Nov 1

General Feedback

Part 1: After coming back to the game for the 4th-5th time over half a decade now, most recently a two year gap.... I have some thoughts and constructive criticisms, as well as praise. We played on Giant Panda: The three weeks until the meteor hits feels too short, especially with the exhaustion mechanic. It would be fine for seasoned+regular players, but new players or many-year returning players have a large learning curve to re-learn all the progress unlocks and how to best set themselves up to collaborate in all of that. This leaves little room for error/mistakes or gaps in the market or gaps in professions, and can really hurt server morale by week two. Especially if there is some drama which seems to be common that has many leaving after the first week. Sidenote: With the game being darker we need a wood burning headlamp or something for early game, make it disposable or wear out quick but anyone can craft it type of thing. Next, while I love the higher collaboration with the research and all professions having to do their part, this can also backfire if there is a small gap in the market such as papers+ ink, or leather and pelts for fertilizers like we had, and set us back 3-4 days, killing momentum and morale on Giant Panda and making many give up and stop logging on. Then the Exhaustion mechanic. While I like the spirit of this mechanic and what it aims to achieve, how it makes the player feel or play is too much of a negative and needs to be rethought on how to better implement it. It feels as though you are always on the clock instead of just being able to take a stroll and see what others are building or working on, or need help..... How many times I'm just stuck in my chair rather than making new friendships in the adjacent towns or working out plans or lending a hand with other players across the map. Now you could do these things after you hit your limit but by that time you are actually exhausted in real life. In plain words imo this is a poor route for implementation of such a mechanic as it takes too much away from the game in its current form. It also creates more stress. Never in all my Eco games have I been this stressed from a mechanic that is supposed to do the opposite, because you can now run out of time to get what you need to do done. Next, performance needs to improve greatly. I have an older system but even those with high end PC's of those I'm in discord with report a large amount of hitching, and the chunks loading in have never been great in my experience. What is the point of a vehicle if we have to stop often and let the world load in, even on a small globe? Then dinner parties. They are too complex to set up with too many rules and the actual benefits are not communicated well to the player. Dinner parties outside without the need of a big building around them should still be desired without all the set up. Even just a small picnic with your close neighbors without needing a cook on standby should be desired. Free Placement, while really nice, makes upgrading or changing your walls/windows a nightmare. Then sometimes profession tables don't work if placed too close to a wall even if still in the room. Give us an upgrade tool that has its own small inventory or something for the building material being upgraded. I think it was also a mistake to make free placement the default. have free placement be the shift key, especially since some items only place properly without free placement. Selling from surfaces is cool, but we need more control over where the price tag goes. In it's current implementation it is hard to predict or not working well. I set them all up the way I wanted then when I left my property and came back they had changed position and rotation. Also there should be an option for a "floor model" that can't be bought out. Not being able to place a windmill on your property or other industrial equipment outside without completely negating your outdoor housing bonus feels terrible. We shouldn't need separate claim stakes or to build off our property to keep our outdoor bonuses. Even when my arrastras were underground and technically a giant underground room it was still counting it against my outdoor bonus until I moved them off the property. Then the Ecological aspects, it feels like this part of the game has lost the plot. It seems like pollution or overhunting/fishing has been nerfed to be an afterthought? With people just able to leave their tailings at the surface or pollute to their hearts desire with little meaningful global effect even on a small world.

Closed