The Loot System
Seldkam
Join Date: 2014-01-01 Member: 191213Members
Join Date: 2014-01-01 Member: 191213Members
Warning: Salty rant incoming, reader discretion advised
The new Loot system is good and bad... Titanium: Good, Copper, Good, basically all the easy, common materials to acquire are good
What has been plaguing Subnautica's Loot System and hasn't been fixed IMO, is basically the rest of it. Since building anything advanced now takes materials that are rather difficult to find, the game feels like it presents a brick wall to the player (ie me) the second you transition from the Safe Shallows to the Kelp Forest and beyond. Basically, all the creatures, geography, and LACK OF DECENTLY ADVANCED MATERIALS IN DANGEROUS AREAS frankly irritates me to no end.
Example:
60+ m deep cave, with no lights except some plants that give off a token, practically useless. Not hard to see, however, so it's basically just for atmosphere I guess? The cave's issue isn't the lack of light however-- it's the fact that of the 100+ "rock chunks" I'm sure are in that dangerous cave filled with mesmers and difficult to get out of too because of the Jelly stinger guys, there is just a bunch of useless, common "Limestone" chunks
Risk != Reward, guys-- If I go into the Kelp forest, I should be either finding advanced materials as it is a DIFFERENT, MORE DANGEROUS biome with STRONGER enemies, or I should stick to the safe shallows and not bother. I've spent at least 10 minutes in that cave trying to find any Silver and I couldn't.
This is like an MMO that forces you into higher tier dungeons and drops jack shit for you at the end of them, forcing the player to go back to the lower tier ones to grind some more to get a higher level or whatever.
Please, please, please, put more advanced materials into this game, at least into the dangerous places, so as to make them slightly more worth exploring
I've searched the majority of the kelp forest (whichever one is near my lifepod) and it is a huge one at that, and found a grand total of 2. And Im not saying searched like swim around on the surface trying to look for "Sandstone" chunks, I mean down at the sea floor, 80+ depth, trying to see anything with the name "sandstone chunk"
If you guys ARE finding tons of chunks with silver and other such materials, please, enlighten me
TLDR;
Warning #2: I tried to put all my salt into this one TLDR, so if this may insult you, you've been warned...
Please do not pad this game in this way. It is annoying, frustrating, and tears me between slogging onwards in hopes of finding what is needed at long last, or just taking a break for a few weeks or whatever.
Bash me all you want, I want to hear opinions
Here's my point in a nutshell:
The risk of the kelp forest and grassy plateau biomes do not give sufficient advanced materials to warrant bothering with them, as most players will likely just get bored and eventually do something else
Thanks for staying with me through the wall if you got this far lol
The new Loot system is good and bad... Titanium: Good, Copper, Good, basically all the easy, common materials to acquire are good
What has been plaguing Subnautica's Loot System and hasn't been fixed IMO, is basically the rest of it. Since building anything advanced now takes materials that are rather difficult to find, the game feels like it presents a brick wall to the player (ie me) the second you transition from the Safe Shallows to the Kelp Forest and beyond. Basically, all the creatures, geography, and LACK OF DECENTLY ADVANCED MATERIALS IN DANGEROUS AREAS frankly irritates me to no end.
Example:
60+ m deep cave, with no lights except some plants that give off a token, practically useless. Not hard to see, however, so it's basically just for atmosphere I guess? The cave's issue isn't the lack of light however-- it's the fact that of the 100+ "rock chunks" I'm sure are in that dangerous cave filled with mesmers and difficult to get out of too because of the Jelly stinger guys, there is just a bunch of useless, common "Limestone" chunks
Risk != Reward, guys-- If I go into the Kelp forest, I should be either finding advanced materials as it is a DIFFERENT, MORE DANGEROUS biome with STRONGER enemies, or I should stick to the safe shallows and not bother. I've spent at least 10 minutes in that cave trying to find any Silver and I couldn't.
This is like an MMO that forces you into higher tier dungeons and drops jack shit for you at the end of them, forcing the player to go back to the lower tier ones to grind some more to get a higher level or whatever.
Please, please, please, put more advanced materials into this game, at least into the dangerous places, so as to make them slightly more worth exploring
I've searched the majority of the kelp forest (whichever one is near my lifepod) and it is a huge one at that, and found a grand total of 2. And Im not saying searched like swim around on the surface trying to look for "Sandstone" chunks, I mean down at the sea floor, 80+ depth, trying to see anything with the name "sandstone chunk"
If you guys ARE finding tons of chunks with silver and other such materials, please, enlighten me
TLDR;
Warning #2: I tried to put all my salt into this one TLDR, so if this may insult you, you've been warned...
Please do not pad this game in this way. It is annoying, frustrating, and tears me between slogging onwards in hopes of finding what is needed at long last, or just taking a break for a few weeks or whatever.
Bash me all you want, I want to hear opinions
Here's my point in a nutshell:
The risk of the kelp forest and grassy plateau biomes do not give sufficient advanced materials to warrant bothering with them, as most players will likely just get bored and eventually do something else
Thanks for staying with me through the wall if you got this far lol
Comments
Of course it would be good if the dev in charge of the loot would chime in on this. I of course understand your frustration, in the current game I'm finding more titanium than copper which sort of miffs me a bit. I have titanium coming out of my ears which would be good except I don't trust making storage containers on the escape pod due to a bug which makes em disappear if there;s something in them. I don't know if that bug is still in or not in the 146xx versions of exp.
I've also noticed in the latest build I'm playing 14655 that fragments have all but disappeared, there's also the problem of finding fragments of the same type by the dozen, but this was on earlier versions of exp.
Yes, there is a lack of advanced materials in general, which I think is your point (in comparison with titanium, copper imbalance, etc.)
But my point is a bit different:
There is a lack of advanced materials in dangerous areas, and instead they are in safe areas-- to me, this makes little to no sense. If there are dangerous areas, then why the hell would anyone in their right mind go there unless they had nothing in their inventory except common items that are easy to remake if they die?
The Grassy Plateau biome isn't necessarily "safe" I understand that, but it is certainly more safe than a cave with mesmers, or a trench filled with stalkers and bleeders. This is my point really
--
And that's interesting... I've reverted to the Experimental build (which by the way there is a save bug where loading it will not allow you to load the file lol) and have been finding some fragments, though relatively rarely (though I think that's ok--- we shouldn't be swimming in fragments, pun not intended)
overall, the loot system is better, but what isn't better is the design of how it is implemented
It's better yes, but it has got to get even better still! I agree that there is a disparity between risk > reward at the moment. I am also really worried that this game is going down the "Minecraft" route where noone can play it without staring at wiki pages to find out "where the **** do I get x/y/z material? I have no clues in the game!". This irritates me to no end. We need a way of analysing construction plans to see their base elements, and then researching those base elements to open up in-game encyclopedia or "info" pages with some clues as to where and how we can get this stuff. Overall that will add HUGELY to gameplay experience, as well as solving the problem that to play that game you have to go outside of the game for information... this should NEVER be the case.
Think Pokédex - but not only for Subnautica animals and plants, but for crafting materials too.
https://trello.com/c/g47vDuPr/3862-grassy-plateaus-procedural-loot-pass
https://trello.com/c/zxufqdDY/3849-the-new-jellyshroom-caves-art-and-loot
https://trello.com/c/iSTtpTCR/3847-give-charlie-koosh-loot-branch
https://trello.com/c/507gX8KR/3850-pass-on-mushroom-forest-loot-with-jake
https://trello.com/c/EQ4Gq1pM/3871-pass-on-loot-after-slots-all-updated
What I'm gathering from this is that while the new loot system is in place, not all of the zones are using it yet. So we might have to wait for a few updates before some of the more dangerous zones have rewards worth visiting for. Seems like they're working on it though!
e.g. 40% hydrogen 28% nitrogen 24% oxygen 5% carbon 0.8% silica 0.3% iron 0.1% silver etc etc etc
Maybe they could add in another loot type similar to the resource crates? Some kind of survey buoy scattered around that would give the player hints as to which zones have what resources?
Idea would be to give players enough info that they know where to look without having to go to the wiki, but then once they get there they start using hand scanners to confirm where deposits are?
The only thing bothering me is that the cyclops is so huge but it felt like the material costs did not seem to resemble its mass and that goes double for the electronics aboard. It felt great when I built it and I want the accomplishment to mean so much more. Unfortunately the cyclops is just serving as a moving storage and with that the material cost wouldn't be meaningful.
by the way the cyclops is a power hungry machine, so much so I almost want to not use it. To effectively travel with it I feel like I would need a locker full of power cells. Not really an issue on the map as small as it feels right now though.
In my experience, I looked for Lithium in the Mushroom Forests and only found one piece, they are absolutely barren and not worth the travel. However, I stumbled upon a big dark and terrifying cave full of bone sharks, and it was absolutely stuffed with Lithium and Gold. So I think risky areas are rewarding too.
As for the "depth" issue--
IMO, depth, if surrounded by predators such as stalkers or bonesharks isn't something that adds to the "danger" level, because I will never be significantly distracted from my O2 level from those creatures... They're just not dangerous enough lol
Also, that whole place is a biome, (probably, if we're talking about the same area) which I think one should set up a base in... that would make things far easier. I'm talking specifically about smaller areas inside biomes that don't yield resources
The reason I was annoyed was primarily because of the fact that I was in an enclosed cave with lots of actually dangerous enemies that I have to keep an eye on
Mesmers not only drain oxygen (because they mesmerize you) but also deal damage, and are fast to boot
Thus, I think if someone went into the Jelly Shroom caves alone and survived with no problem... I think the question should be raised if it really is a "dangerous" area