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Seems like Below Zero still has a lot of bugs? I can’t deconstruct some water filters because the game thinks the they’re full, my power keeps weirdly fluctuating, and I can’t build a bunch of things(new water filters, moonpool upgrade console) for seemingly no reason
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Jan 23, 2022 19:33
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I have never heard/experienced of those bugs. Aren't you on console? I do hear they are buggier than the PC version. Only thing I can think of is to reload the save or save and restart the game
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Jan 23, 2022 20:22
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Just found Phi Robotics and, man, this game really isn’t doing it for me. I feel like the more story they stuffed in, the worse it got. Running around in the snow kind of sucks too. Maybe I’ll go finally try No Man’s Sky or something
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Jan 26, 2022 02:49
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I have a hard time deciding if below zero is missing something crucial to feeling magical, or if you just can't walk through the same door twice.
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Jan 26, 2022 02:52
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ikanreed posted:I have a hard time deciding if below zero is missing something crucial to feeling magical, or if you just can't walk through the same door twice. I guess we need to find someone to play BZ first then the original and see how it goes. Imo the amount of on land stuff in BZ was very weak and detracted from the game significantly. Less of that and more super deep exploration would have made the game better
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Jan 26, 2022 02:57
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I have thought about how the two stories start a lot in that regard. In Subnautica, you are all but tossed into the ocean with a good luck and a "lol capitalism" tablet. It is very much what you make. There is the story regarding the other survivors, but you never meet them. Instead, the story basically what you make of it. The player is very much the main character and this lets you own your accomplishments a lot easier. Even as the game progresses, the story is still very much happening to you and your actions ultimately matter towards the overall completion. You can stop at any time and just enjoy the overall vibe, but it is pretty easy to pick up the threads and move forward. In Below Zero, Your character puts herself in that situation. She is not looking to be rescued but instead wants to figure out the various mysteries surrounding her sister, the planet, etc etc. There are characters to interact with, albeit loosely, but the story wants to feel personal. Changing the writers in development is probably the biggest issue to why the story feels so disjointed and unconnected, but it also kinda had to be lynchpin for the game really work the same with the first one did. I needed a stronger, more concrete reason to be there and explore because I put myself there. It had all the potential to be a personal story, but never gels right and ends up feel very insubstantial. I think it really hampers the overall experience actually. Its a simple thing but the framing device really changes how I approached and felt about the games. I think Below Zero is good and has some great spots/moments, but its hard to get into and that really drags the game down for me.
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Jan 26, 2022 03:45
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Below Zero would've worked way better if you were an Alterra Insurance Claims Investigator sent to the planet to figure out what the hell happened when an entire scientific team went off the grid, Obra Dinn style.
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Jan 26, 2022 04:01
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And also if they made the water biomes a lot larger along with giving me a drat cyclops.
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Jan 26, 2022 05:40
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It was weird wandering through abandoned labs, wondering what happened there, and then when checking my data logs I found a message that you have right from the beginning from one of the scientists who was there and she was just reassigned. Although the scientists at the virus research lab probably died. And actually the Alterra stuff turns out to be mostly tangential to the story the game wants you to follow, which is weird considering how it's the inciting incident.
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Jan 26, 2022 06:12
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I really liked BZ, beat it in a few days and was thrilled through the ending sequence. I also missed the giant plot point everyone else does and was left with a "wait what about __?" but figured it got dropped due to more important shjt coming up. Might be because I had a couple years between the two games and I never replayed the original. BZ certainly isn't perfect but it felt, to me, as close to playing the original for the first time again as you could reasonably hope.
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Jan 26, 2022 12:32
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Oasx posted:The goal in both games is to avoid the dangerous predators while you go about your business. Neither game is particularly dangerous or scary, nor were they meant to be. I haven't played BZ, but I would argue that fear plays a pretty big role in Subnautica. The game makes it pretty clear from the start that, while beautiful, this is a hostile environment that can and will kill you. Exploring is necessary, but also risky, and even in the intro area you can get ambushed by Crashfish, attacked by a shark, or simply get turned around in a cave and suffocate. But obviously, you need to explore to gather resources— even if every time you come away from your base and venture into a new area, you run the risk of coming into contact with some horrifying monster. So the game isn't just about managing resources, but about managing fear: Do you risk venturing into a new area? How close are you willing to get to that Reaper Leviathan? How long are you willing to risk exploring a wreck before running out of oxygen? This cave you found is big, dark, and scary. There might be a monster inside. Do you go in? Of course, as you learn more about each area, the unknown becomes the known and thus less scary. Crashfish become more annoying than frightening. The sharks really don't bother you if you stay away from them. Once you upgrade your O2 tank, suffocating is much less of a risk, and exploring becomes more relaxing. But something Subnautica does very well is present new environments and new threats so that there's always something to be scared of, particularly as you go deeper. And ultimately, one of the most satisfying things in the game is conquering that fear of the unknown: You did go into that new area, and found new resources to help expand your base. You did skirt past that Reaper. You did go into that scary cave, and found it was full of alien artifacts. And as a result, you not only survived in this hostile environment, but thrived. It's a great feeling that peaks right at the end of the game as you prepare to leave this alien planet, which is why the entire experience is so memorable. It's also why, if BZ is less scary (As most of the comments seem to indicate), then of course it'll be less satisfying to conquer. There just isn't the same thrill of exploring and conquering the unknown if the unknown is less likely to swallow you whole. Acebuckeye13 fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Jan 26, 2022 |
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Jan 26, 2022 18:48
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One scary part of BZ was being in one of the Vent Gardens while a Chelcirate Leviathan constantly attacks the outside of it, waiting for you to leave.
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Jan 26, 2022 19:21
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I think Below Zero suffered from being the sequel more than anything else - if the first game didn’t exist to compare it to it would have been a triumph of course. But at the same time I felt there was a lot atmospheric that could have been done way better. In the original game there are a lot of ticking clock moments like the ship exploding or going to meet the “rescue” ship. At the same time there’s a growing sense of dread as you find life pods and degassi stations abandoned and hear an alien signal saying they are hunting you. It made it feel like something was just around the corner. In Below Zero there are all these amazingly designed abandoned bases both on the surface and underwater but you get a lot of info that undercuts this. I was baffled there were so many references to the alien imposter game they were all playing assuming it was hinting towards some darker subplot you could find out about betrayal or madness among the Alterra crew and even a threat of someone still behind targeting you but no you get logs just saying so and so left the planet.
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Jan 26, 2022 19:50
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Nope. Just an Among us meme
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Jan 26, 2022 20:15
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The OG game had a fantastic tension of the goal being literally in the opposite direction you had to go to achieve it. You want up off the planet, so you have to go down deeper into it. It works incredibly well, and the environments are built to reinforce awareness of that tension. But BZ is just kind of all over the place in that regard.
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Jan 26, 2022 21:12
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ThisIsJohnWayne posted:The game is fantastic now! They have done a close to perfect rebalancing of the resource cost compared to the early access, and now everything just feels easy and fun again. I even started in survival mode and the food/water is still so much less annoying than what it was before. Shure the pop-in is there just the same but it isn't totally catastrophic, it's "merely" bad. Game's still terrifying and fun tho! I just started playing this game this week, and have been skimming this thread to catch up a bit. This post was made exactly four years ago. I guess it’s fair to say that it’s got some longevity!
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Jan 27, 2022 02:07
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in_cahoots posted:I just started playing this game this week, and have been skimming this thread to catch up a bit. This post was made exactly four years ago. I guess it’s fair to say that it’s got some longevity! as well as this thread.
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Jan 27, 2022 10:45
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Omnicarus posted:Below Zero would've worked way better if you were an Alterra Insurance Claims Investigator sent to the planet to figure out what the hell happened when an entire scientific team went off the grid, Obra Dinn style. My idea was that, rather than skirting around "what happened to my sister?" (Exactly what Alterra told you: an accident.) they should have gone for of course she's dead from the beginning, and used that to give the game a tight, central theme. Subnautica 1 is about survival. You're alone on this planet, trying to survive. The Sea Emperor is the last of its kind, trying for its children to have a chance to survive. The whole planet is just trying to survive the Kharaa. The Degasi people tried to survive and failed; the Aurora survivors also. The Architects were just trying to survive the Kharaa when they hosed everything up. Subnautica 1 keeps giving you glimpses of hope for surviving better, be they a new tech upgrade or a way off this goddamn planet, and in the end - you do. You blast off. Your success at survival contrasts with the Sea Emperor's last moments, but both of you are content. Gameplay, story, and lore feed tightly into each other as the dangerous, beautiful, horrible planet slowly becomes survivable - and most players hesitate before firing off the escape rocket. Subnautica 2, by contrast, is kind of a mess. You aren't a hardy survivor thrown into adventure, you're on a mission to find your sister on a well-known Dangerous Ice Planet... And you've packed five bottles of water, some instant ramen, and a PDA. Of course, on arrival you can immediately craft a scanner, swim to Base Zero and scan 3/4 of the tech tree there, taking off most of the survival pressure. The Mission to Find Your Sister is also immediately derailed in favour of Your Roommate, and you can finish the game without ever figuring out what happened to her. There's no disease that might kill you, no need to get off the planet yourself, no struggle to scavenge technology from whatever bits of debris you can find, you're not even really that stranded - there's a perfectly functional radio tower and whatnot. Furthermore, in Subnautica 1, your biggest landmark is the still smouldering remains of the Aurora - a constant stark reminder of how hard this planet has already kicked your rear end. Below Zero at most has... snow storms? Subnautica 2 has a readily-available central theme: Loss. You've lost your sister. Al-An has lost their connection to their people, and isn't even sure whether any are still alive, and it's also kind of their own fault. My idea for Below Zero would be: You're on a mission to retrieve your sister's body. You're building tech and resources to be able to reach her, somewhere Alterra didn't go or needed heavy equipment to access. When Al-An comes into the picture, you extend the same courtesy to them - in the process finding the pieces to make a new body for them. You could have reflected on what relationships mean, and how one processes grief, in humans and aliens. They could have bonded over the feelings they experience. Al-An, as a member of a networked species, might be thrown off by being "alone" whereas Robin as a human has been alone inside her head her whole life, and with the loss of her sister is more alone still. Hell, there's mementos for everyone on the planet liberally sprinkled about, so if you wanted a fetch quest for Alterra Life Insurance or something, there you are. You could have finished your sisters' work eradicating the Kharaa, bonded with Al-An over that, perhaps build some sort of space coffin to retrieve her remains or make the ice bloom with a hardy species of flower. Reflect on the cycle of life and death on a planet that has seen so much of both. Blasted off to Al-An's homeworld, not knowing what you'll find but ready to face the unknown, with a friend. A new kind of network.
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Jan 27, 2022 12:11
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I think the original version of the plot, or at least what we got of it, would have worked better for those looking for an experience with the same tension and anxiety of the first game. For those unaware, the original plot had Robin working in Outpost Zero, while Sam was alive and working on a space station above the planet. A freak snowstorm forces you out of the base and into the cave that got turned into the portal to the hyper gate to the Architects homeworld. Al-An is introduced earlier as a voice telling you to stay away and not to mess with the Architect technology. You evacuate into the ocean as the base is ruined, and Sam drops you a life pod. When you go to the Sanctuary there's no SOS signals as Al-An doesn't want you there, he even locks you in when you enter and tells you to die. Robin is exploring for a way out when she finds the download machine, with Al-An being accidentally downloaded into her head instead of him guiding her to it. From there the story was a lot more in progress, there was back and forth with you and Sam as you had to pretend not to have Al-An in your head, the Kharaa the Alterra station was researching gets out of containment and there's suspected sabotage, you have to find a Sea Emperor Leviathan youngling to get the enzyme from and there's still the increasing suspicion on Robin's actions and pressure of trying to hide from Alterra while figuring out what's really going on. In the end your boss and Sam's manager catches on and you get busted but that was the end of the story really. I'm not sure how they would have wrapped that all up in the context of Subnautica being a survival exploration game though. At the very least it would have given a potential clear line from the Subnautica setting to the Natural Selection setting, with the clear experimentation on Kharaa and that getting out of quarantine. Alterra was also far more aggressively dangerous and evil than the impersonal and tyrannical corporate nation we are exposed to through the writing and lore in the final releases. Honestly though, to add a dissenting voice, I really enjoyed the experience of having a person with me as I explored the world, with Robin explaining things to Al-An about her world and life and him juxtaposing it with his own. I played through the story several times during the latter half of the early access development and enjoyed the world and exploration. Although I can't deny the on foot sections were not a strong point and kind of frustrating. Especially the ice worms.
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Jan 27, 2022 12:35
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Oh yes, the interactions with Al-An were interesting, but they were limited. They didn't feel alien, they felt like a white guy trying to write an alien, if that makes sense? They were very "alien from a human perspective" and Al-An mostly kept back to, I guess, not distract at a critical moment? "Yes, I'm a centuries old scientist who was always online with everyone else in my pod. I will spend a lot of time now sulking in your head or telling you that human things are 'inefficient', which you are only allowed to be Spunky And Energetic in response to. Hashtag Girlboss. Don't ask me too many questions despite being a xenobiologist, thanks." No finding a glowing architect thing, scanning it, reading the datapad entry about a precision molecular rearranger that could advance alterra fabrication tech by decades, and hearing Al-An going "oh, that's a food processor for our captive specimens. I think we used it to heat up eel chunks." I did like Al-An commenting on Robin dreaming the first time you use a bed whilst they're in your head. During early access I wrote feedback that as an alien, sleep might be unknown to Al-An so I'd like to think I inspired that (though it's probably a common idea, to be honest).
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Jan 27, 2022 12:58
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The problem with Subnautica BZ is that it’s Baby’s first Subnautica and it holds your hand the whole way with little to kill you. I still enjoy it for the crafting, building, and exploration though. The overworld sections need an overhaul. It should kill you much faster than it currently does when your exposed, make it tense when you dash across the ice hoping for a thermal plant. In fact reduce the number of those too. Caves should still slowly kill you too or at best they don’t increase your heat. In fact, thermal vents and plants should be the only things that warm you up, make the player pre-plan by bringing coffee. Make the drain on warmth hard as hell until you can craft the snowsuit. For the worm section, make them either one shot kill you or deal like 85%-90% health. Build a door or cave that blocks the Prawn from getting in there and encourages Snowfox use or crafting pounders to survive the worms. Beef up the snowfox durability too and make it drat near impervious to accidentally slamming it into a wall or falling from heights. Driving the snowfox is supposed to be the mega fun highlight of the game, loving fix it already!
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Jan 27, 2022 14:19
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Got a friend into this game finally as a way of experiencing it for the first time vicariously all over again. My playthrough it took me til after I'd built the drat Cyclops to find the Compass blueprints. For them, they've got the Seamoth before they've found Beacon fragments.
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Jan 27, 2022 16:41
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The main problem is that BZ was finished at the start of a Pandemic and may have come out completely different if not for that.
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Jan 27, 2022 17:24
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Lunar Suite posted:My idea was that, rather than skirting around "what happened to my sister?" (Exactly what Alterra told you: an accident.) they should have gone for of course she's dead from the beginning, and used that to give the game a tight, central theme. Well...I dunno. It was an "accident" is at the very least what everybody reports, but it was an accident while she was skulking around in an area she was explicitly told not to be in, and she had her accident with the security officer of the site, who the game had done everything in its power to define as sleazey, and there's also that last audio log where she and Maida were discussing how Robin would go off and sneak into the leviathan cave to cure it and stop the research while Maida said she would "take care of" the virus research site, (which if you find it, you can see that she did that with explosives, but there's nothing that points you towards that lab and not really any benefit for finding it). So that still seems pretty suspect, but there's not much to explicitly confirm things, and it doesn't really make sense why Robin didn't have the cure on her when she died. Either way, it seems like kind of a dangling plot thread, but the game is kinda full of plot threads that go nowhere. With most of the bases, you know what happened with them, the company just pulled out of the planet. There's not an arc to most of the audio log characters even though they have more details than in Subnautica. There doesn't seem to be much of a plot to the Mercury II, and even the alien ruins don't seem to have much storytelling built into the environment or logs. Cartoon Man posted:For the worm section, make them either one shot kill you or deal like 85%-90% health. Build a door or cave that blocks the Prawn from getting in there and encourages Snowfox use or crafting pounders to survive the worms. Beef up the snowfox durability too and make it drat near impervious to accidentally slamming it into a wall or falling from heights. Driving the snowfox is supposed to be the mega fun highlight of the game, loving fix it already! Maybe they could've made some kind of mechanic where the prawnsuit needs antifreeze to keep working in the snow? But either way you can't "fix" the snow worms without radically redesigning them and the environment. They're too big and too fast to really avoid in such a closed area. I also kinda thought that there'd be the option to repower thumpers to deal with them since you find one and a log talking about it, but there's just the one.
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Jan 27, 2022 17:40
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The worm section is where they finally said “gently caress it, ship the game as is.”
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Jan 27, 2022 18:35
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Since it's going to be many years before UW makes an actual Subnautica sequel (if ever), I'm hoping some other developer out there is working on a spiritual successor
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Jan 27, 2022 19:42
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Manager Hoyden posted:Since it's going to be many years before UW makes an actual Subnautica sequel (if ever), I'm hoping some other developer out there is working on a spiritual successor I posted about this a week or so ago, it’s looking to be heavily influenced by Subnautica. Cartoon Man posted:Here’s something to keep an eye on.
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Jan 27, 2022 20:08
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Cartoon Man posted:I posted about this a week or so ago, it’s looking to be heavily influenced by Subnautica. That is looking good so far, I hope it scratches the same kind of itch
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Jan 27, 2022 20:12
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Even though it's very different from the Subnauticas, I will say that Raft is the only other survival game I haven't hated.
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Jan 27, 2022 20:20
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Oasx posted:Even though it's very different from the Subnauticas, I will say that Raft is the only other survival game I haven't hated. I tried that but couldn’t get into it.
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Jan 27, 2022 20:41
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Oasx posted:Even though it's very different from the Subnauticas, I will say that Raft is the only other survival game I haven't hated. Cartoon Man posted:I tried that but couldn’t get into it. Definitely agree that they're different games; although it's also a survival game at sea, the similarities basically end there. It's also a *very* small indie studio so don't expect the same level of polish, basically any voice acting, etc. I generally only play single player games, but Raft is one that does improve a lot with another person. It adds a lot to the gameplay loop to have a bit of a division of labour, talk out extensions to your raft (or just go full Full House episode and just have your own sections), have one person distract the shark while the other one plunders the shallows around an island, etc.
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Jan 28, 2022 10:21
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Oasx posted:Even though it's very different from the Subnauticas, I will say that Raft is the only other survival game I haven't hated. The Long Dark is pretty drat awesome, though not very similar to Subnautica other than being a survival game
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Jan 28, 2022 13:57
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I finally got around to picking this back up after getting a bit stuck, busy, then moving so I kinda just put it down for awhile. Finishing the first game at just over 30 hours. Endgame / final zone spoilers below. i cannot believe I never noticed I could craft the blue tablets. Holy poo poo!! I was stuck at the force field in the primary facility forever. Felt real silly to cycle through my crafting list only to see it right there the whole time! So wow, crafted those and purples up (literally never scanned a purple in 30 hours of playtime), I had to look this up and realize I was somehow neglectful at scanning the broken tablet until the final hour of my playthrough. I’m absolutely amazed I just missed that assuming oh it’s broken despite that being how you learn every other blueprint! Either way if feels good to have solved the mystery with minimal spoilers outside of being told those two tablet colors are craftable. What a cool way to end the game. Loved to help my alien buddy. Was definitely sad, but I enjoyed seeing them in the ending credits again  Also lol at the very end. “Docking requires you to pay your balance of 70tril..” insert Jack ‘we should’ve never left the island’ stuck in my head at that point. Can’t lie it DID make me want to reload that save and go full on sim city in several zones with nocost enabled. Non spoiler feedback: check your crafting list. I also recommend mod wise to not mod the sea moth too heavily / don’t give it max depth module upgrade from the mod until you’ve already been there otherwise. You’ll ruin the final zone’s certain vibe like I did, and I wish I had discovered it the intended way. Definitely gonna be picking up BZ next sale. I’ll probably replay through the first at some point especially if/when I get a VR setup. Ghost Leviathan posted:Got a friend into this game finally as a way of experiencing it for the first time vicariously all over again. Wait hold up— there’s a freaking compass blueprint I entirely missed? Oh my. Edit2: can someone spoiler for me how to how to repair the aurora’s engines? Can I do this basically right after getting radiation suit and repair tool? I imagine there’s a pretty easy route to get everything. I had no idea you could repair it before checking the hidden achievements. I checked what four achievements I missed— engine repair, two degassi bases I didn’t fully scan apparently, and hatching a critter. Kinda want to complete them all, now. onesixtwo fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Jan 28, 2022 |
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Jan 28, 2022 19:41
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onesixtwo posted:I finally got around to picking this back up after getting a bit stuck, busy, then moving so I kinda just put it down for awhile. Finishing the first game at just over 30 hours. Endgame / final zone spoilers below. You can enter and fix the Aurora as long as you have the radiation suit, repair tool, a laser cutter, 2-3 fire extinguishers, and the grappling gun. May not even need the grapple gun if you take the back door by climbing up the outside of the wreckage I think.
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Jan 28, 2022 21:17
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Cartoon Man posted:You can enter and fix the Aurora as long as you have the radiation suit, repair tool, a laser cutter, 2-3 fire extinguishers, and the grappling gun. May not even need the grapple gun if you take the back door by climbing up the outside of the wreckage I think. Sweet, thank you! Gonna spin up a second file and zoom through that one later today. I don't usually chase achievements, but this game was something special and I absolutely want an excuse to do more time. Base building isn't really enough to hook me, but the exploration and feeling this game provided was so unique.
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Jan 28, 2022 22:42
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Also don’t be afraid to just google up all the door codes in the Aurora. Otherwise you’ll have to wait later in the game for a radio call late game to give you the captains door code.
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Jan 28, 2022 23:00
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lol i found an orange tablet in one of the degassi bases I didn't fully explore. The kicker? I set up a habitat 100m to the side of this place, and used it as one of my very first venture points into the deep. Apparently never realized I didn't explore the upper portion of the base nextdoor to me. oh and also I realized i *did* have the compass, so I just totally forgot about that bit of hud. I didn't miss that one, thankfully. BZ is on sale as it turns out, so i'm going to pick that up. Probably going to let myself finish Sub1 achievements first, then take a bit of a pause between jumping into BZ. Curious to see I feel about it, understanding the general sentiment is less good than one. onesixtwo fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Jan 28, 2022 |
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Jan 28, 2022 23:10
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onesixtwo posted:lol i found an orange tablet in one of the degassi bases I didn't fully explore. I did the same exact thing — missed that item
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Jan 29, 2022 00:04
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Aren't the tablets craftable once you pick them up? I thought that was a foolproof way to give the recipe to the player, specifically in case they forget to scan them.
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Jan 29, 2022 14:16
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Rupert Buttermilk posted:Aren't the tablets craftable once you pick them up? I thought that was a foolproof way to give the recipe to the player, specifically in case they forget to scan them. Yep. It used to be you had to scan them and what you said happened to a lot of players with the blue/orange tablet since you needed to craft an extra one in order to progress.
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Jan 29, 2022 19:44
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