That’s the point of the game - it doesn’t tell you where to go and what to do because you’re meant to explore the environment yourself. And the debris you scan, the screenshots you take, and the thrills that you get - are the real reward here, and not some goal that game artificially imposes on you. So I think you were just playing it wrong.
Look, I genuinely get your point, and I was tracking with you until you said this. Fuck off. Fuck for with this stupid bullshit. I was not playing wrong. I was playing it the same way everyone else does. I was exploring. I was collecting. I was finding new things. It was getting very clear that the distances the game expected me to travel were meant to be done much faster than what I was capable of. I was getting multiple upgrades for things that I couldn’t use because I didn’t have the thing that lets me install them. It’s been ages since I’ve played and I’m not psychic so I’ll never know what the actual devs’ intent was, but something was off. I’d definitely missed something. What’s more annoying is that I was finding multiple blueprints I already had or something? I don’t remember the context. Like you needed 3 fragments or something. And I’d find more like “ah surely this is the third for the thing I need” only to get the 5th of something I already had. It was give years ago when I played, at least, so I’m probably explaining wrong.
But don’t fucking say I was playing wrong. That’s such a condescending, brain dead thing to say to someone who is critiquing a game.
“Hey, based on what’s going on and getting tons of upgrades and not unlocking the thing to install the upgrades, I think I’ve missed something and I have no idea where to find it. It would be nice if there was a way to unlock this without scouring every inch of the ocean I’ve been through multiple times and without looking it up online.” No, you’re just playing wrong! It’s a game about exploration and discovery!
You’re not alone. As much as I love that game, the absolute lack of direction is one of my biggest gripes with it, right along with the atrocious inventory system.
You’d think someone who manages to build a fricking atomic submarine and a mech suit would be able to pinpoint relevant tech on the go somehow but no. Also you get a scanning room that can pinpoint little pebbles a kilometre away but is it helpful? Nope. Just another half-baked gameplay element that was never developed beyond the initial concept.
So yeah, your concerns are absolutely valid. Anyone who played this game would agree. But maybe that’s why I personally love the game. Clunky and beautiful, frustrating but once you find that thing you’ve been looking for, a bit rewarding too.
Yeah, I think people look at that criticism and think I mean I want super explicit bright glowing objects with a Skyrim style HUD that points me directly to where I need to go to get blue prints. Nah. Some ideas:
Some way to tell if there aren’t any more in an area so you don’t waste time looking when there isn’t anything.
Some sort of device that tells you how close some are, but not where they are. Like the classic “beep … beep … beep beep beep BEEPBEEPBEEPBPBPBBPBP” thing that gets more frequent as you approach. But make the max range relatively small.
I think they were called life pods? Like the other crashed emergency escape pods. For things you’re expected to get like the sea bike (I don’t remember the name), sea moth, and moon well maybe always put some blue print fragments on life pods you find later. This way you can’t miss them (unless you’re really really not paying attention). You can still make it so you get them earlier on, but this way in case you missed some somehow you can always “catch up” to where the devs expect you to be. Like if they expect you to get them ~10% in, then make it so the life pods you find ~25% in give you what you are missing for the sea moth.
A bit of a map system. This one is controversial, so I’m putting it last. A huge appeal of the game is not having a map. But even just a blank screen showing you all your way points, but not showing you where you are or what biomes are around would be useful. Then do something like show where blueprints are in an area. Maybe something like once you get two of three it shows you the general area where the remaining ones are, but doesn’t put a marker on the HUD.
Because with games like this where progression isn’t gated behind actually having some of these items, you can get in weird states where you get further in and didn’t get them. But maybe >95% of players did. The other <5% just missed something somehow. And then there’s no real clue on where to.go to back track to get it. And you can get in these annoying situations where it seems like you should have it but you aren’t sure, and you don’t want spoilers so you don’t look it up. Then when you look it up maybe you see a spoiler and it turns out you shouldn’t have it yet, that’s common. Other times you missed something super obvious in some very random area you only needed to go to once and never checked again because it seemed empty.
But it’s just so infuriating when people say things like “you’re not playing right” like, I’m getting frustrated because I’m playing right! If I wasn’t checking everywhere I could miss things. So I have to check everywhere to make sure I don’t. But then you can still miss things because there’s no real way to guarantee if you actually checked everything.
Tbh I’m against the full on map idea since it would ruin and demystify/trivialise the aspect of exploration, but maybe they could have made it so that the scanner room HUD chip UI was actually useful and displayed any kind of distance indicator. Often times I’d be scanning for limestone chunks for example. Now my HUD is full of circles that all have the exact same radius and no indication of distance, just a vague direction, and it’s so frustrating to work with that.
They could have added some sort of compass as well. They chose not to.
I wish they implemented something like No Man’s Sky’s non-intrusive HUD, which conveys both heading and distance at the same time in a super nice way.
That’s the point of the game - it doesn’t tell you where to go and what to do because you’re meant to explore the environment yourself. And the debris you scan, the screenshots you take, and the thrills that you get - are the real reward here, and not some goal that game artificially imposes on you. So I think you were just playing it wrong.
Look, I genuinely get your point, and I was tracking with you until you said this. Fuck off. Fuck for with this stupid bullshit. I was not playing wrong. I was playing it the same way everyone else does. I was exploring. I was collecting. I was finding new things. It was getting very clear that the distances the game expected me to travel were meant to be done much faster than what I was capable of. I was getting multiple upgrades for things that I couldn’t use because I didn’t have the thing that lets me install them. It’s been ages since I’ve played and I’m not psychic so I’ll never know what the actual devs’ intent was, but something was off. I’d definitely missed something. What’s more annoying is that I was finding multiple blueprints I already had or something? I don’t remember the context. Like you needed 3 fragments or something. And I’d find more like “ah surely this is the third for the thing I need” only to get the 5th of something I already had. It was give years ago when I played, at least, so I’m probably explaining wrong.
But don’t fucking say I was playing wrong. That’s such a condescending, brain dead thing to say to someone who is critiquing a game.
“Hey, based on what’s going on and getting tons of upgrades and not unlocking the thing to install the upgrades, I think I’ve missed something and I have no idea where to find it. It would be nice if there was a way to unlock this without scouring every inch of the ocean I’ve been through multiple times and without looking it up online.” No, you’re just playing wrong! It’s a game about exploration and discovery!
🙄
You’re not alone. As much as I love that game, the absolute lack of direction is one of my biggest gripes with it, right along with the atrocious inventory system.
You’d think someone who manages to build a fricking atomic submarine and a mech suit would be able to pinpoint relevant tech on the go somehow but no. Also you get a scanning room that can pinpoint little pebbles a kilometre away but is it helpful? Nope. Just another half-baked gameplay element that was never developed beyond the initial concept.
So yeah, your concerns are absolutely valid. Anyone who played this game would agree. But maybe that’s why I personally love the game. Clunky and beautiful, frustrating but once you find that thing you’ve been looking for, a bit rewarding too.
Yeah, I think people look at that criticism and think I mean I want super explicit bright glowing objects with a Skyrim style HUD that points me directly to where I need to go to get blue prints. Nah. Some ideas:
Because with games like this where progression isn’t gated behind actually having some of these items, you can get in weird states where you get further in and didn’t get them. But maybe >95% of players did. The other <5% just missed something somehow. And then there’s no real clue on where to.go to back track to get it. And you can get in these annoying situations where it seems like you should have it but you aren’t sure, and you don’t want spoilers so you don’t look it up. Then when you look it up maybe you see a spoiler and it turns out you shouldn’t have it yet, that’s common. Other times you missed something super obvious in some very random area you only needed to go to once and never checked again because it seemed empty.
But it’s just so infuriating when people say things like “you’re not playing right” like, I’m getting frustrated because I’m playing right! If I wasn’t checking everywhere I could miss things. So I have to check everywhere to make sure I don’t. But then you can still miss things because there’s no real way to guarantee if you actually checked everything.
Tbh I’m against the full on map idea since it would ruin and demystify/trivialise the aspect of exploration, but maybe they could have made it so that the scanner room HUD chip UI was actually useful and displayed any kind of distance indicator. Often times I’d be scanning for limestone chunks for example. Now my HUD is full of circles that all have the exact same radius and no indication of distance, just a vague direction, and it’s so frustrating to work with that.
They could have added some sort of compass as well. They chose not to.
I wish they implemented something like No Man’s Sky’s non-intrusive HUD, which conveys both heading and distance at the same time in a super nice way.