So I just "Finished" the game(again), and here are my thoughts

I'm still bothered that asteroids and moons are level 1, pretty much the most dangerous environments possible. But lava and even Grasslands have a higher threat level minimum requirement. Doesn't make much sense because you can't get life support at tier 1-2. What could be more safe than fields of grass? Forests and jungles both being unlocked at tier one seems redundant, both have a lot of easy wood, but jungles also offer free plant fiber everywhere.

I avoid asteroids or digging to the core because the mine time gets far too long, maybe as far as twice as long as it should be. Like someone said above, desert or snow planets. Or just pick planets that have lots of other planets in that system. Then warps from planets only cost 1 fuel.

One issue I have is getting one shot even at low tier in good armor still happens.

Since monday one of my perma characters did find double jump tech, so I think the tech rate is fine.

 

I completely agree with the pixel cost in crafting. I'm currently making the robot, and the process of getting pixels is absolutely tedious. Platinum ore is also a total nonpresence in any planet I go. Only platinum I have I got from a chest.
I'm so going to head into high level asteroid field after the Jelly boss. Rushing through every tier.

I found a dash tech from a apex lab. Tech has always been fairly rare for me, I don't find it being any rarer after the update.

 

No offense or pointing fingers in this statement, but it seems like a lot of Starbound players kinda want to totally ignore the fact that you can dig at all Over time I've heard from lots of people that only mine if they can't find what they need in dungeon/surface chests, pretty much I personally bought the game for the digging and building, the rest (ie the storyline, the lore, the bosses) I don't care so much about :O *blasphemy!*

I tend to believe that storyline and to a lesser extent lore fog the development up and reduce the content of the overall product, especially when the storyline plays out the same (or overall the same with a few flavor modifications tossed in depending on your race).. If each races storyline were completely unique, then they'd be shorter due to the amount of work going in to seven total storylines versus a single main story. But with a main storyline it usually ends up feeling like, as I said, the same story generally with a few flavor bits stuck in depending on who you play as.. Even with multiple endings things still don't add up to a satisfying experience in the majority of cases (looking at you, Mass Effect 3!).. Then it comes down to the devs saying "1: Oh, I had this idea, lets add it!" "2: Okay, we'll add it, but where does it fit into the story?!" Everything ends up needing justified or backed up with lore

Think of the work that'd go into answering all of Terraria's unanswered questions story-wise! Am I the only person on this planet? No, here's the guide. Who IS the guide? Are we the only two dudes on the planet? How will we reproduce?! Whats the story behind all these undead corpses then, if we're the only ones here?! Where are all the large-to-gigantic eyeball-less heads all these floating eyeballs came out of? What was Skeletron when it still had flesh on it?! Who built this building in the sky, or that dungeon!? More undead in the dungeon here, but where did they come from?! Why is an angry Christmas tree attacking me? I just end up feeling like story stands in the way of progress and usually doesn't pay off as much as it should for the work that ends up going into it.. Little snippets of interesting lore I enjoy much more, mostly because they're little (and don't burn up much dev time) and interesting on their own (not huge narrative experiences that we expect some kind of resolving satisfaction out of)..

Personally (isn't everything personal, though?) I don't care much for the tiers and the semi-staged boss battles as they are currently, but this setup isn't much different from Terraria, and I LOVE Terraria (playing it right now, getting close to 400 hours..). I can't quite tell what the difference is, exactly, or I'd elaborate on it I guess part of it is needing to farm some bosses over and over, where Starbound you basically beat em once and walk away.. Another element to that could be knowing there are rare drops to be had from some of them, so there are at least odds to play around with during rematches..

After these newest patches, on a new world, new character, I open first chest and get the shark head helmet, 2nd chest had lead guitar, third was a tech chest with the dash tech in it (was underground maybe 50-75 tiles..)

Dunno! That was generally useless and pretty rambly

 

Just giving my experience on these two supposed issues...

I found tech items to be alright. I got at least 10 dash tech early on then finally found bubble boost and human mech so I'm pretty content. I also found the double jump one but rarely use it.

I actually think that items should be overall more difficult to obtain in certain aspects of the game.

As for the third issue, I started to find enough diamonds to seriously make mining tools around late gamma to early delta. Asteroid fields are awesome for diamonds. I've never had issues finding platinum all the way back to beta.

 

I'm only tier 2 so far. Just killed first boss.
- I have found several copies of double jump and speed thingy. And most of them outside dungeons. (Like 3-4 copies of each tech)
- I made my diamond pick axe in 1st tier. Took me only 2x mining runs. I got plenty of spare diamonds.

So maybe you're just unlucky. Diamonds are usually deep. You don't find them much in chests or running top of the planet.

Edit: or certain areas of random planet generator are more heavier with diamonds and techs.

 

I think there's plenty of platinum and diamonds before X-sector. I had my diamond pickaxe in the dragon-boss sector. I guess it's about how far you're willing to dig underground to find the good stuff

Didn't have large issues with pixels either, as soon as I needed some I just smelted old ores like silver, gold etc. That's why you should always mine some of it, even in x-sector. You'll need that money!

 

I can't believe I actually read this. There are DOZENS of diamonds popping from each meteor. I spent five minutes there and I managed to get more than 40. In fact, 90% of the time, I was mining diamonds.

 

Diamonds, like many other have said, are further down than they used to be, but definitely findable, & lol at Dead-or-Alive Bound armor request. I think that the NPC spawners are still needing balance, as well as their AI. I think the devs have a plan to have the NPCs scale based on the equipment around them? Unless I pulled that out of my ass. I can try to find a reference for that.

You could have just updated your previous thread that is majestically at the top of the Gen Dis. thread though with a Second Impression spoiler or something:

First Impressions reviews

Insert Original Post

Second Impression reviews

Insert Second Impression stuff

and then commented about the update as such in the thread. Makes for less clutter I think, and still easy to discuss new topics (of which there aren't many)

Captain hindsight out! *wooosh!*

 

in my experience this second climb to impervium was both much quicker and agonizing. while i did so faster it was mostly just get 40 bars, craft upgrade, mine, cheese a boss for 15 nanoseconds, craft upgrade and GRIND DAMN PIXELS
also i only found one tech in my entire climb, and that's fine it gives ME incentive to explore and not just mine constantly.
However i do look forward to the inevitable removal of this forced tiered system, it lends itself to many benefits and faults.

 

I have to say I came to the forum to specifically address the issues (as I see them) that you have raised.
I'm typically not a forum poster. This is in addition to the OP's observations though my experience differed with respect to the 'not enough ore/tech' issues.

THIS is a good game, mechanically. Grappling hook is great, water is great, lighting is great, random monsters nice, I like the art style for the most part, environment, premise, guns....blah, blah, blah.

Gameplay though, me and my wife, together, agree that the experience is not... fun, mostly. I get that this is an incomplete game, I get it, but as the OP has stated, this is my view of the game as it is now.

Point one: coal. It is a bottleneck, and it isn't a good bottleneck. Good bottlenecks involve a challenge without parallels to a patience test. How long will you drag yourself through caves to get coal? My wife is playing minecraft now. She plays tekkit because quarries take the grind away from repetitive tasks and into the challenge of technological logistics and OP domination. Not that that is as appealing to me as it is to her, I am not suggesting a direction, just suggesting not...grinding. For the sake of all the beautiful artworky-enginey-lovelyness of Starbound.

Point two: Um, why can't I make a gun? When I started playing I wanted a gun. Guns are great (in the game) I like the guns (in the game). I looked at what I could craft and looked at what my wife could craft, all the same (stat-wise) bar some cosmetic differences. And what a bummer, no guns.

Point three: Why is gun A, sooooo much better than gun B? There is a vast difference between dmg 1 and dmg 1200+ however, this isn't really (yet) an rpg, is it? How can this immense logical anomaly exist within the same universe? Moreover, I can't make gun A or B. Luck, lucky, luck, luck, my friend Luck, decides whether I am going to be doing what I want or not. Whether I am having fun with the game, or otherwise.

Point four: Energy for everything (Except manufacturing... don't even say it). Everything either wants energy or coal. Mostly energy. And Pixels. And coal. But my gun wants energy, and my Techs want energy. And I can't double jump then dash, but I can butterfly my way about like a pansie all I want. I get that Beta is Beta. But. Why can I not be held statically by a grapple hook for more than about ten seconds before my reserves of energy fail and I plummet into the angry jaws of a space hippopotamus, yet butterfly (almost no skill involved at all) demands so little for so much. Like a God I ride those ethereal butterflies unto the heavens(okay not quite) like so many black winged unicorns with horns of pure glistening pearls... *cough* anyway, grappling hooks, and guns (with the exception of plasma guns) don't make sense energetically with respect to other techs, use ammo, and energy only when the player is reeling the grappling in. And why no multi-tech excitement? "Balance, shmalence!" or some such derisive phrase.

I am sure the Devs (as talented as they are) are working on it.

I figure say it now so if things go badly I get to say "Well, I tried to tell them but they didn't listen." and feel real good about how much better than people, in general, I am. (<--sarcasm... for the sake of the imperceptive)

 

Is it safe to say that the experience of rushing through the game is not satisfactory? I get the impression from players that if they want to quickly get to Sector X, that it's not enjoyable. There have been responses here and there that say "I didn't rush through, and I'm enjoying it."

My personal suspicion is that the game lacks content, due to the stage of beta. As such, rushing through that content very quickly finds that the content is limited, and becomes bored. Also, you have difficulty with pixels or coal or other things, because you are rushing through the game. Players that spend more time on the limited content enjoy it, which means that the game has great stuff but needs more of it.

There are also a number of balance issues. For example, traveling to a new system requires 200 fuel, no matter which Sector you're in. 200 fuel is a few pieces of Solarium in Sector X, but it's 100 coal in the Alpha Sector. That's a huge difference in time and effort required for travel, and encourages people to rush through the early Sectors, because they can't explore all of the different systems, they need to fully explore the one that they start in.

Guns are still not balanced, because they're still being developed and implemented. Avian blasters are new, plasma shotguns are new, etc. It's tough to balance everything, when "everything" doesn't exist yet.

Techs used to grow on trees in early Angry Koala (perhaps to ensure that everyone experiences all of them?) Now, they're extremely rare. I've found one tech in the 6 planets I've explored. All of them are in Alpha sector, so there aren't many techs that are able to be found, but this is noticeably different from my original character.

Personally, I like the fact that certain ores are almost exclusively found deeper in planets. I think this should be done more, so that you can find Tier-relevant ores on or near the surface, but if you go deep you can find bigger deposits and next-tier ores. That way, you don't already have enough bars to make the next armor once you beat the boss. It also encourages spelunking.

Previously, there was almost zero incentive to go down past the surface. Now, there's some, and hopefully there's more later. Why only explore 20% of a planet, and waste the other 80%?

Also, I like that they added the ability to craft shields. I JUST beat the first boss due to limited playtime, but I hope that you can make tier-appropriate shields. I also hope that the next addition to crafting is guns or ranged/thrown weapons.

 

Whaaat, platinum and diamonds too rare?

I found 11 platinum bars and 7 diamonds (aka 7x4 ore) on my starter planet, right now Im in Delta with a diamond drill, 30 diamonds and 80 platinum bars, and I rarely even go cave spelunking...

Oh, and 200 titanium bars...

If anything, these should be harder to find

 

I wouldn't mind if Matter Manipulator would get upgrades. Then again I'm ok with it being just a game starter tool. Axe loses it's value pretty fast because you can just use mining tools to cut trees. The only thing you'll need is a mining tool, ore to fix it and a hoe if you want to farm.

Techs seem kinda rare. I feel it's ok too myself. It is bit annoying if you don't find the dash soon enough though. Maybe they could have the bosses toss out a tech when they are destroyed?

I made a Diamond Pick on Alpha Sector with my first character. I did mine a lot but it's doable if you really want to. After that I haven't really beelined the mining tools. I've never ran out of the ores required to maintain platinium picks and such. I think gold picks and drills are very good in themselves. By the time you get to X sector the plants will be bursting with ore and drill maintenance becomes a non-issue.

 

While I agree with some of your other points I actually see the use in the matter manipulator, I use it all the time. Its great way to pick a single item up with ending up with extra contents in your inventory in some situations. Its a good way to disarm dangers such as traps in dungeons from a distance. Its convenient to use in certain circumstances such as for correcting building mishaps if your hand slips or something and you end up with materials in places you don't want. Good for picking seeds back up that you mistakenly spaced too far apart. ect. ect. ect. stuff along those lines.

 

Ha is this post a joke?
I found a stupid abundance of ore everywhere! SO MUCH ORE!
In 6 hours i was decked out in full rubium gear and weapons. I had a diamond drill in 3 and pixels never stopped me. I used this thing called a refinery and refined ore i wasn't using. Worked great.

 

So first off if you are going to compare to terraria you have to realize in this game the worlds are much more specialized. Sure you didnt find EVERYTHING on one planet or a LOT of cave systems on a certain planet. I'm not shocked not every world is going to have them. Explore and adventure! That's part of the game. That's why they put so much work into an ABSURD AMOUNT of planets and galaxies

 

In fact, the damn thing requires Durasteel to make, so you can't even make one until you've beaten the Dragon.

And, really, if you've already done that there's no reason to stick around and visit asteroid fields or moons in Gamma. Just move on to Delta and reap BETTER rewards.

So biomes without oxygen really have no business existing in sectors below Delta in the first place...

 

what

i wasn't even knocking starbound, i hate terraria >>