Please Implement A Warp Beacon, Doing Anything Underground Is Tedious Without It

Different people have different ideas of what's fun.

I feel that pandering to the "RAAH, GRINDING BUILDS CHARACTER" crowd makes the game less fun. A fun game should focus on constantly giving the player new and interesting things to do, presenting them with meaningful choices or new content or new challenges.

Walking through the same empty cave you've walked through dozens of times before, or fighting the same enemies you've beaten dozens of times before on the way? It's not a challenge; it's doesn't add anything to the game. It's something that should be trivially skippable. If you want to grind through the same caverns over and over again, that's your prerogative, but accusing people of being "lazy" is silly.

From my perspective, those people -- the people you're insulting -- like challenges, not mindless, repetitive grinding through the same already-explored unthreatening places again and again. You can have a game that consists of large amounts of tedious challenge-free wandering through the same place over and over if you want, but some people like more thrills and they deserve to enjoy the game, too.

Anyway, the point is: The game should allow people to focus on the parts of it that they like, and that means that, at some point, you should be able to teleport underground if that's your thing, rather than forcing players to go through the same caverns again and again.

 

I don't think what you call a challenge is actually a challenge... And if you're stockpiling ore when it only takes ~500 to move up two tech levels, you're doing something wrong; I did this in an hour. I honestly don't see where you get this idea that going back through the tunnel you made is grinding. Going down a tunnel you already emptied out isn't a challenge. Neither is teleporting to the last place you found ore because you can't manage the materials in your inventory or remember to actually bring food.

I bet you think Monster Hunter is too difficult.

 

My point is that people play games for different reasons, and consider different challenges to be interesting. The time you spend wandering up and down through cleared-out caves is time spent not facing another challenge; therefore, in a practical sense you're asking for the game to be easier, not harder. You want most of the gameplay experience to be unchallenging and repetitive.

Remembering to bring food isn't a challenge beyond the sense that doing your taxes is a challenge -- it's simply rote repetition, an arbitrary punishment for absentmindedness with no actual thought or challenge to it. I think that some people enjoy that, sure, and they play a lot of games like that; but I think that a lot of them have also become determined to zealously defend that gameplay, and I suspect that it's partially because they recognize that it's not a really meaningful challenge. That's why you get so hostile and defensive whenever you suspect that someone might be removing something you consider a 'challenge' from the game -- you have an emotional investment in defending the objective worth of the games you've played previously and the objective significance of the things you view as challenging (and, therefore, as accomplishments.) Hence you lash out at people you consider 'casual', naming whatever games have earned your ire at the moment -- because they threaten your illusion that the fake, uninteresting challenges you ground past previously were objectively meaningful achievements. You see them laughing, enjoying what they're doing, out in the light and warmth having fun -- asking for games to be fun -- and this is insulting to you because you have spent so long playing games that bury what actually meaningful challenges they present under endless layers of grind and tedium.

I don't mean that as an insult, really. You can like what you like, and I'm sure you see it differently; I just want you to understand where I'm coming from, because it seems like you're automatically dividing everything into a ridiculous "casual / hardcore" divide in your head, and I think it's important that you realize that I feel that that's artificial and counterproductive.

Many of the games I enjoy are probably ones you would consider pretty hard -- Dwarf Fortress, Dungeon Crawl, Caves of Qud, ToME 4-- but my point is that a game doesn't become difficult, in a meaningful sense, simply by throwing as many challenges at the player as possible, regardless of their content or meaning. A game's difficulty is part of its play experience -- diluting that play experience with meaningless minor tasks or micromanagement without tying those things into the larger metagame means that the game is actually easier, not harder, because you spend most of your time playing focused on uninteresting and unthreatening challenges rather than the exciting and dangerous challenges that lurk in its depths. In the past many games used this to artificially prolong themselves, because there were limits to how much could fit on a cartridge and because budgets meant that games had little content overall, which had to be spread as thin as they could get away with. We don't have to do that now.

There's no point in busying up the player with mandatory things, basically, that don't call for the player to make meaningful decisions or choices, and which don't call for them to use a meaningful skill; or with things which require them to use the same identical skill over and over long after they've clearly mastered it.

ToME 4, for instance, is (I think) the best example of good modern game design (while also learning from what was done well in the past.) Its developers slowly removed everything that made a game grind-y -- it identifies objects automatically, now; it gives you an unlimited-use recall rod the moment you start the game; enemies no longer respawn, ever; you are given a chest that can instantly convert objects to gold at any time; potions were replaced by tattoos that recharge and never wear out, and so on. It is a very convenient game, in that respect -- it is never annoying or pointlessly frustrating. All of these things (which, I'm sure, you would argue make the game easier, if you were there when they were proposed) actually make the game's experience harder. The total number of turns a typical character lives has dropped sharply. Players spend less time pointlessly walking back and forth through now-easy areas or grinding weak enemies to pay for disposable potions, and more time facing the game's most dangerous and serious threats.

Rather than posting a kneejerk defense of anything that you feel makes the game harder to play in any fashion, you should consider what the game's main challenge ought to be, the core gameplay experience and how it flows. (In Starbound's case there is meant to be more than one core gameplay experience, of course, in that there's meant to be more than one way of playing the game.) Things that take the player away from that core gameplay experience are not actually challenges, just distractions, and the game will ultimately be better -- and players will spend more time facing 'serious' challenges -- if they're smoothed over.

 

Firstly, though this posts does become a little lighter on the end, the hypocrisy of the second half of the second paragraph is a little thick; to state it as you do, only to follow up with "I don't mean that as an insult, really," is just a cop-out. Secondly, and most apparently, I don't seem to be getting through to you on a particular fact:

We're in agreement here, but you use this as a means to slander and project onto me what you assume of me. That's fine; as you point out, "I'm sure you see it differently." That's about the only way you could save face in that situation and still have my respect.

You've listed some very interesting RLs there. Stone Soup is an all-time favorite. Why? Because blowing up your dark elf sludgemage with a cursed scroll (preferably the first scroll you find; nothing like a quick death when compared to the agony of Xom growing bored with you while you're only a screen away from the exit with the Orb. And that's where we see this as two different things, as you stated. While I've never played ToME 4, what you describe is, for me the best example of how to spoon-feed modern gamers. Maybe I'm too old for this; you could blame my preferences on the changes in what a game can or can't do, thanks to advancements in coding and the sheer amount of coding that can be employed, along with systems designed to handle such information.

Maybe I'm upset because, upon the release of vanilla Terraria, most boss fights where you walked away alive were rather... well, awesome. I remember groaning mournfully when it was time to kill ol' Skeletron Prime, praying I slay him before the sun rises. He was a sinister foe. Now, I groan boredly as I farm him multiple times in a single night. Hell, I only have to do it twice for a full set of hallowed, if I remember correctly. And threads like these upset me in the manner that they do because of the fear of this becoming a game where you hit cap in the quickest route possible and all the sense of wonder is lost. You're right. It is likely a knee-jerk response, though the game had barely warmed before this was posted on the seventh, the Saturday of the same week as the release. I understand that blocking off someone's desires to make travel a little easier is not exactly conductive to retaining the game's enjoyment, especially in the face of "what the game's challenges ought to be."

Perhaps I'll sit the rest of these out and find something a little more soothing to post about, but I'll leave with an on-topic suggestion: I'd be fine with something that teleports the player at a major cost. Several uranium or plutonium rods, for instance.

And one off-topic something.


I'll try to remember what Mr. Rogers was trying to teach us.

 

Main strength of this game is randomly generated world. How can you possible want to add "unique challenges" when everything is just randomly generated?

Also, why do you call all kind of traveling a grind? Doing one thing repetitively can be fun, as long as it is challenging it has to be difficult tho.
And when we have a randomly generated world to toy with, we might as well just let players explore it and let (make) them go through it, instead of skipping everything.

Lastly, I can't seem to find a challenge in being able to teleport yourself around without any effort taken. I do in fact find it challenging to travel around the world which is hostile, and every mile you travel is hard to go through. EVEN if you have been there before. This is how I see replayable game with randomly generated world. I do not what this to turn into "build yo house with new content" since developers can't add content as fast as you're going to get it.

If they chose to go that way, its either gonna be "one new part of furniture every 2 weeks" - and this is how often you'll play Starbound, if at all. OR you can go for "make traveling hard" and you could start a new adventure every second, since worlds are randomly generated, and exploring them, and going around them is fun itself, without bosses, tiers and other stuff that needs to be added daily, in fact.

Getting tons of new content won't keep people playing. This is way harder than you might think, and going by shortcuts won't fix the problem of game lacking in design.

 

This isn't something I really picked up on, last night. Aquillon did refer to the grind (which is already in the game, therefore an intended feature) as pandering to a particular crowd. Yet, the same could be said about giving folks teleporters beyond what is going to be implemented in an upcoming patch.

I think, however, Perq, that Aquillon did cover his bases in his following post. I still don't completely agree with him, as I replied, but I'm willing to accept the fact that we won't know what sort of teleportation system will be put into effect until they implement it. Until then, this is a moot thread where we argue convenient, intermittently challenging modes of travel (aka CASUAL) versus slower, constantly challenging modes of travel (aka 2EDGY4ME, GRINDING BUILDS CHARACTER, etc.)

I'm still part of the second crowd and nothing will change that for me.

Lastly:
>implying either mode is immoral or distasteful

 

I know how to fix this.

Allow for beacons to be placed and give the player an option to name them. These blocks require 4 solid blocks beneath them and can't be placed in fluid. they would take up a 5x4 area. The space of two doors. If fluid falls on them (lava) they will break. If the floor below them is broken, they will break. If a monster attacks it, and they will agro it, they will break. The beacon must be in a secure location where the player will not be in danger.

Under these conditions two way travel from and to a beacon is not exploitable. A player has established an area where they are safe. If they haven't, the beacon will be broken VERY FAST. And when I say broken, I don't mean it drops as an item. I mean it explodes and is gone forever. Make a new expensive beacon.

When placed, prompt players to name beacons. Using them after this (with E) will teleport the player back to the ship. On the ship, teleporting to the planet will first prompt a player if there are any beacons on the given planet. They will then chose to either beam straight down to natural spawn or to any of the named beacons listed.

Can we agree that under these conditions a beacon isn't broken and serves only to lessen tedium?

PS. Esc -> Save and Quit -> Single Player -> Character Select - My ship. I can already beam back from anywhere in a planet. Usually with less than 50 pixels in my inventory and full HP if I just killed myself. (Just dump pixels into nanoweave bandages.) The latest patch brings you back with full HP. You can 'beam back' by using up your pixels however you please and jumping into lava. it is the same thing.

PSS. Didn't mention this before, but I've begun avoiding large planets on the basis of them being tedious to explore. Preferring tiny planets with easy to find dungeons/NPC villages. I do still go to larger planets, mind you, but only when the size of the planet is irrelevant to my needs. Like, if I go to a jungle planet for bandages/wood. I go for low tier jungle planets to avoid getting hurt and the loot I could possibly find aren't worth note and won't make me explore any dungeons I see. Then it's right back to tiny worlds. (This is a bad habit to push players towards.)

 

IMO boredom is a challenge in itself. That is, if you're facing a boring cave-run, you're doing it wrong, and you've got to stop and find a better way.
Mining can be done without cave-running, at all. All you need is a good pickaxe and the ability to place blocks fast.

Mining is waaaay too safe. It's much safer to be underground than on the surface. This safety must be offset by something. Right now it is offset by being boring, and not being able to just to the ship. May not be the best way, but it kind of works, and I can't see a better solution right away. Just making it less boring is clearly not a solution.

Surface spawn point relocation is coming, and it's more than enough.
Actually, I think block-placing ability should be limited as well. Not only because of mining, but it would keep underground engineering challenging among other things.

 

I can't say its too safe, depending where you mine, I always find all kinds of hazzards and interesting places while I mine, that keeps me entertained and invested, sometimes, i stumble upon underground labs or canals, that can surprise you really hard, especially since those are frequented by..literally, pieces of shit, that can one-shot you, sometimes, you might fall to your death if you don't react fast, like placing a block beneath your feet, or using one of the flying techs to avoid death, there's all manner of creatures underground, both hostile and neutral, there's poisonous pits, and even lava pits, sometimes, these lava pits can be encountered rather soon.

So unless you plan a mining marathon, and come very well prepared, there are high chances that you might die while spelunking, i personally enjoy not to have a definite objective while I am on a planet, one minute I may be exploring the surface, the other I might decide, it's time to mine, and im rarely stocked with healing means...from stumbling across a mountin of fine sand packed with different materials, which can collapse on you, and its fun to see how you can "destory" a whole mountin with 1 pick-axe hit, to getting to the molten core of the planet, encountering all kinds of biomes, from ice, to flesh, and bones, the best part is, making it back alive from where you dug, especially since you might've left a maze behind you.

What I'm saying is, it would be nice to have a warp beacon, right outside the cave you decide to start mining, because, sooner or later no matter how good you are at this, you might die, and rather silly.

 

Don't blame the devs for your lack of drive or focus, especially when you're claiming their pushing players to "bad habits" when it is you who may have the bad habit.

I feel that this is really childish. It is basically saying, "I'm willing to put myself at risk while not being prepared to protect myself should I stumble into trouble." It is a simple matter of warping to the ship, grabbing supplies, and warping back.

 

You missunderstood what I meant, although i can't really blame you for it, because I wasn't clear on the matter, sure I like to take risks.. not being 100% prepared, BUT what I'm doing instead is use every means necessary to stay alive, which means, AVOID getting to the ship, taking this kind of aproach makes the game even more fun for me, because, getting into trouble while knowing you may not have all the resources you need to stay alive keeps you on your toes, so you don't screw up, and conserve what you have, so you can leave the planet as a vanquisher.

 

I see. So you're posting about how you DON'T want to warp back to your ship in a thread where people DO want to warp back to their ship while advocating for the people who DO want to warp back to the ship. That makes even less sense.

 

No, I do not want to get back to my ship, what I do want, is being able to warp back to the cave i dug, just in case I would die, and you might argue, it's my own fault for getting dead because of how I play (not stocked on medicine); but that's how I play, I like the thrill, and the danger that might lurk beneath the earth, most of the times I'm getting out alive, but sometimes, I die...now getting all the way back to the ship is punishment, because having to walk all the way back, (especially if its a big planet), just kills the thrill for me...I don't want it to end, if I get killed, I want to get right back into the action.

 

Ah, well, go look at the blog. They've already chosen to implement that.

 

It's called dominate strategy. Players will naturally use the strategy that is the most beneficial or powerful. You have T10 armor but like the way T8 looks? You have vanity slots... But if you didn't have vanity slots I guarantee you'd end up using T10 anyway because that's the dominate strategy. Sometimes this is cut and clear as in that case, however, in this case I was out of bandages and needed more. Why would I put myself in extra danger where I'd need to use the very bandages I came to make? That's completely counter productive. Also, if the enemies do so little damage that BLOCKED just pops up when I'm hit, I can avoid worrying over them and actually "focus" on what I came to do.

It's like going to the store to buy one thing and ONLY getting that one thing. I don't know how you define focus, but that fits mine to the letter.

The dominate strategy in this case is exactly what I ended up doing. Pixel and leather farming is much the same way, though. When you hit T8+ you'll go to worlds just slightly lower in tier where you can one shot everything and get pixels really really fast. Of course, this assumes you need to what with the refinery. *chucks 300 diamonds in it* As for leather, players will just wait till they have a steel bow (or titanium if that ever gets a usable recipe) then go back to a T1 world and get all the leather they need quick and easy. Even the brain extractor shows early game examples of this strategy. Why would you go to a T2 world at all when you could just use it on T1 enemies and get all the ores you'd need there. By the time you leave the first planet you could be heading straight to planets in the Gamma sector. That's an entire sector of the game you can skip!

As for it being the dev's fault. If the design of the game naturally pushes players to behave in a certain way rather than another you can argue that it is the developers of that system who are at fault. If this is a trend then yes, I can blame the devs. More importantly, this is the beta of the game. If there was ever a time to bring an issue to light THIS IS IT. The very fact that I voice this concern is proof enough that a problem might exist. The fact other users are calling for a beacon is proof that a problem does exist. Exploration is... Tedious. I'm much more inclined to dig down at spawn rather than ever go any distance left or right. That's a real shame, too! I've had some genuine flights of wonder and awe in this game when I did explore at the get go.

So, what is this game about? What could the devs do to push players towards what this game is about to them? I'm not giving any answers here. In fact, everything I've said up till now is said under my own assumption for these two questions. Ultimately, though, it comes down to what the devs think the game is about that really defines what needs to be done. They're also still working on content and this could change the dynamics in a huge way, completely negating a lot of what I've said. (or not)

 

Toliz is right. Maybe we could have something that you build and place down that teleports some items into on of your chests. BUT when you place it down it takes a while to activate and build itself AND it takes a fair amount of pixels to transfer your items around.

 

Maybe we could implement some kind of "speed boots" that help quicken getting to places faster BUT they only last for a set distance and make your hunger go down faster.

 

There is already an item like this. Key Lime Pie. If you have a vendor that sells kiwi, diodria, and wheat, you can buy 1k of each and turn them into 1k pies for 15k pixels. (Assuming you have the recipe.) They heal you for a rather long duration and give a good speed buff while completely restoring your hunger.

 

But "Dominant Strategy" is only one way to play. I stuck around the TL2 planet I had chosen and zapped brains. Also, have you updated? Because the armor system doesn't work on the penetration logarithm anymore... Unless that just a somewhat dated example you're trying to give me...

This thread has mostly been challenge versus convenience; I'm trying to take a neutral stance but it's fairly obvious that, if you'll go back to a TL1 just to zap brains in one shot rather than two, that you're all about the quickest, easiest way through. Without resorting to ad hominem, I'd just like to state my opinon above: there are multiple ways to play the game and if the devs try to please everyone, no one will be pleased.

Consequently, how does being able to teleport underground in such a fashion adhere to the principles of "Dominant Strategy"? Perhaps, instead, you should be pushing for meta-game reform. I know I'll now be requesting that only TL2+ planet creatures drop brains.

 

Don't know if anyone has said this already, but isn't there going to be a power system in the game? The "warp beacon" could be some sort of teleporter that would need to be powered with a generator which requires coal or any other fuel and would also need to have a proper set-up. This would make it so it is only used if you build bases as it is too expensive to just leave behind and too time consuming to build and place if you are in a hurry to exit the mine. Not sure if anyone has said this yet...