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[nenjin]

I didn't include that portion because I figured it will be weeks after the actual update.

[Retropunch]

These updates fill me with hope. I wasn't too keen on my first few plays (and I've not really played it other than that) but they seem to have acknowledged and started working on everything I found problematic.

[nenjin]

It's a good game, it's just insanely grindy. (Failbetter tried to take the same grind/balancing approach as they have in FL and found that, in an actual video game vs. a web game, grinding is even more annoying.) Combat was never good, but it worked. It just wasn't very fun because it's a risk calculation more than an actual game when you're doing it.

I'll just be happy to have more content. Bought my insanely overpriced Frigate and after the ~12 hour grind it took to get that, I needed a break.

[Retropunch]

It's a good game, it's just insanely grindy. (Failbetter tried to take the same grind/balancing approach as they have in FL and found that, in an actual video game vs. a web game, grinding is even more annoying.) Combat was never good, but it worked. It just wasn't very fun because it's a risk calculation more than an actual game when you're doing it.

I'll just be happy to have more content. Bought my insanely overpriced Frigate and after the ~12 hour grind it took to get that, I needed a break.

Yeah, it was definitely the grinding and combat that put me off. I just really didn't feel the urge to spend the hours on it with such small rewards. I think this was due to the mostly unconnected event chains. It just felt like when you do those MMO mini-quest things which you can repeat for ever and ever (like bring farmer Joe 12 turnips or something), but with less concrete rewards.

They seem to be tackling this all head on though, and if they really do sort out the balance they set out to in their future plan, It'll turn out great.

[nenjin]

Bumping to say: The new Steel update and the combat re-work is live.

Combat is now realtime and takes places on the map you're playing the game on.

It's.....well it's had several effects. #1 is, there is no more easy "2 pump chump" fights anymore. Even completely outclassing your enemy, they can still do significant damage to you. #2, flowing from that is, overall profit from combat is way, way down.

Combat now involves getting your enemy in your front arc so they can be lit by your lights. Then your guns start to warm up. You can fire them at any time but it seems to have a huge penalty to accuracy. The enemy ship AI, while not great, is better than it was in the card game. Lots of enemies are currently more maneuverable than you are, so getting through a fight taking zero damage is very difficult right now. Monsters, IMO, are also way nastier, as they can "rush" your ship gaining a significant speed boost. They bump your ship, do damage and retreat a bit. So no more steaming past Aureal Megalopsis, as they will swiftly catch up to you and shred your ship like a tin can.

So combat is very lethal, once again. There's lots and lots and lots of rebalancing that needs to happen around the combat change, from adjusting all the ship stats, to enemy AI and manueverability, to other tweaks. But at least the game isn't a soul-crushing grind through combat anymore, where beyond a certain point the outcome of a fight is 100% predictable.

Other than changes include: reduced terror gain and fuel usage. (At least, people are claiming fuel usage is down. My brief play of the update was inconclusive.)

[TwilightWalker]

So, post the combat update and with the game now on sale, is it worth a buy at 33% off? I love naval stuff, but I'm not sure if this game is for me.

[nenjin]

The largest part of the game is narrative choice-making. SS is really flavorful, but if what does it for you in naval games is naval details, SS is light on that. And much heavier on: weirdness, insanity, starvation and exploration.

Personally, I think it's worth it at full price. But it's no Silent Hunter or anything approaching it.

[Rez]

Sunless Sea is definitely all about the fluffiness of captaining and it'd be hard to make a good crunchy sailing game based on the setting.  I'm hoping The Mandate will feel like a crunchy and fluffy game about spacing and command.

It's cool seeing these new islands, but I'd almost rather not see islands without their stories done.  I think that might be why I stopped playing the beta last time.

Are they going to do something to scale rewards as a function of how far they are from good Fuel/Supply/Safety islands?  Right now, risk/reward for some trade runs seem out of whack.

[nenjin]

Are they going to do something to scale rewards as a function of how far they are from good Fuel/Supply/Safety islands?

I don't recall them saying anything about that. FWIW, risk/reward balance has always been an issue with the game. The way they imagine the game being played isn't running a single route between FL and some place over and over again. They imagine you taking long trips out to Zee, doing lots of storylets and getting stuff to then sell in various ways. "Trading" as most people understand it (buy low/sell high) isn't what they want people doing. So they've intentionally made it less profitable to run goods between two ports. It can help supplement or off set your costs, but it's not your real source of profit.

That comes from finding the best rewards storylets offer, and the best rewards combat can safely offer you, and making them part of your larger travel route.

[Rez]

That may be, but my issue was not that it was too hard to make money, but that a fortunate map spawn could make it very easy to grind echoes out.

[nenjin]

I actually haven't even started a new game since map randomization came out. Was waiting on the final release to retire my beta character. So I haven't gotten to experience the randomized map much.

[Vector]

.

[Sappho]

How has this been going in terms of combat? I haven't played for a while and I'm thinking of giving it another shot, but I'd rather not invest the time until the combat is at least reasonably balanced and workable.

[Majestic7]

In my opinion, combat is still boring. It was changed into realtime, removing the few tactical aspects it had before. Now you just backpedal to keep the enemy at the extreme end of your gun range, boom boom, dead, yawn. You don't play this game for combat, you play it for the stories and the atmosphere. Combat is just a chore.

[rumpel]

I closed the tab instead of posting the stuff I just wrote. Thanks to Majestic I don't have to rewrite it all. But a note: it's not finished yet (70% according to their roadmap) and will see some more balancing and polishing.