Stop back-loading the fun parts of the game.

lol I remember the poison water and acid rain thing-- Planet spawns were randomized then, yes? I could definitely see how that would be frustrating for a new player, but I loved the feel of it personally! It really made you feel helpless on an alien planet. Of course, I understand the need for a tutorial planet, I just wish there was an option to opt out of it... Maybe as a difficulty for "experienced" players? Or an option to turn off the tutorial?
I haven't beaten the first boss yet but I definitely would have appreciated skipping the earlier quests that otherwise would've been tutorials for inexperienced players.

As for it being a chore though, this build has exactly the same problem as the old builds, just repackaged in a different box. Previous "chore" was the ore grind, now the "chore" are the actual quests themselves. As I said previously, though, the tedium could be lessened by making npcs more likable/adding relativity to seemingly scattered, unrelated quests/making quests that have you collect MULTIPLE items give you a checklist, i.e borderlands' fetch quests, rather than making you:
warp to the gate, warp to the outpost, get quest, warp back, warp to ship, fly to planet, beam down, beam up, fly ship, warp to gate, warp to outpost, get told that you need something else, rinse and repeat. THAT'S a chore if I've ever heard one, and the npc's dialog for those particular moments don't exactly make you like the person you're trying to help.

 

I'm sure most of us do understand why it was implemented. It doesn't mean, however, that what is currently implemented is good game design. That's why we beta test and post our thoughts. I'm sure most of us agree with Tiy that new players shouldn't be dumped with everything. But that's not the issue we're discussing. We're discussing the balance of progression vs. sandbox mechanics. Yes, now we have structure and direction. Good. But now it needs to be balanced, it needs to be designed well so that it's the best experience it can be. That's the reason we "complain".

Currently, the direction is so forced and gated, that it actually disallows players from branching out and exploring without restraint. Rather than direction, it produces unrelated chores and tasks that explain only some of the game's mechanics. My girlfriend, who played for the first time became frustrated because she had no idea how to fight, how to equip weapons, how to use the matter manipulator, etc. I had to explain to her verbally. That's not good. Good game design allows new players to intuitive pick up the game's core mechanics without giant text boxes, and long tutorials.

 

This is the key issue in my opinion. I too was looking forward to a true sandbox game. I think the biggest mistake here was changing the way players related to/interacted with various planet types. I much prefer the previous system where the hazardous environments werent necessarily tied to level as much as equipment. The old sector system was in my opinion the way to go, adding the ability to have all the planet types in each sector with monster difficulty tied to the sector and exploration free within the sector appropriate to your progression. In other words if you want to just build stuff on a lava planet somewhere or a snow planet you just need to get the appropriate protective gear for that planet, but if you want to get the really good weapons and (combat) armor then you work on your progression through the sectors.
Some things like ship upgrades should have multiple ways to achieve like getting a drop from a high end boss or building a factory that makes ship parts or selling crops until you can buy the upgrades. Im not sure but my present thinking is that most ores should be obtainable in the 1st sector but the highter end ones should be far more common in higher sectors.
Just my opinion for waht its worth.

 

Haven't read whole thread, but...

My main disappointment in giraffe update was absence of "exploration-enjoyment".
I remember when i run with campfire in hands on snow planets. When every monster ca easily kill you in 1 hit.

But now... Everything is easy as hell. I died ONLY on bosses. I don't know why people tells about things like that you need proper armor/weapon for comfortable diggin at starter planet. Really? These monster can kill you only if you wouldn't do anything while they killing you.

Progression is good. I am totally agreed that end-game recipes must be kind of conqured. So killing bosses to get new craft table is good thing.
Although killing bosses for rad-heat-cold-protection may be good too, atm it's a bullshit. I mean that working hard for getting nanosuit for more comfortable game - it's OK. But the fact that i am not able to explore planets at least somehow without these suits - well, i disagreed with such system.

And wiring tool. Getting reare ores for crafting tool would be enough. Why CF force me to kill bosses just to get wiring tool?

 

I'm hoping the nanosuit system is just a placeholder. One way or the other, we need a better system. Also, at the moment the only real difference between a hot planet, cold planet, and radioactive planet is which suit you need to deal with it. There should be some sort of difference, and yeah, some ability to survive for some length of time even without the nanosuit - reminds me also of making suicide runs to the underworld for Hellstone back in early Terraria.

 

I see the whole release as just a placeholder to show off the ship upgrades

 

Well, I think there are some other, non-placeholder things. Erchius Mining Facility is probably fairly close to how the devs want it to be, for example.

 

I think both dungeons are good enough to stay, yeah. Although perhaps not on the same power levels or in the same role as right now. To be honest, I don't even see the ship upgrades as being set in stone though, both from the progression perspective (them being obligatory) and from the actual upgrade point of view (they might get redesigned more than once). So it's more about just showing off the possibility of upgrading

 

Now that they know their system can handle the basic functions, they can refine and polish it and make it all pretty rather than strictly utilitarian.

Balance is a thing that's going to be in flux for the entirety of primary development. Under normal circumstances that's something that'd be at the tail-end of the development cycle as you take the whole game in, so don't expect a super-refined damage-points system in play anytime soon.

 

Isn't the difference also difficulty of mobs, ores present, loot level drops, materiel drops, and hazards?

 

There's also terrain navigability. I mean, the Ice worlds I've been meandering around lately sure love their extreme drop-offs and near-sheer cliff faces, eschewing flat plains almost entirely.

But I will say that planets needs some more biome-tied obstacles and hazards. I would like to see lava spurts, magma falls, falling icicles... some good old platformer-style dangers. How some of these would work with the "tear up the terrain" play is a big question, but CF is clever.

 

Agreed would be nice.

 

Minor example as I just played a world like this... fires started by ember rain on Volcanic worlds should probably, you know, HURT, not just be pretty Be a good place to have the water gun, assuming it can be made to put out fires...

 

I'm talking about the hot/cold/radioactive effects themselves.

 

Well, it's not like there was a hell of a lot of variance there before. "Eventually kills you" was... was all of it, in fact. There pretty much was no difference between freezing and starving to death other that what you slapped on to prevent it.

 

Still here I see Madzai And making good points as always.

 

I think we can all agree on the fact that the coffee quest is terrible.

 

The coffee quest is horrible. Either make the mug and the spoon part of the first quest, or make it possible to craft things in the outpost.

 

I wouldn't mind the coffee quest at all.

Provided there was another quest to get back at that jerk later. It'd be nice to have karma roll back around when you're near the endgame and just slap him rump-over-teakettle.

I could completely get behind this.

 

The coffee quest is reminiscent of the old tree quest chain from DeathSpank, and I don't particularly mind it if there's a point made behind it ("fetch quests suck", for example)