How do I find places in game without going to You Tube or the forum?
harrzack
United States Join Date: 2016-09-11 Member: 222250Members
United States Join Date: 2016-09-11 Member: 222250Members
I've been trying to play the game in Survival, as "cleanly" as possible using only what is available in the game. Early on I did have to break down and go outside the game to get help figuring out how to get Moonpool plans, and what "crashes" were, and how to find them.
It seems there is no real way in the game itself to find out that there are cool places to visit or explore. The navigation aids we are given leave us to only to wander around randomly and hope we stumble across something great. I've got about 150 hrs in the game, and still have not come across the "Lost River" any of the other places loudly touted in the update info.
Of course I can go to You Tube to the forum and get coordinates - but how are you supposed to find this stuff using only info and tools provided in the game? Sheesh - I was wandering in the the Void, and didn't even know until I happened to bring up the debug console! I was dutifully exploring, thinking "any minute now something awesome will appear" - only to discover I was in LaLa Land!
It seems there is no real way in the game itself to find out that there are cool places to visit or explore. The navigation aids we are given leave us to only to wander around randomly and hope we stumble across something great. I've got about 150 hrs in the game, and still have not come across the "Lost River" any of the other places loudly touted in the update info.
Of course I can go to You Tube to the forum and get coordinates - but how are you supposed to find this stuff using only info and tools provided in the game? Sheesh - I was wandering in the the Void, and didn't even know until I happened to bring up the debug console! I was dutifully exploring, thinking "any minute now something awesome will appear" - only to discover I was in LaLa Land!
Comments
Playing the game cleanly at this point is possible, but it requires patience and determination beyond what a game normally asks.
Besides as @DrownedOut said, stuff still moves around as part of early access
stuff is a word used too many times, I do apologise xD
You're basically asking for continuing and persistent spoilers, and spoilers suck all the life and fun from a game. PDA alerts about a vague, general direction to go and check out are fine, but anything more is just obnoxious and patronising to the player. Leave me alone to find out myself.
Even the stupid "Break stone" and "Cut vine with knife" pop-ups are extremely irritating. What else was I going to do with this knife I just crafted, scratch my arse?
And "Swim to surface" when your air is low? Oh really, that's very informative.
Having to tab out to the internet for basic maps which would be part of the survivor's technological capability (several in-game items already display topography), as well as the locations of many very specific items, is very immersion-breaking. If the game goes to 1.0 in this current state it will be very much the worse off for it.
http://subnautica.wikia.com/wiki/Mapping_Subnautica?file=Subnautica_map2.png
There's a balance to be struck between being overloaded with alerts and hints which take the challenge out, and getting virtually no information on what is even attainable, much less where to go to get it. Both extremes are bad for the game, and both currently exist in the game. As you mentioned, we don't need the "hit this rock" alerts. But by the same token, a new player who relies only on in-game information has only the tiniest chance of upgrading their fins or O2 tanks in any reasonable amount of time because the game gives zero information on the fact that a modification station can even be made which will do that, much less where to find the very few and specific wrecks which hold its blueprints. So they're left with wandering aimlessly at no deeper than 200m (since the Moonpool is equally well hidden) for as many hours as it takes to randomly pass over the dark canyon where they might happen to look down and see the vague flicker of wreckage another 100m below, where, if they whimsically brought a laser cutter, a rebreather, a seaglide, and 3 O2 tanks, they can find a Modification Station fragment and eventually build it to see what it does.
So yes, some kind of in-game map which can be combined with radio messages to show a "large wreckage worth exploring somewhere here" circle would be just the thing to strike that balance, and I don't think anyone in this discussion was asking for more than that level of information.
This guy is. And here's the quote.
To me, that would be massive spoilers. As well as being completely wrong. As the game stands, the alerts leading you towards places give you great rewards. Lifepods, the island, the Aurora. This guy claims you wouldn't even be able to build fins without being told, but as soon as you see a creep vine, aren't you trying to pick the yellow pods out of curiosity? Then the craft menu isn't greyed out because you can build fins from rubber, and so on.
The craft menu itself has TONNES of stuff right there for you to make, and it includes the recipes for EVERYTHING you need to start making stuff. The only guidance really needed is the craft menu, and as long as you don't somehow overlook the fabricator I don't see how you could miss it.
I'm not saying it shouldn't be in game however. I'm saying if it is in game, it needs to be in a natural way, not just obnoxious pop-ups or more PDA "Go here for the next interesting thing, now go here, next here" because that just feels like checking chores off a list. As I already said, the PDA alerts are okay, but what they should do is lead you towards building a facility or device that allows you to start mapping and scanning for resources. This should be the function of the scanner room (as it's currently worse than useless) and once you've got it up and running it should reveal a map like on the wiki. As long as it's balanced and not overpowered, that's acceptable, believable and satisfactory.
You sortof have to learn your way around by memory, or by getting out actual pen and paper and drawing a map. Your player character has consitent movement speeds, as do the vehicles. You could draw up a map using in-game compass to make a grid, and measure distances in seconds travelled. If you wanted to be more hardcore about it, you could measure the time it takes to to cover the distance to one of the distance-displaying signal markers, and convert that to your movment speed, thus giving you distance measurements to other landmarks. Once you've plotted the major landmarks, you could then fill in the biome boundaries, and then swim a regular waffle-pattern search grid to fill in the interiors of the biomes.
Within the cave systems, you can follow a maze-running strategy of always keeping to one wall and only turning one direction to map out boundaries. You can also drop markers to identify where you've been before. Laying a planter bed and planting a creepvine seed is a popular choice around here.
All of this sounds labor-intensive, and it is, but it adds to the challenge, and I have often wanted an auto-map function because I too find myself swimming in circles and unable to find my way to where I want to go, but I don't think the devs want to make it easier.
So...you feel that "something in the game that sort of hints or guides you" is equivalent to "continuing and persistent spoilers" or "massive spoilers", in your words. Sorry, those phrases don't mean the same thing. And harrzack said nothing about fins, only the Moonpool and crashfish powder. I mentioned the fins upgrade, which you don't find any clue about until you see it in the Modification Station UI.
I think you and I are on the same page as far as how informative and immersive clues ought to be. I agree completely, for example, with what you said about the Scanner Room. It's just that for too many things in the game currently, the in-game clues to even their very existence in the game world add up to zero, and I think you're exaggerating how much more information others here are asking for.
But you're also right when you say "something in the game that sort of hints or guides you" (without it being an actual mechanic, like the scanner room for example) is, in my opinion, a spoiler and should be avoided. I do consider the beacons leading you to places spoilers too, but acceptable spoilers, within the setting and mechanics of the game. I know I'm a minority, but I'd be happy with absolutely no guidance what-so-ever, because I love finding things for myself, even if it takes hours. If I've played for 150 hours and I'm still stumbling into things I didn't know, I'm happy, and not many games have that factor any more.
This applies even more so if it's not your first play through. I would fully support an option from the new game menu to select exactly what help you desire. First play through, turn on hints and beacons. After that, I already know where these places are, so I'd like to be able to turn them off for some added navigational difficulty. Of course, I don't have to use the beacons anyway, so I suppose it doesn't really matter as self-imposed rules are something I'm always willing to go for.
I still stand by the craft menu giving you 90% of things you need right off the bat, though. As soon as you stumble upon the upgrade station fragments for example, you're curious as to what exactly can be upgraded, and as soon as you build one you'll see you can upgrade the fins. I think that's acceptable as it is, without any clues other than finding the fragment on your own. I don't see any need for the game to somehow tell us "You could find the fragments and then upgrade things" as that, I'm afraid, would definitely fit into the category of "massive spoiler."
It sounds like "something in the game that sort of hints or guides you" triggered "alert box or pop-up" in your mind. I'd agree that those are intrusive, but I didn't picture that. Things like the beacons and PDA messages are what is needed. The PDA already says right at the start, "I'm programmed to help you survive" or some such phrase, so it would make perfect sense to make it elaborate on the crash debris, a la, "Large pieces of the Aurora have been detected landing in the water within five kilometers. They may contain useful supplies or data for your survival." And then let the player craft a wall-mounted scanner that identifies wreckage sites with 500m diameter circles on a crude map. Enough to let you know an area to aim for, but no more. Tweak the circle size and reveal rate (i.e., every X hours, it locates another wreck) as needed for balance.
Finding new places and things after many hours of play is indeed fun, IF they are not essential things that gate a lot of other content. A lot of the deeper creepy zones do this well, with beautiful locations you didn't know were there. The problem is when you have things like it being very difficult (though not impossible) to learn about, locate, and acquire the blueprints for the Moonpool without a Seamoth depth upgrade, which can only be crafted in the Vehicle Modification Station you build in the Moonpool. Things like that drive people to forums and wikis to learn the one quirky sequence you must follow to get those things (get the prebuilt upgrade off the Aurora, etc., etc.). Important progression items need multiple strategies and locations you can pursue to acquire them.
A good idea as well.
I'll have to disagree somewhat. The fabricator works well at telling you what's needed for what it can make, but says nothing about even the existence of things it can't. Let's look at what's needed to "stumble upon" the Modification Station. Currently only two wrecks contain its fragments. Both are deeper than 300m. Both are in "fringe" biomes far away from the Safe Shallows. One biome is inhabited by multiple reapers. The other location has the wreck tucked into a dark and narrow canyon that is easy to miss in a biome which is otherwise relatively barren, lowering the likelihood of a player aimlessly exploring it for very long in the first place. Without some kind of a vague "maybe something worth checking out over there" indicator, I see very few players stumbling upon it without having heard about it or looked it up outside the game.
And regarding the clues, I'm not talking about wiki-style "you can make a modification station to improve your fins" sentences. We already get signals to the broken lifepods and they already have PDAs to pick up. Make them then reveal the existence of Mod stations and Moonpools with narrative reveals, like recorded messages, Aurora maintenance logs, and that sort of thing. There are plenty of ways for creative developers to keep players from tabbing out to the wiki, and still retain challenge.
The Aurora is a natural place to want to visit. After that, I don't know.
Now, not all the stuff is in the game. For instance you get the power signal at the mountain islands but nothing is there yet. Perhaps some bread crumbs will be there when that alien base is in.
(There is a compass in game, but if you're trying not to look things up, I won't tell you more than that.)
Just explore a lot. I know it seems huge, but it's really not as big as it seems. Spend a lot of time getting familiar with the "surface" (anywhere that isn't caves or super deep), get used to knowing where the major biomes are in relation to the aurora. The mountains are towards the front of the ship. The floating island is directly behind the engines of the ship, and the grand reef is just below that. The lost river is connected to the grand reef. You can get to the dunes by looking at the side of the aurora you're usually facing, turning around 180 degrees and going straight. The underwater islands are between the mountains and the dunes, and the blood kelp zone is below them/ kinda adjacent. There's a massive cave entrance in the blood kelp zone, and it's the easiest way to get into the lava zones. The jellyshroom caves have small entrances all around the edge of the safe zone and in the redgrass zones. The koosh zone is on the rear side of the aurora near the mountains.
Just look around on your own, spend time just exploring, that's what subnautica is all about. Also finding the coordinates in the aurora helps finding the lava zone entrances.
I swear there was no compass in my inventory yesterday! Just logged in and i have a compass!
Yeah this...
...and build a compass soon.
I also build a bunch of bases to help me navigate... kindof like wayposts. Beacons can help for this but are terribly ugly and can't be turned off without turning off the whole hud (F6 key I think?)
I realize where you're coming from, but this reminds me of a post i made in another thread. You don't want to be spoiled by knowing things beforehand, and want to enjoy discovering things naturally. I completely agree with you in that regard. But like in my related post, how the game engine operates and generates the terrain, the world map and design is the same with every playthrough. While you can change how you approach events that occur in the game, ultimately the stuff you find in the game will remain the same no matter how many times you play.
If the game could support procedural generation and make item/structure discovery in the game truly random, then I could get behind not having maps or coordinates at all. But since that's not the case, not having access to basic maps or navigation in the game at all is a questionable system mechanic. I think a good compromise is having access to a static map in game but it only reveals itself as you navigate the biomes, similar to how World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV "reveal" the map as you personally uncover it.
Combing the map is obviously fun for some people, but other people find it repetitive and boring. After poking around a while, it becomes a chore to grid-search the entire map, just on the off chance of finding something new.