SR Feedback + Suggestions: Slime Corraling and Range Safety

[MortalitasBorealis]

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!

[Elskah]

I agree that limiting the number of upgrades you can have on the Corrals would be a good idea! Instead of having high walls, an air shield, an auto-feeder, a plort collector, a music box, AND a solar shield, only being able to choose a few would make it so each corral would have to be individually upgraded based on the needs of the unique Slimes or Largos kept inside it.

The random Slime spawning also seems like a good idea, but I'm a bit worried about how it would affect free-range gameplay. For example, I made a new save today and started with Pink Tabby Largos roaming freely on my main ranch, and I had gardens with Pogofruit and Carrots planted to keep them fed. Every so often I'd go around and pick up the plorts, and in no time I had the Grotto and Overgrowth, and had replaced the Pink Tabbies with Honey Tabbies. Having random Slimes spawning in that kind of setup would much more easily lead to Tarr. If the player wasn't at the ranch when a random spawn occurred, they could easily lose all of the slimes on their ranch. And if you're suggesting these spawns happen multiple times a day, a free-ranger would need to be at their ranch 100% of the time, or they'd risk losing everything. I do think there needs to be more of a risk to your ranch, but I'd be worried that it would eliminate the option of playing without corrals.

[Pharenir]

While I agree that there needs to be some more "depth" to the upgrade system (like manually or automatically adjusting the feeding machine), I don't think it's time for that now.
Sure, you could get something like a tech-tree for your corral upgrades. Something along the lines like 1 upgrade for walls (either height or net), 1 upgrades for the poles (auto feeding or auto collecting) etc. But that would make the game unnecessarily complex at this early stage of development.

Adding more kinds of slimes and areas is way less likely to cause any new bugs (well, I do have to admit that I hardly have seen any bug so far. And for a pre-alpha game that's simply astonishing). Nevertheless the core mechanics and areas have to be done first, otherwise they might get down the wrong road if they invest to much time one those sidetracks. As a player myself I can see that this road may get a bit tedious or even boring, depending on the speed of the updates of the game. But it will be for the better. I've seen many (greenlight / kickstarter) games fail because they wanted to much contend in too short of a time.

Having said that, I'll now proceed to list the things I think should be addressed / balanced first before adding (too complex) new content.

As I mentioned before the automatic feeding machine needs to be improved. At least for me it doesn't check on the number of slimes in the corral. As a result there is an awful waste of food.

Connected to the first point, the garden upgrades need to be looked into. They seem to affect only the first thing that is planted. Subsequent plants don't get the bonuses (faster grow rate / always max yield {which in itself needs a balancing, especially if combined with a proper feeding machine})

"The Tarr" needs to be more threatening i.g. it needs to do more damage to the player. As of now they are the only real threat to the player as I don't really consider either wild booms nor rocks (or their largo combination for that matter) a threat.

The money you get from plorts needs to be adjusted as well. While the real balancing is only possible when "all the slimes" are available in game, one should differentiate the hazards you could face when keeping slimes. Many booms or rocks in a confined space do pose a potential threat. So their plort should be slightly more valuable than their same "tier" counterpart. The price fluctuation on the market is a great thing albeit I haven't seen much of a change in the pricing... Mainly with pink plort wich got 3 newbucks cheaper.

Both new areas for the ranch a neat and very well designed concerning the feeling and graphics, but they doesn't really add that much to the game as of now. Make the cave accessible from the start but only with 2 or max 3 build plots.

I tried to keep it short as I'm in the middle of writing a full feedback on everything currently in the game... And due to the fact that there is no spoiler tag, I've to rethink the whole formatting to keep it readable... So please, add the [spoiler] tag to the forum xD

That's it for now, have a nice day ^^

[MortalitasBorealis]

@Elskah

Ah, I didn't really have free-ranching in mind, since there's no practical reason at all why you'd free-ranch right now, which is another problem but that's for another topic. It's true that random spawns will make free-ranching all but impossible, but like i said before, corral-ranching would be far too stable without random spawns. Maybe even fewer random spawns, and some new upgrades that can help you defend the ranch while away? Things that aren't restricted to the plots, like maybe wandering drones that suck up stray plorts on the ranch, or slime detectors that ping you if they detect certain slimes, or water-spraying sentries that can kill Tarrs?

@Pharenir

Better to flesh out the mechanics from the start and have them in mind than have all the content in and need to rebalance everything. It'd actually be less work to design slime behavior based on limited corral upgrade slots for example than to design ones that need tons of upgrades to contain and then have to nerf the slimes later. I know the game is in pre-alpha right now, but you have to think for the long-term as well. Adding slimes and new environments are EASY, but without the core mechanics to back them up, like i said in my main post, there's no point to them other than looking pretty. Bugs aren't a problem, that's why this is a pre-alpha, that's why we have a "Report Issue" function, so the dev team can find the bugs and patch them during development! There shouldn't be a fear of bugs, and frankly the easier it is for something to generate bugs, the earlier the dev team should have it dealt with, or it'll only be more work when it clashes with new content.

Agreed for the feeding machines, they should count the number of slimes in the corral and base food output on that.

I think if the garden upgrades don't work on subsequent crops, that's a BUG. You should report that :o

I think the Tarrs are fine right now. There's frequent outbreaks in places like the jungle area (which is only Area 2) and they're not very easy to kill unless there's a cliff nearby to throw them. Future slimes can just be more dangerous maybe. I mean, right now we have those "starved" angry largos in some places, those are pretty dangerous. This isn't Dark Souls, we're not trying to swarm ranchers with mobs that deal like half their health in one hit.

Plort pricing do need a rebalancing, but I think it's best if plorts can do more than just give you money. Right now there's really no practical purpose to ranching anything other than the most profitable slimes like honey/puddle slimes. Things like requiring certain plorts to make upgrades and other assorted items, but that's for another topic. I do like the idea of price fluctuation, though there's always the risk of unlucky streaks, like I have since my prices drop for more than half my days. Still, it'd give silos a purpose, they barely have a purpose to me right now since I just stuff food items into auto-feeders and let plorts stay in collectors.

The new areas feel like nothing more than plot expansions to me right now, though the outgrowth gives random chickens and fruit, which is nice. Certainly more things can be done with these ranch expansions to make them more than a different-looking area with some extra plots, but again that requires additional mechanics, like random on-ranch spawns, slime behavior and other stuff. For example, I like how phosphor slimes can be more easily ranched in the grotto, and the outgrowth is perfect for free-ranching due to natural resource spawns. I prefer their accessibility stay as they are, gives the player something to work towards.

Thank you kindly for your comments :)