Introduce NEED into the economy

[Cheopis]

Salis, increasing the raw materials needs to create items would be extremely destructive to the economy. As the economy stands right now, storage silos are big enough to hold the materials to make a large number of items. If raw materials needs were raised, storage space would be even tighter. I don't think most crafters would mind if each manufactured item actually took a while to make, but significantly increasing the amount of raw materials required to create items would mean that high level folks would be required to spend a LOT more time when they agree to help lower level characters, and lower level folks would spend hours collecting the materials for a sword and shield. While this might be realistic in some ways, one must also realize that our Avatars live in a much faster world than we do - time for them is faster than time for us.

If anything, I would say that reducing the materials required to make items, while making each creation take more time, and give more exp, would be better. This doesn't address any of your other points, but it seemed the most dangerous thing that you said.

[Salis]

Well I guess I still am thinking in the JIT system.
Just in time delivery: as in no stocks.
The silos could be changed. To act a bit like standard cargo disks. Depending on the tier up to five different items could be stocked in them.
Secondly I don't think that you should stock raw resources, but processed ones. In this way this wouldn't change a whole lot. Ofcourse you don't have stock to provide they entire shard of bronze swords at once. But that is the whole point.
And collecting times. Lairshaping takes a whole lot of time to finish a few items. And that is fine by me. Equipment should mean something. Building a lair is an acomplishment, so should getting your sword, your chainmail armor, ...

I think my system would lead to people focussing on 1 or 2 crafting professions, it would not hamper soloing at all. But working with many on one item would provide benefits. Each has its task. With a craft item request system in place you could delegate the crafting of certain items.
To others. Many could be working at once. Instead of asking for 80 steel bars, you could put out 3 jobs for 20 each and do I yourself.

Also I am merely making suggestions the whole economy is a very delicate balance and needs much finetuning. My given figures are only examples. Not what it really should be.

Salis

[AmonGwareth]

Just a suggestion (and this is totally of the top of my head), but you could always have a third step to create products. Say copper&tin ore -> bronze bars -> bronze ingots. Or something of that sort.

or perhaps instead of a Longsword requiring 12 bronze bars, it required 12 bronze bars and 4 leather strips. that would increase inter-dependency between schools while making it more complex and take longer to make products.

Now, I'm not saying this is a great solution. Especially given that I haven't thought about it except as I type... but it is along the same lines as people have been talking.

increasing the XP would of course go hand-in-hand with a system such as this.

[Cheopis]

We've deviated from the intent of the original poster in our discussions here.

Introducing need isn't a matter of making the crafting process faster or slower, or the difficulty of combines, or anything other than simply creating a need for player crafting items which are actually necessary to purchase more than once.

Repair kits for damaged armor/weapons/tools for instance. Perhaps have all world objects and public structures degrade over time, requiring the application of construction class repair kits. I don't particularly like the idea of player plot structures requiring repair, but I'm not completely against it, provided that the degradation takes a long time before it begins to affect the utility of the structures.

Devices for use in recalling to a highly efficient transport system could also be very nice - but these would need to be NPC sold items, I think.

Putting a money sink or dependency link to crafters in the game is all well and good, but extreme care is needed to avoid changes which will damage the game.

Just say NO to taxes though, please :P

[Fluuoro]

Well, i've been almost 100% crafter since beta and never been rich. Even now i survive with a couple of hundred silvers and don't really feel a need for money sink. I still remember the painful "vielo medicine" and prices skyrocketing, 200-500 silver for expert formulas (from adventurers) , couple of golds for armor V..and then all those rich crafter/adventurers who bougth all the key formulas/techs and cornered the market for a couple of months...i suppose that it was fun for them...i lost some friends who quit the game due to insane prices and rampant greed. Doing the same for master formulas...is bad. Personally i don't think economy is broken, simply because there isn't a real economy..it's a game. I craft for fun and when i need some silvers i pawn a bit or build paid work. If you play on Unity and really need a money sink just tell me, i will be your P.M.S. (Personal Money Sink)...i'm really good at spending money.

[Frith-Rae]

Though I do realize that at the "top end" some players are "rich"...I also think that the number of "rich" players to the number of "getting by" players is really a SMALL Percentage of the game overall.

Esp. looking at what was spent for dragon lairs, and how few dragons actually were "rich" so that they could get their best slot.

The problem with such discussion is that we have undefined terms, and what may seem to you like "too much money to sit on" may not seem that way to another.

The problem with forcing extra expenses on EVERYONE - wether through taxes, armor or weapon decay, MORE items we have to purchase from NPCs that we can't just hunt (we already have some...too exorbitant for most to just go pick up whenever) - is that it sure does what you want for those who NEED money sinks, but screws over the rest of the player base who doesn't.

I've been in this game since a month after release, the only time i was "rich" was when I farmed consistently for TWO MONTHS (together with my dragon mate, so that's x2), to afford my primo location lair and I STILL needed donations of several gold in order to win it. (bows humbly to all who helped).

Since that time I've been crafting on it, I can't earn money. I have a woping 200 some odd silver that a lovely friend donated to me cuz I'm broke .

I am AGAINST Taxes and Armor Decay. Period. I am against anything introduced across the board, like that, that has not been in place since the beginning.

Armor Decay may have worked from the start, before receipes became so dependent on HUNDREDS of drop/forced Vielo purchase items, but now - you've GOT To be kidding?

It took me straight WEEKS of CONSTANT grinding to get the necessary components for my teir V armor, (if not months), the same for craft scales, the same will be needed for my spells. (though I know those wouldn't decay).

To then implement armor decay AFTER requiring what is an exhorbitant amount of time for us nonrich players to hunt down our components - is ridiculous. What's the point then of spending Weeks of nonstop grinding on components if then that means I either need to pay an upkeep to keep them in top shape, or that I have to turn around in 2 months and do it AGAIN?!

It works in WoW - where for 90% of the items in game it can take very little effort to build and fix up.

This craft system is entirely different. Armor decay at this point, for players who already scrimp and save and adverture their butts off to get the armor in the first place, is just a slap in the....face.

Weapons might be different, I am a dragon I no not what it takes to get nifty weapons. If its much easier then perhaps decay would be ok. Course then there would be the question of what would dragons have that would be complimentary to weapon decay (claw decay?? (boggles)).

I'm all about fluff money sinks though!! Nothing forced, nothing giving such advantages that other players realize that its almost a "need", but fluff fluff fluff - go ahead and charge. Tant's ideas were great.

[Aamer Khan]

Ok, let me define what I see as the problems...

In the current system, Adventurers can still make very good money, not only from loot drops, but from selling trophies, comps, and loot. Some lvl 100 mobs drop 12+silver, and I'm told the dragon rift mobs drop even more. Comps he can simply PB, or sell to other players for better coin. Trophy quests give exp and coin, or you can just sell the trophies.

So, the only thing holding an adventurer back from having 2-3 gold is effort and time. To me, this says that the adventurer ( biped or dragon ) is now set as the means for wealth to enter the system.

The crafters USED to be able to farm the PB for vast amounts of coin. I was able to rack up well over 6 gold just from geostone clay to prove it could be done. Now however, the most I can hope to make from selling crafted items to a t5 PB is less than 20 silver, then I must sell the next load to another PB. I can make things for other players it's true. I can consign bars/bricks/orbs, etc... The only problem is that there are already too many others that can make the very same things for themselves. So the best I can hope for, is convience buys from somebody too busy to gather themselves. The majority of players are high level multiclassed crafters/adventurers.

So the says to me that even though Horizons is 50% craft centric, crafters bring little wealth into the system, and too many don't need anyone else to survive. There is no real economy, since there is no need. No reason to craft except make for yourself.

Realize, that you don't need pain to have need. I need to recall with my disk, so I'm willing to pay. I need to mine without golems smashing me since I'm a lvl 90 miner, but a 16 cleric... I will happily pay to have a non-aggro shield. I need to have seating in my t4 guild house, so i'm more than willing to Pay the empire for statium seating.

So, two directions lay open before us. ( as I see it )

1. Do what is necessary to balance the two sides ( crafters vs adventureres ) and make them interdependant. Create a need for the two sides to interact. Otherwise, the craft side will continue to suffer. ( do we see any pure crafters in this game anymore? )

2. Do nothing to fix the economy, but instead do away with it all together, and let everyone simply have fun doing what they like. No portal costs, port and recall with all disks, reduce the resources needed to build anything, and make all finished products require only a single resource ( like boards ). Remove money from the game totally, and make all trades be barters.

Of course, if they take choice 2, then leveling will speed up, players will reach the cap much quicker, and they will move on sooner. But then again, if they can keep a steady stream of new players coming in, that could work...

[Vlisson]

or perhaps instead of a Longsword requiring 12 bronze bars, it required 12 bronze bars and 4 leather strips. that would increase inter-dependency between schools while making it more complex and take longer to make products.

please dont add this. think about tinkerers, is there anyone out there who dont gather the needed resources themselves (because of beeing gatherer/miner too)

if you need leather strips for a weapon would only cause more grind. Frustration because nobody will sell leather strips (t1?) at mithrils anvil.

So you need to gather mithril AND leather at the same time, only to increase the time you need to craft a sword. Nobody will buy this leather from a gatherer!

[Cheopis]

Salis I don't know why we haven't had an alchemist come in here and threaten you yet

if you drastically increase the number of raw materials to make tools, you drastically increase the grind time that an alchemist has to involve themselves in just to create a 15 minute single use potion.. Even worse, by increasing the grind time, you will increase the need for these potions...

Increasing the amount of raw materials required to make something is completely unnecessary.

Increasing the complexity of combines to create fairly mundane items is interesting, but it will need to be limited in scope, or low level players will have an extremely hard time creating their first few items and leveling up. Ideally there would be some sort of auction house system or open (buy) order system before cross-craft skill recipes are the norm, rather than the exception. There are already cross-craft tools, and low level characters find them very annoying to make (alteration rod and fishing rod) If you make all items follow this pattern, I think the damage to the fun level of new crafters will be severe. Now, if the second half of each teir of weapons required extra materials, that might be interesting. For Example, an Iron Broadsword would require only iron to make, but a fine iron broadsword would require iron, elm, and silver. Again, this complexity will bite the crafting system in the arse if there is no buy order system, IMHO.

I'm all for fluff, however you want to introduce it, whether from NPC's, boss enemies, players, whatever, but fluff really needs to be fairly simple (for the time being) or it will take dev time away from gameplay issues.

Your idea about machine activation costs is also interesting, provided that they are one-time-fees. No periodic taxes, please. The numbers you throw around as examples are far too massively large, at least for low level machines though. a small plot in many non guild areas costs less than what you propose charging for activating a t1 machine.

If you want to create a real need based economy, the first thing that you _must_ have is a system where people can buy and sell through third parties. Currently we have half of that, which means that everyone has stuff to sell, but nobody knows what other people actually want to buy... When it comes to armor and weapons, this is even more true. The more potential for variation there is in a class of items, the less likely you are to see it on a consigner - because the creator of the items doesn't know for sure if the particular combination of techs he has put together will sell. With the exception of single socketed t1 armor and weapons, and craft teched t1 tools, and some no-brainer teched spells (flame bonus flame spells, etc) you will see very few teched items for sale on consigners.

The first step to a need based crafting economy is to give the buyer some way to communicate to the seller what he wants, even if he's not on at the same time - especially for complex pieces like weapons, armor, and some spells which are effective with many different techs.