Feedback The 1.4 update should....

100% vanilla player, i don't like to use mods in any game mostly because i want my maps and characters to be as durable as possible. So I'm back to starbound after a break (stopped playing around 1.1), I want to give my thoughts about the latest changes so my perspective about what should be added is more clear.

I'm glad they finally added a feature i wanted since alpha : DIAGONAL BLOCKS. Building is an important aspect of the game, it really keeps the game interesting on the long run. Everything that gives possibilities in creating designs is great, and those blocks are a game changer.
Space stations are convenient for building in space but players could already create structures on their own so imo they're not revolutionary. However they can encourage people that are not into building or confident enough to start from scratch to make some designs so it's all good.
Space exploration is decently fun but has one big flaw : almost all of the stuff you gather in ships and anomalies is for upgrading your mech, and the mech is only useful in space exploration. It's too disconnected from the rest of the game.

So to summarize what i want in future updates :
-Always more building content, of course new blocks and furniture. Possibly better and more convenient interface and commands for building. Something like the middle click in minecraft implemented in starbound.
-Better connection between the different parts of the game, make specific resources useful for other purposes so it's always fun and rewarding to explore planets or space. (example of something needed since 1.0 : give a way to recycle manipulator modules in the end game, and not just irrelevant pixels, please).
-i gave up on dreaming about minecraft-ish"technical" gameplay (exploiting game mechanics to design working farms and contraptions). It's clear developers don't want that to happen. It's fine, the game is not made for that. However, better performances and optimization are always welcome, the game really struggles when you use a large zoom.

-GIVE AN OPTION TO REMOVE THE DAMN CAT FROM THE SHIP. THANK YOU.

 

It exist, it's called relocator ffs

 

Doesn't work on the cat/other ship pets. Also if you kill it with lava it keeps respawning at the SAIL terminal.

 

use prop pack then. This mod give you some kind of trap that can allow you to remove pet

 

I'm discussing about what should be done in vanilla updates. Btw this pet thing is a small detail. It's just weird they still did not fix the issue, people have been complaining since day 1.

 

Instead of removing the pet, maybe there could be a way to store it? Like have some kind of permanently built into the ship pet house where you can simply have your pet stay until you want it to frolic around the ship?

 

Sure, just a SAIL option with pet status hidden/released thing

 

I usually trap my pet in one of the small rooms of a ship using secret doors/trapdoors and some "..." blocks (the perfect black ones).

Maybe a neat feature would be a SAIL interface where you can place a capture pod inside to use that creature as your ship pet.

But yeah, just a checkbox option at character creation to disable the ship pet would be nice.

 

I thought about an other little thing : upgraded violium broadsword. It is unquestionably the most useful melee weapon (gives you a new tech jump) and has the coolest design, unfortunately it's too weak to compete with higher damage weapons in ancient vaults and that sucks.

 

I love a lot of the ideas presented in this thread. Adding more diversity is definitely needed in order to refresh the game. There are soooo many new spawnable locations they could add everywhere in the universe. It would definitely make me want to explore more, as currently I feel like I've seen everything, and in a game that boasts on all of it's random generation, there really needs to be a lot more structures that spawn. This goes hand in hand with more NPC species needed, because in such a huge universe, there would *definitely* be a lot more different races out there.

Another gripe I've had is how little you can really do with colonies and crew members, etc. There are no random events that take place and affect colonies, and there's not entirely much incentive to even build a colony. I would like to invite strategy and world events to the mix to make building colonies more interesting.

My last gripe is one that I've had since the beginning: Loot doesn't feel special. I hate to draw lines from Terraria, but I feel like it provides the best example for what I'm talking about here. In Terraria when you open a chest, you've gotta chance to find something really useful and special for your character. It's so great that if you die on your way to that chest, no matter how far away it is from your spawn point, or how dangerous, you feel compelled to journey to it and loot it. Loot in Starbound really never feels special. I don't feel compelled to even open most chests. I get that Terraria's draw for such things are accessories that can be found, but loot could still be made more useful and thrilling in Starbound. I don't want chest after chest crammed with semi-crappy weapons, and a handful of crafting materials. I want useful items that will actually aid me on my journey, and help to make it more interesting.

 

The 1.4 update should.... breathe more life into the game. Many good suggestions here already. The main thing is simply this - we have an infinite galaxy to explore - now give us a reason to do so. Theres nothing truly rare or unique to seek out. The sense of exploration and adventure is gone by the time you've crossed your second or third lava/scorched planet. There are so many points of light on the map and (player-made goals aside) absolutely no driving reason to visit them.

As someone who has his mech maxed, a massive personally built city that spans nearly half an ocean planet (including a museum with every fossil display, every important (IE: scanned for quests) racial artifact, most of the capturable bugs and the only 7 figurines Ive ever seen), nearly every costume bit in the game, every unique weapon, every set of racial armor per character Ive made - Ive hopped more systems than I can remember - I WANT to do more, but I have no REASON to do more. Every time I look at the endless dots across the starmap it saddens me to know theres simply no real reason to go to any of them at this point.

I hate to even bring it up but Terraria has tens of thousands of players on steam just about every day, Starbound does not, and it *should* considering its scope.

Give us something out there to go for. Something to find. Something that makes all those endless systems worth checking out. Not just chasing the grind of mech parts or what I can only assume will be a similiar grind hunting bounties (ye gods I hope its so much more than that). Starbound has such a ridiculous amount of potential and its just being wasted.

 

Sorry to ask but why does terraria loot system seem so superior to starbounds ? (I never played this game).

More thoughts :
it strikes me that people are always asking for more variety, more planets and biome to explore, more items to find, more npcs and mobs. Of course it can only improve the game to have more stuff in it but at some point how can you avoid things to be repetitive when you have collected everything relevant ?

People seem to avoid comparing with other successful games but I think it's completely justified and helpful. I only played minecraft, not terraria so my comparison ends here.
Why is minecraft so big and starbound so small ?

Let's start with my personal experience : my latest minecraft survival world has about 1200 hours, i think i had 4 long term survival maps of this kind. I have also countless hours of messing around and designing builds in creative mode. What keeps me motivated over the years ? The creative aspect. Minecraft gives a very convenient interface for building, sharing screenshots, schematics and save files with other people. It's extremely simple to create things yourself and enjoy other peoples creations.
In starbound building is a pain in comparison, if you don't stick to very small projects. i'm not comparing 2D graphics vs 3D, i think both have their own potential and the two different styles are interesting and worth having. But the interface itself is a disaster. the toolbar is not helpful to switch with different blocks and furniture, you end up doing everything from the inventory. There is no proper creative mode, you have to do everything with commands or research mods specifically made for builders. The zoom levels are not satisfying at all, tedious to use ingame (no shortcut), it's very inconvenient to make large screenshots. The MM brush is not the best tool, you often end up placing blocks where you don't want.

People can also spend a crap ton of time on minecraft playing with redstone and game mechanics (generally called "technical gameplay). Redstone wiring interacts with the game engine in a way that does not exist at all in starbound, allowing people to create limitless contraptions that actually have a purpose, like moving blocks in different patterns to emulate doors, moving machines, automating farms and so on. The game has so much potential some players specialize themselves in only one aspect of this particular kind of gameplay (like designing the fastest farms for specific resources). And again it's extremely easy to share those creations, so you can enjoy other player's builds and research even if you don't do this kind of gameplay yourself.
Starbound has very limited game mechanics and only provides one way of playing (no way to automatize farming, crafting, item processing), there is some room to increase your knowledge of the game and develop strategies to take advantage of the different mechanics but it's really small. There is a bunch of wiring tools but they don't do anything except turning lights on and off and opening doors (which has no use whatsoever). The incentive to use the wiring is almost non existent.

Minecraft has still a lot more to offer but i will restrict myself about what's similar to what you can do in starbound.

In the end, for me the best thing added to the game since 1.0 was the diagonal panels. What do ancient vaults, space combat and fishing bring except some mindless repetitive mob bashing ? Just few hours of grind until you're too bored to waste your time this way. They desperately need to improve the creative tools in this game, so players stay motivated on the long run and are more likely to collaborate with others.

Ps : sorry the english might be weird.

 

That's surprisingly informative, and explanatory.

You're my spirit animal.

That line especially hits like a train.

And about that Terraria loot thing, I guess it's because Terraria has one world, therefore it's packed with stuff. Looks way better, has more detail, and more concentrated and specific loot. Frozen stuff in frozen biomes, underwater chests with beach balls and flippers, etc. Makes sense, and it's a lot of it. Also accesories. Something Starbound lacks as hell.

 

Terraria's loot feels more special because they've made it unique. There's too much diversity in Starbound's weapon's loot pool, for instance, so it doesn't feel special if you open a chest and you get...you know, some garbage looking sword which randomly does one of ten things you'll never need.

Starbound needs more unique items. There's only a handful of them compared to the rest of the items. Legendary weapons are great, sure, but there should be chests which specifically give you a chance to get them. If you had say...let's call it a cosmic chest. And this chest ALWAYS had a chance to spawn a piece of the cosmic armor set, and this cosmic armor allowed for you to do some pretty neat things, was unique to those chests, and were sought out by players wanting that armor...I can guarantee you whenever someone saw a cosmic chest, it'd feel pretty significant. As it is, ALL chests have the same darn things in them. Maybe if they categorized chests and made it so there's a unique loot pool for EVERY one of those chests...I mean I remember once upon a time they were going to make gun chests, which always had a gun. Even if the guns are procedurally generated, that would have actually made people excited to see that chest. There's too much diversity and not enough organization. I think they should make each chest have something completely unique inside of it, that ONLY that kind of chest can reveal, and give a low but somewhat significant chance for that item to be there. That'd get people interested. That's Terraria's angle and that's how Starbound can become interesting again.

Speaking of gun chests, there should be guns which feel more like the guns from Borderlands. The guns should all have unique parts, and some of these parts should make the gun Legendary (which would also make it unique,) and other parts would make the gun do this or that. If you had unique weapons which were also procedurally generated weapons (like Borderlands does,) and made the guns portion of the game THAT advanced...you'd get a LOT of interested players. So imagine if you had a gun which was always named "The Chopper" when it had a Legendary part inside of it. However, the gun would STILL have different stats due to the other parts of the gun. There'd be a perfect storm where you could get a gun that has ALL of the best parts, but this would rarely happen. That way you could re-introduced Legendary Grenade Launchers, Shotguns, Pistols, Repeater Pistols, Rocket Launchers, Assault Rifles, etc.

The real problem with Starbound is that they made things too random. There's no sensation of accomplishment because what can you really accomplish outside of a hat, and you'll never know if you're going to accomplish it because there's no indicator you can get that loot from the place you found it. Everything else is some kind of random item that isn't a named item. It doesn't make you feel special for having it, and that's the real problem.

If the Devs at Starbound/Chucklefish wanted to REALLY go the extra mile, pull a Metroid and make the items have fanfare when you accomplish them. Fossils has this, and I actually really like collecting fossils just because of the fanfare. That sets the items apart as 'good' items...there's no reward center for most of the items in the game.

Although I want to add a compliment: When it comes to the Plasma Rifle weapon you can get from Space Encounters, it really DOES feel EXACTLY like Terraria feels when you open a chest. You KNOW which chest has a chance to drop this unique weapon, you feel good when you get it, and it's something you know, eventually, you are going to get. Space Encounters is how the rest of the game needs to feel.

 

In addition, loot in Terraria is very much about functional accessories. Want a tool that tells you how far you are below surface level? Want to combine that tool with another that tells time so it can do multiple things at once and take up less bag space? Sure! Want to combine that with yet another, highly functional tool? Go right ahead, if you can find it. Every accessory in Terraria changes the way you play the game. With said accessories you can soar to the heavens with wings, or breathe for a certain time underwater, or get an extra, twirling jump. It’s these accessories that people vehemently seek out from the start of each Terraria play through because they make the journey more interesting and definitely improve upon it.

I also agree with a poster above that the problem also lay in their organization of loot in chests. Terraria spreads its different accessories in notably different biome chests (for the most part), so players have a general idea of where to look. In Starbound, it’s really not like that, and it’s part of the problem that makes looting in SB feel so unrewarding.

Returning to what I mentioned previously about making settlements more interesting, I read an article a moment ago about the inhospitablely, super cold environment of Yakutsk, Siberia and couldn’t help but get ideas. In this part of the world, nobody goes outside without layers and layers of clothing, and none can stay outside for long. People stop at nearby homes of friends to warm up before venturing out again on their journey through the day. There’s even a frigid mist that perpetually hangs in the dry air. Buildings must be built on stilts or otherwise risk sinking from overheating the permafrost soil. They have no hospitable soil for crops and must rely on fishing to feed their people, and mining rare materials like gold, silver and diamonds to form the backbone of their still thriving economy. After I read it, I thought, what if Starbound could accommodate such things in their settlements? What if there were inhospitable living conditions to take into account and compensate for while building, or if every settlement had an economy and only a certain amount of ways to feed its populace based on their location? This could make settlements feel real, and give them purpose. Pair that with some natural disasters or raiding parties from bandits and you’ve got an interesting, strategic, and realistic purpose for building, maintaining, and revisiting settlements.

 

That's an excellent point. Starbound doesn't need randomly generated NPCs that you find in these Biomes who only slightly resemble what someone in those areas would look like. Especially in places like Midnight Planets/Biomes, you'd think that there would be more catering to the immediate surroundings. Sometimes on these snowy planets you get Biomes which have, say, forest on them and there would be NPCs which are dressed like Forest Biome areas, but this wouldn't work on a Planet said to be so cold that you'd die without the correct technology to keep you warm.

What Starbound needs is NPCs which completely play the part, and no matter which Biome there is inside of a Planet that, say, is completely Frigid or completely Molten, they should look like they're on the planet which has these qualities. They need to embellish more on the Biomes themselves when it comes to these extreme temperatures (or even Radiation,) and have it where: All of the Townspeople are in Radiation suits of any kind of Village/Dungeon/Mini Dungeon for Radiation Planets, completely bundled up on Frozen Planets, and in completely warm weather clothing for Fiery Planets.

I think the idea of Villages/Dungeons/Mini Dungeons are nice, but they've had so much time to add to the game, it's about time that they take the time and effort to not only neatly organize chests to have specific loot you can look for in those chests to try to get some nice items, but to organize and categorize the Villages/Dungeons/Mini Dungeons of planets to be in accordance to the surroundings. After all, Hylotl Cities are catered to being under the ocean, and that makes sense. Seeing plain-clothed people walking in Radiation Planets/Frozen Planets/Fiery Planets does NOT make sense.

BTW, to refer to an earlier point, there IS something you can do to enjoy going to other Planets and their Biomes/Villages/Dungeons/Mini Dungeons. If you look for pieces of furniture to build with which are Quest Items, such as the Newspapers found in Miniknog Villages or Dungeons, and you intend to build with them as a part of a motif, you have to go over laaaaarge swathes of Planets in order to find them all. It isn't much, but it's kept me occupied for a very long time trying to build a science facility which needs to have one more of a type of Quest Item (the type to give you clues, which you cannot use in your pixel printer.)

 

I'm 100% for having better tenants mechanics IF it expands the possibilities and not adds inconvenient restrictions. Give players the choice to build colonies in hazardous areas or safe ones, it's not always enjoyable for everyone to do maintenance on your builds and fight mobs or the elements. Make it possible to build viable colonies in those dangerous areas with some more effort and smart designs, not just some regular grind.

 

One of the big issues with Starbound gear is, aside from the rng factor (the same stigma all heavy rgn systems have - LOTS of garbage, very little quality) - is that the gear doesnt really make you *feel* more powerful.

By the end of Terraria you can fly, ignore fall damage, have dmg shields, go invis, have your own little army, rain ice and fire from the heavens, spray bullets as fast and as far as you like, so on and so forth - the gear you've worked to attain makes you feel like you now wield incredible power compared to the crappy little sword you started with.

On the flipside, by the time you reach endgame in Starbound, you're using what amounts to the same basic gear types - the numbers are just higher. The gear only serves to let you deal with the current content you've unlocked, but never goes any higher than that. You never get to have weapons and/or armor that makes you feel like you've really attained a level of power thats on par with being at 'endgame'.

Starbound has some interesting uniques - mostly unique in function, not so much in power level. Most of the uniques sit in my storage because, while neat and sometimes fun to use - they're mostly gimmicks and not all that great at true, sustained combat. I think, once most people have Astersaberu(sp?) and the sniper rifle, and maybe a dragon pistol, they basically have the best they're going to get, barring some god-roll rng weapon (of which, as of yet, Ive never found myself).

Why are there no armor sets (as in, full suit = grants special ability/stats)? That seems like a very simple and glaring omission. Hey, heres an idea - add some in, but dont let us craft them, instead make us search systems for special POIs that allow us to track down parts and assemble them over a not-too-lengthy span of time.

Endgame crafting leaves so much to be desired - 1sword, 1 shortsword, 1 pistol, 1 *bow*, 1 staff, 1 wand...come on now. That could be tidied up tremendously - at least allow us to craft one of each weapon type in the game - maybe even make them have RNG on how they turn out. Endgame rng generated weapons also seem to always want to pull from the same pool of secondaries - at least firearms sure do. Why are all the cool secondaries on white rarity rifles/etc? Ive never seen Explosive Shot on anything except a white rarity sniper rifle - why?

 

That would be perfect if they had special chests which had a chance at just these types of weapons and armors, as well as other normal items. I'd really like to see them bring back the Boosts, personally. It made searching planets much more (as in hugely more) fun to play. I actually spent less time in 1.0 than I did in Beta because I was able to use Bubble Boost so frequently. I think they tried so hard to have a game that couldn't be considered broken in any way that it was just...I dunno, too polite and tidy? It feels almost mechanical and arbitrary at times. I'd really like to see them add things that make it feel REALLY Sci Fi. Why not mechanical wings which let you fly around? The stuff you can do in Terraria seems like it'd be much better suited for a Sci Fi game, and this Sci Fi game seems like it's trying too hard to fit conventional standards than it is trying to push the envelope.

That said, I mean....everything I just said was NOT true of Beta and Beta content felt like the kind of Sci Fi game that I really enjoyed and said that Starbound seems like it's not trying to be right now. I honestly had more fun trying to find Derrick than I did gathering Tech Chips for the several abilities which seem much more toned down than they were in Beta.

I think if they were to simply take a lot of content from Beta (including Derrick,) and...you know, stop being afraid of the trolls which seem to have made them remove a lot of the content which we all really enjoyed and making Starbound feel less potential filled than it had previously been. Just re-add that content and stop being afraid of the opinions of the few bullies which seems to have guided some of their decisions to remove things from the game. I'd really love to see Starbound be what it is today, AND the way it was, AND have new content that made you feel like you were truly in a technological future. I feel like they should stop being afraid of failure and start spreading their wings and taking the risk of hitting the ground so they can truly learn to fly.

That said, I think I'll suggest some things they can add (and they really need an accessory slot to use them. The Backpack Slot with the EPP is good, but there needs to be more.):

An Eye Scanner. It looks like a visor for a single eye, like from Dragon Ball Z or Flashback the Quest for Identity. They already have this item (I forget its name, but I buy it from certain human merchants,) but I'd love to see it be changed into an item which shows statistical information on the screen. A radar for enemies, something which shows you how high or low you are on a planet (not just depth, but also tells you how high above the surface you are, measuring in positive and negative numbers with 0 being the surface,)

Mechanical Wings which let you fly around the screen by using energy.

A Mech Caller. Something which allows you to call your Mech onto a planet at any given time. This would be like a remote control which allowed your Mech to spawn next to you, even if you didn't start a mission WITH your Mech.

More Nanite Technology. They already have the vehicles which can be used to create and de-spawn vehicles. Why not embellish on this more? There's a lot of things which could be created/manipulated with Nanites.

Bring back the Boosts! I'd love to use the Bubble Boost again to fly around the stage. I think they should also make it so the Boost acts as a temporary forcefield against things like flying enemies or projectiles.

Remote Robots! The game Tails' Adventure had a little robot which you could control and use as a probe to get to locations that you didn't want to risk going into yourself, little crevices, etc. Things like this would add a lot of lasting aesthetic quality to the game. It'd be like a remote camera which let you move to different areas, let you explore. It wouldn't take damage and it wouldn't be in any kind of risk of bumping into enemies, so you can go explore to see if you want to, for instance, dive down a certain pit.

There's so many ideas that can be added to the game, and they really need to start working with sideways content instead of trying to keep adding new content leading up. Embellish on what we already have, new Planets, new items, new collectables (food, fishing, fossils, bugs, figurines, monster catching and monster types to catch or get figurines from.)

 

Yes, functional equipment would be nice. A gas mask/full hazmat suit for radioactive planets, a diver's helmet or oxygen tank for oxygen-less places and more.