How can BL best attract new users?

We all want to see BL grow and thrive. How can the devs best do this? I know many hate free weekends, so, discuss! Personally I think they’d sell 5x as many copies at a $20 price point.

1 Like

Besides the big updates coming, they really need to add more content & blocks. Everyone regardless of skill/level can create & build. I know they need to tie user IDs, prestige, etc to each block, but to get more stuff into the game, I think they need to create one huge content dump of blocks/items for us to use & to entice a lot of Roblox/MC/Trove/Creativerse/Etc players to try BL.

I still also like the idea of a F2P/starter/demo planet.

14 Likes

I agree we need more blocks and content, but it cannot require 12 steps and 10 base materials to make like persisting pies or all you are doing is adding grind.

7 Likes

a better quest system would help alot too the starting ones have you build a crafting table and a beacon then just kind of leaves you to figure out how to do eveything on your own…sure you have the journal but that only helps if you have even a remote idea of what you want to do next.

cuz BL des not have a traditional level gateing system where you cant build x till you hit x level new players are going to be confused on what they are able to do or even how to level in the game

like i have sayed in another thread the forums/youtube need to be a strategy guide method for getting info not the be all end all

if the devs even wanted to cheep out they could go the deus ex method and have a hold E to learn feature where it just pops up a window that plays a YouTube video of the devs explaining the given game mechanic

200% agree with you. Making persisting pies now and the time it takes is just downright frustrating. And the number of yams, 10 of them makes it hard, at least for me. And the fortified milk takes a shimmering orb.

Example of time is that I need fortified butter, so make butter from milk, then make fortified milk, then make fortified butter, which also requires shimmering orbs. When I am going to make 100 pies, that is a lot of yams and shimmering orbs.

I’d love to see new food recipes, but not as many steps in them and the time it takes to make the mats. The persisting pies need flour, exotic yams, fortified butter, rock salt, making the butter needs shimmering orbs, charcoal. Some have more but this one and a few others, it is not only ingredients that can be hard to get but the time it takes, 4 to 5 hours.

My son and I have discussed this several times, and we both feel that the information needs to be made clearer, it is still to confusing on what to do. Getting food, the yams and berries are still a bit confusing from some remarks I have seen in some remarks. And Price, it is too high, $25 dollars and either $5 or $10 more for the deluxe.

I think it would help to give them, as many other games do, a small amount of food even the yams and berries, or some broth or soup. And a wood or stone axe, hammer and shovel, or at least one of the other to help them out.

Set places to spawn at, near a city, town, settlement that has portals and ones that has players who have volunteered to be a guide for a day in showing them what to do and how to do it. Explain how they level up, what the coffers are, NOT p2w and devs should change those coffers to be something else, a symbol or word and for the first week give info on what is given and what it is for.

Quests, that is stated Lots not only here but in reviews and posting on Steam. Finding ruins that have treasure chests that can be looted. They can hold items we can keep for decoration or sell, perhaps food even. When mining we could in a cave find part of a ruin that when the previous residents of the plant were attacked their homes, building, business, places of entertainment fell through holes from bombs and were covered by rocks, dirt and sand, most decayed but some didn’t.

New critters that look nothing like what we have, fish in the water to catch, we could make nets to catch them, or have spears to use. Birds, rabbits that we can set traps for, type of lizard that their hide could be used and on higher level planets could be poisonous and other type of critters.

More content, more quests, increase on how many skill points we can have, from 100 to 125 or better to 150. Increase in the skill pages was good, but we need to be able to add more on each page, I need to be able to have a player who can be a hunter and also gather so when she is out hunting for meat she can also gather other item needed.

3 Likes

The game is very static. Not a lot of movement going on outside of exploration and meteor hunting. We need movement systems. The builds need to be lively somehow.

LED’s could be better for a simple start, like doubling from four to eight frames and interacting to program rather than chisel.

Lift systems, conveyer belts, gear systems, item warps, defense systems, vehicles, pets, tamed battle critters, bosses.

Meteors could be better or differ with each drop, like meteors that hit and then begin building a base. The walls should be super tough to encourage players to go in.

5 Likes

I agree, I think lowering the game cost to 19.99 or even 14.99 and adding lots of cosmetic armor that cost $ would raise the player base and probably make them more money than they make off game sales.

I know everyone hates to see even cosmetic content that you can only purchase with real $ but the game will only thrive if they are making $ AND the players are happy. As someone who has literally no extra money to spend on games I would still support cosmetic purchases because I want to see the game thrive.

5 Likes

As one of the few still here from the last free weekend, healing needs to come from the food, not some hidden brew. Most of the play and the mechanics are fine, if you understand English, but as you get deeper, instructions needs to be clearer. If English isn’t your first language, I can see a problem. (I am not familiar with if there are language editions, I assume they will be similar.) Too many things are hidden behind the skill walls, like the portals that were one of the main selling points of the game. I used up my coins warping, ignoring the shops because every one of them I ran into was overpriced, trying to make coin off the noobs. While warping, I didn’t have coin to give them. Enemies ore OP. Things you need fon’t start becoming available until Tier 3, and you have stout cuttletrunks spawning behind you with 1 hit bombs and tracking blasts that you can’t dodge. Recently they appear to have been made even stronger, especially with meteors, which pretty much killed the fun there. Fighting all the way through the last wave and having the last 2 spawns drop you so you can return to “meteor lost” does not inspire a desire to stick around.
I like the coffer method, personally. Nothing about that gives me a RNG or p2w vibe.
I dislike the 800 plots covering resource spawn areas and going unused.
Starting my main base away from others as much as I could forced me to explore more, and I still have that location. I found the PS and Ultima hubs, etc, and utilized them to travel to new worlds. Now I have several between my builds.
I haven’t run out of content, yet, but I can see it coming. Mostly, I am not finding resources like gems, despite following videos, websites, etc. The Wikis are all but useless.
Sorry, this is long and rambling. I have been reading through the forums looking for info I can’t locate, but this seems to be a recurring topic. I am still here, mostly because I am stubborn and sorry I spent $80+.
Probably the biggest help I can see right now is using more colors, especially primary colors, in the rocks. Wood has bright colors, but rocks are mostly subdued. And they need to stop using the same colors on so many worlds. Make the worlds unique so I have a reason to explore them to find what I want.

2 Likes

Lower price, more marketing, less p2w-like features (don’t start arguing, lootboxes is cery p2w like). New content isn’t atm super necessary but there should be way more endgame content. Once you reach max level and gear, all you can do is build and farm stuff to keep portals up.

2 Likes

And now you know why my workshop has so many machines! The pie and brew area is filled with mixers and extractors! Oh and 2 refineries for sugar…

I do try to have 100s of milk ready in buckets, have 100s of purified milk ready in buckets as well. Of course I also have 100s of butter, purified butter and fortified butter ready most of the time. Then it’s usually just making the pies themselves and after I do make sure the other mats are made again as well.

But, I remember the old days, when I had 1 mixer, 1 extractor, barely any coin to get supplies, took way too long back then…

1 Like

As said. And what i heard from streamers from free weekend they would buy it if it was 20-25€ range. Many thought game was a bit overwhelming but also they admired the community in this game.

We do not know what kinda deal square enix collective has with wonderstruck… and thats what concerns me the most. I mean i doubt they published it for free or without any goals to be filled.

1 Like

I don’t mind free weekends, but I do think they’re a nett negative action if almost all of the people that try it decide that it’s not for them, or that it’s not worth buying. It just cements and propagates the opinion that the game either doesn’t have the content to support it’s gameplay or it doesn’t have the mass-appeal to support its funding, irrespective of whether that opinion is true.

Personally, I don’t think there’s anything minor that Boundless can do to attract more long-term users. My personal opinion is that they’re attempting to simultaneously cater to both creative builders and grind-progression based MMO players. They’ve created a new niche audience comprised of a subset of those two groups that enjoys both, and the current player numbers reflect how desirable that niche really is. People who primarily want/enjoy one of those two feature will be able to find a game that suits them better elsewhere.

While it may well frustrate this existing users who DO enjoy both, I honestly believe the only way for the player-base to grow in any meaningful manner if for them to change the target audience. Either relegate the building to a side activity and focus on character progression, story, quest content, titans etc etc and target the MMO crowd more, or significantly reduce the grind in order to target the more create crowd.

Ultimately, if the current player numbers can support Boundless financially then we have a choice between ‘Accept the player numbers or accept a change in focus’. If not, it becomes a choice between ‘Accept a change in focus, or accept that the game will fade away’.

1 Like
  1. Change the cubit coffers, instead of showing a crate which makes new new players think of lootcrates, change the graphic to just the cubit icon with the amount below it.

  2. Lower the price to ~£25, not too low for the devs to make money on initial sales but not too high to scare off new players.

  3. On PS4 and Steam create a new trailer to reflect current content, the current trailer is based on old content, the steam screenshots also need updated as they are all pre-1.0

  4. More world types

  5. More blocks

  6. more mobs

  7. More character customization e.g clothes

  8. more content in general

4 Likes

Definitely this - more blocks and a tutorial/free demo planet would be huge I think. :slight_smile:

Yeah, I have to get fully on board with this now: get the cubits out of the boxes in the store and just show the amounts. After some exchanges I’ve had when promoting Boundless, I can see that this is possibly hurting them a lot more than I thought, that has the potential to quickly turn off players who see those on the store page and have been burned elsewhere.

3 Likes

they also have to change the coffers in the platform store pages as well, as the current icon makes new players think lootcrates and therefore p2w, also the store page for the cubit coffers should have a note at the top in bright letters so that it cannot be missed, misunderstood or though of as p2w

“Cubits can also be earned in-game through character progression”

3 Likes

I thought it was silly before, but now I’m on the “ditch the coffers” bandwagon. It isn’t worth it. Just have a level up screen and make periodic coffers into pop ups.

5 Likes

Yep, that is part of my problem, and I don’t have the ability to enlarge my base. I either have to build a separate workshop for my cooking alt or stay at the size I have. I have on one floor the storage bins that hold the mats and 2 of some machines.

The machines that I use for the cooking are on their own floor but only enough room for one each of them and the coils needed. I think I’m going to have to take one of each of the machine on the mat floor and put them on coils so I can use them.

I think the things others have said pretty much nail it - lower price, remove the coffers, and more content.

The only thing I would hope, is that current players perhaps get something in exchange for having spent more money. Nothing major mind you, even a unique cosmetic or something might be nice, sort of a “thank you” gift if you will.

1 Like

I am not sure if the issue is attracting new users or keeping the ones that actually start playing and quit early on in the game progression. But in any case I think there are several things that need to happen

1 - Lower the grind. If this is a sandbox MMO then I think the amount of time it takes to gather/mine and then craft items needs to be reduced. Other games such as Medieval Engineers have lowered the grind to allow players to feel they are making progress in shorter sessions. Simplify the recipes. It takes 10 basic items and 12 steps to make a persisting pie. In real life I can make a pecan pie with 4 steps and 9 ingredients. Should a game be more complicated than real life?

2 - Balance the lower grind with significantly increased blocks. Take the designs for bricks and decorative rock and wood and apply them to all the rock and wood types. Apply wood and metal frames to glass. Apply wood and metal frames to lanterns.

3 - Create an in game auction house for non-forged items.

Make the game something a casual player has time to play and actually make some measurable and rewarding progress in an hour of play.

9 Likes