Crafting and blueprint changes

[Sir Texas Sir]

42 minutes ago, Sven Silberbart said:

That's good to read. I hope you will remove NPC ships completely from shop to give the players a reason to play as crafter/trader. That would also support your goal to bring the players to the OW, coz they need to transport the (raw)materials

Right now there needs to be ships in the shops when the patch drops to get folks started.  I can see haveing a few of the more common ones in there for that region but not all, remember not every one has a Crafter on speed dial or deals with clans.  Some folks just want to buy a ship and be on there way.  That and if it's anything like the past folks tend to jack the dang prices way to high when they are the only ones saleing ships in the shop.

[Sir Texas Sir]

14 minutes ago, Fenris said:

Hoarding values, especially those which are used as MAIN currency, is killing every kind of economic cycle.

If i have 1000 Marks, but do not want to spend them,and you need them desperately, there is a problem.

If you have 1000 Marks and some one else doesn't but need the, it's not your fault they haven't been active and played in the game.  If they want marks they need to get out there and do stuff there selves.  you shouldn't be penalized for some one elses lazyness.

[Fenris]

Just now, Sir Texas Sir said:

If you have 1000 Marks and some one else doesn't but need the, it's not your fault they haven't been active and played in the game.  If they want marks they need to get out there and do stuff there selves.  you shouldn't be penalized for some one elses lazyness.

That is not the point.

Once again, MAIN currency in each economical cycle, has to be SPENT. If the MARKS have expiration date, they need to be SPENT or TRADED.

If you like to PvP or PvE, and i like to CRAFT and TRADE, we will find easily to each other. Offer Marks, get materials and resources.

And if you do not want to trade them away, then keep the Marks, but maybe you will not have so much materials or resources.

Here a simple example..Now you can offer on Live server upgrades for example, but nobody wants GOLD.Why? It isn`t so valuable like different materials, Labour contracts, Compass Wood, Mid grade notes and so on.

[Fenris]

1 minute ago, Hodo said:

I honestly dont think marks will be an issue.  

If they won`t , then they have no value.

 

[Anolytic]

33 minutes ago, Fenris said:

Hoarding values, especially those which are used as MAIN currency, is killing every kind of economic cycle.

If i have 1000 Marks, but do not want to spend them,and you need them desperately, there is a problem.

The current problem with gold and resources economy on the live server is that AI generates infinite gold and resources. You can kill an AI over and over again and pour infinite gold into the economy (i.e hoard billions of gold and stacks upon stacks of resources bought from AI). AI is basically printing money like Zimbabwe on steroids, but  because AI is also generating infinite resources there is no visible inflation since resources and gold are both equally inflated. This is what developers are trying to fix now with the wipe. Admin always said that gold for damage was implemented temporarily in the alpha phase to allow freer testing in an easy access economy. Removing gold rewards for damage and starkly diminishing gold prices for sinking/capture of ships is going to go along way towards making a good economy. Making resource production entirely player based is drastic, but once production output is sufficiently tweaked it could be great. Money sinks will be needed definitively, and appropriate shortages, but we'll get back to that. 

Marks are going to be used for specific things, and not as a replacement for gold, but an addition. From the testbed they are also so far extremely low output compared to what you need to convert them into useable stuff. As marks are generated from PvE and PvP, they will take the role that gold rewards for damage has now. If you sink a lot of ships/do a lot of PvP, you can hoard a lot of Marks. But as they are only used to purchase a limited number of things, and mostly in conjunction with gold and materials, inflation in the Marks economy is not a big issue. You may need marks to create a SoL, but you also need gold and materials, and as long as those economies are balanced that is fine.

And anyone can go out and do PvE/PvP to generate marks, so if you need 1000 marks, you just sail out and grind them. Or you can buy them from another player without affecting the health of the economy.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Anolytic

[Anolytic]

11 minutes ago, Fenris said:

Once again, MAIN currency in each economical cycle, has to be SPENT. If the MARKS have expiration date, they need to be SPENT or TRADED.

Marks will be a special currency, not a main currency. If Marks was a main currency, then we would be back to the issue of AI printing infinite currency and Marks replacing gold to become the same worthless economy mechanic that we have now. Hopefully we're not going to have the same problem as before just under a different name - marks instead of gold. If AI were to be able to buy Marks from players for instance, we would all be back to the money printing press, all with access to the same mint.

16 minutes ago, Fenris said:

If you like to PvP or PvE, and i like to CRAFT and TRADE, we will find easily to each other. Offer Marks, get materials and resources.

If you like PvP or PvE you will need ships. You will either have to get the materials or the completed ship. To buy ships that require marks to craft from a crafter, you will have to supply the crafter with the marks in addition to the gold and/or materials. 

If you focus on crafting and production, and you don't do enough PvE/PvP to generate the marks that you need, it would be perfectly reasonable and possible for you to sell resources/crafted ships to players with a different playstyle in exchange for some of their Marks. You can trade a depleteable resource for an infinite (/renewable) one with another player without creating inflation in the economy because the transaction will not generate any extra quantity of the depleteable resource into the economy. As long as you are trading with a player and not an AI.

 

[Fenris]

2 minutes ago, Anolytic said:

The current problem with gold and resources economy on the live server is that AI generates infinite gold and resources. You can kill an AI over and over again and pour infinite gold into the economy (i.e hoard billions of gold and stacks upon stacks of resources bought from AI). This is what developers are trying to fix now with the wipe. Admin always said that gold for damage was implemented temporarily in the alpha phase to allow freer testing in an easy access economy. Removing gold rewards for damage and starkly diminishing gold prices for sinking/capture of ships is going to go along way towards making a good economy. Making resource production entirely player based is drastic, but once production output is sufficiently tweaked it could be great. Money sinks will be needed eventually, and appropriate shortages, but we'll get back to that. 

Marks are going to be used for specific things, and not as a replacement for gold, but an addition. From the testbed they are also so far extremely low output compared to what you need to convert them into useable stuff. As marks are generated from PvE and PvP, they will take the role that gold rewards for damage has now. If you sink a lot of ships/do a lot of PvP, you can hoard a lot of Marks. But as they are only used to purchase a limited number of things, and mostly in conjunction with gold and materials, inflation in the Marks economy is not a big issue. You may need marks to create a SoL, but you also need gold and materials, and as long as those economies are balanced that is fine.

And anyone can go out and do PvE/PvP to generate marks, so if you need 1000 marks, you just sail out and grind them. Or you can buy them from another player without affecting the health of the economy.

There is always something that has more value than official currency. Like in real life, MONEY is just an official payment medium, but has no value.

And like in real life, when there is a lot of something on market, it loses the value. I agree. Here is the problem.

You ve noticed for sure that certain materials and resources almost CAN NOT be payed with GOLD in game right now. Neither you or me would sell Compass Wood for GOLD, unless you have really really lot of it. Now, if you limit the amount of MONEY, resources and materials prices will go up. BUT, there you go, the human nature again.

Even IF someone offers materials and resources, the prices will be higher than random market prices, we have seen this before the latest update(for example i can recall usual price of a mid grade note was about 120 000, somewhere cheaper, somewhere more expensive.)

And why? Because there was not so much money(GOLD) in market.

You are right, now we have MONEY/GOLD, but too much of it, and YET you know what are the prices of ships and materials in each port.

Basically we will have the same problem again but,in a different way, because if the GOLD amount is limited, how are you supposed to craft and buy? Which will make players again offering stuff in market for ridiculous prices.

The GOLD is not the problem, it is just an exchange medium. I would not care if the GOLD still has no value, because other things, like MARKS are more valuable.

 

[Sir Texas Sir]

And remember folks the new crafting system has not been put on testbed.  We have no clue what it's going to take to craft most ships and even worse SOL's yet.   If some one is out grinding a bunch of Marks I'm going to bet he's not doing a lot of crafting.  @Anolytic actually explained it way better than I could.  I all ready have certain mats folks are looking for cause they didn't set up in those areas.  You want Mahogany wood?  Well I got one char that is doing nothing but that and he plans to haul it to certain free towns to sale since I won't be doing any PvE/PvP grinding with him.  I bet you folks will start offering up marks and gold and other things for that wood type.   Same with the other woods folks have the need to craft ships with.   I'm not planing to build any ships until they get the update on the testbed so until than I'm stocking up stuff.   Though I might let some of it slip for sale here or there.  That is what is going to stimulate the economy.   I'm going to bet some things will be worth more than your marks when time comes for trade value cause you have so many marks I can set my price....cause they aren't as rare as say my Red Wood, or my Live oak or something else that isn't all over the place like common mats.  Any one can go out and farm marks, but not every one can farm all the resources cause we are limited to only 5 buildings to do so.

It's very much going to be folks working on one or two resources and trading for others.  My clan is all ready starting to talk about who is going to work on what so we can get all the resources for clan as fast as we can to start getting us into the ships we want.

[Fenris]

1 hour ago, Anolytic said:

Marks will be a special currency, not a main currency. If Marks was a main currency, then we would be back to the issue of AI printing infinite currency and Marks replacing gold to become the same worthless economy mechanic that we have now. Hopefully we're not going to have the same problem as before just under a different name - marks instead of gold. If AI were to be able to buy Marks from players for instance, we would all be back to the money printing press, all with access to the same mint.

If you like PvP or PvE you will need ships. You will either have to get the materials or the completed ship. To buy ships that require marks to craft from a crafter, you will have to supply the crafter with the marks in addition to the gold and/or materials. 

If you focus on crafting and production, and you don't do enough PvE/PvP to generate the marks that you need, it would be perfectly reasonable and possible for you to sell resources/crafted ships to players with a different playstyle in exchange for some of their Marks. You can trade a depleteable resource for an infinite (/renewable) one with another player without creating inflation in the economy because the transaction will not generate any extra quantity of the depleteable resource into the economy. As long as you are trading with a player and not an AI.

 

As far as i have seen on testbed we are not able to BUY  Marks.

You are maybe assuming that that would be the case, and i hope you are right, and maybe know more than i do. What if there is no market for Marks?

Marks will be the MAIN currency, because everything you need for shipbuilding you need to pay with Marks.

And that is my point.

Now you say, if i do not have time to grind Marks,then i can exchange them for Materials and resources.Or maybe even buy them with Gold.That is exactly the problem, because players will demand horrendous prices if they have too much of something, and want something else.

That is again what i mean with "Human Nature".

Inflation, is player made, not because the game mechanics are not balanced, it is because everybody wants as much he can get of everything that is available.

Second thing is, that we will have 1 Dura ships.I can imagine how PvP is going to be, because right now we have multiple Dura ships on live server and PvP is well, rare.

A crafter will need money. Even small amounts, just to craft resources.

There will always be an inflation of depletable resources in the market, no matter how much MONEY is offered on market.If the crafter doesn`t grind Marks, he will sell resources to AI, as always. Or set a ridiculous contract.

Lets assume there is a market for PvE Marks. 

I need Marks, too lazy to grind. I buy them.Need more money. Prices for resources and trade goods too low(my income)Need more more money. Trade more,craft resources,set contracts, need more more more money----HIGH SELL prices for materials and resources.

PvP dude wants me to make him a ship.No problem, the price is so and so much. Need more more more money,because can not sell enough goods and materials. Multiply with numbers on server---INFLATION.In the end, we will have the money eventually, but not the Marks. Marks market empty, cant find any. What do i do? Offer a lot of money or materials for Marks to a player.

Not enough.

Offer more, more, more,more....An infinite circle of player made inflation.

Because a grinder will not sell the Marks, he wants as much he can have for the best ship he can get. And he will hoard them. Not to blame,just an example.

And if he does sell them, he will demand ridiculous prices for them, like crafter does for his materials.

INFLATION.

Marks will be the MAIN currency, not because there is an infinite supply of them, because not everyone will HAVE them.

That is why they need, imo, an expiration date, to make them all the time in flow, to bring them into the economic cycle, TRADE  them away for things that you need.

SHIPS

Cheers

 

 

[Remus]

1 hour ago, Fenris said:

You ve noticed for sure that certain materials and resources almost CAN NOT be payed with GOLD in game right now. Neither you or me would sell Compass Wood for GOLD, unless you have really really lot of it.

Of course you would. Well, I would. My main production model says the primary purpose of forest building is the making of compass wood, and whatever else they happen to produce is a byproduct. On the live servers right now, it costs 960 gold, 3.2 labour hours and 3.588 'building hours' to generate 1 compass wood log, based on the cost and time taken in a fir plantation, which is slightly cheaper than oak (other plantations take more building hours, with lignum being the longest at 9.88). Everyone is well used to assigning value to labour hours, well you can do the same for building hours as well, and thereby come up with a value for compass wood which if someone is offering more for then you would be sensible to sell. In fact, devoting all your building slots to fir plantations is a sound way to make money, though clicking out every 16 logs could lead to RSI.

The economic model for gold has to take account of hoarding. It isn't a problem, it merely has to be factored into the game mechanics.

The same would apply to marks as well, though I cannot really see where the drawback lies. Hoarding gold where the game economy didn't allow for it leads to gold starvation, a stagnant economy and players too scared to lose ships - primarily because the people who most need gold aren't usually the ones who bring the most gold into the game, so it has to circulate. But with marks, it is the people who need them most who earn them in the first place. Circulation is possible (they are tradeable), but isn't really essential and someone hoarding them is really just depriving themselves.

[Anolytic]

2 hours ago, Fenris said:

Like in real life, MONEY is just an official payment medium, but has no value.

We used to have the "gold standard" historically.

But money is still a limited commodity, and as long as everyone accepts money as an exchange medium it has value. The banks and the state are the guarantees to that value.

2 hours ago, Fenris said:

You ve noticed for sure that certain materials and resources almost CAN NOT be payed with GOLD in game right now. Neither you or me would sell Compass Wood for GOLD, unless you have really really lot of it.

That is because Compass Wood is literally the only shortage in the game right now. I have lots of Compass Wood, but there is nothing that you could offer me that I need because I also have lots of everything else. For the in-game economy to work we need to have more than one shortage. To get a balanced economy it is necessary that everyone needs something that someone else has. I need to have a slight surplus of something that you need, and you need to have a slight surplus of something that I need. Then we can trade. The devs need to create a system that fosters this.

Marks is going to be a part of this, and players with more time for combat is going to generate a commodity needed by players with more time for trading/crating. But just relabelling Marks as the main currency instead of gold is only renaming the problem and presenting it with the same stench. It solves nothing. 

I see the same challenges to making a working in-game economy as those you point out, and more. Economy alts, and inter-clan economies competing with national economies are some of the biggest challenges that I foresee. As well as NPC offering ships for sale-even far subpar to playermade-if unlimited. Or too much resource generation/too labour-effective production/too many production buildings per player. All of these are issues devs will have to look at, tweak and balance.

However, what I just don't see is how adding expiration dates to Marks is going to help anything at all.

What you are proposing, to consider Marks the main currency and putting on it an expiration date, is no different whatsoever-practically-from just putting an expiration date on gold in-game right now. So the money in your account and in your clan warehouse will gradually and continually expire. This is the logical and practical equivalent. It would give a limited impetus for players to spend their gold, but it would have more negative consequences than positive, and it is a very unsatisfactory (I won't say it's unrealistic, because I could actually point you to analogous events IRL) and "cheap" way to try and sort out a game economy.

 

While there are pain points to how much people are willing to sail and to produce and haul stuff, the upcoming changes to remove free teleports is actually likely to be a good boost to player interactive economy if done together with a sound resource distribution. When players have to sail to each production outpost to collect resources and to haul them, if valuable resources are distributed not along the same trade routes, then players are going to have to, to a greater extent than now, choose one or two resources to focus their production on, and barter for the rest with other players. Unless they want to sail in every direction back and forth all the time in order to collect small quantities of each resource. Some, of course, will do. But for most the better option will be to focus on a couple of production types and specialise. 

[PIerrick de Badas]

13 minutes ago, Anolytic said:

While there are pain points to how much people are willing to sail and to produce and haul stuff, the upcoming changes to remove free teleports is actually likely to be a good boost to player interactive economy if done together with a sound resource distribution. When players have to sail to each production outpost to collect resources and to haul them, if valuable resources are distributed not along the same trade routes, then players are going to have to, to a greater extent than now, choose one or two resources to focus their production on, and barter for the rest with other players. Unless they want to sail in every direction back and forth all the time in order to collect small quantities of each resource. Some, of course, will do. But for most the better option will be to focus on a couple of production types and specialise. 

It's true just for solo players. The society will organise that on their own and nothing they produce will be on sall

[Anolytic]

Just now, PIerrick de Badas said:

It's true just for solo players. The society will organise that on their own and nothing they produce will be on sall

Indeed. It is one of the main challenges to the new economy that I foresee.

32 minutes ago, Anolytic said:

and inter-clan economies competing with national economies are some of the biggest challenges that I foresee.

 

[Fenris]

1 hour ago, Anolytic said:

We used to have the "gold standard" historically.

But money is still a limited commodity, and as long as everyone accepts money as an exchange medium it has value. The banks and the state are the guarantees to that value.

That is because Compass Wood is literally the only shortage in the game right now. I have lots of Compass Wood, but there is nothing that you could offer me that I need because I also have lots of everything else. For the in-game economy to work we need to have more than one shortage. To get a balanced economy it is necessary that everyone needs something that someone else has. I need to have a slight surplus of something that you need, and you need to have a slight surplus of something that I need. Then we can trade. The devs need to create a system that fosters this.

Marks is going to be a part of this, and players with more time for combat is going to generate a commodity needed by players with more time for trading/crating. But just relabelling Marks as the main currency instead of gold is only renaming the problem and presenting it with the same stench. It solves nothing. 

I see the same challenges to making a working in-game economy as those you point out, and more. Economy alts, and inter-clan economies competing with national economies are some of the biggest challenges that I foresee. As well as NPC offering ships for sale-even far subpar to playermade-if unlimited. Or too much resource generation/too labour-effective production/too many production buildings per player. All of these are issues devs will have to look at, tweak and balance.

However, what I just don't see is how adding expiration dates to Marks is going to help anything at all.

What you are proposing, to consider Marks the main currency and putting on it an expiration date, is no different whatsoever-practically-from just putting an expiration date on gold in-game right now. So the money in your account and in your clan warehouse will gradually and continually expire. This is the logical and practical equivalent. It would give a limited impetus for players to spend their gold, but it would have more negative consequences than positive, and it is a very unsatisfactory (I won't say it's unrealistic, because I could actually point you to analogous events IRL) and "cheap" way to try and sort out a game economy.

 

While there are pain points to how much people are willing to sail and to produce and haul stuff, the upcoming changes to remove free teleports is actually likely to be a good boost to player interactive economy if done together with a sound resource distribution. When players have to sail to each production outpost to collect resources and to haul them, if valuable resources are distributed not along the same trade routes, then players are going to have to, to a greater extent than now, choose one or two resources to focus their production on, and barter for the rest with other players. Unless they want to sail in every direction back and forth all the time in order to collect small quantities of each resource. Some, of course, will do. But for most the better option will be to focus on a couple of production types and specialise. 

Hm I know.

Gold standard was dropped when other countries started to demand gold from USA instead of Dollars, because of Vietnam war,because USA had to "print" those, not having enough for their war efforts.So,as you know, when there was not enough GOLD to cover the IMAGINARY value of MONEY, Nixon pulled the plug.

Same situation was given in Germany in the 1920s. If there is not enough of something to cover the value of MONEY, MONEY becomes worthless or less valuable.

An example for real life. Somewhere in a world, money has no value like your smartphone.You want to buy something from me, i do not want money, i want you to pay me with your smartphone. Simple, and often proven in war times,where everything costs money and inflation is almost self explanatory. But goods are more valuable than printed paper.

Money as such, is nothing else than printed paper, compared with other things, it has no value, it has been invented to make trade easier.Nothing else.

The real problem begins when i DEMAND more than your phone, i would like to have your shoes too. You can imagine where this ends. Same happened in game(Gold/compass wood/notes)

Back to game.

I mean Gold as money, not Gold Ore

Gold in game is Money. Paying item,easy to transport.Nothing else.Just money.

Everybody will need the Marks, not all will have enough of them,fast enough,whatever. I can have 50 milions on account,if someone wants 1 milion for 10 PVP Marks i will have an issue soon.

Exactly the same will happen with the MARKS. They will be not available for all, but they are needed for shipbuilding.Means they are esentiall in the game. If someone has too much of something, and someone has not enough, there is a problem. Named hoarding. Those who have too much of Marks can dictate prices if they trade.

To prevent horrendous prices of selling/buying, there is only way for such kind of item, and that is to make them "less worth." Expiration date provides this.

A price can not be set by the game, because whatever price is chosen, for a player it is too high or too low,depends what you do.To bring them into a game for those who can not buy/grind/achieve them. Whatever the reasons.

If i MUST spend something before it becomes worthless,there is no need for overproduction and hoarding, but trade demand on other goods from other players.And that is how a real trade between players begins. Offering you something that is VERY valuable,but can not keep it forever, for something that i need.

I am not suggesting to make Marks MAIN currency, dont worry, you can still pay with Gold,or Coal,whatever you think it may be right, there will be always demand on it. But Marks could become the MAIN currency,because they are esential for shipbuilding. not because i gave them the name.

Just to clarify.We assume Marks can be bought in Market.

Otherwise , was nice talking to you.As always

 

Edited April 19, 2017 by Fenris

[Fenris]

55 minutes ago, PIerrick de Badas said:

It's true just for solo players. The society will organise that on their own and nothing they produce will be on sall

Exactly. Hoarding  causes inflation.Nobody offering enough, and what is offered is too expensive.

[jodgi]

Factor in people like me, then.

On live I've hoarded enough to support my small group of friends through quite a few months. It just sits there for when we need it. I don't bring it to market because I play to have fun with ships and not make (useless to me) money. I don't look for ways to play the market because it is vastly more boring to me than fighting ships. 

All your eco theories work on people because we need to eat and need a place to sleep as a prerequisite to enjoy life. In EVE the eco stuff works because that game has shitty fighting mechanics, everyone there came for "spreadsheets in space" and possibly some RvR "fighting".

I believe the balancing of the NA economy is going to be a tremendous pain to get right, if at all possible. I'll be blown away if we reach the critical mass of eco motivated players to make it work.

[AlteSocken]

3 minutes ago, Wraith said:

The simple solution to hoarding, which is indeed a driver of inflation, is either upkeep or decay. If docks and warehouses were subject to upkeep scaled by the amount of stuff they're storing, or materials and goods decayed or were subject to attrition over time, then you could curb inflation to some degree.

Ich think decay would work much better, since upkeep could lead to bankruptcy on longer absence.

[Alcar]

5 minutes ago, Wraith said:

The simple solution to hoarding, which is indeed a driver of inflation, is either upkeep or decay. If docks and warehouses were subject to upkeep scaled by the amount of stuff they're storing, or materials and goods decayed or were subject to attrition over time, then you could curb inflation to some degree.

Or just limit stack sizes. If nothing could stack beyond say, 1,000, then massive stockpiles of woods and ores would overflow our limited warehouse slots.

[Remus]

32 minutes ago, Wraith said:

The simple solution to hoarding, which is indeed a driver of inflation, is either upkeep or decay. If docks and warehouses were subject to upkeep scaled by the amount of stuff they're storing, or materials and goods decayed or were subject to attrition over time, then you could curb inflation to some degree.

Hoarding is natural and necessary and needs to be factored into the game economy. A new player starts with nothing. No one expects them to reach Rear Admiral still having nothing; they will have stockpiles of gold, marks, materials and ships, and might reasonably well expect to continue to slowly accrue such things till they stop playing the game and these things disappear forever. Because of this the planned gold sources must be bigger than the planned gold sinks. The really tricky part is judging how much bigger, and I think we all agree that on the Live servers things are badly wrong.

But on Testbed things look different. I doubt anyone thinks they are right yet, but we do at least appear to have a significant upkeep cost in replacement crew. Quite possibly we should have considerably increased damage repair costs too. Doubtless, someone will say this will make combat uneconomic, and they're probably right. My current thoughts are that combat should be rewarded significantly more and trading less, but I haven't spent enough hours in game to test things. By all means bring in ship maintenance, bring in building maintenance (both to be paid before use, for 7 days perhaps, so as not to penalise returning long-term absentees), bring in outpost maintenance (you won't lose stored goods - I think that is a little too drastic) - but you cannot access the outpost when the rent hasn't been paid.

None of these things in themselves are necessary, but a variety of gold sources and sinks is probably beneficial to the game. Players should still be able to accrue wealth - this is not bad in itself - but the watchword is 'slowly'.

[jodgi]

The idea of having to grind PVE marks to click out a connie fills me with oppressing sadness.

[Remus]

2 hours ago, jodgi said:

The idea of having to grind PVE marks to click out a connie fills me with oppressing sadness.

Have I missed something? No PvE marks required for a Connie right now on Testbed.

But you'll probably have to go a-trading to get the cash.

[jodgi]

1 hour ago, Remus said:

Have I missed something?

[Remus]

11 minutes ago, jodgi said:

Now look in the Woodworking tab:

[jodgi]

22 minutes ago, Remus said:

Now look in the Woodworking tab:

Oh, boy! I'm so relieved!

Why would connie bp default to marks instead of resources?

[Fenris]

On 21.4.2017 at 4:33 PM, Remus said:

Hoarding is natural and necessary and needs to be factored into the game economy. A new player starts with nothing. No one expects them to reach Rear Admiral still having nothing; they will have stockpiles of gold, marks, materials and ships, and might reasonably well expect to continue to slowly accrue such things till they stop playing the game and these things disappear forever. Because of this the planned gold sources must be bigger than the planned gold sinks. The really tricky part is judging how much bigger, and I think we all agree that on the Live servers things are badly wrong.

But on Testbed things look different. I doubt anyone thinks they are right yet, but we do at least appear to have a significant upkeep cost in replacement crew. Quite possibly we should have considerably increased damage repair costs too. Doubtless, someone will say this will make combat uneconomic, and they're probably right. My current thoughts are that combat should be rewarded significantly more and trading less, but I haven't spent enough hours in game to test things. By all means bring in ship maintenance, bring in building maintenance (both to be paid before use, for 7 days perhaps, so as not to penalise returning long-term absentees), bring in outpost maintenance (you won't lose stored goods - I think that is a little too drastic) - but you cannot access the outpost when the rent hasn't been paid.

None of these things in themselves are necessary, but a variety of gold sources and sinks is probably beneficial to the game. Players should still be able to accrue wealth - this is not bad in itself - but the watchword is 'slowly'.

Hoarding is not a problem as long you keep things in warehouse which nobody needs,but you. Assume that not everyone is crafting,or has time to sail from A to B to C to gather materials or resources which MATTER.

Nobody would care if you have 20 000 Fir Log in your warehouse.

But having 20 000 Live Oak,and not able to spend it,but selling it for small amount of MONEY,or just waiting couple of weeks that someone appears and buys it, is well, not very "economic".

We do not have mechanics in the game which allows us to make some kind of GLOBAL TRADE MARKET, where you would be able to sell/buy materials or resources.

So everyone is just hoping to sell his surplus ONLY in his own nation to another player or AI.

But why should i buy Silver from Player X, if i can craft it on my own??? And what if he is selling Silver for 1000 gold/money each unit?

So i need to spend a lot of MONEY to craft or buy Silver,  but what for?

If we are able to buy PvE Marks for expensive materials like GOLD/SILVER coins from AI, Trading would be more dynamic,because everyone needs PvE Marks, but not everybody has all kind of Woods, resources or materials.

If those Marks have expiration date, 1 Week for example, you need to spend them. Trading begins when people SELL OR BUY THINGS they NEED or DON`T.

Give Marks, buy Carriages, give Live Oak,get PvE Marks, give Marks get Gold, get Marks give Furnishings...And so on and so on.

Across the map. In Free Ports.

You take a large amount of money from trading circle,which makes money more valuable.

There is no need for senseless MONEY grind, through trade or PvE.Money is needed, but there is no inflation.

Hoarding allowed, but only PvE Marks arent.

 

 

 

Edited April 24, 2017 by Fenris