Hello mates.
This post is made from a game-maker point of view (amateur, but nonetheless one).
Entering a planet, choosing a spot to land and travelling around in a SRV is fun. Yes it is, confusing at first, but fun.
Very fun? No, just that kind of fun you get when you do something for the first time.
And that's the problem, it quickly gets boring. It's like a trip to moon's surface every time.
It's not a thing that can get players hooked on. I can use the example of planet landings in mass effect 1. THOSE were always fun.
Planets were very different, the mako was a beast to drive, and apart the stupid climbing over big mountains, it was fun to explore, to find a giant worm or a defended base to attack.
I have to give this warning to FD. If they go this way, horizons will loose its worth quickly. I guess the only reason people land on planets now is just because of the huge rewards.
How to solve this?
Not easy, but imagination is the answer.
Planets lack atmosphere. They all look like barren wastes where camps and bases suddenly are placed without any terraforming or signs of civilization (humans are colonizing it, aren't they?)
More over, it seems that if you go on this path, until you have proper details for planets and all the mechanics fixed, you'll be over your head with the immensity of the task.
Make it shorter.
Make the landing on planets part of an instance. You can make a faster approach effect like the hyper jump. Generate atmospheres to planet to give a better idea of its type. Generate procedurally each instance of terrain according with missions or landing targets:
Bases with heavy terraformed areas (more smooth driving, and predefined roads for SRVs to travel)
Colonies with agricultural structures
Industry centers with big drills and factories
Mining compounds
Military bases with heavy defenses
alien ruins
ship crashing sites
etc...
instead of spreading small things on big planets with giant areas to explore, make it personal. Put them hot on the wheels of the SRV
give them more types of vehicles (light SRVs, raid bikes, cargo armored vehicles, light tanks, heavy tanks, hovercarfts...)
If you tile-base an instance's mapping, you can generate different scenarios quite effectively, and give it a great variety of options)
The atmosphere is very important (sand storms, electric storms, meteor showers, lava areas, toxic gases, heavy methane clouds...)
Please consider these words.
Now I must report a bug:
I've encountered serious clipping issues when driving the SRV
Specially one right when dropping the SRV from ship. Sometimes the ship lands too low on the terrain (the landing gear gets half-inside the land mesh) When this happens, the SRV will be dropped inside the land mesh and not on top. It will start falling down indefinitely.
Sometimes this happens when driving the SRV. Instead of climbing a hill, it will cross the mesh without clip detection, and start falling down.
This post is made from a game-maker point of view (amateur, but nonetheless one).
Entering a planet, choosing a spot to land and travelling around in a SRV is fun. Yes it is, confusing at first, but fun.
Very fun? No, just that kind of fun you get when you do something for the first time.
And that's the problem, it quickly gets boring. It's like a trip to moon's surface every time.
It's not a thing that can get players hooked on. I can use the example of planet landings in mass effect 1. THOSE were always fun.
Planets were very different, the mako was a beast to drive, and apart the stupid climbing over big mountains, it was fun to explore, to find a giant worm or a defended base to attack.
I have to give this warning to FD. If they go this way, horizons will loose its worth quickly. I guess the only reason people land on planets now is just because of the huge rewards.
How to solve this?
Not easy, but imagination is the answer.
Planets lack atmosphere. They all look like barren wastes where camps and bases suddenly are placed without any terraforming or signs of civilization (humans are colonizing it, aren't they?)
More over, it seems that if you go on this path, until you have proper details for planets and all the mechanics fixed, you'll be over your head with the immensity of the task.
Make it shorter.
Make the landing on planets part of an instance. You can make a faster approach effect like the hyper jump. Generate atmospheres to planet to give a better idea of its type. Generate procedurally each instance of terrain according with missions or landing targets:
Bases with heavy terraformed areas (more smooth driving, and predefined roads for SRVs to travel)
Colonies with agricultural structures
Industry centers with big drills and factories
Mining compounds
Military bases with heavy defenses
alien ruins
ship crashing sites
etc...
instead of spreading small things on big planets with giant areas to explore, make it personal. Put them hot on the wheels of the SRV
give them more types of vehicles (light SRVs, raid bikes, cargo armored vehicles, light tanks, heavy tanks, hovercarfts...)
If you tile-base an instance's mapping, you can generate different scenarios quite effectively, and give it a great variety of options)
The atmosphere is very important (sand storms, electric storms, meteor showers, lava areas, toxic gases, heavy methane clouds...)
Please consider these words.
Now I must report a bug:
I've encountered serious clipping issues when driving the SRV
Specially one right when dropping the SRV from ship. Sometimes the ship lands too low on the terrain (the landing gear gets half-inside the land mesh) When this happens, the SRV will be dropped inside the land mesh and not on top. It will start falling down indefinitely.
Sometimes this happens when driving the SRV. Instead of climbing a hill, it will cross the mesh without clip detection, and start falling down.
