Feasting pots made profitable.

[Tofer]

My economics is not voodoo economics. It is from some years in school as well as maintaing the supply of an infantry battalion for 2 year, keeping the issue records of $25 million dollars of TA-50 at the CIF in Schweinfurt for a year, and maintaining the Survey Reports on damaged or lost equipment, buildings, vehicles, etc for the Directorate of Logistics. Not to mention the design, menu, and price guide of a deli and two bars. If I knew the first thing about coding in C or C++ or any of the currently used languages I'd offer my services to help design a better economic structure. Sadly I stopped programming with Turbo Pascal.

 

I play this game specifically because it is beta, and open to change. It is the very fact that it is unpolished and needs years of changes still that makes it exciting. But the argument that maybe things aremeant to be that way doesn't help. Doesn't really matter what things were originally intended to do; what matters is the impact they have now and if that impact is balanced. In the case of feasting pots it is not.

 

I'd be inclined to agree with the increaseing the price to 20gc at mira as the best overall action. But the backlash and sheer number of complaints is too much for me to foward the idea myself. Thus the decrease in food consumption proposed instead (besides I didn't need to say anything about raising Mira's prices it was already said) Whichever method is chosen, or even a combination of methods, doesn't really matter to me as long as something is done to make feasting pots an attractive potion for potion makers to make.

 

*side note: rereading above made me see that the comments about not mattering what the devs original ideas were seem harsh. It was not meant to be so; was only pointing out what game desingers already know and that is no matter how good the original plans, stuff changes and you end up having to change with it.

[Guest Enyo]

Closing arguement.. cooked meat as a replacement for raw meat is a realistic compromise. Compromise is the key word here. Originally some of us suggested just removing meat entirely replacing it with an extra fruit or veggie and then Learner suggested cooked meat and then upping the prices on potions at Mira. I think that sounds fair and reasonable. Because we should have the opportunity to make feasting potions if we choose and not only buy them. Economy is a huge part of this game and whether new comers should be supplying our meat demand is irrevalent because they can't be forced to become our raw meat suppliers. 20 gc is too high for feasting potions even it would force players to buy from each other. Once again, this compromise would be fair and realistic and is needed for the better of EL because its impossible to manage the supply and demand...my personal opinion, of course.

[Aislinn]

I play this game specifically because it is beta, and open to change. It is the very fact that it is unpolished and needs years of changes still that makes it exciting.

Yes, that's why the devs are here, and most of the volunteers, and a LOT of players.

 

But the argument that maybe things aremeant to be that way doesn't help. Doesn't really matter what things were originally intended to do; what matters is the impact they have now and if that impact is balanced. In the case of feasting pots it is not.

Yes it does matter because you don't know the grand plan. Or what is the priority to keep as is, or isn't important and can be changed. Feasting potions are very balanced as far as level and what it takes to make and what it provides. Only difference now is that some new experimental-and-still-being-tweaked event came along that requires larger use of them...so now everybody is upset because they can't easily mass produce these or other items now without them. So now they want to change this one item to fit their past pattern of playing. Which I might add, is the goal...to change the past pattern of mass production.

 

I'd be inclined to agree with the increaseing the price to 20gc at mira as the best overall action. But the backlash and sheer number of complaints is too much for me to foward the idea myself.

Well that will happen no matter what is done...can't please all of the people all of the time.

 

Whichever method is chosen, or even a combination of methods, doesn't really matter to me as long as something is done to make feasting pots an attractive potion for potion makers to make.

But how do you know that is the desired goal? Maybe it's wanted for these potions to be bought from an npc. Not saying that is or isn't so, but...maybe it's part of a bigger plan not revealed yet? I know part of the plan is to prevent massive leveling on items, mass production if you will. I don't see that making these potions easier to make in bulk or even desirable to make in bulk is going in that direction.

 

*side note: rereading above made me see that the comments about not mattering what the devs original ideas were seem harsh. It was not meant to be so; was only pointing out what game desingers already know and that is no matter how good the original plans, stuff changes and you end up having to change with it.

Absolutely, no argument here.

[flinto]

Aislinn, I agree that people are not fighting the cuddly bunnies because they can strap on the shiny stuff and take on higher things. This takes us to another thread about the market.

 

I am not sure I like the idea of removing the raw meat with cooked meat. What's the sense: if it is because it is available to buy - well that just puts the price up further and if there isn't enough raw meat to go around that can be hunted then there isn't enough free cooked meat to go around.

 

Should we raise mira's price as I suggested and many others - maybe - not to sure we shouldn't leave well alone as changing it may make things worse - what is the pricing point when people decide that making things is pointless anymore. Twenty gold coins may be it. At the moment you can manu hundreds and sell them for 15gc+vial which does make a profit. This may, however, disappear when the feast pots are stackable

 

My conclusion - leave well alone until something larger is decided upon to be done to the economy (if it ever is). My worry that any little tweak here could adversly impact the whole economy - lets see what stackable version does first

[Entris]

With the risk of being yelled at, i think the simplest thing to do to solve the FP problem is to raise Miras FP prices as Learner said, i've heard that raw meat costs like 5 gc and vials cost 3gc+quartz at Harvey, or 5gc for mana at Miras and then add the time for harvesting fruit and veggies ur gone over the cost of 10gc that mira sells FPs for to maby 15-20gc or something?

[Tordek]

I think everybody heard the dictum "Time is money". This extreemly applies to EL too. (A guy above was very right that you cannot compare prices in EL because that is not a solid way to compare them. Contrary, NecessaryPlayerTimes is the only valid means to compare things in any game.)

 

The question is how to calculate the rate beetween the time and money. As most of you know, the Blue Lupines are one of the best way to earn a fortune. So basically anyone can calculate it's time worth in EL by measuring how much gc he/she can gather in a timeframe.

 

I have made a very pricise formula based on experiments to how to calculate it.

 

Your time worths = ( 0.42*EMU / (120 + 0.18 * EMU) ) gc

Here EMU means your net capacity.

 

This formula for an EMU of 500 amazingly gives 1 as a result ( if the devs did this on purpose i raise my hat and bow in front of them ). This simply means that if you harvest Blue Lupines in Portland and sell them in the flower shop you will get around 3600gc an hour.

 

Just for comparing reasons:

For 1000 EMU you get 1.4 gc / sec

For 700 EMU you get 1.195 gc /sec

For 300 EMU you get 0.72 gc /sec

For your EMU just use the formula

 

So from now on anybody can calculate his/her value in EL, but in the following i will work with the 500 EMU player value ( 1gc = 1 sec )

 

Now i will apply this on the current debate: how much do Feasting Potions really cost?

 

If you buy from Mira they have 11 sec base cost + the time to fetch them is 2 sec. So it is 13 sec in total.

If you make the pots then they cost 5 sec the vial, 5 sec the meat, 1 sec the fruit, 1 sec the veggie, 2 sec to make one. This makes it 14 sec, so what this really means that you buy 70 potion xp for 1 sec

Note that i added no extra cost for the "meat+vial trade" time and neither for "looking for buyer" time.

 

The above written is correct, however there is one issue concerning the meat. More specifically the player who sells the meat in bulk. Considering a spawn place with 2 deers and a spawn time of 30 sec and that you kill a deer in 5 sec after it spawned you gather exactly 360 meatsin an hour. This simply means that the real meat value is 10 sec and not 5. Selling raw meat for 5gc is anything but a fruitful business . Whatever...

 

So, in conclusion if you do the feasting potions totally on your own then they cost 19 sec, which compared to Miras 13 is anything is anything but negligable.

 

--------------------------------------------------

 

With the above described method you can calculate the real cost for every raw material. Knowing the cost of raw materials you can calculate the real cost of everything else. Maybe i will do an excell table, similar to Flintos, with the real cost of items, but i highly doubt it will be anytime soon (RL sux).

 

 

Tordek,

 

PS. math rullz.

Edited February 7, 2006 by Tordek

[Aislinn]

I think everybody heard the dictum "Time is money". This extreemly applies to EL too. (A guy above was very right that you cannot compare prices in EL because that is not a solid way to compare them. Contrary, NecessaryPlayerTimes is the only valid means to compare things in any game.)

Bzzzzz wrong.

 

Time is money WHEN you are in a real life and have to work and that time could be spent on your free time doing something enjoyable.

 

What you are not realizing is that all this valuable time you are claiming is money IS THE GAME! Making potions or selling them or getting the ingredients IS THE GAME! Not something you have to do while you could be doing something else.

 

You people are all trying to apply real life concepts and economics to a place where none of it applies to prove the point you want to prove...as pip says, voodoo economics!

 

You can't claim something isn't free because you *could* sell it elsewhere.

You can't claim time is money when harvesting/manuing IS THE GAME you are choosing to spend your time on. That is HOW you play, what ELSE would you be doing in your free time in EL?????

 

*sighs*

[Tordek]

Lol Aislinn, you totally missed the point.

 

All that i have written refers to the game money and game time. It applies really good. Peoples objective in this game is either to gain money ( yes, ingame money) or experience ( yes, ingame experience) .

 

EDIT:

If i was referring to real money i would have said: "stop playing and go work..."

Edited February 7, 2006 by Tordek

[Aislinn]

Lol Aislinn, you totally missed the point.

 

All that i have written refers to the game money and game time. It applies really good. Peoples objective in this game is either to gain money ( yes, ingame money) or experience ( yes, ingame experience) .

 

EDIT:

If i was referring to real money i would have said: "stop playing and go work..."

Errrr you missed MY point.

[Guest Enyo]

Aislinn, this isn't voodoo economics and it is revalant and does apply here because its the game we play and economy is a huge part of it as Entropy did want.. this is the section for suggestions and thats all we are doing is brainstorming of feasible ways to make feasting potions more cost effective or not because now they have become the most important item ingame. If potions of physique had become so crucial, we would discuss it too because it actually requires 3 meat!! You are against changing the ingredients of the feasting potion but most people are actually in favour of it. It doesn't mean it will happen of course because its not our decision.

 

I pulled up a thread from a year ago when someone first suggested food delay and many of you were laughing at him and making fun of him etc.. but a year later part of his original idea has now been implemented. There aren't allot of threads on this subject. There are only 3 to be exact and each one is from a different aspect. Just because its not important to one doesn't mean its not important to others. We are playing this game, selling, buying, training, etc etc etc..role playing and the forums are an extension of the game from a role play aspect , suggestions and so on.

Edited February 7, 2006 by Enyo

[Aislinn]

Both of you aren't reading the posts, you are just waiting to respond and get the last word in.

So nevermind.

[Tordek]

What you are not realizing is that all this valuable time you are claiming is money IS THE GAME! Making potions or selling them or getting the ingredients IS THE GAME! Not something you have to do while you could be doing something else.

 

Of course it is the game. If it wouldn't be the game it would be off-topic. But there is a huge difference in the benefit you gain by doing different things. Everything and I mean everything in this game has a cost that can be transformed into play-time.

I have just recalculated the cost of FPs using Learners and Enyos suggest (by using cooked meat instead of raw) and I found out that really would solve this issue. The two real time-costs would be almost the same. Actually if you would consider de xp you get too with this formula the feasting potions would be more profitable than buying them from Mira. So go for it.

 

You can't claim something isn't free because you *could* sell it elsewhere.

 

Nothing is free, everything costs TIME. It is another issue that it doesn't cost gc.

If everything is free then why dont we all harvest blue star flowers? It's simple... because you get more if you harvest blue lupines. Everybody(most people) who is harvesting for money is either harvesting blue lupines or silver ore ( those who are anti-social and cannot sell the BL).

 

You can't claim time is money when harvesting/manuing IS THE GAME you are choosing to spend your time on. That is HOW you play, what ELSE would you be doing in your free time in EL?????

 

kk, sorry. My fault. Time is NOT money. Time is gc and xp. (satisfied?).

 

Well, here are your options:

1. Do nothing but chat: gain 0 gc/h, 0 xp/h

2. Harvest BL: gain 3600 gc/h, (4+x)*120 xp/h

...

19. Buy feasting potions from Mira:

...

52. Make feasting potions on your own.

...

 

 

So you see, there is plenty to do with your EL free time. And because every activity you do has different benefit values you can actually calculate what is good to do and what is not.

[Derin]

Time is a free resource in EL, so you choose what to make of it.

 

Some ppl like to sit around and chat, thus making 0 gc/h and 0 xp/h. That doesn't mean that they have wasted their time, it is their perception of fun.

 

Some ppl want to maximize their cash earnings in the game, so they seek profitable ways of making money, and likely they do not make feasting potions.

 

This is a game, and as such time is a free resource. Play it! Enjoy it! Have fun!

[Brom]

I did not read all of this, but I wanted to put a note in for Snow Lepords. They drop 4 meat each time, live on Irilion and you will find its perks.

[eagleprince]

I have to agree with most of the arguments to change Mira's prices, otherwise the only benefit to making certain potions will be experience so that you can move on up.

 

Ok, so I don't have the exp yet to make feasting pots, but I tried my hands at Physique pots, only to realise that Mira was undercutting me. To make it worse, it's not a particularly 'popular' or 'necessary' potion, compared with the feasting potion. Ok, Mira sells for 25gc or so, but it consumes 3 meats @ 5gc, 9 bones @ 1gc - for the sake of argument, 1 mead @ 2gc and 1 vial @ 3-5gc. When you need bones at that kind of volume, you begin to realize they are not cheap. I find it annoying when people argue that meat and bones are free. You can ask the guys who got killed trying to maximise returns by fighting boar! Ok, so you get more bones fighting skellies, but you are also likely to visit the underworld more frequently.

 

Considering other factors like time and food usage, I think I should be able to sell physique for 30gc considering costs. As that is obviously unreasonable, it seems we have am imbalance. The only person that benefits from all this is Mira So far, AFAIC, the only potion that makes financial sense is the reasoning potion.