Progression Gating Ideas
MaxAstro
Join Date: 2005-07-07 Member: 55451Members
Join Date: 2005-07-07 Member: 55451Members
I feel like slightly more explicit progression gating of some areas would be good, for the combined purposes of giving more direction to the player and encouraging exploration.
In particular:
*The rad suit should not be craftable until you get it from the one pod that has one lying around. This is because you really only need one, it's an early game opportunity to teach the value of hunting life pods, and it means limestone deposits don't need to drop lead anymore (seriously, it's so disappointing when all you want is copper and/or titanium and you already have a rad suit)
*I think there should only be two propulsion cannon fragments in the game: the one in the Aurora, and a second one in one of the lifepods - perhaps Commander Yu's pod would be most appropriate. Combine that with a note by the one in the Aurora indicating that Commander Yu requisitioned a cannon shortly before the crash or something. Pushing the Aurora slightly into the later game I think is a good idea because the player gets a huge power boost from exploring it.
*People are going to hate this idea, but the floating island entrances should be blocked with rocks that need the propulsion cannon to move, or something along those lines. Possibly a more serious or simply different gating mechanic such as the underwater entrance being the only one, and needing the Seamoth to get there. Again, the floating island is a huge power boost, and once you have learned "bee line the floating island every start for infinite free food" it takes a lot out of the early game.
*Something something koosh forest. It's a cool area and there's not really anything you need there right now.
In particular:
*The rad suit should not be craftable until you get it from the one pod that has one lying around. This is because you really only need one, it's an early game opportunity to teach the value of hunting life pods, and it means limestone deposits don't need to drop lead anymore (seriously, it's so disappointing when all you want is copper and/or titanium and you already have a rad suit)
*I think there should only be two propulsion cannon fragments in the game: the one in the Aurora, and a second one in one of the lifepods - perhaps Commander Yu's pod would be most appropriate. Combine that with a note by the one in the Aurora indicating that Commander Yu requisitioned a cannon shortly before the crash or something. Pushing the Aurora slightly into the later game I think is a good idea because the player gets a huge power boost from exploring it.
*People are going to hate this idea, but the floating island entrances should be blocked with rocks that need the propulsion cannon to move, or something along those lines. Possibly a more serious or simply different gating mechanic such as the underwater entrance being the only one, and needing the Seamoth to get there. Again, the floating island is a huge power boost, and once you have learned "bee line the floating island every start for infinite free food" it takes a lot out of the early game.
*Something something koosh forest. It's a cool area and there's not really anything you need there right now.
Comments
An additional thought would be to not have the laser cutter available at the start as well, since that and the welder are all that's needed to fully explore the Aurora (propulsion cannon isn't required since the crates can be jumped over relatively easily and there's a connecting passage in the Prawn bay to the other area, this should probably be addressed as well). Maybe it could be in one of the lifepods or wrecks.
Also, the resources on the Mountain Island need to be reworked, it makes getting gold, diamond, magnetite and especially lithium trivial even from the beginning of the game.
The propulsion cannon is not a bad idea.
For the floating island, the devs talked about adding biters to stop players rushing.
But usually it should take a long time to get your survival needs fullfilled and hunting some lifepod signals. The Sunbeam dialog is coming probably faster than yourself being able to feel strong enough to get past a Reaper at the Aurora. This could be managed if the Reaper placement doesn't work or the Reaper is accidentially busy elsewhere, otherwise any sane player would have to find appropriate tech first. So the chances are high that if you aren't a veteran player, that you simply arrive at the QEP through the Sunbeam signal before ever visiting the Aurora. Of course veterans know how to bypass Reapers and where to go first.
So the question is if we really need a hard gating to stop the player minority of veterans from accessing the Aurora stuff earlier. Most others will simply need lots of time to get to the Aurora with the right tools. I always do some playthroughs simulating "zero" knowledge and get to the conclusion that the Sunbeam incident comes much too early as well as the Aurora visit will come very late. I think the devs also need to reschedule the signal timing and order a bit, as the signals leading to the big floating isle comes very late. Maybe only a signal rework is needed.
Although it's hard to speak for the general player, as freedom mode allows to bypass surivial and therefore a much faster exploration. Otherwise in survival mode and without preknowledge of places a player can't just explore too far away until he gets his Seamoth.
Let's look at the possible place gatings in the game:
1) Aurora:
Reaper (I don't know why the devs killed their fantastic sound terror) should stay guarding the Aurora entrance, so you could only enter with tech and not by luck or veteran knowledge alone. The prop cannon tech isn't really easy to find unless you already know, so more a veteran issue.
It's best to explore the Aurora mid to late game. But that means the Aurora should hold a few top secrets better suited for late game. Maybe you should need to explore the Aurora to find the tech needed for depth pressure upgrades to get to the deep.
2)Big Floating Island:
A late signal is leading you there when you probably have already discovered it with the Seamoth, so the signal plan needs to get better with that. I think that small fish or even boneshark swarms wouldn't prevent a player from early discovery with a Seaglide, so it would need 1-2 Reapers around the island, so you'd need a Seamoth to do that. If the flat beach entry would be sealed and only the bottom access left, even one Reaper would do guarding that tiny bottom entrance. No Seaglide could get through.
3)QEP:
Reapers only guard a single mountain side. Otherwise a full Reaper surrounding would enforce the player to have a Seamoth.
4)Rad Wreck in the Deep:
If the Rebreather effect would be increased, the wreck would be off limits until the Aurora visit sealed the engine. But then it would be better to find greater tech treasures there.
5)The Lost River facilities:
Pressure tech mk3, Warpers and the Ghost Leviathan would be the primary gatings. The Prawn could get there, but would be deadly with warpers around and bad to get back upwards. The speedy Seamoth could bypass the Warpers, but need the mk3 and the future Ghost Leviathan could destroy it maybe with a sinlge ranged power blast. So you might need to build the Cyclops as a gating to survive there. More a soft gating, as veterans could do without the Cyclops.
6) The TPG or Lava Castle:
The primary gates would the 2 Sea Dragons guarding the Castle and maybe the orange key should be better for the TPG than the Lost River lab. The player would need a Cyclops with a fully equipped Prawn and the orange key from the DGR abondoned base, which is not easy to get. Only veterans would only need a Prawn, but still fully enhanced.
7) The PCF:
Blue key obviously. But this isn't hard and bypassing Sea Dragons already was learned at the TPG, so to make it something special the last Sea Dragon guarding the PCF should be extra big or bad and instantly destroy any Prawn or diver in range and just need more time to even destroy a Cyclops. While the Sea Dragon would be busy finishing off the Cyclops, the player could sneak inside the PCF.
Another possibility would be a heat increasment at the Lava Sea, forcing a heat shielding based on Precursor tech and mining massive amounts of Kyanite for fabricating the heat shield. Instead a mainly useless shield for the Cyclops, the heat shield could be permanent and allow the Cyclops to ignore fire damage and to absorb a heat the player could not endure. It would also make Kyanite far more useful.
Obviously most players fear the destruction of their Cyclops and thus the PDA should include a temporary snapshot of the players Cyclops design to allow a special "Cyclops backup" menu for the Mobile Vehicle Station to rebuild the complete last design in a single pass.
TL;DR: Thermal shielding against boiling heat and the need to sacrifice your Cyclops could be a good gating.
I also don't like there being so many Propulsion Gun fragments lying around the Aurora; it makes getting access to the Medic Lab, Exosuit Bay and Crew Quarters far too easy, as it bypasses the progression lock of the Sealed Door. IMO they should keep the single fragment already found outside the Administration Office, and put a second single fragment inside the Exosuit Bay. It makes more sense for it to be there, and it prevents unnecessary sequence breaking.
But that's just a weak argument... Just because there's no multiplayer aspect, there's no reason for the game to have more progression or lockouts to shut off early access to convenience items. Of course new players won't have any idea of what to do or where to go, that's part of the fun of discovery in Subnautica.
And let's not forget, scouring the Mountain Island unlocks so much new technology with really no risk involved... there should be some form of 'lockout' there. Maybe instead of a plain cloud field surrounding the island in a cloak, they could instead make it an intense storm that comes and goes, which causes damage over time to the player if they're not protected by the Reinforced Dive Suit (and even then they still take gradual damage). This would prevent early access to the island for the uninitiated, but creates a challenge for players that want to get that tech regardless or maybe want to try a "speed run" as it were. Plus it adds to the lore: Margerit's PDA log #2 indicates they suffered with terrible storms on the island, and with rain flooding their Outdoor Growbed that Bart had to fix. So there is a precedence at least.
*shrugs* Of the current power producing appliances, the Nuclear Plant is my least favorite. Despite it having a higher power output than a single Thermal Plant, it takes so much resources that aren't easily attainable - which means having to stash a large amount of them on hand (I personally leave any Lead Ore I find on the sea floor... I get so disappointed when I find one instead of Copper Ore). And although a base with an NP can be built anywhere, four Thermal Plants around a heat vent or heat spout (or heck, just any hot area in the ILZ/ALZ) can easily outperform a NP, and it's essentially infinite energy at that point. But that's just my take on that aspect.
I dont even approach the reapers biomes (except the crash zone)
How about those folks who want a more difficult challenge go play something else intended to be harder instead.
I don't see gating exclusively as a way to make the game harder, if done correctly it can actually make the game easier and less frustrating by ensuring that the player has the correct equipment for a new area before they suddenly find themselves in over their head and dying a lot.
At the same time, it can also help pace the game and encourage the player to see all the areas and use all the equipment rather than just following a guide or going off of experience to make a beeline for powerful items they're not supposed to find until much later. There is a fine line here though, deviating too far either way can easily break the game by making the game too hard if the gates are too onerous (as you mentioned), or if the gates are too easy/nonexistent, then you end up more with a situation we have now where the player can break the pace of the game and early game mechanics by simply knowing exactly where to go to get unlimited food right off the bat. That said, the whole hunger/thirst system needs to be slowed down to make this mad rush to the floating island not such a big deal in the first place.
There's also the problem with too much gating making the game too linear that plays into all of this, but gating in general doesn't automatically mean the game becomes more difficult.
Also whoever said you have to be a veteran to find the prop cannon fragments - have you been to the near side of the Aurora recently? There are easily ten or fifteen fragments there most games.
I do agree the game shouldn't be made too linear; the best way to avoid that is to have the "keys" to the different gates not all be behind other gates, so that you can tackle gated areas in different orders.
My first few playthroughs I explored the Aurora before I even knew the mountain existed, simply because the Aurora is a giant beacon of curiosity and the mountain is hidden.
Basically my feelings are that the majority of the world should be open for exploration, with the "gated areas" being the Aurora, the QEP, the floating island, and the precursor bases. Each of those areas either offers major benefits to push the player forward in progression, or is critical to the plot. In all cases, hitting those areas super early results in basically all of the challenge of the early game being negated, and can also result in the player being overwhelmed with options.
I also feel that a variety of "keys" is important. Spamming reapers near everything remotely important is a bad idea.
In the same line of thinking, I'm not a fan of putting so much pressure on the lifepods for risk of them becoming boring. There's already a level of "fetch quest"-ness to them which predictability and limitations I don't fully appreciate. Imo, lifepods need to be updated in "what" they are before more rewards can be locked onto them.
The reason that I don't agree on the lead suggestion is that it puts a theoretical hole between when one can do what. Having an item accessible in early game while its resources are mid-to-late game is just not pretty (no matter how much bad luck you'd need to have, what if you lose it? Or don't notice all parts, as has repeatedly happened with new players?). Lead does need more uses (separate fabricatable pieces of the rad suit would probably make it clearer that wearing just one thing won't be enough) and could be redistributed (maybe become the third in sandstone while silver takes its place in limestone?), but deleting it from early game doesn't seem the way to go to me.
A) go really fast (boring)
C) Exploit bad AI pathfinding (apparently, if I'm ever attacked by a shark, I just need to circle strafe)
Enemies in the game serve only to frustrate, and add little gameplay value, or fear, because so often there are just a million of them everywhere (bonesharks), and when something is right in front of you, it totally loses it's fear factor.
I find the Seaglide come too soon and make deep diving (up/down) too easy (you can rush 400m deep trench for resource/scan without a Seamoth)
So my gating idea would be to make it late tech and to replace it by a Dingy-boat (which force your to start from surface and encourage the use of Floaters)
Originally the idea was to encourage scavenging the Aurora early game before it explode
For those afraid it give access too easily to island, I'll just point out that if it run on battery, you'll need a base to recharge which is hard to get when you dive slowly and can't find metal there, making it very/too expensive to rush.
Even made a topic for that.
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/152013/improving-early-game-travel-to-the-aurora
To B ) or not to
I miss the times when the more permanent solution was more feasible, via killing them ( there is respawn, but at least the player has a breathing room for doing a task that he feels requires more attention). By the looks of the updates and what is posted here on the forums, I would even say there will come a time when all enemies are virtually invulnerable, because of the game's design philosophy.
To maximize fear, deadly and unpredictable roaming enemies are needed rather than masses. But it would need more intelligent pathfinding, roaming and behaviour AI like hunter strategies. And I fear this isn't possible. So I'd be glad to get eerie sounds and maybe a bit more roaming of leviathans to reduce predictability. And maybe more deadly leviathans. At least for hardcore mode.
Also changed that my favourite base spot no longer is kelp forest, rather grand reef is nice place to settle into
I hope UWE can find a way to stop that (and other such critter attacks) from happening. If I just get damage, get disoriented, and need oxygen fast, that's still better than all the times I've gotten stuck in the base's walls.
The one time the lack of sound (and tweaked aggro range) got me a scare was when I undocked from the Cyclops to drill some silver and three seconds later a large shadow covered my claim. Should've paid more attention to my environment (I did get back safely). Now that was fun, but overall the experience hasn't been as good as before.
I would honestly say making the game harder to accidentally discover things without getting massacred is unfair on new players and a burden on repeat play thoughs. Having foreknowledge should help, otherwise what's the point?
I agree nukes are awful XD but that's why it needs to stay for now.
Someone didn't play during the period where one or two of the Lifepod 5 spawn points were actually inside the maximum radiation spread radius. And the rad suit required something like 4 silver to make. Early game used to consist of:
*Make tools as fast as possible
*Top up your food and water
*RACE RACE RACE around looking for enough Sandstone to get 4 silver (which could be up to 8 or even 15 very-hard-to-find-and-get-to nodes in very dangerous areas when you have nothing but a basic knife and fins
*Fail to do so, end up dying in the pod over and over again, wondering why it keeps moving you over to the ladder from the fabricator...
Fortunately, at that time Sandstone was modestly common in the flat parts of the Grassy Plateau, if you could avoid drowning at that depth (no time to make a seaglide, that radiation's a-comin'), and avoid the Sandshark and Biter swarms.
I guess what I'm saying is the rad suit is in a good place relative to what it was. Let's not mess with it, eh?
I'm with you about the lead, though. Something like what they did / are doing with Magnesium would be nice for Lead. Either have you craft it from some other, more useful ores as-needed or just substitute those ores in the recipe, period. Having it drop all the time when you don't need or want it is a pain, if a relatively minor one.
Never had pod 5 spawn IN the rad area, though.
EDIT: Totally misread your post, and more importantly mixed up Pod 5 and Pod 6. xD Holy crap, yeah, pod 5 spawning in the rad zone would be horrible! o.O
...That doesn't sound like a problem with the rad suit itself, though. xD