Coming in a few days (sorry for the delay!)

I did get out of alpha, not all shields are equal and while I do take damage while blocking lvl 17 enemies I don't come close to getting one shot. And you never one shot enemies at level equal to your weapon's.

 

Im so hyped about this! So hyped! Cant wait for a character reset aswell, will be fun

 

Not in any way saying progression should be ripped out of the game, but what a lot of RPG's do wrong is the whole grind to access levels, because once you are done with all 10 tiers, then what?
And my whole point was not to remove the progression, but to make it more linear instead of a step up, because something I noticed myself doing is once I stepped up a tier, I completely abandoned the previous tier and never went back. Which also meant that all of the structures I had built or interacted with, became more and more of a moot point and I ended up not bothering and just racing through the tiers.

 

Its cool, figured it out. Dont need fix ALL MAC USERS MUST UPDATE TO OSX MAVERKICKS, you need version 8 or higher to play!

 

I'm perfectly fine with the character wipe. I mean seriously, I didn't get all the way through, in fact I had a hard time in the third sector. The way I see it, this big of a change will alter how everyone plays Starbound, even myself. New experiences everywhere! I just hope shields get numbers now so we can see how much damage they block.

Just throwin myself in here for a single post. I agree with Zane, don't make this a grind to get to the next sector. Luckily for me the friends I played with sort of up and abandoned me and went exploring without me, leaving me with simple Iron Armor in the middle of a level 21 zone. (I was getting one shot in level 12 areas.) I often went back to Alpha planets to get resources as it was my safest bet (and only way to really keep money I made)

 

I honestly don't care about starting over. I want to play this game and this change here is so... global, that it'll make it feel like an entirely new game anyway! Can't wait!!!

 

Seriously, don't whine about this. If you're still using XP, something's wrong with you. If you're using Apple, I can understand. But seriously, Windows is better. I have plenty of friends who play on Apple computers - on my server. If you can't be bothered to update an OS X version, you don't get this game. As for the character reset, it adds variety to the game! Try something new, a new species, new name, new design! It's more fun!

 

RIP Starbound. It was a good four days.

 

I agree with Zanebot here; having such a strongly tier-based progression system makes it feel quite artificial to me. What's the point in doing anything in a lower sector beyond the bare minimum to advance to the next sector? And even then, there's an objective measure (by way of tiered equipment) of how well you can or cannot deal with that sector. It removes a lot of organic gameplay that the system would otherwise be really well suited for.

In my opinion I think it might be more consistently enjoyable if the 'sectors' system was removed entirely, and simply leave planets and clusters graded by individual threat (and potential reward) level. This system would lose nothing that the sector system provides (if you wanted to explore higher level planets and clusters you have to kit-up in preparation to do so), but it removes the detriment of abandoning whole sections of the game you're never ever going to return to. Alpha sector may as well be a tutorial zone the way it is now, and later sectors don't lose that feel of futility as you progress (rapidly) to easily destroy any threat they present; you craft the 'next level' of weapon and armour and suddenly you're godlike, making large parts of the game invalid.

Level-based systems are hard to balance anyway, so the fewer are included the better; less sharp level divides means a more organic exploration and survival experience. At the moment it's really just about grinding to the next tier of equipment as the only mode of progression, which is a system that was obsolete even back with the MMOs of the early 2000s. If both planets and equipments could take less of a 'higher level = higher stats' number-based grind and more of a 'positives and negatives' situation it would probably be a lot more fun; a high 'threat level' planet might have weak monsters, but a toxic environment, making it a challenge to explore without preparing first. A complex rifle might have higher range than your older gun but lower damage. Balancing armour more between defence:warmth is another good start which has already been implemented very bluntly with the inclusion of snow infantry gear; developing on that to tone down the degree of "iron trumps copper" arbitrary gameplay would probably be a good idea, in my opinion. Why is gold better for making equipment? Gold is a soft metal, and while that itself is kind of irrelevant and nitpicky, my point is that it smacks of arbitrary grindy systems which -for me- detriment from what can otherwise be an awesome experience.

It's just an example, and I understand that it's not as easy to balance straight off the bat as saying "the game is about getting equipment with higher numbers so you can go to places with higher numbers and get more stuff with higher numbers", but I think the extra effort in that respect to at least -tone down- the grind would really pay off in letting the game reach its (massive) potential.

I'm having an awesome time with the game so far and would really like to see it become a little more of a cognitive experience in exploring and working together rather than one or two people in the group running around one-hitting everything because they have the next arbitrary tier of weapon.

Just my feelings on the matter, feel free to discuss.

 

Damn right it was a good four days, ones involving many lols, and screams and rages...and I'll gladly wait for more...

 

Not A reset please *-*

 

Sorry, I mean 10.7

 

I'm not saying progression should be ripped out of the game either. I mean the feeling of progress itself, which you'll find feels very different when there are 10 different levels of planets around you, compared to everything scaling with you.

However, I can understand your point. I don't agree with the current system either. I think you should progress at a slower rate, give far more variety to each individual planet level, more sub-tier content. I think that's what the devs were aiming to do. However, for obvious time reasons, they cut a lot of it out.

I think a good compromise would be to have monster spawning depend on the player. That way, more advanced players going to an early level planet spawn in many uniques/packs of monsters/mini bosses. New players, also, get monsters with less health (hopefully with the new system) and less populations of them.

Also, the devs specifically stated that you weren't supposed to become "attached" to any of your planets in the early game. Those were supposed to be disposable. I think it kinda went into their heads for everything else too, including weapons and items. But I mean, quite honestly, it's not like you won't ever see many of the weapon types again.

Once again, this goes back to my earlier statement. The game was supposed to be "denser." Not necessarily longer, but with more content. Both items and weapons and also monsters/villages/dungeons/other naturally occurring sites. Each planet was meant to be vastly different from another, at least according to their design philosophy. It wasn't supposed to be a grind, either. Too bad they ran out of time. Now we can only look forward to more content.

Think of the content like a funnel: at tier three we're still at the tip of the iceberg.

 

Don't forget guys, this is still in stage 1 of the beta. It is nowhere near complete of fleshed out. At this stage, the sandbox portion of the game isn't even suppose to be finished yet. So it is no surprise as why it doesn't feel dense or complete. As Tiy has stated, the sandbox features should be completed in stage 2 of the beta. The same goes for optimization on low spec computers.

I don't mean any of this as an attack at any of you for input or criticism, because I'm sure that helps them out quite a bit. Its just a reminder for the ones that tend to rage or be angry that certain things are not going the way they expected or envisioned it. This game and even the beta still has lots of growing to do. All of us in the 1st stage will hopefully help shape it. Lets just be patient and provide constructive criticism and see where this game goes as it progresses.

 

Sometimes, I wish we had a "dislike" button. And they can put my name on your post to let everyone know I disliked it.
Seriously now, what kind of encouragement is that for future development of a perfectly good game that's still undergoing balancing, content creation, etc.? If you got something to say, then say it. You're about as helpful as a bag full of "NERF IT"s.

 

One of the reasons I think tiers are a bad idea are exactly that, we would lose the potential scaling for individual players as well as set players in boxes of "You are here now and allowed to only do this". I mean even within select tiers you will most likely only visit planets once and then move on and I really don't think that is what this game was supposed to be about. Not to mention I think it is a damn shame that that is the playstyle I have heard most have so far, it is a game with so much opportunity, so much room for different playstyles and people.

I mean when you hear the game is a space adventure, the first thing you think is how vast the universe will be an the endless possibilities, but instead most of it are these neatly wrapped little boxes of "here to and not any further".
I found myself just running around on planets, enjoying the music and the scenery and the cultures and exploration, but at some point you end up doing some speed grinding because you want to get on to what's next and that then takes over and becomes the grind until you are done and then have fun.

The thing is that this is a great and beautiful game, with vast potential, but they have allowed themselves to become stuck in a way of thinking that is hopelessly outdated, grinding for the next big goal. The goals of this game could be something different entirely, something never seen before, a game that changes without changing, a game where it's vast content and possibilities are the goals. If we take Terraria as an example, being the closely connected cousin it is,a lot of people spent more time building, playing special events and dressing up than anything else and Starbound has amplified these possibilities by a thousandfold, space stations, planets for terraforming, villages and so much more. But if you are waiting for an "end game tier" before this, it just becomes a dull grind that most people will abandon before the end.

 

Got my head around the Current system and I can see its issues but I can see its merits as well. No problem with Character wipe as well its beta and im having fun mucking around doing all sorts of different stuff. I wonder when they are going to implement this update?

 

If your opinion is that my comments are stupid. i think the same about you.

 

I understand your concern, and it's a very legit concern for everyone. Grinding isn't everyone's joy, certainly not mine. I've learned to give myself "rules" to prevent grinding from being a boring painstaking process (like utilizing caves for resources and never branch mining).
Sadly, even Terraria suffered from the grind you speak of. While people were building and dressing up, that's only because they finished the grind and are now doing something else. If you start new in Terraria, you're really weak and have to get more powerful, or have a hard time surviving. Enter the grind for resources to get better gear. It's a very difficult thing to avoid in this genre. If everything is up and open to the player from the beginning, it's entirely up to them if they want to explored the low-mid level content before jumping straight to end-game, ninja'ing some uber loot and becoming super powerful without having ever touched the other content. That's what tiers are in place to avoid. I mean, if you were able to craft the best armor in the game right off the bat, then why would you waste your time with Iron armor???

I know it's sad that the game locks you into tiers, but it's for the best. At least until someone can come up with a better way of doing things. The last thing I want to hear on the forum is "Honestly, I never got that armor because I just went and grabbed the best armor possible" (Which I still hear from time to time).

 

That's a really smart argument.... Don't think so much, it could hurt you.