And again, you don't have to watch the whole thing.
If I'm making something - I need it. I need it now. That's why I've returned to my base in the first place. It already took time to return from wherever I was exploring. I already spend a lot of time collecting raw resources. I want my reward for it.
Heck in TES series many players are annoyed by the amount of time it takes to sell the loot, while it definitely faster than 210 seconds.
Subnautica is not some silly iPad Farm game that people play to kill time at work, where it takes hours or so to grow stuff.
We're talking 4 minutes maximum. Do you get upset when you have to microwave something for 4 minutes? Because you really need that lunch now, which is the whole reason you went to your kitchen in the first place? Because it already took time to get it and put it in the microwave? NO! Or at least you shouldn't, because if you've ever had used a microwave in your life, you know that that amount of time will go by like that. That's not even mentioning that the only things you actually NEED are food and water, and those times haven't been changed. You want your new futuristic tool. So saying "I need it now" just makes you sound spoiled, and its certainly not going to get you anywhere.
all procees of manufacturing in this game looking like a some sort of 3D printing...
And about 'wasting time' - i will be more grateful if Devs make a process entering to base with animation: open outer door->enter to airlock->close the outer door behind->drain water->open inner door. JUST I LOVE REALISM.
You know what i miss in shooter' games? fitting bullets into clip for reloading gun. I hate that idea - when you just walk through dropped gun and you've got its ammo. IMHO
We're talking 4 minutes maximum. Do you get upset when you have to microwave something for 4 minutes? Because you really need that lunch now, which is the whole reason you went to your kitchen in the first place? Because it already took time to get it and put it in the microwave? NO! Or at least you shouldn't, because if you've ever had used a microwave in your life, you know that that amount of time will go by like that. That's not even mentioning that the only things you actually NEED are food and water, and those times haven't been changed. You want your new futuristic tool. So saying "I need it now" just makes you sound spoiled, and its certainly not going to get you anywhere.
I usually spend several hours on cooking food every weekend.
I'm quite a good a cook and I love good food.
So, when you are cooking something you almost never have to wait for some process to finish, because when something is being cooked in oven or in microwave, you are doing something else: peeling and slicing vegetables, mixing ingredients, taking care of frying pans (yes I usually cook at least on two in parallel), washing dishes/pots/knifes that you already used and so on.
So, making totally artificial limitation for a game is simply annoying and stupid.
We aren't playing Sims or Happy Farm, are we?
We're talking 4 minutes maximum. Do you get upset when you have to microwave something for 4 minutes? Because you really need that lunch now, which is the whole reason you went to your kitchen in the first place? Because it already took time to get it and put it in the microwave? NO! Or at least you shouldn't, because if you've ever had used a microwave in your life, you know that that amount of time will go by like that. That's not even mentioning that the only things you actually NEED are food and water, and those times haven't been changed. You want your new futuristic tool. So saying "I need it now" just makes you sound spoiled, and its certainly not going to get you anywhere.
I usually spend several hours on cooking food every weekend.
I'm quite a good a cook and I love good food.
So, when you are cooking something you almost never have to wait for some process to finish, because when something is being cooked in oven or in microwave, you are doing something else: peeling and slicing vegetables, mixing ingredients, taking care of frying pans (yes I usually cook at least on two in parallel), washing dishes/pots/knifes that you already used and so on.
So, making totally artificial limitation for a game is simply annoying and stupid.
We aren't playing Sims or Happy Farm, are we?
because when something is being cooked in oven or in microwave, you are doing something else
Thank you very much for absolutely making my point. While the fabricator is crafting, GO. DO. SOMETHING. ELSE. Also, how do you know its an artificial limitation? You have no idea what the technology that the Fabricator uses would be like IRL. For all you know It could be just as slow as today's 3D printers, and the devs are doing us a favor by speeding up the process.
Mr_Endar, you've got your opinion, we've got ours. Its just great, 'cause Devs got they own opinion and some time any our ideas can help em in developing of this game. I like you style of chatting here. Its not boorish, but reasoned. I'm always respect people like you. Even if our opinions does not match
Thank you very much for absolutely making my point. While the fabricator is crafting, GO. DO. SOMETHING. ELSE.
What exactly?
Like ALT+TAB and watch some youtube video or go complain on Subnautica forum about questionable game design decision... kinda I'm doing right now?
This is a game, not a real life. It is expected to be entertaining. Games are about having fun.
Manufacturing stuff in Subnautica used to be cool.
I like you style of chatting here. Its not boorish, but reasoned. I'm always respect people like you.
Thank you very much for absolutely making my point. While the fabricator is crafting, GO. DO. SOMETHING. ELSE.
What exactly?
Like ALT+TAB and watch some youtube video or go complain on Subnautica forum about questionable game design decision... kinda I'm doing right now?
This is a game, not a real life. It is expected to be entertaining. Games are about having fun.
Go gather more materials. Build some habitat modules. Make a massive dong out of corridor pieces. My point is, perhaps take advantage of the fact that you can still paly the game while your item is being crafted, a concept which you seem to have not grasped, and do something else. Its 4 minutes. Are you really that impatient?
Take fish out of the aquarium for salting, check the water filtration machines, build a new base module, repair your seamoth, manage bettery and power cell chargers, plan your next trip, do some plain old inventory management....
Thank you very much for absolutely making my point. While the fabricator is crafting, GO. DO. SOMETHING. ELSE.
What exactly?
Like ALT+TAB and watch some youtube video or go complain on Subnautica forum about questionable game design decision... kinda I'm doing right now?
This is a game, not a real life. It is expected to be entertaining. Games are about having fun.
Go gather more materials. Build some habitat modules. Make a massive dong out of corridor pieces. My point is, perhaps take advantage of the fact that you can still paly the game while your item is being crafted, a concept which you seem to have not grasped, and do something else. Its 4 minutes. Are you really that impatient?
The longer crafting times are for the most part and thankfully on the complex items you'll only make a few of and not the crafted items you'll be making in massive numbers. If the Ingots took two minutes to make, THAT would be annoying. Especially since between the subs themselves and their pressure compensators, you'll be making a lot of them.
Waiting a few minutes for a tool you'll probably only build once (unless you lose it somehow) is largely okay in my humble opinion, especially since - as repeated by several others as well as myself - you don't need to stand there and watch it. If Subnautica required you to stand by the Fabricator and watch the whole 1 ~ 4 minute crafting, I could see that as being a real problem.
I seriously can't wrap my head around why people are so upset about this.
Look the bottom line is the devs have a clear "vision" for this game, and if this is apart of that "vision" then they are adding it for a reason. Now this could be looked at a couple different ways, either that build times fit into the games technology lore some how and it's either already been explained how the fabricators work or it will be.
From a game play view, it doesn't detract at all from it, in fact I believe it adds to it. Sure it can take forever sometimes to find the fragments and then aquire the materials needed. But during that time I'm seeing the beautiful areas theyve designed. I'm taking my time to search things out, and in a world of instant gratification in video games this is a breath of fresh air so to speak. Not only is there now a "build up" in excitement almost like Christmas before my new tools are cooked. But it also adds to the resource management side of things.. longer build times means more power, more prep time before hand which to me translates to a more fleshed out gaming experience. Not just an artificial experience like 90% of the other games out there that has saturated the markets.
The way I've always looked at this game is. Everything I'm building should be equally matched in both materials and time, so when I'm able to build the cyclops on 5 stretched extremely thin ingots and less wires then would be in my car and then topped off with an almost instant build time that to me completely ruins immersion, I more then jump on board with build times that make sense.
And as stated by @Lonnehart, I would love to see how these people handle War Frame, where almost EVERYTHING takes hours and days to build not mere seconds and minutes. Again tho to me waiting 3 days for a new "character" to be built that I'll get weeks of game play out of is worth the wait!
If I'm making something - I need it. I need it now. That's why I've returned to my base in the first place. It already took time to return from wherever I was exploring. I already spend a lot of time collecting raw resources. I want my reward for it.
Heck in TES series many players are annoyed by the amount of time it takes to sell the loot, while it definitely faster than 210 seconds.
Subnautica is not some silly iPad Farm game that people play to kill time at work, where it takes hours or so to grow stuff.
That's not what Subnautica's about, though. It's about surviving in this new world. To survive you have to have a plan. You have to know what you're doing, you have to know in what order to craft things. If you need filtered water and a seaglide, you have to think to make the water first, then make a seaglide because that will take longer. No, it's not a Facebook farming game, it's far from it because in those you DO have to sit and wait for what you're building to build. But in Subnautica there's a whole new world to explore, outwards and downwards. Subnautica is rarely about "having every second count", it's rarely about "staying on your toes". It's about exploration, it's about taking in this beautiful world, it's about finding all of the wonderful creatures in that world, it truly is about the journey. If there somehow is nothing else to do whilst your flashlight crafts, explore this amazing place, swim over the Grassy Plateau, discover the giants that swim above it and ride with them, venture down the blood kelp caves, cut through the Kelp Forest, collect fragments as you explore, find your way to the very edges of the world in the dangerous dunes or the grand reef. Experience the stories of the Degasi survivors, follow their legacy. And when you get back you'll have your item crafted and the materials to make a new one. You put that on craft and do it again.
Well I started new game yesterday in experimental and I have absolutely no problem with the waiting. To me, it just makes more sense for the game, that those things take time. In a strange way, it is more satisfying (uh, weird I know). After establishing first base with decent amount of power (multipurpose room + bioreactor and so on...) and creating two fabricators, it is not a problem at all. And there just is enough other things you can do while crafting. It depends on player. But I love it
And yes, as @Jamezorg and other said: YOU NEED A PLAN TO SURVIVE, DON'T WAIT!
that is in my humble opinion completely asinine, whoever got the team together to make these elaborate nerf changes, just made a pretty controversial change that doesn't really factor in the fun/pain in the butt mechanic of this, I can only imagine the plethora of responses of players thinking
a) my fabricator is bugged and not making things like it used too
b) ARE U KIDDING it instantly materializes anything from blueprints, except for a freaking flashlight?
seriously whoever decided on this was high and in no way considering fun.
making a row of fabricators sure sounds like an ideal solution....
and IntrpidH, you belong to side who thinks 4 minute IRL food isn't fast enough:S no seriously this adds bit onto realism side and such waits arent bad ...like numerous times explained adjusted time only lengthens advanced tools crafting and only people who see problem on this new speed are impatient ones who likely irl think 5seconds to pick up any food is too slow speed
It's about exploration, it's about taking in this beautiful world, it's about finding all of the wonderful creatures in that world, it truly is about the journey. If there somehow is nothing else to do whilst your flashlight crafts, explore this amazing place, swim over the Grassy Plateau, discover the giants that swim above it and ride with them, venture down the blood kelp caves, cut through the Kelp Forest, collect fragments as you explore,
This is relevant to topic how exactly?
Yes it is an exploration game, it is fun to look at environment and creatures and search for stuff.
Long fabrication time has ZERO connection to it. NONE. NULL.
Go gather more materials. Build some habitat modules. Make a massive dong out of corridor pieces. My point is, perhaps take advantage of the fact that you can still paly the game while your item is being crafted, a concept which you seem to have not grasped, and do something else
Done long time ago.
I've get new schematics, gathered resources to make it - I need this new toy to go exploring areas that were previously inaccessible to me - and now I have to wait for what reason? What value does it add to gameplay. It is just annoying.
Now IF there was a way to speed up construction to reasonable time (aka instant) - like fabricator upgrade or time booster of some sort - long fabrication time would have made sense, because they would be an obstacle that we could avoid by using other tools (Subnautica doesn't have much tools so adding extra one would make sense).
Currently it looks like a bug waiting to be fixed.
This is the stupidest thing, aside from the nonsense arguments of the people defending it which somehow manage to be even stupider.
Note: I'm not inherently opposed to crafting times, but this implementation seems pretty bad and I am opposed to the sort of bad arguments being made here to justify it (most of which are thinly or not-so-thinly veiled insults).
Let's address them:
1) Realism - This adds no realism. Being able to make a complex eletricomechanical object in 210 seconds is no more realistic than being able to make it in 5.
2) "You can go do something else" - first up, this is an argument not that the change is good, but that the bad is avoidable, so it's inherently kind of garbage as a justification. "You can just avoid that if you don't like it" is always a bit of a weak argument, but it's even worse for something you can't actually avoid. On top of that, the timespans given are all still relatively short, which actively works to subvert that exact behaviour if it was actually the goal - you don't have enough time to do anything before it's done. Crafting times of ten or more minutes would ironically gather less opposition because it could be justified on the grounds of pacing - short but still significant crafting times don't have that going for them.
3) "We're talking 4 minutes maximum. Do you get upset when you have to microwave something for 4 minutes?" - Yes, 4 minutes maximum. That's exactly why it sucks so bad. See the above explanation, and then read this: Imagine you did all the work of cooking your food, and *then* your microwave arbitrarily demanded you leave the food sitting on the table for 4 more minutes, for no purpose. That is the situation we are looking at, and most people would be pretty annoyed at that. On top of that, this is a game where things are supposed to serve a purpose, so this still isn't a justification, just an insult directed at people who would be annoyed.
4) "It's about exploration" - Uh... what? This one doesn't even make any sense. At least it's not a thinly veiled insult (I think)? Just nonsense.
Let's be honest about what we're discussing here: What is being added is straight up tedium. If you want to defend it, it's not enough to insult the people annoyed by it or who don't find it enjoyable, it's not enough to say it's easy to avoid, you need to actually argue that it adds something positive to the game (because it's obvious that even if it doesn't for you, it obviously adds something negative for others).
long fabrication time would have made sense, because they would be an obstacle that we could avoid by using other tools
Incentives based on minimizing player frustration rather than maximizing player abilities are generally bad design, since it means you have to introduce introduce things to make the player experience less enjoyable. It only really works for things people didn't notice to be frustrated by in the first place, but appreciate after the fact... and people will definitely notice crafting times. It's something that can be made to work if it's part of an enjoyable optimization mini-game in and of itself, but these changes do not point in that direction.
Minecraft is a perfect example that crafting time is not needed for a compelling gameplay experience. Subnautica thrives on the exploration and discovery element and adding crafting time would be extremely detrimental to this.
I straight up do not understand people who conflate tedium with fun. This is a game. I didn't buy this game to do chores. I didn't buy this game to stand around and wait for a timer to ding.
This is a game with a fictional manufacturing process - making me stand around for 4 minutes is no more realistic than a few seconds.
GlyphGryph is 100% correct. This change adds nothing but tedium and actively makes the game less fun. This increases friction that keeps the player from actually playing the game.
Overall this change seems to be realism for the sake of realism, rather than for the sake of gameplay. A game whose realism consists of space magic Gravity Anchors, Dark Matter Reactor explosions, Kinetic Shotguns that are tweaked Gravity Guns, sea monsters that dunk submersibles like they're playing extreme underwater basketball, and giant underwater three-legged space cows that poop out basalt (in addition to their actual biowaste.)
The only thing that matters is the craft time on the constructor because of the assumption that you will only have your escape pod's sole fabricator when making it, which means you are stuck waiting for it to craft. After that you can bypass most of the actual downside of this change by building another fabricator in your base.
That's it. Now my bases will have two fabricators instead of one. I know I already spend up to 5-6 minutes typically in my base checking on water filters, fish tanks, the power situation, organizing my myriad of lockers, maybe adding a helpful sign or two etc.
I also know I will be incredibly annoyed because I forgot to craft something at the start of my base management and now have to sit on my fingers waiting for it to be done instead of just calling myself a dope while I whip it up.
As such I fail to see any design goal being fulfilled by these increased craft times other than 'it makes sense.' Even then it doesn't make any more sense than it does when everything is crafted sub-5 seconds (the fabricator can disinfect, de-bone and cook a whole fish of a species I only learned of a minute ago in 3 seconds but it takes 90 seconds to make a simple flashlight!?)
A good example of craft/build times being 'realistic' for the sake of gameplay is also already in the game: the medkit fabricator. You get a medkit whenever you build one, thus it takes a significant enough amount of time to build to dissuade people from simply constructing/deconstructing it and stuffing yourself to the gills with medkits really quickly. If you play conservatively and are diligent in checking your fabricators regularly you'll start tripping over medkits eventually, but now it's a background process that you don't have to worry about and get to swim with the fishies while your vast medkit wealth amasses itself back at your base/escape pod/cyclops.
Instead of a monotonous process of watching something being made and unmade over and over again.
That is a good use of crafting/build time to get you to do something else while you wait for it to be done.
Yes it is an exploration game, it is fun to look at environment and creatures and search for stuff.
Long fabrication time has ZERO connection to it. NONE. NULL.
It has one connection, but as GlyphGryph pointed out above, the times are actually too short to accomplish this connection. The times line up with doing other things inside of your base, but I'm not sure what other things you can actually do in your base that you aren't already doing. Look out the windows? Harvest and replant your microacres of Koosh? Double check that your bioreactor still has yet to consume a single Rabbit Ray because you're so awesome at power management?
I guess you could use the scanning room, but that has it's own issues that need to be worked on (and is still nowhere near as fun as going out and doing your exploration yourself.)
I really hope this change doesn't stay in the game. I get some pretty bad motion sickness while moving in the bases/ on the ground areas, but virtually none when I'm swimming. So, the less time I have to stay inside, the better. The crafting changes will just amplify the need to stay inside the base.
Just wanted to say that I think crafting times are a bad idea. How do you decide what arbitrary time is best? 3minutes? 10 minutes? 1 hour? I think crafting times arent just unfun, they actively get in the way of fun. Make the materials harder to find if you want to slow down the crafting.
I'll also let loose a dig at minecraft here... one of the worst decisions ever made was the 45 second dig time for obsidian... ie, conflagration of game difficulty, by taking up arbitrarily more of the player's time.
Now, some people who live in their games probably have no issues with things taking longer... so I can see where this impulse comes from, and why it shows up in the good ideas club from time to time.
However, for my gaming experiences, I don't have enough time for life in general, and gaming doubly-so. So when I have time to sit and enjoy some time gaming, I don't want it to resemble chores, I don't want it to resemble IRL type tedium of tasks... and one of the quickest ways for me to turn off a game (or avoid purchasing altogether) is for the game to literally waste my time with make-work projects which serve little or no useful purpose.
Now.... I'm not entirely against crafting to maybe take some time... it "might" serve other gameplay purposes... ie: requiring more fabricators for parallel manufacturing, which require more power, and thus more resources. There are parts of that I would personally take as a challenge, and enjoy...
However.... all this would have to be balanced off with time, vs resource balance, vs gameplay intent.
Is this survival, exploration, adventure leading to an escape off-world? Or is this a test of a players ability to organize an assembly line and micromanage resource queue's??
So far, I like how this game is shaping up, ... I look forward to challenges being introduced.... but don't waste my time just for the sake of wasting time.
While it doesn't bother me to the extent that it does some others, I do think that extended crafting times is not a good change, for most of the same reasons that others have stated more eloquently.
Having said that, there is one case where a longer crafting time is good: when first building my Cyclops in stable I noticed that it took significantly longer than other things, and this contributed to the sense of "epic accomplishment" (the satisfying splash at the end also helps).
Having said that, I am not suggesting increasing the crafting time of the Cyclops. It could perhaps stand to be lengthened by about ten seconds, but any more than this would just be annoying. And it's important that the other tools you've crafted prior to this should take less time to craft, which appears to no longer be the case.
Came here with a big post in mind, but it looks like GlyphGryph and MrYar have already said everything that needs saying, so I'll just express my support for their posts instead.
As GlyphGryph said, I wouldn't mind longer crafting times (for some items), if they were actually long enough to give me time to get out of the base and do something. These occupy the worst possible in-between state of requiring waiting but being too short to engage in anything else. Just leaves you sitting around waiting for a timer to tick down, which is the last thing I wanted to do in this wonderful, beautiful game.
And don't get me started on this 'instant gratification' business, what an asinine and apropos-of-nothing statement. If wanting to actually play the game you intended to play is a desire for instant gratification, why bother trying to fix load screen times or stuttery chunk loading, either? It makes no sense.
In general, I have a very positive outlook on the design of this game, minor warts and all. This prospective change alarms me because it's the first one I completely and vehemently disagree with. It seems like nothing more than a nod to the side of the community that has made almost every other survival game a joyless exercise in navel-gazing, and I can't stress enough how much I hope the devs turn away from this kind of thing.
This thread quickly devolved into dog-piling to coerce the developers with a "popularity" vote into discarding their design decisions.
Little more than elaborate, passive aggressive bullying.
Wow it's incredible how many butt-hurt newcomers have appeared due to this issue.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the devs have a tough job, people have been asking for more realism for a long time and they're trying to find some balance.
(I don't agree 100% this is the best way to please those people, but I can somewhat understand why they've done what they've done.)
Like all issues, really, finding fragments, collecting resources, waiting for plants to grow, anything...
it comes down to a choice between "Here's everything, immediately, you have access but you'll probably get bored quickly and play for about 5 hours all together."
or...
"This is a game you will have to put a lot of time into, gathering resources, finding fragments, waiting for things to be built, and if you like that kind of thing you'll play for 30+ hours multiple times."
4) "It's about exploration" - Uh... what? This one doesn't even make any sense. At least it's not a thinly veiled insult (I think)? Just nonsense.
is ridiculous I'm afraid. The devs have stated, very clearly, multiple times, they want exploration to be the primary focus of the game.
Not base building.
Not escaping the planet.
Not any other end-game event that may or may not end up in there.
Exploration.
And it just seems that if you're not willing to wait a mere minute or so for something to be built, while you pop outside for that time and just exist, wander off a bit, watch some fish, whatever, then you're doing it wrong and you're playing the wrong game for you.
This thread quickly devolved into dog-piling to coerce the developers with a "popularity" vote into discarding their design decisions.
Little more than elaborate, passive aggressive bullying.
Exactly. I for one am glad to be a part of the camp who want the game the Devs want to make.
"It's about exploration" - Uh... what? This one doesn't even make any sense. At least it's not a thinly veiled insult (I think)? Just nonsense.
is ridiculous I'm afraid. The devs have stated, very clearly, multiple times, they want exploration to be the primary focus of the game.
Not base building.
Not escaping the planet.
Not any other end-game event that may or may not end up in there.
Exploration.
I wasn't saying exploration doesn't make sense, I was saying the argument that this is good because exploration is good doesn't make any sense. Please, you can't be this stupid, so don't act that way.
Exploration is why I play the game, which is why I am opposed to spending my time dealing with mind-numbing tedium when I could be getting back to exploring, and good games turning into boring grindfests always seems to start with garbage like this. What's ridiculous was the original claim that this somehow supports exploration or your even more ridiculous followup.
It does absolutely nothing to encourage exploration. It practically begs you to require you to spend time not-exploring. You're hardly going to go exploring during a 7 second cooldown, and 90 seconds isn't much of an opportunity to explore either... and what exactly do you think I am planning on doing when they are done crafting, a state I'd arrive at much more quickly without an imposed time delay?
Oh yeah, that's right, go exploring.
This is an anti-exploration feature if anything. It penalizes people for exploring, and then chains them to their base while they wait for their crafts to "cook". I don't see how anyone who likes exploring could possibly support this sort of thing.
it comes down to a choice between "Here's everything, immediately, you have access but you'll probably get bored quickly and play for about 5 hours all together."
or...
"This is a game you will have to put a lot of time into, gathering resources, finding fragments, waiting for things to be built, and if you like that kind of thing you'll play for 30+ hours multiple times."
This is the worst nonsense of all. No one is arguing for instant access to everything - they are arguing that we shouldn't need to waste our time doing nothing when we could be doing something. And "waiting for things" is very much a standout "unfun" activity that almost everyone agrees is unfun, unlike you know everything else on your list.
Why don't you actually try to explain what this is supposed to add to the game - how exactly wait timers would make the average player spend more time exploring instead of less? Since right now you're certainly stating it, but you've done nada to actually explain how that could even conceivably work.
This thread quickly devolved into dog-piling to coerce the developers with a "popularity" vote into discarding their design decisions.
Little more than elaborate, passive aggressive bullying.
Ahahah, disliking a "feature" that exists solely to waste the time of players is bullying now? Wowee.
This thread quickly devolved into dog-piling to coerce the developers with a "popularity" vote into discarding their design decisions.
Little more than elaborate, passive aggressive bullying.
Exactly. I for one am glad to be a part of the camp who want the game the Devs want to make.
Exactly so! At the end of the day this game is their vision not ours! And as I stated above they have to be doing this for a reason we may not know what that reason is as of yet but I personally have faith in them!
IDK how many times now I've seen people jumping down their throats for adding in a new mechanic or changing something here and there, just to back down later on when it's been fully fleshed out and implemented.
This has JUST came out of the oven guys. Give it time to cool down before you bite into it and spit it out..
Comments
We're talking 4 minutes maximum. Do you get upset when you have to microwave something for 4 minutes? Because you really need that lunch now, which is the whole reason you went to your kitchen in the first place? Because it already took time to get it and put it in the microwave? NO! Or at least you shouldn't, because if you've ever had used a microwave in your life, you know that that amount of time will go by like that. That's not even mentioning that the only things you actually NEED are food and water, and those times haven't been changed. You want your new futuristic tool. So saying "I need it now" just makes you sound spoiled, and its certainly not going to get you anywhere.
And about 'wasting time' - i will be more grateful if Devs make a process entering to base with animation: open outer door->enter to airlock->close the outer door behind->drain water->open inner door. JUST I LOVE REALISM.
You know what i miss in shooter' games? fitting bullets into clip for reloading gun. I hate that idea - when you just walk through dropped gun and you've got its ammo. IMHO
I'm quite a good a cook and I love good food.
So, when you are cooking something you almost never have to wait for some process to finish, because when something is being cooked in oven or in microwave, you are doing something else: peeling and slicing vegetables, mixing ingredients, taking care of frying pans (yes I usually cook at least on two in parallel), washing dishes/pots/knifes that you already used and so on.
So, making totally artificial limitation for a game is simply annoying and stupid.
We aren't playing Sims or Happy Farm, are we?
Like ALT+TAB and watch some youtube video or go complain on Subnautica forum about questionable game design decision... kinda I'm doing right now?
This is a game, not a real life. It is expected to be entertaining. Games are about having fun.
Manufacturing stuff in Subnautica used to be cool.
Thank you. I always try to be rational.
Go gather more materials. Build some habitat modules. Make a massive dong out of corridor pieces. My point is, perhaps take advantage of the fact that you can still paly the game while your item is being crafted, a concept which you seem to have not grasped, and do something else. Its 4 minutes. Are you really that impatient?
Take fish out of the aquarium for salting, check the water filtration machines, build a new base module, repair your seamoth, manage bettery and power cell chargers, plan your next trip, do some plain old inventory management....
The longer crafting times are for the most part and thankfully on the complex items you'll only make a few of and not the crafted items you'll be making in massive numbers. If the Ingots took two minutes to make, THAT would be annoying. Especially since between the subs themselves and their pressure compensators, you'll be making a lot of them.
Waiting a few minutes for a tool you'll probably only build once (unless you lose it somehow) is largely okay in my humble opinion, especially since - as repeated by several others as well as myself - you don't need to stand there and watch it. If Subnautica required you to stand by the Fabricator and watch the whole 1 ~ 4 minute crafting, I could see that as being a real problem.
Look the bottom line is the devs have a clear "vision" for this game, and if this is apart of that "vision" then they are adding it for a reason. Now this could be looked at a couple different ways, either that build times fit into the games technology lore some how and it's either already been explained how the fabricators work or it will be.
From a game play view, it doesn't detract at all from it, in fact I believe it adds to it. Sure it can take forever sometimes to find the fragments and then aquire the materials needed. But during that time I'm seeing the beautiful areas theyve designed. I'm taking my time to search things out, and in a world of instant gratification in video games this is a breath of fresh air so to speak. Not only is there now a "build up" in excitement almost like Christmas before my new tools are cooked. But it also adds to the resource management side of things.. longer build times means more power, more prep time before hand which to me translates to a more fleshed out gaming experience. Not just an artificial experience like 90% of the other games out there that has saturated the markets.
The way I've always looked at this game is. Everything I'm building should be equally matched in both materials and time, so when I'm able to build the cyclops on 5 stretched extremely thin ingots and less wires then would be in my car and then topped off with an almost instant build time that to me completely ruins immersion, I more then jump on board with build times that make sense.
And as stated by @Lonnehart, I would love to see how these people handle War Frame, where almost EVERYTHING takes hours and days to build not mere seconds and minutes. Again tho to me waiting 3 days for a new "character" to be built that I'll get weeks of game play out of is worth the wait!
That's not what Subnautica's about, though. It's about surviving in this new world. To survive you have to have a plan. You have to know what you're doing, you have to know in what order to craft things. If you need filtered water and a seaglide, you have to think to make the water first, then make a seaglide because that will take longer. No, it's not a Facebook farming game, it's far from it because in those you DO have to sit and wait for what you're building to build. But in Subnautica there's a whole new world to explore, outwards and downwards. Subnautica is rarely about "having every second count", it's rarely about "staying on your toes". It's about exploration, it's about taking in this beautiful world, it's about finding all of the wonderful creatures in that world, it truly is about the journey. If there somehow is nothing else to do whilst your flashlight crafts, explore this amazing place, swim over the Grassy Plateau, discover the giants that swim above it and ride with them, venture down the blood kelp caves, cut through the Kelp Forest, collect fragments as you explore, find your way to the very edges of the world in the dangerous dunes or the grand reef. Experience the stories of the Degasi survivors, follow their legacy. And when you get back you'll have your item crafted and the materials to make a new one. You put that on craft and do it again.
That's what Subnautica's about.
Well I started new game yesterday in experimental and I have absolutely no problem with the waiting. To me, it just makes more sense for the game, that those things take time. In a strange way, it is more satisfying (uh, weird I know). After establishing first base with decent amount of power (multipurpose room + bioreactor and so on...) and creating two fabricators, it is not a problem at all. And there just is enough other things you can do while crafting. It depends on player. But I love it
And yes, as @Jamezorg and other said: YOU NEED A PLAN TO SURVIVE, DON'T WAIT!
that is in my humble opinion completely asinine, whoever got the team together to make these elaborate nerf changes, just made a pretty controversial change that doesn't really factor in the fun/pain in the butt mechanic of this, I can only imagine the plethora of responses of players thinking
a) my fabricator is bugged and not making things like it used too
b) ARE U KIDDING it instantly materializes anything from blueprints, except for a freaking flashlight?
seriously whoever decided on this was high and in no way considering fun.
making a row of fabricators sure sounds like an ideal solution....
Yes it is an exploration game, it is fun to look at environment and creatures and search for stuff.
Long fabrication time has ZERO connection to it. NONE. NULL.
Done long time ago.
I've get new schematics, gathered resources to make it - I need this new toy to go exploring areas that were previously inaccessible to me - and now I have to wait for what reason? What value does it add to gameplay. It is just annoying.
Now IF there was a way to speed up construction to reasonable time (aka instant) - like fabricator upgrade or time booster of some sort - long fabrication time would have made sense, because they would be an obstacle that we could avoid by using other tools (Subnautica doesn't have much tools so adding extra one would make sense).
Currently it looks like a bug waiting to be fixed.
Note: I'm not inherently opposed to crafting times, but this implementation seems pretty bad and I am opposed to the sort of bad arguments being made here to justify it (most of which are thinly or not-so-thinly veiled insults).
Let's address them:
1) Realism - This adds no realism. Being able to make a complex eletricomechanical object in 210 seconds is no more realistic than being able to make it in 5.
2) "You can go do something else" - first up, this is an argument not that the change is good, but that the bad is avoidable, so it's inherently kind of garbage as a justification. "You can just avoid that if you don't like it" is always a bit of a weak argument, but it's even worse for something you can't actually avoid. On top of that, the timespans given are all still relatively short, which actively works to subvert that exact behaviour if it was actually the goal - you don't have enough time to do anything before it's done. Crafting times of ten or more minutes would ironically gather less opposition because it could be justified on the grounds of pacing - short but still significant crafting times don't have that going for them.
3) "We're talking 4 minutes maximum. Do you get upset when you have to microwave something for 4 minutes?" - Yes, 4 minutes maximum. That's exactly why it sucks so bad. See the above explanation, and then read this: Imagine you did all the work of cooking your food, and *then* your microwave arbitrarily demanded you leave the food sitting on the table for 4 more minutes, for no purpose. That is the situation we are looking at, and most people would be pretty annoyed at that. On top of that, this is a game where things are supposed to serve a purpose, so this still isn't a justification, just an insult directed at people who would be annoyed.
4) "It's about exploration" - Uh... what? This one doesn't even make any sense. At least it's not a thinly veiled insult (I think)? Just nonsense.
Let's be honest about what we're discussing here: What is being added is straight up tedium. If you want to defend it, it's not enough to insult the people annoyed by it or who don't find it enjoyable, it's not enough to say it's easy to avoid, you need to actually argue that it adds something positive to the game (because it's obvious that even if it doesn't for you, it obviously adds something negative for others).
Incentives based on minimizing player frustration rather than maximizing player abilities are generally bad design, since it means you have to introduce introduce things to make the player experience less enjoyable. It only really works for things people didn't notice to be frustrated by in the first place, but appreciate after the fact... and people will definitely notice crafting times. It's something that can be made to work if it's part of an enjoyable optimization mini-game in and of itself, but these changes do not point in that direction.
This is a game with a fictional manufacturing process - making me stand around for 4 minutes is no more realistic than a few seconds.
GlyphGryph is 100% correct. This change adds nothing but tedium and actively makes the game less fun. This increases friction that keeps the player from actually playing the game.
The only thing that matters is the craft time on the constructor because of the assumption that you will only have your escape pod's sole fabricator when making it, which means you are stuck waiting for it to craft. After that you can bypass most of the actual downside of this change by building another fabricator in your base.
That's it. Now my bases will have two fabricators instead of one. I know I already spend up to 5-6 minutes typically in my base checking on water filters, fish tanks, the power situation, organizing my myriad of lockers, maybe adding a helpful sign or two etc.
I also know I will be incredibly annoyed because I forgot to craft something at the start of my base management and now have to sit on my fingers waiting for it to be done instead of just calling myself a dope while I whip it up.
As such I fail to see any design goal being fulfilled by these increased craft times other than 'it makes sense.' Even then it doesn't make any more sense than it does when everything is crafted sub-5 seconds (the fabricator can disinfect, de-bone and cook a whole fish of a species I only learned of a minute ago in 3 seconds but it takes 90 seconds to make a simple flashlight!?)
A good example of craft/build times being 'realistic' for the sake of gameplay is also already in the game: the medkit fabricator. You get a medkit whenever you build one, thus it takes a significant enough amount of time to build to dissuade people from simply constructing/deconstructing it and stuffing yourself to the gills with medkits really quickly. If you play conservatively and are diligent in checking your fabricators regularly you'll start tripping over medkits eventually, but now it's a background process that you don't have to worry about and get to swim with the fishies while your vast medkit wealth amasses itself back at your base/escape pod/cyclops.
Instead of a monotonous process of watching something being made and unmade over and over again.
That is a good use of crafting/build time to get you to do something else while you wait for it to be done.
This change does not accomplish that.
It has one connection, but as GlyphGryph pointed out above, the times are actually too short to accomplish this connection. The times line up with doing other things inside of your base, but I'm not sure what other things you can actually do in your base that you aren't already doing. Look out the windows? Harvest and replant your microacres of Koosh? Double check that your bioreactor still has yet to consume a single Rabbit Ray because you're so awesome at power management?
I guess you could use the scanning room, but that has it's own issues that need to be worked on (and is still nowhere near as fun as going out and doing your exploration yourself.)
I'll also let loose a dig at minecraft here... one of the worst decisions ever made was the 45 second dig time for obsidian... ie, conflagration of game difficulty, by taking up arbitrarily more of the player's time.
Now, some people who live in their games probably have no issues with things taking longer... so I can see where this impulse comes from, and why it shows up in the good ideas club from time to time.
However, for my gaming experiences, I don't have enough time for life in general, and gaming doubly-so. So when I have time to sit and enjoy some time gaming, I don't want it to resemble chores, I don't want it to resemble IRL type tedium of tasks... and one of the quickest ways for me to turn off a game (or avoid purchasing altogether) is for the game to literally waste my time with make-work projects which serve little or no useful purpose.
Now.... I'm not entirely against crafting to maybe take some time... it "might" serve other gameplay purposes... ie: requiring more fabricators for parallel manufacturing, which require more power, and thus more resources. There are parts of that I would personally take as a challenge, and enjoy...
However.... all this would have to be balanced off with time, vs resource balance, vs gameplay intent.
Is this survival, exploration, adventure leading to an escape off-world? Or is this a test of a players ability to organize an assembly line and micromanage resource queue's??
So far, I like how this game is shaping up, ... I look forward to challenges being introduced.... but don't waste my time just for the sake of wasting time.
Having said that, there is one case where a longer crafting time is good: when first building my Cyclops in stable I noticed that it took significantly longer than other things, and this contributed to the sense of "epic accomplishment" (the satisfying splash at the end also helps).
Having said that, I am not suggesting increasing the crafting time of the Cyclops. It could perhaps stand to be lengthened by about ten seconds, but any more than this would just be annoying. And it's important that the other tools you've crafted prior to this should take less time to craft, which appears to no longer be the case.
As GlyphGryph said, I wouldn't mind longer crafting times (for some items), if they were actually long enough to give me time to get out of the base and do something. These occupy the worst possible in-between state of requiring waiting but being too short to engage in anything else. Just leaves you sitting around waiting for a timer to tick down, which is the last thing I wanted to do in this wonderful, beautiful game.
And don't get me started on this 'instant gratification' business, what an asinine and apropos-of-nothing statement. If wanting to actually play the game you intended to play is a desire for instant gratification, why bother trying to fix load screen times or stuttery chunk loading, either? It makes no sense.
In general, I have a very positive outlook on the design of this game, minor warts and all. This prospective change alarms me because it's the first one I completely and vehemently disagree with. It seems like nothing more than a nod to the side of the community that has made almost every other survival game a joyless exercise in navel-gazing, and I can't stress enough how much I hope the devs turn away from this kind of thing.
Little more than elaborate, passive aggressive bullying.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the devs have a tough job, people have been asking for more realism for a long time and they're trying to find some balance.
(I don't agree 100% this is the best way to please those people, but I can somewhat understand why they've done what they've done.)
Like all issues, really, finding fragments, collecting resources, waiting for plants to grow, anything...
it comes down to a choice between "Here's everything, immediately, you have access but you'll probably get bored quickly and play for about 5 hours all together."
or...
"This is a game you will have to put a lot of time into, gathering resources, finding fragments, waiting for things to be built, and if you like that kind of thing you'll play for 30+ hours multiple times."
And this... is ridiculous I'm afraid. The devs have stated, very clearly, multiple times, they want exploration to be the primary focus of the game.
Not base building.
Not escaping the planet.
Not any other end-game event that may or may not end up in there.
Exploration.
And it just seems that if you're not willing to wait a mere minute or so for something to be built, while you pop outside for that time and just exist, wander off a bit, watch some fish, whatever, then you're doing it wrong and you're playing the wrong game for you.
Exactly. I for one am glad to be a part of the camp who want the game the Devs want to make.
I wasn't saying exploration doesn't make sense, I was saying the argument that this is good because exploration is good doesn't make any sense. Please, you can't be this stupid, so don't act that way.
Exploration is why I play the game, which is why I am opposed to spending my time dealing with mind-numbing tedium when I could be getting back to exploring, and good games turning into boring grindfests always seems to start with garbage like this. What's ridiculous was the original claim that this somehow supports exploration or your even more ridiculous followup.
It does absolutely nothing to encourage exploration. It practically begs you to require you to spend time not-exploring. You're hardly going to go exploring during a 7 second cooldown, and 90 seconds isn't much of an opportunity to explore either... and what exactly do you think I am planning on doing when they are done crafting, a state I'd arrive at much more quickly without an imposed time delay?
Oh yeah, that's right, go exploring.
This is an anti-exploration feature if anything. It penalizes people for exploring, and then chains them to their base while they wait for their crafts to "cook". I don't see how anyone who likes exploring could possibly support this sort of thing.
This is the worst nonsense of all. No one is arguing for instant access to everything - they are arguing that we shouldn't need to waste our time doing nothing when we could be doing something. And "waiting for things" is very much a standout "unfun" activity that almost everyone agrees is unfun, unlike you know everything else on your list.
Why don't you actually try to explain what this is supposed to add to the game - how exactly wait timers would make the average player spend more time exploring instead of less? Since right now you're certainly stating it, but you've done nada to actually explain how that could even conceivably work.
Ahahah, disliking a "feature" that exists solely to waste the time of players is bullying now? Wowee.
Exactly so! At the end of the day this game is their vision not ours! And as I stated above they have to be doing this for a reason we may not know what that reason is as of yet but I personally have faith in them!
IDK how many times now I've seen people jumping down their throats for adding in a new mechanic or changing something here and there, just to back down later on when it's been fully fleshed out and implemented.
This has JUST came out of the oven guys. Give it time to cool down before you bite into it and spit it out..