Excellent game early and mid - endgame improvements ?

[Tom]

Mostly popped over to say how much I enjoy the game. It is absolutely fantastic and from the first moments I enjoyed every little bit of it. Great work dev team !

That said, I have noticed that the early and mid game are much stronger than the endgame. I consider "endgame" more or less the point when you've got your Cyclops and/or depth modules on the Seamoth and go into the Lost River and deeper. The amount of story elements just drops off dramatically after that, and while in the more shallow depths I found myself enjoying the exploration for the sheer beauty and pleasure, as well as the challenge (I dove down to the 500m Degasi habitat with nothing but pipes and spare O2 tanks!), the endgame has a lot of frustrating and tedious driving around in total darkness, bumping into things, getting lost and trying to figure out where the heck you are.

There are great moments as well in that. I twice arrived at my deep base (650m, in the Lost River, inside the fossils cave) with single digit percents of energy left in my Cyclops. One of them literally with 1%. Damn was I sweating that one.

But it does seem like the endgame is not entirely finished or did not receive the same amount of attention and polish that the rest of the game did. Is that true? Will more things for the late parts of the game follow?

(for the record: I'm not yet through. I've just upgraded to 1700 m crush depth and will go again into the lava region. I already spotted the alien power base from a distance, and I've already built the first two parts of the rocket, so those who have finished already understand where in the game I am. Please no spoilers in answers about what is still to come.)

[Suzaku]

I agree the end-game is remarkably weak. I've spent a dozen hours searching for a building that I know I need to find to continue the story, but it Just. Doesn't. Exist. And the game is offering no assistance whatsoever. Early on you're getting notifications, radio messages, datapads that lead to other clues and objectives. End-game just has you fumbling around in the dark for hours hoping you trip over the right rock to continue the game.

Just now the voice in my head told me I have 2 weeks left to live, so now I'm forced to watch a youtube guide to lead me to my objective or watch my diver keel over because I missed a single hidden door.

I'm loving the game for the most part, but it is seriously frustrating. It's like if your friend told you to meet them at a restaurant, and the only clue of which one to go to was "Somewhere in the country".

[Kleiner's final Form]

the answer to the later part currently is modding, the map mod with fog settings turned on enhances your gameplay experience especially in navigational terms threefold.

[OverwatchJunky]

Originally posted by Suzaku:

I agree the end-game is remarkably weak. I've spent a dozen hours searching for a building that I know I need to find to continue the story, but it Just. Doesn't. Exist. And the game is offering no assistance whatsoever. Early on you're getting notifications, radio messages, datapads that lead to other clues and objectives. End-game just has you fumbling around in the dark for hours hoping you trip over the right rock to continue the game.

Just now the voice in my head told me I have 2 weeks left to live, so now I'm forced to watch a youtube guide to lead me to my objective or watch my diver keel over because I missed a single hidden door.

I'm loving the game for the most part, but it is seriously frustrating. It's like if your friend told you to meet them at a restaurant, and the only clue of which one to go to was "Somewhere in the country".

Thre are plenty of gameplay trigger events that help you find the late game areas. There are several map markers that get triggered by going into certain biomes or locations.

Have you been to the islands yet? Have you seen the Sunbeam get destroyed by the massive gun that shot down the Aurora? Have you been into the Grand Reef and beyond? Have you picked up ALL the PDAs on the ground and in buildings that you can find???? Those events trigger other neccesary events that progress the story.

Did get into the Quarantine Enforcement Platform and try to disable the gun? Thats how you get the information and location for the Research facility. Its at 800+ meters down.

My advice, go back to every map marker, every island, and find ALL the PDAs. One of the islands SPECIFICALLY gives you information to the base you may be looking for if its the one I am thinking of. And you cant get there unless you can go deeper than 500 meters in eityher the Seamoth, Cyclops or the Prawn suit with suitable upgrades.


Give us some specifics. If we know where you have been, it will be easier to figure out where you need to go.

[OverwatchJunky]

Originally posted by Tom:

Mostly popped over to say how much I enjoy the game. It is absolutely fantastic and from the first moments I enjoyed every little bit of it. Great work dev team !

That said, I have noticed that the early and mid game are much stronger than the endgame. I consider "endgame" more or less the point when you've got your Cyclops and/or depth modules on the Seamoth and go into the Lost River and deeper. The amount of story elements just drops off dramatically after that, and while in the more shallow depths I found myself enjoying the exploration for the sheer beauty and pleasure, as well as the challenge (I dove down to the 500m Degasi habitat with nothing but pipes and spare O2 tanks!), the endgame has a lot of frustrating and tedious driving around in total darkness, bumping into things, getting lost and trying to figure out where the heck you are.

There are great moments as well in that. I twice arrived at my deep base (650m, in the Lost River, inside the fossils cave) with single digit percents of energy left in my Cyclops. One of them literally with 1%. Damn was I sweating that one.

But it does seem like the endgame is not entirely finished or did not receive the same amount of attention and polish that the rest of the game did. Is that true? Will more things for the late parts of the game follow?

(for the record: I'm not yet through. I've just upgraded to 1700 m crush depth and will go again into the lava region. I already spotted the alien power base from a distance, and I've already built the first two parts of the rocket, so those who have finished already understand where in the game I am. Please no spoilers in answers about what is still to come.)

Best way to save power is to try to use Silent Running or Shields unless you absolutely have to. Silent Running and Shields just drain your power. Turn off the interior and exterior lights in the Cyclops. There is more than enough ambiant lighting to guide you through the lower areas. The blaring Cyclops headlights just attract hostile and passive enemies anyway.

The only Cyclops upgrades I have ever had to use are Sonar, Power efficiency, Depth, Fire supression and the bouy upgrade. I have learned how to avoid the fauna by just chugging along at the slowest speed and knowing where the aggro range is. Oh turning off the engine works too when stuff gets too close. You have to pay attention to your Cyclops sonar on your right for enemies. I widened my FOV so I can see that all the time.


The end game has plenty of polish and is definitely finished.


Wait a sec. You say you already built 2 parts of the rocket? How did you access the Captains Quarters without the code? Actually, different question. Have you even been to the power plant and recieved the blueprints for the upgraded power cells that are required for the rocket? if I am not mistakes, you have either used the all doors cheat to get into the captains cabin or you found the code on the forum.

Honestly, game breaking stuff like this needs to be reigned in on the forums. Guides about farming and strategies and resource managment are all well and fine, or helping people find the very next place they need to go to progress the story when they cant find something without spoiling things is also fine, but freely giving them end game information like the captains door code is game breaking. Pretty sure some of those shortcuts conflict with some of the in game event triggers!! I don't doubt that people have a hard time finding things but, there is far too much spoiler content going around that new players are tempted to find it out of frustration!!

[Suzaku]

Originally posted by OverwatchJunky:

Give us some specifics. If we know where you have been, it will be easier to figure out where you need to go.

I'm in the end-game now.

I'm at the part where I needed to find the Alien Thermal Plant to gain access to Blue Tablets. I checked the wiki and it just said "it's in the lava zone", so I searched there for hours and hours and couldn't find it. Turns out there's one freakin' tiny barely-lit cave entrance that leads to it, near impossible to see with this zone's 20m visability. I used the youtube guide just to lead me to the entrance, and now everything else is moving at a breakneck pace since I can finally enter the Primary Containment Facility.

[PrimeSonic]

I'm not gonna lie, there really isn't as much stuff to do in the end game as there is before then.

Good thing there's a bunch of mods that add stuff to work towards so it's not just a simple straight shot to the finish.

[BDK]

It's not really surprising. Early game you are pretty much bare and have to work for scraps, mid game you have a base etc. Late game is all about the story. I can't see how you could improve on the "survival" formula in this regard. I mean sure, some crazy ideas like "base defense" etc. but lol.

[OverwatchJunky]

Originally posted by Alexstratos:

I'm not gonna lie, there really isn't as much stuff to do in the end game as there is before then.

Good thing there's a bunch of mods that add stuff to work towards so it's not just a simple straight shot to the finish.

Yes but your progress in the late game is entirely dependant on your early game progression. mainly blueprints and tech etc. You have an easier time late game when you spend enough time upgrading your tech. That is why exploration and discovery are so importantin all stages of the game. Mainly because many different biomes have what you need to farm for end game story content. So if you are unfamiliar with those zones you will have a harder time findign what you are looking for.

Late game speed improves when you have things like the Prawn suit and all the essenal upgrades. Scanner Room also helps especially when you think you have farmed every scrap of material and yet you missed so much!! I do wish that the devs would fix the fact that the canner Room displays locations for items that have already been picked up, scanned or harvested!!

[OverwatchJunky]

Originally posted by Suzaku:

Originally posted by OverwatchJunky:

Give us some specifics. If we know where you have been, it will be easier to figure out where you need to go.

I'm in the end-game now.

I'm at the part where I needed to find the Alien Thermal Plant to gain access to Blue Tablets. I checked the wiki and it just said "it's in the lava zone", so I searched there for hours and hours and couldn't find it. Turns out there's one freakin' tiny barely-lit cave entrance that leads to it, near impossible to see with this zone's 20m visability. I used the youtube guide just to lead me to the entrance, and now everything else is moving at a breakneck pace since I can finally enter the Primary Containment Facility.

I spent a lot of time playing during Early Access. So I knew all the terrain and the Aurora by heart after a while. it gets easier over time. Took me a good 100 or so hours to get a lot of the terrain nto my memory.

[Double Deez Nuts]

theres nothing to do after u beat the story

[PrimeSonic]

Originally posted by OverwatchJunky:

I do wish that the devs would fix the fact that the canner Room displays locations for items that have already been picked up, scanned or harvested!!

There are two mods on Nexus that fix the Scanner Room blips.
One fixes the drillable nodes, another fixes the empty Data Boxes.

[PrimeSonic]

Originally posted by 🌋↪ToƦcH↩🌋:

theres nothing to do after u beat the story

The discussion isn't about after all the story elements. It's about how little there is to do once you've reached the last biome in the game.

The only left to do is to finish the story by then with little else to work towards or progress with.

[Tom]

Originally posted by OverwatchJunky:

Wait a sec. You say you already built 2 parts of the rocket? How did you access the Captains Quarters without the code? Actually, different question. Have you even been to the power plant and recieved the blueprints for the upgraded power cells that are required for the rocket? if I am not mistakes, you have either used the all doors cheat to get into the captains cabin or you found the code on the forum.

No cheats, no forum. I found the code in some PDA. I explore A LOT - I dove down to the 500m Dengasi habitat before I had a Seamoth, using a lot of pipes and 2 spare oxygen tanks to switch out when empty.

I now finished the game. The very last part is actually very good and polished and enjoyable, so I amend my posting: The part just before the last part (i.e. before you get into the primary containment thing).
When I wrote the posting, I hadn't been to the power station yet. I had been to the beginning of the lava zone, but not further. I missed the sonar upgrade and without that some areas in those caves are hell to navigate.

Honestly, game breaking stuff like this needs to be reigned in on the forums.

Simply randomizing it per game would do the trick. Lots of games do it that way.

[GamingWithSilvertail]

Originally posted by Suzaku:

I agree the end-game is remarkably weak. I've spent a dozen hours searching for a building that I know I need to find to continue the story, but it Just. Doesn't. Exist. And the game is offering no assistance whatsoever. Early on you're getting notifications, radio messages, datapads that lead to other clues and objectives. End-game just has you fumbling around in the dark for hours hoping you trip over the right rock to continue the game.

Just now the voice in my head told me I have 2 weeks left to live, so now I'm forced to watch a youtube guide to lead me to my objective or watch my diver keel over because I missed a single hidden door.

I'm loving the game for the most part, but it is seriously frustrating. It's like if your friend told you to meet them at a restaurant, and the only clue of which one to go to was "Somewhere in the country".

It does give you an assist. Read into the clues and codes stuff.

It says approx where and how deep a certain building is. It also says in the PDA one importnant hint to note is that its within a rock formation...

[Tom]

Suzaku is right though. I also spent a lot of time looking for a few minerals missing for important upgrades, or blueprints, or locations. All of that grind was concentrated in the part of the game between reaching the lost river and reaching the containment facility. That is the weak part of the game. Before and after are brilliant. The main difference for me was that even though much of the gameplay is collecting things, it never feels like a grind - until it suddenly does.

That's not to say I'm not a big fan of the game. It's one of the best games ever and I enjoyed it massively. I'm just giving feedback to say: This part could still be improved a bit.


How? There could be a few more clues, and less vague ones. In the first part you get more or less precise locations, in the last part you get "it's somewhere at 1400m". Interaction also dramatically drops off. At least one more lifepod with a radio message at the end, maybe? Doesn't even have to be important. It could be something that is near the 2nd entrance to the lost river which is easily missed or something. Somehow something went missing from the game when it was clear you're the only survivor. I was always scrambling to every new lifepod info, hoping to find at least one other person alive (even though in my gamer heart I know that I would not).

Or maybe find a Seamoth below the last Dengasi base. They wanted to go down to 1km. Find a crushed Seamoth there (900m upgrade, but that's not enough and they pushed it too far) with another PDA or whatever.

Just SOMETHING else than "need to find Kyanite so I can upgrade the crush depth and get into the lava zone".