I wouldn’t say I ever jumped ahead to endgame…I’ve justbnever quite been able to cross into it. I have seven characters, most of them lvl 35+ and my main (builder/crafter) is at lvl 49.
I don’t think I’ve owned more than 15-20 AoE tools since I started playing (PS4 launch). I’ve never made a gem bow and only a couple of gem tools. (stupid super enriched bonding agent)
Most of the gem gear I’ve used has been gifted to me, mostly from people on this board tired of my whining and generous folks handing out bows during hunts.
Gathering ingredients for things like persistent pies or various potions mostly results in my death.
It’s good that you take time to clarify. I don’t honestly know if there’s a line where myself as a tens of hours per week player and yourself as an occasional are both retaining active interest in the same game for a couple years.
I suspect if they hit some sweet spot more occasionals become regulars. So it’s good to have the discussion.
But most of it just turns into how to ease/shortcut/profit with the current grind, which I know you’re capable of given the time. Another thing though is that you shouldn’t be out of funds. At some point you have to compromise, and in any one of several ways become sustainable.
i don’t think that any active, regular player wants the game simplified to the point that you just log in and get showered with endgame gear and/or coins. Once you have purchased a single high end tool you should never HAVE TO be out of coins again. It’s a choice to consume everything and be stuck.
It sucks that some real world notions have to creep in but sustainability, ROI, these are some basic things to watch out for that keep you from being stuck with nothing again and again. I mean, if you blow your paycheck at the bar, it’s gonna suck when rent comes due.
Even in a virtual universe
You just don’t do that. It’s a choice. The other available option is to recognize that as an occasional player you need to participate economically and just make sure you stash some coin.
NOTHING is yours until the tool is accounted for. Or target a loot item you’re not needing and set it aside until the tool is paid for. If you’re not getting at least three times your tool cost in loot, you’re probably not doing something efficiently.
I could often go 8x - 10x return (in theoretical returns as I rarely sell raw materials) with a +1800 dura tool and stacked durability buffs/skills.
In any case you can break it down into as small of pieces as you like, since sanctum pauses timed buff, but you can’t address the amount of linear time that it takes to mine out a hammer like that by a lot.
I’m not sure if your time limitations are by force or by choice but I know there are people here limited for both reasons. It would be great if there was some middle ground besides “P2W” style (which I’m not against) and long hours of grind. I just really don’t want it to devalue what I do.
I will never advocate for a solution that lets a 1 hour a week or month occasional have full access to all content without specific planning or setup, such as speeding that playtime to manage a shop or something. There has to be something to strive for. Otherwise you might as well just get a phone app that lets you place pretty voxel blocks when you’re bored.
In my opinion, of course.
I’m antisocial in real life. But I work with a lot of people in boundless, it’s one of the challenges of the game for me. One of the more healthy ones, tbh. Something as simple as opening a portal to the place I’m going, it’s no sweat if you don’t show up to go through it.
Etcetera… I mean, plenty of people here are long time MMORPG players. Reality is almost always the priority. People understand that.
Anyways all my offers in the past still stand and as I mentioned before, the conversation has value. I just feel like there’s a whole lot of effort put into a thread like this by people that miss the point completely and honestly try to offer good natured help on how to grind, and not how to avoid it.
On the literal topic in the title, I’m not sure I want it but it would be interesting to see if people would pay more than the cost of a tool to skip shopping.
But I think the Chrysominter could fix most of your problems. In about an hour you could easily have enough coin to regularly buy aoe tools for multiple tiers of planets.
Someone else already linked the tips and tricks of the chyrsominter, but it makes things significantly easier.
Also, levels DO matter greatly for characters. If you have a full spec’d miner, you can one shot blocks on all planets with the right tools. If you’re not quite that level and you can’t, it literally at least doubles the time it would take to mine.
Things are much more affordable now though.
Also, about your mental block, have you thought about getting involved with a guild? So you can help out with it when you want but you don’t have to be obligated to play?
I’ve thought about it, but it’s my understanding that guilds sap away some of your experience and coin, neither of which I’ve been willing to part with.
The irony of all this is that I’m a firm opponent of shortcuts. I just think there is an issue with the path.
You put it best, I’ve been concentrating, not on making the grind easier, but avoiding it altogether.
After a few hundred hours into this game, the idea of spending an hour gathering plants seems like…well…a grind for money or a grind for mats…it’s still a grind.
As for the time limitations, it’s both. I only have a couple hours to game in the evenings and 3-5 games I care about at any given time.
I said in the farming thread that farming may be the thing I need to give me a kick in the posterior. having a reason to come back will get me into the old habits again.
I don’t think that’s most guilds. Mine has never asked for coin from me, and actually we have a number of ways to… expedite certain processes. They’re all really nice and super cool too. That’s one of the reasons I joined them.
Then again, I’ve only been part of two guilds and one of them didn’t really communicate anything and the other has been very helpful and has a ton to do if you want to get involved, at your own pace. I don’t know anything about it sapping experience either.
Oh, I didn’t think the guilds required it, I thought it was automatic for upkeep, or something. I read something about how part of your experience goes towards the guild.
I’m pretty sure that guild endeavor does not take from your avatar’s experience.
Some want coin but many don’t care.
This is pretty understandable. I really don’t mind helping an enthusiastic player get over some time gates. But that’s different from just sustaining someone at endgame levels. Which clearly isn’t what you’re looking for, no implications intended.
It’s all a big compromise. As fore the hunting thing, hunting is perhaps the most casual way to make some coin. But as is always the case, the most POPULAR way to make coin is usually not the most PROFITABLE.
In any case, not wanting to participate in the economy is one of the most puzzling choices I see on these forums -I’m not sure how against that you really are, but it seems you’ve tried to solo nearly 100%. You can stay coin profitable in an activity you enjoy, and then do other things as you want or need to.
But yes, for this there has to be some activity that you enjoy, that’s continuously available, and profitable, enough that it could probably be called a grind, but it’s a fun one. Or a relaxing one. Or whatever people find that keeps them coming back.
Maybe farming, I guess. Don’t stress the high level biomes TOO hard at this point they’ve adjusted lighting and it sounds like most farming can at least be an indoor activity.
But what frustrates me is, say I gather plants for a few hours because I enjoy it. I don’t want to spend 1 hour searching random shops all over 50 planets to find a decent price to sell them at.
It’s why I think there has to be an easier way to find shops and where they sell things.
Maybe you’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s not so much the grind, it’s the type of grind.
I never had an issue grinding in The Division, which I also only solo’d. But the rewards were concrete. Every time you do any grind, you are slightly more powerful by the end. The gear hunt is real and fulfilling. You are not grinding for yarn and then wax, which you then have to convert into thread and then grind for metal to refine into, etc, etc. Once you are level 20, you never have to grind up to that level again. You are never going backwards.
In Boundless you can argue that you go backwards more than forwards. For example, the grind to get a gem hammer is 20+ times longer than the life of the hammer and then you do it all again.
Well, I know for a fact that you can make money simply harvesting reactive lamella, or fossils from the Golden Fist.
Literally, an hour of mining and you have enough to buy at least a couple more hammers including a good portion of loot too for yourself. Heck, I work there and I still use those tools to make myself some extra money on the side.
And even without that, you can use the chrysominter and completely bypass request baskets if you wanted.
I do get that this game is grindy. It absolutely is. It just depends on they why. Why are you doing the grind? If you want only metals, then sell your gems and fossils, etc.
I vary my grinding patterns so I don’t get bored with it.
As I continue to search for a point, lets look at a different angle.
How do you feel powerful in Boundless?
In any other game, with the amount of time I’ve put in, I’d be able to casually stroll across a T6 without a care in the world. But, right now, anything over a T4 is a death sentence for anyone other than my hunter…and he has to keep his head on a swivel and mostly run away. You can add the sneak skills to your gatherers, but that’s really just delaying the inevitable. Eventually a cuttle is going to get a shot off and you get to enjoy a skull next to your name for a while.
I’ve considered solutions for this in the past, but I got poo poo’ed for it. If they raised the level cap, un-coupled the either-or skills so we don’t have to specialize, that would go a long way to increasing survivability.
Speaking from experience totally solo is brutal. I started this game with two buddies, one was to be a miner, I was weapon/food maker and the 3rd was to be a our builder/forger. All of us had a hunter/POS surface gatherer. My miner quit after about 4 aoe hammers (out of coin). It was on me to pick up the slack. It was not fun. I made some terrible aoe tools learning to forge with the diamonds my miner did manage to find and I trashed them finding more. It took me months, literally. Lots of surface mining and rock/gem mining. But I finally got to a point where Im able to sustain. It can be done but it’s not easy. It’s a long arduous road.
Most other MMO’s this isn’t the case. If all you did in WoW was gather, and then tried to join an end-game raid, you’d get one-shotted. Same with most other MMOs.
With maxed out stealth, it’s very easy to run around a T6 planet and gather, use a grapple, and dig down quickly if you get do get spotted by a cuttle.
In fact, I did most of my gathering on a Miner who had no points in Stealth at all. I just stayed like 10 feet away from any mobs. If I saw one, I’d just dig around it, or run around it.
It sounds like you’re looking for a linear RPG progression, where you can make an all-powerful character, but that just doesn’t happen in MMOs with specializations.
I have put in a LOT of time here, I’m one of the players that could do everything solo and still progress so that often colors my input. But I don’t. I would never try and do that continuously as I’m not focused enough.
Considering the costs associated with the type of forging happening now, It’s getting more attractive, but only as a distasteful way to mitigate expenses. So for me as an example, I’ll probably always buy or barter for forged stuff.
I mean the best actual advice that I can give for the situation is try most of the activities (which you have) and if there’s one that you would enjoy on a regular basis you take a look at what it takes to sustain yourself in that role. Looking at the game as a whole or trying to do all of the supporting activities before you can approach your target activity (as in the hammer making example there) can be very depressing.
There are a lot of casual guilds though. Or other ways including forum posts to find people that want to fulfill those other, supportive roles. Even if it seems at first that it might be “too niche”.
My biggest worry about boundlesstrade is that it lowers the development priority for a real tool. It does help though. Some.
Biv if you JUST wanted to mine there are plenty of people that would arrange a deal where you have a stream of hammers, and pay them in loot with nobody ever touching a coin. Crafters want to craft, forgers want to forge. A lot of them are also time constrained and don’t care to mine, or forage.
You don’t have to be a crafter or a forger to mine a couple times a week and make coin or extra materials to grow your builds with. The same is true for just about any other profession in game.
So, when you profess that you feel stuck a bunch of people just offer you a hand out of a rut, but as you said it’s an endless loop if you get right into the same spot again. IS there an activity in the game that you currently enjoy, and would do more if you weren’t bogged down in the supportive and preparatory activities?
I mean, if you stated that you would be more likely to play if you could just log in and craft, or build, or mine - instead of general grinding tips you might find someone looking to enable your favorite activities.
There are a lot of people in this game willing to trade tools or supplies for ‘labor’. The fortunate part of this, even for a time limited or occasional player is that in many cases you can find someone who considers your favorite activity as ‘labor’. And if you find someone looking for an ongoing supply of something that’s not important to you, they may not care whether it takes you 2 hours or 2 weeks to finish an entire tool.
Shops with portals or in malls work, too. Retailing IS viable here. Not everything moves quickly but as long as you do your math right and have some patience people eventually come around. If you’re doing things besides spending coin to fill your shop stands especially.
So anyways yeah, most suggestions for getting around the time requirements or grinding requirements are economic, or coop play. I’m super attentive to what I call social obligation and completely understand your concerns here. But the fact is that many others have the same or similar time constraints and understand what it’s like.
Of all of the things you’ve expressed, tackling this is probably the quickest path to making the current game a lot more enjoyable for you. Even if 50% of activities fall apart within a given group, as long as everyone has a decent attitude about the issues and constraints, you’re still doing ‘infinity percent’ more than before. A lot of people understand this and work with it.
That’s not really true. I played the heck out of ESO.
Once you get to certain level, the previous areas stop being difficult.
That’s not really true for Boundless, once you get to certain “power level”, you are fine…until your gear gives out or you run out of potions and you lose all your “power” and T6 becomes a death trap again.
I must have the worst luck ever on high tier worlds. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been killed within seconds of leaving a portal or a cuttle seemingly just suddenly appears out of nowhere to kill me. I don’t usually see the mob that takes me out until it’s too late.
IDGAF. Literally. My avatars die sometimes tens of times per hour. Persevere.
Got to manage those consumables, though
Not in ‘any other’ dynamic/persistent sandbox. Not even in ‘most’.
Nobody does this in boundless. I mean some players are casual about what it takes but it takes gearing up, and skilling up, and buffing up. Stealth if you’re not going to build or equip for a fight. Paying attention and/or taking defensive steps.
The only actual material (ignoring colors) you’re getting at t6 that you can’t get at t3 more easily and potentially more profitably is gems. Which require nothing but the atmo protection a few points into hammer skills.
I’m not sure the background on your situation or what you’re doing to feel blocked by this for months but death penalties don’t stack and it takes about 15 minutes or something of (EDIT: buffed, AoE) t6 mining to cover that. My hunter can usually work off a death penalty during a single level 6 meteor.
Anyways I think the general consensus is that the highest levels shouldn’t be ‘casual’. That’s why linear games or “open worlds” that aren’t dynamic get shelved between DLC.
No, if you’re not there to fight, this is how it goes.
The number of cave hoppers that have killed me deep underground while I was eating a persisting pie is off the hook. Also buffing and then jumping/breaking into lava, the miner’s friend. It IS frustrating and sometimes I pack it up and go do something else for a while.
But it’s not a bottomless pit. When a 10k hammer and a 5k stack of buffs bring home 50k +++ in loot value it’s a challenge, not a problem. Even if you’re ‘only’ doubling your money, it’s very sustainable.
Edit: sorry I’m trying to stay in “why to play/grind” territory rather than “how to play/grind” I don’t mean to be vague or over-optimistic.
You can run around ESO and gather stuff to end-game, without armor, weapons, etc?
Even if you run out of gear, with maxed skills in Stealth and Stealth Epic, that’ll rarely be a problem.
In terms of a Hunter-build, then yes, you’ll need gear, but again, T6 is end-game. In most if not all MMO’s, you can’t take a high level character and fight end-game content without a weapon and gear.
If you like gathering, then max out stealth, go explore worlds and gather, then sell your goods, and buy new ones. As others have said, you should be making a profit. The only way to reduce the grind in this, is for the game to have an auction house of some kind that allows people to easily see where the nearest store is that is buying and selling certain gear.
But you have constantly been vehemently against any form of auction house, even one that shows locations if I recall.
I want to play Solo also, but I stopped, because I didn’t want to have to Hunt, Mine, and Gather, to be able to make my own stuff, soon people are going to have to Farm also.
I might return if it was extremely easy to get the tools I need by selling items I gained because I played the parts of the game I enjoy, but that won’t be possible without an Auction House.
It really seems like, simply, you want this to be a new-age MMO, a solo-MMO, and it isn’t. I’m in the same boat. But right now there is nothing stopping you from logging on, gathering stuff, selling it, and buying AOE tools.
Just echoing to say I die a clusterpoo of times. Ain’t no shame in my game. I died 13 times getting to a rift spawn. Worked fine. Got a few hundred rift. Happy with that. Gonna die a ton more when I get back on tonight after I get the kids taken care of. Mine some more if there’s any left.
