So there has been a lot of talk on the forums already about economy, but I haven't found much discussion on how you actually obtain hard currency in game.
In most games hard currency is generally obtained in one of 3 ways (4 if you count all the hax :P )
I believe the major cause of eco-bloat is caused by an imbalance or improper implimentation of these basic methods. Considering the second is a direct result of the 1st and 3rd I would say it probably has the heaviest impact on the eco-bloat we see in games, and one of the most overlooked.
There are obvious things that can be done to help prevent eco-bloat, such as reduce rewards and quests and lower the coin dropage of kills, but I think a deeper dive into the mechanics of selling items would benefit and enrich the economy and world of Terminus more than those stifling things.
example: make merchants have a limited balance of coins available per-diem, with sales of their own goods adding to that balance for the day. The limits of per-diem can be tested in beta, but essentially you want the merchants to run out of money, forcing the players to travel to other merchants to sell, sell to other players or giving up on selling their junk. But you dont want the morning market mongrals to stockpile all the look to sell at the beginning of the day depleting the entire per-diem of all the local merchants.
example: have a item re-sell inventory on the merchant that resets daily or weekly, and the higher quantity of the item you are trying to sell the lower % of the actual value you get. This would incentivize selling your goods to multiple vendors in multiple areas to maximize your coin profit.
What are your thoughts on the matter?
eheh there was a super heated thread on this that fell into the void.
i don't remember exactly, but think of mobs as a printing press that you whack. any number or players can farm it which ultimately leads to inflation since the printing press isn't regulated.
to counteract this, it was proposed to have taxation, money sinks, etc etc.
there were some clever solutions that look promising.
i think one was tokens to turn in from dropped mobs.
the other was adjusting money the mobs dropped.
some wanted the old ways in a completely player controlled economy. essentially players could crash the markets if they knew what they were doing and cash in quite a bit of monay.
i don't know wher ethe thread is XD
oh i forget to mention wealth depreciation. that was a noteworthy one too.
Kargen said:ohh man! i must have missed that one! this topic has always been such an intrigue!
In the end I know every system is exploitable, but still fun to try to outwit the craftiest of people!
i don't remember the title of the discussion. it was a pretty good one. there were things like eliminating p2p transfer of items/money/etc
here i'll try to break down the points up brought up.
the bit with tokens or trophys to turn in:
this would be a huge problem for pvers, since groups can monopolize spots. not really an issue for pvp.
limited vendor money:
this will affect both pvper and pvers, people would be sitting on junk because they couldn't sell it to a vendor. a soft cap resource was suggested. meaning if items were sold above the threshold, one could still sell item at a reduced value.
kill p2p transfers or severely limit what could be traded:
then everything must be sold through a marketplace/auction house where it could be regulated and taxed accordingly for currency/inflation control.
i'm missing some other great ideas but i'm a potato and i don't dwell on the past too much XD
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/8982/money-sinks/view/page/1
Here is one I found, it also has some links,
See also searches under "Mudflation" and "Money sinks" in forums search
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/8982/money-sinks
the above is a good one
@Nephele
Your opinion is just plain wrong. Anyone reading your opinion would immediately know how terrible and unpopular it would be. Obviously your opinion conflicts with the popularly accepted interpretation of the game tenants, if you ignore all the rest of the tenants. You forcing your opinion out in the open makes me feel like you are oppressing my unsubstantiated opinions with facts . . . .
Too much snark for a Thursday?
To the OP there are lots of cool threads out there and we have been begging for a few “Burning Questions” centered around non-combat systems one of which being the cash and item economy model.
Trasak said:
@Nephele
Your opinion is just plain wrong. Anyone reading your opinion would immediately know how terrible and unpopular it would be. Obviously your opinion conflicts with the popularly accepted interpretation of the game tenants, if you ignore all the rest of the tenants. You forcing your opinion out in the open makes me feel like you are oppressing my unsubstantiated opinions with facts . . . .
Too much snark for a Thursday?
To the OP there are lots of cool threads out there and we have been begging for a few “Burning Questions” centered around non-combat systems one of which being the cash and item economy model.
i agree with your agreement to disagree with this disagreement, which doesn't mean anything because it's opinions on facts that could be considered opinions are not really facts, but opinions on opinions that don't change the fact that this is actually a fact on an opinion.
uh yea so. to each his own XD we know what to be true based on what we see with our own eyes.
Nephele said:LOL you two. We better be careful or someone might think we're really arguing!
it's all open for interpetation right? i mean, is a bird floating, gliding or flying?
we can say that money is the the problem, but it could be that people that are using the money is a problem, however, it could be that the system of money is the problem?
although one can say that this is all very complicated, it really is as simple as yes or no. zero or one. true or false. it's more or less who's reality we want to live in? one of an individual or one of a collective?
i find this all amusing. it's like watching the sky and ocean drawing a line in their boundaries failing to realize they encompass space. such beauty in uglyness. such uglyness in beauty.
as discord creates accord, likewise accord in discord we create, we destroy, we create, we destroy... and so the endless cycle is what makes us live. what makes us die.
In my perfect game this would be a moot point because everything in the game, including coins, would be player crafted. So the only way you would be gaining coins is by killing a player and taking them from him, killing a mob that looted them from a player it killed, crafting your own coins, trading your goods for another player's coins, or trading your coins for another's coins. And in this manner yes there wouldend up being tons of player made coins but it would sort itself out over time due to certain markets flourishing and others, well not so much.
Another system I am very partial to because I myself have suggested it on forums for games-in-the-making is as follows....
Vendors have a list of items they will buy and sell. The amount the vendor has in-stock is split into 5 catagories 100% item limit = Fully Stocked, 75% = Well Stocked, 50% = Stocked, 25% = Partially stocked and 0% = Out of Stock. The amount the vendor will buy and sell the item for is directly related to the amount he/she has. Fully stocked = 50% Sales Price and 0% buy price. Well stocked = 75% Sales Price and 25% buy price. Stocked = 100% sales Price and 50% Buy price. Partially Stocked = 125% Sales Price and 75% Buy price. Out of Stock = 0% Sales Price and 100% Buy price.
Depending on the location of the vendor and the type of vendor it is, each vendor has an artifical decay rate of its stock. For example a fish vendor in a port city would have a very low decay rate as it would be assumed that it was also purchasing from the npcs and would be competing with tradesmen in selling, whereas a fish vendor in an inland city would have a higher decay rate as he/she would have less competition. Stock would decay over time and would never artifically re-stock. Any items bought from players would be in addition to the natural decay rate.
As has been pointed out many times since 2014, without mitigation sinks, if you have: dropping currency directly from mobs, and/or making it trade-able, and/or allowing most things to be sellable to NPC's will screw the economy so hard, you'll see it from space. Been true since 1995, will always be true, historically, logically and mathematically.
So far, there's been no posts from the supposed economist they've mentioned (that I've ever seen), nor has there been any reveals regarding their economic design, with respect to how they will address this issue.
Which is perfectly fine, if you want the same RMT and mudlfation issues that have plagued every MMO that has done this in the past. It's not like it doesn't "work", it just works really really badly, and benefits all of the wrong parties. So far, based only on public information, this is precisely how Pantheon will be.
You can't stop RMTing, the harder you make it to make money, the more valueable that money becomes. Now I'm not saying to simply let the money fall liek rain, but I'm also not saying that it should be so hard to make money to where trying to get any some of it be so painful that it essentially would encourge people to buy from RMTers as well, their is a line and you shouldn't try to cross it by either side of it.
I would one create Faction based Currency that you can only gain from being in high repuation with them and acquiring a "Mark" that has a chance to drop their currency for them, as a thought.
Essentially i would try to Diminish the value of the normal form of currency to where it simply isn't "King" of everything and therefore can gain/get everything simply by farming one form of currency, i think this is what makes RMTing for RMTers so easy, is that they have no competition from within the game to have to decide which currency is more valuable, but if you have the more valuable currency essentially "No Trade" than the tradeable Currency be less likely bought becuase of how you need a little bit of everything and not just one thing.
Now i know this wouldn't solve RMTing completely especially from a AH prespective, but honestly i believe the punishment should stop you from buying from RMTers like i heard someone else say, if you got caught buyign 100 gold you than go negative 100g and have to frm up 100 gold to start making money again, or essentially serve a sentence to repay back the debt, and 2nd strike in my honesy opinion your done, start over, there isn't a need for a 3 strike sentence in a illegal action that everyone knows is wrong before you ever did it and simply just didn't care
