I started playing boundless about a month or so ago and I’ve put in near 300 hours. My team (Me, my brother and cousin), all got the game at the same time and we all have played religiously, non stop. We had a massive build that we built on Solum, then wanted more challenge so we moved to Elopor and started our journey making out settlement, all with the intention of overtaking Elop Portas.
First, This game is amazing. How everything is player based is incredible. The building and complexity is first class, and the art style is perfect!
Now that we have played a while, we are hitting a road block. Our settlement is thriving, we have settlers and are on a great path forward, but at this point, I am having a hard time feeling rewarded for the time investment I am needing to put in.
I’ve built what we planned out and now the game is all about the economy. I’ve used a lot of my plots (too many to build anything worthwhile with the remainder). Same goes for my team.
We do have some expansion ideas on our build, but as I said, the time investment to gather the mats for the build (and the tools needed to gather it) doesn’t feel rewarding enough.
Although Boundless has a great building system, when you really look at the core of the game, its not a “building” game. Its an economic and power game. The main goal at this point in development is to either play the economy, or to gain prestige to climb the ranks to the capital city of your planet.
The problem is that the only reward is either the ability to be able to get more mats to build with or to get your settlement to the top, but then what?
I know that there is a lot of things planned for the game, that will hopefully improve on the Time vs Reward aspect of the game, but for now I’m just at a road block.
Here is my suggestion. In the universe of Boundless, the only real lore is that an ancient civilization, the Oort, have left behind ancient technology. There are going to be protectors and Titans added later, as well as way more planets I know, but hear me out.
Instead of the game being primarily about the economy or power/prestige or even building, the game needs to be about gathering knowledge by way of exploration. There needs to be underground dungeons and surface ruins filled will monsters and they need to be completable (where you are uniquely rewarded by getting to the end and killing the major boss). After it has been completed, It should stick around as a cool POI for a bit (or permanently if someone beacons it) and then get regenerated into the world.
These dungeons/ruins need to be procedurally created and randomly placed all over the universe and their difficulty determined depending on the planet difficulty. They should be filled with mobs, mini bosses, minior bosses and major bosses. They should include puzzles, traps and environmental obstacles.
Now for the rewards. Fist of all, these dungeons can only be completed once and only those whom complete it get the rewards. I think that each one should reward the victor(s) with a few guaranteed things.
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A unique recipe for a styled tool, weapon or piece of armor that resembles the Major boss you just defeated along with some accompanying mats to create it or hire someone to create it for you. You can sell this recipe or learn it, and sell the creation. The item would be unique only to you and whomever completed the dungeon with you.
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A unique trophy that can be displayed on a shelf or maybe even the wall (add taxidermy recipes maybe)
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A glyph, map, translation, etc.that you learn and add to your ‘knowledge’ of the Oort and their tech or something similar so you have a collection to obtain and work towards.
Doing this idea, will not replace anything the game is already, it will strengthen the economy even more, it will make the players whom put the time in exploring obtain higher prestige items to gain power, and the building/crafting will still be ever important.
It will add new “professions” such as a explorer whom discovers and sells markers of dungeons/ruins across the universe. Dungeon crawler whom has invested his/her time into outfitting themselves to complete dungeons, maybe only building a small workshop for crafting weapons and armor.Taxidermist who mounts the trophies for decorations,
One caveat to this is that in order for the dungeons to be really enjoyable, is that the combat system needs to be completely reworked with the lance integrated, better animations for fighting, better AI in the monsters, shields, strategic blocking and dodging, etc.
Adding procedurally generated, unique dungeons/ruins that give you unique rewards and expands your knowledge of the universe will give you something do do besides build or grind for mats.