The Loot System

Seldkam

Warning: Salty rant incoming, reader discretion advised

The new Loot system is good and bad... Titanium: Good, Copper, Good, basically all the easy, common materials to acquire are good

What has been plaguing Subnautica's Loot System and hasn't been fixed IMO, is basically the rest of it. Since building anything advanced now takes materials that are rather difficult to find, the game feels like it presents a brick wall to the player (ie me) the second you transition from the Safe Shallows to the Kelp Forest and beyond. Basically, all the creatures, geography, and LACK OF DECENTLY ADVANCED MATERIALS IN DANGEROUS AREAS frankly irritates me to no end.

Example:
60+ m deep cave, with no lights except some plants that give off a token, practically useless. Not hard to see, however, so it's basically just for atmosphere I guess? The cave's issue isn't the lack of light however-- it's the fact that of the 100+ "rock chunks" I'm sure are in that dangerous cave filled with mesmers and difficult to get out of too because of the Jelly stinger guys, there is just a bunch of useless, common "Limestone" chunks

Risk != Reward, guys-- If I go into the Kelp forest, I should be either finding advanced materials as it is a DIFFERENT, MORE DANGEROUS biome with STRONGER enemies, or I should stick to the safe shallows and not bother. I've spent at least 10 minutes in that cave trying to find any Silver and I couldn't.

This is like an MMO that forces you into higher tier dungeons and drops jack shit for you at the end of them, forcing the player to go back to the lower tier ones to grind some more to get a higher level or whatever.

Please, please, please, put more advanced materials into this game, at least into the dangerous places, so as to make them slightly more worth exploring

I've searched the majority of the kelp forest (whichever one is near my lifepod) and it is a huge one at that, and found a grand total of 2. And Im not saying searched like swim around on the surface trying to look for "Sandstone" chunks, I mean down at the sea floor, 80+ depth, trying to see anything with the name "sandstone chunk"

If you guys ARE finding tons of chunks with silver and other such materials, please, enlighten me

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TLDR;

Warning #2: I tried to put all my salt into this one TLDR, so if this may insult you, you've been warned...

Please do not pad this game in this way. It is annoying, frustrating, and tears me between slogging onwards in hopes of finding what is needed at long last, or just taking a break for a few weeks or whatever.

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Bash me all you want, I want to hear opinions

Here's my point in a nutshell:
The risk of the kelp forest and grassy plateau biomes do not give sufficient advanced materials to warrant bothering with them, as most players will likely just get bored and eventually do something else

Thanks for staying with me through the wall if you got this far lol

Requiemfang

Seldkam you should have a look at http://www.gliffy.com/go/publish/7224075 which is the new loot table. If you find silver in the kelp forest you got lucky, silver in kelp forests are rare, Grassy Plateaus are where you'll find the majority of silver and very rarely gold. Jelly Shroom caves and Mushroom forests contain Lithium and Gold. Mushroom Forests also rarely have diamond deposits.

Of course it would be good if the dev in charge of the loot would chime in on this. I of course understand your frustration, in the current game I'm finding more titanium than copper which sort of miffs me a bit. I have titanium coming out of my ears which would be good except I don't trust making storage containers on the escape pod due to a bug which makes em disappear if there;s something in them. I don't know if that bug is still in or not in the 146xx versions of exp.

I've also noticed in the latest build I'm playing 14655 that fragments have all but disappeared, there's also the problem of finding fragments of the same type by the dozen, but this was on earlier versions of exp.

Seldkam

I agree with your statement, but let me reiterate my point as it is actually slightly different than yours:

Yes, there is a lack of advanced materials in general, which I think is your point (in comparison with titanium, copper imbalance, etc.)

But my point is a bit different:
There is a lack of advanced materials in dangerous areas, and instead they are in safe areas-- to me, this makes little to no sense. If there are dangerous areas, then why the hell would anyone in their right mind go there unless they had nothing in their inventory except common items that are easy to remake if they die?

The Grassy Plateau biome isn't necessarily "safe" I understand that, but it is certainly more safe than a cave with mesmers, or a trench filled with stalkers and bleeders. This is my point really

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And that's interesting... I've reverted to the Experimental build (which by the way there is a save bug where loading it will not allow you to load the file lol) and have been finding some fragments, though relatively rarely (though I think that's ok--- we shouldn't be swimming in fragments, pun not intended)

Requiemfang

yep, I see exactly what you mean and I agree. Also that loot table link I put up was updated 4 days ago by the developers.

Seldkam

Ok-- I saw that on a card on Trello entitled "The Great Loot Rework" or something like that some time ago-- glad to see it happened.

overall, the loot system is better, but what isn't better is the design of how it is implemented

Vandragorax

The great loot rework is STILL happening. Just one sweeping change doesn't mean they are finished with it

It's better yes, but it has got to get even better still! I agree that there is a disparity between risk > reward at the moment. I am also really worried that this game is going down the "Minecraft" route where noone can play it without staring at wiki pages to find out "where the **** do I get x/y/z material? I have no clues in the game!". This irritates me to no end. We need a way of analysing construction plans to see their base elements, and then researching those base elements to open up in-game encyclopedia or "info" pages with some clues as to where and how we can get this stuff. Overall that will add HUGELY to gameplay experience, as well as solving the problem that to play that game you have to go outside of the game for information... this should NEVER be the case.

Think Pokédex - but not only for Subnautica animals and plants, but for crafting materials too.

Korith

A few cards I think are related to this:

https://trello.com/c/g47vDuPr/3862-grassy-plateaus-procedural-loot-pass

https://trello.com/c/zxufqdDY/3849-the-new-jellyshroom-caves-art-and-loot

https://trello.com/c/iSTtpTCR/3847-give-charlie-koosh-loot-branch

https://trello.com/c/507gX8KR/3850-pass-on-mushroom-forest-loot-with-jake

https://trello.com/c/EQ4Gq1pM/3871-pass-on-loot-after-slots-all-updated

What I'm gathering from this is that while the new loot system is in place, not all of the zones are using it yet. So we might have to wait for a few updates before some of the more dangerous zones have rewards worth visiting for. Seems like they're working on it though!

Wheeee

So, instead of having to go to a wiki to find out what zones have what materials...perhaps they could put a handheld scanner in-game that will let you take samples of random fish/the sea floor and find out the chemical/mineral makeup of that locale.

e.g. 40% hydrogen 28% nitrogen 24% oxygen 5% carbon 0.8% silica 0.3% iron 0.1% silver etc etc etc

Vandragorax

That sounds like a good idea too @Wheeee , instead of an encyclopedia/info screen. But it doesn't help you locate which biome to find some things in though I reckon, so it's possible to still be searching around scanning everything in existence... and STILL not finding the thing you want, because you have no clue where to start looking! I prefer the breadcrumbs approach where the player gets a rough idea where to head, but not given the location directly.

Korith

Agreed, I much prefer having a mechanism the player can interact with in-game to answer these questions instead of going to the wiki.

Maybe they could add in another loot type similar to the resource crates? Some kind of survey buoy scattered around that would give the player hints as to which zones have what resources?

Idea would be to give players enough info that they know where to look without having to go to the wiki, but then once they get there they start using hand scanners to confirm where deposits are?

Ace_Loves

The current loot system is on its way to optimal in my opinion. it actually didn't take me that long to make a cyclops from scratch. After one day of learning the basics and screwing around I just powered through and built it. The hardest part was learning where to find things. I went into the game near blind and stayed away from guides and wiki's in order to see the learning curve for myself. Overall other than diamond I was able to learn the drop rates and locations for the other materials.

The only thing bothering me is that the cyclops is so huge but it felt like the material costs did not seem to resemble its mass and that goes double for the electronics aboard. It felt great when I built it and I want the accomplishment to mean so much more. Unfortunately the cyclops is just serving as a moving storage and with that the material cost wouldn't be meaningful.

by the way the cyclops is a power hungry machine, so much so I almost want to not use it. To effectively travel with it I feel like I would need a locker full of power cells. Not really an issue on the map as small as it feels right now though.

Seldkam

Yep, Ace_Loves more or less sums up my feelings about the Cyclops lol-- but let me reiterate, it's not really the design of the loot system, it's the implementation I have an issue with. I do think that finding materials isn't terribly frustrating, but finding practically 0 useful, advanced materials in a dangerous area, be it a cave, biome, or other such area, frustrates me (which is mostly what I was trying to make this thread about, but I understand if it deviates)

Gr4phene

Seldkam wrote: »

Yep, Ace_Loves more or less sums up my feelings about the Cyclops lol-- but let me reiterate, it's not really the design of the loot system, it's the implementation I have an issue with. I do think that finding materials isn't terribly frustrating, but finding practically 0 useful, advanced materials in a dangerous area, be it a cave, biome, or other such area, frustrates me (which is mostly what I was trying to make this thread about, but I understand if it deviates)

In my experience, I looked for Lithium in the Mushroom Forests and only found one piece, they are absolutely barren and not worth the travel. However, I stumbled upon a big dark and terrifying cave full of bone sharks, and it was absolutely stuffed with Lithium and Gold. So I think risky areas are rewarding too.

Seldkam

Those are the Jelly Shroom caves I'm assuming, though maybe not-- but that area, IMO, isn't really dangerous lol. If you think about it, the Bonesharks and Stalkers aren't dangerous, at all since I've died (in my total of 25 hours playing) 1 time

As for the "depth" issue--
IMO, depth, if surrounded by predators such as stalkers or bonesharks isn't something that adds to the "danger" level, because I will never be significantly distracted from my O2 level from those creatures... They're just not dangerous enough lol

Also, that whole place is a biome, (probably, if we're talking about the same area) which I think one should set up a base in... that would make things far easier. I'm talking specifically about smaller areas inside biomes that don't yield resources
The reason I was annoyed was primarily because of the fact that I was in an enclosed cave with lots of actually dangerous enemies that I have to keep an eye on
Mesmers not only drain oxygen (because they mesmerize you) but also deal damage, and are fast to boot

Thus, I think if someone went into the Jelly Shroom caves alone and survived with no problem... I think the question should be raised if it really is a "dangerous" area