The games ending should be optional (And not even preffered)
QuillShot
Sweden Join Date: 2015-12-29 Member: 210565Members
Sweden Join Date: 2015-12-29 Member: 210565Members
I am really dissapointed with the fact that the game has an ending. Just like i was with terraria when it "ended" but it had alot of content before getting there at least.
What happened to arctic zone? Or other zones for that part. There is so much potential for a big sandbox open world with many mechanics like special suits for the cold.
One word: Progression. Giving the player a reason to keep playing. Something to explore.
i want zones far away, far far away, thats what gives a good feeling of exploration.
What happened to arctic zone? Or other zones for that part. There is so much potential for a big sandbox open world with many mechanics like special suits for the cold.
One word: Progression. Giving the player a reason to keep playing. Something to explore.
i want zones far away, far far away, thats what gives a good feeling of exploration.
Comments
IMHO, if you use the rocket your last saved game (i.e. the one before launch) should be left intact - rather than be deleted.
Maybe there could be an alternate ending in a future DLC where the Sea Emperor juveniles use their telepathic abilities and request our assistance? Could even be assistance on another planet? There's a half moon shaped tech in the PCF that the PDF says was not used on this planet because of cost or it was prohibited or it was from an ancient civ. There's lots of room to zig instead of zag with the story line. We don't necessarily have to go home yet.
I saw somewhere deep in one of the trellos about the Arctic biome, that it did talk about using the precursor portals, which does rule out it being near the supposedly warmer playable area.
For me the idea is that it makes you unable to keep playing after launch, (especially if it deletes your save) which could come as an unwanted surprise to new players. Some kind of notice that pops up in the PDA telling the player "by launching this ship you will be leaving the planet never to return be sure you are finished exploring before doing so." would solve the issue nicely, or just having the game make an auto save right before the player launches they can load back into afterward would be ideal.
Yeah, they'd be mad to leave it like that. Especially in game like this with base-building and all.
Can you actually finish the game yet? I'm playing Experimental.
....ziltch
Not a stupid question. The devs have said you won't be able to... do that... until version 1.0.
Nope. The games ending isn't finished. They still have to finish the blast off animation, end credits and other bits. They haven't decided what to do with the player at the end. Either the rocket jumps to FTL, the player goes to sleep, or uses a wormhole. The sleep and wormhole potential endings, allow a more of a open end finish. So that the player can get screwed in a possible continued story. I'd personally be happy with a FTL ending. With a flash forward seeing the Auora's hulk being lifted back to orbit. With a joke ending on a billion dollar Alterra bill. Remember the PDA kept track of everything you used. With the player going F that, I'm going back. Giving a in universe reason why you load back into your bed.
Which is why I'd be perfectly happy staying on this planet, my love for the ocean aside XD
"My bill is WHAT? Okay forget this." < Goes back to his ocean >
Of course as long as that AA platform is still disabled, that always runs the risk of someone coming to "rescue" you. Maybe hide out in the Lava Zones until they confirm there's no survivors and leave :P
The gameplay is abysmal, the story is abysmal, the only good thing left is how it looks, but most of the coolest biomes, like the twisty bridges or the lily pads, have been cut, along with several creatures and a million other cool things.
On the rails? Can you please elaborate on this for us?
The story from my experience, (and I've played nearly a thousand hours over various alphas) is pretty hands off, aside from some comlink messages you get from the radio and a few notifications by the PDA's V.I you're pretty much left to your own devices insofar as pursuing the storyline and how you go about it.
Most of the actual "story" is gained via reading found PDA's in various wrecks and the Degasi ruins, compared to the multiple cut scenes and heavy handed plots most games throw at you (Such as Mad Max or Rise of the Tomb Raider) this one seems pretty off the rails from what I've experienced. (You can pretty much ignore the story entirely if you so desire, and aside from needing to repair the Aurora's drive core so you can swim around without needing a rad suit and being on the island for the rendezvous there's not any plot forcing you to rush on accomplishing anything else.
1st cent: I think it's good that the narrative structure is light-on enough to just let you enjoy this as a sandbox game.
2nd cent: I think it could benefit from a few incidental side-quests (of the kind you just stumble upon) that could serve up some more of narrative meat that many players really thrive on.
I know they would be cool because the concept art looks really, really cool. They both look bright and full of life, not like the depressing, gloomy caves the game steers you into. There are tons of awesome things that could have been done with those biomes, or indeed the existing ones, but, they just didn't.
As for gameplay.. it's hardly even present. The core of any game is to present a player with an obstacle. That can be another player, then environment, an AI enemy, whatever. We have those in subnautica of course. So on to the second thing: there needs to be something engaging, skill based, and suitably difficult you can do to get around or eliminate said obstacle. This is what subnautica is missing. The main obstacle is enemies. Now, what options do we have to deal with those? 99% of the time, it's just breeze past them, perhaps making some minor course changes once in a while to avoid getting too close. Which is lame, they may as well not be there. Because decoys and the like are 100% useless, that means that enemies can either be ignored, or, in cases where you MUST go near them, they become a frustrating annoyance that you pretty much have to just throw yourself at until by sheer luck you make it past. Or, you go through the incredibly boring and time consuming task of killing them with a knife, which doesn't work on, for instance, warpers, bringing you back to the previous method when faced with them camping something. Other obstacles, like depth or radiation, are just "get X item and you can ignore it".
It's on the rails mostly because the rest of the game is so bare-bones. I mean, sure, you can ignore the story, just like you can spend hours in any story based game pottering around the starting area or killing random enemies scattered around the map, but you're going to get bored pretty quickly (and in subnautica you can't even wander around shooting the random bandits/zombies/whatever).
A true open world game has a rich enough world that you can find tons and tons of stuff to do without the main story. What many open world/story combos, such as the fallout series do is scatter mini-stories, unrelated to the main one, throughout the world that you can complete for various rewards and just because they're a fun distraction from the main storyline. However, obviously there's not going to be someone hanging around 425B (or whatever it's called) who wants you to become their favorite superhero, or any settlements that need your help, or anything like that. Which is one of the reasons I don't think that this faceless lone survivor model works.
There's nothing tying you to the world. There's no random people around with personalities and backstories that make you want to save them, no sinister villain who's henious acts convince you that they must be stopped. There's just one guy who has a disease to save, and some people who are already long dead you can only read about, and who to be honest I don't give a biter's ass about based on their recordings. And why do we really even want to save our main character? In story based games where you're all alone, you usually have a voiced protagonist, who also has a backstory. That too serves to tie you to the world. You feel for them, you want them to win. But with our totally faceless main character, the game gives us no reason to care.
The only (minor spoiler) living character is the sea emperor, and while he/she/it/whatever could fill the role of something or someone that you, as the main character, must save, the dialog, such as it is, seems... not enough. It's not terrible, but if I'm going to get invested in a story to save just one character, it had better be a dammed compelling character.
The world feels empty, the gameplay is tedium at best, horrible chores at worst. It's just not a good game in it's current state. And the community that piles massive hate on anyone that criticizes it isn't helping matters.
That is a valid point, though I am reminded of Gordon Freeman from the Original Half Life games, he was more less mute with an equally shallow back story, though in that game there at least was about 20 mins or so of gameplay with the hero walking around the Black Mesa facility and interacting with NPC's and at least establishing the illusion he's a normal person with a likeable personality.
The game would of perhaps benefited some from a bit of gameplay onboard the Aurora pre crash, to make you at least care a little bit about the other alleged occupants. (Am I only one that finds it very creepy there's not a single hint of blood, bodies, or any remains of the crew?)
Just adding in some monologue for the main hero (Similar to Jason's from Far Cry 3) would go a long way towards making him feel more like a person and less like an automaton.
A cheap and easy way would be for the main hero to add his own personal journal entry notes next to scanned creatures and other pda entries, make him feel like more of a person and give us a way to relate to him and genuinely care about the guy.
That's an amazing idea. Unfortunately, it was a lot easier for Half Life as the base game has NPCs who spoke and the player interacted with. With Subnautica, that would be a whole 'nother ball of wax to add into the game.
BTW, the reason why there's no remains, beside wanting to keep the game rating as light as possible, is that they were all eaten.
And like Gordon Freeman, the Subnautica protagonist is mute, so having a voiceover at the start wouldn't quite fit a story that's so mute later on.
But here's my thoughts for how Subnautica could incorporate a simple startup similar to what Half Life did. Unfortunately, even if UWE liked it, I don't think there's enough time to incorporate in the start.
Like the current very short start scene, there's no player control; it all just happens. Have the player character start off in their cabin on the Aurora. Have then pick up their PDA and play a video of a meeting that took place earlier. Have them skip in the PDA to other info screens. Between these, you'll get an idea for what's happening on the Aurora, while still having a bit of mystery about how the player's character fits it.
Then there's a PA announcement that the Aurora is coming to its closest approach of 4546B. And then something goes wrong and alarms start ringing. Then the abandon ship announcement starts. The player character gets up and goes down a corridor into the lifepod bay and into their lifepod. From this point, the current sequence starts.
So the question if it is a good game or not is just a matter of taste, isn't it? There are certain things that you do expect from a game that calls itself open world and Subnautica does not measure up to these expectations. What shall we do?
I'm curious as to your experience as far as the "survival" aspects of the game go. For me, if I looked at this as a survival game, I'd say that once I'd built an aquarium I've won it. Stick some airsacks and any food fish in there and you have food and water forever. The plants just make it even easier. Since you don't have to defend yourself from attacking mobs, I'm not really sure what you'd be doing after reaching this point as far as survival goes, which, at a generous estimate, takes a few hours for a player with a modest understanding of how the game works.
In actuality, the environment is anything but hostile. Most small lifeforms are edible, predators don't actively seek you out really, the water is warm and calm, and everything is an incredibly bad swimmer, making it easy to both hunt and avoid being hunted. If I'm just playing to survive, the game is about as hard and engaging as cookie clicker for me. Every item is a "win more" and losing isn't a real possibility.
As planets go, this one makes earth look like an ultra-hostile hellhole. I mean, consider what an alien who knew nothing about earth would have to deal with if they were surviving on a coral reef like the "safe shallows". Poisonous fish, storms that can turn you into a pancake against a rock, coral and barnacles that are worse than legos on your feet by far, predators that can swim faster than a human can run, and those are just the things off the top of my non-marine-biologist head.
I mean, building is in the game of course, but it's not fleshed out enough to get by on just building and survival. I just don't have enough to do, so I get bored fast. It just doesn't seem like there's nearly enough there to make an enjoyable survival/building game.
Ok, then play something else, and come back to it. It's what I do when I get bored of a game.