View Full Version : Something needs to be done about the Saturn economy
When a 4 slot CS is priceless... (meaning that no amount of money can buy it)
MC5 chip base price is 20 million (mostly 35-40 million)
when Batqueen bones are 100 k a piece
and all tradeskillers have at least 50 million
YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.
I have been talking to players who play on the one character servers and other server communities, it seems that saturn's economy has gone to hell.
Many players have told me that money is useless. Runners are resorting to bartering tech parts and imps and have done away entirely with money.
I am sure there are a few high end item traders out there who still prefer money. In my opinion, the runners who hold the rarest of items also have a lot of money and are not interested in having nc involved in a trade.
This is bad.
I shouldnt have to pay 7 million for a psi core. (I didn't either)
Some lame ass was asking for 45 million for a synaptic accelerator the other day.
I don't have a tradeskill character. I don't have the ability to make that kind of money. I haver heard the cries before and some great ideas of money sinkholes. Can we please have that implemented soon.
Thanks! Opinions welcome stupidity and pointless flames can be directed over to the SWG forum.
Saturn is the start, other servers will follow. From what I saw during few days on Saturn last week, when it comes to high end items, Saturn is one step away from the time in Beta 4, where money was worthless. You still can buy stuff on Saturn for money, but it is getting really hard, thats true. The moment you start to feel the money cap is one of your biggest problems in the game, something is going really wrong :(
And a money/item wipe for sure is not an answer like it was suggested some time ago in a similar thread.
BlackPrince
20-09-03, 17:40
Do to NC credits what Mexico did to the Peso, cut 5 0's off the end.
Its the same way on pluto, there arent enough money sinks for high level players in this game so the inflation is horrible. There need to be something in the end game to spend money on, if you could for example buy a random rare part from some NPC somewhere for a few 100k or something all this money would disappear on notime.
BlackPrince
20-09-03, 17:43
Well, if Stock X worked properly (I suggested a looooong time ago that they tie it in to randomly chosen RL stocks from the various markets, making it almost impossible to artificially change stock prices, unless BIll Gates or Warren Buffet are playing Neo).
Yeah... I sure made an ass of myself on Saturn before I figured out how the economy worked...
I rolled a noob and was trying to buy some lvl 2 implants or something, and the guy said that he would sell them to me for like 75k each. Well of course... being from Pluto I thought this guy was an idiot and basically told him so.
And then I realized that everyone else that was selling the imps were selling them for the same prices 8|
So I moved back to Pluto and haven't looked back ;)
There is a problem with saturns money maybe but I dont see an economy problem.
You want MC5 chips you trade sloted rares and money
You want Slotted rares you trade mc5
Saturn is a item based economy not a cash economy I dont really have a problem with this.
People just dont sell rares for money now however peole do sepnd money on no rares 5slot holy heal 5 slot blacksun and so on will sell for cash.
There have been several idea's on how to spend the money though
Multimillion dollar Aps
Ap prices based on location ie-Plaza lvl 3 -location plaza 1 = 1.5 million This in my opinion is one of the best ideas I have seen.
Re add dynamic's and make the expensive or just really rare lets go UO style 5 million for a fruit basket anyone?
What if you dont have slotted rare items to trade for a mc5 chip?
thats what money is for. to help you attain equiptment you need but dont have other equiptment to barter with.
if this game was meant to be played on a item barter system, money wouldnt be in place. All chips no matter what level would be attained through a manner similar to the way you attain the psi power cloaks.
I always found it borderline impossible to make money as a capped character. The only semi decent way that i found was to hunt some warbots, hack em and sell the techparts. Figured that people were still buying techparts, and at 50K a piece for the unused ones and 100-200K a piece for the more upscale ones, i could still make enough money to be comfy in life.
And this is why i use retail guns, because otherwise i don't get the loot good enough to make some money off it.
Heraclitus
20-09-03, 18:27
You're exaggerating some (quite a bit) but you make a valid point. Like any real economic system, inflation has become a problem. There have been oodles of ideas to take money out of the system which I consider to be favorable. Here are some (not all these ideas are mine):
1.) Make Real Estate location choosable if you want to buy them and make the price dependant on demand. Raise these prices quite a bit, but also offer a rental option and MAYBE a mortgage option (if it's technically practical). Of course the starter apartment will remain free as it is now. Also add small underground shelters for sale in a number of non-OP sectors.
2.) Make slotted armor possible, thus promoting the construction of armor. Now money will be spent on parts and chemicals.
3.) Make faction sympathy (other than your own faction lets say) buyable to a certain extent. Essentially a bribe. Perhaps a chance of failure added to the fact that you have to trek out to the hinterlands to find the crooked NPC that will make things right with whatever faction you're trying to placate. (Faction sympathies need ramifications though, becuause other than your own faction's sympathy they don't mean anything.)
4.) Poking machines. Perhaps quite costly (10k per poke). The really rich will use them at first thinking the well is botomless, but at 10k per poke plus other inflation-fighting things they may find themselves living in a carboard box if they don;t get a poke from an actual person in Plaza 1.
5.) Eliminate ammo cloning. This is my idea, I'll take the heat for it. Not only is it nearly gamebreaking, it's a huge hinderance to a healthy economy. Everyone needs ammo (save monks) and it's not all that expensive (I'd say the prices are about right). This also rewards those with the forethought to buy enough ammo for whatever expedition they're going on. And really your expedition is not that hampered by how much ammo you can carry, there are tons of Yo's out there that sell ammo.
6.) Limited number of unique skills. Specifically I'm talking about the skill to use PAs. As it is now the monk and spy PA require some running around to get. Now that PEs are getting their PA, let's make every PA require some sort of epic...a somewhat costly epic. That way, if PAs become BPable and able to have slots, a person still has to go through the epic to get the ABILITY to wear it. Lets also say that at the end of this epic you are asked if you want to buy PA from whatever NPC gave you this epic (the cost should be pretty high) and that that PA is like the epic weapons: 120% everything that never degrades, but also has a good chance of being unslotted. So a player can then take their PA to get constructed (again costing materials) and hope for a bunch of slots so that they can increase certain resists of the armor. I also guess it'd be necessary for the quality of the armor to modify its resists.
7.) There are more...
money has only use
gr fee's
money has no use since its so much easyer to get hold of than say rares or mc5 chips
the time it takes to get a full mc5 chip you can make around 4/5million depending on how much time you have
I blame MC5. Once you introduce chip parts that are the rarest thing in the game, and people start taking cash for them, everyone jacks up the prices on everything else. I mean, 7 mil for a Filter 2? Give me a fooking break. A lot of these sellers are dreaming of their MC5 parts. I don't support it. I do feel, however, that trading rare weapons for MC5 parts is justified, and that seems to be where the economy is at.
I still sell level 3 chips for 100k, when I'm selling them. Currently I'm in an acquisition cycle :p
MC5 is completely irrelevant to the inflation, the money amasses wether or not there are rare ships, and once the money is out there the prizes gets jacked up.
Anyway, I can just hope that KK will realize the problem and introduces some optional money sinks before DoY and new players hits the servers.
A huge part of the problems also is the fact, that you need much cash as a newbie, and then your cash needs become less and less, but you gain more and more. Maybe a credit/loan system should be intoduce for new characters and then the cash from mobs cut down a little to further avoid too much money getting generated.
/EDIT: and maybe now is about time to close some unbalanced money generators like ATCs...
Originally posted by Rade
MC5 is completely irrelevant to the inflation, the money amasses wether or not there are rare ships, and once the money is out there the prizes gets jacked up.
You're probably right. People acquire money to spend it.
It's just that I never saw money flying about so freely. Sure you'd always see people paying 2-5 mil for many-slotted rares, but it was mostly limited to that.
Well, the fact that MC5 chips became so expensive was just a timing issue I think, people were just starting to get all this money but they already had all the rares they needed, then this new thing shows up and they're too lazy to get it. Bleah anyway, something needs to be done, end-game moneysinks KK, please.
http://neocron.jafc.de/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74194
Link to the same discussion I started a few weeks ago, with some more good/related replies. I agree that it's becoming a problem.
For those of you who think the economy is just fine think of this. When you go to put gas in your car, the guy doesn't refuse to take your money, saying "I only accept payment in Easter Island heads - go away until you have some Easter Island heads", does he?
Money is becoming worthless. In a global economy, when a country's money becomes worthless that equates to poverty. PERIOD.
for example buy a random rare part from some NPC somewhere for a few 100k or something all this money would disappear on notime.
Wonderful idea imo. Would make a nice money sink. I myself have tens of millions on saturn and just last week I sold a SF (yes special forces) for 10 million. I didn't even haggle with them, that was the price they announced they wanted one for over trade channel.
Oh an ste-x if money is only good for gr fees, how comes you have taken like 35 million out of the clan funds :p
Originally posted by Rizzy
Oh an ste-x if money is only good for gr fees, how comes you have taken like 35 million out of the clan funds :p
:eek: thats a lot of GR trips:p
:( wish i had that much money well my 2mill keeps me contented
Well, in the most recent part of the grand J. Folsom adventure for a Special Science (Which, I might add, has been going on for around 7 months now), I can roughly quote the following:
Me: Hey, about that SS you're selling... How much would you like for it?
Guy selling SS: 10 million.
Me: 10 million?!
Guy selling SS: Yeah, cheap isn't it?
Considering I recently had 1 million and thought, "Hah, I'm rich!", then to hear that, I just decided to give up ever getting one of those bloody things through trade.
ok, neocron does not have a black market at all now, in beta it was good because there was chitin
when that went, there was tech parts when people where actually able to gain tech parts and people would stand in plaza in there spare time to trade their tech parts, which was actually fun because you could get the stuff you wanted within a week at the most for ANY player, now it can take a month for all players if not they give up as i did
Originally posted by Rizzy
Oh an ste-x if money is only good for gr fees, how comes you have taken like 35 million out of the clan funds :p
He's trying to see if he can get his synaptic impairment to go over 100%?
Originally posted by Cass
He's trying to see if he can get his synaptic impairment to go over 100%? You can't, I figured that out while levelling constitution on my droner. (Well, it wasn't originally planned as a con levelling session, it was more the case that I repeatedly went to the same GR after dieing, where a guy was killing people)
Of course, that what you said was meant as a joke, and I'm fully aware of that.
Don't go messing with ammo cloning. That's the only way some people (me, specifically) can actually manage to stay out in the boonies and not have to go back for ammo every half-hour.
I'm very much in favor of reducing prices and adding some money sinks in, though.
--Stryfe
Donny, check your PMs.
Its all about supply and demand. Thanks to the insane rarity of quality rares (hell, just rares in general) and MC5 chips, there's no point in using money because money in and of itself is nearly worthless. Back when tech parts dropped more frequently, the economy was thriving and money (and tech parts) were changing hands like crazy.
There are also times I think President Bush has taken over KK. The rich get richer, and everyone else gets screwed.
Basically NC has two classes on Saturn. The haves and have-nots. Pretty much anyone that isn't in a gigantic clan with at least 5 members hunting for rares (which is about as boring as counting socks because of the low drop amount for most players) at all times has an EXTREMELY difficult time getting any kind of rare weapon, sans maybe the Wyatt Earp, and will probably magically grow a third leg before they ever get a hold of an MC5 chip. Something needs to be done so the "have-nots" can have a viable way to work their way up to getting a decent tech part collection, without having to hunt warbots or firemobs for months on end just to get a desirable part or two to trade.
Now I know certain people are going to go the usual "rares should be rare" route with this, but that point shouldn't supercede the games ability to be fun and have a healthy economy.
Here's what I think KK needs to do.
First, they need to up the tech part rate so you have about a 1 out of 3-4 chance to loot a tech part guaranteed. The insanely huge amount of parts now would balance out the hightened drop rate.
Second, they need to include some quest/loot style missions which you can trade in for desirable items such as tech parts. Like trade in a certain amount of items (such as maybe 300 or so scorpion essense, or some other mob dropped item that has no purpose) to an NPC for a random tech part. Some would think this would just turn the game into NeoFarm, but the sad fact is that the game is already there. The only difference is that you KNOW you'd be getting something good for your time, instead of it being a constant, frustrating battle with luck and the game's lackluster system of loot drops.
Third, something needs to be done to stomp out the giant gap between "common" and "ridiculously rare" What good is money if your only choice is a Ring Pop or a diamond ring with a rock the size of an asteroid? There need to be some really nice items that are constructable and desirable to high level players, but cost a good amount of money to make. Perhaps something like a damage enhancer that doesn't take up a slot, is non repairable, and slowly degrades as you use it (maybe at the same rate as a melee rare, so you'd have to replace it after a few days use). The rarity of it would have to be just enough so its not something that's easy to get, but enough that you can get it for a decent (but not insane) amount of cash.
Make it so you have to buy fuel for vehicles.
How about a slight tweak to rare drops - make the rare brain imps - marine - herc - PSI Core etc drop whole and non-wrecked.
That would really hurt the dishonest ressers in P1 and there is far more of these then most people would like to think. I played for 2 months using P1 ressers then lommed an alt to res. Sudenly I no longer get Paw of Tiger and Bear in every second rare - I'm getting CS parts, Psi Core, Libbys eveything. Prior to having my own resser I had not got 1 "high value" rare.
Which just proves the P1 ressers keep decent parts. Once they have enough they make a slotted rare and sell it for millions.
Check the money ranks on Saturn, 2 names in the top 10 will really stand out as everyone knows them and they never ever leave P1 - was all that money really made from tips?
Once the rare cpus are in game more and the rare pool subsequentially cut down the price on rare weapons will drop like a stone.
Yes CS's are expensive as are MC5 parts - but the fact a PSI Core goes for 7-15mil is just silly - you can use that imp at PSI level 80.
My monk is now PSI level 83 and is only 10 days old - needless to say I have not earnt anywhere near 7 million in that time.
i hate that shit!
there are rumors that uber P 1 cst's have extra popular rares in the inv that are 1 slot or zero slot, then they make you a uber 4 slot and keep the one that belongs to you. I would say make a auto cst or a auto repper along with a auto poker but KK wont go for that. that takes away the need for human trade skill
there are beggars already in place all over neocron that beg for money, some up to a 100k (i think). Why not change the script that when you donate a insane amount of money you SL gets back to zero (if its under -16) if its -17 and lower, you would have to raise it the old fashion way... missions.
Lets do something. I would really stay away from a money wipe. thats just cruel to do for the rich punk that lives in nc researching and constructing his whole virtual life. He has no combat experience at all but is TL 200 cst or res.
Whiety Bulger
23-09-03, 01:19
keep low level player economy the same but nerf high end economy with nifty money sinks. 18 million cred suoer appys would be nice. How about given money to homless given you Soul light.
webshock, u ever been to mc5? Nobodys gonna give an mc5 chip away easily. It was hard with the glass, and now theres none, so its harder. The commander doesnt even drop parts all the time. its a damn nightmare in there, have to fight for a turn and then stay alive and hope you get lucky for drops.
Same with slotted rares, getting a 3 slot CS or a 4 slot PE is HARD your NOT gonna get one for a few million cr...
Peeping Tom
23-09-03, 01:36
Originally posted by WebShock
When a 4 slot CS is priceless... (meaning that no amount of money can buy it)
MC5 chip base price is 20 million (mostly 35-40 million)
when Batqueen bones are 100 k a piece
and all tradeskillers have at least 50 million
you dont need 4 slot cs :P.. all you need is 2 and a ultima mod :P
i dont see your problem.. 20 mill for a mc5 imp is actualy cheap ( think about how fucking hard it is to get the imps now, hard to get, drop rate sucks on em.. and its hard to complete a whole imp)
i wouldt mind paying 100k a piece for bq bones.. but 100-150k for a set is normal price dat i seen
and making 50 mill for a trade skiller takes some time.. you need barter resser barter constructor barter etc
and i dont look at saturn with a more fucked up economy than pluto or uranus.. well you can still get cheap stuff on uranus.. except psi monk stuff
K4F
yea ive became rich since introduction of mc5's
at first people didnt knwo wtf to do with them.
when they were first introduced i bought a herc for 6 mil, and a sa for 3 mil.
week later i sold both for 35 mil each
then i sold some of that money on ebay, and then decked out all my chars with kik ass shit and found a guy sellin a herc for 18 mil, bought it, eventaully found all parts to SA on my own, and traded sa +2 mil for a ds( very good find ). and traded the herc for a hawkin for my researcher.
i love how the system works, the system made me rich ;p
ps. reason why stuffs so more expensive on saturn is bcuz people dont like to give stuff away. they like keeping it, and if they are giving it, they are gonna have a price to it. ive never sold 1 implant ive got in the game(cept of course mc5's or rare implants jus to get other ones), i give them to friends or use them myself.
and yea i see not great implants goin for like 100k on a daily basis.
when i started my psi i bought almost all my implants level 2 and 3 at 100k each
Whiety Bulger
23-09-03, 01:48
Th e primary way of getting rares on saturn is PKing spies ass they finish hacking and killing cripples as they hobble out of MC5
Originally posted by Whiety Bulger
Th e primary way of getting rares on saturn is PKing spies ass they finish hacking and killing cripples as they hobble out of MC5 good idea ;o *writes down* with a droner they wouldnt even know who it was that picked em off ;D w00t
Q`alooaith
23-09-03, 02:03
I'd remove cloning all item's totaly...
right now monk's can eat booster's all day long, and then go out kill some WBee's and clone the booster's back ina few mins... same with ammo, you go, kill shit, clone ammo, which is normaly more than you used to kill with, so you end up not needing to buy more ammo..
Whiety Bulger
23-09-03, 02:04
Seriously everything on saturn is PK based on Plutoi its the oppisite its getten so bad that on pluto killing some on 10 ranks higher then u is considerd n00b killing.......anyways back to the topic :)
Originally posted by Q`alooaith
I'd remove cloning all item's totaly...
right now monk's can eat booster's all day long, and then go out kill some WBee's and clone the booster's back ina few mins... same with ammo, you go, kill shit, clone ammo, which is normaly more than you used to kill with, so you end up not needing to buy more ammo.. i dont even clone them for my monk, i either buy them stock like 300 at a time or make some, i got tL 206 cnstr and tl 156 resser, not to hard ;]
Whiety Bulger
23-09-03, 02:07
Removing cloning=removen rec witch would piss over monks alot especially APU's soooo nnnnnnnnn00000000000
Originally posted by Shujin
ps. reason why stuffs so more expensive on saturn is bcuz people don't like to give stuff away. they like keeping it, and if they are giving it, they are gonna have a price to it. ive never sold 1 implant ive got in the game(cept of course mc5's or rare implants jus to get other ones), i give them to friends or use them myself. I respectfully disagree. The reason why stuff is so expensive is because there are no money sinks. Sellers know that Buyers are rich as fuck, so they hold out for someone who has 20 million, which they can find very easily. The people who pay 20 million for (whatever) are the people that are fuckin this all up for everyone else... but it's not their fault... they have nothing else to spend their millions on.
Listen... If no one on the server had 20 million, then you'd be happy to get 5 million for (whatever you're selling). Trading would become more about networking and who you know, rather than how many troop carriers you can crank out. Call me crazy but I'd like that 10x better than how it is now.
I know KK has to realize that the economy's getting wacky, and that they need to add money sinks. It's just a shame that it's going to take 6+ months for them to implement something.
o well ;p i jus know i hold on to my stuff i dont like selling at all, if i do anything i trade, ive always been that way
an idea for another money sink:
so what about setting up some of the Yo's vender's as 'fences'?
you could sell certain types of items to an NPC who would give you a decent price and then add the item to the Yo vender list for resale back into the general population:
1) Limit the fencing to tech parts, constructed rares and certain infrequently MoB dropped items.
2) seller gets a decent amount of cash based on the tl/slots of the item being fenced
3) the 'fence' then randomly distributes the purchased items into different Yo's vender item lists at a higher resale cost
4) items that aren't sold after a certain time limit get removed from the game
5) turn access to the 'fences' into a mini epic, maybe require initially you have a -SL, run a couple missions that involve stealing or hacking or something before you can fence goods, etc.
6) we've got all these store managers that hang out not doing anything, maybe 1 or 2 in each city could become fences
off the top of my head:
Advantages:
1) migh make the not-so-popular rare weapons/tech parts at least somewhat worthwhile since you could fence the constructed/unwanted items for a decent profit
2) provide an opportunity for runners to buy 'rare' items at KK controlled prices
3) provide another money sink for runners to spend their cash on
4) add a bit more 'rp' feel to the runners who want to rp muggers, thiefs, stealers, etc.
Disadvantages:
1) would obviously require runner participation - if people don't sacrifice their potential profit margin by selling these items to the fence then it obviously won't work
2) balancing the fenced price vs. the resale price would require some work so that somebody couldn't figure out a cash cow
I don't know. I think you could set it up to make it worthwhile to use. After awhile maybe the controled KK prices would help bring the economy back inline ...
Spy<VS>Spy
23-09-03, 23:16
the problem is item duping, it still exists, and kk is sneaking around like ninjas trying to hide it, but it isnt working well...there are intire clans on pluto where everyone is outfitted with mc5 chips...with chips to spare for any acount they want.
its a database thing, to me above doy should be a database advancement, in which items can be tracked, if kk sees 700 of one db number...booya...ban city, better yet, the chips are destroyed...kk can only act if they get sent a clue, they have little way of knowing otherwise.
plus they need to be heaveir on the ban stick. it does a game good.
I agree. If somebody calls for my Barter services to make money, 4 times out of 5 they just want to sell Troop Carriers. Frankly, at the amount I've been flogging the market with them as a consequence, they should have dropped in price to about 99 Credits.....
ermmm, Moneysinks and getting rid of cloning is not the answer.
That would just end up hurting the n00bs.
A big part of the problem with Saturn is it's four character server, so people hoard stuff more to "feed" their alt's(even if they don't need it at the moment, they'll still hold on to it, in case they may need it in the future).
That just makes everthing more rare and harder to come by.
Plus, people are still willing to spend ungodly amounts of money on one Tech Part, instead of waiting till they loot one or can trade for it(which may not be easy due to the low drop rate and bloated TP pool).
They have to have it right away, or their world will come to an end.
Let me give you kids an example of self control:
Last night on Pluto someone was selling a CS part for 250k, I could use it, and made a counteroffer of 125k, but it was declined.
I told told this person it was a reasonable offer, considering I sold this same person 5 or 6 Lib parts for less than 100k each a couple of weeks earlier...
250k for a CS part? that would be a deal on some servers, but I wouldn't buy for that much, just on principle...
People need to get over the "Gotta have them all(and right now)" mentality.....
Originally posted by Spoon
People need to get over the "Gotta have them all(and right now)" mentality.....
Not going to happen. Ever.
We need in game things to work against. We need the money generators such as Troop Carriers or turrets closed (their price for selling to shops needs to be lowered).
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