Increase payout on 7-10s
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I mean, this should also probably be true for 6-9s.
With barkskins costing 500g for people not in factions, doing a quest isn't worth it. Even if the fronter takes all of the pay on a quest (which isn't viable, since the backers will get shot at some point and therefore require healing), at 180g per person, they can only buy one barkskin potion back.
Most of the drops on quests that I've seen are scrolls, which fronters can't use (unless they're a caster class, which has its own problems), and gear (which doesn't sell these days). The payout needs to be increased if you want people to be able to quest to restock on consumables for the DM quests.
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I could see a bump for 7-10s from 180 to 240 or so, but anything too significant would just make it even easier to build gold.
Personally, I find interacting with players is usually a good way to get a mountain of gold.
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Mountains of gold that come from players have to be built up in the first place. Gold doesn't come from nowhere. It's earned, accumulated from quests and events. Selling loot to NPCs is not a thing here. Then it's redistributed between the players as a payment for items and services(not so much for now). And it disappear when spent in the NPC shops(mostly potions), and crafting (not available for now).
If someone have a lot of gold now, most likely it was built as an event rewards. Rising quest payouts just means that DMs have to lower quest rewards a bit. I don't see a problem, simple solution. -
I agree with OP, more gold or up consumable drops or make the merchants pay more than one gold piece for things found. Gold accumulation is problematic. The only time I've had much surplus recently was after an intense period of events. It got spent on potions to replace what was used and to go on quests and a couple of magic bags for quality of life. Those potions did not last long.
Before that one short period my character was skint and now, my character is skint (less so today admittedly, because he died and got to redo a load of 4-6 quests). I don't always have time or inclination to do the squire courier quest every reset.
The quests (especially 7-10) can bleed you dry if you fight close quarters without a good Wizard buffing you. Granted one or two have got potion drops at the end, which helps. But it's seems very rare for to come away with a profit. That is often the point where backwards leveling begins for my characters.
Yes, like Bowser said, money can be earned from other sources, but with a small player base not many people want to buy surplus loot from you, because half of them were there when you found it. Money in form of payment for services is nice, but again rarely lasts long. For example, the money Grell was paid to collect things during an event, bought him two potions to go on the event, which were consumed in the first five minutes.
Tl;dr: Events, sometimes break even, occasional profit. Quests, rarely break even, unfortunately often not worth it after level 7 (with certain exceptions).
