PlaneShift
Support => Complaint Department => Topic started by: Roderyck Slywolfe on August 15, 2007, 09:47:09 pm
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While I respect that a balanced economy is important, reducing the gold is devastating to the economy. With a system in place for so long that allowed ranking up and stimulated the player-made item market being altered so drastically, the entire economy, instead of being balanced, will crash.
Crafters will slow down their production or even have no need to make their wares at the current rate, due to a lack of buyers. To reduce gold truly isn't the problem. It's not making up for the loss in other areas. A real world economy would suffer a huge blow and have people moving out of the now depressed area unless income could be found in other markets. (This would equate to people losing interest and quitting.)
What I suggest is increasing the amount of tria awarded in other areas. Primarily, I suggest the following areas:
1. Quests...DEFINITELY quests. What better way to encourage questing? I, personally, have been disappointed with some of the tria awards from quests. I could have just as easily sat in one place and fought a trepor for its organs and made more with MUCH less effort.
2. MOB loot is not proportionate to the PP gained without gold as it was. So, MOB's now need more loot in the form of tria to balance the loss.
3. Other minerals. If there ever was a demand for a coal or iron miner, it would have happened already. With the value of other minerals remaining the same, it remains a useless market.
4. Glyph or magic item crafting. I know this is a stretch developmentally, but to increase the player value of materials such as animal parts , mushrooms, etc., it would be nice to see them used as material components to making such items.
I have not mentioned the imbalance between veterans and new players simply because there is no need. I believe the concern here was that gold was too prominant as a source of income. The task at hand is spreading the lost income around to create a better balanced income. If that is accomplished, then new players will have no problem ranking up as others did in the past.
I speak from 29 years of D&D and other RP experience, so I hope this isn't simply dismissed as a complaint, as it is not meant as such.
Thank you.
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I also agree. not only is it annyoing to mine for hours and get like 4 pices, but now you also have to keep stopping to rest because your brain apparently can't handle all the work it takes to swing your pick and therfore your waiting for you mental stamina to keep up with all the failed messages.
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i think mining should be restricted to certain classes.
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i think mining should be restricted to certain classes.
In a classless game?
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sorry races.
forgot people get their jollys off correcting others =)
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I'm wondering if they bumped up the silver mining rate and just nobody has noticed because they are fixated on gold. I haven't tried it myself but maybe I will.
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So...
I guess I have been misinterpretted by the powers-that-be.
This was intended to open a discussion about the balance of the state of the economy.
I hope this isn't simply dismissed as a complaint, as it is not meant as such.
So, now, instead of it being a discussion, it's been transformed into a complaint topic.
Most disappointing... ???
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I'm wondering if they bumped up the silver mining rate and just nobody has noticed because they are fixated on gold. I haven't tried it myself but maybe I will.
Gold fever ;D
Silver and iron are the way to go now for less experienced miners. I imagine gold would still be more profitable for highly experienced miners but I'm not really sure. Maybe instead of whining so much, some people should state exactly how this change has effected them and and how they have tried to change their game to compensate.
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Maybe instead of whining so much, some people should state exactly how this change has effected them and and how they have tried to change their game to compensate.
No whining here, that's why I am unhappy about this topic being moved. I already have a replacement strategy, I'll keep you posted. ;D
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i think mining should be restricted to certain classes.
To which races, and why? We don't have pixies in PS, which is about the only race I'd see a reason for prohibiting mining to.
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@Roderyck Slywolfe: Complaints aren't always negative in nature like "omg why did you change the gold prices. now the game world is going to end !!11one2" would be. All depends on how it is worded really, and nice discussions can and have followed from threads started in this section.
The complaint forum area isn't to be thought of "oh, is another complaint. yawn. someones peeved about the world and how they don't think things aren't fair for them." it is a section for people to voice their concerns with the game and each thread is looked upon with a serious attitude, so as the original post is posted as the correct manner so that the post is merely more than what I stated above. :)
Take your time to write out a nice, well thought thread discussing your concerns and views and the game, and those posts are treated with respect and time is taken to answer them.
Unfortunately, not all forum members will probably do that, but at least everyone on the dev and mod staff will. :)
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i think mining should be restricted to certain classes.
To which races, and why? We don't have pixies in PS, which is about the only race I'd see a reason for prohibiting mining to.
maybe not so much prohibit but maybe make it so a female demo or a male demo couldnt max mining like a dwarf or say a kran.
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If we start doing this, then we'll need to evaluate more or less all skills in this manner, resulting in slightly different maxes for each race / skill combo. In fact, I am more inclined to claim that Kran might not be able to max daggers or stealth-related skills, for example. Not to mention that only the Stonebreakers are into mining, while the Hammerwielders are more into fighting, so not even "race=dwarf" means this much.
Additionally, making a distinction between genders isn't a good idea, and is in fact avoided in almost all games. Also, it would mean that each race would require the full list of skills / maxes in it's description, while ATM there's only the really important things like Kran / magic restrictions listed (and not even this is implemented yet!).
It might be slightly more realistic, but I'm not convinced that it'll be worth the additional effort.
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thats why i added maybe. the whole time. and sometimes gender does play an issue in games, just so you know... not to sound like an ass.... in dark age of camelot only females can play a race called valkyries. they are extremely hard to kill in pvp. something about them being a woman and can only learn the ways of a female class..i dunno its in another realms. theres 3 realms in this game all 3 realms got 8 different classes and races. but besides that.
i think your right about different races having limited skills in area's. i always thought thats the first thought in making a race. makes more sense.
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@Roderyck Slywolfe: Complaints aren't always negative in nature like "omg why did you change the gold prices. now the game world is going to end !!11one2" would be. All depends on how it is worded really, and nice discussions can and have followed from threads started in this section.
...
Unfortunately, not all forum members will probably do that, but at least everyone on the dev and mod staff will. :)
Fair enough. I just wanted it to stay a DISCUSSION, without the complaining.
As far as I can tell, and I am a bit new to PS (but a seasoned RP vet) the ratio of PP to tria may be a bit imbalanced. I currently have 1200 PP and 4500t, and that is with supplemental gold income!
In the current state, I will never be able to use all my PP, since I'll be gaining PP as I gain tria. That's the imbalance that I see.
In my opinion, it should be the other way around. Tria should be in surplus.
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I was going to suggest that in order to be able to glide on their wings Klyros would need to have very lightweight skeletal structure which would make them unsuited to close combat but I doubt you could work that in without a great deal of grief. Carbon nanotubes might be strong enough but I do not know what else.
@Rod that is the typical balance in this game people who fight npc's almost always have more pp's than they can afford to train. People who do not tend to have more money than they can spend on training if they have anything.
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Maybe instead of whining so much, some people should state exactly how this change has effected them and and how they have tried to change their game to compensate.
Is anybody else surprised that it wasn't me who said that? :P
Either way, he raises a good point. I do not mean in any way to discourage this thread. The original poster wanted to have a discussion and I find that admirable and somewhat rare these days. A discussion about balancing could only help the devs make the game. I stress discussion because I don't want "This should not be like that!", everybody knows I'd quickly infuriate whoever posted that because... well... that's what I do ;P
Getting back to what I was saying, saladasalad brings up a very good point. Things are going to change, the gold is now much more rare, the devs thought it should be so. This isn't a bug this is a decision by the Dev team. In cases like this you can do nothing more than adapt your play style to the change.
And to be frank, does anybody think that tria is too hard to come by? The Economy has millions of tria too many at the moment.
I'm sure it will change.
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I would be interested to see the actual numbers in terms of total players' expendable income in the game right now, compared to, say a week or month from now. Is that possible? After all, trias spent on training and items purchased from NPC's are no longer part of the economy. It is possible the only change in gameplay, for some, will be more time spent mining. :thumbdown:
Also, a companion of mine raised a good point. People new to the game may receive less help as a result of all this. I already see my tria becoming more valuable, and therefore, less likely to be given away.
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I already see my tria becoming more valuable, and therefore, less likely to be given away.
Something to aim for in an economy that is struck by an obnoxious inflation rate.
As it was said in another thread, one reason for the change was that we are trying to make gold mining more realistic. And that means that a mine may run dry sometime.
Plus we have some value for items and ressources that can be considered reasonable within the settings, from which the current economy is far off.
From the overall viewpoint we're also trying to counterbalance the inflation rate, which can't be done without adjustments of all variables involved.
If you want to have a constructive discussion, I'd suggest to start looking at the bigger picture and give ideas on how to make crafted items more valuable and how much the value of loot would have to be reduced to keep the balance in your opinion. Other ideas on how to manipulate the economy are also welcome.
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I'm wondering if they bumped up the silver mining rate and just nobody has noticed because they are fixated on gold. I haven't tried it myself but maybe I will.
Well, finding mines other than the most popular ones is a real challenge. I have no idea where to get other minerals than gold, iron, coal and some crystals. I am not even sure if silver exists, or platinum or zinc or tin or copper... So I'll stick to gold by the moment that anyhow is getting more priced thanks to scarcity. Now buyers even come to the mines and pay as much as in town. I may need more time to get the same gold but I have no serious alternative for income anyhow.
The problem is not that gold is too aboundant but that you cannot get money from nearly anything else unless you are lvl 20 metallurgian/blacksmith (what requires a lot of trias to train in any case). I tried gem cutting but it seems it doesn't work. I tried weapons/armor repair but it's cheaper to buy new ones. Someone tried to sell me a quite fast short sword for "at least 3,000 trias"... but I can buy regular short swords for 200 trias each, so it's no good business. With a single lump of gold ore (at free market price) I can renew completely my weapons... armor doesn't even wear out enough to change it but very now and then.
The real problem in PS economy is the lack of available jobs and the little profit you can get from the ones available in the free market. Price differences between free and official market are just nonsensical. Cost of repair is prohibitive when compared with cost of selling used weapon and buyng new one. Monetary cost of training is just too high not to do almost compulsively the only thing that gives money (unless you already are a skilled craftsman/-woman): dig for gold. If gold is rare, you have litle choices but to spend more time digging for it.
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I am not even sure if silver exists, or platinum or zinc or tin or copper...
Yes, not currently, yes, yes, and yes.
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Some weapons are more worthwhile to repair than others. Normal ones are only worth it as practice. A really good looted weapon is worth repairing for some time as is a really good crafted weapon. I have made some money repairing weapons in the past because I am fairly good at it but the more complex ones take too long. Of course I have not yet reached the extent of training possible since the winch trainer was added. The higher your level the faster the repairs go.
The traditional way to make money is still good I think and that is killing stuff and selling its loot. The loot rates have been reduced from what they were in the past, around the time the gold boom occurred. That gold was over-valued, I do not doubt. Making it harder to mine is not a bad thing but perhaps they have reduced it too much but the Ulber mine could be getting played out which also happened to the magic shop mine. Realistically how long can you expect a minefield to be harvested 24/7?
By the way you can make yourself a shortcut listing a bunch of /dig commands one to a line for use in prospecting.
For example:
/dig gold
/dig iron
/dig coal
etc.
then as you walk the realm you can use the shortcut to locate possible mine sites. What happens most of the time is you get a bunch of "you see no good place to dig" messages in the status tab but if you hit paydirt you get a bunch of red error messages on-screen saying "you cannot dig because you are already busy" if you have a pick equipped or a red message saying "you do not have a tool equipped." Either way you know you have found something and then all you need to do is determine what you have found.
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Great post Roderyck and one of my favorite movies. Being without money is usually the most typical challenge players have in other games in my experience.
1. Quests...DEFINITELY quests. What better way to encourage questing? I, personally, have been disappointed with some of the tria awards from quests. I could have just as easily sat in one place and fought a trepor for its organs and made more with MUCH less effort.
2. MOB loot is not proportionate to the PP gained without gold as it was. So, MOB's now need more loot in the form of tria to balance the loss.
3. Other minerals. If there ever was a demand for a coal or iron miner, it would have happened already. With the value of other minerals remaining the same, it remains a useless market.
4. Glyph or magic item crafting. I know this is a stretch developmentally, but to increase the player value of materials such as animal parts , mushrooms, etc., it would be nice to see them used as material components to making such items.
1. Great idea I hope we will see this change as well. Some of us came to similar conclusion, so I am hoping we will see something here before soon.
2. Another good point. Let’s throw in the small chance of a high priced but otherwise useless item.
3. Here I disagree. I think the lucrative gold market prevented coal and iron mining to reach the level to fulfill the demand of blacksmiths. From what I understand the demand was always there. We will have to see who is right.
4. Hmm, I am not aware of any discussions on how glyphs are created. Certainly we said at some point that every item in game can be crafted. Send me a PM if you have some ideas on how this can be done.
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Glyphs are not crafted, but found in nature and "gathered" by powerful mages. This was a question in one of our previous Q&A's:
There's EXTREMELY little explanation of how glyphs are used in an RP sense. What do we do, smack 'em together and hope sparks fly? Also, how much of the magic is dependent on the glyph and how much on the wielder? If it's all the glyph than there's no talent to magic except figuring out which one to use to zap people with.
Glyphs are the base of every spell. They can be found in nature with no real explanation - no one know exactly why they form, but when some type of energy is strongly present in one place, then a glyph can appear. Glyphs can appear as marks on very different materials from a leaf to the fur of an animal, and usually of any type of rock. Powerful wizards knows where and how to extract glyphs from nature, and they usually transfer this power to magical black stones, that are small enough to carry around.
During the centuries many glyphs have been found and studied and so the wizard learn how to recognize those. Wizards discovered that each glyph can create a spell effect and that many glyphs can be combined to obtain greater effects. To simplify casting of spells the glyphs are associated to a concept and wizards combine those concepts to form new spells. When the spell is cast the wizard must have the glyphs at hand, in his backpack or in the pockets of his robe. Glyphs are not consumed during casting. The caster focuses his mind to a particular concept and drags energy from the glyph.
The glyphs are kept normally in a safe and hidden place by the wizard, losing one can be a great loss, the caster will not be able to cast the spells that use that glyph.
There is a strong magic link between the wizard and his glyphs. That requires a process of purification when the wizard gains a new glyph that may take some time (hours or 1 day). After that purification process the link is established and the glyph can be used for casting.
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3. Here I disagree. I think the lucrative gold market prevented coal and iron mining to reach the level to fulfill the demand of blacksmiths. From what I understand the demand was always there. We will have to see who is right.
I have been informed that iron ore sells for 2t at Harn's (I may have been misinformed, I'll check tonight), but there's a player that pays 250 each. My perspective on this is from both with and without players around.
We will focus our efforts on the reproduction of a real world with politics, economy and many non-player-characters controlled by the server that will bring our world to life, even without players connected!
If NPC's are placed, so the game can be played without many others online, would it not then be logical to price iron more in line with what players purchase it at? Say 50 or 100? This would make iron mining a more viable option for beginners. A lot of labor goes into just one lump of iron ore.
Also, I've been wanting to know, has ALL mining success rates been reduced or just gold?
*edit*
If you want to have a constructive discussion, I'd suggest to start looking at the bigger picture and give ideas on how to make crafted items more valuable and how much the value of loot would have to be reduced to keep the balance in your opinion. Other ideas on how to manipulate the economy are also welcome.
I think crafted items are valued well. I paid 15K each for two axes (Q171). If you want to manipulate the economy, stimulate the players' economy by giving them an area to sell their goods. Perhaps opening up some buildings and placing different signs on them designating what is sold there, or have an open market setting in Hydlaa and Oja with tents or booths. This way, even common items can be sold by players instead of NPC's to keep the tria flowing.
I can see a time, in the future, when it could be quite profitable to be a merchant, and the haggling will definitely add a nice RP element to buying and selling.
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I have been informed that iron ore sells for 2t at Harn's (I may have been misinformed, I'll check tonight), but there's a player that pays 250 each. My perspective on this is from both with and without players around.
If NPC's are placed, so the game can be played without many others online, would it not then be logical to price iron more in line with what players purchase it at? Say 50 or 100? This would make iron mining a more viable option for beginners. A lot of labor goes into just one lump of iron ore.
Agreed. The difference between NPC price and player price is extreme. Not just on ore, but on loot as well. If the idea is to balance the economy, then it would seem that an item should have at least *some* consistent price point related to its apparent atrributes. A sword that sells for 1400 to Harnquist could well be worth more to someone who wants that particular weapon, but 60,000 more for a seduction dagger? That seems to imply that Harnquist is utterly incompetent, or an outright crook. (And speaking of the economy, since the appearance of seduction weapons, the auction market has almost dried up for any other looted weapons, so you pretty much are forced to accept what the NPCs pay... its seduction or HQ crafteds, all else is garbage.)
As to the original topic, the lowered mining rates don't bother me that much in and of themselves. I just know that I need to spend more time at it. What bothers me is the stated reason for it (balancing the economy) doesn't seem to be applied anywhere except to gold. Crafting, looting and mining should all be part of that economy.
I really like Roderyck's idea of a player marketplace.
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As to the original topic, the lowered mining rates don't bother me that much in and of themselves. I just know that I need to spend more time at it. What bothers me is the stated reason for it (balancing the economy) doesn't seem to be applied anywhere except to gold. Crafting, looting and mining should all be part of that economy.
I agree. I would appreciate a straight answer for the reason why the gold market (and only the gold market) has been toyed with. It has made it nearly unprofitable to mine gold because iron and coal are more efficient. Is that at all realistic?
Take that home. Chew it, it tastes great. ;)
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Balance does not happen over night. This alarmist thread is only natural given the powerful and artificial reliance on gold in yliakum. Other factors of balance are being considered every day. Fear not we will try to bring everything together into a more realistic picture in due course. The amount of gold being drawn was incredibly unbalanced.
Gold is more rare than other metals.
http://www.gold.org/discover/knowledge/aboutgold/gold_prod/index.html
Changes to crafting, the base prices, and the incidence of other metals will follow.
When dealing with unstable economics in a pre-alpha game remember this maxim "It doesn't get comfortable."
We certainly have and will continue to tinker with the other base metals. I would concur with the notion that in our game iron should be more valuable than it is today.
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Sounds good to me...
Straight answer! Yay Xillix \\o//
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After a couple of days struggling to earn a crust digging gold!
We ought really to mention beginners. This is an imbalanced struggle now, since my pp have reach 4,000 and my trias are once again zero. Where I note a change in my own game behaviour, is that I cannot afford to give new starters a helping hand.
Just a week or so ago, I was able to assist a newbie (who had been struggling in the sewers for 2 days), with a pair of swords and a set of armour. That person was on the brink of throwing the towel in. The sudden jump to be able to acquire pp instead of exp made all the difference.
I found another today, but I couldn't spare the money since it is so hard to come buy.
One experienced player was trying to sell swords, but no-one was buying since they needed all their tria for training.
I agree with Roderyck Slywolfe that this is repercussive and imbalanced.
I suspect that you'll find a higher fallout rate of new players for the reasons I've mentioned, a greater fallout of experienced players since their trades are being hit by having fewer buyers, and an overall discontent as the difficulty level shoots through the roof.
The game already suffers from poor stability, so it demands a certain amount of patience & tolerance to play it.
The developers have compounded their problems in my opinion, and that is a shame, since basically it's a very good game.
I run company, and I know the knock on effects of even small price changes.
Every merchant, on every rung of the ladder, needs sellers so he can buy and sell on, goods or services.
With less money there are less buyers. It isn't a strategy, it's an economy. And it applies to a structured game like this which emulates life.
In real life, this is called a recession.
I reccomend you revert a little.
*edit*
Xillix uses the expression "alarmist thread".
Actually, it is not alarmist.
The original thread post was well written, unbiased, very logically expressed, and without emotional content, which is not in the least alarmist.
What IS alarmist is that the developers have realised an imbalance, and reacted instead of responding.
To make any sudden economic change is foolhardy as any chancellor knows, but developers wouldn't know this as they are artistically minded rather than financially. Which is a good trait. Without them there would be no game.
What should have happened is what many have pointed out, small changes to other ores & gems first, lowering the interest in gold a little, and at the same time very slightly lowering gold supplies. There would have been a gradual change over, that probably few players would have noticed.
The difficulty for the developers now, is to rectify the situation.
And it does have to be rectified.
This isn't a question of "I wrote the game so I must be right", because what they are doing is making it up as they go along, which is very unprofessional, and puts an even greater burden of tolerance on players.
After all you need these players. Without them there is no game either.
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It seems to me that if you were to fight thugs (mostly), rogues or mercenaries for a while you would have plenty mundane weapons to spare. There was such a glut of gold on the market that in any real economy its value would have plummeted. Would you rather they had left the mining of gold the same and reduced its price tenfold? That doesn't even consider that such a heavily mined lode might run out.
My advice is get over it, things change, things will continue to change. Who is to say that there is not some other field out there waiting to be discovered or being harvested by those in the know?
When the amount of players mining gold goes from 10% to 90% there is a problem that needs addressing. Perhaps it was not the most elegant method of balancing but gold was mostly a useless commodity.
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1. “It seems to me that if you were to fight thugs (mostly), rogues or mercenaries for a while you would have plenty mundane weapons to spare.”
Are you seriously implying that there are sufficient ‘thugs’ of differing grades to satisfy the looting requirements of all players’ diversity of skill ranking?
2. “There was such a glut of gold on the market that in any real economy its value would have plummeted. Would you rather they had left the mining of gold the same and reduced its price tenfold? That doesn't even consider that such a heavily mined lode might run out.”
Oh dear.
All countries that compete in the global financial markets carry repositories and reserves of all precious commodities. In particular gold, since it is an indexing commodity similar to the Dow Jones and LSE. The reason for this is to stabilise economies and to maintain an artificially high price.
Why tenfold? What does that relate to? Why is any drastic change required? What is the value of this point?
Heavily mined? Run out? Are you suggesting that what happens in real life should equate to a simulation? If so you ought to recognise that gold is currently valued at $694 an ounce. 1 carat is 0.2 g. If you do your calculations you’ll soon see that 240 trias for a lump of gold doesn’t relate to a diamond selling for 40 or 60 trias.
3. “My advice is get over it, things change, things will continue to change.”
Your armchair politics will change nothing. If you look back over the responses to the original post, you will see that a lot of good suggestions have evolved from what was an objective criticism open for debate. We are all fully aware that things change, and that is the reason for posting observations in the first place.
4. “Who is to say that there is not some other field out there waiting to be discovered or being harvested by those in the know?”
Well, if that is what is happening, the poor developers will have to ensure that no one has been over that area before searching for commodities, and besides, why bother? It’s a waste of time for all gamers to go round searching for a means of income when all they want to do is get on with the game.
5. “When the amount of players mining gold goes from 10% to 90% there is a problem that needs addressing. Perhaps it was not the most elegant method of balancing but gold was mostly a useless commodity.”
Where on earth did you get these figures up from? And 10% and 90% of what exactly? And how can gold be a useless commodity when it provides the main means of income for the majority of players?
I think your proposed factually based debate lacks facts.
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What he means is that you can't eat gold, drink gold, use gold for weapons or clothes (other than as minor decoration), etc. Gold itself is useless and is only used as means of exchange because its durability and rarity have made that convenient. But...
One problem is that, while in the real world the production of gold can be as low as 1/100 that of silver and mayeb 1/1,000,000 that of iron (just good guesses) in Yilakum you get about similar productions for any metal or crystal, even with the current rate reductions. Also most gold in RL does not vanish after being sold (or processed and sold) but it's actually accumulated in form of valuable jewels, bank deposits or whatever. Gold remains circulating all the time, or at least it did in the MA.
Another problem is that production economy does not actually exist in Yilakum, exception made of some weapons and the like. There are no farms providing grain or meat or wool, no breweries that process beer, no artisans that can make clothes or leather armors, no quarries fro where to extract rock for the buildings, no masons building homes and other structures, etc. What NPCs earn (if they earn anything) that doesn't return to the economy normally.
So basically mines provide the means of getting, not the basics of life, that are not needed (we don't need food or shelter) but basically education. This is not realistic but, as long as Yilakum is based in warrying and artisanship, and not in people needing to survive there will be no real economy - after all these spcializations can be considered perfectly as prescindible luxuries, not any basic need. As long as NPCs don't redistribute the wealth they accumulate, new wealth (even if unrealistic) must be produced at every step... this unrealistic wealth is basically generated by mining gold.
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@fethrin:
1. Thugs are among the least used mobs that drop weapons. It is true there are only 5 that I know about and they are localized in one particular area. They are fairly easy to fight. If you fight the two unagressive ones for a couple of hours you will return with a pack full of broadswords and short swords one or two of which might be magical.
Some of the mercenaries in the arena are also fairly easy and with a little training in armor and weapon you can fight some of the rogues who also drop weapons. A little later you can fight the gladiators. Now there are more types of humans that waylay you on the paths they are a little too strong for me but with enough potions I could probably make money off of them too.
2. The gold standard is dead and has been since the developed countries decided to let their currencies float. National treasuries, many of which are private companies, such as the Bank of Canada and the U.S. Federal Reserve, now cannot cover the sum of the moneys they have printed. They are like any other bank where as long as it works out on paper it is all good. THe world banking system currently in effect is a gigantic confidence scheme.
By the way my numbers came from my burro and should not be considered anything more than gross estimates.
3. Sure thing. My reply was not to the thread as a whole but a response to the previous post. I'm sorry, but the advent of gold smelting was at least as big a change in the revenue stream as the reduction in the production rate. If you recall some months ago how crowded was the minefield by Levrus' shop. Then it played out, more or less. I recall seeing 20-30 people piled up at a time. A few months before that there was maybe 5-10 people. I miss my slash 50 weapons but they are gone, so big deal. I just felt you were belaboring the points that had been made. It was meant to be a friendly "get over it" not derisive.
4. So you want to be spoon-fed mining locations? Cannot tectonic activity uncover new deposits? How hard is it to run around pressing a macro key and how else are you going to find new deposits? How did you find the gold mine in the first place? I found it by running around digging everywhere, the same way I found copper and zinc and pretty much everything else. Sometimes I had vague directions from other players or npc's, and yes I was shown some of the resources too.
5. 10% of players to 90% of players and I made them up, of course, to indicate a large shift. With the amount of gold that has been mined in the last six months you would think the streets were paved with it but it is all gone, Little has been made from it and yet it is just gone. Turned magically into circles, I guess. Them gnomes on the fourth level must be working overtime to keep up with the demand for specie.
I am sorry if this has gotten a little off track, it comes from the heart (such as it is), you know.
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Um, it is alarmist if you look at the title and the follow that out with all the argumentation that there is no other way to make money etc. This is simply untrue. Also this is one of many threads queries and convos i have had with people concerning the matter. Ease up gold-diggers!
I have read all of this and gleaned some good ideas, of course i thank the thoughtful people for their contributions.
Gold is still on the market and still lining pockets but i do encourage you to go out and look for other metals.
Some further balancing has already occurred.
I get really frustrated that my responses are often glossed over, or worse quoted back to me out of context.
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Hey, Xillix, I was not alarmed in any way when I posted this topic, and I have already adjusted my game play. I am not and was never exlusively gold mining for tria. I thought the title humorous, since it is one of my favorite movies, and it would get attention. ;D
Anyway, there still is more to be done to balance and stimlulate the economy, and I have suggested a few. I'd LOVE to see goods and tria exchanging hands on a regular basis, if not just for the roleplay aspect of it. I will help in any way I can.
Thank you.
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@Bilbous
Thugs, mercenaries, cutthroats, rogues, in fact all NPCs from which/whom loot can be gained are insufficient in number and diversity of combatant strengths to accommodate the financial needs of all players at any one time. If this became the major source of financial gain, players with high skills and fast macros would be looting them all while lesser skilled players were left with the options others didn’t want.
Gold is still used and quoted as an index, and all major commodities are reserved to maintain price and market interest.
“THe world banking system currently in effect is a gigantic confidence scheme.”
I couldn’t agree more, but we are getting away from the point.
“It was meant to be a friendly "get over it" not derisive.”
Yes, I believe that.
“So you want to be spoon-fed mining locations?”
You missed the point entirely.
I spent best part of a day with a new player who believed there might be other ‘undiscovered’ gold locations. So the two of us, having set up the macros went all over the hills searching, and of course found nothing. Tectonic activity would change the landscape, and we would spot that. The point I am making is that having covered that ground once and found no gold, we won’t keep going over and over it in the off chance that developers would make some ‘appear’ from nowhere.
You can only go so far when tinkering with the dynamics. Do it too much and it will become insurmountably frustrating.
@Xillix
‘alarmist noun someone who spreads unnecessary alarm. adj causing unnecessary alarm.’ Chambers.
I am unable to see any cause for alarm in the title or the content of the original post.
I think a very fair and reasonable concern is expressed, and expects the same format of response. It’s a concern expressed by many players during online play.
In fact it’s also a frustration expressed by players that needs resolving.
“…..all the argumentation that there is no other way to make money etc. This is simply untrue.”
Of course there are other ways to make money. But they are massively imbalanced.
You, I know are fully aware of that. I don’t need to point out the sale price of iron, coal, emeralds & diamonds to you. So you deemed gold to have been exploited. Possibly. Probably. But to just slash extraction without bringing up realistic comparative prices on other minerals & gems makes absolutely no sense.
Players need some dependability within the structure of a game, and by simply taking that from them is what will cause alarm.
Your words were not taken out of context at all.
@ Maju
“What he means is that you can't eat gold, drink gold, use gold for weapons or clothes”
Of course I realise that. But gold has a different use from other metals, which is explicitly different, and this gives it considerable usefulness within the environment.
And I think every player is aware of the remainder of your post.
**********
The point remains, and is so far unresolved, that where they may have been an imbalance of gold ore extraction & sale, there is now an even greater imbalance in the economy by simply reducing the supply by that much.
The original post makes a very valid point voicing the opinions of many players.
As yet, despite the number of replies to the post, and several good ideas, there are no solutions being offered.
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If this became the major source of financial gain, players with high skills and fast macros would be looting them all while lesser skilled players were left with the options others didn’t want.
Was in the past, until the gold rush.
Tectonic activity would change the landscape, and we would spot that.
There is no tectonic activity, really, but erosion could open a new location without drastic changes to the landscape.
Players need some dependability within the structure of a game, and by simply taking that from them is what will cause alarm.
Good point.
As yet, despite the number of replies to the post, and several good ideas, there are no solutions being offered.
The solutions will become visible when the devs realised them :)
Be assured that we will take your ideas and concerns into account, but usually actual development is undisclosed.
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Of course I realize the concept of tectonic plates and such is beyond any inclusion in PS. I was using it improperly as shorthand for cave-ins, earthquakes, magical earth dwelling monsters and the unseen hand of Gods and other powerful beings such as might justify new lodes appearing. Whether any of these things are actually the cause is beside the point that such fields could appear where they formerly were not found. There is only so much territory and plenty of land textured to appear resource bearing.
As for the thugs, etc. well bilbous goes slumming once in a while but they do not offer enough practice for him to do so out of anything other than nostalgia. The new critter such as the cutthroats and whatever roaming the roadways are quite a bit more challenging so that at all levels except perhaps at the very highest there are worthy NPC opponents. You may need to share at times but that is acceptable to me. Most mature players with high level characters will go off and do something else if confronted with a character that is obviously more level suited to the opponent comes along. Many have other characters they can play as well.
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wouldnt a new landscape devoloped by erosion take hundreds or thousands of years?
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Courious. People talk a lot about it being realistic for gold and ore to run dry in a mine, and that you can always go hunt 'thugs' to make money.
Question. Where does the endless supply of 'thugs' (cutthroats, whatever) come from? Or, better yet, where does their supply of high end weapons come from?
*edit*
The "where to mine" answer is simple. Governments do not let the people mine whilly nilly where ever they want. They open new land to mining, they close old land to mining. Simple as that.
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Question. Where does the endless supply of 'thugs' (cutthroats, whatever) come from?
When a mommy and a daddy love each other VERY much...
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Or when a Kran gets an itch he can't scratch?
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“So you want to be spoon-fed mining locations?”
You missed the point entirely.
I spent best part of a day with a new player who believed there might be other ‘undiscovered’ gold locations. So the two of us, having set up the macros went all over the hills searching, and of course found nothing. Tectonic activity would change the landscape, and we would spot that. The point I am making is that having covered that ground once and found no gold, we won’t keep going over and over it in the off chance that developers would make some ‘appear’ from nowhere.
You can only go so far when tinkering with the dynamics. Do it too much and it will become insurmountably frustrating.
I understand what you are saying here and, to a degree, I understand. But you must realize that all aspects of the game are in development, settings included.
@Xillix
‘alarmist noun someone who spreads unnecessary alarm. adj causing unnecessary alarm.’ Chambers.
I am unable to see any cause for alarm in the title or the content of the original post.
I think a very fair and reasonable concern is expressed, and expects the same format of response. It’s a concern expressed by many players during online play.
In fact it’s also a frustration expressed by players that needs resolving.
"The Gods Must be Crazy!" because there isn't enough gold. That's raising unnecessary alarm :P
“…..all the argumentation that there is no other way to make money etc. This is simply untrue.”
Of course there are other ways to make money. But they are massively imbalanced.
You, I know are fully aware of that. I don’t need to point out the sale price of iron, coal, emeralds & diamonds to you. So you deemed gold to have been exploited. Possibly. Probably. But to just slash extraction without bringing up realistic comparative prices on other minerals & gems makes absolutely no sense.
Players need some dependability within the structure of a game, and by simply taking that from them is what will cause alarm.
If the team made sure that every development step was well prepared so that there were no balancing issues they'd be much further back in development. There was too much gold in relation to the settings and so it has been lessened for now. Once a few more changes have occurred the game's balance will become more stable again.
The simple solution is to adapt for now, new players can get what they need from fighting rats and such, and wait until the Dev team does add something to balance the game again.
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Huh. Millions of mommies and daddies must love each other very much to create -that- many baddies. Creatures, I can see. The crystal creates a high rate of reproduction and extreme growth. But humanoids? Though... I guess they just come back from the dead too, don't they? But... then how can you loot them, and they return with a full supply of goodies...
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\\o// Finally something to stabilize the economy, the rate of inflation was terrible. I do hope that this change will make people more creative, so that new ways of gaining money will show up. I am tired of those "WS 11 gold", "Selling 20 steel stock".
To those that complain about getting less ores out of the ground: Don't worry. Your money will be worth more, so not much will change for you. Except if you are spending your time training 24/7....but hey, this game is not all about levelling.
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Huh. Millions of mommies and daddies must love each other very much to create -that- many baddies. Creatures, I can see. The crystal creates a high rate of reproduction and extreme growth. But humanoids? Though... I guess they just come back from the dead too, don't they? But... then how can you loot them, and they return with a full supply of goodies...
They get out of the DR and then adventure for a bit then go back to their spawn point. It's a constant cycle :P
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Either that or stop off at the "thieves guild" to resupply with whatever equipment might happen to be available on their way back to their post.
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No, I think UtM has a point. And I think we should be addressing it.
In the name of realism, settings is now in discussions as to whether to change the spawn rate of all "humanoids" to once per hour, or possibly longer, and I must say, the talks have been pretty positive. Sure it'll cause scrambles in the arena until all the NPCs there're dead, so people can get the loot of their bodies, and sources of income will be decreased (at least from player-to-npc merchant)...but hey! That's realism for you.
We'll keep you posted.
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a future game design idea then. :)
for the glads in the arena, since you can talk to them and what not, it would make sense long term wise that the character must first talk to them to engage them in combat, and it acts somewhat as a duel thing. and long term, perhaps the glad doesn't die if they lose and then upon winning, the character receives a little prize thing for besting them. could go hand in hand with the long term but everyone wanted duel system that doesn't have the character die upon a loss.
thugs, bandits, angry critters in the wild and whatnot, would just be fight to the death as the are the more barbaric/ shady mobs. :)
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MOBs respawning once an hour is the WORST idea I've ever heard. If that is implemented, you can certainly count me out of playing PS. :thumbdown:
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MOBs respawning once an hour is the WORST idea I've ever heard. If that is implemented, you can certainly count me out of playing PS. :thumbdown:
why? there is so much more to ps then hunting critters. there are quests, crafts, and actually talking with other players. i for one welcome our new hour long to spawn overloads.
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It's simple. With any forethought, anyone would see that the number of players will be increasing. Imagine trying to get those last few PP to rank up and not being able to be the ONE player to able to attack a MOB. Then having to travel to the next MOB spawn point only to have it not be there, etc, etc.
If PS is at all successful in the future, MOB killing will be absolutely POINTLESS, as they will all be gone before you have a chance to get there.
Trust me on this one...DO NOT be concerned about realism as much as fun. I have designed many a roleplaying game in my day. My biggest mistake was making it too realistic at the expense of fun.
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Trust me on this one...DO NOT be concerned about realism as much as fun. I have designed many a roleplaying game in my day. My biggest mistake was making it too realistic at the expense of fun.
really. then maybe it is time to step forward and be counted. http://www.planeshift.it/recruitment.html
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In the name of realism, settings is now in discussions as to whether to change the spawn rate of all "humanoids" to once per hour, or possibly longer, .....
:thumbdown: :thumbdown: :thumbdown:
holy crap! realism or no ... that has got to be one of the worst things I can think of to happen. I can name several different spots right now where people are standing several deep waiting to get their shot at killing "the bad guy". you change it to a "once an hour" deal and you'll have so many people standing around with their thumbs up their butt they'll eventually stop playing PS all together.
DO NOT ... I repeat ... DO NOT implement that.
From table top game to electronic game ... if you don't give people enough bad guys, you'll bore them to tears and they'll lose interest.
yeah yeah ... I know there's plenty of other things to do. But the fact remains that there are a large portion of RPGers that love the hack-n-slash. Even if it's just for a sitting or two because they're trying for something specific ... ya gotta keep the hack.
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DO NOT ... I repeat ... DO NOT implement that.
What are you, a powerleveler? Come on, people clearly want realism to reign supreme in PS.
Under the moon, back me up on this one.
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What are you, a powerleveler? Come on, people clearly want realism to reign supreme in PS.
good lord no I'm not a powerleveler! If I were I wouldn't have spent the last 11 hours playing PS when for 8 of those hours you couldn't fight anything.
my point is that you've already got people that are standing knee deep waiting for a chance to kill something. you implement an hour regen time and you're gonna kill a good chunk of your player base. you want them to do other things, want them to become crafters, miners, magicians, priests, herbalists, etc etc etc ... how exactly do you propose they get the money to pay for training (which is gawd-awful expensive) if they have to wait hours and hours for the hopes of getting something off a dead bad guy? and please, don't tell me they can go mine something. if you're working your PC towards being a priest or a wizard or any other "bookish" "class" ... you certainly aren't going to have the skill necessary to go dig ore. fighting is something that can be done irregardless of the number of skill points you put towards it.
and for the record ... the reason I was able to play all day with this particular character is because I'm working this one towards being a miner/smith/crafter. had it been one of my other two, I would've been SOL today.
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Perhaps instead of a once per hour respawn rate make it that you may not attack the same mob twice in a row. I think, however, if you are going to make the respawn rate once per hour you might as well scrap the progression system as no-one will be progressing in combat anyways. A better solution might be to have half a dozen spawn points for any given mob and then have them randomly appear at a different one from where they last died. That way you could at least pretend they are different individuals and combat progression would not be crippled as badly.
So are you going to limit the amount of money npc's have to spend on buying things from players? I mean if Harnquist is rich enough to buy all the gold that can be delivered to him how come his shack is such a hole? Why does he not have a dozen apprentices doing his work for him and where does he keep all his product? Someone with enough money could fill the plaza with picks, a million tria would buy 10,000, where Harnie would get them is another story.
Why do I get the feeling Jeraphon has tongue firmly in cheek?
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Another great thing! I'd love it if the mobs weren't spawned every few seconds, first of all it increases the realism of PS and, more important, shows people there's more then levelling.
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I stood for 15 mins by Percival to see how many Elves popped in. 3 came in, in 15 mins. That's just elves.
Lets say of all species just for the sake of argument that 100 a DAY come into the game.
That's only 3650 a year. That's still quite a lot of players.
Saturday afternoon in the UK, dads asleep in front of the telly, mums doing dinner, kids upstairs playing games. Peak time for gamers.
How many were playing PS online?
103
out of possibly 3 million gamers in the UK, a similar number in France, probably more in Germany - and I have no idea of the population of the States.
103
People like the game, but they hate being messed around.
The guy down my local shop asked me the other week what game I was playing now. I told him PS.
Can you guess what he said?
Yup. He said it's too frustrating because it doesn't work.
Last time he played it was a year ago.
Not much has changed.
If an engine isn't broken. Don't fix it!
Set aside times, just out of courtesy, for maintenance & upgrades. Make only small changes.
And at least think about the players rather than just development.
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I don't want you to think that I'm always complaining or giving rants - But:
It seems not only the gods seem to go crazy.
When I was developing my mining and crafting abilities, there were days when the only thing I could do to receive the needed PP for my further training was meeting the Mobs.
One special mob, to be honest and when it was "free" which was not often, I fought him several times.
If I now think about this one only spawning once an hour, I'm sure I would still not be able to craft steel stock because I wouldn't have had the PP for the training.
Please think about this.
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i agree 100% with all of what Fethrin said
when i first started a couple of weeks ago, the game was very fun.... i was killing monsters and mining to get money
the ratio between Tria and PP was almost perfect
it meant i could level up efficiently
now that the mining has reduced in drop rates...... i get my tria is by killing ulbers
i get maybe about 10K tria each time i sell all my loot
but i get 33PP a kill
now i have 14032 PP and 2716 Tria
thats how unbalanced it has become since the mines have gone down
i want to have fun on this game...... and too much reality is a downfall on fun
also the idea of monsters respawning every hour is ridiculous
how are you supposed to level up?
Fethrin and Slywolfe know exactly how to run a game well
listen to them
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I have adjusted my gameplay to almost entirely exclude mining. Now, it seems, the rogues' loot has been reduced in value.
Is this the case?
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Thanks Eyoro.
Imagine this all you who want respawning every hour.....
100 players online all smack an NPC.
What do you do for the next hour?
Tell me you go mining!
Hahahaha
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And players didn't change over the year either.
How ironical must a comment be that it is recognised as irony?/me rolls his eyes about people not getting Jeraphons comment.
Guess what. We *seriously* discussed about *removing* the whole combat system once. Why? Because of player's comments about it distracting from RP.
Now question: Did we remove it? And why didn't we remove it? - Because we're not *that* dumb.
And now I'm slightly getting angry because of more and more people who think they can continue with getting the same amount of money ingame by digging gold - using bots.
THIS is what pisses me off. We explain here on the forums the why and how in details - and ingame people cheat to overcome our *adjustments*.
And guess what. That reaction only will make me recommend "all or nothing" next time. No gold mine, no bots.
And for the intelligent ones who tell us not to fix an engine unless it's broke: Do you seriously consider the economy ingame fine as it is?
Think before typing.
PS:
I'd like to
change the spawn rate of all "humanoids" to once per hour, or possibly longer
just to
give people [not] enough bad guys, [to] bore them to tears and [to make them] lose interest.
- Just to show people HOW cruel we can be if we're asked for it.
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I TOTALLY got the comment, and realize the spawn rate comment was to spite the poster who whined about realism. I am encouraging productive discussion, though I cannot say the same for your post, Kerol.
I have been gaming for almost 30 years, and I wish to offer my experience in the form of productive input.
So, my question remains unanswered: Did the loot get reduced, as well?
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And for the intelligent ones who tell us not to fix an engine unless it's broke: Do you seriously consider the economy ingame fine as it is?
it was.... before the mine rates got tweaked
*edit*
So, my question remains unanswered: Did the loot get reduced, as well?
i think they did.... im not getting as much loot as i used to
[ "Modify" your post to add new information if no one has replied yet - try not to double-post. --Karyuu ]
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I am encouraging productive discussion, though I cannot say the same for your post, Kerol.
And I thought my post was fully ontopic, peaceful and not pointed to those who didn't get the irony </irony>.
it was.... before the mine rates got tweaked
There you are wrong. Before we attempted to adjust all that we checked how many people actually are rich - and this number was very large, too large.
Btw, the alternative to do the adjustments would have been a wipe before fiddling with the rates. You think that would have caused less trouble? (<- irony)
I'm getting the impression that this thread has gone beyond the zenith of usefulness.
PS: Sorry Roderyck, but I can't answer your question about the drop rates right now.
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but you need to be rich in order to train
training is very expensive
especially in the higher levels
i saw no problem with the game as it was before
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Eyoro: The economy was never fine - it had periods of stability, but there have always been many things wrong with the way it worked. And in a game of this early development stage, we simply have to adjust and adjust and adjust until we find something that works like it's meant to with the settings. Some changes can only be judged once they have been in place for several weeks, or even more - there will always be complaints about any modifications, so we can't always give in to a crowd of players waving their hands and panicking.
How recently was this done? Give it some time, wait for us to balance out more of the system, and you'll have a much better environment to play in. We think of player enjoyment all the time - we're not rebalancing the economy for the sake of NPC tribes. So if in this first week things seem like they're really skewed, rest assured that our goal is to have them both realistic (in terms of the setting) and fun for you at the end.
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Eyoro: The economy was never fine - it had periods of stability, but there have always been many things wrong with the way it worked. And in a game of this early development stage, we simply have to adjust and adjust and adjust until we find something that works like it's meant to with the settings. Some changes can only be judged once they have been in place for several weeks, or even more - there will always be complaints about any modifications, so we can't always give in to a crowd of players waving their hands and panicking.
yes i agree that some settings can only be judged after a long time.... but the low drop rates has only pissed off players
i dont see what good can come of it
and its not only a crowd of players that think this...... go to the mines and ask them what they think
actually.... go up to any player and ask them what they think
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Thank you, Karyuu, well said.
I have a few ideas on how to balance things, and I was wondering...
1. Wouldn't it be proper to have loot=50% of the average training cost of the PP it awards? This would mean that it would be >50% of the cost for low ranks and <50% for high ranks.
2. Wouldn't it be best to segregate PP from combat and PP from jobs? So combat-gained PP would be spent on combat-oriented skills and job-gained PP on jobs? I just can't see experience gained in combat aiding someone in baking and vice versa.
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2. Wouldn't it be best to segregate PP from combat and PP from jobs? So combat-gained PP would be spent on combat-oriented skills and job-gained PP on jobs? I just can't see experience gained in combat aiding someone in baking and vice versa.
something about gameplay and simplicty at the expense of realism... someone commented on that earlier.
1. Wouldn't it be proper to have loot=50% of the average training cost of the PP it awards? This would mean that it would be >50% of the cost for low ranks and <50% for high ranks.
doubtful. and the same for mining, and crafting as well?
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We've wanted to redo the PP system entirely for a while now - I can't tell when a new system may be in place, but the dev team isn't satisfied with the current situation either. It just takes a while to decide on an alternative and fully think it out to avoid problems, in the middle of all the other development. In the (hopefully near) future however, PPs may be a forgotten way.
My current thinking is that perhaps the training costs need to be decreased. I'm not sure how Xillix feels about this, but you do run into absolutely outrageous costs at the higher levels.
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1. Wouldn't it be proper to have loot=50% of the average training cost of the PP it awards? This would mean that it would be >50% of the cost for low ranks and <50% for high ranks.
doubtful. and the same for mining, and crafting as well?
No, that's where mining and crafting would suppliment the combat experience. This way, hack and slashers would pick up a trade to make the extra tria needed to train.
My current thinking is that perhaps the training costs need to be decreased. I'm not sure how Xillix feels about this, but you do run into absolutely outrageous costs at the higher levels.
That's why I'm suggesting a 50% ratio on loot. The tougher the NPC, the more loot. Lower levels can't even THINK of touching these, so it would be balanced.
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either way i think that something needs to be done about the lack of Tria
this is just my opinion
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Eyoro, you'll notice that I'm not disagreeing with you. I have said multiple times that this is only step one of balancing out the economy, and not the only change that will come. We just can't fix everything in one sitting, so some things will appear skewed at first.
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either way i think that something needs to be done about the lack of Tria
this is just my opinion
Personally, I think the Trias should be made even more scarce than they are now.
According to setting farmer is meant to earn a Circle in what? A month? Can someone tell me how much time it takes for a miner to earn as much after this foul change done by the gods?
I really, really wonder how Planeshift is supposed to turn into a roleplaying game, when people scream whenever the hack&slash features are taken away from them. I mean, take into account reality in most any dark setting. People have problems with earning money for food, let alone paying for training that will make them capable of defeating a creature of size doubling their own, while using nothing, but a wooden fork.
As a thief you rob a house, on the black market get tricked into selling the robbed goods for ridiculously low amount of money; yet enough to pay for some decent week-lasting food. A week. Enough to plan out another illegal activity and do so on and on until caught by the city guards. You don't earn enough money to buy yourself kickass everything, but that's exactly why people leave their past lives and become adventurers. To buy themselves kickass everything and train in fork-fighting so that they can challenge a creature of size doubling their own.
If mining gives you enough money to buy impressive sword, plate mail, pterosaur and anything else you want, then the game won't resemble the good ol' roleplaying games in the tiniest. It will, however, do excellent at following the good ol' hack&slash formula. But apparently in the internet the most important thing in a "roleplaying" game is to be able to buy anything you want and get enough experience to beat most everything without needing assistance from any other unlikely adventurer.
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either way i think that something needs to be done about the lack of Tria
this is just my opinion
Personally, I think the Trias should be made even more scarce than they are now.
According to setting farmer is meant to earn a Circle in what? A month? Can someone tell me how much time it takes for a miner to earn as much after this foul change done by the gods?
I really, really wonder how Planeshift is supposed to turn into a roleplaying game, when people scream whenever the hack&slash features are taken away from them. I mean, take into account reality in most any dark setting. People have problems with earning money for food, let alone paying for training that will make them capable of defeating a creature of size doubling their own, while using nothing, but a wooden fork.
That's where you're wrong, my friend. In almost EVERY medieval RP setting, adventurers make up 1% of the entire populous. Now, there aren't many NPC's, but in reality, the plaza should be crawling with them. There should be farms all over the countryside, and NPC's should outnumber the players 99 to 1, but that's just not possible or practical.
Adventurers are the exception to the rule, and as such, make more money. Not to mention, the ONLY class of character that seeks out monsters to kill FOR THE SPORT OF IT.
Everyone enjoys something different. Some crafting, some battling, some just the RP. That's how a community develops. You need special interests and diversity. If we all just hung out in the plaza and RP'ed, it would merely be a beautifully laid out chat room.
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Adventurers? In a medieval times? There were rarely any, except those POOR beggars that travelled through the country in order to gain a living, not to mention that many died while doing so. And hunting monsters? I do not think a beggar ("Adventurer") could kill any monster. Oh, and those that did were hunting in groups, otherwise they risked their lives. Do you think it is realistic if everyone measures his strength in how MANY Ulbernauts he can kill in a certain period of time? And I don't see how that promotes a community. Don't you think an attack of a group of people in order to protect themselves would promote a community in a better way?
In medieval times only few people actually had any money, those were mostly merchants and powerful people. The other ones, even the miners, were hired and had to mine for a small wage.
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We are discussing medieval fantasy, are we not?
Besides, we have gotten off topic. I believe this is supposed to be a discussion about the economic state of PS.
Can anyone tell me when we'll see new trades? As a chef, in RL, I'd like to see how cooking is implemented. :D
I'm hoping food will add to Stamina(green) and men. stamina(gray), not HP. Leave that to Crystal Way and potions.
I think the new trades will aid in the economic balance of things.
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@Roderyck: Awesome. So go on being an average member of the population and earn 250 Trias a (in-game) month. You don't need to be an adventurer, but then you don't need all the combat training (besides the basics) and fine swords and plate mail and whatever else.
Right now most any "casual" crafter gets special combat training, uses magic that overthrows giants and walks around in finest armour. Ergo, most characters are adventurers. So please tell me again, where exactly I am wrong.
@Donari: In medieval times there was no monsters. And here we have a fantasy setting. Update yourself on fantasy roleplaying games, first taking a look at some of the oldest systems... like D&D or WFRP (especially this one if you look for "beggar" type of adventurers). Additionally compare need for adventurers in settings like Yliakum and the real world. Danger factor is quite different.
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@Roderyck: Awesome. So go on being an average member of the population and earn 250 Trias a (in-game) month. You don't need to be an adventurer, but then you don't need all the combat training (besides the basics) and fine swords and plate mail and whatever else.
Right now most any "casual" crafter gets special combat training, uses magic that overthrows giants and walks around in finest armour. Ergo, most characters are adventurers. So please tell me again, where exactly I am wrong.
The only characters that could be considered common artisans and not adventurers are those that have never ventured out and killed monsters for tria or experience.
I would bet not a player amongst us can say they haven't. ;)
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Exactly. And as long as there will be gnashing of teeth whenever dev team makes death more risky (thus making adventurer a very lethal profession) and gnashing of teeth whenever dev team tries to make the economy more realistic, Planeshift will remain a hack&slash game where everyone are hunting monsters and not, say, earn money for food and basic life luxuries (or do you need maxed stats and best fighting equipment to roleplay a crafter?).
I really think most people would be happy if there was one fancy command in Planeshift:
/get money 'n'
/get experience 'n'
That would probably solve all problems.
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For the record...
I have done NO whining or "gnashing of teeth" about the current state of the economy.
I have NO problem with the DEV team tweaking what they feel is necessary to balance the game.
I DO NOT see PS as a hack 'n' slash game, nor do I make my tria solely on it.
I am currently learning crafting, but it's a long road. I wish there were more crafts to learn, so I wouldn't be WAY behind in a saturated craft.
If it weren't for players that enjoy combat, why would crafters even make weapons or even have a market for their craft?
I LOVE to RP and have been playing D&D for 29 years, so I encourage it. For me, this is not about defending the HnS ways of PS, but PS as a whole.
The purpose of this topic was to offer suggestions on balancing the economy, at least for me. I feel I have a lot to offer, since I have designed a few games in my day.
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1. combat training is required of all citizens, perhaps not enough to fight ulbernauts but certainly enough to handle an infestation of aggressive rats.
2. Part of the problems occurring in PS are due to coddling the players. There has never been a full wipe in my couple years playing but there have been several partial wipes, some equipment and/or money. The fact someone came on the forum whining about being over encumbered because they had a zillion glyphs as a hedge against a new wipe and they suddenly had weight is evidence of this fact. The game is long overdue for a full wipe because you have no idea what the system is actually doing when you have remnants of ancient bugs and their work-arounds infesting the older characters. If this was my game and I was serious about it being pre-alpha I would wipe it at least once a year to start fresh. You can be fairly certain a new account will not have any hangovers from previous issues but you cannot be certain with a new character on an old account.
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My current thinking is that perhaps the training costs need to be decreased. I'm not sure how Xillix feels about this, but you do run into absolutely outrageous costs at the higher levels.
He's on board with it. So am I. We'll keep you posted about this too.
For the record, in case anyone is wondering if I was serious or not about reducing spawn rates: we HAVE discussed it - ask the other settings devs, and we have chat logs to prove it. You want realism, we'll give it to you. Just be careful what you wish for.
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2. Part of the problems occurring in PS are due to coddling the players. There has never been a full wipe in my couple years playing but there have been several partial wipes, some equipment and/or money. The fact someone came on the forum whining about being over encumbered because they had a zillion glyphs as a hedge against a new wipe and they suddenly had weight is evidence of this fact. The game is long overdue for a full wipe because you have no idea what the system is actually doing when you have remnants of ancient bugs and their work-arounds infesting the older characters. If this was my game and I was serious about it being pre-alpha I would wipe it at least once a year to start fresh. You can be fairly certain a new account will not have any hangovers from previous issues but you cannot be certain with a new character on an old account.
I didn't want to be the one to say it, but you are ABSOLUTELY right. Once the DEV team feels they've tweaked things into balance, the ONLY way to find out is a complete wipe.
My current thinking is that perhaps the training costs need to be decreased. I'm not sure how Xillix feels about this, but you do run into absolutely outrageous costs at the higher levels.
For the record, in case anyone is wondering if I was serious or not about reducing spawn rates: we HAVE discussed it - ask the other settings devs, and we have chat logs to prove it. You want realism, we'll give it to you. Just be careful what you wish for.
I still believe that would be a bad move. After all, even now with a low player count, it is sometimes difficult to find some combat action with an NPC suitable to your ability. Now, consider three times that many players on at once. It would be disappointing, and dare I say, frustrating. A game is meant to be fun. Once you reach a comfortable number of players, that would plateau, as any more and you've have players quitting as constant as you'd have new players.
/me wishes spawning would stay as it is...
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While I respect that a balanced economy is important, reducing the gold is devastating to the economy. With a system in place for so long that allowed ranking up and stimulated the player-made item market being altered so drastically, the entire economy, instead of being balanced, will crash.
I have done NO whining or "gnashing of teeth" about the current state of the economy.
Oh really.
Now you know what is really devastating for the economy? The large division between PC and NPC economies.
NPCs don't earn much. As such the rewards they can give for completing their tasks are absolutely nothing compared to what PCs can earn by crafting. First of all why NPC earns less than PC for doing the exact same job? Second, what's the reason to go on errands if easier job gives more money? Reduction of Trias earned through crafting is a step towards fixing the problem. Balancing the economy, which for the time being is a complete disaster.
If a player enjoys combat, let him play a warrior. I'm sure there's lots of place for adventurers, gladiators and people who simply need to defend themselves during their travels.
If you think you can offer something for the project, consider applying. If you have experience in game design, then you should know that you need an entire picture about the game design in order to make any assumptions about what future may bring. If you know nothing beyond some basic tweaks done now and then, it's not nearly enough to make any assumptions about whether something will fail or not.
@bilbous: To first point, yes, exactly. That's why I said basic training is still needed. But you actually start with this basic training no matter how you created your character. You know how to handle a sword even at 0 skill.
I still believe that would be a bad move. After all, even now with a low player count, it is sometimes difficult to find some combat action with an NPC suitable to your ability. Now, consider three times that many players on at once. It would be disappointing, and dare I say, frustrating. A game is meant to be fun. Once you reach a comfortable number of players, that would plateau, as any more and you've have players quitting as constant as you'd have new players.
Ugh. There are many obvious ways to fix that.
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Eyoro, you'll notice that I'm not disagreeing with you. I have said multiple times that this is only step one of balancing out the economy, and not the only change that will come. We just can't fix everything in one sitting, so some things will appear skewed at first.
Tell you what - I'm NOT looking forward to step 2 !!
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I don't see the whining or teeth gnashing. It was merely a warning of things to come, and it is coming to pass. I have spoken to a quite a number of crafters, and they are severly unhappy with the slow in business. (Not that that is any indication of imbalance.) The point I was making was simple...
Too drastic a change can lead to unsettling results, and therefore unhappy players. I was attempting to be productive in my first post.
This brings to mind a thought:
This being an RP game, first and foremost, the reduction in gold or ANY of the tweaking would be best handled IN GAME. Perhaps a town crier with news would be a nice touch, or a bulliten board for DEVs to post news of upcoming changes in an RP context would quiet the uproar.
Perhaps a zealot appears and declares that the gods (one of the DEVs choice) have ordered an extraplanar temple of gold built and has taken some of the gold!
-OR-
Merchant caravans have found a new, safer route, reducing rogues' raids, and therefore, rogues' loots have been reduced.
These are things that could possibly help ease the pain for some changes the players find negative changes all done in an RP sense.
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Oh really.
Yes really. If you can read constructive criticism without getting hot under the collar, yes really. Roderyck Slywolfe has been genuine, constructive, critical, AND impersonal as I read it.
You should try it.
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Constructive criticizm stops being constructive when you continue to do it despite being assured that devs keep all those things in mind. If you just assume you know better despite not having insight into internal matters behind the game design, you are just being annoying. Everytime something changes, there's an army of people saying the project will fail. Surprisngly enough, so far none of those prophecies turned out right. If you have something to complain about, that's cool. But doing what I mentioned in second sentence is bothering devs with absurd beliefs more than anything else.
The complaint threads are useful when it comes to informing devs what the players find to be faulty. Devs can take these complaints into consideration, but arguing over these matters won't change anything. It's only wasting time which could otherwise be used for the actual development.
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This was originally posted in the discussion forum, but was moved. ::|
It was intended, and still is, as a discussion. If you look back at my posts, you'll see a number of useful ideas.
Please do not turn this topic into an argument. I'd like it to be useful in the future. Maybe I'll just collect my ideas into one post and start a new topic in discussions...
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My issue with your ideas is that most of them seem like short-term plans, while as far as I know devs aim for the long-term plans. The two will conflict.
Now the issue with this discussion:
You go on about how PS economy will make PS fail. Other people who have absolutely no insight into PS development will agree to that. That's where people start spreading panic and reducing morale without even realising what the real plans are. Now if a dev wants to stop this, they may try to assure players that everything is under control. Still, Planeshift's policy doesn't allow devs to disclose info about the planned development. So players start to argue and keep spreading low morale.
Results are as follows:
- devs use their time to argue, not to develop.
- morale among players decreases.
- the project doesn't change direction anyway.
- sometimes frustrated players simply attack devs.
Do you really see point in such discussions? Do you feel like taking the risk?
The conflicts between players and devs were very visible over the past weeks. Needless to say it was very damaging for the atmosphere and with each passing week I'm simply losing enjoyment in working for this project. In other words, I treat it as job one would do to make a living with the simple exception that it doesn't actually let me make a living. So from myself I'd like to ask you and anyone else concerned to just put some trust in what the devs do. Complain if you must, that's okay. But please let devs do the discussing and deciding over the matters. There are many different things to discuss. No need to step onto devs' territory.
P.S. If you want to avoid arguments, never use words "you're wrong" in a discussion.
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Well, I'm at a loss here. I've been over this whole topic and fail to see where I was argumentative.
I will start a new topic with some ideas I've had. This one seems to have turned sour.
I apologize, if you felt I was attacking the DEVs. That simply isn't my intent.
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Settle in folks, this is going to be a long one.
No, I think UtM has a point. And I think we should be addressing it.
In the name of realism, settings is now in discussions as to whether to change the spawn rate of all "humanoids" to once per hour, or possibly longer, and I must say, the talks have been pretty positive. Sure it'll cause scrambles in the arena until all the NPCs there're dead, so people can get the loot of their bodies, and sources of income will be decreased (at least from player-to-npc merchant)...but hey! That's realism for you.
Yes, I do have a point. And I will get to it. Put your snarky back on the shelf. ;)
a future game design idea then. :)
for the glads in the arena, since you can talk to them and what not, it would make sense long term wise that the character must first talk to them to engage them in combat, and it acts somewhat as a duel thing. and long term, perhaps the glad doesn't die if they lose and then upon winning, the character receives a little prize thing for besting them. could go hand in hand with the long term but everyone wanted duel system that doesn't have the character die upon a loss.
thugs, bandits, angry critters in the wild and whatnot, would just be fight to the death as the are the more barbaric/ shady mobs. :)
Getting warmer…
MOBs respawning once an hour is the WORST idea I've ever heard. If that is implemented, you can certainly count me out of playing PS. :thumbdown:
Not the worst idea, just think it out more. For the rest, absolutely true if done wrong. We don’t want that. (no sarcasm in that.)
If PS is at all successful in the future, MOB killing will be absolutely POINTLESS, as they will all be gone before you have a chance to get there.
Trust me on this one...DO NOT be concerned about realism as much as fun. I have designed many a roleplaying game in my day. My biggest mistake was making it too realistic at the expense of fun.
Oh ye of little vision. There are ways of both realism AND having fun enough for all.
Come on, people clearly want realism to reign supreme in PS.
Under the moon, back me up on this one.
Oh, I do, but it is going to require less sarcasm, an adjustment to the spawns and spawn rates, and a Settings change to accommodate both realism, and many, many (endless) baddies. The answer is right in front of you.
holy crap! realism or no ... that has got to be one of the worst things I can think of to happen. I can name several different spots right now where people are standing several deep waiting to get their shot at killing "the bad guy". …portion of RPGers that love the hack-n-slash. ... ya gotta keep the hack.
Point one, no, it is not a bad idea to space spawns out by an hour. It just takes some thinking out of the RPG ‘box’. And yes, H-n-S is absolutely need in an RPG. In fact, I would say it should be a necessity. Your example of people standing several deep is -exactly- why the spawns need to be timed out longer. "My turn" is about the stupidest 'RP' (yes, that -was sarcasm) I have ever seen. There is a way, though...there is a way...
/me starts to get an evil look.
If I now think about this one only spawning once an hour, I'm sure I would still not be able to craft steel stock because I wouldn't have had the PP for the training.
Please think about this.
I have, and I think it a good idea... but with changes. First thing that needs to go are the PP. Stupid system in the first place, and why a lot of this ‘madness’ has started in the first place. PP are simply NOT NEEDED, and will be replaced. Stop basing your thinking on them, folks. They are on the way out.
Fethrin and Slywolfe know exactly how to run a game well
listen to them
They know how to run a hack-n-slash leveling based game well, not a realistic RP game with H-n-S as something fun to do for those who like it.
but you need to be rich in order to train
training is very expensive
especially in the higher levels
BINGO!! Give the man a cookie for seeing right to the heart of the problem. The cost of training is insane and one of the most unrealistic things in the game. Cut it, then cut it again. Then, get rid the exponential raise in cost for each level, and replace it with a more flat rate system for all basic levels. Instead, charge people more if they want accelerated training. If people want to power level, make them pay for it with personal trainers (in the future), for the rest of use, give us cheap, slow, basic training that does not cost any more for level 10 than level 100. That is where you start the balance.
We just can't fix everything in one sitting, so some things will appear skewed at first.
Things are skewed. All that has happened is that people are spending more time doing the most boring thing in the game to pay for the insane cost of training, or switching to mining (yes mining) the already crowded baddies, or quitting the game. As I have said before on mining, do not make it take longer. Just limit what can be taken in a day.
Personally, I think the Trias should be made even more scarce than they are now.
Yes! Exactly. If the cost of training was reduced, time to train increased, and the gain of tria cut, then items and upkeep would become the main cost of the game. Those are two things players can provide without great need of NPCs. Instead of players having to ‘vanish’ BILLIONS (maybe trillions) of tria to NPCs for training, they could earn 1% of what they do now, and not need any more than that. Money would pass between players more often than it would go to NPCs. Balance continues there.
That's where you're wrong, my friend. In almost EVERY medieval RP setting, adventurers make up 1% of the entire populous. Now, there aren't many NPC's, but in reality, the plaza should be crawling with them. There should be farms all over the countryside, and NPC's should outnumber the players 99 to 1, but that's just not possible or practical.
Draklar is never wrong, just misunderstood. Just as you seem to be misunderstanding the meaning of 'roleplaying'. It does not mean playing the hero every time, or 'talking in a chat room'. RP is taking ANY role. I have had over twenty characters in this game so far. Not a one of them have been an adventurer. Nor do I just stand around talking with them. I play their role as best I can without the support for those roles in the game yet. As for farms, yes, there should be farms. Many, many farms. They should also be player owned and/or run, be it with hiring NPCs to work your ground, other players, or yourself. Myself, I would very much like a Harvest Moon type play style added to the game. All your ‘adventurers’ bore me to death sometimes.
Ugh. There are many obvious ways to fix that.
Exactly. There are many ways to fix many things. first you must ask yourself how it can be done before you cry about why it should not be.
Too drastic a change can lead to unsettling results, and therefore unhappy players.
This being an RP game, first and foremost, the reduction in gold or ANY of the tweaking would be best handled IN GAME.
Yes and yes. And I have stated how to do both earlier in this thread.
P.S. If you want to avoid arguments, never use words "you're wrong" in a discussion.
Ehem...
You are wrong.
Looking for a fight, aye?
Now, as for the ‘simple’ short term solution with longer term practicality, cut the spawn times to about one hour (or even ten minutes, and not the same time for each, if possible) for each humanoid spawn. -Then- put in ten times as many (or more) spawns for baddies, and just as many for Gladiators (good guys…sort of). Make it seem like there are about fifty to one hundred different Gladiators in the Arena, with the same exact number as there are now fighting at a time, but appearing in slightly different positions and times. The ‘hour’ downtime is simply what each one needs for rest before going to fight again. Now, instead of having the Glads give out swords and loot, have them give out ‘prize money’ in the form of tria, and perhaps the stronger ones would give out a ‘rare’ sword once in a while as a prize. The reason for this is that characters would then not be looting the Glads, but would be receiving payment for entertaining the ‘crowds’ (make NPC crowds).
The spawns of humanoid bad are a little more tricky, and needs a bit of a Settings bend. Since these guys always seem to come fully armed and ready to kill…but can not, in fact, loot their victims due to how the DR works (settings-wise), the reason for their attacks must be most sinister. I propose to NOT explain where they come from, and simply keep popping them into the game with the one hour staggered, but ten times as many spawns. Place books in the libraries -speculating- where these strange people come from, but never give a solid explanation (yet). Add an interesting twist to it in a future implementation by forming a portal over the spawns, and dropping the baddies out of it. Planeshifting, anyone? ‘Realism’ and Hack-N-Slash both achieved, with a heavy dose of roleplayability and a possible future story unfolding.
Balancing mining. Also not a big deal, mechanics or Settings-wise. But first both the cost of training and the payout and weight of gold (or other money crop) has to be reduced. In future implementation, players could be limited to how much gold they can mine in a day. This would be done by sanctions from the government, only allowing citizens to keep a certain amount of ‘first’ gold or ore dug, and the rest would be heavily taxed. This is both realistic and limiting, without wasting a player’s time (in combination with flat rate cost of training). Getting in good with an NPC mining faction could get you bonuses in either payout or allowed take. With adjustments, this would achieve realism , fun, and balance. For those who would create alts to mine as well, so what? There is no finish line in this game, so no one is getting there first. The problem with bots is not as easy to fix, and needs a new system that is hard to bot, as well as more realistic and fun. (and yes, I have the seeds of an idea for that as well.)
Perhaps some of this is exacly what the Devs have in mind, perhaps not. In my mind, nerfing gold the way it was is a wrong step in the right direction, robbing from fun in hopes of getting some little balance.
In ending, I have this to say to you. There is always a way, and never doubt the moon.
/me smiles.
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*curtsies to UtM*
You have far more patience than I in explaining things. That and I end up making to short (and therefore incomplete) or too long (and therefore rambling and circular) of a post.
As you have just explained it ... it would make far more sense. As I said in my second post, currently the cost of training is what skews players into having to get money any way possible. Which under the current system you've really only got two options (for any sustainable appreciable amount) ... mine or kill.
I like your thinking though. I'm sure the Dev team will be groaning right after they read your post ... but it does make a lot of sense.
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The heavily abridged version of UtM's post for the impatient ;)
- PP should be scrapped
- The cost of training is too expensive, it should be same for level 10 as level 100.
- Cut the spawn times to about one hour for each humanoid spawn AND add ten times as many (or more) spawns
- Instead of having the Glads give out swords and loot, have them give out ‘prize money’ in the form of tria
- Make NPC crowds to watch players fight Glads.
- Add portals over the spawns dropping the baddies out of it.
Even though I knew Jeraphon was joking, I thought it was a terrible idea to increase spawn times but I actually really like these ideas. They make sense and are well thought out. On the other hand, I really disliked spending 30 minutes reading one post. ;D
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The only things I disagree with UtM is:
1. I was saying Draklar was >ahem< incorrect in his assessment that there are too many adventurers. Not, that RP is about solely being an adventurer.
2. I despise hack and slash campaigns and have always focused on skill-based adventures in my 29 years of D&D.
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Just one question from me...
Why do lower level mining skills have better success at Gold mining than mining level 20 chars using a Master Pick. I have tried this out on a few occasions..at least 8 hours real life experimentation with different spots...at both Oja and BD mines.
I don't understand the logic to this. I am over the whole concept of mining and am Really Bored and even though I thought I would never leave PS...I am about to make tracks for that other game...I really am over spending so much Real Time in front of a rock trying to accumulate enough gold for one level...especially when lower levels seem to be doing better at me at mining.
Not Happy
Don't understand the logic....in fact think it's insane.
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ya make it more realistic.
why your at it make all charactors human.
hell, make all weapons realistic.
make time realistic, money realistic. all of it
make it so realistic its the same as real life. that will be fun
whatever happend to the quote "believable not realistic"
it seems like originality and creativity for this game has gone out the window. the majority of concepts and charactors and ideas have just come from many other games and movies before.
more realism, more its like every other game out there.
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I'm assuming this is what Neko meant by the "main thread" on the economic issue, so I'll post here since my thread was locked.
Originally posted by neko kyouran:
thank you for stating exactly what everyone has been stating for the past couple of days now. your complaint is acknowledged and is being looked into.
Well, if it's what everyone else is stating, for several DAYS, then why are we still being left in the dark, and why hasn't it been fixed yet? Return the system to the way it was - it may not be perfect, but at least it didn't drive people away as much as the new system is! When a new, actual WORKING system is devised that WON'T utterly destroy the economy, and THEN implement it, but please don't screw us in the meantime.
I love playing PS. The players are great, a much higher standard than other MMORPG's, and the concept of total open-ended RP is something I don't think any other game has truly touched on as much as PS has. But if I can't actually DO anything in the game because I have no money, and I can't get money because I don't have the training to do so because I need the money to train to begin with, then I don't see how I can truly enjoy this game.
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Well, if it's what everyone else is stating, for several DAYS, then why are we still being left in the dark, and why hasn't it been fixed yet? Return the system to the way it was - it may not be perfect, but at least it didn't drive people away as much as the new system is! When a new, actual WORKING system is devised that WON'T utterly destroy the economy, and THEN implement it, but please don't screw us in the meantime.
You are not being left in the dark, you just hadn't been looking for the light switch. It has been clearly stated by the Devteam that this is not a bug, it does not need fixing. And the economy has not been destroyed, read the thread(s).
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Mooney, I didn't seek a fight. Just messing with you. You did specifically ask me to say that ;)
1. I was saying Draklar was >ahem< incorrect in his assessment that there are too many adventurers. Not, that RP is about solely being an adventurer.
And I didn't say there's too many adventurers, but that adventurers have much better ways to earn money than mining and as such they won't be full-time miners anyway. If someone is a full-time miner, he won't earn enough (nor will need to) to buy all the best combat equipment.
Looking at recent posts... Do you people know how much time it took to buy the very cheapest sword back in MB? Weeks, if you were very active. And you know what else? We were fine with that. At least wielding a sword was a sign of some higher status. Now you can get the same thing within an hour. The economy wasn't broken by recent changes. It is just you, players, who are spoiled with some buggy features and cannot imagine life in a mmorpg without having everything you want. Well too bad. New players will come. They will get used to what the system is right now and my wild guess is they won't have any problems with that. You are playing a game in development. Get used to changes like that.
PS has been going through its development throughout the last 6 years. If that's not enough for you to grant some trust to the devs and show at least a bit of respect (this one's for you, Coneitic) then I really have no words for you.
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but you need to be rich in order to train
training is very expensive
especially in the higher levels
BINGO!! Give the man a cookie for seeing right to the heart of the problem.
can i have my cookie now? ;D
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It seems some of you don't seem to believe me when I say that the economy is being destroyed. Since most of you probably didn't read my thread on this, which was locked, I'll post it here.
From my understanding, the reason why we can no longer get a reasonable amount of gold is due to the dev's thinking that the economy was unbalanced with excess money. I would like to point out how badly flawed this idea is, and that drying up the gold mines has in fact shattered the economy in PS.
The few people who can be bothered standing around for hours to mine gold now, have to come back and charge more in auctions for their ore, sometimes up to 500T. This means smelters get less tria for smelting the gold and selling. The others are busy spending the little tria they have on training, which is ridiculously expensive, and then they have to mine again, which means they spend less time actually PLAYING the game. They have to train too, because the monsters are so difficult that newcomers can only barely kill rats, and no one is going to sit around and kill rats for several months before they can afford to train, so they will stop playing. Crafters will go out of business because not only is everyone too broke to buy their merchandise, but also their goods have to become even MORE expensive because smelters have to spend so much longer training to smelt stock for them, which means even fewer people will buy from them. People will be training less newcomers because they can't afford to fund them (and due to current flaws it's nigh impossible for a newcomer to get anywhere in the game without being handed weapons, armour or tria by someone else), so less new players will be wanting to play.
Apparently, the gold mines dried up to bring some "realism" into the game. Many players are considering leaving PS altogether because of these changes (myself included), and many more have already left. Yes, you brought some realism alright: you brought upon the Yliakum Great Depression!
I am also quite aware that this isn't a bug. I do read. The fact that this issue with gold is not a bug makes the point even more clear: this is a deliberate event that is ruining the experience of PS.
Think of the current RL world situation: oil is becoming harder to come by. Due to this one resource being harder to get, the entire world market is under stress - not just fuel, but things like food, building, everything. The gold in PS has become FAR worse than our real life issues with oil. The entire market is falling apart, and it's hard enough as it is to train anything and now we'll have newbies having to sit in the Hy sewers for months on end killing rats so they can afford to buy a pick, train up ONE level of mining, and spend hours just to get 5 ore pieces.
At the current rate, PS will die off before the end of the year unless something is done to correct this mistake.
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And just because you see one point, it doesn't mean you can ignore the rest without changing the meaning of a statement.
First he's dev prospect.
That's a fact that implies that he's a BIT more involved in development than the average PS player.
Last but not least he knows what he's talking about
And that is ME backing his former statements up.
I hope that is clearer now.
At the current rate, PS will die off before the end of the year unless something is done to correct this mistake.
Thanks for the concern, but this statement is as old as PS itself and we're still here :)
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Hmm, maybe it is time for me to get back to weapon-smithing, with a little time and effort I can make for myself and practice several skills ads I go along. I have plenty of pp's as I've done my time in the "militia" and my manufacturing ought to buy training for the various skills I will be practicing, Digging my own ore means it is all gravy. I suppose I should really start a fresh character to see how long it would take to get to the point where pp's are surplus but I suspect that by the time I get to level 20 in one armor type and one weapon, I'll be good to go because by that time I'll be able to fight the high pp reward critters. Maybe I'll do that. Of course starting my character with a fair amount of combat expertise will prime the process. Would it be considered a spoiler to start a character progression thread detailing development right from character naming right through in game training et al? It might help developers to see what kind of problems exist and where things could be tweaked. It might also help new players to decide how to design their characters, if enough experienced players followed suit.
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I'm cleaning up any posts here that are not made with the utmost courtesy - this goes for everyone, player or dev. Any more attacks, and this thread will be closed.
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It seems some of you don't seem to believe me when I say that the economy is being destroyed. Since most of you probably didn't read my thread on this, which was locked, I'll post it here.
From my understanding, the reason why we can no longer get a reasonable amount of gold is due to the dev's thinking that the economy was unbalanced with excess money. I would like to point out how badly flawed this idea is, and that drying up the gold mines has in fact shattered the economy in PS.
The few people who can be bothered standing around for hours to mine gold now, have to come back and charge more in auctions for their ore, sometimes up to 500T. This means smelters get less tria for smelting the gold and selling. The others are busy spending the little tria they have on training, which is ridiculously expensive, and then they have to mine again, which means they spend less time actually PLAYING the game. They have to train too, because the monsters are so difficult that newcomers can only barely kill rats, and no one is going to sit around and kill rats for several months before they can afford to train, so they will stop playing. Crafters will go out of business because not only is everyone too broke to buy their merchandise, but also their goods have to become even MORE expensive because smelters have to spend so much longer training to smelt stock for them, which means even fewer people will buy from them. People will be training less newcomers because they can't afford to fund them (and due to current flaws it's nigh impossible for a newcomer to get anywhere in the game without being handed weapons, armour or tria by someone else), so less new players will be wanting to play.
Apparently, the gold mines dried up to bring some "realism" into the game. Many players are considering leaving PS altogether because of these changes (myself included), and many more have already left. Yes, you brought some realism alright: you brought upon the Yliakum Great Depression!
I am also quite aware that this isn't a bug. I do read. The fact that this issue with gold is not a bug makes the point even more clear: this is a deliberate event that is ruining the experience of PS.
Think of the current RL world situation: oil is becoming harder to come by. Due to this one resource being harder to get, the entire world market is under stress - not just fuel, but things like food, building, everything. The gold in PS has become FAR worse than our real life issues with oil. The entire market is falling apart, and it's hard enough as it is to train anything and now we'll have newbies having to sit in the Hy sewers for months on end killing rats so they can afford to buy a pick, train up ONE level of mining, and spend hours just to get 5 ore pieces.
At the current rate, PS will die off before the end of the year unless something is done to correct this mistake.
You are of course largely right. The main problem of PS economy wasn't the excess of gold but the lack of available and lucrative professions, specially for lowbies. Lowbies just can mine gold and mine gold and mine gold... there's no choice. With this "remedy", many midbies now have also no other choices because their once lucrative professions as goldsmiths are no longer profitable and there are not many midbie alternatives. Not sure about the highbies that have all or almost all skills maxed, they probably have something to profit from.
This drastic and not well pondered "solution" has simply eliminated the "middle class" (making them proletarians, like with any economical crisis). But being proletarian (gold miner) is still profitable, while crafting (the little crafting available) is not so much anymore. It's not like base workers are "starving", not at all: they just have to work longer, train mining more dedicatedly, and sell for as high as they can. For my low-strength magic-oriented char, it's been great in fact, as buyers now pay more in the mine than earlier in the city.
What the economy needs is easily developable midbie professions that are profitable... but if all the raw materials go directly to highbies (who also do the midbie tasks) because there's no enough offer... they can't compete at all.