Cash shop? wait what?

Alright, that makes sense.

I feel it’s worth talking about and generating ideas to help monetize the game. The more they can sell on the cash shop that doesn’t bother customers, the more likely this game gets new content. That’s why I wanted to debate possible additions to the cash shop, to see what the community might be okay with.

I thought inventory expansion was risky, but probably okay, but for me personally, I drew the line at crafting time reduction. I felt that shouldn’t be added as a possible cash shop item.

I had wanted other people to chip in also, give some ideas.

Thanks for being level-headed. I think the problem is too many people tried to piggyback onto a discussion we were having and I should’ve just kept it the discussion to you.

I think everyone should contribute, but debating speculation vs speculation is a recipe for frustration, and rarely is valuable because there’s always a 3rd option.

I think this would only provide a short term advantage, as a player without this hypothetical perk would just make a couple more machines. Currently I have 8 of each machine and honestly it’s excessive and I could never keep them all going.

1 Like

I think what would help is an official Dev post, where they just ask for ideas on more ways to monetize, that way we can each submit a big post on the things we’d be okay with spending money on, and why, and thus avoid what happened in my previous thread.

they did.

6 Likes

Would just like to say, in closing on this topic (for me), why don’t we all take a look at the exchange after the new universe is stood up and then come back here with feedback based on our experience in the live game? I respect everyone’s opinion but let’s see how it plays out. I’m confident many of us will be level 50 the first week of the new universe so let’s take a look at things at that point and provide constructive feedback to the devs at that time. If we come away feeling that something is truly wrong after doing so, I’m confident the devs will take that feedback and either have a day 1 patch ready to adjust things or tweak things in the first patch out the door.

5 Likes

I’m not so confident XD

But I agree with the rest. Speculating about a hypothetical problem isn’t valuable :S

6 Likes

This thread really didn’t need to go beyond my last post. To people complaining like this, just say goodbye and ignore them.

This has been a huge discussion, mostly pretty productive too. I wanted to jump in to let you know we are reading through everything, no one is being ignored. There’s a lot of content here, and lots of different opinions flying around. But let’s not be too quick to disengage with a thread like this, people are welcome to debate any topic here and this one in particular was always going to be “hot”.

Just keep the debate civil and sensible, let everyone talk, and listen to each other.

We’ll continue listening and discuss internally all the points made.

10 Likes

If this happens the developers majorly messed up on balance and the ability for people to level. It likely should take months for people playing regularly to reach level 50 otherwise many players will then start complaining that there is no “end game”. I do agree we need to see how things play out but I certainly hope level 50 isn’t that easy.

2 Likes

me neither took me 1000hours last time :smile:

1 Like

If everyone were not starting at level one then I would agree in less than a week a ton of people would be level 50 as they would be doing going through group portals to group hunts and leveling in a matter of days. However, with everyone starting at level one there are no group hunts and no portals to get there with or weapons to use in them. Thank goodness! Too many people never really experienced starting as they joined and were handed weapons and went straight to group hunts leveling to level 50 within a few days and then made their character whatever they wished. Many have skipped leveling essentially that way and have no experience in life before portals and group hunts. They are in for a rude surprise. lol Personally, I wish starter planets had no portals ever and you first had to level high enough to get yourself off the starter planet before you could have portals available. Let the starter planets be for starting and learning. Then the cool stuff can be looked forward to when you are able to go to the planets for people with some experience.

3 Likes

As someone who most enjoyed the early hours of this game running around soaking in all the different worlds, I’d be very sad to see this implemented. Fantastic new game, huge universe and… sorry, you can’t see it for 200 hours.

2 Likes

Remember the person who said they got stuck on Vulpto because they had deleted their landing spot before running off to explore and then discovered they could not handle Vulpto as all they did was die a lot? I believe it was in response to that they were saying that with 1.0 people would start getting warnings if they tried to use a portal to a planet they were not prepared for so they won’t just die a lot. I think it was just a warning so that those who have friends to take them straight to group hunts their first hour to level fast can still do so. I would rather everyone had to level from regular play rather than have shortcuts like group hunts where they later are making comments about beginners when they have no experience really as a beginner.

When you and I started, it wasn’t as big a deal going straight to tier two and three planets after starting as it wasn’t toxic and creatures were all pretty tame compared to now. I would rather folks learn one planet that is easy a little before they wander off and then quit as all they find themselves doing on a difficult planet is experiencing death.

1 Like

I think people are going to experience death after 1.0. I think this is going to happen more for people that are just joining as they will not understand the dangers as well as those that have been playing a while. I know that I did quite a bit when I was starting. I was learning how mobs attacked and when, learning to handle grapples, learning how far and high I could jump. This is boundless, if we want people to learn the dangers then limiting portal access is babysitting in my opinion. Let people explore and see what they want. If the developers provide warnings, that is great but people should be able to ignore them and go and not be prevented because of a decision that “they cannot handle it”. Portals are a big part of this game and I am against any effort to limit then by reducing ort availability, not allowing them on starter planets, or not allowing someone that is below x level to use them.

In addition not allowing portals on a starter planet makes the assumption that even people that are a higher level would not want to collect resources or have easy access to builds on starter planets. I think that is a mistake.

3 Likes

My issue with microtransactions is that this is going to be a $39.99 title, with microtransactions, and a sort of premium membership.

1 Like

Yep that’s true, I’d certainly be dead a lot more. I suppose the deaths mattered less because I had no gear of worth either and now they’d be more punishing in terms of progress. Still, I think it’s best to let people make mistakes (and give them a nice easy way to fix them and get back home, like free travel to home beacons) than limit them especially given the title of the game. :slight_smile:

It can be $10 game and require a subscription to play of $15 per month from every one as an alternative. Is this preferable? You have to have a revenue stream to fund servers and development. I understand that you might not like the proposal from the developers, but what would you suggest? $40 one time is not going to keep the lights on very long. So far, the only thing everyone has to do is pay $40 for the game. After that, every other purchase is optional. Does this not allow the greater number of people access and avoid all the things that have been complained about extensively (MMO’s with subscriptions, pay for all upgrades/DLC’s)?

4 Likes

When the characters reach to level 50, i believe most people choose to focus one certain area to achieve the best result. (only discuss level 50 here)
Usually Master Combat skill / Source gather skill / Craft skill + Forge skill (Food or Gears)

If one player spend tons of money (lets say 20000$) .
The best move will be purchase the “skill reset” .

Why ? Because before level 100 for players who don’t spend money they can only choose 1- 2 area to focus

(Because of the new skill system)

If player have infinity “skill reset” what can they do ? (at level 50)

First i can build a character to hunter the materials for weapon / food craft
After i travel to the safe location (underground),
i can skill reset to Miner to gather the source with the best skill set up (Master hammer / bomb / AXE)
When I have all the source i need this time i can “skill reset” again to take all the crafting skills to craft the thing i need.

For people who don’t have infinity skill reset ( player don’t spend money)
They can switch the skill set at level 100 (200 total skill points)
They can switch between Hunter -> Miner or Miner -> Crafter (2 choice switch)
Until they reach level 150, they can have 3 play style switch.

For player who pay money at level 50 will have same or better function compare to player who don’t spend money at level 150.

This kind of “convenience” is way too much.
(For people who think this is not pay 2 win, you can call it pay 2 convenience)

And don’t forget most players in other game who willing to spend this amount of money also willing to spend a lot of time as well. (Because they love the game too)

My suggestion for this will be add the purchase limit / week (Cool down) to prevent this kind of method.
(Maybe 5 skill reset / week , or 5 skill cleanse point / week )
So people who pay the money can still buy the skill reset they need, i think reset 5 times is already a lot in a week. (before we only have 3)

Next lets talk about plots.
Not every players love the same content or every game content in Boundless
Some may love Build + Hunt , or Mine + hunt or Build + Connection or Build + solo.

There must be player who enjoy build for the most, because this game can build a really creative structure.
Is this plot purchase fair to them ?
They need to work so hard to earn the area to build.
People who pay the money for plots they don’t need to level up that hard, they can focus on what they enjoy most
(they may need some skills like chisel , or some refine block skills, or something like dex / power to increase the building speed)

My suggestion will be the same as the play style (skill reset) above.
Add the purchase limit / Level , so they can have slightly more plots instead of infinity plot purchasing opportunity.

For the last part is not about the cash shop,
Lets talk about the “skill set” feature
This new system is very unique compare to other games.
Usually you can find other game has similar system but different name. ( like rune page , skill book , …etc)
For most of time it allows player to transfer the total points instead of the remain points.
However, this game is not , so it will be very easy to cause the misunderstanding for new players.
(Also this is a cash shop item, so you need to deal it carefully)

My suggestion will be add the level 50 requirement for “skill set” purchase
Because there is no reason you need the skill set below level 50.
(I may just add it to the same page … Its the same as you set the bonus point to your second skill set)

So when new player reach level 50 and purchase the skill set, they will notice the bonus point, and be ready to work on second skill set.

I hope that nobody buys cubits (on launch) for 20k USD, or even for 1k, in short time and if someone would game wouldn’t allow transaction like that just to “protect” customer.

There is no real benefit of limiting resets way like that. If someone wants to play game like that best thing would be just to game notify about planning skill build better instead of 5+ resets per week.

I don’t see why buy2plot would cause much problem when those plots are used for building. I see it so that those players who want to build and concentrate their play time to it are more potentially buying blocks and tools from other players.

Even that I disagree with other things with you in this I agree :smiley: . Unlocking additional skill sets could have some restrictions like this just to “protect” player. Maybe level 30+ skillsets could be available, at least on additional characters.

1 Like

FFXIV costs $50-60 to buy, has a mandatory $14.99/mo subscription and comes with an optional cash shop for vanity items and quality of life items such as character renames, server transfers, and more.

Elder Scrolls: Online costs $50-60 to buy, has an optional $14.99/mo subscription and has an absolutely massive cash shop with tons of quality of life and vanity items including items that directly give you an advantage in-game such as experience scrolls and crates that contain items.

Creativerse (I mentioned this one because it’s a sandbox, voxel, crafting/building/PvE game like Boundless) costs $20-30 to buy and has a massive cash shop that even includes building materials packages.

I think what Boundless has going on with the exchange is super fair and is actually more attractive than its competition.

8 Likes