Upbeat Giraffe

WorkHorse · Feb 27, 2015

Yeah, if the late game is mostly about exploration and building we really need a better UI for navigation.

DarthTrethon · Feb 27, 2015

Izzabelle said: ↑

Firstly, let me just say. OMG. Upbeat Giraffe is amazing. It really shows progress in where the game is going, and it no longer feels like a "bare bones" sort of game. Finally, there's some content to mess around with. I understand more is coming -- but I thought I'd throw in my two cents after having finally pushed through the standard progression of the game.

1. Combat
Combat feels great. Vastly improved over the old system. I hate combat, btw. But in this system -- with the new block and parry mechanics, I find myself holding my own a bit more. But I still have issues with it.

I feel that there isn't enough reward in the way of "perfect" parrying or blocking. It leaves me passively holding my shield or using my 2H'r to parry. And while new combat is more engaging, it's still not quite there as far as immediate combat rewards go. So here's my suggestion to improve combat.

When you perform a perfect block/parry, a few things can happen (dependent on the shield/weapon).

Regain some health

Push back your opponent

Reflect projectile

Deal damage

Now, there's more reason to seek a perfect block/parry -- because it provides an additional combat benefit or benefits. Regeneration would keep you in the fight against nastier enemies. Pushback gives you breathing room to decide on your next move. Reflecting projectiles rewards you further for watching your timing. Dealing damage gives an opportunity to focus on a tanky build path. It doesn't have to be one reaction or another -- a legendary shield/weapon could possess all of the perfect reactions.

2. Inventory
You're killing me, Chucklefish. You're killing me. Inventory management needs a complete "look-at".

There are just so many items. And for some people, that's not a big deal. But for the players who focus on building -- and hoard everything for their architecture needs, we usually end up with ships/planets just full of storage items. Storage items everywhere. Combine it with the fact that dirt (or most natural materials, really) can come in near every color, and take up a whole item slot per color, natural blocks can end up really convoluting your inventory.

I mentioned this before in my first impressions feedback -- but let's get some more storage on our character. We'll call it additional Hammerspace.

Firstly, we don't need "send to trash". We know the red trash can is "delete item". Make way for new hammerspace storage. I added my own icons for categorization.

Misc Pack

Food / Crops

Blocks

Decorative Items

Ore & Gems

Vanity

These don't have to be set in stone, either. It'd be nice if you could right-click on the icon to change the icon's appearance. That way you can categorize your hammerspace as you wish.

Additionally -- I recommend only starting with Misc Pack, Food / Crops, and the Blocks categories available by default. The additional storage categories can be unlocked via quests; "Expanding Hammerspace I", "Expanding Hammerspace II", etc etc. I don't think it's enough though...

It'd be nice to actually expand how many items each space can store. The end result would look something like this:

I know, get hyped right? This would help a lot. It really would. But the goal is to help cut down on clutter altogether. This helps us deal with items NOW. But this is still an incomplete game. How many items (saplings, weapons, blocks, decorations, etc etc) are we going to have to expect down the road? By 1.0, you'll be drowning us, Chucklefish. Unless you give us MOAR space!...

So expand the locker too. You can tie it to ship upgrades or to their own quests. You could possibly even right-click the icons and set your own here too if you want to fully customize how you organize things.

I don't think this will solve all inventory woes for all time. But it sure as hell will help out. And it seems fun to be able to upgrade your carry space.

Sidenote: The crafting stations need better organization.

You're killing me, guys. This list (and others) needs to be sorted in a way that makes at least a little bit of sense. My OCD (but not really OCD) freaks out when I see this. An "auto-sort" button would help too.

3. Blocks
This kind of goes hand in hand with Inventory. There's a lot of new blocks. But the player is still limited on which blocks they can craft. And now, a lot of dungeons have block guards, making collecting blocks that much more annoying. Chucklefish...

10 Blocks of "Block Type" for 500 Pixels or something. The quantity and cost don't much matter to me so much as the ability to be able to produce blocks does.

With so many new block types -- it's time to take a look at those blocks and begin to introduce them to the 3D printer, or to various crafting stations.

4. Farming
I love farming. It's not everyone's cup of tea -- but I love making huge farms, collecting and growing all of the crops. But as much as I love farming. It is still too passive of an activity. To me, farming still feels "bare bones". A lot of the components for farming are in place; crops, ingredients, food & buffs. But the "engaging" aspect of farming is absent. Aside from adding something like "Frackin Flora", I think some improvements can be made.

Fertilizer
Fertilizer could be a means of placing blocks to till which, when planted on, would increase a crop's yield (get 3-5 corn instead of 1-3). Different fertilizers could affect the yield in different ways
Watering
Introduce a watering can. Super simple activity which would allow crops to grow faster for being watered Neglected crops would dry out and produce little to no yields and no seeds. Drier or hotter planets/stars would dry out crops more quickly. A crop would have "stages of famine" before it becomes "dried out" so you have a chance to water it. You could even introduce a sprinkler item that would water a crop every time it reaches a new stage of "famine" -- for the players who still want to be passive about their farming.
Blight
Introduce an anti-contagion emitter (think of it like a flashlight) and have crops get sick with Blight. A sick crop would grow at half the normal rate, produce no seeds, a toxic variant of the crop, and potentially spread to other nearby planted crops. Crops could be at a higher risk of getting sick being on radioactive or toxic planets. Like with "Famine", crops would have stages of "Blight" so you can respond appropriately. There are two responses to Blight; 1. care for the sick crop with the Anti-Contagion Emitter until the crop can be harvested or 2. destroy the crop. The "stage" of Blight can not be reduced or removed, so to prevent Blight from advancing and spreading, you must actively use the Emitter on the crop in question. Like with watering, you could also introduce an item (late-late-late-game) that will automatically emit Anti-Contagion to preserve your crops.
Super Crops
The upside of tending to your sick crops is that they have a low chance to yield a super seed. Super seeds grow into their appropriate super crop. Super crops are immune to Blight, produce higher yields of crops and seeds, and grow at twice the normal rate. When the super crop is removed, it will always return one super seed. Super crops will only grow on special tilled blocks of nutrient solution -- which could also regenerate your energy and health as you stand on them. Different nutrient solutions act like fertilizer, and affect growth time, yield rates, and regenerative properties. You have to craft nutrient solutions using a myriad of crafting materials.

My suggestion might not be worth the time, but farming still needs to be improved. It must be actively engaging as well as rewarding. The cooking aspect simply isn't enough (though highly appreciated and welcome).

5. Hunger

Hunger needs to come back for all difficulties. WAIT. PLEASE. DON'T THROW ROCKS AT ME! Hear me out.

Hunger is one aspect that made farming engaging. Without the hunger system, farming is for cooking, and cooking is for buffs -- and you don't actually need buffs to progress through the game -- which means you don't actually need cooking or farming. It's a "vanity" activity. Hunger validates the production and preparation of food items.

On lower difficulties, hunger could be present -- but your stomach would become empty at a much slower, hardly noticeable, rate. That way you don't have to commit to making a megafarm, and can easily survive off of found crops and food items. On higher difficulties though, you need to invest more time in your food collection or growth. Certain foods can actually have properties that keep you full for longer, or reduce (temporarily) the rate at which you become hungry.

Hunger validates all of the food items and their progression. It also attaches some significance to having a home planet.

6. Underground
The micro-dungeons and the ore-rocks make a world of difference. The underground doesn't feel so empty anymore. But...

I still think there's room here to flesh out underground exploration further. A lot of the micro-dungeons feel quite empty. A bit more "life" to them would help. Add some trapped miners, ancient ruins with tales of a civilization's demise scribbled in a codex, or some shady NPC's looking to sell you some unexpected loot.

The silence here is jarring. Add some underground tracks for suspense, exploration, discovery, or even claustrophobia -- help set the tone here in the underground. The mining noises are a welcome comfort, but more needs to be implemented.

The quantity of variation has been met here. The quality now needs to be to be tuned.

7. Navigation
Planet navigation is still a little bit of a mess. IMO, navigation is the least polished aspect of the game and still, in many ways, feels like it's stuck in the "bare bones" category.

Currently, planet, system, and star selection screens feel very... *sigh* "Alpha". As though they were drawn up and made to show me what they would do in the game, but despite their functionality -- they completely lack the polish that the rest of the game exhibits and continues to acquire. There's a lot that can be done with a navigation screen, even if you just refer to sci-fi movies (Prometheus?! The Fifth Element? Titan A.E.!?).

I like the planet descriptions and the weather icons. But they need to be better presented. The icons for one could use tool tips. I get the jist of them through best guess, but that's hardly helpful by default.

Tool tips, bookmarks, sorting planets, tracking, flagging, better sprite work -- the next big update needs to cover a lot of navigation's flaws. More needs to be done, because this area of the game is not keeping pace with the standard that the rest is setting.

Edit: This is what I am talking about...

This screenshot is hyper-polished, and as the game looks better and better, the navigation screens look less and less fitting. The star map at the top in particular is gorgeous and akin to what I expect when entering a sci-fi navigation screen.

Making the navigation screens more in line with the quality of this screen needs to happen.

8. Monsters
Check this out:

Do you know what the flying monsters in this gif are? They're flying monsters. This illustrates one of the biggest problems with Starbound currently. Because the monsters are all nameless faces of randomly joined parts -- they're just kind of background noise. They have no presence. At least with quested boss fights, players are finally attaching some significance to Bosses. But monsters? Kill or skip -- who cares.

Every planet (tropical, ice, arid, etc etc) should have a handful of NAMED monsters, that have their own identity, are not randomly generated, and present some sort of unique threat to the player (apply this to underground as well). This will help breathe some life into the planets, as players can actually have some legitimate starbound-brand monsters to discuss.

Additionally -- we need more things to happen. Events or conditions that alter our experience or our environment. A planetary alignment that causes void portals to open, spewing forth an alien invasion? A giant mech that lands from orbit and initiates a fight? Dance party? Virus outbreaks? Haunted Ships? Blacked-out planets? More things to happen please.

9. Bosses

Ho.Ly. Shit. Tone the damage on these guys down. I understand some bosses are meant to be difficult. But I never get to "beat" a boss. I only "survive" my boss encounters. The difference? I don't fight any of the bosses -- you can't really -- you just get in a cheap shot where and when you can, and make sure you're defensively equipped and stocked with enough healing items to weather the storm. With the exception of the first boss fight (which I'll talk about in a second), every fight feels like a "turtle up" and "outlast" your opponent. The damage is so high, that the window to actually "fight" these bosses is too low. In most cases, you can survive being hit around 4 times. Less depending on your armor choice/availability. And a lot of the boss attack patterns will "hit" your character twice in quick succession because of hitbox and hit recovery parameters, again making the window to fight back very small.

Granted, some bosses are easier than others. And some players are more skilled than others. I consider myself to be an especially bad platformer player (it makes the 1st boss my most hated enemy). But regardless of skill, the numbers need to be tuned on some of these guys. One wrong move, and the Penguin Mech and Dreadwing can lock you into an instant-death situation -- simply because they can cause immediate damage based on your hit recovery time. Nothing to do with a second attack or a barrage of attacks. Just an unfortunate happenstance of causing high amounts of damage on contact or in close proximity.

There needs to be some counter play. Time given in a boss fight where a player has adequate time to heal, counter attack, or dodge. These windows of counter play exist currently, but as I said -- right now, because of the high damage, the window of counter play is small and almost entirely restricted to healing and/or dodging.

That said -- it is quite the rush to actually defeat a boss. When I finally defeated the first boss, I had to stop playing the game and just unwind.

Regardless of the adrenaline high and victory rush you get from defeating these bosses. The bosses need to be a little less Dark Souls and brought more in line with challenging, but rewarding difficulty. Right now, they are simply frustrating. Sorry for being a casual.

10. Conclusion
Upbeat Giraffe brings Starbound a ton of content. A ton of meat to have on the "bare bones". But I feel, in many areas, the game needs some "life" now. The quality of the content needs to be improved and polished. Quests help with this a little. I think if all of my suggestions are listened to and my feedback taken, the game should shape up to be an incredibly rewarding experience -- as opposed to a hat-hunting activity

I can't wait to see what else is in store. Everything is still coming along quite nicely. Thanks for your time. Sorry for the super long post.
Click to expand...

My opinions on all the points you made:

1) Combat: Would be nice to sweeten some parts of combat like blocking as you mentioned but I think combat is pretty great as it is now so if they don't do it I won't particularly mind.
2) Inventory: absolutely agree....on every last bit.
3) Blocks: Completely agree here too....would love to be able to craft all the block types and have the inventory space for them.
4) Farming....this I don't agree with at all, I would hate to have to worry about watering, crop disease and so on. I love the way Frakin Flora enhances farming with research and additional plant creation and weapons/armor rewards and so on....that is perfect....but I really don't like your realism oriented ideas.
5) Hunger: really don't care for it, the healing/buff system we have now is perfect in my opinion.
6) Underground: I fully agree, it has traps now so when they become functional it sill add a bit of spice but adding some mini-bosses to these dungeons would be sweet too.
7) Navigation: It would be ideal to have a super awesome star map and all but I wouldn't mind a whole lot if things stay this way either.
8) Monsters: yes but I think they are about to do this anyway as they are working to replace the mini-bosses....but I agree.
9) Bosses: I agree they are in desperate need of re-balancing.....but whatever, I'll make do regardless.
10) Yes, the quests we have now are all about to go away I thing except maybe for the tutorial ones so this is one of those let's wait and see the new system kind of things.

Ateerix · Feb 27, 2015

I agree with everything stated here, but I absolutely agree with the monsters point. It's an impressive bit of the game, what with how many combinations and unique looking creatures you can find, but because there is never any that are just common that you'd see all the time, none of them are unique and special. Like Syndrome from The Incredibles said: When everyone is special, no one is. Convert this to the monsters and you have the general feeling towards them.

There needs to be common mobs that you would find associated with each biome (preferable) or planet type. They need to spawn the majority of the time, and the procedurally generated creatures need to spawn a lot less frequently compared to the common mobs. It's impressive and all, the amount of creatures that can be generated and spawn, but I honestly just don't care for any of them, because they are gone in an instant, replaced by a thousand others.

iBloodLust · Feb 28, 2015

Well, I can agree with you on somethings, but I can't agree with you on the rest. As far as combat, shields really don't need a buff. I find an insignificant difference between blocking and tanking in a damage from many of the NPCs. Most of the enemy NPCs I visit deal less than 20 damage to me.

Instead there needs to be a way for enemy NPCs to scale up with the player's tier. Chucklefish decided to go the hard way, and ignore XP and leveling up, while I think that would've been a great idea. My idea is that for each level until the max, you gain attribute points that can be used to upgrade your attributes( basic attack damage, speed, hp, resistance,and energy). So let's say each levels grants you 20 attribute points, and the max level is 30. You can make your character tank in alot of damage by building hp and resistance, or be able to endure battles longer by just building energy and speed. For example with the attack damage attribute, when you put like 20 points into this attribute, all weapons used by the player grant a +20 damage bonus. I think this will do nicely when you want to include vanity weapons.

Armors and weapons should get massive nerfs/buffs too. I find it hard when two players who have the same tier and same armor on just duel it out with their tier-crafted weapons, they literally take in 1-10 damage per hit. Also since they got advanced tech that lets you regenerate hp/energy really quickly in battle and dodge projectiles, it's going to be a LONG battle. And it's sort of not fair for players that are on the same tier and have the same armor to duel while the other player has a weapon that deals over 4000 dmg a hit. I'm thinking of a limit to how much damage all weapons do. Also weapons that have the ability to pierce through blocks(like a hollow point bullet that can destroy sand blocks) would be a nice feature.

Yet again, I don't expect for Chucklefish to make these changes anytime soon.Well far from soon. The developers of Starbound are adding Llama suits and pigs instead of actually fixing any issues. Atleast most of the development team from where I looked at it don't care too much about the issues. They still didn't optimize the game, fix in-game network problems or fix crashing. Please don't rant to me and say "The game is in Early Access, these issues will be fixed in the future." When it took the developers took a YEAR to release a major update that didn't even fix one of the three issues as described above.

Izzabelle · Feb 28, 2015

iBloodLust said: ↑

Yet again, I don't expect for Chucklefish to make these changes anytime soon.Well far from soon. The developers of Starbound are adding Llama suits and pigs instead of actually fixing any issues. Atleast most of the development team from where I looked at it don't care too much about the issues. They still didn't optimize the game, fix in-game network problems or fix crashing. Please don't rant to me and say "The game is in Early Access, these issues will be fixed in the future." When it took the developers took a YEAR to release a major update that didn't even fix one of the three issues as described above.
Click to expand...

Let's not get off-topic. This paragraph is pretty irrelevant to the discussion points I've brought up.

Rudette · Feb 28, 2015

I enjoy and appreciate all the beautiful content to come with Upbeat Giraffe myself, and I definitely understand where you're coming from when it comes to hunger.!

But I do feel some pangs of restlessness when I play, and for a while I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
But I think it -is- the absence the of motivations that stem from the missing temperature and hunger.

I would love for survival mechanics to make a comeback in some form or another myself!

I feel the pleasure that comes from a sandbox game is derived from setting a series of personal goals for yourself.
Rather they are big or small.

Without the inherent dangers and thrill, exploration looses it's excitement, it's awe, and it's gratification.
---but, most importantly, those aforementioned personal goals and self-set achievements.

First Planet, With Hunger & Temperature:

*Scout
*Gather wood & Stone.
*Workbench & Furnace.
*Construct a shelter. (for protection against cold/cold nights/bad weather/hazardous weather/horrible monsters.)
*Build fires/torches/furnaces to light and heat your shelter and work areas.
*You make items and engage at activities that make your stay sustainable (Building a bed, small farm, warm clothes ect.)
*Construct basic storage near your work space.
*Round up enough food, torches, wood platforms, and tools for a mining trip.
*Explore the underground.
*Mine for ores.
*Anvil
*Iron Armor
*Core Fragments.
*Leave

First Planet, Without Hunger & Temperature:

*Scout.
*Gather wood and stone.
*Workbench + Furnace
*Mine.
*Get ore.
*Anvil
*Iron Armor
*Core Fragments.
*Leave.

General Starbound, With Hunger & Temperature:

*Tech up, so you can progress through the story, quests, and missions.
*Tech up, to conquer the cold!
*Tech up, conquer various hazards!
*Tech up, build large farms, Conquer your hunger!
*Incentive/motivation to play with all the new foods.
*Show up on a planet, overcome all of the problems, monsters, and hazards that it may present.
*Break that planet---make it your own!

General Starbound, Without Hunger & Temperature:

*Tech up, so you can progress through the story, quests, and missions.
*Tech up, ultimately for access to new ores.
*Arrive at planet. Planet isn't hostile. Someone has been here, and broken it for you.
*Gather ore, progress through tiers of weapons and armor.

Conclusion:

Without having to face and fight the environment and your own needs you have little reason to stop and smell the roses on your first planet or any that do not possess the resources you are after.
Nor does it feel like any big accomplishment to conquer it.
The universe at large feels less hostile. Less confrontational. Less alive, as a direct result.

I don't want to feel like I'm just here to fast-track through tiers of weapons of armor to progress towards the next chunk of content---
I want take time to sidetrack from that, to explore, to overcome and conquer! To find hostile planets to overcome, to find people who need my help, to find dungeons that need raiding!

But, as things stand, your goal is to get off that first rock and get to bigger and better things as quickly as possible without time to enjoy how new and fresh each start has the potential to be.
Then, when you hit the universe at large, you still feel like you're in hurry because there is little reason to linger.

You get to enjoy the story, the boss fights, the quests---all these wonderful things.. Fantastic things.
But there is contradiction--the blatant irony--that while the outpost is full of life, and has single handedly injected a lot of life into Starbound, the rest of the universe feels empty.

I apologize if I'm coming off as overly negative, it's not my intention. I really don't mean to because there is much love for this game, but I also don't think it would be fair to mask how I feel.

jaraji · May 12, 2015

I agree to your post.
Hunger and cold were what drives me on. I know I am replying late, but hey it was an amazing post for saying that.

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Upbeat Giraffe

WorkHorse Subatomic Cosmonaut

DarthTrethon Spaceman Spiff

Ateerix Pangalactic Porcupine

iBloodLust Intergalactic Tourist

Izzabelle Former Staff

Rudette Void-Bound Voyager

jaraji Void-Bound Voyager

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WorkHorse Subatomic Cosmonaut

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