Economy Poll

[Illysia]

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.

[Vannaka]

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.

[Prolix]

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.

[Hrothbert]

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.

[Illysia]

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. 

[Symasta]

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...

[Under the moon]

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?)

[Pizik]

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.

[Arerano]

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.)

[Prolix]

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.

[Baulele]

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)

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

Some great ideas. Some of the low impact solutions will be taken into consideration. We thank everyone for participating.