AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

Taxes! Rawr!

All Tax collectors are level 40 powerbuilds. *nod*

o0GuNz_N_RoSeZ0o wrote:

Yoss is right, in order to fix this it would take some huge changes. Most players seem to not be willing to make those changes and I'm willing to bet a lot of DM's aren't either. Considering that, this discussion really is pointless.

Speak for yourself. I will happily drop all of my money across all characters, right now, to put into effect the cascade of changes.

Quite honestly, same here (in that I'd accept changes). Then again I don't play any chars excessively flush with money. *shrug*

I got about 10 millio nbetween 10 characters i'd toss in as well.

I wonder how many said that in Havana in 1959.

I'm at a toss up I dont use my gold so I dont really need it, but I cant say I want it to just go poof because like I said you could kill the amount of gold coming in but gold still only holds value to NPCs for potions.

epic loot is traded for epic loot because its rare, 5% chance on a hard kill thats the best in the game short of DC items or real rare DM event items.

so would removing peoples gold do anything, we all make more gold then we need, after the change people still would, it wont buy you epic loot because gold like I said is still only used for potions and thats easy to get when viewed at epic loot drop chance.

I believe I said it a couple of times.

Global vault reset (the consequence of an IC plot: everyone dead, let's start anew).

Sure, it would end up with some of the playerbase leaving. But it would also end with some of the playerbase that is already gone - coming back.

Less violent suggestion(s):

- Make those yellow items .. better. Much better. Let them have let's say 5-6 random properties.

And please, don't say killing epic bosses is difficult or something. Most of them are a cakewalk. When fighting some of them, I often go to the kitchen to make myself a coffee while my summons take care of them.

- Inflation:
Make item prices go up. Let's say a stack of 10 healing potions costs 30.000. Add a zero at the end of it. This would take some serious balancing to do, since the 'lowbie' item prices should remain as they are.

- Turn the X/day items into items that have a limited number of charges. Everyone has Faded Balls. For 7.000 or so you get unlimited see invis. This would result in people needing to spend their money constantly, instead of spending a million on gear + usable items and the following gold flushing into their pockets just remaining there.

- Add 'recharge' option for wands/consumables suggested above with a reasonable price.

- Remove a plentitude of potions available from vendors, so the market flourishes more - aka PC's would need to acquire the more 'rare' potions from mages/bards/clerics/druids with craft wand/brew potion feats.

--------

Summarizing: I still think the best suggestion would be to simply wipe the vault with some massive epic catastrophical event.

Vault wipe is probably the stupidest thing a server like Amia could do. The vault makes the server, much more than the module does. Or the systems we got in place. Those are all irrelevant without the server vault. It is the characters people invest in that really matters. You don't invest in gold or gear, you invest in the story and development of character. At least you ought to be doing that on a roleplay server.

I can't imagine a greater "fuck you" to a playerbase than wiping the vault. It's no wonder that's how it most often gets done, too, as a giant finger to the people you're upset with.

Nekhy wrote:

It is the characters people invest in that really matters. You don't invest in gold or gear, you invest in the story and development of character.

Exactly my point. Because the moment after the vault was wiped, people would remake the very same characters. Starting with nothing and being level 1.

Wolf In The Throne Room wrote:

Nekhy wrote:

It is the characters people invest in that really matters. You don't invest in gold or gear, you invest in the story and development of character.

Exactly my point. Because the moment after the vault was wiped, people would remake the very same characters. Starting with nothing and being level 1.

I doubt it. People will be exceptionally upset their characters that they've invested years on have been destroyed.

Wolf In The Throne Room wrote:

Nekhy wrote:

It is the characters people invest in that really matters. You don't invest in gold or gear, you invest in the story and development of character.

Exactly my point. Because the moment after the vault was wiped, people would remake the very same characters. Starting with nothing and being level 1.

And how, precisely, would people remake the same character? How do you justify all that RP development being undone, and every starting out at lvl 1, without the DC stuff they worked for, and without the equipment they spent months getting?

The moment after the vault was wiped, people would not remake the same characters. People would leave, I know I'm sure as hell not going through the grinder again.

I'm sorry, but that's not how it goes. People aren't computers where you just install a new version of a software and expect it to work as it did before. You completely disregard the feeling of loss, especially if it was a forced loss. It's a shock to the system for most and not that easy to "start over" with the same character. It's no fun when characters get deleted accidentally (such as with the archival script gone wrong) and you need to start over, what on earth makes you think people would happily return to gaming if I now purposefully deleted all their characters?

TormakSaber wrote:

Speak for yourself. I will happily drop all of my money across all characters, right now, to put into effect the cascade of changes.

Well, I've got 2 PC's now, a max level and a near max level. They've got a couple million gold each but can't buy anything they want with money so what risk is there to me to lose it all when it has no effective value? I agree with Tormak in terms of clearing gold stocks down to a certain level when a comprehensive and well thought out list of changes is implemented.

Why does gold have no value? Because it's easy to get (high supply) and you only need it for small things like consumables bought from npc merchants (low demand). The gold economy is out of balance and gets further out of balance every day. It's probably best to work both the supply and demand angles for maximum effect. There were some good ideas a while back in the testers forum that I'll have to dredge up.

The currency is epic loot and by extension time, since it takes time to make all those boss runs to end up with a double digit quantity of epic loot items. I do not think it's necessary to level the playing field, there can still be richer and poorer pc's but I do hope that we can create an economy where gold has value because it's harder to get and is required for more things in game.

maglorine wrote:

can't buy anything they want with money

This problem exists because people think they should be able to buy epic loot with gold.
Everything else in the shops can be bought with gold.

Consider Farmer X took 6 months of daily grinding to get his gloves of epic discipline.
If he has no need for it, why should he sell it for gold, which has effectively been ruled out as "useless".

Should we be wiping out everyone's DCs just because some people have more than others?
Do you burn your neighbour's house down just because he's got a bigger car than yours?

Greed vs jealousy: no one wins.

Well, the gold problem is a real problem, it is real inflation because the system isn't good to begin with. Our system is really no different from Zimbabwe in the end, and it doesn't have a lot to do with greed or jealousy. It's a bad economy above all.

Nekhy wrote:

What on earth makes you think people would happily return to gaming if I now purposefully deleted all their characters?

Exactly the fact that they've been playing the same character for X years.
Three ways out of this if vault was wiped:

- Start a new concept.
- Remake the very same character due to the intense attachment to the PC (as far as I've heard, people made the very same PC's on Amia2, not to mention Ive seen Amians transporting their X-years old characters to a completely different PW)
- Stop playing alltogether.

There are ways to implement this IC, Goose. Dunno, mythals gone wrong, people stripped of their powers, everything gone, civilisation starts anew with same characters, Deities getting pissed at the obvious threat to themselves with 500 30+ PC's running around, so they infantiled them, et cetera et cetera.

Actually, I think the simplest thing would be to devaluate a single gold piece to 1/10th of the current value (or cut everyone's wealth to 10% of what they have now), cut the gold reward you get from each kill and let the markets handle the rest.

And Wolf, I suggest you make a poll out of this to see how many people really would start over and how many would simply quit. You're presenting a hypothesis with what I think is your own attitude as proof. Try it out in practise with a simple mental exercise, and see if you're right or not.

Wolf In The Throne Room wrote:

There are ways to implement this IC, Goose. Dunno, mythals gone wrong, people stripped of their powers, everything gone, civilisation starts anew with same characters, Deities getting pissed at the obvious threat to themselves with 500 30+ PC's running around, so they infantiled them, et cetera et cetera.

that would kill the server and noonee would play, and if I played my I would make a making a Dev crit pot chuging palemaster PVP ganker who would go around saying what god do you follow. oh you said any of them you get to die because your gods screwed over everyone.

Nekhy wrote:

Well, the gold problem is a real problem, it is real inflation because the system isn't good to begin with. Our system is really no different from Zimbabwe in the end, and it doesn't have a lot to do with greed or jealousy. It's a bad economy above all.

So what inflation are we talking about? What has gotten more expensive over the past few years?
There are other underlying problems on Amia than just a numeric figure. Problems that have driven people to quit.

The player-driven market prices have gone up, quite a bit. It's a natural follow-up if money is being pushed into the market in endless amounts, but it doesn't really go away. It doesn't circulate, like it should in a healthy economy.

This is one the simplest problems to fix, by devaluing gold. There's a lot of other problems, that probably differ from one opinion to another, but this is probably the simplest to solve unlike many of the problems that do not depend on simple numbers. This problem can be fixed pretty much the same way as it is fixed in real economies: devalue the currency, let the markets correct themselves. We're extremely lucky because we only have to look at our system and don't need to care about the rest, because there is nothing but our system.

Nekhy wrote:

The player-driven market prices have gone up, quite a bit.

I'd like to hear some comments on this.
Comments that don't involve the god-given right to buy someone else's epic loot with gold.
By the way, Perfect Mythals are down to 1.8 million a piece. Last year or so, it was still averaging 3.0 million.

TormakSaber wrote:

o0GuNz_N_RoSeZ0o wrote:

Yoss is right, in order to fix this it would take some huge changes. Most players seem to not be willing to make those changes and I'm willing to bet a lot of DM's aren't either. Considering that, this discussion really is pointless.

Speak for yourself. I will happily drop all of my money across all characters, right now, to put into effect the cascade of changes.

and items too? because everyone has to give up their items for it to truly work without grandfathering.

Vhalus_VoA wrote:

TormakSaber wrote:

o0GuNz_N_RoSeZ0o wrote:

Yoss is right, in order to fix this it would take some huge changes. Most players seem to not be willing to make those changes and I'm willing to bet a lot of DM's aren't either. Considering that, this discussion really is pointless.

Speak for yourself. I will happily drop all of my money across all characters, right now, to put into effect the cascade of changes.

and items too? because everyone has to give up their items for it to truly work without grandfathering.

you could do a server wipe and in a year gold would still be useless have no value and not buy 80% of stuff off the epic loot table, so why would people give up gold or items for no reason, yes people have lots of gold so what it should not effect your power to play Amia because if you think you are going to buy epic loot with it, slim chance.

Dramatic_Prince wrote:

Nekhy wrote:

The player-driven market prices have gone up, quite a bit.

I'd like to hear some comments on this.
Comments that don't involve the god-given right to buy someone else's epic loot with gold.
By the way, Perfect Mythals are down to 1.8 million a piece. Last year or so, it was still averaging 3.0 million.

They haven't, really. I'm not sure where that perception is coming from. The higher tiered loot has always been bartered only. Other stuff sells about the same prices it was 3 years ago.

Perfects have dropped in price because the supply has gone up 3x what it was. Flawless have always been around 2-3 mil though.

I haz made a poll.

Vhalus_VoA wrote:

TormakSaber wrote:

o0GuNz_N_RoSeZ0o wrote:

Yoss is right, in order to fix this it would take some huge changes. Most players seem to not be willing to make those changes and I'm willing to bet a lot of DM's aren't either. Considering that, this discussion really is pointless.

Speak for yourself. I will happily drop all of my money across all characters, right now, to put into effect the cascade of changes.

and items too? because everyone has to give up their items for it to truly work without grandfathering.

That was implied in the grand, wide, solution, yes. All of my items, as well. I will lead by example into the brave new world.

How would DC items fit into any solution that comes?

TBD. If necessary, consider them dumped, from me.

Here are another two for you that I'd love to see:

1. Remove the GP per-kill on spawns completely.

2. No more loot drops from animal and other spawns that wouldn't carry around items. In other words, a smarter and more advanced loot drop system that doesn't just throw a massive cloak over all spawns, as if all spawn are equal.

All spawns should be simillarly equal in rewards or will not be hunted. Sorry.

So? All spawns should -not- be equal. They should be equal to their strength type and realistic to their species (Frontier Goblins should drop similar to Frontier Kobolds and Frontier Orcs should drop slightly better). It makes no sense for a bear, wolf or cat to drop a mythal and leather armor like an Orc of similar strength. Maybe it should drop meat or fur, but armor, weapons, mythals, etc.? Silly.

No, Dwagin is right. If the general risk/reward/challenge/convenience is not equal, the areas will be utterly ignored in favor of a more efficient time to reward ratio. As evidence of this I present Forrstakkr vs Brogendenstein. The outer regions of Brogendenstein are about the same CR as the regions in Forrstakkr. However, Forrstakkr is "More difficult" "out of the way". It also drops hides and furs that tyou can turn in for gold and XP, but this is largely seen as superfluous weight and encumbrance, and is therefore a "Hassle".

Therefore, people ignore Forrstakkr and farm Brog.

TormakSaber wrote:

No, Dwagin is right. If the general risk/reward/challenge/convenience is not equal, the areas will be utterly ignored in favor of a more efficient time to reward ratio. As evidence of this I present Forrstakkr vs Brogendenstein. The outer regions of Brogendenstein are about the same CR as the regions in Forrstakkr. However, Forrstakkr is "More difficult" "out of the way". It also drops hides and furs that tyou can turn in for gold and XP, but this is largely seen as superfluous weight and encumbrance, and is therefore a "Hassle".

Therefore, people ignore Forrstakkr and farm Brog.

yes but afew people used to sell the furs to players to hand it in for EXP, tormak is right about the 4slot sized furs being a pain yeah you could not pick them up but still abit harder.

Are their any hak icons that can be used instead that take 1 instead of 4 slots?

Dramatic_Prince wrote:

Nekhy wrote:

The player-driven market prices have gone up, quite a bit.

I'd like to hear some comments on this.
Comments that don't involve the god-given right to buy someone else's epic loot with gold.
By the way, Perfect Mythals are down to 1.8 million a piece. Last year or so, it was still averaging 3.0 million.

Here is a comment. My first Perfect sold for 800,000 at auction. I recall checking the forums and it was about the average of the time. This was when they were 3x rarer then they are today. So in those years based on your reference value of the new "lower" value 1.8 million, the price of a Perfect has only increased 575% on a constant supply basis. Not bad for 3 years if economy breaking hyperinflation floats your boat.

maglorine wrote:

Here is a comment. My first Perfect sold for 800,000 at auction. I recall checking the forums and it was about the average of the time. This was when they were 3x rarer then they are today. So in those years based on your reference value of the new "lower" value 1.8 million, the price of a Perfect has only increased 575% on a constant supply basis. Not bad for 3 years if economy breaking hyperinflation floats your boat.

maglorine wrote:

They've got a couple million gold each but can't buy anything they want with money so what risk is there to me to lose it all when it has no effective value?

Why do you suppose people are buying and selling perfects using gold as a medium if gold has no effective value?
The current price of a perfect is within the average character's affordability index.
You have a couple million, you can afford a perfect mythal, if you didn't already get yours.
Also, please consider the source of perfects. How many ways are there to produce a perfect?

Dramatic_Prince wrote:

Why do you suppose people are buying and selling perfects using gold as a medium if gold has no effective value?
The current price of a perfect is within the average character's affordability index.
You have a couple million, you can afford a perfect mythal, if you didn't already get yours.
Also, please consider the source of perfects. How many ways are there to produce a perfect?

You are changing the subject. None of the above addresses the point being made, which I'll remind you was about price inflation. You made the following comment in response to Nekhy's post above on price inflation:

Dramatic_Prince wrote:

So what inflation are we talking about? What has gotten more expensive over the past few years?

My response was meant to provide evidence that there IS in fact inflation of a dramatic sort (pun intended). I'm not trying to make another point here, if that's what you think.

Dramatic_Prince wrote:

You have a couple million, you can afford a perfect mythal, if you didn't already get yours. Also, please consider the source of perfects. How many ways are there to produce a perfect?

If it's what I'm thinking of, a lower mid-level PC has a 1/3 chance of picking one up on a certain quest. In the level 10-15 range, though, money still has some meaning, and the people who obtain that mythal might decide to sell it in order to get cash to better equip themselves. On the other hand, once you get up to 25+ and have bought all your gear from all the stores you can reach and perhaps had a few nice items drop on you, you're basically grinding for epic loot but haven't yet accumulated the tens of millions needed to buy the really great stuff if it ever comes up for auction (and if the seller will even accept cash). Broadly speaking, the higher your level, the more money you have and the less it's worth.

maglorine wrote:

You are changing the subject. None of the above addresses the point being made, which I'll remind you was about price inflation. You made the following comment in response to Nekhy's post above on price inflation:

The subject has not been changed. I am quoting you on a previous statement that you cannot buy anything with gold.

Quote:

My response was meant to provide evidence that there IS in fact inflation of a dramatic sort (pun intended). I'm not trying to make another point here, if that's what you think.

Your proposition is that off-market items has seen a spike in prices.
And this still stems from the belief that one should be able to purchase off-market items using a medium which is defined by some as worthless.
Using the perfect mythal as an example, like in the real world, the prices of things scale up according to how people can afford them. Merchants will adjust their prices accordingly. In that, there are still some of us who do not see gold as worthless.
If income has gone up 10 fold, the prices of a perfect has gone up 2 fold and the supply has increased 3 fold, is the perfect not more affordable than 3 years ago?

Income and "existence-of-gold" has gone up tenfold, but the tenfold new wealth is not evenly distributed. The tenfold increase is spread among the top one percent.

Xaviera wrote:

If it's what I'm thinking of, a lower mid-level PC has a 1/3 chance of picking one up on a certain quest.

I thought it had changed to a 100% chance?

Dramatic_Prince wrote:

If income has gone up 10 fold, the prices of a perfect has gone up 2 fold and the supply has increased 3 fold, is the perfect not more affordable than 3 years ago?

Income hasn't increased, just the amount of money in the economy afaik. We'd need statistics from DMs to tell us that.

Edit: Ah, I stand corrected.

Nothing has changed in the player economy. There are a handful of people with stupid amounts of gold, which is apparently a problem to some people for some reason.

You see no problem with the economy being non existent except for a super elite top 1% of the playerbase that you jst so happen to be part of?

TormakSaber wrote:

No, Dwagin is right. If the general risk/reward/challenge/convenience is not equal, the areas will be utterly ignored in favor of a more efficient time to reward ratio. As evidence of this I present Forrstakkr vs Brogendenstein. The outer regions of Brogendenstein are about the same CR as the regions in Forrstakkr. However, Forrstakkr is "More difficult" "out of the way". It also drops hides and furs that tyou can turn in for gold and XP, but this is largely seen as superfluous weight and encumbrance, and is therefore a "Hassle".

Therefore, people ignore Forrstakkr and farm Brog.

Then change most spawns to include people spawns and not just animals and dumb monsters? I'd rather have realistic than animals dropping bastard swords. Besides, most adventurers would -want- to battle big bad beasts and people more often than just simple animals any way. Let animals be simple spawns that randomly pop up in the wilderness, as they should be.

Forrstakkr is simply too complex. There are all kinds of missions to do before you can even use the hunters guild to make money and XP from the fur. -That- is what killed that area, not so much that you have to drag around fur, imo. Hell, even I haven't completed those missions in all my time here. Not once. It's boring to me. ::shrugs::

Aside from Forrstakker, there really aren't -that- many animal heavy areas either. Most everywhere else has a healthy mix.

People asked for quests, and forrstakkr is an area chock full of quests. They then proceeded to not do the quests. What do you want from us?

Personally, I <3 quests. The only thing I'm having issues with is /finding/ the little buggars IG.

Also the "skins" only work if your char is fully human, and that's kind of a pain in the ass.

Huh? My Gnome never had any trouble with the Skins. Farmed over loads of the things. That might be a bug.

AFAIK the only race restriction up there is the Beserker quest.

AxlLeigh wrote:

Also the "skins" only work if your char is fully human, and that's kind of a pain in the ass.

Nope, my half-devil (Tiefling from Elf) could do it just fine.

TormakSaber wrote:

People asked for quests, and forrstakkr is an area chock full of quests. They then proceeded to not do the quests. What do you want from us?

I never asked for quests, personally. Some people like them, some people don't. Mind, I don't mind them and I do do them every once in a while. But overall, for me personally, I find them boring and I don't do them. I rather make stuff up or go along with someone making something up, Player or DM. But that's just me. Although Forrstakkr has made it pretty obvious that I'm not alone in finding static quests a bit boring. Probably why I've never beaten NWN in single player either. ::shrugs::

I love quests, personally, but I am absolutely atrocious at exploration and finding things. Half the time I am can't even find the start of quests I hear about. I would love for there to be some sort of more thorough documentation. Perhaps a NPC somewhere that knows who is looking for adventuring help, and can direct my lame-ass to the quest givers.

Reconsidering the Epic Loot System

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