Feedback The 1.4 update should....

I think the Devs need to completely rework how loot is given out. The only loot that was enjoyable to obtain was in Space Exploration and dropped from Bosses. Enemies constantly drop crafting ingredients, but how fun is that? "YAY, YARN!" *Metroid fanfare*

Where other games got it right and Starbound, despite how great it is, did NOT get right, is there is a reward center for loot and a reward center for opening the majority of chests and a reward center for collecting items. Enemies don't drop anything cool in Starbound (except for figurines, but for as rare as they are, that's just not gonna cut it.)

Castlevania Symphony of the Night had enemies with TWO drop chances. Not just ONE drop chance, but TWO. One was much less rare, but got you through the game until you were strong enough and then you could go back and re-fight those enemies until you got the rarer secondary item which was usually a LOT better. Or you could get insanely lucky and get the second drop chance early and be set for most of the game.

Chucklefish didn't seem to make to want the game this way, and as people have pointed out it's a lot less popular than Terraria (which does do that.) I think that's the reason.

Enemies should drop: Unique Crafting Schematics (per each unique mob,) Unique Weapons/Armors/Cosmetic Armors/Clothings, Crafting Ingredients (much more frequently than the rest of what I mentioned,) and lastly Figurines which are as rare as they currently are.

Chests should be categorized, organized and sorted. I was very surprised to find a Chef's Hat in a Weapon's Chest. Sadly, I wasn't even pleasantly surprised, because I didn't know to look for it there. It was like "Wow, that can happen?" It wasn't like "YAY, something cool!"

Metroid, Metroidvania games, and even games like Super Mario (past Super Mario 64,) taught us that making people feel rewarded for collecting items makes players want to keep playing. We all tell ourselves that fanfare and flashy items isn't going to make us want to play a game, and then Starbound tried to defy that...and most people don't wanna play it anymore. The only reason I'm playing it right now is because I missed playing it when 1.0 was released. I'd really enjoy it a lot more if what I suggested was implemented, if not in 1.4, possibly in 1.5.

I'd like to add, even a lot of FPS games give you 'special' weapons which you collect permanently for the rest of the game. These FPS games seem to be more successful than FPS games which make your weapons feel disposable, and Starbound is the only Action/Adventure game I ever played which makes your weapons feel disposable. In Zelda Breath of the Wild, Weapons feel that way too: But they give you permanent weapons which make you feel special for collecting, and guess which weapons they struggle to get? It's just...it's in people's nature to want to feel special for achievement. Starbound needs to rework itself so it does just that if it wants people to play it.

One last point: If items had a sound associated with them for picking up, it wouldn't have to be a long fanfare like Metroid, just...some kind of a sound that made people associate a good weapon/item/schematic/armor/cosmetic armor or even clothing associated with it, that'd make people want to play it more. Most games are good at subconsciously rewarding players, and Starbound is not.

Edit: I know this is from a long time ago, but I wanted to mention that boss items do EXACTLY like what I mentioned. So good job, Chucklefish, and I think you should keep doing this.

 

Ingame and real life Poptop hats when.

 

I Think that Starbound just needs to grow up. I remember from the old Koala and Jiraffe versions a universe with big possibilities. The newer versions of course just keep getting better and better, but we should recover some of the content from the past that for many of us opened a door into the vast universe. Specialized vendors, more minerals, better world gen algorithm, lighter and stabler versions of Starbound (Don't know about u guys but i play on a AMD A10-9600P and the game feels heavier than my Visual Studio ) . A tech tree, factions, big universe events, more types of npc, more kinds of spaceships and the hability of specialization (mayabe adding some space combat that doesn't relies fully on the mechas system) would be big and great material to this awesome game.

 

It'd be pretty cool if the Mechs had a skill tree, where it could unlock stat points for one of three different trees and it unlocked special things, possibly upon creating some kind of skill booster you craft out of hard to find items (or simply find in Space Exploration.) Your Mech could be built for speed with different abilities (some of them stackable,) which reflect that, one for damage, and one for odd-job type stuff like easier to find rarer items on defeating enemies, faster drill speed for drill/laser drill, maneuverability, faster ground walking speed etc. (for players who use their Mechs on Planets or farming stuff as opposed to just battling in space.)

 

Another thing I feel like they still need to work on is performance. My game doesn't lag nearly as bad as it used to, but there's still a lot of bad lag. Most of the time I run into a huge, flat dip off of terrain, just waiting on a chunk of the world to spawn. That shouldn't be happening at this point in the game's life. It's even worse when you're zoomed out

 

Content patch would be cool. I'd love to see more variety in the game. Especially with underground micro dungeons. I think the real problem I have with the game is that it's too different from what I expected the game to be.

I guess I was looking more for like an explore-able open world type game where there was tons of things to see and do. Building being more of the tool to progress through the game than the actual game itself. I think what this game actually is though is more like a pure builder game. You have to create the content because there's honestly not that much to do besides "building stuff."

I thought since there are like 14 planets types there would be tons of stuff to do, but it's more akin to 14 short levels. Once you've seen a planet once, you've seen it all. Gotta build your own content sir. Except the content you build can't be played. Building is the content.

 

From my experience exploration in open world games is only fun during a limited amount of time. There is always a point when you've done everything and all that you encounter is only slight variations of things you have already seen. Building stuff is where the real long term value starts, but to be fair starbound is a bad building game for reasons i already mentioned. Bad interface, bad zoom levels with awful performances on large zooms, bad building tool (it lacks a key to lock the direction of your mm so you can place lines of blocks easily for example), not practical to count blocks (it would be nice to display the eight, coordinates, a grid or something). And of course no creative mode to experiment and no schematic files.

As for game mechanics, i have to say most of the alpha and beta versions were far more exciting because you could design mob farms. They removed this possibility, in a way it's nice to be able to build without worrying about spawns but it was pretty much the only mechanic that we were able to play with.

 

Hm. My biggest peeve is how a game that's been going on for years still lacks basic privacy settings for ships (and other builds, maybe?). How do you guys even play multiplayer without having your entire ship stripped clean?

 

I think they should work a lot more with building, too. Maybe make building missions? Missions which let you build certain types of buildings with certain materials and furnitures. Like a Glitch may ask you to build them a castle, with so many rooms and so many pieces of the themed furniture. Building should be a main mechanic of the game, outside of tenants (which already utilizes it.) That's pretty much Starbound's strongest suite.

I also think that they should completely re-work loot drops and make more interesting, unique items appear. They kind of did themselves a disservice by adding so many different varieties of weapons most people are never going to use. Each update *has* to include new unique weapons and armor sets. It can't all just be cosmetic stuff, there's so much of it I can't find the stuff I actually *want* to find.

 

Folks I know only play in groups with friends. From my experience, playing with strangers in games like this - thats just asking for trouble =P

 

Oh, friends do it too. I play with one or two friends and family members, and while they don't outright steal my stuff, it's definitely not uncommon for us to inadvertently destroy each other's blocks or misplace each other's stuff.

 

Make the game more challenging, also create a more robust magic system, the current spells just doesn't cut it for me to justify making a magic caster, there must be at least 200-300 different spells, categorized into different schools, like Necromancy and Alteration for example, since you've already introduced the concept of magic into the game, then it should be made right while you're at it.

 

Wishlist:

Basic server functionality, such as the option to host a serverside-characters-only server.
Ability to lock my ship.
Ability to lock my builds.

 

Necromancy is cool, but how about Mechromancy? Undead technology using old mechs you have built, and turning them into franken-mechs. Which you can control with your mind as battle helpers.

 

* New Ores (Aluminum, Sulfur, Petroleum derivatives, gases, etc)
* To be able to destroy planets, moons, asteroids and stars.
* To visit gaseous planets (source of methane, hydrogen, etc.)
* To be able to write books.