, perhaps a low chance for tier 1 thulecite crafts at like 2% of a chance. Just anything to make both pirates more fun and the island a returnable location.

summoned raids should also drop trinkets (they were instigated)

Hermit Island (B-)

It's small, but it's central to the lunar quest, offers the game's only merchant and a lot of fishing related paraphernalia. It's somewhat similar in looks to the lunar island, even if it's intentional, but I feel like it works ok. I've got no suggestions for it.

RNG Dependant ocean mob suggestions

I feel like gnarwhails and rockjaws should probably have set spawners as well as their random encounters, much like ballphins. I can see ballphins going around on more swell waters while sharks would be more common in the rougher waters. Perhaps we could make a big chum item to summon them?

Skittlesquids are both common enough and harmless enough to not warrant any chance.

BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAKE MALBATROSS MORE COMMON. Similar stuff has been done before, just make him have a chance to appear (like 2% whenever you hook ANY ocean fish) on top of his current spawning mechanics. 

 

 

 

[Silversliver]

6 hours ago, JosePapp said:

The cursed trinkets being a negative incentive to get there doesn't sit right with me. It's a negative incentive after all.

The problem is that the cursed trinkets aren't something you can do anything to work around, wonky is the most boring punishment, and the only way to remove them is visit monkey island with banana, which grows there. If you get a monkey raid but don't know where the island is you're stuck with them until you find this tiny island with no signs if you're close to it except possibly more monkey raids.
 

6 hours ago, JosePapp said:

I feel like gnarwhails and rockjaws should probably have set spawners as well as their random encounters

gnarwhails are important if you ever want to make the trident, good luck getting 3 horns, but rockjaws are just annoying with no reward.

 

I think that boating will always be tedious until we get other ways of traveling the water, and besides it will take a lot to convince people to visit these biomes more than once or twice. I personally still haven't visited the sea weeds despite all the boating I do.