Shipwrecked feedback (long, many topics)

[ng239851]

I want to like Shipwrecked, really I do, but right now it has got to be the single most frustrating game I have ever played. I'm trying to be constructive by explaining things I feel are wrong and could work better, but I'm in a bad mood from the frustrating elements of gameplay. I've been playing Don't Starve on and off since November~ 2013, and it is truly a fantastic game. Can't say the same for Shipwrecked, unfortunately. I have been lurking these forums for the past month or so and have only just now decided to post. I have observed that when someone says something is too hard, other people chime in and say "Oh, this mechanic is really easy to deal with, therefore the game is too easy!" I think that is nonsense. Shipwrecked is extremely hard, and it is hard for the wrong reasons. Shipwrecked is extremely frustrating too and it makes me rage every time I play it. I understand its early access, unbalanced, unfinished, etc etc... I have 170+ Steam hours logged on RoG, and I played the standalone client for the original game probably at least 400+ hours before that. I think I can best illustrate what I feel is wrong with Shipwrecked by comparing it to the original game and RoG.

In the original game there was a lot to do, and plenty of time to do it. After starting a new game I'd spend time gathering resources and exploring. Eventually I'd settle down and start building a base. I'd make sure to get warm clothes before winter, and then during winter I'd continue working on my base and gathering resources although things were slower than in summer. Eventually I'd explore the entirety of the overland map and start exploring in the caves a bit. The original game had plenty of challenging elements and also plenty of mostly safe time to enjoy the sandbox building/exploring part of the game. RoG was the same for the most part, with added complexity. Start a new game, gather resources, explore, start building a base, make clothes for the upcoming season a few days in advance, etc. Keep building base, explore caves, etc. RoG added a handful more items to deal with and that made inventory management more challenging. Also the weather in RoG made it much more challenging to continue working on gathering resources and building, so progress was significantly slower than the base game. I didn't like that, but the additional things to do mostly negated it. Shipwrecked has taken all of the bad elements of RoG to the extreme end and not given nearly enough fun elements in return.

Shipwrecked has dozens more items to manage - but we still have the same old 15 inventory slots as before. There is a mod available that lets you wear armor/shirt and a backpack at the same time. I always avoided that mod because I felt like it was cheating, but playing Shipwrecked has changed my mind about that. Why do we have so many more items to juggle around but the same old inventory slots as before? Inventory management is not fun - there are just too damn many items and not enough places to store them. Base inventory slots should be increased from 15 to 20, backpack type items should get +2 slots over current, chest type items should get +3 slots over current. I don't enjoy juggling around so many items, and I've never had so many chests before in a single playthrough. Gee, I need some stone right now - which of my 14 chests is it located in? Good grief that isn't fun.

The map is too big - there is too much empty space. Keep islands the same and reduce the "useless" empty ocean area by 20% or so. Not much fun to explore when its all a bunch of empty space. Exploring the seas feels distinctly like I'm playing one of those early-90s "bullet hell" games like Contra. There are too many waves to dodge, especially during the calm season and at times when there aren't storms. I really dread having to explore the farther reaches of the map. Exploring used to be fun. Now its pure tedium - vast open nothingness, waves to dodge everywhere, constant assault by wetness, and constant expenditure of resources to repair/replace boats.

Hurricane season is a mess - wind destroying objects everywhere, and always blowing against me in the direction I want to walk. Lightning strikes every few seconds... its just horrible. I can feel my stress hormones flowing when there is a storm during hurricane season - the sound of thunder is very stress-inducing and there isn't a moment without thunder during hurricane season. Do I need to mute the game to play? It feels like it. Also we need a renewable, accessible (can be made without rare/exotic/non-renewable ingredients), and portable light source that is wind resistant/immune. I've found the most efficient thing to do at night during hurricane season is to burn up about 5 torches. Its absurd. What am I supposed to do, hudddle near my Chimnea for the whole season, or build a dozen Chimneas everywhere I go? I've seen the lantern item and I assume it is wind resistant, but I haven't yet found any bioluminescense, much less figured out how to gather it. Current playthrough is at day 60~, previous playthroughs lasting 50, 150, 80~ days and a bunch <10 days. How have I got this many days in a game without finding bioluminescense? Wind is mega common - the lantern is very challenging to acquire - if it even works in the way I assume it does... Oh, and wetness.... nevermind that I get wet from the dozens of waves on the water, I'm drenched by the storms this season. Put that backpack down and don the snake skin coat and hat! Don't bother trying to gather resources this season unless using backpack + armor at same time mod (which I feel is cheating). Also for a tropical setting, the nights sure are awfully long. I typicaly keep my sanity up by wearing a top hat. In classic/RoG it works pretty well. That strategy doesn't work at all in Shipwrecked because of the wetness (need to wear snakeskin cap that gives no sanity) and because of the incredibly long nights (drain on sanity for 2/3rds of the day!!!). In a tropical setting, no more than half of the day should be dusk+night. Instead we get 1/3rd day, 1/3rd dusk, and 1/3rd night. Ridiculous. Its hard to do much of anything at night. I don't enjoy standing in my base by the Chimnea, staring at the screen, waiting for daylight to come so i can actually play the game. I don't always have things to craft/cook at night, and it isn't always desirable to go exploring by torchlight at night. Night shouldn't last so long at this latitude.

Monsoon season is even worse. More wetness, clunky sandbag/flooding mechanic, non-functioning base structures, constant swarms of mosquitos, and still a rather long night. No backpack allowed! Save your resource gathering for the calm season! Must swap between seashell armor (anti-poison from mosquitos) and snakeskin coat (anti-wetness) at all times! I want to craft a Mosquito Zapper - a base structure that protects a large area from mosquitos by zapping them with lightning bolts. Maybe it can be charged during Hurricane season's insane storms. Maybe it could just be an upgraded version of a lightning rod. Give me worldgen options so I can disable the mosquitos already, ugh I hate them. I have to trudge around at reduced movement speed in these gigantic puddles of water - the mosquitos on the other hand can zip around at high speed, unhindered. How many mosquitos spawn per puddle per day anyhow? Feels like all I get done is fighting mosquitos.

Volcano season is even worse than Monsoon. Fireballs raining down from the sky, destroying anything they touch. In the classic game it was very easy to avoid lasting damage to the world (destroying non-renewable resources like berry bushes, grass, etc.) RoG was a bit harder, but still mostly easy to avoid permanent damage. It would seem that permanent world degradation is unavoidable in Shipwrecked. I've tried running to a far-flung corner of the island my base is built on to minimize the damage meteors do, but its still very intrusive, irritating, and risky. Oh and don't count on wearing your backpack this season either - its hot so you need to wear a cooling shirt.

Seasons intensify in difficulty towards their end. The first day of "Dry" season is still undergoing torrential downpours from the last 3 days of the Monsoon season (Is that a bug that the rain didnt shut off when the Dry season started?). The last 3~ days of the Dry season are constant barrages of fireballs, etc. It shouldn't be this way. The "worst" of the season should be roughly in the middle of said season - not the last 3 days. It feels like the dev team is just trying to find a bunch of crap to throw at me all at once because its supposed to make it hard or something - it isn't, its just stupid. Classic/RoG had it right that the season should be hardest in the middle, and challenges should be ambient rather than triggered events. Dealing with heat and cold in RoG are ambient, constant challenges that can be dealt with. Meteors, mosquitos, wind, and even wetness are more triggered events that feel like they're just being thrown at me to see if I can handle it. I hate it.

One common theme I'm finding throughout all of SW is that there is just so much crap going on all at once. Here is my personal best example of such: One evening during Hurricane season, I was away from my base (no Chimnea), it was storming (blowing my fire out and hail), the little nightmare hands were grasping for my fire because my sanity was low due to being wet, I was hungry and trying to cook food to eat (Wimpy Wolfgang!), and to top it all off I was visited by no less than 7 hounds. So, lets recap that: Wimpy Wolfgang stat decrease, can't cook food because wind and nightmare hands blowing out my fire and 7 hounds to fight, got to keep fire going to avoid Charlie, getting wet because I had to replace snakeskin coat with armor to fight hounds, got to watch my step for that dealy hail sitting on the ground - it will hurt me if I step on it.... its ridiculous! This is too much crap to deal with all at once! I never encountered anything like this in the original game, or even RoG. I shouldn't have this many horrors to juggle all at the same time. Other seasons are similar in throwing a whole bunch of junk at me all at once. We need the worldgen options already so we can deal with the hounds. I always hated the hound attacks because they swarm in huge numbers after the first few appearances and I don't enjoy having to fight half a dozen hounds all at the same time, usually when I'm busy doing something else and not well prepared. I always turn hound spawning down to low - that way they don't show up in more than groups of 3.

Poison sucks. It should not be guaranteed game over. When I get poisoned I just Alt+F4 to shut the game down and roll back to a previous day before I got poisoned. Something is definitely wrong with game balance when its easier to just cheat in this manner to deal with it than to actually deal with it. It gets easier to deal with as time goes on, but poison is much too difficult to deal with in the first week or so. Poison should wear off on its own after doing a certain amount of damage (maybe 40% of a character's max hp?) and using an antidote should prevent re-infection for 2 days. Also there should be an antidote that can be more easily acquired. All too often I get poisoned for the first time and I have no way of curing it because I haven't yet found any coral or haven't got any venom sacks, or worse: I haven't even found any gold with which to build a science machine to even unlock the antidote! I don't want to hear this nonsense that its my fault - those poison snakes do an incredibly good job at hiding, which brings me to my next point...

The jungle trees take up far too much space on the screen. The canopy of a fully grown jungle tree covers up just way too much space. Modify the graphic to get rid of the canopy, or else cut the size of the jungle trees in half (seriously!). They shouldn't obstruct the ground that much. Coconut trees are also pretty bad.

The prime apes should be reduced in number. I can deal with them easily enough - they're found in jungles along with lots of bushes that spawn snakes. Just hammer down their huts so they can't respawn and in a couple of days the snakes will take care of them. If there are any left over, just feed them a bananna then get them to fight each other or spiders. The problem is that when there's a jungle island with a dozen ape huts, they each spawn 4(?) apes. That's 48 apes following me around! The frame loss is just unbearable, and it starts after as few as 4-6 apes on-screen. I'd prefer not to play a slideshow. Not sure why, but they're very hard on PC resources. I don't think the problem is my hardware.

I need vast amounts of flint/gold for tools because I use a lot more than I did in classic/RoG. Machetes are very costly to make and don't last long, I use more shovels and picks than before (relocating bamboo/vines to my base in addition to all that I did before SW, digging up magma vent things; mining coral). So far I've been able to manage, but I haven't found any renewable way to deal with this. Yaarctopus? Never seen him! Heard you can only trade with him once per day anyhow, and that is just about useless IMO.

Finding gold is essential to a new game. It has always been a challenge to find your first few gold and get started, but Shipwrecked has made it even more challenging. I suggest unlocking the refine doubloons to gold cluster recipe (no science machine), and guaranteeing that birds will deliver 3 doubloons by day 3. That way, no matter how unlucky you might get with exploring your map, you can at least get started with a science machine by the middle of day 3 if you keep an eye out for those doubloons.

Need more wood than ever before - making and repairing boats, making more chests than ever before... but its harder than ever to farm in large quantities. In classic/RoG, we could chop down mass amounts of pine trees and have a risk of spawning some treeguards - simple enough. In SW, Coconut trees can spawn treeguards and they give -1 wood/+1 leaf. Jungle trees spawn snakes and poison snakes which must be dealt with. I can manage, but its very tedious to need a crazy amount of wood in this game mode and to have such a basic resource made this much more difficult to get. I have one idea for a mitigating factor. Jungle trees also sometimes drop a snake egg or bananna. Maybe they could also have a small chance to drop +1 log. So, every time you chop down a jungle tree, you get the base items (3 wood, 2 seeds, and 1 more wood from digging the stump for large size tree), and 1 "other" thing, being the bananna, snake egg, +1 log, or spawn 1-2 snake/poison snakes.

Wetness is a very serious thing to have to deal with. It is just unavoidable to get wet from accidentally bumping a wave the wrong way while sailing or needing to take off your waterproof clothes for armor to fight during the wet seasons. I've also noticed that sometimes I get wet when I try to ride a wave the "right" way. Don't know what is going wrong, so I just try to avoid waves entirely. Sanity seems to go down about 2.5x as fast as wetness goes down (not standing near heat source). I think that's too much sanity loss given that sanity is moderately challenging to restore and given how easy it is to get drenched. I would like to see a drying item added: towels! Towels can be crafted by using 3 cloth at an alchemy engine: they have 5 uses, and reduce wetness by up to 33 points each use - or something like that. I'd also like to see either the sanity loss reduced or the drying rate increased. Getting wet shouldn't be this deadly.

Oh, another item suggestion just out of nowhere: an upgraded torch. Call it whatever you want - tropical torch maybe. Made at science machine using 2 sticks, 1 cloth, and 1 coconut (for flammable fat/oil). Lasts significantly longer than regular torch (2.5-3.5x?), maybe a little brighter.

In classic/RoG, it was mostly easy to find a Koalefant. Dig the suspicious dirt, look what direction the tracks are pointing, then go that way. Lost your way? Backtrack a little and look at the footprint again and get re-oriented! Finding whales in shipwrecked is less reliable because you only have one chance to see which direction the bubbles go, and waves can easily obscure your one chance to see. There should be some kind of lasting indicator like the suspicious dirt/footprint from original.

In summary, I feel like there is just too much crap going on to deal with and certain things are poorly implemented, resulting in great frustration. I can't enjoy the more sandbox elements of the game (exploring and building) because the weather is always in the way, there are too many items to juggle and not enough inventory space. I really hate when I'm either forced to stay in my base (Hurricane season: wind and my Chimnea) or forced to stay away (Monsoon season: mosquitos and non-working everything; Volcano Season: for meteor destruction). I would like to be able to come and go freely. I think challenges should be more ambient rather than specific, predictable, repeating events. I do like the new game mode, and Shipwrecked is great in concept. Execution needs some tweaking because the level of tedium and frustration are just too high. I know I've forgotten a few things, but this is long enough already. There is plenty of room to improve things.

[MrTeHe101]

I agree with nearly 100% of the things you said. This feedback should be a staple for the Devs to read and use. I'm not saying all that needs to be drastically changed, but tweaked.

[hijoker]

I agree with a lot of the things you said. I know Shipwrecked is made to be more of a challenge but right now it is just an incomplete game.

I'm like you - right now I'd rather play RoG because I love the original game so much. And the main reason is because of so much useless empty ocean. I enjoy a challenge but I prefer an exciting one.

Anyways, once we can customize our Shipwrecked worlds in the future a lot of our troubles can be solved as well. Cheers.

[DangWoodchuck]

INTRODUCTION: I really like the suggestions you put in. Why isn't there a towel? Anyways, I have a bunch of tips I can share with you, so please do read some more:

 

SEASONS:

 First time I remember playing Shipwrecked, I just HATED each gimmick season, but now that I've dealt with them many times, I think I have ways to deal with each one. KEEP IN MIND: I play as Maxwell in Shipwrecked, so these strategies may or may not work for Wolfgang, but Maxwell might make Shipwrecked easier for you.

Hurricane: I see that you're having trouble with the constant wind, lightning, and rain, eh? When it comes to wind, just make sure you've made enough chests (but not too much) to keep important items in, so they don't get blown away. Build a lightning rod in your camp in case lightning strikes your structures and other flammable material. The rain can be managed with an umbrella (it's pretty cheap if you find a source of silk and a place for pig skin) and a snakeskin hat (it will help protect you from lightning, somehow) combined, and you can still have your backpack on. If you can, always bring a miner hat with you, just in case. You can switch the miner hat with the snakeskin every now and then, just in case.

Monsoon/Flood: Honestly, screw this season. It's horrible. I say, spend a bit more time on the shallow ocean, picking seaweed (make sure to cook them if you're sanity is at risk!) and hunting whales (if you can). You can make fishing rods to get more food (thank goodness scurvy isn't a thing) from shoals. Being on the ocean means that you don't have to deal with ponds slowing you down and mosquito attacks. As for the mosquitoes, look at them as a source for venom glands and a good healing item, the poisonous sack. Ironically, the poisonous sack can heal you for 10 or so health points. The brain of thought can help you prototype items (only at science machine/piratihatitator levels, sadly) if your machines get busted from water (how DOES the Shadow Manipulator malfunction from water?), so try making that if you think you'll need it. With rain, keep your umbrella and snakeskin hat combo. By this time, you might have enough hound teeth to make at least one sewing kit, so durability loss shouldn't be a problem.

VOLCANIC: As of a recent update, this season was apparently nerfed, but hey, if you're still having trouble with it, here's a few tips. You should have an armoured boat and sail into the deeper ocean (not too deep for plenty waves to spawn) when an eruption starts. This should help your keep precious items and objects from burning. Make sure to keep nitre with you so over heating doesn't become a major problem (BE SURE to have a pre-built endothermic fire, just in case). Since you wanna be 100% sure nothing on your island gets torched, a good strategy is to turn this season into your travelling time. This'll help you balance your time between travelling, and surviving. Just avoid being too close to islands when an eruption start. Sadly, the thermal stone is not very helpful in Shipwrecked (unless you're making an ice--maker), especially in Volcano season, so an umbrella will have to serve as the item to cool you down. Instead of wearing a snakeskin hat however, you should wear a football helmet, for it actually has some shading value against the heat. Since you might spend most of your time on water this season, I suggest making a boat lantern, which costs a pair of fireflies, a bottle, and 2 twigs. Your source of food this season should be whatever the ocean can offer, like seaweed, fish from shoals, etc..

 

 

 

OTHER TIPS: These tips might help you get better situated in much more situations.

 

Packim Baggims: This is Shipwrecked's Chester equivalent. He can follow you both on land and water! That means he can help be extra storage. From experience, he's found either on an island near water beefalo, or in a small marsh, so you may or may not have time to find him (you can use Volcano season as a chance to search).

Fat Baggims: What you should know about this friendly pelican is that he'll eat whatever fish-related item you store in him, so be careful with that. If he eats enough fish however, he'll get really fat, allowing three extra slot space. The bad news is, you'll have to keep him fed if you wanna keep this form.

Flame Baggims: His alternative to Snow Chester is Flame Baggims, which may or may not be worth his cost. In order to get Baggims to change into this form, you must put 1 obsidian in each of his slots (obsidian's a RARE item, so good luck finding them!). Once Flame Baggims is achieved, he'll no longer eat any fish stored inside. Instead, he'll cook whatever raw food is stored in him, like an emergency camp fire! This can be useful for Wolfgang, but be wary, he'll also burn whatever flammable items are put inside him, so make sure you keep living logs away from him. Another thing to be careful about is that he spits fire at any hostile enemy (like snakes), and if that target happened to be near anything flammable, than you know what that means.

 

Bio-luminescence: From experience, these guys tend to gather in the middle of deep oceans and near coral reefs. The good news is, they spawn in groups, so you might have plenty if you catch them with a bug net.

 

The Slot Machine: If you happen to be full on dubloons (assuming you have enough gold to not warrant refining them) and a way to keep yourself sane (assuming you don't get wet too often; you should be fine with the umbrella + snakeskin hat/football helmet combo), then I suggest you go bet your cash on the slot machine. The slot machine is an indestructible structure that is found usually in small beaches that are close to a mangrove biome, so look out for islands like these. The only problem with the slot machine is that it drains sanity when you're close to it, and each roll will also cost you some sanity! If you're feeling lucky though and have a few spins, then this nifty little device can grant you anything beneficial/terrible, from walking canes, to Shipwrecked's equivalent of the Reign of Giants eyebrella; the dumbrella (this can also be found in steamer trunks, which are located in random parts of the deep ocean). The dumbrella is perfect for all your wetness problems, for it alone protects you from 100% of the rain and puddles (somehow. Don't question it or we'll be in trouble) AND keeps lightning from hurting you! So, if you're not too worried about your current sanity, then try using this machine, it might be worth your troubles. Besides, it can even grant you food.

 

Poison: This is the common topic I hear EVERYONE complain about. If you don't wanna be poisoned too early in the game, my advice is to be careful about the jungle trees you chop (you can even chop palm trees, since palm treeguards won't harass you this early). If you do plan to chop jungle trees, I suggest that when it falls, run a good distance from it until you see if there are any snakes that spawned from it. If there is, get rid of them, but if there's a green one, try to use your best kiting skills, and kill the green one first. Or, you can just avoid them until they sleep/ignore you and continue on. If spider warriors are the source of your constant illnesses, try to trick spider dens to have only regular spiders come out. To do this, you trigger the den so that the first few spiders emerge. Then, you lure that group a good distance away from the den and kill them. It's a little tedious, but much better than getting a horrible sickness. If stink rays are what's killing you, then don't run away from them if they poisoned you; kill them. They have no other method of attack other than to poison, so you can use this as an advantage to kill the flying monsters and possibly get venom glands. Poisonous mosquitoes might be what troubles you, but like I said, they're actually more great than terrible. Just be sure you're the first to strike, so you can stun-lock it. With all the above strategies mentioned, just be sure that you have a source of coral, and if you don't, find one. ESPECIALLY if you're poisoned.

 

Waves and the Ocean: Honestly, I think waves might be a little bugged, since trying to ride one in the direction it's going might end up in to you and your boat getting damaged. If you're tired of the open seas and wanna travel faster, make a cloth sail as soon as you can (or any sail). The cloth sail isn't as expensive as people say if you have a good source of bamboo, grass, and happen to have an alchemy engine. Electric isosceles's, as rare as they are, are also good for travel, unless you wanna hold on to your sanity.

 

CARGO BOAT VS. ARMORED BOAT: It's all a matter of perspective. If you love taking tons of items with you and don't mind the slower speed, I suggest the cargo boat. If you need a boat that'll tank tons of damage and is pretty speedy, try making an armored boat (it's expensive, so keep that in mind).

 

 

CONCLUSION: Many people seem to be complaining about Shipwrecked's mechanics. I think that it's because people aren't yet used to the unexpected changes within Don't Starve's new DLC. Overall, I hope that these tips help, and that you put them to good use (you can even adapt your own from them!). Even then, it's all about trial and error; if one strategy doesn't work, try another. If that doesn't work, think of another plan. If you die, learn from your mistakes. If you can't take it, I'm sorry.

[Mday]

I like building a nice functioning base too. Building sandbags was really fun before, until I realize it doesn't stop the puddle spread. Then the hail update come in and basically remove the fun for me. Monsoon for now is just holding an umbrella, wearing a helmet, sitting in my base and waiting for nothing. No, there is no point exploring during monsoon for I have done enough in my first 2 season and have found everything I need.

 

One of the reason the game can be boring is that the ROG world is not connected yet. Access to ROG content can give players so much more to build. More SW content is planned too so in the mean time we just have to wait.

[Shatner]

First off, thanks for the comprehensive post, ng239851. Regardless of whether people agree with your points or not, having your criticisms well laid out and clearly stated helps a lot.

 

So, I'm a pretty skilled DS player myself and have wrung all the content there is to be had from the various DS offerings: DS, RoG, DST, and now SW. I have found SW to be the most challenging of them all, but I have still found the game enjoyable and manageable. I have some advice to offer that might help you enjoy this game more as well as some points of yours I agree with and want to add my support towards.

 

1) Stuff/Inventory: Absolutely the first thing you should build is the mini-backpack out of palm leaves. Absolutely the first thing you should build with a science machine is a backpack. Absolutely the first thing you should build once you acquire the pig skins is a piggy pack -- the extra 4 inventory slots are well worth the modest speed penalty.

 

Fact is, there is a lot you can leave behind and ignore. It takes discipline to leave resources behind but you can safely ignore stuff like nitre or palm leaves until a season or two later. After you build your first bamboo raft, you really don't need to care about vines either. Trinkets and coins and and living logs and other mid-to-late game stuff can all be left behind early on. If you need to, mark the spot you left them with a trap or backpack and come back later in the year. When you find something you really can't pass up, drop your torch or your ax to free up a slot temporarily -- they're cheap and easy to replace.

 

You have 20 slots (plus hand and hat slots) with a backpack. 4 more with a piggypack. 6 more with a cargo boat. 8 more with Packim Baggims (once you subtract the one slot you're spending holding the fishbone that causes him to follow you). That's up to 38 slots that you have while on the move. That really is enough to hold everything you need provided you use them prudently. Rarely used stuff (e.g. obsidian, nightmare fuel) can sit in a chest back at camp while you travel with the necessities.

 

Early game is all about getting that first science machine built so all you really care about is getting off your first island and finding that first nugget of gold. That random blue gem you came across on day 3 isn't worth the inventory slot. Ditch it for now.

 

Alternatively, play as Wickerbottom. Resources are extremely plentiful in SW, more so than any other Don't Starve setting, so you really can go from zero to "I'm ready for darn-near anything" by Day 3+ with her if you explore aggressively. I personally prefer to play as Walani or Wigfrid, but if you're finding the game frustrating, Wickerbottom can do a lot to smooth out that tedious ramp-up period.

 

 

2) Map is too big: I agree with this one. I have been avidly exploring in the games I've been playing (more on this in a bit) and it's rare I find it worth the effort. The occasional steamer trunk or set piece is great but for the most part it's simply another island or swath of bare ocean. This isn't actually that different from DS or RoG -- most of the game world is repeated biomes, differing only trivially -- but exploration in SW is bigger, more difficult endeavor so expectations are similarly raised. 

 

I think the world will become fuller in time but for the moment, I think I'd like it if the world was shrunk down a bit so finding the needles (e.g. Yaarctopus, Slot Machine) in the haystack is a bit more manageable. That said, spyglasses can help quite a bit and are worth investing in if you're traveling with the explicit goal of removing as much black from the map as possible.

 

 

3) Seasons/Wetness: An umbrella + [water resistant hat of choice] will see you through the considerable amount of moisture this game throws at you. Top Hat, Football Helmet, Miner Hat, or Pirate Hat (which offers double the sanity gain as the top hat, costs less to make, AND boosts your scouting range): take your pick, they all make you immune to wetness when combined with an umbrella. Getting that first pig skin during the initial season is vital.

 

Light during the wind and rain should come from one of three sources: Chimenea (when at camp), a long string of disposable torches (when away from camp and before you've built bottle-based light sources... grass and sticks are everywhere in SW so torches are comparatively cheap anyway), or a bottle lantern/boat lantern (once you have them). Bioluminescence is found in non-shallow, non-reef water only at night. It can be harvested with a net or a trawl net and is fairly common once you get around the hassle of sailing at night. That bottle-based lighting uses it's fuel quite slowly and bioluminescence is found in clumps of 10+ at a time so once you've found one or two patches of the stuff, you'll probably be good on fuel for the rest of the year.

 

With a lightning rod and the aforementioned rain-deflecting gear you are good for the hurricane season. Furthermore, all that hail makes it laughably easy to feed yourself so you really can stay at home all season if you really want to. If sanity becomes a problem, Pirate Hats or sleeping (via tent or straw rolls) will fix you up.

 

For the Monsoon season and Dry/Volcano season, I find it best to live out of a boat most of the time. When you're at sea, you don't have to deal with mosquitos and volcanic debris is just a nuisance. I build a cargo ship (the extra 6 inventory slots are worth the opportunity cost of the armored ship's higher health and speed) and go exploring. Food is extremely plentiful in SW, more so than any other Don't Starve setting, and much of it can be acquired without ever leaving your boat. With Mangrove biomes you can also get staples like grass, sticks, and wood without landing. The aforementioned Boat Lantern makes nights without a campfire/chimenea easy. Hunt whales if you get bored or decide you're tired of living off jellyfish and whatever edibles were dredged up by your trawl net.

 

 

4) Poison: This is annoying, I'll admit, though I don't agree with some of the more strident detractors on the forum. Dealing with poison early on means being extremely careful. You can kite poisonous snakes, avoid spawning poisonous spiders by luring normal spiders away from their nests before fighting, and run away from stink rays. Still, making poison have a fixed duration or allowing for a cheaper solution (even if it had nasty side-effects like sanity loss) would do a lot to make this mechanic less burdensome for many players.

 

What I do to get my first antitoxin is find a swamp and dig up a couple of poisonous holes. You have to be careful of your timing approaching it with your shovel, but each one has a 50% chance of dropping a venom gland and finding them isn't hard. Also, I always keep a seashell suit in my 1st (i.e. left-most) inventory slot. That way if I suddenly encounter a poisonous enemy I can press #1 on my keyboard and be instantly immune. Stink Rays are the exception (you also need to wear a gas mask) but as stated before, they can be escaped easily enough and I've taken to always packing a gas mask in my cargo ship for when I do decide to stand and fight.

 

 

Final Thoughts:

Shipwrecked is a game very much in development so I anticipate a lot will change between now and when the final version goes out. The devs of Klei has shown themselves to be extremely competent and creative people and I have full confidence they'll improve and enliven the game as time goes along. That said, the game as it is, though extremely promising, has it's flaws.

 

One "flaw" that I think is causing a great deal of consternation for people at the moment is how difficult, almost to the point of being punitive, several of the seasons make hanging around in your main camp. Again, hopefully this will change in time but what I have enjoyed greatly and what I encourage others to try out is forgoing the main camp, at least for 2 or 3 of the seasons out of the year.

 

I've been having a lot of fun playing nomadically, in some cases living almost entirely out of a cargo boat. When you need to, land, build a crock pot and/or alchemy engine, cook and research as needed, smash the buildings up with a hammer once you're done with them, then pre-build them again (i.e. build them but cancel placing them) to get their ingredients out of your inventory. You lose 3 charcoal, 3 sticks, and 3 stone (i.e. one cut stone) hammering and rebuilding a crock pot... that's quite inexpensive and I find myself only needing to do this once or twice a season. An alchemy engine costs you 2 gold, 6 stone, and 8 wood with each rebuilding... a bearable expense. Or even cheaper, build a Brain of Thought when you find yourself suddenly wanting to build something esoteric.

 

It's fun, it's different, and it plays to the strengths of Shipwrecked while mitigating some of its (current and hopefully temporary) weaknesses. After all, this is a Don't Starve setting all about island-hopping and exploration. The current build of the game gives you all the tools to do that (my latest Wigrid game has me on day 85 without ever building a permanent base) so I urge you to try it if you haven't already.

 

Just make sure you land whenever you get the warning for an impending hound/shark attack. Waves of either are annoying but those sharks will rip your boat to pieces much sooner than those hounds can chew through your multiple suits of armor and football helmets.

[HeilerderWelten]

The map isn't to big, if you dislike "wasting" to much time for exploring,

you can survive quiet easy without finding things like: slot machine, yaarctopus, volcano, a swamp, etc.

 

Personally I am my first 70 days more or less only on 3-4 islands, when volcano season is over,

I start to explore the map to keep the experience fresh, it wouldn't be a good idea to make the map or the ocean smaler.

[Prakhar]

I agree with all your feedback (except poison and too much going at once-hurricane is like winter/summer season-just sit in your base). I have just recently been hit with the sanity problem so i'm gonna rant:

 

I play as Wendy. Abigail takes sanity, sure, but 10 days earlier when i summoned her in last day of hurricane season i  was almost at full by eating bananapops.

Now, due to the rain and puddles on the bottom of my chests, i ALWAYS get wet no matter what! I go to keep aa mosquito sack in my chests at 130 sanity and return with 110 and still draining. I still make bananapops and pirate hats, but the wetness prevails all. I am constantly at 100-130 sanity for a character with max 200 sanity. The wetness is also very hard to get rid of. The palm leaf hut takes a LONG time to go from 40 to 0.

[DeputyDeath]

My issue with Shipwrecked is that the challenge has been shifted from resource supplies and getting a decent amount of food to the world constantly (CONSTANTLY) wanting to kill you. Even RoG is more forgiving than Shipwrecked because a lot of the issues you can face in Shipwrecked are (almost) completely unavoidable.

IDK why but I like that aspect of Shipwrecked because I reached 'god-mode' in RoG very quickly, which meant that the only thing left to do past day 100 was to explore caves, which I can get done in about 3-4 days anyway (by 'done', I mean clear out the barracks and kill the Ancient Guardian in the ruins). 

However, some of the seasonal effects are simply ridiculous. I'm not too bothered about the volcano bombs if I'm honest because they can be avoided easily. However, something - like an ice fling-o-matic - that would destroy them in midair within a certain range would be fantastic so that you can actually stay at base during volcano season at the cost of having to fuel the turrets. Flooding is also far too uncontrollable. In my opinion, they could fix the flooding issue by not letting flooding happen within a wall of sandbags (so that you can protect at least your base from the flooding inside and outside of it) and by giving sandbags a better durability. The whole hail update is game-breaking, and I've had issues where boars will randomly start attacking sandbags despite not being aggressive against anything behind them, which has led to my base being flooded multiple times.

 

All in all, there should be more prevention methods in Shipwrecked so that anything the game can throw at you is possible to be dealt with effectively, like in RoG. Also, as much as I find items that are basically just copies of stuff from RoG/DS (Dumbrella, wild boars, new bird types) lazy and fairly unimaginative, there are some things in the base game that need a Shipwrecked counterpart. The biggest example is the houndius shootius; something that was not entirely necessary in the base game (I used mine to kill gobblers in my berry farm) but would be very useful (Yellow Mosquitos) in Shipwrecked. 

[SmokyProgg]

I agree with all your feedback (except poison and too much going at once-hurricane is like winter/summer season-just sit in your base). I have just recently been hit with the sanity problem so i'm gonna rant:

 

I play as Wendy. Abigail takes sanity, sure, but 10 days earlier when i summoned her in last day of hurricane season i  was almost at full by eating bananapops.

Now, due to the rain and puddles on the bottom of my chests, i ALWAYS get wet no matter what! I go to keep aa mosquito sack in my chests at 130 sanity and return with 110 and still draining. I still make bananapops and pirate hats, but the wetness prevails all. I am constantly at 100-130 sanity for a character with max 200 sanity. The wetness is also very hard to get rid of. The palm leaf hut takes a LONG time to go from 40 to 0.

That's why you focus on not getting wet. Wear a football helmet and an umbrella to prevent wetness from increasing.. or a blubber suit, or snakeskin hat and suit. There's plenty of stuff in game with the sole purpose of keeping you dry, it ain't that hard honestly .

 

 

Sanity should be more of a focal point in DS, I'm glad it's making a comeback of sorts with SW.

[SmokyProgg]

My issue with Shipwrecked is that the challenge has been shifted from resource supplies and getting a decent amount of food to the world constantly (CONSTANTLY) wanting to kill you. Even RoG is more forgiving than Shipwrecked because a lot of the issues you can face in Shipwrecked are (almost) completely unavoidable.

IDK why but I like that aspect of Shipwrecked because I reached 'god-mode' in RoG very quickly, which meant that the only thing left to do past day 100 was to explore caves, which I can get done in about 3-4 days anyway (by 'done', I mean clear out the barracks and kill the Ancient Guardian in the ruins). 

However, some of the seasonal effects are simply ridiculous. I'm not too bothered about the volcano bombs if I'm honest because they can be avoided easily. However, something - like an ice fling-o-matic - that would destroy them in midair within a certain range would be fantastic so that you can actually stay at base during volcano season at the cost of having to fuel the turrets. Flooding is also far too uncontrollable. In my opinion, they could fix the flooding issue by not letting flooding happen within a wall of sandbags (so that you can protect at least your base from the flooding inside and outside of it) and by giving sandbags a better durability. The whole hail update is game-breaking, and I've had issues where boars will randomly start attacking sandbags despite not being aggressive against anything behind them, which has led to my base being flooded multiple times.

 

All in all, there should be more prevention methods in Shipwrecked so that anything the game can throw at you is possible to be dealt with effectively, like in RoG. Also, as much as I find items that are basically just copies of stuff from RoG/DS (Dumbrella, wild boars, new bird types) lazy and fairly unimaginative, there are some things in the base game that need a Shipwrecked counterpart. The biggest example is the houndius shootius; something that was not entirely necessary in the base game (I used mine to kill gobblers in my berry farm) but would be very useful (Yellow Mosquitos) in Shipwrecked. 

Preventing the challenges of the game sort of.. makes the challenges cease to exist. The volcano forces you to move around rather than camping it out, which is a great way to keep the game moving forward and prevent staleness imo. 

 

As far as the houndius shootius, there are eventual plans to merge SW and the main game, meaning it will be available at some point. No use coding a temporary replacement when the game is still in early-access. 

[Talavaj]

Although I saw some whinery in there that I don't necessarily see as a problem (poison, you turning down hounds and so on) I have to agree with your general message, somewhat.

 

 

My opinion of the new DLC is even more grim, I'm not even sure if Shipwrecked is in a redeemable state unless most of what has been made ends up being scrapped completely.

I think what the DLC is trying to do is just not worth doing.

 

I don't think there is too much going on or that the DLC is too hard.

I just think the DLC is just a one big chore.

[delonariel]

I agree with most of your statements. I really love the Shipwrecked world but there's hardly any chance to explore it because you're constantly confined to your base or struggling to gather materials during the *very* short daytime hours during wet and storm season. I expected more sailing and less cowering. The game is doable, sure, but it isn't necessary all that fun.

 

The constant hound attacks are just an added annoyance on top of the general headache that is managing the worst of the seasons. Last time I had groups of 5-6 hounds spawning within 3-4 days after day 40 or so, and it just gets to the point where I'd rather stop playing than struggling through the rest of the year just to get to those precious few days of mild season where I can actually get anything done.

 

Some people have said that Shipwrecked is intended for experienced players, but it seems a pity that it's thus restricted for new or causal players who happen to have an appreciation for pirate hats and the tropics.

 

Granted most of these problems could be solved with a world editing tool, but until we get it I think I'll stick to the base game and RoG. Which is a pity because I really like the tropical theme more.

[eusouopapao]

One thing that don't make sense to me is.

 

You need to explore two seasons at least because the first ships you build are slow, and you need time to explore each island so  you never can really get a lot of the islands reveal until next season.

 

so you get hurricane season which is basically game telling you that You can't explore too much?

In RoG some seasons you can explore more easy or more hard but hurricane season it just makes you stuck since you can't use fire, you can't walk freely and this happen every two days.

 

The inventory is also a problem before i could just drop things on the ground but hurrican season will blow my stuff away ( im not sure about what is blown away or not).

if i had to do chests  that's another problem because of the time of choping trees for all the chests i need, but you could say to use pigs, well that's if I have pigs on my island and that if by luck i have found pig houses to hammer or any island i came across with.

 

The problem is not that im lazy to chop trees, it's that in don't starve when you plan to do something there is a higher chance that you end up doing somehing else or trying to fix another problem that you didn't plan for and by the time you do what you actually wanted to do it already passed 3 days.

[DwerBomb]

This is really good feedback (also because you are good at the game, and that means you have experienced the mechanics at their full and can judge objectively). I agree with you, although I haven't made it as far as the volcano season

[grekon]

I don't find the game annoying at all. To me the problem is that there isn't enough content.

 

Recently I started a new game with WX-78 but after 11 days I realized i don't have much to do. Normally in RoG I plan things that I would like to get-killing deerclops, hunting winter koalefant, prepping for winter, getting ice for the ice flingo-o-matic. Building cave base, killing the ancient guardian. Build a huge ass base and then some more bases.

 

But in SW I just realized i can just go like how I am now and I still would survive all seasons easy. Hurricane doesn't require anything besides the chiminea. Monsoon doesn't require anything. Volcano also needs 0 prep now. There isn't much that I want, the whale isn't so special because the items that it allows to make aren't needed. Basically the game is empty.

 

As for your points, well inventory is good as it is. It is your choice to be hoarding so much stuff that you need to make over 10 chests and need to carry so much. Frame rate drop from apes is your pc issue or the optimization issue. Big map means more stuff to put into the game. Just give it time.

 

Well I get that you find some of the things annoying but I personally don't see these things as a problem. In the end I can build and do whatever. Don't see how some of the stuff you talked about is limiting you.

[PlayingDead]

Unlike you, I don't mind that Shipwrecked is harder. The challenge is part of the fun... HOWEVER, you made a good point that the difficulty is now so high, that you have no time to enjoy the game. The player is in constant crisis mode. I know it's a survival game, but the charm of the original was that, except for wolves, the player had control over the amount of danger he put himself into. The game also left us periodic "rest" periods to recuperate.

 

The incidence of hostile climate (volcano, strong wind, hail) should be reduced. 

 

If I was the devs, I would also consider removing the periodic hound attacks. It makes no sense for them to spawn out of nowhere on a small island that was fully explored. Besides, you can break them by sailing to a "hound dumping island" when growling starts, letting them spawn there, then sailing back. Of course, we would need another source of hound tooth. So maybe add some hound mounts.

 

I also believe the venom is too punishing for early game.

 

We are dealing with compounded difficulty... Snakes and mosquito everywhere, more hostile weather, more complicated travel, harder to find food, reduced real-estate, scarcer ressources that, paradoxically, require more space to carry because of their increased diversity, mandatory chest for storage because of strong winds. One thing on it's own wouldn't be too bad, but put all of this together and it's not 3 or 4 times harder, it's 10x harder.

 

 

 

[DeputyDeath]

Preventing the challenges of the game sort of.. makes the challenges cease to exist. The volcano forces you to move around rather than camping it out, which is a great way to keep the game moving forward and prevent staleness imo. 

 

As far as the houndius shootius, there are eventual plans to merge SW and the main game, meaning it will be available at some point. No use coding a temporary replacement when the game is still in early-access. 

I understand this. My point was that I personally find it annoying not being able to 'tame' the Shipwrecked world almost completely, which was possible in RoG. I enjoyed the process of adapting the world to my own tastes and taking full control of it, which is hard to do when your base is the victim of a flooding mechanic that seriously needs some work done to improve it and the storms that blow down random structures.

 

I guess that a constant challenge is a good thing, but the likelihood of me keeping a world past day 400 is very unlikely (I usually get bored out of my mind by that point, waiting for the first opportunity that presents itself to use the wooden thing), so that's basically pointless in my eyes.

[SmokyProgg]

I understand this. My point was that I personally find it annoying not being able to 'tame' the Shipwrecked world almost completely, which was possible in RoG. I enjoyed the process of adapting the world to my own tastes and taking full control of it, which is hard to do when your base is the victim of a flooding mechanic that seriously needs some work done to improve it and the storms that blow down random structures.

 

I guess that a constant challenge is a good thing, but the likelihood of me keeping a world past day 400 is very unlikely (I usually get bored out of my mind by that point, waiting for the first opportunity that presents itself to use the wooden thing), so that's basically pointless in my eyes.

There's more of a learning curve in SW it seems. I'm finishing up my second year with Walani without an issue, working on turning a very large island into a big base. I don't think there's much difficulty involved, which is why I like that the challenges are constant. They could be buffed imo

[Lacost]

 (also because you are good at the game, and that means you have experienced the mechanics at their full and can judge objectively).

 

I can't agree with you on this statement. He probably has a lot of hours in RoG but this relatively means nothing for SW. SW plays difficult in terms of resource management and surviving strategies. It even seems that the devs were trying to actively block the most common strategies that made RoG much more easier.

 

 

Many of ng239851 complaints are not justified in my opinion. SW is not meant to enhance RoG but to be a different standalone build. Thus said you can't carry over strategies from RoG to SW and expect them to work out.

 

Take this:

 

 

but we still have the same old 15 inventory slots as before

 

 

Not true because you can build a cargo boat with extra slots and can carry floatable bags + packim baggings even though it's a pain to travel with him. We only have less inventory slots on RoG "measurements".

 

 

Exploring the seas feels distinctly like I'm playing one of those early-90s "bullet hell" games like Contra.

 

 

By paying attention to the sea levels you can easily spot islands extremely early and don't even have to explore half of the map to find everything. Only coral reefs are hard to find. The rest is easy thanks to sea levels and bottlemessages.

 

 

I've found the most efficient thing to do at night during hurricane season is to burn up about 5 torches. Its absurd. What am I supposed to do, hudddle near my Chimnea for the whole season, or build a dozen Chimneas everywhere I go?

 

 

If not insulated well you have to throw down campfires every few minutes in RoG winter eventually forcing you to sit around the base or burn up huge amount of logs. In RoG you prepare with cloth/heatstones, in SW you prepare for hurricane with lightning rods, snakeskin hats (ligthning invulnerability) and a non-torch portable lightning source (miners hat or lantern). Alternative you can base-sit and produce ice all day.

 

It's a simple shift of surviving strategies. You don't need any heat source anymore but light is more of a problem in hurricane. The cheap tier 1 torches are simply not suitable for the hurricane season.

 

The same goes for wentness. No more freezing but wentess instead. However there is even an eybrella substitute even if it is hard to find. Even though wentess was pathetic in RoG it is definitely not in SW.

 

And you do know that a piggyback can't get wet? Just throw it down in puddles and it will stay nice and dry. Again here you are prefering RoG items not items that are important in SW.

 

 

 

So far I've been able to manage, but I haven't found any renewable way to deal with this.

 

 

Trawling can sustain you with a sizeable amount of gold when done in deep waters. Take a look: http://dont-starve-game.wikia.com/wiki/Trawl_Net

 

 

In summary, I feel like there is just too much crap going on to deal with and certain things are poorly implemented, resulting in great frustration.

 

 

As you have written your hound story, that is a typical story for a not prepared player. You can't expect to fight a large pack of hounds with only melee weapons a basic fire and on low sanity. In RoG you had beefalo that were doing the job for you or you had a tooth trap field. In SW neither of them are available (the toothtrap is but with great effort). However you can find new tactics.

 

Pan flutes drop pretty common whilst trawling and can easily deal with a hound pack. Shhhh, only dreams now.

 

So to find a conclusion here: There is not too much crap going on and things are not poorly implemented. They need a little bit of balancing but that has to be expected from an early access game. You can bypass a lot of your issues by simply adjusting your strategies and free your mind from RoG playstyle. It won't get you far this way.

 

 

 

However I agree with some points of you:

 

 

 

Hounds have always been an issue for DS. Not because they were hard to deal with in RoG but they were tedious as hell. Hound waves every 3 days? Stupidly insane .... but not hard insane but annoying since beefalo or toothtraps will kill every hound wave with ease.

 

 

Hail is currently bugged. It will hopefully be fixed soon.

 

 

Early game poison is an issue because antivenom is kind of impossible to make. It's not a deal breaker though if you are cautious but feels a bit unbalanced.

 

 

Prime Apes spawn too frequently and in too high numbers. Not only for performance issues but you can so easily exploit them for infinite food and poop.

 

 

Towels are a great idea though. Those will definitely enhance the gaming experience.

[DwerBomb]

Yeah I agree with your explanation. Guess I left my frustration take over (shipwrecked is wrecking me)