Additional Economic Incentive: Phoenix Claws

Started 14 Aug 2018

by schreon

in Suggestions

in https://playphoenix.online/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1584 there is a debate about whether longer crafting times are a good thing or not.
I understand that the goal is to achieve a thriving economy, with people trading goods via housing zones and services via /trade. I understand and accept that this strongly contributes to community spirit, hence server longevity and entertainment. However I strongly believe that longer crafting times do not result in what you expect. Let me explain.

With the coming changes to crafting times, I will no longer be a crafter, as it is defenitely not my cup of tea either staring at progress bars or letting my computer run through progress bars while I am afk. That way, there is 1 less crafter on phoenix economy and 1 more potential customer. Congratulations. Does this fix the economy? I do not think so:

Let's assume I did not have any temped character yet. After reaching 50, I do things I actually like in the first place. Namely, all sorts of RvR.

By design, in DAoC you need to have a temped character in order to properly participate in some of the RvR aspects: solo/smallman/8man are barely possible without a sufficiently temped character as soon as the enemies got their temps ready. Now I am strongly incentivized: In order to compete in RvR in the long run, I need a temp, which requires crafting professions.

So far so good. As I am not a crafter anymore, so I will have to trade for my gear. But ... with what? I have nothing. I got a few platins from leveling to 50. And I get very few gold when I occasionally manage to kill someone in RvR.

There is a problem. I need the services of a crafter. But he does not need me. He grinded PvE long enough to get platins, then he watched progress bars long enough to reach LGM. What incentives does he have to help me? What incentives does he have to offer his service to anyone except his friends? Make more platins? For what? The only thing I can come up with is a larger house in housing ...

The broken economy is not due to fast crafting times. The problem is that there is a lack of incentives and tradeable resources. Especially in beta, hoarding platins and building a large house is very pointless, which makes the economy appear even more broken.

Here is a suggestion that, imho, has the potential to actually fix the source of the problem:

- Attach distinct tradeable resources (as rewards) to all distinct playstyles.
- Develop processing chains that require all of those tradeable resources.

Here is a list of playstyles that I am aware of / that I can come up with:

Leveling Toons:
- At least create 1 toon and reach 50
- Create a toon of each class in your realm

Exploring:
- Travel areas you never have been to in your 17 years of DAoC

Platin Farming:
- Kill mobs which drop gold and salvageable stuff

Item/Feathers Farming:
- Kill named mobs which have special items attachted to them
- Gather a group and kill higher level mobs which have more special items attached to them
- Participate in PvE raids

RvR
- hunt players leveling their toons in frontiers
- battleground
- solo
- stealther
- smallman
- 8man
- zerg
- keeptake/keepdef and relic

Housing:
- Manifest your gaming achievements by extending and decorating your house
- Show off
- Put stuff into your housing merchant
- Check your housing merchant from time to time for that extra endorphin kick when something has been sold

Crafting:
- Watch progress bars, enjoy your endorphin kick when you get 100% quality
- Get emails from foreigners including their spellcrafting template
- Chat with people ingame who want your services
- Restock your housing merchant

... did I forget something?

I respect all those playstyles. I believe we all participate in most of those playstyles with differing emphases.

To some playstyles, there are tradeable rewards attached. Killing mobs gives platins. Killing high end mobs gives items / RoGs. Crafting ultimately grants you the ability to transform platins into items or spellcrafting effects which can be traded. Trading in housing gets you more platins and items that you need.

But for two playstyles, there are no tradeable rewards:
- Exploring the world
- Doing RvR (only grants tiny amounts of gold)

While exploring the world does not seem to be a priority to most players, RvR is the most important aspect of the game and the reason why DAoC is still alive today.

In a flourishing economy, each playstyle would come with distinct tradeable rewards which are required by at least one other playstyle. But currently, the dependencies look like this:

[attachment=2]daoc_dependencies.PNG[/attachment]

- Platins requires killing mobs or crafting
- Items requires killing mobs
- Killing mobs requires nothing, but gets more efficient by items and crafting (alchemy)
- Killing high end mobs requires items and crafting to some extent
- Crafting requires platins and gets more efficient with housing merchants
- Housing requires platins
- RvR requires items and crafting
- Exploring is pointless

While there are nice interactions between killing mobs, crafting and housing, RvR is a dead end. And exploring isn't even attached to anything.

There already is a currency rewarded by RvR: bounty points. The key for a nice working economy is so simple. Introduce a new crafting material similar to Phoenix Ash or Phoenix Tears. Let's call them Phoenix Claws as a working title. You can only buy them from bounty points. A small amount of that will be needed for crafting high level items (like you need tears/ashes for barrels and procs):

[attachment=2]daoc_dependencies.PNG[/attachment]

That way, anyone who wants to reach legendary crafting skill, has to seek dangerous adventure instead of AFKing at the forge. No need for longer crafting times.

I promise you, you will see a thriving economy instantly and as a nice side-effect, much more casual RvR.

Additionally, exploring could be connected to the economy by adding items that spawn randomly all over the world, that grant a tiny amount of bounty points or Phoenix Claws upon interaction and then vanish. There could be a bonus in frontier zones, which would further incentivize people roaming all corners of the frontiers. This will make the world even more alive - not only the economy.

Thank you for reading.

Tue 14 Aug 2018 5:32 PM by Magesty

I don't really get the argument for adding a new currency as an RvR reward outside of "I don't want to PvE". Are you really confused about how you go about making gold to compile an end game template? You state the economy is broken as a basis for your argument, but then don't provide evidence outside of saying 'the crafter doesn't need me.'

I've templated characters across quite a few servers (both live and freeshards) and have never had an issue finding crafters that will do work. Their incentive is whatever amount of gold the market demands. You might not be able to understand their motivation, but history has shown that there are players that are more than willing to perform the work for payment. I don't expect this server to be an exception, especially considering the steps they are taking to make crafting easier. It is also important to consider that this is beta--less people are playing and most of those that are are approaching resource accumulation a lot differently than they will on live.

If this new currency is tradable it won't do anything to promote casual RvR as it will just be acquired through exchange of gold or items by crafters. Alternatively they will just ask that you provide the claws yourself when performing work for you.

All I see this system doing is creating more of a vacuum in end game PvE.

I think ideas that increase player interaction are vital to this server's longevity, though, and maybe I'm just not understanding what you are trying to say.

Really like the exploration concepts.

Tue 14 Aug 2018 6:51 PM by schreon

Magesty, I'll try to answer. With "broken economy" I refer to the fact that people are hesitant selling stuff in HZ. Your explanation considering beta status is valid, of course. However, I still claim that the economy is broken, because RvR-only players have nothing to trade for. They are forced to use their time for things they do not enjoy.

Hence my suggestion to attach a currency to each playstyle. All currencies must be set as a requirement somewhere in the processing chain of making temps or consumables. For example, making a level 51 scale chest could require gold (via materials), but also the equivalent of 1 feather, 1 rvr-coin and 1 exploration-coin. It is possible to distribute the currency requirement over all items, but that would be boring. Rather make some items require a few feathers, some a few rvr-coins, some exploration coins, and whatever other playstyle-currencies we can think of. You could even add crafting recipes for items with a large 60-second crafting timer attached. Call that item Progress-Bar-Coin. The important thing ist to make it tradeable, so someone who really enjoys looking at progress bars can do so, and trade it with players who like other things.

If you don't do RvR, or you just do very few / unsuccessful RvR, you will probably trade your PvE things ( tears, ash, items, crafting service ) for RvR currency. On the other hand, if you want to make progress only via RvR, you will jump right into RvR as early as possible, although untemped, earn RvR currency and trade it for the other stuff. Most players (like me) will rather do a mix of all, maybe with an emphasis on one aspect.

In the end, everybody invests the same amount of time for their progress as intended by the developers. The only difference is that people use their time for activities they actually like.

The rest is up to the market. If the majority of players do RvR and nothing else, the value of the RvR currency will fall massively and PvE currencies will become more valuable. That in turn will result in an even more rewarding experience for rather PvE-oriented players. The developers can influence the exchange rates indirectly by tuning drop rates and the amount of items that can be made / bought using each currency.

Just to be clear, nothing of all that is insta50-oriented. The speed of progression is just a question of currency drop rates. Platin counts as a universal currency. if you want overall progression to take longer, you can also turn down gold drop rates. Speaking of it, maybe the ease of farming platins is the real housing zone merchant killer atm. People don't need platins. They need feathers. That is why (at least on hib) the only Phoenix Tears available are sold for multiple platins. If that is true, reducing the gold drop rate would be adequate.

Again, all this is not a question of progression speed but progression enjoyability.

Also I'd like to mention this has nothing to do with the currency madness in other MMORPGs. The difference is that in this case the currencies are tradeable and are attached to very distinct playstyles.

Wed 15 Aug 2018 1:45 PM by Magesty

I see where you are coming from.

I'm still not sure I agree with the premise of a broken economy. Honestly I have never had issues on any servers getting fully templated and I have done only a handful of raids in my DAoC career (outside of Darkspire). In my experience on a multitude of other servers the game economy really does run surprisingly well. Sure you will have to put time in to farm gold or items at some point, but that is the nature of an old MMORPG. Your post has made me consider the game economy in ways I have not before, however, and I could see the potential benefit of having an RvR currency. I still strongly doubt it would result in getting people out to RvR zones, and I feel like the price would be driven down almost immediately. Striking a balance in terms of Phoenix Claw output that actually made it worthwhile would be a challenge. Plus Phoenix Claws could potentially just give 8man guilds another incentive to avoid interacting with the server as a whole and continue playing deathmatch, which I personally think is one of the most detrimental things to a server's health in the long run. Either way, interesting idea & good post.

Also, yes, the drop rate of gold is a pretty big problem and I hope it gets looked at.

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