Game Progression - Survival to Sustainability

[Charook]

The game is a great concept, but lacks any real game progression right now. Even though it is a sandbox game, I hope the devs are putting serious thought into a fun game progression from very basic survival to reaching a point of sustainability and eventually being rescued (for those who want to be rescued).

The way I see it, there are some very natural stages of progression that the player would go though, each have their own challenges.

Stage 1: Surviving the first day - Imagine starting out with nothing; no raft, no paddle, no knife or lighter or water bottle. Also, imagine starting hungry, dehydrated, low health and potentially injured. This makes that first day more challenging and fun. Providing the player with survival kit to begin with takes away from the initial survival experience. When I start a new game now, I throw my pocket knife and water bottle into the ocean and leave my raft behind; I like starting very basic.

Stage 2: Basic survival - This stage is about crafting your basic tools and clothing, getting a rudimentary shelter, and starting a fire. At this stage, food and drink should be hard to get: fish should move fast and sporadically making them hard to spear, crabs should be hard to find and catch, potatoes should take weeks (or more) to re-spawn. the challenge is getting enough food and drink to survive.

Stage 3: Scavenging- This stage is where you begin to explore the ocean, wrecks, and other islands for items and materials needed for more advanced tools. The challenge here is dealing with sharks and jelly fish and other ocean predators.

Stage 4: Advanced survival - This is where you begin to craft advanced tool for more sustainable survival. Nets and fishing equipment to catch fish, farming tools to cultivate plants, rainwater collector and desalination contraptions (boiling seawater does not make it drinkable irl). The challenge is finding the materials need to create these tools.

Stage 5: Building, Exploring, and rescue - This is really the end game, from this point the basic survival needs (food and drink) are sustainable. This is when you being building your personal island resort house, maintaining a large garden, building a sail boat, exploring the deep for rare, interesting, and useful items, and ultimately finding a means of being rescued.

Just my thoughts on how the game should progress. I have confidence that the developers will do their best to create a great game!

[CoLS Firestar]

This sounds great, (I throw my water bottle in the ocean too) but how do you get lashing without a pocket knife?

As far as survival goes, I'd like to add that shelter (a roof) does nothing. I'd love for it to give you some sort of bonus when it rains.
Crabs.... aren't really that hard to catch IRL so why would you want this?

[Charook]

Originally posted by CoLS Firestar:

This sounds great, (I throw my water bottle in the ocean too) but how do you get lashing without a pocket knife?

As far as survival goes, I'd like to add that shelter (a roof) does nothing. I'd love for it to give you some sort of bonus when it rains.
Crabs.... aren't really that hard to catch IRL so why would you want this?

If you knock rocks together enough they will break into shards which you can use to get lashings. We just need crafting recipes for a fire bow and paddle and we can start with nothing.

About crabs...at the first of the game the challenge should be obtaining food and water; there should be no easy food sources. Crabs could be easy to catch, but instead make them more rare, re-spawn slowly, and/or provide less nourishment (there is not much meat on crabs after all).

[FiddyTrickPony]

This is the concept I would love to see evolve. At each point the survivor should face different challenges which force them to make survival decisions.

Going along with the realism aspect, I think your first stage of survival would also have a lot to do with your starting island. For example, threats, assets/resources available, ect. Perhaps it has a dangerous insect or creature at night - in which case getting off the ground so you can sleep safely would become a priority on day one. Maybe you see a storm brewing in the distance - and a quick lean-to shelter will allow you to keep some firewood dry and a fire lit. Maybe you have a wound from the crash that you need to deal with immediately.

In my opinion, the real quality that makes this game interesting is the 'fear of the unknown.' Having different starting scenarios (likes storms, or dangers on island) will make it almost infinitely playable and also much more immersive. At the same time, it takes away the linear progression that we're all so used to, which personally I think would be interesting.

After your basic survival needs are taken care of and can afford the time to actually do some thinking/exploring/learning, you can think about how to get yourself out of that situation, whether by rescue or self-rescue. Maybe you decide to create signal fires, use flares, ect. and wait it out, in which case you have to find a way to be sustainable. Or, if you're trying to affect self-rescue, maybe your goal is to build a capable raft, take only what is useful and travel the seas looking for a continential shoreline, or a shipping lane.

Ultimately, I suppose I'd like to see the ability to make impactful decisions (based on realistic scenarios) that actually affect your survival. Many of those choices would line up with the stages you've discussed in your post. In a real survival scenario, you would never stop doing something to improve your situation or affect rescue.

[Wolvie]

I'm sorry but you're no survivalist if you throw stuff away. Hell, you sound like a gaming masochist.

Its a reasonable expectation to expect an emergency floation device to have a loaded survival pack with it, this game starts us with less than an basic IRL survival pack would have. A not insignficant portion of survival is that preparation is key and a well maintained survival pack can turn an emergency from dire into something similar to some people's dream vacation.

Throwing your water bottle and knife away ... WTF is wrong with you? Hell, even when the water bottle is empty, still don't throw it away, it can be used later with a bucket and a built up fire pit to make fresh water!

And man, you're out of your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mind if you think finding food near the shore line should be difficult, IRL its one of the best places to find a steady source of food, plants and animals above and below the surface.

Source: I live on a Pacific island IRL. ;)

[Dogma]

This is a great Idea!

[Charook]

@Wolvie

Lol. yes, well the game will only be fun if it has a certain level of challenge. While it may not reflect reality, it will make a better game experience.

I throw away the stuff they give you at first to simulate starting with nothing and make it more challenging. When I find a water bottle in the world I certainly keep it, but I want the challenge of having to find it in the first place.

[Charook]

Originally posted by Loki:

In my opinion, the real quality that makes this game interesting is the 'fear of the unknown.' Having different starting scenarios (likes storms, or dangers on island) will make it almost infinitely playable and also much more immersive. At the same time, it takes away the linear progression that we're all so used to, which personally I think would be interesting.

I would really love to see some different starting scenarios to make each play through a little different.