Suggestion to help fix the Cash economy

Had a brainwave from reading the constructive critique thread in regards to fixing the cash economy in this game currently.

My idea is simple in nature and hopefully simple to implement also. I have tried desperately to look at ways it could possibly go bad and in keeping with the traditional story line and other rp aspects of the game as well as being beneficial to the game I wanted to make the suggestion of implementing a new kind of vendor.

A Tech Part Vendor. More importantly a Researched Tech Part Vendor. Smuggler would be the most appropiate in some ways but I have also considered the idea of potentially adding them to faction HQs. Tangent being the most obvious but would need something to balance this on the non TT friendly side of things so possibly TG and another to make sure all factions have some access or simply add one to each faction.

This could be a nightmare so for now at least I think stick with smugglers. Divide them in to the categories of Rare parts Rifle, Pistol, HC, MC, PPU, APU and Drone. Maybe one for Misc also for cpus like the marine. Please note i would suggest keeping mc5 out of this list. just "Normal" rares.

Have each vendor sell ALL parts for that category and let people select the part they want to buy. Here comes the cash drain part. Price the parts at 1 million creds and above.

I see a benefit two ways. One it allows people who have lots of cash to buy parts they need to complete sets and then complete the weapon sets. It also drains money out of the economy if someone is desperate to get a weapon part they need to complete a set and they have the credits they can simply buy it.

It might help collectors with millions of creds finish off rare sets. Yes i think it could ultimately affect the price of a weapon should someone then wish to sell it on having paid 1m creds for one part they might make a 1 or 0 slot weapon and want to try and sell it for a rediculous amount to cover the costs but thats entirely up to a player driven economy to support that or not.

The idea itself is not without flaw and would only be an alternative to the idea of physically going out and grinding techs for yourself which is of course still one of the most fun aspects of neocron and pve but it could serve a purpose as it would provide those people with billions of creds a way to spend some and potentially drain some of that surplus from the economy.

Any thoughts?

If it was used it would be useful. It needs to be cheap enough to be accessible but expensive enough to make a real dent.

I think once balancing occurs it will have much more of a demand but it can't hurt to stick it into the game for now and give the idea a try.

i don't think that would solve anything in the long run... rather make it so that mobs accumulate credits and rewards/drops over time. so switching places and looking for remote areas is more rewarding than just killing the same mobs on the same spot over and over?

Whichever area you focus on, the necessity of cash at high level is not what it could be.
The idea of cash-sinks has been around since the beginning of NC, but there has rarely been a necessary cash sink.

Apartments and furniture are all well and good, but when a starter apt and gogu are more than enough for many chars and most end-game items can be acquired without any substantial cash outlay, the value of ingame credits is called into question.

You could cite the TL150 res missions, but we have be talking about how to deal with them (and addressing the other issues surrounding the tradeskill missions). If you don't have an issue with faction change/secondary skill xp/SL, then they aren't part of your normal game-play (or at least, I've never needed them).

There is a question of balance though;
How much PvE is required to support PvP? How much of the necessities for PvP should be provided by pure PvE work (mob drops for example) and how much by missions and sold loot.

Should quick kill mission focus on xp? Should killing mobs gain any cash reward? Should high-level mob dropped items require more cash-only acquired items to activate?

At 1 million NC per ressed part?

Well I'll say this. Your idea would successfully kill the rares economy and destroy a core part of the game.

There is a bunch of people who hunt for rares, researchers who research un-ressed rare parts, and the traders who make their money trading rares when they are online. If this idea went ahead I can't see much point in running the rares DB at http://rares.techhaven.org/

You need to look elsewhere for a cash sink.

The thing is they trade parts. They dont buy and sell. last i played not many people sold anything for cash it was all trades so i I dont see how thats gonna kill any rare economy. Its self insulating.

Secondly it doesnt force a player to go and buy the parts from the vendor, merely it offers an alternative. It also wont stop people from doing it the old fashioned way given the fact there isnt much else to do beyond pvp once you hit the level cap.

I think your too dismissive off the bat. Possibly too short sighted. granted the idea needs some work and needs to be considered from multiple angles but to say it "kills" it without really exploring what might or might not happen is not good for progress.

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Originally Posted by Doc Holliday

The thing is they trade parts. They dont buy and sell. last i played not many people sold anything for cash it was all trades so i I dont see how thats gonna kill any rare economy. Its self insulating.

Secondly it doesnt force a player to go and buy the parts from the vendor, merely it offers an alternative. It also wont stop people from doing it the old fashioned way given the fact there isnt much else to do beyond pvp once you hit the level cap.

I think your too dismissive off the bat. Possibly too short sighted. granted the idea needs some work and needs to be considered from multiple angles but to say it "kills" it without really exploring what might or might not happen is not good for progress.

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Part of the appeal of rare hunting is its randomized nature. Like playing the casino if you will. Little skinner boxes. If you take that out and give people an easy way to get exactly what they want though they will look for the shortest path to that goal. Despite the perceived fun they had when hunting. People are still goal oriented even though the rewards are actually in the journey. For a very good real world study of this look at the phases Diablo 3 went through. It almost destroyed their game. If it weren't for the already huge player base only made possible by the success of its predecessors Diablo 3 would have just died imho.

So yeah... i think this would be a similar situation. we all want that 5 slot artifact coursed soul BUT dare I say most of us don't realize that working for that goal is much more rewarding than just having one put in our inventory at the start of the game? The whole economy and dare I say 80% of the game is built around getting to that perfect setup that will give you an edge in PvP.

If this game was PvP only I would have never played it. There might be people who do only enjoy that aspect of the game... well those usually find people to play with that support that play style... and that's just fine. But the logistics to support that is a big junk of the game. Most of it even. Just like leveling your character is a big part of it. Otherwise you could just put a vendor in the desert that sells the weapons, levels, full skill respecs and whathaveyou. People would look for the best way to make a lot of money and just buy their way up. Others would have no basis to exist... why go hunting if no one cares for what you've got to offer? I might think I'd go hunting for my own sake but the truth is more complicated than that.

So yes... Brammers has the right idea. It would destroy the economy and the game (even more).

If they wanted to buy the weapons they still need cash. They still need to farm something to earn that cash. I dont see that as an issue.

Farming techs to sell for cash to buy the bits they need would suck money out of the economy. That was my point.

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Originally Posted by Doc Holliday

If they wanted to buy the weapons they still need cash. They still need to farm something to earn that cash. I dont see that as an issue.

Farming techs to sell for cash to buy the bits they need would suck money out of the economy. That was my point.

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This would maybe work for a while until there's again enough cash in the system so everyone could just buy the few parts they need. It's not as there was a constant need for new BIS items. I can't say what the most effective way of farming cash is. Maybe regant runs... maybe just caves. I'm sure someone would figure it out... maybe even an exploit. These are not unheard of. Demand would stagnate over time and at a certain point no one would have the need to buy/trade any rare parts from players. Money sinks are not an effective way to create a working economy. They are an easy way to have that illusion up until a certain point. In some games that might be enough but there's a reason why no game has ever managed to do this right. No matter the resources. This is of course because it's a difficult issue to solve. Heck we haven't figured that out IRL. It should theoretically easier in petri dishes to create a viable economy and maybe someone has THE IDEA that will solve this issue. I just don't think yours is the right approach. It's a band aid and I fear the side effects would outweigh the benefits by a huge margin.

I don't have an answer to this problem either but I'd rather lessen the cash created (for now) than search for additional ways of getting rid of it again.

€1million per unressed category part.

E.g. €1million for a random unressed Melee part. Or HC. Or Whatever. You choose the category, but it's random and requires a researcher.

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Originally Posted by eNTi

This would maybe work for a while until there's again enough cash in the system so everyone could just buy the few parts they need. It's not as there was a constant need for new BIS items. I can't say what the most effective way of farming cash is. Maybe regant runs... maybe just caves. I'm sure someone would figure it out... maybe even an exploit. These are not unheard of. Demand would stagnate over time and at a certain point no one would have the need to buy/trade any rare parts from players. Money sinks are not an effective way to create a working economy. They are an easy way to have that illusion up until a certain point. In some games that might be enough but there's a reason why no game has ever managed to do this right. No matter the resources. This is of course because it's a difficult issue to solve. Heck we haven't figured that out IRL. It should theoretically easier in petri dishes to create a viable economy and maybe someone has THE IDEA that will solve this issue. I just don't think yours is the right approach. It's a band aid and I fear the side effects would outweigh the benefits by a huge margin.

I don't have an answer to this problem either but I'd rather lessen the cash created (for now) than search for additional ways of getting rid of it again.

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Good points raised. I realise the most obvious problem would be the tl150 cubes upon further review. Thats gonna mean someone macroing (lets be honest. it happened. not sure if it still does) for a while cash in a bunch of cubes instant money and then buy what they need. That could well be an issue but then nothing is ever perfect. The point was it was an idea and needed to be exposed to multiple minds to try and critique or even break it.

I think it stood up reasonably well in the light of current discussion.


WIthout veering off on a terrible tangent and still using the cash drain idea from this thread another suggestion would be to reduce cash gain from OPs for one or input an upkeep cost and then let clans set gr fees for the use of porting to them.

This probably warrants a seperate thread but gonna use this one for now. I have never ever been a proponent of locking grs and i think its the worst idea that came in to being for the game but that aside it could make ops more easy to hold if the incentive was there to unlock a genrep and then charge a decent fee for a person using it. Granted they can use an alternative public one or use the clan one. Each is optional.

Given the fact if you get gr camped (unlikely but can happen) in an OP zone your not dropping a belt is one incentive for a person to use the OP gr plus it might be much more convenient for them to get to certain places.

Again this throwing out ideas for discussion so have at it. Something has to change to try and bring this game back from the dead. here is my attempt. :)

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Originally Posted by Doc Holliday

The thing is they trade parts. They dont buy and sell. last i played not many people sold anything for cash it was all trades so i I dont see how thats gonna kill any rare economy. Its self insulating.

Secondly it doesnt force a player to go and buy the parts from the vendor, merely it offers an alternative. It also wont stop people from doing it the old fashioned way given the fact there isnt much else to do beyond pvp once you hit the level cap.

I think your too dismissive off the bat. Possibly too short sighted. granted the idea needs some work and needs to be considered from multiple angles but to say it "kills" it without really exploring what might or might not happen is not good for progress.

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I think your idea is short sighted without thinking of the long term effects on the game. Sure it's offers another way to get "rares" but once you offer an easy way with cash. I guess my short and to the point post wasn't concise enough. So I'll point out the details.

1. The research trade - these players research techs for XP and the odd bit of cash for doing the job, they will be out of the job.
2. The hunter - well instead of hunting for parts and getting a pool to sell or trade, I may as well goto the "get me cash fast" leveling spot to raise 5 million to get the 5 parts I need to buy from the vendor.
3. The traders of rares - well if players are taking the quick and easy way of buying the parts, their pool of parts are going to be worth less. Think supply and demand here, that drives a games economy.
3. The meaning of "rare" is now lost.
4. Something I didn't mentioned, but has been covered in other posts. You take away the satisfaction of a player "Oh a rare part" to "Yes that ressed part is one part of the rare I need" to the frustration "Ewww fuck, another drone part?"

So I do stand by my strong words that it would kill the game economy and core gameplay (Not just the rare economy you just mentioned above)

Maybe if you restrict the trader to one part per month, restrict it to rank 50+ and make the price 10 million a part, then maybe this idea would be possible. But 1 million nc for a ressed part totally unrestricted. Hell no.

Now you said you want to fix the game economy. Go for it, but first you need state how it is broken, and what you think broke it first place. In other words fix the cause, not the symptoms.

You dont need an economics degree to understand how this economy is broken brammers. Everyone here can see it. It is cash rich and there is no way to drain off that cash. Everything people do earns money and there are very few attractive ways of draining it off without affecting core gameplay.

One idea in the past was drugs - making them expensive I mean - however this is a terribly badly thought out idea due to the amount of people it would shaft.

Another idea was Ops - make them cost money to own and be a status symbol rather than a cash cow. This would encourage them to change hands but also it could drain all of the money from the game in a short space of time. It would/could also be circumvented by putting nothing into the clan bank and keeping cash on players.

Basically the point is there needs to be something HIGHLY desirable to players that is not a direct detriment to core gameplay. Finding this item/object/service/other is the key to finely tuning the economy.

What that is.... I have no idea.

Hi,

imo a rarepart vendor for ressed parts is not a good idea because.
When you can buy ressed parts from the vendor. You want to get the spend money somehow back. So if you are e.g. conster an you just need one part from the vendor, you calculate the amount of money spend for that part in your selling price.
Now the already build part is 1 mio NC more expensive than before the vendor has come into play.

You also have to think, that if the vendor for ressed parts sells for 1 mio NC a apart,
That the prices for unressed parts or ressed parts of the players will go up as well, they will not want 1 mio for a ressed, but say 800k. Thats 200k cheaper than the vendor and idk realy lets say 5 times more expensive than now.
The unressed parts would not go for 70-90k a part but for 120-150k.
Yes, you can argument that you can be unlucky and not get the part, but you get any part. And that part cost another runner 1 mio at vendor, so you sell ist for 700-800k and can buy another 3-4 for 120-150k.

That won't work. Its going to inflate the prices.

Why thinking so complex?
When you want to make a moneyhole why not with the simple thing we have already in the year 2016.
It is called a tax.
How about 5% tax for trading with other players from the amount of NC tradet + the tl of the item(s) 5-10 times. So you can tax even when no NC is traded.

And to cover the time you are not trading, cause you dont trade every day or hour, there could be a realtime weekly tax of 10% of all the NC a player or clan has. Why not fixed NC? Because 10% of 0 is 0 so you cant get broke.

Best regards
Jason

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Originally Posted by William Antrim

You dont need an economics degree to understand how this economy is broken brammers. Everyone here can see it. It is cash rich and there is no way to drain off that cash. Everything people do earns money and there are very few attractive ways of draining it off without affecting core gameplay.

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Correct you don't economics degree to understand how this economy is broken. What I am asking is a question. I'm asking, that yourself and Doc have yet to address or answer. What do you think caused the economy to be broken in the first place?

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Originally Posted by William Antrim

One idea in the past was drugs - making them expensive I mean - however this is a terribly badly thought out idea due to the amount of people it would shaft.

Another idea was Ops - make them cost money to own and be a status symbol rather than a cash cow. This would encourage them to change hands but also it could drain all of the money from the game in a short space of time. It would/could also be circumvented by putting nothing into the clan bank and keeping cash on players.

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These ideas (Good or bad) are ideas to drain money out of the economy. These ideas don't stop the money going into the economy into the first place, and breaking it.

My 2nc's point to make again - looks for the cause of what broke the economy in the first place. Applying simple and easy money-sinks after that should be a lot a easier since there will be less money to drain.

it appears money (NC) is overrated and tech parts are the real currency. Neocron is a stone-age hunter-gatherer-society with a small crafting part, so let's drop this talking about worthless cash and get back to herding for techs. shall we?

Brammers, all MMOs suffer from monetary expansion. In most MMOs however, there are enough goods/services that require money, that money remains the currency even as it devalues and prices inflate.

Money is used for only inconsequential items in NC, money is not the currency. As said, techs are the currency.

The only way to make money into the currency again is to create new ways of spending money.


If everyone suddenly started using/accepting cash for rares, the economy would fix itself. 'I'll sell you <x part> of <weapon y> for €600k, I'll then spending €400k buying part <z> for rare <a>'. Because everyone views cash as valueless (and it is pretty easy to accumulate), cash is valueless.

Which is unfortunate, because rares are discrete, whole items and trading a rare for a rare (or a rare for two rares, or whatever) doesn't capture the true value of each item.

Overabundance in supply of cash. obviously. Real credits can be earned easily. That is evident. Curb the supply in to the economy. That could be through a number of ways.

There still remains the fact there is a large surplus circulating within it and that also needs to be removed. Through time or through action either is good.

If you want to discuss how to reduce the supply of cash in to the economy in the first place then you need to consider A. Missions and their cash rewards (tl150 and not the quick kill ones) B. The value of mob kills vs Loot Drop from said mob and C. Outposts costs.

2 of the three have definitely been discussed before and fuck all was done about it. Ops being the most obvious and easiest. The truth was no one could agree upon a definitive strategy and like all great ideas it faded away. Im sure you could pull it up from the bottom of this sub forum.

The reason for this thread in the first place was Trivaldi mentioned in another thread how you guys were still looking for help with the cash economy etc. This was my suggestion.

The 1m price tag wasnt a fixed value. I love how everyone jumped all over it. It was merely a suggestion but it was quoted and used in dissemination of the post like it was gospel and set in stone. That part is always happening on this forum and makes me believe i am not alone in shortsightedness. The price could have been one, five or ten million and someone would have assumed it was fixed and would have shredded it based on this fact.

Think about it again then if the price was 20m per part. Are the fanbois REALLY going to dismiss the idea as whack when it would take out a huge chunk of change of anyones wallet should that happen. Or would they just go ok thats so far out of reach i will go back to farming instead.

Add in the RNG of building the weapon which could come up 0 slot and you have a risk reward scenario to the runner deciding do i risk all that cash on this one piece which then may or may not come up useful.

If the runner has the cash surplus he might decide to do that. Alternatively if he does not then he will say no fuck this im gonna do it the old fashioned way and carry on farming/grinding/trading and get the parts the usual way.

However if the runner is fabulously wealthy and or a bit of a gambler he may say well im gonna give it a go. if he does then the money is sucked out the economy.

And yes i do have a background in economics. Did it as part of my MBA.


So. Simple ways to remove cash input. OPs. As mentioned by William and plenty of others need an upkeep cost. there are threads about it. i dont need to do that here.


Second. Loot drops. Make them the way to earn cash. Might need to look at values vs loot weight here because of the transport issue. Your opening a whole can of worms on this one but you asked for it so here goes. If you lower the credits awarded per mob kill you will inherently lower the supply of cash in to the economy. this is a given. You may then find that vehicles become more prevalent as a source of grinding as they can be used to drive a runner around killing lots of stuff and looting it to hold on to to take back and sell. That i see as a good thing.

However on the flip side comes the very same issue of Inventory space and transport. Monks have 20(?) str and not a lot of transport. Spies 40. PE and tank suddenly becomes the pack mule class. that creates its own problems as people everywhere want a private eye who can become a bagman quite literally carrying all their hard won loot.

I would be all for the lowering of mob credits per kill in the caves and dungeon areas absolutely as they are there for team xp levelling and money shouldnt be a consideration. That eliminates a heap of creds coming in if people cant get X thousand creds clearing regants boss room every 2 mins. If you make it so that they give lower credits out in the world and its all about loot then really who ever does the most damage on the mob gets first loot which could lead to all kinds of problems on a social level but that would be something to let the player base decide how to handle. I dont think thats something you should be accounting for at a programming level. Its darwinian but such is the way. eventually the person doing the most damage will either get weighed down or give up and go elsewhere.


Missions (construct/res) well they cost a fuckton of grease with the fails. they ARE a viable way to level a trader purely, however boring they may be, but should they really pay out so much? should it be lowered? big question. A counter point to this is why should you be forced to pay to level a trader (grease costs) when you can level a combat char who will essentially earn money (mob kills etc) by levelling that way. Its like a punishment for being a trader. Problem.

So you cant fuck with the cash reward from tl150s. Or if you have to then the constructor/researcher should be paid out in a reward of more grease etc to remove the cash issue and/or drop it to a lower amount per mission completed so they make some money but not millions in minutes like is current (next hq etc).


Is that enough to work with ?

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Originally Posted by Torg

it appears money (NC) is overrated and tech parts are the real currency. Neocron is a stone-age hunter-gatherer-society with a small crafting part, so let's drop this talking about worthless cash and get back to herding for techs. shall we?

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cant do that mucker because new players need money to farm for everything they need. Cash will always have a part to play in any economy because that is the currency the NPCs accept.

Celt nailed it tbh.

Going back to my first point higher level players (the ones who now have rares) need OTHER stuff to spend their money on besides an apartment/gogu/tl150 mission cubes.

On the subject of TL150 missions there are plenty of things to do to reduce their effect on the economy, one being reduce the failure rate of cubes being ressed and reduce the money paid out to person handing in the job. also increasing the speed of each job (cube) might also go some way towards stopping people macroing as they will be able to do the job while carrying out other tasks at the same time.

If they could move normally for example whilst carrying out the research then they could be able to do other stuff without risk of failing in the research task. The reason people macro is because the job is so fckin boring just sitting there clicking a button every 45 seconds or whatever it is. If the char had other uses at the same time youd cut down on that aspect I am sure.

Cutting down time and costs is the biggest thing though I think. This way the researcher can afford to cover his costs that much easier (in terms of lube) and the client can still gain the experience he wants from handing in the mission. Please correct me if i am wrong but I believe that most people use missions to level up the skills they cant improve with normal grind. I dont think too many people "need" the money any more.

I think this should still be a viable economy for tradeskillers however and they should make a small amount of money relative to their investment in the skill but not a game breaking thing like this.

Also you should remove the cheaper price of lube at Outposts - they need to be bought in the city by a barterer if you really want a good discount. Please give bartering chars some love off the back of this.

Going OT slightly but perhaps have a clearly defined cap on bartering? Say 5 points gets a 1% discount from the price for example up to maxmimum of 50% and bring out a range of barter implants to get up to that level. I cant remember the highest barter level you can reach off the top of my head but these figures are purely ball park for the purposes of discussion.



In terms of cutting down the amount of money coming in to the economy... honestly no I dont think there is much point in that because that would lead to having to rebalance all of the shop prices that vendors sell at and all sorts of other stuff which would pretty much impact the newbs too much and create tonnes of work. Dealing with the cash whilst it is circulating is the big thing. It is also probably - in my view - the easiest way to have an impact generally whilst targetting the group of people you want to have an affect on - the cash rich players who have played the game for some time. New players DO NOT need higher tariffs, penalties and other problems just because they are new and make silly and sometimes costly mistakes.

Gambling might be another alternative? StockX too should work better, the more drains on cash the healthier the economy becomes.


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TLDR

Res cube changes

newbs and cash

gambling as an alternative - this summarises my post.

cheers.

Reducing the supply of money will only change the 'economy' if it results in enough players needing to sell rare (parts or whole items) to others for money in order to avoid getting down to 0 credits.

Otherwise, it does nothing. Either way people still use rares as currency, only now they have 1.7m credits balance instead of e.g. 7.2m.

Rent.

Broke for cash? No access to your apartments, only your starter app.

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Originally Posted by Drachenpaladin

Rent.

Broke for cash? No access to your apartments, only your starter app.

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Are you charged rent for every day you login? Every hour of playtime? Simply once a week, regardless of play time? Is it a function of income, or assets, or playtime, or simply a flat fee?

No, rent is just going the ones who do not have a lot of money. So they can't enter their appartments or just can't afford a new appartment. And if the stuff you could make enough money, to afford the rent, is in this appartment you have only one option, and this is grind.
If the rent is cheap, the rich one will never notice it, cause thay make a lot more money in short time.
If the rent is that expensive that the rich one will notice it too, than the "poor" one will have problems keeping the rent up -> can't get inside the appa if the not going to make it -> and if everything comes together the precious item are in THAT appa you cant enter. And having 2 Boxes at the start appartment is a joke if you want to store some valuable things.

Why not take the money from chars/clans that have money and make money.
And the ones who are broke, poor or do bad at making money, have to pay nothing to little.

If a rental idea were to be put in then via 3 apartments should cost a fortune, starter apartments cost nothing and then they should scale up in cost from outzone ones being the cheapest all the way up to via rosso and selected plaza locations (thinking about aesthetics vs location) to be most expensive. that isnt hard to plan.