Gold sinks

The game desperately needs them. We really needed them before persistence. Post your gold sink suggestions here and hopefully @Chris will see this thread.

1. Control point teleports. This exists as a cheap gold sink currently, but I doubt anyone is using it. Proposal, move the teleport NPC to the overworld map. Allow people to skip the load screens completely and teleport right across the control point, but also experiment with raising the price. How much gold would you pay to skip the loading screens and the control point?

2. Boats on the overworld map to NPC cities (not POTs) need to charge you gold.

3. Transmuting. Transmuting. Transmuting. Make this very expensive. And every time you swap gear from the vanity shell, you have to pay for it again. People will generally pay the most gold to have gear with good stats in gear that looks good. Vanity items drive MMO economies.

All 3 of the above I suggested multiple times before.

Let's brainstorm some more.

 

I don't know what you're doing, but all my gold gets sunk into:

Crafting fuels to be able to craft.
Seeds and buckets of water to try and mitigate the cost of growable crafting materials/reagents.
Reagents to be able to fight/do anything else.
Other ingredients that can't be harvested, such as plants, which must be bought from deco
We've also got cash sinks in the form of skill purchases (these could be higher for lower tier skills, 100g isn't a lot...)
Repair kits from NPCs
Property rent is going in now.

Honestly? I think we have far too many gold sinks and only 1 way to earn gold (ie gold enters the economy, not moving between players) - mass killing trivial mobs and selling their loot.

Adding additional punitive sinks affects players who don't want to spend hours a day mass grinding trivial mobs - will be punished by having even more costs to pay to enjoy normal gameplay.
The people who are hardcore grinding trivial mobs for money will continue to do so - while this will affect them nominally, the people who are being punished are the more casual players.

Instead of gold sinks we need to fix the loot system to reflect this "risk vs. reward" that gets quoted as the reason for every change/nerf to date.
Harder mobs should drop higher value stuff, and lower mobs should drop near worthless junk.

If you're out fighting mobs your level, you should be able to recoup the reagent/arrow/consumable expenditure required and make a bit of profit. Currently you make a loss and have to rely on other methods to even finance your adventuring (like harvesting ores to sell, for example). Its even worse if you're a crafter.

Yes, there were places in R32 where you could make 10k an hour via mindless grind of trivial monsters. I'd spend 3-4k of it restocking reagents, but it was still a profit. If I went to fight things that actually gave me xp, or were an appropriate challenge to my level, I'd make a loss, every time, because they drop the same crap that the trivial mobs dropped. This is the core of the problem, there are enough gold sinks!

 

Make control points so that you need to defeat the final wave for the gates to open. You can bet a lot of people would pay to cross them after that. A fee for boats would work well too since it would help create regions.

Food isn't in yet, but it can also create a gold sink. If they made it so there was a noticeable difference between different qualities of food, and people who had a lot of money could spend it on very expensive food, it would help. Feeding pets could also give them major bonuses, or even certain traits. Feed your pet steak and he taunts while full, feed him a hearty treat and he gets a health bonus.

You could create a deity system and people could sacrifice certain items to certain gods or virtues for bonuses. Something that constantly needed to be fed can create a great gold sink.

 

I'm with Kaeshiva. Plenty of gold sinks already. Reagents, fuels, etc... Once I get a home, aiming for a Village lot, Rent. The only people with too much gold are the people with IRL Cash Purchased advantages (tax-free lots) and people who focus on gold grinding - which should not be the only way to play the game. It's okay to let the grinders get rich. It's not okay to make people who wish to play multiple aspects of the game try to keep up with the focused gold-grinders.

Plants can be dropped as loot. Check PvP zones, look for flesh flayers!

 

Crafting turns a profit when selling to players. It isn't a gold sink since it is profitable.

Repair kits are 100 gp are a very minor and cheap gold sink.

Right now the whole reason we're doing a slanted land rush raffle is because Chris feels gold sinks are needed. We have players with millions of gold one month in.

 

I think the tech is there, just being supressed atm while people are generally broke. I can picture a time when people will want to craft repair kits because they rarely dip below 500gp each from the blacksmith, or wanting to gather/farm reagents because they cost 50g each from the alchemist.

 

When they first talked about removing things from deco merchants, that's exactly what I did - I went and killed dozens of flesh flayers because in my brain that would be a sensible way to obtain 'plants'.
I got bones, sinews, fat, but no plants. At the point I was doing this it was decent xp so I stayed for quite a while, never did see a plant drop. I think having plants in their loot table is sensible, but bearing in mind you need hundreds of them to make even a modest sized hedge wall so they drop rate would need to be bumped. With the new change to the shardfalls I'd be a bit irked if the only way to farm items to craft hedges on your house was in a PvP zone....for a lot of folks that would make buying it from npc the only option, thus meeting the criteria of 'gold sink'.

 

Crafting does NOT turn a profit when selling to players unless you are crafting consumables. Crafting gear, especially if masterworking / enchanting, you only make a profit if you've gathered the components yourself. There's various reasons for this that have been hashed and rehashed elsewhere on the forums, but the current trend is that people are selling finished products for less than it would cost to buy the raw materials. You make a lot more profit selling raw ores to players, than crafting finished goods. Crafting fuel costs are extremely punitive, meaning that in addition to having to grind cash to buy raw materials or acquire those raw materials yourself, you must then grind MORE cash to afford the fuels to craft.

All that aside, It most definitely fits the criteria of gold sink, in that gold you've earned by whatever means is getting flushed into the npc fuel merchant never to be seen again. Regardless of how you came by that gold, its still a gold sink.

 

Let's see how the player economy settles out before adding difficulty for the new player, who will be trying to scrimp and save for a copper sword.

 

We did wait and see for the past month. And some were able to make millions. The devs have already decided that gold sinks are needed, which is why the raffle is being done the way it is.

 

Vanity Gold sinks:

Servant Services
Temporary NPCs that as soon as you place them, a clock starts ticking, when the clock expires the servant expires and rift out.
They come in 1h, 3h, 6h and 24h versions.

The target audience is housing/pot owners that are throwing events or doing RP.

• Rent a Jester
  This jester breathes fire, juggles dangerous objects, and otherwise entertain your guests.
  Spoiler

  Basically dress the NPC in a fun outfit, then when placed the jester has a list of emotes that it starts to go through. Rightclick, to get a menu of the possible emotes to trigger a specific one, or to tell the jester to Start/Stop. From a development standpoint they could re-use existing stuff like the carnival masks and the breath + juggling emotes
• Rent a Bartender
  This bartender has the base offer of ales, beers and meads plus some ordinary grub. Could have a cheap and an expensive version with different item lists.
  Spoiler

  This is like an ordinary bartender NPC clone. But available to house owners. Again easy from a developer standpoint.
• Rent a crier
  This servant can be given a custom paper. It then reads that out in local chat. Like a "Welcome to my Feast" message or "Follow the Lights" or "Get Off My Lawn" (NPC tab - so if you have filtered out NPC gossip then this is filtered with it)
  Spoiler

  This unfortunately needs to have some consideration from tech and exploits, so might not be the first to get there.
• Rent a Jack
  This servant when placed starts lighting lights and closing doors.
  Spoiler

  depending on the implementation of Jacks in general this might be hard or easy. Rightclick to tell Jack to Close/Open doors or turn On/Off lights. This one might wander off though...
• Rent a server (item giver)
  This server can be stocked with items, it will then proceed in handing out 1 of each items to each guest who interacts with it. Maybe a player quest reward, food and drink on a party, maybe a welcome note, maybe a flier for upcoming events.
  Spoiler

  This would basically work like a container and re-use the code once implemented from containers where each player can only take 1 item etc. But it would feel more like interacting with a QuestRewardGiver
• Rent a cook
  This cook generates 4x basic food items after specified time units. Owner interacts with it to tell it what to cook next, otherwise it picks from a Menu (starter, dinner, dessert).
  Spoiler

  Since it is a vanity item the price of the cook should be such that it vastly costs more than buying the food items from players. Rightclick to select what next to cook (where each takes an amount of time to make) or which menu to start with.

You get the general idea.

 

@enderandrew,

@Lifedragn is right that the biggest gold sink there is in the game is rents on non-tax free deeds; especially for the bigger lots. Whatever gold sinks they add to handle players who are making a lot of income with tax-free deeds, they have to design them so they don't crush people with non-tax free deeds -- or else, they should lower the daily rates. Plus, a lot of players have other advantages. Just because some players will have tons of gold, doesn't mean everyone will. I'm not sure how much you've been earning in the game.

There are a lot of small gold sinks that could go in the game. Food, if they design it right, so people feel the need to actually use it rather than junk it. Fees for ferries. Offerings for blessings. Hirelings. Etc. And I support a lot of them because I think they'd help round out the game. But this still won't affect the player with millions of gold -- he'll still have millions of gold -- and other players will still be scrimping for gold.

Talking about control points, most people aren't going to pay exorbitant amounts of gold to skip them, since you can run through them easily. There would need to make control points meaningful before people would pay a lot to get through them.

 

from over here
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/ship-travel-poll.53122/page-2#post-580539

Cost of travel by boat.



If Spoon were designing this game then he'd be adding that extra tier of Luxury on top of for the wealthy to spend on, which actually makes them feel rich.

This being a typical example here for such a grand opportunity.

I'd add 3 ships for each destination. Each mentioning the other options so that you get clues of the options.

1.
The 10 coin cheap ship in the run down part of the town, or at the furthest place of the docks. So that you'd have to make some small effort to get there. I'd also put a mini-quest within sight so those who pay attention and explore get a bit of something.
For instance in Kingsport make you buy your passage from a smuggler just on the other side of the smuggler's house, then walk over to the ship on the furthest end of the docks to get there, might even be below the stairs on the houseboat side. It drives you next to some miniquests and storylines and showcase the town.

2.
The 75 coin ship in the best place in the harbor. You still have to traverse some of the scene but not the full way over to the other side.
For instance in Kingsport that would be the dock next to the bridge where they are now.

3.
The 500 coin ship on the overland map which takes you directly to the other overland map destination.
For instance in Kingsport that would be exactly where the overland galleon is right now.

This means that as the player is progressing they get a feeling of progression as well, which ends with the feeling of Luxury of being able to take the VIP way through.
It also lets you drive the exploration aspect when the player is new and struggling, and lets them pay for shortcuts to skip repetetive stuff.
Plus how many cheapskates would refuse to pay that extra and keep going through town? Those still create traffic, but now from a choice instead of being forced.

4.
Even further down the line when the game mature, I'd even add that 'hire-your-own-ship-anywhere' stuff which could take you to other harbors for a much much higher fee like 5000 coin, but which would let you reach destinations beyond the common routes.
Like Brittany>to>Port Graff or Brittany>to>Norgard. Then another such with Port Graff>to>Ardoris or Norgard>to>Aerie. So that you could get to the other side of the continent in two - three such really expensive trips.

 

Gold pavers. Smelting station. Small paver 25000gp. Large paver 150,000gp. Giant paver 900,000gp.

"Streets are paved with gold..."

 

How many millionares? What % of the playerbase? Nobody that I know, not even close.

I don't know anyone that's got that kind of cash, and I know people who are playing the game as a job, grinding out money or running businesses, mostly in the sale of raw materials. (You know the crafters can't afford to buy any of that right? Its the people who are spending hours a day grinding up cash, who are buying the overpriced raw mats and GIVING them to crafters to make their gear. Crafters can't cover their own costs much less go buy more raw materials and must rely on charity to get the levels needed, or go do senseless grinding themselves).

But anyway. So we've got millionaires.
It was bound to happen, in any situation where you can do an activity and make a profit, you'll have people who do it 1000 times a week and people who will do it twice. No matter what you do, as long as there is a way for gold to come into the system, people will go do it over and over and over again and get more of it. More gold sinks? Trivial to these folks, they've got millions. It isn't even going to be a drop in the bucket.

The solution is not to add more gold sinks that punish everyone else.

At least stop messing with the costs to do routine things like craft or fight.

If you want to convenience sinks or cosmetic fluff sinks or sinks that don't interfere with normal gameplay for normal folks, fine, but being a millionaire in this game is NOT the norm.

 

If I have 100g left per month, someone else has 1,000g, and someone has figured out how to farm 1,000,000g, the median gold is 1,000g.

Set the sink to target this 1,000g player, the 100g player will figure out how to scrape by even if it means being a murder hobo, but the 1,000,000g player considers the sink a rounding error to his wealth.

What they are doing is setting the sink to target the average income is 333,700g. Now the millionaire feels the sting - but still not as a sink draining his wealth, but a mere tax - he still has more money than he can possibly ever spend. As a result though the 1,000g and 100g player cannot possibly play the game.

Averages should only be used when the distribution is a normal gaussian, but wealth distribution is never gaussian. Instead wealth is always an exponential distribution of the poor combined do not even approach the 1% that are rich. Stop trying to drain the millionaires, as it can only be done by making it so your poor can no longer afford to play. Use medians rather than averages in your stats, and just accept the fact that you cannot bleed millionaires dry without slitting the throat of the rest of your economy.

 

I dont like any of these ideas..

 

When I think about it then if it had been me then the real answer is a tiered economy, this is a post from wwaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy back.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/extreme-rares.14625/page-2#post-244042

Since this is an artificial system you must create something for the affluent to spend on their surplus on. Preferably they shouldn't even be moving in the same markets or even be interested in the same resources. Otherwise high inflation is a given.

So if you have swords that all function the same. But have the common swords looking steely and dull, then have uncommon shiny silvery swords for 10 times the price, then rare blackish glint swords at 100 times the price, and then finally have ultra rare jewel encrusted swords for 10000 times the price. Then the really affluent won't affect the price for everyone below their tier. This stops super inflation cold.
If you are at this point asking yourself if this would work, then answer this: Which self respecting millionaire would have a $10 watch?


To build on that with another example. What if there were crafting recipes for ores>to>ingots which included a new expensive resource that you can only get from NPCs. So when you make it you have new color/look schemes, like "Black Iron Ingot", then when you craft your weapon or such from that the end result is a color/look you normally couldn't get.

Or a ridiculously expensive Mould which made extra cool looking weapons?

For armor/clothes, this could be "ornate so-and-so" which adds a pattern texture on top of it.
How many wouldn't pay a GrandMaster tailor if they could add a "viking ornate pattern" or an "obsidian ornate pattern" or an "elvish ornate pattern" when crafting your über stuff.
And since it is a pattern it wouldn't interfere with the crafting/buying color thingie they already have going on.

etc

 

Actually I think a lot of people would like to craft stuff like the gold piles to show off their wealth. Who wouldn't want this:

 

A mean with a small sample size and massive deviations is useless and I suspect you know that. The question of whether or not gold sinks are needed is not really up for debate since Port has flatly said they are needed.