List of Suggestions, Quality of Life Part 1

#1

Hello Community, Developers, fellow Oortians :D.

I’ve got myself invested with Boundless a lot in the last few weeks and along the way i kept writing down notes on suggestions on how to improve the overall quality of the game or as the title says the Quality of Life in the game - a phrase i got from Riot Games , they used that to describe some updates at League of Legends.
It means changes that are just focusing on making the gaming experience more satisfying, more fluent, with overall quality.

Ok but before we get started i need to point out a few things.
This list contains mostly very small suggestions and i try to keep the biggers ones small as well. As i said its focused on improving the overall gameplay, the devil lies in the details you know and its not about huge impressive content changes or additons. I wanna hear what the community thinks about them, if you agree or disagree, try to keep the reasoning short. If you think one of these suggestions deserve their own topic feel free to start one and just link me to it. If some of these things are already been considered by the devs than just see this as a reassurance from at least one passionate boundless backer that you are on they right way :D. And last but not least this is just my personal view. If some of these things are totally against the ideas of the community or the devs than it’s fine by me, i just want to kinda give my feedback and my thoughts so far. Ok than let’s go :D.

1.Changes to bulk and mass crafting:
-Mass crafting Tools should be balanced to 9 instead of 10 since you can have a full smart stack of 9 tools and the 10th one is kinda one too much
-Grappling hook bulk should be 4 instead of 3, the idea is that i have a set of grapples for the left and right hand so an even number makes more sense and i think crafting 6 with 2 bulks, well than its mostly better to craft 10 at a time instead.

2.Just noticed you can open the chat menu on the controller, which i think isn’t necessary for the pc version since you need a keyboard to chat anyway, so you either use that controller button for something else or give the same chat function you probaly intend for the ps4 version

3.Deactivating weather effects on graphics should also deactive the weather sound or there should be an option to that at least
-breaking intendended gameplay effects planned with weather

Ok now some more interesting ones :smiley:

4.Ladders
-Ladders are coming

5.Pipe Blocks, work like the usual pipes but are a full block, crafted with just pipes and the block type you wanna have to create the corresponding pipe block, this way you can have the pipelines (hehe) inside your walls, or going trough walls, without leaving any holes, it would look nice i guess.

6.Coins for finished quests? I mean their is obviously some future plans with the quests isn’t it? But can’t you just “hotpatch” some coin rewards for the quests in the game, it would give them more purpose xD

7.Timber Decoratives :smiley:

8.Leafs containing starberries like rocks contain ores, it would look nice and it would make gathering starberries much less annoying. I mean it feels dumb thinking about it. Why would i have to destroy the whole treetop to find the berries when i should see them xD? Maybe one tree should contain less berries with that because you can collect them more directly?

9.We need gagate/jet stones because black gemstones rule (dark)

10.The order of the safed locations should be editable, also the name(its proably coming right? just wantd to point that out)

11.Decoratives and machines are currently picked up best with a shovel? Is that on porpuse? I would say lets still stick to the hammer and i have a different idea what the shovels can be good for:

12.Fossils minable with shovels only, but i have more than that in mind:
-maybe small fossil with hammers too
-medium fossil at least with copper shovel
-large fossils at least with silver shovel
or maybe it doesn’t matter but you get bonus amount of fossils when using a shovel of a certain quality
copper 0-1, iron 0-3, silver 1-5, gold 2-7, titanium 3-10, gemstone at least 3-10 and other values depending on the type of gemstone, some giving high max bonus with still low minimum bonus, others higher minimum bonus but not so high max bonus (for the mathematical players and the lucky ones ;D)

13.Ok i had this suggestion in mind before we got the home locations but i stick with it. I had the idea of a Home Location that doesn’t cost coins no matter from where you go BUT:
-You can only set this Home location once, players receive a warning if they really wan’t to set this as their home location because they can never change it.
This is inteded for player who really have their home settled, with all the machines, storages, a nice building and surely will never abandon this place so they alway can go back to their base of operation without cost. This can’t be abused since you have only that one spot and new players probaly won’t set their home that early. Maybe you can change it only ONE TIME after setting it, so player can change their mind, or if they have set it accidently even with the warning.

Ok thats it for part 1, another 2 parts will be comming but i wan’t to see the feedback on this one first, and i don’t want to have too many suggestions in one topic.

List of Suggestions, Quality of Life Part 2
#2

I think this could potentially break some planned game play, especially if the weather is not visible in any way…

It’s in the pipeline…

Sorry - didn’t mean for my post to just focus on what could be just seen as negatives (I was limited on time)!

Ok … on a more positive note…

Definitely agree on this … they should be organisable how you want (possibly with a bunch of preset auto-tidy rules… like - By Planet / By System (Region) / Alphabetical etc.

I honestly don’t mind this the way it is… a bit of ‘chance’ involved in this would more likely mean people would clear the whole tree, instead of just ‘cherry picking’ (pun intended :stuck_out_tongue: ).

This makes a lot of sense - I tend to mass craft about 3 full stacks of tools at a time, and the extra ones always stack up into a mini stack, but they take out space in the output queue.

This would be cool! I don’t think it would need a brand new block model either… @james could this be implemented via a decal over the block type in question?

Definitely!! Actual ornamental wood carvings would be cool too :smiley:

Not sure if this is on purpose or not, but most feedback I’ve seen (and for which I agree) is that it doesn’t make sense. I think shovel is just the ‘default’ tool for mining things, so this may be changed later.

I would be against this … If I had set my home location to the first planet I started on … and had built a significant base … and then decided to move to a new planet to be with friends, new guild or just because I wanted a change, then this would be wasted completely. I think it needs to remain versatile so that players can set it as they see fit. Maybe just needs more visual identification as to when you have changed (or originally set) your home location. I think it should still cost money though.

#3

Never thought about it but now that you mention it…yeah this should definitely be a thing. :smile:

They are on their way (Since 2015)

This is also a really neat idea but dependent on how much time it would take to make the required textures / blocks I’d doubt that it’d be worth the work.

There should never ever be something final in a game like Boundless.

#4

This, so hard! With bag space at a premium it frustrates me mass crafting of tools doens’t = a smart stack. I’ve got a cupboard full of the “spare” one, I have to go through them adding them once the stack of tools depletes.

#5

Definitely some good ideas here. Some are already in the pipeline (coins for quests, ladders). The crafting tweaks are great.

#6

Like the feedback so far :smiley: while i would like to hear some thoughts about the other ideas too xD, ok i mean i was actually very sure myself that you already working on ladders i was just to lazy to check xD.

I understand your point but i don’t see that its wrong to only have one true save haven. But i just wanted to add that the current idea of Home Location kinda misses its true purpose. People who are rich on coins have no benefint from it at all. People who have to make use of it are actually in quite some trouble when you start getting in the nagtice amounts of coins.

Ok, i guess i Edit the first post about the ladders and weather effect sounds striking them :D.

#7

My initial reaction is ugh, going from a nice easy number like 10 to 9 might just complicate gathering the right amount before you go to craft, as well as just the unevenness of 9 compared to 10. But, on second thought, most probably don’t set out to gather a specific amount and having batch crafting outputs mesh nicely with smart stack sizes just makes sense. I’m for this change! Either that or make smart stacks groups of 10, but then we’d lose that nice, even 3x3 form.

I’ve not much opinion on this as I’m strictly a PC gamer that rarely uses a controller. I’ll leave this to everyone else. :wink:

First off, I’m speaking from the perspective of a survival genre fan, which has been the vast bulk of my gaming the last 2 or 3 years. Games like Rust and 7 Days to Die where weather has a significant effect on game play and avatar health, although not for health in Rust but visibility and how well one can avoid hazards of terrain and hostile players and NPCs. While I understand why some players would prefer to turn off weather effects to improve performance or simply because they don’t like it, I tend to think if weather effects are to stay, disabling them at all should be disabled. My reason is in many cases it can give one player an advantage over another simply by allowing one player to see more clearly than another in weather. Minor I know, but fair is fair. How about just a setting to reduce weather effect quality to save performance when needed while still keeping things equal for all. I’ve been to 5 planets now and weather on some really impedes visibility.

Yay! Ladders!

I’m really indifferent on this one. I tend to build such that the pipes are not visible in the areas I want to have on display. Otherwise, it sounds like a good idea to keep builds tidy although some may actually prefer the current look and implementation of pipes.

Yes! One of the things that so far keeps me interested in Boundless apart from the building aspect is the other stuff one can do. I’m big on exploration and discovery, for resources, mobs, terrain and environments. I love the variation of the Boundless universe so far and this can only get more varied as content and features are added. This, IMO, is what sets it apart from comparable games that don’t have enough variety beyond block types. I love the building, but it’s not my favorite thing to do. Rewards for quests and accomplishments beyond what you get from completing the required criteria, like meat and oort stones from killing mobs, just makes things all that much more interesting and rewarding. The more paths of game play and variety a game can offer while keeping within it’s own context, the better for the long term re-playability and range of players it can attract and keep.

Hell ya! =)

A little torn on this one. While I do sometimes find it a little frustrating going through 10 leaf blocks before I get a Star Berry, it’s really not that big of a deal IMO. And I’m a tad concerned people will do as Stretchious suggested with ‘cherry picking’ too much. On the other hand, having the berries visible would make leaf blocks, trees and such more interesting visually as well as keep leaf blocks in line with ore blocks, from a consistency standpoint. In the end I’d be OK either way.

Oh ya! Love the dark side too! Obsidian, Hematite (more silver but can appear black depending on surrounding environment), Black Melanite, Black Opal. The list goes on.

Agreed.

Mostly indifferent on this topic. I’ll probably have a collection of all tools readily available at home anyway…eventually, so makes little difference to me.

Mostly indifferent here too. Although the idea of a little better yield depending on tool used is workable.

I’ve not enough experience with owning multiple beacons yet to form a useful opinion here.

Cheers! Kept my responses as brief as I could. :wink:

#8

There is nothing wrong with only allowing one home location, however, this choice needs to be revocable (maybe at some cost)

Quite the contrary. The purpose of the home location (at least as I understood it) is to to act as a mechanic that prevents (broke) players from stranding on a foreign world.

Absolutely. But I think this never was the intention for the home location mechanic.

I definitely get your point though, there should be something ‘special’ about the home location.
Maybe a once-in-a-while free warp like the hearthstone in WoW or a “rested-xp” mechanic?

#9

The idea about pipe blocks is great! Have been thinking about this recently too.
I’d prefer them to be shaped with 6 or 5 outlining plains though, instead of four. Not sure if I’m clear enough - it would give a pipe a rounder appeal. Also this could be applied to tree trunks imo. I remember, @james asked whether to add more complex or refined shapes to the game a longer while ago. Not sure if this is still a topic.

#10

I did not mean to remove the current pipes, they should stay, i wanted to add pipe blocks which crafted out of pipes are one step further in the crafting chain.

#11

Ah! I misunderstood it seems. That sounds like a novel concept then. =)

#12

I think a better solution for the craft 10 stack 9 issue is to allow us to stack 10/100 in non-smart-stacks.

Seems like they’ve chosen 9/99 to condense the digits in the GUI but I think a better solution to that issue is to use a symbol/icon for 10/100 that also indicates “maximum” better than just knowing the maximum number for each item type offhand.

On a side note - the stacking only 20 slingbow crystals at a time bug is still there as well, would love to see this fixed!

#13

Agreed! =)

#14

Not a bug, as I understand it. Rather, a feature. You may be able to raise the number of socket able crystals by investing skill points into combat, but that’s just speculation right now.

#15

I guess it’s a balance restriction by the devs. In which case, I’m fine with the 20 stacks. :wink: