Does this game need more purpose?

[shnndr]

I've only played it for a couple of hours, but as opposed to Don't Starve which was somewhat interesting to explore, this game seems pointless if you don't know what each building does. And the tool tips are not very helpful. I really think this time around the buildings need to be thoroughly explained in the tool tips.

I am still intrigued, but for the moment it's kind of hard to see the purpose of this game. There's no carrot at the end of the stick sort to say, no real purpose for playing. Don't Starve had tension and real threats that kept your blood flowing and your tension up, you were constantly at the edge of your seat. There was also the excitement of living more and more days with each play-through to be able to discover more of the world's secrets and your actions always created an interesting story. In Oxygen I fail to feel accomplished for some reason. Am I missing something?

I'll try to play some more, but this is my initial impression.

LE: Ok, I played a few more hours and the gameplay has become involving, so things are not as grim as I described above, it's just a matter of getting past the first few hours.

[Amara313]

Please remember that the game isn't done.  It's still in early access, so we get regular content updates and new content.  I don't think they want to reveal the "point" of the game.  I like the openendedness of the game.  It allows me to set my own goals.  Recently I've been working on setting up outposts for my dups so that I can live in multiple areas of the asteroid. 

[Neotuck]

I'm having deja vu  people use to say the same thing about Minecraft

[MidnightSteam]

Yep, there are so many buildings now I barely use half of them and I can only imagine what new players must go through.   The only real carrot on the stick so far is showing off your base designs. Or, building complex contraptions only to come back 3 months later and forget how it was even built.

To get that "edge of your seat" feeling I would suggest taking every Duplicant when they're available and have a hard maximum - say, 50 or 100.

 

Yes, it needs more "lore?" Some sort of story and mystery you can solve the longer you play the game. Maybe discover an ancient Duplicant. lol

[Argelle]

@Neotuck Minecraft??

Worst nightmare ever : ONI is a hudge success (even bigger than now)

Spoiler

Klei retire as a bored game tycoon after wasting time on an online game card, and M...$oft buy back ONI to put it on M...$oft live game for windooo.

Please tell me it will never happen...

[Arash70]

You'll learn the game, and learn to enjoy in in the meantime. And about the carrot,

for me the carrot is the magnificent screenshot in the end and building new systems.

 

[shnndr]

I hope at least they make us care more about the duplicants. Maybe add some more backstory on them, give them dreams and hopes so I can identify and care for my colony.

[avc15]

read their roadmap, too. "We will gradually reveal why the duplicants are on the asteroid..."

 

Seems like a nod to some kind of a story mode.

[Exa]

I have to admit, once you achieve sustainiblity it becomes boring, need more danger, more RNG disasters, more losing conditions for end game please!!!

something I ABSOLUTLY loved in Don't starve was seasons, winter and summer are so challenging.

something like this in ONI? like 100 cycles to prepare and 100 cycles with extreme conditions. it gives a breath in the experience

[Jigsawn]

Klei are definitely adding story to the game, they already have someone working on it. They are also going to add new biomes (probably far out so you have something to work towards).

Most of us think that they will add an end-goal like trying to escape the asteroid, or uncovering the full backstory for why the dupes are there.

Personally I would like them to have lore and long-term objectives which encourage you to explore further out into the asteroid. They can be used to teach you of the existence of things like geysers and ice biomes, and lead you to far-out new biomes with their own threats and story elements. More ruins would be cool, I found them quite exciting when I came across them.

The game right now has a good natural progression up to the mid-game. You are forced to expand outwards into new biomes to get vital resources like water and wheezeworts, and you have to research mid-level tech in order to tackle the many challenges. But the end game lacks purpose as a lot of the high level tech you don't really need. As things get more stable it's more about your own love of increasing effiency and getting the final buildings up and running. 

For the end-game it would be good to have some goals to work towards, to make it feel like it's worth building the late-game tech.

Subnautica does a really good job with its very threadbare story of giving you some overall goals to work towards, without impinging on your freedom. It used left behind audio logs and radio beacons to lead you ever deeper - and to get deeper you had to build certain machines, find certain resources. It faltered in its final end-game though by having it be a resource grind, rather than forcing you to face new challenges to "end" the game.

[JonnyMonroe]

Oni needs VR support tbh.

[sybrwookie]

I'm quite happy with them actually spending a lot more of their focus on getting the gameplay into a good place right now as just a sandbox, then after that's in a really good spot, wrap a story around it to give us reasons to do these things other than just get a stable base.

[chemie]

Watch some streams.  They can help a lot.

[Oozinator]

On 9.4.2018 at 2:56 PM, JonnyMonroe said:

Oni needs VR support tbh.

 

[KittenIsAGeek]

On 4/8/2018 at 9:59 AM, shnndr said:

I've only played it for a couple of hours, but as opposed to Don't Starve which was somewhat interesting to explore, this game seems pointless if you don't know what each building does. And the tool tips are not very helpful. I really think this time around the buildings need to be thoroughly explained in the tool tips.

I am still intrigued, but for the moment it's kind of hard to see the purpose of this game. There's no carrot at the end of the stick sort to say, no real purpose for playing. Don't Starve had tension and real threats that kept your blood flowing and your tension up, you were constantly at the edge of your seat. There was also the excitement of living more and more days with each play-through to be able to discover more of the world's secrets and your actions always created an interesting story. In Oxygen I fail to feel accomplished for some reason. Am I missing something?

I'll try to play some more, but this is my initial impression.

LE: Ok, I played a few more hours and the gameplay has become involving, so things are not as grim as I described above, it's just a matter of getting past the first few hours.

There are many different types of "carrot" that will draw people into a movie, or a book, or a game.  Some people will be drawn to plot.  Some will be drawn to personal discovery.  Others will be drawn to the zing of adrenaline from a good creature-feature.  What draws the interest of one individual may not draw the interest of another.

Personally, I like building and creating.  I don't need a past story, and I don't need a final goal.  Keeping my dupes alive while building an ever-more-complicated base is plenty for me.  I love it when I get the system balanced and can just let it run continuously, flipping back to it when I have a new idea.  Since this is an Alpha experience, I also like to see what happens if I use something in a way that it isn't intended.

If this doesn't hold your attention, that's fine.  We all have different interests and desires.  I can certainly say that there are plenty who will find this game endlessly entertaining, even in its partially-complete state.

[Ciderblock]

On 4/9/2018 at 5:07 AM, Exa said:

I have to admit, once you achieve sustainiblity it becomes boring, need more danger, more RNG disasters, more losing conditions for end game please!!!

something I ABSOLUTLY loved in Don't starve was seasons, winter and summer are so challenging.

something like this in ONI? like 100 cycles to prepare and 100 cycles with extreme conditions. it gives a breath in the experience

I hear that sustainability has gotten harder recently, considering the changes to geysers for example. Your drip of water for oxygen is considerably less reliable than it used to be, forcing you to improvise more. I hear temperature is more of a problem too with some of these molten metal geysers and such.

[Asteru]

For me I get a lot more excitement and tension when I’m playing on debug speed.  Or using debug for anything but the speed though. You have to constantly paying attention and vigilant to not kill your dupes by a bad dig since they’ll go about and do it much faster. Also it allows me to speed up to get the builds done quicker in regards to real life time, so it keeps me excited seeing actual progress. When I play on speed 3 like I have been lately do to food issues, I get bored waiting for things to get done and there is only so much you can move around the map to keep entertained. I find myself actually watching tv at that point. 

Content wise, I’m in love with the game. It’s very good for still being in development and having its quirks, but I just get so bored with the pacing. Typical result is I end up adding more and more dups to give me stuff to pay attention to and then did cause I don’t really have the infrustructure in place for it at that point.