Previously when you were crafting stones out of rocks you were gaining like 4exp per 1 stone crafted. Due to that, crafting exp has been nerfed too 1exp. Unfortunately it also affected crafting items from higher tiers and you get like 10exp for crafting 10 gem hammers. You can’t really gain experience because of that.
At the moment you can’t treat hunting as a source of exp, crafting does not give anything either and you’re bound to mining which is really slow. I think something should be done to make leveling satisfaying again.
Yesterday it took me like 1,5 hour to level up from 7 to 8 level (about 8k exp). This is ridiculous and it does not change on higher levels. 40-41 level is 272k experience and it takes like a whole month to level up if you don’t grind like crazy.
Previously crafting was really balanced source of exp, but now it’s not. And leveling is not fun at all.
I get it, Boundless is an mmo and progress should take a while. But it shouldn’t be a pain to level you character. Atleast at the beginning.
This has been concerning me, and why I made the stats post the other day.
Surely at some point no matter how much crafting/mining/building/hunting you do, it’s going to take an age to get skill points to spend.
Now once at 50, I see no issue with it being slow, or ‘grindy’. For the most part you’ll have skills where you want, or at least know what you’re aiming for if you misspent and need cleansing points.
But to even get there…seems arduous. I’m not sure on the intention, and I don’t mean that in a bad way, or even a good way. More of an inquiring way.
It took me 350 hours to get to 50 with the current system - and a lot of that was before the crafting nerfs. It should in my opinion be around 10x faster than it is now (which is still slower than hitting max level in most MMOs). Also, given how scarce cleanse points are releveling is our only alternative to make major playstyle changes (currently switching from say, power, to agility at max level would take (me) about 3 months of active playtime)
I also feel the imbalance in exp sources.
I’m a builder and crafter and thats how I invested my skill points and how I enjoy the game.
Guess what I do to level?
Mining.
If you need a certain amount of exp fast, it’s just to good (compared to the other exp sources).
At least, it feels that way right now.
Currently leveling with crafting/building, I need two or three miners working full time just to provide me with enough resources to keep enough machines working at the same time (while also building/chiseling blocks) just to reach an xp gain rate above what my miners are receiving. Needless to say, this is rather exhausting and entirely dependant on my miners support.
Rather than buff the xp gain from individual tasks as a crafter (which is problematic as craftsmen can have potentially dozens of simultaneously working machines granting xp) perhaps a good solution is to add more sources of xp?
My first suggestion toward this end was xp for repairing machines. I suggested this in a previous thread, and that seemed well received by the devs.
Secondly, I’d like to see xp gained by fueling the spark core. This is logical to me because you are expending a resource (coal, peat, wood, etc) to spark, just like any other stage of crafting expends raw material to gain a refined material. Xp for fueling a spark core helps to also raise the sum xp gained for crafting more advanced items like alloys or gem tools. This source of xp gain has the added benefit of being generally more beneficial to craftsmen than to other classes.
Lastly, I think contracts will generally make up a large portion of the missing craftsmen xp.
I’ve been thinking, especially since the creature-difficulty-and-loot changes, that I’d really like a way to gain a big chunk of XP for performing some big chunk of a task. Right now we have lots of little trickles of XP from actions, which kinda feels like the old creatures: easy kill, measly reward, boring. But we don’t have anything like the new level-5-cuttle style where you spend some fair effort over a fair few minutes and get a pile of lovely loot for your trouble.
Even if the rate of XP gain doesn’t change, there’s some psychological effect of lump-sum vs slow-trickle gain that I think might make the process feel less “grindy”.
I agree with all said here. I understand contracts will be an additional source of xp but still… Crafting higher and higher tier items and still receiving 1 xp per unit is just not right. I am focused on building and crafting but when I want to get a new crafting skill I need to go hunting and mining for more xp. And since I’m investing most skill points in crafting skills you can imagine I am not very efficient in digging and killing.
Feats have become an important source of xp because of the said lack of xp from building and crafting. But that’s an undesirable outcome I think. Instead of letting feats complete naturally I find myself checking which ones are the closest to complete and go on with tasks that let me finish them for the 250 or 500 xp they offer. So instead of playing real sandbox and do what I want to do the most, I look for ways to boost my xp in order to have the most basic skills needed to do what I want to do the most. Ending up mining and killing and piling up resources more than I need and more than I am able to use. Even running around and chasing wildstock and spitters plus gathering plots as they all give way more xp than crafting.
On the side note xp given for feats don’t seem to be rewarding enough either. The first level offer 250 xp which is fine especially that one tends to complete them in early stages when 250 is a lot on progression bar to next level. However the next levels could be scaled up to give 1000 and then maybe 2500 in my opinion.
I fell like some feats should give ~20k exp or more. I don’t even bother completing a feat that will take me 20 hours to finish and grant 3k exp when i can earn much more exp in one hour by grinding
I feel like you should also grant more xp based on the origin of the materials used. Digging blocks from higher worlds should give more experience than lower tier blocks as they take twice as many hits. When you craft them there should also be a slight experience boost.
It doesn’t have to be much, just one or two points per block which would add up. For example, crafting a lantern from red gleam which is very rare should give you more xp than if you used blue gleam.
As a builder I find myself placing hundreds of blocks that took ages to craft, then not really getting anything to show for it. Perhaps add more tiers to the feats system so rewards come more regularly?
I don’t think that feats are a good long-term solution. Once you’ve blown through your feats, what then? Feats are only meant to be occasional rewards for milestones while leveling up, and stretch goals to guide progress. They aren’t intended to be a bulk source of xp.
I think the best way to raise xp for builders is to first identify actions that primarily dedicated builders do that non-builders typically do not. This is a bit problematic as boundless enables everybody to build freely as long as they have the required tools and blocks to do so. So, what do dedicated builders do that other professions do not?
Use of exotic and refined materials is a good place to look at raising xp values. Xp values of placing things like lanterns and refined gleam should be slightly buffed. Not by too much, since builders may tend to place hundreds or thousands of refined blocks that others may not bother with. Even a 20% boost to xp for these blocks would be a considerable boon.
Another option is to grant xp for prestige milestones reached. Builders frequently reach much higher prestige levels than somebody might reach just building their own utilitarian homes. Roads and large “public” buildings like the temple in Pixelgate or the numerous large portal hubs frequently top 300k prestige or more. Sizable scaling xp milestones every 50k seems appropriate.
Chiseling is an obvious place to raise xp rates. It seems to me that a 20% xp raise here would be good too.
I’m curious about how builders will utilize props like pillars and doors in their builds. Is it maybe worth it to restrict certain high tier props to just builders? Much like how craftsmen require skills to craft gem tools, and miners require mastery to utilize them properly, make builders utilize a skill to place progressively better props. Basic utilitarian props like shelves, tables, beds, basic wooden doors should remain free, exotic wooden and stone doors/poles and sone props are 1 skill point (sp), metal and gem props are 2, super exotic blink/ dark matter props (if they exist) are 3 sp. Then, add progressively better xp rewards for placing these items. A -xp gain for breaking these blocks prevents placement spam.
Lastly, how do we tie builders in to the contract system? Is it possible to make contracts track prestige gains made to another players beacon? The way I imagine this working in game would be a player (p1) contracting another player (p2) to build something inside of p1’s plots. Prestige gain or blocks placed could be counted until the contract is fulfilled. I don’t know enough about the planned contract system to expand much further on this idea.
I already see more prestige for refined gleam as a problem. That leads to these ugly all-gleam builds we have alot already. A huge restraint to creativity. Thats why I had to force myself to stop caring about prestige. It feels like a broken system right now. Giving false incentives. No matter how good you build you will never stand a chance against someone who just fills their plots with refined gleam. If this behavior is rewarded with bonus xp, it will get worse.
I agree tying xp to prestige for builders is an interesting idea, but for that prestige needs to be fixed first.
I’m not suggesting the prestige value of gleam be boosted, rather the xp value of it. And perhaps gleam is a bad example, it does not take a considerable amount of resources to refine it, and many varients of it are not at all difficult to gather in mass quantities. Other decorative blocks like lanterns or decorative stone take much more work to refine, and are used more sparingly. Compacted gems are an example of a block that should grant more xp to place.
This raises an interesting potential for exploitation and a potential fix as well. I’d suggest that any block that grants more than the base value of XP when placed should also deduct the same amount of xp when broken.
Why not have the exp bonuses locked behind Skills?
Have these bought Skills locked high enough that you’d only be able to buy one of them.
There could be 4 (currently?) types, one for hunter, builder, crafter and explorer.
The skill could be a 400% (totally made up figure) bonus to actions related to the ‘class’ you have chosen to follow the path for. Even if this really only work for lvls 30+ or even 40+, it’d be a good bonus, and you’d manage to get that high with other stuff and milling about for time whilst you get comfortable/find your footing with friends or locations.
tldr: Skills in high end trees so that only one can be bought, to give bonus XP to certain ‘classes’.
(ps. I will not give up on the Explorer thing, I NEED this :p)
weak idea, please ignore! It seems counter productive to grant class based xp bonuses so late in the leveling process. A “choose one” option at lvl 5 that locked out other choices seems more effective for leveling.
Or, a +x% bonus for each skill invested in a particular profession would be effective as well. If you have 10 skill points invested in building, you would gain 10% more xp, etc.
This was a mistake. It was dropped but shouldn’t have been dropped to 1. I believe we’ve raised it slightly in testing but we’ll see if this needs to be raised further.
The obvious target is that XP progression for all play types should be equivalent. You shouldn’t need to quickly switch specialisation / profession to progress before switching back to what you enjoy. The ultimate target is that average XP gained per hour (say) for all different actions is constant and proportional to progression.
If the XP is also a little lumpy (as also suggested on the forum) - then there are exciting bonuses along the way. For example, come across a rare creature for 10x XP, come across a rare block for 10x XP, forge a special enhancement for 10x XP, building (… unknown any ideas?), exploration (… find a special location?). (Someone will have the genius idea we need to fold in for all different styles.)
We consider everything in this thread about getting perfect progression balance. We’re no where near this at the moment. But we’re working on it.
As a general rule of thumb, I don’t think skills that increase XP gain are a good path to go down.
If they’re easy enough to reset, they end up being something that people pick while levelling to the limit (granted that you can carry on leveling beyond that point in boundless, but it’s less important when skill points stop being accrued), then drop those skill. They end up not adding all that much to any kind of diversity.
Alternatively, if they are hard to change, they become skills that nobody picks because it’s essentially wasted skill points, or they end up being skills that people regret picking later. In either case, they don’t really bring much positive to the game.
I don’t have better solutions right now, but I do think that the core of experience gain should come from actions as a way to gain skill points, and not skill points as a way to gain experience.
Actually I do agree. A little bit of “thought experimenting” with the idea of selecting a skill to raise xp breaks down quickly into either frequent respecs or being outright ignored.
I wonder what you think of my second suggestion in that same paragraph? I am going to edit that comment to better separate the two ideas more clearly.
I believe that a passive % xp gain bonus based on the number of skills invested in a tree does a good job of encouraging specialization, while also not punishing generalists. This is, I believe, the best solution. You see imediate benefits from the moment you begin building into a specific skill tree, and these benefits scale up to a peak as you continue to gain xp past max level.
