I think it all depends on how you define mmo. If a group is working together on the same build, does that count as mmo? If one player farms the materials that another needs to craft pies they both share is that being in an mmo? If a group goes out to hunt meteors then is that part of an mmo? I do not think every player has to engage in every group activity for boundless to be an mmo.
I also feel sometimes too much emphasis is placed on trying to make players engage in the economy.
Why should it be harder? Why would you drive away the solo player that is currently playing by increasing grind? I’m not sure I understand why we would try to force a solo player to play MMO.
Instead wouldn’t it make more sense to just adjust the marketing and make sure the game is clearly communicated that it is only MMO with no SOLO aspects? That way more MMO buy it and the solo people don’t?
I personally don’t think MMO or SOLO should have the “priority.” The priority to should focusing on increasing adaption and retention. If they are attracting more MMO people then focus on MMO. If they are attracting more solo then focus on that. The health of the game overall for me is more important.
If we are going to try to attract both audiences we need to treat each fairly and support their game style. Otherwise we need to tell one side they are not welcome to the party unless they wear the type of hat that the game requires you to wear. I guess I don’t see how trying to have our cake and eat it too really helps any side of the coin.
This is important in my opinion. I’d rather the game succeed and be less of what I like than not. If that means forcing MMO functions so be it.
But I dont have the data so I dont know.
At least from achievements it seems request basket use and forging aren’t high on anyone’s list.
After your post I deleted everything that I had typed up here and went for a smoke break.
This statement sums the problem up nicely. It’s a solid recipe for disaster on a single platform. At best maybe stumbling along in niche obscurity for as long as the development team can continue to maintain liquidity.
They could split the platform, there’s a clear market for a solo/standalone version of the game and it could be balanced properly for that playstyle.
If they’re not willing or able to develop a dual/split platform, they need to pick a target audience, and work towards appropriate goals. There isn’t “one size fits all” when two demographics have explicitly conflicting goals requirements.
It’s as fruitless as a debate with someone who wants to support both sides of an issue.
Difficulty is not the same as tediosity. It is well that it is difficult, the problem comes that it is too repetitive in the less fun activities of the game. As it can be to collect murky land to compact it in fuel and use it to constantly make tools or to build with prestige and earn coins to be able to participate more in the economy. If they created a new line of intermediate technology based on steel that does not depend on the high materials required by the coils, perhaps this would be quite mitigated.
I really wasn’t trying to debate it and sorry if it came off like that. I personally think it is a miss to have targeted both audiences or to not have been as clear on what the game was going to be. I think we get a lot of MC/solo type people and forcing them into MMO will cause issues.
Personally I am fine with either side… I just see it as a hard decision to make now and if the game needs to focus on MMO, then instead of making it “harder” on the solo person, just be honest. As a person playing primarily solo now (minus my guild stuff) I don’t want to waste more time in the game if they are going to more and more push MMO stuff but make it seem the game still wants solo people.
I just prefer transparency and honesty.
Fair enough, perhaps a harsh choice of words. There are two sides to the issue,a nd any serious discussion between them is going to come off as something of a debate, even if it doesn’t necessarily need to be “a fight”.
I’m honestly responding because you chose to clarify your viewpoint and stance on the issue personally. Sadly, as much there is such a thing, I’m on the other side of this one.
I’m here for a multiplayer environment, with too many things for one person to successfully and continuously do all of them. I don’t see the logic behind taking the effort to integrate two largely separate platforms and ecosystems to then go on and encourage everyone to exist in their own private bubble.
It sounds very noble to say “I don’t care which way they go as long as the game succeeds” but this isn’t something like a for-profit investment in my portfolio. If the game develops in a direction that I don’t enjoy, I’m out. At that point the success of the game as an earner for the studio or on a sales leaderboard at a tech website is completely irrelevant to me.
Now I’m one person and I wouldn’t be offended by them stepping up and saying “we’re going to take a much stronger focus on acquiring and retaining solo players”. Losing my business would be worth it for them if it attracted droves of players. So in that sense I’m comfortable saying that I wouldn’t resent my investment (time or financial) in the earlier versions of the game.
But I can’t honestly say that I’m neutral, or that I don’t care.
This. Yes. Please.
It would be nice if instead of just hearing ‘Boundless’ anytime people make a comment about the game being too wide in scope, if we could just get an answer on what the game is supposed to be and what it will be shaped on going forward. A lot of us could decide to continue investing or just realize we didn’t buy in to the right game and go else where. This ‘both sides’ player base thing just makes the game not fun quite frankly. You never know when a change is going to negatively impact your play style and cause you to rethink how fun you feel the game is.
Seems like “solo playstyle” really means something like “jack of all trades playstyle”. The complaints I’ve read aren’t so much “I can’t play solo at all” but “playing solo is tedious and miserable [because I have to do things I don’t like without a good way to speed them up by specializing]”. In that sense it’s a balance issue instead of a fundamental flaw. Maybe some of it could be alleviated with skill/xp/etc tweaks?
I think it 100% is a balance issue but if you balance to make it solo friendlier then you make it so groups are way more efficient(as intended) and the cruising through what little content we have faster than the devs want. At least I’m fairly confident that’s what has been stated when the balance complaints have come up in the pass.
That’s why I think the discussion veers in to ‘pick a demographic’.
If they can balance it so solo players are happy while groups dont demolish others little content we have then that would be the best scenario but I don’t really see it being possible based off the decisions made to date and the manner in which they were made.
I’d be satisfied with ‘pick a demographic’ too, tbh. It’s super frustrating trying to play and give feedback on a game when you don’t know what you’re meant to be playing in the first place.
But I think there’s a fair bit of overlap between the complaints about midgame being awful and about soloing. Maybe @anon427297 is on to something, like, what if there was some simple and affordable way to forge an iron or silver (or steel!) hammer so it hit a 1x2 area? Part of the problem might be the HUGE gap between 3x3 AOE forged tool and something a non-tool-non-forge specialist can make.
Definitely! This has long been a complaint since the PS4 release days of why aren’t there any low end tools catered to that player level stage. I think in the past we always asked for forging to use less/lower tier mats so it made sense to use them on lower tools so 1x2 tools cold sensibly be made but nothing was ever done in that regard.
A new metal(like steel) focused in on that high teen/mid tier range would be useful but it might be better to just make it a forging recipe since that seems to not be going anywhere. Have the 1x2 recipe use low end mats. Lower than the way it works right now.
Actually thinking about it now this would be a great time to get rid of the ‘random’ boon in the aoe tree, and cut the aoe tree in to guaranteed forges: ie 1x2 , cross, and 3x3 would be their own individual unique recipe. The only thing that would change in the recipe is the damage bonus like it does now in a totally different boon. The higher rank in the boon recipe the higher the damage goes. This gets rid of the need for the damage boon on tools and focus’s the various aoe’s in to specific recipes and ranking them up starts negating the damage penalty they have.
But that’s only if we use the forging system so it can be an introductory tool as it should be at lower levels and encourage more people to use it as @wakeNbake has suggested over the course of many posts.
If we just made it based off a new metal that would be cool too but I think we lose an opportunity using the forge as a tutorial.
100% i know its a differnt beast but the WoW model des it best you can solo all the “story content” but the MMO kicks in if you want to do more of the “end-game” and dungeon content there is no reason why both cant live in harmony sure the economy in WoW is not the best but sometimes you got to sacrifice some things for the greater good.
Where does that happen?
There are solo players in every MMO. I know because I am one of them. Even in the games with tens of thousands of players - I still manage to avoid everyone if I choose to. Solo players will always find a way to do what they do. This game is no different.
If the game genre is MMO, it should probably be an MMO for the most part.
People are free thinkers & doers…you can only try to control them to a certain extent. If you start trying to please everyone, then you may end up pleasing no one.
If they want to grab the pure solo players, then they will need to add rental planets and/or a local PC/console mode like MC and Terraria offer.
Yeah I hear you overall. I would go all MMO if I felt the game was mature enough to support it. I don’t think they are enough things to really support it. I do like solo right now just because it is hard to really rely on people. Everyone has a life and it isn’t always easy to make commitments. It is different for me when things are loose fitting to try to get MMO to work versus more traditional MMO (at least in my mind) where you join missions or work on big bosses (like in old school WOW).
I really think there is a way to balance both solo and mmo. I think on some level they are pretty close. I could see a more solo type design or even free play that then moves the person into a more MMO based world. That development is going to be a long one though.
About the only thing right now for me that is a bit off on the solo side is trying to force people into too tight of an area, making settlements auto happen, and things like the Exo’s costing coin and pushing more advanced items out there.
Scored a goal there from my perspective. It might really just be the lack of content and game things like this that are breaking the solo/mmo design right now.
I was basing my response on something Nightstar said about making it harder. But, if I look at the game, right now forcing certain game play into a coin type design without enough ways to make coin alone is forcing me to play mmo. The feats do not give me enough coin to go to Exo or warp around the Universe. I cannot make fuel using resources and have to use hunts for that. So many things become much easier or almost need MMO to succeed. I have to use shops from people (not NPC) and footfall to generate coin.
I see a lot of this and I really have two things to say about it.
First of all, it’s not fair to ignore an entire system and then say that lack of such a system is forcing you to a certain course of action. There is a steady source of PVE income in the game at this time which does not rely on feats, objectives, or other players.
Secondly, and more specifically:
Can you please explain to me why this distinction is even a thing? I see it raised often here and to be honest, I don’t see a valid reason for this distinction, other than the fact that people who don’t feel they can elevate themselves often focus their energy on trying to hold other people down.
If a shop has the item that you want, and the price is within your target budget, what difference does it make whether it’s a player shop or an NPC shop?
I’m definitely interested in input from anyone on this topic. To me it just seems like a bit of resentful behavior that’s been normalized by repetition in this community.
I see what you mean. I don’t like that either.
10/10 this all. day. long.
It’s their’s do with as they wish, but I would hope they don’t steer it totally in the other direction. They’d have to change the name again and everything 
Buying from a shop stand requires zero interaction nor the presence of the seller, so it’s like an NPC.
The presence of a system doesnt mean its good.
If someone wants to complete content on their own that means not using request baskets.
Yes, the statement “does not rely on feats, objectives, or other players” pretty much excludes request baskets.
EDIT: On the side issue, maybe you can share some insight into how “selling items to a request basket” instead of “selling items to an NPC/Machine” cheapens the experience?
Still without regard to anyone’s feelings on the matter, this issue was addressed months ago. It’s pretty frustrating that we’re still seeing posts bringing this up as an obstacle to gameplay OR player retention.