Current Thoughts on islands

[AshDidit]

My "Day One of this new thing", thoughts.

The TL;dr: None of it's good. Counterintuitive, contrary, time-consuming, waste of effort for everyone.

1. (yes, this means there's more than one)
Can we do something about the horrific negativity of the mammets? I get that it's 'lore based' and whatever, but it really puts a DOWNward cast on something that is supposed to be a "FUN" getaway from the world. Why are you making it so that people don't want to do it? Would YOU want to interact daily with a bunch of super negative people?

The incessant 'oh you don't wanna do that', 'oh my back', 'why would you do that?', 'you are inferior' attitudes that you are met with during EVERY SINGLE interaction with any of them really makes me NOT want to continue interacting with them, meaning I don't want to do your 'island' stuff AT ALL because everything you do... involves interacting with an aggressive, negative, rude, condescending or flat out ridiculous creature. There's not one single 'ray of sunshine' in the entire place save for the mammets that DON'T SPEAK AT ALL.

2. Why does it cost 1000 cowries in just one exchange, to clear an area but you have no way to earn that many cowries BACK in a single day, much less earn more? How are we intended to profit at all at this rate? And if this is how you intended it to be, then why are the purchasable items 4-12,000 cowries? That's literally MONTHS to earn enough cowries to even buy the cheapest items on the vendor unless you SLAVE yourself to the island all day every day! NO ONE wants to DO THAT! Even the lowest ranks (currently rank 6) only earn about 150-300 cowries A DAY and then have to spend that AND MORE to 'renovate' (read upgrade), and forget expanding into new areas after the second one. It will cost you 1000 again but you won't HAVE that many nor a way to EARN that many, because you need to expand to build new stuff but after the first round of builds, completing new buildings no longer gives you cowries.

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ADDING A HUGE EDIT HERE:
After building the second workshop, you can actually earn more than 1k cowries a day. Add a third one and it goes to about 1500 ish, depending on how you stack your bonuses.
It still feels like a full time job to earn more cowries than you spend (which, one would assume is one of the myriad 'goals' of the Island) even though the mammets are doing the work for you.
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Edit 2 for #2. Third 'clearing' now costs 1500 cowries instead of just 1k cowries but you get the same '2 new plots'. One Landmark and One facility... why am I paying 500 more for the same or less than I got before? Inflation?
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I don't know about everyone ELSE in the game, but for me, I don't want ANOTHER FULL TIME JOB in a video game. You represented the Islands as a 'FUN GETAWAY' from the MAIN hustle and bustle... but it's not. It's a trick, it's a trap and I do NOT appreciate how this has been handled AT ALL.

<continued in replies>

[AshDidit]

3. Why does it take a full day to grow 6 crops? The time gate on these is ridiculous. The brand new pumpkin seeds are STILL not fully grown a full day after planting them but they're NEEDED to make better feed... This is one of the dumbest things I've encountered so far. The base feed even says it's crap IN THE flavor text but we have to wait eternity and longer to make better feed?

-----------------------------Day2/3 EDIT----------------------------------------------
It takes TWO full days to grow crops
but you get 5-6 from each bed 30-36 produce
So this one turns out to not be AS bad, but dang 2 full days is forever!
Also, for each 1 produce you craft into the better feed you get 3 feeds.
That is definitely a plus.
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4. It takes around 8-12 hours to build a new facility/landmark but it's a full 24 to gather 'leavings', get results from granaries, etc. That's after the first day, of course, because it's once a day at a set time at minimum but you can set the Granaries to take a whole WEEK to bring stuff back! woo hoo? NO! That's ridiculous given they only bring back 1 or 2 of each item and you can gather more than THAT yourself in FIVE MINUTES.

-----------------------------Day2/3 EDIT----------------------------------------------
It seems the -only- way to get rare materials is from granary expeditions and
pastured animals. The drop is low, -but- they are 'rare' items so this makes sense.
Not being able to gather rares yourself, at all, makes far LESS sense. :/
This one is still disappointing.
Further, if you set the granary to a week, it still returns materials daily? why?
I don't get this one at ALL.
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5. While we're on the topic of gathering... 1 each? REALLY? So you're constantly running from one node to the next as fast as you can to get... 1. sand. 1. log. 1. whatever... but it takes dozens of items to build, craft, cook, exchange... seriously? Oh, and ya know, it would have been nice of you to TELL us that we can dive in the ocean for certain items? Maybe have the glitter on the SURFACE as an indicator that hey, there's stuff under the water too? Had I not accidentally mount dove into the water I might have never known because the walls of the island are so close in, I didn't think we were allowed to go that far INTO the water.

6. Crafting vs. Usage. This one really bugs me. My crafting log is almost empty in every category except tools. Tools seem to be the only thing right. You get new tools as you need them per rank up. That makes complete sense.. but the restraints? The feeds? Time locked to oblivion and potentially devastating to the 'fun' of doing more 'fetch work'.

(EDIT for those who don't get this one: You get new tool recipes as you need them. You do NOT get new restraints or feeds AS you NEED them nor do you get the materials needed to make them until long after you've had the recipe...this is what makes no sense).

7. Timers on workshops... 4 hours, 6 hours, 8 hours to craft 1 to 2 items that sell for the equivalent of 'pennies' in this VERY COSTLY economy. It costs 100s and 1000s to build things but you get 'a handful' for FOUR HOURS of work??? Not to mention you can 'lose time' at the end of a cycle if you're not VERY careful about how you schedule your days. That's NOT to say I -did- this. But it's obvious you can.

8. Minions in the wild. WHY are they SMALLER than when they follow you? They're so tiny you can literally LOSE them in the environment. What's the point of releasing them to the wild if you don't get to even SEE them?

9. "29 minutes have elapsed since your last activity. If you are inactive for 30 minutes, you will be expelled from the duty."

[AshDidit]

WHAT?! It's MY friccin Island but I can't AFK there? I'll get EVICTED from my island for being IDLE? Excuse me? What kind of Sanctuary KICKS YOU OUT for NOT MOVING? And why is there a BED THERE if I can't SLEEP in it longer than a NAP? I know people who never log out of the game, like at all. (terrible for your pc, but still), YOU gave them the ability to stay in the game 'forever' as it were, but then put a time on the Island "Sanctuary"... makes no sense.

10. "Sprint" 20 second timer, instantly reusable, ridiculous. if it's instantly reusable, why not just make it a toggle on/off ability? Why make us RE-click ANOTHER darn button every 20 seconds?

11. Island Prisms: What are they, where do they come from, how do I get them... NO INFO AT ALL but they're apparently REQUIRED to decorate... What?

12. Tactful Taskmaster, Excitable Explorer: Why are they just standing out in the open when they each have at least ONE building they belong to? The Felicitous Feline goes inside the cabin, why can't THEY go in the workshop/granary? Or a little hut somewhere, where they stand together gossiping while their 'teams' work? Making them MUCH easier to remember where they are, at that.

13. Modes: "Sow, Water, Cull" but no reap. I get that IF my crops ever finish growing I can 'gather' them, but it seems to me that there should still be a 'reap'.
Modes: "Feed, Pet, Beckon" Why is there a beckon? They all flock together anyway. Going to them is faster and easier given you have to force switch from feed to pet anyway... And Beckon is limited in range to boot.. so you have to run most of the way to them ANYWAY... (Edit: If the animal is more than half the length of the pasture from you, you have to run toward IT to beckon IT to YOU... O.o dumb.)

14. Modes: Why like this? Why isn't there a
Mode: Crops
subcommand menu 'sow, water, cull'.
Mode: Pasture
subcommand menu 'feed, pet, beckon'.
I mean, you put in a vanishing box for 'item' on some of them. So why not a vanishing subcommand row so that you can click the one you want instantly rather than having to click back into MODE and CHOOSE the next one over?

15. Last, but CERTAINLY not least... there is NO reason, whatsoever, for this ridiculous island to be gate-kept behind Endwalker lvl 90. That, in my opinion, is the DUMBEST part of the entire thing. There are people who would LOVE to waste their time here, but can't because they don't have the IRL time to do content, much less your 'side hustle lies'.

And just because I'm tired of listing more complaints, and because I think you get the picture at this point.

[AshDidit]

You advertised this thing as a 'fun escape' but it isn't. It's yet another job that no one has time for. It doesn't go as fast as beast tribe dailies even. You've time gated, timer locked, price locked, gather-locked EVERY single aspect of the Islands beyond comprehension all for what? 3 mostly useless housing items and a new glam?
I AM going to do it, but only for the pixie wings. I may do it on an alt and just not BUILD anything. Just gather items for the island cowries, and rank up for the seafarer cowries, and run one workshop to earn more cowries then never touch this thing again.

But then again, since you can buy the pixie wings on the island then sell them on the non-island marketboard? I may just not do it again and wait for someone else to post the wings. Far less of my time wasted, and in the end I'll still get the item I want. Probably faster than if I tried to legit earn them myself as I don't have time to sit around in an 'alternate game in a game' for 8-20 hours a DAY.

[LalafellDown]

This sounds horrible. I was excited to try no I don’t want too. The time gating with real world time is a major turn off in farming/building games.

[AmpLyra]

Between all your randomly capitalized emphasis words that really didn't help you make your points and your constant droning on, as well as the outright false information, this is probably the worst "review" of Island Sanctuary I've seen yet.

Your only good point is that sprint should, at the very least, be a toggle. Everything else was either pointless drivel, showing your extreme impatience, or a flat out lie.

So let's start from the top:

1: This is irrelevant. Not only is it not true for most of the mammets, but they're also just your average workers, doing all the actual hard work for you while you go off to pick up some sticks and rocks. You're not the one crafting or removing trees or laying bricks and foundations. That's all them. Personally I found it funny. If you didn't, fine, but this is hardly worth flying off at the handle like you're foaming at the mouth.

2: This point will probably bear repeating quite a few times, but the point, and literally what they have solely marketed and outright stated is that you are meant to take your time and not rush Island Sanctuary. Whatever you think you're trying to get out of it, you are wasting your time and energy if your thought process even revolves around "MUST GO, GET THING, NOW". On top of that, you stated the obvious that the high-value items are, wow, high price. This is like complaining that Crafter Materia X's are 500 purple scrips.

That's literally MONTHS to earn enough cowries to even buy the cheapest items on the vendor unless you SLAVE yourself to the island all day every day!

This is flat out not true, at all. It took me roughly 2 hours to get the materials I needed for a crafting cycle for all 3 workshops. You do not need to "slave yourself all day every day". That is a complete fabrication.

To your addendum in your first post. Nobody is forcing you to full-time job Island Sanctuary, in fact if you do that, you're probably playing it wrong (unless you enjoy that, I'm sure someone does, but it ain't me)

3: I feel like if you played Animal Crossing you would actually pull your hair out. You are so impatient. And this just returns to what I was saying earlier. You are not meant to rush this. Also if you read the tooltip, it says that Pumpkins take 2 days to grow. That is 2 days Earth Time. You plant the plants, you water them, you leave them alone, you water them tomorrow (or if you're on long enough for it to rain, the rain waters the plants), and then the next day, wow you have some pumpkins (or whatever else takes 2 days to grow). Also I was unaware 2 days was an eternity. I guess I need to re-evaluate my sense of time.

(continued in more replies)

[AmpLyra]

4: There's a few reasons for this. One, as mentioned, it's not meant to keep your attention solely on it. You know when you need to come back for your daily stuff. As it so happens. 04:00 every morning, and even then you won't miss it unless you don't come back at all the entire day. Secondly, both granaries and leavings can (or in the case of rare animals, ALWAYS) give you a rare item, which is a lot more precious, can be used in higher value crafts, or sells for more green cowries. Don't think you can "gather" your precious silver ore or milk in just 5 minutes.

5: While it would be nice to gather more from one node, I ultimately don't think it's a necessity. Almost all materials you need are just easily collected from multiple nodes within short range of each other that are quick to respawn (iirc the amount is 11 nodes before the first one respawns or something like that). Also mate, if you saw that the gathering spots were in the sea with a DOWN ARROW, idk why you thought you couldn't dive. That one's wholly on you.

6: I genuinely don't understand your complaint on this one. You say it's okay to time lock the tools you need to gather more things because it makes sense, yet you don't think it makes sense to learn better restraints and feed as your rank increases. Why? Genuinely I want to know what makes you think one is somehow okay and the other is not.

7: Good thing you don't build things too often. I am currently rank 6 with all my buildings built and upgraded as high as they can be. It's still gonna be a bit before I even hit rank 7 and I already have the materials needed to be good for an entire week, as mentioned before. Didn't take that long at all, and that's passive income I now get, especially because I have it set up to take advantage of efficiency and then groove (makes your stuff sell for more). wrt the missing time bit, that's on you to pay attention to.

8: This feels... Weird. Like if that's how you see it, I can't tell you you're wrong per se, but they weren't too small to me, I had no problem seeing them, especially since they say cute little things while out and about (Really love Wind-Up Thancred's).

9: Firstly, it's a duty. That's why. Secondly, you'd know this if you tried at a crowded time, but several people couldn't get into their islands yesterday (probably today too, haven't logged on for island since this morning in which I played for 30 minutes then went about my day). It's to let more people play the game, same reason there was an anti-afk timer on Endwalker launch.

Skipping 10 because I agree with it, as mentioned in my first post.

11: While I think it would be better if they outright told you, the assumption is likely for you to check your crafting log (I did). They're part of Master Recipes 9. Very easy recipe as well.

[AmpLyra]

12: This one's actually pretty simple imho. It's because they're both right there when you hit island return. Very easy and simple to get to. Also because you can have multiple workshops and granaries, it would be pretty dumb for them to go to only one since you manage all the buildings from them.

13: Needless dig at "if" they grow. You know when they'll finish growing. It's literally only 2 days. Anyway, personally I'd rather them not add another button for it, especially since you also use "gather" for your leavings from animals, and the pasture and farm are right next to each other.

14: Everyone loves pointless submenus, am I right? The approach to make them all easily recognizable buttons as soon as you click the modes button is far better. Is it a little cluttered, maybe, but I think it works a lot better especially since really the only two that this matters for are the pasture commands and farm commands. Really the only way I think it could be improved for the farm specifically is to make it context sensitive. Click an empty bed of dirt to select seeds to plant. Click planted seeds that can be watered. I personally don't feel that cull even needs to exist. Let people remove plants early from the farm manager guy instead so then you can just click ready to pick plants and take them. This could also work for pastures too, clicking an animal out of range to be pet/fed beckons them, and when in range, feeding takes priority and then you can pet them.

15: I soooooooorta agree on this however it is this way mostly for lore reasons. Could it be worked around, sure. It's very easy to argue that "Oh they wrote themselves into a corner." They likely did, but as-is, it makes sense. Would it be NICE if it was opened up way earlier? I think so, but story-wise I can't think of a time to fit it in because of how things are structured, especially since it involves two key characters to set it up, Tataru and Merlwyb. We know what Tataru's doing throughout almost the entirety of ARR-Endwalker. There's very little wiggle room to fit in something like Island Sanctuary, lore-wise earlier than it currently is. And Merlwyb definitely did NOT have the time for this pre-Endwalker either. Also needless dig again. At no point was this advertised as a side-hustle. It has always been marketed as content to relax and take your time with. You are contradicting yourself because you said earlier that you recognized they marketed it as fun and relaxing, now you're calling it a "side hustle lie". Get over yourself man. You even say they advertised it as a fun escape in your next post. Where is the consistency?

In conclusion, this "review" was awful. You barely made any points at all and rambled about the same repeated notion that you're impatient or just outright lied to people. Please reconsider what you even came to this content for, because if it's to profit in any way, you're missing the point. Thanks.

[AshDidit]

In conclusion, this "review" was awful. You barely made any points at all and rambled about the same repeated notion that you're impatient or just outright lied to people. Please reconsider what you even came to this content for, because if it's to profit in any way, you're missing the point. Thanks.

Profit how? There's no way to "Profit" from the islands even if that was my 'goal', which it wasn't. Originally it was to enjoy an island sanctuary and build it up. MYSELF. I actually assumed we'd be clearing our own land, clearing our own gardens and pastures, and plots and crafting the things we needed to work the land and build the buildings with -some- automation assistance from mammets, like making furniture for US to use ON the island, not to be sold off to 'limsa markets'. And certainly Not a full blown "Let us do it for you while you pick up sticks and rocks".

You can hate my review as much as you wish, but it's MY review. You didn't have to read it and you didn't have to respond to it. And no, ma'am. It's not blatant lies. Not one thing is a lie. It's entirely MY experience with the place and the notes I took while doing it. And it amounts to... I hate it.

But don't worry, I'll leave it all to you -without- attacking you. Enjoy!

[Solarra]

@ LalafellDown (great name btw)
My advice - try it for yourself first.
I thought it was fun and I was a bit skeptical after doing the WoW garrison. For me it's exactly what I expected only a little more addictive. The controls seem a touch on the clunky side but they're not hard to use.
You don't have to rush but you should be able to upgrade your cabin and add buildings on your first play unless you are very limited for time.

The good stuff:
The island is beautiful.
The default music fits the area and it isn't on such a short loop that you get fed up with it (looking at you FC workshop!).
You can choose how your buildings look (within limits).
The gathering and crafting are easy.
There are rare animals to capture.
All the information you need is there. I haven't had to do a web search for anything besides info on the rare spawns. Once you have gathered something, the location of the main deposits can be shown with a click on the item in the gathering log.
The Island Return makes getting back to base very easy.
You cannot finish this in one day (really, that's a positive), but you still feel you've achieved something from each session.
The glam is definitely worth getting and I appreciate having the shorts and trousers as two items so I can choose my look
It looks like you'll be able to set things up for less frequent checks as time goes on, handy for when there's new stuff to do elsewhere and watering those cabbages isn't quite as much fun as it was at the start.

The ever so slightly not so good:
Minions do tend to get a little lost, especially in the main area where there are mammets running around too.
Sprint would be better on a toggle.