Feedback Glad Giraffe

Glad Giraffe feedback time!!!! This won't be as extensive as the last feedback thread (any feedback that still stands will simply be referred to previous threads). But you should definitely read those to catch up to my feedback as a whole.

Previous Feedback

• Upbeat Giraffe
• Pleased Giraffe

Brief synopsis and sum up (you can consider this the TLDR): This patch makes some wonderful additions and changes to combat -- but leaves much of the rest of the game in need. I like the patch, but with only 2(ish?) major patches left, I'm a bit worried as to how fleshed out the game will become by 1.0.

Let's dive in...

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Combat
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1. Weapons


Weapons that do stuff!
These are all so cool! And shiny! And most importantly; useful! I am really stoked to have these new weapon effects. But I do have some issues

--- Some of the weapon effects are HELLA powerful.
Spears in particular make melee so good. Some of the more useful and powerful weapon effects I feel should be better balanced. Maybe even gated behind more progression. Multi-hit, guided missiles, wall... makers? Slow down, friends lol.

--- Some of the weapon effects are HELLA weak.
In particular; anything that requires a charge-up. Charge-ups tend to feel weak and are still a bit clumsy to use. Oh, and flashlights on guns? Cool, but I think the lights could be partially brighter... with maybe a longer range.

--- RNG makes game-play too unpredictable
Ok, I ran about 10 play-throughs in Glad Giraffe. I can't say that any 2 were the same. Some plays were easier to go through. Some plays were much more difficult. This is good normally. Gives variety to game-play and extends the life of the game. When it comes to weapons though; the disparity is just too large. One play-through all I could find were daggers and pistols... Made Dreadwing and other fights unnecessarily difficult. Another play, I found a sniper-rifle that lasted 3 tiers. This same disparity applies when you're looking for a gun with a particular effect. Pray to RNGesus.

There needs to be a way to pursue particular weapon effects -- after they've been balanced and gated of course. Oh -- and did shields all of a sudden become super rare items? I've found a total of 5 in all my plays. Thought it was odd. Might need looking into.

--- Psy-weapons?
Can more of these be a thing? Can early game psy-weapons be a thing? So much cool is attached to these, but by the time you get to them, you just don't care. They are so niche, they just come off as 1 time wonders.
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2. Armor

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I wish armors got as much attention as weapons did for combat this patch. Let's talk about a few things;

--- Dyeing armor?!

This is awesome. And it actually has some "tiers" to crafting them. Yesssssssssssss.

--- Why doesn't armor have any exciting bonuses?
Tiered armors are so bland. Sure, they technically increase your HP and energy and attack or whatever. But that's just stat-padding. Significantly less exciting when you realize enemies are receiving the same perk from tier to tier. I wish we weren't tied to tier progression for armor -- or I wish that progression had more variety.

For example. In Terraria (cue eye-roll) there's armors for damage types, 3+ armors for tiers, armors that don't strictly adhere to "first metal armor" "second metal armor" etc etc, and lastly -- armor with effects, some practical some superficial. And almost all of these armors stat-pad at the same time. More armor variety please. More interesting armor please.

--- Vanity Armor Woes
Ok. I did a few tests. I picked a random hat and tried to find it.

Some were easy to find
Others I never found, and didn't even know where to look

I could have tried to find someone with the coordinates to the hats -- but the fact that I just can't find them (or even know where to look for most of them) on my own is upsetting. The vanity pieces tied to biomes and drops are good, but the randomness of everything else is infuriating.

Most of the time, hunting for vanity just leaves me like this

Can we tie more of these to planets? biomes? monster drops? boss drops? Let's reign these in a bit. Right now, I feel like RNG ruins the vanity experience.

--- Damage on Contact
This might be overtuned. It makes sense for melee-centric enemies to damage you heavily on contact -- but ranged enemies can do it too. The numbers can be scaled down on melee enemies. The numbers can be scaled WAY down on ranged enemies.

--- Period of Invulnerability
Have you run into these guys yet?

Have you run into 2 of these guys yet?

Have you been shot by 2+ of these guys at the same time yet? Basically; you're dead. I mentioned this before in my last suggestion thread, but I feel I need to talk about it again more extensively because of Glad Giraffe. Your character WILL take damage from multiple sources at the same time. Your character CAN take damage from the same source more than once. With damage on contact and more dangerous enemies -- we need better immunity frames for our characters. PERIOD.

--- Upgrading Weapons
Being able to upgrade weapons is hella cool. That is all.
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3. Monsters



Woo! We have Starbound unique monsters! We have named Starbound exclusive monsters!



Ok ok ok. I've been pushing for this for a while. Glad to see it come to fruition. So let's talk about this stuff...

--- Action Figures
Good! This is a cool new feature. Collectibles give a lot of time to a game's life. And having them as monster drops gives us a reason to seek those monsters out. It's a fun activity that combines building, exploring, and combat. That being said... I never actually found one. And I've murdered poptops by the hundreds now. Not entirely sure what the drop rate is on these things but maybe they are SLIGHTLY too rare. Or maybe RNG just didn't like my test plays.

--- Safety in numbers?
I don't know what happened in this patch, but man. Sometimes I run into entire packs of monsters. Like 5-7 of them at a time. It is ridiculous. It's one thing if enemies wander in from off screen, but to run into them all at the same time. That needs to be addressed.

--- Passive monsters?
I know there was a fix for this, but passive monsters are still quite rare. Additionally, I'd like to see unique passive monsters too. Perhaps these guys?

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Planets
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I think we need to talk about Planets. I've been paying a lot of attention to feedback both here on the forums and on Steam in regards to complaints that Starbound feels empty. That there's nothing to do. I, as a builder, am always enjoying my time. But I sat with the feedback information and I thought about it. And, if you're not building or if building isn't your thing... this is pretty much Starbound...



You just sit back and kind of take in Starbound's expansive scenic qualities. Now, it's true you can progress through the "story", but all that happens via your ship or the outposts. Planets are too closely "reskins" of each other with no real activities to them.

Let's think on this for a moment.

Assume that Forest planets are the only planet type. And they sometimes spawn with a flower/garden biome.

Now, you can collect bugs and hunt down some action figures. This is good game-play to have on the planets. You can cut down some trees, harvest some blocks -- and build yourself a fancy house. Or even a few houses if you want to throw some colonists in -- sometimes you even get colonist quests. Minor, but fun. And then...

What? There really isn't much to do after that. Now add in the rest of the planet types. Unfortunately, you don't change the game-play pattern by doing this.

All the planet types make no real difference. They might as well be all Forest planets. This realization makes me pretty sad. But I have some possible solutions for this.

--- Planet types need to make a difference
There should be more reasons why I should want to build on a Frozen planet than a Desert planet, other than the scenery. Maybe some planets affect farming more positively? Maybe some planets spawn better colonists when you place a deed? Differences are key.

--- Planet types could use their own mini progression
If you are geared to handle the surface of a Planet, you can handle EVERYTHING on that planet. The surface, the underground, the dungeons. It'd be nice if you had to... work up to something on a planet. Like... just because you can handle the surface, maybe you still can't take on the underground enemies.

--- There needs to be active things to do, exclusive to planets
Active events need to happen... This has been brought up before by myself and others. Invasions? Boss fights? You get the idea. However, whenever these kinds of things are added; they have to be exclusive to planet types.

Say for example, on Forest planets -- there is a chance every night for bandits to attack in large numbers. That same event should NOT happen on Frozen planets. Different events, for different planet types. New planet, new adventure.

--- Planet exclusive Bosses & Treasure?!
Title. Oh man, what if planet cores had exclusive planet type treasures (makes a reason to dig down too!)? Or crafting materials for planet exclusive bosses. That's cool. Right?
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Crafting
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Sorry. "Planets" was a little boring. But it had to be said.

Let's move to crafting...




This is looking very promising! Some quick notes...

--- Keep it organized!
I covered organization in the last thread. An organized list is a happy list!



--- Keep it simple!
Let's not use 2 stations if 1 will do. I like the idea of having multiple upgrading stations -- but I'm hoping it doesn't get too overwhelming!​

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Progression
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Ok. My general feeling about progression as a whole... is that it's a little lacking. Right now, progression kind of looks like this:
core bits > armor up > mission > armor up > mission > armor up > mission... etc etc

My point is; the bare bones of progression are pretty painfully obvious. It's linear.

--- Maybe we need more progression paths?
Instead of 1 progression path, maybe we can have a few. But it means the end goal would be different. Like, right now -- the story progression seems pretty locked. Gear up, do missions, reach end. But what if there was a farming end game? Missions and quests based on farming. Some sort of "ending" for farming.

--- Progression could be more varied
Remember what I said about armor's tiering or even planet activities? Progression could see a lot more activity. More active time sucks. More involved optional quests with great rewards. Forget the straight forward paths -- think "Huge Side Quests". Add both, and I think progression starts feeling really good.
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Fast Round (aka Misc.)
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1. Hoverbikes are cool, but they get stuck a lot
2. With monster drops, my inventory is suffering again. Halp
   
3. Still can't capture and showcase critters
4. Nerfed energy dash? Booooooooooo
5. Mini biomes and the Underground areas are lookin so good
6. Maybe this was put in before, but I approve of the new personality stances!
7. NPCs sometimes get stuck on stairs
8. Some hostile NPCs are still "Liam Neeson" dangerous. Especially in groups
9. Outpost type blocks available via Frozen planets?! Yesssssss
10. Still can't change my ship pet to a frog? Booooo
11. Elevators are way cooler than stairs
12. Navigation is still looking hella alpha
13. Fist weapons are a bit clunky to use

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TLDR
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There's still a lot I think needs to be worked on from my previous feedback threads. The game is coming along nicely. I feel like all the major mechanics and systems are present, but we're now struggling to fill in the content that makes those mechanics and systems great. With 1.0 close, I feel that Starbound still has a lot of work to go. Cool patch, but I feel more should have been done to all aspects of the game. Thanks for listening.

 

I think the craftable weapons just need to be better. Or a some sort of uprading/slotting mechanism to make some weapons better.

I kinda agree but I feel like some stuff should be a pain in the ass to get to have some bragging rights. But humanoid enemies and randomly generated should all have a chance to drop some stuff like this as well as "neutral" chests in dungeons ect. Also challenge dungeons rarely give me anything great. The bonus chests in them always had only a few pixels. Besides adding the chance for vanity gear and good weapons, they could have exlusive gear as well by a rare chance.

I agree but honestly, I don't get why the scripted monster need that at all. Also monsters just run right into your character's sprite and everything, causing a clusterfuck in which you can't tell what't going on. What's more annoying is that you can't hit them anymore when they do that. Also it really punished short ranged weapons like fists and daggers (I never even bothered using the latter).

Most of the other stuff I agree with as well. I wish there was some more depth to anything really. Armor, crafting, progression, (pets), loot, gear customization ect.

 

A lot of stuff is looking better in this update! Some other things not so much so let me talk about them real quick.

Combat is more diverse yet I fear that it may have changed into something merely different than better. Guns are undeniably better now with their secondary effects but quite a few of the melee weapons seem to be useless. I say that they are useless because they're either too close range with no guard, like gauntlets, which hand your health bar to the enemy on a silver platter because of contact damage, or they didn't get a secondary effect but still lost the ability to guard like folding chair weapons.

Contact damage, really don't care for it myself, especially since the energy dash got nerfed. I used to use the energy dash to fly over enemies that had me cornered but now you can't really do that and dashing on the ground isn't as effective as just running away. On top of that you can't dash though enemies with out taking damage, pretty much making it a useless tech. Contact damage is also really annoying when your trying to make a difficult jump on the side of a cliff and you got five flying enemies trying to hug your face. The really big thing though is with captured creatures, they fly into all the enemies and get themselves killed in a matter of a couple minutes making them more of a burden when i could just rocket and shotgun my way to freedom.

Crafting, the tables look neat and i like the idea that you can upgrade them directly, it saves space. I don't like however that crafting takes a billion years for things to be made, when it's less than a hundred it's kinda charming but when you need a thousand of something, well lets just say i shouldn't be able to go make a sandwich and watch a youtube video in the time it takes to get all the materials converted. Also in early game you should be able to craft at least one healing item directly on you, or get a bed immediately, or bandages in your ship locker because when you beam down for the first time and happen to get into trouble there's no place to go regain health and not enough health to survive while foraging for materials to make an apothecary and you're just dead unless you happen to get lucky.

 

Uhh... Isent this allredy in? For example, Planets with rain clearly effects normal farming, ocean worlds make it easier to farm underwater plants, higher planet threat levels spawns better colonists, pretty much every biome type has some unique resources you can only get there, Etc...

Edit: Off course it could allways use improvement, but just saying.

 

Weather is inconsistent from planet to planet. And resources are tied to tier, not planet type. And colonist base strength is again tied to tier. I'm referring to changes that make you see a Forest planet and go "OH! A Forest planet, I can benefit from this, this, and this -- because it is a Forest planet".

 

While weather such as rain indeed differ from planet too planet, certain weathers still only appears on certain biome types as well. So you can say that they are biome specific.

Theres also plenty of resources specific to biomes (things that makes the different stims, antidote, different dye's, certain crafting materials like oil or thorn fruits, etc).

Since biomes are also bound to tiers it effectivly makes a "colonist base strength" be tied to biomes.

 

Weather is still inconsistent. Weather is a benefit or a negative in and of itself that happens to appear with planets. Not necessarily because of planets.

I am aware of the "special" resources. But they don't help the cause. As I said in my example, they might as well all be Forest planets. The game-play added by thorn fruits is not discerning enough from the game-play added by glowing fiber (or whatever that item's name was). See what I mean? Now if thorn fruits presented their own progression path, perhaps aided by adding a special something to crafting as a whole (thorn fruit + sword recipe = thorn sword, etc etc), or could be used to create different game-play sub-systems and sub-mechanics -- then that would make Arid planets worth exploring for the sake of being Arid planets. Instead of just getting a generic item for the sake of having a different item.

You misunderstand what I mean about colonists.
Tier 1, assume all colonists have X strength. This is true on all Tier 1 planets. My example encourages the idea that on certain planet types, like... perhaps Desert planets... that formula looks like X+2.

 

When I discovered I could throw poke... I mean capture pods as critters, I immediately imagined a zoo planet where I would keep them, complete with aquariums for fish and little glassed in biomes for respective critters . Then i saw how many critters there were and I nearly died of excitement. Then I realized that storing/showing the critters just wan't working.... I was devastated.

Any progress on this front will guarantee many many hours of game time for ocd collectors like me

 

Elevators need more control. They are either top or bottom. Nothing else. It makes doing towers... Meh.

 

I love Starbound, it has this charm and appeal many other "Open World Crafting" Games don't have; however, I haven't played it in a long time because well, even wit hall the updates and "shiny new toys" they're introducing to the game, it's still the same game since Winter 2014.

I've played at least 5 characters since I got Starbound on February 2015, and I have to say that besides building stuff there's no other reason forme to come back to the game, which is pretty lame considering the gist of this sort of game is giving the players lots of options to explore and build and adventure forth.

As others have commented before, the whole Ore system is a linear mess. The game goes from point A to point Z with no detours at all, since besides loot, there's no reason for you to stop and adventure on the surface or underground.

Combat Update did not solve any problem, but made it more evident; we get all these shiny new toys and cool flashy moves, but they don't improve the gameplay at all, it doesn't feels fresh, we are till doing what we have been doing for almost a year, and no matter how cool are the weapons we get, we do't get to use them on anything interesting, besides the very few scripted boss encounters the game has and that sadly, are only there for the sake of progression, without giving you a reason to fight them again. When you reach the endgame, who cares if you have the coolest weapon arround? You'll be flinging it at the same stuff for maybe hours for no purpose at all.

I know, I know people hates to hear the name "Terraria" arround here, but even if that game has sort of a linear progression system (Beat boss A to progress to Boss B, then C, to allow Hardmode), there's just so much going in between those points that it never feels like the same; in fact, I've played the same game about 4 times and I'm still amazed to see what could happen while trying and getting materials to survive and summon the bosses.

Starbound also needs less instanced bosses... I mean, the big baddies are all inside scripted places that are just "go and kill stuff inside" without any major surprises, and they don't feel important to defeat because well, in fact, you only kill them to get more ore, and kill another one to get even more ore after it... It would be interesting if planets could spawn some unique bosses once in a while, or events, I don't know, something to actually make me explore and use my new weapons on...

Thing is, I can't recommend Starbound as a Crafting-Exploring game to anyone as it is right now, even with the improvements. Even if it has charming graphics, unique and diverse character options and good combat mechanics, it just doesn't clicks when the rest of the crafting games out there offer more in one 2 hout playthru than Starbound right now... it's sad, this game needs to be saved

 

some minidungeons need a "rethinking" I found yesterday a outpost undergound area, where all those tiny outposts are, bu how does htis make sense? One had a cargo crane and a large cargo container. In underround? totally usefull -.-, I mean how did it got there even and for what prpose? These kind of ruin should be on the surface and span a larger area, that would make planet surfaces alot cooler. They feel boring And ther eis sometimes more NPC life underground than above. ??? why, are we all cave dwellers suddenly?

I want the old planet system back, no threat biome bounds, only threat ore bounds. to make the progression fit. Just a few too unmatchign things should have been removed, like ice on magma planets and some other curiousities. I spent evenings for serveral weeks just doing planet hopping and runnign over their surfaces to explore all these diveristy. Now you are slower, need more fuel and this makes this process slower, less exciting and with the new planet system even more repetitive than before. Quadrillions of possible planets, and yet such low diversity, especially on lush palnets. Not eve different kinds of trees anymore.

I hate the unique mobs, they are not unique they are vermin. If you would meet on on each planet, then maybe but they are on nearly all planets and like , well vemrin.

Some wepaons have strange mechanics, like hammers that have such a huge pointless chargtime fo their special moves I could kill 2 mobs within this time already.

This, I once had like 10 charactes, now I only have 3 and only one I actually play. having to do all the same quests again is just annoying andboring. There needs to be more race individual missions and requirements that make you want to get some replayability.

 

Exactly! Both crating and exploring are sub-par at best since day one, and improved only a little bit, while suffering from some rather bad gameplay decisions. And main culprit behind it was and still is the dreaded "tier" system - it force people to rush, it kind of hinders attempts to improve and make crafting more diverse (because no-one with bother with sophisticated crafting, like, f.e., modular armor if said armor will be useless only a hour or two later). Same goes for exploring - why bother with exploring lower tiers at all (if you already got decent weapon and armor)?
Terraria had only one "real" tier - hardmode, but it not only force you to overcome boss itself - it require you to build some "infrastructure" to support you in hardmode, so it usually take quite some time before one decide to venture into it. In my opinion it is quite a good item and recourse sink for a game like Terraria.
In Starbound case, i really don't know what is better - to make progressing though tiers more resources and time demanding(in some way) or, conversely, lessen difference between "tiers" more allow smooth transfer of stuff between them. But i do know that current tier system is one of the main reasons crafting and exploring aren't good in Starbound.

 

I actually don't feel like Starbound lacks exploring at all.

Bugs. Action figures. Specialized blocks. Biome weapons and costumes. Vanity pieces. Challenge rooms. While I wish some exploration options were placed and emphasized elsewhere, Starbound is still able to represent the activity well.

Crafting has never been up-to-snuff. And while I want that of Starbound, I don't fault it for lacking it -- especially since it appears the next patch will bring in a crafting station/material overhaul. After all, you can't have a fleshed out crafting system with other mechanics (like combat) in shambles. Priorities. Crafting was further down on the list; and that's ok.

Exploring and Crafting have their faults, but to call them sub-par is to hold them to impossible standards.

 

Terraria has plenty of tiers. It can best be shown by there ores: Copper (tier 1), Iron (tier 2), Silver (tier 3), Gold (tier 4), Meteorite (tier 5), Demonite (tier 6), Obsidian (Tier 7), Hellstone (tier 8), Cobalt (tier 9), Mythril (tier 10), Adamantinte (tier 11), Chlorophyte (tier 12), luminite (tier 13).

It just works better in that game becuse they have more options for each tier (a allternative ore for every tier, more craftable armor options for each tier, more unique weapons and especially armor for many tiers (not vanity stuff), etc) and you can also (if you so desire) completely skip tiers.

The main difference (in my humble opinion) is that all their tiers take place in the same world instead of being spread to different worlds, also their tier system isen't as strict as the one in starbound (its allways there in the background, but you can jump to a rather high tier allmost right away if you wish, you will likely just die a lot). It dosen't effect exploration the way it does in starbound.

But saying that terraria do not have tiers is very faulty.

Also, id like to add that Terraria didnt start out with all the stuff it has now. It was way more limited in the begining (much closer to starbound). Hopefully Starbound will get the massive amount of content Terraria gotten has over time, but its not something one should expect from a game at release (its not something that should be expected at all tbh, the way terraria has been updated after release for so long with so much is kinda extraordinary).

 

Dunno the old SB was better there was more visual diversity to explore on surface, and while the current system has more sub biomes and Underground biomes it already has too much. Yet they removed those being interesting (brains, colorful caves flowers, heck). (You never basically "seek them" or explore them, because they exist plenty, which makes them neither special, nor exploring. All you do is planet hopping dif a bit see if the biome fits, if not continue). There is not even a need to "explore them" Not even special treasures anymre. They are often all very big and have the same houses/runes in a extremely repetitive manner (as well as the contained treasures) It all is (too) plenty.
Also they are often so huge that you do not care if you missed a few corners of it, because its unlikely to find something truly special.

 

First note for those that don't know; I am easily distracted and entertained. Also having an overarching & overabundant imagination being able to self entertain. I find myself more of a builder in these style of games, as they allow such.

If wasn't for my friend I probably be still awaiting a few updates. Mostly played multiplayer, as we started up a week before this patch on a server of some kind. Beyond the mishaps with quests (having to do them over again), my friend had mentioned nerfing here and there. The combat being one of them, and that had to explain the new system to him.

Weapons:
This is something I rather enjoyed seeing. Although the first ones were lacking. My friend was a bit mystified at first then found a few ones he liked. Quite a selection of various interesting ones out there. I like quite a few of the abilities. I pretty much already had one sword I enjoyed (due to the conversion to GG), an electrified line sword. Secondary ability to lay a line of electric in a short dash. Love that thing.

So here I have to say they improved the variety in what you get. Even if there are quite a few things missing still, namely ranged weapons. I've heard getting racial weapons are now difficult to get; I am referring to ones like my floran needler that I have a couple of due to the conversion. Don't know if true or not that these types are difficult to obtain now, but I had already had a few before the update hit.

Armor:
Still the same as before, a bunch of upgrades. The only difference now is the change in stat allocation, and how they affect weapons. Still not much variety beyond stats. I have to agree with izzy they need more to this. special things attached, even to the tier progression ones.

Vanity:
Sure there is more vanity, but if you can hardly get any... Yeah... In the Koala addition they were everywhere, and simple to find. In the first few iterations of Giraffe and this one, I seem to see a lack in finding very many. At least the instruments are roughly about as rare to find. Although I have gathered a few of the vanity sets, looking for specific ones beomes a bit of "where do I even start looking". Now I don't mind that, however would be nice if that only pertained to the most rare sets; Feels like it almost pertains to majority though at this time. I have yet to find any of the ones you see in my avatar beyond the shield.

Shields:
Speaking of which, it seems some were dropped?! The starbounder shows a selection that I have gotten before. 3rd row. Seems like those shields converted to ones of the 1st and 2nd row. I loved some of them. Needs more variety. I have indeed run across some unique ones and few here and there, and glade my flower shield is still there. Maybe I have not explored enough... Haven't seen too much diversity here. There is more armor diversity than shields. I guess that is ok, but I mean it feels like a 0.1 ratio to how many armor we have.

Techs:
Remember me mentioning my friend saying nerf. This was also one thing he noticed. Yeah the dash tech. Personally I don't really use that tech. Heck even in the Koala edition I didn't ever use the bubble blast gravity floaty techs. Always stuck to double jump one. I most certainly can understand the frustration here from others. Mobility is important, even more so with the new combat changes. There is a lack of mobility to counter the changes.

Combat:
I was fine with the contact damage. It is not the change I was weary or annoyed by. It is representation that I was annoyed by. Best example would be those rock unique mobs. I hear about I-frames and the like, but what does that matter if you still get damage from a rock when it is not apparent it is a mob. What I am getting at is when it hides in shell.

It is that moment I feel it should not really hurt you as it doesn't give the appearance to hurt you. When it pops up, that is when it should check on the on contact. Hence me saying representation for a few of the enemies. The spiny wall crawl makes more sense why touching it would do damage, spikes. The rock creature like the snail one I have seen that have a defensive in shell part...

Immunity to hit. So it kind of makes it somewhat a waiting game. That I don't mind, but it is not like when they are in that mode they show visually dangerous. Main thing I was not too happy with of this new system. Most the rest I liked and enjoyed, and do agree some tweaks here and there are needed.

Colony:
Can't really touch up on this as I have been busy exploring and gathering building materials. I don't have any first hand experience with this system yet. From what I hear, it is actually fine by me; then again like I said I am easily entertained and overimaginative. I can see why people are saying it is mainly not feeling like an actual colony and like some of the ideas the suit presents to that.

Exploration:
This I rather enjoyed just as much as Koala. Although not feeling as diverse as it. Don't think it will ever be that diverse, but that is ok.

The underground is most certainly an improvement over the Koala version, at least in my opinion. Also an improvement over the earlier versions of Giraffe. That is just getting better with each iteration it seems.

The overworld/aboveground is still WIP as not all planet biomes are fleshed out or touched up just yet. Of those that have I enjoyed the improvement to the overall look, as they look even more pretty. However I have to agree with izzy on that I can see each forest being same as the next biome in a linear fashion. For those that have a non-building style of play, how pretty something is doesn't seem to matter much, as the focus is somewhere else. Variety still isn't much there, but making the biome look more inviting to the eye is a step forward in my way of thinking. I like some of the things she mentioned on incentive to go to specific planets or seek out specific biomes.

Equipment playstyle or funtional things to do with those specifically seems to be a good idea, and hopefully something like that will happen. Otherwise some may find hopping planets rather boring, as there is not a single reason they would need to go back to that specific biome or planet type.

Everything is getting more and more diverse in looks in the very least, with all the mini-structures and the like. Or chances for such. Content is something they is continually expanding, and that much is a good thing.

Tier Progression:
Linear. what is there to say. There is still only 1 path of 3 to choose from far as I am aware of. Something I await to see most. That way I could venture down multiple or single separate path depending on the character I want to play.

Granted it will more likely still be linear as Terraria is. That game is strait foward linear. However the thing of that is that there is multiple way to go about that linear part of the game in segments. There is not much side or variance in choice of going about the progression. It is just a bunch of upgrades. I don't really like comparing, but I am not saying it should be like that game, as it is a different playstyle all together. what I am saying is having multiple ways to go about the progression as they have mentioned of the 3 paths. I sure hope those get in soon.

Inventory:
Still the same problems as the last versions. Just with even more stuff to worry about. I am not fickle much on this one for I would think obvious reasons. Just would be nice for an option in the option menu to have a check box for "Item pickup carryover".

What I mean is what I have mentioned before, a way to on/off switch between having items that are picked up to carry over to another tab when full. Simple as that. That would solve most things I have qualms with, and sure might appease some others too. Just an idea, as the options menu is too basic anyhow for being advanced settings. (unless I missed something recently)

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That is about all I can really say on this version of the game. Crafting I have yet to mess with the new crafting stuff, so I can not even dare touch anything on that. It will be the same to me no matter how they go about it. Since I just do what yoda says, "Don't try, Do." Well the way I go about crafting.

Thank you for reading if you did, as it is just my thoughts in what things have been mentioned in this thread.

 

Sorry, i mean "Gate" not "tier". In Starbound for most cases "tiers" are equal to "gates", and in Terraria they obviously aren't.

Starbound obviously don't lack exploring, it lacks proper rewards for exploring - insane amount of vanity stuff and totally random and unpredictable chance of getting something really good isn't enough, IMO.

Well, i really hope material and crafting overhaul to bring changes, especially making lower tier stuff useful in all tiers and adding more stuff you can carry and upgrade though all play-though.

Right, priorities. But i thought so too about combat system:"How it helps to have a proper combat system if exploring is on dull side?" It all because for a long time i struggle to understand that "part" or "genre" is more important to Starbound (according to developers). At first i thought it was all about FFA multiplayer sandbox, later i thought it would be a heavy story-driven platformer with a bit of sandbox. Later, story elements were but on hold for quite some time and platformer part were buffed even more and we got random quest and player-build villages.

My main problem is that both elements (Exploring and Crafting) lack either unique touch or well-integrated and developed ordinary approach.

 

this right there, the old "full randomised" planets were more unique than what we have now. Now you have a subset of very limited things at hand making this a lot less exciing because 90% of the sameplanet type is the same, the same by trees, the same by mobs, the same by surface and colors. it bores out very quick. While in the old system I spend weeks for hopping around and never felt like "dammit, it's getting boring"

 

For me a lot of this was hit and miss.

I like the weapon skills, that's cool... but we can only make a few and that puts even less emphasis on crafting weapons than before.

My first gripe is contact damage and how the enemies seem to only want to attack by hitting you now. Also, why get rid of the procedural enemies and put in almost exclusively "unique" enemies that aren't unique at all since they are on every single world? I may be weird, but I liked being in a new planet and suddenly an enemy appears and I have to watch and learn the attacks, but not have to worry about it hugging me to death.

Then there's the balloon enemies..... WTF where they thinking? Their contact only, flying, move as fast as you do, and then when you kill them explode while invincible. How is this fair at all? Explode on death, sure, that's fine. Giving me zero option to avoid it if they are at melee range(Because most likely you will still be mainly melee by your first desert planet), giving it total invincibility before it explodes, and making it as fast as me? No, I am not okay with that.


As a side note, why is there so much Terraria hate/dislike on here? I know it's not a Terraria forum, but Terraria has done most things right and is a good game to compare this to since(from my perspective) there's not much in this genre as fleshed out as Terraria.