Sorry, I was mistaken I thought respec tokens were shared between characters. It’s not as bad as I thought. The learning curve for efficiency is steep in my opinion tho. With the xp debuff being as intense as it is after lvl 30 your forced to make a new character if you have made too many mistakes building your first. I was just trying to Max lvl one character before I made a new one, but having most of my points in crafting items seems to make it slower for that character to progress in any sort of gathering, constantly getting destroyed by creatures and slow mining has been a huge deterrent. But having this crafting character be able to make items for other characters to progress with is necessary I suppose. Im just being too much of a spurg I guess wanting a steady progression. Instead of having to go and redo the things I’ve already done a thousand times afore. I have to remind myself this is an mmo, and not a single player game. I have to learn to be apart of the markets and the community more so I can just buy everything since I don’t have the actual time to make the progress I want to make on my own.
I think the grind is overkill, you aren’t alone, but if the playerbase drops, the devs I’m sure would lower the grind to bring people back, so we jus’ have to wait and see what happens.
And yeah, most people have a dedicated crafter.
This right here. This line of thinking is wrong, on many levels!
WoW, GW1, GW2, The Secret World, The Secret World Remake, FF14, Archeage, Silkroad, Maple Story, SWTOR, City of X, DDO, LOTRO, God damnit, even Everquest 2 did NOT require you to be part of the community to progress! You can go, from lvl 1 to Max level, BY YOUR SELF GOING FULLY SOLO AND NEVER TALKING TO ANOTHER LIVING BREATHING PERSON!
You NEVER had to buy gear, you NEVER had to farm Quests, You NEVER had to do much grinding for Crafting Materials! You NEVER had to do dungeons to level up, you NEVER had to group up to get stuff.
There is not a single MMO, active today, right now, that REQUIRES you to interact with people. Rather be selling items on an AH, or trading for better gear, or buying mats from players in the trade channel. None of it is REQUIRED.
But here, in this game, it IS Required. You HAVE to sell your items to make money to replace tools. You HAVE to buy tools from players if you aren’t making your own items. You HAVE to buy resources if you aren’t gathering them yourselves.
This game, is literally the only game that forces player interaction in order to play the way you want. It’s IMPOSSIBLE to play 100% Solo, Without Alts, and Without interacting with players or player shops.
People need to stop treating this like an MMORPG! They aren’t the same thing! So stop excusing the horrible grind, just because it’s an ‘MMO’. Stop being Ignorant of the games you’re playing, and the games your comparing them to!
The definition of an MMORPG =
an online role-playing video game in which a very large number of people participate simultaneously.
Also, you can play 100% solo with skill sets. Is it a massive grind? Yes. Would I do that grind? No. But it’s possible to do.
But this game is NOT an mmorpg. It’s an MMO Sandbox.
Genre: Adventure and Unique. And even in the Description it says: Epic Voxel Sandbox MMO Built on Endless Possibilities.
Which is funny, concidering that unless you’re 100% self seficient you have to rely on selling stuff to buy what you need. Sounds like very limited possibilities it seems.
This game is closer compared to Minecraft Normal and Modded, (Feed The Beast), Multiplayer Servers. And Trove.
Both games, and modded game, doing the exact same concept, but much more better, simpler, cleaner, with even more stuff added onto it to make each of them unique.
You are mistaken, a sandbox MMO, if you insist on comparing only within the very exact same genre, should be compared to something like EvE.
That description simply means that it is an mmorpg where you have no guiding main quest and storyline that you’re forced into following, and is used to differentiate those games from the other type of mmorpg, like WoW and such, that are called ‘themepark mmos’, where you’re locked into following a series of quests and a story.
Trove is a fair comparison too, but this is just about the least grindy one out there, if we’re comparing only sandbox mmos, Trove included. Not to mention that the cash shop is entirely optional, unlike, again, Trove, where you have to pay to unlock game features such as being able to use a particular class.
It has as much in common with Minecraft as with Cube World, namely the characteristic voxel look with worlds made primarily of cubes. But you’re not comparing visuals, you’re comparing game mechanics, and so in much the same way that mechanically you cannot compare Cube World with Minecraft, even tho they’re both single player games with voxel looks, you can’t really compare the mechanics of single player games and an the mechanics of online-only mmos just because both use cubes to build worlds.
They will be too different, by necessity, in terms of game mechanics, for the comparison to be meaningful at all.
Edit: Here’s an article that defines both types of mmos:
Well if you really want me to do that, and I have in other Threads, I can totally rip this entire game apart, layer by layer, and explain why it will never compare to the straight up freedom, and less grinding, done in Eve Online. While comparing the different features and mechanics too.
Such as how in Eve Online, they have NPCs giving questlines and quests based on each of the roles you can be. Like Miner, Combater, and Hauler. And you can repeat said missions over and over for lots of money, and in fact Combat Level 4 missions are the best way to grind money, are done solo, and usually taking about 5-10 minutes to complete without you even having to move depending on your ship and build.
Or How about we talk about the differences in Mining. That without the PvP Element, you can literally go afk and do something else in Eve Online, as you can click a button to attack and it will automatically loop till the astroid is destroyed. So you can just put on headphones to listen for the warning of it stopping, and tab away to go do something else while your mining ship autogrinds for you.
Or I know, how about ‘Skills’ and ‘Levels’. Where it’s based on Time, in Eve Online, as long as you are a sub above 5mill skill points, and you can train skills in any order, but you don’t even have to be online for it to continue training. And whats more, now that they added skill injectors into the game, you can effectively pay irl money for plex, to turn into in game money, to buy the injectors, and basically pay for free skill points to skip months of training instantly.
Eve Online is a game with true freedom, where the only limited factor is how much money you have, which again you can spend irl money to get in game money by selling Plex to people that don’t want/can’t afford to spend irl money. And your skills, which if your a Sub, or was a player before the F2P transistion, then you just have to wait for, and not grind for.
And of course, with enough money, in game and out, you can literally ‘Skip the Grind’, since the only grind, is in game money.
Just to be clear, so you would like Boundless to be more pay-to-win, like Trove and EVE?
In that case, I suppose we must agree to disagree as we’re unlikely to ever see eye-to-eye on this point.
Not ‘Pay to Win’, You Technically can’t even Pay to Win in a Sandbox Game, unless it’s PvP, cause there is nothing to ‘Win’. There is no PvP, there is no Conflict, there is no compatition.
Heck, if you see Money as the end goal, then being able to buy Plots, thanks to the FootFall system is Pay to Win. Because while yes, you get some Cubits from leveling up, you don’t level up fast, while Paying skips the wait and gives you lots and lots of plots very very quickly and easily to cover an entire planet or very large section of the map in.
Might not seem like much if your Solo, but if your in a massive guild? Part of a Youtube community? Got a bunch of friends to share all the land with? Why just this morning there were posts of a Guild Leader leaving his town and removing all of this plots. So much land, that the other members couldn’t even buy it all up combined. That’s a LOT of land.
So no, I don’t want that.
What I want, is easier and simpler gameplay.
Another way of Comparing Eve and Boundless. Eve, all the blueprints and crafting only ever boil down to very basic Ore. With ‘End Game Astroids’ just giving even more of the exact same ore, not different high tier versions of the ore.
So Low Tier, Mid Tier, and High Tier players would be doing, and dealing with the exact same thing. Just that High Teir needs a lot more, so all the Astroids and gear dropping for them yields a whole lot more to match it.
Secondly, like I pointed out, NPC with Quests based on the different jobs to make money.
I would love that to be put into Boundless. Along with NPC Towns for those quest npcs to be. They can have different Tiers, having Miners collect Materials based on the Tier, Crafting a Machine based on the Tiers, and Hunting specific Boss Monsters based on Tier, and so on and so on. Rewarding Money so people can do what they want, while being supported what doing it.
This is the biggest difference between Eve and Boundless. Cause Eve you can sell your stuff, but you aren’t going to be making as much as if you repeat the quests over and over while doing the same activities.
Plus the Community is very different compared to Boundless too. In Boundless, you’re expecting if in a group, that if you Gather 1000 Diamonds, that all of it would go to the community. But in Eve, even if in the same Guild, or company in that game, the guild leader, or high rank officer in charge of maintaining the stations and crafting, will pay you for your ore, based on it’s average AH worth in the Jita, minus a little bit as ‘Tax’ for the guild.
As far as attributes something has changed just besides the visual. I am not sure what but i know for a fact that some stuff is just not dropping as much. Road runners are not dropping oortstones as often. They are much rarer now. I use to always get the max drop on somethings like leaves because I have luck maxed but now I will get a lower number part of the time. Maybe you changed drop rates or adjusted loot tables. Whatever it is something is different.
Recipes. Gleam lanterns are ridiculous in the extra mat it needs to make those. Some others really bother me but that one is the worse offender.
Again, we need some patch notes so we can know what to optimize for those of us that care about our time invested.
It does not need creative mode. We don’t wanted it handed to us. It is kind of insulting to us to say that just because we feel the changes to the recipes took something that was fine and made it grindy.
Seeing this come from someone who is likely one of the richest players in the game right now, when it comes to resources and materials, is really nice, and I appreciate you taking the time to do this Riley.
I completely agree with all of it.
True. There are two extremes. Creative mode - total grind. Most of us are somewhere in between. Some are closer to grind, while some are closed to creative mode. Imho the easiest solution would be to split it into to groups - the same way minecraft did, so one who play in pure creative mode with unrestricted creativity, second who need serious grind and deal with resources scarcity. People will choose the one they are closer to.
This is why i said we need creative mode because we are closer to grind based game than creative building game right now.
Am not sure that splitting the player base between those who want a little more freedom in building and heavy grinders would be wise though. Although it is true that not everyone will ever be happy at any one point in time… Hopefully the Devs will eventually find a decent middle ground for both extremes. For now all we can do is to give them our opinions and perspective, and wait…
Like Anabella mentioned though, wanting less of a grind doesn’t necessarily mean that players demand free stuff for any part of the gameplay…
I will say though that for the type of game that it is right this moment, it does feel a bit too heavy with the grind involved, unless you have a decent community of about 5 players working together and pooling everything together… In my opinion that is…
It also would appear as if most players that are playing this game are at a minimum young adults, with work and responsibilities outside of the game. So there’s that…
I use a simple set or Iron Hammers go mine for an hour to 2 hours until they all break and come back with 50-100 Gems every single time. How can people say they get no gems, and Im not even using really good tools. If they make it any easier than this it will be stupid.
Maybe you are right, but there would be additional nice benefits to it beside decreasing pressure for developers from two extremes:
- Creative mode would be great even for those of us who like to grind - i really would love to try out different stuff before i know what i need for a build without grinding them first. Especially if in the end it won’t work out. unconstrained experimenting even with planet level 1 resources would be nice to have.
- IMHO it would add a lot of players who want to have fun building stuff and absolutely hate grind (chiseling imho is quite unique feature and one with extreme possibilities, especially for supersized build and mega-structures.).
- And everyone who want don’t want to grind for resources would be able to work in creative mode (and i bet we would find a way to share creations) which would lessen one
- Would be great relief from grind even for those who like how things are shaping up.
- Great for making tutorials and videos concerning particular features, way easier to experiment.
IMHO everyone would benefit from creative mode and even if we would lose people from MMO servers, boost in creativity and building ideas would be worth it.
Also statistics between how many people use creative service vs mmo service would make impact analysis easier too.
I will agree that splitting the player base may not the best thing for the long term health of the game, but I do think that is the direction the game is pushing certain groups of players. The people that want less grind will find enough like minded players that they may very well go off to an alternative rented universe when it is offered. Some people (myself included) are counting on rented planets to escape part of the grind.
I think the risk is the public universe loses some people dedicated to building and may be responsible for guiding or directly building some of the larger builds in the public universe. The public universe might start to feel more empty as the players in the private universe recruit talent from the public universe. It also might affect the economy as demand for goods would decline. The economy might balance as the supply would also decline somewhat, but if the people leaving tend to be more builders than miners and gatherers, there might be some imbalance.
You might also get a third universe with the players that want PvP where they can have angry mobs around every corner. As this is not why I play, I am not sure how many players would be interested enough in this style of play to really comment.
Now do these two new universes help or hurt Boundless? You can argue it helps as it allows the game to draw three distinct players types into the game so it increases the potential player base. You can argue it hurts as players might feel stuck in the public universe as the “fun” places are the private universes where you have to be allowed in to play. It might affect the public universe’s economy and it might slow new planets and make the universe more empty like in the pre-release universe.
I hear more and more from groups that want a rented planet to avoid the neighbors. Be it gleam towers or people not sticking to themes or people mining and gathering adjacent to builds. In these cases, the rented planets will probably follow the rules of the universe so the players will not entirely disappear. They would still participate in the public economy and need other planets for resources. Other than freeing up space and maybe slowing the release of new public planets, I do not think this will really create issues for the game.
One might argue that this point would actually be kind of a wash, depending on the restrictions imposed by the renters of those planets. A planet where one cannot break any of the planet’s blocks or resources without explicit permission from the person that rented the planet, would probably still be visited by miners and gatherers, but they would spend much less time there than on public planets, or rented ones where they can pursue their chosen careers.
Also, rented planets with lower player limits would have a lesser impact, since it would ‘steal’ less players away from the public ones, and so on. Without the system in place its very hard to predict how much of an impact, if any, it would have on the release of new public planets. Way too many variables to consider.
I will agree, it is probably one of those things where the real impact will not be know until it happens.
I personally hope it happens sooner rather than later.