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Nose
10-09-12, 10:05
Hi there,

I just thought that some method of regulation regarding the total amount of credits on a server needs to be installed.
Currently, rare parts have the role of some kind of currency simply because credits are near worthless, at least for older chars.

So what is the main money source in game?
I am thinking of outposts as nr 1, giving a clan a constant stream of income.

What is the main money drain?
I'm guessing rep costs and genreps, but I'm not sure here.

But let's say those are, it should be an easy equation to limit the total amount of money ingame to a fixed value by changing income and costs dynamically.
Let's say the total server money cap should be 1 million credits per runner. If below, the server automatically increases the amount gained from ops and decreases rep and gr costs a bit. If the limit is reached, the server can automatically continue to adjust these values until it finds the perfect balancing by itself. A simple loop run once a day could achieve this.
So basically this is simply a control engineering problem and therefore solvable.

Any thoughts?

raven crowe
10-09-12, 11:40
I would love if it worked and your idea kind of sounds like it. BUT the main problem is, that without a "real" economy there is no selfregulation of the amount and volume of money in circulation. And even then it is a pretty instable and hardly controllable system.
Do you know any mmo where money and monetary values are still balanced?
The inflation is always horrendous because there has to be kind of an unlimited amount of money, because else the players will start whining.
There might be other more specific problems in that area and I think that it really is not that easy to solve in a mere model economy that bases on killing monsters and selling the junk without any productive output whatsoever in the first levels.

Sorry! ^^

Tratos
10-09-12, 12:30
For me this has always been one of Neocron's problems. Due to the great crafting system combined with the existence of recycling the game lacks any real money sinks. The only genuine money sink which is frequently used by players is the GenRep system and then even that is capped at 4,000nc per use. Other than that there is probably the purchase of raw materials from constructing but even then the hardcore constructors build from chems and build their own weapon parts which is cheaper, using pure barter characters.

Everything else just contributes to the cycle of money moving 'internally' (i.e. between players). Repairing, paying for constructors and researchers, poking tips, buying rare parts and buying vehicles. All of those things is X amount of credits in one direction or another between players, rarely do any credits exit the system via vendors.

Off the top of my head I can think of three potential ways to syphon more money out of the system:

More loss on death. Rebuilding a body from fresh material must be expensive? The higher level the character after a certain rank, the more it would be to reconstruct their body after death. Automatically deduct credits from players when they respawn with an upward curve in credits the higher level they are. However this wouldn't always work. As it is now, runners with no money would have to be able to respawn for free. Not a good solution.

Pay for a stable reconstruction. While warping via GR or respawning at one after death, paying more will lower the amount of SI the character has. Increase the default amount of SI a little to provide a larger scale. Then allow players to pay Xnc per % point to decrease it. Those with money (vast majority of people) can reduce SI to a minimum of 10% for a price. Again, the more % points you reduce SI by, the more expensive per point.

Fix minimum SI at 10% as there should always be a penalty for fast traveling to avoid people using GRs in the same way people use zone lines in PVP. To me this is a decent solution, doesn't cripple those without credits and gives people with credits a reason to spend them. Also encourages sharing credits out of the clan bank between those with a lot and a little time. Those who spend hours leveling and farming rares could spread the wealth to their time restricted comrades, to increase the speed a clan can bounce back at op wars etc.

Only recycle basic ammo. Any special ammo types like fire, energy etc would need to be bought from vendors. Only the basic ammo type for each gun could be recycled, meaning people could still recycle for leveling while they're in the field. However they would then need to stock up on their ammo of choice from a vendor for PVP, to make sure they're dealing the right kind of damage. Having to pick a weapon based on it's base damage type, might encourage more variety in levelling weapons which I think would be a nice side effect.

That's probably my longest post in the last 6 years. ;)

raven crowe
10-09-12, 13:36
Ah, Moneysink, that was the word I was missing...
I really like the idea of decreasing SI through a higher GR fee. Really nice!
And paying for Ammo again really wouldn't hurt anybody if base ammo can still be recycled. It really would constantly drain money out of the player system but would only work in combination with more small drains.
Another main problem is the lack of taxes, old people dying and in a way new ones contributing to the economy.
But that is really far fetched now, except for the taxes.
Maybe it might be feasible to raise a small tax on things like income or even a rent for (secondary) appartements. Just small amounts, that are directly linked to a runners wealth.

Dropout
10-09-12, 13:59
Drugs is a pretty noticable moneysink though IMO..
Im personally using 5-10k every 10min on drugs (depending on which character Im playing).
With pvp not generating any Money, money spent on drugs adds up quite fast.. That and armor.

Dribble Joy
10-09-12, 14:26
I can sort you out with drugs, 500k per stack.

Like Tratos said, there's a number of areas that have the potential for high cash sinks. GR fees I've always thought were too low for long distance, removing the cap would be a good start. Ammo requiring more recycle gel (often it doesn't need any) and/or being high tl would help.

Biglines
10-09-12, 14:41
Ammo requiring more recycle gel (often it doesn't need any) and/or being high tl would help.

the main reason people recycle ammo is so they can recycle it on the go, without having to return to a vendor to buy more or become overburdened. if you add any significant amount of recycle gel (enough to be a money sink) to the requirement, this can no longer be done since you have to carry loads of gel around with you. Also it would mostly affect new players, since most capped players don't recycle ammo any more (at least on pvp chars), and new players don't need a money sink.

I think the gr idea is good. If gr fees become astronomical, maybe people will start walking/driving again.

And the overpowered drugs should indeed cost way more.

Drachenpaladin
10-09-12, 16:49
How about StockX?^^

Nose
10-09-12, 19:18
I was thinking about a more low level approach, though.

for example, people are getting their money as a reward for killing mobs -> lower the rewards dynamically.
selling junk -> make Yo's shop adjust his prices accordingly to the current amount of money floating around.

of course this would mean that new chars will have heavy problems in getting money. maybe this effect could slowly kick in above a certain level or amount of credits on that runner.
But all my ideas have in common that they should run automated on the server and self-regulate the total money amount ingame!.
I don't want to burden any balancing jobs to human beings. human resources are rare enough as it is right now.


But I like the other ideas. Let's set genreps to 40% SI as a base fee, make them cost twice for 20% SI and 10 times the base fee for 0% SI.
And taxes! Every transaction ingame could cost taxes which would be deducted on the receiving side. So if I pay someone 100k, he'll receive only 80 of them.

I still don't get the stockx system, tbh :)

Robert [GS]
10-09-12, 19:31
I say: Chitin in Beta 4 :p

Biglines
10-09-12, 19:47
i wudn't add a 0% si option, I feel you should be vulnerable when just gr'ing

Darkana
13-09-12, 20:02
This is going to be a somewhat longer post; to shorten the things a little bit for the lazy ones: Adding more optional money sinks is ok (if they are sensible), forcing new non-optional ones on the players is something I wouldn't do.

Now, the long version ...

Lets maybe start with the idea of limiting the overall money flowing around in a game. This idea is nothing new, and throughout the history of MMOs (and MUDs before it) attempts at implementing more "real" economies have been made many times. There is a reason why none of these made it into the mainstream or got scrapped during development. There are basically two reasons: The possibility to exploit a closed system (griefing on a larger scale might be a fitting term) and that we are talking about a game, not a simulation. I will not go into more details, but this is pretty much the net result out of these attempts :)

The other thing I want to babble about is how the "economy" in your usual MMO works from the currency viewpoint. As a new player you usually need way more money than you can "generate". You level up, your income raises and at some point the money you spend on new equip and consumables is about the same as you generate by selling loot etc. Beyond that point you actually increase the money pool of the game. In most cases that point is positioned towards the higher levels, so depending on how fast you can level in that game it will take longer or not. As the levelling in Neocron is rather fast, you reach that point without ending up grinding your heart out (that happens after that ;)).

So, regardless of the game and optional money sinks, at one point everyone ends up generating more money than what they drop into the various money sinks, because you hit a saturation point even with optional money sinks. The thing which will limit your cash then is this "money cap"; in Neocron rather low, in other games sometimes insanely high. This money cap has a high impact on the cost of items. The reason behind that is trust. If you trade an item for more money than one player character can hold, you end up having a multi-char trade. This brings a much higher risk for potential fraud with it, because games usually only cover a more or less risk-free char-to-char trade. The only way to circumvent fraud is to change to a more oldschool form of trading: Exchange of items, and relying on the safety nets provided by the build in char-to-char trade system of the game.

With all that you can easily see what happens for example if you raise/lower the money cap or by adding more (non-)optional money sinks.

Kanedax
13-09-12, 20:16
How about StockX?^^


I was coming in here to say the same thing. A working StockX would make me moist.

William Antrim
13-09-12, 20:19
The Auction House in wow works fairly well at coping with player to player trades. It also takes a small amount of money out of the economy.

However the only real way I can see money being taken out of NC is to flood it with stuff that people can buy that dont have a direct effect on the levelling/combat.

They tried to do this with apartments way back and it did work for a while.

Clan taxes might be another way of doing it? Make people PAY to own ops. The op goes neutral if the clan cant afford to keep paying and dock money from the clan bank every night at a particular time. That way people have to keep pumping money into the clan bank for the clan to stay afloat.

Bigger clans are not necessarily richer clans but obviously the bigger clans in terms of numbers will be able to hold ops for longer. Lets say that if the clan doesnt have the money in its bank however then the op status goes neutral and only needs 1 hack to control it again!

This might work. Make a cap on the amount of money that can be in a clan bank too so that active players have to keep logging on to top up the bank account or risk losing their op. This would stop rich clans going inactive and retaining their ops for so long.

William Antrim
13-09-12, 20:20
double post sorry.

Kanedax
13-09-12, 20:47
That's a good idea with the Outposts, you could even make it so some cost more than others to maintain and also implement an income system from the ops. For instance, fortresses could have a maintenance cost that is higher than their income, factories the opposite, etc. This would add a certain strategy to the acquisition of ops as well as make the economy slightly more dynamic. Granted, I'm no programmer so I have no idea if it'd be realistic to implement this sort of change, just food for thought.

William Antrim
13-09-12, 21:12
I would prefer that ALL ops COST money to hold. If the idea is to get money OUT of the economy then we dont want clans going inactive while holding ops and then them having them forever. The ops would need to confer significant bonuses to the players though. IE something more than just a bit of tech combat at the Fortresses etc.

We would need more levelling spots in op zones too to make them worth having.

Drachenpaladin
13-09-12, 21:23
I wouldn't make the cost for OPs mandatory but optional. Like maintenance cost. If you pay them, your OPs defense is better, if you don't pay after the fight for repairs the OP is easier to hack and/or the bonus is the OP gives is weaker. (Possible effect on turrets too should their role increase someday)

William Antrim
13-09-12, 21:25
Pay a fortune to restore your hack layers you mean?

Kanedax
13-09-12, 21:26
Yeah, I was implying that all outposts would cost money to maintain but that certain outposts would cost more/give less based on the type of outpost. For instance, a fortress would cost money to maintain but provide no income as it is not an economic asset. Factories should actually provide more income than they cost to maintain as they are factories. Labs would provide little income as well as uplinks.

This would, in my opinion, offer an interesting experience and a new layer to the outpost system. For example, your clan holds mainly non-productive (economically) outposts so the next logical move would be to focus on factories. It would add an element of need to the system and maybe force choices of action that previously would have been unconventional.

William Antrim
13-09-12, 21:33
Yeah, I was implying that all outposts would cost money to maintain but that certain outposts would cost more/give less based on the type of outpost. For instance, a fortress would cost money to maintain but provide no income as it is not an economic asset. Factories should actually provide more income than they cost to maintain as they are factories. Labs would provide little income as well as uplinks.

This would, in my opinion, offer an interesting experience and a new layer to the outpost system. For example, your clan holds mainly non-productive (economically) outposts so the next logical move would be to focus on factories. It would add an element of need to the system and maybe force choices of action that previously would have been unconventional.

I like the idea truthfully but it would mean that the profit making ops would become premium compared to the others and hence would probably just get hit all the time. I would prefer op ownership to be something highly coveted but hugely costly as well. If a clan is at the top of its game then it should have penalties to pay to be that good. I would still I think rather have more money come out of the economy than have ops making a profit for clans.

If we are gonna go down your thinking Kanedax then I believe that we would need to implement something like what Drachenpaladin suggested to counteract it. The premium profit making ops would give you money but that profit would be counteracted by the cost of the op needing to have its security reset and hence it would cost money to keep hold of it.

I like the amalgamation. I am all up for that. :D

Nose
13-09-12, 22:11
great idea! love it. let's make ops cost a whole lot of money and increase their bonusses.
that way at least the factories and labs would be high value and still very expensive to afford.
perfect money sinks.

love it :)

still this could be auto-regulated:
in the beginning of a server live, ops bring money to establish a certain amount of money in game. the regulation script then slowly decreases op income until the global money cap is reached. from then on, op incomes will become negative, resulting in the described money sink ...

Kanedax
14-09-12, 00:20
I like the idea truthfully but it would mean that the profit making ops would become premium compared to the others and hence would probably just get hit all the time. I would prefer op ownership to be something highly coveted but hugely costly as well. If a clan is at the top of its game then it should have penalties to pay to be that good. I would still I think rather have more money come out of the economy than have ops making a profit for clans.

If we are gonna go down your thinking Kanedax then I believe that we would need to implement something like what Drachenpaladin suggested to counteract it. The premium profit making ops would give you money but that profit would be counteracted by the cost of the op needing to have its security reset and hence it would cost money to keep hold of it.

I like the amalgamation. I am all up for that. :D

To clarify further, the money making outposts wouldn't provide a huge profit, maybe like 1000 credits every 24 hours in real world time. There would be no economic advantage to the outposts aside from not having to pay to maintain them.

Biglines
14-09-12, 00:34
I like the idea of ops being a moneysink, but I also think that having pve for hours just to be able to afford to hold an op would be a bad idea, if you're good enough, it shouldn't require pve to keep outposts up (I'd say the majority of players in the game don't want to spend their time pve'ing). I know bigger clans like ad and doy have loads of money, but a pvp clan generally doesn't have millions to spend on op upkeep (opkeep, hehe, seewotididthur! :p)

William Antrim
14-09-12, 08:23
Then ops should change hands. That's what its all about.

CMaster
19-09-12, 13:53
I was coming in here to say the same thing. A working StockX would make me moist.

For the 50th time, StockX works!
However, it only allows trades during the trading day (game time). It even tells you those times in game.
I'd even say that the fact that on Terra, a lot of the stock had fallen to 1nc/share as player pops had dived and were almost all capped players anyway, that the indications are that it does indeed respond to player actions.

Drachenpaladin
19-09-12, 15:11
I think it would be cool if there was the possibility to get into depts when investing into the stock market, just like in real. That would create a money sink for sure^^

Kanedax
19-09-12, 16:17
For the 50th time, StockX works!
However, it only allows trades during the trading day (game time). It even tells you those times in game.
I'd even say that the fact that on Terra, a lot of the stock had fallen to 1nc/share as player pops had dived and were almost all capped players anyway, that the indications are that it does indeed respond to player actions.

I feel thoroughly chastised.

dWintermut3
27-09-12, 03:00
I realize that this is a long-term idea, the team has their hands full as it is and I don't expect that anything would be done about the economy of the game in the short or even medium-term.


I don't think that the problem of inflation can be solved on the input side (reducing access to cash by closing AoE farming areas and shutting down Ceres). The reason is that even at the reduced income rate cash is still flowing into the economy, long-term, faster than it flows out by far.

Titan's economy is alright for the moment, because apartment keys, vehicles and other expenses that it takes to set up a character are taking money out of the economy. The problem is once you are set up, you have nothing to spend that money on that takes it out of the economy, it just circulates and accumulates.


I had a few ideas: the faction stores are a good start, rather than Rhinos being constructed from some dropped parts you have to drop a good chunk of change.

But at the end of the day, the best items in the game are dropped or quest-rewarded, a top-end player has little to spend money on except perhaps a few more apartments to stash rare parts.



I have a few suggestions:

This game needs a money sink, Outpost fighting is a significant one, especially once turrets are allowed again.

Bring back Stock-X, only with a twist. Rather than allowing people to make money based on faction performance, allow us to spend our money to improve the performance of corporations (in some way).

One idea I had was a sort of provisions system. Unless the player base (as a whole) spends a certain amount of money the faction store remains closed, and without regular investment it closes after X number of items sold. This way epic-grade characters would have a place to pour NC.

Another idea was allowing people to donate NC to corporations for standings, this way you'd have people burning cash raising standings, not earning cash farming standings competing with newbies nuking aggie spawns or grinding research missions.

A third idea was to introduce prestige items that are functionally identical but have a slightly different appearance or name.

Prestige items and access to a special "villa" chat channel that cost millions to gain access to were how Kingdom of Loathing removed billions in exploit-gained items from the economy and it worked well enough they didn't have to resort to a server wipe even though the economy had hyperinflated several thousand times in a week.

Forget My Name
27-09-12, 03:07
Not once on any server where duping wasn't around, from 2002 - 2007 when I was playing, was money ever an issue. I wasn't around for Terra.

I don't see the need for any extra money sinks.

And of course, why isn't this posted in the Brainport?

dWintermut3
27-09-12, 03:43
I didn't see the brainport oops.

I guess because economy is a community issue as much as a suggestions issue.

Chuck Norris
27-09-12, 06:15
20mil woc3 pa vendors plz thx

Forget My Name
27-09-12, 06:31
I didn't see the brainport oops.

I guess because economy is a community issue as much as a suggestions issue.

Yeah, but the game has been out for a decade without non-duping economy problems. What happened that makes you want a money sink?

Apocalypsox
27-09-12, 06:37
Terra got pretty bad over the years. Money became...nothing, basically. The economy basically was non-existant.

the cheating/duping/etc didn't help.

The main reason those "AoE farming areas" are closed, are because they can be abused. When you can hit a mob with a weapon, but it can't hit you, its abusive. People abuse those areas, they get closed.

I do think there should be some fun meta-game type stuff added that players can participate in, just think its a ways off and down the priority list right now.

Kanedax
27-09-12, 06:47
Pretty bad is generous. Credits were absolutely meaningless. Hell I, someone who never tradeskilled or pve'd, had probably 300 million credits between my 3 accounts. I have all arti 5 slot everythings, an ARS, etc. I hardly did shit and I was balling out of control. The Terran economy was totally raped.

Apocalypsox
27-09-12, 06:50
. ...Thats a better way to put it, yes. Lol

Doc Holliday
27-09-12, 09:12
Furniture and plants etc. They are money sinks. I dont think the game needs more at this point in time. in the future this could be a point to discuss.

Dribble Joy
27-09-12, 09:19
The economy pretty much went around the second year of NC1, partly because there weren't any cash sinks at all really. People were getting (and continue to get) much more than they spend from mob kills and missions.

The main reason is that at cap you simply don't spend as much as when leveling. My Titan char is constantly after more cash because she needs a new weapon most of the time, she doesn't even have any armour.

Aside from PA and furniture, there's no running costs at the high end. Techs can be traded, ammo, drugs, medkits and etc. can be recycled and the reveler and quad are way too cheap to repair. GR costs (as has been mentioned numerous times) could be uncapped from 4k and/or increased as it's generally capped players that use them.

yavimaya
27-09-12, 10:58
If they uncappped GR, etc i would like to see it somehow based on how much you have.
As im not a player that gets into clans really, never really makes friends in these sorts of games and doesnt play 20 hours a day/isnt the best player/doesnt get to farm the best spots, etc, even at cap i am always low on money.
I may have one char that can make alot, but they always support the rest and to me GR costs are already too high.

That being said, they certainly need to have a cash sink, although like my prefference above this would not be popular, i think clans should be taxed, perhaps clans then taxing members, but again, all based on what they can afford.

Ivan Eres
27-09-12, 11:44
Make the GR the moneysing because everybody has to use it all the time.

Take 10% of the money if your rank >= 60.

Dissenter
27-09-12, 12:51
One thing to take into account is the amount of people double or even triple logging. Having multiple chars online at once means people are not tipping for pokes, research, construction and are using their own barterers to build items and sell onto the market. This isn't a problem on titan right now, but it soon will be.

Trivaldi
27-09-12, 12:53
Thread moved and merged with an earlier discussion of the same topic. A lot of ideas in both threads which deserve discussion and expansion. Changed thread title to encompass the entire issue being discussed.

Dropout
27-09-12, 14:54
Pretty bad is generous. Credits were absolutely meaningless. Hell I, someone who never tradeskilled or pve'd, had probably 300 million credits between my 3 accounts. I have all arti 5 slot everythings, an ARS, etc. I hardly did shit and I was balling out of control. The Terran economy was totally raped.

I think I had an absolute maximum of 20 mil between my 3 accounts on Terra..
All my Money went to drugs, GRs, Implant tips and armor.. :p

Kame
27-09-12, 17:23
I kindof disagree with the endgame money thing. Back on terra, even though my main apt is stocked with imps/rares/trophys and whatnot, my chars are all poor as hell from OP waring.

In an hour OP waring I can easily spend 100k worth of GRs, drugs and ammo. I never go PVE'ing on my capped chars and have close to no money and have to beg clanmates for money or take it out the clan bank. In many occasions has my teamates had to GR back to give me cash so I could GR in the next OP.

Now on the other hand, I remember clearly going to auctions on Terra with a few millions to my name, and coming up empty handed because well-known tradeskilling clans would buy everything, going as far as bidding 20mil (cap money) for certain items.

What I'm saying overall is, that PVE'r are usually richer that PVP'r, so I dont think any type of money malus should be applied to clans or OP waring. If anything, I think more money should be generated from owning outposts.

Hopefully someone will propose more viable ideas to have end-game PVE'r and tradeskillers spend their cash on. Like Eye-phones that breaks to pieces when you drop them or when you die, or live broadcasts of OP wars via the terms.

Dropout
27-09-12, 17:47
I kindof disagree with the endgame money thing. Back on terra, even though my main apt is stocked with imps/rares/trophys and whatnot, my chars are all poor as hell from OP waring.

In an hour OP waring I can easily spend 100k worth of GRs, drugs and ammo. I never go PVE'ing on my capped chars and have close to no money and have to beg clanmates for money or take it out the clan bank. In many occasions has my teamates had to GR back to give me cash so I could GR in the next OP.

Now on the other hand, I remember clearly going to auctions on Terra with a few millions to my name, and coming up empty handed because well-known tradeskilling clans would buy everything, going as far as bidding 20mil (cap money) for certain items.

What I'm saying overall is, that PVE'r are usually richer that PVP'r, so I dont think any type of money malus should be applied to clans or OP waring. If anything, I think more money should be generated from owning outposts.
Yeah, thats the exact same problem Ive always had. The amounts of millions I have had given to me, because I was too poor to do anything is insane.. PVP costs a ton of Money!


Hopefully someone will propose more viable ideas to have end-game PVE'r and tradeskillers spend their cash on. Like Eye-phones that breaks to pieces when you drop them or when you die, or live broadcasts of OP wars via the terms.
Hahahahaha great idea! :D

Kame
28-09-12, 21:57
Page 4 seems to be bugging....
EDIT

Seemed

CMaster
29-09-12, 11:48
Making GRing more expensive is a good idea to hit the players who are no longer playing levelling fees, I'd go with that, although I'd suggest travel to OPs owned by your clan should remain cheap.

Another one is to make ressing techs require much, much more research lube, and indeed constructing rares much more expensive on construction gel. Tradeskillers will have to pass the cost on to people they do the work for. However, if you leave non-rare costs alone, then it doesn't effect the already cash-strapped levellers.

However, all the costs in the world won't stop the amount of cash in the economy steadily going up. Especially if populations decline, you end up seeing the same amount of stuff concentrated in less people.

The solution to this though, is not lowering kill rewards or the money that people get from selling items. It's the opposite, increasing all of this - as well as increasing the costs that players have to pay out again. Inflation is the solution as well as the problem - as the player-to-player economy inflates, what needs to be done is to have the player-game economy inflate too. Sitting on a million or two for months or years would no longer mean much, if soon new players earned that much just levelling up. It means that costs rise in line with player wealth. It means that new players no longer have to perform tasks for high-levels just to get their edge in. The question of course is, without an auction house or player shops, how do you track what inflation should be? Ideally you'd use something like the price of unressed techs, but it's hard to know what that is. Also, if costs aren't high enough, you run the risk of causing runaway inflation with rates in the 100s or even 1000s.

Oxygen
29-09-12, 12:11
Drugs is a pretty noticable moneysink though IMO..
Im personally using 5-10k every 10min on drugs (depending on which character Im playing)... Not really, i always have enough loot to recycle stacks of drugs.

Dropout
29-09-12, 13:15
Not really, i always have enough loot to recycle stacks of drugs.

That may be so, but Im not a PvE'er (at all), so I never have anything to recycle with...
Thats why its always the PvE'ers and tradeskillers that has all the Money, and the PvP'ers always are poor.. ;)

Nose
29-09-12, 14:31
cmaster, I don't like your inflation suggestion. It's no solution, it's a workaround.

A solution would be a stable currency! This means, money should always have the same value to the player, more or less. It's like in the real economy, inflation is only good for some people, not for all.
What we need is control mechanisms to affect the amount of money floating IN to the economy and the money OUT, done. This is important, it's not only about manually creating money sinks, it's about getting an overview of both sides and a systematic approach.

Give these mechanisms to some GMs or better, an automated tool with the job to maintain a stable currency, and problem is solved.

William Antrim
29-09-12, 15:03
Nose are you an accountant?

Nose
29-09-12, 15:08
nah, industrial engineer and going-to-be electrical engineer :)

Oxygen
29-09-12, 15:43
@nose, a stable currency is nice but how should it work, the people don’t want to work they want to play a game. Some players aren’t that rich and never are, some are, most games prefer tradeskillers and PvE looters. The money sink should not hurt players too much with no ambition to make money and must really hurt rich players, for example a player owned factory or research lab which gives you op like bonuses or additional features. I personally played NC over a long time period but i was never a really rich person.

Nose
29-09-12, 16:37
jeah and they can but whats the use in everyone having endless millions of credits?
only effect is that bought stuff is worthless because everyone can have it.
trade skillers wont work for tips anymore, because money is worthless, too. So they only work if they feel like helping others.

I do agree that working for every penny is too much but there must be a point where money still got a certain value for all players and players at least need to think a sec before deciding to buy stuff from a vendor.
And that point must then be conserved by the mechanisms which still are to be found.

right now we are experiencing the way down inflation again while in the beginning this feels right, we soon will arrive at the mentioned point and then exceed it by having too much money in game.
This has to be prevented.

Kame
30-09-12, 17:07
Perhaps runner housing costs should be increased. Something like making all non-starter apts rentable on a per/time basis and that nicer apts with features like, all access and such be made available for rental trough NPCs. If you stop paying, your stuff gets locked in there untill you pay the rent you owe and get access again.

Or just make apts cost a shitload more than they do now. Something like 10mil for a nice luxury unfurnished via3 apt, but perhaps all these apts should connect to P1 somehow for commodity.

Forget My Name
30-09-12, 17:32
Runner Housing should have Rent.

You pay a daily rent. If you don't, you don't lose your house, instead you cannot enter it unless you visit the housing npc and pay him.

Rent would be paid automatically from your account. Only if you default on your payments do you have to visit the NPC and pay him.

Chuck Norris
30-09-12, 19:25
Runner Housing should have Rent.

You pay a daily rent. If you don't, you don't lose your house, instead you cannot enter it unless you visit the housing npc and pay him.

Rent would be paid automatically from your account. Only if you default on your payments do you have to visit the NPC and pay him.


Cool idea in concept terrible idea in reality.... apts are basically bank vaults for people its where you keep all your stuff, what happens if you miss a payment?

Kame
30-09-12, 19:34
This idea could be discussed in it's own thread perhaps. It would require many changes though, which makes it unlikely but the overall idea is a good one : make something nice available for rent to players, which they continuously have to pay to maintain.

Forget My Name
30-09-12, 19:46
Cool idea in concept terrible idea in reality.... apts are basically bank vaults for people its where you keep all your stuff, what happens if you miss a payment?

Did you read my post you quoted?

I literally answered your question in that post.

Chuck Norris
30-09-12, 19:57
no you didnt and you contradicted yourself... if its automatically withdrawn, how do you miss a payment lol?

Dropout
30-09-12, 20:58
no you didnt and you contradicted yourself... if its automatically withdrawn, how do you miss a payment lol?

If the character is completely broke..?

Nose
01-10-12, 10:21
like the rentable apps idea, too. it needs some fine tuning, but I'm sure it would work!

And the relative GR costs are genius! Make a GR cost 1% of player's money but at least 500 nc. That way it all regulates itself. rich people got to pay much (10k / gr if you own a million), poor people can GR very cheaply. Everybody will be happy :)

Haxxor
01-10-12, 10:44
i always wondered A. Who pays you credits for killing mobs & B. Why do you get paid for killing mobs.
If anything you should get missions from you're HQ (And each Faction has different Mobs to kill) before you kill mobs, but it should be a relative amount I.e

CM - 75,000 CR for Killing 50 WBs
TG - 75,000 CR for Killing 50 Fire Mobs

Each Faction can have a few different levelled mobs to kill, and the top goal of each Faction kill list would be to kill a certain Boss, and return the Loot. I.e BT Bat Queen(Bat Imps), PP Viper King(Poision Glands), BD Kri'nakh(Drugs), CA Storm Bot (S.T.O.R.M Laser), ect.
Of course you could have the option of returning mission and saying there was not a loot keeping it for yourself and then get a much reduced CR Reward.

Nose
01-10-12, 12:00
about genrepping another idea:

make grs not only cost 1% but change the percentage depending on distance, like prices are now.
e.g. close inner city gr costs 0.5%, to app always 1%, to outzone 2%, to near wastelands 3%, far 4%.

Dropout
01-10-12, 12:42
about genrepping another idea:

make grs not only cost 1% but change the percentage depending on distance, like prices are now.
e.g. close inner city gr costs 0.5%, to app always 1%, to outzone 2%, to near wastelands 3%, far 4%.

Yet again an idea that will hurt PvP'ers the most.. Although mixed with very cheap GRs to clan owned OP's I guess it could work (obviously you have to be in the clan to receive cheap GR).

Nose
01-10-12, 14:05
why would it? if they're low on money, grs will be very cheap. if rich, expensive....

doesn't matter if pvper or not.

And the cheap clan op gr is a good idea, too. let's make them cost fix 1k or .5% or whatever.

Kame
01-10-12, 14:13
The GR % fee I don't agree with. It achieves little in terms of economy balance and brings 0 elements to the game.

Dropout
01-10-12, 15:49
why would it? if they're low on money, grs will be very cheap. if rich, expensive....

doesn't matter if pvper or not.

And the cheap clan op gr is a good idea, too. let's make them cost fix 1k or .5% or whatever.

Ah okay, I misunderstood you then :)
Definitely would stop people from carrying around 20mil.. However, I fear that it would just make people make storage clans (with a alt), to store all their money, so they can GR cheap.

Forget My Name
01-10-12, 17:00
no you didnt and you contradicted yourself... if its automatically withdrawn, how do you miss a payment lol?

If your new apartment costs 10k a day to keep, and you have less than 10k when your landlord takes the money, then you missed the payment.

You can now no longer enter your apartment until you make the payment.

Go run 7 Aggie missions and get your payment done.

Just like real life... If you can't afford rent for luxurious living, then rent something cheaper.

Apartment rent would be based on size, and just like Shadowrun, you can only afford the lifestyle you can pay for.

Small apartments could be 500 a day, like the size of our starter apartments, up to who knows, 50k a day for the biggest one in the game.

Owning and maintaining multiple large apartments would be a sign of status and wealth in Neocron, as opposed to what it is now, virtually worthless for anything but storage space.

Any other simple questions you have trouble trying to answer I can help with?

Kame
01-10-12, 17:11
I don't think inflating the prices of commodities like GR would bring much. It offers a temporary fix to a long running issue, and besides the last thing the game needs is more dice rolling from behind the scenes.

Let players invest end-game money into nice, rent only apts, that connects with P1. Let them have public-like places, with all-access, barman/waiter NPC of their choice, so they can run shops in there, and bring the promised player shops we waited for like 10yrs for to life.

With rent at like 100k/day for a starter furnishes shop-apt, all the way up to like 500k/day for the best ones, and make it payable on daily/weekly/monthly basis.

Put the apt rental NPC next to a gogo, with a function that allows renting runner to recuperate content of all cabs at once, should he choose not to renew rental for the next period.

Haxxor
01-10-12, 19:30
Make a GR cost 1% of player's money but at least 500 nc.

2 Points

1) If a player has 20,000,000 CR a GR would cost 200K for a single trip :eek:

2) Most players realising the above would always keep low CR on themselves say 50,000 CR which would work as 500 CR a single trip which would be far cheaper than the current GR Model.

Chuck Norris
01-10-12, 19:34
2 Points

1) If a player has 20,000,000 CR a GR would cost 200K for a single trip :eek:

2) Most players realising the above would always keep low CR on themselves say 50,000 CR which would work as 500 CR a single trip which would be far cheaper than the current GR Model.


So i should leave all my money in the clan bank and GRs would be free 1% of zero! yay

Haxxor
01-10-12, 19:40
In response to apartment rent idea.

If it were implemented then the cost of acquiring the apartment would need to be looked at, as for renting you normally pay a months rent in advance as a deposit. Paying 300K for example and then paying daily/weekly rent doesn't make economic sense.

Other things to consider:
Isn't Neocron's day shorter than IRL?
What if Server went down for maintainance you could bet some runners wouldn't be happy at having to pay their rent while not having access to the game.
In RP terms who is your rent going to? Your Faction? Diamond Real Estate? City Admin?.

Chuck Norris
01-10-12, 19:42
In response to apartment rent idea.

If it were implemented then the cost of acquiring the apartment would need to be looked at, as for renting you normally pay a months rent in advance as a deposit. Paying 300K for example and then paying daily/weekly rent doesn't make economic sense.

Other things to consider:
Isn't Neocron's day shorter than IRL?
What if Server went down for maintainance you could bet some runners wouldn't be happy at having to pay their rent while not having access to the game.
In RP terms who is your rent going to? Your Faction? Diamond Real Estate? City Admin?.

Personally id be paying black dragon, PP is my kinda place... good dope

Kame
01-10-12, 20:50
DRE would provide the service, and no initial cost for renting but the rent, so that a 100k/day apt costs 700k for one week, for instance.
Runners choose from the get go their pay plan but it can be changed while renting. Once the money is paid bu runners, it goes to /dev/null, like the CR paid to crytons and such.
The payment should be based on 24hr gmt, not in-game time. I dont even thnik game time can be accounted into any areas of the game as it never was.

Haxxor
01-10-12, 21:45
DRE would provide the service, and no initial cost for renting but the rent, so that a 100k/day apt costs 700k for one week, for instance.

100k a day for an appt am i reading that right?

Kame
01-10-12, 22:12
Feel free to scroll up and read again Haxxor.

However for those of you who lack common sense, these figures I propose are purely speculation. The amount paid, and the content of the rental apt would be as per our GMs/server administration will. In no way should the idea be implemented exactly as described in this here thread. Besides, if you find prices too high, just don't buy.

William Antrim
01-10-12, 22:24
I'll stick with my free starter app cheers. You guys are discussing money sinks on amounts of money earned over 7 years remember. Not 7 weeks. Titan has only been open a short time. Let's not forget that.

Forget My Name
01-10-12, 22:58
I'll stick with my free starter app cheers. You guys are discussing money sinks on amounts of money earned over 7 years remember. Not 7 weeks. Titan has only been open a short time. Let's not forget that.

I spent 30 minutes on my newbie character, and made 10k already killing plants. If rent for the cheapest apartment was 500 a day, then good.

I spent just over 2 hours in Regants and made around 500k. If rent for the most luxurious apartment in the game was 50k, then good.

You want to be rich and act like it, then you can afford the best in the game, including high end apartments.

Okay, GR money sink proposed, people bitching. Apartment money sink proposed, people bitching. Fact is, people WANT a money sink in theory, but most of you really don't. You just want to horde your cash like a miser. Neither of these proposed money sinks destroy your gaming experience as you make it out to be. The idea is to GET RID OF MONEY in an artificial economy where money is infinite, and will eventually become useless.

How about going to the Neocron Zoo, and joining a Hunter's Society? You pay daily, and while you are part of the society, you get a damage boost to NPCs. The rank of the mob determines how much you pay to be part of the society. You could pay 2000 a day to hunt mobs from rank 1 - 20, 5000 for 21 - 40, etc...

The idea is to make money sinks part of the game, part of the Neocron world. And sorry to say, money sinks are designed to remove money from the game, your accounts and the economy. It may not be a pleasant thing. Telling by the knee jerk reactions in this thread, it would seem money sinks, if ever introduced, would have to be done by the Dev team without consulting the community, otherwise you all will just bitch and moan that a new sink will be introduced in a few weeks.

-EDIT-

Also, keep in mind that numbers proposed here are just ideas. Don't get fucking bent out of shape if something sounds crazy. They are just numbers. They can and will be adjusted.

Nose
10-10-12, 09:35
new idea:

why not copy the eve model here. as soon as neocron is back to subscription status with let's say 5€ / month, why not add t he ability to buy gametime for neocron credits?

I'm thinking of a gm standing at p1 every friday for an hour accepting money and setting the players gametime accordingly.
if this costs 100 mil, it would be a great money sink.

if duping and other item/money issues are fixed, this could of course be automated by an npc, too.

Torg
10-10-12, 10:01
Neocron is some sort of socialist utopia: free housing for everyone. and how much did you pay for food lately? even basic local mass transport is free. so where does all this money come from? yes. you got it: tax the rich. as your neocron bank account proceeds 1 million, some percentage shoul get deducted. same with outposts: theyre plain luxury, and should cost you money. more ideas?

Haxxor
11-10-12, 02:30
Money Sink?

Remove the ability to clone ammo & chems.

Forget My Name
11-10-12, 04:12
Money Sink?

Remove the ability to clone ammo & chems.

Remove cloning... period... everyone rolls Droners and Monks....

What about eating and drinking?

The game already has food and drinks, why not make them part of the game play?

You have to eat and drink a certain amount at least once every game 24 hours, otherwise your healing is cut by 50%? Eating and drinking immediately cures this.

There would be a calorie bar, and it would just read full. When it comes close to 24 hours, it says hungry. If you don't eat, it becomes starving and you get the heal debuff.

So if you eat/drink, for that 24 hour period you are fine. The amount needed would be based on rank. A rank 0/2 would need one drink one food, and a /60 would need something like 10 drinks and 10 foods.

-edit-

Oh, stop letting armor part 9's and 10 fall form mobs like candy. Seriously...

Torg
11-10-12, 09:41
Money Sink? Remove the ability to clone ammo & chems.
wouldn't change anything, as you use valuable loot for cloning ammo. you don't save money by recycling, it's just a convenience. go test it. i did.

Haxxor
11-10-12, 12:03
wouldn't change anything, as you use valuable loot for cloning ammo. you don't save money by recycling, it's just a convenience. go test it. i did.

Saves quite alot of money imo otherwise it wouldn't be as popular as it is at the minute.

danmalone
11-10-12, 14:05
I quite like the appt rent idea but then what's to stop someone just using their starter appt on all their 4 character slots for storage? - It's free after all

Not sure it would be possible but I think this 'could' work:

1. Starter Appt is a shared appt between all 4 of your character slots. You can store items in your cabinets and access them on any of your other characters. Might be worth 'removing' a few of the cabinets just to make the storage space a little harder to manage.

This essentially gives you a reasonable amount of storage (you've still got gogo's remember) but you'd need to manage it well as you'd have to store 4 characters worth of equipment. Once that space runs out - you're obviously going to need to buy yourself further storage/appts

2. Increase the cost of both appt keys and also cabinets.

I've no suggestions regarding price other than that they should be significantly more than what they are now.

3. This is where the appt rent idea could roll into play. Once players have a 'non starter' appt, they start paying rent on that appt - This would be automated and should that payment cease due to lack of funds, the non starter appt's should then be locked and unavailable to access.

What I've just wrote might not make any sense, I'm not sure. I'm tired, cranky and at work :p

It's an idea nonetheless and I'm quite open to any constructive critisism (it'd never be implemented anyway I don't think as it'd be a nightmare to manage) :p

Kame
11-10-12, 19:15
I quite like the appt rent idea but then what's to stop someone just using their starter appt on all their 4 character slots for storage? - It's free after all


My idea was that the rent-apt should basically be a runner-ran shop, not a storage apt or anything.

Give them a few nice features, like all-access, choice of NPC (bartender, ammo/mod, chemical, weapon parts, etc) and lots of storage, and make them connect to P1 mainstreet for ease of access.

They should come furnished, but the runners could still choose to add more furnitures to them.

Should a runner decide to stop paying or renting, he is given the option to recover all the content of the apts, including furnitures, via a starter-apt NPC, and everything goes back into their inventory.

This way I don't think there is much coding to be done, except maybe NPCs for runner transactions.

zii
11-10-12, 20:12
I have not read the whole thread but only the OP's first post.


In the real world, there is not money cap. Wealth just continues to accumulate and concentrated with the wealthy. The price of every day items always increases as inflation always rises.

1) Devil's advocate mode on: I cannot imagine NC being any different. The problem is that the new player still starts the game with 2,000 credits. This ought to be adjusted for inflation over the servers life time.

2) Frankly, I do not see a problem with the economy because:
i) there are no old characters with oodles of rares ;
ii) low level players have no reason to buy rares. By the time they are a higher enough rank to need these, they can kill higher level mobs in caves (e.g Regents), get shed loads of cash and sell the dropped rares. It is not that difficult to make $$ in NC.

We do not require any additional money sinks. I'd rather spend more time playing instead of creating wealth!

zii
11-10-12, 20:17
2 Points

1) If a player has 20,000,000 CR a GR would cost 200K for a single trip :eek:

2) Most players realising the above would always keep low CR on themselves say 50,000 CR which would work as 500 CR a single trip which would be far cheaper than the current GR Model.

So, they invest into cars and motobikes. Given this logic we should increase the value of these as well as the GRs?

Vehicles would become unaffordable to the people with money? We'd be back to walking across the wastelands! Only the poor would use GRs and cars. Fuck me, what a blast! :D


I do see what this brings to the game?
Should vechicles use petrol? Perhaps these would run out of fuel half way to the fight?
Can we have NPCs to point us the petrol stations?

Kame
11-10-12, 22:17
Should vechicles use petrol? Perhaps these would run out of fuel half way to the fight?
Can we have NPCs to point us the petrol stations?
.
Might be wrong, but I think our NC vehicles use nuclear fusion engines.

Drachenpaladin
11-10-12, 22:54
.
Might be wrong, but I think our NC vehicles use nuclear fusion engines.

Yep, this... tho i dunno why the vhc gunz arn't juiced by this either... :rolleyes:

Haxxor
11-10-12, 23:52
.
Might be wrong, but I think our NC vehicles use nuclear fusion engines.

Including the chaincraft & Ariel vehicles?

Nose
12-10-12, 16:12
In the real world, there is not money cap. Wealth just continues to accumulate and concentrated with the wealthy. The price of every day items always increases as inflation always rises.


This is true and therefore one of our most serious real world problems! Of course there is no cap, but there is no real value behind money, either. and money is created through loans which means there are always more debts than money exists, leading to concentration of wealth on the one hand, the illusion of companies having to grow to be healthy (as they need to follow the by itself growing amount of money) and exponentially rising inflation which leads to crisis after crisis.

And this exactly what we shall avoid where we can. in the real world, we can't simply because law says we have to use euros, dollars, pounds or whatever to pay which we have no influence on.
but in nc this is different. here we have the ability to influence 'god' aka the dev team and create a stable economy where the value of money stays more or less constant for everyone over time.

has anyone of you noticed that money already starts to become worthless on titan again? I remember 2 weeks ago everyone was asking for a barter even for small purchases.
now I already rarely see the need for barters and people start using rare parts as currency. sooner or later economy will be spoiled again because everyone has everything.

this is still a lot better than in the real world, where at the end only one person will have everything, simply due to interest calculations.

to come to an end here: we DO need a money sink. but it has to be adjustable to the current economic situation on the server. one-shots might bring a short-lived improvement but are no real solution.

Drachenpaladin
12-10-12, 16:45
Well i think a core problem is the kill reward. As stupid as that may sound. But we have unlimited mobs so we generate unlimited money.
A more elaborated reward concept would probably be required and i'm not sure if the current incarnation of NC can support this.

Kill rewards should be payed from the faction budged of the faction you run the mission for. The lower the faction budget the higher the prices of faction services to raise the income of the faction.
Of course this system needs external factors i.e. outside money sources and ofc. outside money sinks too. This way a part of the money can vapor from the system but also can flow in, but i'd rather see game mechanics in that place then the hand of GMs. Or else ppl will just "rely on the saving hand" instead of try to engage them selfs. This way i think we can avoid bankruptcy of a faction due to downward spirals. The monopolies are another way to prevent these, this way players can't simply abandon a faction if the prices skyrocket, triggering aforementioned downward spiral. (Tricky is just the part where you find a monopoly for some of the Neutral/Anti-CA factions but i think the item pool is big enough.)

Also this proposes the possibility to give the faction chairmen and -women a bit more influence and function right now they are selected and can... do what exactly? I'm not sure what power they hold right now. But it doesn't seem to matter that much.

€dit: An idea that just came to my mind: As faction chairmen you should have get the possibility and/or duty to decide over the faction budget in the fashion of devising funds to a military, an economical and a social budget. This affects various aspects as the following: If you cut the military budget in favor of the economy budget items in the factions shops will become cheaper but the faction guards will also become weaker. The social budget could control stuff like GR-costs (and maybe rents if introduced).

However rentals i think are not such a great solution in general.

Oxygen
12-10-12, 17:56
I don't think it is necessary, considering Neocron was always a place with very high prices the players selling stuff really cheap you can't even buy a 150 tool under 1 million without a barter. From the view of a regular shop in NC most players sacrifice goods.

Nose
12-10-12, 21:22
"it was always messed up" is not an argument to leave it that way.

I like drachen's money pool ideas but still I doubt if any of our creations here can actually make it into the game.
but who knows, maybe into nc3? ;)

Bruder Malmsdoo
31-12-12, 16:07
Too lazy to read the whole thread again...

One effektiv moneysink would be to increase dynamically (level) the GR fees. E.G. 20k for a fully leveled character to a distant location.

Bruder Malmsdoo
14-03-13, 13:46
Feature Request:

Create a possibility for the server managers to deflate or inflate prices!

For example: When the economy gets fucked again prices could be increased by 5%.

That isn't only an effectiv moneysink, it can also be used for roleplaying and it makes the game more interesting for tradeskillers too.
I think that it would enhance the nc-immerson greatly, because it solves severe problems with the economy.

Ashanti
14-03-13, 18:06
Pretty great discussion here. Thats what i like

GR costs a % amount of our money
OPs cost Money
Apartment rent (the chance of showing ur wealth would make us Tradergirlies celebrate ;)) Starterap should be free but no additional Cupboards can be placed.
Reduce or Scratch the Kill-Mob-Money (loot if you need cash)

Come up with some goodies one could pay for like a Bartender in our Ap or Clanap
Lom Pills should cost ten times of their current prize

Chuck Norris
14-03-13, 20:42
gogus anyone"?

Assimilator
16-03-13, 02:06
Why don't we have an auction house system yet? Or are we still hoping player shops will eventually make a comeback? I personally detest player shops (Ragnarok Online style) vs. a centralized global marketplace.

Deno
16-03-13, 04:10
I think a lot could be gained by lowering the credit reward upon killing mobs. Instead, mobs would occasionally drop valuable junk. So for example, when hunting sewer rats, 1 in 10 might drop a piece of junk worth say 1,400 nc. This would mean that if players wanted to gain money from PvE they would need to loot every mob. The fact that junk loot would be uncommon but valuable negates the problem of inventory space issues. This solution would make no practical difference except for runners who powerlevel in AoE dungeons.

I've spent the last few days leveling in El Farid on a droner and tbh the credits you can make is ridiculous. You just sit there holding the LMB and get 1000nc every few seconds.

I reckon that on average there are three droners in the lower level at any one time (probably 4-5 at peak then ~0 at night). I also estimate that in any one instance, there are a total of 150 creeps that will be killed in one reset cycle. Each one gives ~1000nc. I estimate it takes about 20 minutes per reset cycle. This simple Fermi calculation predicts roughly 10,800,000nc entering the economy every 24hrs from El Farid alone (i've made the assumption that player costs are negligible).

Based on the statistic that there is ~5 billion nc accumulated already and since the server has been up for ~120 days, this means on average at least 40 million nc enters the economy every day. This is of course an underestimate since probably at least a quarter or more of the money entering the system does leave it within a reasonable amount of time (GRs, armour, ammo, appartments etc).

Combining these two numbers suggests that a dungeon such as El Farid could be contributing up to one quarter of all money in the game. This is obviously an overestimate since the 10mil figure was probably overoptimistic, and the figure of 5 bil in the game probably represents the remainder of a total of at least 10 billion that has entered since the server began. Hence El Farid dungeon alone could be contributing around a tenth of the total money into the game (this doesn't surprise me in the slightest). Thus my suggestion of removing cash rewards and including greater loot rewards could easily address some of the serious economy issues.

If the suggestion I have made was implemented, then AoE droners could still happily power level, but if you wanted to actually make money you would probably want to hunt warbots or firemobs (which indeed do not provide quite as insane a rate of XP).

braydagner
16-03-13, 05:48
The money problem is not solved by lessening the money from mobs. The money problem is solved by money sinks, especially at higher levels.

I have always liked the idea of uncapped GR fees. Also, owning an OP should cost money (helps to keep the map looking like it currently does, instead of 2 or 3 clans owning every OP).

Apartment rent? I don't want to leave for a month and come back and have to farm money to get back into my apartment.

I saw an idea of eliminating advanced ammo from being recycled. Yes and no, this is a good money sink, but pretty crappy when you are leveling and you have to run all the way back to a gogo for more ammo.

But to be quite honest, the economy is not nearly as bad as it was on Terra, for instance. Yes, there is a lot of money, but many things traded at higher levels use trades instead of money. Money becomes obsolete, and therefore having a lot of it doesn't matter (other than making a pretty sweet apartment). Think of new players, also. Think of how much it costs to make a new weapon. You take away kill rewards and new players are left with shitty starter weapons for a lot longer than they be.

What about adding a price for building rare weapons? Add a vendor where you have to buy the blueprint of the rare weapon (ranging in prices based on techlevel and possibly how often the bp is purchased) and have the tech parts remain as the 'weapon parts'.

onero S
16-03-13, 08:31
The money problem is not solved by lessening the money from mobs. The money problem is solved by money sinks, especially at higher levels.

I have always liked the idea of uncapped GR fees. Also, owning an OP should cost money (helps to keep the map looking like it currently does, instead of 2 or 3 clans owning every OP).

Apartment rent? I don't want to leave for a month and come back and have to farm money to get back into my apartment.

I saw an idea of eliminating advanced ammo from being recycled. Yes and no, this is a good money sink, but pretty crappy when you are leveling and you have to run all the way back to a gogo for more ammo.

But to be quite honest, the economy is not nearly as bad as it was on Terra, for instance. Yes, there is a lot of money, but many things traded at higher levels use trades instead of money. Money becomes obsolete, and therefore having a lot of it doesn't matter (other than making a pretty sweet apartment). Think of new players, also. Think of how much it costs to make a new weapon. You take away kill rewards and new players are left with shitty starter weapons for a lot longer than they be.

What about adding a price for building rare weapons? Add a vendor where you have to buy the blueprint of the rare weapon (ranging in prices based on tech level and possibly how often the bp is purchased) and have the tech parts remain as the 'weapon parts'.


I'm not sure I like the idea of a fee to control OPs, but I would be in favor of high level GR fees increased fairly dramatically (say... 20k per gr at max distance). Furthermore, the GR discount to GR from an apartment should be removed.

I really like the cost component to build rares and things. The easiest way to implement this would likely be via a very expensive gel....

Dribble Joy
16-03-13, 13:37
The issue is really the lack of end-game cash sinks. Leveling requires almost all of what you earn to go into your next weapon, imp or whatever. At the end-game you have all of those, or you get them from loot (Rares, MC5s, missions, etc.). Aside from 'unnecessary' sinks like apartments, there is little that you need to spend your cash on.

Bruder Malmsdoo
16-03-13, 14:29
The only really working system, that fits for all kind of different people - like in the real world - is INFLATION. Implement the possibility for the server managers to inflate und deflate prices of different product categories, and all our problems are solved. It makes the Game more interesting too. What do you think of that idea? Please don't repeat proposals, which already have been made.

braydagner
16-03-13, 17:41
Inflation, again, just makes it harder for new people to get off their feet. It's high levels that need sinks, not new characters. And inflation would take as much money out as you'd think; I already have plenty of everything I would need to buy and if the prices were to inflate, it wouldn't affect me (as well as many other people who do as I do and buy in bulk in advance).

Money sinks. It comes down to money sinks.

Make high level missions cost money instead of reward (i.e. Regants PA, WoC weapons, etc)

Netphreak
19-03-13, 23:04
I always reckoned that in-game auction houses helped limit inflation in games.

Bruder Malmsdoo
14-12-16, 01:52
Change the Job center and create a place, where you can change the name of your character for a huge sum of money.

M4rK
15-12-16, 08:30
WTS 150er research Mission BPs ... 1.6mio

thats the main influence on neocrons economy.

each mission should take 1 BP and reward 10k nc / 400xp

i know its still same reward but u would have to run x3 the amount of missions to reach it..

Bruder Malmsdoo
15-12-16, 20:55
But to make the same amount of money atm I have to hunt merely 15 rareparts...guess whats is faster

M4rK
16-12-16, 08:39
problem is that res missions generate new money into the economy...
when u sell UGs its money from other players

Odimara Orca
16-12-16, 10:09
problem is that res missions generate new money into the economy...
when u sell UGs its money from other players

So does killing things.