Progression & how it feels

Suggestions
1

Diving into varying opinions on the topic of progression I felt that there was much information out there to be shared to the players, specially to the players not following the game closely on the forums. Discussing about this, while many of the features (Objectives, feats and contracts are not out, and I suppose many tooltips and pieces of advice for players) are not out, may seem like a stretch, but I just wanted to get this out there.

  • Progression shouldn’t feel so fast, you burn out through the game and reach the end of it so fast (not that Boundless really has an end game to it, seeing as it’s a sandbox game with tons of choices), nor should it be so slow, you don’t feel compelled to make the walk, burning out the first steps of excitement and just arriving at boring grind fests.

  • Introduce some sort of way to test out the different tools such as grappling hooks and chisels earlier on that copper, maybe make counterparts of stone, that way they don’t feel locked behind either acquiring knowledge of shops or the many skills required for them, missing out on two the tools that make the game different (those two make me finally buy the game, with portals also). The only con I can see, is that they’ll find stone grapples and chisels to be underwhelming, sometimes misguiding them.

  • Further explain skills, be it through tool tips or by player created books that one player could find, eliminating the need to rely on outside sites, making the experience more immersive.

There’s a general feel with any new game, excitement for trying out things, maturing into the game and looking to achieve something. So my idea of how a general character should progress is this:

  • Get introduced to the game mechanics step by step, be something quick that should take around 30 minutes.
  • Get send to the world, where he’ll play and level up, most players would feel accomplished when getting into the first big step, copper, where you’ll be able to use the tools completely. (I know how copper was turned into a different skill, making it more accessible early on)
  • That’s where you spread and many players will take a “class” and choose their own style, when do most players feel accomplished? Who knows?
  • Keep grinding after goals such as capital city, mastering your “class”, killing titans, etc.

The most important point to me, is how do we keep the game interesting? When 1.0 comes most players from the current ones will look into having at least copper to be able to grapple and chisel. I deem those at something at least every player should have access too.

I have genuine concerns about keeping players interested. And your ideas and opinions on how progression feels would be reassuring, even knowing that the game still has much more to show in that regard.

9 Likes
2

Currently I feel that earlier progression is slower than it used to be with the skills, but as you become specialised in something, it feels like you can progress faster than before, which is something good. On the testing, I did reach level 9 or something at an adequate pace, by focusing on gathering things and doing the objectives available to me, so xp feels “about right” on the testing, although I hope that feat XP will be more proportional to the time they take, as some of the feats do not reward a lot of XP, for their requirements.

It feels to me as though the first 10 levels or so basically all have their skill points spent on the same sorts of things, because of the way skill trees are initially locked, but you do start to spec when you can spend points on tool mastery and attributes.

I personally do not appreciate the fact that inventory space was turned into a skill; it’s a skill I will always feel like it’s “mandatory”, so I won’t not take it, but that might make me unable to take something else that just makes the game less boring. Clan membership was another example of a skill like this that I feel would be mandatory, that fortunately in the testing has actually been removed as being a skill.

I think most of the basic “quality of life” things that are skills should always have a low cost, as most of the core tree is. Everything in the exploration skill tree to me feels like QoL skills, apart perhaps from the warp distance. Those skills like compass range, shout range, inventory space, and light source bonus should all be as cheap as the core skills.

I agree with you on this too.

This is more or less what I am referring to in my text above, too.

Before the skills, this was something of an issue for me personally; gathering anything just took forever and was extremely boring after a while.

1 Like
3

speed of progression we currently can experience in live servers is not something we can really refer to, unless we are completely new players and have nothing, but even then one can use portals and go to other planets and get higher tier tools and materials from other players;

players being in game for months now can progress pretty fast simply because of possibilities they have:

  • stock of high tier tools allowing them to mine high tier ores (meaning more xp from mining straight away),
  • spark core and machines available giving them ability to get a lot xp from crafting as soon as they learn appropriate skills,
  • high tier slingbows making exploration and hunting an easy source of xp from start
  • ready net of shops and contacts making trading feats easy to complete
  • portal network making exploration feats easy to complete
    etc.

The “real” progress, when players are placed in “raw” environment, is going to be slower than that. All of us who make it to 1.0 and start playing right away will experience a bit more of grind. Only players starting a few months after the full release will find it easier through help of experienced players, guilds etc.

8 Likes
4

Yes, that’s all quite true, which is why I mentioned what it felt like on the testing server, because for me, the testing was a completely fresh character, and I didn’t interact/find any major towns - plus, the only world actually active when I was playing was Solum.

And also on the testing the experience from crafting is greatly reduced in general as well, so you can feel the difference on that too.

1 Like
5

maybe they have a bunch of things they are adding to make the game feel better that they are saving for 1.0, so we don’t get burnt out on that. Just a thought?

2 Likes
6

As somebody who has been looking forward to this game for a very very long time it is currently a ton of work. The progression is just terrible and the amount of grind needed to do anything is crazy. I have spent over 16 hours playing my new character constantly mining and creating stuff and I still don’t even have the ability to make iron tools even though I have been mining it for hours. Currently this game just takes too much work and doesn’t appear to reward you for the amount of work you put in.

3 Likes
7

Yep it needs some balance, btw what level are you right now?

8

Wat. I’m not seeing the problem with not being able to make iron tools until level 13 or so when you can make copper ones at level one or two. Iron doesn’t mine anything copper can’t, it just lasts a bit longer because it takes fewer hits (it doesn’t even mine faster since it hits more slowly).

That being said, I could see if the equipment crafting tree were lowered to be unlocked with ten skills attributed… But I guess you couldn’t even use gold/silver hammers for much of anything anyway if you can’t even get off-planet yet.

1 Like
9

Hello,

I am a new player. I might be able to provide some insight on how the progression feels.

  1. Leveling Up
    I am currently level 11. I think I have been playing for 10+ hours. I felt as thought the leveling process was a little slow. I feel like I was taking advantage of the Objectives and spending a fair amount of time gathering (while also learning the game).

By level 10 I had an idea of the specialty I wanted to engage in and had some basic skills. I feel like I could have reached this point a little faster. I was dragging through level 5 - 8 and needing the skill points before I could progress / improve.

A portion of this was because I had no idea what I needed to do to get to the things I wanted (clarity around skills and what growth options there were).

What I knew was: I want to swing my hammer faster and I wanted to be able to build some new tools (which means I needed a new bench thing to build). I didn’t know how to build new tools, so that did slow me down a little bit…but I will talk about that further down.

TL:DR - I think the speed I am gaining levels now (11 - 12) is fine…but I would have thought my early levels would go by a little faster.

  1. Skills

Aside from the required first few skills, it quickly became confusing what I needed to take in order to get what I wanted. I realize skills will be fleshed out with better descriptions later. As I was progressing I didn’t know what to spend my points on.

Because of this, I was confused on how to build new tools.

  1. Building

I felt like I could build things really early, and had fun throwing down some early blocks.

  1. Get Copper Tools

I think the Workbench? makes these copper tools. I was very confused on how this machine worked. I received an objective to build a power source for this machine, but apparently I can craft things through it without the power source?

Because of my confusion, I didn’t try and build copper. I thought I needed the spark engine thing to power it to make the things within it.

This did slow me down, and I ended up using stone tools for a bit longer then I thought.

I really like the game, and have been having fun. I hope my notes are helpful! This game has been so cool :slight_smile:

Thanks!

7 Likes
10

How much of a confusion was this? Is it odd for a machine to require spark [fuel] for some recipes or should it require spark for everything and we put those items which don’t require spark in another machine?

1 Like
11

Based from my experience, I also got confused with this one at some point (crafting at first feels intimidating with those fancy spark). My familiarity with the game before this was implemented and my lurking here in the forums made the experience a little easier.

Would it make sense if you just explicitly mention in the ingredients needed “0 Spark” or would it look dumb?

12

Actually whats ironic about what u said it beinh slower Stone is .5 seconds quicker in mining then copper is without masteries of course

13

I didn’t say it mined slower (goes back and forth based on masteries… at max power copper pretty much always mines faster), I said that it swung/hit more slowly.

14

Hello Luke,

How much confusion? Oh, it took me a few days (I was only playing a few hours each day) before I realized that I could be making copper tools (so maybe 4 hours of in game time). I only realized that spark must not be the requirements because the spark core was created by the Workbench, and then I started to second guess how the thing worked.

I am still confused on what requires spark and what does not. Maybe when I have more items I can craft it will be more clear. I built the Extractor and the Compressor, and as I was building them I wondered if there was any point. Do these items require spark, or do they not requires spark? Are these items like the Furnace which needs a power source, like the crafting table which doesn’t or like the Workbench which may or may not requires spark.

I do think it is confusing. Moving the items from the Workbench to another item which does not require spark and having the workbench be an item that makes this with spark, seems logical to me.

I did not build a furnace and assume that it would run without power. I expected to have to power it.

I do not build a machine after building a furnace and make the leap in understanding that it will function without a power source. Machine require power, the furnace needed a power source to make it, and it seems the power source it needs is spark. It seemed so straight forward to me that I could not use it until I had Spark.

Maybe I am a one off case though :slight_smile: I hope the feedback is helpful, and at the least I appreciate you taking the time to ask your question.

I am going to go back to building~! :slight_smile: hehe

1 Like
15

This is Krimson, I created another account because I didn’t think I already had one setup on the forums. But… I said I played 16 hours which turns out not to be true at all and instead I have only played 8 hours. This game currently just doesn’t feel very fun and I LOVE games that require grind as long as it is decently rewarded. I’m level 9 currently and dread the idea of playing to get to the point of actually being able to do anything. To top it all off I now have to have 2 levels worth of experience which take forever to get in order to just unlock anything and in order to actually craft anything with the new stuff I unlock I will need to unlock something else… Long story short i’m looking at about 6 levels worth of grind to make any real progress. I keep opening the game and attempting the grind but currently it just isn’t fun to do so… Hopefully it changes since this game has a lot of potential but if somebody like me who loves to grind and loves voxel games can’t get past the current leveling system then I doubt most others would either. Considering when I log on it says there are about 4 other people on the entire planet I am guessing this is a very accurate statement.

16

You can level quickly by mining higher-tier ores. It also gives you a lot of the materials you need to progress further. I’d recommend Septerfon or another moon world - it is easy to get ore there and thus rather good for XP.

17

Thanks for the info. Sadly I can’t currently leave the planet for another 2 levels since I don’t have anyway of making the bone extract that is needed. I hope this game gets better after all this non fun that players are forced into early on. I know I would have 0 chance in convincing any friends to play this game since you have to play for over 12 hours to even maybe have fun…

18

There’s a portal network covering all the planets which is easy to reach from pretty much anywhere. It has entry points in every big city. Easiest way to find any of the big cities is to follow the markers for other players on your compass - most people play/build close to them.

1 Like
19

What planet are you on. There are portal hubs all over the place. I have a hub that connects every world to one line. I will send you coordanents when I get off work.
Also keep in mind that there is a lot more balancing to come. The game you are playing now will most likely be very different after the 1.0 lunch.
I hope your experience improves. If there is any way I can help let me know :smile_cat:

20

hey @Odine :slight_smile: I hear ya :smiley:
I have opened fresh account a few days ago. It is very grindy. If I haven’t known some stuff from before, like where to find fossils/tech fragments etc, I don’t think I’d be able to progress as fast as I did, and even with that it was painfully slow. I have played about 8hrs and after first 7-8 levels grind becomes real.

Game is still in heavy balancing process, so what is now might completely change in next update regarding progression speed. Feedback like yours is very valuable to devs and I’m sure they will appreciate it. The only thing I can advise at this point is to join active settlement in your planet. Through exchange with other players you’ll be able to progress more quickly. This is where MMO part comes out :smiley:

2 Likes