Feedback Jonesy Does Starbound

So, Starbound came out just as I finished my degree.



I've been waiting quite a few years to play it. Properly, I mean. I began playing the game as soon as it came out, but quickly stopped since that first build was pretty imbalanced. I did check things out again a year ago, and was satisfied that the game had improved. However, this is the first time I've spent a decent amount of time with a single character. I've now finished the main story, and put together some rough thoughts on the game.

Unmarked spoilers ahead.

1. Gameplay
Combat feels a lot better than it did in the earliest version, even though I've yet to try everything. I've mostly been using a broadsword, with a pistol / machine pistol combo (recently replaced by an assault rifle) and a grenade launcher as fallback weapons. Also picked up a staff with a secondary AoE healing effect, which I'm planning on trying out next time I'm playing with friends. The various weapons I've used all seem to work well enough, once I got the hang of them. I didn't really like using an axe, and I haven't bothered with hammers, spears or throwable weapons.

Enemies are a bit annoying for my taste. Spawn rates are too high, meaning that traveling anywhere is an ongoing battle.



It's even worse on high-level planets, which require a steady stream of healing items. The variety isn't that great either, as there's too heavy a reliance on pre-made mobs that appear over and over. And this is all the while the game still suffers from the old problem of creatures tending to be aggressive when they look harmless (and vice versa). Some sort of IFF system would be a welcome addition.

The colony building mechanic isn't something I'd used in earlier versions, but I came to like it pretty quickly. It's not the deepest system, but at the same time it lets you get colonists in with minimal fuss to reap the rewards all the sooner. The quests they and other NPCs vary. I don't mind most of the 'bring me these items' and 'take this item to this person' quests, but not so much the 'build a room with certain objects' (largely because it's not always clear what objects qualify), 'place this object in my room' (because it almost always won't fit), 'catch me this monster' (since the capture pod didn't work when I tried it) and the typical escort quests. Still, I'm quite pleased with the settlements I have made.



While I'm not playing on Survival (and have no plans to), I love farming. So many crops to find and recipes to unlock... I haven't played Stardew Valley yet, but this has made me almost scared to. The best part is it fits into the other mechanics. Besides having to eat on Survival mode, I can sell the food I've grown and prepared for pixels, or eat it to provide a buff during gameplay. I'm curious to see if I can finish the entire game as a farmer. Needing to find seeds out on planets and completing missions to unlock outpost stores and wares (particularly expanding Ursa Miners' inventory) might prove a problem, but it doesn't appear impossible.

In a similar vein, huge props for being able to finish the game through exploration. For some reason I've been reluctant to go spelunking, though I might give it another go sometime now that I've finished the main story. But I've been able to get most of my ore and weapons from dungeons and villages while purchasing armor from merchants. The only time I really started crafting my own gear was when it came to the top-tier stuff.

Speaking of gear, I'm a bit disappointed that there's no passive abilities for different sets of racial armor. I don't know why that was ditched, but it shouldn't have been. I respect not wanting to tie racial abilities to race to exclude people from both having both the abilities and race they want, but come on. Armor is readily available from every other merchant. I've been using armor from other races for most of the game, since it was actually easier to acquire than the armor of my own race until the very end. Tie it in with the cosmetic armor (good addition, by the way) and it's a non-issue. Wear what gives you good stats and bonuses, and wear something else over the top if you don't like the look of it.

2. Story
I actually quite like the idea of the Protectorate. Original or not, an organization fostering cooperation between races holds a lot of significance in the setting, considering that the other races are governed by a warlike theocracy, an Orwellian dictatorship, a simulated feudal system, Andrew Ryan's Japanese understudy, tribal warlords and... I forgot whatever it is the Novakid are doing. The Protectorate is actually doing something that doesn't involve internal squabbles, oppressing the population, sacrificing people or drinking tea underwater. Plus, being a part of the organization justifies much of what the player will be doing, particularly cooperating with multiple races by doing quests and establishing colonies.



However, that's not to say I dislike the old racial starting stories. If anything, I'd be interested in seeing some sort of hybrid. The prologue, providing an introduction to gameplay, would consist of fleeing one's homeworld (and I don't just mean spawning in your ship and reading about it in a codex) with the assistance of a Protector. They would then take you to Protectorate space, where at their encouraging you learn to be a protector and are trained in the use of the MM. The Ruin rocks up as you graduate, and off you go. I'm considering a fanfic that would feature something similar, but that's not a short-term project.

But I digress. The missions themselves are enjoyable enough, but a bit too formulaic despite some of them changing things up. The wave-defense in the Glitch mission is particularly refreshing, despite a few issues with enemy numbers and variety. I'm also disappointed that the Apex mission didn't feature a real-time running battle above ground that would be somewhat dynamically affected by my actions in the tunnels. I just have to flick some switches and talk to Lana, before boss fight number whatever of whatever.

Speaking of the Apex mission, I'd like to talk about Big Ape and how his boss fight is a missed opportunity for gameplay variety. There's an old episode of JonTron that discussed bad boss fights, with the top offender being how the Joker is featured as the final boss of Arkham Asylum. What makes the Joker dangerous? He's a deranged comedian with a passion for messing with peoples' heads. How do you make a boss fight out of him? Have him take a serum and turn into The Incredible Hulk With The Serial Numbers Filed Off. I can't help but notice the similarities to Big Ape and how his boss fight is handled. We're dealing with Big Brother here. He's all about propaganda, surveillance, manipulation and, where necessary, crushing resistance. It's not even clear if he exists up until the mission. Seeing him reduced to a holographic head that attacks... a bit of a waste. What about if we leveraged the rebel attack as a distraction and proceeded to sneak through the mansion by using the MM to sabotage the security systems or turn them to our advantage, climaxing in breaking down the door to discover that Big Ape is either a weak old man or the fictional face for a group of faceless leaders? I don't know, just something more thematically appropriate and more interesting gameplay-wise than just the latest boss fight in a chain. Something more along the lines of fighting a shadowy figure from the shadows, turning his own devices against him.

Anyway, the various characters you pick up are good. They have their own personalities, even if we get far too little a chance to actually see more of them. They really need to have something to say to me after every story mission, a la Mass Effect. Even after defeating the Ruin, nobody changed their dialogue to reflect the fact that I had just come back from the dead after saving the universe from an eldritch abomination. And I can't even romance Lana.



If I may channel my inner Mister Plinkett; the main issue I have with the story is that there's not enough of an emotional connection. I'm saving the galaxy, but it's not exactly meeting me halfway. Nobody comments on the things I've been doing. Important characters are introduced well enough, but they don't really do anything beyond that. A couple give you quests, and Esther gives you her journal, but that's about it. It was awesome when Lana and Nuru rocked up in the Glitch mission, since it felt like they were on my team and doing more than just chilling at the outpost and drinking Occumelonade. So, I think there should be more interplay between the different characters in that regard. And for some environmental storytelling, maybe even have the area in and around the outpost change as quests are completed, with Apex rebels and Grounded warriors camped out next to human refugees and Floran hunters. Show the galaxy slowly coming together for a final battle as the core team forms to face the eldritch threat. Then, instead of having just the player mucking around on the final planet, have a whole army of new Protectors. It's supposed to be a climax, after all! Make it feel climactic!



3. Planets and Environments
I really enjoyed the variety of planets and biomes on offer. I particularly like the post-apocalyptic biome found in higher-level systems, since it gives off something of a 'Mad Max meets Firefly' vibe. Savannahs too. Fennerox adorable. Love them. There was also a rather nice spot on a forest world where I set up a colony (pictured earlier) on the border between a forest and a swamp, which is nice and atmospheric. In fact, I'd go as far as to say the atmosphere of most biomes has been handled well, thanks to the visuals and music. The final mission was possibly the only exception, and it felt pretty underwhelming overall.

Pre-generated settlements and dungeons are good, with some being particularly well-designed. The Avian villages, of all things, stood out for making buildings look bigger than what you can access. But the differences between instances of these locations seem to be minuscule. I'll happily delve into them for the loot, but I don't find myself bookmarking any more than one instance of a given kind of settlement.

The variety between different instances of the same biome are also good enough, but nothing to write home about. I don't really like having certain planet types tied to system difficulty, but it did give me more encouragement to progress. Except the toxic and magma planets, which I've yet to really get into because poison and lava.

4. Music
Not much to say. Despite one or two hiccups, I thought it was handled very well across the board.

5. Performance
A few bouts of lag, but nothing catastrophic. My laptop did shut off from overheating during an extended sitting, but miraculously no data loss occurred. Using a cooling pad has solved the issue.

6. Multiplayer
I really like the Steam multiplayer integration, but there absolutely needs to be some sort of moderation of who can join your game. Just a simple "Would you like to let such-and-such join your game?" prompt would be nice. Otherwise, I can see the system being abused. Become someone's friend, join their game, grief them, leave.

There also needs to be some sort of protection for ships, so that people don't go plundering them. Probably not an issue with friends (the worst I've had is someone put a moderate stack of wastepaper in my bin, but that's what it was there for anyway), but I imagine public servers would be a nightmare.

7. Overall Impressions
It's been said that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and that's definitely the case here. The individual mechanics and features run the gamut from disappointing to acceptable to fantastic, but the game holds up pretty well overall. For all its flaws, I've enjoyed my time with it, and there are still plenty of things left for me to do. Hell, the very reason I've even made this thread is because I want it to be the best it can.

In particular, I'm eager to see what happens with post-1.0 updates. There are plenty of problems that need to be addressed in order for the game to meet its full potential, and there's opportunity to do it now that the game's been released. Some of it, like the story, might be rather difficult to address now that the game is 'finished'. But a lot of the others are absolutely doable. And as Chucklefish is already hard at work fixing bugs, I'm cautiously optimistic that the game will continue to improve once they move onto content updates.

I think that about does it for now. I know I've not covered every aspect of the game, but that was just what really stood out to me during my playthrough up until finishing the final boss. I'll definitely be continuing on with it, since there's still so much to explore. So, until next time, thanks for reading!

15/10/16 - Update!

It's been a while, but today I started playing again to work on my largest building project yet; an arcology. I'm currently aiming for a large building with an emphasis on verticality, housing about 10 colonists. So far so good, but working on it makes me want to comment on a couple of things which have impacted my experience for better or worse.

1. The Pixel Printer
I hadn't unlocked this when I first made my feedback, but sweet mother of God; I love it. It is unbelievably handy being able to purchase little decorative items that I've scanned instead of scouring the galaxy for a potted plant or wooden cabinet. Good thing I have been scanning compulsively just to see those comments, meaning I've a veritable library of printable items. Saved me so much headache, and I'm glad I found it. Even if I'd have preferred to unlock it closer to the midgame, but that's a minor gripe.

2. The Joys of Cheating
Let's not beat about the bush; I'm prepared to use cheats if it means improving my experience with a game. I've /admin'd my way through more than one boss fight in Starbound, but only now did I discover something gamechanging; /spawnitem.

Finally, I can focus on construction without messing about with logistics. Gone are the days of disassembling entire Apex labs just for some futuristic furniture and blocks. Never again will I need to grind high-level ores just to make a sprinkler. No more do I need to comb the desert for the one type of sand used to make glass.



Best of all, the pixel printer also benefits from using cheats, as it seems to unlock all the recipes. Every good arcology needs a bar, so I simply printed out some saloon furniture despite never finding a saloon myself. Granted, that is something of a drawback since it cheapens exploration, but I do feel as if I've already seen everything else there is to see in regards to structures. At least, for the time being. I'm hoping future updates will change that.

Still, while I understand not everyone enjoys cheating, I'm really glad they're there if we want them.

3. Performance, Or Lack Thereof
Impressively, things have managed to get severely worse on this front. The overheating issue is now gone, thanks to the removal of the dust and cat hair from my laptop's exhaust. But I've gone from occasional and minor lag to something more serious. Using the pixel printer causes increasingly long bouts of lag, up to and including the program not responding for a time and monopolizing memory all the while.

Now, at first I thought this was a byproduct of using cheats to unlock all the printer recipes. That would make sense, as normal gameplay doesn't produce the same level lag. But quitting the game does, which isn't a good sign. Don't know if it's something I've done of if there's some sort of memory leak, but it didn't used to do this back when I started playing 1.0. Whatever the cause is, I'm not impressed.

That's it for now. If anything stands out in the next major update, I'll see about making another amendment. Until then, ciao.

 

I'll be sure to look into it at some point.

 

I don't want to get addicted.

The lack of variety was something else I noticed. In fact, I got the impression that touch-damage was added to increase the challenge and make up for the lack of interesting attacks. That's not to say there aren't any interesting mobs; the teleporting dudes on Dark planets / biomes stood out, and I like how I can interrupt their attack. But I wish I could say that about more of them.

I kind of understand removing the SAILs now that you start in a Protectorate ship (still wouldn't have done it myself, though), but everything else seems really unnecessary. And in thinking about the fanfic I mentioned, I'd like to do something like you say; instead of one quest per race, have a storyline per race. Have it 'solve' their problem/s to some degree, so that they can get behind you in preparation for the final battle.

I didn't even know about the Caretaker, so I can't really comment. But Asra was a waste, yes. I can still see her character working, but it'd need an actual arch. Upon seeing the other races unite to help humanity against the very thing that very nearly destroyed it (as the lore outright states the majority of the human population lived on Earth), she could pull a heel-face-turn and join you. Then have an emotional reunion with Esther, or die heroically.

Speaking of Earth, we have something of an elephant in the room with the majority of humanity being dead or displaced. The largest colony is mentioned to be something the size of a town. Humanity is going to have to do some serious rebuilding in order to maintain a stable and unified population. But that's not brought up at all.

I did notice that a bit. The post-apocalyptic biome looks rather odd on snowy planets.

Something I'd like to see are some Outpost-like city hubs for each race. Something that would act as a staging point for story quests relating to said race, and give an opportunity to see how your actions change their society. But generated cities and such also sound good.

I'll have to keep an ear out for this next time I play. Grouping music by biome does sound reasonable enough.

 

I assumed that given they're using ships from at least seven different races, they'd need to have some level of standardization when it comes to their computing and communications systems. But now that I think of it, there's no reason why they couldn't use different avatars for SAIL.

Reminds me of Dragon Age: Origins. You're one of the two last Grey Wardens in Fereldon, fighting to stop the Darkspawn. Except, there are plenty of other Wardens in other parts of the world; hell, new characters in the Awakening DLC are Orlaisian reinforcements. Apparently one codex entry outright states that if you fail it won't spell the end of the world, since the rest of the Wardens will almost certainly succeed, albeit too late to save Fereldon. That really stood out to me as a nice subversion of the usual "You're the only one left! You have to save the world!" plot, and it's the sort of situation needed here. You couldn't save Earth, but the Protectorate is still active thanks to the personnel stationed elsewhere. The player just happens to be the only one on-hand and not in the middle of dealing with existing crises. In fact, I like to imagine that even if the Protectors re-organized, most would be busy dealing with the humanitarian fallout. That's why I suggested human refugees camping at the Outpost.

Again, I'll have to keep an ear out. Sometimes I don't really notice soundtracks as much as I'd like to because I'm busy with the gameplay. Starbound is a particularly bad offender during exploration, since getting anywhere is a running battle. Plus, I tend not to return to dungeons once I've cleared them. Except Apex labs, which I bookmark so I can dismantle them for blocks.

 

I particularly hate the little rock monsters. Either I'm able to kill them in a hit or two hits, or they turn invulnerable and force me to wait. Bonus points for still being able to inflict touch damage while curled up.

 

So, I've started doing Koichi's quests, and I've noticed that he seems to think very highly of Nuru. In the end credits, there's an image of the two of them having dinner.

This is the kind of thing I want to see more of. There's some kind of relationship going on (be it a friendship, one-sided crush or honest-to-God romance) between two people whose species have had a conflict that shaped Hylotl society. Surely that would have implications.