I don’t think buying plots is a P2W feature, its only value is allowing you to reserve a space to build on- so it doesn’t have any other real benefit.
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It’s all perspective.
All the devs need to do to get me to renew Gleam Club is say, “Swords & shields have arrived!”
…just sayin’. I like my money, but I hope I will be giving some more of it to Wonderstruck very soon.
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Agree. Theres a learning curve In this game… If you are willing To put hours To it… Everything is Pretty simple but it does take time… Like doing money via minting Or whatever.
Also i think the game does poor Job explaining that your build is actually gone if you dont fuel it.
I would argue many players dont even read all the hint texts that pops up.
Think this is rly big turn off For players cause they “need to” invest their time so heavily To this.
And i mean sure 4 weeks with lowest fuel is decent but still.
I simply can’t get behind any kind of P2W argument about Boundless. And so many of the players who are litterally paying to play (sovereigns namely) have freely opened them up to literally anyone and everyone. That just about neuters the P2W argument alone. Pay for more cubits so that you can buy more plots so you can build more in a high demand area…maybe…maybe traces of P2W there. But it’s Boundless…there is a ■■■■ ton of land available to claim and build upon. It’s not a P2W game…it’s the players making the P2W claim.
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Nope. You supported a development team so that they could continue to provide us a desirable service which many have enjoy since Boundless hit the scene. Thank you for doing so!
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Definitely l, also the better promotions would definitely boaster the player base and since boundless is a mmo kinda game centered around community that would only make it funner lol
So, you admit that it does have a benefit, that you pay for, that gives you an advantage over people that don’t pay? Obsessing over the word “win” in P2W is ignoring actual use of the term.
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Sounds to me like people are just complaining that there are microtransactions. I understand hating microstransactions, but the microtransactions that this game has are not intrusive in any shape, form or fashion. It is fine to hate microtransactions, but pretending the game is pay2win is disingenuous. Just say you hate microtransactions in any form and be honest about it.
Try playing just about any mobile game with microtransactions and compare it boundless. Most of those games just remove the actual game mechanics and replace them with credit card swipes. 
I have a rabid generalized hatred of microtransactions, and yet Boundless does not bother me. There is just absolutely nothing predatory about the microtransactions in this game.
MMO games come with an implied contract of being software as a service. In order to provide that service, there has to be steady revenue generation. There are two ways to provide steady revenue generation: subscription or microtransactions. Subscriptions provide a uniform barrier to entry for anyone who cannot afford to spend money every month. Microtransactions provide a barrier to various perks people want. If the perks are predatory in nature, then the microtransactions are bad. What is predatory? That is what people are quibbling about here. What some people are saying is that any perk that anyone would want for any reason is predatory. That is disingenuous. It isn’t a perk if no one wants it, and the game doesn’t make any money if there is no one buying perks, leading to the game having no revenue, leading to loss of software as a service, which hurts everyone playing.
Predatory games have rng lootboxes, mechanics that only function when you pay for them, paid super buffs, buyable loot that is better than anything in the game, timers that you have to pay to bypass, etc. Paying to pick the biomes on a planet when all the biomes are already available to everyone is not a predatory microtransaction tactic. Paying to get something you already get plenty of in game is not a predatory microtransaction tactic, its pay to be lazy. If plots were something you could only earn one of a week or something, this would be a viable argument, but that isn’t the case. You can get hundreds of plots in a week just by playing normally.
Maybe adding an exchange to the game where people can exchange perk credits they buy with cash for coins would help people out. I don’t have enough time to play, you don’t have enough money, so you give me your time and I’ll give you my money. Lot’s of MMOs have successfully implemented such systems. GW2, EVE online, etc. Then people could all be happy.
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One of the things I’m challenging is the idea of equating P2W mechanics with predatory mechanics. Something can give paid advantage without being predatory, and something can be predatory without being P2W. Cosmetic lootboxes are arguably not particularly P2W, but are undeniably predatory.
Simplifying things to either “this is predatory so it is P2W” or “This is not predatory so it is not P2W” leaves no room for “Yes, you are paying for an advantage, but it isn’t particularly damaging to the game”.
What people who are concerned about P2W want to know is “can people with a lot of money do things better or faster than me?” Buying plots does allow people with a lot of money to do things faster than someone without a lot of money. Please don’t reduce this opinion to a binary about ethics.
If you and someone else both start at the same time in the same area, but you are not paying and they are, they can claim land that you were planning to claim but couldn’t claim because of real-world money, not because of how you play the game. Your only recourse is to either deal with it or move somewhere else, but in either case, they have gained that advantage with their wallet.
Note: I don’t hate microtransactions, I don’t view anything about Boundless to be unethical in it’s MTX, but I do view it as providing some degree of paying to gain advantage.
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Exactly what @Rydralain
I don’t consider anything in Boundless predatory, but I do consider the things you can buy in the game P2W. Just because I don’t feel they are predatory doesn’t mean someone else does not, it also doesn’t mean just because I feel they are P2W doesn’t mean someone else does not.
I feel anything that gives a player an advantage over another player is P2W. It’s as simple as that.
This is unrelated to Boundless, but is about Lost Ark and a good summation on how I feel.
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It allows you to reserve a lot of space “right now” but it doesn’t build, or do anything in that space. I don’t see how that is faster, it takes countless hours to place and chisel a few hundred plots worth of space. I suppose reserving in advance is a thing, but i don’t think it’s healthy for the game when done in mass, plus there are players advocating to remove empty plots from the world… Worlds are so large, there is metric tons of space available, i don’t understand how paying for plots is an advantage, it never looked nor felt like one when i was a new player, nor does it now.
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Someone could technically buy more plots than someone could ever accumulate. One could buy an endless amount of plots on top of earning them. Thus giving an advantage.
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Advantage in what? It’s not building, it’s not progression, its not coin. It’s just claiming empty space, that space is useless until you do something with it, the more space you have the less useful it is until your time allows you to do something with it.
The whole buy tons of plots, land grab argument feel like an argument of FOMO, but what are you missing out? Having reserved space that you don’t have time for anyway?
The whole “pay for advantage” business model is swipe a card to skip x so your time in game is spent in y. But in this case y takes many times more amounts of time than x, so you aren’t gaining an advantage at all. So if x is grind for xp, and y is building, in the process of building you grind xp, which allows you to get more plots. And you still have to grind something to get the blocks you want to build with in the first place, which gets you xp and thus plots, the card swipe only gets you the smallest item in the grind, and it’s not worth the money, it’s not an advantage in the journey.
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Does I guess… but I bought a decent amount of plots and if you see how much I “did” you can question the viewpoint…
I don’t think we will be ultimately see a person buying a lot because of the cost versus reward in the long run.
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It’s simple and straightforward, if you as a paying player can buy something and it gives you more of something in the game it is P2W.
It is progression. How do I get more plots if I don’t buy them? I have to progress and gain them, thus skipping the need to level to gain more plots.
I don’t understand the confusion. I buy, I get more … I don’t buy, I don’t. True for Sovereigns, plots, gleam club, etc. etc.
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I have a huge area around my main base pre-plotted so that nobody else can build in places I have things planned to build.
So let’s say there is a mountain near my build, and I want to build there, placing a giant statue there to perfect the horizon from my build. Let’s say I have no plots or cubits left, so if I want to claim that land without my wallet, I need to grind for a few hours. Let’s say someone else, who also has no plots or cubits - we’re both starting on even footing - wants to build something there. That person has a bunch of money and saw me scouting out the area, so they drop $20 on some cubits and claims the land before I can.
They used their wallet to gain advantage, to my disadvantage.
Sure, and that’s why I am always very clear to say that it is weak P2W, but it is still P2W regardless.
For clarity of language/intent, I would rephrase this as “if you as a paying player can buy something and it gives you more of something in the game, that mechanic is P2W.”
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I think we are at an impasse. I don’t see plots as progression, it doesn’t better your character, improve your journey in the game, it doesn’t give you access to things or places in the game.
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No, but cubits can be used to buy skill sheets, which do improve your character.
It reduces the grind for levels → cubits → plots so I can build more instead of mining gleam for xp.
It gives me control of places in the game.
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I’ll agree with the impasse. I say that because I don’t think any of us are wrong. It’s how you define P2W.
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