Feedback: Rewards, long-term Monetisation and the Exchange!

True. @willcrutchley

I really don’t understand why some people have issues with this. None of these things are pay to win. And who expects a MMO game to not have microtransactions? We should be happy about this, cause its either microtransactions or subscriptions.

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This has nothing to do with dogma and a one way solution. It is very obvious people don’t want to be honest about the problem, but that isn’t really my problem. I don’t expect to win and this isn’t about winning. It is about getting developers to be realistic and honest about the problems with the game models they created.

We have a right to give them ideas and suggestions on how they can offer plots for real money and not effect the economy and create an unbalanced way people can get money.

When we have developers responding to my posts and talking about “empty plots” when I never said anything about them and that they are quite confident that they have a system that works just fine – we know very clearly that we have a big problem on the development side. I don’t know if @james feels the same way as you but if you are being driven to create a P2W scenario on the most important part of this game - plots - then so be it.

The benefits Founders get in the economy is very clear and if you are choosing to ignore it then so be it. Just look at the data seen everywhere. I mention some later in this post.

Please go back to my original post because it brings simple clarity to the problem – plots + resources (that are mined and put on the plot) = prestige. I am not wrong that is the game design. You take some blocks you get from resources and place them on a plot and you get prestige.

Stop trying to argue with me when you don’t even understand what I am saying in my original post. Income is income and it links to the economy.

This is exactly what I am talking about. An average player that does not “pay for more plots” will NEVER EVER be able to compete with a player that has “founder plot bonuses” or “buys plots”. This is not fair or equal. It doesn’t matter if they lose 1 coin or 1 million. The game will be rigged, unfair, and giving those that buy plots an advantage.

We already see this VERY CLEARLY with how Founders are able to dominate the game:

  1. Any founder that has more plots than the original Mayor of a town will be able to take it over and control the town.
  2. Any founder was able to take hundreds of plots over all the major cities as the “beacon expiration cleanse” happened at the end of the year. They places hundreds to thousands when an average person in the game at level 50 only have 350 plots.
  3. Any founder can build huge places and sit high in planet city ranking on MANY planets because they have 1000+ plots to their names and the other accounts they have. Look around… you see the same names in tons of cities with HUGE builds.

All of this generates passive income and allows domination of the economy or many other things and an average user that refuses to pay for plots will NOT be able to compete. It is not about the “empty plot” it is about the “cultivated plot”. This is P2W and broken as long as footfall and tax system is linked to city ranking and plots.

I am not opposed to selling plots and might have done it myself. I am opposed to it being linked to income because that creates additional unfair advantages to players in the game mechanics. We can easily have plot selling and an economy based on non-footfall.

I was there with he started Aquatopia and could have helped lay the groundwork but I was out of plots because I don’t have Founder benefits. I had to choose which plots to keep and remove to build my small corner in the Universe or help his. Meanwhile him and others had hundreds of plots they could just use to build city after city and reap the rewards and KEEP both their cities. Nothing against Moebius but this is a perfect example of how it is unbalanced in relation to economy. He made money from both locations but I had to remove one to create another or had to stop building.

When people respond like this it means they are in denial and help prove the point further. I didn’t do my posts for your approval, I did it to show @james and the development a clear path on why the current game model WILL lead to issues and why they should take some time now to fix and build a correct economy model. Also, you don’t need ANY of that passive plot footfall traffic or tax return. So you should be just fine with it being removed.

Thank you. This isn’t about IF something happens or not and all the variables around it. This is simple because IF the design allows it then it WILL happen in some form or fashion.

See the above paragraph Luke. You can put a MILLION variables and IF/THEN statements in there to try to create a way around it but NONE of that will matter when your base design is wrong from the start. You will still give those who purchase plots MORE than those that do not. This is clearly PAY TO WIN in that part of the game.

There is NO reason another model could be introduced to give income to classes based on WHAT they do and completely remove the “passive footfall” traffic income model. The only reason people fight this is because they want “lazy money” or they are too lazy to create another model that is more aligned to a true economy.

Stop wasting development time trying to build some algorithm and model to support footfall and just remove it. Put your effort into a contract system and something that helps EVERYONE EQUALLY build their income. Not something that in some way favors another person over beginners.

IF you don’t do this sooner or later people will just recognize how hollow the game is and give up trying to compete with the ruling Founder/plot purchaser group. In the end you will lose a lot of good people that loved the game but wanted it non P2W.

This isn’t an answer to anything. Let people get what they want or buy their own world. Restricting will not solve the plot = income issue. It is a fundamental design problem. We just need it to be removed.

If you knew the amount of people that have left the game so far because we don’t have a real economy and they gave up trying to compete against all the people that have cities everywhere or have so much money that can squash anyone… Imagine when we go live. That is why the economy needs to be a separate model and focused on class and other things than linked to Founder plot bonuses or plot buying. It allows each person to do what they love without causing additional problems with the game.

Yeah that is the simple problem with it all. They just need to link the right things and remove the link between the things that are the problem. WE all get what we want… money for the game development and money in game that is provided fair and with work not based on outside real world money influence.

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Based on my experience so far footfall is a very minor (in fact completely insignificant) part of income. I can make more coin in 5 minutes farming than I make in a day from my shop’s footfall.

Also - no planet I know of is controlled by players with founder’s bonuses. Munteen Paradise (Munteen #2) is basically me and Cookviper and that’s with less plots than any player has before reaching endgame. Therka is Aquatopia which is Moebius’ doing and is mostly due to his great social network and desire to build. Nasharil is Amanda and one (?) other significant contributor.

Based on my data and point of view we don’t have any of the scenarios you are fearing at present. I posit that the new system will net even less average plots per player than now (since non-builders can pick cosmetics) - with a higher focus on quality builds. I further posit that it will benefit the economy by increasing the demand on resources and generally stimulating the economy by providing builders (whom currently have a plot deficit) with more sources of plots. None of this will disadvantage the average or below average player - in fact it will benefit any player without sufficient time or desire to build extensively.

I also feel that you should keep in mind that anybody wishing to compete for prestige needs to invest significant time to gather enough resources to attain the prestige. The plots are inconsequential - maths follow. With the current XP/plot ratio you need to gather 400k XP to get 10 plots = 40k per plot. That’s 10 000 block placements/destructions. A plot has 8x8x8 area (512 blocks). This gives 19 block actions required per block placed. The average material built with requires 7.2 (refined rock) - 30 resources (silver/gold) plus craft time and travel time to create (18 blocks average). Tools, buffs, etc consuming roughly 30% of your gathered resources (unless of course you exchange that for equivalent time using lower tier tools which is moot). A player going outright for prestige will optimally benefit by filling plots with lowish materials - in this scenario they would gain enough plots from just leveling to not need to purchase any additional plots anyway. The only people who thus benefit from plots are those who build extensively and elegantly.

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Objectively false.

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We plan to iterate the prestige calculation to minimise any advantage of plot size alone. Simply reserving a large area shouldn’t result in additional prestige. The prestige should come from the what you put into the reserved space: the blocks, the chiseling, the variety of tints, the machines, the portals, etc.

Clearly a perfect large build will still generate more prestige than a perfect small build. But the effort required to make it efficient will increase with size.

We definitely don’t want to hamper players who want to build big. But we also want to make sure that players can’t trivially buy their way to high prestige.

(I hope this makes sense.)

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this doesn’t make any sense. just because someone has more plots than someone else doesn’t mean they automatically have the resources to put on said plots. they still have to work for those just like everybody else.

wait… is your entire argument based on the fact that if people with so many extra plots (which I sense is what you’re against) are able to nab expired wealthy beacons therefore instantly having those resources?
If so, that would make so much sense. why not just say that?
I sort of agree with that but at the same time, if someone lets their beacons expire that’s fair game.

What I don’t think is fair (ironically) is everyone having the same amount of plots.
some people use a ton of them, some people use none of them. I am one that could use more than twice the amount of plots I currently have available to me (probably more)

Ok. I am understanding your argument a little more now…
I think you misunderstand the way it works now, which is different than before.

BEFORE: all you needed to do to was put a beacon next to a large settlement and you got coin every time someone walked by. you didn’t even have to build anything.

NOW: you can place 1 or 100 beacons and you won’t get any footfall until you actually build something. a player that has more plots will still have to do the same amount of work as a player with fewer plots to get the same prestige level.

doing this you are simply playing the game just like everyone else. the player that didn’t buy plots will still be receiving them as they level up giving them more plots to place the blocks they are refining etc.

ok finally you’ve put it in a way that makes sense, but I mean… they spent real money to get those rewards (more plots).
When you pay for something you usually get something in return. To me, more plots to build seems like a worthwhile investment.
I agree with everyone having the same/ish income, but NOT the same amount of plots.
So, if coin was removed from footfall, where do you think we should be getting more coin from then?

The only thing I agree with here is that plots shouldn’t be monetized…

I think Xaldafax has some strange idea’s about footfall and I would tell him that Portal seekers small cluster of plots makes far more footfall then most any other huge cluster of plots and why??? Because there is a good reason to walk on there small cluster of plots… And good on them they worked there but off to create an awesome portal network and they earned there footfall…

However on this topic of boundless making money or how is it going to pay for the servers I see a very simple answer!
Subscription FEE PLEASE…

Its wonderful that you want to be a one time pay to play game but, free to play and all these other gimmicks are just that. The best most simple way to earn money in a fair way is to simply charge an affordable sub…
$5 a month
$24 for 6 months
$36 for a year

^^^^ Very affordable and it still gets you income to keep the servers running… Makes far more sense then trying to figure out how to avoid every pay to win conspiracy theory that will develop from whatever crazy way of attempting to make cash otherwise…

Although this statement is likely true, it is misleading. Currently the actual amount of footfall from all the PS gateways combined is in the tens of thousands per week. You can make tens of thousands of coin mining for an hour. The gateways have costed A LOT more than just plots to build, and they certainly consume multiple hours of multiple people’s time each week (fueling portals, building more conduits, updating signs, etc). If we just wanted coin, we would be mining and selling to request baskets, not making gateways. Most of the money from the gateways is given away to other players through events anyways.

I think if you talk to any popular hub owner you’ll find their time investment per footfall is way higher than it would be mining. Footfall is not a significant advantage, it’s just some nice coin to have on the side.

On release there may be more players, but I don’t really see the value in speculating about the changes the dev’s will do to balance this. They have made it clear that they collect metrics on money going into the system, and that they are able to adjust it. I have faith they will continue to make reasonable decisions in the future as they have in the past. There’s no value in getting upset about a possible future that will almost certainly not happen.

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Yeah thats correct… footfall is not some end all be all way to strike it rich and thats the other side of this arguement thats getting overlooked…

Its not a huge amount of money… for the number of people that use Portal seekers network and the amount of Oort they need to maintain those portals the footfall I would dare say barely pays the bills for the oort…

Again I think some of the persons idea’s about footfall are greatly skewed…

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I despise subscription models. I tend to switch games from time to time and - most of the time - having to pay a sub to return to some game simply means picking another one. I’ll happily spend money on whatever I am playing at that moment though - which works great with microtransactions.

Many of the games I play release patches over time - and I tend to log in and check out the new stuff every time they do. If that catches my fancy I’ll play it for a while. My point is: Subscriptions do not work well for everyone. Optional payment plans allow a larger player audience.

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I would like to point out I was referring to prestige as well. I also said we are making changes to the system to prevent it from being P2W. One way is to remove the number of plots as a bonus to the footfall. But this appears to been missed.

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I still fundamentally disagree more plots = more prestige or money for that matter. I just don’t get it and haven’t seen a convincing case as to why. Busy plots, shops and good gathering/hunting/mining runs make money.

I get that I could make a super large flat plot of cheap refined metamorphic and gain 150k prestige off say 30,000 blocks. That’d be simple and quick to lay. It wouldn’t gain me any footfall, but I’d still need to gather or buy all that. It’d be infinitely quicker for me to do that with compacted copper over a much smaller area. I’m not sure I could get a better prestige gain than a copper block (for the time to mine and lay it). - I found this by accident when I started using up all my excess copper to make a gorge through a mountain out of it. - It is also reasonably cheap and I like the shade of it.

For reference I am going by this still:

Not to mention I can actually earn decent money alongside gathering the copper/iron or whatever I am using.

I think @Xaldafax’s concern comes, not from the fact that you can build one giant plot to get more footfall (coin), but by building many smaller ones in many more locations and gain footfall from each of them.

The average player-grinder who is playing (not paying) for their plots, can still do this, but over a much slower period of time, which could be perceived as putting them at a disadvantage.

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The very (second) thing I started to do was this and I don’t believe its true. My neighbors give me some footfall as they pass by to cut leaves. I am promising to setup an area within the plots that is wild but reserved for them too long term. I thought if I connect up areas I might benefit, but then quickly realised why when there are portals.

That’s about I dunno 300 plots on the roads, one of my alts does the roads and most of his 400 or so are on roads. They get almost nothing compared to my tiny shop and I am in a reasonably busy area for wilderness. I’ve got 3 large active settlements around me and several smaller builds. Nearly always see a player or two doing something around me.

If I ran three well stocked tiny shops with different things in them, connected to portal hubs, I’d be getting a lot more from footfall but even that would pale significantly from one mining trip. I now have I think 15 mines because of this.

I would like to see a road coating to speed up travel on roads, maybe it needs to be added every month, then they might be worthwhile lol.

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Hello James! I’d like to chime in on this subject very briefly and try to offer a SOLUTION I touched upon in some ancient post a few years ago. I do think that (in theory) the prestige system is a bit flawed. When this game goes live, and is made available to millions of gamers, I think they will take and exploit such an “automated” system (for lack of a better term).

So… I’d like to suggest turning prestige into a voting system. A player that ventures into a town or a plot should have a choice as to whether or not they even like the area they are seeing. I think human choice is probably the best solution to a “prestige” system seeing as though prestige is literally predicated on the public’s opinion of something. How does “footfall” equate to admiration of something? The complexity of a shape doesn’t make it beautiful, and for that matter, neither does the rarity of the material used. The THOUGHT that went into it is what really distinguishes it. And that cannot be so easily captured or understood by coding. No matter how complex it is. So i took a stroll through the city… wasn’t impressed… lol. You see? It doesn’t exactly make sense. I’m sure you guys have worked a lot on the prestige system, but computers can never truly emulate human emotion.

NOW. As for implementation of this more “organic” prestige system, you could offer a simple “thumbs up/thumbs down” choice when the player enters a settlement. Or maybe have a message board of some sort where players could interact with it and vote there. Speaking of message boards… WE NEED THEM. Lol. Settlement activities like hunts, sales, quests, and such could be stored there. And they could all be player sanctioned. As well as dev sanctioned events. (But that’s for another thread)

Hmmm… maybe not as “brief” as I thought it’d be. :smiley:
P.S. I’m sure you don’t wanna have to keep digging through old code to change those prestige parameters in the future. :smile: think of all the time you’d save! Lol

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This is the thing, there is only going to be so much coin that is generated from daily and weekly feats on top of the one time feats and leveling. Without some sort of increase in the money supply it will create some other problem that’s going to be far worse than someone using thousands of plots. That being someone hording billions of coin because there’s a definitive limitation on how much coin someone can bank up, on top of that it would stale shops across public worlds, and ultimately kill the economy more than buying plots ever would. There are already people who do this and we have footfall.

As far as I understand, footfall helps prevent that cause having a few thousand coin injected into the economy on a regular basis helps make sure that coin is flowing from person to person more readily and so it keeps up the economic gameloop. People need coin in order to buy stuff from people’s shops. That’s just a fact.

But yeah, let’s throw that out the window cause footfall is bad and gives unfair advantages to people cause it some how is directly tied to how many plots someone has.

I was there at the beginning to and right next to Aquatopia. I moved too. In fact it was my plan to move anyways cause I just wanted a spot to get started at. I did and moved to where I currently am.

You sound very anti-big business right here too. It isn’t unbalanced or unfair. Some can say that about @slyduda with Gemporium cause he has a pretty strong foothold on the pricing of certain things but him and the team of people he’s working with put the time and effort into maintaining a high traffic shop that flips items and coin regularly each week. Maybe we should be suggesting ways to screw with that as well cause it’s unfair and unbalanced to certain people? That’s actually a really silly idea.

If someone wants to build multiple shops, portal hubs, cities, towns, portal networks, etc. and have the plots to do it, they should have the option to do that solo or with others. It’s just going to be a much larger time sink and commitment from that player.

It’s irrelevant that Moebius is making coin from two locations. The added value he brings to the game with Aquatopia and Moebius Plaza is greater to those using it for free than whatever footfall coin he makes.

If I decide to spend 12 months building 3 locations and having them become high traffic spots that generate lots of coin from shop stands and footfall, then that 12 months of time doing it all myself should have some sort of reward attached to it. That reward being coin and a return on my time invested into building out each spot.

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YES!! 100% agreed!
This is what I’ve been trying to advocate for. this is the best way to calculate prestige… Human input!!
nobody likes a big ugly block of compact gems or machined copper and then what? that person is mayor because he has the biggest ugliest block of high value blocks?
Nuh-uh.
Thats what voting should be for. I want to give kudos to all my favourite builds!

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Pure voting means the biggest guild wins. As someone who solos this would suck for me.

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