This is what I do, except I trade the resources to forgers like yourself. I’m sure you have experienced already how much better that works out and if you haven’t im sure you will. Good luck with your future trades!
Rarer ore spawns/limitations on the drops per ore
Truth! I think the population needs more developer commentary on the numbers on the front end as well. Some of us don’t mind being bored with analytics 
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My 2c. I feel like this game takes about 50% longer than it should to do basic tasks like gathering crafting and whatnot.
I’d prefer to spend my time 25% gathering and crafting, 75% building.
Right now it’s almost reversed, 75% gathering 25% building.
I do enjoy sandbox voxel game gathering, but the way it is in Boundless seems to require far and away more time than it does in other games. I’ve dealt with it now because it’s basically at my threshold. There are enough positives like a good community, chiseling, minigames like forging ect, that allow me to put up with the (what I feel is) gross amount of time it takes to get simple tasks done.
I rely heavily on my own forged AOE tools to do things. I’ve researched the fastest ways to get things done, use all the proper gear and consumables, have warps setup to my favorite locations for certain ingredients. ect ect. I also participate in the economy to try and pay people to do the things I dislike (but it seems like deflation has crippled the market at the moment).
If the goal is to increase the amount of time it takes to get resources from where it is currently at, that will probably push me over my tolerance threshold for this game. As it is I have close to 220 hours in the game (and another 280 hours in EA), and I feel like 50% of the time I spend doing basic gathering and crafting tasks was not what I wanted, but I put up with it.
The time I spend gathering is directly tied to the changes they make to forging tools. I have 3 things that allow me to get resources:
Bomb mining: removed
Coin: deflation crippling the market
Forged tools: pending update (likely will be nerfed)
I’m on my last rope at the moment, and am concerned. I love the game, and I love the people. I simply feel like I won’t have enough time to get enjoyment out of the game if they remove the last leg of the pillar that is required for all other tasks in the game.
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Out of curiosity, what sandbox MMO games have some of you played prior to Boundless? Not sandbox game. Not MMO game. But sandbox MMO. It presents a unique balancing challenge that other genres don’t experience.
Maybe it’s me but in any MMO sandbox game I’ve ever played, things get nerfed or buffed ALL the time. This isn’t just early development games but established games. I’m wondering if it’s an expectations thing?
I’m easily adaptable and will simple change to the new meta when it occurs. Not if. But that’s me.
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Don’t get me wrong. I’m just trying to express my feelings as a long time player and supporter of the game.
I understand that changes come and go in mmos. The most similar game I’ve played to boundless in terms of gathering and crafting would be 1) modded minecraft servers or 2) SWG. SWG, ironically, was probably closer in terms of grind and craft.
I’m fine with looking to the next meta, but we have no clue or direction as to what that might be. We know they think bomb mining for some reason was too powerful. Forged tools are probably about 20% less efficient.
We have to read between the lines, but if you look across multiple dev posts the general direction is that they feel that AOE forged tools are gathering too fast.
Honestly, I feel the exact opposite, for the reasons listed above. I’m already spending so much time gathering that it feels like I’m at my threshold already.
Ultima online and Eve were my 2 main sandbox mmos of any relevance. They were the grandfathers of the sandbox genre and the nerf/boost hammer has never changed. Sometimes it hits hard and fast. Sometimes it takes time to figure out the core problem. Sometimes systems are overhauled when it’s seen that there is no good fix. Other times systems just get left and ignored for a long time because other things are more important.
The only thing that really matters is that there’s a player base that understands that and sticks with it. Devs communicating future intent usually helped with that. Here devs communicating more seems to be a bad thing because everything reaches a critical mass of hyperbole without anyone looking at the numbers and betterment of the game.
True sandbox mmo gamers are a pretty niche market. You get a lot of other gamers in to a game marketed as sandbox mmo and they don’t fully understand the concept of market and economic forces or system overhauls when it’s realized a system was implemented without a full testing. Sandbox games really aren’t different than modern day EA titles in regards to a constant state of change.
I think that’s one thing that definitely set Eve apart from UO in that the players knew when ■■■■ was OP but there was a cycle that it’s be used and abused with the knowledge that with the next cycle it’s be torn down, nerfed, rebalanced, etc
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The issue is no one has the numbers, so both side of the argument can only use their past experience or interpretation of the developers statements to make any arguments. We would know the AOE tools were over powered if we were still having a planet with 5 million in unregened blocks like we did before the developers tweaked the regen. Without any numerical evidence, neither side can say if it is over powered. All we can say is we like it the way it is or recommend changes.
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Yes that’s my point. We need to be given numbers. I should have specified that I suppose. Otherwise it just becomes a hyperbolic echo chamber with everyone assuming doomsday is upon them.
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You did, I was not trying to accusing you of saying otherwise. My point was to add to yours not to counter or disagree with your argument.
edit for clarity
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if you getting crazy money yes
I’m starting to think that the issue here is more of an identity issue than anything else. Anyone who has played an MMO sandbox like UO or EVE would know that balance changes are commonplace. But having participated in forum discussion over the last 2 months, I’m starting to think there are 3 audiences here:
- The creative builders. They bought Boundless thinking this is prettier version of Minecraft. So balance changes ticks them off because it affects how they build and gather resources. It’s generally more for the worse than the best for this group
- The MMOers. They bought the game thinking that the current state of the game is how it is and won’t change too much relative to past games they played. But they may not understand that there is a subtle difference b/w an MMO and a sandbox MMO. They hate that the game gets grindier
- The sandbox MMOers. Like you and I who know balancing is commonplace and adjust accordingly. There is some complaining but not as heavily as the above groups.
I firmly believe that if you try to cater to all groups that you just end up pissing everyone off. Especially with the limited manpower they have. And I see this being played out. I didn’t understand the amount of hyperbole and over dramatized posts around here. But now that I see the 3 groups of players playing this game, I now realize why the discussion has reached such levels. All 3 groups have completely different expectations of the game and they often clash with each other.
My only real disappointment to this game is that it’s more sandbox than MMO. 90% of the game design is geared towards solo players (thanks to 10 alts) and there is little reason to group up with others. Even with the introduction of a guild system, I don’t see that changing because the guild functionality only exist to augment existing content. It’s not new content unto itself.
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And I feel fine.
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The other thing is they keep changing the major mechanics of the game every few weeks.
lets make an analogy to an FPS. Lets focus on a core mechanic like health.
Week 1: You get health by picking up health packs on the map.
Week 3: Too much health. The new method is that you now have to wait for 10 seconds after taking dmg to slowly regenerate health.
Week 5: We didnt realize players would just hide. Now we are making it so you can only regenerate 1% of your health per tick.
Players would not be happy. You need health to play the game. Much the same way resources are required to do anything in this game (except hit things with a totem). Changing how they are obtained are very apparent.
For mining resources:
If you played 6 months ago you bomb mined.
If you played 2 months ago, you forge tooled and sold them for coin. then bought what you needed.
If you play today you use forged tools.
Tomorrow, who knows, but it’s like going to result in you getting less resources.
Much like in the FPS example, you get genra defining behaviors based on health regen. One game is Quake, the next is Call of Duty… completely different games. Changing the resource mechanic in Boundless to me makes it feel like a different game, not simply a patch or iteration over a previous one.
Yes. I’ve said the same thing. The game suffers from an identity issue which is why we see the devs trying to play whackamole it feels like sometimes. At least to me.
Thanks for your reply, it’s a good perspective on why ppl feel like AoE nerf is the end if the world.
Do you think the scale of your builds which demand all these resources is reasonable for one person? If you had to build smaller would it be too small? What if you were on a team of 3 pitching in on the same scale? Or the economy worked well enough to buy the remaining 2/3 of supplies? Would you trade community and economy for your current self sufficiency?
Might be helpful areas of discussion to find a middle ground.
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I’m with you on the private server route. I don’t even want mine, if they’re ever released, to be hooked to the Boundless universe. I already plan on having quicker exp rates and drops than are currently implemented. I also plan to make mobs harder than they currently are. If capable, which I’m sure they are, I’m going to enable buildings to be destroyed as well. Hard knock life with ease of gathering mats. It’s my favorite ARK setup and what I ran for over a year.
But until there able to release them, I’ll keep slowly trucking along in the current version of the game they’ve made available.
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This isn’t about gems for me. They aren’t aesthetically pleasing to me, and they only interest me to the point where there are enough to make the tools I need to gather other resources. I can afford tools so it doesn’t bother me.
It’s the time requirement. I spent my 20 hours banging my iron shovel into dirt, getting my 600 resources per hour. It was fun for an hour or so and now it’s not. I’m interested in longer term projects with slightly better materials.
It’s not uncommon for a simple block like brick or something to require 5 different materials. Then you have to have the machines and all that come with that. Then you need coal. You need tools to gather them. You might need 5000 block for a build. That then becomes 25,000 due to sub ingredients. Now your talking hours of time and half a few fractions forged tools. Those each have their own price or their own resources to gather (which require different tools). You can buy them, or get them yourself, but then you have to go grind for coin, or go grind for the ingredients themselves.
This is just a little insight into why I feel like Boundless is right up against my personal threshold for gathering and grinding. That’s with the Forged tools as they are today. I play 20 hours a week and I currently feel like 50% of that time is wasted because gathering takes twice as long as I expect. The awesome community helps make up for that, and the beautiful builds do as well.
I’m probably in the top 1% of gamers with the amount of time I play. The question becomes what is the audience for the game? Is it the top 1%? top .1%? Am I in the target audience or am I wasting my time?
These are the things that I think about, and it’s why I feel I need to post when they talk about nerfing things that I find are still underpowered compared to the things like bomb mining that made me fall in love with the game (since I could focus on the things I enjoyed more). I’d like this game to be for me, but in an increasing amount, I’m feeling like maybe it just isn’t.
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I don’t feel fine about it. I don’t think we’ll made forging tools should be a luxury that are a pain in the ass to make. If the forged tools everyone is making weren’t necessary to the game play we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Not to mention things are supposed to get “harder” in t7 & t8 worlds if they ever come out.
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But what if they’re not because current game balance has made it too easy for us right now? It doesn’t take a genius to see that it shouldn’t take 3 months for us to reach the current endgame. And so when they release T7/T8, then we’ll have that’s another couple months. So we’ve completed the game in less than 6 months. I’m sure the devs didn’t anticipate this.
Many things has been mix/maxed already. Example:
- Portal hubs have been min/maxed
- Forging min/maxed
- Mining has been min/maxed
- Hunting has been min/maxed
This all contributes to where we are now. Current endgame content has been achieved in 3 months time.
PS- Maybe my use of “endgame” is incorrect but you all know what I’m referring to.
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