First impression - disappointingly not enough sci-fi

You people really need to learn how to write feedback.

First of all avoid a demanding tone. Write feedback as if it was a paper for school. Use "I think...", "I believe..." for sentence beginnings. This emphasizes that this is only your opinion and nothing you want to impose on everyone only because you want it. Add to that "I think most players would like this", "I believe this would make things more fun/easy/convenient for all" and you express not only your opinion, but state that more people may benefit from this idea.

The OP has a valid point but they ruined it by those unnecessary questions "Where is X?". This makes the whole argument sound like "I am angry/sad/disappointed because the game does not have the things I want. And I want X and Y!" This has a demanding tone and gives the impression that the developers should do stuff for ME, because I want stuff or changes.

A lot of threads that were bashed by the "this is beta" had legitimate points, but had a demanding or "ranty" tone...

 

tbh Buddy, most feedback on these forums is bashed with 'its beta omg noob' regardless of tone or legitimate points from either side, luckily we can assume the Devs read suggestions and not the useless guff that gets added by others.

On the topic of this, I would agree, and say that I feel the matter manipulator, having such an awesome name, should be able to be more than just a matter placer. Would be nice to be able to select modes for it, axe/pick/hoe, and use it as an omnitool, not only freeing up hotbar space, but getting rid of most of the primitive feel of tools. Then upgrade with the various metals and shinies as you progress up the tiers, e.g. copper MM up to diamond MM ect.

Yes I know this is suggested by quite a few people, but surely that says something.

 

You're actually wrong about that. We paid for early access and the final game. See http://playstarbound.com/store/

 

welp i did my good deed of the day, and that is getting someone to join the forums, i done did good.

unless of course you made an alt account just to do the i made an account just to blah blah blah.

 

You're barely even into the game. Give it a little more effort.

When you left your homeworld, for whatever reason you took nothing with you except some crop seeds, a shoddy weapon, and a low-power, possibly broken matter manipulator. You're stranded away from friendly civilizations, have no means of communicating with your homeworld and no means of recieving rescue. Your ship's still functional, but lacks fuel to travel.

With no high-tech resources available (and you'll be damned if you scrap your ship - it's the only way off this godforsaken rock!), you've got to rough it with what you can scavenge and craft. This means stone tools and iron weapons until you can make better replacements.

Penguin space pirates are known for being two things. Opportunistic, but incredibly bad at it. To be honest, it's a small miracle the Penguin UFO didn't crash on its own. Ever wornder why the Molten Core is the only salvageable component from the UFO? It's because it's the only part that's not an abject piece of crap! Your bow is just the encouragement that shoddy jalopy the Space Penguins call a vessel needed to fall out of the sky and explode. Ever notice that the penguins' bullets and lasers barely ever do more than single-digit damage if you're in iron armor?

High-tech weapons will start appearing as you progress through the tiers, particularly if you play Human or Apex, who are the most technologically adept species. Humans start crafting vibro-weapons upon working with Titanium, and energy-blades upon working with Aegisalt, abut halfway through the tier progression. Guns aren't craftable, for whatever reason, but you can potentially buy them from the right NPCs around Gamma sector, though if you're really lucky it's possible to find the NPCs that sell guns in Alpha or Beta.

You've only just scratched the surface of what Starbound has to offer.

 

I agree that maybe starting off with axes and whatnot is something that is a bit strange. Sure you could argue that "you only jacked the ship" which would explain why you are not armed to the teeth. But still, why would there not be tools lying around on a spaceship? Sure the reason is plausible but still a bit far-fetched, We are talking about freaking lightspeed travel here guys, the first 5 minutes should more clearly express the differences between this and it's genre-sharing-brothers.

This, i think, would be better in every way, you get to feel more like an spaceexplorerwhatever rather than starting of from scratch in any of the other similar games.

"gather some wood with this axe to fuel your spaceship" just doesn't feel like the right setup for a sci-fi game when you have non-sci-fi games doing the (basically) exact same thing.

Do you really think this seems like such an alien thing to change?

 

The game follows a tech tier system of sorts, tiers 1 thru 4 or so are low tech, and it seems to get higher the more tiers you go up, so around tier 10 (sector 10) I would assume we would have more scifi things than primitive things.

 

The OP has made valid constructive criticism and I can't agree more with him. Although this may change, at the very moment this game is lacking a lot of logic and a immersive feeling of being "real", like a sci-fi world that makes sense. And this is how Starbound is marketed like - not like Terraria with some sci-fi elements added.

No, his tone was perfectly fine. This is not school, this is an adult business we payed real money for. Money that the DEVs need to make this, they didn't give this away for free. So we own every right to critizise and complain.
And both of it is very helpful for game development, because it gives feedback that they can make their working decisions on - to improve the game and thus become successful in the profession they love. I can see the DEVs put a lot of work and love into this, which I highly respect, but it doesn't necessarily mean they are absolutely right. Remember, a good product is not only made through positive feedback.
So everyone here should be thankful the OP took the time to write a thoughtful feedback like this, instead of just leaving and telling all his friends how much this game sucks (in his opinion).

And "there is more when you play longer", that's just a bad excuse for an unlogic progression system. I have played this game a lot now, I actually enjoyed the mindless digging, and I have seen a lot of cool hightech stuff in the different sectors already....but I still don't get the feeling it all makes sense. To me, it feels like Terraria with a littlebit sci-fi painted on it.


So I agree especially on the moddable matter manipulator, it would make sooo much more sense and it would be a lot of fun too!
And things like if we are able to craft all that high-tech stuff, like the brain extractor or that robot, why don't we know right away from the beginning how to craft something better than a stone pickaxe?
Taken we don't know and we just use "manuals" on the ship how to craft these high-tech things, why are there no manuals for something better than a stone axe already right from the beginning, like for a chainsaw at least?
Or they are somehow stored in the robotic-crafting-table for example, where do they come from magically? How do we suddenly know how to make a robotic crafting table, including all that blueprints for stuff, but we have no clue to make something better than a stone axe??

Why the 3D printer needs pixels to operate? Ok taking it that it is some form of energy needed, then why does the beamer doesn't need it? Especially since beaming and energy printing is, one could argue, the same and beaming down to surface and up again should take a lot more energy.
Why can I power the FTL with coal, (coal!!!!), but not the 3D printer? Why not power everything with energy (pixels if you like so) that we could harvest through solar panels or energy generators?

I could go on forever on this. And I could accept it all if it made sense as a whole scenerio - like the OP suggested having the spaceship crashed. But right now, all this feels like arbitrary ways to restrict us and force us on some playing way (= go medieval mining and seeking for treasures because it's how we want the game to be played...but we want it to be sci-fi still).

So yeah, I really hope there will be changes so the whole scenario feels a lot more plausible. I don't regret giving my money for it and I am very much looking forward to where this goes, but at the moment I am also far from saying this is a great game.

 

I bet there will be mods soon enough that completely overhaul this particular part of the game, making it all hi-tech, though I'm not complaining too much, having a good time atm

But what I'm trying to say: what the devs won't come up with, the modding community will.

I doubt the devs would completely get rid of the pickaxes at this point, unless they have a very solid idea of how to replace it, but otherwise not really.

 

Im sure they would like to require something more advanced like plutonium to fuel ship, but too many players are too anxious to travel at moments notice- thus they have to make it some common resource like wood and coal. They tries to make it just coal (which is a tad more realistic for fuel) , but people whined and moaned...so they made it wood too.

i , personally, would have been fine if fuel was a rare and precious resource. It wouldve made the game better IMO and forced the devs to make the pacing of progression smoother. But no- people want to travel like they have a cheat code.

 

I can

I see why ppl would to that but i can't help but feel it's kind of breaking a big part of the immersion or what you'd want to call it.

Maybe the devs should look in other scenarios with other solutions. At least try to find a reason or scenario where you'd actually need/want to stay a bit longer. The crashed ship idea wasn't that bad.

Just cripple the player in a more reasonable way.

 

As another thought while, there does need to be progression it would be very nice to have dev conformation. because as it has been said progression curve is needed. pickaxe>drill> laser cutter> plasma mining rig> nanomite mining
While it is in beta I feel that it is too early to judge at this point in the dev cycle

 

no, Im saying that you start out at lower tech tiers and work up.... and its beta so not alot of the cool stuff has been added yet.

 

LOL well thats a bit off topic, but whatever.

 

Most of these questions are being asked a little early, after all it's still in production stages. Anything is subject to change and additions are obviously going to happen as Starbound continues to be improved and expanded upon. Take these questions and turn them into suggestions and maybe they'll receive support.

 

Personal force fields. Pls chucklefish. pls.

 

I'm a little surprised by the amount of vitriol and backlash that my post has generated. I can understand that some of you don't agree with what I have to say, but can we not agree to disagree? Obviously you have your own strong opinions about the game, and just as you're entitled to those I think I'm entitled to mine.

I was not denigrating the game; I was just sharing my first impression after spending a good part of the weekend with it (not 5 minutes as some posters snidely remarked). And my first impression was of disappointment at the fact that I teleported onto a planet from my technological marvel of a space ship, dumped my uber cool matter manipulator and turned into a caveman. I was disappointed because I thought the game would be different from Terraria but my time in the game was uncannily reminiscent of it with nearly identical gear progression and only pickaxes, silver breastplates, and steel broadswords on the horizon.

Some were very helpful to point out without resorting to snarky douchebaggery that a lot of what I was expecting could be acquired later on. Thank you for pointing that out, I'll be looking for all those things as I spend more time with the game. However I was also informed that my sentiment is not unique and that similar threads have appeared on this forum before. Doesn't that imply that this issue would benefit from further discussion instead of getting slammed with "ITS THE FRIGGIN BETA...NOT THE FULL FRIGGI N GAME, JUST STOP COMPLAINING"?

I may have been wrong to think that the developers are required to listen to my opinions but that doesn't mean that I can't offer a suggestion and hope they take it into consideration. As I understand, it is this phase of the Beta (Progenitor) which will see the biggest influx of new content, and I respectfully disagree with those who think I should hold off with my suggestions until the second phase. What I suggested would require new content and not balancing or re-engineering stuff already in the game. I think this is precisely the right time to make these kinds of suggestions. A part of me also thinks that some of the critics of my post wouldn't hesitate to criticize a similar post in the second phase of beta with "IT'S THE FRIGGIN BETA ... DON'T YOU KNOW THAT BETA IS FOR DEBUGGING AND NOT PUTTING IN NEW CONTENT ... JUST STOP COMPLAINING".

I was encouraged by some of your positive feedback to flesh out my alternate start idea into a suggestion for the developers. You can find it here: Alternate start to the game (more plausible and less anachronistic). Please let me know what you think.

 

I've definitely given it a chance. I'm trying.

 

I've proposed that matter manuplator was infact Broken, so it wasn't opperating at its peak capacity.. So evenutally over time you could repair or find ways to repair it or take it to people to have it repaired or Freaking RAID PEOPLE to gather up supplies. Honestly i'm waiting till we can upgrade our ship... because I kind've really want to have a floran space pirate.

 

The OP has an extremely valid point. The sci fi theme on this game is extremely lacking. They could've introduced more sci-fi themed items right from the get go considering that this is suppose to be a sci fi game. Look at "Edge of Space", another 2d sandbox similar to SB in mechanics. The character also crash lands on an alien world with nothing but his equipment, but instantly you are already immersed in a very sci fi environment, there's laser pickaxes and craftable guns and jetpacks and space suits, they did it right imo. Starbound on the other hand, seems completely lost in what direction its heading, Fantasy Terraria, or Scifi...instead its a mix of both and excels at neither...