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enraged_camel posted:What I meant is that the lack of a map does not feel normal or natural in this game's universe. So it jumps out at you as a conscious decision the developers made in order to "force" immersion upon the player — utilizing your spatial memory to know the location of biomes and points of interest with relation to each other results in higher cognitive load, and if you're having to mentally keep track of your current location all the time so as to avoid getting lost, you're paying more attention to the game and are therefore more immersed. It is in stark contrast with the rest of the game, which is very naturally immersive.
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Feb 28, 2020 20:59
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Y'all seem to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, tbh. An exploration game without a map is like an RPG where your character has stats, but the game does not show them to you, and instead you need to resort to some external mechanism or mod to derive them.
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Mar 4, 2020 19:46
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in fact most playthoughs will have the player fully immersed within a minute or two, if not sooner
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Mar 4, 2020 19:54
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enraged_camel posted:Y'all seem to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, tbh. There are dozens of games that do that and I've almost never heard anyone complain.
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Mar 4, 2020 19:59
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enraged_camel posted:Y'all seem to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, tbh. Games don’t need to follow a strict formula. I used beacons in lieu of a map and a large range scanning room to get a better idea of the overall shape of the deeper areas. Zesty fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Mar 4, 2020 |
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Mar 4, 2020 20:22
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enraged_camel posted:Y'all seem to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, tbh. I sort of get your point, but I also like games where the limitations fit in with the game lore and a general assumption that things work like the real world unless the story provides a reason for it to differ. With the level of technology that obviously exists in the game universe it would make sense for the PDA to have a navigation option of some sort, but at the same time since you're stuck on an uncharted planet and all known electronic navigation systems rely on beacons in known locations or star charts it'd make as much sense that at least initially you have no ability to automatically map the world. Where that thought process of course falls apart is once we've started building beacons, since our electronic systems are capable of accurately determining distance and could thus generate useful relative positioning with as long as three were within range, and especially when we have the Scanner Room HUD chip that clearly means something knows exactly where you are and the layout of the local terrain. At that point there's no excuse beyond artificial challenge, which IMO is not a good excuse. wolrah fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Mar 4, 2020 |
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Mar 4, 2020 20:23
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JawnV6 posted:in fact most playthoughs will have the player fully immersed within a minute or two, if not sooner I appreciated this.
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Mar 4, 2020 20:26
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enraged_camel posted:Y'all seem to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, tbh. Getting lost can be fun and create exciting scenarios. Exploring an area and learning the landmarks to the point where you know it like the back of your hand can be very satisfying. A map makes the former impossible, and the latter pointless. You are not the arbiter of what is valid fun, so gently caress off with this stockholm syndrome poo poo.
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Mar 4, 2020 20:27
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enraged_camel posted:Y'all seem to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, tbh. disagree
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Mar 4, 2020 20:33
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enraged_camel posted:Y'all seem to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, tbh. The worst part about Subnautica for me was the lack of a map. It didn't really make me feel anymore immersed, it just made it feel like a chore when I realized I was going in circles. I have no idea why a map couldn't be optional.
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Mar 4, 2020 22:01
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A map would ruin the game because the world is actually very small.
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Mar 4, 2020 22:27
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draw your own map
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Mar 4, 2020 22:31
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I have a terrible sense of direction and constantly got lost, but not having a map (at least initially) helped the immersion. I would've liked if you could eventually have made a map, but not without some effort. Like if one of the scanner room upgrades was to make you a partial map of the scannable area, which you could use in the vehicles. Or if all the nav beacons you set up in an area could be connected to make a map of that area, but if one of the beacons was destroyed by something, you'd lose the map and know something new and dangerous was in the area.
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Mar 4, 2020 23:24
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Mason Dixon posted:I have a terrible sense of direction and constantly got lost, but not having a map (at least initially) helped the immersion. I would've liked if you could eventually have made a map, but not without some effort. Like if one of the scanner room upgrades was to make you a partial map of the scannable area, which you could use in the vehicles. Or if all the nav beacons you set up in an area could be connected to make a map of that area, but if one of the beacons was destroyed by something, you'd lose the map and know something new and dangerous was in the area. This is a very good idea.
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Mar 4, 2020 23:28
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the map mod with fog of war is decent enough, and if there was an in-game way to have the sonar convert into a usable map, that'd be a decent workaround imo. You'd still need to visit all the areas to get the location data.
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Mar 4, 2020 23:36
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When I drive places I don't use my GPS for the immersion.
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Mar 4, 2020 23:36
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Captain Invictus posted:the map mod with fog of war is decent enough, and if there was an in-game way to have the sonar convert into a usable map, that'd be a decent workaround imo. You'd still need to visit all the areas to get the location data. Scanner bases do make you a map from sonar. 500m square area, it's quite huge. I use the cameras on the scanner rooms as movable beacons to go to where I want to look into and then travel there by vehicle.
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Mar 4, 2020 23:37
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Have a craftable sonar imaging module that you can slot into your vehicles that gives you an interactive map of the area you’re currently in. Also, it uses a special frequency that attracts all leviathans within a 500m radius to your location. 
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Mar 5, 2020 00:01
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I've seen a pair of mods that are useful for the game. https://www.nexusmods.com/subnautica/mods/12 the first one is additional interface, the second one is simpler and a screenshot-replacer so you loosely know where the zone are but you still have to figure out where's where on your own. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=595137118
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Mar 5, 2020 00:05
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Comrade Koba posted:Have a craftable sonar imaging module that you can slot into your vehicles that gives you an interactive map of the area you’re currently in. You jest, but basically yea. The Seaglide's sonar is too small and chaotic to make good use of, but when in the first lava zone I tore open my "scanner room in a locker" package to see where else I could mine that wasn't patrolled by the seadragon, and it cheerfully showed me a 3d passage downward that I'd missed. The in-ship sonar upgrades are such big game-changers that I'd automatically assumed they aggro'd any leviathans they pinged, was surprised that's not the case (also surprised that nobody gives a poo poo about the cyclops when unpowered, come on). It didn't bother me not having a map, and I totally agree it was a needed sacrifice of realism in the name of fun. The x-y ranges are tiny, as highlighted by how fast you can swim from the edge of the map back to the liferaft, and a map would only show the top layer anyways, missing all the good stuff. I also somehow managed to miss *so much* stuff on my playthrough, since the world is amazingly dense and if you're not swimming past it regularly like the safe shallows its very easy to miss stuff. That might sound like an argument in favor of maps, but I say it isn't; the fun is trawling over ares and discovering new stuff in nooks and crannies.
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Mar 5, 2020 00:17
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I mean even the sea glide has a surface contouring hud. It should be trivial for the level of tech to just record that data and build from there.
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Mar 5, 2020 00:29
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I'm willing to accept a map in the game, but only if it's only in a special difficulty which is listed *before* normal.
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Mar 5, 2020 00:35
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Salt Fish posted:A map would ruin the game because the world is actually very small. If all it takes is a map to ruin the game then said game must not be much to write home about. A map that gets uncovered as you explore that is completely optional would have done wonders to help with the tedium I felt when I played through it.
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Mar 5, 2020 00:35
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Salt Fish posted:I'm willing to accept a map in the game, but only if it's only in a special difficulty which is listed *before* normal. You could always just, you know, not use it if it bothers you that much.
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Mar 5, 2020 00:46
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The mode is titled "baby mode" and it has a picture of a tiny baby!!
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Mar 5, 2020 00:50
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Salt Fish posted:I'm willing to accept a map in the game, but only if it's only in a special difficulty which is listed *before* normal. and you have to beat the game on that mode before you can play on normal sounds great!
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Mar 5, 2020 01:03
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Salt Fish posted:The mode is titled "baby mode" and it has a picture of a tiny baby!! Oh lord we don't need another hundred weepy "think pieces"
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Mar 5, 2020 01:03
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Salt Fish posted:The mode is titled "baby mode" and it has a picture of a tiny baby!! and also there's a special ending where it pans to your face and you were a baby in a man suit all along
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Mar 5, 2020 01:42
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There are maps online if you're really the type of person who can't play a video game without one but it really takes away from the intended atmosphere of the game world. It's like people who want offensive weapons in Subnautica, completely missing the point. Coming in blind and slowly building up beacons and experience in a totally alien and uncharted environment is the point. If you learn the game with maps then you're going to lose out on a wonderful part of the game you can't get back. It's like trying to play Return of the Obra Dinn with a cheat sheet and then trying to go back into it blind. Zesty fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Mar 5, 2020 |
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Mar 5, 2020 01:50
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wolrah posted:I sort of get your point, but I also like games where the limitations fit in with the game lore and a general assumption that things work like the real world unless the story provides a reason for it to differ. I think this is a fair point. While I'm not in favor of having a map, I do think its absence could have been explained away without too much effort. I personally like my idea of Alterra being too cheap to shell out for the vastly overpriced map software (the IP of which is owned and protected by some other, rival corporate giant) for anyone but the really important people on the ship (and maybe not even that). But even without that, it's easily explained by the PDA being corrupted on bootup. Heck, you could even make it into a running joke: have a maps tab in the PDA at first but when accessed show it as a garbled, corrupted mess, then remove the tab with an error message. When you build the cyclops, have it say "Initiating mapping and navigation functions. Connecting to PDA and downloading mapping tools. Error: mapping software not found. Terminating mapping functions."
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Mar 5, 2020 01:55
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Soul Reaver posted:I think this is a fair point. While I'm not in favor of having a map, I do think its absence could have been explained away without too much effort. Unknown Worlds should hire you.
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Mar 5, 2020 01:56
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I'll worry about immersion in subnautica when it can handle moving more than a walking equivalent speed without the entire world popping in in front of you
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Mar 5, 2020 02:26
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Zesty posted:There are maps online if you're really the type of person who can't play a video game without one but it really takes away from the intended atmosphere of the game world. It's like people who want offensive weapons in Subnautica, completely missing the point. Yeah, I got little of this over time. A map that fills in as you explore would be great. I most certainly didn't feel a sense of awe when I played through a lot of it. Quite a bit was annoying and frustrating because things begin to look samey after some time. Not everyone experiences things the same way. Out of all the things I thought wrong with the game the two biggest were the survival mechanics not mattering after about an hour and the lack of a map that fills in as you explore.
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Mar 5, 2020 02:34
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blackguy32 posted:Yeah, I got little of this over time. A map that fills in as you explore would be great. I most certainly didn't feel a sense of awe when I played through a lot of it. Quite a bit was annoying and frustrating because things begin to look samey after some time. Do what I did: play it with Realistic Recepies Mod, Fragment Booster Mod, Nitrogen Mod (without the added air tanks) and Radiation Mod in Hardcore difficulty! Suddenly survival stuff matters WAY more, and for a lot, lot longer! ...of course, the game also takes way longer overall so once the above stuff stops mattering, it doesn't matter for a much longer period too... Soul Reaver fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Mar 5, 2020 |
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Mar 5, 2020 02:38
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Soul Reaver posted:Do what I did: play it with Realistic Recepies Mod, Fragment Booster Mod, Nitrogen Mod (without the added air tanks) and Radiation Mod in Hardcore difficulty! I beat it already. But I eventually just turned it off after a couple of hours. It just needed more thought put into it. I enjoyed the game although I almost quit a couple of times from lack of direction, which is why I wanted a map. I eventually resorted to looking up info on the internet.
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Mar 5, 2020 06:18
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I sometimes use the map on the wiki when trying to find some of the small biomes, like the sea treader area that is easy to miss. Otherwise I just put beacons at various places.
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Mar 5, 2020 07:26
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enraged_camel posted:Y'all seem to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, tbh. u seem to be suffering from turd brain syndrome a terminal case, my goondolances Anyway, a map wouldn't be as much fun as learning the terrain. Might be cool for a replay, but that's why there's a mod for it.
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Mar 5, 2020 10:12
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Andrast posted:draw your own map People seem to have drifted past Andrast's comment, but yes; every player has the ability to make their own map with a pen and a piece of paper. They could have provided an automatic map within the game. However, in my view, omitting the map was a very conscious game design decision. You can see the reasoning behind it on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S6bgQnlP1w There are tools within the game that allow the player to find their way around, such as the breadcrumb tool. They deliberately cut down as many extrinsic prompts within the game as possible. You're meant to be guided by the world around you, not flipping back and forth between a map the entire time. It actually never even occurred to me while playing that there wasn't a map. I think including an automated map would be a detriment to the game; this is the "spikey" design decisions they talk about in their GDC video. The design choice comes down to how much you want to hand hold the player. You could show the player's exact location on a map at all times. You could then help further by just putting arrows on the HUD showing exactly where the designer thinks the player could be going. You could even just skip out the entire journey and just teleport the player to where they need to be; why waste the intervening time? The game is meant to be about immersion, exploration, and emotions. There are a lot of other games where you can follow a series of waypoints, or where the goal is to "get somewhere" rather than wander around. The entire idea of getting "lost" suggests there's somewhere else you're hoping to be. Aertuun fucked around with this message at 12:03 on Mar 5, 2020 |
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Mar 5, 2020 11:59
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Serephina posted:You jest, but basically yea. I'm only half-joking, actually. Once you realize the leviathans are confined to their relatively small patrol areas, you can pretty much treat them as stationary turrets to be avoided. I know they scrapped the idea of having them patrol the entire map, but they could at least have some of them roam their entire biome instead of just being leashed to a spot.
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Mar 5, 2020 12:45
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The funny thing is they can be trained on purpose or accidentally to change their patrol routes after chasing you far enough.
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Mar 5, 2020 13:23
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