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Re: Upcoming Economy Rework and Goals

Uzriel said:

My own KISS principle suggestion on commodities generation is giving each city an npc to turn in commodities for refining and doing a pass to make sure there's a more level playing field on comm quests (more fruit/veggies/wood/metal).

How villages can be tied in beyond an extra passive comm generation, I'm not sure. They're such a big part of the conflict mechanics I would hate to see them completely devalued.

Also another big no to making runed items decay or adding too much "upkeep". There gets to be a point where upkeep and gold sinks just become tedious unfun mechanics to maintain. My fear with an economy and trade overhaul is that for the sake of making trades more profitable we end up with a whole assortment of tedious extra little things to maintain constantly.

Given we are in this situation right now because of trying simple and quick fixes it seems rather evident that the KISS principle doesn't work for a system as inherently complex as the economy.

Also the tediousness argument with decay is kinda amusing at this point.

We're at a point where realistically players would only really be needing a quick trip to the plex once every couple rl months for some items and others seem closer to once an rl year.
With audit warnings there wouldn't be any surprise decay. With the idea of sacrificing an item to add time to another, and setting it up so you can do it once the item is showing on audit, you could potentially just need to make a trip to the plex at some point within the 25 days before it decays.
With the mercantile/artisanal split it would likely only impact things in the mercantile category.

Particularly once players start scripting and automating things, this is liable to take minutes, if that long, at worst every few weeks, depending on how your decay lines up.

On the flipside, doing this provides a reason for people to actually bother stocking these items regularly and actually addresses the issue that it can be hard to get necessities because there's no great value in stocking them while also aiming to more fully utilise what we already have to make trades feel worth while.

Previously, we have tried adding more stuff. Goop crafting is a prime example here and we seem to be hitting a limit on extra stuff we can jam into trades given it only got to five trades.
We seemingly also now have proof that adding extra stuff doesn't really resolve the issue of those necessities being readily available because it doesn't actually address the actual issue.

Saran

1

Re: Upcoming Economy Rework and Goals

Full disclaimer, I don't know nearly as much about the details of the economy and commodity generation as the people who have already commented, but one thought/idea I had to at least create a bigger demand for trades/crafts is to get rid of the "permanency" of items that have runes attached to them (clothing, armor, jewelry, etc.). These items can still be upkept (i.e. repaired/mended) but if allowed to decay, then the rune just ends up back in the person's inventory. This would make it so that everyone at constant intervals needs crafts/trades and thus interacts with those individuals more, shops become useful again because people are looking for items (not just newbies), and it has the added bonus of allowing a rune to be freed up when the item decays. The current artifacts for removing runes could still be useful before an item has decayed.

Obviously it doesn't solve the commodity issue; in fact, it would create a greater need for commodities if now everyone needs to buy new sets of jewelry/robes/armor every ~6 RL months for enchantments, holding runes, etc.

Balian

2

Re: Upcoming Economy Rework and Goals

Used to have manse generators, and in the name of scarcity to...SOMEHOW...fix the economy, that was removed. Unlikely to be reinstated. And they always had low 'per-weave' generation levels, but people would have several, farm them, get rich, and people complained without thinking what things would be like without cheaper than village cost comms available. So...meh.

That said, the whole drive to diminish comm hoards may be valid on the surface, but not really feasible with high cost comm sinks that don't offer much. Research projects, by far the most wasteful loss of precious comms in the game currently just to upkeep, certain drain those reserves fast. But given generation is way lower than the cost and only a handful of Research projects are worth a damn using at a given time, it's been frustrating all around. Designed that way intentionally to prevent them being must haves, certainly understandable, but so expensive for so little gain.

Either boosting village production, both base and when quests for said villages are performed (with new ones introduced?)...or dropping at least the Research black hole that is their upkeep would be nice.

Shango

1

Re: Lack of Raves VI: Rave Today, Tweet Tomorrow

Jolanthe for CL foreeeveeeer

Arix

1

Re: Lack of Raves VI: Rave Today, Tweet Tomorrow

A little bit late but here is a very well deserved rave for whoever in the Divine Havens made these for halloween:

A translucent ghost tells you, "That was almost as scary as when I was invited to tea in Glomdoring."

@Gurashi for taking a moment to show them to me, you both made my day ♥

Afollia

2

Re: Lack of Raves VI: Rave Today, Tweet Tomorrow

I want to rave for this years haunted house thing. It always been great but I just fell in love with the mansion part, I had so much fun with this!

Aeldra

6

Re: Small(er) scale pvp

Type of reward matters, too. Personal bashing buffs or honors lines are good in that they don't help the person to 'continue winning'.

Personally I consider credits largely devalued due to dailies, and don't consider credit rewards as something that will really push someone over the top, ie. If someone wants demi+, they can get it easily enough between dailies and org credits. But that is definitely an opinion.

Synl

4

Re: Small(er) scale pvp

On a further note, even we've struggled to get a group together lately. Interest in Grimkeep seems to have waned somewhat lately. I'm unsure of the reasoning. Maybe it's true that some people have grown a disinterest because of the tangible cost in grinding the place.

I love Grimkeep. Sure, it could use a little tweaking here and there, but overall, it serves its purpose well.

Quixote

2

Re: Small(er) scale pvp

Xenthos said:

Orael said:

@Xenthos - I was told that. I was explicitly told that. Maybe you didn't say it, but others have.

For the record, any changes made to Grimkeep were made to encourage players to make each run last as long as possible. We want people to consistently and routinely try to get the top run. Everything about the rewards is to encourage that motivation.

I would like to think that anyone who explicitly stated something along those lines would be swayed by something that is more universally beneficial. I have to agree with you that a system that just (or primarily) rewards winners probably won't be compelling, but there is no reason to design it that way. People who are into PvP tend to like it just for the thrill of it. You don't need to reward winning. Instead, pin the enticement on the participation itself. If doing a ranked spar gave 5 dailies I suspect more people would do them, for example, despite no actual benefit for winning (note that this is just an example, I am not advocating for this because the overall design of that system would still be super flawed).
So apply this theory to Synl's proposal. Adjust it a bit as follows.
1) Everyone interested in the "season" registers and signs up.
2) Teams are assigned from the pool at random (like the anniversary wargames).
3) Teams would be 4-5 players, but matches are 3v3. This provides some flexibility on people not always being around the same time as everyone else. You could also allow 2v3 or 2v2 as well.
4) Every team is allowed to play each other team once. Your final reward is based on how many battles your team fought, win or lose.
5) The season ends when all matches have been played or at a predetermined time.
The team with the best record wins pvp accolades / bragging rights.
I am sure there are far better ways to implement something like this, just tossing some thoughts out there. The important part is that the primary motivation be tied to people using the system. This general format would provide greater results when more people sign up, though; more teams = more potential matches = greater rewards.
TL;DR: If you want people to participate in a system, make sure that the perceived incentive to participate is greater than any potential disincentives. Whatever you end up doing, that is probably a pretty good policy to follow.

Okay - but this goes back to my main concern.

Bob, Bobby and Robert see Greg, Gregory and Grog signed up for a tournament - they know they cannot beat the three G's so they just don't bother to sign up because it's not appealing to be handing the Three G's more rewards. Either that or they only fight against teams on their side to increase their own rewards but not others.

I'm interested in a system that people will engage in and use. The only other thing I've considered is that people will sign up, but the teams end up being randomized and anonymous somehow. Could have a system where people can pick and choose a class for that specific event and things reverse back, but by being anonymous, you ideally don't know who you are playing with or against. I'm sure some people will figure out through things like Discord etc but it's the best I got.

Orael

2

Re: Small(er) scale pvp

@Xenthos - I was told that. I was explicitly told that. Maybe you didn't say it, but others have.

For the record, any changes made to Grimkeep were made to encourage players to make each run last as long as possible. We want people to consistently and routinely try to get the top run. Everything about the rewards is to encourage that motivation.

Orael

2