SERIOUSLY, IT IS REALLY TIME : Enhance creatures' interactions and behavior. (+ Cyclops issue)
kwm1800
Join Date: 2017-06-25 Member: 231353Members
Join Date: 2017-06-25 Member: 231353Members
As I read through Cyclops mega thread(s), and one thing that really pops up is how one-dimensional the game purposes regarding creature interactions.
For carnivores, for example.. Only carnivore that has interesting habits/interactions with player is Stalker. That's it. Look at the others:
Bonesharks? All they do is trying to attack players and sub, just roaming around.
Sandsharks? Same as Bonesharks except they like to go bottom.
Biter? Except it accepts food from players and much smaller than sharks, they are same.
Crabsnake? Again, other than hiding in jellyroom, they also roam and attack just like Bonesharks.
Crabsquids? Bonesharks with even more aggressive behaviours, plus EMP shock.
Ampeel? Again Bonesharks with AOE damage.
River Prowler? Literally Bonesharks that live in deeper area.
Lava Lizards? Bonesharks with ranged attack.
Reaper/Sea Dragon/Ghost Levi : Basically bigger version of Bonesharks that is acting as a method to discouraging players without any submarines due to insta-kill and/or high damage mechanics. Also used as area-denials.
Only carnivore that has some semi-complex interaction other than Stalker is Mesmer.
I can't help but I feel the game has been progressively being boring after update and update. I must say I am not that fan of adding these precursor stuffs... DOES game really need ending? I mean look at the minecraft, it actually does not have any endings if at all.
I am not so sure why this game needs these many obstacles. In same principle as the game was designed to not have guns, the game also can be interesting and fun without these many 'difficulties' (or say, frustrations.) Just like Stalker chasing Peeper, let's say River Prowler would have greater interest in species that are not native to Lost River, and if player gives them such interesting pieces, they would reward player by chopping off some of the resource chunk that are located in toxic water at the bottom. That would make the Lost River far more interesting despite the fact that my idea present here is nothing more than a copy & paste of Stalker behavior.
Say, give us external fish feeding module and lightning rod. Ampeel and Crabsquids would be attracted to feeding module, and as they release electric shocks / EMP shocks, the lightning rod would absorb attack and use it as power source for base and Cyclops. Suddenly, now it is possible to build base in deep ocean where thermal vents are not available, and the player has to be careful with local ecosystem to power the base.
Then we have herbivores, which are really into just two categories.
1) Used as player's food.
2) Used as bio power plant fuels.
Only two interesting ones are Sea Treaders and Gasopods. Peeper may have bigger role as development goes, but pretty much any other herbivores are very uninteresting regarding interactions.
.....I mean, I have to say it. While the developers pro-actively decide to not include guns and other powerful weapons, the overall gameplay design direction is going in a way that pretty much requires those weapons to be fun and interesting, because currently the game itself does not give players a positive way to build interactions with environment... other than destructive ways. Now I think putting so much effort on Precursor stuffs for game-ending part actually degraded the overall game instead of enhancing it, and I wish developers should had put more development time on making stronger environment interactions instead of game-ending stuffs on a sandbox game.
Also, almost equally important, there is very few meaningful interactions between species, not just players. Stalkers for example has habit with metal wreckage, and particularly like peepers. Other aggressive species do not have even simplest form of interactions other than aggressive species trying to attack passive species. Even simple things like smaller fish following/nearing bigger species would make the ocean far more life-like instead of flat impressions.
Finally, for Cyclops. At this point, as I said in Steam forum sometime ago, the Cyclops is now unfit for this game. A lot of interesting areas and stuffs are all in cave where move around with such big sub is nightmare, and now having multiple small bases each for repairing/refueling Prawn make far more sense, even starting from Lost River due to ghost levi. It's really a waste of resource. It is not fun to move around in the first place, let alone dealing with all of these aggressive creatures, which is part of the problems I mentioned above. My suggestion is that we need...
1) Interesting key-point area where it is totally open.
2) FAR bigger Lost River and Magma Zone for more room to move around, and enlarge Jellyroom so Cyclops can get in there.
With other ideas that are discussed in other Cyclops thread.
For carnivores, for example.. Only carnivore that has interesting habits/interactions with player is Stalker. That's it. Look at the others:
Bonesharks? All they do is trying to attack players and sub, just roaming around.
Sandsharks? Same as Bonesharks except they like to go bottom.
Biter? Except it accepts food from players and much smaller than sharks, they are same.
Crabsnake? Again, other than hiding in jellyroom, they also roam and attack just like Bonesharks.
Crabsquids? Bonesharks with even more aggressive behaviours, plus EMP shock.
Ampeel? Again Bonesharks with AOE damage.
River Prowler? Literally Bonesharks that live in deeper area.
Lava Lizards? Bonesharks with ranged attack.
Reaper/Sea Dragon/Ghost Levi : Basically bigger version of Bonesharks that is acting as a method to discouraging players without any submarines due to insta-kill and/or high damage mechanics. Also used as area-denials.
Only carnivore that has some semi-complex interaction other than Stalker is Mesmer.
I can't help but I feel the game has been progressively being boring after update and update. I must say I am not that fan of adding these precursor stuffs... DOES game really need ending? I mean look at the minecraft, it actually does not have any endings if at all.
I am not so sure why this game needs these many obstacles. In same principle as the game was designed to not have guns, the game also can be interesting and fun without these many 'difficulties' (or say, frustrations.) Just like Stalker chasing Peeper, let's say River Prowler would have greater interest in species that are not native to Lost River, and if player gives them such interesting pieces, they would reward player by chopping off some of the resource chunk that are located in toxic water at the bottom. That would make the Lost River far more interesting despite the fact that my idea present here is nothing more than a copy & paste of Stalker behavior.
Say, give us external fish feeding module and lightning rod. Ampeel and Crabsquids would be attracted to feeding module, and as they release electric shocks / EMP shocks, the lightning rod would absorb attack and use it as power source for base and Cyclops. Suddenly, now it is possible to build base in deep ocean where thermal vents are not available, and the player has to be careful with local ecosystem to power the base.
Then we have herbivores, which are really into just two categories.
1) Used as player's food.
2) Used as bio power plant fuels.
Only two interesting ones are Sea Treaders and Gasopods. Peeper may have bigger role as development goes, but pretty much any other herbivores are very uninteresting regarding interactions.
.....I mean, I have to say it. While the developers pro-actively decide to not include guns and other powerful weapons, the overall gameplay design direction is going in a way that pretty much requires those weapons to be fun and interesting, because currently the game itself does not give players a positive way to build interactions with environment... other than destructive ways. Now I think putting so much effort on Precursor stuffs for game-ending part actually degraded the overall game instead of enhancing it, and I wish developers should had put more development time on making stronger environment interactions instead of game-ending stuffs on a sandbox game.
Also, almost equally important, there is very few meaningful interactions between species, not just players. Stalkers for example has habit with metal wreckage, and particularly like peepers. Other aggressive species do not have even simplest form of interactions other than aggressive species trying to attack passive species. Even simple things like smaller fish following/nearing bigger species would make the ocean far more life-like instead of flat impressions.
Finally, for Cyclops. At this point, as I said in Steam forum sometime ago, the Cyclops is now unfit for this game. A lot of interesting areas and stuffs are all in cave where move around with such big sub is nightmare, and now having multiple small bases each for repairing/refueling Prawn make far more sense, even starting from Lost River due to ghost levi. It's really a waste of resource. It is not fun to move around in the first place, let alone dealing with all of these aggressive creatures, which is part of the problems I mentioned above. My suggestion is that we need...
1) Interesting key-point area where it is totally open.
2) FAR bigger Lost River and Magma Zone for more room to move around, and enlarge Jellyroom so Cyclops can get in there.
With other ideas that are discussed in other Cyclops thread.
Comments
I would venture a guess that given the stalker's interactions, the devs did intend to build a proper ecosystem with interesting creature interactons, but ran out time with everything else they had to do so they resorted to the stereotypical video game predator behavior to the detriment of the game.
Hopefully after 1.0 we'll get a creature behavior overhaul of some sort.
Just a couple thoughts on this one.
Creatures
Lava Lizards do have a bit more advanced behavior: they feed on Lava Larva and if you bring a vehicle covered in Lava Larva next to them, they will eat them and pluck them off your vehicle!
As for thoughts about other creatures, I'd say that having a trick to some of them would be nice.
For example, Ampeels could be attracted to Power Transmitters and could be more docile when around them.
Or maybe River Prowlers could be fed with certain kinds of creature eggs?
Or maybe Crabsquids could be distracted by a flare. You drop one down and then they'll keep running back and forth to it, 'zapping' it and knocking it around.
Stuff like that would be cool, but I wouldn't find it necessary. (Frankly, I just kill all 3 with the Prawn)
Not Having Guns
I feel like that's a key point of the game. They're not going to add traditional guns to it. Killing stuff isn't necessary. It's like killing a reaper. You CAN, but it's risky and time consuming and it makes you weigh wether or not it's really worth doing when you can just sneak by.
The fact is, most of the enemies are not that threatening. In my opinion, the gameplay doesn't at all need guns. But, if you want to go killing things, use the Prawn suit. Works very well.
The Cyclops
People keep on calling this thing useless and I have no idea why. It's a fantastic command and logistics ship. It's a mobile base, complete with fabricators. The only thing you need a stationary base for is to recharge powercells and to craft Moonpool upgrades. But, you can keep all the materials you need to construct a temporary base like that on the Cyclops.
As for caves that are difficult to navigate, like the Deep Grand Reef or Jellyshroom Caves, I'm fine with that. You have other pieces of equipment that are well suited to those areas (the Seamoth and Prawn), and the Cyclops allows you to bring those with you.
I even go so far as to say I appreciate how difficult it is to bring the Cyclops into the Lava Zone. I even like that. Besides, you have the Prawn which is capable of navigating the area well anyways. I like that each vehicle has a direct counter to it. Prawn is countered by Warpers. Cyclops is countered by Lava Larva and tight spaces. Seamoth is countered by Depth.
In summary, I can appreciate the commentary that the creatures could use some additional quirks to them? But I can't say I agree with the rest. I don't think the creatures at present are so bad, there is no need for any kind of gun, and the Cyclops is a fantastic piece of equipment.
Here is a part of what I was thinking of posting, this is basically just a listing to get idea from
Lots of great ideas for interactions, especially the friendly/curious ones. Those are the kinds of interactions I wanted to see (and at least in my mind were advertised) when I bought the game. There are far, far too many games where the player is the center of the world and almost everything is out to get the player (or be exploited by them). Why can't we have a relatively peaceful exploration game for once that puts survival and danger in the back seat so you need to stay vigilant and respect the environment, but aren't constantly harassed by it?
This stuck out to me a lot. I bought this game with this idea that I was buying a survival, sandbox-y survival game, not a story game. in finding out there was a story to follow , there was a lot of excitement from something really unexpected, and it gave a very real feeling of discovery, which is good. But after completing the added story content each update, I find myself just putting the game back on the shelf until the next update, because of this issue.
The game hasn't really developed in the way you expect survival sandbox games would. You can't build ANYTHING except bases and things to power the bases. And what do you store in the bases? materials. To build more bases, or equipment. And what does that equipment do? It helps you explore. But what do you do once you've explored all there is to explore? There just.. isn't anything. The game is essentially over at that point because there is only one map. The same map, with the same materials and blueprints in the same places. The game just doesn't have nearly as much replay-ability as one would expect from a game marketed largely as an underwater survival sandbox.
At the end of the day I just kind of feel lied to in a way. The game was great and I don't regret buying it at all, but I just wish I knew what I actually buying. A story game with few sandbox elements, instead of how it was marketed; A sandbox game with a few story elements. But more than anything, I wish the devs didn't sacrifice so much of the sandboxy-ness of the game for the story part. That focus enhanced the game in a lot of ways, but degraded it in many as well.