Ideas to make game better after playing the beta.

I have been playing the game and found most of it annoying but fun anyway, at least the alpha area of the game.

here are some ideas I feel should be placed in to help the game.

1) the ability to upgrade your matter manipulator. Its really hard to mine or cut down trees with this thing or do anything with it other then place stuff. The axe does a better job at breaking down trees and items then it.

1 a) matter manipulator placement / block removal. 2x2 is okay but not enough to walk side to sided when underground making it feel like its better just to dig right down rather then sideways. the same with 3x 3 pickaxe. I think it would be neat to give the matter manipulator 3 settings 1x1, 2x2, and 4x4. 1x1 able to destroy blocks the fastest.

1 b) the dulling of the pickaxe is annoying, I have found no other item to dull and just feels like a way to eat up ore. Some ore is hard to come by and if you dont have enough ore then your pickaxe becomes very useless and there is no other reason to have a pickaxe higher then copper. I feel it would be better if this is removed or use something like cobble stone to repair these items, or simply be used to upgrade your matter manipulator.

2) toggle shift, its annoying having to hold shift to place 1 block instead of 4. I would think it would be a neat idea to have it where if you press shift it will change the size setting of it from 3 settings and keep on them (small 1x1 fastest at breaking blocks / items , medium 2x2 mid speed, and large 4x4 / 3x 3 slow.)

3) health regeneration / hunger bar. I think it would be helpful if the player heals slowly over time without having to sleep as long as the hunger bar is full. Sleeping takes up so much time to heal (unless you get sacrificial alter to sleep on). if the hunger bar gets to low the player loses the health regeneration and gets some kind of feeble stat that weakens the player.

4) health bar number display. I would like the health bar show how much hp the player currently has instead of just bars. With the bars I feel like if I lose 5 hp I lost 10 according to what the bars are showing.

5) the axe is kinda pointless, its the fastest at breaking objects and trees but I could also just use the matter manipulator to do the same thing. My idea would be to either get rid of the axe for the matter manipulator upgrade. or have the axe do more such as right clicking will let you throw it to get meat from creatures or hit the tops of trees to drop seeds.

6) the bow, I never used the bow its just to under powered and farming is just easier to get food. You can set up a farm in your ship and get food like that. When I got a gun weapon the bow lost all its charm. Even when killing foes meat was oddly hard to drop from monsters making it even more useless. My idea would be to give the bow a grappling hook ability so you can use it to pull yourself over mountains or drag flying foes down to the ground. just a simple right click hold to lock on then release will pull you into the target.

7) the flashlight, it seems torches are just better then the flashlight or simply running around in the dark with your weapons ready. The only way the flashlight is useful is if you have a 1 handed object. however most of the tools are 2 handed making this object purely useless. I think it would be better if the matter manipulator and the flashlight where one item. or able to toggle the flash light on or off any time with any item in hand. Or be replaced / an item used to make a mining helmet.

8) armor, armor seems so useless. I found the way it works is you add up the 3 armor parts then divide by 3. However at higher levels everything still 1 hit kills you it over all feels useless and the ore is very hard to get at the start to make it. The warmth it gives does not seem to do much. To make this better I think a few different armors should be able to be made and upgraded.

speaking of armor the way the game works does not go well with this system of damage.
The reason the current battle system is bad is cause no matter how much armor you have an enemy of slightly higher level then your armor can 1 shot kill you. No matter what end of story.

weapons > armor

My battle damage idea -----


Armor will be a bar under health. The total armor you have is what this number will be.
armor piercing will reduce the armor points per hit.
armor will protect you and negate all damage including fall damage until it reaches 0 armor points
when your armor total reaches half you will take half damage
armor total will recover when you dont take damage and stand still or go to sleep.
Shields reduce the amount of armor points lost when taking damage. if armor is 0 the shield will instead reduce the damage to your health.

like halo's over shield


8a) armor ideas -
mining helmet : armor ? warmth ? - effect (emits a light around the player even to a torch)
-should be weak but can also be used as a vanity item with the effect enabled.-
material needed to craft: leather, flashlight, vines


thanks for reading

 

Only really agree with 4.), but that's because I progressed sufficiently to not be bothered by the rest of the things.

Next update's gonna be a huge balance overhaul anyway (check front page!) with char-wipe, so I'm eager to see how the new settings will feel

EDIT: I also agree with the flashlight thing, it's a bit annoying to use imo, maybe a secondary cone of dimmer light around the primary cone will make it more useful.. Or maybe a radial but very dim light along with the primary cone... As the contrast is really high in the pitch dark making it really awkward to use.

 

Yikes. Where to begin:

1) the ability to upgrade your matter manipulator. Its really hard to mine or cut down trees with this thing or do anything with it other then place stuff. The axe does a better job at breaking down trees and items then it.
Of course the axe does a better job of cutting down trees. That's what it's for.

1 a) matter manipulator placement / block removal. 2x2 is okay but not enough to walk side to sided when underground making it feel like its better just to dig right down rather then sideways. the same with 3x 3 pickaxe. I think it would be neat to give the matter manipulator 3 settings 1x1, 2x2, and 4x4. 1x1 able to destroy blocks the fastest.
I agree that it's annoying to mine sideways because of always having to break a 1-thick row of blocks, but that would be for the pickaxe, not the Matter Manipulator. Honestly I don't know why so many people want this thing buffed; it's not meant to be a harvesting tool.

1 b) the dulling of the pickaxe is annoying, I have found no other item to dull and just feels like a way to eat up ore. Some ore is hard to come by and if you dont have enough ore then your pickaxe becomes very useless and there is no other reason to have a pickaxe higher then copper. I feel it would be better if this is removed or use something like cobble stone to repair these items, or simply be used to upgrade your matter manipulator.
There is plenty reason to have a pickaxe higher than copper. Speed! Also, if anything I always have a huge abundance of ore to repair my pickaxe with.

2) toggle shift, its annoying having to hold shift to place 1 block instead of 4. I would think it would be a neat idea to have it where if you press shift it will change the size setting of it from 3 settings and keep on them (small 1x1 fastest at breaking blocks / items , medium 2x2 mid speed, and large 4x4 / 3x 3 slow.)
Clashes with the walk button; I say no to this suggestion. I like it as it is, holding shift to both walk and place 1 tile. Again your suggestion seems to stem from wanting to break massive amounts of blocks with the manipulator when it's unnecessary.

3) health regeneration / hunger bar. I think it would be helpful if the player heals slowly over time without having to sleep as long as the hunger bar is full. Sleeping takes up so much time to heal (unless you get sacrificial alter to sleep on). if the hunger bar gets to low the player loses the health regeneration and gets some kind of feeble stat that weakens the player.
There are more than an adequate number of ways to heal yourself in this game from sleeping, stimpacks, food, and bandages. Can you explain why these things are insufficient for healing?

5) the axe is kinda pointless, its the fastest at breaking objects and trees but I could also just use the matter manipulator to do the same thing. My idea would be to either get rid of the axe for the matter manipulator upgrade. or have the axe do more such as right clicking will let you throw it to get meat from creatures or hit the tops of trees to drop seeds.
You just said in number 1 that the axe is better at breaking trees than the Matter Manipulator. You can't then say that it's pointless. And again, you have this raging obsession with using the Matter Manipulator to do everything... it's not a harvesting tool.

6) the bow, I never used the bow its just to under powered and farming is just easier to get food. You can set up a farm in your ship and get food like that. When I got a gun weapon the bow lost all its charm. Even when killing foes meat was oddly hard to drop from monsters making it even more useless. My idea would be to give the bow a grappling hook ability so you can use it to pull yourself over mountains or drag flying foes down to the ground. just a simple right click hold to lock on then release will pull you into the target.
Farming is easier, but hunting is faster. The player has the choice of which they prefer.

7) the flashlight, it seems torches are just better then the flashlight or simply running around in the dark with your weapons ready. The only way the flashlight is useful is if you have a 1 handed object. however most of the tools are 2 handed making this object purely useless. I think it would be better if the matter manipulator and the flashlight where one item. or able to toggle the flash light on or off any time with any item in hand. Or be replaced / an item used to make a mining helmet.
Ignoring the tenth mention of upgrading the Manipulator... all I can say is that yeah, it sucks sometimes not having a light source, but this could be remedied in smarter ways like including guns with flashlights on them or glowing swords. Plus the flashlight isn't for permanent luminance, it's for scouting a dark area and seeing if it's worth putting a torch there. For that purpose it works.

8) armor, armor seems so useless. I found the way it works is you add up the 3 armor parts then divide by 3. However at higher levels everything still 1 hit kills you it over all feels useless and the ore is very hard to get at the start to make it. The warmth it gives does not seem to do much. To make this better I think a few different armors should be able to be made and upgraded.
The balance is going to be overhauled in the next patch.

 

the reason I want the matter manipulator to do everything is cause this is a sandbox game, how can I build something if it takes so long to fix 1 mistake on something I'm building or get stone / building blocks? I dont mind how it is right now just some of the items seem obsolete to use when there is a 1 in all tool but its so weak so why not be able to upgrade it even if its an end game item. If there is a mod where you can freely build and break anything in 1 hit I would not mind that. It just takes so long to mine or break stuff. Most of the time if the ore is in cobble stone I'm like forget it...

also its a space age game, why are we still using stone axes, and minecraft tools? so last millennium.

 

Terraria had different levels of tools. Minecraft had different levels of tools. That's how it works. You upgrade the pick to break stuff faster, if you make a mistake, oh well, fix it. Stop making mistakes. I make mistakes in my building, but I don't blame the tool that can't break it quickly, I blame myself for rushing. I agree I'd like to see upgrades to the matter manipulator, but I DON'T want to see those upgrades as harvesting tools. Extra range and size options for building is what I'd be interested in, if anything, but as Dingo said, it is not a harvesting tool. We use it for that at the beginning of the game, just like how in Minecraft you use your FISTS to punch a tree down at the start of the game.

As for your second paragraph, yes, I think there should be another tier of harvesting tools (Chainsaws and mining drills, likely) but the reason we're using these tools at the start of the game is because while we may be in the space age, you are stranded on an alien planet, which means you need to use the resources available there. At a certain tier level, probably a bit after we get guns, I would say that having drills and chainsaws would make sense.

 

This isn't just a building game, it's also exploring, adventure, and survival game. The matter manipulator is so you can place things with precision. The fact it can act as an emergency mining or axe tool I think is a bonus, not a stated feature. Mine isn't even in my hotbar anymore, I don't specifically use it that often. What you're looking for is a creative mode like in minecraft, and right now in the beta of the actual gameplay, I don't think that's important right now. The primary objective of this game is NOT a building program.

The one thing I would borrow from terraria however, is the miner's helmet. Light built in. But I'm okay with the flash light. I'll run around in the dark with my weapon, and if I need to see something real quick, I'll whip out my flashlight. No need to waste a torch.

 

why not just get rid of the pickaxe, axe, and flashlight and put it into the matter manipulator? then upgrade the matter manipulator like you do with the pickaxe? nothing would be lost and you would still have to upgrade 1 object. no more taking up 3 spaces. The manipulator also has range, its future like, and you have it right at the start of the game.

could also give the manipulator 3 beam settings small, wide, large.

whats the reason for not doing this?

the only race I see using pickaxes would be the glitch, and Avian.

 

Why? Because then you don't have to worry about space. You don't have to move tools around. You don't have to think. Again, the manipulator is NOT a harvester. Its point is not to make harvesting easier for you. If you want trees, you bring an axe. If you want ore, you bring a pick. The manipulator's perk is range, not speed. The pick is limited in range, and makes up for it in speed. That's the point. Gathering resources takes time, and there's a trade off for using the different tools. That is the point. If they wanted the manipulator with its extensive range to be the mining tool, they would have just added in upgrades for it from the get-go. It's not FOR THAT. It's FOR BUILDING.

 

dear game creators if you are reading this, please at least give the matter manipulator the ability to break any 1x1 block quickly.

it can lift a whole refrigerator above my head. focusing the beam should at least give it the ability to easily rip out 1 block really quick.
as you see above. the matter manipulator is useless at breaking blocks, and people dont want it to be able to be upgraded to harvest for some reason. making it useless compared to rocks on a stick.

so why not give it a reason to be used to break blocks? even if is one at a time, say you come across 1 titanium ore but its trapped in a wall of cobblestone. It would take while to mine it with a pickaxe, while if the manipulator had the ability to break 1 block fast I could get it quickly and move on. However if there was a huge wall of ore I would just use the pickaxe. Thus in such cases the 2 items have reason to be on you.

or say I was building my base then suddenly my pinky slides up and hits caps lock switching back to 4 blocks making me cause a mistake with hard to break blocks. I now have to wait to break those blocks... or could just use the manipulator and quickly break those extra blocks without having to move in range.

idk... just feel like, why does the matter manipulator even have the ability to break blocks when 2 objects clearly do a better job. Why not just give us the pickaxe, and axe at the start of the game to save us from that horrible cobblestone digging with it >_< if you did not want us to use it that way, why are we at the start?

 

The matter manipulator is a jack of all trades, master of none.

The reason the matter manipulator can do everything is so that it's much harder to get "stuck" with no way to progress or start over.

 

yeah its just a nice tool I really like it but... oh man the speed of doing anything with it... I just find it really odd a future device is outdone by logs and rocks with no way of giving it any kind of boost.