r/starcitizen • u/malogos scdb • 1d ago
DISCUSSION Inverted Timing
Activities that should be short take forever, and immersive activities that should give the game scale are few and far between.
When hauling, we spend most of the time moving boxes, waiting on elevators, pausing for doors to open, and slowly getting up from our chairs. But when traveling to a ground location, we jump straight there from the other side of the planet. As a result, every celestial body feels flat and samey. There's no drama of re-entry or sense of location.
Some might say "well you can take the long way now", but it's killed by all the repetitive, dull bits. I'd happily trade having to drink, which adds 0 gameplay, with having to fly 50km from space to an outpost, watching the gorgeous view of the horizon. Take away the annoying tasks, and interactive travel time would feel pretty good.
The same could be said for mining: all scanning and refining, very little actual mining. Combat missions: zipping back and forth across Nyx several times to kill a couple enemies. All quantum, no shooting.
I think CIG just mixed up the tedious bits with the fun ones.
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u/tzimize 1d ago
You have good points, and I agree OP. There are many things that are painfully slow in SC. Most games realize that tedious animations should be able to be skipped. And the whole eating things is just a waste of time. In survival games eating is a mechanic because finding food is a mechanic. In SC the food is in the store, and the price is negligable, making the entire mechanic pointless.
There are many places in ships to sit down and relax, but the time spent getting up and sitting down means you are at a disadvantage if something happens.
I've long felt that SC has leaned too far into realism. But realism isnt necessarily fun. I realize that a sim must often lean further against realism than other games, but its still possible to pace yourself. There are both toilets and showers in game. Imagine if we HAD to go to the toilet, and that not taking showers would make NPCs not want to interact with us. Its realistic, but it is not fun. Its always possible to make the game more realistic, but games are ultimately about escaping reality, or at the very least, be in a better/more interesting version of it, not duplicating it. And I think CIG has gone too far in one direction.
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u/MundaneBerry2961 1d ago
The current food mechanic should be scrapped, it adds nothing to the game. The can obviously leave all the items and consumption in just get rid of the hunger bars, add it back in when they actually flesh it out and it's fun
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u/tzimize 1d ago
A solution that would feel better (imo) is the Valheim method. Buffs, instead of penalties. No/drink food is baseline, and everything just works. IF you drink/eat, it can give a bonus. Say stamina regen or something like that, nothing huge, just enough to be noticable as a positive thing.
As long as we're not actually growing/foraging, the entire feeding mechanic is pointless. Also, whatever coffee makers or kitchen appliances are in ships, should work. If you insist on having food mechanics in the game, any ship worth its salt would have functional food areas.
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u/MundaneBerry2961 1d ago
WoW has been doing the same thing for 20+ years, it's a more enjoyable way to do it and would fit better with the style of the game
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u/Asmos159 scout 1d ago
Quantum travel in atmosphere is temporary to speed up testing. But the content layout is also set up to force this testing.
They plan on having anything that does not fundamentally require a breathable atmosphere to also be found on moons and even stations if possible. Larger PlanetSide destinations will also have stations in orbit with shuttles so you don't have to manually fly yourself if you don't want to.
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u/Cromern new user/low karma 1d ago
Back in the old days we had to actually leave the planet atmosphere before jumping. Same when arriving. Flying the big ships like the Reclaimer and SF was a challenge. But people complained and couldn't figure out how to fly the big ships. So CIG nerfed it.
Mining was scanning just for Quant. Nothing else really mattered. For missions now it's just the right material needed that is plentiful on certain locations. Crafting materials takes ages to find. Even longer than it used to be for Quant. And mining it holds no challenge when you got the right gear. For new players it's more challenging before they figure it out.
CIG used to say that it would require skills to do everything. But they mostly turned it into grinding with no skills required except for a bit of knowledge. And I blame most of it on players complaining and asking for instant transfer.
Drinking and eating I don't mind as much. The game forces you to go to a station so often anyways, so you can usually just grab something while you are there. They even made it easily available most places, so you don't need to take a detour to find it.