General Feel and Direction Ideas

[iron]

So I've played through the current alpha build and i love the world you created. Here's my look and how i imagine this game to be great when fully released.

I'll break my ideas in two directions:

1. I would prefer managing your ranch to have it's role diminishing in late game.
2. Things i would love to see this game developing more are exploration, story line and more goals for players to achieve.

1. Managing your ranch is currently the most developed aspect of the game and that's understandable. When i say i'd like it's role to be less important late game what i mean is that more upgrades can be available for you to achieve more automation. More upgrades - more goals and more goals to enjoy achieving. More automation - more time to spend on quests/story/exploring/personal goals.

Here are some ideas for this, some are different approaches to achieve the same goal:
-Garden resource collector.
-Garden connected to corral's auto feeder.
-Garden/Corral unit sharing same plot.
-Personal upgrade to collect/shoot more than 1 item at a time with the vacpack.
-Pond plort collector.
-Corral second auto feeder for second food source.
-Plort collector auto selling feature (drawback you don't have influence on price sold or its sold at 70% of full price)


2. I'll write some ideas ideas for additional features that create additional goals = much more gameplay.

Current email system doesn't really work good, it's mostly tl dr. Should be accessed from everywhere not just the ranch house. Ranch house should have interior + be your storage unit replacing the Silo. Silo is an unnecessary used plot space, plus is annoying to use with current max suck/eject speed/amount of vacpack. Ranch house screen does not also fit with the whole gamestyle and is also the only thing that has a load time when moving to it. I imagine a freely moving door to be pushed to go inside - go to bed press E to sleep, go to storage unit have 1 to 10 spaces (2 rows) depending on upgrades. Additional upgrades: Ranch house upgrade to scare the monsters that steal items(mentioned below) + aesthetic upgrades for more luxurious furnishing (rancher is getting rich after all).

Later in the game i wanted to collect every slime/largo there is, but it is not possible as it is right now for multiple reasons. Perhaps a new unlockable area that has small "preserving corals" for just 1 slime would address this. The slimes in these corals wont need to be fed since they are in preservation mode. The number of these corals can be the amount of different slimes you can bring. Can be expanded to other creatures as well. Can award you additional info in the slimepedia on the slime/creature you have preserved.

New monster ideas:
-Monsters that will follow you to your base if you don't get rid of them (most **** scenario ever thus the worst monsters in game)
-Monsters that wont damage you but will steal your inventory items and you got to kill them to get them back
-Monsters, located in the further places, that are much more lethal and dangerous

Story progressions:
- Find clues on how to capture gold slimes. Special parts upgrade your vacpack to be able to grab that gold slime. Parts scattered in every region. (Get clues from a man who spend his life on this planet trying to catch them.) Last regions, last part, get the gold slime win the game (closure is important, every game exhausts its gameplay and should have closure and an end scene - you can always keep playing after it, but you are feeling fulfilled)

- Walk in new area - see mysterious new slime, that runs away from you. "Only exist in legends and fairy tales, you must have had too much of that mint mango sangria if you think you seen one" says the slimepedia. Get roasted by other ranchers you are losing your mind if you claim to have seen this. Prove them wrong by exploring deep inside the planet and finding the ultra rare slime. It looks like there are just a few there and the only ones still living anywhere in that matter. Seems there is a monster that really favors them as food and if not stop will eat even the last one of them. After killing the monster you find out these slimes have 1000x reproduction rate and they quickly pop up everywhere making you have to evacuate and the whole planet put under quarantine. Seems you killed the only creature that was preventing this from happening.

- Slimes are getting sick, travel far, find the source and remove it.

- Receive messages from different organizations needing the help from a rancher like you located in the slime wilderness to help them for example with research. Get payed for sending them samples, experimenting with creating largos. Be offered questionable jobs for medical experiments on slimes. Choose to accept or refuse.
Except multiple mini jobs that can get you cash and make your day more interesting so you don't go to sleep for 20 hours to wait for prices increase, this can work hand to hand with any story line.

Exploration aspects:
Make the world bigger until the game consumes more RAM than google chrome :D If it's not procedural generation then you can never have enough places to explore :P


So that's my long post. I wrote it without knowing your (the devs) state of mind on the game and because i was inspired by the originality and freshness of your creation so far. I'd love to see you maintaining a motivation to improve and add to make this game special. I'd hate to see you leave this as another farmville game. Cheers!

[Azreide]

I would like procedural generation in game, but I'd prefer it to be separate from the main world. Also, the quote "If it's not procedural generation then you can never have enough places to explore" doesn't make much sense to me.

[iron]

Also, the quote "If it's not procedural generation then you can never have enough places to explore" doesn't make much sense to me.

if its not procedural generation then its custom developed levels that are always interesting to explore. If there are 3 islands now, i wont mind having 30 or 100, i love exploring.
If its procedural generation then its endless and there is no 100% completion, so it gets boring after a while as well as feels unnatural, when you know it's been generated by your pc and not the world the developers specifically imagined.
A procedural generation for a cave like dungeon would be nice as you said, every day its different, but just 1 cave or 1 area.

[Azreide]

No, I meant with you saying if it's NOT procedural, then "you can never have enough places to explore". But if it isn't procedural, you'd of eventually explored everything :P

Either way, I would like a completely procedural area separate from where your ranch and main islands are.

[Elskah]

All of these are really good ideas! Especially liking the idea of having a garden and a corral on the same plot. That makes a bit more sense than needing to harvest a garden and then put your fruits or vegetables into an auto-feeder, and also makes the corral look a bit nicer. :P

[Pigcatapult]

A real storyline sounds really exciting. Although it'd be a drag if they use the "your helper has been the villain all along" twist that's so popular these days. Or really anything that gets too gritty thematically.

... Which is not something I thought I'd ever say, considering how every piece of media I touch starts growing horror headcanons like mold. But Slime Rancher has a really wholesome, cute atmosphere that I'd hate to see go.

[Elskah]

A real storyline sounds really exciting. Although it'd be a drag if they use the "your helper has been the villain all along" twist that's so popular these days. Or really anything that gets too gritty thematically.

... Which is not something I thought I'd ever say, considering how every piece of media I touch starts growing horror headcanons like mold. But Slime Rancher has a really wholesome, cute atmosphere that I'd hate to see go.

I agree. The story should probably just revolve around unlocking different slime types and areas, and giving said slimes and areas a backstory, rather than delving into drama.