New 'Level' System Disincentives Space Exploration

Put more eloquently than I've been able to.

This is exactly what I'm getting at.

 

No, thats called goal oriented gaming. Thats how I play. Im not trying to force you to play like that, why are we being forced to play like you? There is no reason that game cant progress down and from planet to planet.

And the thing is, while Im out "leveling" I am exploring. Im finding villages, and dungeons, and prisons, and labs. The thing is, I cant just explor to explore. I have to progression happening in the background. Its just the type of gamer I am. Example. When playing the elder scrolls or fallout 3. When there was only 20 levels originally, once I hit level cap, I couldnt make myself continue playing. I had reached my goal. That goal was becoming as powerful as I could. Without that goal in the background, the story became pointless for me. Its just the way my mind works. Its why i enjoy action RPGs so much. You level and level and level. Even after the story is over you using just keep on leveling and growing more powerful. The previous system gave me that background goal while planet hopping. The new system tells me to stay put and dig down in order to progress in power. Well that is tereria. I can here to play starbound.

 

Im with you, I had 48 hours played and was only in mid level beta. Yet im told im just power leveling in the old system? other people had finished all content in 30 hours. That is powerleveling.

 

I like the fact that we dont know what level stuff we're getting when we go to a new planet. People are upset because they can't go to a level 10 planet and get the best weapon as someone stated before. The thing is that you can do that. You just don't know if its a level 10 or not. I think that it actually incentivizes exploration more than before.

The problem currently is that not all the content is finished so the planets seems a little dull. Once ai is completely flushed out and more himanoid stuff is put in and when the pet system.is put in there will be more reasons to explore outside of weapons and materials. If rare pets spawn on any planet and you really want it then you'll want to explore every planet regardless of level. That's just an example but we shouldn't judge a new system that is greatly dependent on content that doesn't exist yet.

 

What is this, some sort of game or something?!

 

thats maybe because the weapon damage is still bugged?

 

What even further hinders this idea is the fact that wood burning for fuel has been removed, natural spawning of NPCs and structures remains at an all time low, and access to blueprints remains rare.

It's as though the devs really want to emphasize finding a home planet to stick around in for longer than you have to, or even want to.

* Blueprints are, in my opinion, a bad choice for the system from the get-go and we should be able to see all formulas, but that's another story. If blueprints were more readily available, it'd encourage explorers to seek out the materials they need from various planets.

* NPCs, villages, and such still limit themselves to 2 or less instances per planet. Much of the surface of these planets remains devoid of anything interesting and resemble a barren wasteland. NPCs in themselves are really boring and I have no qualms about smashing them with my 6670 DPS hammer (which needs fixing in itself). The loot you can get, aside from pixels, is now miserably poor compared to rooting yourself in a cave underground. Now, guards and chests from within said instances drop ridiculously underpowered weapons, laughable amounts of ore, and maybe a blueprint here and there. Risk should equal reward, and tackling challenges such as pillaging villages, going into Avian temples, Glitch castles, etc, should be more rewarding as well as challenging; buckling down underground should be the safer, but slower alternative to finding loot.

* Lastly, and most definitely, wood burning no longer works. Unless they plan on finding a new alternative to fueling or buff the fuel coal gives, that severely reduces time spent exploring and increases time needed finding fuel underground. You need coal for things like steel and durasteel, so now you'll have to balance each and choose between crafting more bars, or fueling your ship.

 

The weapon damage bug is actually just that after iron the weapon damage scales really weird.

As in you get 5000 attack on steel daggers and what not.

Has nothing to do with this.

 

So from what I'm seeing this is a value problem.

Problem: I have limited fuel, especially compared to yesterday. I could go to any one of these planets easily but I can't go to them frivolously as I could before. The relative quality of this decision notwithstanding that's where we are right now.

Problem: There are a LOT of planets and currently other than the biome no way to differentiate one from another. The reason this is a problem is that all the planets sort of get lost in a haze.

Problem: The above two lead to an issue where you have a ton of choices and they're all equally good. Before the patch you could browse the stars looking for a suitable location to travel to and now there's no way to know, other than biome and size, how one planet differs from another.

Resolution: Show how planets differ from each other while browsing the star chart. The change that was suggested that the planets will be labeled as easy/medium/hard is a great way to start addressing the issue that the level changes brought up.

Proposal: I think that these issues create a new opportunity for the game. There should be even more details about a planet that can be seen in the star charts beyond biome, size, and relative difficulty. Perhaps how treacherous the terrain is, or how ore rich the planet is, if it's been settled or occupied, or even other surface features such as laboratories or air ships.

Proposal: Having this information potentially available also provides an opportunity for a deeper crafting game. These options may need to have ship components crafted to unlock the ability to scan planets/planetary systems. At the highest level there could also be a potential for searching for particular features automatically rather than scanning planets or systems one by one.


I think the idea is to return the sense of exploration to the star chart. The exploration that is missing is the one where you find a planet that suits your needs/goal, not actually land on one and do a lap.

 

I feel that they are not de-incentivising space exploration but co-ordinate sharing exploration as close range travel cost has decrease but long range is exactly the same as previous patch

 

I'm sad to see that you got so much hate when you brought up this issue. I completely agree with you. I was enjoying myself on the planet I landed on after the update. Oh how ignorant I was. I was content until I wanted to go to, let's say a threat 3-5 planet? And when that was easy as pie, something a bit harder. It was so much fun going from planet to planet with constant challenge. yes I get what everyone else is saying about having fun just exploring and discovering new aspects of the game, but I did that while there was the challenge of a higher threat leveled planet.

 

You bring up some good points. I think a more nuanced solution would revolve around each visiting planet getting a roll at to the general quality of the loot. You can still have the loot based around the level of the player and instanced around the planets they visit by simply giving them odds to hitting a planet with rare loot, with each visitation to a planet being a re-roll of the dice.

 

Isnt digging a staple of these type of games?

 

I like this idea.

I feel it's not a full solution, but it would definitely help.

Yes. And I dig. And I enjoy digging. I just also enjoy exploring new planets, making contact with alien life forms, and trading with/brutally murdering them. I'd just like doing so to be something that's not a complete slog until you're lucky enough to find that village with the good vendor.

It's also the biggest thing that differentiates this game from it's closest competitor.

 

Maybe that should be the focus?

How many observed play styles are there to the game?

The miner crafter VS the pirate looter?

These plays styles should be noted and balanced against each other. For example, my daughter is a vegetarian so we basically just farm and planet hop to find new different seeds. Totally different game that way.

 

From what I hear, snow gear is a temporary armor to allow us to roam cold planets, so that shouldn't be there initially. Also planets are supposed to be ranged from Easy, Medium, and Hard in each sector, but I don't think those tags are applied yet either. I haven't gotten too far, so I'll concede to anyone with accurate data.

 

Not only this, but your "incentive" to explore random planets is to find Field Bosses and loot them for their rare and legendary weapons.
Loot villages and complexes for rare items such as instruments and vanity gear.
The legendary weapons should be a huge incentive given that without the AP system in place, they should stand up to more wear and tear rather than only being good for a few threat levels.

 

Explorer, Achiever, Killer, Socializer

The explorer likes to search the games systems and find new and interesting tools and ways to abuse them. This is actually my primary type (or I probably wouldn't be here at all). For these people you want lots of arcane and complicated systems. You have to balance this against accessibility, but The Explorer likes to unravel those neat combinations of gear/techs that make them more powerful, and what drops this or that, etc. etc.

Achiever is the 'goal-orientated' player, like Ghozzt. Power Levelers also fall here. These guys just need a smooth progression to be happy. This is tied in my secondary with. . .

Killer. PvPer, basically.

Socializers are people who want to talk it out. The only thing these folks need in this game is the servers to come up smoother and automatic port forwarding, and we'd be good for them. I'd guess most of the people talking about 'diggers' and 'hoppers' (and disdaining the hoppers), are socializer/explorers. I'm not this at all. I solo constantly in everything (play MMOs, never group, go to least populated instance).

That's the mobs, not the planets, and as mobs get harder going down. . . welp.


Edit:

Not until Sector X. Grinding for legendaries before 'end game' has never been particularly fun (and even then, it's just that THEN it's useful), and going from planet to planet hoping that maybe you'll get a boss who will maybe drop a legendary is pretty much just straight grinding.

 

it is but so far this game has shown us more. the entire pirate looter gameplay style was a really novel thing that tons of people have been enjoying in lieu of trudging around in a mine. clearly there needs to be more challenge in trying to destroy an entire village just for a cool couch but each style should be a game in it's own right comparable to each experience.

in this way, tailoring needs to be expanded, bards need to be expanded, and farmering to be expanded in ways that provide their own enjoyable gameplay experiences. bards for example, people are going nuts hunting down midi files to play in game. it's not uncommon to find somebody who's willing to serenade you by your side as you battle a slaver dungeon. this new found avenue of fun should be made easier and supported by the game in a way that makes the behavior beneficial for the player.

back to my daughter's vegetarian play style.. it would be great if the game had more fruits and vegetables. even hyprid plants that could yield boosts making a farmer stronger in battle. there's gameplay potential there when players are already collecting various seeds for the sake of itself.

 

*faux angry huffing*

I beg your pardon! Builder is a completely valid play style for this game, thank you!

u n u