how would you revamp the entire economy and reward structure?

if you were given the opportunity by the devs to revamp all things economy and reward related how would you do it?

I wouldn't.

I would change all TFs that award 20+ merits to reward a random drop and 20 merits less than current values. The removal of random supply was bad for the market.

I'd also add extremely high conversion method for influence to any kind of merit as an influence sink.

I'd probably set out with great intentions and end up with 93 IO sets as beloved and balanced as Calibrated Accuracy.

1) Change the death penalty at level 50 from 'xp debt' to 'inf debt.' Characters receive half the normal inf (or maybe none) from defeating mobs until the debt is paid.

2) Reduce the price vendors pay for white recipes to 10% or the current value.

3) Increase the inf cap.

4) Give lvl 50+ AV's and GM's an increased chance to drop purple recipes.

5) Make the consignment system transparent. Show the bidding and selling prices.

Raise the inf cap and call it a day.

increasing the infl cap does nothing. all it will do is raise prices on the market higher then they already are. we have been over this several times. as for why the op asked: he wants things handed to him for little to no effort and has started mutiple threads about it.

Allow people to choose the level of their random rolls from merits, Alignment merits and AE tickets.

Increase the drop rate of pool C recipes from bosses below level 45. A small tweak but it'll add a few more mid-range pool Cs to the system.

Fix the "hide useful salvage warning" and "hide large listing fee warning" options so they actually stick.

Add at least two new Targeted AoE sets that don't suck, one of which should be uncommon and go to 50. Add an uncommon PBAoE set that goes to 50 and doesn't suck.

Raise the inf cap. I don't really need it because I keep spending my inf, but it will make some people happy, and the people who will be happy need it in order to better profit off other people's misery. That makes me happy.

I wouldn't really change all that much to be honest.

1. Increase the drop rate on purples and rares slightly.

2. Up the inf cap.

3. As others suggested, make merit-generating content that gives over 20 merits give 20 less plus one random roll.

4. Make some changes to how many merits certain things give out (cough, eden trial, cough cough)

5. Add in some kind of inf sink to keep inflation in check better.

As you can see, most of my changes would be minor tweaks, rather than complete overhauls of the system.

Cap all prices at 10mil so that casual players could purple their Warshades. I'd also limit the influence you can hold on one character to 200mil and on one account to 500mil.













On a more serious note, I wouldn't change anything.

I like the billboards praising for 1 billion. Heck....I'd probably keep that on perma-buy if it was in.

Lets see....what would I change........

1) There needs to be alot more pool C stuff dropping between 25-46 so I'd allow rolling of any level IO with merits at any level (a 50 could get level 45s even of sets to 50 if they wanted) and perhaps make the rolls cheaper for IOs not coming out at max level.

2) I'd lower the amerit cost of purples and PvP IOs just a little to be more in line with what I believe was the intent of the devs (lowering their prices) who don't have econ degrees. Not a huge change but like maybe 14 amerits for purples and 22 for PvP IOs. Perhaps I would set the PvP IO uniques to 25 or 30.

3) I'd add some new sets to sections which are really needing them (Targ AoE, etc)

4) I'd add purples for more sets (defense, resist, tons of others)

5) I'd make the purples have more varied benefits rather than mostly being identically good at increasing accuracy, recovery, and especially recharge. Perhaps I'd even add a 2nd purple set to the core ones (melee, ranged, PBAoE, Tar AoE)

6) I'd add new sets for mez powers (or perhaps just fix the existing ones) which actually do damage like damaging hold or whatever so that people using those sets could actually 6-slot a damage power and not do un-enhanced damage/accuracy.

7) I'd add a new type of enhancer to be ultra-rare in the 10-49 range. They wouldn't be as powerful as purples but good enough that people would seek them out even if only for frankenslotting.

8) I'd raise the inf cap.....because its not like people haven't worked around it anyhows.

9) I'd make more inf sinks in the game other than market fee and blowing inf up for prestige. I love the idea of selling the billboards for inf....not like the game is making actual $$$ off those so do the game a favor and remove some inf on shiny trinkets for the uber rich.

Can't think of more now.

Raise the inf cap.

Give users the option of accepting merits for TF and Trial completion or a random Pool C roll as long as the same TF isn't run more than once in a 24 hr period, otherwise declining merits as the reward.

Give users option of a random purple roll for completing multi-TF accolades like Task Force Commander.

Allow characters to craft IOs at merit vendors (e.g., make the merit vendor function as a crafting table.)

Allow users to retain (and thus vend) all crafted set IOs when respec'ing.

Allow users to claim inf from auction sales without returning to WW/BM.

I would change one thing, wait and see what the result was, and then change one more.

I think I'd start with allowing choosing the level of random merit rolls.

If I ran the zoo,

(1) I'd make all the proc, unique, and special IOs exist only at the minimum level.

Yes, I know that this would reduce the effect of some of these, but it would greatly simplify the reward and AH interfaces.

(2) Allow the level slider to set the level of the final recipe

(3) Make set bonuses work down to -5 levels, rather than -3

(4) Go crazy and force all set IOs to exist only at the 5s and 0s like standard IOs

First, I would debate whether the economy is currently problematic at all.

* Ultra Rare stuff is ... ultra rare, and expensive -- WAI

* Good Stuff - is fairly expensive, and available via several methods
(drops, inf/mkt, R-Merits, A-Merits). Apart from a few specific problem
areas (level of merit rolls, mid-level supply), this is also working well.

* Basic Stuff - has unlimited availablity and flat or even fixed (0 inflation) prices.
SO's cost the same as they did in I1, Common IO's have fixed prices from
the crafting tables, and salvage is easily available with drops, AE tix, or
the Mkt for reasonable pricing.

With a merged market - the economy is basically good.

So, what would I change?

Merits - prices are too high (not in themselves per se), but in comparison
to A-Merits and Mkt pricing ... They should be slightly better balanced imho.
Also, you should be able to select the specific level you want the recipe
at - this has been a no-brainer since minute one... I'm amazed this mechanism
hasn't been "fixed" yet. At least they did it better with A-Merits, so there's
some evidence to suggest they may revisit regular merits.

Task Forces: Reinstate the random drop -- nothing, imho, tanked mid-
level supply more than this single factor. Yes, other changes contributed,
but this was the biggie. Most goods are produced by high level players,
and when they were running exemplared TF's, they were producing
significant amounts of mid-range surplus. That was extremely beneficial to
the mid-range player base, and it completely dried up when they took away
tf rolls. I think that was a big mistake from a "Market Health" standpoint.
Additionally, it fostered a mindset in the playerbase that there was no
point in even bothering with IO's and sets until L50 - again, a Bad Thing
in my opinion.

Drop Pools: I have mixed feelings on Pools. The original idea was probably
to incent running certain types of content, but with merits, it no longer
matters. I'd seriously consider simplifying the entire idea, and set simple
drop values based on perceived value of the shinies and let everything
have a chance to drop with mobs (ie. Pool A). Were I a dev for this game,
I'd certainly want to research it a bit more, but I'd think about it for sure.

With gleemail, I'd see no need or reason to change the inf cap at all. I
might rethink supply/drop rates to mitigate overcap pricing, but for ultra
rares, I'm not sure I'd have an issue with "exhorbitant" prices.

For non Purple/PvP, I might consider putting some select sets in the
stores, at reasonable caps, similar to common IO recipes which are
essentially price-capped (for all but the seriously impatient or galactically
stupid) through the crafting tables. Again, that would be a distant thought.

By and large though, the only real economic issues I see are mid-level
market supply, and some inflation on sets (esp High-end, Ultra rares
mostly). I'm not all that concerned by the latter of those.


Regards,
4

I don't think there is too much wrong with the ecomony, but I think a few changes should be made so that the lower reaches of 'IOness' should be easier to reach, while still keeping the top stuff expensive, but ironing out the rediculous prices some things go for.

- Ignore the reward pool for merit prices, the good IO's that people want should cost more merits then the stuff nobody wants, regardless of pool (Or just plain rework the pools).

- Lower level stuff should cost less merits than higher level stuff, with the exception of procs and uniques.

- TF's should give reward based on the difficulty you set. Those rewards should include one random recipe and x merits so even the currently worthless TF's like Eden and Katie no longer give less than they used to.

- Rework TF's to no longer be 'speed runable'. Yes that is right, make people actually earn their merits!

- Up the drop rate for PvP IO's.

- Set caps on items in the market (High caps - but realistic caps) so that items are no longer able to be sold for 2bil+ etc.

- Remove the inf cap per toon, but set a global inf cap instead. There is such a thing as too much inf.

I think the net result of all these changes is that entry level IO's will be easier to get, high level IO's will remain expensive but constrained and merit earning will actually be linked with time rather than scewed as it is now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

Definitely, allow people to pick the exact level of rewards. I don't dislike the idea of making procs only exist at one level; that's actually sorta neat.

Possibly some kind of more complete pricing history. Something like 24-hour and 1-week highs and lows might be useful. I'm not totally sold on the consignment model at all, though -- the net effect is that a huge chunk of the demand and supply you see is functionally irrelevant because it's priced wayyyy out of range.

I am somewhat tempted by the notion of making common IOs exist at every level, not just multiples of 5.