drcole22 wrote: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.