The other side of exploration and the same kind of different destroying the sense of wonder
Posted: Thu May 17, 2018 2:33 am
With the latest dev log talking about exploration, I just wanted to mention a common problem with procedurally generated games, and a simple (though not necessarily fast to implement) solution.
Procedurally generated games have a limited number of tilesets, effects, futures, and mechanics within which they wary only superficially. As such one eventually starts to see the patterns and formulas as a mould and separate instances within that mould start to blend together. This was in my opinion one of the major points of failure of No Man's Sky, as despite the the sheer size and variation of it's universe, once you have seen a planet, a station and a space-fleet there really wasn't anything new to find.
One way to solve this problem is introducing complex systems and hoping for interesting emergent properties, which is what Josh seems to be doing.
What I didn't see any mention of so far is the other part of the solution. And that's the introduction of unique and rare stuff that can be found.
In the case of Limit Theory I imagine a good addition would be a few hand crafted unique systems, planets, cities, stations or skyboxes. They don't need to be super interesting or in any way functionally different. Just significantly visually different and possibly interestingly named, like say creating a Sol system.
Another very good idea would be adding discoverable ship systems and weapons, and I mean a truly new ones that have their own unique mechanics and visual effects, yet can only by gained through exploration or research and no AI would have them unless the player shared.
P.S: Sorry for any errors or ambiguity, English is not my native language. And sorry if this was already discussed as I only follow the feed and not even all of that.
Procedurally generated games have a limited number of tilesets, effects, futures, and mechanics within which they wary only superficially. As such one eventually starts to see the patterns and formulas as a mould and separate instances within that mould start to blend together. This was in my opinion one of the major points of failure of No Man's Sky, as despite the the sheer size and variation of it's universe, once you have seen a planet, a station and a space-fleet there really wasn't anything new to find.
One way to solve this problem is introducing complex systems and hoping for interesting emergent properties, which is what Josh seems to be doing.
What I didn't see any mention of so far is the other part of the solution. And that's the introduction of unique and rare stuff that can be found.
In the case of Limit Theory I imagine a good addition would be a few hand crafted unique systems, planets, cities, stations or skyboxes. They don't need to be super interesting or in any way functionally different. Just significantly visually different and possibly interestingly named, like say creating a Sol system.
Another very good idea would be adding discoverable ship systems and weapons, and I mean a truly new ones that have their own unique mechanics and visual effects, yet can only by gained through exploration or research and no AI would have them unless the player shared.
P.S: Sorry for any errors or ambiguity, English is not my native language. And sorry if this was already discussed as I only follow the feed and not even all of that.