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HELP
I time out every time I join a server, an then it crashes and restarts
Re: Subnautica & Subnautica: Below Zero Coming to Nintendo Switch - Subnautica
I hope it runs well, I’ll buy it anyway but I hope it’s at a consistent 30fps
Some creature location suggestions
Noticed the recent addition of squidsharks to the deep lilypad biome, and I gotta admit... they really don't suit it. Honestly I don't care for them in the lilypad biome either. They're a better fit for tree spires, the deep arctic waters like around the caldera and jellyfish areas, and the crystal caves because their dark colours and large size make more sense in those biomes imho. (I think putting the jellyfish in the deep twisty bridges instead of the squidsharks would be cooler too. Their appearance suits the colours down there and since you have to go straight down to get in, seeing a bunch of eyes staring up through the darkness would be freaky af)
I think putting a bunch (like a buuuuunch) of lilypaddlers in the deep lilypads would not only look better, it would be even more hazardous than an actual predator. Imagine having to swim around a whole colony of lilypaddlers when you don't have enough vehicle upgrades to get back to air quickly, but you keep getting lsd'd and spun around, disorienting you completely while it's already hard to navigate down there, and the undulating mushrooms, curtains of flowers, and thick pollen would look absolutely crazy if you're constantly tripping balls. Even when you are able to get the truck or prawn down there, you still have to get out a lot to make sure you're going the right way and not getting yourself stuck. With just one or two squidsharks swimming around like they're also hopelessly lost, (what would they even be eating?? Food chains are important! Same for ghost leviathans.) I'd probably just kill them, and I really don't like having to feel like I need to kill something just to make a location bearable to explore. Lilypaddlers on the other hand would make it a worthy challenge that also enhances that beautifully weird labyrinth (it's one of my favorites, easily, and the peacefulness of it makes it eerie instead of boring if you ask me)
I think putting a bunch (like a buuuuunch) of lilypaddlers in the deep lilypads would not only look better, it would be even more hazardous than an actual predator. Imagine having to swim around a whole colony of lilypaddlers when you don't have enough vehicle upgrades to get back to air quickly, but you keep getting lsd'd and spun around, disorienting you completely while it's already hard to navigate down there, and the undulating mushrooms, curtains of flowers, and thick pollen would look absolutely crazy if you're constantly tripping balls. Even when you are able to get the truck or prawn down there, you still have to get out a lot to make sure you're going the right way and not getting yourself stuck. With just one or two squidsharks swimming around like they're also hopelessly lost, (what would they even be eating?? Food chains are important! Same for ghost leviathans.) I'd probably just kill them, and I really don't like having to feel like I need to kill something just to make a location bearable to explore. Lilypaddlers on the other hand would make it a worthy challenge that also enhances that beautifully weird labyrinth (it's one of my favorites, easily, and the peacefulness of it makes it eerie instead of boring if you ask me)
Subnautica Micro Update Released - Subnautica
Subnautica Micro Update Released - Subnautica
Hello, Subnauts. A new update has just been released for Subnautica on the Steam, Epic, and Discord stores. We want to thank you all once again for your continued feedback....
Re: Should unknown worlds make addIng more biome specific creatures to subnautica below zero a priority?
No. Please, tinker with balance of gameplay elements.
The New Writing in Below Zero isn't Very Good
So recently I've been watching the story progress and honestly I have to say it isn't looking good, especially when compared to the old story, and the general quality boost to every other aspect of the game. So I feel like I should at least just get my opinion out there somewhere and list a few reasons as to why I'm not a fan of this new story, so let's get on with it; (note that some of this stuff isn't in the game yet outside of text in the files)
No characters:
Perhaps the biggest issue is that the story has no characters, with every one of them feeling really "safe" and generic, and lacking in personality. All of the large Alterra crew act the same, with the most characterization they get being either "misses their family" or "misses their family and is also horny", with nothing outside of that, made even worse by the fact that there's nine of them to not be able to keep track of in the slightest (the number of them probably being an issue even if they were distinct). I legitimately could not tell you which character is which based on their names. Even characters such as Robin and Al-an are affected by this, being a particularly prevalent example due to how much dialog he has now.
As is Al-an feels like a combination of a small part his old personality, a Star Wars alien with funny alien words, Jar Jar Binks, a Boov, the PDA from the original, and a redditor, wrapped up in a really safe pop culture alien bun. When he does show personality his dialog is less coherent and contradicts itself, such as him being said to be the lead of a science team and then him dismissing fundamental flora as "worthless" and "purely decorative". I'd also like to briefly mention that making him a "somebody" is entirely unnecessary and feels very forced, and it's much more charming if he's just some random dude on the research team. But most of his dialog is just random one-liners with no soul to them, just text for the sake of it. He has basically lost all of his truly alien aspects, just seemingly a regular human except they use George Lucas names for their things that are just copy/pasted human stuff.
I'd also like to briefly mention that Al-an being this huge important figure is so unnecessary and much less charming or interesting than him just being a random person on that expedition. Al-an is basically a different character entirely at this point, and very much a less interesting one.
As for Robin most of her specific issues are that her dialog is pretty standard and/or stilted and obviously speaking towards the player instead of acting natural when talking to herself, and her current voice feeling less consistent and somewhat unfitting which seems more like a direction problem than anything.
Bad Jokes:
The humor in the original SN was generally more subtle when it appeared with at least some nuance to it, not just feeling like the most generic jokes one could think of, and didn't overstay its welcome when it did show up. The jokes in BZ meanwhile are much more frequently thrown in your face and often don't land, being such wonderful comedy as, "guy hates birds for some reason" and "multiple poop and fart jokes" and many other low hanging fruits, which is such an immense downgrade and simply doesn't fit with the feel of Subnautica, at least not with how it's currently presented. Again honestly the best way to describe this is modern Star Wars writing, and not the good modern Star Wars writing.
No Stakes:
One thing I find odd is the decision to make basically every other character in the story dead, which has the consequence of lowering any sense of tension within the story immensely. You no longer have supervisors watching you like a hawk as an active threat to both you and your companions, trying to sneak by or fight them off whenever possible. Now you just kind of meander around until story, never really having a threat to you outside of the relatively easy to harness environment, which was also still a factor in the original story.
Nothing Happens:
Nothing even happens within the story itself, the events of BZ mostly have you wandering around cleaning up corrosive bird feces (because that's a cool and funny joke) for marge so she tells you where to go because that's her only purpose so that nothing else can happen in that place and so on and then the game ends. Even in the events prior to the game nothing happens, with the Alterra people just kind of sitting around hating their job until they die. It even tries to have a plot with marge interfering with the Alterra people's stuff, but they just don't care and go back to playing Fakin' It because apparently that's the only thing that actually happens in this story.
Worldbuilding Has Suffered:
One of the biggest strengths of Tom's writing is the world building, and unfortunately the old detailed and fascinating history of this future world with all these intricate factions and cultures seems to have also been pushed to the side and replaced by the previously mentioned funny Star Wars names like Tworlock and generic future stuff with no real interesting thoughts presented within them. Even the biological information which was pretty hit-or-miss in the original has taken a dive in quality. The most interesting piece of lore is the Sea Monkeys being attracted to you with Al-an in your head, but there doesn't seem to be any interesting details like that elsewhere in the game.
Conclusion:
Despite what problems I did have with Tom on a few occasions with plot holes or biology his writing was still consistently interesting and compelling for most of it, and being totally honest here I feel none of this writing is better than the original BZ writing in even one aspect, and I would rather it have just been completed based on what was already there since it was basically done anyway. Writing is the one aspect I feel has actively gotten worse since
even between the start of the year and now while every other part has been even better than I could've imagined, even with the issues I do have, so I'm sorry for the really negative post but I'm just disappointed more than anything.
No characters:
Perhaps the biggest issue is that the story has no characters, with every one of them feeling really "safe" and generic, and lacking in personality. All of the large Alterra crew act the same, with the most characterization they get being either "misses their family" or "misses their family and is also horny", with nothing outside of that, made even worse by the fact that there's nine of them to not be able to keep track of in the slightest (the number of them probably being an issue even if they were distinct). I legitimately could not tell you which character is which based on their names. Even characters such as Robin and Al-an are affected by this, being a particularly prevalent example due to how much dialog he has now.
As is Al-an feels like a combination of a small part his old personality, a Star Wars alien with funny alien words, Jar Jar Binks, a Boov, the PDA from the original, and a redditor, wrapped up in a really safe pop culture alien bun. When he does show personality his dialog is less coherent and contradicts itself, such as him being said to be the lead of a science team and then him dismissing fundamental flora as "worthless" and "purely decorative". I'd also like to briefly mention that making him a "somebody" is entirely unnecessary and feels very forced, and it's much more charming if he's just some random dude on the research team. But most of his dialog is just random one-liners with no soul to them, just text for the sake of it. He has basically lost all of his truly alien aspects, just seemingly a regular human except they use George Lucas names for their things that are just copy/pasted human stuff.
I'd also like to briefly mention that Al-an being this huge important figure is so unnecessary and much less charming or interesting than him just being a random person on that expedition. Al-an is basically a different character entirely at this point, and very much a less interesting one.
As for Robin most of her specific issues are that her dialog is pretty standard and/or stilted and obviously speaking towards the player instead of acting natural when talking to herself, and her current voice feeling less consistent and somewhat unfitting which seems more like a direction problem than anything.
Bad Jokes:
The humor in the original SN was generally more subtle when it appeared with at least some nuance to it, not just feeling like the most generic jokes one could think of, and didn't overstay its welcome when it did show up. The jokes in BZ meanwhile are much more frequently thrown in your face and often don't land, being such wonderful comedy as, "guy hates birds for some reason" and "multiple poop and fart jokes" and many other low hanging fruits, which is such an immense downgrade and simply doesn't fit with the feel of Subnautica, at least not with how it's currently presented. Again honestly the best way to describe this is modern Star Wars writing, and not the good modern Star Wars writing.
No Stakes:
One thing I find odd is the decision to make basically every other character in the story dead, which has the consequence of lowering any sense of tension within the story immensely. You no longer have supervisors watching you like a hawk as an active threat to both you and your companions, trying to sneak by or fight them off whenever possible. Now you just kind of meander around until story, never really having a threat to you outside of the relatively easy to harness environment, which was also still a factor in the original story.
Nothing Happens:
Nothing even happens within the story itself, the events of BZ mostly have you wandering around cleaning up corrosive bird feces (because that's a cool and funny joke) for marge so she tells you where to go because that's her only purpose so that nothing else can happen in that place and so on and then the game ends. Even in the events prior to the game nothing happens, with the Alterra people just kind of sitting around hating their job until they die. It even tries to have a plot with marge interfering with the Alterra people's stuff, but they just don't care and go back to playing Fakin' It because apparently that's the only thing that actually happens in this story.
Worldbuilding Has Suffered:
One of the biggest strengths of Tom's writing is the world building, and unfortunately the old detailed and fascinating history of this future world with all these intricate factions and cultures seems to have also been pushed to the side and replaced by the previously mentioned funny Star Wars names like Tworlock and generic future stuff with no real interesting thoughts presented within them. Even the biological information which was pretty hit-or-miss in the original has taken a dive in quality. The most interesting piece of lore is the Sea Monkeys being attracted to you with Al-an in your head, but there doesn't seem to be any interesting details like that elsewhere in the game.
Conclusion:
Despite what problems I did have with Tom on a few occasions with plot holes or biology his writing was still consistently interesting and compelling for most of it, and being totally honest here I feel none of this writing is better than the original BZ writing in even one aspect, and I would rather it have just been completed based on what was already there since it was basically done anyway. Writing is the one aspect I feel has actively gotten worse since
even between the start of the year and now while every other part has been even better than I could've imagined, even with the issues I do have, so I'm sorry for the really negative post but I'm just disappointed more than anything.
Re: Below Zero - Feedback thus far
I've played both games extensively, because Subnautica is one-of-a-kind survival game, and I love underwater theme. But here are a few things I would like improved to add more immersion to the game and just my thoughts:
1. The camera lock on Z axis. It might work well for other first person games, but not being able to freely spin around 720 degrees is an absolute pain and takes a lot of immersion out of the experience. This game takes place underwater, remember?
2. The Seatruck... some love it, some hate it. Some people say Cyclops was just too big, and I would argue with them. Basically, Seatruck on it's own is a Seamoth without storage module. But if you add fabricator, storage, and some other modules to it - it becomes even less nimble than Cyclops. Hell, it becomes hard to even turn without 20+meters behind you.
To remedy that, I think it would be cool to make attachable modules not static, but rubber-like (you know, like actual truck modules work?). It should, in theory, make traversing wider caves, twisty bridges, etc., much easier and much MUCH less frustrating. Let's face it, each and every one of us got literally stuck at some point and had to wiggle our way back.
3. Biomes. This is arguably the most underdeveloped aspect of the game, and seeing how much love it received it original Subnautica, it saddens me to see such a shallow (literally shallow) selection of biomes. Whereas Subnautica had various biomes, then biomes underneath it that connects to other biomes, this one gives you absolutely no drive to upgrade your depth limit beyond 500m, because there basically is nothing beyond that, except for Crystal Caves (which is so poorly designed, I got the hell out of there permanently after getting my nickel), that NEEDS to change. Enough with the islands, remember what game you are creating, stop trying to change the game into what it's not supposed to be. Make more underground biomes, expand upon existing ones, give us more places to explore.
4. AI. Well, there's not much to talk about here, because there's not much going on with that. See Shadow Leviathan>hide behind a crystal>wait for that stupid fish to reset it's agrro>continue with your life. Final boss defeated.
5. Finish the game, we don't care how long it takes, but saying things like "we won't be adding multiplayer, because it would push v1.0 release too far" is a slap in the face for every fan. And while I don't expect to see COOP implemented, you're supposed to create a good game, not "push it". Get your sh*t together.
6. Story... I mean, I don't even. I'm up for the idea of a story, and I think Subnautica had a decent, engaging story. But it wasn't like you HAD to follow it, your main goal was clear throughout the whole game - survive, escape. It was really that simple, non-intrusive, and it highlighted other features of the game - the gameplay. This time around, it's a mess. I know it's not finished, but honestly, I don't want to see it finished.
That's it, I apologize if I appear aggressive here, it comes from my passion for this game. I think it is a great game, but the development is taking more steps back than forward, forgetting what made it great in the first place. I do hope that changes and I can pour a lot more hours into it.
Thanks for reading this messy post.
1. The camera lock on Z axis. It might work well for other first person games, but not being able to freely spin around 720 degrees is an absolute pain and takes a lot of immersion out of the experience. This game takes place underwater, remember?
2. The Seatruck... some love it, some hate it. Some people say Cyclops was just too big, and I would argue with them. Basically, Seatruck on it's own is a Seamoth without storage module. But if you add fabricator, storage, and some other modules to it - it becomes even less nimble than Cyclops. Hell, it becomes hard to even turn without 20+meters behind you.
To remedy that, I think it would be cool to make attachable modules not static, but rubber-like (you know, like actual truck modules work?). It should, in theory, make traversing wider caves, twisty bridges, etc., much easier and much MUCH less frustrating. Let's face it, each and every one of us got literally stuck at some point and had to wiggle our way back.
3. Biomes. This is arguably the most underdeveloped aspect of the game, and seeing how much love it received it original Subnautica, it saddens me to see such a shallow (literally shallow) selection of biomes. Whereas Subnautica had various biomes, then biomes underneath it that connects to other biomes, this one gives you absolutely no drive to upgrade your depth limit beyond 500m, because there basically is nothing beyond that, except for Crystal Caves (which is so poorly designed, I got the hell out of there permanently after getting my nickel), that NEEDS to change. Enough with the islands, remember what game you are creating, stop trying to change the game into what it's not supposed to be. Make more underground biomes, expand upon existing ones, give us more places to explore.
4. AI. Well, there's not much to talk about here, because there's not much going on with that. See Shadow Leviathan>hide behind a crystal>wait for that stupid fish to reset it's agrro>continue with your life. Final boss defeated.
5. Finish the game, we don't care how long it takes, but saying things like "we won't be adding multiplayer, because it would push v1.0 release too far" is a slap in the face for every fan. And while I don't expect to see COOP implemented, you're supposed to create a good game, not "push it". Get your sh*t together.
6. Story... I mean, I don't even. I'm up for the idea of a story, and I think Subnautica had a decent, engaging story. But it wasn't like you HAD to follow it, your main goal was clear throughout the whole game - survive, escape. It was really that simple, non-intrusive, and it highlighted other features of the game - the gameplay. This time around, it's a mess. I know it's not finished, but honestly, I don't want to see it finished.
That's it, I apologize if I appear aggressive here, it comes from my passion for this game. I think it is a great game, but the development is taking more steps back than forward, forgetting what made it great in the first place. I do hope that changes and I can pour a lot more hours into it.
Thanks for reading this messy post.
Re: The Small Suggestions Megathread (add yours and I'll credit you!)
POI holographic markers, using currently not much usefull pathfinder tool (maybe upgrade it with Upgrade Console)
Let pathfinder tool have unlimited number of paths. Clear any path when approaching it only with Down button (on console), and use Up button (on console) to start new path. (maybe upgrade it with Upgrade Console)
Let pathfinder tool have unlimited number of paths. Clear any path when approaching it only with Down button (on console), and use Up button (on console) to start new path. (maybe upgrade it with Upgrade Console)
Re: Splash Down (A Subnautica Story)
I was afraid this thread was dead. I am so glad you continue it, I love this story and I re-read it when I feel like. You have talent and I love how you put your own spin on the story. Even small things like how the cyclops gets damaged, it's great! Please continue the story and can't wait for the next chapter.
