I went back to the sanctum mostly not because of cost but because I never had the inventory to carry the blocks and I did not want to spend point on inventory at lower levels. Maybe if you are really trying to get people to use warp blocks then make a special slot in the inventory that can only handle that block so people will always be able to have them without having to decide what is more important.
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Ooh, interesting thread! Here are mine:
No big-picture game roadmap
This is the thing that bothers me most overall, but wouldn’t keep me away from the game on its own: we (players) don’t really have anything that says, here’s a high-level overview of features the devs plan to include in the game.
We can kind of get a sense from the website, and kind of from hints in forum posts, and kind of from the devlogs…but everything is vague and scattered. It would be nice to know what we can expect, even in general terms and with the understanding that devs might change their minds at any time. I think this goes along with what @Heurazio was saying.
Not enough active purposes for buildings to serve
This one is the single biggest factor that makes me not feel like playing right now. Buildings are, well, kind of boring. They don’t do anything. They don’t serve any purpose beyond the aesthetic, and aesthetics only go so far.
This issue was mentioned earlier in the thread, and I don’t have much to add beyond my usual shill for that one thread I made a while ago:
Limited systems for a “creative economy”
Yes, I made up that term because I don’t know the real one. But what I mean is, there’s no easy in-game way for me to sell something I’ve designed or built. I can’t dream of being a renowned creator of, idk, potted plants, and then create a bunch of different potted plants and sell them in my potted plant shop on plinths that sell potted plant blueprints. Or starter houses for new players. Or castles. Or whatever.
It feels really weird not to have “blueprints” or some equivalent, because Boundless seems targeted towards both creative maker-types and fans of in-game economies. But… never the twain shall meet?
Limited small [physical] scale creative options
I keep running into this problem where I have an idea of something to build, but I can’t make it in game unless I scale it up to be enormous. I can’t really design anything at person scale. No fancy carved furniture or life-size statues or porcelain teapots.
Now, ok, maybe this is intentional and small player-made stuff goes against Boundless’ philosophy. Which is totally fine, just means there’s a mismatch between me and the game in this regard. But, well, worth asking. I want clay and all I have is legos. 
I remember there was a thing in @minyi’s stickers thread that was a kind of “baseplate” for 2d decorations, and you could layer multiple other stickers on top. What about something similar that would let you build with miniature (like 1:4 or 1:8 scale) blocks, on that baseplate only?
Limitations of the graphics/engine
I keep running into issues where I can’t build a thing I’ve imagined because Boundless graphics aren’t the same as the real world. Which is reasonable, of course, but still – a big part of Boundless’ appeal for me is how pretty it looks, and it’s jarring to come up against things that suddenly don’t work as I want or expect them to. Some particular examples:
- no dynamic shadows
It bugs me that I don’t cast a distinct shadow. It bugs me that block shading reflects the time of day so beautifully, but my buildings only cast generic blurs beneath them. Am I missing some setting somewhere?
Because it really bugs me that I can’t make things like this (from GW2):
(The thingies floating in the air cast a shadow on the canvas!)
- opaque sideways water-glass interface
I really want to make an underwater build, because the underwater views in this game are so pretty. Problem is, the water-air/glass interface is only transparent from above or below. So you can’t see out of a vertical window in an underwater house, which ruins a lot of the fun for me.
My hand hurts
This game is… very clicky. My mouse-hand gets tired a lot faster than in games where I’m using multiple buttons/keys on both hands. An in-game version of autoattack (i.e. a single keybind to toggle click-and-hold) would help a lot!
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Tutorials! I don’t like 'em, for me they’re always in the way. I like to explore game bit by bit, even if that means wondering aimlessly for first couple of hours. I think tuts are good, but let me choose if and when I run them. I love to explore UI/UX and when I hit a bump, I than go look for info. Don’t like to be fed instantly with all the stuff that there is.
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I think we’ve just seen a highlight of different view points 
People who need/like tutorials, and those that don’t, lol.
I’m currently running low on ‘things to do’. Just more bumps about Explorers 
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The leveling is too slow and the skills cost too much. Trying to draw out play time shouldn’t be the job of the progression system but with so little to actually do in boundless other than build and craft you don’t give the game any opportunity to do that elsewhere. In any event , the leveling is too slow even still and the skills cost too much and are too restricted. You made a huge step in the right direction with the rebalance but for what this game offers currently it was only a half step.
The skills unlock prerequisites of needing 30 skills to access and such is way overboard.
The cost of skills should be reduced to half or even a third in my personal opinion.
Creatures need to be less durable as well. At the moment one creature takes so much to kill that the xp and resources do not justify the hit to weapon durability both to kill it and if you die in the process. I’d rather see a pack of slightly easier to kill enemies than one tough one as is, because if you do get swarmed you’re pretty much screwed.
I think the lack of variety between the planet’s also turns me off. They’re not different enough. Perhaps adding in volatile planet’s that change structure every 24 hrs would be nice. Also a lot of the color saturation is too much for the colorful planets. They’re an eyesore to say the least. Pleasant looking new places to explore would be a drastic improvement.
Also,
The fact we are so far into the life time of this game but no ruins or titans implemented yet.
Perhaps adding in miniboss parameter to hold us over, a mechanic that causes giant spawns to manifest. Perhaps level ten spitters the size of a school bus. They could drop gems and tools. Who knows. But as is the game seems stagnant and bland and character development moves about too slowly to keep motivation and anticipation of the next skill upgrade.
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I feel there are way too many skills available for the small amount of skill points awarded, as I have said before I don’t want to be able to unlock everything but I do feel we could use some more, also dying because I get stuck on “bad connection returning to sanctum” thing and lastly because the only fighting you can do right now is using the different slingbows I stop enjoying that part pretty fast, because I’m still working on getting my hunter to a decent level my hand gets tired of shooting xD
Really… I’d love to know the devs’ thoughts on ways to deal with lava for underground builds as my above-buried post talks about. Better ways to remove lava.
At the moment, I’m not playing because it isn’t finished yet!
Some of this criticism isn’t really fair, maybe not true, or maybe against the team’s vision of the game, but here it is.
When I last played (2+ months ago) I wasn’t really interested in the MMO mechanics of the game, where the in-game progression of my character didn’t reflect the rate of how I myself was progressing and understanding the game. Grinding when stats will be reset on launch didn’t mean to make sense, and could spoil what fun there is in the game. The points system felt slow and irritating when I didn’t feel like there was any more way to gain XP more efficiently outside of doing linear quests. Perhaps a general list of achievements could be added to the game to gain XP, or by adding an XP system to encourage other players to work together.
I don’t think that the game, particularly the graphics, inspire awe and wonder at your environments, but I couldn’t really tell you why. The trailers did a lot right, it showed off new features, teasing at this being a glimpse into the world and showing an example of the potential. At the moment, I don’t feel like there is enough variety to enjoy the game, but I think this would be resolved when many more world types are added or generated by users and devs. Simply adding user generated content like this would solve the exploration aspect of the game most likely.
I’m not sure how this could be done, but adding more types of cool tools which change the way you see and navigate your environment and buildings would be neat. Tools like the clawshot, chisel and the titan/flying blocks are the types of things that I would look to see more of personally. At the moment there are few of these tools.
As someone who plays fighting games and first person shooters, I don’t find combat challenging in a skill or problem solving sense, I find it more like a stat slug fight like in skyrim’s combat - braindead and a waste of time. The enemies weren’t that varied in the two or three worlds I played on originally, which is fine, but I would like to see mini-boss type enemies, maybe just higher tier variants to appear occasionally in lower level worlds, either randomly or in miniature dungeons or coliseums to fight. Just like the tools, I would like to see enemies that change the way you see the environment when you fight them so that fighting isn’t just strafe away while shooting until they die.
I think what would be cool for the game are interesting events and worlds, at the moment I feel these are lacking. Things which break the rules and conventions set up, like a world which cannot be built upon which has enemies or other functions that destroy the environment. Anything that takes the most fun mechanics of the game and puts them on steroids, or simply takes them away temporarily.
I also thought that some parts of the game aren’t cohesive and intertwined, where there were oversights which didn’t make almost every play style and choice viable, or where some mechanics don’t make much sense gameplay wise. Currently, it’s very difficult to play as a combat specialist, or as an ‘architect’. Other times there are silly counters to enemies, like building blocks straight upwards and just shooting enemies with the slingbow from safety. Strategies don’t really evolve after facing the same enemy a couple of times because their behaviour isn’t complex or varied enough.
Anything that changes combat in a meaningful and understandable way would be a good improvement, like the marks on enemies meaning something, showing their behaviour through the pattern and colour of their markings. Giving enemies particular quirks or traits in this way could give add some much needed depth - like the pacman ghosts. Intelligent behaviour, like changing tactics based on the number of enemies and the number of friendlies, or understanding what the player has in their hands and changing their behaviour accordingly would make the system more dynamic. Randomly generated encounters or world interactions could help add variation.
Some quality of life changes would be appreciated, like toggling on or off left or right hand clicks or allowing automated crafting of larger bulk items much earlier. Other things like graphics, which I don’t really have a clue about how technically difficult it would be to improve, feel very poor with anything further away than ten metres, even at maximum settings. This hurts the ability of the player to understand the environment and enjoy it.
So, I had ‘some’ ideas, but if any of it is useful, I’m hope that you can use it. Good luck with the game, and I hope to write in again another time and play the game when it releases!
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I always like customizing my appearance. It’d be nice to have armour or different clothes or something.
Also more of a story or in depth combat. Like others have said. There isn’t much difference when it comes to the different planets or some mobs.
The skill system is meh to me. I want to have a warrior skilled guy but I start off with no money to buy warrior things or to build a base, so I need to skill into a crafter. But then it’s shitty trying to undo the skills and become a warrior after you’re like a level 47 crafter or something. After doing all that work just to have a base and be self sufficient to just need to build a new character to be my main warrior. I don’t want it super easy to reskill because then everyone would just do it and teamwork would go downhill. I’m not sure.
I’d like some more incentive to explore and adventure. Like dungeons, with chests, mini bosses, exclusive items, materials only lootable from the dungeons. Villages with npcs!
One thing to improve the desire to explore etc could be collectibles. Jukebox with collectible tracks! Even things like paintings that can only be found in a dungeon or something like that. cosmetic items or useful items. Then people could have like a trophy room if they wanted or whatever.
I am new to the game, just a few days in. I like it so far, I hope a lot more features are coming.
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I haven’t played for a while, I stopped, not because I fell out with the game but because I felt I’d seen everything. The different worlds just aren’t different enough. It reminds me of No Man’s Sky for that. At the moment there’s nothing to really discover except different shades of the same material. Even creatures are the same except for size and hit points.
The grind is a bit of a bind, I don’t mind churning away at rocks but there doesn’t really seem to be a purpose for it. Aside from gems you have all the metals by tier 2 planets. And as there’s nothing to discover, you may as well stick to the same tried and tested mining locations. Once you’re doing that, you ask yourself why you’re spending hours digging the same old materials and, for me, I couldn’t find a compelling enough reason to stay.
I’ll pop back on to maintain beacons and check updates but until there’s more content, I think I’m done. I know “minecraft” is a dirty word to some people here, but it always pulls me back because there’s always a new mod that plays with technology or adds dungeons or something that makes the mining purposeful, maybe Boundless would benefit from looking at the features in some of the more popular Minecraft/Starbound mods?
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Nothing major is turning me off yet, but I haven’t been playing, as I’m waiting for a few things…
- …titans/etc (e.g. more RPG elements - I’m not a huge builder; and when I build something, I want most of it to be purpose driven)
- …the engine’s functionality to stabilize a bit (and for more world builder functionality) before I get back into world building
- …more free time
Agree. I’ve modified my steam controller configuration to toggle mouse buttons (and movement keys) on/off so I don’t have to deal with RSI type symptoms
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Very good =) That looks much much better! =)
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I am waiting for 1.0 to drop so that I can be playing after the features have been enabled and the world isn’t going to reset. World resets are scary 
I wouldn’t mind more creative options. I play Minecraft because redstone creates endless opportunity to explore, even with simple machines. I think having creative outlets that we can put together our own way is nice 
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I mentioned somewhere else that I’m primarily a console player. I want to play this game with a controller in my hands not a keyboard under my fingers. (Maybe I could have waited, but I like being a part of the growth and changes[want to be a game designer one day])
I also agree with a lot of the other posts about buildings being only aesthetic, not really useful.
As it stands it is obviously still being added to and updated(I didn’t want to say “still in development” but you get it, right?).
More things to do! Other than the overall - run to portal, go through portal, walk through planetary art gallery, return to home-base(your personal voxel art gallery).
Mine happens to be a series of labyrinths, which I’m still adding to and expanding on the idea. Not as pretty or cool as the pixel gate art deal or the munteen chisel competition, but it’s own form of art just the same. (Foot traffic competition, remember?)
I feel like the combat system needs some adjusting, and the damage to ALL of my tools upon death is just brutal. Maybe, only if you melt in lava or get blown up by a hopper(even with the penalty reduction skill).
Also, STORY STORY STORY! Where’s the plot? Why am I travelling between worlds building awesome and beautiful “lego” art galleries?(for lack of a better description)
And since we have a chisel for everything, can we add curves? But only via chisel? It would add another layer of depth to creations and scaling as well. In order to make something “appear” to curve I’d have to build it rather large, as it is now, but with a curve chisel I could potentially build in a smaller scale.(oh! What about group chiseling?! Select a few blocks in a row or grouping and chisel them at set angles, so the first block only loses, say 10% and the last block loses 90%)
I love a good rewarding challenge, and although the challenge is there, for the most part(esp on higher tier planets cough cough Munteen I’m looking at you) I haven’t really felt rewarded too much.
I feel like the game is, currently, leaning more toward the creative aspect rather than the survival aspect. I’d like to think you guys(@james) are going for a more balanced 1.0 (IE food and cooking meals Vs crafting only healing potions).
In closing, I adore this game! If this was 1.0 I am satisfied with it, but it’s not 1.0 so I look forward to the improvements you devs make, whether they are something we(the players) brought up or something you guys had in mind from the beginning.
A question, if I may ask, when can I get an early access(beta test[a while back I saw the video @DanBeforeTime about PAX and there you demoed the ps4 version with the cross-platforming enabled, so I know you can do it 
]) on the ps4?
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My biggest concern is going to be combat. So many things about this game are fantastic. But I feel that the combat system is going to get forever be stuck as typical boring sandbox combat. It will be the one aspect that gets left behind and will prevent Boundless from really feeling like a worth while MMO. In my opinion. Obviously not before 1.0, but I do think the entire combat system needs to be changed and reworked completely from the ground up.
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So true. I’m very fond of skill based combat and even suggested Dragon Nest style of combat in the past. If I remember correctly though, the devs made clear before that they are not aiming for such extensive skill based combat. I settled for it thinking that it will be more in the area of “strategical” combat (i.e. walling your enemies, drop them on a hole, etc.). It is for some extent (grappling enemies) but it’s not that fulfilling as of now you know. Add to it the fact that combat progression doesn’t really add much to the combat style itself.
This got me thinking that people usually look first at combat when finding an MMORPG to play (at least that’s true for me). And it’s due to this why we probably get so little people from MMORPG side compared to Minecraft side of the game (and the fact it’s a voxel game don’t help that much in this part).
Still hoping that the plans for combats will help to make it fun. The lance and bombs would help but I want more of that skill based combat even if it’s just a quick dodge or block.
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Yeah the walk and click to shoot style we currently have is dreadfully boring. Everything but combat is going in the right direction, and unfortuanlty that could completely ruin the MMORPG feel for so many. Myself included.
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I think it’s fortunate then that this is currently being developed. Bombs and melee should help this a lot. I would love to see more combat mechanics added as well.
An ideal combat system should:
Be easy to learn, hard to master.
Be satisfying even after extended play.
Allow for creative techniques and combat styles beyond the standard attack/defend routine.
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Couldn’t have said it better myself. I can’t wait to see the polished 1.0 product. Just concerned combat will get left behind. A big combat update post 1.0 would be an excellent addition I think.
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