and I'm making suggestion of lower important to start equips into 40sec from 90sec as its more reasonable than everything crafted near instant where as you and endar keep going "remove entirely" instead of tying fit times that work for you without removing part that other end wants
While I could live with the crafting times, I have to agree that the waiting time doesn't add anything to the game. "Realism" is not an argument here because we're using a frikkin molecular 3D printer. To me it seems like instant crafting like before is a way better option here.
and I'm making suggestion of lower important to start equips into 40sec from 90sec as its more reasonable than everything crafted near instant where as you and endar keep going "remove entirely" instead of tying fit times that work for you without removing part that other end wants
Your suggestion is literally the worst possible outcome, makes one side less happy while doing nothing for the other.
Sometimes the truth is not actually in the middle, and it almost never is in game design - half-assed designs mean you get all the drawbacks for everyone and the perks for no one.
Also you've yet to actually argue why it's "more reasonable", you just keep stating it. High end printers in real life print near instantly, they certainly don't spend 40 seconds on a page, why would a future printer on a fancy corporate space ship that uses near magical technology? Near-instant is the only approach that's realistic if we're going for "relatively quick" in any shape or form, your solution manages to both be unrealistic AND pointlessly annoying.
The way it was *was* the perfect middle ground - you're arguing it should be changed to lean in your favour, for no good reason, just because you think you can get away with it. That's not a compromise.
heck lets go then better way: triple the damn times because now it adds a real realism card into play... lets keep arguing left or right who is right game forever then ... lets keep running this cause you cannot understand people who like times and keep standing "I am right, you are wrong" way
heck lets go then better way: triple the damn times because now it adds a real realism card into play... lets keep arguing left or right who is right game forever then ... lets keep running this cause you cannot understand people who like times and keep standing "I am right, you are wrong" way
I am gonna point you at everdraeds post a page before. Compromise is not always the answer.
heck lets go then better way: triple the damn times because now it adds a real realism card into play... lets keep arguing left or right who is right game forever then ... lets keep running this cause you cannot understand people who like times and keep standing "I am right, you are wrong" way
If you set everything to take 20x the time listed, it would be better though? I mean, not as good as it was when it was quick, but better than it will be after this change. Genuinely long craft times (at least when combined with queues and auto-loading) are long enough you could build actual automation game mechanics out of them, and I don't want this to be an automation game but at least it's something. Meanwhile, you are literally advocating the worst possible outcome, while tacitly admitting the arguments for time delays existing at all have no merits.
The compromise is not "doing something in the middle", it would be "coming up with a solution that pleases the faux-realists that also doesn't interrupt gameplay and disincentivize exploring without waiting". Your proposal is literally just "faux-realists win, everyone else loses". (That's not a compromise)
*sigh*
The crafting system as it stands could use some work. But that isn't what the OP was about.
The simplest fix would be to add a new menu with configurations, some thing like this:
For Survival:
Crafting Timers> Cheat Instant (no timers) or Fast (No longer than say 60 secs on Advanced stuff) or Normal (current timers) or Long (double current timers)
Spawn rate of Fish> Low > Med > High
Damage Taken Multiplier > Half > Normal > Double
Day/Night Cycle > Short Days Long Nights > Normal > Long Days Short Nights
Things Like that. Of course it would be the Devs who would determine other options or numbers. This could possibly be where they end up anyway. But this bickering about things that you may not like or you may love get no one anywhere. Instead offer alternatives, suggestions on how to make this feature better.
In a thread full of thinly veiled insults, contempt, and derision, you managed to take the top dick award. Congratulations.
Yeah. Side that does not like frivolous timers offers examples from game development, and examples of why it drags games down without anything robust enough in place to deserve it. Attempts to back up the opinion with GAME DESIGN factoids.
Side that wants long timers calls people who don't cheaters, bullies, lazy, people who just don't appreciate some intangible and unspoken plan, that they should not even say anything in the first place, etc etc.
In before Fathom disagrees. Then again, he disagreed with me saying "Hey, I noticed that Fathom has disagreed with every single one of my posts, and that he is the only one to do so thus far" (Still the case, as of this post).
So I'm starting to wonder if I need to crack open the dictionary to double check what the word "Disagree" means with how it seems to get used around here. When people disagree with saying they are disagreeing by disagreeing oh dear I've gone paradox crosseyed.
like EnglishInfidel a lot of them seem to have contempt for the bulk of your playerbase
You shouldn't make value judgements, or even judge me. You especially shouldn't tell the devs what they should be doing, that's their call.
Contempt is a strong word. I don't have contempt for anybody with rational input, I merely might disagree.
I just think instant crafting is outdated and lazy design, unrealistic (here we go again) and completely breaks immersion. Opinion. I like that the devs at least listened to the suggestions to this effect and tried something new, even if it's failed.
And I don't agree with anybody who thinks instant crafting is a good thing. I'm allowed to do that, despite what this thread might otherwise suggest.
And yet another who doesn't seem to understand what exactly is written.
Apparently you don't understand the layout of that post. I'm a web coder and that is my way of layout menu items/subitems. Cheaty option (No Timers)
...
Maybe this time you actually understand what is written.
The fact you are STILL reffering to no timers it as "Cheaty", is where the issues are clear. It represents a clear, in writing lack of respect for that viewpoint.
Despite trying to phrase it like you actually care about the option, or want some kind of "Middle ground", if anything it only makes your lack of respect for anything but timers even more clear. Because you are literally calling it CHEATING. Even if a mere unintentional Freudian post.
I may as well say "Oh, okay. Let's have-
Reasonable: No timers.
Fake difficulty: Timers"
That would be pretty disrespectful wouldn't it. If I take the exact same thing you are saying, and flip it around. Suddenly it's pretty insulting of your preference and mindset while acting like the other is what should be the proper standard.
Repeating yourself doesn't change that.
EDIT: I am going to be optimistic and assume you are trying to get a good point across. But, if getting what you told somebody repeated back to you changes it into an insult to YOU, (Oh, long timers? Yeah that's cheating. Totally cheaty hacking the gameplay for personal reasons. No timers is Normal.) Then you at the very least need to reconsider how you present your argument.
I'm actually pulling that label from another EA game on Steam.
How about this label:
Instant option (no timers)
By no means am I saying no timers is a cheaty option, it was just a Label nothing more nothing less. Some would call instant crafting cheating, but I see it as what ever floats your boat.
Haha, EnglishInfidel did you seriously just deride me for telling the devs what to do and then immediately state how glad you are they did what other people told them to do (I assume you were one of those people, but maybe they were just kindred spirits)? Your naked hypocrisy is refreshing, at least, most people try to hide it.
Edit:
wmcook, you removed cheat and then added another one implying we want it to be easier, lol. I will assume it was an honest slip up and make a counter proposal.
How about we ask for your suggestion but have the traditional instant crafting as default (instant), and then long, extra long, and marathon as the other settings?
It was the basic idea I was trying to get across. Add a menu or what have you to let each person decide certain aspects of the mode he or she wishes to play. While some games modes make the configuration section un-needed, there are a few other modes that could benefit from it. Also by having that kind of system I was suggesting it would eliminate or maybe greatly reduce the arguing over such things as then if you choose the wrong option you would need to start over.
Even a simple toggle would probably work.
Timers
No Timers
I don't care either way honestly. I try to with hold final judgments on such things until the game is finalized in a sense.
Haha, EnglishInfidel did you seriously just deride me for telling the devs what to do and then immediately state how glad you are they did what other people told them to do
More selective ignorance.
Nobody but you has attempted to tell the devs what to do.
There's a big difference between telling the devs "I don't enjoy this part of the game" (which is what you've constantly done here yourself, after all) and telling them "Don't listen to this guy, because he has contempt towards me boo hoo hoo".
And what's more important, is that you know it full well. You'll need more than these ad hominems and strawmen arguments. You're deliberately baiting me at this point.
I have to say, it's very hard to maintain a civilised attitude towards you when you present this childish nonsense.
Focus on trying to persuade people your opinion makes sense, and leave me out of it.
I tried to show you some consideration and come to a place we could move forward respectfully, but you've done nothing but continue hypocritically with the very "thinly veiled insults" you complained about a long time ago.
Simply put, leave me alone, I have less than contempt towards you in particular now. Congratulations.
It was the basic idea I was trying to get across. Add a menu or what have you to let each person decide certain aspects of the mode he or she wishes to play. While some games modes make the configuration section un-needed, there are a few other modes that could benefit from it. Also by having that kind of system I was suggesting it would eliminate or maybe greatly reduce the arguing over such things as then if you choose the wrong option you would need to start over.
Okay, I'm sorry for doubting your intent initially. To be honest, this is certainly an option. For my game that I mentioned earlier, this is exactly how we resolved this issue - we added extremely robust configuration and mod support to let people customize their experience. And I think for that game (a rather well liked hard-core survival game for the sort of people who would happily dig through pages of configurations to optimize their experience) it worked - for something like subnautica, which is generally a much tighter experience that is focused largely on thematics and has a larger and more casual player base, I don't think it's a good solution.
For that sort of audience, you need to group the configs into a handful of modes, and that's the only solution I can see the subnautica devs embracing - but whenever it happens, hard-core difficulty lovers like myself inevitably get lumped in with the faux-realism-fanatics and I end up completely spaced out of the game - I either need to play below my desired challenge level, or accept a bunch of flow-breaking, narrative-diminishing tedium.
If we could add some sort of mode with a clear, descriptive, non-judgemental name (Hell, why not "Realistic" mode?) for that sort of people with all of their desired configs, I'd be fine with that, from a player perspective.
But the Devs have good reason not to be - every additional mode means more work supporting it and making sure it still works and plays as well as it can, which makes balance much more difficult, and it's already a time consuming part of game dev.
Timers pad out game length for no good reason, do away with them.
I don't mind waiting like 5 or 10 seconds for something to craft but anything longer is just ridiculous and excessive.
There is no good reason for things to take any longer to make, this is not real life this is a video game and sitting around and waiting for something to be crafted is not fun.
Almost no good reason, I agree. There are some specific cases where a longer crafting time does add something (I mentioned crafting the Cyclops in a prior post), but these are specifically for large things that you're likely to only make one of (like vehicles), and even then once you get past 30 seconds it doesn't really add anything any more.
For things that you craft a lot (like knives and beacons) it's just annoying if they take too long -- and it breaks realism if those are quick to craft but other things of similar size and complexity take longer just because they're not crafted as often.
I think it was a good balance how things were before this change.
Haven't posted here before but this made me stop lurking. Got this game from the Steam summer sale and have been enjoying it, but like many others have said, crafting timers add nothing to the game experience as it is. If you can come up with a mechanical reason for timers, then sure, let's have timers, but you already need to find all the things to craft things in the first place. The exploration in this game (which leads you to finding new things that you can use to craft) is far more enjoyable to me than any crafting, the crafting is ancillary and shouldn't take away from the gorgeous world. Bu it does give you goals so it's not another walking simulator type of game, so the game does need it.
To hell with realism. If youre concerned with realism, games arent for you.
Should the lava biome be removed because of realism? Open lava in an ocean is unrealistic.
Should salt chunks in the ocean floor exist? I think salt should only be obtainable through a filtration machine. How about diamonds being in a crystalline form and protruding out of a rock when you find them? I think diamonds should be found as dull rocks, and you should have to use a fabricator for a minute on it to turn it into a nice shiny diamond.
Fun trumps realism. Unless its something major that destroys your suspension of disbelief like the aurora crashing because a skyray went into its engine, fun always trumps realism. Should we have to endure nitrogen narcosis when we go too deep? How about decompression sickness when you ascend too fast? I dont see why crafting has to take so long when all it does is force you to stop for 4 minutes. Its boring, useless and nobody likes this feature except for a few people.
Its easy to suspend your disbelief at taking a few seconds to craft a submarine when this game takes place in the future. Plus, its a game. This means you can basically use any excuse to suspend your disbelief. Here, ill come up with one right now.
"The fabricator uses its highly advanced 3D printing technology to imprint layers to create an object. Each of its "arms" create molecules that are placed so precisely that one can create advanced subsystems, gear and even vehicles with it. The fabricator stores all of its material in a molecular form, combining them to create more advanced materials like plasteel or (formerly) lead."
When the fans universally hate a new feature thats added, the devs will either remove it, make it more tolerable, or get hate and less business due to them not listening to fans.
A good solution would be to make tools take 15 seconds to craft and normal resources take 1-3 seconds.
Fun trumps realism. Unless its something major that destroys your suspension of disbelief like the aurora crashing because a skyray went into its engine, fun always trumps realism. Should we have to endure nitrogen narcosis when we go too deep? How about decompression sickness when you ascend too fast? I dont see why crafting has to take so long when all it does is force you to stop for 4 minutes. Its boring, useless and nobody likes this feature except for a few people.
You joke, but that's exactly the kind of thing this sort of person actually asks for, down to people requesting hour+ waits in decompression chambers. Seen it plenty over on the steam forums for example. And people who want your base to flood when you enter your hatch because hatches are freely placed on the side of corridors, etc.
It's amazing how often the "Realism!" card is only played when it would be inconvenient. But gets thrown in the trash as soon as realism would add QoL improvements.
In the end, Realism actually IS secondary to game design to these people... It's just that Realism is a convenient, and convincing at first glance PR spin to justify your preferences. Even Developers will do it Elite dangerous is lousy with it for example, and here is one of the more common specific cases brought up over and over.
Hey can we have tractor beams to collect ore and cargo (These drones are buggy as hell)
"Sorry! Tractor beams are not realistic! And it does not fit with the series lore. Out of our hands."
Oh, okay. Can we get realistic asteroids with chunks of metal larger than the biggest playable ship that don't run out of ore after a few scrapings? Can we get the lore friendly set and forget mining devices from the previous games?
"What? No. Those don't fit with our design intentions. Why would realism or lore matter?"
Even in this game, if you bring up IN GAME LORE, such as the PDA survivor logs, realism doesn't matter to those players anymore because it does not fit their game play preferences.
Such as alternative stalker teeth options. Which come in violent knife fighting (Where people just try to deflect with how much of a CoD moron you are). And NONviolent, by taking them directly from the containment tank rather than playing RNG scrap fetch (Where they deflect and call you lazy).
As soon as "Realism in gaming" is not to their tastes... Suddenly, realism isn't so important to the people saying it's the most important reason anymore.
Hopefully, we get those "Realistic" options stated in game implemented some day (Off in the Steam forums, the Devs have admitted they are misleading), instead of the writers quietly editing those PDA files to not mention it anymore. But they already were willing to admit it was misleading to state all these cool, realistic, and practical options not allowed to us in game. Which puts them ahead of the curve compared to a lot of developers there. So I'm optimistic they will rise to the task rather than simply cut it and shrug out an apology.
Hey, game designer here who really loved the crap out of Subnautica when I played it a few weeks ago and told a bunch of other game dev folks to try it out. It grabbed me with an immediacy that drove me to marathon the currently implemented content over two days, and a big factor of my enjoyment was that the game never felt like it was wasting my time.
Not going to go into a lot of depth (lol) since I'm assuming this is a first pass implementation, but just going to toss out some stuff to think about:
Instant or near instant construction is a very 'safe' design. The build up / excitement aspect of making something new is intrinsically integrated into the process of seeing a new item blueprint exists, learning what materials makes the item, scouring for them, and bringing them back to complete crafting. That build up into the final decision of 'YEAH LETS MAKE THIS THING' and BAM you got it is inherently strong design with its own excitement ramp.
This doesn't mean crafting delay is bad, or worse than immediate, but that for it to be implemented it should have a design goal and feel that is just as strong (hopefully stronger) within your specific design philosophy for the project. I'd argue that if it only feels 'about the same' or 'a bit better' that erring on the side of Least Likely to Annoy People is the way to go for a mechanic like this. That's my gut call having seen the reactions of people to increased tedium and lightly justified time padding and not a final word by any means though.
What does the delay do for the game feel? Does breaking up the final player decision that would lead to the object being crafted and the presenting of that shiny new object create a valuable new space? Does the likelihood of a player distracting themselves and forgetting about an object and eventually coming back with an 'oh that's right, I have this thing now' disconnect not hurt the feel of progression? What interesting behaviors are players encouraged to do during these periods of time? Are they implemented yet?
This is going to create pockets of open time to fill within bases for the most part, is fiddling around in bases robust enough currently that this time is likely to be used effectively? If they aren't now, but eventually will be, is it worth messing with this mechanic before those aspects are implemented?
It's hard to make a significant crafting delay feel worthwhile or game-enhancing to a player, I'm honestly not sure I can even point out examples of long delays that I felt significantly improved a game's feel compared to the alternative of a quick animation and complete.
Definitely do A/B testing with new players and see their reactions to this kind of thing, and if you have planned content that would make crafting delays feel more cohesive and supportive to Subnautica's feel please talk about them! Lack of info can easily prime people to dislike a mechanic you're interested in exploring.
I just had to chime in here that this is a great post. Extremely well articulated, and with a lot of great food for thought questions. Not to disregard all the other posts in this thread of course, there's some good discussion and opposing viewpoints going on ( just please try and stay civil everyone, no need to name call one another )
So, i haven't seen anyone saying but.... If im crafting a Seaglide, i clearly have the resources. So why should i go get more for 3 minutes? I wound't be making a Seaglide if i needed more resources.
I'm visualizing seriously messed-up people standing in front a microwave, pulling their hair and doing the pee-pee dance, while waiting for their cup of sixty second noodles to finish.
Y'know, back in the days of Star Wars Galaxies, I had a test that I made people to perform if they wanted to join our guild of elite TIE pilots: They had to bring me ten fish that they caught. Didn't matter what kind, didn't matter where they got them from. See, fishing was tedious. Fishing was dull. Fishing required patience. A person who didn't have the patience to catch a fish was someone who didn't have the patience to sit through flying lessons, stay in formation or be a cohesive member of a team (and teamwork was everything in a TIE squadron). It was my way of weeding out the ADD kids who would only turn into whinny little snots later down the line.
I'm visualizing seriously messed-up people standing in front a microwave, pulling their hair and doing the pee-pee dance, while waiting for their cup of sixty second noodles to finish.
Y'know, back in the days of Star Wars Galaxies, I had a test that I made people to perform if they wanted to join our guild of elite TIE pilots: They had to bring me ten fish that they caught. Didn't matter what kind, didn't matter where they got them from. See, fishing was tedious. Fishing was dull. Fishing required patience. A person who didn't have the patience to catch a fish was someone who didn't have the patience to sit through flying lessons, stay in formation or be a cohesive member of a team (and teamwork was everything in a TIE squadron). It was my way of weeding out the ADD kids who would only turn into whinny little snots later down the line.
Comparing a single player game mechanics, to MMO guild hazing? I mean, I'm against timers sure. But that is not a good representation of the people who want timers if your go to example is MMOs, even before adding guild politics to it.
There are much better ways to present a case FOR timers, and your example is practically sabotage towards making the concept more appealing (particularly to any new people eying the game to purchase), rather than less.
Maybe if whoever programmed the Stillsuit to troll us constantly about the odor control option was in charge of the fabrication timers. Then I could see your example fitting.
EDIT: Seriously, you are bringing up a, to quote you yourself "Tedious" and "Dull" mechanic as some kind of preferable goal. I... What? That's not the kind of description you should use when trying to DEFEND a mechanic.
That's how baffling it is. I don't like timers at all, but it's so "....WHAT?" that I'm trying to give you pointers on how to better represent timers as a good thing.
I'm visualizing seriously messed-up people standing in front a microwave, pulling their hair and doing the pee-pee dance, while waiting for their cup of sixty second noodles to finish.
+1.
I remember doing similar things to your story of SWG when I used to play Tribal Wars many, many years ago.
Sending the new blood on lengthy, pointless quests to sort the wheat from the chaff, good times. Elitism is fantastic.
Don't worry, when these peasants are up against against the wall because us NWO members have had enough, once and for all, then we can have a drink and laugh about this.
Comments
Your suggestion is literally the worst possible outcome, makes one side less happy while doing nothing for the other.
Sometimes the truth is not actually in the middle, and it almost never is in game design - half-assed designs mean you get all the drawbacks for everyone and the perks for no one.
Also you've yet to actually argue why it's "more reasonable", you just keep stating it. High end printers in real life print near instantly, they certainly don't spend 40 seconds on a page, why would a future printer on a fancy corporate space ship that uses near magical technology? Near-instant is the only approach that's realistic if we're going for "relatively quick" in any shape or form, your solution manages to both be unrealistic AND pointlessly annoying.
The way it was *was* the perfect middle ground - you're arguing it should be changed to lean in your favour, for no good reason, just because you think you can get away with it. That's not a compromise.
I am gonna point you at everdraeds post a page before. Compromise is not always the answer.
If you set everything to take 20x the time listed, it would be better though? I mean, not as good as it was when it was quick, but better than it will be after this change. Genuinely long craft times (at least when combined with queues and auto-loading) are long enough you could build actual automation game mechanics out of them, and I don't want this to be an automation game but at least it's something. Meanwhile, you are literally advocating the worst possible outcome, while tacitly admitting the arguments for time delays existing at all have no merits.
The compromise is not "doing something in the middle", it would be "coming up with a solution that pleases the faux-realists that also doesn't interrupt gameplay and disincentivize exploring without waiting". Your proposal is literally just "faux-realists win, everyone else loses". (That's not a compromise)
The crafting system as it stands could use some work. But that isn't what the OP was about.
The simplest fix would be to add a new menu with configurations, some thing like this:
For Survival:
Crafting Timers> Cheat Instant (no timers) or Fast (No longer than say 60 secs on Advanced stuff) or Normal (current timers) or Long (double current timers)
Spawn rate of Fish> Low > Med > High
Damage Taken Multiplier > Half > Normal > Double
Day/Night Cycle > Short Days Long Nights > Normal > Long Days Short Nights
Things Like that. Of course it would be the Devs who would determine other options or numbers. This could possibly be where they end up anyway. But this bickering about things that you may not like or you may love get no one anywhere. Instead offer alternatives, suggestions on how to make this feature better.
And yet that is the exact argument that is currently going on. What I meant as alternatives/suggestions is ways to appease both sides of the issue.
Also you cut out a decent portion of the post. By quoting the parts you did you make it seem I'm choosing sides.
As to not agreeing with one side or the other I never did. What I DID do is offer a solution that you cut out of the quote.
Yeah. Side that does not like frivolous timers offers examples from game development, and examples of why it drags games down without anything robust enough in place to deserve it. Attempts to back up the opinion with GAME DESIGN factoids.
Side that wants long timers calls people who don't cheaters, bullies, lazy, people who just don't appreciate some intangible and unspoken plan, that they should not even say anything in the first place, etc etc.
In before Fathom disagrees. Then again, he disagreed with me saying "Hey, I noticed that Fathom has disagreed with every single one of my posts, and that he is the only one to do so thus far" (Still the case, as of this post).
So I'm starting to wonder if I need to crack open the dictionary to double check what the word "Disagree" means with how it seems to get used around here. When people disagree with saying they are disagreeing by disagreeing oh dear I've gone paradox crosseyed.
Contempt is a strong word. I don't have contempt for anybody with rational input, I merely might disagree.
I just think instant crafting is outdated and lazy design, unrealistic (here we go again) and completely breaks immersion. Opinion. I like that the devs at least listened to the suggestions to this effect and tried something new, even if it's failed.
And I don't agree with anybody who thinks instant crafting is a good thing. I'm allowed to do that, despite what this thread might otherwise suggest.
Now have a s**t tier meme.
Apparently you don't understand the layout of that post. I'm a web coder and that is my way of layout menu items/subitems.
So lets try this:
New Game
Menu:
Choose Difficulty Desired
Me: Survival
Menu:
Crafting Timers (Choose desired length.)
Cheaty Instant option (No Timers)
Easy option (Short Timers)
Normal option (Normal Timers)
Long option (Double Normal Timers)
Menu:
Other Possible Configurable Options
Start Game
Maybe this time you actually understand what is written.
The fact you are STILL reffering to no timers it as "Cheaty", is where the issues are clear. It represents a clear, in writing lack of respect for that viewpoint.
Despite trying to phrase it like you actually care about the option, or want some kind of "Middle ground", if anything it only makes your lack of respect for anything but timers even more clear. Because you are literally calling it CHEATING. Even if a mere unintentional Freudian post.
I may as well say "Oh, okay. Let's have-
Reasonable: No timers.
Fake difficulty: Timers"
That would be pretty disrespectful wouldn't it. If I take the exact same thing you are saying, and flip it around. Suddenly it's pretty insulting of your preference and mindset while acting like the other is what should be the proper standard.
Repeating yourself doesn't change that.
EDIT: I am going to be optimistic and assume you are trying to get a good point across. But, if getting what you told somebody repeated back to you changes it into an insult to YOU, (Oh, long timers? Yeah that's cheating. Totally cheaty hacking the gameplay for personal reasons. No timers is Normal.) Then you at the very least need to reconsider how you present your argument.
How about this label:
Instant option (no timers)
By no means am I saying no timers is a cheaty option, it was just a Label nothing more nothing less. Some would call instant crafting cheating, but I see it as what ever floats your boat.
Edit:
wmcook, you removed cheat and then added another one implying we want it to be easier, lol. I will assume it was an honest slip up and make a counter proposal.
How about we ask for your suggestion but have the traditional instant crafting as default (instant), and then long, extra long, and marathon as the other settings?
Sound good to you? Nice and non judgemental.
It was the basic idea I was trying to get across. Add a menu or what have you to let each person decide certain aspects of the mode he or she wishes to play. While some games modes make the configuration section un-needed, there are a few other modes that could benefit from it. Also by having that kind of system I was suggesting it would eliminate or maybe greatly reduce the arguing over such things as then if you choose the wrong option you would need to start over.
Even a simple toggle would probably work.
Timers
No Timers
I don't care either way honestly. I try to with hold final judgments on such things until the game is finalized in a sense.
More selective ignorance.
Nobody but you has attempted to tell the devs what to do.
There's a big difference between telling the devs "I don't enjoy this part of the game" (which is what you've constantly done here yourself, after all) and telling them "Don't listen to this guy, because he has contempt towards me boo hoo hoo".
And what's more important, is that you know it full well. You'll need more than these ad hominems and strawmen arguments. You're deliberately baiting me at this point.
I have to say, it's very hard to maintain a civilised attitude towards you when you present this childish nonsense.
Focus on trying to persuade people your opinion makes sense, and leave me out of it.
I tried to show you some consideration and come to a place we could move forward respectfully, but you've done nothing but continue hypocritically with the very "thinly veiled insults" you complained about a long time ago.
Simply put, leave me alone, I have less than contempt towards you in particular now. Congratulations.
Okay, I'm sorry for doubting your intent initially. To be honest, this is certainly an option. For my game that I mentioned earlier, this is exactly how we resolved this issue - we added extremely robust configuration and mod support to let people customize their experience. And I think for that game (a rather well liked hard-core survival game for the sort of people who would happily dig through pages of configurations to optimize their experience) it worked - for something like subnautica, which is generally a much tighter experience that is focused largely on thematics and has a larger and more casual player base, I don't think it's a good solution.
For that sort of audience, you need to group the configs into a handful of modes, and that's the only solution I can see the subnautica devs embracing - but whenever it happens, hard-core difficulty lovers like myself inevitably get lumped in with the faux-realism-fanatics and I end up completely spaced out of the game - I either need to play below my desired challenge level, or accept a bunch of flow-breaking, narrative-diminishing tedium.
If we could add some sort of mode with a clear, descriptive, non-judgemental name (Hell, why not "Realistic" mode?) for that sort of people with all of their desired configs, I'd be fine with that, from a player perspective.
But the Devs have good reason not to be - every additional mode means more work supporting it and making sure it still works and plays as well as it can, which makes balance much more difficult, and it's already a time consuming part of game dev.
I don't mind waiting like 5 or 10 seconds for something to craft but anything longer is just ridiculous and excessive.
There is no good reason for things to take any longer to make, this is not real life this is a video game and sitting around and waiting for something to be crafted is not fun.
For things that you craft a lot (like knives and beacons) it's just annoying if they take too long -- and it breaks realism if those are quick to craft but other things of similar size and complexity take longer just because they're not crafted as often.
I think it was a good balance how things were before this change.
Should the lava biome be removed because of realism? Open lava in an ocean is unrealistic.
Should salt chunks in the ocean floor exist? I think salt should only be obtainable through a filtration machine. How about diamonds being in a crystalline form and protruding out of a rock when you find them? I think diamonds should be found as dull rocks, and you should have to use a fabricator for a minute on it to turn it into a nice shiny diamond.
Fun trumps realism. Unless its something major that destroys your suspension of disbelief like the aurora crashing because a skyray went into its engine, fun always trumps realism. Should we have to endure nitrogen narcosis when we go too deep? How about decompression sickness when you ascend too fast? I dont see why crafting has to take so long when all it does is force you to stop for 4 minutes. Its boring, useless and nobody likes this feature except for a few people.
Its easy to suspend your disbelief at taking a few seconds to craft a submarine when this game takes place in the future. Plus, its a game. This means you can basically use any excuse to suspend your disbelief. Here, ill come up with one right now.
"The fabricator uses its highly advanced 3D printing technology to imprint layers to create an object. Each of its "arms" create molecules that are placed so precisely that one can create advanced subsystems, gear and even vehicles with it. The fabricator stores all of its material in a molecular form, combining them to create more advanced materials like plasteel or (formerly) lead."
When the fans universally hate a new feature thats added, the devs will either remove it, make it more tolerable, or get hate and less business due to them not listening to fans.
A good solution would be to make tools take 15 seconds to craft and normal resources take 1-3 seconds.
You joke, but that's exactly the kind of thing this sort of person actually asks for, down to people requesting hour+ waits in decompression chambers. Seen it plenty over on the steam forums for example. And people who want your base to flood when you enter your hatch because hatches are freely placed on the side of corridors, etc.
It's amazing how often the "Realism!" card is only played when it would be inconvenient. But gets thrown in the trash as soon as realism would add QoL improvements.
In the end, Realism actually IS secondary to game design to these people... It's just that Realism is a convenient, and convincing at first glance PR spin to justify your preferences. Even Developers will do it Elite dangerous is lousy with it for example, and here is one of the more common specific cases brought up over and over.
Hey can we have tractor beams to collect ore and cargo (These drones are buggy as hell)
"Sorry! Tractor beams are not realistic! And it does not fit with the series lore. Out of our hands."
Oh, okay. Can we get realistic asteroids with chunks of metal larger than the biggest playable ship that don't run out of ore after a few scrapings? Can we get the lore friendly set and forget mining devices from the previous games?
"What? No. Those don't fit with our design intentions. Why would realism or lore matter?"
Even in this game, if you bring up IN GAME LORE, such as the PDA survivor logs, realism doesn't matter to those players anymore because it does not fit their game play preferences.
Such as alternative stalker teeth options. Which come in violent knife fighting (Where people just try to deflect with how much of a CoD moron you are). And NONviolent, by taking them directly from the containment tank rather than playing RNG scrap fetch (Where they deflect and call you lazy).
As soon as "Realism in gaming" is not to their tastes... Suddenly, realism isn't so important to the people saying it's the most important reason anymore.
Hopefully, we get those "Realistic" options stated in game implemented some day (Off in the Steam forums, the Devs have admitted they are misleading), instead of the writers quietly editing those PDA files to not mention it anymore. But they already were willing to admit it was misleading to state all these cool, realistic, and practical options not allowed to us in game. Which puts them ahead of the curve compared to a lot of developers there. So I'm optimistic they will rise to the task rather than simply cut it and shrug out an apology.
Y'know, back in the days of Star Wars Galaxies, I had a test that I made people to perform if they wanted to join our guild of elite TIE pilots: They had to bring me ten fish that they caught. Didn't matter what kind, didn't matter where they got them from. See, fishing was tedious. Fishing was dull. Fishing required patience. A person who didn't have the patience to catch a fish was someone who didn't have the patience to sit through flying lessons, stay in formation or be a cohesive member of a team (and teamwork was everything in a TIE squadron). It was my way of weeding out the ADD kids who would only turn into whinny little snots later down the line.
Comparing a single player game mechanics, to MMO guild hazing? I mean, I'm against timers sure. But that is not a good representation of the people who want timers if your go to example is MMOs, even before adding guild politics to it.
There are much better ways to present a case FOR timers, and your example is practically sabotage towards making the concept more appealing (particularly to any new people eying the game to purchase), rather than less.
Maybe if whoever programmed the Stillsuit to troll us constantly about the odor control option was in charge of the fabrication timers. Then I could see your example fitting.
EDIT: Seriously, you are bringing up a, to quote you yourself "Tedious" and "Dull" mechanic as some kind of preferable goal. I... What? That's not the kind of description you should use when trying to DEFEND a mechanic.
That's how baffling it is. I don't like timers at all, but it's so "....WHAT?" that I'm trying to give you pointers on how to better represent timers as a good thing.
+1.
I remember doing similar things to your story of SWG when I used to play Tribal Wars many, many years ago.
Sending the new blood on lengthy, pointless quests to sort the wheat from the chaff, good times. Elitism is fantastic.
Don't worry, when these peasants are up against against the wall because us NWO members have had enough, once and for all, then we can have a drink and laugh about this.