Would this affect your purchase?

General
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I’ve edited out some of the salt. I’m allowed to be salty - I’ll try not to be a jerk. 2nd edit my example was too generic sigh.

I’ve had some engagement in PM And I want to clarify that this thread is not an attempt to continue an argument from another thread. That thread does and will demand a response from the dev team. I’m waiting for it with everyone else.

I’m polling for current community sentiment on the use of “things” to play the game AFK. I don’t honestly care what things. With permission, I will quote something from PM that has helped me to clarify my point:

The developers will draw the final line on whether or not this particular “X” is acceptable. Until such time as that line is clear, we’re each entitled to our thoughts.

Until then, this thread is a check for community sentiment on this overall issue. I would expand the poll to include some more PS player focused responses but, there’s already a double-digit number of votes. Feel free to elaborate in the comments.

======================== Slightly edited original post now =====================

Truly not caring to split hairs over the finer details, I have a real question. About something that’s always dark and mysterious. Like, Everyone knows this stuff is “out there” but it’s always just sort of the dark side and most people would rather just not have to hear about it.

I’m going to share something with you, then ask a question. Well the question is in the title. Have this:

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So imagine you already know this hypothetical MMO you found is botted. Turns out that it’s already had a couple of rebalances due to some automated (and un-automated) exploits, which means you’re going to have to bot, or, just work a little harder for what you want (while other people bot)

Are you still buying this game?
(anonymous poll)

  • Yes
  • No
  • I Have More Questions
0 voters

I’m also curious how people’s feelings change when they see that, vs. the same “yeah some people botted” vague sort of comments people make.

:man_shrugging:

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Make it for PlayStation and I’ll give you 10 million coin hahah

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I’m not claiming to have made that, though I once wrote a thread about it :wink:

:heart: Karl but PC players only sorry PS guys - get some rubber bands?

Still we hope you buy the game and come play with us!

EDIT: probably should have had “yes but not on PS” in the poll options :rofl:

4

I think botting has been happening in games since games were introduced on PC. It has happened in many a game so I voted yes as I have played WoW and dealt with the gold farmers, I have played a number of MMOs that have had gold farmers, or auto-harvesting bots or people in a 10-person party of alts.

It happens and will always continue happening and most every one of them have tried to patch a fix or had active in-game admins preventing this.

In a game like Boundless the argument always comes up that no one gains anything over someone because there is no PVP and no “winning” in Boundless. Do I like it or agree with it? Nope.

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All true (or at least relevant can’t confirm your persona experience) and I don’t really think the results of this poll are easily predicted.

If I knew this activity was openly welcomed by the developers then, as I noted another thread, it could become a part of a community pursuit, rather than being held in the dark and whispered about.

It still leaves half~ish the community in the cold, among other problems. And a company is sort of shooting themselves in the foot if they openly encourage bypassing monetization mechanics with automation.

The “new guys” however say they’re savvy about monetization, I’m not sure if any of their properties are of a type where they’ve dealt with technical or community issues around botting, though. In the meantime I’m curious how seeing something like this makes people feel vs. just vaguely knowing that “botting is out there”.

If I haven’t made it clear - having heard whispers was one thing for me - seeing this kind of stuff triggered that thread “Keep your macros to yourself” which got dug up again today.

NGL though “if you can’t beat them …”

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Having to change chisel to metamorphic is the most thankless task. If they ever add a way to set up mass crafts of type changing into the game, the macro wouldn’t be necessary

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Right. It seems they were too busy removing things and adding controls to the game to ever get to a single one of SOOOOOO many QOL issues with the game. Just adding a full queue button to the crafting machines. Add more than one stack of input to the minter. A “move all” button or hotkey in the chest/stand/basket interface.

Nahhh instead we got nerfed, we got plot restrictions, we got new and more limited item classes etc… So many dev hours gone to that stuff.

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No need to spend time adding quality of life stuff when so many players are already handling it.

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Now this slightly feels like personal attack but will let it slide. :rofl:

Botting was and will always be present in most games. It has good and bad sides to it. I don’t think nearly anyone bots in Boundless. But the can of worms opened today you are referring to really has nothing to do with botting or scripting. All we’re doing is pushing the limits of the game and being very open and honest about it. All mechanics are core game mechanics just cleverly put into one machine.

Edit: apparently lots of people bot, had no idea.

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Absolutely no question and I will continue to avoid quibbling over technical definitions. There’s a whole other thread pending dev response on “is AFK play officially acceptable”.

Over the years the general tone of the player base here has drifted. Fine and normal. We went through this before and the general sentiment seemed to be that most players didn’t want or like this in the game.

This thread is an attempt to see if that’s still the case. That’s all. It’s about what is happening, not how it’s happening.

EDIT: Also I posted a sort of joke at Karl earlier but if it wasn’t clear I wasn’t trying to exclude PS users from this poll. They need to weigh in.

I was just pointing out that they would be excluded from the use of any such tools - but still have to play with the people using them.

Considering the friction over existing imbalances, I think seeing this sort of thing during any pre-purchase research would weigh heavier on them actually, than any PC player.

10

macro - yes
script - yes
bot - no
weight - yes
is a macro the same as a bot no, a bot tracks inputs and canr eact on these inputs, a macro can not
is a keybind ok? - well imho mostly yes.

My reasoning is, that a macro needs a specific setup to work. one needs to ionvest thinking in simple automation even with a macro, because you have to build a controlled enviroment in game. if you can use a macro, than what you do is a tedious and boring task and therefore is in my eyes not gameplay, but grind for the grindfest.

A Bot uses gameinputs for doing stuff, therefore it removes gameplay which is not ok in my opinion.

Depends, if botting is allowed or encouraged than why not? It can be a really interessting experience for example if you want to write a bot yourself.

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Right I mean end of the day this is a rule based situation, not a moral or (necessarily) legal one. When I was told people were using auto-clickers, I asked if macros were acceptable. The answer seemed to be a very resounding “no” from most of the people, and dead silence from the devs.

Leaving the "X in the quote just turns this back to what I’m trying to avoid I will edit for clarity - because the major issue on the table right now, the big “X”, is “afk gameplay”.

If playing without a human at “the wheel” is acceptable - there’s absolutely no reason for anyone wasting time arguing about whether a hardware macro is more acceptable than a software macro. Or a rock.

Sadly the last official statement here mentioned more than one potential tool so it seems that some people want to focus a ton of semantic analysis onto what tools are being used as a way of ignoring what the end result is. Clearly, this frustrates me to no end.

This is the crux of the non-hypothetical current “X” of course. Because end of the day, it boils down to “is AFK ‘gameplay’ acceptable, or not”.

If the owners say it’s OK to grind cubits AFK 24/7 then I personally won’t care what contraptions people do it with. You can grind’em in a boat, you can grind’em with a goat.

I’ve had some interesting discussion today, and some frustrating discussion. IT’s clear that I’ve helped cloud things as much as clearing anything up. Yeah frustrating.

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see i dont even consider what x is. I see it from an engagement perspective. if it does not need engagement, than it is not gameplay and a macro r script cant do something that needs engagement, because of the repettitive nature. doing the same thing for 20h is not engaging play.

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Thanks because if nothing else I’m hearing again and again that everybody draws their lines in a different way.

If an activity is not wanted - I don’t see how what tools you use really matters.

Apparently, a lot of people do. Enough to make it an issue. I’m confused, but I don’t have to be right :man_shrugging:

I would sure like for everyone to get on the same (officially approved) page, though. If Monumental officially says 24/7 AFK grinding for cubits is OK - I think lots of people are going to be happy to show and share their work. And once again all (PC) players will be equal.

And TBH actual in-game contraptions like what was posted yesterday will absolutely be the saving grace for PS players.

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PS player response…

If I knew this was happening in a cross platform shared persistent universe, in a game with a player made economy and where all items are produced by players I would not purchase.

I would have to assume that the devs are OK with PC players using external tools to gain an advantage over console players, which I’m not ok with.

If those tools were available to all equally, then it’s less of an issue.

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Just started on pc :joy::rofl::joy: (few hours) (ps view)

Personally if it’s game breaking then no.
But to be fair there isn’t much to gain in boundless and X is a personal preference at this point (in my eyes).

How to explain myself better.

Back in the day when we leveled by crafting stone in crafting tables with a teaching pie (as it had a timer back then). Did that with one pie and found myself being annoyed as I couldn’t play.

Using the minter as an ATM…
Nope still use it as a trash can and only put stuff in it that needs to go as it won’t sell in that quantity (lava/water).

Just before the “quiet” times as changes in leveling where announced the mass leveling to gain…
Haven’t done that either.

My point is in boundless at the very least i can say about what i build and collect i put my own time in it.
(In case of cubits probably even money).
That said unless some of the more tedious tasks get some improvements i might ask me human bot to take part in those tasks :grin: as i have a friend that likes to do mind numbing tasks.

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I was so new to the game I barely understood what the problem was. Much like the days of placing/breaking a single block for hours - I learned about this exploit by being informed of the “fix”.

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Yeah the fix was basically that they removed the timers on teaching foods to a set xp gain.
How it worked was you quickly started all the mass crafts eat the teaching food (pie was 4 min i believe) went to sanctum and came back when the last crafting table was done to collect the xp, start the crafts and go back to sancum again.

Think they also lowerd the xp but not sure (to long ago and doesn’t really matter any way).

But as you where in sanctum the timer on the teaching foods was in “stases” so it all depended on how quick you where and how much xp you could gain within that time.

Anyway back to topic :wink:

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Honestly? Hard question. Like boundless in general. I need to say yes because without boundless there was no Host and me and also no Benjamin. But like for real, for what boundless is? Most likely no. See the thing about that with the botting and scripting is really frustrating in a way like the auto click for crafting is already something that gives pc players a benefit I will never have on ps4. Or that they can see meteors laying around in distance. But that is for me not too much the problem since those issues you most likely face in many games. Some people exploit or taking advantage of some mechanism that not everyone is able to reach or use or whatever. For me boundless is simply too grindy. I’m not complaining here about it but honestly, if I was still working and I will at some point again, boundless is past for me. I was thinking that already two years ago when I started. It’s turning quickly into work and becomes repetitive and one wonders in the end for what is one doing that all. I had quitting thoughts multiple times whenever real-life got too busy with my baby. I guess, knowing some people have the opportunity to get a strong advantage over me with kind of unallowed mechanics would be just the cherry on the icing.

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I just wanna say, I don’t see these really as an exploit, it was really more of an oversight by the devs. To me it still makes no sense why wood is instant and grants no exp while rock takes time and grants xp… :thinking:

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Right, they halved the XP on a crucial, early game activity. A huge hit to confused noobs because very experienced players were exploiting the early game mechanics.

This is the cost. The game got harder, for everyone.

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