Survival Gameplay
Hello KEEN moderators and fellow players.
In this post I would like to make an argument for what I personally believe would be an idealized version of SE2 survival gameplay. You see, in SE1 I've always had a very particular gripe with how it's gameplay was promoted. I believe and what I think most people would agree with is that the best way to have fun in SE is to design unique and creative solutions to interesting problems. However, for practically all of SE1's development this level of fun was never truly promoted through any core mechanics. Whenever a player starts up a new sandbox survival world it's quickly noticeable that past being able to travel out into space there's no emergent challenges that engage your creative problem solving skills. Now, why is that a problem? Surely with a sandbox game it should be up to the player to decide what kind of problems they want to solve? However, that kind of mentality holds back the potential of a game that has so many creative options. It promotes a player base that is almost strictly in it for the creative expression, but I believe that by engaging the player with interesting creative challenges throughout the course of their survival playthrough. It would greatly increase return value and overall fun.
So, this concept is promising, but how would players actually be engaged with these interesting challenges? I have limited game development knowledge and an amateur interest in game design philosophy, but I hope that my suggestions would at least be taken into consideration.
I would first start with the basic survival elements, if not food or water, at the very least oxygen and power. These base values which you need to maintain just to keep playing is what should be the starting off point for creating emergent challenges. Already there are questions presented to the player with how to obtain these resources to survive, and from this I would encourage gameplay that revolves around exploration and interaction just to leave a lot of options open to the player. To do this it would be necessary to make practically all parts of the world in some way dynamic not only in the resources found, but also naturally occurring/developing encounters. Essentially have the world around you be taken up by separate factions or organisms. Its important that these are not just randomly spawned but have a living presence with goals/personality that the player can choose how to interact with.
Suddenly by giving the player things to explore or interact with there is now an opportunity for these encounters to serve as creative challenges. For some examples, there could be a mining faction that takes up swaths of space across asteroid fields or planetary surfaces, you could trade with them for hard to obtain metals, live on the outskirts of them and a rival faction and take advantage of the abandoned equipment, or join in a pirate faction to steal their resources as they are being harvested, and all of these would require you designing something to achieve those objectives.
There's even a further step that can be taken here, you could have these encounters be responsive and adaptive to the actions of you or others. So from the example of joining a pirate faction, that mining faction could then on hire mercenaries to try to hunt you down, leading to you needing to design and find more resources to be able to fight them back, or be hired by another rival faction to keep on going with your escapades.
Finally I would like to touch on the actual progression in wealth and technology. I personally would like to see obtaining new components from raw resources be far more complicated. The reason why would be to not only turn it into a far more engaging creative challenge, but also to encourage further interaction with the environment to be able to get these components easier. To do this I would make the refining and assembling portion take far more steps for more complicated components. Thus making the player try to optimize to their needs and makes progression more expensive leading to further interaction. The counterargument to this would be that with getting resources harder to make the things you need would discourage creative play, but I think that with the advent of such a challenge it would enable a more interesting limitation for the player to work around.
That is all for my thoughts. I do hope that this does get considered given the opportunity and potential with SE2. And I don't think it would go against Marek's vision with his interest with AI development.
I like this feedback
I left a like :)
I agree with what you write, and I think our suggestions complement each other.
Have a read at this:
https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/45245-survival-refined
With the resources as you write and my challenges with mining and protecting your transports/material/ships against NPC raiders and maybe other challenges.
I hope you like my suggestion as well and please leave a like if you agree :)
I left a like :)
I agree with what you write, and I think our suggestions complement each other.
Have a read at this:
https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/45245-survival-refined
With the resources as you write and my challenges with mining and protecting your transports/material/ships against NPC raiders and maybe other challenges.
I hope you like my suggestion as well and please leave a like if you agree :)
I agree, SE1 survival severely lacks any sense of "Challenge or reason to do anything", you can just make a box with solar panels on a planet and survive indefinetly. In space all you need ontop of that is a bit of ice for oxygen. It's not challenging, engaging or fun for very long at all.
We need emerging challenges as we progress and build more advanced things. Stationeers does it well by implementing by-products like Heat, waste products and fluids. Maybe SE2 could use some of that as inspiration?
I agree, SE1 survival severely lacks any sense of "Challenge or reason to do anything", you can just make a box with solar panels on a planet and survive indefinetly. In space all you need ontop of that is a bit of ice for oxygen. It's not challenging, engaging or fun for very long at all.
We need emerging challenges as we progress and build more advanced things. Stationeers does it well by implementing by-products like Heat, waste products and fluids. Maybe SE2 could use some of that as inspiration?
Love it. I have many hours in SE1 and enjoy it but survival/PVE is the one element I found lacking. If that was bolstered I think the came would be darn near perfect or as close as a game can be.
Love it. I have many hours in SE1 and enjoy it but survival/PVE is the one element I found lacking. If that was bolstered I think the came would be darn near perfect or as close as a game can be.
So once you become the Emperor of all resources, all of the other factions will form an alliance, and a rebel fleet.
They will analyse your weaknesses and destroy all of your reactors.
They will celebrate your demise and dance around with teddy bears or plushies.
It's an option.
Survival does need more challenges, this could happen with interactable NPC characters.
So once you become the Emperor of all resources, all of the other factions will form an alliance, and a rebel fleet.
They will analyse your weaknesses and destroy all of your reactors.
They will celebrate your demise and dance around with teddy bears or plushies.
It's an option.
Survival does need more challenges, this could happen with interactable NPC characters.
I agree also! I like the idea of a NPC faction moving out, exploring and building in my single player world, competing for MY resources. I wonder how this would go with PCU limits. While not PVE, I think this might also compliment your ideas and might also give another reason for improving on ship designs.
https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/46425-multiplayer-battle-mode
I agree also! I like the idea of a NPC faction moving out, exploring and building in my single player world, competing for MY resources. I wonder how this would go with PCU limits. While not PVE, I think this might also compliment your ideas and might also give another reason for improving on ship designs.
https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/46425-multiplayer-battle-mode
Some nice ideas, I totally agree you on the main point that survival in SE1 lacks a lot in later game. But I think Keen is also very aware of that SE1 problem and the engine limited it too much to make such a solution. So I have anyway hope that will look a lot better in SE2.
Some nice ideas, I totally agree you on the main point that survival in SE1 lacks a lot in later game. But I think Keen is also very aware of that SE1 problem and the engine limited it too much to make such a solution. So I have anyway hope that will look a lot better in SE2.
Completely agree SE1, there was something missing.... Traditional start was landing pod lanes on the ground if you're lucky right way up Balanced on the edge of a cliff somewhere with no resources Oh look I found a data pad gives me a waypoint of somewhere in space or 60 kilometres away is not very helpful, Good luck engineer figuring that one out..lol
The scenario starts so much better, When you start a new game you need some direction of what you're actually meant to do
You need to be Presented with with a challenge rather than make up your own ,Come on let's be honest how many people knew you could convert your landing pod into a flying machine (Minus the lack of cobalt)Without watching a youtube video first
A good game should be self-contained all the information should be provided Simple instructions on a data pad would have done just as good
I'm hoping we've got some good scenario starts this time round as it was a feature that was NOT used enough in SE1
Completely agree SE1, there was something missing.... Traditional start was landing pod lanes on the ground if you're lucky right way up Balanced on the edge of a cliff somewhere with no resources Oh look I found a data pad gives me a waypoint of somewhere in space or 60 kilometres away is not very helpful, Good luck engineer figuring that one out..lol
The scenario starts so much better, When you start a new game you need some direction of what you're actually meant to do
You need to be Presented with with a challenge rather than make up your own ,Come on let's be honest how many people knew you could convert your landing pod into a flying machine (Minus the lack of cobalt)Without watching a youtube video first
A good game should be self-contained all the information should be provided Simple instructions on a data pad would have done just as good
I'm hoping we've got some good scenario starts this time round as it was a feature that was NOT used enough in SE1
o7 Indeed.
o7 Indeed.
I simply listed the types of problems that could be used in survival as incentives for the player (without taking into account enemy factions):
Need for food and water.
Need for favorable temperature.
Need for oxygen.
Biological and chemical hazards, such as toxic atmosphere or diseases.
Radiation.
Aggressive life forms.
Hazardous weather conditions.
I simply listed the types of problems that could be used in survival as incentives for the player (without taking into account enemy factions):
Need for food and water.
Need for favorable temperature.
Need for oxygen.
Biological and chemical hazards, such as toxic atmosphere or diseases.
Radiation.
Aggressive life forms.
Hazardous weather conditions.
I'd like to further clarify some of my points since further into my post I feel as though it gets a bit rambling. I go into some of the reasons why I argue for specifically a living and dynamic world as a solution for creating emergent creative challenges, but I feel as though I should go more in-depth on how this really helps engage the player and more on the necessities that come with enabling a gameplay loop surrounding solving these creative problems.
To restate the issue I presented in the beginning; Space Engineers severely lacks an engaging survival mode due to a lack of emergent creative challenges for the player to solve. I believe that in order to create an engaging survival gameplay loop for Space Engineers it should take advantage of it's creative tools and potential as a sci-fi sandbox. To do so it's game/world systems would have to work in tandem to provide and encourage the player to solve emergent creative problems.
For clarification purposes the primary systems and topics that I believe should be focused on to enable an engaging gameplay loop includes:
1. A dynamic npc presence system that includes spacial partitioning of planet surfaces, orbits, and space through which various factions and creatures can inhabit.
2. Said npcs and factions that can not only engage the player through presenting a creative challenge for the player to solve, but also are responsive to the player and other faction's actions.
3. The progression system to require systematic and logistical thinking through having multi-step processing of resources for components, thus encouraging obtaining certain components through interactions with npcs.
4. For the survival mechanics and environmental hazards as baseline challenges evolve into further emergent creative problems through interactions with npcs as a solution to said baseline challenges.
With these 4 mechanics Space Engineers survival can then evolve from spawning into a selection of varying difficulty scenarios/environments, being presented various creative problems, whose solutions could potentially lead into further engagement. These can then extend into further engagement through npc interactions. By having complex actors that actively respond to the players' actions, internal motivation can be created as the player chooses what they wish to do as a result of what npcs they have interacted with.
All of this wouldn't detract from any of the personal expression that comes from the creative tools within Space Engineers, and with the ability to pick and choose the density, hostility, and number of factions players would be able to customize how their journey within SE evolves.
I hope with this there is better understanding of my main points presented in my origional post.
I'd like to further clarify some of my points since further into my post I feel as though it gets a bit rambling. I go into some of the reasons why I argue for specifically a living and dynamic world as a solution for creating emergent creative challenges, but I feel as though I should go more in-depth on how this really helps engage the player and more on the necessities that come with enabling a gameplay loop surrounding solving these creative problems.
To restate the issue I presented in the beginning; Space Engineers severely lacks an engaging survival mode due to a lack of emergent creative challenges for the player to solve. I believe that in order to create an engaging survival gameplay loop for Space Engineers it should take advantage of it's creative tools and potential as a sci-fi sandbox. To do so it's game/world systems would have to work in tandem to provide and encourage the player to solve emergent creative problems.
For clarification purposes the primary systems and topics that I believe should be focused on to enable an engaging gameplay loop includes:
1. A dynamic npc presence system that includes spacial partitioning of planet surfaces, orbits, and space through which various factions and creatures can inhabit.
2. Said npcs and factions that can not only engage the player through presenting a creative challenge for the player to solve, but also are responsive to the player and other faction's actions.
3. The progression system to require systematic and logistical thinking through having multi-step processing of resources for components, thus encouraging obtaining certain components through interactions with npcs.
4. For the survival mechanics and environmental hazards as baseline challenges evolve into further emergent creative problems through interactions with npcs as a solution to said baseline challenges.
With these 4 mechanics Space Engineers survival can then evolve from spawning into a selection of varying difficulty scenarios/environments, being presented various creative problems, whose solutions could potentially lead into further engagement. These can then extend into further engagement through npc interactions. By having complex actors that actively respond to the players' actions, internal motivation can be created as the player chooses what they wish to do as a result of what npcs they have interacted with.
All of this wouldn't detract from any of the personal expression that comes from the creative tools within Space Engineers, and with the ability to pick and choose the density, hostility, and number of factions players would be able to customize how their journey within SE evolves.
I hope with this there is better understanding of my main points presented in my origional post.
Keen have said there will be survival elements and a story I assume this is to add a reason to play beyond making cool stuff.
Keen have said there will be survival elements and a story I assume this is to add a reason to play beyond making cool stuff.
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