New 'Level' System Disincentives Space Exploration

What it says on the tin.

Having every level in the Alpha Sector labelled as threat level 1 (and Beta as 2, etc.) makes it pointless to explore in space. You no longer look at higher threat level planets and know they're going to have better gear, so that's where you go to progress.

Instead, you find better loot the deeper you go on a planet.

This means there's no longer any compelling gameplay reason to explore new planets until/unless you've fully explored the first planet you've dropped on, all the way through, and find yourself still lacking. Dropping onto higher difficulty worlds and checking the surface for chests is no longer possible, and you're no longer likely to find upgrades from the very simple iron weapons you create at the start.

You might find a village, but the chances of finding one, AND one with a weapon store are slim enough that it's not a good motivator for exploration in and of itself (before this was a nice bonus when exploring a planet for other purposes). Dungeons across planets also no longer have any indication of whether they'll drop better gear, so why bother doing them? Or exploring at all?

Yes, yes, just for the fun of it, but people, oftentimes, don't explore and poke around 'just for fun'. Even when it IS fun, you most often need to give them the carrot of in game rewards to get them to put effort in, and the system no longer does that.

There's just no reward for exploring new planets, and therefore no real point to explore more than ten planets to get to end game (one per sector).

Basically, the new system has turned Starbound from a game about space exploration to Terraria (dig dig dig), except you don't have to gen a new world if you get tired of your current one.

It's a huge step backward, in my opinion. At least if the direction of the game was, as I believed, more about being a space nomad than picking a planet and putting down roots (the fact you have to travel to another sector every so often backs this up).

I'm not sure how to fix it, because, at most, the way the current system works, you might manage to pull off three threat levels per sector which still won't do much to incentivize checking new planets, unless the differences between them were huge--but that's, apparently, not tenable with the current system. Indeed, moving down to each sector having a single threat level was a requirement when removing armor penetration to keep numbers from getting silly high.

I'm not saying to put back the AP system, because the Tiy have said the new one is much easier to work with and works better, which I assume they mean on the backend, and I'll have to take his word for it, but the lack of exploration incentive needs to be looked at and maybe we can come up with some kind of solution?

 

From other hand you explore every planet and don't move from one to another. In previous patch you have not to build bases on planets - only dig somewhere in cave for 30 minutes and move to another in space. Current system is not good, but previous more ugly.

 

The problem has nothing to do with the new level system, it has to do with planets all being nearly identical since there isn't much content yet.

The problem should smooth itself over once there are more dungeons, mini-biomes, etc.

 

So the new system disincentivizes going to the highest threat planet in your sector, finding a few great items, and then using those items to steamroll every other planet you visit in the sector

It's still just as easy to visit lots of planets in quick succession and search for stuff on their surfaces

 

I don't need an incentive to explore, I do it anyway. Doodle around on Planet A, then head over to Planet B to find more Tech or chests, maybe hope it has a skyship or some cool thing I never found before on it. Then head to C, find a new recipe or two.

Getting more powerful items isn't the only thing this game is about.

 

I find plenty of reasons to go exploring on other planets. I don't see the problem.

 

It'll get better as it transitions out of beta

 

It has everything to do with the level system, because before it was implemented planets were NOT nearly identical. They still aren't. Some are forests, some are deserts. They spawn different monsters. . .

But the level of loot you're getting is the same. This means there's no statistical advantage gained through exploration. This is entirely because of the level system.

Old system could have fixed this by simply changing the armor pen damage multiplier to something much smaller, and adding more gradation to it.

That said, the old system had that problem, yes, but it also incentivized going to other planets.

But why WOULD I? Remove any 'want' to simply see more planets from the equation and explain why I would do that, when nothing I find will be better than what I have?

There's no reason to.



Edit: And I realize that it will most likely get better. The point is to come up with solutions to MAKE it better, and to ensure the Devs realize that the old reasons to explore new planets no longer exist.

This is a beta. This is part of our 'job'.

 

I was actually going to start a topic like this myself before I saw this one.
The whole 1-10 system just feels... boring. Before I found myself thinking, "Well now that I am wrapped up on this planet I can move onto the next. I'm on a level 5? Alright I feel confident I can take on a level 9." Now it just feels like, "Oh look, another 1-25 planets in a system all the same level but with different coats of paint."
I have been jumping from desert to desert for the last 3 hours because I like them more than other planets and it feels like there is no reason whatsoever to deviate from that unless I want to go cliffdiving in a forest.

 

Not to shit in your cereal but you should want to explore planets to see their sub biomes, potentially find labs, villages, merchants, air ships, there's ALREADY plenty in game to look for with a planet.

edit: And probably more coming!

 

The idea isn't that all Alpha planets are level 1, and that's intentionally glib. it's that all Alpha planets are level 1 through 10. So while exploration from a level 1 planet to a level 10 planet for better loot no longer exists, there's more incentive to explore the planet you're on, because it may contain level 10 gear.

So what this really does, as well as removing wood as a fuel, is give exploring down, into caves more incentive, instead of hopping from surface to surface of a chain of planets, never really digging in, and leaving as soon as you've done a lap. That sort of exploration is given less weight in this patch, not all exploration. The only people complaining about this don't spelunk.

 

Every single planet in each system being the exact same difficulty really has killed off much of my desire to explore new worlds. I used to crave it intensely. Even if it was a simple move from a Threat 5 to a Threat 6. That minor change meant a lot.

Explore countless worlds... but for some reason every planet in the sector has the exact same threat level. There would be much more tension and unpredictability to the enemy encounters if I couldn't just downright guess how much damage most enemies would deal 99% of the time when moving from one planet to the next.

So much improved in this patch and yet one tremendous leap backwards.

 

They are going to add a gui bit that rates planets "easy, medium, hard" thats missing atm.

 

So because of the new content it should make up for the fact that a big portion of the game has been dumbed down? No thanks. I prefer to have cake and cereal. The enemy AI improved but their difficulty is now extremely predictable and makes for very repetitive and non threatening encounters.

 

Because before there was so much incentive to explore worlds other than lvl 10,20,30,40, lol

I mean, at least be honest. You don't want to explore, you want to know what the best planets are and explore only those.

 

I hope there will be at least 5 tiers but 3 is better than nothing...

 

This. 100% this. This is how I imagined Starbound would be in my head before the Beta launched, you -can- stay on one planet the entire time, but you can also explore. It's an optional thing, it isn't required. I'm so happy that this is possible now.

 

Everyone thinks all of Alpha Sector (using this as an exmaple) is the same because "Threat Level 1" is depicted. It's actually the same as before, just ignore the threat level indicator, because frankly it's meaningless for the most part. Threat lv 1 = ~1-10 You don't know what your getting and that's a good thing.

 

I think the problem is that we feel the NEED to go to other planets. When i play Terraria, that ONE world can last me an entire playthrough. I wish SB planets were good enough to hold their own even if there wasnt space exploring.

But thats just me- not what im saying this game should be.

 

Yes for me and my buddies there actually was. No need to an ass. If all you care about is steamrolling through the game by jumping on high level planets just to grab as much loot as possible then that is your gameplay style, not mine. Surely you can realize that not everyone shares the same gameplay philosophies.