SPOILERS -- Game impressions on latest experimental builds.
Maalteromm
Brasil Join Date: 2017-09-22 Member: 233183Members
Brasil Join Date: 2017-09-22 Member: 233183Members
Hi all,
I've played as far as currently possible (I think) and would like to share my view on gameplay design and balance.
There are many areas of the game which I believe could improve after some small tweaks. I understand these suggestion will be focused on more hardcore players whom not only want to enjoy the aspects of exploration, but also to be challenged in doing so.
I do not just mean that creatures should be more lethal or deaths should be more punishing, instead give players more responsibilities and options, increasing the amount of planning ahead required before leaving base for longer periods.
I'll be very obvious regarding know info on the following text. Veteran Sub players and devs might find it wearisome, but I believe it is important to illustrate my points.
Power management and availability.
I did not feel like power was a constraint regarding how far I could explore or what I could build in my base. In no moment at all. I've built very few batteries and power cells. The other time I played, circa a year ago, I always carried spare batteries and power cells. This time I did not bother, simply swapping batteries between tools and rarely carrying spares, including power cells.
As many of you are aware seaglide autonomy with a single battery is incredible, you can go almost anywhere in the map and back with it. Seamoth autonomy is also amazing. A single charge should be enough for circling the entire map perimeter roughly 3 times if you discard energy consuming modules (but also discarding energy conserving/producing modules). The other tools and vehicles also share this enhanced autonomy.
This will alleviate the need for extra power containers and relieve crucial slots in your inventory for carrying other things which, empowered by other mechanics that allow for reduced inventory use and a cheap scanner room, leads to the quickly amassing of resources even during longer trips.
After building your Seamoth, you'll need power cells to get around. Due to the aforementioned autonomy, the player should be able to build either a moon pool or a power cell charger before needing more than one or two spares. You'll eventually build a moon pool, as it is required for game progression, will realize that it charges power cells much faster than the charger and will abandon the charger completely. On the current game build the charger feels borderline useless. There is a sensible suggestion regarding power cells chargers by @BylliGoat. Using power cells as power banks for bases was suggested before, but that's recent and well presented.
I believe the moon pool should, at best, charge a power cell at the same speed a charger would. Or not charge at all.
Maybe it could have upgrades like the scanner room, which could add functionalities such as charging and repairing vehicles (like the Cyclops repair module). Then it wouldn't repair or charge without upgrades and by stacking upgrades of the same kind its function would improve to the point that it could surpass that of a power cell charger or manually repairing a vehicle.
I would also enjoy if more things drained power.
The Seamoth sonar and defense module are nice power drains if repeatedly used. Same for the cyclops. The PRAWN should have equivalent mechanics, particularly regarding its drill which should consume lots of power and, maybe, its jetpack (if those already consume extra energy I did not perceive it).
And bases should have more power requirements. Each and every room should have a power requisite (even if a negligible amount) as it means more lights and volume to fill with air. Interior growbeds should have considerable energy requirements as it "features a hydroponic nutrient delivery system" and seeing how much energy the water filtration machine consumes. Alien containment units should also have more energy requirements.
And reduce the amount of energy produced by the vehicles recharging upgrades.
Food/Water management and availability.
There is no challenge pertaining food management, and only a little bit regarding water.
In the beginning the player is still trying to figure out whats happening. He has at his disposal two ration blocks and two bottles of water, which should amount for ~1 extra hour of food and only a little more than 10 minutes of extra water. Water becomes priority and there's only one kind of fish which will actually meet this demand, but it is easy to catch and soon the player fulfills this need and start exploring further from the pod.
Such exploration should demand 2-3 water bottles and 1-2 cured fishes, while the game progresses until you reach the floating island (or the mountain for Bulbo tree sample). Suddenly the player has available limitless food and water, as long as he remains within a comfortable distance of his base.
That distance increases drastically with a seamoth. If you consider building small advanced bases for gathering resources on other biomes you won't even need to pack surplus food/water for the travel.
Food and water are no long a problem because it becomes cheap and quick to obtain. A growbed costs 2 titaniums to build, has no power requirements and can grow up to 16 marblemelons. A single pot with a single marble melon is enough for the character not to starve, as waiting for a melon to grow costs ~14 food and 22 water and it provides 22/15 of these resources. Two pots are enough to not dehydrate. A growbed will allow the player to be away for ~1 day, and return to refill his hunger/thirst bars, and do so repeatedly.
I suggest that grown food should take a lot longer to grow and provide far less nutrition. If the time to grow melons increased fivefold and its nutrition value dropped in half, a growbed only half filled with melons would still be enough to feed the character.
So maybe make food grow after a day or two, providing less nutrition and with growbeds requiring power.
(keeping in mind that gathering fish is still viable for survival while the player does not setup a proper garden/farm with at least 3-4 growbeds)
Scanner Room.
The other time I played, ~a year ago, the scanner room wasn't very popular and didn't work very well. It was expensive and with very limited range.
Now it is mandatory. It is ludicrously cheap compared to it's functionality. It does drain some power, but nowhere near enough to make the player worry about it and the only thing needed is finding it's blueprint. After that 4546B is your playground.
At this point, with ~a full inventory of materials you can go anywhere on the map and build an advanced base with a scanner room, a growbed for food/water and a locker to gather stuff. When you are done, and after stashing the gathered resources at your base, deconstruct the advanced base, find a new spot, rinse and repeat.
Unless the player wants to, there's rarely the need to search for things or to worry about food/water/power.
You turn the scan on, go eat/drink, organize your inventory and when you see it there are like 10 detected resources for your taking. I never go with the speed upgrade because given (a little) time the range upgrade will surpass it by far.
To counteract this, I suggest altering the scanner mechanics to allow it to scan at maximum a few instances of the desired resource. Something like 4-5 of it. Then if you have a large range you might need to move a lot between these resources. With shorter range, but increased speed, you will travel less and detect them faster. And then I would suggest a third upgrade for the scanner, one that would increase the amount of instances that can be detected simultaneously.
I would also like to increase the power requirement for the scanner room while in use, and to increase this requirement with the amount of upgrades being used.
Leviathans
The need to seek out the player more. Increased aggro distance in two steeps. When the player is away from the Leviathan, but inside it's aggro distance it would seek out the player "slowly" with subtle noises. After entering a closer aggro zone the Leviathan would roar loudly and quickly charge at the player. And increase the areas they roam about.
It's too easy to circle around a leviathan, even in enclosed spaces.
Maybe the game could have one extra mode, switching the "survival mode" to "normal mode" and creating a new "survival mode" which requires the players to worry more about their resources.
I would also like to suggest changes in saving the games. Allowing it to only be saved inside habitats with air and power, so that if you died it would revert to your last save and not allowing the player to save at will and reverting to that save.
That's pretty much it, excuse the long text and thanks for reading.
I've played as far as currently possible (I think) and would like to share my view on gameplay design and balance.
There are many areas of the game which I believe could improve after some small tweaks. I understand these suggestion will be focused on more hardcore players whom not only want to enjoy the aspects of exploration, but also to be challenged in doing so.
I do not just mean that creatures should be more lethal or deaths should be more punishing, instead give players more responsibilities and options, increasing the amount of planning ahead required before leaving base for longer periods.
I'll be very obvious regarding know info on the following text. Veteran Sub players and devs might find it wearisome, but I believe it is important to illustrate my points.
Power management and availability.
I did not feel like power was a constraint regarding how far I could explore or what I could build in my base. In no moment at all. I've built very few batteries and power cells. The other time I played, circa a year ago, I always carried spare batteries and power cells. This time I did not bother, simply swapping batteries between tools and rarely carrying spares, including power cells.
As many of you are aware seaglide autonomy with a single battery is incredible, you can go almost anywhere in the map and back with it. Seamoth autonomy is also amazing. A single charge should be enough for circling the entire map perimeter roughly 3 times if you discard energy consuming modules (but also discarding energy conserving/producing modules). The other tools and vehicles also share this enhanced autonomy.
This will alleviate the need for extra power containers and relieve crucial slots in your inventory for carrying other things which, empowered by other mechanics that allow for reduced inventory use and a cheap scanner room, leads to the quickly amassing of resources even during longer trips.
After building your Seamoth, you'll need power cells to get around. Due to the aforementioned autonomy, the player should be able to build either a moon pool or a power cell charger before needing more than one or two spares. You'll eventually build a moon pool, as it is required for game progression, will realize that it charges power cells much faster than the charger and will abandon the charger completely. On the current game build the charger feels borderline useless. There is a sensible suggestion regarding power cells chargers by @BylliGoat. Using power cells as power banks for bases was suggested before, but that's recent and well presented.
I believe the moon pool should, at best, charge a power cell at the same speed a charger would. Or not charge at all.
Maybe it could have upgrades like the scanner room, which could add functionalities such as charging and repairing vehicles (like the Cyclops repair module). Then it wouldn't repair or charge without upgrades and by stacking upgrades of the same kind its function would improve to the point that it could surpass that of a power cell charger or manually repairing a vehicle.
I would also enjoy if more things drained power.
The Seamoth sonar and defense module are nice power drains if repeatedly used. Same for the cyclops. The PRAWN should have equivalent mechanics, particularly regarding its drill which should consume lots of power and, maybe, its jetpack (if those already consume extra energy I did not perceive it).
And bases should have more power requirements. Each and every room should have a power requisite (even if a negligible amount) as it means more lights and volume to fill with air. Interior growbeds should have considerable energy requirements as it "features a hydroponic nutrient delivery system" and seeing how much energy the water filtration machine consumes. Alien containment units should also have more energy requirements.
And reduce the amount of energy produced by the vehicles recharging upgrades.
Food/Water management and availability.
There is no challenge pertaining food management, and only a little bit regarding water.
In the beginning the player is still trying to figure out whats happening. He has at his disposal two ration blocks and two bottles of water, which should amount for ~1 extra hour of food and only a little more than 10 minutes of extra water. Water becomes priority and there's only one kind of fish which will actually meet this demand, but it is easy to catch and soon the player fulfills this need and start exploring further from the pod.
Such exploration should demand 2-3 water bottles and 1-2 cured fishes, while the game progresses until you reach the floating island (or the mountain for Bulbo tree sample). Suddenly the player has available limitless food and water, as long as he remains within a comfortable distance of his base.
That distance increases drastically with a seamoth. If you consider building small advanced bases for gathering resources on other biomes you won't even need to pack surplus food/water for the travel.
Food and water are no long a problem because it becomes cheap and quick to obtain. A growbed costs 2 titaniums to build, has no power requirements and can grow up to 16 marblemelons. A single pot with a single marble melon is enough for the character not to starve, as waiting for a melon to grow costs ~14 food and 22 water and it provides 22/15 of these resources. Two pots are enough to not dehydrate. A growbed will allow the player to be away for ~1 day, and return to refill his hunger/thirst bars, and do so repeatedly.
I suggest that grown food should take a lot longer to grow and provide far less nutrition. If the time to grow melons increased fivefold and its nutrition value dropped in half, a growbed only half filled with melons would still be enough to feed the character.
So maybe make food grow after a day or two, providing less nutrition and with growbeds requiring power.
(keeping in mind that gathering fish is still viable for survival while the player does not setup a proper garden/farm with at least 3-4 growbeds)
Scanner Room.
The other time I played, ~a year ago, the scanner room wasn't very popular and didn't work very well. It was expensive and with very limited range.
Now it is mandatory. It is ludicrously cheap compared to it's functionality. It does drain some power, but nowhere near enough to make the player worry about it and the only thing needed is finding it's blueprint. After that 4546B is your playground.
At this point, with ~a full inventory of materials you can go anywhere on the map and build an advanced base with a scanner room, a growbed for food/water and a locker to gather stuff. When you are done, and after stashing the gathered resources at your base, deconstruct the advanced base, find a new spot, rinse and repeat.
Unless the player wants to, there's rarely the need to search for things or to worry about food/water/power.
You turn the scan on, go eat/drink, organize your inventory and when you see it there are like 10 detected resources for your taking. I never go with the speed upgrade because given (a little) time the range upgrade will surpass it by far.
To counteract this, I suggest altering the scanner mechanics to allow it to scan at maximum a few instances of the desired resource. Something like 4-5 of it. Then if you have a large range you might need to move a lot between these resources. With shorter range, but increased speed, you will travel less and detect them faster. And then I would suggest a third upgrade for the scanner, one that would increase the amount of instances that can be detected simultaneously.
I would also like to increase the power requirement for the scanner room while in use, and to increase this requirement with the amount of upgrades being used.
Leviathans
The need to seek out the player more. Increased aggro distance in two steeps. When the player is away from the Leviathan, but inside it's aggro distance it would seek out the player "slowly" with subtle noises. After entering a closer aggro zone the Leviathan would roar loudly and quickly charge at the player. And increase the areas they roam about.
It's too easy to circle around a leviathan, even in enclosed spaces.
Maybe the game could have one extra mode, switching the "survival mode" to "normal mode" and creating a new "survival mode" which requires the players to worry more about their resources.
I would also like to suggest changes in saving the games. Allowing it to only be saved inside habitats with air and power, so that if you died it would revert to your last save and not allowing the player to save at will and reverting to that save.
That's pretty much it, excuse the long text and thanks for reading.
Comments
As much as I adore the Scanner Room (More for the map than the resource finding) I think it should be limited from the start, but then the Range upgrades increase it to much further reaches. Maybe instead of having it stackable, it uses a MK I, MK II, MK III sort of system like the submarine depth upgrades?
The idea of having the upgrade in tiers is nice, but I oppose it for two reasons.
The first, and practical one, is due to the fact that you can substitute range for extra SRs. If each consecutive tier is more expensive than the previous and more expensive than the SR itself, you could just build extra SRs around the main one to increase range (the same can't be achieved for speed).
The second reason is that I like stackable upgrades, they give plenty of room for personalization. That's why I suggested a new stackable upgrade and mechanic, so it kept the range in check all the while adding new options for personalizing your SR.
If you want the SR to scan far and wide, between different biomes and providing the greatest variety of resources, go for range. If you want to stack on closer by resources go for speed or quantity displayed. And for the middleground, just combine those.
The submarine depth upgrades are a requirement for game progression. It wouldn't be nice to force the player to stack it in exchange of other upgrades, and not use those upgrades at higher depths.
Improve PRAWN suit storage module. As already suggested by other players, the storage module states it is a "4x4 locker". This text should change to better reflect how the upgrade works. Also it is providing marginal improvement to the PRAWN in comparison to the Seamoth. With all modules Seamoth can have up to 64 slots and the PRAWN up to 48, same as the protagonist inventory.
Maybe make the module 3x4 (or keep it 4x4 on the seamoth) and let it add two lines of 6 inventory slots on the PRAWN, instead of only one. If exceeding the player own storage space is a problem (8x6 I believe) then the PRAWN default inventory should drop to zero as default or be split in different compartments, like the Seamoth.
At least the upgrade tooltip should be fixed to state it just increases/adds storage space, without specifying a quantity.
Still unsure about the whole Scanner room suggestions. Limit it to a handful of items max, and the massive range on it is rendered pointless. If it's cheap still - item limitation or not - you might as well just build several like you mentioned. You don't need to worry much about food/water in the late game no, since you've already built up the means to not worry about them. Filteration machines, growbeds, fish breeding... Resource gathering isn't much different, except now it's possible to find Scanner Room fragments fairly early on, while the containment unit is still a later game item.
I like the idea of it consuming more power when running though, for such a powerful building it really should put a strain on a base that is only running with minimal input. It really feels like it uses less power than the Water Filteration Machine, and if so that just seems backwards.
Rather than changing how the Scanner Room works, I'd just increase the power requirements on it, remove the early game fragments, and make it more expensive again. Later in the game resource collection shouldn't feel like an early-game chore like catching fish and crafting water was. So the Scanner Room being a late game streamlining of the process like the Filteration Machines, Growbeds, and Fishbreeding is just fine to me - the problem right now (other than the low power use) is that it comes in too early. Growbeds do too as well, but that's only for us who have been playing for a while - most new players I see don't find the Floating Island until the game directs them to it nor do they find the growbeds around the Koosh Zone right away either.
Currently I find speed lacking compared to range for a simple reason. I tend to know what I will be wanting to scan for beforehand, so I setup the scanner room and go charge batteries, organize my inventory, care for food and water needs and only then go outside farm scanned items. By then it will have detected 5-8 resources.
The massive range will not be rendered pointless, as larger range means more variety in resources detected. A well positioned SR will be searching at 3-4 biomes simultaneously, greatly increasing your chances to find rare resources.
And more, I believe the SR can detect resources never acquired before (I'm not sure on this) so more range also implies in greater chance to find new materials and blueprints.
It would essentially give different builds for the SR, with more than just one approach on how to find stuff.
If they just make it more expensive and harder to find, it will return almost to the point it was before (almost, range and speed were really bad).
And most players might not find it at first, but it is far from being late game also. If it was it would be super expensive like the filtration machine and other late game equipment.
Usually as soon as one builds a seaglide they start looking further away, I myself got to the Floating Island super early. I stood on the pod and looked at the horizon, there were those suspicious clouds to the North and to the South and I simply picked one and swan there.
That said, I would personally go bananas for that stuff regardless. Obviously, I still believe some things should be tweaked, but maybe just not as extensively for the average player.
Thanks for the shout out by the way!
Looks like we agree on the same thing. What we disagree upon is the point at which the character will reach said state of self-sufficiency regarding food/water. As I see it, it should be reached ~20h of gameplay, when the player should be able to setup a proper farm with 3-4 growbeds (more expensive ones, not the current 2 titanium). And I think they should include a "Food Processing Unit", akin to the "Desalinization Unit" (dislike the name Water Filtration Machine), which would consume humongous amounts of energy and process biological material just like the Bioreactor to pop out nutrient blocks. That would mean almost complete emancipation from gathering local resources for sustenance.
And the game has exploration modes, that in itself could be augmented. I would love if it had, besides the regular modes creative, freedom, survival and hardcore, a custom button that would allow deeper customization such as a box you tick for hardcore mode, slides for food, water and oxygen requirements, fauna aggression and quantity of scanned parts before acquiring a blueprint.
The game is great, I'm just sharing what would have made the experience better for myself, if I was able to play it from scratch again. Some people, no matter how much they ease up the mechanics, will always be outside their intended audience. My wife, for one, couldn't play because she has trouble navigating first person games (even more so with tridimensional freedom), despite loving simpler casual games.
I don't put Subnautica into the eye-candy exploration box. If I wanted that I would play Abzu or something.
Subnautica is sheer terror. It is having to leave the safety of the shallows, with all its wonders and risk everything for survival. Eventually experience that forlorn feeling that creeps upon your skin when you can't see anything besides water all-around you, and the terror when you hear something roar from the deeps. Finally the false sense of achievement, of bending the wilderness to your will as you build your first sub, only to have your dreams crushed along with it by an screaming leviathan. Nothing is designed to make you feel safe or comfortable during the first playthrough, in the end even the rocket will malfunction or something else daunting.