New 'Level' System Disincentives Space Exploration

As usual another person who has an opinion treats it like breaking news of impending doom that must be averted. It's simple people have different playstyles not everyone needs a carrot on a stick, not to mention with higher difficulty the same level planets will still be hard.

 

Personally, I'd like to see it where we don't know the threat level of a planet until we beam down to it. And of course they'd need to be generating some higher level threat planets all over the place, (alpha, beta sectors etc) so that you don't know what you're going to get until you do. So on alpha sectors you will find threat level 1 and higher, then on Beta sectors you'd drop threat level 1 and have levels 2 and higher, etc. etc.

Then those that want to play it safe can quickly beam back up to their ship and try another planet, and those that want to take a chance can attempt to go up against the mobs on a higher threat world if they happen to explore and find one.

It's all just a bit dull knowing that in alpha sector you'll only ever find threat level 1 planets etc. Don't get me wrong, I love the game which is why I have 130+ hours into it but the way it's done right now (maybe it will change later on) is a bit dull for exploring.

 

So... After reading some posts. I've gathered my thoughts.

I personally feel, that being forced to Dig deep on any particular planet is ridiculous. This is essentially Terraria.

It removes the excitment of exploring the universe.

YES I understand that planets are RANDOM gen, and you can run into spawns of any number of types. BUT the amount of SPAWN for more exciting situations is few and far between.

And having to traverse 20 star systems for One good adventure is a waste of time. LIKE LITERALLY a WASTE of my GAME TIME, that I partition out of my day

Then You are forced to DIG DIG DIG, to find anything of true interest or HIGHER tier. Obviously this also is affected by Alpha, Beta etc.

But again, no point in looping planets for surface loot, when you can flaten an entire planet for the same loot.

THIS IS IN BETA, so it probably will be addressed.

 

I don't fully agree with you, although I believe I understand why you're saying it. There isn't much challenge right now, because everything is a known quantity, and can be defeated using the current armors of that tier. So, once you make your racial armor, no planets are threatening anymore until the next sector.

On the other hand, think about the new player experience. Someone just bought the game, finds their starter planet and gathers what they want to, then goes to a new planet. They've got copper armor, and some copper weapons, they're ready to explore the Alpha Sector. Unfortunately, they get their rear end handed to them. This is not an enjoyable experience. There is nothing they could have done to be better prepared for this, because they would not know that they needed to beam down to that new planet and then beam back up to their ship.

This also can lead to situations where new players do not have enough fuel to leave that new, threatening planet. Oops.

If there are "challenge" planets, they should be clearly labelled, so that players can understand the risks of venturing into the unknown. I'm not saying the Threat Level should be declared, but the planet should be listed as "Threat Level: Unknown". Maybe it's 2 or 3 in the Alpha Sector, but it's definitely not 1.

This would preserve a lot of (but not all of) the challenge you seek, but remove the possibility of "griefing" new players.

 

Yup, that's pretty much what I was meaning by it.

 

I would dispute that point. Starbound is much more dig heavy and always has been. In terraria most items and upgrades come from biome specific monster drops or random chests. You had to go to various biomes (nothing linear, there are various upgrade paths) at different points in your characters progression. In starbound most of your upgrades come from grinding the ground. Bosses only drop the item you need to get to the next sector to grind the ground some more.

 

Wow, wasn't expecting this thread to come back again.

Anyway:

Did I?

I didn't mean to. I used the word 'disincentivizes' not 'destroys'. I don't think I said it ruined the game, either. I was merely trying to get a point across about the direction of the game moving from outward exploration to downward exploration.

I've since realized this actually isn't the case. . . though for all the wrong reasons.

When I made this thread it was right after the change and I hadn't realized what the change away from using wood, a lack of reason to explore (and therefore mine) more than one or two planets per sector, and new planet generating algorithms would do to fuel scarcity near the start. I actually used to dig in the AP system and just. . . don't now, because coal is too valuable to use on torches as mining markers, as you need it for every other tier + fuel.

Which is to say, I find outward exploration more efficient, but it's still not any more fun.

Edit: I was also trying to be clear that I simply wanted the devs to be aware of the lack of incentives to explore, and to come up with new ways to incentivize it.

Clearly if I thought it was impending doom I would be talking about how they ruined the game, not how to replace what a removed system did with something that, hopefully, does it even better.

Well, here's the thing: Simple, entry level, game design theory says that if you want people to do a thing you should incentivize it. Not everyone needs a carrot and stick, no, but if you apply a carrot toward one activity, and a stick toward another, the vast majority of your player base are going to go with the activity that's giving them carrots. Carrots are delicious.

Now, as I said, I may have misstated the problem in the original post. Rather than removing carrots from exploration and giving it to digging, it's simply. . . removed carrots. For everything. I only have sticks. I need to get to the next tier, but mining uses too many torches, and takes forever. Walking around the surfaces of planets, however, provides nothing particularly interesting as there's no different difficulty levels and no boosts to stats to be gained, and once you've done it a few times, you're not even that likely to see anything new.

As a result I surface skim one or two planets and move on, rushing to end game as fast as I can so I can get to the point in the game where exploration of ANY kind has meaning. The one point where grinding and farming for better gear and vanity items isn't a waste of time in progression.

This is what the current build incentivizes me to do. It's, therefore, a gameplay style that many people will end up adopting as it is the most efficient method of progression, and has the fewest sticks. After all, you don't actually miss anything by not looking at other planets until Tier 10. Every tier has the same biomes and dungeons and everything else, currently.

What? There's no variable difficulty level between planets on the same tier. It was understandable people making this mistake when I first made this thread, but not any more.

If you're talking about the 'difficulty' coming in the next patch, it's not. That's why I put it in half quotes.

Dropping your items when you die doesn't provide difficulty, it merely provides extra grinding. Once every three or four tiers I'll need to make a tier's armor twice? That's. . . that's not hard. It's no harder than doing it once. It just takes twice as long.

And permadeath is actually a way to change the entire game. It doesn't make it harder, simply more methodical and faster. I LIKE permadeath, but calling it 'difficulty' is a misnomer.

Further, I'm not asking for MORE difficulty. I'm asking for VARIED difficulty. I want an option at every tier whether to play it safe, or go to planets that are more difficult. I also want going to planets that are more difficult to give me incentive to do so. Better gear, better ores (that I don't need to beat a boss to actually use for anything), etc. I want to have the OPTION and a REASON to challenge myself.

I don't want the game to be harder, I want it to have more options and variety, because more options and variety mean that the player gets to make meaningful choices. Making meaningful choices USUALLY causes the player to become more engaged. An engaged player USUALLY has more fun.

So what I'm saying is I want the game to be more fun.

Well, in the AP system, you had 10 'levels' per sector. You could only get up to level 5 weapons by crafting, and the boss of the sector was level 10ish.

I can't check numbers right now (obviously), but during the AP system if your gear was one level higher than an enemy you roughly halved damage taken, and doubled damage output. Enemies did the same. So with level 5 weapons you would do about 5 damage to the UFO and its minions. Its minions had 100 hp each, as did EVERY normal enemy. Meanwhile the spaceship had a few thousand.

So while it's true the UFO didn't drop a weapon, those dungeon weapon drops (or, guns from vendors, if you're lucky) off level 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 planets were really something you wanted to grab. Which is to say, your armor was gotten by digging, but your weapons. . . not so much. Which is. . . actually about where Terraria sits. Bosses don't drop armor. You still have to make that.

Edit: The doubling damage thing was broken as hell. But I did the math and changing the multiplier to 1.2x damage would have just about balanced the system perfectly. I have no idea why they didn't just do this.

 

I agree that the older system could have simply just been balanced and also to change the terminology from "armor penetration" because its simply misleading to anyone who has expectations as to what the term means from other games.

As far a terraria goes Almost every boss in the entire game gives you materials to make armor with and the ones that don't still drop very useful items.

 

Good to see I finally disagree with some one who can argue logically and not just scream buzz words and devs are evil. I see you make many good points, the problems you see does not personally effect me. But it would not hurt if the devs balanced it more. You sir actually have some good feed back here. There needs to be more people like you beta testing. I personally explore just to see the generation creations and I am sure it will be more complex and varied by full release. Hopefully the devs take head of your feedback.