More Immersive Game Beginning

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Introduction​

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Watching the i49 demo and other videos showing off the very beginning of the game. There were some things that I would prefer to have changed to have a more immersive game experience; as well a way to fix some of the problems with people bum rushing planets without getting gear.

First: To increase immersion and solve the no gear problem: I propose slight changes to the condition of the ship upon leaving the homeworld. Upon arriving to the first planet the player notices there is some damage to the ship which must be fixed. So when you first see your character, the ship engine and teleporter is malfunctioning (with animation) and there are cracks in the ships hull. This would give the image that not only did you run out of gas/fuel; but you barely made it out alive.

Now comes the problem which the ship needs to be fixed. You can't run off teleporting to the planet or try and fly away with a damaged ship. So the first step in getting things right is to collect your gear out of the locker (the first quest). Now to familiarize people with the matter manipulator I suggest there is another function of the tool. The matter manipulator also fixes broken/damaged things. So after a player gets the MM tool, they use it to fix the hull, engine, and teleporter. -Would also be a mechanic if world items could be damaged rather than destroyed - like a damaged console.


Second: I know things are subject to change; but I am not fond of the current starter gear set. I would rather have a gear set which feels like I am not coming out of the stone age on a futuristic ship. That feeling comes later trying to eke out a living on a primitive world. I think some things should be taken out, and some replaced. I would like high tech weapons on a high tech ship - but still make things fit for low level gameplay.

Gear which I would like replaced or removed:
1: The automatic rifle (aka auto airsoft gun which does crap damage)
Replacement: A futuristic but damaged blaster. This would be a starter gun which does has a low rate of fire, takes a good amount of energy, and does decent damage on hit comparable to the starter melee weapon. To encourage use of other ranged weapons the blaster will sometimes malfunction and do very little damage. (e.g. the damage range could be 4-25 or the opposite of a critical hit does low damage by chance). This could be a gun that grows with the player. Due to the gun being damaged during the escape, just like the rest of the ship, it is weak on first tier. However, it can be repaired and customized to use less energy, increase rate of fire, and increase damage, ect, later in the game.

2: The sword (sword on a space ship? is it supposed to be decorative?)
Replacement: A futuristic but broken "stun stick." This would be a starter melee weapon which is like a taser stick. However, because it is broken it does too much shock damage. To encourage players to try and craft other melee weapons, it would be like the damaged blaster and work inconsistently. The stun stick could sometimes 'work correctly' and stun enemies instead of doing damage to them. Maybe later in the game it can be improved to be a plasma sword.

3: The torches (are all races 'glitch'd?)
Replacement: None -(more flares?)

4: The Matter Manipulator (see below)
Replacement: A damaged Matter Manipulator. This is renamed to damaged to allow for this item to be improved through other tiers. The player can later repair it to work on more blocks, (e.g. mine faster and bigger) and later improved even more to work better. Devs have already considered this idea

5: Keep the seeds, coal, and flashlight.


Additions for a more immersive beginning:
1: Some snacks - to give the player a bit more time to not run out of food. (mostly immersion to have food stores on the ship)

2: A light jacket - to protect the player (a bit) from chill at night - but not enough protection from cold planets -only slows the cold meter, doesn't increase warmth. (on the dev stream they were dying from not watching the cold meter)

3: First Aid Kit - Having one on the ship in the locker wouldn't hurt

4: Damaged tech items - Allow the player to have an idea of what the future holds without being game breaking. An example would be a damaged dash tech or damaged melee combo tech which could also be repaired in later tiers. (basically allows the player to use the tech for a very short amount of time - e.g. damaged dash tech would work for .5 seconds, damaged melee combo tech would only randomly allow the player to do a second combo attack)


Discuss what you would like to see (items, quests, and visuals) to increase immersion/storyline of the very beginning. With some discussion and alteration; might start a thread in the suggestions section with everyone's input added.


For the TL;DR crowd:
How would you increase immersion and story of the very beginning of the game?
My ideas: Quests to repair a damaged ship with items out of the locker; change some gear; add some gear.

 

I see what you mean but personally my RP backstory fits in well with the gear you start with. I have no problem with the starting loot but I was a little startled to just have a regular sword in it.

 

Methinks this should (also) be put in the suggestions, maybe.

 

at first was all 'oh boy, another immersion thread. haven't seen one of these before!'

but took a dive and read it. Very good points, I approve!

 

The first tier is supposed to be somewhat primitive. So having a sword over a lightsaber makes sense. So does torches. You are starting over again aside from owning a spaceship. I like what you start with currently, I don't think it should be changed, or the tier 1 things changed. But I do like your first idea of fixing the ship up before being able to leave.

 

I can agree with this actually, though it might be difficult to do and implement (As the hull is a singular object at present not individual blocks.) It's an interesting idea, that said it's soley there for immersive purposes still I like it.

I highly disagree, I'll explain why later on however, even our modern militairy carry combat knives for a multitude of reasons which I'll explain as we go, remember the current setup may break YOUR immersion is does not break mine in the slightest.

Not every race is as futuristic as one another (In lore I mean.) I'm also not sure that the starting items for the yogscast are the actual starting items. (We've gotten no word yet) If they are however, the current gun is like this world's AK47, admittedly there are better more powerful (More advanced) guns and weaponry outthere, however it's a pretty tried and true gun, that rarely fails. Much like our "auto airsoft gun" as you put it, it's a stable gun that fires quickly, it may not blow a hole through something but it gets the job done, and it doesn't take a great deal of experience to use it properly, as such I could see an escapee with no prior militairy training using it to fend something off, maybe that's all that was on the ship as well, as a backup weapon. (Since I'm not sure how exactly each ship is designated, as if they are civillian transports, I'd be suprised to see any real weaponry on them at all, and these starter ships look pretty small, if it's an escape pod, even less of a chance of high-tech or high-powered weaponry.)

Stun stick, now what happens if you need to cut something? Be that rope, animal hides, (Skinning an animal to eat it etc) cutting a tree root and so on. Can you properly do those things with a giant two-handed claymore? No..probably not, but you can do it alot better then with a broken stun stick, with less chance of shocking yourself.

Maybe the torches were ones the person made themselves? As they didn't have alot of flares, all in all there's no real difference in eithier, properly made torches and flares both burn for about the same amount of time ("realistically" though I realize we are not going for realistic as much as immersive, again torches don't break my immersion in the least. ) However it'd be better to have stuff to make torches, then torches themselves (That I could see) as flares only last so long, and you'll need another source of light (and heat, a fire starter etc) as you go.

I actually like this idea myself, it makes it so the MM can be altered and doesn't feel stale when you're in TX gear still using the thing you got at the start, some people might enjoy that nostalgia though.

1: This again, depends on the type of ship how long the person has been on the ship etc. Maybe they were fleeing, trying to join up with someone else, or another fleet etc before finally running out of food stores, thus they have to land not only to scrounge for food, but also to fix the ship find fuel etc, most of this can be easily and well explained based on backstory and starting story. That's all in how you rule it.

2: It's my understanding that you are fleeing for your life, if my house is on fire and it's snowing out, I probably wouldn't think to grab a jacket, I'd probably make sure my roomies/friends/family were out, then just get the hell out of the house (Or try to save my wallet, as it has my ID, birth certificate, credit cards etc) That said, I am not sure the characters were thinking to pack for alternate weather climates.

3: This one I can somewhat agree with, but I think it'd make it a little to easy, again for "immersion's" sake, just think that your character was badly wounded, you jumped into the ship jammed a few keys to get into warp drive and then started patching yourself up, praying no one caught up to you, and that no enemies were on board with you. There's a few different ways you can rationalize this.

4: I disagree with this, your character might have some idea (Via backstory etc) or the ship's log of what the items are, but I don't think we should be giving players any more bonuses early on. (The early game already seems easy enough from what I saw, and how I tend to play.)

All this said, well done post, and there are alot of interesting ideas, the idea of immersion though is a bit of a touchy one, what breaks immersion for you, might not for someone else, it's all in how you write your character's backstory (Before even they left the planet etc) that goes into heavy RP though, but if you're concerned about immersion I can only assume you want some form of RP, or a story that makes more sense to you, remember this was never labeled an RPG we have to make it so.

Edit: The site is bugging out for me hard, sorry the post is so strangely quoted etc, I keep trying to change and fix it, and the site just keeps making it worse and worse. hopefully it's still understandable.

 

Oh,man...
Starting gear may be different from what we saw on i49. And leave this damned "immersion" alone. Lots of posts about the same thing. This isn't funny.

 

I would have to agree with the OP. The locker should contain things that would be found on a spaceship (as if such a thing exists). Assuming the items were placed there for an emergency landing, survival type items would make the most sense. The things I would expect to find would be a collapsible shelter, materials to make a fire, freeze-dried rations, a flash light, a first aid kit, some sort of defensive weapon, etc. Some sort of pistol would seem more reasonable than a fully automatic rifle. To me, the sword is ridiculous (given that the firearm is present). A pri-bar, hatchet, or machete would make much more sense. I would also have to agree that flares make far more sense than torches. Some type of clothing to ward off the elements would also seem completely reasonable.

 

I like most of the ideas here. Especially the part about not being able to simply leave the ship so quickly, oblivious to your surroundings. Which brings me to my next gripe, the labels in the ship. This is by far the most immersion breaking thing I've seen so far. One can only assume that a ship owner (or at least a person that can fly a ship) would know what and where all those things are + what they do. They should be highlighted during the tutorial instead. And yeah, I was also put off by the giant sword, it's a little ridiculous. Also, what's the point in having an automatic rifle that does "no" damage ? As in, why would anyone build such a thing ? Guns are supposed to have a high potential of killing things. It feels disappointing to see an automatic weapon do that little damage, I agree with the blaster. The point of having torches in a high tech ship eludes me as well. Especially when you have both a flashlight and flares. So in that regard things need a little more balancing. Anyways, as usual, my two cents.

edit: that being said maybe all of these more subtle nuances are not a focus now, but after beta I hope they will start taking these into consideration.

 

You find labels to be more immersion breaking than a narrator talking to the audience and magic flashing rectangles around key objects?

 

Y..y..you know that there is a SUGGESTIONS section, right?

 

I definitely like the idea of having to spend a few extra minutes in the ship at the start. I believe it'll both help with the immersion, and, perhaps more importantly, to get the player acquainted with the basic spacecraft interface in a quest-method that is usually more engaging than a regular tutorial.

 

I worry that most of these suggestions would require a LOT of rewriting of the game.

 

To be honest, we will be wanting to travel, land, explore repeatedly at pace anyway. More fiddly bits to sell the theme is cool by me, but I am fine with the, "Here's stuff, now get down there and survive that bitch"

 

I like the idea of having a damaged ship at the start, but I disagree with your ideas for the starter gear. I almost think it should be the opposite of what you said. I understand that a spaceship is suppose to have "futuristic" gear on it, but I like the idea of my character starting from scratch. Maybe damaged gear, that will break in a matter of days.

I also hope that you don't start off with a gun. Some people might not like this idea, but I kind of wish guns were something to discover, not start the game with. Again, if you started with a damaged gun that would help you for a bit until it breaks might be cool, just helping you start out, but I think it would be fun to save guns for later in the game. The only real ranged weapons at the start should be ones that you can craft (possibly bows).

 

Just because it's sci-fi doesn't mean it isn't still handy to slash or stab your potential enemies. I will say that it would make sense if each race had different starter gear, with different culturally designed melee weapons. However, I don't really agree with the need for ranged weapons from the start, I think this should be something you have to craft or find. I disagree with the additions to the starter kit as well.

I don't feel having the startout load being very primitive ruins immersion, in fact it's the opposite. Just think of the amount of Star Trek episodes where a crew member is somehow stranded somewhere and unable to use technology as the first hand solution to their predicament. Genre wise, it makes sense, sci-fi doesn't have to mean starting off with superior technology.

Give us a tough beginning IMO.

 

If IMMERSION is the goal, think of it this way:

Like another person posted, having knives, machetes or other bladed objects at hand is completely reasonable. They aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Maybe reskin it to a K-bar like object.

The gun can stay. Blasters require quite a bit of logistics, presumably, even in the future. Ballistic weaponry isn't going anywhere, ESPECIALLY in space settings. Mass drivers, anyone?

I like the jacket concept, the flares over torches.

The other stuff like matter manipulator, broken tech and so on are complex, would require coding and aren't very necessary. They can go.

Thats my assessment of your top post. A lot of this (maybe all of it) has probably been said already.

 

I found this statment hilarious and awesome.

Unless it's a civillian who's never piloted the ship before, maybe they put face on keypad and rolled, that's why they are stranded on a planet where they have nothing. (As I'd assume a seasoned pilot or member of militairy personnel would know of an emergency escape) This sorta goes back to the point(s) of my original post though, most of this can, and is explained away by a proper/decent backstory and how the lore sets us off on our whirlwind adventure.

I get some people don't like the automatic rifle that deals little damage, maybe it was made with home-defense in mind? Maybe it IS damaged? Or malfunctioning somehow etc? (Remember everything has a prefix/suffic ala Diablo style, I recall Tiy finding a dillapitated poking stick or some such that didn't do much damage eithier.) There are alot of ways to rationalize and think about this, I realize it is the Dev's goal to set us off in the right direction, but come on guys it doesn't have to be soley their job, can't we expend a little gray matter and make up our own story as we go? Immerse ourselves by thinking of it in a logical sense (Logical in the sense of this universe not our own.) don't ask the devs to do it all, or set it up so it perfectly immerses you personally, different strokes for different folks and all that right?

 

I totally agree, although the current starter kit isn't bad I think your suggestions are large improvements.

 

I have to agree with most of it, though I highly doubt that a light jacket would be necessary if you think about it. If you had a ship in orbit and wanted a place to go at night, wouldn't you just transport up? Generally speaking though you're pretty right about most of it.