Impressions, Findings on Upbeat Giraffe (Add Yours!)

Most of the new things that were implemented into this update I really do like, however I have come across things that do drive me a bit crazy having just started my world about an hour ago.

1} When it comes to mining, I love how ores make a metallic tink noise, as well as the new ore mounds scattered in the underground. What causes me some ire is the fact that I am currently doing 80% of mining with my Matter Manipulator, seeing as pickaxes were made as expendable tools instead of having the ability to repair them with ore. (If someone has found out you can repair them, let me know, I wish to mine out my starting planet but not want to spend half my ore finds on repeated pick crafting). I wish they also didn't remove Stone Picks.
2) Spiders... WHHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYY?!
3) Op's

I also found out that if you hit 'E' again on the same container, you open duplicate windows of the same container; which I found out due to the fact I hit 'E' like ten times trying to close my chest I use for ores.
4) You can't close the Crafting window by pressing 'C', again you gotta move your hand aaaaaaaaall the way up to ESC to close it.

Additions:
1) There seems to be no axe for tree cutting, which doesn't seem to make sense.



Other than those few things (So far) I'm loving Upbeat Giraffe so far. I may add more things if I find any. (Note: This is not negativity or complaining, just things I've come across. This is feedback.)

 

Oh that reminds me... I really do like all the new sounds, well most of them. Unsure what to think of the general mining sound. I like the sound when mining ore, just not sure what to think of the non-ore sound the mm makes. Does sound different and might take a bit to get use to.

 

The most glaring issue I have with the game right now is the way all the star types (and thus the different planet types) have been tied to specific parts in the tier progression. It's not just the suit techs (O2, radiation, cold, heat) limiting where I can and/or should be going but more importantly the threat levels.

For example, once I need titanium I will more than likely never see a tier 1 biome ever again because they don't exist at the appropriate threat level. Thus, no tier appropriate ore, no tier appropriate challenge, loot and so on. At the same time, going to higher tier planets (ahead of time) hurts in more ways than one. Maybe you can spam bandages like a maniac if you really wanted to (I haven't tried) but what's the point? You may as well honor and follow the path that has been laid out for you, which means sticking to the biomes assigned to you.

This is even worse at the last tier. I mean, at this point I could explore some lower tier planets (because at least I don't need ore) but...why? I'd have to strip before beaming down if I want any kind of challenge. Even if I did, it doesn't really help because I know I won't find anything interesting. That leaves me with the same magma/dead/volcanic planets over and over.

 

I would like to add my "complaint" about a few things some others have mentioned. The E key not closing things, and walking slowly backward are probably my biggest items.

I have noticed that on "mostly harmless" planets even with all iron level armor I can be killed in 2-3 hits. It's kind of a bummer.


The largest problem I've had though was going from my starting planet to the one directly next to it "mostly harmless" and before I was even able to control my character i was 90% dead because it spawned 3 'bandits' directly on the TP spawn point. I would maybe suggest a check on spawns on the low end worlds so this doesn't happen. I had to die 10-15 times before I could lead them away from the TP spawn point. It was a bit frustrating.

 

Thank goodness I'm not the only person who doesn't like the slow backwards thing. It's really bad!

 

Seconding this. I don't mind the requiring O2 suits/cold/radiation whatever, but it should be more as a flavor for the planet rather than tied to the tier progression.

Who's to say that a Grasslands world wouldn't have enemies and/or ore that are deadlier than a volcanic planet?

 

I like how when farming, you don't have to replant all plants after a harvest.(Only works with some plants though)
While I love the need food options I can't help but feel all there buffs are the same. (at least all the dishes I can make)
I greatly miss hunger and hope they bring it back.
I also like when it rains heavy enough, it can fill a hole. (as long as it has a back ground and you can see both the bottom and the rain)

Hunger will be a little harder when first starting out, because it takes much longer to get a hoe. Can't decided if I would like that or not yet.

 

technically, no... as you would still be getting meat. And that is a food source, at least until you get a hoe; then the food would increase in variety a whole lot more.

It was mentioned though that it will come back at the higher difficulties. Which means anything other than casual. Also that is when I will actually make a normal character despite the ore drop. I don't mind it so much but it feels not appealing when no hunger along with that. I'll probably keep my casual character though as well so I would have both difficulties. I don't could the death mode as one since I don't really like perma-death in this type of game... I do love what they have added in cooking and farming though. Awaiting the other 2 paths to be put in as well.

 

Here's my two cents. I've played about 6 or so hours of the stable release so far.

Good Things:

• Upgrading the MM. It's a nice progression.
• The dungeons with the bosses at the end are extremely fun. (Unless you die then it's a big pain)
• There are secrets in the dungeons.
• More stuff underground.
• The combat is more fun.
• The outpost is a great little hub. A little small though.

Bad Things

• Dying in a dungeon. I should not have to go all the way back. Should be checkpoints or something.
• I hope there's more to the adventure side to it than, dig down hole > collect ore > make armor > kill boss > repeat. What's the point in having a surface world if you spend 90% of it underground and just repeating it for each tier.
• I rarely get anything good in a chest. I'd say 1 out of every 10 chests I'll get some kind of useful item or upgrade.
• Underground has wayyyyyyyy too much dirt and not enough tunnels.

I know they said they are coming up with different ways to progress in the game (Farming, Real Estate), but I just hope it's more than rinse and repeat. When a new tier unlocks, come up with a new feature or something you have to do. I am kind of afraid that this game isn't going to have much depth in its features. You can catch bugs, get pets, collect furniture, etc. But all those little things don't add to the game at all. You have a monster pet that follows you around, cool! Can you do anything besides level him? No. Does he gain new abilities? No. Heck the way they handle pets AI isn't even the best right now. They just need to focus on one thing and get it done. Instead of focusing on little sprinkles of features, just get each one done and move on.

This game has a lot of potential but it won't reach it anytime soon. I feel like they don't even have the foundation yet for the game. I'll always keep an eye on it but I don't see myself playing it much longer for this update.

 

You have got to be kidding me. Planet type is synonymous with difficulty? That sucks.
So I can't just explore a high tier and a low teir jungle planet, because jungle planets are in a set teir. Sounds less fun to explore. Sounds, streamlined and linear for a sandbox. The ship is more than capable of determining the risk factor of landing there. Not good enough? We get a limited range of planets at set levels. Want to go to tha beautiful ocean planet? No real point because you wont obtain anything to help you get towards progress as you've already surpassed its teir.
*sigh*
Yeah it;s a rant. A rant that has been done before.
Planets shouldn't govern difficulty. The monsters should. That's it. Monsters could inhabit any kind of planets. weather and climate shouldn't be factored into the difficulty, only diversity of planet types to visit.
I bet the game still works on the terrible progession of, kill boss X to obtain Y so you can move to Z location and repeat the process. I thought this was a sandbox game. Says so on the "About" page. I do not know if I want to know what they have planned for the otehr possible ways to reach "end game" which shouldn't exist in a sandbox. I bet they'll be just as linear.
Or can someone please tell me this is all temporary. I can only hope they have better things yet to come.

My bro has told me that certain items are only accessible in certain biomes. Yet biomes are only found on certain planets. Therefore it is easy to assume that anything unique found in biomes wont be acessible in higher tiers. This makes early unique items (weapons/armour) pointless to seek out. It'll be replaced quite readily. Given the amount of random gear that can be obtained in some way, unique gear is rather moot to track down until late down the line where it counts. Food for thought on game design.


http://www.techopedia.com/definition/3952/sandbox-gaming
Definition - What does Sandbox mean?
A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game.

 

Updated my original post with the following info.

EDIT #1 -
Afer playing some more, I need to add a few things to my lists.

Some more good things.

1. Really loving the outpost, it's a great idea to keep the 'linear' stuff apart from the 'sandbox stuff' so you don't have to worry about not ever finding the random quest giver on a planet.
2. So many more songs to play with the instruments!
3. The new Navigation screen button to center on your ship is super useful. Who knew!
4. Birds aren't quite so annoying as they had been.
5. The variety of items you can find are still quite high, haven't made it far into the game but I am finding plenty of stuff to decorate my house and ship.

A few more things that could see improvement.

1. The way the first mission is ordered (the layout of the building) makes me feel like asyou progress, you should be able to hit a button that opens up a shortcut you can use if you die to get to the deeper parts of the dungeon quicker. Especially on the last boss, that has a "hits you no matter what" attack. I played with my wife, so we both took a different path to hit the buttons around the boss making it easier, but I can't imagine how hard it would have been solo.
2. I think all planet types should become available as you play. Currently, the "nice little forest" biome you start in will never be seen in a moderate difficulty system, or risky one... but I think they should be. I agree that you should earn your way into harder biomes as you play, but I don't think the easier biomes should be limited to the easy tiers. They should be present in the harder difficulties... so when you get further into the game you don't just only have to visit lava planet after lava planet. I assume difficulty is based on monster level, not just environmental hazards. So this could be done.
3. Add the older crafting table, anvil, and forge to the recipe for the metal crafting table, metalwork station, and alloy furnace. I didn't realize the new stations were duplicates with 'new stuff' in them until rearranged my home to fit both copies of each. Once I put them all down and realized, I ended up removing the old ones and feeling quite silly. If they had been part of the recipe I would have known I was replacing them.
4. Repetitive mini-dungeons abound! On the starter planet I had (and as far as I know, everyone who plays on the same seed has, as I saw Paulsoarejr the Youtuber run into the same thing.) At a certain depth, the same two or three mini-dungeons spawn. So if you dig to the right or left at that level, you encounter them over and over. Some almost spawned directly on top of eacht-oher. I found at least 20-30 of the same buildings. And that means I got 20-30+ copies of every item inside. I feel this needs to be trimmed down or at the very least spaced out. So much that you will still find them if you dig down, but not so much that you say "oh yay... another one of these. I guess I could use 50 potted plants."
5. I haven't seen a single 'strong monster'. They used to exist in the form of a regular monster, but bigger with symbols coming from them to let you know this guy was different. I enjoyed these encounters. but havent seen one yet. Are they still in???
6. Again, I can't help but stress the need for more detailed Tooltips, and actual tooltips on things in the UI. Buffs, empty slots and all that. A new player may not realize what the eyeball (vanity) slots are for.
7. I want to be able to pick up gnome houses to decorate with. Maybe have two versions of each home? One pot type and one object type?
8. I wish guns when they fired created a small pulse of light at the muzzle. Especially the ones that visually have a muzzle flash animation. Right now, only guns that shoot glowing projectiles create any light.

 

They still exist, but seem to be much more rare.

Now then, I want to agree with everyone who is saying that biomes shouldn't be tied to difficulty to the degree that they are. I mean it's ok for volcanic planets to never be "harmless," but it's not ok for a specific tier of difficulty to be 100% volcanic all the time.

I would like to see difficulty governed mostly by monster strength. I guess the fear is that someone will beam to a very high difficulty planet and loot a chest with a high-level weapon, but would this really be so bad? If someone wants to take the time to search a super dangerous planet, and take the risk of getting there, I say let them. A lot of the best games I've ever played have had ways of "breaking sequence."

It's also worth noting that random weapons in chests are one of the worst things to find. When I see a chest I get excited that I might find some vanity gear or an instrument, but 9 times out of 10 it's just some piece of junk weapon that I won't even pick up because I've already got something tier-appropriate. They could easily change this so that weapons only spawn in like a "weapon rack" type container, and then have them only spawn deep underground or inside dungeons: no more piles of worthless weapons, no more fear of someone grabbing an up-tier weapon from a surface chest.

FInally, if difficulty gating must be done via immunity techs, then I would suggest figuring out some immunity categories that don't dictate planet type so much. 2 of them are alright already.
1. The oxygen generator wouldn't have to be limited just to moons and asteroids. Lots of alien worlds would presumably have atmospheres that are plenty robust and support life, but simply don't contain enough oxygen for a human-like creature to survive.
2. Radioactivity need not be limited to certain biomes at all. I don't even know if it currently is or not, but this one at least shouldn't cause problems.

So if it has to be immunity techs (which again, I wish it didn't), the devs could just come up with a few more hazards that don't stem from specific biome types. Perhaps some stars emit deadly cosmic rays. Some atmospheres could be so highly pressurized that they would crush and unprotected player. This is sci-fi fantasy- you can just make stuff up even!

 

Starting planet appears to be the same.

On singleplayer.

 

@Blue

That is a nice set that was added.
there are more songs? That I will have to check out.
there is a center button on nav? I'll have to see where that is. ><

I like the birds how they are, unless they are the talking ones; that is another story... It is nice that was toned done. So the only killer birds I meet are those will guns.
Vanity items... Yeah there is a lot, a whole lot that was added, another thing I myself enjoy; it just adds to the variety in what I can build with or wear.

As for the rest:
For the most part I actually have to agree as they are all good points.
3. Not all stations do that, Once you get to durasteel tier, there are 2 stations that are actually new. So you will have to keep the prior set. Of course by that time you will have ship upgrades available I would think, if on the second ship upgrade prepare for more table stuff that you would recognize from previous stable. Namely the wire, capture, and rail station table thing... Not sure if certain things change, but I do know when I get there there will be 3 tables each for the type of class, I guess... Unsure when those are made as I have just made to durasteel age. So there are a few things coming...
7.That was something I was thinking of doing with my personal mod, but I haven't updated it the original yet. Got to change a lot of merging. I just make recipes for default content to be craftable, so there would be an alternative way to craft certain furniture things rather than using the printer for them if so chosen. Would be nice if this kind of thing was in game, but this type of modding is simple enough for me, so I regress on that. Preferring default content anyhow at least for now, as I am taking my time getting through the game.

There are plans for the big monster things... huge plans... but don't know what they are going to do with those huge plans. I'll have to see when it comes, but for the moment the big monster I myself have not run into one... wait, actually it was only 1 throughout my adventure so far. Was at an early stage, the one above harmless, I think. fuzzy memory. This just leads me to believe like the other person mentions, it being rare. *sigh* Yeah that was something I liked as well. Love the new ai for the monsters in general, nice variance.

Yeah that is something I can only hope changes in the future, as like it was before. You start in a different system each time, but the planet will be the same type of planet. Well the is the idea behind what I think was suppose to happen eventually. Right now I just think it is mainly just so things can move smoothly forward with what they add, as they still have a couple progression paths to put in. So hopefully after those are set this will change, but that is only a guess and pure hope.

 

So, here is my feedback:

note: most of my feedback is negative, but that does not mean i don't like starbound. It's a great game and i just want to make things better.

#Quests

LIKE:
- quests and missions in general - more plz

DONT LIKE:
- outposts are your only source for quests
- you have to do all quests from the current pool to unlock quests of the next quest pool
- you cant beam up from the outpost ... (but from your homeworld, where ever it is)

#Starship

LIKE:
- Upgrades! More plz!
- - Plz Add Upgrades for short range sensors → when in orbit of a planet your scanners show things like "avian structures", "floran civilization", "high iron reserves", "gold is rare"

DONT LIKE:
- "You don't need FTL drive for traveling in this solar system" ... bothers me from a scientific point of view : /
- - for gameplay totally fine
- the amount of fuel used to low ... rly ... visit a moon and you'll get ~ 500 Erchius Fuel / Minute
- - maybe it shouldn't be possible to fly the whole way in 1 step, make the cost higher so that you need to fill up several times on your way to star xy

# Starmap

DONT LIKE:
- The Galaxy looks like a "star-cloud", i'd like to see a spiral galaxy. Starting planets at the outer "arms". The nearer you get to the center, the higher the difficulty but the more rewarding it is. (See spore galaxy)

#Progression

DONT LIKE:
- ores get useless when entering the next higher tier
- - make durasteel made out of 3x steel + 1x titanium → makes iron usefull for a longer period of time
- to many ores/materials have just 1 purpose (coal → torches, oil → steel, uranium → durasteel, silver and gold are completely useless imho)

#Items

I hate the hookshot (i know it hasn't changed with the update). It is boring, slow and the controls are a mess.
how it is (edit: how it feels):
pressing "up" will increase your acceleration to the hook. what does that mean? presing up 1 time, and you start moving upwards ... slowly.
pressing "down" and you'll go in a "release" mode ... where you fall without resistance -.-

how it should be:
"up" -> rope is sucked in (increasing your velocity towards the hook - not acceleration)
"down" -> releasing the rope with constant velocity and stopping with releasing the down button

#Controls
[ I ] - Inventory: its a joke ... [ I ] is so far away : /, well at least ( LIKE: ) you can rebind keys now easily
[C] - Crafting: should close the window again
pretty sure i've forgotten some things ...

edit:
- craft larger containers (my ship container is full stored with different foods / seeds)
- walking backwards -.-
- ridiculous amounts of water on lava planets

 

Personally I'd like hunger to be available or at least an option for causal. I play on cause just because I can't fit all the stuff I take on to my ship and don't want to build a house on the first planet.
I don't play Terraria simply because I can't be a mage unless I play on the perma death setting.
I'd hate to see content gated behind what the player chooses to lose on death. Cause that is really all you pick in difficulty, monster all deal the same damage to everyone, and for now I like that.
I also love how you can actually, craft some of the cooler furniture through finding blue prints. (Now if only I could get past the first boss so I can find a planet with a moon to call home.)
I really hope they do add more forest planets with higher difficulty monster, just be sure to add that info on the navi computer.

 

Actually this is a really good idea. Lower tier could have less fuel so it becomes more difficult to make such big jumps. Combine this with making every planet different and some still requiring O2 or Radiation protection instead of it being tied to "Heat protection lets you go to the best planets."

 

Seconding Kenthen, Blue, and Lazer's points.

It felt pretty stale to realise that the wider variety of the sectors had been replaced with "Certain required resources will only ever be in certain biomes, so I hope you like lava."

Honestly, I hate levelled lists and things like them in general - I want to be able to find and uselessly carry around Violium I have literally no use for as a level 0 space miner even if I'm not carving into the belly of Lava_World_01285. Sure, make materials more common where it might make more sense, but the action progression of "I need ____, so I will go to ____ planet type, which is one of the 1-3 types where it spawns and it literally does not spawn anywhere else" is pretty lousy and I'd like it if strip-mining the belly of the starter garden planet could result in a handful of rare endgame materials, twinkling with the promise of future tech and eventual use.

I miss temperature and food requirements. I'm pretty sure food could give you buffs and make it so you don't die of starvation.

I hate that difficulty is so hard-keyed to planet types and biomes now. I both love and hate that nanoskin techs do their protection AND oxygen supply, as it removes choice and gameplay from the game. There's simply no decision-making anymore - before, with extreme cold, you had to decide to what extent you wanted to protect yourself from the environment and the enemies you might find within it, as certain gear gave more and/or less temperature protection. If memory serves, the oxygen supply was a back item - not that there was any competition for functionality there (the lantern can't really compete, let's be honest) and had to be worn. There was no radiation, but there could have been radiation along with protective gear for it.

Now it's just "I'm doing to Lava World, better put on my Lava Suit. There will not be any other factors to consider on Lava World, so I'm well, truly, and boringly fine."

I hate that planets are so lousy now and I didn't realise it sooner, because it means I'm going to lose the big agri-base complex I built with my friends if I, modders, or Chucklefish do anything to address the tiresome issue.

I hate that equipment crafting stations are mutually exclusive with one another. There's seriously no way I can make iron equipment out of my replicator? Really? And that molten metal-streaming anvil really can't make anvil-based items? Really? Huh.

I like the improvements to crop harvesting.

I feel like planet gravity has decreased in variability somewhat. I've mostly only seen 1.035x and 0.835x or whatever it is.

I miss the generic equipment that existed at each tier - I miss my gleaming red Copper Helmet goggles. :\

I miss more creature aggro and attack sounds - the beep is cute, but everything beeps.

I love the fact that the matter manipulator is the tool of choice now, though I wish its upgrades could be extended somehow to block placement.

TL;DR: Make it so we can starve and freeze to death. Make it so difficulty and resources aren't so incredibly biome-locked. Make it so the endgame is less stale - super-deadly radioactive desert worlds, please. Make it so that planet protection isn't so incredibly one-note and videogamey-feeling.

Addendum: Oh, oh! I remembered something.

It's also REALLY disappointing to see that every system has pretty much the same layout, at least as pertains to the outer two orbits. There's always a boring-ass moon with negligible amounts of plutonium and probable oceans of fuel and nothing else, and there's always a gate.

Given how important the gates are, I guess that's good, but they always only lead to the outpost and have pretty much exactly the same arrangement and layout. It's hyper-boring.

Oh, and the fact that the biomes surrounding stars are so incredibly predictable in terms of difficulty and type is depressing. Sucks all the fun out of exploration.

Oh, oh! And asteroids suck now. Why?

Can they, like... not suck? They were spooky and cool mineral treasure troves with weird monsters before. Now they're just big pointless waste of time zones.

 

This! This I like! Great idea, just like in Spore.

 

Not me, but another user found a solution that worked in the Nightlies.
http://community.playstarbound.com/...the-unstable-update.87288/page-3#post-2344016

Try it, and tell me if it works, so I can use it in the beta too.