Does the economy need more money sinks?

Something that I've been talking to a few friends about the last few days was that the in-game economy is broken in a few key ways. Primary among those is the fact that currency seems to enter the economy far faster than it leaves. This is inflationary and seems to contribute to the RMT problem.

(Please note that I'm not an economist, nor do I claim to be an expert on micro- macro- nor kupo-economics. 'Spice and Wolf' was all about the wolf-girl for me while the economics lessons were lost. Any corrections on my assumptions are welcome.)

Currency enters the economy via well-known game rules: Players gain it when they defeat enemies or complete missions, arcs, or taskforces. They can also gain it by selling recipes, salvage or enhancements to vendors.

Currency leaves the economy when players buy recipes or enhancements from vendors, buy consumables like temp powers from vendors, or trade influence for prestige. It also happens when they pay for costume changes.

Note that this isn't *quite* the same thing as value entering or leaving the economy. That happens when players have valuable enhancements, recipes, or salvage drop, or when they craft an enhancement. About the only time value leaves the economy is when a player destroys enhancements or uses up a crafted temp power.


Most players seem to acquire a steadily increasing supply of influence or infamy over their characters' careers, and slowly trade it for enhancements. 'Consumables' like tailor visits, temp powers, and bought enhancements don't seem to eat into this supply very much. Accordingly, the economy inflates at a pretty steady rate. The going trade price for sought-after goods goes up and up. The only thing that ever causes those prices to come down is to introduce new goods -- first Super-rare 'Purple' Recipes and then PVP Recipes.

A lot of people feel like they have to turn to RMT to have a shot at those items, which fuels the problems that've been discussed in the last few days.


The obvious solution seems to be to add more money sinks into the game. These could come in the form of new consumables -- new vendor-only temp powers, recipes, or the like. The problem there is finding the cost threshold at which players will spend their in-game cash reserves and not immediately go to RMT.

If the prices for a 'prestige' item are too high, lots of players will simply buy it with real cash rather than in-game currency. I personally saw that happen in Everquest when certain mounts were introduced. Lots of friends decided to 'skip' earning the dough to pay for a mount and bought in-game funds with real cash. (Everquest had some nasty cheats at the time, so this had exactly the opposite of the 'money sink' effect it was supposed to provide.


Another possible sink is to add in-game gambling mechanisms. We already have the settings for it in various in-game casinos and clubs. (The Rikti Monkey Fightclub seems custom-tailored to inspire player gambling.) However, there are many, MANY problems associated with gambling, even with virtual currency.


Do you think the economy needs more money sinks? If so, what kinds of money sinks do you see as successful or workable?

Yes, money sinks would be nice, especially if they are optional.

Someone suggested in a thread somewhere that we use the ingame advertising system to advertise things like Mission Arcs locally on our servers. Paying inf for ad space for arcs we want players to play seems like a great idea - especially since if an investor gets a highly-rated arc, you can wind up earning tickets!

Perhaps even placing an Ad screen in the MA building for this purpose would work nicely.

I would love to see more influence sinks. They can start by not giving anymore free tailor token.s

the WW fees are the main inf sink.

Ideasjust things that jump to mind and are EXTREMELY basic)

#1: alliance that builds SG base and charges for entrance and then you can buy "rooms" and all influence they gain they convert to prestige. this would be a player solution though and at most would give the richer people something else to buy.

#2: have system track activity of sg members and charge upkeep by activity.

#3: have the mysterious bank that holds these massive loads of inf start taxing people with inf above say 1 billion. example: 1% per 24 hours in-game time. people with less money could just avoid this by spending. (is there a badge for holding 2 billion inf?)

#4: offline/server/Hero-Villian, inf transfers with fee. example: A: person drops inf off at bank logs gets on with another character and gets inf from bank. inf you drop off could only be picked by the character you tell it to by giving: #1 name #2 global and #3 server. or picked up by you 24 hours later. inf would still count towards your inf cap until it was picked up so you couldn't use it as a bank.

Maybe personal player/character housing that uses inf instead of prestige.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

The best inf sinks would be high value cosmetic prestige items (like motorcycles in WoW). The problem is that the nature of the CoX player base means that cosmetic rewards are often the most highly sort after ones.

I'm not 100% convinced that the supply of money is going up. Prices don't seem to have changed much since the market was introduced. The price of salvage has barely budged. Same thing with common IO's. Set IO prices shift around, but I don't really see them going up. The price of purples went up, but I'm pretty sure the supply went down, so that's not surprising.

There are only two places where I see surprisingly large numbers: PvP IO's are insanely expensive, and the amount of money thrown around at costume contests has gone up by a factor of 10 or 100.

Besides, influence is an illusion. The real question is how many hours do you need to play in order to get an item? Think of it this way: $1,000,000 for a taco sounds really expensive, but if everyone gets paid $10,000,000 then suddenly that taco looks pretty cheap.

If you do want to see smaller influence numbers, then I think a good starting point would be to cut the value of common IO recipes above level 40. I haven't done the math, but I think those are a bigger source of income than most people realize.

You want money sinks? Go play Aion.

Here's part of my gameplay earlier today:
Mission - Get essence from two Elim elders because of a blight affecting the forest. Where are these elders? Two different zones.
- No teleporter. I'm bound to the current zone. Recall back to the main fortress.
- Pay for teleporter to capitol, since the inter-zone teleport doesn't go to Poeta (the starter zone, where one of the elim is.)
- Pay for teleporter from capitol to Poeta.
- Walk, get essence.
- Pay for teleport back to Sanctum (capitol,) since it's cheaper than teleporting across.
- Pay for teleport to Eltnen.
- Get essence.
- Stop and buy arrows. Wait, I have another mission here -
- Run out to Agarion Village - I could fly (another charge,) but I'll spend time instead of money.
- Mission - get hot water from mystic spring in caldera. Bring it back within two minutes. Only realistic way to do this? Bind to the obelisk (recall point) in the village - for a fee.
- Run out, recall back. Mission success, guy's cured, blah blah blah.
- Fly (another fee, I'm tired of walking) back to Eltnen's fortress.
- Teleport (again) to Hieron. Re-bind there (another fee) since that's where m ost of my missions are.
- Since the Elim I need to see is on the *other side of the zone,* pay (again) for a flight out.

Ten individual fees for that little runaround. Of course, if you're going to spend any considerable time in any zone, you re-bind, sometimes re-bind to a different obelisk (again for a fee.) You'll certainly want to bind yourself if you go play in the Abyss. Consumables, job supplies - and don't forget crafting, where you're also buying from a vendor (especially if you do work orders) And don't forget buying your skills when you level, and buying collection skill upgrades for materials, and "ranks" in crafting, and, and, and...

No, I rather like not having more INF sinks in COH, TYVM. All the fees and "money sinks" over THERE certainly contribute to an RMT issue. Adding them here - where there is, frankly, nothing but enhancements (not IOs, not purples, not PVP recipes, just plain old TO/DO/SOs) that you need to buy - WOULD create an RMT issue. I can't think of the last time I've even *seen* an RMT email here. I'd rather not have anything make them think there's a viable market for their nonsense - which adding more INF sinks would do.

See my Guides and Tutorials

As long as CoH/V has a consignment house, it will have external RMT companies attracted to the game. When pretty much every enhancement was available for a fixed cost from a vendor, inf had a very low value because it was easy to get. Now, as CHs spin the prices of the most demanded IOs ever upward, it sees inf worth something in RL money terms.

Regarding sinks: I'd like to see a greater ability to convert inf into other 'consumable currency' types (merits, tickets, Vanguard Merits, etc) or at least a halt to the addition of a new consumable currency in favour of using inf. CoH/V is already groaning under the weight of different payment systems for different items and I'm not looking forward to Rogue Dollars being added when a perfectly good system is already in place.

At the risk of sounding really bizarre and out there:

Get rid of prestige, and use influence for all base-related purchases and rent.

Here's how you could do it.

• First, create a separate SG influence account for all supergroups. Convert the existing prestige to influence using the standard conversion ratio (or some new, as yet to be determined ratio). Then, wipe out any prestige balances.
• Convert all base rental and item purchase prices to INF.
• When a player enters SG mode, a certain percentage of their INF goes to the SG's fund, just as a certain percentage is converted to Prestige now.
• When paying rent, pay for it with your SG's INF account. It should even be automatically deducted from the account on a monthly basis for a nominal surcharge so you don't have to go to Atlas (or whatever it is villain-side).
• When paying for items, pay for it with your SG's INF account.
• Allow players to sink money into the SG account to help pay the rent and extend/maintain their bases.

• Base Booster Packs. Available in game, and purchased at Atlas (or the red-side equivalent) using INF. These unlock decorative items that you can add to your base.
• Portable Rapid Transit Telepad. For a nominal fee, you can purchase a small device that allows you to teleport to the supergroup portal of any zone in the game, without having to visit your base. You just throw down a telepad and step on to it. Every zone in the game is listed. You must pay an initial registration fee, and then a monthly maintenance fee (all in INF) to maintain the service. You can cancel at any time. (This would be very useful to toons that aren't members of a supergroup.)
• PPD Monitoring System Access. For a nominal setup fee and a monthly maintenance fee, you can acquire a device that allows you to talk to any detective on your contact list without having to travel to him.
• Hospital Pharmacy Access. (This would require creating new contacts in hospitals.) For a nominal setup and monthly maintenance fee, you have access to the pharmacy located directly inside any hospital in which you are rezzed. From there you can purchase Respites, Awakens, Catch-A-Breath, and Break-Free inspirations, and all their larger equivalents. (The Paragon PPO, if you will.)
• Crisis Notification Service. This would require adding functionality to the (currently largely unused) Info Terminals scattered throughout the city. For the usual fees, you can access a list of missions available for completion in any of the zones level-appropriate to you. You can then add the mission to your list. (The Service becomes a paid contact.)

Meh, our economy has lost relevance already. It was that way (particularly heroside) before markets were even introduced, and there are too many places where it remains extremely out of balance.

About the only thing that Going Rogue could do to stabilize things is to offer a new well-controlled faucet-and-sink currency and make the old stuff irrelevant. That isn't going to happen, so best not to even pretend that there'll be anything but constant mudflation from here on out.

New characters tend to become influence sinks, at least as players IO them out. In short, anything that substantially influences the rate of new character creation will tend to influence prices for in-game items.

Making more money sinks that drive up the hassle costs of leveling up new characters could negatively influence new character creation rates; if new money sinks are created, hopefully that will be borne in mind.

On one hand, I like the conceptual idea. One of the common misconceptions about the economy of City of Heroes is that it is not a quote, "zero-sum-game" where theres no reason why you can have something that I can't have. In many aspects, City of Heroes does have a zero-sum-game system behind it.

Okay, to frame the perspective on this, lets make an assumption. That assumption is that putting IO's on your character is an intended part of the end-game, and that the developers intent is that all players should be in a position where they can completely IO a character with Rare sets in less than a year. Okay, with that framing set...

Now, the method of how in-game currency enters the game has already been addressed. Players earn rewards for defeating enemies and completing missions. To the developers credit they have come up with new ways of providing a supply of various items into the in-game economy. Players can use Vanguard Merits, Architecture Entertainment Tickets, Candy Cane Salvage, Task Force Merits, and just plain influence to supplement some types of in-game currency.

However, not all rewards can be achieved from an outside method. As hard as you might try otherwise, the only way to get a purple recipie is to defeat enemies within a specific level range... and the drop rate is incredibly low... and like other drops, seems to be weighted to drop not-very-useful purple sets... I've lost count of the number of sleep and confuse purples I've gotten, where as I can count the number of Melee and TAOE purples on one hand.

Another issue arrises in the merit cost of items that can be purchased by random rolls, either with Architecture Tickets or by Task Force Merits. Well, sorry. I've done the whole random rolls are the way to go... and I'm very confident in saying, no, its not. If you have a particular enhancement in mind that's available from a merit vendor... get it from the merit vendor directly. Now while this is fine if you are only buying a single Luck of the Gambler Proc, or a Single Numina Proc, or a Single Miracle proc... it's not so fine if you want to outfit... say a stone tank. If you have bouquet hours to play each week, yes, you might be able to farm enough task-forces to get the items you want in a reasonable amount of time for one avatar.... Reasonable amount of time defined as... say, in the amount of time it takes for a new issue to come out.

Which really links into the real problem. Players who have purple recipies, and the bouquet amounts of influence to be trading billions back and forth... generally have time to farm. Most of these players generally have dedicated farming avatars, as can be evidenced by the posts announcing somebody else has joined the billion influence in the bank club.

The reality is that players who are already in the billions influence club generally have the means to farm and get influence very easily. They already have the purpled out avatars and the right builds. Ergo, an influence sink isn't going to do anything to lower prices or raise supply of items. The players who already can afford the high(er) prices in wentworths will simply be able to keep affording them, and whichever new influence sink comes along.

The casual player is thus locked out. Somebody who only plays for maybe 6 hours total over a weekend hasn't got a prayer of ever running enough content to generate enough drops to get a full purple set. Even hardcore players that put in 20 hours a week or more that aren't doing repetitive farming, have problems running enough content to generate enough drops to get a full purple set.

So it really does become a situation of nah nah, I can have this, and you can't. Sorry, that is the game reality.

***

Okay, so City of Heroes is to some extent a zero-sum-game where some players are in a position due to time in game and free-time-to-play where they can pretty much afford anything that goes up on the market, because they are (mostly) the ones putting the currency items up on the market.

How to fix this problem?

We do know that the developers are aware of the problems. It's already been stated that Going Rogue will have a method by which level 50 players can make themselves more powerful. We don't know what that method is yet, but I'd expect a task force or event that garentees a purple drop. This would help increase the supply of purples coming into the game, and much like the old Hamidon Raids, players would have a shot at getting IO's they could use.

Another solution is to readjust the drop rate on current common and rare invention sets. The more recipies being dropped, the better chance a casual player has of getting a recipie they can use, or somebody else can use. Some recipies, like Pacing of the Turtle and Trap of the Hunter need to be scaled back.

While these may not be perfect solutions, or desirable solutions, I'm pretty sure that creating new stuff to sink influence into isn't going to solve the root of the supply problem.

Just to add a bit to the subject, there could also be influence sinks that scale to the player's level in form of temporary powers sold at the auction house - utility powers such as Recall or Stealth, with limited charges or usage time, or even expiring after a certain time since purchase.

On the whole, though, yeah, I agree something should be done about the inflation.

An open letter to NCsoft

I think if this game didn't have so many different forms of currency; Influence, Infamy, Prestige, Tailor tokens, Reward Merits, Vanguard Merits, AE Tickets, Candy Canes; etc this wouldn't be a problem. The dev team created this beast, I think it's about time to start merging some of these and adjusting the prices accordingly.