Boundless ecosystem is empty, add enemy variety, slightly change enemies attack, give new names

General
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We get a fair number of people who join the game and say, “Oh it only has 4-5 enemies, it sucks. Minecraft has more.” Which is ridiculous, obviously, because most of Minecraft’s enemies are just re-skins.

Sheep, pigs, chickens, for instance, all bare minimum programming, all just simple skins. Many of the enemies have only one attack, but the total enemies are varied and numerous.

The illusion of numerous enemies and neutral enemies is needed for immersion.

Worlds should have non-aggressive enemies with simple skins and AI. Some simple birds that squawk, hop in and out of trees, some simple frogs in the marshes/mud areas, camels in the desert, lanky deer in forests, cows in the plains, etc. Give them ingredient drops and weaker food bonuses. Allow people with max stealth to approach them more easily.

edit In Minecraft, Zombies, Zombie Pigmen, Villagers, Ravagers, all look nearly identical and have rudimentary animations and AI, and yet, people consider them different NPCs.

Regarding Boundless enemies, some T5+ Wildstock could be changed to “Rhinoceros” and be given the ability to bulldoze 2 columns of blocks.

The T5+ or so Spitters who gain the long-range bombardment ability could be called “Snipers”, their appearances changed a little, and mixed in with other Spitters.

Some Cuttletrunks could be changed to “Pterodactyls”, and given a simple swooping AI.

Some Roadrunners could be changed to “Flamengos”, and given the ability to create lava anywhere they run.

Minimal effort, so new players see a world filled with creatures and farming, instead of seeing the word “Wildstock” over and over again for 100’s of hours.

Sometimes quantity is more important than quality.

The key is to make minimal cosmetic changes to existing models and altering their name while adding a new ability as well as creating some very simple AI neutral creatures to populate the world with.

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Totally agree with this

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This and a lot more creatures to fight would be nice. I’d love it if they would bundle up a bunch of creatures after we get the Hunter update and make them creatures that bring a lot of variety into hunting and just pve combat in general.

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Would also like to see them adjust the rewards for higher level content as well as introduce more difficult encounters, there is simply no reason to fight on a t6+ world unless I have a lot of people helping, because the rewards are simply so much lower (for a much larger time investment, challenge, and cost) than I get by farming a t3-4 speedrunning low level meteors.

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We’re still suppose to get Titans. I am not sure what we need before we get that content released but it would be nice. I am still waiting for air ships too. That’s something that the devs have said they wanted to do like 3 or 4 years ago.

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You’re wrong if you think everybody’s looking for more challenge / more enemies to fight.
Plus, asking for more enemies requires some really heavy art. Animation might be the most complicated part of creating a new creature.

I’d argue that the game would also get more players if it had more blocks to build with. Compared to other games of the genre, Boundless comes short on that front.
Maybe a 4th type of stone/wood/leaves, added on some new worlds? Maybe a number of new decorative blocks recipes could be added to the in-game store? I’d buy that, TBH.

And even without the block variety issue, I’ve seen many people leaving the game because of how maintenance-heavy it is, with the fuel, oortshards, repairs on machines and constantly making tools to replace those which broke…

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I never said that, at all, anywhere in my post.

I intentionally asked for minimal changes to creatures to minimize art needed and animation.

There’s a higher variety of blocks and colors in Boundless than every other major voxel game out right now just based on the 255 colors and ability to shape blocks in multiple ways.

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The game is already so clunky and laggy. Given their current audience, the best they can do is just make a meatshield, a slow moving bulletsponge that has huge AOE’s, because the game can’t handle any complicated combat.

Especially when I can kill a Spitter, walk away, 5 seconds later die from an attack from that same spitter.

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Not sure you understand how much work would be implied to make something like a rhino out of a wildstock. ^^’
Same, a Cuttletrunk looks nothing like a Petrodactyl, with Cuttletrunks not having wings, and having tentacles. The minimal work to be done, by following your idea, would be on coding. But art-wise? You’re asking for brand new creatures with nothing to be salvaged from what already exists. Like I said, animation is one of the most demanding part of the job. I say that from my own background in the 3D industry.
Ideally, you’d want creatures which can use the exact same animations of a previously made creature.

Look at it that way, with all the money the team behind World of Warcraft makes, they still re-use animations constantly, only making new ones for super important characters like the patch end-bosses.

Colors doesn’t do everything, though. There’s a lot of styles you can’t do, compared to other games. I don’t know what you have in Minecraft, but in Creativerse, on the course of the past 2 years, they’ve added block textures fitting for styles like Aztec, Medieval, Galactic, Industrial, Hotel, Chinese… and more are coming for sure…

The way Boundless works also prevents us from having several very different colors per block, unlike other games with fixed textures. So the 255 colors thing is also a limit in itself.

Yet, THAT is a way to pump-in content which doesn’t require much work. You just have to make ONE texture per block in grey which will then be tinted in 255 colors. Look at what people do with marble and mosaic. Imagine more like that.

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Yes please

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I would enjoy more variety of creatures to fight for sure.

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The title of the post has literally, “Give new names” written. I never said to make entirely new enemy models. Slight variations is all that’s needed.

A T6 Wildstock looks nothing like a T3 Wildstock, why use the same name? Beef up their torso model, maybe change the face slightly, enhance their ability a little more, presto, a new unit.

You are way too hung up on your preconceived notion of what animals are and the fake placeholder names I used.

Creativerse also uses standard block voxels, isn’t an MMO, and doesn’t need to program for PS4. You’re comparing apples and oranges. Boundless is far harder to program for than Creativerse, which is a Minecraft clone in every sense of the word.

Both games offer creative options the other doesn’t.

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Please please add some lava flamingos. I won’t buy another game for the rest of the year if I can chase a flamingo around my build while he sets fire to everything with his feet.
Please.

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I agree the ecosystem could use some work. Lava and water need to have some life. Imagine lava mobs trying to drag you in. Weighted projectiles would become relevant for water fights.

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I know, right? Just take the existing T6 Road Runner model, change the name, alter the look a little, and program the ability so that anywhere it RUNS turns into lava. Then increase their drop rate of Oortstone, and you’ve got a hilarious new enemy to battle!

Reminds me of the Lava enemies in Mario. Like the dragon that jumps in and out of the water. Even some bone fish might be nice.

The point I’m trying to make is, while the Hunter mob that’s upcoming is going to be cool I’m sure, I feel like the game would benefit from simpler enemy additions and changes instead of focusing so much dev time on just one enemy.

Simple AI enemies to populate the world so it isn’t just endless Wildstock would go a long, long way for making the world feel alive.

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Not suggesting that it’d be easy but you never see massive creatures that you aren’t supposed to kill in games, ya know?
I wanna build on a huge hill-sized turtle that walks around eating foliage and not being aggressive…
Foliage is so good.

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Lol dum down hopers and give them the fleeing that road runners do. There are your frogs.

Birds are already in the game but they are hard to see. Its ear bleeding @ some times^^.
Hear them all the time but im not able to find them.

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Roadrunners only have 3 tiers. The creatures abilities were explored at the concept stage and I still believe they will find their way into the game at some point.

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How could I not be? See :

I mean, you tell me “pterodactyl”, I think “creature with wings”, at least. Is that being too hung-up on preconceived notions of what animals are?
Plus, you’re telling me this now, but you weren’t clear either in your OP…

In any case, I do NOT think this game needs more creatures… right now. Boundless not having more trash-creatures like sheep/frogs/deers/cows/flamengos isn’t the reason people leave the game. And it’s not by barely changing old enemies to make new ones that the players who are deep into the most PvE-challenging part of the game will want to stay more.

The Hunter creature which can fly and can apparently warp behind you is coming soon© so I wouldn’t worry about adding more creatures just now, anyway. Its art seems mostly done.
Plus, there’s been some work on parasite creatures which tend to sleep in blocks to be a problem when you’re mining.

But I do agree that it could be nice to have water-creatures and more variety… at one point. It’s just that, to my eyes, from the amount of work required to the actual benefits it would bring, it looks like something that should be explored WAAAAAAAY later when Titans and rental worlds are done.

If we’re really exploring the idea of more creatures, I think we just need time and more ideas like the Hunter and Parasite. Things that bring some actual gameplay.

CV is a building game. Boundless also has a building aspect. That’s close enough of a comparison. What does it matter if CV is an MMO or not? What does the voxel thing matter? In CV, you have stairs and half-blocks too. Just not for every block, and they’re made differently. But still.
And I mean, you made lots of comparisons to Minecraft in the OP yourself. Is Minecraft any more comparable to Boundless that CV? Come on, creatures in MC are just cubes with primitive animations. It’s easy to pump-out new creatures for MC.
So don’t tell me I’m comparing apples to oranges.
Doesn’t make my point any less valid that this game could use more styles of blocks to play around. Tints don’t do everything.

What ever way you spin it, it’s easier to add more block textures to build with in the game than adding creatures, and I’m 100% sure that it would bring actual fun to more players than adding some pseudo-frogs/deers/cows or whatever.

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I don’t have lag issues on any of the 50 servers for the game.

I am sure they most likely could bring a basic creature online into the game within a day or two if they focused on doing just that. After all, the Chrysominter was made in pretty much a day then implemented into test that same or next day.

Besides, we already have a meatshield creature already: the wildstock.

There’s concept art for some winged creatures and underwater stuff floating around on the forums. Along with worms and block parasites, So it isn’t like they don’t have their own ideas for what could be brought into the game. This is excluding Protectors that show up on Titans.

We could probably use some sort of dinosaur themed creatures like a raptor.

1 Like