Two Quality of Life Improvements

Before I begin, wanted to share my old thread again:

Everything in this thread is still relevant and now that I’ve broken 300 hours in-game, I still feel strongly about everything in the list.

That said, I have a couple quality of life improvements that, for me, would be absolutely game changing:

  1. Improve the potency of coal by 50-100%.. Coal is by far the biggest blocker for me in this game. I can spend many, many hours farming coal and compacting it and that coal is gone instantly as soon as it’s done compacting. No, compact peat is not a viable replacement. The potency of compact peat is very low and the amount of compact peat required to compete with coal makes it not worth it.

  2. Introduce talents that reduce crafting time by up to 75%. Please hear me out on this one. I LOVE Boundless. I genuinely look forward to logging in each time I do. I think about Boundless when I’m working. I randomly think of builds I want to try while I’m driving. You get the idea. The point is, whenever I log in, my time in game is very short-lived as I start to build something, realize I need to craft something and then, when I do, am greeted with a wait time of 2-4 IRL hours before I can continue building. Building for me is not something I pain-stakingly plan. I will get an idea of something I want to build, I get started, and then I see where things go once I start building but every single time I do this, I’m blocked by a very long stretch of time where I can’t proceed so I log off. I know it’s more realistic to have crafts take large amounts of time but is realism what we’re going for in Boundless? I personally don’t think so.

10 Likes

I think increasing the access and availability of the higher tiers of coal is a better solution. The amount of heat/spark generated currently is quite substantial. The rate at which coal can be farmed is limited for new players especially, but also by location. Having better access to Medium and especially Hard coal late game would help greatly.

I’d rather see this as a Balance Change then the addition of talents to start. We are already taxed quite heavily with skill point scaling, and the addition of new skills will only make this worse unless we are able to obtain even more points as things are added. Then again, with a decent machine workshop and some preparation, even the 5-6hr mass crafts aren’t that much of an issue during late game.

Just my thoughts,
-Eld

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Just for the people that haven’t heard of it. Engines and advanced machines will be added into the mix. As well as the centraforge. I think the reduction of crafting times will be handled by advanced machines and engines, which there’s not much detail of atm.

I would much rather have a new skill for these type of machines, instead of once that reduce crafting timers.

3 Likes

Soft and medium coal feel about right. I think hard coal should either double average seam size or double yield from current ones. I’m level 43, have spent most of that time mining on Vulpto, Munteen and Nasharil down by lava, and I only have around 160 hard coal…

@Braindrop
Anectdotal, but I seem to find more hard coal (and titan) on Andoweem than on Munteen. But then again I mine differently in these places so my finding might be flawed. On Andoweem I generally mine rock deep down, and I generally mine in lava caves on Munteen. So maybe that makes a difference, like there might be more hard coal on Munteen, but it is perhaps hidden by lava so I dont see it or dont think its worth the trouble. But yeah, maybe try Andoweem and see if you like it, there be diamonds as well. :crazy_face:

@Everyone
Overall I think that coal is abundant. I usally focus more on coal than other stuff. So if your priority is metal, then maybe it is harder to get enough coal. Hard coal is a bit harder to find sure, but that is not a big problem imho. I see hard coal like a bonus when I mine medium and soft coal.

I build 6 statues for PharaohNai, and they contain near 150 compacted (medium) coal per statue. They are not done, but perhaps 80% done. So that tells me that it is possible to get a lot of coal if that is the focus. I mean, coal is not hard to find, but yeah it takes a lot of time to gather.

With that said, yes maybe coal should give a bit more spark, or items require less spark to be crafted.

Regarding crafting times; Yeah it would be sweet with faster crafting times. But I think that the crafting times could drive trading. Because if I need a tool, I sometimes prefer buying from someone else than wait for a few hours. And that is bad for me in that situation, but it is a reason to visit the shops and might help sales at those shops and therefore also the incentament to keep running a shop. So if everyone is like me that would mean that shorter crafting times = less shops. And I dont think that there are too many shops at the moment. But I dont want longer crafting times for sure. :cold_sweat:

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