The footfall discussion has been had 20 ways til Sunday and will continue ongoing until this system is fixed it seems.
So of those who are interested, I’d like to explore how we could properly address this issue as per @james direction:
How can we champion buffing the feat system so that people don’t feel like they have to build gimmicky builds to generate money and those who love to build don’t feel harassed as well they shouldn’t.
Credit to @Nightstar and @Simoyd for making sure this link pops up when a footfall conversation comes up. And anyone else that links back to it.
I don’t think you can. I think as long as the game has rewards that entice people to build a specific way, instead of how they feel like building, the game won’t be an organic sandbox.
That said, if you added daily feats for every activity in the game (mining, chopping, digging, exploring, buying, selling, etc) that rewarded people handsomely and reduced the amount of footfall people receive so that you could NEVER live off of footfall rewards, I think that could work.
People still get footfall, but it’s more like a tip, not enough to do much with, but over a few months maybe you can afford a new hammer.
Otherwise, gotta play and do daily stuff every day to get more coins.
While I do not really like the footfall mechanic, it is currently the main source of coin in the game. As long as the game has an economy there needs to be a medium of exchange (coin). Trading works in certain situations, but everyone is not going to be able to find someone that wants to trade what they have for what they want. Coin in Boundless makes the economy possible.
If you eliminate or severely curtail coin flow into the game by eliminating footfall then you remove a part of the game that many players enjoy. I think we need to draw players in and not have things change in a way that drives them away. Any change to footfall has to be balanced with a mechanic to add coin to the game. I do not think the coin machine puts enough coin into the game. They could raise the amount per item, but I think that would just cause inflation as the stores would have to raise process to compete.
They are going to have to find a way to reward activity with coin the same way they do rewarding xp for activity. This will certainly favor players that have more time to play the game, but that is always going to be the case. At least everyone would get the same coin for the same activity. The feats and objectives as they are now will not work. Instead of rewarding at levels (as an example 1000 kills, 10,000 kills 100,000 kills), I think they would have to reward coin on a consistent scale. As an example every 100 mobs killed you get 100 coin.
While I feel feats need much love, I fear that you will see people gimmick them as well. We already see huge hunts and people trying everything they can do to maximize reward.
The question just becomes is that gimmick more acceptable than the current one we have.
I think a gimmick that doesn’t affect most players (a big hunt) is better than a gimmick that does (fighting over plots, huge builds made specifically for footfall, etc).
People holding onto land they never use simply because it profits from footfall feels problematic much more so than the community engaged in a meteor hunt.
And people count on huge turnout so they can bring their alts and garner 2,3, 4x the oort as a single player gets but that’s an entirely different discussion as well.
As for the other replies, if there’s no way to champion a balance to this system, then the desire to push the footfall mechanic further and further will lead to where it leads.
Let’s for the sake of conversation discuss how feats could be abused/exploited/gimmicked.
James clearly said that system should be the primary coin tap. Why do the players feel the footfall system is that primary tap? Because it pays more on a passive basis? Even if feats were gimmicky, they would at least be requiring you to actively play the game. If indeed they were gimmicked, would this be seen less negative as a whole since you are active in the world and interacting with other players?
Honestly, maybe. If I spend 3 hours wandering around Boundless looking for things in shops, I earn exactly ZERO materials and XP and coin, but then I go back to my base and viola, a ton of footfall.
Boundless has a lot of downtime, when people aren’t earning anything. I think if you reduced footfall so much that it gives a tip instead of a paycheck, and buffed non-passive playstyles the expectation would shift.
At this point, footfall is like living off bank interest. It’s not engaging once you set it up.
Give us a common goal we can collaborate on for a reward. One thing that comes to mind is Vanilla WoW when we all had to donate stuff to open the gates for whatever (it slips my mind atm) Maybe the common goal is how we spawn a new exo? Anyone have any other ideas on this?
Combine that with FFXIV’s dungeon lfg system (most in demand job gets a bonus to the first reward of the day or until another resource is needed most) Lets say the project is in need of wood more than stone. Donating wood would give increased rewards that day. (Or until wood is no longer the most needed resource) When you reach the daily quota you get your reward. Additional rewards can be earned but it is considerably less compared to the first daily reward.
Open up more options for the reward system. Let us choose between oort/oort shards, coin, or some currency we can use towards new cosmetics. How about a random box that can include anything from ore to yams to forge ingredients?
Player spawned exos! That’s quite a different take that could solve two problems at once if well designed! The work would need to be laborious as the devs wouldn’t want us spamming exos, and it would provide sinks for various things but that could be against the desires of the devs. However I don’t think it’s out of the neighborhood of a sandbox, after all we could choose if we participate in this. Some people might never participate in the build and would get access to the new exo with everyone else but they’d lost out on rewards potentially generated while working together as a community to hit the trigger.
Hmm…lots of good ideas here. What if we had a daily feat that was buffed just for the one day?
For example : “collect 50 starberries”. That would reward you say, 400 coin? I know that’s not a feat in game yet, but a handful of small ones like that could be whipped up with [action–>inventory check–>harvest–>inventory check] scans?
Its not alot of coin either, but enough for them to go buy a few materials, and to give the player a bit more incentive.
A daily feat like that too, can be reached by players of all levels.
And like their weekly login bonus, a feat that does the same kind of thing but with a greater coin reward and maybe a random rare ingredient. Like 4 oortstones or a titanium hammer? Where for a week it would be “kill x amount of stout spitters” or “craft x amount of glue”. Or both? Since you can get bones from spitters to craft the glue. Anyone can do those two also since stout spitters are on tier 1 planets.
Even if a high level player kills those numbers in four hours, their weekly feat is done till the next round.
