Planning for 2017 - Contribute your ideas!

Devlog
102

After playing for only 8 hrs and being new to the game, I believe that starter worlds need to teach more things. I learned a lot by watching you tube videos but when I went to play it was different.

Needs improvement on Beginners Worlds:

  1. How to actually jump and swim.
  2. How to use blocks to get out of caves. Also how to noticed cave openings in the sides of mountains.
  3. How to read the navigational bar at the top of your screen.
  4. How to communicate with other players.
  5. How to hunt the predators with out having a sling bow.
  6. How to heal yourself after taking damage.

I haven’t gotten very far in the game, but these where what stumped me at the beginning.

5 Likes
103

Letz set a nukelear bomb in the major point
Kabooooooooooooooooooooom

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This sort of feedback is actually what we are looking for. Lots of people tend to stop playing when they hit these kind of walls in a game. :slight_smile:

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Do you guys have plans to fix this then right now? I’m thinking of the really long-lived successful MMOs, like WoW. What keeps people playing? Different raiding experiences, strategies in boss fights, new classes of hero (completely differing abilities, etc.). New races are kind of fun, but not without unique racial abilities, looks, backstories and homelands. Gear. The loot! When there’s actually purposes to exploring ruins, etc.! Questing chains that build and are puzzling, and are hard. The achievement system (with rewards. Without rewards, achievements are useless).

The way things are moving, I believe you guys have said that we’re not goign to be able to get awesome gear in game to make ourselves look different. I’m okay with that if it’s true, but I think it’d be a mistake to not make things that at least make our buildings very unique.

Grind. Most people hate the word grind because of the bad connotations with it. But I’ve seen people grind like crazy in search of unique items, etc. If they happen often enough, rare drops will remove the heavy tedium of grind.

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So in thinking about your question I find myself circling back to what essential features are needed for Boundless 1.0.

I know some of this has been covered in differing detail but I’ll throw my spin on them. I know you wanted these in some Major/Minor layouts but I’ll let you be the judge of what you think is major vs minor as I’m not a game developer.

So what do I feel is needed before the game goes 1.0:

  • More robust character progression and specialization
  • Improved economic tools for the player driven economy
  • More reason to travel and build community together
  • Activities that make you want to come back

Lets start with character progression and specialization:
Currently there is a skill tracker for the following:

  • Attacker
  • Builder
  • Crafter
  • Miner
  • Trader

This is a great start but the only reward in these is a “Skill Point” which seems to just increment the counter, coin & 1 or 10 plot spaces. I think this needs to be fleshed out a fair amount more. I would suggest something along the lines of point placement into a skill tree for each skill type. This can drive two game aspects, the first is the specialization of a persons character towards the way they want to play and the other is to create crafters that provide specific items and consumers that require specific items. This promotes dependency on one another which is a corner stone to player driven econ. After all if you can make it all yourself and the only benefit is convenience why do you need to buy from another player? Here are some examples of what can be done:

Attacker:
Skill points earned can be used to purchase skill upgrades in a few categories.

  • Plot spaces (as is currently a given in game)
  • Weapon upgrades allowing the use of Tier 1 - Tier 3 weapon upgrades such as, Damage Crystals, Multi arrow magazine (up to 3 can fire without reload time),
  • HP upgrade
  • Ability to get more drops of specific types based on where points are spent, in some cases only once a type is unlocked can you get this drop type. IE hides, blood, horns (Used to craft spy glass(2x Glass + Horn) for explorers), glands (used to craft bleach/dye) etc…

Builder
Skill points earned can be used to purchase skill upgrades in a few categories.

  • Plot spaces (as is currently a given in game)
  • Ability to identify block type and base source block
  • Increase to block placement distance
  • Ability to repair placed workbenches (currently everyone can do this)

Crafter
Skill points earned can be used to purchase skill upgrades in a few categories.

  • Plot spaces (as is currently a given in game)
  • Specialization to make tool & weapon addons such as, tool reinforcements that reduce ware, multi block attachments that allow you to break 2 or 3 blocks vertical or horizontal dependent on the attachment type, impact/sharpness addon that has a chance to do twice as much damage while breaking blocks with a tool.
  • Specialization in repair of tools or weapons
  • Specialization in workbench use allowing the reduction of processing time on bulk and mass processing
  • Ability to reduce the items needed for single unit production by a %. IE 4 tiers where each tier adds 5% reduction rounded up to nearest item when applied.

Miner
Skill points earned can be used to purchase skill upgrades in a few categories.

  • Plot spaces (as is currently a given in game)
  • Ability to use tool attachments to speed up breaking blocks or break multi blocks (see above), can have attachments that make an axe a better weapon or better at clearing leaves
  • Ability to craft makeshift tool from just stone (with reduced durability or effectiveness)

Trader/Explorer
I feel trader skill needs to be combine with Explorer as well. Exploring and finding each new area on a planet should help progress this skill. In addition identifying new creatures and what they drop should also progress this. Creation of warps and portals should progress this.
Skill points earned can be used to purchase skill upgrades in a few categories.

  • Plot spaces (as is currently a given in game)
  • Ability to apply gleam-goo (Tallow + Gleam Dust(Gleam stone + Extractor) + Cloth) to grapple allowing for it to act as a light source for up to 100-200 uses based on grade of gleam-goo. Gleam-goo would be a specialized crafting item unlocked by progression in crafting skill and spending points in “Light Sources” see examples of ideas about “Light Sources” below.
  • Ability to create waypoint markers from locations (limited use)
  • Ability to turn on location marker as waypoint in compass
  • Ability to make warp destinations(Warp selector + location marker) which can be applied to warp stones by others. (this give them something unique they can sell)
  • Ability to reduce the items needed for bulk & mass production by a % on top of the existing bulk/mass process reduction. IE 5 tiers where each tier adds 2% reduction rounded up to nearest item when applied.

All of the above examples are just ideas that need to be fleshed out a bit. In some cases you would want to have multiple tiers for abilities unlocking with progressive amount of skill points. In each specialization area you would want to cap the amount of points that can be spent on skill/ability other than plots. Perhaps only 75% of the tree can be acquired in each area and the remainder can only be spent on plot points. This promotes limited specialization where each player make a choice as to what they want out of a given skill.

Improved economic tools for the player driven economy
For the most part the economy is lacking right now due to the way coin is introduced to the game. I do like the idea of quests as a way to inject this aside from skilling up but this is only part of the issue. for a player economy to work well there needs to be demand generated not just from convenience of aquring items but also from limited access due to specialization. Above I address this with crafting specialization but this needs to be expanded on. For example there could be a skill path in Trader/Explorer that allows them to advertise shops or communities. allowing them to craft maps that can be used a limited number of times(100 or 200 views) that show waypoints that a player can then click on to add to the compass when they are on that world.

More reason to travel and build community together
Having resources from different planets that have an impact on crafted items used in a home helps promote travel as does the addition of a explorer aspect in character development. larger variety of props would help give more diversity to building and having specialization in crafting and use helps promote people sticking, building and living together.

Round out the game world with more variety of props
We need more props that can be placed in a home or city such as:

  • Comfort items, Chairs, Beds, Tables. These items should be functional. Chairs & Beds should provide some limited health regeneration based on the material type (rare = more effect), Tables should work like book cases where you have slots and the items show up on the table in one of 4 or 8 locations based on table size. Can be same modular function as book case but just horizontal.
  • Light sources, We should have far more lighting options such as modular based placable lighting like wall sconces, standing torches, street lamps, chandlers & horizontal/vertical chains that can be used to make them look extended from a location.
  • Block types, We need ladders (can be a different texture on a wall that allows climbing), window pain, colored glass (windows & blocks), consider adding bleach & dye so we can bleach the color out of one block and dye it another color.
  • Decorations for cities, arrows or readable signs etc…

Activities that make you want to come back
Things that create a desire to come play, such as events. this can serve two functions. The first to get people to play together which promotes travel and desire to come back at the same time which makes a community feel bigger… More people on at the same times and not just off doing their own thing. Events such as infestation quests where people need to visit a planet and help clear out a mob type that has over spawned and where everyone gets credit for the work everyone does when in the same region. Other events could be resource related like an increase in rare resources for a short time, or rare drops from some monsters more common.

Overall thoughts
All in all I feel the game is fun and heading in the right direction and looks great, but does still lack a lot in playable content to be a 1.0 game. If you want the game to have a rich player economy as one of the corner stones to its enjoyment then there needs to be better player specialization, more content to explore and reason to do it. Otherwise there is not much driving a player economy.

Thanks for a fun game and allowing us to help shape its future!

3 Likes
107

For your first point just look up wearables or this thread you can see there are quite a number of ways to make yourself look different. Skill progression will help you play different. For your second point, planets have different colored resources and people have different aesthetics so it’s pretty naturally going to be the case that people’s builds look different. For instance I’m on whatever the ring world is for US West and everyone near me has vastly different but incredibly amazing builds.

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Thanks for resolving that first point @Clexarews.

To my second point I’m not talking about blocks for buildings that you can craft, etc. I’ve already shared in another thread my thoughts about unique things for building:

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I like your idea about rewards from feats! it would be cool to have random drop of animal heads you could mount on a wall too :slight_smile: If you checkout my post above I think there are some aspects that could play in to the building/crafting specialization that would go well with your thoughts on this. Such as unlocking things you can craft after you have reached a high enough builder/crafter level and unlocked those decor as well.

2 Likes
110

You know that is a good Idea a beginner planet sepperated from other planets

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That sounds more like trove

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Hats, we need hats, purely cosmetic. It would help to be different than the other players with cool and useless hats.

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113

  1. Respawn at home option and better respawn option for when you die from a mob attack. respawning right where you die is not good, you just get killed again by the same mob! LOL

  2. Caves - they do need work. Maybe not so many drops and more surface access. Less lava death traps would be nice too LOL

  3. better/easier crafting! it is so complicated and resource heavy right now! Simple things like storage and glass and basic tools i think should be easier in the start of the game. I won’t say the name of the other game that makes beginning a game much smoother…we all know what game it is.

  4. improve the friend system, i agree with that. Make things easier for newbies starting out, let people spawn all together in a starting area?

2 Likes
114

Played the game quite allot now since i got it.
But it always still feel lonely and somehow unfinished and believe me i know it’s alpha and all, but here is just some ideas.

First, Friend system should be prioritized as this is very important for me right now, i got many friends looking to play this and they always ask, is it easy to find each other?
I say yes, it’s not that hard, but you can’t add me as friend…
If you guys don’t make the finished system, at least fix something that lets us see where the other person is and a way to add them so you know when they are online.

The second thing is, crafting recipes.
There should be way more recipes in the game, and the other recipes should be balanced a little bit more.

The last thing might be very very difficult to code, but, the water should be more alive, it should feel a little more like water, in the way that you guys can generate falls, the falls would make the game looks ridiculously beautiful.
I guess to make falls, you would need some sort of physics in the game? so yeah, as i mention on my last post, the leaves on the trees don’t fall EVEN after the whole trunk has been cut, this causes irritating moments in the game, as it is in the way, and i have to use my tools the take them away, early game this is frustrating. If i want the leaves i would mine them first, before i mine the trunk.

Please guys, if there is anything i have written that is wrong, and is ALREADY fixed or in-game by the time of this post, tell me. i really just want to help make this game better for everyone.:grin:

Psst: i love the mini quests that come up when you complete others! these are excellent and make the game fun at this stage, make more please!!

1 Like
115

I forgot the mention…We really need more character customization!! :slight_smile:

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Additional races each with 2 genders and a multiple appearances are planed for the future. Also, wearables should be customizable to allow even more different appearances

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OMG man, this is sooo exiting! :smiley: :smiley: oboy am i exited now :slight_smile:
I really liked that you they are making dual genders on every race that can have that, that way it is both balanced and fair for female players and for those who wish to play however they like :slight_smile:
Thank you for the this information, i should have navigated thru the forum a little more before posting that last bit :slight_smile:

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1.Totally rework a broken MAJOR current feature:

Resource distribution. I’ve been to worlds where after days of exploring I find nothing at all, and I have been to some worlds where within an hour I have over 200 copper and iron, and some gold and silver. I feel this really shouldn’t be a thing. I also feel the reward for riskier exploring is none-existent. If I decide to brave the depths of a cave near lava to find resources, I feel I should have a better chance than just running outside and tripping over copper and iron veins.

2.Tweak a broken MINOR current feature:

I don’t feel like there really is a minor feature that is broken per say, or that need fixing. One thing though, the crafting UI, I think that we should be able to filter out the things we can make in say the workbench. I dislike having to scroll through all the option to find the one thing I want. I think it should be split into subsections.

3.Essential MAJOR feature before 1.0:

Skill trees and their respective things. A lot of people want to jump in to make economies, explore the extent of professions, and even see what’s next from where we are now. I feel we have reached a point where everyone has already built a couple few of what is available right now, and we want to see what is next. Will professions like crafting and building get exclusive items? That is rather important for the development of the games economy. Are the current professions all we will have? There is a lot that can come from this and I feel that it will be a HUGE part of the game, one that should be getting tested sooner rather than later since it is so integral.

4.Add a MINOR feature in next update:

portals, warps, and their coin prices. Everyone has pretty much said this too at one time or another. But 500 coin for world to world warping and now 300 for within-world travel. That’s high given how there is no coin source other than ranking up(no, i don’t think trading is a viable source of coin at the moment).

3 Likes
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I know this thread is old, but hopefully it still gets checked from time to time by the developers. I wanted to play a good amount of hours(200+) before offering any feedback. There is only one thing I have to suggest:

1.Totally rework a broken MAJOR current feature:

The resource distribution system needs to be changed. I am going to quote someone from earlier to begin.

This is exactly how I feel. I have spent over 150 hours digging on all moon and ring planets, as well as a lot on my starter planet of Solum. Finding resources is just straight up hit or miss and it is very frustrating. So why is it hit or miss? Simply looking at the resource profiles in the game files tells us why.

Every ore, minus fossils, has a chance to spawn on the Y coordinate from 0-255. This means everything can spawn everywhere. I think this needs to be more defined based on value of the ore. The fossil set up is the perfect example of this system. Small fossils can only spawn between 0-100, medium between 0-75, and large between 0-50.

I think all ores need to adhere to this type of set up. Examples would be: Copper 0-255, Soft Coal 0-255, Iron 0-200, Coal 0-150, Gold 0-150, Silver 0-150, hard coal 0-75, gems 0-75, titanium 0-60. Pretty simple, the rarer the resource, the further down you have to go to find it.

I just feel there needs to be a little more reliability of where you can find ores/gems. You can even have certain ores/gems be biome specific. In this case, you need to add the current biome to the debug screen because there is no way of knowing when you transitions between two underground.

Also, I don’t like the regeneration. Let me give you an example. I found a cave on Munteen VII that is filled with hundreds of amethyst. I was smart and created a location to it. Every 24 hours I can warp over there and the cave is full of amethyst again. Should that be the case? You want people just camping certain spots for resources? I thought when regeneration came through, it would randomize, not replace what was taken. Now the amethyst isn’t in the exact same spots every time, but it’s always there in huge quantities.

GOLD! Please do something about the spawning of gold. I’m sorry, but it is so rare it sickens me. Even though the spawn chance is higher on moons/ring planets, I still rarely find the stuff.

At this point in time, this system is really the one thing holding me back from telling people they need to play this game. It is frustrating digging for hours with little to show for it.

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Totally agree. Hate to do this comparison, but the Minecraft method of mining that everyone used is something that to a degree should be used here. Now I am OK with everything spawning from 0-255, however I think the closer to 0, the higher the instance of materials. Obviously make it more erratic than it was in MC so a every 2 dig 5 doesn’t work, but compacted enough that digging near lava is worthwhile.

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1. Which current feature in Boundless do you think needs a MAJOR overhaul?

Block regeneration. Honestly it’s a huge pain to dig out an area… have to go to work then come back the next day or even two days later and your dug out area underground is grown back in. Blocks that are within your beacon area should have more controls placed on them. I should be able to say if I want blocks to regen at all or not. That way if I want, I can choose whether or not I want to build out a certain area to be a mining shaft or if I want to build out a basement for my house, a dungeon for my castle, etc.

2. Which current feature in Boundless do you think needs a MINOR update?

I was going to say lighting but I think the better minor feature that needs improved is storage capabilities. I’ve only discovered that you can store things with storage blocks and shelves. I was hoping for something more along the lines of a series of different types of chests. Something that provides much more storage space for the resource cost than something like Storage Blocks. 4 slot storage is absolutely terrible. You have to have so many of them in order to properly store the massive amount of mined up materials so you can have some sort of inventory management.

I think 12, 18, and 24 slot chests with proper amount of resources put into them would definitely be a lot better options for those that can make them. I’d also like to see some form of portable extended storage as well, such as a bag, that has 6 to 10 slots. That way you can throw non-essentials into it during your exploring and adventures.

3. Assume that we can only add one more MAJOR feature to Boundless before hitting 1.0. What MAJOR new feature do you believe is essential before 1.0?

An actual class system with real meaningful progression. If Boundless is meant to be an MMO, we should expect to have some basic classes. It doesn’t have to be like, Mage, Fighter, Rogue, Priest type of thing. But rather the occupation of the character, like Blacksmith, Farmer, Hunter, etc. That way people can specialize in the area they want to develop their character.

4. Which new MINOR feature should we add to the next update of Boundless?

Way more mobs to kill. Mob density is pretty terrible but I am also on the first planet. Not just animals though, but also NPC humanoids that look like players. So naturally spawned and generated towns should be a thing too. Not sure if that’s a minor or major thing but it’s a pretty cool thing in Minecraft at least!