Read posts all over topics as grinding is part of the reason players leave BL. And while I can agree it can be part of it, that had me wondering, what do players see as grinding?
For me it can be both the repetive work I have to obtain something, such as mining for rocks for building. Sometimes I don’t mind it other times I feel it is a chore and don’t want to do but have to. It could be mining for stone, or coal, iron, cutting down trees for wood for fuel, or even out collecting yams.
Another thing that I think of as grinding is the so many steps in making items that has me putting off learning how to do them. Tools, weapons, what you have to do to have those powerful ones, you need this to add to increase this, but it can decrease that, and so many different items and the work goes into getting and making them to me is grinding.
Can’t afford the expensive tools and weapons, but really don’t want the hassle of getting all the items needed to make them and then the work to make the items.
I will in a while start to learn on some, but not looking forward to it. But enjoy the game too much to quit because I find that task too be too much grinding.
So, what do you see as grinding? What jobs, tasks do you see as too much work, or hate doing in the game and you think could cause players to stop playing?
General anything I need to do, to be able to do what I want to do.
For example I want to build with since decorative stones not only need I go get the stones I need wax and spark as well.
To me it is the fact that I have to mine, gather and craft items for hours in order to be able to build for maybe 20 minutes. For me, building is the main reason I am playing the game, so that fact that it takes so much time and effort engaging in very repetitive and uninteresting tasks to get refined rock, decorative rock or brick makes the game very grinding to me.
Also it seems to me as we move further into release, the trend has been to make recipes and the centraforge more complicated. Sometimes the recipes have even been expanded to require more ingredients which increases the time I need to gather resources. To me this does not make the game more interesting. It does make me play a lot less.
A small bit of the opposite. Don’t so much mind the mining, unless I have something else I’d rather do. Building, in BL I don’t enjoy it as much as I did in 7 days. Being afraid of heights I don’t like having to climb high to make something, especially when I need to use the chisels.
In 7 days I could make the frames, have them in my inventory and then go and place them. If I placed it wrong I could break it and bring up the shape and make another one. To reach the height I needed I would make scaffolds that are easy to take down. Frames up, do the moving around and then just a click and I am picking them up, no wear and tear on a tool In BL, I have to place them and then bust them up, wear and tear on tools and more time wasted. Grrrrrrrr.
I think it’s kind of bad that people see grinding as a negative quality in a game. I go about it differently, learning to enjoy the parts of the game I might otherwise hate. Doing the same thing constantly can really suck and feel like a lifeless activity, but that’s where you take a break or change it up. Mining emeralds on shedu kinda pisses me off tho
I find the visuals in this game very attractive, and the ability to chisel blocks is neat and makes for a much better looking game than something like Minecraft or any of its knockoffs. So what if it takes forever to get things, that just means I have to put more thought into my builds rather than just making some towering monstrosity
What do i see as grinding? Making trees and placing grass. Grrrr!
I kid somewhat, but it’s more that i despise doing it compared to it being a grind. Though placing grass 3 times on one block could definitely be considered a grind
Hmmm, yes I suppose to me grinding is the steady and continuous path to a goal.
Mostly associated with leveling, but this game seems to add new elements with the need to gather, which normally I’d see as farming, except my normal definition of farming is to gather excessively for profit or to find that rare item.
Here, farming is necessary and takes on more the definition of grinding.
WHICH wouldn’t be so bad, imo, if there weren’t so many difficulties with it. Mainly that death penalty is really steep and keeps me from going out in the first place.
Also, I think xp for gathered mats should go up per planet, as their defense does.
I also feel like our hp and stam should naturally go up just a little with each level, instead of fully relying on stat points. Those stat points should be a bonus.
Gathering with base hp on a t6? Uugh… but points are needed elsewhere.
This is one thing i thought about the other day. Most MMOs increase base states a little bit as you level. I shouldn’t be level 50 taking the same amount of dmg as a level 1 character from a T2 spitter because i didnt waste points in vitality on my miner
Totally agree about the death penalty. It is way, way too high. Maybe we all need to start complaining about it, lol.
For those who don’t have the points to put into what will protect us or used to make our weapons stronger it is really hard. Die and lose so much health that it take just one hit to kill you again? Not fair!
I would divide grinding into two categories, positive and negative.
Positive grinding is doing actually fun things to reach your goal. This is a subjective experience, and even for the same player today’s positive grind may be negative for them tomorrow. Positive can include hunting , digging, whatever you enjoy doing, or even the manner in which you accomplish the task can affect this - maybe you enjoy building creative traps to kill monsters instead of shooting them.
Negative grind is anything that takes small or large amounts of time, is relatively unenjoyable to varying degrees, pretty much anything that feels like a chore or makes you wish you could just hit Fast Forward or spend coins instead. Getting wax for decorative blocks, for example.
Yeah, death penalty is pretty intrusive, there could be a few other ways out than ‘grinding’ that xp, like maybe it has a few hour timer, or it goes away when you level up. Or maybe you could return to the sanctum and pray to the big Oort God for a few minutes
I’ve been preaching this for months. Death penalty gives some players the feels, but for all us normal folk it is a purely negative grind. Especially when the death wasn’t your fault.
I dont know how to link posts but if you go in the What Turns You Off Boundless thread on post 1372 i bring this up.
It’s rather lengthy but you can skip to the bolded parts and start reading there if you wanna get to the real meat of it.
To clarify, I like grinding. I farm and grind frequently in games. But there’s a lot of walls here keeping me from doing that, which is my real problem
A grind to me is something i need to do in order to be able to do something else. In this game gathering x to mass craft y feels like a grind to me.
To hunt T6 world meteors i need a gem slingbow, to get one i need to grind materials to craft and forge. Or grind coin to buy one.
Death penalty should be time based so if ppl ragequit because of it they can start without it. Not just to log on and grind XP.
Not that having DP bothered me too much.
Grind is what you experience when you feel privileged to more than the game actually lets you have. Behind every grind complaint is an opinion like “I should always be able to use top of the line gem forged tools” or “it should be easy to build this idea I had requiring thousands of deco stone”.
Played this game for over 300 hours and it hasn’t felt like a grind once because I keep my expectations in check.
