1. If you're looking for help-related things (for example, the key rebinding tutorial), please check the FAQ and Q&A forum! A lot of the stickies from this forum have been moved there to clean up space.
    Dismiss Notice

Feedback Casting My 2 Cents

Discussion in 'Starbound Discussion' started by Daldingo, Aug 3, 2016.

  1. Daldingo

    Daldingo Void-Bound Voyager

    I could make this a very long novel of a post, but I will be as brief as I can.

    Starbound is a good game. That being said, as someone who has been following the development since 2012, and playing since 2014 with 150+ hours logged, I need to voice my grievances.

    What the heck happened to the racial system? Do I even need to explain this question? Now choosing a race bears zero consequence. It is all purely cosmetic.

    What the heck happened to the pet system? Do I even need to explain this question? What happened to the whole "leveling stuff up" and the talk of breeding? The leashing system is lame, and honestly the whole thing seems worthless. You're just collecting vanity pets that run to their death. I'm actually offended by this one, as it is a huge reason I jumped on the bandwagon during development when I saw it as a stretch goal.

    What the heck happened to the weapon and armor system? Do I even need to explain this question? The new one is boring and completely random. What is the point in crafting anything when if I want to be strong I just have to hope to find Challenge doors? And what is this EPP crap? I know several methods were attempted in regards to temperature and atmospheric protection, but this has got to be the laziest and saddest one yet. You try to make it flashy by adding the augments, but that it like perfume on a corpse. Bring back the old temperature system where fires and clothing affected it.

    This game had so much potential, and you promised so much. You did not deliver. I'll continue my playthrough, but after that I don't see much replay value in it (something race and pet systems would have helped out with). I don't think I have ever seen a game get kicked through the official release door harder than Starbound. And it makes me angry. It blows my mind how Stardew Valley can be so well made and intricate with one guy working on it, and you have a whole team of talented people working on something they're passionate about and then you boot this hollow Terraria clone out. Like, holy crap, if you needed more time, take the time. Shame on you, Chucklefish. You could learn a lot from Concerned Ape.
     
  2. Chickendoodles

    Chickendoodles Phantasmal Quasar

    They took out the racial system because they didnt want one race being picked over any other due to bonuses. And I think that is fine, it should be cosmetic to ensure diversity.

    I cant say much on pets, I never really followed it nor am I currently interested in it, though I can see the potential in it, such as being a beast master, but I am sure they will definitely add onto it in later patches

    I feel weapon and armor is fine, I feel pretty strong with craftable stuff and why is it bad that the best stuff is found while exploring and doing the challenge rooms? should people not be rewarded for exploring and doing difficult tasks?

    EPP, yeah a lil meh but the old system wasnt too great either considering how punishing it was. You had to pick between having good armor or not freezing/overheating to death to just get destroyed by mobs. It is a hard thing to make a fun mechanic out of it.

    Just to close out, I am a game design student, I nearly have my degree and have studied how these kind of things go. 1.0 isn't always necessarily the "We have all this stuff for everyone to play with loads of content!" no, 1.0 means that the main mechanics with all the base things the devs want in the game are where they want it in a stable manner. Its the foundation. And with a game like starbound, people tend to forget how hard it is to pump out a ton of (balanced!) content at launch. It is just something we are gonna have to wait for, because they have already said in the past that they will be adding themed updates throughout starbounds life. Anything they have removed are probably set for a future update (mechs, pets, etc) where the mechanic as a whole will be flushed out and improved on. till then, people need to put down their pitchforks and wait for content, try out the mods, get on servers, socialize with people in game, and make their own stories.
     
    Wazamaga likes this.
  3. Daldingo

    Daldingo Void-Bound Voyager

    Excusing away the removal of content for the sake of ease doesn't make it ok. "The stuff we promised was too hard to implement so we're just ditching it and giving you this instead." That's awful, actually. All of this stuff is what Chucklefish told everyone would be in the game, and those promises are how they sold their early copies. And I'm sorry, but your last line about waiting on content and trying mods is hilarious. I've been playing this game for years. I have socialized, adventured, modded, and I've even paid additional money outside the original cost of the game to run servers with friends and such. And after the game is officially released, I must continue to use mods to make it feel more fleshed out and interesting? I understand Chucklefish will continue to support Starbound, but trying to defend the release by saying "give it more time and play with mods in the mean time" because what the developers promised would be in the initial release ISN'T IN 1.0 is complete lunacy. People have the right to be mad. Paying customers who didn't get what they were promised, HAVE A RIGHT TO SPEAK OUT. At least it is articulated and we are explaining WHY we're mad.

    Like I said, it is my 2 cents. If people enjoy the game, good. I've enjoyed my playthrough and I don't regret a single hour I've spent on this game. That doesn't make it ok that I didn't get what I was promised, just because I had fun playing something else. Starbound did, and does have the potential to be a lot more than it is now. But Chucklefish has said they are done with the mechanics of the game. So that means the systems everyone is complaining about are staying, unless they're not sticking to their word on that as well.
     
  4. Eonwulf

    Eonwulf Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    I actually agree with this to a degree. I often run across pages on Starbounder while searching for items and stuff and I find sutff like, "Tiy said there would be a different mech and hoverbike for each playable race at launch." among several other things that were supposed to be in at launch and they aren't in. It feels like they did make all these promises and now they are getting tired of making the game, so instead of continuing the beta they decided to just release the game even though all these things still aren't in. And over the course of the beta, they even removed a lot of stuff that was already in the game such as random weather more diverse planets and other things. I don't like the direction this game is headed now.

    However at the same time I am sort of glad that the game is out. Just wish they had kept most of their promises.
     
    ladyKAE likes this.
  5. Hawklaser

    Hawklaser Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    This is the problem that comes from feature creep. And might be why a lot of EA and kickstarter games end up as vaporware. Instead of focusing on getting the foundation down and solid first, they get bogged down trying to add an ever growing list of features. And this is also why I am willing to give them a little bit of time until the first content patch, as maybe they realized they were suffering from feature creep and that was stopping them from getting the base game to a point where it was releasable.
     
  6. jasonwolf

    jasonwolf Void-Bound Voyager

    I'm gonna start with the fact that I love your avatar very cute. Light it on fire and it'd make a great novakid pet. (Seriously I wish the novakid pets where just like coyote's on fire. I love my snugget, but I need something a bit more badass for my lone ranger).

    Anyway getting to the actual topic here. The devs have very clearly decided to make a pretty building "game" instead of a long term survival action rpg game with building. Everything you need to play the game is unlocked by the first 1-5 hours. Then you get fluff for 6-10. Then you have access to literally everything without any hassle what-so-ever. For blocks and basic things totally ok. Terraria was always a real pain about getting the pretty building blocks in large enough quantities to make anything that fancy. But when the game hits its ceiling at 10 hours, but the gameplay is still going at that point or lower for the next 100 its rather sad. There is no long term goal besides make something pretty. And as fun as that is mechanically its atrocious. There is not nearly enough going for colonies and building to make it worth so much of the gameplay.

    Starbound seriously forgot that not handing everything on a silver platter improves most mechanics. When you have to earn fun bonuses instead of getting them for existing they mean far more and the game can last longer because you spend time earning it. It isn't easy to make that hard to earn thing fun to earn, but it is entirely doable. That's where Quality of Life changes come in. If you need X material to make something you want then the game should have already provided everything you need to get that while enjoying it. To use Terraria or minecraft its ores which you have to mine. The gameplay ergo builds up steadily letting you go down further, for longer, and earn more. In starbound the game constantly gives you rewards that make that kind of game play tedious. You get money which with the game economy is better spent on the ores you could get than materials to help you get ores and you get things you can sell because they are almost never as good as what you craft or find by skimming planets (Another huge problem).

    They tried to hard to make it so every style is viable that they made most irrelevant. Yes you can go and mine instead of planet skimming, but you will get less and do far more work. And you know which has more mechanics and design behind it? the skimming because they decided to make the face of starbound really pretty instead of looking at the depth they could have. You may just build hellivators in terraria, but you will spend hundreds of hours exploring various biomes all with valuable loot and purpose. Starbound you may find one of their many pallet swaps, but even when you do find a biome change more than likely the best reward is a chair.

    Starbound needs one simple thing and that is actual gameplay to earn your building. If you want a casual easy mode then find there should be a separate difficulty for combat, but for anyone who wanted more than graphic design software they need to look at how little the game functions when you aren't building and fix it.
     
    Hawklaser likes this.
  7. Eonwulf

    Eonwulf Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Yes I agree that the foundation is what needs to be made before content, but the matter is that they promised things at release that aren't in the game and it is released. They could have easily just kept the game in beta until these things were in the game, but instead they pushed out a release without a chunk of the promises. The reason behind having the release without having the promises be fulfilled is what I don't understand. And this leads me to believe that they are getting tired of making the game, so they are just pushing it out and seeing what happens. Possible seeing if they can get away with never fulfilling some of the promises. And of course I am not saying they are under any obligation to fulfill any promises. People can do as they please and so can companies. And if enough people don't pay attention, then they can get away with this without any significant negative repercussions.

    Pretty much all I'm doing is stating things that have happened that I observed. My opinion on the matter is pretty much I don't care what they do to much. I've put enough time and received enough enjoyment that I fill satisfied with my purchase. But just because I don't really care, doesn't mean that things shouldn't have been done differently. So I decided to state what I have observed.
     
    Hawklaser likes this.
  8. Feera

    Feera Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Pets do need some serious work. Yep.
     
  9. Hawklaser

    Hawklaser Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Agreed, as after all to those that wanted those promised things, they will likely either be very upset with Chucklefish and never touch their products again, or they gave up on the game as vaporware a while ago. The one thing Chucklefish still has going for it, is they may not have given up yet. The game has been worked on for a number of years so far, and they are currently bug fixing things. Which is a good sign, the bad sign however is not much communication on why so many things are currently missing. If its because they had to delay them due to feature creep, in the interest of at least getting a working foundation out, and will keep working on adding them in the first few patches, I think most would understand and be okay with it if it was communicated that that was indeed the case.
     
  10. elenur

    elenur Space Hobo

    Actually, you are completely wrong. Version 1.0 means, by definition, the first feature-complete product. The "foundation" you speak of, that is called "alpha", which is what they had in Early Access, years and years ago; from what I understood from another thread.

    And, for the content, that is what they had 2 million dollars for. If they didn't hire enough people or they mismanaged the money, it is their mistake, and if games were things worth more than $1000, you would be seeing a lot of lawsuits at this point.
     
    ladyKAE, Hawklaser and Daldingo like this.

Share This Page