After reviewing the previous post with my ESL group members over this week, I need to make more clarifications.
Also, this is the final week before Throne and Liberty's 'Hyperboost' servers merge their Auction Houses into the standard server 'pool', and therefore the timing where I have the 'snapshot' of the latest point in their flow where no large external factor will be influencing prices of things.
The previous post's scenario/information was actually only attainable
because of these 'Hyperboost' servers. A great use of them, y'all Econ Modelers know what I mean, right? Since then we've learned of a 'Stealth change' that got in sometime recently.
TL limits upward progression in specific ways when Traiting things. You can trait Epic1 items with Uncommons, but your chance of the trait going up instead of just 'Blessing' (failstack) is only 1% base. For a while, they removed the ability to Trait Epic2 items with Rare1 items, not even that 1% was available. Now it's back, and that acts as a very weak stopgap for the issue with Rare1 items and 'Casuals' because the Extraction Stone cost for Rare1 items is much less. If none of that made sense, please just read on (but for Devs ofc just remember that looking in from outside, this is what your systems, no matter how good, end up feeling or looking for uninitiated/True Casuals, though I don't meant that as discouragement).
In the current system, on a non-Hyperboost server, the value of
Extraction Stones has 'fallen'. This is a normal part of MMOs, the issue is that the value falls
very unevenly, and this is amplified by the fact that the Casuals have more trouble progressing (and this outcome is not even helping Amazon/FirstSpark, but that's a number-crunching type 'proof' that doesn't apply directly enough to Ashes to validate a derail).
- It is understandable that in a 10K type Economy, sometimes 'Unstackable' items fall a bit below the Incentive Threshold (the point where it is worth it to set up to try to sell them)
- The reaction of the playerbase at large is normally to pursue other items in the Econ-system until the supply is consumed enough to return the value to 'better'
- If the incidental supply is too high, #2 never happens, and usually someone in an Econ Team 'needs' to take an action to resolve this (reasons follow)
- If True Casuals do not have the capacity to pursue those other items in order to achieve their Currency Progression in the game, the self-corrective second half of #2 doesn't happen (players are desperately doing the crab barrel thing, a type of market crash on the item that I think is unique to MMOs and old Feudal->Capitalist transitional societies, then happens)
- If Hardcore players do not need these items or they are too aware of #4, their reaction causes the self-corrective second half #2 to again, not happen (why pay more when you can just wait for one seller to undercut another?)
- If True Casuals get stuck in this state for too long, the item loses any original value and Economic Velocity falls
In the case of TL, if a Rare1 Item costs 5
Extraction Stones to get the Extract and sell it and the floor is 10Lu, one would count the value of an Extraction Stone as 'no less than 1 Lu' (in a game without a price floor, the calculation is done differently, as noted, it's related to how long it takes to list the item, and the value of an Auction House slot or inventory slot, for those unfamiliar with this type of game).
Currently, however, there are many Epic2 Items where the lesser traits cost 50 Stones to Extract but there are still players trying to sell them for 10Lu. To be clear, I am saying that those players are the ones making the mistake, what we care about is why they feel obligated to 'make this mistake'. This is where parallels to Ashes finally 'matter' directly.
- The game's gearing system results in everything but the cutting edge PvE content being trivial or unrewarding in terms of progression (if we very explicitly exclude Events)
- The game's mob design outside of Co-operative Dungeons is built around the ideas of relatively low challenge, certainly until the next expansion (basically it's a 'Trash Mobs' game but also has harder parts placed separately)
- The ways that Casuals could use 'lesser' progression to cleanly get a good experience without either rushing, being carried, or similar, are either limited or BDO-tier (i.e. as complex as understanding BDO Failstack theory)
- Since drops from World Bosses are performance dependent, Casuals either are forced into extremely meta behaviours, or basically stand no chance of getting these drops either.
- Since most 'Casuals' and smaller guilds cannot defeat Ascended Guild Raid bosses in smallgroup even with the "Hyperboost" gear in certain builds, they are limited to defeating the lower versions (if even that), which only generally provide Rare1, Rare2, and Epic1 gear
Basically it falls
toward (but not entirely into) the trap of most games, where the only thing that Devs can do for Casuals is 'give handouts', which in turn require entire informational systems to teach people about the handouts, but ofc the handouts are available to everyone, and there
are ways for Hardcores to use them too, so I can't say they are 'even working' (the server separation was handling this).
Now the absolute key point:Extraction Stones aren't actually worth less, to Hardcore players.
(also very important is that it is not a
requirement for those stones 'have a floor value of 1 Lucent', it
can be less than that, the issue is with how
much less)
This disparity immediately Red Flags, for my group.
Even if a Casual knows where to get the maximum 'monthly amount' of these so that they are keeping up in that regard (let's say it's 750, it's normally around that much if you are devoted to it), Epic3 Extracts cost 50 and Hardcores get better/more valuable drops (either entirely rarer items with average Lucent values on AH of 40+, or they can 'wait for good traits on drops from their grind'). Epic2 Extracts also cost 50, Casuals get drops that even if extracted only give 10-20 Lu.
This is only 'wrong' because of the method of Progression. The Casual player can't 'make sure to grind long enough to get a good drop'. They don't always 'know that they shouldn't waste 50
Extraction Stones to get 10 Lu' (as an Econ-Hardcore-ish player I can get 10 Lu off the 'right trait' for even Rare1 items, if patient). They don't have any access to specialization other than farming location. They don't have Crafting options or related specializations at the moment for controlling Traits (I was gonna leave those two off because they supposedly will not be issues in Ashes but it's confusing without the whole picture, just know that yes, I understand that this is not supposed to happen in Ashes)
We have seen the same in the early part of Ashes A2P2.5 Econ Update in
all of the ways it can go wrong instead of just the one way in TL that might vanish next week (that server AH merge) or ifwhenever Housing Updates or Crafting updates integrate 'more' progression options for 'gear below the cutting edge' just enough to support the flow between Casuals and everyone 'above them' in playtime.
This isn't a problem that TL actually needs to solve beyond something
like that. The game's Economy is robust enough to endure 'sometimes even the rarest trait of this Epic2 item is worth less than 40 Lu' if they don't invalidate a bunch of old content, and if they
intended or
accepted that, they could change one value (the number of Extraction Stones needed for such items). Ashes cannot do this without tuning the entire World Manager, and I feel like I
do know how much work that is (it's definitely more work than coming up with a new/better integration for the lower level items either from the start or in response).
I'd prefer not to try to come up with some jargon or buzzword to describe this specific problem, as its so fundamental to MMO Economy design and so interconnected to all the pieces. It also parallels way too much to RL economic 'issues' that might muddy the waters, because this is a 'cause' but the 'symptoms' appear in things like Wealth Disparity and Tax Brackets and 'things I definitely don't want to reference in a way that might sound like it makes sense to reference the RL versions'.
For people still paying attention to my rantings that
haven't played FF11, yes, the same thing happens in that game, but the specifics play out differently. Same for BDO. It's because the specifics always play out differently that I wrote up this one, because I want to be able to reference the concept quickly even if in Ashes it plays out differently, especially because Ashes has so
many systems that result in this sort of thing.
Casuals don't have
time to even [/b] notice that this is happening to them, they just give up. You can stem the bleeding by throwing Progression at them, but at some point this becomes unsatisfying, and Ashes doesn't seem like the kind of game where doing that will lead to a positive community outcome (but again, demographic as yet unclear).
I don't want to make this post any
longer to explain the impact of simplistic PvE or overly accessible/adversarial 'Econ-casual' content on this problem, so hopefully anyone reading can 'just trust me' for a while.
I pray that I never even
need to 'write up the proof'.
Good luck as always, MMO Devs.
People were getting lost for literal seconds just because they did not expect us to already have this upgrade.