I wouldn't mind if we got someone like concussion bombs that would stun (pretty much knockout) animals for like 30 seconds to even 1 minute, thus allowing you to deal with a reaper by pretty much knocking it out cold with a grenade. This sticks to the known lethal theme but also gives the player a more effective tools against such a beast. Plus if you grab it with your gravity gun you now have a grenade launcher. This would also gives us a bastard fishing method, since we can stun a horde of fish and have dinner set for the entire week.
Another thing they can do is allow us to use our gravity guns to fire our knives, thus sending it down range at the target like a bullet from hell. Safe to say a heat blade fired from the gravity gun will hurt a reaper pretty bad. Imagine that thing hitting you and getting stuck in you as it burns your from the inside out.
Something else you can have is a gas grenade that would keep a reaper back or atleast force it to go around the cloud. Since going through it would poison it, weaken it, and slowly kill it.
Pretty much I don't want to see any serious weapons, because I feel like mankind at that point realized that after the mistakes made on Earth. It's best to not change the food chain and environment in a way that nature can't respond to. Which is why we have no weapons and the terraformer is a small device not a ship that can manufacture mountains. Because when you can travel between star systems, you are simply put a god to what every planet you call your own. Since at that point you would have the tech needed to change global weather, design an entirely new ecosystem, change the atmosphere to what you want, and more. So seeing what we are given and able to build kinda says we where going to the planet to make a colony but in a way that wouldn't mess up the planet.
My personal opinion is that I wouldn't want this game to become a "shoot 'em up". Too many games are all about just blasting the poop out of things. Whilst this might appeal to 13-year-old boys, I prefer games that avoid this rut. I like the fact that I have to be careful of where I go when playing Subnautica and wouldn't want to simply be able to blast anything and everything out of the water. Having dangerous areas and having to watch your back is all part of the fun.
And here we have the "Adding a simple weapon will turn the game into underwater Halo!" argument.
I'm not saying it's wrong to have or not have such weapons, I'm just simply stating my opinion. Even if such weapons were available I could, and would, choose not to use them. If somebody needs to resort to blasting things to get enjoyment from a game so be it It's a personal choice really.
And here we have the "Adding a simple weapon will turn the game into underwater Halo!" argument.
I'm not saying it's wrong to have or not have such weapons, I'm just simply stating my opinion. Even if such weapons were available I could, and would, choose not to use them. If somebody needs to resort to blasting things to get enjoyment from a game so be it It's a personal choice really.
waitwaitwaitwait.
you can't say that. your not allowed free choice. if they ad weapons you WILL go on an ocean wide killing spree. i know you better then you do because i know i would literally make the ocean a barren wasteland.
---everyone who is against adding weapons ever....
you can't say that. your not allowed free choice. if they ad weapons you WILL go on an ocean wide killing spree. i know you better then you do because i know i would literally make the ocean a barren wasteland.
---everyone who is against adding weapons ever....
This is why i don't participate in these discusions anymore. May we please talk about this with a higher intellectual standard?
See the problem with weapons that i see is, it's against the core idea of the game as i understand it: Being one of the weakest parts of the food chain.
To me the idea of a gun in SN is like giving a 2D mario a Jetpack. It would work, but you wouldn't get quite the gameplay out of it.
Managing food and water is nice but first of all it's so simple that it can hardly be considered a challange. If you drown, blame yourself, you didn't think about getting up/out in time.
So for me being confronted with a big fish that wants to eat you, or risking doing so, is the only situation in the game that really poses a challange. And i think these sutioations should require you to defend yourself and never to attack.
I do defend myself (by which i mean kill the fish) when there's no way out and i wish i had something more potent than a knife as long as it stays non-balistic. A handheld spear or harpoon, a stun-knife anything that can be considered a multi-tool with self defense properties. Nothing that eliminates the risk of being bitten through the need of coming close to your target.
That's why i find the Stasis Rifle too powerful; it takes the risk out of combat. So i chose to "nope" the beasts away with good ol' RepCan.
Okay but now to the "weapon don't necessarily lead to killing everything" point... If i get this right, you want to defend yourselves?
So why not go for actual defense? Camouflage, Armor, distraction devices, sonic wave emitters or stinky repellents? To keep creatures away from you, occupied or out of certain areas.
you can't say that. your not allowed free choice. if they ad weapons you WILL go on an ocean wide killing spree. i know you better then you do because i know i would literally make the ocean a barren wasteland.
---everyone who is against adding weapons ever....
This is why i don't participate in these discusions anymore. May we please talk about this with a higher intellectual standard?
See the problem with weapons that i see is, it's against the core idea of the game as i understand it: Being one of the weakest parts of the food chain.
To me the idea of a gun in SN is like giving a 2D mario a Jetpack. It would work, but you wouldn't get quite the gameplay out of it.
Managing food and water is nice but first of all it's so simple that it can hardly be considered a challange. If you drown, blame yourself, you didn't think about getting up/out in time.
So for me being confronted with a big fish that wants to eat you, or risking doing so, is the only situation in the game that really poses a challange. And i think these sutioations should require you to defend yourself and never to attack.
I do defend myself (by which i mean kill the fish) when there's no way out and i wish i had something more potent than a knife as long as it stays non-balistic. A handheld spear or harpoon, a stun-knife anything that can be considered a multi-tool with self defense properties. Nothing that eliminates the risk of being bitten through the need of coming close to your target.
That's why i find the Stasis Rifle too powerful; it takes the risk out of combat. So i chose to "nope" the beasts away with good ol' RepCan.
Okay but now to the "weapon don't necessarily lead to killing everything" point... If i get this right, you want to defend yourselves?
So why not go for actual defense? Camouflage, Armor, distraction devices, sonic wave emitters or stinky repellents? To keep creatures away from you, occupied or out of certain areas.
dude. 100%. but here is why i said that.
people automatically assume i mean let's give the player an M249 squad automatic weapon in the spawn loot.
people automatically assume we want to go on murder sprees and clean the oceans of life.
people assume i want to start peeper auschwitz and so on.
im not trying to be serious. i'm attempting to use poe's law. (i can link if you don't know that one)
i suppose in being so general i haven't proper picture of what i want.
weapons in this situation are something that you have to admit would be natural. take some stalker teeth and and some titanium rods to make a spear, some silicon and creepvine to make an elastic band and a little bit more of titanium to make the brace to have a spear sling. im not talking 50m away. but something you still need to risk with, but keeps you just out of bite range.
maybe my background in being a survivalist puts a lens on my view of our players perspective, but that would be my first instinct. make a tool to fend them off when they come to you, a tool to harvest food, and a tool to defend yourself when resource gathering. and i'll openly admit that my woodsy, hunter personality might be a big part of this.
i also thought it could be a tool to show progression. i picture players looking through their storage containers, after 20 hours or so in the world, and seeing their old gear from their primitive ways. violence being something you grow out of. (if you wanted to get meta you could say something about how humanity had to relearn its humanity on this new world) and would have the player moving from " i need to kill this stalker that has me backed into a cave" to " hah, dumb fish can't even see me in this armor" sort of making a smooth transition from fighting nature to flowing with the current, and making as little waves as you can.
you could repurpose your old tools. change out spears in your sling for tracking tags. syringes with negative pressurization to take blood samples for research and development. tranquilizers so that you could move volatile creatures to observation tanks.
if i had any part in pushing you or anyone else out of the conversation i apologize. this conversation needs people who disagree, any conversation becomes stagnant without debate,
it's the people who use projection as a claim to know how i should play my game and how i would play the game, the people who say this game is supposed to be non violent (you can throw me that quote from the devs all you want, this game is violent. don't kid yourself), the people who use the claims that "if there was a weapon you would kill everything"
those people need to go.
and maybe the reasons i get so into this is because its the same god damn arguments i see in real life!
"what do you need that gun for, there is meat in the grocery store!"
"if i had a gun there wouldn't be anything stopping me from shooting someone, so you can't have one!"
"there are people out there who use guns to hurt others, so i want to take yours!"
"the only thing guns are used for is killing kids in school shootings!"
so when i see these same arguments, i try and stamp them out because they are just as fallacious here as anywhere else. and i apologize if that hostility has turned you off from conversation.
you can't say that. your not allowed free choice. if they ad weapons you WILL go on an ocean wide killing spree. i know you better then you do because i know i would literally make the ocean a barren wasteland.
---everyone who is against adding weapons ever....
This is why i don't participate in these discusions anymore. May we please talk about this with a higher intellectual standard?
See the problem with weapons that i see is, it's against the core idea of the game as i understand it: Being one of the weakest parts of the food chain.
To me the idea of a gun in SN is like giving a 2D mario a Jetpack. It would work, but you wouldn't get quite the gameplay out of it.
Managing food and water is nice but first of all it's so simple that it can hardly be considered a challange. If you drown, blame yourself, you didn't think about getting up/out in time.
So for me being confronted with a big fish that wants to eat you, or risking doing so, is the only situation in the game that really poses a challange. And i think these sutioations should require you to defend yourself and never to attack.
I do defend myself (by which i mean kill the fish) when there's no way out and i wish i had something more potent than a knife as long as it stays non-balistic. A handheld spear or harpoon, a stun-knife anything that can be considered a multi-tool with self defense properties. Nothing that eliminates the risk of being bitten through the need of coming close to your target.
That's why i find the Stasis Rifle too powerful; it takes the risk out of combat. So i chose to "nope" the beasts away with good ol' RepCan.
Okay but now to the "weapon don't necessarily lead to killing everything" point... If i get this right, you want to defend yourselves?
So why not go for actual defense? Camouflage, Armor, distraction devices, sonic wave emitters or stinky repellents? To keep creatures away from you, occupied or out of certain areas.
dude. 100%. but here is why i said that.
people automatically assume i mean let's give the player an M249 squad automatic weapon in the spawn loot.
people automatically assume we want to go on murder sprees and clean the oceans of life.
people assume i want to start peeper auschwitz and so on.
im not trying to be serious. i'm attempting to use poe's law. (i can link if you don't know that one)
i suppose in being so general i haven't proper picture of what i want.
weapons in this situation are something that you have to admit would be natural. take some stalker teeth and and some titanium rods to make a spear, some silicon and creepvine to make an elastic band and a little bit more of titanium to make the brace to have a spear sling. im not talking 50m away. but something you still need to risk with, but keeps you just out of bite range.
maybe my background in being a survivalist puts a lens on my view of our players perspective, but that would be my first instinct. make a tool to fend them off when they come to you, a tool to harvest food, and a tool to defend yourself when resource gathering. and i'll openly admit that my woodsy, hunter personality might be a big part of this.
i also thought it could be a tool to show progression. i picture players looking through their storage containers, after 20 hours or so in the world, and seeing their old gear from their primitive ways. violence being something you grow out of. (if you wanted to get meta you could say something about how humanity had to relearn its humanity on this new world) and would have the player moving from " i need to kill this stalker that has me backed into a cave" to " hah, dumb fish can't even see me in this armor" sort of making a smooth transition from fighting nature to flowing with the current, and making as little waves as you can.
you could repurpose your old tools. change out spears in your sling for tracking tags. syringes with negative pressurization to take blood samples for research and development. tranquilizers so that you could move volatile creatures to observation tanks.
This makes perfect sense, the tools are only a temporary measure, and when you don't need them anymore, repurpose them for less lethal roles.
I used to pine for lethal weapons in the game, and that was before I had my first Reaper encounter... broke my Seamoth in half... anyway, I realized I can steer clear of them for the most part, but my biggest beef were with bone and sand sharks. I realized though that I have in my inventory something that can kill them easily.
BATTERIES.
Oh, and a welder.
And a Seamoth.
I just ram them until they leave or die, then get out and repair my seamoth with the welder. When the welder runs dry, I replace it's battery, and charge the old one in my seabase battery charger.
I'm currently making a decent base on a plateau over the underwater islands, with power transmitters running about 1-2km to the lava pits with a thermal plant. Works like a charm, and have only had a couple run-ins with the sharks outside of my Seamoth. Usually they want the light and ram me while I'm inside.
I'm a total convert after seeing the link posted in this thread about the kids enjoying the game -- neither of my kids are interested in underwater gaming, but they admit it's the most beautiful scenery they've ever seen in a game. Still waiting for a VR headset for the full experience!
Great job UWE, keep up the fantastic work! (Oh and make modification station fragments easier to find!) :-)
i´m not really so invested in this aspect of the gmae so i haven't read all the replies. I think we should not have leathal wepons becuase subnautica is the ONLY survival exploration gem out there where you don't kill everything. The overall feel of the game would make weapons seem weird. I think the devs agree with me since they haven't added any wepons yet. But since mods will probably come i can see a people modding the stasis rifle into an AK-47. And that's fine but i don't want it in my game.
The thing that weapons work with ARE the big guys. I don't want to be shooting through the ocean when, out of nowhere, a giant leviathan comes out that is
1) Inevitably faster than me
2) Can insta kill everything
3) Probably might not be affected by a knife, you know... maybe it'll tickle it?
4) Even a stasis rifle won't be able to stop that thing.
Now obviously, we have torpedoes. But we all know they are absolutely arse. They are too slow to hit anything from over 2m away. They do about as much damage as the knife if it were blunt. So it would be cool if we could get a really expensive cannon that attaches to the Cyclops, with extremely expensive ammo. And, so it stays canon (badum tsh), there is no blueprints for it and you don't know how to create it so you have to figure it out.
I also really like the idea of having a spear for fishing, I came up with this idea on another forum post of a suction upgrade module which allows for sucking fish and items into the Cyclops, Prawn or my own vehicle, the Cormorant. This could double as a more advanced and efficient version of the spear you create later in the game.
I don't know if this has been mentioned, because I can't be bothered reading hundreds of posts about something that's been discussed to death time and time again, but ultimately this is the dev's game, it's their baby, and they have their own reasons (you could even call it an agenda) for not having weapons in the game.
"Charlie Cleveland, Subnautica’s game director, responded to a post on Steam this weekend explaining that real life gun violence, including the Sandy Hook shooting, inspired him to depict something other than guns in his game. He described it as “one vote towards a world with less guns,” one in which “we use non-violent and more creative solutions to solve our problems.”.
And later...
I haven’t read all the comments here, but I’ll chime in here, as I’m the main reason we don’t have violent/weapons in the game.
Subnautica was being birthed right around the time of the Sandy Hook shooting. This was a particularly nasty shooting, although many people don’t realize America has (mass) shootings every day. Every. Single. Day.
Yet, for reasons I cannot understand, our people and the corporations that influence our country want to continue making it easy for people to get, carry and use pistols, semi-automatic and fully-automatic weapons.
I’ve never believed that video game violence creates more real-world violence. But I couldn’t just sit by and “add more guns” to the world either.
So Subnautica is one vote towards a world with less guns. A reminder that there is another way forward. One where we use non-violent and more creative solutions to solve our problems. One where we are not at the top of the food chain.
So there you have it. It doesn't matter if you think guns would be a good addition, the devs have their own reasons and their own beliefs, and that's why there's not going to be guns. It's their game and their call, whether you agree with their politics or not.
Well, that's fair. I respect the choice, and the reasoning behind it.
Granted, I was never one of the ones saying "There should be guns in this game", but still, laying out his reasoning like that is pretty fair. If I had been on the "We'd like some guns of some kind" group, I'd look at that interview and say "... Well, it's their game, that's fair."
i think scientifically, the most deadly weapon in the game, would be using the repulsion cannon to fire a depleted Uranium rod. but in game, that isnt the case.
Right now with the last stable Prawn update creatures were made tougher to fit into the scheme: Easy to scare away or disturb, but almost impossible to kill. Maybe they regenerate health now, fleeing if wounded until their health gets back?
Now while the devs have satisfied their goal of almost unkillable big predators, they also gave the game a big disadvantage. Because the big predators are too tough they allowed the player to avoid them by denying them free roaming. That means the game is only scary for those beginners that haven't learned to avoid predators or watching scary demo videos. Simply because you can move around unhunted in the game, because there are exactly zero roaming predators in open water. As soon as a player realizes that the creatures have a fixed and chained aggresion and roaming pattern, they just swim around them.
Could it be other? What would happen if creatures like Bonesharks or the Reaper leviathan would roam the open sea and Crabsquids, Ghost leviathans and Sea Dragons roam the deep areas? Maybe:
a defensive weapon like the Repulsor or Stasis would be a must, as you could no longer swim around those predators
if the propulsion gun could fire fish alive, we'd have an alternate distraction and defense
torpedos, decoys or (the upcoming) silent runnings a must for sub defense in the deep, as your subs couldn't dive around
And the torpedos are too cheap to build and too weak for actual use. Why not make them far more expensive, but incredible useful?
guided vortex torpedos (2titanium,1adv.wiring,1power cell,2magnetite): homing into creatures to bind in place
gas torpedos (2titanium,1wiring,1power cell,1toxic agent): damage and repel against preset creatures
toxic agent (1gasopod ball, sulphur, 1dna sample from transfuser): only effective against the target creature type
3. yourYou're a scientist who is supposed to be documenting life not killing it
I can't speak for others, but once I got my Exosuit I'd rocket punch Crashfish, Bonesharks, Crabsnakes etc. Once dead, I could scan them safely without personal injury or death. Killing living creatures for the betterment of science!
You don't need to kill anything (except reapers) you can out maneuver any creature (except reapers) in the game by swimming around them. You need at least basic fins or a seaglide
so what if we made killing things with firearms or whatever weapon they add attract big, scary, damn near unkilleable (with out endgame gear) beasty come and swim into your area, maybe when you kill enough and trigger it you hear a loud roaring sound and your screen shakes or somthing.
As I've said before in other threads, we need a electric baton. Fitting in with the Non-lethal, it deters large creatures and fries little ones. Again, as I've said before, Non-Lethal hurts. Tear gas, Rubber Bullets, ect... I agree that non-lethal should be the aim of the game, but inflicting a bit of pain is part of basic human nature. Other ideas include something like a big Nerf gun that work underwater. I don't know if you've ever been shot with a modded single shot, but it can sting like all hell. Kind of a pellet gun, it stings. It's not going to kill anything but small creatures.
Comments
Another thing they can do is allow us to use our gravity guns to fire our knives, thus sending it down range at the target like a bullet from hell. Safe to say a heat blade fired from the gravity gun will hurt a reaper pretty bad. Imagine that thing hitting you and getting stuck in you as it burns your from the inside out.
Something else you can have is a gas grenade that would keep a reaper back or atleast force it to go around the cloud. Since going through it would poison it, weaken it, and slowly kill it.
Pretty much I don't want to see any serious weapons, because I feel like mankind at that point realized that after the mistakes made on Earth. It's best to not change the food chain and environment in a way that nature can't respond to. Which is why we have no weapons and the terraformer is a small device not a ship that can manufacture mountains. Because when you can travel between star systems, you are simply put a god to what every planet you call your own. Since at that point you would have the tech needed to change global weather, design an entirely new ecosystem, change the atmosphere to what you want, and more. So seeing what we are given and able to build kinda says we where going to the planet to make a colony but in a way that wouldn't mess up the planet.
I'm not saying it's wrong to have or not have such weapons, I'm just simply stating my opinion. Even if such weapons were available I could, and would, choose not to use them. If somebody needs to resort to blasting things to get enjoyment from a game so be it It's a personal choice really.
waitwaitwaitwait.
you can't say that. your not allowed free choice. if they ad weapons you WILL go on an ocean wide killing spree. i know you better then you do because i know i would literally make the ocean a barren wasteland.
---everyone who is against adding weapons ever....
This is why i don't participate in these discusions anymore. May we please talk about this with a higher intellectual standard?
See the problem with weapons that i see is, it's against the core idea of the game as i understand it: Being one of the weakest parts of the food chain.
To me the idea of a gun in SN is like giving a 2D mario a Jetpack. It would work, but you wouldn't get quite the gameplay out of it.
Managing food and water is nice but first of all it's so simple that it can hardly be considered a challange. If you drown, blame yourself, you didn't think about getting up/out in time.
So for me being confronted with a big fish that wants to eat you, or risking doing so, is the only situation in the game that really poses a challange. And i think these sutioations should require you to defend yourself and never to attack.
I do defend myself (by which i mean kill the fish) when there's no way out and i wish i had something more potent than a knife as long as it stays non-balistic. A handheld spear or harpoon, a stun-knife anything that can be considered a multi-tool with self defense properties. Nothing that eliminates the risk of being bitten through the need of coming close to your target.
That's why i find the Stasis Rifle too powerful; it takes the risk out of combat. So i chose to "nope" the beasts away with good ol' RepCan.
Okay but now to the "weapon don't necessarily lead to killing everything" point... If i get this right, you want to defend yourselves?
So why not go for actual defense? Camouflage, Armor, distraction devices, sonic wave emitters or stinky repellents? To keep creatures away from you, occupied or out of certain areas.
dude. 100%. but here is why i said that.
people automatically assume i mean let's give the player an M249 squad automatic weapon in the spawn loot.
people automatically assume we want to go on murder sprees and clean the oceans of life.
people assume i want to start peeper auschwitz and so on.
im not trying to be serious. i'm attempting to use poe's law. (i can link if you don't know that one)
i suppose in being so general i haven't proper picture of what i want.
weapons in this situation are something that you have to admit would be natural. take some stalker teeth and and some titanium rods to make a spear, some silicon and creepvine to make an elastic band and a little bit more of titanium to make the brace to have a spear sling. im not talking 50m away. but something you still need to risk with, but keeps you just out of bite range.
maybe my background in being a survivalist puts a lens on my view of our players perspective, but that would be my first instinct. make a tool to fend them off when they come to you, a tool to harvest food, and a tool to defend yourself when resource gathering. and i'll openly admit that my woodsy, hunter personality might be a big part of this.
i also thought it could be a tool to show progression. i picture players looking through their storage containers, after 20 hours or so in the world, and seeing their old gear from their primitive ways. violence being something you grow out of. (if you wanted to get meta you could say something about how humanity had to relearn its humanity on this new world) and would have the player moving from " i need to kill this stalker that has me backed into a cave" to " hah, dumb fish can't even see me in this armor" sort of making a smooth transition from fighting nature to flowing with the current, and making as little waves as you can.
you could repurpose your old tools. change out spears in your sling for tracking tags. syringes with negative pressurization to take blood samples for research and development. tranquilizers so that you could move volatile creatures to observation tanks.
if i had any part in pushing you or anyone else out of the conversation i apologize. this conversation needs people who disagree, any conversation becomes stagnant without debate,
it's the people who use projection as a claim to know how i should play my game and how i would play the game, the people who say this game is supposed to be non violent (you can throw me that quote from the devs all you want, this game is violent. don't kid yourself), the people who use the claims that "if there was a weapon you would kill everything"
those people need to go.
and maybe the reasons i get so into this is because its the same god damn arguments i see in real life!
"what do you need that gun for, there is meat in the grocery store!"
"if i had a gun there wouldn't be anything stopping me from shooting someone, so you can't have one!"
"there are people out there who use guns to hurt others, so i want to take yours!"
"the only thing guns are used for is killing kids in school shootings!"
so when i see these same arguments, i try and stamp them out because they are just as fallacious here as anywhere else. and i apologize if that hostility has turned you off from conversation.
And it also wouldn't make a lick of sense.
Unlike carrying a speargun with you on an underwater expedition.
BATTERIES.
Oh, and a welder.
And a Seamoth.
I just ram them until they leave or die, then get out and repair my seamoth with the welder. When the welder runs dry, I replace it's battery, and charge the old one in my seabase battery charger.
I'm currently making a decent base on a plateau over the underwater islands, with power transmitters running about 1-2km to the lava pits with a thermal plant. Works like a charm, and have only had a couple run-ins with the sharks outside of my Seamoth. Usually they want the light and ram me while I'm inside.
I'm a total convert after seeing the link posted in this thread about the kids enjoying the game -- neither of my kids are interested in underwater gaming, but they admit it's the most beautiful scenery they've ever seen in a game. Still waiting for a VR headset for the full experience!
Great job UWE, keep up the fantastic work! (Oh and make modification station fragments easier to find!) :-)
1) Inevitably faster than me
2) Can insta kill everything
3) Probably might not be affected by a knife, you know... maybe it'll tickle it?
4) Even a stasis rifle won't be able to stop that thing.
Now obviously, we have torpedoes. But we all know they are absolutely arse. They are too slow to hit anything from over 2m away. They do about as much damage as the knife if it were blunt. So it would be cool if we could get a really expensive cannon that attaches to the Cyclops, with extremely expensive ammo. And, so it stays canon (badum tsh), there is no blueprints for it and you don't know how to create it so you have to figure it out.
I also really like the idea of having a spear for fishing, I came up with this idea on another forum post of a suction upgrade module which allows for sucking fish and items into the Cyclops, Prawn or my own vehicle, the Cormorant. This could double as a more advanced and efficient version of the spear you create later in the game.
https://kotaku.com/revulsion-with-real-guns-inspired-developer-to-make-a-g-1768960503
And later...
So there you have it. It doesn't matter if you think guns would be a good addition, the devs have their own reasons and their own beliefs, and that's why there's not going to be guns. It's their game and their call, whether you agree with their politics or not.
Granted, I was never one of the ones saying "There should be guns in this game", but still, laying out his reasoning like that is pretty fair. If I had been on the "We'd like some guns of some kind" group, I'd look at that interview and say "... Well, it's their game, that's fair."
Now while the devs have satisfied their goal of almost unkillable big predators, they also gave the game a big disadvantage. Because the big predators are too tough they allowed the player to avoid them by denying them free roaming. That means the game is only scary for those beginners that haven't learned to avoid predators or watching scary demo videos. Simply because you can move around unhunted in the game, because there are exactly zero roaming predators in open water. As soon as a player realizes that the creatures have a fixed and chained aggresion and roaming pattern, they just swim around them.
Could it be other? What would happen if creatures like Bonesharks or the Reaper leviathan would roam the open sea and Crabsquids, Ghost leviathans and Sea Dragons roam the deep areas? Maybe:
And the torpedos are too cheap to build and too weak for actual use. Why not make them far more expensive, but incredible useful?
I can't speak for others, but once I got my Exosuit I'd rocket punch Crashfish, Bonesharks, Crabsnakes etc. Once dead, I could scan them safely without personal injury or death. Killing living creatures for the betterment of science!
Maybe a mini harpoon gun. (like one of those handgun style crossbows http://d3d71ba2asa5oz.cloudfront.net/40000123/images/crossbow hunting archery.jpg
Only good for 5-8 meters. And only for creatures under 10 kilo.
Beyond that, stun weapons, stasis weapons & temporary paralysis weapons (neurotoxins) suit me just fine.
Someone has a weapon idea, and I don't think they've seen this, so I guess review their concept?