There's a problem with money in the game

[Synthesis]

Synthesis: killing things generates lots of wealth
John: really?
Synthesis: Combining combat classes with crafting classes generates lots of wealth.

I think I'm done here. This seems to be arguing for arguing's sake.

I think you're just really bad at playing rangers, otherwise you wouldn't even be arguing with me about this.  The 5-item sell limit is rarely an obstacle, when there are hundreds of valuable things you can go out and greb (and PC merchants in town will buy some things almost as fast as you can sell them), and there are places you can go that basically nobody else can get to, and you can get your own free food and water, and you can freely travel between cities basically whenever you want, because even in a PITCH DARK storm, you can still get there, if you have an excel map.

I mean, okay.  I can ride to the north, spend maybe 3 hours hunting and grebbing, fill a bag full of shit, ride back down to 'nak and sell it for 1,200 'sid.  Round trip six hours, maybe 2 RL days' worth, mostly travel time. If you're really good, you can tame a couple of mounts and jack that up to 2,200 'sid on a single trip.  Total cost? A single 20 'sid stable fee. Who else can do that? 2,180 'sid in six hours?  Maybe an extensively-branched merchant, with consistent access to supplies, but that's about it.  The downside, of course, is that you run a MASSIVE RISK of losing your PC in the process.

Also, that's before you even get into selling stuff directly to PCs, mind you.

[John]

Travelling in pitch dark in total storm thanks to an excel map? Seems pretty two just.

Please point to the person complaining that taking 2 RL days to get their character to travel across the Known World, facing significant risk, is making too much 'Sid. If you can't you've gone on an off topic tangent and are not contributing to the discussion at hand.

[RogueGunslinger]

Synthesis: killing things generates lots of wealth
John: really?
Synthesis: Combining combat classes with crafting classes generates lots of wealth.

John: Paying for raw materials will cost more then foraging them for yourself
Synthesis: no, it makes you more money.
John: How?
Synthesis: Well you can still make lots of 'Sid even if you pay for the raw goods.

I think I'm done here. This seems to be arguing for arguing's sake.

It's about time management. You make more coins by crafting and selling than you do by foraging. So you end up paying more for someone else to forage, but you make up for that by having more time to craft and barter and make connections for trade.

Not that complicated.

[John]

It's about time management. You make more coins by crafting and selling than you do by foraging. So you end up paying more for someone else to forage, but you make up for that by having more time to craft and barter and make connections for trade.

Sure. There's a sweet spot where the amount of time played makes it optimal to use others to obtain raw goods as the amount of time expended finding people who are skilled enough to obtain the materials you need, who also have the ability and inclination to get those materials, whose playtimes overlap with your playtimes sufficiently to regularly give you those materials, and who are willing to do it for a low enough price to make the whole venture worth your while (as opposed to getting the resources yourself). But that requires a lot of elements to line up and maybe those elements do so regularly for on peak players. But I'm seeing a lot of people going out and foraging for the goods themselves.

But to make it relevant to the point I was making, for those complaining that their characters are getting too rich and yet are using players to obtain the raw resources they need to craft, are you selling to NPCs or PCs? If you're selling to NPCs, perhaps consider selling purely to PCs.

Can someone make "too much" coin by exclusively buying materials from PCs and exclusively selling goods to PCs? Sure. And if someone is then more power to them. They're creating fun for the players getting the goods and they're creating fun for the players obtaining the goods and fun for burglars and pick pockets who are probably stealing the goods. They're also hopefully creating enemies (other traders who are competing against them, any active merchant house merchants whose trade overlaps), they're paying taxes which allows templars to carry out their plots by securing the coin they need and they're probably gaining the interest of some nobles who want some of the coin they have as well. That hardly seems to be something to complain about and seems, to a degree, to be the whole point of the game.

But here's a question: Who here fits the above scenario and is still unhappy that their characters are too wealthy? I'll be surprised if anyone fits the bill.

My point that has either been ignored or missed is this: some people are creating characters who gain considerable wealth and are then unhappy about the amount of wealth that character is accumulating. Yet there are things they can do to decrease that wealth, and I suggested a few. I then opened myself up to have people with this complaint discuss how those suggestions were (in)appropriate or doing them would not work to then generate more ideas. Sarcastic responses not withstanding, I'm actually open to discussing this point with people who have this complaint.

Why only discuss those who have the complaint? Because you can create hypotheticals all day about how much wealth you can accumulate in certain conditions. However the number of players who actually play the game is finite and so the number of situations that actually occur are also finite. I don't care if theoretically doing a combination of X, Y and Z will cause enormous wealth if no-one ever actually does X, Y and Z. I also don't care if people do X, Y and Z and are happy with the results they get for doing X, Y and Z. Why don't I care if they're happy? Because they're having fun and enjoying the game. I leave concerns of game balance and realistic RP in the hands of staff and typically avoid threads that complain about "those people who are ruining my fun". This thread didn't seem to be a bitch and moan thread and the vast majority of posts seemed to be discussing a problem people are experiencing with their own characters.

[Synthesis]

I'm not complaining about my PCs being too wealthy.

I'm not complaining about -any- PCs being too wealthy.

I'm just trying to explain to you how it happens.  My extreme example there...you basically have to -want- to become wealthy via that method, because it's a total pain in the ass to do it frequently.  It is entirely possible (nowadays) to take an out-of-the-box ranger with zero crafting skills, never leave the Allanak surroundings, and make enough 'sid to dump 300 coins on useless bullshit (drinks, spice, giving coins to beggars, etc. etc.) every RL day, and still be left with so many coins that they start to become an encumbrance problem if you don't bank them--without even -really- trying to make coins.  You'll just end up with a bag full of shit while training up skinning, archery, combat skills, foraging, etc., and if you aren't -terribly- unlucky, you'll be able to sell it all, eventually.

However, merchants (and subclass crafters, I suppose) can get very, very wealthy just by selling stuff generated by their unwanted successful crafting attempts.  When you're trying to get from (advanced) to (master) to branch something new, if you don't take certain measures to increase your chances of failing, you can go on extensive (10+ items) success streaks before you finally fail, which leaves you with a pile of loot that you can either a) junk or b) sell to NPCs.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing.  I'm not saying it's a good thing.  It's just the way the game has always been, and all I'm doing is trying to explain it.  So...don't get defensive about your point of view with me, because I'm not pushing any kind of pro- or con- agenda.

I guess the only "point of view" I have about the issue is that there has to be -some- leeway with regard to making coins, because if you put the clamps down on it so that even very experienced players like myself start feeling the pinch...then noobs and people who play infrequently and only during peak hours will probably find it extremely difficult to get by.

[John]

I'm just trying to explain to you how it happens.

Thanks. I'm aware there's plenty of ways for characters to make coin.

I guess the only "point of view" I have about the issue is that there has to be -some- leeway with regard to making coins, because if you put the clamps down on it so that even very experienced players like myself start feeling the pinch...then noobs and people who play infrequently and only during peak hours will probably find it extremely difficult to get by.

I'm still not seeing the relevance to the sarcastic post you made or the wild tangents you went off since then. But yes, I agree with you that clamping down on ways to make coins is bad because some people (with minimal playtimes) will need the easier methods that other people (with greater playtimes) can then abuse. I have never suggested nerfing the easy ways but instead recommend that those who don't enjoy making large sums change what their character does to either gain the money or to spend the money so they don't have as much coin.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Thanks for your contributions, John. I think you have some pretty good ideas regarding using that coin, and self-limiting yourself from making that coin in the context of the IC world.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

I thought the dangerous side of the economy was supposed to be inordinately risky and make those who venture it much more money than subsistence jobs?

My only real complaint is the lack of subsistence jobs since Tuluk closed. Almost everyone is forced into the dangerous, wealth-creating jobs niche that is technically a minority of people within the Known. This is probably the one thing I would change; adding in a few automatically paid subsistence jobs that paid between ten and fifteen sids a day so that people could drink to stave off hunger. I don't think many people would be into it, though, we all love hunting and killing shit and exciting things too much.

EDIT: Mind you I didn't read this thread, so maybe that 'this is/is not a niche that must be fixed' was clarified at some point.

[hyzhenhok]

Re John's general question as I interpret it: "What are the financial goals/expectations for your character and why?"

It's pretty much "If you aren't happy with your character being rich, what are the financial goals/expectations for your rich character and why?" The undertone seems to be people don't want rich characters and yet keep doing behaviour that gets their characters rich.

The point is that it shouldn't be so easy to become rich in the brutal desert world of Zalanthas. Allanak doesn't seem like the kind of place where you should be able to easily build up a huge nest egg just by diligently working that 9-5 job. Whether or not my character chooses to do so has nothing to do with the fact that it shouldn't be possible. I, personally, also have zero control over other players, but their unrealistic wealth affects the game for everyone. Rather than expecting everyone to completely change their financial roleplay, a much more reasonable solution would be to alter the structure of the game's economic incentives and penalties.

[Desertman]

Every time I read the title of this thread I just want to come post....

"I don't mind it at all. You can give yours to me!". 

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

I heard somewhere that hunting was intended as a barely-scraping by job, but I couldn't give you proof.

[BadSkeelz]

http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Hunter%20Roleplay

Being a hunter is by definition not a lucrative occupation. If you are selling massive amounts of hides and becoming ludicrously wealthy than you are overdoing it. If you are struggling at some points but in general managing to get by, then you are truly enjoying the experience of playing a hunter in the harsh world that is Armageddon.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

What about a vendor from a major clan that accepts hides/stingers/other hunted crap for a few sids per item?

That way, people who play a lot don't have to feel guilty about profiting off all those animals parts with other players, they have someone they can sell to easier who will give them less, but enough to get by on.

Something coded the way salt for House Jal is currently coded now--- with each kind of salt having a unique value and it being all added up by the sack. How hard would it be to make that a thing?

[BadSkeelz]

It doesn't really address the problem: it's not that it's wrong to sell hides and meats for high prices, it's wrong to sell a LOT of hides and meats for ANY price. The game doesn't model in animal population numbers and the impact of over-hunting on them. We're not going to run out of chalton hide even if we go out everyday and kill every single chalton on respawn. The help page's point is that it's the players' responsibility to keep their characters hunting at "realistic" levels.

[RogueGunslinger]

It doesn't really address the problem: it's not that it's wrong to sell hides and meats for high prices, it's wrong to sell a LOT of hides and meats for ANY price. The game doesn't model in animal population numbers and the impact of over-hunting on them. We're not going to run out of chalton hide even if we go out everyday and kill every single chalton on respawn. The help page's point is that it's the players' responsibility to keep their characters hunting at "realistic" levels.

But as has already been pointed out, you can make lots of 'sids just by going out and doing your thing 'realistically' every day.  Kill a scrab, pluck 3 herbs, forage a bit of food, cook and process all the things you have and sell it all? There's 500 'sids for you. That's if everything is perfect though, of course, which isn't always so. If things are really perfect you can get 450 coins off of 1 plant, no hunting, foraging or skinning required.

At what point does it become unrealistic for your character to not take advantage of this stuff? How many times do you have to force yourself to walk past easy money before your character would realize whats around you?

If staff want hunting to not be very profitable all they'd have to do is tweak some prices on a few things. Leaving it up to the players is woefully hopeful.

[CodeMaster]

If staff want hunting to not be very profitable all they'd have to do is tweak some prices on a few things. Leaving it up to the players is woefully hopeful.

There is an instinct to play the game as if it were a challenge that you can beat.  It's unsurprising when you think about, because I think we're at risk of mistakenly breeding that attitude into new players if we're not careful.  I.e., a newbie walks outside and starves, or some other easily avoidable, miserable failure of a death, and the expectation -- encouragement, even -- is for him to learn to master that challenge and move onto the next, and the next, until he's finally playing an interesting character with some biographical depth.  Success!

But at some point he's crossed a threshold where he's not playing "realistically" anymore (for some definition of the term).  He's making too many coins.  He's not starving enough.  He's using an unorthodox weapon, but actually it's one of the best in the game.  His character is suspiciously knowledgeable about cures, artifact caches, drinking spots.  He's un-pickpocketable.

And somewhere along the way (and it's probably not too far in -- a few months of playing) he's inherited this lofty new responsibility of placing limitations on himself, where before the game did it for him.  He has to fabricate new things to lose coins to.  He has to hunt less, even if that's one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game to him.  Etc.


That's a long-winded way of saying I agree with RGS.  It might be worth investigating simple ways of having the game be more challenging to players who want to volunteer for it.

Even something as simple as logging on and seeing Monopolyesque taxations on your character, like: "Thief!  Thief!  Half the coins on your person have gone missing."  Or similar arbitrary taxations by the bank on your account.  Or randomized instances of highway robbery by your landlord, who's going to be charging you double for your next month's rent.  Or weapons that break, cures that expire, etc.  And your "reward" for taking on these challenges might just be an asterisk next to that character on your list of dead characters, but I think that would be enough.

[edit: as I reread the above I realize I harp on this a lot, and it might come across like I'm demanding staff to do my ideas.  I'm not   Armageddon is the Best Game and I honestly appreciate every second of every minute staff put into our shared hobby]

[John]

Re John's general question as I interpret it: "What are the financial goals/expectations for your character and why?"

It's pretty much "If you aren't happy with your character being rich, what are the financial goals/expectations for your rich character and why?" The undertone seems to be people don't want rich characters and yet keep doing behaviour that gets their characters rich.

The point is that it shouldn't be so easy to become rich in the brutal desert world of Zalanthas. Allanak doesn't seem like the kind of place where you should be able to easily build up a huge nest egg just by diligently working that 9-5 job. Whether or not my character chooses to do so has nothing to do with the fact that it shouldn't be possible. I, personally, also have zero control over other players, but their unrealistic wealth affects the game for everyone. Rather than expecting everyone to completely change their financial roleplay, a much more reasonable solution would be to alter the structure of the game's economic incentives and penalties.

Someone who plays a few hours every day will be able to get filthy rich while someone who plays a few hours every week will struggle to get by when doing the exact same activity. If you balance around the hardcore gamer you screw  over the casual player.

[Armaddict]

Re John's general question as I interpret it: "What are the financial goals/expectations for your character and why?"

It's pretty much "If you aren't happy with your character being rich, what are the financial goals/expectations for your rich character and why?" The undertone seems to be people don't want rich characters and yet keep doing behaviour that gets their characters rich.

The point is that it shouldn't be so easy to become rich in the brutal desert world of Zalanthas. Allanak doesn't seem like the kind of place where you should be able to easily build up a huge nest egg just by diligently working that 9-5 job. Whether or not my character chooses to do so has nothing to do with the fact that it shouldn't be possible. I, personally, also have zero control over other players, but their unrealistic wealth affects the game for everyone. Rather than expecting everyone to completely change their financial roleplay, a much more reasonable solution would be to alter the structure of the game's economic incentives and penalties.

Someone who plays a few hours every day will be able to get filthy rich while someone who plays a few hours every week will struggle to get by when doing the exact same activity. If you balance around the hardcore gamer you screw  over the casual player.

...the casual gamer already gets screwed as is, unless you go full monty and make money unusable for anything beyond food and water.

[John]

...the casual gamer already gets screwed as is, unless you go full monty and make money unusable for anything beyond food and water.

So let's make it worse?

[Malken]

...the casual gamer already gets screwed as is, unless you go full monty and make money unusable for anything beyond food and water.

So let's make it worse?

Unfortunately, Armageddon has never been a game for "casual gamers". If you only have a few hours a week to dedicate to Armageddon, no matter what the system is like, you're going to end up screwed in many ways. Skill-wise, money-wise, plot-wise, etc.. There's really not much you can do "for the casual gamers" without making it worse for the rest of the players (as in, if you insert yet another way for casual players to make money, it'll just be totally abused by the rest of the playerbase).

Removing the limit on x5 items? Not gonna work.. If you put it to x10, the same players who are making a fortune right now will make even more so.

You think that when the salt guy tells you that they have enough salt for the day it screws the people that play Armageddon 10 hours a day? Not really, they have enough bags of salt to just come back the next day while the casual gamer is still screwed, but the economy is still messed up so it's either we leave it totally screwed up like it is now or we take measures to correct it in some ways knowing that some players will suffer for it.

[hyzhenhok]

Re John's general question as I interpret it: "What are the financial goals/expectations for your character and why?"

It's pretty much "If you aren't happy with your character being rich, what are the financial goals/expectations for your rich character and why?" The undertone seems to be people don't want rich characters and yet keep doing behaviour that gets their characters rich.

The point is that it shouldn't be so easy to become rich in the brutal desert world of Zalanthas. Allanak doesn't seem like the kind of place where you should be able to easily build up a huge nest egg just by diligently working that 9-5 job. Whether or not my character chooses to do so has nothing to do with the fact that it shouldn't be possible. I, personally, also have zero control over other players, but their unrealistic wealth affects the game for everyone. Rather than expecting everyone to completely change their financial roleplay, a much more reasonable solution would be to alter the structure of the game's economic incentives and penalties.

Someone who plays a few hours every day will be able to get filthy rich while someone who plays a few hours every week will struggle to get by when doing the exact same activity. If you balance around the hardcore gamer you screw  over the casual player.

Not at all, because your primary needs tick down in proportion with how long you're logged in.

And many of the suggestions in this thread have discussed adjustments that would primarily effect Arms' "middle class", comfortable PCs without necessarily hurting newer or lower play time PCs. It's not impossible to design a system where creating and saving wealth becomes more and more difficult on an exponential scale based on how wealthy that PC already is.

[Harmless]

The best way to handle large sums of money without hurting casual players is taxation. Another option is to give templars the ability to audit bank accounts. I remember once a templar had a PC of mine at the bank and he asked her to give him her entire balance. Of course, I didn't -- I did give him about five small, which was maybe a third of what I had, but he had no coded way of knowing how much was left. What if I had 5 large? In that case, 5 small is a pittance. He would never have been able to know though.

I think they should. I think one possible restriction is to force the player to be in the bank with the auditor, but this should be one way to control wealth.

[LauraMars]

That scene plays out strangely in my head.  If a templar asks a commoner, in front of a Nenyuki clerk, to give them her entire balance - why would the clerk knowingly deceive the templar and withdraw only a third of the commoner's money?  Especially if the commoner said something like, "Give me 500 coins," instead of "Give me my entire balance." 

Codedly, the templar has no way to know, of course...so it's just another code limitation of playing in a text based universe.  But if that scene had been in a movie it would have looked weird.

[TheWanderer]

Nenyuki probably has a family and a name. using that poor sod to deceive le templar? way to put Bill on the spot

[Harmless]

That scene plays out strangely in my head.  If a templar asks a commoner, in front of a Nenyuki clerk, to give them her entire balance - why would the clerk knowingly deceive the templar and withdraw only a third of the commoner's money?  Especially if the commoner said something like, "Give me 500 coins," instead of "Give me my entire balance."  

Codedly, the templar has no way to know, of course...so it's just another code limitation of playing in a text based universe.  But if that scene had been in a movie it would have looked weird.

This was several years ago and I forget exactly how it was worded but "give me your entire balance" wasn't said. it was more like an open ended question of "how much are you worth to nenyuk?" my PC gave a number that was lower than the total balance then went to the teller and withdrew that plus some.change to make it look like she drained the account. itwas a survival move. the same templar also took her mount ticket and all of her pocket change. my PC ended up with just enough coin to buy a mount later and ride out of the city.