Prawn update once again nearly unplayable early game
orobouros
US Join Date: 2016-04-01 Member: 215163Members
US Join Date: 2016-04-01 Member: 215163Members
Can't build anything because even more basic things are now locked behind nearly-inaccessible fragments or newly require even more computer chips and wiring kits.
Can't explore because you have no real base, just a tube with some lockers in it. You go out poorly equipped, and find every fragment is now behind 3,000 hungry sandsharks. That now have telescopic vision, spot you all but over the horizon, and follow you all the way home. I now cannot leave my pitiful base because the sandsharks that followed me home from the first debris field I tried to scan have camped outside my hatch, in the middle of the Shallows, forever.
Seriously, if you want this game to be PLAYABLE, not just done by streamers console-commanding everything in, if you want us to actually test gameplay, then freaking stop messing around with where the fragments are and address predator spawning, persistence, leashing, and AI.
Every time you update I feel like I'm almost instantly done with this game because that WALL of difficulty early game gets worse and worse all the time. If it were just the Grassy Plateau being a no-go-zone (which it is - dive even 10 meters below the surface, instantly get aggroed by rising sandsharks that drop everything to eat you - WTH?), that would be one thing, but then when the sharks move into the shallows? NOW what are you supposed to do? With your non-rechargeable batteries and perpetually-empty Seaglide, enemies that can't be bribed or distracted, and that pathetic, utterly useless knife?
I never supported the lethal weapons argument, but you KEEP MAKING IT DAMNED NEAR IMPOSSIBLE TO PROGRESS, every single update. It's incredibly frustrating. I might have thoughts about whether it was better to search nooks and crannies for fragments than have them grouped... if I could get within 100 meters of a fragment, even one lousy time. But I can't. So I guess I really am done, again, until you have a "Balance Update". Here's to wishing.
Can't explore because you have no real base, just a tube with some lockers in it. You go out poorly equipped, and find every fragment is now behind 3,000 hungry sandsharks. That now have telescopic vision, spot you all but over the horizon, and follow you all the way home. I now cannot leave my pitiful base because the sandsharks that followed me home from the first debris field I tried to scan have camped outside my hatch, in the middle of the Shallows, forever.
Seriously, if you want this game to be PLAYABLE, not just done by streamers console-commanding everything in, if you want us to actually test gameplay, then freaking stop messing around with where the fragments are and address predator spawning, persistence, leashing, and AI.
Every time you update I feel like I'm almost instantly done with this game because that WALL of difficulty early game gets worse and worse all the time. If it were just the Grassy Plateau being a no-go-zone (which it is - dive even 10 meters below the surface, instantly get aggroed by rising sandsharks that drop everything to eat you - WTH?), that would be one thing, but then when the sharks move into the shallows? NOW what are you supposed to do? With your non-rechargeable batteries and perpetually-empty Seaglide, enemies that can't be bribed or distracted, and that pathetic, utterly useless knife?
I never supported the lethal weapons argument, but you KEEP MAKING IT DAMNED NEAR IMPOSSIBLE TO PROGRESS, every single update. It's incredibly frustrating. I might have thoughts about whether it was better to search nooks and crannies for fragments than have them grouped... if I could get within 100 meters of a fragment, even one lousy time. But I can't. So I guess I really am done, again, until you have a "Balance Update". Here's to wishing.
Comments
First time i wandered into the grassy plateau there was nothing to harass me but a single biter. Subsequent visits I would run into as many as five sand sharks at once but they all ignored me to play in the sand.
Granted I am still on my first playthrough so it's entirely possible I got a blessed from the heavens glitch that gave me plenty of fragments and dumbed down my predators. I even outswam a reaper, which I could never do before.
I've heard of other people getting no fragments though and that is either a bug or an adjustment that the spawn rates are in desperate need of.
Anyway, most of the predators in this game - Sandsharks included - can be juked and avoided pretty easily. Honestly at this point I just ignore their existence for the most part. With swimming fins on they don't even catch you most of the time, or get bored and wander off. The only time they present a more significant distraction is when you have to stop moving for something like scanning in which case you can still avoid damage by just strafing past the fragment and doing a 'drive by' scanning.
Here's the thing though.. I could see these things being a little frustrating for newer players so I could maybe understand tweaking aggro radius and such for that reason.. but for me, being experienced with the game, I actually find most of the games threats too /easy/ to deal with.
There's a recent topic which suggests adding a 'difficulty' selection for the game. I think that'd be a great way to appease both sides of the argument. Yes it would take coding time away from other potential features but at least it would give a more definitive solution for the issue of difficulty balance for players who want difference experiences out of the game.
I kind of like the increased threat I'm beginning to associate with the sand sharks. There was a time when they had a tiny aggro radius and you'd have to be right in front of them for them to take any notice of you. Now I have to pay close attention when I notice plumes of sand being thrown up.
Trust me, Subnautica is a piece of cake when compared to ARK (Where you start out with NOTHING), which drops you in the middle of nowhere where dinosaurs can devour you within several seconds of spawning. At least Subnautica is kind enough to give you an endless supply of first-aid kits right off the bat and a few provisions to get you started.
The feeling i get is, they try to make exploration a little weee bit more dangerous updates after updates. You need to adjust your strategies in order to survive. After all, this is a survival/exploration game you know
Ill agree that when the game starts the feeling of helpless'ness is more there than ever before. You start with almost no useful blueprints and you need to find the good ones while exploring which in my taste is more and more better achieved with each passing updates. Huge bravo to the Devs i like the way the game is going
Its harder at game start but certainly not impossible. If you're not confident you can survive without dying then Hardcore isnt for you, simply choose one of the other modes. Right now at game start theres more than enough Seaglide/Solar panels fragments lying around the safe shallows. With those exploration becomes a lil less tedious. You can explore farther and make simple outposts as you go in order to survive the biomes you cross.
I've got to say, i love the game more and more as its development progresses. This is my own opinion of course, everyone is entitled to theirs. I just wanted to share that if you relax and devise strategies for every problems you come across, you'll survive just fine in this cruel but beautiful world that is Subnautica
As for them following you home, how close did you build to that biome? I've never had any of them able to follow me all the way home. I always sprinted for the surface and half way up they gave up went back down toward the bottom.
I do like that they are more dangerous, but I agree the spawn rates are messed up. Especially if some people only have a few and people like us have thirty of the suckers. I literally couldn't find a single direction where there weren't several immediately in front of me.
I would have to disagree with that, particularly the late game stuff. The game flows fine until you get your seamoth. Then you hit this wall. "Wander around until you find stuff" is the only rule from there, there's nothing to guide you to the next point and even those of us that know where stuff is have to rely on exploits to make it accessible.
There's the gated Aurora where all the useful stuff requires Propulsion Gun and Laser Cutter to get further. We have a jump we can exploit (assumed devs didn't take sprinting jump into consideration when they planned that layout). Getting the laser cutter requires stumbling upon the mountain which, given it's the home of the reapers, is unlikely to be something any new player is going to succeed in. Even with wiki help, that reaper threat is still very imposing for someone with no defenses.
As far as upgrading the seamoth to deal with reapers, it requires the vehicle mod station which is gated at a depth we cannot explore without more exploits (filling your inventory with pipe, waiting for your seabed of brain coral to grow, and surviving agressive predators we also aren't equipped for including more reapers), which is the same case for the propulsion gun.
Players like us can manage because we already know. We know where the wrecks are, we know all the exploits, and we don't mind if there's only one way to get by and that way is so ridiculous that it paralyzes us from doing anything else (what else are you going to do with an inventory full of pipe that you had to farm an hour or two for, or while waiting for your coral to grow). Will not complaining make it so your seamoth can dive 300+ meters? No? Well I guess that approach is shot.
TLDR - yes it's manageable but that's because we already know what we are doing. There is nothing that helps newcomers deal with this stuff.
Could we please stop with that mountain island bullshit?
This is a list of all biomes that countain basalt, which in turn contains diamonds: Blood Kelp Zone, Grand Reef, Deep Grand Reef, Koosh Zone, Koosh Zone Caves, Mushroom Forest, Underwater Islands. If you just move away a bit farther from shallows you will quickly end up at one of them and will receive a diamond. Heck, I think there is a cave with membrane trees somewhere near the shallows that contains basalt.
Additionally: reapers don't dwell near the surface. If you get on the island and park you seamoth at the surface it is unlikely you'll encounter a reaper.
That are not exploits, those are normal strategies. Going beyond the depth of your seamoth by about ~100 meter is also a basic thing to do. Also you get the first pressure compensator in the aurora, which means you won't even need to go beyond your moths depth if you go about things in a different sequence.
I have not rated your post because i agree with parts of it and disagree with others. While its true that new players dont posess the degree of knowledge on the game that a veteran player has, its only a question of time for a new player to start discovering what is where exactly. I mean, there more than 1 biome where to find diamonds, you'll find some in the Grand Reef, underwater islands too ... Of course, i base all my assumptions on my own gameplay experience and from what i read from others on this forum. Some peoples with identify things and places faster than others but in the end you come to realize that, ok the limestones give me either titanium, copper or lead -- the sandstone either gold or silver and so on .... eventually a new player come to see that diamonds are found in basalt and exploration teaches you where to find some of them relatively safely.
What i'll agree on tho is the game progression. I kind of agree that since there is very little details on what all the possibilities are, its hard to tell from a new player's perspective what to build when or even where to go explore first, then second then third and so on. This leads every single player's gameplay to unfold differently from one another. That being said the game is far from being done, we got at least another good 4-5 months before v1.0 release so they've got more than enough time to work on some kind of ''main quest'' to give you some guiding thru the game's progression. Its already started with the radio giving us signals to the various damaged lifepods. Following the signals to them allows us to find useful info on how things happened and also sometimes new Tech like the radiation suit, compass etc....
What i mean to say is that right now its far from perfect since the game is far from completed and theres the whole Story mode not yet released. Im sure that in the near future the Radio with give us also signals to the other main wrecks, where the player will find all the important blueprints like the prop cannon so that we can enter the Aurora to find the Exosuit frags and so on.
Basalt is an even more poor source of diamond than Sandstone is of silver. Maybe 1 in 50 nodes, or less, actually drop diamond in my experience. Almost always gold, 99% of the time. To actually get diamond you have to get to the Deep Grand Reef (far too deep, crabsquids) or Underwater Islands (permanent No Go Zone without a Seamoth due to absolutely ridiculous boneshark density), where they appear individually. Just saying. Diamond is a huge gate, even when you only need one.
I've had experiences similar to what you're all describing - in previous updates. Now the entire biome is utterly unapproachable, all day and night. Maybe I'll restart, but given how awful it is to even get this far (what with stalkers and sandsharks just deciding to live in the Shallows in numbers, filling in the increasingly tiny spaces between Gasopod herds), I'm reluctant.
What do you mean there's "no way through them"? Of course there is, you just go right through them.
Other than that I find op's post to be extremely over exaggerated. First of all, I don't understand people that think not having the multipurpose room = no base. As someone who's been playing since before those were even in the game I can tell you its more than possible to build a viable base without them. Get creative.
Second, its not that hard to find fragments. If you just keep following the signals that the radio in the lifepod gives you, you'll find that a lot of the destroyed lifepods are near, or right next to, a wreck which contains fragments. Seriously, I found the battery recharger very early in the game.
Third, I've never had a sandshark follow me home. I have found one or two at the edge of the safe shallows but those are easily avoided.
I have started a new Game, and it wasn´t ever easier to get Blueprints or the Seamoth like now.
Try to repair your Pod first, get the Messages and the Signs with them, and reach the Pods, many important Blueprints are there. It is like a easy way Tutorial for the ´´ New ´´ Players.
You find Seamoth, Battery Charger and almost anything to explore in the future there.
I and my Lady have almost over 1200 Hours spent on Subnautica, 1160 together on her Account (it is a great Game to play for a Couple) , and it was so easy to get the basic prints this time, like it was never before.
BTW, if you only wan´t to explore, there is a Mode for this
As for sand sharks.. yeah they are a little bit of a pain but easy enough to avoid and ignore once you get comfortable with their movements and attack patterns. It's really just the sound they make that drives me a little batty since you hear it near-constantly in areas they spawn.
Thanks for the support on the Sandsharks. As far as the base goes, I was actually referring more to the lack of an Alien Containment for a fish farm, making a base that is something other than a container for better lockers than the floating ones. You know, functionality of some kind? Enabling a little exploration instead of the constant grind for food & water?
I never had one follow me home before, either. Randomly spawn in the Shallows, unfortunately yes, but not follow me like that last pack.
To be honest, I stopped following the signals to try to go to places I knew. The first one I tried was, unfortunately, Lifepod 8, which is apparently meant to be a demonstration of how the DYING MECHANIC works, since it sends you directly to a
Where is Lifepod 8? I went to the location of the beacon and the beacon was just sitting a couple meters off the ground next to a wreck, with no lifepod nearby. Also
But tonight I think i'll give the prawn update a go, since I do wana check it out and also see what you are talking about.
1) Sandsharks should stick to sand. I don't mind their horizontal aggro range, but their vertical aggro should be very short.
2) Putting hull depth upgrade fragments below that hull depth is a really dick move.
Disagree. In fact the best place for them is just barely below the depth. Park your moth above crush depth and dive the rest of the way. Get back a sense of survival adventure and "did I pack enough O2 tanks" panic.
Get the Seaglide and some Batteries and the game is easy. And if you can`t operate the glide good enough to handle the predators, go to baby mode via getting the Exosuit from the Aurora.
Maybe you should think of what you are playing; crashland on a hostile alien planet. Yeah it`s hard at start, but not impossible. Get some guts, stop crying and start surviving (and later enjoying what you accomplished so far.).
Edit: Took a break quite a while so things changed a bit, but except having problems entering the Aurora and THEN getting the modding station there weren`t big problems. Hell, even went down to the lava caves only with the Exo suit to gather sulfur for the dive upgrade and didn`t have problems without the big submarine.
And you got taken away the starting multipurpose room? Build some foundations with 3 attached tubes. Enough space for lockers, a fabricator etc.
Sigh, getting the feeling less and less people can and want to adapt to new situations. You play early access, so expect changes in difficulty and that you have to adapt. Else don`t play early access games and wait for their official release.
On the other hand, I would`ve totally understood if people complained about getting their terraforming taken away. It was so fun and that is something I (might) cry about.
There are reapers in the place you need to go to? How is that a problem? You hover around at a safe distance, learn the reaper's route, wait for it to be as far away from the fragment you need as possible, then you dive in for it and run like hell. If you still manage to die, you try again. And again. Until you succeed.
If you want a game where there is no difficulty, no danger, no obstacles to overcome, go play... ugh, I dunno, is there such a game, at all? In any case, Subnautica does not seem to be the game for you. Nor any other survival game, for that matter.
I may just be very lucky, but I was playing (on a creative game just to screw around mind you), went to the mountain island, broke the first basalt chunk I found, got a diamond. That, and there's at least 30 chunks on the island.
I consistently get diamond from the basalt on the mountain at a rate of around 1 in 5.
You are either exaggerating or very unlucky.
I commented on the sandshark issue literally five posts above this one? As I said there, I agree that the spawn rate for them is broken (my grassy plateaus are crawling with them in huge numbers), but you can get through them with a little planning. Bring some first aid kits like I did. Expect to get bitten a few times. I suck at dodging them, so I deal with the damage as best as I can.
Also to stop them from following you home, swim straight up for the surface. Halfway up they should wander off back to the bottom. If they don't, don't swim home til they leave you alone.
It certainly isn't a long term fix by any means, but it can hold you over til the devs hopefully tweak the numbers. Took me several hours of play to get to the seamoth, but I did manage it.
So I haven't had too rough a time of it. Not that it was "easy" either.