Because the goal is footfall. It is far better for the health of game and the economy for you to visit 10 beacons to find what you want than it is to just go to the single location.
Put another way visiting a single location generates 20c for the games economy. Visiting 10 creates 200c that is added to the economy. That’s good for everyone.
Also remember the shopping mechanic is not in isolation. Exploration and construction need to keep even balance, and that means being able to use cool constructs, stores and portals to encourage footfall.
And I think footfall (and all the coins) is what makes this game less interesting. If you had a simple barter system (look at PoE) it would be much if not better, then at least much more interesting, especially when you account for how many different items you can trade.
I strongly disagree with this. to players that cannot play 10 hours a day, convenience is a big deal. Convenience is a big deal for me.
If all you are doing is running a store for footfall, then you need to just grab plots close to a hub and save yourself the effort. The store should make money on what it sells and not need footfall to generate a profit. If it does not, then I think it should close.
While I will disagree with this statement. Based on what you said, if the game was trying to encourage exploring maybe the footfall should go to the one exploring and not the person that has the plots? That would make what you said make sense. Encourage exploring by generating footfall for every region, beacon, city you go to.
See, I disagree. The footfall mechanic is what makes this game work, what makes it special. Get rid of that and it’s just another crappy “race to get powerful” MMO instead of a game about exploration and creation.
This game is a voxel building game. The entire point of it is to build things of worth.
Right now it encourages people to landgrab to ensure footfall then put up empty store fronts full of high prestige items or Gleam Towers.
Your argument that people would suddenly feel less encouraged to build things of worth makes no sense to me.
edit
You get 100 coins a day from playin’, and even more from the weekly bonus. Coins definitely get added into the economy, and those numbers could be increased dependin’ on changes to footfall.
Do you think all the amazing builds that exist right now wouldn’t exist if suddenly people didn’t get footfall? That’s hard to believe.
I will agree store do not create money, they are in fact with the tax a coin sink. So why give them footfall at all if the intention of the developers is for them to be a coin sink? Maybe any beacons including adjoining beacons owned by the same player or their alts with store stands on then should not get footfall?
If footfall is supposed to be the profit for a store then what I should do is next portal hub launched, buy a store portal. build a decent store with massively overpriced items and just collect footfall, because we want people to wander around and go to a lot of stores.
I obviously don’t have all the answers here. All I know for sure is the last thing we need is to make it easier to shop. We need people out exploring the wilderness, traveling from place to place. Not huddled in the cities.
If you don’t have to ask “is this easier to mine/craft myself or to go shopping for?” then there is an issue with the balance. If (unless you are into a big build) you are not visiting multiple worlds and a large number of beacons every time you play, there is an issue with the balance.
The first sentence is not compatible with the second sentence.
You keep makin’ absolute claims of certainty that X or Y would do Z to the game, but then you say you don’t have all the answers, or you don’t provide a reasoned argument for why.
All the amazing builds people made in Minecraft were made without a footfall system, to say the removal of it or changes to it would be bad for the game seems … well, wrong?
edit
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you think if footfall were eliminated, people would stop making cities and builds look as nice, and people who want to explore would suddenly lose interest in exploring, right?
I know absolutely 100% that making it easier to shop would not harm the game.
edit 2
I apologize if I’m seemin’ rude, I don’t mean to, I just realllly don’t get some of these claims you make, and I’m not seeing many counter arguments, like about footfall.