What makes a good/interesting POI/dungeon/puzzle for You (and maybe explain why if you can.) These must not be limited to empyrion. Maybe a dungeon or puzzle from another game stuck in your head over the years as being fun to do or it could be a specific POI in empyrion of course that you enjoy runing. Feel free to let me know, I am really curious. Spoiler: longer exposition/explanation The goal here is to improve POI buildling broadly speaking. Ask yourself, what makes you want to explore a POI, explore a friendly station, do an enemy POI and so on. Maybe you run a certain POI in the game again and again because you like it or why? Maybe the build style of a POI is what you enjoy, the layout, a maze, killing a bunch of bad guys or sth different. If it is the loot that is good, that is as fine a reason as any too. I am writing this to improve myself in building better POIs and of course this will help other builders too. When you build sth and test it your persepective will be warped. Maybe i put a bunch of time into creating sth, be it signal logic or blockwork for example. Then i think that is great because i put so much time into that specific part. In the end people running the POI might not enjoy that, they are not as heavily invested into that feature. So i think it will be good to know what others enjoy in terms of POI's. Another big part is that there are a lot of things that can be done with signals and are possible in POI's to create riddles/puzzles/tasks/... . This is what makes a POI interessting for me btw, thats why the question focuses on this a bit. These puzzles could even be quite complex since set/reset acts like an IF-command and can save/store signals. Complex signal loops are time consuming to set up, but there is quite a lot that can be done with these. So maybe you thought some riddle from another game is great but never thought one could do that in empyrion? Well, maybe it can be done - who knows. Let me know what you think "hooks" you so to speak in terms of POIs. I do not know and i would like to know. aaand thx for your time as always.
I have not played Empyrion for a while, for 2 or 3 year, had a fresh start this autumn and I absolutely love one of the POI on Omicron, it's called an Ancient Temple I guess? Not sure if it's new or old. The one with deep floor, bridges and kind of a maze. Gives me that old Tomb Raider series feeling. Monastery was a surprise: Spoiler: spoiler on how it goes and the meaning The fact that Serdu has legacy creatures in their basement. Are they doing experiments? Are they the cause for these mutations? Leaves those questions unaswered. And, btw, if you happen to be neutral with Serdu, this is literaly the only place where one can be neutral to legacy creatures, as for this POI their faction is Serdu. Would be more sensible to leave them behind the door they have no access to and leave them be as legacy. POIs with nightmares (abominations) are quite thrilling for the first time, but the fact is that fighting off melees mobs is much more easier than soldiers. This makes those POIs a bit trivial afterwards, especially when you know where the spawn will be. And given the fact they are mostly tunnel like, makes boring after a while. What could make them more challenging, probably an unpredicted spawn place. Ok, it may still be predefined to keep the balance, but let's say, you are doing an abandoned mine, make 4+ versions of it with the same name where the only difference will be the spawners, hence a player will not know which particular version he's playing right now, that would make it more challenging. Following the idea of unproductiveness, it would be nice if a POI would have a chance for some additional content. E.g. some cave with pirates smuggling might be easy to go or a smuggler ship might come to the entrance for a planned deal, fighting off on your way back. I'm not sure if this is technically possible, I have not done any POI myself, but it would be nice if the tools are not only limited to spawners. As for neutral POIs, e.g. space stations, they are nice to look at! I see lot's of work done on decorating them, it looks cool and makes you stop for a while to check the surrounding. What's bad about these POIs, their inhabitants are all the same. Some NPCs roaming, some traders dealing all the same stuff from station to station. Some POIs do have hidden passwords, that's nice. Would be even greater if these POIs could have some sort of a side quest, may be with dialogs. Something like the COL station with a prison.
I have probably seen most if not all POIs the game (and RE) has to offer, and did most of them at least twice. There are several things i love to see on POIs: * several ways of defeating a POI (e.g. several paths to disable it, hidden shortcuts, hidden treasures etc.) - this increases the replayability of POIs immensively. * immersive architecture - saying: not a POI that is set up as a simple tower defense game against the player as intruder, but one that makes sense for its purpose. E.g. a factory should primarily look like a factory with believable spawns and security measures, *then* you think on how the player should be able to defeat it. This is why imho, Vermillion's POIs in RE are the best in the game. * immersive interior - put some text, signs, lore, etc. - make the place look like it is being used (if its not abandoned or derelict). * immersive exterior. Look around in your city... what do you see? Yes, construction sites everywhere! Don't make a perfect shiny POI, give it some unfinished walls, holes, put on a crane on a corner or a caterpillar - give it a character. * Most buildings provide parking possibilities. You (and the enemy) fly around in CVs, SVs and HVs. Your POI should provide some parking spots too (Landing Pads, Hangars, anything like that) * more automation - use sensors, triggers and other measures to give rooms you already passed through a new purpose - this also helps giving the building some life. It doesn't always have to be death - a sensor that just opens a door and toggles a light is nice too. * use tokens as access cards and/or codes for doors in different levels of a dungeon. This inherently gives the players tasks to fulfill. * balance the loot according to the difficulty level. A single loot pinata POI in the game will make all other POIs uninteresting for the player. * believable "traps" - a trap you can't escape that incinerates the player without any warning nor sign ruins the fun. Make it believable why there is an incinerator there and put on warning signs. The player should be able to survive the POI in the first run already. * putting a capital ship turret in the bathroom of a POI as a surprise for the player is not a challenge, and is just not funny either. If you put capital turrets in your POI, the player should be able to either drive into it with a vehicle to kill it or disable it via some toggle somewhere - and make sure it is pretty clear for the player *why* there is a turret inside your POI. Technical: There are a lot of tricks & tipps that POI builders should consider to make POIs more enjoyable, e.g. * invisible spawners should represent the garrison of a POI, visible spawners the reinforcements. ** set invisible spawners to "static", so they spawn even if a base does not have power. ** set visible spawners to non static, so they work only when the base has power and react on its signal accordingly. ** you probably do not want to use "respawn" on these, unless you know exactly what you are doing. * use visible spawners as what they are: teleport targets for enemy reinforcements. Putting them on ceilings, walls or similar kinda breaks that idea. I know its technically necessary sometimes, but try to avoid that. * always make all doors/shutters/ramps public. Not being able to open a door for political reasons is very immersion-breaking. * NPCs should always be able to walk through doors. The AI is dumb already, no need to limit their abilities even further * at all cost, try to avoid visible spawns in the players view from invisible spawners, nothing breaks immersion more than that * avoid invisible spawners that spawn "behind you" on purpose after you cleared a path/room. That's really a very low-effort way of killing the player. I'm sure you professional POI builders have way more tricks to mention.
Size, length, spectical, going from small spaces to larger spaces. I tend to prefer the "pile o mobs" style to make things interesting. Enough difficulty so doing the poi with a sniper rife as a shotgun isn't the best idea.
What should be considered a pile? AFAIK the standard maximum mob rate in options is 60 for SP, this value might be changed on servers. I remember the time I came across 14 abominations in one room. Quite screwed up I fear nothing afterwards thoutgh.
Verisimilitude is important. The more I can think of a POI as building where people currently or previously lived and worked rather than a video game level, the more I can use real world logic instead of video game logic. I think this is what other people refer to as "ee-merz-ee-un". I recall at least one Abandoned POI that had no way of reaching the lower levels except by falling through a trap door in front of an antivessel turret, and no way of getting back up at all. None of it made any sense. I don't recall even its proper name because it had nothing to do with the POI itself. It's just another murder funhouse without its own identity. Pacing is underappreciated. Big combat encounters need to be broken up with quiet time. When players go directly from peak to peak without a valley of calm between them, the peaks don't mean anything. Players tire out, become frustrated, stop thinking about combat as a challenge to be overcome, start thinking of it as a impediment to be bypassed and avoided. Room after room of scorpions coming out of the walls gets old fast, especially when you know they're coming yet can't do anything with that knowledge. Not every hallway and door needs to have sentry guns pop up behind you. The less you do to a player, the less they know, and the more the tension builds. They should feel hunted, not cornered. The ability of players to build things is to be respected, not derided. The highest form this respect can take is cleverness. Put yourself in the shoes of a commander trying to deal with these intergalactic devils, and try to imagine appropriate countermeasures to their strange powers. Take undermining. A Zirax commander might build their facilities on stilts, since the ground offers no protection. A pirate clan leader would probably put mines in the ground around their loot hoards. Legacy would probably have surrounding tunnels full of monsters. Drones are probably the best compliment to defense turret batteries to counter player H/SVs. Against a player CV, however, artillery and plasma are probably the best options. The further you can push players to build and fly their creations to beat a POI, the better. Keep in mind the aesthetic and ludic language of a POI, so you can impress players with some expectation of what they're in for. An ancient Talon ruin housing a complicated logic puzzle does not also need a cadre of hostile Talon warrior to pop up constantly. A few nesting animals is plenty, hostile or not. A Zirax fortress similarly does not need a complicated lockdown mechanism on its central command pylon that requires four different key cards held by four different captains in four different underground high security safe rooms and a password on an LCD on the floor obscured from the door by a bed in a random officer quarters containing no other visible reason to investigate. It's a fortress. It's full of dudes with guns. That's the security system. It works by all of them shooting at you. Above all, remember that this is a sandbox game. Players are expected to make their own preparations. They're also supposed to invent their own solutions. Intended solutions should be presented as polite suggestions at most. You're making something to bring someone else joy. Don't be a prima donna. Be an impresario.
Am a bit late to the party, but anyways: Like: -immersive architecture and creative design. -Logical interior. E.g. if there are storage rooms with giant cargo-boxes, make sure there is some ways how these boxes would be handled by machinery. Add some access from the outside, those Cargo boxes surely weren't built in the place to stay there forever. -Logical opponents and turrets. Don't put turrets where they don't make sense. Select enemy types so they fit the location. E.g. bugs/scorpions in run-down access tunnels. Robots in areas where you would use guard robots. Don't like: -Invisible/Indestructible endless respawns -Spawns out of "thin air". Invisible spawner should imho always spawn before the player sees the spawn location (or have some other stuff there that explains why there is suddenly an enemy appearing) -Respawns in already cleared areas. Please don't do that, it hurts my immersion -100% Deathtraps without a way out. (People don't "get" the subtle hints that tell them to avoid them. They will die the first time they are there, and only know it the second time they enter the POI. Please don't do that.) -Generally any mechanic/encounter where you need to know the POI already before you can realistically succeed without dying. That includes "Boss Room battles" against hordes of enemies. Give a player, that doesnt know the perfect spot to hide and camp, a fighting chance, too. (A "chance" doesn't mean it needs to be easy ) -The big Assault Robots in POIs. There are 2 ways how these appear, either you open a door and get instantly nuked by them, or they don't work and get stuck and don't do anything productive. Can't remeber a single good ecounter with them inside a POI. Those might be a RE thing however, not sure. -Spiders (well, ok thats just me) Tl;DR: "Puzzles" per se aren't that interesting or memorable for me. But I really love immersion and the feeling to fight my way through a POI that tells a story via its locations.
A lot of good things have already been listed, I'll add Good: -With large POIs - Additional routes opening that lead quickly to/from various points in the POI as the player progresses so they don't have to slog through the entire POI after respawning. At least one at some point before the end is always appreciated. Think about it this way - if there's a fire in your POI, where would the inhabitants go? Are the guys deep inside of it just screwed? -Hidden loot containers, even if they're just the basic containers. They don't have to be masterfully hidden either, just out of sight when proceeding directly through without stopping to explore anything. Bad: -Large open rooms full of enemies and turrets with no cover and no secondary exit. Even if it's the 'boss fight' of the POI. That's just aggravating. Things to hide behind, somewhere to flee aside from the single entrance that probably becomes inaccessible due to a mob of creatures is appreciated. Without these things the player is forced to peak through the door, fire a few shots at things, hide, repeat, until everything is finally dead an hour later. -Rooms full of respawning spiders. (unless overrun by spiders is the theme of the POI I guess) -Long hallways with turrets at the far end, no cover except for the initial doorway/corner leading to the tunnel, and no way to disable the turret.
I'll jump in and offer my views. I've been playing this game since 2016 or 2015 and it has been amazing to see it grow and evolve. It has also been disturbing to see certain trends set in motion which have, IMHO, become all to prevalent even to the point of becoming the norm or the gold standard. There is very little that I disagree with in any of the previous posts, so I won't belabor my post by repeating much of it. But there are a couple of things I would highlight: 1. A "POI" is a "dungeon" to take us back to the origins of this sort of game experience in the pencil and paper games developed by Gygax in the 1970s. Call it a "level" or whatever you want, the point of a POI in a game is to OFFER things to players, including: (a) information; (b) services of some sort (e.g., trade, quests, healing/repairs); (c) CHALLENGES; and of course (d) REWARDS. I put those last two word in all caps because this, IMHO is the key thing which I've seen mis-understood too often by POI builders who have come along in more recent years than the beginning of this project. The point of a hostile POI is to CHALLENGE players, not kill them, not punish them, not aggravate them, and certainly not humiliate or demoralize them; and then to provide them with REWARDS when they have successfully defeated the POI. The trick of course is that, some players will claim to have different levels of threshold for these experiences than others, so a good hostile POI will do what it can to assist players to self-select, meaning they avoid those POIs which they are not well-suited to overcome and they focus on those which they are well-suited to overcome. 2. A couple of OGs of this community already commented on variety and "multiple paths to defeat the POI," and this is absolute true to a point. But on the other hand, there is nothing wrong with a "one-trick pony" POI. Not all POIs have to be grandiose affairs with sprawling multi-level mazes, scores of adversaries, multiple sequences of requisite reconnaissance, approach, adaptation and either failure or success. Don't be afraid to make small fairly simple POIs with fairly simple challenges. The galaxy is big, and not every location needs to be the Temple of Elemental Evil. It is good to mix in some "Keeps on the Borderlands" and even more perfunctory POIs. 3. I think it is a very bad idea to design a POI that you intend or expect to be "unbeatable." In fact, I think a good way to judge if a POI has an appropriate level of difficulty is to ask oneself: "Could the best player(s) I know defeat this POI and NEVER die?" If the answer to that is "probably not," then the POI is probably "too difficult" and will probably be neglected by scenario designers, and players. People will just avoid it. Doing this is a waste of time for the creator and everyone else. A nice mix of really hard, moderately hard, and easy is a good theme to keep in mind in developing a POI portfolio. Vermillion's portfolio is a textbook case of this excellent sense of variety in POI challenge. I do not agree with EVERYTHING he has done in all of his POIs, but in general, studying his voluminous portfolio is an excellent way to see the gold standard of how to do it. 4. One addendum to the previous point that I think is worth noting here: by its nature, Empyrion is the sort of game in which POIs will "have metas," meaning: once a player has attempted it enough times and observed how it is set up (or even go so far as to cheat themselves of this experience by spawning it in in creative to see how it is put together), they will better understand how best to defeat it more readily, at less cost in terms of deaths, resources, time, whatever. Arguably this is true for most types of computer games, but mores o for some than others, and I would say that EGS is a very "meta-heavy" game. There are two ways to relate to this "harsh" reality: (a) roll with it, and just focus on making a POI that is mostly focused on being FUN! and not worry how players will find "weaknesses" or "gaps in the defenses" of a POI. These tend to be the best POIs. The over-arching theme is verisimilitude, lore, flow and reasonable (often arguably "easy") challenges interspersed with rewards, and the occasional surprise. (b) Use all the available tools in the building set to try to thwart players making it through your POI without dying (invisible spawners, inescapable traps, Admin cores, etc.). (A) is generally the better approach and will be more popular among players. (B) might well see the POI be ignored or worse, lampooned in the community. 5. Here I will address a topic which I know is controversial, but it must be addressed . . .There is a place for invisible spawners; but on the whole I think they tend to get overused and misused. Invisible spawners, IMO, should be used when: you want an entity to be present once the player has gotten anywhere near close enough to see their location, but you do not want a visible spawner. This generally means that: the range on the sensor that spawns them should be set at max or near max. Setting a sensor to spawn in an enemy from an invisible spawner ONLY when the player is "close" to the spawn site is bound to produce a polarized range of reactions: some players will claim to love it, other players will claim to hate it. Setting aside certain special circumstances (zombies jumping out of an overhead air duct type situations), invisible spawners should NOT be used as "traps," and unfortunately using them in this way has become fairly common. This is can be annoying when you are first attempting to defeat a POI without any consultation of external assistance (creative mode or advice from other players etc.). But in fact, once you understand how a particular POI designer tends to use them, they are easy to foil. Just as one example, there is one Zirax space POI that I enjoy. It has a kind of "open-air oil gantry" look and feel. Once you take out a couple of the guns, you can usually find a blind spot to park your vehicle where the remaining guns cannot find you. If you try to take the "fun" approach and make your way through the POI keeping on guard for spots where the Zirax have setup spawners for their soldiers to arrive to defend the base once enemies come close, you'll quickly be surprised that, in this particular POI, those spawners are apparently not necessary (a pattern that has become increasingly common in Zirax facilities it seems): Zirax can spawn in anywhere they want it seems and generally do so at the worst possible moments, e.g., AFTER the player has run past them and has their back turned to them). You'll kill the player once or twice, and wow, won't that feel amazing knowing that you thwarted those sneaky players . . . UNTIL they do one of two or three things: spitefully load the POI in creative to see where you put all those invisible spawners; keep flinging clones at it till they figure it out; or do what I do, stock up on rockets, and hose down all areas with a few before proceeding. New POI that you think might have a good number of invisible spawners? Make sure you've got several score rockets in your pocket and hundreds more in the logistics network of your vehicle parked outside: you can completely negate the effect of invisible spawners if you approach it this way, at least for POIs with normal cores. And that brings us to Admin cores . . . 5. There is a place, a limited place for Admin Cores. Trade stations or other sorts of facilities that you do not want players to wreck or exploit are one type of good reason. Quest locations (such as the one's designed by Vermillion in that one RE questline . . . have not played through it for a couple years so I cannot remember the name of it, but you wind up at the "Final Boss Location" at some kind of special Zirax facility on a moon). In these very special and limited circumstances Admin Cores allow for designing POIs that offer unique and special experiences to players, and this has almost nothing to do with "forcing players to 'do' the POI the 'right way'" nor with "killing players as much as possible" or otherwise turning the experience into a negative grindy experience. I absolutely adored that questline by Vermillion/Ravien in RE and it is exemplary in how it uses Admin Cores to create settings that challenge, immerse and reward the player, by virtue of pursuing a QUEST, i.e., not just randomly finding and exploring an instance of a recurring location in the galaxy. It has to be noted though: it seems that it is probably EXTREMELY challenging to achieve a good balance to a "hostile POI" which employs Admin Cores, simply because you are canalizing player agency into much more narrow pathways. That RE quest I'm talking about is almost perfect in this regard, but even with that said, there was one "error" in it which would result in player death through no fault of their own ( passageway which could only be opened by flipping switches in adjoining rooms, but which could NOT be exited at all once the questline and mission were finished, so if a player went back in after defeating the POI to exploit more loot they would get stuck in the passageway and have no option but to save scum or starve to death). 5. "Verismilitude" as he put it, is good. But it has to be kept in mind that: the canvas you have to work with is somewhat limited. Don't be so dogged in pursuing "naturalism" that you create aggravation or inescapable dead-ends. There are limits to how much realism or naturalism or immersion you can create in this game. 6. The Gold Standard of a POI is NOT that players die in it a lot, it is that players ENJOY IT a lot. It is the RISK of death that should be sought, but always with means to avoid it, ideally anyway.
Spawner Pads are one-way teleporters. They teleport troops and mechs from an outside location into the POI to reinforce it. They will always spawn infinite enemies until destroyed (1-minute delay between spawns, previous wave must be killed first). Invisible spawners represent the natural residents of a POI. They will not go away and will never be used less. Their sole function is to staff POIs with the people/wildlife living there. They should only ever spawn one contingent of enemy and never spawn infinite. Additionally, these are 100% required for any abandoned, wrecked, terrain or village POI because dinosaurs do not use teleporters. Spawner Pads will produce multiple enemies from one location. It's bad and ugly for natural spawns; while invisible pads can spawn a single enemy each in different locations within a large room, preventing enemies from clumping up around a location. For example: You have a Mess Hall in a zirax POI. They have 8 tables in 4 rows of 2. If there's a Spawner Pad in the room, you have a single pad to cover an entire room. Resulting in all the enemies being in that one single location and the rest of the room is empty. If the spawner pad produces 4 enemies, a below-average skilled player may retreat and pull the enemies with them and kill them at the door, but because this is a spawner pad it will respawn the entire contingent and loop the player into infinite troops. If the spawner pad is at the rear of the room behind tables/counter (where it should be) it will be the last location the player can access from the door. If the spawner pad is within sight of the door, it can be destroyed without producing enemies, achieving no gameplay for the player. Both situations are ugly and make no technical or tactical sense. If there's 4 Spawner Pads, one between each table and each one producing 1 enemy. You get the exact same issue as the above situation. Except this one looks worse and makes even less sense. If there's one Invisible Spawner in the room... you get the same problem as the first situation. All the enemies clumped in one nonsensical location; no infinite spawns so below-average players don't get stuck in an infinite loop, but now you have all those troops interfering with each other's pathing. If the spawner is at the back of the room, they'll either get stuck on each other, obstruct each other's aim, start stacking on top of each other, or if you're unlucky turn into an insta-kill firing squad. The correct design is 4 invisible spawners, with 1 between each set of tables, each producing a single troop. Each spawner facing a different direction, or all facing into the center of the room, away from the tables. For a player entering the room, they'll see 4 zirax leaving 4 tables and moving into the room. There are no infinite reinforcements, no hidden traps. Enemies will not be clumped together, they will not interfere with each other's aim or pathing. There's also the option of maximum activation range for the invisible spawners, so they spawn their troops as soon as the player is anywhere near the room they're in, preventing the player from ever accidentally seeing the invisible spawners from activating, but this causes several issues: Too many spawns in a larger POI causes performance issues. This will happen if you fall down the shaft of the Infector Dungeon while hugging the wall because it's a vertically-designed POI with enemy spawner ranges reaching into the vertical shaft. The AI given too much time will group together at the corners of a room and be stuck facing the wall. For some enemies (Zirax Commanders), this means they'll be in prime location to shoot through walls. They clump at the corners because they detect the sound of gunfire and move towards the source. As above: Because they move towards the source of sound, existing spawns may swarm the player from multiple rooms (depending on doors) resulting in deathloops. Alternatively, players can lure an entire base's worth of troops outside into their ship's main guns (E.g. Abandoned Bunker's first 3 rooms).
I find it faintly depressing that current POI design seems to center around mitigating the core bugs in EGS (what with limited spawn logic, poor pathing, NPCs ending up inside of blocks or under the floor, NPCs clumping in the corners, large numbers of NPCs causing lag, limited NPC intelligence, etc) rather than allowing builders the freedom to create POIs that are more engaging for the player without having to keep half a mind on all the inevitable issues that may crop up due to bugs with the game itself.
It IS "faintly depressing." But that doesn't mean it is terminally so. For whatever reasons, Eleon are, THANKFULLY! still engaged with this project, at least to some extent. They still work on it, making updates and such. I have admiration and respect for "Eleon," the people who are responsible for the creation of this game, so I don't mean to sound the least bit critical or unfriendly to them. IMO, what they have accomplished with this game is absolutely astounding. As far as I can tell, this game is in many ways FAR SUPERIOR to overblown nonsense like Star Citizen, and provides experiences which no other game can provide: namely an entire procedurally generated galaxy which is pretty damn convincing and engaging. But there is a lot more potential here, for those who have the skill, the access and the passion to keep the project evolving, and I get the impression that Eleon are probably bit burnt out on this project, or are in some other way, not as engaged with it as they once were. Many people would have faded away much sooner than they have, and the fact that the project is as complete as it is is a testament to their talent, perseverance and devotion. But as I say: the project still has ENORMOUS potential. The issues being discussed in this thread are some of the most notable areas, but there are others too. There are many possible takes on this theme of "potential," but here is mine in brief: there has always been a minimal focus on "modding" of the game. There are plenty of understandable reasons that this might have been the case, but suffice to say: if more focus on modding is not followed in future, the danger is that this game simply fades into obscurity. When one considers what the "modding" scene for a game like Minecraft, or any of the Elder Scrolls games, and many others looks like compared to EGS it is a stark difference. Even the Arma series have a much larger, diverse and "rich" modding ecosystem. It is perfectly understandable that an IP owner be hesitant to offer too much modding support too early in a project, or even that they remain skeptical of providing too much modding support at any point in the project's life cycle. But it is also worth noting that: large, vibrant, and highly facilitated modding communities have arguably made enormous differences in the total revenue generated by MANY computer game IPs over the years. It is hard to imagine that a game like Skyrim, to name just one, would be STILL played enthusiastically, still covered by streamers and Lets-Players, and still modded, if it had not been for the relative ease of modding from very early in that projects life cycle. If there were something like SKSE for EGS, it would seemingly draw a massive influx of talented modders who enjoy making accessories and alternate versions of things for games more than they actually like playing them! This generates broader interest among candidate users who do not own the game license, who then buy the game license, which attracts more modders and the positive-feedback loop ensues. None of you know who the hell I am, and only have what I say here as a basis to judge if I'm full of it or not, so I do not pretend to be some sort of authority above all. But if I had the top decision makers who determine the direction of ongoing development of this game listening to me, what I would tell them would be: STOP fiddling with little additions and changes to the building blocks of your game. START focusing on expanding the moddability of your game, and focusing your marketing on that aspect of it. There are innumerable good models for how to go about this, including additional means to engage in reassonable, i.e., tenable, revenue generation to cover any additional development costs (e.g., a $10 EGS SDK DLC, etc.).
Modding is not the solution to all things. And regarding Eleon being burnt out I have no idea, but I can imagine the anti Eleon elements in certain parts of the community probably doesn't help. Far to many people, and sadly some of which are influential members of the Empyrion community, don't give them the praise they deserve).
That's precisely WHY it is a bit depressing. The POI builders (and Eleon themselves) have made some AMAZING work, and far be it from me to criticize their creations as a whole, but we can all see the potential here. Just imagine how incredible the POIs could be if the builders had greater freedom in their designs, uninhibited by game bugs and miscalculations. They already create incredible works of destructible art, and I wish I could see what they could come up with if they had none of these issues holding them back. Better that they complain, than just shrug their shoulder and uninstall the game without saying anything. If they are prompted to speak about the game, then I take that as a sign that they are invested in the games future and hope to see it improve over time. The real problem would be if the game were so bad that people just uninstalled and did something else without saying a word on the forums, or offering suggestions, or even taking the time to criticize it. Every criticism comes from a player who wants to see the game become the best possible version of itself. (I'm pretty sure that) we're all on Eleons side here. We all want this game to be excellent. Anyway, the topic at hand: what makes a good dungeon puzzle for me? A surmountable goal. A series of progressions that can culminate in an interesting experience, or even just good/rare loot. I figure there are two philosophies on POIs: either design them as challenges to be overcome, or design them the way the Zirax (or whoever) actually would design them: very difficult or insurmountable. A Zirax would not design a base to be easily defeated, no. But a base that's impossible to defeat is also a terrible dungeon, since it gives no thought to the players who may wish to interact with it. So admittedly its a bit nebulous and hard to describe, but there is very much a balancing act involved in creating a good POI. A lot of POIs hit that balance, but just as many don't. The other problem is thus: if they are designed as challenges to be overcome, then a player may get bored. If they are designed to be as difficult as possible, then a player may become frustrated. Which one is better or worse for the game as a whole, I cannot say. But personally I tend towards easier experiences until I can gain the confidence/experience to take on a more difficult challenge. So I suppose that personally, I'd prefer boring over frustrating, so my opinion is generally based in that idea.
The other thing that deserves to be noted is that Unity is a VERY widely "known" application for creating games, and arguably one of the "best" for promoting modding. I myself have almost zero experience in C# and truly zero with Unity. But I listen to what others say and pay attention to what they do. To quote Shodan (my affectionate term for my new algorithmic mistress/girlfriend who you may know as "ChatGPT"): What this all means is that: IF Eleon were to ever decide that they wanted to make modding a priority, and effectively "out-source" diversification and enhancement of functionality in a way similar to how they "out-sourced" design and creation of POIs and vehicles in years past, they would find it to be much easier than if their app were developed using some other engine like Unreal, Godot or even in Java.
That's because they can reproduce real buildings 1:1 that they can just pull off google. And the POIs they make are designed for a very specific kind of FPS combat without ships, flying, cannons and shields involved. They're wholly linear with an entry point and a loot room at the end, with all zombies spawning in sleep mode by default. No patroling or scanning. Most of it is complex block shapes, which they have lots of. Unfortunately, they're also missing a buttload of basic shapes that even Empyrion has, and the building system in 7D2D is the most horrendous garbage that only a programmer could come up with. Not designed for human consumption.
It's pretty simple: I like a good story. Even when a writer isn't the best at writing (like J. K. Rowling), a good story makes up for it. If you want to read a great story from an outstanding author, read 'My Brilliant Friend' by Elena Ferrante. (Unfornately, I don't speak Italian, but the German translation is excellent.) If you want to see a good story in a game, see Mass Effect (Legacy), especially Andromeda. (I do hope they'll make a successor ...) If you like reading tons of books in like an endless series, try Alan Burt Akers. So what makes a good story? I'm not too sure I actually want to know because knowing might spoil it All the ones I mentioned have mysteries in them. That doesn't mean horror stories. You can even read something like Dahlgren (S. R. Delany) if you're kinda hardcore But be careful, it might never go out of your head.
