New 'Level' System Disincentives Space Exploration

If better math on gear is the main driver for exploring, how long did you anticipate being interested in this game?

 

Adding more diversity to the planetary ore and plant composition would give more reason to explore planet to planet. Now that loot is more evenly spread across all planets in a sector, perhaps resources could be a better reason to explore. Especially since the game boils down to be a mining sim.

 

I agree, I made a post earlier I'm just going to copy paste.

I kinda don't like the new leveling system. The older system had a progression mechanic that I felt worked out just fine. The only problem with the system was the progression wasn't smoothed out. It was very easy to get 10-15 armor penetration weapons, snow gear, then trivialize the early game content, but after getting to Steel the system dropped off significantly and forced you to go to worlds you were not ready for at all for the next tier and some ore like gold and silver is extremely hard to find. Not to mention the armor after snow gear is mostly crap and super expensive.

Which is fine because this is a game still very heavily in development, but I think the system was actually really good, just underdeveloped and vague. I think they should go back to levels 1-100, and instead of "armor penetration" give the weapons a 1-100 level.

The only problem with this system is there needs to be more craftable and obtainable weapons for each tier. Let's put it this way. Iron creates level 5 weapons. Silver creates level 14, Steel creates level 20. To make an iron weapon for level 5's you need 10 iron, but then to make a weapon that can beat level 10 enemies you need 20 iron and 5 silver. 10 silver creates a level 14 weapon, but then to beat level 17 enemies you need 30 silver, and so on. This is by no means a complete suggestion but I feel it would easily make the old system work just fine.

 

I just wanted to come here and state what these fine people have stated, glad to some people share my opinion ^-^" I agree with them.

 

If what you say is true, then why have thousands of potential planets to go to. Why even put giant villages and prisons on the surface if the point is to dig down. Why not just rename it terraira 2.

IMO, the draw of this game was planet hopping. I start on my home world. Dig down to lava, make a house, then im off planet hopping until i feel ready to fight the boss, then its off to beta sector. Then I pick a world, and dig down there. Get my goodies, planet hop till I feel strong enough to tackle that boss. Rinse repeat. If all im going to do is pick 1 planet per sector, how am I going to find the different techs. But if I decide to go hunt for techs, and all the planets are the same difficulty level on the surface, why would I want to go raid a city when im near the end of a tier if all the weapons are going to be on the bottom end of the tier. Whats the point outside of grabbing some new furniture and maybe finding a tech one in 20 worlds. We had our cake and we got to eat it. The only problem IMO is that the armor system needed its progression adjusted so you didnt have to go into a new tier with such outdated armor, and armors with certain hard to find ores didnt stop you from upgrading to another tier when you already had the supplies to do so(but didnt have that previous level of armor)

The way it was before, either style of play worked. Yours and mine. Now, if its the way you say it is(i still took it as there were still difficulty differences between the planets of a sector based on what I read, but cant confirm that as I havent played more than a couple hours of the new patch), it only supports your playstyle, which is terraia 2.

 

Since the wipe, I've been very content to put up my own 'castle' (it's a two floor stone house, very basic!).

Thing is, this fresh start has given me a new look on it all.
See, before I was that planet to planet hopper, Usain bolt across the surface style!, skipping those spinning totems(waste of time, some kill you, others give a buff that lasts as long as a sneeze!).

Now, I've found myself making my home, exploring left and right.
Side note: Has everybody's starting planet been like 4-5 screens across, max?!. mines tiny!.
I welcome the idea to explore down now, this is the other dimension.

Everybody seems pleased to explore planets, but lets not forget the true roots of this game, as is terraria, it's about digging, finding and exploration within a planet too!.
Some of you seem convinced (not pointing at you OP) that there's some golden planet out there, like a bloody cow level.
Yet, even if this particular planet exists, so what?.

 

The thing is, the way you want to play still works perfectly fine, and the way diggers want to play also works perfectly fine now. All planets in a sector have equal chance to provide any level loot within that sector.

The only thing that's really changed is now it's not exactly clear what level loot, or what level challenge a planet will give you. Because the answer is they all will give you a wide range of loot and challenge. You need to feel it out now. That runs negative to the anti-diggers because they can no longer guarantee a planet surface will have level 10 chests. Any surface may now have any level loot., and any level challenge. That's the core issue here. No more 'GOOD LOOT HERE' 'BAD LOOT HERE' flags on planets. It's more luck of the draw.

And frankly I find that to be more in tune with true exploration. Sometimes you come up empty, sometimes you stumble on something great. There's no clear way to tell now.

You have to keep in mind as well, diggers were disadvantaged the opposite way in the previous difficulty model. If they found a planet surface they really liked, but it was a threat level 1, they could build there, but they'd never be challenged, and the loot they found in digging wouldn't prepare them for more difficult planets/bosses. This system provides more even, and I'll admit more vague, spread of challenge and loot for both play styles.

 

I guess they need to strike a balance between trying to keep you on a planet and trying to get you to explore.

 

This new planetary level system quite obviously separates those who play a game for its atmosphere from those who play a game to reach end quickly and complete it. I personally do not understand, nor do I like interacting with, players who race to the end of every game they purchase. In the old system, it took me all of 2 hours and I never had any reason to visit the alpha quadrant again. It was not a good game mechanic and needed to be fixed.

While reading OP, all I was hearing in my head was "I can no longer race to a higher level planet and get the instant gratification of easily getting higher level weapons. Now I have to actually search for them? I was not planning to spend that much of my time on every planet and still don't want to..." Keeping you in alpha quadrant longer and forcing you to actually search a planet is not a bad change. (No, running along the the circumference of the planet surface is not searching. It's Mario Brothers.) No offense.

 

But i've got to just hop from planet to planet hoping I find that one planet that has high level loot? No thanks. If thats the way it is im out. Im going to hold out hope that its the way I interpreted it in that initial blog post and they just haven't implemented the easy, med, hard labels yet.

 

I feel you're making a false dichotomy. There's not only two kinds of people.

I don't even see myself as a planet hopper. I never got too far in beta system before the first wipe BECAUSE I'm not what a lot of you 'diggers' are accusing me of being.

I mined the ever living crap out of the first planet. I didn't leave it until I was in full silver armor with a platinum pick (which, admittedly, was luck with underground chests for the plat, but I got the gold by deep mining) and two techs.

I then surface skimmed two or three planets. Found one I liked (had a sweet glitch castle, and the king 'gave' me a crown). I figured I'd stay there for awhile.

Dug down, found a neat flesh biome underground. Dug the crap out of that, found some new stuff.

Skimmed some more planets, found an airship, bought some guns, shot down the UFO, and then went back and explored 6 and 7 difficulty planets, digging down again after about three when I found one I liked.

The problem is that, as of now, there's no incentive for me to go to another planet and dig down. I can't leave my starter planet if I don't like it right away, anymore, as you can't even use wood for fuel anymore--gotta dig for that coal. And by the time I have a mine system created I may as well get some iron weapons to make myself stronger, start gathering leather for snow infantry. . . and well, then I'm pretty much kitted out as best as I'm going to be without getting lucky and finding a gun vendor.

May as well summon the UFO, and move on to Beta Sector, as punching through the rest of the planets seems pointless, as getting nothing better than what I have kills a lot of the joy of discovery for me. "Oh look, a new hat dropped off that NPC--too bad its stats are worse than my old hat, and I already have an appearance I like." It's just disappointing.

Also: Old style did not disincentive digging. It basically forced you to do both. You could neither get by just by skimming planets, nor could you just dig down and make the best of everything. You aren't going to find a lot of armor in chests, and digging up silver and gold (and iron and coal) requires you to drill deep into the planet, if you want any decent quantities. It always did.

 

For it to feel like you are actually exploring you need to add a scan function on the ship, set it to a cooldown and have it give you the threat assessment of the planet with a small graph displaying ore density. When you beam down keep the mob levels hidden until you scan them, this makes the enemy display his level and gives you some description on possible attacks and miscellaneous data, this would go a long way in making you feel like you are cataloging the wildlife you encounter.

 

So then you're not really exploring, you're leveling. You're not looking to see what's all out there, different biomes, different villages, different clothing, fruits, different building types, different creatures and such. You're looking to power up to the next difficulty level, find a sword with better math, faster and through clear instruction. Exploration hasn't been hindered by this patch, power leveling has.

 

I think the OP has it completely backwards.

 

Why would you create a base on a planet (other than screenshots or eyecandy) Crafting equipment fits in the inventory and you do not have to save&exit every time to get to the surface just to craft.

And yes, planets are similiar atm but after some stuff gets added the current system will make sense.

 

No, power leveling has been made easier.

With the UFO no longer having ridiculous level 9 armor (and broken armor pen application) it can be murdered pretty easily with an iron bow and snow infantry. I'm done with an entire sector in like an hour. Maaaaaybe two.

As opposed to 'leveling' taking. . . well let's see, I played 56 hours, and the vast majority of that was in Alpha sector before this patch, so, 40ish hours?

Edit: I'm not trying to be rude here, but I don't know how to say this in any other way: You don't seem to understand game design.

If you want people to explore in an exploration game you need to give them an in game incentive to do it. Exploring isn't fun for the vast vast majority of people if they aren't getting new things now and then.

Yes, finding the airship was reward in and of itself, but that was after wandering around the surface of about four planets. If I weren't getting other things I found neat "Oh hey a cool sword upgrade" etc. I'd have probably stopped exploring and started pushing to level faster to get to more content.

 

exactly my point. That is exactly how I played. In the current system, that style is pointless.

 

I should've been clearer, not hindered in that you can't do it now, hell now you can do it on the planet you start on, but now you can't guarantee how quickly it can be done. You no longer will absolutely find the best loot in your sector based on the labelled threat level.

And we can't take current armor and weapon values as a sign of ease or difficulty of leveling, since everything is poorly balanced right now. We're still in stage 1 beta. We're simply talking about the ease and fluidity of finding next level items.

 

Which, because there's only three levels of difficulty across an entire sector and all of them are on your starting planet, is MUCH FASTER.

You have 1/3rd the necessary gearing, and 1/10th the necessary exploration to progress at a natural curve.

This doesn't stop the 'skip to planet 10 for loot' thing either. You can still do that. You just dig straight down to lava, and then start going horizontally and exploring cave systems for chests and loot.

 

The problem is more so that every planet in a section is completely identical.

You're right, the only thing of any value doing is mining down. Looking across the surface of the planet has lost any meaning because no matter where you go, it's going to be the same game. Mobs are the same, threat is the same, loot is the same, everything is the same.

I went from planet to planet looking for good, higher leveled goodies, and pillaged villages left and right, but now that doesn't matter. I steamroll everything after having only spent maybe a couple minutes underground getting ores and simply crafting my weapons. Now, I'm not afraid of anything anymore.