That's actually the worst example. If you want to heat water, sure. Proper meals? There will be cold spots!
Printable View
I agree with all you have said. I very much enjoy the Island and did fast grind to level 10. Once I got there I hunted rare animals and even have now 2 alligators which I am so proud of. I set up my workshops and tend to the animals and water the plants then I go to the lighthouse and que for expert roulette. When that is done I am back at the Island and ready for some fishing. I have fun everyday this way.
I took some time to contemplate why Square added the rest cycle, and here's what I'm thinking...
I don't think it's a matter of forcing players to rest for the sake of taking it easy and having breaks. The main reason I think that is that, frankly, setting up your workshop for the next 24 hours takes about 5 minutes. Forcing players to not use the workshop twice a week saves players around 10 minutes. That's hardly any time, so I can't imagine it justifies taking a break being the reason. Besides, we can STILL use the workshop on those days, so it's not like you're really forced to take a break. You can instead just use that time to plan out the next day you CAN use the workshop. Also, even if we WERE allowed to not have rest days, the days we'd get back would still be "time gated" by virtue of the fact that producing goods takes time.
So I think it's really just gating how quickly we get cowries, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I feel like Square was pretty intentional in choosing how quickly we can earn that currency; how much we get from the workshop each day has to meet a balance of feeling impactful without being OP. If square were to allow workshop 7 days a week but kept the same weekly cowrie income, they'd have to decrease a day's workshop income by about 29%, which would make it feel less impactful. Players wouldn't feel rewarded for their efforts, and those who weren't paying attention might think the workshop wasn't even worthwhile. On the other hand, if Square kept the daily cowrie income but allowed all 7 days, we'd be getting about 40% more cowries a week, and that would throw off how quickly we earn everything else besides Island XP (another can of worms entirely).
You could also make the argument that by having 2 less days of workshop, we go through resources less quickly. This also allows us to get away with storing less of it, which helps them feel better IMO. To me, the more of a resource you have to store, the less it feels like a real item and the more it feels like a number or piece of data. By keeping the number of rare resources that we get to use smaller, they can keep the number that we're able to earn smaller, which helps them FEEL rare and makes for a subliminally more rewarding experience... IMO.
Given the speed that you get the rare materials, it helps to build up a stock. Two days off is 16 more units of rare goods you have to work with. It's not about keeping the cowry count down, but giving us a chance to make those better items to try and hit that 17k mark.
So, please keep in mind that while SE could have easily just made every day an active day, this would have just resulted in the currency we get being balanced downward to compensate (or, perhaps, costs upward).
I'm fine with 2 days off. First day gives me time to plan things out when I can see the actual supply and demand. Second day... means a bit less to manage, and time to build up resources. I'm perfectly OK with a time gate that means the time we do spend is much more effective.
Another way to consider it is this: What if there was no time gating/weekly limit on tomestones? It's not so far fetched - most older MMOs did exactly that. Except... then you had to grind 8 hrs a day or more to keep up, and deal with the RNG fun of things like 0.01% drop rates (because if they didn't, people would finish within a week and then complain about no content). Me, personally - I'd rather have a weekly limit that lets me keep up without turning the game into a full time job.
Cowries are the same principle, just with slightly different mechanics. You have X earning potential per week. Removing the rest days wouldn't change that, they'd just rebalance income and/or expenses. (Also, what are you doing that you need more than 17k/wk? You can already blitz through everything pretty quick...)