Voxel Banking, Why the Theft?

This is exactly the issue I have with stupid harsh penalties like this. It's not fun to constantly worry about my "precious pixels." I just want to explore and find new things. But I can't do that because someone thought it would be "fun" or "interesting" to lose psychotic amounts of money at every turn. Why disincentivize exploration by adding a huge price tag to it? Why SHOULD the thought cross my mind that going through some ruins might not be worth the cost? That's total crap. That doesn't encourage fun or spontaneity. It encourages me to sit at home on my level 1 home world all day because there's no risk of me dying there.

These draconic penalties for death (and the equally draconic penalties--penalties!--for saving money) are totally misguided and absurd.

 

Clearly you are being sarcastic, but strangely you are also bang on the button. This loss of time is all the death penalty that is needed. As you say pixel loss is just another loss of time, but it is far too harsh as it has the potential to negate hours of your work just for a simple mistake. Spend 3 hours exploring the depths of a planet, and woops I got knocked back into the lava by a level 1 mouse monster and say bye bye to 1 hours worth of pixels. At this point I would just quit the game and would probably not come back - too frustrating.

 

Here's my issue with the huge tax -

What happens when you have to "unpack" those pixels to get at them?

Oh, that's right. You've gotta pay the tax, again, to repack anything leftover. Which leaves me with the question of why banking anything over 1k at a time is worth it.

 

I personally do not see the issue even if they ramp the pixel costs of everything sky high there isnt a shortage of the stuff even without the pixel bank method.

Sector 1 - Pixels are only an issue until around Arm 5 then you have various planets lvl 1-4 you can run round and farm without much death risk.
This story continues well into the lvl 15+

Unlock the Refinery -
Now Pixels are Easy Just mine those ores up smelt them into bars for storage. Refine when you have a shortage of Pixels . Have excess pixels and no plans to spend convert into Pixels Bars. (ie from loot runs)
Personally I think the Combination of the Refinery and The Pixel Bar will give mining the much needed added value again if the prices for armor/weapons increase


Anyway Pixels Bar vs Death

1000 pixels - 40% = 600 pixels rate for bar exchange

1000 pixels - 30% = 700 pixels
700 pixels - 30% = 490 pixels
490 pixels - 30% = 353 pixels

So only three Deaths and you would have lost 647 pixels vs 400 which is 62% worse than the bar method
Also there has been no selling methods in game so far which will favor the Bar method even more with single stacking loot items and not wanting to fill your stashes

 

Then that's your fault. Think about it in terms of minecraft, if you go mining for three hours and you die, you dont just lose a few items, you lose all of it. Think of it this way, if you really want to keep your pixels, go back and bank. Want to make sure you dont die from lava? Cover it up or just stay away from it. Want to make sure that mob doesnt bother you? Play safer and avoid them, or kill them at long range.

You guys are acting like the only death penalty should be time, but that works both ways, why walk all the way back to the surface when I can commit suicide and teleport where I need to be? What is the alternative? Either you play smart and gian a lot of pixels by risking when it's appropriate and banking when it's too risky, or you just rush into things recklessly and get punished for it. Would you rather just have everyone hoard so many pixels that the thought of an in-game economy is laughable? Where you could buy with pixels thousands of furniture items at a time, just so you end up getting bored because there's no challenge? At that point you're no longer working for what you want. Your nice little cottage means nothing because it took no work and no time to create, just a lot of money that you never have to risk.

 

I get a very strong feeling that this will be patched out almost as soon as it's patched in. The pixel loss seems fine now. I don't think it needs to go up and I don't think that adding a bank with a crazy tax will balance a increase in pixel loss, but lets try it out see how it works before laying final judgment.

 

In Minecraft it is easy enough to just make sure you are carrying the bare necessities before you go exploring in dangerous places; just dump the rest in a chest. Even then, you can almost always retrieve any lost items provided you were careful around lava (this is the only case where care is really needed). If Minecraft deleted 40% of the items you put in any chest, then people would probably complain.

 

Pixels are about as hard to get in starbound as wheat seeds are in minecraft.

 

Look at the facts: the devs are introducing a banking penalty and raising the death penalty. In other words they want pixels to be valuable, otherwise those penalties are meaningless. If pixels are too easy to get currently, in this early beta, do you honestly think it is going to stay that way given the above? I guarantee that pixel drops will be balanced, and that there will be more things to buy at later levels.

 

Then that's good, I'm also sure the jars will increase in size depending on planet level. I want them to be valuable. It's a currency, that is why it exists. Just add pixel trading so players can spend them with other players and I'm happy with the current system.

 

If it becomes valuable then a 40% banking penalty and a 30% death penalty is far too high. 99% of people will bank their pixels, and the net effect is equivalent to a 40% reduction in pixel drop rate, only with additional heartache and annoyance. The devs should just cut the drop rate by 40% and remove the banking tax entirely.

 

Honestly I dislike the idea, either way I will lose loads or have to stop exploring as much. I would rather have a system with a harsher penalty (like 50% money lost on death) and free banking to encourage returning to store my money and such. Also if it is stored I can't use that money to buy stuff since I don't have it on me. This really discourages me from getting pixels but just mining loads and refining it into pixels when I need money and completely devalues money for me and makes ore much more valuable. If I lose money either way then I have minimal reason to get money except when I need it so I never will take risks that heavily limits my game play.
I see this more as a way of punishing people who work for pixels and put the value of ore and such up since I will just refine when I need money and completely ignore money at other times. I tend to play carefully but a lag spike on multiplayer can and will often kill me. Why would I even want to have money if I am going to lose at least 30% whenever I have it. Ore will likely become the currency players, if I want to sell a player something I wouldn't want pixels from them since I know I would just lose them so I would want ore. There is no real benefit of ever getting pixels except when I need to craft or buy something from an npc.

I have likely repeated myself a lot but I really can't agree with this, either way you lose with pixels but with ore you are in a situation where it is a safe bank. I could just carry a refinery with me so when I find something I want to buy I just get the pixels with no risk. I wouldn't even bother with pixel banking due to the fact I wouldn't ever want to have a lot of pixels. This discourages getting pixels at all. I would never really have risk if I just accepted that any pixels gained is worthless and ore is the real currency.

 

With free banking, you would merely have the illusion of choice. It would be stupid not to utilize it.

Anywho, curious how the withdrawal system would work. Seems like a waste for anything higher than 1k voxels. Hey, I need 2500 pixels. I could withdraw 3 of my 1k's, and have a little left over, or I could withdraw my 10k, and then take a massive loss redepositing the leftovers again. Perhaps being able to withdraw user definable amounts would be the way to go. I deposit 10k at 40% loss, but can choose to withdraw 3,452 pixels from the total amount, or any variable therein, etc.

 

Perhaps thoughts are in order?
Firstly, it's not a "bank", it's a Pixel Compressor. No machine is 100% perfect, there is *ALWAYS* a loss of energy, materials, or similar (Even for nuclear-powered robotic maids, like myself). 40% is a perfectly fine drop in Pixels to compress yourself a few Voxels.

Secondly, if you die Twice, *EVER* you'd have lost more, percentage wise, than if you had used the Compressor. Essentially, if you never die, or you die once, it's alright. If you died a second time, your percentage says you lost 51% of your pixels, and therefore, a lot more than you would have lost merely by compressing your pixels and storing them on your ship safely.

Thirdly, It is not hard to acquire more pixels. any planet with threat level 7 or higher has a great deal of Pixels laying about its dungeons or towns, if you only think to look. I actually have over 35K pixels on Mystwing alone, and I'd love nothing more than to compress them, as I want to advance into higher planets, but I'd rather not like to die 3 times or more, which I know will happen.

TL;DR: It's not banking, it's compressing. It's better to compress and store than die twice EVER in Starbound, and it takes literally 15 minutes to walk off a planet with thousands of pixels.

Best part? No one is forcing you to use the Compressor! The next patch will contain that, an Ore and Combat re-balance, and a great deal many good things. Perhaps wait and see before immediately saying that it's a bad idea? Frankly, I think it's a good idea. If you lose 30% on death, but compression strips 40% away, I'll stick with Compressing. if it took less pixels to compress than it took from dying, then it would be far to simple, everyone would compress, and only lose less pixels than if they had merely held the pixels on them. Frankly, the Pixel Compressor is a great idea, in all senses of the word. It's simple: if you don't like it, don't use it.

 

I just see it as proper risk/reward. It is a little bit like gambling yourself but hey, if I bet on anyone its going to be me.

By removing the fee you remove any question as to use the compressor or not. That is silly, because at that point you just remove the pixel at death entirely and you have simplified the game and made the same effective change. If you make the fee less than the pixel loss on death you are also removing the question to use it or not. Tiy is right in his reasoning as to why it needs to be more than a death, but not more than 2.

 

It's called a "trade off".

You can always just keep them, be careful and not die.

How about that?

 

The problem is that I find pixels as a worthless thing to keep if everything about them has a penalty, I will just use ore as my currency instead and carry a refinery, it discourages me to want to have pixels since I will lose them no matter what, there is no benefit for having any pixels except when I want to use them hence carrying a refinery. It devalues the default currency since there is no real appeal of it, it is a lose / lose situation, there is no real choice to the matter since a player who dies more will be forced to store it more (or completely ignore it as a valuable thing) and the one that dies less wouldn't see the need to store it (since the use of it is too costly for the gain). This is no safe option except to limit yourself by not exploring a risky planet, I like to just go to some random planet without worrying am I going to lose loads of pixels instead of just the time it takes me to get back on death. Pixels are something that only have the value that you give them, to me this change just makes them worthless since I can't do anything that won't lose them so why would I want them except when I need them (hence the refinery use).
There is no real trade off for keeping on you or storing since either way you are going to lose at least 30% of them, it is also not just a 1 cost thing, I take out 1k of pixels stored to buy something costing 500, then I will lose another 40% of them to store them again. That means it is hugely expensive to store them constantly. I like the aspect in Terraria that I will lose 50% on death (with chance to recover it) but can store them safely, it doesn't make money worthless but increases the value of surviving till you can store them and the uses for it are generally costly so I want to store it. I would rather have a positive solution of money than just giving it no value so I simply don't care if I lose it. There is currently minimal trade off for having money with this system and only getting it as you need to use it, since you will lose massive amounts either way.

 

I know it probably feels like I'm cheapening your post with such a short response but: There is nothing that guarantees you lose pixels. You can not die, and that is a valid solution to not wanting to be taxed. ALso as long as there are NPC vendors pixels will have a value.

 

Maybe is just me, but I don't see any fun in this kind of risk/reward....

I will be more ok with a penalty of loosing the 100% of pixels when dying. The only thing with this *banking system* I see is the game laughing at me "HA-HA you die 2 times you should have bank your pixels" or "HA-HA you die just one time you shouldn't bank your pixels".

I really prefer any other way, lost 100% of pixels, permanent death, drop objects when die... anything but this thing that laugh at you if you make the wrong decision, is not even changeling or funny, is just frustrating.

I see the best solution is the "Dropping pixels" option. When die you loose 50% - 70% or 100% but you can come back and take back 100% or 15% of the pixels lost. That mechanic give you funny money-rescue missions, dangerous missions because you have to face what kill you and fight for your money. I can't understand why they don't want to implement this mechanic in the game, would be very nice.

 

You could just carry the Voxel Box around with you and bank as you go.
But I think you're focusing a bit too much on the pixel loss from banking. You said you're still in Alpha sector, as you have other obligations in life. But have you had time to clear dungeons, NPC villages and prisons? Because those net at least 3k pixels per run. Once you start getting heavily into exploration there's no lack of pixels at all, as monster drops are a very small percentage of what you'll get. Say you're only using the 1000 pixel Voxels. That's only a 400 pixel loss, something that's easily recouped by some simple exploration.