@Tuoni said in Economy Balance:

@Roccandil said in Economy Balance:

If you remove the ability for real money to speed progression, then you're simply making the game 24/7-to-win instead.

Yeah, that is exactly what gaming industry needs imo, equal content with no possibilities to buy advantages with real money.

I'm totally against that. That's what Atlas is like, and for me, it sucked. The game rewarded being online all the time: you couldn't take a break, or you'd simply log in to being dead and having all your stuff decayed or stolen (it just felt like someone coming behind you and deleting your savegames).

A well-designed MMO balances between people who have time and people who have money. That doesn't necessarily mean being able to buy an advantage with money, but at the very least, it -does- mean not being able to buy an advantage with time, either.

At the same time, however, development isn't free, and laborers are worthy of their hire.

@Tuoni said in Economy Balance:

@Roccandil said in Economy Balance:

@Tuoni said in Economy Balance:

In Albion Online I even saw situations where refined materials and crafted gear pieces where multiple times cheaper than the resources (of that item). So it was impossible to make any profit with crafting or refining. So quality over quantity would be much better choise from economy and crafting point of view.

To an extent, that's true, but one mitigating factor is fame (experience): if you buy the raw materials, refine them yourself, and craft the items yourself, you get all the experience. In effect, by buying raw materials you're buying experience opportunity.

I suspect a lot of lower-tier items on the market are simply byproducts of grinding crafting. If I get an excellent or masterwork item, for instance, I'll probably sell it instead of breaking it down to study.

Also, since Albion has implemented F2P (as well as new portals in cities?), the economy appears to have shifted from what you describe. The royal cities in the T4 lands have extremely busy markets, and there are significant differentials in goods between them and Caerleon: you just have to risk running goods through red PvP zones to exploit them.

I've done a little exploring of black zones as well, and it's easy to get to them now from other royal cities (if you want to risk it). At the moment, at least, I don't see any reason to move my center of operations to Caerleon (and I'm looking forward to new functionality such as hideouts).

I agree that fame has some influence to prices, but still the markets should not be in so bad shape. And because there is that fame factor it can be considered as p2w mechanic or at least p2Advantage when you can buy refining and crafting progression with real money.

While you can certainly power level by turning real money into silver, you're only going faster to the same goal. I think that's a legitimate tradeoff: some people have time to grind, but not money, and some people have money, but not time to grind.

If you remove the ability for real money to speed progression, then you're simply making the game 24/7-to-win instead.

@Tuoni said in Economy Balance:

In Albion Online I even saw situations where refined materials and crafted gear pieces where multiple times cheaper than the resources (of that item). So it was impossible to make any profit with crafting or refining. So quality over quantity would be much better choise from economy and crafting point of view.

To an extent, that's true, but one mitigating factor is fame (experience): if you buy the raw materials, refine them yourself, and craft the items yourself, you get all the experience. In effect, by buying raw materials you're buying experience opportunity.

I suspect a lot of lower-tier items on the market are simply byproducts of grinding crafting. If I get an excellent or masterwork item, for instance, I'll probably sell it instead of breaking it down to study.

Also, since Albion has implemented F2P (as well as new portals in cities?), the economy appears to have shifted from what you describe. The royal cities in the T4 lands have extremely busy markets, and there are significant differentials in goods between them and Caerleon: you just have to risk running goods through red PvP zones to exploit them.

I've done a little exploring of black zones as well, and it's easy to get to them now from other royal cities (if you want to risk it). At the moment, at least, I don't see any reason to move my center of operations to Caerleon (and I'm looking forward to new functionality such as hideouts).

Very cool! Didn't want to hear that about durability, though.

Welcome!

@Rofus

You can ignore forums in the Unread list (see the drop-down that defaults to All Categories). I wish you could save your settings, though.

@NiketNaidu said in Game Mechanics that I encountered in a Webnovel and would like to see incorporated into MMOs (including this one):

Combat system

• Another MMO problem is that we are progressing towards hack and slash.
• A combat system that requires skill to execute would be ideal rather than just smashing your combos or powers
• Both Mages and Melee could have keyboard combinations or any other mechanic that is easy to pick up but hard to master. (Similar to Kingdom Deliverance or Sekiro)

I prefer thought-based skill to twitch-based skill. "Slay the Spire" is a recent game I've played with good thought-based combat (deck-building, but hey!).

Death

• Failing higher ranked missions would cause crippling of user stats
• Death would result in a loss of XP
• Death inside a dungeon would have a lesser XP loss

This is something I -don't- want to see. Punish people for playing, and you'll have fewer people playing.

Generally, I find that loss of gear and map position is punishment enough.

PLAYER BASED TOWNS

• Player established towns would have various benefits as well as responsibilities
• Hiring NPC guards, Seige weapons installation and fortification against PVP or PVE
• Player Auction houses and stores would sell player based items (Competitive Sandbox Economics)
• Player bought houses would offer benefits when sleeping (20-30 percent extra XP gain when well rested)

NPC BASED TOWNS

• Depending on Player population can be upgraded when money spent goes above a threshold. This would make a town more prosperous upgrading it from town to city to empire
• NPC Based Towns can be raided by Players and captured.

I'd rather NPCs were part of player towns, and actually a part of what players build in their own towns. This could give player towns a distinct flavor even when players aren't logged in.

For instance, I'd love to be able to craft dialogue and responses into NPCs I've hired in my town, such that players visiting my town get a unique experience, even if I'm not playing at the moment to greet them.

I'd also want to be able to craft defenses that would be always online, even if I'm not. I don't like offline-raiding; it pushes people away, and is also immersion breaking.

In short, I really don't like player towns/villages being largely empty because people can't be online all the time. Player-crafted NPCs could help.

In Wurm Online, horses can have positive or negative traits. Breeding can preserve and add more traits to offspring, based on one's animal husbandry skill. Color is also involved.

Traits affect speed, carry weight, fighting ability, toughness, disease resistance, and longevity.

Animal husbandry is a really cool aspect of WO, and I'd love to see it here as well!

Awesome!

Welcome!

@Specter

Oh, wow: that's cool!

If it were my game, I'd consider the following:

• Defenses requiring a great deal of time/effort to make should not be easily breached;
• People cannot be indefinitely online to defend their base; this should be accounted for in some way, perhaps by allowing automated defenses to take over for logged-off citizens (each toon logged-off in the town adds to the defense);
• Logistics should be a significant obstacle to offensive actions (cross-planetary attacks being an excellent example, and it sounds like Fractured may have this covered already).

In short, it should not be easy to destroy or conquer bases; that's an effective way to lose population. (Also, there's a reason sieges were so popular in RL; it's hard and costly to assault a fortified city.)

@Gamble said in Increase of isometric perspectives games:

What’s the best game you have played with this design?

Probably Baldur's Gate II. So much atmosphere! (The lairs of the Beholders, or the Illithids, or the Dark Elves... not to mention the dragon encounters...)

Welcome!

The drawings seem like a good solution to potential accusations of favoritism, and I like them better than the "daily post" mechanic.

Rewarding quality, thoughtful posts over sheer volume seems preferable.

@Meiki

I like it; well thought out!

@Eurav said in Bought the Governor pack:

A town being a guild town does not mean that only people from the guild can live there.

That's cool; we can have embassies, maybe.

@Esher said in What is called human transform for Beastman?:

Maybe we can have a kind of werewolf But in fact, humans stay as boring as they are :3

I like the idea of a werewolf. Or even other kinds of "were" creatures. They don't necessarily have a "good" reputation, but a neutral Lich seems like justification enough for breaking the mold.

But, if humans could transform to Beastman, then they ought to be able to transform to Demons, too, just not as Abominations. Maybe as Vampires?

OK, those are cute! But they need a backstory. Possibilities:

• Ancient curse
• Mad magical experiment gone awry
• Selective pressure to adapt to fill a unique ecological niche

@Vortech

Yeah, the Foundation has been cool.