The Survival "Story" is neat, but I think its a little too hand holdy.

Greetings,

I just did a session of both SE 2 and 1 over the last 2 weeks and wanted to leave a bit of feedback while this is fresh on my mind. I'm sorry if this is stuff that has been discussed before, I read the news letters, but I don't consume every bit of media in regards to SE that is out there so if I've touched on something that is already being looked at, I apologize.

Part of what was a big hook for my friends and I with the original Space Engineers was being dropped onto a planets surface with very little direction. It was up to our own cunning to get the ball rolling, or to "Engineer" solutions if you will.

But most importantly, you worked for everything. You weren't just given handouts.

SE2 differs in that regard, quite a bit. Within your first 5 minutes of playing, you have a flight capable ship, that you completed just a few modules on without ANY production stations, with ore right out of your backpack.

While it isn't exactly a slog for an experienced player to get an atmospheric ship nowadays on SE1, for a new player, this whole experience is one of the more rewarding bits of trial and error they can have starting out - it serves as a great teacher and in SE2 this is largely robbed from them.

My very first airship in SE1 was a trial and error raw dog fest. My first ship, I forgot a Gyroscope. I crashed it. Back to the drawing board. My second attempt? I forgot a vector of thrust. Crashed that too. On my third, I struggled with power consumption. I didn't crash this one, but I had to redesign it to not be a hog.

After that, I built my first miner, which had its own bit of learning to go with it. Like considering the weight it would accumulate vs thrust available.

The experience as a whole taught me the player what works and what doesn't which shaped how I build ships even to this day. That ability to explore options from a concept is a powerful force and something that made the original game so potent.

In SE2, you just get the ship. There isn't much to learn from it. Sure, there is a nice scripted tutorial with voice acting that takes you through the motions of crouching, mining and welding, but it doesn't allow the player to figure out a solution to the problem that is presented to them with the second story point appearing:

"How do I get there without walking?"

Because the game solved that problem for me.

This is largely repeated over and over. Your first hydrogen ship? Same deal as the atmo ship. Space base? Game essentially hands you an ideal platform with resources right next to the main station, and the station points you straight to it.

At no point in this experience did I really need to think about anything or really manage anything. A lot of the contracts could be largely completed with stuff onsite barring strange material requirements for some building. Salvage contract offered a grinding ship on site that I just had to fix maybe 3 blocks on it, recovery op had a ship there capable of grabbing crates in a similar deal. Just a few blocks to weld and boom, fixed.

These situations rob new players of valuable knowledge and satisfaction.

Games typically offer progression systems built into them that players push for but players also experience their own progression within themselves shaped by what we've overcome. If you take a player with 10 hours in a game and set them next to a player with 1000 hours, they're on two entirely different levels. The experiences a game offers shapes that. Look at a game like World of Warcraft as an example of what grinding down every rough edge does to the community. All the friction points being so far gone that players never truly develop into anything special. The game at a high end for an extremely small portion retains a bit of depth, but with a bulk of the game where things are just handed to them.

That being said, I like the contracts. My problem is entirely with what players get handed.

I know rovers aren't in the game yet, but what if instead of an air ship, players were handed a rover to fix up instead? SE1 already hands you a rover on survival start (Albeit, I miss the pod) so I feel this is less egregious.

From this point, instead of the current missions that fast tracks getting off the planet, what if they instead pushed the player to an outpost on the planet that offered progression for getting started planet side, where its incentivized for players to put down roots and establish their own base, construct their own atmo ship for travel, mining, etc. so they can complete these introductory contracts, leading up unlocking hydrogen thrust and getting a contract that sends them to the space station, using this final contract from this outpost as a "knowledge check" where the player has to construct their own flight capable hydrogen ship.

Making sure that these contracts don't just have a mostly complete solution waiting for them, but allowing them to figure a solution out themselves, with maybe a data pad or two in each contract area pointing them to a viable idea.

I feel like this helps develop players and teaches them a lot more than just handing them the solution to each problem and allows them to get creative and solve the problems the game presents more naturally.

All that being said, I just wanted to thank Keen for making incredible games. Despite my critique on the survival experience as it is right now, I actually like SE2 and I look forward to what comes in the future for both SE1 and 2.

I also did try out the "Classic Survival" scenario updated yesterday. This solves some issues I have with the game, but it adds its own.

Like, I enjoy tech progress being gated to contract completions. I don't like that I have everything unlocked immediately in classic, as that in itself isn't even classic as you still had progression in SE1 (even if it is a bit simple)

Anyway, enjoy your day.