I meant the problem is not that the pie does not expire while logged of. The problem is that the XP is stored in the workbench and only checks if your buff is active when you “collect the XP from the machine”. It doesn’t matter if you eat the pie before logging of or after logging in but before getting in range of your benches.
And I love the change of no XP for rock->stone. Saving all your rock to mass craft it in an hour long, tedious task is the most dumb thing in this game. And the dumb, stupid tasks must never be the most efficient one. The most efficient way must always be the most fun way.
Totally agree with you. I wish other activities, especially activities that show off the game’s best parts, like plant gathering, gave anywhere near a reasonable amount of XP. I have enough levelled alts to not care about this change to stone XP, but I can imagine starting fresh now without this and other tricks. Some professions are so badly rewarded it’s no wonder people cheese on the side for XP.
Anyhoo, said all that before. Just agreeing really. The inanity of the crafting table being so rewarding is bad enough but when it’s also maximum efficiency XP available (outside of downright exploiting) it’s silly for the game experience.
Trouble is without it the game will be more of a slog. I think fundamentally it needs less slog, not more. Many of the game’s most attractive features are dependent on character progress.
Several aren’t finding ways, they are leaving the game to go play Minecraft or other games. For those who see building as the all thing, and need to the plots for the large builds, this is a punishment.
This keeps them from getting the experience points to get cubits to get plots, so they can’t do the building they want to do. Many don’t like to do the gather, mining, hunting, they see it as a chore and will trade off the ores they get for the items they need. trade the stone they don’t need for what they need, buy or trade for the tools they need.
It is taking away what they play for, and so they are quitting or planning on quitting if there is no change in the loss of xp.
I’m finding it no longer enjoyable to hunt/gahter for the items I now need in crafting in the centraforge. Some are too hard for me to get, take too long and I don’t feel it is worth it, I am playing less and less, from four to five hours a day to just one hour yesterday. Eventually, I will get to where I will play just to get enough to stock my shops so I can have coins to buy what I can’t find. If new content isn’t added, I could eventually quit.
I know players who have quit the game or won’t buy it because there is so much grinding and busy work that they feel it isn’t worth it. There are ones who are blind to those facts, but the game needs new players and this will keep them from getting new players and make the ones they have stop playing.
whats the thing(s) that you wish more players were doing more often?
looking at all the data available to you, what activity(s) do you see far fewer people engaging in than you would like to see?
why not look at that data and make those things more rewarding, encouraging people to take part in those activities?
that way if you do want to nerf cheesy exploits (as you guys see them), at least you will have given a greater incentive to go do something else instead!
@james
reading in the guild I am part of that it would be good to get experience for finding seams of needed items such as bark, gathering sap, berries, even in mining, which many see as a chore, not fun. I hate having to chop trees to get the limited amount of sap and berries I need, especially when I have to deal with the stout and strong spitters and hoppers while trying to do so. Hanging from a grapple makes for a easy target when I am chopping at a tree to get bark, sap and the exotic berries. Digging to get the waxy yams or shimmering orbs that I desperately need for crafting and food making. It is frustrating and the fun is gone.
I should NOT have to spend coin on brews, pies and buy expensive tools, if those are needed, they are too hard to get. I’m at level 50, and I don’t like farming inside a buildling, I want to get more than just the berries and such, but feel the experience I get is not enough for the danger I am in. Not everyone can defeat the critters easy, even with all the points into protective armor they can kill me. I’m not whining, but stating a fact. You want to see it as whining, do so, I could care less what many here think, I just know that players I have talked to have quit over this. Too much busy work, too expensive in buying what is needed to gather and mine and the pressure to get to higher level planets to get what is needed and not enough experience for the labor.
in regards to stone crafting
to be fair my self i call it a exploit too but also realized right now it is the only way to progress i had to do the “exploit” on a new mineing char so i could mine gems and was unable to do it the fair way cuz mineing XP is a joke at only 2 xp per block the only real way i have found to get XP is by crafting but is just not viable.
the 1 char i did the fast level method with got form 6-45 in one shot while my main who i have never done that on or hell even my crafter is only level 35 and 40 i have yet to see level 50+ without doing it
i think what we may be seeing here is the “downside” to this game being a non traditional MMO due to just lack of intest in the game i have started playing other MMO’s i releazed that boundless is missing a key thing “quests” if this was the WoW forums no one would even care about the nerf (pretending you got XP for crafting in that game) cuz there is a better way of getting it
we got to look at boundless here has a whole the reason people where doing the stone crafting thing is cuz when you look at other methods of getting XP they are just not there like i sayed befor getting 2 xp per block is nothing after level 8…crafting is a good way but even then unless you are doing mass crafts its still kind of low and even then depending on what you are makeing you are waiting anywhere form 2-24HR’s for it to finish and get that “payoff” gathering is on the same level has mineing and hunting is a good way but requires a decent time sink and a love or repetitive work.
You can’t actually solve/enforce this without preventing the transfer of all items between characters. If crafting stone from rocks is removed as a viable option, people will just find the next-most viable option. People using this method to level is a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself. You don’t want to get locked into a holding pattern of fixing new symptom after new symptom. If you feel the use of this strategy is too common to be ignored, you should be looking at why people are as dissatisfied as they are with the current gameplay.
Just putting this out there, but development decisions have led us here. If we still had separate pools of XP for different types of actions, we wouldn’t have this problem. People wouldn’t be able to craft their way to a combat character. I have no idea how you could implement that now, but I do believe the game would be better if we still had that. With a single XP pool, this was always going to happen. I believe some of even said as much at the time.
And Devils Advocate, but is providing stacks of stone to lower level alts to put into crafting tables REALLY that different from handing the a powerfully forged tools food and brews and them going to planets they have no right to be on and raking in 3x3 gathered resources? In either case, they both require way less input than the intended leveling process.
That first and last bullet stand out to me.
K, symbolism time. Imagine boundless as a great tree. Huge, beautiful. Many branches make up a tree, and it all comes together nicely. But what if you realized that that tree is basically just three huge branches and everything can be cut off any make no overall appearance change? That’s how I feel certain jobs and skills are being treated.
Those smaller branches are being overlooked because the larger ones are more eye-catching.
I think the picture needs to be broken down more and focused on what just this one profession would do. Let’s say gatherer. How would someone who only gathers make their levels? How would someone who only cuts wood/foliage make their levels? Don’t take any other aspect like mining or forging into the equation.
I remember before I came to these forums I stopped gathering bc there was a sudden xp drop. I completely forgot the disappearance of xp for wood, but it does explain why I no longer use it, even though I like it better.
I have my answer now, and it saddens me.
Most games with cut and dry classes still give each class a fair way to level, or a balance. It’s harder in boundless with this current skill system, but maybe while reevaluating it that can be taken into consideration.
Also, this:
While I don’t think there should be “no penalty” I do strongly disagree with the xp loss, and I think that’s also one of peoples’ big beefs and even why some use the rock xp method. My simple suggestion is change it to a timed debuff you have to be logged in for. The fact that there’s a skill to lower it shouldn’t even exist, because that points to the fact that it’s a known issue.
I will say this is the reason my husband doesn’t play anymore, and is a big reason I don’t bother anymore besides events and to check beacons.
Experience loss games are never played long in my personal history, and the only reason I’m still here is because I see a lot of beautiful potential, and the team’s involvement with the community and willingness to hash things out.
Aside wrong my fingers hurting for like 24 hours after spam clicking 1500 ish tables + other stuff for 4hrs 10 minutes, it wasn’t too bad. I watched entire season of First we Feast on youtube! Went by faster than expected!
Besides, lots and lots of time and effort was put in before I even got to the crafting part. I had to gather nearly all the rocks myself, I had to dig out a huge area with water to have a decent crafting area, I had to MANUALLY place 600ish rocks in each table to be most efficiwnt with my rocks, which btw took way longer than crafting all of it. It feels bad that it gets nerfed, because it really is not just “mass crafting”. There’s much more behind the scenes.
Also, some of us need stupid amounts of plots, not for the building itself, but to prevent people from ruining the scenery around. I’ve had to use about 1k plots just to plot lakes cause I don’t want people to build block houses there.
I want to offer my counter perspective to those upset by the change. The XP nerf makes me more interested in playing this game for a long period of time. I definitely fall on the MMO side of the MMO<--->Creative Mode spectrum, mostly because there’s already plenty of creative mode voxel games but none doing MMO quite like Boundless. I think grind is good in an MMO because it increases the value of the achievement when you show it off to other players. A building made entirely out of decorative emerald is more impressive if emeralds are hard to get. A 40 story brick building is more impressive if bricks are difficult to craft. I know that others coming from the creative mode angle want to build a large green building and the grind and the lava are in the way. We can’t see eye to eye on this but we can understand that this is a struggle purely on the MMO<--->Creative Mode spectrum and not introduce additional invective axes like Devs Just Want Our Money. We all know that isn’t the truth. Devs just want enough money to keep the lights on, put some food on the table, and give us all a place to escape the much more grindy, unbalanced, and unfair real world.
There will always be a “fastest XP method” in an MMO and many power gamers, myself included, will use it when they need levels. But the rock+pie is too cheesy to be this game’s “fastest XP method”. In a game about exploring planets, digging up rare resources, claiming precious land, and working hard to construct and maintain large buildings; why is clicking a “mass craft” button in a UI 1800 times and logging off the fastest way to gain XP? If you were to classify this game based on how the players actually gain their levels, the genre would be Clicker/Idle Game MMO!
With all that said I think there are legitimate gripes about the changes. I believe AoE rock byproduct from seam mining is the true source of the problem. And the uncapped earning potential of teaching food is also a design smell to me. Fixing those problems will take cleverness and team resources. Updating an XP value in a data file can be done right now. So I agree with the decision to stop the bleeding and address the longer term issues one by one with less time pressure. I also agree that XP for some of the other ways to play the game need a bump. I think after this change hunting will be the best source of quick XP, since the meteor completion XP was already rebalanced. If the devs bring that same care and attention to other playstyles I’m sure there will be opportunities for XP bumps in those as well.
I fully understand, I’ve done the same quite a few times, but my fingers can’t take it anymore. I still need about 9k plots for my final build, but I don’t think thats going to be happening anytime soon.
Fun for who? What I see as fun others don’t. Some see building as fun and will “suffer” with the crafting from rock to stone for the experience to get the points to get the cubits for the big builds.
I suffer with mining to get the ores I need for making the tools that I need for doing the explore, gathering I need, except that I am starting to find it boring as I feel I’m not getting enough xp for the dangers I face on higher level planets and the long time I need in crafting items. We all have our own likes and what we see as fun, busy work, frustrating and just flat out boring vary from player to player.
We can decide which negative part make the good parts worth it or just up and leave, visiting long enough to fuel beacons so we won’t lose anything while we wait in hopes of more content to make it fun again.
I have to go with @Peyago 's response to this. The problem for me has never been a competitive one, of feeling cheated - it’s been a problem of deprivation and of desperation. I’ve been playing this game on and off since 2015 now, more so since the chisel update a little over a year ago, and the one thing that’s always driven me nuts about it is having the “brakes” put on every creative avenue I’ve pursued.
Instead of filling the worlds with beautiful and creative works, it’s been an uphill battle to ration out space and materials. I’m not bothered by other people feasting - more upset that I’ve been needlessly starving myself.
They really lower prestige so much in something that is so difficult to mine and then elaborate as the decorative diamond and other, in the same iron, the titanium and the unresolved mechanized gold easy to make or fast unless you have many machines, it seems to me that what they are looking for is to throw out of the game the veterans that we have spent hours and hours in the game, as we compensate all this time, weapons, tools, food and brews lost, no longer interested in mining that and that low prestige, I think too much difference, I do not think that removing the prestige of veterans change anything, you also take the quick way to the new players to level up, you are more making a hyper-hard game, you do not get This, I am afraid that I will end up leaving the game because the only thing that tied me to him was the prestige and the way to win it, it is clear that this game is based on that and the rest you have stuffed, since you only pay attention to this and not to the agriculture or to the titans that were already years ago warned that you ivais to update, I am afraid that in the end all this will serve to throw to the few veterans who like to build
This makes me think about the big grand, majestic builds and cities we see in the trailer for this game. Builds like that seem to be no longer possible with these kinds of nerfs. Like, how would it ever be possible when our source of XP -> Plots are being stripped away at the most basic level? Builds of that size probably used millions of bricks. The XP gained from the Rock -> Stone section of the crafting process of those Bricks probably paid for hundreds of Plots that made those builds possible.
And therein lies my biggest gripe with this. I state once again… I’ve never used this so called ‘Exploit’ to level or earn cubits. (Until now anyway). But, because my plan/grand-design is so large, I figure “Oh I’ll be gaining levels/plots as I’m making all the stone to turn into all the bricks I need because my plan is so BIG. So, no worries there. I’ll carry on and have fun doing so”.
And then I look up and see a big ugly Nerf Hammer falling from the sky and SMASH! There goes any kind of plans I had to Build Big! Why? Because I’m losing all those plots that I would have earned from playing legitimately and simply crafting the stuff I ‘needed’ to build with.
So yea, cancel all your BIG Build plans you see in the trailer, folks. Aint ever gonna happen unless you break out your purses and your wallets.
I broke my wallet out a few minutes ago. I broke it out and bought a new game called “Satisfactory”. We’ll wait and see how it all plays out but I think I’ve found my new building game.
I made a similar complaint not long after launch, and the argument as it was presented to me at the time was, “Those were professional builders,” and “That’s intended as an endgame, group activity.” TLDR: That’s not for you. Realistically, what are the odds that you can find a sufficient number of people with sufficient plots/resources, who ALSO share the same creative vision - AND THEN you have to keep them playing the entire time, and if one of them quits then 20% of your city evaporates?..
Whereas, if you just handed me a stack of bricks and enough plots, and left me in my room with some Pepsi and Doritos, I could finish it for you in about a week.
I’ve never stopped resenting the fact that I can’t play the game in the way that I’d like to.
Adjust the mass craft values for stone. Make it larger quantities and reduce the xp. It’s not the entire game population that are complaining about this as an exploit, it’s the select few regular forum posters that want the change. I agree it’s too easy for mid to end game players, but it certainly helps newer players. The grind in the beginning is to excessive. Anything that takes time and effort should have some reward. It’s the 0 xp that we are complaining about.
I don’t think this will change. Ever. For any of us.
I’ve been stonewalled in not being able to play the game I want to because there isn’t enough stuff in the game. And directions in the game’s design keep it like that. You aren’t the only one that feels this way man.