Feedback Post game is bitter ash and darkness

I will admit that it is annoying to go to a certain planet type looking for something specific and then finding out that half of the planet is a whole different sub-biome. Like, for example, I go to a "desert" planet because I want sand and other desert related stuff, only to find out that half of the planet is a dry grassland with no sand. Or going to a Forest looking for a Floran Village only to find that half of the planet is a snow biome and there's those Taur creatures everywhere and the other half of the planet is a garden biome.

 

It'd be nice to find out which biomes a planet have from our ship. And how much of the planet they cover, of course.

 

Never said I wanted FU put into the game...
But this is one guy vs a whole development team. I'm simply pointing out that chucklefish has been a bit lax in their content development.

And I would suggest you others look more into mods... They fix most issues with this game.

 

one guy didn't create a story, or an engine, or a game. if I'm not mistaken, the one guy is using recolored in-game assets and then amplifying the random generation to 1,000,000.

 

Shhhh...

Don't listen to him, you can reach whatever you want in life!

Wait... wrong discussion, sorry.

 

Uh, there's a lot of unique art assets in Frackin'Universe, and in fact there's an entire boss battle in its own mission.

There's a lot of LUA scripts for things like power generators and batteries (some of the crafting machines use power!), and the mod itself is like 80MB. You don't make a mod that's 80MB that's just "recolored in-game assets" and "amplifying the random generation". There's lots of new planet and biome types, lots of new materials to find/craft/manipulate, but then... I suppose you wouldn't know that until you actually gave it a shot.

 

MY IGNORANCE PRECEDES ME.
dear, how times have changed.

edit: still, I don't see FU as the end-game ulti-tier super mod that some folk seem to PAINT it as (man I'm good with these puns).

 

Well, if you know of a larger mod that adds more well-designed content, I'd love to hear about it so that I can try it and go advertise it too, lol.

 

Good lords, I miss those days... every little thing was positive, no one complained about what was missing and adored that what we had.

 

I get where the OP is coming from on this, as I kind of feel the same way. Starbound's initial grab for me is fact it was an Exploration Sandbox game. For me in games like Minecraft and Terraria, I can go on building and what not whenever, but I get bored fast once the feeling of danger and adventure wear off. Using Minecraft as an example, I have fun with the initial nights survivals, I have fun finding the location I want to build at, I have fun with doing crazy builds, however I don't have fun when the sole reason for leaving my base is to go find X in whatever quantities I might need if there is no challenge in doing so. As if I need some block in mass quantities, I can just go make a strip mine somewhere nearby and out of sight. If I want a bunch of XP just for enchanting, I can build a safe xp farm around a spawner and wait. If I want to go find some interesting biome, all I have to do is grab a stack of food and slap on my diamond gear and go wander with impunity. All of that gets boring without any kind of challenge involved. And there is really no incentive to not do things a different way, especially on the more difficult modes the game can offer, as few people handle loosing things they worked for a while to get well, hence why the hardcore communities on games are often smaller.

Now back to Starbound, there are more planets to explore than I could ever want without the annoying delay of genning a new world in Terraria. I can do all sorts of crazy builds in Starbound. However Starbound loses that sense of danger and adventure faster than Minecraft for me. Over the course of the games progession, which is indeed fairly linear due to it pretty much all being tied up in the EPP and what ore tier you are on, the only points where there is much inherent challenge is when you first go to the next tier of planets to get the ore from them. Even that little bit of challenge starts to drastically fade around the Durasteel tier. Eventually the feel of the game goes from being a space explorer to that of a space tourist.

If I wanted the tourist feeling for a game, there are a number of Themepark MMO's out there that could sink my teeth into, but there are actually very few that manage to keep that exploration and adventure side fulfilled for long. Starbound has the potential to do so, it just needs a little something more to avoid the feeling of being nothing more than a tourist on every single planet in the universe once hit a certain point in the gear progression. For some that might be Solarium, for others that could even be Titanium. It doesn't matter what point in the progression one hits the lack of challenge, but once one hits that point the game gets old fast. Just imagine what it would be like if there were some planets that the majority of was one enormous Dark Glitch Fortress that kept spawning Glitch Gaurds until one managed to kill a all of important figures like the King, Queen, Prince(s) and Princess(es). Depending on the character I am playing, I might be willing to hunt for that aforementioned super castle for months if there were other interesting and challenging things to do along the way. Super Mario Bros. had no character progression to it, yet many would play it for hours because things kept getting harder until they either could go no farther, or they got good enough to easily beat the game whenever.

In short, I would like the game to have the Space Explorer feel last longer and continue past the gear progression, instead of once get near the end being turned into a Space Tourist.

 

Did someone say more missions?

http://community.playstarbound.com/resources/extra-dungeons-cheerful-giraffe.3285/

 

Hence the reason i said, CONTENT development.

 

i doubt that, honestly. i mean, chucklefish has publically said that SB is feature-frozen until 1.0 right now so i sincerely doubt we're going to see such a large, unannounced change.

on topic, OP is mad right. i love starbound because i can make my own stories in it but that isn't gonna make it for everybody, you know? the game is severely lacking in content right now and the weird tier system the planets are in right now is really crippling that. i haven't really tackled the missions yet in the current unstable and it's because it doesn't feel like there's a point. it's just... tedious.

there are lots of good ideas in this game but i feel like the devs just aren't certain how they should implement them, or maybe they're simply not -capable- of implementing them. look at the piss-poor story, for example. SB could really, really benefit from a professional writer on board
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a new material would be nice. that could spin off into armor, weapons, furniture, ect

 

So then your plan is to... wait and hope for release. Then if that fails to wait and hope for a post release fix. Then if that fails to wait and hope for a mod.

There needs to be a deadline. There needs to be a point where you say "Why is this like it is NOW? Why isn't this already fixed? How can the base game still be like this at this important and significant juncture.". For many that point WILL be official release.

 

well, yeah. they did. you quoted them after all.

I can undeniably promise you that FU will not become a feature by 1.0, and I'm skeptical of it becoming a feature post-1.0.
hence, why it's a mod.

 

I wouldn't go for something of a material reward but instead maybe new planets types to explore. A "Tier 7" that doesn't give new armor. What? No new armor? Thats right, we could have instead places meant to be challenging for us. The thing is I feel that when it comes to replayability though, I'd rather more paths to the end and more options on the way, rather than merely seeing more and more power creep. I felt entirely burned out of terraria after beating the moon lord, because I was overpowered beyond anything anyone could hope to achieve in starbound. One-shotting entire groups of pirates for the 3rd or 4th time or dealing with mandatory blood moons/eclipses(sometimes a few of those in a row) while making pixel art gets rather boring fast. Because there is no feeling of danger, just tedium.

Now, granted I don't feel quite the same about starbound at the highest tier so far, since there is far more to do and less mandatory "hey, stop what your doing and fend off harmless zombies for 12 minutes!" that terraria does. But it would be nice if I was in some danger to, not just the tenants on a volcanic or scorched colony. The quests tenants can give at least, likewise gives the player something to do.

Thinking on it, how I'd spice up starbound a bit late-game(or even what I'd say should be the start of mid-game).

If colonies are to be attacked by monsters/npcs in events, make them brief events. Something that'd only last 1-2 minutes. It gets tedious if an attack lasts for 10+ even if it's of no threat to the player or tenants.
Make quests which involve more combat than just 5-6 nearby thugs and tie them into events such as above.
Make weather more diverse than what I'm seeing on nightly. I'd love to have to deal with acid rain on a scorched planet. It'd be cooler if we could have both cinders and acid rain on the same planet, or even waste in which lots of loose toxic waste piles up about a settlement. Nasty things which make the player take shelter and reconsider colony defenses.
These are things that could be added after 1.0 I think.

Another thing: I'd like to see more poison hazards on the surface of "hot" planets. I was left wondering "these planets are super hot but know, doesn't always have to be lava.". A acid-heavy planet other than toxic would be interesting. Even a ruined city like planet similar to toxic/scorched, but less poison ocean and more waste debris. Maybe a mini biome of scorched city even.

Lastly, I'd rather less power creep and more things to do with tier 6 stuff. And more planet variety at tiers 3-6.

 

I'm kind of confused here. OP is, correct me if I'm wrong, unsatisfied with the rewards (loot, new mechanics, new content) available after completing the main storyline?

A "new game +" mode or some new mechanics would certainly be a welcome addition in the eyes of most of the community. I don't doubt that at all, but something else confuses me. Why should there be something new after the storyline? There isn't really any sweeping and grand new change or amazing new content after "completing" the other branches of gameplay. You don't suddenly get access to new decorations or an upgraded 3d printer after building an amazing colony with the rarest of materials. You don't find some new and rare class of planet or system after exploring every type of planet available. Why should the storyline portion of the game reward you with dramatic changes to gameplay when the other portions don't?

Sure, the obvious answer in simplest terms is "because it is cool" or "feels more satisfying." I understand that. I, however, don't think any one portion of the game should become the new obstacle or inconvenience that must be cleared in order to reach the grand new mechanics and challenges that come from unlocking new game modes or higher difficulties after beating other games. And that is exactly what the whole main storyline would become if completing it was tied directly to some new game mechanic.

 

I've read this idea for the third time if i remember correctly.

"most of the community"... Alright?

 

Back in my day, we popped a big, square cartridge into a box console, closed the lid, changed the TV to channel 3 and pressed the power button. If we did it right, the game would show up. If not, it would make horrible buzzing noises. We had the start of save files, and for some reason, you had to hold reset while you saved. If you could beat Contra on one life, you were the talk of the playground. You know these newfangled jimmywhozits and whatchamacallits? We didn't have laptops. We had a big ol' box that clicked a lot, and a big, hulking tube display that had 16 colors. You were lucky to get Minesweeper playing on it without it running out of memory. Now you got these games where you can't even tell it's a game until you see the heads-up display pop up. This No Man's Sky coming out? Complete fantasy back in my day. No way any computer anywhere could run that and not be the size of a warehouse. [/oldmanrant]

 

Amusingly. No. It doesn't. And also. No it doesn't. And also again. No, it doesn't.

It isn't a reference to that.

And if it were a reference to that then actually two wrongs don't make a right would be incorrect and would need to be changed to two wrongs DO make a right in order to be an allusion to a positive result.

And if it were like that then changing it to three wrongs actually would make it correct because -1x-1x-1 actually IS negative.

In the mean time, just type "Two wrongs don't make a right" into Google for an educational experience and the actual definition, which notably is not broken by adding any number of additional wrongs.