Beta Is Not Difficult

At launch 10 tiers of content are planned and people have already cleared 4 tiers in about two days time. I want this game to last for a while and I don't want to clear the Alpha quadrant in a day and the whole game in a week. Now, I will admit that there needs to be more balancing and smoother transitions between difficulty levels but if anything I would like the game to be harder than it currently is. Ultimately tier 1, Alpha, should be balanced to be of average difficulty so that the majority of players are only moderately challenged. After that, I would like to see an exponential increase in difficulty from one tier to the next instead of a linear progression. The jump from tier 3 to 4 should be a greater increase in difficulty than from 1 to 2. Of course, these are simply my opinions and what I personally would like to see out of the game.

That all being said, time and ability permitted, I would love to see a whole slew of robust options and difficulty sliders available so all players can enjoy the game at a level they enjoy. I would like to see ore rarity spawn sliders that change the frequency and the amount of ore that spawns in a universe from "Very Common" to "Average" to "Very Rare." I would like to see creature difficulty sliders that affects health and damage ranging from "Easy" to "Hard." I would like to see various sliders or options for death penalties like pixel loss amount, gear loss, perma-death, etc. I want to search, explore, take days finding ores I need (yes I enjoy grinding), and always worry about getting killed on a planet near my current level. I want a big challenge but I completely support options for easier play. I would even suggest an in-game sandbox mode that makes your character invincible for those people that just like building.

To the developers, thank you for a great game so far. Thank you for quick updates and constant communication with the community. To those people that have expressed anger on these forums for an incomplete game, this is beta. They also do not owe you anything beyond what they promised for the pre-order. You made the purchase on your own volition, no one forced you to make a pre-order of this game. I sincerely hope that at a very minimum the game remains at least moderately challenging but highly encourage the developers to make game difficulty options a HIGH priority so that everyone can enjoy the game the way they want to.

I welcome constructive feedback and would appreciate thoughts and additional ideas regarding this topic.

 

I think a lot of this will get sorted out here in the near future. I'm excited to see what kind of balancing changes they make in tomorrow's update and how much a day's worth of tweaking will change the game. From the sounds of things they knew that there is a lot of balancing work to do, and a lot of that will become easier with feedback from us. Plus they haven't come close to finishing the content for the later tiers and from previous posts they've said that the most difficult planets are going to very difficult even for people with the best gear.

I think for now, the priority will remain squashing bugs and finishing out content. Once the game is more balanced, it will be easier to implement some kind of difficulty system. For now I would think there would be too many changes going on with balancing to put that in just yet. Find the happy medium first, then add options for those that would like more or less challenge.

This game if anything has amazing potential, and more importantly a dedicated and passionate rockstar dev team. I'm personally enjoying myself immensely and look forward to the updates ahead!

 

While I acknowledge your arguments and agree with it in the large part, I would ~not~ say that the beta is not difficult. I'm still looking for silver and leather after those two days (admittedly I've had school). The beta does need balance tweaking to be a bit easier early on, and perhaps harder later, I don't know. But it's certainly not "not difficult".

 

Difficulty spikes are not fun in my opinion. And saying the "beta is not difficult" even though one the devs have already said its a bit too difficult wont really change anything.

 

I think the difficulty is at a good point, with skewing maybe bit too high at the moment. I think pointing out that a few players are able to clear the content very quickly doesn't equate to the game being easy. Were these players abusing an exploit? Were they cheating? How many hours per day were they investing into the game? I've been playing 2-3 hours a day for three days now and I've *just* built the distress signal and got *rocked* by that first boss. I don't think 6-10 hours for the first tier is anywhere close to skimping on difficulty and content given they want 10 tiers.

Using 'time to completion' as a gauge of difficulty is a bad way to decide if a game is too difficult or has enough content. A game like this people play for a variety of reasons. Some will be excited only for the customization and creation aspects and less for the character progression and item hunting. Some will be more excited to explore. How you play the game will greatly determine how long it takes to do things.

As I mentioned before we're also in a beta state where it is much, much more likely for there to be flat out exploits present in the game. Development is likely focused on getting the game stable and some base features fixed, as well as balance issues that prevent players from gaining access to content. I'd be curious how quick people can 'clear' content in terms of hours when those are patched. As is, playing the way I have I feel the difficulty is right on target.

I agree with some other folks and think a smoother transition of quests into the first boss fight would help. Maybe throw a few more tutorials in there about how to explore the sector and go to other planets.

 

From what I can gatther this is Minecraft/ Terraria with depth. I think it's more of a sandbox and less of a World of Warcraft carrot on a stick grind fest.

You're probably looking at top level gear in a couple hours of game play to get geared, progression doesn't seem to be a massive staple of this game.

Especially since there's so many random quests, farming, cooking, music, animal taming, etc.

 

I think progression is actually a huge staple of this game, but unlike a game like WoW it isn't the *only* staple. The progression from being able to find and mine various ores and craft things from them to take on bigger challenges and explore dangerous worlds? I think they're taking progression very seriously and it's going to be a huge part of this game. However, a lot of other things are as well. Exploration, customization, crafting, building towns, etc. For players who like progression? There's a ton in this game to like. If you don't care about that stuff? There's still a ton for you to do and enjoy.

 

I'm not saying I don't enjoy it, there's alot of threads popping up saying this game is too easy, and make sure the devs don't make it easier.
The devs are coming out saying "it wasn't supposed to be this hard to begin with"
Then 'hardcore' gamers come out grumbling about casuals.

I love the progression, I like the tiers, I like advancing. But people need to realize this is not going to be a hardcore game, it's not going to be super difficult. Beta is very very easy in my opinion.
It's not balanced, I know that, but it's not hard in any way shape or form.