SkopeWouldn't you like to know ;)Join Date: 2016-06-07Member: 218212Members
I honestly don't see the point of a map. An unpopular opinion, I know, but one I stand by. I mean, I realize they the map is big, and is nearly impossible to memorize every good place that's filled with resources, but do you really need to?
Is it really necessary to know where you are at all times, or know where every wreck is? I think that's the beauty of the game, to wander, to explore. With this approach, there will be new finds in your explorations for months to come. Finding a cool cave in the Koosh Zone, getting to a wreck you didn't even know was there in the first place, finding that one fragment you've been looking for, day after day seeing yet another beautiful vista.
I honestly don't see the point of a map. An unpopular opinion, I know, but one I stand by. I mean, I realize they the map is big, and is nearly impossible to memorize every good place that's filled with resources, but do you really need to?
Is it really necessary to know where you are at all times, or know where every wreck is? I think that's the beauty of the game, to wander, to explore.
Yes it is. If the map is added. It doesn't disrupt you. As long as it has a toggle option, turn it off for yourself, done. I don't want to have tons of external maps open anymore for this game. Minecraft, for example has its recipe system built in. Way more convenient than searching endlessly on mod wiki's. If the game got a 3D map. I would totally not care if they made the Lost River darker and harder to navigate. I have a map at my side.
I honestly don't see the point of a map. An unpopular opinion, I know, but one I stand by. I mean, I realize they the map is big, and is nearly impossible to memorize every good place that's filled with resources, but do you really need to?
Is it really necessary to know where you are at all times, or know where every wreck is? I think that's the beauty of the game, to wander, to explore.
Yes it is. If the map is added. It doesn't disrupt you. As long as it has a toggle option, turn it off for yourself, done. I don't want to have tons of external maps open anymore for this game. Minecraft, for example has its recipe system built in. Way more convenient than searching endlessly on mod wiki's. If the game got a 3D map. I would totally not care if they made the Lost River darker and harder to navigate. I have a map at my side.
I guess I simply don't understand. So, no better time than the present to ask. Why do you need to know where you are at all times? Is there a particular reason in Subnautica, or is it because you have been conditioned by other games that have a map, to depend on that system to even having a chance at beating those games?
I have no need for in-game map. Of course, if there is one, then I don't have to use it. What about new players, who haven't played Subnautica before. They would likely fall to use the map never asking the question if they should. Would a map make the game too easy or pointless ?
Having some players getting frustrated because being unable to navigate the world isn't a good thing either. So, maybe some optional (off by default) navigation aid should exists. Like scroll-able/zoom-able scanner room map showing the visited areas, wrecks, cave/area entrances.
If you cant fully access a wreck, make it able to be shown on the map, Once you cleared out the entire thing (By opening all doors or something) add a cross to it.
I just thought of this: The map works in any biome....except one, The Lost River. Imagine this: You get to the lost river, then the map starts glitching out, along with the compass, spinning around randomly. Then the PDA says, "Warning:Navigational equipment malfunctioning, cause:unknown, designated biome name: Lost River. Recommend caution"
How about this compromise: map shows visited biomes (maybe visited terrain?) and you can mark any location on the map manually. Similar to a beacon but you don't have to be there, it doesn't stay on the screen, and doesn't use resources. If you find a wreck but the seamoth doesn't have the upgrades, just mark it and come back. More like a convenient way to write down the coordinates.
I just thought of this: The map works in any biome....except one, The Lost River. Imagine this: You get to the lost river, then the map starts glitching out, along with the compass, spinning around randomly. Then the PDA says, "Warning:Navigational equipment malfunctioning, cause:unknown, designated biome name: Lost River. Recommend caution"
If that's permanent issue, that's not a good idea. The Lost River, ILZ, and Lakes are the areas I want the map, the most.
I honestly don't see the point of a map. An unpopular opinion, I know, but one I stand by. I mean, I realize they the map is big, and is nearly impossible to memorize every good place that's filled with resources, but do you really need to?
Is it really necessary to know where you are at all times, or know where every wreck is? I think that's the beauty of the game, to wander, to explore.
Yes it is. If the map is added. It doesn't disrupt you. As long as it has a toggle option, turn it off for yourself, done. I don't want to have tons of external maps open anymore for this game. Minecraft, for example has its recipe system built in. Way more convenient than searching endlessly on mod wiki's. If the game got a 3D map. I would totally not care if they made the Lost River darker and harder to navigate. I have a map at my side.
I guess I simply don't understand. So, no better time than the present to ask. Why do you need to know where you are at all times? Is there a particular reason in Subnautica, or is it because you have been conditioned by other games that have a map, to depend on that system to even having a chance at beating those games?
A map is my check list. There's a ton of areas that are too similar to each other. So I get stuck or confused no matter how many times I've been through areas. Some of the Lost River warpgates are places I can't remember where they are. I'll know how far in before I trigger Leviathan attacks etc. I'll see if my Cyclops can squeeze into. VS testing it and getting stuck, wasting time. I'll also know I've been to this area before. I don't remember what Wreck I cleared. I don't want to waste my time managing 20 beacons. Turning them on and off just to make sure I cleared this wreck. With a map, the Beacons can stay as dots, without the visual clutter in the world. The scanner room could be used to plan courses.
I may very well be conditioned from other games to always want an in-game map, but like most gaming tropes, there's a good reason for this.
That good reason being that it's very easy to get lost IRL and in games if you don't have a map. In fact, in many ways it's easier to get lost in games because you don't have quite the same spatial awareness or many of the multitude of small bits of information we do in the real world (sun angle, earth's magnetic field, wildlife behavior, plant growth, wind direction etc) for finding direction. Some people are better at interpreting these than others, and that's part of what a sense of direction is.
The beacons partially address the navigation problem by letting you find things again later more easily (if you remembered to bring a beacon anyways), but what they completely fail at is informing the player of which parts of the map they haven't visited yet to give them clues of places they should explore to find new things. The pings are more of a crutch than anything else since without them there's a very slim chance they would stumble across the places they needed to find to progress the story.
In the absence of a map, I find for myself that I tend to stick to familiar paths with good landmarks (or just swim in circle unintentionally trying to get my bearings), both of which actually detract from exploring. I have no way of knowing for sure if I've been to a particular part of the map or not since so much of it looks the same unless I put beacons everywhere.
On top of all this, Subnautica is a sci-fi game. If we have real-world mapping technology today that can dynamically build maps of an environment, then it would suggest that we should have the option in the game for a map, especially since this is what nearly all players will be expecting based on their experiences with other games. Since it isn't there, and there's no good explanation given for its absence, it comes across as an arbitrary and annoying game design decision. The scanner room just goes to highlight the arbitrary nature of the decision, since you can see the map right there, but you can't put it on your PDA for "reasons".
Anyways, sorry for the mini-rant, I really want to see a real map in Subnautica.
On a side note, I really wouldn't mind seeing someone make a game with an appropriate story that used mapbuilding and map and compass navigation as one of its core gameplay elements. I'm not opposed to the idea, it's just a big enough challenge by itself that you really need to design a game around the idea instead of simply leaving a map out like appears to have been done in Subnautica.
On top of all this, Subnautica is a sci-fi game. If we have real-world mapping technology today that can dynamically build maps of an environment, then it would suggest that we should have the option in the game for a map, especially since this is what nearly all players will be expecting based on their experiences with other games. Since it isn't there, and there's no good explanation given for its absence, it comes across as an arbitrary and annoying game design decision. The scanner room just goes to highlight the arbitrary nature of the decision, since you can see the map right there, but you can't put it on your PDA for "reasons".
I very much disagree with this statement. I think Subnautica is first and foremost a survival game. If you want to make statements about it being a Sci-fi game, then why don't we say:
1. We have the technology to directly extract oxygen from the water so you never need to die from lack of air.
2. We can desalinate the water using a "survival" device built-into our belt so we never need to die from thirst.
3. etc, etc, etc
Before long, you don't have a survival game at all.
On top of all this, Subnautica is a sci-fi game. If we have real-world mapping technology today that can dynamically build maps of an environment, then it would suggest that we should have the option in the game for a map, especially since this is what nearly all players will be expecting based on their experiences with other games. Since it isn't there, and there's no good explanation given for its absence, it comes across as an arbitrary and annoying game design decision. The scanner room just goes to highlight the arbitrary nature of the decision, since you can see the map right there, but you can't put it on your PDA for "reasons".
I very much disagree with this statement. I think Subnautica is first and foremost a survival game. If you want to make statements about it being a Sci-fi game, then why don't we say:
1. We have the technology to directly extract oxygen from the water so you never need to die from lack of air.
2. We can desalinate the water using a "survival" device built-into our belt so we never need to die from thirst.
3. etc, etc, etc
Before long, you don't have a survival game at all.
Those are also some things about the game that bug me, although I disagree that if fully implemented we wouldn't have a survival game anymore. It's more of an issue with what things the devs are choosing to make into important survival elements and the somewhat hamfisted methods they're using to do it.
1. Extracting oxygen from seawater takes immense amounts of energy IRL, yet the bases and vehicles do this "magically" for free as long as they have at least some power, yet take obscene amounts of energy to purify water or run lights. What we have now is completely backwards in terms of energy usage. If the vehicles and bases had more interesting oxygen mechanics as described in-depth here, then we still have a survival game, and arguably a more interesting one, but without having to radically depart from reality for no good reason.
2. Once you get a water purifier, the game ends up like this anyways. I've actually advocated for removing thirst entirely and just using hunger since the technology of the fabricator would imply that it could directly purify water (or you could just set up a solar still). Not to mention there are hand-pumped water purifiers IRL that purify water faster than the in-game water purifier (about 2 liters per hour for the hand pump, but the water purifier takes a full in-game day to give you a 2 liter bottle). Edit: Thanks to the post below for reminding me that the stillsuit does indeed already function as a water purification device on your belt (I never use the stillsuit so I completely forgot about this).
3. What else are you referring to?
4. One other survival element I can think of that's very applicable to the real-world yet is entirely absent from the game are sleep survival mechanics. If implemented properly, this could add an interesting dynamic to the game.
It's entirely possible to have a survival game in a sci-fi setting without trivializing all the survival mechanics. My point is that if you're going to make something into a survival element, than either make it behave at least somewhat realistically if there's a real-life analogue to draw from, or have a really good in-game reason why its behavior differs from reality. Right now none of these things have that, they're arbitrary decisions that in many cases don't really make sense.
Part of the problem with the survival mechanics in Subnautica is that the devs start the player off with a very advanced fabricator device. Based on the in-game descriptions of how it works and how it cooks fish, it should also be able to trivially purify water, but can't for "reasons". Same goes for the fabricator not being able to filter nutrients out of the water and craft nutrient blocks over time like the first aid kit fabricator does (another device that doesn't make sense). If the game had started the player with the lifepod malfunctioning and sinking, then many of the survival elements would be more valid since we obviously wouldn't have access to the advanced tech at the beginning. But we do, and for gameplay reasons that don't make logical sense the devs handicapped these devices to force gameplay rather than creating a more logical and interesting survival situation where the player unlocks these devices later and until then has to resort to primitive survival skills.
In terms of mapping, the biggest disconnect comes from the fact that the Seaglide and Scanner room obviously have advanced mapping technology that would be immensely helpful in a survival situation, but for arbitrary reasons that aren't explained you can't link those maps to your PDA to help you find your way around the world despite the fact that navigation is a real challenge in this game at times.
Subnautica is much more an exploration game then a survival game. There are survival elements, but fortunately it is not the primary focus. With a stillsuit, you actually *can* desalinate water from your belt in this game. Even in an actual survival game, there is no good reason for having no map. That is doubly true in game like this which has super technology for everything except a map. It really does make no sense.
Subnautica is much more an exploration game then a survival game. There are survival elements, but fortunately it is not the primary focus.
I agree 100% there. But if the game throws a map on a players face then what would happen to that exploration part. If the map shows where the player is and has been, location of every wreck and place of interest, then I feel like the exploration part is reduced in half of what the game has to offer. It would likely become too easy and trivial. Definitely there should be no map in the "Hardcore" mode.
I just thought of this: The map works in any biome....except one, The Lost River. Imagine this: You get to the lost river, then the map starts glitching out, along with the compass, spinning around randomly. Then the PDA says, "Warning:Navigational equipment malfunctioning, cause:unknown, designated biome name: Lost River. Recommend caution"
If that's permanent issue, that's not a good idea. The Lost River, ILZ, and Lakes are the areas I want the map, the most.
Perhaps have it so you can fix the map to work in the lost river, but SOMETHING happened to the map, it wouldn't glitch out for no reason. Something about the biome, puts the "Lost" in the name
@gamer1000k Okay. So, this is a Sci Fi game, and we expect we should have a nifty cool map, and we want to be as realistic as possible. So, of course, this will require satellites for GPS coordinates. Let's skip creating the rocket ship to take us off planet. Instead, let's launch a sufficient number of satellites to support mapping. How many satellites does the US GPS system have? Let's round down to 24. And, we'll definitely skip the Russian satellites. Are they called GLONASS or something similar? I'm all in favor of extending the gameplay for the sake of realism. So, we'll need 24 rockets. Then, we'll need 24 satellites. Sounds good to me.
@gamer1000k Okay. So, this is a Sci Fi game, and we expect we should have a nifty cool map, and we want to be as realistic as possible. So, of course, this will require satellites for GPS coordinates. Let's skip creating the rocket ship to take us off planet. Instead, let's launch a sufficient number of satellites to support mapping. How many satellites does the US GPS system have? Let's round down to 24. And, we'll definitely skip the Russian satellites. Are they called GLONASS or something similar? I'm all in favor of extending the gameplay for the sake of realism. So, we'll need 24 rockets. Then, we'll need 24 satellites. Sounds good to me.
@gamer1000k Okay. So, this is a Sci Fi game, and we expect we should have a nifty cool map, and we want to be as realistic as possible. So, of course, this will require satellites for GPS coordinates. Let's skip creating the rocket ship to take us off planet. Instead, let's launch a sufficient number of satellites to support mapping. How many satellites does the US GPS system have? Let's round down to 24. And, we'll definitely skip the Russian satellites. Are they called GLONASS or something similar? I'm all in favor of extending the gameplay for the sake of realism. So, we'll need 24 rockets. Then, we'll need 24 satellites. Sounds good to me.
How does the scanner room HUD upgrade know your position to highlight items of interest in the world? Obviously the tech is there in the game world.
From a realism standpoint, satellites aren't at all necessary for GPS style navigation. All that is required is a minimum of three transmitters with known locations. Before GPS, this is what Loran did with radio towers, and was used starting in World War 2. Smartphones do this today as part of their location services where they can triangulate their position just based on the cell towers they're connected to. Satellites have the advantage of covering a much larger area, so you only need a relatively small number of satellites to cover the entire globe.
If you use the Aurora and the lifepod as your reference points or even went the extra step and required the player to put down two beacons in addition to the lifepod signal for full triangulation (assuming the Aurora is totally dead and not transmitting), then you can still easily calculate your position.
Pretty interesting discussion here i like the points both sides have brought up and let me add three things here
-the map is ruled out until after 1.0 so nothing will happen until we see the rocket
-if the map is needed too much then simply, the map will start as black screen in your pda and as you explore you'll be able to see the map becoming colored
-as someone mentioned before entering deep areas should affect the mapping system as you are getting closer to the core of the planet and we all know what this does to the mapping devices that we have today right?
Pretty interesting discussion here i like the points both sides have brought up and let me add three things here
-the map is ruled out until after 1.0 so nothing will happen until we see the rocket
-if the map is needed too much then simply, the map will start as black screen in your pda and as you explore you'll be able to see the map becoming colored
-as someone mentioned before entering deep areas should affect the mapping system as you are getting closer to the core of the planet and we all know what this does to the mapping devices that we have today right?
The only comment I have to your third point is that the game already shows us that the technology used by the beacons and scanner rooms is not at all affected by this. By extension, finding our coordinates via triangulation will still work without any interference, and any 3D map technology also functions perfectly fine. Additionally, whatever communication technology is in use is completely unaffected by this as well as a comm station on a Cyclops in the ALZ can still receive transmissions without any issues. Note that in a sci-fi setting I'm generally much more forgiving about technology being better than what we have now (it's sci-fi after all), but I'm much harsher towards technology that's inexplicably much worse than real life for "reasons".
Yes, mapping the deep ocean is very difficult IRL, but in Subnautica the depths aren't actually all that deep compared to earth's oceans. Water is fairly good at blocking radio waves which makes communicating with underwater vehicles difficult unless you use an umbilical cable, but proximity to the core of the planet has nothing to do with it.
From a gameplay perspective, the deep areas are actually some of the easiest places to get lost and turned around and would be well suited to a mapping system.
Subnautica is much more an exploration game then a survival game. There are survival elements, but fortunately it is not the primary focus.
I agree 100% there. But if the game throws a map on a players face then what would happen to that exploration part. If the map shows where the player is and has been, location of every wreck and place of interest, then I feel like the exploration part is reduced in half of what the game has to offer. It would likely become too easy and trivial. Definitely there should be no map in the "Hardcore" mode.
The main reason I think a map would be a bad idea is because of how limited the map is. I've put in 300 or so hours into the game largely *because* I get lost and have to work a bit to find everything. I think if the game had a map and I knew exactly where to go that I would have quickly tired of the game. The entire world of Subnautica is small enough I think I could jump in a Seamoth and traverse the entire world in 20-30 minutes. When I say that, I definitely mean just the two dimensions of the world at a fixed depth. If you consider *also* the 'Z' coordinate, then the map is obviously much larger. As a result, I would want any game exploration to only reveal data for all three (X,Y,Z) coordinates within a relatively small fixed distance around me. For example, if there is a wreck at 1,000 meters, I wouldn't want the map to show that wreck if I only passed over its (X,Y) coordinates on the surface. Rather, I would want the map to only "reveal" the wreck when I traveled to within 50 or 100 meters of it as measure in absolute distance of all three coordinates.
I think this type of three dimensional map reveal might be harder to program. But I think it would be infinitely worthwhile so that the player can'd do what I just suggested--zip across the map in the Seamoth in 20 minutes and reveal every wreck, cave, etc in the game.
I'm ok with the idea of just showing biomes as you discover them, but part of what I love about this game is the fact that you are personally responsible for mapping what you want to remember about the world and have to use conventional tools to navigate. While it would make some sense for a sub to be able to generate a 3d map of the ocean floor for you as you navigate around, I love the feeling of having to remember/learn how to use a compass and track points of interest myself.
It is definitely frustrating at times when I realize I didn't do a very good job of it and find myself right back where I thought I came from, but it seems like that's exactly the type of experience Subnautica's devs wanted to create with this game. When you accept that it's an intended part of the game experience, it creates an awesome feeling of depth and mystery that I rarely feel in any other game.
This wouldn't be possible with an in game map for a number of reasons, but one of the big ones IMHO is that the game world is actually incredibly small. It's only 4 square kilometers. That's ridiculously small, especially if you want to have any kind of mystery in your exploration. The only way it works is if you have to work to map it yourself.
@garath I guess my perspective on the lack of the map is the opposite of yours.
In many ways I view the lack of a map and the navigation challenges it produces as game time padding to hide how small the map actually is rather than being a meaningful addition to the gameplay. I get why the devs wanted to hand craft everything, but I can't help but feel that at least some procedural terrain randomization outside of the important game areas and random wreck placement (not just the fragments) would have added a lot of replayability.
I totally agree about the map being revealed in three dimensions. Otherwise like you said, it's far too easy just to run around in a Seamoth and discover everything without even trying. Some of my thoughts on this were to only have the seafloor revealed on the 2D map if you got within a certain distance of the bottom. Having to be close to wrecks and such to discover them is perfectly fine. If you see them from a distance, you'll go over and investigate them. If you don't, you'll have an unrevealed spot on your map to come back to later. This would encourage exploration to fill out the map and find out what's in every nook and cranny.
I would like one of at least points of interests on the islands, such as the entries to the teleporter on Degasi island, when you've found them at least..
A lot of the prolonged fun of this game is getting to know the landscape by heart - it is exploration, and getting lost. A map would ruin that.
There are some people who seem to want an omnipotent cyclops, no downside to any equipment, powerful weapons etc. I think that kindof misses the point of the game being about being lost and trying to survive & the idea of gameplay having challenges.
P.S.
The only possible exception might be a map like Miasmata that you have to slowly build yourself and which is incomplete/inaccurate.
I agree that the game focus is on exploration.
The game holds no real challenge other than that.
Take that away and the game will feel easier and smaller, very much so.
Besides, mapping and positioning underwater is waaay harder than on land. And even though it is a high tech setting, it is a SURVIVAL high tech setting. Try pulling shit off surviving in a hostile environment with our current tech.
Therefore I support the "no map at all" option based on two things:
- gameplay design
- immersion
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Comments
Is it really necessary to know where you are at all times, or know where every wreck is? I think that's the beauty of the game, to wander, to explore. With this approach, there will be new finds in your explorations for months to come. Finding a cool cave in the Koosh Zone, getting to a wreck you didn't even know was there in the first place, finding that one fragment you've been looking for, day after day seeing yet another beautiful vista.
Remember, not all who wander are lost.
Yes it is. If the map is added. It doesn't disrupt you. As long as it has a toggle option, turn it off for yourself, done. I don't want to have tons of external maps open anymore for this game. Minecraft, for example has its recipe system built in. Way more convenient than searching endlessly on mod wiki's. If the game got a 3D map. I would totally not care if they made the Lost River darker and harder to navigate. I have a map at my side.
I guess I simply don't understand. So, no better time than the present to ask. Why do you need to know where you are at all times? Is there a particular reason in Subnautica, or is it because you have been conditioned by other games that have a map, to depend on that system to even having a chance at beating those games?
Having some players getting frustrated because being unable to navigate the world isn't a good thing either. So, maybe some optional (off by default) navigation aid should exists. Like scroll-able/zoom-able scanner room map showing the visited areas, wrecks, cave/area entrances.
If that's permanent issue, that's not a good idea. The Lost River, ILZ, and Lakes are the areas I want the map, the most.
A map is my check list. There's a ton of areas that are too similar to each other. So I get stuck or confused no matter how many times I've been through areas. Some of the Lost River warpgates are places I can't remember where they are. I'll know how far in before I trigger Leviathan attacks etc. I'll see if my Cyclops can squeeze into. VS testing it and getting stuck, wasting time. I'll also know I've been to this area before. I don't remember what Wreck I cleared. I don't want to waste my time managing 20 beacons. Turning them on and off just to make sure I cleared this wreck. With a map, the Beacons can stay as dots, without the visual clutter in the world. The scanner room could be used to plan courses.
That good reason being that it's very easy to get lost IRL and in games if you don't have a map. In fact, in many ways it's easier to get lost in games because you don't have quite the same spatial awareness or many of the multitude of small bits of information we do in the real world (sun angle, earth's magnetic field, wildlife behavior, plant growth, wind direction etc) for finding direction. Some people are better at interpreting these than others, and that's part of what a sense of direction is.
The beacons partially address the navigation problem by letting you find things again later more easily (if you remembered to bring a beacon anyways), but what they completely fail at is informing the player of which parts of the map they haven't visited yet to give them clues of places they should explore to find new things. The pings are more of a crutch than anything else since without them there's a very slim chance they would stumble across the places they needed to find to progress the story.
In the absence of a map, I find for myself that I tend to stick to familiar paths with good landmarks (or just swim in circle unintentionally trying to get my bearings), both of which actually detract from exploring. I have no way of knowing for sure if I've been to a particular part of the map or not since so much of it looks the same unless I put beacons everywhere.
On top of all this, Subnautica is a sci-fi game. If we have real-world mapping technology today that can dynamically build maps of an environment, then it would suggest that we should have the option in the game for a map, especially since this is what nearly all players will be expecting based on their experiences with other games. Since it isn't there, and there's no good explanation given for its absence, it comes across as an arbitrary and annoying game design decision. The scanner room just goes to highlight the arbitrary nature of the decision, since you can see the map right there, but you can't put it on your PDA for "reasons".
Anyways, sorry for the mini-rant, I really want to see a real map in Subnautica.
On a side note, I really wouldn't mind seeing someone make a game with an appropriate story that used mapbuilding and map and compass navigation as one of its core gameplay elements. I'm not opposed to the idea, it's just a big enough challenge by itself that you really need to design a game around the idea instead of simply leaving a map out like appears to have been done in Subnautica.
I very much disagree with this statement. I think Subnautica is first and foremost a survival game. If you want to make statements about it being a Sci-fi game, then why don't we say:
1. We have the technology to directly extract oxygen from the water so you never need to die from lack of air.
2. We can desalinate the water using a "survival" device built-into our belt so we never need to die from thirst.
3. etc, etc, etc
Before long, you don't have a survival game at all.
Those are also some things about the game that bug me, although I disagree that if fully implemented we wouldn't have a survival game anymore. It's more of an issue with what things the devs are choosing to make into important survival elements and the somewhat hamfisted methods they're using to do it.
1. Extracting oxygen from seawater takes immense amounts of energy IRL, yet the bases and vehicles do this "magically" for free as long as they have at least some power, yet take obscene amounts of energy to purify water or run lights. What we have now is completely backwards in terms of energy usage. If the vehicles and bases had more interesting oxygen mechanics as described in-depth here, then we still have a survival game, and arguably a more interesting one, but without having to radically depart from reality for no good reason.
2. Once you get a water purifier, the game ends up like this anyways. I've actually advocated for removing thirst entirely and just using hunger since the technology of the fabricator would imply that it could directly purify water (or you could just set up a solar still). Not to mention there are hand-pumped water purifiers IRL that purify water faster than the in-game water purifier (about 2 liters per hour for the hand pump, but the water purifier takes a full in-game day to give you a 2 liter bottle). Edit: Thanks to the post below for reminding me that the stillsuit does indeed already function as a water purification device on your belt (I never use the stillsuit so I completely forgot about this).
3. What else are you referring to?
4. One other survival element I can think of that's very applicable to the real-world yet is entirely absent from the game are sleep survival mechanics. If implemented properly, this could add an interesting dynamic to the game.
It's entirely possible to have a survival game in a sci-fi setting without trivializing all the survival mechanics. My point is that if you're going to make something into a survival element, than either make it behave at least somewhat realistically if there's a real-life analogue to draw from, or have a really good in-game reason why its behavior differs from reality. Right now none of these things have that, they're arbitrary decisions that in many cases don't really make sense.
Part of the problem with the survival mechanics in Subnautica is that the devs start the player off with a very advanced fabricator device. Based on the in-game descriptions of how it works and how it cooks fish, it should also be able to trivially purify water, but can't for "reasons". Same goes for the fabricator not being able to filter nutrients out of the water and craft nutrient blocks over time like the first aid kit fabricator does (another device that doesn't make sense). If the game had started the player with the lifepod malfunctioning and sinking, then many of the survival elements would be more valid since we obviously wouldn't have access to the advanced tech at the beginning. But we do, and for gameplay reasons that don't make logical sense the devs handicapped these devices to force gameplay rather than creating a more logical and interesting survival situation where the player unlocks these devices later and until then has to resort to primitive survival skills.
In terms of mapping, the biggest disconnect comes from the fact that the Seaglide and Scanner room obviously have advanced mapping technology that would be immensely helpful in a survival situation, but for arbitrary reasons that aren't explained you can't link those maps to your PDA to help you find your way around the world despite the fact that navigation is a real challenge in this game at times.
I agree 100% there. But if the game throws a map on a players face then what would happen to that exploration part. If the map shows where the player is and has been, location of every wreck and place of interest, then I feel like the exploration part is reduced in half of what the game has to offer. It would likely become too easy and trivial. Definitely there should be no map in the "Hardcore" mode.
[Gun turns toward satellites]
Pew pew
How does the scanner room HUD upgrade know your position to highlight items of interest in the world? Obviously the tech is there in the game world.
From a realism standpoint, satellites aren't at all necessary for GPS style navigation. All that is required is a minimum of three transmitters with known locations. Before GPS, this is what Loran did with radio towers, and was used starting in World War 2. Smartphones do this today as part of their location services where they can triangulate their position just based on the cell towers they're connected to. Satellites have the advantage of covering a much larger area, so you only need a relatively small number of satellites to cover the entire globe.
If you use the Aurora and the lifepod as your reference points or even went the extra step and required the player to put down two beacons in addition to the lifepod signal for full triangulation (assuming the Aurora is totally dead and not transmitting), then you can still easily calculate your position.
-the map is ruled out until after 1.0 so nothing will happen until we see the rocket
-if the map is needed too much then simply, the map will start as black screen in your pda and as you explore you'll be able to see the map becoming colored
-as someone mentioned before entering deep areas should affect the mapping system as you are getting closer to the core of the planet and we all know what this does to the mapping devices that we have today right?
The only comment I have to your third point is that the game already shows us that the technology used by the beacons and scanner rooms is not at all affected by this. By extension, finding our coordinates via triangulation will still work without any interference, and any 3D map technology also functions perfectly fine. Additionally, whatever communication technology is in use is completely unaffected by this as well as a comm station on a Cyclops in the ALZ can still receive transmissions without any issues. Note that in a sci-fi setting I'm generally much more forgiving about technology being better than what we have now (it's sci-fi after all), but I'm much harsher towards technology that's inexplicably much worse than real life for "reasons".
Yes, mapping the deep ocean is very difficult IRL, but in Subnautica the depths aren't actually all that deep compared to earth's oceans. Water is fairly good at blocking radio waves which makes communicating with underwater vehicles difficult unless you use an umbilical cable, but proximity to the core of the planet has nothing to do with it.
From a gameplay perspective, the deep areas are actually some of the easiest places to get lost and turned around and would be well suited to a mapping system.
Yes, a map should be deactivated in hardcore.
The main reason I think a map would be a bad idea is because of how limited the map is. I've put in 300 or so hours into the game largely *because* I get lost and have to work a bit to find everything. I think if the game had a map and I knew exactly where to go that I would have quickly tired of the game. The entire world of Subnautica is small enough I think I could jump in a Seamoth and traverse the entire world in 20-30 minutes. When I say that, I definitely mean just the two dimensions of the world at a fixed depth. If you consider *also* the 'Z' coordinate, then the map is obviously much larger. As a result, I would want any game exploration to only reveal data for all three (X,Y,Z) coordinates within a relatively small fixed distance around me. For example, if there is a wreck at 1,000 meters, I wouldn't want the map to show that wreck if I only passed over its (X,Y) coordinates on the surface. Rather, I would want the map to only "reveal" the wreck when I traveled to within 50 or 100 meters of it as measure in absolute distance of all three coordinates.
I think this type of three dimensional map reveal might be harder to program. But I think it would be infinitely worthwhile so that the player can'd do what I just suggested--zip across the map in the Seamoth in 20 minutes and reveal every wreck, cave, etc in the game.
It is definitely frustrating at times when I realize I didn't do a very good job of it and find myself right back where I thought I came from, but it seems like that's exactly the type of experience Subnautica's devs wanted to create with this game. When you accept that it's an intended part of the game experience, it creates an awesome feeling of depth and mystery that I rarely feel in any other game.
This wouldn't be possible with an in game map for a number of reasons, but one of the big ones IMHO is that the game world is actually incredibly small. It's only 4 square kilometers. That's ridiculously small, especially if you want to have any kind of mystery in your exploration. The only way it works is if you have to work to map it yourself.
In many ways I view the lack of a map and the navigation challenges it produces as game time padding to hide how small the map actually is rather than being a meaningful addition to the gameplay. I get why the devs wanted to hand craft everything, but I can't help but feel that at least some procedural terrain randomization outside of the important game areas and random wreck placement (not just the fragments) would have added a lot of replayability.
I totally agree about the map being revealed in three dimensions. Otherwise like you said, it's far too easy just to run around in a Seamoth and discover everything without even trying. Some of my thoughts on this were to only have the seafloor revealed on the 2D map if you got within a certain distance of the bottom. Having to be close to wrecks and such to discover them is perfectly fine. If you see them from a distance, you'll go over and investigate them. If you don't, you'll have an unrevealed spot on your map to come back to later. This would encourage exploration to fill out the map and find out what's in every nook and cranny.
A lot of the prolonged fun of this game is getting to know the landscape by heart - it is exploration, and getting lost. A map would ruin that.
There are some people who seem to want an omnipotent cyclops, no downside to any equipment, powerful weapons etc. I think that kindof misses the point of the game being about being lost and trying to survive & the idea of gameplay having challenges.
P.S.
The only possible exception might be a map like Miasmata that you have to slowly build yourself and which is incomplete/inaccurate.
The game holds no real challenge other than that.
Take that away and the game will feel easier and smaller, very much so.
Besides, mapping and positioning underwater is waaay harder than on land. And even though it is a high tech setting, it is a SURVIVAL high tech setting. Try pulling shit off surviving in a hostile environment with our current tech.
Therefore I support the "no map at all" option based on two things:
- gameplay design
- immersion