My Dissapointments With Starbound

exactly. Some of these grandiose expectations would require a different engine and focus almost entirely. That or plenty of work-arounds. This is the kind of game that relies on procedural generation and grinding for its length and content. The devs dont create enough content for it to be a lenghthy level progression style open world story game the likes of GTA or Skyrim.Unless they plan to spend another few years adding quest and content, it wont stray far from that formula.

 

I know they are planning on adding to the game for at least two years after full release and then hiring a team to continue working on it after that, so who knows, maybe something like what the OP is asking for could show up one day.

 

What if he really meant the game is bad at the moment ?

We can't tell for sure how it will "taste" in the future. It's best to voice your opinion before the final result come out than pray until it does.
That way you can safely assume the devs know what is disliked, they may or may not take those opinions into accounts due to limitations, conflicting ideas, limited targetting (or anything else...).

If I tell a chef his unfinished dish tastes horrible because [insert reasons] doesn't mean "it will taste bad no matter how you boil it" but "before you finish I'll let you know that [blablabla]".
I'm not being disrespectful, on the contrary I am grateful for his work and wish I will get the best taste of his dish.

Though we could say we are expecting so much it puts pressure on them I understand why some people would try to tone down the overflowing waves of feedback / suggestions but at least do it in a respectful way.
It also applies to people being all worked up because the game is not as good as they thought it would be despite their feedback / suggestions, no need to be angry it won't help either some things are just out of range and will probably never happen.

 

The framework is definitely there to make a game that is leaps and bounds more advanced than Terraria. Its not there yet though, and they will have a difficult time if they try to change it too much from what style of game its trying to emulate- a mining, building loot game.
IMO they need to tone down the "FTL explore the cosmos gimmick" and put a little more love into making individual planets interesting and full of content. Sure, it may be fun to some people, but it wont last long if they try to turn this into a casual theme park RPG with procedural content to fill in the gaps.

 

did you even bloody read further than the first 6 words

 

Didn't read - game is not finished.

 

So I'm seeing some responses in here that are along the lines of "don't make suggestions", which to me makes no sense. I see responses along the lines of "it'll be too hard to do that", which nobody really here knows. Have you seen the code for the engine, or the game mechanics. You cannot possibly know if something will be too hard to implement or not. Sure you can guess, but you do not know. For all we know, it might actually be real simple to implement some of the suggestions people make. And even if somethingis too hard to implment, it's not up to us to dictate that, but the developers themselves. It's very well possible that even though something is difficult to implement, that the payoff for it would be a much better game or mechanic. I applaud people who make constructive suggestions, regardless of how feasible otheres here in the forum might think it is or is not.

And to the OP, I agree 100%. Completely and utterly.

 

I'll probably keep playing a bit past launch. I enjoy the beauty and the music and find gathering entertaining, but the OP is correct that there are some serious depth problems mechanically and for the long haul.

Add to that list that other than potentially one bonus and some skins, the armor progression for every race is stat for stat identical, and aside from the sometimes amusing differences in using the investigate tool, there's no real variation in playing through as another race. Short of full wipes, the universe is the universe, and you might have tons of generated planets to visit, but once you know where labs or guns are, you know where they are. Sure you can avoid going to the same locations on purpose, but the problem the OP is noting is real, and ironically a deep design issue. There isn't the kind of deep variation that leaves me imagining myself surprised and engaged for a full year or the like. I'm still happy I bought the game and will greatly enjoy my time in it, but I can see why the OP or others would see this as disappointing given some of the potential of the game to be more.

Maybe worth a watch.

 

I'm glad I've gotten such positive feedback. To reply to a few things:

I completely understand what you're trying to say. Most of what I talked about would take a lot of time and effort to change, and even if they wanted to change what I mentioned it probably would cost them too much time. I posted this mostly being hopeful rather than expectant. And yes, this game might not be for me. That is definitely ok, too.

I did leave some red text at the top of the post explicitly stating "I'ts beta" by it's self wasn't constructive, although neither of you seemed to have read that. That's ok though, like you said it was kind of long.

I'm enjoying this video a lot.

To everyone else on the thread: I pretty much agree with all of your comments and, again, thanks for the feedback.

 

Not sure if this has been suggested before, but I feel like the game needs to focus more on high technology and less on low technology. For example, I have this matter manipulator, why can't I upgrade that to mine bigger better faster instead of the pickaxe tiers and stone axe and THEN you move on to drills. As it is, the manipulator has almost no function whatsoever beyond early game and placing items/blocks. Why doesn't my ship have a futuristic way to smelt some basic ores and do the crafting that the basic table does now? Then after that making a high tech smelter/robotic crafting table for high tier ores and items. This is a basic example of what I mean and it seems so obvious with the matter manipulator that I can't believe the devs haven't already done it. Also, where is the warp drive tech upgrade? How about when you make it to sector X you are able to make an upgrade for your ship that moves you to a warp drive engine that you need to harvest plasma for? I mean for a game IN SPAAAAACE!!!! they sure are forcing us to use use a lot of old technology for no good reason. I do agree with a lot of t he OPs concerns. There needs to be uses for the varying blocks. Other than aesthics (which aren't that great by themselves) the magmarock blocks or obsidian blocks don't really have much use and can't even be made into other building materials/items. Also, I think the higher tiers should use alloy mixtures of the various metals rather than just always adding coal to get an alloy. Why isn't impervium and alloy of say Cerulium, Rubium and Coal? That sounds a lot more like IN SPAAAAACE!!!! metalurgy to me than just rubium and coal to make impervium. The hollowness of the universe is pretty apparent. having a warp drive would make exploration a lot more fun and worthwhile in the late game, which is the time you really feel motivated to do it, since you are armored/weaponed,materialed enough to be able to go wherever you please. Also, improving NPC interaction and variety. Morevoer, there should be planets that are VERY settled where the real dangers are cheesing of the lo

 

I agree in the particulars. The only reason I hop planets is to find more farming seeds. I kind of resent having to hunt for fuel just so I can get some farming seeds.

In an effort to find something interesting to do, I've taken to building a farm on an asteroid field with no oxygen. I just feel like there isn't really anything to do. I'm sure this is because we're in beta, but even the quests just sort of stop abruptly. There's no indication of "Hey, this is the last quest!" You just sort of finish it and that's it. No further direction...no "hey, you should try to find others of your race" or "hey, maybe start an intergalactic trade alliance" or any of that. Which is fine because it's a sandbox, but as the OP says it isn't REALLY a sandbox because you're strapped in to a progression of objects.

The dungeons feel unrewarding...there's no way to play other than to go in blindly swinging your sword. You can't try to finesse your way through with diplomacy and guile, you can't stealth your way through, you just have to be Conan the (alien) Barbarian and kill everything indiscriminately.

Great video. Thanks for sharing.

 

Honestly the only one I haven't seen improvement on is 3, though once side quests start being added, I can see the NPCs becoming much more involved. Naturally, because armor is based off numbers essentially, its going to be scaled. That's kind of how it works in every game. I'm not sure what you want done about number one. These voxel games typically include static blocks, blocks affected by gravity, and fluids. Once again, if you can think of a way to make "every dirt block" act a different way, then I would love to hear that suggestion.

Yes, progression is linear at the moment, but only because there's what, 4 bosses to progress through implemented currently? I hate to spout the "it's only a beta" argument, but really most of those I can't think of a solution to or I am positive will be improved. You say "the most you can do with circuitry" like you know that this is the limit. Did we not see incredible contraptions come from the simplest redstone devices in Minecraft? Give it time, most of this sounds like a complaint of lack of content, to which I say "duh." It just came out this month.

The point of the game is not to give the full experience but to test the developers current build on the widest variety of machines possible. No matter how many hours you've played already, I guarantee you've nowhere near experienced all that will be in the final product.

TL;DR There honestly isn't any other argument to the lack of depth complaint other than "It's still in beta" Because that's exactly why there's a lack of depth. Too many people are fighting that like it's not a legitimate answer for the game not having all the content they want.

EDIT: Like an asshole I posted this having only skimmed OP's original post, I re-read it and it only seems to reinforce my opinion though. A good 90% of the complaints around here and in the original post seem to be with content, to which there isn't much at the moment.

 

Beeeeee-caaaaaaause it's not the last quest?

This is an unfinished game. I know that probably sounds like a broken record at this point in the discussion, but it's true.

I do like the idea that the game is old before it's even released. We're like nerdy hipsters!

 

Speaking of content in the game. Anyone remember the roadmap from a bit ago, the one on the webpage? (Is it still hiding there somewhere btw, I can't find it?) If I remember correctly, there were alot of the different categories there that said that it was at 100% completion or close to that. Does that ring badly to only me? It might just be my poor memory messing with me, but if they had alot of their systems complete or near complete back then (it was a while ago), why isn't there more of that stuff in the game right now? Did they make a sudden change in the engine, meaning that their finished systems would have to be redone to work in it? Or is it possible that they've added most of what they've been working on already, and are only adding new stuff as they think of them now? And they have been working on it for quite some time now... But I rant, I'm sorry. If someone could correct me about the roadmap thingy it'd be appreciated

 

For this one, there's a lot that could be done. For basic leveling, fine, have them be in sync mindless upgrades. You're not going to wear them for more than an hour of few hours at most. Don't waste time there.

Still, at the top, have hard, meaningful choices. Set A has good armor rating and high environmental protection but adds a lot fewer health and is relatively energy starved. Set B has amazing health and energy bonuses but hardly any armor and environment. Make them trade-offs that aren't just calculable, but are specific to how you might want to play or to a specific task. I.E. I have a great gun that takes a lot of energy, but I plan on sitting back ranged and farming mobs for pixels, so I want energy at the expense of protection. Or I want to wear Set A because I'm mining/exploring and want to take some hits while moving through until the mobs lose interest in me.

Better still, have arrangements of armor types available only to some races, actually making it worthwhile to play a different race to get easier access to a blueprint for specialized armor, or to search out merchants on that race's world to add that killer armor for your purpose to you arsenal.

The overall framework, though sandbox, is much more linear than it has to be. It would take a lot of thought to make it less so, but some minor tweaks could go a long way to introducing more choice.

 

Point number two is what ruins the game. I'm honestly surprised that the developers developed the game for such a long time without realizing that this was the wrong direction to take the game in. This isn't a sandbox, it's a linear sidescroller with combat that isn't very good. Why do I have to defeat a boss to get a Starmap so I can go exploring? Why can't I just craft the freaking Starmap on my own time? Why do I then have to go fight another boss to get another Starmap so I can continue exploring? Why can't I just craft Starmap level 2? Why do I first have to create the bronze sword, then the iron, then the steel and so on? Why can't I just craft a diamond sword with the diamonds I found? They could simply make the items degrade faster to keep it balanced, boss and mini boss drops would still be valuable because they would always be better than a basic iron sword or a regular diamond sword. I might as well be playing Super Metroid with the way this game currently works. I should be free to go and do whatever I wish. If I want to progress the story or get a unique weapon then I can kill that boss, but if not I should be able to completely ignore the boss, craft my own Starmap and then go on an adventure. That's what Sandbox games are all about, creating your own adventure using the mechanics within the game. This currently isn't a sandbox game.

 

This is still a sandbox game. You can build where you want, dig up what you want, and kill what you want. The only thing separating the sectors being that you have to kill a boss to be able to get to the next one.

 

And he has done exactly this, so what is your problem? The OP's tone is not really aggressive. If there is anyone here NOT being neutral it is YOU. Also for a game still in beta, I would actually hope posts are long to get points across, the more infomation in a post the better, since the game, as you said, is incomplete.

 

That's exactly why it isn't a sandbox game.

 

First thing I'll say is that the OP has a lot of great points and I back all of them entirely. The game could use some improvement, but at the same time it is already superior to many other 2D exploration games. We want this game to be even greater than what it is - and it will be. The problem is that there are hundreds of thousands of people that own and will own this game that all ask for different things and have different opinions and different views on how the game "should" be. Just because the OP and I agree on these points doesn't mean they "should" be implemented and nobody that posts in these forums should believe that their opinion is correct or legitimate in the way a game "should" be because they are not the developers and it isn't their game to toy with. All we can do as beta testers is voice our opinion and see what the devs do with them because it is ultimately their vision.

I might be making these points out of misunderstanding, but I see a lot of people in this thread saying that "the game should be like this" as though it is their choice rather than just saying this is what they would prefer or what they want out of the game. The OP is not one of them, don't be mistaken, but still.