I don’t agree, the builders alone do not get much footfall money, The builders who also own a shop and or portal hub get footfall money. I challenge you, to go out somewhere, that is a little ways out side of a portal hub, and build something that doesn’t contain shops or portals, or otherwise doesn’t provide a public service. and see how much footfall you get.
Shopkeepers and portal hub owners, get footfall money, You don’t get footfall by the very act of building, you get footfall if and only if other people walk on your land. And since building a temple is neither of thoses. You can’t really say “Builders” get footfall money, because odds are, they won’t get much of it.
Here is an example of a build that provides little public service whatsoever, other then a terminal velocity portal, and the footfall values from it
So no, “Builders” do not get footfall. Public service providers do.
The crude daily feats that only give 100 coin each, yeild 12k coin in the time the build might yeild 3.5k and thats not counting the bonus from the weekly feat.
I don’t collect my footfall because I don’t care about passive income, Even if it was higher. So what you see in the coin box is indeed the total over the lifespan of the build.
I hope the new system isn’t just a slight tweak of the current system. Beacon coins only help those who build main hubs and stores near main hubs with portals. It would be nice if the coin was spread around to more players - ones that prefer to hunt, gather, etc instead of building.
Please add coins as drops from creatures, meteorites, special blocks, daily logins, trashing unwanted items, or some other method. I don’t know how you would test this. Maybe have a “Holiday Extravaganza” event for a few days and see how many coins from drops/trash go into circulation or if the economy gets a health boost.
I understand you don’t want to flood coin into the game - if you spread the coin love beyond beacons a little, seems like it would be helpful to everyone, regardless of level or playstyle preference.
That assumes that people with portals/shops are doing it soley to see a fake money balance grow and not putting anything back into the economy. Which personally i think would be a boring as hell way to play the game. Sure there is a few people that have mentioned sitting on millions and not wanting to spend it, but i would assume thats not the majority. Seems like a weird way to not play the game to me.
I run multiple shops/settlements/portal hubs so i can generate footfall to spend. All of my characters have exactly 0 coin in their pockets, unless im going mining then i take 800 for warp costs. First thing i do when i log on is collect footfall and put it all straight in request baskets.
I think we both think we’re contradicting ourselves with the footfall is/isnt the only way to make coin. I see selling as a way to make coin, and that coin comes from other peoples footfall. But thats ok we dont have to agree, just voicing a differnet opinion.
I see your point that there could be other ways to create that inital coin in the game, but i think the footfall mechanic encourages a lot of community play. Portals/shops etc are built to generate it. Not sure what happens to that part of the game if everyone makes coin passively for doing everything. I see a lot more solo play and less community aspects.
Before the servers, ironically, became more stable and the footfall problem became an issue, my build with no shops and no portal was averaging 500c a day. That would be between 1500 and 2000 now because of the increase of the size of my build. No, that’s not a lot. But it would pay for, at least, most of my oort.
That’s setting aside that I now have a portal and my store is set to reopen.
@deenw I think you hit a big chunk of the problem spot on - less people = less feet, and less coin circulating from any and all activities (not only footfall, but even daily’s). I can also track sales drops to that week.
@Jyanin - I think another issue here is the profit margins some shops not only aim for, but actually make. People are willing to buy from and sell to flip shops making well over 100%. My issue with this is not profit gouging or immoral practices but rather tax. We aren’t getting huge amounts of coin into the world via footfall (and much less so if players have a single, efficient route that they run regularly as it doesnt spread footfall to anyone off their personal “highway”). Gatherers make coin by selling to shops (tax coin sink 1). Shop owners then re-sell for more than the gatherer made (shortfall 1, tax coin sink 2). higher margins means a larger total coin sink. If coin shortfall is greater than (currently) footfall + daily’s, you are bleeding coin and alts become even more attractive. It doesn’t have to be true for the entire system, but if - to the individual - it seems coin is evaporating faster than it’s generated, I would also rather remove myself from the coin game as it appears to be a losing battle. Coin hoarding (which is a reasonable reaction) adds to the perceived coin sinks.
@uni3k - I agree footfall pays more people (and usually better) than just builders, but same as above - moving that coin also destroys part of it. If each person visiting your shop incurs more than 20/30c tax (your average to big shop footfall per person), then footfall is not keeping up with the sinks - revert to point above.
^ I think footfall is a very nice idea, and I would be willing to bet that if it weren’t in the game we would have a waaay different experience. But this too. The economy would benefit as a whole from putting a pricetag on time spent. Sure you can still make an alt and just DIY that tool / map / weapon. But if the time you spent collecting those mats somehow reward you - why, now you have coin in your pocket… and you are getting sick of gringing wildstocks looking for the 1 in 50 that apparently has horns… to forge, hoping for the item you want… So then the more you grind the better the chance is that you can afford to skip the grinding, and I wager many people will rather buy than DIY then.
my 2c - footfall isnt the be-all and end-all, either as a problem or as the solution. I like the idea of added income for activities as this will increase active population and put coins in the hands of people who are more likely to spend it.
Not arguing with you personally, just using this as an example. This is what i mean when i say it assumes people making footfall are just putting it in the bank and not spending it.
My lazyness easily outweighs my greed, i would happily spend 10k on leaves if i had it. Especially if it came from footfall with little effort, and i knew footfall would generate more the next day. I could get the same amount with an hour of effort, but with a decent expendable income id definitely just go buy it from someone else.
Thing is, it definitely benefits those on busy routes more than others. But this doesn’t mean any of them can control the economy. If seen as a reward for causing traffic, then there’s nothing wrong with the concept of footfall. I agree that it just isn’t enough on its own
My tiny atlas shop makes ~4k footfall the day after a patch. Then it drops down to 1k. If it was 4k every day I’d have a lot more money to spend and wouldn’t really concern myself with saving for the things I need.
Just as an example, because I’m a diligent explorer, I have a private black glass farm (first to explore Galan, claimed it the first few hours). I HATE regen bomb farming black glass. I’d happily hand someone a t6 hammer and pay them some coins to farm the black glass for me - I’d like to use it in my builds. But the builds I’d use it in don’t make any money - my graveyard pulls in 240 coins/day on a good day, the newbie levelhaus maybe 1k (and that’s ‘footfall trapped’ with alts).
So I’m farming black glass myself, because I have no coins to buy a hammer and pay someone to farm the glass for me. I simply can’t afford it. I’m not a portal master or a road owner or a settlement builder, but if footfall were fixed I could afford to save footfall for a few days and pay for things I’d like but don’t NEED.
P.s. im not arguing against other ways to make coin, just supporting the footfall mechanic. A lot of great features in this game depend on it.
No portal hubs would suck, and completely change the game. And who would spend most of their game time maintaining them for nothing?
I think if other ways were introduced, the flow on effect on how things are designed around a foot traffic generated income need to be carefully considered
Just to tack on to this. I’m not arguing against footfall either. I think it’s a nice alternate be way to generate coin. It’s just a bad coin generator on its own imo
I actually play the exact same way you do. I have several stores, builds, mini-hubs. I earn coin, and then go buy things from shops and players that I can use. I maintain a zero coin balance, as you do.
I do have at least one friend that doesn’t like to build. I don’t think he should be left out because he does many other things in the game.
I don’t know if changing footfall would help the economy…I think we need additional ways to earn coin or possibly another type of currency added to the game … in addition to footfall.
I get what youre saying, but thats my point too. I dont believe hes being left out. Just because hes not getting coin from “his” beacons, doesnt mean hes not getting coin from beacons. 2nd hand coin is still coin.
There’s a big ripple effect killing the economy though. If shop owners aren’t making coin, they can’t put coin in their ask-baskets. Then gatherers can’t sell their goods. Some people who prefer not to gather or hunt, have no coin to buy from anyone. Some people get 20c a day and some are getting thousands. However, even the ones earning the most are saying that they’ve lost 75% of their footfall lately. Things will happen. It would be nice if all of the eggs weren’t in the same basket.
If I haven’t mentioned it yet, I, and many other, thank you for continuing to work on it. Despite my personal pontificating, I know this can’t be easy.
That being said. we desperately need a glut of money. Even if it was waaaaay OP for a month, it would only be good for the game.
Maybe blast a message across the game that the change is temporary and will be balanced in the future.
To everyone else, I’m not opposed to additional forms of income. I do think the dailies everyone keeps mentioning is a good idea…just as long as footfall remains as well.
I still say a passive income is nessisary, not just for the direct benefit of the game but to hold onto infrequent players as well.
