Testing 187: Brews, Bombs, Rage, Focus, Revive and Atlases!

Updated OP with Testing 187.3 details.

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Therka is 10 “blinksecs” away from Munteen :scream::scream:

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This sounds really intriguing! I really like the sound of being able to see different planets at different times of the day!

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Still irritates me when people come to this game and complain about a feature its built around, like its going to change, instead of deciding this type or style of game may not be for them. It’s irritating me for some reason the debate that there is 3 characters worth of skills to have, and they want it all on one character, and still not even realize they would still have to grind all those skills no matter how many characters it’s on.

It feels like since there are many of us that defend it, it makes the few speak louder that they don’t like it. But it’s the ground floor design.

How many of you would be irritated if people started complaining about the fact that there is portals to have to build, and that they want teleport wands instead because they feel it would be better?

Actually not sure why it irritates me more than most things lol.

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Lol yeah. I remember someone complained once why can’t we dig with hands like in Minecraft?

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So in turn you are complaining about something that irritates us. Useful.

See, here is the issue you are completely missing:

People are bypassing the skill system by using alts.

Let that sink in for a moment.

This is supposed to be a community driven, open world, sandbox-ish, survival game that anyone can play.

Community Driven:

Yes, there are already player established guilds currently and that’s without any mechanics to help support it other then Discord, the forums, and a ■■■■ ton of hard work by the players that created them. However, not everyone is a group player and people shouldn’t be forced to rely on others if they just want to enjoy the game. If limitations are placed on their play style/abilities because they don’t play the game like everyone else, WITH everyone else, then yeah, they are probably just going to quit. What a same too. We need more people.

Open World/Sandbox

Wow some of these planets are big. It wasn’t until testing the Atlas did I really come to appreciate the amount of space we had available to us for exploration and building. However, this is again limited for a solo player. Travel abilities, Warp jump increases, Chisel Skills, and Compass upgrades all eat into a players total skill points. Sure, maybe some of those could be gutted out, but not all, especially for builders and anyone that wants to move around faster then a wildstock.

Then there is the plot limitations imposed (with good reason early game I supposed) for those that are soloists. Early to mid game there are more then enough plots for a decent base set up with a few to spare for “outposts” on other planets. By late game a single player has more then enough to found and start a rather sizeable location for themselves. At least until they invest a majority of their plots and find that those outposts they established earlier are kinda eating into that next expansion or the last few plots for a really neat build. Essentially, you can build in quite a large area, but only once or twice and then you’d have to tear things down in order to build something new.

Survival:

Ok, so a new player just starts playing Boundless for the first time and it takes a few weeks at most for a majority of people to reach level 50. During the leveling and learning process though, there are a lot of choices to be made and not every skill is completely understandable at first glance, nor would someone who is new know exactly what it is they are going to need just to survive. They make the best choices they know how until they reach max level and then decide to reset their skills and rebuild their character (At least until launch and this feature is removed). Right, so lets say they are going to be a resource gatherer, great! Lets go get some coal! But wait, They need to craft some tools. Hmm…seems the best we can manage is maybe a point in Iron. Ok. I’ll just be a crafter instead! Hmmm…how am I going to get any resources? I don’t have a lot of coin from leveling and market prices are kinda high. Oh, and I see here that I’m going to need some creature parts. That means I need to go hunting. Maybe I should just take a little of everything like I did when I was leveling? That doesn’t seem to let me do much more then when I was level 20 though…or very fast/efficiently. Oh ■■■■, all of my health and stamina are almost gone…I need to get some food. (Yes, this was very much so exaggerated, but then again so are some of the arguments I’ve read about why everything is fine as is.)

Solution:

Just roll more characters. Re-level two more times and then you can really start playing. Make a Gatherer/Builder, a Hunter, and a Crafter. All problems solved. Nothing to worry about any more.

Why? I already leveled. I’m ready to start doing all the things and stuff. I don’t want to spend more time and resources on other characters that I’m only going to use for specific tasks and end up with crappy names.

Every other sandbox survival game I’ve played is based around your ability to adapt to your environment and survive until you succeed or fail 1,000 times before that success. By the end of the journey, you are able to do anything and everything you want. There is no “This is hard, I’m going to do this to make it easier”. You don’t just restart a game and get handed everything from yourself. Everything must be re-earned. That doesn’t exist here. There is no challenge and the only reward for doing so is to eventually be able to play the game fully.

Ah, you’re probably right. I don’t like something so instead of offering feedback or asking for anything to be changed during early access development, I should just quit because this game isn’t for me.

There have been quite a few people on the forums from the past, currently now, and probably more will still post about not having enough skills. This isn’t just a sudden issue that just started to be an issue, it goes all the way back to when they were first introduced. It’s easy for those that already have everything to say that everything is fine as is. What about those just starting out or just hitting max level for the first time?

Of course this was just an example, but the important fact is, I wouldn’t be. You had an idea that you thought would be neat for the game or make your game play more interesting and decided to take the time out of your day to post about it? Great! I quite enjoy the portal system in this game so I don’t agree with changing it, but I’m not going to just start telling you that you are wrong for an idea. Same goes for skills, forced alts, and a number of other things that people have had issue with. They are our thoughts and ideas and who are you to judge us or say we are wrong?

Final Thoughts:

By the time I’m max level with a character I want to be able to do what ever I want and craft what ever I want with the only limitation being my ability to find and gather what is required to do those things. I shouldn’t be forced to choose what tools I can or can’t make let alone use. My building abilities shouldn’t suffer because I just don’t have enough points to master a specific block shape. If I spend the time and effort to go get everything needed, why should I then not be able to use it simply because I’m limited on skill points? I’ve already done the work. Where is my reward? On an alt?

I’m not saying that those of us who want more out of our individual characters are right, and I’m not saying that people who enjoy alts are wrong. I’m saying that there are those of us who are asking for more and the worst that happens is you find that you can do a little bit more on each of your alts and we can do a little bit more on each of our solo mains. The game isn’t going to fall apart with or without this, some people just won’t play it and that is a damn shame.

Not even irritated,
-Eld

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Can’t wait for 187 going live :tired_face:

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@Eldwen @Zina we are investigating ways where we can make both camps happy. Both sides of the argument have been heard and we are looking at a possible solution.

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I was looking at the new crafting requirements last night and I’m trying to plan out what it will take to be able to make gem sling bows.
The workbench will require 1,500 power?
So the workbench will need 15 engines placed around it? I’m going to need to remodel the workshop.

A workbench engine needs 3 compact gems to craft it, so we will need 45 compact gems to build the engines to power a workbench to be able to build a gem slingbow?

Plus we need refined gems and gem shards to craft the slingbow.
Are gem shards in the game yet? Where will we find gem shards?

Update OP with details of Testing 187.4.

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Non-patch related text

I also find it interesting how this kind of topics have been created lately. I don’t know how open skillpool mmo games are nowadays but it feels like some of these skill complaints are coming from players who might be playing first time mmorgp :confused:. IMHO Boundless is giving quite much skills on max level already and when I compare it to some mmorpgs that I have been playing on past those are much more limited on that.

Isn’t this quite normal on mmo games to be able to try and play with different builds? Besides that alts have purposes in some games to spy and destroy guilds inside in some games.

I think this possible right now, just playing with alts allows to play alone quite well. Only problems might lay that someone can reserve land nearby solo players but then I see that problem in first place is that someone starts playing mmo based game.

I see Boundless more like MMORPG with sandbox possibilities, not just sandbox.

I agree, new patch makes new players will make start game hard. Upcoming survival elements that you describe is quite rough and will force players who like to play alone, at least on start, to assign skill points too much around of character sheet. It won’t be fun start because of getting drained out of stamina and being hungry all time.
It feels little bit too hardcore survival start when it is already taking time to get know about game. At least start is not so rough like survival games; as for example The Long Dark where getting cold, hungry and tired after walking few hundred metres.

More non-patch related text

I think that good rpg games have system that can’t allow all skills on one character, maybe not even on one account. Boundless has succeed on that quite well, and personally I like how open it is by being classless and raceless game with having only skillpoints where it almost open to assign those as wanted instead of being divided it to attribute-/skillpoint system.
If all characters would be able to do everything on max level why even have whole skill system at all or levels? I guess this will be still possible when game comes out as hosting own server would allow most likely modify whole skill system to as wanted. And personally I just don’t find it appealing that everything can be done on one character; I like playing around character builds.

There are points that I disagree on your thoughts about alts, but like you wrote none is wrong. Different way of thinking about the topic are welcome even if it is irritating :smiley:. My replies aren’t mean to be harsh, it is just easier me to write some of my thoughts as I nonfluent english speaker.

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I’ve played the start of the game (roughly 8 hours now on testing) and food was never an issue for me. I have more than enough starberries (well over 90) to keep me going. I roughly need to eat two to three starberries every 30 minutes. The only issues I’ve had is around certain crafting skills being a requirement (something we are looking at addressing in a more long term change) and key resources being too hard to find on start worlds, which is an easier thing to fix.

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My experience on playing as new character on test is most likely be heavily biased as being spoiled on my character attributes on live and having short list of things that I did want to try on test that did make me assign points way that player who is new to game world might have differently. As I did wrote somewhere above having struggle with increased items that player can find, having limited inventory space on start (and having hoarding problem :smiley:) might be part of the reason that I did felt like hunger-stamina would be too much.
Anyway I guess if hunger-stamina is real pain when it is hitting there will be more input about it, still I prefer to see it on live like it is now.

@luke-turbulenz or @james
I noticed while in hunts in live, the diff ways we take out meteors, yields some with huge xp, and others only loot sweep up and a fraction of xp. Some roles one would have missed out on half the mobs. The coming Healers/bombers may get xp if they throw damage bombs in the mix to. Or unsling a slingbow, But that’s a lot of juggling when in the heat of battle just to get xp. This is ofcourse assuming we will have a maxed out healer/bomber that has no room for bow skills,(still needs survival skills) unless there is more balance to the skills coming that allow a well rounded hunter, as opposed to hunter and healers separate. Which I do not mind, because it further separates boundless from minecraft and more of a mmo where we need people.

Is there plans on healing or resurrection xp when done healing onto others?

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Healers should be counted as combat characters. When a player heals another player and that player goes on to kill a creature the healer should get that XP as well. If that is not the case then that is an issue.

There are items you can craft which negates hunger and stamina.

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thnx, I actually havn’t been able to test if healing gives xp yet on test.

Finally!!! No returning to sanctum and then walking out only to realize you forgot to change. LOL

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For the extractor: recipes: suggest filter to show recipes that don’t require power. And another for ones that don’t require sparc.

Since there are 24 identical fresh vital essence selections I request differentiating the recipes, perhaps by saying from what you are extracting.

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What is the thought behind compacting coal need power?

I can compact all soil, all metals and all gem, but i can not compact coal without getting diamonds to build power cores…

Also missing recipes from furnace, like in the other machines (without going to knowledge page).

Maybe a new cooking own for the kitchen. Now all my food taste metal and burnt coal…

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Furnace not showing available recipes has always been a downer for me - comparing to machine recipes it’s way more difficult to figure out what’s possible etc.

Power to compact coal doesn’t seem to make much sense either. Looks like players starting the game and their progression will have to forget any kind of efficient spark production for several levels before they lay their hands on enough resources, materials or coins to buy them to be able to build engines. However, I am ready to wait before fully judging how power compacting of coal affects progression of a crafter and overall economy (coal supply, demand and prices, any bottle-neck effect on it, thus its influence of production of spark- and power-dependent items).

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