Every online game that has what is considered ‘endgame’ content, that content gets beaten within a month or two (maximum) of the expansion/patch that added it, and then people start asking for endgame again because they’ve beaten the current ‘endgame’.
So it’s an infinite spiral that never really ends and just serves to cause power creep. Bit of a misnomer. I think it serves primarily as a way to trick developers into indentured servitude to the playerbase.
On the other hand, it also puts the playerbase into a hamster wheel from which they can never get off.
A hamster wheel for the playerbase is EXACTLY what the devs want - that’s how they make money, keeping us engaged!
End game is not an illusion. It is real, and if done right, games flourish. If done wrong, or ignored, the game eventually dies
Read the post I linked above, I gave some examples. They aren’t all inclusive, and the devs may have a totally different plan for end game, which I don’t mind.
The tl;dr point is - there are definitely viable end game options this game could have that make plenty of sense. I hope we get something before long!
We already have one. It’s just that we’re past the point of ‘people already conquered the endgame so it’s no longer considered endgame’.
We’re one revolution down on the infinitely spinning hamster wheel.
That’s the illusion.
I suppose the hunter and titans (and tier 7+ planets and materials) will be the next one, but in every mmo it ends up as just an infinite series of never-ending power creep and moving sacks of ever larger hp pools to make the increase in power seem relevant, while in reality the difficulty curve remains predictably flat and older content gets increasingly trivialized by the power creep.
I’ve been down that road many, many times and it always takes more time to develop than it will take for people to beat it and demand more. So the players end up never being really satisfied.
To be fair, the game has one form of ‘end game’ which is meteorites. They aren’t bad, either. They entertained me for a decent bit! Really good premise to them too
But they are pretty lacking in the replay department… there isn’t a big reason to do high tier meteors so the ‘end game’ feel isn’t there.
If you look at my suggestion around post ~22 of the above linked post “end game” - I do list a few ways to improve meteorites into a more proper endgame
Better than meteorites would be semi-randomly generated “dungeon dimensions” that open temporary portals and give a challenge (and then an appropriate reward!) and some form of “chase” items that require a lot of time and effort to get. That would help a lot with player retention, and new variables in the dungeons every couple months would help keep it fresh
The main problem is that the carrot on those systems is randomized loot, which boundless doesn’t really support. That’s the backbone to the whole hamster wheel.
Would be nice to have less predictable loot, but it makes sense for Boundless. If the best stuff was from loot, there would be no point to crafting… and if the loot came with forge effects, there goes the forging too.
I suppose if they went with cosmetic rewards that could work. Like pants. I would raid for months to get pants.
I respect this opinion, as I understand the crafting aspect of this game better than most, so I do understand that it is a backbone of the game…
That having been said: overly relying on that system as the only form of loot is a mistake, I believe. Having randomized drops that can have special or unique properties (within reason) is something that helps a LOT of games keep players interested.
But, if the devs wanted to tie the dungeons to another new crafting material for special gear (ARMOR! PANTS!!!) instead of giving direct loot, I could respect that choice. It would still be viable as long as the challenge and reward were there.
One thing I suppose they could do to make it a complement to the crafting system instead of replacing it would be to use augments.
Like, say, having augments that transforms a power fist / sling into some special effect type of thing until the augment breaks. They could have augments for all sorts of things that crafting doesn’t cover, like making people tankier for example.
If I were a dev, I’d add special augments to the loot tables during events as well, like say for this upcoming event making slingbows fire heart-tipped cupid arrows that has a chance to ‘charm’ a mob and make it turn on other mobs. Things of that nature, adding special effects to tools / weapons that change what the basic thing does, but its a consumable, so it needs to be farmed and used sparingly.
What if you got meteorite tools? The only way to get them is from meteorites. They could have a small selection of unique effects or makes boons automaticly lvl 3 in the forge or something.
Or maybe they are low lvl gem stats with 200 effectiveness and automatically doubles vigor and stability.
You need to be more creative.
If monsters drop recipes, then crafting still require.
Also it can be outfit as well.
I understand Devs need to sell outfit for some income.
But if we get some in-game craft-able outfit, and recipe drop by monsters.
It can be a good goal for players to grind.
Outfit can be weapon outfit / Effect costume /paint / armor outfit /hamlet …etc
Also the quest system (object) need to improve as well.
The reward from dong the object in Boundless is way to useless.
This why i always suggest our new player members to ignore the object, and focus on feat.
They should assign more items rewards / coins for the object rewards.
It give players motive to solve the object.
Also this game need a story line as well.
I know some players really enjoy story in the game.
They can create some story stone or journal hide in every area, players need to find those story journal to unlock the atlas, also you get bonus rewards when you find it. It give players motive to discover the atlas by their own instead of buying it from shop.
I think this is the key point what Boundless is missing. Every contents should have “motive” behind it to make players want to involve to that system. Right now the motive behind most contents are very simple. Get the best gear to gather and build. But, for people who already achieve the ability to craft and forge best gear by themselves, it make entire grinding become pointless. I don’t want to spend hours to grind just to get more same tools to use, its boring and pointless.
The problem with dropping recipes is that you only need to get it once, so that doesn’t work for that sort of model of “endgame” that Aridhol was talking about, even if it’s a super low (below 0.1%) drop rate, unless it’s the sort of recipe that you can only use X times and then you need to get it to drop again.
Guilds would just farm it until it drops and never have a reason to kill the thing again, and the problem he was talking about is people feeling like there’s nothing left to do in game because they already have everything.
That sort of “Endgame” Is not my cup of tea but lots of people think they need such a thing.
The only way I can see to fix that in a more permanent way without requiring new stuff being added every month is if the items dropped are consumable in some fashion, or otherwise time-limited. Costumes that only last X days, for example, or recipes that you can only use X times.
I still think that temporary power-ups in the form of augments that make old items behave in new ways would be the most interesting. Kind of like getting an artifact / unique item in games like Path of Exile / Diablo, that can drastically change how you play the game, except it only lasts for a little while.
Basically, something that can trick people into feeling like they haven’t got every item in the game.
You need to think big picture here.
Drop recipe can have a lot of factors for devs to modify.
You mention about drop rate ( it should be 0.1 % or below it )
How many mats require for people to craft by the recipe drop by monsters or meteors
How many type of recipe dev wants to create
can it sell or not ? (For both recipe or product)
Those are the factors devs can modify.
I really don’t think this will happen. If the drop rate is low, means you can sell it with high price.
If that is some outfit costume, people will want to get it.
They can get more money to buy it or they can grind hard to get it.
It bring up motive for players to grind and it is challenging.
And it bring value to the market as well, otherwise everything now is extremely cheap on market.
Also it allow players to create unique character looks by those rare outfit.
When you walk in the city people will be jealous or other feeling XD.
There are a lot of great mmo, their end game is focus on the art work (outfit / skin) instead of real power tools / gears. As i know ( Tree of savior / Gw2 / League of Legends …etc), they get income by selling artwork but also some ingame - craftable outfit / skin as well. Who don’t like when you can get a special grapple with some fire effect on it during the group hunt ? It makes your characters special.
Without the motive, Boundless just a sand box building game. It will never become MMORPG.
As much as I do think these are cool concepts, and the game would be better off for them…
I have to wonder how much they’d really engage a player and keep them interested. I am all for setting up a good farm but once I’m done, I’m pretty done…
If by fishing, you mean a whole update to water that gives us a way to breathe underwater and adds new mobs underwater and etc… then heck yeah (lol)
Otherwise, I have never found fishing in any game to be worthwhile in any significant way
The game needs more challenges to overcome, more than anything. Though admittedly farming and fishing COULD be done in such a way that it would still be challenging
@Aridhol I like your idea of having a contest for community created dungeons. I honestly think that this is doable. But we would need some sort of logic blocks to make a proper dungeon (pressure plates, traps, etc.).
Yeah, they do need some kind of triggering system for traps or area based effects, but its possible they have trigger type things in the back end that we can’t use on our side of the game?
If so that kinda works too. They don’t want us to make pvp traps so I can see some of the reasoning there
Tho I agree it is something that would be really nice to have but new content for me are things that we can actually play, like farming for instance.
Arguably new blocks can be called new content but it really does not add anything new to do just more items to build with…
Not saying that new blocks/items to build with isn’t an awesome thing just that it doesn’t change HOW we play or WHAT we do in the game.
