Abusing the Matter Manipulator and the gameplay connected to it

I was watching a lot of streams lately to get a first glimpse of the game.
Personally i look foward to starbound so much that i only want to play it myself when it's finished, so i can enjoy it to the fullest.
But i still wanted to know how the general game would look like.
So i tuned in to some streams, but in every single one they just abused the matter manipulator mechanics (walling of enemies, reaching every point without any problems by placing dirt everywhere, making little holes to kill opponents without ever having to face them)
I was looking forward to see people finding smart ways to overcome certain challenges and good micromanagement and strategy to deal with different kind of enemies
But seeing the wide-spread abuse, it was kind of disappointing

What do you guys think about it?

 

Using the building mechanics to abuse combat comes with the territory of this type of game. Same thing happened in Terraria and its predecessors, and will probably always happen.

 

In Terraria especially, since most bosses are purely summon only(and this is my worry a little, with Starbound, that bosses also become summons only), this was even worst since players could craft a whole dedicated arena meant to skew the odds in their favors before summoning the boss.

At least I link that the Penguin UFO can actually wreck your constructions, adding to the challenge of fighting it and making you feel truly asieged by the ship and it's forces of penguin soldiers.

 

I guess so
I will play it by not abusing it myself, so it should be fine

I just hope it won't be balanced around this abuse though

 

Different kinds enemies? I hate to break it to you but besides bosses, every enemy in this game is almost identical. A lvl 1 mob is no different from a lvl 50 mob. There is absolutely zero variety when fighting monsters. It gets really boring.

 

Uh
I really don't count placing dirt to get to high places as an exploit, as currently that's the only way to get up to Avian airships.
Also some caves are spawned on the sides of mountains, creating an impassable hole unless you place a block or two of dirt. Alternatively having a double-jump tech would work for that problem too.

 

I was thinking this too. The traps, and jumping puzzles/obstacles in the game are sort of marginalized by having the MM. I half expect them to add some restrictions (and technobabble to go with it) to prevent the MM from working in areas recognized as dungeons....perhaps some sort of switch at the "end" of the dungeon would turn off the restriction.

 

Using dirt has NOTHING to do with the Matter Manipulator.....the manipulator just removes terrain, it doesn't place it.

 

If you look closely at your character when placing anything, you will see that he/she has the matter manipulator out.

 

umm yes it does? It places every single item that you have.

 

Maybe so but, that is just a graphic, doesn't really have anything to do with USING it. Select the MM and you BREAK terrain, not put it up.

 

Actually, it was confirmed a while back that Dungeons would have "switches" that would prevent you messing with them until you found the switch inside the dungeon.

 

Actually it was confirmed yesterday that these switches do not exist. Oh thats right "Its a Beta". I imagine 50 to 100 fanboys saying that together in a condescending tone.

 

So you have to be a fanboy to remind someone that the game is not yet feature complete? You're a needlessly cynical individual.

 

It's a beta

 

It's a beta...which is why you need to check with the devs when a feature is missing, to find out if it's just not been implemented yet, or is in fact broken.

As to building as a combat exploit, I actually hope they fix this. I think that there is a very simple solution. In these types of games, we often take it for granted that placing something is instantaneous. Just set it down and there it is. It would be a perfect answer to the "building solves everything" issue if this were not in fact the case. I think that blocks should have a deploy time where you have to hold down the mouse and keep aim on a spot, otherwise you'll just end up placing the collectable drops, or not putting anything down at all.

Also, I've noticed that bows and some other attacks can crack blocks. Why not have mobs able to slowly break their way through obstructions to reach the player? Give them a limit of "within X blocks" and maybe only breaking through if they were already aggro'd, so that they don't always smash through everything between them and the players, certainly, but make it enough that just trying to erect a hasty barrier won't fly.

 

It's not the only way. Place wooden platforms on the anchor chain link and jump up. And for getting atop mountains? Well, you have a pickaxe, make a path.

 

I think blocking attacks through walls will alleviate a lot of this, but it would still be easy to kill mobs with ranged weapons.

 

You know, in regards to the "pillar to everything" approach to play, I think that there could be some limitations to building to make that less abusable. Gravel falls, right? Why not require things the player makes to have at least a limited degree of structural integrity, without which they will collapse/settle? That way, a simple pile of dirt might make an okay stepping stone, but if you want to reach an airship up in the sky, you are going to want to make a proper tower to jump off from.