Feedback [Nightly] The story line saps some fun from it all

I got to playing a little bit of the nightly with the fix mod that allows progression after a week of playing and progressing through the stable version and i have to say that this new story chain makes the game feel much more hollow, and i haven't been that interested by it vs the opening of the current version.

Previously it's been very open- your character is anyone and shaped very much by what you're doing and want them to be, off doing whatever you think they should be. In previous versions almost every character was from some outcast of their main societal body as minor backstory but generally off in free roam of the universe.
A hylotl who's trying to construct a critter zoo aboard their ship? Sure! A Floran off to explore the universe and hunt the most dangerous game? Yep!

But now it's very much a cookie cutter "You were a protectorate graduate on earth. You are now doing these quests." regardless of species or intention going in. It's pretty disheartening, and doesn't really even fit with some species like floran? Using the inspection mode and having this educated space police graduate talk about how their ship is magic is pretty jarring at best.

For a sandbox game, all the railroading of plot and character (As well as the general toning down of rng features in general as of late) make it not feel as much like one.

This is all from the standpoint of not having gone through very much of the story as of yet, and i know this is the direction game design is pointed towards now with very little being able to change that, but i thought i'd just write up my thoughts/disappointment with it

 

I've not minded the story all that much.

You have to recall... "A sandbox with a story" WAS how they announced this game from day 1. A lot of the story always did imply a greater threat out there for everyone, it just didn't take much shape yet(heck, the destruction of Earth itself was there ever since Day One and would have indeed likely been meant to have indeed a greater standing in the story even in previous plans thanks to the existence of the first instances of tentacle biomes who were basically removed because "tentacles that are just reskinned trees that drop wood" really didn't do them justice).

Also descriptions were always meant to imply a lot of the characters to be on the sillier end of thing as with the general game despite the serious plot.

The "rail roading" was fine on my end. If anything the new structure of things I felt it left me much more freedom than the old series of countless miniquests of previous versions where you couldn't even explore given worlds without completing the appropriate quest for it.

Sure there's a linear series of quest to complete.... but at least they don't roadblock me in the path among the stars that I -want- to take when it comes to finding and upgrading gear for exploration.

As a result, I can still very much continue to build a private zoo as an aside since now the quest even encourage me to go far and wide across the stars to unlock the next steps. Who says I -can't- pick up the occasional stray monster to tie to a tether post in my ship while traveling to one planet or another on the guise of searching for clue? (plus, I can even invoke the excuse of "Who knows which planet might be next after Earth? We best start to keep live examples of various lifeforms for DNA data conservation if other planets are to go the way of Earth!" if I want immersion to justify something like that)

 

What gets to me is the way the story/main quest is structured.

Scan some decorations, do a dungeon. Repeat 4 times. Open the gate and [not available in nightly]. I'm sure that when it releases and all the lore books (now PGIs) are available, it would make it a bit more interesting. But as it is, relying on a bunch of text to make it more interesting is not the best approach. I'd much rather experience some things, it IS a game after all - albeit a sandbox.

My problem with the game's flow is that it's kinda bland. And unless whatever's behind the gate acts like a Wall of Flesh, ushering in all new monstrosities and gear, it's kinda meh.

That, along with the fact that the fantastic structures are inhabited by painfully obvious RNG scripts (I won't dignify them with the term AI).

I feel that, if Starbound - with it's myriad of races and architecture - were a proper RPG, I might enjoy it much more. As it is, the main quest is 5 dungeons, and the settler quests are just RNG fetch/kill quests without any real narrative or reason to them.

Not to mention there's only 7 armors in the game, of which 3 are stat side-grades, and all the rest race-specific are re-skins; and all found/dropped armor is always stat-less cosmetic stuff as well... I don't know, the game just seems like it's made for social-minded people to screw around in. I'll give it a token play-through when it's launched, but I'm not holding my breath or anything.

 

I could not disagree more. I love the story and the bossfights we can see so far not to mention that glorious music. They said from the very start of the project that they had a story planned for it. They never promised this completely open world game without any kind of direction at all.

 

The problem with that is that it feels much more like an RPG in a sandbox setting, each planet feels less like a unique world and more a preset biome full of preset biome-related monsters and one or two randomly generated creatures that seem way out of place alongside the hand crafted beasts. The storytelling has taken precedence over the sandbox qualities in ways that i'm not a huge fan of

You can do that, but it's still very limited? You're a singular cookie cutter character with an intended goal and a single recourse for doing that, rather than some person who's history is whatever and they're doing whatever out in the stars for whatever reason- Less a blank slate for the player to have fun with and more a preset character going on a handcrafted journey through some random elements

Yep and they're all great- But while before they fit with what you are (i.e some random floran who of course wouldn't know how a ship works, or would want to stab everything) now they just seem strange in light of you being a graduate of the discount starfleet that's around. You start in weird tribal clothes that i suppose are supposed to be your pyjamas, and are immediately supposed to dump them and put on a set uniform instead and given an item that's supposed to be sentimental for your character.

I imagine that format of progression is either a WIP or placeholder because it's... really neither fun nor engaging? It feels unfinished to be darting around scanning decor as a form of progression, especially considering the most rewarding part of getting codex/lore information previously was to find it in appropriate dungeons/areas rather than that system

You're pushing to the extreme there though, i'm not anti-story, I just don't like the sudden change to being told that my character -whatever i make them- is discount starfleet graduate who has to go off save the universe from the ~terrible evil~ instilling a storytelling sense of urgency into a very much open world game with no other direction that fits about as well as fallout 4's "You have to find your son RIGHT NOW, but also here's half a dozen misc quests and you can also build a settlement"

 

I think i an also less happy with everyone being in the protectorate. I was hoping for more of an intricate plot between the races, i think.

It wouldn't require an entire game plot built around every race, the game could largely floor the same plot, but give each species it's own intro, and a little more /different experience when dealing with the part of the game dealing with the character's race (like Dragon Age,) they could still end with the thing behind the wall.


Even better would have been something like an old imported game I played on a a SNES a good while ago called Saiken Densetsu 3, the direct sequel to The Secret Of Mana. The game had 6 characters to play, each from their own side of any of 3 conflicts in the game. Every one of these conflicts is being instigated by one of three big bads. Every character had it's small intro about why he/she is separated from the city of origin, then the explain part of the game where the character takes part in (but without resolving,) the world drama, experiencing the parts involving the character's own side of it's conflict differently than other characters. During the explain, the whereabouts of a super sword of legend is discovered, and every leader of every nation simultaneously hours after it. As I remember it, the leader of the nation the player belongs to wins and arrives at the sword, only to be murdered by the related big bad, who becomes the end game target. The rest of the game is finding out what to kill and where to go to get to the big bad, then killing things and going to the end.

Every character played played the same large plot, followed the story in the same pattern, but the smaller details throughout the game made every character feel unique to each other. You could replay the game, and feel like you were getting a different experience, and not just a procedurally random environment kind of different.

I don't know how much being protectorate matters past the intro, if you wanted to ignore that part then the character creator does have the Skip Intro button, you'll start the game in your ship like you're used to.

 

A lot of the missions though WILL tie into areas specific to each races. Especially the Avian's and Apex's missions which ties figures dating back to pretty much all of the original lore.

Also recall the core engine is a sandbox, I feel that does limit what is possible in term of story variations right now. I'm actually surprised we already have what we did get with starbound. Especially since similar sandbox games are only 5-8 years old in term of being a genre(unlike jRPGs and all who are now close to 30 years old of experience in implementing stories within more or less fixed, even when capable of variable events and plots, universe). In term of experimenting with adding more formals stories to sandboxes, Starbound and others of it's "generation" are just starting to dip their toes into the waters of what's possible(in a sandbox) and how to get it done.

 

The stories going fine as far as iv'e seen, i think this is just a love it/hate it, opinion thing. Keep up the good work Chucklefish

 

But will it tie in based on player race, or just give you information on that species? They are really two completely different things

Not really? The limit for the story variation is entirely up to the devs i.e compare even the current version to the story events in the nightly build, or the current version to the earlier versions with quests like "build the boss robot to unlock the next sector map" people make stories in sandboxes all the time, it's not new ground or anything for gaming as a whole

Yeah that's what i would much rather, a basic species-based intro following along the same plot from that point (Or even the option of turning on the protectorate intro instead, if you'd rather!)

Skipping the intro doesn't skip all the story tie in with you being part of the protectorate unfortunately, it just skips the intro scene and dumps you onto your ship. It's more like skipping the tutorial than it is ignoring that part of the story

 

It's a $15 game... With a $15 story. Fallout is a $60 game, with a $60 story. Let's keep our expectations realistic. :/

 

No offence but that is an awful analogy, you're limiting the games you'll enjoy with a preconceived thought like that.

 

I would say that the new story is actually far less restrictive than it was originally.

At first, you had backstory forced onto you. You're Floran? Well, you must be after a honorable hunt. You're Apex? Well, you must be an escaped rebel. You're Avian? Well, you must be an escaped Grounded. You're Glitch? Well, you must have been separated and persecuted. No matter how and who you wanted to play, you had to be an outcast. It always made me extremely uncomfortable. Compared to that, being a member of a single organization that's just tasked with creating settlements, without specifying your character's motivations to join them is much simpler and offers much more freedom.

Even then, the only mission you really have to do is the Erchius Mining Facility. It's the only story mission that stands in the way of progression. You don't have to do any other missions. You can just tell Esther goodbye and disregard the story entirely in your endgame gear - which is already more freedom of progression than the current Stable.

 

Isn't it way MORE restrictive by simple virtue of both pushing you more directly into a backstory that's intertwined the plot and having that backstory uniform regardless of your species? With the old way you're describing, that isn't addressed anywhere in-game directly and overtly and as such is more a suggestion (And a much more open one) than a rule you have to play the game by. You are a graduate of star command and you did have a roommate, you have to acknowledge it via quest progression

Are you entirely sure about that? Don't you have to do all the story mission up to that, too? You also have to do other quests to unlock other things- for example you have to defeat dreadwing in order to unlock penguin crew (The only crew option for people who don't want to create colonies) and i assume you still have to do quests at the outpost to unlock the ability to grow your ship in size

 

No, you're wrong here. It was all over the place. In the codex, in the quest descriptions. It was plainly declared as a fact that my Apex was a rebel, even by that character themselves, even though I did not plan out for the character to be this way. So no, you are entirely wrong here. In actuality, while the story has become more uniform, it also offers far more freedom otherwise.

You signed up into the Protectorate, that's tasked with exactly what most players are doing anyway - creating colonies. That's where you got your matter manipulator. You had to run for your life when a giant tentacle monster attacked the Earth, and your ship is broken. That's it. That's all that's settled. You have complete freedom to decide on your character's past experience among their own kind, you can decide the journey that led them to end up with the Protectorate and even decide what they do now after they repair their ship. The old story background offered no such opportunity, and it was awful.

Story does not stand in the way of progression. You're free not to do it entirely and enjoy the game with no obstacles once you've repaired your ship. Also, penguin missions are not story missions at all, and are completely irrelevant to your character in any way - help out the penguins if you want penguins to help you, that's all there is to it.

I'm not exactly sure about ship progression, but since the last time Penguin Bay merchant was available on Nightly, it worked as an actual shop with licenses in the stock, you'll probably also be able to skip that entirely as well, and just buy the ship upgrades with a lot of pixels.

 

That seem to run in the same directions of a lot of the thoughts I had about the current story, especially regarding the setting of the Protectorate.

Like, one of the things I noted is that the Apex are part of the Protectorates.... yet those seem to also be related to the very same Apex empire that is ruled by the MiniKnog. In fact, it was later when I encountered Apex Insurgents insisting that they were "freedom fighters and not terrorist/criminals"(I cannot recall which term) that made me realizes that perhaps the Protectorate was just -not- fully aware of how the MiniKnog and Apex government -truly- rules over their society and thus only fed the Protectorate what was "appropriate" informations.

Which suddenly made me realizes that, with the reworked story where you're a member of the Protectorate... it thus free an Apex player to decide for -themselves- if they might have been a secret insurgent or an (mostly, since most Apex do seem to possess some awareness of their dystopian reality)oblivious member of "official" Apex society who only later discover more of the (horrible?) truth about Apex society's dirty secrets through the Apex Mission as what I've heard seem to imply about it.

 

I mean just don't do the story, they have never really had one, it's been so choppy but it's finally coming together and becoming something, for me at least I think it's amazing that there is an actual involved story not quest where villagers just want me to find items from dungeons. So maybe just ignore it and focus on the new mechanics?

 

Pretty much. And the fun thing? Is they way they changed the mechanics, one can thus totally ignore that story and unlike the past... it won't affect your ability to craft any of the late tier armors nor your ability to travel to late tier planets either.

 

I enjoy the minimalist story that is going on currently. It gets 8/10 from what I saw only getting the first artifact. The real problem is the lack of diversity in enemy attacks...

 

That's mostly the state of the current procedural monster.

I guess it remains to be seen if their current state is currently the result of an "in media res" of game development and they're still thinking out how to rebalance procedural monsters and thus whether to make them "random skills/stats" monsters again or if they are to be redefined as the "basic" enemies of the game with the simplest attack routine to not overwhelm new players.

I kind of hope more "random monsters attacks" returns because I used to love that, but I can respect the dev's wishes to keep them as-is to make them the "easy grade" enemies.
At least modders can confirms(and have confirmed to me) it might be very doable to bring back random attacks/skills to monsters and even do somewhat more unusual or even crazyish stuff with them potentially that originally were not implemented even back when random attacks were a thing for them. That's just how flexible the game engine is from what I gathered(some stuff might require some work-arounds stuff but otherwise a lot is apparently possible).

In terms of more challengin/diverse enemies... all I will tell you is "Hylotl Library boss".
That boss alone make me almost wishes I'd waited for 1.0 before fighting them. If anything, they were a "first" in terms of enemies/boss for me in sandbox games. Stuff I'd seen elsewhere.... but for a sandbox? I certainly never expected a boss in THAT style.

Granted, your mileage may vary, but I loved fighting them even if the second playthrough was easier than the first(and more skilled players might not feel as challenged than I was. It def was a surprise to encounter though after fighting the likes of Erchius/Ixodoom/Dreadwing).

 

More than ever, the races are no more than a cute costume with a hollow story. An RPG with fake aliens linearising the intergalactic sandbox. I love this game, but the aliens feel too much like a cheap costume. Enough about that though, let's focus on The Story.
Personally, I get sick of saving the universe/world/thing of large consequence. Can they at least make stories that play differently when selecting what race? The story literally makes every player character a copy of each other. I know they wanted to make a story, but can there be a way to excel without even encountering the story? Could there be an alternative ending in which someone else saves the universe while you were raising a critter farm? No, you must BE A HERO, Dave Strider fans, I'm looking at you.

At least I can role-play as "The guy who is helping save the universe... but really just wants to settle down and have a cup of tea." And thus will end my short time playing multiplayer (which I am yet to do)
And finally;
Play this (Track 4)
Damdadaadam daadamdaa, damdadaadam daadam daadam / Damdadaadam daadamdaa, damdadaadam daadam daadam / Damdadaadam daadamdaa,/ damdadaadam daadam daadam / Damdadaadam daadamdaa, damdadaadam daadam daadam / Babababum bum bum doo doo doo doo / Babababum bum bum doo doo doo doo / Babababum bum bum doo doo doo doo / Babababum bum bum doo doo doo doo
Come along Stanley, the universe is waiting.