Upcoming Economic Balance Changes

The Oracle helps pull us into the story, or pull us into our game's deeper reality. By visiting it, we are provided it with data as well as it providing us with data feedback.

Sure, "we can do our own thing", yet if we are going to gain deeper enjoyment from our game, we must allow our game to speak back to us, when we speak to it.

Oracle familiarization...


MMO Economic familiarization...

~Time Lord~

 

I would suggest extend the mail delivery quests as a way to give people gold, that feels more natural to me than oracle bribes or tracking

For wands/staff/reagents
Currently wands is -10% and staffs -20% on reagent use
Could we instead have so we could socket/imbue them with reagents
a wand could be socketed by one reagent and when using that wand you would not consume that kind of reagent
staffs could have 2 or 3 slots for reagents

 

In order to move forward, $ we have to let the air out of the top 90%... (top 90% gold sump), otherwise, we are just adding gold into the game without recycling it back into the economy.

~Time Lord~

 

I think the biggest screw was changing the amount of gold loot can give you off mobs. That is what the little guy used to make money with.

Since the devs don't plan on changing that, the rich will get richer.

 

Exactly what I think about this proposal.

 

Haven't really been following the thread so forgive me if I'm repeating anything. I never the less feel compelled to add my two pence.

The strategy put forth here, while aimed at the 90%.. is one of just switching from one faucet to another. Rather than draining the top 10% and working within the market to make it easier for the 90% to purchase by say.. lowering prices.. What they're doing is just adding more gold into the economy when too much gold in the 10% is the issue.

All the while this doesn't address how the 10% got all the gold in the first place. Now I'm sure there are long term plans and all.. but it makes me wonder what they're really trying to address.

The natural solution.. if the common folk don't have any money.. is to lower prices until they can afford to get by with what they have.. while dealing with the big reasons that set up this scenario in the first place.

First.. "good spots" to farm gold.. shouldn't exist. Combined with NPC vendors still being unlimited gold faucets I imagine are two of the biggest reasons why the top 10% have all the money. The game just keeps generating the stuff without end. All you need to do is farm a ton of loot and sell it off to NPCs. Even better if you have high level AOE spells so you can mass farm entire areas in minutes while being too high in level for anything to be of much threat.

And we're trying to address this by making the Oracle a gold faucet?

Shouldn't we instead make it harder for high level characters to farm masses of mobs for loot and selling it off to NPCs? As well as lower some prices?

 

I am for it, some resources like ore and wood are impossible light, that somehow break the game. And, if they become heavier, they will help the balance of the game.

 

When I tried to visit the Oracle.. she LOCKED the door.. I couldnt get out again and had to restart the game...

 

That is... disturbing.

 

In my opinion, the main issue is about the amout of gold dropped from creatures. For example, 5 Skulls areas creatures drop the same loot of starting areas.... 7 - 25 gold pieces. It´s not fair

 

Why is that not fair? Do you have to fight harder when you are higher level than you do when you are lower level?

 

yes you do.
a low level could not survive at all in a 5 skull area. plus as you level up don't you up grade your gear? I do. why should the mobs in the higher level area have not done the same?

this is the risk vs reward thing. and game scaling. these are all balance issues. the difference between early and end game content.

with out proper scaling what you end up with is high levels laying waste to low level areas for the same amount of gold they would get in an area made for their level. making getting rich very easy.

now that I think about it. another issue with the economy is gear scaling. there is only 1 base stats gear. so their is no real progression. personly I am still using npc armor for all slots but chest and I don't have any issues handle most 5 skull areas solo.

honestly I think the devs need to rethink how long they think a player on avg should take to get to end game content.

then everything should scale to that time line.

for the sake of the longevity of the game it should take at least 6 month to a year to get to end game content. then they need to have 3 or 4 times more end game areas then anything else.

this game is far from ready for a finial chr wipe. I really wish that they would have waited to claim this.

@Darkstar please consider revising your postion on finial chr wipe. make this just last wipe for episode 1

 

How do you measure that? 6 months for a power gamer or 6 months for a casual player? Because I can pretty much guarantee you it is going to take me at least that long to get to the end game content. If you make it take 6 months for a power gamer, it will take me 6 years.

 

I kinda like the way it is now. There is a certain reality feeling in that armor doesnt level up other than the magic part.... Also I think that the time it takes to get to "end game content" is fair now. Unless you are a real power gamer (of which there are a few in the game), it should take 1-2 months to get there now imho.

 

that's a little tricker to sort out isn't it. I would think there should be a happy medium. a power games takes 4 to 5 months but the casual player take 7.

this is what I'm talking about polarium needs to decide what they want and then scale it to match. my opinion is it needs to be longer then it is now. to short and players will get bored with no goals. to long and players will say forget even trying. and there is a difference between haveing max skills and reaching end game content.

 

This is an economic discussion, so I shall limit my suggestions to only those relating to that subject:

Introduce a method by which gold (probably very slightly) scales as you go into higher-skull areas. Similarly, make it so that all nodes in higher-skull areas have a built-in increase in meticulous collection rate to add incentive to those areas, and add more gold to the game.

Lower rent on taxable deeds. Surely the average player at this point is no longer earning 1,000gp per hour. The "poor" as referenced, are more likely to be the ones draining their bank accounts paying taxes, and the "rich" are the ones sitting on tax-free deeds. This is, I suspect from personal experience, but obviously cannot confirm, a major factor in the growing wealth disparity.

 

The problem is, right now, that it is the higher level characters that are rich. Do we really really.... need to make them even richer by increasing what they loot?

 

this isn't about stopping higher level players from getting richer. this is about creating a economic flow in game.

you will always have players that will be rich and won't spend their gold unless needed and they will find the best ways to farm gold.

but....
to complete the economic flow there needs to be something in place causes gold to keep changing hands (for all players not just the rich) but at the same time results in assets being removed from game. (not just gold)

creating a gold sink with the lottery will result in gold being remove from game and adds assets that will never be removed. this will not effectively result in gold being redistributed to other players. and will causes a recession/depression with-in game economics.

 

I dont disagree with you, I just dont see the connection to what i worte at all Giving the rich more money, might make them happy, but it wont make them spend more (now I feel like a politician...)

 

Perhaps the Oracle is actually a built-in survey monkey that gives you 500gp for providing some information?

I'm interested to see what sort of confession we need to make since we're supposed to answer "accurately", which is not necessary "honestly".