So I just "Finished" the game, and im worried about its core mechanics

Your assumptions are rather off the wall, Im well aware of the fact it is a beta and it is still being developed in stages. If i wanted it to "just be finished" I would not have put in 55 hours to the game to make sure I could accurately talk about it here I would have played something else.

 

I have to agree, what we are playing at the moment is a mere skeleton of the end product chuckle fish intends on producing. I mean, so much is missing that it is to the point where any broad sweeping judgements about the game are not only inaccurate, but quite silly to make. We have no quest system in place outside of the tuts, and the devs have stated this will be a major feature. We have no true dungeons yet, also a big feature missing. Villages and npcs are in there most basic existence at the moment, with the intention of being fleshed out later on in the beta. All of these things are integral to the experience of play through, but they just aren't in yet so passing judgement is irrelevant at this point. All you should do is look for bugs and help the devs find a nice balance for all those mechanics you seem so concerned about. The content is coming, I wish everyone would understand that instead of binging through the game in its most early state and expecting a blockbuster experience.

 

once they add actual quests and sidequests, make it so that you have more reasons to build bases/towns and tweak the stuff related to advancing it will be more interesting. i like the idea of flattening the power levels and not having so much armor/weaponry that will just be obsolete. it's good to have variety. then again i like the promise that the hardest planets will be hard for players who are as powerful as can be. i'd even like to have planets with monsters simply impossible to beat, that would be fun

 

I see a lot of these topics, and while everyone is entitled to their opinion, I'm happy with the direction the game is going. I enjoy the pickaxes, I like the combat, and even the grinding. I'm completely on board with the direction the game is taking.

When I see these threads, I sometimes get worried that maybe the Devs will cave, and overhaul the entire direction to appease a few people, but then I remember this thread

http://www.reddit.com/r/starbound/comments/1sdvm1/a_question_for_the_developers_will_you_stand_your/

Then I'm happy again.

Edit: They aren't saying that they're not listening (they very much are), but they're saying that they have a direction in mind, and are going to stick to it. They're actually amazingly good at listening to the community without letting it change the core ideas they have for Starbound.

 

If they continue in the current direction, every additional sector will pretty much be the same.

Mine/Craft >> Boss >> Starmap upgrade >> Next sector >> Repeat

 

For the amount of hope generated by your wish, an equal amount of despair is generated.

Unfortunately I did not like Terraria, Although I did get it I found the mechanics sorely lacking and it quickly devolved into a Skinner Box creature killing. Most of the content was uncraftable and the many of the games very needed mechanical use items were locked behind a "luck" wall before you could even use them. Which is what made me quit it all together.

-Madoka Reference-

 

Clearly, people are playing the game WAY differently than i.... i have yet to leave Sector A and i have 50+ hours in the game.......

 

I know this is a beta and story elements will be introduced and I also am aware that bosses are introduced as they are "ready" and not necessary are completed in order, but it doesn't change the fact that Starbound is currently a game of "gather enough materials to summon a boss that drops an item to introduce you to the next tier."

Let's be honest here: It's silly to build a robot from scratch just to get its processor that allows us to get to the next tier. It's also silly to be "stranded" within an entire sector (which doesn't really sound like "stranded" to me) but have to build a distress beacon, even though your ship is perfectly capable of FTL travel, to get some arbitrary part that allows you to get to the "next level."

Sure, there probably will be changes that solve this. But it doesn't really change the fact that this is an issue here-and-now--there are definitely progression issues, not only in the logic department, but also within this artificial/contrived 'gated' approach to newer/better content.

You can completely skip the second sector (as it stands) by grinding enough steel bars in the first sector. That's an issue that should be dealt with. Is progression a priority? Of course not. But it's definitely worth mentioning so the devs know what the public opinion wants and so they can decide what to change (and how to change it) accordingly.

 

I did the same until i figured out that there was no titanum on my planet and I had to leave to progress any further. I was on my home planet for the most part until I had a Diamond pickaxe. But once you start the cycle just continues, and you'll quickly find it is far more convenient to just live off of your ship.

 

People never seem to realize that every game has it's own sense of linear gameplay.

Some of the best games had linear aspects, Ocarina of Time : Beat a dungeon > Get gear needed for next dungeon > beat another dungeon > fish for a couple hours while the princess waits > go to the next dungeon

It's just something that gets incorporated into most games. Also being unhappy with the game so far is like finding a live pig and licking it only to say "Yup, this tastes like ass!". You have to wait till it's turned into glorious, glorious bacon.

 

The tier progression is going to be implemented differently in the final game. It'll be tied in with quests and of course rebalanced.

Not to forget also, that the entire point of the game is not tier progression. It just happens to exist in the game, it's not the reason to play the game.

People somehow lived without tier progression in Minecraft, I'm unsure why it's not the same with Starbound. I guess they come in expecting a full fledged rpg, because the game has rpg-lite elements.

 

OMG this.... this was the first thing that really annoyed me the most. I had to bloody gather brains... to get a perfect brain... to build a robot made of absurd levels of materials.... all so I could kill the robot and take one processor I already made???? Its so gimmicky and wasteful.

 

TL ; DR (But i did read that "This game is not a sandbox game, it is a game going from level 1 - 100" )

While i somewhat agree that the progresion ingame makes me forget it is a sandbox game, i keep reminding myself how i have to visit the Alpha system to gather iron (Read: Steel) to make "Spawners" once im going to make a village.

I hope there is a reason to farm iron, copper and silver once you get to Tier7 (That way, it would still keep the Sandbox feeling)

 

The difference being in Zelda, you werent constantly getting new shields and swords, you were getting boots, bombs, arrows, special abilities, new towns that all had a role in your progression as appose to the current system of "gather colored iron" recraft everything you crafted on the previous planet, get the "+Coal" upgrade recraft it AGAIN, then progress.

 

I would prefer that you don't need to go through different sectors, rather that the galaxy map has "safe spots" and harder spots procedurally generated. Don't go to this system, it has a level 7 range of planets, come back when you're closer to that level of safety.

 

Something to note when you get around sector X, Iron just stops spawning for some reason. Likely because they replace Iron with its Colored Counterpart depending on the planet level.

 

Zelda had an ending though, so progression to the end was necessary. In sandbox games, progression will only ever exist to irritate people who are too unimaginative to do anything other than be annoyed at grinding through a progression system, because they want to see an end which doesn't exist.

 

I know, right? I'm so tired of people posting feedback on a board about feedback about a game in its beta stage.

 

Right now, the ore progression is a placeholder. I don't enjoy it either, but thankfully, it's due for a rework once the systems behind it are stable. If you think how quickly you abandon equipment is bad now, you should have seen the first couple days of beta, when the planet level/armor level/armor penetration system was in. You literally had to make or find new gear for every planet, since armor penetration literally made gear from the previous level invalid. There were also 100 planned threat levels, instead of just 10. Fortunately, Chucklefish quickly realized how dumb that was once players got their hands on it, and it was overhauled within days of Beta starting.

"Old" ores still have some value. Copper can be used to repair any tool fairly efficiently, and silver through diamond can be tossed into the refinery for easy pixels. With the release of the Portable Pixel Printer, and Nanowrap Bandages, having lots of pixels is more useful than ever before. Admittedly, though, I wouldn't turn down more lasting uses for precious-metal ores.

Crafting... trivial? Your armor is what lets you survive on higher tier worlds and not get one-shot! Crafted weapons are superior to almost any melee weapon you can find on the same tier in terms of numeric superiority, with the exception of legendaries and some rares (and often, even then!). Your healing items are crafted. Your best foods are crafted. The items that let you move between tiers are crafted. The items that summon bosses are crafted.

There's a lot of things I could call crafting. "Trivial" is not one of them.

I'll admit, a lot of planets are samey. The only real environmental hazard that's implemented is extreme cold, and once you get past T4 that becomes less and less of an issue until T10 makes it all but irrelevant. However, hey, this is a game in progress, and planetary hazards are being worked on. If you really want to see some improvement in this regard, why not throw your support in with this suggestion, to get more vibrant, varied worlds?

Again, being worked on. The whole progression system is going to be tied into the quest system, giving you reasons for hunting down these bosses and why killing them allows you to tech up through the levels. Heck, the tech upgrades for X sector are basically placeholders.

Combat could easily be improved by giving monsters a wider variety of attacks, and a wider variety of AI behaviors. Again, both of these things are being considered and worked on. I'd recommend combing through the suggestion sections and throwing your support in with suggestions that would improve things.

The luck of random drops could stand to be mitigated. I personally would appreciate the ability to craft racially-appropriate furniture and blocks (like shoji panels, traditional paper lanterns, and ornate walls for Hylotl, or Primitive furniture for florans), instead of having to find them in the world and scanning them into my pixel-printer. I would also appreciate the ability to craft ranged weapons past the steel hunting bow, instead of having to rely on luck for guns to drop.

Again, there are suggestion threads for these sorts of things, and I heartily suggest you throw your lot in with them. The suggestion threads DO get read and worked on - of all the devs I know, Chucklefish has been one of the best about listening to their fanbase.

Honestly, I find the menus are more cluttered when trying to find an item to finish. Being able to filter by type and by name is nice, but it'd be better if items in the crafting menus were grouped more intelligently, or there were more and more specific types to filter by. Figuring out what you need to finish a given item, though, is as easy as hovering your mouse on it for a tooltip. It'll even show you how many you have on-hand versus how many you need of a given item, and the numbers will change from green to red if you have an insufficient amount.

Any armor can be used as cosmetic armor once it's no longer appropriate to your tier. Just stick it in the appearance slots instead of the armor slots. If you like a given armor's look, you don't have to scrap that look if you go up a tier. When armor dying is implemented, you'll be able to further customize your gear by coloring it.

I really wouldn't mind seeing old weapons being upgraded into new ones, like the Hunting Bow. However, this would break a player's ability to obtain other races's armor and weapons via schematics, since they'd not only need the schematic for the weapon they desire, but also all of the previous weapons in order to make it.

I gotta agree here. The only real use for the matter manipulator is placing blocks. It's pretty much useless for anything else. I wouldn't mind it at all if the MM replaced pickaxes and drills, or even if you moved away from drills and picks in order to upgrade the MM and make it a more effective tool. There's been a lot of mods to that effect, and I hope, if Chucklefish doesn't write code wholesale to do the same, that they borrow one of the mods and make it official.

This is another thing. I don't know if your idea here is the right one, but there needs to be some incentive to settling down and adopting a homeworld, instead of living as a pure nomad. That said, I would also want the nomadic lifestyle to be perfectly viable too - some people actually don't mind living on a space vessel full-time. I know I don't mind at all, so long as the world I'm visiting are varied and interesting. They currently aren't, but again, see the suggestions board.

Again, I've pointed out some uses for the other ores. I'll agree, there needs to be more variety in usage for ores, and ways to use old materials. I applauded the addition of the lantern pack, since it uses iron when you're moving on to steel, rewarding those who had the forethought to keep some iron bars on hand instead of converting them all into steel straightaway. Again, the ore progression's something of a placeholder at the moment, and it's due for an overhaul, so don't give up on things just yet.

Instantly dying isn't a problem once you're in T5 or better. Admittedly, they're annoying early on, but there's a trick to them. You can pop them open from outside the range of the explosion, which gives you a moment or two to react to whatever's inside and decide whether or not you want to expose yourself or not.