Suggestion: Befriending Creatures Sidequests
puggerugger
UK Join Date: 2014-03-09 Member: 194626Members
UK Join Date: 2014-03-09 Member: 194626Members
Spoiler alert for the story of Subnautica
One of the biggest appeals of Subnautica is the variety of fauna and the surprising amount of personality they have, I remember having a fun time playing with metal salvage and reapers when I first found out about the connection. However, to add a bit of humanity to this alien planet, perhaps it would even be possible to have creatures that can be befriended or even dealt with, testing the intuitiveness of the player to see if human and alien can be symbiotic, teaching a lesson about humanity in the process. By befriended I don't mean the obvious route of domestication, more like a creature one would expect to be hostile being cooperative, after all everything is really just trying to survive. This kind of interaction is why I like the ending, though I think that as an event it shouldn't be endgame. I like the incentive of a piece of tech that isn't necessary, though makes the game easier, it's a good reward for effectively figuring out how to work with the environment, a proper sidequest. I have a few ideas as to how this could go:
1) Befriending a predator. At a certain point a little bit outside of the typical reaper leviathan zone though at a point where the player would almost certainly know what one is, they can come across an interesting sight. A reaper leviathan with one tusk missing, maybe some extra scars among its body (to identify it and make it more sympathetic) being attacked by a group of or just a singular bone/sand sharks or other mid-tier creature. At this point the player could ignore/watch, leaving the leviathan to die. Or they can decide to help the leviathan by fighting off the attackers. Like most enemies doing a single point of damage to them would make them flee, though the leviathan will not even if it is damaged by the player in the crossfire (though at a certain point it'd reach its limit and attack the player like any other). After the sharks have been scared off, the leviathan will not attack the player but will rather swim off to collect a collect a seamoth it will "give" to the player (provided it they do not move too far away) because it is the only thing it can think of to repay the "debt" (the player would probably be in a vehicle that shows some similarities with the seamoth if not in one itself). Since another seamoth would be pretty useless, it could be a derelict seamoth implied to be used by the Degasi survivors, it could even contain a lore PDA. Upon being scanned the player will receive blueprints for a seamoth upgrade, I had a speed boost in mind as that would be extremely useful and a very good reward.
Though the appearance of the leviathan and the nature of the situation should spell to the player that something is up, some PDA tips would be useful to help them understand what they should do. "Injuries on the larger lifeform indicate it has been harassed for months, there is an extremely low probability of it surviving this fight." would hopefully tug at the heartstrings of the player. After it goes to fetch the seamoth, it could give a warning to the player telling them to stick around such as "WARNING: Predator lifeform is showing no signs of aggression, analysis determines it should be hunting you." Then, when the seamoth is scanned a message reading "This seamoth contains a high speed engine that new regulations have outlawed. Due to their recent adoption Alterra fabrication systems have not been updated to patch out its production. It is your responsibility to ensure no survivors take advantage of this." The dark humour of the PDA messages giving pointers and being clever as always. Another hint could be a reference in one of the Degasi logs at a base mentioning a seamoth, possibly one that travels faster than the 11m/s~ the default ones travel at, making the player curious and alerting them of its existence. If you wanted to make it really clear it could be explained in a PDA that the mercenary (Maida? I forgot the name) got into a fight with a young leviathan after it attacked the seamoth. After quite a scrap she was able to sever one of its tusks to make it retreat, unfortunately taking the seamoth with it. This would provide a lot of backstory and character for both her and the animal, link the stories together more and explain the origin of the missing tusk and why the leviathan recognises and "respects" humans.
From this point forward the reaper will permanently be friendly and scanning it (whilst its alive) would add a new entry to the advanced concepts tab, one explaining how reaper leviathans appear to have intelligence (seeing as this one recognised and showed gratitude to you, also that it for some reason collected the old seamoth) ultimately just making them scarier. Another benefit would be that the area would be clear of those creatures that attacked it whereas the leviathan dying would just make more of them move/spawn in due to the fact it was a threat to them before (a PDA message could make it clear this is what's happening, letting the player know they messed up). I'm not sure whether or not the seamoth upgrade (or whatever the reward is) should be unobtainable (as in just hidden, not blocked off or anything) without doing the sidequest.
2) Joining the family. This one would require a lot more work to create than the other as it would need a whole new creature and possibly even a mini biome. Essentially, there is a cave biome like the jelly caves. My idea here was to have a whole new mechanic worthy of its own update be here and be the reward of the quest, for filler purposes lets say that's some kind of drone system. The player would receive a transmission, an automated response from the drone bay giving its location and saying that due to the value of the technology on board its timely salvage is a top priority mission. When they approach the signal they are led to a cave filled with incredibly aggressive creatures, just a bit smaller than a stalker. Initially I thought they could be crustaceans though that's probably overdone at this point in the game though I still like the idea of them being unique, some octopus like organism maybe? They will attack both the prawn and seamoth as well as the player. As soon as the player enters the environment the PDA gives them a warning showing that local scans of a large population of a defensive species gives an extremely low probability of survival in this cave and that is all too correct. Though the player may be able to fight off the initial groups deep into the cave there is not a high chance they'll get out alive, a seamoth would almost certainly be destroyed at least. However, hopefully the player was able to observe that the species was very cooperative with each other though the biggest clue would come from scanning one (which the player would be prompted to do if they want advice on tactics on how to deal with them) where the entry will state it is a very social animal with a strong family structure.
Exploration of the area would reveal some broken eggs of the creatures, indicating they are are hunted. A PDA scan could help hint to this, adding a data entry explaining that the amount of remaining eggshells indicate it does not appear to be normal and that the heightened aggression of the species can be linked to whatever predator there is. A special mid-tier predator (I again had bonesharks in mind, c'mon, they look and act like assholes) 1.2x or 1.5x larger than usual (maybe discoloured, albino?) would hover near a particular mass of the broken shells. If the player gets past it (it'd go against the spirit of the game but maybe they would HAVE to kill it, either way it'd give a unique scan) they can find one of the eggs hatched and the baby is still alive which they can pick up. It'd be a deployable like a beacon or grav sphere and when released in the cave, some of the creatures will investigate the baby, maybe even take it to some kind of nest. At that point they player would receive the notification that signs of aggression have decreased and they are now completely safe to explore the cave, even get to the drone bay (or whatever reward) wrecks to scan.
Naturally the place where the baby can be found must be very distinctive which is why I thought of a trail of eggshells and the large animal would mark it enough. Depending on how significant the reward is I think it'd be quite harsh to softlock the player out of getting it if they lose or kill the baby so it should respawn, they could even get a little pet that way! Either way, I think that in this case the player must not be able to get the reward without doing the sidequest as intended.
There were a couple different iterations of this idea in my head that I decided against:
All in all, a couple fun sidequests that give more character to the ocean and allow you to make some friends. Sorry for how long the post ended up being...
tl;dr save a reaper from some sharks and it gives you shit. SReturn a baby of some cave species and they let you get some shit in their cave.
One of the biggest appeals of Subnautica is the variety of fauna and the surprising amount of personality they have, I remember having a fun time playing with metal salvage and reapers when I first found out about the connection. However, to add a bit of humanity to this alien planet, perhaps it would even be possible to have creatures that can be befriended or even dealt with, testing the intuitiveness of the player to see if human and alien can be symbiotic, teaching a lesson about humanity in the process. By befriended I don't mean the obvious route of domestication, more like a creature one would expect to be hostile being cooperative, after all everything is really just trying to survive. This kind of interaction is why I like the ending, though I think that as an event it shouldn't be endgame. I like the incentive of a piece of tech that isn't necessary, though makes the game easier, it's a good reward for effectively figuring out how to work with the environment, a proper sidequest. I have a few ideas as to how this could go:
1) Befriending a predator. At a certain point a little bit outside of the typical reaper leviathan zone though at a point where the player would almost certainly know what one is, they can come across an interesting sight. A reaper leviathan with one tusk missing, maybe some extra scars among its body (to identify it and make it more sympathetic) being attacked by a group of or just a singular bone/sand sharks or other mid-tier creature. At this point the player could ignore/watch, leaving the leviathan to die. Or they can decide to help the leviathan by fighting off the attackers. Like most enemies doing a single point of damage to them would make them flee, though the leviathan will not even if it is damaged by the player in the crossfire (though at a certain point it'd reach its limit and attack the player like any other). After the sharks have been scared off, the leviathan will not attack the player but will rather swim off to collect a collect a seamoth it will "give" to the player (provided it they do not move too far away) because it is the only thing it can think of to repay the "debt" (the player would probably be in a vehicle that shows some similarities with the seamoth if not in one itself). Since another seamoth would be pretty useless, it could be a derelict seamoth implied to be used by the Degasi survivors, it could even contain a lore PDA. Upon being scanned the player will receive blueprints for a seamoth upgrade, I had a speed boost in mind as that would be extremely useful and a very good reward.
Though the appearance of the leviathan and the nature of the situation should spell to the player that something is up, some PDA tips would be useful to help them understand what they should do. "Injuries on the larger lifeform indicate it has been harassed for months, there is an extremely low probability of it surviving this fight." would hopefully tug at the heartstrings of the player. After it goes to fetch the seamoth, it could give a warning to the player telling them to stick around such as "WARNING: Predator lifeform is showing no signs of aggression, analysis determines it should be hunting you." Then, when the seamoth is scanned a message reading "This seamoth contains a high speed engine that new regulations have outlawed. Due to their recent adoption Alterra fabrication systems have not been updated to patch out its production. It is your responsibility to ensure no survivors take advantage of this." The dark humour of the PDA messages giving pointers and being clever as always. Another hint could be a reference in one of the Degasi logs at a base mentioning a seamoth, possibly one that travels faster than the 11m/s~ the default ones travel at, making the player curious and alerting them of its existence. If you wanted to make it really clear it could be explained in a PDA that the mercenary (Maida? I forgot the name) got into a fight with a young leviathan after it attacked the seamoth. After quite a scrap she was able to sever one of its tusks to make it retreat, unfortunately taking the seamoth with it. This would provide a lot of backstory and character for both her and the animal, link the stories together more and explain the origin of the missing tusk and why the leviathan recognises and "respects" humans.
From this point forward the reaper will permanently be friendly and scanning it (whilst its alive) would add a new entry to the advanced concepts tab, one explaining how reaper leviathans appear to have intelligence (seeing as this one recognised and showed gratitude to you, also that it for some reason collected the old seamoth) ultimately just making them scarier. Another benefit would be that the area would be clear of those creatures that attacked it whereas the leviathan dying would just make more of them move/spawn in due to the fact it was a threat to them before (a PDA message could make it clear this is what's happening, letting the player know they messed up). I'm not sure whether or not the seamoth upgrade (or whatever the reward is) should be unobtainable (as in just hidden, not blocked off or anything) without doing the sidequest.
2) Joining the family. This one would require a lot more work to create than the other as it would need a whole new creature and possibly even a mini biome. Essentially, there is a cave biome like the jelly caves. My idea here was to have a whole new mechanic worthy of its own update be here and be the reward of the quest, for filler purposes lets say that's some kind of drone system. The player would receive a transmission, an automated response from the drone bay giving its location and saying that due to the value of the technology on board its timely salvage is a top priority mission. When they approach the signal they are led to a cave filled with incredibly aggressive creatures, just a bit smaller than a stalker. Initially I thought they could be crustaceans though that's probably overdone at this point in the game though I still like the idea of them being unique, some octopus like organism maybe? They will attack both the prawn and seamoth as well as the player. As soon as the player enters the environment the PDA gives them a warning showing that local scans of a large population of a defensive species gives an extremely low probability of survival in this cave and that is all too correct. Though the player may be able to fight off the initial groups deep into the cave there is not a high chance they'll get out alive, a seamoth would almost certainly be destroyed at least. However, hopefully the player was able to observe that the species was very cooperative with each other though the biggest clue would come from scanning one (which the player would be prompted to do if they want advice on tactics on how to deal with them) where the entry will state it is a very social animal with a strong family structure.
Exploration of the area would reveal some broken eggs of the creatures, indicating they are are hunted. A PDA scan could help hint to this, adding a data entry explaining that the amount of remaining eggshells indicate it does not appear to be normal and that the heightened aggression of the species can be linked to whatever predator there is. A special mid-tier predator (I again had bonesharks in mind, c'mon, they look and act like assholes) 1.2x or 1.5x larger than usual (maybe discoloured, albino?) would hover near a particular mass of the broken shells. If the player gets past it (it'd go against the spirit of the game but maybe they would HAVE to kill it, either way it'd give a unique scan) they can find one of the eggs hatched and the baby is still alive which they can pick up. It'd be a deployable like a beacon or grav sphere and when released in the cave, some of the creatures will investigate the baby, maybe even take it to some kind of nest. At that point they player would receive the notification that signs of aggression have decreased and they are now completely safe to explore the cave, even get to the drone bay (or whatever reward) wrecks to scan.
Naturally the place where the baby can be found must be very distinctive which is why I thought of a trail of eggshells and the large animal would mark it enough. Depending on how significant the reward is I think it'd be quite harsh to softlock the player out of getting it if they lose or kill the baby so it should respawn, they could even get a little pet that way! Either way, I think that in this case the player must not be able to get the reward without doing the sidequest as intended.
There were a couple different iterations of this idea in my head that I decided against:
- Rather than returning a baby, the population could be would over by bringing them a particular resource they are shown to enjoy/need like uranite, this would be less impactful though I feel
- Rather than a whole population, there is just a single large, unique organism shown to hoard things that is implied to want something in return. I feel like this wouldn't make much sense and would be too similar to the emperor though (because of this reason I feel the whole "return the baby" thing might be overdone as that too is very similar to the emperor.)
- Rather than receiving a transmission, there could be a pseudo cutscene where a member of the species grabs and runs off with the reward just as the player is about to get to it in a wreck or the Aurora itself (imagine how annoying it'd be for that to be what happens once you finally get in the captain's room?) though this'd be super hard to implement
All in all, a couple fun sidequests that give more character to the ocean and allow you to make some friends. Sorry for how long the post ended up being...
tl;dr save a reaper from some sharks and it gives you shit. SReturn a baby of some cave species and they let you get some shit in their cave.
Comments