Friday with Means - October 28th, 2011 - Happy Halloween!

[Siyra]

If the only thing that kept AO alive was one single playfield, then it was already dead.

I've heard all of this before, as Funcom took ingot drops off Hecklers for example.

I'm not saying that removing bounties will cause the total death of AO. I dissagre with their reasoning but I'm not talking about that - I'm talking about the idea that we can bicker about who has the "right" way of playing all we want but if the game dies while we cling to "more credits" or "less credits" (for or against bounties in S10) then clearly we were in the minority when we so adamantly defended our views in threads like these.

[Shareida]

Maybe let me rephrase that... The only reason people still play, is because they can fill mules with worthless credits? That is what you try to imply Ayria.

[Krattonomic]

I'm well aware of that. I have looted many a cru from mish bosses.... but once again, you are increasing the grind in this manner. Making the game more tedious is not my idea of an improvement.

Back before they brought out ICE there was only CRUs, meant that people worked on getting them giving people, people to level with, now that Ice is gone from that place maybe it will bring Missions back to live in order to get CRUS from bosses.... so dont think its a tedious thing because it isnt people are always looking for such things..

[Shareida]

Back before they brought out ICE there was only CRUs, meant that people worked on getting them giving people, people to level with, now that Ice is gone from that place maybe it will bring Missions back to live in order to get CRUS from bosses.... so dont think its a tedious thing because it isnt people are always looking for such things..

Precisely. CRU actually sold at 200-300k/ql. It was a decent cash source for players of any level.

[Xephonics]

Precisely. CRU actually sold at 200-300k/ql. It was a decent cash source for players of any level.

*holds onto my dozen or so bags of ICE till prices rocket up

[Farlath]

Precisely. CRU actually sold at 200-300k/ql. It was a decent cash source for players of any level.

Thus raising the price of raiding, thus raising the cost of bots.... I believe I have covered this. This is elementry. If the cost of obtaining or producing a product increases, the product's price will increase.

[Shareida]

Thus raising the price of raiding, thus raising the cost of bots.... I believe I have covered this. This is elementry. If the cost of obtaining or producing a product increases, the product's price will increase.

The prices of Combined were artificially kept high by monopolizing and inflation. Actually, Combined used to be cheaper before S10.

Edit: The implementation of Daily AI missions pushed the prices most.

[Windguaerd]

I haven't seen the "lose" or "fail" buttons anywhere? anyone seen them?

[Xatgunner]

I haven't seen the "lose" or "fail" buttons anywhere? anyone seen them?

Haven't seen em yet. I miss those things (

[Krattonomic]

they are both on testlive right now as far as I know

[Chrys]

Here's a solution FC could seriously consider regarding CRU:

The Daily CRU mish already exists, but it's nodrop. Make it yesdrop. It's a very easy mission for low level players to do, even froobs (probably takes something like 5-10 mins for a tl2/3 froob to complete). The daily lock prevents it from being excessively farmed by a single player (yes, with 3 accounts and all toons farming it you prolly could get a lot, but for 220s doing that mission is kinda tedious - just like how I prefer to farm basic armor with a level 60 twink than with my tl5+ toons).

This helps to close the gap between new players and old. It only takes a single change of code in the database. It democratises distribution of CRU to the entire player base so there's no hoarding/monopolistic control. It gives something of value for new players to sell to older players. If AI armor really gets that expensive, then the source of it - CRU - becomes consequently more expensive. If AI goes down, CRU should follow (over time). If reported price of ICE is 50-65m on RK1 is not just a statistical anomaly by hoarders, then this daily CRU could be worth 12-15m at the start. Obviously this will instantly push prices down when a significant amount of it comes onsale coz level 15s doing 5 minutes of work to earn 12m would be insane. Probably it will settle at under 1m per CRU but then AI becomes accessible again which was the main "problem" people were complaining about.

As for S10, give it up, mid-level AXP was one of the most sought after things people requested from FC and it will go back to being just that. The 150/20 twinks can now safely move on or stay at the level to help orgmates if they desire. Honestly it only takes 2-3 days to make a S10 "twink", they don't need uber-everything to thrive there.

[Dysfunction]

The lose and fail buttons are in Borealis over near the whompahs

[Tanisthonus]

Here's a solution FC could seriously consider regarding CRU:

The Daily CRU mish already exists, but it's nodrop. Make it yesdrop. It's a very easy mission for low level players to do, even froobs (probably takes something like 5-10 mins for a tl2/3 froob to complete). The daily lock prevents it from being excessively farmed by a single player (yes, with 3 accounts and all toons farming it you prolly could get a lot, but for 220s doing that mission is kinda tedious - just like how I prefer to farm basic armor with a level 60 twink than with my tl5+ toons).....

I'll admit I know zero about how economy works, but I like this plan. I forgot that mission even existed.

[Chrys]

I'll admit I know zero about how economy works, but I like this plan. I forgot that mission even existed.

Well the main thing is that using RK mission scaling, its effort:reward ratio is much better for lower players than higher players, thus making it a good downstream source of credits for new players (who would also be more likely to loot mission trash). At the same time, it already has an inbuilt lock (24 hour timer) to prevent it from being a source of oversupply.

And the key thing is, it doesn't significantly add more credits from thin air into the economy the way bounties did, and became a problem once people started farming and uberduber gear was necessary for the DD fights you might get into over trash mobs. S10 will still be quite doable in predator armor (or tier) with level 120ish symbs and a perennium or CoH weapon. There just won't be the pressure to win the kill on every mob as before.

[Tazalanche]

The hell has happened to the AO community, i dont remember there being this amount of bitching when they changed the PvP ranges and 149 twinks became obsolete...

Or maybe its just that PvMers QQ more when some touch there free creds? -.^

I thought it was because there are not actually as many PvPers in the game as those PvPers on the forums want to believe?

[Siyra]

Maybe let me rephrase that... The only reason people still play, is because they can fill mules with worthless credits? That is what you try to imply Ayria.

If that's why they play - then yes. Who are you, or I, or anyone else, to say that that is 'wrong'? Because we don't play like that? Because we already have our pile of money and no longer see the appeal of getting more?

So long as it's not an exploit, and so long as it's not utterly destroying the game for others then so what if they want to spend their time farming money? They pay their bill, it's their real money they're wasting to get piles of virtual money.

[Chrys]

If that's why they play - then yes. Who are you, or I, or anyone else, to say that that is 'wrong'? Because we don't play like that? Because we already have our pile of money and no longer see the appeal of getting more?

So long as it's not an exploit, and so long as it's not utterly destroying the game for others then so what if they want to spend their time farming money? They pay their bill, it's their real money they're wasting to get piles of virtual money.

But it was destroying the game. What you don't understand is that failing to balance the economy is basically creating a shifting goalpost of what it constitutes to be "rich".

Back in 2005, there were few billionaires around. RBPs on RK2 sold for like 600-700m if IIRC. You had to save up months and months to get one. But ingots were slowly pushing the prices of those higher and higher. Luckily enough, back then levelling wasn't so easy you could just roll a tl7 NT to farm them. Back then levelling was hard so you couldn't just one day up and decide to farm all of Ely and Adon brink for ingots (luckily Scheol hecks were slightly bugged and hard to kite). You'd spend months making that toon. Today, the obstacle of levelling is removed because it's become so much easier. Worse, a mere level 150 would be capable of farming, taking less time than ever to make a farming machine, and easier than ever to create an unsustainable inflow of credits.

Why? Because easy money created from nothing was pushing the total volume of money in circulation ever higher. This is a basic monetary policy no-no. Only people from the Robert Mugabe / 1980s bananarepublik school of economics think creating money to fund your way to the top works. Worse, it actually makes it incrementally harder for each new player that comes in to catch up. Basically, you're on a treadmill, even if you think you're running faster, you're slipping back by some amount, but worst still, the faster you run the harder it is for new players to get on that treadmill. New players couldn't just up and farm S10, they had to compete with billion-cred twinks farming S10 that could outdamage them in a heartbeat. They were left with scraps while the once early farmers who may have been new players created a myth about how players could eventually make a living off S10 when the true beneficiaries were those who got in first - the bane of all MMOs, especially a 10-year-old one.

The solution is to (1) stop creating creds from thin air and (2) open new, democratized sources of revenue. (2) would be quite easy to tide over new players in the next patch with my suggestion about making daily mish CRU yesdrop.

[Siyra]

But it was destroying the game.

Really?

So the fact that anyone, with some semblance of effort, could gather enough money to buy some AI armour or RBP was driving them away? Or do you mean to say that newcomers, able to gather money with only some semblance of effort, was driving away those who "did it the hard and so called proper way"?


Furthurmore, there is this idea of ratios.

My social studies teacher, back in junior high - to show just how simple of a concept this is meant to be and yet people seem to never understand it, asked us whether it would be a good thing if some other country gave every Canadian citizen a million dollars. Of course being a kid in school a million bucks would be great! Who the hell wouldn't want a million bucks? We could buy a car and a house and every video game or toy we could dream of.

But wait.. knowing that everyone has a million dollars prices would rise! Now this gives credance to the argument that it's soley the moneys fault but, keep going. Which means that we wouldn't be able to buy a car and a house and everything else because the actual value of every dollar is lower. Why? Because, it buys less per dollar.

So okay, dreams dashed, so lets remove that money and prices go down and people can cheer that they fixed the problem and much rejoicing can be had. But if you lose your million dollars the price of a car at 30,000 dollars is still just as much out of your reach as it was when you had a million dollars and the price was higher.

Prices may lower if you remove money, but then you've lowered the income and things still take you time to get it. The only true way to change the ratio of Income to Item Cost is to increase the avaliablity of that item. You could make RBP worth a million credits even with S10 bounties in place if you made it drop often enough.


As for the whole "vets would OD newcomers and never let them make money".. bull. S10 is not always as crowded as people claim, nor are there always killstealers in there. My Adv, in T1 and using Chiporitas, was able to get enough money from S10 to start buying Strong armour for herself and things like the Sword of Curiosity and in time essentially became a billion dollar twink. I hardly think that's a tredmill that nobody can catch up on.

[Chrys]

Really?

So the fact that anyone, with some semblance of effort, could gather enough money to buy some AI armour or RBP was driving them away? Or do you mean to say that newcomers, able to gather money with only some semblance of effort, was driving away those who "did it the hard and so called proper way"?

No, I'm saying inflation was happening and inflation is bad.

[Siyra]

No, I'm saying inflation was happening and inflation is bad.

Well seeing as, if we use your example of an RBP taking months and months to get at 700-800m, it would only take you a month to get the 1.2b using S10 (and only at 20m a day, while supposidly people were able to make hundreds of mil a day) I'd say that while the price was higher it really wasn't "bad inflation" seeing as while the numbers were higher the time it took to get one was lower.