In a continuing effort to make this game a better place for everyone involved, I have been publishing several articles relating to issues with the gameplay that would make the average player frustrated and sometimes malcontent. These articles are entitled Game Breakers and can be found at these links :
I have since published several other articles on these forums detailing different aspects of the game such as lore and other topics related to the general appreciation of the game world, though those are not within the scope of this topic.
To begin this post, I will note that most of of my related issues are still in the game, just under different circumstances and in different permutations. So, let’s summarize. Gravel has a purpose. Thank god. Not the intended purpose, as I saw, but at least it has a place at the table. The changes to existing recipes is interesting, and sometimes fails, with the example of brick, but, for the most part, it succeeds. Not going to get into actual specifics into that arguement just yet, but let’s give it a “Meh +”, rather than a “Meh -”. New planets are awesome, but I have some qualms about them in general, and will make mention of them shortly. Portal hubs still create a claustrophobic outlook as they get cluttered with hundreds of portals in small spaces. Lower tier planet farming for specific colors and materials still is a net loss in time and resources. And, probably the most ridiculous addition in 1.0, and slightly the pre-launch, the homogenization of the gear.
So, now, the biggest issue that I have revolves around our endgame content. I have no issue with grinding, and building things that are purely decoration, but there’s a limit to my wafer thin display. The table and chair art assets are, by themselves, great. But there’s nothing to them. You can’t USE them, and they have no functional purpose. Barring the decorative aspect, there’s nothing to them. It would be cool if there were furniture that provided some kind of buff, yeah, but it’s more overwhelmingly frustrating that I can’t even SIT in the chair. The one chair. The one simple wooden chair. No stone, fancy, gleam, metal, foliage, fluffy, leather, or otherwise different chairs. There’s one. Just one. This coupled with the bomb-mining nerf adds to the complaint that people are just getting ignored by the development team. So, how does this pertain to end game? Well, what do you do after you craft all your work benches and power coils? Make more tools to gather more resources so you can build more stuff. There’s no Titans as of yet, and adding more tiers of planets won’t do any good as far as making the endgame more exciting. It would just be more grinding to get more (new) resources to make more tools to gather more stuff to build more stuff. Despite what people think, this is a building game at it’s core, and making unique builds, houses, and things creates free form gameplay without end. But, there’s nothing to it. It stands up proudly like a wilted leaf in a monsoon.
Next issue on the docket is one that is still held in high contention : Pay to Win. Now, I’ve heard arguments from both sides, and both have merit, but the slider of “Is or Isn’t” lands firmly on the “Is” side. Plots = Power. Simply stated. With limited real estate, the more plots you got => the more prestige => more footfall => more coin => more impact on the economy. In a game that is a shopping and inventory simulator, there is an intrinsic value to the currency of the game. More coin equates to less hours grinding to get your very own table and chair. I won’t get into the semantics of what it is to “win” in a game such as this, but the bottom line is : if you can buy it, whatever it is, then you win. And that is the center of the argument. Players want to be rewarded for their efforts in the game world, not their efforts in the real world. Having loose finances allows early backers to buy buffs to their earnings in the game world, which are supposed to be separate. It’s literally like the division of church and state. One is one thing, and should stay there, the other is another and should stay there. They are mutually exclusive… or should be.
With that, I’m going to be drafting a second part of this post, but I will leave this here, for now.
