Suit Only Start Experience in VS2.2 Pre-Feedback Patch
Here is feedback on a suit only start from a FTUE view, with already full progression, that happened before the Community Feedback Update.
On a new gameplay start at Vallation Station, I grabbed the sledge, zipped through the contracts, and unlocked all the blocks. Then, returning to Verdure, I decided to go to the ground and build a base to experiment on with, since I hadn't build anything except some atmo thrusters and drills on the sledge (more on this...)
Headed down to the ground, I had grouped all my atmo thrusters to a quickslot. And realized, I couldn't slow down, since a group selection wasn't working on the toolbar. So I crashed, and respawned...a couple seconds before crash. Uh-oh. I had no other base, couldn't turn on my thrusters in time to slow down, and it was my only Save. I would have to start all over again, going through -all- the contracts, again, to get back to this point.
So, I figured I would have a go at a suit only start. If I lose, I lose all my progression.
I bailed out, and managed to survived impact with the ground, leaving 20 health. I was in a lake bed, and looking around I saw a unknown signal a couple km away. I started moving in that direction, mining the occasional small deposit of ore I knew I would need, iron, silicon, nickel, cobalt, copper. As I approached the plateau the signal was on, I decided that was ...too... easy, so I went to the side of it, on a sand ledge with palm trees a couple km away, instead. Close enough so if there were problems, I could go over and use it's resources. My battery was about half full at this point (more on this...), and I was getting a little worried, but not too bad.
The sand plateau had the basic ores, quick mining and a platform later, I had finished a battery, solar panel, looking at some cargo, and "hhmm...suit is getting real low on power"...
panic
15 percent, need a survival kit. Need...nickel. Nothing on my drill. I start flying around in random circles, trying to not hit palm trees. No nickel. I peel off to the mountain biome that borders it, and run along the border seeing if there was any there. I didn't remember seeing any nickel on the sand, and I didn't know if that biome even had any nickel that populated in it. So, split the difference between the two. Nothing.
Almost lost my base location...gps... Fly back, open map. Zoom in on marker on planet "You are Here", right click to make a marker, close screen. The marker is 40,000km away. Open map again, oh yeah...the 'create new maker at position'. Make one. 7 percent battery. Start looping to the other side of base, and there is some nickel in the sand! I dig down, start mining it, get to 3 percent, and am not sure if I am going to make it back or not, it was going to be tight...
Boom. Battery refills. I had a space suit battery I had looted earlier that I had forgot.
Finished base, ground down entire unknown signal, started on flyer.
Thoughts:
1. The only time in SE2 I have felt a sense of urgency. When I realized the death-loop I was in, with one save and no base for respawn, and after spending hours unlocking all the blocks and completing all the contracts, I had something to lose. My only chance was to use my skills to survive my predicament.
2. When the 15 percent batter hit, panic set in. I was totally focused on gameplay.
3.. When the suit batter spare kicked in, it was...sad. All that work meant nothing. It felt like at a baseball game, last batter up, your team is down, and this is it. You step up to the plate to bat, and as the pitcher winds up to throw the pitch...the umpire waves his hands and stops the game, and then gives everyone a cookie.
4. Kept clipping when digging, more than the usual.
5. Resources were plentiful, it was really no problem. I could of just build a first kit at the seabed. It seems the plentiful ore distribution with smaller amounts, is akin to stone mining. The problem is wandering around for a random occurrence, due to the short range of the ore detector. A longer one is needed, for a player to plan and map an area to explore. My idea was a sphere/cone/beam system and short/medium/long range each one is used for (with everything else remaining the same), but there are many other good suggestions, but mainly: extend the range in a good gameplay way.
I think it would alleviate a lot of the player want for stone mining, since that method is essentially a 'know' quantity, where as ore deposits currently are 'wandering' for a random encounter to spawn. Creates frustration. A person wanders aimlessly, waiting for a random event to 'happen' where he is going by. That's not exploring, that is wandering 'anywhere' and waiting for a good dice roll. An explorer gathers information using tools, plans an expedition on a map, and goes to an area with objectives to attempt to accomplish. Either make certain ore's 'only' in a biome, i.e. you want iron, you go to a mountain. Why? I can see a mountain from 100km away. And I know it has iron. That is much farther than the drill. Or, you have larger deposits seeded, but with a longer detector range. Or, you have stone mining.
The small deposits everywhere just makes you want to skip the hassle of messing with the small stuff and wandering around again hoping to get a good roll of dice, and just dig down into stone.
6. With all the resources available, and no time crunch with the base built, building a flyer was easy. Space easy. The only excitement was that first step, 20 percent health and a full suit battery, and looking at the area surrounding my landing spot, with no going back. I had to make it, it was all or nothing. That created motivation., drive, excitement, danger, success, and defeat.
And, that's my experience.
I like this feedback
Updated feedback for new survival start added:
1. Resources were super easy to get around the pod, easily got what I needed to get off planet. No atmo flyer needed, no grinding encounters, no large infrastructure, straight to hydrogen. No real difficulty with the current resource seeding.
2. The detailing blocks are going to be a pain to use with the usual grinder. I decided to grind down the escape pod for parts...which took over two full suit batteries to do, just endlessly stationary grinding. Made me realize, if I extensively used detailing blocks on my ship, and I wanted to change something around...it will take -forever-. Or if I took damage. Or got shot at. Or built additions to a ship.
Leading to the realization that an 'area grinder' hand tool would be nice, as the 'area welder' is, to use.
3. Doom pixels. The single most frustrating thing to deal with, in game. All the other stuff is development, or balance decisions, which we understand. But doom pixels, when mining or travelling, is a 'meta' problem that is a huge reason for player frustration.
How would you explain that to a new player...? You learn the game systems, you build a ship, you are attempting to some the challenges posed by the game, and suddenly your ship is stuck and erratically behaving.
"Did I forget to add something? Gyros?", "Did I mess up my thruster placement and got too heavy?", 'Am I on my side? Where is Up?", "Did I drill poorly and got stuck?", "Did I exceed my battery power? Run out of fuel?".
No. All of those are skill and learning questions, and are good. A Doom Pixel breaks all of that for players. They google, ask around, and see that those tiny specks are causing havok for their miner. They are forced to Google, and see other angry posts on it. They did everything right, surmounted the challenges posed correctly...and a game engine issue smashed all that to pieces for them.
On top of that...there is a logical placement for the drills, based on their size and the other blocks associated with that size. I.E. medium drill for medium block types. And the natural assumption for placing that, at its base, is either one single drill on center with more going out, and the other is to have the center empty, with drills going around. Either a center align or a mirror align. And...the natural assumption is to space those with one block in between for separation, based on their associated block size.
Why...using those two patterns (X or square)...are the drills allowing doom pixels and 'spears' to occur? The default range should overlap enough to remove those from forming, in either base pattern, at -all- cost.
If you want the range smaller, to encourage a certain 'feel' to mining and prevent exploits...first fix the Doom Pixel. Then come back and tweak to your feel.
The problems presented to new players are too disadvantageous.
-Make drills effect radius wider, so it overlaps more. 10%, at a starting point, just to ensure no formations of these. Or higher, whatever.
-Make drills stackable immediately next to each other. Another idea, guaranteed to work but changes a lot of things.
-Game engine makes a pass were all voxels below a certain size are automatically removed.
-Game engine makes pixels at a certain size have physics.
-More Game engine tweaks to remove their forming. Best solution, and something the devs are for sure testing different iterations on it.
The terrain engine creates some amazing and truly wonderful things. The new seeding creativity in caves and on astroids makes mining and exploring a joy. But that new terrain engine is producing a ton of these pixels, too. We need something for that.
4. Random start in escape pod on planet. Or any planet. Parachutes for atmo, expendable retro rockets for moons, floats that inflate around your pod for water.
Super cool idea, and the idea of different planet starts being 'truly' random, meaning drifting down into a cliff, or cave, or mountain, or ocean....or lava...
...gives players the 'Authentic' experience. Which after completing the tutorial, they want. Some of the best Space Engineer moments was seeing the player coming down to a planet, and them trying to figure out if they should start panicking or not yet haha
Iconic to the Space Engineer player gameplay experience. Just weave the story with it. Make a living world, with parts of the story branching off at different areas.
Updated feedback for new survival start added:
1. Resources were super easy to get around the pod, easily got what I needed to get off planet. No atmo flyer needed, no grinding encounters, no large infrastructure, straight to hydrogen. No real difficulty with the current resource seeding.
2. The detailing blocks are going to be a pain to use with the usual grinder. I decided to grind down the escape pod for parts...which took over two full suit batteries to do, just endlessly stationary grinding. Made me realize, if I extensively used detailing blocks on my ship, and I wanted to change something around...it will take -forever-. Or if I took damage. Or got shot at. Or built additions to a ship.
Leading to the realization that an 'area grinder' hand tool would be nice, as the 'area welder' is, to use.
3. Doom pixels. The single most frustrating thing to deal with, in game. All the other stuff is development, or balance decisions, which we understand. But doom pixels, when mining or travelling, is a 'meta' problem that is a huge reason for player frustration.
How would you explain that to a new player...? You learn the game systems, you build a ship, you are attempting to some the challenges posed by the game, and suddenly your ship is stuck and erratically behaving.
"Did I forget to add something? Gyros?", "Did I mess up my thruster placement and got too heavy?", 'Am I on my side? Where is Up?", "Did I drill poorly and got stuck?", "Did I exceed my battery power? Run out of fuel?".
No. All of those are skill and learning questions, and are good. A Doom Pixel breaks all of that for players. They google, ask around, and see that those tiny specks are causing havok for their miner. They are forced to Google, and see other angry posts on it. They did everything right, surmounted the challenges posed correctly...and a game engine issue smashed all that to pieces for them.
On top of that...there is a logical placement for the drills, based on their size and the other blocks associated with that size. I.E. medium drill for medium block types. And the natural assumption for placing that, at its base, is either one single drill on center with more going out, and the other is to have the center empty, with drills going around. Either a center align or a mirror align. And...the natural assumption is to space those with one block in between for separation, based on their associated block size.
Why...using those two patterns (X or square)...are the drills allowing doom pixels and 'spears' to occur? The default range should overlap enough to remove those from forming, in either base pattern, at -all- cost.
If you want the range smaller, to encourage a certain 'feel' to mining and prevent exploits...first fix the Doom Pixel. Then come back and tweak to your feel.
The problems presented to new players are too disadvantageous.
-Make drills effect radius wider, so it overlaps more. 10%, at a starting point, just to ensure no formations of these. Or higher, whatever.
-Make drills stackable immediately next to each other. Another idea, guaranteed to work but changes a lot of things.
-Game engine makes a pass were all voxels below a certain size are automatically removed.
-Game engine makes pixels at a certain size have physics.
-More Game engine tweaks to remove their forming. Best solution, and something the devs are for sure testing different iterations on it.
The terrain engine creates some amazing and truly wonderful things. The new seeding creativity in caves and on astroids makes mining and exploring a joy. But that new terrain engine is producing a ton of these pixels, too. We need something for that.
4. Random start in escape pod on planet. Or any planet. Parachutes for atmo, expendable retro rockets for moons, floats that inflate around your pod for water.
Super cool idea, and the idea of different planet starts being 'truly' random, meaning drifting down into a cliff, or cave, or mountain, or ocean....or lava...
...gives players the 'Authentic' experience. Which after completing the tutorial, they want. Some of the best Space Engineer moments was seeing the player coming down to a planet, and them trying to figure out if they should start panicking or not yet haha
Iconic to the Space Engineer player gameplay experience. Just weave the story with it. Make a living world, with parts of the story branching off at different areas.
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