Info about Star Valor:

Official game description:
JOIN THE COMMUNITY
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About the Game
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Star Valor is a Space Action RPG game that puts you in control of your own spaceship and destiny. Explore a vast open-world procedurally generated galaxy as you make your way from being a nobody to becoming the biggest name in the galaxy. But in a universe where the last of humanity are ruled by the alien beings that very nearly made them extinct, wealth and power doesn’t come easy.
In Star Valor, you are in full control of how you progress and what you ultimately end up becoming. Throughout your journey you will get to choose which factions you join changing who sees you as friend and foe. Alternatively, you can choose to be independent, and find your own way in the universe and your own allies and foes.
Build your way up by earning credits through a variety of activities such as mining asteroids for valuable materials and minerals, completing various missions, trading goods, salvaging ship wrecks, crafting your own weapons, claiming bounties on pirates or even embark on a path of piracy yourself. What you do and how you make your fame and fortune is entirely your choice.
Throughout your journey you gain experience allowing you to level up unlocking new options when starting a new game along with skill points for to you spend how you see fit, creating the play style that best suits you. Anything is possible and you are in complete control of how you play.
*   Open World Exploration in a Procedurally Generated Galaxy – Each new game is completely different from the last with players getting to choose how big or small a galaxy is.
*   Dynamic and Easy to Learn Combat System – Engage in head to head dogfights or massive fleet battles.
*   Craft Your Own Weapons – Craft weapons using materials found from ship wrecks and mining asteroids and add your own modifiers to create unique weapons that cater to your needs.
*   Over 160 Different Pieces of Ship Equipment – A vast selection of varying ship equipment to allow you to customize your ship how you see fit and give it the perfect loadout.
*   Over 80 Different Ships – Over 80 different ships across various classes and roles to choose from, ranging from small Fighters to big Battleships.
*   Choose New Character Abilities as You Level Up – As you level up, you gain skill points which can be allocated to the skills and skill trees of your choice to create the character of your play style.
*   Hire a Crew to Improve your Ship and Gunners to Operate Turrets – As you grow and you gain a bigger ship you will need to hire a crew to help run it along with gunners to operate turrets.
*   Sign up and Equip new Captains to help you - Become a fleet commander and direct your fleet to help you in combat or mining, or alternatively you can hire mercenaries to help out… for a price
*   Unlock Perks to Open New Play Styles – Complete specific tasks or make particular choices to unlock new perks granting different and various new play styles.
*   Story and Procedural Quest System – Embark on a story that spans throughout the galaxy or take on a large variety of quests with a procedural quest system.
*   Seven Factions to Interact With – Interact with seven different factions each with their own agendas. Allying yourself with one may make others your enemy.
*   Wars Between Factions – Become apart of wars and conflicts between factions as they struggle for power.
*   Arena Mode for Combat Focused Challenges – An additional arena mode for you to test your combat abilities as you face off against waves of enemies that grow in power as you progress.

Release date: 3 Aug, 2022

Categories: Open-World Exploration, Procedural Generation, Ship Combat, Ship Customization, Resource Management, Crafting, Fleet Management, Base Building


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Highly enjoyable and deep gameplay (weight 1): Players consistently praise the game's core design, finding it fun, addictive, and deeply engaging. Many highlight its surprising depth, replayability, and overall high quality, especially considering its price point and indie development.
- Excellent 2D space sandbox (weight 0.35): The game is lauded as a top-tier entry in the 2D top-down space sandbox and sim genre. It successfully captures the essence of classic titles like Elite and Freelancer, offering a rich spacefaring experience with exploration, combat, and trade.
- Robust loot and crafting (weight 0.16): The game features a robust and enjoyable loot and crafting system, often compared to ARPGs like Diablo. Players appreciate the variety of equipment, the non-tedious crafting process, and the ability to upgrade items, which adds to the game's depth and progression.
- Valuable DLC content (weight 0.13): The game's DLC, particularly the base-building feature, is highly praised for adding significant depth and an extra layer of immersion. It allows players to establish a home in the universe, enhancing the overall experience.
- Engaging faction system (weight 0.09): The game features a well-implemented faction system where players can build relationships, gain reputation, and unlock unique faction-specific ships and equipment. This adds depth and replayability, encouraging players to explore different alignments.
- Active and consistent development (weight 0.08): The developer is highly praised for their continuous and active support of the game, consistently releasing free updates, adding new content, and improving existing features. This ongoing development significantly enhances the game's longevity and player experience.
- Deep character and perk customization (weight 0.07): Beyond ship customization, the game offers deep character and gameplay customization through various starting options, unlockable perks, and skill trees. This allows players to tailor their experience and build unique playstyles.
- Fluid and deep combat (weight 0.06): Combat in the game is described as fluid, fast-paced, and surprisingly deep, blending arcade-style action with strategic elements. It demands quick reflexes and smart resource management, making battles engaging and fun.
- Rewarding achievement and perk system (weight 0.05): The game incorporates a meta-progression system where completing achievements unlocks perks and abilities for future playthroughs. This system is well-received, adding an extra layer of replayability and a sense of continuous progression.

Common complaints:
- Insufficient Story and Content (weight 0.4): Players consistently report a severe lack of engaging content, including a missing or underdeveloped main story, repetitive quests, and a general absence of meaningful activities. This leads to boredom and a feeling that the game is incomplete or shallow, especially after the initial hours.
- Unfinished and Unpolished Game (weight 0.35): Many players feel the game is unfinished, citing a lack of polish, numerous bugs, and missing quality-of-life features. This includes issues with controls, UI, and a general sense that the game should still be in Early Access, despite its full release status.
- Slow and Repetitive Progression (weight 0.34): The game's progression is often described as slow and tedious, requiring excessive grinding for ships and resources. This is exacerbated by inconsistent difficulty scaling, leading to frustrating encounters with overpowered enemies and a general lack of excitement in gameplay.
- Unbalanced and Frustrating Combat (weight 0.13): Combat encounters are often frustrating due to unbalanced enemy types, unfair warp-ins, and poor AI behavior. Players report issues with enemy tracking, difficulty hitting fast targets, and a lack of support from friendly NPCs, making combat feel unfair and unrewarding.
- Clunky Fleet Management (weight 0.1): Fleet management is a significant pain point, described as laborious and barebones. Players lack adequate control over fleet ships, and basic functions like cargo exchange or equipment management are clunky and tedious, hindering the fleet gameplay experience.
- Underwhelming Trading System (weight 0.07): Trading gameplay is considered average at best, with low profits and a repetitive loop. Some players find it boring, while others note it can be exploited for quick leveling, indicating a lack of balance and depth in this core mechanic.
- Problematic Save System (weight 0.07): The save system is highly problematic, with issues such as frequent crashes during saving, limited save slots, and inconsistent autosave functionality. This leads to significant loss of progress and a frustrating experience for players.
- Poor Mission Navigation (weight 0.07): The mission navigation system is severely lacking, with no clear markers or directions on the map for quests. This makes it difficult for players to find objectives and progress, leading to confusion and wasted time.
- Unintuitive User Interface (weight 0.07): The user interface is widely criticized for being clunky, cluttered, and visually unappealing. Players find it difficult to navigate and customize, detracting from the overall user experience.
- General Player Dissatisfaction (weight 0.07): Some players express general dissatisfaction with the game's direction, citing personal preferences for different gameplay styles or frustration with specific design choices. This includes issues like losing progress due to crashes or disliking the RNG crew advancement system.

Gameplay feedback:
- Deep Ship & Fleet Customization (weight 0.55): The game offers extensive ship and fleet customization, allowing players to tailor their vessels with various weapons, equipment, and crew. Players can manage multiple ships, assign roles, and fine-tune weapon behaviors, enabling diverse playstyles from solo combat to large-scale fleet engagements.
- Core Gameplay Loops: M.T.E.C. (weight 0.49): Core gameplay loops include mining asteroids for resources, trading goods between sectors, exploring the vast universe, and engaging in combat. These activities are essential for progression, earning money, and acquiring better equipment.
- Multi-Layered Progression Systems (weight 0.18): The game features multiple progression systems, including a level cap of 50 for experience and skill points, and separate 'knowledge' levels for various activities. Players can allocate skill points across five distinct trees (Engineering, Combat, Exploration, Business, Social) to customize their character's abilities.
- Dynamic Faction & Reputation System (weight 0.13): A robust faction system allows players to build reputation, join allegiances, and face hostilities. Faction relationships influence access to unique gear and missions, and players can choose to side with different races, impacting their overall experience.
- Roguelite Perks & Permadeath (weight 0.13): A roguelite-inspired perk system allows players to unlock new starting bonuses and ships through achievements, enhancing replayability. The game also offers an optional permadeath mode for an added challenge.
- Learning Curve & Replayability (weight 0.1): The game has a learning curve but provides a decent tutorial for new mechanics. It offers high replayability due to its sandbox nature and various difficulty modes, though some players note it can involve a significant grind.
- Optional Light Story Campaign (weight 0.05): The game includes an optional, light story campaign that introduces players to the world and faction choices. However, the main plot is not central to the experience, allowing players to focus on sandbox activities.

Performance notes:
- Excellent technical stability (weight 0.11): Many players report excellent technical stability, smooth performance, and high FPS, even on older or low-spec hardware. Crashes and bugs are rare, with some attributing any issues to their own system.
- Saving causes brief pause (weight 0.01): The game's saving mechanism causes a brief pause, which is more noticeable on traditional HDDs compared to faster M.2 drives. This suggests optimization for modern storage.

Recommendations:
- Highly Recommended Game (weight 0.38): The vast majority of players highly recommend the game, often citing its value for money, especially when on sale. Many consider it a 'gem' within its genre and express excitement for future updates. Some suggest waiting for a sale or for further development if on a tight budget.
- Appeals to Challenge Seekers (weight 0.02): The game appeals to players who enjoy a challenging experience, particularly those who prefer single-save systems and the struggle associated with them.
- Gameplay Learning Curve (weight 0.02): Players are advised to focus on learning game mechanics and reaching a certain level in their initial playthrough. Those comfortable with combat can disregard tutorial level recommendations.

Other player notes:
- Dedicated Solo Developer (weight 0.21): Players highly praise the developer's dedication, especially as a solo creator. They appreciate the continuous updates, active community engagement, and the passion evident in the game's ongoing development, even years after its initial release.
- Demand for Multiplayer/Co-op (weight 0.13): Many players hope for the introduction of a multiplayer or co-op mode, seeing it as a major improvement that would elevate the game's experience. This is a frequently requested feature for future updates.
- Anticipated Base Building DLC (weight 0.1): There is significant anticipation for the upcoming Base Building DLC. Players are eagerly awaiting its release, viewing it as a key addition that will enhance gameplay and address current content gaps.
- Quality-of-Life Improvements Needed (weight 0.06): Players suggest various quality-of-life improvements, including automated crafting component deposits, in-game price comparison logs, better item identification, and streamlined pilot assignment interfaces.
- Strong Modding Potential (weight 0.05): Players see great potential for the game through modding. They hope for robust mod support to allow community-driven content and polish, believing it could significantly extend the game's lifespan and appeal.
- Compared to Space Genre Titles (weight 0.03): The game is frequently compared to other titles in the space genre, such as Starsector, Space Pirates and Zombies, and the X series. These comparisons highlight its genre influences and help players contextualize its gameplay style.
- Niche Indie Experience (weight 0.03): The game is described as a niche, simple indie title with a good electronic soundtrack. It's considered suitable for shorter play sessions, offering a casual break from more complex games.
- Translation Support Varies (weight 0.02): While some translations exist (e.g., Chinese), the game lacks native support for certain languages like Japanese. However, its Unity engine allows for community-driven automatic translation tools.
- Endgame Hunting Fleet Balance (weight 0.02): A specific suggestion for endgame balance is to reduce the frequency or number of active hunting fleets, as they can become overwhelming and detract from the late-game experience.
- Appreciated Lighting Effects (weight 0.01): Players appreciate the game's lighting effects, noting that the interaction of light with ships and background objects contributes to a realistic and visually pleasing atmosphere.
- New Weapon Type Suggestions (weight 0.01): Specific suggestions for new weapon types include multi-missile launchers and unguided rockets with area-of-effect explosions, adding more tactical options to combat.
- Limited Wiki and Lore Resources (weight 0.01): The game currently lacks a comprehensive wiki, and the community has not been active in building one. Lore development is primarily happening on the official Discord server.
- Steam Integration (weight 0.01): The game integrates with Steam features, requiring authentication to start and supporting Steam Achievements and Steam Cloud for save data.
- Potential Save Game Issue (weight 0.01): One reviewer mentioned a potential save game issue possibly related to Steam blocking VPNs, but this appears to be an isolated or speculative incident.
- Humble Bundle & Early Access (weight 0.01): The game was available on Humble Bundle and was in Early Access, indicating its distribution and development history.
- Reviewer Demographics (weight 0.01): One reviewer mentioned their age and general disinterest in the sci-fi genre, which provides context for their perspective but is not actionable feedback.
- Future Roadmap Features (weight 0.01): The developer's roadmap includes plans for a dynamic world with an economy, factions, and planet interaction, suggesting future expansions to the game's scope.
- Gameplay Score (weight 0.01): General gameplay and playability scores were provided by one reviewer, indicating a moderately positive but not exceptional experience.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.3): Players are highly satisfied with the game's strong core gameplay loop, which includes deep customization options for ships and fleets, rewarding progression systems, and a sense of freedom in exploration. The game's value for money, consistent updates, and ability to fulfill a specific 'space sandbox' niche also contribute significantly to positive experiences.
- Frustration (weight 0.13): Frustration stems primarily from technical issues such as frequent crashes, poor save mechanics leading to lost progress, and various bugs related to AI, collision detection, and fleet hangers. Players also express annoyance with clunky UI, lack of quality-of-life features (e.g., inventory management, automation), and inconsistent game scaling that leads to sudden, unavoidable deaths or tedious grind.
- Disappointment (weight 0.11): Disappointment arises from the game's perceived incompleteness, particularly the lack of substantial questlines, story content, and meaningful endgame activities. Players feel let down by unimplemented features, repetitive gameplay loops, and a general lack of depth or 'soul' in the universe, which makes the game feel like a chore rather than an engaging experience.
- Excitement (weight 0.1): Excitement is driven by the game's addictive sandbox nature, offering extensive freedom and customization that hooks players from the start. The anticipation for future updates and DLC, along with the overall high quality and engaging combat, contributes to a strong sense of enthusiasm and a desire to continue playing.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.06): Players enjoy the game's fun and engaging moment-to-moment gameplay, particularly the action-packed combat and deep mechanics. The ability to customize ships, develop crews, and achieve powerful goals provides a rewarding experience, making the game a pleasurable and often relaxing pastime.
- Appreciation (weight 0.05): Appreciation is directed towards the developer's continuous effort, active support, and consistent updates, which demonstrate a passion for the game. Players value the well-balanced combat, loadout tinkering, and the overall quality of the game as a 2D space sandbox.
- Joy (weight 0.03): Joy is experienced through the game's accessible presentation of classic space sim elements, offering full control and freedom to forge one's own path in the universe. The engaging and addictive core gameplay loop, combined with high replay value, provides a consistently fun and nostalgic experience.
- Engagement (weight 0.03): The game's highly addictive sandbox nature and its ability to make players lose track of time are key drivers of engagement. The continuous sense of danger and challenge, along with the cyclical nature of gameplay, keeps players hooked and interested for extended periods.
- Anticipation (weight 0.02): Anticipation is primarily focused on future content, particularly upcoming DLCs like Base Building and potential multiplayer features. Players are eager for new content to fill gameplay gaps and hope for continued improvements and modding support.
- Annoyance (weight 0.02): Annoyance stems from quality-of-life issues such as clunky UI navigation, inability to manage squad inventory easily, and repetitive gameplay. Specific design choices like the base-building in DLC feeling like tower defense also contribute to this negative sentiment.
- Hope (weight 0.02): Hope is centered on the game's future potential, with players desiring improvements in fleet commands, ship modification, and overall polish. There is also a strong desire for more main missions, multiplayer, and workshop features to enhance the game's longevity and depth.
- Anger (weight 0.01): Anger arises from the game's perceived poor quality, frustrating progression, and specific design choices that diminish the overall experience. Issues like cargo dumping bugs, unrewarding non-combat activities, and the developer's choices contribute to a strong negative reaction.
- Desire (weight 0.01): Players express a strong desire for missing features, including full controller support, more unique items, and a dedicated co-op mode. There is also a wish for more substantial quests, improved presentation, and additional mechanics like new weapons, skills, and ships.
- Nostalgia (weight 0.01): Nostalgia is triggered by the game's resemblance to classic space games like SPAZ, Escape Velocity, Freelancer, and Elite. This similarity evokes a sense of familiarity and fondness for older gaming experiences.
- Boredom (weight 0.01): Boredom sets in due to the game's monotony and repetitive actions, particularly in trading, exploration, and mining. The lack of a compelling main story after reaching certain progression points and the absence of further goals contribute to players losing interest.
- Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion arises from unclear game mechanics, such as inexplicable deaths by neutral factions or difficulty understanding weapon loadouts and progression. Players also express bewilderment regarding the game's high ratings despite perceived flaws.
- Love (weight 0.01): Love for the game is expressed through strong affection and enjoyment of almost every aspect, indicating a deep positive connection with the overall experience.
- Enthusiasm (weight 0.01): Enthusiasm reflects an overall positive sentiment towards the game's quality, value, and enjoyable experience. This emotion is a general expression of excitement and satisfaction with the game.
- Regret (weight 0.01): Regret is felt when players perceive their time spent on the game as wasted, especially when considering alternative games like Starsector. Inability to refund the game and a lack of long-term goals also contribute to this feeling.
- Amusement (weight 0.01): Amusement is derived from humorous in-game occurrences, such as finding a warp gate inside an asteroid, or from observing other players' reviews. Self-inflicted gameplay setbacks can also be a source of lighthearted entertainment.}