Architect Archive
Thread: Bloop
Ok, you asked for it, here it is.
The Problem:
The game economy and crafting system is messed up. How? There is no such thing as a high end product now, all the master made goods are commonplace and affordable by most people, this in turn leads to there being no demand for non master goods. Since nearly everyone can afford composite armour, top notch T21's or DX2's, heavy harvesters by the dozen the lower end items just don't get used much.
These top end items should be fairly rare, very expensive and something for people to really aspire to, not considered basic equipment by most. If there was a limit on the availability of these top end items then people would demand other items at a lower price, so a novice armoursmith could make some money selling Mabari armour to other newbies, and a new weaponsmith would have a demand for tuskan rifles.
The economy was designed and tested with the assumption that for every player buying items in the economy there would be 10 lots available, assuming we allow 2 lots per person for housing and another 3/4 for factories and to allow for those just not using their lots we have 4 or 5 lots per player, buying.
Now i am not going to go into details here, but my rough calculations lead me to believe that with this limited storage and harvesting capability there would be no way to gather and hoard huge quantities of the best materials and so things like enhance E medpacks, composite armour, and heavy harvesters would not be produced all the time, and would only be made at top quality occasionally.
To summarise the economy was designed so that all levels of crafters would have a market for their goods and so that all craftable items would have a use, this is currently not the case.
The Cause:
There is an excess of resources and storage in the game, this leads to the top resources being strip mined and hoarded long term and the master and other top products being supplied in extreme and unforseen quantities.
There are a number of "exploits" or dodging of the rules that have enabled this to happen.
- Lot swapping - This brings too much harvesting capacity into the game compared to the number of players, it also allows extra houses to be used as storage compared to th number of players.
- Vendors used for storage - This allows excessive storage
- Poached Vendors - This allows players without any merchant skills to own vendors and therefore add the the vendors as storage issue
These issues are all interlinked, but dealing with one will not make the other two go away.
The Solution:
- Develop a means to stop lot swapping (most secure, though harshest method is to allow only 10 lots per account instead of per server, other ideas on how to stop it, or make it untenable difficult welcomed)
- Develop a means to stop vendors being used for storage (set the maintenance cost of a vendor depend on the value of the stock held on it, make it in steps rather than a smooth curve so that it gets really noticable if you have several items at multiple millions of credits)
- Stop The ability to have vendors without merchant skills, reducing the potential for using vendors as storage even further.
I am sure that there are other issues that contribute to this problem, any suggestions on what these issues are and how to solve them is quite welcomed.
This is my personal opinion on why this is a problem, please discuss
Message Edited by Flashya on 06-30-2004 04:31 AM
Flashya wrote:
Assumelot trading is nerfed.
Prices of resources go up, due to the less amount being mined - there is more of a market for resources.
Prices of structures for Architects would then rise in order for Architects to stay in business.
As structures don't decay, people don't need to buy more buildings.. unless of the chance that it rots of course.
As people have less lots, they require less structures (harvesters included.)
Final result : Architects have high priced structures, which sell even less than they do now. Architects also have less stock because of the increase in price of resources.
Well done, you've just killed the profession.
Message Edited by Flashya on 06-30-2004 04:31 AM
Another point-of-view is that it is theeasy availabiltyof resources that allows and encourages undercutting.
Look at it this way - a 10 lot architect can harvest their own resources at 0.5 cpu and can sell houses at 2 cpu. But they can't do it in any serious quantity. They won't be able to keep up with demand. And they will make such a small profit, that it will be hardly worth doing.
But an architect with 300 static harvesters,they can undercut in quantity. They can sell 2 cpu structures and make a decent amount of money. The biggest difference in this case is 30x the lots can mean close to 30x the profit without 30x the work (though it is more work).
Even if the static farms are owned by a dedicated miner, the ready availabilty of mass quantities of 2 cpu material makes it possible to create mass quantities of 3 cpu furniture and structures.
I won't be one that claims that cross-server lot trading creates monopolies (since everyone can harvest on their own, everyone can compete on at least a small-scale level). But I think the claim that cross-server static farms actually helps the small-time crafter is simply wrong. Higher resource prices is not necessarily a bad thing.
- only a few do it - so its okay
- they're tempoary accounts - so it's okay
- turns ppl off or will leave the game (well, maybe only for those doing it)
- a majority of large scale miners mine for either a city or a PA, and the majority of the money made from these ventures ends up going back into the (gimme a break - this is just crap)
- change willreduce the number of miners in the economy, lessen the number of crafters in the economy, heighten the prices of inputs such as resources....
Well, I'm no expert but if I have 10 lots - so should you. Why should I have8 lots harvesting resourceswhile you have 200 ? And, ifmy8 lots have a potential of80k/day (lets say 10k of resource/day) - why should you have the potential to make 2000k/day ?
If my friends want to lay some down and manage them for me - that's fine. SO - I'M ALL FOR SINGLE ADMIN AND MORE FREQUENT REDEEDing to help combat AGAINST CROSS SERVER LOTS.
Nope, I don't have the numbers.I make no assumptions that I know how many crafters on one server use 10 lots or how many use cross server lots andhave more than 10.The impact of cross server lotswould also vary too depending on the total server population (either if this is done on Shadowfile with approx 9k players or Eclipse with 18k players and on the total crafting/mining population.
But, I'm sure - if you're bringing in more resources you havegreater potential:
- to hoard resources and also hoard the HIQH QUAL resources
- to mine a MUCH wider selection of differentresources simutaneously
- craft more and a wider selectionitems simutaneously
- put alot more items on the market
- for profits evenifitems are sold ataverage or lower prices
just to name a few.
As Architects, we've all seen heavy harvesters as well as resources sellingwell below cost (*whatever cost really is .5cpu ??), but it's much easier for someone with 200 lots to do this and make a profitthen one trying to make a living and staying in the profession
Is it still cloudy ?There are many aspiring ways a crafter or miner can do to do better - JUST CROSS-SERVER LOTS shouldn't be one of them. I don't have 4 factories but if I make do with one and log in first thing in the morning andthen latger in the eveningto do an extra factoryrun - I should do better. If I chose to have a small house rather than a large house (orPA hall)so that I can have a few extra lots at my disposal- why should one get away with having 200 because of cross server swapping ? And, if I can only mine 2 or 3 different types of resources at one time why should someoneget awaywithmining 60 - maybe I'm the one who should be quitting if they don't nerf it.
I pose one question - Whyshould those who don't cross server lot swap have top put up/compete with those who do ?
wrote:I just posted this in another thread because some people seem to want to carry their crusade into every thread on the Architect board
GogoDodo: - Forcing people to redeed just adds tedium to the game. If i go on vacation for two weeks..blah..blah..
Do we get to vote?
Fneegan wrote:
I'mgoing to say it over and over again until either you leave the game, theDEVs do something about it or I leave the game.
ZenDragonMLS wrote:
Do we get to vote?.
Even that would be an unfair because you'd cheat on that too! You (and those with more than one account) would try to represent yourselves as more than one vote.
I'm as wellvery conversant with thethe game, cross-serverstatic lot swappings, boards, forums, groups of commonality too.
No matter if you and the few who are doing it fill this board withdifferent treadsto support your precious static lot swapping. Eventually, more will see it as an exploit and wrong. More will see how it affects their sales, their profession and ruin the game. More will complain untileventually it is fixed. It's just a matter of time. I doubt you'd be around after that.
Fneegan wrote:
ZenDragonMLS wrote:
Do we get to vote?.
Even that would be an unfair because you'd cheat on that too! You (and those with more than one account) would try to represent yourselves as more than one vote.
I'm as wellvery conversant with thethe game, cross-serverstatic lot swappings, boards, forums, groups of commonality too.
No matter if you and the few who are doing it fill this board withdifferent treadsto support your precious static lot swapping. Eventually, more will see it as an exploit and wrong. More will see how it affects their sales, their profession and ruin the game. More will complain untileventually it is fixed. It's just a matter of time. I doubt you'd be around after that.
I can't remember someone calling me a cheater before - interesting perspective you have.
I'll call out one area where you seem to have a problem with consistancy. You say "you and the few who are doing it..." and yet, to read your other posts you indicate that the cross-server lot trades are rampent and that they are forcing the "honest" and "new" people out of business. The only way I can make sense of that is to assume that a very small group of people on each server are controlling the economy by virtue of their massive fleets of harvesters, homes, and factories. Yet when I look at the galaxy trade boards I see a variety of people buying and selling constantly. Are those just aliases for members of that Secret Cabel?