Misery is a game you'd typically play by yourself or with 1-3 other friends. And it did that well, Until this most recent update.
I loved it for my time playing, I always find myself restarting the game to enjoy the earliest shinings the most, because their enviroments are nice to look at, easy to navigate, and are much more enjoyable than later ones.
1-5 shinings is forests, 5-10 is swamps, 10-15 is a city, 15-25 is a megafactory (good luck, nothing spawns here), and 25+ is a nuclear bunker (just be ready or the runs fried)
On aug. 13 they pushed out a update adding a new area, and fundamentally breaking another half of the game, and reworking majority of it until the early game was insufferable.
Before the megafactory update, the best way to gain money was to get a shotgun from the hunter, and hunt deer, and farm your own bread- makes sense, right? you're selling necessities which go for a high price, deer skin is also used in the most essential crafting recipe in the game, the sewing kit. You don't find ready-to-wear vests or gas masks often, and need to repair them with a sewing kit. Sounds reasonable, right?
Well... Now deer don't even drop a deer skin 25% of the time, Infact- You're more likely to get a deer to drop 2 of it's own heads, or 1 piece of venison, before getting a deer skin. (Keep in mind, before this update, it was preset, 1 head, 1 skin, 2 venison, reasonable, rational, and enjoyable). And now their heads don't sell for nearly as much, from 50 roubles for a intact head, now 17. A decent backpack fetches 200+ roubles.
Now, the farming is where my second quarrel, You find seeds randomly around, as well as being able to make them with the chemistry table, They take two ways to grow, Feces (which drops from you every so often, like ARK,) or ash, which you gain from burning objects and garbage in the furnace. One object gets 1 ash, Garbage, which isn't common, gives like 20.
In the new update, growing 1 piece of wheat now takes roughly 20 ash. That's 20 wood, plastic, ecetera (finite resources in the early game btw, that you WILL run out of in later segments when the common resources are replaced w/ constant enemies and weapon **parts**) for turning 1 wheat into 3. Not even enough to make flour for bread. As well as the selling price of bread has been reduced from 20 to 7.
Hey, funny thing now; A raw cockroach is sold to YOU for 20 roubles. While if you hand craft bread, it now sells for 7. Sounds funny, right?
Anyways, now onto the mutants and enemies.
There's really three types of enemies, Animals, Humanoids, and proper mutants. You'll encounter mostly Animals and Humanoids in the first 1-10 shinings, but come 10 you'll grow accustomed to invincible crawfish that make you go insane, ratwolves that twoshot a unarmored (Oh right, Clothing doesn't give armor anymore) scavenger, and the twins which oneshot you.
Each of these enemies, whether they be human, animal, or mutant, all have a reward for fighting. But it never pays off the cost. Animals rarely drop the much-needed supplies to make it to the next day, Humans now oneshot you while being capable of eating buckshot to the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ face, and mutants are just a constant annoyance- some of the first proper boss-like mutants you encounter also eat 40~ rounds of 9mm (i counted this btw, it took me 5 magazines to put down a twins mutant w/ every shot being on the head)
Okay, so we've gone over this, Mutants are bullet sponges and are unappealing to fight, Humans can deal 80 damage if they hit you in the head, Animals aren't worth the drops anymore,
"What the hell do I use to fight them!?"
Well! Put down the Obrez, it deals slightly more damage overall than a 9mm makarov, and... well, pick up that Makarov. It's unironically one of the best weapons i've handled, 3 headshots to put down a zombie (think humans with horrible aim and automatic weapons), quick reload, and cheap ammo. Rinse and repeat this until you have an AK-74, and you'll survive.
Thats... enough of my ranting and guiding, here's where I praise the game.
Misery was incredibly fun for the time I had off to play it, the base building was easy, the enviroments were nice to look at, and the combat had that kind of jank to it that made you smirk when you died. It was super fun, I didn't find myself getting mad at it until this update. Hunting was simple, two buckshot from a TOZ to knock a deer down, and now you just made back roughly a fifth of that shotguns price, Take it for a walk and pick up a dwarf w/ vodka for a energy source- yadda yadda, you're set.
Unfortunately, I just... Despise, this update. It's all hype and aura, it hinged off the megafactory but the patch notes never specified the fundamental reworks the early game got- which ruined it for most people who aren't already prepared, or those starting new saves. It was bug addled (which got fixed, except for some enemies just being invisible now. This wasn't present b4 aug 13) but presented the megafactory.
The megafactory has nothing. There's nothing left. 90% of the boxes are empty, the enemies are bullet sponges that drop somewhat more valuable things you can sell, and there's not a lot more to do than go "Ooh hey this looks cool!" and shooting ♥♥♥♥.
Part of the reason the early game reworks happened too was because hunting and farming were the meta, Thats understandable to rework... if this wasn't a casual game that isn't even a open world? Why do you care if people make their money off farming, or hunting? The prices in the shops are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, medicine costs fortunes, food costs fortunes, and gear costs fortunes, if people have to use a meta way to gain money that isn't their fault, it's the game's fault for having poorly balanced ways to make money. Scavenged items rarely sell for over 30 roubles, and repairing a mosin-nagant takes 25 rifle parts (you need to find these), a broken mosin (you need to find this), 350 roubles, and a toolbox (you need to BUY this, you used to be able to find them). If people have to use a meta way to get there, don't make the way horrible in every way, just don't make the path there so miserable and pointless.
If you want to play misery, play it with friends, it makes it less miserable, but I hope the dev behind it (solo, which I give credit to) understands this update was a net negative to a casual base, and made the game less enjoyable.
