Starbound Replayability

Mm, what? It's for the first time i hear about early-access release is due to fanbase demands. Fanbase demanded the promised full release, instead they got early access, which weren't mentioned at all in beginning of pre-orders...

 

Let's stay on topic -- the current discussion tangent has nothing to do with thoughts on improving replayability within Starbound.

 

Honestly the best thing a developer to boost the replay value of an alpha is to release regular updates. I have a few other Early Access Alphas that I don't play constantly, but I'm a lot more likely to replay an unfinished game if I see that new content has been added. It also has a cumulative effect, the more consistent the patches are, the more I get excited about the game. When a game is incomplete you can't expect it to be able to easily capture your attention for many hours, regular updates give people a reason to hop on every once in a while and see what's new.

 

Its a sandbox, its pretty much infinitely replayable and its up to the player to make their own entertainment.

One time you might build a massive treehouse with a community gardens and a moat below. The next time you may decide to build the best disco ever made.

And everybody has to build a good deathstar in a planets asteroid belt at least once.

 

From what we've been told 1.0 will have more than one path of progression. I'm not sure how much replayability those will have, but I think it was going to be at least 3 paths. I don't know if they're all going to be equally engaging for all players, but Terraria suffers from a similar draw back. Most games with choose your own path like options do, and that's good and bad in its own right. I think it helps define the rpg element of the game.

Racial quirks would change up the replay value, but in that case I think all we're seeing is going to be aesthetic differences. Since that seems to be the direction the community leans toward for the races being different. They'll have lore differences, but I don't know how long that could keep every other person attached.

But I get what the OP is getting at. Right now, and Nightlys included, there isn't much distinction between playthroughs on the whole. Its >Acquire Digging Tool>Acquire Ores>Acquire Arms and Armor>Acquire Stuff>Fight Boss>Move on for some tiers, repeat, and call it a day. Thats the official progression chain, now, you can argue "But progreshuns might mean diffwent thing two diffent people!", that's perfectly valid for a case by case basis but, that doesn't change the actual core progression. There isn't a whole lot to do to really spice up your character along the way other than; vanity items, choosing to either throw things at enemies that won't kill them, shoot them, or whack them.
I don't really know what else there is to spice up life that isn't either stretching the idea of progress, like going full completionist in a game that doesn't demand it, or, handicapping yourself however you see fit to make this playthough more different.

I wonder if techs will be expanded upon in a way that instead of feeling like their own tacked on mechanic. They are introduced in a way that is more intent on complimenting various play styles. Right now they act as a "Hey look what I can do!" slot. Maybe we could see extra attack swings, harder hitting bullets, seeing through the dirt for ore, better blocking.
Maybe just a series of passive techs, mite be coral.