A6.0 Feedback: DYNAMIC WEATHER & HAZARDS

I like the general idea, the implementation is however lacking.

At first these are not dynamic in terms of being predictable, they just randomly appear and disappear (at least from my pov). There is no way to interact with them, as they are just "there" and poison/radiate you. Probably I could sit in a cave for 20 minutes till a storm is over, but that is not exactly what I consider entertainment.

The visual effects are very lacking and/or bugged. A storm is just a fog, the acid rain drops through closed ceilings, radiation is just green fog. The audio effects are equally lacking. I am comparing that to a player-made minecraft mod, and that one does create a way better atmosphere despite the much lower resolution. Take a look at this video, the visuals, particles and especially the audio effects, to see and hear what I mean.

If weather effects would be significantly improved in terms of visual/audio effects they could add a lot to the game.

 

Well the hazards such as fire rain and meteors are not fun at all. But I like it, its just that a player needs armor and apparently the armor we have been given is no match for those two hazards and that sucks. It would be nice that if I am using a armor boost that it protects me from those hazards.

 

the dynamic weather seems fine. Quite atmospheric, problems with the effects sometimes being indoors aside. The lightning is particularly well done.

I'm a little leery of the hazards. They do last too long as Menos pointed out, yet at the same time they often just arn't that dangerous. I believe this is more due to the implementation of heat/radiation/etc. than the fault of the weather/hazards themselves though. For example, i'm scared of radiation, but after many hours of alpha 6, i have yet to actually suffer any deleterious effects from it. Higher rads from radioactive fog says DANGER but i have no idea how dangerous or how much it should actually be circumscribing my activities.

In the current implementation, only the Acid Rain seems directly dangerous to the extent i stay inside. which is fine considering the planets its on.

I like the meteors personally, theyre a sudden burst of actual danger and they look good.

Would like to see some funky interactions in weather, like short weapon ranges, or creatures that become much more dangerous, although such mechanics are well-trodden ground in the survival genre. Empyrion has a chance to do it more interestingly than just day/night cycle though.

 

It is for once a question of the effect. If for example there is a random "meteor" event that has a meter spawn and crash on my base, it is not fun, because the effect is that I frequently have to rebuild my base. Now if instead acid rain would slowly damage blocks by like 10% of their HP, then it is still a hazard, but not too annoying as all I have to do is to repair it with the repair gun. The trick is to keep the effect annoying enough so that the player wants to act against it, but not too annoying, so the player doesn't rage-quit or feels like the game is forcing him to do things he doesn't want to, like building underground.

There is also the question as we are talking about a game: what is the purpose of a hazard?
Hazards does not exist in a game just because, but to guide the player into a specific direction he probably wasn't planning to go. The idea is to alternate standard gameplay by random events. Currently radiation i.E. is all over the planet, so there is nothing I can do beside ignoring it and eventually washing off the effect. If radiation instead was a local cloud, then I am encouraged to go around it. Or I can build a device that protects me from radiation, so I have to change my plans and gather/build different things first. Or if I have to hide somewhere from it, then at least there needs to be some fun gameplay alternative at the place I am forced to hide in. Entertainment in a hole in the ground is somewhat limited.

And lastly there is the question of what I as a player can do to counter the effect. If the answer is "Hide for 20 minutes till the storm is over" this is like you are watching a great movie and then there is a 20 minute commercial break: it is super annoying. Here the player needs to have things that he can _actively_ do to counter the effect. I.E. building a (temporary) radiation protection upgrade, or go to the ship designer and design a new hover you are going to use once the storm is over. And as we are talking about a game, what the player has to do needs to be fun, because if you are playing a game the primary goal is to have fun while doing it.

A good hazard is one that gently steers the player into a different direction in terms of removing repetitive gameplay by altering the situation. If a hazard happens the player needs to have a clear task that he can do to counter it, and that task needs to be fun to do. Imagine the entire game would consist only of this hazard, then ask yourself if that would be a fun game. This is the mindset you should use to design hazards (and several other things).

I.E. take the drones that spawn to attack a base, which is one of the better hazards in this game. It is immediately clear what to do against them: build cannons. It steers the player into the right direction: protect the base. It adds alternative fun to the game: try to figure out how to optimize your defense. And once you completed the "task" it is no longer annoying but rewarding, because you know the drones are going to be destroyed by your well built defense.

If you think of it as a tower-defense mini-game, you can immediately come up with ideas how to make it fun even though it is a hazard. Small waves first, bigger waves later. Drones with various abilities like long range, local emp effects that disables a turret, heavy armored drones that tank all the damage if towers are too focused. Also there could be a lot of tower effects that the player can use. Anyone who ever played a tower-defense game could simply copy those ideas.

Sadly however instead of improving this "mini-game" further it has simply been disabled by removing drones completely after a few waves. So at the point the player has his defense setup and expects rewarding explosions from his great setup, the game points the finger at him and laughs for wasting so many resources on a limited hazard.

 

I love the dynamic weather but is it supposed to be snowing inside my ship? Is this a bug that you guys are aware of?