Progression, My Thoughts So Far
Carl_Bar
Join Date: 2017-02-03 Member: 227560Members
Join Date: 2017-02-03 Member: 227560Members
My current save is now exceeding 24 48 hours so i wanted to throw my thoughts out on progression. Note i'm aware this is WIP pre-release, e.t.c. and much may be planned, just giving my thoughts to date ok.
Right out the gate from the pod the difficulty curve of progression isn't a curve, it's a cliff. The two most basic items you need to progress further are a knife and flippers. And both mean trips into stalker infested kelp forests. And theres few if any safe areas inside the kelp forests and no kelp forests that aren't infested. Get those and and it becomes at least possibble to run away without getting hit reliably, but you still have to know having the knife out will make them aggro from further away and chase you indefinitely. But you still need to go back in there because you need silver, and given the terrible silver to gold ratio you'll be doing a lot of spelunking here to get a basic base setup. In the process of exploring around you should hopefully find seaglide fragments.
At this point you can use the seaglide to go explore deeper wrecks, (mostly in the grassy plateau area), and your fast enough the sort of stuff you're facing can't catch you if you just flat out leg it. Theoretically ofc if your insane you can use the floating air pump and pipes to visit nearly every part of the game, (I think only the active lava zone is off limits), but thats seriously hardcore IMO. Still the follow on semi deep wrecks are perfect in terms of loot and what that means for progression. The majority of them give you the fragments for the battery charger to make your seaglide self sustaining and the seamoth which is the traditional way to deeper area's.
And this is where the progression IMO more or less completely breaks down. Naturally you'll want/expect to find Powercell charger fragments. Except compared to the prior phase with it's battery charger fragments the powercell fragments are quite rare turning up in very few places relative to everything opened up. The upgrade path in terms of progression is pretty messy at this point too. You have 4 options. The Modification Station, The Vehicle Modification Station, The PRAWN Suit, and the Cyclops.
The modification Station, aside from the quite important and useful pressure compensators, (though why they're here and not in Vehicle modification i don't know), isn't very useful, at this point it's a pure Quality of Life advancement. Back when you had a seaglide it would have been very potent, exceeded only barely by the seamoth, and when you first got the seamoth it would still be a light upgrade of sorts. Bu by the time your coming to the end of the initial seamoth stage it doesn't represent much of a help. The vehicle modification station, especially if the pressure compensator was put here like it belongs carriers a bunch of useful upgrades, with the Perimeter defence and hull reinforcement being the two big ones. Technically unless i got a bug they are acquirable at initial seamoth stage, but from a single wreak only. However several of the upgrades require trips into rather more dangerous area's than you really want to be handling in the seamoth to get the resources required. Beyond that you start to run into issues with a lack of a clear upgrade path whatsoever.
The PRAWN is technically acquirable as a blueprint fairly early on and you can get the bits and pieces if you know where to look without excessive risk once you have a seamoth with the first pressure compensator. But without the cyclops to transport it around it's of very limited utility due to poor mobility. It does more or less render the pre-levithan area's quite easy to resource in, though IMO the stock storage and storage module upgrade effects are rather bad to put it mildly. And it gives you a limited ability to work vs Reaper Leviathans. They do enough damage you don't want to push it, (or so i understand, I'm at this particular progression point TBH), but you can fend them off and make them run so they don't follow you home when you leg it. It does however again have issue vis a vis required resources vs what's in the comfort zone for an unupgraded seamoth, (And even upgraded but i'll get back to this).
The Cyclops is basically a mobility system for the PRAWN plus a mobile seabase for extended missions without resupply. It does have total damage immunity at the moment, so it's great for exploration and wreak Spelunking, but for resourcing you have to fall back on the PRAWN, as the sorts of area's your entering are pretty dangerous outside of vehicles. And then the progression just stops whilst a whole class of post reaper leviathan threat level lifeforms exist.
Now all of thats a bit complex and meandering, it's a sort of initial thoughts bit so let me try and TLDR things bit.
Resourcing/exploration progression for each Biome goes a bit like this:
Exploration Phase 1: Avoid the Biome, the Predators can catch you and you can't effectively run away.
Exploration Phase 2: You can now run away, but your not super fast compared to the predators. You can explore around the edges at will, and depending on predator positioning, somewhat into the rest of the zone.
Exploration Phase 3: Your ethier fast enough, or a combination of tough enough and punchy enough to zip in amongst the predators whilst exploring. You can't quite explore at will, but you can get stuck in without serious problems if you don't play completely stupid.
Exploration Phase 4: You're now completely immune to the predators and can pretty much explore at will.
---
Resourcing Phase 1: Avoid, you cannot handle the predators at all.
Resourcing Phase 2: You can avoid the predators but you don't want to tangle so you can resource aroudn the edges but not the interiour.
Resourcing phase 3: You're quick enough or have enough offense/defense to zip around in amongst the predators resourcing, but don;t get cocky, they can still do you in if you get lazy.
Resourcing Phase 4: Your immune or nearly so to the predators and can basically ignore them.
Generally a given resourcing phase matches up with a given exploration phase, but there are exceptions ofc, (phase 4 being a general one).
As a rule of thumb the above progression works across a huge percentage of the games biomes. You start out a weeny little runt and through progression can gain the ability to stomp around with near impunity. But the tech that can let you stomp around one biome might still leave you a weeny little runt in another. Which is also good. It means as you progress you open up new viable area's to get stuck into resourcing, even as old area's becomes fairly easy to clean out.
And by and large that works. But as i talked out above it breaks down in a few key area's.
1. Right at the start of the game your forced into the kelp forests well before your equipped to zip around in there adequate to resource, first for the stuff to make the flippers so you can get from phase 1 to phase 2 on the resourcing and exploration aspects of the kelp biomes, and again for the silver to get a basic seabase up and running.
2. Reapers and post Reaper threats have this break down completely atm. Warpers can get you even in your vehicles, (bar Cyclops), rendering them pretty null and void, (and your so damned vulnerable outside of them obviously), Power leeches need no introduction, and Crabsquid have that EMP. WHilst the sea dragons bring very extreme raw damage to bear against the Prawn Suit.
3. In line with the above, post-reaper threats, (primarily warpers), can be fairly easily encountered in area's that in terms of the current slightly muddled progression are firmly pre-reaper in terms of resources required progression and fragment hunting progression.
4. The actual upgrade path after getting the seamoth is very unintuitive and not necessarily what you'd expect.
What kind of things would i like to see to address this.
4. Is probably going to sort itself out from bits and pieces on plans i've read and some extrapolating of one thing or another from that. Currently the mod stations are likely locked away because you get all the blueprints off the bat, i'm sure long term most upgrades will become like the PRAWN arms and Cyclops upgrades. Things you have to find. Similarly with how many fragments don't have models yet i imagine the placement of fragments will be receiving a through balance pass in future. Assuming these happen and the standard set by seaglide, battery charger, and samoth fragments is followed i foresee no real issues.
3. Is primarily an issue in terms of warpers though i know from reading up energy leeches can cause real issues down in the lava zones too. Given the fact warpers are eventually going to become more dynamic in their presence i imagine longish term they won't turn up in many of the places away from precursor bases that they do now without a certain amount of story progression.
2. Is likely to be another one that could/should IMO, (and may well be planned to), be handled via upgrades. EMP and teleport immunity are obvious ones, and i wouldn't be surprised to learn a perimeter defence system for every type of vehicle is planned which should i imagine handle those leeches nicely. And the apparently planned Mk2 and Mk3 hull reinforcement would presumably increase the ability of the PRAWN and Seamoth to survive attacks from things upto and including the Reapers and Sea Dragon.
1. is a matter of just doing a balance pass on silver frequency and a look at what absolutely should require silver, (and more uses for gold), vs what can be made to just use copper wire like the Seaglide would handle the bulk of this, a couple of kelp strands with seed pods on in the safe shallows wouldn't go amiss however as a stalker free way of getting the first set of flipper and a knife without having to play tag with a predator you can't outrun is desirable to the start of game progression curve. In much the same way there's gel sacks in safe shallows atm if you know where to look or what your looking at when you stumble across them.
So overall i think a lot of this will sort itself out as the polish is put on. But i still wanted to draw attention to it so it doesn't maybe get forgotten in the rush. At the same time as commented in another thread just as i'm typing this, i almost feel like the biggest issue is that the prawn and Cyclops combo is trying to fill far too much developmental space. They're trying to cover resourcing and 4 in every post shallows Biome, Exploration 4 in every post Stalker Biome, Exploration and Resourcing 3 in every pre-reaper threat biome other than those allready noted, and elements of Exploration Phases 2+ and Resourcing 2+ in Reaper and post reaper Biomes. Whilst it would have to be a post release project for obvious reasons i think a true minisub that is say twice the size of the seamoth can equip arms, but has cyclops like speed, (seamoth like tilt control), but with Seamoth crush depth and a Durability between the semoth and PRAWN, (so good upto all pre-reaper biomes but inadequate for reaper and post reaper area's), would help greatly smooth the progression curve and provide more of a feeling of continued progression after getting the PRAWn and Cyclops, (obviously the fragments for those would have to be repositioned some, with the minisub likely going in the aurora as the prawn is now).
Much the same thought applies once base attack are brought in but that's a bit outside the scope of this post, if you want a writeup on my thoughts there feel free.
Right out the gate from the pod the difficulty curve of progression isn't a curve, it's a cliff. The two most basic items you need to progress further are a knife and flippers. And both mean trips into stalker infested kelp forests. And theres few if any safe areas inside the kelp forests and no kelp forests that aren't infested. Get those and and it becomes at least possibble to run away without getting hit reliably, but you still have to know having the knife out will make them aggro from further away and chase you indefinitely. But you still need to go back in there because you need silver, and given the terrible silver to gold ratio you'll be doing a lot of spelunking here to get a basic base setup. In the process of exploring around you should hopefully find seaglide fragments.
At this point you can use the seaglide to go explore deeper wrecks, (mostly in the grassy plateau area), and your fast enough the sort of stuff you're facing can't catch you if you just flat out leg it. Theoretically ofc if your insane you can use the floating air pump and pipes to visit nearly every part of the game, (I think only the active lava zone is off limits), but thats seriously hardcore IMO. Still the follow on semi deep wrecks are perfect in terms of loot and what that means for progression. The majority of them give you the fragments for the battery charger to make your seaglide self sustaining and the seamoth which is the traditional way to deeper area's.
And this is where the progression IMO more or less completely breaks down. Naturally you'll want/expect to find Powercell charger fragments. Except compared to the prior phase with it's battery charger fragments the powercell fragments are quite rare turning up in very few places relative to everything opened up. The upgrade path in terms of progression is pretty messy at this point too. You have 4 options. The Modification Station, The Vehicle Modification Station, The PRAWN Suit, and the Cyclops.
The modification Station, aside from the quite important and useful pressure compensators, (though why they're here and not in Vehicle modification i don't know), isn't very useful, at this point it's a pure Quality of Life advancement. Back when you had a seaglide it would have been very potent, exceeded only barely by the seamoth, and when you first got the seamoth it would still be a light upgrade of sorts. Bu by the time your coming to the end of the initial seamoth stage it doesn't represent much of a help. The vehicle modification station, especially if the pressure compensator was put here like it belongs carriers a bunch of useful upgrades, with the Perimeter defence and hull reinforcement being the two big ones. Technically unless i got a bug they are acquirable at initial seamoth stage, but from a single wreak only. However several of the upgrades require trips into rather more dangerous area's than you really want to be handling in the seamoth to get the resources required. Beyond that you start to run into issues with a lack of a clear upgrade path whatsoever.
The PRAWN is technically acquirable as a blueprint fairly early on and you can get the bits and pieces if you know where to look without excessive risk once you have a seamoth with the first pressure compensator. But without the cyclops to transport it around it's of very limited utility due to poor mobility. It does more or less render the pre-levithan area's quite easy to resource in, though IMO the stock storage and storage module upgrade effects are rather bad to put it mildly. And it gives you a limited ability to work vs Reaper Leviathans. They do enough damage you don't want to push it, (or so i understand, I'm at this particular progression point TBH), but you can fend them off and make them run so they don't follow you home when you leg it. It does however again have issue vis a vis required resources vs what's in the comfort zone for an unupgraded seamoth, (And even upgraded but i'll get back to this).
The Cyclops is basically a mobility system for the PRAWN plus a mobile seabase for extended missions without resupply. It does have total damage immunity at the moment, so it's great for exploration and wreak Spelunking, but for resourcing you have to fall back on the PRAWN, as the sorts of area's your entering are pretty dangerous outside of vehicles. And then the progression just stops whilst a whole class of post reaper leviathan threat level lifeforms exist.
Now all of thats a bit complex and meandering, it's a sort of initial thoughts bit so let me try and TLDR things bit.
Resourcing/exploration progression for each Biome goes a bit like this:
Exploration Phase 1: Avoid the Biome, the Predators can catch you and you can't effectively run away.
Exploration Phase 2: You can now run away, but your not super fast compared to the predators. You can explore around the edges at will, and depending on predator positioning, somewhat into the rest of the zone.
Exploration Phase 3: Your ethier fast enough, or a combination of tough enough and punchy enough to zip in amongst the predators whilst exploring. You can't quite explore at will, but you can get stuck in without serious problems if you don't play completely stupid.
Exploration Phase 4: You're now completely immune to the predators and can pretty much explore at will.
---
Resourcing Phase 1: Avoid, you cannot handle the predators at all.
Resourcing Phase 2: You can avoid the predators but you don't want to tangle so you can resource aroudn the edges but not the interiour.
Resourcing phase 3: You're quick enough or have enough offense/defense to zip around in amongst the predators resourcing, but don;t get cocky, they can still do you in if you get lazy.
Resourcing Phase 4: Your immune or nearly so to the predators and can basically ignore them.
Generally a given resourcing phase matches up with a given exploration phase, but there are exceptions ofc, (phase 4 being a general one).
As a rule of thumb the above progression works across a huge percentage of the games biomes. You start out a weeny little runt and through progression can gain the ability to stomp around with near impunity. But the tech that can let you stomp around one biome might still leave you a weeny little runt in another. Which is also good. It means as you progress you open up new viable area's to get stuck into resourcing, even as old area's becomes fairly easy to clean out.
And by and large that works. But as i talked out above it breaks down in a few key area's.
1. Right at the start of the game your forced into the kelp forests well before your equipped to zip around in there adequate to resource, first for the stuff to make the flippers so you can get from phase 1 to phase 2 on the resourcing and exploration aspects of the kelp biomes, and again for the silver to get a basic seabase up and running.
2. Reapers and post Reaper threats have this break down completely atm. Warpers can get you even in your vehicles, (bar Cyclops), rendering them pretty null and void, (and your so damned vulnerable outside of them obviously), Power leeches need no introduction, and Crabsquid have that EMP. WHilst the sea dragons bring very extreme raw damage to bear against the Prawn Suit.
3. In line with the above, post-reaper threats, (primarily warpers), can be fairly easily encountered in area's that in terms of the current slightly muddled progression are firmly pre-reaper in terms of resources required progression and fragment hunting progression.
4. The actual upgrade path after getting the seamoth is very unintuitive and not necessarily what you'd expect.
What kind of things would i like to see to address this.
4. Is probably going to sort itself out from bits and pieces on plans i've read and some extrapolating of one thing or another from that. Currently the mod stations are likely locked away because you get all the blueprints off the bat, i'm sure long term most upgrades will become like the PRAWN arms and Cyclops upgrades. Things you have to find. Similarly with how many fragments don't have models yet i imagine the placement of fragments will be receiving a through balance pass in future. Assuming these happen and the standard set by seaglide, battery charger, and samoth fragments is followed i foresee no real issues.
3. Is primarily an issue in terms of warpers though i know from reading up energy leeches can cause real issues down in the lava zones too. Given the fact warpers are eventually going to become more dynamic in their presence i imagine longish term they won't turn up in many of the places away from precursor bases that they do now without a certain amount of story progression.
2. Is likely to be another one that could/should IMO, (and may well be planned to), be handled via upgrades. EMP and teleport immunity are obvious ones, and i wouldn't be surprised to learn a perimeter defence system for every type of vehicle is planned which should i imagine handle those leeches nicely. And the apparently planned Mk2 and Mk3 hull reinforcement would presumably increase the ability of the PRAWN and Seamoth to survive attacks from things upto and including the Reapers and Sea Dragon.
1. is a matter of just doing a balance pass on silver frequency and a look at what absolutely should require silver, (and more uses for gold), vs what can be made to just use copper wire like the Seaglide would handle the bulk of this, a couple of kelp strands with seed pods on in the safe shallows wouldn't go amiss however as a stalker free way of getting the first set of flipper and a knife without having to play tag with a predator you can't outrun is desirable to the start of game progression curve. In much the same way there's gel sacks in safe shallows atm if you know where to look or what your looking at when you stumble across them.
So overall i think a lot of this will sort itself out as the polish is put on. But i still wanted to draw attention to it so it doesn't maybe get forgotten in the rush. At the same time as commented in another thread just as i'm typing this, i almost feel like the biggest issue is that the prawn and Cyclops combo is trying to fill far too much developmental space. They're trying to cover resourcing and 4 in every post shallows Biome, Exploration 4 in every post Stalker Biome, Exploration and Resourcing 3 in every pre-reaper threat biome other than those allready noted, and elements of Exploration Phases 2+ and Resourcing 2+ in Reaper and post reaper Biomes. Whilst it would have to be a post release project for obvious reasons i think a true minisub that is say twice the size of the seamoth can equip arms, but has cyclops like speed, (seamoth like tilt control), but with Seamoth crush depth and a Durability between the semoth and PRAWN, (so good upto all pre-reaper biomes but inadequate for reaper and post reaper area's), would help greatly smooth the progression curve and provide more of a feeling of continued progression after getting the PRAWn and Cyclops, (obviously the fragments for those would have to be repositioned some, with the minisub likely going in the aurora as the prawn is now).
Much the same thought applies once base attack are brought in but that's a bit outside the scope of this post, if you want a writeup on my thoughts there feel free.
Comments
The Prawn suit I see Reapers ignore for the most part, unless you're in an area like say the Mountains where you're more likely to be within their aggro radius. They don't do nearly as much damage to it either, so I'm more likely to venture into the Dunes with that than with the seamoth xD
I mostly agree with the early game stuff. Approaching the kelp forests early on seems intimidating at first, until you've done it a few times. I don't worry about it at all anymore, though you should definitely not attempt it at night heh. If you're lucky enough to spawn near the southern Kelp Forest, then you've got nothing to worry about at all. There's no Stalkers or Bleeders in the whole place!! At worst you'll have a Sandshark from the neighboring biome be somewhat nearby.
I think Battery Chargers could come in a little earlier, but now that they've buffed the seaglide again, they're okay where they are I suppose. However, my main Progression gripe is more in the late game. Right now, we actually have a lot of freedom in how we want to approach the game, but the late game a lot of existing stuff is being reworked or outright removed, resulting in a highly linear A to B sort of experience. Then there's all four Prawn fragments being in one spot over at the Aurora (Seamoth too) so there's no need to go exploring the deep wrecks since you can get them all there.
If the kind of start Your describing was the norm i wouldn't have a complaint, there'd be enough silver, kelp, and kelp seeds within easy reach to get the basics off the ground. But on my save i was playing watch the patrol patterns for openings just to get seeds. Nevermind kelp strands or especially silver. The latter was downright painful TBH.
Actually my save is quite recent, this morning in fact. Every game I've ever started, there's this one section of Kelp Forest that's devoid of hostile life. It's been that way for as long as I can remember. Every other section of it is full of aggressive fauna, but this one part is not. It's the segment that's closest to the Grand Reef, bordering both it and a stretch of Safe Shallows. I have never, ever seen hostile fauna except for a nearby sandshark in this section of the Kelp Forest.
Aaah man Silver... That's definitely a pain ;v; Especially so now that they've removed it from the Grassy Plataeus. The best bet I've had with Silver is going to the northern Kelp Forests, usually near the Mountains and Underwater Islands. Tons of sandstone in the Kelp Forest caves there.
Nah it';s depth based.
Seaglide fragments are the shallowest and are limited to where you can get with fins and basic tanks. Battery charger and Seamoth are at wreaks you need seaglide to reach. Then Prawn arm fragments, alien containment and a bunch of other stuff is at various seamoth depth wreaks. The big difference is that when the bugs aren't interfering Seaglide fragments are at nearly every wreck you can reach with flippers. Ditto for seamoth and battery charger fragments at the seaglide wreaks, (there other useful stuff specific to individual wreaks ofc, but the basics for progression are common), then you hit the seamoth wreaks and everythings at very specific wreaks. Instead of going to any wreak your seamoth can reach and being able to progress as previously, you have to go to a specific wreak or two.
Now that I think about it, they're both quite similar; distance and depth.
The whole map reminds me of one huge pyramid, the shallows being its highest point, then the kelp being slightly deeper, the plateau being deeper than that, so on. I never thought about it like that. Sorry, that's off-topic, but I just realised.
But you're absolutely right, it is about depth and what equipment you'd need to achieve these depths.
The grappling also lets you latch on to a Reaper and ride it, or use it against itself to help you maneuver. If they made a repulsion arm upgrade for the propulsion arm, that would make the PRAWN a force to be reckoned with indeed!
I don't have access to the laptop with Subnautica on it right now, but I can point out where it is on the map.
Every single game, since the Machinery Update even, this portion was always devoid of Stalkers and Bleeders. It made spawning near that thermal vent a joy since I had easy access to numerous resources I needed... Though after they took out the Sandstone chunks in the Grassy Plateus it became just slightly less desirable, since AFAIK that portion of the Kelp Forests never ever produced Sandstone for me. I always got those from the northern kelp forests.
@Rezca: looked around and it turns out i managed to miss that section. It is indeed abandoned, which is cool. But the very fact that i managed to completely miss that, (and it's quite a ways from the default spawn), just emphasises my initial point, that the game intentionally or not throws you up against a difficulty liff right at the start. detailed map knowledge shouldn't be a requirement for basic sensible progression difficulty curves.
@JudgeRhadamanthus: I think you misunderstood what i meant. The PRAWN can get in and out of most area's, though without the grappling arm, (which you cannot use with the drill arm), some areas require going to/from very specific points in the zone. However covering any significant distances takes twice as long as the same trip in the prawn, and more than that compared to the seamoth. Going resource hunting in many zones without a cyclops is an incredibly slow process as it's a long several minute trip each way on top of time spent resourcing and carry capacity is limited even if you get out and empty as much as possibble.
That said experiance has shown that the wiki has some serious issues, (shock horror! ./sarcasm), specifically i've found that whilst warpers and crab squid are threatening to the prawn, they're nowhere near as bad as the wiki claims as warpers actually can't teleport you out of the PRAWN, and the crab squid EMP is largely irrelevant in it's effect, (now the Sea Dragon and Leech's, they're indeed pretty bad overall).
Oddly enough I had nine straight games where it parked my spawn directly above the downed lifepod in that area, or right beside the geyser. Then I played a tenth game where I was in the middle of the Safe Shallows and another after that where I was near the "Ridge of Wonders". Guess where the next three games spawned me?
The default spawn is randomly placed and has been for a while, but I was almost at the point where I was going to make a post on the forums about the spawn no longer being random, since I was spawning next to that spot so often.
The curve is pretty apparent though yeah, which is fine by me in the early game since most survival games tend to start out rough since you're helpless. My problem is that once you get a few staples, it flattens out and the difficulty's gone. The early game is harsh, the midgame is acceptable, the lategame is a cakewalk. With how they're adjusting the endgame biomes (ILZ in particular) to be the opposite of the early game progression and experience, I don't foresee that changing.
The crabsquid EMP is pretty pointless against the exosuit since it often misses entirely. Oxygen doesn't seem to deplete even when disabled (Why though, the power just got zapped?) and the exosuit's so damage resistant that the EMP's just a harmless pause for you.