I'm not talking about money sinks either... too many of these and you feel like your being nickle and dimed at every turn.
What I'd like to start a discussion about is how plat enters the economy and at what rate this happens.
If you go way back to EQ1 when the servers first opened plat was quite valuable and most players were still wearing bronze armor in their 30's.Banded armor had value and was sold often. You probably didn't have a magical weapon to attack the wisps with.
This was a glorious time in gaming. Why ? Because everyone was poor together and trying to root out a little piece of the pie for themselves.
A problem arose tho, eventually players reached 50+ and plat became much easier to obtain... certain cash camps started cranking plat into the server.
This was a huge problem imo... The rate at which plat enters the server has to be closely monitored so that it can retain a relatively high value. This has to be done right from the very start because you can never go back.
What I propose is make it so mobs don't even drop plat.. have them drop gold on occasion that eventually weighs you down and you have to go back to town to cash it into plat at the bank. This way the only time plat is generated is when someone carried 100 gold to the bank and exchanged it.
What about cash loots you say? Like blue diamonds and such ? Well how about gem loot being used to craft jewelery for specific resist gear...it would make them have a value outside of just selling them to the vendor for a instant plat reward. Also cash loots should be relatively rare imo.
Reagents for powerful spells... Yes please... and make em spendy ;)
Kiz~
Well its kind of hard to have this conversation without talking money sinks. Even you mentioned reagents.
The easiest way to keep platinum valuable, is to make it hard to obtain. That means mobs don't drop much, and the items you sell to vendors sell for little. Its hard to say this is the way to go though, because there are so many variables we don't know. If there are certain items, spells, abilities or something we don't even know about, that must be purchased with platinum, there has to be a way to earn it. Then there are things like repairing armor, food, reagents and other "money sinks" that are not just money sinks, but important elements that come together to create a feel of a virtual world. It costs money to live, as it should in Pantheon.
In other words, I don't know until we learn more.
I don't see how money inflation can be prevented as soon as mobs drop money and/or items that can be sold to NPC.
Imagine 10 000 players on the server, 5 000 groups and solo players are killing mobs.
Suppose in average 5 minutes to kill (what would be uncommonly high)
Make in average a mob drop an equivalent of 1 GP (uncommonly low).
That means that every day : 24x60/5 x 5 000 = 1 million 440 thousands gold enters the game (if one takes the EQ change to plat it is then 144 000 plat/day. Every single day.
Then as the average level increases (e.g there are less and less newbies), the average drop value increases too what accelerates inflation farther.
So in 3 months you inject something like 14 millions plat and it never stops.
I can't imagine a money sink that would be able to destroy a significant part of this flow every day.
Generally all money sinks I have seen are used by a player only sometimes or even a unique time but not every day.
I am afraid there is no solution as soon as mobs drop anything of monetary value. And the alternative - mobs drop nothing sellable to NPC and no money either would have to answer the question how players get money if it is not by killing mobs.
There is surely a Nobel prize waiting for the one who answers this question :)
I doubt 5000 groups and soloing players would be online at one time on one server.
Even 2000 would make for a crazy crowded server.
Even so what if all those mobs only dropped some silver and the really high end stuff a couple golds... what if only humanoids had a chance at dropping coin also ?
What if killing humanoids came with a nasty faction hit ?
Some kind of attempt to slow things down so you don't get these hyper inflated prices on everything too fast.
Some ideas off the top of my head for making money sinks more fun so ppl use them more often:
1) More games of chance... different ones scattered around the world in pubs...
2) Sacrifice cash to your god for status. The benefits of this could be titles or unlocking of certain deity abilities.
3) What if NPC land owners asked you to invest in their properties and when enough was amassed in their treasuries they would build a new structure. I know this could probably only happen on patch days but wouldn't that be a cool dynamic thing to have happen ? I'm picturing a guild chipping in to have a town build a temple that you could res at in a convenient location or a stable you could buy mounts at.
4) What if the only way to gain faction with certain groups is to pay them lots of cash ?
...might add more as I think of them
Kiz~
Deadshade said:
I don't see how money inflation can be prevented as soon as mobs drop money and/or items that can be sold to NPC.
Imagine 10 000 players on the server, 5 000 groups and solo players are killing mobs.
Suppose in average 5 minutes to kill (what would be uncommonly high)
Make in average a mob drop an equivalent of 1 GP (uncommonly low).
That means that every day : 24x60/5 x 5 000 = 1 million 440 thousands gold enters the game (if one takes the EQ change to plat it is then 144 000 plat/day. Every single day.
Then as the average level increases (e.g there are less and less newbies), the average drop value increases too what accelerates inflation farther.
So in 3 months you inject something like 14 millions plat and it never stops.
I can't imagine a money sink that would be able to destroy a significant part of this flow every day.
Generally all money sinks I have seen are used by a player only sometimes or even a unique time but not every day.
I am afraid there is no solution as soon as mobs drop anything of monetary value. And the alternative - mobs drop nothing sellable to NPC and no money either would have to answer the question how players get money if it is not by killing mobs.
There is surely a Nobel prize waiting for the one who answers this question :)
Just give everyone a monthly salary...100pp a month that you have to pay your bills and equip yourself with
Ta-da problem solved :P~
You can make the Nobel check out to Sevens the Lucky lol
I don't know. I only made it into my 40s but in ESO I spent most of my money on expanding my inventory, expanding my bank slots and upgrading my horse. Those were pretty effective money sinks in those levels because I was happy to get the benefit. Providing money sinks for characters still progressing is perhaps easier because you can make some part of the progression cost. IIn EQ enchanter spells ended up keeping me strapped until I was into upper levels, but part of that was so many illusions spells.
In some respects characters should feel poor, particularly at low levels, only when you get to upper levels should you start to feel like you are acquiring some wealth.
In Project 1999 coins have a weight so you do have to go back to the bank periodically to exchange them (unless there's a vendor around that you can use to do it.) It doesn't stop the serious part of the problem that begins when you are max level and many of the things you needed to spend on are no longer necessary. If money comes into the world faster than it is taken out then you will have inflation,, destroying a few copper or silver coins is probably not going to be a big enough money sink to balance the economy.
Angrykiz said:
I'm not talking about money sinks either... too many of these and you feel like your being nickle and dimed at every turn.
What I'd like to start a discussion about is how plat enters the economy and at what rate this happens.
If you go way back to EQ1 when the servers first opened plat was quite valuable and most players were still wearing bronze armor in their 30's.Banded armor had value and was sold often. You probably didn't have a magical weapon to attack the wisps with.
This was a glorious time in gaming. Why ? Because everyone was poor together and trying to root out a little piece of the pie for themselves.
A problem arose tho, eventually players reached 50+ and plat became much easier to obtain... certain cash camps started cranking plat into the server.
This was a huge problem imo... The rate at which plat enters the server has to be closely monitored so that it can retain a relatively high value. This has to be done right from the very start because you can never go back.
What I propose is make it so mobs don't even drop plat.. have them drop gold on occasion that eventually weighs you down and you have to go back to town to cash it into plat at the bank. This way the only time plat is generated is when someone carried 100 gold to the bank and exchanged it.
What about cash loots you say? Like blue diamonds and such ? Well how about gem loot being used to craft jewelery for specific resist gear...it would make them have a value outside of just selling them to the vendor for a instant plat reward. Also cash loots should be relatively rare imo.
Reagents for powerful spells... Yes please... and make em spendy ;)
Kiz~
I think the thing to be more concerned about in this area is making sure that some upcoming patch down the road doesn't break the economy like in some recent games (I'm pointing at you ArcheAge). Inflation will always happen, money sinks are the only solution to the problem. IMO reagents on major buffs was an excellent way to draw platinum out of the economy. Major raiding guilds needed to fund their weekly operations in EQ by selling some of their raid loot to the non raiders, it was just a necessity. Being a top end raiding guild in EQ during Kunark could sometimes cost upwards of 50k a week just for reagents.
That being said though, none of this was enough to stem the inflation of platinum in EQ, mostly because the possibilities for platinum entering the game are astronomical compared to 50k a week.
I am fascinated by all the erudite and well thought out responses to this issue. My understanding of the effort is to keep it in the game,and less on the money generation/ selling aspect of it. It sort of begets a non-class attribute known as the merchant class. I mean one cannot log in to play a merchant/ banker, yet. I have no ideas; outside of incredibly expensive higher level spells/armor- or the previously mentioned reagent factor for raids as it makes sense that a guild would use the collective funds for this purpose. I can only imagine from a programming perspective how it can be easily managed. Real world examples interfere, like 10% loss in individual savings in banks due to mismanagement, or even a 1 to 2 pct theft of coin alone? NPC rogues actually mugging you for coin? Once players got high enough that NPC would never live long, unless it cashed it's ill-gotten gains to a Smaug like dragon/raid encounter? For which once defeated the news would be globally announced as to what guild/raid defeated it and the spoils instantly returned to all players previously affected- but that is too accounting-heavy to pull off and confusing to those who re-rolled in the meantime although that is a bit like what I have heard occured in England for the Queens Jubilee. ( no real-life re-rolling-lol- but...IP addresses?)
Make tradeskills in line with EQ1 jewelcrafting or potion making. Generally anyone working these skills up was broke.
Don't let monsters drop the two largest coin denominations. Drop copper and silver instead of plat and gold. All the way up. Make the coin drop rate increment increases per level of monster very small. Don't let animals drop coins. It doesn't make sense to have a snake drop coins.
Make only humanoid NPC's drop coin. The lesser the amount of NPC's where coin can be acquired = lower supply and higher demand thus retaining a higher value.
It's much easier to monitor the in-game economy and camps when the coin drop is limited to certain NPC's. Also in a sense realistic considering that Bambi shouldn't be dropping 3 copper or silver.
Deadshade said:
I don't see how money inflation can be prevented as soon as mobs drop money and/or items that can be sold to NPC.
Imagine 10 000 players on the server, 5 000 groups and solo players are killing mobs.
Suppose in average 5 minutes to kill (what would be uncommonly high)
Make in average a mob drop an equivalent of 1 GP (uncommonly low).
That means that every day : 24x60/5 x 5 000 = 1 million 440 thousands gold enters the game (if one takes the EQ change to plat it is then 144 000 plat/day. Every single day.
Then as the average level increases (e.g there are less and less newbies), the average drop value increases too what accelerates inflation farther.
So in 3 months you inject something like 14 millions plat and it never stops.
I can't imagine a money sink that would be able to destroy a significant part of this flow every day.
Generally all money sinks I have seen are used by a player only sometimes or even a unique time but not every day.
I am afraid there is no solution as soon as mobs drop anything of monetary value. And the alternative - mobs drop nothing sellable to NPC and no money either would have to answer the question how players get money if it is not by killing mobs.
There is surely a Nobel prize waiting for the one who answers this question :)
Your numbers are good, but when you lump all the players together like that it makes the question much harder than it needs to be. Base everything off the single person, what the single average person should acquire in 1 day. The more loot/money you try to obtain in a day, the more money it should cost you to operate. Basically it's like business operating expenses, however the operating expense should be much less if you are playing the game without grinding for money/items.
The best example of a money sink I've ever seen was the peridot consumption on Rune spells of Wizards and Enchanters. They could use these spells to protect themselves in combat if they made mistakes, it was like an economic crutch to a less than excellent player. Very good players rarely went through peridots because they wouldn't allow themselves to get hit. It was a skill based money-sink.
Another example is high level Symbols in EQ, average groups usually down-ranked symbols when grinding, however if you were going to push the limits of your group, and try for some higher rewards, you needed to risk the peridot symbols.
EQ just simply didn't scale the reagents as expansions came along, peridots balanced the economy quite well, however when you could advance to level 60, and farming seafury giants or hill giants became so easy that 1 person could clear the entire place, the peridot was still the same old cost. Symbol of Marzin should have cost a star ruby at this point. Also, hate and sky port stones were less used in velious, and it got even worse. They never kept up with the money sinks. Then they went even farther so that you had reagent conservation (counter to the point) and group best in slot symbols. (group aego, virtue)
Give each class some form of skill based money sink, where they can use consumables to get a preparatory edge in combat, but balance that edge with an economic cost that balances some of the economic gain you're likely to make. Once again it's just risk vs reward. You want to reap the reward of killing that hard mob that your party can't seem to defeat.. use some consumables, now you're risking more, and you're rewarded with a better chance. And by consumables, I do not mean potions, please no potions!
Just a couple of ideas of money sinks:
Not only as we level up do we have to buy more bank slots,but we also have to pay a service fee each week per bank slot. Leveling characters of course will be paying less per week then max lvl characters because they will of course have fewer bank slots available to them.
Stables for mounts: several different tiers of stables with increasing weekly fees per mount owned. Along with the higher tiers come with some small perks to your mounts. Perhaps a different colored saddle, maybe a small out of combat speed boost.
Dullahan said:Well its kind of hard to have this conversation without talking money sinks. Even you mentioned reagents.
The easiest way to keep platinum valuable, is to make it hard to obtain. That means mobs don't drop much, and the items you sell to vendors sell for little. Its hard to say this is the way to go though, because there are so many variables we don't know. If there are certain items, spells, abilities or something we don't even know about, that must be purchased with platinum, there has to be a way to earn it. Then there are things like repairing armor, food, reagents and other "money sinks" that are not just money sinks, but important elements that come together to create a feel of a virtual world. It costs money to live, as it should in Pantheon.
In other words, I don't know until we learn more.
Dullahan pretty much nailed a key part here. You're not going to be able to have this discussion without talking money sinks. It's one of those necessary things to keep the MMO economy going around. And if there's going to be an economy, there's going to be money sinks. Trick is to make them good ones and useful.
Now this is going to be a tough one to balance regardless of the approach because there will always be things that people will find to speed up the influx of coin into the economy. Gold sellers seem to be very good at fuinding exploits and dupping bugs to exacerbate that problem a hundred fold, so the first big battle begins with keeping those in check.
Aside from that there are several things you can do to help take the gold out of the economy, which is going to be another biggy. VR said at one point they might have something like an option to sacrifice items for long-term buffs to help keep down mudflation. A coin part could be added to that as well. Making a lot of clothing/armor skins that players can buy for hefty sums of plat is one approach, but like all things that too is only a small fix for the larger problem. If players could craft their own designs to sell to other players that would help in some ways by making a demand for new stuff and also requiring crafting mats from the vendor as part of the expensive recipe. But that's a lot of programming and art work that VR probably can't invest in at this current time.
So that leaves us with the usual: Gear, crafting, repairs, food/drink, spells, mounts, and maybe down the road player/guild housing.
It's a tricky subject to be sure, and one that will never have a permanent solution.
Edit: Just had another thought. Maybe players could pay to log out at an inn when they log for the night There can be several "room" options with various costs that can give a random buff when you log back on. Say you get 1-10 minutes of buff for every 2 hours you're offline up to a max of say 1-2 hours (this part can be based on which room you pay for with the more pricey offering the longest lasting). Those random buffs can be any number of things such as a run buff, haste, spell haste, mana regen, AC boost, and maybe even a slight magic find or gold find type of buff being the rarest to get. By that I mean depending on the buff you might get 10-20% more gold from monsters or a 10% chance to find a better quality of item.
Again, that's just an idea. But sounds like a neat way to put inns back into play as more than a place to sell items. You can even add in some RP elements to things by letting players come hang out in the inn by the warm fire, eat food and drink and over a time, gain a very, very small and capped buff of sorts. But they have to spend coin while they wait to get it. Maybe even offer the option to buy the room a round of drinks and have that give some sort of bonus. All this would have to be carefully measured and balanced to prevent exploitation, but it would be nice to see inns have some additional uses.
Liav said:Is there a forum rule against bumping nearly-two-year-old threads?
Didn't even notice the OP was from 2 years ago but I doubt it. Had someone started a new one instead of rezzing it they probably would have gotten the "use the search button" speech anywho. Just added my 2 copper to it as it was at the top of the forum list (already rezzed that is).
Liav said:Is there a forum rule against bumping nearly-two-year-old threads?
No, I prefer older threads being necroed/revived than having new ones started and information spread out across the forums as I am the one who collects it all and passes the important stuff onto the devs. If these were normal game forums I would implement a no necro rule and probably archive/remove a lot of old stuff but being development forums, I use a lot of this information to discuss the games development with the devs.
Could there be some useful skills that can only be learnt / bought through trainers, maybe these skills are also subject to the "use them or lose them effect" so if you havent used them in a while you may find yourself back at the vendor learning again and all this costs money?
Alternatively while this seems potentially backwards (probably a terrible idea lol) what if NPC's bankers could loan money (capped amounts) and then you had athe loan and interest to payback, the interest could essentially be automattically deducted until your paid up so this is always taking money back from payers and as we know the bank (npc) always wins. If a player ran out of money and still owed the banker could take items and hold them until your debt is paid or back on track. At the time of the loan the banker would give you a stern warning about the consequence of not repaying your debt.
Probably a million flaws in the each idea but just throwing thoughts around
Just put a cap on the amount of money in circulation. If all of it is being hoarded by players then mobs drop no coin. Devs can increase/decrease the cap as needed.
As many have stated (in this and the 'money sinks' thread) to keep currency 'valuable' is all about the overall inflation rate.
+ inflation = mob drops, quest payments
- inflation = money sinks, item sinks, time sinks
These take many forms and can be found listed in the (several) threads about them, so I will not flog a dead horse.
However....
... I do see mileage in the inn concept:
1. Inn keepers offer a buff (by renting a room) :
Builds over an in-game day (2.5 hours?)
Benefits should be related to 'feeling refreshed' and minor(-ish)
E.g. May reduce rate of 'hunger-gain' by 20% for (up to) 2 hours after re-login etc
E.g. May improve perception by 5% for (up to) 1 hour etc
2. Inn Rooms give variable number of buffs/remove debuffs
Small rooms = give buff or reduce one debuff over stay
Medium rooms = give 2 buffs or reduce one debuff over stay
Suites = give 3 buffs or reduce 2 debuffs over stay
Royal Suite = give 4 buffs or reduce 3 debuffs over stay
3. Inn Rooms costs rise sharply per tier:
Small Room = 1 sp,
Medium Room = 5 sp
Suite = 5 gp,
Royal Suite = 5pp
This concept could be extended towards recreating the sort of 'Cantina' feel from 'another famous futuristic MMO' and re-establish it as a place to go and unwind before logging out. This is especially true if PTF envisages long-term debuffs as well as long-term buffs (from item sacrificing). The duration of these debuffs could be eroded in Inns by PC/NPC bards/beer, additionally acting as a means to promote socialisation and cross-transfer of cash through the player-base.
I can't disagree with having only certain types of mobs drop coin, but even those that don't drop coin could just drop valuable vendor fodder instead. I don't think it would be beneficial to remove vendor fodder from mobs, or to have high level mobs still dropping 'pennies'. I think the best solution is to focus on ways for players to pay NPCs and remove it from circulation.
I'm fine with as many spell/ability reagents as they want to put into PRF. I love the use of reagents in these games. I also think you could make spell scrolls and ability training extra expensive. Maybe take it back to where you have to plan to save for your spells from one circle to the next, and if you don't do that, then you may have to choose a few of the spells you want most and come back for the rest when you can afford them. Hell, maybe even have it so your first time through, it's very unlikely that you'll be able to afford all of your spells as soon as you are eligible to learn them.
I'm sure they'll also take advantage of crafting to remove coin from circulation with expensive, vendor-bought materials. I also like the inn ideas posted here. They seem like a good way to make inns matter without having to implement rest experience. I'm not sure how people feel about gambling in MMOs, but if you have NPCs running simple dice games in inns you can adjust the rules accordingly so that the house always wins in the long run. That's how casinos operate. People like to gamble even though the odds are against them. You may get rich, but you're probably just going to lose your money. Of course, the developers would have to be very sure there was no way to exploit this system if they went with it, but it could remove a decent amount of currency from circulation.
Bank and inventory size money sinks have been pretty popular. I could definitely see having a recurring cost for storing items in a bank. Sure, real life banks pay you to hold and use your money, but if you want to store other things there, you pay them. It could be set up so that you pay based on the quantity and size of the items you are storing. When you want to add items that exceed the allotted storage space you have paid for, you have to pay for the extra space before adding anything. As items are removed and you take up less space, the cost of your vault goes down. Each time you use the bank, you'll be required to settle your fees before you can add or remove anything.
It makes sense to limit inflation when possible, but it's not going to be prevented entirely. Ultimately, I think it will be a good problem to have, because it will mean the game has some longevity.
Kilsin said:Liav said:Is there a forum rule against bumping nearly-two-year-old threads?
No, I prefer older threads being necroed/revived than having new ones started and information spread out across the forums as I am the one who collects it all and passes the important stuff onto the devs. If these were normal game forums I would implement a no necro rule and probably archive/remove a lot of old stuff but being development forums, I use a lot of this information to discuss the games development with the devs.
This is good to know. I feel like the forums are less active than they could be because newcomers to the community are hesitant to post in older threads. The discussions might be old to most people, but newer members may have new contributions and I don't think they should be discouraged from posting their opinions. It was frustrating to pledge and then find out that most of the topics I wanted to discuss had already been discussed long ago and that both creating new threads for them and resurrecting the original threads were frowned upon.
EDIT: Added the bit about spells being expensive.
Lots of very good ideas here and I have to line up supporting the following even though there are some nickel and dime perceptions:
- Buff Compoents to draw down plat
- Non Humanoid characters should not drop coin
- Tradeskilling compoents should be pricey or time consuming to make
- Coin shouild have weight to have a decsion made pack it out or not
- Coin shoud be used to maintain your house, horse, gear
- Visiting the Inn / Hookers should cost and leave you feeling refreshed with a buff.
- Coin should be used to purchase titles, bank slots, etc.
- Services we pay for in real life should cost in the game. Banking, Mail, Transportation etc should all cost.
Ok so that may sound like it costs to live in the world, and guess what it should. I like the concept of having to decide what to spend my money on and that I would have to make hard decisions. I loved that in early EQ and even now in EQ TLP I am having to watch my trade skill work so as not to bankrupt me.
Just my thoughts....
Godz.
If Pantheon adopts a diplomacy system like Vanguard had there could be a tax and trade element to cities as well. Maybe people can sway what taxes other races have to pay in cities through diplomacy. That way you could work for a fair rate for all or try and catch a break for yours at the expense of another. This could apply to everything ranging from simple merchant exchanges to a tourist fee. There's a lot that could be played with here if they decide to adopt that ol diplomacy system again.
Who knows. Maybe one day there will come an MMORPG where players can open their own banks and charge for storage, loans, and land contracts that would require some in-game work, diplomacy, and negotiations.