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Question about the economy

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Economy seems fine to me. If I work hard and save, I make money. Quite a decent amount actually. When I'm too lazy to work, I don't make money. No problems here.

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Either you can make decent amount of money, of you level up some skill. Economy seems fine to me, with some restrictions of course.

 

But contemporary problem is lack of serpent stones, binding stone and enriched essencies. Price are skyrocketing and their dependent products still keep their price, making them even more loss. Look at some great sword for example:

 

Two wolfram bars cost about 10500-11500 each, so 21000 to 23000 here, add a binding stone, your somewhere at 30000gc. What is then point of making it, if nobody is willing to pay this price anyway? The experience cannot outweight this, you can simply make 100 leather helms with almost no loss and depending on making a special variant si a fool's hope.

 

This is definitely not a criticism, to make myself clear, just observation point and simple question. No need to flame me :D

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Either you can make decent amount of money, of you level up some skill. Economy seems fine to me, with some restrictions of course.

 

But contemporary problem is lack of serpent stones, binding stone and enriched essencies. Price are skyrocketing and their dependent products still keep their price, making them even more loss. Look at some great sword for example:

 

Two wolfram bars cost about 10500-11500 each, so 21000 to 23000 here, add a binding stone, your somewhere at 30000gc. What is then point of making it, if nobody is willing to pay this price anyway? The experience cannot outweight this, you can simply make 100 leather helms with almost no loss and depending on making a special variant si a fool's hope.

 

This is definitely not a criticism, to make myself clear, just observation point and simple question. No need to flame me :D

 

This has been the essential issue for like, a while :S

Edited by Sir_Exeus

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Two wolfram bars cost about 10500-11500 each, so 21000 to 23000 here, add a binding stone, your somewhere at 30000gc. What is then point of making it, if nobody is willing to pay this price anyway? The experience cannot outweight this, you can simply make 100 leather helms with almost no loss and depending on making a special variant si a fool's hope.

When people ask you to sell at stupid prices, flip them the bird. :D

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There is no lack of 'rare' stuff. Very often I have to reduce the chance of EFEs to 0, because there are just too many comming in the game.

The serpent stones, well, they used to come at twice the rate they were used (now I reduced their chance a little, but there are still more coming than going).

It's just that people will hoard them and not use them.

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There is no lack of 'rare' stuff. Very often I have to reduce the chance of EFEs to 0, because there are just too many comming in the game.

The serpent stones, well, they used to come at twice the rate they were used (now I reduced their chance a little, but there are still more coming than going).

It's just that people will hoard them and not use them.

I am mixing fire essences tonight? any chance in heck for a Efe?

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There is no lack of 'rare' stuff. Very often I have to reduce the chance of EFEs to 0, because there are just too many comming in the game.

The serpent stones, well, they used to come at twice the rate they were used (now I reduced their chance a little, but there are still more coming than going).

It's just that people will hoard them and not use them.

 

Uh, I'm just now peeking into this thread, but I seen your post and thought of something, so excuse if it has already been answered:

 

Is this really fair? Every day new people join the game, and as instructed the first essences made are almost always (in my experience) FEs. This increases the probability of getting an EFE and henceforth the number of EFEs increases. Isn't it a little 'punishing' (for lack of a better word) for older players, or players who choose not to make FEs and then mix 10k hoping to get an EFE?

 

It's a little late, but I don't see the rationale behind setting the chance to 0.

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Guest Trojan_Knight

Many things are not fair, including things IRL. However, I'm not saying that drops need to increase a drastic amount. But would be "nice" if the harder the creature = a very slight gc or lucky drop item increase. Only because to me it makes sense. I would like to see a more desirable trickling up with these creatures. But then again, everyone wants something.

 

I read that many people are not happy with bot prices. As a bot owner, you have to think what works for you, the bot owner. Some may be willing to compete with only other bots, some may wish to compete w/ players. But regardless, you are competing with both. As are players. I see people complaining that EFE's were at one time only worth 3.5k ea. And now they are higher on avg of 7K ea. Before they were 3.5k ea. They were also around 7k ea. Prior to then, even worth much more. My point is things change, wheather some like it or not. As for prices. I think like already stated by someone. Each person is to blame for the economy. In one way or another. Unless you have never baught anything and you never sold anything.

 

The only way things could become more profitable for everyone in the long run. Would be by everyone gaining a pair of nuts, and refusing to sell or buy things at costs they find untolerable or unreasonable. Then again, price wars still are present either between bots and or players. Another option could be npc's being implimented, which still would only give a base of the low end costs. So, npc's not exact solution, and probally to much bs to code. Idk I not coder.

 

So overall. Be happy we're able to play this FREE game. Don't say what your gonna do (ie: strike example i read somewhere), instead do what ya gonna say (cuz actions speak louder then words) and have fun is the most important thing. This topic got me frustrated once in the distant past and it ended badly for me. So, this is all I'm going to say, other then. Less bitching = more fun. Try it sometime :brooding:

 

~~> me :rolleyes:

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The only way things could become more profitable for everyone in the long run. Would be by everyone gaining a pair of nuts, and refusing to sell or buy things at costs they find untolerable or unreasonable. Then again, price wars still are present either between bots and or players. Another option could be npc's being implimented, which still would only give a base of the low end costs. So, npc's not exact solution, and probally to much bs to code. Idk I not coder.

/quote]

Yep, flip the bird at those jerks wanting you to sell at a loss.

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Well, I know, this was told countless times, but...

 

What about not lowering prices and rates, but rather raise experience gain from every item, that uses binding stone, enriched essence or wolfram bar (hidden serpent stone) like four to eightfold? It may appear much, but if you think about it for a second, that way, people would have been motivated much more to make it even for the loss, as it would compensate the price with experience. Also these items are not made on daily basis in high numbers, so there would not be market flooding apparent.

 

Suggestion, numbers are just for example:

Now ice dragon torso gives 6500 base experience. But it is the ultimate armor and very expensive to make. Why not like 40000xp instead? This way, people coud become motivated not to make thousands of cheap item to grind level and sell them to NPC with no interactions with players (=no sense in multiplaying) and to use rare ingredients rather than hoarding them. And there could be no fast grinding either, I mean, how many dragon armors or CoL or whatever are made by one person per week or month.

Edited by Khalai

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BTW, did you find a MMO with a better economy?

 

Well having played various MMO's, I haven't played them as long as I have EL. So i don't know there total structure as well as EL's. So it's hard too really comment. But overall, i guess EL is no better or worse than any other MMO.

 

I guess it depends upon your the development teams goal is. I don't know what it is and I don't see the numbers that you see. There was an interesting article about EL development which I read. Which help me plan for the economy in my MMO better.

 

There is no lack of 'rare' stuff. Very often I have to reduce the chance of EFEs to 0, because there are just too many comming in the game.

The serpent stones, well, they used to come at twice the rate they were used (now I reduced their chance a little, but there are still more coming than going).

It's just that people will hoard them and not use them.

 

This is systematic of the bad economy in my view.

 

Most items sell for a loss -> Hoarding of rare and expensive materials that make those items. (EFE, binding stone, etc...) -> Entopy reduces EFE rate to zero (too many rare materials in game) -> Less supply of rare materials -> Higher demand, which pushes up prices of those items -> Even more loss on making items -> Even more hoarding

 

I guess the only person this is good for is radu. As people might be tempted to buy EFE's with real money.

 

If you used my current 3 step plan, you could crack down on hoarding if you wanted too. By making the storage charge more for those rare items to be stored. Depends upon if you think this action is viable.

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If you used my current 3 step plan, you could crack down on hoarding if you wanted too. By making the storage charge more for those rare items to be stored. Depends upon if you think this action is viable.

 

That would only lead to add this storage tax to the price of these items, making losses even worse...

 

Making people pay for hoarding and prohibit hoarding would make things only worse IMO, it is better to motivate people to USE those items rather than HOARD.

Edited by Khalai

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Suggestion, numbers are just for example:

Now ice dragon torso gives 6500 base experience. But it is the ultimate armor and very expensive to make. Why not like 40000xp instead? This way, people coud become motivated not to make thousands of cheap item to grind level and sell them to NPC with no interactions with players (=no sense in multiplaying) and to use rare ingredients rather than hoarding them. And there could be no fast grinding either, I mean, how many dragon armors or CoL or whatever are made by one person per week or month.

Agreed. The xp does need to be more for these rare ingredient items.

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Suggestion, numbers are just for example:

Now ice dragon torso gives 6500 base experience. But it is the ultimate armor and very expensive to make. Why not like 40000xp instead? This way, people coud become motivated not to make thousands of cheap item to grind level and sell them to NPC with no interactions with players (=no sense in multiplaying) and to use rare ingredients rather than hoarding them. And there could be no fast grinding either, I mean, how many dragon armors or CoL or whatever are made by one person per week or month.

Agreed. The xp does need to be more for these rare ingredient items.

If the xp for these items increase, won't that just move the stockpile from the ingredients to the finished goods? Since they are rare[b/] ingredients I expect it to have little effect on the rest of the common economy!

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Well... some item are hard to do in time terms.

I mean, most of the manufacturing items require fire essence or a metal bar (that require fire essence too).

 

So let's say that sulphur and coal are the most consumed minerals in the game by the mixers. Ok, it happen that both sulphur and coal weight 2 EMU, that bot are not so close to storage, and both have 2 seconds for harvesting.

 

So, with 420 EMU it happen that harvesting 204 pieces of coal require 6 minutes real time, and the same amount of sulphure is on the way even in the best spot.

 

Also, a finished fire essence costs in market channel around 3.5gc. So if i harvest flowers and sell at Irsis shop i can buy 204 FE's in no time... while making 204 FE's require at least 30 minutes to get ings (move from a spot to another by feet) and food too. Ok, it gives XP, but this should be a lateral effect, as FE's are needed for almost anything.

 

So why don't change sulphur and coal, reducing weight or time or adding a spot really close to storage?

 

It would produce more time to mix something better.. no?

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I mean, how many dragon armors or CoL or whatever are made by one person per week or month.

 

Low number of these goods (and many others) being produced is caused mostly by a shortage of ingredients - in case of these two a bottleneck is shortage of binding stones. Within few months prices for them went from 6.5 to over 7.5 kgc per piece. Same for EME's needed for universal hoods. I know a lot of people willing to make high end armor and tailoring goods even below profit to earn current exp if only they could get enough of ingredients required.

 

Buying bindings from EL shop is of course possible but the current gc/$ unofficial exchange rate makes it unprofitable. If chances for getting bindings while harving are to remain constant, maybe a price for them at EL shop could be slightly lowered (like 7-8 for 10$ instead of 6).

 

As to hoarding, this might be misleading. Assuming that someone is collecting ingredients just for one red, black and icy set, that required "to hoard" 30 binding stones and 12 EME's. In my opinion getting such amount on a market in game now requires either to pay more than these are worth or takes weeks. No suprise then that some people that think long term collect these and do not sell just to have them handy when needed.

Edited by Cruella

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No suprise then that some people that think long term collect these and do not sell just to have them handy when needed.

Exactly.

I have some efe/eme/bindings etc in my storage - and actively buy more when I can. (And no way am I even going to attempt to mix using one myself) IMHO this is not hoarding

Why?

Simply because I know at some point I am going to need a new COL/Tit Plate/anything.... And I want to be able to have the ings to get made what I need.

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When is an economy broken? In RL they say there is a economical crisis, yet I don't experience any consequences from that crisis in my day to day live.

 

Perhaps there are a bunch of items of which the prices are controlled by NPC's (so controlled by Radu). When the number of those items grows, more trading with NPC's occurs. Now those prices could be lowered to promote player-to-player trading, but I don't think that is a good idea. Making the special ingredients more rare is another solution but say 1EFE/100kFE will kinda kill off the fun in making FE.

 

Any solution will hurt a group of people. Minor tweaks like is being done now seem like the best way to 'solve' some issues that may be ingame. The effects of those minor changes are only visible after x months.

 

>> In my opinion there should be more buying of items from NPC's and less selling of items to NPC's. That reduces the need for money sinks like tailor/ranging & whatever else is a money sink. It is hard to achieve tho, because players want to level skills and thus create thousands of the same item every day.

If we take Moon Medallions for example, if the break-rate were the same as that of bones I guess the market would be buying more moon medallions. :confused: I as a fighter wouldn't mind using many more moon medallions but of course people would complain about it :brooding: I think the break-rate of items could be increased (more breaks) since atm I hardly ever break steel chain/shield/iron helms... (skeptic ftw)

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Well, we should distinguish between 3 things:

 

- health of economy

- profits

- fun

 

Healthy economy is very important but when it is mostly based on limiting resources and gc flow it can spoil a fun of playing a game if the limits are set too tight. I generally enjoy better games where resources are abundant and developers scratch their heads to implement more and more money sinks. Examples in other games are endless, usually these are luxury goods or so called "rares" that cost fortune and serve no purpose other than collecting them usually.

 

Everyone knows that if profits come too easy not only economy becomes unhealthy but also fun disappears fast and game becomes boring.

 

So small tweaks here and there to keep those three things balanced are probably way better than any radical changes.

 

By the way (do not kill me for saying that) I think every single skill in EL can be profitable but first you just need to reach a certain level (which costs a lot). Taking ranging as example - if you buy a bow and go shooting skunks, a skunk fur might cost you innitially 50 or even 100 gc's (or several kgc if a skunk breaks your bow). At higher level all what single skunk drops cost you just 10 gc's - a cost of a single training arrow. So with every single shot you are getting 1 bone + 1 meat + 1 skunk fur which is not bad I guess ;-) A bad part is that in mid 50's you'd need to shoot 15.000 skunks to get a level ....

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Suggestion, numbers are just for example:

Now ice dragon torso gives 6500 base experience. But it is the ultimate armor and very expensive to make. Why not like 40000xp instead? This way, people coud become motivated not to make thousands of cheap item to grind level and sell them to NPC with no interactions with players (=no sense in multiplaying) and to use rare ingredients rather than hoarding them. And there could be no fast grinding either, I mean, how many dragon armors or CoL or whatever are made by one person per week or month.

Agreed. The xp does need to be more for these rare ingredient items.

If the xp for these items increase, won't that just move the stockpile from the ingredients to the finished goods? Since they are rare ingredients I expect it to have little effect on the rest of the common economy!

 

Not necessarily. Now people are not forced and/or motivated to sell the ingredients so they rather hoard them. However, with finished goods, there is no point in hoarding, it's better to sell it.

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