Thoughts on plots

I wonder how many cubits have been redeemed for plots since this notice went up about plot protection, haha.

I’ve been saying for a while now that I think people should get more plots. Yes, that would give bad actors more plots to play with, but if everyone had the plots to protect their builds I think we’d have less conflict. FAR too many people start with a small build due to plots but have big dreams, and those big dreams get squashed when they get boxed in (or realize how many plots they’ll have to grind to do what they want in the game).

I’m not opposed to people having limited plots. I just think it’s TOO limited and it stifles creativity. I think more people would be having more fun in boundless if we had more plots.

I myself have a lot of plots. But the number of plots I have compared to my number of hours along with the crazy plot grinding I had to do doesn’t add up. IMHO someone with my number of hours and my amount of effort put into plot grinding should have double the number of plots by now. This isn’t a complaint about my personal situation, just a reflection. I would have thought I’d have 10,000 plots by now based on reasonable initial expectations.

Maybe it could be a reward for how long people have been playing (permanent 5% increase to plots for every 3 months you have a login).

I think the number of people who have been using plot protection to “fence” off a future build area shows how many people need more plots to enjoy boundless their way. I myself think that if you have an area you want to save, encircling it isn’t unreasonable. Lots of people seem to have had the same opinion. As long as it isn’t being used to grief I think it is ok. Plot protecting if you own a big area or city or mall is fair to me. Protecting a reasonable area around your country estate also seems fair.

I’ve talked to quite a few noobs who quit on hitting the plot wall. It seems like a silly reason to lose people, especially big builders.

I don’t think the changes represent a cash grab by the devs, btw. But maybe the hubub represents a good opportunity to recognize a need in the playerbase that isn’t being fulfilled, and an issue that needs balancing. Changes could be phased in over time - give people an extra 5 or 10% plots and see how it plays out. I think it would work out well.

Thoughts?

If you have a backer bonus, please keep that in mind re: expectations when voting.

  • People need more plots
  • Current system
  • People need fewer plots

0 voters

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Building space does have a cost associated to it, I think plots are a way of keeping people’s build sizes in check on the live servers. Those that feel they’re limited in their creativity by the restrictions, will have creative mode as a possibility in the future, as are private servers. I’m not sure if rented servers will require purchased plots or not.

Or work for it, grind irl or in-game and buy the plots if you want to build bigger on live.

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My theory is that you should get unlimited plots on planets you own… not as a pay2win since big builds don’t actually do anything, but as a way to keep the main planets from being overcrowded and as a way to let people just do what the heck they want.

I also wonder why I only have a few thousand plots with all the hours I’ve put in. According to my calculations, I would have to level 3 times a day for 833 days to gain 10,000 plots… and the game isn’t that old yet is it?

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I agree with Krollbar - it’s not so much that I don’t have a lot of plots, it’s more that it’s not really in line with what I expected.

If I want to build a 100x100x10 plot castle that’s 10,000 plots. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable expectation for over 2000 hours in. And that would mean every single one of my plots goes into that castle. No other builds anywhere else. And no cosmetic purchases, tints, skill pages or extra characters. I can’t enjoy those addons unless I give up on my plot dream (in this hypothetical).

My plot grinding will get me there… someday. But not everyone has millions of coin to blow on grinding plots, and I want everyone to have fun!

(I currently have about 2500 plots tied up in my mall I believe)

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Sadly, I’m having a hard time getting back into it. If they released private/rental planets today, I’d be all over it. Since I’m still in the middle of big plot issue, I’d say I’d like access to more plots at my 2000+ hours in. I would not be in this mess if I’d had the ability to plot the entire area I wanted.

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I am a little mixed about it.
Simply because yes you never have enough plots.
But that is when you need them…

When you start out it depends on how fast you lvl for a smal and useful build.
The thing is we all started small and in some (extreme) cases (like me :joy::rofl::joy::rofl:) you will end up moving (every thing) to a better location.

Current plot system has it flaws granted but don’t think you are limited by the game but limited by time spent playing in game.

So I guess start small and make sure before you move you have enough plots to cover the bottom layer of the wanted area. And you can go up layers after while you build because you level anyway.

A lot of the issues facing plot wars seems to be having neighbors either building too close or building on land you wanted to keep looking natural.

Reservation plots are supposed to solve that because it stops others from plotting, but also means you cant build there without spending additional plots to actually claim it.

The issue is the amount of area reserved plots can protect is too little; people got around this by making 2 plot wide corridors to reserve a much larger area, essentially multiplying the number of plots. The devs didn’t like this and banned that usage.

I’m not saying that system should be reinstated, but there needs to be a method of reserving a larger area to prevent others plotting there.

The solution:

A new type of purchasable plot. One that costs a fair amount less (say 1/4 as many cubits) then normal plots, and allows you to reserve an area to stop others from building there. The main difference here is, this special type of plot cant be used for building, only reserving. People can still mine resources in these special reserved plots and those resources still regenerate.

This way, people can more easily protect a larger area without abusing a system or stopping others from gathering resources.

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I would be able to give a better answer if I knew a few things:

  1. Do you burn through plots because you want huge builds?
  2. Do you know how to level fast?
  3. How many levels could you get in a 4 hour session?

I personally think it’s quite easy to level. It’s just about how enjoyable that is. So maybe, based of this topic, the amount of plots you get isn’t the issue, but maybe the amount of ‘enjoyment to XP’ ratio.

I know if hunting was more enjoyable and gave decent xp, I’d love for that to be my go-to source of xp. But strip mining for hours, sadly, is the fastest way to level :confused:

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I asked for a landscape plot back in Sept 2017. Didn’t get added. Currently I’m fine with the new system we have now. I think we need to solve the plot conflict issues and settlement fights before we look at plot number changes.

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I had the same idea as vansten back in the day. Cheaper reservation plots.

Leveling up is fairly easy to do. I have a friend that levels up 3 to 5 times a day just mining. If someone wants to level up quickly you can use teaching pies and mine on a t1 planet and craft the rocks into stones and refine them all day and then throw the refined rock in the chryosminter all day to get enough experience to level up quickly and make money doing it.

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I usually mine and craft rock into stones and even build with marble or higher blocks worth of prestige and easily get 3 to 5 levels a day myself. It’s just that the grinding process is what drags people down and makes it seem slow. Also crafting rocks into stones and eating a teaching pie helps me. At 24 crafting tables eating a teaching pie gets me almost 75k experience in one go. Doing that at least twice a day is 150k out of 200k needed to level up. Between mining and crafting stones twice gets me enough experience to to level up every 2 hours. If I spend 10 hours I can get anywhere between 5 to 7 levels I’m one day if I was willing to grind that day for levels.

Maybe they can add special week events every few months where they increase the plots gain per lvl by 10% to 20%

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And cheaper ‘get rid of trees’ plots when you’ve build below them and removed the bottom.

I love Trung, I love those really tall trees, but if one is in the way it takes a gazillion plots that I could have been using to fill the gaps in my snake plotting :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Would be nice if we could enhance a plot to not regen above it.
Not protected but just stops natural regen.
(Bomb it and its back)

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Which costs, say, a double plot…

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I know of several people that would like to build some things, but can’t due to plot limitations. (I assume you have hit that wall, as have I)

I think the problem with giving more plots is that the regular people are playing on the same servers as people that have 100%-200% bonus plot perks (earned, but still). If they give players more plots, it’s only fair to give these players more too.

Right now, people are stepping all over each other with their plots. More plots given to the current playerbase without it coming from new players would probably make certain problems worse imo. Could be wrong, who knows.

Personally, I’d love it too if they’d just give us more plots or “earn double plots and rewards weekend”.

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Needing more plots is a never ending thing. It doesn’t matter how many you have, you always need more. Our goals are always changing and our plans always grow. I currently need to farm out around 38k plots to finish my builds. I’m sure if I make it that far, I’ll be in the hole for even more.

There are currently ways to self farm 10+ levels an hour. If you run a shop and put your money towards leveling you can add to that. Honestly, its very easy to level and gain plots. It just isn’t that enjoyable if you are forcing yourself. Then again, maybe we are looking at the problem wrong.

Maybe the plot problem isn’t so much a plot problem for many, but a community problem. Many of us here have thousands of plots tied into what are essentially community builds. Maybe we are all stuck in the do it all ourself mentality? Maybe its time to start working together and develop real communities in the game to help include people and free up some time and plots so we stop burning out. Then again, this line of thinking could be completely wrong. :man_shrugging:

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In my opinion XP is tied too closely to mining and crafting. If you enjoy any other sort of pursuit, you get massively nerfed XP compared to your friends. I’d like to see a balancing done which increases XP from gathering, hunting, and a little bit for building.

I work a lot with wood, foliage and dirt. You get literally 0 XP for placing these objects, even though it takes just as much work to make a pretty wood build as a pretty metal build (or more, even). Others work with other materials - sand and water are nice, rocks are nice, gravel is nice etc. But unless you build with fancy stuff you also get nerfed XP.

I also find it disappointing that grinding plots is such a thing. Yes, people will always want or need to do so, but it shouldn’t be so un-enjoyable.

I just want a balancing in this area.

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That has been an area the devs have been looking at for a long time, but I think they may want to fix or add some things before they try to balance activities.

Maybe we should create a brain storming thread on ways to possibly balance xp gain across different activities.

Edit: I know there have been many threads over the years, but the balance has changed since then. We also may have new ideas from new individuals.

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