Patch 27 - New Economy feedback.

[Macjimm]

I used to be able to craft some material, transport them, and sell them to players and shops. Had a profitable barrel business

Used to be able to trade with players, for my labor, to craft materials for them

Now I can only craft Repairs and Cannons, for sale to players.

There are less opportunities now.

 

[Feinics]

I definitely agree. The new crafting system just feels a bit hollow for me. 

In the old system the was a nice flow of progression from raw materials to finished product. That is gone now.

[Barbancourt]

12 hours ago, samba_liten said:

Am I the only one that misses it? The new system seems bland and dumbed down by comparison.

I greatly enjoy the new simplicity of my shipyard warehouses, as well as being able to get rid of the docked t-brigs that were needed as warehouse extensions.

One thing shipyards have always needed is storage space - for ships in progress, and for ships completed but not delivered.  Perhaps you would prefer if the "crafting recipe" for the ship showed all the old components, and you completed the ship over time by crafting the different parts of the recipe as you acquired the materials, instead of having to accumulate everything in your warehouse for crafting the ship in one shot.  So, you'd see progress on the different components in the recipe, until all the components were 100% and then you could hit the GO button to "craft" the ship.

Edited November 15, 2018 by Barbancourt

[big_ric]

the fee for teleporting to your ports is making it hard to get around and arrange deals. also thanks to having to use doubloons for shipbuilding no one is building anything of quality or in numbers, that what has been built appears to be overpriced (in KPR)

[Cmdr RideZ]

If economy stalls you probably require too much grind - ships, upgrades, "things" are too expensive.

More ships we lose, more ships we have to craft.

More expensive ships we have, more afraid we are to lose.

[Kilo60]

3 hours ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

If economy stalls you probably require too much grind - ships, upgrades, "things" are too expensive.

More ships we lose, more ships we have to craft.

More expensive ships we have, more afraid we are to lose.

This is killing PVP as players are holding on to their ships like crazy and are afraid to risk anything other than free to redeem DLC ships!

A lot of players are keeping their 4th and lower rate ships safe in ports now!

The cost of 1-4th rate ships is ridiculous post patch and sale prices, in REALs, is heavily inflated due to the high Doubloon requirement to craft!

Edited November 15, 2018 by Kilo60

[Hethwill]

Frankly that's not my experience. Had combats involving Dianas, Indefatigables, Trincs, L'Hermiones... 

But sure, experiences may vary.

[Cmdr RideZ]

21 hours ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

If economy stalls you probably require too much grind - ships, upgrades, "things" are too expensive.

More ships we lose, more ships we have to craft.

More expensive ships we have, more afraid we are to lose.

Quoting myself to clarify.

 

This is related to PvP for sure but also I wanted to point out that if economy does not work it is probably because people cannot afford to lose ships.

Long time ago when economy was more or less working it was probably because everyone was forced to craft more and more ships to level up crafting.

As we crafted and crafted new ships, resources had a real value to players. The same with upgrades.

 

Now if you want player driven economy you have to create the need for ships. In the same way as in real life economy.

In the end game need for ship comes from combat losses.

If it takes long time to craft a ship players cannot afford to lose. Will stall the economy.

Edited November 16, 2018 by Cmdr RideZ

[Slim McSauce]

5 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

Quoting myself to clarify.

 

This is related to PvP for sure but also I wanted to point out that if economy does not work it is probably because people cannot afford to lose ships.

Long time ago when economy was more or less working it was probably because everyone was forced to craft more and more ships to level up crafting.

As we crafted and crafted new ships and resources had a real value to players. The same with upgrades.

 

Now if you want player driven economy you have to create the need for ships. In the same way as in real life economy.

In the end game need for ship comes from combat losses.

If it takes long time to craft a ship players cannot afford to lose. Will stall the economy.

if you buy dlc ships you're immune to this personally, but counter actively you no longer participate in the need for ships, therefore less supply is made to meet the demand hurting the economy in its whole

Edited November 16, 2018 by Slim McSauce

[Cmdr RideZ]

Upgrades have the same price for 5th and 1st rates. It does not matter if you make 5th rates dirt cheap to produce when upgrade prices are so high that sailing a 5th rate is anyway expensive. We had before 5 duras for 5th rates, each upgrade worth 5 upgrades. Get back to this in a way or another.

Don't try to make 5th rates nice shiny toys to own. When you try to do this you are saying that Trincomalee is equally nice shiny toy as L'Ocean. This is downgrading 1st rate value.

If I have to grind for end game item, 1st rate upgrade, that is ok. End game gear is in every game something that you really have to work for. If I have to grind early game items, 5th rate upgrades, book and upgrade system is flawed.

Removing 5th rates (ships, modules, books) from shiny toy list. This will make the game more casual friendly in the early game. Will cause war and war will fuel economy.

You don't win 25vs25 1st rate port battles with 5th rates. There will be always need for end game gear.

 

Made a nice price curve. Price ~= Rarity

[Slim McSauce]

^actually a brilliant idea. Split uo uogrades by rate like books. This way sailing a a frigate can be made more affordable, while sailing a 1st rate is more expensive but still powerful. You expand the economy and create low and high end market that's a ladder for players to climb. MAKE EVERY UOGRADE CRAFTABLE AND MAKE 1ST RATE UPGRADES TAKE A LOT OF MATERIALS, doesnt matter if its simple like oak and hemp, do this and the economy will boom.

NOT only that you can do solid values for all upgrades instead of % which remember is what fixed the cartegena mod from being OP with SOLs and underpowered with frigates and light ships.

and it makes sense. Copper plating for a SOL is going to be a completely different upgrade than copper plating for something like a rattlesnake,one requiring more materials and a higher price.

Edited November 16, 2018 by Slim McSauce

[Feinics]

36 minutes ago, Slim McSauce said:

^actually a brilliant idea. Split uo uogrades by rate like books. This way sailing a a frigate can be made more affordable, while sailing a 1st rate is more expensive but still powerful. You expand the economy and create low and high end market that's a ladder for players to climb. MAKE EVERY UOGRADE CRAFTABLE AND MAKE 1ST RATE UPGRADES TAKE A LOT OF MATERIALS, doesnt matter if its simple like oak and hemp, do this and the economy will boom.

NOT only that you can do solid values for all upgrades instead of % which remember is what fixed the cartegena mod from being OP with SOLs and underpowered with frigates and light ships.

and it makes sense. Copper plating for a SOL is going to be a completely different upgrade than copper plating for something like a rattlesnake,one requiring more materials and a higher price.

I really like this idea. It would add some additional depth to the economy which can only be a good thing.

[Farrago]

On 10/31/2018 at 2:52 AM, admin said:

Captains

Please provide your feedback on crafting and trading, new currencies, loot drops from traders and combat ships and general monetary balance and inflation.

There is a problem with the randomness of doubloons.

In the past, the supply of PVP marks, and Combat Marks was correlated to player activity. The more we played, the more supply would increase at a linear and probably over time, predictable rate. At the same time, increased player activity contributed to the need and consumption for the marks as ships were sunk. The greater risk or activity, the greater reward. Less risk, less reward, but still predictable.

It might be possible that a supply of doubloons could stabilize with much greater player numbers (enough random rolls and supply builds up) but we would still have no mechanism for ever predicting the supply which is necessary to determine value of doubloons. Am I 10 lucky AI Trader Brigs captures away from a first rate or 1000 Trader Brigs away?

I hope I’m being clear. I don’t have a problem with many of the items/permits being priced expensively in doubloons. Most of these things should be rare. But the source or “income rate” of doubloons overall needs to be predictable with perhaps just a little randomness thrown in.

One aspect of doubloons I do like: it allows different routes to upper level gear and ships to other play styles. Trader raiding, PVP gods, PVE focused, whatever style can obtain doubloons.

[La bouche]

45 minutes ago, Farrago said:

In the past, the supply of PVP marks, and Combat Marks was correlated to player activity. The more we played, the more supply would increase at a linear and probably over time, predictable rate

I think that is the great plus of the patch. Now casual players and those that have short time to play, have better chances to progress and grind up. In the past, only hardcore players had the chance to grow to meanifull objectives. An game that wants to survive on market cant rely only in hardcore players. Besides lot of them not liked the patch, it was necessary and right choice to bring new players and keep the train rolling.

ps.: sorry, my english is awfull.

 

 

 

 

[Farrago]

1 hour ago, Farrago said:

One aspect of doubloons I do like: it allows different routes to upper level gear and ships to other play styles. Trader raiding, PVP gods, PVE focused, whatever style can obtain doubloons.

 

1 hour ago, La bouche said:

I think that is the great plus of the patch. Now casual players and those that have short time to play, have better chances to progress and grind up. In the past, only hardcore players had the chance to grow to meanifull objectives. An game that wants to survive on market cant rely only in hardcore players. Besides lot of them not liked the patch, it was necessary and right choice to bring new players and keep the train rolling.

ps.: sorry, my english is awfull.

 

 

 

 

Oh I agree. That’s what I meant by the last part of my post. It’s good that there are multiple routes to obtaining doubloons. The problem is that without a global market and a trade tool that only updates once a day, we are unable to determine the value of these randomly dropping doubloons. 

[Barbancourt]

1 hour ago, La bouche said:

I think that is the great plus of the patch. Now casual players and those that have short time to play, have better chances to progress and grind up. In the past, only hardcore players had the chance to grow to meanifull objectives.

 

Casual players can advance fine with the rewards being linked to the level of difficulty.  You already have a tutorial that can get you free 5th Rates.  From there you can farm the hapless AI when you manage to find an appropriate 1 or 2 ship AI spawn to battle.  Money still flows freely, making 5th Rates pretty cheap. 

 

 

[Cmdr RideZ]

Can be too early to say but maybe not enough Doubloons. Teleport fee really is not comparable here, it does not really matter. It is just that everything else feels expensive.

Kill mission 9 Doubloons and one upgrade cost me 400 Doubloons. Yes, there are better paying missions and if we are lucky we can find pile from AI traders. Also better paying missions are a big grind to do solo.

Doubloon prices to craft 4th to 1st rates is linear. You can leave 1st rate prices as it is but decrease for other rates. 4th rates should be "entry level" ship to Doubloon ships, not directly jump to 2500 doubloons.

Doubloon prices for upgrades could be clearly decreased. Like I said before, upgrades and books could be all per rate. Upgrading 3rd rate should be much cheaper than upgrading 1st rate. You don't value 1st rates that much if the same pricing goes for 3rd rates and in really many cases for 7th rates.

I hope you decreased craft XP requirements because with these Doubloon prices new players will grind a year to get max craft.

[Simon Cadete]

When I saw it takes 8000 doubloons to build a Santi I thought it was a typo. Then I realized the developers lost their mind and decided to just destroy whatever was left of the game. It’s not just crafting but everything in this game. With every patch the game takes the 2 steps back  1 step forward routine. Too bad because their combat gameplay is the best around. Another missed opportunity. Good luck to the very few that still log in...

[John Jacob Astor]

 

On 11/7/2018 at 6:51 AM, admin said:

Hire additional workers from the admiralty (labor contracts) and extract everything - and sell the suprlus. Or just hire as many workers as you need and only make what you need.

As a follow-up to last week's tentative observation. 

No longer tentative.  This clearly is not a usable option, either to sell resources, or to sell crafted ships.

Unless the intent is to force everybody to do missions and combat to raise the necessary doubloons.  If that is NOT the intent, there are simply not enough doubloons entering the markets to bring the price down to usable levels.  Increasing the player population won't fix that.  That merely translates the imbalance up to larger scales.

I can reliably post contracts for doubloons in free ports.  But the price yields an extra labor cost for a T-Brig (L3 resource + L3 shipyard) that is approximately seventeen times the cost in Reals for resources. This is a labor valuation more appropriate to pre-robotics assembly lines in Detroit and the United Auto Workers.

There are, however, enough plenty of doubloons entering the Free Port markets to enable me to make a killing selling them the national capitol.  Which is fine, I suppose.  But I would rather be building and selling ships.

There clearly is a demand.  But not to buy extra labor.  If extra labor is being used, it's going directly into ships for a players' own use, and is not any meaningful component of the player economy.

In order for labor contracts to be of any meaningful use in the player-to-player economy either:

1) the Doubloon layer in the economy needs to be adjusted so Doubloon earners have plenty of Doubloons but are chronically short of Reals,

2) or extra labor needs to be paid for in Reals instead of Doubloons.

3) or merchants need their own way to generate extra labor, independent of the Admiralty.

I don't have an opinion on which of these would work the best.  But #3 might augment the economy without disrupting existing balancing in Doubloons.

One possibility would be to reintroduce the extra labor building, allow it to be built anywhere and use Reals for input.  But control the proliferation of the building by requiring the presence of one or more L2, or L3 buildings in the port as a prerequisite for construction.

 

Edited November 19, 2018 by John Jacob Astor
clarification

[John Jacob Astor]

 

On 11/8/2018 at 9:26 AM, admin said:

we see where doubloon prices are going - we expect them to probably stabilize at the levels of 10 reals to doubloon. 
i do no think doubloons are the bottleneck. Some players are already swimming in them 

we probably will be reducing the supply within next week. As it is really obvious that if it is not done they reals will be the real gold. 

If players are swimming in them they are not actually selling them.  At least not in any of the markets I use.  There are plenty of offers to buy in the 10-20 range.  But none of those contracts are moving.  To actually get the contracts filled I need to place them in the 70-90 range.

Which makes them unusable for labor contracts.  But perfect for selling into a national capitol at three and four to one.  Seeing as how I appear to be the ONLY serious seller in the US.

10 reals to the doubloon would make labor contracts a realistic option for resource and ship production.  It's a week later and I am not seeing anything even close to that price.

Again, what is the incentive to sell Doubloons for Reals in the contract markets, as opposed to spending them on Admiralty goodies?

I am beginning to think the objective actually IS to force players to do combat and missions.  That's the only way this market structure makes any sense.

Edited November 19, 2018 by John Jacob Astor
clarification.

[Angus MacDuff]

Why can"t Doubloons and Reals just be simple currency?  Completely interchangeable.  As Dollars are to Cents (or Hryvias to Kopeks).  Except 1-10 as opposed to 1-100. @admin ?

[John Jacob Astor]

On 11/16/2018 at 1:41 PM, Farrago said:

 

Oh I agree. That’s what I meant by the last part of my post. It’s good that there are multiple routes to obtaining doubloons. The problem is that without a global market and a trade tool that only updates once a day, we are unable to determine the value of these randomly dropping doubloons. 

The value is whatever what someone is willing to pay you for them in either the Freeports or your national capital.  There was a contract to buy posted in Aves this morning at 150 Reals.  I'm getting 250 easy in Charleston.  I could probably get more, but even profiteers have limits

But don't bother trying to sell them anywhere else. 

This localized stove-piping rather skews the markets and helps blow up the economics of using them for extra labor.  Which in-turn throttles baseline ship crafting and resource sales down to what can be done with the free labor allotment.  Of course players who are "swimming" in doubloons, as @admin puts it, will simply ignore the labor cost.

I don't think it will address the supply problem as it appears to be more attractive to spend them on admiralty goodies than sell them for Reals. But we really DO need global contract visibility of some sort.

Edited November 22, 2018 by John Jacob Astor
typos

[Vernon Merrill]

10 minutes ago, Coraline Vodka said:

No more throw away first rates is a good thing

Not to mention you can easily get 8000 doubloons in 3/4 days max...  (if you want to venture into the silly PvP zones)...   

[Draymoor]

On 11/18/2018 at 3:03 PM, Simon Cadete said:

When I saw it takes 8000 doubloons to build a Santi I thought it was a typo. Then I realized the developers lost their mind and decided to just destroy whatever was left of the game. It’s not just crafting but everything in this game. With every patch the game takes the 2 steps back  1 step forward routine. Too bad because their combat gameplay is the best around. Another missed opportunity. Good luck to the very few that still log in...

If kill missions, and higher rated/higher difficulty missions, and damage done in battle had their doubloons rewards increased to adequate levels the price of a 1st rate would be perfectly good as it is now. Before the economy patch I was able to afford a 1st rate after about 3 weeks of playing the game. 

[Draymoor]

4 minutes ago, Vernon Merrill said:

Not to mention you can easily get 8000 doubloons in 3/4 days max...  (if you want to venture into the silly PvP zones)...   

Even doing the bare minimum in the pvp daily events with a throw away ship like a Herc you get 600 doubs a day. That's a 1st rate every 3 weeks from playing about 30 minutes or less a day.