Because it depends upon what the player does, builds, makes, etc.
The only way there would be a true balance or distribution of coin, is to either take the game offline or give every player X amount of coins every day that they log in.
Otherwise, everything that players do will effect the economy, the activity in certain areas, etc.= sandbox
100%
And that is what gets to the heart of the abuse of footfall with gimmicky roads and slides and everything else in between. You can make an excessive amount of coin if you force people, somehow, to go through your road/tunnel/slide prior to going on a hunt for example.
It doesn’t bother me as I choose not to attend those hunts but when the devs do decide to take action against that sort of abuse people are going to be up in arms wondering what happened to their waterfall of generated money.
Shops will make more money all day long. As has been said by the devs themselves, footfall was never intended to be generated in the way it is right now. I know how much my road made 
the slides are no different.
I see a sandbox a bit different in the results you can achieve versus what we get here…
100% agree that the limited player base creates a certain scenario and if we threw a lot more people into the game I am not sure if the situations being discussed would be better or worse. That is certainly contextual and I don’t know if FF points for the OP would matter as much or not.
All I do know is that no amount of players will solve some of the game designs problems I see – they will get worse. Other things I feel would be just more of the same but 1000 people on both sides of the discussion. For me I am looking at most of the stuff being like a philosophy type conversation - there are some people on both sides of a discussion that really has no solution because they are different models and game play.
but it requires a lot more maintenance and “work” so any extra ff “gains” might be negated by the amount of extra maintenance/tools/time required.
Why do we need decay? I see no reason for decay.
No player is ever going to have the same exact everything.
We need to stop thinking that we need to adjust ff, and anything else to make ALL players equal on the same playing level.
Please, we need to leave ff alone.
Yes a flat distribution would be better I think - x coin per account per day… Last time I talked with James about that the key issues was how to protect from those that take advantage of that system. Ultimately, that is what the devs just have to work on as they mature the FF model. I don’t have the answers though yet and feel we shouldn’t solve the effect “FF” and focus on the key game play models since I think those are broken more.
I’ve never been on a hunt that forced me to do any of this. If they did, I would just go to the planet they were on, locate the hunt, and join in(Unless I felt compelled to do it as a thank you for them hosting a great hunt, which helps a lot of people get more drops than they would otherwise.) No one can force you to do anything.
In all of the other building games out there, it is extremely common for people to build roads, slides, mazes, etc…and unlike BL, there is no ff reward for it. Just because BL gives them ff for players accessing their builds…doesn’t make them malicious. If you don’t want to give them ff, go around it or avoid the build. 
Agreed. The Foot fall debate is over analyzed and overly complex in nature at this point.
I honestly feel the only change they should/could make at this point is simply remove foot fall from the game entirely, and come up with some other reward besides points for prestigious builds. But that might just be me getting upset about this topic never dying and just wanting to set flames to it and walk away. The debate at this point does not help anyone, so I will walk away from the thread now.
This idea might make some people scream pay to win, but so be it.
My solution to this is to make footfall scale to the number of plots, NOT counting any plots on the Z axis, (plots stacked on top of each other will only count as one) This scaling would be limited, The goal of this is to make it such that, if the area of the plots for footfall, is just 1x1, you will get next to no footfall, 2x2 will get a little more but still a small amount, at around 4x4 or 5x5, would be the upper cap of this system, and you will get the full amount as we have now, but anything below that scales it down from the current amount,
This would make such „Abuse“ of the meta not as worth it, however it won’t remove all abuse.
This would be on top of the current system we have, it will not replace it. You will still need to build stuff in the plots.
I am only slightly annoyed at the „Meta“ not because of the footfall gain, but the fact that I always have the build overlay enabled, personal choice, and it is just slightly tiny bit annoying to see people purposefully designing builds for maximal footfall generation and not based on how they want their build, I will have you know that my main build is one beacon that contains over 4000 plots in that one beacon.
Absolutely not. The whole point of a plotted area, is everything in it is protected, also this opens up abuse of groups purposefully trying to wear out other peoples builds to cause damage.
I agree. No one can force you to do anything, which is why I choose just not to go on them in general. They open a port saying here we go, then take you somewhere completely different , and it’s just a total waste of 15 mins. Then to find out where the hunt is you have to ask or play catch up, more time wasted.
It’s ludicrous so I just don’t go, so like I said it doesn’t impact me, but those same people are going to throw a hissy fit when things get adjusted .
I guess I don’t understand why everyone wants to avoid the fact the devs have said this is not intended and what would be a good way to fix it 
It seems to me it’s best to put a collaborate as a community and help agree on a fix or just deal with whatever they give us down the road, a la bomb mining.
Exactly. Footfall is a mechanic the game has designed. Nothing concerning the co-ops/slides are giving anyone an advantage. Why should slides and co-ops which are community driven and supported by many, have less validity than a portal hub?
If you don’t like it, don’t participate. It’s really that easy.
Honestly, this is likely more about not liking the view on one of the t4 planets where slides are being built.
I think I know which one you mean now. I don’t think those platforms have enough blocks to get prestige (maybe they do?). They do it that way to hit a region that will quickly trigger a meteor. It kinda makes hunting faster. I’ve got lots of video of those hunts and usually if it doesn’t trigger a meteor fairly quickly, they’ll move on. No way I’d wait 15 mins 
I solo hunt meteors at a much faster rate lol
But if you don’t like that method & choose to avoid it = that is definitely your right to do so 
The devs already overhauled the ff system recently. Maybe they are planning to do so again? Or maybe they have something else in mind? Seems like for now they are moving on to some things that are badly needed in the game like farming, more items, the hunter, etc.
Yea we never know what they’re doing! Chrysominter out of no where for example!
They’re always looking at data even when we think they’re not. And conversations too!
I really appreciate when Xal takes time to relay info he’s gotten from his conversations with them, to us. It helps provide some insight in to what’s going on, even if extremely limited.
I’m willing to bet most of the people who ardently defend footfall benefit from it.
It’s a fact that without footfall there would have been far less drama and plot wars. That’s reason enough to ditch it and replace with a system that rewards everyone equally depending on accomplishments everyone can make like the dailies.
Well that’s why I don’t really get in to attacking anyone specifically. I benefited from those alternating plot roads for a very long time. I also posted about it when I first started my build (October?)and how I thought it was a crappy mechanic but I wasn’t going to let myself fall behind as a result.
So I get why people would want to keep it intact, as I’ve said each of my beacons was making between 5-10k a day, for close to 70k across all the alts. The system is too easily abused.
Chrysominter got added, and I tore my roads down.
I agree with this part of your statement. (I earn more coin from taking down a single level one meteor on a T3 than I do from the mall.)
Honestly, I don’t think anyone loves it. I think everyone is probably tired of thinking and stressing about it and want to forget about it so they say leave it as is for now It’s a sore subject.
Honestly some could argue this is an exploit too but I don’t want to derail or go into that… geez there are so many ways people take advantage of game mechanics in Boundless… lol.
I totally agree and understand, but if this game is ever going to take off down the road, broken systems have to be fixed. That’s why I think us coming together to work toward a common fix so the system can’t be abused is a great idea. I really liked @Trundamere s idea. But who knows, maybe it can’t be fixed?
It’s why I love Boundless and sandbox games in general. They let people push the mechanics until the developers decide there needs to be a balance adjustment.
Thank you… I try… And in response to this whole discussion and this:
I quickly brought FF up… the key issue and I guess I could say the basic response was this - how do you change the existing system or what does the new system look like. Each adjustment affects other parts of the games and how do you solve those adverse affects.
They don’t have the perfect answer for the model they have currently in place and how to adjust it and nothing we as a community have provided so far answers the challenges either.
So the systems will stay in place until good ideas surface on how to change it or a new model shows or there is a massive requirement for them to change it to protect the overall game balance.