Feedback Glad Giraffe

And that's a problem Starbound HAS to solve; the competition (Terraria and even Minecraft) are way ahead of what it's doing in terms of content.

I know, it took Terraria a while and Minecraft too, to get where they are. However Starbound hasn't left the Pre-Release stage for long and I don't really feel they're trying to go and jump ahead of the competition, I mean, we've got substantial updates that have improved gameplay, one way or another, but as I said, they give us shiny toys aplenty that can't be used as they should. Like, Hoverbikes, why would we like them if they can barely navigate thru terrain as it is right now?

Try to understand the concept behind the competition: Why would the public spend cash on a product that's yet to be finished, and we're unsure of how's it going to look like, when we can just jump into a finished product that offers more gaming value? I want to believe Starbound will be the gratest of said games, but as of now they're not really giving us reasons to think so.

The problem with this game is that it feels too much like a 2D Open World "Animal Crossing" of sorts, which is not bad, but it's not what the developers initially advertized this game would become! I really like Starbound, but as I said, I feel Chucklefish should set sail towards a direction and work on it, we're getting updates that are chunks of unconected improvements that, ultimatelly, make me woner if this game is even ready for version 1.0...

 

Terraria offers way less individual building components and also less charater customistion (ignoring to be able to choose the full RGB color palette which I wish SB had too)

But terraria rewards being smart and havings skills in battle. SB is way too easy and the most "challanging" part was getting the specific random mission rewards. Terraria has done this part right to always catch you up with uppig your charater with always suprising you and still challanging you in a softer progression. Sb lacks this finetuning. But given that we are in an alpah (yeah rant about ti, but SB isn't feature complete so its tehcnically an alpha no matter what "beta" label you slap onto it). there are other things to Focus onto.

So while gamplay lacks, features and potential of SB are very great. The instruments and song thing is veeeeery nice. There is way more interaction with NPC's than in Terraria, And even the current colony system adds a lot more control about the housing feature. Tterraria connects battles and loot to the story by also making the story come to you. Like how bosses spawn randomly at night when you reach a specific amount of HP or other conditions, and how these conditions also trigger NPC spawns. In SB you mine to get through the stroy, in Terraria the story comes while you mine. And random drops of mobs together with the Guide telling you what to make out of material always makes you "wow sounds cool, want to have and test this" While in Starbound weapon proggresion is just "more dmg" same thing. The new individual specials to wepaons were a good addon for Sb, but need a bit balance. SB lacks a bit of story, and still hasn't found the connection between its elements of buildng fighting and story. But as long as these features aren't even finished properly there is hardly a point to connect them to each other.

 

Okay, I'll admit I'm new here and have no clue how to format well.

That said, you point of not comparing based on where they are in builds is half true.(If I misunderstood, my apologies, but you gave me a springboard to continue regardless.)

We should not say "Look at Terraria, it's so complete and much better", because like you said, this game isn't where Terraria is developmentwise.
We should, however, say, "Look at what Terraria got right, now how what can we learn from this".

For me, Terraria is a good source to look at for ideas, but not to directly compare.

Terraria is fleshed out, has different goals(boss killing mainly), and is more an RPG.
Starbound is not as fleshed out because it is unfinished, has different goals(more sort of collecting and social at this point), and is more an exploration game.

I believe by looking at similar elements(combat, armor, mining), Starbound can improve. I also believe that looking at differences(Weapon types, buffs, items, etc.), we can also improve this game.

I'm not saying to make it more like Terraria per se, but to use what Terraria did right to help make this better.

I believe learning by observing what others have done right(and done wrong) is far superior to learning by trial and error.