Game needs more variety when it comes to PvE content

Discussion in 'Other' started by Teylor, Dec 15, 2016.

  1. Teylor

    Teylor Orbital Explorer

    Hello everyone,

    Let me first tell you, that this is going to be a TL;DR post and that I really love Starbound so far. That's why I'm putting alot of thoughts and effort into this post. I still hope you find it interesting enough to read it until the end and discuss what I have written here.

    About me: I'm a huge sandbox fan, especially when it comes to 2D sandbox games. Obviously, my most played 2D sandbox game yet is Terraria (600h+). I also played Darkout, Edge of Space and Windforge a little bit, but they kinda felt incomplete compared to Terraria or Starbound, probably due them being early access.

    But Terraria and Starbound are finished products and since both are 2D sandbox games, they can be compared to some deegree.

    Let me start by telling you what I liked about Terraria and what it makes so special (at least for me):

    Good things about Terraria!

    Character Progression:


    In Terraria, you start with literally nothing. You have some copper tools and you start to dig. Obviously, your main goal is to find better ores to get some decend equipment and better pickaxes. But what is really well done in Terraria is the fact, that when you search for ores, you start finding chests. Besides the regular loot like coins and potions you find some gear. But not the weapons are the most important things at the start: It is the accessories that provide you more mobility. Double Jump, Sprint, Higher Jump, No Falldamage, Gliding, Jet Pack, Wings. And the best thing is, that you need most of those abilities to seriously fight monsters (especially in expert mode). The game provides you with the option to combine certain accessories, so you can have multiple mobility upgrades for the price of just one accessory slot, giving you more options to build your own character with other accessories that provide you more damage or more utility (for example: doubled invulnerable time when hit).

    Equipment:

    Terraria has tons of it. And what's so special about this is, that it is not achieved by random numbers/abilities that get generically put together. Furthermore, every weapon kinda feels unique in it's own and the armors have different stats and provide different effects + set bonuses. This allows many different playstyles, for example:

    • Melee: Later equipment for melee doesn't just provide more melee damage or increased melee attack speed, they also come with heavily increased defense to justify the risk in going close combat.
    • Ranged: Sets for ranged classes provide mediocre defense and also increase you damage/fire rite and also give you a chance to not consume ammunition.
    • Magic: Equipmentsets for spell-users provide you a better mana regeneration rate and obviously more damage, but since their high damage output, they have the lowest defense from all classes
    • Summons: Summons were a new addition in one of the Terraria updates and since then they added alot of sets for summoners. They provide low defense (compareable to magic sets) and increase the number of minions and their damage.
    As you can see, the equipment offers playstyles. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are also sets with unique features like going stealth when standing still and doing 50% more damage with the first attack made when doing it out of stealth.

    PvE Content:

    Terraria has a heavy PvE focus, probably the most out of all 2D sandbox games out there. But that's what makes Terraria so incredible good. When you start Terraria, you will rarely see one or two green slimes at once. They deal quite some damage to you right a the start, cause you have no defense and health regenration at all. Potions are rare and the only good way to recover is a fire camp. So the game kinda forces you to build a small hut in order to keep you safe from slimes. If you dont do so, night will turn in soon and you get surely killed by zombies at night. Speaking of zombies: The game changes constantly. If it is night, zombies and flying eyes come at you, if it is raining, angry clouds and flying fish chase you and ofc this also depends on the biome you are in. You are constantly challanged by the environment, especially once you reached hard-mode. You are never really safe and the developers did alot so that you never feel really safe. You think walls make you safe? Then worms and ghosts will come at you. Being fast is the best defense? There are enough enemies that are either faster then you, or have very accurate ranged attacks.

    The point is: Terraria always gives you the feeling the world is kinda alive and everything you do is to cope with the threats of that world. For example, you're not just building a sweet home for you, you do so in order to protect yourself from most harm. And you really start thinking about how to make it more safe (like building traps for monsters at night). Building isn't just esthetic, it is part of the game, part of the progression and is really well integrated into the game.


    What has this to do with Starbound?

    That is a good question. Starbound isn't Terraria and by no means I'm trying to make Starbound into Terraria 2. But I'm telling you this so you understand what made me play Terraria 600 hours. I tell you, because this is a post about long time motivation. And Starbound has extremely much potential, even more then Terraria because of the planet system. It can integrate mechanics used by Terraria without abandoning the current gameplay style. Let me get to the above mentioned points what I like about Terraria, but now I also consider Starbound in comparison to that:

    Character Progession:

    In Starbound, you also start off with nothing and you have to find some things in order to get to the outpost. But once you have done so, you get your first mobility skills quite fast. Double Jump, Slide and Ball-transformation. Getting those early isn't bad, but I kinda was expecting that the tech-system is a little bit deeper. That it really provides me with real upgrades. That it "forces" me to get better materials or tech-modules to further improve(!) my mobility. But the thing is: You kinda get the "best" upgrades right from the start:

    • Head Techs: You get the Ball Tech and that sufficient for most situations. The only real upgrade from that is the spike ball, because it really helps you. The others are only nice to have, but not worth the tech cards
    • Body Techs: You get Dash, which is really good since it only has 0.8s cooldown. Air Dash is a real upgrade, since it offers the ground dash + air dash and blink can be useful in some situations, but dash is more practical. Sprint is nice for exploring, but otherwise not a real gamechanger
    • Leg Techs: You get double jump, which makes exploring and fighting alot easier. And the other techs? Wall jump is inferior, rocket not really practical in most situations. Only Multi-juzmp is nice since it gives alot control. But all in all double jump is a really big game changer right from the start and there are no real upgrades to it.
    You could easily play and finish the game without unlocking any of the sidegrades, since the starter techs are sufficient as they are. Not just sufficient, in some ways also more useful/practical. It's kinda disappointed when you realize, that you got the "Best" stuff right from the start. In camparisson to that, in Terraria you still get lots of better mobility upgrades even in late-game.

    Equipment:

    The next thing is the equipment. The problem with starbound is, you get tons of equipment through looting chests/boxes. It feels like every planet has it's own illegal weapon dealer who stores his stuff in deep holes. I thought "Ok, probably I'm just lucky or I can definitely forge much better items once I have an anvil etc.". But guess what? That's sadly not the case. All the craftable stuff is way inferior to the items I have found so far. You have the option to upgrade unique items, which probably ARE better, but to get them is quite hard, since you need the unique item and the blueprint for the upgrade. This is something Terraria did much better. Terraria offers you both ways: Some weapons can only be dropped by enemies and other weapons can be forged. The forged weapons are not inferior to the found ones, they are just different most of the time. Also you had the option to upgrade found or forged weapons to much stronger unique versions. For example: There is a poison stuff that is dropped by spiders, which can then be upgraded to a much stronger version if you have the items for that. Another example: You can craft a legendary sword if you have 4 different swords (3 can be crafted, 1 must be found). Crafting is a really big factor when you want to have some good equipment for your character. In Starbound, crafting can be pretty much ignored in terms of equipment. You find some really good stuff by just buying a good armor from random vendors (they most often sell you stuff that is above the tier you can craft) and weapons, like I have said, can be found. So why bothering getting the replicator and it's upgrade modules? Another thing is, the weapons feel to generic. Besides the uniques (which are often not as strong as regular weapons) the weapons often feels quite the same and their skills are more or less randomized.

    And then there's the balancing. In Terraria, like mentioned, melee fighters have superior damage and defense, but they will take more damage since they need to go in. In Starbound however, ranged attacks are everything. I currently use a rocket launcher with homing missiles, which lets me kill enemies from a safe distance easily and still do more damage then every two hander ever would (+ status effects). Another weapon I use is the ice staff that lets me control an ice bolt. That thing deals extremely much damage and slows enemies and most of the enemies dont even see me when they die. On the other side we have melee weapons, which deal like 5 damage per hit with a firerate of 3-4, while my rocket launcher deals 50 damage with a fire rate of 0.8, ranged attack and homing. And since there aren't any other benefits for melee fighters like more defense or so, why should I go melee? You could argue because it's fun, but sadly there are enemies with rocket launchers that can one-shot you (was part of a quest). Since then I just use ranged attacks and I'm literally invulnerable.

    PvE Content:

    This is the biggest "problem" I have with Starbound. It's not at all challanging when it comes to PvE. You go to a planet and you have your standard enemies who all show the same behavior. Since the weapons are unbalanced and ranged is op, there is no challange. Like I have said, Terraria throws many threats at you, depending on the day time, weather and biome you're in. You should have a decend building and multiple types of weapons to deal with most situations. Close combat is really useful in Terraria and ranged is safe, but many times not so useful when you're underground in close rooms.

    Those are the things I suggest and would like to see ingame one day!

    Don't get me wrong. I'm having alot of fun with Starbound. And I'm not really complaing here, because the game is great, especially if you dont compare it with Terraria, which is longer in development and received alot more updates since release obviously. I'm just pointing some issues (at least for me they are issues) that should or at least could be taken care of in future updates. I suggest the following things, becaue Starbound has extremely much potential! Here I go:
    • Better progression: I'm ok with giving players double jump/dash/ball right from the start, but you should give the tech system more depth. Instead of sidegrades, give the player the option to really upgrade the mobility. This still can come with choices. Let me give you and example: You have the dash with 0.8 cooldown. You can now upgrade this to air-dash or blink-dash. The first one lets you dahs in air, the second one lets you blink (and no cooldown increasement). After that, you can upgrade again and choose between "cooldown reduced by 50%" or "dash range increased by 50%" and you can do that for both dashes. And instead of just using techs, also demand materials for the upgrades! Things like batteries, silicon board and stuff which must be found by killing enemies (the game can give you hints where to find these monsters). This way, the player must really search for ingredients instead of just tech cards, which lets you unlock certain things only in late-game
    • Balance equipment: You should adapt the approach from Terraria when it comes to specialisation through equipment. A ranged/magic fighter should have disadvantages at close combat, while a melee should try to get close, otherwise he is ineffective. There should be different armor types that are designed for close, ranged and magic combat, each providing bonuses for the class, but lacking in certain other areas (melee = no range, ranged = less defense)
    • More unique weapons: I dont have problems when you keep the generic weapons (it's realistic that they exist), but I would like to see many more unique weapons, where some can be dropped and others can be crafted. They have unique stats, unique abilities and unique appearance. It's always good to have equipment that doesn't feel to generic.
    • Balance Skills: To be honest: Some skills are very useless, while others are completely broken. I'm not going into detail, but I think it should be clear that some skills need some rework, especially stat-wise.
    • PvE Improvements: For me, this is the most important suggestion. Similiar to Terraria, I would love to see more changes on single planets. I want to be on a planet and it should feel alive, constantly changing. I do however understand, that some people may not like this. So my suggestion is, that you add a new type of planet into the game, that warns you in the description with a text like "Warning: My bioscans show that life on this planet constantly changes depending on environmental changes and that there may be very dangerous enemies deep underground". On those planets, different enemies come out at night or when the weather changes. Also, there are enemies at the bottom of a planet (close to the lava pool), similiar to the hell in Terraria. Right now, there are no enemies at all in the hell, which makes it to easy to farm rare ores there.
    • PvE Improvements 2: Another suggestion that goes in line with pve improvements is, that enemies on planets can get stronger over time, increasing the risk level or that even planets themselves can change, which comes along with stronger enemies. This way, even the starter planet can get quite challanging or even change. Ofc this can be countered by some high tech devices. For example: If you build a "environmental stabilizer", it would prevent any changes of the planet or the strength of enemies. This is especially useful for players who wouldnt like such changes
    • Refining Quests: I like the fact that this game offers quests. This is something that Terraria doesnt have and I hope that Terraria will have this any time (fishing quests are nice, but not everyone likes fishing). But I would like to see less quests in Starbound. Sometimes I get into a village and like 10 people offer me a quest. Since those quests are absolutely generic, they get boring really fast, especially if the guy in question wants you to travel half of the map on a big planet to rescue something and then lose the rescued person because she constantly walks into enemies. Also, the rewards are kinda useless. Why should I bother doing a quest that may take up to 10-15 minutes for just 50 pixels? I get more through selling farmed crops. And the mystery bag most often contains worse things then any crate you find on the way. So less quests, but more depth to them would greatly improve the gameplay experience.

    That's all for now. If I have more suggestion, I add them here. Like I have said: This is not meant as negative critique. It's just good-meant feedback from a new player who wishes that the starbound team considers my thoughts in future updates, making the game better for everyone. :)


    Greetings,

    Teylor
     
    Sylxeria, Witch Cat and Zanary like this.
  2. Witch Cat

    Witch Cat Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    This is a really in-depth analysis and I do not regret reading through the whole thing. You raise a bunch of good points which I can't argue against. It was definitely worth a read through.
     

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