Why is ruins rushing so fun and doing pearl tasks so boring?

[somethin]

35 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Thulsuit has 4x the durability of a log suit, 2x the protection (so you need 2x less healing), and a permanent 3.3/m sanity regeneration which will usually make sanity completely ignorable entirely for free since it doesn't degrade over time. Magi is, at least to my knowledge, the most popular way to defeat the shadow chess pieces to unlock the ability to fight the Ancient Fuelweaver, in addition to all the other great stuff it does. SCS is 1,000x better than torches. The thing that doesn't make sense is waiting until you're starting rifts to get ruins gear. Why would you want to fight post-rift things with planar mechanics with pre-rift equipment that doesn't have planar mechanics?

I am not arguing that thulecite gear are good or not, since in my last post I acknowledge that they ARE great. What I don't get is why do people go out of their way to get those gear when the surface already provide all the necessities for you if you're not speed running, especially in the first year already. And as I mentioned, I don't wait until I open rifts for ruin gear. That would be really dumb. I wait for summer to start getting ruins stuff since staying up on the surface in summer is a waste of time. But that's just me, since I always do Lunar quest line first and the things that's mandatory to get from the ruins are a star caller and deconstruction staff, which are very annoying to get early due to living logs rng if I'm not Wormwood.

[Evelo]

idk. Ruins Rushing is dreadful and Pearl quests are entertaining to me. So depends on who you ask.

3 minutes ago, somethin said:

which are very annoying to get early due to living logs rng if I'm not Wormwood.

Mush Gnomes are how I get them early on. Typically for a Shadow Manipulator, Wicker's Bookshelf, or whatevs.

[somethin]

15 minutes ago, Evelo said:

Mush Gnomes are how I get them early on. Typically for a Shadow Manipulator, Wicker's Bookshelf, or whatevs.

Yeah, but that means I have to find where the lunar grotto is as well, and that's not on my bucket list when there are bases to build

[Primalflower]

I would have in some way agreed with you in the past but Lurking horrors have made ruins rushing pretty boring. Risk is way too high to get involved in any serious shadow fight so you (i) just end up waiting in a corner every ruins. I would much rather spend my time having fun by playing wind waker on the ocean

[Frashaw27]

This is a very tough question to answer because you can't really give a definite answer as it is instead much more individualistic. I would say that ruins clearing is more "fun" because it's much more exciting to actually face dangers and the like, meanwhile Pearl is relatively passive. I think this approach is actually great as it adds to the verity of what you can do and how you can do it. My broad generalization is that what feel like what most players dislike about the questline is the lack of any true rewards to them. This does circle around to the alternate solution balancing paradigm, but it does encourage the player to explored the ocean and see the goodies that can be reaped from it. However, this process is much slower and gradual compared to ruins rushing which gives you everything you'd want in 10ish days if your doing it casually. The solution to this is not exactly easy or smooth as it is hard to make things worth it to players, especially ones that do just go straight for end game stuff off the bat into a run.

[Cheggf]

Just now, somethin said:

I am not arguing that thulecite gear are good or not, since in my last post I acknowledge that they ARE great. What I don't get is why do people go out of their way to get those gear when the surface already provide all the necessities for you if you're not speed running, especially in the first year already. And as I mentioned, I don't wait until I open rifts for ruin gear. That would be really dumb. I wait for summer to start getting ruins stuff since staying up on the surface in summer is a waste of time. But that's just me, since I always do Lunar quest line first and the things that's mandatory to get from the ruins are a star caller and deconstruction staff, which are very annoying to get early due to living logs rng if I'm not Wormwood.

Ruins gear is bad at speedrunning. As you said, football helmets are sufficient, so going out of your way to get better gear is a time loss. The point of going to the ruins isn't to speedrun (unless what you're speedrunning is the AFW), it's to make the game in general easier, more comfortable, and more efficient. I do not want to run around with 2 slots of my inventory dedicated to making more log suits when I could have 0 inventory slots dedicated to making more armor since the thulecite suit has so much durability that it's basically never gonna break. I want to be able to swap between an infinite sanity armor that has insane protection and is never gonna break, and a movement speed light emitting amulet that also restores sanity like the chestpiece does.

Usually I either rush ruins (move faster on foot), rush a beefalo (move faster on mount), or rush a boat (movement speed is not as relevant). Moving at the default character speed is BORING!!!

1 hour ago, somethin said:

Yeah, but that means I have to find where the lunar grotto is as well, and that's not on my bucket list when there are bases to build

I haven't played the game much recently, but unless that Depths of Duplicity update changed something the lunar grotto should always be near the bluecap forest which should always be near the muddy which should always be near the ruins. If you find ruins you find grotto, and vice versa.

[Guille6785]

14 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

The point of going to the ruins isn't to speedrun (unless what you're speedrunning is the AFW)

not even useful for that since marble suits are broken in speedruns

[Cheggf]

13 minutes ago, Guille6785 said:

not even useful for that since marble suits are broken in speedruns

I meant getting the key from the guardian. 

[Guille6785]

7 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

I meant getting the key from the guardian. 

oops I misread it because the previous sentence was about getting better gear

[WilsonHiggs]

4 hours ago, somethin said:

I am not arguing that thulecite gear are good or not, since in my last post I acknowledge that they ARE great. What I don't get is why do people go out of their way to get those gear when the surface already provide all the necessities for you if you're not speed running, especially in the first year already. And as I mentioned, I don't wait until I open rifts for ruin gear. That would be really dumb. I wait for summer to start getting ruins stuff since staying up on the surface in summer is a waste of time. But that's just me, since I always do Lunar quest line first and the things that's mandatory to get from the ruins are a star caller and deconstruction staff, which are very annoying to get early due to living logs rng if I'm not Wormwood.

You can rush ruins to get some armors, star caller staff, magi, lazy explorer if you are lucky, dreadstone armor... other than weak armor, you cant get any of those in the surface and rushing the ruins doesn't mean cleaning them completely, you can come back in summer and finish the job

Living logs arent locked behind rng, there are mushgnomes in the grotto

4 hours ago, somethin said:

Yeah, but that means I have to find where the lunar grotto is as well, and that's not on my bucket list when there are bases to build

You can make a base later(?) 

I mean, if is just your preference then is okey but i dont get the problem of building a couple of crockpots and shadow manipulator after you come back to the surface

[loopuleasa]

3 hours ago, Frashaw27 said:

This is a very tough question to answer because you can't really give a definite answer as it is instead much more individualistic. I would say that ruins clearing is more "fun" because it's much more exciting to actually face dangers and the like, meanwhile Pearl is relatively passive. I think this approach is actually great as it adds to the verity of what you can do and how you can do it. My broad generalization is that what feel like what most players dislike about the questline is the lack of any true rewards to them. This does circle around to the alternate solution balancing paradigm, but it does encourage the player to explored the ocean and see the goodies that can be reaped from it. However, this process is much slower and gradual compared to ruins rushing which gives you everything you'd want in 10ish days if your doing it casually. The solution to this is not exactly easy or smooth as it is hard to make things worth it to players, especially ones that do just go straight for end game stuff off the bat into a run.

I actually didn't know anyone enjoyed the Pearl tasks until today

I guess it's a "don't know enough people" issue on my part

[HeatAndRun]

Doing her quest could be more enjoyable if she offers some recipes which don't require empty bottle. 

[loopuleasa]

5 minutes ago, HeatAndRun said:

Doing her quest could be more enjoyable if she offers some recipes which don't require empty bottle. 

The new wortox bottle hoarding tendencies made me remember how dreadful sailing and bottle farming is again

[Crestwave]

The addition of moonstorm kind of ruined Pearl's quests for me, personally. It used to be this neat little late-game thing; after doing all the other content, you can just relax in an island and help an old lady out with fishing and gardening. It genuinely felt fulfilling because you had no other reason to seek it out.

Now it's just an obstacle to moonstorm and rifts that gets optimized and speedrun by the first winter without any enjoyment. Just soul hop to Pearl, dump a boat load of junk and items, snatch the Pearl's Pearl and tp out. If a Wendy wants ghost jars, maybe smash all her shell bells before the last step.

I feel like removing the cactus flower requirement to facilitate speedrunning was a mistake over adding a different method for acquiring CK's altar (e.g., triple opal).

[somethin]

52 minutes ago, WilsonHiggs said:

You can make a base later(?) 

I mean, if is just your preference then is okey but i dont get the problem of building a couple of crockpots and shadow manipulator after you come back to the surface

Yeah, but I want my base noooow! /j
As I said, the ruins gear aren't enticing to me since as I said all the surface stuff are serviceable enough already and if you brought up that later argument I can also say that I can go to the ruins later as well. I only use those when I'm up against CC and FW quest line boss.

[Picklesaurus]

1 hour ago, Crestwave said:

I feel like removing the cactus flower requirement to facilitate speedrunning was a mistake over adding a different method for acquiring CK's altar (e.g., triple opal).

I feel the oposite, not only did I like the removal of the cactus flower requirement but I would also like them to add a bigger variet of pearl tasks so that we are not mostly restricted to the same ones, that would make me think of new routes to reach enough tasks to get pearl pearl , while also making me change how I approach it based on what I have found in the world so far and easing the time pressure and tedium that comes from mostly having to make the same set of tasks, it gets exhausting.

[Prinha]

10 hours ago, somethin said:

Sure, all the ruin gear are really nice, no arguments on that, but if you're not speed running there is pretty much zero reason to go there in autumn

I always make a short trip to the ruins early on to craft Suncaller's Staff, Construction Amulet and Deconstruction Amulet. Sun staff is simply for convenience in Winter boss fights and the other two have varying uses depending on the character I'm playing. For example crafting a Glossamer or War Saddle asap.

I think people mean different things when they say "Ruins Rush". As a newb I always thought this refered to actually clearing most of the ruins early. Only later did I learn that you can just walk through there, mine some stuff, craft some goodies and go back to the surface while avoiding 90% of the combat.

On topic: One tests your knowledge of the game and is about dynamic interaction with your environment while typically on ver rudimentary ressources. -> Exciting while giving access to some of the best unique items in the game. The other one is tedious, boring, influenced by RNG and requires reading the wiki while offering nothing immediately useful as a reward.

[Cheggf]

4 hours ago, Crestwave said:

The addition of moonstorm kind of ruined Pearl's quests for me, personally. It used to be this neat little late-game thing; after doing all the other content, you can just relax in an island and help an old lady out with fishing and gardening. It genuinely felt fulfilling because you had no other reason to seek it out.

Now it's just an obstacle to moonstorm and rifts that gets optimized and speedrun by the first winter without any enjoyment. Just soul hop to Pearl, dump a boat load of junk and items, snatch the Pearl's Pearl and tp out. If a Wendy wants ghost jars, maybe smash all her shell bells before the last step.

I feel like removing the cactus flower requirement to facilitate speedrunning was a mistake over adding a different method for acquiring CK's altar (e.g., triple opal).

Nothing changed except you are able to do one (1) step whenever you want instead of waiting 8 hours. You can still wait 8 hours to finish the house if you don't like the change, you aren't forced to do whatever it is you're doing. 

[loopuleasa]

Wait I think I figured it out:
One requires checking the wiki, the other does not

My memory is just terrible

[Edible Coal]

15 minutes ago, loopuleasa said:

Wait I think I figured it out:
One requires checking the wiki, the other does not

My memory is just terrible

is not that bad, you only need to remember the house material
10 board, one firefly, 3 bub, 5 cutstone, 10 marble, 5 rope, 10 moonstone, 10 cookie shell , 5 carpet

[loopuleasa]

3 minutes ago, Edible Coal said:

is not that bad, you only need to remember the house material
10 board, one firefly, 3 bub, 5 cutstone, 10 marble, 5 rope, 10 moonstone, 10 cookie shell , 5 carpet

You underestimate my memory, I can't remember the other tasks either

[aidankocherhans]

11 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Literally everything there normally is. Nothing goes away. Summer's the best time for sailing since a single ice box with two thermal stones will provide the easiest negation of the season you could ever have. The ice box moves with you as you sail. 

You have to keep a constant eye out for wildfires though, unless you let a flingo take up a huge amount of space (and making an extra one can be difficult early on, and hard to replace if you sink) which can be pretty dangerous if you need to jump off the boat for a bit. 

In general wildfires make a lot of surface activities more problematic than normal

[Jakepeng99]

Its just chores and fetch quests.

[aidankocherhans]

11 hours ago, somethin said:

Yeah, but that means I have to find where the lunar grotto is as well, and that's not on my bucket list when there are bases to build

You can quickly dip into each sinkhole you pass and you should eventually find the blue mushroom forest right next to one, and from there finding the grotto is easy

[hyoton123]

Pearl’s quests are pretty inflexible, can be time or weather gated, low risk, a bit esoteric if you dont use the wiki since you have to wait for hints on what to do. Island itself is kind of amusing but tiny. If you dont really want to interact with the ruins it’s a pretty simple in and out for what you need. The closest lunar equivalent to ruins are actually probably moonstorms, which are aggravating but i think are much more interesting than pearls. (honestly if they gutted pearls tasks i wouldnt bat an eye.)