There has been a lot of back and forth about the Economy. Needs on the supply side, demand side, coin generation side, etc. People that disagree with Footfall and those that think it is something we need to keep.
With more and more content locked behind Exos and lack of foot fall traffic and the grind required for the coin machine, we should spend time at revamping our economy. How can we do this?
This thread isn’t to start a fight between people as to what should stay and what should go. Instead it is here to help people showcase what they think “the Boundless economy” should look like. Please post the things you would like to see changed and what it looks like. This thread is here to help the developers HEAR us so they can make the economy better.
Most importantly answer this question because it was asked by a Dev on what they would need to see information on for them to design a better Economy for Boundless:
If you had to change out the Coin Taps (ways of making money) in Boundless what would you put in place
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We need an in game way to easily, fast and reliable know where we can get what we need. Maybe, like farming, we should be able to build an “auction house” ourselves as player.
Additionally, there should be some different ways to reap rewards for people who host some infrastructure, most notably portals but also infrastructure builds. Portals cost a lot to keep up and footfall is a bad joke. There should be a different way to “get paid” for running a good portal besides running a shop at the destination. This could either be buffed footfall or builds could “collect” different resources upon being used. Or portals that extend their duration when used.
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The way i see it, portals and footfall work kinda opposing at the moment. The one speeds up travel (good) and the other rewards builds for being visited (good). The problem is though, if you don’t own a busy portal ( read here - long distance shortcut i.e. expensive) or a busy shop, there are very few reasons for players to visit your beacon at the moment. This means non economic and non portal builds are not visited so passively disincentivised.
My coin tap would in theory focus on rewarding both visitor and plot owner in some way for taking the long way round, while at the same time not discouraging portal networks or things like malls. I honestly don’t have a firm idea of what such a system would look like.
A second option, aimed at making everyone a portal owner, would be to allow a single free upkeep portal (possibly with extended range tied to warp distance skill) per account, likely restricted to a selected character’s home beacon. The opening cost could be much higher to prevent serial abuse, but would allow solo or casual players on remote planets a single route to far away / access for visitors from busy but distant areas without needing high investment to keep it running. This would help the current footfal system to generate a bit more for those at the bottom end
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I’ve heard the suggestion for an auction-house type of system many times. And as much as it can be tedious to find things in malls/shops, and as much as i’d want this, i believe it’s not a good idea.
The following has to be taken with a grain of salt as obviously the way an auction house would work depends on implementation, but please bear with me.
I believe implementing an auction-house type system would completely destroy one of the main aspects of the game. Exploration. Malls would instantly become obsolete. Footfall income would plummet across all types of hubs and builds. Depending on implementation, portals would almost become obsolete for half the population who just want to build and farm on 1 planet.
Don’t get me wrong, i’d love an auction-house type system. But i believe it would have massive consequences to the way the game is played as a whole.
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For some exploration is a main part of the game but I’m sure there’s a decent amount people who don’t care for the exploration area either. I have yet to explore an entire planet and I’m sitting at over 1300hrs in the game.
A huge deterrent from the market is how much you have to hunt for a request basket or item you are looking for. Especially when there’s still a lot of people trying to sell things way over their value. There’s plenty of people who don’t participate in the market because of those things.
Edit: Also note I’d give up all my shops and the FF they get if they added an auction house and would solely use that as a way to sell my goods.
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I think we should have a small amount of coin drop from enemies.
Could help a little bit
(even increase it in small increments as you go to higher tier planets, T7=the most T1=the least)
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One solution that was previously discussed (not sure if it was implemented) to help curve this issue is the idea of diminishing returns - the first person gives full footfall, each additional person visiting the beacon gives a slightly less amount, up to a maximum diminishing effect, with less people resulting in this amount going back up.
The only issue with my suggestion is that it may just serve to nurf footfall gain from hubs as opposed to giving other players more coin.
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In a quick way to explain this I see us having two types of game in the same game:
- A game where no coin is needed.
- A game where those that want to play the economy game can.
Warping should not require coins at all and use a fuel so that all players can get to Exo planets. Footfall should not exist.
Coin should drop from certain mobs and treasure and dungeons and assets people find in the game. Coin can be made by selling to NPC and between players as a way to do trade or normal commerce (those buying and selling) and contracts, quests, etc.
This way the average builder/casual player that play the game where they find everything themselves, make everything themselves, and building for fun are not requiring to have money. They can play the game 100% without using coin unless they choose to go buy/sell stuff. But it isn’t a “requirement.”
This way the average commerce/cause player that play the game where they enjoy buying/selling can have coin in the truck loads if they play the economy correctly. They are using coin exactly the way it is meant for.
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I don’t think we need something that diminishes coin, since we need something that provides coin to keep up the overall game economy.
Agree
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A version of this is already in affect. And most people did lose ff that’s why they use alts.
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This would nerf hubs into the ground though. Besides using a hub to get to a new planet, everybody would just have a buch of saved locations they’d warp to from their base.
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This wouldn’t nerf hubs into the ground. Those are long-standing portals that aren’t temporary. Most people would rather have other individuals maintain portals and the upkeep surrounding them. What it would do is eliminate me from having to find 3400 coins just to get to a new planet. Coins for warps makes zero sense. Let me place these blocks down and by the magic of a token they work! It’s a ridiculous system that needs to change.
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You’re talking purely exo’s, which i can understand.
But i don’t see how it would not nerf hubs into the ground.
If you had the choice, would you warp to a saved super convenient location on a planet, from the comfort of exactly where you are right then and there, or walk to a generic hub to go through 2-3 portals and then still having to walk to the destination you want to go to?
I know i’d MUCH rather warp anywhere i could for free, rather than using hubs. As convenient as hubs are currently, they obviously don’t hold a candle to warping anywhere, from anywhere, essentially at will, for free.
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Having a craftable fuel to open warps as an alternative to coin would be a good idea, though there would need to be some other way to remove coin from the system if that were the case.
With coin being needed for guild buffs removing footfall would effectively end being able to consistently run any guild buffs.
As it stands you can make everything yourself so coin is never needed outside of warps so i don’t think there is ever going to be a strong economy when there is no need to trade.
I don’t think adding coin drops to mobs or meteors would really change much of anything and it would just lead to inflation, not really fixing anything.
Personally I don’t think there is much to gain by adding more sources of coin to the game
EDIT:
There would definitely need to be some kind of resource cost associated with opening warps, ideally as an alternative to coin.
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I doubt it would lead to inflation. People had the same thought with the minter and it didn’t inflate prices. Even tho you can literally make your own coin.
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I’m not talking about warps being free. I think they need a different activation cost other than coins. It needs to be something that can be gathered/crafted, rather than relying upon footfall or shop operation.
Cost coin if used in the sanctum and if on planet it uses portal conduits which requires you to hunt dead meteors, live ones, or craft the blocks. That’s a resource.
To be fair the coin the minter generates is very small, I am assuming most people would want more coin from mob drops. If it were just as low it probably wouldn’t create much of a problem, but it would still increase the rate at which coin enters the system. If there is no way to drain that coin back out inflation will happen.
The minter doesn’t cause inflation because it is more profitable to sell to other players instead of mint most things, which is just coin moving around the system and not being created. Every bit of coin created by the minter is creating some kinda of inflation, though admittedly very small.
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I know people who make 100k from the minter after getting the orbs they need to forage. 
but I suppose a casual player wouldn’t make that much
Slide sells to the minter decently, stone doors, essence(which sells for the same in the market), refined gleam. Are just a few examples of super easy ways to make a ton of coin. No one buys stone doors but they sell for 1c. Sure it’s a huge amount of crafting time but does everyone really use all their stones?
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That would still be a cause of inflation.