Potential ILZ corridor from the Mountains biome directly to the ILZ, and the red artifact.
BIPPITY
England Join Date: 2015-06-06 Member: 205283Members
England Join Date: 2015-06-06 Member: 205283Members
Recently the developers have been thinking about adding a surface connection to the Inactive Lava Zone in the Mountains biome in order to make the zone feel more connected with the world after removing the Crash Zone corridor. They feel that there are issues with doing this though as it allows players to bypass the Lost River and since the Thermal Power Generator in the Lava Castle only requires a Purple Artifact, the Disease Research Facility in the Lost River can be skipped entirely with no consequences.
So the artifact system was originally intended to be very different to how it is now; instead of all but three doors in the world requiring a purple artifact, the different bases would have all required a different key (Purple, Orange, White, Red, and Blue) and the key to progress to the next base in the story would be found in the former base. This concept was scrapped because it was felt by some on the development team that this made the story too linear, instead resulting in almost everything requiring purple.
But now the developers don't want people to skip the Lost River, and I agree, the Lost River is an amazingly made biome. But there's actually no reason to go there at all aside from the Nickel for the Cyclops Hull Module Mk2, which isn't actually necessary if you have a thermal charger on your prawn suit. There's nothing in the Disease Research Facility that you need to progress, which bothers me since behind the Primary Containment Facility it's definitely the best precursor structure in the game. So, if it were changed so that another artifact, lets say the red artifact, was the key to the Thermal Generator and this artifact was found in the Disease Research Facility then you could no longer cut out the Disease Research Facility and having a surface connection to the Inactive Lava Zone from the Mountains would no longer allow you to skip through one of the four bases. I understand that Charlie Cleveland does not like hard-gating progression and telling the player where to go, but when it's causing issues like this that could so simply be solved I just don't see the reason to keep it this way.
I would very much like to hear feedback on this suggestion.
So the artifact system was originally intended to be very different to how it is now; instead of all but three doors in the world requiring a purple artifact, the different bases would have all required a different key (Purple, Orange, White, Red, and Blue) and the key to progress to the next base in the story would be found in the former base. This concept was scrapped because it was felt by some on the development team that this made the story too linear, instead resulting in almost everything requiring purple.
But now the developers don't want people to skip the Lost River, and I agree, the Lost River is an amazingly made biome. But there's actually no reason to go there at all aside from the Nickel for the Cyclops Hull Module Mk2, which isn't actually necessary if you have a thermal charger on your prawn suit. There's nothing in the Disease Research Facility that you need to progress, which bothers me since behind the Primary Containment Facility it's definitely the best precursor structure in the game. So, if it were changed so that another artifact, lets say the red artifact, was the key to the Thermal Generator and this artifact was found in the Disease Research Facility then you could no longer cut out the Disease Research Facility and having a surface connection to the Inactive Lava Zone from the Mountains would no longer allow you to skip through one of the four bases. I understand that Charlie Cleveland does not like hard-gating progression and telling the player where to go, but when it's causing issues like this that could so simply be solved I just don't see the reason to keep it this way.
I would very much like to hear feedback on this suggestion.
Comments
As I said in the other thread, I would prefer for the new route to contain "a portal that takes one straight to the DRF. With how much trouble I had finding the DRF until my fourth playthrough (while being in the LR!), something like that can't make the odds worse." You lead people to where they need to go, but don't force them. Alternatively, I'm not sure how the map's built-up, but why not have the proposed tunnel split up to the ILZ and the LR? People come back for that stuff, especially if there's a chance the other route doesn't lead to sea dragons.
If nothing else, rather than forcing the player DRF -> PTPG -> PCF, why not turn one of the blue key consoles into a red key one or add a red key console so that the order becomes DRF & PTPG -> PCF? A double lock on the PCF sounds reasonable to me.
Also, I agree on the issue of key linearity - initially, the devs said they didn't want a linear story, but than the sudden direction-change about a year or so ago to make the Lost River completely story-necessary seems to have rendered that completely moot. If they're going to or were going to make the story linear anyway, there was no reason to axe out the other two key types - and bringing at least one of them back to recover from the DRF would make it so finding that base would be a requirement. It would urge the player organically to find the next piece of the story, rather than unnaturally railroading them down only one path to a single area at a time, thereby killing the exploration aspect.
On a related note, I feel that they should've kept the Dunes entrance. Sea Dragons would have easy access to Reaper territory and it would give us a reason to visit one of the most empty, inhospitable regions in the game.
This way you explore in the deeper areas for the artifacts and the surface for the plants for the enzyme.
Also I don't see how adding a warp gate directly to the DRF is somehow less linear than making you need to go there to find the key to the next base.
It needs to be like this because they've made a linear story but then tried to make it non-linear and it doesn't work. You miss out very important stuff if you don't visit the DRF, and then stuff makes a lot less sense once you get to the PCF.
Also the cave that has the DRF in it is going to get some architecture around the entrance so that it's noticeable, rather than being kind of out of the way like it currently is.
Also with hard-gating, this only hard-gates the bases which makes sense because if you go to them out of order it doesn't make very much sense. I've seen people find the thermal plant and think that it must be the Disease Research Facility, then question where to find the thermal plant. You can still go to biomes in whatever order you want, whenever you want.
I think the story should be linear. It doesn't make much sense if you go in any order other than the intended one. It's a story, your supposed to read it in order. Using the keys to ensure you can't skip a base isn't forcing the player to go somewhere, it's ensuring they don't read the book from back to front.
You can't do X before you have Y, can't reach this depth before you have upgrade, you can't mine those Ores before you have the Drill. You must discover and scan fragment before using them. Yet there isn't a strict order, that's the beauty of gating you by ability, nobody know WHEN the story will suddenly move forward because it can happen at place that do not have obvious links to the plot-twist.
And here we are talking about artificial gate anyway, Devs can justify those through lore, while everything else is scattered "randomly".
And my point is that having one spot to use red, one spot to use blue, and one spot to use orange is a non-way of stopping everything from being purple what with purple being of use in 5-6 spots, one of which good for three or so key points. @Slowtype1 's idea sounds nicer to me. (In general I wish keys would be more logical and reflect a system of what gets locked with what color.)
Kudos on that bit about the DRF cave. I wasn't aware of the plan and I think that's a great move! (All those times passing it by while looking for it do not qualify as my proudest moments.) As for my warp gate bit, the point is that it is an option that draws attention but still doesn't force your hand. Like, you'd have a Mountains-ILZ tunnel and at some halfway point you'd have either a split to the LR or an obvious warp gate to the side. At this point, the player either can follow with the clue and find the LR if not the DRF specifically or they can go on, deal with lava larvae and sea dragons, but all the while knowing they made a choice and that something else that might be easier is also open to explore. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall there being anything in the DRF that has to be experienced before the PTPG for the story to keep its flow.)
Doesn't claiming "it needs to be like this" kinda contradict the wish for feedback? For whatever it's worth, it's my feedback that I do not believe the precursor path has to be forced and that strong suggestion interacts better with the player's sense of control. Like, when the LR and LZs were being made, I expected they'd give me the same feel like the Dark World map of A Link to the Past or the Kanto map of Pokemon GS. UWE's succeeded in that when it comes to size and marvel, but the freedom aspect is not really there, like if all Kanto offered were gym battles. Compared to the QEP for the entire surface world, the other three bases in the deep biomes come really fast and the amount of things to do down there is limited (no lifepods, no wrecks, no Degasi, only three new resources, only three new recipes, etc). I just don't think locking everything down in order's gonna do the sense of freedom favors. And I don't think it necessary. That's all.
At least they did something fun with the former entrance and the BKZ is right next to the Dunes. Checkin in the past two days also makes mention of more wrecks that are being placed in the Dunes, but I don't know what size wreck we're talking about here.
The issue with that is how it goes against the concept of an open-world exploration game, which is what Subnautica was marketed as - if it were marketed as a story-driven one, I'd have agreed with you. Ergo, between the two options, gating through the keys feels less obtrusive to gameplay and immersion because it doesn't feel like unnatural forced progression via having no other route to go; it's instead a matter of needing to get to it at some point regardless.
The Carar's final-stage infection trigger is there, linked to the DRF's data-console in the Warper Assembly Room. Along with the Thermal Plant's's coordinates. However, most of the "important story" stuff is largely just terminal lore.
You can still go to any biome you want to, you just can't go to the bases in any order you want. And why should you be able to do that when it just makes you miss story. Why should the DRF have pretty much no purpose? You have no reason to go there and it's very important to the story.
And it's still not even that different to how most people play the game. The gun and the DRF still both require purple so nothing would change there, just now you couldn't access the thermal plant (the least significant base) and by extension the PCF, without first visiting the DRF (the second most significant base)
Let's get back to the original questions that I'd asked the PTs, it boils down to this - assuming we don't change the base key gating, would a surface to lava zone route be desirable from an exploration and progression perspective? Would it even be considered acceptable if players can skip the entire lost river biome area and its base as a result of this route?
I mostly agree. What's to stop the player from going from the QEP to the PTPG to the PCF without going to the DRF if theirs an open alternate entrance? But at the same time, an alternate route to the ILZ would be nice just for a change in scenery when going there. We could solve this with a compromise by keeping the entrance, but putting a force feels that needs a key exclusive to the DRF or the PTPG to open it (not my idea, I read it somewhere on the forums).
But the issue with what you're saying... is that, as @DrownedOut mentioned before, the base is already skippable regardless of what option you take. I mean, I didn't realize it at first... but in hindsight, I think whether or not you get the final-stage infection sequence doesn't matter, does it? You'll get cured no matter what. So in my opinion, asking whether or not it'd be acceptable for players to skip the lost river biome area and it's base... is redundant. It's already completely skippable by way of just being "that area you need to go through to get to the Lava Zone" - there's already nothing that really presses you to ever exit and explore aside from personal curiosity, rather than any hardline plot-requirement for the narrative.
Honestly, if it was an issue of exploration and progression perspectives, a lava zone route would be desirable - a quicker way to get Kyanite without burning power to get through the LR, or building a new base in the LR just for ease of access to the endgame. It also makes sense lore-wise as how the Sea Dragons emerge to hunt Reapers. But in that case, you really could just leave the Crash Zone corridor intact: it's already made rather than you needing to carve out a new one from scratch, plus the player would have to fix the Aurora's radiation leak to even use it in the first place and than get a Cyclops to get past the Reapers, so it's not like that one can be easily exploited in the early game. That one's perfect as is, in my opinion - just build on that one.
But from what you're saying... it sounds like the real issue is how to encourage players to go to the Lost River base at all - and honesty, as is, they currently could potentially skip it no matter what if they wanted to. That, in turn, is why we brought up the issue of gating - to solve the exact problem of progression that is making you debate on the lava zone entrances in the first place. You and the devs were debating it because you were afraid it would mean people could skip the LR - but if there was something there that they needed to find to enter the endgame, like a key, than you could put the corridor in (or leave the current one open) without worry of people missing anything or bypassing the lost river. It's all interconnected - the big picture, so to speak.
This might have gotten lost in my anti-key change thing, but I really want that extra tunnel. If it's an option, please do make it. And if it comes down to it, I find locking the PTPG through the DRF an agreeable exchange for an extra tunnel.
The question whether it's acceptable to skip the LR strikes me as unexpected because so many biomes are skippable. Like, there is no need to follow the Degasi storyline and visit any of their bases, which is currently the only reason to visit the JSC and a major reason to visit the Floating Island. It's beneficial, yes, but not essential. There is no need to go to a lot of biomes if you bring it down to what is needed to get the rocket blueprint and achieve the end of the quarantine (didn't someone rush the PTPG with the seaglide?). I've been enjoying the game just fine having my options open like that, so my acceptability answer is yes. It's not a condition I'll fight for, but from experience I can't say it doesn't work.
What I do find important is that players who want to experience it all (and in intended/functional order) get a fair chance to do so. Right now, finding the Lost River at all is something I don't think is easy. There's the QEP hint, Lifepod 2 (signal triggered by building a thermal plant?), and the third Degasi base hint, but every bit requests player attentiveness to fill in the gaps, unlike, say, the way the QEP is not possible to be missed with two signals leading right to it and no obstructions preventing a straight journey. Key change or not, this is one I estimate important if there's gonna be a direct ILZ tunnel because finding the tunnel from the ILZ to the LR isn't easy either (the walls I've bumped into thinking I'd finally found my way out!).
I disagree with your first statement and don't see how the keys statement contradict what I said.
The distinction between Story-trigger and Gameplay-trigger to open a new area is academic. If we went by your definition any game where getting an item/ability lead to an area being technically accessible before another could not be called Sandbox, this include game like Minecraft.
Linear to Sandbox game have always been a spectrum, not a binary distinction.
Exploration is maintained regardless of what key is discovered first. It only mean you can have a key stored in inventory and only use it after another one open a door.
Forced progression is subjective. So long as someone can imagine a reason for the key to exists and to be found in any orders then it is not forced. Of course it take skill for the developers to hide their intents.
Then, although I don't find a name for it, the reverse is also a thing : having too much freedom to progress despite it being harmful for a gameplay. Like how Skyrim let you get guild leader of several concurrent guilds in a few days, or getting late-game equipment too soon making progression too easy.
If this is a vote, I vote for MORE GATING but through creative use of game-feature. Like using torpedo to break a wall or something.
But games like Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild seem to be proof that the distinction is anything but academic; it's the difference between a game being story-driven and exploration-driven. Whether the narrative rules or player-progression rules. In that, it goes against your statement in that it's proof how open-world games are, as the name implies, supposed to be an organic open world - and if you're marketing the game as such, the way the game is gated likewise has to change as well.
In my opinion, it's the opposite; it can't really be called "exploration" because that defines traveling to an unfamiliar area of your own volition to discover what it may or may not have... but if your game is linear and forces you in a single direction, you know full well you're going to find what you need if you keep going in a straight line. Exploration is something that encourages and rewards you for moving off the beaten path, not sticking to it with walls that keep you from moving any other route.
In turn, I disagree that "forced progression is subjective" - in fact, I think it's anything but. Rather than forcing you to go through one area after the other like a tower such as in a story-focused game, an exploration-focused one has an open world with set of places that you must visit but, with the exception of the endgame areas, can be physically reached in any order you pick. The only stipulation is whether or not you have the right tools or gear, as opposed to a linear "this level, than the next one" stage-by-stage progression you'd find in other single-player games like say, a story-driven FPS like Halo or a fighting game like Mortal Kombat.
In this, if access to the LR is required to reach the ILZ and ALZ with no other alternatives, than it rather implicitly is an example of forced progression - because you wouldn't be going to the LR for exploration; you'd be going there because there's no other route possible. Natural progression is when you elect to travel to a location for an item you need - forced progression is when there's no other possible path to take either way. There's only so many ways you can doctor up a single path, and in the end it won't change the fact that LR > ILZ > ALZ is just one single, linear route with no possible deviations; at the end of the day, you're still on that same single pathway rather than actually trailblazing. That doesn't speak of it being a natural world - that speaks of being more story-driven than actually being progression-driven.
This is actually proof it is.
Breath of the Wild isn't the first Zelda to be Open World, it is only the first to use mechanic a la Assassin's Creed. The feature that you personally recognize as exploration simply got more formulaic/numerous.
Afraid I must cast most of your argumentation aside because it's based on a case of double-standard.
You declare a (hypothetical modification to a) game less of an openworld because you'd get to see "physical" (temporary geographical limitation) that are already the case in numerous other game including your example "Breath of the Wild", both gated with Gameplay & Story.
Exploration is absolutely subjective. We define it according to the technical evolution in game technology. Before you "explored" a 2D map by looking at all the hard to reach items outside the mains routes, or by unlocking secret levels.
When you look at modern open-world game they are still surprisingly similar to old game like Pokemon, the only difference being that you cannot see -ALL- limits anymore.
Someday we may up our criteria again and see our current "open world" as "proto non-linear progression" and consider that open world shoud require both: "multiple storyline" and "world change according to players action only"
(speaking of that, I've been playing NieR:Automata yesterday and that game is an example of pushing those concepts far, the near seamless open world evolve according to players action and there's 4 main ending and alternate ending from F to Z)
Now I want to get back to something you said :
As said, even assuming Subnautica had a strict key orders to access some zone it is still OPEN-WORLD, let's not forget it is also a SANDBOX btw as you can build in it, and if that wasn't enough, it is seamless.
I look and look again at how it is marketed, there's no lies anywhere. I'm only seeing subjective, personal taste/expectation in that kind of disagreement.
The true topic here is wether or not gating those access orders IMPROVE THE GAME. And I see no reason it (hypothetically) couldn't despite having a preference for gameplay-gate.
- Giving immediate access to any part of a world cheapen them.
- Not locking mysterious structure in... a shroud of mystery also cheapen them.
- Giving choices to the players is one things, spoiling them features irreversibly is another.
It's like being told a story and accidentally skipping an entire chapter (which will look ridiculous once looked at later)
I'll conclude that regardless how the devs does it, they have more than enough tropes to justify it. "Ancient Alien closed off an area for reasons" is credible enough, you can even blur the line by giving the ultimate END KEY before you will ever use it.
TL;DR
Subnautica stay Open-world Exploration even with story-gated access to area, if it wasn't, no game ever would ever be.
Again, I have to disagree - because you missed the point of the post. Which is that Breath of the Wild doesn't have any walls or traditional gating. At all. In that, it disproves what you've said because it shows that an open-world game at it's best is not something with artificial blocks on a singular route - it's an open, freely-accessible world where, rather than barriers and blockages through static levels, you can choose to go any area you want and collect the needed keys in any order so long as you have the gear you need. What you're referencing is the basis of RPG's in general, rather than the depth and method the interaction in them goes to - and exploration in them can be optional, depending on if story is the main focus or not.
Sorry if this sounds rude... but I have to say I believe the opposite; your argument's the one that feels like it's using a double-standard here - especially since you were the one calling for more physical gating.
Again, it feels like you're ignoring the difference between going to an area of your own volition and being railroaded towards it without choice. If there is only one single path forward - one static direction that forces you through something in a singular pattern - than that is not an open-world; that is an area-by-area trek/level-by-level advancement. Proper open-world is when the only limit to progression is whether or not you have the right tools as opposed to blockages and doorways - those only come in play for the endgame, where you need all the keys to progress. If it's all on the same path, a "temporary geographical limitation" will not change that it's still the same path - it's just saying that path has a lot of forced stops along it, which doesn't equate to a natural experience.
Again, I have to disagree there. Breath of the Wild counters that claim because the limitations were not "it" - if you hit a block on the path, you were not forced to stop all further progress until that block was gone; you could take another route or find another way. It's the difference between having a block in a tunnel where you can't move ahead till it's dealt with, or having a block in the road where you can find a workaround by going off the beaten path. To ignore this is to ignore a fundamental difference between games like Breath of the Wild and games like The Order - 1886; the prospect and impact for freedom of movement and freedom of choice in what takes priority.
As a result, exploration to me feels anything but subjective - exploration, by any definition of the word, is to explore the unknown as opposed to sticking to the known. Being railroaded to a single path does not feel like it fits that, and attempting to use past-tense examples feels a misnomer since, as you yourself have just pointed out, those limitations are from a generation long since past - it's comes across as ignoring how the ability to express a concept evolves over time. Furthermore, the limitations of the past age do not impact my statement as, if anything, it simply equates to the technology of the old age simply not being able to embody it any more fully than that - what you are describing is a limit on the technology of the time, not that the concept or premise itself necessarily changed or was, let alone should, be limited to such.
Nobody actually said the key order had to be in any strict lineup, or at least that wasn't ever agreed upon - that's why there was a debate on it. Hell, one person suggested that opening the prison should require one key from each of the other major bases.
And again, I feel inclined to point out that... well, honestly speaking, Subnautia really isn't quite so seamless - that's an exaggeration. You can't build anywhere for starters and, if all other routs to the ILZ are closed out beside the LR, you can't go anywhere without being forced through one area at a time, making it feel much less of an open-world... and the slew of balancing issues brought up between different players, all of which vary due to the difference between survival-driven players, story-driven players and exploration-driven players, makes me wonder if there will ever be such a thing as a "seamless" game for any genre, not just this one. Whether or not you think it's subjective feels moot, in my opinion, because that could just as much be your own opinion or interpretation on it - you can't label other people's views on it as "subjective, personal taste/expectation" if you aren't considering your own to fall under the same views.
But again, the issue with that is what the devs are proposing, much as I want there to be an intact ILZ access route, won't fix what they are saying "the true topic" is - whether or not players will skip the Lost River. That, inherently, is an issue that stems more from how the game is gated, and it's not something that can be solved just by putting in a new route - even if they stuck with just one route, players still don't need to go to the DRF or even really look around the LR to progress; they could just treat it as a throughway to the ILZ and leave it at that.
Likewise... again, I'm sorry if it sounds rude, but none of what you've said feels like it'd improve the game - especially not when you admit it's based on a personal preference for a spicific type of game rather than whether it best fits the current one:
- It isn't "immediate access", though; if you don't have the needed tools (Cyclops, PRAWN, dive suit, depth enhancements etc), you can't get to it anyway. Hell, if anything, I think it's restricting access that would cheapen this world - because it's no longer a natural world; it's just level-by-level stages to progress/grind through rather than an actual world to explore.
- But if you either are not allowed to miss it and cannot find it by choice and merit of exploration, it's not a "shroud of mystery" in the first place; it's just another stop on the straight-and-narrow road that you know you're going to hit something on anyway. Again, if anything, it ought to actually increase the mystery because you have to wonder, theorize and explore on where else you can find these lost relics and their bases, thereby encouraging exploration across the map to find where they might have hidden them.
- But, again, if you have them on a single unbending path, you're spoiling things for them anyway - because they basically don't need to bother with exploring; it's all on one pathway. Doubly-redundant is that, as it is, nothing forces the player to stay and explore the LR either way - unless something is done to encourage natural gating (again, like keys), than players can just skip it all anyway, because the lack of choice means there's noting to entice and interest in the world and they than get bored and want it over with. Which is the worst possible thing you want the payer to feel in an exploration game.
See, the issue with relying on tropes is that they get predictable, and thereby boring, if you're relying on them to tell a story - anyone can gather tropes together, but you have to actually do something creative with them or else the player will go somewhere that does. ""Ancient Alien closed off an area for reasons" is not at all credible if you can't give reasons or explanations for whether or not it's passible, how it fits into the game, whether it fits into gameplay and the overall story, etc - it's not, for lack of a better word, so superficial an issue as to just say "this does that" without any context for what it mattes.
And likewise, to make a long story short, I disagree - because the kind of gating you have in mind doesn't match with the kind of gating that makes an open-world game. It feels like you're confusing "gating" as being universally applicable - that any and all games can have the same kinds of gating without any kind of adjustment between it's genres or story. Nobody even said that there shouldn't be gating in the game - only that the gating needed to be handled differently than how it has been/how it is right now.
The core source of disagreement (how Subnautica should address how and what order we have fun) is subjective and do not have any strict Yes/No basis.
The separate point discussed with The08MetroidMan, is that the"absolute openness" he (describe in all but name) isn't the definition of open-world game and not necessarily an improvement for 'Exploration' feature.
This point is what you'll find defended in the spoiler.
Oh I am distinguishing opinion from fact just right.
But do you? I can't even agree to recognize a subjective topic as such.
You'll find no place in my previous post where I claim my opinions to be fact, outside of a figure of speech maybe.
You however have been defending an idealized vision of "Open-world" that don't work the way you think it does, and you tried to associate perfectly acceptable gating solution (that's factual, source: EXTREMELY POPULAR OPEN-WORLD GAMES) as if those were some "horrible railroading" despite nothing warranting that, all this motivated by your personal taste.
Just to be quick about ZELDA, I'll remind you that gating area through game-mechanics (or several less visible features) still is sequential gating, no matter if some place have alternate route. The distinction are purely subjective quantity/quality/game depth/expectation appreciations.
Open-world game start when some features (usually but not always linked to space) can be accessed in a nonlinear order during a relevant period of time.
The belief that it mean it's "better" to have as many things as possible accessible in as little order as possible, is a gross miscomprehension of what make a game interesting.
LINEARITY doesn't make a game bad.
NONLINEARITY doesn't make a game better.
In fact nonlinear design is starting to become a new brand for bad game-design, because of shitty game who believe that procedural generation of terrain with non-consequential simplistic survival minigame, beat a skillful linear level-design with proper gating.
The above is not a rule of course, just like the Zelda and it's AC-like formula is nowhere "exploration done right".
Now I hope that's all for that frigging game, as a comparison with Subnautica cannot go beyond the superficial.
Some peoples would feel disgusted at how entitled you feel to be offered another path.
The only difference you pointed is the difference between a railroading that require suspension of disbelief and a game that require less of it.
I'll get on that outside of the spoiler area.
Comparing two game that have absolutely NOT the same goals also did not help your point.
You have missed the point and I only see appeal to emotion in the rest of the paragraph,
Exploration is forever subjective.
You can build exploration-type game around a single room or around a galaxy (I'm leaving aside even more conceptual exploration) and at no point you'll feel limited because the devs "forgot to give you access to the other room or to the full Galaxic cluster".
Technology didn't make the limitations disappear. It just lessened our ability to see the physical one.
Technology also didn't make the limitation unnecessary, it only changed the way developers have to create those limitations (because they are needed).
When I'm telling you modern open-world game didn't differ (much) from old game, it's because they really didn't. Not because they are retrograde has-been who don't know better, it's because it simply it work.
Instead of following a perilous path railroaded by indestructible tree you have a perilous area between you and the next city.
What you do stayed the same: Explored an area at a given time.
"yes but I should be able to take another route or explore as much as I can without being railroaded"
That mindset is not a rules or a mark of quality for Exploration-oriented game, only something too easy for devs to let you do now, or too tricky to keep you from doing.
The "FREE ROAMING + UNLIMITED TIME + INCONSEQUENTIAL ACTION" combo is only a genre easier to make.
But you sacrifice a LOT making a game with the combo above.
Making every place reachable in a nonlinear way can be a pain in the ass. (you don't expect to just be handed the key or allowed there right?)
Keeping every place reachable in a nonlinear is also a pain in the ass (you don't expect to go back in a place you barely escaped with your life)
Getting story-time change in an area already require proper planning, exploring those will only be linear.
Nowadays you recognize amazing Open-world game when they still give you a sense of urgency, proper time, and cascading impact of what you did across the entire zone.
That's all from me, I don't intend to continue this discussion with you.
Already wrote way too much frankly, at least I hope you got the point.
Now back to the topic,
Making a game "organic" is what we call making a game feel natural, it can also include making the strings of the developers invisible.
Limiting Subnautica to "Exploration only" is very reductive, exploration without survival would be pointless and its survival gameplay without an overarching story isn't quite enough.
In the game survival is linked to what ability a technology bring you, the order in which you explore area depend a lot on this, and it could depend even more on it after the developers do their final rebalancing path.
Just imagine if you required specific upgrade-module or diving-suit to survive in a specific biome? Unbelievable I know.
The order in which you find those technology depend of the order in which you can explore those, that's how the current gating mechanic work.
So in short it's mostly linear and for good reason: It would be pointless to skip straight to the UHC air-tank without having the time to play with the previous one. The trick is for the developers to prevent you of knowing how the railroading is done, but we are not entitled to see every biome of the game as soon as we want.
Which bring us back to that whole KEY debates.
There is a story-driven reason to sealed-off area, a reason that do not conflict with the survival mechanic above because you are not supposed to reach some area without the proper equipment.
Proper equipment, on a planet where alien conspiracy sealed entire biome is called "having the key".
Alien also use different keys for different area, don't ask, it's just what intelligent being do.
It's a shame that GOD didn't create an alternate tunnel for you to.... Oh wait the Alien would have sealed it anyway, all logical.
Luckily you find those keys by exploring the area you can, this is what we intended to do anyway.
It will take great effort to explore what you can first but that's what we also expected to do anyway.
It will probably only be a coincidence if the order you find those keys make a good story.
And did I mentioned how the Key are Interchangeable with any justifiable equipment?
All this to say:
- some linearity in the progression isn't a bad things and is part of the making of amazing game
- we aren't entitled to enter every biome as soon as we feel we should.
- as game mechanic go alien keys aren't a problem for Subnautica, but obviously blurring the trace are worth looking for.
I'm only using quotes to try and avoid there being a drawn-out read to find the relevant points, since I got complaints on that before by others. I apologize if that causes any inconvenience, but I thought it would be better than staring at a solid textwall.
Anyway, back to the point - your summery of the situation... is kind of a "yes and no" issue; you're voicing what the disagreement is between you and I, but not what the disagreement between people and the devs was. Also, it's not "how and what order we have fun" so much as how to order player agency in regards to the story.
But again, it feels like you're either completely missing or ignoring the point being made that the whole purpose of an open world is to be open - that's why it's called "open-world" in the first place. But the bigger issue... is that you didn't even get close to the point I was making - I never said "absolute openness" was a sole requirement for an open-world game; I said it was the key requirement for an exploration-based open-world game, marketed as being driven by discovery rather than narrative.
The issue I keep having with your statements is that it feels like you're downplaying the matter of contexts - that things like genre, story and gameplay somehow don't impact to what extent you should make accessibility reach, and that, in games that focus more heavily on exploration as opposed to a chiefly single-player RPG experience, you don't want the gating to be obvious and unnatural.
Sorry to say.... but that doesn't feel true; In your previous comment, you literally stated the above opinion as if it were fact - you claimed that everyone else's complaints, criticisms or skepticism toward how the game was marketed was all subjective, with absolutely no acknowledgement of your own belief of such being an opinion. Even if that's not how you meant it to be conveyed, that's how it came across, so it does not feel like you're actually distinguishing fact from opinion on a wholly consistent basis, let alone that you never have.
Again, that's just it; it's not "idealized" - it's simply stating what the goal of the premise should be. I know for a fact that no game has or ever will get it down completely right, but that's true for any and every concept - it doesn't mean the effort shouldn't be put in to get as close as you can; working with that in mind is one of the ever-present aspects of making... well, anything in this world.
Another issue; you think I believe railroaded games are bad somehow. What I actually said was that it's bad to have railroading in a game you're marketing as open-world. And again, I point out that if the Lost River is completely skippable as anything else but a throughway and you still don't even need to visit the DRF to get into the Prison... than how is that a "perfectly acceptable gating solution"? The devs say the Lost River is a major lore and story source, but there is nothing demanding you actually visit it even now, let alone with other paths open - a new ILZ corridor is good... but my point is that, as @DrownedOut has pointed out in their previous comments, it will not fix the particular problem the devs have with people skipping the LR the same as any of the other surface biomes. They will still have to do something about gating for the DRF regardless of if they make a new ILZ corridor or keep the old one or whatever, because the LR and it's content would still be completely skippable regardless of if they expanded the routes to the ILZ or not.
But here we have the big problem in this exchange; you're taking my views in extreme. I never said that there shouldn't be any gating in an open-world game - just that there shouldn't be any traditional gating. I don't know how that translated into "no gating ever", and I'm sorry if it was because of how I worded it or the like, but that is literally the complete opposite of what my point was. My point was that in an open-world game, you never want your gating to be a matter of forced and linear pathways/tunnel-vision; you want the gating to be a matter of whether or not you have the gear needed to explore that place as opposed to there being a physical wall in the way. Different implementations for different genres - yes it's still gating, but it's gating spicific to that genre.
Also, I again point out that I never said it had to be sequential - suggested it as an option, but the only thing I said definitely had to be done was that the gating had to be worked on. And likewise, you kind of proved my point without even knowing it - because subjectivity is the exact reason why how and what gating constitutes in each game changes based on quantity, quality, depths and expectation; those things are quite literally why each genre has to have it be approached a different way, due to the lack of a single universally-applicable standard.
I have to disagree, because what you're describing is just the starting basis for an open-world game as opposed to it's complete definition - it's the first building block, not the whole blueprint. And again, I point out that having the entire map (barring the endgame) be open without any walls or physical blocks is not the same as being freely accessible from the very start. The Crash Zone Corridor is a good example of this - it leads directly to the ILZ and bypasses the Lost River... but between the radiation leak from the Aurora, the depth you need to go to reach it and the surrounding Reaper Leviathans, it is hardly "freely accessible."
Simply put, the point I'm making that you keep missing is that it's actually a gross miscomprehension to automatically assume "open-world map = everything is instantly accessible." And I don't even deny that a lot of people make that mistake when designing an open world - Hello Games' attempt at it in No Man's Sky is proof of such - but I don't think that justifies trying to toss the entire concept aside, anymore than how people complaining of overly-straightforward shooters means we should toss the FPS genre. It's... well, for lack of a better word, it feels thin-skinned to see it that way - like you're judging one horrible effort on it as indicative of the whole concept being unviable.
But beyond that... is the fact that you've gotten sidetracked on what the actual issue in my arguments was in the first place. My debating on the merits of an open-world experience? Those were side-notes - an explanation of why I supported the idea of another ILZ corridor. But what you don't seem to realize is that they were completely separate from my arguments about the matter of gating, because that's a completely separate issue from the open-world aspect - whether or not the game has more areas or not, the story-path that currently exists is still gated badly no matter what option the devs pick. I talked about new key arrangements because, again, the issue of making sure players visit the DRF will still be there even if they have no new corridors and close all the others up; there's still no strict requirement to visit it for people who aren't interested in the story.
Again, I only believe that's because you're still fundamentally missing what my point actually was - which is that in regards to an open-world game's functionality, comparing the gating mechanics is anything but superficial in this regard; in a game marketed as an open-world exploration experience, it's more key than ever.
And likewise, some people would feel equally disgusted to feel like the world is so shallow and linear that there's no other option available in what's supposed to be an organic world - as in, the kind of place where nature and the creatures there wouldn't just let a blockage like that sit. Comparing the two games like this helps my point because it illustrates how exploration in an open-world game should be because you feel like looking in a spicific area for something is your choice, not the game's choice.
Again, I think you're the one that missed the point I was making. Exploration in and of itself isn't actually subjective in this case - what's subjective is how it's applied in regards to what's being explored. It isn't an appeal to emotion; it's an appeal to logic based on context - because exploring something is to go off the beaten path and enter an unknown area. If your game is nothing but a single pathway, that isn't exploration - it's a journey, certainly; an adventure. But that in and of itself doesn't necessarily equate to exploration.
In that context, your example feels like it falls flat - because this isn't just "the other room"; this is effectively whether or not you can travel freely between the stars or if you can only go to one star at a time, with no deviation whatsoever. Whether or not you can have exploration in a single room does not lessen it's importance in an open-world map - it only goes to show that exploration can be implemented in other smaller venues as opposed to shifting what priority it should be.
And again, you're voicing a personal opinion like it's fact here. The concept itself didn't change - only the depths that we could express it did, because older games didn't have the capacity to reach three-dimensions back than. I also never said that the limitations were unnecessary - only that they were more obtrusive in older games because the ability to better integrate them hadn't come about back than, and that there's no longer any reason to see obtrusive gating as a necessity.
Likewise, I never said that the concept of the open-world ever changed - only that our ability to express it did. How it was done before was largely because of a matter of resources rather than correctness; nowadays there are differences in proportion to what kind of experience you're going for - an action-based game where you need to fight and push your way through, or a puzzle-game where you have to work out a solution to get by, or an exploration game where you can just figure out another path.
This is another misinterpretation between us; I said it was a key aspect of an exploration-based open-world, not that it was a rule for any and all exploration-games - RPG's like Deus Ex and Dishonored are my eternal proof of how a world doesn't need to be open-world to be great exploration material. But once again, it's a matter of what's being marketed and what the game's genre, lore and gameplay are like - and in what's supposed to be a natural world, alternate routes and free exploration are supposed to be staples of that kind of experience. I won't say that they're ironclad rules, but they are core pieces for those sort of games - and again, other people abusing it like No Man's Sky did doesn't automatically equate to the concept as a whole being wrong.
Only if you don't have any sense of scope in what you're trying to do. Again, I freely admit to this being a personal supposition, but it feels like you're drawing a lot of your conclusions off of how games like No Man's Sky abused the concept by using just the bare-bones of it. But the fact of the matter is that with the above combo, you're actually not sacrificing anything that wasn't already being sacrificed when you set the genre for the game - when you make a game primarily exploration-based in an open-world, you're knowingly giving up things like a solid-but-linear story or a focus on combat-mechanics and instead prioritizing how to make the environment and lore itself more inviting and enriching.
Furthermore... I never said that every place had to be reachable in a nonlinear way - just that barring the endgame, the order you go to them areas in didn't need to be one-track and was only limited by what gear you had by that point. Nobody ever said the key could or should be just handed over - just that in an open-world game, there shouldn't necessarily be a hardline restriction on which key you get first... or that if there is such a restriction or required order-of-play (which seems to be what the devs want, what with their desire to have the player enter the LR at least once no matter what), that you need to ensure there's a clear-cut reason besides just forcing you down a single tunnel. In games that are relying purely on story, that's easier to accept, but when the game's tone and theme is one of exploration, there shouldn't be any real solid restrictions beyond all of two things; (A) you need such-and-such gear to get to someplace rather than there being walls to limit access, and (B) you need there to be a clear necessity or motivator to go someplace if there is an area you feel players cannot or should not miss said place, with the choice between a spicific order or picking any key in any order being an either-or instance.
In the case of Subnautica, the only thing that would need to be done to ensure better gating - to ensure that players don't skip the LR - is simply to put a key in the DRF; whether it's needed to enter the Thermal Plant or the Prison Facility doesn't matter - the presence of a key would ensure players have a reason to explore the LR without them feeling like they have no choice/like it's a static tunnel. It would also maintain a sense of urgency in that you can't just brush off any place as unimportant - you need to take your time or else you might miss something, like you might if it was just a single straight path.
Ergo, to make a long story short... I really do not get the point you were making, in large part because I'm not sure you got the point I was making. My point had been that the gating of games depend on what type it is and what kind of gameplay you're implementing in that world - and therefore that an open-world exploration game would benefit more from gating similar to Breath of the Wild, in which gating is not a matter of walls and limited pathways but rather whether you have the tools needed to go to said area and if you found you needed to enter the endgame.
That being said... I never intended it to be this immense debate - it wasn't even the core aspect of my argument; just that I thought the devs' issue with making sure players enter the LR and DRF was more a gating issue than it was a pathway issue.
But in turn, it feels like you're generalizing my arguments and missing whole points - because I never said it should be "exploration only"; I said exploration was a key aspect if you're making an exploration-game in an open-world. I never once said that survival and an overreaching story should be ignored or downplayed - I said that the way they had to be approached couldn't be as straightforward as if it were an FPS or a pure-story RPG.
Likewise, exploration should also be linked to what technology you have - the order you explore things should depend more on what you personally prioritize and whether or not you have the means to reach it, as opposed to there being no other way but a single tunnel down. That's not natural in a world that's supposed to have of all these different creatures and environments interconnected - it'd be more natural in a dungeon or fortress maybe, but not what's supposed to be an evolved ecosystem.
Heck, this is the biggest reason for why I felt like you were missing my points - because what you described at the very end? That's a rebrand of the same system I want in this game - one in which it depends on what you have rather than there being just one route. The only difference is that we want it for different reasons - because the fact that the order you find the modules in is not linear, it means that progression is likewise anything but "mostly linear" itself. All these upgrades and their materials are scattered about, so there actually isn't any linear progression there at all - it's just a matter of where you elect to go first that decides it.
That is what the key part of an open-world exploration game's atmosphere should be - that no matter if you need to find things in an order or not, what and where you explore is your prerogative above all else. Barring the endgame, where you go should not be restricted like a tunnel but more like a matter of gauging your own preparedness - what you've described, simply put, is not railroading; it's gameplay gating, and it's the kind of thing you want in an open-world exploration experience as opposed to hard-physical walls.
This is probably the biggest thing I have to say, though not the most lengthy - and it's that everything else besides this was honestly tertiary to what my argument was. The stuff you took issue with the most, little of it was actually applicable to why I brought up the keys - the fact that the devs' concerns on players visiting the LR feels like a gating issue to me had no bearing on the matter of open-world exploration; those were just my reasons why I felt a ILZ corridor would be wanted independent of what the devs actual proposed problem was. You literally could have just focused on the keys and we would have been on track - everything else the two of us have done is just derailment.
Anyway, in regards to the keys, the issue is that there is a difference between a story-driven reason and a gameplay-enforced reason for sealing off an area - one is a matter of preparedness to enter an area, while the other is a matter of cordoning it off wholesale. In that aspect, it's actually the complete opposite - it's anything but logical for the aliens to seal any such alternate areas off, because that would (A) limit their escape routes in the event of evacuation, (B) disrupt the native wildlife more than necessary and (C) ignores the fact that several thousand years worth of erosion and fauna migration would have broken down any barriers they put up; one Sea Dragon was all it took to wreck a whole base, after all.
In that, it makes no sense that the alien fauna would restrict themselves like that in such a way lore-wise either - can you tell me it makes sense for a lava-adapted creature like the Sea Dragon to travel through the freezing-cold Lost River to get to the surface and hunt Reapers? Likewise, from a gameplay perspective, what if you finish with the Lost River and are just starting to explore the ILZ, but must return to your base? If said base isn't in the LR itself, you need a way back up to the surface - and if you don't have access to the Precursor portals in the Prison yet, your only option is going all the way back through the LR. In turn, it also doesn't make sense for the keys to be completely interchangeable - that would mean you'd only ever need to visit maybe one base to get what you need, which is already an in-game issue (skip the DRF in the LR, go straight to the Thermal plant in the ILZ for access to Prison). It wouldn't fix the gating issue.
To put it simply... all this argument is just over three things that, honestly speaking, were complete misinterpretations of every argument I made:
- I never said there shouldn't be any kind of gating; only that exploration-focused open-worlds need that kind of gating to be gameplay-based rather than a physical limitation of the map.
- I never said the player was entitled to enter every biome out the gate; I said that the map should not lock those areas out and that visiting them should be a matter of if the player has the right gear instead of being a static level-by-level slog.
- I never said that the keys were an issue for Subnautica; I said they could actually be the solution for the gating issue regarding the dev's concerns on players skipping the LR.
There. Finally addressed everything you said - and again, I apologize if I came across as candid at any part, but a majority of what you talked about felt like it either completely missed or misinterpreted my points on top of focusing on topics that weren't even my key discussion element. Ergo, to avoid risk of further derailing this topic, I'll probably be bowing out of this particular thread - if you want to respond to... well, any of it, let's do it over PM's instead. Because we're not getting anywhere as is, and at this point we're probably just putting people off.
My point was that, as it stands though, there's a big issue in the "QEP to DRF to PTPG" part of it - because there's nothing in the DRF that actively requires you to go there if you don't want to; the Prison key's in the PTPG, and IDK if the final-infection trigger in the DRF is necessary to advance or finish the story. The DRF and LR in general feels like it's completely skippable - and my point is that it wouldn't matter whether there was a new ILZ passage or if you only had to go through the LR; there still wouldn't be any hard necessity to enter the DRF aside from curiosity. If the devs really want the DRF to always be visited (and judging from their posts, they do), they'd need to change something in terms of why we have to visit it, not just the methods of access - I'm all for more access points to biomes, but I also want to make clear to the devs that this welcome change won't fix the problem they're striving to solve; ensuring people visit the DRF.
IMHO, I would like to see a lot more paths added to the ILZ like we had before. I can understand closing up the one in the DGR since it was also part of the LR entrance (and it's the easiest LR entrance to find IMHO), but the one in the dunes should be reopened. I also like the idea of a new path from the mountains to the ILZ as well and hope the devs go through with it.
Because I made THE EXACT SAME THREAD.
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/152327/idea-to-encourage-players-to-go-to-the-lr-while-keeping-the-crash-zone-passage-open
If you copied this, I'm kinda ticked off.
I'm not trying to be confrontaional, but I am a little suspicious of the similarities between our threads.
What we're considering is creating a route from mountains that leads down to a junction area at around 900m depth. At this point it branches off horizontally to lost river (so a MK1 hull cyclops doesn't have to turn back when they reach the depth limit), and the second branch is a vertical drop down to the existing entrance into lava zone (previously the crash zone route entrance).
No because I made mine after talking to the devs about this. This is the first time I've used this forum in over a year so I've never seen your thread before.
Proof if you need it: http://imgur.com/a/QoplV
Similarities are pure coincidence.