Concerns with in game economy

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Thank you. Definitely the Oligarchs then.

Moreso at Intrepid:

I am completely in support of 'Enhancement Chance Improvement Scrolls/Items' dropping from bosses/events in a game where Enchanting is RNG.

I don't like when they are ABSOLUTELY universal for all items (leads to people hoarding them to use on their best gear that they 'plan to get later' and not wanting to 'waste' them on progression gear), nor when they cannot be gifted/sold on the market (limits the sort of person strong enough to GET these, into having to find a way to use them, which tends to skew poorly imo).

Oh what a wonderful flow that would be (assuming standard L2 levels of Power Growth from Vertical Enchantment).

I still hate RNG Enchanting, thank you.

Azherae wrote: »

I don't like when they are ABSOLUTELY universal for all items (leads to people hoarding them to use on their best gear that they 'plan to get later' and not wanting to 'waste' them on progression gear), nor when they cannot be gifted/sold on the market (limits the sort of person strong enough to GET these, into having to find a way to use them, which tends to skew poorly imo)

L2 started out really nicely, with each tier of gear having its own tier of enhancement item. Then they just fucking stopped doing that and for 5 fucking tiers you could use the same scroll. God damn korean Cabal of Oligarchs

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Even better, make relationships with your local crafters. If you're a gatherer/processer - make sure you provide them with some resources at a discount and negotiate a discount for yourself. Be sociable.

We have not received permission from akabear to share the quoted post.

But I'd assume that purely based on how statistics should work, all those people were the lucky exception out of however many attempts. And all those attempts put strain on the entire server's supply of both gear/mats and enchantment scrolls. Any new even just +4 weapon would mean a pretty high chance of a failed +4. And the higher you went in enchant lvls - the more items would've been burned at the server's scale.

So as long as Intrepid can properly control the methods of gear acquisition and the quantity of enchantment options, I think OE destruction could serve the game well. There'll always be people that want to be better than others and they'll be the ones paying for that power with countless failures along the road.

NiKr wrote: »

We have not received permission from akabear to share the quoted post.

But I'd assume that purely based on how statistics should work, all those people were the lucky exception out of however many attempts. And all those attempts put strain on the entire server's supply of both gear/mats and enchantment scrolls. Any new even just +4 weapon would mean a pretty high chance of a failed +4. And the higher you went in enchant lvls - the more items would've been burned at the server's scale.

So as long as Intrepid can properly control the methods of gear acquisition and the quantity of enchantment options, I think OE destruction could serve the game well. There'll always be people that want to be better than others and they'll be the ones paying for that power with countless failures along the road.

I do not disagree with the first part of your premise at all, for clarity. Not restarting that. Your second part is 'wrong'.

In all RNG systems with a meaningful 'input chance' where the output is purchaseable and a real economy, the one with the most money through the non RNG method tends to 'win' if they apply their capital correctly because they can 'pay others to gamble for them', and statlstically, this is beneficial to the one with the starting capital.

I'll give you the numbers if you want. But overall, particularly because RNG is streaky and market cost movement can be slow, the rich can manipulate things relatively easily. It is true that this does NOT make them more rich outright (moreso more 'wealthy'), though, unless they also control an input point (in BDO you CAN but it's equalized by a usefully bad design point)

In Ashes, they almost certainly would, though, which is another reason I 'oppose' RNG enchanting. I put oppose in quotes for the usual reason. If the game 'rewards the rich in hidden ways by letting them prey on the psychological effects on the minds of the masses', I'll just 'roleplay a villain' and take the money.

Azherae wrote: »

In all RNG systems with a meaningful 'input chance' where the output is purchaseable and a real economy, the one with the most money through the non RNG method tends to 'win' if they apply their capital correctly because they can 'pay others to gamble for them', and statlstically, this is beneficial to the one with the starting capital.

I'll give you the numbers if you want. But overall, particularly because RNG is streaky and market cost movement can be slow, the rich can manipulate things relatively easily. It is true that this does NOT make them more rich outright (moreso more 'wealthy'), though, unless they also control an input point (in BDO you CAN but it's equalized by a usefully bad design point)

In Ashes, they almost certainly would, though, which is another reason I 'oppose' RNG enchanting. I put oppose in quotes for the usual reason. If the game 'rewards the rich in hidden ways by letting them prey on the psychological effects on the minds of the masses', I'll just 'roleplay a villain' and take the money.

Oh. I know that the rich will be the ones who had the highest OE on the server. It's gonna be on Intrepid to limit that only to in-game rich, rather than through bot/rmt means.

What I meant is that even if a rich person wants to get some high OE - they'll have to put strain on the server's chain of production of that item (which is, ideally, connected to a ton of other stuff) and in the process would burn through a ton of shit. So while, yes, only the rich person will win out in the end, it would also mean that instead of their guild having 10 semi-strong players, they'll just have one really strong one.

Now there's obviously the option of "one guild has been controlling the means of production for months and have been the only one to craft these items. They've know outfitted everyone in the guild and have started OEing it to all shit instead of selling it to others on the server". This is definitely a possibility, but this would only work if literally no other guild on the server even attempted really going against this one. And on the design side, it would depend on how often Intrepid will release expansions that push the gear tiers forward.

And there's the overall impact of gear tiers balancing in the context of that expansion rate, but I think that's kinda a separate discussion.

Here's an example of what I'd prefer to see:

• Say Intrepid release new gear every second expansion (so every year), but release a second acquisition method for top gear in every expansion
• Guild 1 manages to control the top boss(es) for the first 6 months with no contest
• G1 now has, say, 20 weapons with a few BiS full sets. That's half a raid and barely a party with top armor
• With the second expac comes another way to get that armor and weapon, but it's slower than Bosses
• In another 6 months G1 has 40 safely enchanted weapons and a few good OE attempts. Also a few BiS sets
• But at the same time pretty much every other guild has at least a few weapons and might've gotten a set or two. There's a chance some of them could've sold their stuff to G1, but I'd assume they wouldn't because they need it themselves or they'd at least sell to other guilds to prevent G1 getting eeeeven further ahead
• With 2nd expac comes yet another way to get the currently best gear, so even more people start getting it and more people OE it
• G1 now starts farming the newest bosses for the new best gear. They OE the previous gear to all hell in order to make the farm easier
• If there is destruction on OE, the process would burn through quite a lot of G1's free gear, while every other guild just gets properly outfitted
• If highly OEd gear only gives a few % over the safe lvl - G1 would've destroyed a ton of gear to just go up a bit on power, while the whole server (relatively speaking) got really close to them
• In these new 6 months G1 would probably have a bit harder time farming all the bosses cause their powerlvl is not a high above others as it might've been at the start

And this is an example where literally only one guild controls the entirety of top lvl content. It's a possibility, but I'd hope it won't be a likely one and other guilds would try to stop them by working together. If they manage that, the distribution of gear would be even better.

Do you see obviously holes in my assumptions or just disagree with the premise itself?

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

In all RNG systems with a meaningful 'input chance' where the output is purchaseable and a real economy, the one with the most money through the non RNG method tends to 'win' if they apply their capital correctly because they can 'pay others to gamble for them', and statlstically, this is beneficial to the one with the starting capital.

I'll give you the numbers if you want. But overall, particularly because RNG is streaky and market cost movement can be slow, the rich can manipulate things relatively easily. It is true that this does NOT make them more rich outright (moreso more 'wealthy'), though, unless they also control an input point (in BDO you CAN but it's equalized by a usefully bad design point)

In Ashes, they almost certainly would, though, which is another reason I 'oppose' RNG enchanting. I put oppose in quotes for the usual reason. If the game 'rewards the rich in hidden ways by letting them prey on the psychological effects on the minds of the masses', I'll just 'roleplay a villain' and take the money.

Oh. I know that the rich will be the ones who had the highest OE on the server. It's gonna be on Intrepid to limit that only to in-game rich, rather than through bot/rmt means.

What I meant is that even if a rich person wants to get some high OE - they'll have to put strain on the server's chain of production of that item (which is, ideally, connected to a ton of other stuff) and in the process would burn through a ton of shit. So while, yes, only the rich person will win out in the end, it would also mean that instead of their guild having 10 semi-strong players, they'll just have one really strong one.

Now there's obviously the option of "one guild has been controlling the means of production for months and have been the only one to craft these items. They've know outfitted everyone in the guild and have started OEing it to all shit instead of selling it to others on the server". This is definitely a possibility, but this would only work if literally no other guild on the server even attempted really going against this one. And on the design side, it would depend on how often Intrepid will release expansions that push the gear tiers forward.

And there's the overall impact of gear tiers balancing in the context of that expansion rate, but I think that's kinda a separate discussion.

Here's an example of what I'd prefer to see:

• Say Intrepid release new gear every second expansion (so every year), but release a second acquisition method for top gear in every expansion
• Guild 1 manages to control the top boss(es) for the first 6 months with no contest
• G1 now has, say, 20 weapons with a few BiS full sets. That's half a raid and barely a party with top armor
• With the second expac comes another way to get that armor and weapon, but it's slower than Bosses
• In another 6 months G1 has 40 safely enchanted weapons and a few good OE attempts. Also a few BiS sets
• But at the same time pretty much every other guild has at least a few weapons and might've gotten a set or two. There's a chance some of them could've sold their stuff to G1, but I'd assume they wouldn't because they need it themselves or they'd at least sell to other guilds to prevent G1 getting eeeeven further ahead
• With 2nd expac comes yet another way to get the currently best gear, so even more people start getting it and more people OE it
• G1 now starts farming the newest bosses for the new best gear. They OE the previous gear to all hell in order to make the farm easier
• If there is destruction on OE, the process would burn through quite a lot of G1's free gear, while every other guild just gets properly outfitted
• If highly OEd gear only gives a few % over the safe lvl - G1 would've destroyed a ton of gear to just go up a bit on power, while the whole server (relatively speaking) got really close to them
• In these new 6 months G1 would probably have a bit harder time farming all the bosses cause their powerlvl is not a high above others as it might've been at the start

And this is an example where literally only one guild controls the entirety of top lvl content. It's a possibility, but I'd hope it won't be a likely one and other guilds would try to stop them by working together. If they manage that, the distribution of gear would be even better.

Do you see obviously holes in my assumptions or just disagree with the premise itself?

In the example given I agree completely.

I wouldn't build something this way because I believe (without solid evidence) that Pyramidal power structures in MMOs such as what you described are bad for retention.

But I see no problems with the premise in the situation where one either does not believe that or does not care.

Basically you're the one that designs games where I'm the villain.

Azherae wrote: »

Basically you're the one that designs games where I'm the villain.

Yep, I'd definitely want each server to have the opposing force. And if the things work out I'll at least try to be that if my server doesn't have one.

To me that's how mmos should work. At least the pvp ones, where there isn't some ultimate evil that literally the whole server has to defeat. Though if Intrepid decides to add bosses that influence the entirety of the game and require a thousand people to work together - I'd definitely like to experience that kind of spectacle.

Azherae wrote: »

I wouldn't build something this way because I believe (without solid evidence) that Pyramidal power structures in MMOs such as what you described are bad for retention.

Btw, do you have an example for an mmo that did this interaction better? Was ff11 that? If yes, is there a way for me to read that w/o you spending a ton of time explaining it to me? Don't want to bother you for a completely off-topic discussion (cause while it might have economic impact, I see this as more of a "powerlvl design").

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

I wouldn't build something this way because I believe (without solid evidence) that Pyramidal power structures in MMOs such as what you described are bad for retention.

Btw, do you have an example for an mmo that did this interaction better? Was ff11 that? If yes, is there a way for me to read that w/o you spending a ton of time explaining it to me? Don't want to bother you for a completely off-topic discussion (cause while it might have economic impact, I see this as more of a "powerlvl design").

Not exactly. FFXI has no PvP to speak of, and therefore the interactions around the 'bosses that drop good gear', while cutthroat, were still limited to 'making sure you got the pull' and so on.

But I'll try to give some context and you can decide which things to read up on. This is gonna seem quite meandering at first, so sorry for that.

There's a reason why countries like Belgium have legal requirements that you either show the exact odds on your lootboxes or don't offer them in their country. BDO is sometimes not allowed to sell lootboxes in Belgium because those lootboxes offer the chance to win OTHER lootboxes that are NOT allowed to be sold in Belgium.

This is because scamming ordinary people using probability deception is very very easy. For that, you can just look up 'laws about lootboxes in Belgium' and it will send you down a glorious rabbit hole of information about why it works that way.

But RNG is streaky and misleading when you say 'this is fair when applied across enough people'. And things that sound very intuitive and fair are sometimes VERY not.

We will use one item from BDO, the 'Witch's Earring'. In BDO, to raise such an earring from base to 'PRI', you simply combine it with another. The odds most people go with? I'd say around 40-50%. Failure loses both earrings.

The cost of a PRI Witch's Earring is generally approx the cost of 3 Base. Because on AVERAGE half of the attempts to make this item use 2 and create a product and half of them destroy both items (we're ignoring the ability to prevent the loss of the item).

It is in my best interests as the villain, to always buy PRI Witch's Earrings and hoard them when supply is high and costs are lower. I am paying the successful people 'less than average value'.

When Supply is low due to streaky RNG resulting in more failures than successes on average in a given period, the prices go up. The people who are making more money because of higher prices are happy, but the server as a WHOLE is 'losing time/money' farming Witch's Earrings and destroying them.

The Pyramidal power structure is based on the idea that to the 'Oligarch Villain', BOTH sides of this activity are feeding THEIR coffers, and slowly ruining everyone else on AVERAGE. It's slow. In BDO it's like 16% bonus to the rich at its HIGHEST (this is approx the range allowed in their Central Market for most items).

It's the same way that you can get the poor to toil in the mines to generate far more value for you, than they get. They don't have the capital to start their own mining operation. You could sell timeshares to try to mine a spot. It's a casino. The house wins.

MMOs fight against cheaters, so do casinos. As the 'Casino owner' the Devs are obligated to fight cheaters FOR me.

The goal is always to become the Casino owner and take advantage of the fact that other people don't understand statistics, OR like Gambling. Gamblers are fine with this. Societies are not.

The top of the Pyramid always wins. This gets worse in games where mob drops have 'innate value' because people who decide 'I'll just farm instead' aren't generating value, they're generating INFLATION, and the House holds all the Value. The Devs then implement Deflation measures, the House sells all the items as soon as this happens to get Capital, and another multiplier happens.

I am rich in BDO from playing their MULTIPLIERS ALONE. I don't farm. I don't sell normal things on the AH.

Historically, MOST of the rich BDO players that win at money, ALSO win by just playing the Multipliers.

RNG Enchanting is a good one for big rich guilds to use. It doesn't matter how many guilds there are. The predatory part of it all happens because you can't control market prices on a shift-supply without regulation/losing money yourself.

And that's why you can't sell Lootboxes in Belgium.

And now for the much shorter second part that DOES apply to FFXI. I've mentioned it before.

Everything in FFXI has approx the same value because the only RNG progression in the game was mob drops (EDIT: for a long time, all MMOs devolve, obv) and the TOP mobs have an either/or drop system.

You can get a REALLY good item that lots of people want about 17-25% of the time, and a decent item that people want the other 75-83% of the time.

One of the two always drops.

For other stuff (BCNMs) the bosses are instanced, and the items used to access them are not tradeable. You choose your target. You can choose to do something that works like the top mobs, guaranteed values. Risk vs Reward.

Risk vs Reward is not a thing I personally accept as 'Well do a thing and take a risk of your time to not get a reward, but you could also 'reward' yourself by not doing this thing and never taking the risk'.

I know that Ashes and Intrepid use this definition, and this is one of the things where I will not fight the consensus definition. If the design pushes through this so called 'Risk vs Reward' definition I will simply take advantage of all the poor fools that fall for it because that is what Steven wants me to do.

Azherae wrote: »

And that's why you can't sell Lootboxes in Belgium.

Then another question. Is there a non-instanced way to prevent the rich from always winning in a non-rng system? Would my suggestion thread work, because it puts more strain on the top of the pyramid (unless I misunderstand my own suggestion in this context )?

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

And that's why you can't sell Lootboxes in Belgium.

Then another question. Is there a non-instanced way to prevent the rich from always winning in a non-rng system? Would my suggestion thread work, because it puts more strain on the top of the pyramid (unless I misunderstand my own suggestion in this context )?

The way to prevent this is to simply 'Gate Matching' as mentioned... somewhere recently.

Basically, the ENTIRE issue with this is based on the:

"I took an action with an investment of capital and the RNG gave me nothing of value."

There's a big difference between 'not what I wanted' and 'of minimal value to anyone'.

L2 for example DID try to solve it. Soulshots.

Basically, again, I am NEVER arguing against RNG, RNG is great. I'm arguing against binary pass/fail RNG.

Note that RNG becomes binary when 'everyone is attempting the SAME pass/fail' because they deflate the value of the fail condition.

Your suggestions, among many others, work quite well. It's a principle to apply, but it fits into many systems. It's not even actually hard to apply and by definition it has nearly no negative effects on either the game's economy nor the player experience. This is probably why people consider it to be such a no-brainer.

For reference the reason why mob drops are so much more acceptable is related to this. The mob spawn is limited, it's a question of 'who on the server chooses to roll the dice'. The 'total' time invested into fighting the boss is static. Low perfect droprates on mobs ARE the way to stop the rich from winning, it's why they're so effective.

MMOs have figured this out a WHILE ago, they just have some terrible leftover traditions that are stuck in the games due to P2W, and it's killing the industry and I hate it with the passion of a thousand suns . But what are ya gonna do, eh? Complain, debate, and hope.