State of Achaea Economy

Andraste

I'm sure this has likely been stated elsewhere in some way or another, but I thought it might be helpful to have a community check in on the state of promotional items in the game. While i recognize the general need in shift from business model to one primarily focused on gacha-type promotions, there are some issues that i've seen which have come about in response to some of the changes that I feel warrant discussing. I spend a lot of time in game marketing, and try to keep fairly up to date with the fluctuations in market values of most promotional items. I really love that Achaea has a means of trading these items instead of them being account or soul bound and have been able to afford a lot of nice things as a result of the market game, but  i do see a general erosion of the significance of these items. I remember when owning an artefact was something to be proud of or held some personal significance. I feel that a great deal of the magic has been lost in the slew of irrelevant items, items that encroach or make other permanent items obsolete in some way, items that are vastly overpriced and underpowered for the investment, or questionably broken/unfinished content. I think this has become even more of an issue with the addition of the new collector card sets, tome of muses, minpets, battle figurines and locket pieces  which vary wildly in their valuation depending on market saturation. The other piece that I struggle with is the garden's seeming lack of understanding of the economy, primarily the shifting value ratio in bound to unbound credits. I have some very specific ideas about how to improve the state of things, but i feel that the current idea system has created a tidal wave of player submitted requests which the team is likely not not be able to reasonably get to or implement.

Some examples of things that I'm talking about include:

Vast price fluctuations: Deathcape being sold anywhere from 900cr at lowest to 1750cr+, Nicator cards going for 500cr now going for less than 75cr.

Broken, poorly designed, overvalued, talisman info doesn't accurately describe effects: Funeral shroud talisman (please redsign this item it's completely unusable in its current state for it's monumental valuation). 

Undervalued: Culling Blade, could have probably been swapped with the funeral shroud.

Vague: Sanity Skein, Psychesplinter - not sure anyone even knows what these do.

Useless/underutilized: Sea tears (seriously who even uses salt water?), hourglass... and the plethora of others. Could probably just lump battle figurines in here too. 

Overlapping abilities: Buckawns, Fire Charge Tank deplete wreathe ability, morimbuul card - all various methods of breaking/web immunity. 


This is not an all inclusive list, obviously, and many have probably completed items which cost them hundreds of credits which they ended up trading in because they felt misled to believe the item to be something it wasn't.  While I know that classleads have a section for artefacts, this section is often left mostly ignored in lieu of class balance changes. At this point there are so many items, I think it's time to do some scaling back or reevaluating if the items we have in the game are worth being there. I would suggest having a classleads round SPECIFICALLY for artefacts, items, and item balance. Also looking for feedback, (good bad and ugly).

[Deleted User]

Nicator cards only sold that much in like the first week, before it was confirmed that you had to have someone following you to get the benefit for yourself. Pretty much ever since then, the only ones who paid more than like 100cr for it were ones who didn't know about that, or ones who felt like being generous. Except for Aislin who, despite this, has still been trying to sell hers for 250-300cr for close to 2 months.

Won't comment on the rest; a lot of it's subjective. Though I agree there's a lot of really shitty talismans that bloat promos. I know why, but it doesn't make it any less shitty to see them a lot.

Aereidhna

I just wish there was some...curation of what's available. Winnowing down to the really good stuff and/or well-designed stuff. I "checked out" of promotional items and talismans ages ago because there is just way. too. much. to keep up with. It's all noise to me now. And it's drowned out most of the interesting ads that used to be on market.

Accipiter

I want the Admin to look at the powers that have been put on talismans and make some of them artefacts. Deathcape for instance is so powerful that is becomes essentially required to bash many places yet you have to get lucky to get one. The SoW had a good balance of good but not hugely powerful items IMO and I still didn't like having to wait months to scrape together the crowns needed, talismans are like that but far worse because of how good some of the things are and with the amount sets out there you wait far longer for pieces that you want to become available.

Ismay

I strongly dislike the entire talisman system. Want an item? Great! Only, you have to buy ‘pieces’ of the item unless another player has already collected them all and is willing to sell them together. 

Minifie

Ismay said:

I strongly dislike the entire talisman system. Want an item? Great! Only, you have to buy ‘pieces’ of the item unless another player has already collected them all and is willing to sell them together. 

talismans of delos artefacts = great, I like that!

talismans like bugle/pennon? Sweet, fun items that don't really change much other than a few things that really push some players ahead a bit in not really massively competitive areas.

Things like deathcape/grand magi robes? no, we have auction arties already, that sometimes get left as is but nerfed for future iterations. I think renegades (other than the masque) is fine, I LIKE the concept behind many of the items.

Sobriquet

Talismans are are catch 22. In my eyes they've totally destroyed all balance across the Player base and made it more p2w than ever before. The flip side is that people have spent so much trying to get the items it's kept the servers on and the admin paid. I doubt we could have one without the other. 

Elisella

Make artie armour paragon versions of powerful talismans that have reduced effects: Deathcape that only stacks half as high, figurine that offers 50% of crit damage to carry over, etc.

[Deleted User]

Let's not add more things to the scam that is 'artifact armour' please.

Antonius

Sobriquet said:

Talismans are are catch 22. In my eyes they've totally destroyed all balance across the Player base and made it more p2w than ever before. The flip side is that people have spent so much trying to get the items it's kept the servers on and the admin paid. I doubt we could have one without the other. 

Lol.

Drauko

I must be the achaea equivalent of a prepper or flat-earther, I just don't participate in the mainstream madness of talismans and bad credit investments.

Unless you count 3 retirements in a row, but that's just making bad life choices. 

Sobriquet

Antonius said:

Sobriquet said:

Talismans are are catch 22. In my eyes they've totally destroyed all balance across the Player base and made it more p2w than ever before. The flip side is that people have spent so much trying to get the items it's kept the servers on and the admin paid. I doubt we could have one without the other. 

Lol.

Excellent response from the man who has everything

Cooper

Talismans do much less than you think they do.

Sobriquet

Cooper said:

Talismans do much less than you think they do.

https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/jZ3naqu-

Yes, you're right. 

Kiet

Talismans are pretty decisive in a group fight (and bashing but who cares), though in 1v1 they're rarely very impactful.

Cooper

Sobriquet said:

Cooper said:

Talismans do much less than you think they do.

https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/jZ3naqu-

Yes, you're right. 

Oh no, someone spent around 6000 credits to be able to bash faster, how game breaking!

Let's say the paragons + Maya let you bash 100% faster, and that you'd make 50,000 gold an hour without them.

It would take you 1,500 hours (62.5 RL days) of straight bashing to make up that cost.

The number of people who have bashed that much ever is not very high, and the number of people who have bashed that much since Paragons/Maya came out might be 1.

Atalkez

Cooper said:

Sobriquet said:

Cooper said:

Talismans do much less than you think they do.

https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/jZ3naqu-

Yes, you're right. 

Oh no, someone spent around 6000 credits to be able to bash faster, how game breaking!

Let's say the paragons + Maya let you bash 100% faster, and that you'd make 50,000 gold an hour without them.

It would take you 1,500 hours (62.5 RL days) of straight bashing to make up that cost.

The number of people who have bashed that much ever is not very high, and the number of people who have bashed that much since Paragons/Maya came out might be 1.

Cost should never be considered when discussing whether something is breaking or not. I don’t care if you spent $2,000 on something, if it’s not balanced it needs adjusted.

This log in particular makes it obvious that any competition for bashing, you’re simply outclassed by this. Is it game breaking to be able to bash faster? Not really since there is the gold cap etc. It’s not a good thing that your chances to win a great hunt are significantly reduced without all these extra things, on top of the normal stuff people already need to bash efficiently.

Cooper

Maya Figurine is not going to make you not able to compete in Great Hunts. It is a VERY roughly 10-15% overall boost in speed.

Definitely has an impact, but you can still win without one. 

Atalkez

Okay but if you and I are bashing at the same speed, and put the same time investment for the duration, you having that means you’ll beat me every time. That’s my point. I didn’t say it will win you anything just for having it, but it makes an already steep hill even more steep.

Drauko

achaea has always been pay to win past the basics

Atalkez

Pay for perk and pay to win aren’t the same, and Achaea has long branded itself as the former.

Cailin

Or, as it has been said, "pay to win faster".

Kiet

A 10-15% increase in DPS is considered very big in any other game lol

Camroth

Achaea is practically, if not the one true OG founding father of P2W mechanics. I bet when it first came out you could drop 5 grand and just bitch smack the whole game.

Some of you guys have straight up stockholm syndrome.

Minifie

Camroth said:

Achaea is practically, if not the one true OG founding father of P2W mechanics. I bet when it first came out you could drop 5 grand and just bitch smack the whole game.

Some of you guys have straight up stockholm syndrome.

*Cain likes this post*

[Deleted User]

Cooper said:

Definitely has an impact, but you can still win without one. 

Sure, if the other people competing against you don't have one.

Kiet said:

A 10-15% increase in DPS is considered very big in any other game lol

"Use this talent setup instead, it'll be better."

"Nah it's only 15% more dps, won't help much really."

Unfortunately I've had these kinda conversations with people when I was raid lead... Was really cringe.

Dochitha

Why not work towards getting what you want, be in work harder in rl life or hunt like mad. And allow ppl to buy those advantages when they can.

When you really got that arty you always wanted via hard work, that fulfillment is the best bonus!

Still, I agree at this times of games, Achaea is very expensive game. Both in money and time, but that also tells how deep the game is, which is why I only play Achaea. No time for other games I'd rather go make more money. Don't bash me .

Rackham

Dochitha said:

Don't bash me .

But I bought the bashing arties

Keorin

High end bashing has always been hugely dependent on artifacts. I don't think talismans have really changed that, they've just added more artifacts that you need to be the best of the best, which I suppose is necessary to keep people spending money on the game.

In most places, I don't think talismans have had a bigger impact then other artifacts, but there are definitely exceptions. The deathcape is essentially necessary for serious hunting these days, and the talisman drop changes landing in the middle of a massive piece imbalance for it has locked it at double the price it used to be.

Archaeon

when i make my millions i'm gonna drop 50k on this game and out-artie all you plebs. 

Devran

Pyori said:

Cooper said:

Definitely has an impact, but you can still win without one. 

Sure, if the other people competing against you don't have one.

Kiet said:

A 10-15% increase in DPS is considered very big in any other game lol

"Use this talent setup instead, it'll be better."

"Nah it's only 15% more dps, won't help much really."

Unfortunately I've had these kinda conversations with people when I was raid lead... Was really cringe.

I wish I could change my talent spec and be 10-15% more effective at real life.