Sorry Karko but I 100% disagree with your proposal and would guarantee me to never play again as well as a lot of other people.
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It may be more pragmatic for now to try to fix the way the exchange is messaged - especially for new players (via the tutorial, etc).
Drastic changes like you propose will take a good amount of time to implement, and would probably land too late
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I think we should leave devs to do their thing, if you checked steam 20 times, James has checked 200 times. They are aware of all that is going on and have better insight than us. Steggs mentioned that they are in slow growth/long term kind of direction so this is not such a catastrophe some people think it is. Chill out, everything is ok 
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Your math is flawed. There are 524 players online at one single point in time. 328 steam users (not players) found a review helpful - you have no idea how many of those are part of the 524 that were online at once.
In most games the concurrent to active player ratio is about 20:1.
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You seem like a pretty reasonable guy. Can you tell me why you think a sub would be a bad idea?
It is always same scheme:
People with 500+ games in Library and playtime under 5 hours on a game write a super bad review.
What the hell is going on with the new player generation?
Btw. not to mention, that the guy with the huge thumbsup count had in the morning still 5 hours, now its over 7 hours. Who else think thats weird?
3 Likes
There is definitely merit to this approach as well. Tweaking the mechanics of plots could accomplish this. For those with the deep understanding the game it could resolve the p2w split in the community. But I fear that if micro stays the optics will still look bad even if the underlying issue with plots is resolved. But this would be better than no action.
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I am a casual player and do not play every day or every waking moment. I refuse to pay for something I am not constantly using. Things like my house. or to drive my car. those things are worth a monthly cost to me. I play games to SAVE money by not doing other things. If I have to consistently pay for something I may or may not use? that is [messed up.] (I wanted to use harsher language but you know. public forum.)
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I agree, I am just using the best available information I have. What metrics do you think would be better for drawing a conclusion?
Asking actual players. The polls on the topic that have been done on the forums have overwhelmingly showed that people are happy with the current system and do not consider it pay to win. You can run another to get the same outcome 
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I do think the monetization does come on a bit strong. A couple suggestions:
- Rename The Exchange to something else like The Reward Zone. The current name makes it too easy to dismiss the whole thing as the “p2w shop”, when actually its more than just a shop because its where you collect your feat rewards and stuff too.
- Make it clearer that coffers are not RNG-based. They look too much like those despicable “loot crates” that other games use to get you to spend obscene amounts of money. Not sure how to do this exactly but I think its important
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I think the reviews would be worse if you had to pay a subscription for a 40$ game.
note I would pay 60$ for this game (already have and then some) but that’s cuz I know how awsom it is.
I like the idea of locking the cash shop tell you hit lv 15 or 20 but no more than that.
6 Likes
I’am somehow struggeling on this p2w.
What the hell to win?
To be number1 settlement on a planet? C’mon, just with selling plots you can’t reach it.
To be number1 at gathering? How the hell will the shop help you with this?
You don’t get Levels or Skillpoints or even items that increase your strenght ingame.
People just see “Oh there is a cashshop, that game must be terrible.”
Mostly thats very young people who want to have all for free.
But the gaming market is a business and how the hell they are able to run their business and hold the server up just with the initial 39,98 Euros?
Lets count with the 524 Player, thats 20949,52 Euros.
How the hell that should ever be enough to pay server and developement for longer than one month?
7 Likes
They probably should have added “The Exchange” 1-2 years from now when the game’s price was lowered.
A 10$ game with a cash shop is way less offensive than a 40$ game with a cash shop.
With the recent controversy around loot boxes and microtransactions, this was bound to happen.
People aren’t event getting their facts straight before getting some half cocked idea and leaving a review. This is nothing new especially for steam. That person with 700 thumbs ups has only played the game for less than 8 hours? Why would I listen to them about anything other than their opinion of the games beginning and maybe tutorial? They claim the games microtransactions are p2w and are not purely cosmetic like the developers originally claimed but can you show me how my putting in extra money gives me any more an advantage over another player besides plots which is not a game breaking feature.
All we can do is spread the word and honestly inform people what is enjoyable or not. I suggest if you care that you downvote the liars and leave a review of your own. I’ve done my part, there is no need to argue with people who are looking for a reason to hate the game. Children will never understand that if you want the game to run for the next decade and keep updating you need to keep paying them, duh! I’ve already lived through some poorly funded games that didn’t even make it to their 2nd anniversary.
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I honestly don’t want to restart the debate about whether it is or not in this thread. Search the forums for “Plots for cash” “Pay 2 win”. There are several threads in which the issue was debated extensively. Most people in the community have made up there mind one way or the other.
My goal in posting this is to comment on the feedback the people outside the community are giving, and the effects on the potential player base.
I will agree that part of the problem is the loot crate looking rewards and the animation. Just have the rewards pay out automatically and skip the collection and the animation like they used to work in the game . . then when someone reaches a certain level (maybe 3 or 4). . direct them to the exchange and show them what they can buy with the cubits they earned.
I do think the fact that people disable comments on reviews should not be allowed by steam.
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Look, I’m pretty sure we all know there’s a pretty strong circle-something among he wider gaming community that loves to hate on loot boxes and be negative in general.
Many of these people may never have been particularly serious about buying boundless in the first place, particularly those that look at one negative review with 5 hours played, and then immediately move on.
The business model around revenue is set. This is not something that can be changed. Declaring that it can be changed at this point shows a lack of understanding of business development and revenue streams, but that’s fine since this is a message board for a game about building teleporters to other planets.
It is unfortunate that one negative review is both so poorly informed, and attracting so much attention. Honestly, steam users are looking for short, easy-to-digest content that they can make quick judgements on. Long positive reviews do not fulfill this need. Short sweet 1-2 paragraph reviews that are direct and to the point do.
If you want to help these potential players, leave a evocative, memorable review with the fewest words possible that highlight your favorite thing about the game (you know, the opposite of this post).
3 Likes
Not enough people are upvoting the positive reviews, so it stays the first people see.
Every single person on this forum needs to go upvote the positive reviews, you can’t just downvote the negative ones.
edit seriously, I’m lookin’ through them right now, most of the positive reviews have like, 5-6 upvotes? There’s definitely more than 5-6 people in this forum, and yet the positive reviews have THAT few upvotes?
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Thank you @CreativeWorlds . Also down vote those talking out their buttocks and leave a review of your own.