|
PMush Perfect posted:I STILL haven't found any Prawn arms and it's starting to get annoying and discouraging, because I don't feel safe going back down into the deeper parts of the map without a way to properly fight back against the monsters down there. just punch them with the default arm. works great.
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2019 20:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 08:37 |
|
|
Conot posted:A few impressions from the first couple of hours of Below Zero (no actual spoilers, just general impressions)
|
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2019 21:59
|
|
|
PMush Perfect posted:I STILL haven't found any Prawn arms and it's starting to get annoying and discouraging, because I don't feel safe going back down into the deeper parts of the map without a way to properly fight back against the monsters down there. You don't ever really need to fight anything.
|
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2019 23:11
|
|
|
ate poo poo on live tv posted:This really sucks to me. I'll still enjoy the game, but this change alone completely changes the atmosphere and feel of the game. I think for me it's going to depend on where the talking takes place and the context. It's not like there wasn't talking (granted, not by the player's character) in the original game what with the Sunbeam radio calls and things like that. But that was fine because it somewhat helped to advance the plot and, more importantly, was kept infrequent and appropriate to the atmosphere of where you were. Now, if in Below Zero there's a lot of unavoidable chatter in areas which should have an isolated, spooky atmosphere like exploring some dark, deep new biomes, that'll definitely hurt the experience for me and I hope they don't do that.
|
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2019 23:30
|
|
|
The new subnautica is using 8 batteries for the sea glide and eating/drinking tons of fish while trying to find out where your objectives are. The game gives you very few waypoints, almost everything you have to wander around until you find it. Which makes the compass and beacons much more valuable because if you don't have a beacon good luck trying to find that point of interest again. Also alot of cave and biome areas aren't showing on the seaglider sonar map, carry beacons to mark entrance/exit points. Also there's some odd bugs, like table coral fragments disappearing from inventory when loading a saved game, and partially constructed outpost things getting deleted. Also from the look of things, there's going to be maybe 1 or 2 vehicles, so no seamoth, no prawn, and no cyclops. I assume they're going to fix these things eventually, but I don't expect this to happen anytime soon.
|
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2019 23:45
|
|
|
Mason Dixon posted:I think for me it's going to depend on where the talking takes place and the context. It's not like there wasn't talking (granted, not by the player's character) in the original game what with the Sunbeam radio calls and things like that. But that was fine because it somewhat helped to advance the plot and, more importantly, was kept infrequent and appropriate to the atmosphere of where you were. Now, if in Below Zero there's a lot of unavoidable chatter in areas which should have an isolated, spooky atmosphere like exploring some dark, deep new biomes, that'll definitely hurt the experience for me and I hope they don't do that. The radio thing was perfect. Because the way it worked was you found out there was a message, then after you got back form your latest expedition and you were kind of chilling out, grabbing some food etc, you could listen to what was going to be happening in the plot. It provided a great transition to the game. The jarring thing that is happening in Sub-zero (at least according to the streams), is that you get to a certain place and then you have a Sari character saying "Hey, did you know there is an Alien Base 200m below your current position? You should go check out the Alien Base." The your character responds "I should go check out this Alien Base, where did she say it was? Oh yes 200m below my position." It's just seems really lovely. Then she starts talking to the "alien force" that ends up inside her head and 
|
|
#
?
Jan 31, 2019 23:50
|
|
|
Hahaha, that was the exactly the type of poo poo I was hoping they wouldn't do. Shame
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 00:12
|
|
|
That sorta sucks. I was hoping below zero was just going to be "more of the same". Like I literally wanted it to just be a reskin on a new map.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 01:20
|
|
|
Xik posted:That sorta sucks. I was hoping below zero was just going to be "more of the same". Like I literally wanted it to just be a reskin on a new map. All the 'initial impressions' I've been reading have wanted the exact opposite, they all complain about reused assets.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 01:39
|
|
|
I got it and thought it was ok for early access and $20. I'll probably wait till they do the full release in 2023 to play it again now.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 01:45
|
|
|
Xik posted:That sorta sucks. I was hoping below zero was just going to be "more of the same". Like I literally wanted it to just be a reskin on a new map. I would just be happy if they redid it with whatever the newest unreal engine is.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 01:54
|
|
|
Subnautica's Unity, but its issues aren't really inherent to Unity, its current performance could be fixed far more easily than porting to an entirely new engine would be.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 02:41
|
|
|
MikeJF posted:Subnautica's Unity, but its issues aren't really inherent to Unity, its current performance could be fixed far more easily than porting to an entirely new engine would be. Okay, you sound like yo know what you're talking about. Why does this game have such terrible loading issues? Sorry not loading issues, I mean the game loads quickly enough on my ssd, but the giant LOD pop in stuff, single frame rates when all you're seeing is blue and a water shader. Or the bizzare fps tank when you go into the interior alien bases. Also to those playing SubZero, have they improved the terrible on foot feeling or does it still feel like you're walking with rubber balls stuck to your feet?
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 02:53
|
|
|
I'd guess a really lovely LOD implementation. They don't seem to have LOD models for large far things at all. I think a lot of this is because Subnautica is secretly a Minecraft-like voxel game where you can reshape the landscape if you spawn in the terraformer tool. Everything being potentially dynamic hugely limits the optimisations that most open world games do, and keeping up performance for something like that is a very tricky task that they seemingly don't have down. But with the terraformer taken out of the game, it means that we have that huge performance hit for no reason. I ran into this bizarre thing yesterday where it looked like there was this haze in front of where the mountain would be that faded to transparent as I got closer, presumably to hide the pop-in. But the haze was circular, and a slightly different colour than the sky behind it, and you could see the Quarantine Platform sticking out the side. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Feb 1, 2019 |
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 03:15
|
|
|
Morphix posted:Okay, you sound like yo know what you're talking about. I would assume some lack of optimization somewhere, which is a huge list. Could be anything from how they coded their instruction processing, to rendering fov, the lack of using low-poly models for long distances, textures being too high resolution, and more. However, it's important to remember that optimization comes at the end of the development cycle. Once that poo poo is 1.0 and still has pop-in (Like OG Subnautica.) Then that's a dev knowledge problem.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 03:22
|
|
|
Morphix posted:Also to those playing SubZero, have they improved the terrible on foot feeling or does it still feel like you're walking with rubber balls stuck to your feet? Rubber balls? Feels more like, i dunno, something much longer and flatter that would prevent a natural gait.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 03:31
|
|
|
They're capable of optimization: they fixed all of those streamers' huge savegames. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 03:34
|
|
|
JawnV6 posted:Rubber balls? Feels more like, i dunno, something much longer and flatter that would prevent a natural gait.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 04:00
|
|
|
Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:They're capable of optimization: they fixed all of those streamers' huge savegames. Very different skillset to graphics engine optimisation.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 04:06
|
|
|
Honestly the thing that has bothered me the most about Subnautica is the pre-crafted game world. While it allows for a higher level of detail and gives a "wow!" feeling to certain areas (since they are, well, hand-crafted), it also greatly harms replayability. I never finished the original game, and despite not having played in almost two years, I can't bring myself to play it again because I still remember where everything is, and lacking that joy of exploring new, unknown places makes me lose motivation to play. This is probably why I'll stay away from BZ early access, which is a shame because I'd love to support these devs.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 04:08
|
|
|
PMush Perfect posted:I STILL haven't found any Prawn arms and it's starting to get annoying and discouraging, because I don't feel safe going back down into the deeper parts of the map without a way to properly fight back against the monsters down there. Dunes should have them, that big rear end wreck near the top of the floating islands biome, annnnnd other wrecks scattered to the west I think?
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 04:40
|
|
|
Everyone knows to turn clouds off to help with frame rate correct? It's F3 and then 7 I believe. It was a night and day performance increase for me.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 04:46
|
|
|
Xik posted:That sorta sucks. I was hoping below zero was just going to be "more of the same". Like I literally wanted it to just be a reskin on a new map. Same but I'll take more Subnautica in any form. I need to decide if I should buy the game now or at the real release. Did Subnautica's price go up when it was out of early access?
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 04:48
|
|
|
BattleMaster posted:Same but I'll take more Subnautica in any form. More importantly, it also marked the end of it being seemingly constantly half off. So if pricing trends remain the same, grab Below Zero if you ever see it at 50%. Section Z fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Feb 1, 2019 |
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 04:54
|
|
|
CyberLord XP posted:Everyone knows to turn clouds off to help with frame rate correct? It's F3 and then 7 I believe. It was a night and day performance increase for me. ....noo I've never heard of this before. I mean it'd be hilarious if this is what fixes all of the performance stuff, but call me skeptical. JawnV6 posted:Rubber balls? Feels more like, i dunno, something much longer and flatter that would prevent a natural gait. no rubber balls, but like giant springs, it's bizarre. the game feels completely unnatural when you're walking, but it feels so fluid and the transitions between vehicles and all of that is so top notch, so man, I hope the fix that because if you have to spend a bunch of time walking around, and it still feels like subnautica, well...
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 05:40
|
|
|
PMush Perfect posted:I STILL haven't found any Prawn arms and it's starting to get annoying and discouraging, because I don't feel safe going back down into the deeper parts of the map without a way to properly fight back against the monsters down there. There's a wreck in the Floating Islands zone, near the QEP, resting on one of the larger islands near the top-middle of the formation - it's often got several different Prawn arms on it, including the drill arm, prop cannon and sometimes the grappler arm. A lot of other stuff in there, too, including a pair of databoxes - bring a prop gun!
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 05:56
|
|
|
A lot of people seem to be really upset that you get your plot-related messages in your suit radio instead of having to haul back to your base and push the big red button on your huge wall-mounted radio.  The only thing I really miss in Below Zero right now is the compass, because it's really hard getting a sense of directions just using beacons. SugarAddict posted:Also from the look of things, there's going to be maybe 1 or 2 vehicles, so no seamoth, no prawn, and no cyclops. You do know this is Early Access, right? Apart from the Seaglide there are no vehicles at all in the game right now, but the Prawn is already confirmed, as well as two brand new vehicles, one of which will supposedly function as a sort of hybrid between the Seamoth and the Cyclops. enraged_camel posted:Honestly the thing that has bothered me the most about Subnautica is the pre-crafted game world. While it allows for a higher level of detail and gives a "wow!" feeling to certain areas (since they are, well, hand-crafted), it also greatly harms replayability. I never finished the original game, and despite not having played in almost two years, I can't bring myself to play it again because I still remember where everything is, and lacking that joy of exploring new, unknown places makes me lose motivation to play. I used to feel this way at first. Then I actually played some games with procedurally generated worlds, and now I'm thankful Subnautica abandoned that idea and went with a hand-crafted map instead. Sure, no playthrough will be as great as the first but I've got 200+ hours played and I've still never explored the Dunes our Mountain biomes (because gently caress Reapers). If you want to support the devs, you could always buy it and hold off playing until it's finished. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 06:22
|
|
|
ate poo poo on live tv posted:The radio thing was perfect. Because the way it worked was you found out there was a message, then after you got back form your latest expedition and you were kind of chilling out, grabbing some food etc, you could listen to what was going to be happening in the plot. It provided a great transition to the game. In the first Subnautica you could get a distress call, be there within seconds but the people who sent the message would all be conveniently dead, not to mention how tedious it could be to constantly have to travel back just to hear the radio signal. It works much better in this game where they don’t have to constantly find wonky reasons to steer you somewhere, but can have a natural dialogue about it, especially since this is a place that has actually been explored and of course people know if there is an alien base somewhere, it’s the whole point of people being there. Also, you probably should cover up that last spoiler.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 06:47
|
|
|
Iirc the radio calls are staggered, everyone is dead by the time you wake up from the crash.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 06:54
|
|
|
I liked being isolated to relax in a world without humans. They should have used a robot companion. I’d also have liked it linked to the main game. But I guess the distance to the polar regions would be too far.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 07:17
|
|
|
DropsySufferer posted:I liked being isolated to relax in a world without humans. They should have used a robot companion. I'm hoping they continue to tie it into the Natural Selection universe. There's big reason for them to be back on that planet if there's a cure that could be used against the Kharaa.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 07:40
|
|
|
Oh my god, you can actually ride the new whale-like leviathans. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 09:10
|
|
|
DropsySufferer posted:I’d also have liked it linked to the main game. But I guess the distance to the polar regions would be too far. I do hope there are a bunch of references to Riley, it'd be fairly natural to have them.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 09:20
|
|
|
...and with the Below Zero discussion, time to ignore this thread.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 10:03
|
|
|
Zesty posted:They did. It's called Terraria. modders have done some wonderful things with minecraft, honestly. yeah, minecraft is kind of busted codewise(though I hear the revamped stuff microsoft did greatly improved performance of the vanilla game, though at the cost of moddability), but it's still a grand experience especially when you have mods like Terrafirmacraft or Life in the Woods, two ideologically opposite mods. TFC is a total overhaul mod and makes things extreme survival(you do stone-age toolmaking like whet rocks into shovelheads and such, and iirc can't even make a pickaxe until you sluice enough bits of ore to slowly forge a pick head from metal using a forge and such), caves have cave-ins if you mine too much without making support columns, worldgen is much more elaborate, etc. I did a playthrough of it and actually found it very enjoyable, surprisingly. It was, at the time a few years ago(dunno if they ever fixed it up) kind of unstable and some things didn't work at all, and backing up saves often was important as corrupting save files was easy, but it was definitely an impressive piece of work for what it was. Life in the Woods on the other hand was mostly about being as chill as possible and giving you an absurd amount of things to make for your house without any of those ridiculously complex machinery mods if you don't want them. It's got thousands of items, blocks, food recipes, dozens of crop types, etc. It's an extremely relaxing experience. Also the shader options look great, the wind-blown grass and such works real well, even the leaf block wind effect tends to work okay. Only one that doesn't so much is the reeds since each reed block sways instead of as a single entity as a whole.  I made an imgur album of a smattering of screenshots for Life in the Woods: https://imgur.com/gallery/yD2DVnp
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 11:47
|
|
|
I built a castle in minecraft once. Logged back in the next day, and someone had poured lava all over it. That's my exciting minecraft story.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 16:32
|
|
|
 I'm enjoying it so far, but it would be perfectly understandable if you decide to hold off for a while until it gets at least a couple more updates.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 16:34
|
|
|
Oh the game is all about going into pitch black crushing depths now that's cool I love going down into liquid nothing and meeting exciting new reaper friends, this in the old game totally didn't make me discover exciting new phobias in myself, no sir.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 16:56
|
|
|
here is my judgement on newest subnautica:  The good so far: it is subnautica in a different map. Map has more verticality and caverns have different biomes. resource gathering is easier. The bad so far: its buggy story will not be the same. It feels like they are trying to do comedy this time. Its alright story but its kind of predicable. resource gathering might be too easy. animations arent that great. Especially on land. caverns lack contend. Basically buy it only if you want to support the studio and believe that they will make it into proper sequel. at its current form its not worth the price.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 17:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 08:37 |
|
|
enraged_camel posted:Honestly the thing that has bothered me the most about Subnautica is the pre-crafted game world. While it allows for a higher level of detail and gives a "wow!" feeling to certain areas (since they are, well, hand-crafted), it also greatly harms replayability. I never finished the original game, and despite not having played in almost two years, I can't bring myself to play it again because I still remember where everything is, and lacking that joy of exploring new, unknown places makes me lose motivation to play. Procedurally generated games are just straight boring. All of the resources are randomly placed though, so it's not like you know exactly where things are, though the wrecks, pods and story stuff are in the same place.
|
|
#
?
Feb 1, 2019 17:22
|
|