Do players really need huge amounts of food components to be self sufficient? Many regen farms give generously good amounts of components right now in short time effort. And most those players who use these services can’t be called purely independent, they rely gateways and structures build by other players.
I am also questioning of this that who self sufficient player needs even one smart stacks of exotic yams, when those have just one use in game? One smart stack is worth of over 60h (900/360x50x30min) of active Playing time
Just to clarify I still hope there to be more than one way to get food components, I think that in current testing drops it would already compete with regen farms for players who want to do stuff for themselves.
I do think there is a difference as now there is another step and this is where I have a problem.
Old version I gathered the item then crafted with it. Two steps to get and use a product And it repeats the same way each time.
Farming version, I gather seeds, plant seeds, harvest seeds then craft the item. Then to do it again I have to gather seed, plant seeds, harvest seeds, then craft the item.
The only difference in farming is that I do probably get more of the resource when harvest versus gathering. But is it worth the extra step to have to regather every time?
I am not sure it is as clear cut as that. Once you have the extractor you put some stuff in and come back X number of hours later and it is done. With farming you set things up, put your seeds in, and come back X number of hours later and it is done… They are the same in that way.
Yes you can choose to play deeper into farming and constantly fertilize and do other things with your crops but that is not required. You can easily just set it and forget it like anything else in the game until you come back later to get your returns.
Even though there was no suggestion for this by the poster, why is it a bad suggestion? One of the key components in the game IS to be a player exchanging with player. So there is no reason people can’t make a commerce transaction at any point in the process.
That is only true if the old system was in place as a FINAL solution. Many parts of this game were not end state components. They were placeholder features to give game play until future development happened.
Additionally, systems change and a game can easily become stale and old if it isn’t willing to possibly replace systems and change gameplay. Things can evolve - not that they should - but they should at least have the options and it be considered.
If you do not allow yourself to be open to change as a programmer then you will consistently constrict game play by requiring yourself to never change or adjust an existing feature. It is not a sustainable option because especially when features rely on each other. You can easily create a situation where something must go away to allow growth in the other area.
I have seen this happen with another game and it ends poorly. treating a community who paid for a full release game as if they are beta testers just drives players away. You can not hide behind the excuse “the game is still in development” the game is full release, and whether that was bs or not you can longer dev the game as if it is in EA. A full release game has expectations and if you treat it like an EA game expect lots of player loss.
I am not calling anything specifically placeholders because that is up to the developers to define… but for those of that have been around a long time and seen the development of the game we clearly can tell that various things were in place but likely could or would change as the game progressed.
It is just a matter of perspective and how you look at the game. Some people look at a mountain and say it will never change while others will see that over time it will erode or a new mountain might emerge beside it.
The game did have to rush to release due to an issue with Sony and a few features that were planned didn’t hit. So the developers had to be realistic and continue to grow the game as they can.
No one is doing this or using anything as an excuse. Just because a game is in release does not mean it will never change in any form or fashion. It is unrealistic to see things that way especially in a game that is growing and adding features compared to a game like Starcraft that has been out forever…
When you are replacing core systems, not adding to the game but rather replacing or removing systems, you will drive players away every time you do so. If you continue the trend with every update you will find your playerbase getting smaller and smaller. if you want an MMO then doing this is unsustainable and will inevitably bring your game to an end. Growing the game is good, replacing core mechanics that function is bad. You end up getting in a never ending cycle where you waste development resources redoing things that already work XD. Changes to the game should always be additions and rebalance but at this point any replacement or removal of existing systems will just cause player loss. I legit watched a game replace the same core systems 6 times over the course of 5 years, 3 of which were in “full release”.
I completely agree you have to approach change in a way that is smart or the game can suffer pretty heavy losses. But, as a developer and someone selling anything you have to be prepared to lose some customers or at least accept that your numbers might adjust with change. You do this because in your estimation you will gain customers over the longer period of time. You cannot allow yourself to not do anything for fear of losing people.
Even with this update we see some people that threaten to leave and we see plenty of people that are fine working with the change and will continue to play the game. Each person has that line in the sand and they will decide what changes they like and don’t like… the developers cannot control this so they just need to focus on moving the game forward in a way they want and one that the largest amount of customers like.
In regards to “regen farms” I am not sure that is a core game mechanic. That is an adverse effect from a piece of game play (regen bomb) that was added after the fact. The core game play is you mine resources, wait for server based regen, and repeat - not throw a bomb down while you do nothing else but hit the resources. So removing the functionality of regen farming is not affecting any core mechanics.
This can quickly get into subjective territory… many people do not consider it wasting resources when you improve things and make them better or put something in that improves a variety of things. Just because something works does not mean you don’t change it… If we did that we would still be using only stone wheels.
This is subjective because loss and gain happens every day with the people that play. No one knows what will happen until afterward and even thing many things are linked and it is very hard to prove that 1 change caused X loss unless you individually survey each person.
Which game was this? How does that relate to Boundless?
You say its subjective but I lived through a dev team developing like this and it absolutely destroyed the game to the point that the dev company is now going to out of business. MMO’s are especially subject to this as they live and die by player count and recurrent spending. A dev team absolutely needs to consider what effects changes will have on their population as they rely on that population for their existence XD. I am not talking RL tech development, I am talking game development and replacing systems that work causes you to lose players while ADDING new content gives your playerbase a reason to continue to play, pretty easy choice if you ask me.
I never said anything about what you find fun. I made an argument that the way farming works isn’t fun, and you responded by saying
So your response to “this doesn’t feel fun.” is “it works the same way as other activities, why should it be any different?” To which I reply, “why shouldn’t it be different if people aren’t finding it fun? It is new, why can’t we learn from the other professions and make this one better?”
Now who is putting words in other people’s mouths and arguing against straw men? Hint: it’s you!
i just saw a video that i think covers this issue perfectly replace no xp(in the vid) with regen farming and it really draws perfectly
the too long dont watch version
WoW has a history of nerfing or removeing wacky things the community finds fun and des not really effect anything cuz it did not fall under the devs arbitrary "vision"rather then enberaceing it and WoW is not even a sandbox game.
now i understand this is a bit different due to the fact that you are getting resources with regen mineing but it was not hurting anyone the prices of pies where not crazy low and i dont recall seeing any threads saying shut it down yet the devs still removed it for a system that fit there “vision” same thing with bomb mining and im sure we will have even more examples down the line.
maybe have farming but also have a system around regen farming that is tweaked so you can do one or the other and not have the game be like “oh you are regen farming will you are going to get next to nothing for it cuz you shod be farming instead”
Yes it is subjective. Your experience was that it ruined the game. This could come to pass with Boundless too or it might not. I’ve been part of plenty of big projects and developments where I saw both sides of the equation - decision = bad outcome and decision = great outcome. It comes down to how you adapt and move forward with each decision.
So are you saying this dev team is not doing that?
Are you saying that because the change makes some users pissed they shouldn’t do it because those people might leave? What about the people that might leave the game because of the continued hacking and continued taking advantage of core mechanics that were not meant to be played that way?
Which group should they keep? The point I am trying to make is they understand this and are working to balance the equation as best as they can.
It seems the devs are working to ADD new content all the time but are realistic that you will not please every person. Plenty of people are happy or accept the changes… so it seems like the direction is going the right way. We can’t forsee the future and shouldn’t me making absolute decisions as to whether these changes are the best or worst for the game until it plays out some more and the final design is released to production.
I think some people would challenge this… Various people I have played with are finding it fun… The point @Stretchious is making overall that a some of these things are subjective and really aren’t useful to discuss in regards to the large conversation… at least the way I am reading it.
The test server is the current, albeit first pass, developer take on how they want this to go. They want to replace regen farming and surface gathering of these mats with a surface gathering/waiting system. No matter how you cut it they are removing a system, actually two systems, in favor of a new untried third. I had not seen that you asked which game I was referring to but that game is called Robocraft, an always online multiplayer game. Some things are very similar between the two games such as entering “full release” and yet still approaching development as if the game is beta. Now WS does some things very much better than Freejam did, such as using a test server for new content pushes rather than using live as a test service. However, this new idea of “never address balance just test the systems” is a worrying trend to start. Many things in Boundless are a direct result of cooperation between WS and their players, we need to continue that.
We haven’t defined what a “system” is so I might challenge whether the use of replacement should be toward 1 or 2 systems. Either way it doesn’t really matter since I agree with the general statement that what is released into testing is the new way they wish the game to be played across the board for getting the items that you are able to get via farming.
I am certainly not arguing that point nor that this decision is something they need to be careful of and think about a lot… which I would assume they have since they spent months coding it.
You still did not address my question though:
It seems like you are saying they are not taking things into consideration about how this affects the game and who is hurt or helped by these changes? Considering that you are making references to a failed game or set of developers that didn’t do things well are you insinuating that you don’t trust or think we have smart developers running WS and that their decisions are bad? Or are you just focused on the specific part of game play that you use frequently and are not happy that it is looking to be removed?
This isn’t a new idea. Just some people didn’t know that was one of the expectations and ways these developers operate. It makes perfect sense to make sure a system in finalized before you get into the balance of it… how else can you baseline things and ensure that your balance isn’t being effected by coding issues?
