Subnautica: Below Zero Early Access - Subnautica
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Join Date: 2013-01-29 Member: 182599Members, Super Administrators, Reinforced - Diamond
Join Date: 2013-01-29 Member: 182599Members, Super Administrators, Reinforced - Diamond
Subnautica: Below Zero Early Access - Subnautica
Subnautica: Below Zero is now available in Early Access! Set one year after the original Subnautica, Below Zero challenges you to survive a disaster at an alien research station on Planet 4546B....
Comments
GLOWING 1000 degree ice worm vs. protagonist
The Good:
The environments and atmosphere are great as always. I love the new flora and fauna and everything feels so alive. You guys managed to recreate the awe of the first game wonderfully. The ice adds so much anxiety, too. You’re running low on oxygen, you flee for the surface, and bam! You hit a chunk of ice instead. Now you have to plan your dives even more carefully.
I love that you forced me out of my comfort zone by denying me a seamoth early on. Exploring the twisty bridges caves with only a seaglide was an experience. I hope there's more stuff like this that forces old players to learn new tricks.
The voice acting really is quite excellent so far and it’s sort of nice to have occasional background chatter to break things up, like when you got radio messages in the original. I really love Robin’s VA…she makes Robin playful and curious without being annoying. The character seems to come natural to her. Major props.
The Neutral:
It looks like a significant portion of the game will take place on land this time. If I had to guess, maybe a third of it does? On the one hand…it’s a bit weird for a game called Subnautica; on the other hand, FREAKING HOVER BIKE. So I'm cool with it. :P
It looks like a lot of existing tools/vehicles are not going to be there this time. In a way this is good because it forces us to find new solutions, and in a way it’s bad because it feels like certain staples are missing, so I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it. Can't I still build a seamoth/cyclops for shiggles? I’ll still use the seatruck. Never underestimate how much stuff your players will build!
The Bad:
Story-based restriction on certain items, such as the habitat builder. I am MEGA wary of this. Anyone who’s played through Metroid: Other M will know how frustrating and un-fun it is to have your abilities restricted until some authority figure allows you to use them. It makes realistic sense, but it’s just not fun in gameplay. Just like in Metroid, you earn your upgrades in Subnautica by simply seeking them out, and then use those new upgrades to get even more upgrades. You could have a castle on top of the mountain island and every vehicle in the game built before you even set foot in the inactive lava zone. Not having that kind of freedom when we had it before is jarring and wrong and it’s going to turn a lot of players off. If any devs are reading this, I implore you, please reconsider this decision. Just have Sam say that Alterra won’t authorize her to drop anything else but that Robin could probably salvage things from the abandoned temporary bases left by the scout teams. Or go with the suggestions above of Sam cutting out. Maybe Robin's communications relay gets damaged in the electrical storm. Or something! You can still gate the story by making certain NPCs unavailable or hard to find, and gate upgrades by making certain materials difficult to acquire. (To use my twisty bridges example above...maybe it's near-impossible to build a seamoth early on because the fragments for it are at the limits of your breath meter. You can get them if you know where to look for them and feel like risking it, but it's probably not something you'd know on your first playthrough. Later on you can find more easily-accessible fragments). Look how much work you have to put in just to find the sea empress in the first game.
On the note of the story…Alterra’s antagonism is pretty on the nose and could stand to be scaled back a bit. I want to punch Maxim but not for the right reasons. We already know Alterra’s corrupt, and the Precursor bounty posters in zero base are all the reminder we need. It’s much more sinister if we don’t know exactly why Sam’s holding back, at least for a while – or if we don’t even get to talk to an executive at all. If Sam has to be there, everything we know should be filtered through her. The player begins to feel doubt: is Sam lying to us? Did our sister betray us for her own gain? Is she just pretending that she was given orders when she really hasn’t? Fear comes from what we don’t see, don’t know, and don’t hear – it’s what this game series is all about. I adore the writing but I feel like there's missed potential here.
Titanium kind of sucks to get now that there’s no scrap metal. There’s plenty of it, but gathering it one-by-one when you need so much of it is kind of a drag. If we go with the salvage-old-bases thing, we could get away with having scrap metal again…
Oh, and I can’t pet the penglings. Literally unplayable.
I was also a bit bothered by the fact that you get tools and such handed to you in phases. On one hand, this is the first time ever that I found use for the air pipes when exploring the twisty bridges. On the other, I feel like a lot of blueprint content is going to be gated and turn fun exploration into a grind to get to the next unlock.
In terms of titanium, there is another way to get it. When you finish unlocking a blueprint, every next scan gives you several titanium. I swear I saw like 50 gravity traps in the vicinity of my first base. That's an ok starting amount of titanium for your first base.
Lack of Lead was my problem as I can't build any proper supports for my base, though I can sort of live without supports for now. Lack of Magnetite makes the scanner room useless as you can't see resources outside your base without the HUD chip. I do wish they'll give us a heat knife soon to reduce the amount of game time spent trying to keep the food/water meters up.
The environment looks very good. Much more alive than the original game.
I haven't gotten very far. I don't know how "far" there is to get given it is early access and just started. I have not found or taken this twisty bridge. I know about it, however.
The story so far is keeping me curious.
Edit: And now I have found the bridge thing and know how far there is to get. Yea the distribution of blueprints seems odd but probably simply due to not being used to that from the previous game. I am glad it isn't just a copy of the previous game story except in ice.
since the titan holefish provides oxygen, and water is made of H2O, i was thinking that as water flows through its hole, it breaks up the water into hydrogen, which the fish uses to propel itself through the water. And the oxygen gets caught and stored in its inner ring, making the inner ring of the titan holefish a little habitat for where micro ecosystems can live and for other fish to feed off of. let me know what you guys think and please help me get this message seen by the developers.
1. If you've already established a base then that database of buildable objects should be already available i.e. your premise of Sam falling into a pool of freezing water that leads to the ocean yet again is not believable in the least that now she has to find all of the basic objects yet again. Her sister whose in orbit sent her a small rescue craft with what??? no database of objects installed on the rescue craft fabricator so now I have to find everything again??? Sounds like your just milking a used story now.
2. I do concede that in the beginning of the game the reason that you fall in the water is the comm tower crashes thru the ice because of an earthquake but that reason doesn't justify no database on the rescue pod sent to Sam from her sister since there is obviously communication i.e. data transfer available in this new scenario. Please find some other way to research new tech without the need to do all the hunt and fetch for the basics we've already done in the 1st game. Do you want us to keep playing your new games based on this reality or are you only appealing to new players?
3 now that Ive laid out my grievances let me offer my suggestion which is this, make me search for all the alien precursor tech to achieve something only that tech can fix or do but at this time I have no desire to find all the parts of a sea moth yet again and or base building etc etc etc. Too derivative of the 1st game and not so fun anymore.
Thanks for listening and please don't think that I don't appreciate all the hard work you are doing to create something new and exciting. Just don't take the easy way find another way for us to want to be in your world.
I'v launched rocket with biosample, heard reply about something is odd. Heard conversation with Al-an, about he saying that i need build new vessel for him. And now nothing else.
I'v collected all nearby technology, and there is nothing that would allow me explore deeper into the sea.
What part of "this game is not finished" seems to be giving you trouble? Wait for updates.
Lead and magnetite are both available, but that's all I'm going to say about that...
The on land stuff is nice but it still feels awkward compared to the sea.
I still dont get the logic in not enabling blueprints from the start as clearly there is plenty known already from the main base so this should all be possible and have blueprints sent down and start off with a full set of building options to make it different from the first game. Then add new things to that as you go to take you into the new elements of this story. From a replay point of view that first set of tasks is going to be boring each time rather than just jumping in and doing your own thing like the first game
The game isn't finished, yes the blueprints not being there from the previous game is surprising but you could always just ask when they were going to be added instead of acting like you work for unknown worlds as a game programmer and designer and literally KNOW that there is no reason for this to not be included.
The game has a great premise. I love the scientist looking for new and exciting knowledge outside of the current understanding trope and have enjoyed what I have experienced so far. I have played everything at my disposal right now and just want to give you guys a shout out for not having near as much optimization issues with this release. It runs much smoother than the original early access. Kudos.
If you are like me and there are no more objectives popping up for you to work towards then try to understand that it will most likely be included in an upcoming update. Whether it is in the next one or not, have patience.
We are showing them the blemishes that they did not find themselves so that they can polish it, something most game developers have been lacking in recent years.
If you bought this game with the words "Early Access" on it and expect a full game then that is nobody else's fault but your own. Don't take your misguided frustration out on the game developers who actually care what their players think of the game, they are few and far between and should be protected at all costs.
sincerely
A Subnautica Fanboy (A.K.A. happysycko)