Next sector - a loss? [poll]

Edit:​

There have been some really great replys to this post. And some subjects have become a large part of the discussion. Please share your opinon on these matters as well as the subject 0 :
1) Are planets worthwile exploring? Does travel to a different planet provide new meaningful content or gameplay? Any suggestions?
2) Gear you craft or find - meningful experience or becomes redundant too fast? Have any ideas how this could could be further improved?
3) What should the quest system be like?
4) Does the random generations of mobs and environments provides a great variety of themes and unique environments to explore or does everything look, feel the same, just stiched together in the key of 'random-ish-ness'?
Feel free to respond to only one or as many of these subjects as you like.

Original post:
[Poll]​

There might be someting very off about the way we progress through the game, how the gear 'levels up' and how all of the work you have invested in one sector becomes obsolete, once you progress to the next.
0) Before facing the first boss in sector Alpha, we will probably upgrade our copper armor to defector's armor set. It is quite possible that the best weapon at that point will be homemade. Even though it is not clear why travel to a different planet, collecting the necessary materials feels good this far. There is a sense of accomplishment. And the boss fight is great, I really enjoy it.
Although this is 'optional', you have to travel to the next sector. But what does the next sector offer us? Why should we leave our cozy base?
It seems that the main thing it offers is a bit more varied exploration by adding new planet types and some new monster attacks. Better gear, more immersive gameplay? - No.
You feel naked as soon as you land on a planet in the new sector. As if you have the tutortial starting gear equiped. While the DPS and defense numbers of new available items increase, they do not feel any better, there is no added value. Now you have to grind for a new type of ore for better gear.
You can also hunt for dungeons. But we have seen most of them in the previous sector. They do not provide an immersive and interesting challange. And the loot you obtain from them feels very casual. You will gain some nice decorations and blocks, though. Similar to exploration of new planets:
Edit:

Once the boss has been defeated and the best gear in sector acquired, you can move on to having the worst gear, no meaningful resources and items, no castle with whores and a farm - just by traveling to ''The next sector - where everything is the same!''. Not very motivating, is it?

The main story might provide more of a reason to travel further in space, but it is just a guess. Dungeons might improve, but we have no guarantee. Gear, loot and crafting system might improve. But it might not if the devs do not familiarize themselves with our feedback while in beta stage. So, if you feel that there is a flaw that could be improved - point it out, let us and the devs know about it. Voice your own observations and ideas, so this can become the greatest game. Thank you!​

Some subjective, but awesome, prefrences and suggestions already posted elsewhere or being posted in replys on this post:

5) Too much planet randomness!
How about making a tool that would let us, the community, mix-and-match the terrain, flora and fauna of a planet? Then we upload these planets and expand the universe. Each of the planets would be unique. Each of them has a personality and a story. They are not randomly generated and no longer feel all the same, random-ish. Take out all of the random planets and let the universe expand only by user creativity!
Maybe let us even created the dungeons, or atleast place them. Put the monsters together from parts like lego. Give us the blocks of a planet and we will build it. We will live on it and other players will be surprised and immersed in it!
*my favourite

Make planets special in the resources or experience they provide!
For example, arid planets could have more iron, while forest planets would be rich with coal, but have no gold. This would give an incentive to explore different planets. A hunt for something.
Right now you go to a planet, run around it, trying to find something new. But then you realize that it is just like the previous one, just with a different randomness to it.
I like farming and a big motivation to explore other planets is to search for new seeds. It would be great to hunt for a specific species of a plant, ore, a dungeon or anything else throughout the galaxy. This would require some more detailed information of each planet, like a scan of it's ore and species resources.

Do not force us to abandon our base!
We sometimes spend hours just building and decorating our base, but once we move to another sector it is just impractical to return to this base. Many players make their space ships a traveling home with all of the crafting necessities onboard. I do the same now. There is little motivation to invest time in making a pretty villgage if you plan to go to another sector, as the travel between sectors is too expensive, impractical because of the loading/travel time.
I play with my girlfriend and we have a workaround to this:
She leaves her ship at the base planet and we travel using my ship. Then we just beam to her ship and down to our base. This is a workaround, but we wish we would have an option that let's us always very quickly return to our base. Atleast make the spaceships bigger or expandable, so it can be our traveling home.

Make armor and weaponry substantial!
Something that will make the piece of armor you crafted or found in sector Alpha, still possibly be special in sector X. Or accessory for each piece that could be improved throughout the sectors. Maybe give more of an incentive to mix-and-match the pieces by offering different style of fighting gameplay for a sepcific combination. The weight of an armor could affect how far you are knocked back, how high you can jump or how fast you can run.

Make us earn the priviledge of exploring a whole galaxy!
Build a space ship. Then upgrade it so it can travel to planets further away. Upgrade it, so it can leave your solar system and travel even further. And give us a reason to want to go further.

There is no quality in quantity!
One really amazing planet would suffice. But we would love to explore many, many planets - as long as there is something new to see, as long as there is a special, unique personality to each of those planets. Or a specific reason to go there. Maybe try to link the generation of fauna and flora together. Just by matching the colors better could work wonders.
Right now they do not feel very organic or different . They just feel very random.

Let us customise our home planet!
An option to exterminate certain or all the species on your base planet. Then repopulate with species you have captured.
Let us plant the trees and flora that we want. Just plant it and it will spread like a virus.

 

I really like some of Your ideas in the spoiler section. Those ideas would make me want to play more, and I always appreciate a bit of challenge. I hope developers pay attention to fan suggestions and feedback to improve the game. Let's keep up the good work.

 

I think that they do, but they cannot read all of the suggestions, nor do I think that my or many other suggestions would work or be appreciated. But this is beta feedback - express yourself, it might help.

 

I totally agree on more or less everything you said.

I don't even see the need to split the space in sectors. People like me will just rush to the last sector and not leave it ever because of the way content is split now, I have this voice in the back of my head whispering "All the stuff you find now is useless and will be replaced very soon with better, and there are things that do not even exist in this low tier sector". And very good point about quality vs quantity. I feel that there are loads of improvements devs could do about mobs, because there's no quality about them either, every one i encounter seems as bland, characterless and pink as last one. Even the size is the same, right?

Indeed, there's no point in building a house/base on a planet(maybe except on last sector ones, because Content), which is not that bad as long as we'll get options to expand and customize our ships.

Planet customization would be the best thing that would encourage me to actually build something on a planet besides dirt ramps. The idea is perfect!

 

I like what you are putting down. Good to see some more constructive posts starting to emerge

 

I also think that even just the size of monsters could be varied more and make a big difference! And they do look all the same, although they are incredibly random.
And the voice in my head - it frustrates. That is why I made this post. I do tell myself that the last sector will be home and I have to run through the sectors until I reach it.
Of course, I love the idea of planet customization. Maybe if the devs do not notice this, the modding community might make this game more enjoyable for us and like-minded players.

Porgramming and moding is something alien to me. I would if I could, but I can't. So all we can do is try to resonate these ideas and see if it gets any attentions either from devs or modders.

 

I'm gonna say no it doesn't feel redundant, for now. Since there are certain machines and gear you can only build at higher tiers whose materials you can only find in different sectors (Such as pixel compressor and the things you need for capturing animals for pets) I like the feeling of moving up and onward to greater things that I can nab for myself and bring back home to my level 1 home planet. Hell, maybe once the game's complete I'll have a high security vault on a level 10 planet for multiplayer safe storage.

I say no for NOW because higher tier sectors definitely need more. By an exponential rate, not a linear increase. Fuel for example, why the hell would I want to mine higher tier planets in different sectors for uranium, plutonium and solarium where it's much more dangerous when those ores are only twice or 3 times better than coal, which is abundant on a 'safe' level 1 planet? It's not just fuel either, higher tier sectors might offer the components for pets, but that'll get old after a few hours. They need to also have components for end game upgrades and gear, such as upgrades for your ship or tech for yourself. If there was tech for removing fall damage in sector X everyone would rush for it.

 

Also, I want to be able to store more locations in game than just my "Home planet".
And they've said they're gonna let you customize your home planet...eventually.

 

I would like more ... well pretty much everything in the spoilers sounds good honestly. I love building, but why would I when I know it's going to be prohibitive to return home? So on.

It would be a neat idea maybe to have a direct transport to your homeworld - like a direct beam by placing an item or something, so you can go there without your whole SHIP going there ... so you're not skipping back and forth through sectors, but you don't have to be afraid to settle on a planet you like, either.

Like a mini wormhole portal or something.

 

Yeah, I immediately imagine Stargate. Craftable stargates would solve the problem. Make them require rare and expensive resources to help the balance and we're set. Shouldn't there be a similar mod out there by now? The idea doesn't seem that unique tbh.

 

You would think so, but I don't know, I haven't looked at mods. I think I'll make a suggestion about it though.

 

Yup, that sounds by far the simples solutions - an item. A stargate would be so awesome!

 

Lol... All progress creates a sense of loss of the progress you just made.
How do you feel about your last pay check 2 weeks ago?
=P

 

It is good to hear that they have planet customization in mind. Thank You for that bit of info.
I agree that some planets should not be just a one night stand. I could write her number down on a napkin, but it is not very convienent. I have read in several posts that bookmarking not only for your home planet is a needed option. This is something that actually might happen.

 

Haha, that's great analogy and it's so very true:
I've written down coordinates of a couple of planets that has a village or skyship or etc but honestly: never been on those again. Never had the need because, you know, I grabbed everything i needed from it the first time and there are more and better ones still out there... at least most of the time.

 

http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/homeworld-gate-portal.48527/

I made a thread for it, since I'm not very adept at modding, otherwise I'd just mod in my own item, haha. I think it should be an actual feature of the game, though.

 

I believe the Devs. did mention mods in guns to change the bullet type, I don't know if that promise will come true. I believe that they also mentioned that terraforming would be a post release feature.

However I 100% agree that the game feels linear. You level up, get good armor, travel to the next sector, and your armor is meaningless. We shouldn't be upgrading our armor just to do a boss battle and then have it be completely pointless, we should be able to hold our own in it for a while. There needs to be more inspiration to progress in the game then "Hey guys, more planet options," because as soon as people find their homeplanet biome, they are just going to stay there and have the rest of the universe remain pointless. What is the point of being able to go to a sector just so we can essentially start over in somewhere new? We lost our homebase, and all value in our armor. Going to a new sector feels like starting the game over; Why are we going to go to a new sector over and over just to lose our achievement from the last?

 

Honestly. How does the idea of sectorless space sound? All sorts of star systems side by side.
Or maybe better yet:
Why have a one constant threat level number per planet? How about a range?(1-4, 2-7, 3-4 etc) that way we couldn't explore all the planet on the first try but had to return later after killing a boss or two to get further past stronger enemies on all the pre-boss explored planets.

 

I completely agree with this. Especially when armor is so damn expensive both ore and pixel wise. It's nearly impossible to get the pixels you need to craft things later on without using the refinery since you can't last 5 minutes on the next tier planet with your previous tier armor...

 

I see what you mean. I too enjoy a lot of this game, but feel taht there is this great unused potential. But it is also falwed with the following:
Mostly I do not like that my current gear just goes to trash as soon as I get to the next sector.
It should be good for something. The next sector should not be only about increasing mob hp and dps. Maybe have swarms of weaker mobs that ar trickier. Or a new monster type that requires you to change your gameplay a bit, be more skilful, evasive etc.. Have fewer but larger, slower monster, make the fight longer, trickier, more satisfying. Have a planet with only birds. Have a planet with just one huge boss. And give us a reason to go to these specific planets. Put some special piece of gear only on planet with this huge boss. Make us search for this planet! Increase the difficulty by making the fighting trickier, challenging your gameplay not your gear by turning it into crap!
In the new sector there are the same totally random mobs that suddenly are just way more powerful than they were a minute ago. I move to the next sector but it doesn't feel like I have moved somewhere. The mobs look the same, act the same. But now they easily kill me. Even the planet has that same random-ish feeling and look. It doesn't feel like you have moved to a more advanced place. Everything just suddenly can easily kill you. It feels like unlockign new items, but the price is all of your current gear.
Visual differenciation of the next sector mobs and planets could help a bit. But I think that the key is in challenging the player in becoming more skilfull by using the gear they already have by allowing to enhance their gear. Provide new skills to use not just grind for another piece of armor that you know will be crap after a very sepcific point. Tease us with better gear, make it accesbile at any stage of the game, but hard to get. Use it as a motivator for us to explore other planets.
Reege already said this: