Will starbound be a game defined by god awful grinding?

I'd actually love the underground caverns to be more prevalent because that would mean more underground combat.

Mining is just tunnel after tunnel a lot of the time with very little else going on except swinging the pickaxe. More variety in the underground (besides different colors of dirt/ore) is hopefully coming. I want to find some huge caverns and underground vistas from time to time. Both minecraft and terraria have caverns much more prevalent than those I've seen in starbound.

Also, I love the ideas being floated by the devs in regards to upcoming monster abilities, but that's a completely different topic.

 

Yeah, that goes hand-in-hand with something I'd like to see: More biome and layer characterization in general.

 

I've never delved into caverns. It's called Starbound - the caverns end in a dead end, why would I go into them? Until I read this thread I didn't realise I was "supposed to". The game and the adverts emphasise going from planet to planet and as people have said it's a real pain having to make sure you collect enough coal on each and every planet to get to the next planet, when it feels like this is what it should be all about.

And it does start to get very samey. Find a jungle/forest/desert. Walk along until you see the ore you need. Mine. Repeat. Do it on all the moons of the planet you're at. I honestly don't know how to zoom out my solar system to go to other planets within it, the - doesn't seem to work, so who knows what else I can do to zoom out.

So far, and I know it's beta, it's very shallow.

 

In the nav-chart when you're looking at the planet you're currently on; right click.

 

I'd rather not go digging myself but since I don't have enough fuel to go explore planets at will I'm forced to dig to get the ore I need.
Right mouse button to zoom out.

 

Yeah I kidna agree here, spent the whole day playing and it basically comes down to:

• Goto a new planet
• Dig a load of ore, hunting for a specific one
• Go back to ship and craft boss summon device as well as any armour you can
• Kill boss and goto new sector

This was good for the fist few planets but the last few bosses felt too much, there needs to be another way to progress other than mining. Like perhaps a bit of exploring for a specific jungle/snow/desert item. The brain thing was a refreshing change maybe more like that? Problem is this could all be planned by the developer but we have no way of knowing since there is no real project guideline or objectives... we are all just placing "wishes" of what we hope happens in the game and could either be pleasantly surprised or totally disappointed. Anyways I've had enough mining for one day, got me to sector Delta but I doubt I will pick it up again in a while but certainly live in hope that it shapes into something awesome!

 

For me I never go to snow planets or any others where it might be slightly more difficult because there's really no need. They should put stuff in to incentivise it a little.

 

Ehhh. Idk. I have come across quit a few caverns, and an underground civ, but how much more can mining/chopping be made to be "fun?"

It's literally just harvesting materials. I don't see room for improvement.

 

Well Crazher, basically what this has come down to is both of us sharing different perspectives, and it is clear that neither of us will move in either direction.

So, I'll just say you're right. I'll wait. Sorry for being irrational. I don't want to argue about a game. I want to discuss it. I'm out of line.

 

Sorry I didn't read through everything, but on page 2 was this post and I took it as an anchor for my point.

When you look at Minecraft in Survival Mode, it is pretty grindy. Getting enough redstone, diamond and slime is quite the chore.
I enjoyed it though. Now I wonder why that is, and I believe it is because Minecraft does a good job at keeping the grinding closely tied to EXPLORATION and ADVENTURE. There's monsters in the cave, the caves look great...

I do believe that once Starbound has more quests and (hopefully) a greater diversity of planets, the curiosity will draw players on, and they will mine for ores as a side effect. With all the NPCs (possible quest givers!) and microbiomes underground, I'm sure the grind will feel more integrated.

After all, I don't want the game to quickly be over, and I'm sure the bone to pick with grinding is not that it hinders you from finishing the game, but that it's boring.
Exploring a cave in Minecraft, though, was never boring. I hope for the same fun in Starbound, maybe even greater because of quests and more random loot.

 

Not sure what you mean by grind to be honest. I have played some MMO type games where you truly had to grind. Kill 300 mobs to find one item. This by comparison is fine. I spent the afternoon playing the game with my daughter. We decided we needed 200 coal. 15 mins later we have 2000 wood and converted it to 200 coal.

Getting the mats for the gear isnt hard or too long at all. Also you can find guns in the alpha sector. Meat drops from creatures even without the bow and pixels are easy to get.

 

Offtopic: I've yet to figure out how to convert wood into coal. Would you be so kind as to tell me how you do that?

Ontopic: I don't feel this game as a grind. Everything I do in this game feels like a experience adding up into the whole thing. I mean, one time, I'm exploring. Digging into caves, killing monsters on the way and mining ores. Once in a while, I alt-tab to my desktop, check out these forums where a fine and wonderfull community is situated and enjoy reading the posts. Then, I'm trying to build stuff. Also, Ive yet to go battle the supposedly 1st UFO boss. I'm trying to level my tiers. ea go from copper to iron and from iron to gold and silver and whatnot before I might do that. Sure, it might all look the same. But you never know what you might encounter. Same as today, went for a desert planet and encountered some sort of dungeon which I never saw before. And hell, I might STILL not be able to summon the UFO boss due to character wipes that will occur. But man, this game is fun even in this stage of development. Even more fun than terraria was at this point. And I know there will be more. Stories, quests, collectibles, stuff to make ... I don't even know where to begin

 

you must not have gotten to the refinery yet. once you kill the inactive robot, you get access to the refinery, which is something you can put down and basically smelt ores and bars you no longer need into pixels. careful though, some of those bars are actually used at higher levels, you combine some with coal for higher level bars. not sure of every one that gets combined, but you can look that up if you care enough. or just pixels now, ore later if it gets down to it lol.

 

you smelt 10 unrefined wood in the furnace and it gives you 1 coal. also worth noting that there is, what i assume, is a bug where only 1 type of unrefined wood works in crafting. if you get the different color woods, you cant use those for smelting or crafting. same goes for cobblestone, different types but only 1 can be crafted.

 

Thanks !

 

You do realize the examples you posted are the first two tiers of the game. That's one-fifth of the game right there. They don't want you to just blow through the game in less than a day.

 

While I don't agree with a couple of your points (Over exaggerating how much grind) I would be hard pressed to say I don't agree with most of this.

 

I just made it past the last available boss in the game and went two tiers further in terms of equipment and so far I started fresh at every update but the last one.

Simply put, I'd say that the evolution between tiers the way it is is way too fast even with the amount of things you have to gather. The numbers piled up like this may look big but really it is not especially if you don't waste time building which there is very few incentive to do right now.

Don't get me wrong, the start can be brutal depending on the planet and system you start on. If you start on a system with one, or only a few planets with scarce amounts of coal you're in for a hard time.
After you defeat the first boss and make your way to the second generally you should have some spare iron, but coal will be a double problem and it can make things very painful.

But when you make it out of that you usually have everything you need from the get go to get you going in the next tier, unless there is a new kind of ore needed, and even then, ONE run on the surface of a medium/big planet of the new sector is usually enough to get you a full set of new gear that will be enough to fight the next boss and carry on. (unless you're unlucky which can happen)

Keep in mind that the coal problem in the early tiers will be less of a problem the second we can farm trees for wood, which will make the start ten times faster.

 

Coal grinding at the beginning can be tedious but I think you get different fuel sources later in the game. But the developers have to be careful to not make the progression of Tiers go by so fast you get to level 10 tier no problem in one day. Yet they have to some how find a balance between grinding and story. Which I think quests will solve a big chunk of these grinding problems.

 

I just made it to the second tier and noticed everything requires steel which requires coal..
And now I just found out I need the robot which requires even more steel.

I have a whole lot of iron but barely any coal. And this is only the third planet I went to so I didn't waste any for travelling.
I actually have more silver then coal.

I think if they add a bit more coal to the game and make travelling free the grind isn't that bad. Most ores you can get by surface exploration.