Game Breakers V2

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So, I decided to do this blog style, archiving my older posts, and giving links to them so that you guys don’t have to sift through my ramblings multiple times, if you are actually reading this… which you are. So, to you, whoever is reading this, thank you and your welcome.

Alright, let’s get to it. Gravel is still useless, as well as my millions of stones. There are augments now that act like temporary ammo for my temporary slingbow (Because there’s no way to repair gear), but they kind of fall short of what I was hoping for. The basic reason that I wanted the riverstones was to make use of the abundance of materials that I already have. Adding a bizillion new mats for cooking and the like is AWESOME, but now it all clogs up my inventory simply walking from one place to another. Sometimes, you just got to use what you got, and this doesn’t accomplish that goal at all.Three tiers of glue? Pretty rad, but three tiers of everything?! Wow. It’s a lot of stuff at this point. Cooking is awesome, and I love the various recipes, making different risottos and breads. But they don’t follow a logical convention. According to … well, the world, risotto is much more complex than bread. Bread is kinda basic. Flour, salt, butter, yeast (basically). But, let’s get into risotto for just a second. My boy Gordon Ramsay seems to think it’s simple, but, everyone else fails at it…. Dog’s dinner, it is. Food shouldn’t be this damn complex, and require so many ingredients, and follow a logical progression of how to make it. Raw - Cooked - Seasoned - Fancy - w/ Sides or Starters. I mean, that’s basically how human kind has done it forever. (Side note, that video of Ramsay flipping out is hilarious. “OI, MUPPET… poncing around with woman’s hair.”) In summary : There’s great and bad things about the new recipes, namely that I can’t use my existing, and commonly acquired things, in more useful ways. The refined wood is a start, but we’ll get into that in a minute. #BlackBlock

So, the Atlas. Dude, I love it, But, here’s my issues, there’s no elevation, there isn’t a way to set waypoints like pins on a globe, and there isn’t a settlement concentration, and no accurate measurement of scale. Cartography isn’t easy. It’s actually kinda amazing when you really think about it. But, we figured out a long time ago where the equator was, and how latitude and longitude work. Our atlas does very little in the way of helping with orientation, and before you guys say “There’s a debug for your coords, and you have a compass” I will preemptively respond with this: when using a resource gathering tool, such as this, you should be able to have additional information. Namely, information on your elevation. Let’s just put this in perspective, if we are going off the current mechanics of the game, you have a static ball that is only used once to get where you are going, then is put back into your bag until you need to look for a new spot. It doesn’t dynamically update, and won’t show you changes to resource concentration, because it only shows you the general spawn location in a two dimensional plane. This drastically reduces it’s effectiveness, and if you add to the fact that the Atlas can be bought and sold, it kind of makes the whole thing a bit contrived. Having someone else mapping out the thing for you makes it less involved, and removes a point of general interaction with the player, making it just a weight in your inventory. The smart stack only goes to nine, so you need to have two spots reserved if you want all the atlases on your person all the time. Adding to the previously touched upon issue of lack of inventory management and control. Sometimes, something as simple as making one, adding it to a “collections” tab then making it available when you hit ‘M’, would be rad. Then there’s the whole idea that you could have telemetry devices like altimeters and sounders that would make positioning a bit more dynamic, fun and playable then having to hit ‘U’ every time you want to figure out exactly where you are. Tools make the game more fun, and can add specialization to loadouts and customization. Right now having to have one of everything is a bit much.

To the Devs: your 3D starmap is awesome! Being able to add to the undiscovered country on the fly and readily calculate the number of Blinksecs is a wonderful addition. But, not having some sort of planetary map is kinda distracting when figuring out how each system (server) interacts with one another. The people at Portal Seekers did great work in decoding your messages and figuring out how they relate, but there’s no real resource in game to elucidate the common player. I suppose they can undergo the trial and error approach like they would have to do with anything that they fumble about with, but at some point you could make it easier to understand. I get that these planets are temporary, and not part of the main game, and everything, everywhere, will be erased, but having a framework would be helpful.

So, refined wood! I love it, and there is a wonderful example of making something ‘common’ into another thing with multiple uses. Good call. But farming wood? Getting those simple materials that you would normally be gathering because you want specific colors or patterns? Not so great. You guys added Bark. Boom. You can’t get bark, on T1 planets, and since it’s a luck based drop, you kind of want to go up to a T3 planet to get the most bang for your buck. This gets back to the nitty gritty of my previous post, limiting the number of available worlds. Not to make this too personal, but I’m making a giant tree, the Tree of Life, Yggsdrial, and I need a specific color of wood found on Berlyn, a T1 planet. Because of the addition of bark, I have to revise my wood choice and move to a different planet to get the new resource. This really sets me off. Because I have to either A) tear down my existing build or B) accept that a different color wood is what I have to use. Now, those personal dilemmas aside, I’m having to farm on a T3 planet, which has more hearty trees. Those trees take longer to farm, and break my tools quicker. Also, once I have started farming them, they don’t fall and resource clumping isn’t a thing, so it becomes increasingly frustrating. Resource clumping should be a thing. FFS it should be a thing. I hate how chopping down a tree, and getting up to the leaves gets my hard earned wood stuck in terrible spots, adding time to my already terrible farm. Even with Gem tools, it’s just not fun. Oh, and higher tier planets means higher tier enemies, which drop twenty six thousand things that clog up my inventory to the point that I get only one or two trees down before I have to turn around and head home.

Ugh. That’s all for now.

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I’ll be the first to agree that things feel grindy but I think it all ties into their design goal to have it be more of a social game and less of a jack-of-all-trades game. So instead of chopping down trees and leaves, go hunting and sell your stuff and befriend a lumberjack more or less. Or take twice as long and experience more grind. That’s the general idea as tough as it is to get around.

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Not at all complaining about the grind. I’m good with grinding. Trust me on that one. It’s more that it’s not needed, for this example, I’m talking about just picking up my loot, the other things that contribute are more of the turnkey issues that lead to the extra steps. That, in conjunction with making the universe increasingly smaller, creates a situation of pure and fervent frustration bordering on pointlessness. Making friends and being social shouldn’t be required for a private building endeavor, but rather a perk. You shouldn’t be forced to make friends, ever. You don’t have to do it in life, if you don’t want to. It’s supposed to be something that fun, even with a grind. Why can’t we have both in a fantasy world?

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And you’re not.

The universe is now ready for 100s and 100s of worlds. They can be added totally dynamically. There is also room in the topology for private / personal / owned / clan worlds. The universe can and will be huge…

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:open_mouth:

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quality post

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You’re totally right, if there’s going to be hundreds of worlds. I’m speaking from my experience with the early access. :smiley: Please don’t confuse my tone with anger.

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I didn’t and don’t.

Was simply giving you information about the current and future status of the game.

All feedback (even in anger) is appreciated and welcomed.

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???. As far as I know no worlds were deleted with the most recent update…? Should still be 12. 3 US West, 3 US East, 3 EUR, 3 AUS.

Per my reply above, you’re not forced to do any sort of social interaction right now. By all means please go cut trees to your heart’s content.

Maybe I misread the suggestion label on your post? Was this more of a short rant? I mean your point about getting only one or two trees down is kind of unfounded since you should be able to get 9 stacks of 99 wood only taking up 1 inventory slot. Your point about Berlyn wood vs. other wood to get bark is your own decision. If you valued the wood color more, you’d obviously go to Berlyn but if you’d rather get the extra material then keep doing what you’re doing…

Yes the atlas is weird but you don’t need to add markers to it, you can just add new ‘places’.

Hopefully some of those responses help you?? Although the more I reread your post I’m thinking you don’t really want help but rather somewhere to get some things off your chest? I don’t know, let me know how we can best help you if I was unhelpful.

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There’s a misunderstanding here, I think. I’m not saying that there are fewer worlds, but the access to portal networks, as much as I love them, make the worlds feel smaller than they are. It’s more of an objective reaction to the idea of immediacy that detracts from the overall experience. If you would like, I explained it in more detail in my previous post regarding resource gathering.

I’m not forced to partake in any sort of social interaction, and that’s not the overarching issue. The main point of contention I have is that I don’t want to beholden to any specific person. I don’t want to incur debt or have to broker trades for specific resources. That is my personal hang-up, and isn’t quite what I wanted to touch on when I was describing the situation in question. Clumping of resources is something that would remove additional time to something that is made innately more difficult for me, or even the person I would befriend. The wood choice, again, was more of my own personal issue as well, and I described my options and set them aside to bridge the point.

I farm large trees that create multiple smart stacks. 891 + wood generates another stack. Assuming that I’m not 50, and can’t afford the skills needed to expand my inventory, it would rapidly become clogged by things like eyes and glands. This is what I was talking about.

Now, the generalities that I’m dealing with do have influence over my experiences, and those things could be experienced by potential players. I’m not merely venting or getting things off my chest. I love this game, and see it’s immense potential, and I have never encountered a community that is as robust and overwhelmingly positive as in Boundless. So, for the most part, I’m looking to find a any issues that come up as potential game breakers and address them early on to ensure that this game becomes all it can be. None of these things I have said are with malice or in any way meant to be seen as destructive or overly critical.

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Hold on to your pantsuits ladies and gentlemen. Boundless is just getting started! There goes the next decade of my life. . .

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Eeh, I’ve got to disagree with most of these points, but that’s only because I’m playing Boundless in a totally different manner than you are. To me, is a survival mmo, where your greatest asset is the players around you. My aim is not to do everything myself better than anyone else - I don’t have time for that! Instead, I focus on one particular aspect of boundless, I pursue it to the fullest and enlist the aid of others in any aspects that I can’t tackle myself.

For example, right now I’m primarily building. I buy my tools from various shops in the cities. I pick up surface resources like cobalt or orbs while I mine stone and metal ore to build with, then I sell the excess resources for more tool money. I don’t bother collecting some things like mob drops because they’re not my focus, and what little I do bring back I sell at the market. For me, the greatest grind is just basic building materials. The community both supplies me with my specialized needs, and relieves me of inventory overflow.

This has worked out for me very well so far. I’ve got 350k coins surplus to afford the best tools in the game, and I never have shortages of any materials but iron and stone, my primary two building materials. This level of grinding is manageable and fun.

But like you said, that’s the difference between playing Boundless solo, and cooperative. The limitations to bag space is a coop incentive. The massive variety in materials is a coop incentive. The broad selections of foods and deeply involved crafting recipes are a coop incentive. These things all allow for a multitude of players to participate in crafting and economy in a meaningful way as a community. You can still thrive as a solo player in this coop driven world, but the communities will always thrive more, by design.
At some point you’ve got to step back and see that Boundless is not a game made for ME, it’s a game made for US.

Respectfully,
Havok40k

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I love the food system :c

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I find storage blocks etc really useful for storing stuff that I don’t need to be carrying around all the time :slightly_smiling_face: … i haven’t even looked at all the food crafting yet, at the moment I’m just focusing on mapping Andooweem to be able to find diamonds to craft my first set of power coils, after that I’ll concentrate on another planet gradually building up my atlases as I need them to help find the specific resources. In the meantime I’m gathering a wide selection of surface items that I can store until I’m ready to use them. I’m only using basic healing potions and cooked meat at the moment until I’m ready to get more involved with the cooking and brewing. I kind of think of it a bit like going into a big supermarket, rather than get overwhelmed by the huge array of items available I just focus on what I need … picking up the occasional treat once in a while :grin:

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A fair point though. The current portal network got way more extensive than I thought it would get.

This makes me wonder if

is still their goal for future balance changes.

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I’ve been trying not to comment yet again on my views on this, but, hey, why not, right?

To me, the portals are the truly unique point of Boundless. Finding a new portal to some new area yet undiscovered is the very spirit of exploration to me.

I understand that people want it to be rare, but portals lead to interesting places. I am all for free-form exploration of a planet, (and possibly the rewards for per-region discovery should be increased to value this), but its the portals that make Boundless, boundless.

Exploring all the portal connections, their changing connection points, and the interesting places they lead is as much exploration as wandering the surface of a planet on foot. Both are valid forms of exploration, and both should be embraced, and rewarded.

I’ve found a ton of places through portals that I never would have through wandering, and I’ve found a ton of places through wandering that I never would have through portaling.

My 2credits: Keep portals accessible and supportable to individuals. It hurts no-one. You can still wander the surface as you wish if you prefer that method. Keeping portals viable allows both forms of exploration.

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I fully agree that portals make Boundless truly boundless. I’m not saying that access to them needs to be revised, I’m simply stating that even with a million planets, and millions of cities the paradox of expedient travel is that it makes every place visited, even if completely awestruck by their magnificence is just a crossing line, and not a point. When flying over Australia, I saw the most beautiful sights, but they were just part of my route, and even if we touched down, it wasn’t the destination.

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