DEV ANSWER My feedback, crafting, etc.

[Sjors Hamel 2]

Dear developers,

I am currently enjoying your game a lot. I finished the learning ysland and the other one where you have to free the engineers and I had a lot of fun in the process. However, now since I'm spending time in the explore game mode, I'm finding that there's a serious lack of guidance right now. There's no real indication of how to build a forge for example and crafting looks really confusing, It could really be improved to be more aesthetically pleasing as well as easier to understand. I know survival isn't the primary focus on the development in this game, as it is more about creativity and creating any type of game mode you'd like, but the survival aspect is really fun already and I believe you can get a big audience for just that aspect of the game.

Things I like:

• Building is absolutely brilliant! It's the most precise and easiest building mechanic in any survival game.
• The graphics are amazing.
• I'm loving the creative freedom
• Your humor.
• There are so many items, I love it!

 

However, these things need some work in my opinion:

• Stack splitting and being able to drag, destroy or drop a stack of items.
• The overall crafting needs more work, it's just not clear how I can progress with items and gear.
• Animations - some animations are very stiff, lacking or not aesthetically pleasing. Walking sideways makes your character appear like he's moonwalking for a second. Also, chopping wood could use an animation that gives more feedback on if you are actually chopping wood or not. Sometimes I find myself hitting the ground before realising that I have to find that sweet spot to chop a tree. If the character would take on a different stance, it would really be more immersive as well as easier to see if I'm actually chopping a tree or not. Animations overall could be more fluent.
• Performance - I think the game loads the whole island at once, I'm not a programmer, but right now the game requires a lot of processing power.
• I hope the UI will change in the actual release of the game.

 

Overall, I'm really enjoying this game, and I truly hope it will catch on. I just was immediately intrigued after playing the tutorial, I'm curious about future updates. Here are some pictures of my little shelter that I'm working on right now, even though the survival experience doesn't yet feel complete, I'm having a great time. It takes a while to create a shelter, but it actually feels more worthwhile than in for example; Minecraft. Don't be discouraged by the more present list of things I dislike, I'm loving the game, thank you for developing this piece of awesomeness. I wish I could somehow be more involved in the creation of this game because I'm really feeling it. isn't there a way to help out using my graphic design skills or something? Haha, anyway, cheers and keep doing what you do over there.

 

[Eris 2]

31 minutes ago, Sjors Hamel said:

 

• Stack splitting and being able to drag, destroy or drop a stack of items.

Hi there.
This actually can be done by CTRL. For stack splitting hold CTRL and drag your stack to a free inventory slot, window asking about how many items you want to detach will pop up. (You can merge stacks as well) Drop works the same way, only you release the stack outside of the inventory window. For destroying whole stack go to the inspect window (LMB click) and then select break or destroy while holding ctrl. 

Hope this will help

[Sjors Hamel 2]

Thank you for the reaction. I wasn't aware of this. That's great.

[Miguel Preguisa 443]

Let me share my opinions on your points  

•  Well, now I know that I can use CTRL for splitting stacks, which is something that can be useful 
• Something I totally agree with. It took me hours to figure out how to craft various important items or how to correctly use tools (for example that its a lot smarter to use saw instead of an axe to chop down trees or how to use knife to gut animals). Tutorial yland is a nice place, but I think that more "pop-ups" for early players could be even better thing. Ylands is a very complex game and players are left there to find out what they can do. Which can be fun, but sometimes it's even annoying.
• I actually enjoy most of the animations. With nearly every update there are some new animations in the game. I play Ylands for almost a year now, and there are still many animations I haven't seen yet. Of course it's something that can be worked on in the future, but I can clearly see the progress that have been done already.  
• I can't judge this. Not with my old crashing computer. I have to play Ylands on lowest details and it still runs poorly. But so does the operating system.  That is going to change after Christmas (or I hope it will) so I will see all of the beauty in Ylands. 
• I'm not absolutely sure what do you mean. I really like the hotbar. I'm okay with inventory and crafting panels. Only thing I don't like now is the health bar. That's something I hope to see changed and improved one day. 

[Ane 1213]

Thanks so much for the great feedback to both of you! These are the kind of comments that help us improve

Fortunately the things you mention that need some love are things that are already in our "guys, we need to do something about this" list. We definitely want to make the way you progress in the crafting system more accessible and easier to grasp, as it's not very clear what and how you can craft right now (if you take a look at the amount of items available in the Creative mode, you can get an idea of how many items could be actually crafted). 

And welcome to the castaway ylanders family, Sjors Hamel! Looking forward to seeing your next creations  In the future we want players to be able to import their own assets to the game and share them with other ylanders, so that's where you could excel!

[Sjors Hamel 2]

Hi, 

 

Thanks for the kind response, I love the enthusiasm. I can't wait to get to learn the game better and create some really cool things in explore as well as in the creative mode.

Cheers!

[Khanecz 79]

Thanks for the feedback and kind words! The crafting system definitely needs a lot of work!