A simple solution to a tough problem.

[Aamer Khan]

Everyone has an opinion about what would improve Horizons, and increase the player base, or improve the in-game economy. Lack of purpose, and a watering down of the community aspect of Horizons are often mentioned.

Some of the ideas put forth are technically difficult to implement, some only address the symtoms and not the cause. Some would most likely work, but would cause too much stress on the playerbase to make them something that would be implemented.

In view of these things, I wanted to devise a method to help the economy, make it workable for the new player, and make the elder side of the game more adventurer/crafter dependant.

Take ALL pawn brokers and change them. Don't remove them, but just limit their functionality. As a start, have them no longer accept T4-6 items for pawn. Also, make it where they will only accept resources or items crafted/gathered by the player pawning the items. This would encourage new players to take up crafting, and prevent some of the "abuses" many mention. It would also mean that T4-6 crafters would have to start making their money from interacting with other players. Now, instead of pawning the 203 purple turantula venoms, they will sell them on the connie. Now, they will build a T4 silo on ther plot to hold all the tavertine/adamantium/thornwood bonus resources they get for future use. The crafters would now have to make their money from interacting with other players.

Please post why this would or would not work and let's try to accomplish the impossible.

[Tantalyr]

Sorry, but I do not like this idea at all! I am a multi-crafter--96 blacksmith/66 mason/61 fitter/60 carpenter/52 tinkerer--and given the paucity of players during the hours I play, my primary source of quick income is selling off obsidian tools to pawnbrokers.

I interact with other players just fine, thank you. You don't need to take away my primary source of income--and I suspect most other crafters' primary source as well--to encourage me to interact.

[Aamer Khan]

This is exactly what I'm wanting to see... Thanks for your response!

[Isair]

Making money from interaction with players instead of grinding tools to pawn
sounds like a dream come true.
But for tier V equipment one needs a truckload of cash, and to get that
sort of money by selling items to other players, one needs a steady flow of costumers. And to get costumers you need the techs (speaking of tierV now)
and to get the techs, you need cash (unless you can farm them) but, not everyone
has the time to spend on making a character capable of said farming, or you are
playing a dragon..

Make tech comps drop a little more often, balance out the mobs a bit,
and maybe we can finally get rid of the vielo, and thus wont need those 3.5 gold
just to get a newarmor..

I do think it would work, but things would need some tweaking afore it
was implemented, hypothetically speaking ;)

[Aamer Khan]

Good point Isair.

If the mobs were added to the game that drop the rest of the comps we are forced to buy off the vielo were in game, and the vielo no longer sold them, would that be enough?

[LaughingOtter]

Please post why this would or would not work and let's try to accomplish the impossible.

This reminds me ofa joke I learned while visiting the USSR in 1981: "How will we know when America is ready for the Glorious Communist Revolution? When they start importing wheat." In Istaria's case, that would be salt rock - because you could still pawn it.

The costs of buying comps, techs, and forms in the T4 & T5 range are a huge money sink already.Lairs are going to take anothermassive amount of cashout of circulation. Cutting off cash income from PBs for high-tier itemscould well create a situation where more money is leaving the game than is entering it.It will also create massive over-camping of T3 resources, since theywould be the best source of PB cash at that point. How can a level 40craftergather more than a handfull of resources whenevery field is swarming with level 60-100+ crafters hopped up onhigh-tier reaping potions &Gnomian Prowess (where available)?

On the good side, I think it would put a stop to people farming trophies to PL their dragon alts up for ARoP; they'd be farming those trophies for cash instead.

[Fireclaw]

Playing a dragon who is unable mass-kill to farm techs I say leave the pawnbrokers as is. For those who do primarily crafting it is the main source of new funds. Customers are far too few to ever serve as a sufficient source of cash. Furthermore, so many tech ingredients are required for teched items and spells, it is extremely expensive buying tier V teched items. This is especially so given that the drop rate on tech comps is low with many monsters either being far too rare or mixed with other mobs to be practical to farm for compes, or simply not being in the game at all - leaving the Vielo as the only real source.

I often check the connies looking for tech comps, but I almost never find what I am looking for. I don't get responses to most my requests in marketplace channel either, leaving Vielo the only option.

Also, many players log on at off hours, when there is almost no one elese online. For those players the pawnbrokers may be their only source of cash.

[LaughingOtter]

A better way to improve interaction between players and improve the economy as a whole would be to increase the drop rate on tech comps. Instead of hoarding expensive comps for their own future needs, people (adventurers and crafters both) would have enough excess to be willing and able to consign comps. This makes more cash available for construction & other purchases, and moves outgrown equipment into the secondary market for lower-level players.

I think it would also make people happier & morewilling to work together if they don't have to be constantly farming cash & comps to the exclusionof all else.

[AA0]

The solution is not a quick fix like this, as you can see, when you just nerf something like your suggestion, then there are always large effects that you never thought of.
If you take out t4-6 pawning, then t3 pawning becomes the norm, and the next big cash flow, until you take that out of course.
AE has gotten into this mess by nerfing and adding items without thinking of the balance issues, the whole system needs to be redone, but economy... imo, is not the main problem of hz.

[gopher65]

Twopoints:

1. If you remove pawnbrokers you need to have some other source of CASH. As it is, only a few types of mobs drop cash. everything else drops garbage that you sell to the PB for cash. Therefore I think AE is purposefully using the PB to increase the amount of money in the game.

I think that PB's should be removed, and ALL mobs should drop coin. I know that isn't high on the realism scale:P, but they neither is me calling down a Cyclone to kill a Zombie. In RL I can't control the weather, and I really really really hope there is no such things as Zombies[:S]. So saying that a golem dropping money isn't realistic is silly.

I mean, why not eliminate the extra step? Just ASSUME that the golem drops some little piece of gold or granite, and that they player sells it to the empire fora few coppers or silver. Kind of like making the selling to the PB a passive ability:). To me that makes sense, and makes the game less tedious. In this circumstance a player would kill the golem, and get some silver (say 2 silver for a marble golem). Just the silver. Not the marble to sell to a PB to get 2 silver, but just the silver. Because the selling of the garbage would be..... implied. Like, you know it is happening, but you don't see the step. (I know I just repeated myself but I'm not sure I'm being clear)

2. If PBers are removed, Tech Comp drops need to be increased, if only slightly. reasons for this are stated in other peoples posts.

[Foxfire]

And where exactly is the cash generated that the crafters are going to receive for their goods? Adventurers/ing??

How does a high-level crafter generate cash commensurate with his Tier, if the customer base is low? He would have no good method of obtaining the forms and techs he needs to be competitive.

Folks would do what they've always done - optimize their cash flow to what's available and camp T3 resources and whine incessantly about it. "Exactly why am I camping T3 resources to buy T5 forms/techs for T5 resources/comps?"

If your cash from harvesting resources / crafting is scaled appropriately, it's the way it should be. In other words, if you plotted T1-T5 players hourly cash rate on aneffieciently outfitted char (right size disk, armor, etc.) it should form a linear line of some sort. I don't think it's necessarily the right approach for a T5 to only make5 times what a T1 makes per unit time, but some sort of linear line seems the right approach to me.

In fact, it might be compared to the typical adventurers hourly rake-in, if he's doing the average mob farming for trophy dropping / coin dropping resources. The drops should be tuned to plot linearly T1->T5, with roughly the same hourly rate as the crafter of the same tier, or perhaps a bit higher.

My 2 cents.

[Korial]

If pawnbrokers are removed, I'd still prefer a crafting avenue for income. There's no reason why you should have to be an adventurer, or supply other players, to have an income from the game itself.

Best way to provide this? Supply the empire. Add trainer tasks for 50 weapons, 50 pieces of armour, and so on, with reasonable xp and cash reward. Think of it as the Empire paying for war supplies.

In the same way an adventurer can sell trophies to the hunter without the involvement of other players, a crafter should still have such an avenue.

[gopher65]

Firefox, if there was less gold around, the forms/techs wouldn't cost as much. The ENTIRE reason that they cost 3 gold now is because crafters HAVE 3 gold to spend! Why do they have 3 gold? Because they are pawning stuff all the time. Remove the PB ( I think it should be removed for all levels, else as you say, tier 3 would be camped all the time), and the prices drop.

Since Forms/techs are sold in auctions, no one cancharge more than the richest person can bid:P. No PB= no more uber-rich crafters = lower prices

[LaughingOtter]

One or two individuals may be willing and able to pay three gold for an item, but this is a very rare occurance anymore. The majority of techs auctioned go for a few hundred silver at most.

Besides, after the crafters spend all their cash buying techs & forms, the adventurers selling them will be the uber-wealthy - until they have to go see Nadia. After that, everyone is poor. [;)]

[LaughingOtter]

Edit - double post

[Frons Von Frik]

Definetly dont like it... pawning resources found in the field is one of the few ways to get coin now...

[Aamer Khan]

Ok...

Reading the further posts, I can see that everyone still feels there is a problem. *somewhere*

Perhaps I stated it too simply. What players do now is mandated by game mechanics ( like the pawn brokers ) which lead to clamoring for money sinks, which lead to the introduction of the vielo, which lead to players auctioning off STR V tech for 3.6 gold.

Perhaps some like this turn of events?

What is curious to me, the reactions players have to ANYTHING that is done to make a change. If it affects something a player does in a negative way, he will call it a "nerf". If it is of benefit to him, he will say "It's about time they FIXED that!"

If things are left as they are, players will complain. If the Dev's make any changes players will complain. The fact is that you cannot have improvements without change, and change will affect some in a negative way. A fact of life and of games.

Since everyone has their own view on what would fix the "problem" and since we cannot get a clear understanding what the Developers viewpoint is, I have offered a possible solution to start moving us back to where we started. We all agree that things are out of order. However, since we cannot even agree on what the problems is, I'm willing to stick my foot out to be stepped on in the hopes that a dev might see something in these posts that spark their interest.

[gopher65]

K to reiterate what Aamar just said:

We all know the economy is screwed. If we let the devs do whatever they want without making it clear what we what we will get nerfed (they can't help it:)).

So what I think everyone wants is to create a situation were no one is seriously hurt by any IMPROVEMENTS to the economy. So we need ideas.

Here are mine:

1. If pawnies are removed (IE - if infinate money is removed)we need alternative methods of getting money. Someone mentioned crafter quests, I mentioned putting coin on all mobs.

2. Everyone mentioned getting rid of the gypies and their money sink (which, if the infinite money exploit in the form of PBs are removed, would no longer be needed). If we have no rich gypies we need more tech drops to balance that.

What other ideas do people have for fixing the economy?

[LaughingOtter]

However, since we cannot even agree on what the problems is, I'm willing to stick my foot out to be stepped on in the hopes that a dev might see something in these posts that spark their interest.

"Never give the Dungeon Master ideas!" [;)]

[Aquarius]

To many posts to read right now.. so dunno if this has been said already.

But if pawnbrokers are removed, vielo are removed, and the missing mobs put in.. i dont think anyone would pay these huge prices for tech ingredients anymore.. Noone will have to pay the 25-55s per tech ingredient they cost at the vielo when they are avalible from mobs, from market channel or from consigners.. and since nobody can grind money at a pawnbroker there will become less money into this world and there will probably be a deflation, things will after a while not cost as much as before.. nobody will pay 3.5 gold for a teched tier V armor.