where is everything why is space so big[/li][li]holy cow this game is SO BEAUTIFUL[/li][li]although I think I have this bug that it goes from "clear night sky" background to "weird orange fog" background apparently at random[/li][li]IT’S SO HARD TO STEER i’m loving it[/li][li]the writings on the screen are on point[/li][li]the map is gorgeous! i love the cicles[/li][li]I could only find two ports, but I didn’t even care because everything was so pretty and awesome[/li][li]at first I didn’t like the fact that we only got the options "side with London" or "side with the we-want-independence-from-London crew". I wanted a "side with the Bazaar" option but then I realised… the Bazaar isn’t here. [/li][li]we’re so not in Kansas anymore[/li][li]THERE’S LIGHT EVERYWHERE I CAN SEE i’m so happy after all the hours sunk in Sunless Sea[/li][li]have I mentioned steering is hard and I love it?[/li][li]I hit an asteroid and it flew off and I love it[/li][li]battle mechanincs are great. I love not needing to "start a battle", it just… happens. while you’re floating around[/li][li]the music and the sounds are A+
there’s probably more. but as mentioned above, I only made it to two ports (the main one and the fungi one. and I almost died), but I will play more tomorrow. right not it’s past midnight and I need sleep.
just a technical note, my pc sucks and while I was afraid it wouldn’t play sunless skies (it plays sunless sea, but that’s the only game it plays), all I needed was to take down a notch on the "quality" menu (from sublime to… great, I guess). however, the graphics still look amazing. edited by ochrasy on 9/2/2017
For #3: As far as I can tell when you enter a new “Region” a lot of the time the effects and images will just pop in like night and day. It’s very jarring and I’m guessing something still getting streamlined and tested.
Okay, serious question, since I keep seeing it… Why is the inability to steer a plus? It’s actively keeping me from enjoying literally anything about the game. The single enemy I have faced in the game is the ports. It’s vast emptiness with not much to look at and enjoy punctuated with places where I might be able to enjoy the art if I wasn’t so worried about slamming into it.
I would rather it be improved, but it’s increasingly worrying to see so many people enjoy it.
It annoyed me for the first free hours until I rebound my controls, now I find it incredibly satisfying. There’s an odd sense if achievement to be had in seeing a port and just swinging your locomotive into a spin, using the side jets to line it up perfectlya you drift in.
I love the controls. I actually feel like a proper captain, the feeling of learning how to wrangle my ship into the exact position I wanted it when an hour ago I was careening into walls is superb.
A key part of learning how to fly the ship is mastering the q/e strafing. Honestly I love the system as is, and would be very cross if they dumbed it down because some people are annoyed it’s too clunky.
I am definitely interested in how you rebound your controls and how that helped. I didn’t even manage to play one hour before I just had to stop out of sheer frustration and the fact that my ship was about to break apart without having seen an enemy.
Alright, come on now. What is this elitism here? “Dumbing down” can still be said as “make it more accessible.” You find it satisfying, I find it inaccessible. A barrier to entry. I’m just trying to understand what I’m doing wrong with it, and the answer you’re giving me is “Get good, scrub” like this is some kind of Battlefield or Call of Duty.
(directed at Jimmius, not you, Parliament, thanks for the actual polite response. My “Quote” button doesn’t seem to be working quite right.)
[quote=MidnightVoyager]Okay, serious question, since I keep seeing it… Why is the inability to steer a plus? It’s actively keeping me from enjoying literally anything about the game. The single enemy I have faced in the game is the ports. It’s vast emptiness with not much to look at and enjoy punctuated with places where I might be able to enjoy the art if I wasn’t so worried about slamming into it.
I would rather it be improved, but it’s increasingly worrying to see so many people enjoy it.[/quote]
Why is it worrying that someone else enjoys something that you don’t?
(serious question, not sarcasm)
My take on the controls, as someone who enjoys them:
My train’s not as easy to control as my ship was in Seas, but that’s what makes it fun! That traveling now requires some skill makes it a challenge, especially in ports, which I appreciate. In Seas, getting from point A to point B was fairly easy, and therefore a little boring (though I did appreciate the atmosphere of the long lonely sea journeys. It’s just that traveling wasn’t exactly fun per-say, even if discovering new places was.).
Bigger ports like New Winchester are a little more difficult to navigate than is necessary, I agree, but I think this has more to do with the zoom level than the controls. If the view were just a little wider, I think I could better plan my engine thrusts and not crash quite so much. But still – I really enjoy the controls. They feel fluid, and very much like I would expect a space train to fly (less friction in space = more drift). I also feel like the controls set a different tone for Skies, in comparison to Seas. While Seas was mostly me sailing slowly but steadily around the map, seeing how far I could go on one cargo-hold of fuel and supplies, Skies makes me picture my captain cackling madly while swerving and spinning around ports and asteroids, trying (and failing) not to crash. It also feels super cool that I can spin my ship while still moving in one direction. No specific reason for that, it just makes me happy.
[quote=MidnightVoyager]Alright, come on now. What is this elitism here? "Dumbing down" can still be said as "make it more accessible." You find it satisfying, I find it inaccessible. A barrier to entry. I’m just trying to understand what I’m doing wrong with it, and the answer you’re giving me is "Get good, scrub" like this is some kind of Battlefield or Call of Duty.
(directed at Jimmius, not you, Parliament, thanks for the actual polite response. My "Quote" button doesn’t seem to be working quite right.)[/quote]
Ultimately some people will see any difficulty as a barrier to entry mate. If I complained that the text was a ‘barrier to entry’ and requested FB removed the story that you love because of my dyslexia, I assume you’d have an issue with that. One of the biggest complaints everyone had about SSea was the movement and combat systems being mediocre at best, and they’ve improved it massivley to something I actually enjoy.
The depth that the more complicated mechanics provide might make the game ‘less accessible’, but Sunless Skies was never going to be a game everybody played, and trying to round off all the edges in order to rake in the most largest number of customers is silly. I felt genuinley enthralled after one particlar combat encounter I had with a pirate ship, in a way that I never was with Sunless Sea, where even the biggest ships fighting Mt. Nomad herself was a chore. That feeling of accomplishment only came because I had earlier struggled with being able to control my ship, and now I’m using it to weave between cannon fire to loose a point blank blunderbuss salvo.
So call me ‘elitist’ if you want. If defending one of the best changes they made from Sunless Sea is elitism, then I suppose I’m an elitist.
Well, it’s worrying because I feel like I’m missing something or doing something wrong. And a bit worrying that if the final game controls like this, I just plain won’t be able to play it. Traveling around is a big enough part of the game that it would be difficult to get around for the sake of the writing.
And I sorta had an opposite problem with the travel in Sunless Skies to you. It is incredibly boring if nothing is around, because there’s giant, empty spaces of nothing to look at. The second I get near anything is when it becomes not enjoyable but stressful. There seems to be no middle ground between just chugging along straight ahead like in Sunless Seas and hoping I don’t destroy my own ship like an idiot.
I wouldn’t mind there being difficulty in pulling off combat maneuvers or cool tricks or something like that, but moving from point A to point B sounds like something that shouldn’t be complex. If I can’t get into a port or just get somewhere, combat is going to be a Problem with a capital P.
Ah, I see where you’re coming from now. I too have problems navigating around some of the tighter ports like New Winchester, but like Kloxe I think that’s because the camera is too restrictive and you can’t really see where you’re going until you’ve hit it. While I don’t think this is a problem with the games controls per se, I can see this being frustrating.
Anyway, thanks for clearing it up. I thought you wanted an overhaul to the system due to how emphaticly you seemed to be objecting, but I agree that moving the train around spaces that seem more suited to Sunless Sea’s movement system is difficult when you are restricted to seeing about 10 ft in front of you.
[quote=MidnightVoyager]Well, it’s worrying because I feel like I’m missing something or doing something wrong. And a bit worrying that if the final game controls like this, I just plain won’t be able to play it. Traveling around is a big enough part of the game that it would be difficult to get around for the sake of the writing.
And I sorta had an opposite problem with the travel in Sunless Skies to you. It is incredibly boring if nothing is around, because there’s giant, empty spaces of nothing to look at. The second I get near anything is when it becomes not enjoyable but stressful. There seems to be no middle ground between just chugging along straight ahead like in Sunless Seas and hoping I don’t destroy my own ship like an idiot.
I wouldn’t mind there being difficulty in pulling off combat maneuvers or cool tricks or something like that, but moving from point A to point B sounds like something that shouldn’t be complex. If I can’t get into a port or just get somewhere, combat is going to be a Problem with a capital P.[/quote]
Ah – that makes sense. And I get (and agree with) your problem with the emptiness – I feel like this will be less of a problem once the discoveries are added in. I think those will solve a lot of people’s issues with the current build: the scarcity of supplies/fuel and the difficulty of lowering terror. Might not help your control issue though, unless you can fly over them to collect them like you could in Zubmariner.
As for the controls, when you’re sailing around ports, do you hold down your forward key and go full speed? I tried that, and crashed a LOT. Instead, I just tap the direction keys and let myself drift around the ports. Slower, and still not easy, but I don’t crash as much. And bursts of engine power give me enough drift to keep moving at a steady pace. But yeah, I see your issue if you’re having a really hard time with docking. I usually end up passing the entrance to ports at least once while trying to dock, but thankfully I’ve gotten the hang of the controls enough to stop crashing into everything in sight.
Reading some of the other posts here, I definitely agree with the sense of achievement that the controls give me. They make me feel more like a captain steering my train than a player pushing keys.
I would really like a wider zoom, or maybe just for the camera to zoom out a little in ports. This would help with steering, and also give me a better sense of where I actually am in relation to the port. Every time I enter something with lots of islands, like New Winchester, I have to pull up the map every few seconds just to figure out where I am in relation to the docking station – and then I end up focusing more on where I am on the map than flying around and exploring the port. It might just be that I’m used to the wider view in Seas, but the tighter zoom is definitely giving me some problems.
I strafe more than is healthy simply because it amuses me, but I do find it’s fairly critical in getting around without bumping into things. I think it slows your momentum enough that you regain more control over your locomotive, as well as putting yourself into a more favourable position to pull into docks without missing.
taking notes Strafing slows momentum… that is definitely helpful information. I strafe less than I should because I get the ends of the locomotive mixed up.
I’ll have to try strafing more then! I’ve been avoiding it as well because I usually end up going the wrong way, but it is very satisfying when I manage to remember which way’s up.
I’m getting better at controlling things. Though I do bump into things frequently. It is very rare that I actually get out of that starting asteroid field without sustaining some damage. That is without using C until I am out of the rocks it still takes a lot of careful moving to avoid hitting anything as there isn’t an easy route through the things :)
Sometimes I manage to just drift into dock but more often I have to juggle to and fro; back and forward just to get lined up.
As for combat unless I come across one of the dumb ships or one that is right next to something solid - forget it. I just use too much fuel trying to spin or chase and get it in my sights before it disappears or blows me to pieces.
But it is very early days and I am sure with a few more hours I might be able to get better. Things are not helped because I have CTS and a very old laptop with keys that stick sometimes. (I lost use of E at one point during a game).
I’m still enjoying the bare bones game and will like it more if I can actually start making money, at least more than I need to just keep myself in fuel and supplies, and not see that Terror metre tick up without a way to reduce it.
Strafing does seem to be the key to victory. I mentioned it somewhere else, but I rebound strafe, loot and weapons to the numpad and everything got a hell of a lot easier within minutes - giving strafe to dedicated fingers on a hand that wasn’t already dealing with turning was the key, I feel.
I also agree with everyone here about the camera - in Hybras especially I seem to slam into that fungal spire on the left every single time I enter. It’s more amusing because it’s not like anyone on the locomotive could possibly miss it, but to me as a player it comes out of nowhere.