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2) It helps keeps inflation (both ITEM and gold) in check.
Nope. As soon as the Pay for Gold websites started up the WoW economy was screwed. Blizzards response was the make quests/raids/etc worth so much gold that effectively the Real World Price of WoW Gold became less attractive for 'farmers'. Make the economy revolve around gold and all you do is create a real world market in selling gold. Binding items was to curb the sale/trade in items - perhaps this is the only in-game way of doing this? The other way was to make crafted gear not as good as gear from top-end raids.
Perhaps the best approach to controlling the economy will be have 'yea old magic item shops' (as in the PF game) and they would set the maximum price an item can sell for. Players then crafting can choose to undercut this if they wish. This makes sense to me, IF the world is a sand-box then it exists even without PC's, and as such it must function economically without PC's, so, everything a PC can do must already exist in-game.
S.
Goblin Squad Member
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Perhaps the best approach to controlling the economy will be have 'yea old magic item shops' (as in the PF game) and they would set the maximum price an item can sell for. Players then crafting can choose to undercut this if they wish. This makes sense to me, IF the world is a sand-box then it exists even without PC's, and as such it must function economically without PC's, so, everything a PC can do must already exist in-game.
I actually think the opposite should be true. Eve has the best player driven economy I've ever seen. And it only stocks the basic stuff in the stores. The majority of important items are sold based on player set prices. Everything from how much time it takes to mine X mineral to how much of that mineral goes into a missile helps determine the prices set by the players along the way. When you get out to the frontier areas, there is nothing for sale that a player didn't put up for sale.
BTW, I like Eve's buy/sell order system far better than the "auction house" system. It keeps prices much more stable. With an auction, prices fluctuate with the population of the server hourly. When you can set 10,000 longswords at 5gp each in a week long sell order, prices quickly stabilize to match the needs of the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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First off, I don't think degrading items is really going to have the effect you are looking for. Either items are utterly destroyed regularly, which is Eve's primary method, or item's are trivially easy to repair. Somewhere in the middle is just going to be annoying to the players and drive people from the game, with not enough economical benefit.
I actually do preffer the eve method of everything being completely destroyed, I don't see harm in a 50% option for repairing though, gives a bit of a break for when you have the item, but not enough of a break that it trivializes the process and fails every other goal.
In a game like WoW, binding equipment doesn't really pull stuff out of the economy except at the very highest tier of gear. So Group 1 is selling their level X drops because they already have an item of level X+1. The crafter is mostly just making gear for himself for many, many levels until they reach the super high tier. So that doesn't really work for a player driven economy.
If by dosn't pull things out of the market, you mean it prevents it from ever hitting the market at all. No-one has any interest in anything but the best tier of gear, greens and blues are purchased to disenchant, purples are purchased for battlegrounds twinks, and that's about it, in general with few exceptions anything worth having is bind on pickup.
So first off, I like Scott's idea that a PC crafter can put a gear up to 125%. That makes the trivial repair cost from an NPC not a big deal, but gives the PC crafters something to do.
Basically making the only form of crafting low level crafters to be doing, collecting a "trivial repair cost" from players repairing, as we still haven't listed any methods to allow them to actually craft anything after the first wave of gear goes in and the adventurers are selling their used gear for a loss.
Second, how about if crafters can break down items into raw materials. So if a thousand longswords are dumped on the market at below market value, Group 2 can buy them up, smelt them down, and use them to craft the items that are actually in demand for the market.
So once all the low level items are given to the next generation of players, the excess can be taken by the high level crafters to produce better items.
Third, a crafter should be able to improve an item. Why bother selling your longsword for cheap and buying a whole new +1 longsword, when it is cheaper for...
So we are again, continuing to find ways to make group 1 of crafters continue to be able to produce higher and higher and higher better and better gear, while still continuing to make the lower level crafters entirely useless repair bots competing with each-other for the "trivial" repair costs, until cthulu willing they somehow catch up to the pack of existing crafters.
First off, I don't think degrading items is really going to have the effect you are looking for. Either items are utterly destroyed regularly, which is Eve's primary method, or item's are trivially easy to repair. Somewhere in the middle is just going to be annoying to the players and drive people from the game, with not enough economical benefit.
I actually do preffer the eve method of everything being completely destroyed, I don't see harm in a 50% option for repairing though, gives a bit of a break for when you have the item, but not enough of a break that it trivializes the process and fails every other goal.
In a game like WoW, binding equipment doesn't really pull stuff out of the economy except at the very highest tier of gear. So Group 1 is selling their level X drops because they already have an item of level X+1. The crafter is mostly just making gear for himself for many, many levels until they reach the super high tier. So that doesn't really work for a player driven economy.
If by dosn't pull things out of the market, you mean it prevents it from ever hitting the market at all. No-one has any interest in anything but the best tier of gear, greens and blues are purchased to disenchant, purples are purchased for battlegrounds twinks, and that's about it, in general with few exceptions anything worth having is bind on pickup.
So first off, I like Scott's idea that a PC crafter can put a gear up to 125%. That makes the trivial repair cost from an NPC not a big deal, but gives the PC crafters something to do.
Basically making the only form of crafting low level crafters to be doing, collecting a "trivial repair cost" from players repairing, as we still haven't listed any methods to allow them to actually craft anything after the first wave of gear goes in and the adventurers are selling their used gear for a loss.
...Second, how about if crafters can break down items into raw materials. So if a thousand
Group 2 catches up to group 1 by having a low barrier to entry. If you can become one of the best crafters in a short period of time, without significant training costs, then group 1 has little head start over group 2 other than initial resources. If it only takes a week for group 2 to become as good as group 1, why wouldn't people use group 2?
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Perhaps the best approach to controlling the economy will be have 'yea old magic item shops' (as in the PF game) and they would set the maximum price an item can sell for. Players then crafting can choose to undercut this if they wish. This makes sense to me, IF the world is a sand-box then it exists even without PC's, and as such it must function economically without PC's, so, everything a PC can do must already exist in-game.I actually think the opposite should be true. Eve has the best player driven economy I've ever seen. And it only stocks the basic stuff in the stores. The majority of important items are sold based on player set prices. Everything from how much time it takes to mine X mineral to how much of that mineral goes into a missile helps determine the prices set by the players along the way. When you get out to the frontier areas, there is nothing for sale that a player didn't put up for sale.
BTW, I like Eve's buy/sell order system far better than the "auction house" system. It keeps prices much more stable. With an auction, prices fluctuate with the population of the server hourly. When you can set 10,000 longswords at 5gp each in a week long sell order, prices quickly stabilize to match the needs of the game.
EVE is a place populated by rational people. Play WoW for even a few months and you'll see this isn't the case. EVE has no 'farmer' market because it isn't worth someones trouble. If PF online becomes as popular as WoW then Real Money for Gold will happen. Then I after having brought 1,000,000 gold I go and buy every longsword in the auction house, then put them back on at 500 gp each etc. This happened in WoW a lot with items used for crafting. The Devs had to intervene and ban players. A pure player driven economy has shown to fail, WoW has shown us this.
By having 'most' items available from a vendor the Devs can set a maximum price, avoiding the 'gold trade/inflation' WoW outcome.
S.
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Goblin Squad Member
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2) It helps keeps inflation (both ITEM and gold) in check.Nope. As soon as the Pay for Gold websites started up the WoW economy was screwed. Blizzards response was the make quests/raids/etc worth so much gold that effectively the Real World Price of WoW Gold became less attractive for 'farmers'. Make the economy revolve around gold and all you do is create a real world market in selling gold. Binding items was to curb the sale/trade in items - perhaps this is the only in-game way of doing this? The other way was to make crafted gear not as good as gear from top-end raids.
Perhaps the best approach to controlling the economy will be have 'yea old magic item shops' (as in the PF game) and they would set the maximum price an item can sell for. Players then crafting can choose to undercut this if they wish. This makes sense to me, IF the world is a sand-box then it exists even without PC's, and as such it must function economically without PC's, so, everything a PC can do must already exist in-game.
S.
Essentially what WoW did to curb the market was make the best things only obtainable by large groups/raids, just like in eve, the market is curved by money etc... being mostly obtained through working within large corporations, in PFO most likely the highest income will come from playing in a large kingdom. Open PVP and kingdom reputation will make botting etc... extremely difficult.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the materials are properly tiered, then there will be plenty of opportunity for lower level crafters. The reality is, Group 2's going to take a while to be able to sell to Group 1. But there should be other players that are starting out with Group 2 who don't have their gear yet.
I don't expect that improving a +2 sword to +3 is just going to require 10,000 tons of steel. It should require ground unicorn horns or something. So Group 1 isn't going to be wasting their time making +1 swords, Group 2 will fill in to supply the other players in their tier.
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And this is where you are assuming the game is going to be traditional theme park, regular raiding, and repeat the same raid over and over until you are equipped to move on to the next raid.
Except, y'know, I'm not.
Everything that has been described about the game, implies very little in the ways of raiding, instances etc... I have a feeling that dragons will likely be a rare, hard to accomplish event, that may only come up on a monthly or even less frequent basis.
Right, dragons were just an example. The point was that players who are that advanced will not waste time fighting wolves at the edge of town. They'll find something better to do with their time. A challenge that is commensurate both thematically and mechanically with their level of skill. At least, I would hope that this is the case. Otherwise I fear the game won't be particularly engaging to powerful characters.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You are comparing a game that has no need for anything resembling a sustainable economy to an MMORPG.
As we've exhaustively discussed, there are a lot of ways to produce something that resembles a sustainable economy without causing people to involuntarily lose the gear they earned.
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Goblin Squad Member
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EVE is a place populated by rational people. Play WoW for even a few months and you'll see this isn't the case. EVE has no 'farmer' market because it isn't worth someones trouble. If PF online becomes as popular as WoW then Real Money for Gold will happen. Then I after having brought 1,000,000 gold I go and buy every longsword in the auction house, then put them back on at 500 gp each etc. This happened in WoW a lot with items used for crafting. The Devs had to intervene and ban players. A pure player driven economy has shown to fail, WoW has shown us this.
By having 'most' items available from a vendor the Devs can set a maximum price, avoiding the 'gold trade/inflation' WoW outcome.
S.
WoW is populated by rational people. It just isn't set up to have a functioning economy. Rational people will find loopholes in the system and exploit them for their own gain. That's the fundamental principle of capitalism.
In EvE you can also buy up all of X and artificially raise the price. This will annoy people for a short period of time, but crafters will recognize the need for item X and quickly produce more to undercut the price fixer.
All of your examples point to long term buy/sell orders providing a more stable economy than short term auction-based trading.
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Essentially what WoW did to curb the market was make the best things only obtainable by large groups/raids,
What WoW did was make a game where unless you were raiding you couldn't have the nice things. At my 'worse' (before ditching WoW) I was needing to put in 5-6 hours 4 to 6 days a week to raid for end content. That sort of curbing method is, and on reflection, something that will make be not even try PF-Online Beta. In the 'real world' we have financial governing bodies that curb inflation - this does not exist in MMO's but perhaps needs to. If I was King (NPC) and players were screwing the markets such that my blacksmiths (NPCs) couldn't afford iron I would have them executed.
The economy as it effects the game-world and not the players alone I think needs to be considered. Then again I want a sand-box world rather than a sand-box game the players rattle around in. The Devs of PF Online may have a vastly different idea about what the game should be.
S.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Essentially what WoW did to curb the market was make the best things only obtainable by large groups/raids,What WoW did was make a game where unless you were raiding you couldn't have the nice things. At my 'worse' (before ditching WoW) I was needing to put in 5-6 hours 4 to 6 days a week to raid for end content. That sort of curbing method is, and on reflection, something that will make be not even try PF-Online Beta. In the 'real world' we have financial governing bodies that curb inflation - this does not exist in MMO's but perhaps needs to. If I was King (NPC) and players were screwing the markets such that my blacksmiths (NPCs) couldn't afford iron I would have them executed.
The economy as it effects the game-world and not the players alone I think needs to be considered. Then again I want a sand-box world rather than a sand-box game the players rattle around in. The Devs of PF Online may have a vastly different idea about what the game should be.
S.
Exactly, WoW the main group activity was raiding, which required 6-7 hours of everyone working together because that was how it was designed, PFO the main activity is kingdom building, which while still a very large group activity, it is set as an on-going process that has many different roles and does not require a specific amount of time, nor a specific structure to make it work. Someone spending 1 hour of resource gathering, or 1 hour of fending off monsters, or 1 hour of crafting/repairing, values and helps out the kingdom, unless there is a heavy restrictive cap on how many people can be a member of a kingdom forcing a kingdom to be very choosey and only take the ones that contribute the most, even a casual player will add value to a kingdoms progression.
It has the inventory control and structure value of raiding, but not the "Everyone must spend 5 hours a night to be of any use to us" requirement. What on earth is implying that the "Kings" will ever be NPCs, besides possibly at the start of the game to kick things off, as a temporary character that is expected and anticipated to be overthrown shortly into the first year.
One thing I have noticed rather clearly, the one game everyone mentions having a solid functioning economy... is eve IE a game that has total destruction of ships/gear as the standard. Pretty much every MMO that has similar ideals to pathfinder (Open PVP, sandbox, heavy use for crafters), that has ever produced a stable economy, has gear being lost as a regular occurrence, almost every suggestion I've seen for an alternative, more or less is to do things in a very similar way to games with broken/non-existant economy, but expect different results.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As we've exhaustively discussed, there are a lot of ways to produce something that resembles a sustainable economy without causing people to involuntarily lose the gear they earned.
You're again referring to gear as something which must be earned. A warrior would not class his sword as a reward, nor an archer his bow. They are tools. A player may be displeased should he part with his wealth, his real estate or his reputation, but in a sandbox fantasy MMORPG I have never been that upset about losing 'gear'. I presume to lose it.
Full of partial loot is a viable item sink should PvP be such a central feature, but if you look back to Ultima Online in the time of Trammel, perishable gear was required to keep blacksmiths hammering.
Blacksmiths make armour and weapon - if these things do not disappear then they have nothing to make.
Perhaps the best approach to controlling the economy will be have 'yea old magic item shops' (as in the PF game) and they would set the maximum price an item can sell for. Players then crafting can choose to undercut this if they wish. This makes sense to me, IF the world is a sand-box then it exists even without PC's, and as such it must function economically without PC's, so, everything a PC can do must already exist in-game.I actually think the opposite should be true. Eve has the best player driven economy I've ever seen. And it only stocks the basic stuff in the stores. The majority of important items are sold based on player set prices. Everything from how much time it takes to mine X mineral to how much of that mineral goes into a missile helps determine the prices set by the players along the way. When you get out to the frontier areas, there is nothing for sale that a player didn't put up for sale.
BTW, I like Eve's buy/sell order system far better than the "auction house" system. It keeps prices much more stable. With an auction, prices fluctuate with the population of the server hourly. When you can set 10,000 longswords at 5gp each in a week long sell order, prices quickly stabilize to match the needs of the game.
EVE is a place populated by rational people. Play WoW for even a few months and you'll see this isn't the case. EVE has no 'farmer' market because it isn't worth someones trouble. If PF online becomes as popular as WoW then Real Money for Gold will happen. Then I after having brought 1,000,000 gold I go and buy every longsword in the auction house, then put them back on at 500 gp each etc. This happened in WoW a lot with items used for crafting. The Devs had to intervene and ban players. A pure player driven economy has shown to fail, WoW has shown us this.
By having 'most' items available from a vendor the Devs can set a maximum price, avoiding the 'gold trade/inflation' WoW outcome.
S.
HAHAHA - EVE populated by rational people. Thats a good one.
One of the primary reasons a secondary money market does not exist in EVE is because it exists in the game world. PLEX - a tradeable resource within the game, is bought for real money from EVE. It can be exchanged for 1 month of play time. This means that there are people who are making enough money in the game world to have other people paying their subscription costs. It also means that if you want something and are willing to pay cash, you can do it through legitimate channels rather than going through an outside source against the TOS and risk losing your account, removing buyers. The market basicly runs off of farming bots setting the price for raw materials.
(Note: Not sure if 500 is supposed to be a good or bad price) As for the price fixing in WOW, this was a bad thing? I know my friend did it for ores and found that it was basicly the only way he could make it so his blacksmith was worthwhile. So what if all the swords on the market currently are selling for way more than they should. That just means crafters will spend some time to make swords and put them up to undercut the guy. Either he will buy those at slightly inflated prices too (boon to the crafters) or someone else will pick them up. If he is undercutting the market for kicks, then he is losing money. The solution here is to make it so that people have something interesting to do with their money at the high end of the game, and don't feel that the most fun they can have is messing with noobs. I can't fathom why either of these should be bannable offenses.
EDIT: Also, Warcraft has the restriction of forcing you to have certain resources in order to increase your crafting skill. EVE allows you to level your crafting skill over time, regardless of actually spending time doing it.
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What on earth is implying that the "Kings" will ever be NPCs, besides possibly at the start of the game to kick things off, as a temporary character that is expected and anticipated to be overthrown shortly into the first year.
I guess this is where I get a little confused on the goal of the game. Things like this make me feel like the game is going to be Warcraft Humans vs Orcs where the Peons are PC's. From a roleplaying point of view a stage is required with NPC's that somehow matter other than being extra peons. We will end up with hundreds of people all wanting to be King of a limited number of city-states. Sure lots of fun for the rule junta but bugger all for all the causal players. Basically the best 'guilds' will dictate the entire game. I guess this does step the game towards a real world simulator where, for example, my choices on paying tax is exactly zero, but may not appeal to those wanting escapism.
I think what PF Online needs to do is list a goals of the game clearly - once they know themselves.
S.
EDIT: In my limited experience of EVE, it is a niche game filled with smart people. In my extensive experience of WoW, it is a mainstream game filled with predominately morons.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Basically the best 'guilds' will dictate the entire game. I guess this does step the game towards a real world simulator where, for example, my choices on paying tax is exactly zero, but may not appeal to those wanting escapism.
I think what PF Online needs to do is list a goals of the game clearly - once they know themselves.
S.
The very idea of destructable gear and minimizing the power creep, is for exactly this reason. Between a very large ratio of land to players, and by keeping the difference between mid and high level players as minimal as possible (note this is not the same as non-existant), you 1. Permit many many different groups to have area etc... 2. Offer larger abilities for the weaker groups to gang up and overthrow the powerful. Assuming the power level never reaches the point that 4 mid grade players cannot beat 1 high level player, you actively keep a handful of jerks from controlling the game.
In every MMO to some extent everyone is a part of a machine, in WoW you are a lackey following the raid leaders instructions, in eve you are generally a soldier in a large army, etc... Strength in numbers is always a factor, I far prefer strength in numbers to I'm so powerful you can throw 50 people at me and I will step on them all. because if one king is a jerk, you follow a more benevolent king, and if the playing field is large enough, and managing larger areas = more difficulty (to limit a large guild from just taking over everything), then you find a team that you enjoy being a part of.
EDIT: In my limited experience of EVE, it is a niche game filled with smart people. In my extensive experience of WoW, it is a mainstream game filled with predominately morons.
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Goblin Squad Member
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2) It helps keeps inflation (both ITEM and gold) in check.Nope. As soon as the Pay for Gold websites started up the WoW economy was screwed. Blizzards response was the make quests/raids/etc worth so much gold that effectively the Real World Price of WoW Gold became less attractive for 'farmers'. Make the economy revolve around gold and all you do is create a real world market in selling gold. Binding items was to curb the sale/trade in items - perhaps this is the only in-game way of doing this? The other way was to make crafted gear not as good as gear from top-end raids.
Perhaps the best approach to controlling the economy will be have 'yea old magic item shops' (as in the PF game) and they would set the maximum price an item can sell for. Players then crafting can choose to undercut this if they wish. This makes sense to me, IF the world is a sand-box then it exists even without PC's, and as such it must function economically without PC's, so, everything a PC can do must already exist in-game.
S.
Item & Gold Infaltion isn't a WOW specific problem...it happens in MANY MMO's...and has less to do with Gold Sellers then it does with basic economics. In fact, it's more a CAUSE of Gold Selling then a symptom of it.
Essentialy players are creating wealth from NOTHING. They go out and kill mobs (or do RAIDS) for gold and items. If the items are Fungible in any way... meaning they can be traded to other players OR sold to NPC's for gold...then those items get converted into wealth. That's not a problem, as long as the game has a way of destroying wealth (i.e. pulling it out players pockets) as well. If the game doesn't have a way of pulling wealth out of players hands on a regular basis....and many games don't.... then what ends up happening is that the player ends up quickly building up an ever increasing pool of wealth. The longer the player plays (and the longer the game exists) the more wealth they have. The more players that play, the more overall wealth that exists in the economy. Amount of wealth is simply a factor of players x time played. Gold Sellers mearely excaserbate the underlying problem by adding to the number of players and the time played.
Here is where the problem comes in. The price for goods is NOT based simply upon the cost to produce them it's based upon WHAT THE MARKET WILL BARE. The more Wealth that players have sitting around, the more they can afford to pay for things, the more sellers raise thier prices on goods. That's INFLATION (real world economics). It's why things like the price of homes in Japan doubling overnight when multi-generational mortgages were made legal.....or why America shifted from being a country where it was typical to be able to sustain a household on a single wage earner income to one that's based on multi-wage earners as women more commonly entered the workplace. As wealth increases, so do the cost of goods.
The only way to prevent inflation is to prevent the buildup of wealth. You either do this by slowing down Wealth gathering activities or by increasing Wealth destroying activities or some combination of the two.
In the real world, there are alot of Wealth Destroying activities. We litteraly eat our wealth, or burn it to provide heat, use it up in the process of creating more wealth (how much gas did you burn driving into work this morning, etc), spend it on entertaining ourselves or use it to replace those things that nature destroys (i.e. need a new roof for your house?).
Those factors all work to destroy Wealth in the real world. Most MMO's tend to lack such factors...but they all need some mechanism to destroy Wealth or they very quickly are going to run into problems of rapid and ever spiraling inflation. One of the biggest mechanisms is perhaps players simply quitting without handing thier wealth off to anyone (deleted account = deleted wealth) but that only works so far...especialy with games that are designed around low churn and that have health populations. The other way that WOW and other PvE games address Wealth destruction is basicaly the "vender trash" scenerio. Player buys a sword for say 200 gold, they make that sword bound to only that player so he CAN'T sell it or trade it to another player...his only option to get rid of it is to sell it to an NPC vendor at an artificialy low price dictated by the Dev's far below market vale...say 10 gold. In the above scenerio...the Dev has just destroyed 190 gold worth of Wealth from the economy.
There are 2 problems with the above scenerio though. In order for the Dev's to destroy that 190 gold worth of Wealth...they have to make the player WANT to get rid of it and get a new one. The only way to do that is to introduce a new more powerfull sword to the game that the player will want in favor of his old one. This forces the Dev's to engage in a regular cycle of introducing ever more powerfull items to the game, ad infinitem.... that's what I term "ITEM INFLATION" and what Onishi described so well. The other problem is the situation described above no longer allows for a "player driven" economy...it becomes an NPC driven economy...as in order to pull Wealth out of the game, the Dev's have to force players to sell items to NPC's at artificialy low prices rather then to PC's at or near actual market value.
The alternative to such a system, that I can see, is for Wealth to get destroyed as a regular part of play. At least, in that sense, people aren't growing wealth as rapidly as there is some overhead cost involved in the activities that generate it...not to mention things like Wars and conflict that can cause rapid destruction of Wealth in thier own right. That's the sort of system that games like Eve go for.
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Smart <> Rational :)
EDIT: In my limited experience of EVE, it is a niche game filled with smart people. In my extensive experience of WoW, it is a mainstream game filled with predominately morons.
Glad I avoided using the word 'sane'... :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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You are comparing a game that has no need for anything resembling a sustainable economy to an MMORPG.As we've exhaustively discussed, there are a lot of ways to produce something that resembles a sustainable economy without causing people to involuntarily lose the gear they earned.
Basic rule of economics... you can't have a sustainable economy (i.e. one absent rapidly spiraling inflation) without some mechanism for the destruction of wealth. Whether it's gear or something else....you need some mechanism for pulling wealth away from players on a regular basis...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Want to hinder the goldsellers? Don't have gold and gear drop from animals. Force the goldsellers to attack PCs/towns to actually get stuff worth selling and we have now created the bandit community (*grin*). Not to mention, the goldseller merchants, the ones who actually buy this stolen gear, would only make money by selling it back to PCs. This is called a fence...
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I understand real world economics very well, and that the wealth sinks in an MMO will rarely (to date) balance out the sources (which are infinite). So we either have a hugely complicated system to remove wealth or even ensure a 'wealth by level' type arrangement OR I think a far simpler system is have vendors that sell stuff - this sets a maximum price of any item thus curbing inflation. In the PF PnP game players sink their cash into magic items as a general rule. They do not require another player to make the items, however this may have a cost benefit if done. The construction of towns/castles will need be a great wealth sink also. Inflation is a concern not to those who have been playing for a while but is a horrible restriction on new players who depending on their playing time may never keep up with it. For example the established PC rulers decide to equip their entire force with +1 Long Swords. The price increases making a newer player unable to afford one - without price caps things can and will get out of hand. We have seen this in WoW, thinking the PF Online will somehow attract a better class of player is a risky bet.
Yes this means that players will end up with potentially vast cash resources - but that can be addressed by the economy of running a city. Don't have 'upkeep tax' on weapons/equipment, have it solely on buildings/constructions. At a personal PC level, let heroes be heroes and not worry about repairing their swords every two days. But those embarking on running a city, that sort of person is looking for a macro-economic challenge I would wager. Feeding 100 men at arms and making sure the drains don't block up doesn't sound cheap to me. At that level of game the idea of remembering to fix my dagger so it's sharp enough to cut my meat seems silly.
S.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Want to hinder the goldsellers? Don't have gold and gear drop from animals. Force the goldsellers to attack PCs/towns to actually get stuff worth selling and we have now created the bandit community (*grin*). Not to mention, the goldseller merchants, the ones who actually buy this stolen gear, would only make money by selling it back to PCs. This is called a fence...
wouldn't make a difference. goldselling is based on "farming wealth" (wealth includes money or items). usually, it's automated ("botting") to reduce costs (on person supervising multiple automated bots). basically, as long as profitable activity can be automated, there will be goldselling.
any actual money has to come from somewhere. makes little difference whether it drops from NPCs, is generated at vendors or is mined and minted.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Want to hinder the goldsellers? Don't have gold and gear drop from animals. Force the goldsellers to attack PCs/towns to actually get stuff worth selling and we have now created the bandit community (*grin*). Not to mention, the goldseller merchants, the ones who actually buy this stolen gear, would only make money by selling it back to PCs. This is called a fence...wouldn't make a difference. goldselling is based on "farming wealth" (wealth includes money or items). usually, it's automated ("botting") to reduce costs (on person supervising multiple automated bots). basically, as long as profitable activity can be automated, there will be goldselling.
any actual money has to come from somewhere. makes little difference whether it drops from NPCs, is generated at vendors or is mined and minted.
Right, I am saying design the system so the gold must come from the PCs themselves, only have NPCs buy basic gear (I would prefer not even that...but, for the beginning crafters). This, ultimately gives the PC community power to regulate the goldsellers. Likewise, it would be tough to bot in our previously suggested "living ecosystem".
But, contrary to my opening line, I was not really trying to stop goldselling, just make it difficult...and mold it so the dynamics of it actually fit into the game.
Want to hinder the goldsellers? Don't have gold and gear drop from animals. Force the goldsellers to attack PCs/towns to actually get stuff worth selling and we have now created the bandit community (*grin*). Not to mention, the goldseller merchants, the ones who actually buy this stolen gear, would only make money by selling it back to PCs. This is called a fence...wouldn't make a difference. goldselling is based on "farming wealth" (wealth includes money or items). usually, it's automated ("botting") to reduce costs (on person supervising multiple automated bots). basically, as long as profitable activity can be automated, there will be goldselling.
any actual money has to come from somewhere. makes little difference whether it drops from NPCs, is generated at vendors or is mined and minted.
Right, I am saying design the system so the gold must come from the PCs themselves, only have NPCs buy basic gear (I would prefer not even that...but, for the beginning crafters). This, ultimately gives the PC community power to regulate the goldsellers. Likewise, it would be tough to bot in our previously suggested "living ecosystem".
But, contrary to my opening line, I was not really trying to stop goldselling, just make it difficult...and mold it so the dynamics of it actually fit into the game.
To do this, you need to limit things like fishing, mining, or generally any harvesting, as these are all easy activities for bots. Bots don't go arround killing things. Its usually too complicated. They can very easily go arround to resource gathering locations though and have basic AIs to defeat generic mobs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Want to hinder the goldsellers? Don't have gold and gear drop from animals. Force the goldsellers to attack PCs/towns to actually get stuff worth selling and we have now created the bandit community (*grin*). Not to mention, the goldseller merchants, the ones who actually buy this stolen gear, would only make money by selling it back to PCs. This is called a fence...wouldn't make a difference. goldselling is based on "farming wealth" (wealth includes money or items). usually, it's automated ("botting") to reduce costs (on person supervising multiple automated bots). basically, as long as profitable activity can be automated, there will be goldselling.
any actual money has to come from somewhere. makes little difference whether it drops from NPCs, is generated at vendors or is mined and minted.
Actually it makes a huge difference, In general the gold farmers are either bots, or sweatshops that do not speak english, and in general do not do well clumped together (as that makes their presence obvious, and the GMs catch on to one, they can shut down all 50 of em at once). If gold is easily obtainable via repetitive easy solo actions, then yes it will be very easy to farm large amounts of cash, if gathering a good amount of gold requires you to join or form a large group, it will greatly discourage and massively damage the efficiency of gold farming.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...gold farming.
"gold farming" is not actual collecting of gold. it doesn't matter whether it's gold, fish, ore, skin, item, you name it. what matters is whether it can be automated at low-cost.
it also doesn't matter if whatever is farmed is sold to PC or NPC. it only matters whether it's profitable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...gold farming."gold farming" is not actual collecting of gold. it doesn't matter whether it's gold, fish, ore, skin, item, you name it. what matters is whether it can be automated at low-cost.
it also doesn't matter if whatever is farmed is sold to PC or NPC. it only matters whether it's profitable.
And again, if getting it is most efficient in a large group, and requires actual co-operation with said large group, then bots and sweatshop workers will be the least efficient at it, and thus the least factor in effecting inflation and the economy (as if they work with each-other, then when one gets busted the GM can quickly find and catch all the accounts in said group at once all logs can be investigated all sources they send too red flagged for investigation as well. as for joining the real guilds, bots and non-english speakers will be practically incapable of doing so.
IE systems for this is places where it is most efficient to farm resources (not the only places, but the best places), will likely be claimed by different factions/guilds/kingdoms whatever, Non-members caught farming in claimed areas will likely be killed on sight unless they belong to an alliance that has a treaty or even individual players that have diplomatically talked into an agreement with said alliance. Now unallied players are not completely out of the loop, but they are likely going to need to either cut a deal with the powers that control, or stay around the high sec area, where the profits are lower but the danger and politics are greatly reduced. The gold farmers may exist there, but because they are less efficient then the alliances, they are small factors to the economy, not the controlling force.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...gold farming."gold farming" is not actual collecting of gold. it doesn't matter whether it's gold, fish, ore, skin, item, you name it. what matters is whether it can be automated at low-cost.
it also doesn't matter if whatever is farmed is sold to PC or NPC. it only matters whether it's profitable.
Right, I agree with you...and I also agree with the fact that buying a stack of x leathers for $50 USD is the same thing as buying y gold for $50. However, limiting the sale of what is farmed to PCs, gives the PCs the power to control the goldseller market.
Back to the idea of farming...making mobs move when an area is being hunted out or long-term limiting the amount of ore in a vein reduces the viability of botting it. I agree it probably does not prevent it. This should make the most viable method of acquiring gear/gold raiding PCs...and this actually turns the goldsellers into a viable part of the game, the bandits.
But I agree with you...I am not trying to stop gold farming, only twist it so when it does occur, it fits into Golarion.
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Goblin Squad Member
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stuffI understand real world economics very well, and that the wealth sinks in an MMO will rarely (to date) balance out the sources (which are infinite). So we either have a hugely complicated system to remove wealth or even ensure a 'wealth by level' type arrangement OR I think a far simpler system is have vendors that sell stuff - this sets a maximum price of any item thus curbing inflation. In the PF PnP game players sink their cash into magic items as a general rule. They do not require another player to make the items, however this may have a cost benefit if done. The construction of towns/castles will need be a great wealth sink also. Inflation is a concern not to those who have been playing for a while but is a horrible restriction on new players who depending on their playing time may never keep up with it. For example the established PC rulers decide to equip their entire force with +1 Long Swords. The price increases making a newer player unable to afford one - without price caps things can and will get out of hand. We have seen this in WoW, thinking the PF Online will somehow attract a better class of player is a risky bet.
Yes this means that players will end up with potentially vast cash resources - but that can be addressed by the economy of running a city. Don't have 'upkeep tax' on weapons/equipment, have it solely on buildings/constructions. At a personal PC level, let heroes be heroes and not worry about repairing their swords every two days. But those embarking on running a city, that sort of person is looking for a macro-economic challenge I would wager. Feeding 100 men at arms and making sure the drains don't block up doesn't sound cheap to me. At that level of game the idea of remembering to fix my dagger so it's sharp enough to cut my meat seems silly.
S.
I don't see that system really working, if you are excluding everyone playing a "hero" as opposed to a "king" from having a wealth drain. It'd also be a disincentive to "kingom building" and territory control as that would be a way to make yourself poor and weak (have stuff that is costly to be maintained and subject to loss) as opposed to being a "hero" who doesn't have to worry about costs and about lossing stuff and can just ever increase thier wealth. I can't see why players would WANT to build kingdoms or control territory or engage in production or trade of resources in such a game. It would seem to me the optimal play style under such a scenerio would be to just a join an army of roving barbarian "hero's" who just went out and destroyed the things others built up. You'd never have to worry about the cost of maintaining your career....you'd never have to worry about loosing anything you invested wealth or effort into.... you'd never have to worry about becoming poor...and you'd never even have to worry about your relation with other players....as you could just buy everything you needed from NPC vendors and not have to worry about loosing our replacing or maintaining such gear.
That, to me, sounds the opposite of what the game is trying to accomplish...with it's kingdom building & territory control elements.
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I don't see that system really working, if you are excluding everyone playing a "hero" as opposed to a "king" from having a wealth drain. It'd also be a disincentive to "kingom building" and territory control as that would be a way to make yourself poor and weak (have stuff that is costly to be maintained and subject to loss) as opposed to being a "hero" who doesn't have to worry about costs and about lossing stuff and can just ever increase thier wealth. I can't see why players would WANT to build kingdoms or control territory or engage in production or trade of resources in such a game. It would seem to me the optimal play style under such a scenerio would be to just a join an army of roving barbarian "hero's" who just went out and destroyed the things others built up. You'd never have to worry about the cost of maintaining your career....you'd never have to worry about loosing anything you invested wealth or effort into.... you'd never have to worry about becoming poor...and you'd never even have to worry about your relation with other players....as you could just buy everything you needed from NPC vendors and not have to worry about loosing our replacing or maintaining such gear.
That, to me, sounds the opposite of what the game is trying to accomplish...with it's kingdom building & territory control elements.
So you remain a hero and avoid 'wealth drain based on degrading gear (only)' and amass huge amounts of cash. What then? No one will care and with price caps you will have no effect on the economy. So basically no problem. On the other hand we are talking economies of scale here, even with degrading gear that cost must be tiny compared with the day to day costs of a city even without upkeep on say a castle wall. Will the guards on the wall be free because you built a wall? The other extreme is it costs you to adventure but it's free to build and maintain a city?
In a game where RTS like activities are being undertaken the micro-micro-management of your cloaks current health seems picky. Also degrading gear or not, bands of roving barbarians will be about and unless the wealth system is well out of whack the cost of repairs is unlikely to put them off attacking and plundering cities.
Not saying my way is the way, just I hope that Goblinworks think before mindlessly applying the blunt tool of degrading gear to remove cash from an economy that has infinite sources.
S.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not saying my way is the way, just I hope that Goblinworks think before mindlessly applying the blunt tool of degrading gear to remove cash from an economy that has infinite sources....
while sources might be infinite in quantity, their output is not. there is only so much that can be created per hour. nobody expects perfect balance on the first try, but it would demand monitoring.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't see that system really working, if you are excluding everyone playing a "hero" as opposed to a "king" from having a wealth drain. It'd also be a disincentive to "kingom building" and territory control as that would be a way to make yourself poor and weak (have stuff that is costly to be maintained and subject to loss) as opposed to being a "hero" who doesn't have to worry about costs and about lossing stuff and can just ever increase thier wealth. I can't see why players would WANT to build kingdoms or control territory or engage in production or trade of resources in such a game. It would seem to me the optimal play style under such a scenerio would be to just a join an army of roving barbarian "hero's" who just went out and destroyed the things others built up. You'd never have to worry about the cost of maintaining your career....you'd never have to worry about loosing anything you invested wealth or effort into.... you'd never have to worry about becoming poor...and you'd never even have to worry about your relation with other players....as you could just buy everything you needed from NPC vendors and not have to worry about loosing our replacing or maintaining such gear.
That, to me, sounds the opposite of what the game is trying to accomplish...with it's kingdom building & territory control elements.
So you remain a hero and avoid 'wealth drain based on degrading gear (only)' and amass huge amounts of cash. What then? No one will care and with price caps you will have no effect on the economy. So basically no problem. On the other hand we are talking economies of scale here, even with degrading gear that cost must be tiny compared with the day to day costs of a city even without upkeep on say a castle wall. Will the guards on the wall be free because you built a wall? The other extreme is it costs you to adventure but it's free to build and maintain a city?
In a game where RTS like activities are being undertaken the micro-micro-management of your cloaks...
Well a city is not going to be maintained by 1 man alone. Obviously that expense is going to be divided up among the residents. But certain objects and items should be exclusive to the residents of said cities that pay taxes, or at least the production of, and who they wish to sell to. Expecting NPCs to regulate the price is a bit pointless, if the city can manage to undercut the NPCs then it will, even if only by a small amount, either way, there is going to be more then one city, and most likely different locations will have better access to different resources, and thus X town on the far east, will have great access to leather and poor access to metal, and Y town on west may have the opposite. Actually this is another area where the destructible gear offers variance while permanent does not. In a permanent, your gear will last you a month or more scenario, walking 45 minutes to town Y for a better price on plate is a no brainier, there will be no import market because well even selling at a mid-price point between the 2 towns prices, it still is always a better idea to go to town Y.
Permanent gear is about major 1 time huge money purchases, so you obviously will not settle for a higher price for any cost. So now each town is reduced to what it is best at, no other market, economy is one giant universal set number for things, if a town cannot produce it optimally, it shouldn't bother producing it at all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Kings did not pay for kingdom upkeep out of their pockets. They paid out of the treasury which they might also have access to, but is really the pocket of the nations inhabitants through taxation. Guilds/Factions who build cities better have a way to tax those who decide to set up home and shop within.
And, I don't really see the relevance of this and forced upkeep on gear. Kings and "heros" will both have to pay upkeep on their gear. If NPCs are allowed, then nations will also have to pay upkeep on them and their gear (as was suggested). I agree that nation building comes with the desire for macro economic challenges, but likewise (and counter to the claims in the previous discussion), playing a hero denotes an interest in the micro-economic challenges. If they don't care for the micro-economic challenges then like the NPCs, they need to find a job that supplies them with stuff and repairs (probably the same job as the NPCs).
My concern with price caps is that it is an artificial limitation on what we hope will be a viable PC driven economy. Supply and demand should drive price. If this makes buying a +1 sword not viable for the short term future because your king just put in an order for 100 of them by Tuesday and the smiths are too busy, buy a used one from another player until Tuesday...or find a beginning crafter and use a +0 one until Tuesday. Or, run to the kingdom next door and buy one.
I actually hope they limit sources over time. This makes sense to me; I agree it is different than any MMO in the past but it is very much in line with the "persistence mantra".
EDIT: Jagga and Onishi beat me to the points I made here...
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while sources might be infinite in quantity, their output is not. there is only so much that can be created per hour. nobody expects perfect balance on the first try, but it would demand monitoring....
Not saying my way is the way, just I hope that Goblinworks think before mindlessly applying the blunt tool of degrading gear to remove cash from an economy that has infinite sources....
True - but if I have 1,000 gp in 1 hour or 300 hours doesn't change the fact that no matter how many lots of 1,000 gp I have there will always be more. You either limit up front (as in the real world, mints etc) or take away (real world and MMO's). All MMO's to date seem to attack the problem of dealing with out of control economies at the bottom of the cliff - just saying perhaps (or perhaps not) having a regulated economy might be an option. How exactly it is regulated, price fixing, limiting resources, etc, that is up for debate. But I think that the idea that having a sword degrade and cost to fix will make a good balanced economy is wrong as seen in WoW. Now perhaps the introduction of structures and towns/cities will mean that things don't get all crazy like WoW? Time will tell - once we see what mechanism Goblinworks decides on.
S.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...Expecting NPCs to regulate the price is a bit pointless, if the city can manage to undercut the NPCs then it will, even if only by a small amount, either way, there is going to be more then one city, and most likely different locations will have better access to different resources, and thus X town on the far east, will have great access to leather and poor access to metal, and Y town on west may have the opposite. Actually this is another area where the destructible gear offers variance while permanent does not. In a permanent, your gear will last you a month or more scenario, walking 45 minutes to town Y for a better price on plate is a no brainier, there will be no import market because well even selling at a mid-price point between the 2 towns prices, it still is always a better idea to go to town Y.
Permanent gear is about major 1 time huge money purchases, so you obviously will not settle for a higher price for any cost. So now each town is reduced to what it is best at, no other market, economy is one giant universal set number for things, if a town cannot produce it optimally, it shouldn't bother producing it at all.
Of course, we need to have both...a demand for average and expensive gear. I for instance, would not grind with my best gear (because I expect it to wear), so there will be a market for the average stuff. It also makes sense that the uber leather armor, would be made in an area that has cheap leather (if for no other reason that the crafter had to grind leatherworking and made their home in this area for obvious reasons), yet that armor should be expensive even if the leather is cheap (simply because of the increase effort and other materials to make).
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Goblin Squad Member
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while sources might be infinite in quantity, their output is not. there is only so much that can be created per hour. nobody expects perfect balance on the first try, but it would demand monitoring....
Not saying my way is the way, just I hope that Goblinworks think before mindlessly applying the blunt tool of degrading gear to remove cash from an economy that has infinite sources....True - but if I have 1,000 gp in 1 hour or 300 hours doesn't change the fact that no matter how many lots of 1,000 gp I have there will always be more. You either limit up front (as in the real world, mints etc) or take away (real world and MMO's). All MMO's to date seem to attack the problem of dealing with out of control economies at the bottom of the cliff - just saying perhaps (or perhaps not) having a regulated economy might be an option. How exactly it is regulated, price fixing, limiting resources, etc, that is up for debate. But I think that the idea that having a sword degrade and cost to fix will make a good balanced economy is wrong as seen in WoW. Now perhaps the introduction of structures and towns/cities will mean that things don't get all crazy like WoW? Time will tell - once we see what mechanism Goblinworks decides on.
S.
What I think might actually make a good balancing factor for say mines and resources, lets say your Mithral node, has 2,000 standard resources, someone can extract at a rate of up to 50 an hour. Carrying capacity is limited, The mine regenerates at a rate based on a percentage, and it cannot be mined below 200, lets say it regens 50% a day as a random number without exact calculations (this is for low sec only, in high sec areas where people cannot lay claim or defend a resource, they should just have significantly slower extraction rates). As a result, aliences would do everything in their power, to mine exactly 1,000 resources from that node in a day, but to prevent anyone from taking it over that mark, That may mean treaties with neighbors saying they can only take up to 150/200 a day, and anyone without permission will be considered a thief to the players of the owning kingdom.
You now have finate rate of resources coming in per quanity of area. A potential point of contention, and new reasons for deals/agreements between nations.
Edit: or even better then their own finite restocking rate, a druid can once a day cause the reforming of resources (similar percentage based rate, and only 1 druid can effect each one, or they could have both a natural, and a enhanced rate)
Edit 2: as well, maybe even offer a direct economic sabotage, if there were say an opposite to a Regen increase spell, it could create a new form of an operation to sabotage an opponent you are at war with. Damage the supply line and crush your enemy! (which dare I mention, this tactic of sabotage, is also even more potent, in scenarios where armor, is destructible.)
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I actually hope they limit sources over time. This makes sense to me; I agree it is different than any MMO in the past but it is very much in line with the "persistence mantra".
I would like to see this as a mechanism, but for the life of me I can't see a way to make it viable in a virtual world where players come and go.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't see that system really working, if you are excluding everyone playing a "hero" as opposed to a "king" from having a wealth drain. It'd also be a disincentive to "kingom building" and territory control as that would be a way to make yourself poor and weak (have stuff that is costly to be maintained and subject to loss) as opposed to being a "hero" who doesn't have to worry about costs and about lossing stuff and can just ever increase thier wealth. I can't see why players would WANT to build kingdoms or control territory or engage in production or trade of resources in such a game. It would seem to me the optimal play style under such a scenerio would be to just a join an army of roving barbarian "hero's" who just went out and destroyed the things others built up. You'd never have to worry about the cost of maintaining your career....you'd never have to worry about loosing anything you invested wealth or effort into.... you'd never have to worry about becoming poor...and you'd never even have to worry about your relation with other players....as you could just buy everything you needed from NPC vendors and not have to worry about loosing our replacing or maintaining such gear.
That, to me, sounds the opposite of what the game is trying to accomplish...with it's kingdom building & territory control elements.
So you remain a hero and avoid 'wealth drain based on degrading gear (only)' and amass huge amounts of cash. What then? No one will care and with price caps you will have no effect on the economy. So basically no problem. On the other hand we are talking economies of scale here, even with degrading gear that cost must be tiny compared with the day to day costs of a city even without upkeep on say a castle wall. Will the guards on the wall be free because you built a wall? The other extreme is it costs you to adventure but it's free to build and maintain a city?
In a game where RTS like activities are being undertaken the micro-micro-management of your cloaks...
Every career, whether it's adventuring or kingdom building or crafting should incurr a cost to engage in...every player should have a mechanism for having thier wealth drained...just as every player should have a mechanism for acquiring wealth....that's what keeps an economy both vibrant and stable (relatively).
Your essentialy arguing that the players wealth or economic activity should have no effect upon thier environment or the games economy. That's the themepark model....it seems to be the opposite of what the Dev's are shooting for with PFO... the players, whether they are "Hero's" or "Kings" or "Rogue's" or "Crafters" are SUPPOSED to have an effect upon the game environment. Thier actions are SUPPOSED to matter. In order to do that and not have completely unsustainable environments...you have to have mechanisms that are somewhat self-sustaing. If you allow the player a mechanism for obtaining wealth...you have to create a counter-balancing mechanism for pulling wealth away from them as well. Otherwise the environment breaks when you let the players effect it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
while sources might be infinite in quantity, their output is not. there is only so much that can be created per hour. nobody expects perfect balance on the first try, but it would demand monitoring....
Not saying my way is the way, just I hope that Goblinworks think before mindlessly applying the blunt tool of degrading gear to remove cash from an economy that has infinite sources....True - but if I have 1,000 gp in 1 hour or 300 hours doesn't change the fact that no matter how many lots of 1,000 gp I have there will always be more. You either limit up front (as in the real world, mints etc) or take away (real world and MMO's). All MMO's to date seem to attack the problem of dealing with out of control economies at the bottom of the cliff - just saying perhaps (or perhaps not) having a regulated economy might be an option. How exactly it is regulated, price fixing, limiting resources, etc, that is up for debate. But I think that the idea that having a sword degrade and cost to fix will make a good balanced economy is wrong as seen in WoW. Now perhaps the introduction of structures and towns/cities will mean that things don't get all crazy like WoW? Time will tell - once we see what mechanism Goblinworks decides on.
S.
But WOW...at least when I played...and LOTRO which I play now...really don't have much in the way of upkeep costs in the way of gear degredation...you might have a small repair cost for gear...maybe a little more when you die...but whether you run in top end gear or greys...your costs are trivial compared to what you earn from adventuring....and you never risk actualy LOSING gear and needing to replace it. The real "costs" with WOW are when the next update comes out and you need to upgrade to the new "required gear set" but even there alot of the "costs" there are time costs...as the main method of aquisition is RAIDING/QUESTING and the gear is often Bind on Aquire. Once you pay the time cost to get the new gear..there is really no cost in continuing to use it. That means the Dev's can only keep the economy going by intoducing an ever escalating arms race of gear upgrade treadmill....and they have real problems if they can't keep pace with thier updates (which they usualy can't).
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the players, whether they are "Hero's" or "Kings" or "Rogue's" or "Crafters" are SUPPOSED to have an effect upon the game environment
I agree completely, I just don't agree that the effect upon the game should be "increased the price of the wineskin from 1 gp to 57 gp". Seems a funny measure of influence to me. Now if you were to say "Claimed a block of land from a dragon and settled a village and yet the price of a wineskin stayed at 1 gp" I would be more inclined to think I was involved in a non-static game with a point to playing.
Meaning the price of the object, in this case a wineskin, is immaterial to the overall game of kingdom building and adventuring.
There's a cartoon in the 1e AD&D DMG which covers the type of game WoW became...
S.
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really don't have much in the way of upkeep costs in the way of gear degredation...you might have a small repair cost for gear...maybe a little more when you die...but whether you run in top end gear or greys...your costs are trivial compared to what you earn from adventuring....and you never risk actualy LOSING gear and needing to replace it.
Again, I agree with you. That cost is so trivial it's nothing but annoying and doesn't really serve to remove cash from the game in any meaningful way - so why bother? It's a throw back to Diablo.
Or are you saying that PF Online should have gear that degrades faster or is more expensive to repair?
S.
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Goblin Squad Member
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really don't have much in the way of upkeep costs in the way of gear degredation...you might have a small repair cost for gear...maybe a little more when you die...but whether you run in top end gear or greys...your costs are trivial compared to what you earn from adventuring....and you never risk actualy LOSING gear and needing to replace it.Again, I agree with you. That cost is so trivial it's nothing but annoying and doesn't really serve to remove cash from the game in any meaningful way - so why bother? It's a throw back to Diablo.
Or are you saying that PF Online should have gear that degrades faster or is more expensive to repair?
S.
I believe that's what this whole debate is about, majority of us are talking about gear that permanently gets destroyed, or possibly takes say about half the resources it took to craft to repair.
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I believe that's what this whole debate is about, majority of us are talking about gear that permanently gets destroyed, or possibly takes say about half the resources it took to craft to repair.really don't have much in the way of upkeep costs in the way of gear degredation...you might have a small repair cost for gear...maybe a little more when you die...but whether you run in top end gear or greys...your costs are trivial compared to what you earn from adventuring....and you never risk actualy LOSING gear and needing to replace it.Again, I agree with you. That cost is so trivial it's nothing but annoying and doesn't really serve to remove cash from the game in any meaningful way - so why bother? It's a throw back to Diablo.
Or are you saying that PF Online should have gear that degrades faster or is more expensive to repair?
S.
The light goes on! Thanks for the synopsis. I issue I have is such a device is nothing more than a mechanism for removing cash, and I don't see how it enhances game play. If there was a another method of still parting players with their potentially infinite cash I would be interested to hear it. It may be that such a tried and semi-true method is the only tool in the Devs box to address excess money? What about a general 'upkeep', in the GM section it has a table for such things.
So...
What about, if I'm living in the wild I need find a way to fix my stuff, but if I'm living in town and paying upkeep I need not hunt food or fix my stuff - it's included in the price per day? Perhaps if you buy the best 'board' you get a +1 to hit or 2% XP increase for the day due to better food/fixing etc?
I would just love to avoid the WoW way of doing repairs more than I'm concerned about the cost of prices. Without making a repair shop - in theory I should need to visit multiple people to actually get all of my stuff repaired. How would a blacksmith know how to repair leather armor for example?
Quite complicated this whole MMO thing - Glad I'm not Goblinworks, I wouldn't be sleeping at night!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actually, I am advocating it not as a money sink, but as a way to keep the crafting economy going using the following points:
- repairing an item could only be done by someone who could actually craft the item.
- all items degrade through use...not time. So you are welcome to save your uber gear for important fights and/or peen parties...and probably keep it indefinitely.
- items, once repaired can never be repaired up to the same percentage it was...eventually this will result in a poor cost/benefit balance and the item will be discarded.
- all items can be broken down into their parts with some standard amount of loss (maybe based upon your skill)...and based upon the hp of the item (so, as an example, an item at 25% can only get 20% of the initial materials in return when broken down...25% minus the standard break down loss).
- average time for 100% to 0% gear hp reduction with standard but constant use, 2-3 months.
- the amount of materials necessary for repairs is proportional to the amount of damage done on the item.
This hopefully would lead to a dynamic where most people will grind with relatively average gear and save their uber stuff for important events. Gear will be repaired once or twice and then broken down for scrap. At this point, new gear will be purchased/made. This was the hope anyways.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The light goes on! Thanks for the synopsis. I issue I have is such a device is nothing more than a mechanism for removing cash, and I don't see how it enhances game play. If there was a another method of still parting players with their potentially infinite cash I would be interested to hear it. It may be that such a tried and semi-true method is the only tool in the Devs box to address excess money? What about a general 'upkeep', in the GM section it has a table for such things.
So...
What about, if I'm living in the wild I need find a way to fix my stuff, but if I'm living in town and paying upkeep I need not hunt food or fix my stuff - it's included in the price per day? Perhaps if you buy the best 'board' you get a +1 to hit or 2% XP increase for the day due to better food/fixing etc?
I would just love to avoid the WoW way of doing repairs more than I'm concerned about the cost of prices. Without making a repair shop - in theory I should need to visit multiple people to actually get all of my stuff repaired. How would a blacksmith know how to repair leather armor...
I believe Grumpy mel's list was particularly good for reasons in addition to just taking money out of the economy, that breakable gear would be a good idea. As far as lodging, no real ideas, I wouldn't be opposed to the idea and I could certainly see moderate buffs for logging out in a room, or if you call citizenship to a player run kingdom, possibly housing there, (of which the quality of the buffs could come from how well the town invested in housing, as opposed to defense, crafting stations etc....).
Most people are thinking about player crafters doing repairs if repairs are plausible at all, (since you will need to provide the materials etc... assuming they do something like a 50% of the base materials needed to repair gear and obviously a player repairer would need the relevant crafting skill (not every crafter has mastered every trade after all). All of the repair or non-repair ideas are around having several grades of gear, the top of the line, expensive stuff that costs a significant amount to repair, (IE say 1.5x damage of a normal weapon), the normal disposable weapons (IE generic cheap, you can buy 50 of them without really caring). maybe variations in-between on both cost and effectiveness, though I would say 2x should be near the top absolute best for gear. Players would only pull out their best weapons, in situations where say the town was on the line, or when taking over another major city etc... and use the cheap disposable weapons 80% of the time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Doesn't that put far to much emphasis on the game being about gear?
Well considering the majority of the opinion is more about encoraging saving the good gear for emergency situations. I think where I disagree with kit is the 2-3 months for gear to wear out, I was thinking more along the lines of 2-3 days of use for the best gear (which you should not be intending to use more then once a week, short of a long drawn out war, as it should be too expensive to go that route for everyday usage IMO).
By
1. It rarely being a good idea to use your best gear
2. The difference in the best and worse gear being at the absolute strongest, double the damage (compared to your theme park where they are 1200% or larger), Also if you see my post earlier on this page about the possible limited spawning resources, Having a short lifespan on weapons, could allow players to prevent a kingdom from being able to produce, as a cutting off supplies tactic. with permanant weapons, that causes nothing to change, but with the best weapons being fragile and remade on a daily basis durring a heavy war, that could be a huge hit. Forcing sides to have to both protect their resource nodes, as well as their main cities.