What? Docile? That's no way to make a high tier world dangerous! Although admittedly there is nothing in the game which is truly worthy of T6+ status. That requires going into strange territory, which sci fi excels at.
I'm sorry I needed to be more specific. I meant that enemies would not use the most destructive abilities when fighting each-other (hunting behavior), but reserve it for the player (OMG WTF this bipedal thing is attacking me behavior). This would minimize terrain damage (craters). Hope this clarifies my intent. However, strange would be nice...
I actually an a little unsure of this. I sorta enjoy the combat system. BUT! I hate that there are so many monsters! I swear that I can't take two steps before I'm being chased by five of the stinkers. I rarely ever feel like fighting monsters because of this. I hope you revamp the combat system, because it's just plain annoying at the moment. I mean, seriously! The triple hop guys, people! How come they can jump fricking off the screen? come on! I know you're going to nerf that insanity, and I'm very thankful for that. But still, I think starbound needs a bit of an interesting system of combat. But don't get me wrong! I absolutely LOVE starbound. It's one of my favorite games.
I can't complain about folks who post without reading the entire thread. Heck, I've done that myself, especially on long threads. But I can complain when someone posts a reply to certain other posts without actually reading the entire content. (Or, was this a lapse in reading comprehension?) Also, if you are going to claim to know how many in a thread is for or against something - or try to refute someone who's made such a claim - then you should actually read the entire thread. That way, you can make a sound estimate rather than a complete guess. I don't disagree. And I believe our views are not altogether different from yours. Rather, I believe you failed to understand what some of us said. Good point. But, honestly, you should speak for yourself. Did you read this entire thread? That is not the crux of our arguments. Nor is it accurate. You wrote, "Other than a couple of very outspoken opponents..."? The word "couple", according to online dictionaries, refers to two. (Informally, it can mean very few.) I have to assume you are referring to Tamorr and myself, though there are many others in this thread who clearly support a similar view. You seem to misunderstand our position. After going through the entire thread, I could not find a single post that was entirely against having a dig ability. Rather, many of us have concerns on how it will be implemented. The one's who are strongly in favor of a creature dig ability that is both destructive of blocks and able to penetrate (if not destroy/damage) player homes include Jeoshua, bobucles, dkdeath, Fawxkitteh, and XRiZUX. There were a few more, but those were the clearly vocal advocates. But, even then, some have stipulated certain conditions. For instance, XRiZUX stated that while he supported such, there should be an easy method to rebuild quote, "in order to make up for a great loss". He proposed being able to select the area of your broken structure and use pixels to repair it back to the way it was. Even bobucles has stipulated some conditions: Actually, I can agree with those views. For instance, I can deal with having bosses that can easily dig or break through blocks and permanently destroy them. They're bosses. They should be tough, big, and have abilities beyond the rabble of mundane monsters. What I do have a problem with are certain other arguments, such as the implication that it should be made impossible to trap any sort of monster with blocks via the matter manipulator. (Though, I can see why it'd be pointless to try that on a monster with a dig ability.) The only way I'd support a dig ability that can penetrate or damage a base or home is if there are materials and/or strategies available to thwart this! Otherwise, you can expect there to be lots of rage! And you can believe that I won't be the only one. To clarify, here's my position: And here's Tamorr's position: But Jeoshua was not the only one to misunderstand Tamorr and misinterpret his words: By claiming it was merely a "couple" of vocal opponents, Jeoshua implied that most anyone else who posted about a dig ability has endorsed his viewpoint on the subject. Actually, Jeoshua's views are not entirely different from mine. And I consider the following to support my take on a dig ability: A few of these posts can be interpreted in different ways. For instance: At first glance, it may appear that Jbeetle endorses a view of digging that differs greatly from mine. But I would point out the "if they can address the problems they mentioned" condition. It comes back to metadept's concerns about "eroding planets into hellscapes of craters and tunnels". It may also be interpreted as a nod to some of the concerns of posters, such as worries about destroying homes and otherwise being too much of a nuisance. To this notion of using a childish argument, I'd like to quote something: Starbound is, first and foremost, a sandbox game. It is not all about being an action game or a 2D platformer. And being able to tile around a monster is a time-honored tactic, one that Starbound players have come to expect. And now you want to remove it entirely?! Using the matter manipulator to imprison a monster or otherwise create a wall between yourself and a hostile is a valid strategy. Some other sandbox games allow you to do this. And it is rather common in fantasy games to have something like "Wall of Fire" or "Web". It does not guarantee safety, anyway. One has to be very quick about walling off an approaching mosnter. (And more than one at a time can be complicated.) If you're not quick or skilled enough, you will get hurt. (Often, badly, as you are either walled in with the monster or distracted with the matter manipulator instead of a weapon.) If you hate the ability to wall in a monster so badly, then just don't do that! Nobody is forcing you to use this strategy. Please explain to me how the ability of other players want to play that way is hurting your game experience. I just don't understand... Let's be specific: The devs were talking about the ability to attack through a SOLID wall. And, yes, everyone agrees that that was an exploit. It was often abused, heavily. It made the boss fights a walk-in-the-park. But it didn't take long for the devs to release a patch to fix that. Now the UFO breaks through tiles with impunity. And while the Robot is still easy by the matter manipulator trick or a carefully crafted arena, you can't just stab at him through a solid wall. And you have to stand next to the Inactive Robot to activate him. Also, he jumps very high - enough to make the matter manipulator thing a bit difficult to pull off. Is it still possible to attack through walls? I've tried, but I've never been able to. And I started playing back around the middle of December. Now, carefully creating a one-tile hole in a wall and sniping at monsters through this "arrow slot" is something else entirely! That is a rather clever (and often time-consuming) strategy. That was not the exploit the devs were referring to when they talked about attacking through walls! Even if you could miraculously convince the devs to take away that ability entirely, you can expect a lot of loud complaints about such a change. That said, I have no complaint about monsters with a dig ability rendering this strategy moot by digging through your wall. That is fine. That is, as long as monster species with a dig ability are relatively uncommon. Anyway, I find it rather arrogant of someone to speak on the devs behalf, even when using a loose interpretation of a blog entry. Clearly, you jumped to your own conclusions. Let's read it again: Emphasis on "limits the effectiveness" is mine. That's not the same thing as doing away with it entirely! As far as how the devs feel about this dig ability, all we know is what Metadept said in his blog. And even he expressed concern about it could get out of hand: I don't think you'll find a single one of us who is opposed to seeing Starbound become balanced. But this game is still in beta and game balance is still very much a WIP. The thing about game challenge is that it is so terribly subjective. That's why most games have a difficulty setting of some sort. Even online games often have quests with difficulty levels to choose from. Starbound will be no different. And it sounds to me like you would prefer to play Starbound in "Survival Mode." You seem to say that relying on things like being able to hide in your base and using a matter manipulator to imprison a monster is acting as a crutch, something players rely on and gives them a sense of security. Further, you imply this prevents players from having to actually work towards survival or even having to think strategically. There may be some truth to the "crutch" part. However, as the devs continue to work on the game, adjusting monsters' abilities, moves, and tactics, and changing player combat, you can expect this to change. And that will happen even without the drastic measure of making it impossible to wall in any sort of monster with a matter manipulator. The "wall of dirt" trick does have appeal to newbies. But why take it away? It may help them survive until they learn better tactics and skill with actual combat. And if they use it all the time in a group, others would probably give them grief over it. And why is hiding in one's home or some deep hole some terrible sin? Sometimes I just want to craft stuff in peace, rather than deal with monsters 24/7. If I had to deal with monsters constantly, that would suck the fun out of this game. And when the fun is gone, one simply drops it to play something else. As for the argument about having a safe home as a crutch: One can easily beam up to their ship to escape danger. The real problem is tearing up one's home. If I came back to my home to find that a pack of Graboid clones tore down my walls and destroyed my treasure chests... I'd be might peeved! You might argue that one can just live on one's ship. But not everyone wants to play Starbound like that! And why have a special "Teleport Home" command if it's not worth using? If you don't understand the importance some of us place on finding an ideal homeworld. Fine. You simply don't understand where we're coming from. But that does not mean our play style has no merit! That's a gross oversimplification. A hostile planet is still just as hostile, even if we manage to construct and fortify a base there (which, depending on the planet, may be a feat in itself). And one can always retreat to their ship. That said, I don't have a problem with throwing some curve balls of difficulty at the player on hostile planets. But it must be something that the player can deal with using the right objects and/or materials. For instance, I'd like to see a way to make a meteor-proof base. Or, at the least, able to build some force field or giant laser to shoot them out of the sky. On the other hand, I think it'd be kind of neat to have a high-tier object that could make local (nearby) monsters tame. Most of us don't have a problem with a dig ability that is tiered to affect different materials. Forcing the player to think strategically in base design, such as being selective in materials, is fine. But if you make it so overpowered that there is absolutely no way to defend against it, then there is no strategy involved as you'd fail no matter what you do. That would be a failure in game design. There must be certain materials that can stop diggers. Likewise, if the devs do implement metal eaters, there had better be some sort of defense against them. You suggest that those of us who want to play Starbound as a sandbox game do not actually want to play it as a game "in the first place"? Perhaps it is the wording, but I find the implication to be offensive. Despite any misunderstanding to the contrary, Starbound is a sandbox game. And while some of us appreciate this aspect more than others might, we do not want this mode to have gimped monsters and be all fluffy bunnies that barf rainbows. And if they have such a mode, there should be another mode to choose from besides this fluffy bunnies mode and Survival Mode. As for telling us to mod the game, that argument has been used. And counter-argued. And it was used heavily in the "Horse with Boobs" threads for similar reasons. Consider: * There are many players who do not use mods. Period. Some find the process too daunting. And some just prefer to play in a vanilla game. (Often, they don't use mods for any games.) * Many servers do not use any mods. Period. Don't believe me? Check this server list website. * Of the servers which use mods, they have their own list and players have to install the same. Players can not install whatever they like. Anyway, what's wrong with designing Starbound to have more appeal to the majority, either leaving out or mitigating stuff that many would find frustrating or unappealing? If you'd like an insanely destructive dig ability on monsters, with no restrictions, and if you want this ability to be commonplace, then why shouldn't you be expected to mod your game to make it happen? It makes less sense to expect the majority to mod something out of the game that so many would dislike than it is to expect the minority to mod that something in that they want. But to prove who's the majority, we need to create a poll. I've already done a Horse with Boobs for Glitch poll which very clearly showed that those who wanted to keep that ugly avatar (as is) were in the minority. This easily thwarted arguments that those who hated it should just mod it out of their game. I think a poll should say something like: What do you think about monsters having a dig ability? (-a-) I hate it. Monsters should not have this. (-b-) A dig ability for monsters is acceptable if balanced properly. It should be an uncommon ability. And a single random monster should dig through material with little, if any, tiles destroyed (possibly through tile damage). Monster and planet difficulty affects which materials they can dig through. Of course, a boss can destroy tiles. (-c-) Hell's yes! Sounds like loads of fun! On hazardous, high tier planets this should be commonplace, like every other planet. Monster and planet difficulty affects which materials they can dig through. But highest tiered monsters and bosses can tear through all materials, leaving any and all homes and forts vulnerable. Not even impervium can stop them! If worded like that, I'm rather confident we'd see the poll skewed at least 85-90% for (-b-) and only 15-10% for (-c-). There might be one or two votes for (-a-), but that'd be about it. You can't expect auto-turrets and such to kill off creatures with a dig ability. They're underground! And the assumption that spikes would stop them is just that, an assumption. Even if you were to build your outpost on stilts, what's to stop such creatures from tearing down your stilts? Of course, currently, that would just leave your outpost floating in the air. But, if it were made realistic, it should all come tumbling down, crushing you and your stuff in the process. This I support. This idea is certainly one I can get behind. For those hard-core players out there, they can play in Survival Mode, dealing with bunker-busting monsters and fighting hordes and packs of ravenous beasties coming in waves. While those of use who were attracted to Starbound for being a sandbox game should get play in a somewhat safer Sandbox Mode. And since we already have a Survival Mode, it should be relatively easy for the devs to implement it this way.
Walling creatures into murder pens is a very low level strategy. Anything you don't want to fight can be instantly force fielded out of the way so fighting NEVER happens. While it is effective, it also eliminates all the challenges of combat. That is unacceptable for retaining any level of difficulty on difficult worlds. Terraria has three major monster types that can't be stopped with simple blocks: The Chaos Elemental, who teleports everywhere. Spectral enemies, who phase through everything. Tunneling creatures, who "fly" through dirt. These abilities allow monsters to be dangerous even if the player tries to block them into a cage. Burrowing is not a T1 ability. It is clearly something that players should be exposed to later in their game (like T3 or T4 at least). It is something that should never be seen on low level worlds. In terms of base building, it isn't a problem because nothing is ever going to put a T1 base in danger.
Good, because that was a long screed that I couldn't possibly respond to in any detail short or writing a novel I would also support this. Even non-violent creatures, in a Survival mode, should potentially be a nuisance, eating your crops. The assumption, I suppose, is that non-violent creatures are herbivores (and don't recognize Florans as food due to their bipedal nature). That's a bit off topic, tho. Having Survival/Creative modes would be awesome. It would have to be a per-universe rather than per-character setting, otherwise people could make a Creative character, build a bunch of houses and fill chests with phat lewtz, then make a Survival character and say "look what I did!". Not a big issue in Single Player, but a bit issue for bigger servers online.
I distinctly remember one of the dev blogs talking about plans for different difficulty modes. Three of them, actually. And one of those three modes was called "Survival", I believe. It was an extreme difficulty mode where you do not get cloned or respawned on your ship if you die. Rather, after taking too much damage you're forced to roll up a new character. If that mode's more your style, then more power to you. Wait... How would you define "Creative Mode"? I suppose it doesn't matter, as long as they have a game mode that is neither as hard core as Survival Mode, nor as pushover as a petting zoo. For the most part, I like Starbound's difficulty the way it is now. Likewise, it can be just as easily said that this game is not about giving you, bobucles, your vision of how the dig ability should be implemented. You must not understand how many players struggle very hard and so long to find their ideal Home World. Some players will visit many dozens of worlds before settling a home planet and building their character's first home or base. This is made all the more difficult by how small ships currently are since many are forced to live on their ship as they refuse to settle on just any planet. The fact that travel requires mining so much coal doesn't help matters, either. Not quite. It's a 2D sandbox game - in the spirit of Terreria - to be built in the image Tiy and the rest of the devs envision. And, of course, fans and the Starbound community contribute to this image in various ways. It's neither your place, nor mine, to stipulate what Starbound is all about or how it should be made. Though, as I said, we have some input. The devs do read the forums. If I could say, though, I'd say the devs should be more concerned about having a greater appeal to the largest audience possible, rather than trying to see how many bells and whistles they can pack into the thing. Having lots of stuff many would just hate on or ruin their experience - just for the sake of having more stuff - makes absolutely no sense to me. And "options" implies something one can opt out of or at least turn off. Difficulty mode aside, monster abilities and traits are currently things everyone is stuck with, whether they like it or not. Some concerns some of us have with a dig ability transends the consideration of world difficulty. Imagine that a dev proposed a "Tele-steal" monster ability. Let's say it has the monster teleport behind your character, pick your pockets, and teleport away. A number of us would find it hilarous... at first. (In practice, many would quickly find it very annoying.) And, inevitably, some of us would really like the idea. Some may even ask the devs to make it worse than they envisioned, like Tele-steal always stealing all your pixels - no save. And such proponents may argue that since you can always store your pixels as voxels, there's no excuse why it shouldn't be implemented this way. But then, such arguments may take advantage of a logical fallacy. (This one being "Excluded Middle", if I'm not mistaken.) Anyway, some would post how they don't like "Tele-steal". And many more would post how they may approve of it, depending on how it was implemented - that is, with certain considerations, like allowing a character to be protected with some force field tech or a high-tier pixel wallet. Or make it a rare ability and a random roll. Or have it rarely, if ever, steal all your pixels. Then someone complains that having monsters with this ability would make such planets completely unsuitable to their search for a perfect Home World. And some others reply by saying: "So what? There are a billion other planets out there. Tough. Just deal and search elsewhere." Proponents may argue that since Tele-steal will only be found on hazardous planets, then it would be simple enough to avoid for those who hate on it. Haters would merely have to avoid visiting hazardous planets. Or, at the least, they'd have to search even harder for a suitable hazardous planet without. Or settle for a peaceful, safe, low-tier world as a Home World. Nevermind that these same proponents wanted this Tele-Steal to be the all-pixels, always succeeds, no saves variety and be a very common ability on highly hostile (e.g., Sector "X") worlds. Nevermind that it might make half of X-type worlds unsuitable as a home world to many players. Nevermind that many want to eventually settle on a hostile X-type world has their Home World. It's all about compromise. Except, a few of the more vocal proponents almost seem to want us to make all the compromises. "If you don't like it, settle elsewhere?" That's not an effective argument. That's merely being dismissive of a legitimate concern. Are you even trying to understand where we're coming from? It's sounds a bit like saying, "If you don't like it, then go play some other game." As long as it is something that a mid level player can deal with. That is, as long as there's a strategy we can implement to reasonably safeguard our home. Then, yes, it's fine. Okay... Nevermind digging, that stuff sounds scary. You had better be proposing this for hardcore Survival Mode. Because if the rest of us players on Normal difficulty don't have some sort of defense against it, then many of us will most certainly hate and rage against it.
My definitions: Survival Mode - A mode designed to challenge the player with monsters, where death is around every corner, one needs food and warmth and such to survive. Creative Mode - A mode designed for building, focusing on gathering resources and making them into something, no need for food or warmth or weapons. Your definition of a Creative mode seems to be somewhere in the "excluded middle", so to speak. Possibly there could be a Normal mode, as well. In a mod that I worked on for Terraria, we had two difficulty sliders. One was for the Survival/Creative mode, the other was the Punishments for Death, akin to the "difficulty" slider in Starbound, now. They really are two separate concepts. One affects a character's life, the other modifies his death. You could look at it like Player Difficulty vs Universe Difficulty. Someone could easily play a Creative game where death-by-falling is an option you cannot come back from.
Sorry, I was mistaken. There is no official talk on a Survival Mode, AFAIK. I was thinking of the Normal, Hardcore, and Permadeath modes. Normal is "lose pixels on death", Hardcore is "lose pixels and items on death", and Permadeath means you have to create a new character. I wouldn't say "excluded middle" as my definition of Normal Mode is what everyone is currently stuck with. The one's being excluded are players like you who want more actual difficulty. Ah, but that was a mod. After searching, I see there is some talk in this community about introducing an actual "surival" type of difficulty. But it begs the question of whether the devs will listen, or whether players will be forced to make it themselves. BTW: While most Starbound mods make the game easier, there are some which don't. And there are a few which increase game difficulty. Perhaps you'd be interested in the Survivalist Mod and Combat Overhaul mod? Or maybe you'd like Jatz' Monster's Difficulty Increase Mod or the Invasions mod? Anyway, I don't have much of an objection to the existence of a Survival Mode as I don't plan on using it, ever. My only objection could be that implementing it would take dev time and resources away from more presssing features and issues. (And I think we can all agree there's plenty of those.) Of course, opinions will vary. But I doubt the devs consider a survival type difficulty to be high on their priority list, if it's even in the cards. Consider this: Anyway, here's some related stuff: * Should there be a Creative Mode? * CREATIVE MODE * Implementing a Real Difficulty System That Implementing a Real Difficulty System, in particular, is a good discussion on the subject.
What? How is that relevant? A theft ability has nothing to do with monster tunneling. A theft ability removes hard won items from the player. A tunnel ability allows monsters to REACH the player. They are not in the same league at all. Currently, players have no obligation to engage any monster. Without a tunneling or teleporting or phasing class of ability, players will NEVER have to fight any monster. Ever. You can mine rubidium surrounded by a dozen superdemon demigods with a billion health and 50 thousand damage, and it will always be safe because 2 zaps of the matter manipulator will fend them off forever. It doesn't even matter if the combat is good or bad. A single tool can render it completely irrelevant. That. Is. Broken. There is no nice way to state it. It is a complete failure of game design because the most basic Starbound mechanic breaks it. On a low level world, that's okay. They're already dangerous enough for new players. On a high level world where things are supposed to be hard, that's fucked up. What is this "normal" difficulty you speak of? The idea of attribute altering difficulties is not needed for Starbound in any way shape or form. Players who are afraid of dying can opt to not suffer any serious penalty from dying. Players who worry about a boss can build an arena for the boss. Players who need better items can go collect items. Players who have friends can play with friends. Players who don't like a particular world's challenges can find one of infinite other worlds to play on. A high difficulty world can be abandoned for a low level world. Players who want god items can play mods. There are already many adequate ways to make the game easier to one's contentment. No, it is you who do not understand. The player's home base is FREELY ACCESSIBLE from anywhere in the universe. You can explore a super dangerous world and literally return to the safety of your base where NO hazards exist. If one particular world has a nasty monster type or a wall phasing teleporting block destroying boss, guess what? IT DOESN'T MATTER. No. It really doesn't. Spend all the time you need exploring safe worlds until you find the right one. Meanwhile, let the dangerous creatures and mechanics inhabit the dangerous worlds. Protip: Your home base does not have to be the same world as the planet you EXPLORE.
Actually you don't, as it is obvious from that statement. Are you calling the ship the base? From the sounds of it, that is what it seems like. That is at the moment the safest place. Not everyone thinks of the sip as a home base. The player's base is only accessible when you actually set a home, that is if you don't use your ship as one. Exploration is not always about danger or hazards either. I find beauty in the environment or even the atmosphere of each world. However it is not easy to find that world I would call home. Has nothing to do with the dangers or obsticles there of. There is a lot more to finding home then how difficult it is to live and build somewhere. So saying to explore safe worlds is pretty narrow in perspective, at least how it looks. Sure what I am looking for in a home has its' safe features, but it also has its' dangers & hazards, depending on the planet I would choose to setup on. But it is to find it first, else that teleport home button actually won't be used to go to that "home world". As far as this comes off I am unsure what to think of the statement you made. Sure the higher tier a planet, the more dangerous. The real ticker is how they go about it can either break or work with what they have in mind. There has to be a balance somewhere. It is not called progression for nothing. Stating some obvious things of a possibility is almost redundant, however all we know is that Tier is progressive as the game goes along; no matter which path you go down. I guess things are more confusing to the both of us, even if not said, that is how it appears.
Starbound does not have to copy what Terraria does. Indeed, the devs know that they need to be different. And while there are numerous similarities, there are also some rather distinct differences, the sci-fi setting being just one of them. Honestly, I do not have a problem with having certain monster types that are not stopped with the matter manipulator trick. That's fine, as long as these are not so commonplace as to make that tactic nearly worthless. But I will reiterate the point of having some sort of defense available against specific types of digging/phasing/teleporting/metal-eating monsters (if we ever get all these). Not having a strategy available means taking out the strategic element entirely. It's not T1 planets that we're concerned about. Pointing out that everyone is perfectly safe on T1 planets does nothing to assuade our concerns. Yes, we are aware that we could always set up a base on a T1 planet and consider ourselves safe. But some of us aren't satisfied with that. Some of us want to set up a base on a hazardous world and have that as our Home Planet. Good point. It'd be bad to have dig creatures trigger cave-ins on a sandy planet. The FPS hit could be nasty. (Also, don't the blocks, ores and seeds exposed in a cave-in disappear after a while?) Yes! Those sound like great ideas. And I'd have to agree they should be at least a tier 10 tech. I agree entirely. (Also, there are a couple "base defense" type mods which this reminds me of. Maybe the devs should take a look at those?) I dunno... Interesting stuff. Maybe, depending on how it's implemented. I kinda like the idea of how destruction of the environment would get them aggravated. But I'd say that after they try assault your base for a while, their aggression wanes and they leave and revert to their previous state.
Tell me what these buttons are, and what they do. Take your time. Then deal with it! The options for having a perfectly safe base already exist. If you insist on having a dangerous world, then you'll just have to accept that it is hazardous.
yup you certainly didn't. Especially that you are showing something that quite a few people know. So I can set home, yes. But that is what I was talking about in the first place. Not everyone sets their home right off. It is a search for said planet for either home or base. That can be tedious. So just set and run is not as simple as it looks for some of us. Not all planets, at least to me, are the same no matter what tier it is. That First bit was a question, but at least you answered it with this. And since you are continually ignoring what I said, and just repeating once again I don't feel like I should even say anything on that last bit. I have repeated myself enough times. And like I said it is obvious you at least to some degree, just don't get it and don't care unless it is the way you play; now that is just how it appears anyway. After that I am tired of explaining that portion. Some things are obvious, but some things just take time.
It doesn't have to be an exact comparison to be relevant. It's called an "analogy". Actually, making my Tele-steal example so different from a dig ability was intentional. It prevents us from associating them with each other, except on very loose terms. We can examine the situation without personal biases, even when I apply the same situations and arguments. It's obvious that both sides of this debate are firmly entrenched in their beliefs, both find it difficult to see things from the other's perspective, and both are biased. As such, I felt an examination of the situation by way of analogy could let all of us see things in perspective. Whether or not these abilities are in the same league is irrelevant. What is relevant? My Tele-steal ability would be similar in that both would be highly controversial. Both would have it's proponents and detractors. And, inevitably, both would have us fans heavily extrapolate on a simple concept (just two words: "dig ability") far, far beyond the info given. There are four words in the above which I want to borrow: IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER By that, I mean it should not matter... to you. Why should you get to determine how I play Starbound? Or how Tamorr plays Starbound? Or how MarvinTheMartian plays Starbound? Please, explain to us how our play style has such a negative impact on your game experience. How is it any of your concern if some of us want to use the matter manipulator to encase a monster in dirt or stone or metal? It's quite simple: If you don't like the matter manipulator trick, then don't use it. Anyway, you're clearly asking to make Starbound more difficult. And this reminds me of Jeoshua's arguments, which led to our discussion of how Starbound having a Survival Mode would make more players happy. But, it's not likely that the devs will add a Survival Mode any time soon (if ever). And it's even more unlikely that they would significantly increase the difficulty of Starbound for everyone. This game is CLEARLY designed with the CASUAL player in mind: That said, if you asked nicely, perhaps they'd consider disabling the matter manipulator trick for the Permadeath mode? Or maybe there's already a mod to do this? If you had read Jeoshua's post, just two posts above yours, you would see a discussion about Survival Mode vs. Creative Mode and how he thought the game difficulty I was after would be more of a middle ground, which he called "Normal". And, then, I replied with: So, yeah. My bad. There is no Survival Mode. And the "difficulty" modes we do have are very different from an actual change in game difficulty. Expecting the devs to make drastic changes to gameplay to suit a clear minority is expecting too much. You and a few others may insist on making Starbound more difficult. But the majority are more-or-less satisfied with the way it is. And, as I said above, this game is very clearly aimed at casual gameplayers, not the hardcore crowd. Personally, I don't like the idea of any planets in Starbound so challenging and difficult that only the most patient, hardcore, and skilled players can hope to survive on them. That, in my mind, is not Starbound. And while your vision of Starbound would still allow us to play on T1-T4 worlds, it would exclude us from a great many interesting hazardous planet types. But as I mentioned, there is a possibility that the devs might introduce a Survival Mode or something to make monsters and such more difficult. Again, see the Implementing a Real Difficulty System for such a discussion... Oh, I'm sorry! You just said that "attribute altering difficulties is not needed for Starbound in any way shape or form". That means you must hate the idea of a Survival Mode. Because... it's not needed? It could, in theory, give you everything you've been asking for, including digging monsters that can trash your base and disabling the matter manipulator trick so it no longer works. The devs would just have to isolate those changes to Survival Mode. I just can't understand how you can say the "idea of attribute altering difficulties is not needed". If nothing else, there are a number of players asking for both Survival Mode and Creative Mode. Yes, believe it or not, a number of players are asking for a mode without any challenge whatsoever. Anyway, you suggested that those of us who want an easier game can use mods. But instead of expecting the devs to do all that work, you can make your game more difficult with mods: P.S.: I just realized one possible reason why you might hate the matter manipulator trick so much and why you are against a Survival Mode, preferring to make this game much harder for everyone. Perhaps you want bragging rights? Perhaps you want to "conquer" the unconquerable Tier-X hazardous planets and post videos to prove it? Making this game much more difficult would make this a rather exclusive club. And I suppose it'd ruin things if a simple matter manipulator trick could allow someone to accomplish the same thing.
You failing to use what the game already has available does not change the argument. The simple fact is this: Dangerous monsters are fine. They do not affect player bases in ANY way, because player bases don't have to be around dangerous monsters. That's not true for Terraria or Minecraft. It IS true for Starbound. The issue that you complain about is a non issue. No. The ability to place down blocks and alter the world with is a core defining mechanic of Starbound. It's not my job to pretend that the first item in the game doesn't break combat for the rest of the game. It is the developer's job to make sure their game's core mechanics don't break other core mechanics like combat. What did the Terraria devs do when players started walling off their combat arenas? They didn't cry and tell players not to do it. They stepped up and created new monsters who can fight against it. Since Starbound is kind of a deliberate Terraria clone, the least it can do is clone the things its progenitor did right. Your analogy is bad and you should feel bad for defending it. Taking away player rewards is not the same thing as creating a new type of challenge. If you can not find a single mechanic in the same league as tunneling then you don't know what you're talking about. There's plenty of similar mechanics to work with, and plenty of alternative ways to create real danger for worlds that demand it. Do you know what an "Attribute altering difficulty" even is? It is when a game can only make itself more interesting by altering the most basic stats of its obstacles; health, damage, stuff like that. Basic easy/medium/hard stuff. Starbound doesn't need that. Players already have multiple ways to tackle an obstacle because they can gear up, collect restoratives, find friends, and literally shape the environment to their advantage. The choice is already in player hands, and they don't need a menu option to do it. Similarly, placing the entire challenge of Starbound in the hands of its monster attributes is completely inadequate. Pure stat changes do not and can not address the ways that players can work around them. Something else is required or the so called "difficulty" ends up a pure illusion.
And again You appear to be drawing wrong assumptions, especially the way that I play. Never said I don't use the button. But do I consider it home? no. Not until I actually find that "Home World". It is all temporary if needed. However in my case, it is still a long search for that place. Not so easily found, among the many stars that are in the game. So I can say the same to you, it being a non issue of what you are complaining about. The road goes both ways on that one, if you don't see it then of course you really don't even know what at least I am talking about. Saying you don't have to build around dangerous monsters is still repetition of what you were saying before, just worded differently. I knew that is what you meant by what your original one mentioned. That was obvious enough. Non issue means no complaints. There have be semi-complaints, but that doesn't make it non-issue. Either way I'll just play the way I play and you play the way you play. All this is quite subjective to the individual anyhow, so I think I'll wait to see what they come up with and how they put said ability into game. One thing apparent is we all have our own bias opinion on the matter that is backed by stubbornness, at least that is what it looks like. Regardless this is as Thundercraft put it, going in circles. There isn't much else to say, as it is not you that I really have to convince, And it is not me you have to convince. You don't have to convince the devs either, as they will assess and bring about how they feel things should go. That is how I see it, and hope to see what is delivered with much anticipation.
