Fixing Starmade's Continued Play Value.

[Winterhome]

Starmade has some problems with maintaining a playerbase. It's not really a priority for Schine, but it's something that'll need to be addressed at some point in order to improve the game's profitability and improve how much fun players get out of it.

There are pretty much three playstyles. One: building things. Generally alone, be it singleplayer or multiplayer. Two: building things in multiplayer and hoping you're not attacked. Three: attacking other players in multiplayer who may or may not be interested in being attacked. Pretty limited stuff, considering that the first requires an endless well of creativity, and for many people, that well of creativity dries up after a certain amount of time, be it weeks, months, or in many of our cases, years. The second play style pretty much just treats multiplayer as singleplayer survival with a chatbox tacked on the side. The third is... well. There are already threads on combat balance all over the place so I won't waste our time with that.

Problem is, all of these play styles require the players to make their own fun. We've been given a lifetime supply of legos, except to get those legos, we have to fly out to the lego factory in Sweden and hand pick everything we want to use at that moment, if you follow the metaphor. This is fine of course, but there's not much to do with those metaphorical legos but build and blap other peoples' builds.

At the moment, the game's core mechanics are being swapped around, patched, fixed, etc., which I don't really have much of a problem with on its own, but the core mechanics as they exist are insufficient for maintaining player interest for long periods of time.

So, what do we do to fix this?

I'm partial to the idea of adding proper Dave-level gameplay and randomly generated NPCs to interact with (based in part on the NPC faction system). Planetary fauna, farming, exploration, etc. Hell, zero-G asteroid exploration could be neato too were spacefaring mobs and randomly generated dungeons to be added. Add in some "bombardment shields" for NPC dungeons that require that players manually board to disable them, perhaps include randomly-generated astronaut equipment that can be looted, etc.

NPCs at bars or job boards give missions to go kill stuff or retrieve specific loot from specific stations. Things like that. Maybe some funny faction-specific dialogue and pirate chat messages in local space. I dunno, possibilities go on and on.

What do y'all think would drag you back into the game? Because there's gotta be more to it than the usual complaints of "they won't fix X bugs!" and "they broke Y feature". They've been doing that shit for years and y'all still haven't left the forums, so there's definitely something more to it and I'm pretty sure everyone here is clinging on to at least some hope that the game will become more interesting. I'm also pretty sure that the folks here are here because they prefer Starmade's style of engineering to all the other space block building games that have fucking prefabbed equipment and only let players build their ships' hulls.

 

[GDPR 302420]

Even if Schine does not do anything about the abyssmal state of the games preformance and the discraceful state of balance, if they can deliver:

• Actual PvE content (NPC factions do nothing more then sit there, they contribute nothing to gameplay)
• Significantly better PvP content (I want reasons to undock, expand and fight and mechanics that don't punish me for trying to do so)
• Industry content that stops me feeling like I am doing a chore when I am creating and mining to do anything at all
• Astronaut level content (FPS-like combat, somewhat realisitc spacewalking and an actual reason to leave your ship other then getting into another one)
• Actual planets that are large enough to use for something (What the fuck is the point of hover engines for tanks if planets are not even large enough to be worth fighting over with ships, let alone dedicated ground vessels)
• Actual empire building and proper solo gameplay (1 man factions need to go and be replaced with "solo content" such as bounties, public stations and what not)
• Actual content that makes even starting up singleplayer for any reason other then creative mode building for MP worth it (A story/campaign for example)
• Achievements and "leaderboards" of some kind on a per-server basis
• Some Schine run servers for different playstyles
• Exploration content
• UNLOADED COMBAT AND INDIRECT ATTACKING ON INFASTRUCTURE/CONTESTING OF TERRITORY

Then this game would actually be a game rather then a glorified stress testing application with no actual content.

TLDR Give us actual content Schine, there is no reason to do anything on multiplayer or SP

 

[Batavium]

Because there's gotta be more to it than the usual complaints of "they won't fix X bugs!"

I am going to be sarcastic here but it really just boils down to what you wrote down there. It are the bugs.

We HAD many people who enjoyed playing StarMade. Basicly in the same form that you see the game in today. An empty universe with some blocks and that is it.

The game has an almost unlimited number of settings to set it up. But the default setting of most of them is so bizarre it defies believe.

The game can have a protected spawn the place where you start on any starmade game. But the default state is no protected spawn. So for years as per Cat God design/credo killing people at spawn is the thing to do.

The game comes with useless/old default stations. Changing them is five minutes work. You delete the ones the game comes with from the game folder. You download an X number of stations from this dock. Place them in said folder and hit start new map. Now your map has the stations you just added. Why they do not do this right out of the box every few months to keep up with the current tech again defies believe. Derelict Factories, Warp Gates, Ship Yards, Basic Home Bases and such would add so much to this game. As they can then be used, boughed and altered to suit the players on the server.

We had working Pirates and Trade Guilds. Meaning they would interact with you on a very basic level. The Pirates would attack you from out of the blue. "Hostile Sighted!" And the Trade Guild would fly around and refill the pilon shops.

Blueprints are a beautiful addition to StarMade but the default setting is. EVERY Blueprint you upload to a server is also set as a Pirate. So now your universe is filled with free floating angry turret bases.

And speaking of Blueprints that nice system so you can save the time you invested into making and building stuff. They change the basic mechanics the game works on "power/weapons" Every year or so so you can trash all of them. Having your stuff rendered useless for what ever reason other then your own fault just renders people depressed.

Fleets got added to StarMade cool now you can command your own armada. But wait the default setting is cores without a faction module can be added to fleets! So at spawn every nooby that dares to spawn a core sees himself going strait into the nearest star. Even better any free floating none factioned ship is send strait to the lucky finders Home Base because LOOT GIMME GIMME!

For yours now we have had planets that do not work they crash servers and players. But going back to a state of them when this was not such an issue is apparently some deathly sin. Talk is it will get fixed some day and now we are years further.

And then there are the times a version of StarMade has such a fault it just wipes out half the servers running. The advanced chat client had a bug where if you whispered someone the minute he or she came online the server would die fun! Just to name an example.

The list is long but many things are really just five minute fixes. That have been pointed out for many years but are just ignored or get a we will do it some day response.

Worse some people who are very knowledgeable about this game say hey you can easy fix a lot of this yourself when you setup the game so it is not an issue. But new players do not even know how to access the first shop they see let alone fix the above.

 

[Panpiper]

Schine has a perfectly fine plan for how to address this, how to add an actual game to their build system. They were in fact just starting to do serious work on those ideas, when they got it into their head to take the one thing they actually had working to a decent level, ship building, and scrap it for a brand new system. So instead of Schine working on the actual game, they are spending the next year or more, redoing what was already working.

 

[GnomeKing]

....also, the multiplayer aspect is surely a key reason why we are all still posting here, no? - single player games can have a short shelf life...
I agree that aspects other than building were detracting from the game, and it would be great to know a bit more about is being considered, especially re: fleet/turret control.

 

[Asvarduil]

Generally speaking, this post is spot-on. I agree entirely.

 

[jayman38]

I have to disagree with improving gameplay through more Dave interaction. I think astronaut interaction is simply not where this game needs to go. Ships can exceed the capabilities of an astronaut in every way. Need to get through that 1x2 opening? Blow it open with a canon or jump to the other side with a FTL drive. Instead, there should be a comms system that allows any entity, ship, station, astronaut, whatever, to talk to any other entity. So if there are "missions", you can access them from the comfort of your ship, just as easily as if you had walked into the bar to talk to a "fixer" (NPC asking you to do something for them).

Unique "mission" variation option: have different missions available from different sources. E.g. An astronaut NPC would generally have smaller-scale missions than NPC ships and stations. Even ships and stations could have distinct differences in mission types.

I remember reading about walking in the later "X" games (Rebirth? ), and that it didn't really add anything to gameplay, other than the tedium of having to walk somewhere and talk to someone to get something done, versus clicking on a menu option.

Starmade already has the basics for astronauts in place. It's pretty good for what it does in a game that is supposed to be primarily about * spaceships. You can walk around your ship or station or planet. You can watch other ships from an observation room. You can battle other astronauts or parkour around a planet. You can play as Dave just fine. Beyond comms and adding "missions", adding more to the astronaut game sounds like another step in the wrong direction, pardon the pun.

* I am saying that this game is primarily about spaceships because of the multitude of blocks and customization options for ships, versus almost no customization for astronauts, other than buying different weapons or modding the astronaut texture.

 

[Asvarduil]

Schine has a perfectly fine plan for how to address this, how to add an actual game to their build system. They were in fact just starting to do serious work on those ideas, when they got it into their head to take the one thing they actually had working to a decent level, ship building, and scrap it for a brand new system. So instead of Schine working on the actual game, they are spending the next year or more, redoing what was already working.

No. No they don't. The much-vaunted plan fails to make the game fun in any way. The game has serious problems now, and ones that shouldn't be left to modders (really, borderline hackers) like me. Unfortunately, I think Schine in general is so heavily invested in the direction they're going, they simply don't have the perspective to see what's wrong with their game, and how hilariously easy it would be to fix a number of things.

 

[Edymnion]

....also, the multiplayer aspect is surely a key reason why we are all still posting here, no? - single player games can have a short shelf life...

Nope, I've been doing mostly single player building for ages. Every time I try to get onto a multiplayer server its a bad experience.

Usually because the servers are set up so bizarrely or are whoring themselves out for votes on some third party site that they're not worth playing on for me.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Nope, I've been doing mostly single player building for ages. Every time I try to get onto a multiplayer server its a bad experience.

Usually because the servers are set up so bizarrely or are whoring themselves out for votes on some third party site that they're not worth playing on for me.

Between the rigid play styles, the insanely high mining bonuses, griefing, exploits, and the potential for altered block stats, I'd have to agree.

Single player isn't much better either, since what we have right now, is not really a 'game', but rather a collection of tools that a player can use to build a game of their own choosing. As enticing as this prospect may be; I have little incentive to build for that purpose when Schine is about to break everything.

If nothing else, they could have at least brought back the creature spawner as a placeable block so we could fight space spiders on our stations while we're waiting for them to finish the update.

 

[Edymnion]

As enticing as this prospect may be; I have little incentive to build for that purpose when Schine is about to break everything.

I've been building hulls and stations. RP stuff won't break, and can be fitted with systems quickly whenever it happens.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I've been building hulls and stations. RP stuff won't break, and can be fitted with systems quickly whenever it happens.

Normally, I'd agree with this but the vast majority of my scenery and dedicated RP material is in template form. I can deploy an entire city in a matter of hours.

For ships and stations, I prefer to know the full potential of a build before adding creative details. Starting with systems allows one to learn what works best with a build style and adjust accordingly. It would suck to build a cool looking ship only to find out its shape inherently has terrible stats within the new power system. I applaud you and anyone else for continuing to build but I'm going to wait.

To answer the OP's question; I'd say smarter NPC behavior; both crew and factions, as well as some kind of creatures would get me back in the game. Seriously; they need to bring back the spawn block and let people go ape with some LV-426 type scenarios. As far as faction NPCs go, ship spawning needs to be looked at. From encountering 4-6 ships near every NPC station I visited, I can see the galactic entity count getting out of hand very quickly unless you dig into the config files.

 

[Edymnion]

For ships and stations, I prefer to know the full potential of a build before adding creative details.

Ah see, I'm the other way around. I prefer to make a cool looking ship and then see how much juice I can squeeze out of it.

I find the constraints of doing that more enjoyable as it presents a challenge with the build.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Ah see, I'm the other way around. I prefer to make a cool looking ship and then see how much juice I can squeeze out of it.

I find the constraints of doing that more enjoyable as it presents a challenge with the build.

I used to build like that. In fact, every ship I built up to and including my Mk6 Pathfinder is an example of that. Not gonna lie, seeing how far I could evolve a pathfinder; combat-wise was fun. Unfortunately, as powerful as the Mk6 had become over its original prototype, it eventually reached its limit, and was greatly outclassed by newer designs of the same relative size class. There was something about the 75% increase in DPS of the newer purpose-built Lancer class that made planning my systems first seem like a more logical approach.

When you're building a ship with some size to it, I'd have to agree that your way makes sense since you have a lot more room to work with. But since I tend to build on the smaller side, I had to put some extra thought into exceeding the 2 million power soft cap if I wanted any semblance of an interior. I'm hoping the new power system will allow me to relax my build strategy a bit so that building a ship can actually be fun again rather than the min/max "efficiency at all cost" strategy I started to adopt.

 

[Edymnion]

I'm hoping the new power system will allow me to relax my build strategy a bit so that building a ship can actually be fun again rather than the min/max "efficiency at all cost" strategy I started to adopt.

Just remember after power is done there's a weapons overhaul on the timeline as well.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Just remember after power is done there's a weapons overhaul on the timeline as well.

True. However, weapons don't require specific shapes or spacing to determine efficiency. Even if that changes, you are still limited by your power output.

New or old; the power system is the foundation on which all other aspects of building will follow. If Schine can get that right with this new system, then everything else should hopefully fall into place.

 

[aceface]

• Actual PvE content (NPC factions do nothing more then sit there, they contribute nothing to gameplay)

if anything they make it worse by causing more lag on servers

 

[The Judge]

It feels like Universe/PvE improvements won't add enough content (or at least hours of time) to the game proportional to the time it takes to actually make them. To me, it would make more sense to devoting more resources to PvP Interactions (streamlining, balancing, replacing outdated mechanics) rather than NPC interactions because its far more likely that the PvP Content will retain players far better than the RP Content.

 

[Asvarduil]

It feels like Universe/PvE improvements won't add enough content (or at least hours of time) to the game proportional to the time it takes to actually make them. To me, it would make more sense to devoting more resources to PvP Interactions (streamlining, balancing, replacing outdated mechanics) rather than NPC interactions because its far more likely that the PvP Content will retain players far better than the RP Content.

I think this is out and out a really, really bad suggestion that is actively hurting the game.

StarMade is - first and foremost - a game about making ships. The reason this game is not engaging, is that we're building starships just to build them. Worse, while PvP is one of the few actual things you can do in the game, the risk/reward calculation is incredibly bonkers - it takes so long, and so many materials, to build ships, that it's really not better to seek conflict at all. That's why the real PvP of this game eventually always devolves into piracy/banditry, going around the galaxy and looking for unsecured ships and bases, to steal their stuff.

What a better PvE experience - whatever shape that comes in - will provide this game, is a reason to build starships, and a reason to leave your protected home base; it will add a sense of wonder to these procedurally-generated galaxies and actually get people to explore them. What a great PvE experience will do, is make leaving your homebase less risky, and make failure not nearly as punishing as it is now - yes, players will fail every now and again, but instead of it being a game-breaker, they will dust themselves off, assemble a better ship, and then go back for round two. Further, a great experience will add limits that players have to work around in order to achieve something awesome, that aren't arbitrary or forced (Power System 1.0 is guilty of being both.)

I don't honestly believe we can have meaningful discussions about PvP, until we have a better PvE experience. PvE objectives in the open universe, determine many things about how PvP goes down, what the objectives are, and how to conduct the warfare in the first place. If you want good PvP, you really shouldn't dismiss PvE.

 

[Slimsta]

I agree. StarMade has seriously so much potential, it is a very enjoyable game that I have spent many hours playing. At one point I had my own server that had a lot of regular players, the server was a Roleplay, so there were a couple main factions that the players could join or they could go and create their own faction and build an empire. We had a main faction called Archeron which had a gorgeous planet base, a few stations and a few shops that players could go to and roleplay, they had bars and all that sort of stuff at the stations. It was actually really good fun. But the issue was that the game lacked support for the roleplay, there was no drive to go out exploring, there was no reason to build a fleet of ships, you could just build one big ship that did everything.

There isn't many roleplay servers like I ran, but the people that were on it absolutely loved it. What inspired me to buy the game was the trailer, it came across as a very different game. But nevertheless I still really enjoyed the game and I will return once I feel like there is more life pumped in to it.

I think that the dev team need to focus on:

• Creating reasons to expand
• A Bounty system
• NPC Missions
• Roleplay support to make it really work
• Real PvE - At the moment the enemy NPC's are so boring and don't do anything really
• Survival aspects - Farming, Industry.

It'd be cool to hopefully soon get the Roleplay server back up when there is more to the game to support that kind of thing. Get a few people on there working for factions, working machines, patrolling territories and many more aspects like that. I think they could look to a game like StarCitizen for ideas, because Starmade has the potential to have aspects like that but on a greater scale due to the sandbox design and being able to do whatever you want. That's what I sort of aimed for my server to be like.