Was Finally Able to Play Nightlies: FeedBack

Well, I've mentioned around the forums a few times last week that my computer was fried and I was waiting for a new one to try out the nightlies. Well, I finally got one on monday and put in 3 days of play (haven't played today). Got through the first planet, playing normally, which seems to be about as far as you can progress right now without using admin codes (need moonstones, no method of making space survival gear I could find, heading to a portal was suggested by quests but I couldn't find one and am not sure it's findable at all).

Point is I've now experienced enough that I think I can actually go ahead and drop my observations.

I'll start by saying that I feel the game is, generally, in an improved state after changes.

Combat

Well let's start here, shall we? This is the place where I feel things have improved the most. First of all the monster AI seems to be much improved from the stable builds. They're a bit less predictable, and, though I wouldn't call it perfect, it makes fighting them much more engaging. They choose which techniques to use intelligently, and I have a harder time baiting enemies using ranged attacks into melee and vice versa (depending on various factors, sometimes an enemy, when attacked from range will line up ranged attacks, and sometimes they'll charge in to attack in melee, it's hard to predict), which forces me to play their game more often and makes engagements feel much less rote.

Speaking of monster attacks: Even just going through just a few planets a few times I've noticed a wider variety of them. Melee attacks as well, but the ranged attacks are where it's really obvious. No longer is every ground enemy with a ranged attack spewing lightning, bubbles, or flames like machine guns. Now some have longer ranged single projectile attacks with, at least, a couple different arcing trajectories. I've also run into at least one enemy with the ability to shield himself from all harm, which was interesting.

But it's not just the enemies that have changed.

Gun balance actually feels really good now. It seems like energy pools have been roughly (or exactly) doubled, which, hilariously, is basically what I've been suggesting for guns for months. I mean, technically my suggestion was halving (or so) the energy cost of firing them, but doubling the total pool has the same, aggregate, effect. You actually have enough energy to kill 2-3 enemies before running empty if you're reasonably accurate. Very fast enemies or enemies with lots of HP will still drain you, but I'm pretty okay with that.

In short I feel that guns are still, perhaps, slightly worse than melee for use as a primary weapon, BUT are good enough to be used as such if you don't mind a little extra difficulty on occasion. I know that, even if gun balance stays exactly where it is, I'll be dual wielding revolvers as soon and as often as possible.

Though I feel that the couple of gun types that were ALWAYS good-ish are now a bit on the overpowered side. Rocket launchers and grenade launchers, specifically, tend to one shot anything in their way. With gusto. I'd suggest they have their firing rate turned down even more or their energy cost cranked a bit.

I also worry about shotguns in later tiers as in tier 1-2 you only get up to like 9 damage and at that point the damage splitting on projectiles isn't that big of a deal. Like a tier 1 shotgun does 3 damage, that means if 3 shots hit you do your max damage. However the damage still splits so when you get one that does 100 later on, with 12 projectiles, that means you need to land all of them.

I'd test it more but as they're still balancing those and for some reason I couldn't get any /spawnmonster other than jellyboss to work in the last build I played I kinda gave up.

But the take away here is that gun combat is actually very close to where I feel it should be. Melee still has a very strong argument for being a person's primary choice in combat (especially as that aimed spears should be capable of fighting bosses pretty well without resorting to guns), but I don't feel completely gimped wielding pistols.

And speaking of the melee changes: Aimable spear and short sword attacks make both weapons considerably more viable over rough terrain, and the ability to block with the right mouse button with two handed weapons (or just using a shield with 1 handed weapons), along with the block meter as opposed to just 'infinite blocking' does a lot to make combat more dynamic. I do have some worries with this making minibosses, which were already cheap (instead of fun) difficult before due to nearly one shotting you and taking forever to wittle down, even more difficult, but I haven't fought any yet. At least not fairly.

Why not fairly? Well that brings us to

Death Penalty:

The ore dropping is why I didn't fight the boss fairly. I had circumvented maybe half the planet picking up coal along the way (so that I could make torches, so that I could dig, but we'll get to this later). I had over 200 coal on me. I had around an hour of progress on me. There was no way I was retrieving that progress if I died. . . but yet, here was a boss, just asking to be killed.

So what did I do? Well, I wasn't going to try to fight him normally. Even normal enemies were much more dangerous and I couldn't afford to die. Guess I'd better build a dirt wall and fight through a hole!

It's not engaging gameplay, but the way the death penalty works it's what I feel I had to do. This came up multiple times really. I'd go digging later and need to come back up with my massive haul of copper and iron that I NEEDED for progression and would think about how deep I am, how long the way up is, and worry about falling and dying, or getting attacked in the wrong spot, and the urge was STRONG to type /ruinthefun and use the beam up, or even to just save and exit and come back in.

Which is to say, that if this is supposed to get people to travel back to the surface like they're supposed to, I worry it will have the opposite effect and incentivize saving and exiting even among people who didn't suicide port before.
Basically, people who suicide-teleport are doing it because they don't want to spend all the time slogging back to the surface. How much LESS, then, would they want to spend all that time slogging back, only to die, and lose 100% of their progress, have to start over, and have the veins they already dug out no longer there?

I'm guessing not at all.

In the end I never teleported from the core (unless you count on my second character where I was just fucking around with admin commands and guns), resisted the urge to save and quit, and even managed to get to the surface unscathed (well slightly scathed) on every mining run I went on. . .

But it's a mechanic in which I can find no upside. It punishes everyone, and in such a way as that they are pushed toward doing exactly what the developers seem to want to stop--using exploits to fast travel to their ship. Whether that's save and exit, downloading mods, or turning on the admin console, this mechanic does the opposite of what it is intended for.

And not only that, but it makes a first planet that, even without this, would be needlessly grindy, infinitely more so for the new player who doesn't yet grasp the combat mechanics. It breaks the learning curve of the game and forces new players into a losing proposition as soon as they begin increasing frustration, and iteration time between deaths. Neither of which is good from a design standpoint.

If the ores disappearing is a bug, and they will be persistent this will ameliorate this issue, but it will NOT fix it. It still makes something people want to avoid because they think it's unfun and time consuming MORE unfun and time consuming, while still leaving a, only slightly, more annoying way of skipping it open. Or, in other words, even with persistent ore drops you can reacquire, it will still incentivize save and exit more than the current system incentivizes suicide teleport.

Basically--drop this mechanic and find some new way to convince people not to suicide frag, OR just don't worry about a subset of your players doing something you disagree with.

But I think I mentioned up there that the opening game got grindy? Well that's because we've got some

Progression Changes:

Before progression was basically grab coal for ship, grab copper and iron for armor, move on. It still kinda is, but the way you do these things has changed considerably.

Ore was moved underground. I know this is kind of old news, but the way this affects gameplay might not be immediately obvious to anyone who hasn't played a nightly.

The net effect is slowing things down DRASTICALLY. Not just a little bit like you might normally think, oh I have to dig a bit now. Well, yes. You do. But that means you need torches. Hundreds and hundreds of torches so you can light your way down and leave a path back up--as that they're trying to keep you from suicide teleporting. This means you need hundreds and hundreds of coal.

Basically progression now involves landing on the first planet, setting up basecamp, and then doing a surface skim for coal and wood. Lots of it. So you explore about as much of the surface as you would have in the old system, though only on the first planet, and then you can start digging down.

But, I didn't mention something important. You also can't get armor or crafted weapons until after you have skimmed the surface. This makes the surface incredibly lethal compared to the game we're all used to playing. Those first couple of minutes of a new character where everything brutalizes you horribly until you can get yourself a new sword and/or a copper chestplate? That's now your first hour or so of play.

Better get good at combat, because you aren't going to want to be hit at all. Especially as that dying resets your progress to the last time you shoved your coal in a chest or the ship locker.

Copper and Iron don't seem to show up until underground stone layer, at least not in any respectable quantities, which means you actually have to get pretty deep, and, of course, it's never easy to find lots of ore when you need it (Murphy's law and all), so this is another couple hours before you get kitted out in gear.

But, once you are. . . there's no boss, and no real reason to stick around. All that scavenger's armor and the new sword and all? That's not going to see use on your starter planet. Not much, anyway. I mean you still need to dig to the core for core fragments, but you only need 20 of those and once you get to core level they're pretty common. . . and due to the lack of large caves with room for monsters to spawn, you probably won't fight much on the way down to them or back.

But that brings up another issue: Obsidian and Magmarock with a Copper Pickaxe. You don't need a pickaxe past copper to get core fragments, and, judging by pickaxe descriptions, I don't think you're really supposed to bother upgrading on the first planet, as by the time I got to the core I was rocking a platinum pick capable of gathering Aegisalt. I won't need aegisalt for ages.

But my alternative was digging through what felt like a mile of obsidian and magmarock to get to core fragments.

This needs to be fixed so that obsidian, magmarock, blaststone, and other, similar types of rock don't appear on starter planets if you're going to make people dig to the core. This kind of thing will, again, frustrate and chase away new players, who don't want to spend--well I'm sure I don't need to explain to anyone here how long it takes to mine those types of stone with a copper pickaxe.

If that's already planned, then, well, good, I guess?

Oh, and I almost forgot this, but the copper and iron being down below means no iron bow until you're almost done with the planet, which means getting alien meat is much more difficult.

Probably going to want to build a farm.

Now that all sounds like I'm being negative, but in some ways I like this. I actually felt like I needed to build something on the surface of the planet to progress. I needed a place to store my coal, and I needed a farm, and the ship wasn't going to have enough room for the farm, crafting tables, a bed, and everything else I needed--so I better build base camp.

I didn't make anything really impressive, but I felt making it had a purpose, which is something the building aspect of Starbound has horribly missed out since release. I'm not sure if all the negatives of the current method of progression are worth that positive.

All in all, I'd say it evens out, though I am worried that I'll have little to no reason to explore the surfaces of planets past the first, having already gained my necessary torch supply.

But there is one HUGELY positive aspect about the new progression, no sectors.
There are no longer different sectors with various threat level planets. In my first system, before I even had FTL, I had threat 2, 3, 6, and 10 planets, and maybe a couple of other threats I didn't look at. This, combined with everything up to diamond for pick progression existing on every threat level of planet means. . . Progression is no longer strictly linear!

Now I'm not sure how blueprint unlocks are going to work out currently, so there might still be some pretty linear aspects to it, but the promise is there for you to be able to skip entire tiers. If they add things you need for dealing with certain biomes or fun toys that aren't strictly necessary to middle tiers, you'll even have reason to go back to them.

What I'm saying here is that we're getting a lot of promise in this aspect and it looks really good.

I also like the way the quest system is shaping up.

So, to conclude:

Over all I feel like the system is going in the right direction, with much better combat mechanics, much better balance with ranged, more open progression, and even reasons to build (though we could use more of these), but this comes at the cost of making the beginning of the game much grindier, less friendly to new players, and making surfaces past tier 1 pretty lackluster as of now, as they're only good for finding toys, not for core progression.

Some tweaking of some of these systems (or removal in the case of ore dropping) could fix these, and even without them, over all, we're moving a very positive direction.

Playing the nightlies has made me excited, rather than apprehensive, about the release of the next beta stage.

 

Was a very good read, I really read people paragraph long thoughts. mostly because they usually are very biased and not very informative.You did a great job you basically wrote like a reporter (well a good one, not like most current "journalists").

It seems from what your saying is the combat is a little more complex but when it comes to early game it kind of returned to the first system when their was the armor and stab mechanic where most enemies would tear you apart in seconds unless you learn to fight.

 

The death penalty is a pretty hot topic in most peoples impressions of the nightly builds.
I wouldn't mind having my ores dropped on death as long as they would definitely still be there for me to pick up again when I returned.
Having them vanish before I get back to the spot I died in is very annoying though, at least, it was until I started carrying extra chests around with me and depositing my ores in those as I went along.

I agree with you about the feeling that it's not important to build a little home on the starting planet.
Being stuck on the one planet for a fairly long time at the start of the game definitely encourages you to settle in and build some kind of base.
I had a gold pickaxe by the time I'd collected my core fragments, but I was pretty close to getting a diamond one.
I don't mind that it encourages you to progress through those levels of pickaxe on the first planet. It's nice to feel that you're moving forward and getting better stuff.

 

errm caves appear to have been removed in the current nightly... a bit awkward to me.. I love exploring caves so it just feels wrong I hope tehy fix this.

Also, fall damage seems to have disapeares.. which is bad in my opinion.

 

krylo, dude, with all due respect, get a grip.

Dropping a well thought-out critique right now is pretty much the worst time you could do it.

Think relevance / time.

 

Some players dont like being forced to settle on any one planet though, this game is supposed to be for multiple playstyles (it basically a sandbox action/adventure rpg, and this will be more obvious as it progresses (different ways to play is always good))
Sometimes you just want to go planet hopping and exploring.

One plus for the new version is that it seems all enemies on any one planet are memorable now because of how combat has changed, but still some players like to planet hop and play nomadically)

 

Next time just build a wooden box and put all the ores/coal inside then fight him fair and square.

Anyway, unless they decide to scrap ore dropping from the negative feedback (i hope not, i realy like a real penalty for death even on the normal difficulty, they might consider a "easy" difficulty without penalty and before someone asks, no "dropping it myself if i die" just isent the same thing as a enforced penalty), they will at least change it so that the ore dosent despawn so fast = You will have the possibility to retrive it.

Personaly i hope they add another change that makes people respawn where they left if they quit (to prevent the save and exit exploit. You cant do much about admin commands and mods, but they can change it so theres no legit way to warp up).

Two realy good tips for spellunking in the nightlies:
1. Come prepeared with healing items (possibly a bed), food, torches, wooden platforms and rope (realy usefull on the return trip since you wont have a grapple yet, you could also use wooden platforms everywhere for a easier accend, but you need ALOOT if you do that).
2. Wooden boxes! A good tactic while spellunking, take a large number of boxes with you, every now and then you drop one down and deposit all your ores, then you recollect it all on the return trip (basicly a way to ensure that even if you die you wont lose everything).

You can still do that. You just have to wait one or two tech tiers.

 

Come the next update, we are Palin and Cleese is CF (And I know exactly who the cartoon Nazi fish are):

 

I enjoyed your feedback, coming from someone who hasn't played nightlies.

 

This is a test case with ironic ramifications. If the devs actually do listen to constructive criticism then they'll take the OP's post under serious consideration, attempt to make the game better by implementing his suggestions and thus delay the update even longer.

And then we know, exactly, who to blame for that delay.

Thanks krylo, you selfish SOB.

 

Not all that bad, and as @Untrustedlife has said a couple of times, it seems mob movement speed has been slowed in nightlies since I wrote this (well since the last one I played since I wrote this). Which I'm hoping is a bug somewhere or an unintended change they will move back.

But more similar to just--well play on stable but don't build any armor or weapons until you've fully circumvented your first planet, and then dug to its core. Any time you die doing that you'd have lost all your ore (unless you stored it in a chest in the interim). I mean there's improved AI and new mob abilities, but it's not unreasonably hard, and I only died like. . . twice? But I'm a pretty experienced player, and it's new players I worry about most.

I strongly suggest playing them for yourself. They're great fun, and not nearly as awful as the warnings might make you think. Just drag your player and universe folders out to some other location (mine are sitting on my desktop) and let the game replace them when you run it. That way you can just move them back later and still have your characters saved and not lose anything.

I mean, you can't really progress or anything, but it's still fun to mess around. I enjoy just spawning revolvers, personally.

 

Yea I hope they fix that too.