Dear Klei & Capy, please make the flood less random.

[HeilerderWelten]

Hi Kleis, Capys and Forum Members,

 

I played yesterday my second match in Shipwrecked, on my first match I survived until day 59.

 

(I suicided to test the life jacket:

you will strand on an island without your loot, but you will gain some logs and gras,

your loot will swim at the point in the ocean where you "died" like your souls in Dark Souls)

 

And yesterday on my second run I survived until day 51.

 

My base was very small, only half a screen (not zoomed in or out) and I choped down all trees

and dug up all saplings, gras, etc. 2 screens around my base to minimize the lag.

(because my Laptop can´t handle all that rain, wind, waves + trees, mobs, etc.)

 

I crafted at the start of monsoon season 22 sandbags and wanted to try out the strat

to plant the bags in the center of the random apearing puddles,

that worked for many people and from my first match I knew that surounding your base/island

with sandbags does nothing because the water will go through the sandbags.

 

 

So I waited in my base for 3-4 days with my sanbags to "crush" those puddles with my giant bags and the puddles did appear. EIGHT PUDDLES spawned in that 1 screen area where I builded my base.

 

I tried to crush them with my bags, but because they spawned  so plentiful

and I also had to fend off some hounds, some of the puddles already expanded.

 

 

- The first of the puddles spawned under my crockpot

(that makes the crockpot useless, because if it stands in water,

there is a lightning effect on that structure and you cant use it until the water is gone)

 

- The second spawned under my alchemy engine, so the engine was also useless. (also that lightning effect)

 

- The third spawned under my tent. (the tent works even if standing in water)

 

- The fourth spawned under my pirathatilatior (I guess thats the name? ^^)

so that structure was also not usable any longer.

 

- The fifth spawned in my farmes, also the sixth. I had 10 improved farmes.

 

- And the other 2 spawned on the left site of my base.

 

All 8 puddles spawned in 1 screen all over my base, other than that my home island had 4 more puddles near the coasts, my base was placed in the center of my island, to prevent flooding....

 

 

Now the problem, the puddles made all of my "electric" structures

(crockpot, alchemy engine, piratehatilator) useless,

the puddles spawn constantly water that makes my char wet, so he gets insane,

when I don´t use constantly an umbrella/snake hat, so if I have to fight hounds

I will get insane or I gimp myself in fights to not get wet/loose sanity.

 

Also, all puddles will start to spawn mosquitos that will annoy me for more than 10 days with there sounds, with there poison attacks and with there existence, when I try to sleep in the tent and I have to kill all mosquitos until all "monsters" are gone so that the tent let me sleep in it.

 

 

I crushed some of the puddles with sandbags before they could spread out, but because of the hounds

and of the mass of puddles in that little area I hadn´t the time to crush all 8 of them.

 

And even if you place a sandbag on the puddles near your alchemy engine, crockpot, piratehatilator

(and I guess also flingos, shadow manipulator, etc. too)

you can´t place the sandbags IN the alchemy engine

and because the water is under those structures you can´t use them until the monsoon season is over,

so you can´t use your base and you have to build all important things again,

where no random puddles appeared and the ground is dry.

 

That makes it pretty redundant where you choose to place your base. (atleast in terms of the puddles)

 

 

Please don't misunderstand me, I like the mechanic of flooding the island, the spawning mosquitos

and I also like that "electric" structures dont work when standing in water, that is a very cool mechanic,

but those completly random appearing puddles are incredible annoying.

 

 

In my humble opinion it would be way better if the water will come from the sea, so that you can

block out the water with your sandbags, if you place them around your coast or your base.

 

And the puddles/lakes should only spawn on set locations,

so that you are actually able to consider them in your plans, where you want to build your base.

 

It could be a similiar thing, like with the Goose/Moose nests, you will see the puddle spawner in the

calm season/hurricane season and you can choose your base layout with the puddle spawners in mind.

 

Of corse you have still to build sandbags to wall off your base or wall off the puddle spawner,

but they wont randomly spawn IN your base and destroy 50 days of base building in a few moments.

 

Questions:

 

1. Why would you even consider building your base near a (now visible) puddle spawner?

 

Because they are on every island and you have to build your base some where.

 

2. What can a puddle spawner look like?

 

The water should spawn from lakes (where you can fish) and also from shallow pits.

Those shallow pits are similiar to Goose/Moose nests, so they dont do anything until "spring" starts.

You cant place structures, also no sandbags on top of those pits,

so you cant just "break" the spawner and make monsoon season a cake walk, like it is now.

(if you actually manage to crush the puddles with sand bags in time)

 

3. Why do you write constantly "crush puddles"?

 

Because I am a crazy German and Germans love to crush those wimpy puddles. ^^

 

 

Sorry for that wall of text, but I hope atleast two of you will read it to the end.

 

 

 

[avilmask]

By my opinion, sandbags idea is overall cheesy. It's a structure, but you don't actually use it to defend a place from flood, you use it to surround puddles (prevent it from spreading), when rain is all over the place. Like fighting hurricane with umbrella (IRL), seriously. Maybe better make a bucket of send that allows you to drain puddles instead of surrounding them (which is counter logical and overall unintuitive)?

Or actually make sandbags prevent water from getting through.

[HeilerderWelten]

By my opinion, sandbags idea is overall cheesy. It's a structure, but you don't actually use it to defend a place from flood, you use it to surround puddles (prevent it from spreading), when rain is all over the place. Like fighting hurricane with umbrella (IRL), seriously. Maybe better make a bucket of send that allows you to drain puddles instead of surrounding them (which is counter logical and overall unintuitive)?

Or actually make sandbags prevent water from getting through.

 

"Or actually make sandbags prevent water from getting through."

 

Exactly!

[brummbar7]

It's apparently very random.  My first game where I got to flood season I lucked out and no puddles spawned on the screen my base was on, this despite me having built absolutely no sandbags (I'd built my base in  jungle because after observing that tides rise on beaches and not jungles, I'd assumed the flooding would come from beaches and a jungle would be safe).   So I wasn't even pestered by mosquitos that season.  Later I learned that was pure luck.

 

I think the best solution would be if the game, after picking a point to TRY and spawn a puddle, would check around it for placed sandbags.  If it finds a placed sandbag within 5 tiles in ALL FOUR directions, then placement of that puddle is cancelled.  This would allow the player to build a 9x9 clear area within their sandbag enclosure, which should be plenty for a functional base.  4 machetes gets 66 bamboo, enough for 44 sandbags iirc, which is enough to enclose that area.  4 machetes plus associate shovels for sand is a lot of material and time.  It's not unreasonable for the player to have absolute protection with that investment I think, and it would allow the player to prepare beforehand, while maintaining the random mechanic.  

 

Permanent placed and visible puddle spawners isn't terrible (and swamp tiles should probably all spawn floods in any case) but it would  allow the player to find a spot with no nearby spawners potentially, and thus not need any sandbags at all.  If the mechanic remains random, they will still need to prepare.

[HeilerderWelten]

It's apparently very random.  My first game where I got to flood season I lucked out and no puddles spawned on the screen my base was on, this despite me having built absolutely no sandbags (I'd built my base in  jungle because after observing that tides rise on beaches and not jungles, I'd assumed the flooding would come from beaches and a jungle would be safe).   So I wasn't even pestered by mosquitos that season.  Later I learned that was pure luck.

 

I think the best solution would be if the game, after picking a point to TRY and spawn a puddle, would check around it for placed sandbags.  If it finds a placed sandbag within 5 tiles in ALL FOUR directions, then placement of that puddle is cancelled.  This would allow the player to build a 9x9 clear area within their sandbag enclosure, which should be plenty for a functional base.  4 machetes gets 66 bamboo, enough for 44 sandbags iirc, which is enough to enclose that area.  4 machetes plus associate shovels for sand is a lot of material and time.  It's not unreasonable for the player to have absolute protection with that investment I think, and it would allow the player to prepare beforehand, while maintaining the random mechanic.  

 

Permanent placed and visible puddle spawners isn't terrible (and swamp tiles should probably all spawn floods in any case) but it would  allow the player to find a spot with no nearby spawners potentially, and thus not need any sandbags at all.  If the mechanic remains random, they will still need to prepare.

 

You could have an ever bigger base and place some sandbags

in your base to prevent the puddle spawning, yes that could also work. ^^

 

I came up with the shallow pit (it is "Kuhle" in german and I didn´t find a good word for that in english)

because rain water gathers in places that are on a lower ground than the rest of an area, but something like that doesn´t exist in DS, except for ponds, cave entrances, the ocean.

 

The idea that you can get rid of the water with a bucket could also be very useful if the water manged to spawn already in your base...or maybe the mosquito sacks! You can make water ballons from the sacks and the water puddles, one mosquito sack sucks up 1 patch of water so you could erase the puddles and also can create water ballons to extinct fire in the volcano season.

 

Also, you get the sacks from the mosquitos that spwan from the puddles,

so they would be a common ressource in the monsoon season.

 

That all being said, I would like it way more if the sandsacks block water out

and don´t suck it up, that bothers me quiet a bit.

[HeilerderWelten]

But of corse I love buckets as much as anybody else. ^^