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The slowly dying sandbox

Discussion in 'Starbound Discussion' started by LilyV3, Jul 28, 2016.

  1. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    About as lame as if you could go to a T6 Forest Planet and find Solarium, Aegisalt, etc.

    More Harsh Environments = Harder Planets = Higher Tier.

    Sounds reasonable that volcanic planets are high-tier. The environment is very harsh, and only the strongest monsters could adapt to live there. If they can withstand the environment and thrive there, then they must be strong indeed, and as such, are difficult to kill. If they were easy to kill, then they wouldn't be able to survive the harsh environment.

    Makes sense in a round-about way.
     
  2. lazarus78

    lazarus78 The Waste of Time

    But with the environments already feeling very "samey", wouldn't that just compound that feeling? No biome would really be a new "step up" from the previous tier, just more of the same but now you have new ores to gather so you can advance to the next tier of the same themed planets just to find the next new ore for the next set of armors and weapons. Rinse and repeat.

    Not saying the way Chucklefish did it is great or fantastic, but I do think it makes more gameplay sense than having all planet types open to all tiers.
     
  3. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Please don't get me wrong, I was in agreement with you, lol.

    I was just adding that finding Iron on T2 Volcanic Planets is just as lame as finding Solarium on T6 Forest Planets, and that's WHY we needed tiered planettypes.

    The best way to combat the "samey" problem, is by simply adding more variety. Right now, we seem to only have, what, 2-3 planettypes per tier?

    We got...

    T1: Lush
    T2: Forest, Desert
    T3: Ocean, Snow
    T4: Jungle, Alien
    T5: Frozen
    T6: Volcanic, Scorched

    Or something like that?

    The reason I mentioned FU above, is that we can look at FU to see what it did better than Vanilla, and thus learn what CF ought to do to resolve the problem. What did FU do? Well, sayter....

    1). Added a small level range to each star, so that you can sometimes find higher level planets on lower level stars (but yet there's a range there, it seems to be +/- 2 tiers.
    2). Added new tiers.
    3). Added more unique planet types and gave them a tier range.

    These things combined very much diversified the universe of SB when you have that mod installed.

    So what could Chucklefish do?

    1). Add a +/- 1 tier range on all the above planet types... for example, you could find T1-2 Lush planets, or T4-6 Frozen worlds. We don't want T1 Volcanic or T6 Forests, so we'll keep it to +/- 1 tier.

    2). Adding new tiers is optional, and I'd venture a guess that it'd be difficult to do, because the culmination of the game's main story exists at T6. Adding anything above T6 wouldn't fit unless you also added new story content too, that takes place Post-Ruin.

    3). Add new planet-types and disperse them throughout the tiers.

    And, lastly, 4). they could add more biome variety on planets. They already did this once, but I don't think they went far enough. The last time I played Vanilla, which was during the Beta of 1.0, I still saw entire planets comprised of a single Biome. FU adds lots of biomes, like you could have a Forest planet with a volcano in the middle of it somewhere, or a desert planet that has a sort of bog oasis.

    And of course, the Junkpiles on some planets can be fun too.

    If CF did that, I think the "Samey" complaints would die down a lot. More randomgen monsters and less pre-made monsters would also be nice, OR, add new pre-mades that have more varied attacks other than Charge.
     
    xaliber, DraikNova and lazarus78 like this.
  4. SoopaDerpcat

    SoopaDerpcat Pangalactic Porcupine

    I think another thing contributing to the feeling of "samey-ness" is just how stagnant the SB universe has become and how dead the progression is. I mean, of all things, you'd definitely expect a game about exploring the entire universe to basically have an ever-expanding frontier, but alas, the game still essentially "ends" with the same 3 planets and the same 3 armor sets that we've had since nearly the beginning. I mean for a time, the entire community as a whole seemed almost POSITIVE that the Gate was going to lead to the baselessly-rumored "Black Hole Universe," an entire separate star map featuring planets with danger levels of 7 through 12. Needless to say, that's not happening any time soon.
     
    Pingeh likes this.
  5. DraikNova

    DraikNova Spaceman Spiff

    I think it'd help biome diversity if some natural features, like volcanos, could generate as dungeons, allowing you to, say, encounter a lone volcano in the middle of your starting planet. And what's with planets either being liquid, with small islands or dry, with a rare oasis/swamp? I mean, Earth is 70 procent ocean, but we still have some big land masses.
     
  6. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    It's difficult to create something that looks like an "ocean" in the middle of a side-scrolling world.

    Terraria circumvented this problem by placing the oceans at the edges of the map, but Starbound obviously can't do that due to lack of said edges.

    You could try for something like a mini-lake, perhaps.

    Also, you got the challenge of how to keep it a lake, and not have it drain the moment a player sees a shiny piece of ore in the background layer and decides to grab it. You can add a dungeontype and set the water to flow in from the background, but this is finicky when it comes to placing such dungeons on the surface of a planet that should not be flooded, lol.

    I've got screenshots that shows you what happens if it isn't set up properly.

    [​IMG]


    Basically, what's happening in that screenshot is the background is creating water (like an Ocean planet does), but where I'm standing is outside of the dungeon which absorbs the water that's trying to flow into it.

    Not sure how you'd fix this problem, because all of the air around a dungeon wants to spew water, so the entire area around the lake will have this weird border that keeps creating and then destroying water for infinity.

    EDIT: That's another thing CF could do. Look at that screenshot. See the weird looking stone? How about more varieties of the various terrain we encounter, instead of using pallet swaps for everything?
     
  7. DraikNova

    DraikNova Spaceman Spiff

    I figure that a: ocean would be placed at the surface, but the water would start a bit further down and b: oceans would automatically generate with some sort of beach, which would ensure that the ocean wouldn't constantly flow over the edge and drain away if one side of the map was significantly lower than the other, although that would still be pretty realistic. I mean, waves wash onto the shore and dissipate in real life too. The main issue I can think of is the possibility of breaching a cavern of some sort, causing fluid physics lag, but that would easily be fixed by having the ocean dungeon parts have actual edges.
     
  8. AmazonValkyrie

    AmazonValkyrie Spaceman Spiff

    My irks with Starbound lay mainly in the loot/exploration incentive. There's little of that, at least for me. When I port to a new planet, I find myself skimming the surface, passing by obligatory chests, villages, or dungeons and that's it. Nothing makes me wanna dig underground or do much else. I don't think I'd feel the same if the loot were actually something pretty special, and I hate to draw this line to another game, but Terraria's loot system, while contained to one planet, and mainly an accessory system is a bit more of something to emulate. Ya know, ya open chests in Starbound and you can always find ores, but some things are either found too often, or just aren't special. The vanity outfits, for one, just don't do it for me. The slews of randomized weapons you come across regularly, that will likely replace what you're carrying, or, if you're like me you'll just take a brief look at them and horde them in your inventory, until you're forced to sift through them when your inventory is full. None of it is really special, and I can get why: there's nothing like accessories in Starbound as there are in Terraria. There aren't objects or items that provide a function that you didn't previously have, or that make your tracking them down feel much more worth while, or like an achievement. And I can appreciate the randomly generated weapons, but I want my in-game weapon to feel like an achievement for my character. If I'm gonna find an incredible weapon, I don't want to find it in some random chest, just chilling on the terrain of an unlikely world, I wanna find it in a hard to find location that is both a danger, and an adventure. A place it might realistically be. I wanna feel like finding the items in that chest was a great feat, not like it was just an empty chore, that if I had passed up I wouldn't have missed much. Perhaps all this is a portion of the experience that most who enjoy the sandbox aspect might love, but for me it needs some work to make me want to actually explore and feel good about it.

    Another thing that frosts my cookies that I would love to see more done with, are colonies/colonists. Events involving them would be great, more incentive to interact with your people, or just more things to do with colonists and colonies overall. I love building, but I want a reason to make me frequent a place that I've built up, ya know? Give me reasons to stay in game.

    With all that said, I really don't see Starbound as a "slowly dying sandbox." More like a slowly *growing* sandbox. If the developer's keep pushing new content, I have a lot of faith that this game will at least be most of what we'd all love for it to be more like. And it's important to know that while gripes like these exist for most of us, it shouldn't stand in the way of enjoying the game so far.
     
    LOL BALL, DraikNova and Nazja like this.
  9. Snappyr

    Snappyr Big Damn Hero

    Hm, feel like the game is still in early access, to be quite frank.
     
    Pingeh likes this.
  10. lazarus78

    lazarus78 The Waste of Time

    Probably because you played through early access. Since you saw all the content as it was made, there would never really feel like an "end". The experience to someone just getting the game now would be quite different.
     
    M_Sipher likes this.
  11. Forcedminer

    Forcedminer Pangalactic Porcupine

    honesty. I agree with everything the OP has stated.

    additional. I miss the old toolbar.

    1.)
    Explanation. the old toolbars slots acted like actual bag slots.......
    meaning if you had an instrument held in one of those slots a song would continually play regardless of many things...sitting,sleeping,transformed into a sphere....
    even extreme situations like warping and even death wouldn't stop an instrument from playing.

    This modern toolbar while useful for many dual wielding setups the slots don't act as inventory slots.
    so any action that unequips the current item or hides your equipped item always stops any music you are playing.


    and After amassing quite a large amount of MIDI converted to ABC songs I can say this is the most saddening feature of the modern menu.

    2.)
    I miss the tech,biomes,racial weapons,micro dungeons.
    [I made a mod to restore the unique colorful racial weapons https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=749342005 ]

    3.)
    another feature i actually gravely miss is the collecting of items for the ship to 3d scan and destory.
    it might seem monotonous but the collecting of items and scanning made me appreciate it all the more.
    instead of just scan mode on...*click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click* there I've scanned everything in this room.
    it was gather them and one by one check if you can 3d scan them.

    this modern scanning feature i feel makes players quickly click scan the room ignoring what unique racial thought the race might say.


    Devastated. But oh well this is the starbound now....without mods we all have the same intro, story mode and weapons.

    hopefully. at least some modders have taken it upon themselves to restore these features.
    frackin universe restores the microdungeons and adds wayyy to much. :p
    I've restore the racial weapons https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=749342005
    Someones made a mod that makes monsters drop matter tool components

    I'd be happy if i could get the old toolbar and staffs back.

    4.) lastly
    the personalities and inspect speech of each race has changed quite alot.
    some races were downright offensive to each other floran and hylotl pretty much threatened each other

    5.) one more then
    I miss the grunt each race would do sometimes when swinging a melee weapon.
    Glitch would beep
    Floran would snarl
    Apex would....*monkey noise*
    even when watering crops.

    it was minor but a nice reminder of what race you were playing.
     
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2017
  12. Gon009

    Gon009 Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Tier range is a nice idea and I think that star type should determine tiers of planets. For example Frozen and Dark planets around T6 stars should have T6 level for mobs and items. I don't care if there would be no Solarium on T6 Frozen planet... Planet type hardly makes the difference what biomes are under the surface. After playing some time there's even no need for mining Solarium because it's extremely common in chests and player will have few hundreds of its ore after scavenging surface of few Scorched/Volcano planets. :p

    Fixed biomes are boring and T6 item searching is boring because of being limited to walking on Volcano and Scorched planes over and over again. It isn't interesting at all. I heard that old terrain was completely randomized and it was removed and replaced by fixed biomes because it was too random and created for example snow around lava pools. But what's the difference if now it's basically the same? We can find Alpine minibiomes on Volcano planets. Or wooden villages in Cinder Shower planets. There should be some random biomes because fixed ones are boring. There should be a way to create some bounds for random biomes, for example not letting generating snow if there's lava already etc. Exploration sandbox with weak exploration element doesn't sound great.

    Anyway, back to the rest of teh topic:
    Starbound has nice cosmetic customization but lacks completely any weapon customization. Vault anvil being able to upgrade unique weapons only is quite lame. It's quite weird that sometimes mods are needed to fill the gaps in the game. Weapon Assembly mod for example gives a way to customize own weapons and gives a reason to search for new weapons even if you already found a good weapon because it's even better to have good looking good weapon. Or the fact that some secondary abilities for weapons are common-only, for example sniper's explosive shot that is the best for getting biggest per shot damage possible while having sniper's precision and aoe, or rocket launcher's homing rocket. Where's the sandbox freedom if we can't get rare quality weapons with certain abilities? Same with lack of ship's room placement customization.

    Or wiring. It's great system with huge potential and everything we can do with it is to open/close doors, turn on/off lights and move an elevator. It feels unfinished. Some automation would be good.

    And "story" is lackluster and nonsensical... it feels forced. Also, main character has no depth. When playing as Avian character it looks like he's both believer and nonbeliever and it's absurd. But that's discussion for another topic.

    I didn't play FU because I'm afraid of one-way-ticket trip but I keep hearing that it fixes some things from vanilla. Why devs won't contact some mod creators to add some things from these mods to vanilla? Steam workshop is nice. That's what valve is doing with TF2 cosmetics. People create various cosmetic items and valve adds them to the game, people even create community updates and even gamemodes(eg. Invasion update's Player Destruction gamemode was community made).
     
  13. DraikNova

    DraikNova Spaceman Spiff

    Since weapon customization has been requested multiple times, I decided to write up a suggestion regarding how it could be implemented: http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/weapon-augments.129963/
    Basically, I think the augment system should be expanded to weapons.

    And Gon009, maybe the Avian player character is supposed to be undergoing a crisis of faith, and hasn't yet reassessed all aspects of their religion to the same degree yet?
     
  14. Gon009

    Gon009 Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Being able to boost favorite weapon's performance is a nice suggestion but don't forget about cosmetic customization :p I think that also cosmetic customization of weapons like it is in Weapon Assembly could be thing.

    About the Avian, it could be a good explanation if not the fact that Avian character says once that grounded are inferior(Force Cell description) or saying about Apex version of The Scream painting that it shows the person who doesn't know about the Kluex or being surprised by Big Ape Poster text. There was also something more but I don't remember it already. However at the same moment main character has knowledge about Grounded and respects their creations, Avian character don't care about attacking avian tomb guards, Avian character behaves like he/she is separated from grounded society and believers because it's nearly always "they" instead of "we" but Avian Sandstone Statue is solid proof that character is grounded(the word "us"). When it comes to religion, one is either worshiper of Kluex or not, making that person grounded in eyes of other Avians, something "in between" is impossible.

    I remember reading that before the story it was directly said that main character is a grounded who escaped the death. I prefer having main character to be a grounded and I think that this was first intention of devs, but few dialogues making main character look like believer and general lack of any definitive information create big confusion. Also, main character lacks of any backstory(well, it's a problem for all) and doesn't explain why player decided to go to Earth. Joining Protectorate doesn't mean leaving religion, NPCs in village of Avian believers are aware of the fact that player joined the Protectorate and think that player is a believer, so Protectorate Kluex worshiper is possible. If "does main character believe or not?" was left for player to decide then any dialogues like that would be removed. Well, Apex is clearly a rebel.

    What a wall of text :p
     
  15. DraikNova

    DraikNova Spaceman Spiff

    Whether the doctrine is "you are either with us or against us" doesn't really matter; if someones' reevaluating their beliefs, they'll probably do it bit by bit. While non-believers are generally noted in religions, the "reevaluating one's beliefs" part, while of incredible importance in practice, is almost never taken into account in religions, because it involves admitting that there's a possibility that those beliefs could be incorrect.

    The statue indicates fairly clearly that the player character should be grounded though; otherwise, they'd probably be at least a bit less accepting that that was that person's message.
     
  16. LilyV3

    LilyV3 Master Astronaut

    So how much more content it is now, afaik fall 2018 is over.
     
  17. Big Nicky

    Big Nicky Intergalactic Tourist

    Get FU (fracking universe) adds so much more and so much more randomness..
     

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