The Economy, Crafting and it's place in Naval Action

[Bert Beard]

I know there's lots of players that are strictly about conquest and pvp but even they should pay at least a little attention to this.

 

I'm a veteran of POTBS and in it almost everything was made from crafting.

Cannon shot, hull patches and almost everything else came from the players, yes you got some from drops but nearly all of it was player made.

And don't get me started about what the developers did to POTBS in the last 2 or 3 years.......that's why I quit.

 

I know Naval Action is still in Alpa/Beta so obviously there will be many improvements, so far I like what I see.

I put this in the general category because this should effect all players in one way or another and it's our feedback that will improve this game.

 

The economy has some big holes in it, even after the proposal of bringing in buildings for harvesting, mining and other things........which by the way I think is a good idea.

 

I think the economy should be much larger and more inclusive, it should be like it really was where we make everything.

After all, Naval Action is all about being more realistic so let's do that.........balancing this with good game play of course.

And the Developers are talking about the economy playing a larger role in relation to conquest, not sure what that might involve.......but the most boring thing you can do is haul stuff.

I know those all about pvp will disagree but making hauling more exciting by getting sunk isn't quite what I was thinking.

 

I like some of the suggestions of added production of buildings depending on skill level and how much your willing to invest in upgrades.

 

But most importantly we need to have a much larger economy where players who want to specialize in econ and crafting can do that and if they want to become a large producer they can do that too.

With the appropriate investment in money, time and skills.

Right now with the very limited amount of labor hours even a player with a level 50 econ can only do crafting for a very short time and then he has to do something else till the next day.

 

Let's make the economy and crafting be all it can be in this excellent game with so much potential.

Edited March 7, 2016 by Bert Beard

[Ruthless4u]

Can you name one succesfull primarily Econ AOS game like your proposing?

Just curious, I see many who want this game 90 percent Econ but I have yet to see a succesfull one.

[Mrdoomed]

The econ is not bad it just needs to be affected by what is lost to raids or atracks or whatever then things would have value. Right now it seems like the ports produce infinite amount of materials.

[Bert Beard]

I'm not talking about turning Naval Action into primarily an econ game.........never said that.

Why would you want to diminish what makes this game great ?

Adding to and improving the econ and crafting would take nothing away from the pvp and rvr part of the game.......where did you get that idea from Ruthless ?

 

And there is not an infinite supply of the important resources.

Most of the important raw resources have some serious inflation above base cost.......upwards of 200 & 300 percent.

You don't get that because of too many materials.

for instance:

Gold = 300-400 % or more above base of $60

Iron ore = 300-400 % above base of $25

Live Oak = 300-400% above base of $50

These are the current real world base costs ( US pvp server ).......not what someone is trying to sell it at.

 

Basic economics, supply and demand.......when something is in short supply and in high demand inflation takes over.

Edited March 7, 2016 by Bert Beard

[Valetudin Arian]

I like what your suggesting, my only concern with it is so far economy pushes out the competition at the detriment of realism for example; capturing ships. Some of the very ships people who complain about capturing are sailing are actually real life captured ships so if people could actually see the hypocrisy that would be great.

[Bert Beard]

I like capturing ships but I'm not following what your saying Valetudin...........explain it again please.

Edited March 7, 2016 by Bert Beard

[Jeheil]

Currently I think (and hope) the economy is in a very rudimentary stage/model. The ports produce on server restart...players jump on grab all the hemp, gold, etc etc and then it becomes 'who you know'. In the future I would like to see ports expand..some much bigger trading ports, ships arriving in port providing boosts to commodities (thus blockades and blockade running/escort become a thing) and of course I would like to see politics, war, famine etc effect supply and demand.

 

As it stands, I am very much hoping its a 'placeholder'

[haibeo]

 

 

And there is not an infinite supply of the important resources.

Most of the important raw resources have some serious inflation above base cost.......upwards of 200 & 300 percent.

You don't get that because of too many materials.

for instance:

Gold = 300-400 % or more above base of $60

Iron ore = 300-400 % above base of $25

Live Oak = 300-400% above base of $50

These are the current real world base costs ( US pvp server ).......not what someone is trying to sell it at.

 

 

Im not sure about your "base" cost, but on PvE server, which few low pop, the based price (found in port with a hell lot of material and at any time) is as follow:

 

Iron ore: 78

Gold: 167

Live Oak: 120.

 

I think your base price might be out of date (meaning the dev had increase the base price).

 

As I have no idea of how the production building will be implemented (I think the dev still discuss it), Im not sure how it impact the player and cant comment on that. But as it is now, the econ is a bit screw up. Which make crafting/trading feel more like a 2nd job when compare with fighting.

Edited March 7, 2016 by haibeo

[Bert Beard]

Im not sure about your "base" cost, but on PvE server, which few low pop, the based price (found in port with a hell lot of material and at any time) is as follow:

 

Iron ore: 78

Gold: 167

Live Oak: 120.

 

I think your base price might be out of date (meaning the dev had increase the base price).

 

As I have no idea of how the production building will be implemented (I think the dev still discuss it), Im not sure how it impact the player and cant comment on that. But as it is now, the econ is a bit screw up. Which make crafting/trading feel more like a 2nd job when compare with fighting.

Iike I said, I'm basing this on the US pvp server which is a more heavily populated than the pve server.........I would think the pvp servers with the higher pops would be better ones to base this on.

I doubled checked my base pricing ( which I believe I got from Wiki ) with Prater's shipbuilders material ledger and the numbers match so unless the prices changed in the last few months it should be accurate.

 

And I have bought fir logs recently for $15 each which matches the base price from both those sources.

If you have a better source that proves this info incorrect let us know so I can update my files.

Edited March 8, 2016 by Bert Beard

[surfimp]

And the Developers are talking about the economy playing a larger role in relation to conquest, not sure what that might involve.......but the most boring thing you can do is haul stuff.

I know those all about pvp will disagree but making hauling more exciting by getting sunk isn't quite what I was thinking.

 

Based on the colorful language I've been the recipient of in battle chat, I'm pretty confident the cat-and-mouse game of trader hunting is quite exciting for both predator and prey... And for the record, there's absolutely no way I'm sinking your ship when I could sell it and the cargo it carries instead!

 

Because of the way that NPCs and trade goods spawn currently, there's really nothing a smaller nation can do to disrupt the economic power of a larger nation, which might be one of their only chances of fighting back against the encroaching power of the larger, richer nation.

 

However, if capturing player and NPC traders actually had an effect, then smaller nations could focus on raiding the heartland of their larger enemy, cutting into that enemy's supply lines and compromising their ability to make war. The larger that enemy's empire got, the more places their traders could be plundered, and the more resources they'd have to devote to protecting said internal trade.

 

This would create some "natural" limits on the ability of a nation to grow large, while giving a real RvR purpose to combat outside of the current port battle meta.

 

Plus, not everyone wants to sail a giant gunbarge around... some of use prefer smaller, nimbler craft and the thrill of hunting down traders. Having that activity actually contribute to the larger RvR effort would be good. It would also make traders, and the protection thereof, much more important to the game.

[Bert Beard]

Good point surfimp, I built a very fast snow for doing just that........chasing down trading ships.

And it makes me feel much better now that I know you won't sink me.......just steal my ship and cargo 

[Hyperion74]

A lot of people like to craft and do cargo runs. In chat I see a lot of talk about crafting and prices. We need crafters to build ships so that the fighters can fight. I understand that crafting is still not fully developed but will get better so have no fear. I still feel that the Adonis like devs will make this a game for ALL who want to play regardless of play style. So far they have done a good job. Still a ways to go. As for Bombs, Bullets, and Bacon, I like this aspect and actually having to fit out a ship before sailing myself, but this play is probably not for everyone. I like "capping traders", as the in game vernacular goes. Its fun. Sorry traders.

[Quineloe]

The biggest issue I have with playing a shipwright is the labour bottleneck. My economic activities are currently reduced to _one_ click a day. Crafting a ship. Material stock is multiple ships deep at this point, but I have to wait to craft more. Feels a bit like a Facebook game at this point, except I can't trade irl money for crafting hours.

[kumisz]

Note how quickly Ruthless fled the topic after his BS was pointed out.

 

I like your suggestion, but wouldn't the relatively low population servers make it impossible? Don't know how big the POTBS servers were.

[Aetrion]

I would really like it if the devs took a look at Black Desert online for some inspiration on the crafting, since they have a fantastic system for allowing people to build a network of resource nodes and workshops to produce various items that actually has a lot of depth and makes sense. Different cities have different available workshops for example, so you can't produce absolutely everything by investing in just one location. In fact, a single player can't produce every possible item at all in Black Desert. Trading between different cities is essential in it, and the guild war system ties into all of it by letting guilds lay claim to various resource nodes and then generate a tax from them as they are used.

 

I think this game needs something along those lines to make crafting into a good system, because right now it just has absolutely no gameplay at all, the only challenge is trying to get a good price on goods while avoiding as much travel as possible through strategic teleporting.

 

Overall I would like to see crafting play a much bigger role in the little things, like supplies and repairs and so on, but I can't stand the idea of basically not being able to have any fun with the game unless I'm willing to replace my whole ship all the time, that just doesn't lend itself to good gameplay, and it's not realistic either when there is basically nothing to do other than fight people.

[Bert Beard]

Note how quickly Ruthless fled the topic after his BS was pointed out.

 

I like your suggestion, but wouldn't the relatively low population servers make it impossible? Don't know how big the POTBS servers were.

The server populations for POTBS ( 2 servers ) were a lot smaller when I left than Naval Action is now but at one time in the first couple years of POTBS they were similar.

But also keep in mind the map or playing area of POTBS was a fraction the size of Naval Action's huge map so the players were more condensed in POTBS.

 

When I was playing POTBS even though the server population was smaller the economy was much larger and you could make econ and crafting a career all by itself......but then we could make a lot more stuff.

It was also a more competitive and realistic marketplace...............but I had to create multiple accounts to become a major player in econ and crafting which was a pain in the butt, they were talking about a better way than multiple accounts for players who were serious about econ but it didn't change while I was still there.

 

There were many times in POTBS where I couldn't keep up to demand.........it was a very dynamic marketplace. 

But then I had an efficient operation and competitive pricing, others who tried to charge the highest prices possible didn't sell a lot.......I think I even drove a couple scam artists out of the ports I did business in.

I even specialized in making components for the big ship builders..........cannons, oak frames, blocks, planks etc..........I was big in Oak products.

I often would be moving 10's of thousands of items back and forth between ports in a single day. 

Market demand would often change so you adjusted accordingly if you wanted to meet that demand.

If you got good at it you could make a lot of money...........which is the way it's supposed to be.

 

I was also a port governor many times and set the tax rates, made improvements, helped with port defense among other things.

It's too bad the dev's of POTBS screwed it up so badly............. Naval Action also has much better and more realistic battles, it just looks more real than POTBS.

 

 

I DO NOT LIKE THE CONTRACT SYSTEM FOR SELLING ................it forces a huge restriction on how much you can sell and on the economy in general.

The whole selling and buying aspect of Naval Action needs a lot of improvements.......when I want to sell something I often can't even see how much of it is already for sale.......crazy !

I reported this as a bug.

 

Right now, it looks to me the developers of Naval Action have purposely set up the economy so that it is severely restricted in scope and size.

I hope lots of improvements are on the way.

Edited March 8, 2016 by Bert Beard

[Hyperion74]

I did some econ in the other game(POTBS) and sailed in a soc that was mostly crafting and econ. The good thing about that was that if you needed a ship you could get it. The bad thing is that I HAD to do econ. Some people are made for this task and really like it, like Bert. Those of us who just like to sail around and smash other ships appreciate this.

Hey, wait, you econ guys are enablers.