Stop interrupting me when I'm playing!!! Game Problems/Annoyances/Suggestions.

[Omnicast]

While this game has huge potential. THERE ARE WAY TOO MANY FLAWS! I know it's early alpha version 0.12, but I need to point out these glaring flaws (in my humble opinion if only to hope they are fixed and or improved upon).

Problems/Annoyances/Grievances:

1. First of all let's see... while playing WHY DOES THE DAMN OBJECTIVE INTERUPT MY GAMEPLAY?! Everytime I get a new objective the game is FORCED TO PAUSE! I can read it while I play. I was already planning to build a soup factory before being rudely intruded upon!

Make the damn objective into a small popup that DOES NOT DISRUPT/INTERUPT/BOTHER/INTRUDE UPON ME DURING GAMEPLAY! Ie the player can keep moving/building/harvesting/eating/whatever the hell ETC without pausing the game. I will literally just completely stop playing this game until this annoying problem has been addressed.

This is the same for the rocket's first launch sequence. I DO NOT want to follow the rocket into space. This annoying cutscene should be skipable. This also applies to the tutorial's instructions. It should be skipable. If the player gets stuck make F1 a help menu where the player can scroll through a short tutorial or hell whatever the tutorial just said.

2. The faux changing days is another annoyance. They get in the way they slow down gameplay forcing the player to click through the statistic menu. I can already see the damn enemy corperation kicking my ♥♥♥ I don't need another reminder.

How about uhh let's see. Make the days change via a clock that keeps running in real time? This way plants grow in real time and mats that were just harvested do not vanish into nothingness. A clock always being shown will also help the player act accordingly. Example "Don't Starve" has a nice day/night time clock. Hell you can do some other cool this with the gameplay feature such as certain plants growing only at night, a badass dynamic lighting feature, Critters that are only harvestable at night, above ground plants growing only during the day, and much more.

For the upgrade menu just make it part of the build menu. Put it into another tab. This way it's more dynamic and easier to access.

3. IMPROVE THE UPGRADE DESCRIPTIONS! I want indepth stats on what the heck I'm buying! Vacuum Tank... bought it cause it sounds cool TOO BAD IT HAS A LIMITED BATTERY LIFE WHICH CAN'T BE RECHARGED! One time use item seriously? If it can be recharged the upgrade description didn't mention it! This makes me fearful of buying others incase those are one shot items as well. If they need to be recharged add a charging station for electric vehicles!

Vehicle/mount or whatever used to gets around only charges at the charging station. Similar to oxygen pockets or the base.

4. Split screen mode is for people that don't have multiple systems/tvs/whatever. I want my entire screen. I'm one of those screen hogs.

5. For the PC version of the game allow the keys to be rebindable. Have more advanced options in the... options menu.

Alright I think that's all the grievances I have with the game at the moment. Now onwards to suggestions/ideas/improvements. Of course not all of them are doable. Only snag what you think is fun and or improves the gameplay (money/time permitting).

Suggestions/Improvements:

1. Weather: it rains water/meteors/hot ash/acid rain/etc, it snows, sandstorm blows, and violent winds uproot plants. This could have a host of game changing features. When it rains plants grow faster and your base might get flooded (water). During a meteor shower buildings are damaged, rockets are intercepted midflight, and the poor plants are smashed/incinerated. Hot ash rain damages the player/s take damage and plants are snuffed (Active Volcanic planets). Acid rain could melt plants, blocks, and player's face (yes I know he's in a space suit let's just say it's really strong acid). Well for the rest you get the idea.

2. Plant propagation. Why do these plants not spread by themselves? That's what plants do. They continously spreads their seeds all over the place. Fungi releases spores and Trees create fruit/seeds which are then propagated by fauna. Maybe this might be too hard or time consuming to implement in a realistic manner, but it can probably still be done like Terraria where everything just spreads and grows automatically.

3. How about a Tier upgrade system or maybe it can be organized into categories. Actually both would be better. For example all your basic robots in Tier 1 under a robot category then the advanced robots that cost more to unlock/buy and function faster/better are in Tier 2 under the same category. The better versions could have a requirement too. Shotgun 2 requires Shotgun 1. This makes it easier for players to get what they want faster if/when the game is running in real time (related to problem 2).

4. More base modules adding more functions:

a. How does the player make soup without... WATER (or broth)?! This can be easily addressed with some sorta condensation base module. Build this and water shall come! This basicly has a built in water tank that stores water as it gathers it. As long as this module is connected to the base the soup factories will automatically siphon water off whenever it gets the soup ingredients.

b. Farm Base module! Let's the player plant... plants in this automated farm! Comes in three sizes: Small, Medium, and Large. Costs are S=800 M=1,000 L=1,200 minerals.

Small farms takes up two normal sized corridors and allows the player to plant three types plants (or the same type whatever) with one harvesting/grafting robotic farm arm.
Medium farms automated farms take up three normal sized corridor spaces and allows the player to plant five plants with two harvesting/grafting robotic farm arms!
Large farms takes up five normal sized corridor spaces and allows the player to plant ten plants! It comes with three harvesting/grafting robotic farm arms!

Farms can also be placed upside down or sideways. So the player can plant hanging plants. The soil is magically glued to the roof.

The robot arms harvest the plants when they're mature while at the same time taking one seed to replant. The excess or the produce is left on the ground. The farm comes with a converyer built in. The player can choose a direction for the converyers to move the produce towards via a switch at both ends of the farm module (the player punches it to change directions). If and when multiple farms are built side by side then conveyers are then linked.

c. Cross corridor! Allows the player to up/down/left/right without spliting the gravity elevator! Can be set to stop ingrediens.

d. Online Coop/Versus mode... OH GOD YES! Let the players fight in teams aganist each other. 1v1/2v2/2v2v2 multiple corperations fighting for SOUP DOMINANCE!!! Online coop mode allows the player to connect to friend in other parts of the world and play over steam vs the AI. Where as Versus mode allows players to fight each other for soup monopoly online over steam.

e. Allow the player to spend gold/money/coins to attack the enemy corporation. This would be a base Module that the player builds for 1,000 minerals. It automatically launches a rocket with robot attackers every X seconds. After it's built it will charge up before launching. It takes 60 seconds to charge up before launching. The rocket will also take time to return just like the soup rockets. When built in VS mode the player can choose which color corporation to launch attacks at. This cannot be changed afterwards even if that player dies. It will just shut down.

f. More fauna and flora! These are probably planned, but birds and more plant life would be nice. This would also mean more soup reicipes/graphics/sounds etcs and that's just more work.

g. Tier 2 SOUP FACTORIES! WITH THREE INGREDIENTS!!! Make your super soup NOW~!! Infact just make a T2 and T3 everything!!! =O

Alright that's all I can think of for now. I really hope these help improve the game. Personally I love these ideas/improvement/additions, but I can see that they might not be for everyone. Not to mention it all takes time and money to add in. Some of them might just make the game too complicated when I was aiming for complex.

Some of the problems mentioned was in an angry tone I apologize for that, but that was how I really felt when I encountered those problems and that was how I wrote it. I will not change it as I'm still peeved by those problems.

Anyways thanks for reading. I'd loved to hear some constructive criticism.

[Xiupan]

I definitely agree with the changing days. That is very annoying and doesn't add anything to the gameplay. It's easily replaced with researching while inside the base and money accruing in real time as the rocket arrives to the market.

[Omnicast]

Another way of changing it would be to make it so that while the game runs in real time the statistic menu can be bought up at anytime via some other button.

What I'd really like is a map feature. A minimap and a large map.

[Clone]

I don't really mind the changing days, though I'm not sure it's ideal, it reminds me of pikmin. It's nice to set priorities for the day, and the pressure is intense when you have 0% market share and the clock is ticking, running around launching rockets like a madman. it allows for nice comebacks. The work-day restriction may feature more heavily into the gameplay in the future.

I agree that the other interruptions you mention are quite annoying though. If they must play an animation to celebrate a rocket launch please let it be in the corner of the screen. Control should never be wrestled away from the player. Beyond the tutorial we certainly don't need interruptions instructing us to build an office, launch soup, etc.

The other gameplay interruption I dislike right now is the UFO. It seems to add nothing but breaking my flow, eliminating the reward for delivering soup, making it a huge chore. It's depressing when it shows up rather than exciting.
If this is a rubber-band handicap system I would much rather have more difficult waves of enemies attack the base, that's action packed and doesn't break the soup-shipping rewards.

[p0rk1ns]

Hey guys,

Omnicast, Xiupan, Clone - thanks for taking the time to write the feedback. This is quite a lengthy list of *ahem* grievances! ;-) Let me try to go through them bit by bit.

1. Hint interruptions

This is an unintended side effect of us getting the game ready for all of the conventions for the past couple of months. I don't know if the first rocket graphic will go away just yet, but I will definitely try to get a fix for the tutorial pauses into the next update.

2. Day changes

We talked a lot about this last week (thanks in no small part to your post here) and have a few changes in the works. The days aren't going away - everyone wants to keep the cycle and there are coding issues with the way the world runs that would cause problems if the days just continued. We're testing ways to lessen the break in momentum between days, though. Look for changes to that, and time display, in upcoming updates.

3. Upgrade descriptions

Noted!

4. Dual screens

This would be a cool options, but it's definitely pretty low in priority for us.

5. Bindable keys

This could come in polish. No promises, though.

-------------
1a. Weather

This was in our original plan with the seasons. At the moment, it's been shifted to low priority, but it could make its way back in after retail launch.

2a. Plants

The plants actually do spread seeds. If you ever find a pocket of oxygen with plants after playing for a couple days, you'll notice that there are quite a few plants there. The rate for plants outside of the oxygen is slower for game balance purposes.

3a. Tier / Research

The research menu will be changed to reflect this in the future. Great minds think alike!

4a. Soup production

- More buildings and components to soup production are coming. Water is a great idea, though!

- Cross corridor, along with other corridor sizes is in design.

- Online co-op is coming next Spring!

- Attacking rivals will probably be part of the combat update.

- more plants and animals? YES. There's a new - and dangerous - pumpkin in the latest update.

- Tier 2 soup was in an earlier version of NNG (when it was PJ Inc) it's very likely that we'll see some form of these eventually.

----------------------------

whew!

[p0rk1ns]

Originally posted by Omnicast:

What I'd really like is a map feature. A minimap and a large map.

Will add that to the list of community requests!

[p0rk1ns]

Originally posted by Clone:

The other gameplay interruption I dislike right now is the UFO. It seems to add nothing but breaking my flow, eliminating the reward for delivering soup, making it a huge chore. It's depressing when it shows up rather than exciting.
If this is a rubber-band handicap system I would much rather have more difficult waves of enemies attack the base, that's action packed and doesn't break the soup-shipping rewards.

Yeah, the PAPP has got to go. It needs a serious overhaul.

[Omnicast]

I just hit another annoyance... the giant ass red danger bar that appears when enemies attack. It blocks my FOV and I absolutely HATE IT. Put it on a bar at the bottom of the screen or the top. This can also be used for flavor trends.

Should be user adjustable and be out of the way as possible. Thing of the Stock Market Channels they have a bar at the bottom showing all the ups and downs along with the tags. I think the regular news channels do the same... hmm.

Now can we get some sorta chicken like animal? I want some chickens... that lay eggs... or giant lizard would work too. Mmm lizard egg soup.

[Clone]

Yes, I also dislike it when a new soup is created, and the big message with the soup name and its price swirls up into the center of the screen. It lingers there for quite a long time, and I'm trying to get back to work because the competition never sleeps! It's nice to celebrate a new soup, but there's also work to do!

[k5]

Since this seems to be a persistent topic, I have a few requests.

1: Factory Refitting. When I hold down Ctrl, there are four slots. Only two I've seen in use. I'd like to reques that the third (when in a factory) will clear the recipe (if there is one) and open up a menu with all the discovered recipes if not.


2: Corridor Reconstruction. I've often built long verical shafts, only to have to use a hundred and one struts to keep it up while I replaced one part of a corridor with another. Basically, the idea is that if I build another corridor piece on top of an existing one, it will cost nothing, but act as if the corridor was destroyed and rebuilt with the new piece--all in one action. This extends to replacing corridors with soup factories (or rockets, storage, etc) if there is enough room for one.


3: Automation Planning. This will be an option for advanced players and comes in multiple parts.

C&C configuration: Any C&C robot can be configured (possibly by pressing c while holding) to only go to certain factories (and locations, if needed) and to only pick up certain ingredients. The C&C only walk between the furthest reaches of the path given. C&C can also be banned from picking up certain (or all) ingredients or from picking up certain (or all) soups. If locked to a set of factories, this will be configured such that the C&C will only pick up ingredients which those factories use, but not the soup it produces (unless locked to a Rocket, which will not count in the roaming area mentioned above).

Robot Configuration: All robots which directly handle ingredients will be configurable.
C&C: Can be set to take ingredients directly to any other robot, assuming they're reachable. This is another option which can be set instead of the above. (Can also accept ingredients the same way.)
Ben: See C&C. Won't be able to accept ingredients, though.
Both robots which throw ingredients up and down corridors: Can choose what floor if there're more. Can also select C&Cs instead to send ingredients to whichever one needs them.

4: Defense Tower Refueling. Exactly what it says on the tin.

[Shougat]

Version 0.19 feedback

GIVE ALL THE FEEDBACK!I am happy to see the start of auto farming in the game and am having a lot of fun launching all the rockets a day. I too would like to see a map in the game as well as T2 rockets as I find that I can’t build enough rockets in the space provided, I would like to go up not out.

So I have been playing on Unba and Pomelyk.
Unba is nice but as underwater bases don’t seem that feasible and building a corridor down into the water was way too much resources for my liking I ended up doing default grass+sunflower approach which was a little disappointing as it worked.

I love Pomelyk, those floating islands posed a unique challenge of getting around and having low amounts of land to farm on. The ground level is perhaps a tad far down as it is some effort to build your way back up once you accidently fall off but enjoyable none the less. After blowing up most of the sky land to make room for rockets despite trying to be cautious of the hive areas the hives all ended up not returning around the day 20 mark.

Thoughts
1. Don’t like dog kennels. As you can’t connect a corridor up or down means you need C&C’s to automate it but require a jimmy to stop them going too far and interfere with farming area. Its side panels reduce vitality and the whole thing ends up feeling and looking a tad messy. Requires a lot to upgrade points to get running (Dog/Jimmy/Freddy). I was hoping to just throw the items up with a Freddy.

Alternately I would like to see a shepherding dog bot.

2. Ingredients on the ground/in transit disappear when day is though. This is the only thing that bothers me about the day cycle. This concerns me as over time it could break farms as the dog would not be able to replant before the day is though thus reducing the plants in the area. I would like to see that items on the ground that can be planted at the end of a day are planted like they would be if alone during the day.

For ingredients that are transit though vertical corridors get lost. That means lost soup! LOST SOUP PROFIT! MAKES ME SAD!


3. Pumpkin’s out roll Arthur’s attack. Some defensive robot when It can’t even take on local wide life, little irritating.

4. Underwater base doesn’t seem to be possible. Water can get trapped in vertical corridors. Would like to see an airlock corridor section to allow for water not to fill corridors.

5. Falling objects in water has a nasty habit of horrifically lowering the water level.

6. Hives will occasionally spawn inside my base. Which is concerning as I am not sure if a destroyed hive will ever reappear…they all disappear in the end T_T.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=332822982

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=332763282

6. Glad to see that there is now a bit of variety of combinations in the enemy waves but seems to break back down into an irritating onslaught after about 20 days.

7. Like modifications to vehicles but pogo still sinks to the bottom of water and gets stuck…hopping around having fun and them BAM at the bottom of a puddle.

8. What dictates when you will get a package of technology/how much tech will be in that box? Also when you start a new round the boxes from the last round will be empty. =(

9. Just like ladders get blown up when building over them are built I would like the same to happen with girders.

10. You can combo off enemy soups so I presume vise versa as well. Seems a bit odd but amusing.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=332823122

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=332763961

11. Glad to see that the score board changed from days to a score but a little bit sad to see that the base slide show thing has disappeared. It was fascinating to see how other people designed their base even if it did take shots from them wondering around the world occasionally.

12. Did you do something to way girders can be placed?

13. The way the structural integrity code is weird. While removing/replacing a soup machine parts of the base that were not connected to it would start falling.

14. Would it be worth making a pinned Feedback/FAQ/Frequently given Feedback (FGF) thread as freeplay mode and PAPP come up a lot despite being discussed before.

15. A “Come help me” button that would throw a timed arrow on screen, like the death arrow, to the coop player’s location.

Bugs

1. Game keeps crashing!! A lot! EVERYDAY! As well as huge drop in FPS! Why you break game?!? D= =P

2. Dogs don’t farm sunflowers? Dogs have a weird habit of getting stuck while planting (or something) and just start jumping around on the spot.

3. If damaged while eating you don’t gain health and food disappears.

4. Girders destroy water super-fast as well as t-shape corridors but a bit slower.

5. Thin layer of water will remain on top of buildings after the water has lowered.

6. Entities disappearing even faster than before.

7. Death arrow doesn’t disappear after returning to death location.

8. Multiple dogs can dig up a single plant to produce all~ the resources.

EDIT: More thoughts! More BUGS!

[Omnicast]

@Clone Yes I absolutely agree! The damn soup ticket thingamabob needs to go! Off to the side at least.

@King5327 I agree with 1, 2, and 4. 3 Was kinda confusing, but I think it'd be similar to filtering where stuff goes so it's more efficient?

For number 4 this could be done with a building that spawns a drone which heads to the various turrets and reloads them. For shot turrets it could take 1 second per ammo reloaded and for missile turrets it could take 2 seconds per ammo reloaded.

An empty shot turret would take 30 seconds to fully reload. While reloading the turret can still shoot. The Ammo Drone can only carry 10 ammo. When the 10 ammo is fully spent it needs to go back to the base to reload. Shot turrets take 1 ammo per shot. Missile turret takes 2 ammo per missile. Something like this.

@Shougat It feels like your post highly derails from this discussion. You really lost me. This discussion is more about ingame features that disrupt gameplay, how to improves them, and a few suggestions. I don't understand why you posted bugs here.

[k5]

Omnicast, #3 is as simple as I can get it. Basically, you take any robot and tell it that it can only interact with certain objects. The specifics are up to the dev.

Shougat:
1. Dog Kennels aren't required. If left to its own devices, Ben takes the ingredients to the nearest part of the base.
2. The day cycle should be modified in favor of having all upgrades done at the control centre, as well as the histograms. The only thing the cycle should do is passively take you back to the control centre and give you your pay.
3. I agree that ben should be fixed to harvest [whatever that noodle plant that grows from the roof is] and oxygen flowers better. Also, there should be a special farm-bot which is like ben but only works inside a chain of farm block (see my previous post).

---

Beside all that...

1: Popups should be off to the side and not pause the game. This includes the first rocket launch.

2: There should be a repair bot which heals buildings slowly, costs a lot and is only useful for bases with weak defenses. (Note: no money cost associated with this) This ties in to both my automation part earlier, as well as my corridor refitting part.

3: If it was unclear, refitting a damaged corridor costs the full corridor price in matter (though if it's repaired, it's free), but heals it fully as well. I often find myself spending a lot of time with struts to make my repairs very cheap. This should simplify that.

[Clone]

The more I play the more I lean towards the camp that wants "Break Time" eliminated. It serves no gameplay purpose but to shuffle around monster nests and facilitate the seasonal transitions. It just stops the fun and I loathe when the timer starts ticking down.

[bloOdykizZy]

nice job with this post. I hope they fix all of that. I love these guys and usually the end product does not have flaws.

[p0rk1ns]

Hey guys,

We're taking all of the feedback you posted into consideration. You'll notice that in the latest build we got rid of the automatic warp back to base at the end of the day. Please let us know what you think about the changes.

I don't think the days will disappear, as there's a strong desire among some of the team to keep that structure. If you have any ideas for working with that structure, please let us know!