The only thing i aggree with here is the "perpetually empty seaglide" i would rather have no recharge stations in the game AT ALL than a seaglide that uses 1% power every second. In my opinion the depletion rates of items should not have been changed, now i need to take 5 batteries with me while exploring, cause i dont want my cutter or my seaglide or my propulsion cannon to run out of energy.. these 5 batteries now just clog up my inventory all the time, energy managment should be a thing in this game but "not like this" (add meme here)
I have a lot of sand sharks and one is in the "safe zone" along with one of those long fish that hang out in the seaweed. Still, I managed to build everything except the module upgrade thing because I haven't found it yet. Also one cyclops which poofs. I do find silver seems to be in short supply, but that might be randomness. Its kind of irritating to see those large silver deposits I can't mine yet when looking for it.
So I haven't had too rough a time of it. Not that it was "easy" either.
The large deposits you can get with the exo suit drill arm upgrade. And at that point, you overflow with silver.
There are about 2 sandsharks in the safe shallows that respawn even after i punch them to death. And there are many blueprints that are a pain to find, like:
The modification station, that is in a wreck in the mountains near a reaper spawn point.
The only thing i aggree with here is the "perpetually empty seaglide" i would rather have no recharge stations in the game AT ALL than a seaglide that uses 1% power every second. In my opinion the depletion rates of items should not have been changed, now i need to take 5 batteries with me while exploring...
I usually take 3 with me plus some more stored in the seamoth.
Basalt is an even more poor source of diamond than Sandstone is of silver. Maybe 1 in 50 nodes, or less, actually drop diamond in my experience. Almost always gold, 99% of the time. To actually get diamond you have to get to the Deep Grand Reef (far too deep, crabsquids) or Underwater Islands (permanent No Go Zone without a Seamoth due to absolutely ridiculous boneshark density), where they appear individually. Just saying. Diamond is a huge gate, even when you only need one.
1- Get a seamoth
2- Go to the mountain island by the west side
3- Go into the caves and find basalt (It is not that rare to find basalt or to get diamond)
4- ????
5- Profit
Every pod signal gives you something for going there or shows you a wreck worth exploring. The way the signals are leading you around makes it almost too easy.
Seriously, pod 17 gives you a Seamoth fragment and the wreck with fragments for the mobile Vehicle Bay, Battery Charger, Bioreactor and, if you dare to go into its very bowels, PRAWN Claw Arms and a Drill Arm fragment.
Get the Seaglide and some Batteries and the game is easy. And if you can`t operate the glide good enough to handle the predators, go to baby mode via getting the Exosuit from the Aurora.
Sigh, getting the feeling less and less people can and want to adapt to new situations. You play early access, so expect changes in difficulty and that you have to adapt. Else don`t play early access games and wait for their official release.
The Seaglide may preserve your life, but it does not give you the means to sit and scan that fragment guarded by a full half-dozen or more very active, very aggressive sandsharks backed up by biters in swarms. You can get away... empty handed. You still can't play the game. At least, I can't. No idea how other people can sail through literal shoals of very active predators, do something that requires poking around in sand next to them all and sitting still for 30 seconds, and not be torn to shreds.
TL;DR: you can outflank A sandshark. You cannot outflank ALL the sandsharks. And every wreck, debris field, and mini-wreck is now guarded by ALL the sandsharks, and they've eaten their Wheaties. And by that I mean Crewman Wheatie, apparently.
I love seeing the game change and evolve. I do NOT love it when it changes into something I literally can no longer play because progress is completely and totally impossible. If there was a strategy, an item, a technology, or a technique besides all you dudebros shrieking "LOL GIT GUD NUB!", I would love to learn it, but there ISN'T. You just plain get eaten. THE EARLY GAME IS TOO DAMNED HARD! Start a hashtag or something.
I commented on the sandshark issue literally five posts above this one? As I said there, I agree that the spawn rate for them is broken (my grassy plateaus are crawling with them in huge numbers), but you can get through them with a little planning. Bring some first aid kits like I did. Expect to get bitten a few times. I suck at dodging them, so I deal with the damage as best as I can.
Also to stop them from following you home, swim straight up for the surface. Halfway up they should wander off back to the bottom. If they don't, don't swim home til they leave you alone.
This is the kind of thing I'm trying to raise awareness of. Apparently it ONLY happens to me, from the flak I keep getting. Half of the sandsharks that have followed me home did so by first CLIMBING up to the surface to attack me, exactly like they're (in theory) not supposed to, being a bottom-dwelling ambush predator.
My FIRST thought was to scout the Plateau from the surface. I've done that before. But it just isn't possible anymore. They come up to get me, every time. It takes just slightly longer than just swimming brashly toward the border, but still happens well in advance of the actual border, inside the shallows as they come out (and up) to meet me.
Funny thing about predators in this game: if they bite they swim AWAY from you for a while. This combined with the endless supply of healthkits from the pod makes every non-one-hit encounter pretty much trivial even for the incompetent at dodging.
It's not that you're wrong, precisely, because that is an accurate, if incomplete description of what happens.
Most sharks do a 30% health bite, and yes, they do swim off a bit and "reset" afterwards.
It's their 6 or 7 buddies in line right behind them, and all around you, that pose the problem, as I've been saying. You cannot get near anything worthwhile anymore without being dog-piled by far more sharks than anyone could possibly handle, all at once and clogging all your escape routes. At least, in my game, which everyone is increasingly trying to convince me is somehow bugged. I wish. Can I buy that bug where there's nothing alive outside the Shallows, please? Maybe then I could build a freaking seamoth...
Ye gods. If you are not exaggerating this for the sake of winning the discussion, do consider the fact that you seem to be the only once facing this problem. There's obviously something wrong with the game on your end. Maybe a corrupted save, maybe an update gone wrong, maybe just a hiccup in the code. There are many possibilities, but you won't know until you get off the forum and start working on it. Many people have suggested that you reinstall Subnautica and start a brand new game, but no, you keep crusading for your cause instead of trying to actually fix it...
Right now at game start theres more than enough Seaglide/Solar panels fragments lying around the safe shallows.
lol see my thread on why the above isn't true.
As for the sandshark aggro. The predator aggro is... weird. I've had a playthrough where I had a base nearby a kelp forest. Things were fine for days, then all of a sudden the stalkers went into a frenzy. Camped outside my base, bit me every time I exited even in daytime. I had to go freaking rambo with the knife. Five deaths later the stalkers were dead and peace returned to the ocean.
I've had no problem making trips into sand shark territory. I usually look down, scan the seafloor for what I want to get, dive down and get it then dive back up. Also make sure to rock at least 4 health kits on you for when things get munchy.
As for making a base... your first base really needs to be in the safe shallows, away from the kelp. Because sometimes the AI gets beef and wants you dead. And if you don't have the tools to deal with them, your in for a lot of headache.
Ye gods. If you are not exaggerating this for the sake of winning the discussion, do consider the fact that you seem to be the only once facing this problem. There's obviously something wrong with the game on your end. Maybe a corrupted save, maybe an update gone wrong, maybe just a hiccup in the code. There are many possibilities, but you won't know until you get off the forum and start working on it. Many people have suggested that you reinstall Subnautica and start a brand new game, but no, you keep crusading for your cause instead of trying to actually fix it...
I'm not saying I won't do so, but I DID do exactly that once, back in the Machine update. Nothing changed (this was around the time people were just figuring out the UNNANOUNCED change that Stalkers would get super-attracted to tools like the knife). Nobody believed me then until people figured out how to replicate "OMG all the stalkers make a beeline for me the instant I get anywhere near a forest", but now it's accepted fact.
I sincerely hope that's the case, but I want it on the record it's not the first time the game's been so utterly unplayable due to predator aggro that I've prayed it was a bug and went for reinstall, to find that nope, it's completely as expected.
Ye gods. If you are not exaggerating this for the sake of winning the discussion, do consider the fact that you seem to be the only once facing this problem. There's obviously something wrong with the game on your end. Maybe a corrupted save, maybe an update gone wrong, maybe just a hiccup in the code. There are many possibilities, but you won't know until you get off the forum and start working on it. Many people have suggested that you reinstall Subnautica and start a brand new game, but no, you keep crusading for your cause instead of trying to actually fix it...
I'm not saying I won't do so, but I DID do exactly that once, back in the Machine update. Nothing changed (this was around the time people were just figuring out the UNNANOUNCED change that Stalkers would get super-attracted to tools like the knife). Nobody believed me then until people figured out how to replicate "OMG all the stalkers make a beeline for me the instant I get anywhere near a forest", but now it's accepted fact.
I sincerely hope that's the case, but I want it on the record it's not the first time the game's been so utterly unplayable due to predator aggro that I've prayed it was a bug and went for reinstall, to find that nope, it's completely as expected.
Yet people who have had similar issues have made a new save and have had their problems fixed. So maybe try it before you say it won't work.
While I haven't had as much trouble as Oro, there is clearly something wrong with sand sharks. Just a few hours into the game, finally got the tools I need to make a nice base, and there's an invasion in the shallows. It started with one sand shark eating all the fish. I stabbed him and chased him off. Figured maybe that was it. He came back, so I stabbed him to death. Another one show up and I do the same to him. Two more are making a steady trip into the shallows as I depart for some more farming. The message I sent was stay away and apparently what they got was travel with a buddy.
This is pretty early game, before unlocking the tank or building a giant farm room. They are consuming the entire food source in the shallows. Are you really going to argue that everyone should have to fill their inventory with tanks and head straight to the jelly shroom cave for the tank fragments so we can preserve some food before the sand sharks eat it all because that is just how a survival game is?
I know where the islands are. I could head straight there with every new game, build a farm before I even have sea glide fragments if I want to. Why the hell would I? Where's the fun (or challenge) in skipping to the end of an incomplete game because I already know?
You know, for a group who claims to be a hardcore bunch who want a tough survival game, your awfully happy to skip entire sections. It seems your a lot less interested in playing a challenging survival game then you are a time sink. Play it until you know every nook and cranny, and if the game doesn't force you to waste time building convoluted networks of piping or waiting for plants to grow and killing a few minutes for your beacon to materialize then it's too easy.
I don't think any of you know what the word "challenge" means.
I think we are at a point in the discussion were we need a statement from the devs. The stuff that is reported about the sandsharks has a taste of bug or scripted event to it. I have not encountered any of those problems except for two sharks spawning in the jellyshroom caves and many others don't seem to either.
I do think the declarations that the early game is unplayable is hyperbole. I managed just fine in the end, getting to the phase where I have my own base, a seamoth and moon pool and even my own upgraded prawn suit. I was able to do all this despite the issues with the sand sharks. The game is more than playable.
But make no mistake -- there are issues with the sand sharks. They are spawning in excessive numbers, are acting like persistent "chasing" predators (as opposed to ambush predators -- there's a huge difference in nature). And yes, they are moving into the shallow and staying there. Three of them took up residence immediately outside my fenced-in lifepod and made it nearly impossible to even go back to it (that the lifepod even needs "fencing" is itself indicative of Subnautica's problematic early game incidentally. Yes I know they're trying to squish that bug.).
Even if you don't mind the huge swarms of sand sharks and later the bone sharks and can navigate them fine, there is the issue that they damage the game's immersion qualities. A Valve developer said it best -- a headcrab in every vent is just annoying. One headcrab in every five vents is terrifying . To put it another way: the shrill bone shark screams and growling sand shark sounds used to unnerve me until they became just more background noise.
Oh, and I think batteries are fine the way they are. I just recommend using at least four for the seaglide and keep four more charging at the base while you're out doing your thing.
The Seaglide may preserve your life, but it does not give you the means to sit and scan that fragment guarded by a full half-dozen or more very active, very aggressive sandsharks backed up by biters in swarms. You can get away... empty handed. You still can't play the game. At least, I can't. No idea how other people can sail through literal shoals of very active predators, do something that requires poking around in sand next to them all and sitting still for 30 seconds, and not be torn to shreds.
TL;DR: you can outflank A sandshark. You cannot outflank ALL the sandsharks. And every wreck, debris field, and mini-wreck is now guarded by ALL the sandsharks, and they've eaten their Wheaties. And by that I mean Crewman Wheatie, apparently.
I love seeing the game change and evolve. I do NOT love it when it changes into something I literally can no longer play because progress is completely and totally impossible. If there was a strategy, an item, a technology, or a technique besides all you dudebros shrieking "LOL GIT GUD NUB!", I would love to learn it, but there ISN'T. You just plain get eaten. THE EARLY GAME IS TOO DAMNED HARD! Start a hashtag or something.
Oro, you are just another whiner, there are enough people that prove you wrong that this game is enjoyable and playable. My starting point has about 5 Gasopods under the "Lifeboat", sandsharks a bit away where they never used to be and the usal fast biters in the creepvine forest, still I never died from them, bitten yes. And once you have the seaglide it is easy, but it doesn`t mean you get everything at once. Never said that I had not to take care of where I gathered stuff or search for another fragment because one was to dangerous to get. That`s why there are dozens of them.
Most problems I got at start was finding silver for wiring and computer chips, not the fragments. They`re ALL easy to get, just takes a bit time and searching and exactly that`s what this game is about, searching, gathering, building, exploring, surviving (and once they finished developing it`s either the original intended "make the planet habitable" or what seems to be the new and more boring goal "escape the planet" or something completely different, not sure what the latest in that part is).
There are many possibilities, but you won't know until you get off the forum and start working on it. Many people have suggested that you reinstall Subnautica and start a brand new game, but no, you keep crusading for your cause instead of trying to actually fix it...
I'm not saying I won't do so, but I DID do exactly that once, back in the Machine update. Nothing changed (this was around the time people were just figuring out the UNNANOUNCED change that Stalkers would get super-attracted to tools like the knife). Nobody believed me then until people figured out how to replicate "OMG all the stalkers make a beeline for me the instant I get anywhere near a forest", but now it's accepted fact.
I sincerely hope that's the case, but I want it on the record it's not the first time the game's been so utterly unplayable due to predator aggro that I've prayed it was a bug and went for reinstall, to find that nope, it's completely as expected.
Yet people who have had similar issues have made a new save and have had their problems fixed. So maybe try it before you say it won't work.
All I said was I tried it before in a similar situation to no avail. But as it turns out, you're right. I'd love to hear where you heard someone with similar issues started over, because I haven't come across any posts like that around here or on Steam.
That said, yep, things are much closer to "normal" on a restart:
5 to 7 Sandsharks per large wreck, instead of the 15+ I had been seeing
Plateau border areas are not literally nose-to-tail with Sandshark swarms. There's one or two here and there, as usual.
Debris clusters on the Plateau border - two I specifically checked because I could not get NEAR them last game due to 5 or more Sandsharks camping them - now had 1 or 0 Sandsharks near them.
They still move into the Shallows, but do so on their own and one at a time, not in a pack of 6 that followed me home like last time.
They're still far more aggressive (notice and attack you from very far off, follow you a good distance) than they should be for an ambush predator (they still don't seem to care about sticking close to the sand whatsoever), but it's now a reasonable 100 meter chase and that crap where they swim WAY up to the surface from 150 meters down just to get you has stopped, thank goodness. They're still taking a page from the Reaper's book and seem to deliberately sneak up behind you. At least that's a legit ambush tactic, as much as I hate it.
The fragments still seem awfully stingy per wreck (so many empty boxes, so very few fragments, especially Mobile Vehicle Bay), but juuuuuust barely above the absolute minimum you need.
I can now upgrade my assessment of the Seaglide portion of the early game from "utterly unplayable" to "merely frustrating and not very fun". Six in-game days and 4 or 5 batteries' worth of Seaglide and 3 near-deaths from quick-succession Sandshark attacks to get exactly enough fragments for the battery charger (and incomplete several other blueprints) is a bit much. Almost all of that time was spent basically dodging and weaving trying to find and then get to a bloody door. Once through the door almost all the fragment-finding took palce on the last trip. But at least it can be done!
I do think the declarations that the early game is unplayable is hyperbole. I managed just fine in the end, getting to the phase where I have my own base, a seamoth and moon pool and even my own upgraded prawn suit. I was able to do all this despite the issues with the sand sharks. The game is more than playable.
But make no mistake -- there are issues with the sand sharks. They are spawning in excessive numbers, are acting like persistent "chasing" predators (as opposed to ambush predators -- there's a huge difference in nature). And yes, they are moving into the shallow and staying there. Three of them took up residence immediately outside my fenced-in lifepod and made it nearly impossible to even go back to it (that the lifepod even needs "fencing" is itself indicative of Subnautica's problematic early game incidentally. Yes I know they're trying to squish that bug.).
Even if you don't mind the huge swarms of sand sharks and later the bone sharks and can navigate them fine, there is the issue that they damage the game's immersion qualities. A Valve developer said it best -- a headcrab in every vent is just annoying. One headcrab in every five vents is terrifying . To put it another way: the shrill bone shark screams and growling sand shark sounds used to unnerve me until they became just more background noise.
Oh, and I think batteries are fine the way they are. I just recommend using at least four for the seaglide and keep four more charging at the base while you're out doing your thing.
Well it wasn't intended as hyperbole; I described what I saw as accurately as I could without stopping mid-death to count Sandsharks. That said, it did go more or less back to something approximating "normal" upon starting a (second) new game. See my detailed comment above.
That said - and at the risk of diverting the topic - your comment about batteries really made me think about the old Powerglide upgrade. What if there was a Mod Station version of the Seaglide that took a Power Cell instead of a Battery, and therefore lasted twice as long? Wouldn't that be worth building?
I will say that in-between some of the experimental versions one of my saves encountered an unusual bug.. I was growing some stalkers in single containment unit which was full.. When I loaded that save at a later time the tank had suddenly exploded to like 20+ stalkers which im pretty sure it's not suppose to be capable of doing.. It was sort of like all the existing stalkers had duplicated...
Perhaps some save files were also duplicating critters out in the world too? It would likely only affect critters that had already spawned into the world as they would have an entry somewhere on your save file about their location and other relevant meta data.. That's all I can think of. I submitted a report using F8 and have since stopped playing that world in favor of a new one I started.
Well I'm glad restarting at least fixed some of your issues, and perhaps taught you something about knee-jerking.
Hopefully it's also taught some of the other posters in this and other similar threads about dismissing experiences in the game that don't quite match their own.
As for what we've figured out, does this sound right?:
It seems that sand sharks have taken to pretending to behave like stalkers. They also like to settle beyond their territory if the player lures them there. Finally, in some saves, there are 2-3 times as many of them in the world.
[edit] Has anyone seen large numbers or odd behaviour in creatures other than sand sharks?
Fathom, if Oro would have had that issue I could`ve understood him. That puppy always wants to play rough. Did I miss something for now or does the Prawn not have something like the seamoth electrocute field to get rid of the little one? What I tried was while it grabbed me drilling into his head with the prawn, but that doesn`t seem to bother it much.
Fathom, if Oro would have had that issue I could`ve understood him. That puppy always wants to play rough. Did I miss something for now or does the Prawn not have something like the seamoth electrocute field to get rid of the little one? What I tried was while it grabbed me drilling into his head with the prawn, but that doesn`t seem to bother it much.
The Drill Arm doesn't seem to be doing much damage. I guess it's useful for shooing Sand Sharks away when you're mining and use a Propulsion Arm instead of a Claw Arm, so you have to go out and pick things up in person. The Claw Arms, though, pack a real punch. A few hits can kill a Bone Shark.
And no, no Perimeter Defense for the PRAWN. Got to be more hands on to get rid of things. But it's around three times as tough as a Seamoth, so it doesn't need to be so twitchy.
Not on the big one, Sand sharks etc you can kill with the drill arm if you have to. Used it that way to clear the starting zone with the Life pod from sand sharks, since they didn`t respawn (there) they definitly migrated from somehwere else... .
As for the many Gasopods under my lifepod, I let em live there. I kinda like em even if you have to be carefull around them.
Can't build anything because even more basic things are now locked behind nearly-inaccessible fragments or newly require even more computer chips and wiring kits.
Can't explore because you have no real base, just a tube with some lockers in it. You go out poorly equipped, and find every fragment is now behind 3,000 hungry sandsharks. That now have telescopic vision, spot you all but over the horizon, and follow you all the way home. I now cannot leave my pitiful base because the sandsharks that followed me home from the first debris field I tried to scan have camped outside my hatch, in the middle of the Shallows, forever.
Seriously, if you want this game to be PLAYABLE, not just done by streamers console-commanding everything in, if you want us to actually test gameplay, then freaking stop messing around with where the fragments are and address predator spawning, persistence, leashing, and AI.
Every time you update I feel like I'm almost instantly done with this game because that WALL of difficulty early game gets worse and worse all the time. If it were just the Grassy Plateau being a no-go-zone (which it is - dive even 10 meters below the surface, instantly get aggroed by rising sandsharks that drop everything to eat you - WTH?), that would be one thing, but then when the sharks move into the shallows? NOW what are you supposed to do? With your non-rechargeable batteries and perpetually-empty Seaglide, enemies that can't be bribed or distracted, and that pathetic, utterly useless knife?
I never supported the lethal weapons argument, but you KEEP MAKING IT DAMNED NEAR IMPOSSIBLE TO PROGRESS, every single update. It's incredibly frustrating. I might have thoughts about whether it was better to search nooks and crannies for fragments than have them grouped... if I could get within 100 meters of a fragment, even one lousy time. But I can't. So I guess I really am done, again, until you have a "Balance Update". Here's to wishing.
You're right that a lot of things are made harder now. And some info for beginners is missing about crucial things that the game veterans know where to find and get, while a beginner surely has its problems. The changes are necessary, but the signal help for inexperienced or new players to counteract the harder gameplay is still not fully developped in a satisfying manner.
The sandsharks aggression is quite ok later in game. I assume you had a stroke of bad luck with a sandshark near your lifepod in the shallows. The devs might have to make sure that the beginning gameplay is without sandsharks at the safe shallows. Mid to late game its ok to have the sandsharks, but certainly not in the first gameplay part.
Well I'm glad restarting at least fixed some of your issues, and perhaps taught you something about knee-jerking.
Hopefully it's also taught some of the other posters in this and other similar threads about dismissing experiences in the game that don't quite match their own.
As for what we've figured out, does this sound right?:
It seems that sand sharks have taken to pretending to behave like stalkers. They also like to settle beyond their territory if the player lures them there. Finally, in some saves, there are 2-3 times as many of them in the world.
[edit] Has anyone seen large numbers or odd behaviour in creatures other than sand sharks?
Mmm, for the Dev's sake, I want to try to make this more accurate.
I've DEFINITELY seen something that looks like duplication behavior, even in my "playable" save that isn't completely inundated in Sandsharks. You see pairs or triplets of them, here and there, matching each other move for move as if they're swimming in very close formation. It really catches your eye watching 2 of them chase the same spadefish with the exact same pattern, right next to each other. This must have happened on a much bigger scale in my first save and/or they don't always stay together like that after duplicating. This makes me worry that over time predators will continue to duplicate and eventually overhwelm their biomes, and, if the Sandsharks are any indication, neighboring ones as well.
While the pack following me into the shallows was one of my least fun experiences, it was a one-time thing, and in my new save they just appear to be appearing there (as in I did not watch them spawn or move, I just came across them in the shallows). However, they HAVE seemingly duplicated. 1 became 2 became 4 (fortunately, now I have a Stasis Rifle and will endeavor to do some Mutual of Omaha-style conservation of this ecosystem) in the Shallows.
The behaving like stalkers thing is hardly new. Ever since Machine they've been swimming higher, acting more aggressive, and coming in clumps, instead of "lurking" like we're led to expect them to. They do seem to "acquire" you from far off, but not nearly as bad as in my first save. I have no idea why that would be different.
Comments
The large deposits you can get with the exo suit drill arm upgrade. And at that point, you overflow with silver.
2- Go to the mountain island by the west side
3- Go into the caves and find basalt (It is not that rare to find basalt or to get diamond)
4- ????
5- Profit
The Seaglide may preserve your life, but it does not give you the means to sit and scan that fragment guarded by a full half-dozen or more very active, very aggressive sandsharks backed up by biters in swarms. You can get away... empty handed. You still can't play the game. At least, I can't. No idea how other people can sail through literal shoals of very active predators, do something that requires poking around in sand next to them all and sitting still for 30 seconds, and not be torn to shreds.
TL;DR: you can outflank A sandshark. You cannot outflank ALL the sandsharks. And every wreck, debris field, and mini-wreck is now guarded by ALL the sandsharks, and they've eaten their Wheaties. And by that I mean Crewman Wheatie, apparently.
I love seeing the game change and evolve. I do NOT love it when it changes into something I literally can no longer play because progress is completely and totally impossible. If there was a strategy, an item, a technology, or a technique besides all you dudebros shrieking "LOL GIT GUD NUB!", I would love to learn it, but there ISN'T. You just plain get eaten. THE EARLY GAME IS TOO DAMNED HARD! Start a hashtag or something.
This is the kind of thing I'm trying to raise awareness of. Apparently it ONLY happens to me, from the flak I keep getting. Half of the sandsharks that have followed me home did so by first CLIMBING up to the surface to attack me, exactly like they're (in theory) not supposed to, being a bottom-dwelling ambush predator.
My FIRST thought was to scout the Plateau from the surface. I've done that before. But it just isn't possible anymore. They come up to get me, every time. It takes just slightly longer than just swimming brashly toward the border, but still happens well in advance of the actual border, inside the shallows as they come out (and up) to meet me.
Love your handle, BTW. Props.
It's not that you're wrong, precisely, because that is an accurate, if incomplete description of what happens.
Most sharks do a 30% health bite, and yes, they do swim off a bit and "reset" afterwards.
It's their 6 or 7 buddies in line right behind them, and all around you, that pose the problem, as I've been saying. You cannot get near anything worthwhile anymore without being dog-piled by far more sharks than anyone could possibly handle, all at once and clogging all your escape routes. At least, in my game, which everyone is increasingly trying to convince me is somehow bugged. I wish. Can I buy that bug where there's nothing alive outside the Shallows, please? Maybe then I could build a freaking seamoth...
lol see my thread on why the above isn't true.
As for the sandshark aggro. The predator aggro is... weird. I've had a playthrough where I had a base nearby a kelp forest. Things were fine for days, then all of a sudden the stalkers went into a frenzy. Camped outside my base, bit me every time I exited even in daytime. I had to go freaking rambo with the knife. Five deaths later the stalkers were dead and peace returned to the ocean.
I've had no problem making trips into sand shark territory. I usually look down, scan the seafloor for what I want to get, dive down and get it then dive back up. Also make sure to rock at least 4 health kits on you for when things get munchy.
As for making a base... your first base really needs to be in the safe shallows, away from the kelp. Because sometimes the AI gets beef and wants you dead. And if you don't have the tools to deal with them, your in for a lot of headache.
I'm not saying I won't do so, but I DID do exactly that once, back in the Machine update. Nothing changed (this was around the time people were just figuring out the UNNANOUNCED change that Stalkers would get super-attracted to tools like the knife). Nobody believed me then until people figured out how to replicate "OMG all the stalkers make a beeline for me the instant I get anywhere near a forest", but now it's accepted fact.
I sincerely hope that's the case, but I want it on the record it's not the first time the game's been so utterly unplayable due to predator aggro that I've prayed it was a bug and went for reinstall, to find that nope, it's completely as expected.
Yet people who have had similar issues have made a new save and have had their problems fixed. So maybe try it before you say it won't work.
This is pretty early game, before unlocking the tank or building a giant farm room. They are consuming the entire food source in the shallows. Are you really going to argue that everyone should have to fill their inventory with tanks and head straight to the jelly shroom cave for the tank fragments so we can preserve some food before the sand sharks eat it all because that is just how a survival game is?
I know where the islands are. I could head straight there with every new game, build a farm before I even have sea glide fragments if I want to. Why the hell would I? Where's the fun (or challenge) in skipping to the end of an incomplete game because I already know?
You know, for a group who claims to be a hardcore bunch who want a tough survival game, your awfully happy to skip entire sections. It seems your a lot less interested in playing a challenging survival game then you are a time sink. Play it until you know every nook and cranny, and if the game doesn't force you to waste time building convoluted networks of piping or waiting for plants to grow and killing a few minutes for your beacon to materialize then it's too easy.
I don't think any of you know what the word "challenge" means.
But make no mistake -- there are issues with the sand sharks. They are spawning in excessive numbers, are acting like persistent "chasing" predators (as opposed to ambush predators -- there's a huge difference in nature). And yes, they are moving into the shallow and staying there. Three of them took up residence immediately outside my fenced-in lifepod and made it nearly impossible to even go back to it (that the lifepod even needs "fencing" is itself indicative of Subnautica's problematic early game incidentally. Yes I know they're trying to squish that bug.).
Even if you don't mind the huge swarms of sand sharks and later the bone sharks and can navigate them fine, there is the issue that they damage the game's immersion qualities. A Valve developer said it best -- a headcrab in every vent is just annoying. One headcrab in every five vents is terrifying . To put it another way: the shrill bone shark screams and growling sand shark sounds used to unnerve me until they became just more background noise.
Oh, and I think batteries are fine the way they are. I just recommend using at least four for the seaglide and keep four more charging at the base while you're out doing your thing.
Oro, you are just another whiner, there are enough people that prove you wrong that this game is enjoyable and playable. My starting point has about 5 Gasopods under the "Lifeboat", sandsharks a bit away where they never used to be and the usal fast biters in the creepvine forest, still I never died from them, bitten yes. And once you have the seaglide it is easy, but it doesn`t mean you get everything at once. Never said that I had not to take care of where I gathered stuff or search for another fragment because one was to dangerous to get. That`s why there are dozens of them.
Most problems I got at start was finding silver for wiring and computer chips, not the fragments. They`re ALL easy to get, just takes a bit time and searching and exactly that`s what this game is about, searching, gathering, building, exploring, surviving (and once they finished developing it`s either the original intended "make the planet habitable" or what seems to be the new and more boring goal "escape the planet" or something completely different, not sure what the latest in that part is).
All I said was I tried it before in a similar situation to no avail. But as it turns out, you're right. I'd love to hear where you heard someone with similar issues started over, because I haven't come across any posts like that around here or on Steam.
That said, yep, things are much closer to "normal" on a restart:
5 to 7 Sandsharks per large wreck, instead of the 15+ I had been seeing
Plateau border areas are not literally nose-to-tail with Sandshark swarms. There's one or two here and there, as usual.
Debris clusters on the Plateau border - two I specifically checked because I could not get NEAR them last game due to 5 or more Sandsharks camping them - now had 1 or 0 Sandsharks near them.
They still move into the Shallows, but do so on their own and one at a time, not in a pack of 6 that followed me home like last time.
They're still far more aggressive (notice and attack you from very far off, follow you a good distance) than they should be for an ambush predator (they still don't seem to care about sticking close to the sand whatsoever), but it's now a reasonable 100 meter chase and that crap where they swim WAY up to the surface from 150 meters down just to get you has stopped, thank goodness. They're still taking a page from the Reaper's book and seem to deliberately sneak up behind you. At least that's a legit ambush tactic, as much as I hate it.
The fragments still seem awfully stingy per wreck (so many empty boxes, so very few fragments, especially Mobile Vehicle Bay), but juuuuuust barely above the absolute minimum you need.
I can now upgrade my assessment of the Seaglide portion of the early game from "utterly unplayable" to "merely frustrating and not very fun". Six in-game days and 4 or 5 batteries' worth of Seaglide and 3 near-deaths from quick-succession Sandshark attacks to get exactly enough fragments for the battery charger (and incomplete several other blueprints) is a bit much. Almost all of that time was spent basically dodging and weaving trying to find and then get to a bloody door. Once through the door almost all the fragment-finding took palce on the last trip. But at least it can be done!
Well it wasn't intended as hyperbole; I described what I saw as accurately as I could without stopping mid-death to count Sandsharks. That said, it did go more or less back to something approximating "normal" upon starting a (second) new game. See my detailed comment above.
That said - and at the risk of diverting the topic - your comment about batteries really made me think about the old Powerglide upgrade. What if there was a Mod Station version of the Seaglide that took a Power Cell instead of a Battery, and therefore lasted twice as long? Wouldn't that be worth building?
Seriously though, when a game is updated, never assume save games are still compatible, even if a dev says it should be, it probably isn't.
Perhaps some save files were also duplicating critters out in the world too? It would likely only affect critters that had already spawned into the world as they would have an entry somewhere on your save file about their location and other relevant meta data.. That's all I can think of. I submitted a report using F8 and have since stopped playing that world in favor of a new one I started.
Early access is early access.
Hopefully it's also taught some of the other posters in this and other similar threads about dismissing experiences in the game that don't quite match their own.
As for what we've figured out, does this sound right?:
It seems that sand sharks have taken to pretending to behave like stalkers. They also like to settle beyond their territory if the player lures them there. Finally, in some saves, there are 2-3 times as many of them in the world.
[edit] Has anyone seen large numbers or odd behaviour in creatures other than sand sharks?
Then this just happened:
No brain, just muscle and sinew.
And no, no Perimeter Defense for the PRAWN. Got to be more hands on to get rid of things. But it's around three times as tough as a Seamoth, so it doesn't need to be so twitchy.
As for the many Gasopods under my lifepod, I let em live there. I kinda like em even if you have to be carefull around them.
You're right that a lot of things are made harder now. And some info for beginners is missing about crucial things that the game veterans know where to find and get, while a beginner surely has its problems. The changes are necessary, but the signal help for inexperienced or new players to counteract the harder gameplay is still not fully developped in a satisfying manner.
The sandsharks aggression is quite ok later in game. I assume you had a stroke of bad luck with a sandshark near your lifepod in the shallows. The devs might have to make sure that the beginning gameplay is without sandsharks at the safe shallows. Mid to late game its ok to have the sandsharks, but certainly not in the first gameplay part.
Mmm, for the Dev's sake, I want to try to make this more accurate.
I've DEFINITELY seen something that looks like duplication behavior, even in my "playable" save that isn't completely inundated in Sandsharks. You see pairs or triplets of them, here and there, matching each other move for move as if they're swimming in very close formation. It really catches your eye watching 2 of them chase the same spadefish with the exact same pattern, right next to each other. This must have happened on a much bigger scale in my first save and/or they don't always stay together like that after duplicating. This makes me worry that over time predators will continue to duplicate and eventually overhwelm their biomes, and, if the Sandsharks are any indication, neighboring ones as well.
While the pack following me into the shallows was one of my least fun experiences, it was a one-time thing, and in my new save they just appear to be appearing there (as in I did not watch them spawn or move, I just came across them in the shallows). However, they HAVE seemingly duplicated. 1 became 2 became 4 (fortunately, now I have a Stasis Rifle and will endeavor to do some Mutual of Omaha-style conservation of this ecosystem) in the Shallows.
The behaving like stalkers thing is hardly new. Ever since Machine they've been swimming higher, acting more aggressive, and coming in clumps, instead of "lurking" like we're led to expect them to. They do seem to "acquire" you from far off, but not nearly as bad as in my first save. I have no idea why that would be different.