Testing 218: Exoworlds, Blink, Rift and Umbris!

I rarely do rocks for XP anymore, but I also oppose this change on the grounds it hurts newer players.

8 Likes

Absolutely in favour of this. I get “stressed” (not really stressed, gaming stressed) by short timer buffs. I seem to recall James also saying he doesn’t like time based effects at one point. Either this or a cap on XP per day from single activities would be better.

3 Likes

I think, that a player should be able to go on a two week vacation and be able to fuel their portal I do not think they should have to have a friend do it or be restricted to a 1x2 portal. As has been stated by James in the past, every player should be able to maintain a portal with SOME effort. He did not say it should be impossible, or require multiple players. Should a hub with dozens of portals require more players? Sure.

Allowing whatever the developers have in mind for longer lasting portal fuel, is a step in the right direction. The new fuel will still require effort to get the materials and make the fuel, so it is not free and effortless. I do not think portals should require no maintenance. I think that goes to far.

At least this change is going to make it easier for the casual player to actually play the game.

6 Likes

Kal, y you up so early :pig::coffee:

I despise large portals due to the need to constantly refuel manually. It isn’t a “fun” task, it’s a chore. I don’t mind the cost, it’s the task of refueling and being unable to take a week off I have a problem with.

Also I think the rock XP change is a bad idea, or at least it warrants revisiting the death penalty. See my other thread for voting and discussion on the death penalty.

5 Likes

Stone Crafting XP

Honestly, I support the change. Here is what I posted some time last year and I still stand by it:

People in here were arguing over whether or not it is an exploit, or even the definition of “exploit”. From a developer’s perspective I would definitely consider it an exploit.

I don’t think you could argue that the developers intended for players to maximize the duration of teaching pies by logging out and only logging in to press the same button a couple of hundreds or thousands of times and for them to get hundreds of thousands of XP that way. Inaction or tolerance so far should not be confused with acceptance or intent.

I think at the very least we could settle on “exploity”.

Others also bring up the concern of people wanting to use their time efficiently since they have a limited amount of time to play, jobs, families to support, etc. So I have to ask, specifically if that is the case, why would you want to spend a large amount of time just mining rocks and pressing workbench buttons? I get that plots are precious, but personally I’d rather do things in the game that are fun to do to earn XP, or to support the devs.

I might be a minority in this, but I deliberately didn’t eat any rock pies on my main character for that very reason, because I wanted to actually enjoy leveling up while playing the game instead of just getting there as fast as possible. And yeah, my crafter and hunter both overtook him a long time ago, but I have no regrets regardless.

Anyway, all that said, I’m not saying this change is perfect, but it is a step in the right direction in my opinion. How much people have been relying on it and don’t want to see it changed simply highlights the imbalance of XP gain distribution across the different activities to begin with.

My main suggestion is to remedy that imbalance, ideally along with the stone crafting XP removal or reduction. Hunting was already buffed to oblivion in my opinion and I imagine might even become one of the next big powerlevel strategies if this change goes through. What I would like to see:

  • More (much more!) XP for uncovering regions, especially on high tier planets
  • More XP for gathering
  • More XP for building
  • More XP for objectives and feats (especially mid- to late game)

Forging Changes

Devs in the thread already pointed out that the change to gem item efficiency is not intended, and I am actually glad to see that the new tier of items were changed to all have the same flexibility. Forging difficulty aside for now, this brings me to another thing I would like to see changed while we are at it: why do all the different gem items have different flexibility values to begin with?

  • It can be bypassed anyway by putting one emerald or diamond version in the first slot of the smart stack before forging.
  • It doesn’t really make any sense to me that especially amethyst and topaz should suffer from lower flexibility when they are already underdogs due to their base damage. Because the game works with flat damage reduction from armor (for both blocks and creatures), higher damage will generally always be more valuable than higher action speed. Especially because for slingbows that also means burning through augments less efficiently.

Prestige Changes

Looking really interesting so far, for anyone interested I made a spreadsheet which shows the changes to all the blocks’ base prestige values. Here are some highlights:

Block Old New
Decorative Gems 140 22
Machined Titanium Alloy 80 24
Machined Iron 60 19
Deco Marble/Gravel/Wicker/Mosaic 50 19
Dark Glass 12 13
Ornate Gleam Door 12 20
Decorative Wood/Stone 12 12
Brick 10 9
Refined Gleam 10 5
Gleam 6 3

From what I tested in game so far, the bonuses can be several times higher to compensate for the new low base values. Along with the, I guess you could call it “normalization” of the blocks, it will definitely be interesting to see the impact to player behavior on prod.

I do think there could maybe be a few more tweaks, for instance the new decorative blocks are still only on par with machined iron, despite being way more effort if you ask me.

When it comes to the bonuses, I really wish there was a way to see a breakdown, or at least some more information. I do hope that showing at least some more information in game (not the debug menu) is planned for the future.

I tested a few plot configurations in an empty 8x8x8 space. Beacon Control adds 5 base prestige and Refined Gold Alloy adds 20. So, with only one of each placed it appears that it was applying a whopping 500% bonus?

Total prestige:

  • Just Beacon Control: 10
  • Beacon Control and 1 Refined Gold Alloy: 150
  • Beacon Control and 2 Refined Gold Alloy: 291
  • Beacon Control and 3 Refined Gold Alloy: 432
  • Beacon Control and 4 Refined Gold Alloy: 573

What seemed odd is that chiseling any of the alloy blocks didn’t change total prestige at all, but I didn’t do any further testing yet.

Exo Worlds

Huh? Oh yeah, that is also a thing, almost forgot. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
Not much I can comment on that yet, but I do think it’s fascinating how much impact small changes can have, even propelling them to the forefront of the debate.

Developers: “New types of worlds, new items, new blocks, new end game content!”
Community: “Yeah, but that one small change to a single value, though…”

Tl;dr:

  • Stone XP to 0 is fine imo, but would be better bundled with XP buffs to other activities
  • Please consider giving all gem items consistent flexibility like with the new items
  • Prestige changes look interesting and will hopefully switch things up!
9 Likes

Because stone is the basis for a large number of building materials so you need it if you are going to build. You cannot buy everything at some point you have to have something to sell. If you are a builder then plots are important. Maybe not to every role in game (hunter, miner, shopkeeper, explorer) but they matter to builders. I think an argument can be made that without building most of the things that are crafted are unnecessary (no need for decorative or refined materials, bricks, posts, chairs, tables, etc…) all you have at that point is an economy game where I guess the point would be to get the most coin possible.

I do not enjoy mining, but at least I was getting something for the effort to turn the rock into something that
was needed for other recipes or could be used to build. Now I get zippo. So getting the skills I need to chisel or increased damage to make mining easier are made more time consuming.

Edit: I guess what I do not understand was how was this hurting any other players to keep this in the game? If you choose not to do it fine. But why take it away from all players?

Hmm, seems I will be taking a large hit due to building with mostly machined iron and titanium!

Seems like quite a few big drops in prestige, you come across anything that is taking a big bump upwards?

It hurts all players if the game encourages boring and repetitive activities as the main way to gain XP, which I think results in much more fatigue and people getting tired of the game. Not to mention if it affects the bottom line for the developers if players can pretty much bypass a huge part of their business model, which is of course only an assumption and it would be hard to proof “lost sales” etc., but I do think overall it can be a healthy change for the game.

4 Likes

@Pfiffel was kind enough to post the entire list in the Boundless discord under Questions.

1 Like

Across the board, base prestige is way lower, though signs and doors are finally getting some love. The big bump upwards will mostly be the changes to the bonuses for total prestige I think.

1 Like

You know what I will kind of agree with you. Mining is boring for me. . the fun activity is building, but the game does not permit me to do that full time. It requires some grind. I would argue each player will define grind as the activities they find repetitive and/or unappealing.

I have to have a way to acquire the blocks I need to build. Mining while boring is the most efficient way to get the blocks I needed to make/craft other materials and the xp I needed for the skills to build and the levels to gain plots. If they want to increase drops or make it easier to use unforged tools to gather materials, I am all for it.

If you want to reduce fatigue then add activities to the game and content. Adding time to leveling does not seem like a good way to retain players. It seems to me it will do the opposite.

I think to your last point, I find that somewhat disturbing. If the developers are trying to restrict player leveling to increase cubit purchases for plots then I will have to seriously rethink making any purchases of cubits in the future. I have bought cubits and exchanged any I earned in game for more plots (full disclosure I also did get two alts with cubits). If I really felt this was true, I am not sure I would even buy gleam club anymore.

2 Likes

Wait? You guys they should remove this?

Jokes aside, I still stand by my words that it’s unfair towards new players, who are already at a huge disadvantage compared to people who played since launch.

But we do what we can, better masscraft and mine as much as we can in the next days/weeks to stock up on cubits and plots. Besides, someone said it isn’t fun, but it is if you watch Joe Rogan podcast or listen to DeGrasse Tyson book :ok_hand:

6 Likes

If that was the case they could’ve easily fixed this months ago by stopping teaching pies retaining duration when logged out.

5 Likes

Pretty sure he didn’t mean that the pies stop running out but the process of just abusing it to masscraft stuff over and over without having to use several pies.

I have no idea what’s going on in your mind! With the alleged improvements (Nerfs) you drive away only new players!

the game is hard enough for beginners! damn it - even Minecraft is friendlier beginner ?! The game is supposed to be fun and not a game for hardcore survival players - then you can play Dark Souls too ?!

And if the AOE effect really gets worse, it will be the last time I’ve invested Gleam Club or Euros in this game because it makes no more fun and ist so damn senseless! Is this game designed for school kidz, students and unemployed who can spend 24/7 H / D in this game? For people who have work it will only be harder = less interesting!

and sorry - please do not fool us! The stone nerf is just there for even more people to spend real money to have plots! Of course, I can understand this - but I, for example, I’ve earned by building with my 140 lvl … My wife does not like building, but She love crafting! For her, the mainexp source would be completely closed! Then reduce it or make it so that as with the wood, the stones are right there! then it will be more refined!

I dont like the new way!

You’re making the game harder, chasing away new players and hoping at the same time, if you set the Stones to 0 xp - than spend more of the old players real money, but then they are angry and frustrated!?..

You guys know Charles Darwin? …

3 Likes

The teaching pie should just give a flat amount XP when consumed, like the cheat leaf on the test server (but, obviously, much less).

… You, uh… got any stones left? I never did this, and now I feel like I’m about to miss the bus.

2 Likes

I’m pretty sure that is using the xp cheat loaf on the test server!

But it’s an exaggerated example of what does happen.

If you have been happily playing the game without using the rock-stone xp gain, nothing is gonna change for you, so don’t worry about it!

2 Likes

I like the way the teaching pies work, the fact they double xp for a certain amount of time means you have to think a little more strategically about using them.

A simple consume for 20k xp would lead to people just baking and consuming pies in the one spot. A bit like why the rock to stone xp is being removed. You would just be swapping one slice of cheese for another.