Overall Goal of a Subnautica Playthough
Benson
Join Date: 2012-03-07 Member: 148303Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Join Date: 2012-03-07 Member: 148303Members, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
I'm not sure if anything has been set in stone as far as the "end goal" of a Subnautica playthrough, but I thought I might give my thoughts on how to give some kind of objective, and still keep the openness and thrill of exploration alive.
A great goal would be the overall stabilization of the entire ocean's ecosystem. This would make the player investigate which lifeforms play well together, and which ones can preform population control in each biome.
Ofc, the world would have to be "unstable" to begin with for this approach to work.
It'd work well (I think) with all of the things I've seen suggested like genetic manipulation, exploration and reasearch.
General Examples:
In each biome, there is some imbalance like too many/few predators or not enough plantlife to sustain populations, and it is the player's responsibility to find new lifeforms that could be transplanted to the area to help stablize the situation, with the risk of swinging the balance too far to one side.
There could be some kind of bacteria or invasive animal causing damage to the area (like killing coral), and the player has to find some way to stop it.
Both of these scenarios would require the player to explore new areas to find to animals/plants/environmental variables (lava) in order to transplant/modify the existing area to stabilize it, while also making them preform research on new animals (XCOM style) to adapt your Sub and equipment/crew to get into those areas.
Failure to stabilize an area would cause new research/tech to be lost, making other areas much more difficult to stabilize, without making the issues worse.
Anyway, the point is, exploration and crafting is great fun, and an overarching and general goal that drives the player could help focus this and make it even better!
I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on what the overall goal of Subnautica could be (if it should even have one), and how it would affect the player's experience.
A great goal would be the overall stabilization of the entire ocean's ecosystem. This would make the player investigate which lifeforms play well together, and which ones can preform population control in each biome.
Ofc, the world would have to be "unstable" to begin with for this approach to work.
It'd work well (I think) with all of the things I've seen suggested like genetic manipulation, exploration and reasearch.
General Examples:
In each biome, there is some imbalance like too many/few predators or not enough plantlife to sustain populations, and it is the player's responsibility to find new lifeforms that could be transplanted to the area to help stablize the situation, with the risk of swinging the balance too far to one side.
There could be some kind of bacteria or invasive animal causing damage to the area (like killing coral), and the player has to find some way to stop it.
Both of these scenarios would require the player to explore new areas to find to animals/plants/environmental variables (lava) in order to transplant/modify the existing area to stabilize it, while also making them preform research on new animals (XCOM style) to adapt your Sub and equipment/crew to get into those areas.
Failure to stabilize an area would cause new research/tech to be lost, making other areas much more difficult to stabilize, without making the issues worse.
Anyway, the point is, exploration and crafting is great fun, and an overarching and general goal that drives the player could help focus this and make it even better!
I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on what the overall goal of Subnautica could be (if it should even have one), and how it would affect the player's experience.