I have seen concern before that right now in Lusternia the more you win, the more you win. I'm now seeing concerns that people will be "punished" for winning more.
I don't think both of those concerns can be addressed at the same time.
That's more about how village and domoth mechanics make it easier to win the next round.
There will presumably be a lot of gold sucked out of orgs pursuant to the guild overhaul. The Hartstone paid for the three room addition related to Wildewood, for instance.
Maybe village upkeep cost, if we decide to put one in, should be tied to government type? Conquest highest upkeep, Religious middle ground, Commercial lowest? Could be used to actually give anyone a reason to use Commercial. Though Commercial needs a serious makeover to be viable at all. Maybe provide a special discretionary gold pool from villages like how Conquest gets power, or something. In addition to other changes.
Edit: Allow people to donate actual comms and not just raw comms for Commercial village feelings? Would obviously need some limitations and caps to not make it way too powerful (maybe the village periodically posts requests like "hey we need x amount of these specific commodities thanks" and you fulfill the order, get a small boost to feelings, have to wait for the next order to do more?), but it'd suck some excess commodities out of the game in addition to making raising their feelings more viable.
True, if the gold stashes from the guilds are consolidated and dropped into the org bank, then the org pays for the faction halls that's probably going to be a pretty significant immediate drop in the balances of all orgs.
I think introducing "taxes" to discretionaries and stuff like that isn't neccesarily a bad idea. It falls into the same part of the equation as tackling organisation hoards. Sure, it's possibly a good addition and all - anything that drains gold out of our bloated system is a good idea for now - but it's also not something that needs to be very obvious or visible. At the same time, it's also not something we need to get too hung up upon. Sure, make it as invisible as we can, but we don't have to worry about it suddenly causing orgs to lose fights they could have won IF ONLY THERE WASN'T A GOLD TAX ON THAT DISCRETIONARY SO THAT I CAN USE IT MORE. Because really, with the org hoards as they are, forgoing a discretionary and therefore a victory in order to save the gold is hardly going to happen. Even if the org hoards are depleted to very low levels, you're not really going to hesitate to use a discretionary to win a fight, if it can be won using a discretionary, anyway.
Of course, all these "negative" taxes and hoard drains can also be paired with additional measures to make them more effective. For example, expanding the city/commune favour system. Make it possible for city/communes to give out more meaningful (but temporary) rewards. To borrow from Crusader Kings, you could create "honarary titles" that last for 1 IG year and go on cooldown for 3 IG months. And the CL can give them out to people who donate loads of gold to the org account, to keep it topped up for discretionaries or taxes. "Xenthos donated 3 million gold this year, and the Shadow Court has named him our Wyrden Cupbearer for the fifth consecutive time. Will anyone de-throne him the next cycle? Stay tuned!" Tada, you turn taxes into something potentially positive - a rewards system for people giving up their hoards. Once the hoards are depleted to an extent where hoarders can't just wave their fesix backpacks to win the contest by default, it'll become a case of how much bashing people can put in, which may then require a tweak to the gold throttles etc etc.
You never know, maybe if we put in enough drains (and enough incentives for people to use those drains), we can see a new (and healthier) gold value equilibrium, where trade artifacts actually can pay for themselves, sooner rather than later.
That post really reads as "money doesn't exist for the benefit of the player, it exists for their org"
Like, really if the only solution is "make the orgs drain the excess from players" then just make all gold drops transfer immediately to the org and we can all be real communes
Well, my suggestion was a way to put a positive spin on something that is negative. And it would be voluntary.
We COULD leave hoards entirely alone, of course. Like I said, they could help, or they might not. It's not a big deal. If you don't like the idea of, you know, giving the possibility of rewarding those who CHOOSE to give more, that's fine by me as well.
I don't really appreciate having words put in my mouth, specifically the sentence "money doesn't exist for the benefit of the player, it exists for their org". I could kick a big fuss, as I usually do, when someone paints what I said in a light just to suit their agenda (I don't know what agenda you have for opposing a new reward that players can choose what they want to give out for) but in the interests of keeping this thread on track, I'll just say whatever. I'm not too hung up on rewarding other people either.
My issue is that my understanding of the problem we're trying to solve is that players have far too much money.
We've got a reduced flow of money to players and an increased flow from organisations, but any attempts to discuss anything to do with players themselves having a gold sink is mostly framed as selfish which seems to also carry the implication that players should be aiming to give their gold to their orgs. Especially if, as you suggested, the taxes were aimed at draining personal hoards from those with the most gold.
There isn't really a personal benefit to me here, there is of course a lovely sense of guilt if my org can't afford a village and I'm sitting on money that could have made the difference. Further, that lack of personal benefit also can influence credit purchases for some, I've personally dropped a few hundred credits into the game for various personal gold purchases early on which means credits for those who can't buy them and gold for those who need the extra.
Right now, all I am seeing as potential benefits of the gold I do bash or get credits for are maintaining the neccessities. The remainder of my gold has no where to go and as such if we're not going to address that on a player level, then that money has to go to the org to really leave the system. If that's the decision people want then it heavily influences the direction of this discussion as well as any values for the sinks. In this case the system is geared more towards the orgs who derive the greater benefit of the gold.
If we instead focused on introducing player level incentives for spending your gold that translated into direct benefits from the player, then we would have the portion they spend on necessities, the portion they spend on personal benefits, with a remaining balance that could go to the org. Which in turn is a system where gold is primarily for the benefit of the player, which is the system I believe we should have, but not the system people seem to want to discuss.
@Saran - I'm open to ideas for incentives for individual players!
Re village gold upkeep, maybe instead of an upkeep cost. Villages could provide some bonus to members of the org (maybe each village is unique providing a different modest buff? maybe something dependent on the gov type?) but to get the bonus, it costs 25000 gold/game month. Thus, it's a "carrot" for orgs to pay the upkeep or they don't pay the upkeep and nothing changes from the village system.
Maybe make some suggestions about things players can buy @Saran?
As @Lerad said - to be a true gold sink, it can't be something that contributes directly to gold generation. That means hunting/influencing buffs are out. It probably shouldn't be something to help PvP because then it just becomes another 'must-have min-max' item, so those kinds of buffs are out. Additionally, it needs to be a temporary buff so it eventually ends and needs to be purchased over and over.
What we are left with is RP flavour costs. Can anyone tell me how much the drunk gossip guy in Mag gets used? That's a nifty pure-RP flavour thing that can sink gold out of the game, but I'm betting it's not used a ton. I personally don't forsee RP-flavour things you can buy for gold (even Lerad's suggested 500k immolation area emote) being really effective. It'll be used initially a bunch, but as the 'new'ness fades, it's use will be reduced.
Then people need to ask the question - do I use my gold to get a temporary flavour buff, or continue to save them for credits? Gold is now throttled, so gaining it is not as easy, meaning it may be harder to earn it over time, so while the cost for this flavour may be low, it may be more prudent for me to save it for something that mechanically benefits me forever.
This is why I'm a proponent of shifting these kind of costs onto the orgs. It's harder to people to opt out of it, it makes it more beneficial that orgs fundraise and come up with ideas to increase their funds, which in turn increases org RP and maybe, just maybe more org RP will bring in and keep more people, meaning it's easier to offset those costs. It doesn't actually force anyone to give their gold to the org, in fact I know several people in Gaudiguch that would not, but it does add incentives to participate in the org, which will hit a broader range of people.
I think minor combat-relevant buffs are ok. There's already some that even the most active and experienced combatants don't utilise (throne of Urlach for example), and having to pay an upkeep cost is reasonable.
Also, influencing buffs to non-begging don't contribute any more to gold production. Arguably, many other hunting/influencing buffs wouldn't produce enough to be profitable if priced right and low enough impact, but people might want them anyway.
I do like org costs though as a major gold sink. Some automated way to collect taxes would be nice, though.
Buffs can (and probably should) include combat/bashing buffs. The important part is to not make them profitable; if a buff that costs 20k would allow you to bash up 70k instead of 50k while it's active, then that would probably not be a good thing to add. However, if it were to boost your bashing returns by 10% (which would probably be a fairly decent buff), then you'd just get a return of 5k from that buff, which would mean it sunk 15k. It would probably still be used, since you'd essentially pay that 15k gold to get more XP/god essence.
It's hard to distinguish pure combat buffs from hunting buffs though, because things like the Throne of Urlach benefit both of those.
With the bodyscan system in place already capping how much someone can benefit, minor buffs are likely not an issue in my opinion, and appropriately priced, the ROI for bashing gold would not be worth it.
@Estarra - on a different tangent, what would your thoughts be on normalizing gold drops (raise the floor a bit, drop the ceiling a bunch) in addition to the gold throttle. Maybe potentially loosen the gold throttle a bit more to 150-200k a day with lower normalized drops.
I think the gold drops are actually fine where they are. If we throttle gold enough and introduce enough drains, the gold drop accumulation won't make a difference in how much gold is generated over time (throttled). It would, however, benefit the midbies who bash less commonly bashed areas, giving them more buck for their time, and even for newbies, they could get more gold (even though low level mobs only have marginally more gold accumulation anyway) from that as well.
Just to be clear, my thinking in terms of "taxing" orgs is that:
- It targets large repositories of org-gold that currently have little purpose. - It doesn't target individual players at all. - It reintroduces the concept of donating gold to orgs, an opt-in gold sink that appeals to achievers and socializers. - Fortifying villages/bubbles already has some costs associated with it, but these have remained static in the face of gold, commodities, and power inflation. Additional upkeep would simply be bringing these costs in line with the current economy.
My thinking in terms of not selling more buffs:
- Rich-get-richer. - Individuals who didn't (spendthrifts), or couldn't (new or casual players) take advantage of the higher gold drops are "punished." - Feature creep of buffs reprise. - The only thing that's going to appeal to people who hoarded all their gold for credits is combat-related buffs. If these are on the table, it's unfair. If they are off the table, it doesn't help.
Not if the buffs are done correctly. You should never have a buff that costs 2k gold, that would enable you to bash that much faster so that you make 2k more gold during the duration of the buff. If people are bashing purely to get gold, they shouldn't want to get these buffs.
- Individuals who didn't (spendthrifts), or couldn't (new or casual players) take advantage of the higher gold drops are "punished."
I honestly don't think there are any ways at all that this won't become true. Yes, those with gold hoards today will have an advantage over those that don't. However, as time goes on, that advantage will get smaller and smaller, the more the take from that hoard. In the end, the hoard won't matter.
- Feature creep of buffs reprise.
Not with the current system of weighted buffs. There will always be a cap that people can't go over; those that are already at that cap would have no reason to buy these buffs. Those that can't quite reach those caps would be interested in these buffs.
- The only thing that's going to appeal to people who hoarded all their gold for credits is combat-related buffs. If these are on the table, it's unfair. If they are off the table, it doesn't help.
To be honest, I think combat related buffs would make things more fair, not less. You'd no longer be in a situation where your buffs are wildly different just because one of you have a lot more hours and credits under your belts. Will those with artifacts always have an advantage? Yes, absolutely. I have a hard time seeing these buffs going above cap 10. Up to that point, however, buffs for gold would actually equalise the playing field a bit.
Especially if those buffs are xp/essence% buffs (like the tonics), or buffs to things like karma or esteem that just mean you hit the same objectives/caps faster than before, but not that the caps/objectives are higher. Kind of similar to Ascendant domoth claims being faster than demiclaims by dint of earning more points per tic.
Opt-in system where players can set a personal tax rate. Every time they kill or beg from a mob to get gold, the percent they set is given to the org. So if I set my tax rate at 20%, if I kill a mob that drops 100 gold, I get 80, and 20 goes to the org automatically. This revenue and what each citizen has their rate as is logged and can be viewed by the Chancellor, Steward and council members.
I like the general thought of it, but I'd like to say absolutely not on people being able to see what rate everyone has. It'd just create rules of "You must have a personal tax rate of at least x%", which would just be awful. It'd also run a risk of popular people getting away with not having their tax set and not being punished, while not-as-popular people would be forced to have a tax. It'd just be a mess.
I like the personal tax rate. Seems odd that city leaders wouldn't be able to see tax rates or reward those with high tax rates, however. Agree we would have to make it very clear that any "punishment" or requirement for a personal tax rate would have the heel of Estarra's shoe come down on them. Maybe city ranks could slowly go up, the more taxes go to city coffers. Maybe if you don't contribute any taxes, your rank begins to decay. (Can always favour people to bring them back up if they do other city work.
Let's not start to punish people for not paying taxes... I mean, not everyone bashes or influences. Slowly rising in CR I can understand (there's really little reason not to raise people to high CR), but slowly falling will make people lose their village influencings etc.
I'm not sure I like rank decay, but if you do it, you'd have to be sure to set it based on gold produced rather than a tax rate. Assuming that the player sets their own rate, at least. Otherwise you could set your rate at whatever percentage, drop it to nothing while bashing, and then set it up again to meet the requirement.
Any sufficiently advanced pun is indistinguishable from comedy.
Yeah the idea of seeing the taxes contributed would be to reward and incentivize those who do it. I don't think orgs would generally punish people who don't participate, especially if they know the admins would frown on it.
I think it would give people an initiative to be a Chancellor aide, and breathe some life into the dusty office. They could award Xenthos that fancy Wyrden Cupbearer title and have a little ceremony for him or something. 100% approval (sans decay rate and city favour accumulation. Chancellors will note people doing well and laws allowing you to favour for high donations will be put into effect very soon after this idea would be implemented [at least in Hallifax]).
Are you guys joking? The fact that I can't tell is making me nervous. Logging player activities for other players to see and punishing people for not bashing enough after de-incentivizing bashing is fucking crazy.
Quite frankly, this is a realistic example of an idea that does exactly what you were asking for. Taking gold without offering a tangible reward in exchange. So which way do you want it, again?
Quite frankly, this is a realistic example of an idea that does exactly what you were asking for. Taking gold without offering a tangible reward in exchange. So which way do you want it, again?
Right, if it's not carrots, it has to be a gross and punishing invasion of privacy. That's exactly what I've said all along. Get real.
Personally, my objection is that if you don't give away your gold, you are punished by your CR recreasing. If we remove that part, I'm all for it. It seems a bit off to buy your CR, but eh, it's not like having a high CR is a detriment to anyone; most orgs seem to look for a reason to CF people.
Comments
Edit: Allow people to donate actual comms and not just raw comms for Commercial village feelings? Would obviously need some limitations and caps to not make it way too powerful (maybe the village periodically posts requests like "hey we need x amount of these specific commodities thanks" and you fulfill the order, get a small boost to feelings, have to wait for the next order to do more?), but it'd suck some excess commodities out of the game in addition to making raising their feelings more viable.
Of course, all these "negative" taxes and hoard drains can also be paired with additional measures to make them more effective. For example, expanding the city/commune favour system. Make it possible for city/communes to give out more meaningful (but temporary) rewards. To borrow from Crusader Kings, you could create "honarary titles" that last for 1 IG year and go on cooldown for 3 IG months. And the CL can give them out to people who donate loads of gold to the org account, to keep it topped up for discretionaries or taxes. "Xenthos donated 3 million gold this year, and the Shadow Court has named him our Wyrden Cupbearer for the fifth consecutive time. Will anyone de-throne him the next cycle? Stay tuned!" Tada, you turn taxes into something potentially positive - a rewards system for people giving up their hoards. Once the hoards are depleted to an extent where hoarders can't just wave their fesix backpacks to win the contest by default, it'll become a case of how much bashing people can put in, which may then require a tweak to the gold throttles etc etc.
You never know, maybe if we put in enough drains (and enough incentives for people to use those drains), we can see a new (and healthier) gold value equilibrium, where trade artifacts actually can pay for themselves, sooner rather than later.
Like, really if the only solution is "make the orgs drain the excess from players" then just make all gold drops transfer immediately to the org and we can all be real communes
We COULD leave hoards entirely alone, of course. Like I said, they could help, or they might not. It's not a big deal. If you don't like the idea of, you know, giving the possibility of rewarding those who CHOOSE to give more, that's fine by me as well.
I don't really appreciate having words put in my mouth, specifically the sentence "money doesn't exist for the benefit of the player, it exists for their org". I could kick a big fuss, as I usually do, when someone paints what I said in a light just to suit their agenda (I don't know what agenda you have for opposing a new reward that players can choose what they want to give out for) but in the interests of keeping this thread on track, I'll just say whatever. I'm not too hung up on rewarding other people either.
We've got a reduced flow of money to players and an increased flow from organisations, but any attempts to discuss anything to do with players themselves having a gold sink is mostly framed as selfish which seems to also carry the implication that players should be aiming to give their gold to their orgs. Especially if, as you suggested, the taxes were aimed at draining personal hoards from those with the most gold.
There isn't really a personal benefit to me here, there is of course a lovely sense of guilt if my org can't afford a village and I'm sitting on money that could have made the difference. Further, that lack of personal benefit also can influence credit purchases for some, I've personally dropped a few hundred credits into the game for various personal gold purchases early on which means credits for those who can't buy them and gold for those who need the extra.
Right now, all I am seeing as potential benefits of the gold I do bash or get credits for are maintaining the neccessities. The remainder of my gold has no where to go and as such if we're not going to address that on a player level, then that money has to go to the org to really leave the system. If that's the decision people want then it heavily influences the direction of this discussion as well as any values for the sinks. In this case the system is geared more towards the orgs who derive the greater benefit of the gold.
If we instead focused on introducing player level incentives for spending your gold that translated into direct benefits from the player, then we would have the portion they spend on necessities, the portion they spend on personal benefits, with a remaining balance that could go to the org. Which in turn is a system where gold is primarily for the benefit of the player, which is the system I believe we should have, but not the system people seem to want to discuss.
Re village gold upkeep, maybe instead of an upkeep cost. Villages could provide some bonus to members of the org (maybe each village is unique providing a different modest buff? maybe something dependent on the gov type?) but to get the bonus, it costs 25000 gold/game month. Thus, it's a "carrot" for orgs to pay the upkeep or they don't pay the upkeep and nothing changes from the village system.
As @Lerad said - to be a true gold sink, it can't be something that contributes directly to gold generation. That means hunting/influencing buffs are out. It probably shouldn't be something to help PvP because then it just becomes another 'must-have min-max' item, so those kinds of buffs are out. Additionally, it needs to be a temporary buff so it eventually ends and needs to be purchased over and over.
What we are left with is RP flavour costs. Can anyone tell me how much the drunk gossip guy in Mag gets used? That's a nifty pure-RP flavour thing that can sink gold out of the game, but I'm betting it's not used a ton. I personally don't forsee RP-flavour things you can buy for gold (even Lerad's suggested 500k immolation area emote) being really effective. It'll be used initially a bunch, but as the 'new'ness fades, it's use will be reduced.
Then people need to ask the question - do I use my gold to get a temporary flavour buff, or continue to save them for credits? Gold is now throttled, so gaining it is not as easy, meaning it may be harder to earn it over time, so while the cost for this flavour may be low, it may be more prudent for me to save it for something that mechanically benefits me forever.
This is why I'm a proponent of shifting these kind of costs onto the orgs. It's harder to people to opt out of it, it makes it more beneficial that orgs fundraise and come up with ideas to increase their funds, which in turn increases org RP and maybe, just maybe more org RP will bring in and keep more people, meaning it's easier to offset those costs. It doesn't actually force anyone to give their gold to the org, in fact I know several people in Gaudiguch that would not, but it does add incentives to participate in the org, which will hit a broader range of people.
Also, influencing buffs to non-begging don't contribute any more to gold production. Arguably, many other hunting/influencing buffs wouldn't produce enough to be profitable if priced right and low enough impact, but people might want them anyway.
I do like org costs though as a major gold sink. Some automated way to collect taxes would be nice, though.
With the bodyscan system in place already capping how much someone can benefit, minor buffs are likely not an issue in my opinion, and appropriately priced, the ROI for bashing gold would not be worth it.
@Estarra - on a different tangent, what would your thoughts be on normalizing gold drops (raise the floor a bit, drop the ceiling a bunch) in addition to the gold throttle. Maybe potentially loosen the gold throttle a bit more to 150-200k a day with lower normalized drops.
- It targets large repositories of org-gold that currently have little purpose.
- It doesn't target individual players at all.
- It reintroduces the concept of donating gold to orgs, an opt-in gold sink that appeals to achievers and socializers.
- Fortifying villages/bubbles already has some costs associated with it, but these have remained static in the face of gold, commodities, and power inflation. Additional upkeep would simply be bringing these costs in line with the current economy.
My thinking in terms of not selling more buffs:
- Rich-get-richer.
- Individuals who didn't (spendthrifts), or couldn't (new or casual players) take advantage of the higher gold drops are "punished."
- Feature creep of buffs reprise.
- The only thing that's going to appeal to people who hoarded all their gold for credits is combat-related buffs. If these are on the table, it's unfair. If they are off the table, it doesn't help.
Vive l'apostrophe!
Opt-in system where players can set a personal tax rate. Every time they kill or beg from a mob to get gold, the percent they set is given to the org. So if I set my tax rate at 20%, if I kill a mob that drops 100 gold, I get 80, and 20 goes to the org automatically. This revenue and what each citizen has their rate as is logged and can be viewed by the Chancellor, Steward and council members.
Would people enjoy this system?
I'm with Portius that it should be actual gold contributed that resets it. Any kind of favours (from domoths etc) should also 'reset' the decay.
Ixion tells you, "// I don't think anyone else had a clue, amazing form."
Vive l'apostrophe!
Vive l'apostrophe!
So it would look something like:
Shedrin - 20% Weiwae - 80% Talan - Undisclosed. Luce - 0%