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[Max White]

Well what have we agreed on so far?
- 3D printer scanning cost is bullshit.
- Cost to travel makes it impractical to establish a home, and that is bullshit.

Anything else we want on the table?

[Seriyu]

I wouldn't mind, but I feel like this is the kind've argument that really wouldn't fly over there. And there hasn't really been a concensus.

At any rate, I don't see any issue with using a creative mode equivalent either, rather then lowering the pixel costs to the point of them not being a functional system anymore, but like I said, we're just going to have to agree to disagree I think.

EDIT: Also the fact that the official forums are, like most official forums, a massive echo chamber.

[sambojin]

I certainly don't encourage grind, but a few days of you not having "every bloody thing and whatever you want" isn't grind. It's not. I think they're going for "sandbox'y", but expect progression.

Go my non-padawan, make the blue socks. The pieces are just beside the circus. After that? A tower for cats. And one of soap. In the required form. Watch out for the aquifer, the undead and the undead-dog-fur.

Sometimes shit takes a while to learn.

Starbound? Yeah, I think we're fine for now.......

[Max White]

The problem currently is that those several days where you don't have everything you want is the same repetitive actions over and over, with nothing to break it up... I don't mind being restricted, but I expect fun toys in the cage.

[Girlinhat]

My biggest gripe is the forced progression of tiers and the fact that older planets become useless, which makes any base construction useless.  Especially considering the difficulty of constructing anything nicer than wood, and then passing tiers and having no need for the old place...

[Seriyu]

The problem currently is that those several days where you don't have everything you want is the same repetitive actions over and over, with nothing to break it up... I don't mind being restricted, but I expect fun toys in the cage.

It's kind've the game though! You mine, you fight, you build out of what you have, you find new planets, to repeat that process.

I mean I don't have an issue with making it more rewarding to do these things, I just don't think invalidating the system entirely is the way to do it. I'm just not sure what you want.

My biggest gripe is the forced progression of tiers and the fact that older planets become useless, which makes any base construction useless.  Especially considering the difficulty of constructing anything nicer than wood, and then passing tiers and having no need for the old place...

That's definitely true, and it'd be nice to see some improvements on that.


(also I'm so sorry for arguing so much everyone)

EDIT: You know, I could probably gather up all the feedback we've had in here, compile it in a nice compressed format, and just e-mail it to mollygos. I might start doing that now.

I certainly feel like it'd be better then showing up with a huge pile of mostly unrelated feedback in one thread.

[Mech#4]

I'd like if planets were deeper. They could get tougher monsters the further down you go, but with higher tier ore/rocks and rewards.

I was expecting something a bit more then a magma sea. Maybe a series of layered caverns, research bases, dungeons and so on (all of which have chances of being and not being present on any single planet).

[Seriyu]

Yeah, the underground is... a little lackluster now I guess. I have only found a few apex labs completely without loot, besides fancy decorations and blocks.

EDIT: Also I'm going back through the thread and gathering up feedback now, so uhhhh yeah. Don't make a thread I guess? Or do, and we can move our arguing to there.

[Darkmere]

I honestly won't have any worthwhile feedback to offer until after I play the combat rebalance this week with a new character. Buuuut... if this

EDIT: You know, I could probably gather up all the feedback we've had in here, compile it in a nice compressed format, and just e-mail it to mollygos. I might start doing that now.

I certainly feel like it'd be better then showing up with a huge pile of mostly unrelated feedback in one thread.

is a thing, tell me what format you're going to use and I'll deliver a properly organized list of my stuff for you to paste in at the bottom, so less work for you.

[chaoticag]

Now, by deeper, what do you mean here? Since as is, the bigger the planet is, the longer it takes to get to the center, but it has about the same amount of depth by content as a small planet would. Though they're already working on getting stronger monsters near the bottom.

As far as permanent structures go... I would have to say, things are kinda semi-permanent as is, since it seems each tear is basically meant to take a few hours. I do think the fuel cost for getting around is still a bit much, so maybe cheaper fuel or lower travel cost should be something that ought to be put in.

And for the scanning items and printing them, I'd prefer it if there was some cost to the whole thing. I'd pay a 100 pixels for a 1000 stack of cobble given that you can double that amount by making it brick, with more exotic materials depending on the rarity, 1-5 pixels each with stack sizes of anyway from 5 to one depending on hoe rare things are will do, assuming as you progress in tiers, pixels become more common. I'd rather not have people brick entire colonies I have set up for free, so yeah, not a big fan of free materials.

Also scanning costs sound high, never tried it, but it does sound ludicrous, and so does the price, since at most, a metal box should be about half the refined cost of an anvil. Whatever that is. Anyway, my two cents before I head to my next class.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I think the problem with your view, FD, is that you seem to consider some hundred thousand pixels an "exorbitant cost" for an elaborate structure.

Take a game like Starmade. Creating a massive, elaborate ship is likely to take weeks. Buying all the materials for it requires hundreds of billions in ingame currency, and the minerals you can find, the common ones, sell to the shops for hundreds, and you can't sell back more than a few thousand of them at a time.

And yet people are building, and buying this stuff.

Really. Introduce a basic "garbage disposal" station to let you get pixels from random crap, cut the scanning costs a bit (if pixels are energy, a scanning cost makes sense), and you'll be happily building stuff even if it takes 5 pixels per basic brick. The point of the 3D Printer is to let you have stuff that is hard to, or impossible to get - not as your one-stop shop for everyday needs. A supplement to getting your materials via exploration, not a complete replacement for it.

(Incidentally, yes, I do believe the Printer should be able to make damn near everything - at least damn near everything inorganic. So no food, no seeds, no NPCs, no plant matter or coal, but uranium and plutonium could be there - for a great price, of course.))

[Seriyu]

I honestly won't have any worthwhile feedback to offer until after I play the combat rebalance this week with a new character. Buuuut... if this

EDIT: You know, I could probably gather up all the feedback we've had in here, compile it in a nice compressed format, and just e-mail it to mollygos. I might start doing that now.

I certainly feel like it'd be better then showing up with a huge pile of mostly unrelated feedback in one thread.

is a thing, tell me what format you're going to use and I'll deliver a properly organized list of my stuff for you to paste in at the bottom, so less work for you.

I have messaged you!

EDIT: While I'm here, anyone else should feel free to send me any feedback they want to include. I don't have a terribly complex format in mind, so just sending me the raw info is fine, although the more detail in the info there is, the better obviously.

[Sappho]

I'm glad people are talking about compiling the suggestions and giving it to the devs. I tried that yesterday with my thread on Steam but no one came...

Here's what I posted there, feel free to take add it to the pile:

My personal impressions so far are:
1. It's fun. Definitely fun. Music is great. Controls are pretty smooth for the most part.

2. Based on the trailers and information that was used to advertise this game, I expected it to have a stronger focus on exploration and building. As it stands, there is little reason to really build anything, and exploration is hampered by the need to constantly search for more fuel, as well as the need to fight so much and get higher and higher level armor. I did not expect there to be this much combat, and I certainly didn't expect to have to fight "boss battles" just to be able to continue my exploration. This is very disappointing to me, as I'm interested primarily in the building and exploration aspects of the game.

3. The "sandbox" element is not as present as I'd like. In fact, the game is surprisingly linear. There is a forced progression that can only be avoided by sacrificing a large portion of the game's content.

What I'd like to see as improvements are:
1. Don't lock out sectors until players fight the bosses. The boss fights and combat aspects can be optional, and unlock other parts of the game and story, but shouldn't be necessary just to be able to explore more.

2. Make it free to return to your home planet, just like teleporting to your ship. You can even increase the cost to travel to other planets if you want, but if it's free to go "home," there will be a reason to actually build a base there. Building will become a real part of the game, and your choice of home planet will actually matter.

3. In fact, the travel system is a bit strange. Others have pointed out the oddity of powering your space ship with coal. I think it would make more sense (and be a LOT more fun to play) if there was a way to upgrade the navigation system. To start with, you need to gather loads of materials in order to repair something in the ship and escape your starting planet. From there, it should be possible to upgrade the ship so that it takes less fuel to travel to certain places. This would mean that as you progress, you don't have to spend so much time grinding for fuel can focus more on exploration (and combat, if you want), and also it will be easier to go back and visit places you've already been instead of saying "well, I can go back there, which I don't really need to do, and search for fuel all over again, or I can just move on."

4. Make it free to scan items with the 3d printer, and lower the cost of printing new items. There's no logical reason for it to eat your item when you scan it. The current system seems designed to prevent players from using the 3d printer. It's painful to find all these decorations and things and want more of them, but not be able to afford it without grinding like crazy for pixels. Builders want to build! Why place so many restrictions on that? In what way does it help the game to make 3d printing so difficult, at least for decorative items? Make it as expensive as you want to create combat items, but the casual players are really hurting by not being able to decorate the way we would like to, and especially since the printer eats our first (and possibly) only copy before we can even begin to print more.

Thanks to the developers for the game, for all your hard work, and for letting the community beta test and have input into the overall development process.

Regarding the 3d printer. This game was sold to me as an exploration and building game. Not a fighting game. Yes, there is fighting, but I was under the impression that that would largely be optional. Those who like fighting, can fight to their heart's content, build up better and shinier equipment, and explore the more dangerous planets. Those who prefer building and exploring can stick to the safer planets, build awesome things, and with the 3d printer, fill them with copies of objects we can't otherwise obtain.

Instead, it turns out it's a linear platformer with a set progression. You have to fight the bosses to move on. You have to advance through the tiers to access new stuff and earn more pixels. And you absolutely have to earn enough pixels, or else you... can't build (or, at least, can't decorate your place with uncraftable items).

What the hell? At no point did they say "this game is about fighting, we created these amazing building tools and showed you what you could build with them but it's not actually feasible to do that unless you fight and fight and fight."

Someone earlier said that it's a game, which means it's about progression. I disagree wholeheartedly. It's a game, which means it should be FUN. Everyone has a different idea about what makes a game fun. I was attracted to Starbound because it has the potential to be fun for more than just one group of people. It's fun for the fighters, it's fun for the explorers, it's fun for the builders. But now it turns out that the devs got the idea that the game is only about fighting and the right to build should be earned by an endless grind.

The bottom line is that making it easier to build without having to progress through these tiers does not do any harm to the game for anyone. It doesn't make the game too easy for those who want to fight, because it's a completely separate part of the game. It doesn't make the game too easy for those who want to explore, because that's a completely separate part of the game. Making scanning free and reducing the cost of printing would only make things easier for builders, who are already spending many hours of gameplay constructing their megaprojects, searching the universe for the objects we want, gathering enough fuel to travel back and forth. I'm not saying printing should be free, but why should we have to add on a further many hours of gameplay grinding for pixels, just to earn the right to print the objects we need?

Again. If you don't see a problem with the current printing system, it's because you have a different playstyle. So just ask yourself: if 3d printing of building components and decorations (not weapons/armor/etc) was cheaper, would it actually make the game worse in any way? If not, then why can't we have it?

Also, I put my seeds in a chest on my ship to free inventory space, went down exploring for a while, logged out, logged back in, and the seeds were gone. All of them. Is this a known bug? Or do I need to report it? I can't grow anything anymore... : (

[Mech#4]

@chaoticcag: I haven't explored that many planets, only really 2 so far, so I didn't know that bigger planets have a deeper max depth.

My basic point is, I would like to see more things added to break up the cave systems. Terraria ended up with small temples, mineshafts, mushroom groves and so on.

I don't doubt they'll add more things like that to Starbound later on. Some ideas could be large concentrations of ores, buried spaceships, maybe a second surface like in "Journey to the Centre of the Earth".

[Sean Mirrsen]

If you shift-clicked the seeds into a full chest, removing the chest should release them.

The problem with making the 3D Printer easier to use for people who want to build without progressing, is that it makes it too easy to use for people who want to build and progress.

You seriously only have to fight the bosses to progress to the next tiers. That's one fight per tier, repeat attempts due to dying disregarded. You almost need no pixels before the UFO, after the UFO you get more pixels from converting ores and bars than from fighting, if you explore.

Also, 1500 pixels isn't a terribly large sum for a tent. It's not like you needs dozens of the things, and it's quite useful.

Now, of course I might agree to there being a different option to progress the tiers, but it would all inevitably get stuck in the same things. The tier progression depends on obtaining an item, normally obtained through killing a boss, and alternatives aren't much better. It's either a quest to build it - in which case it's a grind - or it's a quest to buy it for a massive sum - in which case it's still a grind - or a matter of stumbling upon it in the deepest bowels of the most remote cave/dungeon/underground base complex hell knows where, in which case it's not a grind, but finding it and fighting/navigating through to it will take more time and effort than just fighting the boss.

I.e. the point of fighting the UFO is to get its molten core, which gives you the metalworking station, which gives you a starmap upgrade. An alternative way would be to make the molten core a possible find in some semi-common structures in Beta sector, plus a rare item in some underground bases in Alpha sector, and have the Mk2 Navigation chip be purchasable from some kind of space station vendor in orbit around some planets. So you could buy the chip and find the Core in the Beta sector, or luck out on the core in the Alpha sector.