Procedural Generation???

[Teh Nizzim]

Loving the game, just wondering if theres any potential to open it up with some procedurally generated areas that could make each play through new? I know its asking a bit much but what do you all think? Would that help the game and make it sort of a more Minecraft type survival game or make it not as good?

[Hooman]

That would never work. The map being pre-made is how they ensure progression can work. Here is a very simple way to prove it: If the map was randomized then the cluster of 4 trams would either be amazing or suck, because they could all lead to far away points or they could lead to almost identical spots.

[Kai]

The only way you can procedural generate something, is if it is a portal world. Like a labyrinth.

[Vigilante]

Portal world rng/procedural would work fine for a non-story location used to farm resources

[Jon]

While playing the beta I thought Far Garden was randomly generated, but then I found out I'm just dumb. Was kind of disappointing to figure out though, it's a pretty simple map and having it be different every time would be cool I think.

[MechWarden]

I played survival crafting game that had randomly generated Subterrainean dungeon maps. For me at least, it did absolutely nothing for it's replayiblity. Might have been the fact that after getting less than half way into it, all the maps felt the same. I was able to see all the parts and hash out underlying patterns in the generation. That's not to say the game was bad, I got a lot of enjoyment out of it, but that mechanic didn't add anything to it.

The use of procedural generation would both be a wasted on this game and a waste of time for the devs to craft into something good. At best a Portal world that changed would likely be the only way to add that in a meaningful way.

[Necroscourge]

The thing about generating a map is that if you don't put a LOT of effort into it, you end up with what MechWarden describes where it does not feel like it adds anything. A good example of good generation is Shadows of Doubt, where evrything in that game gets generated on a per city basis.

The way a procedurally generated zone in Abiotic would have to work is to make it a portal world that reforms both on server startup and every in game week. When it reforms, it includes content from every zone the team has been in and you can only get materials from this world that you have already obtained before. This way it's more obvious to the player that there are renewable sources of materials while making sure players cannot skip regular content.

[Teh Nizzim]

Originally posted by MechWarden:

I played survival crafting game that had randomly generated Subterrainean dungeon maps. For me at least, it did absolutely nothing for it's replayiblity. Might have been the fact that after getting less than half way into it, all the maps felt the same. I was able to see all the parts and hash out underlying patterns in the generation. That's not to say the game was bad, I got a lot of enjoyment out of it, but that mechanic didn't add anything to it.

The use of procedural generation would both be a wasted on this game and a waste of time for the devs to craft into something good. At best a Portal world that changed would likely be the only way to add that in a meaningful way.

But couldnt the same be said for a handcrafted map? That eventually you recognize it and know it by heart? And then there is literally zero innovative replayability?

[MechWarden]

Originally posted by Teh Nizzim:

Originally posted by MechWarden:

I played survival crafting game that had randomly generated Subterrainean dungeon maps. For me at least, it did absolutely nothing for it's replayiblity. Might have been the fact that after getting less than half way into it, all the maps felt the same. I was able to see all the parts and hash out underlying patterns in the generation. That's not to say the game was bad, I got a lot of enjoyment out of it, but that mechanic didn't add anything to it.

The use of procedural generation would both be a wasted on this game and a waste of time for the devs to craft into something good. At best a Portal world that changed would likely be the only way to add that in a meaningful way.

But couldnt the same be said for a handcrafted map? That eventually you recognize it and know it by heart? And then there is literally zero innovative replayability?

Yes, but actually no.

It really depends.

Knowing a map could be the appeal for optimizing things on the next run.

A map could have secrets that were missed last run, because on the second run a person might explore more.

On the extreme end, you have Team vs Team maps that that are played hundreds or thousands of times by a given player, and yet the familiarity of that map doesn't detract from its replayability, but that's because the replay factor is elsewhere.

I played the heck out of a few Zelda games, and knowing the map didn't affect the replay value much at all.

[Teh Nizzim]

Originally posted by MechWarden:

Originally posted by Teh Nizzim:

But couldnt the same be said for a handcrafted map? That eventually you recognize it and know it by heart? And then there is literally zero innovative replayability?

Yes, but actually no.

It really depends.

Knowing a map could be the appeal for optimizing things on the next run.

A map could have secrets that were missed last run, because on the second run a person might explore more.

On the extreme end, you have Team vs Team maps that that are played hundreds or thousands of times by a given player, and yet the familiarity of that map doesn't detract from its replayability, but that's because the replay factor is elsewhere.

I played the heck out of a few Zelda games, and knowing the map didn't affect the replay value much at all.

I mean thats fair, but those games arent usually survival crafting games where new map every run fuels the rogue lite experience. Just saying, proc gen is helpful to create new experiences from old pieces, like a lego set. You know the parts, but what you can come up with using them can still be fresh.

[MechWarden]

I've played rouge-likes, and it isn't so much the random map that gives the replay, it's mastering a difficult game that gives the replay value. The random maps is a mechanism to prevent players from leveraging previous map knowledge to speed through the stages or do really cheesy shortcuts, but even then that works only so far as players start seeing how pieces are ordered and selected.

Other random aspects, like randomized loot or gear properties sometimes work like a slot machine. When things line up right, it feels great. When it doesn't it doesn't feel as great or even feels bad, but knowing you could get that in the next game a person tries again for a chance of a better run. That's not exactly creating content, that's more of a lotto. Though that is a bit disingenuous, because working with the cards you are dealt, good or bad, in a rouge-like is part of the fun, but that's also part of mastering it.

All you have to do is look at things like No Man's Sky (which I have like 1,400 hours in, so I can criticize it ) with an absurd amount of procedural generation and after seeing the same type of planet, a given Starship, or Multi Tool, or critter, or plant 2 or 3 times, you kind of seen them all (while not totally true, it practically is true).

[scavenger]

For this game with its current progress, switching to a rng type map would just screw it up. They could add a sort of rng type challenge when the game is finished. Like you get teleported into a alternate version of the base except its different each time and gotta find the portal back to the your home dimension.

[Teh Nizzim]

Originally posted by MechWarden:

I've played rouge-likes, and it isn't so much the random map that gives the replay, it's mastering a difficult game that gives the replay value. The random maps is a mechanism to prevent players from leveraging previous map knowledge to speed through the stages or do really cheesy shortcuts, but even then that works only so far as players start seeing how pieces are ordered and selected.

Other random aspects, like randomized loot or gear properties sometimes work like a slot machine. When things line up right, it feels great. When it doesn't it doesn't feel as great or even feels bad, but knowing you could get that in the next game a person tries again for a chance of a better run. That's not exactly creating content, that's more of a lotto. Though that is a bit disingenuous, because working with the cards you are dealt, good or bad, in a rouge-like is part of the fun, but that's also part of mastering it.

All you have to do is look at things like No Man's Sky (which I have like 1,400 hours in, so I can criticize it ) with an absurd amount of procedural generation and after seeing the same type of planet, a given Starship, or Multi Tool, or critter, or plant 2 or 3 times, you kind of seen them all (while not totally true, it practically is true).

well said, and fair points. I still think it would be fun to see some randomization so you can fall back on memory so much for your locating of certain resources and whatnot. Randomize loot containers at least would suffice.