Economy Feedback - wood

[Shabago]

As a test trial gets under way for finding the right balance for the game economy, having direct feedback from you all, on the ground, will greatly assist in this. As mentioned in the staff announcement, there have been changes to wood items in game, with the intent to reign in certain prices.

Please avoid going into specific items or shops, and stick to overall feed back, avoiding potential IC info or outing your current PC.

[mansa]

I haven't logged in yet, but to clarify...

Is the intent to reduce the multiplier that Allanak had on wooden items, so they aren't worth 800 coins in Allanak but 25 coins in Tuluk?

[Patuk]

I think the degree to which wood prices have been slashed in the south is a bit steep. Certainly the wooden chests and shields we all know and love sold for prices well beyond what should be reasonable, but those are issues with those specific items more than wood in general. Spears in particular seem barely worth making now, which is a bit annoying of an issue to have; a game with a wide selection of paneled chest available but no spears seems like the exact opposite from how most PCs would prefer to spend their coin.

[Brytta Léofa]

Disclaimer: I last played a serious crafter in 2012.

I got excited on the assumption that this was a shift the *other* way--such that nobody in 'Nak could afford wood stuff and you could make massive profits bringing down wagonloads of lumber.

I'm guessing that the issue was that:
1) this was happening already
2) but it's not logging crews; it's like 5 individuals working alone
3) so it works out being kind of lame rather than kind of cool.

[williamson]

As a test trial gets under way for finding the right balance for the game economy, having direct feedback from you all, on the ground, will greatly assist in this. As mentioned in the staff announcement, there have been changes to wood items in game, with the intent to reign in certain prices.

Please avoid going into specific items or shops, and stick to overall feed back, avoiding potential IC info or outing your current PC.

I think it would be helpful if we understood the goal of the changes. Could you tell us what you're wanting to accomplish?

[Brokkr]

We want you to be poor and die in loneliness and misery, with your mate stealing the last of your hard won sid in a massive act of betrayal, running off to spend it on spice and booze with your best friend, but not before paying off the local Arm of the Dragon Sergeant to make sure you are brutally murdered.

Oh...oh...you meant with this?

How do we return to RL year 2000 sense of how expensive things IG should be (not just items in the shops, but how much for services between PCs, etc.)?   *not the real defined goal, obviously, but directional

[X-D]

I am seeing no issue right now. Risk verses reward. Since there is no risk to getting wood...Or VERY low, The reward should be low. As well supply and demand...with the above having been the case there is a high supply because the risk has been low and the reward high.

I see staff trying to find this balance to be a good thing...Who knows, maybe risk will go up in the future and the numbers will need to be rebalenced again.

[RavingTregils]

I am seeing no issue right now. Risk verses reward. Since there is no risk to getting wood...Or VERY low, The reward should be low. As well supply and demand...with the above having been the case there is a high supply because the risk has been low and the reward high.

I see staff trying to find this balance to be a good thing...Who knows, maybe risk will go up in the future and the numbers will need to be rebalenced again.

Could let the wood fight back. Chop a tree - it throws a branch at your head. Maybe knock you out.
Forage wood - you might get a snake instead...poisonous one at that.

Put a whole new spin on the value of wood.

[Patuk]

How do we return to RL year 2000 sense of how expensive things IG should be (not just items in the shops, but how much for services between PCs, etc.)?   *not the real defined goal, obviously, but directional

You mean, when the median account age wasn't twenty years? When people knew fuck all about the game? When crafting was extremely new and people didn't know to use it well?

I don't think that's a feasible thing unless the playerbase is replaced with newbs wholesale.

[Inks]

Yes. That past isn't coming back. Nor was it that glorious. This is an old game and it is where it is.

[Shabago]

In this harsh realm, life is a constant struggle, and death may occur over a drink of precious water.

Only seeing the one direct question thus far, beyond general feedback. The reply feeds into the quote above, from the home page.

The intent for everything, not just for wood, is to have the economy match the theme. Unless you're a Noble or a well-to-do GMH member, you should absolutely not have tens of thousands of coins in your account/stash, unless you've spent a career or life-time earning it, rather than the RL week or two it currently is.

Once all the shops, items and various other factors that go into the economy are adjusted - Pulling in enough coin for your food, water, rent and some small profit beyond it to save up, should be the norm. Making coin actually have value, a struggle to get expensive things, etc.

[Dan]

A brief coin sink of some sort might help the transition. Optional but beneficial way to expend coins. I wiill try to brainstorm.

[Patuk]

We have an entire thread dedicated to Halaster asking the community why they do (or don't) play, and the most common refrain there is people not having the time to do a slew of things. Making it take even longer for characters to establish themselves is a bug, not a feature.

[ShaiHulud]

We want you to be poor and die in loneliness and misery, with your mate stealing the last of your hard won sid in a massive act of betrayal, running off to spend it on spice and booze with your best friend, but not before paying off the local Arm of the Dragon Sergeant to make sure you are brutally murdered.

Death to all but Metal.

[Inks]

Make glass and sid mining far less profitable, if you want an easy suggestion.

Everytime I used to go to morins all you could see in the weapon and armor shops was obsidian items.

But my pcs usually feel the crunch as is, don't really want to treat the game like a second job just to get by. Pretty sure that will cause less people to play, not more. That being said, sell price of some things is so broken. Elvish longbow for starters.

[Hauwke]

I don't even know why that's an item still, how do you even tell its elvish? That would be the same thing as having a dwarven hammer. It's archaic and dumb.

[Dune Bunny]

After playing for a bit and trying out a few of these affected items today, I can say that this isn't that bad of a change at all, from the perspective of a crafter-heavy player.

It looks like a few of the egregiously profitable items have been nuked, but honestly, they might be a little deserving. (Anyone remember those -very- inexpensive to make 300 'sid hairpieces? It's been a year since those died, so I can talk about it!  )

I truly don't believe there should be any concern about this, relative to the 'grind' of the game. If a select 3-4 items are the make or break for a character's wealth, then I believe it's good that things are being spread out like this. But a few of the items I worked with today only saw a tiny drop in price (roughly 10-15%, but still very profitable) as compared to the few super-seller items.

I'm very much a fan of a more diverse, spread out economy instead of striving for a career of making a few of X and racing the other X-makers to the shops to get rich.

[Shabago]

Make glass and sid mining far less profitable, if you want an easy suggestion.

But my pcs usually feel the crunch as is, don't really want to treat the game like a second job just to get by. Pretty sure that will cause less people to play, not more. That being said, sell price of some things is so broken. Elvish longbow for starters.

Can you or Patuk (or others) expand on why this would cause someone to not play?

I realise text tone is difficult, so I'll state plainly I'm not attempting to come off as rude or ignorant here, but how will seeing your bank account/stash show "1-2k" and growing little by little be game breaking compared to seeing it at "10-20k" and growing?

Is it a need to have ankheg armor right out of char-gen, inside of a week?
Is it a mentally satisfying comfort that *if* something happens to come along that you want, you have the coin stashed away for it?
Is it a 'swag' issue to claim riches over others?

The very same amount of play time put in now or the very same amount of play time after all the changes go in, will bring about little change beyond bloated and anti-theme bank accounts, so far as I can see thus far? But, that is the point of this thread. To see or hear what areas I could miss or be blind to, but I'd need some greater details as to why it would affect such things?

Further adding, as was discussed in discord but not here - these changes aren't set in stone. Play-ability will continue to be a factor, and if various changes are too punishing on some players, they'd be adjusted.

[Greve]

The discrepancy in wood prices only really seemed to affect certain types of items. Shields and chest, yes, we all know about that and it ought to have been addressed years ago. Glad it was finally brought up. But things like weapons and more ordinary wooden items never appeared to have an unusually skewed price in the south. Like you couldn't get 300 sid for a wooden nose-ring in the Allanak bazaar. It was mostly shields and chests causing problems. Don't know why those two item types in particular were so overvalued, but they were.

By the way, I've always wondered why obsidian items were not similarly valued in the north. It's honestly harder to get obsidian than wood, and there are far fewer items that can be made from it. You would think that wood, given its relative ease of acquisition and transportation, would be uncommon but not absurdly rare in the south, whereas obsidian in the north would be truly exotic as noone in their right mind is transporting cartloads of it up there. Anyone with an axe can chop down a tree, but to obtain the same volume of obsidian would take a team of laborers a whole week to collect, and any objects larger than a dwarf's head would require a rare and prized obsidian vein while literally each and every baobab tree could make half a wagon.

Just always struck me as odd. The big money was always in transporting northern materials southward, never the other way. You can take an obsidian sword to Tuluk right now and any given shop will probably offer you little more for it than they would in Allanak.

If I'm being perfectly honest, the world is not big enough to warrant a gigantic gulf in values between one city and the other. It's an aspect of the game that feels like it was modeled after Dark Sun where one city has barely heard of the other's existence, so anything brought from there is wildly exotic and unique. Even if you don't twink out and speedwalk along, you can travel from Tuluk to Allanak in, what, two in-game days? There's no reason anything from there would be worth a massive amount of money. It's like goods from medieval Yorke being transported to medieval London. The entirety of the Known World is about the size of Ohio, we've been told, and there are whole corporations that have specialized for literal centuries in transporting goods from one end to the other. Nothing can possibly be worth ten times as much in one place as it is in another. It just doesn't make logistical sense.

So if you can no longer slap together a wooden fucking chest that any one of thousands of northern woodworkers could make in half an afternoon and sell it for eight million bucks in Allanak, that was certainly a good move.

[Inks]

The discrepancy in wood prices only really seemed to affect certain types of items. Shields and chest, yes, we all know about that and it ought to have been addressed years ago. Glad it was finally brought up. But things like weapons and more ordinary wooden items never appeared to have an unusually skewed price in the south. Like you couldn't get 300 sid for a wooden nose-ring in the Allanak bazaar. It was mostly shields and chests causing problems. Don't know why those two item types in particular were so overvalued, but they were.

By the way, I've always wondered why obsidian items were not similarly valued in the north. It's honestly harder to get obsidian than wood, and there are far fewer items that can be made from it. You would think that wood, given its relative ease of acquisition and transportation, would be uncommon but not absurdly rare in the south, whereas obsidian in the north would be truly exotic as noone in their right mind is transporting cartloads of it up there. Anyone with an axe can chop down a tree, but to obtain the same volume of obsidian would take a team of laborers a whole week to collect, and any objects larger than a dwarf's head would require a rare and prized obsidian vein while literally each and every baobab tree could make half a wagon.

Just always struck me as odd. The big money was always in transporting northern materials southward, never the other way. You can take an obsidian sword to Tuluk right now and any given shop will probably offer you little more for it than they would in Allanak.

If I'm being perfectly honest, the world is not big enough to warrant a gigantic gulf in values between one city and the other. It's an aspect of the game that feels like it was modeled after Dark Sun where one city has barely heard of the other's existence, so anything brought from there is wildly exotic and unique. Even if you don't twink out and speedwalk along, you can travel from Tuluk to Allanak in, what, two in-game days? There's no reason anything from there would be worth a massive amount of money. It's like goods from medieval Yorke being transported to medieval London. The entirety of the Known World is about the size of Ohio, we've been told, and there are whole corporations that have specialized for literal centuries in transporting goods from one end to the other. Nothing can possibly be worth ten times as much in one place as it is in another. It just doesn't make logistical sense.

So if you can no longer slap together a wooden fucking chest that any one of thousands of northern woodworkers could make in half an afternoon and sell it for eight million bucks in Allanak, that was certainly a good move.

Sorry my statement was off topic, I very much like these current selling/ buying price changes. I was spitballing some other ideas to balance economy such as reducing the amount got from obsidian/glass mining, and saying that for a non crafter character, you wouldn't want to have to put in 4 hours a rl day just making coins to afford rent and water. I am all for this and other economy changes.

One of my pcs lived with a glass miner who had 70 k + in the bank in very little time, and I basically had to ignore the ridiculousness of that.

Also for the last 2 rl years, all I saw sold weapons/armors in Morins was obsidian items. In fact for a time I would swear people were ordering obsidian forearm plates and barbute helms from Salarr because they would sell higher in Morin's than Salarr charged for them.

Sorry for the off-topic earlier, I approve these changes, is my feedback. But some items need to be reduced further such as certain bows.

[Greve]

Also for the last 2 rl years, all I saw sold weapons/armors in Morins was obsidian items.

That's mainly because there are very few crafting recipes for wooden armor and weapons, nor any demand for them whatsoever from PCs.

And that's another thing, actually, while we're at it. Obsidian is still somewhat valuable in the south, at least to the point where it's worth crafting stuff out of it, while wood is practically garbage in the north. I suppose that's not so strange, given the fact that Tuluk sits right next to the world's only actual forest, but still: considering the size of the world and the fact that a considerable portion of it is covered in trees, there's no convincing reason why wood should be all that valuable. Just looking at the way that it actually is (you can tell because of the way it is!), wood should not be some unusually prized commodity.

[williamson]

As a test trial gets under way for finding the right balance for the game economy, having direct feedback from you all, on the ground, will greatly assist in this. As mentioned in the staff announcement, there have been changes to wood items in game, with the intent to reign in certain prices.

Please avoid going into specific items or shops, and stick to overall feed back, avoiding potential IC info or outing your current PC.

Over the years, there have been a lot of staff members who have tried to adjust the economy of the game. From my recollection, they usually think that players have too much money. There have been various modifications to influence player behavior. The result has greatly changed how characters are played. However, it is my experience that players who actively work at becoming wealthy will do so if cleverly played.

Here is an example:  I once played a Tuluk assassin (before accents and hand tattoos) who immediately went to Lord Reynolte and asked to become a spy for him. We agreed I would go to Allanak and spy for 500 coins/RL week. I promptly made my way to Allanak and into the 'rinth. There I found the Guild boss and told him I wanted to spy for him. Again, I arranged to spy for another 500 coins/RL week. The Guild boss wanted me to go work for Lord Oash who was hiring guards. Once again, I arrange to work for 500 coins/RL week. Within 2 RL weeks, I was making 1500 coins/RL week. The only skills I needed were listen, contact, and the ability to talk. It required no sparring, hunting, or crafting. However, this was the same amount I earned from my weekly stipend as a Dasari noble. Was this character making too much money? Was the character hurting the game? I guess it's a matter of opinion. However, I'd wager that Lord Reynolte enjoyed having a spy, the Guild boss enjoyed having a spy, and Lord Oash enjoyed having a guard. The character wove a story through three different clans and much interaction.

Thus, changes to NPC merchant prices primarily affect what are now called the "heavy mercantile classes". Allow me to describe my first and last merchants.

My first merchant was in the late 1990s in a new clan called House Kadius. In those days, merchants had listen, scan, haggle, value, ride, pilot, and cavilish. No crafting skills and no fighting skills. They also got "skinning" but it wasn't a skill. You could either do it or not. My first week or so I tried to go hunting near Tuluk. I attacked a tregil and it whipped my ass and nearly killed me. I realized that hunting was going to work as a reliable way to make money. Turning to the helpfiles, it mentioned that most merchants made money by moving goods from one location to another. So, I priced everything in Tuluk and made my way to Luir's and Allanak to do the same thing. I soon recognized a way to haul goods from one city-state to the other and make a nice bit of money. So, I started doing it... a lot. I hired guards, founded the Kadian Falcons, and regularly made trade runs between Tuluk and Allanak. As my haggle improved, so did my profits. Eventually, I could make about 3000 coins/RL day.  I did this every day. What did I do with all this money? I hired people. I hired guards, lots of them. Eventually, I had a Captain of the Guards who hired them for me. I had a Head of Intelligence who hired and planted spies for me. I had hunters and a Vivaduan to provide everyone with water. There was no paymaster, no free water, and no free food. Everything was provided by PC activity. To my knowledge, I was the first character who used wealth as a form of power instead of magick or combat prowess. Each IC year, I would make a regular donation to Garrick the Red. It started as 10,000 coins but eventually reached 25,000 coins. If an independent merchant tried to compete with me, I'd mention their name to the Great Lord about how it might reduce my next donation. They would be dead in a few days. I recall at one point having 20 active PCs working directly or indirectly for me. The payroll was all handled in-game. Over time, I didn't even have to leave Tuluk or drive the wagon. I established a pyramid scheme where I only had to receive the shipments from the junior Kadian family members. Eventually, I amassed over 500,000 coins in savings. I used this incredible sum to purchase a legal contract from a Tuluki High Templar to start a legal trade war with House Kohmar. To lead the attack on their compound, I hired everyone in the Guild and every mercenary I could find. Kadius won the war but my PC wasn't around at the end. At my prime, my typical routine would be to summon some of the guards and the Head of Intelligence. We'd gather the daily cargo and drive the wagon down to Allanak and back. During the drive, I'd get the updates from all the spies, hunters, and rundown on local rumors. I'd give out various orders, sell everything, and roll back to Tuluk.

Contrast this to my last merchant...

Most recently, I played another merchant character. His goal was to form his own minor merchant house. I noticed that the staff regularly said that independent merchants don't have the skill or knowledge base to make what the GMHs can. To get around this, I planned to work for all three GMHs as either a full crafter or a master crafter. I made it through two of them. As I worked in the GMHs, I gathered all the information I could about how they made things. I quietly stole the best tools and kept them tucked away within my backpack. I developed a way to precisely measure things and made detailed drawings of fancy tools and equipment. Along the way, I found an old object of isilt that someone sold in Luir's. It was his prize possession. I recognized that with Tuluk locked up, isilt had nearly vanished from the game. The monopoly once controlled by House Jurrik of Tuluk was open to competition and I planned to learn how to make isilt and sell the raw material to the GMHs. Making isilt was going to be the foundation of my own minor merchant house based in Allanak. I slowly stockpiled coins to use once I broke out on my own. I amassed 35,000 coins in savings. I was waiting for a newbie noble or templar to turn up. Once I found one, I planned to become their right-hand man and use their protection to shield myself as I build my minor merchant house. I estimated that I'd be able to make about 2000 - 3000 coins/ RL week with one active PC hunter. I planned to pump most of the money into my noble or templar sponsor. Then Tuluk reopened and I presume House Jurrik would actively defend their monopoly. I stored and moved on to cooler deserts. My usual day in my prime was to go to the crafter's hall and make things. I would be told what to make by my PC boss. I also loaded and unloaded a ton of raw materials from the House wagon. I'd also design things for them. I spent over half my time inside the House compound or wagon crafting. Eventually, I had one PC dwarf who worked part-time for me. I bet I crafted nearly 2000 objects.

Both of these merchants lived about 9 - 10 RL months. I consider my first merchant a home run and my last merchant a successful bunt. Which of the two do we want to see more of in the game? Which merchant is more fun to play beside and work for? From Brokkr's comments, I was hoping for more of the first. However, from Shabago's comments, I think we may get more of the last.

If the staff's goal is to reduce PC wealth, I suggest the easiest way is to increase the tax at the bank. Personally, I don't like the idea because I think the game has more plots and is more interesting when wealth easily flows between characters. What good is a 100,000 coin bounty if no one can deposit it or buy anything with it? Why even try?

Thanks for reading!

-Williamson

[Maso]

Can you or Patuk (or others) expand on why this would cause someone to not play?
Is it a need to have ankheg armor right out of char-gen, inside of a week?
Is it a mentally satisfying comfort that *if* something happens to come along that you want, you have the coin stashed away for it?
Is it a 'swag' issue to claim riches over others?

Can you or Patuk (or others) expand on why this would cause someone to not play?

Potentially just adding to the grind and monotony of certain activities. There are some players that clearly adore crafting, selling and making a ton of money. Maybe they find it relaxing to sit around crafting a lot, maybe they get something from the progress/success induced dopamine hit of making bank in a sales run.. whatever it is.. some people really like it - fine. Others, don't so much and it can definitely feel like something of chore.

Is it a need to have ankheg armor right out of char-gen, inside of a week?

- Nope, but that's a pretty hyperbolically framed question. :p

Is it a mentally satisfying comfort that *if* something happens to come along that you want, you have the coin stashed away for it?

For me it's this one. I generally like my character to get somewhere between 5-10k saved, then I feel.. 'safe-ish'. Then I try not to touch that, and I live my characters hand to mouth, making small amounts of money or scrounging for food/water.  Not quite sure why that is, but it takes me a good while to get there, not a week, maybe a RL month or two. But then I know if I have a sudden need for something reasonable, or I need to bribe someone, or I get so wrapped up in RP that I can't make enough hand to mouth that I can draw down on that, OR that if RL comes and kicks me in the face, I can use that to keep my rent and stuff going until I can play again.

It's basically a safety net. And I usually find the process of getting there to be a chore. And when I have to draw down on it and then build it up again.. it's a whole other chore.. because I tend to play my characters a lot less skill focussed and a lot more social/RP focussed - what little time I do have to log in and play, I want (and need) to be spend socialising with other PCs or doing a number of things that are not crafting/selling. So when I do have to make some significant money.. well yeah.. I want to spend as little time as possible doing it.

So whatever % changes you make to the economy just represent changes to the % of time I have to spend doing something chore-like. I don't think you will be able to rid me of that desire/need to have that. That said, my last PC's 'nest-egg' was 3k. So that's not too far off what you guys seem to want, but that took me longer than I would have liked too, pre-economy changes and she was not a city-based character with city-based outgoings. I should point out that I do not sell tents, chests, shields or any of those 'big ticket' items. Just play normal PCs who make a range of normal things and not mass production.

I do find enjoyment in the early stage of getting my character on their feet, of them genuinely being poor and struggling to survive, trying to eek out living on shitty crafts and begging for scraps. But eventually that gets old and I do want to move on from that phase and that is part of my characters development for me. It's part of them growing up and learning how to stand on their own two feet.

Is it a 'swag' issue to claim riches over others?

Nope.

--

I probably would have just leaned into the inflation. Hiked up stipends considerably, hiked up all paymaster wages, hiked up apartments, stables, food, water and the prices of GMH goods. That's generally how inflation goes, no? Now your 20k doesn't look so good, but PCs get to keep their sense of value.

The hardest part of a big economy change is going to be getting PCs to adjust the PC to PC economy and mindset. How much should a bribe be? How much should poisons cost? How much should this bag of random hides be sold for? How much is a Byn escort? How much should you tip a dancer? How much should an assassination be?

[Inks]

I like the inflation idea too. Would be considerably easier to do (from an untrained layman's perspective). But I am absolutely fine with obsidian and wood items dropping in value in each place too. But some wildly overpriced bows need more considering they are just made from agafari and baobab!

[Halaster]

For me it's this one. I generally like my character to get somewhere between 5-10k saved, then I feel.. 'safe-ish'. Then I try not to touch that, and I live my characters hand to mouth, making small amounts of money or scrounging for food/water.
...
It's basically a safety net.

I think part of the point might be this mindset, in a way.  Not that you're wrong for having it, but the typical Zalanthan isn't supposed to be that wealthy.  Most of them live day to day, meal to meal, and don't have the luxury of even considering "saving money" or having a "safety net".  At least, that's supposed to be one of the themes of the game - harsh survival, and clearly for most of us it's not really like that.  Part of it is inflation and scope-creep, part of it is that as a whole we all know how to play this game better than we used to.  Sure we get a slow, steady trickle of new players but the bulk of the playerbase has been around a while and knows easily how to get rich.

When I first came back to the game from my super-long hiatus (yes, I'm calling it that now, heh) one of the first things I noticed was just how stinking rich everyone seemed to be.  1,000 coins seemed a lot less valuable now than it once was.

Shabago is trying to introduce a healthy market correction.  And I honestly feel like it's not going to be as huge of an impact as some people seem to be worried about.  And as he said, if it's "too much" it can be adjusted again.

Thanks for those stories, Williamson, they were very well done and I had a hoot reading them and going down Nostalgia lane.  In my personal opinion, the reason for why your 2nd merchant was merely a successful bunt vs the homerun of your 1st is because now the crafting system exists and is a huge part of the game (plus some of the glass ceilings in place now).  Back then crafting was barely existent, if at all.  The crafting system has fundamentally changed the game more than most other systems, mostly for good.

I would ask that we all give it a little time, see how it works out.  The game is in need of some change, and this I think is going to be a good one!