I’m not offended… 
it’s a good discussion.
Oh I wasn’t offended at all. Was just saying with enough work it’s possible to do max buffs solo. I get wanting to be solo. I used to be that way myself. Still am a lot of the time even tho I’m leader of a guild 
. Tho I haven’t been running guild buffs for it because I’m not sure how many of them actually have it as their main. I also don’t miss the guild buffs. Only ones I would like are the ones guilds don’t usually run and I won’t force the guild I’m in to use the ones I like.
Also note I don’ see how this turned in to a sh!t show. Seemed pretty calm and collected to me.
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Sooo… Is this a feeling that can be fixed by making a suggestion to be able to toggle the guild tag on and off? Even if it’s just for yourself?
As someone who’s “been there, done that” far too often, my personal advice is that I often feel worse for trying to compare my gameplay experience to other people’s gameplay experience. Let me add that most of the time, I only have negative things to say about the game, but I suppose I am still playing it and I do enjoy my experience, be it limited or not. And again, just to remind you, I am mostly a solo player too. 
When I don’t enjoy my experience, it’s usually because I let my own expectations get in the way; I get impatient or start losing sight of what I really want to do - I am not saying this is your case, this is my case, but maybe it can provide some different perspective. 
I don’t wish to truly presume to know what is annoying or not about the game for you, but I do know I like the game enough that many times I just wish I didn’t make myself so upset about certain parts of it.
And you can let me know if what I said was not helpful.
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I don’t think it is a dodo show but more of trying to see why you perceive it as a punishment. I admit that I don’t see it as punishment, it can be unfair a bit, but not to punish you for not joining a guild.
I do agree that this is pretty much a group game not a solo player, but it can be done. It is just difficult. As for starting your own guild, I am watching a forum member @DonBab who has a series where he is playing a noobie and he has created his own guild and has the healing buff which is great, he was injured by either a spitter or goat and when he busted up some small boulder his health increased to full. That would be a big help and not cost a lot.
Of course not a lot is subjective, what some see as cheap others see as out of reach, for whatever reason. I won’t pass judgement on why some have few coins, there are lots of reasons that some players don’t have a lot of coins.
I have three shops but don’t make enough to even feel I am earning anything, I doubt I make more than a 1k in a day from all three in sales and footfall and I hate getting the footfall, I want the sales, going to have to go to selling new items or go back to trading.
I digress, I can understand your frustration, I may not agree it is punishment, and can see how having the labels over your head can be distracting, I have a son who can’t have things in his room in his line of sight while he plays games so can sympathize with you and understand how it can bother you.
I hope that the devs read the posts and consider solo players and see if they can make it better/easier for them to have the buffs. My son just walked into the room and we talked about this. He remarked that some games have it set up that solo players can get special buffs/rewards for accomplishments being solo, that they can join a guild that is created by the devs but not have a official name that shows up and get perks for doing certain tasks and they would be required to pay a small fee to the guild to make it equal in guild players giving coins to the guild.
Many players join guilds for the perks, the buffs they get and many don’t contribute to the guild. So that is unfair, in my opinion.
My son just stated to me that he played a game where if a player was solo he was given 10% boost in xp because when he fought a batter, did a quest he didn’t have the help of other payers, he did all the work himself. So they earned a bonus for that accomplishment. Maybe the devs could do something like that.
The devs could give when a player levels up, completes a objective or feat he could get a percentage boost in xp and even in coins to let him contribute to the “devs” guild.
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Theres that “others have more so im losing” thing again.
Its not like there is a finite amount of buffs or footfall or whatever and youre missing out on a percentage. Large guilds and established settlements arent taking anything away from anyone. If you choose to enjoy the game a certain way, thats great, you do you boo. But that works both ways.
Its just selfish and spitefull to “do you”, while at the same being concerned about what everyone else has, and trying to take that away from them because you feel they have more.
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This sums up the root cause of my original post’s issues. Every single one of those nerfs were the result of someone complaining about what someone else was doing.
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I dunno how we can help people with jealousy issues.
@everyone… you are all special in your own way. You dont need to be anything other than your own beautiful self.
There… fixed!
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For me i think Janna summed it up well. as much as id like to encourage everyone to be nice and think about how their actions might affect others, thats never going to happen. People are generally selfish creatures, especially in an online comminity when we dont actually know/have to see eachother. But i think as Janna said the devs taking a good look at not just the direct feedback, but also the cause, could help to minimise people getting upset about changes. A lot of the time the cause isnt a game mechanic, its personal, and that should be factored in.
Im sure they do of course, and theres no way to please everyone. But i think catering to the squeeky wheel crowd is dangerous for the game. Generally they tend to be newer players, or people that probably dont commit to things overly well (assumption based on the “i deserve everything for nothing” attitude) so slapping the established player base to silence a few isnt always a great approach.
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Yup, it’s a new French Revolution every month.
I do wonder though, which changes have made a positive impact on player count, and which changes were negative…
To raise the count you have to recruit new players, retain current players and promote the return of former players - which changes accomplished this?
To lower the count, you either drive experienced players away or have barriers that prevent new players from staying or picking up the game in the first place - which changes or current mechanics contribute to this?
Is there any one thing about Boundless that you know your friends would absolutely love?
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Thays a really interesting way to think about it. I get we need balance changes, and that the game probably could have used a bit more time im early access, but the fact ive had to think on “what is the selling point” of updates is rough. Exo worlds are really it for me.
There has been a ton of great updates in the last 6 months, but if i said to a friend “request baskets dont show the item when they have no coin anymore!”, or “we got 9 new blocks today!” It probably wouldnt be all that exciting. Even guilds, which was a game changer and im sure a hell of a lot of hard work, isnt really something you can make sound exciting. Im hoping farming will fill a bit more of that gap.
Things i do love about boundless that were already here at ps4 launch though…
building - chiseling and gleam make for so much more variety than any other voxel builder ive played (im sure theres others, don’t care, i like boundless)
Economy - i actually love the shopkeeping/footfall aspects. Its how i can see how people are interacting with everything ive created.
Worlds/portals - 50 places to explore and play on, and being able to move seemlessly between them. is awesome. Plus seemingly unlimited new ones now with exo’s.
The community - youre good eggs.
From listing that, the things that stand out to me are things i can customise, and then interact with the community with. I love seeing other people using things ive built, so more ways to do that would be amazing, but i dont think theres been heaps in updates since ive been playing. I do have high hopes though.
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For me and my friends personally? Yes. Titans.
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Just wish we could have some better statistics about certain things, like instead of just the footfall I would love to see an unique visitors count AND visitors (including repeating ones).
Also would love to see a count of how many people are using my portals in order to decide if I can safely close one or not.
Well thank you!
I would love it if we could get some logic like blocks with which we can create our own content, would be so fantastic!
And with logic like I don’t mean full fledged logic stuff like MC seems to have but specific blocks doing specific little things.
We can start with doors automatically opening and closing on certain conditions. Also would love it if ANY block type could be turned into a hidden door that can open/close on certain conditions. The secret rooms I would be making, ahhh!
Also would like simple light switches, they can have same UI like (advanced) locks already have where you can see the area that they will affect (but slightly bigger perhaps) and any lanterns/gleam/etc. could then be turned off (or dimmed).
But these can be just a start, so many things could be feasible where we can add logic to shopstands/storage to give out prices in a maze, but the auto opening doors can add nice touches to mazes as well. Buttons you can press that just get into an on/off state that can be used by simple logic blocks to open/close a hidden door…
But am sure if we can keep the game afloat with all of us that we will get these things!
Until then I’m already having a blast!
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So far, the only real spike in average players has been the free weekend and that spike has died off, so I am not sure that any changes have had a positive impact on player count. I do think there is a group of players waiting for farming and maybe that will be something that will bring players back. My only concern is the continued focus of the developers on making complex systems and recipes. If they do this with farming then they might just not get the bump they would otherwise.
Right or wrong, I think the bomb mining change did drive away some players. I also think the recipe changes when they add ingredients or make crafting more complex are hurting the player count to a lesser degree. There might be a good reason for these changes but they are not viewed positively by a portion of the player base.
My friends that used to play did like the ability to cooperatively build and portals. But unfortunately the time investment was more than they were willing to make and they no longer play.
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There has been a lot of posts from players of them stating why friends won’t play; it is lack of content. In the free weekend there were remarks of not enough content in the game to keep their interest.
Not all players are into building, the building I enjoy doing this game doesn’t provide what I like to do, but that is okay, I enjoy enough of other things to compensate in that area.
I would, however love to see more content so I could have a wider variety of things to do. Exploring is fun, but the planets are generally the same. too much water, cliffs that are too plentiful, same type of trees, critters, and that can make that aspect boring.
Hoping they would put in different trees for each level maybe, different type of food items, different fruit trees on each level so more variety in food, recipes. Since I am a computer dummy, I have no idea of what that would involve in programing so it might either not be doable or too much work.
Quests, dungeons, ruins are what many want to give some variety to the game.
What is wanted the most from players current, ones who left and ones who did the free trial and didn’t stay. Not enough content is the main complaint.
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I am playing again now in part because I feel farming is getting close and I’m hoping it’ll make parts of the grind more sensible rather than more annoying but also because I wanted to be around when the coin machine got added, which is not far now.
But what you have said is basically what I posted in longer form on the “what turns you off from boundless” thread. I was looking at old screenshots of mine and reminiscing that one point bricks only took stones and clay. Gem hammers had predetermined aoe effects since there was no forge, etc.
I do believe some changes have been good or interesting for the long term of the game but like you I have concerns over the continued growth of overcomplicated game mechanics and I do have concerns that farming will fall within this trend again.
And for example I have made 0 marble, deco gravel, deco wicker and whatever the other block was because I just do not feel that those decorative blocks are worth their time (material gathering) cost, despite the fact I do like how they look. They just feel too complex to make for me.
They are also a massive jump up from the other previously existing blocks in terms of requirements. Too many steps, too time consuming (personally). Heck, it feels easier to make deco rift and that took some time to gather. I’d rather go get more gems and make deco gem blocks, which I generally only use sparingly anyway.
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I have also not made or bought any of these blocks for exactly the same reason. They are too resource intensive and time consuming to me. When I design a build, I just pretend they do not even exist.
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Shoot, I quit using decorative stone when they added wax as a requirement. I’m lazy. And when marble came out? Hooray, new blocks that aren’t worth my time lol. Also why I didn’t bother with snow meteors… for only 8 hours of grind, you can own 7 glorious snowmen…? No thanks 
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I don’t find decorative stone too bad to do but the extra wax step does start to go into realms of annoying for me. 
That said I never used to get much wax and now I do manage to get it more easily but it’s still the sort of thing that depends on how much out of your own way you want to go to in order to have something.
And yes, same for me with the snow meteors, though random brews were nice…
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