Except the devs themselves have confirmed it. There is a coding error that is causing all of it.
I think what they said is the coding error has been on place since launch. But they also said the timers were reset every time the planet crashed or was taken offline which hid some of the effect. I think this is why James has been reluctant to just make a coding change. They seem to want to figure out what a the proper timer is ( is it 24 hours or 48 or something else). I personally think they need to pick something fairly soon and at least give it a try. They can monitor and adjust with a hot fix if necessary.
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As one of the Ultima Leaders who has enough beacons and footfall to be able to see the changes actively… I would say 48 hours or 72 hours. Depending on what they want with footfall. 48 means I have spending money, 72 means survival money.
edit: as is, right now it’s been over a week. I’m bleeding income at this point. Can’t afford to buy anything to support Ultima’s forgers or the hub itself. Less then 3k footfall a day compared to upwards of 60k a day before.
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I think this is good feedback for the developers making the decision. My footfall is small and used to buy useless things like candy and ice cream so I cannot really offer feedback like someone running a portal network.
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Didn’t see that a dev had admitted it’s an error my bad.
What I wouldnt do to have that kind of footfall myself. Lol. I get like 260c a day if I’m lucky.
While I admit having that footfall is nice, being too nice means it all goes into baskets for oortstone and other things in Ultima. Mostly into TheGoddessForger’s forging baskets though XD
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I miss my 500-800/day footfall =(
Made me feel like my bridge was important. Log on and see how many people used it based on footfall… I was tempted to just demolish i when I was seeing numbers like 80/day
Fake oortstone prices such as…?
I pay 230 each because my connection can’t handle group meteor hunts and the Oort I get from soloing meteors doesn’t cover the four portals I have at my shop.
The main problem is that this has a long term effect on the economy. There are two sources of ‘new’ coins entering the system: Objectives/Feats and Footfall. The first one is rather limited (not counting the 200c daily per character, and the 1000c weeklies). Most people by this point will have drained all the objectives and feats that they could use for coins in a reasonable time.
On the other hand, there is a constant drain of coins from the economy, via sales and basket taxes.
So, coins are going out constantly and only coming in every 24 days - not on a per-character basis, but in terms of the economy as a whole. That IS a problem, and it should be resolved quickly.
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This is what i’ve been making such an uproar about. So people would see there is a big economic issue before it became too big. It’s been close to a week since I started thrashing about with this info, and everyone can see what it has become since then.
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I guarantee that if the major portal hubs took their portals offline until the issue is fixed, a lot more people would be in agreement that there is a problem and that it needs to be fixed quickly.
Fortunately for the player base as a whole, the owners of those portal hubs wouldn’t do that because they like providing a service for the community. Who knows tho, another week without maintenance to reset the cooldown and the oort and coin reserves might be drained enough for it to happen naturally.
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Nah. We are already preparing for this to take time. We are hoarding what we can and hunting oorts to soften the blow. Ultima portals won’t be going down. We’ll see to it.
edit: Ultima is used by so many people, it would be a massive disservice if we couldn’t keep them up. But don’t worry, there is 3 of us working very hard to manage coin and oortstone.
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Yes I agree with you!
Coins need some alternative sources. And it should be planned before further decline of footfall. Someone proposed a recycling machine for crafters. And it could be possible to add other mechanics for every activities. Shop and trading included! Good suggestions have been made in the suggestion category.
The game may rise again too. It already happened twice (time will tell).
Right now is a good period to introduce something new.
2 Things. First:
Hub’s Footfall should ONLY be going towards paying for Rough Oortstones, Shards, and funding the people collecting the stuff for you. That’s it. No Forges, No Shops, No extra buildings. Nothing else. Fund the portals only.
Secondly, This is the perfect time to examine how dependant people are on Footfall. I remember last week or the week before me and others arguing over Footfall as a system and how broken it is that some people get so much money from it like the Hubs and what not, and others do not get as much.
Now that Footfall is down low, and no one is making much money on it, do you all still think Footfall is a system that HAS to be in the game, and HAS to be as rewarding? Or is it only there to make people money.
Just look at @wolfpack2012’ quote above, where he was complaining not about funding the portals themselves, but funding Forges and the build. Whats more, it’s been cut so much, and the portal hubs are STILL here. Even tho people are making only a tenth of the money they were a week ago.
To me, that’s very telling to just how much greed the bigger hub people have, where even with a fraction of the money and they can still afford to fund the portals. so all that other high ammount of money is just free money they can spend on whatever they want.
To me, I say it’s a sign to just rip the Footfall mechanic right out of the game. That the game doesn’t need it. It’s just there to make the rich more rich and the non hub people to get some pity money to keep them distracted.
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Everyone is free to build a hub. If you find it so unfair that people with hubs are making footfall, do it yourself. Nothing is stopping you, but you. I get a meager amount of footfall on my build, but it helps with quick portal warps around the map.
Just because you aren’t taking advantage of a game mechanic doesn’t mean it’s unfair. People will always find ways to get the most out of something, nothing wrong with that, good on them. You always seem to complain because everyone has, or does, more than you. That’s because you won’t or don’t. That’s not the games fault.
No game mechanics should be ripped out.
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Hmm. I guess you’re right. If I don’t like that a Hub is making money, I can make my own Hub. It’s something anyone can do by themselves, right? I mean, we have hundreds of players and how many hubs? Oh right, only TWO portal hubs. Portal Seekers, and Ultima HQ. With a third one being made soon I think.
But still, hundreds of players, and only 3 portal hubs? And you’re telling me anyone can make a portal hub easily, and that not doing so is their own fault?
As for:
To me that’s a bad way of thinking, cause it can be replaced with something better. The biggest excuse of Footfall is “Builders need a way to make money too!” Then remove Footfall and add in a Donation Basket, where people can donate coins to the basket if they like a player’s build! There, simple, rip out Footfall and just let players donate to Builders they like. Even add a Like/Heart/Thumbsup block too.
This then relies on the kindness of strangers… and unfortunately it’s something not everyone will do. However, if you have provided a service to people, say a bridge from one area to another, and someone uses that bridge… with footfall, you have guaranteed payment for providing that service.
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Footfall needs to be beefed up, not ripped out. It’s the most interesting mechanic in the game.
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Not to mention that footfall, aside from the daily feats pittance, is the only unlimited way for coins to enter the economy. Otherwise it’s all going down the tax drain eventually.
(And then the next suggestion will be to get rid of tax… sigh)
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Or, and here me out of this, or you can add in new ways of getting coins.
I mean, I know it’s a brand new concept, one you don’t see anywhere else in gaming, so might seem very crazy.
But you could just.
Have Monsters.
Drop coins when you kill them…
You can also just make a massive gleam tower in the middle of a city, and rake in more money than that bridge ever will. That sure sounds fair.
Those hubs weren’t easy to build and aren’t easy to run or you’d see more. And they’re hard to compete with because why not just use what’s already there? But to say they’re free money isn’t accurate. With footfall broken, Ultima is out there farming Oorts by organizing meteor hunts. Life goes on, but can they keep up that grind forever? Will all the players who use hubs daily start to donate out of kindness? Who knows. Probably not. And Portal Seekers are also alive and well, so their strategy is also working but for how long? Do they also have people out there farming with meteor hunts? Most likely.
Most players struggle to keep their one portal to the hub open. Do we really want to see the hubs crash and burn?
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