Source
r/subnautica•
waterless

A better way to die and respawn

I love the game, but I don't like the way it handles getting killed, since it's completely immersion-breaking. You just magically pop back into existence. And the losing stuff is annoying, since it's completely unclear how bad that could be.

I'd like to suggest an improvement that I think would fit far better within the rest of the Subnautica world. The basis is the fact that tech is prominent that can construct complex objects. We've even seen a few flying drones fabricate a whole submarine. Given that: what could they do with a mangled body?

This is the idea: you meet Sammy, and Sammy takes a huge chomp. Screen goes black.

And then fades in, briefly, vision coming and going, as drones drag you back to the lifepod or nearest hab.

Once there, they rebuild anything that got chomped off. It doesn't affect gameplay, but you'll have a visibly robotic hand or leg. So everytime you get killed, maybe you lose a bit more, and by the end of the game, you could see whatever remains of yourself in the cockpit, so death has consequences without it affecting gameplay.

It could even be used to make reapers even worse, if getting killed by lesser mobs only loses say a finger, but Sammy turns out to be hungry...

Posted Apr 16, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

813
Tiro1000•

Be happy we have the death animation. Back in beta, when you died you'd instantly pop back up inside the base. No fade to black, no music. Just 1 hp to standing in your base.

7
waterlessOP•

Ha, yeah, that sounds very beta-version-y. It's just not all that different now beyond those visual / sound cues (I do like the death sound I have to say).

2
Tiro1000•

Personally I'd rather it load your last checkpoint when you die. That way you don't have to figure out a way to get from your base to where you last died.

5
waterlessOP•

That would actually already work better for me as well.

1
Umber0010Whatever floats your boat•

ok, but what about the Reaper and Sea dragon Levithan which swallow you whole, leaving nothing for drones to drag back? Other than that I like the concept.

6
waterlessOP•

True, full body reconstruction would get us into some philosophical territory like SOMA :) It'd otherwise imply you get crunched up and spit out rather than digested I guess.

2
RickTitus•

Yeah I thought the same thing too when I played through the game. I died a couple times at the start to radiation and thirst and a couple times later on when I lost some of my ships to leviathan attacks. It was very immersion-breaking to write in my notes that I died in those attacks.

I like your idea. My idea was that you would fade to black and wake up floating on your back on the surface as if you hadnt died at all but just passed out and drifted up to the surface. That wouldnt make much sense for anything deeper than the acid caves though

3
Theusone1•

I think there is perma death in survival mode, that’s inmersive :p, thou remember is a fantasy game, and from developer perspective what you are asking for is a big re-design :)

2
waterlessOP•

I dunno, and I don't expect anyone to instantly get programming or anything :) but it's really just an extra animation sequence and a change to the player model. And within any kind of fantasy you want as much help suspending disbelief as possible right?

2
Theusone1•

Yes and no XD it’s like saying lord of a ring is a shitty movie because dragons don’t exist, personally I like how the game is implemented, rather than fancy death animations, I would invest more in the vr gameplay :)

I don’t know but from my perspective and working in video games, what you are asking for is for personal taste, and the game is like it is, how it was designed, changes to come is to improve based on that design and players feedback on the base game... changing a character player model implies art, animation, coding, colliders etc... it’s not as easy as it sounds XD there are even more deep stuff as triggers, call out events, and a that’s added individually for each “chunk” Sammy takes from you XD so yeah...

And idk if you read it in a bad tone, but I’m not expecting anyone to know programming, that’s why I explained ;)

1
waterlessOP•

No problem! But it's more like if you could see the CGI of the Balrog in LotR, rather than disliking things that actually do fit within the fictional universe. But I realize it'd be added work other people might want to see invested elsewhere.

2
joethedestroyr•

And within any kind of fantasy you want as much help suspending disbelief as possible right?

No, my ability to suspend disbelief is strong enough.

My question to you (and apparently many others) is why yours is so weak any little thing will break it.

What I care about is fun. And when some supposedly "immersive" element negatively impacts my fun, it can go in the bin.

but it's really just an extra animation sequence

Like this. To you maybe this is more "immersive". To me, it means I'm alt-tabbing or watching tv until it finishes and I can get back into the actual game. Wasting my time is a negative impact to my fun, especially as I get older and have less free time to spend.

Sorry if I sound overly harsh, but the modern overuse and misuse of the term "immersion" is a trigger for me (primarly because it's used to justify all kinds of time wasting).

0
waterlessOP•

Oh not harsh, interesting points! I'd agree any kind of death / respawn animation shouldn't be too obtrusive, but for instance it could only be the first time you die for instance and afterwards be skipped through very quickly - almost like the boarding animations (and it wouldn't be frequent).

I mean, it's almost the same thing - there's a little animation when you enter a base or a sub and it makes the game just that little better. You could also just click and suddenly be in the sub, and you could ignore it, but there's just an argument to be made it improves the aesthetics of the whole thing.

That's also the immersion element, for a game like Subnautica (pun realized but not intended by the way) it's pretty essential, unlike loads of other games. I don't think it's that helpful to call it a strength or weakness in the player - we can ignore lots of things and still enjoy the game, sure, but like any particular idea we might have it's because you think it would be an improvement to the experience. E.g., we can ignore the derpiness of the Sea Dragon but it's still fun to think about different snouts :)

1