Please improve the combat

Edit: I've decided to re-write this post to combine it with my suggestions page. I hope a dev sees this...

Combat is fine. So why the hell do I want some major changes to it?

I take great joy in playing games of good design. Starbound has had me hyped for so long like the many BILLIONS* of fans it has amassed. While it has the elements of what I was looking forward to in a game like Starbound, and while it has my attention now, I'm afraid such a game may fall out of the radar over time rather quickly for many people who enjoys playing the game in a way where you go to a planet, find something to fight, fight it, then either end up swimming in a pool of sharp pixely goodness and raw alien meat (ewww) or watch themselves being born again. I'm pretty sure at least 70... maybe even 80% of the people who play starbound do that as their main method of playing.
*few ten thousands, though it deserves the bold amount
That method, involves combat. You know, the concept of one entity locked against another in a fight to the death?

And the combat mechanics in the game right now are fine. That's why so many people are still playing.

So again, why the hell do I want some major changes to it? It's so that people are still playing a year from now, so that my friends want to keep playing so that I can keep playing with others. I don't want to be the one that keeps going "Guy's, lets play starbound!", I want my friends to say that together. It's not even like that at this stage. We were pretty hyped before beta came out. We haven't touched it for days now, and its only been a few days after beta release. Although they are willing to play again in phase 2 of the beta, most of them aren't too excited to go through that again. Which is wierd, since most of the core mechanics are available in phase 1. If they are feeling like that now, how will they feel at launch?

I don't need to go into detail about what combat is at the moment. It's linear. There is only one way to damage with a type of weapon, which is fine. There is only one way to avoid taking damage with a type of weapon except a shield. The combat has become linear with that statement. Why is linear combat not fine? Because it's not interesting. When I heard about Starbound's combat and how there was counterattacking, I was even more excited for December 4th.

What counterattacking was there?

Let me talk about the shield for a second. It's the first thing I definitely looked forward to since I always loved using shields in any game.
But before that, I was stuck with a spear. Using a spear was interesting at first in that it could only hit enemies right in front of you, that I had to align myself on a horizontal level with the enemy, but when the limitations kicked in (not being able to hit enemies above me without getting hit instantly, same thing but downwards, also, ranged attackers utterly destroying me no matter how much jumping I've done), it became frustrating. It wasn't frustrating because it was difficult, which is fine. It was frustrating because it was stupid. It gave a stupid feel, it looked stupid, it was stupid. Why was there no other way to position myself in my favor except for losing health?
At that point, I got the "As soon as I get a gun, I'm never touching melee weapons again" kind of feel.
Until I picked up the shield, which I totally forgot about.
The shield offered blocking, which allowed me to move into enemies and actually reach them for once. Against normal alien creatures I would be able to move into them, block, and attack immediately after. If there were multiple enemies, I could jump up and block them from each side as I turned, then counter. See what's happening? Different ways to do the same thing. I'm already more interested in this specific type of combat just by typing about it.
Then I tried the 2H hammer. It was godawful. I either one shotted everything or backpedaled like a champion. It became a game of 'waiting for them to come to me'. And when enemies had ranged combat involved, I trashed the hammer, along with 20% of my pixels.
What a useless weapon if the only times I can use it are against the simple creatures that pose no threat at all or against exploitable glitch knights that don't attack unless they are right next to you.

The 2H sword? Also useless until I learned earthbending. Dirt became a necessity, the shield was put away, everything became dominated by dirt and sword.

Best. Combat. Ever. And the combat is fine. I can move around, albeit slowly, with 0 chance of me ever getting touched so long as I had the dirt. Like Gaara in a desert full of the finest sand you could ever put in a desert biome. You could probably smell the sarcasm seeping out of my impervious dirt barrier as well.

And then I tried playing the game without abusing my god-like powers over earth and stone.
I decided to play how it should have been played.
And on that same day, I lost all my pixels. Multiple times. Sometimes I didn't even have any left to lose.
Until I started using the shield again. Funny how when I use the thing with a different way to mitigate damage, I start doing better, and have much more fun doing it.

Interesting, isn't it? I know a lot of people hate the "lose pixels on death", but why is that? Is it because it's a direct subtraction from progress, or is it because its an uncreative punishment where they just take away your currency? So many games have this type of punishment but it looks like starbound has it the worst for some reason.
There's only one event in which this punishment happens: death.
How can death be achieved?

• Freezing to death. Which is fair.
• Starve to death. Which is also fair.
• Jumping off a cliff. Which is stupid on your part.
• Roast Dinner + Jumping. Which is hilarious actually, haha.
• In Combat against enemies

Experiences may be different among players, but I will bet that the majority of deaths are due to enemies. (Side note: Being pushed off a cliff by an enemy is still considered in combat against enemies)

And obviously, the current mechanics don't help at all. Dodging at this very moment consists of movement. You can either jump (which by the way doesn't work at all in enclosed environments, in which most life-threatening situations take place in) over enemies and projectiles (which, again, doesn't work at all actually. You will still get hit no matter what unless they are using sniper rifles and are alone, which also almost never happens). I've used crouching more for hitting enemies a block below me than for dodging, which is very impractical for it to be used that way.

Yet combat is fine. It sure as hell is fine. Is fine the standard you want for such a great game? That's a pretty low standard.

There's an easy and efficient way of getting a system out of being linear: add a different way to do the same thing.

And this is where dodging comes in. See, I chose dodging because it can be universally applied to any weapon set up you are using. Dual wield? You can dodge. 2H sword? You can dodge. Rifles? You can dodge while using rifles. Of course, you'd have to balance it out by making it have short durations, require energy, no attacking during the dodge, but a dodge mechanic in itself that is different from jumping and moving around does the same thing as what it should do, which is mitigating the loss of health.

Now you have dodging and moving. Brilliant. The game is already better without it even being implemented and put on paper. The idea that melee weapons have a chance against ranged weapons is quite satisfying, despite the fact that they should have had that chance in the first place. Disagree? Play Terraria.

I now have, what people seem to forget they love having, choices.
I have the choice of jumping over enemies to avoid them, or dodging through them. I have the choice of jumping over projectiles or dodging through them. I can intertwine and use them at my will and choice. Multiple enemies firing from different locations? Jump up and dodge the first few shots and then... oh no, I have no where to go since the line of fire has closed me in. Dodge through it. Or maybe, dodge through the first few shots then jump up to avoid the rest. The different scenarios that can unfold have increased dramatically and all you did was add one way to do the same thing.

Now you can go further with melee weapons specifically. What is another common, universal ability that you can give to melee weapons to allow them to do the same thing as dodging and jumping? Blocking. You've seen it in starwars, GUNZ, movies, games alike: Blocking bullets with a sword isn't exactly a new concept.

Q: But wait, shields are for blocking! If you give all melee weapons the ability to block, won't that make shields useless?

A: That's why there is something called balancing.

Make it so that melee weapon blocking can't be held down: it lasts a brief moment and then can't be used again for a split second, leaving you open for anything. Make it so that it doesn't block as much damage as the shield. All it has to be is a different way for melee weapons to do the same thing that dodging and jumping would do, which is mitigating loss of health. I don't know. Maybe dodging is all the combat really needs.

And, to be honest, if such a thing were implemented, shields would still be incredibly strong in blocking anyway, since with a 1H sword or dagger you could block with that too to block incredibly strong attacks.

Q: But wait, if you can just dodge and block everything, then what is the point of armor?

A: Again, balance. Remember, dodging is supposed to go hand to hand with its other method of mitigation, which is movement. Maybe blocking can be determined by your armor value, who knows. But with balance, there should never be a situation where you have no chance of getting hit, which is what the dirt barrier accomplished.

You also have to remember the penalty for death. It's quite large being at (now) 30% of your total pixels you are holding. So why are there no mechanics to rival such a penalty? I think that's a huge reason on why the pixel loss is regarded as ridiculous.

As for ranged weapons, they would need the opposite: with so much mobility (in terms of tech) and overall dominance over melee weapons (without the dodging mechanic), you would need to make it so that they can't abuse all of it at once. Simple solutions such as making projectiles drop over time or making projectiles have a set distance they can travel would work, but that would change how the weapons themselves are used. If you made it so that projectiles lost more damage over time, but were strong up close, it would encourage ranged weapon users to not run away all the time, at the same time, in any set up in both ranged vs ranged or ranged vs melee, it would encourage people to be a bit more personal and actually engage for once,
Wouldn't that be cool? 2 dual wielding pistol users dueling. The duel starts, and they are off dodging their enemies shots while jumping towards each other, up and over the bullets and down under, timing their shots so that they land where the enemy's dodge ends. Its not just aim that counts anymore, because how it is right now you have people just jumping up and down in a predictable pattern shooting. It kind of reminds me of firefall, which I also ended up disliking the combat as well. It was more of a competition of "who missed the least amount of times".
What about 2 melee users? An actual sword fight would be awesome to watch. Attacking, dodging, blocking each other's attacks, tricking the other into blocking too early, baiting dodges. You can't have any of that with the current system since all you have is movement, which basically means playing chase.
And with the current system, melee vs ranged is a joke.

But these are all just ideas of my own. I don't believe combat needs that directional attacking kind of thing that people desire so much anymore, though it would be very cool to have. If you, instead, give the innate tools to position yourself for those attacks, the combat feels much better. Then you wouldn't need to have such directional attacks in the first place, which means less work. It also means that people who don't even like to fight have an extra ability to play with: dodging. While mining, if you get trapped by a mob you would still have a chance by dodging through them and fleeing.

Tech doesn't count. It's something you don't have at the beginning of the game, and maybe later in the game. If certain techs are required to stay alive in combat, that is, again, being linear, since they are just modified forms of movement. How appealing does that sound: To be successful in melee combat, you need to obtain the following tech pieces listed.

I could go on and on about what would make combat in this game fun and interesting, but there will always be people who disagree, which is... fine.

The purpose of this thread was to show that combat does need improvement. It may not need the improvements I listed above, but it needs major improvement, and the right kind too.

Such improvements would allow more options with, not only players, but enemies as well. If dodging and blocking were a main feature, then enemies could be designed around that concept as well. Right now, anything more than jumping around and charging and shooting slow projectiles makes it much too difficult to deal with, let alone having multiple of them.

 

Erm why the hell should you be able to defend against ranged without a shield? Normal Bullets and the frequency most NPC's shoot are slow as hell anyway

 

"Actual dodge mechanics" are in as techs. If you're looking for a classic metroidvania feel, pick up an energy dash tech. Combat is fine, and quite engrossing. PvP duels at maximum level with duplicated equipment were fun for a few hours.

 

Dodge mechanics? Jump. That works wonders.
Defending against ranged without a shield? Wat?
Uh... You Kinda need a shield for that.

 

You can also crouch, though, gotta time that right.

 

I kind of agree. The monster AI is really derpy right now. There is no strategy to their actions except to pursue and attempt to kill you. I mean, I understand that this may be their 'purpose' but they don't do so intelligently. Half the time they just run straight at you. It's ok for snipers or ranged enemies, but for monsters...

Definitely true of basic fights. You swing your weapon until they die. There is no purpose to dodging because you knock everything that you do enough damage to back and whatever you don't knock back just keeps mindlessly rushing you. Doesn't help that caging pretty much nullifies it all. Also you can just put up a wall and slowly approach ranged enemies, making walls and breaking them, then cage them and they will never attack you or be able to.

 

I think they'll eventually disable building in combat, and improve the AI to the point they can detect if they're imprisoned in blocks, and then start smashing them down.

 

Right now I personally don't find combat that satisfying.
Nothing to do with strategy or tactics or animations or anything of that nature.
It's one of those unquantifiable things, that being I just don't find it fun to attack/hit or kill things.
This also has nothing to do with monster AI, nor drops. (or lack thereof).
It's just sort of something that's there that I can't describe.
The animations in the DS/3DS Castlevania games are fairly similar, a single motion with no way to aim your attack, but it feels much more satisfying, though I'm not sure why.

That said, I'm not worrying about it at this moment.
I'll give the game a month or so and then reexamine my opinion on the matter.

 

I agree too. While the game is trully awesome, the combat is a little disapointing. Simply building a wall is enough to kill anything (could it be sniper or not). I've completly sealed the flying pirate ship.

I've seen monsters completly unable to move / jump. I attck nomad camp from below, digging under them and swinging my sword through the dirt / wood / metal .... thus, the 2-handed swords are by far the more efficient weapon due to their swinging style and the area it covers (all the space above and in front of our character, and even a lil' below us).

 

Doubtful.

 

I personally think the knockback from being hit with a ranged weapon (especially guns) is way too strong. At levels around 10, where the iron bow becomes mostly ineffective and you are left without a decent ranged weapon, this makes meleeing enemies who use ranged weapons impossible unless you build dirt walls to cover your advance or tunnel near them and box them in.

 

Have you seen the florans with an assault rifle? They will hold down the trigger until their energy depletes and still keep firing. Now multiply that by 2 or 3.

Also I edited the original post to be thoroughly precise.

 

There is a wonderfull mistery in the video game industry. When people create a sandbox game, they have to make sure the gameplay is horrible.

I have twice less fun roaming maps in starbound because of it than I had in sub tier atari games 25 years ago. Super mario bros 1 is a masterpiece of fluidity and game feelings when you compare it to starbound.

Once again a company creates a better infinite universe to play IN but not to play WITH. And tis time it's with bakers money. ahahah. I don't know if it's lazyness or something else but clearly it must not be THAT hard, even some rare cheap indy games give gameplay value, it should be doable to incorporate gameplay, but yet it doesn't seem to bother anyone in charge. At least try to give some IA and movement and combat variation, it would not be worst than it is in Skyrim and it would decuplate the game's value. Even if you are lazy, hire someone to rework gameplay, you'll make money for sure.

 

Not sure we have the same idea of "horrible" gameplay. You do realise that crafting and exploration are gameplay as well, right? Also, even if you only mean the combat system: it's simplistic, yes, and it's certainly in earliest Beta, but there are many MANY much worse combat systems out there.

I think there are many words to describe the creators of Starbound.

"Lazy" is not one of them.

Also: "twice less fun"? That doesn't even make sense.

 

That's your fault for facing more than one at a time. If you walk into a room full of people with guns you die. End of story. You are not rambo and you are not Neo. Hell if oyu want to make things fair you could make a two block wall for cover AND CROUCH behind the damn thing peeking up to take a shot in between breaks.

 

I didn't read all of that OP but I too think that combat is most lacking of all features in Starbound and needs the most work. At this point it is more an annoyance as opposed to a mechanic. If Starbound had great visceral combat then it might just be the perfect game but right now combat really feels like an afterthought at best and I would hope that the devs make it a priority to work on and make it as fun as the other aspects of the game.

 

First I need to find a good gun, which I haven't for the few days I played it.
By the way, avian towers will guarantee you face more than one at the same time.
Apex labs force enclosed space combat against rained weapons.

What's with the anti-mindset? You're offering a solution that is basically the main problem of this thread. I'm not going to play like your way, which follows quite a strict line of rules:

You can't fight against ranged enemies without a shield. You require a shield.

You require a gun or you're going to die.

Don't use melee weapons.

While a short dirt wall for cover against ranged weapon users is a good tactic, it basically requires a gun. If you're telling me to make multiple dirt walls and jump over them, why not just dirt cage? Dirt cage with a small hole at the top would be way more efficient and safer if your method works as well.

That's the main point, which is just as good as reading my post, thank you.

 

Truthfully, I was expecting a bit more than we got for Starbound's combat. But Beta; things will change

 

to be fair
most animals in real life, when trying to kill you, will run right at you

 

Yea, they can maul you to death. But I think many of them would bite and claw you as well?