Volume I: Markets & Prices

[fellentier]

Link to Volume 1: Markets & Prices
Advanced isn't working for me atm, here is the direct hyperlink to the new adendum: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

Introduction

I would like to thank everyone that has taken the time to debate their opinion. All sides from all avenues of experience are both welcome, and appreciated. There has been a lot of constructive commentary along the way and I believe that we can further this discussion to create a very useful set of data to pull from. I have edited this first post to now represent a summary of the first six pages so that new readers can get a gist of the types of thoughts and ideas that are being thrown around. Many of the responses are very lengthy, so if you feel that I have misrepresented your post in the following TLDRs, please provide me with a chance so that I can better approach your thoughts.

Summary of Thoughts

ProfessorCat
"I wanted to start a discussion about the player market, and craft abilities. It's too easy to level craft gear, and that is why it just makes sense to take care of yourself for now. The same is true for most things in the game. The market is still growing into itself. A ton of players have checked out to say "yeah I'm not going to do cheese making because it's too intense to level" Is it any surprise there's a healthy market for stomachs? I'm sure the same will come true for other skills, as the cost becomes so high. --- I'm certain the intention will be along the lines of "oh look, I just spent 600 million on unlocking level 100. It will now be 2 months before I've earned enough experience to even be able to unlock level 110, and now I need a billion."


Aionlasting

• "I recall the solution to this panther paradox --- from another game --- If a player too high level killed lower mobs to butcher/skin them in Ac2, the corpse would be 'mutilated' and the higher level player could not gain any craft materials from it. This forced higher level players to fight monsters of equivocal difficulty in order to obtain their crafting materials. This removes the need to eliminate the profability of lower level gained materials while also constraining higher level players to appropriate content for the same materials --- In terms of a 'headhunting' system and 'lateral progression', I do agree there should be something of that nature."
  
• "You could make certain animals drop certain types of skin (instead of making higher level animals drop higher quality [tiered] skins) and simply require more skinning amounts for higher crafted tier gear. You could add complexity and variety by requiring various skins (i.e. panther, tiger, bear, etc... but NOT higher TIER because then we are back to our original problem) or simply introduce a whole new material like tallow, chitten, sinew, bone or w/e you want as long as you avoid making tiered versions that make previous version obsolete. The 'lateral progression' as opposed to 'vertical progression' of things as the author liked to say."
  

Oqua

• "I like the idea of diminishing returns with AoE, if you for lack of a better term "try and game the system" however I really do not like the potential blow back it could have on intended designs. "
  
• As a gardening/tailor I knew I was taking the low end of the making money strategy and I was ok with that. I told myself and others that it was removing as much RNG as possible, and removing the possibility that panthers would be camped etc.
• ---- "I regret my choice to some extent after having seen the numbers laid out in such a manner. When I consider all the work I put in to “make money?” and look at the panthers even a worst case situation, not to mention the fringe benefits of making money by combat, I cant help but feel mislead. A lot of MMO have a “crafting” aspect, its usually just there, part of my draw to PG was the idea that crafting has a purpose and point but more so could compete with the combat enthusiasts as it stands I do not see that. "

sudostahp

• I'm --- against any changes that restrict player freedoms. That includes restrictions on hunting areas and play styles --- I still feel that loot locking has done more damage to the community than it has benefited the community through balance. Project Gorgon is a sandbox in a sea of themepark MMOs, and the more that design aspect gets watered-down, the further it floats into a sea of mediocre competitors where it just gets lost. --- What we most desperately need isn't a nerf to AOEs --- we need more incentives to grind other areas that offer a similar level of reward. I fully support Ladriel's suggestion to increase loot drop value in later dungeons."
  
• "I don't know if vendor trash is the way to go, but I'm open to the idea."
• " --- Let's treat crafters as a business. In order for a business to be competitive, it needs to offer a product that's valuable, rare, inimitable, and the business needs to be organized to produce the product. Allowing crafters to specialize in items with different effects would shift crafting closer to the player market and away from needing to rely on work orders. I think that the "crafting wisdom" idea is a real gem, and I'd like to see it further explored."

​

Aionlasting
"You could make certain animals drop certain types of skin (instead of making higher level animals drop higher quality [tiered] skins) and simply require more skinning amounts for higher crafted tier gear. You could add complexity and variety by requiring various skins (i.e. panther, tiger, bear, etc... but NOT higher TIER because then we are back to our original problem) or simply introduce a whole new material like tallow, chitten, sinew, bone or w/e you want as long as you avoid making tiered versions that make previous version obsolete. The 'lateral progression' as opposed to 'vertical progression' of things as the author liked to say."

Mikhaila
"I'm going to disagree with your opinion that skinning is the problem, not panthers. You made a perfect build for doing panthers. Panthers have a high population, and a good spot to do AOE with room to run. You spend hours and hours doing it. Skinning isn't the problem. It's the combination of things resulting in a cash cow that many people build towards. You've found a way to maximize it and after months of doing it feel it's a problem. I agree, because if one way to make money is many times greater than anything else, it should be toned down. But do it with a scalpel, and not a large brush. You want to change an entire skill that is not OP for everyone else, just the people farming panthers with AOE builds."


Crissa

• "It wouldn't be so difficult to trigger dense spawns on player engagement, would it? So if there's one player engaging the panthers, they respawn slowly, two, a little quicker, and so on; increasing the density of mobs based upon players engaging with them? That would save server power (not tracking so many panthers while players are elsewhere) and helping bring up the engagement of the second or third player trying to play in the zone? --- The profitability of panthers is directly related to their density and spawn rate. If they're so notably different, that would be the simplest fix. It would also send skin-and-sell across the zones, spreading out the impact and making more zones options for someone trying to do this path. Changing the panthers may solve the three problems you mentioned: That more than one person at the panthers reduces their profitability so much; that panthers are more profitable than other spawns; that panthers are more profitable than other crafts."
  

• "If panthers aren't notably different than other skinning situations... Then yeah, maybe it's skinning. But the simplest is that maybe the place you can round up twenty of the same skinnable mob so easily is maybe outside what was calculated for."

Tagamogi

• The proposed AOE change makes sense but I enjoy the existing aoe. There aren't that many places in the game that allow crazy aoe and I get quite a kick out of collecting a bunch of zombies in Kur Tower and aoe'ing them down. And a good laugh when I miscalculate again and the zombies kill me before I kill them, which is pretty frequently. So, game balance-wise, your change is better, but argh, the current system is fun.
• "Head-hunting sounds more grindy than fun to me. It's possible it could be fun, I'm just not getting it."
• "I also don't get the idea of experience strikes. Experience is generally not something I greatly care about. I enjoy leveling, so getting xp bonuses that shorten the time I spend leveling seems like a backwards fun proposal to me in general."
• "Pacifist town, likewise not getting it. It sounds like mostly it would encourage me to afk in game until I meet the time requirements, or to create an alt in order to suck up the town's benefits."
• As someone who likes crafting, I feel that crafting in PG is in a very happy spot already. "
  
  

Celler
"Don't really see point in touching skin prices especially lower down as it will impact favor returns for new players.I think the Report Ladriel produced is both sound and of value, but frankly feel there are better things for most players to do than farm panthers continually and if there isn't then surely there missing out on much of the game. To me it's like the players that say I have max leather working, I did recipe A 4500 times and recipe B 7500 times, how cools that. To me it maybe a cheap option and they have the lvls but who wants to play a game like that, not me anyways."

Asashoryu
"Assuming the issue with higher level mobs not being sufficiently rewarding for upgrade costs is addressed, why not add a variation on a trivial loot system instead to mitigate dominant low-level AE farming by grossly over-skilled players. Something of the nature where mob items (dropped loot) and corpses (harvestable loot) have an increasing chance to be forfeited when attacking with a spell or ability >N levels higher than the mob 'level'."

Arundel

• "--- More grinding spots "
  
• "Make PLAYER merchants goods easier to identify in a timely manner"
  
• "Rewarding feeling from an action = continued motivation to repeat behavior"
  "NPC merchants
  A whole other issue with NPC merchants as a reliable "backup" measure for this failure in the economy is that player merchants "cycle" items. As more types of items that NPC takes are sold to him, he filters out the items one by one at the top. These items are often not useful at all (one of the few junk items) or have so few uses that they could sit on that merchant, but you may need them in high quantity and just not quite get there in time. This is not by itself a problem and I'm not sure it should be changed - but combined with the other issues listed above it has its own impact. "

ArkadyRandom

• " ---- powerful characters shouldn't trivialize content. ---- zones could have effective power caps so that it's not the high numbers, but the greater toolset that makes the character more adept in those zones. Say a zone has a power cap of 25. A newer less developed (low level) character would have fewer skills and combat options. Their skills and power would be less fleshed out. A more developed character would have more skill lines, better skills, and they would be operating at their power cap for that zone. Additionally the more developed character would have the gear and procs that give them a veteran edge compared to the "lowbie". They're still going to mow through content faster, much faster, but it's not going to be trivially faster and if they play poorly they'll die."
• "In any event, whatever the team comes up with I'm hoping there will be a happy balance between trivializing content and restrictive play. The end result needs to be fun and feel natural, not jarring."

User Comments

ProfessorCat
"Great article, and great effort on it, @fellentier. I read the entire thing."
Citan
"This is an interesting read, thanks!"
3lfk1ng
"I think that it's very thorough and shows how much you care for the success of this title. Thank you for your contribution."
sudostahp
"Thanks for the thoughtful post, Ladriel."
Hubris
"=) Great post!"

[ProfessorCat]

Great article, and great effort on it, @fellentier. I read the entire thing.

I wanted to ask about a couple points you made. First I agree with the panther issue. That takes a lot for me to admit, because skins are how I make the bulk of my money (though from wolf cave, not panthers) However i see a flaw in the proposed value of the tanned hides. If you purchase a stack of skins and a stack of powder, you would be able to turn a profit without actually having to hunt any skins yourself. You could buy all the pieces and make a couple thousand off the vendor - with little effort. Yes you would dump their favor pool for a modest pool of money, but a cost/profit ratio would still be worth it.

Second I wanted to start a discussion about the player market, and craft abilities. Now I don't know the future plans for cost of unlocking skills, but if it follows in line with the jump from unlocking 50-60 combat skills, and then 60-70 combat skills, then I foresee the market actually being fine how it is. Unlocking 50-60 costs roughly 20k, then 3-8k to unlock each skill. unlocking 60-70 costs roughly 200k, then 15-20k to unlock each skill. If this 10x increase continues (which part of me hopes it does) then you can expect 80 costing 2 million, 90 costing 20 million, etc.

I believe the large price hike makes sense. This is a MMO, and the basis of MMO's are very grindy. Consider I have been playing the game for a year and a half. In that time, I've not only funded my own skills, I can bust out up to 300k in a long day of just selling gear I find while dungeon grinding/leveling combat skills, and usually can get enough money as I'm leveling the skill to unlock all parts of it, including favor from the vendors who train the skill.

If the next time around, its going to cost me 2 million to unlock my favorite combat skill to level 80, then I most certainly will not be able to have all the skills mastered that I do right now. I'm sure this is the intention. Just because you CAN unlock everything, doesnt mean that you can afford it, or that it's worth it.

If this happens in the future, Me offering 200 million for a max enchanted yellow suit is going to be a lucrative deal for two people. 200 million for a level 90 max enchanted gear set will obviously be resource intensive to train a crafting skill to, and likely expensive as well. Maybe that crafter can't afford to unlock combat skills because of it, and It's too late for me to want to level up Leathermaking because I stopped it at level 30.

The point is; It's too easy to level craft gear, and that is why it just makes sense to take care of yourself for now. The same is true for most things in the game. The market is still growing into itself. A ton of players have checked out to say "yeah I'm not going to do cheese making because it's too intense to level" Is it any surprise there's a healthy market for stomachs? I'm sure the same will come true for other skills, as the cost becomes so high.

The low cost of leveling skills at a low level (as there's supposed to be 120 levels, level 70 is still only half way there) this gives players a cheap rout to decide what skills they DO want to focus on, as the higher levels become available.

On a similar note of the exponential increase of gold cost, For those of us who have leveled a skill to 70 (or higher with bonus levels) those last few levels are pretty burtal. I can no longer crank them out in a half hour of efficient farming. As the new levels are released, I'm certain the intention will be along the lines of "oh look, I just spent 600 million on unlocking level 100. It will now be 2 months before I've earned enough experience to even be able to unlock level 110, and now I need a billion."


Please note, all the numbers I'm throwing out are loony toon numbers, that I secretly hope are in the ballpark of how expensive/hard things will become. I want this to be an MMO I can feel accomplished with, and have reason to keep playing for years and years to come. Once I finally unlock my ultimate build, the idea of having a secondary build seems silly. I'd just make a new character, and do it as a Fae, or a Dwarf. Citan has said before that this game is not intended to have only one toon you play. I see my theory fitting in line with most of what has been said, and what I have observed.

[Citan]

This is an interesting read, thanks! I'll be mulling some of this and watching the discussion here. (And maybe commenting in a bit, after this update gets out.)

[Aionlasting]

Please forgive me if I commit the unpardonable sin here as I did not READ the ENTIRE document as the author requested. I did this for good reason though. I recall the solution to this panther paradox or problem from another game... yes... Asheron's call 2.

The solution is that if a player too high level killed lower mobs to butcher/skin them in Ac2, the corpse would be 'mutilated' and the higher level player could not gain any craft materials from it. This forced higher level players to fight monsters of equivocal difficulty in order to obtain their crafting materials. This removes the need to eliminate the profability of lower level gained materials while also constraining higher level players to appropriate content for the same materials. In otherwords, if a player is lets say.. 8 combat levels higher than the monster he engages, then that monster corpse is mutilated and any attempt to butcher/skin the corpse will yield no materials.

Citan would be familiar with this solution. I think a system similar to this would go a long way to fixing this problem, if it is a problem at all.... now.. I will continue reading.

Edit: In terms of a 'headhunting' system and 'lateral progression', I do agree there should be something of that nature. I.E. Credits that could be spent to increase things like inventory space, magic find, resource yields, maybe runspeed , a talent tree of sorts, that wouldn't affect direct power of the player but would allow them to progress in other areas once they have reached their cap. This would be wonderful. I don't know how I feel about having special mobs that need to be hunted or tokens kept in the inventory. All that needs to be done is have all extra xp that goes beyond the cap of the combat skills currently active be put towards a pool that can be used to purchase credits (which become exponentially more expensive with each purchase) and these credits can then be used to purchase those 'lateral progressions' as you put it.

[3lfk1ng]

I saw your post on Reddit and after reading through it, I think that it's very thorough and shows how much you care for the success of this title. Thank you for your contribution. To be perfectly honest, I'm not far enough into the game to understand it's impact, but I've been playing MMORPGs long enough to have seen this issue prior.

The solution is that if a player too high level killed lower mobs to butcher/skin them in Ac2, the corpse would be 'mutilated' and the higher level player could not gain any craft materials from it.

I like this solution but if ever I took up the skinning profession to collect the resources to help guildmates progress in Leatherworking, this would render my assistance ineffective. If anything, it might be a quick solution to the problem if a better solution needs more time in the oven.

[Oqua]

There is a lot to unpack there, but there is one point I would like to raise. I can agree that the Panther problem needs to be addressed. I think there needs to be a tremendous amount of consideration given to how it is addressed. I like the idea of diminishing returns with AoE, if you for lack of a better term "try and game the system" however I really do not like the potential blow back it could have on intended designs.

Consider the main difference between the Panther Problem, and the Mushroom cave, Animal Nexus, catching an unexpected spawn, and stopping at the intersections in Kur Tower. Mainly that the Panther Problem requires a player to invest effort to "game the system" where as many other areas seem to be more of an intended design, and such a change would effect players who are at no fault due to the panther problem.


I will be with holding my comments on the rest of the document, mostly as a hard core crafting/support player my initial thoughts tend to be biased and I want to take some time to ruminate.

Edit: Typo, and clarification.

[sudostahp]

I'm adamantly against any changes that restrict player freedoms. That includes restrictions on hunting areas and play styles, and I still feel that loot locking has done more damage to the community than it has benefited the community through balance. Project Gorgon is a sandbox in a sea of themepark MMOs, and the more that design aspect gets watered-down, the further it floats into a sea of mediocre competitors where it just gets lost. I wanted to get that out of the way up front, because I'm the first to admit that I'm heavily biased.

I'm no stranger to the panthers in Kur, but it's only disproportionately profitable for two reasons:

1) There's a limited player base with the desire and ability to farm there, which allows for periods of uninterrupted solo farming, and;
2) There's no solo content after the wolf cave or Kur tower that's worth farming, so panthers are de facto grinding territory for higher level players needing some cash.

I wanted some numbers, so I farmed some panthers and grew some cotton. I even threw in ProfessorCat's 300k figure (assuming a long day was 8 hours). I was able to clear the panther spot in 4 minutes, 40 seconds. That includes time to kill, loot, skin, and bury. That resulted in 65 quality skins, 34 nice skins, and 3 trophy skins -- I'm maxed in feline anatomy and skinning. I then waited for a full-ish respawn (there's always some stragglers), which took about 7 minutes, 30 seconds. The following reflects the net profit of each finished leather roll, but doesn't take into account the time to craft the rolls.



Feel free to download a copy and edit the underlying assumptions here as you see fit.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

The key takeaway is this -- if you have the spot to yourself for long periods of time, farming panthers for skins can be highly profitable, but that profitability diminishes quickly if there are others (and it's rarely uninterrupted). Due to the size of the spawn, one other person hunting in the same area, assuming an even split in character ability, puts profitability on par with selling loot (assuming 8 hours is a reasonably correct assumption).

What we most desperately need isn't a nerf to AOEs or some gimmick related "grayed out" mobs. Both of those options have reaching impacts far beyond overly profitable skinning in a single zone. No, we need more incentives to grind other areas that offer a similar level of reward. We've been waiting for the Rahu Sewers since well-before Gazluk was introduced. Kur Tower and the Goblin Dungeon were the last two "great" dungeon designs in my mind. There's plenty of room in both for solo activity along with group-focused content. We need more of that design for later levels.

I fully support Ladriel's suggestion to increase loot drop value in later dungeons. I don't know if vendor trash is the way to go, but I'm open to the idea.

I also support Ladriel's suggestions around crafting. If I know six maxed leathercrafters, then there's no incentive for me to level it. If I need something made, I can just ask someone. The components are universal, and all of the recipes are fairly common. You can have just about anything made for free by someone if you have the materials. Let's treat crafters as a business. In order for a business to be competitive, it needs to offer a product that's valuable, rare, inimitable, and the business needs to be organized to produce the product. Allowing crafters to specialize in items with different effects would shift crafting closer to the player market and away from needing to rely on work orders. I think that the "crafting wisdom" idea is a real gem, and I'd like to see it further explored.

Thanks for the thoughtful post, Ladriel.

[Crissa]

I'm still not entirely clear on how you manage to train 20 panthers. I can only seem to keep a handful of anything mad at me at once.

[Aionlasting]

I saw your post on Reddit and after reading through it, I think that it's very thorough and shows how much you care for the success of this title. Thank you for your contribution. To be perfectly honest, I'm not far enough into the game to understand it's impact, but I've been playing MMORPGs long enough to have seen this issue prior.



I like this solution but if ever I took up the skinning profession to collect the resources to help guildmates progress in Leatherworking, this would render my assistance ineffective. If anything, it might be a quick solution to the problem if a better solution needs more time in the oven.

Well that's not necessarily true if the higher level monsters could also yield the mats the lower level monsters do. Currently they do not though. Higher level monsters drop higher tier materials. This creates a problem of causing lower level resources to become outdated in higher level crafting and obselete. A problem the author also describes when discussing how Tailoring and its use of cotton gets things right.

To fix this problem you are concerned about, and the one the author describes in his tailoring discussion of ever perpetually increasing tiered resources that make lower level resources obselete, we could implement one of two changes (or more that I have not thought of...open to any opinions on this, just sharing my own).

1) The first change could be to give high level players the option to skin/butcher low level tier materials from higher level monsters and fix the problem you described where you would not be able to help a friend with a lower craft level up (because you would 'mutilate' the low level monsters that provide the materials your friend needs to level up his craft). This solution is sort of a 'hack' of types and not as pretty as what I think the system below that I describe offers. This solution also does not solve the ever increasing tier of resources and the problems it creates as elaborated by the author of the document.

2) The other alternative is the one Ac2 implemented and I think it fixes your concern and the tiered resource problem. In Ac2, the problem you describe never happened because gathered materials were never antiquated by higher level progression. That is, all monsters, regardless of level--but based on their type--could either drop chitin/sinew/bone/tallow. These materials were universally used across all crafting tier progressions, only that higher level monsters dropped more of these materials and higher tier crafting required more of them. This system is similar to how our tailoring system works now in PG. Cotton is universally important and can be acquired by any level player because the tailoring system never makes cotton irrelevant as the player progresses through the tailoring tree. What does change is higher level players tend to acquire more cotton than lower level players because of their higher foraging/gardening skills. Higher tailoring also requires more cotton than lower level tailoring. So no one is punished for progressing through the system and materials are kept relevant and shared between high and low level players allowing anyone to participate and contribute. It creates an economy and need for shared resource that makes sense. A similar system can be implemented for skinning.

2A) You could make certain animals drop certain types of skin (instead of making higher level animals drop higher quality [tiered] skins) and simply require more skinning amounts for higher crafted tier gear. You could add complexity and variety by requiring various skins (i.e. panther, tiger, bear, etc... but NOT higher TIER because then we are back to our original problem) or simply introduce a whole new material like tallow, chitten, sinew, bone or w/e you want as long as you avoid making tiered versions that make previous version obsolete. The 'lateral progression' as opposed to 'vertical progression' of things as the author liked to say. This solves your problem you describe as you and your friend would both be able to acquire those skins as long as you hunted the right animal type regardless of you hunting high level (panthers, or tigers, or bears) and him hunting low level (panthers, tigers, or bears). Trophy skins could be kept as is.

The system (2) I have described above requires quite a reworking of the current skinning system and might be too problematic to implement and/or not at all how Citan invisions crafting but you can see how it solved the issue we currently have and also allowed for a restriction when players of too high level slaughtered low level monsters for resource gain (the 'mutilation' effect). Players would no longer feel the need to slaughter lower level monsters because the resources wouldn't tier upwards as they progressed their crafting and those resources could still be acquired from the appropriate monster type at their own higher level. Very much like our good friend cotton and the tailoring profession of PG.

Hopefully what I wrote made sense and was easy to follow. I'm open to any solution , IF, we find this to be a problem. Personally I'm not a money hungry individual and I only care about council in as much as I need it to progress my skills/crafts. I don't necessarily have an issue with the system of tier progression requiring ever higher tiered resources (shotty skins, nice skins, high quality, amazing etc...)but it does get exhausting trying to keep track of it all and I can't imagine how we can continue this ever increasing tiered level of resources. I do see the problem it causes and the problem is rampant in MMO's today.

[fellentier]

Well that's not necessarily true if the higher level monsters could also yield the mats the lower level monsters do. Currently they do not though. Higher level monsters drop higher tier materials. This creates a problem of causing lower level resources to become outdated in higher level crafting and obselete. A problem the author also describes when discussing how Tailoring and its use of cotton gets things right.

To fix this problem you are concerned about, and the one the author describes in his tailoring discussion of ever perpetually increasing tiered resources that make lower level resources obselete, we could implement one of two changes (or more that I have not thought of...open to any opinions on this, just sharing my own).

... reduced quote size because.. it was long and amazing.

I haven't responded to many of the comments *Yet!* but I wanted to say that I completely agree with everything that you said. The way that tailoring works is a positive benchmark for progression. I made suggestions to help improve the < current > system, but I would MUCH prefer to see what you said become the overall change. It is more drastic, and I try to avoid making drastic suggestions.. But what you said would be my utmost preference. I believe that you should never make prior tiered content worthless, just less valuable in a time consideration to a max leveled character.

Thank-you so much for you valuable feedback, and to everyone else that has made comments so far! My hope was to provide insight with my own unique perspective and to engage a discussion where people could help to begin to elaborate and provide methodology to make this game truly the best ever made. In order to do that though, you have to take the best ideas from games of the past, and also be willing to break the mold. There are many more ideas that I have that I want to write about, but my hope is to keep my commentary limited enough that people can discuss one topic at at time before I drop another 20 page article.

The blunt truth that I see in this game is that it has the programmatic knowledge to apply unique considerations that can set this game a millennia above others through accepting and integrating unique game play measures. This would normally be unacceptable in other games, but due to the unique nature of this game I want to see others, myself, and the developers continue to strive to do what it can to improve and innovate to make this the benchmark of innovation.

Thanks again to everyone so far