I do see you point of view on this. But to make it viable to completely remove footfall, a workable, tangible alternative needs to be found for builders and explorers to be able to earn coin as a by-product of what they do. Hunters and miners have this already and shopkeepers are all about coin anyway. I don’t think contracts and blueprints would a sustainable source of coin for builders in the same way that contracts would be for miners and hunters.
I also think, to be completely fair, you’d need to remove any coin gain from daily feats too… someone could just buy 10 copies of the game, log in on each and complete the daily feats otherwise.
It essentially equates to the same thing as needing to fill plots with blocks to gain reward from footfall. If anything, doing daily feats on multiple accounts would be a more guaranteed source of coin, as it resets every day and doesn’t generally require any other players involvement than your own.
On a different note, I’d personally like to see inclusion into settlements work differently, along with doing away with the “highest prestige is the leader” scenario. But that’s a whole other subject
This is probably off topic - but that’s not always the case. I like the activity of running a shop and challenge myself by trying to keep it stocked at reasonable prices - which in turn creates a diversity of gathering activities for me to do and triggers all kinds of economic analyses. To me coin is just a means to get stock that I can’t / don’t want to farm myself and to help keep all the shelves full.
To put into perspective: I lost a million coin this week trying to get my buy orders to attract attention - gonna be a lot of hours (± 25) of grinding to get it back
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply coin was all that shop keepers cared about… I meant that, by it’s very nature, shop keeping has the most potential to earn coin. You essentially have to use coin as a means to buy/sell products and goods (unless you’re online 24/7 for trading by hand).
Just to be clear I don’t think it is THE solution, it is one way to help the bigger issue at hand. I have been clear in other posts that the issue is much bigger than footfall but I don’t think we just ignore that either.
As for the above idea of allowing people to charge for entrance to their “owned” area is a bad thing. I am not saying it is a great idea but it certainly gives people a way to make income in the same fashion that they do now. They are charging for passage it just comes from some magical game component creating money from thin air versus the actual person crossing the plot. Yes it will allow for possible griefing in some form but still that could likely be addressed.
That is a mischaracterization of what I am saying and trying to over simplify it which does create an invalid perspective of my views. Real money can be introduced into the game without it being P2W. Additionally, I never said real money coming into the game should be stopped.
So I will not thank you for trying to boil down my views into a single statement. Your statement is your perspective and the way you perceive what I said. It is how you would reduce my points down and not how I would.
I am advocating that the developers be very careful about how they allow real money to come into the game. I also am bringing up that the current way of allowing plot purchases is in some form P2W in relation to the economy, city ranking, and mayor game dynamics.
I haven’t had this observation but I can see how actually having the time to “play a game” could be seen as an advantage over those that cannot. But since a person can decide to play a game or not and are not being forced to. So if the advantage given to those that “can play it more” is too great for that person, then they can easily choose to go play another game.
Now clearly someone can use what I said against me in relation to the P2W plot purchase model and how it affects the overall Boundless game in many areas of is mechanics. Yes I likely will not be playing the game when it goes live because based on the current trend it will be just as dominated by Founders and fanboys that not many things will be fun and it will feel as hollow as it does now in regards to a full experience. We have seen many new players come and go very quickly over the past year because of the inherent issues in the game. What caused that to happen is still happening and being supported by design decisions. So we will lose a large diversity of players and the game will become niche like so many others out there.
You say this but don’t really explain how.
The fairness is being used in a general context on purpose because trying to dive down into the weeds turns into a debate that moves nothing forward. You cannot try to judge a game holistically on “fairness” because it is a subjective view and not objective. We see that since I am calling certain things not fair and others just think it is irrelevant.
It is a fundamental view that when competing and playing a game you should have a level playing field where possible. In the original post by Jame he stated that the developers are trying to have a flat playing field. So I am using “fairness” in that context and trying to expand upon it to show the areas that the fair model breaks down pretty seriously.
Additionally, there is no way you can look at fairness only because you are right in there are so many different things around it and it really isn’t a great point to make. I made it as an example of peoples value sets they have and how their internal bias and mindset was making it very hard for them to understand my views.
But to be clear I never said I refused to measure every aspect of it or ever used any words that contextualized that way. You’re boiling down my statements into another mischaracterization that I only cherry pick things to prove my points. I am not doing that. I am simplifying a complicated game design into a few points to try to illustrate the bigger problem. Hence my math example of 1+1=2 and 1+1+bonus/plot buy = more than 2. It makes it very easy for people to understand versus a long complex example that can create misconceptions like you have seen.
Overall I would agree with this and we can’t balance every aspect of fairness because of the subjective nature of it. But, I don’t think the “some effect” part should just be deemed “perfectly acceptable” without a greater discussion and attempt by the developers to provide an alternative solution which could meet the same goals.
As my suggestions pointed out they would still get the cash from plot purchases but would not affect the game in the larger context that Founder bonuses already do. It isn’t “some effect” really and is instead across a broad aspect of the game like: income, Mayor status, City ranking, etc that this “plot purchase” can affect. That is a decent area of the game when you take into context the whole thing.
I don’t either… but I think it moves us closer to a better solution than keeping what we have which will hurt other areas of the game too. I want the long term win as much as everyone else does. I just think we need to start fixing some of the core problems along the way.
Yes good point. But honestly I didn’t try to go there because it will just turn into an endless pit of hell. I also stayed completely away from the Founder multiple account issue and how much that will even expand upon the base problem with plots being so linked to the game economy/ranking.
We already see many people that have leveled their other accounts and now own so much more of cities and places across all the planets. They can take all of that and leverage it even more. I can’t stop that but certainly can try to cut down on that advantage with some simple tweaks.
Footfall is a minor issue over the account problem and farming “feats”. But hey you can’t clean up anything unless you start somewhere.
Yeah I agree completely. I’ve seen so many of those fights and fights about people wanting the best plots for the most footfall. Even had one person completely remove themselves from a shared build because they got pissed that I took the Munteen plots they wanted during the “beacon apocalypse”. They said very clearly that they wanted to make me have to use all my plots up to protect the build they were abandoning so that I wouldn’t have anything left. They of course had more plots than me (I think from a Founder bonus) and then could get many more areas after than while I was completely tapped out in plots. So I missed a lot of areas I could have grabbed while so many other Founders just grabbed plots and more plots and more plots across all the cities.
It is what it is but these type of game dynamics just doesn’t make it fun… and imaging how even newer people feel. No wonder we have seen so many people quit after a few months.
Thanks for the reply.
Regardless on whether I agree with the kind of monetisation you settled for I gotta say, that that seems like the worst possible approach to introducing it, if I may say so.
Mainly because many more players are going to join your game before it releases, most of them without joining the forum and thus not knowing about your plans regarding this topic. I’d assume that the surprise of being confronted with microtransactions right into the release won’t be a pleasent one for many of them.
I think what I’m trying to point out is that your plans should be communicated very early on with potential buyers to avoid a later on.
Secondly I’d advocate to enable server renting right away (given that the infrastructure is in place).
Not only to generate some money upfront (which is also nice) but also to give a first impression on the expected demand on rented worlds to avoid potential server shortages at release (like on any other release day in the history of gaming)
You’re wanting everyone to have the same number of plots per character? That isn’t going to change anything when someone can spend the time to level up multiple characters across multiple accounts just to have access to all those plots and only log into those accounts to claim more plots. So even if a normal non-founder bonus account has around 500 plots the moment the character hits level 50, that doesn’t mean that person wouldn’t level up another 2 characters on the same account just for another 1000 minimum for-sure plots to use. Add in another 2 or 3 or 4 accounts and that person is able to have what they want for minimum management effort on their part for logging in and out of accounts. I could even argue that doing that way is a lot easier to get access to a larger accumulation of plots than just straight buying them from a cash shop.
I’ve even thought of buying another Pioneer level ($250) account just so I could do this very thing. I haven’t because I just haven’t gone through with the idea and rather spend that money on D&D related things.
If the devs plan on giving founder plot bonuses to plot purchases from the cash shop, that’s pretty BS. I am not okay with that at all and I doubt anyone serious about this game’s longevity would be okay with that either. It’s already unavoidable to prevent someone from buying multiple accounts just for more plots since a new account is minimum of $35 for over 1000 plots. That’s probably going to be a lot cheaper than whatever they charge you for Qubits to spend on plots.
Perhaps your perception is coming from someone who doesn’t have any plot bonus cause you bought the Explorer $35 package and a good portion of us bought Pioneer (+50% plots) and higher. Effectively spending over 7 times as much as you. I get it. It can feel unfair but there are already things in place that allow you to get a similar effect (although less number of plots) to use by having more than one character.
Nothing is stopping you from doing this. It gives you a lot of advantages in having multiple level 50s outside of just straight up more plots. You have another character to build a shop with, another skill build specific to something you want to do, or lets you spread out your extra plots for mini-projects across multiple worlds. If you did that effectively I don’t think you’d have the position you have with footfall.
Even with my main character and his 700+ plots, I’ve devoted pretty much all of them to a single project and I still need more. I am working on another character to get more plots and then a second alt character to get even more.
As far as footfall, I think it’s a necessary thing to have in the game if people who aren’t going to build for others but build up their shops or city hubs can get a little extra for the value they’re providing for visitors. If they charged coin just to step 1 block onto their beaconed area, I probably would boycott the area completely. Plus, it’s basically a toll every time you hit the area after “x” number of hours. It’s basically the opposite of what footfall is. I wouldn’t explore that much if I knew every time I hit someone’s beaconed area I would lose coin. Kind of a bad motivator to do something the game claims to promote. I still think we need multiple ways to make coin and have multiple ways for coin to be sunk and taken out of the game. Having that pull and tug effect makes the economy of the game more robust.
One of the things the majority of the people who play this game and probably all of the new players is how open and free this game lets you be. You can go build if you want. You can craft. You can explore. You can gather resources. You can be social with other players and do any of the other things I’ve mentioned together in a group. When you place things in the game that is so open and free that limits and restricts the vision, is when you start changing the narrative of what Boundless is like to play.
feel free to cut or add ideas to it if you find it interesting ^^
it was just to propouse a different approach with some rough ideas,
feel absolutely free to take it as a base and change it completely, i’m not jealous or protective with my ideas here, once it’s shared it’s not mine anymore
being an hypothesis i didn’t put myself too much into details, more into a general scheme ^^
I suppose that no, you wouldn’t thank me given that you’ve misinterpreted my point as much as you think I have yours. Actually, I reduced all of your views and all of your discussion points down to the fact that you have decided that in even the most mediated and minor cases where paying money could give any form of advantage, it MUST be considered P2W. Subsequently, there can be no further discussion and it must be excised from the game with extreme prejudice.
I still don’t think that that is an unfair summary. I did not suggest that you were against micro-transactions as a concept .
And when you get away from specifics, all it really says is “If you don’t like it, don’t play it”. It sounds like that’s the decision you’ve made, based on the current development suggestion. It’d be a shame for the community to lose someone who has the fervour and passion that you display in wanting this game to be great. On the other hand, you’re just making the same choices based on other people’s real-world money impacting your game time that another person might be making about how much time they can invest compared to the 10h/day players. It’s really no different.
What part of the full experience feels hollow right now (bearing in mind that it’s not finished yet?). What inherent issues are you talking about? Personally, I’d say most people have left because:
It’s not finished yet and they’d rather wait.
Too laggy right now in [part of the world]
It’s too good and they burned out playing it too much.
They’ve consumed all the content available currently.
Anyone else that I can recall (which really just means everyone who’s been vocal enough to say why they’re leaving, otherwise we’re just guessing at their motivations) that’s left has done so due to a personal preference that isn’t being met. Given the adage that you can only please some of the people some of the time, I think Boundless is doing an fair job of walking the line between casting the net too wide, or appealing to too niche a crowd.
Honestly, I thought I’d been quite clear… but apparently not. Your argument assumes that any ability to gain something in-game through spending real life money will inherently destroy any semblance of balance. The flaw is that you are singling out ‘Paying Money’ and treating it differently from any other real life factor. Nobody complains that Player X can play too much more, and so should prevented from doing so. Nobody complains that Player Y is too skillful at playing, and should have limits placed on them to level the playing field. If they are acceptable, why is money different?
But you do. We all do, consciously or otherwise (I’m sure there’s been times when I’m as guilty of this as anyone, without realising). For example, you need to split out your thinking about buying plots verses bonus plots. That’s too over simplified. One is something you inherently get all the time, forever. The other is something you have to constantly put money in to gain more of. This makes it comparable to time-investment, and makes the Founders bonuses a separate issue. They are a topic that could be brought up elsewhere (and I’d disagree with you on that one too), but not really here. They’re actually nothing to do with whether a person should be able to buy plots with money. So ultimately, yes, it does feels like you’re cherry-picking them to help back up and exaggerate your point. While I don’t specifically believe the following example, you can simplify anything to backs up a conclusion you’ve already come to. You could say:
A earns less plots than B because they work more and can’t play as much: ← Oh no, imbalance!
A buys more plots than B, because they work more and have more money: ← Oh no, imbalance!
Overall, A earns less but supplements their earned plots with purchased ones, where B just earns them: ← More balanced.
Oh, so it’s just like the ability to invest more time into playing than another player gives them advantages in all areas of the game, only when it’s money it’s a bad thing, and when it’s time it’s not?
Finally: The point of this post isn’t just to be argumentative. I’d like this discussion to move away from ‘No, Paying for anything that could even be vaguely construed as advantage in game is bad’ to a place of ‘Ok, so how can we make this work well the for the greatest number of people’. For example, a person can never play more than 24 hours a day (and that’s hardly sustainable). It means there’s a limit on how much of an advantage time investment can give. So put a limit on how much money a person can plough into the game. Say 'You can only buy X many cubits in a month/week whatever. Lets look for a reasonable middle ground.
I’d like to see that anything that can be bought for money (financial advantage) should also be available via qubits (playtime advantage) - that would be P2W (pay OR play to win)
I agree that way you can either play and level to get qbits or buy the qbits with real money. Your choices are to play more to get the items available through the exchange or pay if you do not have the time to play. I also agree this is what the Developers stated they have in mind. No one can buy something that someone else can not get through playing the game. That does seem pretty fair to me.
Throwing this out there but 500 plots of my pirate ship (The very big prestigious looking pirate ship on vulpto) barely makes me money and has a prestige of a mere 100k.
It looks beautiful, it probably is one of the more high end builds out there and makes barely any revenue. (wood and sand)
The game doesnt like builders, it doesnt like large cities or anything. It likes your prestige, you can build a rectangle and fill it up with prestigious blocks and completely laugh at people who build something that looks gorgeous. With lower end blocks due to color variation.
Being a builder does not matter, if you can make deco gem blocks thats all you need to know how to do. Compacted gold, bricks etc.
I placed about 1k plots down on my recent build I make a solid 100 coins off it, size doesnt matter nor the amount of effort it takes to make. I am just saying.
and trust me 80 plots is NOTHING at all, lmao I dont care if you wanna purchase plots but if your biggest package is 80, and its like 5 bucks then I doubt people will be able to buy a world even unless they plan on dropping some serious cash. I can make 80 plots in about 2 hours of efficient grinding, levels and plots are worthless and if people actually buy them then that is their waste of money.
I never said that or would want that. I was fine with people having whatever amount of plots as long as plots were not tied to specific economic functions. I completely support buying of plots even though I feel we should get more plots than 350 at level 50 and 10 thereafter. I just want the finances de-linked from plots.
Just for the record – a character has right around 350 plots at level 50 not 500 based on the game settings. People used to get closer to that value mid-last year but the developers looked at things and felt because most people across the game didn’t use most of their plots that it was a requirement that they completely scale back and make EVERYONE in the game have less plots overall at level 50 even though they gained plots faster at lower levels. Something many of us were completely opposed to and felt unfair and a plot nerft. Now that I see they were planning to sell plots, that decision even makes more sense around the income they wanted to generate.
Otherwise, your comments about multiple accounts as well as all the bonus accounts Founders get is very relevant and correct. It gives many people a variety of ways they can dominate the game and leverage a whole host of game dynamics in their favor. I just didn’t bring it up because if I can’t get people to agree with one aspect of the domination that will happen via plot purchases currently, I didn’t want to try to discuss the larger issues.
Thank you. That is really just the perspective I am trying to communicate here. I could easily buy the highest Founder account (hell I could buy all of them up on that page) but didn’t because of my choice and I’m fine with that. But, I am trying to take on the view of all the other people that will have to get a normal account. You deserve to get a return on what you spent and I support that fully. I just see how the things you get with that purchase can be leveraged over those that did not and I am really worried about the effect of that across economy, city ranking, mayor, and taxes.
Ultimately I would want this as well. Footfall made sense at one point but for me I’ve seen enough fights over it in regards to where plots are, how people build cities, this P2W discussion, etc., that I am just opposed to it. I feel the game needs a more robust income model that is flatter for everyone and focuses on more on supply/demand and services/contracts/shops than it has now.
If that was not your original intent, then I can understand where things went wrong. But, in the USA when someone makes the comment you did around it comes off as condescending and rude. You don’t do something and then say, “you’re welcome” when you were not asked to do it. Additionally, you don’t reduce down a persons views to a statement with the context that I said that. If you are going to do that, it is better to then start it with, “What I heard you say was…” Again I have never communicated anything using the words you are choosing to pick especially something like “extreme prejudice.”
My original reply to James for the larger topic was clear, logical, and concise and put in a specific context along a programmer / process modeller type perspective. You do this and you’ll get that. Yes, it was strongly worded. Yes, it could be seen in the perspective you are bringing up but that usually means the person missed the larger context of the whole post.
I’ve had enough interaction with James and his various developer team that they would look at it correctly and not take it as rude, arrogant, etc. That they could contextualize and abstract themselves enough to see it. The only real risk is if they would disagree because they have too myopic view of the game currently since they are so deep into it. That is another reason I kept it simple and strong worded. Most people fall prey to becoming blind to larger aspects since they are too deep into things. That is why you try to create a good abstract out of the box conversation. To help them get out of the hole.
Nope. Not my argument at all. Just like the math stuff your bring up later isn’t a good expalnation of what I am trying to communicate.
Well I didn’t have or start that discussion. I brought up specific points that are dangerous to the game mechanics and gave options on how to proceed. I’ve been very clear in my responses and tried to keep the conversation on point with what I brought up in my original post. Since I was in a context of it being “fair for everyone” it falls completely in line with your comment on “working well for the greatest number of people.” So I really don’t know why you would make many of the comments you are when my original and each subsequent post have been exactly on the same topic and context as my original response to James.
I have enough life experience around process modelling, system engineering, culture change, and workflow architecture to know that you must be careful on how you present and work through something. Due to this, I have presented things in a way that stays at a high level and will not go into the nuances of the dynamics because that isn’t helpful. If people cannot roughly understand the original theory and points being made, going into the weeds will not help. Instead it will only hinder and distract from the original theory.
This is a common thing the ego and many people do - bring up points that seem important but aren’t in the specific context being talked about. It is a way to stop things from moving forward and real change happening. So understanding that psychology of humans and how their minds work is one reason I stay careful on how I present what I do.
I can appreciate that you want to continue the conversation, but honestly I don’t see how that will help. There are plenty of people that have reached out to me and agree with the basic views I have around the P2W plot linkage and how it can be leveraged across many aspects of the games. There are plenty of people that disagree and either haven’t seen the evidence to change their mind, haven’t understood what I am saying to influence to them to change their mind, or just won’t change their mind for a whole host of reasons. At the end of the day, it really only matters what the developers think. Too many times the community has brought up many things they did not want in the game and it happened anyway.
If James and his team understand anythig of what I have tried to bring to light in my comments around this then I will be happy. If they cannot see how much the Founder bonuses have allowed them to dominate the game over the average user base then I don’t know what will. A plot purchase scenario will only add to that domination potential. Again, I am not saying this dyamic is wrong, I am just saying I feel it is unfair and not “flat” like they were trying to share in the original post. They themselves shared they want the overall game to be flat for everyone in many areas. So some of us feel that should also be in relation to the economy and income potential.
For me if they don’t fix the plot = income issue then they might as well just let people buy coin directly in the game. Yes the person has to put work in to make a plot usable for income but they will always have more potential to do that than another person who didn’t buy their “bonuses or plots.”
Those that haven’t been swayed by my comments will likely not be swayed by anything else I say unless it is litterally 1 point at a time.
People have left because the community drove them away when their views did not match the fanboy concensus. They have left because the game is very grindy. They have left because it is being forced into a MMO aspect. They have left because we have been forced into ALTs and a max level of 50. They have left because the game is years into development and has not met the original definition of what they bought it for. They have left because the game is starting to feel too much like a survival game with atmospheres, mobs, etc…
I don’t think it is even fair to use “most” in any this especially the reasons you give on why people left. None of us know how many have left for whatever reasons.
I’ve stated before how much I liked the game and wanted it successful. I’ve also been willing (as well as personally asked to be by the developers) critical (even harsh at times) on where the game currently is in playability. I’ve focused mostly on new user experience and fairness across the whole base of people based on the time they can and cannot play the game.
As for my statement on “hollow” it would be way too hard to explain and I am not willing to go down that rabbit hole. If a huge part of the community couldn’t even rationalize my original post on the plot P2W concern I have then trying to explain the other views would be impossible.
I haven’t made my final decision on if I play after live because I am a fair individual and could only make my decision based on the final game play or at least how the last few months are IF we actually do wipe live. All I know right now is I am not sure I want to spend the time and grind it would take to level my character and then be forced to log in every month or two for years to come to keep my efforts there. This game has turned into a lifestyle game and usually stay away from that type because of the time investment required to be able to even function within the game environment.
Well we finally came full circle. Only quoting this cause everything else is related to numbers I plucked out of thin air.
By pull and tug effect, I was referring to an increase and decrease in the money supply. We really do need that and if that does mean no footfall, then so be it. Completing feats isn’t good enough.
The only issue I do see with footfall is when there’s tens of thousands of people playing each month and people are building massive cities so each time they get someone visiting their beaconed area it’s potentially 80 coins generated out of nothing. That can be hundreds of thousands of coin each week out of thin air. Multiple that by dozens of cities across a couple dozen worlds and we’re looking at a lot more coin than what we have now. Inflation would be crazy so meaningful ways to manage that would be needed. Coin sinks and a much lower footfall generation would be needed.
It’s definitely an interesting thing to talk about.
Perhaps the cash shop could offer items just for coin as well as some for Qubits. That would completely eliminate the entire income link you want severed. It wouldn’t screw with selling plots (if that’s going to be a thing) to people cause there would be some sort of default value to the plots themselves and it would create a whole new category of stuff to sell: real estate. I would totally be a real estate agent in this game if that became a thing.
The simplest solution is probably the best one. That being not everything in the cash shop necessarily needs to be bought for Qubits. Just an idea I think that hasn’t been mentioned that could be explored. /shrugs
I think at a gut level that is why I am so trying to push a different model around things to a better overall economy model.
I just like separate snug system and processes with as little cross over as possible. That keeps things usually clean and certainly cuts down on additional code and rules and n’th number of things to balance all possible scenarios.
Footfall is awarded daily when somebody walks over a prestiged beacon. The coin generated per player is thus directly related to their total travel per day. Megashops actually decrease footfall generated since players travel less to get what they want. Similarly more planets will not significantly increase footfall unless players travel to more of them daily (i.e. spend more time travelling).
Due to the way tax works we can’t have inflation once we achieve a decent population level. That said, there will be inevitable adjustments to total coin supply for patches and changes in daily activity (since hours played per day affects the ratio of goods to coin generated). The math behind it is easy - for every 1 coin generated ~10 coin in trade occurs before it is consumed by tax.
You have to think about it differently to see that it cannot cause inflation and will not be significantly more coin than now.
later on.
