What do you think about the Tier System ? (The Sandbox is no Sandbox)

Major development of Minecraft halted when they realized what they had wasn't a game, it was a blank slate. The modding community blew up so massively they were simply not going to be able to top any of it, and trying to would just end up breaking it. Starbound is far enough along that I think they're going to manage to be a full game and still have that blank slate kind of appeal.

I was making the point in my post that it isn't finished and the progression is still being worked on so you don't need to tell me that. My hope is that anything you can get your hands on in the first sector will be of use to you before you move on to the next tier as Terraria does, but we'll see what the devs have in mind.

 

Ah, so it's that some tiers offer tech you want access to lower?

Taming animals for example: In tier four there's a machine to do it. Not available before. You want to be able to build this before?

So the tier itself isn't the problem. It's that there's stuff you want now and not later in order to fit your play style. Right so far?

But, you can progress to subsequent sectors are your own pace... you just need to fight a boss first. In minecraft I can make any recipe at any time (provided I have the materials). Starbound wants you to have to work for more stuff, not just hand it all to you. I guess its more a difference of creative sandbox and survival/rpg-like sanbox. "Here go build whatever you want" vs "You can build it, but you've got to work for it first!"

(yes it is busy work.. might need to tweaking)

 

It is, but right now not all of the sandbox elements are in yet, and we don't have the full quest system either. Any phase of the beta is the perfect time to give criticism of the current state of the game. You can't just counter criticism with "This is beta, get over it". This isn't just to test the game, it's to give feedback as well.

 

Right. And we are talking about the sandbox elements in this thread. Since the story is not part of this stage of beta anyway, it's a good idea. But in every thread where people share their ideas and of course therefore state that the game is not perfect in it's current state, there's always someone reminding us that this is beta, as if that would forbid such critizism.

It's exactly the reason for this beta. That we tell them what we don't like. And yes, we know that things will change, that's why we are writing this down.

 

Firstly, I would just like to say that I have been loving starbound and that I'm the sort of person that very rarely vents his opinion online... but I really feel like this is a chance we have to turn a great game into something truly awesome.

I think I get what the OP is saying: there is a real feeling of "you must do x in order to access y" about the tier system as it stands now. Why for instance, do we have to defeat the first boss in order to be able to craft silver armor? You can mine silver in tier 1 and build an anvil (which, unless I'm mistaken is all you need to craft it) but cannot access it until a predetermined point in the game. This to me is silly. I understand that there may well be balance issues with the fact that you'd be pretty tough on the starter worlds but this artificial restriction system seems a bit of a cop out if you ask me.

I remember way back in the days of vanilla World of Warcraft how cool it was to be able to explore the whole world. Sure, you got instakilled if you stepped into a zone that was above your level but the fact that you could go there meant that you got a fleeting glimpse of what was around the corner. Strangely, very few other RPGs have done this (I'm thinking of elder scrolls style "the monsters level with you" type thing - which, whilst an entirely subjective and personal opinion, I HATE) in part I feel because of the fear of players not seeing all of the content in the early stages because it becomes boring. I'd just like to take a few minutes to explain why this is rubbish if I may:

Early content is meant to show you how a game works in a fun way rather than with endless manuals and tutorials. This currently happens in Starbound but in a way that is rather restrictive if you ask me (I'm well aware that this will probably change but as a "Beta Tester" I can only comment on what I currently experience). Anyway, currently, you are expected to perform a strict set of tasks before you face a boss and then you can explore more of the game. Right? So, in order for you to discover new content, you essentially HAVE to do certain things. In WoW, you also HAVE to do certain things in order to be able to progress and this is the same in all RPGs (and Minecraft and Terraria and...) . The problem as it stands at the moment is that in the other games, whilst you need to do the 'things' to actually play the new content, that content isn't actually locked away from you. I can walk into a level 80 zone in WoW as a level 5 char or venture into the Nether with leather armour (actually, even none) in Minecraft as someone else pointed out.

Using WoW as the example again (sorry) - it feels great once you are high level to zerg through the lower zones from time to time, just for fun. On top of that, if you feel like exploring anything you missed (or even trying things in a slightly different way - something I am constantly doing with Starbound because that 's really the joy of the game for me) you just roll a new character and start again. Why bother having multiple character slots if you minimise replayability by having pre-prescribed pathways to follow?

If there is a worry about balance then all you need to do is not worry about early tiers being too easy for late game chars and make the scales logarithmic. That way, you really do NEED better equipment and armour and so on simply to survive in the harder worlds. You can even have areas that need unlocking a-la tier system: say a boss drops a dimensional transporter thingy that lets you visit areas that you can't access normally for example. All I'm saying is that by restricting the way you progress, you actually remove some of the wonder that comes from exploration. The same can be said of the change away from threat levels - it's sometimes fun to visit places where you KNOW you'll die, just to see what they're like! If you ask me it makes the feeling when you can go there all the more rewarding.

TL DR? Love the game, want to be able to suicide on insanely hard planets from the get go as it makes things magical.

woo.

 

Agree completely! Which goes hand in hand with traveling and teleporting. We need some mechanic to allow people to revisit places they like (or have built things), but on the cheap.

 

that's what i meant as well, wasn't criticizing the opinion ... basically it's like the game is story driven (although incomplete) , you can't make silver armor cause you need that specific item from the boss related to a quest , and frankly the idea itself is nice
but if it was a true full on sandbox only title , then yes i would agree ... remove limitations ...

 

But why? Just so you can do what? What value does it add?

Beta planets are the same, for all intent and purpose, as alpha planets... except harder. You can 'explore' any of the thousands of planets in alpha if you get bored. By being able to go to beta sooner, what do you get out of it?
Currently, tiers unlocked by sector is what you get.

So if all items are craftable, what is the point of going to beta? Mine everything you need in alpha then go to X for a challenge with you top 'tier' armor.

If you have all craftable items available, but need to fight bosses to progress what is the challenge?

Progression, artificial or otherwise, is meant to keep people challenged.

*edited to improve clarity*

 

Um, the entire storyline? You might not know about that if you haven't started following until recently but there is an entire quest line to go with the game that will come following beta.

I still feel that if Mojang had any clue what they were doing they would have built a solid game in their own right. Modders would still be free to add or remove as they saw fit for their own purposes. As it is there is little reason to play the unmodded game for more than a few hours which largely has to do with the complete lack of direction for the vanilla game.

With the thousands of items in the game I'd imagine there will always be a use for the things you find in lower tiers. If nothing else old ore can be turned into money even as it is. Hopefully they'll find other side uses for excess materials for example the way Terraria made use of iron in some of the contraptions and silver/meteorite was used to make ammunition.

 

And storyline will give us what? I'm no fan of playing sandbox game for a storyline. Look at Skyrim or other ES games, a lot of ppl left main quest line and just wandering around for hundred of hours. And game don't restrict them in any way. And ES games are story-driven sandbox RPGs. Now we have random-generated almost unlimited sandbox game, and i had to follow storyline to get more sandbox stuff? Ridiculous.

Mojang simply threw MC to his team. They're are working on MC for a long time, while he count money and fool around with different projects. But modding community still created fantastic mods and modpack like Tekkit and Direwolf. And i fail to understand why Starbound devs didn't take a couple of ideas from there.

 

This isn't a sandbox game though.... its a survival RPG with an entire storyline and progression system. What's the point of having the content in the game if it is trivialized by being able to completely bypass it? Why play the game if you don't actually want to play the game?

 

Not everyone is happy with just having a Sandbox (yes im looking at you Minecraft).

 

the point many are trying to get across is that the game will probably HAVE a sandbox mode, we're just assuming that it's just not now ... quests are in there probably to test the quest system ...etc. for the main story mode

 

The modding community for Minecraft predates Mojang. Every time they updated something tiny they broke hundreds or thousands of mods requiring the creators to update or completely rewrite portions, and sometimes the creators had moved on to other mods or quit the community entirely. When Notch finally got Mojang all set up they wanted to create a modding API and even that turned out to be pointless and was dropped.

I'm also sure they'll strike that balance and make the progression feel more natural. As of right now we're in a position of "I have everything I need for my silver armor, why can't I make my silver armor?" Just upgrading your star map and magically gaining the knowledge to craft a variety of new things only serves to artificially gate content. If there was actually some extra material you can only get from beta sector or you require a blueprint it would make sense. As long as you have the materials and the proper crafting station you should be able to make anything. Getting said materials should be the hurdle, there shouldn't just be an arbitrary wall there.

I'm fairly certain that's where they're going and all of what we're seeing now is just beta fluff. We're here to test systems and help them optimize. Fiddling with the game is only our reward for being good little lab rats.

 

i agree lol , as it is now , whenever i am ready to leave i just pack up EVERYTHING and never look back lol

 

I take your point and agree that challenges are a really important part of the game. What I don't agree with is that you should be making progression artificial. There are a number of ways of making the trip to beta an important progression point:

* Having higher tier ores there (which they do I believe)
* Having items that you can only find on harder planets (which they also do)
* Having items which you can only craft with the previous two things.

I'm not suggesting that all items should be actually craftable from the get-go. Just that things shouldn't be locked down for arbitrary reasons. Essentially, I'm not asking for major changes, just the integration of the tiers into the same sector essentially. Either way, if the balancing is done right, you shouldn't be able to play on the higher tiers until you have completed the 'objectives' of the previous ones. Only, rather than literally unlocking content, you gain an item that ALLOWS you to unlock the content - it's a subtle difference but it is an important one.

*edited for typos*

 

Could you, please, show me official source for Starbound being "a survival RPG with an entire storyline and progression system". My English is quite bad, but at least in "About Starbound" i can't find such statments.

And a game can perfectly allow player to use both sandbox and story at the same time without limitations. Yes, i'm looking at you, Skyrim. I wonder why Starbound couldn't.

I want to play the game. I were trilled them i found the game, a sandbox with quest and storyline seems great. I'm unhappy with storyline being mandatory for game progression.

 

but isn't that exactly what's in place ? you need a certain item that "allows" you to unlock the content

 

I'm sorry, but I'm still missing the difference between now and 'what if'.

"just the integration of the tiers into the same sector essentially" -- explain a bit more?

" Either way, if the balancing is done right, you shouldn't be able to play on the higher tiers until you have completed the 'objectives' of the previous ones. Only, rather than literally unlocking content, you gain an item that ALLOWS you to unlock the content" -- isn't that what the molten core and processor etc does?

I think I'm missing the subtle difference

 

ever thought abot the fact, that, like Terraria, Starbound is more about exploring and fighting instead of building things like minecraft? and to be honest: minecraft only starts to shine with mods which focus more on exploration and fighting instead of building thinks. thats the reason why i like terraria and starbound more than minecraft.. because they focus more on battles and exploration and not on building awesome 3D objects. so minecraft + mods great; minecraft without anything: boring.