Gold sinks

We also have players who have to grind gold instead of play the game they want to play just to keep going. I can solo high end tier 4, low end tier 5 mobs. I play around 20-30 hours/week. More than casual, less than hardcore. I spend around 8 hours/week grinding in T2 and T3 zones which give me a payout of about 3-4k/hour plus a good bit of low-value items to break down into scraps which gives me a good crafting material boost. This should increase a bit now that I have unlocked Heavy Lifter. But I am still able to save up a couple thousand per hour from this after restocking reagents and buying fuels. I spend about 8/hours week fighting challenging mobs to build my experience pool and farm resources to build my crafting experience pool. The remainder of the time I spend crafting, exploring, or adventuring with the guild (which is fun but produces less wealth and XP than I typically manage solo).

I have water tree skills mostly in 40-70 range. Passive blades, shields, and light armor skills roughly the same. And half of the earth and air trees at about that level. My tailoring skill is at around 82 right now, with alchemy at 60 and others locked in around 40. I've not been doing any masterworking yet, as I've been using what silver I get to create taming collars for tamers in my guild.

I've been advancing pretty well and definitely am engaged in the game. I tend to bounce between 15k and 25k gold as I farm it up and then spend a bunch to restock and work on craft skills. Could I optimize my wealth gain more? Absolutely. Would it make the game more fun? Not at all. In fact I would probably burn out. Why worry about someone like me? I've backed at Explorer level. I've thrown in a few dollars to the last couple telethons. I don't have enough for bundles right now, but I do get periods where I can afford a few bucks here and there. I am not a big spender. But I am a spender. It isn't much, but if you burn others like me out as well that starts adding up.

We can't force everyone to try to keep up with the most active players in the game. Especially those ones who focus that activity purely on wealth acquisition. On the other hand, those of us who put in my level of effort shouldn't be expecting to be able to grab city lots. We should be tempering our ambitions based on realistic play goals. For me, I'm hoping to snag a village lot in our guild's PoT to become a grand master tailor, and to create a workable Tempestry Knight style of adventuring build.

So what if we have players with millions of gold one month in? Did they work for it? If so, then let them have it.

 

I'd love to see the 'gold in hand' figures across the board and point out the median. I'm guessing its going to be nowhere near a million, based on people I speak to its probably less than 10,000.

This lottery/raffle is a clear example of how to 'tax the rich' without completely screwing everyone else and is a good solution ...unless of course you haven't pledged high enough to get a deed or bought one with cash. Too bad for those people. They could still get lucky, though, I guess, though affording the rent is another matter.

 

Nothing I proposed would affect people just barely getting by. Everything I proposed was optional and targeted at pulling gold solely from the rich.

There are two immediate concerns.

1. The remaining land rush will be completely dominated by millionaires so no one else will have a shot at property despite promises for three years to the contrary. This could drive away players and literally kill the game and company. If you don't think that is a concern, then I don't know what to say.

2. MMO economies flatly require gold sinks to work. We know this to be definitively true. Too much free gold at the top with will destroy the economy. We've seen this at play in other games.

 

I can see this topic devolving, so I'll stop posting suggestions then.

But I'd say less stick and more carrot. You need gold sinks which feels like luxury or exclusive or VIP. You need gold sinks where people WANT to sink their gold.

Otherwise you are hurting everyone because of a few being very rich.

 

Two out of Three proposals affect people just getting by. Time is money. People with limited playtime that now need to spend an extra 10 minutes to load into a city, run to the boat, and load back out of the city have their earning time potential reduced. Same goes for teleporting across the control points and passes. People without money are forced to spend time on activities that are not profitable.

The land rush is a separate system. The fact that the raffle favors the rich is the problem. One ticket per person, or one win per person per drawing would be a more fair approach. You don't need coin sinks to do that. Instead, what they are doing is trying to fix one perceived issue by introducing a compounding issue.

 

It sounds like a small % of players have optimized certain parts of the game. Look at those. I can't imagine how people already have thousands of gold.

I'm all for allowing people to craft gold hot tubs, if they so desire.

 

If you want a gold sink (also called Tax) Lower the amount of gold that drops and lower the amount of gold that is paid by NPCs.

 

Allow people to use their huge gold reserves to buy titles. Hard to claim you're a Lord if you don't have 500k to back up that claim. Just another suggestion.

 

I agree that both of these things are concerns. I just don't think the solution is adding MORE things that players NEED to spend money on in order to play.
If anything, the existing gold sinks such as reagents and fuels (necessities to fight/craft) need to be cranked way down.
I have no objection to adding cosmetic or convenience sinks as long as they aren't thinks that are necessary.
What I do ojbect to is intentionally adding obstacles to current gameplay and then adding the "cost" as a solution. This makes things worse for everyone.

Example - slowing down everyone's gathering speed to barely tolerable and then saying "Oh but you can buy this shiny CotO to get it a little less intolerable".
Result: People with money will spend it, people without will just have to deal with the new crappy norm.

Don't make things worse for normal gameplay.

I love the idea of craftable gold piles, streets paved with gold, etc.
Why not purchaseable (in-game) titles? I know people would spend on that.
Purchaseable(in-game) emotes from trainer-like NPCs.
Since most of the millionaires whose money we need to deplete are land owners, why not purchaseable housing options, such as different floor styles or wall styles (not deco but like...wallpaper )

The key here is you don't want to make it something so good that people feel cheated if they don't have it, or feel like they have to spend all their gametime grinding to get it, but it needs to be something good enough to get people to spend on it.

Mounts would be another good one. Everyone could go train a bay horse but the truly wealthy could have a mighty pure white stallion and buy all sorts of armor plating and crap to put on it to truly make an impressive entrance.
If a cosmetic override system existed, there'd be loads of potential in the clothing market as well.

Ultimately, making the game too much of a grind will drive players away just as fast if not faster than the housing issue.

 

Transmuting is the big thing I've been pushing for forever. It isn't needed. It doesn't tax the poor. It is a pure vanity sink for the rich.

 

The real world solution to these problems usually ends up being Progressive Income Tax systems. Static coin sinks do not work because they exclude players. Of course, measuring wealth on hand is tricky business and basing any sink or additional cost as a relative value of one's holdings will just lead to them using tricks like secondary accounts to hold their wealth on.

 

Complete agreement with that. And if I wanted to save my pennies so I could go fighting in a pretty dress, then I have the option of doing so, but don't feel like I can't progress in the game without it. Totally acceptable sink that I support 100%.

 

Actually crafting is still a gold sink.
The crafting fuels and tool usuage burns gold. The listing feels burn gold.
Selling to other players just moves gold from one pocket to another and doesn't create any gold.

Right now your seeing lots of gold accumlate with successful sellers, but the vast majority of players are broke. (e.g. less thank 100k gold accumulated)

In aggregate, a seller with lots of customers can easily churn millions of gold per month, It's only adventurers that are going to remain broke for the forseeable future.
Now that some money is in the economy, your going to see sellers continue to make millions and no change they make is going to curb that.

 

I Agree and as a casual player I don't make any where near the gold / hour people seem to be boasting about and any extra "tax" burdens would be a hardship on my game play.
I think it is already way too grindy as it is... if the rich want to support these ideas fine but please do not make the rest of us that are barely getting by suffer even more...

 

The game sadly will work like the opposite of that.

People with real world money have high pledge tiers, so they pay no in game taxes on their properties or vendors. They also placed first and got the best spots in game, so their vendors will enable them to earn more gold than anyone else. Those with disproportionate wealth pay no taxes at all.

People trying to get a lot deed in game with gold will pay taxes on the lot if they are lucky enough to win. A vendor would incur further taxes.

 

Just like feudal times and the rise of old-world aristocracy.

 

It was a necessity of giving rewards to those helping to fund the game. I didn't have a problem with tax-free deeds to those paying hundreds or thousands of real dollars to help make the game.

But it is important now to make sure everyone else has a fair opportunity at property.

 

Absolutely. I wish they retained the in-game gold currency purchase for deeds. The rich could purchase all the deeds they wanted, but the only use would be to sell them more cheaply. Sure they could try to lock up land with them, but then they would have all of those taxes which would be a true gold sink. The raffle fixes a problem that didn't actually exist!

 

I'm usually pretty broke. Crafting consumables were bad enough but for some reason the price keeps escalating.

I'm glad to see folks have learned to get rich quick, but why punish the rest of us golf poor folks.

 

Allow the purchase of Coto's for 3500 gold each through an npc vendor so people can earn buffs with gold instead of only cash.