JuSt UsE mOrE mAcHiNeS: This is what all of my machines currently look like. They are all fully advance-coiled.
BuT tHe EcOnOmY nEeDs CrAfTiNg TiMeS sO yOu BuY fRoM oThErS: No it doesn’t. Crafting times are arbitrary and forcing people out into the marketplace via arbitrary crafting times is bad/lazy game design.
JuSt Go Do SoMeThInG eLsE: For 3-4 days? You actually want someone’s progress like this to be delayed 3-4 days? And that’s good game design to you?
ThErE’s No WaY yOu AcTuAlLy NeEd AlL tHaT cOaL rIgHt NoW: Yes, yes I do. I just built a mega factory of furnaces for all ore types and given how much mining I do, I need to stock all furnaces (about 60-80 of them) with smart stacks of Compact Hard Coal.
I struggle with the crafting times complaint myself. There are times when they bother me and times when they don’t. I remember posting a reply from one of the devs that explained why they put them in, but I couldn’t find it a second time.
I won’t say the “EcOnOmY nEeDs CrAfTiNg TiMeS” but I do think it will affect the economy if you removed them. Your need to purchase Compact Hard Coal is no longer needed unless you just simply run out of Hard Coal to craft. Zero timers might mean you would still have to go buy Hard Coal from the marketplace or go farm more. Depending on how much you mine though it could completely eliminate your need to ever purchase Hard Coal… thus affecting the economy (granted there is not much of one now).
Then consider if you removed the timers on everything, the economy would change quite a bit.
Sometimes the first idea is not the best idea right lol.
The devs need to make the game more user friendly and if that means dramatically reducing the crafting times then simple change the times and push it lol.
The game should be enjoyable for every player type solo, team ect.
I mean adding 64 of each machine fully coiled could be the answer but who wants to do that and then run into complex block limit lol- cause why not have one issue that creates another right lol.
If I only have an hour or two to play (& I enjoy crafting my items), I shouldn’t have to wait several IRL hours for something to finish. If the day cycle is 24 minutes long in-game, then perhaps crafting times should reflect that. A three hour craft should actually only last 3 minutes (aka: 3 in-game hours).
If something I’m crafting exceeds my available game time, I’m going to log out of the game and forget about it for days. Not fun. Drop in dopamine. I’m going to be annoyed/disappointed.
It would be nice if they would take a new look at machines & crafting times. Add some automation abilities for fun. Lower a lot of crafting times (not remove, but lower).
I admit I’m not a complete fan of some of them myself. I certainly am not trying to fully defend the reasoning behind them but clearly the Devs had their view on why they should be that long, etc. I don’t think it is “lazy” or a few other of the views since we know definitely that the Devs took time to evaluate and balance them many times. This wasn’t a 10 minutes and done thing and it was taken seriously whether people agree with the result or not.
Ultimately the balance is off for some I think especially considering how they seem to scale in our time versus like you said game time or the situation of 1 versus 20 crafts.
As for automation I know it was planned and there were some ideas I even talked about regarding it but obviously all that went out when the BG3 stuff hit…
Maybe they took the time to break it down and came up with some reason to validate it… or it was put in place to stop people from power levelling?
Either way setting crafting 30 mass crafting times for a item like coal should not take 90 IRL Hours to do- to me that just a sick joke- what purpose does it really play and what value does it add to player engagement?
The game Is in need of serious improvements- I’ve noticed a lot of games of late where they players go on strike requesting improvements….
Raw, base ingredients are currently far more profitable than the crafted ingredients. I doubt it would do anything to the economy, since people are not willing to pay for the ingredients that went into the crafted item, much less the time that went into it.
There is no “maybe” here. Crafting times are there and scale based on a variety of factors that we really don’t know of because there was no official documentation that I know of that shows 1) reason A, 2) reason B, etc…
This isn’t a fair assessment of the situation and sends the wrong message to people that might not know the details… Crafting is 3 hours 7 min each mass craft. It is not fair to say it is 90 hours because they allow us to queue up 30. Maybe they should just cut it back down to 2-3 mass crafts so that it is a “more acceptable total time” for everyone… or should they raise it to 100 so that people can no be disappointed and complain that it is 300 hours.
James will almost always say this is a “balance” issue and be open for changes assuming people actually give options or what they think the “balance” should be. So what is the “right” amount of time that the community feels should be a mass craft of hard coal versus the other types and compared to the progression they expect people should have for the game.
Progression to me is your character getting stronger and being able to do things more easily. Making the higher tier items take 10 times longer to craft is the opposite of progression to me.
I think using the coal was a great example but obviously the crafting times need to reflect everything.
I’ve played this game for years and love it- but if I had any wishes to see improvements it would be here- as someone that focuses on building and crafting more than anything I gather bulk and craft in bulk.
At times I’ll fill 64 machines to the brim which let’s be honest takes allooott of effort to then be penalised to wait 90 hrs as a example to wait for the output to then have to wait again if I need to further refine or compact again.
So if you calculate the gathering times + multiple crafting stage times + then add the time it takes to click 4 mil times to craft for most players I would assume provides a negative player experience.
Like mass craft should at least have a auto mass craft button you can hold down to reduce repetition from clicking right lol.
I think @majorvex idea is great 1x IRL Hour = 1min in game.
There are many possible “right” ideas for crafting times but I really like @majorvex’ idea: Bind the crafting times to Boundless time. So 24 minutes = 1 IRL day thus each mass craft of coal would be 3 minutes and some change instead of 3 hours and some change.
Friendly reminder that there are people who enjoy this mechanic as it’s own fun part of the game, and reducing it too far or completely removing it removes an entire type of gameplay from the game for those players. That doesn’t mean keeping it is the right answer, it just means that it would hurt some players and help others.
IMO, rafting times create natural limits to supply of manufactured goods, which adds variety to the market beyond just “how long does it take to find/harvest X good”. It also adds the option of passive income for players who can play less time.
I would handle this by using 60-80 stacks of 25 compact hard coal right now, either from storage, buying it, or waiting that initial 4 hours, and then use whatever I have done compacting after whatever amount of time it is when the first set is done cooking.
I would probably also have predicted this issue and pre-made the initial coal requirement while waiting for the machines to be crafted.
Once you get your machines all up and running after the initial production line startup, will coal production time still be the bottleneck?
And it looks like 1 compact hard coal lasts 8mins 20 seconds in the furnace if I’m reading the wikia page on it right. My math says it’s longer, but idk.
Yes because I go mining every day for multiple hours per day and I burn through, say, 100 Compact Hard Coal in the course of a week. This means this “wait three days” arbitrary blocker will be a recurrence for me and a dramatic drainer of fun.
FWIW I (and I suspect most) don’t play this game to be a glorified spreadsheet simulator or math playground. While I respect there are probably a few players for whom this is attractive, I suspect the majority of us play this game to have fun.
When you drop off your stuff after mining, do you not refill your compactors with coal and furnaces with compacted coal? Doing that should mean you maintain a regular flow every day, so as long as you have enough compactors to produce as fast as you burn you should be good.
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