Island Sanctuary supply dramatically shifting in the background

[TwistedTea]

Last week, I was about 1400 shy without using the spreadsheets. No sleep was lost. It'll happen one day, but I'm not concerned about it.

The 500k is a ways off. Why worry about that? Both are titles I'm never going to use.

The island is as relaxing as you make it. Keep blaming SE all you want, the truth is plain as day, but folks don't want to admit it.

You seem to have trouble understanding that how devs design systems can influence player behaviour.

SE said that Island Sanctuary was supposed to be a casual, relaxing experience...then goes ahead and put in systems which are anything but casual.

As many other players have mentioned, was it that difficult to give us a place to customize/decorate and chill?

The Blue Crowrie grind could have been designed around the passive things like crops/granary/pasture

And the achievements could have been adjusted to encourage casual, relaxing gameplay.

[Deveryn]

You seem to have trouble understanding that how devs design systems can influence player behaviour.

SE said that Island Sanctuary was supposed to be a casual, relaxing experience...then goes ahead and put in systems which are anything but casual.

As many other players have mentioned, was it that difficult to give us a place to customize/decorate and chill?

The Blue Crowrie grind could have been designed around the passive things like crops/granary/pasture

And the achievements could have been adjusted to encourage casual, relaxing gameplay.

If I have trouble understanding anything, it's actual player behavior because I'm not under this influence. You all influence each other more than SE ever will. You can't enjoy stuff for what it is without messing around with it. Everyone has to be the first to complete it. You "optimize the fun out of it" to quote Josh.

A place to customize / decorate and chill? So you wanted housing... Housing already exists. They said this wouldn't be housing and you would be doing light activities.

A cowrie economy designed around raw materials would be even slower. You'd be forced to harvest even more and manage way more land. It becomes even less chill and would eventually require more mammets and maybe some heavy machinery.

The achievements.... again.... too much emphasis on some titles. It wouldn't matter what they put there, you would feel the same pressure or just feel like it was too easy.

[LianaThorne]

You seem to have trouble understanding that how devs design systems can influence player behaviour.

SE said that Island Sanctuary was supposed to be a casual, relaxing experience...then goes ahead and put in systems which are anything but casual.

As many other players have mentioned, was it that difficult to give us a place to customize/decorate and chill?

The Blue Crowrie grind could have been designed around the passive things like crops/granary/pasture

And the achievements could have been adjusted to encourage casual, relaxing gameplay.

- They said from the start that it would be limited in terms of what we can do with buildings and to lower our expectations in terms of decorating as we know it with housing. We were never getting an expansive decorating experience. Would it be hard for them to do? Apparently so since we can't even get instanced housing lol.

- This is already a thing....produce & leavings can be exchanged for blue cowries. You can literally ignore the workshop system if you wanted and just turn in those for cowries. Will it take longer? Yeah. But can't say the game doesn't already allow for it.

- To me, the gameplay is pretty casual & relaxing. There's no combat involved and all you're doing is gathering, constructing your buildings and tending to animals & crops. That's pretty casual content, no? Is it that we can't time skip like we can in Stardew/Animal Crossing so you have to deal with waiting/time gates?

[TwistedTea]

A cowrie economy designed around raw materials would be even slower. You'd be forced to harvest even more and manage way more land. It becomes even less chill and would eventually require more mammets and maybe some heavy machinery.

The achievements.... again.... too much emphasis on some titles. It wouldn't matter what they put there, you would feel the same pressure or just feel like it was too easy.

Yes, it does matter how the systems and achievements are designed by devs.

For example, instead of a 17k in 1 week achievement/title have it adjusted to an achievement at 17k no matter how long you take to get there.

That sort of design is in line with casual,relaxing content.

...Is it that we can't time skip like we can in Stardew/Animal Crossing so you have to deal with waiting/time gates?...

I don't have an issue with waiting or time gates for this sort of content.

At the end of the day the current Island Sanctuary systems revolves around the workshop.

Every other system feeds into it and it is the greatest source of crowrie income.

Again, SE could have designed so that the workshop was not the central focus of Island Sanctuary.

[Wolwosh]

Island Sanctuary reminds me of Blue Mage.
They say its a solo job, and then all of a sudden they want you to do Savage and req a static.
Island Sanctuary is casual content, but at the end you need to do the hardest craft currently in the game + needing spreadsheets to use the workshop effectively.
Also why is it always dark on my island?...

[LianaThorne]

Yes, it does matter how the systems and achievements are designed by devs.

For example, instead of a 17k in 1 week achievement/title have it adjusted to an achievement at 17k no matter how long you take to get there.

That sort of design is in line with casual,relaxing content.



I don't have an issue with waiting or time gates for this sort of content.

At the end of the day the current Island Sanctuary systems revolves around the workshop.

Every other system feeds into it and it is the greatest source of crowrie income.

Again, SE could have designed so that the workshop was not the central focus of Island Sanctuary.

I don't necessarily see the issue with having the workshop though. I can understand it can be overwhelming at first for those who arent used to reading the supply/demand chart but it's not necessarily hard work & Google exists. Hell, my boyfriend just tells me what to put up cause my brain can't brain enough for it. Whatever gets you by is how I look at it.

Gathering is one of the main points of the island, so imo the most amount of work goes into that. You literally need it to do anything else outside of the pasture/crop upgrades...so I'm failing to see why it would be issue to just gather extra for workshop stuff while also having it raise your rank. Now, past Rank 10 I can see it being a bit tedious but can also frame it as stockpiling for future updates to save yourself time.

Its the greatest source, yes, but you can still just ignore it and do exchanges. There's also nothing forcing anyone to do the workshop daily & you can also schedule things in advance if you don't care about the suppy & demand chart and just want to list things and leave for a week.

This is still "base game" content in terms of IS, who knows what future updates to it will bring.

[TwistedTea]

I don't necessarily see the issue with having the workshop though...

Its the greatest source, yes, but you can still just ignore it and do exchanges. There's also nothing forcing anyone to do the workshop daily & you can also schedule things in advance if you don't care about the supply & demand chart and just want to list things and leave for a week.

Without the workshop, meaning just selling crops/granary mats and pasture leavings to the Exporter, it's around ~2372

We also get 2k a week from Challenge Logs.

500k/4372 = 114 weeks

So there's something called the Lazy Man Presets which we can set for a week.
LMP does not care about supply and demand,uses no crops/leavings/granary mats and makes about ~10k/week from the workshop.

Combining the 10k from workshop and Challenge logs: 12k

500k/12k = ~42 weeks

If players approached this without even minimal workshop optimization that's nearly a year.

Doable?

Yes.

Questionable game design decision by SE devs?

Also, yes.

This is still "base game" content in terms of IS, who knows what future updates to it will bring.

Hopefully, it won't take as many iterations as Diadem/Eureka for SE to get IS right.

[Deveryn]

Look at what you're doing. Your whole argument is revolved around turning it into a chore with scheduling and everything. It's not SE's fault you're being obsessive and overthinking.

[TwistedTea]

Look at what you're doing. Your whole argument is revolved around turning it into a chore with scheduling and everything. It's not SE's fault you're being obsessive and overthinking.

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree.

You've not provided any substantial reasoning as to why SE could not have designed IS systems to be casual and relaxing as they previously stated.

[sagacious]

Groove is the thing that had me stuck and now I understand you need to raise up groove before you schedule an 8hr high popularity item. Groove is gained properly on 4hr high popularity efficiency items, the 1st row being useless because the 1st row generates no groove. Therefore for the 1st two days use 4hr items that are high popularity or highest possible. Once your groove gets to above 30 go ahead and schedule the high popularity 8 hr starting day 3 to 5 to finish out the week. To recap the 1st 2 days are groove raising days using 4 hr same category items that give efficiency. Day 3 to 5 when groove is at it's highest schedule an 8 hr high efficiency item and items that give it efficiency. I got the Chopper and you guys are going to like it.