An Argument for Self-Defense Against Giant Murderfish
DarkIntent
Houston Join Date: 2015-07-11 Member: 206108Members
Houston Join Date: 2015-07-11 Member: 206108Members
Firstly, I love this game. I love the idea, the execution, the setting, and the atmosphere. I also love the survival genre; the struggle, the scavenging, the sweet feeling of triumph when you finally make progress or find something new. Secondly, I know this point has been brought up before, and has been shot down just as often, but hear me out, I want to make my case.
As much as some of you apparently don't like it, violence is a tool of survival, and Subnautica is just as much about survival as it is about anything else. If it's not, why are there hostile creatures at all? Why not have them be gentle giants, like the Reefbacks? Players already have to monitor air, food, water, power, and available resources... why add one more obstacle, yet deny us a viable option to deal with that obstacle? "Stasis and run" is a temporary solution at best, when it works at all, and it's nothing approaching a workable permanent solution - and so far as I can tell, there isn't one planned. I'm going to tell you right now, once this game expands to the point where exploring is a matter of survival and not just sight-seeing, it's going to get mighty irritating to get surprise-munched by a creature I can't reliably track and can't do anything about if it up and takes a notion to set up shop outside my base... assuming it can't tear apart said base, ruining what might be hours of work and tons of resources I may not be able to get back.
But, of course, violence is the easy solution, and we can't have that. I mean, obviously there's no possible method of making a fight with anything larger than a Stalker be an event, something you have to scrape and scratch and plan and hoard for, something that you only do as a tactic of last resort because the kinds of weapons that can actually kill these things suck power like it's going out of style and the cells they use are costly and difficult to make. No, clearly the only way for people playing the game to have the correct type of fun is to leave out the ability to do anything other than watch while they get crunched by something that looks like Cthulhu's long lost cousin after a bad facelift.
But I digress.
My point is, that if everybody is so bound and determined that nobody anywhere ever should be able to *gasp* kill something that, according to everything sane, deserves to be extinct right this instant (looking at you, Crab Squid), at least allow us some reliable methods of keeping these things the hell out our faces. Some kind of force field, or a stealth suit, or something with just a teensy bit more pop than a prettied-up gravity gun that only just works on Stalker-sized creatures and does jack-all against anything bigger.
As much as some of you apparently don't like it, violence is a tool of survival, and Subnautica is just as much about survival as it is about anything else. If it's not, why are there hostile creatures at all? Why not have them be gentle giants, like the Reefbacks? Players already have to monitor air, food, water, power, and available resources... why add one more obstacle, yet deny us a viable option to deal with that obstacle? "Stasis and run" is a temporary solution at best, when it works at all, and it's nothing approaching a workable permanent solution - and so far as I can tell, there isn't one planned. I'm going to tell you right now, once this game expands to the point where exploring is a matter of survival and not just sight-seeing, it's going to get mighty irritating to get surprise-munched by a creature I can't reliably track and can't do anything about if it up and takes a notion to set up shop outside my base... assuming it can't tear apart said base, ruining what might be hours of work and tons of resources I may not be able to get back.
But, of course, violence is the easy solution, and we can't have that. I mean, obviously there's no possible method of making a fight with anything larger than a Stalker be an event, something you have to scrape and scratch and plan and hoard for, something that you only do as a tactic of last resort because the kinds of weapons that can actually kill these things suck power like it's going out of style and the cells they use are costly and difficult to make. No, clearly the only way for people playing the game to have the correct type of fun is to leave out the ability to do anything other than watch while they get crunched by something that looks like Cthulhu's long lost cousin after a bad facelift.
But I digress.
My point is, that if everybody is so bound and determined that nobody anywhere ever should be able to *gasp* kill something that, according to everything sane, deserves to be extinct right this instant (looking at you, Crab Squid), at least allow us some reliable methods of keeping these things the hell out our faces. Some kind of force field, or a stealth suit, or something with just a teensy bit more pop than a prettied-up gravity gun that only just works on Stalker-sized creatures and does jack-all against anything bigger.
Comments
An underwater carryable gas-operated high-caliber weapon (Above 12,7mm, does not require power cells, only bullets were a deal). 15mm rounds could be useful agaist mid-sized creatures. A bullpup design that is more compact, with 5 round magazine and a reddot sight (or in general any kind of sight) would very useful in hostile biomes. However, the recoil of that might be a kick in the face, and the amount of air bubbles that will appear in front of our face would be just fenomenal. But it would possibly kill anything mid-sized with one or two bullets. And a good thing to be added aswell, is somekind of loot from these guys. So if you had to kill a bone shark, you will get bones (used for further crafting?) and some meat off it.
A invincible suit. I guess I dont have a lot to explain here, since name says it all. However, the suit could be activated/deactivated, so you can turn the invicibility on and off. But the thing is, the power cell would be used to power the suit, and being invicible drains lots of energy, the entire powercell would stand for 5 minutes of being invicible, should be enough I believe.
Decoy, that fires a fake creature, rotting fish etc.. to draw the attention of the hostile. Powered again by powercell, 100 shots can be made with one battery. The fake creature will have its good sides, it will be equiped in a beeping loud sound, to attract the hostile, and a flashing red light (or in general, what color you want), however, one use, and it has to be craftable. A rotting fish may not draw so much attention but its somekind of use for the all rotten peeper.
harpoon gun. Harpoons in general fit into the climate of the game, right? And the disadventage of the harpoon is the fire rate, so one shot, and the amout of harpoons you were able to hold in your inventory. And decoy harpoons could be craftable aswell, just fire a decoy harpoon, that will hit the rock/ground and make beeping sounds and flashing lights. There should be a different variations of the harpoon, like tazing one, poisoned one, or just the simple lethal one.
I do apologize for my poor english, but sorry, they dont teach us a lot about it in school and all I learned through my entire life is from games and films only
Like a faster charging, more durable stasis field, more strength to the propulsion cannon.
And above all allow you to use these weapons on submarines, above all the seamoth.
Oh and also defensive suits would be good
See, now that's almost as good. Failing anything else, an upgrade to make the stasis rifle's projectile... move a bit quicker than half the speed of smell would be amazing. Provided it also worked on larger creatures as well, of course.
Now that is kind of an awesome idea, and more in line with my own thoughts. Something that definitely works, but something you also won't just waste on whatever. "Option of last resort" is the phrase people should keep in mind on weaponry.
If for "terror" (I'm at least somewhat sure this isn't survival horror) we substitute "end-game annoyance", then yeah. I'm sorry, I can't see the game being boring just because I at least have the option, however costly, of dealing with these creatures on a more permanent basis, whether passively or aggressively. Besides, like TotallyLemon suggested, it doesn't have to be something you just get; it can just as easily (and far more interestingly) be something you have to research, something you might have to get close to the these creatures at some point for. Besides which, doesn't anyone else think it's just a tad unrealistic that this massive, clearly expensive colony/terraformer ship would be sent out with no means at all of aggressively handling hostile wildlife?
Okay, I probably never made my original point as well as I should've, so I'll try again now. My concern stems from this recurring vision I have, of a point in time where I'm playing Subnautica and I'm so frustrated I can't see straight because one creature keeps killing me and/or destroying my stuff, and I have zero ability to do anything at all about it other than try to lead it away. I want these things to be a threat, I want them to be scary and intimidating, but what I don't want them to turn into is a chore. Something that makes me want to quit because I'm sick of having to work around them. I want a Sea Dragon or Crab Squid sighting to make me say "uh-oh", not "ugh, this again". Weapons are a quick and easy method of keeping that from happening, and all that you need for balance is to make their use costly, but if the devs can (and, frankly, they likely already have) find a way of granting you a non-lethal or less-lethal option of permanently managing the threat these creatures pose, that works just as well for me. I still like the scaling, species-specific neurotoxin idea, though.
The way I see it, the dilemma surrounding lethal weapons (or tools with potentially lethal applications, whichever you prefer) against hostile predators lies in the developers' lack of a concrete roadmap for the game's progression or story.
Case in point, the Reaper Leviathan ("RL"). The RL is an immediate and often lethal threat to the player, but only occupies an area close to the crashed Aurora, a location you must visit only once for the duration of the game, with subsequent visits for resource gathering somewhat optional. Currently, the player character's ("PC") interaction with the RL consists of evasion, and that's as metagame as it gets, because the PC knows the danger the RL presents is limited at best, completely mitigated with the right approach and tools. Whereas in a real-life situation, however hypothetical it might be, would certainly require a completely different mindset.
The PC would have no idea about how much time he would have to spend submerged around Aurora, under constant risk of getting slaughtered, or whether or not the RL would be attracted to another location, similar to Aurora. In that case, how would he respond? Would he develop tools to handle the threat preemptively and completely (within his view of the situation) by killing the predator? He surely has the necessary technology, given his species' level of advancement. Keep in mind that we're talking about a space-faring civilization here, capable of harnessing the power of dark matter to travel between stars. A rapid cycle propulsion cannon with a feed of fragmenting diamond tipped flechettes as ammunition? Sure. A self guided torpedo built upon the powerglide chassis, which locks on to the biggest organic heat signature to deliver a point-blank, cone-shaped blast in order to minimize collateral damage? You bet. It's all at the single press of a button with the fabricator technology.
So the PC would have to make a choice. Does he kill the RLs hampering his progress? Does he devise a way to deter them, combined with a way to tag & track them? If he does, how can he ever be sure that there aren't others lurking in the abyss, waiting to crush his tiny base like a can of soda while he is asleep? Moreover, is the non-lethal approach worth the risk of getting the entire ecosystem irradiated, which is sure to happen if he cannot reach the Aurora in time to seal the leaks in the reactor? This, at least for me, is a very valid concern if the player is to be immersed in the game.
Building up on that, and maintaining a story, or immersion-driven focus, I would have to say that the current selection of tools available for the PC is nowhere near adequate for any kind of survival. Yes, I know they work on a metagame level, you charge up the statis rifle to freeze the predator before he charges up on you. But from the gameplay aspect, how does that increase PC's odds of survival at all? Statis implies some form of suspended animation, wherein the predator is completely unable to interact with its environment, including processing information, so from the predator's point of view, every time it is hit with a statis projectile, time jumps forward a bit. In other words, all it sees is a bright flash and the PC teleporting short distances within its chomping radius. It cannot grasp the real workings of the tool, nor take any lessons from it. The PC is still as viable a snack as always. There are no consequences, no hesitation on the predator's part to continue pursuing the PC, and as such, the outcome will be the exact same every time. It is essential for any living organism, whether on earth or on some distant ocean planet, to pursue activities that increase its odds of survival (feeding, seeking shelter, mating, etc.) while avoiding those that diminish it (exposure to predators, elements, or harmful objects in general, the latter of which is generally taught by the parents to the offspring).
To summarize my points above, my personal take on the whole dilemma of lethal weapons in Subnautica would favor the introduction of non-lethal deterrents with a persistent effect, alongside lethal tools with a possible risk of upsetting ecological balance. Do you kill the RL as you rush to repair Aurora to prevent an ecological catastrophe? Fine. But if you kill every RL you encounter, you risk an increase in the population of smaller predators such as Stalkers or Bone Sharks, which was previously kept in check by the RLs. And you share the same food supply with those smaller predators, congratulations, you just made it very difficult for yourself to find food in the long run. Killed too many Stalkers? Now Peepers run amok nibbling on every bit of mushroom they find. Population dynamics is essentially Newton's Third Law for biology; if the PC is to survive, with our without lethal weapons, he must find a delicate balance between when and how to utilize them.
For a lot of reasons, but to be honest there are good points on both sides of the argument
Having lethal weaponry wouldn't really kill the fear of a Reaper Leviathan, for instance, but it certainly would kill the fear of Bsharks, stalkers, crashes, pretty much every other dangerous life form
Also, killing the ones that attack you is resource-ineffecient, considering how easy it is to just dodge around literally all of them (except, again, for the RL, which SHOULDN"T be easy to deal with)
My two cents, is basically that they aren't needed, but I wouldn't REALLY care if they were implemented (though I would laugh if people make them a priority since they A) will destroy species eventually and
C'mon guys, please don't use the "what is realistic, or what would you do in real life" as a reason for your argument
This is a game after all, and the same logic can be applied in the opposite way-- is it logical to kill off bone sharks or stalkers when it's so damn easy to just swim around them? Why would anyone waste the resources on the tools to do so? I only really take damage from things like crashes which is pretty pointless to kill as they respawn anyways
We do not need to incorporate Newton's Third Law in a video game because that's just what it is, a game.
My two cents
Sadly, you're not wrong, and I honestly don't understand why. I can only assume it's the same kind of people that love horror games that don't allow you to fight back (which, don't get me wrong, can be fun sometimes), regardless of whether or not it makes sense. And with the level of technology already established in Subnautica, it only makes sense that you might not have immediate access to actual weapons of some sort; them not existing at all, that makes a lot less sense.
I'm sorry, but that might be the most ridiculous thing I've read today, and it makes a far worse argument to boot. The mere fact that the main character needs to eat or drink means that real life has intruded into the game mechanics, and there's no reason at all that any game developer wouldn't take into account how a real person would react when they're making a survival game, or a game with heavy survival elements. In fact, I'd say it'd be a huge mistake not to try and account for what a real person might do.
Not quite what Dreacos meant, amigo. Besides which, it's already there, along with the First and Second, just like every other game with even a rudimentary physics engine.
I think already we should probably agree to disagree since I've had debates like this a lot of times on the forums months ago when I was more active, and it never really gets anywhere
However, I'll just try and explain my opinions since I don't want to come off as crass :
I am of the opposite opinion, that realistic mechanics shouldn't be outlawed or what have you, but "realism" shouldn't be used as an argument to put the actual realistic mechanics in (that was my point, not that I don't want realistic mechanics... I hope I explained that well enough)
Which is what I interpreted Dreacos' post as saying :P
And I don't really think peepers will become extinct yet in the game, if, for example, you were to kill them (or cook them in the current state of the game) Have they already implemented the whole "if too many die, extinction" part of the game?
I think what I'm going for when I attacked the 3rd Newton's law is extremely abstract: We should view that as an achievement, a feature that most games don't bother with, and not as a "requirement" because it is what logically would happen
In essence it's almost a way of thinking that I didn't like, not what Dreacos actually thought :P
Hope that all made sense
That alone is the reason why the player character is introduced as a human (or at least, a similar species of highly advanced, terrestrial hominid, as we don't know if he hails from the Earth to begin with) struggling to survive outside his home element. Subnautica taps on the very familiar and primordial terror of dark, open seas and the unknown lurking below. We do not belong in the oceans; we have not evolved to survive in there. Establishing a humanoid character with the same needs and requirements as a human allows the player to empathize with him, which would not be possible if the main character was, say, Ecco the Dolphin.
I do agree with certain points of the "non-lethal weapons only" proponents, yet I wholeheartedly believe that any sort of forced pacifism is completely arbitrary and a bad design choice in a game like Subnautica, because the player is an endangered species himself, and should be allowed to act within his power to ensure his survival against a hostile environment in the long-run, not by destroying the entire region with all its inhabitants, but by making informed choices about when or how to utilize his tools and abilities.
With regard to the Third Law, every action taken by the player in Subnautica should warrant an (almost, at least perceptibly) equal and (definitely) opposite reaction from the environment, which should be used as a balancing measure against player actions. For example, it is not an unprecedented gameplay dynamic in survival games for certain species to go "extinct" due to the player's careless actions (one remarkable example would be pigs, beefalo and bees in Don't Starve, highly beneficial mobs which, although able to respawn, may be completely wiped from the world). A similar dynamic could be implemented in Subnautica where the game world is a closed system of a variety of species (i.e. receiving no migration from outside the map) interacting with each other and feeding upon one another, and the player is the external force that must maintain the balance if he is to survive.
We are basically just two sides of the same coin lol
while you argue against arbitrary pacifism I argue against arbitrary realism
Makes perfect sense when you put it like that, and I can't say I disagree beyond little nitpicky stuff.
Yea sorry if I came across as obnoxious (or just nonsensical), I noticed I already have 3 disagrees on my previous post so hopefully they read the more thorough explanation that I provided
to reiterate, as long as having the "realistic" mechanic or feature makes sense for the GAME, then I'm happy with it. If it's fun and isn't too much to ask, then fine. But if you say to yourself "this would be cool because it makes it more realistic" that's just asking for a bad time I think
The basic concept would be that it would take up 4 inventory slot spaces, like the Stasis Rifle.
Would fire out titanium spears to impale creatures. Can be upgraded.
The Speargun would require 2 Titanium and 2 Silicon, as well as the blueprint.
Each Spear for the speargun would require 2 titanium, and would require the Speargun Blueprint.
Spears would take up 2 vertical inventory slots.
Spears fly further and faster than a stasis ball, and are accurate up to 100 meters.
Spears can also be retrieved from landscape or dead creatures, but have a chance to break and not be recovered.
The Speargun has 2 potential upgrades.
-Grapple Speargun: Crafted using a Speargun and Dive Reel, the Grapple Speargun can fire spears, then reel in whatever it hits. If the target is larger than the player (Sharks, Reapers, Subs, Reefbacks, Landscape, Bases, etc) then the player will be drawn towards the target instead.
-SpearRailgun: Crafted using an extra Titanium, Wiring Kit, Gold Ore, and Battery, the speargun can be upgraded into the mighty SpearRailgun. The powered up Speargun can fire spears at a dramatically greater velocity, doing far greater damage, however, the increased velocity will cause spears to break on impact, and the powerful recoil will send players flying backwards. The SpearRailgun uses energy to create a powerful magnetic field to accelerate its projectiles, using 10% of its energy for each shot. Unfortunately, due to the jury-rigged construction of the SpearRailgun, it cannot be recharged, and must be discarded after expending all of its energy. However, it can still be charged slowly with the Swim Charge Fins.
While Spears have 4 potential upgrades.
-Diamond Spear: Diamond spears are tipped with ultra-sharp diamond barbs, allowing them to do more damage. Diamond Spears also have a greatly reduced chance to break when being retrieved. Crafted using 3 Spears and 2 Diamonds to create 3 Diamond Spears.
-Barbed Spear: Barbed Spears have small serrations near the head that deal extra damage over time to unarmored creatures, like Stalkers and Gasopods. Barbed Spears can be crafted using 3 Spears and 4 Quartz, to create 3 Barbed Spears. Barbed spears can be retrieved, but have a greater chance to break.
-Volt Spear: Volt Spears are 2-pronged spears, charged with electricity to temporarily stun (ragdoll) targets on impact. Volt Spears are crafted using 3 Spears, 1 Silicon, and 1 Battery, to produce 3 Volt Spears. Volt Spears can be retrieved, but lose their electric charge after their first use, turning them into regular spears.
-Crash Spear: Crash Spears are not pointy, like regular spears, but instead have a round head containing an explosive compound to create a potent concussive blast on impact, similar to a Crash. Crafted using 3 Spears, 2 Airsacks, 6 Crash Powder, and 1 Magnesium to create 3 Crash Spears. Crash Spears explode after they are fired, so they are not retrievable.