KICKSTARTING player economy
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The player to player economy is entirely dead.
A quick summary- There are no real crafters, who see a profit in selling their wares.
- The prestige points eat up all loot, that people cannot use after a quest.
- The crafts are either cheap enough for people to pass the loot to allies, or for people to make themselves
- Gold can only really be used to pay for rests, lore potions to identify quest loot (which is then turned in for prestige points), customize visuals on your current gear, or buy potions.
If the above is by design, so be it. But i miss the idea of PC merchants, a player economy, and interfaction in that capacity.
Therefore, I propose the following:
Create stores, that sell USEFUL stuff, for gold. Lock these up with prestige point passes.
Spread these stores around the server, so people have a reason to go to Immersea, Eveningstar or whatever.
Add in gold costs in PC crafting.
Allow people to purchase access to these stores with prestige points. (For 500 prestige points, House summerstar offers a ticket to a merchant in High Crimmon or whatever)
Add smaller gold drops into loot circulationSecondly, make more loot that is not tied into the prestige point system, but with enough usefulness that people would want to buy them / sell them.
I welcome other suggestions for how to kick start it again.
Character: Wouldnt you like to know?
Olouthitis: Character does awesome things for a few months, but inevitability hijacks an air ship and crashes it into an evil faction head quarters screaming battle cries. -
More stores will be added as prestige perks, they are in the pipeline.
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Scarlets have been making potions for 2 months.
Players just dont want to buy cheap barkskin -
Tl;dr Player crafts cost enough in both gold and time you need to invest. The crafts are awesome for outfitting yourself and Faction members, but without significant play time, it would be tough to mass market your wares and still find time to adventure. I'm not saying impossible, if someone started a merchant company and paid for reagents to be gathered and other low skill level tasks carried out.
Long bit, which I'll preface with; I enjoy the current crafting skill systems, none of what follows is a complaint.
From my own experience, there's already a fair gold cost to player crafts. In the last few months I estimate my character has sank well over 15000 gold into learning and progressing various crafts and that is probably being quite conservative. There's also the time investment, gathering and crafting, though this is reduced by having other people out harvesting for you and by remembering to harvest things when you're out adventuring.
The chance of failing to craft an item slows down progression in the skill, requiring you to replace destroyed reagent/ components. Other costs are there, such as buying buffs in the requisite abilities for the skill to reduce chance of a fail roll.
An example; After collecting reagents for certain higher level recipes over several rl days, my character still only managed to make a quarter of the potions, losing some harder to replace reagents on the failed rolls. He had 60% chance to make the essence, 50% chance to make the potion at alchemy lvl 9.
Some people are happy to pay for crafted things, others aren't. Toby tends to give things away/sell very cheap to Faction members, or occasionally in trade to other crafters for things he can't get. I think most people who have joined the Scarlet Syndicate have received a welcome gift bag of potions, beer and some jewellery 😀
With gold being easy enough to make from quests, player interaction and DM events, I've written off a lot of the costs of improving crating skills. Members of my current faction have made contributions.
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@listen4silence said in KICKSTARTING player economy:
Members of my current faction have made contributions.
Def seems more like a bargain economy "You scratch my back, I scratch yours"
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@Puffy said in KICKSTARTING player economy:
@listen4silence said in KICKSTARTING player economy:
Members of my current faction have made contributions.
Def seems more like a bargain economy "You scratch my back, I scratch yours"
It works 😀; between quest/event/ crafting we're rarely short of the supplies we need or gold to make/ buy them.
There are some things that I'd like to make more of, but the reagents aren't always as easy to obtain. I assumed this was the case for balance reasons.
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IMO I dont see much point to gold beyond Ressing players. The good gear is based off prestige, and even then locked behind faction stores. Profit margins for the stuff I can make seems too
low as well, though I haven't gotten to the sell to everyone point yet in crafts. -
@onlylobo said in KICKSTARTING player economy:
IMO I dont see much point to gold beyond Ressing players. The good gear is based off prestige, and even then locked behind faction stores. Profit margins for the stuff I can make seems too
low as well, though I haven't gotten to the sell to everyone point yet in crafts.I'll gladly take your gold if you don't see a point to it! <3
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Ressing is still important
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As the "mother hen of crafting", sure, I'd like to see players doing more of it and interacting with other players to obtain needed supplies/materials. A master blacksmith working with a master enchanter to create an enchanted shield, for example. But...
@listen4silence said in KICKSTARTING player economy:
we're rarely short of the supplies we need or gold to make/ buy them
As long as people are rarely short on supplies (and believe me, most of you are. I've seen your inventories!) due to various reason (quests/events/faction pay, etc) , then crafting will never be the focus of the economy. Most players just don't have the time to invest in becoming masters at it and would rather spend their time IG questing and RPing. For the most part, crafting is a solo thing. There are those players who enjoy it, or who play in slow TZs, who have the time alone to become very adept at it. And that's fine, too. There are also those I've seen who find a good balance between the two. And that's fine, too!
Crafting is there to provide a little extra xp/gp gain for those who WANT to do it. It was not intended to be a "do it or be financially broke" system.
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@Echo said in KICKSTARTING player economy:
Crafting is there to provide a little extra xp/gp gain for those who WANT to do it. It was not intended to be a "do it or be financially broke" system.
The extra xp is especially nice at higher levels. At level 9 I'd say I've made more XP from crafting than from quests (especially on those lucky 10% chance to succeed rolls).
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@O-louth said in KICKSTARTING player economy:
The player to player economy is entirely dead.
- There are no real crafters, who see a profit in selling their wares.
It's a long process. For me at least. I plan to continue learning it, but it takes time. I'm rolling a (hopefully) long concept so I can do it slowly and have time to RP/Quest as well. Probably it's the case with others, or people who roll shorter concepts or are investing their time into a major faction don't want to invest into this.
If the above is by design, so be it. But i miss the idea of PC merchants, a player economy, and interfaction in that capacity.
Actually I do plan to make a Crafter's Guild (or make up some better name for it) that increases collaboration between crafters of different areas. This I'm currently planning, but there are several things to be done yet and I have to reach a higher level in crafting too. ((Pls don't steal this idea :D ))
Therefore, I propose the following:
Create stores, that sell USEFUL stuff, for gold. Lock these up with prestige point passes.
Spread these stores around the server, so people have a reason to go to Immersea, Eveningstar or whatever.I do agree that we need some "not general" stores you can buy special items from. Stuff like the "bargain" (bazaar) NPC sells, but with a store, and not just one item.
Add in gold costs in PC crafting.
There already is (vials, flasks, bottles, etc.), but the main cost of crafting is time and patience. If you want to avoid the time cost, invest in the imbuing / wand crafting feats if you are a spellcaster, then it's only gold and xp cost and it's done in a minute. (Okay, okay, it's a long thread in another post, please don't continue it here)
For other areas of crafting, like blacksmithing, it makes no sense to be able to craft something with money. Yes it takes time, it takes work, but it is what it is.Allow people to purchase access to these stores with prestige points. (For 500 prestige points, House summerstar offers a ticket to a merchant in High Crimmon or whatever)
Not a bad idea actually.
Add smaller gold drops into loot circulation
I don't know about this part, I'm actually always broke. The quest reward is barely enough usually for the supplies I have to take, especially when with a large group and only a few spellcasters. (Yes, I could turn on stealth and do nothing, but no)
EDIT: I can't read :DSecondly, make more loot that is not tied into the prestige point system, but with enough usefulness that people would want to buy them / sell them.
I agree. Maybe there was a thread about quest loot suggestions but I can't really find it now.
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Suggestions and feedback reviewed, with changes implemented.
