Initial Thoughts

[NilausTV]

I don't usually make posts like this and normally it would make sense to make a YouTube video, but I want this feedback to reach the developers and not specifically my community. Now this is purely my opinion, so starting arguments that I played it wrong or didn't get it is irrelevant, because the first impression is what either gets you hooked or not. For context, I have played 350 hours of the normal game, so not a rookie, but not top tier player either.

 

Conclusion

- I had set aside a 4 hour stream to explore the new expansion, but I ended it after 3 hours due to frustration

- An expansion should in my opinion expand the game, but the experience seemed to be quite a lot more limited than vanilla

- If I was a consumer who bought the expansion in it current state; I would not play it anymore as it simply was not fun

- Food and Power felt really bad and are at the core of my disinterest to continue

 

Biome

I got super excited when I saw the new biome. Brilliant to base it on mud, dirt and polluted oxygen/water. This is complimeted nicely by the new buildings for sublimation and sludge press. This felt really good and felt like it was expanding and challenging me as a player

 

Oxygen

I like the focus on Polluted Oxygen and using the Sublimation station to generate oxygen. This seems to replace the normal algae based production in the early game, but it also seems to mean that the classic SPOM may not be as oppressive to the evolution of the base. This is good as the game expanded with more options. Making Deodorizers take 5W of power is a nice change, they were too good when they didn't take any and they are integral the swamp biome

 

Power

Like everyone else who discovers the Slug Plug the first impression is "awesome!". I started looking at the tech tree for options for power generation and the I realised that I had to rely on them for power. Slug Plugs and Manual are the only realistic power options available. This feels VERY BAD as the game just got limited to rely on 2 inherently unstable sources. Making a Power Slug farm and making it sustainable didn't seem fun to me, because the power is created so indirectly i.e. during the night only and being consumed for the rest of the cycle. This means it is very hard/frustrating to balance the power usage as you only get more during 12.5% of the time. It makes it hard to scale power because it relies on breeding/finding more slugs. It felt like the control of power was taken away from the player to a large degree, which made it feel bad.

 

Food

I struggled with food a lot and I could never get it stable using Bog Belly. I didn't want to use the Musher and maybe that was the mistake, but I wanted some real food instead. Maybe Meal Lice was too good, but this is certainly a much harder problem to solve. It seems like you need Sweetles/Grubs to tend your plants to make them viable. It is a nice mid-game idea, but it leaves very few and bad options in the early game. Food basically seems overly complicated in the beginning (unless you are supposed to live of mushbars until cycle 50). This made it a constant struggle, which really wasn't particularly fun

 

Flora/Fauna

The main issues I have stem from an overreliance on the new critters/plants and the disappearance of the old ones. Mealwood and Hatches are gone, but are replaced with significantly more complex processes. We lost some good options (maybe too good) and they were replaced by some more complicated options. That didn't feel right. The game is difficult enough as it is and making it more complicated isn't making it more fun.

 

In closing, I love ONI and I am excited about the expansion and appreciate being part of the alpha process. This game just doesn't feel good in the early game and if you lose people in the early game, they will never experience the new midgame except watching it on YouTube...

PS: I am also sure this post will not age well as I figure out some cool overpowered tricks, but this is again just "initial impressions" and I hope and expect they will change as I force myself to play more

[JahwsUF]

I agree on Biome and Oxygen; little more needs be said there. Both are fantastic additions; I've long wanted the Sublimation Station, as it'll make working with Pufts far, far more viable.

I'll agree with the Power section; early-game is quite limited.  So far, I've gotten by with a lot of Manual Generators.  Metal Ore's never exactly been a renewable resource, so I'm loathe to part with (literal) tons of it for little permanent return.  At least Smooth Hatches gave back significant Refined Metal in return.

On Food though, I simply have to disagree.  Bog Buckets are incredibly simple to work with, especially because of the nigh-infinite Polluted Water from the Swamp start - not to mention the Polluted Mud!  Unless there's high variance in how the map is generated... I'm not sure how you'd have missed that.  Also, Electric Grill > Swampy Delights, since I don't see mention of the cooked version in your post.

Flora / Fauna... I'm not going to write my essay on that here.

[pether]

@NilausTV I agree with all you said, however...

Please remember this is alpha. I assume many, many things will change and restraining old and well-known options for plants/creatures/power is to ensure that new stuff will be focus-tested. If they used old biomes and solutions, people might use plants they are familiar with instead of checking new ones. I agree that this could create some issues in final product, but I believe this is alpha stuff only

[goetzjam]

@petheryes they have to be limiting us to force us to use the new stuff, which is perfectly fine.

 

Pretty sure they are limiting us a bit more to force us to use the new systems so they get some idea of it.    We have players like you complaining about how unreliable the power is, but others complaining they give too much for free.

 

I like the pets and while you don't have an unlimited supply of metal on the starter map, you might from other sources, I mean historically we've gotten them from rockets in the past and meteors.   Theres a number of ways to manage them for power and just setting up more batteries seems like the obviously solution, balancing the number of ones you have and number of wild (but useful) and tame slugs.

 

As far as food goes, this is honestly super easy given the polluted water supply on the map, yes using grubgrub to boost growth is very helpful, but with stuff given on starter map I'm going to sustain food forever, without interference.

 

I'm on my second go around with this and pushing further and further midgame.  I will say you are forgetting or not seeing ALL of the features you have available fully, in order to try and make it less spoiler for you, remember there are ways to get stuff from other planets, even without rockets.