Volume I: Markets & Prices

[Aionlasting]

Power capping... sounds horrible.

The solution to this problem is so simple.

You streamline the crafting materials such that rather than adding an ever upward vertical tiering of resources we implement a horizontal tiering of resources.

What this means is that instead of going from shoddy skin --> rough skin --> nice skin --> quality skin --> amazing skin etc.. into perpetuity thereby rendering all lower tiers obsolete to higher level players, we add a horizontal level of complexity. So... in this system, Nice skin isn't higher tier of 'rough skin' (rename it, say to 'Soft fur') but rather 'nice skin' and 'soft fur' (formerly rough skin) simply drop from different (not higher level) monster types across all levels. So say a tiger drops 'nice skin' and a deer drops 'soft fur.'

Now a level 70 player kills a level 70 deer, he gets 'x' amount of 'soft fur.' A level 10 player kills a level 10 deer he too gets 'soft fur.' Apply this concept across any crafting resource that is gathered. What this does is it allows the level 10 player to participate in the same economy as the level 70 player and acquire resources that equally valuable to both players. The difference is the level 70 player needs MORE 'soft fur' (Assuming his crafting is equivable to his level) than the level 10 player but both have equal need and therefor are willing to participate in the same shared economy where resources don't ever become obsolete simply because a player has gained in levels. Hell the level 10 player could make a killing off saving his 'soft fur' and selling it to that level 70 player even if he farms less of it per hour because he's lower level. Atleast he has things the level 70 player wants! This makes a very booming economy!

One can add as much complexity to this system without trivializing other resources because there is no upward tiering of resources as in the current system.

For example, let's say I want a level 70 player to have to use more resources to craft his armor. I can do this in two ways. 1, I can make the amount of 'soft fur' he needs be more than the level 10 player, and 2. I can make the level 70 player require additional ingredients, let's say, 'Fluffy wool' and 'Thick hide.'

The huge benefit to this system though is that since 'fluffy wool (Sheep)' and 'thick hide (Rhino)' both drop off monster types rather than based off upward monster levels, both the level 10 player and level 70 player can fight and skin their appropriate leveled sheep and rhino to acquire resources that are equally valuable to both of them. No more out leveling 'older' content.

For this system to work though, one must implement a way that prevents the level 70 player from farming the level 10 deer (or sheep or rhino) because he can kill more of them and faster. To do this, all one must do is implement a system where if the player out levels the monster by 'x' amount of levels, the deer (sheep or rhino) cannot be skinned (or butchered) by that higher level player, i.e. he 'mutilates' the corpse. This forces the level 70 player to hunt monsters of appropriate level.

You can apply this to anything. Blacksmithing? Think about all those simple, basic, good, etc... quality bars that become useless and outdated as a player progresses upwards in the crafting tree. That can be fixed too in much the same way I explained above.

I really think this is the best solution because it keeps all resources relevant regardless of player level and progression and allows players of all levels to participate in the same shared economy with resources that all players , high and low, find shared value in.

I realize not everyone will agree but I thought it was worth re-iterating again because I've seen some strange solutions to the problem that plagues most MMO's and I can't help but find the solution to be so simple.

[Arundel]

Power capping... sounds horrible.

The solution to this problem is so simple.

You streamline the crafting materials such that rather than adding an ever upward vertical tiering of resources we implement a horizontal tiering of resources.

What this means is that instead of going from shoddy skin --> rough skin --> nice skin --> quality skin --> amazing skin etc.. into perpetuity thereby rendering all lower tiers obsolete to higher level players, we add a horizontal level of complexity. So... in this system, Nice skin isn't higher tier of 'rough skin' (rename it, say to 'Soft fur') but rather 'nice skin' and 'soft fur' (formerly rough skin) simply drop from different (not higher level) monster types across all levels. So say a tiger drops 'nice skin' and a deer drops 'soft fur.'

Now a level 70 player kills a level 70 deer, he gets 'x' amount of 'soft fur.' A level 10 player kills a level 10 deer he too gets 'soft fur.' Apply this concept across any crafting resource that is gathered. What this does is it allows the level 10 player to participate in the same economy as the level 70 player and acquire resources that equally valuable to both players. The difference is the level 70 player needs MORE 'soft fur' (Assuming his crafting is equivable to his level) than the level 10 player but both have equal need and therefor are willing to participate in the same shared economy where resources don't ever become obsolete simply because a player has gained in levels. Hell the level 10 player could make a killing off saving his 'soft fur' and selling it to that level 70 player even if he farms less of it per hour because he's lower level. Atleast he has things the level 70 player wants! This makes a very booming economy!

One can add as much complexity to this system without trivializing other resources because there is no upward tiering of resources as in the current system.

For example, let's say I want a level 70 player to have to use more resources to craft his armor. I can do this in two ways. 1, I can make the amount of 'soft fur' he needs be more than the level 10 player, and 2. I can make the level 70 player require additional ingredients, let's say, 'Fluffy wool' and 'Thick hide.'

The huge benefit to this system though is that since 'fluffy wool (Sheep)' and 'thick hide (Rhino)' both drop off monster types rather than based off upward monster levels, both the level 10 player and level 70 player can fight and skin their appropriate leveled sheep and rhino to acquire resources that are equally valuable to both of them. No more out leveling 'older' content.

For this system to work though, one must implement a way that prevents the level 70 player from farming the level 10 deer (or sheep or rhino) because he can kill more of them and faster. To do this, all one must do is implement a system where if the player out levels the monster by 'x' amount of levels, the deer (sheep or rhino) cannot be skinned (or butchered) by that higher level player, i.e. he 'mutilates' the corpse. This forces the level 70 player to hunt monsters of appropriate level.

You can apply this to anything. Blacksmithing? Think about all those simple, basic, good, etc... quality bars that become useless and outdated as a player progresses upwards in the crafting tree. That can be fixed too in much the same way I explained above.

I really think this is the best solution because it keeps all resources relevant regardless of player level and progression and allows players of all levels to participate in the same shared economy with resources that all players , high and low, find shared value in.

I realize not everyone will agree but I thought it was worth re-iterating again because I've seen some strange solutions to the problem that plagues most MMO's and I can't help but find the solution to be so simple.

I'm actually not totally opposed to that concept. As long as skills and levels had an impact. Say a level 70 with 10 skill in skinning or whatever wouldn't get more than say a level 10 with a skill of 50. Some math would have to be done there to not just reward level but skill in the profession. I always like items being randomized with small concentrations of drops being notable on different animal types. And again spreading out the number of areas where you can aoe would be excellent. The concept of aoe pulls will always exist to an extent - it's simply a player grinding as fast as possible. But the idea you have of spreading all the same items (in general) around zones when it comes to items gathered from harvesting them: that part I do like. It would take some careful consideration. I have always loved how in this game I am constantly visiting various zones for my crafting needs - eventually though I started limiting the areas I went to heavily because I could overpay for certain goods and it worked out to be more profitable due to player time = money.

I'd have to think on it more but I generally like this game's approach so far and I think a few small changes could be tried first before radical overhauls of loot/craft systems. I do enjoy though in games where I can gather "end game" or highly needed items early on but can get more later for whatever reason. Stomachs are a good example, finding one when I was low level felt great. I always had my craft skills far above my combat skills since I prefer to max all those (currently have them all maxed now but only a few combat skills maxed) - whereas when I got higher level I hardly cared that much how much stomach I looted I just counted at the end of a grind session. Overall a good idea though and a strong possibility for a way to change this.

I still stand by just adding lots of good AoE spots with smaller clusters (panthers is way overkill) - and also adding more monsters to fight as a group or strong solo/duo that give exceptional loot (beyond those in dungeons). Variety could lead to more diversity in places to earn money and obviously an AoE character wouldn't fare the best against say one hard to kill elite to or special enemy that yields great loot. If a player with higher single target damage or better survivability could fight single enemies in certain areas and earn enough to equal panthers it'd be great. I do have a spot in mind that already exists that is (for me at least) more money per hour than panthers and is never camped. Also crafting obliterates panthers on every possible level in money per hour if you have a lot of skills maxed, have buyers/sellers set up for things to expedite the process, are willing to overpay to monopolize a market, and keep in mind a few concepts: time spent = overall profit since most actions in the game in some way result in money but the time to do so is the important part.

Another important concept is how much of an item you can sell. I can make as much as panthers without killing a mob and in literally 1/20th the time and not nearly the burnout. There are things players haven't found and I am quite certain some veterans have means to earn more per hour than I am aware of. That is what is fun about this game, it's complexity and infancy yield a tremendous amount of options and it takes a very dedicated player to learn new ways to earn money that are unknown to others - yet it is still possible. This is due to the game NOT being simple. In world of warcraft or almost any other MMO (even more sandbox types) people quickly can determine all the best ways to make money. The original poster claims to have done this - and I'm not faulting him for it as it is generally accepted that panthers are the best per hour - but there are other ways. So part of what needs to happen is players having more tenacity in finding odd ways of making money that may not be apparent, finding new grinding spots, making particular niche builds for said activities, and not giving up just cause one simple method of making large amounts is found. The other necessary change is for the developers to continue to diversify where we can get loot because currently many of the zones are just barren. After all it is a beta though - so I'm expecting large changes in the next year.

Finally, as I repeated before - allowing players to sell items in a slightly less obnoxious way would encourage sales and make buyers happier to not have to run around for hours clicking merchants. I'm not suggesting an auction house - but lets look at what the /isearch feature did. I don't know of anyone who hates it - and most are extremely relieved to have it. For myself if I take a break I might forget where I placed an item in my 500 banks the game forces us to use - isearch solved this problem. The same can be said for 300 merchant shops - it is a nearly identical parallel where time spent on an activity directly influences profit (as a multiplier effect). When a player can search them for certain items they are likely to still visit numerous shops per day and see good deals but won't need to do exactly what we had to do with the old banking system which is "search tediously" to make the game "harder".

[Oqua]

Stomach's are a great example where all players can participate in the market, both the low level player finding a jewel but also allowing for the high level player to mass farm by running the numbers.

however if you limit the availability of a skill be it skinning or butchering to a level range then what is my incentive to learn combat skills?

From the perspective of a crafting over combat player PG already has a lot of crafting items where the best method of obtainment is not crafting/gathering/gardening but combat. I dare you to spend an hour attempting to forage for Violet/Dahlia seeds in elt and then compare it to mass killing targets and looting seeds for an hour....

A similar situation occurs with wood, where the chickens in Kur Tower often drop 10 pieces at a time, and given the combat speed foraging for wood simply cant compete.

Further if you limit the ability of combat players to "acquire" resources from kills then from that crafting/gathering perspective what is the incentive to level combat?

Its a difficult situation for sure, there is a massive imbalance between what you can accomplish with combat skills vs non combat skills when applied correctly, and I do not believe that simply applying a negative is the answer. I generally prefer to raise the lower then lower the higher in these types of situations. I can imagine a number of players feeling quite defeated when their combat skill goal got changed and that is quite the blow.

I personally know of several players who worked towards panthers as the goal of their combat skill training and when it was changed they lost a lot of interest in combat skills as a whole. With players able to secretly print money, and a player base that quite honestly is diverse in its ability to discover these methods for themselves the panther change was devastating to say the least.

I do not know what the solution is, there has to be a balance between high lv combat and low lv combat so as not to invalidate either, there also needs to be a balance between what you can do with combat skills and what you can do with non combat skills. As a crafting focused player I do not want to see combat "nerfed" and I think a lot of the ideas kicked around in this thread will do that, although I don't have any substantial solutions to offer myself. I do hope that the chances suggested are looked at from both your perspective, a non-applicable players perspective, and both a veteran player as well as a newer player because often the unforeseen changes can completely defeat a players will to play.

[Arundel]

In direct reply to Oqua: my suggestion for how combat skill level or trade skill level would affect number of an item that is acquired from gathering was a scaling tool and I'd have no idea what scale that should be but just to be fair to both focuses (though I think most people do some measure of both and quickly max both if they spend any time on it). One of my core suggestions has been to diversify means of acquiring items through means of getting them and limiting it completely hurts that. Not sure if that is what you meant in your reply.

Yes, I think boiling the problems with the market down to just one thing isn't going to work. As you described with combat vs trade for means of acquiring items. I think having a diverse way of getting most items is good and can shift things away from too much repetition. Some players just really like being self-sufficient. There are a lot of items that the community is just not producing enough of for professions that are very hungry for hundreds of the same items on a regular basis - but there aren't a lot of ways to acquire them reliably (can name countless examples).

I have simplified my initial suggested changes to first making it easier to search player vendors because I love going to the vendors but would prefer to search by an item I want and find sensible vendors from there. I apologize if I repeat some of the information in my post but I am returning after basically a 6 month break and am recalling gameplay - while also interacting with forum posters - so my thoughts are evolving. I think the concept of rapidly searching vendors while also being careful in establishing multiple ways to acquire most trade skill items - will result in better overall shopping. Personally, I'd have a shopping list of 50 or more items and would end up browsing a lot of merchants wares but it would weed out the huge number with 1-5 items posted or grossly overpriced goods. I do believe even if it is not done now it will be essential after launch if we started having 1000 or 2000 online at once. I also think a lot of lower end machines like mine (which was really high end 3-4 years ago) just won't be able to run the main town then, not sure on the solution there other than what they are kind of doing with rahu maybe (the two work order boards).

The other suggestion I had is more spots to grind and it fits well with Oqua's post - a great counter to the panther dilemma is a lack of great areas to grind difficult enemies or small packs for good profit. Overall we just need more spots. Beyond more geographical locations or mob loot - establishing a variety of ways to acquire at least most items would reduce the feeling of forced gameplay when wanting certain items that the community is not selling or that are "camped" by certain players (this is already an issue with 200 players online, imagine how bad that will be with 2000 and search or no search feature these players will have alternate accounts just for searching the merchants constantly).

Now there will always be niche groups that want things like intentionally making it hard to find items via no means to search, low drop rate, and tedious item management. Their arguments are valid as I had some fun with games like that in the 90's and 2001-2010 era of online and offline games - however I have to say after gaming this long there are just some activities like searching all the merchants which grow to be too much the more vendors there are. I like several other arguments towards modifying the current market and gameplay quite a bit more - most of them don't seem to be that different from mine at their core.

I also like that Oqua pointed out massive imbalances between combat vs non combat though I'm not sure which he is referring to being dominant. At first I believed panthers were best. Then I found another two grind spots with better overall profit rates and almost no "merchant" issues with quick weekly caps being reached. After that I began to find it more fun to make money with crafts (and in some cases more profitable but these are limited) with brief grinding (or leveling of new combat skills) when I accomplish all my crafting for the day or am sick of it.

Money making with crafts mainly consists of spamming low level "prerequisite items" until you literally die of carpel tunnel (I refuse to give in to the auto repeat button!! evil!!) and make an item or items from that. I'd like to see different crafting options like forging a sword or armor over the course of a day or week with quality improving the longer I put into it. Not sure how to do this exactly.

I'd love to see more variations of growing items. For example, I'm sure there is a thread on it, but can we change gardening to have options to allow growing over hours or days but with more yield. Like mushroom farming and maybe limited in quantity like it - but without the horrid repetition of gardening. Again, with gardening (like panthers) I loved it for about 2 weeks and mostly did that because all my guildmates wanted the things I grew and I was gaining experience. Once I maxed it and found more viable ways of making money I hit burnout and quickly shifted to hating the activity and preferring to overpay for foods or farm crops and do other activities. Giving an option to grow them myself at maybe a less profitable way on a farm plot would be great. This would resolve a lot of the problems I hear consistent complaints about with flowers and food items availability.

None of those would be things I'd quit if they weren't changed. I just liked Oqua's suggestion that finding balance and diversifying means of getting items is a key element. Extremes in arguments generally run the risk of alienating as many players as they aid or in breaking the economy. I like the idea of changing the method that we search for items to allow more rapid buying/selling and then see how the economy plays out. I have a gut feeling that if it's implemented properly some of the complaints with panthers being so superior would become less common and the focus might even be on crafting being too good.

There are tons of options posted in this thread and I'm trying to get mine to mesh with them as I haven't played as long (1 year now, only played half of that) and am having to relearn a lot of things as I have been on a break. However, I have all trade skills maxed (except brewing I think) and several combat skills maxed out. I have also done all zones except the entirety of Gazluk which I have only made a few attempts at. I'd also say my guildmates would describe me as knowledgeable and an extreme player who quickly finds solutions if there are any. I'd hope that can turn into useful feedback. By the end of the Beta I'm pretty confident I will know with certainty which crafts and zones yield the best money - but as with the original post there is always something else out there lurking.

I'd love to see the devs respond more in the thread even if it isn't a direct quote but just a general comment on the directions they want to go based on our feedback so we could reiterate our arguments for or against something with that in mind. Like if the devs said "we will never ever make it any easier to search merchants" and gave a reason then I'd obviously find other things for solutions because it would be a waste of time to do otherwise. OK wall of text finished. I always feel that if you have something to say you may as well do your best with it so I hope the devs are really willing to wade through at least a few of my lengthy posts.

[Oqua]

I also like that Oqua pointed out massive imbalances between combat vs non combat though I'm not sure which he is referring to being dominant.

This was done intentionally, my personal bias and beliefs of what is or should be is not relevant. Any massive imbalance between combat and non-combat is, at least in my view, bad for the overall health and creativity of a game.

[Aionlasting]

Oqua,

No one wants to limit the ability of gathering resources to KILLS. At least I don't. The discussion on kills was regarding resources that specifically are acquired from killing, i.e. butchering and skinning. I think you misunderstood me quite a bit.

For example, In regards to metal slabs and blacksmithing, those resources would still be tied to some form of mining/surveying. But rather than tiering vertically through simple, basic, good, complex, amazing etc etc...for surveying, in a never ending skyward fashion that makes lower tier slabs useless to higher players/crafters and leaves behind a vast number of items that can hardly participate in an economy, an economy where lower level crafters/players and higher level crafter/players are completely detached from one another, we remove all that tiering upwards and diversify horizontally. I.e. we create crystal slabs in place of simple, metal slabs in place of good, copper slabs in place of complex, gold slabs in place of amazing, silver slabs... etc.. etc....your imagination is the limit.

So now lower level surveyors and higher level surveyors both can find resources that never phase out of the economy because these resources are not restricted to the player's level. What the player's level affects is the AMOUNT or HOW QUIKCLY they can gather these shared resources. As an example, a higher level players can mine/survey in Gazluk and get 10x the crystal,copper,gold, etc... slabs that a player in serbule hills can (This is just an example). Logically as well if this player is crafting level 70 gear he will need that 10x more than the level 10 player so it makes sense too. What this new system allows is continuity and persistence of resources from lower level players to higher level players and allows the economy to be shared by all players. Content never becomes outdated or useless as the player levels up. Those low level crystal finds back in serbule are still relavent to that same player when He is in gazluk mining crystal, the only different is now he is getting way more of it!

Hopefully you get the idea and that cleared things up for you. If not, please let me know.
Switching gears...

YOU SAID: "however if you limit the availability of a skill be it skinning or butchering to a level range then what is my incentive to learn combat skills? "

I'm not saying we limit the availability of a skill to a level range. What 'mutilation' does is prevent a level 70 player from skinning level 10 deer when level 60-80 deer drop the same craft resource as the level 10 deer. It keeps the player in the appropriate level range (+ / - whatever the developers feel is appropriate) because the resources don't change in the system I propose as a player levels upwards. All that happens is resources are more diversified horizontally.

Playing the devils advocate, why should the incentive to level combat skills be tied to a specific craft? If a player doesn't want to level up combat skills, Is the crafting system really the right place to incentivize that? Shouldn't the combat system and combat skills be incentive enough for a player to level up those skills? Shouldn't game content outside of crafting be a driving factor in why players want to level up? There are many perks outside of crafting that are tied to higher level players. (Housing? Mounts? Maybe unique titles only higher players can get? Unique cosmetic rewards? Who knows, the possibilities are endless but they don't have to be tied to crafting persay).

Lastly, is it so bad if a player wants to focus on being purely a crafter and hunt level 10 deer all his life instead of pursuing the level 70? I mean its their loss too as they will miss out on so much content and theirare many other things that can be gated behind higher combat class levels and overall player levels that crafting does not need to be one of them. I mean theoretically I could level cheesemaking to 60 right now if I wanted too without ever leveling past 20 so long as I can get those stomachs and that milk and run around grabbing cotton in eltibule.

I mean let's say a player decides not to level up? Well guess what? He can't get his mount because mounts are end game content. So now he's running around much slower gathering mats than the end game character. The lower level combat player also doesn't have access to all those nice runspeed modifier abilities that higher level players have access too so he's also limited in his running capacity making his gathering of matts and overall crafting process much slower.

That would be a huge incentive alone to me to level up because as they say, 'time is money.' Runspeed alone will drive players to level up.

[Oqua]

Oqua,

I think you misunderstood me quite a bit.

Hopefully you get the idea and that cleared things up for you. If not, please let me know.
Switching gears...

Honestly I don’t recall talking to or about you or engaging with any of your ideas. I did not comment on your posts or @ you in any way.

Additional Post Script: Honestly once you started talking about a horizontal move with crafting materials I pretty much put the rest of your post on quick scan auto read and did not give it much though. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is a thread and people are free to comment in it to engage with people or make generalized comments or even attempt constructively to change the course of the conversation. Not every post has to be a direct comment on what you want it to be on or a direct reply to what you have posted.

I have nothing constructive to say about your ideas, any of them, so I kept my mouth shut. What I did have to say was a more broad and generalized idea about the differences between combat and non-combat.

[Aionlasting]

My apologies then. I assumed your post following Arundel was in response to he and I.

I don't disagree with anything you said. Hopefully my post contributed to your broader discussion of the differences between combat and non combat in the context of a solution to the current crafting and economy.

[Arundel]

My apologies then. I assumed your post following Arundel was in response to he and I.

I don't disagree with anything you said. Hopefully my post contributed to your broader discussion of the differences between combat and non combat in the context of a solution to the current crafting and economy.

The more I think on it I really like the idea of having much less of a lack of tiers overall (particularly vertical) and having more horizontal tiers. I think it matches with the games overall focus on allowing us (sometimes requiring) to use older items or low tier items(I still use items that dropped for me at level 10, at max level). I think there should be some exception to increasing the number we get (so it's not just a formula for everything where higher skill = x droprate or quantity) and some rarity drops which become much more probable at higher tiers. Just to keep some horizontal and vertical progression. That change plus a huge increase in grouped spawns and "elite" enemies with superior drops could lead to a huge diversity in gameplay styles.

[Oqua]

Adding a more lateral progression for crafting--that just sounds like $L@V@#* With extra steps rick.....


If you look at the game as if exists now, how is adding in more of an incentive for players to camp and overcrowd the already existing areas a good thing? I don't even do panthers and I thought my few necessary combat farm spots were out of the way and yet, as time progresses those areas are continually camped by high level players as well as lower end players. If you give High level players more of an incentive to go after idk spider legs you shift the game from I can just go get those myself to I cant compete with anything close to efficiency so I better get my money and just buy everything I need.