Dear crafting times

General
81

I will disagree with this. All this means is that the people playing now think the game is fine, that has nothing to do with the game having enough appeal for the player counts to grow. My point was that no matter what aspect of the game some players question needs to change, we always get a bunch of players that say everything is fine. If everything is fine and we have a great game, then where are the players? Why do they not stay?

The argument that making changes to a core mechanic would alienate existing players might be true, but if we loose 100 players but gain 1000 then I would argue it is worth it.

This is your personal experience and I respect that but I can come up with other players that just set items to craft and log out of the game and go play something else while they wait for things to craft. I do not think this is a good way to keep players playing your game. It is a great way to have players find other games where they like the experience more. Instead of mining/gathering/hunting for materials; then crafting them and immediately (or close to it) use what they crafted to build or hunt or mine some more, and as a result continue to play the game, they logout and do something else. This, I would argue, probably also contributes in a small way to the fact that the planets are more empty.

3 Likes
82

This is your personal experience and I respect that but I can come up with other players that just set items to craft and log out of the game and go play something else while they wait for things to craft. I do not think this is a good way to keep players playing your game.

100% this. With the current crafting times, you just log out and do something else while you wait the hours and even days for your crafts to finish.

1 Like
83

I can elaborate, the current players overcame something in the first several hours to get hooked and stay. It can’t be craft times, those get worse as you progress, so they overcame something else.

Not every system in a game needs or even should be “fun”. My argument is craft times (at least early on) are a natural way the game tells you, well you’ve got time to kill, want to see if there’s something else out there for you to do?

But then there isn’t a natural way the game pushes you to find someone else playing the game, for help, to answer questions, to find things, to find your way to other planets and explore. You create a new problem.

The number one reason everyone, and i mean everyone that i know who hasn’t been willing to try the game, or every new player I’ve talked to in game that left was “why aren’t there more people playing? I don’t want to play this game by myself”

So while craft times might deter some people, everyone i know just the low population is what drives them off, or else keeps them away.

I do not believe lowering craft times will help player retention in the slightest. I’d argue even those players left for a pile of reasons and craft times were just the final piece.

84

Again, we have very dismal numbers. Yes, the small handful of players still with the game did so despite its flaws. Let’s fix its flaws, okay?

This is such a backwards argument. Not every system in the game needs to be fun? Okay let me flip it around. Should there be systems that are arbitrarily punishing like craft times? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to craft the things you spent so much (enjoyable) time gathering for relatively instantly?

Why does there need to be some “natural” way to push people to not just craft and do other things instead? Shouldn’t those other things simply be FUN and draw people in because they enjoy it and want to do it?

2 Likes
85

I will not disagree that players coming into a game that claims to be an MMO are very disappointed at not finding planets filled with other players. I will also agree that this does lead to some of those same players not staying with the game. But I will argue this is a symptom of the fact that the game has not been able to keep players playing even when we have a larger number of players playing. If the game was “fine” then we would have kept more of the players at launch and when we had the free weekend. The planets were certainly busy enough. In fact some planets were so crowded you could not even get to them as they reached the player limit. Those players leaving had nothing to do with the Universe being empty. It was the game that did not keep them engaged.

Maybe the answer to the problem of an empty universe is to quit having Boundless being pushed as an MMO and just say it is multi-player. Then the expectations for a full universe would certainly be muted. The only other way to force a more crowded universe would be to shrink the existing universe which has its own set of drawbacks and issues.

Not to pile on as far as this comment, but if I have a full-time job or family responsibilities or whatever real life throws at me, isn’t the reason I play game to have fun/relax? Can it be fun to have something that at least provides some challenge? Yes like hunting. However arbitrarily sitting around for hours waiting for items to craft is not fun or a challenge. To me it is just boring and gives me plenty of reason to logout and do something that I do have fun doing in the time I have to play games. I found a few very good game that I enjoy, having to wait overnight for crafting to be complete. And I will say that none of them, even the ones focused on building, make me wait hours for something to be built or crafted before it can be used. A specific example is Space Engineers. Which averages over 5000 players per hour (on Steam) compared to Boundless at 54.6.
Space Engineers may not be a MMO but it can be played as a multi-player game.

86

Crafting times don’t need to be an all or nothing setting. Some things could take a long time, while other things don’t. Is there a reason to make everything take forever to craft? Is there a reason to make early game materials and items take a long time to craft?

What if crafting times scaled with the progression? Players who have played for longer have more machines/coils and more capacity to acquire machines/coils. Early game players do not. Why torture people just trying to make a silver axe or a gold hammer? No one uses those later in the game, they use gemstone tools. On a sidenote, why does it cost just as much to forge metal and gemstone tools? If people could forge metal tools for cheaper, they would sell them cheaper, and then newer players could buy them at affordable prices. Late game players are still going to want the gemstone tools.

Scale the difficulty with the progression. There is no reason to torture new players by hitting them over the head with how “hard” the game is. First of all, it isn’t hard. There is nothing in the game that is hard. It is grindy. That isn’t the same as hard. Second of all, it is hard enough as a new player trying to figure out how the game works. They don’t need to be doubly whacked in the face with the “hardness” that late game players seem to enjoy. Scaling! It is a thing!

87

As someone who has logged less than 1 hour in the last 2 years, I say lmao.

Those who have stuck with Boundless this long are the exception, not the rule. The term “survivors bias” comes to mind. If you want to know how to improve a game, you ask the people who quit, not the ones who will play no matter what.

5 Likes
88

At this point it just feels like people are arguing nuances to just argue.

We all know the game has problems. We all know that there are things that people don’t like in the game. We all know that there are not enough people that will “play no matter what” and that the game has a huge player retention issue. No matter the specific reason or the nuance on that reason, there still are just not enough people that try the game and stay versus those that try and leave.

Tweaking crafting times might make some happy (and yes some things are really overboard in time required) but it will not “save the game” and bring back thousands of players that have left. It will take a wide range of changes across the whole game to turn things around. I just hope we see something that leads to more than less players…

2 Likes
89

I think this is true. I think most of the needed changes are small, though. Tweak things across the game to smooth out the leveling experience. I don’t think there needs to be a massive overhaul of the entire game. I think some thought just needs to go into what people have access to at each stage of the game, and how that impacts player experience.

90

Agree with you 100% but if we can’t even agree that something as arbitrary and punishing as the lengthy crafting times in this game are bad for the game then I’m worried there’s no hope. It’s so blatantly obvious that the crazy long crafting times are bad for the game and I’m not sure what else can be said on the topic.

91

I agree here but only to a certain extent. I’m ok with grind as long as every aspect of the game isn’t long and drawn out. If you have grind to gather, plant, harvest, then crafting on top of that … as I’ve mentioned before, it takes way too long to get to building. This is a voxel game. Which for most is based on building. Let me get to the building.

As for the hard part, there are certainly more and more difficult segments of the game. Higher tier worlds have creatures I have not been able to take out on my own. It -can- be done but the frustration is too high for me. I’ve yet to get to an exo planet. Because it’s ‘hard’ to get there. Especially alone.

As I see it there are a few major tweaks needed to adjust game play for both solo and group play.

Crafting time and game progression as a solo player are among the highest for myself and quite a few players that no longer play.

Gaming = entertainment. If it’s no longer entertaining, as has been mentioned many times by several posters … Players will wander to the next thing.

Why? Because it’s not longer a choice of only 2 or 3 REALLY good games out there. We used to wait months and years for something else.

Now there are literally hundreds of choices on several types of devices.

The question for Boundless is how best to balance the mechanics of the game and compete with all of the other choices out there … AND not damage the base integrity of the game.

1 Like
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It’s not fun to grind up pokemon in red and blue, but needs done to beat gyms, which is fun, the not fun part makes the fun parts more fun. It’s human psychology.

How do they find out about it if it’s not the first thing put in front of them then? In Minecraft or terraria are the night time monster raids fun? Not if you’re early in the game, also not if you’re focused on building. But they do drive you to manage your time different, like mine at night, or do something else for the night cycles in those games. Early game timers on crafting are the only thing boundless has left that pushes to do something else, if we had hostile night time mobs then sure wipe out crafting times, we have something else to fill that role, but that’s gonna make a lot of builders mad.

I’d argue craft times are more friendly with the casual player, they play for a few hours, get things crafting for the next play session and come back to things to do. It slows progression of people no lifing it far more, making some attempt at balance.

I have, Eve Echoes and Online. Which are also billed as sandbox mmos… Heck, even RuneScape take a long time to craft a full set of the better armors, but that locks your character in that action while doing it too.

Not everything takes forever, early items do take quite abit less time than end game. Could they all be reduced some, sure, but i will fight until im blue in the face not to remove them entirely.

I’m not someone who never quit, i quit for nearly two years, i came back, and craft times were never a reason why i quit. The game focusing more on the single player aspect and pulling back from the mmo side of it, plus a lack of word from the devs. like adding skill sheets, crysominters, etc. Sure they made the game more palatable to some of the players, but they didn’t help the health of the player counts clearly. So if we are advocating for changes, the changes better be **** good for game health short and long term. I am not convinced removing craft times are.

Edit: ok, I’ve said what i needed to say. I can stop being overly forward about it. It was not my intention to cause irritation, but when one person gets irritated it is easy to spread.

93

I have come to realize that what is fun for me may or may not be fun for others. Thinking on nearly every game I played that had crafting, I can’t really think of a sandbox game that had crafting I would ever consider as fun. I do like to see the end result, but fun crafting just hasn’t been a thing for me. However, I know others who thoroughly enjoyed it in other games and Boundless too.

I can only speak for myself here, but I have a lot more things to do in game other than sit there and stare at a crafting machine. I throw something in to craft and then go about doing other things. Gathering, mining, hunting. building and other things. Heck I even log off at times and grab some food or play another game if I want.

Agreed here. I started an alt just to test this out. Early crafting doesn’t take too long.

I quit early on as a new player, and I have also asked others why they quit both new and veterans and I not one of them quit because of the crafting times. Some did mention crafting times were long, but never was the reason for quitting.

I’d have to agree here. If we go to zero crafting times we might as well just make the entire game like a creative world.

1 Like
94

As shown in the OP, it takes over 3 hours to make a mass craft of titanium hammers. Why? What does that add to the game? Does what it adds to the game outweigh what it takes away from the experience? What is a player who needs titanium hammers going to do while they wait for those hammers to craft? Well, who needs titianium hammers? New players. What do new players have to do besides wait for stuff to craft? Not much if they haven’t already waited for something else to craft. Why not 10 minutes to craft 10 hammers? What market is removing the crafting time going to destroy? The titanium hammer market? Ha! There is no titanium hammer market. New players use those, and new players don’t have any coins. Players with coins use gem hammers. Forged to the max.

High crafting times should be reserved for luxury goods, if they are going to exist. Luxury goods have a market. Luxury goods aren’t necessary for basic gameplay a new player is engaging in. New players don’t need ornate glass or gleam chests, but they do need basic tools. You can keep the motivation for long crafting times without destroying the new player experience by a thousand cuts.

95

Go exploring, try farming, build something with what they already have (titanium is mid game material afterall, should be progressing to it somewhere between 8-12 hours of gameplay unless you used market to skip ahead). Or mine something on a lower level planet, like hunt for coal, early to mid game fuel is always something you need more of if you’re crafting, you can get that with iron tools just fine.

Edit: :face_with_monocle: We used to have some people sell inexpensive forged iron and copper tools, if no one is doing that still, i might just do it. They are dead useful to early players, not hard or expensive to make (once you have a good grasp on forging), and can be useful to later players too since hunting for colors on low level planets is kinda a waste of a gem tool.

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What is the value of long crafting times on titanium hammers? What does it add to the player experience? All I’m hearing is that you are indifferent to how new players experience the game.

1 Like
97

9 mins isn’t long to me.

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Edit: Why mass craft 10 hammers? When I was new, I ran into this exact thing and just made a 2nd machine. I mass crafted them in one and did singles in another.

98

Ok, but what value does 10 minutes per hammer add to the game? What value would be lost by making the mass craft 10 minutes.

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I’m not asking if it is workable or work aroundable. Of course it is, but work arounds don’t add value to the player experience. I’m asking what value does it add to the player experience to wait a long time for basic tools. Is it possible to move whatever value you think it has to a different area of the game?

100

The value i had when it was me, was i left my building for a few hours and found groups of players doing things, had time to kill so i did other things other than mine, and found that boundless was more than Minecraft in that sense since there were all these people doing all these things. Some of that magic has faded, between player counts, and private worlds, but finding new paths around the galaxy is what i did when it was me, and it made the game feel more alive since it wasn’t just the four walls around me or the inside of a tunnel that i saw During that time.