by MortalitasBorealis » Wed Jan 06, 2016 8:59 am
Alright, I don’t know how developed the game already is compared to the released pre-alpha or how set-in-stone what the devs have in mind for the rest of the game are, but since this is an in-dev game and there is a forum where people are providing feedback, and I love this game so much, I may as well, right?
To start off, I found out about Slime Rancher extremely recently thanks to youtube let’s plays (take note, triple A companies, let’s players = free advertising!), and have currently “beaten” the pre-alpha, by which I mean I have explored the entire map, with a fully expanded self-sustaining farm with every type of slime and resource in-game. Let me just say right now, Slime Rancher is an ADORABLE game, the slimes are all perfectly done imo from design to sounds to animations, oh what I would give to have a pet tabby slime in real life! So Slime Rancher is awesome-looking, but what about its gameplay?
I’ll be separating these feedback and suggestions into several sections under different topics in order to avoid wall-of-text, since there’s no spoiler bracket feature that I know of. And also because that way if there’s zero response from anyone I’ll know there’s no interest and I won’t waste everyone’s time any further.
For this first segment, I’ll be focusing on the difficulty of ranching slimes.
Here I’m assuming that SR is meant to be a casual game for casual fun, not hardcore min-maxing to earn as much money in as little time as possible. There’s no deadline for cash goals, the only failure state is death, and the goal is merely to have fun taking care of a wide variety of adorable slime blobs. Right now the process is simple, there’s a lot of freedom on how you go about farming your slimes, and that’s a good thing to me, options, being able to play in more ways than the most efficient route without feeling like you’re gimping yourself, because there’s no pressure to be efficient other than from the player themselves. But right now, I still think the game is too easy; more specifically, ranching slimes is too easy. If you’ve done any research into the game’s mechanics at all and have half a brain, it’s incredibly easy to turn the farm into a maximum security prison for the poor captive slimes with no chance of danger to the warden. For a game that’s all about ranching a wide variety of slimes, it’s awfully easy for the game to become stagnant right now. Let me elaborate.
Problem: Slimes are too easy to contain -> Slimes all the same once captured + No risk of Tarrs
Different slimes have different ways to mess with the rancher, either through direct damage or by increasing chaos/risk of Tarrs. Rock slimes roll around with impact damage, boom slimes explode, honey slimes can frenzy other slimes with their plorts, and there’ll no doubt be more species with their own unique dangers, such as rad slimes that probably have DoT auras.
Out in the wild, they’re fine! They make the world feel dynamic and keep players on their toes when they encounter them without being overly lethal, with different things to look out for and different ways to avoid damage.
On the RANGE though, there’s little to differentiate any slime from pink slimes other than diet thanks to corral upgrades. Raise the walls, net the ceiling, automate feeding and plort collection, and you don’t even have to go near the slimes anymore, nor do slimes have a chance in hell of getting to different plorts because they can’t break out! Who cares about explosions or spikes or radiation when they can’t get near you? Who cares about honey plorts attracting other slimes when the walls are so high and there’s a ceiling shield too? Even if a slime SOMEHOW gets out of their own corral, odds are they can’t get in the other corrals. Am I saying get rid of/nerf the corral upgrades? No! Well, not quite but I’ll get to that in a moment. More important than that, there needs to be more ways for slimes to escape containment that are unique to that particular species and require player interaction to prevent.
Solution 1: More diverse slime containment procedures
This will possibly require additional mechanics instead of just adding items/slimes into the game, but I think it’ll be worth it. Let’s take a rad slime for an example. These guys are radioactive, which probably means they can slowly damage the player while in proximity, but what does that mean towards containing them? Their radiation auras don’t mean jack to the player if they can keep the slimes caged and automate food input/plort output, meaning they never have to get close enough to their auras. That’s reasonable, that’s the point of containment. But what if their radiation can affect something else? What if over the span of days, other than requiring food to keep them from getting too jumpy, their radiation can cause the corral’s machinery to malfunction and let them escape? What if the player will have to move their rad slimes out of the corral for some time for the radiation to dissipate, i.e. a day? Where the slimes go is up to the player, whether they put them in a spare corral or keep them in the vac pack for the day and take up an inventory slot or some other solution, but the player has to do SOMETHING to keep the rad slimes contained that’s different from the other slimes, and that’s what differs keeping rad slimes from keeping other slimes. Now extend this kind of extra gimmick to the other species, and you get a much more hectic schedule as the player gathers more species, making for a more challenging but unique and fun experience. You actually feel like you’re tending to different species instead of a reskin with a different diet, and isn’t diversity part of the point of Slime Rancher?
Solution 2: Random slime spawns on the range
Right now, the only things on the range are what you put there, which makes it easily manageable. Combined with what I said earlier about how slimes are really easy to keep in their pens, there’s really no danger to your food sources like your chickens or plants. Like, why would I need higher walls for my coops or scareslimes for my gardens when nothing can get near them? An easy solution: Random spawns within the range! Every once in a while, a few random slimes can pop out from the ground inside the ranch area somewhere. Their species can vary based on what’s being grown on the ranch. For example, a fruit tree might attract phosphor slimes at night, and rarely a mint mango tree can cause a honey slime to spawn, something along those lines. This gives protection upgrades for those plots a little more meaning, makes the ranch feel more dynamic, and may produce unintended largos or Tarrs if not spotted and dealt with. Just make sure the amount of random slimes aren’t too high, maybe 2-4 a day on average.
Solution 3: Limited corral upgrade slots
Instead of letting players just buy ALL the upgrades for every corral, make it so that they can only choose three out of all the options per corral. Want the convenience of automatically collected boom plorts? You may have to sacrifice some security then! Want to open up an upgrade slot for your phosphor slime pen? Move them to the grotto so you don’t need the solar screen! Other new upgrades can be added that are specialized to certain species but may limit other securities due to taking up a slot, making ranching more advanced slimes…well, more advanced. Make corral designing more than just “Buy ALL the upgrades!”, making each personalized to the rancher’s style and the species in question.
That’s all for now. I’d love to hear thoughts from both the community and hopefully the devs themselves, and I’ll write more if there’s a good reaction to this. Thank you for reading this far, and have a nice day!