Awful Pixel System

I actually like the pixel system. It's good that there's a penalty for dying, so you have to be smart and get the right armor + weapon + technique to kill the mobs. Having a way to keep some pixels save (the compressor) would be awesome for those cases where you know you'll be dying a lot.

Oh, and I don't think the game is about hoarding pixels they are pretty easy to get by again.

 

The fact that they added a bank at all is way beyond fair. If you have played past the first boss at all, you realize that its super easy to get pixels. I think the death penalty should be 100% pixel loss. It would make banking something to consider and it would make the refinery as well as gathering ores a priority. Not to mention, once the armor, weapon, and level system is re-balanced in this next patch maybe you wont die as often.

 

I think they should make death cause you to lose more pixels than the banking system, but not 100%. If it's 40% to store, it should be 50% to die.

 

The pixel system is fine the way it is, either learn to play or switch games.
The cost for certain things may be high, but it's not ridiculous, and the game is hard, but not that hard if you are careful.
Chances are that by the time you are able to craft something, you should have enough pixels to do it, unless you decide to farm an ore per death.... then there is no way to help you.

 

I don't mind losing a bunch of pixels on death, but I really, really don't like the pixel cost for storing pixels.

 

I would agree if anything actually cost enough money for you to die twice before you had fully saved up for it. Right now, though, that is not the case.
It probably will be at some point, though. I suppose the system is just thinking ahead.

 

Let me put it into perspective for you guys.

I had 7k pixels at one point while doing low threat planets with a buddy. I decided to go to a higher planet and started dying. I was a bit reckless, I could have avoided death, but that isn't the point here. I eventually went down to 1k pixels. If I could have stored them, I'd have kept 4200 pixels.

Currently, I can go and kill stuff for a few minutes and end up with a thousand or so pixels. I don't really need copper, iron, silver, or gold, and I can stuff those into a refinery and get 5, 10, 15, and 25 pixels per ore. Is this really what you guys are complaining about?

See my previous post where I suggest that you guys get a character editor if you find it too difficult.

 

yea that's why i usually burned there villages down and kept the gardens lol

 

This is actually perfect. We are able to now trade pixels as a currency, by the thousand. It creates a much better availability for a multiplayer economy!

 

Death penalties are fine, but I've never heard of a game doing a bank penalty before. That's just crazy.

For example: I could be mugged and lose my money tomorrow. That's a real possibility. So I store nearly all my money in the bank. I think I would take my chances with the mugging if Wells Fargo took 40% of my deposit...

Thankfully, though, if it stays this is something that could always be modded out later.

 

But this isn't a bank, it's a pixel compressor, and no machine has 100% efficiency.

 

You might consider it if the chances of being mugged were above 40%.

 

Is this really a thread...

 

I'd just leave my money at home in a locked safe. Problem solved. If pixels are a physical object that can be compressed into a bar, what is to prevent us from just storing the pixels in a box as they are?

I really don't mind the death penalty, as it's something I've encountered many many times before. But it was more to present you with a dilemma of continuing your journey and risking losing some of your spoils, or going back to deposit your findings. Time is what you lose in going back to deposit, and time is a very valuable resource to most people. Adding more than that is really unnecessary.

 

Astounding, you've actually managed to simultaneously refute and acknowledge the game's status as a beta early access.

 

But that safe costs money too Well pixels are two dimensional object so if you just put them in a box as they are you are likely to lose them

Time as a cost would work if you could only compress the pixels at your ship but it appears that a crafting station will be used. Since those are mobile you could compress them wherever you go so that eliminates that option. Still though even if it was just a matter of time you'd still effectively eliminate the death penalty which is valuable in its own right.

 

I think the #1 question that should be asked when implementing anything in a game like Starbound is simply "Is it fun and/or enjoyable and will it add anything to the game"? This isn't applicable to more serious games and those that rely on a canonical storyline but seeing as I can dress my robot up in wizard robes I can't imagine the game is meant to be taken too seriously.

So the death penalty is not fun and/or enjoyable, but does it add anything to the game? What are the developers trying to accomplish with a death penalty? I would imagine right off the bat that they do not want players to summon a boss and zerg it over and over until it dies, at least not without penalty. So going on that train of logic the bank would remove the consequences of repeatedly zerging a boss, such that it comes off as "You wanna zerg that boss over and over but don't want to lose ALL your pixels? Well for a one time fee of 40% of your current pixels the other 60% won't be touched because you wish to initiate lemming logic".

I personally do not like the system in place and wish I could zerg bosses and enemies in general as often as I want with no consequence, but then what would be the point? There literally would be no challenge to the game as there is nothing that is of a direct and sever detriment to your progression.

 

They should make it so items stack on the ground when next to each other, so they stay longer (they despawn really fast), and make it so the pixel is not lost upon resurrection, but part of it lost, and part of it dropped.

Anyways, once they fix damage people should not die so often, so a penalty for deaths souns reasonable.

But losing moneys for banking doesn't make much sense.
If you lose moneys both by dying and when saving, people will save mostly when they expect to die a lot, like if they pretend to take down a boss by grinding its health through several lives.
People should not see that as a way to progress.

I guess it won't be long until people make a mod to make this reasonable.


I would make it so you lose ALL pixels you carry when dying (80% are lost, 20% are dropped and can be picked by friends or you if you manage to get back there).
Then make it so you can store all pixels in the bank with no fees whatsoever, and that dying takes respawn costs from your bank (20% of what's in the bank up to a max cap of 100000 pixels).
Along a system that lets you place an "isolinar tag". A beacon that works as a "town portal" that lets you go back to the ship while out of combat with a cost of 20% of the pixels you are currently carrying, players would be able to choose between advancing carefully in a dangerous place, going often to the ship to bank and scan stuff, or going about in a more daring manner when they don't have as much pixel in the bank to waste making "isolinear tags".

 

i can literally see no problem with this whatsoever. those of you that do have a problem with it aren't thinking about the game economy or designs, etc. without these penalties, everything becomes trivial. death doesn't matter, ergo the cost of making stuff doesn't matter, etc. progression becomes nothing but a grind instead of a reward, and really everything just goes flat.

here's another thing, you're looking at the compressor wrong. it is not a bank, it's a machine that compresses things into bars so that it's easier to store it somewhere. compression ALWAYS losses data/material. it just does. if they were doing this like a bank, you'd have a complaint, but that it is very expressly called a pixel compressor instead of a pixel bank there really is nothing to complain about. actually think about the terminology being used, because there's a reason they name items the way they do.

 

That's exactly the point of the way it is designed. If you are struggling you can save a portion to dull the pain of the death penalty. If you are good at the game you don't need to worry about banking at all and accept the risk.