Goldflation III

Estarra

For transparency, I wanted to share where I am on the goldflation issue. The first two issues that I think should be addressed are promotional items and mines. I'm putting aside mines for the moment focusing on promotional items (wheel, presents, etc.). Regarding mines, I still haven't landed on anything that seems to work so ideas still welcome. Right now, I am giving serious thought to a refund to the current owner in sticky dingbats. We'll see where that goes but first things first--promotional items!

I've been testing aethergoop as the official promotion currency. At first, I multiplied everything by 10,000 but after seeing the results I thought it was just ridiculous because the numbers were so huge. Thus, I've decided to multiply everything (goop costs and current player goop) by 100 and the numbers seemed to me to be much more reasonable. This is what I've come up with:

• Wheel Spins: high chance to give out aethergoop, averaging 50-150 goop (though chance to get much more)
• Presents: mostly gives out aethergoop (70% standard presents, 10-30 aethergoop; 60% superior presents, 50-150 aethergoop; 50% exceptional, 300-400 aethergoop; 25% ultimate, 600-1000 aethergoop)
• Fee to transfer aethergoop to another player: 10 gold/aethergoop
• Genies and maps: 3-5 goop, throttles at 50 goop per game month (though even if throttled, will give out 1 goop)
• Special Potions: 25 goop, 1000 gold, 20 comms per potion
• Special Candy: 25 goop, 1000 gold, 20 comms per candy pack
• Aetherspace Commerce?? 1-5 aethergoop? counts towards throttle, then gives out 1 goop
  
• ur'Traps: 1-3 aethergoop?? counts towards throttle, then gives out 1 goop
  

Anyway, please let me know what you think and if I've missed anything!

Portius

There was early talk (I think you were still thinking about some new currency at the time) of bringing aethership trading into this system instead of paying gold. Still thinking about that?

Estarra

Hmm, I forgot about that discussion. Could consider aether commerce to give out small amounts of aethergoop.

Dylara

Estarra said:

Hmm, I forgot about that discussion. Could consider aether commerce to give out small amounts of aethergoop.

Perhaps buy able with a crazy amount of dust? 

Demartel

What about ur'Traps are they still going to give some goop?

Estarra

Re ur'traps, I believe I was told that it isn't necessary. However, I could have them give some very small amounts (5-10) on success (it'd count towards the daily max for throttling).

Xenthos

Estarra said:

Re ur'traps, I believe I was told that it isn't necessary. However, I could have them give some very small amounts (5-10) on success (it'd count towards the daily max for throttling).

That was said by one person (Falmiis).  I, personally, would far prefer that they give some because I find mine to just not be worth the effort / time as-is.

Estarra

Hrm, I may have been too generous on genies and maps. As I look at it, I may decrease it to 3-5 goop and throttle it at 50 goop (after which it gives out 1-2 goop). Keep in mind that 20 goop=1 credit, so 200 goop/day may be a little overboard.

Estarra

Updates in first post in bold per discussion.

Ayisdra

Is the genie and map throttle a single throttle (genie and maps together), or separate ones (50 for genies and 50 for maps)?

Estarra

The throttle is together.

Falaeron

I have four maxed out traps so I stand to gain from any additional reward from urtraps. I just don't think it's necessary. As I have been saying, golden cookies have been nerfed significantly with the gold throttling so maybe there can be a small amount of goop to go along with it. I wouldn't give out any goop for the other types of urtraps because silver and divine cookies are both still very valuable. Gero and Yarith both sell smallsilvers for 10k gold each and they often sell out.

For presents, is the intention to nerf them significantly? For example, the ultimate present currently gives out items valued at around 300-500 credits. You proposed a 25% chance of getting 600-1000 goop, which would be 6-10 goop under current standards, or 30-50 credits in value. It looks like all of the other presents are also getting nerfed similarly. 

If the intention is not to nerf them as such but just to get rid of the commodities, candy and gold, then maybe bundle the chance of these things into the chance that already exists for goop at each tier, but make it give less (converted) goop. So for exceptional presents there is currently a 28% chance of getting of these things and a <1% chance at 30-40 goop, which is 150-200 credits in value. Maybe make it can be 28% (plus whatever it is currently for goop) chance of getting 30-40 of the new goop, or 1.5-2 credits in value.

Edit: Lowered amount of goop suggested for exceptional presents on further consideration.

Eldanien

This is going to sound more aggressive than I intend.  I'm tired at the moment, but I want to put this out there before the thread reaches some sort of conclusion or we get too far invested in this specific solution.

I'm having a very hard time getting on board with this line of change.  I suppose you don't need Edward, player of Eldanien to be on board with this change.  But I would urge you to step back and look at the problem again, and look at the solution you're coming up with, and see how they relate.

If the problem is too much gold in the system, then we should reduce the gold input and/or increase the gold outflow.  There's no need to replace that gold with some other thing.

If the problem is outliers are able to gather up gold far faster than others, then we tweak those activities so they yield less gold.  Preferably without throttles, as throttles penalize people for playing more than others, or playing a particular way more than others.

If the problem is more equalized access to valuable resources, then we address that.  On-level gold or other resource gifts like we do with lessons and credits.  Or a level-based gold drop factor.

Why we're adding all the rest of this... it just confuses me.  I don't see how it solves the problems we appear to be working on.

Ultimately, we should think of value-creating activities (bashing, influencing, aetherhunts, maps, ur'traps or whatnot) in terms of total cost benefit and try to balance that way.  Then lean towards scarcity rather than surplus, because that will encourage tradeskills and player interaction in the form of trading and bartering.

Lerad

On first look, my reaction is that this is a good move, since it removes a lot of free comms input into the game (via genies and wheels and presents). It SHOULD dramatically cut gold/comms inflow in the game. I think moving forward, brainstorming on more goldsinks, or things to spend gold on (that is not gold-generating efficient), would be a good idea to supplement this implementation. 

Estarra

Just to clarify the reason we're doing this, promotional items (wheel spins, presents, genies, maps, etc.) give out gold, potions and commodities. We want to remove them completely and still add value to the promotional items. Just lowering the amount of gold, potions and commodities does nothing except lower the value of the promotional items which leaves me in a very bad situation wherein it will make it difficult to run promotions that rely on these features. Switching to a model where promotional items give out promotional currency (i.e., aethergoop) solves this issue and moving forward we can then look at addressing other aspects of gold generation that we've touched on in other threads. Not sure how else to explain it but I at least am convinced this is a necessary first step.

Daraius

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned in the previous threads, but I imagine gambling should be looked at in this review. I've personally generated millions of gold out of thin air from roulette alone, and used it to buy hundreds of credits off the market. Maybe I've just been lucky, but honestly it's felt like a pretty reliable way to get loads of money for zero effort. I've become part of the problem.

Demartel

I lost millions of gold gambling. Enough to make me just stay away from gambling.

Vivet

Daraius should write a book on gambling and sell it, and continue to bring in the gold that way, because it sure has never worked well for me.

Eldanien

Gold could be entirely removed as a possibility from most promo items, and it wouldn't necessarily reduce or increase the value of those promo items.  That percentage chance that gold would have happened could be distributed among the other possibilities.  It would be how that percentage was distributed that might increase or decrease the value of those items.

Maps could easily be Czigany coin or nothing, with the percentage chance determining the average value of that activity.

Maybe I'm too dense to get it.

edit: Even if we eliminate all of the low-value items (gold, commodities, liquids) in presents or wheel spins, for example, leaving only credit or dingbat-value items... this would increase the value of those promos.  It would make getting a present or Czigany coin even more exciting.  The tradeoff would have to be fewer presents or Czigany coins.  In the end, balance is maintained without having to introduce another layer of complexity to the economy.

Estarra

@Eldanien, thanks for your input and I get what you're saying but I disagree that there would be no impact to promotional items or a way to make them work as we've been using them. I have to run promotions or the game would be run into the ground. History has shown me that players prefer lots of inexpensive items (with chances of something good) to one expensive item, even if it's guaranteed that they'll get something good. For example, iron coins gave wheel spins with guaranteed good items like you suggested (i.e., no chance of gold, potions or comms) and very few were interested in them. I'm no psychologist to tell you why that is the case but it is what it is and I believe the aethergoop solutions will resolve many of the issues.

Demartel

I actually like the goop idea because it enables those who can't afford credits all the time to acquire in game means (aside from the overly gamed Credit market) to acquire artifacts, albeit slowly.

As for ur'Traps, either all traps should generate goop or no traps should generate goop. If it is limited to just golden traps then refunds should be offered to those who have traps that are not golden, as the perceived value of golden traps may be changed.

Daraius

Demartel said:

I lost millions of gold gambling. Enough to make me just stay away from gambling.

Vivet said:

Daraius should write a book on gambling and sell it, and continue to bring in the gold that way, because it sure has never worked well for me.

Okay nvm. I guess I've just been absurdly lucky then. Now that I've confessed I'd feel kind of dirty if I continued exploiting my luck, so that's one source of runaway gold generation tamped.  

Falaeron

Is the wheel supposed to give comms and gold? As long as I can remember the "consolation" prizes have alway been crit buffs, truefavours and experience. Curio pieces arguably fall under this category.

Xenthos

Demartel said:

I actually like the goop idea because it enables those who can't afford credits all the time to acquire in game means (aside from the overly gamed Credit market) to acquire artifacts, albeit slowly.

As for ur'Traps, either all traps should generate goop or no traps should generate goop. If it is limited to just golden traps then refunds should be offered to those who have traps that are not golden, as the perceived value of golden traps may be changed.

Just give them to all traps.  I don't particularly care if someone is feeling envious that other cookie types may (or may not) sell well; cookies (aside from golden cookies) are not actually generating anything (if you sell them to another player, you're just taking their gold, not bringing anything new into the game).

I just don't see the cookies as being a worthwhile investment of my time, whereas being able to get a bit of extra goop with a chance of a coin would be.

Synkarin

Wheel gives gold, it doesn't really give comms.

I agree that the proposed aethergoop change is a step in the right direction. It accomplishes many goals (removal of comm/gold influx, limited use, provides a gold sink via trading, the special potion and candy will be temporary bonuses that also act as sinks)

My one concern is being able to purchase artifacts with goop. I believe Lerad suggested that maybe we change it so you can only reskin with goop. I'd expand to suggest leaving the artifacts that are goop-only but change generally available artifacts to re-skin only with goop. 

Falaeron

Problem with making new goop re-skin only is that you'd have to separate the current goop with the new goop, which basically brings us back to the essence dust idea.

Synkarin

Falmiis said:

Problem with making new goop re-skin only is that you'd have to separate the current goop with the new goop, which basically brings us back to the essence dust idea.

No - what I mean is remove the ability to buy generally available artifacts via goop and make them re-skin only. You wouldn't need to separate it, just change it to only allow re-skins and not purchases on those goops artifacts currently.

Falaeron

I'm not sure that's something they want to do either. People bought goop with the expectation that they could turn it into certain artifacts. 

Arix

Since the event stocking pretty much only gives out comms and potions with the rare low-tier arti, with the comms and potions be removed in favor of goop, or left in due to the relatively low number of people that have them and the fact that they only deliver once an IG year/

Synkarin

Falmiis said:

I'm not sure that's something they want to do either. People bought goop with the expectation that they could turn it into certain artifacts. 

As I said, the goop-only ones can probably stay, but I don't see why the generally available ones should be available via both credits and goop.

It may be that it's decided not to go with this suggestion, but it's just that, a suggestion. 

Tridemon

never mind, missed a thing.