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Comments
Sure, you used to be able to get 10cr for 60k, and now 60k will only get you 7cr, but that's not really a big deal if you're just buying a few credits here and there. It's only a big deal if you're doing bulk transactions, and if you're doing bulk transactions in credits, I'm gonna say you're not a "new player" or vulnerable to such inflation. I really only see the credit market used and abused by the well-established population, who are kinda the ones generating the lion's share of gold in the first place, and that makes CFS woes a distinctly upper class problem that really isn't felt by anyone who doesn't use CFS often.
The only damage really being done is that the rich are starting to get priced out of the credit market by the ultra-rich, and that it's harder to make certain luxury purchases due to the scarce nature of unbound credits. I concede that's not good, and I have supported the steps taken by the Admin in recent years to balance out the gold faucet/sink disparities, but I really don't think the credit market is a holistic indicator of the game economy, and I don't think it matters nearly as much as folks go on about it.
I've spent exactly $0 directly on Achaea. Everything I have right now is directly from grinding gold -> buying credits from CFS. It was something like 7k per credit when I started, which was a lot but still manageable. Bit by bit I learned skills by converting credits bought from CFS into lessons. So, I'd like to at least say that no, CFS is not just for the well-established players.
If anything, CFS was the way for newer players to get into the game without having to spend RL money right out the gate. That's probably not the case now; I know I only manage to keep buying from CFS because I had the opportunity to get Dragon and establish my character back when the prices were much easier to budget around. House and City credit sales are amazing, sure, but they themselves are limited in amount. I'm not sure if, should this trend of rapidly increasing CFS prices continues, newer players like me with less disposable income would be able to find it as easy to get into Achaea.
Remove gold drops from bashing like one game did? Haha I won't even play that one now cause I hate questing with a passion. This one here implemented gold caps. That did nothing but piss a lot of people off and cause a few big spenders to actually leave the game.
New players are either going to like the game enough to eventually buy credits or not. The credit market is almost meaningless in terms of player retention, in my most humble opinion.
most people don't buy credits off the website just to sell them for gold (especially not in bulk). I'd assume that's the major problem...
*knock knock*
"W..Who's there?"
"Cyrenian Tax collector ma'am. We're here for the yearly payment"
"No please...We dont have the gold!!"
"Come now ma'am..you can get 30k to 40k from clearing azdun alone"
"We need to feed the children!!"
"Ma'am our reports show all your children are above level 80 as is..."
"We had fines to pay!"
"Let's not go there ma'am...we all know there are no combatants here... I'm afraid im going to have to come in and collect what valuables I can"
"NO PLEASE! STOP! NOOO!"
And the economy was balanced
People only do this for a few specific things, and then they usually only do it once.
In Imperian, I did this once, to buy a shitload of endgame perks at once. In Achaea, I might do this if I wanted a ship or a house or something. Two things about that, though. First, after that one big purchase, I'd never have to do it again because I'd already own that thing I wanted to spend gold on. Second, I want that gold right now. That means that I'm gonna dump every one of the motherfuckers on the market at once at a decent discount, and that means that I am selling bulk cheap credits to some highroller who has millions of gold immediately on hand, as opposed to selling them to like Mathilda over time.
I did that all the time. Still do.
For example, I know it costs money to hire guards. But it appears that these guards are paid one lump sum and then never again. Which seems a shitty kind of job. What if we add on additional costs such as regular stipend to city NPCs such as the guards, city tutor, fletcher and so forth. Failure to pay the guards will result in lowered morale or guards abandoning their posts.
Also, while not frequently used in this day and age, the local ratman should be paying newbies out of the city's coffers (it *is* a bounty after all) not just generating gold out of nowhere. There could also be regular monetary charge to the continued upkeep of the city streets, failing which the streets could start to deteriorate. Flooding from the sewers makes the cobblestones slippery, or the road becomes difficult to walk through because there's so much garbage and so forth. More city expenses could be created for the purposes of maintenance. Upkeep of city harbours, for cities who do have harbours.
Personally, I've always wanted a hardcoded artificial demand. In the city's case, it could be random city disasters that happen on an infrequent basis (maybe a chance of occuring at random once an IG year with effects that last between 1-3 RL days), so that you're not dealing with a problem every RL day. Traders have an accident in the city causing a carriage wreck in the main street and will need to be cleared up. You can throw money at the problem to have it sorted out in an hour, or you can leave it and risk the problem of raiders taking advantage of the impassable room. The city experiences the coldest/hottest month in years and relief needs to be distributed to the citizenry. The minister of Trade is now required to dispense rations of extra coal/wood to stave off the chill, or elemental ice to grant respite from the heat.
Cities could also have their own unique 'disasters', such as Mhaldor having a slave riot (aggros in the city/guard casualties/property damage). Maybe Hashan has an explosion in the alchemy lab causing miasma (regular afflicts/passive damage to the citizenry) that will need to be cleaned up. Some cities have abandoned Rurin as their main supplier, but supposing in Eleusis, foraging animals may have gotten out of control and wrecked sundry shop. Items will not be stocked for 2-3 IG months while repairs are underway, but the city leadership can petition Rurin to send emergency supplies instead with payment.
The point of this would be to gradually drain off the gold and commodities being held by cities and make citizens responsible for the continued wellbeing of the city, failing which their quality of life is going to go down the gutter. It's not taxation for the sake of taxation but actual necessity. We can't depend on just raids and city destruction as the only real city expense.
Let me convert 25 membership credits a month to unbound credits. This is nowhere near enough to make multiple elite accounts worthwhile for gaining credits, but it's enough to let me sell them off and make a decent chunk of pocket money to upkeep refills and herbs and ship costs and the like.
Harbour upkeep is a good idea, though, for the cities that have them. Ditto rats going out of city coffers.
- With sharp, crackling tones, Kyrra tells you, "The ladies must love you immensely."
- (Eleusian Ranger Techs): Savira says, "Most of the hard stuff seem to have this built in code like: If adventurer_hitting_me = "Sarathai" then send("terminate and selfdestruct")."
- Makarios says, "Serve well and perish."
- Xaden says, "Xaden confirmed scrub 2017."
Achaea does have seasons though, if you do DATE and such you'll see it. it's possible to have a chance of the problem coded to occur only during the summer/winter months. Or any time in the year apart from summer in Cyrene's case.
- With sharp, crackling tones, Kyrra tells you, "The ladies must love you immensely."
- (Eleusian Ranger Techs): Savira says, "Most of the hard stuff seem to have this built in code like: If adventurer_hitting_me = "Sarathai" then send("terminate and selfdestruct")."
- Makarios says, "Serve well and perish."
- Xaden says, "Xaden confirmed scrub 2017."
Like for example: Having decaying amenities would create atmospheric realism and create mechanics for ministries to do and this would lead to higher interest in the game, bringing in more profit enough to offset the loss of income IRE perceive it has to bear from the -1000 gold per credit on CFS that result from this gold sink.
Above is just an example made on the fly based on one of the suggestions. I don't actually think it's convincing, but maybe someone else can do better.
This whole thing reeks of whining about income inequality
Or we could go back to where bashing was not the way to go about golding... used to have to choose between ratting/questing for gold... or bashing for exp.
The problem tho is how would you implement those kinds of changes or go back to them without separating the already rich and completely destroying the broke.
However! We often lament the lack of commodity sinks for less-consumed comms, and this seems like an interesting possibility in that regard. Even something as simple as the cities' commodity stockpiles passively draining (call it NPC consumption) would give the less-used commodities a shot in the arm as their consumption increased significantly, as well as put more city gold into circulation if that's a concern at all. (Or sink it, in the case of wood/cloth/leather/rope) If the cities' passive drains followed an algorithm that fluctuated over time, (and by comm) that would even add inherent dynamism to the commodity market beyond the occasional Legendary smith run or seasonal CTF stockpiling.
I of course lack data on city wealth and trade ministry activity, so I don't know if this would place an undue burden on the smaller cities, or all cities in general, but I think the concept has merit.
I don't know the -exact- numbers, but we're spending a minimum of 50k per RL day upkeeping our scimitar, barracks, and pillar. We barely keep flat with those upkeeps with the credits coming into the city.
In all honesty though, I personally think Mhaldor would very likely excel wonderfully, if not be the best at, a concept of fund/comm upkeep. I can easily see Mhaldor pushing (ordering?) its citizens to gather what necessary funds are required to upkeep the city, something the other cities would only be able to 'encourage' at most. I can easily see most of the cities that have more peaceful and carefree citizens finding themselves in desperate situations, simply because their citizens were not inclined to help.
It would make for some interesting twists in government and protocols.
It's different for cities on an organisational level, because the task is abstracted. The leaders can implement policies, then step back and see whether they work. Whether revenue > expenses. If not, change the policies: increase taxes, reduce spending, etc. The policy-makers aren't required to go out and grind up millions of gold themselves to fill the yearly budget deficit, because that would turn the game into a job for your best players and quickly make them hate logging in.
I agree with the sentiment that the game should not evolve into feeling like a chore, but what I meant is that I could easily see a city like Mhaldor inciting its citizens to keep the city strong, as it seems very much part of their general way of life. This was in reply to the idea that Mhaldor might suffer from a concept of attempting to upkeep.
Honestly I would see cities that are generally laid back, like Cyrene or Hashan, that would actually suffer more, as it is generally harder to try and convince their citizens to take action, since it is less about ordering and more about attempting to request.
Players shouldn't be paying to subsidize city costs, and putting in gold sinks that players make solid, consistent use of is a difficult thing to just toss in, especially in a F2P game, and the auctions are best used when constantly offering the same items that players only need once, so that gold gets moved around a bit then drained.
I doubt the last auctions even drained 1% of the gold players have though. Something like the mementos, but gold, could help in a very small sink, offering pseudo-artefacts for gold but letting players auction on potential items to set their value, but it would not be an "easy" gold sink.
Things I'd spend money on:
Moderate gold fee to bring back a dead (but collared) mount right away (50k?).
Big gold fee to allow a spec change via Insignia artie, regardless of cooldown left (150k?).
Customisations for non-artefact things available via gold (cheaper than 50cr, since that stuff's gonna decay, but it'd be cool to be able to customize base items with gold while they last).
In-City place where you can pay money to get back full Endurance and/or Willpower for a moderate fee (20k?).
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Like Proficy's post. Feels very accurate. Would it be good if we took out minerals and revert back to just herbs and herbal cure? A higher herb price would be borne by those who use them alot, which supports the MMORRG model of trader and crafter type supporting/earning coins off the fighter type.
From a business standpoint, the business would not have to bear the cost of a lowered CFS, as any savings from someone buying off cfs is offset by the seller buying the credits off the website to sell them(after all the accumulated gold is gone).
There is also no risk of people taking advantage of this - if everyone become a harvester wanting to earn in game gold for stuff, then supply will overshoot demand and prices would just go down to nothing again. And even that would not happen, due to plant scarcity and overharvesting per room. It's zero sum.
The same then can be applied to the other trade skills that require material or ingredients by matching all supply closer to demand, making trade(not of talismans won) in the realms vibrant again.
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Regarding artefacts that are rentable by gold only, I think it would not be implemented because while a resultant lowered CFS is borne by people buying credits off the website to get the gold. It would be more attractive for the business to simply take the artefact idea and make it a new regular artefact/talisman.