You hunt for oort and sell it to someone for coin, that is one of the ways to get more coin.
There is already plenty of coin in the system so the amount of coin floating around isn’t the issue. There are 2 main issues.
The first issue is the difficulty in finding the baskets that have the coin in it to sell to it. It seems like everyone has a shop with a mix of baskets that have what you are looking for at a decent price, baskets with no coin and baskets with abysmally low prices. Sorting through all of these is a pain, and until you can find some consistently good ones, makes it seem like its not a viable way to acquire coin. Boundlesstrade.net goes a long way in helping with this but it has its own issues wich stop it from being more than a stopgap solution. An in game way to filter and view all the shop stands and prices in the region/planet/universe would go a long way in helping with the economy. You can spend hours with a stack of stuff to sell trying to find somewhere decent to sell it so this would be a great change.
The second issue revolves around players’ unwillingness to spend the coin they’ve got. It is definitely exacerbated by the first issue but it is also cause by things like warps and guild buffs having no alternative payment method by some kind of gatherable resource. For either of these you will want to hold on to a stock of coin large enough to cover any costs in the forseeable future. Without a good way to find shops to make more coin its much easier to feel insecure about the future and hoard the coin you have “just in case” leading to the situation we are in where it seems lile everyone has the desire to amass a large amount of wealth. The problem with this is that without those players spending coin the economy suffers and it feels like there is not enough coin in the system and that we need more ways to generate new coin. I think the addition of an alternative to coin for guild buffs and warps could help free players from the desire to hoard their coins as there would be alternatives. Even if you end up dumping your coin into buying the alternative fuel from someone that money is getting injected back into the economy onstead of stagnating.
I do like the idea of more in depth daily or weekly challenges, but mostly from the perspective that it would be fun and not as a needed source of coin.
I would like item-for-item trade baskets (as well as plain coin) in addition to an auction house/shop stand list. Too many trash shops to wade through. :<
Why would a barter system reduce the amount of trash shops? Then you’d run in to shops selling 2 bones for T6 hammers.
Managing shop stands with 20 different conversion rates to items you need would be a nightmare. A big shop is already tedious enough. Then the seller would have to wade through even more shops to find a stand looking for the resource they have and selling what they want. Coin makes this easier.
If you could convert that oort to coin reliably and fast, I would still count that as hunting for coin.
I’d absolutely agree that the community aspect of Boundless seems to be the main focus of the game. I’d also agree that there are only two things in the game that bring people together right now. The economy, and travel (portal hubs).
I think that ‘just’ adding Auction-house style elements to the game would probably negatively impact on our decisions to play directly with others or their builds. Doing that as a singular update could be harmful. However, I also believe just leaving the economy to ‘work’ as it currently does would also be harmful.
Perhaps the solution is adding more things to facilitate socialising. Would you be less averse to an Auction-house if there were more reasons to socialise (with accompanying functionality built) added to the game? Temporary buffs that you could get by interacting with each other under specific conditions and then staying in close-ish proximity? Perhaps adding skills to emulate bits of the Entertainer class functionality from StarWars Galaxies? An overhaul of the in-game chat to make it easier?
I would disagree. In my guild our interactions would not be negatively affected by an auction house. We would still be running guild projects, providing resources to the other players that might be crafting or forging, still going out as a group for resources at times. Since we do not shop as a group why does an auction house affect our interactions with others? And really since the shop stand owner is not even there 99% of the time when you do use them, why is this considered an interaction with other players at all? My buying from a sales stand or from an auction house absolutely requires no difference in interaction with another player. In both cases the seller is not required after the item is put up for sale. So where is the player interaction?
That’s fair, it wouldn’t greatly affect the direct vendor-client interaction. As you’ve noted, that’s largely non-existent in the current format.
But it definitely gives players who otherwise do not actively seek to engage in a guild or a greater community the opportunity to run into other players if they are shopping for things. While I don’t think we should ever force socialisation, I do believe that if the community is a primary focus here, getting solo players into situations where they are around others, and can choose to interact if they want to, is a worthwhile goal.
Disclaimer: I personally don’t care. I’d be fine for them to just add an Auction hall and nothing else. That is what would benefit me the most, and I don’t much care for socialisation. But I’m happy to explore ways to find a middle ground with others who think it very important.
I can agree that finding ways to offer players a benefit or a reason to interact is a good thing. Hunting is a good example as the more players you have hunting the higher tier the meteor and the better the potential loot. This encourages groups but does not require them. More mechanics like this are probably good. So maybe make shopping quicker with an Auction House so that players can engage in more group activities?
It’s logical, I’ll give you that much (that being said, I’m sure if I was feeling argumentative I could invert it and have it still to seem logical)
But yes, more opportunities for grouping, so long as benefits for participating aren’t so great that they can also be viewed as a major penalty for not participating. This game does still advertise as a game you can happily play “alone or with friends”.
Because the whole point of this discussion is where that coin comes from in the first place . The coin in the request basket came from someplace. My idea (the one of the two people seem most interested in discussing) is to just not worry about the source of coin because it doesn’t exist any more. Value can still be indicated in coin, but you never have coin on your person nor a running total of it anywhere. You give value to another player, who returns that value to you in the form of something else.
I am pretty against coin dropping from mobs and blocks because it’s just another layer of complexity the game doesn’t need. One of the charming aspects of the game is that it’s pretty simple to learn and master the variety of things the game offers. Even Centraforge has been rendered rather simple because of a guide that’s out there. Just takes a few tries in order to get what you want. It’s about the only thing that’s “hard” or “difficult” to do in the game. Everything else takes time to complete.
The Chrysominter was a nice addition to the game to add more ways to generate coin. I think having an Auction House for people’s shops would be a nice thing to do. People are still going to hand trade stuff and visit people’s locations. I just think the implementation of an Auction House should be placed on the settlement level and be an interactive multi-block (similar to machines) object.
I’d also love to see some sort of world-wide specific stock market system that’s not complex like real life but has generalized features that make it possible for someone to invest coin into someone’s building project, shop, or even settlement to get some sort of coin return from it. This can help people who want to help finance people’s projects a safe way to get a return on their investment but also help someone else in financing their projects or even shop.
I don’t think an barter trade economy would work very well in the game if coin was removed. There’s already features in place that would need to be changed dramatically in order for it to work. The issue with footfall isn’t that there’s too many hubs or shops or settlements but rather that there’s a lack of players to generate that coin for the larger percentage of the game’s population. We wouldn’t even be talking about footfall all that much more if we had 10 times as many players. Nevermind if we ever reach 100 times the players we have right now.
I still think part of the solution to improving the economy is having more stuff to craft, gather, and use in building in addition to bringing in new players. I really wish we had a time frame of when actual marketing of this game would take place. I’d be nice to have a ton of new players in the game.
i think that would help but if the new players don’t have the coin to spend cuz the current tap is so heavily slanted towards vet players then we will just be back where we started with more new players quitting or not taking part in the economy and trying the solo route
the way i see it foot fall is broken and can’t be fixed without a total rework and the daily and weekly quests are a bad source of income it only works if you are able to play every day for the time needed to check off the freats. if you have a busy life or just don’t want a game to become a 2ed job then you are making at most 100-500 coin a week. outside of the economy is there is no way for a player to make coin on there own terms its either time gated(daily/weekly) or a roll of the dice (foot fall)
They are a new player. They started the same way as all of us and had to learn just like all of us. Holding their hand in this very easy game isn’t something that needs to happen every step of the way. The economy isn’t why those people quit.
Footfall is working the way it’s intended to work. Just because you don’t have tons of people running over your beacon doesn’t mean it’s broke. I would expect you would earn slightly less coin per beacon visit if the game’s population was dramatically increased.
Quests are nice and all that but it should be in addition to the Chrysominter and footfall mechanics. There really needs to be more done with those and I can agree with that.This is a MMO at it’s core though. To obtain anything it takes time. So the entire game is time gated because of the game genre that the developers choose to make this game into. The issue with this perception of time gating is the lack of incentive to get into the game on a regular basis for most people. Having more content and more stuff to acquire and do is the simple answer to solving that issue, however, implementing that simple answer is more complicated than the answer itself because of how involved it is to implement.
If we had multiple pieces of content that were strong replayability features in the game, then we’d be able to retain more new players. Those new players then spread out throughout the game and generate footfall for people. This is new coin. On top of that some of them will utilize the Chrysominter. More new coin.
The problem with the game’s economy isn’t necessarily footfall or the minter. It’s an accumulation of a lot of different things. Lack of content is one (cause this sparks the crafting of new tools, weapons, gear, consumables, etc.) and items to craft.
Making money in this game is extremely easy, if someone is only making 100-500 coin a week it’s because of pure laziness. You can make more than that crafting stone doors and putting them into the minter.
I see three things here, those who want to put effort, those who want things on a silver platter and those who are jealous of what others have accomplished.
I totally agree, when some of us started the prices were way higher. When aoe hammers came out they were 30-40k each, advanced power coils were 15-20k. We managed and we progressed,
The point I was making is just because someone is new to the game doesn’t mean they should have their hand held by the existing player base. Sure it’s a nice gesture and shows the player base is pretty inviting at times. Doesn’t mean that person is going to actually learn how to properly utilize even an AOE iron tool or even a cheap AOE titanium tool. Part of a MMO is learning how to get better at the game. If you take that element of learning and acquiring game knowledge away from someone, I don’t really think they’re better off. I do think giving them information on how to get better is helpful but not holding their hand and spoon feeding them items is really a good solution towards retaining that player.
Also, with more items it means it’s harder for shop owners to have a large variety of stuff. In fact, I really hate the idea of shops not specializing in a specific set of items, such as building material blocks (wood, stone, metal, gem, liquids, etc.) or someone just selling consumables. If we had more ways to obtain data from the game through in game methods, such as building some sort of machine that analyzes what other players are doing. A good example is what colors of blocks people are using the most and what is being bought up too. That way you don’t necessarily need to collect every single color in rocks that you possibly can get or for wood even. You can only get the select colors people are consistently buying and building with. That would do way more for the economy than a lot of the ideas people have been proposing, such as coin dropping from mobs and blocks you break or even going strictly to a barter trading economy.
So for a new player, knowing there’s a lot of options out there to learn about and experience is what will retain them. Once we truly get to that point in the game is when the game will start retaining players. It takes a lot of items, crafting recipes, game events (besides meteors and EXOs), and pieces of content that have replayability. But we will get there at some point. It might take 2 or 3 or even 4 years. But a lot of games that have been released and at this stage of its development (particularly for MMOs like this one that are in endless development) have flourished because it hit a critical amount of game features that all come full circle.
Thanks for the ideas and options you provided for this. I completely agree that a barter system can work because it allows people to create their own sense of value. For some people 1 exotic yam seed might have been worth 500 diamonds or something…
I think it might be hard to get many people to see past “coin” and understand that on all levels everything is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
Either way my whole point was to find other ideas to coin or at least better taps to the coin model we have… and to find a way to separate the game so those that don’t really have coin aren’t forced to deal with it across so many areas of the game.
Why is anyone unable to make money? Everyone starts with a totem. No one is handed coin more or less fair than anyone else. The argument that “I can’t do this or do that is absurd. It’s what you chose to do or not do which sets your limitation… just like real life.
True, and some hubs work better than others or are advertised better which is why they get more traffic/more footfall. Again, your hub is what YOU make of it. Footfall does help with paying for portals… I see zero reason to change this. The only change i would love for portals is a longer lasting fuel that actually makes sense…
This is Boundless… not “other games”. Not to jump on the footfall war bandwagon, but seriously wth does everyone get so bent out of shape over it?
No. Just No. I hate the idea of a sole barter and trade with zero coin. I want coin so I can purchase what I want when I want it… I don’t want to be troubled with bartering and trading.
The economy is built on having stores and Shopping. Why is that an issue? Some of us really enjoy the economy side of this game, and taking coin out of the picture would ruin this game in that regard.
This isn’t the argument I am making. Of course people need to work for things but the money issues are more so for some and less so for others. It comes from a fundamental flaw in the game in how money is gained between footfall and the limitations on shops.
The point of the thread really wasn’t to get into existing issues but to create ideas around other taps and creation methods from new models. I think we achieved a few good examples for the developers to consider.
I get where you are going with this but Hubs issues and sustainability go way beyond this. Footfall is not a requirement for hubs and at this point is actually a huge crutch. By creating new ways for hubs to derive income and separating the need of “coin” for portals and self warping we can solve a variety of game issues. Obviously we cannot solve all problems instantly since many things are related but the object again of this thread was to break apart parts of the games that are linked and end up causing more problems than good.
There is no reason for the “builder” and “economy” models to be tied. Loosely linked is ok but right now each design is hurting the other one pretty bad.
“This is Boundless” means nothing in regards to the game. It is just a title and people really should stop using it as an excuse for something or against something. The reason people are against footfall has been documented many times and in many ways on the forum especially in how it causes certain people to play and other issues. There is no reason to get into it especially since this thread is not regarding that.
Thanks on the opinion on barter/trade. Nothing in this thread was meant to be saying stores/shops were an “issue” and to remove them. It was to find other ways for coin or economy models. I think everyone can agree that the system is not perfect and new ideas or discussions on other ways to do things cannot hurt anyone.
. The coin in the request basket came from someplace. My idea (the one of the two people seem most interested in discussing) is to just not worry about the source of coin because it doesn’t exist any more. Value can still be indicated in coin, but you never have coin on your person nor a running total of it anywhere. You give value to another player, who returns that value to you in the form of something else.