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[Sirus]

Well if you have $500

Excuse me whilst I laugh/weep hysterically.

[Darkmere]

So, in an attempt to remedy my ignorance, I dug around and found this feature list on the official forums. I'm sure it's been posted in the thread somewhere before, but... eh. Sorry. As I understand it, all of the info comes directly from the dev team. Some highlights of relevancy:

Some items can be equipped that grant movement abilities, like sliding, site-to-site teleportations, stompy boots, sprinting.
Most creatures do not do collision damage (walk into you), but instead must perform an attack animation to damage the player.
Bosses come in two varieties (normal and Ninja Gaiden), with random attributes that dictate fight strategies you must use against them.

I won't post more, as I'm sure it's been mentioned here already, but those seemed immediately relevant.

[Max White]

Somehow I don't think I will ever use the teleport.
For no reason other than a Pavlovian avoidance of short range side scroller teleports after Spelunky. I can never blink again. 

[Niveras]

As far as boss fights are concerned vis-a-vis the ability to modify terrain, I think options exist to overcome that and to force fighting them in a specific arena. In fact, a hint of this exists already in Terraria: Corruption. While modifying corruption is possible, it requires an arbitrary tech level, and furthermore I don't expect it's a difficult premise to prevent the ability of placing terrain within a region as defined by a live boss. In Starbound, this posits at least two or three different contexts: you can either summon an alien boss and fight him in his ship (spawns something on the surface, like meteors); you can find an ancient horror deep beneath random worlds; or a mix of the two, where you summon some magic thing randomly on the planet - could be on the surface or could be in a floating sphere.

This would be in addition to bosses in the current Terraria flavor, where you're allowed to create an arena and have some control over where you fight a boss. This would allow for a few different flavors of bosses, although I agree that the 2d platforming genre is somewhat limited in possible options. I did like Neon's idea of riding a worm-type of boss as you fight it, instead of having constantly dig through the ground and pop out.

[alexwazer]

Generally, I consider that if you need to take away options or capabilities normally available to the player in a game to increase difficulty, then you are doing something wrong (well, not YOU literally ) I really liked Neo's idea of fighting the EoW/DoW while jumping on him because it doesn't remove anything, it only add something new. I love options. There's never too much options in my opinion (but for Armok's sake, be consistent with your default options!!)

In cases like Terraria /Starbound, it's especially annoying when you have your options taken away from you just for the sake of increasing difficulty. Anyone that thinks the bosses, or anything really, are too easy can just as easily make them harder, using the same tools available to make those fights easier to begin with. Some people tend to use any and all tools and exploits to make things easier and THEN complain because it's too easy... well that's their problem. Don't make the game unplayable to others for your own inability to challenge yourself.

Keywords here: give players options

[Neonivek]

Some people tend to use any and all tools and exploits to make things easier and THEN complain because it's too easy... well that's their problem. Don't make the game unplayable to others for your own inability to challenge yourself

I reject this mostly because I am one of those players. While I won't use some exploits the point of something being difficult is that you don't HAVE to hold your punches.

Sure in a boxing match tying one arm behind your back would make things a lot more difficult and there is something to be said about the idea of a self-challenge.

Yet there is nothing to compare with being in perfect condition and fighting an opponent who could still defeat you.

Though it is easy to see why. In the first one the challenge came not from the situation or the opponent but from the artificial limitations you gave yourself as well as removing many of the skills you learned because they would make it too easy. Yet in the second you are completely free to do your best.

If a game cannot challenge you unless you intentionally hinder yourself, then "just self-challenge yourself" isn't necessarily a solution. For me there is something that feels cheap about such a victory, while there are some games I'll accept it (because the games are designed for such things such as the Megaman series) there are others I refuse to.

This person is as much punishing you for not being skilled as you are punishing them for being unskilled with your situation. The ONLY difference is that you have a solution that works for some people.

[jocan2003]

Heonivek he is talking about exploit, if you find a way to duplicate everything you have over and over and over in a game where money is involved, you basicly broke the game for yourself and then cry that the game is too easy, thats what he is talking about, exploiting a game, sure if he doesnt exploit and then says the game is too easy well, there is a design flaw somewhere like you said. Thats my 2 cente before going to sleep cya all! and Please... dont burn anything while im gone

[Darkmere]

There's also the fact that no game will ever be perfectly balanced for each special little snowflake user. I like the approach Starbound is taking, with planetary difficulties, much better than the On Switch hardmode that Terraria took. I figure my local universe will have my homeworld on a mid-range interesting planet, with underground bases and transplanted arcologies and war-spider mount breeding pens, with several scattered outposts on more inhospitable worlds that happen to have valuable minerals or Tarkelian Fangor Beasts. Need Unobtainium and feel like a challenge? Go to a difficulty 90+ planet. Want a stroll in cavernous ruins? Visit the level 30 world I marked as a historical site in my journal.

Choices, people. Choices.

[Sirus]

But Darkmere! If you give players choices, some of them might choose wrong. I cannot rest while a single person is playing a game in a way I disapprove of!

[Darkmere]

But Darkmere! If you give players choices, some of them might choose wrong. I cannot rest while a single person is playing a game in a way I disapprove of!

My god, I wish that wasn't so completely true.

[GlyphGryph]

But Darkmere! If you give players choices, some of them might choose wrong. I cannot rest while a single person is playing a game in a way I disapprove of!

Of course, the Terraria devs seemed to have adopted this sort of attitude by the end (wasn't this the entire purpose of keys? That people were playing the game wrong, and they needed to be forced to play it right?) and I'm really looking forward to Starbound but I'm just hoping it really is free of that attitude like it appears to be.

[Neonivek]

But Darkmere! If you give players choices, some of them might choose wrong. I cannot rest while a single person is playing a game in a way I disapprove of!

Of course, the Terraria devs seemed to have adopted this sort of attitude by the end (wasn't this the entire purpose of keys? That people were playing the game wrong, and they needed to be forced to play it right?) and I'm really looking forward to Starbound but I'm just hoping it really is free of that attitude like it appears to be.

Talking about the desire to make games so inoffensive and easy that no one can possibly fail?

Or... hmmm...

I cannot tell actually.

[alexwazer]

Heonivek he is talking about exploit, if you find a way to duplicate everything you have over and over and over in a game where money is involved, you basicly broke the game for yourself and then cry that the game is too easy, thats what he is talking about, exploiting a game, sure if he doesnt exploit and then says the game is too easy well, there is a design flaw somewhere like you said. Thats my 2 cente before going to sleep cya all! and Please... dont burn anything while im gone

Pretty much this. This could be either from exploiting bugs, flawed mechanics, bad design or in-game inbalances. Some people are crazy good for figuring out these things, but then they should not complain about the game being too easy. Mind you, that doesn't mean these bugs, flaws or inbalances should not be fixed, but they should not be "fixed" by messing up other strategies that weren't relying on said bugs/flaws/imbalances. This is admittedly much harder to do than it is to say.

Anyway, the keywords were and remains "give players options". Cheating options? Fine, not gonna use them no matter how horrible I am, but don't mind them for the single player part. Difficulty setting? Why not, let hardcore gamer have their nightmare mode, I'll stick to toddler difficulty setting. Different ways to achieve a same goal? Anytime! Surely no one is against having options.

I like the approach Starbound is taking, with planetary difficulties, much better than the On Switch hardmode that Terraria took.

Choices, people. Choices.

This and This. Hopefully there's also more to explore and stuff to discover and obtain so that bosses are somewhat optional, unless you are a completionist. Terraria had a rather linear gear progression with bosses being inevitably part of the relatively short line.

[Neonivek]

Ohh then I am definitely not referring to exploits.

I REALLY hate it when people say "Is the game too easy? It is your own fault because you aren't doing self-challenges" because it fundamentally misunderstands the point of a raw challenge.

[alexwazer]

Yeah, I can understand that. That's why I think pretty much every game would benefit from some difficulty settings. There is simply no way otherwise to provide a challenge suited for everyone.