This is going to be a long post, as I describe the huge problem, along with my experiences dealing with it.
Dear Rare
I want to start by saying that I get what you were trying to do with the release of the Forsaken Shores. I love the new scenery, and the intimating vibe it offers. However, I am here to vent my frustrations in your general direction to hopefully get some solace.
Forsaken Shores is not sloop friendly. This much is obvious. Obvious to the point I'm sure the developers were forcing that upon us to play more with friends and Open Crews. Although, as a player who does not enjoy playing with an Open Crew, and the few friends I have that play this game with me who aren't on often, I find myself playing in a Sloop by myself. Which is fine. I enjoy it, enjoyed it since the release of the game itself (I bet you can see where I'm going with this). Until I get to the Forsaken Shores.
I LOVE the look of the new Ashen Gear & Equipment. So much so that it is my main priority to complete the related commendations in order to unlock them, but I've hit a major speed-bump. As stated before, my friends aren't on often, and I don't like playing in Open Crews, so I knew this was going to be a challenge for me. I did not anticipate it being this much of a challenge, though. I have to complete 5 Gold Hoarder and Order of Souls voyages. I finished the five Gold Hoarder voyages with my friends over the past few weeks. Yes, weeks. I have now gotten to the point where I only have to do one more Order of Souls voyage.
So, now that you know where I'm at, here is where I mention the problem. THE VOLCANOES!! They are not fair or fun to deal with. Shouldn't that be the main thing you guys look for when designing new problems? That it is fun to overcome them? With a balanced degree of difficulty? That's what I thought so. You guys may have had the complete opposite in mind, and if that's the case, I'm not sure why.
I am not the only one who believes in the Volcano problem. I've read numerous forum posts saying the same thing, and I've finally decided to tell you a experience I had on the day of me writing this, to maybe help aid decision making on your part.
Here it goes. At the start of the day, I had two more Order of Souls voyages to do, but thankfully, my friends were here to help. We set the voyage down on the table, and voted for it. I won't say more about this voyage, except it went on for FIVE Chapters! Which would be fine, If we didn't sink three separate times when dealing with the unfair volcanoes at every island. And that was with four of us! Two on the island, killing the needed skeleton captains, and two staying on the ship, trying to repair any damage the volcano deals out. Yet, we still manage to sink three times, though I'm sure this could have maybe been our bad, but the rocks from the volcanoes do so much damage, so makes sense that the two staying on the ship were dying, but nevertheless, still did not have a lick of fun when sailing through the Forsaken Shores. But it's whatever, only took us two and a half hours to do ONE voyage, and at the end of it, my friends have had enough, they left the game without even handing in the rewarded skulls. That's how much it drained them. Never came across one single other player either, all this negativity came from the volcanoes alone. There's obviously a problem here. Anyway, continuing on, as I did not leave the game. I was determined to do just one more voyage to finally get my ashen things! "Maybe this one wont be five chapters long!" - "Maybe the volcanoes wont be that much of a problem this time", is what I kept telling myself over and over again when purchasing the last Order of Souls voyage. So, with me and my trusty sloop leaving the outpost I spawned in to head toward the first skeleton destination (the voyage gave me three), I get ambushed by a Kraken almost instantly. So quickly in fact that I could still see the NPC's on the outpost I just left. It was a tough fight, but I take it down, using up half of my supplies doing so. I approach the first Island, and as usual, the volcano erupts upon my arrival. I fight the first wave of skeletons, before I head back to my sloop for Ammo and Bananas. My sloop is half-full of water. I legit bucket the water and patch holes... for FIVE MINUTES, as I am constantly bombarded with rocks from the volcano, while I see the Skeletons outside my side window, basically laughing at me every time I send water out of my sloop. I die from one of the rocks, sending me to the Ferry. Upon my return, my sloop was underwater, but I still spawn where I was, so I fight the skeletons without my ship in the hopes of killing the Skeleton captain first, before re-spawning in a completely new area. I don't. I get killed by a geyser when I ran out of bananas, not being able to heal myself. I spawn on a random Island on the Forsaken Shores, and guess what's going off there. That's right, the volcano. So, already I have to repair my sloop again and eat more bananas as I get hit on the way back. I return to the island I need to be at for a second time. The process repeated itself. That's when I exited the game and began writing this post.
To help players not get this experience or anything close to it in the future, I suggest drastically shortening the duration of the eruptions, as well as how common they are. The Forsaken Shores looks like a really cool area to explore, just wish I could actually explore it.
I'm so sorry for this being so long, I just needed to get everything into words for my own sanity. I don't know what to do now. I no longer have the strength to hit the 'play' button on the Microsoft Store, not without my friends, and who knows when they want to play again. I do like this game, it has SO much potential, but when things like this happen, I can't help but quit the game mid-voyage. I hope something comes out of this, but if not, I guess I'll have to come to terms with the fact that when I finish this last voyage, I will never be returning to the Forsaken Shores if I can ever help it.
Thanks for reading!
