Beacon footfall: is it too low? poll

Just an apology from my side - I did not mean to offend anyone. My post had exactly the opposite effect as intended - was merely stating my opinion. Will be more careful in the future.

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Considering I was called out in a public forum, it would have been nice to actually see my name here in a public forum as well instead of just directing it the public which were not the ones that posted about being offended. But, you did reach out to me via personal message to apologize, which I appreciate. So I don’t have a problem that your apology here addressed “anyone” instead of me directly.

@Tarahyumaro I don’t know you well enough to determine why you felt such a need to respond to my exchange with Omni. I don’t know how old you are or what country / culture / background you come from. So I will adjust my wording in a more generic nature to help and try to come off as respectful as I can since your history of life is of no relevance to me in this specific post.

The two posts between Omni and myself in relation to the personal components were none of your business and it really is not appropriate to put yourself in the middle of them. Secondly, you have no right to tell another person what they can and cannot feel. To do so is arrogant and egotisical.

If I had asked you for an opinion then you could have weighed in. But, I did not so you really should have stayed out of the middle of it. In my view, I have ultimate say because parts of the post were directed to me and no one else because he said “you.”

Had you messaged me personally, then I would have responded personally. But, you chose to post this in a public forum and then define how I am looking at things incorrectly and shouldn’t have been offended. Due to this, I could either let this drop or respond publicly. Since your statements to me are not correct, I will respond here.

In response to what you said to me directly, I get what you are trying to say but you are not correct in how I view the world. It was the selection of words that were not respectful not the concept. So you have it backward. I was not offended by the overlying concept of what Omni was trying to share, I was offended by his direct selection of words that he picked to define me.

He said -

  1. “if you wish to actually evaluate it in economical terms” - Using the word “actually” is the one thing that communicated that all my previous conversations I had around economy were complete wrong and were not valid.
  2. “I think you have a serious bias against the current economy without being cognizant of it” - Here is another statement that says I do not know what I am talking about in relation to “economy.” This further supports his view that I don’t know anything about this games economy or possibly business in general.
  3. “maybe take a step back and look at it more objectively” - Here he is telling me that he knows best and that in a third mention I am not looking at the economy model around the game correctly. And, he is saying I am not objective, when with almost everything in my life is looking at the world holistically and objectively because of the job I am in and the life I lead.

Had Omni said the following then there would have been no “personal offense” because it was not directed “directly at me” or “defining who I am” or “defining how I am looking at thing” which were key to the problem -

  1. “I have completely different views of how the economy works, I’d love to debate them with you.”
  2. “From many of your past posts, it feels or comes off to me that there is maybe an underlying bias.”
  3. “Your posts aren’t feeling objective, can we clarify a few things so I can understand your view better.”

This is the basic communication style and word choice that would have caused a different response from me. The reason for this is the underlying message and the overt word choice shows that the person is sharing how they are feeling and that they are trying to understand the other persons view – not telling them what to do, calling them out as not being cognizant, etc.

The message boards are a communication style of “written word” so the words a person picks in response is the most important thing. We have no tone, facial expressions, or anything else to understand where the person is coming from. The only other thing is relationship and the ability to see their other posts to infer how they view the world and the type of person the might be. I hold people accountable to the words they use especially when I am brought up into the post or responded to.

You are more than welcome to have your own view of what Omni said and what my response to him meant. I am sure every other person reading this has their own subjective view and opinion about it. Personally, I would have let the whole thing drop had you not made the decision to respond to my post directly.

The primary reason I responded was in hopes that people on this forum take more time to find better words to convey their meaning and that they stop trying to define what other people view or how they are wrong. Instead moving our conversations into a more constructive format and respectful tone.

As a final point, I did consider why Omni would have said that, and I feel that my usage of the term “real economy” is a poor choice of words and should be changed. It doesn’t show respect for the economy that does exist in the game and certainly doesn’t convey the larger feature robust economy I see that we should have. So I will try my best to not use that again.

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:roll_eyes: … .

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heh…kinda where my thoughts went, Jeffrotheswell.
Lets hope topic gets back on topic, as the topic is a one worthy of open discussion.

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[@Xaldafax you said your toughts, opinion and suggestions on the thread subject, just let others the possibility to go on.
Please, sometimes, once you have expressed your point of view, wich i do belive it’s a precious one, let all the others do the same, let peoples the time to read your and others posts without it becoming an infinite wall of words.
Sometimes people do reply to posts using it as a way to express the personal point of view, not because they have something personal with you.]

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I ran a very successful portal hub so I understand where you are coming from. But to be clear, and I did the math, footfall is not a viable income source for portal networks in the general sense. Only a specific approach will make it feasible.

Additionally, footfall is not the “only” and “sole” way this can be accomplished. Too many people defend footfall as if it is the only method of obtaining coin in this game. We can easily create a new system to support portal services that will give more options to both the portal owner and those using it.

  1. Feats inject coin already. We can also create other ways if it is that important than something like footfall. So this “inject coin” argument is lackluster.
  2. There was a thread created [ Warp Conduit Fuel - #18 by Prome3us ] to let warps be done through another means so that coin does not become a restrictive component to exploring (which is key to this game). It would be more inline with all the other crafting features and remove the issue around limited coin that beginners feel.

Your other suggestions around increasing footfall and stuff are interesting but really expound a problem we already have about people fighting for the best locations and other things. This promotes less community cooperation and more unhealthy interactions.

Every single thing people have brought up about why footfall is needed could easily be replaced by another game mechanic and income source. I feel that our time is better spent in discussing ways to grow the services and features in this game toward income instead of focusing on a first pass income system like footfall.

The game would be more robust, promote teamwork and interactions in a more healthy way than it is now with how many approach footfall and their game style. It is beyond me why people focus on a limited feature instead of pushing our developers to create a more feature rich option.

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We should have footfall along with contracts, blueprints, shop stands, daily coin, and other interesting ways to make coin income. It isn’t like this game has limited room in how you make your money so you can finance other activities in the game you want to do. One method of coin income shouldn’t be excluded from the game any more than another method. As long as it serves its purpose well, it should stay in the game. Footfall serves its purpose just fine. One can make the argument that shop stands can easily be replaced with something else just like one can make the argument for footfall. Doesn’t mean those are valid reasons to get rid of the game mechanic. Nobody has ever said footfall is a good income source. It’s only slightly better than daily coin rewards.

I honestly wish there was some sort of stock market in the game for non-shop owners to put coin on shop owners they wish to help bank roll and get some sort of ROI. Maybe that isn’t something a lot of people would like but I think it would help out tremendously with the game’s economy. The idea could even work for other play styles too, such as builders.

The economy is a massive part of the game and it will be hard for anyone to really not be a part of it in some way or another. It ties in so many other features together and gives viable reason to interact with other players in some way or another. Not everything needs to be about teamwork and I really doubt the people who made the locations currently on the live server made them solely to cash out on footfall.

Maybe I just can’t remember, but what would you replace Footfall with since it basically is a game mechanic in Boundless that serves the same purpose as The Federal Reserve does in United States in how it prints money.

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An argument taking shop stands and comparing them to footfall is kind of comparing apples and oranges.

  1. Shop stands are primarily used as a forum to display an item so someone can make income while another person is directly selling an item.
  2. Footfall is a mechanic that currently is focused on using prestige and other parts to give people income. There is not direct “service”, or “item for sale.”

So that is mixing things isn’t really helping the conversation move along towards a feature rich solution for an economy that allows the selling of goods a services. My post did not say “removal” of footfall or communicate in any way that it should be excluded form the game in comparison to another feature.

Additionally, bringing in that “nobody said it was a good income source” doesn’t help in responding to me because I did not say anything in any way that people said that. I don’t see any one else anywhere saying that thing so I don’t understand the relevance of using those words in response to me. I said people defend it and many as if it is very critical to the game. You are welcome to disagree with that but I have based my judgement of that because I see plenty of conversations where people respond in ways that convey it.

All my post was about is that there are other options and I wished time would be focused on that instead of always just talking about footfall by a large group of people. I find it very interesting that the responses I get so many times from people is just defending footfall or trying to tell me where I am wrong or need to adjust my views instead of saying, “yeah why aren’t we developing more economy features.”

In this case, you did add about the stock market and other income options which I am very happy you did. I’m not sure about it but I think it is a great idea to invest some discussion time in. Maybe you should do a suggestion post outlining some of your thoughts so people can add theirs.

I made various posts on what could come in from my perspective. It probably isn’t relevant here… I am not sure why people are linking footfall to this income printing method so much. When the developers created footfall I don’t really believe that the top thing on the list as to why this was needed was to bring money into the game for this reason. I could be wrong but I think they did it for the actual reason it exists - income for traffic.

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I don’t think we’ll ever agree on anything about footfall. So with realizing that, I don’t really care anymore to talk about it. Personally it’s a waste of my time. /shrugs

Any idea that allows players to find different ways to make their money is worth discussing.

I just don’t know how it would work for builders or hunters or explorers since most of the ideas I personally have been withholding from the community around how to make improvements to the economy don’t really involve builders. They are ideas that directly benefit shop owners and they already can do a good enough job making coin than every other income source. I guess for builders there needs to be a way they can benefit from the stock market if they can sell blueprints. But to sell a blueprint you have to open a shop full of shop stands and request baskets. So in the end, even a builder is playing the shop owner mini game to some degree in order to finance more builds.

It sounds like a big catch-22 to me.

Personally I think if you aren’t willing to run a shop of some kind to get coin here and there to buy things from other people’s shops so you can advance further in the game to accomplish your goals, projects, tasks, etc. then you’re going to be left in the dust compared to everyone else. Even more so if you join a guild. I don’t consider Boundless to be a solo friendly game nor do I think it should be. There are enough solo-isk MMOs out there for people to play.

I have other reasons why I don’t share my ideas with pretty much nobody in the community. Mainly cause I don’t think my ideas are worth sharing. :confused:

Yeah it is a bit complicated on how to design the mechanic to support everyone. Maybe people get a share of the income provided through those actions by the person they invested in. I’m not sure either and it kind of can create a catch 22 type scenario.

More than likely it is too advanced an idea for the basic design right now. Probably more player contract and other features around the general economy need to be flushed out more first before an advanced model like stock market comes into place.

This is probably a decent summary of some of the underlying views and feelings I have that drive many of my posts. That is why I am pushing for feature robustness and other ways of playing. Also kind of why I pushed on that P2W thread. I’m not against the current model but it seems that in some ways it can create a scenario where people can be left behind and in doing so causes a big possibility they just stop trying and quit playing.

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This is probably very true. If anyone did the idea themselves it would be pretty risky (coin wise) and players would need to be vetted, etc. A nightmare.

There’s also the part of the idea of adding in a stock market of sorts where players would think they’re getting scammed or something.

I guess I am just waiting to share my ideas until I know if any of them are worth actually sharing when more features are added to the game.

It’s also a view point coming from someone who plans on running an active shop of sorts after 1.0 release. I’d love to be able to have an incentive to play the building contractor mini-game and sell blueprint designs of stuff. I think it would be pretty cool. It would go pretty nicely with my affinity towards mining and digging.

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This might be an unpopular opinion, but personally, I don’t really get this whole footfall thing. All these kind of mechanics are going to do in the long run is have people focus on getting the most traffic possible to their beacons. It then becomes more about selfishness and greed rather than about community. (not directing that at anyone btw, just meant as a general statement)

If it were me, I would scrap the whole footfall thing altogether and figure out another way for people to generate money, provided that was the whole idea of “footfall” in the first place.

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Totally agree. I hate footfall. I agree with real builders there should be ways to make money as a builder. Footfall does not reward building though. It rewards having a plot filled with enough things to give it prestige and located in a place people have to pass to get to something popular… usually a portal. Make a long hallway down to the biggest portal hub in existence and you could have 10 or 20 different people get massive footfall by each having one plot in the hallway. That seems to be the main goal now for the footfall fans.

There are many possibilities for replacing footfall with something that actually rewards building. One is make an automatic way with a craftable “for sale” sign so that you can advertise a place is for sale for x amount and has y number of plots with z prestige. Let people look and if someone wishes to purchase then they put the money in the sign and the prior owner is notified to come collect their money and the sign changes to saying “SOLD”. That way non-builders can buy nice places and builders that don’t want shops can sell their builds and regain the use of some plots to make a new build with. That is more like life. Life doesn’t reward you because people stepped on the right piece of sidewalk. A very good builder could make a very good income. Lousy builders won’t. Prestige could be removed too since it just rewards people with stuffing space with high value blocks no matter how hideous the “build” is. Then that wouldn’t be needed on the signs. Make leaders of communities be by votes of players (not characters) within the community every three months or whatever.

Another way is make some of the building feats repeatable and rewarded only with money at least after the first time and based on the beacon. So, say x number of blocks in the build or x amount of so called “prestige” gets you 10,000 coin while another amount is 40,000 coin and yet another amount is 150,000 coin. If you have the plots available (or sell a property you had already built opening more available plots), then you can build another place collecting the monetary rewards over and over. Income like these sources rewards builders equally no matter where they build. Location based rewards are silly.

That is just two of many ideas. Unfortunately, the footfall fans don’t like anything that removes their beloved footfall. They are happy to raise footfall or add ideas in addition to footfall to increase money. Footfall they know how to exploit with minimal work (some of them) so don’t want it gone. If footfall doesn’t go away though then nothing should be added as rewards for building and footfall should definitely not be raised.

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Slightly off topic but I still think prestige shouldn’t be able to be hijacked by other players. We should all be able to opt in to community builds rather than just be swallowed up whether we want to or not. With a lot more new players coming on board soon I can see this potentially causing a lot of tension for some people. I don’t actually mind the prestige value and planetary ranking system it’s just the involuntary merging I’m opposed to.

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i can see the greed
but theres also other side
the footfall plays a big factor in running a city
its doable for me to give decent maintanance and social support to a city
if i get some footfall
if now i need to make coin alternative it becomes dificult to manage
especially since portals are free and property to in aqua

i see footfall as a income for a player like me
its my only reward beside making many friends and building awesome stuff

now some time has passed and i think for me if games has more players it will be doable for me i cant give proper opinion on small builds our settlements footfall thats what the poll is for :smile:

i give plots like this to people that help in my city our that are maintaining and running transfer stations as a reward for there help to the comunity
dont see it as abuse

plots are most precious thing ingame so getting a high footfall plot is not easy thing to do it takes dedication to the game

i also thing people outside comunity claiming around hubs with intention to leech footfall should be avoided

if we build on release a new city i want all helpers to have a part off the hallway since nothing else rewards them

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totaly agree only thing what if someone decides to unannex and is the middle off a city? splitting it in half i see the tactics on release can be quit agressive
it means more great players but also more trolls and leechers

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I don’t see the problem with that example. If somebody not part of the city claim in the middle of the city, yes it’s a problem and he split it in half. But it doesn’t mean city need to auto annex stuff as a band aid. If he’s not part of the city he’s not part of the city. Actually the annexation give him more reasons to claim in the middle of it, for the footfall.
We’ve seen problems with cities annexing stuff a bunch of times already. It get solved peacefully now because we’re a small community. But as you said, at release there will be more trolls and tactics can be more aggressive.

Being part of a settlement need to be opt in. It’s a simple fix and it just makes sense and always should have been this way. It solves all that drama of annexation, leaching, and all that. Towns that want other people to join in always have active mayors that can be reached easily to make the merging. I even think that mayor should’t be by highest prestige, but the one person everybody chose to merge to. So that there can’t be stupid prestige battle on that front either. And let prestige battles stay for capital battles.

@ElfMarine your second solution is too easily exploitable. You can just stack all your stuff in a beacon until you get the feat, remove the beacon, rinse and repeat. Would be boring but still a big exploit.
Your first solution sound good though.

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I there was going to be a market for people wanting others to build for them it would have already happened. There have been occasions where people have asked for something to be built, but it certainly has not been nearly the volume that would be required to provide a source of coin for everyone that wants to be a builder. More often it is someone wanting to pay to have an area cleared and even that is not every day. More people when we reach 1.0 might mean more volume but it also means more builders. I do not think this is viable and I see no evidence in the game so far to make me think otherwise.

People that invest in infrastructure like roads and portals should have a way to generate coin just like the person that built a store. What do you suggest? In the real world, this is done with taxes for roads and infrastructure. Footfall is one way to do this and is already in the game. Is it really worth the time to have the developers come up with something else?

I do agree with you on absorbing other people’s builds. Any build over a certain size/prestige should be able to opt in or opt out of becoming part of a settlement.

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I personally don’t mind the footfall as for me it just shows if I had some visitors while I’ve been away, the amount that’s generated on my builds are minimal so it’s not really about the coin. Perhaps the amount of footfall should be connected to the number of players in a settlement/city, the more citizens the more coin. This will be an incentive to opt in to joining a settlement. If someone annexes themselves within a city then they will receive less footfall coin. The opting in and out of a city could perhaps take 24/48 hours so people can’t switch back and forth at the drop of a hat. Maybe another incentive to join/remain within a settlement is beacon fuel lasts slightly longer, some sort of percentage increase based on the number of players (not prestige or number of beacons).

What I have been after is something that rewards building equally no matter where a player builds. That is a reward for building. Footfall is basically just a reward for plot location. Make one plot in the right location and fill it beneath the surface with high “prestige” value items and you make a decent amount of coin the way things are. That takes no building skills and doesn’t require constant building to generate income. Footfall essentially has zero to do with building and doesn’t reward amazing builders such as @anon73404375 as the best and most artistic builders tend to stay out of cities. Shopkeepers are the ones that tend to go to cities and they are already rewarded with sales. Builders currently have no reward really unless they go in a city (most likely to open a shop rather than be a builder for the joy of building). I’m no builder as I don’t have the skills or artistic brain for it. I struggle along and do better than many. However, I do nothing that deserves a reward no matter where I place it. Sales I could do no problem as long as in a city. What we need are rewards that apply equally no matter where a person chooses to locate. With footfall, sales, mayors, etc. city life is rewarded very well already. People outside of large communities don’t have incomes other than feats, daily and weekly rewards, etc. unless they are miners/gatherers that sell to large shops in cities or go build a shop in a city. People outside of cities I’m sure outnumber those inside. Even if outside but you build close to a city (or the city expands to near your former isolated place) then the city builders accuse you of leaching income off them so you have to move to keep from being accused. We need fairness no matter where the location people choose. Most of us just have to accept we don’t have an income other than feats and bonuses that everyone gets. No matter how rich the city dwellers get, the majority will still stay out of cities and under the current system be far poorer than the city dwellers. Thats okay with most of us, but, it’s annoying to have the city dwellers that make the most income constantly complaining they don’t make enough from footfall while those outside of cities rarely get any footfall and of course don’t have sales and won’t be getting tax when that is implemented either.

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