Yay! It’s my turn to do vent some frustration!
Seriously, though, there’s nothing useful in this post. Feel free to ignore it or flag it or unlist it or delete it. It will probably deserve it. Right. On to complaining.
First point of order: the game is literally unplayable at this moment. Now, the word “unplayable” has been tossed around and used for all kinds of complaints, until it lost its original meaning. But when the game freezes up every 10 minutes or so, then “unplayable” is a good way of describing it.
Even if it were playable, some changes are downright punitive. Yeah, I get why they changed the fish traps: free and automatic resource generators are not good for economy. But then they heaped a bunch of other fish-related changes on top. So now you need queen bees to produce the only fish that gives you 1:1 fish-to-oil ratio and is supposed to give you ichor, but doesn’t, because bugs. And to top it off, now you need padding to repair your armor, which needs hardened leather, which needs oil…
I’m all for improving the economy, but what happened to the “scalpel instead of sledgehammer”? This change isn’t just a sledgehammer, it’s a sledgehammer to the kneecap. Or at least, that’s what it feels like. I suspect that, once I’m able to play the game without freezing, I’ll adapt and start using master patch kits and an occasional legendary patch kit.
And then there’s the headache-inducing hum of the Sky Sphincter. I love the new sound effect that plays before a wild surge is created, but I hate the constant hum. Thing is, it’s not like this is a new stumbling block. Remember BAM BAM BAM? This is the same kind of thing, and the players have already made it clear that we don’t really like disruptive audio. Ambiance is a good thing, but it’s supposed to be achieved with ambient effects…
What irks the crap out of me is that many of these things have been reported by people who were passionate enough to download and use TestLive. Ichor not being produced? Reported. Constant hum? Reported. And yet, someone signed off on pushing this patch to live.
Perhaps these specific bug reports haven’t been relayed to the team? It’s possible. That’s what happens when you use a forum instead of a bug reporting tool. But the fact that there’s a variety of open source, free-as-in-beer bug reporting tools out there means that reporting bugs is a solved problem.
Yes, I know, installing one and deploying it and maintaining it and operating it, all of that has an associated cost. But you know what? Maybe some costs deserve to be paid.
The deplorable quality of this patch was an avoidable problem.