Rebooting the economy

[ghent96]

Had a nice discussion last night in Market channel that began with simply talking about Raw Boronite (gg Chavez) and turned into the whole EnB economy... or lack thereof right now.  We need to find a way to reboot the economy and make it vibrant again, whether we have a few or many players.  One point was made that it was currently faster, cheaper/faster to buy comps and dismantle them than trying to find an explorer class or buy ores/minerals.  This was very concerning to me.  Granted - mining is not a get-rich-quick scheme, and it never was or should be, but miners deserve to be able to sell their product and earn a fair coin from it.

 

Likewise, Trader classes must have cheap minerals in plentiful supply in order to make good comps and items at high Quality, thus making it worthwhile to seek out a Trader instead of an NPC vendor.  If minerals cost too much, then comps/items will cost too much, and Trader classes fail to sell. Players will just buy from NPC vendors, dismantle, remake.  Trader classes have to have cheap starting material, and they can pass on fair prices when they sell.

 

At the end, Warrior classes should be able to buy items for a fair price. All they can do to earn money is sell stacks of combat loot or once in awhile find an Explorer to run cover for while they mine higher level stuff, and hope to earn a tip.  This requires that the Explorer class has money to tip... which they need to get fair money for their ores in order to have money to tip a warrior... and full circle now goes the problem.

 

Related, is the issue of 'roid fields.  They need to have a good mix of different types of ores in them.  (Let me define:  ore = raw things that are mined.  Mineral = items refined in a station.)  Explorer classes need to get a fair result for their work mining.  Too few ores in 'roids, and they won't earn enough from an hours' work.  Too many and - supply & demand - ores are too cheap and won't earn enough.  Also keep in mind, afaik/remember there is no actual L9 roid field, only L8 and each roid field has a chance to spawn +1/-1 level of roids inside it. This is why L9 are so rare.  You dn't want something so rare to turn into a pop-rock too often.  Consensus in chat was, tho, there's too few ores per 'roid, and too many pop rocks , especially on high level roids.  Now, yes, i understand this can sound like a whine, and everyone wants 'more loot' and no pop-rocks, but I propose a modest tweak to the frequencies, as a first attempt.

 

Could we try a +25% increase in ore/roid frequency and -25% decrease in pop-rock frequency.  Let's see if this can get the money moving again more quickly.

 

What other suggestions for a vibrant economy do people have?

Edited February 3, 2018 by ghent96

[Thuvia]

Mining is indeed a get rich scheme class.  Miners can make more than any class on the server simply by mining gas clouds. Some people may buy some ammo ores but that's about it. Usually its 15 mil/stack.  Once again gas clouds make more. Mine/trade/trade back/refine/trade to an alt with negotiate/sell. Your miner gets a lot of exp, and you maximize credits. As for making comps, I rarely have to. I keep a mule full of looted comps as most traders do. I can get virtually any  refined ore I need just ripping them.  So you would also have to ask for the drop rates of comps to be lowered also. But then since most real traders have mules for ores then we would just use our's before buying from market. Many like mining so stock just increases, not decrease. I have 3 ore mules. Also pop rocks have some decent drops on occasion that can only be gained by mining them. 

[ghent96]

That wasn't the consensus in chat, at least not at the time I was on. Also, why are you using alts/mules so much rather than engaging other players in an "online" game?

 

If gas clouds give more than other 'roid types, then maybe they need to be nerfed, and crystal/rock 'roids get an increase to encourage going after them more, and more building items instead of just going after gas to sell.

[Thuvia]

I have 7 150+'s, many have a LOT more. Why would we not save items we need for building? If you cannot become rich as a miner you are doing it wrong. 

[Lquan]

I'm a slacker ... only one L 150 JE so far.  Like Thuvia, I have mules for multiple purposes.  Mostly it's convenient.  I have other 'toons building up slowly -- as each tops out, I turn to building.  But, in order to build, I first must have the item to analyze ... so my mules save a few of each item as I loot them so that my designated builders, when they reach the target level, can analyze them.

 

And yes, I have ore mules as well ... their function is to feed ores to ammo builders as they need them, plus to component builders as they need them [unless I happen to have the component in stock ... too many possibles to do that for all but the most commonly used].

 

And, being naturally thrifty, and a JE, I also have a girl who saves materials that can be turned in to npcs for standing gains.  Never know when I might get the bug to go to der Todesengel and to do that, my 'toon would have to improve standing with the Bogies.

 

***

Not to speak too much about another game [horrors!] and EVE Online started their market system with npcs buying AND selling ores.  One bit is that EVE has far fewer refined minerals ... which automatically makes the buy/sell action more concentrated.  EVE's free market prices are now well above what npcs will pay to buy minerals in and npcs selling minerals was phased out long ago.  They do adjust their economy [and ore spawn rates] several times a year.

[ghent96]

Lquan, but what would you say is the most/more frustrating ores, minerals, or comps to try to find (that are not loot only or non-manuf)?  We could start with a few specific suggestions to ask the devs to tweak in terms of spawn frequency... besides just a general "more L9".  I know at L1-3 there's usually not too much player building and trade, but ideally we could try to encourage a little bit more of that... across low & all levels.

[Gunney]

There is no economy in this version of the game, nor do I see there ever being one.

I do truly miss the market chat in live, it evolved into its own little aspect of the game.

Now, however,  there aren't only 3 with the print for that elusive item, everyone has it.

Most people have their own builder, miner and fighter, if not several of each.

If you want an economy, you would need to wipe the slate clean (loose half the player base due to it happening)  Increase the rarity of non vender items, bump up the difficulty on mining, combat and trade runs, and limit players to 1 toon so they are in need of the economy.  

The economy is driven by wants and needs, If someone can do it all for themselves why wouldnt they?

People here now with many toons did so cause they like the game and want to try each one out, max them out so to say

In the process, they kill the economy 

[Zarg]

The big problem is connecting mineral/ore buyers and sellers.  With the current system of Market channel they need to be lucky enough to both be online at the same time and willing to make the trades.    The is only exacerbated by lower server populations, or players who play at off-peak hours -- which are often the best times to be mining!   Vendors / ripping components are done for convenience because the component vendors are online all the time.

 

It's been suggested to have an Auction House, which would be nice certainly for unique items.  Minerals and ores are more of a commodity, and an auction house might work for them, but I  think a commodity marketplace might be a better model to use.    The Market system of EVE online is a nice model to emulate, but its complexity is way overkill.

 

IT could be as simple as a minerals commodity vendor, where the back-end tracks buys and sells of items from that vendor.  If there are more buyers than sellers, prices for that commodity (ore/mineral)  go up.  If there's more sellers, it goes down.  

 

Right now vendors have fixed prices they buy minerals/ores for -- if you force existing vendors to no longer take these commodities, miners making their fortunes on common gasses would crash the prices of those and pricing would encourage the mining of more useful ores.

 

[Gunney]

Your forgetting one important aspect of the equation.  Cash.

People in the game have an overabundance of it, they have talked about a money sink but have had no success

Economy is supply/demand based, there is plenty of supply but no demand, its simply easier to buy or rip the parts for a build.

The only way I see to make it work is for builds to be anything over 100%, that it be required the build be made from all ores, complete scratch build

Now that raw ore has value, the risk needs to adjusted, more/tougher mobs

The selling price of 200% items would prob remain as it is, cost + tip (builders are nice, enjoy what they do and already have an excess of cash)

 

Many other things are needed as well, printable items need to be harder to come by, way harder. The system would have to be wiped and restarted to remove current prints and wealth. Known items need to be relocated. And the biggest obstacle of all, a much much larger player base.

 

[Zarg]

I'm not forgetting the excess cash problem in my commodities market suggestion.  Coded correctly, it would self-balance to pull cash out of the economy, especially if there are more buyers for minerals than there are miners selling.