Fixing the Economy

[Rurounin]

I've said it in-game and been raged to high heavens for it but...

Give froob accounts a limit of 100-200mill.

Froobs have no need for more than that, and it wipes out trillions in 'bank' toons that caused this problem in the first place.

If you can limit their char slots, you can limit their bank.

RBP - Robust Backpack
At least: 1.6b credits

IGOC - Imbued Globe of Clarity
At least: 1.2b credits

DChest - Living Dragonflesh Body Armor
At least: 300m credits

I'm not even going into clusters, but arm aad clusters can easily reach above 200m at times as well. Thats why limiting credit amounts wont work. You can't limit them out of their own content. There's a reason people has raged at you for it, that's what happens with silly ideas.

[westyfu]

It's not even about that, it's about the effect that 20b item now has on every item under it in the market place that those toons now decide to price on a whim to see just how much they can get... to pay for their next one.

The entire point of a gear based game is to progress through gear.

Take away the teaming aspect and that grind becomes even more painful.

Take away the 'earning' aspect and it makes it nothing more than tedious.

When it's grinding to a complete halt because of one thing and one thing only, leaving your BS's empty and LFT still full in hopes of one day getting to "that level" we have a pretty big problem.

Things should be expensive, some more so than others, and there should, and will always be exclusive bits and oddities, but when the 'staple' is now one of the most expensive things in game? AI gear is not new, it's not rare, it's no longer unique in anyway and treated as not much more than "Pvp gear" at 220 and "twink gear" at anything under that...

So why shouldn't Joey bloggs who signed up in 2014 have the same chance at getting some of that, to populate your queues and your teams with? He put in the effort, learnt his toons, got himself to 220 and made 5-600mill or so on the way, if he's lucky and even found an org to do things with in his timezone, and is now punished by RNG for his loot drops for up to months at a time, and player prices block his only other path as he can maybe afford a single piece or something because the 600m he ground his butt off for is all but worthless.

Because without that equip? Little Joey is now a free kill for anyone who does, or a Burden to their speed through encounters. He could be an awesome little player, but we'd never find out about it, if he even stuck around that long.

It effects every single new players impression of that grind, and makes every last one of them think "Why bother?" and "Is that fun to me?"

Pretty clear from at least some of the people I speak too that older players aren't too thrilled by it either.

Edit: To be fair* the 3 people who raged me for it as a suggestion in a conversation in OOC, suggested to 'get a job and a credit card and buy it like everyone else', so forgive me for silly idea's when I'm seeing plenty of them around me in the first place.

I don't see spamming websites to be a solution to it either, but it's what we've now got directly because of it.

as for the RK examples above, a 200 froob seriously wanting them, will have the same chances at looting them that we do if he really wants them, the only froobs I've met with those kind of ammounts are bank toons and toons lvld by paid accounts as twinks for 'sub freezes' and the like, who can all trade these Yesdrops from mains.

[Blahm]

So why shouldn't Joey bloggs who signed up in 2014 have the same chance at getting some of that, to populate your queues and your teams with? He put in the effort, learnt his toons, got himself to 220 and made 5-600mill or so on the way, if he's lucky and even found an org to do things with in his timezone, and is now punished by RNG for his loot drops for up to months at a time, and player prices block his only other path as he can maybe afford a single piece or something because the 600m he ground his butt off for is all but worthless.

Because without that equip? Little Joey is now a free kill for anyone who does, or a Burden to their speed through encounters. He could be an awesome little player, but we'd never find out about it, if he even stuck around that long.

It effects every single new players impression of that grind, and makes every last one of them think "Why bother?" and "Is that fun to me?"

Pretty clear from at least some of the people I speak too that older players aren't too thrilled by it either.

That issue is not about economy and fixing the economy will not help what you're describing.

The issue you're voicing is a matter of player mentality. If a player won't get a team due to not having end game gear while leveling, then that's an issue with the playerbase.

Whenever I make teams, I look for anyone who's willing to do the content I'm signing up for. Be it less efficient profs or gear, I won't block them from my teams due to lack of funding but rather welcome them and maybe give them tips along the way.

If you need end game gear to start doing end game, then the whole game loses it's value. There's no reason why anyone should have to purchase end game gear just to get similar end game gear.

[dritst]

maximizing the amount of alien armor pieces youc an wear, also bad idea

Well i had in mind that 3 part of combined armor + rest (ofab/kergern/db ect) would put price down and it can rebalance a little the game (Less ar/def/As skill Fa skill) and could allow more "viable" build.
If FC could manage let people use 7 part of Ai armor just to twink, adding an OE timer after let say 10 min of use it could be great.

[westyfu]

Problem is the credits and the mentality aren't exactly far removed.

Toons who are 'set for life' are less than willing to go out of their way now for that new guy, because they themselves have 20b to farm for an alt?

It was bad enough when it was 6b that made people gasp in shock, but there was a bit more understanding as well, it wasn't expected that everyone should have everything by now, nor was it expected that everyone, regardless of who, should have Scrooge McDuck money so prices too high simply didn't sell.

Leaving people with a reasonable earning target to shoot for, instead of just an itch in their pockets to whip out the plastic.

[nat3s]

One idea id like to see explored is the notion of a credit crunch. Similar to the DPS squish Blizzard put together some articles on when exploring their DPS inflation over the years:

• Chop the number of zeros by creating a new currency e.g. 1,000,000 creds is now a Plex (P) and 1,000 creds is now a millicred (MC).

• A player can hold both currencies e.g. 2500 P 900 MC (as separate fields in the UI) would effectively represent 2.59 billion creds in old money. Much like gold/plat works in DAOC for anyone who has played it.

• Suddenly people can carry more creds without the numbers being overly long (there's some pseudo-science to the recognition and emphasis people put on the size of numbers in terms of the number of zeros - Greg Street wrote an article on it, at a particular point numbers are recognisable but too long to really convey any meaning to a new player).

• Prices in game remain the same e.g. stims that cost 5,000,000 before now cost 5 P.

• Daily quest rewards are revisted and now offer more meaningful rewards e.g. 50 P.

• Players with 20 billion effectively have 20,000 P. This is still a significant sum, enough to buy pretty much anything.

• The relative gap between the rich and poor closes over time. Using the new daily reward as an example:

100 days @ 50 P a day = 5000 P

To a new player they have 5000 P after 100 days, a vet who also completes their dailies may rise from 20,000 P to 25,000 P.

The crucial bit is understanding the scalability. The numeric gap in wealth remains the same (20,000 P) so the vet doesn't feel punished (they're not losing their wealth lead - nothing is being cut). In fact the wealthy player feels rewarded for their dailies as they've earnt an extra 5,000 P (5 bil) wealth. Importantly though, the new player now has 20% of the wealth of a vet after just 100 days and this scales:

100 days:
5,000 P vs 25,000 P = (20%)

200 days:
10,000 P vs 30,000 P = (33.33%)

1000 days:
50,000 P vs 70,000 P = (71.4%)

This is a positive way to effectively rebalance things without the wealthy feeling put upon (well played Blizzard for thinking up a positive change to a negative problem!).

Having meaningful daily rewards (or some other form of consistent solo income) helps keep an economy stable and level due to its scaling. It's actually an obtuse concept not to introduce daily rewards in the fear that it would make the situation worse... It wouldn't! It helps level things out over time by the way it naturally smoothes out the wealth divide (one of many real world economic understandings provided by George Miller).

You need to balance it alongside sinks such that people do not amass massive quantities of Plex. City upkeeps and the like help but it's vital that no more exploits are introduced to flood the economy with millions of Plex once more!

[Wakizaka]

• Chop the number of zeros by creating a new currency e.g. 1,000,000 creds is now a Plex (P) and 1,000 creds is now a millicred (MC).

Because that worked sooooooooooooo well for my neighbours Zimbabwe

[nat3s]

Because that worked sooooooooooooo well for my neighbours Zimbabwe

I would think it more analogous to quantitative easing or a process of deflation rather than hyper-inflation. There is no threat of an underlying devaluation in the goods/domestic product of AO and we're not printing creds en masse (but I can see why people see daily rewards this way but it's the scaling element that hopefully underpins why this is actually not the case). The various items bought from non player terms and the like are also a fixed price.

It's just my opinion of course! Do you have any thoughts/ideas for a solution?

[McKnuckleSamwich]

I would think it more analogous to quantitative easing or a process of deflation rather than hyper-inflation. There is no threat of an underlying devaluation in the goods/domestic product of AO and we're not printing creds en masse (but I can see why people see daily rewards this way but it's the scaling element that hopefully underpins why this is actually not the case). The various items bought from non player terms and the like are also a fixed price.

It's just my opinion of course! Do you have any thoughts/ideas for a solution?

You can think of it what you will, but that's exactly the fastest road to hyper inflation.

[TerenteTheOutlaw]

poor people will always bitch and moan. rich people will always be rich. that's just how it is.

i do agree, however, that AO's economy is ****ed up to oblivion due to people duping and whatnot, but i don't see any viable way of fixing that (the economy, that is). plus, i don't think funcom really gives a **** about the game, they are just milking the dead cow. i mean, common, how long it took them to fix the perk queuing exploit back in the day ? like 4 years, or maybe more ? and that was in a period when people ware actually playing this game, not just five people logged onto 20 accounts.

[Momento]

Meh @ this thread, I've always been broke in this game and still manage to kick everyones ass by simply obtaining stuff over time. Still struggling every time my fixer needs refill of first aid stims, since a stack of 500 = 100mill.

just play the game and focus on the right content so you actually know how to play your toon when you get those desired levels for your pvp spree.

[Beornin]

Many of the suggestions are good, but I'd like to add that no change is needed to enjoy the game, both by not participating and participating in the market.

I played intensely for 2 years in 2004 and 2005, and when I quit in 2006 I gave away roughly 10-15 billion worth of items at 2006-prices. That included complete set of 300 CC, many random ql pieces of ai armor, a few GoCs etc. I obtained everything legitimately, from the first 4 months when I sold medsuits in Old Athens for 200k profit, thorugh the middle when I popped midlevel pocketbosses and sold symbs and got random drops from heckteams in inferno, to the end where I obtained valuable items from Tarasque, tradeskilled ai armor and arul sabas and generally had little expences but still a solid income.

When I came back in 2010 I had nothing of real value, but had a halfnaked 220 engineer. I equipped it halfway with old nodrops and spent some time farming items that at the time sold for a bit. Chose to level an nt as it was viable in pvp with rather cheap equip. Used the cheapo-nt to farm a bit and made some money to build combined scouts.

When I now came back in 2014 I have a well equipped NT that I use to make some money, by farming what is now in demand.

If you just play the game, use the very good cheap and nodrop items available to you even at 220, instead of drooling over other people's items with 5-20% better stats, you'll have more fun. If you really want those last %, items are quite obtainable with some effort when you have a cheap-equipped 220.

[TerenteTheOutlaw]

^^ i have been in the EXACT same situation. i did have like 1.5bil in the players shops when i first came back in 2010 or so but except for that, just a naked engineer with all the nodrops you could imagine and a naked shade that i equipped with nodrops purely for farmin purposes. Few months later, leveled a fixer 220 that now has everything you could imagine, and at least 5 gocs to spare, leaving aside those i use on my lowbies. Aquiring all the best non-nodrop items for my fixer took like 2-3 weeks. That's full cc, intels, gocs, everything, you name it. Now my frozen account is more or less in the same stage it was when i first left in 2006 - has at least one of everything. Never exploited, never gotten free creds, never bought creds. Stop bitching about not being able to farm creds. Nowadays, it's easy as piss, only period when it was easier was when SL first came out and few people had access to the higher zones. I made ****load of creds by selling inf dyna **** and symbs.

[nat3s]

Some strong views being expressed. Here are my thoughts on the bits people have raised:

• Yes I agree it's entirely possible to grind to a full set of the very best gear and make lots of credits. It takes effort and determination and people absolutely need to feel rewarded for having managed to achieve this.

• I also agree that some people know of some very effective ways of getting rich.

• My opinion on both of the above is that this doesn't necessarily make for compelling gameplay to a new player particularly when they see vets with huge wealth and have no obvious mechanic for bridging the gap. A lot of new players may simply find another game.

• A stable economy depends on throughput. AO needs both credit generating mechinics and credit sinks in equal measure. There also needs to be accessible generation mechanics for the new players.

• Funcom has shut down a lot of the credit generation mechanics over the years (bounties/ingots etc) so what you're left with is credits flowing from veteran player to veteran player a lot of the time (there are always exceptions, this is a bit of a generalisation, but it's a trend in my mind). This is great for us vets that know what we're doing but for a new player it's an extremely punishing. It almost feels like mutual back-slapping to me that newbies are excluded from.

• Many of the cred generating mechanics were exploits that benefited many who were playing at the time (the tradeskill exploit ran for a good 5 years before Funcom finally got wind of it). thanksfully they are no longer around but this has left new players at a disadvantage.

• Try not to think of this as my personal campaign for creds that's really not what I'm trying to discuss. Bit of a straw man argument. If you like things the way they are that's great, please say why without referring to anyone "bitching" about anything.

Thanks

[Unkfix]

It all sttarted when artyomis was monopolizing everything to begin with, then credsellers were introduced

It started long before Arty started playing, and I'm pretty sure cred sellers existed before AO even...

Bump for credit reset

The only issue with this is that the GMI will be empty for weeks if not months after the reset because the people who have items that used to sell for 1.6b aren't going to dump them on the GMI for 10m just because thats all anyone can afford, they'll just sit on them and wait for prices to eventually go up again. This will lead to prices being just as rediculous as they are now, in relative terms.

Divide everyones credits by 10.

See above. People with 1.2b credits now would have 120m, and be willing to pay that for a piece of CC/CSS, leaving the people who had 120m before now having 12m and still being unable to buy what they needed.

Few weeks before new engine is ready to be launched announce some global cataclysm...

This isn't WoW.

[Mamman]

I think dividing everything (including items listed on GMI) by 10 or so is a good approach, it makes trades easier to conduct without having to change the credit cap to something that is larger than a 32-bit integer.

It won't make new players any less poor, but I'm not convinced these new people actually exist.

[Unkfix]

I think dividing everything (including items listed on GMI) by 10 or so is a good approach, it makes trades easier to conduct without having to change the credit cap to something that is larger than a 32-bit integer.

It won't make new players any less poor, but I'm not convinced these new people actually exist.

dividing credits/items as you suggest would only alleviate the concerns of the rich, who are least affected by the problem at hand.

[Mamman]

Sure, though it would not hurt anyone either.

[Unkfix]

Sure, though it would not hurt anyone either.

Except that it would require effort on the part of the developers which could be better spent finding a real solution that benefits everyone rather than just the 1%.

[Mamman]

I believe it'd benefit quite a few more than the 1%, when I was last playing having QL300 combined was pretty much the norm, I'm told a single piece of QL300 combined now costs more than credit cap as long as supple bots are involved.