Character Progression Suggestions

TOO LONG (LAZY); DIDN’T READ

The following posts are an attempt to being together a lot of great ideas from some fantastic members of the community around one subject - Character Progression.

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INTRODUCTION

My main bugbear playing Boundless is the lack of character development - a large part of the RPG side of MMORPG.

Skill Sets and Alternate Characters feel like patches that do their best to alleviate the symptoms, but only succeed in delaying the inevitable pain.

SO…

This thread tries to consolidate the ideas already discussed by the community, and build a common language around them. This way we can help them develop rather than rehash them each time.

What this thread is trying to achieve:

  • A mechanic to provide long lasting character progression, that adds value to as many other aspects of Boundless as possible.

  • To provide the development team with a bunch of suggestions that hopefully add value to whatever is being considered.

What this thread is NOT about:

  • An answer to the economy, the universe and everything. However, the suggestions that follow will add value to the MMO side as well as the RPG.

  • Why players leave the game.

  • Why XYZ feature is more important.

  • What additional content should be or not be in the game.

Arguments that have been done to death (so we don’t need them again in this thread):

  • Player progression is only for RPG and not sandbox players.

There was a discussion in the Economy Ups and Downs thread that made the claim that there are 2 “archetype” players - (paraphrasing) those who like to play one character, and those who like to be part of the community - and you can’t satisfy them both.

In practise, those options are not on a continuum. Both and neither of those options can fit each and every player on any particular day depending on how they choose to play that day.

Also, playing 1 significantly advanced character that can try everything, or 10 underwhelming characters that can try everything is the same thing. One simply provides substantially more quality of life.

  • If everyone can do everything, then everyone will do everything and it will ruin the economy.

This argument is only valid when where is a very small number of things that can be done. The only true limiting factor we all face is time. Given the choice, people will gravitate towards the things they enjoy, and outsource the things they don’t.

Keep in mind that it’s likely everyone will want to try everything - there are objectives that challenge every player to try everything.

It could be argued that right now there ARE only a small number of things that can be done in Boundless, and someone who can commit a few hours a day to the game can do everything. As the game grows, and the options become more diverse, there will not be enough time for anyone to do everything… unless Boundless is all they do :slight_smile: Even then, only a small fraction of people will be interested in doing everything all the time - just like in real life.

It’s important to mention that if someone commits to playing over the years, they SHOULD be able to master everything. There is nothing wrong with this. It will not destroy the community.

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BACKGROUND

There are many threads talking about Character Progression. It’s not surprising that many similar suggestions are proposed over and over, often using different language to describe them.

For example (this is not an exhaustive list - just a few of them)

The general consensus broadly states:

  • Boundless is lacking character development
  • There’s a rudimentary “skill” concept that ends quite quickly (level 50) and isn’t satisfying
  • Grind feels pointless if it doesn’t equal lasting progression and isn’t rewarded. Note to sandbox aficionados: It’s a given that if you set your own goals and grind to achieve them, then that doesn’t feel pointless.

Can someone reply so I can add more :smile: Only allowed to add three posts at a time.

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Intermission

We’ll be back in a few.

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CHARACTER CLASSES

These are a base set of “special” traits a particular character possesses, but do not limit the Boundless experience regardless of what class you choose.

For example, there was artwork presented for character races [Art: Character Races Concepts (males)]

  • Perhaps “cat” type classes have higher base stealth
  • Perhaps “fish” type classes have higher base underwater abilities
  • Perhaps “bird” type classes have higher base jump abilities or land softer when falling.

You get the picture.

If you want to mine underwater gleam, you’ll either have to be, or to find a “fish” class to get it done easily. Alternatively (based on the Natural Specialisation suggestion in a later post) you can spend a lot of time underwater and get better at it. The longer you spend underwater, the slower your oxygen meter goes down.

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CHARACTER ATTRIBUTES

This is the early game progression (level 1 to 50).

These are Vitality, Power, Control, Dexterity, Agility, Intelligence, Luck and Zeal

They are built up Ising skill points rewarded for levelling up.

By the time you reach level 50 - these could be maxed out. BUT you may choose to start on mid-game progression and invest skill points on Character Skills there before your Attributes are all maxed out.

CHARACTER SPECIALISATIONS

This is the late game progression (level 30 to 50+)

There are 2 types of Specialisations - Natural and Skill

Natural Specialisation is based on what you do in the game - they naturally evolve as you practise. They are tied to feats. Feats may need to be expanded to fully encompass the possibilities.

The more you do, the better you become at what you do.

In theory, given enough time, a single player could become a master of all specialisations. That’s the reward for extreme long-term and diverse game-play.

For example:

  • The more blocks you place, the faster you become.
  • The more rocks you break, the faster you become, the more damage is done.
  • The more Hammers you craft, the higher the specs, and the lower the spark cost.
  • The more Pie you cook, the higher the benefits, and the lower the spark

These alone will create a far more diverse set of items for shops to sell and allow players to offer products that reflect their game play.

Skill Specialisation consists of additional skills that are added to the Character Skill Tree based on your play style.

Examples include:

  • If you do a lot of chiselling, the Chisel Epic is added to the skill tree.
  • If you do a lot of gathering, the Gathering Epic is added to the skill tree.
  • If you spend a lot of time underwater, a “mini-tree" of skills is added to the skill tree, each level granting longer time underwater, and the ability to dive and resurface quicker.

Something like the following:

Underwater Skills

  • Holding Breath
    – Good
    – Better
    – Best

  • Diving
    – Good
    – Better
    – Best

Tuning

This is late game progression (level 50+). It’s basically a combination of Skills and Specialisations that allows for hundreds, if not thousands of possible character and crafting combinations.

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Intermission

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NATURAL SPECIALISATION

These are some possibilities for natural specialisation. Anyone who specialises in a particular area of the game, please add your suggestions.

It’s called “natural” because it is tied to what you actually do in the game - the more you practise something, the better you become.

Crafting

Feats would track the number of times each recipe is crafted.

Once you’ve crafted a particular recipe enough times, you attain mass crafting of that recipe.

The more you craft something, the more efficient you are at it (less times and spark is required), and the better it becomes.

For example, someone who has crafted 1000 iron hammers, gets hammers that do more damage and are more durable than someone who has only made 50.

Once you’ve crafted enough of a certain recipe, you can “brand” it - name it and colour it.

Building

Feats would track the number and types of blocks placed.

The more blocks you place, the faster you become.

Once you have placed enough blocks and have builds with a certain prestige, “blueprints” covering a single plot become available in the skill tree. Skill points can be put into blueprints to enable more plots.

Chiseling

Feats would track the number of blocks chiseled. Once you’ve chilled enough blocks, you attain “precise” chiseling becomes available in the skill tree.

Gathering

Feats would track the number of each resource you’ve collected. The more you collect the luckier you are with drops. Once you’ve gathered enough resources, “Gatherer” skills become available in the skill tree.

Trading

IRL, the retailers that do well fit into two categories - those with passion that exclusively sell their own, or seek out the best examples of their passion, and those who tactfully externalise true costs and provide the cheapest possible price to their customer largely at the expense of everyone/thing else. With the systems proposed in this thread, there would be many shops all providing different products. From low end basic resources, possibly being sold at prices that don’t consider the time taken to gather, craft and stock, through to specialised and possibly branded versions of any and all recipes. It would be absolutely worth everyones time to check out the shops and offer the chance to be surprised at what some people have on offer.

Hunting

Feats track the number of each type of animal killed. The more of each animal you kill, the luckier you are with drops.

Exploring

The more time you spend on a particular planet type, the more your body becomes accustomed to the atmosphere.

Notoriety / Community Spirit

Feats would track positive impressions from other players. This builds your notoriety.

If someone helps you, if you are impressed with someone’s build, or for whatever reason someone leaves you with a positive impression, you may choose to show your appreciation. The more appreciation thrown your way, the higher your notoriety. Perhaps there are tiered levels from Citizen through to Viceroy, from Apprentice through to Master Builder. Levels will be available for whatever categories of notoriety are tracked.

Once you have a certain notoriety, you attain your own “symbol” (perhaps a glyph) that represents you.

Forging

Forging becomes a way for people without the natural specialisation skills to add the boons also achievable with natural specialisation, their tools and weapons - potentially with defects and quirks.

The more you forge, the greater the boon point multiplier becomes, and lower the defect and quirks point multiplier becomes.

SKILL SPECIALISATION

As you achieve Natural Specialisation goals (ie. 1 hour underwater) options are added to the skill tree.

The example for an underwater skill tree was:

Underwater Skills

  • Holding Breath
    – Good
    – Better
    – Best
  • Diving
    – Good
    – Better
    – Best

Let’s say there is a holding breath “boon” that it achieved when you start investing skill points into that category. There would also be a “diving” boon that is achieved when you invest skill points in that category. The higher the level (the more skill points invested) the better the result.

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TUNING

Let’s say you have achieved the level where you are able to brand hammers, and you have achieved the “Best” level at underwater diving. This would allow you to craft tools with the diving boon.

I’m not going to add much more here, because the possibilities are endless. What we need to devise, is the underlying mechanic that would allow for this kind of tuning.

So if possible, keep the ideas fairly abstract, and let’s see what falls out the bottom.

For example the abstract version of the above example is:

Once achieving a combination of boons though Natural and Skill Specialisation, they can be combined to craft new items.

That’s it for now.

Phew :smile:

Thanks @Rumplypigskin for the help.

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Firstly, I admire you hard work you done here,
I can see you spend a lot of time to edit and collect the points from other posts.

But i don’t really feel its necessary to have this thread to be honest.
People share what they think will make this game better.
They doesn’t really write it for other players to read.
They basically write it for Devs about what they feel about this game.
It can be positive or negative or looks like complain to you.

So i think every post is helpful for Devs to understand what player’s feeling in current patch.
Of course there are a lot of different opinions, but that is dev’s job to figure out the right call to make majority of people happy (well, as much number as possible) .

The things you are trying to do here is you summery the points or idea you think is helpful post by others.
I really don’t think its even possible to cover every opinions in this forum.
so i prefer don’t have the tread like this.

Basically this is just your personal opinion about how you feel this game, and what you think its better.
Same as other complain article you mention in your first post.

Thanks for your feedback. Hopefully this can be equally as helpful as any other post to bring together the ideas of the community around this single subject.

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I really do like the idea of racial traits and natural specialization.

Being able to get better quality bc you make literally hundreds feels so much better. Rather than Sally Sue coming in and just start and is making the same exact thing.

I, uh, don’t have anything constructive to add to this. :sweat_smile: Some great ideas here. Ya done good.

I really like the idea of skills opening up as you spend time. I once had a reasonably similar idea. Basically you’d earn skills that don’t cost skill points against the skill cap to have - your character would just get better at things like lava resistance and breath holding over time. But it would cost materials and research points to unlock.