Hi everyone,
I have another question I'd like to put out there for you all to discuss.
A healthy game economy is something that is helpful for all players, whether they're crafters or not. Everyone wants to have the opportunity to sell things to other players for a reasonable price, and likewise everyone wants to be able to buy things that they need from other players for a reasonable price. Yet history has shown that it is difficult to achieve a healthy, balanced economy in these games.
In your opinion, what are the biggest threats to the health of the game's economy? What are the things that we should be watching out for, or trying to prevent, that might cause problems for the game's economy both short-term and long-term?
Just like all the other questions I"ve posted, there's no right answer to this - I'm mainly interested in just seeing everyone's thoughts on this subject. There's no design decision that depends on this discussion or anything like that either. So, just talk about what you think the right answer should be!
1. Gold Sellers /Farmers
2. Botters that gather resources and then inflate sales prices on the market.
Those would be my top 2. The second one wouldnt even necessarily be relegated to only botters...folks that hoard nodes/resources and then "corner the market" often can make it unhealthy and inflate the costs of materials which in turn drives up the costs of purchasing crafted goods. In the end, if not managed well, it can really destroy a game economy. Hopefully VR will make clear that this is unacceptable gaming behavior and take swift action to ban Gold Farmers/Sellers/Buyers and Botters.
Farmers and horders that then "corner the market" Money sinks do not work for these they dont spend money or resources if there is anyway to work around it.
Edit to add Curreny and Recource Farmers do not care if spending will help them they will find the best way to increase there earnings with out spending.
Classic example - Developers release a new expansion. In order to get people to buy and play that expansion they offer better items for the same time/difficulty as a lesser reward in previous.
For example, at release, a weapon that is good for a level 40 player is no longer is good at 40 after expansion - That's because because at level 40 you can go to the new expansion and get an even better weapon at the same level range as the previously 'good' weapon. This ends up causing a weapon that use to be good for a level 40 to slowly work it's way through the economy where people may only want it on a level 10 twink or something.
I think the solution to this problem, or at least drastically slow down this mudflation, is to make sure every expansion includes a level cap increase. That way developers can incentivize going to the new zones by giving away better equipment but doing so at an increased challenge due to level ranges and not 'just because'. If you can't increase the level range, then make sure the new content is of the same risk/reward.
Vixx said:Farmers and horders that then "corner the market" Money sinks do not work for these they dont spend money or resources if there is anyway to work around it.
Of course the spending has to be incentivized or it doesn't remove any currency. We have to assume any system is well implemented/balanced in order to talk about it. Any money sink has to be instated in a way that it is in the players best interest to spend their currency...which shouldn't need to be said but...
Over all it seems we are trying to have our cake and eat it too. We want items to be tradable and not bind on pickup or equip. Items never break permanently. It seems like only a matter of time before the world is going to be filled with items. Oh, and I love the no-bind, tradable, and never break items. I would rather have a bad economy than to get rid of that.
Some ideas in no real order.
Ok got to get back to work.
Expansions.
Probably don't need to describe much further so I'll just say that from my experience expansions always seem to make almost every pre-expansion item obsolete. There is no reason that a good expansion should make ALL old content useless. We don't need an expansion that imediatley upgrades every item in our inventory.
Farming. The ability to sit there and farm desireable items over and over is what wrecks economies. Two things need to happen: 1) Rare spawn mobs can't simply spawn in a static place like EQ1, they need to have an insanely rare chance of spawning in a particular area at many widely spreadout spawn locations. And 2) Rare and desireable items need to be rare as hell. Talking 1% drop rate off an already rare spawn. This essentially removes the ability to farm while still allowing players the chance to camp an area in the hopes of hitting the lottery and getting the rare spawn and item.
Currency. The key is once again, preventing farming. Every mob of a certain type can't drop money every time. Have coin drop from mobs be sporadic. Keep the amount dropped low. It's ok for mobs to drop nothing most of the time. Have the primary currency gain be from quests and/or tasks and that amount can be supplemented by rarely dropped items and coins from mobs. Maybe implement a barter system where mobs drop broken or damaged goods that can be traded to a crafting station trainer for food, faction, or raw materials. Oh, and don't launch your game until you're 1000% certain there are no gold or item dupes.
Crafting. This is the engine of the economy. They do crafting writs/quests/tasks and get a small reward of coin from the NPCs. They then need to use roughly 50% of that coin to purchase components from adventurers as NPCs won't sell the components they need to progress. Adventurers need the game to require them to spend roughly 50% of their coin obtained through quests and the occasional monster coin drop on items the crafters create (Food, Drink, Potions, Weapons, Armor) because the NPCs do not sell those items. If you have NPCs selling items then the cost they sell them at needs to be so high that it's very unlikely anyone will ever actually purchase from the NPC over a crafter. But essentially, being able to purchase goods off NPCs for competitive prices kills your economy because it removes the need for player interaction and the enticement to slave away at being a crafter who is essential.
Crafting should be difficult. Based on some of your comments, it sounds like you guys are leaning away from full materials loss on a failure. IMO crafting should always have a chance of failure and failing should remove the ingredients. This prevents the market from getting flooded by crafters that are just trying to skill up. There should also be something to eat up crafted items. One idea would be to have a way of trading in crafted items for tokens. Each item would be in a tier and you'd get tokens for that tier. Once you have 10 or 20 tokens, you can trade them for an item you can add to any recipe in that same tier that guarantees success if it's within the skill range. There could be another item for less tokens that just makes it so you don't lose your materials on a fail. This would allow crafters to be able to craft extremely rare items without fear of losing the materials. And if the tokens are tradeable, all players would be compelled to trade in crafted items when they don't need them anymore so that they can get tokens to either sell or guarantee a successful craft on something they want made.
Crafting an item that is equivalent to something that drops from group content should require materials that are limited, perhaps drops as rare as the items themselves.
Crafting feels really good when you can make something that will be useful. However, getting a replacement for an item should be rare. If I get a new weapon that has the stats I want on it, I shouldn't be able to craft or get a drop for that slot that is just plain better for a while... 5-10 levels unless I get particularly lucky. That means there can be a lot of items of the same tier, but there shouldn't be a non-rare replacement with the same but better stats within that tier.
Nephele said: ... In your opinion, what are the biggest threats to the health of the game's economy? What are the things that we should be watching out for, or trying to prevent, that might cause problems for the game's economy both short-term and long-term? ...
This is a big topic with many facets, but I'll answer succintly, and if there's a desire to pursue the topic, I'll expand at length. So, In my opinion..
First and biggest threat: Mobs directly dropping "finished" or "usable" items* that can be immediately equipped, without any subsequent steps.
Second biggest threat: Mobs directly dropping currency/coin/gold of any kind, ever.
Third biggest threat: Permitting in-game bazaar/market/auction-house/whatever sales without dynamic listing fees and short durations.
* Note that consumables are not affected by the first threat, above.
The first step to resolving both of these is to NOT have mobs drop coin currency directly, and to have additional NPC steps be required between obtaining gear ( that is, items that eventually can be equipped ) and actually being able to equip them.
Finished/equippable/usable gear and coin dropping directly from mobs is the method by which all MMO economies are invariably ruined. If there's no desire, appetite, or consideration to address that root cause, then Pantheons economy will end up exactly the same as all the rest, because it will have that same root cause in place.
EDIT--
I'll add a fourth: Fourth biggest threat: NPCs providing coin/tradeable currency rewards, especially for items, harvested raws, or any similar item that is generated as a result of the Adventure, Crafting, or Harvesting loops (ie "loot","gear","equipment", etc). That is, explicitly, being able to sell "stuff" to NPCs directly, for coin/tradeable currency.
vjek said:Finished/equippable/usable gear and coin dropping directly from mobs is the method by which all MMO economies are invariably ruined. If there's no desire, appetite, or consideration to address that root cause, then Pantheons economy will end up exactly the same as all the rest, because it will have that same root cause in place.
While I agree to a point, I don't think fully removing usable item drops is a good solution. I've played games in the past where you all you do is farm materials and then craft the item you want and it's fine, but it always ends up feeling like a grind. That's not to say Pantheon won't be grindy; it surely will. But the point is it doesn't have to feel like a grind. Some of that has to do with how well VR does with the social aspect of the game, combat, etc. But the prospects of getting that rare drop, to me, was always a huge motivator.
Getting a usable drop feels good. You get that smack of reward chemicals in the brain. It's like hitting the tripple sevens on a slot machine. The issue with modern MMOs is that they've normalized getting that reward. It's no longer a rarity. It's rare to go a full play session without getting some major upgrade to your equipment, especially while leveling up. The obvious logic for game devs is: Players see getting new items as fun, we want our game to be fun to keep players playing therefore we need to add more new items for players to get so they can keep having fun. And that's what leads to the issue you've brought up.
Gear pride should be a thing in Pantheon. The devs have talked about it. You can't have gear pride if you're constantly swapping your gear for better. Your current items mean nothing if you know you'll get a replacement for them in short order.
The solution, in my opinion, is to go back to gear being very difficult to get. Drops should be extremely rare and crafting should be difficult with, as I said in my post above, the ability to fully fail and lose your ingredients. Once you have an item, there shouldn't be a viable upgrade within a certain level range. With leveling in Pantheon taking considerably longer than many modern MMOs, that should represent a decent amount of playtime to get to the next level range and thus find better gear.
Infinite currency + Combine that with a 2:1 ratio of currency being generated to destroyed and you get inflation.
Pantheon must either flip this ratio around to create constant deficit, or actually implement a finite currency, which would not be feasible if they intend on gold dropping from NPC's or earned through quests, which is why its a terrible suggestion for virtual worlds.
To the folks that keep mentioning 'farming' being the culprit. Is there a healthier alternative to farming for resources or currency?
Why is there something wrong with hoarding your earned resources? Might as well just delete the bank mechanic if you really think so.
FORCED equity due to the fear of what might happen is actually detrimantal to emergent gameplay and the overall social experience.
...and no amount of harvesting 'mini-game' will stop inflation ;) The best answer lies in either a perfect balance, or a deficit of gold.
Jiub said:To the folks that keep mentioning 'farming' being the culprit. Is there a healthier alternative to farming for resources or currency?
Why is there something wrong with hoarding your earned resources? Might as well just delete the bank mechanic if you really think so.
FORCED equity due to the fear of what might happen is actually detrimantal to emergent gameplay and the overall social experience.
...and no amount of harvesting 'mini-game' will stop inflation ;) The best answer lies in either a perfect balance, or a deficit of gold.
I differentiate between farming and camping. And I also differentiate between degrees of farming. Camping is stationary pulling to a spot for whatever motivation, often times hoping a rare spawns in the nearby vicinity. No problem with that, though I think rare spawns need to have many possible spawn points so they can't be "locked down" by a person or group, but a generic location could still be camped. Farming as a term might mean different things to different people, and I don't really have a problem with the generic farming "concept" at all, such as I'm a tailor, I need pelts, I'm going to "farm" the nearby lions in hopes of getting a few. My personal issue with farming, and why I view it as the primary detriment to a game economy, is when the items being farmed drop frequently and without fail. It's really about drop rates. Coin dropping every time from certain mobs is bad. Lions dropping pelts every time is bad. Doubly so for rare items off rare mobs. The entire concept of farming as an easy and productive activity needs to be abolished by the core game design. Kill 100 lions, maybe you get 5-10 usable pelts. If you want more, since farming is not an overly productive usage of your time, you buy more from other players that nabbed a pelt here and there as they leveled up and want to sell. if farming is a productive usage of time, then people will simply self provide the items they need and/or flood the market to try and make easy cash. This is easy to curb though by drastically reducing drop rates and forcing people to rely on others to get materials.
I think they should remove banks TBO Limits on how much you can have at one time does not force equality it forces investment in your goals. if you go back to midevil times if had gold it was in pouch or a chest you had to gaurd it. If you had to much of anything you would be lacking in others be it food armor tack it all took space slowed you down made you a target.
vjek said:First and biggest threat: Mobs directly dropping "finished" or "usable" items* that can be immediately equipped, without any subsequent steps.
Second biggest threat: Mobs directly dropping currency/coin/gold of any kind, ever.
You could not have said it better. NPCs in the world are an infinite fountain of money either through direct monetary drops and items that vendors will purchase.
The economy can be built to be mostly self-correcting through implementation of supply-demand calculations. Every NPC should look at their stocks and base the buy/sell price upon supply and demand. The more I sell an item to an NPC, the higher his stock climbs and the less he should be paying for every subsequent purchase from a player. The more I purchase from a vendor, the cost for every subsequent purchase should increase.
NPCs in Thronefast, for example, should 'know' what items are common to that region and offer lower prices by default. So if, for example, grey wolves are really common around Thronefast, the market should be already near capacity for grey wolf hides so the sale price to vendors should be very low. But if there are no Grey Wolves in Reignfall, NPCs should pay more for them, giving the enterprising player an opportunity to make their own 'silk road'.
In addition, the type of merchant should affect buy/sell pricing. Selling that bronze sword to a baker should result in a stupidly low price..why would a baker want a sword? Go find the blacksmith or weaponsmith instead.
Lastly, NPCs out in the wild should not be dropping PC coinage. Unless you implement that source of coin coming from player deaths. So if you die to Orcs, you lose all the coin you carry and you can get it back, partially, by killing those orcs. Or someone else gets your money when they take over your camp because you wiped. Societal NPCs having a currency system makes sense, but it should either require an exchange rate from NPC Coin to PC Coin or it should require melting down into usable ingots. It doesn't eliminate NPCs as a source of money, but it does remove the direct line.
Akom said:vjek said:Finished/equippable/usable gear and coin dropping directly from mobs is the method by which all MMO economies are invariably ruined. If there's no desire, appetite, or consideration to address that root cause, then Pantheons economy will end up exactly the same as all the rest, because it will have that same root cause in place.
While I agree to a point, I don't think fully removing usable item drops is a good solution. ...
I'll elaborate on what I'm describing, and it's very definitely NOT removing usable item drops in the sense you may be thinking.
You get the drops. Everyone gets the drops at whatever rate the loot tables define and the public design goals describe. No problem there at all.
The only difference is that the item you get MUST go through an NPC process of some kind before being equipped.
To describe an overly simplistic implementation; You kill a named Orc and they drop a Shiny Brass Shield. You can't equip it immediately, but it's going to be a usable item.
You can even see all the stats (if that's a design goal), you can see how awesome it is, no problem there, that's all fine.
You just can't put it on immediately after it drops from the creature. That's it. That's as simple as I can describe the requirement to solve the problem.
If you're willing to accept that basic implementation feature, then the economic problems caused by this mechanic, in all past MMOs that used it, can all be resolved trivially, in Pantheon.
Additionally, any consumables that drop from creatures can be immediately used without any economic problems, provided NPC's don't just buy any amount of anything, forever, from anyone.
What happens to make the item usable? There are many different ways to implement that solution, but A way is to require the player to interact with an NPC that will change the status of the item from dropped to usable. The resources that are consumed to make that change to the object are what you tune to preserve the integrity of your economy.
Again, another overly simplistic implementation would be to require the player to consume/remove/pay any combination of: fame, renown, faction, currency, reputation, time, XP, or any other player acquired or generated resource in order to make that item usable.
You can even, if desired, allow the player to consume vastly MORE resources during this process to set certain flags on the object, such as tradable, enchantable, heirloom, and so-on. The cheapest option could be to make it no-trade, un-enchantable, and non-heirloom.
Ultimately, provided you have this additional step and it's tuned properly, you can have as much non-consumable not-immediately-equippable loot in the game as you want. Everyone can be swimming in it. Has exactly zero economic impact. It also allows for personalized/personal loot as well, which eliminates all the social problems with competitive looting, if that's a design goal.
Mathir said:I differentiate between farming and camping. And I also differentiate between degrees of farming. Camping is stationary pulling to a spot for whatever motivation, often times hoping a rare spawns in the nearby vicinity. No problem with that, though I think rare spawns need to have many possible spawn points so they can't be "locked down" by a person or group, but a generic location could still be camped. Farming as a term might mean different things to different people, and I don't really have a problem with the generic farming "concept" at all, such as I'm a tailor, I need pelts, I'm going to "farm" the nearby lions in hopes of getting a few. My personal issue with farming, and why I view it as the primary detriment to a game economy, is when the items being farmed drop frequently and without fail. It's really about drop rates. Coin dropping every time from certain mobs is bad. Lions dropping pelts every time is bad. Doubly so for rare items off rare mobs. The entire concept of farming as an easy and productive activity needs to be abolished by the core game design. Kill 100 lions, maybe you get 5-10 usable pelts. If you want more, since farming is not an overly productive usage of your time, you buy more from other players that nabbed a pelt here and there as they leveled up and want to sell. if farming is a productive usage of time, then people will simply self provide the items they need and/or flood the market to try and make easy cash. This is easy to curb though by drastically reducing drop rates and forcing people to rely on others to get materials.
Tell a miner he'll get 5 iron from 100 veins and the Only miners will be farmers, selling iron for massively inflated prices. Same goes for any gathering, rate of production of materials isn't the issue, vendor value of resources and final products is. Selling to other players doesn't create Currency, it just transfers it. Vendor selling mass farming, or mass selling crafted items can create currency. Don't punish crafters and harvesters to stop farmer bots from creating inflation. Some of my most dreaded tasks in games is farming overly rare common items. Whether for quest or craft, drudgery isn't fun.
vjek said:What happens to make the item usable? There are many different ways to implement that solution, but A way is to require the player to interact with an NPC that will change the status of the item from dropped to usable. The resources that are consumed to make that change to the object are what you tune to preserve the integrity of your economy.
Again, another overly simplistic implementation would be to require the player to consume/remove/pay any combination of: fame, renown, faction, currency, reputation, time, XP, or any other player acquired or generated resource in order to make that item usable.
You can even, if desired, allow the player to consume vastly MORE resources during this process to set certain flags on the object, such as tradable, enchantable, heirloom, and so-on. The cheapest option could be to make it no-trade, un-enchantable, and non-heirloom.
It's an interesting idea, though that really seems to turn all loot into quest items. I feel like there could be a way to implement it without having to have players carry around their newly acquired item and not be able to use it. For instance, having something akin to a scroll of identification that would need to be used on the item to make it wearable. This item would be the thing that would cost the resources you speak of and would be tied to tiers of loot so that the cost can scale. If you don't have the item on you, you'll need to acquire one and use it on the item. But if you planned ahead and have one or more on you, you can use it on the item right when it drops and put it on.
On the flip side, while I see the benefit to the overall economy, I feel like this idea would be a hard sell to the playerbase who will, no doubt, see it as fun-robbing tedium.
The biggest threat to any MMO's economy is. and always will be, exploitable content.
Triggering rapid/infinite mob/node spawns. Imbalanced/buggy/broken skills that allow players to solo content that isn't intended to be soloable. Duping, items and currency.
There isn't much VR can do about players finding exploits themselves, the players will always be ahead of the team in that regard. What they can do is ensure that it is not advantageous for players to take advantage of bugs and exploits. Maybe it's a reward system for reporting bugs, or a system of punishment for those that use them and enable them.
But one thing I would not like to see is people punished just for playing the game. If they want to spend 20 hours a day farming and grinding, and doing nothing else, or if they are market savvy and want to enrich themselves playing the finance game, who cares. As long as they're not botting, hacking, or otherwise exploiting, more power to them.
Jiub said:Infinite currency + Combine that with a 2:1 ratio of currency being generated to destroyed and you get inflation.
Pantheon must either flip this ratio around to create constant deficit, or actually implement a finite currency, which would not be feasible if they intend on gold dropping from NPC's or earned through quests, which is why its a terrible suggestion for virtual worlds.
To the folks that keep mentioning 'farming' being the culprit. Is there a healthier alternative to farming for resources or currency?
Why is there something wrong with hoarding your earned resources? Might as well just delete the bank mechanic if you really think so.
FORCED equity due to the fear of what might happen is actually detrimantal to emergent gameplay and the overall social experience.
...and no amount of harvesting 'mini-game' will stop inflation ;) The best answer lies in either a perfect balance, or a deficit of gold.
This 100% sums it up.
One of the major things im looking forward to from Pantheon is playing a game designed by people who want my choice on how I spend my time to matter. So much of the game design avoids undermining player choice. The last thing i want to see is a penalty on farming or a huge tax on banks to prevent hoarding. I would rather not see heavy handed taxes and penalties that change the way players choose to play the game.
Subtle money sinks to bring the in-game gold to a deficit and aggressive measures to stop the accumulation of wealth through nefarious means (botting, duping, ect.) are all thats needed to keep a game economy on track.
I feel all items dropped should be useable somewhere - a reagent, a component for crafting or tradeskill recipes, wearable, consumable, useable. Echoing what Vandraad had mentioned - selling to NPCs is of diminishing returns to a minimum (populated areas will produce the least amount of return). Buying from NPCs gets increasingly more expensive as their stock dwindles.
You could still have a wide variety of drops all having their uses especially as reagents for various tradeskills.
Coin drops being an uncommon form of loot - not absent, just not common.
While I can envision people wanting to hoard absolutely everything - limited bank space should be a factor. I think many will be of the "why bother" and will sell to NPCs where others will buy from NPCs. And others still who will determine when they will "bother" and provide their own arbitrage as may be possible in the game.