Tanelorn's big quality of life and immersion improvement wishlist. Please add your own.
tanelorn
usa Join Date: 2016-07-01 Member: 219433Members
usa Join Date: 2016-07-01 Member: 219433Members
I am a newcomer to Subnautica gameplay but have followed the development for some time. So far I have put in about 30 hours in the game. I come with a game development background and prefer survival / exploration games above others, so I felt strongly that I wanted to provide some feedback and suggestions in this forum.
I know that devs often prefer a single item per post especially when it comes to bugs. But I have a lot of quality of life and immersion improvement suggestions and wouldn't want to spam the forums. Clearly many members here have similar feelings and this forum is flooded with great suggestions. This will add to the list of great proposals that already exist.
I am creating some headings here for easy reading, but apologize for the lack of advanced formatting. Thank you very much for reading through my feedback, devs and users. I greatly appreciate your consideration and your comments.
1. QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS
Forward: I have not dug into the forums deeply enough to know wether some of these are already under development. Please forgive any futile suggestions.
1a. Beacons. Please give us more control over how beacons appear on our hud. It is annoying to always have the lifepod flashing on my screen and many beacons obstruct the display. A next level to this would be to create categories for beacons so they can be color coded and turned on / off by category.
1b. SPEARS! And spearguns. We desparately need a defensive weapon that extends beyond our fingers for the early and mid game, and we could use a hunting tool as well. I would combine this with faster prey species to increase the difficulty of hunting them thereby increasing the need for hunting tools. Catching them alive then becomes even more interesting.
1c. Maps. (Note, I haven't made the cyclops yet, but even if it has mapping, some mapping would be appreciated prior to cyclops tech) A mapping utility would be great, for the HUD and/or at the base. This would coincide with a coordinate system. The compass is great but take it some steps further. Keep it realistic in the field tho and restrict it to the PDA or a simple HUD minimap, rather than a detailed pop-up display.
1d. Headlamp. We could really use a small flashlight to keep things illuminated when we use some other tool.
1e. Passive slow heal when satiated. I swear I saw this happen in my first part of the game but now I do not observe it. If we don't have a slow passive heal when well fed I think it would be good.
1f. Rare flora and fauna in harder to reach places. Right now, especially in the safe shallows, there's not much incentive to explore the area. All the cool topography is there, but you know exactly what you will find: the lowest tier materials and creatures. I don't know if there's any procedurally generated anything in this game, but I think it would really enhance the fun factor if there were nodes in the more difficult to reach places that have a chance of spawning rare flora, fauna, and even resources that are a tier or two higher than normal for the biome.
1g. Reduce day night cycle and hunger / thirst to 1/3 the current rate. This is a mix of immersion and quality of life. For immersion, the sun and moons aren't screaming across the sky. For quality of life, we aren't as focused on keeping ahead of the food / water situation. In early game, basic survival is critical, but this game does not involve much automation, so it means that even mid and late game you are still getting hungry and thirsty quickly and it's always an immediate problem. Slowing these timers doesn't eliminate the threat of starvation and dehydration, but it makes it more sensible.
Factorio related improvements: (Factorio has some great solutions to common problems in Subnautica)
1h. Automated intermediates in the fabricator!! To make a complex item we have to personally generate each precursor which is a pain. Factorio is great about letting you simply choose your end product, and the system builds the precursors first without needing your help. This would go far for consumables especially those you are always making such as disinfected water.
1i. Programmable fabrication assembly lines. You would have an input locker and an output locker and you give them fabrication instructions. Go out for an excursion and come back to find your consumables have been prepared for you. I have not yet made the distillation machine but this is along similar lines but broader in scope.
1j. Resource extractors. With all our great tech, we still spend most of our time swimming around looking for resource pick-ups in the landscape. And what happens when we have taken all the quartz crystals in our region? (a common complaint) Why not make resource extractors that drill for materials and slowly generate them over time? They would have a power requirement and possibly would lose efficiency over time per location. Instead of being the one guy who hand-picks every resource for your station, you would evolve to a manager by mid - late game.
2. IMMERSION IMPROVEMENTS
2a. Let us stand on shallow surfaces and float on the surface. Despite the massive emphasis on underwater activity, we are still humans and have legs and a desire to be vertical. When surfacing, I would much prefer that I remain with my head above water and rest / observe. Similarly, when I come to a shallow that I can stand on with my head above water I would prefer to do so rather than swim.
2b. Improved flashlight lighting. One of the great immersive experiences in this game is exploring dark spaces. The current flashlight / headlight system is ok but lacks a lot of more realistic touches that influence that aspect of gameplay. The seamoth headlights are also lacking the beam effect when viewed from outside but I'm sure this will be improved in time.
2c. More ecological behaviors for all species. This is probably coming but it makes a HUGE difference in immersion. Our reefs are full of herbivores that never eat anything, interact with eachother, etc. It is good to see some predator behaviors for the predators, but of course this needs alot of tweaking as well (looking at you sand-shark!). Please continue to develop this in detail. The computing power can be optimized by simplifying the behaviors based on distance to the player.
2d. Stronger fauna vocalization meanings. Currently all creatures seem to just make their given sounds at random or when they attack. It would be a big immersive improvement if each unique call had a specific cause / meaning (and of course each species needs more than one call).
2e. Fish that behave according to their anatomy. I'm specifically talking about how all fish basically act the same even though they vary drastically in their senses, build, descriptions, etc. Want to catch a spadefish? Approach from below (but spadefish should hug the bottom). The peeper is described as vulnerable in low light, so it should have a harder time seeing you at night. Etc. There's no point to all these descriptions and all this diversity if you don't have to think about their differences when you interact with them.
2f. Uses for all flora. Much of the flora are currently decoration only. If 2c is developed more then more possibilities appear such as attracting certain species with a grow bed and knowing which species frequent which floral locations. But also, there should be way more crafting uses for all the floral diversity in the game.
2g. Regenerating flora. Perhaps this happens and I haven't noticed it, but it appears that vineweed seeds, acid mushrooms, etc. are permanent items that do not regenerate. If this is true then a slow regeneration system similar to the farming system should allow for "renewable natural resources".
2h. Underwater currents. The lifepod drifts until you fully repair it. Why not have sea currents that will gently push you at certain locations. If you think strategically you can take advantage of currents to reach locations faster or get a current between you and a chasing predator. This can be combined with other behaviors such as underwater plants releasing seeds that drift with the current.
2i. More complex research system. Perhaps I'm wrong but it seems that very rarely does scanning a creature open up crafting possibilities (other than eating it). And the system of searching the ocean for "little crafting packages" is very basic. While some advance techs would need to be "stolen" or "reverse engineered" to develop, others should just make sense based on analyzing the locals. You would increase the exploration research immersion greatly if there were a research process for your new findings. If we had a craftable lab we could use it on our samples and scans and develop technologies from them.
2j. Stronger stealth elements. Avoiding predators is a big deal in this game, and I don't really get how the predators work. Perhaps its highly detailed and I am not picking up on it, but from my experience it seems to work primarily on proximity. I do things like hide in grasses, stay in shadows, stay still, breaking line of sight, not using my flashlight, etc. but I doubt any of that has much effect. If not, then it really should, considering how important predator behavior is to the experience in this game.
2k. More elaborate predator attacks. Along with the above, the predator attacks should be more than "their mouth touches your body and you take 30 HP damage". They should grab you and shake you, require you to fight back with your knife, etc. They should have momentum so you can swiftly change direction to evade their charge, etc. And obviously, the sand shark needs to actually be an ambush predator and spend most of its time in the sand not chasing after every hand-sized fish that is within 50m.
3. The big one that would make this game over the top awesome: Procedurally generated landscapes. The minecraft approach probably wouldn't work here plus it would be a huge change to the game engine. But I am specifically thinking about how the elder scroll series did it. There is merit in hand-made landscapes where every pixel of the terrain and every item is hand-placed. That's what ES:Morrowind and later games did, but that's to the detriment of replay value in an exploration game. What ES:Daggerfall did for dungeons was AWESOME: All but special dungeons were procedurally generated by linking pre-made large sections together. I don't see why Subnautica couldn't do this. The sections would still be hand crafted and large, but then each edge would have a compatibility key that links properly to the terrain of other blocks. The terrain would then be randomized within each biome (and biome transition blocks would exist). The randomization process would connect blocks with corresponding edge keys so the terrain would seamlessly connect block to block. It's obviously easier to do this with hallways and stairs than open terrain but still very possible. In addition, each block has potential spawn sites for resources, flora, etc. so they are also procedurally generated. The result: an exploration game where every playthrough is new.
Thanks so much for reading through this! Im sure you have lots of your own ideas and maybe mine overlapped with yours. Please provide your feedback and / or enhancements to any of the above.
PS To devs: I am an ecologist and would gladly help develop the ecosystem behaviors if such outside help is desired
I know that devs often prefer a single item per post especially when it comes to bugs. But I have a lot of quality of life and immersion improvement suggestions and wouldn't want to spam the forums. Clearly many members here have similar feelings and this forum is flooded with great suggestions. This will add to the list of great proposals that already exist.
I am creating some headings here for easy reading, but apologize for the lack of advanced formatting. Thank you very much for reading through my feedback, devs and users. I greatly appreciate your consideration and your comments.
1. QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS
Forward: I have not dug into the forums deeply enough to know wether some of these are already under development. Please forgive any futile suggestions.
1a. Beacons. Please give us more control over how beacons appear on our hud. It is annoying to always have the lifepod flashing on my screen and many beacons obstruct the display. A next level to this would be to create categories for beacons so they can be color coded and turned on / off by category.
1b. SPEARS! And spearguns. We desparately need a defensive weapon that extends beyond our fingers for the early and mid game, and we could use a hunting tool as well. I would combine this with faster prey species to increase the difficulty of hunting them thereby increasing the need for hunting tools. Catching them alive then becomes even more interesting.
1c. Maps. (Note, I haven't made the cyclops yet, but even if it has mapping, some mapping would be appreciated prior to cyclops tech) A mapping utility would be great, for the HUD and/or at the base. This would coincide with a coordinate system. The compass is great but take it some steps further. Keep it realistic in the field tho and restrict it to the PDA or a simple HUD minimap, rather than a detailed pop-up display.
1d. Headlamp. We could really use a small flashlight to keep things illuminated when we use some other tool.
1e. Passive slow heal when satiated. I swear I saw this happen in my first part of the game but now I do not observe it. If we don't have a slow passive heal when well fed I think it would be good.
1f. Rare flora and fauna in harder to reach places. Right now, especially in the safe shallows, there's not much incentive to explore the area. All the cool topography is there, but you know exactly what you will find: the lowest tier materials and creatures. I don't know if there's any procedurally generated anything in this game, but I think it would really enhance the fun factor if there were nodes in the more difficult to reach places that have a chance of spawning rare flora, fauna, and even resources that are a tier or two higher than normal for the biome.
1g. Reduce day night cycle and hunger / thirst to 1/3 the current rate. This is a mix of immersion and quality of life. For immersion, the sun and moons aren't screaming across the sky. For quality of life, we aren't as focused on keeping ahead of the food / water situation. In early game, basic survival is critical, but this game does not involve much automation, so it means that even mid and late game you are still getting hungry and thirsty quickly and it's always an immediate problem. Slowing these timers doesn't eliminate the threat of starvation and dehydration, but it makes it more sensible.
Factorio related improvements: (Factorio has some great solutions to common problems in Subnautica)
1h. Automated intermediates in the fabricator!! To make a complex item we have to personally generate each precursor which is a pain. Factorio is great about letting you simply choose your end product, and the system builds the precursors first without needing your help. This would go far for consumables especially those you are always making such as disinfected water.
1i. Programmable fabrication assembly lines. You would have an input locker and an output locker and you give them fabrication instructions. Go out for an excursion and come back to find your consumables have been prepared for you. I have not yet made the distillation machine but this is along similar lines but broader in scope.
1j. Resource extractors. With all our great tech, we still spend most of our time swimming around looking for resource pick-ups in the landscape. And what happens when we have taken all the quartz crystals in our region? (a common complaint) Why not make resource extractors that drill for materials and slowly generate them over time? They would have a power requirement and possibly would lose efficiency over time per location. Instead of being the one guy who hand-picks every resource for your station, you would evolve to a manager by mid - late game.
2. IMMERSION IMPROVEMENTS
2a. Let us stand on shallow surfaces and float on the surface. Despite the massive emphasis on underwater activity, we are still humans and have legs and a desire to be vertical. When surfacing, I would much prefer that I remain with my head above water and rest / observe. Similarly, when I come to a shallow that I can stand on with my head above water I would prefer to do so rather than swim.
2b. Improved flashlight lighting. One of the great immersive experiences in this game is exploring dark spaces. The current flashlight / headlight system is ok but lacks a lot of more realistic touches that influence that aspect of gameplay. The seamoth headlights are also lacking the beam effect when viewed from outside but I'm sure this will be improved in time.
2c. More ecological behaviors for all species. This is probably coming but it makes a HUGE difference in immersion. Our reefs are full of herbivores that never eat anything, interact with eachother, etc. It is good to see some predator behaviors for the predators, but of course this needs alot of tweaking as well (looking at you sand-shark!). Please continue to develop this in detail. The computing power can be optimized by simplifying the behaviors based on distance to the player.
2d. Stronger fauna vocalization meanings. Currently all creatures seem to just make their given sounds at random or when they attack. It would be a big immersive improvement if each unique call had a specific cause / meaning (and of course each species needs more than one call).
2e. Fish that behave according to their anatomy. I'm specifically talking about how all fish basically act the same even though they vary drastically in their senses, build, descriptions, etc. Want to catch a spadefish? Approach from below (but spadefish should hug the bottom). The peeper is described as vulnerable in low light, so it should have a harder time seeing you at night. Etc. There's no point to all these descriptions and all this diversity if you don't have to think about their differences when you interact with them.
2f. Uses for all flora. Much of the flora are currently decoration only. If 2c is developed more then more possibilities appear such as attracting certain species with a grow bed and knowing which species frequent which floral locations. But also, there should be way more crafting uses for all the floral diversity in the game.
2g. Regenerating flora. Perhaps this happens and I haven't noticed it, but it appears that vineweed seeds, acid mushrooms, etc. are permanent items that do not regenerate. If this is true then a slow regeneration system similar to the farming system should allow for "renewable natural resources".
2h. Underwater currents. The lifepod drifts until you fully repair it. Why not have sea currents that will gently push you at certain locations. If you think strategically you can take advantage of currents to reach locations faster or get a current between you and a chasing predator. This can be combined with other behaviors such as underwater plants releasing seeds that drift with the current.
2i. More complex research system. Perhaps I'm wrong but it seems that very rarely does scanning a creature open up crafting possibilities (other than eating it). And the system of searching the ocean for "little crafting packages" is very basic. While some advance techs would need to be "stolen" or "reverse engineered" to develop, others should just make sense based on analyzing the locals. You would increase the exploration research immersion greatly if there were a research process for your new findings. If we had a craftable lab we could use it on our samples and scans and develop technologies from them.
2j. Stronger stealth elements. Avoiding predators is a big deal in this game, and I don't really get how the predators work. Perhaps its highly detailed and I am not picking up on it, but from my experience it seems to work primarily on proximity. I do things like hide in grasses, stay in shadows, stay still, breaking line of sight, not using my flashlight, etc. but I doubt any of that has much effect. If not, then it really should, considering how important predator behavior is to the experience in this game.
2k. More elaborate predator attacks. Along with the above, the predator attacks should be more than "their mouth touches your body and you take 30 HP damage". They should grab you and shake you, require you to fight back with your knife, etc. They should have momentum so you can swiftly change direction to evade their charge, etc. And obviously, the sand shark needs to actually be an ambush predator and spend most of its time in the sand not chasing after every hand-sized fish that is within 50m.
3. The big one that would make this game over the top awesome: Procedurally generated landscapes. The minecraft approach probably wouldn't work here plus it would be a huge change to the game engine. But I am specifically thinking about how the elder scroll series did it. There is merit in hand-made landscapes where every pixel of the terrain and every item is hand-placed. That's what ES:Morrowind and later games did, but that's to the detriment of replay value in an exploration game. What ES:Daggerfall did for dungeons was AWESOME: All but special dungeons were procedurally generated by linking pre-made large sections together. I don't see why Subnautica couldn't do this. The sections would still be hand crafted and large, but then each edge would have a compatibility key that links properly to the terrain of other blocks. The terrain would then be randomized within each biome (and biome transition blocks would exist). The randomization process would connect blocks with corresponding edge keys so the terrain would seamlessly connect block to block. It's obviously easier to do this with hallways and stairs than open terrain but still very possible. In addition, each block has potential spawn sites for resources, flora, etc. so they are also procedurally generated. The result: an exploration game where every playthrough is new.
Thanks so much for reading through this! Im sure you have lots of your own ideas and maybe mine overlapped with yours. Please provide your feedback and / or enhancements to any of the above.
PS To devs: I am an ecologist and would gladly help develop the ecosystem behaviors if such outside help is desired