Island Reflections

[Skivvy]

Devs in marketing phase: "Expect a casual experience relaxing on a tropical island."

Also devs: "Level up your island by understanding this multi-aspected sales-and-marketing spreadsheet to efficiently run your robot factory."

Yeah, no. That's not what they said to expect.

And don't forget that in order to build the spiffy otter water fountain, you have to either buy it from the MB (it was about 9M for all parts when I checked the other day..) or participate in Expert crafting which is a bit like savage for crafters.

"oOOOh but it's optional!", they'll cry! OK, sure, but for content that has mostly been advertised as solo play, yes, I'm aware of that one interview where they allude to "outside assistance", it seems like a pretty bad decision to then go and link what should have been a nice rank 10 project to the most difficult crafting tier in game. If they were determined to link it to crafting, they could have opted to make it a 3-star recipe or something basic. This would have still been annoying for non-crafters/gatherers, but the pricing would have tanked by now as the materials are not that hard to get.

[Iscah]

And don't forget that in order to build the spiffy otter water fountain, you have to either buy it from the MB (it was about 9M for all parts when I checked the other day..) or participate in Expert crafting which is essentially crafting savage mode.

"oOOOh but it's optional!", they'll cry! OK, sure, but it was still an idiotic decision by SE. I'm still of the opinion that IS should have remained 100% self-contained, but if they're going to insist on having it cross over into the outside world, they could have chosen to put it behind a normal recipe. This would have still been annoying for non-crafters/gatherers, but the pricing would have tanked by now as the materials are not that hard to get.

I'm not so bothered by the fountain, since that's totally optional and you don't need it to make progress. The crafting factory is the core of the gameplay and everything you build on the island feeds into it and is occupied by its workers, and it's miles away from I what expect a relaxing island getaway to feel like.

[Scruit_Bigtime]

DEVs: "Expect a casual experience"

DEVs: "here is an extreme grind that will force you to look up guides to get the rewards before the next tier of rewards is released and you're way behind"

Let's not pretend it's exactly what the devs said to expect.

there's only a grind if your one of those people who wanted to max it within the first week. all the rewards are shown on the vendor from the start (with one exception unlocked at rank 10), there is nothing you need a guide for except the rare animals (which don't offer anything different than regular ones, just aesthetics)

[TheSuperior]

there's only a grind if your one of those people who wanted to max it within the first week. all the rewards are shown on the vendor from the start (with one exception unlocked at rank 10), there is nothing you need a guide for except the rare animals (which don't offer anything different than regular ones, just aesthetics)

I've been picking at this every several days, and I still have to gather from one. node. at. a. time.

That's a grind no matter what angle you come at it with.

[Deveryn]

I've been picking at this every several days, and I still have to gather from one. node. at. a. time.

That's a grind no matter what angle you come at it with.

So is everything else in an MMO.
You can let it bother you or you can accept reality. ^_^

[Deo14]

DEVs: "Don't expect Animal Crossing".

Players: "Why isn't this Animal Crossing?"



It's like a skit. I swear.

DEVs: "Expect a casual experience"

Players: Have to rely on others to reverse engineer weather patterns and then setting alarm which is rarely inside prime hours just to get chance at getting 1 out of 10 weather depended animal (which are also bugged btw), while also having to rely on workshop calculator/make your own excel sheet because game won't simply allow you to open supply and demand window with recipe window simultaneously.

[ICountFrom0]

DEVs: "Don't expect Animal Crossing".

Players: "Why isn't this Animal Crossing?"



It's like a skit. I swear.

I've been comparing it to early Farmville, and it matches expectations.

[Feron]

DEVs: "Don't expect Animal Crossing".
Players: "Why isn't this Animal Crossing?"
It's like a skit. I swear.

This is a strawman argument and not a particularly clever one. Most people weren't expecting Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, or a replacement for housing. At first, nobody really knew what to expect because the devs were radio silent for so long about hard details (which should have been a big red flag for people). Using "dont get your hopes up" as your big pitch is also a red flag.

When people do mention those games, its in the context of "this is what makes those games fun, and Island Sanctuaries doesn't have that, so what does it have?" with the sad obvious answer quickly materializing as "not much".

Rewards: they offer two hairstyles as rewards and they BOTH have to be ponytails? Like...really?

Thematics: the mammets are obnoxious and unwanted. I feel like I'm running a clone factory. Why exactly do I have to pay them in shells? What do they do with them? Somehow a relaxing paradise turns *very* quickly into an offshore labor camp mass-producing cheap items for sale in Limsa. Just a strange design choice. I guess I have to give the mammets rest days so that I don't have to construct nets in the stairwells.

Does anybody regularly visit other people's islands? Why would you? Theirs will look almost the same as yours because there's very little ability for customization at all. Some of the buildings that have second stories don't...have stairs. They have nonfunctional ladders.

Just a lot of weird design choices, and all I'm left thinking is: I wish they'd just focused whatever effort they spent on this on expanding the functionality of apartments. That would have been so much better for the game and the communities.

[Deveryn]

Just a lot of weird design choices, and all I'm left thinking is: I wish they'd just focused whatever effort they spent on this on expanding the functionality of apartments. That would have been so much better for the game and the communities.

How would they improve the functionality of apartments and how would it be better for communities? The communities seem to be doing fine, with plenty of spaces to do pretty much anything.

Beyond that, it's almost directly opposed to the general gameplay design of FFXIV. Most of the features of this game that fall under this category promote player interaction in some aspect - zone population if nothing else. This removes players from the general world to do a long, storyless grind. And I know they've said they want people to be able to play this game as a solo experience, but things like tribal quests can absolutely do that while providing other benefits as well. There's no charm here, just mindless grinding and a tedious goods market.

This in of itself isn't a problem, and I'm sure there are some people who like this sort of gameplay so by all means enjoy, but development resources are very much a zero sum game. This could have been so many things, but it's Sim Industrial Park. And I do not understand why this was deemed a good way to spend development time.

The charm is getting away from the other people and having a nice quiet space where I don't have to read someone's dumb advertisement for a venue or gil sales. It's ironic that this strikes a nerve as you're playing a game that removes you from people interaction. It doesn't really go against the gameplay design and it's well in line with the story. You, the only warrior of light on the Source, have earned yourself this opportunity to enjoy some quiet time alone.

The activities are not for everyone, but there are plenty of people who like to do the simple harvesting activities. I happen to be one of them. It's more fun than gathering in the open world as we're not just going in some triangular pattern. I think it's great to be able to hop into a PF or a long queue and have something to do to kill time that I can just drop at a moment's notice.

As for why this was deemed a good use of dev time, I can only imagine there was some feedback somewhere at some point. The idea has been floating around for a while, apparently since before Shadowbringers. Perhaps they finally found the time to do it. It's not like it's taking away from anything else. Some might say another expo zone, but that needs a rest.