Community input needed: system design goals

I’m on a tablet right now so I will update this later.

Animations and sounds should feel weighty but also agile, they should feel good basically. Animations could be able to be cancelable on the last few frames into another animation to make them feel better. I’ll post more later.

One of the most important aspects should be world and atmosphere diversity. Exploration on it’s own should be enough to play this game. A mixture of handcrafted/procedurally generated worlds that are diverse in almost all areas, sound design, creatures, materials, colours, weathers, scale and probably more.

Now onto what you’ve asked for:

- Combat systems
Easy to learn, difficult to master. Animation cancelling a variety of viable tactics and a growing ‘meta’.
On the other hand, fun and explosive action that could be relatively hard to pick up but not so difficult to master.
- Crafting systems
A focus on speed and efficiency from knowledge of the game or time spent playing in order to make the player feel like their progression is both in terms of time spent in the game but also skill at remembering things such as recipe or having the knowledge of how to experiment with new items.
- Construction systems
Building should be time-consuming but not too difficult, micro and macro sized buildings should be easily possible with detail for both. Make sure to reduce frustration by making mistakes easier to fix (reduced block break time on placed blocks) and by having methods to reduce likelihood of death.
- Progression systems
(Reserved Space)
- Titan systems
(Reserved Space)
- Beacon / land claiming systems
(Reserved Space)
Guild systems
(Reserved Space)

We already know Titans aren’t going to be creatures ^^ The big thing you can see at the end of the trailer is a Titan

and protectors? also machines?

AFAIK yes.
Some official concept art

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  • Combat systems: The current combat system I feel is good, but could use some alterations. First a type of combat tracking system, so when you engage something you can keep track of it. Unless of course it has a like a dig or stealth ability that would interrupt that. I think there should be like a creature “mastery” system where the more you kill a creature the more effective you become at fighting it and harming it. Maybe even after a certain level you can even see how much health it has. Maybe even a form of identifying device that could identify its basic traits to see what you are taking on. Maybe even a size type thing that would correspond to the loot it would drop? This device could also be used to determine if you want to tame the creature based on its stats. Obviously anyone would be able to make it, but it would only work on creatures that you actually have mastery with. So that would lead to something like a bestiary, so players can keep track of what creatures they have encountered, how many times, their mastery level with the creature, what the creature commonly drops. Stuff like that. Maybe also details about the creatures usual locations, its nature, if it can be tamed, even some lore on the creature.

  • Crafting systems: I heard there is going to be a talent system, and I want to touch about that specifically in the progression part later. However there should definitely be a tree specifically for crafting. Crafting however should have slight changes from right now. Meaning, the fact you start knowing all recipes and just need the materials for them to show up I think is great but at one point it becomes worthless. When you start reaching high tier items, I think the player should have to actually find the recipe, be trained by an NPC, or work so much with certain materials (like a material mastery system similar to the creature one I mentioned above) that they learn new ways to alter said material. As has been stated by others, time should also play a factor. If I want to craft a super rare legendary diamond sword, that should take days in the crafting structure. Maybe even a daily application of materials to whatever machine is working it, or the crafting is halted. Also I heard there wont be any repairing, maybe the ability to enchant items as they are crafted with unique properties would be cool. Also adding to the mastery feature, the more adept you are at say steel, the stronger your steel based items are. And a stats screen for the items to identify that. So you could have legit steel weapons traders that will make better steel weapons than say someone who does everything. Obviously it incurs more cost from the customers. My mentality here is, a man that has made say katanas for 20 years will make a better stronger katana than someone who has done so for 5 years. Even using the exact same technique and materials.

  • Construction systems: I am not really huge into construction to be honest. I make the space I need to fit my stuff, I am more exploration. So I wont contribute a lot to this. I think there should be like a beam item. It would function similar to a beacon, except it doesn’t “reserve” blocks it just prevents world regeneration within a radius of the block. So if I want to build a tunnel instead of using a beacon and plotters to keep it intact and prevent world regen, I throw down these beams every so often to keep the tunnel from “collapsing.”

  • Progression systems: This is something I want to really way in on. I know that a lot of games have set trees and the amount of points you can put into it. Forcing players to do one thing or another. I don’t like that, I want to be able to explore proficiently, craft weapons and armor, hunt, gather, build, and mine as anyone who focuses on that solely and pushes all their points into those trees. Where I however would not be as effective as people who do those things solely would be the mastery levels in using those tools, or mining the specific resource, crafting the specific weapons. I think the progression system should be completely open to the point you can fill all possible skills(think Skyrim, where you could get every single talent in the game). If there are 100 talents, I think each player should be able to attain all 100 talents. Where the major difference would be however between say a dedicated miner and an explorer like myself is mastery. What would truly determine a players unique progression into their set field should be a mastery system. If you craft an iron hammer 1000000 times, you will make a stronger iron hammer than someone who crafted it 100 times. Obviously up to a cap. I feel that this way everyone can chose to do whatever they want and if they chose to, be self-sufficient, but also there is merit in focusing in a specific trade and seeking to sell in that trade. Also find a way to intertwine skills. For example a hunter can gather leather and such, while an armor crafter can use said leather. So if you are a good hunter and good at crafting with leather, your leather armor gets bonuses that just leather crafters would not have. In a way intertwining skills, kinda like how in some games you have skill dependencies. To be a blacksmith you should probably be a miner too, so that you can gather your ore. However instead of just making it: you need “a” to do “b”; it goes more: because you have “a” and do “b” your product “c” is stronger.

  • Player customisation systems: I think that when we pick our race there should be alterations we can do to them. Add or remove piercings, the base clothing we have, maybe specific traits that are race locked that we need to chose from. Obviously each race has its own unique set of talents or skills.

  • Titan systems: I like everything that has been said about the titans so far. I just want to add that I think there should be varying sizes and strengths of them. Obviously varying size and strength determines the amount of loot it will drop, since it has been said their cores can be harvested to make flying machines. I also think that they should be able to alter the terrain as they move. People might hate this idea, but i think it would be great if say a titan can attack your house and do some damage to it. Or if it flies into a mountain, it just tears through it and displaces all the blocks like breaking a lego wall. It adds to the severity of having a titan show up at your doorstep, instead of just going “meh, I’ll just close the door.” Give incentive to fight other than just “you get cool loots.”

  • Beacon / land claiming systems: The current beacon system I think as it is proposed is good. However like many people have said I think there is room for personalized shaping. If you are worried about beacon claiming an entire world, create a world beacon limit and a player beacon limit. Say no more than 2 or 3 beacons per world, a max of 6 beacons per player. Then keep the plotter limit per beacon, but I think if say a person decides to throw all their world beacons together it should compound the number of plotters within proximity of that beacon. So atm i think it’s like 24, if a person puts say 2 beacons together (like right next to each other or on top of each other) it goes up to 48. Also you can create an x/y/z limit to how far you can go with the plotters. So say like max is a 10x10x10 (random example) plotter placements. Beacon privacy. I know there are people that like to create hidden structures for other to find, but the current world gen doesn’t really allow for that. So make it so you can “hide” your beacon label to make it private. Also make “public” beacons where anyone can walk in and break stuff if they want. Obviously defaulting at the private setting. Keeping the beacon private is also the way you would put friend tokens in so friends can interact.

  • Guild systems: take every functioning guild system from every MMORPG and just throw them together. Guild only crafting devices that are necessary for crafting the most powerful items. Guild beacons for creating guild halls, guild combat. Where guilds can challenge one another and attack each others halls for determined rewards, kinda like gambling. So guild “a” says they will give 100 gold, and certain items that the guild is known for producing, guild “b” puts up unique drops from titans, and winner takes all. Obviously something like this would require the guild halls to be in the same world, same size guild, make it so the opposing guild hall is like highlighted for players to see no matter how far from it within the world they are. Guild titans. The guild can create a guild only consumable item that summons a titan of whatever level the consumable is. So that the guild can fight a titan, or just troll people by throwing a titan in the middle of a city for everyone to fight.

Any input to my ideas would be great from anyone.

The devs make quite an effort to make such a device unnecessary by adding a lot of visual “readability” to each creature (e.g. by different meshes and clear colour indication for specific elements)


No NPCs in Boundless.


The latest devlog regarding the spanner tool included this picture:

Which seems to hint that new recipes might have to be unlocked (presumably through the progression system).


A devlog from @ben regarding the elements of boundless suggests that you’ll be able to do just that (or something similar) using something called ‘forge’.


It seems like the goal of the devs is to prevent exactly that. Link
Boundless tries to promote player interaction using its economy system (at least that’s how I understood their goals). If everyone can do everything there is no real reason to trade with each other.
The developer seemed quite eager on this and its a decision I fully support.

Personally I think this is a bad idea that only promotes a lot of grinding.
(Think of Skyrim, where you built thousands of iron daggers to improve you blacksmith skill, this was no pleasing gameplay feature as far as I’m concerned)

Sadly it seems like this isn’t as obvious for the devs.
There was quite a lot of discussion regarding this topic and apparently the devs decided that each race will play 100% identical, regardless of the fact that a lot of the community supports the idea of racial differences (76% in a backer survey a while ago).
Personally, I’d also love to see talents and skills that are unique for each race.


PS: You completely missed the point of the thread :wink:

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honestly I don’t think the surveys really matter to the devs…
The majority of players wanted many different weapon types and now we only get one for example

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My thoughts exactly lately.
I fully understand that some suggestions and wished from the communtiy are just unrealistic or don’t fit with their goals (which we don’t really know about) but lately they basically went:

You can choose between option A and B
Oh you want B? Guess A it is

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excactly!


I understand that the resources are limited but why even make such “promises” then?
I’m sure the game will be great but still…

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These kind of question can be the thing tipping the scale if the decisions is still in the air, this doesn’t mean that the surveys are ignored just that other factors appeared outweighing the survey in importance.

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I Think it would be awesome to have bosses to kill and in killing them you can learn an ability or something the abilities being (skillshots) so that the combat doesnt turn into too much hack and slash and that combat is a bit appealing.

My feed back:
Crafting:
Make stuff take damage and eventually break. Nothing should last forever.
Make it standard to what you’ll get, but allow for additions to mix up the stats for flavor’s sake.
Give us the possibilty to alter the weapon design in someway to help make them stand out if possible.

Combat:
Variety is the spice of life, allow players to change their roles via skills and weapons they equip.

PvP:
Meh. Just throw it open world and let people do what they do best.

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For me this isn’t an issue. if you look game called path of exile you share the same skilltree with all classes, the only difference is that if you like to make hunter as marauder you need to travel longer distance in the skilltree but still get all skills what that other class used. you can make super unique builds with that and its almost the best skilltree system i seen out there.

The unique should be made, not given… Miige 16.08.2016

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Posting/Replying to things isn’t really my thing, but the more input the better so here goes.

  • Combat Systems: Combat should be skill based, but also partially gear based. You shouldn’t be able to fight harder enemies with the first weapon you get. There needs to be a incentive for upgrading your gear, but battles shouldn’t be impossible without good gear.

  • Crafting Systems: Crafting should be simple, yet difficult. Recipes should also be saved to the player, rather than to the crafting station. Anybody should be able to pick up basic crafting, but more advanced crafting should take experimenting, and it should take time learning. Using this system, it would allow merchant to thrive off selling more advanced crafting materials/products while also allowing other people to be able to obtain these on their own, but actually working in the process :scream:. Overtime, some crafting times might need to be tweaked, but I like the idea of it taking time to craft items. This could allow people to have jobs such as factories, mass producing a single item, or multiple items.

  • Construction Systems: For construction, people will need a large variety of blocks that can do several things. Some of the uses could be decorative, automated, and wiring. Construction in job systems will have to allow builders to protect the land that they will be building in. If a client requests them to build something, they would also have to select how many beacon spaces the builder could use. The builder would then receive a temporary “builders beacon”, or if the client had already chosen a spot for the build, they would receive the coordinates of the build location. Once the build was finished, the client would be able to claim over the temp. beacon with their own plotter, and the builders beacon would be destroyed.

  • Progression Systems: Player Progression should be skill tree based. There would be three or four different trees; melee combat, ranged combat, passive abilities, and possibly crafting progression. Melee and ranged combat could differ from damage increases to combat abilities that could help you in battles. Passive abilities could range from faster swimming, increased healing out of combat, deal more damage at a lower health, move faster at a lower health, etc.

  • Player Customisation: For Player Customisation, have three to four different models for different body parts per race. Players should be able to look different, but also look recognizable to their race. There shouldn’t be passive abilities for races, every player should be able to get the same abilities.

  • Titans: Titans should require teamwork, and (for a small titan) they should take a minimum of about half a day to a maximum of three to four days with a group of three to four people (depending on skill level). For larger titans, ten to twelve people should be necessary to defeat them. Titans should be significantly rarer then all generated structures, and each titan should be procedural generated. In order to defeat titans, you should need to take down sections at a time. There should be about five to ten sections, and within each, there would be a power supply that needs to be destroyed. Each section taken on would procedural get more difficult, and in each sections would be mass amounts of protectors. To prevent protector grinding, enemies would only spawn once, and when you enter a room, it would lock, forcing you to defeat the protectors to continue. The protectors should appear to be lying dormant until somebody enters the room. If you are killed in a locked room, all of the the protectors would re-spawn. Once all of the segments have been defeated, you gain access to the titans core, and the loot. Once you defeat the Core, there will be a destruction sequence where you will need to escape the titan before it loses all power and falls out of the sky and destroy the surrounding area.

  • Beacon / Land claiming systems: There should be a limit to 100 plots per person, and if friends share beacons, they can attach the friends plots to each others beacon, the same goes with guilds, except the guild master would place the beacons.

  • Guild System: Guilds will share common resources and currency. every member of the guild will increase the amount of beacon plots it can have.

  • PvP: PvP could be world specific.some worlds would be PvE + duels (when requested and accepted), some would be Towns/Beacons are safe zones, and some would be PvP everywhere. There would need to be penalties (lower reputation on that world) for killing players unprovoked so that it would somewhat stay in control, but killing other players would get you their items.

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18 posts were merged into an existing topic: Race Abilities to avoid derailment.

- Combat systems
The one controlling the pixels should be skilled rather than have spent a lot of time in game to be effective. No lazy I WIN buttons.

- Crafting systems
Make machinery upgradeable or connectable to other machines, so that I don’t have to move from one to another all the time. Driving me nuts switching machines to get something done now. I’d like to be able to eventually have all machines connected or just use one giant machine to make my cornflakes.

- Construction systems
Construction without destruction is a fallacy. Give us a PvP concept.

- Progression systems
Progression in less functional stuff is nice. Like being able to craft decoratives, or being able to show rank on shoulders, having a badge for achievements displayed on a banner in your home that automatically changes shape and design based on achievements.

- Player customisation systems
Please don’t create those ridiculous santa outfits, dolls and that kind of stuff. It really ruins the game lore, look and feel and generally devalues the game entirely. Pulls me out of the fantasy world.

- Titan systems
Should be able to destroy beacons and what’s inside it. If titans can’t do that, they’re not really titanic are they?

- Beacon / land claiming systems
My worst fear is this system stays the same. Don’t make it a prison in which I can move around stuff. Make it possible for me to entirely disappear off the grid with my beacon (to mainly prevent world regeneration) AND allow me to set the beacon to allow players to destroy stuff in it. Right now it’s too safe, too much whispering to me I should just build something, and then log off and never come back. They are now way too restrictive instead of creating a ‘boundless’ experience. Regardless the skills, the progressions, the cool looks of the game, the everything you can do to make yourself excel or look different; beacons will either fail hard and ruin the game or succeed and have this become a success.

I’d like to also point out we should be able to combat world regeneration through other means other than through beacons.

Have discussed this with community here: Why beacons + worldregen doesn't work

- Guild systems
Guilds should be able to create quests for their members, have an internal achievement system and have an internal reward system tied to ranks (last one would have to be optional). Don’t make guilds have more beacon plots based on guildsize. This makes big guilds even more powerful. Guilds would then become functional instead of social and transforms guilds into invite spammers.

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No they shouldn’t.
That would completely ruin the purpose of beacons

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the beacon sounds interesting. Honestly i dislike every aspect of the world regeneration. because I enjoy building huge structures. Furthermore when one world is depleted of resources you can just go go to another world. I dont know if that made sense but it did to me.

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Totally agree with you on everything especially

and

(though, I’d still rather see those in the cash-shop than the actual wearables sets…)


That’s a matter of opinion.


But other players were acive on those ‘other’ worlds as well, depleting the resources there…

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yeah i am a dumbass i noticed that right after i sent it lol.