Difficulty-related opinion of starting out in the latest update

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If you want to get to the main meat and don't care about my story, skip to the TL;DR below

I was playing earlier today and chatting with a friend that had just started out, listening to him complain about how difficult it was... I had no idea about the hotfix that he had received and I hadn't. Once that became apparent, I immediately grabbed the hotfix and rolled a new character.

*Hard mode engage!*
The moment I beamed down onto the planet, you might as well have labeled my starter planet as a grassland biome, given there were fully grown flowers littered everywhere and practically no trees. By the time I got off that world, I had a grand total of ~160 logs with minimal wood crafting (made the workbench, pickaxe, axe, 2 torches, and a couple campfires). I spent literally hours finding enough coal to leave (100 coal seeing as my starter world was the only world in the solar system). I was almost at the point of using my obscene amount of dirt to go asteroid mining for plutonium... yes, I was getting that desperate, especially if the other worlds after this one promised more of the same. I am not above spending an hour building a safe passage up to space to get decent fuel, lol
This was my cup of tea and I thoroughly enjoyed the harassment, especially the birds. I died once, only due to lack of using my better judgement and attempting a small stroll through the dark.
This was how I felt Hard difficulty should be when the game is released. Please oh please keep it this way on hard mode!

TL;DR

However, I think we're supposed to be judging this game for Normal difficulty (let's face it, we all have preferences for difficulty, and we're not all the same. Mine happens to be along the lines of what I experienced above, minus a few details)

Here's my rundown of what happened and how I felt each aspect should be labeled difficulty-wise. This is totally open for discussion, hence the board I chose to post this in.

Hard:
- No immediate source of wood. I had to trek quite a ways and through many mobs to find my first couple trees, which I did, in fact, have to fight several mobs for... include a couple birds.
- Coal was in very short supply. I was refraining from crafting too many torches as I wanted to reach my goal of 100 coal as soon as possible... which brings me to.
- No easily accessible alternate worlds for exploring. This world was all I had until I reached 100 coal for fuel to get me to another star.
- The birds. It's all over the place. People know the birds are hard mode. All except for the collision after death, which I feel is a bug, but was not something you couldn't work around. Once you know it happens, you should be ready to step out of the way of the poor birdie's descending corpse.
- OP "special attack" hostile mobs. The birds are a good example as they showed this behavior in two variations. Blood Vomit and Bubbles. There was also a ground mob that shot a stream of lightning (short range but very very deadly). This may be a bug, but if you find yourself in the bad position of getting hit by every single droplet of what came out of their mouths (or even half of it), you're dead, no questions asked.
- Sheer amount of hostile creatures. Birds aside, I was lucky to have a creature that I could call a friend, if only for a short while.
- OP passive creatures. With the above said, I was running out of food at one point, and decided to attack my little friend for the sake of survival. This resulted in my first very narrow escape from death. Upon being hit the small blue creature that I had assumed was a baby immediately turned around and shot what I could only describe as a small kamehameha burst, knocking me over a nearby pond, over a nearby hill, and down a nearby cliff. Had I not teleported halfway to my doom, that woul dhave been the end of me. This came from a day-time mob, not a night-time mob. Luckily this happened before I had the bright idea of attacking my passive night-time buddy.
- "Event" count. I found a single chest on my starter world. That was it. And that was all I needed. (It had COAL!!!)

Normal:
- Amount of copper. I found enough copper in my travels to craft a helmet and a copper pickaxe, with a bit to spare for the next item. That's no more than I'd expect someone to craft before leaving their first world for a more suitable world. Granted, I did not delve deep into caves, yet I did scavenge most of the surface (not even sure about that as this wasn't a moon, it was a full blown planet)
- Ease of "physical mobs". These guys are pushovers when you get them into the right position, either on flat land or you being on the high ground. Spam sword swing or arrows and they're dead. Being on the low ground isn't as straight forward but still easy enough. While their body slam and charge attacks can do some damage, they ar enot hard at all to dodge. You can simply jump over a charging enemy, and simply side step a body slam. If you're in a cave, and they have the vantage ground for their move to hit you, props go to them.
- The boss. It was perfect for Normal in my opinion. Easy enough when you got the hang of it and the penguins were nuisances, but not irritating.

Easy:
- The stupid amounts of iron, silver, and gold I accumulated when I had nothing to use it for aside from a pickaxe... which I never crafted on the first world due to lack of pixels.
- After rerolling a character to see if I had "bad luck", it's nice to be surrounded by trees. I stayed no longer than to confirm that.

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Okay, that's what I came up with for what happened and how I would flag it in terms of difficulty. It's clearly biased toward one said difficulty, given the roll I had. It wasn't entirely hard mode. I don't feel the amount of hard mode aspects constitute it being hard mode.
Now for suggestions for starter worlds, categorized by difficulty.

Hard:
- Keep the single lone planet around a star. A hard mode player should be expected to spend some time foraging for resources.
- I also suggest toning down the amount of vines. Bandages are OP at this point in the game, I shouldn't be able to spam them. You should be able to find enough for a bow and enough bandages to keep you alive in those times of misfortune or bad judgement, not the literal hundreds I had to spam at my leisure.
- The amount of coal could be turned up a tad. Not too much. I wouldn't expect someone to spend the several hours that I did finding coal. I may have misjudged my tactic and instead used some of what I had to craft torches for an easier time spelunking for larger pockets.
- Cave dwellers should have the OP characteristics I mentioned above at all times, and including variations of other moves more suited to subterrainian combat, especially if they're guarding large(er) pockets of resources. (If I must, I gotta say they need to be able to get you somehow through the walls, with at lest short to mid range moves. Tunneling / blocking can be only so effective)
- Surface dwellers should still put up the fight that they gave me. It was most definitely bearable for hard mode... especially the surprise attack from the passive mob, lmao.
- Ores besides coal should be far and few between, but with the occassional pocket of 6-8 ore (discluding gold and silver) with larger pockets down below.
- Chests should be in short supply. Dungeons in even shorter supply. If not short supply then the loot should be paltry amounts, or gear that has a low (not slim) chance of being useable.
- Ufo needs to be more agile, attack a bit more frequently, and it shouldn't be half-assed about breaking those blocks! My god, I want to see some dirt fly! If I even so much as tried to block this thing in, it needs to show me I was dead wrong for assuming such a tactic would work! ... With authority! I'm not saying increase damage received from it. The penguins should be able to take a couple hits, just to make them play more of a role in the battle. The tanks should definitely be tankier. I didn't even know the mini-UFOs were there, make them shoot a bit more often, and get in the players face, perhaps attempting to shield the mothership.

Normal:
- Planet choices. Not necessarily moons around your starter world, but certainly other in the solar system. 25 coal isn't much to ask here. The planet choices should also be varied. I found that orange stars or the like had a medium variety of planets to choose from while not being too lenient.
- Again, tone down the vines, but not too much. Definitely enough to make your bow without looking further than a couple hills away. Gotta have a decent amount of bandages to keep going.
- Surface dwellers need to stick to the easily managed physical moves. This is a starter world after all, no need to pound innocent newbies into the dust with a blast of blood, bubbles, electricity or Dragon Ball Z shit.
- Cave dwellers should occassionally have moves that decimate an unprepared player. There's riches down here, man! Speaking of which --
- Ores should be in decent supply. No need to go deep into the caves to get yourself at least a pickaxe to prepare for the caves, should that be your desire, or a couple pieces of armor (off the surface)
- Chests should be found a few times on the surface. More underground. Loot should definitely give them options from time to time (Do I want this or that?) but rarely OP.
- The boss was great, I enjoyed it! Not everyone feels this way, but please feel free to discuss

Easy: (I am assuming casual players with little to no experience with the genre)
- Planet choices. Definitely moons around your starting world. 1 piece of coal is all it's gonna take to have yourself at least a couple options besides where you're at.
- Vines aplenty. The sooner they learn to get bandages the better, might as well let them stock up on plant matter and make some clothes to play dressup, or horde in a chest until they realize later on that bandages are helpful.
- Mobs in general should be physical only. I want to say tone down the damage from their moves... but it doesn't even kill you in one shot with starter clothes on. I'm half and half on this damage-wise, maybe nix their moves all together on starter worlds, having touch damage only?
- Ores should be plentiful. Coal should be in pockets of at least 8-10, usually more. They're on EZ-mode after all. Let them mine stuff to see how it feels, but not to the point of "creative mode".
- Let them have chests. Let them see dungeons. Let them see events. Make it rain new experiences! Okay, maybe not, but certainly often enough that they know they're there given a bit of exploring.
- The boss is going to hurt their feelings. This thing is going to hurt their terrain, or worse, their house! Attack frequency is fine, damage is fine, but breaking blocks outright crosses the line. It shouldn't be a pushover by any means, but it needs to be the ice-breaker between them and the rest of the game, certainly not a trial for patience. If they built a house not knowing what was coming, make it crack their blocks but not necessarily break them. If given enough time, maybe break some of their blocks. Let them have the chance to see those cracks and realise their blocks are in danger, so they can lure it to somewhere better suited for battle.


Okay, that about sums it up. That's my feelings of the game with the new system. I felt encouraged to write this after having such a pleasant experience with what I felt is expected from my style of play... hard. I think it only fair to point out other difficulties that other people may be more comfortable with.

Everyone seems to be vying for their desired difficulty right now, and I really don't want to see the developers nix the pleasant experience I had all together. Please work on difficulty modes sooner rather than later? I think our discussions here would be less flame-filled and angry if we were able to tell people what difficulty we were on when we had such and such suggestion/complaint... or even difference between modes so the gaps can be lessened to bearable amounts and everyone can find their happy medium.

I spent much time tailoring this as much as could for each area, even threw in some tongue-in-cheek to keep the mood light. Let's keep it that way and discuss how we feel our areas of gameplay should be tailored. Maximum feedback!

 

*Bump!*

 

Very good post. I think I agree with these sentiments on every level. Getting the balance for normal difficulty should be a priority for right now and they definitely have some work to do, but they are also making leaps and bounds imo from where it was a week ago. I can't even imagine how awesome this could be in a year.

 

Oh man this new hotfix is really pretty hard. I'm dying so often I don't have enough pixels to craft the things i need to stop dying. The world I started on only had two small biomes with trees the rest were plant fiber giant flowers plus poison ponds everywhere. After 8 hours or so of dying I'm finally at a point were I think i should be close to fighting the distress signal boss but i still dont even have full copper armor because i keep losing my pixels. Feels pretty harsh.

 

Wow and you managed to put up with that for 8 hrs. You deserve a metal my friend. Most people on these boards would have given up after 30 minutes.

 

I agree. Much has already changed in a short week, and I applaud the devs for making such quick and useful updates. Makes me very excited for the future of this game.

I really feel if difficulty modes were implemented right now, we'd have a better basis for our concerns, be it too easy or hard. As it stands right now, we have nothing to go on other than our own preferences for difficulty. :/

 

I'm glad to hear you stuck with it. I hope you have a better experience with the boss than with your starter world. Poison ponds are a serious hazard, especially with knockback the way it is.
Out of curiosity, what kind of monsters are on your starter world? And how do you feel about how difficult they are given you started there without armor or a good weapon?

 

Yesterday their were several threads floating around about difficulty and even some that raise the 'permadeath' option question. I think we may end up seeing difficulty levels, but I also don't think it will even be an option till closer to release once everything is more balanced for normal play.

 

About the ores:

I just dont see it. Copper and coal is plentiful to the extreme, so much so that copper gear and copper bases for each upgrade is absolutely viable, and I always have around 400 fuel in my ship. There is no need to use trees as fuel since coal is everywhere, even if you never venture underground.

Iron I see people say is rare, others I see not care for. From your perspective, you say it is not useful? Have you even gotten to the steel stage? You need twice as much iron and most other resources. Same for pixels. Have you even done a dungeon? One prison area and you have 4k pixels even with lots of dying.

Gold and somewhat silver are relatively common now, but I blame that on planet tier compressing. Frankly, we are just getting access to it earlier than we have use for it (other than pickaxe)

 

Sad, but I wouldn't be surprised. I just think the sooner they get them implemented, the sooner people can give individual feedback for them.

 

This is incredibly well-written, and you raise a lot of valid points. Kudos to your for thinking about multiple difficulties and ways to balance the game for player preference! I'd love to see something like this implemented, hopefully it gets brought in eventually.

I would agree with Lenney, though-- we probably won't be seeing this for a long time. The devs have to get the overall feel figured out first, since that seems to still be in flux.

Another concern is how this would work in multiplayer-- would difficulty be a serverside value? Would it affect items, or just the world?

 

I've been to endgame and back, so yes I'm well aware of most uses for the materials. This is from my persepctive of what the "starter" world had given me. Tons of people want to get off their world. If that's so, then by the time they leave, certain things should have given them an impression.
I seriously believe I was given a terrible roll on this character, and seeing as it's possible to have this kind of roll, I felt it needed to be discussed. While some people find coal in abundance in the latest update, post hot-fix, many people did not. I've heard of people being stuck in the same situation I was in, needing to find 100 coal to leave their world, but not finding much over wide areas. While Iron is useful post-UFO, I think the obscene amount I had before even leaving my first world was a tad unbalanced. I never dropped far into caves, and by the time I reached 100 coal, I had well over 150 iron BARS. That's great, I'll use it, I ain't gonna complain as a player, but I will raise the issue as a beta tester.

 

Yeah, the earlier the better I say, but I can't imagine how hard it would be to balance 3 modes of difficulty when they are already struggling with just the one. lol

 

Serverside setting, most likely, unless they can find a way to balance a player's difficulty without influencing everyone.

 

Ok then, but you have to realize this is the very nature of random generation. Same happened in Minecraft, where players spawn on islands, oceans or high above. People just dont realize that re-rolling is not a negative, but a necessity with games relying on random systems. I guess I wish it was easier to reroll, not having to delete and remake the entire character...

 

I wouldn't say struggling. They may have made some goofs here and there, but they're trying to cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time. Difficulty levels really would only need balancing in select portions of the game, which is a smaller change than the whole revamp they did to the combat system in less than a few days!

 

Coal? Everywhere? Tell that to the planet I was stuck on looking for only 50 coal that took 3 hours.

 

True, and it's a valid option. Lol, I've had those roll sin MC starting on a small spit of land in the middle of an ocean. I personally went with it. They're not impossible, but can be taxing for many players (who usually do reroll).
What I'm addressing here are concerns with balance in general. I'm not saying every starter world should be the same for everyone, but small balances based on desired difficulty could be taken into account. Luck may have a lot to do with it, but knowing the game was tailored for an experience should also assist with feedback. If you play on Hard, you shouldn't be complaining about difficulty (short of impossibility), and if you're playing on Easy you shouldn't expect murderous deathwings from above the moment you start playing.

 

Yeah, I'm not a programmer so I really don't know how hard it may be to get basic functionality. It may just be a few number tweaks. I would eventually love to see them tie it specifically to the starting planet though. Make Easy spawn on a planet with loads of resources and perfect weather, then ramp it up accordingly. Would also like permadeath to be an option for every difficulty level .

 

It need not be a necessity. The game should be able to keep track of world 'stats,' and choose a starter planet that is right for a starter planet (one with not too few resources, for example)