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The Economy (Again!)
There's been a lively discussion around the economy and how to possibly fix it. So here are my 2c on the matter:
I know that there's a tendency for the IRE games not to snipe each other's mechanics, but we should at least take a peek at how some of them tackled the economy problem and perhaps use this knowledge as we look at solutions that are fitting to Lusternia. In particular, we can focus on two game economies: Achaea and Starmourn.
In Achaea, the commodity production of the game is driven almost entirely by players through mining (for ores and stone) and foraging (for basically everything else). Miners and foragers go out to look for 'resource nodes' and spend time and gold to harvest those nodes. It is, therefore, a gold drain (possibly the biggest drain in the game). Miners and foragers will then sell the resources they gathered to other players or (more importantly) cities. This is because cities have improvements (constructs, in the Lusternian version) that require a yearly upkeep. Basically, the system is this:
Furthermore, the storage of excess commodities past a certain amount has a constant gold cost for the miners and foragers. If the cost is not paid, then the commodities are lost forever. Thus, hoarding is discouraged.
There is a problem wherein more experienced miners/foragers can box out newer blood for resource nodes, though.
For Starmourn, the system is more or less the same, except that the bigger consumers of commodities are the players (to outfit their ships and keep a supply of things like missiles, batteries for lasers, and the like). Organizations also have 'city constructs', though, that require constant upkeep in terms of commodities. One big difference, though, is that the spawn rate of resource nodes is largely affected by how much of that commodity was used up within a time period in the past. For example, if 10k units of helium-11 and 2k units of vandium were consumed in the past RL week, then the next RL week will have an increased spawn rate of helium-11 and a decreased rate for vandium. (These are just examples; the exact length of the time periods hasn't been revealed, I think).
Like Achaea, there are fees for storage to discourage hoarding.
The game was still fairly new when I was playing it, and the economy was still finding its footing, so I can't really comment on how stable the design was. It looked sound, though!
So, in the case of Lusternia, we should take a good look at where commodities go. From my perspective, it seems like a lot of it is used up by players (to craft and, more importantly, to refine items for aethertrading). Cities and communes also use up a bit to raise constructs, while guilds consume for upkeep of research. The first question that needs to be answered is, how many commodities are leaving the system, and what kind are they (milk, sugar, cloth, steel, etc.)?
Then, we take a look at the production of commodities. Almost all of them are tied to villages. Villages send a portion of the commodities in their commodity shops to whoever they are loyal to at that moment. Players can perform quests to increase the commodities stored in the village as well as get some directly onto their own hands. The second question, then, is how many commodities can be generated via quests and tithes, and are they in line with the commodity drain as was asked in the first question? This is difficult to pinpoint because of the passive nature of tithes: if no one decides to buy out the leather from Shanthmark, for example, then the village will passively tithe a larger amount of leather every RL day. There is also another question to be asked: should there be alternative methods to generating commodities other than villages? I personally think that there should be; village ownership is dictated largely by how 'strong' your organization is; if you got no villages, you almost certainly have no commodity income. Organizations which are on the 'downswing' should have an alternative method to get commodities to feed their researches and constructs.
Finally...well, this isn't a question. But, just like Achaea and Starmourn, we should more closely tie the gold system to the commodity system. They're largely separate at the moment: you spend time to either generate commodities or spend time to generate gold. You *could* spend gold to buy commodities from village shops (this is a gold drain, since the spent gold is removed from the system), but as was said before, this negatively affects the commodity generation of tithes.
I'll try to come up with more fleshed-out suggestions, but for the moment, these are my thoughts on the matter. Discuss!
I know that there's a tendency for the IRE games not to snipe each other's mechanics, but we should at least take a peek at how some of them tackled the economy problem and perhaps use this knowledge as we look at solutions that are fitting to Lusternia. In particular, we can focus on two game economies: Achaea and Starmourn.
In Achaea, the commodity production of the game is driven almost entirely by players through mining (for ores and stone) and foraging (for basically everything else). Miners and foragers go out to look for 'resource nodes' and spend time and gold to harvest those nodes. It is, therefore, a gold drain (possibly the biggest drain in the game). Miners and foragers will then sell the resources they gathered to other players or (more importantly) cities. This is because cities have improvements (constructs, in the Lusternian version) that require a yearly upkeep. Basically, the system is this:
- Players bash up gold (gold faucet)
- Cities/houses get a cut of the credit purchases of citizens
- Cities/houses sell those credits to earn gold
- Cities/houses/players buy commodities to upkeep their constructs (for players, this usually translates to ships or private housing).
- Miners and foragers sell commodities
- Miners and foragers get commodities by spending time and gold (gold drain).
Furthermore, the storage of excess commodities past a certain amount has a constant gold cost for the miners and foragers. If the cost is not paid, then the commodities are lost forever. Thus, hoarding is discouraged.
There is a problem wherein more experienced miners/foragers can box out newer blood for resource nodes, though.
For Starmourn, the system is more or less the same, except that the bigger consumers of commodities are the players (to outfit their ships and keep a supply of things like missiles, batteries for lasers, and the like). Organizations also have 'city constructs', though, that require constant upkeep in terms of commodities. One big difference, though, is that the spawn rate of resource nodes is largely affected by how much of that commodity was used up within a time period in the past. For example, if 10k units of helium-11 and 2k units of vandium were consumed in the past RL week, then the next RL week will have an increased spawn rate of helium-11 and a decreased rate for vandium. (These are just examples; the exact length of the time periods hasn't been revealed, I think).
Like Achaea, there are fees for storage to discourage hoarding.
The game was still fairly new when I was playing it, and the economy was still finding its footing, so I can't really comment on how stable the design was. It looked sound, though!
So, in the case of Lusternia, we should take a good look at where commodities go. From my perspective, it seems like a lot of it is used up by players (to craft and, more importantly, to refine items for aethertrading). Cities and communes also use up a bit to raise constructs, while guilds consume for upkeep of research. The first question that needs to be answered is, how many commodities are leaving the system, and what kind are they (milk, sugar, cloth, steel, etc.)?
Then, we take a look at the production of commodities. Almost all of them are tied to villages. Villages send a portion of the commodities in their commodity shops to whoever they are loyal to at that moment. Players can perform quests to increase the commodities stored in the village as well as get some directly onto their own hands. The second question, then, is how many commodities can be generated via quests and tithes, and are they in line with the commodity drain as was asked in the first question? This is difficult to pinpoint because of the passive nature of tithes: if no one decides to buy out the leather from Shanthmark, for example, then the village will passively tithe a larger amount of leather every RL day. There is also another question to be asked: should there be alternative methods to generating commodities other than villages? I personally think that there should be; village ownership is dictated largely by how 'strong' your organization is; if you got no villages, you almost certainly have no commodity income. Organizations which are on the 'downswing' should have an alternative method to get commodities to feed their researches and constructs.
Finally...well, this isn't a question. But, just like Achaea and Starmourn, we should more closely tie the gold system to the commodity system. They're largely separate at the moment: you spend time to either generate commodities or spend time to generate gold. You *could* spend gold to buy commodities from village shops (this is a gold drain, since the spent gold is removed from the system), but as was said before, this negatively affects the commodity generation of tithes.
I'll try to come up with more fleshed-out suggestions, but for the moment, these are my thoughts on the matter. Discuss!
4
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Comments
Farming
Farming is kinda your own little Stardew Valley/Harvest Moon farm.
You have a grid of rooms and it seems like each room can generally be dedicated to one thing, so if you want to put up a Scarecrow to protect your crops then that's one less room to actually put crops in. Similarly, some stuff requires space, trees can only be grown if all the adjacent rooms are empty. Different stuff takes different amounts of time. You can manually water stuff or hire a sprite to do it which effectively eats into your actual profit in exchange for ease.
Once you harvest, you might need to send your stuff to the city to be processed. Afaik these don't exist as items, they're just numbers in your shed, then in the transport to the city, then in a warehouse in the city. (Enemies can also raid the transports afaik).
Players and denizens can also put up requests for items, the denizens are pretty interesting because it's a gold generation mechanism and seems like it kinda indicates a base price for what they're requesting. i.e if players need that too, they should be paying more than the denizen.
edit: Just to add it in, Farming is one of a planned trio of "production" skills. Another is mining, the third is unannounced.
They look to be planned to replace pretty much all commodity generation but also, players are only able to have two meaning you'll always need other players for the one you don't pick.
Similarly, you can buy additional farm plots but there's an upper limit and it increases the time you have to invest which follows the normal pattern of making it more time consuming/harder to be self-sufficient and easier to just give gold to another player.
Scrollracks
Kinda the same as cubes, but they have a specific enchant rather than generic charges. This means customers can actually just get the enchant they want without tracking down an enchanter, but also an enchanter who knows the enchant is needed as part of it. (i.e to maintain elemental enchants, an elemental enchanter would be needed)
Designs in shops
This is pretty neat, you can list designs in shops in Aet. They're not actually crafted and instead are made when someone buys them using comms stored in the shops rift.
This seems like it makes things easier for shopkeepers because you just need to keep your rift stocked and customers get a wider diversity of design options to pick from, which again helps shopkeepers rather than having them craft something and waiting for someone who likes the design.
1. Lessen/remove the restriction of trades based on class.
2. Make it harder to skillflex tradeskills. Meaning flexing would cost investment rather than adding to your investment.
3. After transcendent in a tradeskill, have tiers of expertise that is gained by performing the skill. A legendary forger must continue to forge to keep up their legendary status. Think of this like Tradeskill Exp that decays over time if not maintained. *This could be cool to be a competition by making the buffs in the below idea to be based on your ranking for overall forgers)
4. Instead of Villages passively producing comms, villages give buffs to your comm production to farms and mines from the above ideas.
5. Make gold drop on death or logout (could even do idling in a manse, but honestly I feel like afking in a manse is an issue in itself and shouldn't be allowed). This would make gold only safe in banks where it could be subject to a percentage tax.
6. Add mining, skinning, farming, fishing, and herbalism skills that is enhanced by your trade skills. These skills would be able to be learned by using the skill not lessons. Every so often (IR year) add a new tier to grind out and farm.
Idea:
Give each trade a way to buff combat/bashing/influencing/etc. Add a comm material that you get from events like timequakes(noms), wildnodes ,mining, farming, skinning, fishing, raids (On the fence due to potential of griefing), aetherhunts, astralbashes, quests, etc. This would be on top of existing comms.
Examples:
Forging: A legendary forger (best in the basin) can add an enhancement that will last x time on weapons for 1% critical with those weapons (warrior/monk weapons). The forger that is (ranked 27 overall) could do the same enhancement for a lesser time. I know this is going back to things like weapon/armor stats, but I think this is less of an issue now that it is issue to grind out enough lessons due to daily credits without a huge investment.
Enchantment: A legendary enchanter could add an enhancement to mage-druid weapons/guardian-wicca weapons for the same enhancement the forger could for warrior monks.
Lusternia's commodity generation is basically "take item to mob". The items can be live or dead creatures, or actual items like lumber. The problem with this method is that in order to modify the spawn rate of commodities, you'd have to increase the number of items that spawn. On the other hand, the 'resource node' method (Achaean mines, Aetolian farms, and Starmourn asteroids) allows a lot more dynamism. A single mine or asteriod can produce thousands of commodities.
Also, let's take a look at Imperian's model:
Each city or forest council gain commodities from their townes. Towne governors (players who are assigned to the position) have a certain number of workers available to distribute. For example, you have a total of 10 workers and each one can produce 10 units of a commodity. If you or your nation needs a lot of fish and a little bit of silver, then you might assign 7 workers to fishing and 3 to silver mining. The amount of commodities produced can be further improved if you do a quest to boost the productivity of your towne.
Given that Lusternia's model is closely tied to villages, perhaps the Imperian approach might work best (but with a lot of modifications, of course). Imperian's townes are static; they don't revolt and a nation is never in any danger of losing ways to produce commodities.
An idea (if we take the towne workers approach) is that workers are tied to the city/commune. Owning villages will boost the productivity of that village's specialized commodities. Village quests will further boost that.
For example, if Gaudiguch assigns 10 workers to produce marble, then they will get 100 marble per month. If they also own Dairuchi, then each worker will produce 15 marble (so 10 workers will produce 150 marble). Doing the marble quest in Dairuchi will slightly boost this further, perhaps for every 10 quests done in Dairuchi, another 1 unit of marble can be produced per worker.
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We could also tie governing styles to this. If you're a Benign nation, then you can never assign more than 1 worker to a commodity (because the workers get ansty about getting too cramped in their workplace). You'd have to spread out you workforce and you cannot easily produce more of a commodity that you really need. Neutral governments can assign up to 3 workers to a commodity. Despotic governments can assign all 10 workers to a single commodity.
PS The 10-worker maximum is just an arbitrary number. It could be a maximum of 100 workers or whatever.
Explorer (80%), Achiever (53%), Socializer (53%), Killer (13%)
Bartle Taxonomy
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Bashers and influencers (maybe questers too?) would generate new comms which could be utilised by traders. There's a couple ways you could set up the specifics around loot, but you could use it to introduce a rarity mechanism.
Like maybe loot is defined by the admin, maybe bashing is set up so things drop certain stuff based on their resists, the type of influencing you use or the denizens personality for influencing, etc.
Another idea is "processing" (i'd say refining but aethertrades), you have basic usable comms which different trades can process into better comms. Kinda like bookbinders turning leather into vellum, but also with the idea being that other trades should also want the output. So if tailors could make special types of cloth that should be a requirement for other trades.
A little extension on that being that maybe some processing is locked to an org or guild.
The specifics of what you can do with those comms kinda becomes the big question. Crafting buff items sure, but how much more can be added in on top of what's already in the game, do you limit stuff like how you can't have kirigami and wetfold active together, etc.
One idea that is coming to mind is kinda... D&D wondrous items and how some enchants work in Aetolia.
Maybe crafting an item with special comms makes it a "wondrous" version and gives it an effect that's active while you wear it? Limited by locations where things can be worn, there could be multiple possible effects for each location so you have to choose. i.e Maybe "hands" has an effect for bashing attacks, for crafting, for gathering. The effect might become inactive after a certain amount of time so you'd have to get it refreshed somehow to maintain it.
Tailoring and forging are the trades that might work with in the end.
Slip in the ability to craft "weapons" for wiccans/guardians and druids/mages. Have some choices of what they use for each and the ability to design something without going through artifacts and customisations, just like the other classes have.
Explorer (80%), Achiever (53%), Socializer (53%), Killer (13%)
Bartle Taxonomy
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Nodes, Farms, etc ideally mean that individual players will look at what's needed most and focus their efforts on getting those particular comms, but thanks to limited farm space or volume of nodes it means you can't farm/gather less needed comms so they don't actually enter the game.
Same reason I like farms most because the upper limits are based on players actively participating.
Personal nodes (i.e the mining vein I see is different to the one you see so me gathering doesn't impact you gathering) are kinda the same but feel more overtly... game-like and you need to spawn enough.
Just an alternate idea for active generation model.
If you have to process your generated comms through an org facility, maybe villages could provide additional facilities or provide relevant org facilities.
The facilities would, for example, process lumber into usable wood comms more like Starmourn's system than our comm quests.
So maybe there's a limit on the number of job slots, so having an extra facility would speed up production for an org. In Aet's model orgs seem to be able to level up aspects of their facilities to make them better, villages could give like a +1 some of those levels (based on the village) like if the max level an org can upgrade it's mill to is 4 then maybe holding estelbar could let you get to level 5.
Here's a thought:
Approximately how many credits should any one decayable player made object cost to purchase?
For the sake of argument, you might stick to a set of greatrobes, or a masterweapon claymore.
The gold value of credits slides around and isn't totally stable, but it still tends to reflect on purchase decisions. "This is XX.XX% credits, why am I buying this when I can get more lessons", which juxtaposes with "This only gets me XX.XX% credits after I make a sale and account for material costs".
Someone, somewhere, will eventually have to make some judgment call on material costs to try to realise some imaginary figures like this if they are to enact change. What theoretically sounds reasonable?
As an example, making the tradeskills more profitable might mean adding items or making adjustments so that we have to seek out the other trades more. That sort of thing just becomes tedious very quickly if you need to do it too often. Crafting or seeking crafters in other games is fun because it nets you better and shinier loot, which isn't really applicable here since those buffs come from artifacts and instead we're just trying to maintain a level of what we already have.
For example, maxing out your buff level seems like it should involve artifacts, trade items, skills, and racials with the trades part being where you have the gold exiting the system for bonuses/etc. But just on a quick glance over artefacts/wonderitems you can hit 9 buff, at least, 11 for fire/divinus. (not including curios). Influence is the same with charismaticaura added in. Curios add on to that, same with some races, favours for damage. Beast influence is kinda interesting because it could be a gold sink but also it could not with a collar. Veneration, as I understand it. Research buffs. So on.
For example... a rune (5/13), wonderhorn (3/13), desolate might (3/10), and a damage buff curio (2/?) you max out any one type of damage? If you are looking at fire/divinus you could go for a great rune rather than superior rune, or drop the curio. Desolate might you are relying on one of your guilds to maintain but there seems to be other non-gold options if that's not the case?
Sure it'll take time to get there, but it doesn't seem like the end of the world to be like... to have 13/13 in something you need to be spending some amount of gold regularly, you're still going to be doing pretty well without it though.
Also, I guess, where's the line between tedium and engagement? Needing to seek out other traders more is also how you get gold circulating, making it profitable encourages people to spend time making sure items are available, etc.
For pricing: I'm not sure if this is easily accessible information on the coding side, but maybe take the average price of commodities of all the orgs. For commodities that aren't sold at the commshops (essence, etc.), assign an arbitrary cost to them. Then just add all the relevant comms that an item uses to get that item's price. Multiply by 10 to get the sale price (so players who actually bother to craft them in order to sell can have a lot of leeway to price for profit without having to worry about pricing above Bob). Oh. And make Trader Bob accessible from the Aetherplex shop system.
The amount of items that Lusternia has across all its trade skills increases tediousness; personally, it's why I prioritize getting nondecay for all the things that I can. When I can't get what I need from player shops because no one is bothering to make this or that thing, the tedium increases further. This can be addressed with Trader Bob, at least, if he begins selling everything.
Explorer (80%), Achiever (53%), Socializer (53%), Killer (13%)
Bartle Taxonomy
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This is where the line is, and probably goes against what you two are trying to do. Having to relay on other players is tedious to me and not very engaging. Working towards that self-sufficiency is much more engaging than having to wait around (sometimes a week+) for X trade to do <5 mins of work.
I think looking at why this is would help immensely.
For example, I don't really bother with infused foods any more because even within the last week I've seen a newbie be told the wondercorn should be their first wondercrystals investment when then replaces the need for those items. So all it really does is increase the cost of food when I'm already generally running at a loss before you even get into stuff like the cost of the skill, artifacts, etc.
Also... "deleting" some stuff doesn't seem like the worst thing? For example, is it worth trying to turn tattoos into general skill, or would it be better to have it as a "miniskill" without the powers aspect? That way people could get tattoos for self-expression but any valuable buffs could be reworked into other areas that could be more accessible.
And non-decay is, yeah, not arguing it's not super convenient but it stops the gold sink for individuals. Every x days you save y gold but a part of that gold was actually going out of the game and instead, it stays. While also gold incomes need to be high enough that people can play without non-decay, so more gold entering but going... where?
Adding even more things to actively upkeep is a deterrent as it makes things feel like a chore, rather than enjoyable.
Gold drop on death was taken out- it's better this way. Putting it back in will only lead to a rise in jumping, harassment, and inevitably- theft. This is not Achaea. Don't even go there.
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Either way, things to consider. If that holds true then maybe something can be done around ensuring the gold sink/trading part of buffs is always present, if not and artis should let you get basically the full 13 then the sellable stuff that ultimately become gold sinks would need to work around that.
I'm not really sure that's inherently against what I'm thinking at least?
To me the goal should be that pretty much everything should be readily available in shops or on some kind of market and where that's not happening it should be addressed. So ideally, it should be as easy/easier to buy stuff as it is to just craft for yourself right now.
I think if you look at the models in other games, you see buying from other players is just easier than crafting for yourself, even after the initial investment in learning and equipping yourself to do so. The self-sufficient route takes significantly more time, which is basically what you're paying the traders for.
Furthermore, relying too much on individual player demand to make the economy function is, I think, a bad idea. Through nondecay and artifacts, players will naturally consume less and less. That's why organizations also need to have a regular demand for commodities and items. This is somewhat true already: guild research has a yearly commodity upkeep and cities/communes (should) have a need for colossuses for aetherflares. There needs to be more of these (along with an increase in whatever commodities they would consume, of course).
On the other hand, the economy should be able to expand and contract according to the population's demands. For example, right now, there are (I think) 22 cows and 12 moor steers which can turn into 68 leather per hour (34 generated in the village comm shop, 34 generated in the inventory of the player). That's not very flexible. Commodity generation based on the mining of resource nodes (Achaea/Starmourn/Aetolia models) or the assignment of workers (Imperian model) are both more responsive to the changing demands of the economy.
Explorer (80%), Achiever (53%), Socializer (53%), Killer (13%)
Bartle Taxonomy
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With the exception of enchantments though (which could be resolved through something like scrollracks) the "customer experience" should really just be... go to the plex, browse, then buy and the issue is that it's not?
For org/guild stuff, there's also patron requests, they're not a regular thing but can be a big amount of gold/comms just out of the system. I guess the other thing is scaling? The current costs are static but if you have dynamic generation might vary between trivial and crushing?
We also need to move away from the "one big purchase" approach to pricing. 2M gold to connect a city shop to the Aetherplex is steep; why not convert it to a 20k fee per IG year? On top of that, allow shop taxes and fees the ability to directly draw from the owner's bank account. As a bonus, you get a bit of a gold sink, too.
Explorer (80%), Achiever (53%), Socializer (53%), Killer (13%)
Bartle Taxonomy
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While 2 million may seem like it is steep, it is a permanent connection, even if the shop changes hands. I, personally, hate ongoing fees and much rather pay a single one time fee (within reason), even at a much higher cost.
Remove the ability to buy from manse shops directly. Instead, you would buy from either your org's portal room or made a new "trade district" room in communes/cities that you can use the "portal search shops" functional (This could replace directory rooms). This would search all shops that are "connected" to the aetherplex and all shops in that commune/city. All purchases are taxed x+y percent. X percent is a gold sink, and y percent is a tax that is given to the city/commune. Admin controlling these variables could be beneficial to the economy.
Example: I go to Gaudiguch's trade distract I do shops search sparkleberry. This would list the same thing it does with portal search shops sparkleberry. Shop 57 has sparkleberry for 75 gold a piece. I want to buy 1000, so I do shop 57 buy 1000 sparkleberry.
This could have a number of variations for the same intended affect.
With catalogues, you might even be able to have "buy orders" so people could request a certain design and someone could fulfill it even if their login times don't overlap. Could factor in shops somehow, maybe they're needed to list designs and have them crafted on purchase?