Add Procedural Generation- Be Able To explore this alien ocean forever.

Bambam625 · July 2015

i absolutely love this game, but ive seen the limits of the map and I havent been playing very long. This could be the underwater equivelent of No Mans Sky, if you guys added in PG. imagine if this game was endless. Only reason i brought it up was because i THOUGHT it used procedural generation, but i found out quickly that it doesnt. Ive reached the limits of the game in a very short period of time. Built a few scattered bases, and have all the vehicles and tools. Ran off the corners of the map too , went under it actually, the map is actually a big cube sitting in the ocean.

Imagine if the game didnt end, and you could travel one direction forever.
Be able to build outposts, spread out across the areas youve explored.
Imagine if there were no limits to the exploration in this game.

Then the dev team could just keep adding things to the PG engine to increase diversity, then if there is an area they have specific plans for they could just handcraft that area.

Then the dev team could just focus on adding more and more features to aid you in our exploration of this interesting planet.

Thoughts?

(btw I came here from the link provided in the steam community forums for subnautica)

I believe this game is too unique, and wondrous to not go this route. I don't ever want to be like....well...theres nothing else to do...it was fun Subnautica.
This game is too good for that, I haven't truly been immersed and intrigued by a game in a long while, this game managed to do that.
I hope i can come back in 5-10 years and still find things i never found. I understand this game is still in alpha, which is exactly why im proposing this.

Tryst · July 2015

That would be great if we could have a PG ocean. No end to the distance we can travel. Possibly even an end if we were to travel in one direction far enough, we'd arrive back where we started. Of course that should take a week or more of just driving the Cyclops in one direction 24/7. That would give us the general feeling we are actually on a planet.

Bambam625 · July 2015

exactly . they need to add some really really deep content too. like make it so deep you need to build like check points on the way down. see all sorts of crazy alien life, like in some deep trench.

Bambam625 · July 2015

and on top of that, if it took 24/7 in a straight line to get around the planet ( itd be a pretty small planet, tbh) but that just one line, imagine the amount of exploration in any direction from that line to be had. i believe that this is one of those games that should take that route, but they need to put some real work into giving the pg engine what it needs. make sure every area has a unique feel to it, and theres always new and interesting things to find.

Obraxis · July 2015

Subnautica was originally procedural in terms of the landscape. However, we changed from this due to a number of reasons:

1) It's very, very hard to make a procedural world that doesn't look empty & boring (we spent months on procedural land generation only to throw it mostly away)
2) It's a huge effort to give enough variety and interesting locations, hard to generate 'awesome'
3) Aesthetically, doing things by hand virtually always gives better results, with full control.

You might notice from some big-name open world procedurally-generated games, they all seem to have similar looking maps/areas/planets. Because our world is completely hand-crafted, it's a visual feast with no areas that look the same. It takes MUCH longer to do, but we think it's a trade-off we want to make to hit the experience quality we want for Subnautica.

Bambam625 · July 2015

Obraxis wrote: »

Subnautica was originally procedural in terms of the landscape. However, we changed from this due to a number of reasons:

1) It's very, very hard to make a procedural world that doesn't look empty & boring (we spent months on procedural land generation only to throw it mostly away)
2) It's a huge effort to give enough variety and interesting locations, hard to generate 'awesome'
3) Aesthetically, doing things by hand virtually always gives better results, with full control.

You might notice from some big-name open world procedurally-generated games, they all seem to have similar looking maps/areas/planets. Because our world is completely hand-crafted, it's a visual feast with no areas that look the same. It takes MUCH longer to do, but we think it's a trade-off we want to make to hit the experience quality we want for Subnautica.

so you do plan on expanding the map? and to what degree?
I will say the little bit of map you guys do have is beautiful.
Although I will also say that NMS wont look all the same, the reason u keep seeing all the same stuff is because most the videos have been on the same few planets. Like every video. But we will see, can only tell once ive played it.

I thought i had read something about subnautica using procedural generation. Well , like i said you guys could use a hybrid approach where you use PG to fill in all the areas you guys don't have plans for. (this is what star citizen has talked about doing when their planetside module drops, itll be awhile lol)

I will say its nice to hear from a DEV so quick.

DC_Darkling · July 2015

Perhaps a little of both? What I mean is, if you ever reach the border of what uwe makes.. will we have strong current we can not pass or first a layer of procedural?

Tierax · July 2015

hmm, proceedural kicking in after the handcrafted would be hard to do maybe? though it would make for an interesting combination

Racer1 · July 2015

One of the ideas from the past was to have each hand-crafted area/biome be a (variable sized/shaped/oriented) tile, with "extended" edges.

When the game builds the map, it would place all of these tiles according to a semi-random pattern, with space between. The space between would be procedurally generated, and "meld" with the extended edges from each biome, effectively creating a seamless area between these areas. Given enough areas, this would allow the map to extend infinitely in any direction, adding certain areas (reused if necessary) at random intervals.

To this suggestion, UWE replied it would be too hard to make the generated content look natural along side the hand-built content.

Lightdevil · July 2015

The world is going to be expanded by A LOT, the new biome "Grand Reef" for example is very big as it seems. Guess thats where the name comes in. I believe the world is gonna be much bigger at its full realease, and its all handcrafted so everything is "special". I still agree.. there will come a day where you have seen everything. This is not an underwater No Mans Sky. Its kind off sad that everyone who buys this game on full release will be starstruck by all the diversity and magic in this world, but we lucky few, that bought the game early access, will already have memorized parts of the world. Some of us might already be bored by the "early game" until we get to the interesting parts, that get added on full release. Maybe new biomes. It honestly makes me sad, that the huge reason i bought this game in the first place, the "explore an unknown planet go into the depths and into the unknown" will not be there anymore, once its full release, because the unknown will already be the old and known for me. I wish there would be a way to evade this, but even I have to admit that it is better the way the developers handle it. But as of now, remember that the alpha world is small and as far as i know, the finished world will be atleast 4 times as big. Maybe im wrong, if so then im even more sad. Still: PG wouldnt do this game good, except if theres a VERY big biome called the "open ocean" where things are random. It will be kind of empty, but thats the point, as it is the "open ocean" after all.

solar71 · August 2015

well I would love a procedural landscape.

but if that's too hard or just plane not a good idea, then at least make this giant cube of a world larger.
Would it be possible to double the X Y Z limits?
Basically quadrupling the area?
Its even possible that just X and Y would do. The water is already VERY deep.
Only horizontally the game feels small.

Thanks bye

Eitelkeit · August 2015

The beatiful, distinctive landscape, made with much attention to details is that makes Subnautica so much different from all other survival-like games today. I totally appreciate the way devs decided to do it, instead of following silly trend for procedurally generated nothingness.

Racer1 · August 2015

I have seen no comment from UWE to indicate that the area of the game will be any bigger than it currently is - 4km x 4km x ~2km (deep). However, they are actively enhancing many of the existing areas, which I expect they will do up until 1.0 release.

The only comments I have seen related to additional content were about potential plans after the 1.0 release. However, those would presumably depend on reception and popularity at that time, and certainly haven't been promised.

Dreadlord · May 2016

Obraxis wrote: »

Subnautica was originally procedural in terms of the landscape. However, we changed from this due to a number of reasons:

1) It's very, very hard to make a procedural world that doesn't look empty & boring (we spent months on procedural land generation only to throw it mostly away)
2) It's a huge effort to give enough variety and interesting locations, hard to generate 'awesome'
3) Aesthetically, doing things by hand virtually always gives better results, with full control.

You might notice from some big-name open world procedurally-generated games, they all seem to have similar looking maps/areas/planets. Because our world is completely hand-crafted, it's a visual feast with no areas that look the same. It takes MUCH longer to do, but we think it's a trade-off we want to make to hit the experience quality we want for Subnautica.

I agree with everything you said.... but you are sacrificing replayability. It is not fun to play for the 3rd -4th time when you know where everything is... So ultimately you are trading of the longivety for a better first experience.

Now there is another game that has solved this perfectly already..,.. 7 Days to die. They launched the game with both options. You can play on a hand designed map called navezgane OR you can start a game with a random generated map.

Now I suggest that Subnautica launches with the handcrafted map as planned. And that you can unlock an option to start a game with a random map instead.
This could be done by X hours played in the handcrafted world or even better by finding or scanning fragments very very deep down.
This will makes sure that everybody experiences the beautiful handcrafted world and you add replayability to the game by adding an option to start a game with a random map.

I think this would be one of the best ways to ensure that the handcrafted world is experienced as the devs want but also keep the game alive in the long run by keeping it interesting with the random maps.

To this day I still love exploring the random maps in 7 days to die, simply because you NEVER know what you can find around the next bend.

KingCole · May 2016

IDK, seems kind if game breaking, but it sounds awesome though, possibly in a sequel, god willing?

Dreadlord · May 2016

KingCole wrote: »

IDK, seems kind if game breaking, but it sounds awesome though, possibly in a sequel, god willing?

What do you mean with game breaking?
This would be a choice when starting a new game, if and only if you have completed the requirements, whetere that be amount of hours or scanned the fragments in a previous game.

Quiet_Blowfish · September 2017

I get what Obraxis is saying, graphically they've now set the bar very high. But to me the core game area is so good I'd be very happy to explore some lesser environment that extends ever outwards around it. Obviously not a featureless plain, but perhaps the diseased and dying part of the world - that still conceals great treasures.

UltimateCharge · September 2017

I think it will lag more on potato computers if it has infinate terrain.

Add Procedural Generation- Be Able To explore this alien ocean forever.

Comments