I noticed today that some of my ship routes are shorter post update. For example, a trip to L0 previously took 15h 9m and now takes 13h 48m. But the details of Observatory still say 10% travel reduction. Can @Lynsey [Midoki] let us know if Observatory was tweaked?
Well this is interesting, my travel times are shorter, but for others it isn't. For example, I just snapped the photo below of my route to L0 and so did my guildmate. We both have observatory active and followed the same route. Note the difference in travel time. I'm very happy with my time reduction! But it doesn't feel right that others aren't benefiting as well.
AND make it so in-progress voyages' times are reduced once the observatory is funded. Seriously. This little issue really negates the benefit of this perk way more than people realize.
I disagree @Kelani - in that case the times should take longer when the perk goes into cooldown or isn't funded, so you would not be able to have any real estimate of time from the outset or during the voyage. It works the same as other perks and makes a lot of sense. Blacksmith, Stonemason, and Training Ground affect battles started while the perk is active. Observatory and Pirate Catcher affect the voyage/training started while the perk is active. Consistent and as it should be. Don't start voyages during observatory cooldown if the 10% really makes that much of a difference to you. I would much rather see Observatory upgrades rather than changing how it works.
If they'd add a 20-25% upgrade, then I could live with those annoyances. However, the Obsv's low benefit has been discussed here for months, and Midoki is well-aware it's an unpopular perk, yet they have resisted boosting it. Maybe they don't feel it needs increasing, or maybe they want to slow our maxing of the original map until the new ones arrive. I don't know. Either way, it didn't seem like a boost was in the cards, so I threw out some alternate ideas.
