Could we remove the parts of the game that encourage the behaviors that this patch was supposed to address?
Why not make a Heart-shaped statue, where people can come and choose which builds they like most instead of footfall? Give everyone 10 “likes” or allow 10 of their “likes” to contribute to an “art bonus” or “useful” bonus for builds. Portal hubs keep their income, and the best builds get art bonuses. Builders get rewarded not for how large a city they have, or how much prestige, but for how much people love a build.
I still miss that random fish shop build someone posted a while back that regenned. Out in the middle of nowhere. I felt it deserved more “footfall” than many other builds.
Then just massively buff dailies and add more for every kind of activity in the game. Total amount run, total amount creeped, gathered, mined, farmed, hunted, processed, explored, etc. Reward every activity in the game so most of the coin income is actively gain, not passively. Every day they reset and you can earn them again.
Then people won’t care as much about where their beacons go and stop trying to plot solely for footfall.
Also, remove the quest that tells you to make a settlement.
Honestly, I’d like something like this.
In my very first thread on these forums, I wrote something that went a little bit in that direction.
Right now, I’m even wondering if my post isn’t what made the devs change how prestige was calculated. I think back then. Might be totally wrong, though.
Anyway, now, I’d say the best thing would be to add a Like system to complement the Prestige system.
Getting rid of it would be spitting in the face of those who made builds only with prestige in mind (instead of the artistic value).
Those likes couldn’t be given by characters who are even remotely connected to a settlement (such as alts of a builder). But I think friends should still be able to give likes, though.
the thing with a option like that is now you are adding politics into the game and just setting up new behaviors where guilds now have a heart the guild hall requirement or x guild des not like y guild so members are not allowed or maybe wont heart your build soley cuz you are in y guild
That’s a very valid concern.
Maybe the like system could just be that : tied to nothing. No extra rewards, you just know that people liked your build, and that has no more value.
Still, it would be nice if someone like @Stretchious or @Havok40k could move the messages about that into a proper thread with a title such as “Like / Favorite Build System”.
Sorry to bother you guys by the way, but y’know, in this thread, there’s discussion about the Buffer Zone System, about a Blueprint system and a Like/Fav system. ^^’
You cannot heart anything belonging to a guild you’re in.
Yes, everything has downsides, but at least this way, there would be fewer issues with people fighting over footfall.
With a separate favorite section for “Beauty” and “Utility” people could favorite both their favorite hubs, and favorite art. 10 of each. Ranking them in order.
The idea is the bonus is small, and that the vast majority of coin comes from dailies.
That might be difficult as you can be in multiple guilds. I have characters in several guilds as I sure others do too.
If you tie it to primary guild only, it would be then require policing people changing guilds, “hearting” a build, then changing back.
If anything, a system like this would turn into a popularity contest… making it so that it should never be tied in with any form of bonus whatsoever. Then if it’s just plain and simple “like” system, it seems like it would be a nice-to-have as opposed to a core game system.
It could be programmed to undo the “like” after a guild change.
A lot of things in life are popularity contests. That’s the point. In fact, that’s what footfall was all about, right? Rewarding the most popular builds so dedicated and exceptional builders would be rewarded also.
By separating the “Likes” into both Beauty and Utility, it allows portal hubs and malls to have an income for operating expenses, and the wonderful, hidden beautiful builds randomly in the world to get appreciation and show up on the leaderboards, so everything isn’t solely the highest prestige build.
Are there downsides? Of course, but the argument isn’t if there are downsides to this, the argument is that this is far friendlier and less likely to create conflict.
Sure. Just keep it simple like a like button. Walk by something…for whatever reason you like it…hit that button. Doesn’t matter what guild you or they are in, etc. You’re happy you got to like it, they’re happy someone appreciated it. win/win
Edit: do you mean instead of footfall?
Yeah, do you think if nerfing footfall, tying it to a Like system for “Beauty” and a separate one for “Utility” would help to reduce conflict? While buffing dailies significantly?
No. Sorry, I think that would cause more aggression and conflict.
I think footfall, being dependent upon prestige, is a problem and promotes negative behavior.
I still think coin drops need to come from almost every activity we do to reward all people for all game-playing activities — to make it evenly spread across as many types of players as possible.
Mining? = you have a chance to get a small amount of coins from each block, just like rock salt or flint.
Defeating creatures? = you have a chance to get a small amount of coins from each creature, along with trophies, etc
Etc, etc.
Because coin/footfall should be an un-biased, unemotional, payment to keep things as fair as possible. Like dailies.
If you start basing how much coin people get on an individual’s perceived ideas of how “beautiful” they think a build is or how much they “like someone”, that will generally always create some negative thoughts/feelings/resentments among people that are involved.
I mean, technically, right now if you wanted to give someone coin or a vase of roses, you could trade it to them, without removing footfall/drops/dailies.
How does footfall cause conflict? And whats the problem this is trying to solve?
Im not sure removing footfall is mutally exclusive with liking peoples builds. Is the idea some sort of system to reward asthetically pleasing builds? And if so, why does that need to be at the cost of fuctional/high traffic builds?
The big networks most definitely rely on footfall, and there is no way 10 ‘likes’ is funding a million a week in oort costs.
If the networks close, individuals would need to pay for their own portals or warp costs, which means less traveling, traffic and coin for everyone.
I do agree it would be nice to reward simply nice looking builds, because unless its functional its just the odd person going to have a look and of course they wont get as much traffic. But i dont think that needs to take away from the places that are designed for traffic.
A simple “tip jar” would be cool. Either player donated coin, or just a flat 100c or something for each “tip/like” you get.
I wouldnt expect that to be a big money maker though. Its not something you could expect daily income from if people can like a build once.
Unless it generated passive income on how many likes you got. 10 likes = 100c a day… 100 likes = 10,000c a day etc.
I still think footfall serves its purpose for people actually using a build though. The better the utility, the more people use it, the more income you recieve. It makes sense.
Functional builds cost to maintain, decorative builds dont.
There will allways be conflict in some way or form. Just removeing a few things does not stop it. We just need to find ways to improve it somehow.
Suggestions does help the devs alot^^
Reminds me of trove where the builds / private areas with the most votes over all and for that week gets displayed in the main hub area. That is something I would not mind to see ^^
Daily / week quest would also be something to keep people entertained but not that same each day make em random^^
But the current implementation of Footfall is already emotional.
People plotting up against massive builds for no other reason than to get footfall, which causes conflict.
People making structures and roads for the sole purpose of footfall despite not living anywhere near an area, which makes beaconing things more difficult, which causes conflict, and also increases the conflict above.
People then hold onto builds in certain places for no other reason than footfall, refusing to relinquish areas for no other reason than footfall.
All of these issues would reduce significantly.
Footfall exists because people “Like” a build and therefore build next to it and visit it, or they are forced into utilizing it (someone takes a huge plot of land next to a high prestige building), or they like utilizing it (portal hubs). Emotions are baked straight into the foundation of the footfall system.
Nerfing the amount footfall gives and replacing it with a “Like” system that allows people to give bonuses to anyone anywhere in the Boundless universe regardless of how often they visit it would also allow builds in the middle of nowhere to be famous. And massively boosting dailies would you make the gain from Footfall/Like systems so meager that no one could actually be economically dominant by having a favorited build.
Plenty of games have contests, for artwork, for writing, for ideas, and award players for participating. I’ve rarely seen those breed nearly as much dysfunction within the community as footfall has.
The goal is to remove any system in the game that promotes a behavior that can lead to conflict.
I could be wrong, but I would bet money I’m not. Had footfall not existed, and people allowed to opt out of settlement merges, a huge portion of support requests wouldn’t have been made, and allowed @james to work more on the game itself.
I seriously think the only major objections to this idea could be either,
A. People think it might increase conflict.
or B. People don’t want to lose the massive amounts of footfall they get.
or C. The time it takes to code in this feature, but then, many hours have been spent balancing and working on bug fixes for Footfall that wouldn’t have ever needed to be done had the system been a simple, linear, “Like” based. It would need far fewer maintenance patches.
If you disagree that it would reduce conflict, I think the only solution is to try the idea, and if it doesn’t reduce conflict, then we can go back to using Footfall, but from what I’m reading @Xaldafax say, changes do need to be made to Boundless to increase it’s sustainability, and someone is going to be upset.
The Devs have tried far too hard to please everyone, even so far back as EA, when they allowed Classes and Skill Pages. The end result of this was a ton of new players speccing into Skill Pages and getting frustrated they “wasted” cubits, thus quitting and/or complaining.
In EA, they added a portal cost to warp back home to stop people from abusing resource gathering trips (a strict departure from how Trove functions which is free portals everywhere), and the end result was countless people getting lost in portals all over Boundless then going into debt in coins because they warped home and then quitting and/or complaining.
Every step of the way it appears they take a middle-ground on an issue, which has only complicated the game further and further, putting it out of reach of new players.
The days of using a scalpel to build Boundless need to end. We need sweeping changes, and if that means part of the playerbase leaves, I think we have to accept that, because it can’t grow with the current playerbase.
I have no pony in this race, and that allows me to objectively look at this and realize the health of the game is dependent on change, and if that change is something I don’t want, I’ll wholeheartedly agree to it.
Tomorrow, they could add in all kinds of things I hate, and if it made the game extremely successful, I would be perfectly okay with that. Most people here can’t say that.
edit To reiterate, I could be wrong, but I don’t see any way to prove that unless the theory is tested. If the work isn’t too much for Devs, don’t people here think it’s worth a shot? If it reduces the workload on the devs and allows us to get more content in the game, isn’t that worth it?
And to be clear, this system would allow all portal hubs to recoup most of their costs with a “Utility” bonus, not to mention the massive increase in coin from dailies being increased.
No, I do not support replacing footfall with a Voting system, Footfall, if it is replaced, should be replaced by something that is not related to how popular something is.
If you want to add a Voting system, It should not replace anything and, it should not have much or any impact on a players income or any other type of core function of the game, it should be some kind of „cosmetic“ bonus at the most
I am 100% against a Voted popularity contest that is designed into the game that effects a players progression in the game, and there is absolutely nothing that can change my view on this,
Do you have actual numbers this is based on? If so, how do they compare to how often people get along and mutally benefit using these systems?
I agree with you there could be more done to benefit decorative builders, but i find it hard to believe the majority of players are up in arms over the footfall mechanic (not sure where thats happening if it is, havent seen anyone mention it for ages?) and it needs a flat out removal from the game. I would assume its quite the opposite, more people benefit from it than not… but im making assumptions so would be interested to see any stats that might indicate otherwise.
From what youre saying it sounds like the issue is more that some players might just want to solo build in isolation, and dont want others near them when they become popular. But people wanting to be near the popular areas wont go away if there wasnt footfall. People would still gravitate to busy areas to generate more “likes” or whatever, or simply because humans generally like attention and want to be involved in the action.