Progression & Experience Gaining Changes - Version 2

Devlog
1

Hi everyone!

We updated the testing version a few weeks ago to give players a quick look at what we had planned for the progression system and we’ve have a great deal of feedback on it, which is great! The feedback has given us a lot more guidance on what players want and how players want to progress in Boundless.

A big thanks to @boundmore @Nibuls @Xanotos @Smooth-Slick @nevir @Kawwak @KaKistoZ for their input!

Based on the feedback we’ve had in the testing version on Steam and from the development team, our findings have been:

  1. Some players want a tutorial to explain all the features of the game
  2. Some players want the game to give them a short or long term goal
  3. Some players want to make their own short or long term goals
  4. Players want the freedom to choose how they want to play and not forced to all do the same thing
  5. Players want to feel as though they are always progressing regardless of what they are doing

What Are We Planning To Do Next:

Introduction & The Initial Tutorial Objectives
Judging from the initial feedback it seems like this is going in the right direction. We introduce the player to the basic elements and set them up on the path to building their own Beacon. We don’t see too much of this changing in the near future but we will be adding more elements when character customisation and region selection is added.

After that, players can play the game however they want. We’ve taught them the basics and they can continue to learn more, or go off and do their own thing and find out for themselves.

Feature Objectives
This is where the biggest change is going to occur. The main goal for this area is to give the player some guidance when it comes to learning about elements are the game which cannot be covered in the initial tutorial. These would be things like building and fueling a Furnace, Warping to a New World, What is Beacon Prestige and what does it effect, etc. There will be a few objectives to start with and as you complete them more will be unlocked. You still need to activate them to see them on the screen, but they will be tracked in the background so you can claim your reward if you have already performed the action before the task has unlocked.

Actions
We’re reintroducing the XP earning for some actions performed in the game so players feel like they are earning something at all times, but this is more of a micro XP earning system and not seen as the primary way to earn XP. The change is also to award it when you complete the action, like breaking a block, rather than each hit as it was previously.

Feats
All players will have a list of Lifetime Feats they’ve accomplished in Boundless. Each time a player completes one of these Feats they’ll be given a large amount of XP and Coin. The type of things you would find in a Feat would be generic so players are not forced to do things they do not want to do. For example, they would be Miner 100 blocks, Miner 500 blocks, Mine 1000 blocks, Kill 25 creatures, 100 creatures, etc.

Daily - This is a daily amount of XP players need to earn in order to receive a daily bonus of XP and Coin. The amount will be a based on the player’s current level.
Weekly - This is a weekly amount of XP players need to earn in order to receive a weekly bonus of XP and Coin. Again the amount will be based on the player’s current level.

Having Weekly and Daily Feats will allow players to earn more XP even if they’ve completed all the lifetime feats.

Contracts
The changes to Feature Objectives has led to this section. Contracts are more “mission” based objectives, for players who want a short term goal provided by the game. Contracts will be split into Tiers of difficulty and will be randomly generated every few hours. All players will have the same Contracts generated to promote cooperative play. To start a contract, players can activate it from a menu (for now) and complete the task to earn XP, Coin and possibly an Item. Once a contract is activated, they are stored in your Objectives log until you activate or deactivate them.

Other changes
For consistency and theme, we’re going to make Coins a reward for completing Feats, Objectives and Contracts but remove it from leveling up. Awarding it after you complete a feat, objective or contract will mean you get coin injected into your pocket more frequently and will fit in with the theme of the Central Guild rewarding you for your accomplishments.

When are these changes going to be in the game?
We’re working on these changes right now, but we might need to deliver them in stages. All going well, you can expect to see the Objectives, Actions and Feats in the coming weeks, but contracts will require a bit more time.

So that’s what we are thinking. What do you reckon?

27 Likes
2

Awesome, I think this’ll be a huge help in avoiding perceived tedium!

Ah interesting! Is the intention behind the time-bounded bonuses to discourage grinding (say, if the lifetime feats were repeatable, or never ended)

Riffing off of this idea: it might be a good segue into procedurally generated contracts (quests) as well :slight_smile:

Feels good!

2 Likes
3

i love it. i also love that it is very clear that you 100% read everything we post, even if its just hopeful "pleeeeeeeeeeease"s

8 Likes
4

Yes, there was reservations about having the whole craft 100 items, mine 100 blocks, kill 50 creatures, trade 100 items, etc in day because players would go through each one of those as a checklist to make sure they maximized their XP gaining as oppose to just playing the game.

Having so it’s “accumulate 1000 XP” today means players can just do whatever they want to reach that daily or weekly goal.

This is the plan. :slight_smile:

5 Likes
5

:thumbsup:

At this rate, you’ll be procedurally generating entire games :stuck_out_tongue:

4 Likes
6

i like everything coming out of this

7

So, any chance of player created quests then?

Is the actions micro exp, separate from the overall exp, that levels you up?

I don’t know if making it more like a mastery would be benefitial. Here’s my point. Right now we have skills to fasten the actions we do, like mining.

Why not make the exp we get from actions go to an action level. Say you level up in mining, what that grants is less consumption of stamina when mining or faster mining speeds. Which will overall help with the completition of objectives and feasts, and won’t exactly repercute in your player leveling up to get skill points. Satisfying the need to progress and making the actual objectives less grindy.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving everything I’m reading, but don’t know if my idea seems like another approach you guys could take. I love how you’ve revamped the system. Every week it’s better.

2 Likes
8

It is the same as the overall XP. But we might explore other ideas after more feedback. As a quick response, the only problem with this suggestion is you will reach a mastery cap and that mastery XP becomes redundant when that happens.

In Boundless there is an overall level cap but you can continue to earn XP to earn more Beacon Plots.

4 Likes
9

So basically, objectives grant more general exp for the time than actions, but actions will cover the need to feel progression and they’re a nice little bonus to get constant exp while doing objectives. Feats will be a nice bonus for the time you put into. Additional to that, @Cookviper suggestion for a summary or track record for what you’ve done would be nice.

I see your point and completely understand the faults in my suggestion.

So once we reach the overall level cap, the extra exp will be more like a prestige type of deal, where you’ll keep getting plots, but no more skill points.

3 Likes
10

The Lifetime feats should sort this. The recent history though, should be viewable in the Chat Log.

That’s correct[quote=“Dzchan94, post:9, topic:7501”]
o basically, objectives grant more general exp for the time than actions, but actions will cover the need to feel progression and they’re a nice little bonus to get constant exp while doing objectives
[/quote]

Pretty much this.

3 Likes
11

I may be realised like events: some region suddenly fulfilling by some creatures and any player who killed three of them take quest to make region clear.

12

Sounds good, again the only thing i fear is that the lvl up system is either not good calculated or bugged again :frowning:
Robbed me of all the fun in the test servers. Really wanted to play more and give some bug information but i dont have time to spend 8 hours a day for 1-2 lvl in the early lvls.

I like the Idea for players beeing able to do Quest and also that this is not a “you need to do quests” Style.
If you just wanna dig up Blocks, kill creatures without all those questlines you should be able to and still develop your char so you can do the same things as questing players (like higher tool and skillpoint investment)

Had like 22 hours on the test version beeing lvl 8 without beeing able to do a copper or iron hammer was just rude :smile:

I would like a smooth tutorial which is lead until you have a workbench and can make some copper tools so you have all the basic stuff and people get a feeling for what they get from a skill point and how to invest it. LvL 15 on the test server for copper tools also felt pointed out ways to high there.

I’m sure you’ll do a good job there this time, see ya around and keep up the nice work! Can’t wait for next update to play again. :smiley:

1 Like
13

Smashing :sunglasses: I love the direction you are taking and the fact you are analyzing feedback with such willingness and understanding.

Just one thought I had while playing last few days. (Wanted to make it a separate topic or add up to an existing one somewhere, but I’ll use this post - sorry, if it gets a bit long).
The thing is: If I want be an awesome fighter and slain monsters on ring planets, I can achieve it by cutting trees and expanding my beacon builds. In other words: before I think I’m ready to go out there and raid ring planets I want to have certain set of skills and I can build it doing something completely different.

It just feels wrong: I don't need to actually practice fighting to give myself a fighter skill-set.

What I’m trying to say is that even if freedom in the world is the most sought after thing for me (and many others I imagine), there is one thing I feel players should be made to do: take actions that are relevant to the skills they want to master.

I do love all the ideas thrown here by @luke-turbulenz and I’m all excited about seeing them in game :heart_eyes:
However: I’d love to see the general leveling and skillpoints to have some limit if it comes to learning skills, and specific actions have more say in mastering the skills.

1 Like
14

I love what I’m hearing. A big shout out to the boundless team for listening to the players!
Although I have to say, I’m not big on the idea of there just being a single general level. I really like leveling up skills individually similiar to the current live version. This is one of the things I’m hoping to see most in the game. A whole list of skills that need to be trained. As in, cut wood, gain woodcutting exp. catch fish, gain fishing exp. light the wood on fire, gain fire making exp. cook the fish on the fire, gain cooking exp. the idea of all the experience from all actions (random or set objectives) going into a single level bothers me a lot. I don’t want to just gain a central level for all the different skills that I’ll actually be using.
For the most part, the idea is solid and it sounds really good. But I personally will be very sad to see individual skill levels go as that’s the biggest reason I didn’t play much on the current test version.
I want the option of maxing out gathering skills, yet never leveling my combat skills. Or vice versa. Or perhaps I want to only be a blacksmith. So I only max mining and crafting and take perks and skills along the way that boost mining ores and crafting armor/weapons.
I don’t want to see everything I work towards just dropped into a central level for my character. It doesn’t feel right to me personally. I want to see progress in the specific areas I’m working on for my character.
Just my thoughts. Keep up the good work you guys rock!

1 Like
15

oh i was dreaming about this)) thx

And i have a question: we have a hundreds of skills, can we learn them all? Or only a part of them and if it will be a part, can i hope that the look of character will changed depending in wich section of skill tree we have more points?

16

I believe while having job related skills be locked down behind actually doing the action fits really nicely into the mastery type of deal scenario, which suits the MMORPG game very well, it’s not perfect, and no system will ever be perfect.

The system mentioned by boundmore and smooth holds very true.

But the system developed by the devs, has some very nice shining points to it, I remember it being mentioned by the devs, that in order for you to reach max level, you had to master at least 2 jobs, and they favored specialists as well as generalists, so it was pretty open about what you could and couldn’t do.

Right now the main concern for us builders on the live version is running out of plots (we could get more plots by trading, building, crafting and kiling, but it’s hard to do after a certain point), so we don’t really ever “max out”, since we haven’t reached 50 in those jobs yet.

The general system from what I understand, is set so people can choose how to freely gain their exp and being able to max out, without having to do it all. So they don’t have that lost from not doing something affecting their overall progress, you will never stop missing out on things for not doing them, but the game does really nice with compensating, by allowing the community to interact with each other.

1 Like
17

I support the presented system with all my heart. There’s an action-based part of xp there, which I like, but I feel it could help if it was bigger. I wasn’t proposing a new system - only a tweak in what’s planned. I’m behind balance and mixing styles of play, so there’s never just one way of achieving things.

2 Likes
18

I agree. The system they have purposed looks great on paper. And overall I think it will work really well for the game. I just personally will be sad to not have individual skill levels. Even if they were literally just for show so that I could personally track my progress in each skill. However, I’m sure that I could achieve a similiar effect by unlocking attributes and skills just for the upgrades I want. For example, even though all actions are going into one level, I could use the upgrades earned only for crafting and max out crafting in that way. Or only use them for combat and max out combat that way. As long as the unlockable trees are interesting and rewarding enough to feel like I’m specializing and progressing in certain areas, then you won’t hear any complaints from me about the newly purposed system.

19

Isn’t here some mistake?

1 Like