Banks are not actually a gold output, that gold is put into commune coffers. Likewise, things like buying commodities just put gold into org accounts.
The thing to note is that all of the common gold outputs are either big-ticket, meaning that only a relative few players 'sink' a lot of gold into them, or admin-dependant, placing a bottleneck on spending gold in that manner. It's also a problem that gold from the general populace doesn't tend to find its way into the hands of people who will spend it on aetherships with any great kind of speed, because the demand for trade goods and other player economic activities is very low. A very small number of shops can easily satisfy the entire market's demand.
In my opinion, the most effective way to pull gold out of Lusternia would be to open automated construction to organizations, in the way that other IREs have subdivisions and Aetolia has the Ministry of Development and Buildings. These allow give players the agency to design, write, implement, and upgrade new rooms in the org without any administrative input required. This means that those orgs can consistently and constantly spend their organizational gold, gold that is gradually siphoned up from their members through various governmental programs designed for that purpose.
Subdivisions and Buildings differe mostly in how they are gated off. Subdivisions are manse-like, in that they occupy their own zone of the game, separated from regular play in a few ways. The most obvious way is that they dispense with the free room system, instead using a grid system very similar to how Aetherspace is mapped. As I understand it, the owning nation can spend gold to expand the raw size of their subdivision space, as well as changing terrain within it, adding houses, and leasing spaces mechanically to members of their nation.
Buildings are similar to manses, in that they come with a suite of commands to modify and control them. The big difference is that they occupy space in the regular game. These spaces are almost exclusively within orgs, under the control of the Ministry of Development, who has permissions over the spaces in the same way the Chancellor does over shops. These building zones are designated on the map with a [B] marker, and tend to have their own map displays and areas for practical reasons. The org's patron is contacted to create a new exit from the org into a building, and the builders (players) take it from there. The key difference is that advancements in construction and upgrades to buildings generally use gold, not credits or artifacts, AND they do so via an automated, manse-like system. Again, this generates an organizational level gold sink that is dependable and interesting without being limited by how much of a time sink it becomes to administration.
In Serenwilde, for instance, another level to the commune shoppping area could easily house a series of buildings, designed to be player apartments for rent, or family houses. These would still belong to the commune and would be under the control of the appropriate Minister (Steward?), but could serve as an interesting space for players to play house without having to gate themselves off from the game, or drag someone back to their lair.
I personally have very little interest in manses because I (and my character) are aware that they can look like literally anything, and what they look like has zero bearing on anything else in the game. Using them is essentially walking off into your own little game, where you only interact with those you specifically drag there and in which you make things up as you go along. Yawn. Having semi-permanent constructed places that are contiguous with the rest of the game, and that require roleplaying and effort to change is much more interesting to me. I don't have a Lusternian manse, but I DID rent a small building in Aetolia for a long time! If I wanted to 'renovate', I had to contact the Minister to explain what changes I wanted made, and had to justify and rationalize them. The previous renter had awful wood paneling and low ceilings. I paid to have the building renovated, knocking out some non-essential walls, getting rid of some drywall ceiling to emphasize the loft, and so on. Much more interesting and engaging.
1
Cyndarinused Flamethrower! It was super effective.
edited August 2015
You guys are so dramatic. Credit sales were cheap as balls just a handful of months ago. I suspect the lack of credits now is from the influx of people trying to snatch up the wonder crystals through IG trades.
Gold dumps are only an idea on the surface. You have to understand the vast, and I mean vast sums of gold some people are sitting on. There are players richer than organizations by a significant margin. There is a humungous gold gap between the casual players and players like say..Xenthos, which is fine, it does not function like actual currency unless you make a habit of mugging strangers you see on the street IRL. Gold dumps that affect a player like Xenthos really will not be accessible to 98% of other people, and gold dumps that most players can take advantage of are a drop in the bucket ocean to the super rich.
I only keep 10,000,000 in the bank. Another 20,000,000 is locked away in my valise where nobody can get their grubby little paws on it. /hides "taxable" wealth via use of artifacts.
(The rest I just carry in my inventory)
But, yes, it is a very valid point that gold dumps having an impact on players like me will be very hard for anyone else to participate in... and historically, when things are priced in that way, players like me feel like we it is a terrible deal (the value of the gold sink is drastically less than the gold being asked for it), so we do not participate to any great extent either.
That said, players like me effectively are gold sinks. We get it and we hoard it. I do not buy credits off the market. A good gold sink would preferably be aimed to take smaller amounts of gold from a larger number of players (as that will be digging into the gold "in circulation") vs. large quantities from the very few.
Note that Enyalida's comment about orgs having an automated system to spend gold to expand actually does serve this purpose-- via the organizations running activities and events to get the general populace to donate. That is not to say it is the only option, of course, but any effective gold sink needs to have a wide appeal (either via orgs requiring gold for Good Things and doing things to make gold donation appealing, or players being able to spend gold for benefits / perks on a more long-term scale).
On the topic of gold input/output, as long as there are people with large amounts of curio maps (this is the main thing I can think outside of hunting/questing) who are getting 100K gold a day from playing treasure hunt you are going to have those with large amounts of gold. Any gold sink needs to be something that people will want to keep buying instead of just some one off purchase.
That's right. There is no reason (or reasonable way) to implement a sink on the few massive gold pools in the game. Three big things need to happen:
1) The gold production in the game needs to be more linear and less exponential based on difficulty. This means that the high powered bashers would still make significantly more than midbies, but not many magnitudes greater. This includes cutting down on silly things like curios that generate tremendous resources, as these are easy to get when they come out and very difficult to complete once the first trading frenzies cool down. This means that older characters not only gain more gold faster, they also accrue more gold faster... faster, the longer they play the wider that gap becomes.
2) The player economy needs more circulation, especially for newer characters. With less overwhelming centralization and high buy in to participate in the player economy, it should be easier for gold to be evenly distributed, instead of pooling up and stagnating.
3) There need to be low level, non-punitive standard gold drains that apply about evenly to about every character in some way. We're not talking dramatically overpriced curios or huge gold auctions that do nothing but bring into play previously 'frozen' gold, like Xenthos's supply. This is kind of a complicated idea, but @Xenthos was right when he said that his gold is effectively taken out of the game. However, when a big one off gold sink comes out, these gold reserves leap into action and take up the shock. That gold sink rarely touches the gold in circulation, because the giant pools of gold soak it up. A more steady drip, fair and low cost gold drain on everyone does a better job of gradually pulling gold out. If you try to shock the system, the safety mechanisms kick in and you get nowhere.
To that third point, we can again look to the other IRE games for a few ideas. As I mentioned earlier, having some kind of low level, non-punitive expense for orgs results in a generalized drain on gold for everyone in that nation, as most player orgs tend to be conservative with their gold supply. This kind of indirect sink has a few benefits, namely that it does not affect the gold supply of newer players, who have the lowest gold income. That is a problem that crops up a lot when trying to devise gold sinks, because of the problem I mentioned in my point 1: You want a universal drain that will effect higher income players without totally crushing the lower end.
Another example are class costs. In Achaea, many classes have some required resource for at least one of their skills, like tarot cards, special phials, or our rune stones. The key is that those resources may not be made by any player, you HAVE to buy them from a Trader Bob like denizen placed in each organization. These constitute a low level constant drain on game gold in a way that Trader Bob never will. I've never bought anything from Bob on any character, and have not known anyone in my guild to have made habit of doing so, I bet it's the same for many players. If they have, it is an amount that can be counted in weevil's worth without going much into three digit numbers tops.
I keep saying 'non-punitive', because it's important. What I mean by that phrase is that gold sinks need to be a manageable and fair amount. If players feel that a gold sink is 'overpriced', they will not participate enough for it to work. If you mechanically FORCE them to participate, not only are you running into problem 1), you're also... forcing players. At that point, it's better to just universally deduct that much gold from how much gold is generated. Things like travel curios ended up taking a lot less gold total out of circulation than they would have if each crate individually took out less, because they priced out many players. Not that those players necessarily didn't have the funds, they just didn't feel it was a worthwhile expenditure. Yes, I know I keep saying gold is worthless, so what else would they use it for? Nothing. Many people would rather sit on their gold/money and have it do nothing than burn it on something they feel is unfairly priced, that's just how it works.
Yes, I know I keep saying gold is worthless, so what else would they use it for? Nothing. Many people would rather sit on their gold/money and have it do nothing than burn it on something they feel is unfairly priced, that's just how it works.
Yep. I would rather just not buy things that I feel are unfairly priced, and this includes artifacts (here's looking at you, new damage enhancement / resistance artifacts).
Tax the ultra rich! Distribute the wealth! Collectivism for everyone!
Really Hallifax should have a 100% tax rate. All needs will be met. No frivolous spending such as tea unless you have an art license.
As for the Ministry of Buildings, I would love it, but I think Homesteads are far too similar. Since Homesteads require credits, I don't think they are going to offer a gold knockoff. The Ministry of Buildings would have to be distinct enough where there would be interest in Homesteads besides public vs. private. Again, I would love it and definitely make use of it. I also can't see myself buying a Homstead.
Gold renting of artifacts would be a great feature. +1 to that idea. Uses up gold. Always in demand. Creates a demand for credits once you like the artifact.
As for player gold sinks, they need to be trade giants that absorb gold from other players that then horde the gold for auctions. However, when you have all that gold and you want a cool artifact, you can easily trash the gold market in a few seconds. There needs to be enough exciting gold sinks (ones that you would buy repeatedly, as @Ayisdra said) that would create a real demand for spending gold. When both credits and gold are in high demand, then you can get a more interesting credit market.
I came into the game when it was 36k per credit and that is my idea of normal. Things are fine for the established players, but I think the main concern that @Malarious had was that gold rate is scaring off players that want to get into the game. I think the main thing to do there is not admit that the gold market exists. >.> Just point out leveling credits, bardics, artisanals, city credits, guild credits, and event credits. It is possible to get your artifacts without spending any real money, but gold grinding isn't the way to go.
For Mister Zvoltz, Pejat has been terminated by the Replicant Dynodeon.
If anything isn't going to happen, it's artifact rental.
Homesteads should not have been released as they were, frankly. They're a more expensive to start version of the same thing that (gasp) Aetolia has alongside their Building system. The key difference is that a homestead/castle can be anywhere that admins approve it. Buildings are under the purview and control of the owning org, not any one player. People pay credits in for absolute control (or can go to manses) of private land, totally different thing.
1) Yes, the alternate forms of "currency" out there definitely do limit the number of credits available. When people are buying wondercrystals, genie crates, dingbats, aethergoop, etc. they are not buying credits, and with reduced credit supply the price goes up drastically. 2) Those 65k credits are not really an "aberration," I tend to put them up when I see that the market is empty so that it at least has something on it. I've never sold one at that price, and I never expect to. I'd kind of be annoyed if I did, I do not need / want the gold, it's more of a "I don't like seeing the market barren" kind of thing, is all! (And 65k is the maximum cap, presently)
I did not mean that 65k credits were an aberration, I meant they being the lowest credits on the market is rare enough that for the person who asked they shouldn't consider it a factor. The aberration, being the lack of credits below 65k
1) Yes, the alternate forms of "currency" out there definitely do limit the number of credits available. When people are buying wondercrystals, genie crates, dingbats, aethergoop, etc. they are not buying credits, and with reduced credit supply the price goes up drastically. 2) Those 65k credits are not really an "aberration," I tend to put them up when I see that the market is empty so that it at least has something on it. I've never sold one at that price, and I never expect to. I'd kind of be annoyed if I did, I do not need / want the gold, it's more of a "I don't like seeing the market barren" kind of thing, is all! (And 65k is the maximum cap, presently)
I did not mean that 65k credits were an aberration, I meant they being the lowest credits on the market is rare enough that for the person who asked they shouldn't consider it a factor. The aberration, being the lack of credits below 65k
Ahh, I understand now. Yes, I will agree with that!
Comparing IRE games don't really work out all that well. 6300 gold in Achaea is not equivalent to 6300 gold in Lusternia. It's equivalent to about 15-16000g in Lusternia, in terms of time/ease of obtaining gold.
All I'm gonna say on that (not saying Lusternia market is fine, just saying people need to stop comparing gold generation)
Yet it is required. Why? Because much of what we get is balanced against the other games. 100 comms from a present goes far further than 100 coms here. The 15k in a present buys multiple credits there and a a fraction here. But the point isn't that one gold is worth one gold, the point is in an average hunting day in Achaea how many credits is someone who is about lvl 80 going to buy in Achaea -- now ask yourself how many are they going to buy in Lusternia? This is before you even consider that a game like Achaea can make far more credits available though sales.
So, you do have to compare to other games when the point is that players popping into this game from those may not stay. Unless, you're actually trying to say that it is just as hard for a new player to get credits in Achaea as in Lusternia. But even then, don't perceptions matter?
In my opinion, the most effective way to pull gold out of Lusternia would be to open automated construction to organizations, in the way that other IREs have subdivisions and Aetolia has the Ministry of Development and Buildings. These allow give players the agency to design, write, implement, and upgrade new rooms in the org without any administrative input required. This means that those orgs can consistently and constantly spend their organizational gold, gold that is gradually siphoned up from their members through various governmental programs designed for that purpose.
I am a bit doubtful that the way to balance the economy is by asking for donations. Or do I misunderstand you? To me the gold in orgs isn't really a problem, so the only impact would be what you suck out of players. Arguably, it would drive up the price of city and guild credit sales since now there is a reason to jack up the prices.
Where I do agree is that It still seems like you want fewer items to sell for credits and more for gold. The ones who don't have gold will buy credits and that will drop the prices. IMO all manse items which really are extras should be sold for gold instead (stables, crafting miniatures, etc). I'd pay 1 million gold for an exit that wasn't the plex. I'd pay another million if I could bix out of my manse, etc.
Lusternia's monetary cost is and always has been very high relative to any other game I've seen, even when paying cash. The more unrealistic and unattainable it seems the "free" alternative is, the fewer people we have sticking around to discover why they should pay anything at all in the first place.
EDIT: more gooder grammarz.
Mayor Steingrim, the Grand Schema says to you, "Well, as I recall you kinda leave a mark whereever you go."
So I have given this some thought and attempted to speak to a few people I know like economics, and this is some of their advice:
- Create a second credit market, based on bound credits. These allow you to grid to something but do not allow exchange, keeping value in the other kind. These should be regulated by administration potentially to ensure a steady supply of gold can escape. Impact: With admin set pricing it should be a steady drain on people attempting to grow, potentially less drain on those who have what they need to trade with, and can pull a large amount of gold when a new artifact is released.
- If there are larger pools you may need an auction in an effort to tap the larger sitting pools, especially if there is a habit of speculation. This will hopefully allow the market to change naturally, instead of experiencing speculation rises. Impact: Attempts to pull large amounts of gold at a time, millions usually.
- Create more standard drains. In this case I agree with things like arty rentals, or even bringing down the gold cost on the travel curios (and giving gold costs to the other curios maybe). Impact: Those who cannot normally afford the artifact or who are not sure if they want it.
- This is from me: Homesteads could be converted to gold costs, very high gold costs. Families would be more likely to sell credits than accumulate them in an effort to gain the gold needed. I would love to see some noticeable upgrades that also cost gold to add more things. I imagine the impact on these would be on money bags families as a full group drain.
One thing I've considered that would work as a low-impact gold sink is to create more outlay costs for crafting. This outlay would, however, also partly go to the designer, so it would also serve as a way to get people to design more (and better) designs. Of course, the outlays would differ depending on trades; bookbinding is probably fine as it is (although it could, perhaps, be increased a little more, since it's far from a requirement). Tailoring and forging could perhaps get an outlay of 100-1000 gold (since it's far more required). Artisan upwards of 10.000 gold for a throne. While this would impact newbies to a limited degree as well, it would hopefully be small enough.
A gold outlay for crafting is not the best, I think. Nearly everything I have, for example, is non-decay. All my artisan furniture, pretty much everything I wear, will last forever.
Established players can minimize / remove that cost entirely from their own experience, so it just serves to raise the price for younger / newer people (which has already been done by doubling commodity requirements).
I know it's been asked before, with mixed results, but what IS a good gold sink? What would cause these massive stockpiles of gold to dwindle off without being impossibly expensive for players on the other end of the spectrum?
IMHO, a good gold sink would be one that provides a non-PK advantage at a reasonable price. I've suggested NPC bards before, which would essentially give you bonuses at a gold cost. For instance, perhaps there'd be a bard that'd bump regen, or improve damage, or reduce damage taken, as long as it doesn't come from players/while you're outside of org enemy territory (so NPC enemy territory would be fine, but no raiding with that advantage). Other suggestions include more perks for manses (for instance, a manse rift that has a size linked to the number of rooms), or more gold sinks for orgs (which would encourage players to donate to orgs).
It'd slow the gold influx, but the problem is twofold: One, lots of gold comes from questing, and those quests (at least from my rather limited experience) comes to a large degree from turning in sentient mobs (in the style of "Kill our enemies and we'll pay you"). Second, sentient mobs tend to team and call guards (there are exceptions, like the newbie areas), which means they're not newbie friendly, and limiting gold drops to only them will probably make it much harder for newbies to get their gold, essentially reducing them to ratting.
-Orgs should get a feature to tax players based on their AUCTION ESCROW BUILD and spend that gold on org improvements. Tax the rich, help the government. Go Hallifax, go.
-Orgs should be able to buy artifacts with gold that players can use. They will randomly reset to the vault of the city/commue just like artifacts now reset to player hands.
-The ability to build giant steam-punk mechas. They are built similar to aetherships, but they walk around and hunt on the ground. They have a hard time accurately hitting players, but players will have a hard time taking them down. Should be a more efficient way to hunt than squads. Maybe these mechas are the only way to safely explore outside the Basin. Maybe there are still smaller Soulless tearing up these barren lands. Mecha vs Soulless fights.
-Renting Artifacts (has already been said)
-Make a new skillset that is based around being too rich for your own good. You can hit/bribe denizens/players with gold. You can even bribe the fates for higher Crit rates. There should also be a lot of dice rolling and gambling in the skills, high risk high reward for gold.
-Trader Bob should open up a new shop with a bunch of items like platemail, katanas, maybe even tattoos! The gold prices should be high, and only basic designs available. It is all for people who don't want to wait to find a forger/tattooist/etc and that don't care what the design looks like.
-Trader Bob should sell credits/dingbats/goop/wonder crystals at unreasonable gold prices (100,000 each for credits?). This gives players the option to throw gold at trader bob rather than other players. No one deserves gold but Trader Bob. This also has the benefit of making the Credit Market look saintly, even when it is up to 65k
I want far more ways to spend gold than there is gold in the game.
For Mister Zvoltz, Pejat has been terminated by the Replicant Dynodeon.
Sell certain low price artifacts for gold. say anything maybe 100 or 75cr and lower, and still allow us to buy them for other people. I never buy say pipe or vial runes for other people but put a gold price on it, I may actually consider it.
The soft, hollow voice of Nocht, the Silent resounds within your mind as His words echo through the aether, "Congratulations, Arimisia. Your mastery of vermin cannot be disputed."
-Orgs should get a feature to tax players based on their AUCTION ESCROW BUILD and spend that gold on org improvements. Tax the rich, help the government. Go Hallifax, go.
Whelp, guess I'm going rogue. Large number on AUCTION ESCROW BUILD != large amount of gold on hand. My escrow is embarrassing, but I'm under a million gold atm since I'm working on manse, cartels, and the like.
1
SylandraJoin Queue for Mafia GamesThe Last Mafia Game
Haha everyone would just move to the place with the most OP tax breaks.
"Oh yeah, you're a naughty mayor, aren't you? Misfile that Form MA631-D. Comptroller Shevat's got a nice gemstone disc for you, but yer gonna have to beg for it."
Haha everyone would just move to the place with the most OP tax breaks.
Or in Hallifax - 'How dare you try to tax me like some low commoner. I am a scientist! You insult our way by taxing the most important people of our great city' and people complain that the top tier of their org shouldn't be tax.
Comments
The thing to note is that all of the common gold outputs are either big-ticket, meaning that only a relative few players 'sink' a lot of gold into them, or admin-dependant, placing a bottleneck on spending gold in that manner. It's also a problem that gold from the general populace doesn't tend to find its way into the hands of people who will spend it on aetherships with any great kind of speed, because the demand for trade goods and other player economic activities is very low. A very small number of shops can easily satisfy the entire market's demand.
Buildings are similar to manses, in that they come with a suite of commands to modify and control them. The big difference is that they occupy space in the regular game. These spaces are almost exclusively within orgs, under the control of the Ministry of Development, who has permissions over the spaces in the same way the Chancellor does over shops. These building zones are designated on the map with a [B] marker, and tend to have their own map displays and areas for practical reasons. The org's patron is contacted to create a new exit from the org into a building, and the builders (players) take it from there. The key difference is that advancements in construction and upgrades to buildings generally use gold, not credits or artifacts, AND they do so via an automated, manse-like system. Again, this generates an organizational level gold sink that is dependable and interesting without being limited by how much of a time sink it becomes to administration.
In Serenwilde, for instance, another level to the commune shoppping area could easily house a series of buildings, designed to be player apartments for rent, or family houses. These would still belong to the commune and would be under the control of the appropriate Minister (Steward?), but could serve as an interesting space for players to play house without having to gate themselves off from the game, or drag someone back to their lair.
Estarra the Eternal says, "Give Shevat the floor please."
(The rest I just carry in my inventory)
But, yes, it is a very valid point that gold dumps having an impact on players like me will be very hard for anyone else to participate in... and historically, when things are priced in that way, players like me feel like we it is a terrible deal (the value of the gold sink is drastically less than the gold being asked for it), so we do not participate to any great extent either.
That said, players like me effectively are gold sinks. We get it and we hoard it. I do not buy credits off the market. A good gold sink would preferably be aimed to take smaller amounts of gold from a larger number of players (as that will be digging into the gold "in circulation") vs. large quantities from the very few.
Note that Enyalida's comment about orgs having an automated system to spend gold to expand actually does serve this purpose-- via the organizations running activities and events to get the general populace to donate. That is not to say it is the only option, of course, but any effective gold sink needs to have a wide appeal (either via orgs requiring gold for Good Things and doing things to make gold donation appealing, or players being able to spend gold for benefits / perks on a more long-term scale).
Another example are class costs. In Achaea, many classes have some required resource for at least one of their skills, like tarot cards, special phials, or our rune stones. The key is that those resources may not be made by any player, you HAVE to buy them from a Trader Bob like denizen placed in each organization. These constitute a low level constant drain on game gold in a way that Trader Bob never will. I've never bought anything from Bob on any character, and have not known anyone in my guild to have made habit of doing so, I bet it's the same for many players. If they have, it is an amount that can be counted in weevil's worth without going much into three digit numbers tops.
I keep saying 'non-punitive', because it's important. What I mean by that phrase is that gold sinks need to be a manageable and fair amount. If players feel that a gold sink is 'overpriced', they will not participate enough for it to work. If you mechanically FORCE them to participate, not only are you running into problem 1), you're also... forcing players. At that point, it's better to just universally deduct that much gold from how much gold is generated. Things like travel curios ended up taking a lot less gold total out of circulation than they would have if each crate individually took out less, because they priced out many players. Not that those players necessarily didn't have the funds, they just didn't feel it was a worthwhile expenditure. Yes, I know I keep saying gold is worthless, so what else would they use it for? Nothing. Many people would rather sit on their gold/money and have it do nothing than burn it on something they feel is unfairly priced, that's just how it works.
Estarra the Eternal says, "Give Shevat the floor please."
Homesteads should not have been released as they were, frankly. They're a more expensive to start version of the same thing that (gasp) Aetolia has alongside their Building system. The key difference is that a homestead/castle can be anywhere that admins approve it. Buildings are under the purview and control of the owning org, not any one player. People pay credits in for absolute control (or can go to manses) of private land, totally different thing.
So, you do have to compare to other games when the point is that players popping into this game from those may not stay. Unless, you're actually trying to say that it is just as hard for a new player to get credits in Achaea as in Lusternia. But even then, don't perceptions matter?
Where I do agree is that It still seems like you want fewer items to sell for credits and more for gold. The ones who don't have gold will buy credits and that will drop the prices. IMO all manse items which really are extras should be sold for gold instead (stables, crafting miniatures, etc). I'd pay 1 million gold for an exit that wasn't the plex. I'd pay another million if I could bix out of my manse, etc.