Subnautica

[Ian Skippy]

Interesting exchange about a feature that devs very clearly said they will not implement. But that's kind of the leitmotif of this place, isn't it?

Anyway, earlier in the thread I linked a fan project to mod the game with multiplayer support. I think it's nearing the beta stage, so you can try it out. (or not, depending on which camp you're from.)

Oh, I know it wont get official multiplayer, and I'm okay with that. Its fine if a dev team makes a few choices and stick with them, to deliver on something at the expense of something else. May even be applauded, even if they make a choice that I dont fully agree with. People ask for it, people make mods and try to make it happen on their own? Also good!

But this whole 'if you dont agree with me that coop is stupid in this game then you must never have played the game!" is just another way of saying "I cant imagine someone legitimately liking different stuff in a game!". Its a bit too... special.

 

[Chris Simon]

It is.

 

[Stigbob]

Oh, I know it wont get official multiplayer, and I'm okay with that. Its fine if a dev team makes a few choices and stick with them, to deliver on something at the expense of something else. May even be applauded, even if they make a choice that I dont fully agree with. People ask for it, people make mods and try to make it happen on their own? Also good!

But this whole 'if you dont agree with me that coop is stupid in this game then you must never have played the game!" is just another way of saying "I cant imagine someone legitimately liking different stuff in a game!". Its a bit too... special.

I assumed from the start you knew nothing about the game itself and would just be trying to have an argument preferably by trying to drag peoples personalities inaccurately into it, and you did.

Your shtick isn't very subtle.

 

[Ian Skippy]

I can see a correlation here between Subnautica and ED and why Subnautica has such a rich gameplay, while ED still looks like an amazing collection of tech studies but got gameplay barely delineated at the absolute minimum to even be recognized and accepted as such. Multiplayer seems to eat up too much dev-time while at the same time creating too many limitations for a sustaining singleplayer experience - if added as an afterthought at least.

In the end it doesn't matter how you start the developing process: multi- or singleplayer and then grafting the other aspect on top of it. You will always feel where your game is initially coming from. If you really want both in one game without crippling the rest it has to be a convincing overall plan before you even start to write your first line of code. I appreciate that ED starts with both aspects from the very beginning, but the 'tech study' aspect was and still is its apparent major focus. FD is struggling hard to change this but so far and in my perception all attempts are still falling flat. [sad]

tl;dr
That's why I don't think it's such a bright idea to add multiplayer to Subnautica. Though I do understand why it's an enticing thought...

I dont know, a more fair comparison would be NMS versus Subnautica. IMHO it isnt as much about SP vs MP, but more about 'vast procgen' versus 'smaller handcrafted'. Both have their advantages, but both can never really aspire to meet the advantages of the other approach. NMS will never have the size of NMS, but NMS will never have the focus of Subnautica. I think we're nearing the end of a 'procgen hype', and people start clamoring more for handcrafted content. So far MP has been a staple in procgen games, presumably because MP can add 'content' to an otherwise more barren experience. I wouldnt be surprised if the next wave of games will be MP handcrafted games, where you can have an interesting experience with a friend or two.

 

[Darkfyre99]

I dont know, a more fair comparison would be NMS versus Subnautica. IMHO it isnt as much about SP vs MP, but more about 'vast procgen' versus 'smaller handcrafted'. Both have their advantages, but both can never really aspire to meet the advantages of the other approach. NMS will never have the size of NMS, but NMS will never have the focus of Subnautica. I think we're nearing the end of a 'procgen hype', and people start clamoring more for handcrafted content. So far MP has been a staple in procgen games, presumably because MP can add 'content' to an otherwise more barren experience. I wouldnt be surprised if the next wave of games will be MP handcrafted games, where you can have an interesting experience with a friend or two.

Personally, if you're going to compare games, I'd say Subnautica has more in common with Alien: Isolation than No-Man's sky. Sure, NMS has base building, but it's unraveling the mystery of the world you crashed on, before you die of disease, predation, starvation, or simply suffocation, that is at the heart of this game. Its just you and a world that's trying to kill you, with no weapons, and a handful of tools that may drive them off, for a brief moment of time. That kind of experience simply doesn't work in coop games.

 

[Jenner]

I can see how co-op would be of interest to people, but I'm happy the devs decided to devote their resources to making it the best single player experience it could be. Co-op, while certainly of interest to many, is not a good fit for this game and as with any development effort, you only have so much time and money.

 

[jasonbarron]

I dont know, a more fair comparison would be NMS versus Subnautica. IMHO it isnt as much about SP vs MP, but more about 'vast procgen' versus 'smaller handcrafted'. Both have their advantages, but both can never really aspire to meet the advantages of the other approach. NMS will never have the size of NMS, but NMS will never have the focus of Subnautica. I think we're nearing the end of a 'procgen hype', and people start clamoring more for handcrafted content. So far MP has been a staple in procgen games, presumably because MP can add 'content' to an otherwise more barren experience. I wouldnt be surprised if the next wave of games will be MP handcrafted games, where you can have an interesting experience with a friend or two.

Good points. As far as the hand crafted goes, I'm actually very pleasantly surprised at how big Subnautica is. I don't know if it's because I'm pretty disorganized while playing, but even after nearly 40 hours of splashing about I still haven't made it below 400 meters. Personally, I'm happy the devs didn't include a multi player aspect to it. The solitude is one of my favorite parts.

 

[Mu77ley]

Someone said this has good VR support, so I got excited, looked on Steam... and discovered that I already owned it.

I think it was in a Humble Bundle (or Steam List-of-Shame Multiplier as I like to call them) about a year ago and I forgot about it.

Then I watched some YouTube videos of people playing it and discovered it's just an underwater tree punching game and lost interest again.

 

[NeilF]

Someone said this has good VR support, so I got excited, looked on Steam... and discovered that I already owned it.

I think it was in a Humble Bundle (or Steam List-of-Shame Multiplier as I like to call them) about a year ago and I forgot about it.

Then I watched some YouTube videos of people playing it and discovered it's just an underwater tree punching game and lost interest again.

Well, I'm still waiting for confirmation it has Oculus Touch support before buying it

 

[Chris Simon]

Well, I'm still waiting for confirmation it has Oculus Touch support before buying it

To be completely honest, this is the first game I really prefer normal monitor over the VR in. The VR's cool, but it actually takes away from the experience.

 

[NeilF]

To be completely honest, this is the first game I really prefer normal monitor over the VR in. The VR's cool, but it actually takes away from the experience.

How so?

 

[Chris Simon]

How so?

The visuals are great. And I can't say it would be badly implemented. But the inherent clumsiness in movement that VR has kind of destroys the whole thing. It's definitely great to try it once you know what you're doing and are all set, but I wouldn't want to play Survival in it. Not from the start at least.

 

[Darkfyre99]

The visuals are great. And I can't say it would be badly implemented. But the inherent clumsiness in movement that VR has kind of destroys the whole thing. It's definitely great to try it once you know what you're doing and are all set, but I wouldn't want to play Survival in it. Not from the start at least.

^^^ This.

If the game fully supported the Vive or Touch controllers, I would have no reservations playing it it VR, even in Hardcore mode. Unfortunately, you need to use either keyboard/mouse, or Xbox controller, to play the game, which kind of ruins the whole feel of VR for me.

I am tempted to set up a HOTAS scheme for the Seamoth and Prawn, and see how that operates.

So many games, so many projects, so little time.

 

[Monk]

On co-op, I believe the reason they stayed with SP only is pretty straightforward. Developing the framework to support MP is not an insignificant endeavor. Justifying the building of such a framework would compel designers to focus gameplay around MP. It would have detracted from focusing on the SP experience and would have fundamentally changed the vision of the game.

Now, would I like a co-op mode? Absolutely, though, I can appreciate what they accomplished by not being distracted by many iterations of net code.

 

[Jenner]

I need to dial back my exploration a bit in this game, as my reach is beginning to exceed my grasp. heh.
Just having built the cyclops I decided I was going to go finish exploring the underground river area. However, I didn't take the time to upgrade my cyclops, so I couldn't take it all the way down. So I had to just walk in with my Prawn suit, which A)takes forver and B)is extremely difficult to come back *up* the way I came in. Also, having not planned ahead and brought some extra water I found myself stranded in the bottom of a deep chasm while dying of thirst.

So I reloaded my previous save. Time to upgrade my cyclops a bit and probably build that water desalinator thing for my base before I strike out again.

Also, I really need to find those fragments for the power cell charger. I'm not gonna want to build new cells all the time for this cyclops.

 

[jasonbarron]

I need to dial back my exploration a bit in this game, as my reach is beginning to exceed my grasp. heh.
Just having built the cyclops I decided I was going to go finish exploring the underground river area. However, I didn't take the time to upgrade my cyclops, so I couldn't take it all the way down. So I had to just walk in with my Prawn suit, which A)takes forver and B)is extremely difficult to come back *up* the way I came in. Also, having not planned ahead and brought some extra water I found myself stranded in the bottom of a deep chasm while dying of thirst.

So I reloaded my previous save. Time to upgrade my cyclops a bit and probably build that water desalinator thing for my base before I strike out again.

Also, I really need to find those fragments for the power cell charger. I'm not gonna want to build new cells all the time for this cyclops.

Energy and food/water production are essential. My strategy is to push the envelope of exploration by starting out with a very small forward operating base stocked with the basics of survival at the edge of a new area I plan to farm.

 

[Chris Simon]

Yes, one of the first things I do is to get the water purifier, growbeds and the melons and fruit trees. It gets almost too easy after that.

 

[Jenner]

Yes, one of the first things I do is to get the water purifier, growbeds and the melons and fruit trees. It gets almost too easy after that.

Energy and food/water production are essential. My strategy is to push the envelope of exploration by starting out with a very small forward operating base stocked with the basics of survival at the edge of a new area I plan to farm.

I do have some growbeds already, but I need to expand and diversify my food/water generation a bit I think. I'll have another go tonight and consolidate my base a bit before venturing out.

 

[Stigbob]

I need to dial back my exploration a bit in this game, as my reach is beginning to exceed my grasp. heh.
Just having built the cyclops I decided I was going to go finish exploring the underground river area. However, I didn't take the time to upgrade my cyclops, so I couldn't take it all the way down. So I had to just walk in with my Prawn suit, which A)takes forver and B)is extremely difficult to come back *up* the way I came in. Also, having not planned ahead and brought some extra water I found myself stranded in the bottom of a deep chasm while dying of thirst.

So I reloaded my previous save. Time to upgrade my cyclops a bit and probably build that water desalinator thing for my base before I strike out again.

Also, I really need to find those fragments for the power cell charger. I'm not gonna want to build new cells all the time for this cyclops.

The grappling arm for the prawn is a must before you jump down anything deep, I abandoned mine in the jelly cave and had to swim back with one to get it out.

Build a simple base just two rooms a hatch and scan-room (with range upgrades) and a couple of bioreactor's (thermal if you can) plus growbeds (and reinforcements). Now pack that entire simple base into your cyclops cupboards, then set it up anywhere you want fill the grow beds from the cyclops ones and set the scan going for fragments/wrecks/databoxes. You can also scout things out with the camera drones and leave them as markers as they all have a beacon built in.

 

[Darkfyre99]

The grappling arm for the prawn is a must before you jump down anything deep, I abandoned mine in the jelly cave and had to swim back with one to get it out.

Build a simple base just two rooms a hatch and scan-room (with range upgrades) and a couple of bioreactor's (thermal if you can) plus growbeds (and reinforcements). Now pack that entire simple base into your cyclops cupboards, then set it up anywhere you want fill the grow beds from the cyclops ones and set the scan going for fragments/wrecks/databoxes. You can also scout things out with the camera drones and leave them as markers as they all have a beacon built in.

^^^

This, though be careful with the camera drones. Stalkers like to steal them!

My new Hardcore game has just dealt with the Aurora's drive core, my main base finally has a scanner room, and I'm getting ready to check the first officer's life pod. Finally, I'm getting ready to lay out the first ring of sensor bases. I didn't realize until late last game what a wonderful device they were, so they were placed a bit haphazardly. This time, I've got a plan that should cover the entire caldera.

Speaking of wonderful devices, I just discovered how easy it is to catch fish with the propulsion cannon. Once I "discover" the floating island, this save's diet will be much more varied than the last one. Eating nothing but marblemelon can't be good for you.