Dumbest Idea in the History of Dumb Ideas

molten core, does that say steel to you? you ignored my sentence about it possibly having exotic material only existing in other sectors of the galaxy, but whatever.

 

Considering I am doing my final over game design, I can chime in. The designer, Tiy in this case, is the coordinator between a team most of all. He gives them a focus and helps everything come together, but most of all he takes ideas from each worker and helps them blend together into a game. I'm pretty sure people go into this job accepting they won't have their perfect idea, but they do work with the team to make what they can of thier idea happen.

 

This has lost all meaning. I'm dying of secondhand embarrassment.

The availability of crafting materials and the strength of our equipment relative to aliens already paces us. We don't need yet another barrier to exploration in a game about exploration. The way bosses are implemented is an especially hard barrier because we're locked out of stronger gear and planets *completely* until they're beaten. It's particularly obnoxious because it takes so much work to craft the items needed to summon them.

 

http://playstarbound.com/how-the-beta-is-going-to-work/ please for the love of dog read this!

 

It is not so much aggravation as it is stupification. Starbound has been on my radar for quite some time but I don't generally have time for sitting around on forums waiting for games. After finally getting the chance to play it I see a brilliant idea full of nearly endless game play opportunities being gated off and gerrymandered by combat encounters that make no sense in the actual flow of the game, at least in my own opinion.

My point is, why can I not build a molten core myself? Why can't I build a microprocessor? Why are we gating the content behind AI encounters which will never be additive content but simply artificial bottlenecks in the game flow at best? Is the Penguin Death Squad difficult? Is the robot difficult? Can it ever be difficult with the games rather simplistic combat system without making it even stupider in the process? And lets face it its already pretty dumb. A robot that I have to build myself, that 1) Can kill me in one hit unless, 2) I put a wall of dirt between me and it and hit it through the wall....thats not exactly what I'd call emergent design at all.

My point here is that the ideas behind Starbound are really rather good, but gating technical progression behind potentially what I'd call the games weakest feature, which is its combat system (and to be fair, the upcoming update might change my mind, but there really is only so much you can do with these kinds of combat mechanics, they will never be all that outstanding) by forcing the player to overcome an artificially huge and onerous obstacle, simply makes no sense whatsoever. Sector progression makes some sense in that regard, but not technical progression. They are simply bottleneck encounters that have been, unfortunately, kind of the most boring things I've done in Starbound so far. Everything else hasn't been all that bad to be honest.

 

I'm afraid your contribution to the discussion here is not very helpful.

I am giving feedback, which I quite enjoy doing. I am not expecting this beta stage to be anywhere near finished, but its obvious, given the current build we're playing that the general thrust towards bottlenecking technical development is going to be balanced around these "boss encounters" as a primary staple of the games progression mechanics.

So....given your link there, I'm doing exactly what I should be doing at this "stage" of the beta, I'm pointing out a problem with progression mechanics that I think is detrimental to the experience and explaining why I feel this is such.

So Tiy's beta breakdown there does not dissuade me nor make me feel as if I am somehow making some kind of judgmental error in regards to my overall feelings on these encounters.

 

I feel like maybe the distress beacon, and the robot, etc. should, instead of summoning the bosses, give bosses (on their specific planets in a sector) notification of our impressive crafting abilities and we receive a signal from them to come to their planet. Then we defeat them for the star maps and next upgrades, rather than using a one time item, not being prepared for the fight, dying, and having to remake everything.

 

You know what would make me a bit more fine with this? if instead of getting starmap upgrades, you had all of the starmaps from the get-go, instead of getting starmaps, you get blueprints for expanded fuel tanks, with each area requiring a "first jump"(afterwards costing a lot less) fuel cost that increases in various increments. Say hoping from the Alpha to beta costs 750, then 1500 for beta to gamma, etc.

It'd probably get a bit grindy on the fuel aspect, but in the same vein you'd be able to jump between 2 tiers rather then being stuck with one until you finally kill the boss.

Oh, and if bosses were a lot less obvious in their "I AM A GATE" thing.

Terraria has bosses that gate content off until you beat them. Skeletron, Wall of Flesh, etc. Wanna know why they work? they drop more than just the item that causes progress. As well as just being fun to battle in general.

 

I'm hoping that the current progression system is a placeholder to give them time to make more in-depth quests for each sector. If every tier is just "max out gear, build boss, fight boss, build new crafting station, rinse and repeat", that's going to start feeling repetitive fast. I'd much rather be given a quest to save a Glitch castle from its terrifying penguin overlords, or stumbling upon an inactive death-bot while exploring a remote, abandoned space-station that an Apex scientist I helped out told me might have some technology I could use.

 

That would be awesome! part of the quest line where an npc you once helped will give u a specific coordinates where u have to go in order to progress, still keeps the exploration aspect while having a predetermined boss fight.

 

You make some good points.

The distress beacon, decoy princess are all pretty cool ideas and making them to summon a boss works ok. What those bosses reward you however, is not ok. Starmaps shouldn't be rewarded by simply gathering some wood, iron and pixels, killing a boss and bam. Next sector.

 

I believe that bosses should reward and speed up progress, Not be a brick wall you have to break through in order to magically learn or obtain the means to advance as a individual.
Even in terraria with the hardmode barrier [wall of flesh]. The boss gave you a reward for your efforts on top of the "but thou must have this to progress" item.
in SB, your just going through all the effort because you need that mandatory drop only the boss has. The experience wasn't the least bit rewarding for me, as an epic bossfight SHOULD be.

 

I have a solution. I have made a mod! With this mod, all crafting tables and tiers (Table, Anvil, Metalwork, Robotics..) are available from the start progressively. Anvil unlocks metalwork, metalwork unlocks robotics, and materials for them are metal instead of the boss items. But, the boss items are crafted using the previous boss' key item. Distress is same, the robot uses some metal and a molten core, and the decoy princess uses the processor and some other small materials. BOOM!

 

has anyone ever told you that this game is still in early beta and is in no way finished?

 

that is a start, but it also breaks the game, you can make the metal work anvil and get lvl 15 weapons that will over power you for the whole first tier. ect...

 

You still need to go through the tiers to get to higher level planets to get the materials I've set up to make the new crafting station, so progression is still there. You can't just skip the anvil and go straight to metalworking, etc.

 

Implying I need to wait for a finished product before giving feedback.
Pls.

 

Did you seriously just imply on a forum?

 

Its like a sin against nature isn't it?
But the real question is, How did it make you feel reading it?
Really though friend, chillout. its a forum.

 

Can we wait to complain about progression until after the update that's supposed to fix some balance and progression issues? And can we please stop roflstomping the second and third boss until they've received the attention they deserve? Go ahead and complain about the ufo, that part of the game has received enough attention already to deserve a good thwacking, pounding, and ... oh yeah, feedback.

If you feel the progression line is too boxed in for your liking, I hate to say it but that's where things look to be heading. The game is supposed to have a storyline. It's supposed to have side quests. If you think a storyline isn't going to restrict you in some form or fashion, to prevent you from bypassing what was intended to be played, then you may wish to post this in the suggestions board where it belongs. And maybe make it less ranty this time.