Thanks For runing the economy

[______________Lictor]

Originally posted by ZenBeck
yup...at lvl 41 I had all mis matched gear and looked like a walking rainbow. If I had 50 - 80k I was doing damn good on missions and was probly in need of some upgrades.

At low lvl's I got good deals on theshoping chl. but the last few weeks to a month, nothing I can afford.

Well, at level 40, my Fixer had fully matched cyber armor (Bau and some Waitt pieces). At 30, my Trader has mostly matched armor too (Senpai helmet and Kevlar for the rest, just cause they look sexy ;-P). I never transfered money from my chars. My Fixer got a nice cash input from the far away mission bug. My Trader just saved money, sold loot to people (for a reasonnable price, auctionning has always given me headaches)... I didn't keep track, but I think my Fixer went through around 500k (well, finding in a chest the Kodaik I had planned to buy helped some ;-P), my Trader through something like 300-400k. I did nothing special, except all my levels are only from doing missions... I'm rather maniac, so I don't run mission and clean them thoroughly.

[Paffy]

You have to forgive me since I dont come from other MMORPGS but from the world of MUD's where moving money between characters is bannable offense.

Sure some still did it and used 1-5 friends to mule it through many chars but well, MUD's have way better logs and if your njoob suddenly had tons of money, inquiries were made to those logs and if the ArchWiz decided he smelled something fishy he propably just banned your ass and waved goodbyes...

Ofcourse people are not paying to play MUD so ArchWizards can pretty much do as they wish even if it meant banning you for their amusement

Also, I wouldnt like to go through the drudgery of low lvl gaming without money. No. But it WOULD make more balanced economy. Problem is that there are guilds, friends, etc. who might very well have legitimate reasons just "give" you equipment worth 30M on open market (without you even never transfering anything in return) etc.

What my point was, that it DOES make screwed economy when your njoob (or mine for that matter) is running around with enough cash to buy anything he can use and it raises prices. Good example:

You are a njoob and ask for high lvl buff because you know or have heard that with this and that you can do this and that. You go to trader and ask for wrangle and he says "It will be 200k thank you" and you go like 200k!?!? From casting one nano formula? In my entire gaming I havent had that much money and trader goes "Oh really? Dont tell me you arent secondary of some high lvl player and that you cant afford it, oh, you arent and cant? Well too bad, neeext customer!"

[and yeah, it is free market so ofcourse traders can ask whatever they wish for their services]

I would love though, that your highest lvl char could have option that if you wanted, you could put it on and others could see that this is your highest lvl char. That way that trader could have asked "ok, if you are indeed real njoob and seriously dont have enough to pay, I might pity you. Show <optional gizmo> which proves that this is your highest lvl character and I'll do it for free".

I like to help real njoobs but I would prefer to be paid decent from the secondaries from my time...

Hmm bit confusing post mebbe, oh well...

Zarch and bunch of other chars

[Nikki.]

Dont call me stupid and try some half-arsed attempt to flame me.

If you cant see the writing on the wall then you are the one thats stupid not me.

Just because money is easy to get (which I think should also be fixed) does not mean items should be just given away. Eventually the money will spread back around to everyone. Even if there really was mass duping as people claim.

I mean really Funcom can easily se how much each character has at anytime and can printout the top money holders. If they thought something was really wrong I would hoep the people would be banned by now. If though you want to be completely safe about things though lets assume Funcom is letting dupers get away with billions of creds like people suggest. You do not solve that problem by completely ruining both sides of an economy you wait for the economy to even out on the unbalanced side.

People were not hurt as much as they thought by duping if it existed because they could always spend a day looking for the item they needed through mission booths. Or spend that day earning the cash to get the item they wanted. As it stands its too easy to get items wayyyyyy to easy now. But of course you may think its fair that level 70s characters are now walking around with full sets of level 200 implants plus many more up to level 200. Or that I can run for 3 hours yesterday and pull 18 items of Q200 so easy. Whats worse is they happened to be mostly items people used to struggle for. Now though everyone can have their riders, hammers, support beams with ease. Heck its not even funny how easy it is.

[______________Xombie]

Just because money is easy to get (which I think should also be fixed) does not mean items should be just given away.

Well if it's not your item, then certainly it isn't your business as to what someone does with it.

Eventually the money will spread back around to everyone. Even if there really was mass duping as people claim.

Actually, the mass duping has been all but blatently obvious, since several patches have had in thier notes "fixed a duping bug".

they happened to be mostly items people used to struggle for

In which was the problem. Casual players were unable to compete in the game, because they did not have the time to strive for a decent weapon. A decent weapon being one that is about ten levels above them. This is what the missions can now give out.

[Nikki.]

Im not playing your stupid game Xombie. Twist my words and take your own very distorted views on what was said. Heck you sound like a christian with the way you can twist words so you can argue you are right.

You really cant DUPE money. If you could do anything with money it would be with buying and selling to machines or ingame features that messed with money.

Items where hard to get but anyone could get them you just had to either do the mission yourself or pay for it. Either way it was possible with some work. Of course it isnt easier for me to get the items I need but you dont see me complaining. Eventually I will get those damn instruction disks.

[______________Hodaka]

Heck, it costs just a few thousand to camp for a mission that gets one and run it.. My friend and I both got missions and came back with one QL28 and QL30 for ourselves.. 600k? That's just nuts..

Originally posted by IronIce
Regulate the economy? Kind of hard when you can just hit the delete button. I do agree something has to be dome to regulate the ammount people are selling equipment for. At lease regulate the ammount that is available.

Saw a guy selling a Senpei coat around QL 30 only added 130-150 to AC but sold it for 600K.... The coat is not worth that much! YOu can get QL 50ish tank armor for less than that

[________________Ming]

Why do you care if good gear is easy to get? Seriously, what's the downside? So a level 1 character has a bank full of QL 200 gear, who cares. It's not like they can use it.

Or are you worried that you had to "work" for your status and the casual gamers are being handed these things? I say WHO CARES!! HAHAHA!! MUAHAHAHHAA! *drool*


Summon that CHAOS, baby!

[Nikki.]

Ming

Your right I shouldnt care. Ill just sit right back and let the game destroy itself.

[_________Sabrinalynn]

It seems that overequipping is ridiculous. My friend, a 65 agent, teamed with a 68 agent the other day in NW Lush. She notices him doing incredibly higher damage than she is, with only 3 levels difference between them. She asks what weapon he's using, and he says a QL200 rifle, multiple buffs and wrangles, and QL110 implants. Now that's crazy...Level 68 with a lev 200 weapon. If that's not totally out of balance, I don't know what is. It seems to me that you should be around level 150-160 before those QL200's get useable. I don't know if this guy was feeding my friend a line or not. People I hunt with are using weapons that are 80-100 QLs above their level, so it seems reasonable that someone with the right financial freedom and the right friends to help could pull that off. Sure makes my QL86 Vektor that I can barely equip seem kinda feeble in comparison though.

Sabrinalynn, Level 83 Doctor
Omni-Med Field Operations, Combat Support Division

"Happiness is an enforcer that knows how to handle his Aggression Enhancers..."

[______________Xombie]

Im not playing your stupid game Xombie. Twist my words and take your own very distorted views on what was said. Heck you sound like a christian with the way you can twist words so you can argue you are right.

I assure you that my post was NOT meant with the intention of malice or slander. Please tell me where I was incorrect.

[Nikki.]

No xombie

You guys obviously cant see what Im saying so I will just sit back and let it happen. You will soon enough see the problems that it will create and then blame funcom for doing it. When you was warned of the consequences of this imbalance.

[______________Xombie]

I get stuff without having to pay for it. I don't have a problem with that.
And I don't much care about the prices i get for things, since I just give them to guild members after i'm done with them. And If i'm getting new stuff, and sending the old stuff down the line, then it's not really my problem as to what happens on the trade channel.
I happen to be sick of the overpricing that people are doing, and I'd THANK funcom for stopping it.

[__________starknaked]

I also don't see the problem.

It seems to me that the actual problem with the economy is that there is too much cash floating around. This leads to ridiculous overpricing of high level items.

Adding more high level items will actually make these prices come down, so I don't see why it's a problem.

There is too much cash in the game because, at high levels, players have no way of getting rid of any money. They can't buy anything they need in stores, so they just keep trading their money back and forth between each other. But because they keep getting more and more money from doing missions, the amount of wealth is going up and up endlessly.

[______________Scorus]

There is also too much cash because of massive exploiting.

Scorus

[______________Lictor]

Originally posted by Zarch
You have to forgive me since I dont come from other MMORPGS but from the world of MUD's where moving money between characters is bannable offense.

Sure some still did it and used 1-5 friends to mule it through many chars but well, MUD's have way better logs and if your njoob suddenly had tons of money, inquiries were made to those logs and if the ArchWiz decided he smelled something fishy he propably just banned your ass and waved goodbyes...

Actually, it happens in *paying* MUDs too... Yes, there are some And actually more expensive than AO... And they *do* have some people playing (like around 1000 simultaneous logging at peek time)...
Not because it unbalances the economy (economy traditionnally unbalances itself because high level tends to naturally have a bunch of money in about any game), but because it's an OCC (out of character) advantage... Just like having your high level char kill the people who attacked your newbie... Bannable offense...

[i]
Also, I wouldnt like to go through the drudgery of low lvl gaming without money. No. But it WOULD make more balanced economy. Problem is that there are guilds, friends, etc. who might very well have legitimate reasons just "give" you equipment worth 30M on open market (without you even never transfering anything in return) etc.
[/B]

Well, it's really not that bad in AO... I have traditionnally always been dirt poor in MMORPG. Just the way I manage my money I guess ;-P
Missions do that, when in most other games, all the cash comes from hunting and selling loot. The only time I'm broke in AO is when I meet people begging for money Just hate that... I mean, if you need 2k extra in AO, just run a mission... Even if you gear is real crap, you should manage a 30% mission easily... Begging just means you're too lazy to move your butt to the mission terminal...

[i]
What my point was, that it DOES make screwed economy when your njoob (or mine for that matter) is running around with enough cash to buy anything he can use and it raises prices. Good example:

You are a njoob and ask for high lvl buff because you know or have heard that with this and that you can do this and that. You go to trader and ask for wrangle and he says "It will be 200k thank you" and you go like 200k!?!? From casting one nano formula? In my entire gaming I havent had that much money and trader goes "Oh really? Dont tell me you arent secondary of some high lvl player and that you cant afford it, oh, you arent and cant? Well too bad, neeext customer!"
[/B]

Well, coming from a MUB background, the whole concept of making people pay for spells (sorry, programs) seems pretty weird to me... Spells have always been freebies for me, with eventual donations (like wands, because spellcasters are traditionnaly struggling for them)... Only thing ever preventing me from casting spells on newbies were if they are too powerful and would compromise game balance. But well, it's different in AO, and I do make people pay for some nano casts (though usually not for trivial stuff like run buffs on mission spots).
Now, what kind of wrangle did you get ask for 200k??? I mean, a +22 wrangle usually goes for 8k or so. *Anyone* can afford that, it's a single, or at most a couple of, missions. Only kind of wrangle I would dream of asking that much for, would be when I hit around level 200 and can cast max wrangle nano :P I don't see what business a newbie has to ask for such a high wrangle unless he's trying to massively over-equip with exploiting to get a massive amount of NCU. So, if he's unable to get it, all the better...
And no, I have never transfered money between my two chars, because getting money in AO is easy enough to make the hassle of finding someone reliable to handle the money transfer seem like a waste of time.
You don't need maxed AC anyway, unless you PvP. With gear a few QL above my level, I'm already being hit for min damage anyway. A cloak would only give me an advantage in PvP. You only need that extra AC at higher levels, and then you can start making decent money. Besides, you have to get external help to wear them, and that means it becomes a hassle to wear these cool clothes...
Same with weapons, 20 QL above my level (self equipped, I don't like to have my weapon stuck in my hand) is enough at level 40-50. I have QL50 implants, and they're sufficient. Maybe a couple of QL70 for these blue nano skills soon, but that's all... Anyway, I wouldn't be able to wear QL90 implants without running around for buffs, and that's too impractical (can't implant swap). Lately, most of my money has been spent at Miir :P

[_______________Rypht]

this is something the player economy needs, it needs to be massively kicked in the side and get reality back in view. Its my belief, and hey its probably wrong, that the prices for the player economy should be somewhere between above what you could get by selling the item to the machine but less than what the vending machines charge for such items. Granted there are items out there not in vending machines and yes the laws of supply and demand should play a part in some greater sense bringing more money to the seller, but when you have people selling items for many many times more than what similar level items are worth and not that much better in effectiveness besides being harder to find, then there is a problem. The sellers are greedy because they've been able to get away with bleeding people dry for items that aren't worth the prices paid, with items being more appropriate for the level of the mission they are increasing the potential supply and thereby lowering demand and returning sanity to something that is clearly in need of a cyanide capsule.

[Myga]

The amount of cash you earn in this game by doing missions rise almost exponentially. When you do ql 200 missions or kill lvl 200 monsters you generate alot more cash than a lvl 10 does doing the same. That seems to me to be ultimately be the real problem here. When a lvl 140 player starts his twink he can go buy a Yalmaha and senpai coats etc for his lvl 20 and he can pay millions for it easy. For Bob who has just reached lvl 20 on his first char, 1 million is a huge amount of money and its more or less impossible to get at that lvl when you start from scratch. In fact it took me 1 week of mission running to get my first Yalmaha at lvl 50 - 60 or thereabout.

I guess thats partially why I'm flooded with beggars today, lvl 5 ppl asking for 10 - 100k. Ultimately it will be the high lvl players who somewhat dictate the economy on the lower lvls. When you can run ql 200 missions you can run battlesuits which sell for 1.2mill each. Doesnt take long to make 10mill then. Transfer those 10mill to your lvl 20 twink and you suddenly very rich. However when 100other ppl done the same your not so rich anymore. But the real poor ppl are those who play their first char, who now has no chance in hell to afford to buy items in their QL range unless from shops.

On the other side of the story, equipping your char in the best items you can get shouldnt be easy to do in 1day either. However the problem before was that chestloot was basically worthless, many didnt even bother open them. There has to be a chance to get great items from chests. They can possibly be made more rare, but I think chest should have a chance to contain good items of higher QL than your lvl. Its about striking a balance.

[Ashuras]

Ruin wat economy ?

U mean ruin the chance of high level extorting ridiculous sum of credits for items ?

I'm really glad for this change.

For once I don't have to wear armor with QL less than my level.

For once I get loot that I won't sell to shop or give to some newbies.

For once I don't have to send a /tell to a seller in the shopping channel, only get a reply asking for wat's my bid. (it's a sign that I should not bother .. I won't be able to afford it).

This is a GOOD change. A change much needed for the casual non-exploting players to have a chance to get things for themselves.. without having to do thousands of meaningless money runs just to buy something for which they will outgrow in a very short time.

[_______________Lozer]

Econimey Lesson I: if Buyer A buy's X itom for 200k. X itom is now worth 200k the Seller now knows that X itom is worth 200k and people will pay it.. everyone that saw X itom sold now will have to pay 200k.

Buyer B also Wants a X itom too. Buyer B is will to pay 300k for it. Someone Sells Buyer B a X itom for 300k. now the price of X itom is 300k. buyer B will never sell the X itom he Bough for less that 300k.

Buyer C,D,and E all Want The Same X itom, Buyer C has Tons of extra cash from being twinked. so dose Buyer E. Buyer D drops out of the bidding becase he is poor... Buyer C and Buyer E Have a Bidding War to get the X itom. it finaly Goes to Buyer C for 1 mill. buyer D and Buyer E now will have to pay 1 mill if they also want X itom.



rarity of itom*desiribility of itom= price.

the rare the itom the higher the price
more desirable the itom the higher the price.
multiple them together and your price goes up like crazy!



anyone else see a pattern here?
the more your willing to pay the higher the price goes... welcome to a free market based echonimey. how do you ballance it out? you can't.

my suggestion is add vendor masheines where palyers can leave itoms at..... they set the price on the itom and they leave it for a certin amont of time till it is sold. the more of the same itom there the better the compitition= better price


realy think aobut it.... a in RL a ps2 is 299.95. why is it 299.95 ? because people will pay that.... how much dose it cost to produce a ps2 and ship it to you? probably around $100 dollars... but people are willing to pay 299.95 for it.

[Isimazku]

Reason for so much money in game is that shops are the only way for it to get out of the system.
Higher level peeps dont buy anything but nanopacks/ammo from shops. And they get way more for just looting the exp mobs.
Situation gets worse and worse all the time.

So we have inflation. How to deal with it?

In muds one way was making armors/weapons take damage in use so u had to repair them regulary and it was pretty costly.
(and pretty annoying for players aswell)

This was just one example. Anyways there should be more mandatory gamerun services that take money away from the economy.

The problem with peeps getting stuph way above their level from missions is another thing and I cant come up with a good fix for it right away.