Island Reflections

[Iscah]

I feel like the challenge logs need to include EXP to make the slow route feel more viable. The middle ranks have very little scope for EXP gain besides the factory, because you don't have half your plant/animal keeping slots open yet.

At very least, expanding those should be uncoupled from rank progress, because right now it feels like it's only good for gaining EXP once you're nearly at the end of needing EXP.

[Ayche]

I can't say that getting exp has felt slow.
I have managed to get to rank 7 by just building all my empty lots up with facilities, renovating them, having a few animals to caretake, full farming plots and putting some basic things up for works in the workshops. Just basic potion to firesand to potion stuff.

[Rufalus]

Oh! Just thought it would be useful if the FF XIV companion app could interact with the island so you can set things from there like the workshop schedule. People say the island feels like a mobile game anyways, may as well give us that convenience. I almost never use the app because you can't even dispatch retainer ventures using it.

[UkcsAlias]

Oh! Just thought it would be useful if the FF XIV companion app could interact with the island so you can set things from there like the workshop schedule. People say the island feels like a mobile game anyways, may as well give us that convenience. I almost never use the app because you can't even dispatch retainer ventures using it.

This definitely would make the app a lot more useful. Now its just an offline material selling assistant.

[TheSuperior]

Oh! Just thought it would be useful if the FF XIV companion app could interact with the island so you can set things from there like the workshop schedule. People say the island feels like a mobile game anyways, may as well give us that convenience. I almost never use the app because you can't even dispatch retainer ventures using it.

There's an old mmo, Jade Dynasty but it had other names. It had a farming simulator where you planted seeds, tended to weeds over a few days and harvested crops. But friends could plant in your garden and harvest as well when you weren't using it. It was a bare bones mini game and it feels like IS could honestly be played the same way at times.

[Terin]

I feel like Island Sanctuaries are still a great idea, and there's a solid enough foundation there. It just needs more customization, I think. Maybe some way to control the weather and overall "look" of the island, or just being able to change out the buildings and whatnot. Being able to let your minions roam around is just SUPER awesome, though. Might be cool to be able to do something similar for mounts?

Completely unrelated though; if the original Costa del Sol didn't exist, I think that would've actually been a great name for the place.

[Dis40]

I got to rank 9 and I feel like I've seen enough to form an opinion on it.

Where exactly does the "hideaway paradise" part comes in? So far it has been a sweatshop simulator where its just another daily/weekly task that I have to do if I want to keep up.

None of the buildings feels like it belongs to me, every landmark even after completed has a bunch of robots jumping around as a constant reminder that this isn't your island. Like some people said here, it feels like a factory rather than a home or something an adventurer would go to when they want to take a break from the world's troubles.
Granaries don't bring nearly enough resources to replace or serve as an alternative to the tedious manual gathering, if you want to keep up your workshop schedule, especially once you get 3 workshops running, you have to go out and gather one item at a time. From rank 1 to 10 you'll be there getting 30~50 rocks, seeds, fish or logs. I don't feel like I progressed at all from the moment I set foot in the island to here where I'm nearly done with everything unlocked.

If I was the developer in charge I'd put less focus on grinding cowries and more on social and customizable elements, even changing the color of the buildings or where to place buildings would go a long way. Let friends help gather stuff on your island or feed the animals.

The foundation is there but honestly, if the next IS update is simply just another set of landmarks and more glamour locked behind a 10k cowrie grind, or god forbid another island where you have to do everything all over again this content will probably be going the way of old Diadem pretty fast.

[Liam_Harper]

Island Sanctuary starts off great and looks amazing and I think they're were actually on to something, but ended up designing backwards.

It feels like the developers started off by making an amazing looking island, then thought to themselves "players won't do this unless we reward them". So they added a vendor with a list of rewards. Then they needed a way to make us grind for those rewards, so they developed their robot factory system where we could set up an industrial island to produce the required currency. And they called it a day there.

They're so off the mark. I wasn't even expecting lots of rewards from this, I just wanted it to be fun. It feels like "How can we make this lots of fun?" wasn't even the focus, just the practicalities of reward and grind and the entire island designed around that structure. Where's the minigames, customization, fun interactions?

[MintnHoney]

It feels like "How can we make this lots of fun?" wasn't even the focus

That might be the actual underlying problem here, really.

In other portions of the game, too.

[SassyAssassin]

Im going to come out and say it……the island is quite ugly.
I don’t know, the foliage textures seem of less quality?
Its very rocky and the plants you gather are unappealing..
The colours just don’t feel very soothing…the light and ambiance is very boring.
I have no idea how to explain it. Id rather chill around in Central Shroud or something.