This is how to fix the first boss, it's not about difficulty, it's about quest text.

Did you know that you're supposed to travel to the other planets in your starting quadrant (multiple solar systems), gather loot and schematics BEFORE fighting the boss?
I sure didn't, because the game treats the distress beacon quest as the end of the TUTORIAL, which it most certainly is NOT.

There really needs to be more of a clear wording in the quest text.
Something like this.
"When you've explored the other solar systems and planets, geared yourself up with awesome loot, then you MAY be ready to risk activating the distress beacon.. Beware.."

It's an "end-early-game" quest, it's something you do after you already spent a dozen hours ingame to the point where you can handle threat level 9 planets with NO issues. Which, i fail to see how it would be possible.
This is something we as beta testers had no clue about, because as i said, the game puts that quest right at the end of the TUTORIAL. Making you believe it's another "easy breasy" tutorial quest to teach you about, idk, making contact with other ships or upgrading your ship. How could we know?

So it's a matter of quest text wording rather than difficulty.
Well, i guess it IS a matter of difficulty too since you can't craft more advanced stuff before taking it out, unless you find unique loot in dungeons.
it's a case of, you actually can't really progress as far as the game thinks you should.
How can we handle threat level 9 planets (and hence, lvl 10 machine gun penguins) if we can't craft anything better than 5 def armor (which doesn't appear to work, you always only have 5 def total, the armor pieces don't add up.

 

I'm all for surprises, but this boss fight seems more like trolling "hah! got ya!" than preparing a genuine challenge for the player.

I felt pretty prepared my first go. I was one-shotting everything on the planet... like OP said, they don't tell you that you need to go elsewhere first. Instead, they let the boss wipe the floor with you until you die repeatedly in cheap one hit KOs (mine was as soon as I beamed back down) until it eventually decides that killing you is not worth it's measly time and wanders off, bored. Then, you get the lovely realization that the 30 iron and 30 copper you just spent ages mining is gone, hah, jokes on you. Hmm, doesn't sound like good game design to me...

My time spent becoming introduced to Starbound was wonderful up until that moment. But this is beta, and this is something that DEFINITELY needs to be fixed.

 

If I understood it correctly in the final game there would be a build up to each sectors boss encounter to unlock the next sector through story missions. So the current difficulty probably a) is not balanced and b) is most likely tuned for a later point in game than most attempt it right now for the first time. It is extremely unlikely they intend you to unlock beta sector without leaving your starting world, the reason why you can summon the boss right now is because the mission content is not done.

 

There should be a quest inbetween that requires you to explore 10 other planets.

 

This sounds good, but the quest text should be ammended for the beta to make it clear that the boss is going to murderate you if you craft the beacon before you make yourself better gear.

 

What happened to having no fuel, thus needing the distress beacon to call for help? I think this needs to be lowered in terms of difficulty, i had to spend the materials twice in a row and it's way overpowered, with just the spaceship it'd be tough enough and even possible if it would not run away randomly.... but the penguins just made it stupidly impossible.

 

I'd say the tutorial should tell you how to refuel your ship before that.

As I didn't view very much playthroughs before getting ingame, I was totally unaware how to put fuel in my ship and I guessed I had to create the beacon in order to have fuel.
No need to say that I was helpless when I found out what pandora box I opened when I activated it.

The worst part is that I still didn't knew I could refuel my ship, and I had no idea how I could possibly get that UFO down until I googled a bit

 

I just explored 2 other solar systems, landed on just 3 other planets (nothing, compared to how much there is in the first sector/quadrant).
And i found one of the planet mini-bosses (fairly easy to take down, was a threat level 4 desert).

I got the most OP imba skeleton mace, lol. It has 38 damage, 4 armor piercing, 0.98 swing speed (slow, yes), but with the added effect of shooting out 6 bones from the melee attack, that act as cluster bombs dealing 10 damage each.
The amazing thing is, the melee "smash" is so strong that it can clear out a circle of roughly 9x9 blocks in 3 swings, 15 swings or so if it is rock.
Hilarious, i can mine with this weapon if i was patient

Further exploration down the desert planet, to near magma level, revealed an underground mushroom biome and more iron, silver and gold than i had ever seen.
Suddenly the game went from frustrating to amazing.

So yeah, it definetly seems that finding legendary loot is the way forward.

 

Make sure your armor is in the actual armor slots and not the appearance slots, i had my armor in the appearance slots and was wondering why i was getting killed in 2 hits, with armor i was able to take about 10 hits but the ship still has way too much hp.

 

I cannot check the values right now, but I think Iron armor is def 5. after crafting copper armor, I was given recipes for silver armor, wich would then be higher def then Iron.

 

full silver is 10 armor, if you go up against the UFO he will hit you for around 10 damage each time, just tested. Seems like the most viable way to tank him, unfortunately he has 3,000 HP, so you'll have to find something useful to kill him with.

 

But how do you even get up on the canopy to hit his weak point? We can't fly or craft jetpacks yet..

 

The fight isn't too tough even in the start as long as you have the most powerful weapon in the game - dirt. Just surround all the baddies with dirt and wack them with your sword from then other side. Of course the boss barely gets hurt with the starter weapon, so may take a while

 

Correct, this boss quest shows up WAAAY too fast in the tutorial questline.

I guess the missing tuto missions are still placeholders, but this one should appear only after you've acquired suitable gear.

That's a solution, but it's probably not intended to be played this way. Besides, you need one other person to put dirt around it while it stomps another "living beacon"

 

Well, sadly to be fair, Terraria was "meant" to be played like that, by exploiting dirt placement etc to create arenas to fight in, trap the boss, or whatever.
The only aspect of that game that i really disliked.
Would be nice to have a boss fight that is winnable without throwing dirt in everyones face and exploiting pathing..

 

If you dont like trapping the boss, build a bunker for yourself...

Being prepared doesnt just mean get the biggest weapons.

 

I liked making woodplanks arenas to fight Chtulhu First time I beat him I was on my roof, shooting random fire arrows in his general direction . Not efficient but incredibly fun.

 

It will probably be that way in the final game, however... you are playing beta.

A lot of the game is not in final state. Beta is actually just a way to test if servers are ready, and do some serious bug hunting. More players means more different approaches, means more bugs or exploits will be found which can be fixed for the final release.

If you expect a full fledged game experience where you are going to be building up your character carefully then you might want to wait for the final release.

Much, much safer.

 

Do you think succeding at everything on the very first time is a neccesity in a game? It is basicly the end of a beta tutorial. They don't really need to teach you anything else, you can figure it out as you go if you read the text on things.

So someone who would use it for the first time and get hardcore wrecked, would know what awaits him next time and thus prepare better. So what, you wasted 8 iron, thats nothing compared to what you need for the other gear.

 

I look at polls with most people saying that the game's difficulty is just fine as-is, and then people complain about this boss? Learn to dodge, people. All the projectiles move really slow, and can be blocked with dirt. When you figure out how to avoid everything, it becomes a marathon and not a sprint. Still, it has too much HP. A well designed boss should be killed within 5 minutes by players who are properly equipped.