I agree with this. Unfortunately as people progress the difference in collection/time skews heavily for most items (again surface resources being a relative exception, but high tier planets = ripe pickings still). My main observations are that
people dont know where the next coin is coming from, so they hoard atm,
People dont know where the next coin is coming from so they spec an alt and DIY.
2 ignores their own time value, or at least greatly reduces the value of their time to grind (and maybe complain about the grind) to gather & make something for an hour to save 100c… a knock on effect of this is that they devalue the time of players not aiming for this - raw drops worth 1000s in processed items are now bought for a minor price because resale is speculative at best - penalising gatherers because of increased alt use and general diy.
People are not interested in the accumulation of coin and have decided to make items themselves (they see this as a challenge they enjoy) or they work with a group to make what the group needs to avoid needing coin or to avoid the perceived hassles associated with buying and selling.
I do think you raise a good point in looking at how people value their time. This is an area that cuts both ways. It seems that there are players that think the request baskets do not value their time and effort needed to gather the items and the come back seems to be “it is easy to get those I can get 1000 in an hour on this planet so those are worth 1c per”. So the player that spent his/her time and effort is told their time and effort are not worth much, so why should they think the time and effort the shopkeeper spent to gather and craft is worth as much as they are asking? They keep seeing posting were players are getting hundreds of gems in an hour, so why should gems, power coils or gem tools be so expensive? Its a tough spot for both sides to be in. Since the developers seem committed to allowing solo and collaborative play, players will always be able to make/gather anything if they are willing to spend the time. The people running shops need to understand this and make it attractive to the players to get them to spend coin. fixing footfall is not going to change this fact and now that more players have found they can exist without coin it makes it even more challenging for the players running stores.
only time i can think of is when they devs released the microtransaction store. people where reading the first line or 2 of the dev post then started screaming P2W without reading the part where the cubits could be earned and that plots where the only gameplay item that would ever be buy-able in the store
Just my two cents, Im no economics major and I play mostly solo so dont jump on me too hard…
School of thought sees a few problems hurting the boundless economy, but Im just going to look at two.
As I see it footfall is out of whack, I notice it a little with my beacon but can only imagine how much difference the network guys are seeing.
There is an abundance of raw materials floating around due to 3x3 mining etc which means they are not in great demand.
So we have less money and more materials, leads to an obvious suggestion as I see it.
I know its been suggested elsewhere but what about having say an NPC vendor that buys stuff like rocks, dirt etc (heck maybe anything) in unlimited quantity but at a low price? Do the boundless servers keep track of any of the sale data of items from stands, i dont know perhaps a dev @james could let us know? If so could the NPC prices be adjusted daily to represent say half or 2 thirds of the average shop stand sale price?
If this was possible perhaps it could provide a purpose for that poor sole who waits endlessly at the sanctum only for me to drop by without even acknowledging him every day. (sometimes I wave to him though). This would answer the question of (where do we put these NPCs?), and would also provide another advantage/disadvantage depending on your viewpoint. If i was on a mining trip and full of that yellow stone from T5 planets (again) I could just zip to the sanctum, sell it all, and get back to it, with no duration taken from my pies and potions. This could also mean less frame rate drop (I think I noticed this yesterday PS4) from countless amounts of unwanted mined stone just floating around on the ground.
I personally love the NPC idea but I know other people are so-so on it. IMO it would provide a nice way to earn income in exchange for work/time in a way that is not dependent on other players (footfall, sales). With how erratic the player count has been, it would be good to have a mechanic like that as some sort of insurance policy when player counts dip.
Also, they don’t necessarily have to be shop keepers; how about random NPCs you encounter in the wild that have a non-repeatable bounty for a specific material of a tint (just an example). Or maybe “craftable” (would need to be a grindy recipe) NPCs you can add to your settlement that give out daily bounties. Would be a nice incentive for people to explore and visit different places.
I’m not that die-hard on it needing to be NPCs, but part of the solution could definitely be an active way to earn income with no ties to player count. I can see that. Right now we are sort of punished if less people play and that can snowball in more people stopping playing.
The npc settlement thing is a nice idea. It could be like nms, they are static and you can place them anywhere in your plots but they are specific to a task. Could even be a rudimentary path plotter you control for the npc within reason (so it doesn’t hog system resources)
Start with farming. The farmer npc gives out coin and exp rewards for completing tasks teaching you farming. Once completed the npc hands out 1 task a day for you. Other players npcs do too so you visit other settlements.
You mean like… This? yup i think i agree. Npc’s have not been hinted at, and “everything is player made/driven” kinda hints at no npcs ever; the idea of a cashgrinder though would be NPC-like if they could vary the payout as we both suggest
There should be a tax on held coins. Like 1% a day or something. Will balance out some of the infinite coin generation, and more so encourage people to spend it or lose it. The more you have, the more the more it costs each day to hoarde it.
Wow it appears were on the same wavelength, at a unnerving level. Yes there are options and must be a way, Ive seen it work in other games so why not here, clearly something is wrong at present…
And that game is much bigger than boundless. To have a purely player driven economy would require a large portion of players I would think, as it stands right now we are losing players, just look at all the expired portals
As the economy currently stands, any item that is “worthless” to other players has no value. Worthless meaning players are not willing to pay coins for these items. Some items aren’t even truly worthless, but players still aren’t willing to spend coins on them. Sometimes it’s because the items are easy to get yourself. Mostly though the problem is once you spend your coins they’re gone until you go farm Oort Stones.
NPCs could help a lot with this, even if they had to be player-built and required “fuel”.
The lore could be that the guy in the sanctum takes your products for coins in order to supply the oortian or citizen supply line to help others migrate and settle among the planets.
