Feedback after 40h game (very long)
Warzouz
Join Date: 2016-11-05 Member: 223674Members
Join Date: 2016-11-05 Member: 223674Members
Hi,
I discovered Subnautica by chance little time ago and I already have 40 hours on it. That game is wonderful and original. I didn’t feel playing a “new” game since Trackmania back in 2003, Minecraft back in 2011 or Kerbal Space Program in 2014.
The game is in alpha, it’s obvious there are a lot more to do, but it’s very well playable and interesting (except the last update is more buggy than the previous one). I like the impression of alien environment (water environment). Sure there are bugs, the most annoying is this lag building until it’s not playable anymore (especially in the Seamoth). The story line seems also very interesting.
I found some gameplay problems though (beware long post)
Bases
The hull integrity information is not very “roleplay”. We should have a computer terminal that give this information (maybe in a not numerical value), and/or nearly constant cracking sounds when the hull integrity is below 5.
The base glass panels are way too expensive. We constantly have to farm quartz to have few windows. A glass tunnel cost 2 glasses, but a regular tunnel with 2 windows costs 2 titanium and 4 glass (???).
Related : Maybe there could be a way to use plastic to create glass. In the real world glass is rarely used for submarines because it’s not very reliable. Designs prefer plastics which need to be thicker but are more reliable. So maybe stations windows could be created from transparent plastic.
General Power could be improved. We don’t know how much use each part and how much produces each power plant. Power plants could have an interface that display production and power reserve.
There could be an independent battery reserve buildable instead of having integrated energy reserve into production plant. On the other hand, we don’t have any hint one fuel reserve (those uranium rods and bioreactor fuel).
All wall equipment can’t be built on same place : you can place a locker on the wall near a doorway in a multipurpose room but you can’t place a radio relay or a medkit dispenser.
BTW, I don’t understand the medkit dispenser. Why does it exist as we can craft medkits ?
Some buildables could have more purpose, especially the food dispenser (which could be a locker limited to food and which could stop decaying – like a fridge) or the trash which could be used to delete items.
The moon pool should be available sooner and mandatory to build seamoth and Prawn. I find the vehicle building equipment odd on that world. Maybe the prawn could be needed (with special arms) to build the Cyclops then.
I would really like to have some kind of docking port between the cyclop and a base. Or at least an automatic recharging when you are few meters from a base (maybe using some special buildable equipment. Solar panels do transfer energy few meters away to a base, why not to a nearby Cyclop ? Of a solar pannel dorsal upgrade for the Cyclops
Observatory should be able to connect to a vertical tube from below.
Bioreactor is not well designed. Melon are too OP for it. Instead organic material should be immediately transformed into some organic goo (with various amount, depending on the original organic material) then this goo should be transformed into energy by the reaction. The goo shouldn’t be removable. The total goo capacity should in range of 1000-2000.
Subs
Seamoth additional storage could be bigger, that make no sens in comparison with our own storage area
Both Prawn and Seamoth storage should be accessible from inside. And at least having the PDA accessible is mandatory
Upgrades are built in the “vehicle upgrade station”. But they have to be upgraded in the “modification station” which make not much sense. Vehicles upgrades should all be handled by the same machine.
Upgrade costs are ridiculous in comparison with the sub cost. That’s a lot of resource farming… If we want a progression, some blueprints should be used to get access to next level. I would very much like that the initial Cyclops cost being much higher : it’s a very big ship.
Cyclops storage area is too small. I don’t even use it and use a locker in the room behind the bridge. The storage should be unified in ONE big storage (even accessible from every door)
There are many graphical glitches in Cyclops : PDA nealy invisible, buildables turning black, base buildables seeable through base walls when in the Cyclops.
Beacon should be togglable in some PDA interface to avoid being overcrowded. Further more, they should display distance and maybe some kind of coordinates.
Mining with prawn drill is too tedious and very slow. It should be much quicker.
Items
Prawn arms are 1x1 equipment (but they look big) but torps munitions are 2x2 event they look, small.
Seeds should always be 1x1, and maybe you could get a random number of them so farming could be less repetitive.
Gathering seed is not logical. There should be way to convert fruits (left click) into seeds. Because some plants don’t have dedicated seeds (you can seed what you collect with left click) like vines and others don’t have fruits (you eat what you collect with your knife) like those bulbous trees.
Game Progression
Most frustrating issues are here : it feels the progression is not well planned.
Blueprints : Some aren’t really reachable except spoiling it with the wiki. And you NEED some of them to go further, especially the modification station. It’s odd that you find nearly all of them in multiple examples on the same location. There should be one of each on each location, even more hidden and more location should have them. I found all the Cyclops hulls in 20m range, and same for the bridge. But I had to wait a lot to get the engine.
Modification station : this tool is available only by reaching the deepest wreck, which you can’t do because you can’t upgrade you seamoth. So you need the cyclop and/or the prawn. Finally you get the blueprints and you get upgrades that don’t matter much as you already have the cyclops. Mod station should be removed of vehicles upgrades and available in mid game.
Vehicle station : should be available AFTER mod station, but probably before Cyclops.
Multipurpose room should be available much sooner to be able to build base without cheating your way to the floating island.
Hull reinforcements : you get one for seamoth in the Aurora. But even with that you can’t really get to the mod station to upgrade it so you can go lower. You need the prawn + cyclop combo and the help of the wiki ti get it. But probably that signals will hep us.
Prawn jump reactor upgrade should be more easy to get. I don’t even know where the specific biome is, and without dorsal jump reactor upgrade it’s very hard to venture in caves. I had a very hard time getting out of the Grand Reef one. All those upgrades could have some blueprints.
Final note
I find this game most enjoyable (the worst being NMS this year...), after playing a survival game, and tweaked station in creative, I’ll do a second survival and try to explore more.
Thx for reading this long post.
I discovered Subnautica by chance little time ago and I already have 40 hours on it. That game is wonderful and original. I didn’t feel playing a “new” game since Trackmania back in 2003, Minecraft back in 2011 or Kerbal Space Program in 2014.
The game is in alpha, it’s obvious there are a lot more to do, but it’s very well playable and interesting (except the last update is more buggy than the previous one). I like the impression of alien environment (water environment). Sure there are bugs, the most annoying is this lag building until it’s not playable anymore (especially in the Seamoth). The story line seems also very interesting.
I found some gameplay problems though (beware long post)
Bases
The hull integrity information is not very “roleplay”. We should have a computer terminal that give this information (maybe in a not numerical value), and/or nearly constant cracking sounds when the hull integrity is below 5.
The base glass panels are way too expensive. We constantly have to farm quartz to have few windows. A glass tunnel cost 2 glasses, but a regular tunnel with 2 windows costs 2 titanium and 4 glass (???).
Related : Maybe there could be a way to use plastic to create glass. In the real world glass is rarely used for submarines because it’s not very reliable. Designs prefer plastics which need to be thicker but are more reliable. So maybe stations windows could be created from transparent plastic.
General Power could be improved. We don’t know how much use each part and how much produces each power plant. Power plants could have an interface that display production and power reserve.
There could be an independent battery reserve buildable instead of having integrated energy reserve into production plant. On the other hand, we don’t have any hint one fuel reserve (those uranium rods and bioreactor fuel).
All wall equipment can’t be built on same place : you can place a locker on the wall near a doorway in a multipurpose room but you can’t place a radio relay or a medkit dispenser.
BTW, I don’t understand the medkit dispenser. Why does it exist as we can craft medkits ?
Some buildables could have more purpose, especially the food dispenser (which could be a locker limited to food and which could stop decaying – like a fridge) or the trash which could be used to delete items.
The moon pool should be available sooner and mandatory to build seamoth and Prawn. I find the vehicle building equipment odd on that world. Maybe the prawn could be needed (with special arms) to build the Cyclops then.
I would really like to have some kind of docking port between the cyclop and a base. Or at least an automatic recharging when you are few meters from a base (maybe using some special buildable equipment. Solar panels do transfer energy few meters away to a base, why not to a nearby Cyclop ? Of a solar pannel dorsal upgrade for the Cyclops
Observatory should be able to connect to a vertical tube from below.
Bioreactor is not well designed. Melon are too OP for it. Instead organic material should be immediately transformed into some organic goo (with various amount, depending on the original organic material) then this goo should be transformed into energy by the reaction. The goo shouldn’t be removable. The total goo capacity should in range of 1000-2000.
Subs
Seamoth additional storage could be bigger, that make no sens in comparison with our own storage area
Both Prawn and Seamoth storage should be accessible from inside. And at least having the PDA accessible is mandatory
Upgrades are built in the “vehicle upgrade station”. But they have to be upgraded in the “modification station” which make not much sense. Vehicles upgrades should all be handled by the same machine.
Upgrade costs are ridiculous in comparison with the sub cost. That’s a lot of resource farming… If we want a progression, some blueprints should be used to get access to next level. I would very much like that the initial Cyclops cost being much higher : it’s a very big ship.
Cyclops storage area is too small. I don’t even use it and use a locker in the room behind the bridge. The storage should be unified in ONE big storage (even accessible from every door)
There are many graphical glitches in Cyclops : PDA nealy invisible, buildables turning black, base buildables seeable through base walls when in the Cyclops.
Beacon should be togglable in some PDA interface to avoid being overcrowded. Further more, they should display distance and maybe some kind of coordinates.
Mining with prawn drill is too tedious and very slow. It should be much quicker.
Items
Prawn arms are 1x1 equipment (but they look big) but torps munitions are 2x2 event they look, small.
Seeds should always be 1x1, and maybe you could get a random number of them so farming could be less repetitive.
Gathering seed is not logical. There should be way to convert fruits (left click) into seeds. Because some plants don’t have dedicated seeds (you can seed what you collect with left click) like vines and others don’t have fruits (you eat what you collect with your knife) like those bulbous trees.
Game Progression
Most frustrating issues are here : it feels the progression is not well planned.
Blueprints : Some aren’t really reachable except spoiling it with the wiki. And you NEED some of them to go further, especially the modification station. It’s odd that you find nearly all of them in multiple examples on the same location. There should be one of each on each location, even more hidden and more location should have them. I found all the Cyclops hulls in 20m range, and same for the bridge. But I had to wait a lot to get the engine.
Modification station : this tool is available only by reaching the deepest wreck, which you can’t do because you can’t upgrade you seamoth. So you need the cyclop and/or the prawn. Finally you get the blueprints and you get upgrades that don’t matter much as you already have the cyclops. Mod station should be removed of vehicles upgrades and available in mid game.
Vehicle station : should be available AFTER mod station, but probably before Cyclops.
Multipurpose room should be available much sooner to be able to build base without cheating your way to the floating island.
Hull reinforcements : you get one for seamoth in the Aurora. But even with that you can’t really get to the mod station to upgrade it so you can go lower. You need the prawn + cyclop combo and the help of the wiki ti get it. But probably that signals will hep us.
Prawn jump reactor upgrade should be more easy to get. I don’t even know where the specific biome is, and without dorsal jump reactor upgrade it’s very hard to venture in caves. I had a very hard time getting out of the Grand Reef one. All those upgrades could have some blueprints.
Final note
I find this game most enjoyable (the worst being NMS this year...), after playing a survival game, and tweaked station in creative, I’ll do a second survival and try to explore more.
Thx for reading this long post.
Comments
EDIT: Oh, and for the lag:
2 things:
- I'm gonna preface that I love this game, best high-pressure (ha) loner survival simulator I've played in a long time. Can't wait to see how it develops! And like all the others, I complain because I care
- The base integrity thingamajig is indeed a bit confusing to me as well. Parts add or subtract integrity to the total, that's cool, but what's the starting value? How does depth play with any of this? Also the power grid thing. Maybe a craftable base monitor console would be nice.
- Seaglide would probably be pretty terrible without charge fins. But together, they go like peaches and cream, 10/10 would glue dynamo to feet again
- I agree that the vehicle progression is somewhat skewed. Cyclops could cost a little more given what a crowning achievement and game changer it is (like maybe doubling the ingots); OTOH moonpool + veichle mod station should be available a lot sooner. Seriously, isn't it a little silly that one has to explore wrecks that your seaglide can't reach in order to be able to upgrade your seaglide? Am I really supposed, in a first-time playthrough, to build a Cyclops before a moonpool (since all Cyclops parts can be acquired at far more accessible depths)? It seems a little nonsensical to me. Maybe switch around the fragment locations? Scatter the moonpool+vehiclemod parts among many low-depth wrecks so to still require a fair bit of exploration?
- Also the vehiche mod upgrades being made in the mod station instead of the vehicle mod station. Pretttty silly.
- I'd agree that the Cyclops built-in storages are also a little silly, esp given I'm just gonna cram the ship full of lockers. Maybe double them in size?
- Also why is a POTATO of all things taking up a 2x2 space in my inventory?
- Btw I love medkit dispensers, just sayin'
-Also I absolutely love Spidermannin' my way around with the Exo, even before the jump upgrade, also just sayin'. Really stoked for more high-depth content where I'll put this beau to work!
- Bottom line, I like this game a lot. 7.8/10 too much water
Only thing I think the Cyclops should require more is the six powercells you now get for free. But it seems there's a limit of four different items on building, which I'd like to see updated to five for a handful of cases like the Cyclops.
It's not at all silly to have to explore wrecks deeper than your vehicle can go to attain upgrades to go deeper. It means you have to dive again like you did before acquiring the Seamoth. It's a nifty part of the gameplay if you ask me, forcing you to relive old gameplay at a higher difficulty. Plus, you can make it easier by finding the freebie pressure upgrade in the Aurora's Seamoth bay or the PRAWN suit in Aurora's PRAWN bay.
The two things I do think needs to be addressed are that a fresh player has no clue they are already supposed to go deeper when their vehicle can't and what kind of rewards might await them (not specific to that wreck, just in general knowing stuff like the moon pool exists at all). The other is, indeed, Cyclops fragment locations. Thing is those have barely changed in the past few updates while it's only recently the modification station and vehicle modification station became more difficult to acquire. It's a bit of balancing not yet implemented.
Did you mean Seamoth? If so, just park it at 200m and Seaglide the rest of the way.
That should be easy. Put one of the fragments manually up in the Aurora, or a shallow wreck. Then players will scan it, and go looking for the rest of it.
Modification station should be available before Prawn and Cyclops because it improves your diving ability.
That used to be the case some two or three updates ago. Both situations have their arguments for and against. Before makes the vehicles an upgrade, After makes emphasizes the player's independency from vehicles. I don't feel strongly either way, notwithstanding that I do think the Cyclops should be harder to acquire.
If this gets addressed properly then I'd be all for letting the player experience some more mandatory non-vehicled adventure.
(Where it might not seem like this at first is when you get the freebie upgrades, which you take straight to the regular mod station to upgrade further. But if you did craft them from scratch yourself, it would have been in the vehicle mod fabricator.)
The converse of that is: if you're going to cram the ship full of lockers anyway, then what's the point of having the standard storage at all?
Personally, I put special items (like equipment) into the built-in lockers and use crafted lockers just for resources. Although it's a little sad that the seaglide won't fit into there; it'd be perfect to keep that right by the exit.
(I'm just gonna refer to vehicle mod station and mod station as VMS and MS respectively hereonwards)
I'll have to disagree on that, for one reason: The MS doesn't show the mod upgrades until you possess the VMS (or the cyclops in case of cyclops pressure mod), which is the only time it departs from previous observation of "every recipe's already there" (contrasted to the fabricator where you get new recipes all the time at the beginning).
It would be equally consistent to shift the paradigm into "MS upgrades fabricator stuff; VMS upgrades vehicle stuff" (I mean, they both have MS in the name, don't they?), and also more intuitive: "here's a moonpool+VMS, now you can have all the fun you like customizing your vehicles in this one-stop shop for all your vehicle needs", as opposed to "Here's your moonpool+VMS, now you can customize your vehicle to your heart's content, oh btw you also need that other machine from way back for half the work, but not like we're gonna tell you or anything." It's... just less nice. It took me a while to figure out, and there's absolutely no reason why it should stay this obscure. It's a bit of hair-splitting, but that's what polishing is made of, afterall.
I restarted a game and decided not to look at the wiki (even I knew where were some stuff).
- I played 20h
- I succeeded into building Seamoth (following messages), Prawn and Cyclops (chance for the engine).
- I succeeded to upgrade all vehicles to max (but I didn't got the propulsion arm for Prawn)
- I managed to find the lost river, the inactive lava zone and the active lava zone (took a peek at the dragon)
- I found the modification station by chance
- I visit all abandoned bases
But :
- I had to clear the game once to get decent FPS back.
- I didn't find the nuclear reactor, the alien containment
- After seamoth, I went straight on to the floating island to get melon and base parts (nearly a cheat). Again, melon is too OP and big rooms should be available around wrecks or from the beginning
- Again, half of my grinding was for quartz (even I reset the save). We need a less frustrating recipe for glass
- I found the inactive lava zone by chance. The prawn jet upgrade should be easier to get. Because, when you get it, there is not much need to go there. I hope the story will make us build a base there for example
- Signals should definitely be a addressed : they should be merged with the PAD, as well as beacons. and you should be able to display or not from your pad.
Swim safe
Is it a bug or is there another passage besides the lava pit ?
With the exception of points 2 and 4, those are development tidbits that should be addressed in the upcoming months. I don't think the game will ever (or should) force you to build a base; that is something you decided for yourself based on what you find fun and convenient.
The devs have said the removal of the MP room from the default blueprints is a conscious move to make you start humble before you upgrade to build yourself a palace. There's quite a lot you can stuff in corridors, actually, and I like to have another "dual limitation" previously limited to the moon pool (ie, there's a chance you get the vehicle mod station before the moon pool, but it's useless without the moon pool. Now, the same is true for the filtration machine and the reactors).
Be creative that is my only advise. Tho I do agree that multipurpose room should be default blueprint like solar panels.
A little thing I'll add actually if you read pda entries for modification station, fabricator and so forth you will understand why they are separate entities. Fabricator can't do complex combinations and adjustments(pda entry has a much nicer way of saying it) this is what modification station does.
I'll be a nitpicker and point out that you made fuss about glass not being good enough for pressure, you are correct
Example: The lifepod signals you get from the communication relay are not in a good order. The signals should be a help for new players to get in important locations with important fragments. Still most of the lifepods are not placed near fragments or wrecks except the ones in the grassy plateaus.
And the second signal you get is the one for lifepod 8 directly at the aurora NEAR A REAPER SPAWN. Basically the second signal a new player gets, probably only equiped with a knife, radiation suit and a sea glider sends them directly to their death.
... that does kind of make it more exciting though. By that point, you're feeling pretty good about yourself, having learned to managed the threat of Stalkers and Sandsharks pretty well.. and then you come face to face with Sammy.
I really liked your view and focus on how you build and costs on the vehicles, they don't make sense at all.
Much more I could commented, but as long you have already, no need for me to repeat them
Devs? Listen to the OP's post, a lot of points and ideas to pick up and to quality secure your gameplay!
New update out to day, so after my ant's visit I'm diving in!
(Hopefully the save game bug is fixed...)
hugin
Neither are hitpoints but it's a similar numeric abstraction we've grown accustomed to.
There's a phenomenal amount of quartz in the game. Enough to build a shiny glass skyscraper.
It's not even that scarce in the safe shallows, though it is easy to miss when you first start playing.
They originally planned this - the accumulator - but it was cut for unknown reasons.
http://subnautica.wikia.com/wiki/Removed_Content
I agree. We need it. It's bizarre to build power generating modules just for the purpose of storing power.
The game is still in development. Farming was only added relatively recently. Prior to that it was possible to strip the seascape bare by taking non-renewable resources like creepvine and coral samples.
Additionally, one of those components (creepvine) grows in a biome typically populated with hostile creatures. For brand new players that poses a challenge.
Maybe you want that but I don't see that a should.
The moonpool is handy - particularly for repowering the seamoth - but not essential. A single power cell lasts a long time. Most of the required components can be farmed and copper is abundant.
There's also power cell rechargers as an intermediate step before you get the moonpool.
There's a story - we just don't have a lot of it yet.
I think it's likely that the story will lead us to locales with progressively better tech.