PWI could use some coin sinks

/Groovy/ - Harshlands · June 2011

Coins seem to lose its value quite fast. I believe it's because more coins are "made" and injected into circulation than "spent", since there is nothing worth spending coins on.

Let's compare coins income and usage:

Income:
- packs (-> best luck tokens -> 10mill big notes) - probably the biggest source of coins right now
- weekly TW pay - some of it is spent on TW towers and cata scrolls but some is used to buy charms and stay in circulation
- BH rewards - namely, 2x Ecstacy card and 50x Mirage Celestone
- mob drops and selling of DQ items

Expenses
- leveling skills
- teleports
- repair fees
- purging and putting in shards
- Crazy Stone

Income is way bigger than expenses, especially for endgame players. Also coins can't buy anything useful from system, what means they stay in circulation between players forever, and being spawned in huge amounts everyday, lose its value fast.

Solution is simple: there should be something useful available to buy for coins at NPCs.

Post your suggestions what would you like to see being sold that way. My ideas: Guardian Scrolls, Pages of Fate, Mystical Tome Fragments, Mystical Tome Pages, Bronze HP and MP charms, Tisha and Tienkang Stones.

Things that are less powerful but still useful.

Player's suggestions:
Kieve's idea: Introduce a fee for FF entry
Infernia's idea: Add a fee to refining with Dragon Orbs. Cost based on Dragon Orb level.
Chillium's idea: "event" HP/MP food buyable from NPCs

Discuss.

Zoe - Heavens Tear · June 2011

Forced coin sink, make it impossible to avoid and you get nothing back. Simply remove everyones coins. I have a pretty decent amount of coins myself so it would hurt me but I'm all for it.

/Groovy/ - Harshlands · June 2011

I'd rather seek a solution that will make both players and developers happy.

Players would be happy because Gold prices would stop rocketing up all the time.

Devs would be happy because more new players would stay and play the game, instead of quiting due to high prices of Gold and gear.

Sarrafeline - Sanctuary · June 2011

Zoe - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Forced coin sink, make it impossible to avoid and you get nothing back. Simply remove everyones coins. I have a pretty decent amount of coins myself so it would hurt me but I'm all for it.

Sure, that would work.

Except... There are people who actually need to buy skills still, still need to spend the coins on stuff...

If they did just 'delete all coins', I think that 2 things would happen:

A very large number of people would ragequit
A very small number of people would cash shop their coins back

There, you took something broken, and BROKE IT WORSE. Please fill out an application to work for PWE, they need talent like you, because they aren't good enough at breaking stuff that's already broken as it is.

Infernia - Harshlands · June 2011

Forsaken World had one rather nice point to prove here.

It cost to refine. The higher the refine, the higher the coin cost. Admittedly there was no chance of losing your refine there (Failing lost the crystal things) but you would very quickly absorb all you cash if you refined stupidly.

Everyone needs to refine. +1-4 neednt have a high cost (1k - 10k say), but after that, start racking it up to 10-25 mill for +10 /11 /12 and coin will be absorbed fast.

It wouldnt work alone, there would need to be other coinsinks, but I think it would make some impact.

Sarrafeline - Sanctuary · June 2011

/Groovy/ - Harshlands wrote: »

I'd rather seek a solution that will make both players and developers happy.

Players would be happy because Gold prices would stop rocketing up all the time.

Devs would be happy because more new players would stay and play the game, instead of quiting due to high prices of Gold and gear.

I have to disagree.

People I have spoken with that recently tried PWI for the first time, then quit, quit because of the playerbase more than the economy.

The economy isn't a factor until you're in the 40+ level range, for the most part, the playerbase is a big factor for when you're in the 1-20 level range. If you keep running into *******s when you're level 12, and level 20-40 is filled with a KS/powerlevel riot, is it really that much of a worthwhile experience to keep playing?

And it really doesn't get any better... One of the guilds I was in took in several new people, level 1, and not one of them made it past level 20.

Okeano - Harshlands · June 2011

NPC-ing regular token probably creates more coins than BL.

Sarrafeline - Sanctuary · June 2011

Infernia - Harshlands wrote: »

Forsaken World had one rather nice point to prove here.

It cost to refine. The higher the refine, the higher the coin cost. Admittedly there was no chance of losing your refine there (Failing lost the crystal things) but you would very quickly absorb all you cash if you refined stupidly.

Everyone needs to refine. +1-4 neednt have a high cost (1k - 10k say), but after that, start racking it up to 10-25 mill for +10 /11 /12 and coin will be absorbed fast.

It wouldnt work alone, there would need to be other coinsinks, but I think it would make some impact.

I would be all for this.

But... See my sig.

And seriously, Refining in PWI is such a mess... Dragon Orbs are ridiculously stupid, I only bought them on sale to resell for profit, or to refine gear that refused to refine any other way. since gear seems to have a 90% chance of failing to refine to even +1, I've essentially given up on refining gear now.

Zoe - Heavens Tear · June 2011

Sarrafeline - Sanctuary wrote: »

Sure, that would work.

Except... There are people who actually need to buy skills still, still need to spend the coins on stuff...

If they did just 'delete all coins', I think that 2 things would happen:

A very large number of people would ragequit
A very small number of people would cash shop their coins back

There, you took something broken, and BROKE IT WORSE. Please fill out an application to work for PWE, they need talent like you, because they aren't good enough at breaking stuff that's already broken as it is.

I'm one of them that still needs to use coins to buy stuff, you won't see me complaining about losing all of mine.

Step 1:
Remove packs
Step 2:
Delete all coins
Step 3:
Laugh at the players that complain and leave because they are the greediest of the bunch and would do everything in their power to drive up prices again anyway.

Everyone can grind for their coins like they did when the game began.

RADD_RATT - Harshlands · June 2011

/groovy/ - Harshlands wrote: »

i'd Rather Seek A Solution That Will Make Both Players And Developers Happy.

roflmfao

Infernia - Harshlands · June 2011

RADD_RATT - Harshlands wrote: »

roflmfao

Subtle.

Olbaze - Sanctuary · June 2011

Okeano - Harshlands wrote: »

NPC-ing regular token probably creates more coins than BL.

Well, with 98.025% chance for 15 Tokens and 0.65% for a single Best Luck, you're looking at 2250 tokens against 1 Best Luck Token. That is 22,497,750 coins versus 5,000,000.

Since the rest of the items cannot spawn coin, you're left with:
98.025% add 149,985 coin
0.65% add 5,000,000 coin
1.328% add 0 coin

So the expected amount of coin injected into the economy for every pack opened would be 179,522.796 coins.

Kieve - Dreamweaver · June 2011

Solution is not as simple as that, I'm afraid. If the coin value of an item is not in line with its perceived usefulness, most players will simply not buy, and thus the sink is useless. Consider the faction base gears, which I believe have been compared to TT and Nirvana, but cost ludicrous amounts.
No, if you want a coin sink that works, you need it not only to affect the players where you want to draw out coin, but to make it unavoidable.

So here we go:
1. Increase cost of shard imbuing, exponentially.
-It "only" costs 200,000c to imbue a G11 shard into equipment. 1mil for a VIT stone. 3m for a JSOD.
-Consider, it's primarily the very rich players who can afford these gems, paying out 20-30m for VIT stones, 10+m for G11 "Gems", and so forth. By substantially increasing the fee required to imbue higher gems, you can draw significant amounts of coin from the portion of the playerbase where said coin has accumulated the most.
-Drawback: Admittedly, this does create a larger gap between the rich "haves" and poorer "have nots", forcing those with lower coin reserves to use lesser shards and making it tougher for them to upgrade endgame gear.

2. Increase cost of TT and Lunar equipment decomposition.
-We already see this in a disparity with TB weapons, versus other TT equipment, and I believe it's a step in the right direction. Lower-grade starter gears would be mostly unaffected, or have minimal impact, while at endgame, those breaking down TT90 gears for 99-golds would find the cost substantially higher.
-This might also encourage more well-refined & sharded TT80/90 equips to be passed along among players, as mold equips are
-Drawback: May present a barrier to those going for TT99-gold 'endgame' armors, and subsequent Nirvana equips. HOWEVER, it may also encourage a look at alternatives, such as crafted OHT pieces. It may also slow or limit the flood of APS-based characters using 99-gold LA/HA set bonuses for -interval.

3. Introduce a fee for FF entry.
-An overwhelming majority of players are using FF runs to level rapidly, to the point where selling spots in FF for power-leveling is now a common practice. The playerbase has become almost dependent on Frost as a leveling instance, adding a fee is unlikely to discourage its use at this point. In addition, those charging for Plvl'ing "services" will be forced to charge more simply to balance out the expense of opening the run, potentially cutting down on the number of characters being power-leveled.
-Drawback: A lot of whining from people who spend all their time instanced in FF.

4. Remove the sodding 10mil note from Token of Best Luck options.
-Not a coin sink specifically, but rather an aim to stem this at the source. Never gonna happen, but it's really the only way to control the constant flood of coins into the economy, as no coin sink can keep up with hundreds of millions magically "appearing" on a daily basis. Until this root problem is solved, talking about coin-sinks is like trying to patch up the Titanic with Bubble-Yum.
-Drawback: PW-CN will never agree to it. Because they are all bloody idiots.

EDIT: When I started this post, there was one reply. Damn all you people. b:surrender

Fenrina - Heavens Tear · June 2011

Zoe - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Forced coin sink, make it impossible to avoid and you get nothing back. Simply remove everyones coins. I have a pretty decent amount of coins myself so it would hurt me but I'm all for it.

I think that would flat out kill the game. It'd hurt the entire playerbase and likely **** off most of them as any hard work they'd put into the game would be erased.

I've never heard of any mmo going to that extreme.

Shandaar - Dreamweaver · June 2011

I'm on caffeine right now. I'm pitching ideas down and I have zero idea if they make sense.

If you want your audience to spend, you have to give them a reason to. You have to appeal to them.

- Cap the amount of k's gold is sold for. Yes, people will spend their cash if the price remains reasonable.
- Entrance fee in gold for TT, FC and such (now that would also stop powerleveling).
- Add more skill levels with a lesser growth curve (example: level 1: 10%dmg, level 10 100%dmg... make that lv15 or so at 100%). Also lower spirit requirement to get people to buy the skills.
- Increase teleport costs based on character level.
- Remove 10-mil Bank Note from BL Token Exchange list, as previously suggested.
- Make more items untradable, yet affordable and appealing enough for people to spend their cash on. Mounts, AC pets, fashion sets, etc.

Okeano - Harshlands · June 2011

Olbaze - Sanctuary wrote: »

Well, with 98.025% chance for 15 Tokens and 0.65% for a single Best Luck, you're looking at 2250 tokens against 1 Best Luck Token. That is 22,497,750 coins versus 5,000,000.

Since the rest of the items cannot spawn coin, you're left with:
98.025% add 149,985 coin
0.65% add 5,000,000 coin
1.328% add 0 coin

So the expected amount of coin injected into the economy for every pack opened would be 179,522.796 coins.

You can't account for how many tokens are NPC'ed and how many are used or saved up to resell by shops tho.

PooRitan - Sanctuary · June 2011

i thought all know already where the shiny coins come from or how many. but i re write it, what i am sure, others did many many times already.

i illustrate it by what i did last year autumn during a pack sale for mhh 2 weeks or a month.

-there was a long pack sale
-put 150m in a kitty shop
-started to buy normal tokens at 9800 coins each
-bought best luck tokens for 4,9m
-bought my first 5k tokens
-put them for 10k on sale
-no one bought...what to do with all those tokens?
-made wedding wine
-brought it to the eldest match maker
-made triumph money with the wedding wine
-sold it to npc
=>profit per token roughly 200 coins

now you would say...no big deal...BUT...lol...
i bought at some days around 20k tokens...give or take a few k
my shop char stood most of the time at the npcs to make wedding wine and triumph money instead of buying new tokens.
that for a few weeks long!
now add around 10 best luck tokens a day.
dunno how much profit i had in total, maybe 2-4% a day? no clue anymore, but was around that i think.

nah? at how much coins per day pumped into the server are we now at? around 300m a day? only by me?
now there are around 10 shops at all times in arch who do the same? 3 frickn billion a day coins made just by packs!
tw pay looks compared to that like a joke.

or have you never wondered why token price always is around 10k.
now what about the pack opener who not sell to shops but do it themselves...the token and best luck token to coin exchange.

to be honest, the coin sinks in this game seem to be fine. always when a longer time no packs are around everything is deflating. all average prices. that means with no packs more coins go out of the server than come in.
that means without packs not enough coins get into the economy to keep a steady state.
the amount of coins beeing made during a pack sale are just too much.

one solution that would come into my mind would be to reduce the triumph money from 99999 coins or how much it is to lets say 60 or 70k. to make a big note 3 best luck tokens instead of 2.

but those would be drastical changes to the economy.
to put some examples.
the expected average outcome of a pack changes (make some games with the pack calculator someone made here in the forum)
token prices fall down to the new bottom cap. most would say now "yaaaay cheaper tokens"
but what about the stuff you make with tokens. shards....many would make now perfect shards with tokens...chrono pages...who looses? the world boss farmer...non cash gamer...
subs price...bound to the token price...who looses? the mat farmer...non cash gamer...
i am sure there are more examples.

this kind of step would turn the economy for a while upside down. there would be winners and loosers. the demand for packs would change, goldprice would change, the amount of coins and its increase/decrease would change dramatically.

the question is what in the long run is better for a healthy game economy.

*sigh* written too much.
basically i wanted to show in what dimension the packs are involved regarding the inflation.

SoniMax - Sanctuary · June 2011

I wanna be rich too so i can QQ about it b:chuckle

Sarrafeline - Sanctuary · June 2011

Zoe - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I'm one of them that still needs to use coins to buy stuff, you won't see me complaining about losing all of mine.

Step 1:
Remove packs
Step 2:
Delete all coins
Step 3:
Laugh at the players that complain and leave because they are the greediest of the bunch and would do everything in their power to drive up prices again anyway.

Everyone can grind for their coins like they did when the game began.

You have it completely backwards.

The people who worked hard for their coins are the ones who are going to see the situation as hopeless, and look for a game that won't gank them. People who worked for their coins see them as having more value, compared to someone who dumped 50 gold in and converted it to coins.

Or are you going to ignore me pointing out the PAINFULLY obvious and still consider this to be a good idea?

/Groovy/ - Harshlands · June 2011

Kieve - Dreamweaver wrote: »

1. Increase cost of shard imbuing, exponentially.

I'm afraid that people doesn't upgrade shards in their gears that often to make this method make a difference. Still, would help a bit.

Kieve - Dreamweaver wrote: »

2. Increase cost of TT and Lunar equipment decomposition.

See above. We make a lot of coins on daily basis, we decompose rarely. Plus, a lot of endgame gear is obtainable via packs so without any decomposing.

Kieve - Dreamweaver wrote: »

3. Introduce a fee for FF entry.

Awesome idea, will copy it to first post.

Kieve - Dreamweaver wrote: »

4. Remove the sodding 10mil note from Token of Best Luck options.

I was one of those who suggested this long time ago, when packs were introduced for like 2nd time. Developers just won't do this -.-"

Infernia - Harshlands wrote: »

Forsaken World had one rather nice point to prove here.

It cost to refine. The higher the refine, the higher the coin cost. Admittedly there was no chance of losing your refine there (Failing lost the crystal things) but you would very quickly absorb all you cash if you refined stupidly.

Everyone needs to refine. +1-4 neednt have a high cost (1k - 10k say), but after that, start racking it up to 10-25 mill for +10 /11 /12 and coin will be absorbed fast.

It wouldnt work alone, there would need to be other coinsinks, but I think it would make some impact.

Refining already removes a nice amount of coins if you refine with mirages only or with Tisha/Tienkiangs as mirages give 10k coins each. But I like the idea of using coins when refining with Dragon Orbs too, that should work nicely, will put it in first post.

Boogiepanda - Raging Tide · June 2011

/Groovy/ - Harshlands wrote: »

Coins seem to lose its value quite fast. I believe it's because more coins are "made" and injected into circulation than "spent", since there is nothing worth spending coins on.

Let's compare coins income and usage:

Income:
- packs (-> best luck tokens -> 10mill big notes) - probably the biggest source of coins right now
- weekly TW pay - some of it is spent on TW towers and cata scrolls but some is used to buy charms and stay in circulation
- BH and cube rewards - namely, Ecstacy and Excitement cards, it's a minor amount
- mob drops and selling of DQ items

Seeing as cube boxes costs money (e.g 100k for 10% chance at 1m), that amount stays neutral

Expenses
- leveling skills
- teleports
- repair fees
- purging and putting in shards
- Crazy Stone

/5char

/Groovy/ - Harshlands · June 2011

Boogiepanda - Raging Tide wrote: »

Seeing as cube boxes costs money (e.g 100k for 10% chance at 1m), that amount stays neutral

Agreed, forgot about that as haven't done Cube in a while. Will edit it out in original post if you don't mind.

MageMERC - Harshlands · June 2011

SoniMax - Sanctuary wrote: »

I wanna be rich too so i can QQ about it b:chuckle[/QUOTE

This. Who is this post aimed at? I have this char (90) an 86 veno and a bunch of chars and a lot of mats saved up. If i absolutely sold everything and pooled all money and resources I wouldnt be able to buy demon revive let alone the other books I'd like for both chars, let alone gear - mines all drops, let alone everything else. The majority of players DONT need more coin sinks at all.

I have read in another MMO currently under development that real spending will not in any way enhance the gear, skills or level of players but will only allow them to buy extras such as better mounts, fashion etc.

This seems a much fairer idea to me. Keep the coin sinks for the rich, not the rest of us thanks.

Sarrafeline - Sanctuary · June 2011

MageMERC - Harshlands wrote: »

SoniMax - Sanctuary wrote: »

I wanna be rich too so i can QQ about it b:chuckle[/QUOTE

This. Who is this post aimed at? I have this char (90) an 86 veno and a bunch of chars and a lot of mats saved up. If i absolutely sold everything and pooled all money and resources I wouldnt be able to buy demon revive let alone the other books I'd like for both chars, let alone gear - mines all drops, let alone everything else. The majority of players DONT need more coin sinks at all.

I have read in another MMO currently under development that real spending will not in any way enhance the gear, skills or level of players but will only allow them to buy extras such as better mounts, fashion etc.

This seems a much fairer idea to me. Keep the coin sinks for the rich, not the rest of us thanks.

>_> This was... Another on the laundry list of reasons I quit. NOBODY was selling the skills I needed... For either character that I need skills for. So... I got frustrated and didn't want to bother, and stopped playing those characters.

Infernia - Harshlands · June 2011

MageMERC - Harshlands wrote: »

SoniMax - Sanctuary wrote: »

I wanna be rich too so i can QQ about it b:chuckle[/QUOTE

This. Who is this post aimed at? I have this char (90) an 86 veno and a bunch of chars and a lot of mats saved up. If i absolutely sold everything and pooled all money and resources I wouldnt be able to buy demon revive let alone the other books I'd like for both chars, let alone gear - mines all drops, let alone everything else. The majority of players DONT need more coin sinks at all.

I have read in another MMO currently under development that real spending will not in any way enhance the gear, skills or level of players but will only allow them to buy extras such as better mounts, fashion etc.

This seems a much fairer idea to me. Keep the coin sinks for the rich, not the rest of us thanks.

There be the beuty of the DOrb idea Groovy pulled out of my stolen inspiration. Doesnt really do much damage for us poor peeps. However if you can afford a +10 Orb, you can afford to remove 10 million coins from the game too.

I literally skate by on grind money alone nowadays. an extra 1k to attempt to refine to +3 wont hurt me. Someone else dropping 10 mill out the cycle will make our (yours and mine) coin more valuble.

Batini - Archosaur · June 2011

MageMERC - Harshlands wrote: »

SoniMax - Sanctuary wrote: »

I wanna be rich too so i can QQ about it b:chuckle[/QUOTE

This. Who is this post aimed at? I have this char (90) an 86 veno and a bunch of chars and a lot of mats saved up. If i absolutely sold everything and pooled all money and resources I wouldnt be able to buy demon revive let alone the other books I'd like for both chars, let alone gear - mines all drops, let alone everything else. The majority of players DONT need more coin sinks at all.

I have read in another MMO currently under development that real spending will not in any way enhance the gear, skills or level of players but will only allow them to buy extras such as better mounts, fashion etc.

This seems a much fairer idea to me. Keep the coin sinks for the rich, not the rest of us thanks.

You miss the point. A coin sink helps the F2P player non CS player by making gold affordable to purchase cash shop items for these players as grinding and TT runs etc etc can easily achieve the amounts required when an economy is not inflated by pack sales etc. A balanced coin sink does not help the 'rich' in fact a coin sink doesn;t usually effect the rich as they are usually of such smal comparison. A large coin sink helps the 'poor' in the longer term if handled correctly.

Chillum - Dreamweaver · June 2011

I think the easiest coin sink would be consumables.

The ones that immediately spring to mind are HP and MP food.

If they were put in, say the Apothecary NPC at a competitive price and/or taken out of Luck Token exchange, that would be a good coin sink.

Don't know for certain but I get the impression that they are the source of choice for replenishment of HP / MP above regular pots which cap out at level 60 at regular Apohecary NPCs.

ColdSnow - Dreamweaver · June 2011

Ofc people would whine..i myself would QQ cause i grind my *** off for rank 8 (2mil to go only) and if they remove all coins from one day to another how fair would it be to those who worked hard to get something (compared to those who got already their endgame gear) saving up every coin for it.

Its like complaining that more and more people get rank 9, working hard to compete at least a bit with them (grinding for months) and then get all their coins removed to 0.

All i would say to this is "_|_ Thank you _|_"

/Groovy/ - Harshlands · June 2011

MageMERC - Harshlands wrote: »

Who is this post aimed at? I have this char (90) an 86 veno and a bunch of chars and a lot of mats saved up. If i absolutely sold everything and pooled all money and resources I wouldnt be able to buy demon revive let alone the other books I'd like for both chars, let alone gear - mines all drops, let alone everything else. The majority of players DONT need more coin sinks at all.

You contradict yourself here. You know why you can't afford demon revive? Because 25 mill it costs is everything for you but there is a lot of people who can make 25 mills in 2 days, by farming or merchanting.

Now, imagine that there is something else worth buying for 25 mills for that rich guy from NPC. He will spend money elsewhere, in result making "your" demon revive cheaper and "your" coins worth more on the market.

So this coin sinks idea is to actually benefit both rich (who will have something useful to spend money on) and poor (who will be able to get gears/items they need for lesser amount of their hard-farmed coins).

@Chillium: added idea of HP/MP food to first post

SinfuINature - Harshlands · June 2011

i will be the coin sin for Harshlands server... give me your coins plz... i will then inturn buy 10mil big notes with them... what do yoa say? well ill do that after i get r8... anyone wanan help a poor person to get r8? only 165k more rep? anyone?

Roland - Harshlands · June 2011

Chip packs and rep badges from a NPC. Wouldn't matter at this point.

Done, I fixed it.

PWI could use some coin sinks

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