There’s been a lot of discussion and arguments on the forums and elsewhere when it comes to footfall and it’s value as a game system.
I personally think that footfall is a system worth protection and that encouraging traffic through your build as a means to make money is sensible and creates interesting and challenging game-play.
There are two problems, in my mind, with this system. First, because there is a upper limit to how much one beacon can generate per visit, strings of multiple beacons is the meta for maximizing footfall gains, which encourages builds like slides that take up a lot of visual space since they have to be diagonal. Second, there’s not really a workload balance to it, once you create the beacon, it’s good forever.
That second point needs some clarification, I think. You of course need to do a lot of work to keep portals open and to have shops that draw people, not to mention that you have to build things that are functional and beautiful to really draw people. The thing is that your road never needs any maintenance, once you get to 10k prestige in your beacon, you can say you’re done with that particular brick. This is an issue because it doesn’t fit with the rest of the game; all other systems require at least occasional work to maintain supplies, fuel, or to kick off crafting. Footfall can just be collected in perpetuity.
My suggestion:
Allow builders to opt in or out of footfall rewards.
Dramatically increase cap of reward per visit to more closely follow prestige curves.
Cause a certain amount of “wear” to builds based on number of visits per day.
This will work like a very slow version of the regen process on unbeaconed land. The specifics of this need to be tested and worked out, but you could say something along the lines of 100 unique visitors per day would cause 5% of the decay that would occur if the beacon weren’t fueled. So if you sustain 100 unique visitors per day, you could see complete regen of your beacon within 20 days. These are just examples and shouldn’t be construed as the correct rate.
The reason why I think this is the right setup is because it would encourage players to build certain ways for footfall builds and other ways for your basic internal use only builds. You could have a huge dramatic castle that gives you mayorship, but doesn’t generate footfall because you don’t want to replace the marble every month. But then your road leading up to it and the shop you put out in front DOES generate it, and you know that so you keep the bricks in stock to replace.
I’ll also add that I think machines and portal conduits should be immune to this regen just for QOL purposes.
You can build something with insane prestige, and potentially get very dramatic rewards, but maintaining it would require a lot of time or a lot of people. You can still do slides, just make sure you patch the wholes.
Honestly, I’m not sure I would put the time or effort into building anything if I had to keep fixing the blocks. My base, my workshop, my roads, etc…are my safe, comfortable, relaxing place in the game. I don’t want to stress about them. You already have to maintain the beacon & any portals in some way.
Edit to add - how would you find/fix hidden blocks on huge, elaborate builds?
Beacons have to be fueled to activate & function, so I’m not understanding this part.
I’m ok with raising the reward per visit. Getting footfall means you’ve put enough effort, creativity, function, or portal access to something you’ve built to draw visitors. I don’t have a problem with that - regardless of what was built/created.
Well I certainly don’t want to derail the topic. I would just consider that if I visited your shop and bought something then you don’t need the footfall. If I visited your portal and you were paid for me using it then you don’t need the footfall. The key is what to give a builder that offers no goods and services and why everyone else gets that. Either way I want to stay on topic… I think the key topics here of : footfall participation and wear being generated by footfall are good ideas to talk about and consider.
What if you bought one piece of timber for 1 coin to test out the color in your build? You found my shop useful enough to visit, buy something you didn’t have or want to get (or maybe window shop) and I don’t get footfall? Why? Devs added the ff system to inject a little coin, so that’s what it should do.
Well, don’t forget you can opt your beacon out of this entirely. So you can still get your prestige without experiencing wear, you just won’t get footfall. And yeah, a big complicated build could generate tons of money per visit, but it will take lots of work to maintain as well.
Yes… I agree… let’s keep it simple… footfall good… no footfall bad! … if players don’t like it, they don’t have to collect it… it will not cause an allergy!!! Case closed!!
I am not a fan of this, at all. I don’t like the concept & don’t see how this would add value to the current style of gameplay that the devs have created. Kinda seems like nerfing, in an indirect way.
Well, it’s not closed because the current footfall system encourages builds that aren’t the greatest. If footfall is the path you want to go down to make money, you should be able to get rewards that relate to your effort more.
I think the point of OPs thread is the clear stance devs have made at certain gimmicks being unintended and OPs idea is a way to combat it. That’s all.
It was easily manipulated when it was released to the PS4 and I was making 70k a day off staggered builds with my alts.
That type of thing was clearly unintended but it was a mechanic that I used because everything was so expensive at release for new players while those with huge builds were getting tons of footfall and controlling the overall market(devs have already made mention of this so it’s not an attack, just a basic fact)
Footfall shouldn’t go anywhere but it shouldn’t be abuseable due to an improper game mechanic.
