An idea to help the economy!

[drcole22]

A lot of these ideas seem to benefit the elitist hard core players. I know you guys have been here forever and feel you deserve something to spend all those worthless dapper on but excluded (or handicapping) new players is not something i see Nevrax doing.

To start putting limits on what can be sold via merchants (Merchant tolerance) will possibly slow down the crafting and buying power of low level players. This causing difficulty for lowbies to make any money to be able to buy these luxury rewards.

I don't confess to having an economics degree etc, but the current situation is fine. You long term hard core players can keep your cash to spend on the up keep of the outposts, while us lowbies can happily grind away at low level digging and crafting and hopefully achieve the same level of wealth in the future.

Alternatively, if you're cash rich, find a lowbie and donate some dapper! Feel free to give some of your worthless cash away to help a newbie get some decent armour, weapons and have money left over to help them buy some raw mats and get them crafting!

And we'll all be happy Homin!

[sidusar]

As others have noted, a major problem with the economy is the imbalance in the money supply - there are billions and billions of dappers out there, and very little of real value to spend it on. This could be solved, to an extent, by having an NPC merchant that would sell truly luxury goods at truly luxury prices. Things like the 2x xp catalyzers... or even introduce ultra 4x xp catalyzers. Offer exclusive items in both appearance and boosts, along the lines of the kami/kara skirts. How about a cool looking amp that had 110% boosts down the line for 500M? I know I'd buy one.

While I agree that there should be something for the super-rich to spent all that dapper on, I don't think it would be a good idea to be able to buy xp catalyzers, or in any other way be able to convert dapper into experience. I personally like about the Ryzom class system that if I, as a level 200 in one skill, decide I want to level another skill, I'll have to put as much time into that as would a new player.

Sure, there's some overlap between related skills. If I have 200 in sword, levelling pike will be easier because I have higher health, dodge, stamina etc. If I'm 200 desert forage, lake forage will be easier because I have more focus and higher stanzas than a newbie. But I'll still have to kill the same of creatures, or dig the same number of materials.

If we could buy experience, I would just have to rush to level 250 forage as quick as possible to get a maximum dapper income, and then levelling any other skill would take no time at all. I think that if having one skill at a high level would make it very much easier to level any of the other skills, the skill system would loose some of it's richness and diversity.

I'd much rather see things like the 110% amplifier: Items or stanzas that offer an advantage over normal equipment, though not an overwhelming advantage, and coming at a huge cost. Things that aren't really worth getting for the 'normal' player, but do give a slight edge to the ones who spent hundreds of hours digging and crafting.

[iphdrunk]

A lot of these ideas seem to benefit the elitist hard core players.

I see your point, but what we raised here were only basic ideas that need thinking and balancing. The rate does not need to be per item or per player but it could be precisely "per dapper" i.e. a player can only earn a fixed amount of dappers per day, and it could be tunned to the level. Even at low levels, a digger / crafter can get a fair amount of dappers easily. One of the points here is that there are no money sinks.

The point with merchants is that they reflect an unrealistic demand. And a price of goods in basically determined by a offer/demand principle. Would you buy 600 earrings?

To start putting limits on what can be sold via merchants (Merchant tolerance) will possibly slow down the crafting and buying power of low level players.

the crafting? no, since one of the problems is that most crafters are self-diggers and get their own mats. What it would slow down would be the rate at which the crafters get dappers. It could slow the rate of crafting at low levels precisely because at low levels crafters *can* buy raw materials, thus giving value to the dapper. Balancing the economy can be made without or with little impact on the progression rate.

This causing difficulty for lowbies to make any money to be able to buy these luxury rewards.

Well, to some extent, that's why they are 'luxury'. And it applies in real life too. And luxury rewards, within the system, can also be per level. A luxury q50 item can be of little use to a lvl 200 player, and be priced accordingly. Luxury items do not shadow the availability of lower items. And yes, I think a lowbie should have it pretty hard to afford a q250 luxury item.

I don't confess to having an economics degree etc, but the current situation is fine

well, I am afraid I disagree here. Crafters and diggers are typically far richer than hunters. If you think the situation is fine, why would crafters ask for grind mats or supreme mats rather than dappers?. The idea of currency is to overcome the limitations of a basic "trade" system. When specific items replace the currency itself, the items become the currency (e.g. inflation and gold). The supreme mats (also given the fact that they are inherently rate limited) can easily replace dappers in this context -- there is a limited amount of supreme materials, and after a threshold, it doesn't mind how many hours a day you play you can't get more supremes than that. it is different for dappers. There are several problems with dappers, amongst which a) the rate at which dappers can be earned and b) the usefulness of dappers as currency.

Similarly, what's a hunter to do with 50M dappers if he can't buy a 100/100 pike of damage? In real life people want more money so they can satisfy basic needs, *then* afford a few extras, and *finally* luxury things like afford a bigger house, electronic gadgets, sports cars.

You long term hard core players can keep your cash to spend on the up keep of the outposts, while us lowbies can happily grind away at low level digging and crafting and hopefully achieve the same level of wealth in the future.

but that's the problem, wealth has little meaning, since dappers can barely be used for something useful, specially for higher levels. Precisely, some players are just asking other things to spend dappers on. As you state, outposts can be part of a solution in the sense that they'll become money sinks. The idea of adding a rate limited NPC merchant, is to prevent players from getting excessively rich. See it as if the government kept on producing more and more dollars.

Alternatively, if you're cash rich, find a lowbie and donate some dapper! Feel free to give

And then we risk to start "bottom/spoon feeding" and that's a problem too.
I honestly thing a good economy is an integral part of a MMRPG society. Yes, I could craft lots of armors and jewel sets for low level players and give them for free. I would then be stepping on low level crafters too. I could sell at loss, and several could give a low player more money that he'd be able to earn in a week. And we're spoiling his fun.

Any dedicated crafter -- forced to dig if he wants to progress at a decent level -- will soon be able to get wealthy. At some point, he'll realize that the dappers are stocking and he doen't really have a lot of choices to spend on. Items that he would gladly buy like supreme mats are not available. To conclude, I (and several players) could divide or multiply by 10 our cash amount and it would not change our play habbits. there is no "I wish I had xxx dappers so I could afford YYYY!" dream.

[drcole22]

I too see your points.

As i have limited time to spend on these forums, i won't attempt to quote anything etc.

I will not stand in the way of change. I think it's a good idea to keep things fresh. As a lot of people have been playing this game far longer than i have, i trust (most players!) judgements.

Even myself, a lowly lvl 110 desert forager has more money than a Homin knows how to spend. With all the craft grinding and mob killing with Guildies, i have so much to sell. Most of which gets spent buying mats at the vendors in town.

Maybe there should be a fixed economy. Maybe there should be a finite amout of Dapper out there.

Lets maybe have some cosmetic changes that costs lots of Dappers. Maybe incredibly stat boosting things to make the uber players more uber, but what about a merchant in town that could add a boost to weapons/ armour?

I've always wanted a glowing lollipop like the Guides have! I'd pay for one of them!

So how about an ability to further customise your character? Give us a few tweeks, that although cost a bit, would allow diverse looking characters....

[calel]

I 100% agree with Anissa on the last part.

Perhaps it is the giving away of low-end items (aka bribes in some cases *wink wink*) and the low costs of high-end items that 'spoils' part of the economy view, as we destroy everyone' s capability to apraise true value. And I' m almost positive about it this has been going on since the beginning; there is a lack of sense of value to items when you hand out excellent and supreme items to new arrivals. I' d even say choice items which I believe to be the top grade for 'commoners'. Remember, excellents and supreme items should be what gets this economy going due to scarcity, superiority or uniqueness.

So perhaps maybe we' ve all been found guilty of 'unbalancing' our own economy just a bit by not asking/paying the 'true' value of our own products and we are now stuck with loads of 'trade tokens' that seem useless.

Just an idea, then again, what does a little Trykerette like me know about dappers and value?







*sighs* I guess I will no longer be able to haggle with Anissa now.

[sumoman]

Well selling to races would work when they released the propsed thing i read somewhere.

That you had to pick a religon and civilisation so then it could b set so that Kami kara or neutrals could all set who to sell to

[riveit]

I agree that there should be high end items to soak up dappers. How about having the NPC's sell them in auctions? For instance, every day there could be a different item, e.g. 200 pieces of q250 supreme amber, auctioned in a certain region.

[marct]

there is a lack of sense of value to items when you hand out excellent and supreme items to new arrivals. I' d even say choice items which I believe to be the top grade for 'commoners'. Remember, excellents and supreme items should be what gets this economy going due to scarcity, superiority or uniqueness.

I think you have hit the nail on the head about the excellents and the supremes. More so the supremes than the excellents for obvious reasons. My argument here many MANY times is that the world of Atys should adjust the numbers of these supreme materials that are available based on the community and/or active community size.

This could be handled with the boss mobs through adjusting the re-spawn timeframes. It could also be accomplished by modifying the number of Supreme materials in a source.

As a side note, having the materials sources "fill-up" completely right at season change makes things kind of predictable. If this were more random I believe the percentage of Supreme materials that will be harvested of those that are available would go down dramatically.

As a side note, the sources re-filling only in certain seasons would be kind of neat so that if no one harested something that filled 40 mats in Spring those 40 would still be there in Summer and if no one got to it, and fall came and the source grew by 150 materials there would now be 190 materials in the source. All kinds of neat things could happen with chances for materials to go away in certain weather / seasons and chances for it to not only grow, but to randomly multiply, etc. This all would be to make the Supremes much more elusive and much less predictable.

Of course new people think the weather/season deal is overwhelming / etc.


My bit of thinking.

Noin.

[marct]

Why aren't TP tickets pro-rated by the area you are going to? If for a Matis a ticket to Yrkanis was 12,500 and a ticket to Fleeting Garden was 20,500 a ticket to Bog was 40,000 dapper and a ticket to GoC was 100,000 dapper. That would help a lot.

I thik there should also be a land surcharge. Fro me as a Matis to TP to any Fyros or Tryker TP should be an additional 30,000 dapper and a Zorai TP would be +50,000 dapper over the base TP ticket.

Seems like this would help a lot, needs balancing but would get lower harvesters to harvest in the lower areas and all those other fancy things because they would not be able to afford to hop around all over the place.

Althought the side effect would be people moving their packers to an area and just staying there and not moving around at all.


Noin.