Hope you guys enjoy this video, even if it's not Half-Life/Source engine related lol. Next week will probably be something Half-Life related again. Be sure to watch until the end! :)
I honestly think Raft did great as a project. I feel like a lot of these suggestions would be better off suited for a sequel built from the ground up, such as making random island generations a must.
Yeah, him saying it failed is just completely false. For this size game, it has been incredibly successful. Not liking some aspects of the game has nothing to do with whether or not the game was a success or failure.
The random island generation could be dangerous because it could make islands impossible to get the treasure out of and have them be very long and annoying to get around.
@@connerelliott6040 I'd imagine the safer route with random island to make sure each island has a predictable base, but then has added pieces that are random but are configured in a way that wouldn't interfere with each other.
I kind of agree. I think the people at the final story location are fine, but I personally would‘ve removed every NPC seen before (the playable characters you unlock). Those could‘ve been replaced by like an image or something instead that you pick up, would’ve made a lot more sense as well
@@1lucia I remember watching Markiplier's series on. When they restarted the story like a year later, it was such whiplash finding those NPCs, since the emptiness of the locations seemed to be intentional for the vibe.
@@1lucia The only person I truly hate is Olof. Seriously, screw this guy. I do like that there are people, but they should have only been at the end. It seems fun learning about these characters by seeing their ghosts in the form of notes and the other things they left behind. Learn about Olof, follow the trail, and even have branching endings depending on if you get to the locked utopia residents in time or not.
As soon as I reached the game's ending, it immediately hit me that it was one of the most disappointing endings to anything that I have ever experienced. I had enjoyed myself so much before that ending... I also had no idea the new update retroactively added people to the previously added locations. That really sucks, I always thought the extended period of not finding anyone alive before the final chapter made it all the more exciting when you actually did find people. Especially since I'm pretty sure the first person I found after the final update was literally found in cryostasis, really hammering in the point that people were not easy to find.
@@marcosdheleno Never finished standed deep. I was fully onboard with the game until I was lost on what to do ad then found out that suddenly the game shifts from just trying to escape to having to go fight sea bosses to magically get the scametics for the plane parts. I knew the bosses were in the game I just had thought they were optional at first not a mandatory part of the story.
@@otterino1419 the worst part is, like i said the ending. its one of the worst endings i have ever seen in a game it completely kills any motivation to continue playing the game again.
@@marcosdheleno Yea while I havn't reached the ending I have seen it n it basically killed any slim interest I had in fighting bosses in a game that felt like a pretty good survival game up untill that point
The final update wasn't bad, it was just extraordinarily underwhelming when you consider how long it took and all the stuff we never got. There's no advanced bow, advanced cooking station, double-wide doors or windows and dozens of other things the community had always been asking for, but at least we got 20 different styles ot tables
i said this before, but they could also do what NMS did, and let the player designate a small island as "his base". and create a village in there. where npcs he found randomly in other small islands you could hire. there could be a cook who sells cooked food, a fisherman who deals with all things fish, hell, there could even be a shipwright that lets you park your raft and he lends you one of his own, that are custom built but non customizable. those rafts would work more as challenge runs, being good at one thing specifically but bad on everything else. like for example, this very fast raft that is tinny, or this armored one that is imune to damage, but is also very slow. one that auto collects and sorties trash and so on. you could even have npcs that use rafts of their own, to collect stuff for you. there could be a mayor who handle everything. and the best part is, while the npcs each would have their own stats, how good they are is determines what they can offer. for example a bad cooker could only offer slop, and worse versions of the food, but as they work on the island, that stat rises. up to the point where they can offer better versions of the same dish. for example the food that lets you stay underwater longer, the shitty version would have a more limited timer, while the better one would let you stay even longer.
Having more NPCs that you find, as well as the audio reading out every note, completely removes the loneliness from the game. And the attitudes that some of the characters have makes this flooded world not seem like a bad thing.
TLDR: The story before the final update was far better. Chapter 3 wasn't supposed to be the last update but was suddenly made it and was rushed out of production early with a half baked new story. Both the console port being fully canceled and that no more updates for the game are coming were confirmed within a discord call months ago when it was accidentally let slip. You missed the fact that the entire in game story got rewritten when the final chapter came out. The story before was far more bleak and darker, making you feel alone and isolated, seeing the long old ruins of places. All of that was replaced with a childish generic story, with a goof main villain now being the cause of everything. Originally the story of the Yacht was that the captain and his daughters along with the crew all fled with some people who rented the yacht. Once the food started running out some of the guys turned on the captain and took the daughters, 1 of the crew engineers saved one of the daughters and they fled together. After the boat crashed it is shown that the rest of the people slowly starved to death or were eaten by the Lurkers. Balboa used to have more of a story of the last survivor going insane and potentially killing someone. Caravan town originally was just about the plauge that came to the island, and Detto was the only one to escape with another man leaving his family behind to die, as his dad forced him to go. Detto later arrives at Tangoroa and the man he's with gets shot dead (later gets changed to rafters getting sprayed with hoses), Detto escapes and gets helped to hide by some engineers. The rest of Tangoroa's story went that a bug infestation killed all of their crops which they were already short on food. So the Captain had to ration the food more and start qwelling rebellion. When other people kept trying to arrive they would be shot if they do not turn away, as they could not feed them. The captain later gets all of the pets rounded up to save the people from having to kill their own pets and eat them as they begin running out of food. Eventually the captain locks himself and most of the crew into the control pod to save on food as they will all sacrifice themselves to allow the people in the city to survive a little bit longer. I found this original story far more engaging and interesting compared to what it was changed into, the captain was more of a Grey area villian. He had a hard job and had to make tough decisions but you can understand his point of view. Detto, an engineer, and a dog all escape from Tangoroa before everything goes down hill fully. I do wish you could use the different fish you sell to the trader and actually display them since they look so cool. Also a Tangoroa staff bot as a merchant would have been better than just a till. I thought the new characters were supposed to be on our rafts too, so I even made a room on my raft for the first one I met lol. Utopia seems very rushed, they have a lot of things there but it seems like they suddenly rushed it out especially compared to the other two islands. Which brings me to my interesting Fact. Chapter 3 wasn't supposed to be the final chapter, let slip in a discord call, chapter 3 was suddenly decided to be the last chapter along with the entire story re write to quickly wrap the game up. Originally the plan was for 5 chapters, but for some reason that I do not know they suddenly wrapped up production, made sudden rushed changes, to just finish the game and almost just wipe their hands of it. The console versions have been unofficially caned as that was also mentioned on call in discord, and there will not be any more updates for the game. The main thing they should do is do one last update to add better modding support allowing modders to create their own animals, islands, and stories way more easily. This, like with minecraft, will give far longer life into the game.
Yeah, the story now is some hot garbage. I remember when the final update hit, I was reading the patch notes and was excited to see that they re-wrote things to condense on the names used. The stories before were cool, but I found it hard to keep track of character names since it felt like each location had a tonne, and they rarely had characters in common if I recall. Except when I booted the game and looked back through all the notes, this new story was just awful. I just can't take Olaf seriously. On the Vasagatan he's struggling to keep people in line, they're dealing with food issues, and he finally discovers the lurkers. What's his response? Use them for a giant mutant rat army... What? He moves on, gets to Caravan Island and discovers the hyenas, and adds them to his army? Characters are often talking about food shortages, how is Olaf feeding this animal army? On to Utopia, and Olaf has imprisoned everyone because he wants to be in charge and they're ruining the things he invested in. So what's his game plan after imprisoning everyone? It's not even like some are locked up while others do important things like farming, literally everyone is locked up. I recall Olaf saying in one of his post-game lines that no one else will be able to make the hard decisions like he will, again seemingly in reference to food, and again ignoring the logistics of feeding his giant mutated animal army. He's 100% just a kid's cartoon villain, especially since after beating him you see there's actually a ridiculous abundance of food, so much that you can just take a backpack full of it for free. The whole Forward Scouts thing goes absolutely nowhere too. If I recall it's literally only mentioned twice in the game, once in the journal entry at the very start that you can immediately read, and then again a few times back to back at the end of the game. "You see, the weak are singled out. The strong remain. You Forward Scouts were the same." It feels like something that could have some payoff if the game hadn't forgotten they existed and that you're apparently one of them. It's very likely someone could hear that line from Olaf and ask, "wait who are the Forward Scouts?" The ending cutscene again mentions them like it's something the player is supposed to be emotionally invested in, instead of just confused as to what they are. Then there's the unlockable characters. I skipped through a lot of the early parts of this video on the history of the game, so maybe it was mentioned somewhere, but all four of them have absolutely zero plot relevance. No note or line of dialogue from any character mentions the unlockable characters at all, they're all just kind of there. Even if they were implemented as actual NPCs that would help on your raft, like mentioned in the video, it would still be jarring that the game world otherwise ignores their existence. With all that said, I still love Raft, and share a lot of sentiments from the video about its potential. Story is in no way required for me to enjoy a game, there's another game I love more with a story I hate more for example, but it is really nice when there is a good story.
I didn’t miss that fact I think, it was just a small note in the video (I‘m 90% sure at least… if not then I should’ve definitely mentioned it) You have a lot of real interesting information there! Damn what I wouldn’t do for there to be 5 instead of 3 chapters
I was about to comment about the pig's breakfast the story became as it's just completely rushed and dare I say preachy yet filled with bad decision making of the supposed good guys or non-existent Forward Scouts as a previous commenter said. As the player character WHO are we exactly? And what was the point of the Selene station again? But for me Utopia was the worst let down especially after encountering Tangaroa, all this time we basically got lied to about a floating city as we found 'Utopia' to be a mish mash of wooden contraptions and parkour more suited for the Jungle Boy than for a rafter. It makes zero sense as to why the Forward Scouts chose to settle there instead of one of the larger islands, along with letting the generic bellend bad guy (who whines about rafter people taking over his skyscrapers then trying to burn you alive on a WOODEN settlement, give a it rest Olaf, nothing's left of the world you plonker!) armed with a raging pack of hyenas on the settlement in the first place or why they didn't take off his bandolier when he's in the cage when caught (I personally would've put a bullet in his brain and left him for the sharks) or why they were over-run in the first place by one man...ehh I'll give that a pass due to the hyenas but it's a stretch.
I do recall the game originally being a lot more bleak and interesting, before suddenly become Disney goofy out of the blue. Talk about narrative whiplash.
50:50 addiitionally, have it so you can also recolonize story islands to introduce more progress. It would be cool to see abandoned islands become their own little hubs of civilization that encourage traveling between different story islands to complete quests. I would also be intrigued to have ways to encourage revisiting story islands for more than respawning loot, like for example, beating the main story and speaking to Olof can give you the ability to obtain mutagen to have your own animal army after you find a secret compartment on his ship, or picking up the "children" to return to their creator.
Later on in the video, you said that the old small islands that used to exist should be readded to add some variety. Even though they were probably removed because they were too difficult to traverse without building a dedicated ramp. However, I was thinking of the same thing when I finished Raft myself, and it would add a purpose to the "Go up and down ziplines" feature of the electric zipline tool. Re-add the old islands (Either before the final story island to build anticipation, or after to not get into the ramp trap) let the player hook onto a zipline post on the island, connect it to one on your raft, go right on up!
Is it even a bad thing to need to build 'docking' areas in your raft? That just seems cool to me, necessitating multiple levels on your raft as the island itself offers no way to get higher, but there's good loot up there.
thank you for the spoiler warning. i haven't finished the game yet, so i'll save this video to my "watch later" playlist and watch it when i ultimately finish. Took an extended hiatus from it after a bit of disappointment i had after reaching the radio tower and encountering Tala. from what she was saying, it sounded like she was going to join me on my raft, which i thought was great! i was getting a bit lonely on there. But then, rather then going to my raft, she just unlocked as a playable character. Been asking for a "Decorative NPC's" mod ever since, where the playable character models can be crafted and placed around the raft in idle stances and sits and such, unlocking with each character you unlock. That way i could put Tala in a chair next to the Receiver to make it look like she's monitoring the airwaves for me or something, when really she's just another prop. Then i could do something similar with Maya and all the other characters i unlock along the way, make a whole crew out of it. Sadly, no bites yet, and i don't know how to make a mod myself...
The ending cutscene just feels like it was originally meant to be the beginning for future chapters to continue the story- perhaps an arc trying to find a way to unflood the world or even a DLC that lets you experience the story from Olof's perspective or something.
@@1lucia Yea! Personally I havent played it but I hope that mod you mentioned in the video bringing more custom stuff to the game keeps it running. Maybe there'll even be a mod that adds a mod library for raft but idk how that would work. Probably something like Minecraft's library mods? Not sure.
@@crossoverworlds2678 I think it's only a matter of time until something like that will come, though it may be really hard to pull off. As stated in the video, future updates are not completely ruled out just yet. We might be getting something after the console port, but I'd say that's maybe a 20% chance at best.
this might be one of the best game analysis videos i’ve watched it was so neatly presented and while admittedly rushed at some points still holds up as a great video. Very underrated channel and earned my sub
its actually a little wild they created Utopia, a huge city that the "Ending" sets up as basically the cradle of the new ocean-based Civilization, and decided to just stop the game there. I mean, that literally could have been the start of part 2 of the game where you "Rebuild" Utopia, giving you reasons to seek out new supplies and build up the city through a series of quests or collections, watching it grow over time and expand. Would at least give the game an endgame, and Titanium weapons a real use. The Characters also feel super incomplete, which is a shame. Each one seems like it was designed to do a specific task or have some special traits and they were just left unfinished. I mean if they were worried about how NPCs would work on a Raft, could just give it Terraria rules where you have to build a "house" or room for each NPC to live in on your raft, so they always had a default location to go too, which I know isn't as easy as it sounds but I think it might have been a good starting point to making NPCs work on such a malleable concept as the Raft. Overall it felt like the game had just opened up with "The Final Chapter" and was abandoned. So many possible ideas just seemingly left to die. A real shame. As you said, it felt like Chapter 3 set the foundation for such a huge game ahead of itself, and nada.
I did my first play through when Chapter 1 came out, then came back years later for the full game. While I was very happy with the new islands and items, the thing that immediately disappointed me was the NPCs and trading. I remember the initial feeling of loneliness in the early version game, where it felt like you *just* missed the other people on each island. I was really hoping it would end with you finally finding people at the final location. Seeing an NPC at the first location totally took that feeling away. Instead of a huge empty ocean where you're struggling to find other people, you now just meet random people and they disappear. Doesn't make sense lore wise or gameplay wise.
Hear me out: The player character is going insane. This probably isn’t what the devs intended, but you can make the disappearing playable characters make sense by just saying your character is losing it from loneliness and making imaginary friends that "join them on the raft".
@@chesneywhite9334 Oh, sorry, by multiplayer I've meant PvP specifically. What Raft has is co-op, which is not enough to create a gaming community since you only ever play it with your friends.
49:26 I think it would be really cool if some story characters asked you to go retrieve things from previous story islands that they may have left there, like maybe detto left some important experiment notes in caravan town for his rocket that he needs you to get, which would give players a reason to revisit previous story locations and also let them know if they weren’t already aware that loot respawns on story islands. Maybe also add some small things to earlier story locations that only become accessible if you revisit them after unlocking something, like a zip line at the radio tower or things that require titanium tools or something. I think some reasons to revisit previous story locations could add a lot of reason to continue playing past the end of the game
What excellent timing. My mate and I beat this game extremely recently. We did actually continue on after Utopia… because we’re both blind and we missed the lady on the Tangaroa bridge, and had to go back for her. We never made much use of Titanium due to how rare it was, we only saw a big island once so couldn’t use the trader, and we absolutely hated some of the puzzles like the Tangaroa crane, Utopia stacking boxes and the sodding Screechers. This game is a great start. But it’s over.
On a metagame level, it reminds me alot of minecraft. Essentially both of them had an orginal classic game mode that was quite repetitive and "low" in content but also extremely addictive. The world was just yourself and the enviroment only (plus irl friends). Then once updates came in, it got less lonier with new biomes and abandoned structures that fleshed out the world, making you wonder what exactly led to your pseudo-apocalyptic survival world. Then, they added more and more stuff through updates allowing you to automate systems that you painstakingly worked through earlier. Then the Npc joined the world making you feel not so alone in a once cold world.
I think the most unentertaining part about raft is that there isn't really a threat while you're on the raft. Sharks come to bite 1 tile and are easily fended off, and can only attack you while in the water. Birds also sometimes show up to eat your food, but can be scared of and don't harm you. It's a survival game where not much really threatens your survival.
This was great! I played a bit of this a long time ago and was wondering what was going on with it. It was interesting to hear a deep dive from a guy with experience.
I personally gave up on Raft by the time I reached Varuna Point. I just didn't like the idea of having these silly "boss fights" in a sandbox-style game, I don't like them in Minecraft either. It was a fun game up until that, but this game's mechanics just do not translate well into these "epic sweeping boss fights" the devs tried to cram in.
I've never played Raft and this is the first video I've seen on the game. When you talked about freeing the people of Utopia, I thought the next logical step would be base/city management. Just like how you improved and decorated your raft, you could d the same to expand the city. New npcs could roll in on their rafts and you would have to gather resources to build housing. Rafters could come in with new/rare materials or tell you about unique islands. You could have key npcs either join you on your boat or leave them behind to improve Utopia in your absence - you could come back to find new farms, refineries, etc. There'd also be the choice of: do you want to deck out your raft for the adventure and stock up on supplies or do you want to take a more minimalist structure and leave your good loot behind? (the npcs can generate better drops with that).
My group and I never quite got another high on par with unlocking the engine and steering wheel. By the time we got to the end, we were VERY ready to be done. General consensus was that the game still felt like early access.
I think Raft achieved what it set out to do. It was never meant to be some sort of large scale survival game. I would have liked it to be more than it is, but I'm not unhappy with what I got. I just enjoy the relaxing gameplay loop, adding too many survival elements would interfere with this. I guess my primary complaint is that you get all the cool stuff at the very end, when it's useless. I would've liked these titanium tools earlier on in the game.
Nice. I have Raft and I always play with my older cousin. We just finished the story mode and are focusing to completely upgrade our raft. (We need a lot of titanium) I really recommend this game as it brings a lot of fun and laughter! Also, I dont care if its not popular. It will always be my favourite game.
The Story update was the worst thing they could have done. The final island which is just a jumping puzzle maze with a dude throwing dynamite at you and a mutated hyena-human hybrid took the cake. I also particulary didnt like the voice acting. A combination of the thick accents (wich sound indian for some reason, despite the actors being Swedish and British) of the voice actors and way too quietly pitched audio made the already nonsensical story nearly incomprehensible.
I was really enjoying Raft with friends to be honest, but the subtle ending and the fact that the most powerful tools of the game were only awarded AFTER the games finale was completed left me expecting more.
Not trying to be a party pooper, but I completely understand the developers coming right out and saying they're done with development for this game. New development costs money, and if new development is not bringing in money then the studio is essentially burning resources for no reason. Some companies absolutely do this. Klei with Don't Starve Together is probably the premier example, YEARS of completely free updates with small optional DLC new playable characters (which can also still be unlock free to play as well). But for other companies, they might prefer to invest their resources into a new project. This isn't a bad thing. If you love Raft, you will likely love whatever new game they produce next as well. They might not be announcing anything because they're not far enough in development or whatever but the studio IS CLEARLY still active. Sometimes patience is the best measure of progress.
Ok reached 11:15 and as someone who played the game quite extensively, building even a raft that equals to a small boat by now by very german standards: Seagulls do NOT attack your crops if there is a roof above. Unless you only place a roof above it and no walls around the thing, making it count as indoors. I had my crops sit there sometimes for several weeks cause I had so much food to eat while the seagulls did not touch it once. There is also a good strategy to account for if you get annoyed by them. Which is: Place the nest far away from your working area. They will forever sit in it and never bother you again. Seagulls are... very easy to handle and not a rafters worst nightmare. They are if you let them be your worst nightmare and dont know how to handle them.
0:21 "Australia completely covered in water" where i live in Australia there is not enough ice on earth to melt to raise the sea to me, all the ice on earth would need to melt over 3 times to reach me, i am over a kilometer above sea level, so i think they are wrong!
Act 3 was just weird, and having the platforming was strange given that it wasn't part of the game until the Balboa poison area. My wife loves the early game, and tends to play until Balboa Island, then starts over.
I beat Raft in Co-op and the way I played the game was basically as someone who was homesick. Like everyone else in that world, I wanted a safe haven. I built a house on the raft I could go into when it rained and I could sleep through the big waves. So imagine my disappointment when we finished Utopia and you don't get to be a part of it yourself! Think about it: Your 'job' as a forward scout is to find what's left of the world, and Utopia is basically what you've been going for this whole time. And along the journey, you've gathered knowledge about a variety of different skills that could all be incredibly useful to the people of Utopia. Then you save them from Olof. And...you get fruit as a reward. Imagine if instead, they gave you a house in Utopia. The plot 'works' as an extension of your raft; you can transfer your chests, machinery, farms, etc. on to the plot and you can basically stay there forever. You would talk to a certain NPC who would store away your actual raft until you needed it again. And since there are other people around, you don't lose your stuff if you get incapacitated. Plus, seagulls don't attack anymore because there are too many people. AND you get to help advance Utopia's society (through quests as Lucia recommends, or otherwise). It would have been the perfect accomplishment of your hard work up to that point, and fits precisely into the survival genre. At the start you were scrounging around anything you could, and at the end you are part of a thriving society and your goal is to boost the prosperity even further. Who knows from there? Maybe Utopia would start receiving trading ships you can work with, or get involved in raids with rival cities. The possibilites would be endless.
"You're a man haunted by those two most terrible words: What if?" - Time Machine (2001) I suspect developers would not touch this game anymore - they are sick and tired of developing same old game for several years. Though unlike most of sandboxes turned trashfests - this one is at least complete to an extent. Planet explorers, starforge, blockscape and dozen more - aren't. And if we venture away from sandboxes - there are ton of other games which were barely finished. Nobody will finish this game, but you. If you have the drive - you can pursue it.
I agree very much, there is a modding scene out there as well. It's just not a game built with modding support in mind at all, so modding is pretty hard to do. If it was a little more accessible like Stardew Valley for example, this video probably wouldn't have been made
The problem with Raft is that it focused on the wrong aspect of its genre. People don't play survival-crafting games for the story, and putting so much emphasis on it caused the game to have a definitive ending with no endgame content apart from further customizing your raft or farming achievements. Survival-crafting games are at their core nothing more than progression games, and this is where the satisfaction of playing them lies. The most successful survival-crafting games are ones that feature relatively simple linear progression at first and then branch out into a ton of (optional) systems while simultaneously allowing for a large degree of creativity. This allows the player to choose what system they want to interact with or progress in based on their own judgement. Player agency is widely considered to be a good thing, and despite being an 'open world' game with building mechanics Raft just really doesn't have much of it. Its a largely on-rails linear experience with a building system that just doesn't have enough options to promote lasting creativity. I don't personally feel adding more islands is going increase retention by much unless those islands feature new (side/optional) progression mechanics or a large number of significant new customization options. Players need a reason to explore, and just seeing a variation on something you've already seen likely isn't enough to keep people interested.
Honestly i understand why they stopped developing the game. Remember the game early access released in 2018, 5 years ago. The developers probably couldn’t justify spending more time developing a game that had probably already reached its peak in popularity. It’s disappointing but I’m happy with the experience I had with my buddy going through it.
"Here is a big 30 kilo stone coming down on my head out of the sky.. I better stand directly under it and not move so I make sure it does the job efficiently."
Loved the video! Don't be afraid to branch out more with your content. I may have subscribed to you for your half-life content but watching videos like this is very nice too.
I reached the critique of the bigger storage and I must say that so far I am following along with you and yea it makes sense even some small parts are here and there I disagree with. But the bigger storage, despite having less than 4 chests if you build right, is also done for the sake of simplicity rather than having just more space. I mean, its great you can have more by building effecient. But... not every person plays that way. So this isnt really a critique, its your opinion on what works better. And Ill be honest, as someone who loves to play effecient: I am not wasting my time to get 12 chests pixelperfect next to each other, only to need to go through 6 to find the one that still got some wood left in. Maybe the locker is less effecient but it serves its purpose well enough. "Simplicity at its finest" - Sun Tzu probably
Amazing video, the narrative is very well done and it feels like you really poured your soul into it! I'm really surprised the video only has 60k views, I was expecting at least a million (especially considering how popular Raft was).
While the title may be an exaggeration, yeah it had way more potential that simply wasn't tapped into. The lack of communication is the same problem for Scrap Mechanic which is also published by Axolot. Great video though.
Raft be like "You need the only wrench in the world to open this door. Yes you can create a FUNCTIONING RADAR out of scrap metal and spit, but a hunk of metal to pry open stuff with is too much."
Haven't watched all of the video yet but to be honest raft is one of the games for me that i wish i could wipe my memory about and play again, because the amount of excitement when me and my sister awaited another new lore island was unmatched for me. Also I'm happy we started playing before Raft was a finished games because I don't love the npc's they shoved into some oryginal locations. Personally I loved the eerie feeling of being completely alone, I wished to see some npc's at some point and it fitted nicely, because for me it was at the only two remaining lore locations that I got to see them at my first playthrough. I liked to wonder what's the complete story, like where are those people now and all, but in the end it wasn't nearly as satisfying as I hoped.
WRITING THIS BEFORE WATCHING THE VIDEO: As a Raft veteran, I feel that the addition of survivors and the massive story change made it feel so much less... hopeless, and less fun to explore. The game felt more linear, like you were being pushed in a specific path to do specific things. The change of islands to be massive puzzles didn't help either, and took away massively from the survival aspect of the game. Sure, adding the weird markets onto large islands always felt out of place, especially when you consider how well Tangaroa handled currency. Utopia was the biggest letdown in the game for me, because I lost that sense of power and control over the seas. because there was someone else there too.
YES, this is exactly my thoughts yet it seems many wanted the opposite, more NPCs, questlines, larger islands, etc. I liked the isolated feeling similar to Minecraft 1.7 beta and wanted way less of a linear feeling storyline experience, I love coming back to the game but I wish I could progress/get blueprints a different way than going through the stories as I love the main gameplay loop and wish that was expanded upon instead of having story islands that are meant to take you out of that loop
"building a roof over crops doesn't help" If you put yer crops in a room with a door and walls then the gulls will leave them alone. I played co-op with a friend through the whole game and I built our farm inside a palm leaf walled/roofed room and the gulls never bothered all of our plants inside it with the doors closed.
It's weird, I've played the latest update a ton and there's still a bunch of tech i somehow didn't discover, like the wind turbine or advanced batteries
Admittedly the title scared me a little lol, but I agree with 99% of what you said in this video and really appreciate how much time you've dedicated to this game despite its many (*many*) shortcomings. I love Raft and always will, and I suppose there's something to say about how much excitement there really is early game and to see the story unfold even though it never reached its full potential--and, sadly, likely never will. If nothing else, it serves as a great example of a game that lost its passion. This video showcases that really well; thank you for making it!!
I think it'd be more interesting to make a post-game of actually participating in the rebuilding of humanity. Make bases on islands that people move into, take your deep-diving and expand it to be a hunt for key tech items, etc.
Raft felt like they were maybe building up to something then they just said screw it and finished the game in... i dont wanna fall it half assed but compared to how things were feeling prior it feels half assed. Just like it was trying to quickly get you through the story for an ending that just says "good job you did it". And the final island just feeling stupid. Guy just decides he wants to be leader and comically locks everyone togehter in one building and makes an obatacle course for some reason? It feels a lot better when youre just alone and finding notes trying to piece together a story on what happened. The story they gave us is just boring, and a bit silly when things felt at least a little grounded before.
Raft is a great idea, that stowly stayed just that. A weak idea. The execution wasn't bad, but wasn't great enough to cement its place in the hall of indie masterpieces
I love how the original title was "the worst game you probably played", which was pretty bold considering I've never even heard of it prior to this video popping up in my recommended.
after you mentioned Tala (the first NPC) i wondered why tf they even included this "feature". If they're just going to be playable characters, why not have it be a journal entry or personal item or something? but it does make sense if they were meant to do more and just got half-cut during development.
my best memory in this game was stealing all of our groups wood to make a tower reaching into the sky and creating a sanctuary for seagulls up there, which then proceded to decimate our crops and plunge us into an era of famine. When they came to destroy the tower, it collapsing split our raft in 2.
I loved every step of the development, i enjoyed playing it with friends and I'm sad to see it probably never getting a sequel or update. I always remember the funny moments while playing the game. I miss the times where i would wait for the next chapter, if only it went on for a bit longer
i remember trying out this game a bit ago (i think a few months before the full release) and ended up refunding it since i didn't find it very fun. but one thing that's stuck with me is the fact that the bucket of rocks isn't reusable. Why couldn't you get the bucket back, or keep the little platform and craft a new bucket at a cheaper price? It felt like a bit of an oversight to me (especially since it was kinda expensive).
I only got as far as the bear islands. I like raft but I felt like the endless cycle of gathering resources at identical islands was too boring for me to continue. I really did enjoy it at first but it took me and my friends a long time to figure out how to even build anything and by the time we did have a raft that could travel against the wind I already looted hundreds of metals and thousands of wood plastic and leafs. and probably killed 50 sharks. It was fun but the same shark over and over was just not the kind of stimulating gameplay that I want out of a game. It was sooo relaxing to fish in this game while waiting for the sail to take us to an island. also I gotta add the ending confused me so much. the whole game I was wondering who is this my character, why is he on a raft and how did he get here. but then the story just explains that olaf is a bad man who is evil and we stopped him. but that was an answer to a question I never had. It barely makes an effort to explain it's own world then when it declares that everyone is a forward scout I wondered to myself "what the hell is a forward scout? how did I get into the middle of the ocean on a plank of wood? I wasn't born on that thing." also the story's tone is stupid. 7 billion humans including children drowned in the waters and this game wants to play with an army of rats. There's glaring questions of where is everyone? surely people didn't just wait to die, they should have made rafts or moved to high ground but there's only caravan town. every single island in the game should look like caravan town. even if you packed two thousand skeletons on each island you'd still have Billions of missing people. The game just doesn't really make any sense once you start seriously pursuing the story.
I just wanted to thank you for having large built-in subtitles!! Ik they're probably a lot of work to edit in but they make following along to such a long video really easy for me, someone who's got auditory processing issues.
I remember being super invested in the game up until Varuna Point, in which the game basically became "I'm finishing this because I want to finally finish raft". Don't get me wrong, it was still fun but it did not feel as exciting as it did before that. I had 6 engines, a net system that collected every single piece of flotsam and a nearly fully-reinforced raft which completely prevented the shark from attacking me, so as you said it was just a rush to finish the game. Temperance was a surprise and an EXCELLENT island which did keep me hopeful but Utopia felt a little bit lackluster. I wish the game was expanded upon a tiny bit before Utopia because even just 1-3 more story islands could've made this game so much better, and also given more time to use all the different mechanics. I don't think I tamed a single animal or used cooking/the juicer at all because there was no need, and I finished the game not long after trying them out! Slowly increasing the difficulty as you progress could also help alot with this not feeling like a survival game, as once you progress a couple hours it becomes way too easy. Great analysis, didn't feel like 55 minutes!! Although that does mean I have just stayed up pretty late because I was really invested in this video lol. Nice work!
I always though tangaroa and utopia should have been switched. I thoroughly enjoyed the floating city more than any other island and wished it was the end instead of what we got. But yeah I agree with the video, I've put 80hrs into Raft and I've loved my time in it but after finishing your raft and story there just isn't any reason to continue. It's a shame really because I'll sometimes boot up the game just to float around and listen to the chill music but I don't find myself wanting to "do" anything because well...I have everything.
I once complained about The apparent Lack of a fullscreen Option in the Game itself in the game's discord, only to be Met by passive-aggressive Responses about Windows keybinds that supposedly everyone knew about, and how supposedly Most Games didn't have this Feature either.
I must say the Raft Discord seems pretty shit. Lots of unfriendly members there sadly. Everytime I have asked something in there it was met by passive aggresiveness as well. Also you can't have a number as the first letter of your name in their discord for some reason, which is incredibly weird.
@@1luciathis Kind of culture makes me think that the reason raft didn't achieve all it's Potential is because the core Community is hostile to criticism, leaving the devs with an echochamber that tells Them everything is great and there's No flaws
@@enderkatze6129 Could be actually. Everytime I have visited the Raft discord there was absolutely no discussion about all the weak points of Raft. It was actually never even relevant to Raft at all for that matter. Each time someone asked a question about Raft someone would just respond with some bot command, as they have seemingly got a bot to answer every single question people ask about Raft, which is easy I guess but also leads to the people asking feeling real bad I think. Like "yeah let me give you this automated answer you dumbass 1000 people have already asked this" lol
@@1lucia it's the exact Same Problem that 7dtd seems have been suffering For a goddamn decade now. Difference is that it's probably never gonna reach 1.0 at this rate.
oh my god THANK YOU, i was such a big fan of raft before playing chapter three but now it's really hard to go back to knowing how much of a slog chapter 3 is
The way you pronounce Vasagatan is amusing to me! It's Swedish for Vasa Street, a real street in Stockholm (and many other Swedish cities). Thanks for the video, I stopped playing after the radio tower when it was the end of the game and never installed it again.
Great video, knew absolutely nothing about this game and am now tempted to buy it, haha. Thank you for adding the captions too, as someone who has trouble processing audio they were very helpful :)
Sup mate, you showed up in my Recommended after an Act Man video, I'm 12 minutes in and I'm very much vibing with your pacing and your way of presenting information, well done!
One of the best games i have ever played, by far. However... its quite short. There should be WAY more content (4-6x the amount) and there should be workshop support. This game is a case that even modders cant save. There should also be support for modders to make custom storylines (islands, items, enemies, waypoints, etc). Then, and only then, there would be a chance to save this game.
Amazing video, as someone who's played hundreds of hours on raft it was interesting to see your take on the islands we all know and love. Really appreciated this, you did great Lucia. I do agree the game ended what felt like pre-emptively which was disappointing. After a few play throughs I got bored with Raft and haven't played since, but watching your video brought back some fond memories of playing Rafts story for the first time. Keep making great videos!
Other than the story getting screwed because of the Chapter 3 that added a story Re-Write, one thing that annoyed me is the lack of update news, both on Steam and Discord. What I mean is not demanding an update to be released every now and then, but atleast have some news that tell people what they're doing. These can be weekly, monthly or bi-monthly posts. Chapter 1 to Chapter 2 took 2 and half years, with patches in-between, but any news about Chapter 2? Not many. We got around 3 or 4 posts about the Chapter update progress, which would basically equivalence to one post every 6-8 months. I remember one person talking in the Discord, being annoyed that people called the game dead. Thats what happens if you release sporadic patch updates and no news about the new chapter. Chapter 2 to 3 got even worse, which also had around nore than 2 years of development, but even less posts about the progress, around two or three. Which would equivalence to 1 post per year. While people knew the game wasn't abandoned, saying "Nah, we're still working on it bro" isn't going to work these days. My guess why they rushed Chapter 3? Ptobably a mix of issues. Budget and people breathing down their neck, which the second one could have easily been avoided, if the team managed their community properly and not just ignore them and remember that they exist once a year.
I heard from a comment that after Chapter 3's release, the Developers went on to state in a Discord call that originally 5 chapters were planned. (Of course, this is about as alleged as it gets really). It does seem like they got rushed by their publisher or something to just finish the game up to work on something else. Honestly a HUGE shame. I wish they would've just done it using a paid format, similar to how Payday 2 did it. I know of course that Payday 2 does get hate for its DLC format, but I actually think it's one of the more fair ones out there, and especially with how it told a story. All the Payday 2 Heist DLC's would tell a bit more about the general story, and they were rather cheap for what they offered in most cases. Raft could've done this as well. Release a chapter worth of maps in a ~5-10$ DLC, add a bit to the story each time, and then similar to how Payday 2 did it, end the whole thing by doing a free update that concludes the story (Utopia in the case of Raft). It could've become a pillar in the gaming community, with everyone hyped each time an update is announced. While I respect them sticking to their word of "No DLC", at some point you might be better off changing your mind, as that is the only way I could see them realistically become said pillar in the gaming community. Time obviously can't be reverted, but I still often think about the failures of Raft.
@@1lucia While I can see what you mean, DLC for a Raft Chapter would be too little for what you'd pay. I can see that more similar to what Legend of Zelda did, a single payment with the first dlc update, and second one coming afterwards, and comes with the price you paid for the first DLC. The reason I'm saying this is because of the content you get each Chapter. It's not much. Each Chapter released didn't add much and only becomes DLC-Worthy if you combine both together. Then you have enough content to actually sell it as a DLC. Same would be for Chapter 4 and 5. You would pay once a get both Chapters, instead of paying twice, one for each chapter. You could sell one chapter for a price but that would mean having to add so much content, it might as well be two chapters in one.
I think the criticism of the gameplay was a bit too easy on the game. Raft definitely is a story game that tries to act like a survival game, because when I tried to play Raft like a sandbox survival game I REALLY did not have a good time. I had been to the radio tower and Vasagatan, but tried to take a break from the story islands and focus on my raft, and getting baited into trying to make a small raft that looked good and was self sufficient was probably the single worst thing the fancy showcase rafts on the main menu could've done to me. Using solid wood instead of the regular wood pieces makes the pre-mid-game extremely tedious and grindy. And at that point where your raft is just barely not self-sufficient yet, there can be a lot to lose through death or a critical portion of your raft getting destroyed. And even on normal difficulties Raft is surprisingly punishing for it's generally calm and laid-back atmosphere. Every hit on a boar resets its animations, so the game punishes you for trying to spear it more than once per charge, and the boars are very difficult to escape from. I feel you covered the annoyances with the Screecher very well too, metal arrows are very expensive to keep in stock. One of the more baffling design choices of Raft to me is that chests and raft pieces don't drop any items or salvage if the supporting structure is destroyed. This doesn't matter much early on if the shark happens to bite out a foundation holding just a water purifier or a plastic chest of your goodies, but just while I was remodeling my raft in that pre-mid-game I mistakenly removed a half wall I didn't realize was supporting a piece of flooring behind it which two of a table's legs stood on, so that table decided two out of two legs on the ground wasn't enough and dusted itself, which also thanos'd the half of my storage chests that contained ALL of my ore, bars, enemy loot, food, and other non-basic crafting materials. My soul was so crushed that when I found out I couldn't even use debug commands to give myself back just about every material I'd grinded for in my playthrough, I ended up posting a very long rant of a Steam review on how tedious and unfun my experience ended up being, and uninstalled the game since no updates meant there's no real hope that the combination of issues that ruined the fun for would ever get fixed.
Side note, seeing the Steam notification that someone put the "Jester" community 'award' on my review pretty much ensured I wouldn't be coming back to Raft. I can just see the rest of the story by watching one of 1,000 let's players rush the story islands, and if I want to build a nice looking boat/raft, I guess I'll just wait for some other game to come along that doesn't turn everything you own to dust for knocking down the wrong wall. 7 Days to Die is by no means a great game, but at least it gets that if you have the physics for supporting blocks, the blocks themselves drop as debris and containers drop their loot in item bags.
When I played the beta, years back, I thought this game was about living off of the massive garbage pile in the Pacific. For those who don't know, I believe since the 1970s or so, a continent size floating garbage pile circles about in the middle of the Pacific. This pile reaches several feet deep, and is stable enough to support exploration on top of it. Unique species continue to emerge as the ocean tries to deal with this massive new mass. There are teams which work around the clock to deal with this mess, but there is not a clear solution to it.
Great video and takes, especially the suggestions about islands! Chapters would be awesome on a longer format video like this, but otherwise, thanks for making this!
First video ive ever seen from you, i thoroughly enjoyed. If this isnt your usual content, and you enjoyed making this style content, please keep it up. Ill be on the lookout for more from your channel
Hope you guys enjoy this video, even if it's not Half-Life/Source engine related lol. Next week will probably be something Half-Life related again.
Be sure to watch until the end! :)
I'd love more content like this :)
That's okay with us! your style of analyzing games and mods is the best. In the future you should do a minecraft video.
Curently Raft is a masterpiece from axolotl games but Scrap Mechanics didn't got that lucky treatment
I loved it have 200 hours and its great fun though played it mostly in 2018-19
1:30, NO, do let them.
I'm honestly surprised raft doesn't have workshop support to begin with, felt like it would've been something perfect for a sandbox game like this
What would you upload tho
@@patrlim Sex?
@@patrlimRafts, tool mods, new items, animals, biomes. You name it.
mods lol@@patrlim
yes it really needs workshop support. there are so many thngs that i would love to have in the game but will never be added
I honestly think Raft did great as a project. I feel like a lot of these suggestions would be better off suited for a sequel built from the ground up, such as making random island generations a must.
Yeah, him saying it failed is just completely false. For this size game, it has been incredibly successful. Not liking some aspects of the game has nothing to do with whether or not the game was a success or failure.
The random island generation could be dangerous because it could make islands impossible to get the treasure out of and have them be very long and annoying to get around.
@@connerelliott6040 I'd imagine the safer route with random island to make sure each island has a predictable base, but then has added pieces that are random but are configured in a way that wouldn't interfere with each other.
@@connerelliott6040 There are algorithms that avoid these issues, like wave function collapse.
i hate that they added actual people. One of my favorite parts of the game was the loneliness
I kind of agree. I think the people at the final story location are fine, but I personally would‘ve removed every NPC seen before (the playable characters you unlock). Those could‘ve been replaced by like an image or something instead that you pick up, would’ve made a lot more sense as well
i agree with this times a thousand
minecraft moment
@@1lucia I remember watching Markiplier's series on. When they restarted the story like a year later, it was such whiplash finding those NPCs, since the emptiness of the locations seemed to be intentional for the vibe.
@@1lucia The only person I truly hate is Olof. Seriously, screw this guy. I do like that there are people, but they should have only been at the end. It seems fun learning about these characters by seeing their ghosts in the form of notes and the other things they left behind. Learn about Olof, follow the trail, and even have branching endings depending on if you get to the locked utopia residents in time or not.
As soon as I reached the game's ending, it immediately hit me that it was one of the most disappointing endings to anything that I have ever experienced. I had enjoyed myself so much before that ending...
I also had no idea the new update retroactively added people to the previously added locations. That really sucks, I always thought the extended period of not finding anyone alive before the final chapter made it all the more exciting when you actually did find people. Especially since I'm pretty sure the first person I found after the final update was literally found in cryostasis, really hammering in the point that people were not easy to find.
hey, could be worse, it could end like stranded deep. which has THE WORST ending in gaming...
@@marcosdheleno Never finished standed deep. I was fully onboard with the game until I was lost on what to do ad then found out that suddenly the game shifts from just trying to escape to having to go fight sea bosses to magically get the scametics for the plane parts. I knew the bosses were in the game I just had thought they were optional at first not a mandatory part of the story.
@@otterino1419 the worst part is, like i said the ending. its one of the worst endings i have ever seen in a game
it completely kills any motivation to continue playing the game again.
@@marcosdheleno Yea while I havn't reached the ending I have seen it n it basically killed any slim interest I had in fighting bosses in a game that felt like a pretty good survival game up untill that point
@@marcosdheleno What is the ending, and why is it so bad?
I couldn't agree more with most of these points. Raft is a great game, but it had so much more potential
Highly appreciate your comment! Love your videos and you were definitely an inspiration for this video! :)
dawg if it is a "great game" it cant be "the worst pame youve played". and from a financial and exposial point of view raft is a complete success
Nobody said that it's the worst game they've played. What are you on about..?@@keepsanity9613
The final update wasn't bad, it was just extraordinarily underwhelming when you consider how long it took and all the stuff we never got. There's no advanced bow, advanced cooking station, double-wide doors or windows and dozens of other things the community had always been asking for, but at least we got 20 different styles ot tables
imagine having to rescue people and bring them to utopia, that or just making your own raft a somewhat self sufficient village
i said this before, but they could also do what NMS did, and let the player designate a small island as "his base". and create a village in there. where npcs he found randomly in other small islands you could hire. there could be a cook who sells cooked food, a fisherman who deals with all things fish, hell, there could even be a shipwright that lets you park your raft and he lends you one of his own, that are custom built but non customizable.
those rafts would work more as challenge runs, being good at one thing specifically but bad on everything else. like for example, this very fast raft that is tinny, or this armored one that is imune to damage, but is also very slow. one that auto collects and sorties trash and so on.
you could even have npcs that use rafts of their own, to collect stuff for you. there could be a mayor who handle everything.
and the best part is, while the npcs each would have their own stats, how good they are is determines what they can offer. for example a bad cooker could only offer slop, and worse versions of the food, but as they work on the island, that stat rises. up to the point where they can offer better versions of the same dish. for example the food that lets you stay underwater longer, the shitty version would have a more limited timer, while the better one would let you stay even longer.
Having more NPCs that you find, as well as the audio reading out every note, completely removes the loneliness from the game. And the attitudes that some of the characters have makes this flooded world not seem like a bad thing.
I believe the audio comes from a tape recorder, and it's great for QOL, but I do get your point
Procedurally generated minor islands would add SO much content to the game.
doubt
I don't think this would work in this game unfortunately
unity would explode@@Tas_Ydrokolios
@@Lou-yf1jo Unity can handle procedural generation just fine.
No.@@daedalus6433
TLDR: The story before the final update was far better. Chapter 3 wasn't supposed to be the last update but was suddenly made it and was rushed out of production early with a half baked new story. Both the console port being fully canceled and that no more updates for the game are coming were confirmed within a discord call months ago when it was accidentally let slip.
You missed the fact that the entire in game story got rewritten when the final chapter came out. The story before was far more bleak and darker, making you feel alone and isolated, seeing the long old ruins of places. All of that was replaced with a childish generic story, with a goof main villain now being the cause of everything.
Originally the story of the Yacht was that the captain and his daughters along with the crew all fled with some people who rented the yacht. Once the food started running out some of the guys turned on the captain and took the daughters, 1 of the crew engineers saved one of the daughters and they fled together. After the boat crashed it is shown that the rest of the people slowly starved to death or were eaten by the Lurkers.
Balboa used to have more of a story of the last survivor going insane and potentially killing someone.
Caravan town originally was just about the plauge that came to the island, and Detto was the only one to escape with another man leaving his family behind to die, as his dad forced him to go.
Detto later arrives at Tangoroa and the man he's with gets shot dead (later gets changed to rafters getting sprayed with hoses), Detto escapes and gets helped to hide by some engineers.
The rest of Tangoroa's story went that a bug infestation killed all of their crops which they were already short on food. So the Captain had to ration the food more and start qwelling rebellion. When other people kept trying to arrive they would be shot if they do not turn away, as they could not feed them. The captain later gets all of the pets rounded up to save the people from having to kill their own pets and eat them as they begin running out of food. Eventually the captain locks himself and most of the crew into the control pod to save on food as they will all sacrifice themselves to allow the people in the city to survive a little bit longer. I found this original story far more engaging and interesting compared to what it was changed into, the captain was more of a Grey area villian. He had a hard job and had to make tough decisions but you can understand his point of view. Detto, an engineer, and a dog all escape from Tangoroa before everything goes down hill fully.
I do wish you could use the different fish you sell to the trader and actually display them since they look so cool. Also a Tangoroa staff bot as a merchant would have been better than just a till.
I thought the new characters were supposed to be on our rafts too, so I even made a room on my raft for the first one I met lol.
Utopia seems very rushed, they have a lot of things there but it seems like they suddenly rushed it out especially compared to the other two islands. Which brings me to my interesting Fact. Chapter 3 wasn't supposed to be the final chapter, let slip in a discord call, chapter 3 was suddenly decided to be the last chapter along with the entire story re write to quickly wrap the game up.
Originally the plan was for 5 chapters, but for some reason that I do not know they suddenly wrapped up production, made sudden rushed changes, to just finish the game and almost just wipe their hands of it. The console versions have been unofficially caned as that was also mentioned on call in discord, and there will not be any more updates for the game.
The main thing they should do is do one last update to add better modding support allowing modders to create their own animals, islands, and stories way more easily. This, like with minecraft, will give far longer life into the game.
Yeah, the story now is some hot garbage. I remember when the final update hit, I was reading the patch notes and was excited to see that they re-wrote things to condense on the names used. The stories before were cool, but I found it hard to keep track of character names since it felt like each location had a tonne, and they rarely had characters in common if I recall. Except when I booted the game and looked back through all the notes, this new story was just awful.
I just can't take Olaf seriously. On the Vasagatan he's struggling to keep people in line, they're dealing with food issues, and he finally discovers the lurkers. What's his response? Use them for a giant mutant rat army... What? He moves on, gets to Caravan Island and discovers the hyenas, and adds them to his army? Characters are often talking about food shortages, how is Olaf feeding this animal army?
On to Utopia, and Olaf has imprisoned everyone because he wants to be in charge and they're ruining the things he invested in. So what's his game plan after imprisoning everyone? It's not even like some are locked up while others do important things like farming, literally everyone is locked up. I recall Olaf saying in one of his post-game lines that no one else will be able to make the hard decisions like he will, again seemingly in reference to food, and again ignoring the logistics of feeding his giant mutated animal army. He's 100% just a kid's cartoon villain, especially since after beating him you see there's actually a ridiculous abundance of food, so much that you can just take a backpack full of it for free.
The whole Forward Scouts thing goes absolutely nowhere too. If I recall it's literally only mentioned twice in the game, once in the journal entry at the very start that you can immediately read, and then again a few times back to back at the end of the game. "You see, the weak are singled out. The strong remain. You Forward Scouts were the same." It feels like something that could have some payoff if the game hadn't forgotten they existed and that you're apparently one of them. It's very likely someone could hear that line from Olaf and ask, "wait who are the Forward Scouts?" The ending cutscene again mentions them like it's something the player is supposed to be emotionally invested in, instead of just confused as to what they are.
Then there's the unlockable characters. I skipped through a lot of the early parts of this video on the history of the game, so maybe it was mentioned somewhere, but all four of them have absolutely zero plot relevance. No note or line of dialogue from any character mentions the unlockable characters at all, they're all just kind of there. Even if they were implemented as actual NPCs that would help on your raft, like mentioned in the video, it would still be jarring that the game world otherwise ignores their existence.
With all that said, I still love Raft, and share a lot of sentiments from the video about its potential. Story is in no way required for me to enjoy a game, there's another game I love more with a story I hate more for example, but it is really nice when there is a good story.
I didn’t miss that fact I think, it was just a small note in the video (I‘m 90% sure at least… if not then I should’ve definitely mentioned it)
You have a lot of real interesting information there! Damn what I wouldn’t do for there to be 5 instead of 3 chapters
This made me cry
I was about to comment about the pig's breakfast the story became as it's just completely rushed and dare I say preachy yet filled with bad decision making of the supposed good guys or non-existent Forward Scouts as a previous commenter said. As the player character WHO are we exactly? And what was the point of the Selene station again?
But for me Utopia was the worst let down especially after encountering Tangaroa, all this time we basically got lied to about a floating city as we found 'Utopia' to be a mish mash of wooden contraptions and parkour more suited for the Jungle Boy than for a rafter. It makes zero sense as to why the Forward Scouts chose to settle there instead of one of the larger islands, along with letting the generic bellend bad guy (who whines about rafter people taking over his skyscrapers then trying to burn you alive on a WOODEN settlement, give a it rest Olaf, nothing's left of the world you plonker!) armed with a raging pack of hyenas on the settlement in the first place or why they didn't take off his bandolier when he's in the cage when caught (I personally would've put a bullet in his brain and left him for the sharks) or why they were over-run in the first place by one man...ehh I'll give that a pass due to the hyenas but it's a stretch.
I do recall the game originally being a lot more bleak and interesting, before suddenly become Disney goofy out of the blue.
Talk about narrative whiplash.
50:50 addiitionally, have it so you can also recolonize story islands to introduce more progress. It would be cool to see abandoned islands become their own little hubs of civilization that encourage traveling between different story islands to complete quests. I would also be intrigued to have ways to encourage revisiting story islands for more than respawning loot, like for example, beating the main story and speaking to Olof can give you the ability to obtain mutagen to have your own animal army after you find a secret compartment on his ship, or picking up the "children" to return to their creator.
That concept is there in a cute mobile game I like, albeit in a very stripped down format. The game is called "the burnable garbage day".
Later on in the video, you said that the old small islands that used to exist should be readded to add some variety. Even though they were probably removed because they were too difficult to traverse without building a dedicated ramp. However, I was thinking of the same thing when I finished Raft myself, and it would add a purpose to the "Go up and down ziplines" feature of the electric zipline tool.
Re-add the old islands (Either before the final story island to build anticipation, or after to not get into the ramp trap) let the player hook onto a zipline post on the island, connect it to one on your raft, go right on up!
oh my god, i remember you from the zipcode! its been at least 3 years so i doubt you remember me but i was just really surprised to see you again!
Is it even a bad thing to need to build 'docking' areas in your raft?
That just seems cool to me, necessitating multiple levels on your raft as the island itself offers no way to get higher, but there's good loot up there.
thank you for the spoiler warning. i haven't finished the game yet, so i'll save this video to my "watch later" playlist and watch it when i ultimately finish.
Took an extended hiatus from it after a bit of disappointment i had after reaching the radio tower and encountering Tala. from what she was saying, it sounded like she was going to join me on my raft, which i thought was great! i was getting a bit lonely on there. But then, rather then going to my raft, she just unlocked as a playable character.
Been asking for a "Decorative NPC's" mod ever since, where the playable character models can be crafted and placed around the raft in idle stances and sits and such, unlocking with each character you unlock. That way i could put Tala in a chair next to the Receiver to make it look like she's monitoring the airwaves for me or something, when really she's just another prop. Then i could do something similar with Maya and all the other characters i unlock along the way, make a whole crew out of it.
Sadly, no bites yet, and i don't know how to make a mod myself...
The ending cutscene just feels like it was originally meant to be the beginning for future chapters to continue the story- perhaps an arc trying to find a way to unflood the world or even a DLC that lets you experience the story from Olof's perspective or something.
Yea, as I mentioned DLC would be great. I'm more than ready to pay for more content of Raft!
@@1lucia Yea! Personally I havent played it but I hope that mod you mentioned in the video bringing more custom stuff to the game keeps it running. Maybe there'll even be a mod that adds a mod library for raft but idk how that would work.
Probably something like Minecraft's library mods? Not sure.
@@crossoverworlds2678 I think it's only a matter of time until something like that will come, though it may be really hard to pull off. As stated in the video, future updates are not completely ruled out just yet. We might be getting something after the console port, but I'd say that's maybe a 20% chance at best.
Adding people NPCs is one of the most bewildering moves I have ever seen in gaming history.
love how Olof is just sitting in prison with sticks of TNT strapped to him still
this might be one of the best game analysis videos i’ve watched it was so neatly presented and while admittedly rushed at some points still holds up as a great video. Very underrated channel and earned my sub
its actually a little wild they created Utopia, a huge city that the "Ending" sets up as basically the cradle of the new ocean-based Civilization, and decided to just stop the game there. I mean, that literally could have been the start of part 2 of the game where you "Rebuild" Utopia, giving you reasons to seek out new supplies and build up the city through a series of quests or collections, watching it grow over time and expand.
Would at least give the game an endgame, and Titanium weapons a real use.
The Characters also feel super incomplete, which is a shame. Each one seems like it was designed to do a specific task or have some special traits and they were just left unfinished. I mean if they were worried about how NPCs would work on a Raft, could just give it Terraria rules where you have to build a "house" or room for each NPC to live in on your raft, so they always had a default location to go too, which I know isn't as easy as it sounds but I think it might have been a good starting point to making NPCs work on such a malleable concept as the Raft.
Overall it felt like the game had just opened up with "The Final Chapter" and was abandoned. So many possible ideas just seemingly left to die. A real shame. As you said, it felt like Chapter 3 set the foundation for such a huge game ahead of itself, and nada.
I did my first play through when Chapter 1 came out, then came back years later for the full game. While I was very happy with the new islands and items, the thing that immediately disappointed me was the NPCs and trading. I remember the initial feeling of loneliness in the early version game, where it felt like you *just* missed the other people on each island. I was really hoping it would end with you finally finding people at the final location. Seeing an NPC at the first location totally took that feeling away. Instead of a huge empty ocean where you're struggling to find other people, you now just meet random people and they disappear. Doesn't make sense lore wise or gameplay wise.
Hear me out: The player character is going insane. This probably isn’t what the devs intended, but you can make the disappearing playable characters make sense by just saying your character is losing it from loneliness and making imaginary friends that "join them on the raft".
If only a tf2 community was in raft, we could truely get infinite content.
and then skibidi raft in a decade
Captain! Poofis *Schadenfraude*
@@snake_eater1963konata jumpscare
Raft literally DOES have a multiplayer though???@@hlibushok
@@chesneywhite9334 Oh, sorry, by multiplayer I've meant PvP specifically. What Raft has is co-op, which is not enough to create a gaming community since you only ever play it with your friends.
If feel like the build up to the games full release was one of the best parts of it
49:26 I think it would be really cool if some story characters asked you to go retrieve things from previous story islands that they may have left there, like maybe detto left some important experiment notes in caravan town for his rocket that he needs you to get, which would give players a reason to revisit previous story locations and also let them know if they weren’t already aware that loot respawns on story islands. Maybe also add some small things to earlier story locations that only become accessible if you revisit them after unlocking something, like a zip line at the radio tower or things that require titanium tools or something. I think some reasons to revisit previous story locations could add a lot of reason to continue playing past the end of the game
loot respawns on story islands??
@@eva1585 yes!! If you go far enough and return, non-boss animals and most loot respawns
@@semisemicoloncolon : O
What excellent timing. My mate and I beat this game extremely recently.
We did actually continue on after Utopia… because we’re both blind and we missed the lady on the Tangaroa bridge, and had to go back for her. We never made much use of Titanium due to how rare it was, we only saw a big island once so couldn’t use the trader, and we absolutely hated some of the puzzles like the Tangaroa crane, Utopia stacking boxes and the sodding Screechers.
This game is a great start. But it’s over.
_fires pistol_ And their of- And that's the end of the race folks!
This video was really well done, it did not feel long at all.
Thank you! I appreciate it! :)
On a metagame level, it reminds me alot of minecraft. Essentially both of them had an orginal classic game mode that was quite repetitive and "low" in content but also extremely addictive. The world was just yourself and the enviroment only (plus irl friends).
Then once updates came in, it got less lonier with new biomes and abandoned structures that fleshed out the world, making you wonder what exactly led to your pseudo-apocalyptic survival world.
Then, they added more and more stuff through updates allowing you to automate systems that you painstakingly worked through earlier. Then the Npc joined the world making you feel not so alone in a once cold world.
I think the most unentertaining part about raft is that there isn't really a threat while you're on the raft. Sharks come to bite 1 tile and are easily fended off, and can only attack you while in the water. Birds also sometimes show up to eat your food, but can be scared of and don't harm you. It's a survival game where not much really threatens your survival.
This was great! I played a bit of this a long time ago and was wondering what was going on with it. It was interesting to hear a deep dive from a guy with experience.
I personally gave up on Raft by the time I reached Varuna Point. I just didn't like the idea of having these silly "boss fights" in a sandbox-style game, I don't like them in Minecraft either. It was a fun game up until that, but this game's mechanics just do not translate well into these "epic sweeping boss fights" the devs tried to cram in.
Big props for your captioning! Much appreciated!
(Also... "it is = it's", "its = possessive"!)
Geese Approved
I am glad the geese approves
what
@@clovekslovensky5901respect the geese
A geese approval is a good approval like a box approval
praise the geese gods
I've never played Raft and this is the first video I've seen on the game.
When you talked about freeing the people of Utopia, I thought the next logical step would be base/city management.
Just like how you improved and decorated your raft, you could d the same to expand the city. New npcs could roll in on their rafts and you would have to gather resources to build housing. Rafters could come in with new/rare materials or tell you about unique islands.
You could have key npcs either join you on your boat or leave them behind to improve Utopia in your absence - you could come back to find new farms, refineries, etc. There'd also be the choice of: do you want to deck out your raft for the adventure and stock up on supplies or do you want to take a more minimalist structure and leave your good loot behind? (the npcs can generate better drops with that).
My group and I never quite got another high on par with unlocking the engine and steering wheel. By the time we got to the end, we were VERY ready to be done. General consensus was that the game still felt like early access.
I think Raft achieved what it set out to do. It was never meant to be some sort of large scale survival game. I would have liked it to be more than it is, but I'm not unhappy with what I got. I just enjoy the relaxing gameplay loop, adding too many survival elements would interfere with this.
I guess my primary complaint is that you get all the cool stuff at the very end, when it's useless. I would've liked these titanium tools earlier on in the game.
"Raft: the final chapter"
"Terraria 1.4: Journey's *end*"
Nice. I have Raft and I always play with my older cousin. We just finished the story mode and are focusing to completely upgrade our raft. (We need a lot of titanium) I really recommend this game as it brings a lot of fun and laughter! Also, I dont care if its not popular. It will always be my favourite game.
The Story update was the worst thing they could have done.
The final island which is just a jumping puzzle maze with a dude throwing dynamite at you and a mutated hyena-human hybrid took the cake.
I also particulary didnt like the voice acting. A combination of the thick accents (wich sound indian for some reason, despite the actors being Swedish and British) of the voice actors and way too quietly pitched audio made the already nonsensical story nearly incomprehensible.
I was really enjoying Raft with friends to be honest, but the subtle ending and the fact that the most powerful tools of the game were only awarded AFTER the games finale was completed left me expecting more.
Not trying to be a party pooper, but I completely understand the developers coming right out and saying they're done with development for this game. New development costs money, and if new development is not bringing in money then the studio is essentially burning resources for no reason. Some companies absolutely do this. Klei with Don't Starve Together is probably the premier example, YEARS of completely free updates with small optional DLC new playable characters (which can also still be unlock free to play as well). But for other companies, they might prefer to invest their resources into a new project.
This isn't a bad thing. If you love Raft, you will likely love whatever new game they produce next as well. They might not be announcing anything because they're not far enough in development or whatever but the studio IS CLEARLY still active. Sometimes patience is the best measure of progress.
Ok reached 11:15 and as someone who played the game quite extensively, building even a raft that equals to a small boat by now by very german standards: Seagulls do NOT attack your crops if there is a roof above. Unless you only place a roof above it and no walls around the thing, making it count as indoors. I had my crops sit there sometimes for several weeks cause I had so much food to eat while the seagulls did not touch it once.
There is also a good strategy to account for if you get annoyed by them. Which is: Place the nest far away from your working area. They will forever sit in it and never bother you again. Seagulls are... very easy to handle and not a rafters worst nightmare. They are if you let them be your worst nightmare and dont know how to handle them.
0:21 "Australia completely covered in water" where i live in Australia there is not enough ice on earth to melt to raise the sea to me, all the ice on earth would need to melt over 3 times to reach me, i am over a kilometer above sea level, so i think they are wrong!
Act 3 was just weird, and having the platforming was strange given that it wasn't part of the game until the Balboa poison area. My wife loves the early game, and tends to play until Balboa Island, then starts over.
I beat Raft in Co-op and the way I played the game was basically as someone who was homesick. Like everyone else in that world, I wanted a safe haven. I built a house on the raft I could go into when it rained and I could sleep through the big waves. So imagine my disappointment when we finished Utopia and you don't get to be a part of it yourself! Think about it: Your 'job' as a forward scout is to find what's left of the world, and Utopia is basically what you've been going for this whole time. And along the journey, you've gathered knowledge about a variety of different skills that could all be incredibly useful to the people of Utopia. Then you save them from Olof. And...you get fruit as a reward.
Imagine if instead, they gave you a house in Utopia. The plot 'works' as an extension of your raft; you can transfer your chests, machinery, farms, etc. on to the plot and you can basically stay there forever. You would talk to a certain NPC who would store away your actual raft until you needed it again. And since there are other people around, you don't lose your stuff if you get incapacitated. Plus, seagulls don't attack anymore because there are too many people. AND you get to help advance Utopia's society (through quests as Lucia recommends, or otherwise). It would have been the perfect accomplishment of your hard work up to that point, and fits precisely into the survival genre. At the start you were scrounging around anything you could, and at the end you are part of a thriving society and your goal is to boost the prosperity even further.
Who knows from there? Maybe Utopia would start receiving trading ships you can work with, or get involved in raids with rival cities. The possibilites would be endless.
"You're a man haunted by those two most terrible words: What if?" - Time Machine (2001)
I suspect developers would not touch this game anymore - they are sick and tired of developing same old game for several years. Though unlike most of sandboxes turned trashfests - this one is at least complete to an extent. Planet explorers, starforge, blockscape and dozen more - aren't.
And if we venture away from sandboxes - there are ton of other games which were barely finished. Nobody will finish this game, but you. If you have the drive - you can pursue it.
I agree very much, there is a modding scene out there as well. It's just not a game built with modding support in mind at all, so modding is pretty hard to do. If it was a little more accessible like Stardew Valley for example, this video probably wouldn't have been made
@@1lucia You can always get deeper into it. ILSpy provides decent starting point. C# code injection is not that hard.
The problem with Raft is that it focused on the wrong aspect of its genre. People don't play survival-crafting games for the story, and putting so much emphasis on it caused the game to have a definitive ending with no endgame content apart from further customizing your raft or farming achievements. Survival-crafting games are at their core nothing more than progression games, and this is where the satisfaction of playing them lies. The most successful survival-crafting games are ones that feature relatively simple linear progression at first and then branch out into a ton of (optional) systems while simultaneously allowing for a large degree of creativity. This allows the player to choose what system they want to interact with or progress in based on their own judgement. Player agency is widely considered to be a good thing, and despite being an 'open world' game with building mechanics Raft just really doesn't have much of it. Its a largely on-rails linear experience with a building system that just doesn't have enough options to promote lasting creativity. I don't personally feel adding more islands is going increase retention by much unless those islands feature new (side/optional) progression mechanics or a large number of significant new customization options. Players need a reason to explore, and just seeing a variation on something you've already seen likely isn't enough to keep people interested.
Honestly i understand why they stopped developing the game. Remember the game early access released in 2018, 5 years ago. The developers probably couldn’t justify spending more time developing a game that had probably already reached its peak in popularity. It’s disappointing but I’m happy with the experience I had with my buddy going through it.
Releasing on console would have created a new peak Imo tho
0:20 _"From CLIMATE CHANGE to evil corporations, the game features everything a good story needs"._
K bye. lol
"Here is a big 30 kilo stone coming down on my head out of the sky.. I better stand directly under it and not move so I make sure it does the job efficiently."
How to fix Raft:
Step 1: Give creative control to an actually competent game development studio.
Thank you for reading my guide.
Loved the video! Don't be afraid to branch out more with your content. I may have subscribed to you for your half-life content but watching videos like this is very nice too.
very true
I reached the critique of the bigger storage and I must say that so far I am following along with you and yea it makes sense even some small parts are here and there I disagree with. But the bigger storage, despite having less than 4 chests if you build right, is also done for the sake of simplicity rather than having just more space. I mean, its great you can have more by building effecient. But... not every person plays that way. So this isnt really a critique, its your opinion on what works better. And Ill be honest, as someone who loves to play effecient: I am not wasting my time to get 12 chests pixelperfect next to each other, only to need to go through 6 to find the one that still got some wood left in. Maybe the locker is less effecient but it serves its purpose well enough.
"Simplicity at its finest"
- Sun Tzu probably
Amazing video, the narrative is very well done and it feels like you really poured your soul into it! I'm really surprised the video only has 60k views, I was expecting at least a million (especially considering how popular Raft was).
While the title may be an exaggeration, yeah it had way more potential that simply wasn't tapped into. The lack of communication is the same problem for Scrap Mechanic which is also published by Axolot. Great video though.
Raft be like "You need the only wrench in the world to open this door. Yes you can create a FUNCTIONING RADAR out of scrap metal and spit, but a hunk of metal to pry open stuff with is too much."
Haven't watched all of the video yet but to be honest raft is one of the games for me that i wish i could wipe my memory about and play again, because the amount of excitement when me and my sister awaited another new lore island was unmatched for me. Also I'm happy we started playing before Raft was a finished games because I don't love the npc's they shoved into some oryginal locations. Personally I loved the eerie feeling of being completely alone, I wished to see some npc's at some point and it fitted nicely, because for me it was at the only two remaining lore locations that I got to see them at my first playthrough. I liked to wonder what's the complete story, like where are those people now and all, but in the end it wasn't nearly as satisfying as I hoped.
To be honest we‘re in the exact same boat (or rather raft) here. I think you‘ll agree with the video overall
Yeah I finished it and I think I agree with everything. Great video
WRITING THIS BEFORE WATCHING THE VIDEO:
As a Raft veteran, I feel that the addition of survivors and the massive story change made it feel so much less... hopeless, and less fun to explore. The game felt more linear, like you were being pushed in a specific path to do specific things. The change of islands to be massive puzzles didn't help either, and took away massively from the survival aspect of the game. Sure, adding the weird markets onto large islands always felt out of place, especially when you consider how well Tangaroa handled currency.
Utopia was the biggest letdown in the game for me, because I lost that sense of power and control over the seas. because there was someone else there too.
YES, this is exactly my thoughts yet it seems many wanted the opposite, more NPCs, questlines, larger islands, etc. I liked the isolated feeling similar to Minecraft 1.7 beta and wanted way less of a linear feeling storyline experience, I love coming back to the game but I wish I could progress/get blueprints a different way than going through the stories as I love the main gameplay loop and wish that was expanded upon instead of having story islands that are meant to take you out of that loop
"building a roof over crops doesn't help"
If you put yer crops in a room with a door and walls then the gulls will leave them alone.
I played co-op with a friend through the whole game and I built our farm inside a palm leaf walled/roofed room and the gulls never bothered all of our plants inside it with the doors closed.
It's weird, I've played the latest update a ton and there's still a bunch of tech i somehow didn't discover, like the wind turbine or advanced batteries
Admittedly the title scared me a little lol, but I agree with 99% of what you said in this video and really appreciate how much time you've dedicated to this game despite its many (*many*) shortcomings. I love Raft and always will, and I suppose there's something to say about how much excitement there really is early game and to see the story unfold even though it never reached its full potential--and, sadly, likely never will. If nothing else, it serves as a great example of a game that lost its passion. This video showcases that really well; thank you for making it!!
I think it'd be more interesting to make a post-game of actually participating in the rebuilding of humanity.
Make bases on islands that people move into, take your deep-diving and expand it to be a hunt for key tech items, etc.
Raft felt like they were maybe building up to something then they just said screw it and finished the game in... i dont wanna fall it half assed but compared to how things were feeling prior it feels half assed. Just like it was trying to quickly get you through the story for an ending that just says "good job you did it".
And the final island just feeling stupid. Guy just decides he wants to be leader and comically locks everyone togehter in one building and makes an obatacle course for some reason?
It feels a lot better when youre just alone and finding notes trying to piece together a story on what happened. The story they gave us is just boring, and a bit silly when things felt at least a little grounded before.
Raft is a great idea, that stowly stayed just that. A weak idea. The execution wasn't bad, but wasn't great enough to cement its place in the hall of indie masterpieces
I love how the original title was "the worst game you probably played", which was pretty bold considering I've never even heard of it prior to this video popping up in my recommended.
>Sees island
>goes on island and leaves ship
>island disappears because the raft is the central point of rendering
>refunds and buys Halo mcc on sale
after you mentioned Tala (the first NPC) i wondered why tf they even included this "feature". If they're just going to be playable characters, why not have it be a journal entry or personal item or something?
but it does make sense if they were meant to do more and just got half-cut during development.
45:20 that could be a problem with the publisher, Axolot games, cause they too really have a problem with communication
I could hardly call this game the worst game I've played.
my best memory in this game was stealing all of our groups wood to make a tower reaching into the sky and creating a sanctuary for seagulls up there, which then proceded to decimate our crops and plunge us into an era of famine. When they came to destroy the tower, it collapsing split our raft in 2.
Your score system is pure torture. I will never accept half points in a five point system. Use a 10 point system and divide by 3, man.
Crazy seeing how far Raft came, I never played past the Alpha in 2016 and had no clue it popped off like this!
I loved every step of the development, i enjoyed playing it with friends and I'm sad to see it probably never getting a sequel or update. I always remember the funny moments while playing the game. I miss the times where i would wait for the next chapter, if only it went on for a bit longer
i remember trying out this game a bit ago (i think a few months before the full release) and ended up refunding it since i didn't find it very fun.
but one thing that's stuck with me is the fact that the bucket of rocks isn't reusable. Why couldn't you get the bucket back, or keep the little platform and craft a new bucket at a cheaper price? It felt like a bit of an oversight to me (especially since it was kinda expensive).
Nice to see you expand into other games for content creation!
i remember this being youtuber bait back in like the 2010s
I only got as far as the bear islands. I like raft but I felt like the endless cycle of gathering resources at identical islands was too boring for me to continue. I really did enjoy it at first but it took me and my friends a long time to figure out how to even build anything and by the time we did have a raft that could travel against the wind I already looted hundreds of metals and thousands of wood plastic and leafs. and probably killed 50 sharks. It was fun but the same shark over and over was just not the kind of stimulating gameplay that I want out of a game. It was sooo relaxing to fish in this game while waiting for the sail to take us to an island.
also I gotta add the ending confused me so much. the whole game I was wondering who is this my character, why is he on a raft and how did he get here. but then the story just explains that olaf is a bad man who is evil and we stopped him. but that was an answer to a question I never had. It barely makes an effort to explain it's own world then when it declares that everyone is a forward scout I wondered to myself "what the hell is a forward scout? how did I get into the middle of the ocean on a plank of wood? I wasn't born on that thing." also the story's tone is stupid. 7 billion humans including children drowned in the waters and this game wants to play with an army of rats. There's glaring questions of where is everyone? surely people didn't just wait to die, they should have made rafts or moved to high ground but there's only caravan town. every single island in the game should look like caravan town. even if you packed two thousand skeletons on each island you'd still have Billions of missing people. The game just doesn't really make any sense once you start seriously pursuing the story.
I just wanted to thank you for having large built-in subtitles!! Ik they're probably a lot of work to edit in but they make following along to such a long video really easy for me, someone who's got auditory processing issues.
I remember being super invested in the game up until Varuna Point, in which the game basically became "I'm finishing this because I want to finally finish raft". Don't get me wrong, it was still fun but it did not feel as exciting as it did before that. I had 6 engines, a net system that collected every single piece of flotsam and a nearly fully-reinforced raft which completely prevented the shark from attacking me, so as you said it was just a rush to finish the game. Temperance was a surprise and an EXCELLENT island which did keep me hopeful but Utopia felt a little bit lackluster. I wish the game was expanded upon a tiny bit before Utopia because even just 1-3 more story islands could've made this game so much better, and also given more time to use all the different mechanics. I don't think I tamed a single animal or used cooking/the juicer at all because there was no need, and I finished the game not long after trying them out! Slowly increasing the difficulty as you progress could also help alot with this not feeling like a survival game, as once you progress a couple hours it becomes way too easy.
Great analysis, didn't feel like 55 minutes!! Although that does mean I have just stayed up pretty late because I was really invested in this video lol. Nice work!
The story falls on it's face hard.
This video was amazing and entertaining. The way you talked about it made me want to install it again with a friend
thanks for josh to testing if there is a limit to anything in this game..
I always though tangaroa and utopia should have been switched. I thoroughly enjoyed the floating city more than any other island and wished it was the end instead of what we got. But yeah I agree with the video, I've put 80hrs into Raft and I've loved my time in it but after finishing your raft and story there just isn't any reason to continue. It's a shame really because I'll sometimes boot up the game just to float around and listen to the chill music but I don't find myself wanting to "do" anything because well...I have everything.
Raft is a good game but yeah there was a lot of missed out potential
thanks for doing subtitles for an hour long video
I once complained about The apparent Lack of a fullscreen Option in the Game itself in the game's discord, only to be Met by passive-aggressive Responses about Windows keybinds that supposedly everyone knew about, and how supposedly Most Games didn't have this Feature either.
I must say the Raft Discord seems pretty shit. Lots of unfriendly members there sadly. Everytime I have asked something in there it was met by passive aggresiveness as well. Also you can't have a number as the first letter of your name in their discord for some reason, which is incredibly weird.
@@1luciathis Kind of culture makes me think that the reason raft didn't achieve all it's Potential is because the core Community is hostile to criticism, leaving the devs with an echochamber that tells Them everything is great and there's No flaws
@@enderkatze6129 Could be actually. Everytime I have visited the Raft discord there was absolutely no discussion about all the weak points of Raft. It was actually never even relevant to Raft at all for that matter. Each time someone asked a question about Raft someone would just respond with some bot command, as they have seemingly got a bot to answer every single question people ask about Raft, which is easy I guess but also leads to the people asking feeling real bad I think. Like "yeah let me give you this automated answer you dumbass 1000 people have already asked this" lol
@@1lucia it's the exact Same Problem that 7dtd seems have been suffering For a goddamn decade now. Difference is that it's probably never gonna reach 1.0 at this rate.
oh my god THANK YOU, i was such a big fan of raft before playing chapter three but now it's really hard to go back to knowing how much of a slog chapter 3 is
The way you pronounce Vasagatan is amusing to me! It's Swedish for Vasa Street, a real street in Stockholm (and many other Swedish cities). Thanks for the video, I stopped playing after the radio tower when it was the end of the game and never installed it again.
Great video, knew absolutely nothing about this game and am now tempted to buy it, haha. Thank you for adding the captions too, as someone who has trouble processing audio they were very helpful :)
Sup mate, you showed up in my Recommended after an Act Man video, I'm 12 minutes in and I'm very much vibing with your pacing and your way of presenting information, well done!
One of the best games i have ever played, by far. However... its quite short. There should be WAY more content (4-6x the amount) and there should be workshop support. This game is a case that even modders cant save. There should also be support for modders to make custom storylines (islands, items, enemies, waypoints, etc). Then, and only then, there would be a chance to save this game.
Amazing video, as someone who's played hundreds of hours on raft it was interesting to see your take on the islands we all know and love. Really appreciated this, you did great Lucia. I do agree the game ended what felt like pre-emptively which was disappointing. After a few play throughs I got bored with Raft and haven't played since, but watching your video brought back some fond memories of playing Rafts story for the first time. Keep making great videos!
I wouldve loved to survive massive storms on a raft that we have to keep repaired and built well enough to survive nature
Other than the story getting screwed because of the Chapter 3 that added a story Re-Write, one thing that annoyed me is the lack of update news, both on Steam and Discord.
What I mean is not demanding an update to be released every now and then, but atleast have some news that tell people what they're doing. These can be weekly, monthly or bi-monthly posts. Chapter 1 to Chapter 2 took 2 and half years, with patches in-between, but any news about Chapter 2? Not many. We got around 3 or 4 posts about the Chapter update progress, which would basically equivalence to one post every 6-8 months.
I remember one person talking in the Discord, being annoyed that people called the game dead. Thats what happens if you release sporadic patch updates and no news about the new chapter.
Chapter 2 to 3 got even worse, which also had around nore than 2 years of development, but even less posts about the progress, around two or three. Which would equivalence to 1 post per year.
While people knew the game wasn't abandoned, saying "Nah, we're still working on it bro" isn't going to work these days. My guess why they rushed Chapter 3? Ptobably a mix of issues. Budget and people breathing down their neck, which the second one could have easily been avoided, if the team managed their community properly and not just ignore them and remember that they exist once a year.
I heard from a comment that after Chapter 3's release, the Developers went on to state in a Discord call that originally 5 chapters were planned. (Of course, this is about as alleged as it gets really). It does seem like they got rushed by their publisher or something to just finish the game up to work on something else. Honestly a HUGE shame. I wish they would've just done it using a paid format, similar to how Payday 2 did it. I know of course that Payday 2 does get hate for its DLC format, but I actually think it's one of the more fair ones out there, and especially with how it told a story.
All the Payday 2 Heist DLC's would tell a bit more about the general story, and they were rather cheap for what they offered in most cases. Raft could've done this as well. Release a chapter worth of maps in a ~5-10$ DLC, add a bit to the story each time, and then similar to how Payday 2 did it, end the whole thing by doing a free update that concludes the story (Utopia in the case of Raft).
It could've become a pillar in the gaming community, with everyone hyped each time an update is announced. While I respect them sticking to their word of "No DLC", at some point you might be better off changing your mind, as that is the only way I could see them realistically become said pillar in the gaming community. Time obviously can't be reverted, but I still often think about the failures of Raft.
@@1lucia While I can see what you mean, DLC for a Raft Chapter would be too little for what you'd pay. I can see that more similar to what Legend of Zelda did, a single payment with the first dlc update, and second one coming afterwards, and comes with the price you paid for the first DLC.
The reason I'm saying this is because of the content you get each Chapter. It's not much. Each Chapter released didn't add much and only becomes DLC-Worthy if you combine both together. Then you have enough content to actually sell it as a DLC. Same would be for Chapter 4 and 5. You would pay once a get both Chapters, instead of paying twice, one for each chapter. You could sell one chapter for a price but that would mean having to add so much content, it might as well be two chapters in one.
I think the criticism of the gameplay was a bit too easy on the game. Raft definitely is a story game that tries to act like a survival game, because when I tried to play Raft like a sandbox survival game I REALLY did not have a good time. I had been to the radio tower and Vasagatan, but tried to take a break from the story islands and focus on my raft, and getting baited into trying to make a small raft that looked good and was self sufficient was probably the single worst thing the fancy showcase rafts on the main menu could've done to me. Using solid wood instead of the regular wood pieces makes the pre-mid-game extremely tedious and grindy. And at that point where your raft is just barely not self-sufficient yet, there can be a lot to lose through death or a critical portion of your raft getting destroyed. And even on normal difficulties Raft is surprisingly punishing for it's generally calm and laid-back atmosphere. Every hit on a boar resets its animations, so the game punishes you for trying to spear it more than once per charge, and the boars are very difficult to escape from. I feel you covered the annoyances with the Screecher very well too, metal arrows are very expensive to keep in stock. One of the more baffling design choices of Raft to me is that chests and raft pieces don't drop any items or salvage if the supporting structure is destroyed. This doesn't matter much early on if the shark happens to bite out a foundation holding just a water purifier or a plastic chest of your goodies, but just while I was remodeling my raft in that pre-mid-game I mistakenly removed a half wall I didn't realize was supporting a piece of flooring behind it which two of a table's legs stood on, so that table decided two out of two legs on the ground wasn't enough and dusted itself, which also thanos'd the half of my storage chests that contained ALL of my ore, bars, enemy loot, food, and other non-basic crafting materials. My soul was so crushed that when I found out I couldn't even use debug commands to give myself back just about every material I'd grinded for in my playthrough, I ended up posting a very long rant of a Steam review on how tedious and unfun my experience ended up being, and uninstalled the game since no updates meant there's no real hope that the combination of issues that ruined the fun for would ever get fixed.
Side note, seeing the Steam notification that someone put the "Jester" community 'award' on my review pretty much ensured I wouldn't be coming back to Raft. I can just see the rest of the story by watching one of 1,000 let's players rush the story islands, and if I want to build a nice looking boat/raft, I guess I'll just wait for some other game to come along that doesn't turn everything you own to dust for knocking down the wrong wall. 7 Days to Die is by no means a great game, but at least it gets that if you have the physics for supporting blocks, the blocks themselves drop as debris and containers drop their loot in item bags.
You can protect your crops by putting them inside a room and they are quite easy to stack, making the food issue just trivial
the rule is 2 roof pcs over a crop 2 protect 1/2 post x 2 then 2 floor pcs one above the other will work. I like to farm seagulls. Why not.
A pity that this project was abandoned. It had so much potential.
When I played the beta, years back, I thought this game was about living off of the massive garbage pile in the Pacific.
For those who don't know, I believe since the 1970s or so, a continent size floating garbage pile circles about in the middle of the Pacific. This pile reaches several feet deep, and is stable enough to support exploration on top of it. Unique species continue to emerge as the ocean tries to deal with this massive new mass. There are teams which work around the clock to deal with this mess, but there is not a clear solution to it.
Great video and takes, especially the suggestions about islands! Chapters would be awesome on a longer format video like this, but otherwise, thanks for making this!
First video ive ever seen from you, i thoroughly enjoyed. If this isnt your usual content, and you enjoyed making this style content, please keep it up. Ill be on the lookout for more from your channel
how does this only have 6.5k views???? This is criminally underated
Idk why I love watching passioned videos of games I'll never be able to play.. This was a great one, thankyou! 💖