Hey Fellas,
I, too, got Avorion about two weeks ago and felt like sharing my feedback to anyone interested. I do User Experience Design which shares a lot with Gamedesign, I feel, and I love nerding about that stuff.
I am also a Space, SciFi and Dirty-Labours-fan. The latter kind of stands for mining, refining, trading and manufacturing. I dont know, really, what Im getting from these things, but the most fun I ever had with Space Engineers was before even Welders and Grinders had been introduced: Me and my Group of Friends would just sit together in a big Junkyard on an Asteroid, grinding out valuable parts from pirated ships and tossing the emptied hulls into the sun.
Of course I love the sight of Torpedoes and Lasers Slicing through enemy Ships just about as much, though.
About Avorion I thoug it was funny how it felt to me like an altered "X"-game, without much of X's own buggyness and sometimes clunky feel. Avorion is much simpler in design and allows a more easy play - with its own limitations of course. Most notable the quite barebones AI, the very basic way ships find and attack you wherever you are and the way Zones unload when you leave.
But still, the game is fun and I often had my thougts about the game mechanics that I felt I would like to share just for the sake of sharing. I know the Devs got their own processes and plans and they seem to be not of the worst. Especially when building I found some mechanics and details that showed that they really looked into things, how they are used and what people would expect. Maybe one single, tiny advice to start right there: Dont care too much about your release date compared to the quality of your game! If its not done yet but you got the resources to elevate the major parts of your game to a level you are confident with - do it.
Like I said, I dont take myself too serious about this. Every now and then when I feel like it I will post another headline in green (Good things!) or red (Boo! Thats as bad as Broccoli!) and add something to it. Sometimes I might have an Idea (Blue!) Everyone is welcome to share their thougts on mine. Lets try a bit of everything to start off:
Simplistic gridbased building!
Ever since Minecraft got big we knew of games more simplistic in style, but in turn offering much more in gameplay. You can see that quite often: When a game is based on more complex technologies, like photorealistic models, its ever more difficult to add new things that would influence all the rest of the game. Avorions Ship building is a good example: Do you think you would be able to build new, awesome designs as easily if the game had polygonbased Models like - I dont know - Eve? Avorions Build-etior would have to be as complex as at least the most basic CAD-software, making things so hard for everyone only a couple of people would contribute to the workshop.
But its not just that. The simpler building is, the quicker I can stomp out some at least basic-level-awesome ships. When I was a bit more of a Kid than I am now I liked to build weird shapes out of only a hand full of legos I found in some corner and pretend they were spaceships, breaking apart in fierce battles that only happened in my head. Just how I imagined the ships flight-decks, bridge and crew.
Space Engineers kind of went in that direction but kind of managed to fall in-between, combining the bad parts of both ends: Building is not as easy and quick as it would have been if you had to combine ready made pieces like you do in Subnautica or KSP - but its also not as free-flowing as Avorion is, when you work on the really big pots. Space Engineers would have shined with the really big capitals colliding like in the earliest videos - but thats also where the engine starts to fail. Damages also are more of a "Ho!" or "No" ... rooms are either gone completely or fully intact. Kind of boring, sadly.
Healthbar vs. destructible Blocks
Conversely thats also where Avorion fails, funnily. I see not a single reason why ships have health-bars, when single blocks can be damaged and destroyed. "Health Bars" are kind of dead themselves. They are remnants of archaic days, when games couldnt be complex enough to emulate individual Damages to Entities. Characters were either present, fully functioning, or dead right the moment they accumulated enough "damage".
Today you can find shooters where shooting someones leg makes them limp. Destryoing an Engine slows the opponent. Avorion has individual Blocks and destroying parts changes how the ship works or breaks - I had a huge Battleship explode once, because i rammed an aster... i mean "Giga Cannon" - I saw it coming, expected heavy damage on my bow as I turned my ship to face that metaphorical Iceberg with armor but never expected to die outright.
There is no incentive for me to place Armor, device clever spaced Armorplating or other intelligent placement if damage can go by all of it, by just accumulating in an ominous health-pool.
Surface-based Editing
Maybe not the cleverest of Names. This one came up when looking at windows: I am probably not the first noting how big of a part building ships is. People are so captivated by it, the place rows of fake windows out of glowing blocks along recessed hulls - and they even shine some light on the model. It often enough reminds me of the Homeworld-ships. Relic certainly liked their warm glowing Bentusi ships and the brightly shining Bays on Hiigaran Carriers.
Avorions own texture-based windows often get in the way with things though. They are often much bigger and/or clip on the edges. What if users could paint them, or generate them on blocks themselves, saving on Polygons a lot in the process, too?
I could imagine more uses for this: Visible Energylines or miniscule "roads" with tiny moving lights, indicating traffic of crews working on maintenance or moving spares.
That would all just be show, of course. But "show" matters. Theres a significant bit of roleplay in the experience of games like this - just like with the Ships we built with Legos. I know youve done it too - dont deny!
Possible Topics to follow:
- Multiplayer & Metagame
- Breaking the Game
- Competetive vs. Casual
- Why is Mining and Fabrication fun
- Roguelike Tidbits
- Shared Progress
- A sense of Size
- Breathing Space (Yes I like to sound ominous)