Current thoughts on new patch (Yes, I am aware there's a bunch of simmilar threads)

So as you can tell from the thread's name, I am aware that there are a lot of threads discussing the same topic, but it's a BETA, and the more feedback, the better, right? Right?.. Anyways, here are my thoughts:

I've played Starbound for 36 hours and the new update for 5. And I have to say, you did great, Chucklefish. The new patch definetly makes the game more fun. I used to barely find any Silver (and better) ores, to the point of 1-3 ore per 5 - 10 planets, which is an absurd ratio. Also the point of progression wasn't there, I felt I missed something, and wasn't prepared for the bosses (which I wasn't, because of the low ore rates) and lost sense of progression. I jumped from planet to planet, never spending more than 15 minutes on a planet, because I used to just run on the surface, mine everything I find, kill everything that moves, beam up, fly to another planet, repeat. It became a grind, which I am familliar with since I play WoW, but there you saw your progression. You saw how much XP you get after each kill and each quest, but before the latest patch Starbound, atleast for me, didn't have any. So here are my summarised thoughts on the patch:

- The ore spawns are great. It doesn't feel like a grind anymore, but it doesn't feel like cheating either. You are not being gifted 50 silver ore per planet, more like 50 per 10 planets, which seems a fair ratio for me.

- Armor and damage balance is perfect. Monsters don't one/two shot me anymore, but deal a nice amount of chunk, enough to warn me about a monster's strengh without killing me.

But there are some problems with the current version:

- Anvil and Metalwork station weapons are insanely overpowered, which I'm sure, everyone are aware of. It's probably a flaw in coding or something simmilar, and will probably get fixed in the following few days.

- Shields do not seem to work. I tested the mechanics with an Eyeball shield I found in the Beta sector, so I just aggro'd a mob and let it slam me. It soaked up the knockback, but doubled the damage, which, in my opinion, isn't a fair trade. So instead of dealing 1/4 of my health, the monster took out half of it. I think the shields could be balanced quite simply - the better the shield, the more damage and knockback it soaks up.

- I am not sure if this is intended, but my character seems to auto-eat bandages whenever I hover over them and I am with low health. It's quite annoying, because I always eay one afterwards too, because I was used to hover+click. So a simple fix for this would be to add an option for it.

That pretty much wraps up my opinions on the current patch. I am fine with everything, exept facts stated above, so overall - amazing job, Chucklefish. Thanks for reading, guys.

 

That must be a new bug. Shields worked fine for be before the patch, negating damage greatly.

 

I agree, the patch is great but as you said, the anvil weapons being so OP is a bit unfair towards the AI...
I haven't played the patch for too long but i already noticed some good (and bad) differences.

 

Unfortunately weapon drops from enemies are still completely worthless compared to the stuff we can get from crafting.

 

No, the weapons you get from crafting are simply broken and the code will be updated to fix this bug.

 

No even before this current update the weapons I'd made from crafting were always better than a drop I'd gotten from killing enemies, by quite a large margin.

 

I was searching the forums to see if shields were useless at higher tiers, which your post seems to suggest is the case. The craftable basic shield seemed to block anywhere between 6% and 12% of incoming damage from mobs on the beginner planet, which equated out to a difference of receiving 14 damage instead of 15, or 24 damage instead of 29. I wasn't sure if it was just because the basic shield was now "bad" compared to higher-tiered shields, but it was a huge difference from the previous patch, where the basic shield would negate all damage from most mobs on Threat level 1-5 planets. I'm uncertain if it's a bug, or if they just wanted to nerf shields and turned them into paper plates by mistake. I know they changed the damage system, so maybe it affected shields in an unintended way? Regardless, they're useless as the patch currently is.