Sentinels Are Terrible

[Guru]

I have to say, sentinels may be some of the worst-implemented video game enemies I have ever seen. It's incredible the game is this old and this element of the gameplay is this unpolished.

1. They exist only to slow down gameplay.

Only in the facility-raid quests and events, where either you infiltrate or destroy silos, do they actually serve a purpose, standing between the player and 'quest rewards'. An antagonistic force to be overcome and justly rewarded for the effort.

In all other respects they exist to be annoying. They pop up on worlds, literally phasing in through the ground (breaking immersion because, come on), only interacting with the player when they try to do what 80% of the gameplay suggests you do; mine resources. They zoom over, literally arrange themselves to be in your face, and go 'HEY WUT YOU DOIN, STOP' and you have to. You just... stop, shift over, and continue on. It's minor, but like mosquitoes, minor irritations that pile up can eventually be enraging.

UNLIKE mosquitoes, though, you can't just swat them because...

2. You can't beat them.

You can fight sentinels, sure. I'm only a few dozen hours in and already fights with even walkers are trivial. Doesn't matter. They can't be beaten, they can't be stopped. Killing one summons more. Killing those summons even more. There's no 'final boss'. No big challenge at the end that rewards the player for sticking with it. Just endless waves.

So you can't just fight them. Like it or not, they, at one point or another, HAVE to be escaped from. And you know how you do that? You hide. Which eats up time and is boring. It's pretty awful game design that I'm sitting in my ship casually flying over the landscape checking my phone and reading twitter, waiting for the sentinels to magically forget that I exist so I can go back to playing the game.

Also, explain to me how getting in my ship and flying 100u away from an angry sentinel makes them forget about me, but getting in my ship and flying much FURTHER away into orbit summons seek-and-destroy sentinels who have perfect ability to find me, wherever I am, regardless of speed or location, until the end of time.

3. They have no character.

They're robots. Automotauns. They appear to exist as a universal constant, like hydrogen. They're endless, they don't communicate, they feel nothing. Smashing them carries with it all the satisfaction and drama of crunching leaves in my hand. A dull, boring exercise in futility. I will die and my atoms will decay to nothing and there will still be an infinite number of copy-and-past sentinels left to wander around interrupting gameplay.

I cannot imagine how anyone things these things were a good idea. They suck, top to bottom. They have a boring design, they interrupt gameplay, they reduce fun, they add nothing.

[Cheesehead]

stvlepore の投稿を引用：

The point of conflicts in games is to win or lose. The OP is correct here, you can’t win, only tie or lose.

Good point. It also messes with the level of immersion you experience, which is a fundamental game design characteristic. The game originally felt rather pointless, and still struggles with some things feeling pointless. It's getting better, but it has a long way to go.

[say999]

Cheesehead の投稿を引用：

stvlepore の投稿を引用：

The point of conflicts in games is to win or lose. The OP is correct here, you can’t win, only tie or lose.

Good point. It also messes with the level of immersion you experience, which is a fundamental game design characteristic. The game originally felt rather pointless, and still struggles with some things feeling pointless. It's getting better, but it has a long way to go.

... to the center of the universe and beyond

[Del-Dredd]

I always just jump in my ship and fly off low level only need to go a short way then slow down (hover if have the mod) and just wait for timer to go down. No need for all the digging etc.

Do agree they seem to be an exercise in pointless though.

[DonJuanDoja]

To me, it's just like Cops in GTA games. You've never been able to "win" against the cops in those games. But that didn't ruin anything. It made it more fun. In fact, it's almost the same exact mechanic, taken from one of the most successful game franchises in the history of video games.

Game does need alot of work, but honestly think people are too hard on the sentinel system.

I don't think it's a bad system, I just wish they were a bit more original and didn't steal the idea from GTA... I mean it's pretty obvious.

[Iron Zerg]

Not to derail the conversastion, but there might be some cross-confusion here. There's currently a bug in the game where your threat level counts down to 0.0 but doesn't disappear unless you save and reload. If you get this bug and don't save/reload, every time a sentinel sees you, it'll be like you're under high alert status.

Best thing you can do now is carry a save point with you, and if you get the threat countdown to 0.0 but the red blocks don't disapear, you need to find a place to drop your save point and reload.

Once you do that, things are back to normal.

[Miral]

jrista の投稿を引用：

Again, beating them is not the problem. They arne't even a challenge anymore with my multitool as it's currently configured (and that darn thing cost me thousands upon thousands of nanites to reconfigure several times before I found my current build). I can take down a walker in a few seconds with the plasma grenades. It's the fact that it never ends that bugs me. It doesn't matter that I can kill them fast...because I have to keep killing and keep killing and keep killing and MEH!!!!! STOP!!!!! -.-

Yes, walkers are a bit broken. But the thing that you are doing wrong, is fighting them in the first place. Smack around a few of them if you must vent some frustration. Once you start getting the dogs, you've gone too far. Avoid them and defuse the situation before walkers ever show up.

You are not supposed to fight the Sentinel. You're supposed to avoid annoying them in the first place.

[DonJuanDoja]

DonJuanDoja の投稿を引用：

To me, it's just like Cops in GTA games. You've never been able to "win" against the cops in those games. But that didn't ruin anything. It made it more fun. In fact, it's almost the same exact mechanic, taken from one of the most successful game franchises in the history of video games.

Game does need alot of work, but honestly think people are too hard on the sentinel system.

I don't think it's a bad system, I just wish they were a bit more original and didn't steal the idea from GTA... I mean it's pretty obvious.

GTA: Oh no the cops... let me go fast for like 2 seconds turn a couple corners and I'm good.

NMS: Oh no the cops... let me press A for like 2 seconds and fly in one direction and I'm good.

What is so F-ing hard about this?

It's like you guys never played one of the most popular video games in history and completely ignore the simple mechanic that's been re-used in video games ever since they made it.

Even if you get into trouble you just jump in your ship and fly around for literally 60 seconds. Done.

[Seedy]

This isn't a fighting game, you can do that, but it isn't the point.
It is pretty easy to just stop mining when a drone comes over, arrange your inventory for 10 seconds or so until it gets bored. Mine from farther away, they investigate the rock, or whatever, but don't see you.
If you want to fight them, for a quest or in irratation, do it near a building, step inside and wait out the counter. (or reload if bugged as earlier in thread.)
If you get in your ship dont go into space until the alert is gone, unless you want to fight their ships, fly around in atmo.
Shooting at depots is completely broken.

[Masked]

I think every idea in this game is poorly implemented.

After playing 500 hours of NMS (I enjoy playing a game with no goals and just mindly grinding) I notice that its a hollow experience of a game.

Literally same 6-7 missions repeating over and over, trading is easy to do and repetitive without thinking or taking risks, the lore is kind of cool but very fragmented and difficult to follow, rng rules 99% of the game, lack of variation in EVERYTHING.

Only threats are the Sentinels and even on Survival they are so damn easy. Same wave after wave, as in there isn't even any variation in how they attack. You know EXACTLY what is coming next EVERY DAMN TIME.

The game is very rigidly designed, which tells me the main creative force behind the game is a programmer. The game needs a creative mind who doesn't design the game based first and foremost by formulas. The entire game is basically code with a gui. It isn't a creative idea, designed with the mind, then put into code.

This is what is hurting NMS right now.

[Jukelo]

100% disagree with the OP.

[restarter]

they arent that bad. except that i cant find a temerate planet without aggressive sentinals. is that a new design point? seriously, i've visited at least 15 temperate, tropical planets and they are always aggressive

[Seedy]

Meowlicus の投稿を引用：

they arent that bad. except that i cant find a temerate planet without aggressive sentinals. is that a new design point? seriously, i've visited at least 15 temperate, tropical planets and they are always aggressive

If the planet is too nice, the sentinals are hostile. tanstaafl

[Dragonrubi]

Seedy の投稿を引用：

Meowlicus の投稿を引用：

they arent that bad. except that i cant find a temerate planet without aggressive sentinals. is that a new design point? seriously, i've visited at least 15 temperate, tropical planets and they are always aggressive

If the planet is too nice, the sentinals are hostile. tanstaafl

As i remember before NEXT it was not in that way

[Johnny in the Clouds]

Guru の投稿を引用：

1. They exist only to slow down gameplay.
2. You can't beat them.
3. They have no character.

1. That's right.
2.That's wrong.
3.They do.

Sentinel behaviour depends on the planet chosen to land on. Land on a planet with calm sentinels they won't interfere. Land on a planet with frantic sentinels you can expect trouble and must spend time dealing with them.

Shooting at any sentinel will bring others. They have a set time, indicated on screen, that shows how much time remains before they will call heavier reinforcements. They are more vulnerable if you have your multi-tool set up effectively. Sentinel armour is weaker from behind.

If you aggrevate them, then your rage/hatred meter flag increases (top right of screen little red dots) and this in turn raises your chance of being spotted by them.

They will sense you if you are within their range. A large thin white crescent appears on screen if they are near to the left or right of your position. If you have been spotted they turn red and the markers too. If you drop out of range the markers show a question mark because their line of sight has lost you.

Once you are out of range wait for your rage/hatred meter to return to normal (zero). This may take up to 30 seconds and is a countdown that appears in orange on screen.

If you have less rage meter red dots then the orange alert meter will be less than thirty seconds.

Best thing to do is not to aggrevate them to begin with. Before attacking anything just quickly do a sweep scan to see where they are and in which direction they are moving. If attacking a manufacturing facility door with a grenade, do it when walkers on sentinels are facing in the opposite direction, get inside quickly. If they are alerted it will be minor and they will soon lose interest.

[dashiichi]

Sentinels, especially the flying drones, were much easier to kill in the pre-1.5 days. Sentinel mining was a real thing, especially in 1.3+; shoot one and get some resources (zinc, equivalent of sodium in 1.5). His buddy would show up, shoot him, get some resources, and it's all over.

You had to intentionally try to avoid killing the wingman in order for the reinforcement clock to time out and have a couple more drones spawn. Kill the wingman and the two in the second wave (which weren't armored), and yer done. Collect resources and go about your business.

Same routine for the higher levels. Deliberately avoid killing them in order to force the sentinels to level up. Kill the walker at level 4 and no more sentinels would spawn on that planet forever or, rather, until you exited and reloaded or left the planet. But you could mine stuff or collect grav balls until your stacks were full in complete peace and safety.

Yep, they're intentionally more difficult now. When a drone "goes blue" just whistle and pretend to admire the landscape while you casually walk away. Otherwise, really no big deal.