New Planet & Weapon changes: Good or Bad?

Let me start off by saying that, the game is amazing and thus far I have thoroughly enjoyed playing it. And the purpose of this thread is not to complain and throw nasty words at each other but rather to discuss opinions and preferences.

But in regards to the new system that has removed armor pen, and made every single planet to be the exact same level, I am not a fan..Simply because now I have almost no incentive to leave my planet and go to any others, when I can obtain equally as powerful weapons on the planet i am currently on.

I enjoyed the struggle of taking on planets that were too strong for my current gear and having to slowly work my way up..I enjoyed finding good solar systems with a broad range of planet levels and sizes and types, so that I could plan a planet conquest order. It seems now that all the planets are the same when it comes to gear level on the loot...so...why should I waste my fuel to go to a different solar system..this makes it so that you choose solar systems with lots of planets, as opposed to before where you would consider going to a solar system with just a few planets because they were high level planets that were large which increased the amount of events and dungeons that it would contain.

As far as weapons go..it seems much easier now to determine which weapon is stronger (Easy does not mean better)...the one with the higher damage per second ofcourse (given they are both common weapons) You no longer have to consider Armor pen vs. the level of the enemies on the planet and if the weapon with less armor pen and higher damage is stronger vs. more armor pen and less damage...Would'nt just trying both the weapons on the same monsters on a planet quickly reveal which weapon is better? I just mention this because I like to consider different options, and change out gear depending on planet levels etc, as opposed to just seeing a single number that represent damage per second and know that it is 100% the best choice.

How do you guys feel about any of this? Maybe I stand alone on these feelings.

 

The appearance is that all planets in each sector are now at the same level, but there are still key differences between planets that change the difficulty. I'm not sure if there are behind-the-curtain difficulty modifiers still, but some planets will have enemies that are inherently more dangerous. I rather enjoy no longer needing to search for high level planets to keep from wasting time on low level ones.

 

But how would you now be able to determine which planet is "more dangerous". You cant do this by just looking at it..you would have to travel there to find out..which could ultimately lead to a big waste of time/fuel and disappointment when you discover the monsters are less dangerous, not more dangerous.

 

Additionally, I enjoy the mystery of not knowing-- it sort of incentivizes me to do exploration I might not otherwise do.

 

That's the point. Now I cannot just look at the map, and find the weaker/stronger planets, and make my decisions that way. It means I have to explore, and sometimes that means running away screaming, falling down a pit in the middle of the night, and ending up waking up back in my ship like it was all a horrible nightmare (minus the 30% pixel cost).

Aim for yellow-star systems with loads of planets and moons if you're worried about the expense of jumps.

 

interesting, but do the more dangerous monsters and planets drop any better gear than an easier difficulty planet? Because if not then what is the point, harder difficulty with equal rewards?

 

Well see, the basic aliens DON'T drop gear, ONLY npc races drop gear, and sice they DON'T RESPAWN, once you've killed them all on your starter planet there is no other way to get better weapons except for crafting but those might not be better than what you have so, off to other worlds you go!

 

hmmm...I see. But is there any reason to go to these planets with harder monsters, I assume that because all the planet levels are the same that all the levels on the gear are also similar.

 

How odd, the new system encourages me to explore more planets than the old one did. Now I feel free to roam about to any planet I want without having to worry about the meta-game of gear progression and monster level. The old system made me feel restricted to one small slice of planets in a particular sector rather than free to roam the entire sector at will.

So I suppose it really depends on what drives you as a player. If you are strongly progression driven then this change is probably not going to make the game more fun for you. On the other hand if you are like me and just love exploring, this change is a good one.

 

Excuse me, let me quote, please :

"We’re going to reduce the number of planet levels from 100, to 10"

10. Ten. And i thought, it was already done.
But in your poll, you're saying that ALL planets are level 1 now ... is that really true?

Also i think it will be pretty good to add easy-medium-hard difficulties to 1-10 lvl planets.

 

I prefer the old planet system (1-100) but i prefer the new weapons scaling. Maybe it's just me but the new planets system don't encourage exploration. You could find a tons of ore and good weapons that kills everything for that tier just by visiting 2 planets. So having lots and lots of system don't seem necessary.

 

Higher difficulty planets provide an outlet for those wanting a greater challenge despite similar rewards.

If rewards weren't equal there would be no point in going to lower difficulty planets. The new system provides something for everyone.

 

I go to find the harder planets because they're more fun than the cakewalk planets. If I wanted to curb stomp enemies like I was walking on sunshine, I'd never find half the things I do when I'm searching for things that shoot spike machine guns at me.

Every planet in the alpha sector is a threat level one planet. Beta sector is threat level two, etc. That is what he meant.

 

no no. only for alpha sector, I should have clarified

 

I think you've nailed it on the head..just from previous gaming experiences I guess I am strongly progression driven, I will just have to learn to explore and take everything in :b

 

Pretty much this.

In spite of having only a single "threat level" shown per sector now, I've most definitely encountered a fair variety of difficulties while planet-hopping (particularly to find guns in the Gamma sector). Enemy scaling isn't as harsh as it was before, which to me is a welcome change.

I feel like a lot of weaponry needs to scale differently, though. The vast majority of enemies that can drop weapons, with very few exceptions, are not dropping weapons comparable to those I can craft. Same goes for a lot of chests. I find that I'll get "better" loot on certain planets, but without a threat level difference indicating which ones, it's completely up to chance. That, at least, I'd like to be able to tell before landing.

 

Oh, i see.

Well, i guess, i like new system. But, i also think, there are a lot of things to add.
For example, as i said before - a difficulty system to a planets.

I also want some ... REALLY hard planets. Challenge is always welcomed.

 

An upgrade that would be nice would be a scanner that could, from orbit, determine the basic readout of a planet, such as detecting an EM radiation, etc. Perhaps tier two could give you a scanner with a larger range (full planetary system (planet and all moons)), and tier four could give full solar system scanning. Maybe additional levels of detail, as well. Things like that would be useful to players who don't want to have to fly around the entire universe to find all of the goodies.

 

I like this system more.
The old system i had no reason to go to a low level planet, sure i could survive a bit better, but by going to the highest lvl possible i was able to get a weapon from a chest or village and be able to one-shot anything on that sector. And after that why would i want to go to a lower level planet? (also you had more ores in those high level planets, so even to craft armor it was better).

 

I prefer the new weapon system, but I am NOT a fan of finding all level 1 planets in Alpha sector. There should be more variance than that. I do not understand why it would be so bad to have levels 1 to 100 on the planets. World of Warcraft had extra levels forever and ever and eventually the numbers for player help reached the millions, but this was still a manageable system because all the weapons scaled as well. I don't recommend that the depths go that far with the progression, but having the extra health benefits from leveling up or gaining more damage from a new weapon should be visible from tier to tier. the armor penetration system was not as bad as they think, we would have just needed to see a DPS on the stats page as well to help calculat it for us. and alternatives to this method if they were to reimplement the 100 levels, is the method the teraria used on its weapons. by this I mean the descriptors underneath the weapons after the initial real damage has been shown as well but say things like very strong not back and slow speed. I believe that implementing a system like this would make the game both accessible to the players that simply want to explore, while giving people that are progression driven, like me, the opportunity to feel like they are earning something from planet to planet.