Gold Sinks

Aegoth

Change buying houses and upgrades to them from credits to gold. Problem solved

Penwize

Jacen said:

Not that I agree with Shecks about more talismans only generating gold, but you do have to question how much gold will be generated due to the demand for these talismans. Sure, no gold is gained when someone pays you gold for the talismans you have bashed up, but if that person generated that gold for the sole reason of purchasing the new talismans, then your new gold sink isn't very effective. That's why things that cost gold aren't necessarily gold sinks - you have to decrease the amount of gold being generated to actually purchase those things.

There are a few scenarios to consider here, but in general when I thought them through they ultimately led to a net reduction in gold.  Let's take the diving theme and imagine, just as a pure thought experiment, that you're able to pay 25k to some Triton to guide you to some old undersea ruins once every couple hours or so.  This place drops a set of talismans a whole lot like the Azatlan talismans: a couple of utility talismans(fast ferry bypass on a cooldown?  Fancy enhanced fishing rods?), a couple of weapon talismans(throwable nets maybe?), and a couple of vanity talismans(giant, saddled conch mounts?  Nifty coral hilts for swords?).  Similarly, other people are able to pay another Triton faction 10k to take you to someone else's undersea ruins area. You're going to get three or four different types of people using and interacting with these areas:

First, the people that want the talismans for themselves.  They want the weapons talismans, the utility stuff, or the vanity stuff.  They're going to be a net gold sink because they'll be spending the gold they have on getting to this place and bashing stuff up.  Sure, they might also bash up the gold to get to this place, but that's gold (and more precisely, bashing time) they're not putting into other areas of the economy, like the credit market.

Second, there will be the people that want the talismans to sell.  These people will sell talismans, use the gold to get more access to these areas, and get more talismans.  These people are also going to be a gold sink overall, but it is not as clear as to why.  It is true that they will create a higher demand for gold, so people that want these talismans but don't want to / can't bash these new areas will instead produce gold some other way to spend. This way isn't necessarily through just bashing or questing, though, and really only a certain percentage that is not 100% of those people will bash for gold for these talismans.  Some will buy credits to sell for gold for these talismans, others will use trade skills, or whatever else they like.  Since not 100% of people will be creating the gold (bashing/questing), this will ultimately mean gold is being taken out of the economy, but not 100% of the cost to access this area.  Thus, this set of people are less of a gold sink than the first set of people, but still a gold sink, and also help to create motion in the economy, which is a good thing overall.

Third, there will be the set of people that want to invade other people's areas.  Whether to hunt a particular someone down, or just to get access to more areas to produce more talismans (due to the time cooldown), they will pay the fee to invade someone else's area and either steal their mobs or kill them.  Either one still takes that fee out of the economy as well, which is another significant gold sink and adds a very interesting amount of danger and competition to the areas.

That's the sort of thing I was thinking of, @Sarapis, which I don't think would boil down to private talisman bashing areas or talisman inflation if it's gated by an appropriate time cooldown and access fee, and keeps that key aspect of competition/PvP to it.  The main differences between this and UW/Annwyn is the gold gate, that it acts as a gold sink rather than major producer, that it adds new and interesting talismans, and that it alleviates some of the "there's nowhere to bash" feelings a lot of people seem to get these days.

Sarapis

If all we wanted to do was sell Talismans for gold, we could just do that. No need to create whole areas to create gold sinks there. Creating effectively private bashing areas like that just ungates xp, leading to more xp inflation (ie easier leveling). Having to compete for bashing areas is a gating mechanism to slow down leveling at the top end, bluntly. It'd also be easy to just reduce the amount of gold produced by Talisman-dropping creatures, so that Talisman drops will produce gold for the basher, but not create gold - the basher can sell the Talisman pieces for credits or gold.

Shecks

Or just sell bound Mayan Crowns for gold, in game.  300k a pop.

Cooper

Why do you want to slow down leveling at the top end? The extra mana/health difference from level 100 to 110 is not even close to being worth the time investment. And I that time you could easily bash the gold to buy health arties that will give you a lot more health.

Penwize

Sarapis said:

If all we wanted to do was sell Talismans for gold, we could just do that. No need to create whole areas to create gold sinks there. Creating effectively private bashing areas like that just ungates xp, leading to more xp inflation (ie easier leveling). Having to compete for bashing areas is a gating mechanism to slow down leveling at the top end, bluntly. It'd also be easy to just reduce the amount of gold produced by Talisman-dropping creatures, so that Talisman drops will produce gold for the basher, but not create gold - the basher can sell the Talisman pieces for credits or gold.

You could, sure, but then you'd be missing out on giving people a new competitive platform, a new PvP area, new talismans, and a new PvE activity all in one.  I also get the feeling you missed the bits I mentioned about it being gated not only by a significant gold payment, but by a time cooldown as well, which I suggested not just as a mechanism for slowing access to it, but also to increase scarcity so the PvP competitive portion of it is worthwhile and exciting.  I don't really see how this would turn into "just" a private bashing area.

I also argue competition for bashing areas is a fairly poor gating mechanism to slow down leveling, considering it heavily favors people with off-peak usage (which I would think is roughly the opposite of what you should be aiming for), and it's not even a very interesting or positive mechanism in and of itself (being yelled at for bashing isn't exactly a positive experience).

Jovolo

It's easier to gain control over bashing areas at a high level because you kill things twice as fast as almost any other class except arguably Monk. Wouldn't purposefully providing smaller amounts of bashing areas force the higher level bashers into areas they may not necessarily belong in where lower level bashers are trying to hunt and thus make lower level bashing harder while only succeeding at making higher level bashing more tedious?

You could make the instanced area yield an average amount of gold in drops compared to moderate level bashing areas such as Moghedu and Dun Fortress and Arcadia, and then provide talisman pieces for the "Boss" Denizen(s) further into the area as a sort of reward for the amount of gold you pay to access the area in the first place. The gold you get will be less than what the Dragons could previously hunt for in higher end bashing areas, but the idea of uncontested bashing with a small amount of certain talisman pieces makes it lucrative enough to be a considerable gold sink. No idea what the actual cost of such an area would be, though. 

Totally not a hunter personally so I don't know what current gold drops are or what the prevalent bashing areas are, just weighing in on the ideas presented.

Sarapis

(This is in reference to Cooper's reply.)

It's not either or. When you bash, you get xp, gold, and depending on where you bash, Talisman pieces. Further, the arties you mention stack on top of any health/mana gains, so it's not really relevant that one could get arties instead when one can get both.

High-end bashing has already been recently made greatly more lucrative with the addition of Talisman pieces, so not really looking to pile on top of that by making it even more so. 

Shecks

Talisman prices are plummeting though, as everyone who cares gets elder, and as the only thing that limits anyone becomes gold teeth/blue scales. (wtf is with that by the way?)

Sarapis

Penwize said:

Sarapis said:

If all we wanted to do was sell Talismans for gold, we could just do that. No need to create whole areas to create gold sinks there. Creating effectively private bashing areas like that just ungates xp, leading to more xp inflation (ie easier leveling). Having to compete for bashing areas is a gating mechanism to slow down leveling at the top end, bluntly. It'd also be easy to just reduce the amount of gold produced by Talisman-dropping creatures, so that Talisman drops will produce gold for the basher, but not create gold - the basher can sell the Talisman pieces for credits or gold.

You could, sure, but then you'd be missing out on giving people a new competitive platform, a new PvP area, new talismans, and a new PvE activity all in one. 

Sure, just like if we did that, we'd be missing out on giving people X, Y, and Z.

Spending a lot of development time so that Dragons can gain resources even more quickly than they already do is not in the cards.

Nim

Sarapis said:

(This is in reference to Cooper's reply.)

It's not either or. When you bash, you get xp, gold, and depending on where you bash, Talisman pieces. Further, the arties you mention stack on top of any health/mana gains, so it's not really relevant that one could get arties instead when one can get both.

High-end bashing has already been recently made greatly more lucrative with the addition of Talisman pieces, so not really looking to pile on top of that by making it even more so. 

My original idea was a place for people who aren't dragon yet. That being said, @Penwize‌ could always start a business leveling people up...

Sarapis

Shecks said:

Talisman prices are plummeting though, as everyone who cares gets elder, and as the only thing that limits anyone becomes gold teeth/blue scales. (wtf is with that by the way?)

Yep, I regret not making Dragon Talisman pieces bound. Cat's way too far out of the bag now though. 

Shecks

Sarapis said:

Shecks said:

Talisman prices are plummeting though, as everyone who cares gets elder, and as the only thing that limits anyone becomes gold teeth/blue scales. (wtf is with that by the way?)

Yep, I regret not making Dragon Talisman pieces bound. Cat's way too far out of the bag now though. 

That would have been one billion times more awesome.  They'd be useless after you got elder though.

You could always give like, a week warning, then do it.  That'd give people time to purge/bolster their collection before the change.  #remembermastercrystals

Penwize

Sarapis said:

Sure, just like if we did that, we'd be missing out on giving people X, Y, and Z.

Spending a lot of development time so that Dragons can gain resources even more quickly than they already do is not in the cards.

What I've suggested should not make people get resources even more quickly at all.  It would them gain a different resource that they could either use themselves or sell for a fairly equivalent value versus what they can make now,  gets them out of midbie bashing zones that they're currently spamming (which is definitely an issue, as @Jovolo mentioned), and gives them another playing field to compete in/for.  It doesn't even have to make it dragon-only, it could be scaled based on level. 

Shecks

I still think anyone who wants "instances" should try bashing islands.  That's pretty much what they are.  Not literally, but practically.

Penwize

Shecks said:

I still think anyone who wants "instances" should try bashing islands.  That's pretty much what they are.  Not literally, but practically.

Yeahhh, with how much hate I get for bashing islands, that's so not true.  I originally tried moving to islands to avoid having people yell at me (I'm not exaggerating here, it's been a pretty negative experience), even spent a whole lot of money to do so.  Now, it's just a different set of people yelling at me, sighing at me, or griping at me, and this time with the additional fuel that it took them great effort to get to this place and how dare I be here.  How exactly is that a positive thing on the game?

Shecks

In all honesty, the only reason I don't bash islands is because of you.  That's fine though, there's plenty to go around as is, even with the AFK gold farmers in Meropis eating up that resource, as well.

Sarapis

@Penwize and @Shecks have given me the solution! It sounds like any perceived problem here could be solved with literally a two word command on our part! 

delete penwize

\m/

Shirszae

@Penwize So long~  :P

Sarapis

We'd never delete our eagle-y bashing obsessive, of course.

Penwize

Sarapis said:

We'd never delete our eagle-y bashing obsessive, of course.

:x

Still, at least consider something similar to what I suggested!  Since the comparison to Dark Souls I'm now sort of fawning over the notion of having a high-value resource and having an invasion warning pop up and having to fight for it, especially if rewarded appropriately (and especially if it was small-numbers fights only, like solo invasions or something).  UW/Annwyn just aren't valuable or interesting enough for that to be the case.

Sarapis

It would become tedious and nobody but a small handful of people would care, very quickly. That kind of thing only retains its long-term appeal if it happens rarely, which would still be cool, but is a completely different topic really. (And I'll certainly grant that's similar to Underworld now.)

Kyrra

@Penwize has always been really decent about sharing hunting grounds if you're just polite and ask him. Out of the handful of times I have randomly pounced on him and asked if I could have an area for an hour or two to hunt, he's never said no or been difficult about it.

I don't think a lot of people really communicate in game. I see a lot of forum bitching and griping about things at times, but seldom is any sort of approach for a resolution is made. I've seen it first hand. People will get defensive or aggressive, complain to their friends, but rarely does anyone actually talk to the person they have a problem with.

From about level 80, I was hunting in a lot of the same areas as Penwize, and occasionally Annwyn and Underworld. I've never had issues with people, and frankly if you just talk to people nicely, you get really nice results. @Santar used to take me diving a lot too, because the idea of it was terrifying for me and it's really not so bad if you want somewhere to yourself. Would be nice if maps were actually possible for there to make it a bit easier for the directionally challenged though.

As for gold sinks, I would be interested in seeing more bazaars but having them at different times. A lot of people spend gold on potentionally unique items, at least those not buying them to restock. Due to my time zone, I miss them every time.

Melodie

Communication with Penwize and more bazaars.

I agree with both of these things.

Aegoth

Aegoth said:

Change buying houses and upgrades to them from credits to gold. Problem solved

Just to reiterate this amazing idea that no one cared to touch upon, this is an amazing solution to the problem. It creates a viable gold sink and makes housing much more accessible to the general populace. Fill those 1000 room subdivisions, people

Kresslack

Want a reliable gold sink? Buy a ship! 

Jacen

I don't think either of those are more than bandaid solutions. There's already a pretty extensive and expensive furniture selection, and we obviously still have a gold problem. I think a few people would love to use gold to expand their houses and such, but there's a much larger number that just doesn't care enough. 

The issue is that the market is already flooded with too much gold (I'm sure there's a sciency-economical term for this, but it escapes me). Not only that, but the amount of gold in existence is ever increasing. Therefore, not only do we have to decrease the total amount of gold already in existence, which is fairly easy to do, but more importantly, we have to decrease the rate at which new gold is introduced into the system.

This means that either the gold returns on questing, bashing, and other methods needs to be decreased, or continuous gold expenses need to be increased, or some combination of both needs to happen. 

The first isn't particularly hard to implement - cut down on gold drops, or run a few events that result in certain denizens not buying corpses anymore. The second is harder to implement, and one solution that I'm not opposed to is city tax brackets: pay x gold to the city per year, get some benefits, like the Scimitar bonus being applied to you. No, this doesn't decrease the amount of gold in existence, but it moves it out of the player's hands and into a city's accounts, where it's much easier to deal with.

The biggest question to consider though is how any changes will affect the bashing/questing scene. We already have a problem of dragons flooding over into 60-98 areas. How hard will these players push to maintain their gold generation? How much more will they spill over into midbie areas? How many will quit when they feel their effort in achieving dragon is undermined by the changes to the economy? Will these factors balance themselves out? How will the lowbie/midbies be effected?

Xith

Just give Penwize a respawning doppleganger of the Achaean he hates most so he can hunt that for experience and let everyone else have their islands and stuff back.

Bluef

Xith said:

Just give Penwize a respawning doppleganger of the Achaean he hates most so he can hunt that for experience and let everyone else have their islands and stuff back.

AnarAchaea. Oh, it's been TOO LONG.  :-bd

Xith

I don't understand your joke but I lol'd cause manners.