Just "beat" the game. My top 5 issues.

I found out about this game last summer and had the main site bookmarked. I hadn't checked up on it much and was surprised to learn that beta had been out for a month. I just finished the game, and I don't mean finish in a literal sense. I have Tier 10 armor on my Floran and am collecting costumes, so in that sense.

Through my playthrough these are the 5 issues that are most evident in my view.

I know it's beta, so please take these things with a grain of salt. I'm not outright bitching here.

1. The game feels too linear. For beta this has me concerned. I think that I would be more lenient if this was alpha, but I suppose that it is early beta. The pace feels awesome up until gamma sector or so at which point the difficulty level takes a dive. Enemies drop quickly, techs like bubble boost make mobility a piece of cake. I can easily skip an entire planet in X sector, acquire all the ores I need and take out the corresponding dungeon (if there is one), in 5-10 minutes, sometimes it may take about 15.

Half of the game consists of mining ore and returning to the crafting table or anvil. There needs to be more variety, more effort.

I know that Tiers 6-10 aren't complete, but the only real difference between the earlier tiers is a couple of extra materials, no? In ways I would be happier with loot tables for the higher tiers, or the materials being more rare. I feel like the later ores should be far down below the surface in the midst of dangerous scenarios, maybe even mini boss battles. I wouldn't complain if it took a day or two just to acquire a full set.

2. No incentive to mine underground. Like I said above, there aren't all too many reasons to mine below the surface which feels a little dirty to me. You can argue that there are more ores down there, but then again there are asteroid fields and you can acquire surface ores quicker than applying the effort to dig down. I would dig under the surface for a laugh just to drag things out more and add a little more difficulty. It felt right doing so.

3. Dungeons are too lackluster. Again, I know this is beta, so bear with me. All too often I would cruise through a dungeon or village and find little to no loot. Lately all I find in chests are low level ores and pixels. RNG, I know, but most of the time I find no chests at all, just enemies and this seems a bit strange. There needs to be more enticement when stumbling upon these places. Most notably in my mind would be sewers and prisons. I just cruise by these for the most part.

4. Immersion factor. There's no real connection to the story implemented thus far aside from a few books, most of which I found humorous and enjoyable. The foundation for proper RP currently exists with what we know, but overall I would like to see more quests. I was saddened to see no early cut scenes of my race's trials or planet being overcome. I hope they add something like this in the future and perhaps a few NPCs that we can relate to that will pop up in the game from time to time.

5. More focus on the player's ship. I feel as though we need a captain's log first and foremost to log where we have been. Whether it's through the map or some type of book we access, it would be nice to keep track of this stuff. There's also ship customization.

I know that there's a mod for this already, but whether it's upgrading a ship or an in-game feature to customize, this is needed.

Lastly, ship battles. It would be cool if other invaders could be spotted from time to time where the option becomes available to either battle in space with our ship (unlikely), or board the other ship and vice versa.

These are the biggest issues for me currently. I know that the game is a work in progress, and I will say that I love this game immensely and feel interested in gaming on my computer again because of it. PC gaming has felt stale for me for some time.

I would love to see more pixel games. It takes me back in time and makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

 

Some very valid points here! I agree with the pace going very quickly once you get to the Gamma sector.

 

I don't see how the game is linear because you have the freedom to do whatever you want. If you don't want to kill the bosses, you don't have to. Heck, you don't even have to mine. It helps, but you could just find villages and dungeons easy above ground.

 

Have some suggestions? There's a place for that.

http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?forums/suggestions/

 

I agree with what you said as for threes nothing really underground. Tho i would assume they're going to change that 1. and 2 threes going to be a fossil? system implemented correct? I believe it was one of the kick starter goals no?

 

I agree with all of these points.

Especially regarding the linearity.

 

threads like this are great.. the more feed back the devs get the better, i havent played to much yet , but when i do im having a blast..!!

 

Valid points

But those will be worked on later

Right now we are in stage 1 of 3 where balance and numbers basic bugs ect will be worked on.
Stage 2 and 3 will give lore, more play etc. pretty much everything you asked for is already in a plan for later.

 

I cannot agree more. I also think planets should have more variety, they are basically all the same

 

I agree with everything except the ship part. Honestly, I think the ships do more harm to the game than good. They're little more than storage containers, and a bigger ship just means more storage space. Personally, I'd prefer to do away with ships altogether and replace them with a "stargate" like system. You can sort of do this already by using the ship as a hub between your home planet and your current planet... but it doesn't quite feel right to me.

 

i think points 2 to 5 are caused by the devs still fixing bugs and don't having to much time to add new content, i would wait until phase 2 and the finishing of all tiers before discussing this.

now for point 1, i agree. The game have a lot of vertical progress, but way to little horizontal progress.

almost all melee and ranged weapons work the same way, with changes only in speed and damage, i would like them to look at terraria for a good horizontal progress example, lots and lots of weapons that have basically the same damage but have different styles (like paladin hammer, chlorophyte spear and vampire knives, or shadow bolt, gravity orb and magical knife).

i hope this also is because they have a lot of bug fixing to do and not enough time to add new content, but i fear this game will be like borderlands, where there is a absurd amount of weapons and all of them works exactly the same.

i like the ships, but i think they have little to no use right now. maybe a global homeworld (for all your chars) or a maybe a space station as it was planned at the beggining would be better.

 

Ships in starbound are pretty op, sure teleporting is nerfed so you are just as likely to be hit while using it because of the long animation of warping. But did you know ships act like minecraft beds? If you beam up to the ship when its night on the planet and stay there a few seconds, it will be day on the planet again.

When ships get bigger, you'll only really need a home planet to grow trees, Unless they add a dwarf variety of tree.

The problem is besides trees, ships allow everything else. Nothing in starbound is so big it won't fit into the ship, besides trees. (not counting fruit trees)

 

I dont think getting rid of the ship is the correct solution as it stands to offer cool and unique gameplay. That being said building a base on a planet needs way more incentive. As of now why bother. I think they can upgrade ships and still balance it with planet building but each need distinct pros and cons. Something not yet implemented.

 

The 2nd point is what I'm eying to be addressed. I love cave exploring!