Star-map tiers are...lame

There's a ton of great ideas to mine in this thread. I really like the idea of open sandbox progression. As a thought, on the subject of not insta-death for porting down to higher tier planets with unbreathable atmospheres or acid rain or whatnot, an easy upgrade to unlock would be quality scanners on the ship. That way after you get your Molten Core and can start traversing part your tutorial system, you're tentatively exploring space. Threat Levels warn you of what you can tackle but those so daring as to try and bumrush a Threat Level 9 planet might end up turning inside out or choking to death in the atmosphere if you don't have an itchy teleport up finger.

 

Not completely. For example you can skip eater of worlds if you want and go to jungle. I've done that pre 1.2 and after. Of course you'll miss a fun segment of the game but you can do it. In the jungle you don't have to fight to bee queen. You'll miss out on the witch doctor, but you can still do it.

The point is this: in Terraria boss progression was more of an incentive, not something you're shackled into. And it worked... Big time

 

Ok, fair enough. Didn't know you could 'skip' them like that, didn't play it too much myself, no need to go into the reasons here.

I'm very much an advocate of the free roam world games and agree that the artificial 'brick wall' you hit stifles the flow of the game and is kinda in contradiction to the sandbox genre

 

Not to mention the occasional rare items you could come across in a chest or from an enemy that would change your progression.

But then, I can honestly say I can happily do without if it's going to make people complain about the low drop rate, since they think they have to collect everything.

I never saw it as "This is really hard to get, so get crackin'!" but more "Let's go down into the caves/dungeon! Maybe I'll find something rare and good!"
The normal progression is there and works, the rare items are just to spice things up occasionally.

 

I completely agree with the OP. Hope this gets attention from the devs.

 

Urgh. I had no idea the sector system even worked like this...I just assumed it was one continous universe. Nothing else even makes sense (to me, at least).

Changing maps gives me absolutely no incentive to ever build amazing structures, using all the countless decorative items and materials that are in the game...unless I get to the last sector, with nowhere else to move to...But by then I've "completed" it, and won't want to build that massive, planet-spanning castle of my dreams.

I want to be like a Viking raider, striking out in my ship, to the furthest reaches, bringing untold treasures home. Not some intergalactic thieving space hobo, bumbling along to an uncertain endpoint, a little further down the (pretty linear) line.

I'm a beta tester, and my beta feedback so far is: Great potential, for something so early in its lifespan, but please abolish sectors. Free roam for the win. Oh, and count my vote for bringing back planet tiers, too. Just like the great post from the OP, living on a tier one planet, with a tier 100 so tantalisingly close, but utterly untouchable would be, for me, a fantastic motivation to keep on going, and going, and goind. Until one day....one day, my space-Viking took their loot too! Ha!

Ooooh....Perhaps the currently unused "Mode" thingy next to each character could end up including "Sector" and "Universe" modes...maybe?

 

I like this idea, especially the bookmarking is a must for me, I was surprised that this wasn't in the game yet (and the note thing, and planet renaming). The fog seems to be an interesting mechanic, but I think that introducing it as "fog" will cause problems... What if all new systems are in the foggy area?

It might be smarter to have the game unlock previously unknown links to other systems once you visit one, so you'd initially start with 2-3 known systems, and as you visit one of them it would unlock new links to more systems besides those three you began with. On your way out, you could perhaps run into special systems with an entirely different structure or space stations.

 

Great thread and great ideas in here. With some other similar treads pointing to the main question: Why do such severe (not in difficulty, but gameplay-wise) and artificial obstacles like tiers and boss fight exists in first place. Some ppl says it's for a storyline - once story is in, everything gonna be alright and start to make sense. But why make storyline progression so mandatory in sandbox game? I don't know. Even more - tier system make little sense with original 100 lvl planet system. Why make more obstacles, which only make flexible enough 100 lvl system hard to balance? I'd love to know Devs logic behind it.

 

Totally agree the Tier gating in this game is just dire.

"I want to build, to explore, to raise a Cyclopean edifice in grandiose hubris against an uncaring sky."

"First you need to drop everything and gear for a bossfight."

 

I agree completely that the current tier system is harmful to the progression and fun of the game

 

The idea that progression makes sense after quests are in, I find tenuous at best. While I have a great deal of faith in the devs, quests would be forced (in current structure) into only a couple shapes. Either an omnipotent quest voice (which, while okay, can gut some of the sandbox immersion when I'm told, frex, that my Avian is an atheist instead of a heretic worshipping/seeking the other Suntouched.) or random quests coming from non-hostile NPCs.

These aren't really sufficient because random NPCs that I may have trouble finding aren't a good progression gate. The overarching story, while capable of explaining the sector structure, puts my character's story on rails in a sandbox game. A little annoying.

Building in quests as optional awesomeness to enrich our world without defining our characters for us would be a great. Tying them to sector progression shackles them.

 

I'm honestly thinking it is temporary, maybe they will get rid of it when the storyline fully gets implemented, or at least make it a lot less like 'a whole new universe', but rather special/specific sectors.

 

I could live with Sector gating, if and only if, it was completely detached from crafting access.

Theres, no logic or flow to it, and it puts what should be basic essentials like the backlight, like drills, behind too many barriers.

Oh keep things iterative. We build simple tools so we can make complex tools, and complex tools to make sophisticated tools, and with sophisticated tools make BIG tools, and with big tools, we make anything we gorram want.

But, again having to do a boss fight (Or grind pixels but that's another story) just to get some tech access. At best its clunky at worst it feels like a bid to stretch out content. They don't need to do that if they have random generation and random events, I'd rather see them work on variety, and a more organic difficulty curve, than arbitrary progress barriers.

 

I agree that the tiered sector system needs to go. I've put in 40 hours and love the game, but this is the one mechanic that I unequivocally dislike. It's so boring when every planet in the sector presents the exact same challenges and possible rewards. The equipment tiers are fine and give a nice sense of personal growth, but game progression should be more organic like Terraria. I would say now that there's only 10 levels of difficulty just throw them all together in the same universe, and let the player explore and choose the level to his liking. The bosses should be kept in of course and beating them should still be required to unlock the next tier of gear but that's it.

A big argument against this is that players could go straight to a level 10 planet, scour the surface until they find a chest with a weapon, and be set to dominate every other level of planet. One solution to this is to stop putting weapons in chests just sitting right out in the open! Make them guarded by minibosses, or NPCs, or deep underground past materials that require a higher tier mining implement to penetrate. A second solution could be to have difficulty increase in rings from the starting planet. You would still have a range of difficulties close at hand but as you traveled farther the options tended to skew towards higher levels. This would require significant fuel and playtime to reach a level 10 planet, but still keep freedom, variety, and choice in your travel decisions.

I'm sure there are many more design options, and many have been described here, and honestly almost any one of them would be better than the current boring and restrictive sector system.

 

Don't get me wrong, a "non-sectored" star map would be great, BUT it would be hard to merge with threat levels which I wish back (reasons for this: http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/new-planet-level-mechanic-discussion.51047/). Because then you would have to search for hours to find a specific threat level were you are at (assuming threat levels from 1-100).

So maybe they can create a map which looks like the Bohr model (or an onion, having many layers), you start in the centre and the further you fly away, the higher the tier (or many onions-like clusters).

Edit:

That's one reason why we need threat levels back.

 

I can in some ways, see and agree with this point, the problem I have with the OP's idea, is that it takes away alot of the progression in my opinion, though there does need to be incentive to explore other planets, I don't think completely removing Sectors is a good way to go about that, I'll explain why as I respond to other points.

The main problem I foresee with letting it be "free" is that then you'll have people who go to planets much higher level (Because they can and the game hasn't told them they can't in anyway) they will die horribly, then come to the forums and say X and X is to hard, we have that now in alot of ways. The hard-stop in each sector makes it so people can't do that as much.

Maybe we prefer a vastly different game, or we're having extremely different experiences but, I stopped playing in the most recent patch because the game was to easy, and I was advancing TO QUICKLY. I get to T3 in the matter of a couple of hours of easy gameplay, suddenly the game feels extremely boring and grindy instead of fun. There's little to no challenge and you Tier up way to quickly right now. I agree there is no reason to explore, I think a good way to promote exploration, is make certain biomes have more of certain ores, this way you need to visit a variety of biomes to actually get all the ore you need.

I disagree with this completely. I don't think Tier 1 should have every biome available to it, I think that would make the game feel very, very very stale at late Tiers, because you've already seen everything the game has to offer visually. You're just looking at different mobs at this point, there is no new planet type to explore and have fun in.

Hazardous environments and atmospheres are planned, they just aren't implemented yet, I look forward to them being implemented. That said, the old Tier system provided this quite well in my opinion. You start off on a TL 1 or 2 planet, you have the choice with fuel to go somewhere harder for better rewards, or you can stay there to gather more resources. Right now the T1-10 doesn't work at all, there's virtually no reason to go somewhere else, except to be bored and see what it looks like.

This I can mostly agree with, exploration has 0 value from a gameplay perspective, right now it's there soley to find lore, and maybe find decorations. As in T1-3 a miniboss legendary is the best weapon you're going to get, and your best armor is all crafted, there's no reason to go somewhere else to explore and find stuff, again I think Ore-type per planet could help this, make it so that Forest planets have a ton of coal ore (You always start on a forest planet.) This way you can easily get off that planet to another one, but make it have very, very little as far as metals go. This way the player is encouraged to explore more then just the starting planet.

Again, this is why I feel better explanations would help this alot, each new Sector introduces new biomes. (In the current build.) Some of them are pretty awesome, I think this should stay, this way players have a reason to go into harder, and harder sectors, more then just because that's the next new ore type. I think monster palettes, colors etc should get more varied etc as you go as well. I've already run into a few duplicate monsters, and I thought that should never happen.

To beat a dead horse so to speak, I really think they need to look at tweaking ore generation, things like random armor, biomes etc. Make it tempting to go to each new sector. As it is, you can actually get to T3, from a T1 planet, since Steel is all you need to advance to T3, and Iron/Coal can be found on a T1 world, that means there is no reason to ever go to T2, since the Jungle biome will spawn in T3 as well. Make it so you can't find things like gold and platinum, and diamond on T1 planets, you don't need it at that level. Make it so you have to expand, you have to travel further and further, if you want to get the really good weapons and armor, and tech up.

 

Die horribly or if they're good enough to survive (once the game's balanced and rewards skill, not by some weird exploit), they get the good stuff.
I'm sure there will be some indication of threat level somewhere too. And if people can't understand "threat", they probably shouldn't be playing.

Agree and disagree. Think of tiers/threat levels as something assigned by people to describe planets, so that more dangerous biomes are assigned to higher tiers. However, it doesn't make sense that entire sectors have only safe or dangerous biomes. Therefore tiers still have to be detached from the current concept of sectors.

 

But the whole Treat system work perfect without Tiers! Want challenge - travel to higher treat planet, get lucky and get a good random drop - move to next lvl planet. Mobs getting you - find easier planet and farm some more. And make "threat" a more complex value - atmosphere, temperature, mobs, resources, aggressive dungeons - all must be counted in, so you can get more variety - not simple - higher treat - high tier ore and difficult mobs.

You just can get some kind of scanner if you don't want to search for planets manually like: "where are 3 planets of threat level 13 nearby - one forest type and 2 moon, 4 planets at moderate distance... etc..

 

I can't find the post now sorry (Posts are flying to far flung pages these days.) but when Beta first landed, there were people legit complaining that Threat Level X planet was to hard and they were dying constantly, it was a hail of "don't go there yet you need better stuff" or the horribad "get better, learn more skill" etc posts to follow. Some people don't get it, don't care. Or just want to complain. I'd rather limit their ability to do so.

I never said entire sectors should have safe/dangerous biomes, the T3 sector has all of the biomes from T1 and 2, but also adds it's own biome into the variety, this makes it so each Tier this is a lot of familiar things, and something new to explore. I feel this works best.

 

I really can't understand why people would want a tier 10 level next to your starting planet. Get there, exploit that you can just dig down and save yourself by placing blocks and get the best ores, not able to melt/use them. While threat levels gave you a great experience and progress.

But I can understand that they want a consistent star map, for so many reasons.

Edit:

The scanner was one of the first ideas many people had after beta was released, and it's a great one
I think it would be a very good compromise if they just get rid of the sectors and try to merge all tiers into one big map. But in a way that you are able to play having progress in a linear way. If you would want to get on a tier X planet, ok you could do so, but the environment will kill you.