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!