This game should definitely…

Suggestions
24

While it makes perfect sense that there would be no roadmap yet, it would be nice to even have a stream or a basic text brainstorm to even get the slightest idea of what is going to happen with Boundless.

IE:

-Are you just going to lower the price, advertise a bit, sell the game, and then let it ride?
-Are you planning to reboot any of the unreleased update content and features? Would be a shame to let it go to waste as it looked like they had almost finished a massive update.
-Is multiplatform still happening as James had mentioned previously? (Xbox Game Pass seems like a no-brainer for this game, and I’d be surprised if MSFT was not on board to do it).
-Has any expansion of block functions been discussed? (Pistons, hinges, etc)
-Is there even the slightest potential for vehicles in the future? (Simple flying airships or even just a basic train like minecraft. Although can’t lie, I would love to see a proper train system so we can put those giant railroads all over the universe to use. We have SO MANY of them spanning entire planets, completely unused.
-Bring back clothing. I was not in the loop on why it was removed, but it sucks that we still have loin cloths… there were tons of outfits in the original trailers.

I know this is all hyper specific, so I don’t expect any actual reply to the stuff mentioned above, but mainly hoping we will get some form of communication about this game’s future without having to wait 1-2 years before even hearing a peep.

@monty1 your thoughts are always appreciated too. Forgive my massive list of questions that probably came off as pushy. Let’s just call it enthusiasm for the game :slight_smile:

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when you plan to release on xbox i suggest the game pass will allow More player to play also i think xbox will pay you a portion also they have ability’s to play on server instead of downloading on top you can download the game too. its called cloud gaming.

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now Monument owns the game so they could have other plans

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as for the topic, this game should defenetly - have more furnituresm we NEED bedm single bed, double bed, couches etc also all other house furniture, like bathtub, sink, wardrobe, kitchens, fridges, stoves, - all can be crafted using different blocks for tint
eg wooden beds - wood + cloth +tangle as tint giver
metal bed - metal + cloth + tangle as tint giver
decorative bed - alloy + cloth + gleam as tint giver
eg - oven crafted from metal + something + ash as tint giver
eg fridge - metal + ice + glacier as tint giver,
eg bathtub - alloy + lava +water
sink - metal + lava + ice
ceramic oven - sand + clay + gleam for tint

ceramic panes? sand + clay + gleam for tint and gloss

bookshelves - twisted for tint + nails + gleam for ornaments
bookshelf2 - lustrous for tint + nails + gleam for ornaments
bookshelf3 ancient for tint + nails + gleam for decorative ornaments

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But functional and with moving parts

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No, we plan to invest in the game long-term. But we do plan to lower the price (probably in the $10-$15 range). Ultimately, I’d love to figure out a path to make the game free.

Possibly, but it won’t be high on the priority list. We’re still learning but I expect that we’ll invest more in the new/early player experience so we can start growing the game.

We plan to get the game working and to scale on the existing platforms before adding new platforms.

Not yet. We’re mostly focused on a safe transition right now.

It’s possible and we’ve seen great examples of rail systems (e.g., Minecraft and Dragon Quest Builders). I also think that boats and mounts could be lots of fun.

I certainly agree that we need more options for avatars. That could be clothes, additional customization, or maybe new races to play.

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31

This focus on the New Player experience makes me…

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32

Makes me smile, too. My teenage son loves the stuff that can be built in the game, but was put off by the relentless grind of the early part of the game and pretty much stopped playing.

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33

I know a number of players I gave licenses to that quit due to all the grind.

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IF you haven’t already visit the smelly couch it is at reapers. There is also a youtube video of it. Great examples of furniture there.

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Said it a few times the grind is fine … needed for the economy.

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No need for an economy

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You know you’re not wrong. The game I love needs an economy. I’m still here because all protesting aside this has been a super fun (for me) MMORPG - despite any calls to the contrary.

But also I got my money’s worth, and having sort of giving up on it already, I would LOVE to see this IP grow into something huge and marvelous, even if it’s not what I’d make of it. Boundless has given me “nearly 10,000 hours” of gameplay. Unbelievable. And probably twice that in “entertainment value” since, yes, I’m a forum junkie and for better or worse there has always been a fair amount of community engagement here.

@monty1 :heart: your posts usually on point and super clear. Thanks for that.

I would almost never play, but who knows how much money is in pure creative sandbox play. If boundless building ever saw even the least of a viral burst it could be incredible. I would honestly be happy to see it.

EDIT: On some re-reading this is a little disappointing though:

As far as I know, everything stopping this was regarding the private servers. There may or may not have still been some nagging balance changes but all the code for the in-game changes was complete.

Since this included a couple of MAJOR steps in a positive direction, things requested for years, I’d hate to see it dropped en masse.

Hopefully, on review, much of update 249 makes it in game. These are changes we waited through a year plus of choking the game (compactness, reservations, etc…) and technical/back end systems development for.

:crossed_fingers:

EDIT 2: Ha ha hopefully I don’t keep wanting to add to this. Sorry.

There are things in that code that could seriously also affect what is good in the upgraded NPE as well. The notion of finally having a character that’s a master of the game and can just do any thing any time, any where …

And of course, the entire melee system. There’s that.

Yeah v249 is a lot. I’m sure the review will be item by item but hopefully it’s easiest to keep most of it, maybe just block private worlds, and get on with a more appropriate NPE and integration from there.

I’ll try to move on, now :rofl:

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about grind, i hate it, i love gathering, i can running whole day thru mud fields farming inky and beans, its ok, i have fun but grinding hunts for oorts for portal, for mobs part for recipes - i hate it, really hate in that part game is way too grindy

and the amount of parts you can gat is way no adequate to amount you need for forging ingridients for glue, for agents or for making mosaics…

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Dear DEvelopers - give us or allow us to make ne gear, new clothes, different type, kind and colors, running few years in same loin cloths… eeeeewwwww… it ended that just im jumping to every lake i see on my way to wash and refresh them…

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I strongly disagree. The level of grind in a game that is advertised as an mmo sandbox is a great deal higher than any other game I play. I strongly feel this as well as the new player experience are the main reasons players do not stick with the game. The level of grind works so strongly against a casual player that they have no hope of really accomplishing anything in a short period of time in Boundless versus a large number of other more successful games such as Space Engineers (with over 4,400 avg steam players an hour vs less than 100 for Boundless).

As for the economy, all you need is what boundless already has and that is a large number of items that can be gathered, farmed, and crafted. The economy in Boundless provides convenience for those that do not want to gather or craft something on their own. Since their is no restriction on on a players ability to gather or craft anything in the game, that is all the economy is ever going to be. Reducing the grind might or might not reduce what items can be sold for, but it will not kill the economy. Someone needing a lot of materials for a project will still not want to spend the time or effort and buy. Currently even players that seem to spend 4 + hours per day in game buy items from other players. So even though they have the time, they choose to buy.

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@monty1 Don’t be afraid to dream…small…lol…I know there’s a big update out there but feel free to scrap it and have your new team pepper us with tiny things…a new type of building block or something…it lets them get into the groove and us have something to play with while you learn the ropes.

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You are stating to remove the grind, would that grind be gathering the materials to craft, crafting the item, and building with said item?

That is the only grind I am aware of. A casual player is not going to be in a rush to do anything and if they are and only playing 2-3 hours a day as compared to others that spend 8-10 hours a day and you simplify the “grind” to accommodate for the casual player then the 8-10 hour players suffer and just blow through all the content.

Soooo…detailing those three:

Gathering

A player needs a lot of items to craft everything in the game. Gathering those items isn’t grindy for me unless I want to craft crazy amounts of something. Do you really want/have to craft EVERY item in the game? I know I don’t at least not in MASS quantities.

An easy one for example: I have a huge concrete shop as do a few others. Crafting concrete is super easy pretty quick, and the only real “grind” would be the growing and harvesting of kindling. Kindling (and all farms) when planting sucks so AOE harvesting might be nice, but to say it’s a large grind would be untrue unless like me and people like @Jiivita who have HUGE farms of kindling. I also made millions of blocks of concrete do I need that much? Nah.

But if I were doing a build like my color storage that is 4200 plots with much of that being Dark Grey marble (Thank you Foxxy!!!) then making that much marble would and should be a grind. I don’t technically need that much marble, now do I?

Crafting

We have all debated this over and over. I dont find the game very grindy and I play it a lot. I craft a lot, I buy a lot, I build a lot I even hunt a lot. With all that it doesn’t feel grindy. What would feel grindy is sitting there and crafting a MASS amount of something and starting at it all day.

In my color storage I had the stupid idea to use silver octigrid, black enriched compact peat, compact silver and a few other blocks that take a long time to craft in mass quantities. I simply placed them in the machines and went out and worked on another part of the storage or I went mining on a sovereign, or did a hunt, or gathered bitter beans, or any number of other things that I enjoy aside from crafting and then I logged for the night. I came back on the next day and hey all my crafted materials were done. It didn’t feel grindy at all.

I do agree though that the timers could be cut in half as I have stated before, but completely removing them isn’t a good idea. Either way with or without them I’d still play it.

Building

Building isn’t grindy unless you do a huge build. Building in any game is grindy if you do a huge build. This includes Creativerse, Space Engineers, Minecraft, 7 Days to Die, Lego Worlds, Rust, Eco, Last Oasis, Trove, and so many other games, as building just takes time especially large very intricate and detailed builds.

I gave out quite a few keys (20 ish) to people that have tried the game and most of them left because of the New Player Experience. They got plopped on a planet with no idea they could have warped to me or close to me as it doesn’t explain that at all. They had no tutorial to follow and no idea just how large the game was. The few that did make it past that were people I walked through the game (including my son) and he plays a lot of games and said the beginning of the game made him feel very lost and alone. Once I helped him understand the game and how big the universe was and could be… he was hooked. He has never complained about the grind, and the few people that I know that stuck around never complained about it either, they mostly complain about the lack of people playing.

All that said, remove the economy and you can remove the crafting timers and it magically becomes no grind at all and the purely creative game you desire.

The BIC continues. (Boundless Identity Crisis)

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What I meant is the amount of grind is excessive, not that it should be removed entirely.

So we either have to have a game that caters to the few players that have 8-10 hours a day to play or the ones that may have 2-3? I vote for aiming for the players that have 2-3. We have a game that aims at the 8-10 hours and it has hardly been successful. As far as players playing 2-3 not being in a “rush” I disagree with the categorization of those players. A player needs to feel a sense of accomplishment and if all they got for 3 hours of grind is a pile of rocks from mining then how is that rewarding? Too many of the existing players assume only playing 2-3 hours a day is a choice. People have jobs and other responsibilities that can make it impossible for them to play the 8-10 hours a day even if they wanted to. And I would argue those are the players that could have the cash to help pay for the game through gleam club, buying cubits or whatever else Monumental may have in mind to generate cash to continue to run and develop the game.

I will not argue the last 3 points since they are based on an assumption of removing the grind.

Finally I am not and have not ever argued for the game to entirely creative and do not appreciate your implying that I am or have. Making the game more accessible for more players is not the same thing as making it a creative game. The successful game I brought up (Space Engineers) is not a creative game but does require effort to mine process and then build out bases and ships. This can be done solo or with another group of players just like Boundless. However it does not take months/years of grind in order to get enough materials to build a huge base or a large ship. It has a much better balance that allows casual and non-casual players to both be able to feel a sense of accomplishment.

I had a different experience with the keys I handed out. While they did feel the new player experience was bad ( and I agree with you this has to be addressed), they left because they kept hitting walls where the only way out was to grind away on boring tasks like gleamball mining in order to level and be able to do more and/or have to grind away for hours to generate enough coin to purchase a forged tool in an attempt to lower the grind only to end up in a loop of having to spend a great deal of time to grind for enough materials to sell to buy the next tool before actually getting materials they needed for their own planned activities.

I will not disagree that Boundless does have an identity crisis and I do think that at some point, Monumental is going to have to decide what kind of game they think is going to be more successful. I think Wonderstruck tried to make it one size fits all and that has not worked out well.

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44

I apologize for this and didn’t mean to imply or generalize you.

I do agree there is a fine balance that has to be made for a core game loop that caters to both the 2-3 hour player and a 8-10 hour player. I play a lot, have 2 kids, work a full-time job and have a 2-hour commute to and from work, but I still dedicate a lot of time to the game.

Sadly, if we take for example Compact Coal. (Thanks @Dhusk for pointing out Compact Hard Coal)

Compact Soft Coal = 2m per block to craft
Compact Medium Coal = 4m per block to craft
Compact Hard Coal = 8m per block to craft

Let’s cut them down…

Compact Soft Coal = 30s per block = 200 spark and 500 power
Compact Medium Coal = 1m per block to craft = 400 spark and 1000 power
Compact Hard Coal = 2m per block to craft = you guessed it 800 spark and 2000 power

People will still complain about these times, but it makes sense. The lowest tier takes less time for less output. The next tier takes more time for more output and so on.

Many games like Boundless from the creative building side have no economy and thus the timers are minimal if any at all. So, it is very hard and difficult to compare Boundless to many of the games in the genre as most don’t have economies. In regard to Space Engineers (great game btw) the economy was not there originally, and I find it a hard game to compare to Boundless.

I hope to write another post about my challenges, bad decisions and overall acceptance of some the choices I made with my color storage as it is a prime example of a grind. Granted that grind was one I accepted.

EDIT: Wow…

Enriched Soft Coal = 5m = 200 spark and 200 power
Enriched Coal = 5m = 400 spark and 600 power
Enriched Hard Coal = 5m = 800 spark and 1600 power

Very confusing … not tiered much crafting timer wise.

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