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Post by magier556 on Mar 3, 2015 18:20:18 GMT
TL;DR : More gold enters game than leaving the game, prices go up, either make less gold enter game or more gold leave the game.
Basically, from what I hear from other people and see with my own eyes, the cost of things keeps generally increasing, every single item is more expensive than it used to be a year ago, creds, mith, scraps ....
This means that gold is losing value in comparison to other items, and it's always good to have mechanics in place to keep this from going out of control.
There's currently several sources of gold income,
The biggest one by far is quest gold, quest gold scales exponentially, as your quest number increases, the amount of gold received per kill/reagent/supply increases, when a quest becomes twice as long, the gold reward will be more than twice as much. I'd really love if this mechanic would stay the same, it's nice to have a reward for people who are at higher numbers of quest ( exspecially since the credit reward per time from quests basically decreases as you get higher ).
What it does mean though is that the gold income gradually increases over time, if there's not enough sinks in place, this will cause inflation.
One of the best Counter-measures in place right now is clan and profession buildings and mithril expertise, but as levelling clans ( and personal levels ) takes a really long time, and more and more people are completely ignoring professions, it feels like this is currently not enough in the long run.
A fix would be a market tax, but that's honestly a lazy approach, yes it fixes inflation, but at the player's expense.
Therefor I think it would be time to add another gold sink, somewhere where actual gold leaves the game, keep in mind that gold changing hands does NOT help battle inflation, it needs to actually dissapear from the game.
I'd like to ask the community what possible gold sinks ( or gold income nerfs ) would be acceptable to counter this and try to come up with some ideas by myself.
IDEAS
1) Remove the pure gold boss, while this might seem like something that's negative for the players, this would actually not really be that much of an issue, removing the gold boss would simply make the other types have a higher chance, and since only fragments is currently worse than a gold boss, this would probably even make the overall boss reward slightly better.
2) This one might be a bit crazy, should probably change depending on feedback : Have a global gold pool where anyone can donate gold to, the more gold is donated, the higher multiplier is added to boss spawn rate. There should be heavy diminishing returns for this, I was thinking something along the lines of 10B gold being 35% increased spawnrate, and it taking 1 Trillion gold for 50% increased rate. This gold pool would reset on a monthly basis. Another idea would be to have this pool reduce by a daily % of the total pool instead of resetting each month.
I would appreciate anyone's input and feedback on this situation, thanks !
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Post by dragead on Mar 3, 2015 18:49:39 GMT
I would like to see a gold sink too, possibly in personal house creation. I imagine that we can have a house that provides minor bonuses and has a ton of levels with increasing gold prices. Maybe 100 potential levels, with each level costing 1 million * lvl . Perhaps every level of the house adds a 1% increase to XP gain, or resources from tradeskills, something to that regard. That would sink at least 5 billion gold to max it out, so that would pull a lot of gold from the market.
This is very half baked, but I'd figured I'd throw in my two cents.
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Post by shekki on Mar 3, 2015 19:00:13 GMT
Nice analyze. I don't know much about MMORPG's economy... but something has to be done. I know that money sinks are very important to games, I though professionals and clans are good money sinks but I guess not.
/support idea 2) As you can now use participation point to RPs.
Dat credit price, makes me cry every time.
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Post by erzascarlet on Mar 4, 2015 3:13:43 GMT
RP purchasable with gold like
10m gold = 1 RP
or some short personal boost like:
10M = 5 minute 25% exp boost
10M = 5 minute 10% TS resource boost
10M = 3 minute 20% crit chance and 10% crit damage combo (meals)
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Post by vifs on Mar 7, 2015 1:45:27 GMT
We would need some kind of gold sink that doesn't get you anything game wise. Just a straight gold sink like a market/trade tax or personal cosmetic stuff, like custom titles, color change for layout, name changes, or alike. If you have a thing to spend money on that just gets you exp, boosts, or something then that's just going to be more or less exchanged into gold, and if you make it so it's not a good boost then no one will spend gold on it.
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Post by MrMcMeowMeow on Mar 9, 2015 8:14:13 GMT
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Post by MrMcMeowMeow on Mar 9, 2015 8:17:11 GMT
Additionally, I agree inflation may become an issue in the near future. Some of my favorite gold sinks in games have all been cosmetic, which isn't really an option in this game, except for what I linked above. I also like vifs's idea of different themes for gold. Perhaps also make custom titles have a high gold amount. I guess most things that are bought with RP could also become gold sinks, but that's a rather lazy solution.
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Post by erzascarlet on Mar 11, 2015 5:01:12 GMT
i suggest another gold sink: a gold purchasable "other" icon for the inventory. you can now choose other icons for your helmet, sword, etc, but you need to purchase it with gold. it will not in any way change attributes, just the icon. also, it might be colored or still black and grey only the form will change. somewhat like:  Purchase this icon for 100m gold? |
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Post by magier556 on Aug 13, 2015 8:04:30 GMT
To revive this old thread, the biggest culprit of the massive gold inflation is quest helper + clan quest helper maxed + exponential gold reward from quests.
Both tradeskillers and battlers are getting pure gold from it, in big amounts, and it'll only get worse the more high clans there are and the more high lvls get to huge quest amounts.
An option to fix it would be to just remove the gold reward and replace it with some other reward, it's the main cause for the gold constantly inflating. I'm getting 30M gold from quests to every 1M gold I'm getting from battling, and the higher my quest reward goes the more this ratio gets messed up.
Maybe put a scrap reward instead since scrap prices are insanely high price compared to frags. A credit reward would be an option but that could devalue credit purchases which is something that shouldn't happen, credits are already easily enough to obtain without donating compared to other games in this genre.
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Post by osiris on Aug 14, 2015 11:45:02 GMT
It wouldn't be all that hard to code up something that stores how many items are in the field/sitting etc and just fluctuate the prices of items as more are added/used. (there isn't that much to keep track of as of NOW)
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Post by draavon on Aug 14, 2015 23:42:54 GMT
It wouldn't be all that hard to code up something that stores how many items are in the field/sitting etc and just fluctuate the prices of items as more are added/used. (there isn't that much to keep track of as of NOW) Can you rephrase that? I have no idea what you're suggesting. |
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Post by stabzs on Aug 15, 2015 0:40:48 GMT
My current update that is in progress will involve a gold sink since, absolutely, this an ongoing problem that most MMO-type economies experience over time.
In addition, I suspect that at least for some time, future updates will continue to either have an optional or mandatory gold sink associated with it, to slowly bring the economy back over time. Here are a few of my thoughts on the issue, particularly in light and in response to the ideas suggested above.
- Remove gold boss: Possible, although I'm not convinced that this has NEARLY as large of an impact as quests. It might help, but it also might not have much of an impact. I'm willing to consider it as a possibility however if players feel the same way.
- One of the issues with changing quest rewards is that doing so somewhat penalizes new players since they're counting on future gains. Long-term players have already received their benefit but they're also enjoying future benefits. A potential solution is to put in a gold reward cap at one of the higher quest counts that players have already accomplished. That would make it so that only a few players actually manage to benefit above the cap and most players would quest to cap and then receive only the cap going forward. It's not a fantastic solution, but it might be better than completely abolishing gold from quests altogether.
- Make professions more enticing. I'm open to suggestions around this, although I have a few ideas for prof-based rewards that would NOT include gold...which is critical to it working. Based on high entrance costs, professions aren't particularly enticing and that needs to change to encourage most/all players to pick up at least one profession. That alone would be a pretty solid gold sink provided it worked.
- Clan boosts / activities / progressions that are not building-based. While I'm very happy with clan progression in terms of buildings vs clan level, it does beg the question: how does a clan REALLY sink gold among the top clans. Answer: it doesn't, at least not well enough. In addition, clans often have spare resources since the clan is simply just working to level to reach the next building. As a result, it would be beneficial to have a mechanic (or a few of them) that encourages clans to sink gold for some other benefit, particularly one that could be done over and over again in smaller increments for small benefits, even perhaps at a flat/increasing rate but for diminishing returns. These oftentimes are excellent sinks and add up quickly.
There are probably numerous other ideas that will contribute to the over all solution. After a lot of thought on this, I don't think that there's a single silver bullet, but rather just the healthy perspective that future updates should continuously work to drain global economy gold. Please let me know you're thoughts.
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Post by magier556 on Aug 15, 2015 5:00:59 GMT
My current update that is in progress will involve a gold sink since, absolutely, this an ongoing problem that most MMO-type economies experience over time. In addition, I suspect that at least for some time, future updates will continue to either have an optional or mandatory gold sink associated with it, to slowly bring the economy back over time. Here are a few of my thoughts on the issue, particularly in light and in response to the ideas suggested above. - Remove gold boss: Possible, although I'm not convinced that this has NEARLY as large of an impact as quests. It might help, but it also might not have much of an impact. I'm willing to consider it as a possibility however if players feel the same way. - One of the issues with changing quest rewards is that doing so somewhat penalizes new players since they're counting on future gains. Long-term players have already received their benefit but they're also enjoying future benefits. A potential solution is to put in a gold reward cap at one of the higher quest counts that players have already accomplished. That would make it so that only a few players actually manage to benefit above the cap and most players would quest to cap and then receive only the cap going forward. It's not a fantastic solution, but it might be better than completely abolishing gold from quests altogether. - Make professions more enticing. I'm open to suggestions around this, although I have a few ideas for prof-based rewards that would NOT include gold...which is critical to it working. Based on high entrance costs, professions aren't particularly enticing and that needs to change to encourage most/all players to pick up at least one profession. That alone would be a pretty solid gold sink provided it worked. - Clan boosts / activities / progressions that are not building-based. While I'm very happy with clan progression in terms of buildings vs clan level, it does beg the question: how does a clan REALLY sink gold among the top clans. Answer: it doesn't, at least not well enough. In addition, clans often have spare resources since the clan is simply just working to level to reach the next building. As a result, it would be beneficial to have a mechanic (or a few of them) that encourages clans to sink gold for some other benefit, particularly one that could be done over and over again in smaller increments for small benefits, even perhaps at a flat/increasing rate but for diminishing returns. These oftentimes are excellent sinks and add up quickly. There are probably numerous other ideas that will contribute to the over all solution. After a lot of thought on this, I don't think that there's a single silver bullet, but rather just the healthy perspective that future updates should continuously work to drain global economy gold. Please let me know you're thoughts. It's great to see that you're thinking on it in future updates, that's all it really requires to stay balanced in the long run. I think that capping the gold from quests is really not an option though, since mithril has a linear gain per kill and credits have reduced gains per kill the more quests you have, you'd create a system where the more quests you have completed, the less rewarding they become. If gold would be removed, it'd have to be replaced with something else that scales, but that could cause an oversupply of that item instead. All in all the quest gold removal was more of an easy fix suggestion, it would instantly fix inflation but it's not the most elegant solution, I prefer the Idea of just thinking about it in every future update and balancing it out like that ( Don't think I didn't notice what you did with the Stabzstue  ) |
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Post by stabzs on Aug 15, 2015 16:08:41 GMT
It's great to see that you're thinking on it in future updates, that's all it really requires to stay balanced in the long run. I think that capping the gold from quests is really not an option though, since mithril has a linear gain per kill and credits have reduced gains per kill the more quests you have, you'd create a system where the more quests you have completed, the less rewarding they become. If gold would be removed, it'd have to be replaced with something else that scales, but that could cause an oversupply of that item instead. All in all the quest gold removal was more of an easy fix suggestion, it would instantly fix inflation but it's not the most elegant solution, I prefer the Idea of just thinking about it in every future update and balancing it out like that ( Don't think I didn't notice what you did with the Stabzstue ) Yep, the Stabzstue was certainly poised at removing gold, which it did (although that was quickly offset by Quad  . However, it did help put a dent in the impact quad WOULD have had, which was important. I understand exactly what you're saying in terms of quest rewards...it's difficult to really change that mechanic as is without heavily disrupting a core piece of the game, not to mention the fact that rewards would probably be somewhat unbalanced no matter what. The only caveat is that quests DO somewhat compensate for lackluster gold from mobs, which was intentional. At the end of the day, I agree, the best way to tackle this issue is to continue to introduce additional gold sinks, which I will. I appreciate you bringing up (and revisiting) this topic since it's incredibly important to the overall health of the game. If you see additional opportunities to add sinks, please let me know since I'd like to keep a health economy at the forefront. |
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Post by draavon on Aug 16, 2015 0:36:48 GMT
I agree that gold sinks seem like the best solution, trying to alter quest rewards would be tricky to do in a fair way. What about something like the RP crates that cost gold instead and increase exponentially in price?
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)
. However, it did help put a dent in the impact quad WOULD have had, which was important.