Credit Black Holes

[Glarawyn]

I understand the folks who like the points and the reasons; I just can't figure out why folks don't understand our pov. Oh well, as I said..to each his own.

Must resist urge to resurrect Campalot...

My long term plan was to convert Campalot from the point bot over to something completely different. All community driven, no more need for raid leaders or bot admins. Anyone with sufficient karma (earned by attending raids and getting upvoted and not downvoted, kicked, or temp banned by fellow players) could start a raid and use the alert system, finally fix notifications once and for all, implement loot distribution types (classic point system, flat roll, weighted roll, etc.), add the ability to do multiple simultaneous raids on Campalot1 - Campalot7, kick votes, ban votes (temporary), etc. I even finished a ton of the low hanging stuff (voting, karma system, etc.)

Came down to not enough time to play AO, code the bot, and be with my family. But sounds like it would have been along the lines of what Utopian is wishing for.

But we're far off topic now. This thread was about credit sinks not raid bots.

[Utopian]

I wish there was an option... A tiny Leet in borealis, where one could buy WU for 200mil, BOC for 750mil, some pande zod items for 100-150mil, inteli symbs at 100mil a piece, xan symbs for 100mil a shot, Arid questline for 400mil, Neretva for 400mil. 500mil for supple, 150mil for observant and strong, 75mil for arithmetic and enduring and finaly... 10k for spiritual.

That would be an excellent credit sink. Offcorse then everyone would want S10 back to get some money to use it in the first place. This would basicly "cap" the market and every time prices would go overboard the excess money would get booted out of the game. This is all that needs to happen and then credits would go under control very fast.

Alternative is a man sitting in funcom office and fullfilling resonable buyorders every day, and thus draining credits out, there has to be something so people who claim to have 35 billion credits have something to spend them on.

When newbie 220 tries to buy a set of 300 CSS it takes litterary a year to do so. In today's gameworld it's kinda inconcievable, to have people wait for 1 year to be viable at endgame pvp. Or any level pvp for that matter. Making a lvl 93 twink takes about a billion, wich takes forever to farm on said 93.

Current system only makes veterans richer and newbies poor..., how do you know you're a veteran? You have 2-5 bil sitting around doing jack nothing... we then complain why out of 100 220's online we can't get 8 to start 220 BS round. And cycle finishes off there unhappy veterans unhappy newbies. It's time we start to chunk out epic credits out of the system, becouse inflation is slowly creeping in again.

Not sure if this is a jest or serious...

But, I would rather give my credits to FC for items as a credit sink than another player(s) who just farm an instance to sell nodrops. This is because those same small farm teams do not want players in their raids to be able to loot items they actually need. I rarely do PUGs anymore because of this (my choice).

And many vets have billions because we farm our own gear and don't need to spend silly amounts of credits for an item we can get ourselves/with friends. Its not that we cannot afford the amounts, we choose not to buy lootrights.

[Cratertina]

Not sure if this is a jest or serious...

But, I would rather give my credits to FC for items as a credit sink than another player(s) who just farm an instance to sell nodrops. This is because those same small farm teams do not want players in their raids to be able to loot items they actually need. I rarely do PUGs anymore because of this (my choice).

And many vets have billions because we farm our own gear and don't need to spend silly amounts of credits for an item we can get ourselves/with friends. Its not that we cannot afford the amounts, we choose not to buy lootrights.

Exactly this. Lets give credits back to funcom until prices drop sufficiently. Why pay lootrights, let there be NPCs who sell useful gear.

[Ekarona]

Credit sinks might be good idea, I have reached point where I can't even be bothered to do something for 1M...

[Pomidor]

Question is, is there AI cites needed anymore, for more thing just farming vbots?

I mean, We used to have this:

AI City benefits, AI leves gained in cities, Shops,

Since introducing LE missions and further, AI dailes, AI raids are farm thingy.
Shops were replaced by GMI.
Now, only thing left are AI benefits from HQ ect and TS Hardwere.
Tax from shop used to give org some boost of cash, not only from selling AI loot, but overall.
Now some sneaky Tax Burau is collecting all money from us.

[Strismo]

Let people buy paid points for ingame cash. 1m per paid point.

[Brampfine]

u can earn enough stuff and creds with a normal way in AO
i help with a few friends a newcommer and he earns now 3 weeks after start easy over night 30m in GMI and he works on his toons.

[Gimpynoob]

u can earn enough stuff and creds with a normal way in AO
i help with a few friends a newcommer and he earns now 3 weeks after start easy over night 30m in GMI and he works on his toons.

Pics?

[Khlin]

Pics?

No need...

I recently started selling all the ql60-200 nanos I gathered on my mules in the past 4-5 years. Some were rare nanos, but more often than not they were regular nanos that are blitzable.

Think I made close to 1bil in 3-4 weeks. Most likely I could have made it in 1 week, but then if you dump everything at once in the market you risk lower the value for your items.

There are quite a few people around willing to pay outrageous prices for items they're too lazy to acquire themselves.

The only problem is getting this kind of information across to newbies instead of relying on the odd John supplying it in-game.

True, this would lead to lower prices for those items, but then, new market opportunities would become available.

In time, we might even end up with a failed simulacrum of a working economy. We just need a bit more opportunities for newbies to find out about what they can do.

[Gimpynoob]

You made almost a billion by farming nanos during a 4 to 5 year period. I am... impressed.

I am even more impressed that people go to the GMI to buy nanos sold in the shops (the only nanos a starting noob can farm).


Our cred farmers and loot rights sellers are always very keen on making statements about how easy it is to farm creds and do everything ingame. Which would be a big clue for any game developer who cared that those are serious problems in need to be solved.


As for the real problem of excessive currency ingame the solutions are obvious and easy. Let me point some of my favourites:

-Changing currencies. Instead of having one currency for the whole game, players would need different currencies in different parts of the game. Monies earned by playing the game.

-Making most content buyable from stores. None of the best stuff, but all the ordinary things that are now difficult or impossible to farm without a 220 main or twink would be taken out of farmville fans hands. One very obvious example is the miserable 6 slot belt and higher ql NCU memories.

-Best stuff in level locked playfields, nodrop and rewards increasing with team size. Preferably with LR selling made impossible. Whatever the bs posted on these forums the facts remain. Inferno missions are usually done with full teams and gear farming is almost always done with the smallest team possible and preferably multilogged. There is no disadvantage in having a full team for inferno missions (same xp/sk and faster missions) but the amount and ql of loot remains the same independent of team size.


All this discussion is academic at best. Devs have repeatedly over many years made it painfully obvious, except for those who dont want to see, that nothing will ever by changed or fixed. Flame on #$%^&*!!

[Khlin]

You made almost a billion by farming nanos during a 4 to 5 year period. I am... impressed.

Nope, still have enough nanos to sell for another 1-2bils.

It doesn't include shopfood items or shopfood nanos which were long sold and all other nice things you get from missions. You would not believe the prices on some of those ql 140-160 NCUs.

[Dafie]

i wonder how much you sell ur nano cuz for me average price is 3mil a nano 21 nano per backpack, 24 slot in gms hmm 1bil in 4 weeks with nano ? you're tough ... ql 200 imps on a lvl 60 toon? oh but yeah defintly dollable if in this nano u got GA or NS

[Khlin]

i wonder how much you sell ur nano cuz for me average price is 3mil a nano 21 nano per backpack, 24 slot in gms hmm 1bil in 4 weeks with nano ? you're tough ... ql 200 imps on a lvl 60 toon? oh but yeah defintly dollable if in this nano u got GA or NS

Heh

My point was to address Gimpy's question regarding a new player being unable to accrue 30mils in a few week of game time while having access to the needed information on what to do in terms of profitable activities

I never ever got an NS/GA nano.... But did get a lot of other nice things that are considered top RK nanos.

Trust me it works when there's people paying up to 10-15mils for nanos that are not rare, but that dropped in availability due to people not doing all that many RK missions.

[Cogline]

Tell me about it. Trying to upgrade my bot pet is such a pain since the only way to get the nano I need for the shell is to roll missions too deadly for me and the bot I have currently and since hardly anyone does Engie bot missions I just mission whore and keep prof missions for alts in the future *including* any future Engie alt I roll. And there's no way this side of Silicon Hell I'm selling the GA Disc I have just in case I roll a Fixer. And no, have you seen the price of hiring a Blitzer? Cred sink? Gimme a Pet Shop!

[Khlin]

More time to answer your answers 1 by 1...

Mandatory "WTF did you smoke!!!"

Our cred farmers and loot rights sellers are always very keen on making statements about how easy it is to farm creds and do everything ingame. Which would be a big clue for any game developer who cared that those are serious problems in need to be solved.

LR selling has been in AO since I first joined in 2003.

True, it was not beast or highbie playfields since, prior to instanced playfields, they were hogged by sides (harsh penalties for going against your side):
- I paid in 2003 about 3mils for Punishment Rod
- in 2003 I paid 500k for Stygian Desolator

It's a bloody service quite similar to services I've seen in other games where people help you get stuff you wouldn't get on your own (if you were lazy enough and had the coin for it).

Even EVE has services where one would be able to get their corp standing increased for a price... I know because I ran such a service at some point.

As for the real problem of excessive currency ingame the solutions are obvious and easy. Let me point some of my favourites:

-Changing currencies. Instead of having one currency for the whole game, players would need different currencies in different parts of the game. Monies earned by playing the game.

No need for alternative currencies... All the money I got was, guess what, by playing the game.

-Making most content buyable from stores. None of the best stuff, but all the ordinary things that are now difficult or impossible to farm without a 220 main or twink would be taken out of farmville fans hands. One very obvious example is the miserable 6 slot belt and higher ql NCU memories.

I can support this...

But a lowbie char that can do ql 140-160 missions can get quite some cash off this Did you notice the price on the ql165 belts or 140-160 NCUs?

-

Best stuff in level locked playfields, nodrop and rewards increasing with team size.

Why?

One of the things I like about AO is the openness. Quite few level/profession-locked items as well as he ability to help friends with my high characters mostly without caring of the PF level.

Some may abuse this, but don't take it out on people that are willing to help their friends.

Preferably with LR selling made impossible.

LR selling has been in AO for quite some time. It's in no way some recent development.

Whatever the bs posted on these forums the facts remain. Inferno missions are usually done with full teams and gear farming is almost always done with the smallest team possible and preferably multilogged. There is no disadvantage in having a full team for inferno missions (same xp/sk and faster missions) but the amount and ql of loot remains the same independent of team size.

There's quite a few people that want to get stuff fast. I can understand that, I know it's the trend and I can support that (especially since I have quite a lot of alts).

Something really needs to be done to shorten some of the equip grind, but this needs to be carefully considered since it will affect all players.

Even if they shorten the gear grind by 75%, hardcore farmers will still be on top. Oh, you mean to cripple hardcore farmers?

But ain't that against what you propose?

What I mean is that you ain't becoming part of the deluxe 4-men beast teams in QL100 imps and med-suite while powerleveling to 220. Most people that do that are finished or close to finished toons.

Some of the people I know to sell Pande loot (zods or TNH) are actualy looking for twinking stuff for themselves and selling the LR for what they don't need. This allows some people to get some of the stuff that they would not have access to without friends or without enough zerg-bot points.

[Shareida]

Just empty everyone's credit stock.
Problem solved. Even the credit farmers would have to work again.
And owning 5 million creds would mean something again.

[Ciex]

I see more and more plain crazy and stupid ideas here so before anyone from FC catches the bait and does something idiotic like following above suggestion id like to say that when i rerolled on a new server to start from nothing and got out of noob island with 4k creds to find out that a set of ql 30 implants + some basic nanos, ammo and stuff will cost me around 250000 from npc vendors (they must ve been farming s10 lately too ... oh wait ...) i really liked the fact people around me were rich because i could earn money fast by selling them some basic items so i was set for my journey in an hour or two. I dont think id play at all if i had to generate those money from looting subway mobs.

[Gimpynoob]

I see more and more plain crazy and stupid ideas here so before anyone from FC catches the bait and does something idiotic like following above suggestion id like to say that when i rerolled on a new server to start from nothing and got out of noob island with 4k creds to find out that a set of ql 30 implants + some basic nanos, ammo and stuff will cost me around 250000 from npc vendors (they must ve been farming s10 lately too ... oh wait ...) i really liked the fact people around me were rich because i could earn money fast by selling them some basic items so i was set for my journey in an hour or two. I dont think id play at all if i had to generate those money from looting subway mobs.

The problem is not how many credits players have but the absolute dependence on player to player transactions.
The problem exists because vets have more money and can earn more then a new player AND because almost all gear needs to be bought from other players. While removing creds does not solve any problems it is obvious that a game where a player needs to spend countless hours farming crap to buy loot from other players is not going to be very popular. Be it at start or at endgame.

Some people complain that farming endgame gear is tedious. What would they say if they had to farm even more boring content for much longer?

[Freor]

Game design that encourages player interaction by making them sell/buy stuff between themselves instead of only dealing with NPCs is bad? Mkay... I'll just have to disagree

I very much support making AO more new-player friendly though by giving them better guidance: what are implants, how to get them, etc. I'm against making it more like single player game where you collect tokens to hand over to NPC to get your stuff (LE line is like that - but at least it encourages subscribing). That said, many of the somewhat usefull SL armors (smugler etc) could really use some changes in how to acquire them. And having something similar on RK (Miy gets close but the bonuses are kinda mixed) wouldnt hurt either.

[Mastablasta]

Game design that encourages player interaction by making them sell/buy stuff between themselves instead of only dealing with NPCs is bad? Mkay... I'll just have to disagree

I very much support making AO more new-player friendly though by giving them better guidance: what are implants, how to get them, etc. I'm against making it more like single player game where you collect tokens to hand over to NPC to get your stuff (LE line is like that - but at least it encourages subscribing). That said, many of the somewhat usefull SL armors (smugler etc) could really use some changes in how to acquire them. And having something similar on RK (Miy gets close but the bonuses are kinda mixed) wouldnt hurt either.

But, players should be able to play how they like. If they don't like to play with others , regardless of whether it's just for trade, using GMI or something else that in some way interacts with other people, they should be allowed to do so and the game should support this.