I am quite happy with crafting times in general. If it were up to me (which it is not) I would leave them the same except perhaps in the case of essence which dose seem a little excessive.
I am concerned with the idea of repairing items as you would never have to make more than two stacks of each kind. It seems like that would hurt the overall economy. If you did allow repair i would hope that it would be at a cost of 10 to 30 percent of the overall durability(depending on a repair crafting skill)
However i think you have done a fabulous job with balancing the crafting system. In this age of instant gratification people might not like it but give them exactly what they want they will gradually loose interest. Humans need a wall of resistance to push agent or they become bored and move on anyway.
Some of the boundaries you have set up make this a somewhat niche game. that’s fine with me as it seems to attract a more mature audience (mature in this instance having nothing to do with age).
this is of course all my opinion and I am just one of many. I have been watching you guys work for years now and have complete faith in your work as a team. 
Repairing wouldn’t be that bad if it reduced durability by 1/3 each repair or had the potential to introduce a defect. These might even be mitigated with new skills to an extent but never completely nullified.
If there was repair, I’d limit it to gem and forged.
But, honestly, I think reducing crafting time for single crafts would eliminate the need.
So the wear is ok. But you want a cheaper way to “re-get” the same tool.
How cheap do you think this would be? 50% of the original cost? More? Less?
Should any forging alter this cost of repair?
This is a nice idea.
So which is it? 50% across the board, or remove all crafting times?
Ok so we’re just talking about resources here and not building materials.
Would you (say) double the number of resource seems but half their drop rate? So the output is constant. Or just double the number of resource seems so resources can be collected at double speed?
I’m trying to learn and understand why players (like yourself) don’t play the game. I’m not sure why feedback about balance would cause offence.
I think a recipe list has been added to the furnace.
@james As a parent, I think the way you guys have it setup for getting money is poor design.
Currently your team has the game gated by wait timers as far as crafting goes. I would suggest letting all crafts be instant. Mass crafts give you a discount in mats used because you’re getting a discount due to creating mass objects. No different than factory work. The more you order, the cheaper your cost per unit. Difference here of course this being a game and we have the option to get it instantly instead of waiting 3 months of production time.
I think your team ya a misplaced concern in that player retention will be hard because people will ‘do things too quickly’ as a result. This isn’t right as far as every other game I’ve seen aimed at this demographic (concerning kids). Kids don’t want to spend a lot of time getting things. They want to go out, get what they need, craft it with minimal wait time and then get to building their projects.
The way the game is currently structured, it’s aimed at adults who like grind. That’s fine. That’s not going to work for the younger demographics though. As a parent who is fortunate enough to be able to pay my kids an allowance for chores around the house and A’s earned in their report cards, they save that money in a savings/checking account until they want to spend it on something, or just keep saving it. The two children in this scenario are 16 and 11. My oldest doesn’t spend as much but she doesn’t get as much as my middle child. My middle is a straight A kid and hard worker around the house. Her bank account reflects that. Each grading quarter that ends she often earns close to 200$.(we value grades highly in this household and hard work should reflect a good reward). She just spent the majority of that on minecraft pack points or whatever they are called.
If boundless wasn’t so tedious as far as timers are concerned she would have happily spent that on plots and gleam club she said.
I’m just saying, I really think you guys are missing a large demographic at the expense of making ‘work’ in this game. Kids do enough of that at home and school. They want their games to be fun and entertaining.
It sounds great to craft everything instantly, but being a crafter is one of the roles in the game. Crafting times seem like they are there to balance crafting with the other roles. Hunter, Mining, Gathering, Building. All of these things take time.
I think the crafter still has to spend time even if that is to source what they need to craft and also in some instances to craft item “a” which is a component of item “b”. I am not sure it should be instantaneous either but do think the time it takes should be reduced
Edit: One other thing, with the other roles you are actively doing something at all times. If you are hunting you are trying to get meteors to drop and then fighting the mobs. with crafting you put the items in the machines and then log out till the next day to come back and have finished items. So there is a difference in that crafting happens even if the player is not there (except when the machine wears out).
I disagree. More importantly a lot of the kids that try this game disagree. As a crafter sourcing your materials is the biggest time sink. It’s not fun. At all. That ‘no fun’ factor is compounded by the fact there are craft timers.
At any rate, all I am saying is feedback my kids are giving on the game and why they don’t play it
As an adult and not a kid (or maybe I am more of a kid than I think I am), I agree that the game needs to be fun or why and I doing it? I have a job so I already have a certain amount of grind and repetitive tasks I get to do. When I am able to game I want to have fun and in this game be able to interact with other players.
Not asking for creative mode just want to do more of the fun things and less of the boring repetitive things
I’m seeing a lot of high-end player complaints trying to masquerade as new player improvements. Most timers don’t need to be shortened and we definitely don’t need a way to make AoE planet-razers last longer. (My opinions.)
New players are doing single crafts of metal and alloy, so maybe those timers can be revisited in the name of greasing the onboarding wheels. Same with improving the durability of those early tools. Damage scaling is enough to make me want better tools, I don’t also need the durability to scale. Just make em all pretty durable.
There’s nothing new about this weekend full of new players that indicates there’s something wrong with gem tools or mass craft times. These are existing gripes.
This would be great, but can’t see it in the furnace currently.
Do you mean it’s been added to come into a future update?
I couldn’t agree more… and the idea of instant single crafts at the cost of material efficiency is intriguing. It serves to further separate the choice between single and mass crafting. I like meaningful decisions like this.
Repairs sound good if done in the context of diminishing stats. Reduced durability is ok… I’d prefer reduced stats like speed or damage- a repaired tool never being as efficient as a new one.
@a13o go back to my original post where James asked what the kids gripes were. If you think I’m trying to masquerade this, well that’s just silly and nonsensical. If it was a change I wanted personally I’d say as much. The crafting timers don’t bother me. I queue and go and more things. My kids don’t get the luxury to play past bed time or binge play like I sometimes do.
James asked for feedback on why they don’t play, I gave that feedback. If players such as yourself want to downplay that feedback or twist it around, then that’s fine but it’s genuine feedback as to why my kids don’t play Boundless any more.
It’s case by case for me. I see some crafting times that are ridiculous, no matter your level. (anything over a half hour is crazy, IMO)
But some changes I would support wouldn’t help vets at all. Like an instant craft for single tools of Iron or less. Any kind of high end item or multi-craft and you have to deal with wait times.
And as I originally said, that setup is geared towards the adult players, and that is fine. I literally said his exact thing. It’s not geared towards kids. If the dev team wants that demographic there are going to have to be changes. If they don’t want the demographic, then leave it focused towards adults.
That makes no sense though since we hear all the time they want this forum moderated and geared towards a younger group and the profanity filter in game gets such attention as well.
I’m going to play the game off and on regardless. I like the game. The dev team wants more kids to play, they have some serious restructuring to do.
@james hear is how I feel repairing should be done.
Stone Age: wood and stone tools can not be repaired.
Industrial Age: copper, iron, gold, silver, titanium, step 1: place 1/3 metal used and your broken “metal” tool in the furnace the ore will be used up in the furnace and the tool will become red hot. Step 2: Take the tool out of the furnace and place your hot tool on an anvil were you will strike it with a blacksmiths hammer.
Step 3: Each strike of the hammer is an rng roll successfull hits fix 25% dura failed hits have a chance of putting a defect on your tool/weapon or reduce its durability by 25% after 4 hits the process will finish.
Tools can not be placed in the furnace unless they are broken. Success on the anvil will be based off of how many of that type of ore tools you repaired.
Example:
Fixed 100 iron tools success rate improves for iron tools
Fixed 100 titanium tools success rate improves for titanium
Ect. ect…
forged tools will require a binding catalyst poured on it before placing it in the furnace. If no catalyst is used then it will be destroyed in the furnace.
The catalyst will protect the tool while it’s being repaired. But a side affect will cause the forged too to be bound to the next person who uses it.
This method could be used for gem tools aswell or could use method below.
Tech age: gem tools will be repaired in a laser cutter requiring different levels of power to repair along with 1/3 raw gems to craft the rest is the same method as above 4 tries with laser cutter each missed hit can cause defect or 25% dura loss.
Forge gem tools will require the catalyst poured on them before you repair.
So much for too complicated. lol
its Really not complicated
Stone Age refers to stone and wood
Industrial Age clearly refers to ores
And tech is clearly gems
Read the new Steam reviews this is the source of some of the comments regarding new players. That is what I did.
Does not make them invalid given the slow decline in the players actively playing since launch.
Lots of great ideas and suggestions in here so far. I’m gonna throw in my penny’s worth as well, whether it be new or agreeing with what someone previously said.
Quite a few very true comments about kid retention and needs, but I’ll add that the same is true for adults. Many adults have long hours at jobs they often don’t like. It can be physically or mentally exhausting and at the end of the day you just want that adrenalin high when you accomplish something. I don’t wanna spend three hours just prepping for more prep work to start the process of making the ingredients for the the tools to get the items needed for more prepping and prep work for the actual thing I really wanted to do and–argh, I’m just gonna go play puzzle puppers.
I will say I don’t mind grind. I’ve got loads of certain items, but nothing to do with it. Because it is just 1% of a complex formula of ingredients. The complexity of crafting really gets me. Dozens of microsteps, all requiring so. Many. Ingredients. (I’m still grumbling to myself about adding glowing lamella to gleam lanterns)
Kids can’t remember all those steps and items. Heck, as an adult I can’t remember all of that. Even with the knowledge tab. Frankly, it’s intimidating.
Again, I don’t mind grind, but if I saw results faster and with less steps/needed resources/complexity I’d def be on more.
Crafting times are also kinda really up there. I don’t think they should be removed though. I agree that less items = less time. Mass crafts should have a higher timer.
As much as I don’t like this idea (but crafter specialists might like it): how about a more drastic skill for reducing times. I was pretty sure there already was one, but maybe a higher tier version? Or just a stat skill that single points can be put into? With very noticeable results! Certainly not like the luck skill that I’m wondering why I even bother with.
I would def like my tools to last longer, or be repairable. Part of why I never even bothered to try gem tools. Too much for too little. That goes for both crafting or buying.
I don’t know if anyone has considered this, but how about tools be crafted with simple/less ingredients (on all tiers, even gem), but have no enhancements. Either bump up their durability or unbreakable.
Now here’s the other half: crafters make their money by making the augments that a player can put on that tool. It’s the augment that wears down, and when it does, players just place a new augment on. Not sure on limit to how many can be placed on.
But it can also help to try out new augments. Instead of having a single tool to help give breathing underwater, a player can just pop on that augment when they need it. Or if they don’t like one, no big deal. Just wait for it to wear off and try another.
Just an idea there. shrug