My Dissapointments With Starbound

I completely agree with everything the OP has mentioned


I find that in the game, once you've seen it once, you've seen it all.
I completely ignore random structures now because it'll just be a copy paste of what I've seen in the last 10 planets. I don't even pay attention to what kind of leaves a tree has or what kind of tree it is, because it's simply another average tree with a different texture.
Monsters? They all have the same 3-4 patterns with the only difference being art and projectile it shoots.

Now I find myself blinking through planets ignoring everything just to get the necessary ores to make bars for the next tier, nothing else. Well, there isn't really anything else to do, right? Because every planet is the same; 99% of all planets for me are ignored. There's no real incentive to do anything else, or stick to any planet: Because they're all the same, yet slightly different.

Not to say that it's not a good game, but it gets repetitive very quickly, ignoring everything because it's the same.
Of course, there's still a lot to come. But I hope these points could be looked upon in the future.

My opinion.

 

If you read what it actually says, it even says that "nothing is set in stone" that and the rest of what's written there gives me the feeling that it's more of a "puplizity stunt" more than anything else. Some of it makes little sence also, as the current tiersystem has been said to be nothing but a placeholder and that the final system would look nothing like the current one, yet on that list they say they're going to continue building and adding on the current system?

 

Whyt he hack not? Even straightforward tier system like that may be, without enough content, perfectly legit and not boring with a great replay value!

 

Wait... you actually think that the current tier system increases replay value?

 

As a matter of fact, I see no reason why removal of it would decrease the replayability. See, you'd have to repeat same tier mechanics anyways having to collect the metals one by one, just to update your equipment from basic to most advanced over time, not to mention some sort of replacement of current tier unlocks with loot that unlocks tech would just increase the annoyance level, with high probability of you failing to find what you desire for, while tier system provides a streamlined, reliable unlocking of the features. Oh, and having everything unlocked since beginning is a really bad idea, as usually such content overload doesn't lead to people navigating well on what to do next.

 

There was a lot of talk pre-beta release on how armor will define different roles and that would be a major part of the game, deciding which set of armor to use with a team, though I haven't heard much talk since. Racial armor bonuses have already been confirmed for awhile, though, with different races getting different perks for their complete sets. I know the FAQ has something about the armor being tied to roles, and I've seen the racial armor bonus list on the wiki with Tiy being cited as a source if I remember correctly

 

I think one way to spice up progression would be to have wild card unique resources on random planets. This resource would have a random strength and add random properties to items. For example- on a planet you could find the rare resource fontanium- its stronger than iron an adds +speed to items crafted, has chance to make a rarely powerful weapon (sword, hammer, gun).

 

That's a fair question, and I'll try and put into words what I think. First off though, my gripes with the game are in some cases easily remedied (I think), and I'm not trying to shoot down the game. Instead, consider this response a list of things I'd love to see happen in beta.

Mostly, my complaint is not with the concept itself, but rather its execution. I love Terraria, and sank many an hour into it. Mining stuff is good, crafting stuff is good, and Starbound offers both these things. The world it takes place in, however, seems to lack the direction to be a story-telling experience, but it also lacks the flexibility to be a sandbox experience. The tier upgrades hardly feel like upgrades, and finally having upgraded your copper axe to an iron axe hardly feels like a real improvement, but you were forced to farm and craft that particular item before you could move on to bigger things. A mistake I feel that was made in Starbound was that your iron axe requires the copper axe as a crafting material (other items follow the same trend, this is just an example). If I were to find a bunch of random iron ore lying around, I would be unable to actually craft anything with it until I craft the copper equivalents. It's a very small thing that can easily be fixed, but in the meantime it makes the game feel unnecessarily structured and sucks the joy out of getting lucky on your item finds. This way, taking risk is not being rewarded at all.

Another small thing I feel the devs dropped the ball on is the hunger system. I don't object to it in and of itself, but the way it is right now feels like it is simply there to prevent players from getting too much work done in a set amount of time, instead forcing you to abandon your projects rather regularly (hunger goes down pretty quickly) to go out and hunt for food, which you can then only do with very specific items. Hunger is also completely irrelevant until you're actually starving, there are no penalties along the way. If it were to decrease slower, but also introduce penalties based on how hungry you are exactly, it would feel more relevant as a gameplay mechanic. Also, why can't food have a drop chance all the time, regardless of weapon? I understand that blowing the living heck out of a creature with a bazooka leaves little meat to harvest, but surely it won't matter if you kill something with any other weapon? As it is now, hunger is just a nuisance. If it were to be removed entirely I wouldn't feel bad about it either.

The heat system is much less of a pain, but it feels inconsistent since it only applies to cold worlds. What about hot worlds? And why doesn't a structure on a cold planet protect you from that cold if there is a heat source inside the house? You'll still freeze to death if you're not standing next to a camp fire or forge.

On the note of killing, I feel surprisingly strongly about gibs. The puff of smoke is extremely anticlimactic...

Anyway, in Terraria you would build a base / house, and as you found better stuff you'd upgrade it and be able to defend against bigger and bigger threats. From lone zombies to entire hordes of 'em, goblin armies, werewolves, world bosses, and clowns. Your base would evolve from being little more than a glorifed outhouse to an impenetrable fortress of awesomeness. In Starbound there's no point to having a home. Your base on your starter world becomes irrelevant as soon as you move to other worlds. The enemies on your starter world will always be level 1, and as such there's no reason to upgrade or expand your base. Alternatively you could just break down everything and haul it with you every time you move to a higher tier world, and rebuild your base elsewhere to retain some semblance of challenge, but that feels like it defeats the purpose of even having the option of assigning a base / home world. I made a separate thread some time ago on how I feel homes could be improved, but it quickly disappeared into the dark corners of the forum.

Monsters look fairly diverse, but across multiple planets I've seen certain monster parts show up regularly. I don't know why this is, maybe they have a lock on the bulk of monster parts, or maybe those parts don't exist (yet). Either way, for now it feels more like an easy way to populate planets rather than a feature that actually adds excitement. I'd hate to think that poop monsters are the extent of the team's creativity. The same goes for types of attacks. After several restarts I've been coming across the same basic attacks all the time. Charge, body slam, shooting projectiles, and some other stuff, but that is it. I'm not saying these are bad attacks, I'm saying these are not enough attacks. For all practical purposes, the number of worlds in Starbound is infinite, if you then come across the same monsters executing the same attacks again and again, it really becomes predictable and uninteresting.

And that's ultimately how I feel about the game at large at the moment, predictable and uninteresting. I would like to see more diversity, monsters that are more varied in colour, looks, behaviour, and size (aside from the oversized mobs (minibosses?) the creatures are all the same size), more different attacks and AI patterns. At the moment things either don't care that you're around, or they proceed to disembowel you with vigour. Why not change things up a bit? Passive by day, aggressive at night, or vice versa. Flee when slashed, flee when near death, call in other creatures of the same species for help. Why not let creatures have young, or lay eggs, and become aggressive when you get too close to them, giving you warning growls beforehand (or not!).

Here is where the disappointment part comes in. I feel like the game has (present tense) so much potential, and it feels like a letdown that that potential isn't realised very much. How long has the game been in development now, 3 years or more? The game that I'm looking at right now honestly doesn't feel like it's the product of 3+ years of love and care. Over time we were given trailers on things like lighting and water physics, and I thought those were awesome features. But they weren't just features, those are the things that whole chunks of the development time have apparently gone into.

Like I said, I feel the game has a ton of potential, but at this point I must seriously question if the devs we're looking at right now can make that potential a reality within a reasonable amount of time (let's say in the next full year?). Tiy has said on numerous occasions he wanted the beta to be as feature complete as possible, so I am very much afraid that this is pretty much the game and that from here on out it's mostly tweaking and smaller additions, but I honestly feel that Starbound needs more, and indeed deserves more.

The implementation later on of the stretch goals is not going to fundamentally change how the game feels. An extra race, vanity pets, and fossils, none of those address any of the issues I have with the current state of the game.

Long story short: was I expecting Terraria? I was hoping for, as it was often lovingly called, Terraria on steroids. Do I feel we got that? No. I don't want to assign blame here, except towards myself for having (too) high hopes. Anyway, I hope that answers your question

 

All of the OP's points are very legitimate criticisms. I particularly agree with Lemon's second point, the linear sandbox. I made a thread on that particular topic a few days ago.
http://community.playstarbound.com/...urs-in-my-thoughts-on-game-progression.60945/

 

That's what an Alpha is. This is apparently a beta.

 

Still, when it comes to games released like this, game development can often be influenced by the players, so it's natural many things are not set to stone yet, even if it's a beta.

 

You make a really good point. I feel like the game is Terraria but with a few more quirks that makes it more fun, but it is in no way leaps and bounds ahead of Terraria. The change in gravity and needing a breather in space were steps in the right direction for that planet diversity, I really appreciated that update. However, there are more steps that I think need to be taken. I want to feel like a part of the world. Like having nomad miners digging in the world somewhere and when you find them, you can kill them and get all of their ores, or just leave them be and see what tunnels they create. As far as diversity and making each planet different from another, I don't really know. I'm half for making them really diverse, and half not. If they were to make a thousand different kinds of trees and make each tree drop different kinds of wood, it might get annoying having all these kinds of wood. I just want wood, not Pine Wood or This Wood or That Wood, just wood. But at the same time the diversity would make each world richer and new. Whatever implementations they make in terms of diversity need to not be intrusive or disrupt the gameplay or cause annoyance. I just can't think of many ways to do that.

 

Yeah, the tiers feel really forced upon players. I am trying to be an explorer in the game, but I am finding myself forced to stay on the planets in only certain areas due to the inability to move spawn points. The fuel cost between systems also seems to be too great. 200 minimal to get to another star system just over one click. I am feeling less "Starbound" and more "Terrestrialy-locked"
I am still trying to acquire the durasteel tech just so I can explore some asteroid fields In the ALPHA sector! Chucklefish please, If the asteroid fields are going to be in the alpha sector, at least give us the life support at that level.

 

Guess some sort of breathing time extension would be fine... I men, I myself made several landings on the asteroids before getting the necessary gear, and although time was limited I scavenged some materials. Extra time would make it bit better.

 

Diversity could be completely cosmetic and still feel like a huge addition without adding any gameplay hassle

 

Which is why a majority of us in this thread are trying to tell the devs that current direction that the game is going in isn't really working. The devs can talk about all these cool upcoming features that seem completely impossible for even a AAA developer to implement into a game all they want. But when the "Cool new features" that they implemented into the game in the most recent build are copy pasted from mods created by the community, it worries me. In my opinion they really need to slow down and just focus on the basic gameplay right now before they implement any "Cool new features." because in it's current state the basic gameplay kind of sucks.

 

I know I could risk it, but I would rather not have to bum rush. maybe add placeable oxygen generator for tier one.

 

All I really want is to find meaning to my character's existence. Yes, I do know that Starbound is a sandbox game, but even so, my character needs a purpose! I'm looking forward to those upcoming questing features. Other than that, as for exploration, I am hoping to do more exploring that digging. We need more surface adventures. I don't want to mine on every planet that I go exploring on.

 

Well, at the moment there's still a lot of stuff that's almost purely technical and not impacting gameplay directly to be added, with gameplay additions being just smaller bonuses. I am rather not surprised about this, the first beta stage is going as expected.

 

They should be focusing on the basics of the game, as in game-play mechanichs before trying to implement new stuff, cause currently the only system that kinda works fine is mining, combat and other things feel "floaty" as if they don't have any impact to them.