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Entropy

Disclosure of the rate changes

Let us know what you think about it  

304 members have voted

  1. 1. Should the rare stuff ratio changes be made public?

    • Yes
      119
    • No
      181


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I made some observations and i want to share:

 

1) Every top200 manuer now is lvl 40+, so every each of those 200 manuers can use efe's now for making armors/weapons him/herself and many of them have big stock of efe's.

2 years ago there was less than 50 ppl with that manu lvl, so only ~50 ppl could potentialy hoard efes.

 

2) Several months ago serpent sword was ~4k gc( 3,5k for efe and 500 gc for serp stone). Now efe is 5k+ and serp stone 2,5k, so serpent sword made today needs to cost at least those 7,5k gc.

Why ppl wont buy it? Coz its still same old serpent sword with old stats that costs almost 100% more.

Why buy it if u can get used cutlass/other human6 sword for little more only?( 9-10k). And there is very big difference in stats between them.

Dont look at numbers, simply check them in combat: same armors and similar stats, 1 fighter using serp sword, other one using cutlass/jadged saber.

 

mp

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One that takes into account the general level of development of the characters better still (as that will often, though not always, indicate the level of involvement of those players. Compare an account with almost no stats that plays an hour per week vs a high level and rich account played many hours a day).
How is that going to help?
It'll make the numbers more appropriate. Compare number of EFE that would be in-game if it was based on the number of total accounts, vs if it were based on the number of accounts that are being played at least once a week.

While the lower level players may produce a number of EFE, they aren't going to be (or shouldn't be, considering the people who've used iron plate to hunt beavers and such) the people who consume them (as the mixer or user of the item).

When you want to consider how many people are likely to use something, you have to exclude those who won't from the total set :)

To me, that just sounds like making the maximum amount available equal to the amount of active players.

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I would love to see the EFE dissapear in tit longs, tit chains, iron cuisses and iron greaves (not in the plate). I think that might be positive for those items.

 

And maybe in serp too but add more bars or something :)

Edited by Cycloonx

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Well, it's not that easy to determine an optimal number for each item. Some items come from the shop too, and some come due to special days, and so on.

The trick is determining the OPTIMAL number of each item to be in the game, and this is where it gets impossible.

Then how do we know that 10k EFE's is the number we want to have in the game?

Edited by Mr.Mind

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If hoarding is the problem, then why not add an expiration date to a rare item. This would instantly take care of all the rares that are on accounts that haven't logged in in ages and still affect your view of 'too many rares'.

Technically, it requires one extra field and dynamic 'eye icon' texts. Some caution should be taken to make the fields visible at all times during a trade.

 

Personally, I think this is the best approach to the problem. Most of these items aren't meant to sit in storage, but meant to be processed into usable items.

 

Rostos are a bit different, maybe one could limit hoarding there, by only allowing a maximum in storage, although this could easily be worked around by storing them on a bots' inventory.

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If the the purpose of rare item ratio change is to impact the market then sharing the information will move it in right direction.

 

EFE price are too high. Make EFE getting ration better. Share information with players. Player will know more EFE's are coming to market. Sell the hoarded ones. Prices will come down.

EFE prices are too low. Make EFE getting ratio lower. Share the information with players. Players will buy all EFE's available. Prices will go up.

 

Now making hoaders share the stored EFE with economy, almost next to immpossible unless you tell everyone hiding EFE will be punished(Joke inntended and only happens in RL).

 

- Darky

Edited by darky

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Ok, this is really a number of separate answers to a number of issues raised in the thread: bear with me :).

 

1. I am in favour of keeping rarity changes "secret", and let people realize the changes by themselves (through observation). Thus, prices will adjust slowly, there will be opportunities for smart/more observant players to make some gc from smart trading, and Entropy will be able to make any needed adjustment without causing too much hassle everytime.

 

2. While Trollson's formula for dynamic adjustment is correct, I am against any automatic fixed-target adjustment of rarity.

First, in RL prices of raw material or other items do change, so there is nothing inherently wrong with them changing in EL as well. The important point is to have some positive-feedback loop in the system to keep things balanced to a level where the game can still be played and provide fun. There are already a number of such mechanisms (i.e., NPCs, the EL shop itself, plus supply-demand effect for various items).

Second, determining the "optimal" amount is next to impossible -- even with standard Operational Research techniques (symplex, primal/dual forms, etc.), you cannot easily track changes in the player population. This includes not only the number of players (total or active, as you wish), but subtler things like how experienced players are (the needs of a OA80 are different from those of a OA15), what kind of character they are building (i.e., should two or three top players switch from levelling a skill to another, or maybe a top hoarder give his stock away before leaving the game, the market could be seriously affected), etc.

The historically minded might compare fixed targets to Soviet Union's attempts at a planned economy (those beloved quinquennial plans of old... :) )

 

3. I don't think hoarding is a problem in itself -- counting stuff taking dust in storages as if it were for sure to be eventually used is. Face it, certain people takes pride in showing their collection of Rostos to their friends, or maybe having three full sets of any armour every dreamed of on display, etc.

Please Entropy, when considering whether 13K or 14K EFEs in the game are too much or too few, remember us poor guys with a 1/33000 EFE record while looking at the total sum... Identifying "dead" items (those lying in storages, or maybe moving in a loop, etc.) is probably impossible to implement, so there is no much scope for action here.

 

4. Substituting what are essentially counters to random generators, as suggested by TirunCollimdus, does not seem a good idea at all. The lucky roll is a fundamental part of the gaming experience -- I got my first EFE after 600 fe (ok, those were other times: and how happy I was!), and then nothing for the next 32000+ fe. Adding certainty will make the game more boring, in my opinion. If this is the solution, then it is much better to drop the "random chance" idea at all, and say that you can MIX (i.e., produce) an EFE with 10000 fe, and that's it. Another option would be to make enrichment stones manufacturable (with a mechanism similar to saving stone, so that they will be reasonable rare anyway), and drop the random production while making basic stuff altogether. I'm in favour of keeping the current system, though.

 

5. Finally, a little change in the client could make the point 1. above easily accepted: just provide a per-item counter reset option in the client, or maybe just a separate counter over a given time window (for example, over the last 30 days), so that observant people will have an opportunity to realize the effects of a change in rarity, rather than having an announcement of the change.

 

As a side note, pushing people to observe the rates rather than being told them would also increase social interaction among players (to compare statistics), which could be a nice outcome anyway.

 

Now, where were my 0.02$? :)

 

-Usl

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2. While Trollson's formula for dynamic adjustment is correct, I am against any automatic fixed-target adjustment of rarity.

First, in RL prices of raw material or other items do change, so there is nothing inherently wrong with them changing in EL as well. The important point is to have some positive-feedback loop in the system to keep things balanced to a level where the game can still be played and provide fun. There are already a number of such mechanisms (i.e., NPCs, the EL shop itself, plus supply-demand effect for various items).

Second, determining the "optimal" amount is next to impossible -- even with standard Operational Research techniques (symplex, primal/dual forms, etc.), you cannot easily track changes in the player population. This includes not only the number of players (total or active, as you wish), but subtler things like how experienced players are (the needs of a OA80 are different from those of a OA15), what kind of character they are building (i.e., should two or three top players switch from levelling a skill to another, or maybe a top hoarder give his stock away before leaving the game, the market could be seriously affected), etc.

The historically minded might compare fixed targets to Soviet Union's attempts at a planned economy (those beloved quinquennial plans of old... :) )

People have totally missed my point with regards to a dynamic system controlling item input (I probably should've been clearer). I didn't mean it JUST for rare items, I intended it for all types - rare or not. More importantly are the harvestable items that shouldn't be unlimited in supply.

 

Having an unlimited supply of flowers, ores and other 'harvestable' items is perhaps the root cause of this all. I'd very much like to see this change, and see how it affects the market (and indeed make the game more enjoyable).

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I'm quite with placid about the general rarity of items. Indeed the problem arise not just when there are unlimited amount of resources, but when these resources are endlessly bought by shops with unlimited amount of gc they can spend.

 

The difference between RL and EL market is indeed the scarcity of resources: the balance between their availability and their demand is one of the (main?) factors determining their price. (I think i'm not adding anything new here.)

 

We could say that this at least happens in EL for 'rare items'. Or not? Well not... because, like i pointed it out at the beginning, the money needed to buy these rare items has got a virtually unlimited source (it is actually linked to how much time players can spend harvesting things). That is, any price sellers 'decide', buyers will easily settle with. You can approximate the amount of money available, and the demand, as infinite, while offer varies, thus the price is mostly determined by those how control supply.

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People have totally missed my point with regards to a dynamic system controlling item input (I probably should've been clearer). I didn't mean it JUST for rare items, I intended it for all types - rare or not. More importantly are the harvestable items that shouldn't be unlimited in supply.

In general terms, I agree: we might have a large but limited stock at any given harvesting spot, and once the stock is exhausted it would take some time for it to reform. This would make harvesting more realistic, avoid large crowds at favorite spots (the harvesting pressure will distribute more evenly), and encourage map exploration (so that players can find unspoiled resources).

My favourite example are the outhouses: only rarely I find someone inside, yet they hold an unlimited supply of dung :)!

But I have the impression that it might be very difficult to implement given the current data structures in the server, and moreover most players would be quite unhappy with such a change (which, actually, might be a good reason for Entropy to consider it ;))...

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I have 16 EFEs in sto, not because i'm hoarding then to hopefully make a larger profit off them, but because I'm waiting until i get my manu high enough to make use of them.

 

Also, I made all of them while making over 100k FEs.

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But I have the impression that it might be very difficult to implement given the current data structures in the server, and moreover most players would be quite unhappy with such a change (which, actually, might be a good reason for Entropy to consider it :confused:)...

 

Not sure that is such a good reason to implement... :)

 

The question is WHY would this make people unhappy? I think that we'd need more resources and more things to do that don't depend on harvesting for this to work. When levelling any skill requires tons of harvesting then eliminating the harvesting gets rid of everything else.

 

Of course, it doesn't have to work this way. Unfortunately, I'm not sure i can think of a better way. I have some ideas, but I don't think they'll work - they'd all involve fundamental changes in how harvesting works (get rid of emu, or have harvesting go direct to store, or have claims so that you can stake ownership apart from the muling - lots of other options). Prices would probably change quite a bit - harvestables would become much more expensive. Unless the xp system changes that means levelling will be much harder as well. If we just scale up the xp to go along with the decreased number of harvestables then we won't actually solve the problem - we'll just multiple everything by a factor of 10 or something (stuff costs 10X more, but gives 10X more xp, so just as much supply/demand/etc)...

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People have totally missed my point with regards to a dynamic system controlling item input (I probably should've been clearer). I didn't mean it JUST for rare items, I intended it for all types - rare or not. More importantly are the harvestable items that shouldn't be unlimited in supply.

In general terms, I agree: we might have a large but limited stock at any given harvesting spot, and once the stock is exhausted it would take some time for it to reform. This would make harvesting more realistic, avoid large crowds at favorite spots (the harvesting pressure will distribute more evenly), and encourage map exploration (so that players can find unspoiled resources).

My favourite example are the outhouses: only rarely I find someone inside, yet they hold an unlimited supply of dung :)!

But I have the impression that it might be very difficult to implement given the current data structures in the server, and moreover most players would be quite unhappy with such a change (which, actually, might be a good reason for Entropy to consider it :D)...

 

:( I would hate to be European or anyone for that matter who logs on right after most of the Americans have gone to bed. Limited harvestables? Who decides which time zone gets first shot at the limited harvestables and depletes them for the next timezone? The best locations that are close to storage get depleted and then replenish themselves while the new timezone people scrounge for harvestables. Then the harvestables are replenished when the people who deleted them logged back on. OUCH does that suck for everyone else. If they replenished fast enough for every time zone then they wouldn't be limited would they?

 

You would need a storage on every single map at least if not multiple storages to give everyone around the world a fair shot at good harvesting without screwing up their sleep schedule. Those with enough RL money to have any schedule they choose would once again have one more advantage if they chose to. The can of worms this idea would open is so big it is almost incomprehensible. If there was a way to create or find your own resources and storages were plentiful this idea could work but on a game world so small this is just not going to help anyone.

 

TirunCollimdus

CoGM of PATH

Perseverance And Tolerance Honored

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:) I would hate to be European or anyone for that matter who logs on right after most of the Americans have gone to bed.

Well, given that I am European and am fine with it, and you are American and think Americans would be at an advantage, it would be easy to make both of us happy :D. But as I said above, I don't think this can be implemented, so the point is moot.

 

However, based on what I can observe from #stats, the number of players logged on at any given time is more or less constant: are you just assuming that there are huge spikes based on US vs. rest of the world time zones, or you actually observed such fluctuations? I do not normally play on CET mornings, so I might be missing part of the data -- but I'm on for some 10-18 hrs/day :( , mostly every day, and the number of players is typically between 480 and 550 at all times.

Unless there is such a regular, periodic effect, the disaster scenario you depict so effectively is not going to happen...

 

But again, why waste bits on discussing this? :)

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I would rather like just fixed prices made by an mod/dev/ficus whoever could be made responsible to do it

but thats almost impossible if not impossible to do.

I voted no. as someone allready stated it doesnt matter to me to know the rate of a drop. if i get it.. fine..

if i dont get it.. its fine as well.. cant do anything against it anyways so i take it as it comes.

dunno if it gets any better for the economy or if anything changes at all.. tbh im afraid having a fallout

on market about price speculations and such. since ppl will may claim they know a drop is "verrrry rare" or

"XY amount of ppl found one so far so its expensive/cheap" o0

im just a mere hard working electrician >.> what do i know about economy -_-

Anyways.. i still think there are better ideas out there... we just didnt figure em out yet (yeh i know im a

smartass -_- its 6 am and i didnt sleep)

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I would rather like just fixed prices made by an mod/dev/ficus whoever could be made responsible to do it

but thats almost impossible if not impossible to do.

Prices are fixed by the NPC buy/sell prices. Set an NPC buy price and nobody sells for less than that. Set an NPC sell price and nobody sells for more than that. It's not very hard to fix prices in this game.

 

The reason there has been such bad deflation is because we have more items coming in than gold coins.

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well my point was not with the items available via NPC o_0

dont forget how much drop only/special event items there are as well. i dont see it as that impossible as

well but i guess dev/mods have other stuff to take care of :happy:

People make the prices.. and i guess thats the prob of the whole thing. i have no clue how it works

with the economy.. but i want to make a wooden spoon myself and sell it for 1M just because its the only

one in the whole wide world o_0

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I would rather like just fixed prices made by an mod/dev/ficus whoever could be made responsible to do it

but thats almost impossible if not impossible to do.

Prices are fixed by the NPC buy/sell prices. Set an NPC buy price and nobody sells for less than that. Set an NPC sell price and nobody sells for more than that. It's not very hard to fix prices in this game.

 

The reason there has been such bad deflation is because we have more items coming in than gold coins.

I rest my case.

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Deflation? If anything, I would say it is inflation. What items have gone down in the past few months? The cost of almost everything (especially base items) has been going up in the past 3-5 months. IIRC, the only items that have gone down in price are high level/ super-rare items, everything else up.

 

EDIT: punctuation

Edited by LevinMage

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Well, it's not that easy to determine an optimal number for each item. Some items come from the shop too, and some come due to special days, and so on.

The trick is determining the OPTIMAL number of each item to be in the game, and this is where it gets impossible.

Then how do we know that 10k EFE's is the number we want to have in the game?

 

I want less than that in the game. I want like 5K.

But I can't get it to 5K right away.

 

The idea is to have the rare items go out of the game, rather than accumulate. So it's not about the number that come in the game, but about the use ratio too.

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Well, it's not that easy to determine an optimal number for each item. Some items come from the shop too, and some come due to special days, and so on.

The trick is determining the OPTIMAL number of each item to be in the game, and this is where it gets impossible.

Then how do we know that 10k EFE's is the number we want to have in the game?

 

I want less than that in the game. I want like 5K.

But I can't get it to 5K right away.

 

The idea is to have the rare items go out of the game, rather than accumulate. So it's not about the number that come in the game, but about the use ratio too.

 

As i see the problem is the acumulation of items in the storage... it works against economy and increases market expeculation...

If is there a way to putt a max quantiti of rare items in the storage it will make ppl need to sell or use the item...

 

i.e EFE max in storage = 15, when someone is making FEs (considering he has 14 in his storage) he would need to sell or use it or his storage would bu full with EFEs and he cant have another one...

 

no one realy need to have more then 5 EFEs in the storage (i have more then 5 and i dont used or sold it for i reason i realy dont know...) same with rosto NMT etc...

 

it will make the person need to sell it, will decrease prices could work... no magic number to calculate the random chance to make one

 

im voting NO btw

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no one realy need to have more then 5 EFEs in the storage (i have more then 5 and i dont used or sold it for i reason i realy dont know...) same with rosto NMT etc...

 

 

Oh really? I used 17 the other day, 8 the next, and I'm about to use another 8 right now. You may not need more than 5 in storage at any one time, but when a ti plate uses 4 each, I kinda need more than that, a lot more than that. I'm doing my part to get them out of the game so if you find yourself with more than 5 then I'll be more than happy to purchase the extras :happy:

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Oh really? I used 17 the other day, 8 the next, and I'm about to use another 8 right now. You may not need more than 5 in storage at any one time, but when a ti plate uses 4 each, I kinda need more than that, a lot more than that. I'm doing my part to get them out of the game so if you find yourself with more than 5 then I'll be more than happy to purchase the extras :confused:

 

Ok instead of 15 change it to 20, 25, i dont know the best amount for each rare items... thats not the point of my post. The point there is to find a way to make ppl need to sell their items insteade of keeping acumulating then....

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Well, it's not that easy to determine an optimal number for each item. Some items come from the shop too, and some come due to special days, and so on.

The trick is determining the OPTIMAL number of each item to be in the game, and this is where it gets impossible.

Then how do we know that 10k EFE's is the number we want to have in the game?

 

I want less than that in the game. I want like 5K.

But I can't get it to 5K right away.

 

The idea is to have the rare items go out of the game, rather than accumulate. So it's not about the number that come in the game, but about the use ratio too.

How do we know that 5k EFE's is the number we want to have in the game?

 

The reason people accumulate EFEs is because they are waiting to get the other rare items to use the EFE's with. There aren't many people collecting them to brag about how many they have.

Edited by Mr.Mind

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