PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Xillix Queen of Fools on May 14, 2008, 02:57:32 am
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We want to see how you feel since there seem to be some opposing viewpoints on this.
(if you are a rper try not to stereo-type yourself by saying platinum is destroying rp, please)
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I find that I cannot vote as I would wish, so I have not voted. I would like to take one from column a and one from column b, i.e. vote to reduce platinum as well as training costs. The way I would reduce the training costs is by reducing the skill levels ten-fold (or so) and giving more power per level. I would make the precious metals reflect their true current value (next to none) with only a slight premium for their theoretical value. I am not certain where the lumium sits in the scheme of things but it appears to be a weapon grade metal as opposed to jewelry grade so I would make silver 10% more valuable with gold and platinum 10% more each respectively. I would also make a greater value increase for processed alloys so that bronze and steel can compete as that stuff is actually useful. I believe gold can be used in shield making so processed gold might be worth more but as shields are less than functional it is debatable as to whether it should.
I think value in the game should be defined by what is actually useful as opposed to potentially useful. As things get implemented they can be role played as new Xacha (or whichever) inventions and values can be adjusted accordingly. It is still early days for Yliakum and what the entrails tell us it will be like does not have to affect current conditions.
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Prolix, that would be 'Other', me boy.
I voted I would put my thoughts below. However, I will wait until others have posted to do so.
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My suggestions did not entail changing code? :-\
I suppose I could vote that way anyhow just to see the results .... done.
In case it wasn't clear as lumium is top of weapon grade silver would be 10% above lumium's value then gold 10% more and finally platinum 10% more than gold.
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Other. :P
I agree very strongly with Prolix, if training in general can be lowered price-wise and level-needed-to-make-a-difference-wise, (Yay hyphens!) and the precious materials also brought down in price, plus the less-precious metals like steel or bronze or anything else that's not mined being raised in value would be great imho. this would more strongly balance the PS economy, and support alternative tria-making ideas.
I also think that if looted items can be brought into a comparable range with mining, we'll have a lot more people doing other stuff than sitting at the mine. Though, there's always the argument that people should be focusing on roleplay anyway... I'm not sure how to make people do that since roleplay's supposed to be something people do for fun, not necessarily for profit, and players still need money. (At least from what I've seen for the 5 months I've been playing.)
I hope that wouldn't be too much coding... But I've got no clue. :-[
Tell me what you think!
*Note, regardless of the outcome of this thread, phenominal game Devs! :D*
[Edit:] I'm sorry if this ivolves changing the code around, but other seems like the most fitting vote.
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Smurfs!!!
Although the lowering of training costs are quite tempting...but who can give up a chance to finally determine what color smurfs turn when they are choked?
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Maybe the price of platinum would not be such a big deal if it was not right next to a forge...
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Prolix for the things you suggest i don't think code would be needed, but i do think adjusting things based on what IS developed would have diminishing returns, too many adjustments to track.
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I think that the situation would improve if
a) harder to mine
b) monsters spawned nearby
c) the cost of training was lowered, as Prolix said
d) the forge wasn't next to the mine, as Izzy said
e) Platinum wasn't worth so much that it was irresistable
f) There were some incentives to do something else. I mean, I would love to sit in a tavern and interact, but I need the platinum to fund the things I plan. If I sat around in a tavern all day, I wouldn't be able to start anything. Although I suppose that makes sense, since I can't earn anything by not working, but still...
I think that just a few of these conditions would fix up the situation if they were met. It doesn't have to be all of them. Hopefully players will realize that there is more to life than mining, but hopefully something can be done in the meantime.
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That must have been the best post ever made on these forums. ::| :woot: :thumbup: >o) :offtopic: :sorcerer:
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I like turtles.
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I voted Smurfs because we know they would attack the miners and take the platinum for themselves. Seriously though, digging for platinum is all too convenient right now--it's in the same sector as a furnace/stock casting/merchant and no mobs spawn there--and it should be more annoying or more dangerous to the miners.
Af of now, reducing the cost of training will only encourage grind in my opinion.
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As soon as I stopped staring at the hypnotic post Xillix made, I began to think that either platinum needs to be either harder to get or worth less, and there needs to be more incentive to do something other than mine to earn one's trias (currently, my only incentives are that it'd be against Monala's nature to mine, and the characters I usually play with/against are in Hydlaa most of the time).
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I'ld say, increase the prices of training.(less über miners) Increase the sell value of self crafted swords and looted ones (so less people will sell them for 'o.0' prices) and the income needed to train isn't totally depended on mining as fast as you can. And reducing platinum value may work, maybe it just should get a little harder to get it (though I'm not sure if the requires code changes).
With this, someone who trains a fighting skill (defensive aswell) can make more money from looting, which is needed becaause the training prices have increased. A miner would have less money and (perhaps) less platinum while the costs of training have risen :sorcerer:
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Sorry, but I think the possible answers are way too limited, especially when it comes to economy, so it is "Other" for me.
Since this game is still in "Alpha" and since so many "professions" are missing the balancing of the economy is almost an impossible task, at least in my eyes, as every profession you will add will threaten the balance again.
At the moment the ways to earn your living are very limited and this is reflected in economy. You either follow the way of the miners and smiths and you will have plenty of money or you don't and have some problems to earn enough money to afford the equipment you need for fighting. At the moment the prices that (player)smiths charge are absurdly high, at least if you can believe the "Auction"-channel.
When the time comes that "enough" jobs are available the adjustment of the economy will happen in iterations rather than a single step. So reducing the problem with economy to Platinum only is too limited.
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Since this game is still in "Alpha" and since so many "professions" are missing the balancing of the economy is almost an impossible task, at least in my eyes, as every profession you will add will threaten the balance again.
I doubt they'll be adding new professions in a "short term", so that's rather beside the point.
And besides, it's fairly easy to create economy code that won't be threatened by new additions.
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Training cost is now bigger than say 3 months ago? ;P
If comes about this aspect, there is nothing what can be done without changing the code.
the more we pay for training, the longer it takes to max and the more people may be interested in maxing, though from other side less people around will be allowed to rp maxed characters. There is no golden center. You need to develop a code.
I'm only laughing at people who say "it is too easy" or "it is too hard" as you just don't have a clue. (that would be xillix lol ;P. Ok, xillix was quoting, not saying ;) ) - maybe i shouldn't add this paragraph, afterall the more friendly we are the more people play this game. Lets all try to be smart.
All you can do about mining all types of resources right now is play with their sell price vs distance from selling point. For all the minerals the ratio should be close to the same.
This will make people to mine all kinds or resources, not only a single one.
But it won't cause any breakthough. Code has to be developed.
So I'm not voting, because closest answer is decrease platinum price, but then someone think it is all i wish, thile it is more.
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Just vote for either the closest thing or the item that partially fulfils your wishes. Else we could just have another 10+ page discussion thread instead of a poll and have it locked by neko once people inherently start to flame each other ;)
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Question: What should be done for the economy in the short term?
i voted "its good as it is"
my opinions on the different choices available O--)
- reducing platinum: hydlaa isnt enough deserted? ojaveda maybe? think a bit, before choosing this option, if you reduce more then people will dig more because the demand of trias will be the same (i.e: the cost of trainers for example will be the same.) i think you just love digging ores and its too easy for you :) :lol:
- Increase Platinum: well, then why had reduced gold? if you begin to increase platinum, people who craft with gold would only wait one thing: Crafting with Platinum! :)
for the economy, in short term, prices will rise up because: people have more cash => offer is '=' => demand rises => if demands rises, prices rises too.
(economics 6th year of college theory)
- Remove Platinum.: people are used to have it now, they awaited its return till (uh...well i would say summer 2006, the time i began playing =) ) summer 2006. try to take back the food from a dog while he is eating and you will get hurt. (just an example to get my idea, it wont happen like that :P)
- Reduce the cost of training. : well at a short term that might not affect a lot, but well indeed this would be benefits in long term. if you reduce the cost of training then all is possible. even casual-players can really play! hunting, baking, cooking, selling weapons would be (uh again xD making profit?..) profit-able. (long term problems isnt asked here so wont developp them. :) )
the rest of ideas are personals or jokes, i will read them now. =)
(dont quote me if you have objections, just answer the main question, thanks. :P)
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Reducing training costs? So that those who already have several milions can be happy in the long term..?
Well, honestly I don't believe that any those options would "fix" economy in the short term. And it's indeed hard to fix it at all, and even harder to fix/improve it without changing code.
Economy means "dependence".
If the miners don't pay the warriors well enough, the warriors will not protect them. No protection = the "thieves" will come and kill + loot the miners income, thus they'll have less left as if they'd pay the warriors. (needless to say that a miner can't simply switch from "I'm a great miner" to "I'm a super warrior")
The more miners actually do mine, the lower will the price per ore be.
Miners also depend on people bringing food to them, otherwise they'll be too weak to be able to mine. So, paying some merchants. Merchants buy the food from cooks, cooks buy ingredients from "hunters". Hunters and "protectors" again need weapons which are made by smiths who buy the raw materials from miners.
If there are "too many warriors/protectors", they will of course get a low income. Too many miners lowers the income for them also.. and the same for "too many cooks" and "too many merchants" and "too many hunters" etc, etc, etc.
And NO, there ought not be any "Warrior hunter mining smithy mage cook". Currently it seems like 95% of the guilds ought to change their name.. to something including "Mining" or "Miners". It's easy, "of"-guilds simply change it to "X of Mining", those who have a "X Y"-naming sheme, may try "X Miners".. etc... uhmm.. well, back to topic.
People need to get weak without food. People need to depend on each another (at least they can't do _everything_). People should be "more efficient" if they depend on each another. (More efficient = miner buys food = miner gets refreshed and can mine better again. Miner pays his warriors = warriors will protect them = less loss to the thieves.) Add some "boredom"-factor.
Lowering the "training cost" is a bad idea imho. It should rather be raised and Tria should rather be made worth less. (and easier to be obtained by not-mining. Maybe even be wiped to get at least back to some quasi-stable economy.) Some kind of "fix income / base income" might be interesting .. but that must be thought out very well.
Ileresa and Yadili earn, I think about 10 Tria a day.. selling apples and food. Why so few do actually buy, I don't understand.. if they're too tight-fisted to pay one Tria for an apple.. well.. they could even sell it again for 1 Tria - having no loss at all. Well unless you don't like to RP, because otherwise you'll lose your precious mining-time. ;D
Edit:
For those who voted: Reduce Platinum. It will not really change much, since the mining guilds (~95% of the guilds) already have their millions ;)
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After reading Arerano's comment about getting weak, another thing that comes to mind is that with low level players, using the /dig command is very taxing on stamina--you need 10% mental stamina to use /dig or else it will tell you that you are too tired. A new player can probably fire the /dig command 3 or 4 times before having to take a rest. On the other hand, high level players have an unfair advantage right now in that there is absolutely no stamina loss when using /dig, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense because you have to tire out sometime. Thus, high level players can continuously fire the /dig command all day and all night without ever tiring. I know this isn't specific to platinum but I am just throwing this in here as a possible annoyance to look into. I don't know off the top of my head if this is in the progression event table or in the code itself.
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In my eyes, two things are vital for a working economy. First of all, get the NPCs out of it, or reduce their buying prices drastically. NPCs are the source of the sheer endless amount of money in the economy, and that makes most trading senseless. I'd prefer a viable player economy in the long term run, without any NPCs. For now, reduced buying prices would work as well, because then players would think twice before selling all their platinum to Harnquist. That way, resources are kept in the economy, and offer and demand, not fixed NPC prices would determine the price. Secondly, the cost of training needs to be reduced to fit the lowered income.
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I voted for one of the joke options as I'm not in game enough to be able t formulate a good suggestion on how to fix the economy, less be able to tell that it needs fixing.
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I voted to reduce the cost of training, and I'll tell ya why. It is too expensive. But...seriously. I love to quest in this game. It is challenging and I feel, one of the most interesting facets. I also want to be a 'well rounded' player and am pursuing crafting, magic, and building a legitimate charactor. If training costs were lowered, I think that a more robust and larger player base would be the result. Playing Planeshift, as I feel it is meant to be played, encourages me and my charactor to become multi-faceted. By doing this, my success, both 'personal' and from a RP standpoint, is greatly enhanced. By reducing training cost, each charactor IG and the game as a whole will be more well-rounded. As an aside, I couldn't help but notice that 'reduce platinum' was outstripping all other categories. I found this interesting, since every time I go to Gugrontid to mine it, the hill is packed with players. It seems we are compelled to mine this ore. It is the quickest way to turn tria, which enables me to pay for overpriced training....and everbody loves to mine, right?
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I voted other because I don't know enough. If there is a feeling that platinum is destroying the economy, my question is... what else is there? An economy needs many items to work. I think if there is a problem here it's that there is not enough goods to sustain a healthy economy. Expand the choices more, provide competing crafting materials, give some more things for people to spend their money on and diversify the choices. I don't think there's enough in game right now to be concerned with the economy. It's not going to function very well at this point in time.
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First of all, get the NPCs out of it, or reduce their buying prices drastically. NPCs are the source of the sheer endless amount of money in the economy, and that makes most trading senseless.
Well, but NPCs - on the other hand - are the reason that Tria are needed at all. ;)
I voted to reduce the cost of training, and I'll tell ya why. It is too expensive. But...seriously.
I also want to be a 'well rounded' player and am pursuing crafting, magic, and building a legitimate charactor.
*sighs* Multi-purpose-I-can-do-everything-myself characters are not really a.) realistic. b.) helping a multi-player-environment to be experienced as such.
A: "Greetings Sire, would you like to have a look at my fine collection of crafted weaponry? I am buying those from the smiths to sell them for really good prices."
B: "No thanks, I craft weapons on my own."
A: "Oh, you might be interested in some raw materials maybe? Miners deliver ores and coal and such, those I sell to the crafters. I'm a merchant, you know?"
B: "Thanks for the offer, but I'm mining my materials by myself when needed."
A: "Then you might be interested in some foods or drinks offered by the Ladies over yonder? Must be quite straining to do so many things yourself."
B shakes his head "I'm hunting my food when I'm hungry. That's what I craft the weapons for... I am also selling my weapons."
A: "Seems like you don't need anything, hmm?"
B ponders "Oh.. yes, there is something I'd like to buy. Maybe you can tell me .. who's selling some magic stuffs? I'm greatly interested in bringing my magic skills to perfection....."
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In my eyes, two things are vital for a working economy. First of all, get the NPCs out of it, or reduce their buying prices drastically. NPCs are the source of the sheer endless amount of money in the economy, and that makes most trading senseless. I'd prefer a viable player economy in the long term run, without any NPCs.
This will only work in a MMO(RP)G if you can guarantee that there are enough players with the appropriate interests online 24h/day or players who play at less convenient times will have a great disadvantage.
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IMHO:
Make other ways of crafting - and make them valuable too.
Oh, sorry -- you asked for "short term solutions"... :-[
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Ok, here comes my "short term" improvements-list which doesn't need any code changes.
Increase the loot (income for fighters) A good fighter shouldn't earn less than a bad miner. (but don't increase the "crafted"-weapon prices for selling them to NPC)
Increase weapons decay rate or, probably even better lower the 'repair to'-value[/b]. Making weapons ruined quicker.
Let food actually 'refresh' people. eg: water pouch = refreshes mental stamina. fish = refreshes physical stamina. apple = increases a bit of both.
This will lead to more people fighting which will in combination with weapon max-quality-decrease raising the need of crafted weapons.
Miners (and fighters) will buy food if it actually helps them which increases the sales for merchants.
Some change of less importance:
Since the smith of Gugrontid already bought plenty platinum, why should he need any more? Let people go to deserted Hydlaa again.. caravans could emerge and earn some little income or carrying the ores from the mines to the smiths.. or for carrying the ingots to Hydlaa.
[all those things can be implemented with progression_events (food refreshes) or by altering other things in the DB]
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I voted for "Reduce Platinum", because platinum is a rare metal, much more rare than it currently is, ingame. Also platinum is not used for much in reallife and it wouldn't make sense to do much with it in yliakum. It's main use is for onarments and decoration. for weapons and shields it is not useable, because it is too soft (perhaps for decoration weapons and shields for guild halls :P)
More sense would make a Titanium mine tho, but it must give very little platinum to be worth much for player crafters.
my 2 tria :P
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Some good impressions so far and some adjustments will be made once the poll closes.
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I think that reducing platinum actually makes "the current economy" worse.
You will wonder "why that?".
Reducing the "income" only raises the value of the existing Trias. If platinum gets halved, 1 Million will be worth about 2 Millions. Of course, it doesn't mean that you can train more with the same amount of Tria, but the money already exists. Those who "followed" the mining-trend will get "rich" over night because it's getting twice as hard to earn as much as they already possess.
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"Increase loot" - I second that, because:
I feel it at least illogical to see NPCs like rogues fighting with weapons, but never dropping any weapons. Not sure if there are still any Rogues giving only experience but never any loot, but they did exist.
Furthermore, after you forced weapon crafting by removing weapon sales, basic weapons are now hardly worth anything since most people have a superior one (at least those who can afford any).
Third: I play several chars. So I feel the difference between fresh and experienced chars. I often feel that progressing is the harder the less experienced one is. One factor are unpredictable animals (too randomly randomized stats, especially Tefusang near Ojaveda). I would rather fight an arena animal which looks "stronger", than a wilderness animal that looks "weaker", because I am afraid that the weak looking animal kills my char in 2-3 hits, while the "stronger" looking in the arena will be defeated with good weapons. Less mistrust in unpredictable opponents, combined with a better loot chance, may spread the interest again, away from the mines, back to the NPC fights.
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I think the level in mining could be usefull to deal with that.
Reorganize the level of mining with the different ressources, platinum possible to mine at mining level 50 + monsters, far from a forge like in bdoors. That's an example :)
Price of levels in consequence, more you got level, more expensive it could be to train.
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"Today you can explore the virtual world, interact with other players or with server controlled creatures, fight monsters, cast spells, solve quests and puzzles, improve your character, gain magical items and more."
Did i miss something or aren't we, as players encouraged to grow our charactor to his/her fullest potential. Arerano miisses my point, and apparrently the point of the poll. In my mind we were supposed to express our opinion on how to 'fix' the economy. Lowering training cost immediately allows our charactors to grow. It also allows us to become multi-faceted in respect to what we have to offer, not ouly to each other, but to the game intself. A diversified economy, whether IG or RL is vibrant and grows. When prices drop, demand goes up, be it for Training or for widgets. Instead of picking apart somebodies post, why not offer an opinion on the topic. It's what I think would be expected from someone of your stature.
P.S. The quote above is off the front page of the site in case you didn't recognize it.
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Arerano miisses my point, and apparrently the point of the poll. In my mind we were supposed to express our opinion on how to 'fix' the economy.
It can't really be fixed without changing code. The question was rather "what can be done for it", aka how can it be improved at least. Lowering the training cost (everyone who spends some time at the mines can quickly earn several 10K-Tria) will not help in the least since crafters and warriors are still left out (economy-wise).
There are guilds which have mined more than 10 million Tria.(or even have more than 10 Millions left after buying a house) Lowering the training will only enable them to MAX even more chars. The question isn't "How to make leveling easier" but how to balance the ways of possible income (including what already has been earned).
@Joombiel: Did you see my previous post also?
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Smurf's Rool! BLAAAAH
Serious note - an object only has as much value as the individual is willing to pay for it.
You say plat for example is ruining the economy - so lower the price of who ever is buying it- supply and demand people
SUPPLY AND DEMAND
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My answer is that I need more data. How many trias are in circulation? How many ores of different types are being sold to NPCs, and what are the average amounts per day, per month, et cetera? How much money is being pored into what trainers? How do we take into account hoarded items such as glyphs or silver falchions, et cetera?
Until we know how much is out there, how much is moving around, and how much is hoarded it is very hard to answer this question. I say we add the ability to track these different values, do the wipe, get everybody back to 0 money and 0 items, run the system for 6 months and re-evaluate what we learned before we make any changes.
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the various monster strengths will be fixed when someone writes code to determined experience rewards based on the hp and skills of the mob in question that is CODE.
I already drastically upped all loots 3 months ago. If we have to do it again so be it.
I am not putting more basic weapons into circulation via mobs.
I liked Arerano and serghet(sp)'s suggestions so far.
I should add, I have no intent whatsoever to concern myself at all with the people who have already mined a lot. It is in no way an argument that will figure into what adjustments we make as a result of this thread. I ask that anyone participating in this argument drop that line of suggestion from the argument. The money will dry up, I am not concerned with it, the game is in alpha, stuff happens.
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*sighs* Multi-purpose-I-can-do-everything-myself characters are not really a.) realistic. b.) helping a multi-player-environment to be experienced as such.
A: "Greetings Sire, would you like to have a look at my fine collection of crafted weaponry? I am buying those from the smiths to sell them for really good prices."
B: "No thanks, I craft weapons on my own."
A: "Oh, you might be interested in some raw materials maybe? Miners deliver ores and coal and such, those I sell to the crafters. I'm a merchant, you know?"
B: "Thanks for the offer, but I'm mining my materials by myself when needed."
A: "Then you might be interested in some foods or drinks offered by the Ladies over yonder? Must be quite straining to do so many things yourself."
B shakes his head "I'm hunting my food when I'm hungry. That's what I craft the weapons for... I am also selling my weapons."
A: "Seems like you don't need anything, hmm?"
B ponders "Oh.. yes, there is something I'd like to buy. Maybe you can tell me .. who's selling some magic stuffs? I'm greatly interested in bringing my magic skills to perfection....."
That's all well and good, but consider that people do need to eat, so therefor every person should really be able to cook, even warriors and miners. And really, how hard is it to dig? Since it's just a matter of finding the right spot. Those don't really seem like very challenging skills to believe that any person couldn't learn them all. I'm an engineer/programmer, but I can also woodwork, play guitar/piano, play sports competitively, and dabble in all sorts of other tradeskill type projects in real life. Would I take them all to master level? No, but it's not unrealistic to think a warrior might be able to do a few things other than fight. Now, a warrior/sorcerer, that may be asking a bit much.
This issue is best dealt with by classes, which PS has decided against. I don't see how you can restrict people from being jack-of-all tradesmen without some game mechanics. Sooner or later, people will just work on everything because there is only so much you can program for them to do. Classes would restrict the warrior-sorcerer potential. If classes are a no-no, then you might consider restricting the number of statistics that a person put their points into. Maybe allow only 15 statistics to increase (just an arbitrary number as an example), and after that, all the others become untrainable. Not saying that's a good idea; it does seem to be out of PS's goals, but it would help the economy by forcing a dependency on others for certain items.
I think as PS grows and has more tradeskills and more things to drive the economy, this will take care of itself. You will have power levelers who do everything no matter what you do, because the other answers to all your questions in your little dialog could just as easily be, "No, sorry, I have another character who does all that" and still be within the bounds of role playing.
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Make mining harder (reducing the price or dig success rate)? I can't stand it as it is. Remember, this thread is about fixing the economy, not making the game less fun. If you are nerfing fun to try to force people into other trades or reduce the amount of money coming into the economy, you are thinking the wrong way. Making things less fun reduces the number of players as well as money flow, so is counter productive short and long term.
'Fun' is giving people a feeling of accomplishment. Not a false sense, though. You do not want people to walk away from something saying "I -finally- was able to do that. God that sucked. I never want to have to do something like that again." You want this reaction instead: "That was hard and took a long time, but was interesting. I might do it again if I find the time."
If something is more fun, you -can- make it worth less, as part of the payment is the fun of doing the activity.
I advise everyone voting to keep these things in mind.
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I liked Arerano and serghet(sp)'s suggestions so far.
Recognized! Yes! \\o// :offtopic:
Anyways, here is my comprehensive list of fixes, in paragraph format. I think this would almost absolutely fix it. Arerano has some really nice ideas, especially about the loot. I also borrowed from Prolix and a few others. ;)
Move the mine farther from Gurgontid, maybe nearer to the fortress, where it takes longer to mine. Most platinum player buyers pay 1000 trias per platinum. If it was reduced by 300-400, and the store keepers also had a reduction, there would be less inflation. Next, add some monsters around the mine, maybe cutthroats or something similar. Increase their loot, and give them a script that programs them to only attack those that attack the cutthroats directly or players that try to mine the platinum. They could be blockading the platinum for their own plots. Meanwhile, the cost of training is slightly lowered, discouraging hoarding and spending vast amounts of time mining.
I think this is the recipe for a very complete success, although again, just a few of these will probably balance out the economy. The most dire issues are, in my opinion: too much platinum, too close to the city, and not enough loot dropped from monsters.
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Can't prove it, but I suspect a significant percentage of platinum miners are alts digging mindlessly for their mains as effectively slave workers. They just dig and dig and hand it all over when they get a full load, given just enough tria to train the next mining level or relevant stats needed to increase production of the machine. The mains are out doing their fun things like hunting, crafting, even RP, burning through the cash from the platinum mine to support their other activities. I'm confident the server logs all transactions and I would think a review of all transactions involving platinum would bear this theory out. I've also sold a bit of platinum to a few collector drones, so I know they are out there. These are parked someplace, overburdened, loaded with tria, and buy from anyone who walks up to it without a word. It's like pouring aluminum cans into an automated recycler that spits out money by weight of what is fed into it. Whoever is running them is off someplace with their main and just answering trades and firing off auctions to buy in the other window.
I think there should be a minimum skill to do the higher ores like silver/gold/platinum but once attained, productivity should be on par across the board. What I mean is that an L5 miner should have about the same success rate with iron and coal as an L25 miner has with platinum, but the L5 miner should have near zero success at silver or gold or platinum. Once a miner has invested the time and training and practice to be able to get these higher value ores, they should be rewarded better (they've earned it because it should take weeks to get there instead of days IMHO). Should miners have to deal with rogues and creatures crawling out of the rocks and ground where they dig? Personally I think that would be fun to have them randomly occur, adding a bit of surprise and risk to the job. Would warriors be interested in protecting the miners from these random spawnings. I think so, because spawn camping gets boring, but reacting to these can be a bit more exciting in running after them to catch and kill them. Would miners have to pay them? Not if the "take" is sufficient in loot and experience I wouldn't think. Imagine having your dig interrupted because you disturb a creature in the ground that is quite angry over it. Miner backs off and warrior steps in for the engagement, kills, loots, waves, and the miner resumes. Such could keep warriors quite busy and I just think that would be fun. Mine Games...how many crawly creatures can you bag in an hour: for this you need miners to dig and trigger the creatures and a team of warriors to get after them. Winner buys the beer because he gets the most loot. Band of rogues spawns in some random place behind a building and executes a little raid...Warriors dash to defend the place out of loyalty, and for the loot. Since we already have player grouping, warriors in a mine area could form an ad-hoc defense squad that works together and they all share in the take. Low-end ores like Iron and Coal might have little creatures that most miners could dispatch themselves with less frequent raids or occurrence of harder mobs, while higher value mines like silver/gold/platinum would toss out progressively harder creatures. My point is that with a bit of help from random spawns and some cooperation the whole mining thing could be made fun and interesting instead of the mindless grind that it is today.
And why don't rock picks wear down or the handles occasionally break? Why is there no risk of injury to hands and feet while mining? How is it that we can acquire a better rock pick but we cannot make one? Such might have no bearing on mining success, but should last longer than a regular one. Tool sharpening kits anyone? Quality Degradation? Condition repairs by crafters?
I fully agree with Donari...take the NPC's out of the buying side of the equation, allowing a player-based economy to settle itself out. NPC's should still buy things, but at such a low price as to be a desperation choice for the seller. For this, there needs to be a correlation between goods and needs. We can cook, but no one is hungry. We can dig silver, gold, platinum, and lumium, but these are cash crops...nothing is made from any of them except a golden shield that has no defensive value. In case some of you haven't noticed, NPC's pay very little for iron and coal, yet because it is valuable in crafting that market segment has settled prices very well and the players in the trade have done that. There is sufficient reward for miners of those ores to be worthwhile, while allowing smelters and crafters to enjoy a reasonably predictable supply and cost of materials. There are plenty of crafters, but with weapons that last forever the demand is just not there. If weapons degraded and broke, crafters could turn up production and actually make a living at it. As a merchant, I've lost count of how many times I've had to tell young crafters to go and mine silver or gold or platinum for cash and/or to just go find something else to do until their weapons sell...the market just will not support the production they are capable of. Some may fear that suddenly having to buy a new set of weapons every week would drastically increase the cost of living for a warrior...before you go all extreme, that wasn't the suggestion, and 'every week' would be way off target in degrade rate even if one were to swing on mobs non-stop 24/7...relax. Would the increased demand for replacement weapons drive up weapons prices from crafters? Doubtful, because such demand doesn't change the cost basis of the weapons (materials, labor, training, etc.), combined with the fact that crafters are currently producing well under their collective capacity due to lack of demand. Prices may go up if the at some point demand exceeds the ramped up capacity, but at the moment we are very far from that point, and degrade rate can be adjusted to moderate that over time.
Perhaps use of a weapon would reduce the slash value (dulling), field repairs with kits would recover that slash value (sharpening), and from use the weapon would be damaged and require a craftsman to work on it in the forge with a hammer and the anvil to recover the condition of the weapon. We already have condition and quality represented as "nnn / nnn" respectively. Condition already reduces with use, but quality should reduce also (but at a slower rate). That quality reduction rate would need some trial and error to find the right target, but should be feasible. Repairs by crafters of condition would be limited to the weapons current quality, and eventually the weapon degrades to the point that there just isn't any value in working on it anymore and it is replaced, as the quality can not be increased by any means (even destroying the weapon by disassembly to make a new one from the parts should not render a better weapon because the parts would now be of a lesser quality). This would give crafters something else to do for income besides new weapon production, while allowing them to stay within their line of work. In keeping balance with this, a low-level crafter should not be able to improve the condition of high-grade weapons...to recover condition on a 290-quality weapon should require someone of sufficient skill to make such a weapon.
I think much of the concepts in the preceding paragraph could and should apply to armor too, as crafted armor is implemented in the future. I think these concepts would reduce the incidence of new players getting themselves into the nearest fighter guild and being handed a set of Q300 weapons on their third day in game because in addition to lacking the skill to wield them effectively, they would lack the financial means to maintain such weapons, making such acts of philanthropy to be costly and wasteful.
And for those of you who say the prices of high-end weapons are too high, I submit that you have no idea the real-time months of dedicated investment in time, training, and tria that high-level crafters have put forth to reach that point of mastering their craft. They have seriously paid their dues. Does that mean that I think the cost of training is too high? No, it does not. Too-cheap training only furthers the "do-everything" mentality. Low level training is fast and cheap already, with it getting progressively harder and more expensive at each next level, and I think that's how it should be, allowing dabblers to dabble and requiring dedication from those who wish to pursue the higher calling of excellence. Such dedication will have progressively better rewards in compensation for the things they produce and/or the services they are able to perform. Could the reward of experience be adjusted up in certain areas to make it a little easier for a character to grow and have success in their chosen pursuits? Perhaps, but I've wandered far enough from the question as it is.
Finally, I realize that some of these involve code work, some may already be available and just not quite ready to be implemented yet, and could come along in good time, but I think a lot can be done without, and some can be done by the community, if it is so inclined.
MrG
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Wow, lot of ideas in there, MrG, but a common question seemed to show up in there... What is the point of crafting? To enjoy the satisfaction of having achieved the ability to craft that ultimate weapon oneself? Or to drive an economy? If it's the former, then yeah, everything MrG stated really needs to happen long term. Things need to break permanently.
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I can't think of anything that requires zero coding changes at the moment. The biggest thing that I think would help is either a npc merchant character that buys and sells items (ie. any character that buys items, should keep an inventory of those items and offer for sale the items they purchased) OR a consignment merchant that allows players to set prices for items and they get paid when their items get purchased regardless of if they are online or not at the time.
I think that this is a long-term fix for a stable economy though, not short term.
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myth I got that the first time you said it :P
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i've going to violate the no coding changes rules. but we should make the mine "radioactive" or poisonous or something like that. so standing there and mining you take damage and/or have your stats gradually reduce. natually they we come back up in time. that'll solve the problem of money in the system. and generate a sink into the system as well moneies for potions and such. and when potion crafting hits full swing run up player econ as well. and raise the dev team a minor notch on the "evil" scale as well.
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Join the army, get your equipment and training free for performing required tasks. Perform extra and/or more difficult tasks to get promoted. Get promoted and get better equipment and higher training. Have a crafting unit, a mage unit, an entertainment corps, a logistics unit -- a place for every skill or trade to be learned and used in the army, all free. Triple the costs for training outside the army, all the competent trainers are in the army and reduce the prices paid for anything sold to an npc by 2/3. Allow players to retire from the army and create their own prices for those who refuse to join.
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Just listen to yourself steuben ;P
If the mines are radioactive, then the digged ore is and so everything made of it ;P If not, you are taking realism away and with it a bit of rp.
Prolix. ;o
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btw prolix I think if a group of guilds composed a similar system (like i dunno, the DE) making money would be pretty easy for everyone.
DE folks, I like your organization a lot, but for the name ;)
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i've going to violate the no coding changes rules. but we should make the mine "radioactive" or poisonous or something like that. so standing there and mining you take damage and/or have your stats gradually reduce. natually they we come back up in time. that'll solve the problem of money in the system. and generate a sink into the system as well moneies for potions and such. and when potion crafting hits full swing run up player econ as well. and raise the dev team a minor notch on the "evil" scale as well.
Precious metals are already "poisonous" to the Ynnwn in a way, but I've yet to meet another Ynnwn that plays that out (though I'm sure there are some; Monala's circle of friends is pretty small right now, and the only other Ynnwn she knows hasn't been online in ages).
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@Prolix:
Why should in-game things be based on real-world prices?
I just wanted to add that, will edit this post or post again when i have more time.
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That would require coding changes to enable players doing the training, Xil, but then again, so, ultimately would my suggestion. It would take a lot of work for you settings people to set up the army the way I suggested but it would be well within what the settings already suggest. Most ordinary folk (npcs) would take their years training with the army and then go on about their lives. Others would go further to get advanced skills and some would never leave. Some would undoubtedly get kicked out when their true colors became known.
Personally I would not mind joining an npc army under these conditions but I really do not want to join a player led guild. I like the certainty that comes from the game mechanics even if they annoy me. I can rail and foam and nobody need get hurt, with a guild I become subject to someone else's quirks and if mine clashes with theirs things can get rather unpleasant. If I need stress from other people there are plenty near by I do not need to find it on the internet.
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I have never understood those who compare PS w/ RL head to head.
Platinum, gold, coal, iron, tin, etc.. for this time, I'll consider all the same to make it practical. If they are abundant or not in RL, if they have or should have this or that use is irrelevant for this thread. So, that aside, I'll continue..
'Balancing economy'... WTH? who came up with that?.. I will understand the need for balance when I see a real economic system.. the way it works inPS is not comparable with RL. There exists an economic flow but not a system.. therefore, it's not possible to 'balance' it. The tria just flows, changes hands but on the ends of the chain, there is an infinite supply and a huge toilet or whatever you call what swallows it all.
Now, if what many call 'balance' means similar economic benefits or comparable enhancements of assets regardless of the goods type, availability and the individual's strategy for acquiring them, well.. here is a wake up call: "No. The fact that you don't care about it does not convert PS in a comunist system" even if you desire it to.
I voted for 'increase...' and was astonished for it having 2 votes atm. I repeat: It has nothing to do with platinum.. whatever it is, the basic or most representative item of the economic flow must be increased or the expenses should be decreased. From any point of view, for any reason.. one needs tria for everything IG but RP. If RP was 'buyable' or if the other day's idea becomes real and one starts 'getting paid for RP', then the time spent on increasing wealth would be diminished and then, most would engage in those other things that you love about the game.
This is a contradiction which only reveals the true nature of many around: (word ommited for obvious reasons).
I want all to think about the word that most describes your feelings when considering embarking on the quest of the power leveler, the mage or the warrior.
Why instead of making it harder for this kind of characters won't you embrace him and let him have his round so he can come back to you with at least some conversation?
Some say that it's because then they will end up fully grown and get bored and leave the game. So?.. what do you think you're encouraging on the first place?
The list of virtually doable things IG is HUGE. I was hoping that cooks would be able to make a living (careful with this expression!) but then, the revenue is for the lack of a better word, hilarious. But then again, it's not only how much they pay you, it's also the spends of your way of living.
Maybe we could get some criteria revealed.. like for example, how much is it desired for a character to achieve during a specific period of time.. mining, cooking, crafting.. doesn't matter. How much characters deserve for the time 'invested' is the number that really counts. We could learn from the reasons for such number and see if the decision is wisely oriented with the goal of increasing the IG experience, or if it's a simple biased choice for not allowing the other kind to be as easy and quickly happy as the best RolePlayer Master around.
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More snorks!
The basic problem is the game isn't finished so there simply aren't enough things to make the economy robust, but that's a coding problem, so I won't continue...
Of ideas suggested so far, I have to agree with increase loot, move platinum mine away from town and reduce platinum availability somewhat, too (not a lot, but enough so that plat isn't the only attraction. I never see anyone at the gold mine anymore). And I agree that prices and availability do not have to have any relationship to RL. How do you know that platinum isn't common as dirt in a stalactite?
Removing NPC purchasers I think is bad, because not everyone plays during the 'peak' hours, so there isn't always a player market. I'd hate to not be able to sell my items/ores, or to have to take a greatly reduced return simply because prime time for me is 4:00 am for everyone else. That doesn't help the economy, it kills it for people on odd schedules. Reducing the overall training prices slightly would be good. Reducing them a lot is only good for low levels, because once you get to a certain level pp are not a barrier at all anymore, and by that level tria should be more plentiful also. Rather than reduce across the board, maybe stagger training prices so that it reflects more the level at which you train.
But the snorks are still the key.
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Apropos mining: If a certain ore will help to create interesting products, platinum may not be the most valuable good anymore. I bet you already planned that, but if it would already work, it might have been discovered already (except you hid it by another "find both NPC and question" camouflage).
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Come now you must have some other brilliant solutions, for as much strife as you raise over the issue, surely there is a wealth of solutions you can afford our meager dev imaginations?
13 more votes and I will do my best to put the smack down on the server.
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I see no problem with platinum ore. If grindminers want to waste days and days of their lives mining platinum on a video game that is meant for RP...let them waste away! As for the price of platinum, it will only be outrageously high when people stop buying it. Only when the demand for platinum goes down will the supply follow. On that note, there will always be demand for the "leet" ore - the ore that takes the most skill to use - as there is nothing else to move on to. So, no changes for me! Let the economy run it's course, see where it takes us.
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I have several suggestions, Move mines as far as possible from civilization, surround them with loads of nasties that cant be lured, make them run out rapidly and move to a new spot so they have to be located again (say once a week).
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Ah, so you want to get rid of players... :P
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I just quick read this thread. I read every post, but maybe jumped some paragraphs. I am sure that some points are already mentioned, please forgive. Another problem i have is that i dont know what parameters of the economy are there that are changeable without coding. If I violate the "no-code-change-rule", please forgive. I try to keep the proposed changes small. But first some toughts at the situation.
First:
Again there is a discussion about PLers vs RPers. To be honest, the economy offers a system where you are rewarded for doing several things in a different grade. Thats similar to real live. PLers try to find the easiest method to gain largest amounts of tria as fast as possible. People do this in real life all the day. I see nothing bad with it. If you lower platinum to fix that, then the PLers will switch to another activity and mine gold for example. To aviod that PLers cluster on a certin activity, you must switch off all sources of income. Bad idea imho. Oh, and by the way, I never have seen someone in real live insisting to get a lower paid job in a capital because the live should be in a capital. So from a certain point of view the PLers make a realistic roleplay. I don't think that lowering the platinum will make people better role players. Heck, there isn't even an agreement on what a good roleplayer is. Enforcing roleplay through the economy seems like a bad idea to me.
Second:
As I have read the thread I got the impression that there are many ideas how the economy should work. Some think of it as a way to enforce roleplay, others want to get tria fast to be able to powerlevel. Maybe a discussion about the goals, what the adjustment to the economy should trigger is necessary? I think a goal should be to offer a way to earn tria that is entertaining. After all this is a game and games are supposed to be entertaining.
Third:
In this thread i heard opinions that the platinum triggers an inflation. At the same time many crafters complain in game about an deflation. I can remember that the prices for crafted weapons once where really high and now they are much lower. I don't see any inflation. When many people concentrated on crafting, many crafters where around and today the weapon market is saturated. If for example, you would implement armor making and sell those to other players for a high price that will work out for some time. But many players will become an armor crafter and we would get a similar situation as with the swords today. I think the problem here is that weapons wear of far to slowly.
The REAL problem:
There are many different kind of players with different opinions about how the economy should work. Well, I think there is no solution to that problem, as even there is no common point of view what the problem actually is.
There is an deflation, it is to easy, it is to hard, hyldaa is too deserted, the mine is to crowded, there are to less roleplayers, there is an inflation, too many tria in game, its too hard to earn tria. ??? Thats my impression what is seen as problems. Different player, different opinions. How to fix that? ;)
Maybe the question should be if its too boring or "too entertaining"? I think the economy can't be easily fixed but it can be made more entertaining. Only mining is a bit monotonic. In earlier times people digged gold ores at the mage shop and sold that to Harnquist. Then the possibility to smelt the gold and sell ingots and stocks was added. That was one change that i liked as that made the players interact a bit more. But this "chain" stops at ingots or stocks because higher refined goods are less valuable.
So far we have chains of goods like: XYZ ore -> XYZ ingot/stock.
What I dislike at the current economy:
There are certain goods that bring less tria then the resources put into it. If you craft a golden shield you put in resources with a value of at least 18k into it. And you receive an item beeing worth less then 8k. Thats just one example but I think there are more items whose value is lower then the value of all resources used to make this item.
Now lets imagine what would happen if the price for a gold shield would be insane high. Maybe 25k? Shield crafters would craft shields to make tria. Soon they would run out of steel and gold and pay more for those resources then the npcs do. In the long run some people would switch from mining to crafting of shields and there would be less miners. And the miners would be more diversified as there is need for iron, steel and coal. I would consider this an improvement.
Suggestion for a short term improvement:
Adjust the npc prices for items in a way that its more rewarding to make more advanced items. Make it for players less intresting to sell stocks and ingots. Make it interesting to sell swords, axes, shields and other higher developed items. IMHO the problem is that the lower developed items like stocks are the most rewarding. This prevents any economy to develop.
And for the sake of the crafters, make things to wear out faster. For example if someone buys a pair of quality 300 short swords today, he has great weapons for many many hours of in game time. Maybe half a year of ooc time even if he plays a lot. As a raw guess is just state that each month less then 50 pairs of weapons wear out. Thats to less IMHO.
Suggestion in the long run (surely need code change and more art):
Make it possible to craft advanced items and make it rewarding. People will try to get tria as fast as possible and if that means they have to work together to make a long chain of production steps this might actually happen. Bring other resources like wood in game and make the things that are craftable so large in number that a single player never can make it all and never can get the overview and never can max out in all professions. Shield making, Axe making, Armor making, Tool making, Food making (aka cooking), potion making(aka alchemy), Brewing, bakery, butchers, tanners and so on. At lower levels they can only produce low paid goods, at higher levels they can make more interesting goods.
Thats just an raw idea, but imho planeshifts direction of the economy should head there. I could bable around here for more changes but I will stop now. But I think there is some potential with the given code and art by just making higher developed items more valuable.
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Okay, I totally didn't read the whole thread, just going to post what I said and why :P
I said reduce the cost of training. The reason why is that I think the reason people get money the most is to train. You start off doing that when your a newbie. Mine, loot, sell. People do it because current training as you get higher and higher cost loads of money. A newer player shouldn't be expected to have so much cash. Older players shouldn't have to get as much cash as they do in order to train.
Lowering costs will slowly lower the amount of money people try to gain and stock up on. If we all start carrying less because we don't have to worry so much about prices then things will slowly settle down. One could say it is pretty easy to get money so we shouldn't complain about training prices but you can also say that because prices are so high and people need lots of money there is no doubt they will spend their time getting loads of it as quickly as possible. However, if lets say I no longer need as much money to train my character I may start selling anything from the ore I mine to the weapons I loot/craft cheaper. There won't be as great a demand of cash as there once was so getting a huge supply wouldn't be necessary.
The REAL problem:
There are many different kind of players with different opinions about how the economy should work. Well, I think there is no solution to that problem, as even there is no common point of view what the problem actually is.
I think I also agree with Zwenze on this point. Whats up there is my opinion of the problem. However I think everyone does have a different view, all depending on what this all means to you and what role it plays in the game for you as a player and a character. So while my idea may fix what I think is the problem someone else may still have their own problems.
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That's all well and good, but consider that people do need to eat, so therefor every person should really be able to cook, even warriors and miners. And really, how hard is it to dig? Since it's just a matter of finding the right spot. Those don't really seem like very challenging skills to believe that any person couldn't learn them all. I'm an engineer/programmer, but I can also woodwork, play guitar/piano, play sports competitively, and dabble in all sorts of other tradeskill type projects in real life. Would I take them all to master level? No, but it's not unrealistic to think a warrior might be able to do a few things other than fight. Now, a warrior/sorcerer, that may be asking a bit much.
I agree partly. Of course people do a lot of different things in real life including me. Lets stick a bit at the "real life samples". I doubt that many people craft their own screwdrivers. When people are busy working all day, I am sure that they won't "bake a bread", probably "won't cook at all" during their lunch break. Those who use a "car" will of course be able to repair this or that.. some can do more, others less, yet it's not likely that they'll build their car and many surely have to bring the car to some garage to get more difficult thnigs repaired, to buy replacement parts, etc.
So buying an apple or even some meal when taking a break from mining would actually be quite realistic. ..of course, those who aren't really into RP will most likely not do it unless, well, unless they have some benefit from it. (eg refreshes a bit of their stamina which could be done without code change).
I see no problem with platinum ore. If grindminers want to waste days and days of their lives mining platinum on a video game that is meant for RP...let them waste away!
Thanks. It's an encouraging comment.
I said reduce the cost of training. The reason why is that I think the reason people get money the most is to train.
I wonder, if they get the Trias for training, how comes that one of the last guild houses was sold for 12 Million Tria? I think that those are the reason why some don't seem to stop mining at all.. probably not even for training anythig (but mining). Maybe finind other ways to obtain them will better the situation. I don't say that "obtaining them" should be as easy as snipping one's fingers.. indeed not.
What's the point of it all? Sure, everyone has their own oppinion, their own affectations. Some tend to rather "use mechanics" all day long, others tend to "roleplay" all day long.. no, not exactly. It's not black and white and most are somewhere in between. If one has fun trying out everything possible, yes - please do it and I really wish them that they have fun doing it. Those who prefer not to use any mechanics at all but rather like to use PlaneShift as a "3D chatroom".. of course, they should have their fun also. People are free to decide with whom to play.. and some prefer to play "alone".
..hmm, was about to unfold the point here. Maybe later
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It is time that I speak here too.
First,
Sorry for the bad English.
It’s not the Platinum.
And not the cost for training.
With the Platum Mine everybody can pay the Trainer.
It is the Practical training…
And the very low Monsters…
Why the Economy don’t work.
Economy in PS:
To make something, sell it for a good price.
Or kill Something to get the Animal Parts to sell.
For the Miner this works.
There pay a trainer. and must only dig a Ore to get 1,000Trias.
The other Training in Mining is only to be a bit faster… And not important for the Players
The Other Jobs but don’t works.
for example:
A Smith must pay a trainer…
buy or dig ore/steel …
Work a long time to make a sword… (with low Quality)
He can’t sell it to a Player. Must sell it for “nothing” to a NPC
Get a bit Practical Point…
To sell it to Player the Quality must be better. That call the Player must make more of bad swords for NPC’s, Pay for the Steel, Lost much time for the Practical Training. And get “no” Trias.
With more practical Points for a Work… He can make after a short time good Sword… Maybe sell it to a player.
But It don’t works… If the Monsters are the most time down… Or are to low for the Players.
You Set high Stats and Skill but… don’t balance the Monster
(It can’t be that in the Descrition of a Ulber you can Read “No Armor can save you” and I see noob killing there)
or the Practical work/ the Practical Training.…
I know a lot of player there Train 3-and more Months to be a good Smith… And There Can’t sell the Weapons in the Rich Yliakum.
If the Poll is that you know which way you have go in Yliakum I have 3 Points.
Make The NPC server a bit solid.
Balance the Monster to the high Levels of the Player.
More Practical Points for a Work.
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I have several suggestions, Move mines as far as possible from civilization, surround them with loads of nasties that cant be lured, make them run out rapidly and move to a new spot so they have to be located again (say once a week).
Seconded!
The more precious the resource, the harder it should be to find it.
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Iron stock is far to cheap when sold to Trasok. Between players one can get 50 for standard. Coal is super cheap.
Make other materials worth more so that they are an alternative to mining platinum! \\o//
Also consider turning on collision detection between players at the mine to make feel the players when it is too crowded.
Of course, I guess you could gang up on a player then, but hey, it makes mining more dangerous.
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Hello PlaneShift Community!
I am no nativ speaker, but I try to get my statement as clear as possible.
The problem is a systemical problem: We have inflation in Hylda, because there is more income of Trias than output. You can clearly watch this inflation on the auctions for guild houses and how the prices went up (is it 100 % or 1000 % inflation?).
All suggestions I read are merely a cosmetic treatment or a personal flavor, but no solution to the problem.
I have voted "other" and here is my idea, even it needs work on the code:
Hold up or keep up cost.
As example: 0.1 % Trias per every real time hour beeing online from every characters Trias. For guild houses perhaps even more.
That will not need much code and can be redifined easily for increasing or decreasing. See it as tax or payment for food or for clothes, if you want. But it would solve the problem of inflation and that would be good for the economy.
ps.: with inflation I mean money is getting less worth. Is that correct spoken?
Yours
tux_johny
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Collision detection on players: No.
Players will do thinks like take over a mine or the arena.
Keep Moving the mine: No.
Too labor intensive for too little reward atm.
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I think that the problem lies with the player and not the game mechanics at the moment and Zwene's post (I actually read it. 99 % at least ;D) made me even more sure of this.
In real life there are a limits to how much you can make or not make. These limits don't exist in PS since your characters isn't forced to sleep every night or take lunch breaks. Therefore, it is up to the player to limit themselves. For instance, when book first came out, my character wrote a book and priced it at 150 tria a book. Compared to how easily tria can be gotten this was nothing but a few coins hardly missed. But keeping in mind settings, this was a lot of money. You could buy several meals for what the 1 book cost. The only thing justifying the book being 3 times the cost of materials used is that paper and books in particular were fairly precious and so would be rather expensive.
Another example, there was a ball and my character needed a dress. There was a dress she had her eye one, but it was fancy and therefore expensive. She simply couldn't afford it. Does that mean that I didn't have the tria or couldn't get it? No. I had it but in keeping with her level of wealth (rpwise) she wouldn't be able to afford it.
If you want to deal with the problem from the standpoint of game mechanics, then you need to diversify the economy. Like Zwene said, the market is saturated. It is only saturated because there are so many things players can contribute back to the economy. This is a long term fix and will happen. "soon(tm)"
In this regard though, players can still take responsibility for it to a certain extent. I have several characters, but only one crafts and she doesn't make weapons. If you can, hold off on crafting for profit or selling in bulk until the economy is more diverse and people can chose other professions and desaturated the market. Everybody selling the same thing isn't going to help anybody make money and in the long run you aren't going to lose as much money by RPing or hunting as you will loading up on weapons to sell with few buyers that will pay your price. By all means, craft some since weapons are still needed, but limit yourself. Go have a drink every so often.
Also, I think lowering the cost of training would help. I just spent 6000 tria on training a level. That means I had to leave the tavern to go hunt, not for ingredients, just to make a level which seems out of place to me which is why I just stopped and only RPed for a while after that. Imagine you were in school and you had to pay 6000 for each segment of the lesson plan. What is the likely hood you would keep taking that class? I'm sorry but with the money I am paying Reffitia, Brado should be able to fix those broken doors and completely remodel the whole tavern! X-/
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Well here I go only having read the first few posts and the last few. I voted to leave it.
Reason being is that yes there was a little bit of inflation for guildhouse, not houses, THe last two went fo 4 million tria and 1.6 million tria respectively, The first was the only one that hit 12 million and go firgure it's the one closest to the Platinum mine.
But the case of too much tria in game isn't really an issue because to train you take that tria out of circulation. I know of a Kran the has spent more than 3 million tria on himself alone. Thats a lot but he enjoys the game and wants to experience it all with one character. Second to lower the cost of training would mostly bring values of the skills down, as was said in an earlier post many of the dedicated miners are there to power level. Lower the price and everyone will be the 'strongest' quickly. Currently the time it takes I think is good because it allows new players to 'mature' in the game, as well as it tends to create a sort of filtering for the players that may be more detrimental to the community than good.
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Lower the price and everyone will be the 'strongest' quickly.
People who are truly determined to PL are going to be the strongest the fastest no matter what game mechanics are in place. That's why I say it is up to the player to self regulate.
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I believe this point has been raised a couple of times already, but it has mostly been a small point in a larger solution. The fact that weapons do not wear out is a major problem. With weapons that last indefinately the demand for weapons is constantly decreasing. With less demand comes more competition between crafters and so lower prices for crafted weapons. Since these weapons never wear out the crafters are having a hard time making money to support their craft, and so with less money they are forced to mine platinum so they can afford more steel to make more weapons. solution: (and yes i know it would take time and coding changes, but i think it's still the best solution) Make all weapons degradable, and i don't mean allow them to be damaged, because that already happens, but i mean upon repairing a weapon its max quality should always decrease. If every time a weapon was repaired its max quality lowered by 1 or even just a fraction, then new weapons would be needed and the crafters would be able to make some money without constantly mining platinum. Also when fighting with a weapon at 90% or less of its max quality there should be a chance that the weapon breaks upon striking.
Just my opinion, feel free to criticize or add to my idea, i didn't spend much time organizing my thoughts, kinda a spur of the moment post
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I would suggest that weapons be down graded by one point each repair and the percentage chance it breaks be based on how far from its current max quality. Thus a 99/100 weapon has 1% chance of breaking per strike and a 25/50 weapon has 50%. The effect of an actual break is to immediately reduce the max quality to the average of current max and current quality round down so that the first weapon would barely be hurt at 98/99 and the second one would be 24/37. Note that the break includes an additional point of damage.
I do not think much of smiths that will dig platinum but not smelt their own steel. Sure they can demand and buy top quality steel but by not being an expert in smelting there should be a chance that that q300 steel they bought turns out to have a major flaw that either reduces the actual quality or the quantity when they go to actually use it. The other thing is if you smelt enough steel you will eventually be able to smelt more precious metals and not have to share your profit.
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Prollix... Even Harnquist tells you when he starts to teach you crafting to find a good source of ore so that you don't end up mining all day. (i'm paraphrasing). This is part of the economy. People buy ore instead of mining it. People buy fast food instead of cooking it for themselves. This is the way things work.
People are lazy by nature. This goes double for a game set in a virtual world that is not supposed to be as monotonous as real life. If they can spend the same amount of time mining and A) Make their weapon and hope to find a buyer to break even or B) Make a profit from plat, buy the ore necessary to make the weapon, and still have some tria left over for training. I know that I would choose B every day of the week. And you don't hear the person selling them the iron and coal complaining.
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People can be lazy, but when all is said and done this is still a game and you don't put too much effort into it. That's what you have RL for. ;) But since when to swords stop wearing out. True, good quality swords wear out slowly but that is what you buy good quality for. You get what you pay for. ::) Besides, people would start complaining about constantly losing their favorite weapons if they wore out faster.
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I don't think the problem is that weapons wear out slowly, but that they don't wear out at all. Any idiot can repair his Q300 sabre any time he likes and then the weapon is as good as new. Also a lot of weapons smiths don't mine their own steel not because they're too lazy to get some ores, but because often times they can't carry all the ores they need in a single trip, so it's much faster to buy the stock. If a crafter wanted to make a Pair of Longswords he/she would need 6 steel stock and two ingots. Since in order to make ingots you need 10 ores anyway its the same as needing 7 stock, which is equal to 70 ores. I don't know about you guys, but i can't carry that much.
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This last bit of discussion is a bit off topic anyway, so I'll be brief: it seems to me that the difference between a true artisan and a mercenary hack is the amount of detail that goes into the process. You say you cannot carry that much, that is fine. Make more trips or oversee the work you contract to be done.
I realize that from the game mechanic perspective there is no difference between a sword you assemble from a handle and a blade you bought and one you hand craft from scratch if they turn out the same but it seems there ought to be one from a role play perspective. Perhaps that is part of the problem with the economy, that is, once you can manufacture something you can mass produce it. I would like to see more production details available to those with related knowledge so I can tell between a truly crafted weapon and its production line equivalent. I would like to see more hidden faults creep into mass produced items.
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While I agree with Prolix that mass produced items should have hidden faults but there really aren't any of those anymore being that the former merchants that sold the basic weopons no longer sell said weapons. I can't seem to find NPC that sells short swords, sabres, Broadswords, long swords or, Claymores, basic axes, and the list goes on for all the weapons that are curently able to be crafted. The Development team seems to have stopped the npc selling them to make the crafted ones more worth while. I like that Idea but the thing is that people always want more for what they make then it's worth and always want to pay less than what it's worth when buying so the economy needs to reach equilibrium between buyers and sellers.
I say whats wrong with a little hagling, All in the name of RP, something that would certainly happen in our setting in game.
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I think that the problem lies with the player and not the game mechanics at the moment...
What we need is for the player base to do more instead of the devs doing more. :whistling:
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I haven't been in Hydlaa for a long time now, but still I would like to say something.
Making mining dangerous:
If you look at it realistically, in which world would there be a mine with important resources without protection? I already think that it is kind of funny that the mine ist just in the grass, and not going even a little bit into the mountain, and if you actually find a cave, there are no ressources to be found anywhere. A normal economy would need iron etc. because also NPCs would need resources to produce their weapons. And so they would build a mine for better production, and have guards for protection. Ok, these guards might need to be human players, which means you would need to pay them. But what happened when there were the new gold mines on bd2, with Ulbernauts nearby: People mined, ran away, got ulbers stuck in a wall, kept on mining, got ulbers away from the mine. That does effectively NOT work.
Changing platinum price:
If mining really stays the only good way to get money, then raise it, because from my experience as a warrior: I was always short on money, I had to go mining for gold to get my really expensive training money, also because max levels in skills kept increasing.
But generally I think there needs to be a good alternative besides crafting and mining to get good money.
Reduce cost of training:
I think it is kind of rediculous how far you can train. How far do you want to go? skill 300 in sword? 250 in magic? stats on 500?
That would be a waste of time and money?
I think skills should go up to a 100 and not higher. maybe as a percent thing.
And then training ought to be easy till 20, and then really expensive at the end, because it is hard to find someone who would actually be able to teach you when you are that good. And then what do you do with pp? Those are not a problem because you can get them so fast...shouldn't that be a little harder and then you need just a few for a level?
I mean:
Train 1 level in sword to level 20. Pay once 10 000 tria (atm that is only 10 platinum ores....maybe 15 min of mining...:( ) and 5 progression points. and then give people a level (unseen, because I like it without a level) and at lower level it takes less ep to get pp, and then harder.
But back to economy:
I do not really believe there can be anything fixed till a wipe with a deffinit system comes out...when you know how high skills are going and how long it should take you to train.
I would say it should take you a year to totally max out for being a warrior, mage or any other job, not meaning that you would have bad results after 2 months or half a year.
So for the moment I would say make it kind of easy to get money..let people explore possibilities...
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I have read all ideas. Some I agree with, and some I do not. I'll not say which right now, but will offer an option no one mentioned, but can be done without changing much. What would you say to removing all current NPC smiths as buyers of bulk materials (ore/ingots/stock) or weapons through the NPC menu, and placing a single bulk buyer in or near the winch for shipment down to the forges on the other levels? I would have said Ojavedia, but the part of town that would process it is shut down at the moment, and Jirosh just ships things, not buys them. Bulk weapons could be sold to NPCs just in the Arena, the Eagle Bronze Doors (per Prolix point below), or a rogue leader in a hidden area (explains just where they get those weapons in the first place >.> ). The DR does not factor in, as it needs materials and weapons as well.
Pros: Realistic; how much material can a smith really use? They are smiths, not warehouse/shipping companies. Teamwork would be encouraged. Would give a reason for the value staying high. (no mining below the first level) More quests.
Cons: No more fast and easy money from smiths. Someone would have to run. Perhaps a guild would turn this Con into a Pro. People could start using the DR as a place to sell their materials and weapons (is that a Con?)
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I like the ideas, they seam to be realistic, who hasnt wondered what harnquist does with millions of tria worth of platinum. But I would like to see much more stringent penalties for using the DR. Like a two hour curse and randomised spawn points. Then people would think twice about using the DR as a trading area.
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I really like Underthemoon's ideas. Especially because they add realism.
@Pizik: I think a 2 hours curse would drive especially newer players away.
I also thought about the training costs again and I changed my oppinion. Lower them. Lower them as much as possible. Of course, some will welcome this in order to have it easier to "MAX everything". Many things could be tought by "friends", who probably wouldn't ask for Tria either. Or learned by reading books, by observing others doing it, etc, etc. You still have to practice anyway, and you (currently) still need to have Progression Points. 1 Tria / PP is still much when reaching higher levels.
Pros:
People need to care less about Tria. Maybe they start to buy other things also. The main reason to earn high sums of Tria will be to buy something great, like a guild house.
More Realisticm since a smith would probably take you as apprentice. Of course, you work for him in that time. (but with that you actually can cover the training costs with the earnings you make with your smith-work.) You don't need to mine in order to learn cooking (to cover the cost)
People who aren't especially rich (for example don't mine) have still a way to "learn" something. In Real Life people can also learn things without paying.. I tought myself modelling, for example.
Cons:
Some people will have many things maxed soon. (However, that can't be prevented anyway and they still do need to spend time for practising.)
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Bulk weapons would be needed in the BD as well. There really needs to be a premium for high quality weapons though, repairing a q300 sword has to be more difficult than repairing a q50 one but since they are the same price they take the same time. Some kind of pricing system needs to be developed. I think currently magic weapons have arbitrary prices and there is no real system.
Since the standard weapon is q50 you could use that as a base for prices and then add multipliers for increased quality and magic effects. For instance that q300 weapon could be valued at 6x base, a magic that gives a 5 point bonus to a stat could give a 1x modifier and so be 2x base, a 15 point bonus would be 4x base. Precious materials which give no bonus could give smaller premiums and so on. Increased slash ratings could get a value modifier for each .5. These are just ballpark numbers that can be adjusted as appropriate but the current situation where a crafted weapon of any quality has the same npc value is just not right.
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Raise the price for animal parts and hides. Assign quality levels to hides and skill levels to hunters (example: hunter level 20 has a good chance to get a high quality Ulber skin worth 1200 tria) This gives hunters a chance to 'make a decent living' and Ynnwn can progress without compromising their character attributes (being allergic to precious metals)
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Some great ideas. Some of the low impact solutions will be taken into consideration. We thank everyone for participating.