Breaking down Tiers to Branches and Survival

I like what we have now more than what you propose. Seems more ridiculous than what we've already got.

 

I like the idea, however i still feel the tiered system is linear specifically because it is going to become story driven in the future, i personally believe the true sandbox experience and the last 50% of the game will be post Tier 10.

 

Why not combine the 2 ideas?

Each branch can have tiers in it too. Each boss beaten adds to your max tier, but also opens up a branch. So in your example, you beat the bone dragon second, you get tier 3 propulsion tech, along with tier 3 of whatever 2 bosses you beat first. Still have to beat them all, and each upgrades everything, as well as unlocking a new "Branch" of tech.

 

@xxswatelitexx
Or maybe you could have this idea as a post-game? Each boss provides mods that help with different bosses? I actually really like this idea. Or maybe I just really liked the phrase Megaman Philosophy and would like to learn how to play the guitar just to start a band with this name.

 

I feel like too much dev focus on perfecting or reworking the progression system is a straight up bad idea. What you're proposing isn't really an alternative to a progression system, it's just a different progression system. Which would waste time since it would involve scrapping what has already been done, and reworking a bunch of other stuff to fit it into the game.

Please folks, try and ignore the fact that this game has progression at all, you will enjoy it more. Explore at your own pace, mine crap if you feel like it, and progress when you notice you have enough resources to do so. It will just seem inferior to megaman/warcraft/insert other game here otherwise.

It's a sandbox game, not a 2d sidescroller, or an endless MMO. The systems aren't going to be the same in this, and wont simply cut and paste from something else.

 

Almost all game development is based on iteration... the taking of others ideas and adding a new spin/improving it/finding new places for it. We aren't suggesting a direct implementation of what megaman did, but looking at a successful way to blend open sandbox style play WITH progression, because in its current state, we sacrifice alot of sandbox style gameplay FOR that progression you are talking about.

It is better to get suggestions like this into public forum early while revamping of a system is a minimal waste of time. This also doesn't change much about the system in place and doesn't require scrapping anything.. Changing what action/item/event triggers an items availability is simply a number in a sheet... that's it. It would take one person a couple days of playing with a spreadsheet to put this idea into action.

The game design should facilitate a number of gameplay styles, not dictate it, which right now it does. You can wander and mine, you can slowly wander and mine, you can quickly wander and mine, or you can NOT wander and mine, while you build things, then wander and mine later. There is not gameplay diversity because there is no biome diversity... except for moons and icerocks which require a few torches and campfires. Making environments diverse enough to matter requires putting choices before the player. With "Megaman Philosophy" branched progression, i might choose to fight a specific boss first because there is a planet that needs that tech near by.

His idea adds Diversity, Depth, and Choice to your progression, while having fairly few cons that i can see.

 

I think the main troubling thing would be how the bosses would scale persay, I mean if we get to fight bosses in any which order, also advancing our tier, If we take the challenge and say...fight the Bone Dragon with T1, will going to T2 trivialize the UFO boss? The only issue i see with the Megaman style is that it worked for that title because it was designed with it in mind, the upgrades you got increased your power, but it didnt trivialize fights, a task hard for a game like this that has a climbing power progression. I think of T1 - T10 being like levelling in WoW, Our hand is only held to say "Hey, this is where you should go to begin gearing up" then how fast we gear up is up to us (though i wish there were more ways), but the experience needs to be linear for storyline reasons (They said they would have missions at the end with a boss instead of just a boss) and because currently, bosses will not scale to the player power, and they cant change that system without making player progression feel slow or invisible.

 

You aren't taking into account how much of the game would need to be changed to fit his system in. A couple of days of someone messing around on a spreadsheet? Are you joking? If videogame development was that fast, Starbound would've been completed shortly after the graphical assets were finished.

 

Alright, i didnt take boss difficulty into account. However i think its a good point, and would be a fix would be good for the game anyway.

Bosses should scale to the tier of the planet they are on, and only give the drop for the next tier if they are fought on the proper tier planet. Its not right to have to fight the ufo boss on a tier one world (equal tier to itself) when you can fight the slime on a planet 4 tiers below it. Make all bosses drop the item for the tier about the planet you fight it on, aka if you fight the bone dragon on a tier 1 planet, it drops a molten core, and has the same rough hp as the ufo, and viola, you have the basics for a fix for several problems.

For more specific suggestions regarding boss balance in a branching system, have each boss have a specific health on each tier, gains a new attack at each tier, and has a max tier upgrade item drop. So if you fight UFO on tier 2, it has more hp(scaled by hand) a new attack (guided missiles maybe?) and can drop the tier 2 upgrade item, but he would only scale to tier 4, so if you fight him on t6, he will only have the health/attacks/drops of a t4 UFO. This is consistent with the Megaman X line of games, as bosses gained hp and some attacks at higher levels/later in the game.

That might take a bit longer than a few days, but is entirely doable with the current framework.

 

Boss difficulty is just one problem. Almost all of the core features would need to be looked at again, the biggest and most obvious thing would be planet generation, and all of the things that planets generate. Terrain, ore, mobs, treasure etc. It would be an entirely new game which was designed around different equipment that allowed access to different areas of game and gameplay.

Sounds good don't get me wrong, and sure it's doable eventually. Starbound is just at a pretty late stage of development right now (It was supposed to be fully released by this point) That's why I think throwing even more dev time to fix something that aint necessarily broken would be a mistake.

Also it might sound ironic, but progression isn't really a big feature of the game. It may be a huge pain in the butt to create and balance, but overall the player won't spend that long using the system at all. After obtaining all of the gear, the progression system will just be a relic, and the player will be looking at a long stretch of glorious sandbox gameplay.

Megaman had an ending. So did Zelda and other games which had well implemented progression systems. But sandbox games typically end when the player has played enough. You said earlier that this system would be a way of including a perfect progression system in a sandbox game. Well I don't even think that's possible in the first place (same goes for a good narrative) at least I haven't seen it done yet. So why waste time on it? Keep it simple.

 

Hey now, lets go back a step. From the devs own mouth, they ARE currently looking at things like ore generation, Biomes, Treasure... They have stated repeatedly the game will have a storyline, and we are at Extremely early beta... these are the DEVS words, not mine. Progression isnt a big part of the game RIGHT NOW, because its literally only half done... only tiers 1-4 have progression in, when they have 10 tiers, and expect to have progression for all of them. and they havent even balanced the tiers that are in. They do intend to have enviromental effects for biomes that requires gear to deal with it, once again taken from the front page. Hell, even your ship has progression.

 

Another idea i had that might dovetail into this idea would be where you use boss items on the ship, and it generates coordinates of a boss on a pre-made planet. something you can get to right now, (aka, tech level and branches unlocked relevant) with a pre-built arena like they said they want anyway... spawning a boss where ever you want is a bad mechanic.

 

I think the idea is ok, it's just some big changes would have to be made. The devs seem to want the game to have a different sense of progression than this mega-man-esque system. However, I do like the idea of being able to tackle a few bosses per tier. Like the roadmap said, the tier system doesn't look like what the final system looks like, so my hopes are high for having around 3 or so bosses per tier, each with a drop that lets you craft something to craft something to summon a "final boss" of the tier. Kinda like the wall of flesh in terraria, but with more build up to this final showdown. In addition, the items dropped by the bosses could be used to overcome some obstacle new to that sector, like the winter infantry armor in current alpha sector. So maybe something to cool you in beta, something to help you breathe on without any atmosphere in gamma, something to withstand solar flares in delta, etc. I like the idea... kinda.

But I also want the guys up top to make the game they want to make. And like I said, the idea of sectors might be completely gone later. Who knows, but I still would like a bit more build up, a few more landmarks along the way to the tier's boss. And that seems to be what you want too.

 

I'm just hoping later in the development we get to see some really varied choices and trade offs in gear selection rather than just you moved to this zone hence X is now too weak, you need Y set.

 

I think a few more bosses dotted around that gave access to unique equipment is certainly a good concept, but I do seem to remember with Megaman that while the game did let you decide what to tackle, and when, there were definitely some weapons that worked best against some bosses, so there was a kind of 'hidden' order that was the optimal approach. I haven't played it in a long, long time though, and I forget which particular MM it was.. although to be honest they were all pretty much the same haha

 

I think this idea is a step in the right direction. I am of the opinion that the whole tier system and sandbox gameplay doesn't mix.

 

i would really like to have this kind of solution because the current system (or the direction it goes) is a (sorry don´t have the right words) synthetic limitation of what players can do and be, sandbox wise.

the freedom to choose which boss you will fight, not limited in your descision because of the tier you have or must have, would result in a more deeper kind of gameplay. with the current system the devs are forced to create contend and more contend to give the players a fresh expirience after they get all tiers (look at the threads, so many people complaining about "endgame"and "what they can do now after they beat all bosses". than they get the answer that this game is still in beta and that we just have 4 tiers and they have to wait till we have tier 1 - 10 ready and the story implemented. But that doesn´t change anything, after the last boss and the last tier the complains will start again).

i just want to say that i support swatlites suggestion

excuse my english i am not a native speaker