Merchant Archive

Placing this in the Merchant profession because there is no Economy forum or any threads started by the developers on any of the message bourds about the economy in general.

Loot and the Economy

Okay, more than a couple years ago I joined the SWG community on the forums, long before the game was completed. In fact the core game was undergoing a complete rewrite to use a system all it's own rather than use the same game engine used by the popular Everquest. The Development team wanted to make a game that wasn't Everquest in space. The plan was a good one. Unfortunatly they didn't stick to there guns and the ending result was quite literarly Everquest with a Star Wars theme. In EverQuest the best items are looted. This has become the rule for SWG as well. The best items are looted, made from looted components or looted schematics.

One of the major contributing factors in the digression from a unique game to the basic EverQuest feel was the team's slow but certain erosion of the economic model originaly planned for SWG.

This model was simple, elegant and an economicly sound design based on faucets and drians. Money is introduced into the game would by faucets and removed by drains. The ending result is a stable economy where money flow from one end to the other insuring that inflation does not occure in any area of the economy in too disproportional amounts.

Currently the SWG economy faucet/drain map looks something like this.

Faucets. (These are the ways money is created for the players)
Missions
Combat looted credits
Gambling
New characters

Drains. (These are the ways money is removed from the economy)
Travel fees
Cloning fees
Insurance fees
Banktip fees
Vehicle repairs
Vendor maintenance
Training fees
Gambling
Smuggler Faction point purchases
Housing and city structure maintenance
Harvester and factory maintenance
Crackdown fines
Painting Schematic purchases
NPC cantina drinks
Base maintenance

The vast majority of money created for the game comes from Combat missions (Currently delivery missions do not cover even half the travel cost and crafting and entertainer missions pay very little compared to what the player can make entertaining or crafting so also are not taken.) Gambling is included as a faucet and a drain because it has the potential to be both, but statisticly its a drain over all, but do to insanly boring content for gambling, it remnains mostly unused as well. New character cash combined with gambling and non-combat missions is most likely less than a fraction of 1% of the money generated in the world.

So for all practical purposes the game worlds money is all derived from players doing combat missions.

At this point there is nothing wrong with the economic model. Players taking combat missions make the money, they spend it on some economic drains, but they spend a lot more on crafted goods, entertainer and medical services. The Entertainers in turn spend thier money on crafted goods and economic drains and the crafters spend thier money on some drains and resources from resource gatherers who spend the money on maintenance for thier harvesters. A nice even flow down the economic ladder from the missions to the harvesters.

But then the problem comes in...loot.

We started out with all items and equipment of intrest being crafted. Then schemtics were introduced as loot. This made crafters rely a little on combat players. But then new schematics were added as loot and these required looted components as well adding to the crafters dependance on combat players. Now we curreently have the most in demand items in game completely disreguarding crafters. Lootkit items use no resources, are 100% looted and have autolooms so they do not require crafters at all.

Scouts and rangers get "free" resources from animals that are in high demand since this is the ONLY way to get these resources. They take missions to get money then sell the resources they gather to the crafters backwashing money into the mission taking portion of the economy causing inflation in this area. Looted schematics and components do the same thing. They are free to the combat player who sells it to the crafting community taking more money from the crafting economic area leaving less money to flow down to the resource gatherers and deflating the harvester area of the economy. Lootkit items bypass crafters all together creating a combat player economic inflation where entertainers, crafters and resource gatherers must rely 100% on combat types to get these choice items. Resources and the items crafted from them have become greatly devalued. Looted items and the items created from looted schematics and looted components have become the choice items and have skyrocketed in value.

So how can we combat this inflation?
I have a few simple suggestions that will create more drains for the economy and return the flow of money to a more even path thru the various professions.

First give Rangers with creature harvesting 4 the ability to place and maintain Ranches and fish hatcheries that use up resources and maintenance to maintain, but act like harvesters for the animal products that must currently be manually obtained by scouts and rangers. Rangers of course should be able to place and maintain bigger ranches and fish hatcheries. (I would suggest that Herbivore ranches use floral and water resources, power and maintenance but producs and of the hides, bones, eggs and non-carnivore meats on a planet. Carnivore ranches would use meat and water resources, power and maintenance and would produce any of the hides, bones, eggs and carnivor meat. Fish hatcheries should use up floral and water resources, power and maintenance and produce any of the fish meat, mullosk or shellfish on a planet. You can even give creature handlers bonuses to production rates in the same way merchants give bonuses to maintenance rates.

To operate these the scout or ranger must have the skills in the same way a merchant needs to have the skills to operate thier vendors. This addition will create a drain for the production of animal products and reduce the number of missions being taken to get these resources reducing the amount of money being added to the game.

Second. All the looted schematics and all of the looted components for those schematics should be avilable to crafters without relying on combat players to get them. Adding NPCs near the locations these schematics are found that allow players to purchase schematics for the items and components would allow the crafters to obtain these items. (Yes I know some of these things are suppose to be rare and I have a plan for that read on.) Purchasing these schematics will add another money drain to the economy and the rarity of the schematics can be controlled by two adjustable components. Price and experience cost. (Experience cost?!?!) yep, experience cost. Schematics for items and components would cost money AND an amount of experience appropriate to the item. (A weapon schematic would cost some weapons crafting experience to purchase, an archetect schematic would cost archetect exp, and artisan item general crafting etc etc) This would keep very rich players from simply purchasing unlimited schematics and would give crafters a reson to continue earning experience. The schematics and components could still be obtained from loot, but the price they will be sold at will not get out of hand as crafters can allways go buy the schematics themselves if they have enough experience to spare.

Third. Lootkit items were a fine idea except for two things. Crafters and resources are left out of the loot. And Adhesives are so rare they have created a massive inflation in the lootkit area of the economy which is, of course, the combat players since they are the only ones able to get lootkit items.

So, here is my solution. Don't change the rate at which Adhesives drop. Add Adhesive schematics that can be purchased from junk dealers and used by Artisans to make adhesives. There, problem solved. Tens of thousands of people with 9/10ths completed lootkits can now obtain adhesives and crafters are in the loop again. Also another drain is added to the economy to combat inflation.

I hope you take these suggestions to heart. The SWG economy is on the ropes for crafters and resource gatherers. These simple changes can get it back on it's feet.

-LazyAmy

LazyAmy Indigo
Resource Merchant, Thorn in the Imperial backside.
Owner/operator of The Lazy AT-AT Cantina
Proud member of The Crecent Order (TCO) Resource Division
Chilastra Galaxy
Talus
-2400 x -2200
PvP+, Combat+, RP+

Excellent post.

I especially like the idea of farm-raised products. Even taking it a step farther to create a Farmer profession wouldn't bea bad idea either. The farm-raised creature product quality could be controlled by theresource quality needed to raise the livestock. Carnivore farms would be the means to sustain the need to gather meat; thus retention of valuable scout and ranger services would remain viable. The size and nature of the farms could be controlled with lot requirements. This should help to clear the database need to randomly generate domestic floral and creature resources.

I whole-heartedly agree that loot and the nature of loot gathering behavior is an enormous factor in ruining the SWG economy. It has turned this game into Star Wars Galaxy Camp. The rare nature of items mean nothing after awhile due to the shear number of loot campers. Krayt tissue and pearls are a good example. Both of these items are not as rare as they are supposed to be due to shear number of looters. You can decrease the spawn rate of krayt dragons but thinning out the ranks of krayt huntersis really the only way you can make these items truely rare any more.

The combat classes don't even realize that they are only serving to cut their own throats when it comes to expecting enormous prices for their loot. The goods created by these items only end up being expensive goods due to the huge expense of purchasing looted schematics and components. Its a cycle that starts with the price expectation of the inital sale of the looted item. In the end, they are goods that end up being purchased by the combat professions.