”...do you really need the money?”
**blink** I am not sure how to respond. If I earned it, spending more time or skill than others to accumulate the pile, I want to choose how to donate / gift / use it. Risk vs reward. Not risk vs reward (plus penalty for too much success). If, as you rightly postulate, an inflating economy will eventually reduce the value of any large pile anyway, why do you feel it should be automatically siphoned off at some threshold and returned to the money supply? You realize with natural human behavior most folk will just cap their savings below where the tax kicks in, forcing the devs to lower the threshold, then players adapt again, setting up a vicious cycle. You could just flat tax everyone, sharing the burden and misery equally. But once you cap the aggregate wealth on Terminus, you have to upset someone to accomodate new income (and new players).
You are essentially requiring a dev central bank to be measuring M2 constantly and adjusting monetary policy on the fly. In a game? It is true that they have perfect control over PRotF’s money supply (governments would drool for that power), but I don’t think you make customers happy in general by punishing success. Inflation has happened since the first MUDs decades ago, I usually leave a game when the challenge is no longer interesting, not because of inflation.
I won’t waste our time arguing where Pantheon should fall on the Adam Smith to Karl Marx spectrum, I will just respectfully agree to disagree.
One bard’s opinion.
Kumu said:”...do you really need the money?”
**blink** I am not sure how to respond. If I earned it, spending more time or skill than others to accumulate the pile, I want to choose how to donate / gift / use it. Risk vs reward. Not risk vs reward (plus penalty for too much success). If, as you rightly postulate, an inflating economy will eventually reduce the value of any large pile anyway, why do you feel it should be automatically siphoned off at some threshold and returned to the money supply? You realize with natural human behavior most folk will just cap their savings below where the tax kicks in, forcing the devs to lower the threshold, then players adapt again, setting up a vicious cycle. You could just flat tax everyone, sharing the burden and misery equally. But once you cap the aggregate wealth on Terminus, you have to upset someone to accomodate new income (and new players).
You are essentially requiring a dev central bank to be measuring M2 constantly and adjusting monetary policy on the fly. In a game? It is true that they have perfect control over PRotF’s money supply (governments would drool for that power), but I don’t think you make customers happy in general by punishing success. Inflation has happened since the first MUDs decades ago, I usually leave a game when the challenge is no longer interesting, not because of inflation.
I won’t waste our time arguing where Pantheon should fall on the Adam Smith to Karl Marx spectrum, I will just respectfully agree to disagree.
One bard’s opinion.
I would agree with you on that, there could be accounts with a sum of gold just below the taxable rate, intentional or not, so a tax based on total wealth wouldn't be very effective in the world of pantheon.
Perhaps usage based like bank fees, random stick ups from bandits themselves, and along with some entertainment tax like Gambling parlors, or visits to Glissinda the Troll would be all drain need to fill up the NPC coffers.
Either way I don't think round the clock monitoring would be necessary, at least not from humans anyway.
@Vandraad
Excellent posts in this thread - I’d really like that system. My brain automatically goes to devil’s advocate though, and, I know under your system I would just not carry any currency while adventuring, but I really like the ideas of controlling inflation through multiple currencies and exchanges. It also would make racial choices more significant and the system would play well with a robust faction system and hopefully a diplomacy-like sphere.
I'm allways surprised about the calls for a realistic money system since it's going against the sole concept of a game : having a good time.
There is enough dispredancy in real life not to ask for the same function in a game, because if people are constantly struggling for money, spells, skillups, they will leave the game and it will die.
A system with a finite pool of money goes against the freedom to play, the pleasure to do so, and the longevity of the game itself. Because for every wealthy player, there will be a dozen of poor ones, which might leave the game due to feeling too strained and/or unable to upgrade their gear to play against their level of content.
Keep in mind that every player does expect to be able to do things at their pace, and if they can't even at a slower pace than expected, the game might feel unrewarding and they will unsub.
Inflation is not avoidable. It can be tempered, toned down, but never avoided unless you want a ghost game where only wealthy players remains, and own 99% of riches.
To sum up : I'm not against costs in game. Repairs, consumables, deplacement, trades and banking.
I'm however against a finite amount of money resulting in players hoarding money from "when there was more cash in the mob pool" or hoarding items of value if cash is taxed, just as you would buy a house to place your money.
As anyone who has read many of my posts knows I am a fan of complex systems. "What if . . . .?" is my personal moto.
A net neutral per capita cash balance is an interesting system that I would at least like to see tested at some point in some game. There is no reason that a cash neutral server could not exist at some point in the future. For a cash neutral system to work you need to tie in more systems than just drops and hording cash.
You would need to tie together:
1) NPC cash drops
2) NPC prices on goods
3) NPC purchase prices on drops
4) Quests/Task/Writ rewards
5) Cash sink costs (mounts, houses, boats, vanity objects)
6) Any Upkeep costs (VR seems to be leaning toward no upkeep costs)
7) Bank storage costs (I am in favor of a small amount in each bank that can be purchased per character then an account wide rented local space that requires upkeep costs)
8) Equity Tax
Rather than having a set Cash value each object would have a level and a rarity rating. Each combination of rating would have a value rate that is a function of the cash on the player side of the balance sheet modified by the target amount that the game wants to have on the NPC side. Early on the NPC handouts will be higher to speed up getting cash into the system then will begin to taper off till the target is reached.
After the target is reached and the balance continues to shift to the PC side then PC costs will rise while PC rewards will decrease. At this point any cash value over a certain value will begin to be taxed proportional to the % of the total server wealth held by that account. This will keep the cash flowing through the economy and will discourage hording cash over a certain amount.
This could also be tied into my Commodities exchange NPC for an even greater correction factor on the cash flow. This would also all the game to decrease the number of cash sinks that need to be added to the game for your average player and there by decrease the amount of time spent on maintenance rather than playing.
It’s not a simple system and unless you are an accounting/numbers guru I doubt you will see the value in it but the value is there if the system can be establish correctly. It would also facilitate yet another play style.
Raidan said:@Vandraad
Excellent posts in this thread - I’d really like that system. My brain automatically goes to devil’s advocate though, and, I know under your system I would just not carry any currency while adventuring, but I really like the ideas of controlling inflation through multiple currencies and exchanges. It also would make racial choices more significant and the system would play well with a robust faction system and hopefully a diplomacy-like sphere.
Yes, I do too.
Bonechip said:Or just do away with money (coin) completely.
Set it up as a complely bartered system.
Nobody is going to want to keep tons of garbage items around, so they will uptrade a number of lower junk items, for fewer better ones (and so on).
Eventually, your "wealth" would be determined by your gear and/or prized posessions.
The market would be driven by what is needed, versus what costs the most.
This scares me a little. Most items become the standard bearer to which all other items are rendered useless. Everyone sees this is the best weapon or that's the best chest piece and they strive for that and most generally all other items become vendor fodder. So all you're stuck with at this point is items you have to delete.
In EQ after so many years you had players holding onto millions in plat. But the clever thing was they were still looking for items to buy. Gnome mask for instance was only dropped by dragons in Sleepers, so there wasn't very many once the sleeper was awoken and the mask no longer dropped. I remember seeing a guildmate spend 2 million plat for one. He didn't need the plat anymore he was decked out in the best raid gear but he still had a few items he was after. Manastone is another one, although rendered somewhat useless after the 3rd expansion was still a desirable item to have and show off.
Creating items like this that stand the test of time is essential to keeping money hording at bay. I think at times games these days drop items too often and people don't really have a need to spend their money because if they just wait one or two more days they can aquire it themselves. Globally dropped goodies like weight reduction containers dropping at a very very rare rate could be something that causes an ever occuring money sink to people starting new characters. You just need items that can be bought and used no matter the circumstances to keep money flowing through the hands of the players.
As usual I am inclined to agree with both Trasak and MauvaisOeil but as usual not 100%. That would be too much to ask for.
One of my guiding principles fairly strongly held is that players should not be able to kill other players or make it significantly harder for them to play outside, of course, pvp. Thus my seemingly quixotic opposition to training being permitted. And my preference for some safeguards against aggressive guilds monopolizing content that is critical to progress in the game or to complete epic quests, should such exist.
This leads to the conclusions:
1. There should be in-game money and it should be available from both drops and from selling dropped items to merchants. No one should be dependant on barter with another player to get basic amounts of money for basic necessities such as potions/weapons/armor/food sold by merchants. The word "basic" is used twice for emphasis there - in no way do I object to an in-game auction house or similar mercantile exchange where players buy and sell to players.
2. New players should not be in a worse position when it comes to drops of coin or sellable items than persons starting the game on day 1. It is self-evidently true that we want new players to subscribe and that means not making it harder for them than it was for us wherever we can prevent such. Thus rats should drop the same tails and bandits the same amounts of coin five years after release as they do at release. Subject to any changes made by VR of course - my point is that changes in the player economy should not increase or decrease the drop rates or the amounts paid by merchants for drops.
dorotea said:As usual I am inclined to agree with both Trasak and MauvaisOeil but as usual not 100%. That would be too much to ask for.
One of my guiding principles fairly strongly held is that players should not be able to kill other players or make it significantly harder for them to play outside, of course, pvp. Thus my seemingly quixotic opposition to training being permitted. And my preference for some safeguards against aggressive guilds monopolizing content that is critical to progress in the game or to complete epic quests, should such exist.
This leads to the conclusions:
1. There should be in-game money and it should be available from both drops and from selling dropped items to merchants. No one should be dependant on barter with another player to get basic amounts of money for basic necessities such as potions/weapons/armor/food sold by merchants. The word "basic" is used twice for emphasis there - in no way do I object to an in-game auction house or similar mercantile exchange where players buy and sell to players.
2. New players should not be in a worse position when it comes to drops of coin or sellable items than persons starting the game on day 1. It is self-evidently true that we want new players to subscribe and that means not making it harder for them than it was for us wherever we can prevent such. Thus rats should drop the same tails and bandits the same amounts of coin five years after release as they do at release. Subject to any changes made by VR of course - my point is that changes in the player economy should not increase or decrease the drop rates or the amounts paid by merchants for drops.
i saw pvp and basic :D
why not just smash the 2 together? have a rat tail, remove currency from bandits, have them drop trash called 'bandit's earring' (still keeping no mobs drop money) then have it exchanged at a local vendor near you.
this way you can still adjust the currency without messing with loot table numbers.
for example: game is 6 years in, inflation has increased by 50%, all you need to do is adjust the vendor cost of rat tails and bandit's earrings(this process is much easier to automate with this setup)
((for example: game is 6 years in, inflation has increased by 50%, all you need to do is adjust the vendor cost of rat tails and bandit's earrings(this process is much easier to automate with this setup)))
If the vendor increases what he or she pays so that the player gets an equivilent amount pf purchase power for the tails I have no issue at all with this.
I thought one or more of the posts in this thread were proposing that the amount of coin in the world be kept steady, meaning that as high level rich players get more and more there might be less coin for low level starting players selling the tails. This is what I feel is undesirable.
I have been requested to add that in the eyes of some, any ability to sell rat body parts is wrong - is an atrocity, an abomination, is abhorant, is anathma. Genocide against rats is wrong, it is evil, it should not be encouraged or facilitated in any way. You probably will have guessed that the entity so requesting is furry and has whiskers which gives her a strong motive but does not necessarily invalidate her point - as to which I choose to express no opinion.
dorotea said:((for example: game is 6 years in, inflation has increased by 50%, all you need to do is adjust the vendor cost of rat tails and bandit's earrings(this process is much easier to automate with this setup)))
If the vendor increases what he or she pays so that the player gets an equivilent amount pf purchase power for the tails I have no issue at all with this.
I thought one or more of the posts in this thread were proposing that the amount of coin in the world be kept steady, meaning that as high level rich players get more and more there might be less coin for low level starting players selling the tails. This is what I feel is undesirable.
I have been requested to add that in the eyes of some, any ability to sell rat body parts is wrong - is an atrocity, an abomination, is abhorant, is anathma. Genocide against rats is wrong, it is evil, it should not be encouraged or facilitated in any way. You probably will have guessed that the entity so requesting is furry and has whiskers which gives her a strong motive but does not necessarily invalidate her point - as to which I choose to express no opinion.
it is a bit confusing since we have a few threads that relate basically all trying to address ways to keep economic order.
i think this thead is trying to prevent inflation via currency circulation control.
taking wow as an example here. everytime a player kills a mob with money, currency is generated into the system. problem with this is that the players control the printing system and can lead to exponential inflation. as a result blizzard has to create money blow off valves, however, there isn't enough valves to relieve the pressure.
one sec going back and reading op... from what i understand is:
for bandits(rated for level 5-10) will have a coin pool of 5000g (example)
once the money is exhausted, bandits will not drop anymore money until a circulation check occurs.
if players are hoarding money then a percentage is forcibly taken depending on current total wealth during a circulation check to keep the flow of money going.
i'd exploited the system by investing in real estate items and stay under the most cost efficient bracket(there is always a sweet spot in a curve) then i could do all kinds of fun economic market manipulation :D
i mean who knows why the bank would want rat tails. maybe to make medicine for personal... endeavours. i have a different outlook(probably because i know some people that are hunters) and they use everything. no part of the animal goes to waste. bones for glue, fur for clothing, meats for a multitude of purposes, etc etc.
I don't know how it worked long term (post-Luclin) in EQ but I never found there to be any issues with currency inflation or newbies being screwed because they couldn't earn enough. If anything newer players had the benefit of their currency going much further than for those that came before as the prices of items were driven down by the increasing supply over time. New players could get solid middle tier items on the cheap in many cases and at the same time older players were still having a hard time finding the money for the "top" items in the market.
So, I wanted to lay out what I think are important principles for the health of the game's economy. But before I do that, I would be remiss if I didn't point you to the discussion on money and item sinks that we had in the Crafting section a couple months ago.
I know people don't look at the crafting section often but let's be honest - if you want to talk economy, that's where we do it more than anywhere else on these forums.
Anyway...
1) All players should have equivalent opportunities to accumulate wealth (defined in terms of currrency) through gameplay, regardless of which path they choose.
If someone wants to go out and hunt monsters, they should be able to earn money doing that. If they want to gather resources in the wilderness, they should be able to earn money doing that. If they want to delve into dungeons, they should be able to earn money doing that. The mechanisms can vary of course - selling drops, finding treasures, completing quests and tasks, and so on - but everyone should have a way to earn money and no one should be forced to go do something like farm cyclops spawns for jewelery drops unless that's HOW they enjoy earning their money.
2) All players should have an equivalent need to spend wealth (defined in terms of currency), regardless of which path they choose.
No one should be required to spend on average more or less money based on the type of gameplay they choose to pursue. For example, if crafters are required to purchase things from NPCs just to be able to craft, then adventurers should also be required to purchase things from NPCs just to be able to adventure. Flipping that around, if adventurers are expected to spend coin (whether it's with NPCs or players) on equipment upgrades, training, new abilities, and consumable items - then crafters and gatherers should be expected to do so as well.
3) As players progress through the game, their costs AND their earning power should scale up to some degree.
Being able to earn more money is a form of character progression. So, regardless of whether someone is an adventurer, a crafter, or a gatherer, they need to be able to feel like their earning power increases as they progress. However, their costs also need to increase. Not necessarily at an equal rate (and certainly not faster than earning power), but someone operating at level 35 should be both earning more, and spending more, than someone operating at level 10.
4) The basis for the economy should be trade between players, not NPC interactions.
Money has to be generated and removed by NPCs but we should never measure the health of the economy solely based on how much money NPCs are putting in or taking out. The goal of the money is to enable players to trade with each other. For this reason, the vast majority of transactions need to be happening between players, so that the money is circulating around. This does mean that supply and demand will be a thing. It does mean that as currency increases, inflation and pooling will be a thing. But there are ways to mitigate that without putting in draconian restrictions on player trading.
5) Everyone should have something that someone else needs, regardless of their chosen gameplay.
To really make the economy work, transactions need to happen in multiple directions. You can't simply have adventurers buying from crafters, and crafters buying from gatherers. You need to insure that there are reasons for those flows to go in reverse as well - so that the crafters are also buying from the adventurers, and the gatherers buying from the crafters, and so on.
6) There must be multiple mechanisms to help pull excess items AND money out of the economy.
In order for the game economy to stay relatively healthy long-term, there have to be methods in place to help pull items out of the economy. In the real world, things break, wear out, and so on. In games, many items are forever. The problem with doing this is that those items will also continually be produced. After all, it's not like the bandits are going to stop spawning or dropping armor pieces or people are going to stop crafting shields. Left unchecked, eventually the value of these things decreases to the point where any gameplay associated with them is no longer fulfilling. The same goes for cash. We want players to always feel like they can earn more cash, because as mentioned it's a part of character progression. But that also means there need to be things to spend that cash on that remove it from the economy. Some required, some optional, but all there to act as a sort of release valve. Otherwise, inflation will be so rampant that over time, the purchasing power of newer players will decrease to the point where they can no longer participate in the economy.
You'll notice that I just talked principles, and didn't go into specific methods. That's on purpose. I have my own preferences of course, things that I think will work or won't. I could write pages and pages on "how I would do it". But at least for now, I'd rather just lay out principles that I feel are important and see what VR is thinking about during alpha.
Iksar said:I don't know how it worked long term (post-Luclin) in EQ but I never found there to be any issues with currency inflation or newbies being screwed because they couldn't earn enough. If anything newer players had the benefit of their currency going much further than for those that came before as the prices of items were driven down by the increasing supply over time. New players could get solid middle tier items on the cheap in many cases and at the same time older players were still having a hard time finding the money for the "top" items in the market.
Market-wise in EQ, two things happened by GoD/OoW:
- Some things became so common that they were practically worthless and could be bought very cheaply.
- Some things became so expensive that it was pretty much impossible for an average player to buy them without doing RMT or specifically farming cash for a very long time.
The first happened because supply was unchecked and just grew and grew over time. The second happened because the average amount of currency continued to increase, while the items themselves remained very rare.
I can't speak to what happened after those expansions, as that's when I finally left EQ for good, but the signs were there. More importantly, the same pattern has repeated itself in almost every MMO to date. The trick is that things polarize into feast/famine over time. It's not that *everything* gets super expensive. It's that *some* things get super expensive while many other things get super cheap. Usually, this means that the earning power of newer players is decreasing, while the things they want to buy are getting more and more expensive.
stellarmind said:one sec going back and reading op... from what i understand is:
for bandits(rated for level 5-10) will have a coin pool of 5000g (example)
once the money is exhausted, bandits will not drop anymore money until a circulation check occurs.
if players are hoarding money then a percentage is forcibly taken depending on current total wealth during a circulation check to keep the flow of money going.
Which, if that were true, is open for exploitation and griefing. Players who can kill more bandits quicker will empty that money pool leaving nothing for anybody else. That is unacceptable. But, you might say, 'we'll just adjust the circulation check minimize that' which, if that were the case it counters the whole point of the check in the first place.
If you remove coin in this manner, players will just switch to any number of other NPC drops that can be sold to vendors. Do you then want wolves to stop dropping pelts after X amount are killed? Or Spiders not dropping silk after X are located? What about harvesting nodes? Do you want those to stop appearing after X number have been cleared?
Vandraad said:stellarmind said:one sec going back and reading op... from what i understand is:
for bandits(rated for level 5-10) will have a coin pool of 5000g (example)
once the money is exhausted, bandits will not drop anymore money until a circulation check occurs.
if players are hoarding money then a percentage is forcibly taken depending on current total wealth during a circulation check to keep the flow of money going.
Which, if that were true, is open for exploitation and griefing. Players who can kill more bandits quicker will empty that money pool leaving nothing for anybody else. That is unacceptable. But, you might say, 'we'll just adjust the circulation check minimize that' which, if that were the case it counters the whole point of the check in the first place.
If you remove coin in this manner, players will just switch to any number of other NPC drops that can be sold to vendors. Do you then want wolves to stop dropping pelts after X amount are killed? Or Spiders not dropping silk after X are located? What about harvesting nodes? Do you want those to stop appearing after X number have been cleared?
yes i'm pointing out that it is exploitable XD i think the idea is interesting way to combat inflation ^.^
stellarmind said:dorotea said:((for example: game is 6 years in, inflation has increased by 50%, all you need to do is adjust the vendor cost of rat tails and bandit's earrings(this process is much easier to automate with this setup)))
If the vendor increases what he or she pays so that the player gets an equivilent amount pf purchase power for the tails I have no issue at all with this.
I thought one or more of the posts in this thread were proposing that the amount of coin in the world be kept steady, meaning that as high level rich players get more and more there might be less coin for low level starting players selling the tails. This is what I feel is undesirable.
I have been requested to add that in the eyes of some, any ability to sell rat body parts is wrong - is an atrocity, an abomination, is abhorant, is anathma. Genocide against rats is wrong, it is evil, it should not be encouraged or facilitated in any way. You probably will have guessed that the entity so requesting is furry and has whiskers which gives her a strong motive but does not necessarily invalidate her point - as to which I choose to express no opinion.
it is a bit confusing since we have a few threads that relate basically all trying to address ways to keep economic order.
i think this thead is trying to prevent inflation via currency circulation control.
taking wow as an example here. everytime a player kills a mob with money, currency is generated into the system. problem with this is that the players control the printing system and can lead to exponential inflation. as a result blizzard has to create money blow off valves, however, there isn't enough valves to relieve the pressure.
one sec going back and reading op... from what i understand is:
for bandits(rated for level 5-10) will have a coin pool of 5000g (example)
once the money is exhausted, bandits will not drop anymore money until a circulation check occurs.
if players are hoarding money then a percentage is forcibly taken depending on current total wealth during a circulation check to keep the flow of money going.
i'd exploited the system by investing in real estate items and stay under the most cost efficient bracket(there is always a sweet spot in a cure) then i could do all kinds of fun economic market manipulation :D
i mean who knows why the bank would want rat tails. maybe to make medicine for personal... endeavours. i have a different outlook(probably because i know some people that are hunters) and they use everything. no part of the animal goes to waste. bones for glue, fur for clothing, meats for a multitude of purposes, etc etc.
The initial idea was yes for a dry up( Not level based though), with maybe a item drop instead, possible a voucher of some kind,
However with further thought on the matter, I believe a more flexible “soft Cap” would be more effective in that it would prevent a dry up while allowing for the system to self correct with temporary inflation of fees on goods an services
HemlockReaper said:The initial idea was yes for a dry up( Not level based though), with maybe a item drop instead, possible a voucher of some kind,
However with further thought on the matter, I believe a more flexible “soft Cap” would be more effective in that it would prevent a dry up while allowing for the system to self correct with temporary inflation of fees on goods an services
it's pretty tough economic stuff way above my head.
i partially agree a central banking pool and capping total currency in circulation with money vouchers. it always eeked me why monsters and creatures have money on them. i'd highly suggest looking into how black desert onlines economy works.
even with a voucher based loot, huge money sinks, heavy regulated and taxed marketplace, extremely limited p2p trading, items dissappearing into the void, the game still suffers from inflation because sinks can't keep up with the player driven printing press.
Nephele I essentially agree but one of your points raises some interesting questions. That doesn't mean I disagree but I do see things worthy of deeper analysis.
((All players should have equivalent opportunities to accumulate wealth (defined in terms of currrency) through gameplay, regardless of which path they choose.))
Path one - safe, relatively routine, questing and grinding. Do easy quests, do moderately easy dungeons, camp not especially challenging mobs for the drops. No raids, no major bosses that drop really good items but that might be able to actually kill you.
Path two - challenging dungeons in good groups, challenging raids in better groups.
Path three - harvesting and crafting. Similar to path one in a way since by harvesting I mean landscape not materials only found in difficult dungeons - if such there be.
Most will say that the gross reward from path two should be the highest since the difficulty is greater and the risk is greater. Would your reply be that the *net reward per minute* should be equivilent since it may take longer to complete the raid or difficult dungeon and since there will inevitably be deaths - both increasing the amount of time and adding expense? That is the only response I would have but you may have a very different one.
I emphatically agree that path three should pay as well as path one. If it doesn't, is there any real reason to harvest and craft other than for the enjoyment of it?
dorotea said:Nephele I essentially agree but one of your points raises some interesting questions. That doesn't mean I disagree but I do see things worthy of deeper analysis.
((All players should have equivalent opportunities to accumulate wealth (defined in terms of currrency) through gameplay, regardless of which path they choose.))
Path one - safe, relatively routine, questing and grinding. Do easy quests, do moderately easy dungeons, camp not especially challenging mobs for the drops. No raids, no major bosses that drop really good items but that might be able to actually kill you.
Path two - challenging dungeons in good groups, challenging raids in better groups.
Path three - harvesting and crafting. Similar to path one in a way since by harvesting I mean landscape not materials only found in difficult dungeons - if such there be.
Most will say that the gross reward from path two should be the highest since the difficulty is greater and the risk is greater. Would your reply be that the *net reward per minute* should be equivilent since it may take longer to complete the raid or difficult dungeon and since there will inevitably be deaths - both increasing the amount of time and adding expense? That is the only response I would have but you may have a very different one.
I emphatically agree that path three should pay as well as path one. If it doesn't, is there any real reason to harvest and craft other than for the enjoyment of it?
So, my thoughts would be that there are two equations to consider:
Time invested ~ Reward
Risk ~ Reward
Please note the symbol I'm using which is NOT an "equals" symbol :)
For many activities I think everyone should agree that if you put time into it you should get something for your efforts. So to use my EQ example: If I went out and spent a few hours killing 'clopses in the Ocean of Tears, what I expected to get out of it was to jewelry drops that I could vendor for some platinum. It wasn't really a very risky activity to kill the 'clopses, but it was time consuming to do so.
On the other hand, if I took a group into a dungeon, I could potentially earn money that way as well through various drops that came inside the dungeon. Depending on the drops it might be far more lucrative than cyclops farming. However, there was more risk involved as well. For starters, I might not come out of it with much in the way of drops, simply due to bad luck with spawns or with the rolls for the loot. Likewise, in the dungeon there's a greater risk of death, experience loss, and having to retrieve corpses from deep inside the dungeon.
If you think about it through these two lenses it's pretty easy to get a sense of how things should work with combat gameplay, but things get weird when we talk about non-combat gameplay: Gathering and Crafting. If the economy is functioning well, the primary money-earning mechanism of gatherers and crafters is going to be in supplying other players, but there still needs to be a way for them to earn some amount of money through NPCs as well, as an alternate income stream - if only to help them cover costs when they're getting started building their business. The question is just how you do it in a way that doesn't turn the crafting/gathering sphere into a solo cash farming activity.
Nephele said:If you think about it through these two lenses it's pretty easy to get a sense of how things should work with combat gameplay, but things get weird when we talk about non-combat gameplay: Gathering and Crafting. If the economy is functioning well, the primary money-earning mechanism of gatherers and crafters is going to be in supplying other players, but there still needs to be a way for them to earn some amount of money through NPCs as well, as an alternate income stream - if only to help them cover costs when they're getting started building their business. The question is just how you do it in a way that doesn't turn the crafting/gathering sphere into a solo cash farming activity.
group gathering is pretty easy to do:
a elite swamp slob gives a blacksmith, an enchanter and an alchemist reagents(non tradeable and can't be sold on the marketplace) they need. ta da group gathering content.
group crafting is another story:
best thing you can do is have interpendent mats like how crafting was in classic wow. most irl crafters work solo anyways and occasionally order parts from someone else.
HemlockReaper said:Aich said:I talk about this here, http://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/10855/permanent-item-damage/view/page/1
That thread isnt focused on an in game economy, and to be honest that thread is all over the place
Vandraad said:HemlockReaper said:1. NPC mobs that drop money, do so from....
First and foremost, only sentient, societal NPCs should be using any form of currency. Animals, etc should not ever drop coin.
One way to lower, but not eliminate this alleged isue of infinite money entering the economy is to not have NPCs drop player usable money, rather they should be using their own forms of currency which players then need to exchange at a bank. Depending upon several factors (your faction with the city in which the bank resides; the faction between the NPC you killed and the city; how much of said currency has been exhanged in a given period of time) affects the amount of player usable coin you actually get. It is this exchange rate that the developers, specifically the economist they need to have on staff) that can be actively adjusted.
One thing that could also help remove money from the economy is having sentient, societal NPCs take a portion of our coin when they kill us. We loot their coin, they should loot ours. Not items, nothing in bags or in bas inventory..just coin. They then auto-convert that coin into their own currency, also at some exchange rate, such that killing the mob to get your money back nets a loss.
Yes i Agree only certian enemies need to drop money, not animals
I seem to recall them stating in one of their roundtables, and/or maybe one of the play videos, that drops were going to "make sense". The example that they used was that a snake wouldn't drop a sword. With this in mind, it stands to reason that animals won't drop money.
That said, I could see some rare instances were maybe animals SHOULD drop money or jewelry. What I mean by this is that some animals, racoons and crows are notorious for this, love to steal shiny objects and hoard them. It stands to reason that VERY RARE drops from them should contain such shiny objects.
Trasak said:8) Equity Tax
Are you saying that people should be taxed at such a rate that would make everyone's "in-game" "income" "fair and equitable"?? That's a really bad idea. It reminds me alot of what is going on in current politics how some politicians want to tax certain people DISPROPORTIONALLY more just to make things "fair and equitable".
Kalok said:Trasak said:8) Equity Tax
Are you saying that people should be taxed at such a rate that would make everyone's "in-game" "income" "fair and equitable"?? That's a really bad idea. It reminds me alot of what is going on in current politics how some politicians want to tax certain people DISPROPORTIONALLY more just to make things "fair and equitable".
is this something like if i studied really hard and got a perfect 100, but my score drops to a 70 because the teacher wants all the students to be averagely equal?
stellarmind said:Kalok said:Trasak said:8) Equity Tax
Are you saying that people should be taxed at such a rate that would make everyone's "in-game" "income" "fair and equitable"?? That's a really bad idea. It reminds me alot of what is going on in current politics how some politicians want to tax certain people DISPROPORTIONALLY more just to make things "fair and equitable".
is this something like if i studied really hard and got a perfect 100, but my score drops to a 70 because the teacher wants all the students to be averagely equal?
Apparently.