31st July Progress

Discussion in 'Dev Blog' started by Tiy, Aug 1, 2013.

  1. Psyme

    Psyme Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    I make hellevators all the time in Terraria, and I will make many more in Starbound, I am sure. I also happen to do a lot of mining in Minecraft, like spaghetti carbonara-tier, when I do my super serious mining, I usually happen to take a stack of wood with me, to make extra picks and chests. When I build my hellevators in Starbound, I will just grab some extra ore to take with me before I start digging.

    Regardless, we do not know if the picks/drills gain any durability if they go up in rank, say a low tier pick may only do half of what the next tier can do.

    Lastly, you say he should "reconsider this mechanic," but Tiy never actually said "why" digging straight down is inefficient. I think this whole issue needs to wait until we start with the Beta and we can determine for ourselves how this game is played.
     
    tassina, Ewan and killpay like this.
  2. Xander

    Xander Spaceman Spiff

    Then maybe they should give us a beta at this point to actually see how the it works. (Cant believe Im typing that.) As it is? It sounds absolutely like it wont change anything and just be an utter annoyance at most that does nothing for the game itself in terms of atmosphere enjoyability or gameplay. Doesn't even break the tool so its not even atmospheric. It wont have the desired effect on hellevators, and it just leaves some people feeling like the team went back on their word about no durability being in the game despite the whole, oh we meant it this way deal.
     
    killpay likes this.
  3. Toryu-Mau

    Toryu-Mau 2.7182818284590...

    Yup, Enforcing durability for mining tools is a nice way to Prevent "Dig straight down to Hell" Cliche - :fireball:
    At least I always felt it kind of Destroys the progression of the game to be able to just channel straight to the End Game.
    Plus, it Diminishes the sense of Exploration aspect of the game later on as players simply grow a habit of just digging channels down
    instead of properly exploring the environment and taking advantage of the unique geographical landmarks they encounter.
     
  4. fraxyl

    fraxyl Master Chief

    I'm not sure I get how digging straight down won't be efficient. Does digging vertically down onto blocks consume more durability than digging sideways?
     
  5. Linio

    Linio Big Damn Hero

    I'm not really understanding why there should be durability on some items and not on other, it doesn't make sense to me? Why not do the same for all the pieces of gear, even if durability does not make the same restrictions because at least it will be even.
    I don't see why my drill will age while my sword wouldn't...

    Also, i feel the object bar could blend a little better.

    Keep up the good work.
     
    Cruellyricisti likes this.
  6. Amaror

    Amaror Void-Bound Voyager

    I also have to go anti - durability here.
    It's not only a feature that will seem pretty damn arbitrary ingame, since it only affects mining tools, but it also doesn't really help.
    It's the most uncreative way of fighting hellevators that i ever saw.
    There allready are a lot of players that like to explore to find caves and ressourses.
    And there are players that like to dig down to find caves and ressourses.
    You won't change that with durability, you will just make the game annouying and less fun to play for the second group.

    Here are some ideas of mine that would be better suited to prevent early game hellevators:
    - Layers. Simple as that. Make it so that the planets have multiple layers of stone, which can only be destroyed by higher tier tools.
    - Hard Ores. If you don't want people getting end - game - ores early, just make it that you need the previous tier mining tool to mine the next tier ore.

    Both of which are less annoying and more effective for preventing early game hellevators.
     
  7. LimeNP

    LimeNP Subatomic Cosmonaut

    The whole argument of pro-/anti-durability will be pointless if we get this feature as an option/game mode
     
  8. 14sep98

    14sep98 Astral Cartographer

    happy days
     
    thetokenshadow likes this.
  9. black_dog

    black_dog Aquatic Astronaut

    Not sure I like durability either...it's just kind of annoying.
    Your solutions are pretty good for the early game, but once people have high tier mining tools they will still be able to build hellevators on all new planets they discover...
     
  10. Amaror

    Amaror Void-Bound Voyager

    I just thought the reason he was anti - digging - down was because that way people can get high tier ores while still being on an really low tier themselves and thus progress too fast.
    I don't see a reason to be anti - digging - down in endgame. The reason people do it is because traversing giant caves just to get to a point were you haven't been yet takes a HUGE amount of time and is incredibly annoying.
    When you can just dig down however, you will easily get to the point were you left off.
     
  11. Gene

    Gene Phantasmal Quasar

    A better solution may be to make all biomes valuable in their own right - all with unique monsters, drops, and landmarks. So digging down to Hell shouldn't be equated with "fastest progression". Plus, increasingly tough monsters should make short work of you if you dig down too far without good gear. Or even something like increasing atmospheric pressure requiring you to get a better suit before you can travel further down (that's what Edge of Space does).

    I'm not against measures preventing you from being able/wanting to travel down as fast as possible while ignoring everything else. It's the particular means to achieve it (durability) which I'm concerned about. More generally, I don't want early-to-mid game restrictions to spill over into the late game specific purposes. e.g. when I'm down to my 50th planet, if I have a specific reason to go straight to the core, I _should_ be able to do this without having to explore entire planet, or it'd get boring pretty quickly.

    In short:

    - Early to mid game, and general character progression: game should encourage balanced exploration and limit going too far in one direction without balancing rest of your play
    - Late game and specific objectives (like completing a quest requiring me to get a specific item from the planet core which is found nowhere else) - let me play the game how I want using whatever tools and process I see fit, and don't force me to play a particular way.
     
  12. Gene

    Gene Phantasmal Quasar

    - Terraria solved it by making endgame ores not minable with low-level pickaxes.
    - Edge of Space solved it by increasing radiation requiring you to continuously upgrade your suit to be able to travel further down.
    - Both games (as well as Minecraft) solved it by making progressively tougher enemies that would kill you quick if you ventured too far without equipment.

    What do all the above solutions have in common? They prevent early game rush for top gear too fast, without interefering with late game (when you already have high level gear). I'm concerned that durability WILL interfere with late game possibilities (including building a hellevator, which I think is one of the core objectives of a late-game play for many players), and would rather not see this be the case.

    Well, this, and the fact I don't like mechanics which don't stop you from going too far too fast, but merely add a drudgery repetitive layer such as having to travel back to base all the time. Because I'd _still_ be motivated to dig an early game hellevator, and it would just be more annoying and slow. If you want to stop me, then stop me with means such as stronger enemies or environmental hazards, not a repetitively breaking pickaxes.

    If Starbound has late-game craftable pickaxes/drills that are not affected (or progressively affected less and less) by durability, I'd be somewhat less concerned. But I still think that durability is bad simply because it's BORING! :D
     
    Baku Vicen and Flannicus90 like this.
  13. Mukin

    Mukin Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    awesome update
     
  14. restredainted

    restredainted Phantasmal Quasar

    Can I just say about the Durability, No one Likes a game that's too easy.
     
    Toryu-Mau, ffinn99 and thetokenshadow like this.
  15. ddonohu2

    ddonohu2 Title Not Found

    Absolutely, but I think we can agree that there are better and worse ways of doing things.

    If the purpose of durability features is to increase difficulty/complexity then it's doing so by using the additional necessary tasks to create contingent difficulty (i.e. the difficulty of digging, etc is contingent on the difficulty of the other tasks, the harder they are the harder digging becomes). This puts some of the weight on these other tasks. For example, if tools being repaired by returning to the ship is too effective and everyone abuses it in favor of maintenance then that would waste the item repair functions they're building. It would be necessary to either remove ship based repair or make it less easy to return to the player ship. This is the problem with balancing creep and contingent difficulty, you incorporate other features in order to balance something and you end up having to re-balance existing features.
     
    Toryu-Mau likes this.
  16. Xander

    Xander Spaceman Spiff

    Why is there no Kirby smiley for this situation? Unacceptable!
    Have a supermarioworld2 monkey instead. :monkey:
     
    restredainted likes this.
  17. LastDay

    LastDay Heliosphere

    I was talking mostly about crafting benches and such in Starbound, but since you brought up the subject I figure I should tell my opinions on Survival and Sandbox.

    I think that Sandbox and Survival just don't go well hand-in-hand.
    Survival is about desperately trying to stay alive and push forwards.
    Sandbox is about having a lot of control over the world and manipulating it to be what you want it to be.

    Minecraft has tools degrade, but I feel that it rarely matters much.
    You can make a dirt cube filled with torches (and possibly have a glass ceiling) and have a watermelon farm in it and never die.

    Same goes for Don't Starve in a more limited fashion.
    If you survive the first Winter in it you can survive for hundreds of days because by that time you'll have so many resources moved into one spot that you can just camp it without going anywhere.
    Only the Hound Attacks and Deerclops really shake things up after you have bunkered up.

    Games like Left 4 Dead 2, Killing Floor and Nethack are way harder to survive in than any sandbox game I can think of.
    ...and actually though hard, it's not impossible to survive for years in Nethack because it allows you to build shelter if you are determined and careful enough.
    After that it's probably reaaaally boring, though.

    Good survival games spread resources across a wide area and have enemies lurk for you behind every corner.
    They force you to move forwards instead of allowing you to camp somewhere forever.
    Sandbox tends to do the opposite. They allow you to do whatever you want.

    The only way I can see Starbound working as a survival game is if you had a mod for it.
    Or indeed a completely different game mode like you said.
    But I don't think that you realize how drastic the changes would need to be to turn a Sandbox game into a hardcore survival game.

    1. Make it full PvP to make people fight each other for resources.
    2. Remove farming food. That forces players to kill mobs or each other for food.
    3. Make ammo limited and only spawn in dangerous places. Fights over it will ensue.
    4. Make Starbound only have a few planets (3 or so?), otherwise people will hide somewhere safe.
    5. Possibly permadeath.

    For the base game itself I just don't think that making tools like Ninja Rope have durability really does anything except makes people annoyed.
    With an insane number of planets and farming you'll never run out of resources and never have to see an another player.
     
    jcarbelbide and RoBobik like this.
  18. Jonesy

    Jonesy Sarif's Attack Kangaroo Forum Moderator

    Anticipation is now a plural. OK, then. :rolleyes:
     
    Rrueya likes this.
  19. Flannicus90

    Flannicus90 Subatomic Cosmonaut

    These arguments on durability are becoming circular...
     
    tassina and Ishiga-san like this.
  20. kik4444

    kik4444 Existential Complex

    You don't say....
     

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