Island Sanctuary feels intentionally slow and inefficient.

[Kewitt]

Day 5 finally beat the loading screen bose.

[Deveryn]

I'm not sure why this is meant to matter to us. Those models are designed to keep people spending money, not because they somehow make content more fun to play. Why would I want stuff to be designed in a way that costs me more money?

Timegating that helps group content stay alive a while longer is understandable, but that's not relevant here. Being able to finish stuff and take a break is good, dragging that out as long as possible doesn't benefit me at all.

No MMO developer in their right mind is ever going to repeat the mistake of spending months on content for people to be done with it just like that.

We're only 5 days out from release. If you paid for a month just to come back and do this before leaving again, you likely have time to finish this and more.

[Vahlnir]

I'm not sure why this is meant to matter to us. Those models are designed to keep people spending money, not because they somehow make content more fun to play. Why would I want stuff to be designed in a way that costs me more money?

Timegating that helps group content stay alive a while longer is understandable, but that's not relevant here. Being able to finish stuff and take a break is good, dragging that out as long as possible doesn't benefit me at all.

Whether you like it or not, it's not about you. It's about SE and their profits. Considering people have completed it already, I'd say it is forgiving enough. I've maybe used mine 3-4 times since the patch and I'm already rank 5 without really trying. Whether it's fun or not is subjective, but I personally like this piece of content for what it is and hope they continue to add to it. This game needs more long term content. Island Sanctuary does appear to be that by design, even if people are brute forcing the grind.

[LordGiggles]

No MMO developer in their right mind is ever going to repeat the mistake of spending months on content for people to be done with it just like that.

We're only 5 days out from release. If you paid for a month just to come back and do this before leaving again, you likely have time to finish this and more.

True, thank god we're only allowed to do three main story quests per day. Not sure the game could cope if you allowed people to grind for trial/duty drops, or to get XP outside of the roulettes and killing world mobs for 10xp each.

Whether you like it or not, it's not about you. It's about SE and their profits. Considering people have completed it already, I'd say it is forgiving enough. I've maybe used mine 3-4 times since the patch and I'm already rank 5 without really trying. Whether it's fun or not is subjective, but I personally like this piece of content for what it is and hope they continue to add to it. This game needs more long term content. Island Sanctuary does appear to be that by design, even if people are brute forcing the grind.

Sure, but I'm not tied to SE in any way at all outside this game, so I'm not going to pretend I have any reason to care about their profits. Obviously they can just do whatever they like, barely anything posted here ever gets changed. We're just posting our opinions, not roleplaying shareholders.

"Long term content" is something you can experience with basically everything in the game. Just play whatever content less often and you've got an entire game full of it. Of course you can still grind absurdly and power through island, but that's true for anything, excluding time limits on rewards for some content.

If the island would stop being fun because you can reasonably progress in it more often, is it actually fun in the first place? If you must have limits like that, shouldn't there be some other fun content related to the island that you can do in the downtime?

I'm not sure I've ever played something and thought "wow this would be really cool if I just got pushed into afking for hours/days for normal progress, sucks until then though".

[george357]

been working on this since the update dropped and only took a break to do storyline and new pandemonium runs and side quests so far its been a fun ride made it to rank 7 and like the new stone pathways and crystal pathway lights and gig rig to fish for squid and jellyfish will continue to work my way to rank 8 good luck to everyone else on their island journey.

[hagare]

I want to participate in the content and then move on once i've exhausted it. Not have the content funelled and stretched over the span of weeks or months to keep my sub ticking away.

so you want to do all content in one day.

Like a carrot on a stick, these weekly/daily activities are designed to put the player into the habit of logging in every day and there's absolutely no benefit to it for the player.

then don't?
If you don't see the benefit why do it?

I feel like you're the type of player who burns through stuff then complain that there's nothing to do.
And I still don't see why you can't play other games in between but just you being weirdly anal about it.

[4sishi]

I've hit rank 8 as of this morning, and I've got a few things I want to say about this new piece of content. Aside from the fact that It should be more connected to the actual game and not so isolated as a piece of content, I can't believe how slow the progression is.

I have gathered enough to reach high end material gathering and I feel like time-gating rewards and being capped at 10 exp per gathering node is something that was decided upon without consideration for the player's time. It actually feels like the game doesn't respect my time or enjoyment. If I wanted to bite down on a burger but a restaurant didn't let me finish the other half I would be very upset. This is essentially what is happening.

I just want to enjoy this game, but the game doesn't want to let me by time-gating this much. I know I am not alone as I have seen very many posts and comments on how badly designed this content is. What changes would you like to see done to improve the experience?

Personally, I think it should take nowhere near a full day for the workshop to finish, and I don't appreciate crops taking so long, either. The last thing I would like is a bigger island. It really honestly doesn't feel as big as it was advertised at all. Only 2 underwater zones and such a limited amount of animals to raise.

Might I ask a question? when building a small town on your own, do you expect it to be done in a few days time?In the real world I mean.....alone, just one house - would take months. be happy it doesn't take months in the game according to IRL time.

[ACE135]

If you must have limits like that, shouldn't there be some other fun content related to the island that you can do in the downtime?

Not related to the island but there is a lot of fun content. Not everything is equally fun to everyone but some examples are doing quests, dungeons, roulettes, raids, gathering, crafting, treasure maps, hunting, role playing

I'm curious to know what you did in downtimes before Island Sanctuary.

[Deveryn]

If the island would stop being fun because you can reasonably progress in it more often, is it actually fun in the first place? If you must have limits like that, shouldn't there be some other fun content related to the island that you can do in the downtime?

You mean like the rest of the game? The island is a place to go in between everything else. It's not for everybody, but it's something people actually like, just like every other part of the game. If it was a legitimate failure, then this opinion might hold some weight. It's working as intended and you're welcome to leave it alone.


(wow. great minds. )

[Rikachu]

I have to say, I’m enjoying all the salt from this thread, it’s making my popcorn nice and yummy.

To those who are enjoying it, I’m right with you! It’s a wonderful change of pace for the game, and gives me something different to do besides watching chat drama in Limsa.

To those all upset…. It’s literally a slow paced thing. If you dont like it, don’t play it, but, so many people love it for what it was designed to be It was never designed to be able to grind out. It wasn’t ever designed to rush. Sure, if you want to, go ahead, but that isn’t the point of it.

Thank you for coming to my cat (ted) talk. :3