You blame me for not wanting your game design in this specific game while rejecting the entire validity of other, highly successful game designs. There is a big different. You aren't getting the reward for free, you are getting the reward for performing an alternative task. minecraft's saddles DO have a proper function. There are horses now. They need saddles. You still can't craft them. It sucks. Once you find a piece of dungeon once, you should be able to 3d print more of it, if I understand how the system is supposed to work. So, even if a large dungeon is too much for you to handle, you should be able to do a small dungeon without too much trouble and get some samples of the decor. I really don't care if there are other ways to get decorative blocks. Those aren't the rewards for dungeons I am concerned about. I mean, yeah, they are nice, but they don't have much of anything to do with the game balance. Monsters are everywhere. Most of the gameplay is about getting better weapons and armor. They aren't removing the ability to construct and destroy the world, they are constraining it. Constraints can be a good thing. imagine how awful portal would have been if you could put a portal on literally any surface. I didn't say /most/ dominant. Its a prominent part of the game. They have been working very hard on making it more interesting and less annoying. Other peopel say its mining ore that is annoying, you have to stop playing the game and having fun to dig in the dirt and its slow and annoying. I mean, I love a good mining aspect of a game, I like mining in minecraft, I've played countless games where you are going around on a grid and diggint tunnels to collect ores and get upgrades. But they have managed to make the experience engaging in a way that starbound hasn't. However, starbound is focusing on making combat fun in a way that minecraft never managed. I can't say whether they will succeed or not, but I don't' see any reason they shouldn't be able to.
Nice analogy. It gets better with the surface gel in Portal 2, cos even though that'll make any surface portalable, you can't get the surface gel everywhere.
Usually when I see a complaint about ore mining being annoying, it's from someone who doesn't like doing it at all, in any game. I'm not sure what makes it different in starbound than minecraft but I never paid much attention. The only thing that comes to mind is that starbound and terraria have surface ore whereas minecraft rarely does, and all the higher-tier metals are always farther down, whereas in starbound they're just on different planets. Around tier 8 I usually just stop going in caves completely and look for an asteroid field. I really like to explore caves and do it for fun when my race to endgame is complete, but I do wish they had more unique content - maybe the dungeon progress will encompass making caves more substantial and make cave biomes have more dynamics to them as well. So it isn't skipping the dungeon if you go get something in an entirely different way but it is skipping the dungeon if you play the dungeon in an entirely different way? Because given that I've actually died several times in the dungeons as they are in the last stable build and lost a lot of pixels in doing so, I don't think that qualifies as getting items for free. I don't remember much about either portal game but portal is a puzzle game; starbound is not. Worth mentioning puzzle mechanics are my favorite gameplay element, especially in the environmental puzzle category portal was based around. I'm not ignoring your preferred method but you do have to admit that your playstyle gets a lot more validity in gaming communities than mine does. It's evidenced in here, even, when nobody is on my side and I'm stuck fighting on my own again so I'm sorry if I get bitter about it but this must be the ten millionth time I've had to fend for myself and never seem to get any recognition for how I play video games from the general populace so you can easily imagine that I'm sick of it.
Its a balance of many things that throw it off. It was very slow and tedious when I tried it, which they may have improved since then. I found the mining area to be awkward to work with, esp. since mining 1 lone block was just as slow as mining out a 9x9, so sloppy placement of your mining area became a huge annoyance. Contrast to minecraft or other classic mining games, you tend to be 1 or 2 blcoks in size, so making tunnels and staircases and such is much more natural, and goes smoother. The high volume of ores needed makes each one unexciting.In minecraft, a single ore vien is typically enough to make at least one item, if not several. You find a new ore, and you immediately have things to do with it, and its only after exhausting the initial sets of items with a material that you start worrying about high volume projects. That really cuts down on the feeling that you are grinding for resources; you are more exploring to find them. The other mining games typically allowed new resources to add up to new things rather quickly. Minecraft made it feasible to get ores by exploration, mining through solid rock isn't necessary, though it is an option. you find a cave, go spelunking, fight through monsters, get excited by the ores you come across, try to navigate back out of the cave, its a basic but working design. Other mining games were focused on mining, and so worked to make that activity more useful; undiggable blocks forming obstacles, dangerous blocks, enemies, limitations on which direction you can dig. Even when you can see the ore, figuring out how to get to it can be a puzzle. They don't just say "here is a world made of dirt, there are ores in it, dig around freely". They also tied a lot more upgrades into the mining, from how deep you can go, how fast you dig, what obstacles you destroy, how much you carry, how long you can run, you had many options to work with giving the game meat and rewarding your progression. In contrast, mining in starbound just felt like slowly beating my way through a wall to pick up low-value resources. Its skipping the dungeon because it bypassing the entire point of the dungeon. There is nothing different about the dungeon or any other hunk of cave if you can just destroy everything. The dungeon is establishing a new challenge, and you aren't engaging with that challenge. Its like being told to solve a maze, and you burn down all of the walls and walk to the end. Its skipping the maze. immutable dungeons would allow the dungeons to have environmental puzzles. I am serious; the elements to have puzzle dungeons are amongst the infrastructure they are building. If the dungeons are immutable, you can put a puzzle in with loot as the reward. This could be part of the progression through a dungeon, or even the entire dungeon. If the walls are mutable, the solution to the puzzle will always be "breakthrough the wall to get the loot" Because your playstyle is extremely hard to make work in a game not focused on it. In many ways, your playstyle violates the basic design of most games. I am not a fan of realistic racing games, but you don't see me going onto forums for them and saying that this is a bad design and they should forgo realism and add in weapons, crazy shortcuts, etc. I may be describing a solid game style, but its not the one that the game is trying to be and the community would rightfully reject my suggestions. The intended design paradigm of a game is important to consider. If you don't like it, then the game is not for you, and asking for a change to a different paradigm is not productive.
I would have to agree about the ore in minecraft and a few other games - with the exception of planet explorers I think starbound's ore generation and method of obtaining is the least engaging and most frustrating when put up with that comparison. They did actually improve mining speed determined by gear as well as mining range in a previous devblog though, so, if nothing else, they are aware of the problem. I haven't played the last couple nightlies but I never seem to find caves anymore and that is actually my preferred method of obtaining ore, because even on minecraft, making a staircase to y13 and doing the 3x3 box mining is tedious compared to running through caves. If a game is finished and I haven't played it before and I know that I won't like it, I just avoid it. (Although all the smash news cluttering my twitter feed is making id increasingly difficult.) Stabound isn't finished though and I have over 200 hours logged into it so I am already heavily invested in it and would like to continue being invested in it. That's the big drawback with crowdfunding; what you pay for isn't always what you get, but that never means you shouldn't suggest it. The difference in portal and starbound is that portal is 3D, starbound is 2D. While that shouldn't technically make a difference, in a lot of textbook game design examples it does. The kind of environmental puzzles designed for a 3D game are almost never used in a 2D game - 2D games are almost always designed to be faster paced than 3D games and I've been following these dev blogs for months without seeing much in the way of changing how you traverse dungeons from before to now, and as of the last stable build they do not present the kinds of environmental challenges a game like portal would. It isn't impossible to make a dungeon that plays like antichamber in 2 dimensions, but it's a pretty safe bet that 2D pixel art games are taking cues from sidescrollers in the 4th generation as opposed to puzzle games on the PC which the modern 3D first-person puzzle games draw roots from. In short, it's pretty unlikely you're going to be solving dungeon puzzles with your mind, patience, and experimentation - you'll be doing it with twitch gameplay and reflexes, which I don't consider to be much of a puzzle. On the PC at least, some modder could probably come up with some professor layton style puzzles or some qube mechanics in dungeons but otherwise people who dislike fast-paced gameplay are pretty much $#%&ed.
Starbound dev's have been pretty open about the direction they are taking this game. As you have said, you don't have much backing on your suggestions. trying to steer the game someplace else that neither the designers nor the majority of the fanbase want is not very productive. You will be better served trying to ensure that you have a niche in the game that you can work with rather than opposing changes that advance the overall progression of the vision of the game. Yes, the types of puzzles you would design for starbound would be different than for portal. However, I have played many enviromental puzzle games based on 2D platformers. I don't think its safe to say that there won't be puzzles. Yes, twitch gameplay will be present, but that doesn't exclude puzzles being included as well, either as their own dungeons or as part of larger dungeons.They are setting up a wiring system to attach security systems and doors to triggers. If they don't have any puzzles with that, it would be a missed oppurtunity. If you don't like fast paced gameplay, then don't take the game options that lead to fast paced gameplay. Easy. We have gone over this.
I gave you some ground on your points, you owe me some ground on mine. I am doing exactly that - trying to ensure that I have a niche in the game. Your constant opposition to that niche isn't exactly helping though. I think you'd prefer my niche not be recognized at all, otherwise you wouldn't keep arguing with me about it. You'd leave it alone if you didn't see some kind of threat in my suggestions but you obviously think they're valid enough to fight against. If you're assured the vast majority agree with you, why do you feel compelled to oppose me at all? I have asked everyone I know who enjoys hard games why it would ruin your experience if something didn't force everyone to go about something in the same way and their answer has largely been the same: they really don't know, since none of them would care how other people play the game. Maybe whoever checks these threads for community suggestions and feedback can better relate to you than I can, and hopefully there is someone else who can relate to me, but I cannot. The last time I became truly upset at how someone else had fun was when spyro 3 was new and I'd just barely had an extra digit tacked onto my age.
I am not opposing your niche. I am opposing destroying dungeons. You aren't asking for a niche carved out for yourself, you are asking for basic game mechanics to be disabled. I feel compelled to debate this with you because that is what I do. I am well known for debating game design. This is not about how other people have fun. It is about ensuring a stable game design. The less stable it is, the less it holds up as you get into the systems. Aspects of a game that a beginning player doesn't even notice can become a game-breaking flaw for people who have mastered the system. Options that are sub-par become pointless, options that are above-par become mandatory, and the flexibility of the game strips away and becomes restraining. In contrast, a properly balanced game can keep all options viable, even at high levels of play, and remains robust.
If you never used the old dirt around the enemy trick then perhaps you never jumped to a much higher level planet in order to cheese a dungeon scavenging for high level weapons etc, cause tons of people did this. If you just want to build then that is what things like creative mod is for. There was also a website where you could upload your save data, and edit whats in the inventory, making unlimited blocks to build with. Honestly it's not playing the game fully, but at least you can just build.
Oh I have been to higher level planets. Using dirt blocks to cheese enemies on higher levels is something I personally just don't do. I would rather dig my way around. Dungeons to me don't really offer upgrades to my gear. Unless you are referencing the tech, I don't go to dungeons for equipment. Tech, that is another thing entirely. There are plenty of surface chests, and chests in various places that I can usually find a weapon needed for that tier. Now granted I haven't stepped in the "X" sector as for me it is pointless. At least in the stable version that is how I went about things. How things are going to be, it won't be the monsters that I would have to worry about. Being a builder does not mean I want unlimited blocks or build only. I like to hunt/craft my materials, so in essence a "Survival Builder" being builder first. What I was referencing in that which you quoted was due fact they mentioned building to progress, as in making housing for NPC's and charging rent. They have mentioned more than just exploring as progression; although unsure if they are still doing that, but I would assume getting at least one done for now is the idea regardless. Note: I find creative mode boring. Also editing my save file would be cheating myself in quite a few instances. Don't like doing so when I don't have to.
I brought this up ages ago and the only responses I got were "WELL I GUESS YOU DON'T LIKE GAMES THEN." just because some of us prefer to play them differently than others. Wasn't aware the bosses couldn't be fought without building a bunker though. The only way they can make that fair is to completely scrap the combat and start over because this is not the kind of game I want strategic combat in. It's too chaotic and relies too much on extreme twitch gameplay to be any fun to anyone besides the niche that enjoys that kind of thing. But I get the distinct feeling that this game is being designed with the intent of boxing out the minecraft crowd as much as possible in the hopes that it won't be associated with minecraft. They seem to really want to distance their game from the sandbox genre as a whole and they'll do anything to make it appear as "not like minecraft" as possible on the surface, I guess because they feel like the people who actually like games in that genre being attracted to theirs gives them a bad stigma which is certainly an attitude I see a lot of going around the steam boards from users and devs alike but I'd think anyone who graduated highschool would outgrow that. if it helps, though, I did notice you can craft a lot more blocks than before so I don't think you'll have to destroy Glitch castles to get their items anymore, plus NPCs will actually do useful things now like have a proper barter system and give you quests, so they are no longer just there for me to loot and plunder which is a huge deal to me at least. those apex labs can $#%& off though, I hate platformers, hopefully I will never have to do them just to get mobile tech or items. :l
I agree, it super annoying to just getting zap. Atleast they fix the tesla bug though. (Which insta-kill you if you walk into it)
That was a bug? I thought it was intended. That's good to know then, because some of us really don't like platformers and this game isn't supposed to exclusively appeal to people who do.
At some point I decided to simply wait for the release candidate. I've played games have been truly entertaining to follow in their development stage, but Starbound seems like the kind of game that I would rather experience for the first time in its completed state. I realized I didn't want to spoil a game that is mostly fun because of the discoveries you make with the exploration of new planets. I especially don't want to try to play through it when the combat is incomplete and the progression is so awkward. The devs are still finishing the first tier! I did try out Starbound a while ago, and my friends and I had fun hunting down the goofy placeholder boss monsters, but I think I'm going to wait a while before I go back in.
Hello, I'm really interested about this Protect Command, but can you explain me how I can find the <dungeonId> for the command ? I don't understand, (excuse my English but I'm French !)
Stand on a world you want to protect. Type /settileprotection 65532 true to protect blocks placed by PLAYERS. Type the same command but replace 65532 with 65535 to protect blocks generated by the planet. Non-player placed, in other words.
Note that dungeons (villages and such) get their own number, and microdungeons share the 65535 of the planet.
You must be in admin mode (/admin). When in admin mode type /debug and you can view dungeonID value of your character's current location. This is only good if other things like dungeons and towns need to be blocked. I would just find a barren world to set up shop and build on it, tbh.
There really isn't any need to use debug. There are only two IDs that I know of and they work for all blocks of their class when used on a world. If you stand on a planet and type 65532 (user placed tiles) or 65535 (naturally generated tiles), all blocks there are protected. If you stand on another world and type the same IDs, it's the same thing. Those IDs are global for block types. There are only those two unless someone recently discovered a third.
