Idk about that bub, I thought this was going to be an open development system, that depending on how much time you put into something you earn it. Unless your botting, it’s fair. He who puts fort the effort achieves the goal.
1 Like
I think that underestimates the dedication of power players, and encourages bots. It may take a normal player 5ish years to obtain full potential playing 6 hours a day, but a power player could do it in 1-2 uears and a bot could do it in 6 months (provided that bots are always online and operate mote efficiently than distracted players.)
2 Likes
Perhaps some sort of diverging skill branches like in ESO could solve this. It might not create total difference among end-game players, but it could still provide a split and still be somewhat linear.
1 Like
If the devs think 1-2ish years for a really dedicated player, which would be less than 0.01% of the playerbase I’d imagine, is to fast then they can always tweak the rate at which you can obtain the skills.
And bots would and are a problem in any system. To such an extend that you can effectivly leave them out of the equation.
It’s also a whole other story if you program a bot for a themepark like WoW or if you program it for a sandbox like Boundless.
Bots most likely would be too stupid to do anything useful for a long time.
1 Like
- Glue down the “w” key and activate a speedclicker
- Gain XP due to constant mining
- Occasionally check if you are stuck inside a beacon.
- Center the cursor in the middle of the screen for instant respawn due to the speedclicker.
Tada a sandbox “bot” without even writing a single line of code.
And a real bot that avoids beacons, cliffs, etc. is not too far off either:
I´d also highly favor something like the paragon system or Legend Skills for the late-late-game.
2 Likes
The original Asheron’s Call did this pretty well:
- All skills/perks are available to all characters (kind of)
- Skills can be leveled up infinitely (but on an exponential curve; to the point that really old players would take months just to raise a skill one point because they had hit pleateaus for particular skills)
- You could specialize in skills of your choice, which would reduce the cost/curve of levels in that skill
In practice, people had to make hard choices on which skills they specialized in, but could still be jack of all trades if they wanted. Due to the exponential skill curve, “mastering” (e.g. getting high enough in a particular skill) was basically impossible.
To be fair, the game eventually introduced skill caps - but the caps were so high that people very rarely hit them (after literally years of in game time)
2 Likes
That sounds exaclty like I’d dreamd Boundless would be (* _ *)
1 Like
Oh, and another thing they added was the ability to gain additional specializations after accomplishing something major (say, bringing down your first titan). That was a hell of a lot of fun
Because it retroactively adjusted the curve on a particular skill, you’d effectively get a large boost in levels when applying the specialization
2 Likes
Yea as if there could ever go something wrong with that method like:
- Setting up a spawn from which you can mine away after you died.
- Dying from various things constantly and loosing what ever the final death toll will be
- Falling into a pit you can’t really escape from.
- punching the wall with your fist or a useless pick because your tool broke.
Yes the bot is awesome. A few tweaks here and there and Boundless is no match for him, ever.
And here I was, thinking the Boundless terrain, flora and fauna would be much more challenging than MCs. Seems like that wouldn’t be the case. 
(/s for those who didn’t guess it.)
I see a lot of talk about self sufficient players in this thread, so I’ve been thinking about what actually makes them self sufficient. It all comes down to the ability to easily transfer resources between their characters. If you remove that ability, it negates the effect.
I’ve not really found any confirmation that an in-game mailing system will be in B< (which would be the easiest way to transfer something from one character to another, right?). You also have no way to transfer your player token to another of your characters without a direct person-to-person trade.
I guess the only options left would be to trust a friend to handle the transfer for you … hey you have a friend, you’re not self sufficient anymore! … or to dump the item on the ground or in an unlocked container and hope that no one picks it up before you change characters.
I’m all for allowing multiple character slots without making the game pay to play (still keeping it buy to play), as you get to try all aspects of the game, instead of just a single path. It simply involves a bit of logical thought about how to make it very difficult for people to go down the self-sufficiency route.
1 Like
I find it kind of repulsive how many people want to activly stop people from doing stuff alone instead of incentivise them to do stuff with others.
It won’t be a good experience for me or the others I have to work with if I’m forced to do certain things with them because the game demands it on an arbitrary basis.
3 Likes
When discussing multiple charracters at least it is very much about hindering players becoming self sufficient through abuse of multiple charracters.
Yea I’m not against stopping abuse but I can feel a general almost hate for players who want to do their own thing.
2 Likes
I don’t see this as being a one way street if I’m honest … the incentives are already there (or will be), plus I only said make it difficult, not impossible to be self sufficient. Additionally before multiple characters were confirmed, weren’t we already incentivised to work together anyway?!
I’m definitely not against this … I actually sometimes preferred creating a fresh character in [place game name here] game, going off and doing my own thing on occasion, and not have to worry about the internal politics that invariably crop up when being part of a guild.
All I’m worried about is people saying we shouldn’t have multiple game slots due to people being self-sufficient and therefore not needing to interact with others. I want those extra character slots so I can go off and do my own thing on occasion.
I also don’t want to be locked out of the rest of the game content just because I already chose my 3 specialities… I want the freedom to be able to create another character to explore the rest of the specialisations.
4 Likes
Well my first bot “suggestion” wasn´t meant seriously either 
Worlds with valuable materials will certainly be harder than standard MC ones, but I don´t think that there will be something that makes digging a 2x1 tunnel dangerous, especially if you tell the bot to avoid natural caves and to occasionally close the tunnel behind him.
Making a 2x2x2 cave in the middle of nowhere should be a pretty save way to trade tokens to yourself. And even if it gets stolen, with what we currently know about tokens the thief can´t really harm you in any way anyway.
And we don´t even know if we need to trade a token to yourself. It´s absolutely possible that all your characters are automatically owner of all your beacons.
B< is an MMO that revolves around trading & a player driven economy, so it quite natural that it is tailored towards encouraging a need for player interaction.
Generally I think that it´s quite strange to complain that the core-gameplay element of an MMO is not tailored for single player. That´s somewhat like complaining that there is no 1-man mode for raids in WoW…
You seem to confuse something. I’m not against it being primarily for social players. I’m not against it being not tailored for single player. Incentives are good.
But I’m against artificial walls. I’m against not being able to do stuff alone without any reason for it.
I’m not able to trade stuff on my own? Well yea, duh, that’s what trading is for.
I’m not able to level up my skills on my own to the point I want them to be because people want me to play with others? No, just no. That’s forcing not incentivising.
To say it with your example. I wouldn’t be complaining that there is no 1-man mode for raids in WoW. But I would be complaining if you were forced to be in a group of a certain size to attempt a raid. Not to complete it or to have a chance of beating it. Just to attempt it.
Because if the raid is to hard for me then that incentivises me to either level up or group up. That’s what a good incentive is!
That’s a big difference.
2 Likes
Interesting comments – I’ve read them all. Worth noting that Progression systems like the one we’ve proposed always evolve over time with their player-base. This will evolve as we implement a lot I’m sure, as does every other feature.
I’m going to drop one of my classic reality bombs 
here, because I want to get some substantial feedback out of this discussion while you’re all engaged…
Diablo III’s paragon system, as an example, was added primarily for end-game players who had more than exhausted existing content, years after the games launch. It’s not something Blizzard really could have launched at 1.0, nor would it probably have been right to do so. Years of feedback and understanding how the community were playing the game informed those decisions. Nor are we Blizzard, and this is not Diablo III – as much as I’d like to make a game to that scale our budget is missing a few 0’s.
Boundless is a game we want to grow over years, not just launch 1.0 and * micdrop *. I’d encourage you to not obsess too much about running out of content or caps. Caps, and everything else, can/may/will change. Long term play is definitely something we care about a lot, but there’s only so much we can (or should) do up front. Try to put yourselves in our shoes and think about what’s most important to deliver a successful system first.
For us to focus on extending Progression beyond 100s hours we have to deliver a game financially successful enough for a large base of players so we’re actually able to invest in the long-term future of Boundless.
So my question is:
- What do you think is the most important thing about progression in Boundless?
This is not “what do you want” or “what do you think is coolest”. For a successful progression system that keeps players engaged for 100s of hours: what do you think is most important for progression Boundless?
I’m actually going to physically write these responses down so I don’t forget them, so I want ONE ANSWER ONLY. If you pick more than one thing I won’t write it down and you won’t be immortalised in my notebook 
GO.
10 Likes
Would this be purely within profession or gear and other such things too?
Well balanced and meaningful objectives
1 Like
Beating the hardest Titans on multiple worlds (for me the most important points are raids with my friends / guild and the possibility to “show” the success).
4 Likes