Testing 171: Multiple Characters and Compass Update!

News Releases
41

It’s planned that Builders will eventually have the ability to create blueprints of their builds (not sure what form that will take though!). So they will potentially have the ability to showcase houses and sell blueprints for them - sort of a realtor/builder.

I’m not certain what is planned for explorers though… hopefully something novel!

Yep, that’s my argument … and yes, I read your post ( I read everything on here - always have done) … I just don’t agree with your suggestion. FYI your suggestion was very close to the original proposal for the profession system. It was deemed to be too restrictive for the soloists/generalists in the game. I know … it’s a game promoting community interaction… but it also needs to appeal to the wider audience, and not pigeon-hole people into fixed builds, which seems to be what you’re pushing for.

I like your choice of words here … “acquire the resources” … this doesn’t have to be via mining. Purchasing is a form of acquisition (whether you like it or not).

There does seem to be a little disparity between your arguments in this thread and your “Boundless future” one. They’re a bit contradictory IMO…

To understand my reasoning a little more regarding the differing toughness of rocks, I’d suggest doing a little reading up on this site … How Do Rocks Get Their Colors? | Wonderopolis

TL;DR - Rocks basically get their colours from different compositions of minerals (and other factors), so that would explain the planned implementation of their differing toughness.

I’m pretty sure it’s both first … “Boundless is an epic voxel sandbox MMO…” :wink:
_Source: Boundless on Steam

I think it would also be beneficial to do some reading up on both past dev logs and other discussions around proposed/planned features, as your current gripes are with how the game currently plays as opposed to how this current implementation fits into the overall picture.

I think this raises a good point in that people come to Boundless expecting it to be exactly like Minecraft. So, just for clarity Boundless is not Minecraft 2.0 … It’s Boundless

Also … Please keep the language clean - this is a family friendly forum

5 Likes
43

ok but that is real life not a video game…i dont wanna be forced to spend in coin when it could go to more useful things such as warp conduits to get around quicker and allow friends to quickly get to.me or vise versa…and i dont wanna waste hours on end just to gather a red or green version of the same block

44

MMO and Mmorpg are two seperate things u cojld technically call Minecrst an mmo cause mmo jusr stands dor massive multiplayer online

45

This forum really do have some strict rules eh? :grin:

I like what @Stretchious said:

We’ve been on your shoes somewhere along the road. We’ve wanted things to be like this and like that but as we iterated through it and had discussions (probably not me cause I’m not that active here. Just a lurker). At this point, what you are suggesting seems to make the game like go back couple of steps in development? Because I think what you are suggesting seems disruptive on what has already been laid out and planned?

Also, you can edit your posts to prevent double or even triple posting. I don’t know why but I’m really conscious in unnecessarily increasing the number of replies in a post. Probably cause I’ve been turned off in following a thread if I’m left behind by quite a number of replies. Haha

3 Likes
46

… and a lot of this game is based on real life … planets, rock, trees, animals, flesh, bone, gravity, bipedal characters, projectile weapons, etc. (you get the idea) … literally everything in game has some real life grounding or inspiration.

Ok, that is entirely your prerogative. Only thing I can suggest in this case, is that either start making things to sell or you befriend some people that like to trade and earn coin in game to facilitate that need. :wink: Additionally, Footfall will be one way to passively gain coin, plus there will be feats (partially implemented) and contracts (planned) which will also be a source of income after basic objectives.

You could also band together with some friends and set up portals, which only need Oort Shards as fuel and no coin.

Yep, I personally think it’s been miscategorised - at least according to Wikipedia (who actually were the people that forced the miscategorisation on the Boundless wikipedia page :thinking: )

2 Likes
47

Yes, this is my one big observation. We’ll still farm ring worlds for their resources - but only for color, gems and rough oort stones. I’ll actively be avoiding its copper/iron/coal since I can get it 2x faster (and 2x less durability to my gem tools) on a starter planet. This will, of course, not be true for hard coal and large fossils - but overall my trips to ring worlds will be much more selective if I aim for efficiency.

@olliepurkiss: The thing with the better tools is that they cost more resources (for simplicity 40 coin for a copper hammer vs 3000-4000 for a gem tool). In addition: when I use gem tools, I’ll still get much more value for them on a starter planet vs a ring world: I get 2x more resources per durability and I get them 2x faster.

Lets take a Topaz Hammer @ 3000 coin cost. It has 1500 durability (x2 for max durability skill). So 1 coin per hit. A soft coal is currently worth about 10 coin. On a starter planet where I avoid rock I’ll get 1500 resources, so 15 000 coin. On a ring world where I avoid rock I’ll only get 750 resources, so 7 500 coin. That’s 12 000 coin profit on starter vs 3 500 coin profit on ring. The numbers are worse for ring worlds if you bring rock into the equation. Being faster at hitting rocks matters very little if I have to spend most of my time looking for worthwhile resources.

It’ll be even worse for ring worlds once common resource prices drop (which is already happening). The only way that this math starts to look better is if I can get better resources per durability & time on ring: e.g. medium/hard coal is abundant enough that I don’t have to spend my durability on soft. Right now, that will only be true for gem runs which avoid most other resources.

1 Like
48

I am new to Boundless, and to this discussion.
I have finally caught up with reading all the posts, so, in light of the last 15 hours I’ve played, I’ll weigh in.

This is coming from a survival game veteran who is gaining a level an hour more or less. From my 25+ years experience in gaming, specifically survival gaming, the “average” player isn’t going to spend more than 5 hours “trying” a game to see if they like it! (LESS THAN 2 on Steam, because of their refund policy.)
I can almost guarantee it’s why your numbers are in the 40’s for average players in steamcharts.

Many people have bought this, few play it. I know I was one, from my… lack of experiencing anything good in Oort Online years ago? I don’t honestly remember what I thought back then, LOL

Currently, the lack of directions from the start cost me quite a bit, and will apparently continue to cost me.
It’s on me, because I was testing the feature, HOWEVER, using point buy back NEEDS more explanation.
Using it one time costs all future point buys more? This was stated NO WHERE.

I used it three times and now all my skills cost me 8/13 instead of 5/10?
Rough, and in the long run will drive people away due to the point cap and perception of shorting oneself too much to “compete”.
I can live with my choices, a lot of people can’t. They will see it as YOUR fault. LOL
(I figure a wipe for Live will fix it for me, but you REALLY should note it.)

Beyond that, I think YOU are all thinking End Game, i.e. level 50.
Maybe it’s because you have played there so long you have forgotten level 10 play?
It’s a thought…

I will tell you I am level 14 and have gone through FIVE full smartstacks(great idea!) of 9 stone hammers and about two and a half dozen copper hammers, just trying to get to Spark Core tech. That’s 75 hammers of grind digging, and I am NOT there yet.
Still have to make the Refinery first, then slog through 16 MORE oort tech things.
I figure level 20?
I don’t know many people willing to put in 25 hours of gameplay to get to what they consider “basic equipment”.
It has NOT been tons of Fun digging. Other aspects of the game have been Fun, so I have switched off to those, to break up the monotony, to maintain the will to keep playing…

Part of that is due to the lack of communication about what skills do what.
Seriously the skill descriptors SUCK.
Part of it is because I’m on a world with like 10 other people(most of the time) and no one uses chat or responds to anything. Suckage, but not really on YOU.
The tedious grinding felt like a leveling time sink, just like 90% of the other MMO’s I have played…
Congratulations, you got that down pat.
HOWEVER, I stopped playing those because it is no FUN.
You need to add more Fun, To Mining Specifically, if you plan on keeping people.

I did feel like I was making progress, the slow slog of time sink for skill points works overall.
However, you are just as slowly killing any Fun it might entail. Somehow that needs to be added back in.

I think if you sped things up some, XP wise, AND/OR increased yields on Ores it would help speed the lower level progression a bit.
Based on the point system as I understand it now vs. at the start, maybe reduce XP needed to get to 20?
From there you have enough points to “Specialize” without having to make the “basic core machinery” choices just to GET Started…
Below 20 you are still trying to get “your legs under you” from what I have seen. IMHO it’s the reason Solum is 90% placed “bare” beacons and no people…

AND I know the higher levels go even slower? Right? Why?
IMHO, because you fall for the time tested trap of “progression should plateau” that every game developer hits.
I blame Dungeons and Dragons and the leveling scheme they used.
Or television programs, super heroes, et al…
Society says for it to be Progression it must be Hard, then Harder.
You start off rescuing kittens, rescue the Mayor, then save the world, then defend the universe…
Can’t blame you for being a product of your society.
But let’s face it, that is an artificial construct designed for serial treadmilling.
When was the last time you enjoyed a treadmill?
I don’t mind the treadmill, so long as I can watch Netflix on my laptop in front of me.

-Grimm

2 Likes
49

I’m wondering if, based on this, it would be worth splitting down the metal resources into different levels of purity, which you could then find on different worlds (similar to how coal is).

Better or more pure metal seams on harder worlds vs diluted or impure versions on starter worlds. This would also give you some additional spread between pure and impure tools/weapons which will coincide with progressing to harder worlds and give players more incentive to move to and mine the those worlds.

Although it would also take a lot more work balancing as well :wink:

(I don’t think there you be any need to change the texture though)

6 Likes
50

We’re going to need some change along these lines. If I found lots of hard coal on ring worlds I wouldn’t bother with going for soft coal on starter planets. It would motivate the usage of better tools to get better ore in more dangerous environments. The current distribution is just too sparse. For copper/iron/silver/gold something like silver on moon+ and gold on ring would provide a clear sense of progression and not the current lower-is-better dynamic.

2 Likes
51

In my experience on testing so far (I started a new character at lvl 1 with two friends to test the leveling experience) the grind is prohibitively long. After about 15 hours, we are all about lvl 14, each specialized in different roles. This is generally fun, as I enjoy crafting and our miner enjoys mining and our builder enjoys building, but we all feel like we are drastically hamstrung by the fractured crafting profession.

As crafting stands, it’s broken up into item crafting and equipment crafting. These categories are further subdivided as well, with each having dependencies in other branches. Spark cores and mixers for example require cogs and compacted metal to craft, which could be purchased, though I never found a shop in pixelgate selling these. To skill up enough to make a spark core, I need three more levels, which prohibits me from advancing my tool crafting for my miner or my block crafting for my builder. This leaves my miner feeling like their time is wasted mining things like gold and silver, or even iron because they can not get tools crafted from them, and my builder can’t use glass or locks in their builds because it’s in a different progression path as well.

I am a dedicated crafter, yet I can’t sufficiently support other professions at my level yet because the profession requires too many talent points across a wide range of requirements to see meaningful progression. My miner is still using the same stone and copper tools they would be making themselves without a dedicated craftsman supporting them. My builder is still using the same basic materials they could craft for themselves without my help. That doesn’t seem right! The next few levels should let me finally provide them both with materials they would not be able to acquire on their own, but I feel like I should have reached that point 5 levels ago.

This long rant is mostly leading up to my main suggestion for a fix- abolish the “core” talents, or else make them cost only 1 skill point each. This would leave a player in any profession be able to reach meaningful skills sooner, and speed up early progression, which is a real pain at early levels.

9 Likes
52

I think this would be a good thing. Purer metals would provide incentive to harvest metals on ring planets. They could add durability and possibly increase damage slightly (although a slight increase in damage wouldn’t really be that appealing as it wouldn’t really change how many hits a block takes). Regardless, I like this idea.

1 Like
53

I think it’s a general concensus that the current reward for harder worlds does not yet justify the greater investment. If there was greater difference between the materials found on each world, it would improve the experience. At the moment, my crew has advanced to mining a middle world. They mostly ignore things like stone, soft coal, copper or iron because it’s equally available on our home world for much less investment. The only thing we are really focusing on is medium coal and gleam, because while we can find medium coal on solum, the density is high enough on epsilo to merit the extra investment of tool durability and travel costs. Gleam, of course does not exist naturally on Solum so it is worth the trip as well.

If copper or iron from epsilo were somehow worth the extra effort, it would be more rewarding to mine it on a harder world. Thus far, even though it’s much more common on epsilo, it’s still common enough on Solum that it’s not worth the extra investment to get it from epsilo. But if it had better properties roughly equal to the extra effort involved in acquiring it, we would happily travel to epsilo for it. Perhaps higher quality ore, or ore that yielded more ingots when melted in the furnace? Like, “Dense Copper Ore” could have a 50% chance to yield two ingots when melted instead of one. “Pure Copper Ore” could always yield two, and so on for each metal ore. This way, you could still have the same basic distribution of resources, with the same progression of block health, but the return on investment would be better balanced across all world tiers.

7 Likes
54

I wonder if this could be resolved by offering to give the block AS WELL as the coal seam… just a thought… would you be more willing if they gave you two drops or a chance to get a colored block as well as a piece of coal? Haven’t gone into much thought on how that would translate into other worlds but idk it’s just a thought. lol

55

hmm, along those lines, what if the higher level tools allowed you to choose to take the Entire Block intact on higher level worlds, for decoration purposes? Gold Ore Walls… as an example?
It certainly would give a little “value” to hunting higher level worlds for ore you stopped using ages ago…

2 Likes
56

I’d rather that be a property of a specific tool.

3 Likes
57

It very well might. I think messing with multiple drops or different versions of tools could help this be something that really adds depth and not just the “grind” to the game. Again the devs will need time to balance out the affects of a tool or skill like this, but I think it’s a conversation worth having.

1 Like
58

Seems to be the case for most people here, but I’ll put in a dissenting vote – I’ll wade barefoot through lava pits for a pretty color. And I’d actually quite like it (speaking as a builder/explorer) if the colors were harder to obtain.

I like this idea!

To combine these ideas, what about something like this:

  1. Have world difficulty affect rock (soil, etc) but NOT ores. Ideally, veins would be larger on higher-lvl worlds, and be more often the “better” types of coal. That would preserve a higher value for different colors, let miners get useful stuff from ring worlds, and encourage miners to use different mining strategies (hunting vs strip mining) depending on what they’re after.

  2. Change hammer mastery (or some relevant skill line) so that it grants x% chance per rank of mining a “pure” version of metal/gem ores, where the pure kind yields more bars (metal) or is a different color (gems) or is more durable or some such – i.e. it’s the skill line that makes a miner good, not the fancy hammer. Make it so non-miners have 0% chance.

  3. Boost durability of gem tools so that they’re worth using even on harder rock.

  4. Moar colors of everything because colors are pretty! (I mean as long as you’re changing things I might as well ask, right? :laughing:)

3 Likes
59

Ok, but what if these resources were 10x easier to find on a higher level world? Then it might be faster to gather resources on the harder worlds?

3 Likes
60

I’ll be honest, I’d rather the yield/value per broken ore block be higher (like fossil or coal) than just be more prevalent. Super saturated resources don’t really solve the issue of higher durability costs to mine it- especially when the current saturation of resources on starter worlds yields pleanty of easy to find veins on the surface or in caves.

It may not be the easiest solution, but I think it would be the most effective solution.

8 Likes
61

This. I like spending bits of time to find veins - just hitting stuff the whole time is a lot more dull. The value of the block just needs to compensate for the increased hits required (like in 2.0x on ring worlds, 1.5x on moon worlds) to make it economically worthwhile.

3 Likes