About lack of challenge and guns in Offended Koala version.

First thing i wanted to say about Starbound is that is a really great, enjoyable game and i love it. I love the idea of a game that allows players to explore the galaxy, collecting stuff, building stuff, meeting exciting new peaple... And killing them.

But, there are some things i want to complain about:

1. We shoulda have shotguns for this kind of deal...

As much as i am close quarters guy in both pubs and fantasy games, in Sci-Fi im all about running around with ranged stuff. And i find it REALLY dissapointing that in a Sci-Fi game it is so hard to obtain a decent ranged weapon. Bow is quite funny... For about 10 minutes. It's slow, coarse and boring in my opinion. And it just doesn't appeal to me, visually.
Of course, i understand that it's there also for both gameplay balance and making low tiers bit robinson-cruzoe like style, but i hate the guy.
Is there ANY chance of implementing a tier 1, craftable gun? I'm not talking about some laser-plasma-whatever, but maybe a simple flintlock-pistol? It would deal bit more damage than bow, but would reload longer and use bit more energy. On the other hand, bullets would be faster.

Because, guys, Space Cowboys are about to arrive... Don't make them run around with bow.

2. 'ya gonna bark all day, little doggies, or are you gonna bite?​

The new planet threat level system is kinda... boring. Since you can get to the best craftable armors really fast on each tier, exploring planets is no more fun. I takes just about 2-3 hours to get an armor made of iron, and then, with few bandages in your pocket, nothing will ever kill you in alpha sector, because all planets are threat level one. Every single planet in the sector has NOTHING that could make a challenge.
Want a challenge? You have to go on to the next tier planets! And they will also get boing after, like, two hours.

I mean, c'mon!
In a Sci-Fi game about exploration, players should ALWAYS have opportunity to boldly go where they'll get owned badly. even on tier 1.

There should be planets with threat levels 2 and 3 in the alpha sector! I don't wanna leave it so fast! With all these awesome planets unexplored! But also, i don't wanna play exploration if there is no Unknown Danger that can threaten me. No danger - no adventure!

 

I agree that the game is far too easy, but not because of enemies being too weak. My problem is how laughably easy it is to get the ores to craft your next tier of armor. A quick surface skim is usually enough to craft a chestplate and leggings, then you can either dig deeper for the rest or skim another planet and be done with it. There is zero work required for ore hunting. I'm throwing away armor sets 30 minutes after crafting them, and that's just terrible.

But on the topic of enemy strength, I would argue that the game's difficulty curve reads like a Richter scale. You get to the dragon and he just wrecks you, and the slime isn't much better, but everything before and after that point is a cakewalk. This is mostly due to the lack of ranged weapons available for the dragon (or at least ranged weapons that aren't horribly outclassed by melee), the dragon's horrible hit-box making melee all but impossible, and his ridiculous ability to hit you with like 6 fireballs at once OR spread his attack over a massive area. He should not be able to change facing mid-attack, that's just stupid. Nor should he have touch damage (I don't know if all bosses do but they shouldn't, nothing else does). And while we're at it, no game should be without hit-pause to prevent being crushed under a barrage of simultaneous attacks.

Difficulty needs to be smoothed out badly, it's either too easy or too difficult and never feels rewarding. This game overall is a very, very long way from being finished and this beta could easily last at least another year judging from it's currently very poor state.

 

While you're talking about the game being too easy, I get to watch a few of my friends die repeatedly to T1 monsters. In a group.

I tried explaining that it gets better once you get some decent armor, but it didn't help, and I don't think it should as fighting those same monsters I had very little struggle. I think my first death since my last reroll was due to being one shotted by a Shrine. I reeaaally need to stop being tempted by the suicide booths.

 

It's to hard now it's too easy, it never ends!

 

Oh gods guys the balance in this early as hell beta isn't perfect WHATEVER SHALL WE DO!!!! GAME OVER MAN GAME OVER!!! Devs can't get perfect balance on everything in one patch, pack it in, the games over.

 

I agree. No one should talk about balance at all during this part of beta. That way, the devs have no idea whats over- or under-powered and I can keep abusing my OP strats.

 

Even if they added more threat levels it would be the same. Travel to the highest threat planet you see and snag a weapon. This kills your difficulty argument.

 

It's not about difficulty level balance it's about giving players opportunity to go to the higher level planets even when they are in sector alpha. So, just implementing planets of threat level 2 and 3 to the alpha system, 3 and 4 to beta system etc. ( Most planets of course, would have threat levels 1 for alpha, 2 for Beta, etc. )

So we could choose if we either want to play it easy, or hardcore.

 

Its good to get these topics up
They bring in good ideas for better ballancing and variety.
Also I am pretty sure devs wont be offended by this. They take it as a reminder that this and that needs more attention/ improvement

 

I must agree with the lack of gun in tier 1 issue and i was little disappointed when I discovered that there`s no gun to craft at all.. I feel again like in terraria, not in sci-fi title walking around with a bow.. because I`m not checking coordinates of other peoples where this fancy merchants are, and I`m not lucky to find any of them by myself. But I still hope that chucklefish will add some of guns to tier 1.
Because we wanna shoot things
I think that new threat level system was invented because people complained that they died alot. But I like the idea of choosing higher threat level within sectors, that will make happy casual, and hardcore players

 

Guns in general are not as far along as melee weapons are, made apparent that not to long ago plasma guns werent even ingame at all yet.

I think guns should, and ultimately will, be made available earlier on. Which will also shift how the games balance works earlier on.
Another problem that contributes to how swiftly you rush through something is how absurdly easy it is to acquire minerals. Scouting two planets for dungeons on the surface and mining ores i need is enough to deck me out in gear that is good enough to take anything on in that sector.
As a result there is very little practical reason to dig down. Which is a terrible shame because tiers are easily rushed through, and a lot of cool underground content is being missed.

But not only the generous surface ores is contributing to this in my opinion. I also feel like a gear step is missing. And id like to see 3 gear sets per sector. One for each difficulty step they were talking about.

 

Hmmm... Could use different behavior schemes aswell as attack patterns. Size and number of creatures populating a planet could use some variation. And maybe more visually threatening and challenging minibosses. Way too much ores on the surface, should be an underground exclusivity, that will also get digging to be actually useful.

On the guns side, I actually found it mostly okay except for... shotguns. And concerning melee weapons, anything that isn't a hammer is barely worth getting.

 

Tiers and sectors are bad for this game period. Planets should be larger and contain more content, and have a wider range of spawn difficulty.

every planet should pretty much, more or less, have the size and depth of a worlds generated in Terraria. You should be able to look for a challenge on your planet or avoid it. It shouldnt be so easy to outlevel a planet.


As far as guns go- i believe that they shouldve balanced the game and its enemies around guns. it almost feels like the whole sci-fi element came later on, while they were busy building the framework for a mining, building game.

Why isnt the MM a universal tool? Why isnt the game balanced around us starting with a simple phaser? I understand the reasoning behind their choices, but it all seems like reverse logic to me. They thought of the reasoning AFTER the fact,

 

You can play on hardcore mode.(naked)

 

It was never too hard. The game has always been extremely easy. The only difficulty arises from odd hit boxes and unavoidable one hit wonders. That is not real difficulty.

I would love to see some more character progression beyond a few different types of armor with one set always being the best for the tier. ( I personally despise this linear progression though.)
Right now armor is a joke beyond the increase in health and energy. Different armors reducing movement or increasing it while giving differing degrees of defense would be nice. Also crafting weapons is completely pointless right now.

PS I find guns pretty quick tier 1 tier 2. Would be nice to be able to craft some though. Sniper rifles are the only decent gun until higher tiers when energy is a little more plentiful.

 

If any of developers feels offended by my post, i'm am terribly sorry. I didn't mean it. I'm not an English native speaker and even though i use it for quite some time, i am not yet used to speaking it on the internet forums. When i look at my post now, i actually may be a bit "agrresive".

So, i see i am not the only one missing gunshot sounds on low tiers! Yay!

I know it's not really hard, but come on... In the previous system you could go to a lvl 6 planet with copper armor
and then the fun kicked in - with monsters killing you in 2-3 hits, you have to attack, move, and jump very carefully and quickly adapt to changing fighting styles as you constantly met new aliens.
And i was extremely funny for me! Taking down a charger that could kill me with single attack while equipped with basic sword - challenging, and get me that adrenaline pumping. I miss it!

I know i can do it know, just put away all the armor and go with basic sword to beta or gamma systems... I know. But if i can't wear my armor to have fun, where is the point of crafting it?.. For bosses only? Come on...

I know that not everybody are such masochists when it comes to fighting basic monsters but you know... We should be given a choice - easy way for casuals, and optional hard way for those who enjoy it.

 

Why not like this?

Starter + Tier 1 = Threat Levels 1 - 3
Tier 1 + Tier 2 = TL 3 - 6
Tier 2 + 3 = TL 6 - 9
Tier 3 + 4 = TL 9 - 12

and so on? Each tier having +3 levels of difficulty available. That way, we could choose something up to 3x as "hard" as the lowest level planet of that tier.

Also, we need threat levels around 40 again. Dunno if it's just for testing, but 10 levels is pathetic.

 

I dont like what you think about Bows, cause i love the bows, also i would love to use some kind of plasma/laser bow at high tier.

But i agree completely about the challenger, the problem is, theres easy-mode players around that just want to build and they are afraid to have hard time fighting, i suggested ways to improve the difficulty and theres always easy-mode players hating around, i dont know if they want to see this game death cause is going to be too easy at this rate...but ya the game is too easy right now...the only challenge is the Sector X because with the last tier armor, theres some mobs that can 1 Hit kill you, but the rest of the sectors are too easy...

 

That would require some more serious code editing, rewriting the whole level system again. I suggest a simplier change for now:

Tier 1 - Levels 1-3
Tier 2 - Levels 2-4
Tier 3 - Levels 3-5
Tier 4 - Levels 4-6
Tier 5 - Levels 5 - 10

Making the tier-level planets generating mostly, +1 levels being uncomon and +2 rare.

I don't want to banish bow! Let it stay! I'm sure there is a lot of people that love it, and it also has a nice guerilla-commando feeling.

I dislike it only because it is the only ranged weapon that is craftable on low tiers, and if i want to go ranged, i am FORCED to use it.

Started a gun topic in Sugestions section:

http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/flintlock-pistol.57730/

I would be really gratefull if you could back me up, like my post and post a reply if you agree with what i wrote.

 

I don't think guns should be tier 1 craftable.
Maybe tier 2, though, but not at the start.
Also, any craftable gun would have to (currently) be completely useless, unless they rework the random guns you can find.