Back again for another playthro- nevermind.

Once in a while I check in on starbound, and on major updates I give it a playthrough to check out the new things..

The most recent playthrough I did was when those customizable space stations were made..

.. That was a shameful disappointment.. Dunno if they ever improved those.. But that playthrough/update really emphasized the flaws of the game that have been with starbound since day 1, that just haven't been worked on..

And every time I take note of these flaws, the bottom line of the argument always ends up "Well, people have fun playing it, I'm sorry that you don't."..

Surely, someone, some person among the hundreds around here realizes what a cop-out that is, right? Anyone can make a shitty game and claim "Sure, lots of people have fun with it, it's not the dev's fault if YOU don't like it".. If a game has problems, you address them, you don't smother the person complaining and pretend like they don't exist.

Phew... Where was I..

Oh right, I started another playthrough today, seeing the "bandit" update, though honestly in the back of my head, I already knew what the thought process was going to end up.. "Feels like the devs are just sort've doing whatever they want with no guidance or input by an outside source.. This doesn't feel like a content update, this feels like yet another glob of random stuff has been slapped to the side of the game like a soggy pancake with no bearing on the game's overall functionality or entertainment value."

So I boot up the game, and do a little checklist in my head..

1. Did they fix that wierd lag issue, where sometimes it feels like you're getting connection/latency lag, when you're in a singleplayer game? A problem that's been here since day 1.

2. Did they balance out the boring and meticulous tier system so you don't have to rummage through a bunch of ore just to get slightly better equipment, making the game just feel like a single player MMO, or at worst, "2D Borderlands"?

3. Is the game fun enough at this current state to justify playing through it entirely again just to see the new content?

.. No, no, and no.. Normally I at least get 3/4 through most of the missions, get some decent gear, literally bypass half of the higher-tier ores you have to meticulously mine to upgrade armor since I'm so over-powered I can just get the better stuff immediately, and then bum around the game looking at whatever the "new stuff" is.

But this time, I just couldn't work up enough enthusiasm and willpower to do even that.. I landed on the starting planet, mined up some ore, killed a few things, got a few swords, and my life flashed before me.. Images of me completing boring quests, bumming around my ship, spending hours crafting ingots of metal to make something, pointlessly collecting rare items.. I just couldn't do it, so I got out..

Let me make this as clear as humanly possible..

If starbound WAS just some lifeless boring inadequate sandbox game, I wouldn't care.. I wouldn't make a fuss, I wouldn't have played it, I wouldn't have bought it, I wouldn't be here right now! I'M here, because starbound has potential.. It's a grand platform for a great 2D space-exploring planet-hopping sandbox game, but every time I look at it, it's like seeing a dog who's owner does nothing but dress them up, buy them fancy toys and beds, and keep them well-groomed, but never actually plays with or trains the poor thing.. A dog that's flooded with attention, but the wrong kind of attention..

It's such a sad waste of potential, and every time I see a new update, and how proud the devs are for putting another fancy hat on their dog, my heart just sinks.. Because I know what "could" be.. I see what the game could have become.. And it still can..

You can claim the devs listen to the players all you want, but the way their updates are designed REALLY gives the perspective that they're just completely aimless.. Either the user base is just too busy using starbound to make their fantasy replica sci-fi set pieces or whatever, but nobody seems to care to actually try and talk about the games awkward and stiff flow.

Just ask yourself.. Is this really what you want? Are you satisfied with this? The bugs that've never been fixed since day one, the crappy tedious tier-based crafting, the clunky set-piece missions and quests?

Imagine if starbound had never come out yet.. Imagine if you'd merely heard about a space-themed 2D sandbox.. Is THIS what you would've imagined, if you'd heard of it?

 

Well.. I felt certain I wouldn't come back to starbound, but overwatch has turned to crap since its latest update, and I'm not quite low down enough to crawl back to CS:GO, so I've decided to go ahead and do the playthrough legit..
My criticisms wouldn't really have much merit if I didn't do so anyway..

First few things off the bat I noticed..

Legend
[Bug] - An actual bug/glitch/exploit
[Error] - A small mistake made somewhere
[Inquiry] - An inquiry of the functionality/purpose of a feature.
[Note] - Just a note about my experience during this run.

---

[Error] Some objects still have the incorrect flavor text when scanning them (A few beat-up looking filing cabinets I found in a hostile ship gave the description for a mirror, or perhaps a human statue) apon further discovery, these filing cabinets can be found commonly in those big prisons that occasionally generate on planets, which makes it more disappointing that nobody caught this yet.

[Inquiry] Why do buy-able teleporters exist?. We have flags.. You craft a flag, place it down, and that acts as a teleporter bookmark.. The only thing I can possibly fathom needing a teleporter for would be if you
needed a teleporter bookmark that absolutely HAD to reside within an interior, but how many situations would that really be applicable?

[Note] In every one of my playthroughs I always just went for whatever 2-handed weapon that had the highest damage, and eventually would end up just one-hitting most enemies. This playthrough I've decided to use any weapon
I pick up, and have found out some interesting things.

1. Daggers are not completely useless. As it turns out, you can actually stun-lock enemies in this game, and if you have two good daggers, you basically become a walking blender. Even with a dagger in one hand to act as a
stun locker or just to keep enemies off your back, your free hand can have a gun, or a sword, or a shield, and each one of those combinations work quite well.

2. Two one-handed swords also works well, swapping the "walking blender" style with the "very high damage combo rush" style, or, pacing yourself so that one sword is always swinging, acting as a slower but higher damage blender.

3. A sword and shield is also extremely useful if you play defensively, as the shield will NOT take damage from "bumping" the enemy (ie. simply running into them). This "bump" will briefly stun the enemy, often delaying or cancelling an attack, giving you additional time to cut them down with your main weapon and keep the pressure on. I took out a massive glomped-up platoon of mercs with nothing but a cheap sword and shield because I kept "bumping" them over and over whilst hacking away at them, riot-police style.

The game does not give the player any hints or information about these mechanics, which makes me wonder just how many players might've overlooked them and did the same thing I did. The game loves tutorializing certain things, you'd think they'd have a "weapons training" segment somewhere in there, near the start, possibly as a scene to show the character's "Training" to become part of the protectorate.

[Note] The devs have been watching too much Hawaii Five-o

[Note] Certain quests are extremely annoying to track when you have stocked up on a bunch of them, specifically the "escort" quests, that require you to take an NPC and escort them to one that is far away.. With "rescue" quests, you simply have to find the NPC, then you can teleport back to a bookmarked area near the quest giver and finish the quest, as the person you needed to rescue isn't required to actually follow you back. But with "escort" quests, this IS required, and if you're escorting an NPC through a massive crowd, and accidentally teleport away to another bookmark because of some other quests, you may completely forget where that escort ended up, and just find a quest NPC on the other side of the planet with a marker over his head who does nothing if you talk to them.
Long story short, if you're grinding quests en masse? Ignore/skip all "escort" quests..

[Error] Swamp water (still) does not make you wet.. I remember noting this in a previous playthrough, I see this has not yet been fixed, among other things.

[Note] Farming, yet another thing I glossed over in most of my playthroughs, that's turned out to be slightly OP. A decent sized crop can easily land you 1000 pixels, and even a slightly small crop can still land you that if you have a kitchen furniture item to cook the food with, to increase its value. Grinding quests from villagers is an excellent way to gain a good collection of seeds, and by the time you start to discover the sprinkler systems, it really becomes a money factory. Normally to expand your ship you must gain crew by grinding quests, and using upgrade modules, but with the new farming system, simply buying an illegal license became just as easy, if not a little easier than just indiscriminately stuffing my ship full of crew members I didn't want. So keep that in mind if you want to upgrade your ship, but want to keep it empty.

[Note] Certain materials can be hard to find, or downright annoying to keep track of.. Items such as kelp, poison, and ribs are all things needed as crafting materials for semi-important to VERY important items, but none of them are commonly found.. Kelp typically only generates on ocean planets, that one's fairly okay to deal with, though still annoying to track down if you're in the wrong part of space.. Poison very rarely appears on random planets, and more-often appears on "alien" planets, which can be rare at times, making it increasingly annoying to track down, and "ribs" only drop from very specific types of enemies, which you may almost NEVER encounter in an entire playthrough if you're unlucky enough. Sure, batteries can be bought at the 24/7 store, for 2500 pixels, but you might never find a vendor that sells kelp or ribs, no matter how many villages you rummage through, forcing you to bum around through space until you find them. And I get that exploring space can be fun, but that's not "exploring", that's searching.. You don't "explore" your couch looking for pocket change, you don't "explore" the neighbors yard looking for the lost frisby, ect. Searching can get boring and tedious, and can wear away the appeal of the game when you just need a certain item for even just a one-time crafting recipe, and that kind of frustration can leave a lasting mark on a player's experience with the game.

[Inquiry] Not sure if this is intentional or if my save is bugged, but saves appear to be universally persistent.
In other words, I beat the whole game from start to finish with one character, then start a new one. The final
boss gate is still open, and all of the main quest NPC'S are still standing in the ancient ruins area. This means a few things.. Firstly, it means I can get a free random buff from the avian, secondly, it feels wierd to do the quests to
obtain them when I already have them, which makes the game feel a tiny bit broken, like the quest system glitched
up.

[Error] There's a typo in the scanner's description for a wartweed plant, spelling it as "warweed"

[Inquiry] What exactly is the point of the capturable pet system?.. It feels like something that was thrown in by one of the devs haphazardly, as if to try and cash in on a "feature people like".. It isn't fleshed out, it isn't important or useful in any way, and basically just acts as "just another thing to find/collect" for 100% completionists.

[Error] If you capture certain farm animals with the capture pod, the value for their damage can glitch out and end up saying something crazy like 3271735. When I captured a nearby monster it had the damage of about 32, which makes me wonder if the previous number was meant to have a decimal point in there or something. Couldn't actually tell if it was the real damage, because the chicken doesn't attack.

[Inquiry] Beat the game today, and had a bit of a painful realization.. To partially-accurately quote a game critic I like, "When the list of backers/investors/ect on the credits is longer than the entire rest of the credits.. The video game might be over-funded.." It makes sense, honestly.. It explains why the devs basically treat the game like a sandbox project rather than "something for the people".. They've already got their money, they don't have to listen to anyone's demands or adhere to suggestions, they're just making the game "for fun".. Kind of defeats the whole purpose of bothering to talk about it, I guess..

I'm sure I'll have more of these points before I even reach the half-way point of my current playthrough, so i'll keep an eye on this and update accordingly.

Bonus Joke---

What did the human say to the avian when asked if he was aware of a higher power?
"I haven't got a kluex!"

 

All of your glitchy points seem to be happening only to you. Starbound was a glitchy mess on my previous pc because it was barely powerful enough to run the game.
I now have a better pc and it's working just fine.
I even tested all of the glitches you mentioned but everything worked perfectly.

You seem to be making some really good points about the fighting system but almost every negative review of the game use the "unnecessary amount of forced story and tutorial missions" argument.
I find this argument completely useless but if you add another mission there will be more reason for them to complain...

The swamp water thing makes me think you're subconciously nitpicking the smaller things so you can make more arguments because it seems a little useless to complain about it...

Half your arguments seem to be on your side specifically. Starbound is by no means perfect but it's definitely better than what you make it look like in this review.
You can tell how passionate the devs are through even the littlest pieces of dialoque alone.
Every bad review says that the game is wasted potential but in reality it simply isn't their cup of tea...
That's all I have to say for now though.
I hope you find a good game that you like since you did say that Starbound, CS:GO and Overwatch aren't fun to you anymore.

 

The things I've written should not be considered a "bad review" on the game.. I've stressed repeatedly that I feel starbound has wasted potential.. If I just "didn't like" the game, I wouldn't bother making all these
nitpicks.. Instead of defending the game blindly with the all-too-predictable "I had fun playing it, it's noone's fault YOU didn't" argument, how about thinking about what I've said and actually looking for yourself?

A better-performing PC isn't going to fix the glitched quests, the wrong-description file cabinets, the swamp-water-that-doesn't-make-you-wet, or most of the other issues I've noted.. Perhaps consider "why" I've noted
these issues, and also take note that most of these issues were ones that I found THE FIRST TIME I played/reviewed starbound.. The reason I bring them up with increasing disgruntled-ness is because I keep seeing them
unfixed.. How many years has it been now, and these obvious issues haven't been touched?

If that doesn't stand as evidence that the devs priorities are a little un-focused, then I don't know what does.. At this rate these guys are giving TF2 a run for its money on keeping the "Bugs?. What bugs?.. Hey, look, new stuff~!" mentality..

I will continue to make notes on my findings with this game, as per my protocal whenever I do a playthrough on this game.. Said notes will all be collected on the second post.

 

You make some good points but these issues still seem really minor to me.
Could you elaborate on the glitches you found so that I can recreate them better?
I tried replicating your glitches to no avail.

But I won't try to spark any more controversy. I've also noticed minor inconveniences in the game for years but they don't seem all that important to me.
I wish you good luck on your glitch/imperfection documentation!

 

... I repeat myself..

I'm not trying to collect these problems up as some evidence that the game is bad, I LIKE starbound, and I like playing starbound.
I'm more-so pointing these problems out because I'm criticizing the fact that they haven't been fixed,
as well as the user base repeatedly trying to shove said criticisms under the carpet as if they beleive it some kind of taboo for a person to be not completely satisfied with a game.

If a game has problems, you point them out in hopes of them being addressed, and possibly fixed.. You don't just take it on the chin and smile. Behavior like that only promotes a mentality from the devs that it's "okay" to half-ass their work if consumers will just gobble it up anyway.

..

As for attempting to "replicate my glitches", the only official "glitch" I put up there I since edited, since apon further study it turned out not to be a glitch.. As for the other problems, how exactly do you mean that you can't replicate them?

Jump in a lake of swamp water, and watch as you don't become wet.. Every other liquid in the game has some effect on the player when they touch or are submerged in it.. Water makes you "wet", oil makes you slow, poison (acid) poisons you, lava sets you on fire.

We can all safely assume "Swamp Water" is just slightly muddy/murky water, so why does it not make you wet, as normal water?

As for the mislabeled filing cabinets (I'd say that's a bug, not a glitch..), find a penal colony structure (The large multi-story prison that generates on certain planets, might be found on any planets but I found mine on a temperate star system I think) and somewhere in there you'll find a pair of rusty-looking metal filing cabinets.. Use your scanner (shortcut: [N] Key) to scan them, and you'll see the description for a different item entirely. There's two of them, usually side by side, a smaller one and a larger one, and they both have mismatched descriptions.