Is sailing supposed to be an abysmal experience?

[Milordo]

1 hour ago, cropo said:

Crab King felt harder than most bosses for me as well. It was very weird hearing everyone saying he's so piss-easy, I would say he was about equal to Fuelweaver in terms of difficulty in my experience.

New crab king was different from day 1 release and after. When he was released, it was easy. I beated it with only Wilson, 1 log suit and 1 hambat. Post release klei has done 2 weeks tweaking him. 

Now we need a rework of the rework xD Sincerely we should go back to old crab king and tweaking from that. The base was more original and fit more the role of "super boss" or raid boss or whatever we wanna call them. It was full of non-sense problems, yes, but atleast you engaged with boat mechanics.

Edited June 30, 2025 by Milordo

[Dwight34]

30 minutes ago, Milordo said:

New crab king was different from day 1 release and after. When he was released, it was easy. I beated it with only Wilson, 1 log suit and 1 hambat. Post release klei has done 2 weeks tweaking him. 

Now we need a rework of the rework xD Sincerely we should go back to old crab king and tweaking from that. The base was more original and fit more the role of "super boss" or raid boss or whatever we wanna call them. It was full of non-sense problems, yes, but atleast you engaged with boat mechanics.

Nah the old design was widely hated for a reason. The new design is much more interesting, the issue is that Klei was way too scared of the boss being too easy due to all the 3000 hours players spamming "omg he so easy look how I beat him with Wilson in 3 minutes after training the fight 20 times in a cheat world" videos, so they made him stupidly hard compared to what he should be as a progression boss on Ancient Guardian level. If CK was optional like Toadstool then I wouldn't mind, but it's undeniable that he should be near AG or Shadow Pieces difficulty, and he's instead harder than FW.

The ice lasts barely any time, the minions do too much damage, there's too many of them, your boat gets attacked even when you're not on it, the claws can spawn through your boat, minions can jump onto your boat, CK heals very fast and doesn't give you any time to deal with the minions on the ice, ice breaking is insta drowning and the visuals are not very helpful to know what tile exactly will break... Any number of those could be fixed to make the game infinitely more fair. The boss needs tweaks, not a rework. A fun way to handle the crabs jumping onto your boat for example would be that a normal crab trying to jump would have a 50% chance to fall in the ocean while jumping (increased by 25% after each success to prevent unlucky streaks) and the crab knight should always fall because he's too big. Claws could hurt each other when all massed near your boat trying to get you like Rooks in the Ruins do. Things like that would be fun and fit the theme of a medium-difficulty fast-paced boss.

Edited June 30, 2025 by Dwight34

[Milordo]

5 minutes ago, Dwight34 said:

Nah the old design was widely hated for a reason. The new design is much more interesting, the issue is that Klei was way too scared of the boss being too easy due to all the 3000 hours players spamming "omg he so easy look how I beat him with Wilson in 3 minutes after training the fight 20 times in a cheat world" videos, so they made him stupidly hard compared to what he should be as a progression boss on Ancient Guardian level. If CK was optional like Toadstool then I wouldn't mind, but it's undeniable that he should be near AG or Shadow Pieces difficulty, and he's instead harder than FW.

The ice lasts barely any time, the minions do too much damage, there's too many of them, your boat gets attacked even when you're not on it, the claws can spawn through your boat, minions can jump onto your boat, CK heals very fast and doesn't give you any time to deal with the minions on the ice, ice breaking is insta drowning and the visuals are not very helpful to know what tile exactly will break... Any number of those could be fixed to make the game infinitely more fair. The boss needs tweaks, not a rework. A fun way to handle the crabs jumping onto your boat for example would be that a normal crab trying to jump would have a 50% chance to fall in the ocean while jumping (increased by 25% after each success to prevent unlucky streaks) and the crab knight should always fall because he's too big. Claws could hurt each other when all massed near your boat trying to get you like Rooks in the Ruins do. Things like that would be fun 

The old design was hated for similar reasons your're hating the new one and many others also said "nahh it just needed a few tweaks" to the old one, the same you're saying now.... It seems I'm hearing the same circle, the same curse.

Frankly I'm in disgust that I'm even thinking of defending old Crab King, before the rework was announced, he was objectively the worst boss fight in the game and I obviously hated him but it's true. The new one is all just fighting and doesn't have anything to do with Dragonfly, Toadstool, Shadow pieces, Ancient Fuelweaver, ecc.... + it had everything correlated to boats, you know, the thing he's the boss about it, the ocean.

I could go on and on, but Guille's post described it perfectly.

[Dwight34]

1 minute ago, Milordo said:

The old design was hated for similar reasons your're hating the new one and many others also said "nahh it just needed a few tweaks" to the old one, the same you're saying now.... It seems I'm hearing the same circle, the same curse.

Frankly I'm in disgust that I'm even thinking of defending old Crab King, before the rework was announced, he was objectively the worst boss fight in the game and I obviously hated him but it's true. The new one is all just fighting and doesn't have anything to do with Dragonfly, Toadstool, Shadow pieces, Ancient Fuelweaver, ecc.... + it had everything correlated to boats, you know, the thing he's the boss about it, the ocean.

I could go on and on, but Guille's post described it perfectly.

The old one wasn't hated just for the difficulty, but also because it was incredibly boring/uninspired. I don't think the new one is boring, I think a big flaw is even that it tries to do too much at once. The towers, crabs, claws, ice platform... all of it feels fitting, but handling all of those at once (plus the dumb no cooldown healing on a FW level) is nightmarish. Imagine if when you're on the ice platform, instead of towers pelting your boat, crabs harassing you and CK instantly healing to full, the towers would shoot tiny "healing pellets" on the closest shore, the crabs would ignore you if not engaged in fighting to go grab those and try and bring them to CK to heal him. That would be cohesive and give you vastly more space. Instead of working together to form a sensible and fair threat, they all have high-danger levels on their own and at once against you preventing you from ever having a truly good response. Crabs are extremely strong by themselves, towers will wreck your boat when you're not on it by themselves, CK will pull infinite healing tic-tacs out of his butt.

[SilverSpoon]

This thread is mainly about sailing, so maybe it'd be better creating another Crab King thread and carry on there. I have a lot to say to him too. Just in other thread there was discussion about improving his slippery arena and setting as well.

Edited June 30, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[cropo]

8 minutes ago, Dwight34 said:

That would be cohesive and give you vastly more space. Instead of working together to form a sensible and fair threat, they all have high-danger levels on their own and at once against you preventing you from ever having a truly good response.

That alone is going to make a lot of people defend it. A lot of the boss design that gets praised from a lot of old players is overloading the games inventory system and the chance of immediate and instant failure over the slightest misclick.

[Dwight34]

5 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

This thread is mainly about sailing, so maybe it'd be better creating another Crab King thread and carry on there. I have a lot to say to him too. Just in other thread there was discussion about improving his slippery arena and setting as well.

Indeed, but CK is the more extreme example of a huge issue with sailing: the combat doesn't work. There is no room for skill expression because you can barely dodge, can't run away, can't maneuver well... The sharks are basically a meme with their total absence of an attack pattern, gnarwail are weird/useless if you don't have a ranged attack to provoke them, Malbatross is not even considered a real boss by most (at least most will never seek her out), the spiders in the waterlogged biome are just facetanking, pirate raids are notoriously unfair and lacking in options, cookie monsters are extremely easy and just hold F to kill them before your boat sinks, and the flowers are basically impossible to fight against without extreme range or waiting for nighttime.

As for sailing itself as an action, I believe it's ruined by a fixable issue: oars require you to spam click, which is uninteresting and painful over an extended period of time, sails are inferior in every way (and more expensive) except for the fact they relieve you from physical pain IRL. The auto-rowing mod should be base-game, and sails should be much quicker in responding to your input, that way both are interesting and useful options. 

Food also is an issue (too time consuming and not very rewarding), and I think could be solved by attachments to your boat, like drying some fish on your sail via it having an inventory for it like Woby, and a trawler net being attachable to the back of your boat so you could collect fish by sailing into their shoals (and that's another way to buff sails, if you row you'll go slower and catch less fish). Boats in general are too small, anything that can reasonably be made part of the boat without taking up building space should be available.  Both the lightning protection and the deck illuminator should be mountable on the mast at the same time, and the illuminator should be able to receive a crown shard to produce eternal light like a mushlight.

Your boat should be able to feel like your home, but right now it feels more like a vehicle and the waterlogged biome or Pearl's island (well... rip) like your home.

[SilverSpoon]

2 hours ago, Dwight34 said:

As for sailing itself as an action, I believe it's ruined by a fixable issue: oars require you to spam click, which is uninteresting and painful over an extended period of time, sails are inferior in every way (and more expensive) except for the fact they relieve you from physical pain IRL. The auto-rowing mod should be base-game, and sails should be much quicker in responding to your input, that way both are interesting and useful options. 

I completely agree with everything about the oar. However, the sail isn’t that worse. Especially after obtaining the Winged Sail (of course, not by fighting that RNG bird, but from a Sunken Chest) and the Crab King Bumper, I really enjoy sailing with the sail. As for the delayed responding to input, honestly, I personally rather like it because It gives me a stronger sense of immersion while "Sailing".

However, while Sail is not the worst, it's still a bad means of transportation. Edit:This is wrong  What really frustrates me is RNG can prevent you from pointing the sail in certain directions on certain days. I absolutely hate that, there's zero fun in it. Also, considering the ocean is so much bigger than the land, I feel like the speed boost from sails should be way faster.

2 hours ago, Dwight34 said:

Food also is an issue (too time consuming and not very rewarding)

2 hours ago, Dwight34 said:

Your boat should be able to feel like your home, but right now it feels more like a vehicle and the waterlogged biome or Pearl's island (well... rip) like your home.

Also this,  I personally rather like the current ocean where food is harder to come. It adds to the immersion of sailing and creates a playstyle that’s different from the food-rich mainland. 
That said, having to return to the mainland every time you run low on food is definitely a hassle. I think it would be great if there were ways to build ocean base where you could resupply. For example, allowing us to build Docks around Above-Average Tree Trunks or something like that. (I hate to use boats as bases.)

2 hours ago, Dwight34 said:

a trawler net being attachable to the back of your boat so you could collect fish by sailing into their shoals (and that's another way to buff sails, if you row you'll go slower and catch less fish).

Alas, the beautiful, glorious, Trawl Net of Shipwrecked… I truly miss it. As I mentioned earlier, I prefer current ocean where food is a bit scarce, but the real problem with sailing is that it’s just not worthless enough for how much effort it takes. It should bring back the Trawl Net and let us obtain booty by sailing itself.

Edited June 30, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[Capybara007]

3 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

What really frustrates me is RNG can prevent you from pointing the sail in certain directions on certain days. I absolutely hate that, there's zero fun in it.

i never heard this, is that true?

[SilverSpoon]

1 hour ago, Capybara007 said:

i never heard this, is that true?

I'm sorry, this was a mistake in my logic.

I just checked it in game, and it does seem to work that way.

In the screenshot, I want to head directly south, but even when I turn the steering wheel all the way to the left, the sail only points southwest. And when I turn it all the way to the right, it only points southeast.

Edited June 30, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[Dwight34]

6 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

However, the sail isn’t that worse. 

Sure, but it's not that much better, and it's expensive in comparison. Rowing gives you better control, and driftwood is extremely easy to get. Plus in my case, the mod I use has a bug which doesn't consume oar durability so I keep using the bird oar from the boss (I got it from Klaus... I got 3 of those at this point).

Quote

For example, allowing us to build Docks around Above-Average Tree Trunks or something like that. (I hate to use boats as bases.)

Indeed, but maybe Klei would be afraid that we'd use that to create an arena to farm CK on repeat or something.

As for other issues, sea stacks are way too common and serve no purpose other than to destroy your boat, forcing you to fight CK to have reliable and renewable bumpers, and they're a pain when you use a sail to stop in time. Sea stacks are genuinely one of the biggest reasons I want weather pain, because getting to them to mine them is too long. Plus why does using the anchor take literally 10 seconds in some biomes, and 6 or 8 in most? That just means you can't escape if any threat attacks you, it's pointless and needlessly restrictive.

I'm glad the chests have been buffed, they're pretty much the only non-one and done good reward from the Ocean. Another issue is that your boat doesn't feel like a boat, more like a raft, a floating and mobile wooden tile. A real boat would have an indoor space, where you could protect yourself from the rain, sleep, that sort of thing. Our "boats" are literally just a circle of wood with no depth, at best we have the archaic boat with good space for fish but that's it. I know the game really doesn't like protective structures, same reason we can't just build a roof on our mainland bases, but still, it really doesn't make the boat feel good when you are forced to wear an eyebrella on your boat.

[SilverSpoon]

32 minutes ago, Dwight34 said:

Sure, but it's not that much better, and it's expensive in comparison. Rowing gives you better control, and driftwood is extremely easy to get. Plus in my case, the mod I use has a bug which doesn't consume oar durability so I keep using the bird oar from the boss (I got it from Klaus... I got 3 of those at this point).

Well, I think the bird oar depend on either a bug or a Deconstruction Staff, and I mean... I like Sails! Yup. I want sails to be more useful.

32 minutes ago, Dwight34 said:

As for other issues, sea stacks are way too common and serve no purpose other than to destroy your boat, forcing you to fight CK to have reliable and renewable bumpers, and they're a pain when you use a sail to stop in time. Sea stacks are genuinely one of the biggest reasons I want weather pain, because getting to them to mine them is too long. Plus why does using the anchor take literally 10 seconds in some biomes, and 6 or 8 in most? That just means you can't escape if any threat attacks you, it's pointless and needlessly restrictive.

Yes. Sea stacks are really boring. They only drop very commonplace rocks and they sink into the ocean and can't be retrieved is like a bad joke. I think it would be better if they had a chance to drop extra items, like Stalagmites do.

Edited June 30, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[Wawchik]

37 minutes ago, SilverSpoon said:

I just checked it in game, and it does seem to work that way.

In the screenshot, I want to head directly south, but even when I turn the steering wheel all the way to the left, the sail only points southwest. And when I turn it all the way to the right, it only points southeast.

Isn't that just a visual thing? I'm pretty sure you still go where you click 

[SilverSpoon]

42 minutes ago, Wawchik said:

Isn't that just a visual thing? I'm pretty sure you still go where you click 

Sorry everyone, this was a mistake in my logic. I had always thought that using “A turns the steering wheel left, D turns it right, same with mouse clicks.” But it turns out that in reality, "WASD turns automatically the steering wheel to face that direction, same with mouse clicks."

I checked it again, and it turns out it’s not just a visual thing, it really does seem that the rotation limit of steering wheel prevent you from sailing in certain directions.

However, this rotation limit appears to be dependent on the camera angle. By changing the camera angle, it seems you can bypass the limit and rotate the sail freely in 360 degrees toward any direction you want…WTF

Edited June 30, 2025 by SilverSpoon

[Capybara007]

1 hour ago, SilverSpoon said:

Sorry everyone, this was a mistake in my logic. I had always thought that using “A turns the steering wheel left, D turns it right, same with mouse clicks.” But it turns out that in reality, "WASD turns automatically the steering wheel to face that direction, same with mouse clicks."

I checked it again, and it turns out it’s not just a visual thing, it really does seem that the rotation limit of steering wheel prevent you from sailing in certain directions.

However, this rotation limit appears to be dependent on the camera angle. By changing the camera angle, it seems you can bypass the limit and rotate the sail freely in 360 degrees toward any direction you want…WTF

i think just moving the sails with the mouse is easier

[Bumber64]

I think a structure that you could place on a boat to rescue you from drowning would go a long way. It wouldn't activate if you used the plank to abandon ship.

[Edible Coal]

3 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

I think a structure that you could place on a boat to rescue you from drowning would go a long way. It wouldn't activate if you used the plank to abandon ship.

magic sea items

[Dwight34]

Retried CK, yeah it's a joke how stupidly unfeasible he is. I am Wendy, I legit cannot do anything, 5 crab guards instantly spawn and wreck Abigail even with a regen potion, canon towers spawn constantly and inside your boat with no way to avoid them, CK heals instantly for 200 a piece while the crab guards all converge on you to not let you play, and even the targeting is trash, preferring hitting ice rather than going 1 centimeter to the left to then hit CK. God do I hate him, what utter garbage is this? This stupid boss has NEVER BEEN PLAYTESTED, this is a fact, how the hell am I getting my **** kicked in so hilariously when I have shadow rift gear by a boss that is supposed to be a simple stepping stone progression wise, this is coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb levels of unfairness. This boss is just a bees or gunpowder check, it's a pitiful joke to even pretend it's supposed to be doable. To fight him legit I literally do not have enough space in my main inventory to have all the items necessary to handle any of this chaos. What kind of drugs did they take to release that abomination?

This fight is literally "Ok so in the same millisecond we'll spawn 5 crab guards, 8 canon towers, 7 claws, a big wall of ice and CK will start healing 200 a second for the entirety of the ice phase making even Fuelweaver eating all shadow hands look modest in comparison". The only breathing room you get is between ice phases, but even then you have to constantly heal yourself, your boat, dodge dozens of projectiles , and it's all for nothing anyway at the start of each ice phase CK just spawns thousands of mobs on you and instantly starts healing. Yes this is a rant but F*CK, how is this stupid middle game boss allowed to be by far the most difficult, most resource-dump and unfair boss in the entire game? This should be simple, this should not be beating me to death in a dark alley like the mafia had a hit on me. This is genuinely unplayable, this is a 0/10 fight in execution, it's just not doable, it's horrible, it's awful, it's painful, it's utter trash, it's VILE and REPUGNANT, it's INSULTING to the playerbase to release something so repulsively and stupidly unfair. It's OBSCENE.

It's not a word Klei would accept that I write (dumb censorship but anyway), but this fight feels like a "very non-consensual encounter" of the game towards the player. This fight is just evil.

Edited June 30, 2025 by Dwight34

[JustAPineapple]

I like the sharks and salt boxes, the oceans aethestic is really fun and contrasts shipwrecks tropics really nicely. Ive enjoyed sailing a lot more sense using oars and bills for exploration, and sails for more direct travel to islands.

Id love more ocean content, but I understand why Klei might not wanna focus on a side of the game people seem to dislike fundamentally.

[Capybara007]

i always thought it would be good if pearled ck was optional, and regular ck could just drop the tribute, it really benefits nobody that you have to do pearled to progress

maybe make the pearled ck drop something really good for long term worlds

[Dwight34]

3 minutes ago, Capybara007 said:

i always thought it would be good if pearled ck was optional, and regular ck could just drop the tribute, it really benefits nobody that you have to do pearled to progress

maybe make the pearled ck drop something really good for long term worlds

It'd be much better if it the Pearl counted for only 1 of each gem. CK was obviously balanced for having only 9 gems total when you look at the wiki, but then the Pearl on its own adds the equivalent of 18 gems. The Pearl alone basically doubles every single minion number, health and damage. The pearl doesn't make the fight harder, it genuinely makes it unfeasible. And god, why does Klei believe it's fun to waste literal boards to heal the boat, that's their idea of fun, to farm stacks of board for every single attempt?

[Capybara007]

15 minutes ago, Dwight34 said:

It'd be much better if it the Pearl counted for only 1 of each gem. CK was obviously balanced for having only 9 gems total when you look at the wiki, but then the Pearl on its own adds the equivalent of 18 gems. The Pearl alone basically doubles every single minion number, health and damage. The pearl doesn't make the fight harder, it genuinely makes it unfeasible. And god, why does Klei believe it's fun to waste literal boards to heal the boat, that's their idea of fun, to farm stacks of board for every single attempt?

i wasnt talking about difficulty, i think ck is fine, just search the fight on youtube

[Arepantera]

I used to hate sailing until I used the autorowing mode and now I kinda enjoy it.
But with maxwell specially I enjoy it the most, because your servants and duelists have their working and fighting radious move with your boat if you summon them in it, so you can be the driver while your shadow pirate crew mines salt and kills cookie cutters. 

Then one day I accidentally closed the game while opening it, the game mistook it as a mod crash, it disabled everything, i forgot to activate the autorowing mod, joined a game and then I remembered why I hated sailing so much
 

[Dwight34]

1 hour ago, Capybara007 said:

i wasnt talking about difficulty, i think ck is fine, just search the fight on youtube

Doesn't really help, everything in the fight is RNG. Where every minion spawns, where they decide to go, if they get onto your boat, if towers decide to spawn through your boat or not... The fight is fundamentally broken and unplayable. 

[Capybara007]

48 minutes ago, Dwight34 said:

Doesn't really help, everything in the fight is RNG. Where every minion spawns, where they decide to go, if they get onto your boat, if towers decide to spawn through your boat or not... The fight is fundamentally broken and unplayable. 

just use panflute and grass boat
this can be done better if you use thulecite club and malbatross oar, without mentioning characters with damage mults
here, avery sloppy ck fight, it took me like 3 rollbacks, not much rng

 

 

Edited June 30, 2025 by Capybara007