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

First of all, sandbox games arent supposed to have ""PROGRESSION"". Theyre for doing whatever you want (including possible blarghression). For example dear ladies and gentlemen take a look at minecraft, game that was and still is about building things/exploring wasnt originally supposed to have a """"End Boss"""" (you know the big, black, winged, flying and ground eating wyrm im talking about). Starbound is about doing what the fuck ever you want to do (i enjoy the exploring a lot, who cares if the monsters die in one hit....go to X if you dont want them to do so ya dingus).
Bringing up Terraria to the table also. Yes there are bosses, yes there is a ""hardmode"", but you arent in any way required or pushed to kill said bosses nor activate said "global mood swing".

 

First off, I deleted that post before you replied because I didn't want to get involved any more in the whole "beta be beta" argument. Secondly, yeah, I realize this, but what people don't realize is that they do have their own plans, they don't just rely on us saying "I don't like A, B and C, change it now" Of course the game is grindy and repetitive atm, we're in extremely early beta.

 

These kinds of posts seem a little superfluous until the mechanics are in something resembling their finished state. The devs have mentioned progression being tied to story mission in the future, in addition to a lot of features that are going to flesh out the experience.

It's a little like complaining about how an athlete performs when you've only got the skeleton to judge the performance capabilities.

Not saying that you don't have a right to an opinion, just that you don't have enough information for it to be a particularly educated one right now.

 

It's a lot like complaining about an athlete when they are young. They have so much room to grow and improve, which is why it's important that we fix any problems now before they become hard to remove habits.

What we have is the skeleton of a game. So it is important that the skeleton does not have broken bones before it is fleshed out. Because once whole, you'll have to gut the whole body in order to fix the skeleton.

 

basically the game as it is , is bare bones. but i do have to agree , these are core mechanics were are seeing , that will be built upon... and they are a fair bit generic.

i especially hate the whole progression thing where moving from sector to the next effectively renders everything in the previous sector obsolete .
i really hate how you can easily live out of your ship
i am disheartened that there is no point to farming at all. just visit a planet with a chef spawner and you don't even need to hunt. plus farming takes too long and requires you to be on planet for several days (porting to base reset day nights and removes crop progress)

but the biggest let down is how surprisingly samey every planet is. same with the monsters, beta or not, that rng pool need to be expanded alot , but more importantly there needs to be more logic to the spawning.
right now there is no planet specific anything,
go to one jungle planet? then you have gone to all of them.

really kills the exploration aspect of it

 

Ill have to say it again likely many times but Oh well here goes. Regardless of the changes that might occur the methods of "progression" are concerning and only incur powerful levels of power creep. Instead of custom item progression (IE leveling up the matter manipulator) you instead create mountains of disposable gear that is just thrown out when you advance and the very ores you sought after are quickly rendered moot at best. The best way to explain this is through minecraft (sadly). If anyone here has watched Kootra and Nova's "Asgard Adventures" they will be familiar with all of the ores added to the game through Bicbiome mod. All of these new more powerful ores quickly rendered the old ones obsolete to the point they stopped mining anything other than diamond and up because it was a waste of time. The same aspect of power creep is present here with the idea of just finding/crafting the next level up gun/items and then just throwing the old ones out and ignoring the old ores forever. Which is why I would propose that instead higher level planets simply contain higher concentrations of events and ores as appose to the candy colored iron ore spectrum system that creates power creep. Progression can be obtained through larger and larger quantity demands from the recipes as appose to quickly phasing out old ores.

 

Thanks for voicing your concern. The Starbound development team is devoted to providing you with a personally tailored gameplay experience. They will work tirelessly over the next few days to ensure that the game is changed to better suit your needs.

 

Your idea would effectively make many people cry about the game being a grind. The current system makes it so at least you don't have to farm 500 copper bars to craft a new item.

 

True, especially since the devs don't even seem to know where it's heading.

Many of the issues in Starbound stem from clashing ideas and concepts. On one hand the game is trying to be like this, and on the other it's trying to be like that. There's no commitment. It's like how there's the concept of Sci-Fi being the "main" focus of the game, yet the vast majority is actually the opposite. Even most of the races are primitive, and most of the crafting in the entire game is primitive.

This can be discussed in circles till the world explodes, honestly. At the moment Chucklefish REALLY needs to talk it over amongst each other and find a focal point for Starbound and commit to it, regardless of what players think. Starbound is an absolute mess at the moment with no structure or consistency. Beta has nothing to do with that either, as beta has nothing to do with a game's concepts. Things like balance issues and bugs are a beta issue -- things like overall concept are a development issue.

 

This game may become something really special with the direction its going in, but so far right now i see it as a bit flawed in the way it handles progression and planet hopping.

I'll be honest, i AM looking for a Terraria clone with a space motif. Its what attracted me to this game. I saw it as an expansion of the ideas presented in Terraria. Of course i dont want an exact copy, but i dont want to see it take unnecessary steps back where the other game shined.

 

Yes, i believe this game is going through a bit of an identity crisis. Its trying to be a deep, space exploration RPG sim, yet its mechanics are rooted in being a mining, building game. So far its not doing either very well (relatively, i still think its a great game)

 

TL;DR =

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

It's beta, sure, but these are valid criticisms of the beta, and need to be heard.

 

I agree with the power creep only because it IS something that can get out of hand if forgotten about, so reminding the devs about ti is always a good thing. Everything else I feel like they are already working on changing or will eventually work on.

This IS a Terraria clone, but it is a different feel and there are mechanics that are different enough that I greatly prefer it. I for one do not give two shits if it is a Terraria clone so long as building shit remains infinitely easier. BTW I hated Terraria...it just made me want to play Minecraft. This doesn't.

 

This game has so much potential, but I think it is unfair of people to throw the beta card at the OP. These critical point of views on gaming mechanics by players is something that can really help devs shed like as to what to discuss. We are after all in phase one to provide our opinions on the current state of the game anyways, test it out, and provide feedback. This guy provided his feedback and despite it coming off as very critical sometimes you have to when you just didn't enjoy certain aspects of the game.

 

A few things that I'd like to see changed...

1) Remove pickaxes and replace them with something more sci-fi.
2) Get rid of the copper/silver/iron/gold/platinum item tiers. Gold spears and silver armor seems a bit silly in a game where you have a spaceship. We should have things like graphine spears, monofiliment swords and kevlar armor. Sci-fi stuff!
3) All weapon types, like guns should be there from pretty much the beginning.

Right now everything feels like a fantasy game that just happens to have spaceships. The tier system as it is now(yeah, I know its beta, yadda yadda) just doesn't click with me.

 

i honestly dont see how someone who "hated" Terraria would even look twice at this game. It always get thrown around on game forum how someone "hates" every other game in a similar genre, yet by some twist of fate love the particular game. Is it your way of showing support? it just doesnt make sense. Its okay to like both

 

Just because you poured a foundation doesn't mean the building is also set in stone. Rome wasn't built in a day. Like any good show it takes time to add to the story and to each character and it isn't until the finale that you can even tell how someone will truly turn out.

Fleeing with few materials it makes sense that you need to work to build stuff. It isn't like you brought a microwave, circuit fabrication technology, and black hole suns in your pocket!

 

The people who are saying "It's Beta, they can still change it" are not helping at all. If you don't voice your opinions now on the state of the game, then how does Chucklefish know to change the game? Look at some other games, FF XIV is a great example before the huge update and re-release. Same with SWTOR. If they just listened to the community and change it during the beta, the games wouldn't have been rubbish to begin with.

I agree with the TC. The way this game is right now, is very linear and boring. Mine > Armor Up > Fight Boss That's it. There's nothing else to this game at the moment and I hope the Devs know that. This can't be the foundation for the game, it needs to be re-worked into something that is fun and no so straightforward. Do I have any ideas? No because I don't know what the Devs are thinking are what they have planned for the future.

 

He's expressing his concern and opinion. It's called feedback. Without it, the devs wouldn't have anything to base their decisions off of. Stop telling people to quit giving feedback. He didn't say

F U DEVZ SB SUX

Did he? No, he left very constructive criticisms. It doesn't take 14 days to know what this game is about unless you're RPing on level 1 worlds for the entire time the game has been out.

 

Here's a novel idea: Make every set of armor in this game upgrade-able to tier 10. All of them. Every last one. Give them variety and flavor as the tiers increase.

Now you have an objective you won't finish anytime soon.