Upcoming Economic Balance Changes

Then... why not make that into a quest? In other words, neither broadcast it to everyone nor nerf it, but instead make that kind of information accessible to everybody... for an in-game price?

 

japp, sure it does. A good solution to get more contact even in Underground instances would be if only some mines would be Party/solo only (those which are not just Mines but also include quests or dungeon parts (Crag & Spectral for example) while the others are also in multiplay mode (but they have become way larger then). Also, the underground ways could get some love and may be also more connections, so that you also could meet up with strangers down there more often

 

And your numbers come from where ?

 

"

• Quest Gold Rewards: We are going through all the non-repeatable quests and either adding gold rewards (if not present) or increasing the gold rewards (if gold already present)."

I hope, instead of giving rats and wolves gold.... you instead should make their pelts worth more. One of the great things about Ultima has always that creatures acted like creatures, even in the things they drop.

 

I think better balance can be achieved by removing individual reagents from use, and replacing them with a "Bag of Black Pearls" that loses durability (running out of pearls) each time a spell is cost that requires it. Put reagent use on all spells just like how all weapon attacks use up durability. Individual black pearls can be collected and when you have say 50 you can use them as a repair kit equivalent to increase the durability of the bag of black pearls, or collect say 100 and combine with a crafted bag to make the item. Casting flame fist has a low chance to decrease durability, while summoning a fire elemental will have a high chance to reduce it by multiple points. This still fits the theme of the game by requiring reagent use, still allows gathers to find uses for the reagents in the wild, and should be better to balance with weapons. The same can be applied to arrows, instead of tracking each arrow use, create a "quiver of arrows" that operates with the same mechanic (crafters craft arrows to repair it or make new ones).

 

Let me start in describing my play style - I have a busy work life and play the game only now and then, without studying the mechanics to have the optimal skill gain or deck. I enjoy the story and "farming" with RL friends who are in the game also. My gp count is always low <5000gp but so far I really didn't mind. Home decoration has to wait or is provided by crafter friends, I don't need expensive weapons and armor with my play style and even if I'd like to have these, I don't feel at a disadvantage.

Obviously the game allows for various play styles: You can optimize your gaming and build the best deck / spend 100hrs a week; Just play a few hours without sophisticated optimization; Roleplay and limit yourself beyond the game mechanic's limitations... etc.
The amount of gold, items and the difficulty of scenes will be very different for each style. Allowing for these different play styles in one persisten world & setting looks very difficult to balance.
Economic prudence should tell Portalarium to go for the majority playerbase and these are average (leisure?) gamers. This means ignoring the "problems" of the "extreme" tails to a certain extend by either capping gain/gp or other technical means. However, if the majority playerbase feels limited (feeling is different than actually being limited) changes to the economic system make sense to keep customers happy and the product alive.

The Novia setting and game mechanics should provide for a solution that makes sense and keeps the narrative intact. Any game allowing 10's of thousands players to grind through skills has to have an unrealistic flora, fauna and economical system. (chopping how many trees down to get an arrow? infinite number of highwaymen...). The "reward" of having a good experience while spending time in SotA must be right. Still I wouldn't expect the basic low-mid level adventurer to make a fortune from slaying low-mid level enemies. You should manage well and that's it. High level adventure with high risk should allow for high reward.
In addition there could be non-combat related quests to make money that fit into the story.

Examples:

• Treasure Hunt (Combat) - all time UO favorite, maps drop as random loot, are hidden in ruins, trees etc... (or can be stolen from NPC homes)
• Dungeon Treasure (Combat) - place big treasures in dungeons and make them accessible / lootable only infrequently. Or link them to a quest. I.E. in the Love Quest - "Tower of the Shuttered Eye" place larger treasures. Guards offer rewards for certain dungeon / map crawls to players that have a good reputation. This should help to balance the inflow and make questing & interacting with the Novia story more meaningful
• Mail Delivery 2.0 - Offer deliveries to various destination and time limits - at different prices. Express delivery from Adoris to Port Graff pays more than Soltown to Solania
• Delivery Quests - Certain shady characters could ask characters with bad reputation to smuggle contrabant to other towns. This could involve random encounters with (hostile) guards, the usage of sneaking & other stealth skills etc
• Make Trade meaningful - Have vendors buy some special goods from other regions at a premium that matters. This probably needs some balancing mechanics i.e. volume limit per character
  
• Allow players to provide non-combat services for money. I.E. play a song (manual play?) and perform for tavern patrons, magical heal, brew special potions, craft certain special jewelry / cloth etc.

I believe there's plenty of room for non-combat actions to allow for an income and many ways combat and PvM can be enhanced by a reputation and random plots to generate higher income to some player characters. Having the Oracle give 500gp per confession isn't one of them.

Edit: Rewording the second & third paragraph to actually make sense

 

I'm poor because decorations are really expensive!

 

I have to admit, I did love my Treasure Hunter. I had him leveled up nicely when fishing was changed to bring up maps...and all the macroers were busy fishing up dozens or even hundreds of maps. I would buy up all that I could.

Each map was 1k gold and some random magic. I dug up so many maps I knew the exact spots to go to and would do a circuit every night. I had so many +5 items that I would give the +4 ones to my friends and hand out the others to random people.


I find it interesting that people are expecting some sort of 'different economy' in this game when it is essentially based on the same gold faucet -> gold sink methodology of other MMO's.

Einstein said it best: "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

 

Okay...spending about 5 minutes to think of a way an economy can work in an MMO gives me this:

You start by giving every new character a basic (for lack of a better word) wage. They get x number of gold pieces per (in game) day. Casual players will log on and find more gold available then somebody who logs in every day and spends...

But...you have a skill tree that raises the amount of gold you get per day. The more active players can raise it faster.

This has the advantage of the gold faucet being mostly in control of the game masters.

You have no gold in game. You don't find it on mobs...it isn't lying about in the wild. Or it can be special mobs/quests....all in the control of the game designers.

The skills can be raised by just killing things....or by turning in items into a regional store..or gathering things and turning them in....again..all in the control of the game designers who can cap it per day to avoid excessive grinding.

The regional store will accept the goods...which then sells them back to the players based on the amount on hand...at that store. Different cities have different stores...so if too many reagents are gathered and dropped off in excess in Britanny....they give less skill gain...but they are also cheaper to buy then places with less activity. The reverse is true. If nobody drops off Gold Ore in Owls Nest..then the skill gain is higher.

This should be the only source of buying and selling.....no player vendors period. The economy is controlled by the regional market..which is controlled by the game designers.

For fun you can attach land ownership to your economic skill. Peasants/Outlanders cant own land. Commoners can have get a Row House...and so on.

For gold sink you can attach a daily 'lifestyle' payment. Different levels cost more in maintainence.

For even more added fun you can put decay on economic skill...so even though you might reach Prince and can own a castle...if you don't do things to support your economic level it may sink to the point where you cant afford your castle.


This design has lots of holes in it (since its been 14 minutes since I started thinking about it) but should show that in order to have an economy in game, you have to think differently.

 

Items on player vendor are EXTREME overpriced, and thus nobody is buying... Problem is, those prices wont change, since player dont give a damn if they sell, they just keep the prices.

The potential customers on the other hand is just turning into crafting the items themselves instead.

Only on the Public Vendor we can see prices are adjusting slowly, being reduced, when players dont buy. A good example is cotton. A week ago 100 cotton cost 1200, today its down to 600...

 

But, ... isn't that an exact image of the reality SCNR

Back to topic - I support these first steps of economic balancing And - a little bit off topic - I support the need of using reagents for all mage skills.

 

I find it ironic how our virtual world is paralleling the real world. I hope our economy becomes similar to Switzerland and not Brazil.

1) Pushing more money in at the lower levels is nice. This won't solve the 1% having all the money. This is how you create inflation.

2) Putting reagents on all spells won't help the lower income brackets. The rich can afford reagents. This will just hurt spell casters and cause more problems for the poor. I'd recommend no repair or reagent costs until around level 50. The Oracle buys your supplies?

3) The rich get rich by spending more time working, working harder, smarter, faster, bit of luck, social structures and interactions. Not everyone has the same time to spend grinding. Create benefits to working together instead of grinding solo, so the wealth can be shared and time disparity is less an impact.

I've seen amazing examples of why the 1% get rich. Avatars creating buy/sell COTO exchanges, monopolizing industries, virtual banking, skilled trading, creativity. This should be celebrated, not chastised. Learn how to get rich, from the rich.

4) The Nobel chat is an enormous advantage for making money. Information and communication are incredible sources of income. Open up communication channels. A free market system benefits the masses. A restricted market benefits the rich.

5) Give a top tier gold sink. The Lottery/Raffle won't take much from the rich, but will take money from those who can least afford. Create some "end game" high end, purely cosmetic items to purchase with gold. The rich love to show their wealth to those less fortunate. Gold Monocles, Expensive Cigars, Designer Purses, oh the list is endless. Make these items purchasable with lots of gold. Make them no-trade. Make them limited colors that will sell out. They MUST be NO-TRADE or will end up on Ebay. Did I mention NO-TRADE/Account Bound?

 

I appreciate that the Devs are looking at ways to provide better avenues of acquiring gold.

My feeling is that whether you play SoTA 10 hours a week or 100 hours a week, there should be more equitable ways of being rewarded for your efforts. I am one of the people that doesn't intend to *live* in SoTA. I love to quest, explore and do all the things many of you enjoy, I just don't have the time to make this a 12hr a day second job with the express purpose of making oodles of virtual gold and sitting on it like a dragon hoarding shinies.

I have questions about how many of the uber wealthy in SoTA actually made their millions in the game itself? For example, it's really easy to sell off things in the Marketplace forums for ingame gold. Makes sense to do since current quest rewards are so skimpy and it's less work. So how many of the wealthy took this approach in whole or in part?

How many of the wealthy are part of larger guilds who may be out there racing to reach high end areas just so they can corner the market on high end crafting materials? Right now, you make more gold mining ore than actually crafting things that use ore. My understanding is that it's intended for crafting to be a gold sink. So how many of the wealthy have opted to just skip crafting altogether and focus on gathering crafting mats?

Speaking of crafting, I still don't understand how using crafting as a gold sink is supposed to work. Currently, you usually spend much more in materials and gold to craft something than you can ever hope to make back. How is that supposed to help crafters make enough gold to live on *and* put some of their profits back into the economy by buying from other players? If the goal is to level up skills in order to be a master craftsman, there has to be some way between point A and point B to make crafting a sustainable endeavor. I just don't know what that is (other than to stop making it a gold sink).

If the goal is to have regional economies, but most people are pisspoor, how is a regional economy ever going to work? You'll either have economic collapse (where regional economies can't flourish) or two tiers of players (where the people at the top simply buy and trade with each other because they can afford to while everyone else is piddling around trying to find quests so they can make 100g for a quest reward) or both. Or you may have players who decide to skip the glut of player vendors altogether and just shop on public vendors in the larger cities because they've decided that trying to support a true regional economy is a pipe dream.

How is any of this attractive to the average player? I don't know. It's more of a rhetorical question.

 

One thing myself and many of my crafting peers have concern with is the current ability to get a set of gear, and never need another one.

Long term, there is not repeat business for crafters because of the Coto repair ability. Pay at most 3kish for a coto to fix an item, or the 10-20k+ for a replacement. Hmmmm, I wonder what people will do.

imho, remove the Coto repair option. Gear needs to break and require re-creation. Slow down the max durability decay rate if you need to, but infinite gear is a death sentence to long term crafter sustainability.

 

Wipe or new server, this one is broke

 

+1

 

Agree with you to a point on this however there is no one best set for all player let alone a best set for a specific build as this will always be changing for the player concerned, and even though they have every item with enhancement's they like ( which would be a miracle in itself) there will always be something better able to be produced/bought that would suit their playstyle better. There will always be a market for more specific gear aimed at certain qualities. I am quite happy with a couple of my own made pieces, but they can be better and in time i aim to make better/remake or buy better.

What would be good is if someone seriously trains up in repair, a method of allowing that person to repair items better and less costly than a layman. Maybe their repairs are so good that it adds a certain durability buff to the item to stop it deteriorating so quickly.

 

On gold, I think the assumption Chris made that the average player generates 3000 gold per play session may be off. For example, I might generate 3000 gold in a session, but then I travel for work for four days when cannot play. Take 3000 gold/5 days = 600 gold per day available to me. This create an immediate gold deficit for anyone maintaining a taxed lot deed.

On overstuffed vendors, my view is that: 1) I perceive items as too pricey to lead me to purchase even if I have the gold , 2) even if the price was better I'm not sure I really need the stuff to play, 3) a newer player wouldn't really know what to search out on vendors even if they had gold to buy, and 4) the time required to search many vendors to learn what is out there is significant. Though I have sometimes wonder where to find an item, I often dont bother to try unless I already know where a vendor is selling it because I know it will take time to find that I don't want to spend, and when I do find it, likely the price will feel unattractive. At the same time, drops other than craftable components presently are meaningless, so as someone working on adventure skills first and saving crafting for longer-term fun, I also have nothing meaningful to sell as I prefer to stockpile basic components for future crafting. Overall, it feels like the vendor inventory problem is related to these things as much as it is volume of gold available. Gold might be a symptom, not the root cause. Its not clear that having more gold will lead me to buy more.

 

I don't think 100 gold will pull people to visit every town on the map and walk to their town crier. I do dislike that POT vendors pay less for things like weapons than their counterparts in NPC towns however.

 

I agree, it's not going to make a huge difference in practical terms, which is why it doesn't make sense not to allow it.

There's an undertone here where anything to do with POTs has to be crappy because of a few people that overreact to anything that has to do with POTs. It's supporting a false narrative that POTs are the downfall of anything and everything. I'm calling it out here because I can't understand why POTs having this feature would be or could be exploited or bad for the game other than the fact that some people will cry foul as they do with everything related to POTs, including the existence of POTs. It's time to start telling those people that they're wrong and they need to get over it.