Thats why there should be an equal balance (and trade off) for every one! Its the same with every (99%) of MMOS
Take World of warcraft/SWTOR and the like…
level 1 ++ - you can quest and hunt lore entirely on your own (if thats your thing) all the way to and beyond max level
you can do the above - but then at xx level you are able to open dungeons/raids etc… they are there purely for the social aspect… (if thats your thing)…
concerning point 2 - but… you can also level up to be OP for dungeon of XX and loot it all solo if you need loot of XX (if thats your thing ands you don’t want to risk the gamble of otheres in the party getting it then fighting over who needs it more!)
you can also RPG and form your own story One day 2k years ago… little bobby jones came across a magic sword (could be a real legendary sword oyu get from a dungeon) and he goes out to mee his freinds and shows it to them… they then prepare for the journey to the Moutain of Shrouded Mists to battle the dragon as old as time and find the fountain of youth… 2 days later they set out… 3 days after this they come across dungeon of XX (where they party up but RP that they have to battle some immense troll for clues… etc tec if thats your thing…
BUT this game HEAVILLY supports builders more than anyone else (IMHO) , currently
so to elaborate… on the above discussion Release Faq a few people were talking about how they should be balancing the game… of what people should or should not be doing and etc
My point in this thread is to paraphrase? the other MMOs and explaine how it could be done so everyone is happy… so keeping to the same topic above… we are getting dungeons/raids/etc at some point thats how they could/should? be done to make it good for everyone…
But it could (and should) aslo include miners/builders/hunters/levling and skill points…
Find a correct balance for all of the above - should leveling be free-form like No Man’s Sky for example? (even though there are no levels/skills in that game, you still have a sense of it because you cannot do X unless/util you have built/bought/sold/talked to Y) … They are both sandbox (so is Minecraft/creativerse and the like and none of those games have SP/levels… they only have tech and what you can/currently do because of BLEARGH…
That way as an example… starter builders cant build X until they have found/bought/unlocked recipe of Y…
Make it the same for crafters - You cannot craft x… until you have found/bought recipe of Y
but miners would have to use a different example… - they can only mine stone until they have done X to be able to mine coal… and then mine X coal to be able to mine iron and etc…
That way it is free-form… in true sandbox nature… which would make everyone happy because even though you still cant do all of it at step one… you still have something to work towards
But then as the survival skills and jump skills and etc… let’s use again another example…
*get attaked/killed x ammount of times will make you slightly tougher… eat x ammount of x will make you slightly more energy… kill x ammount of x will make you more effecient at hunting…
The list is almost endless… and something like that would mean the code would have to be re-written from scratch?
I know it can be done easier than that… and there are better examples… but they are lost to me…
Although my end point is also the point i started on… the game needs a balaance that will please everyone… and why have levels in a sandbox game when no other one does (to my knowlege)
and etc et al
I am not officially reccomending they should ditch leveling… i am giving an example only on how things could be done in certain ways…
The best way to please no one is to try and please everyone. This isn’t a massive 3rd party studio with 100 million+ budget. They have to focus the content development on something. I think it’s unrealistic to ask them to spread the content out or this game is going to be lacking in content for far longer than it should.
but how can they do that this close to release? that is my poit
I’m sure you have good ideas about it as does everyone else… but 75% of the forum is being flooded with posts of *why this? why not that? if this… that suffers… i wont play on release… why/how/when/where… it should be different… blahblahblah * (myself included in that) so focuse on the main point of balancing… and making it so please no one - with pleasing everyone?
They can’t balance the game the way people want. They don’t have the manpower. Certain things are going to take development priority, and frankly, I think they’ve catered too much to pleasing everyone and that hindered development considerably.
The goal and focus of this game was an MMO, but people kept steering it towards being a single-player Minecraft experience with optional multiplayer it seems like. The game is literally advertised on the assumption it’s a living universe with player shops and interaction, so if MMO players come in here and find themselves surrounded with people who just want to be left alone and want to do everything solo, they never should have bothered to make it into an MMO in the first place.
yes they can… short answer = patch days (one promise was we will continue updating and patching the game long after release)
you forgot the tagline… MMO/Sandbox
edit: I was not shouting
and to clear up any confusion concerning my opinion of solo play is i am only trying to say it should be a 50/50 choice meaning… in a sandbox game generally speaking now you are able to do anything you want at any time, concerning the games parameters…
If mmo co-oprativity is forced… it no longer becomes sandbox… if leveling/skilling up is forced… it no longer becomes sandbox… etc
as i have always said… any of my thoughts are my thoughts whether right or wrong, as people have seen of me… i do not, never have and never will have a filter… i am anarchaic by nature (freedom or death etc )
i missed what you wrote here when i was in warrior mode, but in short?
Nail on the head dude
An equal balance (not only for group/solo) but also for… miners/builders/hunters/exploeres and everyone
if it could be done without forced leveling then i would be even happier… EVE online had the right idea of it… ok fair enough you still have to skill up… but everyone is on a equal footing… E.g
you can mine if you want - if you do you need to spec the ships/cargo for it
the same for mission running
the same for ratting and incursions and pvp and everything else inbetween
The way it was done right? Is simply because everyone is equal… example… a mission runner doing story missions 12 hours a day in a T4 Destroyer can easily get the same ammount of cash ad rep as a miner in a T4 Barge mining 12 hours a day… and etc - this is the best example i can think of
I prefer games without levels and without developer made goals listed anywhere. You go and play. As you play you get better skilled at the things you do and don’t get better at things you don’t do. SOTA I like because of that. Yes, you need to go buy a pickaxe if you want to mine. Super cheap and a few minutes play gives you the money. Now as you are running along perhaps following the story and perhaps not, you see some copper go mine it. You get skill points in mining by mining. Someday you want to be better then go see a trainer and purchase some skills with mining skill points and some gold. Mining is one of 133 skill trees. Get good at whatever you want and ignore whatever you want. It’s all up to you. I don’t remember if that one has character levels or not. Either it doesn’t, or I just never had a reason to pay attention to it as all that really matters is your skill at doing the things you choose to do. Boundless has too much emphasis on levels rather than skills since in Boundless your skill points come from leveling your character rather than leveling your individual skill. By leveling skills individually rather than based on a character level people are free to be great at things they wish to be great at with enough effort and time doing that thing. Get as good as you wish at different things. If you have years of time then master all 133 skill trees. At the same time, if developers choose to add to a skill tree skills they create the new skill and plug it in wherever in the tree they wish. When you as a player go to your skill tree and see a new skill you can get it if your branches connect to that new skill and you have the points and gold available. Character level is really unnecessary when the game is skill based rather than character level based. Boundless in the end is character level based since skill points are a result of character level as well as plots under the old system or cubits with which you can get plots under the new system comes somewhat due to character level.
^ this is the exact point i was trying to make (never heard of SOTA though (unless you mean DOTA )
But yes… this is EXACTLY (emphasis only) how boundless was ~ a year ago… and then once they bought in official* levleing… the rest is history really
Give it to @ElfMarine for being the best E.G’er of the centurary
Everytime you mined you got better at it automatically (your hammer would get faster)
The more you crafted you would get better at crafting and be able to craft better things…
The same as killing mobs…
And cooking/eating…
And guess what… this all happend in a game called (GASP!) Boundless!
maybe it should be retitled Oort Online… because it has been less and less Boundless as time has gone on
And please never forget the fact that a LOT was changed to bring in the cubits feature and the micro trans store which is coming in 1.0 (again… taking away from what is Boundless - if you can afford to… you can!.. Sound Boundless to you?)
Maybe i should become homeless again for a while? - I have no idea how to turn off
Nothing can be forced in Boundless if it can be bought with coins in-game. For example, I hate the centraforge minigame. However I’m not forced into using it. I will simply buy my forged gear from other players and shops. Problem solved.
I don’t think every activity should be 50/50 solo/group play. That’s how you very quickly ruin a game. Solo should be good for some things; grouping should be good for other things. Why make the modes compete? It makes no sense.
Sidenote: I don’t understand the standard you’re trying to set with the way current MMOs do it. The whole reason MMOs are in decline in popularity lately is exactly because they try to cater to everyone, and make it all “balanced”, which usually ends up making it homogeneous and all action meaningless because everyone can do everything if they want to. I’d rather have a game where you can focus what you want, but not necessarily the way you want, and by doing x you sacrifice y. This way we have specialties and people can be good at one thing they like and ignore or buy to compensate for things they don’t like. Good for a player-driven economy too
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one hating the centraforge. lol I have never seen one and don’t have a desire to. The first night I saw all the comments usually along the lines of “Okay, that’s enough gambling for the night.” That matched the descriptions prior to it coming in I had seen. I’m not interested in gambling in games, so, I have no interest in the centraforge. If something requires something that has gone through a centraforge I’ll likely do without and buy if absolutely necessary. More than likely I never buy anything made with one and just don’t do anything that needs it.
As for solo versus group I agree as long as group doesn’t get more experience than solo and doesn’t get more or better drops than solo. If people want to group for fun then great and I might even occasionally join. So far though group has an advantage in hunting as people do group hunts simply because they can gain experience fast enough to reach level 50 in a matter of a few days and can get drops they are incapable of getting on their own or much faster than they can on their own. That is how it appears group play is being forced as much as possible and I refuse to do that. The advantage of group play should be limited to the fun of social interaction and in building cooperation among builders to make something cool. On PvP planets then group can work together to win on that planet, but, it should not give any advantages over people who don’t do PvP on non-PvP planets. The fun should be the reward. Goodies for group play just drives away solo players.
As for ruining a game by trying to please everyone, I have seen that repeatedly. WoW was a good example as it was fun for awhile. Then people kept asking for things to be easier for them because they couldn’t get some of the things better players were getting. Those without a lot of time demanded to have equal results with people that do have a lot of time. The game was destroyed as it was dumbed down to please everyone and many of us left to never return. Plus, once at max level there really is almost nothing to do beyond the same few dungeons day after day so there is nothing to keep you there once you make max level (and people buy accounts with all max level characters so they don’t have to ever do any actual play to have everything). Other MMOs did the same thing and the whole market has been hurt by it as you can’t find anything now that hasn’t to at least some extent tried to please everyone and ruined at least parts of their games. Overall I probably still usually spend more time in solo games than in MMO’s because of that problem. Solo games end up more interesting as they are more difficult although some you have to manually raise the difficulty to have a challenge or refuse to do any cheats offered.
Honestly, this is the biggest difficulty in balancing the game. Because the remit is so vast, everybody has their own opinion about what they think this game is, and based on that have developed their own expectations about what they think they should get out of it. For example, you seem to believe it’s a MMO first and foremost, whereas I think of it more as a persistent sandbox with some MMO tooling.
Unfortunately, in an attempt to describe the game a couple of well known and largely incompatible genres have been used together (from the homepage: ‘epic voxel sandbox MMO’. When your game is trying to mix well established genres, it’s far harder to balance. Any individual coming to the game may be doing so purely because of ONE of those labels, and fall for the expectation that the majority of the game’s features will work as they have in other games of that ONE genre.
It also doesn’t help that MMO doesn’t even mean anything specific. In the broadest sense, an MMO is just a game where a large number of people can play online together in the same space. It doesn’t technically require any long-term world persistence, or skills, item or content that you must perform together to actually fit the description.
Honestly, it’s a shame people need labels to define everything. Boundless would have been better served if it didn’t have them, and if it could have been defined by it’s features, instead of by labels that sort of fit and that people then try to take literally.
I couldn’t agree more. If a group activity needs extra rewards so that people feel like it’s worth doing, then they’re doing for the rewards, not because they enjoy the activity. I know it’s cheap and easy to just throw extra rewards on things, but the long term health of the game is almost always better when time is taken to ensure the activity itself is enjoyable.
Personally I’m a predominantly independent player, mostly through choice because I prefer building my own things. I don’t have time to be a shepherd to organise big builds, run shops, organise hunts etc but luckily there are people that do like to do those things which gives us all the opportunity to join in if we choose to, by the same token I don’t want to be part of someone’s flock because as I said earlier I like to do my own things, build how I want etc, plus I can’t just drop my real life obligations to jump online because a group activity requires it… just because someone describes themselves as a solo player doesn’t necessarily mean that they are some sort of hermit that shuns all contact with other players. This game offers the choice which is what I like plus people seem to forget that there are certain activities that do need cooperation. Meteorite hunts for one, a solo player can only ever spawn low level ones, it takes the group hunts to spawn the higher level meteors. Running the large portal networks which we all benefit from the use of wouldn’t be possible for a solo player either. …on a side note I don’t like the forge either, gambling has never been my thing and the forgeries it produces are very rarely that good, especially on any consistent basis.
I think I’m fairly able to produce some items in the forge with a little certainty now… especially with the regeneration bombs!
It all boils down to knowing what ingredients to apply and when, to vastly improve your odds. Knowing which ingredients give which results. That knowledge makes it less of a blind gamble and more of an experience based one giving you much greater certainty of outcome.
It’s always nice to see someone who realizes MMO simply means it’s possible to play with others if you like. Even WoW, your average player spends most of their time solo, but, groups when they feel like it or want to do something they need help with.
Labels are always a pain in the rear. I also always wished Boundless didn’t box itself in by using labels to describe themselves. Use lists of what players can do and what type of settings there are, but, don’t box yourself in with labels that people will use to create their expectations based on their own definitions of those labels. Say people can be builders or hunters, shopkeepers or miners. Say people can do a little of everything and never master anything if they don’t want to do too much of any one choice. Say people are free to play their way whether in groups or solo with no advantage to either over the other beyond satisfying a desire to be a social person or achieve your goals on your own. Say you can battle in PvP or in PvE if you choose to battle. Say you set your own goals and are not driven in any direction. Your choices are Boundless and for you alone to decide what your goals are. But labels create expectations and those expectations will be different to different people. By using those labels Boundless sets itself up to let down many. Never make promises for multiple types of people you can’t keep as those promises are often incompatible. Just be what you are and stop trying to fit labels created for convenience for other games. The same goes for the players, just be yourself rather than trying to fit one or more labels. Boundless is great when it chooses to be itself. It hurts itself when it tries pleasing groups by fitting labels. Boundless is much better off as a system with which people can play to fulfill their own desires whether that be solo, in pairs, or in large groups in a variety of settings.
(one promise was we will continue updating and patching the game long after release)
)
)
maybe it should be retitled Oort Online… because it has been less and less Boundless as time has gone on