Gameplay & Story Elements
MasterZ1232
Join Date: 2017-01-21 Member: 227072Members
Join Date: 2017-01-21 Member: 227072Members
So, I started playing Subnautica a few days ago, and from what I've seen so far, I am both amazed and disappointed. I'm not disappointed with the game, the art, nothing of that sort, I'm disappointed with how much potential you have, yet almost none of that potential has been taken advantage of. Things like base building and exploration are amazing, but I see how they could be better, so please stay with me to see a glimpse of this game's pure potential.
Bases: Destruction and Customization
The bases in this game are amazing, with multiple pieces and several decorations for the interior, but I don't see how some of these things add up. We can see some of the bases the Degasi crew built throughout the game, and see how they've been destroyed, not only that, be we know how they were destroyed. The base in the Deep Grand Reef is torn to pieces, and it was because of a leviathan of some sort, so if that base was to have been destroyed by a leviathan, why is it that when we have our bases attacked by a leviathan, it only causes the base to flood. Sure, complete destruction of your base would be extremely frustrating, but it can make for some amazing scenes. Imagine this: Your base is somewhere near the edge of a surface, all of the sudden you hear a leviathan. The room you are in is sealed by a bulkhead, you look out your window, there it is, the leviathan, it is headed straight for your base. The leviathan slams into the corridor, breaking it open and sending you and the room/corridor that you are in down the chasm. Everything is spinning around, you are taking extreme damage from multiple things, the glass shattering, slamming into the walls, objects flying around the room, yet you see an opening for an escape. You swim towards it at full force while trying to avoid the debris, you make it to the opening just in time and you make it out. You look below you and you see the room slam into the ocean floor, leaving a mark forever. Seriously, if there were segments in the game that had that amount of suspense I would be in heaven, it would be so amazing to see that mark every time you go down there and you know that you had done an amazingly epic escape. Sure, the base would have to be repaired and you could never reclaim that part of your base, but it gives you an opening for adjustment, changing the base to make sure that never happens again. Seriously though, please do something with base physics, make them more realistic, like if it were to get hit by a fireball from a sea dragon, the glass would break and the base would explode instead of causing some flooding. Also please encourage players to build multiple bases, this would be more realistic instead of having to swim back to the seamoth every time you die. Maybe in the future you could add some more base customization, like the interior and exterior colors of the base, these could be adjusted with the customization room; a new room that lets you adjust everything base-wise, from colors to power, it would be nicer and could help in survival situations where you might need to re-route power to more important areas of the base.
Sea-Emperor Size & Death
The Sea-Emperor is going to be the biggest creature in the game, and that means that it will have to be massive. Not just 5 times as big as the Sea-Dragon, but it would have to be bigger than the Lost River monster for it to be the biggest creature in the game. This would be a major reveal towards the ending, for the creature to be bigger than the Lost River monster, it would be magnificent. Also please make the emperor die, I know that sounds horrible but it would really make for a meaningful moment in the game. You go through all of this trouble, then you see her die, whether or not she would tell you she's dying I don't know, but I think that it would be beautiful to see her pass away, with her final moments being a telepathic conversation between her and the player, in which she explains why the player needs to hatch the eggs, and everything. The final action the player does before they leave the planet would fulfill the Sea-Emperor's legacy, and carry the eggs to different regions of the planet, that way the juveniles can produce the cure for the carar in those respective regions, it would be logical and heart warming to end the game.
Story Elements
Ok, so I think that throughout the story we should have to start salvaging, from going into the Aurora several time with different objectives each time, to finding the other lifepods and scanning them for metal. Also, I think that the lifepod should be destroyed near the end of the game, it would truly have the player thinking that all of this had better work out, or else it would be all for nothing. The game should have multiple endings, here are some I came up with: The player meets the Sea Emperor, has a conversation with her about what can be done to cure the carar, and the player realizes that to cure the carar, they have to give their life; The player meets the Sea Emperor and at the time wants to leave the carar to kill all of the creatures like they had tried to kill him, the player ends up getting cured and leaves the planet to die, afterwards being shot down due to the fit of anger that caused him to forget to disable the array; The player meets the Sea Emperor, but learns that out of their own actions, the only way for enough of Enzyme 42 to be released is for the player to kill the Emperor, the Player has to kill her and makes sure to detonate the facility with her in it to prevent any resurrection, as the emperor has lived long enough. Some of those aren't really applicable, but the ideas could work. Subnautica shouldn't have a happy ending, make sure to leave it where the player is sad to leave the planet, this can be done by making connections with the creature, maybe even a meaningful scene between the player and a sick Sea Dragon Leviathan, one that is about to die due to the carar. The player would hear the screams, yet they would sound different, almost like painful screams, they would look around and see a carar-infected Sea Dragon at the peak of death, the player would swim over there and put their hand on its head, look it in the eyes and see all of the pain it has been through, the Dragon passes away a painful death and the last moments of peace were with the player. Doing this multiple times would build a bond between the player and the animals on the planet, and lead up to a sad ending with the player leaving everything behind.
If you have any ideas for subnautica please comment below and if you agree with some things I've said please comment that below and have a nice day!
Bases: Destruction and Customization
The bases in this game are amazing, with multiple pieces and several decorations for the interior, but I don't see how some of these things add up. We can see some of the bases the Degasi crew built throughout the game, and see how they've been destroyed, not only that, be we know how they were destroyed. The base in the Deep Grand Reef is torn to pieces, and it was because of a leviathan of some sort, so if that base was to have been destroyed by a leviathan, why is it that when we have our bases attacked by a leviathan, it only causes the base to flood. Sure, complete destruction of your base would be extremely frustrating, but it can make for some amazing scenes. Imagine this: Your base is somewhere near the edge of a surface, all of the sudden you hear a leviathan. The room you are in is sealed by a bulkhead, you look out your window, there it is, the leviathan, it is headed straight for your base. The leviathan slams into the corridor, breaking it open and sending you and the room/corridor that you are in down the chasm. Everything is spinning around, you are taking extreme damage from multiple things, the glass shattering, slamming into the walls, objects flying around the room, yet you see an opening for an escape. You swim towards it at full force while trying to avoid the debris, you make it to the opening just in time and you make it out. You look below you and you see the room slam into the ocean floor, leaving a mark forever. Seriously, if there were segments in the game that had that amount of suspense I would be in heaven, it would be so amazing to see that mark every time you go down there and you know that you had done an amazingly epic escape. Sure, the base would have to be repaired and you could never reclaim that part of your base, but it gives you an opening for adjustment, changing the base to make sure that never happens again. Seriously though, please do something with base physics, make them more realistic, like if it were to get hit by a fireball from a sea dragon, the glass would break and the base would explode instead of causing some flooding. Also please encourage players to build multiple bases, this would be more realistic instead of having to swim back to the seamoth every time you die. Maybe in the future you could add some more base customization, like the interior and exterior colors of the base, these could be adjusted with the customization room; a new room that lets you adjust everything base-wise, from colors to power, it would be nicer and could help in survival situations where you might need to re-route power to more important areas of the base.
Sea-Emperor Size & Death
The Sea-Emperor is going to be the biggest creature in the game, and that means that it will have to be massive. Not just 5 times as big as the Sea-Dragon, but it would have to be bigger than the Lost River monster for it to be the biggest creature in the game. This would be a major reveal towards the ending, for the creature to be bigger than the Lost River monster, it would be magnificent. Also please make the emperor die, I know that sounds horrible but it would really make for a meaningful moment in the game. You go through all of this trouble, then you see her die, whether or not she would tell you she's dying I don't know, but I think that it would be beautiful to see her pass away, with her final moments being a telepathic conversation between her and the player, in which she explains why the player needs to hatch the eggs, and everything. The final action the player does before they leave the planet would fulfill the Sea-Emperor's legacy, and carry the eggs to different regions of the planet, that way the juveniles can produce the cure for the carar in those respective regions, it would be logical and heart warming to end the game.
Story Elements
Ok, so I think that throughout the story we should have to start salvaging, from going into the Aurora several time with different objectives each time, to finding the other lifepods and scanning them for metal. Also, I think that the lifepod should be destroyed near the end of the game, it would truly have the player thinking that all of this had better work out, or else it would be all for nothing. The game should have multiple endings, here are some I came up with: The player meets the Sea Emperor, has a conversation with her about what can be done to cure the carar, and the player realizes that to cure the carar, they have to give their life; The player meets the Sea Emperor and at the time wants to leave the carar to kill all of the creatures like they had tried to kill him, the player ends up getting cured and leaves the planet to die, afterwards being shot down due to the fit of anger that caused him to forget to disable the array; The player meets the Sea Emperor, but learns that out of their own actions, the only way for enough of Enzyme 42 to be released is for the player to kill the Emperor, the Player has to kill her and makes sure to detonate the facility with her in it to prevent any resurrection, as the emperor has lived long enough. Some of those aren't really applicable, but the ideas could work. Subnautica shouldn't have a happy ending, make sure to leave it where the player is sad to leave the planet, this can be done by making connections with the creature, maybe even a meaningful scene between the player and a sick Sea Dragon Leviathan, one that is about to die due to the carar. The player would hear the screams, yet they would sound different, almost like painful screams, they would look around and see a carar-infected Sea Dragon at the peak of death, the player would swim over there and put their hand on its head, look it in the eyes and see all of the pain it has been through, the Dragon passes away a painful death and the last moments of peace were with the player. Doing this multiple times would build a bond between the player and the animals on the planet, and lead up to a sad ending with the player leaving everything behind.
If you have any ideas for subnautica please comment below and if you agree with some things I've said please comment that below and have a nice day!
Comments
PS: I envy all of those lucky souls that get to experience this game for the first time on release.
QFT.
A lot of good ideas up top, don't know that I necessarily agree with some of the later ones, but they're good ideas even if I don't particularly like some of them, nice work!
It'd be super doubtful you could kill the Sea Emperor unless her containment has an emergency killswitch, and there really is no reason to because the planned story is that she no longer makes useful Enzyme 42