Inflation

[Jan Bellaq]

I have different question. When devs will take care of real's inflation. It cant go for ever this way, there is way too much profit. According to NA map yesterday all town generated 150 milion reals of tax. This brings trades in port to 1,5 bilion reals. Taking into consideration that we have 300% profit margin for trade goods, we can assume that from this about 1 bilion reals comes to player coffins. And we have no or little ways to bring money out of game (buying ships leaves money in game, taking out only tax). No economy can last on such principle. and what im reading in patch notes?
"slightly increased spawns of trading resources"

Lets bring even more money to market... In month we will have ship prices exceeding 100 milions for first rates.

I suggest few ways to deflate the currency from economy (nothing too harsh, we dont want to broke economy even more):

1. Daily maintaince for ships according to class. I.e. 500 reals for 7 th rate, 1000 6th rate, 2000 5rd rate, 4000 4rd rate, 8000 3nd rate, 16000 2nd rate, 32000 1st rate. It will have also anti hoarding effect, and shift player fleets towards frigates.

2. Daily maintaince for buildings and outopsts.

3. Switching seasoned woods production from labour cost to real costs.

 

[Jorge]

7 minutes ago, Jan Bellaq said:

I have different question. When devs will take care of real's inflation. It cant go for ever this way, there is way too much profit. According to NA map yesterday all town generated 150 milion reals of tax. This brings trades in port to 1,5 bilion reals. Taking into consideration that we have 300% profit margin for trade goods, we can assume that from this about 1 bilion reals comes to player coffins. And we have no or little ways to bring money out of game (buying ships leaves money in game, taking out only tax). No economy can last on such principle. and what im reading in patch notes?
"slightly increased spawns of trading resources"

Lets bring even more money to market... In month we will have ship prices exceeding 100 milions for first rates.

I suggest few ways to deflate the currency from economy (nothing too harsh, we dont want to broke economy even more):

1. Daily maintaince for ships according to class. I.e. 500 reals for 7 th rate, 1000 6th rate, 2000 5rd rate, 4000 4rd rate, 8000 3nd rate, 16000 2nd rate, 32000 1st rate. It will have also anti hoarding effect, and shift player fleets towards frigates.

2. Daily maintaince for buildings and outopsts.

3. Switching seasoned woods production from labour cost to real costs.

 

Sorry but i don't want play Patrician or Port Royal..... 

[Despe]

22 minutes ago, Jan Bellaq said:

I have different question. When devs will take care of real's inflation. It cant go for ever this way, there is way too much profit. According to NA map yesterday all town generated 150 milion reals of tax. This brings trades in port to 1,5 bilion reals. Taking into consideration that we have 300% profit margin for trade goods, we can assume that from this about 1 bilion reals comes to player coffins. And we have no or little ways to bring money out of game (buying ships leaves money in game, taking out only tax). No economy can last on such principle. and what im reading in patch notes?
"slightly increased spawns of trading resources"

Lets bring even more money to market... In month we will have ship prices exceeding 100 milions for first rates.

I suggest few ways to deflate the currency from economy (nothing too harsh, we dont want to broke economy even more):

1. Daily maintaince for ships according to class. I.e. 500 reals for 7 th rate, 1000 6th rate, 2000 5rd rate, 4000 4rd rate, 8000 3nd rate, 16000 2nd rate, 32000 1st rate. It will have also anti hoarding effect, and shift player fleets towards frigates.

2. Daily maintaince for buildings and outopsts.

3. Switching seasoned woods production from labour cost to real costs.

 

OMG no, no more money spends please. I guess that we need more outpost avalaible, like 10 for example, not these kinds of experiments

And @admin @Ink, btw, where is my redoutable? :DD

Edited January 10, 2020 by Despe

[BoatyMcBoatFace]

22 minutes ago, Jan Bellaq said:

I have different question. When devs will take care of real's inflation. It cant go for ever this way, there is way too much profit. According to NA map yesterday all town generated 150 milion reals of tax. This brings trades in port to 1,5 bilion reals. Taking into consideration that we have 300% profit margin for trade goods, we can assume that from this about 1 bilion reals comes to player coffins. And we have no or little ways to bring money out of game (buying ships leaves money in game, taking out only tax). No economy can last on such principle. and what im reading in patch notes?
"slightly increased spawns of trading resources"

Lets bring even more money to market... In month we will have ship prices exceeding 100 milions for first rates.

I suggest few ways to deflate the currency from economy (nothing too harsh, we dont want to broke economy even more):

1. Daily maintaince for ships according to class. I.e. 500 reals for 7 th rate, 1000 6th rate, 2000 5rd rate, 4000 4rd rate, 8000 3nd rate, 16000 2nd rate, 32000 1st rate. It will have also anti hoarding effect, and shift player fleets towards frigates.

2. Daily maintaince for buildings and outopsts.

3. Switching seasoned woods production from labour cost to real costs.

 

This is an economy based game. If you don't want to eco, that's your personal concern to address.  From what i can tell there is a lot of things to sink money on and prices are stabilizing, therefore no need to ring the panic button. But let us go down the list and why i feel you are off here.

 

1 would play out how precisely? If anything it will just make people do even more eco which will actually increase inflation. And if somebody goes away from the game, what happens? His money just melts? And when it hits 0? Do you honestly want to have a built in game reset in a manner of speaking? 

2 Clans already have those costs under port timers. On the individual level, see 1 above.

3 Makes absolutely 0 sense whatsoever. There is already a reals and dubs cost built into each log. Labor hours spent on the wood are already converted into dubs or reals cost. Thats how we have arrived at the current production and sales cost for each seasoned log. 

 

 

[Ink]

@Jan Bellaq Inflation discussion is moved out from hotfix discusion

[Never]

Introducing any kind of cost for maintaining ships at dock would be ridiculous at this point. Wear and tear from actual use would be pointless, interesting in theory but everyone would just repair as soon as they got in port so it would just be a waste of time to create any of kind of system for it. You'd never see any ship lacking maintenance. 

I think it would be easier to just add admiralty items/upgrades sold for reals. Another option could be temporary paints, flags, or sail colors sold for reals but that would take more work I think. 

As we are getting some form of crew progress update, crew costs could be increased in some manner depending on the form of the update if it could be done without affecting low rank players too much. 

[Angus MacDuff]

Tax the rich!  The more money you have in your wallet...the more tax you pay.

[Koveras]

The game lacks a fleshed out economy and honestly what people don't realize is that the game lacks risks as well. There's nothing wrong in large profitmargins - if the risk is likewise.

When people cry about getting "ganked" in front of the main trading hubs (capitals) it just means that people don't understand that all the sure profits creates is inflation that in turn eats all their earnings since everyone and their mother can make millions. I've been back to the game for about 14 days and in that timespan I've made and spent millions.

Just to give an example:

1 ts permit: 18m

1 bs permit: 10m

1 AoSH (to a clanmate me and all my alts already has the rare books): 10m

1 lvl 2 shipyard (can't be bothered to do the math, but I don't sail for dubs): xm

Besides this I've bought a couple of rare books, a few high tier modules and ofc gunnery encyclopedia. For 14 days of work with 1 account.

 

I'm actually not saying that this shouldn't be possible for a dedicated trader, but I haven't been anywhere near as much online as I used to be.

 

And lastly just a fyi: I said it a looooooong time ago - inflation will run rampant with the current econ system (along other things) and yet all it netted me was an umentionable result which is the reason why I'm Koveras now and not Lars Kjær or Lars Kjaer.. or... or... 5 times mates, yet there's just some things that should not be discussed.

[van Veen]

All these ideas are missing the point completely. The problems with inflation are this:

• Supply and demand of trade goods are constant. A profitable trade root is always profitable, no matter what. 
• Supply of materials for crafting is limitless. You can extract as many resources as you want without any limitation. The only real limit is the amount of labour hours available. With extra alts you can scale this up easily. 
• The only money sinks that you have got are:
  • Timers (max limit by number of ports)
  • Investments (max limit by port upgrade points)
  • Sinking ships (dynamic)
• Additional sources of value are
  • NPC ships spawn without a cost. The ships and cargo appear from nothing, but can be captured and converted into money. This scales with activity (no limit), the more you sink, the more will spawn. 
  • Doubloons, reals, chests being awarded for damage and missions. These spawn from nothing and scale with activity (no limit), the more you do, the more you earn. 

Obviously, there is always more value generated than lost, so the current system is doomed to inflate without limit. What you'd need is

• Dynamic towns
  • population size
  • town wealth
  • resources and trade goods demand depends size and wealth
  • growth depends on availability of food and construction resources
  • Prizes for goods and resources demand on quota of demand and supply
  • Buying land costs money that contributes to town wealth
  • Limited land available for cultivation (total building slots available per town) depends on population size (work force) with a hard cap
  • Landowners not using their land (building slots) lose their land, but get compensated (get their money back to avoid some people blocking land)
• AI economy needs to be balanced
  • NPC ships spawning in towns use up resources and money
  • NPC traders transport goods from town to town
  • Ships sold to admiralty are kept in store
  • Ships in store can spawn as NPC ships
• Raids (how to implement is a different topic)
  • Successful raid reduces town wealth
  • Successful raid reduces town population

 

Edited January 10, 2020 by van Veen

[Never]

5 minutes ago, van Veen said:

All these ideas are missing the point completely. The problems with inflation are this:

• Supply and demand of trade goods are constant. A profitable trade root is always profitable, no matter what. 
• Supply of materials for crafting is limitless. You can extract as many resources as you want without any limitation. The only real limit is the amount of labour hours available. With extra alts you can scale this up easily. 
• The only money sinks that you have got are:
  • Timers (max limit by number of ports)
  • Investments (max limit by port upgrade points)
  • Sinking ships (dynamic)
• Additional sources of value are
  • NPC ships spawn without a cost. The ships and cargo appear from nothing, but can be captured and converted into money. This scales with activity (no limit), the more you sink, the more will spawn. 
  • Doubloons, reals, chests being awarded for damage and missions. These spawn from nothing and scale with activity (no limit), the more you do, the more you earn. 

Obviously, there is always more value generated than lost, so the current system is doomed to inflate without limit. What you'd need is

• Dynamic towns
  • population size
  • town wealth
  • resources and trade goods demand depends size and wealth
  • growth depends on availability of food and construction resources
  • Prizes for goods and resources demand on quota of demand and supply
  • Buying land costs money that contributes to town wealth
  • Limited land available for cultivation (total building slots available per town) depends on population size (work force) with a hard cap
  • Landowners not using their land (building slots) lose their land, but get compensated (get their money back to avoid some people blocking land)
• AI economy needs to be balanced
  • NPC ships are crafted in towns using up resources and money
  • NPC traders transport goods from town to town
  • Ships sold to admiralty are kept in store
  • Ships in store can spawn as NPC ships
• Raids (how to implement is a different topic)
  • Successful raid reduces town wealth
  • Successful raid reduces town population

 

Not missing the point, just aiming for a more realistic solution, suggestions such as yours will sadly never see the light of day. 

[Jan Bellaq]

@RepairyMcRepairousThe main problem is that inflation is good for rich and bad for poor. Every percent of it, just widens the difference, and makes game for poor bastards harder. Few months ago 1st rate costed few millions. Now you buy conditioned bella for 20 milions. Inflation is extremly bad for new players. If you start a game and cant or dont want to be part of a established clan, you feel big difference in shop prices and your income from grinding. If one rep in freeports (except spawning it Shroud Cay) costs to 1000 real, and 1 rum can cost 200 - 500 reals, you need to spend 100k reals to outfit frigate in repairs.

Sunking ships dont take money from the game, it just changes the owner of reals, and takes off only 10% in tax and some costs for rebuilding it. 
Constatnt inflation will always be problem if there will be no steady way to balance reals influx and outflux. 
Maintaince would take out money directly out of server to try to balance 1 bilion reals per day that is put daily into economy. Maintaince costs payed by clans is just a friction of this quotta. 
Acording to outposts i personaly dont see reason to puting limit on their number. With such large map tping to hot zones leaves you more time for fun activities such as battles.

@Ink can you take out of game logs number of reals in game at given day (i.e. maintaince)? Then we could see how much money is pumped into economy, and how big is this problem?

@Never Maybe one way would be selling one time use cosmetics for ships for reals in admirality but it would on other hand hurt DLC income for devs.

@BoatyMcBoatFace According to seasoned goods, seasoning teak for trinco done in shed, taking into consideration labour contracts tools etc. costs about 6 milions reals. And you need loooooooots of hauling tools. If we can leave the price but instead of making this process pain in he ass made paid in form of reals im too thumbs up.(like the devs did when they changed material system in shipbuilding)

@IntrepidoPopulation rise is mainly ppl getting second accounts. And they do this for a reason. Players in russia cant buy anything at Vera Cruz, becouse trade goods are sniped out of a market very fast. Same apply to Brits, Dutch, Swedes etc. Not long ago we had a proposition from russian alt in holland selling butch of trade goods from Willemstead for 20 milions reals.  

@Angus MacDuff huzzah!!!

 

 

Edited January 10, 2020 by Jan Bellaq

[admin]

Inflation is only a problem when the costs rise with inflation as well. 
If basic goods are stable - and expensive goods go up in price its not an inflation

Cost of oak and iron and coal and a lot of other resources is fixed.

[admin]

12 minutes ago, Jan Bellaq said:

 

@IntrepidoPopulation rise is mainly ppl getting second accounts. And they do this for a reason. Players in russia cant buy anything at Vera Cruz, becouse trade goods are sniped out of a market very fast.

The new trading system (#nocontracts) works as it promotes sailing (not sitting in ports using contracts) and privateering (just sink the traders around rich ports instead of buying goods). How does having a second account helps you buy anything in Vera Cruz if you cannot buy anything on the first account?

Majority cares about inflation - people want to hoard and hoard we will give them as much as they want. Yes it will increase the cost of top class mods and those act as money sinks. We just need more options there.

[Never]

@Jan Bellaq It's all those poor bastards you mention that were super happy to be able to make easy millions from trade. 

[erelkivtuadrater]

35 minutes ago, admin said:

The new trading system (#nocontracts) works as it promotes sailing (not sitting in ports using contracts) and privateering (just sink the traders around rich ports instead of buying goods). How does having a second account helps you buy anything in Vera Cruz if you cannot buy anything on the first account?

Majority cares about inflation - people want to hoard and hoard we will give them as much as they want. First rates are free from NPCs and cost of best ganker frigates is still below 50k with guns
 

you can pull out where items drop from API, have your several alt accounts all in several ports where the chance for drop are the highest, login to the accounts which are in those said ports and buy the items. All you need to get around it is to have 1 of the same outpost in a freetown and have all your other outposts elsewhere.

And its been know for "thousands of lightyears" that people dig into the API for those sweet materials and books

 

And i assume you use like maybe 30 sec to relog your alt account if you dont have a multiboxing program like sandboxie.

Edited January 10, 2020 by erelkivtuadrater

[Yar987]

2 hours ago, RepairyMcRepairous said:

most people are poor in game,

most don't make a profit enough to afford maintenance on ships, building and outpost ---- without outposts, building and ships they wont make enough to afford maintenance on ships, building and outposts, you see the problem.

you want to decease people with millions make them pay more for their ports considering it will be the large clans earning the most profit.

don't punish the players who don't make millions by adding a free for all tax to everyone whether they have a lot of cash or not.

As a poor person, I agree. It feels very difficult to catch up to those who are well-established. Lack of money means I will avoid fighting more often than not. It's been easier with the new trading changes though, and makes fighting less cost prohibitive. 

[Angus MacDuff]

20 minutes ago, Yar987 said:

As a poor person, I agree. It feels very difficult to catch up to those who are well-established. Lack of money means I will avoid fighting more often than not.

Nobody needs to be poor.  You can make several million in an hour with some TBrigs.  You just have to find the right trade route.

[Sea Archer]

For months now the prices for ships up to 5th rates (which can be build without dubs) are quite stable and relatively low.

Prices of rare books and mods are rising, but I think the economy is quite good right now. Even capped 3rd-1st rates are available for a reasonable price, just the high end ships are expensive.

The devs did a good job on this.

[James Cornelius]

This has all the markings of once again the elite hardcore players with 5000 hours in the game complaining about something that affects a tiny fraction of the player base.

 

I only hope that the developers don't once more fall for this and change something else to make it still harder for the solo players and small clans.

[Yar987]

10 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

Nobody needs to be poor.  You can make several million in an hour with some TBrigs.  You just have to find the right trade route.

Correct, with the current system no one needs to. But the current system is a fairly recent development. 

[admin]

1 hour ago, James Cornelius said:

This has all the markings of once again the elite hardcore players with 5000 hours in the game complaining about something that affects a tiny fraction of the player base.

 

I only hope that the developers don't once more fall for this and change something else to make it still harder for the solo players and small clans.

we should think for everyone and the little guy too. As a result we actually increased the supply of trading goods 2 days ago in the hotfix (by at least 65% across all price categories) , more trading = more pvp and more money. (including a side effect of more privateering). New group of trading goods that will spawn in non capital towns is coming too - to encourage sailing around and looking for deals.

[erelkivtuadrater]

26 minutes ago, admin said:

more trading = more pvp and more money.

thank god your understood it, better late then never

[Malcolm3]

2 hours ago, admin said:

New group of trading goods that will spawn in non capital towns is coming too - to encourage sailing around and looking for deals.

Does that mean that you decided something about supply system I've suggested before or it is another thing?

[Macjimm]

3 hours ago, Angus MacDuff said:

You can make several million in an hour with some TBrigs. 

Are you  using 2 or 3 ships in fleet?  I've been unable to find a TBrig route where I can make 3 million plus every hour.  Please PM me and let me in on your secret.

Thats 66 million daily for long sessions playing NA.  Enough for 6 upgraded ships.

[Never]

40 minutes ago, Macjimm said:

Are you  using 2 or 3 ships in fleet?  I've been unable to find a TBrig route where I can make 3 million plus every hour.  Please PM me and let me in on your secret.

Thats 66 million daily for long sessions playing NA.  Enough for 6 upgraded ships.

It's not hard. Find the most expensive items in the map and check which port drop them, preferably choosing ports that aren't in the top richest ports from tax so there's less competition. Check which ports buy those goods and plan the most effective route according to distance/wind change/risk from all the ports that are available to sell at.