Some form of death penalty is unfortunately necessary to provide a sense of danger and value for life. Imagine if there was no death penalty, soon we would have complaints like “why do cuttletrunks even do damage, all the death penalty does is cost me 10 seconds of portaling?” Similar to how alts circumvent so many game systems but are now normalized to the point where players complain about the time it takes to switch characters.
Past there being a penalty though it doesn’t have to be an xp penalty or even touch the xp system at all. I think it’s a good area to penalize just because it’s a trope in games and players are used to the concept. It’s better than a lot of other penalties like making us drop our loot or penalizing durability.
The calculation for XP penalty seems off though. It scales with character level, but it should really scale with ways to earn XP. A level 50 character has like 10x the XP penalty of a low level char, but can’t earn XP 10x as quick as the low level char. Maybe only 2-3 times as quick. I’m fudging all this math in lieu of actual analysis but those ratios don’t add up. The goal should be a static penalty for death across all players. The rest of the game systems are already accounting for the risk/reward balance of the content progression so there’s no need for death penalty to further increase the risk of only the high level activities.
Something else they could consider is adjusting the penalty based on how and where you died. Died to fall damage in your own beacon? That can be a minor death penalty. Died to an Elite Wildstock during a meteor? That can be a mega death penalty. And everything in between.
I really enjoy building in this game and would really appreciate more decoration items to craft and place. I am in the middle of a break from this game because I got a bit burnt out on grinding materials because there aren’t enough interior design options to keep me really focused on building a cool settlement/city.
Player builds need to be more discoverable. Atlas needs heavy improvement. Game needs to be more social.
What I mean is that currently it’s impossible to easily figure out what is there to see, in game where all your efforts ultimately result in a build to show off, nobody can easily discover it. Atlas should be able to help with that. Players should be able to do screenshots and post them so they show up on atlas, like google maps/earth. There we should be able to comment and rate players’ builds. Beside helping us to discover what “content” there is in game, since we are creating content, it would also motivate players to actually invest time into building something awesome.
Atlas is currently a nice toy, helps a bit but it’s really basic. We need to be able to open map as in any other game and scroll through it, not just be fixed on one point. If I want to remember some nice location I have to record it in completely separate menu that is in no way connected to atlas. Map should show other players’ builds if they choose so. Also maybe screenshots of nice places made by players, it could be great way to find nice place to start a build without having to run around for hours.
When I’m not into building/grinding I love to check out what is there in the universe, and it’s a chore, and you won’t ever be able to find all the cool looking builds and even then you won’t be able to interact with the owner.
With rating system and comments we could have weekly/monthly/yearly build leaderboard with some nice prizes for the best ones.
And so on…
With a rating system I wonder if it would be possible to make player made ruins?
Admittedly the world’s are beautiful and the regen helps to keep it fresh, but that also makes it very… open. Way open. And kinda lonely.
There have been quite a few builds even in the last couple months that players have purposely abandoned and left to regen.
Would it be possible to have a beacon be able to tally votes into a “make this a ruin” option, and give it x days to tally votes to decide before the beacon auto destroys itself? Or a special new beacon?
Player ruins would have to have no active beacons/plots, as it has been decided by the builder to give it up.
Number of votes could determine how slowly it deteriorates, if at all.
Would be like the Boundless versions of Stonehenge, or the Pyramids of Giza.
That’s a good idea! Or at least show a landmark or something signaling “hey, something’s here, go look!”.
Also, I know not really related much to your post, but it reminded me 'cos of your screenshot remark. A photo mode would be nice, with perhaps more detail further away. And, what I would love, love, love, is taking a picture and being able to display it on a sign or a picture frame (new item, yay!).
This could work to advertise places in other towns, I mentioned it before, but then I can build my travel agency with pictures of notable builds!
Heck I could even have portals there to those builds.
Hmm, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to have more access rights on locks, say, pay 100c to enter and poof, there’s a portal behind it and you go to the place you just saw the picture of!
So many things that could be added.
Wish more people played this so the dev team would be much, much bigger!
With so much time to play and all the research you do, you should be doing great, coinwise. If you like I can come visit you and see if I can offer suggestions.
The people who have lots of coin in this game got it because they got creative and made it. If you just build in the middle of no where, have no portals, or have lack luster builds, no one will come and spend coin.
Everyone started with a totem and a warp augment. I grinded my first coils with an iron hammer… I didn’t just start the game with coin. I work hard hard hard to earn what I have and in return I slash prices in my shop so people who don’t have a ton of coin can afford to buy my stuff. I fund my baskets at high prices and I use almost all my coin so people who farm can make a living and will know to come back.
Anyone can make coin in this game if you put in a bit of effort. Considering you have so much time, I’m thinking just something’s isn’t clicking. I seriously would love to help you. I’m always on either my main, Ginabean, or my crafter, Elphaba… I mostly hang out in my shop, The Witches Brew.
Truthfully, Janna, it’s all about the portals. Get the right portals in the right places. If you build it, they will come.
Keep in mind that those include all of the early backers who haven’t played after the launch. I’d imagine there are more ppl like me who didn’t know it’s “finished” now so they haven’t left the sanctum yet.
That’s an interesting perspective give even if I disagree. Everyone does not want the restrictions that come with being part of a settlement near a portal hub. It is harder to expand with all the other players arounfd and you are likely to be surrounded by other players. Personally I like to have some nature around my build which is harder when everyone wants to build to try and gain footfall.
As someone that has built in the same place, we do have a portal. But since many of us share permissions we get no footfall from each other and there is minimal traffic from other players. So having a portal does not automatically equal coin. Sure we could build a hub and then spend our time hunting and trading for Oort to run it, but why should everyone have to play the game by running a portal network to get coin? The player base is not going to support an infinite number of portal hubs anyway.
The game also cannot have every player running a store. The store owners need buyers and why should everyone be doing the exact same thing? The game is called boundless not Shopkeeper.
Think there is a lot of over simplification on the reasons why players are getting discouraged or frustrated with the game. It is not like they do not know how to mine so they need to be shown how to use a hammer. I think the issue is more basic in how the game mechanics are favoring a few roles for th generation of coin, while at the same time a portion of the player base is insisting everyone should be participating in the economy and if they are not the economy is broken. They seem to want the game changed so people can’t get what they need on their own in a reasonable time so they are forced to spend large amounts of time being part of the economy. Then when a segment of the player base says they do not have the coin to participate they are told they are playing wrong or should do one of the two that I already mentioned. It may be that a segment of the player base will never have enough coin to actively participate in the economy given the current mechanics.
after looking and posting in a few threads for me what would entice me to play like i did back in EA would be to lower the massive grind mountain we got now back in EA i used to use gem tools to dig up glass mats cuz if i ever needed more gems mineing them was somewhat pain free 2 or 3 HR’s and i would have what i needed for a few tools not like now where its 5 or 6 HRs plus how ever long it takes to farm the forge mats.
or at the vary lest make it feel like the player is getting more done in shorter time frames then it is cuz right now i dont even bother mineing unless i feel like or have the time to do a 6 HR run
Agreed. What I plan on completing in a day usually takes me a week… because I need to go farm this, that, and this, craft that, then use what I just crafted to craft what I actually set out to craft in the first place, and THEN, 3 days later I get to START doing that thing I wanted to do in the first place.
I don’t hate it, but it does tend to make me play less. “Hey, I wanna hunt! Shoot, weapon is almost broken… and I’m low on enriched bonding agent… hmm, also out of shimmering orbs… oh well I think I’ll just skip Boundless entirely today.”
Maybe a couple leaderboards or top 100 lists, like the 100 richest characters and how many coins they have, or top 100 land owners with the most plots…
I’m curious which characters they are. Curious to see what it takes to make it on the lust.
It might entice some players to try to get on the list.
Well, before I went on what is now a very extensive break I spent 30ish million to make sure the money was back in the economy rather than sat in an unloved character.
I didnt consider myself rich and pretty sure some have waaaay more due to things like gleam door minting and the bug with spark price. As for plots, seen a lot of people with 50k+ . Might give you an insight to how high that leader board could go lol
There used to be some sort of geocaching going on in this game way back, I built a house at one of the spots I picked up from a player-gone store’s geocache location tokens for sale and it’s freaking amazing terrain for a refreshing getaway from it all and shoot gobs of roadies that flock to the puddle in the yard The location let me build straight into a cliffside so it’s enhanced nature outside and neon pink vaporcore inside.
The location let me build straight into a cliffside so it’s enhanced nature outside and neon pink vaporcore inside.