Pearl moving to the monkey island, all the things i think that need to be taken into consideration

[Malfario]

Hello, this is all i have to say about pearl moving to the monkey island, hope my thoughts are helpfull.

I think the joke works, and mechanically I don't see any problems with pearl living on the monkey island, saves travel times merging points of interest together, adds some interesting challenges on the basers perspective and overall is not that impactful. BUT there are three problems that I feel need to be talked about:

Impact on old worlds

First of all, the people who have built on both of these islands now have to dispatch their builts without knowing this was coming, after having spent hours and hours of content, personally i don't mind it. This is not like the great depth worm that needs you to rebuild an entire shard if you had a long lasting world as well as effectively not allowing you to build in certain biomes because with certain characters it was impossible to get out fast enough. I do think this content could have been implemented in a way where past builts were not compromised, But i also think these particular builts tend to be overall less painful to rebuild due to the size of them. My stand is that I am not mad about this specific situation but I do not like the philosophy that led to said situation, new content could be added compromising far less builds.

How this affects the ocean

Merging points of interest on the ocean might not be the best move, There are two remaining big problems with the ocean, and one of them it's how barren it feels, by merging pearl and monkeys together, there is even less of a reason to navigate the ocean, and it feels even so more barren. The new wagstaff lab could have been an entire new island and would have made the ocean have a little bit more content, but instead some of the little content there was smashed together like if there had to be space made for the new one. I also feel like it's important to mention that I don't think the barren aspect of the ocean would be fix by adding more and more micro pàtches of content and progression around, adding a more non destructive and diverse fauna, resources and events to happen on the ocean between said patches of content, is where i would like the game to head.

I don't know how to tackle this situation, or if there is even time for it, but personally i would like the player had the option to send pearl to the monkeys, or send wagstaff to make a new island, maybe wagstaff could have a dialogue where he tells the player "I need her to leave or to find another place where these properties" and so the player has the option to relocate pearl or been sent by wagstaff to find a place on the ocean where to build the experiment, Like a frostjaw outpost, you beat the shark built the lab there, and that island won't disappear as it is now the arena for warbot, and the frostjaw will keep appearing in the world.

Monkey raids now will be more frequent as we will have to face them when going to pearls

Talking about the other big remaining problem in the ocean, monkey raids feel really bad to fight and the fact we are gonna have to face more to see pearls is a bit annoying. The main problems with the monkey raids are that:

-they are heavily destructive, forcing you in cases of rebuilding your entire boat to place the sails where they first were.

-they can permanently delete items like Wortox´s jars.

-They don't really have a way to fight them that isn't tanking or long range attacks, and while there is an argument that mobs specifically designed for range combat are cool and arguably needed, most of all range combat is locked after rifts, and monkey raids are a pre rift threat so i think there should be a reliable pre rift way of fighting them that isn't mindlessly tanking.

-They force you to go out of your way and go to monkey island to trade the trinkets, and even with boots this makes the process faster, it still comes highly intrusive, completely breaking the rhythm of the player. threats that don't present a challenge but just consume time regardless if you play good or bad is a design most people, including me, dread, and would enjoy to be changed.

-they don't even have a good reward. As the only unique thing you get from them are two blueprints and the hats, which are all one time and done things, fighting them more than one becomes either an annoyance or a chore

Now, do i expect all of this things to be changed on this update, absolutely not, i don't even think i want the developing time of this update spent on fixing the monkey raids over the new content, But pointing out how this mechanic has so many issues attached to it, and how its a mechanic that we will have to interact with a lot more because of this change felt necessary, and maybe, the full on rework that will mean tackling all this issues is not to be expected in this update, but a mechanic that rounded the edges could be expected.

Conclusions and what i think could be done to make it all better

Make Pearl moving to the monkey island unlock new things, when i first saw how this whole sitaution played out in game i felt an extrange akwardness, and after some thoughts i think i can point the origin of that feeling on the fact that, i dont really think pearl moving to the monkeys brings anything new to the table. Her structures now look like they were pasted with comands on the island, completly off compared to the curated look they had on her island, with amazing details like the fissures pluged with shells.

If this was the start of a new pearl progression i think everybody will love it, maybe pearl befriends the monkeys and then she can sell us stuff to prevent monkey raids, or maybe she gets new trades, items she makes with the resources of the monkey island etc etc. This is just the first idea i got starting to think about and i am sure the team can come up with something better. 

Pearl moving to the monkey island needs to be more impactfull, it needs to bring something else that will make it feel more complete and better integrated, as it stands right now its a weird decision that doesn´t play bad, but does feel akward. I dont wanna say it feels like an after thought because it most defenetly is´t, if all the new tech on her island isnt proof of that. But i simply cannot see what this decision contributes to the overall game.

Edited May 26, 2025 by Malfario