Surface Section sucks [Rant/Spoilers]

[devil_505]

I was having a lot of fun with Below Zero until I came to the point in the story line, where you can´t progress without exploring the surface sections.

Boy, what a letdown. Everything looks the same and gives you a constant feeling of being lost. The weather often limits your view distance to less then 10 meters. Night + bad weather = you are completly lost and have to wait until you can see again your surroundings.

I already spent 6 hours in that part of the game and found most locations only due to sheer luck. And now I can´t find them again to complete tasks like finding a cure for the Khaara virus or finding the Architects body cache.

I should have brought along many beacons, but I didn´t thought about that. Maybe I will return to my mainbase and craft some.

Snowfox + Iceworm means no fun. Being constantly thrown of your vehicle is annoying enough to rage quit for me. And that thing is made from Ikea plywood, it breaks in seconds even if the Iceworm is 25 meters away.

If the Snowfox uses a batterie for a power source, why can´t I simply change that thing if it is empty? I have to return to the pad and recharge it there (or I take the pad with me, but more about that later).

I abandoned the Snowfox and simply use the Prawn Suit now. It is almost immune to Iceworm attacks and I can just drill through the Snow Stalkers if they get to close to me.

If you make the winters clothing your inventory will become clogged up. There is simply not enough space (especially if you use the Snowfox and have to pick it up to get up ladders). So I left most of my belongings with the Seatruck and just went on the trip with light luggage. For example I left all my scuba gear at the Seatruck, what was a big mistake. At the end my Snowfox broke down and I had to run the last mile to the portal, Then I stood in front of the portal and had no energy cube with me. I was unable to swim through the long tunnel because my air supply was only 45 seconds without the oxygen tank. I found three big chunks of energy cubes, but without my Prawn Suit I was unable to harvest them. So there was no way back and no way forward for me. I had to use the console to give me an unlimited oxygen supply so I was able to return to the Seatruck.

There is a energy cube hidden in that part of the map, but I had not found it at that point.

Below Zero was an impressive 9/10 for me until I set foot on land, now it is down to 4/10 at best.

Never a working automap was needed more then here.

I am on my way to make some beacons at my main base. ;)

regards

[Coops]

get gud?

You can change the snowfox battery just like you do all the other tools.
Oxygen tank takes up zero room in inventory why take it off? unless you are role playing I guess.
You can walk from the energy cube chunks to the bridge. its not that far.
The long tunnel leads to an ice wall that you must laser cut to get out. Did you bring your laser cutter?
Beacons is a good idea. That's what they are for.

[devil_505]

LOL. you can indeed change the battery if you put the Snowfox to a quickslot. I was looking for a hatch or a opening like on the Prawn or the Seatruck.

[Deceptive Pastry]

Why did you take your oxygen off? It doesn't take up any space when it's equipped? And the winter gear doesn't take up any more space than the other suits so I don't understand this at all. Just leave the other suit in the Seatruck.

But I also don't see the point of the snowfox. There are a bunch of drillable materials in the area so clearly they intended you to bring the prawn.

[devil_505]

If you put on the winters clothes the scua gear lands in your inventory. So you loose 12 tiles in your already small inventory. So I left that back at the Seatruck.

Correct, the oxygen tank needs no room in your inventory. I guess I was simply awaiting a part of the game far away from the water and thought there would be no need for the oxygen tank. That was a misassumption on my part.

To be fair I would have gotten out of that mess if I had found the single ion cube prior to cheating. So the scuba gear inclusive oxygen tank is not needed in that part of the map at all. So the devs knew here may a problem arise for players without a scuba gear and hide the ion cube in the map to save them from getting stuck at the portal.

[devil_505]

And done with all things I had to do there. I hope at least.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2522210677

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2522211215

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2522211034

This sums up my surface experience in Below Zero. They should call the game Subnautica Zero Visibility.

Even now that I have everything I needed from that part of the game there is no feeling of relieve for me, but anger towards the devs making that part of the game so lackluster.

The last straw was hiding the vaccine in one of six (?) penguin-caves dotted over the map without giving more then a vague hint (south-east of the frozen lizzard). Took me another hour of low visibility marching around before I found the right cave. Games shouldn´t waste the players lifetime this way.

[Horror Pigeon]

Glacier area is bad, but waaaay better than it was as a maze in early access. I think the devs, after improving it, got a distorted bias and viewed it to be decent based on comparison.

[devil_505]

Best thing was I looked up on youtube for certain locations in the Glacier area. Even after seeing the location getting revealed in front of my own eyes I was unable to tell where exactly the location was and how I get there. Every part of the map looks the same and is interchangable so there was no way of remembering where everything is and how you get there. I walked over the antidote-cave half a dozen times and maybe have even seen it before from the outside, but was unable to recall where exactly that was.

I even stumpled over the Architects Cache by accident. AL-AN wasn´t even responding he felt something close. He did that when I repaired and passed the bridge, but not when I was almost standing upon his precious tissue samples, Maybe he likes to live inside Robins body and don´t wants his ugly alien body back anymore.

If Glacier is much better now then in early access this part of the game must have been monitor-smashing anger inducing during developement. ^^

[ParrotLord]

Originally posted by Horror Pigeon:

Glacier area is bad, but waaaay better than it was as a maze in early access. I think the devs, after improving it, got a distorted bias and viewed it to be decent based on comparison.

i think it really is kind of the same maze as before. well at least it still sucks. whole surface area is stupid af, and the fact the devs promised for 2+ years it "would get better" doesnt help. Weather etc. was a constant critique point since EA.
Just one more issue everyone complained about in Ea, and that got successfully ignored by the devs untill now.
honstly how can this game still have 90% on steam. i would go for 75-80, honestly.

[GAMING_Alligator]

There was someone on here a while back that managed to turn the weather effects off and apparently the result was that the surface area looked really bad, so the reason they are there may not just be to p*ss you off.

The whiteouts are indeed annoying though. Even more so because the game gives you nothing with which to counteract them. Really needed some sort of "enhanced vision goggles" or something.

I'm perfectly fine with a bit of fog to make things more atmospheric and hide some graphical imperfections, but I can't understand how the devs thought it would be fun to completely obscure the player's vision on a regular basis.

[Shorogyth]

The surface section is not on par with the rest of the game, so much is true. That being said, OP is just really, really bad at navigating.

The area is split in two (by the bridge).

For the western part you get a map. In addition, the area is very easy to read and not all that interconnected. This makes navigation trivial. The thing-you-need-to-find it circled in red on your map. The other thing you need to find is marked by a huge tower. It is totally trivial to navigate the west and to complete the quest over there.

The eastern part sucks. But it is not hard to find the thing-you-need-to-find. Just follow the immense and green-glowing cable. Not hard to do, albeit a bit frustrating to backtrack a few times. To navigate the rest is a pain but it is "unnecessary". Everything in there is optional.

The snowfox is useless though. And the visibility is not fun either. Both are avoidable problems. You don't even need the cold gear. You only run into issues if you can navigate and still want to find everything. In that case: git gud.

[Deceptive Pastry]

There's a map in Phi Robotics that shows all the penguin caches, the one with the antidote is circled.

[devil_505]

Originally posted by Shorogyth:

The surface section is not on par with the rest of the game, so much is true. That being said, OP is just really, really bad at navigating.

The area is split in two (by the bridge).

For the western part you get a map. In addition, the area is very easy to read and not all that interconnected. This makes navigation trivial. The thing-you-need-to-find it circled in red on your map. The other thing you need to find is marked by a huge tower. It is totally trivial to navigate the west and to complete the quest over there.

The eastern part sucks. But it is not hard to find the thing-you-need-to-find. Just follow the immense and green-glowing cable. Not hard to do, albeit a bit frustrating to backtrack a few times. To navigate the rest is a pain but it is "unnecessary". Everything in there is optional.

The snowfox is useless though. And the visibility is not fun either. Both are avoidable problems. You don't even need the cold gear. You only run into issues if you can navigate and still want to find everything. In that case: git gud.

Guilty as charged, navigating is really not my strong suit. ^^

The part before the damaged bridge was really not that difficult to navigate. At least after I brought the beacons in.

But after the bridge I totally lost my way. The constant bad weather was not helping either.

I remember I found that map, but forgot about it as soon as i became disorientated. Having to look on the map, then switch back to the normal view only to find that you can again see only 10 meters and can´t verifiy your position against the map (because you can´t get visual confirmation) sucks. So I started simply walking around, as any good person without a clue about here whereabouts would do. ^^