Jump to content

Sign in to follow this  
Misha

Current Fountain of Youth Mechanics Are Unfun

Recommended Posts

The concept of Fountain of Youth I can dig. Your character gets old, and you want to be young again. Especially since you get a debuff if you don't and a stat increase if you do. Motivation. You have to go find it - cool. This game has a big sailing/exploring component, that fits the bill for pretty much all players.

But then you have to go to an island in a fairly narrow time window (given the distance it takes to sail places), that's filled to the brim with creatures that will kill you in one hit? Surrounded by abandoned sloops and rafts because I guess your character has learned in all their years that you have to do countless suicide runs to become young again? Yuck.

I'm posting this because a couple of us in our company of 5 set out to find the FoY in our sloop. It took nearly 4 hours to get there (due to a location moving away unexpectedly), only to end with us unable to even reach the fountain due to countless Fire Elementals, Gorgons, Lions, Scorpions, etc filling the land, swimming out to sea to get us, and even crossing over multiple abandoned sloops to attack our ship and destroy 3 out of our 4 beds. Half the time we couldn't spawn from dying because a creature was on our ship attacking our loading in bodies. Not fun at all, and a disheartening way to log off from an evening of sailing.

Is the idea that you should be able to take on this endless spawn island? Is the idea you're supposed to attempt to sneak past them? As far as I can tell, neither of those really work, as most strategies I've seen or heard about just involve zerging the island with another people that the monsters are too distracted to get you, which doesn't work if you're aging off cycle from a main group of people.

What I think currently works:

  • The concept of needing to find a fountain of youth to get young again (due to stat incentives)
  • Traveling to find a fountain of youth
  • Having some sort of 'test' or 'challenge' in order to obtain the fountain of youth

What I think currently does not work:

  • An island entirely full of monsters who can one-hit you (probably even if you have gear)
  • The current timing of island movement (seems a little too short still)

This implies that I would like the current test or challenge at the end (i.e. a ton of monsters) to change, or to be decoupled from the power stone thing (that's what is also on that island, right? I'm just interested in the FoY tbh haha). Here are some suggestions on different challenges that would happen on 'normal' non-monster filled islands:

  • Have the FoY challenge be more like a treasure map. Go to a location on that island (or on a different island) to face a select group of creatures that appear when you show up. Then claim their treasure (has a mcguffin) to turn into the FoY. Could scale the difficulty depending on how many times you've youth'd, up to a higher limit.
  • Instead of fighting monsters, you just have to find keys on the same island or different islands. Number of keys could increase depending on how many times you've youth'd, again. 
  • Have one big monster guarding the FoY. You can try to sneak past (there's a lit route, or something), kill it to get treasure, or YOLO your way to try and get to the fountain. Seems more reasonable than 'island full' of monsters.

So those are my thoughts, but what do you all think would make this mechanic more fun?

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

These are all good suggestions. Much better post then my "OMG MAKE IT STOP" post 😄

It was a completely unfun experience. Of all the things I've been disheartened with in the game this was the only one where I thought "Should I just quit? is this the way things are going to go?"

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

What's there not to like about it?

I had SO MUCH FUN hunting down the stupid thing, sailing across the whole frickin map, which takes all day.

Only to then be confronted with a 3-4 fps sh*t show, consisting of a never-meant-to-be-playable gauntlet run against a truckload of creatures that will

* one shot you

* block the entrance

* destroy your ship

Bring along the random casual noob that will cluelessly and frantically run up and down the beach, aggroing EVERY CREATURE ON THE FRICKIN ISLAND, bunching them all up nicely and placing them near the beginning of the run before he dies, leaving a thick pile of mobs so you won't even be bored by the early parts of the run.

And if you have to call it quits for a day because.. idk, you have a job or go to college or have literally anything to do other than chasing the stupid FOY, then SCREW YOU!

Errr. i mean. YOU GET TO HAVE THE SAME FUN AGAIN TOMORROW!

Apparently, it is the impression of the devs that when you can't commit all those 24 hours per day into playing this game, you are pathetic and weak and deserve to run about with a hefty -10% to frickin EVERYTHING.

(Side note: it is also a nice notion to have your ship destroyed if you anchor in a freeport for even ONE DAY when you don't have the time to spend another frickin hour in order to sail to another server)

And somebody even got paid to create this nonsense.

And they probably even think they did a fine job at creating a truly fun and worthwhile experience.

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The absence of interesting proposals compensated for a huge number of aggressive animals

Which turns the game moment into a pile of shit, and a few hours of lost time and nerves

That's what happens when a good idea is disgustingly implemented

it's necro-porn quest, the whole neighborhood is littered with naked corpses, on which mock high-level monsters

five hours of lost time, as a result of the fountain moved to another location

Edited by Daigari

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Pretty sure it was shit the first time. Was bound to happen, I was not surprised. As for the FoY; The system is great, lot if fun with good FPS but they need to balance it out, which is why we’re here. I’ll just wait before they balance it out and then it should be good. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×
×
  • Create New...