Please give us a way to find salt formations more reliably.

[Lovens]

After a few failed CC rush attempts recently where I couldn't find any cookie cutters I decided to take a look and try to find any patterns in how salt biomes (brine shoals) generate on the map. It seems that there is no pattern at all, and it also seems that they are limited to 8 salt biomes per world in total. They could be generated anywhere, and in some extreme cases they would all bunch up on one side of the map, meaning you can explore half of the ocean without ever seeing any. It is very frustrating to be skilled enough to complete all Pearl's tasks within a few days but still be left at a mercy of RNG because you happened to sail in the part of the ocean with no salt biomes around. Mindlessly sailing around with no direction is not fun. And cookie cutter shells are a part of a 3-task quest that is mandatory to get the pearl (all three house upgrades must be done and can't be replaced with other tasks). 

I see that in the current beta some steps were taken to make cookie cutter shells easier to get (cookie cutters now have a chance to drop another shell) but it's still not enough if you can't find them reliably. I propose some solutions to make this experience smoother and less RNG-based:

1. If it's possible, make salt biomes follow a certain pattern when placed on the map. Say, make them only try spawn 1-2 screens away from the main land and not be tucked away close to the edges of the map. Or maybe they can be tied to spawn off the shore of only certain land biomes (say, the ones that contain rocks - Mosaic, Rockylands, Spider Quarry, 2nd Meteorite biome, both Deserts and Triple McTusk). This way players will be rewarded for exploring main land and could reliably search points of interest based on their knowledge and experience. 

2. If changing how worldgen works is too hard for now, maybe hardcode them to be a part of other ocean landmarks that are easier to locate? Say, always generate one salt biome within 2-4 screens away from Pearl's Island/Moon Quay/Lunar Island/Frostjaw Island/Waterlogged. This way players will stil need to explore some of the ocean but they will likely find salt even if they find something else first. 

3. If changing brine shoals location is currently not an option, at least make them more common or give us an option to change it in World's Generation settings. Currently we can't even increase salt biomes spawns (seems to be limited to 8) and how many salt stacks generate on the map overall - from what I saw it's around 120-126. There are only settings for how fast salt stacks regrow and how many cookie cutters they spawn. 

4. (Optional) Make brine shoals bigger or more noticeable, like Frostjaw's biome indicated by ice glaciers. Brine shoals could be more spaced out or surrounded by special sea stacks that have salt veins in them which can be broken for 1-2 additional salt crystals but are not renewable. 

[Jakepeng99]

They are already common and easy to find though.

 

Some things you need to explore the ocean to find. The problem with the ocean is all the good content is just point A and B, this expands on this problem.

Edited March 15 by Jakepeng99

[Lovens]

1 hour ago, Jakepeng99 said:

They are already common and easy to find though.

 

Some things you need to explore the ocean to find. The problem with the ocean is all the good content is just point A and B, this expands on this problem.

If you read the post more carefully you would have noticed that I'm not asking to just add more of these to the world. I asked to have an optional setting to add more of them for those who feel that they are not common enough, or to tweak where they spawn. I don't like that they are tedious to find and that they have no pattern in where and how they spawn. It's not fun to aimlessly sail through nothingness for days hoping to get lucky and randomly stumble upon salt formations.

And by the way 8 per world is not common enough given how big the ocean is and how boring it currently is. It could take a whole season to find if you get a bad world gen. Even Malbatross has at least 10 spawners as its cap (I can confirm that because I have 10 in my current megabase world). But I've had other worlds where I'd explore literally half of the ocean as Woodie running around for days, finding 4-5 Matlbatross spawners, Frowsjaw, MoonQuay, Lunar Island, couple Waterlogged areas, countless Sea Weed biomes...anything but cookie cutters. It's unreasonable to expect players to explore so much to be able to find something that doesn't impact survival much (and exists solely for the purpose of gatekeeping obtaining Pearl which in turn is gatekeeping Crab King which is just another obstacle on the way to CC). It's a lot easier to find the ruins and lunar island which both provide powerful weapons/food sources. 

And if players can increase other spawners and entities in the world (boulders, sea stacks, slurtle and hound mounds, sea weeds etc)...is it really that much to ask for an option to tweak the number of salt formations, at the very least? I wouldn't ask for that but if they are already taking steps to make cookie cutter shells more accessible they might as well fix the main issue, not just increase the drop rate.

[ZeRoboButler]

It would be nice if we could have some nicer ways to help us explore the ocean, I kinda wish that the horizon-expandinator thing behaved differently like it allowed you to peer certain distances to sea when its in a particular direction. 

It could have been so useful for ocean exploration, in theory but in practice the darn thing barely shows more than just scrolling out normally since boats already adjust the camera based on speed and acceleration. 

Honestly, I hope they just make the hat a lens for a spy glass for boats at this point, ocean travel is riddled with issues, most of which punish having more resources put in.

Build a fully kitted boat with 3 sails? too bad, rocks everywhere and you can't see what's in front of you till its too late. 

Move slower? put up 2 sails, decent pace, but time is everything and the more you spend it on the ocean, the less time you got for main land or underground activates.

It wouldn't be so bad where it not for the fact that so much it time gated, the rain for electric dmg and pearl umbrella offering, the phase of the moon, time of year, it goes on...

I kinda feel like I rambled a bit, but it would be nice if the player tried to have agency over something like exploration, the tools given to us to do so would be... lets say not what-ever the weird lens hat is now. (kinda sad that boats sit still, back when they used to still move around off screen, you could pop an ocuvigil on it and send it off)   

Edited March 16 by ZeRoboButler
dang f key is off, need a new keyboard lol

[Swiyss]

The trick I use to 100% locate one is to sail close to land, adjacent to where the surface altars were. You can try this technique and always find atleast 1.

[Lovens]

5 hours ago, Swiyss said:

The trick I use to 100% locate one is to sail close to land, adjacent to where the surface altars were. You can try this technique and always find atleast 1.

Thank you for the tip, I will try it!