Not really, that’s how I got to where I was now. My point is I didn’t craft anything but basic stone tools and I still have never crafted a single tool beyond that. I spent my first few thousand coins on blocks to make a little mini mall that failed prospeously. However, the game was quite different in 2018 than it is now so that’s a huge factor
Lol 
I forgot how much i liked James’ take on some of these mechanics, thanks for bringing them into the topic 
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Normally things are time gated or resource gated. It’s that way in nearly all MMO games. There are reasons behind timers and gating things. Sometimes it revolves around economy, sometimes around progression and it appears in this case “the designer who originally created the crafting hierarchy enjoyed scheduling their activities in game”.
That’s a new one for me, but I can see where it makes some sense.
I have 4 each that are fully coiled and 8 more each that are partially coiled. That has normally been good for me. If needed I can add more for a special craft (or for refining gleam 
) but 50+ coiled machines just sounds like a lot of work.
Everyone has their level of what they want. If the crafting times were lowered you might not need 50+ machines though.
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My thoughts on crafting times… It doesn’t bother me much. I do think that some things that you craft take a very long time to craft. Maybe revisit some of those and reducing how much time it takes. I usually either craft what I want, or I will simply go buy it depending on how quickly I want it. For new players it’s not as easy for them to get the materials to do the crafting so for that what I would do is a set of different crafting times until they hit a certain level in the game then increase the crafting times to normal crafting times to retain new players.
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I’ve never had more than 2 sets of coiled machines, and honestly i only had 2 sets because i was sharing them with my wife. I enjoy planning out my craft time into my daily activity, I’ll be like ok these are gonna take an hour and a half to craft, start them now then go build x, or go explore the exo, or go gem mining, or gathering, whatever i need next for the next craft or project.
I simply don’t use tons of long to make blocks unless I’m willing to wait a longer time to build them. I use some, they make great accent pieces, but the bulk of my builds use different materials that take much less time. If i wanted to make a concrete jungle I’d expect to need a huge factory to make concrete with… I mean it just seems logical to me…
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What I always find puzzling from topics like this is the number of players that say everything is fine as it is, but at the same time do not understand why we do not have more players. Some seem to feel that merely advertising the game or promoting the game will suddenly grow the player population. Based on the past, there is no evidence that promotions have ever create a permanent growth in player numbers. We get brief bursts of new players then most of them leave.
If players are not staying with the game, maybe some of the game mechanics are the reason even if a group of players think they are “just fine” as is. Maybe the inability of the game to appeal to a wider audience is the real issue. If you want a true MMO then you need the game to appeal to more than a very dedicated but small player base.
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This is not and will never be a true MMO so we can throw that out the window right now. I believe that is why the game really grabs a niche audience in the fact that it rolls a little bit of the creative sandbox audience and then touts itself as an MMO at the same time.
A little bit of an identity crisis.
Well the quote is exactly how I solved the problem, not saying it’s a good solution but it worked 
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To me, the most infuriating part about crafting times is how little improvements having 24 advanced power coils instead of just 12 can be. Like, I think it was something like a bulk craft of gleam doors that was reduced to 1h04 with 24 coils, and 1h10 with 12 coils, and I went “why the hell do I bother making workshops with 24 coils when it does so little?!”
IMHO, there are some HEAVY re-balancing of crafting times that are needed for some things.
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I’ve not missed it, its just not relevant to the current topic regarding crafting times. I agree that it is yet another issue that should be addressed.
It’s as easy as sticking Earthyams or Meat in a furnace and letting it cook. 
One thing I have always recommended to new players is making/minting doors. Mine rock, turn rock to stones, turn stones to doors, mint doors. Profit.
If crafting times were faster, this process would net new players money faster.
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There could have been a simple recipe that was something like, ash + water = mud. Heck I don’t understand why there isn’t a soil + water = mud recipe…
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I’d be happy with no change with crafting time…. If it meant that James added auto craft x30 button to the game especially for us PlayStation players cause we have been handed the crappy end of the deal- no farsight, not been able to even fix the bloddyyyy compass ect or even a graphic update that supports the ps5 capabilities ect increase the render distance- trust me it can take it haha.
Example: imagine they add a specialised storage container to the game that connects to each machine… you can link multiple storage containers to each machine- then you fill each container with Mats you have gathered eg sand, kindling,water, opal- then hit auto max craft- it then pulls the from the storage containers until all mats are depleted and don’t meet the craft requirements for the craft.
You still have to make the spark, craft the machines, links, storage containers, farm the mats and repair the machine but by simply adding this extra feature will attract a whole new range of players for sure.
I’m soooo tired of clicking 5,000,000 times on my controller just to craft something for gods sake I’m getting old haha and RSI . It’s the only thing the game is lacking for me and it’s a huggggeeee turnoff for builders.
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Yeah, thats a solution to earning a bit of money to overcome the costs of acquiring supplies via the economy, but that’s not exactly compelling gameplay, nor is it exactly intuitive.
It’s really a bandaid solution for the larger issue of crafting times being excessive. Wouldn’t people benefit more from both shorter crafting times and minting items for profit to spend on say, consumables and buffs rather than buying things they could make themselves, without lengthy crafting delays?
Think about the gameplay loop you just described.
Make a basic hammer
Mine stone until hammer breaks.
Craft that stone to doors.
Mint all of those doors for coin at a fraction of market value.
Use that coin to buy more hammers.
Mine stone until hammer breaks.
Etc, slowly building a bit of profit at a time. If they’re trying to save stone for building materials, they have less to craft/mint doors, and slower profit gain.
Repeat this process till you have a large enough budget to buy what you want.
It’s grindy and monotonous and a repetitive loop with little satisfaction, subjectively. It’s a problem that every other crafting survival game long ago solved with more interesting progressive gameplay and little or no crafting delays.
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There were plans for automation of some sort but it was later in the development cycle. Unfortunately, with the current situation I have no idea when/if it will still be an option at some point.
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We wouldn’t be here if the game wasn’t fine as it is. If crafting times were the root cause (which i highly doubt) of new players leaving then why do we still have numbers of people here at all? If we cloned all the craft times from minecraft, and even removed the grind of the mmo, it wouldn’t attract new players either, and i doubt it would retain much of what we have as well.
You see there is some new found old wisdom in the gaming industry. Things shouldn’t be easy, accomplishments should take time. The run away success of elden ring has shaken the industry idea that players don’t want difficult or long progression. Games like dark souls, showed that hard games have an audience too.
Now is Boundless hard? Not greatly so, but a fair bit is challenging until you progress enough. Its grind is a feature, even craft times are a part of it’s ‘special sause’ if i insta crafted everything early on i wouldn’t have found myself waiting for tools, id have kept mining and never explored all the big cities on the planet i was on, i wouldn’t have found the portal networks, i wouldn’t have spent more than 4 hours in the game in my first couple days and would have quit. So no, craft times are not the problem of retention, something else is.
All that, but i would conceed still, single crafts should be almost instant, bulk and mass trade less resources for more time. That time could be reduced either advanced crafting stations, or just adjusting the times down a little (the more boring of the options, but quicker).
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I’m sorry but that argument was a bit silly to me. I don’t mean any offense but you literally used our current player numbers to justify why crafting times aren’t an issue.
Our player numbers are abysmal. All that we have a long-time veteran players, about 100 of them or so that stick around. We get random sprinkles of new players into the game but they don’t stay. There’s a reason for that and ONE of the reasons for that is the crafting times. Gorilla is right: new players see the crafting times and say “peace out”.
EDIT: Lost on this conversation is that this is supposed to be a game and it’s supposed to be fun. People get all caught up in technicalities trying to play 4D chess in their head when all the game needs to do successfully is BE FUN. Crafting times are not fun. They are arbitrary and they directly oppose fun. Get rid of them or reduce them dramatically.
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