The First Mission defiantly, needs looking into.

Acquired steel gear, went on the mission with my GF. We both died due to excessive toughness of a boss. Were REALLY disappointed and upset when we discovered that the instance has been reset. What did we do wrong?

 

Honestly the best solution is a checkpoint, or no pixel loss on missions.

 

Hell, if you need a teeny smidge more to the shield idea, throw in a pair of iron levers that cause blast doors to close, creating the shields. Have them re-set each time the cannon fires.

 

In the words of someone else entirely:

"Git gud"

 

Yep, makes sense.

I wasn't saying 1=normal in the literal and mathematically accurate sense... just that it could be dialed down if people wanted it dialed down, and the opposite could be true as well.
I understand that you like the game to work in a specific way; so much so, that you feel people who don't play like you must have learning disabilities.
This is fine to think this way, but it is not conducive to a true sandbox game.... perhaps starbound is not intended to be a sandbox game, but I get the impression it is.
If a player wants to put on "die forever mode" and then RP the game as a farmer, it might bring up the entertainment value for them if they can dial down the boss
difficulty, while keeping the rest of the game difficulty at a higher level. Inversly, some people might find the "hard" setting actually is the easy setting for them, and they might want to kick it up a few notches WITHOUT having to suffer other penalties because they wanted to have harder bosses, and the programmer punishes them with pixel loss or item destruction, or perma-death.
I totally understand if you don't like this style of gameplay, and I can sympathize if you find it inconceivable to play a space platformer with easier bosses. But trust me when I say; There are people who want a more organic experience. Some people don't want to be forced to grind bosses to get "the next tier" of farming, or construction. I LOVE the old school style of bosses, but my wife just likes being a space farmer who collects bugs.

 

Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnno, it really, really isn't.

 

I agree on checkpoints, but I want to point out something I am seeing people say.

"The level resets."

I have not experienced this. The level never reset when I died, I just had to run all the way through the dungeon, without any monsters.... since I killed them all already.

Also, the boss himself kept the same 'phase' I was on before. So I didn't have to fight him from the start again or anything, in fact the only thing I saw that reset was the switches themselves.


The main thing for me though, was that in multiplayer, only one player gets a tech card as a reward. All other players are left out in the cold.

 

Lucky, I had the level reset. By my third try I just avoided enemies that I did not have to fight for progression sake and went to the boss pretty quick. I guess people just don't have patience anymore. Then again I have yet to git gud enough to beat the penguin saucer guy

 

I think it is, others liked his post, so they must as well. People can be how they want to be. It's a game being talked about on the internet, you are going to get prejudices.

 

Have you only done it multiplayer? The level is created on the fly so if no one is in it, it doesn't exist. That's why it resets.

 

Oh I suppose that is why.

 

@M_Sipher is right, that is not an ok way to think
just because one person wants something to be a certain way, doesnt mean its ok for them to think people who dont want it that way are stupid, or idiots, or anything else. if I want the game to be a different way, that doesnt mean I suck at the game
its fine to want the game to be unreasonably hard, its not ok to force that unreasonable difficultly down other peoples throats

 

That's horsehockey. It's excusing abuse and toxic, solipsistic attitudes that online interaction already contains far too much of, often over inconsequential subjects.

It's fine to have a difference of opinion. It's NOT to think that a difference of opinion from yours means "learning disabilities". Grow up.

 

I like this idea a lot actually. The fact that you can't dodge the beams is what I found most frustrating. The walls would fix that problem without making the boss too easy, since between firing the beams he spawns a moon zombie.

I didn't even realize that the beams could be blocked, I just tanked them and ran around with healing buffs from food and healing water (which I was lucky enough to have on my planet) and spamming bandages.

 

Yeah, I admit I ultimately got through with timely heals and just braving the beams the last go 'round. If you're fast, you can only get hit once going through a beam, rather than multiple times. Gulping down some Max-HP-increasing food right before the fight was a help as well.

I didn't mind running the Mission a few times though, as I kept finding new Blueprints for mining facility furniture each time.

(Also, went through later with new Techs installed and oh my Grodd secret area is very yay love it)

 

Fair enough... The point of the original post was lost on semantics it seems. I'm not going to tell someone else how to think, even though I don't agree with them. It actually IS fine to have our own opinion, as long as one doesn't cram it down others throats. I personally feel that kenthen is entitled to his opinion, even though I find it abrasive. I think you all have confused my acceptance of his views as me claiming those views as my own. The discussion was about game making, but all anyone took from that discussions was a biased opinion, then they felt that contributing their own biased opinions was helping. I will accept defeat, and grow up. I think that means not posting in these forums at all anymore, as tolerance is not tolerated, and discussion about the game is clearly not the overall goal. I apologize to everyone for my spamming of this forum, and I shall go away. I really just wanted to talk about game design, not this garbage.. Again, my apologies.

 

I didn't suggest that people have learning disabilities, I'm really not sure where that came from though I'm willing to assume you've just misinterpreted what I said, for whatever reason.

I believe the perceived difficulty is by and large the cause of the game- and level design not conveying and teaching players the things that then suddenly become a necessity to survive. Addressing that is by far more likely to get to the cause of the problem. Simply lowering the bar for players until they can get over it is if anything an insult to their intelligence when the issue is more than likely not that they are stupid or otherwise can't learn, rather the far more likely root case is that the game failed to properly educate and make it clear what it will be expecting of you in the first place.

In fact, based on your later posts and your supposed desire to talk about game design...I'm somewhat flabbergasted that your post completely avoids all of the things I actually said.

 

Let's work with this. The boss's big thing is beams.

So, how about having some spots where mining lasers are blocking your path, which do heavy-heavy damage if you blunder into them. Set up a couple different ways...

• Have NPCs set up to tell you specifically that the mining lasers are out of control, perhaps offer cryptic hinty advice for clearing them.
• Start with some lasers on "pulse" settings, shutting off every couple seconds. Slip by them normally. This introduces you to the laser idea.
• One horizontal laser can be unavoidable in a tunnel, on a "pulse" setting, firing a burst every few seconds. The NPC warns you that you can hear the laser charging. "If I just had something to block with..." This sets up the idea of using the shield to block.
• Another set on pulse, but one or two are blocked by rocks, leaving small areas of cover. If CF sets cover in the boss room.
• Perma-on lasers that you need to block with mining hatches wired to levers somewhere nearby. Then, in the boss room, there can be one or two hatches that stay open normally, but temporarily close if you get to one side and throw the switch, blocking the boss beam.
• The "use the mining cannon as a weapon" needs some telegraphing. So simply have a section where you need to turn on a similar cannon to clear a rubble pile or something.

I think also it probably wouldn't hurt to give us a slightly-less WHOA GEEZE sub-boss somewhere before we even get to the mining base. Not everyone's gonna run into a planetary rando sub-boss.

 

It doesn't have to be "easy" but it definitely needs to be more forgiving. In almost every plat-former I've play I never took my first encounter with the "first" boss as "he is gonna be a push over. Lets go back to the games of old, where it was usually two, or more hits to kill you. Sometimes just one but the games life system put you back in the fight. Some of these games would let you heal after that first hit, my example would be sonic as you pick up a single ring and you can take two hits again. Currently the Crystal boss in this game doesn't let you heal after hit. Yes, you can use band-aids and a food buff, but I find myself being hit with another laser before that even heals 30hp. In addition most first boss's give you plenty of time to think after getting hit even while dodging there attacks. This boss for me at least doesn't give me time to think "Okay how did I mess that up?" or "How can I dodge this better?".
Because by the time that thought ends (while getting healed mind you) I get hit again and die and have to start the whole level over.

Yes I understand you have to prepare for this boss. I did that big time because I was expecting non-nerfed UFO experience. Which actually gives me an advantage over first timers. Cause I'm expecting over powering things. However even before the UFO boss was hp nerfed I manage to beat him, by building an arena just for him with plenty places to rest in-case of damage. This boss the most I can do is make the gear I'm limited to crafting, hope one of the planets have a purple weapon, unlock all 3 techs available to me, and cook food which as far as I can tell all has the same buff (I may be wrong on that last part)

You know what I want that first UFO back I could at least beat that.

 

The UFO comes later.

Not all food does the same buff and your weapon quality makes little difference on the boss fight since you don't use them on it. Use a shield and a 2 handed sword, both can block. I think the 2 handed sword is even better tbh.

Last time I died on this boss it was cause I accidentally fell from the top, ended up with one bar of health from the fall... and took a laser before I had a chance to heal.