Artisan Archive
Thread: Why Harvester Cert's can never happen...
StGabriel wrote:
It's not a matter of punishment, it's a matter of making a system that works, in general, for the larger populace. Of course some people are going to be hit. Those "big time" crafters are smart people though that will make good profits no matter what system you throw at them. More competition and more challenge will make the game more fun even if it hurts a few crafters bottom lines. Is it really so important to protect 100 million+ bank rolls at the expense of a balanced game?
Because many people don't agree with that statement. I agree that the system works ok for SOME crafts but I think that a lot of crafts are increasingly failing. Look at this very forum where there is a post asking if it is even worth it to sell vehicles. That is largely a symptom of the ubiquity of resources.
StGabe.
StGabe.
Message Edited by StGabriel on 06-04-2004 01:16 AM
Wow, an discussion of economics that involves no money??? No way!
Of course money is involved. Does that mean that everyone in this discussion is inherently a greedy **edit**? Heck no. We could just as easily argue that you are simply being greedy about your characters and that your "real intention" is simply to prevent changes that, in your perception, will damage your current character templates. My "real intention" is simply to discuss the economics of SWG and, perhaps, to determine some of the greater imbalances in the system. I'm always in favor of game balance (whether it is positive or negative for my current templates) because I know, as a good player, that I will find ways to succeed whatever the system is.
So, have we sufficiently and utterly dismissed this silly ad hominem attack of people that happen to disagree on a certain issue? Good. Let's move on.
All of Gabriels ramblings (acoutally most all of us) on this is based on speculation since we would realy need statistics form SOE to accuratly determine the impact.
Not really. Harvesting empires of 400+ harvesters are factual as are server economies where specific crafts that are dominated by a relatively small number of players. If this is not yet reality on your own server then it's probably only a matter of time. I think this is obviously a concern for the developers and players. I don't think that this is all in line with the intended game. I think the developers anticipated a much smaller economy with much smaller resource harvests and overall production. As such it is quite relevant to reevaluate the situation and look for restrictions that can bring the game back in line. One does not need to look at all server economies to determine that there is a problem. The primary task of balancing a game is removing gross imbalances. These imbalances are currently quite possible and happening. If players can do something, inveriably they will.
I would like to visit on a particular economic fallacy that I think it is very relevant here. Economists often assume that by guaging the overall wealth of the system they can determine its success for the participants in general. This is clearly a poor assumption. If an economy of 1,000,000 people has one trillionaire and 999,999 slaves then it is completely irrelevant to say that the average wealth of the economy makes everyone a millionaire. In general it is important to make sure that the overall system is good for all of its participants. We see that with MMORPG economies. Overall production is not the primary goal. The highest rate of production would occur if SOE simply handed out resources for free and allowed instantaneous factory production. This would lead to an incredibly boring economy however and would completely trivialize many of the intended challenges. There would be few or now actual opportunities to make a career as a crafter as the products would be valueless. It's just not a fun game that way (one might wonder if life would be fun if we had everything we wanted handed to us, but that's another discussion).
The goal then is to have a challenging economy that provides opportunities for a good number of players and avoids imbalances and a market that is supplied or controlled by a very small number of players. This will mean limitations, restrictions and costs. This will mean that some things have a high value in the economy making them valuable. This is a good thing. It creates a system where there is a lot more room to truly achieve and it creates value for crafting. It makes the economy not just something to circumvent but something to really get involved in.
Scoooter wrote:
Are you an elite crafter?
Have you been dealing with resource vendors since on a constant basis since August or at least a different time frame?
No elite crafter so far believes this will empower them because from past actions we have a pretty good idea of what will happen.
And no the goal is not for everyone to have everything, limitations are good. but this is far too drastic.
Here's a real example from Valcyn, the server you play on. I'll even use names so you can verifying it yourself. Tuckiee is a main supplier (mass market) of weapons (elite crafter) on Valcyn. I apologise to Tuckiee if he objects to any of the information I'm about to give out but I doubt he'll care. He has 1 full time harvester and another 2 or so part time raw resource suppliers. I am one of the part timers, well more like casual since I get lazy at times. Out of the 3 suppliers I am the most expensive with a flat rate of 3cpu. I don't care what the market value of the resources are, I always supply at a flat rate of 3cpu. With only 1 full time and 2 part time suppliers Tuckiee is able to constantly supply weapons of high quality at low prices to the mass market. On occassion I extend this low rate (in my opinion) to other elite crafters that Tuckiee vouches for.
With the right network any changes to harvesting, even certifications will have little to no impact on an elite crafter. It's not always about money. Some of the resources I just supplied Tuckiee at a fixed rate are currently worth 75cpu or more. They are the best of their kind and spawned several months after the server was launched, ie. They are very old and valuable.
This is where you argue it's not the norm. Of course it's not but that's part of the dynamic of a MMPORG isn't it? A crucial factor that many overlook or undervalue is the power of alliances and frienships online.I'll say it again, SWG is a MMPORG. It's notmeant to be a one man show. If you feel you're being constantly shafted byresource suppliers then maybe you aren't networking effectively? As StGabriel said, a good gamer will overcome almost any challenge presented before them.
St Gabe,
I'm continuing to enjoy your posts. And I agree with you that some solution to the problem is more important than adopting any particular solution. Harvester certs are only part of what would be needed.
Do you have any ideas regarding how to limit the inflow of new resources without rewarding the folks who have large stocks of hoarded resources beyond measure? Resource decay? Or do you think resources are being used quickly enough as it is such that in a month or two the supply would be used up. My impression is that we have several years' supply of even good resources at the moment, but I'm new and that may distort my estimates.
Hmmm...perhaps limiting who may in structures they own store resources? I can't see a reason why a combat guy would want to havea house with 100 different 100k resource stacks. But such a restriction seems artificial.
StGabriel wrote:
The system as it stands works perfectly well. Why nerf the crap out of everyone?
Because many people don't agree with that statement. I agree that the system works ok for SOME crafts but I think that a lot of crafts are increasingly failing. Look at this very forum where there is a post asking if it is even worth it to sell vehicles. That is largely a symptom of the ubiquity of resources.
StGabe.
No, its a sympton large number of idiot and stupid Artisans who are so utterly clueless they can't grasp the simple concept that they can sell the raw resources from vehicles for more money that what they are selling the vehicles for. Certs will not miraculously increase their IQ.
Cross-server lots trades should be eliminated, I doubt you'll get very much disagreement there.
Certs is a dead issue so really, this argument is going in circles.
I was recently in a conversation with several players from different servers where we discussed this very issue. 400'ish harvesters was the highest number quoted from personal experiences although many players had tales of similar experiences on their servers. I've personally been up to 60 or 70 harvesters myself purely from in-server lot trades and it wasn't very hard to do at all.
Are you an elite crafter?
Check my sig. I do 3 craftings professions now and spend 20+ hours a week on them.
Have you been dealing with resource vendors since on a constant basis since August or at least a different time frame?
Yes as well as discussing these issues and sharing experiences with players from many servers. Back in August was a different universe. That was back when people actually took hand-sampling seriously. You have to realize that hand-sampling WAS intended to be a how a lot of resources entered the system. What we have now is far from what was intended.
And in general the market has become worse not better for crafters. Back in August, high-quality crafted goods were hard to find and anyone that could offer them got good business. Now they exist in very large quantities and the number of people getting sales has diminished significantly. You can't sell vehicles above the cost of resources, for example, which shows just how common resources are. It's nothing to throw a ton of resources at a bunch of vehicles and dump the market with them. With more scarce resources, crafted goods will become less ubiquitious and more valued again.
People often make a lot of money in the face of scarcity and so I find your responses perplexing. It should be obvious that as crafted goods become less common, crafters have more power over the market. Players NEED crafted goods. Many are 100% dependent on crafters. Yet crafters in general wield relatively low economic power. This is very striking!
And no the goal is not for everyone to have everything, limitations are good. but this is far too drastic.
Again, look at the game as it is. Look at what we would be departing. A newbie can get top notch weapons on his first day and probably buy a vehicle as well. Many presume this is necessary and yet I fail to see the reason for this. There should be a number of different levesls of markets and earning enough to get top-notch goods should be a real accomplishment. You say this is drastic and yet I look at the game now where high-quality weapons cost a mission or two worth of credits (5-10m of work) and I don't see it. What we have NOW is drastic.
Message Edited by StGabriel on 06-04-2004 02:25 PM
If resources were not so incredibly common this wouldn't be an issue. These "idiots" would burn their resources out before they dented the market.
StGabe.
Unfortunately, no.
This problem is why this is such a serious issue really. The crafting market is intended to be relatively dynamic. However when some weapons require less than 100 resources and some players have stockpiles of 10's of millions of resources (I can attest to having this myself if nothing else), the market becomes static. One can rest on those stockpiles almost indefinitely.
It's not so bad to change how the game works (especially to fix imbalances and to reintroduce good challenges) but it's quite bad to go out and destroy items that a person feels they own. You can tell someone that they can't use their items the same way anymore, but you can't destroy those items outright (although in some cases those two may not be that different).
I've never been a big fan of "refining". It has always seemed to me that with the current game climate this would simply reward lot-swapping even more. I must admit that it looks somewhat attractive in the light of getting rid of these huge stockpiles. Perhaps if the resource acquisition was tempered then such an idea would be tenable.
Other answers are less palatable. One thing would be to greatly raise resource requirements for the cheaper items (meds, weapons, etc.) as part of changes to resource acquisition. This does hurt newer crafters a lot however (although it might, ironically, make grinding faster
).Anyway, I'll be out of town this weekend but I'll be back later and I'm really enjoying this discussion. Thanks to Guru for dragging me over here (he caught my interest a post he mentioned on the Corr forum).
StGabriel
Being a correspondant, are you getting any feedback from the Dev's in reference to the economies? Do they even think the economies arean issue? Are they even willing to discuss it? If we can get a 2 way communication going with them, maybe we can define better what the problems are as well as some solutions.
The people on both sides of the harvester cert issue are using statistics that are not confirmed, and so neither side will budge. I am for the certs, but I also believe the problem is deeperthan just what certs would resolve. I can see where the Devs wouldnt want to restrict harvesters, because with the "Drain" economics they're using , the outflow of credits from the game would diminish from less harvester maintenance being paid. The sink would overflow. So then they would have to decrease influx of credits into the game, causing an even greater outcry from mission runners.
I also believe that part of the problem is that only select items actually decay. Everything should decay. And even after being repaired, top end value of the item should be reduced. Nothing should be able to be repaired to its full value. That is why armor continues to be a good market. Because no matter how often it's repaired, it will eventually cease to function.
I dont believe for one second that certs would destroy the economy with high prices. Even now, the "High Price" items are purchased by the select few. Just as a series of Heavy Leather pieces once could command millions, it now only gets thousands. I paid 100k for 2 sets of 5 last night. But a couple of weeks ago would have been priced way beyond my means. Just as now, I cant afford BH armor, so I'll wait for it to come down in price or do without. It seems to be the greedy ones complaining about other peoples greed.
StGabriel wrote:
And in general the market has become worse not better for crafters. Back in August, high-quality crafted goods were hard to find and anyone that could offer them got good business. Now they exist in very large quantities and the number of people getting sales has diminished significantly. You can't sell vehicles above the cost of resources, for example, which shows just how common resources are. It's nothing to throw a ton of resources at a bunch of vehicles and dump the market with them. With more scarce resources, crafted goods will become less ubiquitious and more valued again.
).