Getting serious about Lore & technology.
DagothUr
Florida Join Date: 2016-07-12 Member: 220125Members
Florida Join Date: 2016-07-12 Member: 220125Members
This should be a big factor in how the finished game turns out. "Rule of Cool" can only take you so far - eventually the glamour wears off and people start asking questions.
Anyone who's played Rimworld already understands what I mean by this. We've already established in the first five minutes that whatever civilization the PC comes from, they're capable of interstellar travel. This suggests FTL travel, but cryosleep still works so long as you're not trying to move between galaxies. The computer mentions the Aurora runs off something called a "Dark Matter Reactor" - which makes me cringe, BTW. Then the reactor explodes, which by the way is something that no nuclear reactor in real life has ever done nor could ever do (hint: because they just don't work that way). And when it does explode the blast radius is less than that of a Chinese chemical plant, let alone the planet vaporizing potential that such a theoretical energy plant could generate.
Meanwhile, while clearly come from a post-Star Trek future designed entirely by Apple (and therefore hard corners are considered a cardinal sin), a lot things seem tossed back to the 20th century. On one hand we carry around the Habit Builder: A pocket sized matter re-arranger that would, in real life, be the end-game of all human achievement. With but one battery it can take raw elements, read a blueprint, and assemble all of their component atoms in the proper form so fast that a 10m wide room can be built in under 30 seconds.
Then we head over to power plants and find that it caps at uranium powered nuclear fission. Tidal converters, fusion, etc, are beyond your little devices ability it would seem. And while it can build rooms & bulkheads capable of withstanding a thousand meters depth worth of pressure from the get-go, it does not know how to build a plastic chair from WalkMart unless you scan one first.
Your fabricator can turn plant vines into synthetic fibers and then weave those fibers into a wetsuit - all in seconds. Yet it's culinary abilities peak at toasting a dead fish with laser beams or turning them into jerky. Nutrient paste? Canned veggies? What is this sorcery you speak of? And it can extract water from an Airsack fish but not from a Marblemelon plant, because reasons.
Most offensive to all common sense is the oxygen tanks. I can see how a human being of a certain level of health could only hold 45 seconds of oxygen in their lungs. More impressive is that you've got a digital readout that lets you know just how much air your lungs are holding, down to the second. But then you build a proper SCUBA diving oxygen tank, one so sophisticated that things like regulators aren't needed and you're immune to the bends. This is going to open up a whole new world, right? Wrong! All you've done is add another 30 seconds to your air supply.
Dafuq? You could fit more than thirty seconds of oxygen inside a used 2-liter soda bottle. This is the pinnacle of diving technology from a civilization that brings us hand held matter assemblers and FTL space ships?
Actually, no it isn't! Because using that same technology and a small floating podium, we can assemble a 2000 ton submarine from raw materials in under sixty seconds flat, and power it up to be able to handle depths of up to 1500 meters, no problem. Of course it still runs on batteries only, has no alternate power supplies, and doesn't come equipped with sonar, because if you want sonar you have to use the one that you can build & install in the Seamoth instead.
Let's face: Technology is all over the map, here. One minute you'll be seeing stuff that would make Captain Picccard gape in awe and the next minute we're still trying to catch up with the 18th century. And I get why this is done, too. Devs are placing gameplay mechanics ahead of realism, and pretty much every game does that to some degree or another. However, once you cross a certain threshold it starts to become a problem - and they have definitely crossed that threshold long ago.
I say it's time to clamp down on handing out "Rule of Cool" passes on every illogical, nonsensical thing that comes by the teacher's desk. We need to decide what level of technology we're dealing with and make sure that everything coincides with that. 30 second dive tanks are silly & unrealistic, period. Making a giant submarine from thin air in under a minute is silly & unrealistic too. Putting medical fabricators lower on the tech tree than plant pots is simply mind numbing.
So what needs to be done? My suggestion might surprise you: Rebuild the code to work with Steam Workshop. In other words, introduce modding to the game. Again, if you've played Rimworld you already understand what I mean. Given time, the players will - entirely on their own - find a way to rebalance the technology, the resource requirements, and the abilities of equipment to be far more balanced & sensible than it is now. Opening up modding and Steam workshop basically crowd-sources potentially free development and bug testing, and it's turned many a potential dud into a hit (see also "Everything Bethesda has ever released").
Anyone who's played Rimworld already understands what I mean by this. We've already established in the first five minutes that whatever civilization the PC comes from, they're capable of interstellar travel. This suggests FTL travel, but cryosleep still works so long as you're not trying to move between galaxies. The computer mentions the Aurora runs off something called a "Dark Matter Reactor" - which makes me cringe, BTW. Then the reactor explodes, which by the way is something that no nuclear reactor in real life has ever done nor could ever do (hint: because they just don't work that way). And when it does explode the blast radius is less than that of a Chinese chemical plant, let alone the planet vaporizing potential that such a theoretical energy plant could generate.
Meanwhile, while clearly come from a post-Star Trek future designed entirely by Apple (and therefore hard corners are considered a cardinal sin), a lot things seem tossed back to the 20th century. On one hand we carry around the Habit Builder: A pocket sized matter re-arranger that would, in real life, be the end-game of all human achievement. With but one battery it can take raw elements, read a blueprint, and assemble all of their component atoms in the proper form so fast that a 10m wide room can be built in under 30 seconds.
Then we head over to power plants and find that it caps at uranium powered nuclear fission. Tidal converters, fusion, etc, are beyond your little devices ability it would seem. And while it can build rooms & bulkheads capable of withstanding a thousand meters depth worth of pressure from the get-go, it does not know how to build a plastic chair from WalkMart unless you scan one first.
Your fabricator can turn plant vines into synthetic fibers and then weave those fibers into a wetsuit - all in seconds. Yet it's culinary abilities peak at toasting a dead fish with laser beams or turning them into jerky. Nutrient paste? Canned veggies? What is this sorcery you speak of? And it can extract water from an Airsack fish but not from a Marblemelon plant, because reasons.
Most offensive to all common sense is the oxygen tanks. I can see how a human being of a certain level of health could only hold 45 seconds of oxygen in their lungs. More impressive is that you've got a digital readout that lets you know just how much air your lungs are holding, down to the second. But then you build a proper SCUBA diving oxygen tank, one so sophisticated that things like regulators aren't needed and you're immune to the bends. This is going to open up a whole new world, right? Wrong! All you've done is add another 30 seconds to your air supply.
Dafuq? You could fit more than thirty seconds of oxygen inside a used 2-liter soda bottle. This is the pinnacle of diving technology from a civilization that brings us hand held matter assemblers and FTL space ships?
Actually, no it isn't! Because using that same technology and a small floating podium, we can assemble a 2000 ton submarine from raw materials in under sixty seconds flat, and power it up to be able to handle depths of up to 1500 meters, no problem. Of course it still runs on batteries only, has no alternate power supplies, and doesn't come equipped with sonar, because if you want sonar you have to use the one that you can build & install in the Seamoth instead.
Let's face: Technology is all over the map, here. One minute you'll be seeing stuff that would make Captain Picccard gape in awe and the next minute we're still trying to catch up with the 18th century. And I get why this is done, too. Devs are placing gameplay mechanics ahead of realism, and pretty much every game does that to some degree or another. However, once you cross a certain threshold it starts to become a problem - and they have definitely crossed that threshold long ago.
I say it's time to clamp down on handing out "Rule of Cool" passes on every illogical, nonsensical thing that comes by the teacher's desk. We need to decide what level of technology we're dealing with and make sure that everything coincides with that. 30 second dive tanks are silly & unrealistic, period. Making a giant submarine from thin air in under a minute is silly & unrealistic too. Putting medical fabricators lower on the tech tree than plant pots is simply mind numbing.
So what needs to be done? My suggestion might surprise you: Rebuild the code to work with Steam Workshop. In other words, introduce modding to the game. Again, if you've played Rimworld you already understand what I mean. Given time, the players will - entirely on their own - find a way to rebalance the technology, the resource requirements, and the abilities of equipment to be far more balanced & sensible than it is now. Opening up modding and Steam workshop basically crowd-sources potentially free development and bug testing, and it's turned many a potential dud into a hit (see also "Everything Bethesda has ever released").
Comments
It's the future, it's a videogame. Means things don't have to make sense. Subnautica was never advertised as realistic, so why should it be realistic?
So by your logic, Sonic the Hedgehog should be redone because hedgehogs can not curl into little balls and zip around, Halo should be redone because the physics of the halo rings is impossible, Call of Duty Zombies Mode should be redone because there is no such thing as zombies and there are no magical boxes that spawn weapons for you to use, Eve Online, X-Wing, Elite: Dangerous and every space fighter simulator should be redone because that is not how flying works in space......
Then again, realism isn't what you're asking for. Your whole post is just a long winded plug for steam workshop support.
I personally overlook many of the "discrepencies" simply because they do not really detract from my enjoyment. Although I did kind of cringe when I found the forklift.
I do agree though that at some point mods might be a good thing.
And I have to say I think people are missing the point with what OP says. I don't think he's saying the game should be as realistic as possible straight "out the box" as it were.
His final point is a huge thing in my opinion.
While the vanilla game is, of course, how the vanilla game should be, so it appeals to the widest possible audience and doesn't overwhelm, I know there's a lot of us out there who would love to tailor the game to our own liking. I jokingly made a post in another thread about a mod idea but in all seriousness I would genuinely play it;
I'd play this because it's bad ass and would please me. Not most people, but me.
For me it's not so much a realism issue as wanting to make the game as hard as possible. Realism would be one way to do that.
If OP's ideas were implemented in a mod I would definitely download and play it, probably for a lot longer than I would play vanilla.
Anyone who's played Fallout games or Skyrim or hell, any other game to be honest, will know how important mods are.
I love Rimworld myself, but I cannot play vanilla Rimworld anymore. It's way too easy after you've struggled with Rimworld Hardcore mods.
Quite frankly, when I got this game, I thought that all of the magic wand builders were a placeholder, because they just looked so stupid.
I am overall very dissapointed in the game. The setting doesn't hold up to even a casual inspection before stuff starts to feel like BS, and the devs have gotten so stuck on certain ideas like "no guns" and "the game will be all about exploration" that they have failed to simply make the game FUN.
To each their own. I for one have an extreme amount of fun in the game, sorry you do not. But you can't say it is BS because they have never said the game was based on reality. It is a video game for petes sake.
That just makes no sense.
If you start a game on a premise, stick to it, or provide a good reason why it doesn't apply in this case. Inconsistent rule sets are just bad writing.
Well, if they put at least a little realism, what's the problem in putting more? Talking about me, playing a survival game that is unrealistic really bothers me. Don't ask why.
Well, some people don't like super hardcore survival games. Its about balancing realism with fun.
That's not true by definition. More realistic would not mean less fun, less easy, or more hardcore. Especially not how the OP puts it.
You can make fun stuff in a realistic way (though there's also reasons to make it unrealistic if going for fantasy, ofcourse)
But I believe in a game like subnautica, you can have both. realism and fun. I'm fine with something complex like a habitat builder, but it could be slightly changed around so that it would feel more realistic apart from "a small device that randomly shapes atoms and molecules to make big objects out of nothing"
The order of how tech is discovered should be slightly switched out. Maybe make some more basic stuff a bit more "high tech feeling" aswell to make it feel like futuristic equipment, without changing what it does at all.
For me, realism is fun. The more realism, the more fun the game is for me.
I have to agree. I frequent the message boards for a number of games, and the "This game sucks so hard now, the devs are ruining it, but I can't stop talking about it" people are a constant.
As for modding; modding is like giving a million monkeys typewriters and praying you get Shakespeare. For every really awesome mod someone produces, there's an awful lot of garbage and/or facilitation of rule 34. Would it be a nice feature? Sure. But I find the argument that Subnautica NEEDS to be moddable in order to be good dubious at best.
Some people, myself included, think that adding too much realism makes a game harder than it should be. I don't want a super hard micromanagement fest, but that's what it would turn into if every realism campaigner had their way. I do think that making it more realistic would make it less fun for some, and that making it less realistic would make it less fun for some. I think the game has found a pretty good balance. And as I've said before, why does it need to be realistic?
As you said - too much realism. Right now it's (IMO) just too far off. There don't have to be any changes to gameplay, to make it more realistic in a sense. I'm sure you've read OP, and his main concerns were tech ordering and differences between tech. Ofcourse he mentioned some stuff like O2 tanks - which is something that just can't be realistic in the base game, I agree with you on a lot of points.
But being more realistic goes a long way.
scanning some simple furniture like a chair and table before being able to build huge ships (read cyclops), would already make the game a lot more realistic.
The other problems was with food: simple "name" changes and a new image could totally make the food sound like some high tech thing. No gameplay changes.
Same with the knife, it can be some high tech equipment, instead of some 18th century tool, without any gameplay changes.
Just a few examples that would both increase the "Wow" of these items and make them feel more in line.
And the blueprints you add to it aren't from some "in case of crash scenario, break glass'' case that got rained all over the ocean bottom. You are scanning pieces of technology that were in the cargo hold of the Aurora. Or scanning pieces of equipment left over from the Degasi survivors.
That said, your fabricator is going to have a weird 'technology gap'. Where you can craft the absolute base necessities of survival... and the equivalent of sports cars. But not something in between. Also, you have to remember. What the base survival equipment is meant to do is hold you out for weeks or months until rescue. Its not meant to restart society.
Also, like sports cars, I can see alot of essential equipment left out of the base Cyclops blueprint. So you would be forced to purchase the extra 'features', craft them, and upgrade your submersible up to even useable state. Companies pull this shit all the time.
So you have the most obvious renewable energy sources. Sun, thermal, and bio reactor. Because they cover the most amount of ground. As for the whole O2 tank weirdness, thats entirely for game balance. Some suspension of disbelief is required.
And for the whole exploding Aurora... the engine didn't exactly explode. As we return to it and fix it. And if it had gone full on kaboom, there would be little left. Whats more likely to have happened was the engine malfunctioned due to the breeches in it, causing a power surge in the ship that stressed part of the ship's systems to the breaking point. Then kaboom.
I can agree with you on most of it. But on the whole scanning thing, you do have to scan the cyclops parts before you can make it. Its kind of up to you to decide what order you scan things in.
they are happy to just experience the joys of everything with out depressing themselves with things like realism and scientific accuracy.
in the end it is us more intelligent people who are stupid for letting things like realism ruin our enjoyment of games and i guess life too, so just sit back, relax, and play the game
I agree, although I would point out that it's impossible for 80% of people to be below average...........
Well, unless the other 20% are astronomically above average.
As for the Cyclops not being "all powerful" that's also explained in the current PDAs from the first castaways. They are a very basic and widely used vehicle, that from what I can gather is outfitted depending on the situation and as needed. That being said does the modules make sense? Not completely but that's going to be changed with the chipset upgrades being added on top of the modules..
And lastly peoples intelligence has absolutely NOTHING to do with this.. The moment you put that out there it immediately detracted from what ever point you where trying to make. What ever good that could have come from this thread has basically now been blurred by your arrogance..
That said, I really enjoy the game as is. I already live in a world where I don't own a submarine or a cool mater fabricator to make my own. I play Subnautica so I can have my own sub and build cool nonsensical bases in cool nonsensical biolumiated worlds. I'm sure there is a place for a physics simulator, not every game needs to fit that bill.
Ah yes the old "im the superior being and theyre the unwashed masses" argument. The simple fact that you took the time to type that out, means you probably have less of a life than the 80% of us "below average intelligence" people.
That's now how averages work.
Ugh... OP, your post was okay. Yes, there are technological discrepancies and inconsistancies; I can agree with you on certain things, some could use tweaking, and some--look, a certain amount of suspension of disbelief is required, okay? But then... then you implied / vaguely compared this game... to a Bethesda Title. And you brought up modding. UWE is NOT Bethesda. They are only small team, many of whom don't / might not? even meet face to face when they work!
Being small, they can only do so much. I'm amazed at what they have done and are continuing to do with this - dare I say it - incredibly ambitious game. I'm glad this game doesn't have guns; no matter how many people whinge for them. I'm glad this game does not have multiplayer shoehorned in. And I am glad that this game does NOT have mods. Mods... the Devs can't push a magic button and just... add support for modding! Despite what people might think - "oh, they can do that, it's easy!" - it isn't! IT IS NOT!
Modding support is one of the reasons Bethesda Games are so damn bug ridden; they have to job their engines to possibly account for EVERY SINGLE THING some schmuck might want to mod in. Heaven help us if Subnautica becomes a bug-ridden, crash-prone mess like the Fallout Games (3, New Vegas) were on the old Creation Engine--and lest we not forget Morrowind... I trust the Devs to know what they're doing. In the end, it's their game, not ours. They will, I know, do a big balance and polish pass prior to release of 1.0 but for now, the game is still Early Access.
Let me repeat that, just for those who aren't listening or reading. Subnautica is...
Meaning that it is,
The moment you resort to name calling and personal insults, you have lost the argument. Calling 80% of the people here idiots, does not make you a genius. It only proves how little respect you have for others, and how overgrown your ego is.