Recently–and by recently I do in fact mean early summer–an update for the early access Farthest Frontier came out. Since it messed up old save games, I decided to start a new one, and since I was still pretty noob in the game, I also decided I should try watching a let’s play. And the let’s play said one pretty big thing: the game needs to speed up.

I didn’t originally agree with the let’s player (I haven’t gotten permission, so I won’t name them). While the game speed had been slowed down in the update, it still seemed fine to me. I just kind of assumed they were a quasi-speed runner that wanted to run the game at their speed. Even more so due to the fact that they kept mentioning it in episode one, and I was getting a bit annoyed. Now though, they might not have mentioned it enough.

So what happened? Well, the days became longer, I think moving from five to seven seconds (don’t quote me). A good change for beginners, among other things, raiders appear “later” when showing up at the same time, and outdoor exposure is less deadly. At the very start, this didn’t feel like a problem to me, since there was pretty much always something to do. Once I had things more set up though, I really noticed the impact. I was smacking speed three, the highest, just waiting for something to happen. Getting enough resources, villagers showing up, whatever. And while I’m still a noob in Farthest Frontier, this is something I’ve noticed in other games. RimWorld I almost always play at max speed, and I’m a bit annoyed it locks at speed one during raids (there’s probably a mod). Europa Universalis I used to pretty much play non-stop in speed 2; now I’m usually at 4, drop to 3 during battles, and only to 2 in really close ones. Even Banished, which Farthest Frontier is a spiritual successor to, I play at five or ten times normal speed. You’d think that would be a good hint I didn’t know what I was talking about.

So yeah, I was wrong. The slowing down of the game is probably a good move–again I hadn’t played much before that update–but it certainly needs a counter. Three speeds is simply not good enough with how the game runs. If it was back at five seconds per day (again, don’t quote me) I think it would be fine. My knowledge of those faster versions is limited, but I can feel it. Now though, it definitely needs a speed four before 1.0, perhaps a speed 5. Here’s hoping, and here’s past me being an idiot in something he should have known.

Do you play games with adjustable speed? What do you think about them? Tell us in the comments below, or over on Facebook! (And hey, here’s a Quick Thoughts I managed to keep under 500 words!)