credit degradation: make credits slowly disappear over time

[Ayria]

Are you talking about me?

Pretty sure he was referring to the OP.

[Nihilaos]

1) I am absolutely not exaggerating my problems with my mp.
2) I don't care about "winning" a debate on the internet. That would be pointless. For starters, there isn't a referee waiting to crown someone the "winner." I'm trying to contribute a difference of opinion, and using my experience as an anecdote, because that is all anyone has thus far contributed.

When I leveled my fixer (before ToTW was even released) I had absolutely zero credit problems, and I didn't know anything about clicksaver. If you were to propose a *progressive* rather than a flat tax, it would assuage my concerns for new players, but I'm sure you'd have all kinds of well-mannered ladies and gentlemen offering "polite disagreement" with such a proposal.

If you have found that a disproportionate amount of players that are wealthy are mean-spirited hoarders, then it is because they've stayed on disproportionately (while others left at the average rate) because playing some other game loses them their position of power. The same loss of power would be achieved by destroying all their credits via a tax system, and they'd likely quit (which I think is what you want.) If you think that everyone with vast quantities of money hoards it specifically to ruin the game for everyone else and drive away new players, why not propose that any player whose accounts have more than X credits have all but Y of them taken away? The same people get angry and stop playing either way. I do not believe that just because another player lost money too, the sociopath will feel better about having lost 1 billion every week (or whatever time frame). I don't understand why you feel the need to propose a "fair" solution?

Pretty sure he was referring to the OP.

It's still condescending, which I honestly wasn't expecting from a professional (Even if it is directed at the OP).

[Dereashe]

Honestly this is a stupid idea, i take a break from AO for a few months come back and all my credits are gone. This is a game not real life, taxes are used to finace ones country/gvernment w.e. WTF will the tax be for?? what will it finance...NOTHING! If this happens I'm leaving the game. I do agree that the credit system is messed up, but there is not muc hthat can be done about it without a huge majority of the players loosing something they have farmed. Belive it or not there are people who make twinks specifically to farm credits. Sector 10 for example, people can make fortunes in a days time. Taxing in a game would be stupid........just saying you need to think this more thoroughly before suggesting it...

[thecheeseman]

if you do nothing then the game will die
an average gamer hears about items in the hundreds of millions and billions, will not play this game, ever

lose a few "elite" players and revive the game, or let them win and shut this classic and unique game down, losing a lot of revenue

remember that many players dont put the best intersets in the game and community but in themselves, even though they play the game

[Ciex]

new players dont consume credits. low level twinks do. you havent played normally in a long time. dont use misinformation

You have no clue dude, ive rolled an engineer few day ago, he is lvl 36 now. Ive transfered 50 mln on him for a good start and now he has only 42 mln. Those 8 mln were lost to basic stores to buy implants and nanos i didnt buy anything from other players yet.

You have no clue dude, most of new players dont even think about items that may cost billions and dont care about that. I used to be a froob untill late tl5 (well here breaks another of your marvelous theories that froobs after lvl 150 or so generate no income because they wont pay for expansions, while in my org almost everyone is an ex-highlevel froob and many people just keep their froob accounts after buying expansions with even lvl 200 froobs to serve as buff whores) and neither me nor my friends thought about overpriced items or sets of AI armors. We have just had some fun than some of us did upgrade our accounts and some of us didnt. There is no need to have a set of ai armor and ql 300 symbiants to have some fun and many people enjoy the game without those items. There is no problem at all it exists only in your mind.

[howlin]

I have none because im lazy
+ you got all and you worked for it
= you should be punished

Sounds fair.

[Maxisolja]

well read to page 2 then skipped over the rest, don't know if anyone mentioned this but

Sploiting/Veteran Credits have driven the prices up, however since we are in a market were most items of value are bought/sold between players it has little impact on endgame people (which is all funcom seems to care about)

The fact that you need to farm for weeks to buy something isn't due to inflation of credits but rather due to the crappy drop rates that many items have and the shear amount of items that you need to collect.

This type of system generally hurts new players much more then old players because they are not able to farm items of value nearly as easy as a old/higher level player can.

Increased drop rates would bring the price of items down some, but the problem of hoarders/sploiters will always remain.

Taxation would be overly complicated in AO, however solving this issue may require a complicated approach.

If a tax was imposed (with tax brackets to protect the poor), the super rich (people with multiple accounts maxed out on credits) would buy up items sending the prices up, if the items had better drop rates the prices would come back down a bit (still higher then now). The tax would tick away at the excess credits that are floating around by the people who wanted to sell there items to get rich quick, end result is less credits and more items floating around. In time this would re balance to a less inflated level.

Note: This is to target people with multiple accounts maxed out on credits, it won't hit the regular person with 1-3 bill on there account and most of there worth in items already depending on the tax bracketing.

I have none because im lazy
+ you got all and you worked for it
= you should be punished

Sounds fair.

This before anything is a game, it should not feel like work to get stuff. Even then this I believe is intended for the people who mass sploited multi billions of credits on multiple accounts, not the person who spent hours farming dynas to get a few billion (even though the billions that person "earned" ultimately came from some other player who sploited or farmed ingots)

[Kahava]

Even then this I believe is intended for the people who mass sploited multi billions of credits on multiple accounts, not the person who spent hours farming dynas to get a few billion (even though the billions that person "earned" ultimately came from some other player who sploited or farmed ingots)

He actually said that it was to hit everyone. In which case it will of course hit newcomers harder as they have less creds and still needs to buy a lot of the items the rest of us have bought years ago.
Envy is a bad thing.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

my original post sums it up better than everyone elses useless blather.

GET what you want by GETTING it. Not by buying it. Then it doesn't matter how many credits you have, as long as you can buy your storebought nanos and stims.

[howlin]

Even then this I believe is intended for the people who mass sploited multi billions of credits on multiple accounts, not the person who spent hours farming dynas to get a few billion (even though the billions that person "earned" ultimately came from some other player who sploited or farmed ingots)

Why should i worry about people that sploited credits and why should i pay for them?
Its FCs job to catch and punish them, not to punish other players.

[Soosis]

Theres nothing that stops people from getting rich. If the credits come from the small percentage of players that are holyhell wealthy, so be it.

Ive so far "quit" this game twice (or thrice, dont remember) and given away all my items/creds, and started from scratch with no AI armor nor creds, and every time it has been moderatly easy to survive and get the armor etc back. Ive never seen anything hugely problematic in the economy, I just see people who dont know how to "use" it properly, and want everything handed to them on a silver platter.

And I dont even farm AI raids/Inf dynas/nada because I see farming as boring and a bad way to make money.

[NotDavidBowi]

This is the dumbest thread ever. If you work hard you'll get rich. If you are a lazy bum you'll stay poor.

Easy as that.

[Ciex]

my original post sums it up better than everyone elses useless blather.

GET what you want by GETTING it. Not by buying it. Then it doesn't matter how many credits you have, as long as you can buy your storebought nanos and stims.

You cant get anything here on your own, especially not at early lvls, for example SoM weapons are equippable at lvl 10, you need to be of at last lvl 50 -60 to try to get them, alien tank armor, is equippable at late tl2, you need to be tl5 to get it. Other problem are low droprates; it would be cool if you could just get some items but when i was leveling my MA ive tried to get notucomm and after killing ado dyna for many, many times i didnt get it. Same went with shen stick; its drop rates were so low, that it did cost hundreds of millions to get when my MA entered tl7. In the result i simply left him rotting on my account. IMHO dynas in SL shall be much harder to kill but drop rates should be much much higher so players could get most of the stuff they want on their own.

[Ayria]

You cant get anything here on your own, especially not at early lvls, for example SoM weapons are equippable at lvl 10, you need to be of at last lvl 50 -60 to try to get them, alien tank armor, is equippable at late tl2, you need to be tl5 to get it.

While that stuff is useful and nice to have it is not required to level. Simply because we twink them onto our lowbie alts doesn't mean that there's no alternatives, many of us leveled just find before SoM revamp and S10 etc.

[Triadninja]

A rediculous idea. I am never good with money in any MMO, and have a hard time keeping money and not spending it on random useless things. I am not at the level yet to be able to farm what I need for my characters, since my highest is a 175 keeper, and adding a tax system would drain the economy into nothingness.

[thecheeseman]

it is easy to make credits below the million figure for new players, but it is not easy to make credits in the billions. it is in fact in the current system impossible.
some liars are saying a new player losing 10% of 100k after one month is devastating. this is hilarious desperate attempt. losing 10k in one month is too much?


many of you said you "made" billions. thats a lie. you traded an item and another player gave you the billions. those billions cannot be made again if tax are applied, because they were from ingots and fixed exploits.
you were meant to get most of your credits by selling items to npc shops. this is the basic mechanic in all rpgs.

the people that vehemently oppose this have probably never tried to play normally in many years. the ones that do play low lvl characters powerlevel and use up a lot of credits.

Theres nothing that stops people from getting rich. If the credits come from the small percentage of players that are holyhell wealthy, so be it..

aka you

Ive never seen anything hugely problematic in the economy,

prices in multiple BILLIONS

I just see people who dont know how to "use" it properly, and want everything handed to them on a silver platter.

this states the problem perfectly funcom. today you have to play a complex buy low sell high game, manipulating and calculating prices to get barely decent amount of credits

Why should i worry about people that sploited credits and why should i pay for them?
Its FCs job to catch and punish them, not to punish other players.

players are in possession of said sploited and unfairly gained credits
it has flooded the entire market
fc can punish them by using the tax system where multple billions will be destroyed but millions can still be maintained, to have a non insane game economy

A rediculous idea. I am never good with money in any MMO, and have a hard time keeping money and not spending it on random useless things. I am not at the level yet to be able to farm what I need for my characters, since my highest is a 175 keeper, and adding a tax system would drain the economy into nothingness.

because a 175 keeper can make 10 billion by selling pearls to shops ?

[thecheeseman]

many of you forget that the main way of gaining money in a rpg is selling loot to npc shops. this was the intended way in AO but not possible anymore.

if everyone loses the same %, every farmer loses 5%-10% of 10 billion, then the prices of items would drop.
buying and selling is an important part of the game. you cant leave it broken.

my original post sums it up better than everyone elses useless blather.

GET what you want by GETTING it. Not by buying it. Then it doesn't matter how many credits you have, as long as you can buy your storebought nanos and stims.

thats not possible because many things are camped. many new players have no chances of getting those items EVER.
even rk dynas are camped by tl7s and low lvl twinks rountinely\

they are saying useless blahther because in everyone's heart they know the economy is broken, but they have gotten too used to it and are afriad of change.

This is the dumbest thread ever. If you work hard you'll get rich. If you are a lazy bum you'll stay poor.

Easy as that.

I have none because im lazy
+ you got all and you worked for it
= you should be punished

Sounds fair.

this is why the game is dead. people play to have fun, not WORK to compete with power gamers and grinders.

if tax is in place,as long as you keep grinding you will always have en edge and be richer than average players, excpt it wont be as extreme, and it will be made honestly and fairly.

if you are confident that fc will not listen to this idea and it wont happen, then it wont be a threat to your farming and game destroying. dont come to this thread.

tell the truth. you want the game to stay broken. you want the game to die as long as u stay uber. i understand, its ok. its ok. i am here for u.

[spookiepants]

Item decay would accomplish the same thing.

Let every item have a lifespan, where the benefits degrade over time.
The player would need to keep the item maintained by pumping creds into 'repair' costs. (credit sink).

..might get creative where weapons/armor decay faster if they are heavily used.

[Mereditche]

some liars are saying a new player losing 10% of 100k after one month is devastating. this is hilarious desperate attempt. losing 10k in one month is too much?

I think there's even a better argument. Since newbies will be spending there money immediately, they wont be paying taxes at all (10% of zero = zero), while the rich people who have to much to ever spend, loose it.

I do like the idea, and I think a money drain is in some amount needed, I see one big issue:
- Credits will devaluate by alot once you implement such a tax system. Everyone will try to get rid of it's credits since they lose value over time. No matter the %-tage, if you get taxed 10% a month fi, your money will be reduced by a lot in a few months.

So what will happen once you announce such a change? People know that with billions of credits they get poorer by the minute. Giving a long enough period, credits disappear. So they'll try to get rid of their credits for valuable items, causing a mass inflation of prices. Everyone will be buying ai armor, dchests, rbp's to get rid of credits they can't maintain. Worse, noone will want to sell items of value since they don't want those ever devaluating credits.

Instead, people will start trading item against item, removing the money from the equation. The question remains if this is a good thing. Newbies, will even have a smaller chance to aquire valuable items, since noone will want to trade anything they can aquire for said valuable items. While with some work they could farm the needed amount of credits.

Then after a year or so when most of the money is drained, cities will become impossible or very hard to maintian, making viralbots almost impossible to aquire as farming the needed money to pay monthly subscriptions can only be done by people with big enough orgs.

Other options:

- A better system imo is to do this unanounced. Just remove 95% of the credits of peoples accounts in one go. Then promise you'll never do this again. But this will upset a lot of people and you'll see lots of people leave. However, this would effectively close the gap between rich and poor. People will still be 100 times richer, but the absolute difference will be a lot smaller, and farming shop food and mission rewards, will net a way bigger 'reward' as overall price level will drop by a lot.

[thecheeseman]

removing 95% is too extreme. in the tax system you lose credits very slowly. even people with credits in the hundreds of millions range will barely feel a dent, since those players play daily.
the tax system will only hit hard on people with multiple billions or hundreds of billions. aka ebayers/cred sellers/people who took advantage of game mechanics

we are talking about the game ecnomy taking many months and even up to a year here. it will be very subtle. the exploited credits will disappear so slowly people wont notice.

if people hoard items ,the first few months will have almost no difference, they will be itching to sell them off again.if you trade item for item, you will be trading an item of euqally perceived value,which is better than buying with billions. if they hoard those items and dont want to sell it thats fine by me, it wont effect the game economy.
no monopoly tycoon minigame = no drive to control market --> no longer camping items
hoarding items isnt as attracting as hoarding credits. it has no epeen value. it just rots in your bank .you cant use it to control other players.

Item decay would accomplish the same thing.

Let every item have a lifespan, where the benefits degrade over time.
The player would need to keep the item maintained by pumping creds into 'repair' costs. (credit sink).

..might get creative where weapons/armor decay faster if they are heavily used.

credit sinks by items/services dont work. they hit hard on poor and medium wealth players who might need those things. for the top dogs with billions and billions, credit sinks never affect them.

thats why some sort of tax system is needed. it affects mostly the extremely rich

the tax system brings the rich /poor gap much closer. the average player will be only be able to maintain a few hundred million rather than billions.
credit sellers will be destroyed also.

most importantly this will make new players be able to play the game and compete fairly. this makes funcom more money.
new subscribers pay the same amount of fee as veteran players. a single multi billion hoarder pays the same fees as a new player. gaining more players than losing = profit, especially when the remaining player base is becoming unstable. they are bored and may quit at any moment.