For the discussion of our Sunless Skies, released January 2019.
Feedback Focus: Terror part II
FailbetterFuzz
Administrator
Posts: 232
2/13/2018
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Hello lovely Sky-Captains.
I'm checking in to gather your thoughts on Terror. I was going to bump our existing Terror thread, but I think it's best to start afresh now we've seen significant changes. So, in the last two updates these are the Terror changes we've seen:
- There are now variables rates of Terror, five of them: losing Terror, not gaining any Terror, gaining Terror, gaining lots of Terror, gaining bucket loads of Terror (and yes those are the terms we've been using round the office - very technical dev speak
 - There's a safe area around ports where you stop gaining Terror - the skull/bar on your HUD turns white
- There's an ambient rate of Terror gain around the Reach of about 1% per 10 seconds
- When gaining Terror at that ambient rate the HUD pulses a faint red
- The HUD pulses a deeper red when you are gaining lots of Terror (~1% every 5 seconds) which happens around Horror Spectacles (and some Discoveries with Terror-like effects) or when you have less than half Crew aboard your locomotive
- Accompanying this is a spooky camera effect that creeps in at the corner of the screen
- 'Gaining bucket loads of Terror' can occur in situations where you have less than half your ship's Crew compliment and you enter a Horror Spectacle's area - here you'll see a complete red skull on the HUD, faster pulsing, more camera effects and a rate of ~1% Terror gain per 3 seconds or so
- Wonder spectacles on the other hand cause your Terror to decrease, and the skull/bar turns a soothing blue when this happens
- Camera effects are present around Wonder Spectacles too, it light grows brighter for a time.
- We've also added terrifying Terror music which kicks in when you reach 90%, as a way to warn you that your Condition will soon tick over if you don't take action pronto
So, onto the questions:
- Have any of you had time to play with the new build yet?
- What do you think? What are your thoughts on Terror now?
- Are you planning your journey around the Reach differently in light of the Spectacles/Discoveries?
- Have you come across any Spectacles that did actually freak you out?
- Do you find the feedback as to when you are gaining/losing Terror clearer?
- What do you think of the different rates of Terror gain?
- Does the Terror music scare the living daylights out of you when it kicks in?
- I think one thing I've heard so far is there is still confusion as to what Condition does. Am I right about that?
- Any other Terrifying thoughts?
edited by FailbetterFuzz on 2/14/2018
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Vivek Das Mohapatra
Posts: 19
2/19/2018
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FailbetterFuzz wrote:
Have any of you had time to play with the new build yet?
Yes, played a fair bit and found a few Horrors and one Wonder (The Apoidean Gardens).
FailbetterFuzz wrote:
What do you think? What are your thoughts on Terror now?
Are you planning your journey around the Reach differently in light of the Spectacles/Discoveries?
Much more manageable now. The Horrors/Wonders don't make much difference on short runs but if they're part of a long loop pf stations I factor in the terrors at least. The gardens are an Ok place to park to take the edge off if I ended up taking on too much terror, but as on my map they're on a short leadbetter/carillion/lustrum run they're not in the most useful place (since I can burn off terror at Lustrum).
Side note: SSk _still_ has the SS UI wart where repeatable actions at a port are really clunky and annoying to do - best case is you have to click, laboriously scroll back, click again, ad nauseam. In the worse cases you have to click, click again to exit, scroll and click to get back to where you were, and repeat.
FailbetterFuzz wrote:
Have you come across any Spectacles that did actually freak you out?
Nothing quite as terrifying as being jumped by two scrive-spinsters or 3 marauders just
materialising around me leaving me stuck in crossfire.
Old Tom's Well is quite worrying though. Wanted to map it but didn't want to get stuck.
FailbetterFuzz wrote:
Do you find the feedback as to when you are gaining/losing Terror clearer?
Much clearer.
FailbetterFuzz wrote:
What do you think of the different rates of Terror gain?
I think it works well... terror isn't the overriding concern it was before but I do still need to pay attention to it.
The beneficial effects of Wonders may need some balancing though. Currently you always want to avoid
Horrors but the one Wonder I've found is marginal (because it's near a terror-loss port anyway).
FailbetterFuzz wrote:
Does the Terror music scare the living daylights out of you when it kicks in?
No, but it's a nice touch.
FailbetterFuzz wrote:
I think one thing I've heard so far is there is still confusion as to what Condition does. Am I right about that?
It's pretty clear to me what it does, but I'm very careful not to let it increase these days.
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sb
Posts: 9
3/10/2018
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Very new player here, so I haven't experienced the previous iteration of the terror system. Two observations:
1. Terror seems to be very manageable (I haven't gone over the initial level in 3 hours of gameplay). I think it takes a bit away from the feeling of impending doom that you had in Sunless Sea, for example.
2. I think I've encountered a horror -- towers with weird symbols on them. They were pretty cool to look at, but I had to wonder -- will they be interactable in some way or referenced in in-game lore? If not, I feel like they might lose their fascination after one or two encounters. They would just be "terror-gaining areas".
Also, I wish there was some reward for sticking around in a horror, so that it might be worth going in there at all instead of just avoiding it (an obvious choice at the moment).
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