- Joined
- Aug 9, 2019
- Messages
- 5
Greetings,
I would like to preface this post by stating that what I have seen so far from the game has been pretty awesome in terms of seeing the technology required to get this game to work. We’ll have to see how the game handles massive loads (> 1000 players on at a time), however so far the game’s netcode seems to do what it is supposed to do. Developing the technology to do all of this from scratch is a massive accomplishment and the developers at Frozenbyte should be proud of what they have collectively accomplished, given the sandboxy nature of the game, and somehow people don’t lag like crazy (normally) even when there are creations with thousands of individual parts flying around.
I have yet to engage in combat so perhaps someone else can comment on that. As far as the “PvE” game loops are concerned, I have the following comments in general.
First off, the perhaps the most important thing is that you must improve the learning process for players. The mining job does a decent job of getting the player familiar with the mechanics of mining, which is something I imagine a lot of people will be doing after they are done grinding the Assembly Job, which has been shown to be more profitable in general. However I would like to perhaps see some incentive to mine out the good parts of the asteroid exclusively, as what you would actually do in the ‘real world’ if you’re mining for a specific mineral that’s in high demand.
The Assembly Job needs to be expanded upon and reworked. I would suggest that Frozenbyte consider the following possibilities for the improvement of the assembly job, and by extension, the new player experience:
1. Add more relevant items to the Assembly Job. The Assembly Job is a great way to teach players how to assemble important items that are going to be commonly assembled by players, but there isn’t an opportunity for many items that the players are going to have to assemble themselves to be practiced at the Assembly Line (for example, mounting weapons, changing out spent fuel rods, chainging propellant tanks, coolant cells, generators, etc). There is a lot of potential for you to use the Assembly Job as a teaching tool for teaching new players how to perform various very common tasks, but the current Assembly Job does not do enough to give players the knowledge that I think it has the potential to give as a tutorial.
2. Randomize the items given to players to assemble at the Assembly Job. Combine this point with point 1, and every new player will likely know how to assemble a large variety of common items that they will have to deal with once they leave the starting station. Assuming you set the expected payoff per minute to be roughly equivalent to what you would expect to do with a box thruster, this would allow new players to gain the knowledge they need to make assembling items and ships they have to pay for later without wasting money. This would also make the beginning grind much less repetitive and more enjoyable to do.
Perhaps add a new ‘Ship Maintenance’ job to teach players how to fix common problems with spacecraft: changing out spent fuel cells, changing out weapon magazines, repairing ships with holes in them, fixing pipelines and cables, etc. This should be done in such a way that the player should be able to diagnose common issues in space and learn about the various parts of a ship, so that they are able to properly maintain their craft and not get stranded in space for seemingly no reason when a Pincer’s coolant cells run empty. To a player who might not know any better, this could look like a bug and frustrate the player, especially if it is their first ship they’re flying and they just spent 2-3 hours of their time in Ikea to get that ship. I believe in punishing players for doing stupid things when they should know better, however, the game doesn’t provide the player with that knowledge, besides taking a ship out themselves and finding out the hard way (or hearing other players complain about it).
I have heard people talking about an in-game index for players to peruse in-game. You could perhaps hook up an in-game browser so players can look at the Starbase Wiki while in game — I’m not sure how technically feasible this is, however, something that players can search up in-game would be extremely helpful for the new player onboarding experience.
The rotation controls are a bit clunky right now. It’s not clear to the player which axis of rotation will move the object in a certain way when they are rotating while out in the game. I believe adding visual guides whenever a player presses X, Y, or Z that indicates the rotation direction would help the player get an idea what to expect when rotating stuff other than just guessing.
Allowing players to use axis inputs (mouse or HOTAS/ controls) would be really nice. I don’t think there is support for mouse movement to control ships and such yet, but this is something that should be a possibility for dedicated fighter pilots and such who would benefit from that increased control precision.
Overall I am happy with the early experience in Starbase. The early game is unforgiving of ignorance, though. I think it is best for your bottom line if you make a lot of the essential things that players NEED to know (ship maintenance stuff) available to be learned before the player is punished for being ignorant of game systems. The first real ship that you get that can earn you money is amazing, and it feels really nice to get something economically more productive than being an assembly line worker. I love the feeling of satisfaction pulling out of the station with my Hauler and going out into the void for the first time, and I think this is a feeling that should be preserved — just that I would like to see the starting jobs have a bit more variety and spice to them so they’re not quite as monotonous as they currently are. It has been publicly stated that the starting jobs are supposed to be a ‘tutorial’ stage, and I believe that the proposals I have made above, if implemented, would be a step in the right direction for the new player experience overall.
I would like to preface this post by stating that what I have seen so far from the game has been pretty awesome in terms of seeing the technology required to get this game to work. We’ll have to see how the game handles massive loads (> 1000 players on at a time), however so far the game’s netcode seems to do what it is supposed to do. Developing the technology to do all of this from scratch is a massive accomplishment and the developers at Frozenbyte should be proud of what they have collectively accomplished, given the sandboxy nature of the game, and somehow people don’t lag like crazy (normally) even when there are creations with thousands of individual parts flying around.
I have yet to engage in combat so perhaps someone else can comment on that. As far as the “PvE” game loops are concerned, I have the following comments in general.
First off, the perhaps the most important thing is that you must improve the learning process for players. The mining job does a decent job of getting the player familiar with the mechanics of mining, which is something I imagine a lot of people will be doing after they are done grinding the Assembly Job, which has been shown to be more profitable in general. However I would like to perhaps see some incentive to mine out the good parts of the asteroid exclusively, as what you would actually do in the ‘real world’ if you’re mining for a specific mineral that’s in high demand.
The Assembly Job needs to be expanded upon and reworked. I would suggest that Frozenbyte consider the following possibilities for the improvement of the assembly job, and by extension, the new player experience:
1. Add more relevant items to the Assembly Job. The Assembly Job is a great way to teach players how to assemble important items that are going to be commonly assembled by players, but there isn’t an opportunity for many items that the players are going to have to assemble themselves to be practiced at the Assembly Line (for example, mounting weapons, changing out spent fuel rods, chainging propellant tanks, coolant cells, generators, etc). There is a lot of potential for you to use the Assembly Job as a teaching tool for teaching new players how to perform various very common tasks, but the current Assembly Job does not do enough to give players the knowledge that I think it has the potential to give as a tutorial.
2. Randomize the items given to players to assemble at the Assembly Job. Combine this point with point 1, and every new player will likely know how to assemble a large variety of common items that they will have to deal with once they leave the starting station. Assuming you set the expected payoff per minute to be roughly equivalent to what you would expect to do with a box thruster, this would allow new players to gain the knowledge they need to make assembling items and ships they have to pay for later without wasting money. This would also make the beginning grind much less repetitive and more enjoyable to do.
Perhaps add a new ‘Ship Maintenance’ job to teach players how to fix common problems with spacecraft: changing out spent fuel cells, changing out weapon magazines, repairing ships with holes in them, fixing pipelines and cables, etc. This should be done in such a way that the player should be able to diagnose common issues in space and learn about the various parts of a ship, so that they are able to properly maintain their craft and not get stranded in space for seemingly no reason when a Pincer’s coolant cells run empty. To a player who might not know any better, this could look like a bug and frustrate the player, especially if it is their first ship they’re flying and they just spent 2-3 hours of their time in Ikea to get that ship. I believe in punishing players for doing stupid things when they should know better, however, the game doesn’t provide the player with that knowledge, besides taking a ship out themselves and finding out the hard way (or hearing other players complain about it).
I have heard people talking about an in-game index for players to peruse in-game. You could perhaps hook up an in-game browser so players can look at the Starbase Wiki while in game — I’m not sure how technically feasible this is, however, something that players can search up in-game would be extremely helpful for the new player onboarding experience.
The rotation controls are a bit clunky right now. It’s not clear to the player which axis of rotation will move the object in a certain way when they are rotating while out in the game. I believe adding visual guides whenever a player presses X, Y, or Z that indicates the rotation direction would help the player get an idea what to expect when rotating stuff other than just guessing.
Allowing players to use axis inputs (mouse or HOTAS/ controls) would be really nice. I don’t think there is support for mouse movement to control ships and such yet, but this is something that should be a possibility for dedicated fighter pilots and such who would benefit from that increased control precision.
Overall I am happy with the early experience in Starbase. The early game is unforgiving of ignorance, though. I think it is best for your bottom line if you make a lot of the essential things that players NEED to know (ship maintenance stuff) available to be learned before the player is punished for being ignorant of game systems. The first real ship that you get that can earn you money is amazing, and it feels really nice to get something economically more productive than being an assembly line worker. I love the feeling of satisfaction pulling out of the station with my Hauler and going out into the void for the first time, and I think this is a feeling that should be preserved — just that I would like to see the starting jobs have a bit more variety and spice to them so they’re not quite as monotonous as they currently are. It has been publicly stated that the starting jobs are supposed to be a ‘tutorial’ stage, and I believe that the proposals I have made above, if implemented, would be a step in the right direction for the new player experience overall.
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