Decrease Seamoth speed.
Darkware
US Join Date: 2016-02-16 Member: 213126Members
US Join Date: 2016-02-16 Member: 213126Members
Odok got me thinking about how the Seamoth may be a bit too overpowered, from this post on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/subnautica/comments/4638vu/the_seamoth_feels_too_powerful/ I think he has a lot of great ideas, but I wanted to add one to it.
Problem: The Seamoth makes the game feel smaller. When you first start the game, The Grand Reef, Underwater Islands, and Koosh zones feel like they are worlds apart. This was good as it made the game feel huge and mysterious. Having a ship that can just jet around the map so quickly suddenly makes everything feel within reach. This is bad.
The World of Warcraft experienced a similar problem when they introduced flying. Before then, players had to trek across the land and the world felt enormous. Flying dwarfed the world they had spent so much time creating. It was so bad that they took flying out of the game recently. Likewise, the Seamoth makes the world of Subnautica feel very small due to its impressive speed.
Solution: Decrease the speed of the Seamoth.
I had considered the idea of including speed upgrade modules, but players would just make their home base Seamoth have 4 speed modules, quickly drive it out to a secondary base far away, swap it out for the Seamoth they have there, which would have 3-4 modules to go very deep, and then explore. So I think the speed just has to be taken out completely.
Problem: The Seamoth makes the game feel smaller. When you first start the game, The Grand Reef, Underwater Islands, and Koosh zones feel like they are worlds apart. This was good as it made the game feel huge and mysterious. Having a ship that can just jet around the map so quickly suddenly makes everything feel within reach. This is bad.
The World of Warcraft experienced a similar problem when they introduced flying. Before then, players had to trek across the land and the world felt enormous. Flying dwarfed the world they had spent so much time creating. It was so bad that they took flying out of the game recently. Likewise, the Seamoth makes the world of Subnautica feel very small due to its impressive speed.
Solution: Decrease the speed of the Seamoth.
I had considered the idea of including speed upgrade modules, but players would just make their home base Seamoth have 4 speed modules, quickly drive it out to a secondary base far away, swap it out for the Seamoth they have there, which would have 3-4 modules to go very deep, and then explore. So I think the speed just has to be taken out completely.
Comments
Edit: If I wanted to make the Seamoth 'less powerful' I'd remove things like the hull reinforcement, and maybe limit it so that it can only have two Pressure Compensators installed, preventing it from reaching the DEEP parts of the ocean, forcing you to rely on the exosuit. But lowering the speed is just an automatic "no".
Kyman - it seems that your argument is based off what the Seamoth currently is ("ideally should be used for quick short-distance exploration"). From a game developer's point of view, that reason would be irrelevant since they can make anything in the game whatever they want. My suggestion changes what the Seamoth should ideally be for. I remain unclear why you dislike the idea.
Requiemfang - The solution would be to avoid them more instead of carelessly wandering through the ocean, which is what most people do now. Reapers usually hang out in the general area of where they spawn. You can hear one long before its close enough to attack you. Players will have plenty of time to look around to locate where he is and avoid him. Also, a cloaking Upgrade Module could simply be introduced if avoiding them somehow didn't work out.
Early on you are just using it as a mobile air tank anyway.
Maybe they could introduce upgrades later on to improve speed, even add an aerofoil(?) to speed along the surface for long distance travel.
Holding shift might increase speed but use more energy?
There are many options to explore.
I dislike the idea because I don't agree with your initial assertion that the Seamoth makes the sea seem small. I know this is personal, but even with the current speed, the map feels pretty damn big to me. I don't think making the Seamoth slower will make the world feel bigger, it'll just feel like a pain to go anywhere because "Yeah, well, I could get more magnetite, but it's all the way over THERE and that'd take forever to get there". It would make travel BORING, and I get enough of that in the Cyclops.
Also, unless you're one of the developers (and I don't believe you are) then both of us have equal authority to make conclusions on what is ideal for the Seamoth.
You think it should be slower, for personal reasons (that people seem to disagree with). I think that the speed is fine, for my own reasons. If the devs reduce the speed on the Seamoth, I'll be annoyed unless there's like an upgrade later to change that, and even then I'd be upset that I have to use one of the precious four upgrade slots to make a Seamoth that lets me travel between bases in a reasonable amount of time.
Edit: Alright, some additional thoughts, and I'd rather not double-post...
I agree with that post you quoted at the start that as is, there's pretty much no reason to use the Cyclops over the Seamoth. There are ways around this. But I think a lot of them have to do with the fact that the Seamoth has efficiency upgrades, defense upgrades, and the Solar Generator Upgrade, which makes it much more useful than the Cyclops.
But you know what I never once thought? "The speed of the Seamoth makes the challenge nonexistent", and I don't appreciate you basically saying that I don't know what I'm talking about because I'm just a player who wants a bigger and better toy with more numbers. I hate it when people put words in my mouth or make generalizations.
But, as an olive branch, here are things I would do before doing anything to the speed of the Seamoth.
Yeah, that would go a LONG way towards making the Cyclops more viable.
I tried it yesterday and I must say, I do not agree. I went to the floating island - which I consider "far" away from my base for both Seamoth and Cyclops. Maybe my perception is different than yours but the island is still "far" away, the distance hasn't changed, only I had to wait like twice as long until I was there with the Cyclops. It wasn't more fun when I was there taking the slow sub it didn't feel "larger".
Maybe part of the "problem" is that the Seamoth is avallable to the player very early in the game. I had a game where I had one 30 minutes after the game started and I am sure this can be optimized even more. The resources are all readily availlable in the first 2 zones. And since you have it, you use it. If I was to distribute those fragments I would move the Seamoth to Grassy Plains and put in Seaglide fragments in Safe Shallows (someone even said they were already there)
Then I would put the Moonpool fragment into the wreck where the water filtration machines fragment is now and introduce a Seamoth upgrade module fragment in somewhere like mushroom forest or the shallow part of the Koosh zone - Grand Reef might be too deep for that.
So at first you have the Seamoth but need to build power cells. Then, after some exploring and a visit at the Aurora you get the Moonpool and with it the ability to recharge the Seamoth. After more exploration you can pimp your Seamoth to go deeper.
I already wrote a post about how overpowered I think solar power is in general (tldr: decrease solar power recharge exponentially with depth) and I agree the Seamoth does not need it. I even play my recent games without the upgrade. I barely notice the difference.
Well of course you're still going to feel like the world is huge on day one of using the Seamoth. Like you said, you can get one within 30 minutes. I'm talking about people who have played the game for 20+ hours. The Floating Island and Mountain Island start off as cool, far away, new places when you first get to them obviously, but once you've set some beacons up, it's a straight shot to get to them from that point on, so the traveling is cut down immensely. You will feel the world "getting smaller" as you play along.
That's not because of the Seamoth's speed. That's because you're exploring the world, and the locations always seem more familiar when you've been there once or twice.
Lowering the speed will NOT make the game seem more open and wonderful, lowering the speed will make travel a pain.
Not to mention that he didn't say that he only just got the Seamoth and is posting from the perspective of an absolute newbie, he's also far enough in that he has a CYCLOPS, to compare.
Edit: It's like... Moving to a new city. At first you don't know where anything is, don't know any of the local shortcuts, so it feels huge and oppressive.
But as you get more familiar with it, you know the routes, the places of interest, and all that, so you can get where you want to go. But the city doesn't feel smaller, you just know it better.
Hmm maybe a short emergency boost, which drains the powerpack quicker or damages the seamoth?
WW2 plane inspired!
When I said "I tried it yesterday" I did not mean I tried Subnautca yesterday, but I specifically setup a situation to test your thesis. When I first read your post, I had a feeling reduced Seamoth speed would not convince me, but I needed facts for a response. Plus, I simply wanted to know how it felt.
I took a Seamoth and a Cyclops, went to floating island and back with both subs and compared the feel. Yes, its subjective but hey, its about how the game world feels. And as I already said it did not feel smaller, I just went faster. Instead of waiting 2 minutes for the Cyclops, I waited one minute in the Seamoth (numbers are arbitrary) but the most important thing: I waited. I crossed terrain I already knew and waited for the journey to complete.
I understand that you ardently defend you opinion, I respect that. I simply do not share the view.
First, it still is a replacement for a bad moving cyclops, which will get changed in near future. The cyclops will get more powerful and the seamoth will lose its O2 magic and bound to dive within reach of the cyclops or a base.
Second, the tech discovery of the seamoth is still to easy to achieve. Yet it's beyond early game phase. It's no shame to quickly speed through the map if you're mid to late game and already have seen most places. You just have to make sure that the speedy seamoth tech is only to be found late game.
Useful seamoth upgrades so far:
- pressure
- extra space
- electric defense
- sonar
The solar recharge is overpowered and once you can use cyclops and moonpools it's even useless unless you try to fight hordes of reapers constantly discharging your electric defense. All other modules are even more useless.
Once O2 gets limited the seamoth should get an extra O2 upgrade, maybe replacing the useless energy recharge and efficiency upgrades.
The standart seamoth could be slower and instead an energy efficiency upgrade it gets a speed booster upgrade that is able to boost speed at the expense of a high energy consumption. Good for emergencies and shorter quick travels but bad for long range quick travels.
Finally in any case all seamoth upgrades should get their own fragments/blueprints, so some of them are more difficult to get than others.