Thoughts to stimulate the economy

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Graynight, Dec 23, 2016.

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  1. Graynight

    Graynight Avatar

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    Alright, so before I get into my thoughts; some will agree with the thoughts posted, some will disagree, some will have other thoughts on it. Good. However, I would ask that IF you reply to this thread, that you make sure the reply has some content. Please don't just add "it's been tried" or "Your idea sucks". Go for "I don't think your idea will/won't work, and here's why". Additionally, if you've had some other thoughts on how to improve it, add them. Just make sure they're thought out. I don't really want stuff like "Wipe the game" or "Stop allowing exploits".

    For the record, I didn't really check the forums for every idea I'm posting, so I do apologize if I introduce ideas that have already been hashed out (Please provide the forum link if I do and I'll read up on it)


    So, I'll start off with a couple of ideas I've had

    CRAFTING
    Right now, we have the ability (with time and effort) to craft it all. I personally don't purchase anything that is craftable from Player Vendors because I don't want to spend the money. (exception is when I forget to bring a scroll with me). I figure if I want it, I'll make the effort to learn it. No sense spending 100-10k gold on something I can just as easily spend an hour to gather mats and create. I think a lot of people are in the same boat. Because of this, crafting is more of a personal-use thing than a selling point.

    I believe that creating a more specialized system we could start garnering some business.

    My thought on this is based on the GM ranking. Once you hit GM, you can specify one type of crafting (ex - Blacksmithing). This will lock all other crafting at the 99 mark, unable to level up. (Clarification here... I'm talking Production skills. Gathering and Refining are not part of this idea) From there, you allow Blacksmithing to continue to grow, with special recipes that can only be used at 100+.

    Another thought is to specialize further, allowing a path of (again using blacksmithing) Armor or Weapons. Those would get a bonus to be made, have specialized recipes that could be learned/discovered.

    This would give crafting a bit of a boost, as those who have the skill would be sought after. (And even those who have multiple accounts would have to put forth a decent amount of effort in order to GM each crafting skill so they can do it all)

    BOUNTIES
    So here is an interesting idea. I *think* I remember the Winter Telethon mentioning bounties. Something along the lines of if you steal too much, a bounty will be placed on your head, you'll go PVP, and people will get a reward for killing you.

    What if that was expanded slightly? I'm thinking something along the lines of the Taxes that players pay in POT's. What if the taxes could be added to a pool (untouchable by the POT owners), but those taxes could then be utilized to place bounties on players heads? Obviously there would need to be a trigger point (Death in the town), but allow a POT owner to put a bounty on a person's head. (1 kill in town - 1k gold.. 2 kills, X gold). It doesn't come out of the POT owner's pocket, but it does depend on the economy of the town to place it.

    Due to loopholes and worries of exploitation, I would also put these restrictions on it
    - A bounty can only be placed on someone who does not have a lot in the town is not a resident of the town
    - A bounty can only be placed after they have killed another player in said town
    - Bounties can only be collected in Multiplayer
    - Bounties can only be collected in publicly accessible areas (No Player housing)
    - Bounties cannot be claimed by someone of the same guild, or who has partied with the person within the last 168 hours (7 days)
    - Those with bounties on their heads cannot turn the PVP flag off until the bounty is claimed
    - A player cannot collect the bounty on the same person more than once a week


    More to come, but that should start off the conversation
     
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  2. TheBalance

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    Any attempt to stimulate a virtual economy in a manner other than directly affecting supply and demand will be fleeting, impact-wise and might do more harm than good. Not sure tweaking it at this exchange is a good use of time for the developers, they need to focus on getting, and keeping, more people in this game - the player base has absolutely evaporated. Good economics will help keep people here once they're established enough to need trade goods to complete their objectives, but as for getting them here and keeping them in game more than a few days, it's unlikely to have any affect.

    Your ideas are in the right place, but unfortunately two harsh truths need to be realized:

    - Crafting is a bit of a mess, and has undergone a -lot- of revision, where it ends up is still very much in the air, who knows where it's going to land.
    - The bounty system would require a ton of thought, planning and execution to avoid exploiting it for grief and/or extreme profit. The overall outlook of PVP in this game is -very- mixed at the moment, it's absolutely the last thing I'd introduce/tinker with mechanic wise at this point.
     
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  3. Linthu

    Linthu Avatar

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    I agree with the OP's first comment about players being able to craft anything. As an alchemist, I am very annoyed that EVERYONE who has an hour to spare and level up to 40 and consistently make their own scrolls / potions. Repair kits and cooking are in the same category to me. I ended up focusing on jewelry, GM'd it. I can only sell my rings and necklaces at a loss on the public vendors. So, I stopped bothering selling them. I tried selling on the forums, for IGG, COTO, PP, etc. and had no luck. Kept lowering prices and it just wasn't working. I have stopped tradeskilling - and that was the reason I bought into the game (knight marshal for what its worth).

    So, in an effort to keep this positive - per the OP's request.

    I like the idea of limiting the number of actual tradeskills. I'm even on board with something like limit 2 harvest and 1 tradeskill per character - or something like that. I think that would go a long way to decrease supply and increase demand a little.

    There also has to be some reason for players to wander into my town and visit my personal vendor. I spent a ton of money on tax free vendors and they are a complete waste. I would love to see all mines repositioned to be a zone off towns. Maybe make more of them, but smaller - keeping the tunnel system to interconnect them. It would become a great alternative to the overland map (which is becoming more of an annoyance than a game enhancement, imo). The instanced towns are having the same effect as instanced housing when it comes to personal vendors.

    Another suggestion, that would need to be refined and made better, but here is the starting thought: Regional vendors that aggregate all the vendors items in one place. Prices on this vendor would have a surcharge/delivery tax added to the price if you want to purchase it right there. If you want to bypass the surcharge, you would take note of the town name and location and walk there to buy it in person. I know this idea isn't perfect, but it may be a spark for an even better idea that would help us.

    Linthu
     
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  4. Burzmali

    Burzmali Avatar

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    Folks can just bypass that with alts.

    The source of the problem is the same as most MMOs, if you link skill ups to skill use you get an unwieldy economy because neither side is motivated to operate rationally from an economic sense.

    Eliminate XP spending for skill use and require that the player use some other path to invest XP. For example, you can level as you can today up to skill 20, after that you need a mentor or guide to progress and that costs gold. Now the crafter is motivated to make a profit instead of maximizing their output. Mix it up every twenty levels or so and link each tier of equipment to those same bands and you might have a fair chance at building an actual economy. Until guilds wreck it all, but that is a whole different problem.
     
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  5. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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    Mhhhh.
    Sounds rather complicated to me.
    I am with @Linthu in this one.

    So SotA has the problem at the moment that everybody can produce everything that is needed for daily use.
    This seems to be the problem of every modern mmo.

    But let's take a look at WoW.
    In wow it's really easy to create alts. It's even supported with level up tokens and special equipment your main char can pass down to the alt.
    Non the less wow has professions that sell their wares and professions that don't.
    The professions that sell have items that have value in the endgame. Enchantments for example or gems. It doesn't matter how good your equipment gets it will always need enchantments and gems.
    The professions that don't sell produce nothing of value for the endgame.
    Blacksmith armor for example gets worthless with pretty much the first few endgame drops. Same counts for every other type of armor.

    I can't see this happening in SotA.
    We will always depend on crafted gear. There are no drops that could outgear the work of a crafter.
    And there are no alts.
    Either you are a big backer or you own multiple accounts. In this case thank you for supporting the development but it won't get you very far.
    You still have to level the next set of crafting skills. Which is consuming quite some time and resources in the process.
    And even if you do that you still have to gather resources for two additional professions from now on.
    So, if you do that all you just deserve to be more self sufficient than the next casual player.

    In my opinion the problem is that every Joe average with one hour to play a day is self sufficient at the moment. It's just too easy to craft everything you need for daily use in a valid quality and quantity. If you need something more complex like a bow you just start farming as soon as you see that another repair of your old bow isn't worth the effort.

    But if we limit the crafting skills what will be the benefit of a player that wishes to be a pure crafter?
     
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  6. Frederick Glasgow

    Frederick Glasgow Avatar

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    Part of what was advertised was you can be anything you want,it's a open system. There are some who are 100 in all crafting professions Car., BS, Tailor, Alch. Are you saying that they should have their hard work taken away? I cannot figure out anyway to achieve that without upsetting the apple cart. Everyone has equal opportunity to do the same, so I cannot see it is a economic issue.
     
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  7. Earl Atogrim von Draken

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    Oh but it is a economic issue.
    A pretty real one at that.
    Try to sell something outside of OH or Brit and you will see how very real it is.
    But that are not the players I am talking about. Those are dedicated crafters and that's why I asked what we could do with them.
    Maybe a crafter that is dedicated like that shouldn't be able to fight like a warrior.
     
  8. Graynight

    Graynight Avatar

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    Valid points, and I had actually thought along those routes.

    One of the reasons I said to allow up to 99 (or whatever) is so that you still have the opportunity to do most everything. By leaving the Players the power to get to X, they can still produce what they have been producing now. It was the idea of.... let's call it an additional higher end that you could start specializing. Something not in the game yet, thus not promised. Perhaps allowing you to make enchanted ingots that give a bonus, but you must be specialized in Blacksmithing. Or a specialized Tailor would have the ability to (with the right materials) increase the maximum durability of that Cloth armor.

    As far as Players who have done it all, GM'ed it all.... yeah, it will be a bit unfair to them. I believe a trade-off would be to "refund" the XP they put into; but let's be honest, that wouldn't pay for the materials or time they spent. So a bit of incentive for them would be to have those higher end recipes be purchasable by Crafting XP. Those who put in the work would get a bit of a bonus.

    Still not quite fair, but that's games for you. Using the WoW reference, I played Vanilla. I busted my backside to get my pickpocket, lockpicking, poisoning and daggers up as high as it could go for my level. Then an expansion came out and it all changed to "when you're this level, you get this skill at this power". Hundreds of hours, thousands of gold in mats... gone in the blink of an eye. I made a living making specialty bullets for guns... then ammo disappeared, and my entire stock was worth less than the loot of a rat. So it does happen.

    Heck, you can even forget the "Limit the other crafting skills" and allow them to go as far up as they want... but if they don't specialize, they don't get the extra special fluffy bonus recipes. They can still make great stuff, but not the totally awesome... for lack of a better term "end game" gear.

    The alt angle I was also considering. But my theory on that is if you want to play X characters and grind them up to the level where you have specialized everything.... That's a whole lot of grinding, and you have my respect. Same with guilds. Go ahead and get a guild together who can support each other in this way.

    Honestly, when I first walked into the game, I was going "I'm going to need two characters. One to go fight with, and one to craft." I even had a couple of people lined up to be my 'bodyguards' as I went out to gather. (Ahhh, the old days of UO). But the seperate 'adventure/crafter' is awesome to me. I can go hunt dragons (hahahahahaha) or I can go cut trees and make some tables for the tavern.

    As far as the dedicated crafters, honestly I think they would benefit the most from it, but it would take away from adventuring time, thus leave them behind dedicated fighters. Anyone who's tried to get a craft to 100 knows it takes some serious grinding to get the mats (or a lot of money). I think that time+effort = gold in their pockets. The trade-off would be less time to go kill monsters/level your adventuring skills.

    Is crafting decay part of the game? It seems a bit unfair if you can craft to a certain level then stop and never lose it, but if you don't keep up with your adventuring skills they go down (assuming you die, run out of Adv XP, lock them not in a maintenance mode). Making some sort of Production decay may help give dedicated crafters an edge, while the on-and-offs will either spend more time doing it, or decide that the price of buying is worth it.

    And, because I seem to be running a hundred directions at once (And I appologize), i wouldn't mind seeing certain recipes have a level-up ability. The more you craft a longsword, the better your chances for better overall stats on the longsword (beyond the 'exceptional' chance)... once again, this would increase the desire for the works of dedicated crafters, but wouldn't harm someone who just wanted to make a weapon to get by with.

    Anyone watched Sword Art Online? I am reminded of an episode where Kirito wanted a better weapon. The material was only found on a mountain, blah blah dragon... but it took a master smith to actually gather it. Implementing something like that, where a master crafter would have to tag along to get it (And really, make it a party run, none of this solo stuff), would also get more people involved. You want that sword? Get a party and find a smith stup....brave enough to go with you. Or the reverse. You want a surplus of that material? Hire a party/get your guild together/grab some friends to go get it.

    At this point, I see the dev's pointing and laughing hysterically going "You want WHAT?!?"
     
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  9. Jezebel Caerndow

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    Linthu speaks truth when saying you cannot sell an item for the worth of mats put into it. Some of the stuff I have crafted if you take the cost of everything put into it, would cost 450,000 coin. I cannot sell it for near that. You do make it sound easy to make the gear you want when it really takes a ton of work to get exactly what you want. If you want to test this, try and make yourself a set of gear with max one stat, like dex or str with avoidance. You will break a ton, and have a ton of stuff that is not exactly what you want before you actually get the piece you want. I may be able to craft anything, but when I see a piece of gear with the stats I want on it, I buy it. for example, I just bought epic carapacian pants with +8 int on them for 5000. It used a leather strap instead of carapacian strap but when I do the math, its still got 14 beetle carapace put into it. at 400 a pop per beetle, that is 5600 right there. Then there is the gold and silver used, it had one masterwork and 2 enchants, that is 20 silver ore and 40 gold ore for another nearly 2000 coin, then breakage and all the pieces that did not get both int enchants, so 7600 x about 4 depending on luck. 30,400. The reason most people are not selling is from the economic nerf, and the fact they keep the good stuff and try and sell off the garbage that did not come out the way they wanted it. Well, everyone wants the good stuff.

    I am grandmaster carpentry, tailoring, blacksmithing, the base masterworking on each of those and enchanting. I have every recipe in the game and have crafted at least one of them all, and I still buy stuff if its the right stuff. This took 8800 gold ore, and about 25,000 silver ore. Then the tons of producer exp I had to gather to get those levels. and I still need to get some of the specialty masterworks to 50. I am probably in the top ten of hours of game played. I just don't understand how limiting people crafting things is going to stimulate the economy, coin is not generated by crafting, it is lost by crafting. Coin comes from killing mobs, selling dropped stuff to npc's, looting chests and the oracle. If you want to stimulate the economy, you have to put more coin in the game.

    The bounty thing might work is the coin comes from the game and not players, but as you point out, there are things you have to watch out for.
     
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  10. Earl Atogrim von Draken

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    The real problem with this whole economy stuff is that it is just frigging complicated.
    Just look at the real world ^^
    There are a lot of different approaches to a solution and non of them guarantees any degree of succsess.
    And we still have to keep in mind that our population is very dedicated and rather small at the moment.
    With more people joining the game that aren't as dedicated as alpha/beta testers are sales will porbbaly rise because of lazyness.
     
  11. Glantor Edge

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    To stimulate the economy, the one thing you need is a solid player base. The Laws of Supply and Demand will take care of the rest.

    I believe the actively playing user base has declined dramatically when you compare now to when Persistence hit.

    I'm perfectly aware that there are many hibernating players right now. A fine example would be my own guild of 20 over members, with only 3 actives. No, they have not quit. They have simply stopped playing because of a few reasons:
    1. Nothing much to do. Content is still not fully in yet, they haven't even finished the Path of Love. Plus . . . Fishing and Agriculture! Also, other than The Rise, not many areas to grind above 5 skulls.
    2. Nerfs too much to take / Skills not balanced. For example, they invested tens of hours training up a particular skill like Taming or Polearms, only to discover it is nerfed or way underpowered compared to other skills like Fire Magic. The various skills are simply not balanced yet.
    3. Not willing to invest time in a game that is not ready. Some folks simply want to wait for the full experience and can't stand bugs. They played during persistence only to book a nice lot, then disappeared again.
    I have tried to ask the Devs to think of ways to bring back these hibernating players. For example, introduce Release rares that have to be obtained every release and will never be available again. Like Quest Hats. That would encourage a lot more people to log in just to obtain these rares.

    On second thought, perhaps that would increase the running costs of the game as more servers have to be spun up during higher loads. We should try to help keep running costs low for Port until the game is launched, I guess.

    Cheers,
    Glantor Edge
     
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  12. Night Raven

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    If you want to stimulate the economy, there is only one way going forward, things have to break.

    This means that armor weapons have to decrease to the point where repairing is worthless. I am not a fan of the current way of repairing that ends up costing you 50 COTOs at some point. I would be more of a fan that each time you repair the item, it loses 10 to 20 durability. You repair it 5 times and essentially the item is gone.

    I would be ok with houses and other stuff decaying and if you do not repair, they can go away. However, unlike armor and weapons they can always be repaired back to full and not have it cost a fortune.

    But to really make the game different from another is to allow for crafters to make items that a very few can actually make and limit the number of craftables so one person cannot make all of the special items and others are left scratching their heads. This can be recipes that drop, are questable, or through some type of dynamic experimental system where you need a GM in all skills required to combine the different materials. You can always choose to learn a new recipe, but if you are maxed out on unique recipes you must unlearn one first.

    Another way is to do what they did a long time ago, limit the number of skill, but that is unlikely and would make a lot of people mad.

    You can limit the number of recipes that a person has total.

    In game items have to drop that would cause players to want to buy from another.

    This was the issue I saw when I first heard of the game. Before I bought it, I asked a friend is there a limit to the skills? No, Is there anything in game that drops? No. Is there anything unique? No. What is to drive a player to buy from another if everyone can be the same? Silence.
    I understood that I was either going to craft everything myself or I was going to buy from others. I chose to craft. Even in other games like WOW, ESO, UO, I did not buy from others. I made Alts. You will always have those that try to be self sufficient and those that only want one aspect of the game. My real life friend is the exact same way. He will make everything himself. He did this in UO and every other game where crafting was available.
     
    Last edited: Dec 24, 2016
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  13. mercster

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    I really wish there was more a need to "specialize"...not everyone should be able to make everything they need. I'm sure the crafters want more of a place in this game. I don't know what changes need to be made, however.
     
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  14. Armar

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    Full loot for all and closing down the online store would work wonders :)

    // Armar
     
  15. Armar

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    Yep.. thats a must..

    To keep it simple things besides weapon and armor which are impacted by hits they take furniture should decay by usage and maybe by time. Lets say a solid wooden share will break after sitting 500 times on it.

    IMO skill limitation is a must.

    Why shouldnt an "old" character have a lot more recipes than a young one. Skill limitation is enough.

    But again we are discussing game mechanics which will not be changed anyhow...

    Very good points!

    For me there hadnt any need to craft in UO. With full loot you can get everything you need with PvP (i dont mean PKing) and with some regular dungeons runs in the servers off-peak times.

    // Armar
     
  16. Armar

    Armar Avatar

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    It did work in UO, didnt it... and that had been back in MMO Stone-Age.
     
  17. Jezebel Caerndow

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    I want to ask how full loots and more crafting breaks generates coin? The only things I know that generate coin are killing mobs and looting them and selling things to npc vendors, the oracle, looting chests, delivering mail and talking to town criers for first time. So many people talking about full loots and crafting breaks stimulating the economy but these do not add coin to the game and therefore are neutral to the economy. Its like saying making more products made in the great depression would generate economy then. If people don't have jobs, it does not matter how much stuff you make to sell, no one can afford to buy the stuff. So, I ask this question again, how do full loots and more crafting breaks stimulate the economy?
     
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  18. Earl Atogrim von Draken

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    And it works in eve but they pay a full time economist and the market gets a yearly (? Maybe more often, not sure now) review and sum up from a university.
    Didn't say it can't or won't work.
    All I wanted to point out that we will need patience with this topic.
     
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  19. Armar

    Armar Avatar

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    Some intereresting reads on the subhect:

    "The In-game Economics of Ultima Online
    Zachary Booth Simpson, Origin Research Fellow
    7 Apr 1999
    "

    http://www.mine-control.com/zack/uoecon/uoecon.html

    "Gamasutra: Virtual Economic Theory: How MMOs Really Work"

    http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134576/virtual_economic_theory_how_mmos_.php

    "MMO Mechanics: Balancing game economies"

    https://www.engadget.com/2014/01/22/mmo-mechanics-balancing-game-economies/

    Citation "In sandbox games like EVE Online, destroying the hard-earned goods of the playerbase is par for the course. Ships worth billions of ISK are destroyed in a typical territorial battle and taken out of the game entirely. This removes a large amount of materials from the game economy, keeping the demand for those materials high and the manufacturing industries profitable. Supply and demand regulation is a vital balancing measure in sandbox games, since player autonomy is key to their success."

    // Armar
     
  20. Earl Atogrim von Draken

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    Ha. I am in the train. The last one I know. The rest will be a interesting read, thank you!
     
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