The Economy...again

[gadai]

Just a quick thought that came to me reading some of the other threads in Suggestions at the moment:

 

The in game money drains only affect people who try to develop a broad range of skills. If you choose to play a fighter/alchemist you'll never be touched by them and can, potentially, earn buckets of money from making He's for others.

 

New plan! Get rid of (or lessen) the money drains and stop the shops from buying some items instead? The problem seems to be that an over abundance of money is entering the economy causing prices to sink. Players don't create gold - NPC's do (ignoring b2g for the moment). So stop the NPC's paying 1 gold for every two fruits from behind their barrell stack. Stop paying whatever for Lilacs when the shop never sells them anyway.

 

Stop creating easy gold.

 

Influx of money slows. The amount in circulation goes down as players retire, unlike currently where if someone with 1 million gold retires today, it would already have been replaced in 'created' gold by tomorrow. The value of gold rises and the economy stablises.

 

Just a thought, so please feel free to tear it apart

[Kendai]

But I need my easy gold to get started in the very areas you mention ^_^;; You realize how expensive books are? And if you're a fighter, it would take a long time before you can move up from creature to creature if you couldn't afford to buy armor. Any of the other skills require lots of gc too. Without the "easy gold," no one would be able to afford to start in any of these skills. Flame me as you will, but to newbies especially, that easy gold is necessary to get started in the game.

[kl4Uz]

Imho it's kind of a legend that fighters are the rich guys in EL. It is true that very very good fighters can become pretty rich, but mainly through the goods they win in pk battles.

 

An everage fighter has many expenses for armour, hes, sr, rings, etc. If you don't make at least one sort of supplies yourself it's pretty hard to finance your training. Crafters have enormous profits for example. I think it's mainly jealusy between different "professions" that start discussions like this one all the time. I think no one can really mourn, because atm we have still a lot of money input - more than money drain.

[gadai]

I'm not saying that the fighters are rich Kl4uz - what I'm saying is that if someone choose to develop as a fighter/alchemist that the amount of money drained would be minimal compared to say a manufacturer training or a crafter. Additionally if the fictional character spent enough time to seriously alc they could make a fortune from HE's from their Alchemy skill without ever suffering the money drains.

 

To Kendai: While the fruits/flowers are valuable between levels 1-20 they cause a problem after that by being 'abused' to generate vast monies. I have no problem with low level chars getting the money they need to start out but unless some way can be devised to prevent the abuse those resources cause more problems then deliver benefits in my opinion.

[Kendai]

Perhaps a system in which certain objects like fruit, vegetables, or flowers are not sellable to an NPC after a certain harvesting level? That way newbies can still get the gc necessary to start on other things and higher players won't go crazy with lilac gathering or what not. However, to those who only wish to be a harvester, that could prove problematic. Although I personally don't see the benefits of focusing completely on harvesting after certain levels. Mind you, I made this up on the spot, so flame away

[freeone3000]

Crafters have enormous profits for example.

201570[/snapback]

When? Okay, take a damage ring. Silver bar + fire essences + polished ruby. Split it up. Silver bars sell for 30 gold each, two bars to a ring. 10 gold for a sanding paper. Rubies can sell for 2.2 gold each. Each fire essence can sell for 3 gold. 100-70something=20ish, and that's if you don't fail. And with masterly levels removed... you'll fail eventually.

[gurgeh]

To Kendai: While the fruits/flowers are valuable between levels 1-20 they cause a problem after that by being 'abused' to generate vast monies. I have no problem with low level chars getting the money they need to start out but unless some way can be devised to prevent the abuse those resources cause more problems then deliver benefits in my opinion.

201622[/snapback]

 

Mother Nature prevents the abuse of harvest. High players have better ways to get money than watching for the bees.

 

Also we have a lot of money sinks: Leather, Wine, Gem sanding paper, Some Essences, Books, Etc... .And the most important point is that economic system autoregulates e.g. If people have too much money, then, the rich people pays more for the goods. If crafters and manufacturers are this rich, then all metal bars should bought from NPC. And if fighters are that rich then the price of HEs and SRs should be almost the same of the NPC.

[LadyWolf]

Crafters have enormous profits for example

 

Not here as of late..our profit has dropped off as much as everyone elses.. too many "bots" selling things uber cheap..so instead of worsening the economy by flooding the market with cheaper rings than the bots, i choose to sit on mine and let them rust, while i find some other way to build my cash back up.

[Daxon]

When? Okay, take a damage ring. Silver bar + fire essences + polished ruby. Split it up. Silver bars sell for 30 gold each, two bars to a ring. 10 gold for a sanding paper. Rubies can sell for 2.2 gold each. Each fire essence can sell for 3 gold. 100-70something=20ish, and that's if you don't fail. And with masterly levels removed... you'll fail eventually.

201668[/snapback]

 

Fail one in like 200 if you level up your crafting decently. If you're not making profit on something due to fail rates, consider moving down the ladder to something that does bring profit.

[N1k0n]

Ppl should raise prices and that's that

E.g - big request on HE price went up to 5-6-7 from 3.5-4

 

-Diss ring went down! make it 120

-Pl8s i mean cmon every noob has them - make em back to 10k grv 12-13k cui 19k chestpl8

 

 

I can make pl8s nor diss (diss fail a lot)

but i mean i got to make 5k hes one day and didnt felt like fighting so i announced im selling

got 3 offers: 4-6-9 gc each

Edited September 27, 2005 by N1k0n

[Creepin_Death]

New plan! Get rid of (or lessen) the money drains and stop the shops from buying some items instead? The problem seems to be that an over abundance of money is entering the economy causing prices to sink.

201389[/snapback]

 

 

Less money to spend>>>>>>>fewer buyers

Fewer buyers>>>>>>>>>>>>more product than buyers

 

 

So if you make players poorer (<--- is that even a word lol) by taking their income away we will have a surplus of unsold items. Which in turn will cause the market prices to crash to an all time low.

 

What we need is more buyers than sellers to increase prices.

[Vanyel]

The economy in Seridia (and Irilion now) seems to be rather unstable. Any changes to it must be considered from every point of view.

Money sinks are needed, since there is source of free money - monster drops, Queen of Nature.

Crafters do not have enormous profits, quite opposite, their profits are pathetic.

It's myth that fighters are very rich. Unless you think of these from top 20 (but top 20 manuers/crafters/summoners/etc aren't poor as well), but this is normal. These players are usualy very experienced and know how to gather large amounts of gold coins.

I will not suggest what could be changed, because I have no idea. Taking some money from market wouldn't be bad, but how to do it fairly? Making manuin/crafting a bit more difficult would take some items from market - prices would go up, but do we want them to go up to ridiculous levels? There is no simple solution. Let's wait til updates will finish and talk about it. The council could be back. Let's wait til then. There still can be new items in game and this would change everything.

Edited September 27, 2005 by vanyel

[Phenic]

It's myth that fighters are very rich. Unless you think of these from top 20 (but top 20 manuers/crafters/summoners/etc aren't poor as well), but this is normal.

201724[/snapback]

 

O....0 Summoners do *not* get rich from summoning.. though I do suppose you have to already be rich to get up there. I mean, thousands of wolves to level once, each costing on average over 40gc with no end product to sell ... yeah... rich summoners

 

Anyway, to the topic at hand. Out of curiousity, what would happen if the NPCs stopped buying.. say.. FE? I'm guessing, because of the massive rate at which these are produced, the prices would go down.

 

Is that what we want? I'm under the impression the goal is to inflate certain items, and make them profitable, not worthless.

 

Because of how leveling is done on skills (with the exception of fighting) - mass producing everything to gain one more level, the economy will never improve to the point we all dream of. The money flow is not the actual problem here. The mass supplies of everything, with the small ammount of buyers, is.

 

With FE again as an example, just think about it. Yes, tens of thousands of these are used every day in manu, crafting, and even summoning. But how many are produced? They're the basic essence, and often the first thing 'made' by starting players. It is very easy to churn out thousands of these by just one individual, and, I'm betting, almost every player has done this at some point.

 

What we really need is a minimalist's economy. Let NPCs buy everything but at such a low expense there would be loss no matter what the product. At the same time raise, double or triple their prices for consumables (leather, thread, wine). Why? Because this would take lower level items out of circulation. People interested in training a skill wouldn't spend hours on market trying to sell their leather gloves if the NPC bought them for 10 each.. well a few would, but most would cut their losses and sell, if only to save time and get a little something back. With the prices raised on goods like wine, even the fighters would have to shell out more (SRs!). Raised prices on basic goods make it more important to plan how to spend your money, and how to raise your skills.

 

Another way to lessen the amount of goods ingame, is to change the time vs. experience gained per item made. Say an item takes 3 seconds and gives 10 xp now. What if it took 30 seconds but made 100 xp? If the items are more expensive to make (see above paragraph) and give no profit, the only incentive to make them is to increase your level, or perhaps personal use. If leveling became harder, high end items would be worth more..

 

Increase fail rates... .. decrease monster drops... and finally, when all the changes are made, a skill and item wipe..

 

But you know, I think any of the things I just mentioned, will probably never happen. People like short term rewards. They want profit off of everything, even the most lowly items. They want their skills to bring in gold and fame immediately. They want to level *now* and as easily as possible. And of course, a wipe is the worst thing I could possibly say. In truth though, it's needed after a major economic change. Anyone remember the 'economic change' almost a year ago, where Ti. Chain went from just under 1k apiece to 6k+ because EFEs were then included? My, wouldn't it be lucky if you had a few of those in store at the time.. and what about the people that had hundreds? That's just one example of one item, in one situation. Something seemingly so small can have a huge impact on gold, or expericen gains. That's why I say wipe after changes; hang me if you must. Currently the game is catering towards popularity not practicality.

[trollson]

Because of how leveling is done on skills (with the exception of fighting) - mass producing everything to gain one more level, the economy will never improve to the point we all dream of.

 

I think thats the hub of the problem.

 

Would it be better to drastically reduce the experience value in making items, but add in 'training tasks', which cost materials, generate experience, but without an end product?

 

People levelling should then prefer to perform the training tasks, rather than swamping the market with uncommerical goods. The price of made items should rise according to demand, so those you want to manufacture for a profit can do so.

[Vanyel]

O....0  Summoners do *not* get rich from summoning.. though I do suppose you have to already be rich to get up there. I mean, thousands of wolves to level once, each costing on average over 40gc with no end product to sell ... yeah... rich summoners

 

I didn't mean they're getting rich out of summoning, but... point the poor top20 summoner or crafter or fighter or....

[Aerowind]

When I first thought of the econ. problem I thought 'Yeah NPC's not selling stuff will fix the problem' but after I read this, it's true take away a basic price of the NPC's and the price goes down, if you notice FE prices usually dont' go lower then 3 gc because you can sell them at the WS magic shops >.> notice i said 'usually' because at one point you'll get an Antisocial dude that makes some FE's and doesn't get any takers on the 3 or 4 gc price on FE's so he'll lower the price to 2 gc and for like a day or two you'll have to keep it at that price or just go to the magic shop >.>

 

We like need a basic price for items, Trik is kind of pointless now... not much profit at all...