Yes, the economy is in a sad state. Unfortunately, many of the players that are 76+ have a large pool of adena and need INSANE quantities of mats to craft their gear so they are buying out the market.
If the MANOR system were not so pathetic the market could correct itself. As it stands it is nearly impossible to BUY seeds and even harder to redeem the fruits for materials. I wish it would be fixed ...
Key materials [varnish, iron ore, animal bones, coal, charcoal, thread, stems, etc.] are required in such massive amounts to make A grade and S grade items there needs to be another way to get them. Maybe NCSoft should add a basic materials NPC that sells the mats at 4X the standard price to curb in-game inflation. This would be kind of analogous to adding the Blacksmith of Mammon and Merchant of Mammon. Just add the mats to the Merchant of Mammon and set the price to 4X the standard price payable in AA. At that price level it still doesn't nerf the Scav/BH class but at the same time sets bounds on the economy.
Yes, the economy is in a sad state. Unfortunately, many of the players that are 76+ have a large pool of adena and need INSANE quantities of mats to craft their gear so they are buying out the market.
If the MANOR system were not so pathetic the market could correct itself. As it stands it is nearly impossible to BUY seeds and even harder to redeem the fruits for materials. I wish it would be fixed ...
Key materials [varnish, iron ore, animal bones, coal, charcoal, thread, stems, etc.] are required in such massive amounts to make A grade and S grade items there needs to be another way to get them. Maybe NCSoft should add a basic materials NPC that sells the mats at 4X the standard price to curb in-game inflation. This would be kind of analogous to adding the Blacksmith of Mammon and Merchant of Mammon. Just add the mats to the Merchant of Mammon and set the price to 4X the standard price payable in AA. At that price level it still doesn't nerf the Scav/BH class but at the same time sets bounds on the economy.
Oriharukun Ore 45.000 in BUY shops, 75-200.000 in SELL shops????
Steel at 25.000 in BUY shops and 30-50.000 in SELL shops????
Prices are just insane.
We need an event that drops mats and rare recipes to stop this insane "alternate market boosting" spiral.
Wow, this is Erica?? Glad I'm not there. At these prices though, folks will make dwarves to spoil the mats. Field mobs USED to drop mats in stacks, but that was changed to single drops (except in the cata/necros, and certain mobs which seem to have been missed.)
The Manor System could correct this too, if ordinary players were able to use it effectively. We know what is making that part difficult. I can only think of one way to address the current situation: Have the manor dude receive ALL sell orders during a period of time, it could be the whole day, or a portion of it. After that time, the Manor randomly selects from the submitted orders which orders get 'bought' and distributes the rewards to those folks. The others get their crops back, and can try again. The system could be set to accept the smallest orders first (folks turning in 9000 red coda would come last in line,) but I would not have a set rule, as certain folks can adjust to fixed rules. I would make the selection criteria random.
Right now, turning in is a timing contest: Can the human click his/her finger at just the right moment to beat certain other methods of turning in crops?
In fact, I'm not convinced that it's not mostly human run and people are just making excuses for why they never get their crops turned in.
Regardless, it would be cool to do some kind of turn in like you meantion where everyone turns in their crops, and then the system does some kind of lottery drawing to see who's gets bought.
Make it like hunting licenses, where each day the people who's crops are bought get removed from the lotto, but the people who don't get bought have their name added a second time the next day.. so that it is weighted towards the people who have been waiting the longest.
Trying to do something where less crops come first is easily exploitable, and ends up favoring someone with access to alot of accounts...
maybe, problem as I see it is how little I and most other past 40 want to manor, the possible recipe drops and other odds and ends is usually just more enticing than farming a bunch of fruits. Not to mention it slows down leveling speed a bit, and you wouldn't be doing it in a group normally.
Here's my mat fix: Increase regular mat drops a little bit, increase BH mat Spoils a TON.
I think the manor is a problem because it is player based and not set up automatically by NCsoft. I don't think an event is going to help with the base mat prices, the only thing I see correcting this is an improved drop and spoil rate.
I think the manor is a problem because it is player based and not set up automatically by NCsoft. I don't think an event is going to help with the base mat prices, the only thing I see correcting this is an improved drop and spoil rate.
I agree while it now seems nice to spoil 10-15 Animal bone per mob, that should be what your getting at lvl 30-40 not lvl 60+. We really need to see a return of the C2 high spoil rates. That owuld encourage ppl to use thier Bh's again.
HOwever having said that I would like to thank this post. In the matter of 24 hrs prices for said mat have gone from 700a (which I bought 12k at) to 1300 or more which is making me a tidy profit.
I've been all around with my scavy besides OB, the majority of what I see being spoiled is Heal pots, or tiger eye jewl crap, dark stocking fab of course. These are the things I get most. I did get an ewD though so I guess that makes up for not getting base mats, but still thats the exception
Adamantite nugget is near impossible to find, at least on kain. The only seed that gives it is a lvl 28 or something seed and it is Reward 2. So rare, and half the ppl don't set the manor up right. Also considering one castle controls the adamantite manor.
Mats are insane.
Also a stage 12 Soul crystal for 80mil...WTH is that? That costs more than the weapon. :mad:
All I have to say is, it is time to put more quests, spoils, drops, of mats in game... And at the very least, a event where you can get steel, mold hardener, enria, adamantite nuggets, synthetic cokes, orihaurkan ore...ect.
Also have an event where we can get some more stage 11 and 12 crystals....or make easier raidbosses able to lvl them up...not only like antharas or somhat...
The Manor System could correct this too, if ordinary players were able to use it effectively. We know what is making that part difficult. I can only think of one way to address the current situation: Have the manor dude receive ALL sell orders during a period of time, it could be the whole day, or a portion of it. After that time, the Manor randomly selects from the submitted orders which orders get 'bought' and distributes the rewards to those folks. The others get their crops back, and can try again. The system could be set to accept the smallest orders first (folks turning in 9000 red coda would come last in line,) but I would not have a set rule, as certain folks can adjust to fixed rules. I would make the selection criteria random.
Right now, turning in is a timing contest: Can the human click his/her finger at just the right moment to beat certain other methods of turning in crops?
Actually, its the pile of humans waiting at every manager in every town. On Hinde these are mostly clanned players as well. Personally I'm pumping a seed type per day in returns. The manor doesn't need to do anything but GROW LARGER. More adena is available than ever (this is a function of server lifetime) and that means one of two things: Destroy more adena (GKs) or increase mat production. Take the max seed up 10x and manors won't be saturated. There are plenty of lazy people.
If the MANOR system were not so pathetic the market could correct itself. As it stands it is nearly impossible to BUY seeds and even harder to redeem the fruits for materials. I wish it would be fixed ...
I dunno - the manor seems pretty fair on Seighardt.
Your lords have the buybacks at very low amounts or something? I've never seen someone not able to turn their seeds in if they tried a few days for the popular ones - with how many manors there are.
I remember when you could spoil stacks of 18 CBP on ToI 10th... Those were the days...
Ya and what was the reasoning behind nerfing those spoils. Hmmm sure wasn't becuse real players were getting thousands of CBP. Oh ya the implemented the manor system so everyone could get that much CBP. Oh wait no you can't unless you are able to be online at exactley the right times to cross your fingers click your heart out for 2 seconds to see "sorry your to slow come back tomorrow".
Thats how they make it fair, instead of letting the dwarph's with people actually controling them do thier job.
Yes, the economy is in a sad state. Unfortunately, many of the players that are 76+ have a large pool of adena and need INSANE quantities of mats to craft their gear so they are buying out the market.
very true. high lvl players who craft need a lot of materials to craft anything. Something you will need 13k+ animal bones, 5k+ varnish, 7k thread and iron ore and the list goes on. The drop rates on materials is so bad.
Does it make sense to anyone why the lvl 75+ mobs at the silenos drop and spoil metal hardener? This material is used for only C grade weapons, weapons for lvl 40 - 52. Why are lvl 75, some lvl 80+, mobs dropping/spoiling this item? My clan gets these and we NPC them, sorry people in C grade, this item is like a short bow staff to us, completely useless, not even worth the time to set up shop with it.
I've been all around with my scavy besides OB, the majority of what I see being spoiled is Heal pots, or tiger eye jewl crap, dark stocking fab of course. These are the things I get most. I did get an ewD though so I guess that makes up for not getting base mats, but still thats the exception
ill buy all of your dark stocking fabrics, hopefully you havent shopped them yet? >.< crafting D grade gear and crushing it is a great way to make money, D grade key mats are not a waste of a spoil. heal pots however may be sort of a waste if you dualbox a healer with your dwarf, but very few mobs spoil these.
I dunno - the manor seems pretty fair on Seighardt.
Your lords have the buybacks at very low amounts or something? I've never seen someone not able to turn their seeds in if they tried a few days for the popular ones - with how many manors there are.
This thread needs to stay up top because it is still a MAJOR concern for the L2 community. Prices still suck nothing has changed since this thread was started.
Ooohhh, its one of those mysterious dwarf cults we see on every server. They even seem to have some mandatory dresscodes and behavior. :D
Gorgeous, LC.
And Maline is keeping saying the manor system is all good and we should learn better. Sure.
Well, on Lionna I only see something like that in Dion, have never seen in in Aden, HV, Gludin or Gludio, and not Oren ether.. Oh, and guess what, Even Dion got toons of different races there, that a step forward, right :)?
Why is the market so messed up? We all know the drops suck *** in this game and made for the unlegit.
Who knew this? This is for a som, a weapon that is crafted a lot and is A grade. Now, for the materials that you need a lot of
Not a single mob in the game higher then lvl 62 spoils Iron Ore. Need 3500+
Not a single mob in the game higher then lvl 60 spoils animal bones. Need 5500+
Not a single mob in the game higher then lvl 59 spoils varnish. Need 2100+
Not a single mob in the game higher then lvl 55 spoils coal. Need 1400+
Not a single mob in the game higher then lvl 59 spoils charcoal. Need 1400+
Not a single mob in the game higher then lvl 57 spoils thread. Need 4000+
Anyone see a problem with this? Drop rates are horrible. Material spoil is only good up to lvl 60. These numbers are twice as bad for S grade weapons.
Then answere this. Metal Hardener which is only used in C grade weapons, nothing else, guess what, it spoils from mobs that are lvl 80+. WHY?????
Goldshlager brings up some great points. It seems that the game is structured to form some sort of symbiosis between relatively lower / higher level characters. This is similar to the symbiosis between classes - buffer, healer, tank, DD etc.
Lower levels required to farm all of the key basic mats: as Goldshlager stated. Since high level characters can't farm these mats, and since they require so many mats to craft A and S weapons, and since they typically have more adena at their disposal, the prices are driven up. There needs to be a better way to introduce these key basic mats back into the system - either NPC selling them as I suggested earlier, or an improved manor system making it possible for any level character to turn in fruits for any type of mat, or the often proposed skill of an artisan / warsmith / maestro to "crush" items into basic mats [this last is my favorite method btw particularly if the effectiveness of crushing put the "cost" of the mat at 4X or more the standard price so that the Scav/BH/FS class was not nerfed].
Higher levels required to farm armor / weapon parts and recipes: most (but not all) parts and recipes required for top grade armor and weapons are found on mobs considerably higher level than the item grade. A wierd exception is the quest for A grade weapons. This requires regular coins (which can only be effectively farmed by level 61 or lower characters) and Kail's coins (again only farmed effectively by level 66 or below). This did change in C4 when drops were added for A weapon recipes. Given that A grade weapons are in use until level 76 now it is quite shocking that the quest is so disfunctional. They should add higher level mobs dropping regular and Kail's coins.
prices like these are why people turn to ebaying. I just checked one site and found out that the price of 100 million was about 70 usd. If you have a job making around 7.50 an hour you can buy 100 mil after a little more than 10 hours of working. How long does it take to get 100 mil in lineage 2 through farming on your own? Unless you get a lucky a grade helm drop it would probably take at least 90 hours of hardcore farming. That is what causes people to just buy money instead of spending 20 hours of their life to collect 5,000 bones on their own.
Please don't get this post locked by talking specifics about illegal activities. I know it's a real concern, but I the discussion on prices will run the risk of getting the topic locked.
1. Manor system
-Yes I play the manor and my dwarf is naked too. I have a normal name but recently I equipped him with some dark stockings so I dont look like a bot. At 8:00pm I stop whatever I am doing, log him in and go to the manor keeper.
lvl 1-14 I didnt really manor
lvl 14-24 I manor'd animal skin. It was relatively cheap for the seeds. From 20-24 I manor'd in the catacombs. I ended up with around 20-30,000 animal skin in a week or two. Takes about 6 a skin to make 1 leather. So you can figure out the margins here.
24-30 You ca n still manor A skin, its a good time to start checking out the gludio manor system. It covers a very large area and the rewards are good.
29-39 I call these the golden manor times. These level ranges allow you to farm animal bone and/or varnish. I rarely have trouble buying seeds on bartz if I show up on time. I can sell back fruit about 2/3rds of the time. Most nights I just turn in 500-800 fruit and get between 1500-2000 a bone which leads to 2.4 million adena or 2000 coarse bone powder. I am on bartz and I can beat the bots with a human hand the majority of times.
39-69 The manor can be experienced all over the place. Personally, I keep my spoiler around 36 so I can still use these and because I really dont want to bother with his second class change. He is my money maker and I try to seed and polearm an hour or so a night and thats enough to fund my whole lineage 2 career on my main and my alt.
I also farm areas where there are mid d grade kep parts and very low c grade armor parts. I can make these items and get 116 d crystals for each earring crush and 50 c crystals for each armor crush. This adds up in a hurry and I can then buy items via the luxurious item shop in giran and sell them back on the market.
You see, you may not necessarily be able to make all your riches on your main. I understand everything in this game is a grind. I could have tried to grind it out with just my main but I decided to make a lvl 40 crafter and a 3x spoiler because I understand making money is not something that comes by default, it is a skill like anything else in this game including pvp.
I refuse to buy mats from bots and they never see my money. I can almost always manor anything I want but sometimes I have to wait a few days but I have the patience.
The only people that cant make money are
1. People who wont wait a few days to make a few million and want something right now no matter what.
2. People who are too lazy or too stupid to figure out how to make money (much more often they are more lazy than stupid).
Money can be made and even more importantly mats can be made which is what all gear requires to get.
You dont like my methods? Go level in necros and buy d armor enchants for about 45k from the merchant of mamoon, you can sell them for 120k minimum a piece. You sell 10 a day and you are pulling in an extra 800k just because other players are too lazy or dumb to realize that they are really cheap and people just try to price gouge. So, for those who say you cant make money or you cant get mats, think again because I am living proof that it is possible and that it really isnt very hard /thread
Goldshlager brings up some great points. It seems that the game is structured to form some sort of symbiosis between relatively lower / higher level characters. This is similar to the symbiosis between classes - buffer, healer, tank, DD etc.
Lower levels required to farm all of the key basic mats: as Goldshlager stated. Since high level characters can't farm these mats, and since they require so many mats to craft A and S weapons, and since they typically have more adena at their disposal, the prices are driven up. There needs to be a better way to introduce these key basic mats back into the system - either NPC selling them as I suggested earlier, or an improved manor system making it possible for any level character to turn in fruits for any type of mat, or the often proposed skill of an artisan / warsmith / maestro to "crush" items into basic mats [this last is my favorite method btw particularly if the effectiveness of crushing put the "cost" of the mat at 4X or more the standard price so that the Scav/BH/FS class was not nerfed].
Higher levels required to farm armor / weapon parts and recipes: most (but not all) parts and recipes required for top grade armor and weapons are found on mobs considerably higher level than the item grade. A wierd exception is the quest for A grade weapons. This requires regular coins (which can only be effectively farmed by level 61 or lower characters) and Kail's coins (again only farmed effectively by level 66 or below). This did change in C4 when drops were added for A weapon recipes. Given that A grade weapons are in use until level 76 now it is quite shocking that the quest is so disfunctional. They should add higher level mobs dropping regular and Kail's coins.
I love the idea of the WS or Arti being able to crush items in game, down to the bare bones materials that made it up. I think that is enough of a boost for those players to make it worth while. The manor system is too unstable due to player control to really make a difference imo.
Breaking stuff down into base materials is a cool idea, would definately add a twist on things. I always thought that the very basic key elements should be sold in NPC stores. Stuff like animal bones and skins, etc.
Also besides manor there are quests that have materials as rewards. My clan uses a mix of spoiling, questing, and manor to get what we need for crafting projects. Occasionally we will buy materials from the market but we are doing that less and less as the prices continue to go up. I flat out refused to buy animal bones when they were up to 4k each. They are back down to 1200a each now, but that is still overpriced if you ask me.
You're still missing the very important part that the money you're making there really isn't significant when we're talking 9 or 10 digit expenses.
Heck, if I wanted to properly equip my mains in a-grade (plus SAs) I am looking at expenses of TWO POINT FIVE BILLION ADENA, yes thats right 2,500,000,000 Adena. I have manored so much it makes others jaws drop, I've been run most of dions commerce for a whole year, I've gained tons of stuff from events, sold old clan and my own items for a couple of hundred million adena. Even with all that, I can't even get close to anything like that.
I love the idea of the WS or Arti being able to crush items in game, down to the bare bones materials that made it up. I think that is enough of a boost for those players to make it worth while. The manor system is too unstable due to player control to really make a difference imo.
Yeah, its an awesome idea, I would love to see that.
Barring that, some event that gives mats and rare recipes as rewards would be awesome too.
You're still missing the very important part that the money you're making there really isn't significant when we're talking 9 or 10 digit expenses.
Heck, if I wanted to properly equip my mains in a-grade (plus SAs) I am looking at expenses of TWO POINT FIVE BILLION ADENA, yes thats right 2,500,000,000 Adena. I have manored so much it makes others jaws drop, I've been run most of dions commerce for a whole year, I've gained tons of stuff from events, sold old clan and my own items for a couple of hundred million adena. Even with all that, I can't even get close to anything like that.
Apparently your definition of properly equip goes beyond all realms of anything I have even seen in game. To reach 2.5 billion you would have the following
Full majestic set 250mil
Top A grade weapon 200 mil or less
Stage 13 soul crystal 130-160 mil
This is still ovr what would be paid on bartz but I made it for the sake of argument. So lets say you level your own crystal with your clan or dont get an SA
Full maj set 250mil
top A weapon 200 mil
Hmmm well we arent even at .5 billion yet, wth are you buying that costs 2.5 billion? +16 sword of miracles or?
Yes, I missed jewels which still have you well well under 1 billion. Yes, if you wanted full jewel set of raid boss jewels that would definately cost. My sps can get decked out in A grade for a few hundred mil no problem. Already made my +8 homu (need +10 to match som) and dc robes and jewels and off I go.
Yes, I missed jewels which still have you well well under 1 billion. Yes, if you wanted full jewel set of raid boss jewels that would definately cost. My sps can get decked out in A grade for a few hundred mil no problem. Already made my +8 homu (need +10 to match som) and dc robes and jewels and off I go.
+10 Homu/acu is good to have but need higher to match SOM since most people have a +3 SOM/acumen. But I wouldn't turn down a +10 Homu/acu.
It cost me 340mil for DC set, +10 Homu/acu and full set of +3 majestic jewels. Crafting the helm and boots, unsealing everything myself and +3 all the jewelry is included in that cost.
Sold everything I had and spent a month in Giran buying and selling to get that. Yes I got some good deals and I also failed on crafting the gloves and 3 pieces of jewelry but I dodn't include that in the price.
Yes, I missed jewels which still have you well well under 1 billion. Yes, if you wanted full jewel set of raid boss jewels that would definately cost. My sps can get decked out in A grade for a few hundred mil no problem. Already made my +8 homu (need +10 to match som) and dc robes and jewels and off I go.
Bottom line is regardless prices are insane, to argue about somones math doesn't change the bottom line, those that farm 24/7/365, lower drop just makes them all that richer (please don't get into particulars with rebutals) think back to C1 no manor and cheap mats 25% over npc buyback, so whats so different? reduced drop rates,that was implemented to solve a problem that only escalated it. Yes basic mats should be available of apropriate lvl i.e. mobs lvl 18 should drop/spoil mats/oarts needed for low d grade and and increase with mob lvl coresponding to def and atk attributes of parts and the cycle starting again at 38 with low end c mats and parts and continue to to highest lvl in that fashion, with rare parts or top of line by quest or spoil so dwarf scav/bh don't get nerfed. So say like finished item d grade requres x amt. steel, x amt cpb etc that those items be avail by drop from mobs in that class range or an s grade item x amt steel x amt cpb x amt asof etc dropped from that class of mob, and if basic mats are needed (not like bones for cpb) but as individual ingredient then those should be droped by mobs in that range. In a nutshell what im saying is that if it needed to make an item in a certain class then those mobs within that lvl should be dropping them at a resonable rates, cause the way it is now, is going to kill the game, leaving only the true hardcore diehard and you can guess the other.
Well, I see a lot of A grade around and the best armor sets are still not extremely common. Increase the mat drops and all you will end up is with A and S grade majestic sets as common as a karmian set on a buffer during C grade which I dont think anyone wants. I know I will be able to make my own A grade or at least sell enough mats to afford it by that time. If you dont want to spend the time or assume that the top gear of each level should be yours just from standard grinding then you have a very incorrect perception of what this game is. I posted 5 paragraphs the last page about how I make money and not one person refuted any of it and barely even acknowledge it because there is nothing to doubt about it...you can get mats and make gear if you want to take the time to do so.
I dont want to be part of a game where everything is so common that anyone can get it with ease. Adena being worth less just hurts people that buy adena more and helps me more because I actually earn my money by collecting mats and crystals. So in the end its the ebayers that are still losing and the hard working player can still win.
I dont want to be part of a game where everything is so common that anyone can get it with ease. Adena being worth less just hurts people that buy adena more and helps me more because I actually earn my money by collecting mats and crystals. So in the end its the ebayers that are still losing and the hard working player can still win.
Because you can sell those mats you get for the inflated price, you're ok with inflation? What about the adena drops from a monster?
The entire game experience, particularly the market, has become a symptom of the greater problem. The normal methods of gaining cash as intended by the game's designers have become obsolete, playing the market wouldn't be nearly as profitable as it is now if people didn't think in terms of RL $$ when they look at that S Grade! The economy is inextricably bound up into this cycle, and only strict regulation will increase the value of the adena once more.
No, thats not the meaning behind my post. My post is regarding not having to worry about the price of mats because I dont have to buy more than 15% of the mats I need when I need to craft gear for my main. Every MMORPG has problems after a while with money losing value. Everything starts out fairly low but as time and methods move along, there is always going to be inflation. I think SS was a fantastic idea for a money sink but like its been said certain 'players' dont use any SS and only farm adena without spending it.
I dont think much can be done with it at this point. We will pretty much go as the market goes and I imagine the market will go on. I never played lineage 1 so I dont know how things ended up when that game came end of life but I feel inflation can be partially controlled but in the end the player base or the in game currency farmers cannot be stopped.
I guess a good example would be WoW. I am sure they are having the same problem now and I dont remember having any money sinks in that game. Its late, I dont even know if I am making sense now and will evaluate this thread tomorrow
No MMORPG I have ever played has alienated the original economic system as completely as Lineage2, so it's hard to point to inflation in other games for comparison. The extent of the damage has already caused irrevocable harm to the game's reputation. Even people who have never played the game know what's going on. That says a lot!
Bottom line is regardless prices are insane, to argue about somones math doesn't change the bottom line, those that farm 24/7/365, lower drop just makes them all that richer (please don't get into particulars with rebutals) think back to C1 no manor and cheap mats 25% over npc buyback, so whats so different? reduced drop rates,that was implemented to solve a problem that only escalated it. Yes basic mats should be available of apropriate lvl i.e. mobs lvl 18 should drop/spoil mats/oarts needed for low d grade and and increase with mob lvl coresponding to def and atk attributes of parts and the cycle starting again at 38 with low end c mats and parts and continue to to highest lvl in that fashion, with rare parts or top of line by quest or spoil so dwarf scav/bh don't get nerfed. So say like finished item d grade requres x amt. steel, x amt cpb etc that those items be avail by drop from mobs in that class range or an s grade item x amt steel x amt cpb x amt asof etc dropped from that class of mob, and if basic mats are needed (not like bones for cpb) but as individual ingredient then those should be droped by mobs in that range. In a nutshell what im saying is that if it needed to make an item in a certain class then those mobs within that lvl should be dropping them at a resonable rates, cause the way it is now, is going to kill the game, leaving only the true hardcore diehard and you can guess the other.
I agree with all basic mats anyway. Here is the big problem I see.
If a lvl 5 mob only drops 1 mat at a time then a lvl75 mob should be dropping 10-12 at a time.
I never have understood why at lvl 65 the mobs I hunt now only drop 1 mat instead of several.
yup you get it, like that, this game is meant/designed to be played for a long long time, and thats good. There are many things to do and see in this game. I'm not saying flood the market with mats/parts adenda but adjust drop spoil rates to break the strangle hold that those that sell adenda and items/accounts for rl money have. I'm not saying that S grade should be a given thing but, it should be attainable. Some ppl just don't seem to understand (or do because it fits into their own personal agenda/greed) This is one reason why we have a shrinking legit player base. I know for one thing, items sold by NPC are not over inflated (unless they are oe or scam) so like I said in another post, lower end grade items B,A and S should be sold through npc store like the one in Giran.
Inflation.
Inflation is caused because over time the amount of adena in the game has gone up and up and up, unchecked, whereas the amount of available mats has remained fairly constant.
So.. if we all have lots of adena, but there aren't many mats, it stands to reason that we're all going to offer more adena for the existing mats.
That is inflation.
It would seem at a glance that it would be simple to fix, as some have pointed out, but just increasing mat drops and availability. In fact, this won't help much because for starters, the extremely overpriced items (A grade armor/helms) are not overpriced because of mats. In addition, the mat market simply stabilizes itself naturally. ie. If I see bones and varnish on the super cheap, I buy them and craft something to make a little exra cash.
The only real solution to the inflation issue is to get more adena out of the system. In the other thread, I talked about how there are hardly any adena sinks in the game and how the people generating the most adena pretty much avoid them. (No shots, in gear 2 grades below their level, farming 24/7)
I just had another thought though. There is another way to remove some pretty massive chunks of adena from the system. It's not a popular idea though, especially here on the OF, but what the hell, it's Friday.
Ban the farmer crews who are selling the adena. They have tremendous amounts of adena sitting around, drop the hammer on them. I bet we'd all crap ourselves if we even had a clue as to how much raw adena is sitting in those guys' accounts.
Regardless, the only way Mat prices are ever going to drop and then stay low long term is if NC removes some Adena from the economy.
The only real solution to the inflation issue is to get more adena out of the system [...] there are hardly any adena sinks in the game and how the people generating the most adena pretty much avoid them. (No shots, in gear 2 grades below their level, farming 24/7)
OK I like this line of thought. It is rather exciting to see some original thinking in this thread.
One thing that could be done to increase the "adena sinks" in game is to make it more beneficial to use SS. Perhaps increase the damage output of melee weapons or increase the attack speed of melee weapons (note that I deliberately say MELEE weapons as we all know it is the melee classes not archers that need a boost in damage output). I'm not sure this will encourage farmers to use SS but it might.
Another possibility would be to have BSpS increase the probability of spoils landing. This would surely be used by farmers and it would also address 2 issues directly: increase the generation of mats and decrease the pool of adena.
No one likes my idea that totally resolves the issue.
Durability.
Make it so you have to buy consumables from the town BS, or even pay the BS to fix your stuff up.
Over time, the gear degrades, and it's effectiveness drops..
This sinks a certain amount of adena right out of the game at the exact point where it enters the game.
On top of that.. those people who hunt 24/7 would be stuck right in the eye.
I dont want to be part of a game where everything is so common that anyone can get it with ease. Adena being worth less just hurts people that buy adena more and helps me more because I actually earn my money by collecting mats and crystals. So in the end its the ebayers that are still losing and the hard working player can still win.
Because you can sell those mats you get for the inflated price, you're ok with inflation? What about the adena drops from a monster?
The entire game experience, particularly the market, has become a symptom of the greater problem. The normal methods of gaining cash as intended by the game's designers have become obsolete, playing the market wouldn't be nearly as profitable as it is now if people didn't think in terms of RL $$ when they look at that S Grade! The economy is inextricably bound up into this cycle, and only strict regulation will increase the value of the adena once more.
Please don't respond to me if its not my post you're quoting :(
Bighands, the problem with Adena sinks is that they simply put lesser players at a disadvantage and further drive the prices up for them. And if you put the "sink" at the level where lesser players aren't affected as much, it won't affect the billion adena fully decked in s-grade and boss jewelry crowd.
The better way is to simply inflate the other way, inflate the amount of materials and recipes available, either through changes in gameplay or outright making the events useful (like a medal system where instead of buying mostly useless stuff, you can buy mats and rare recipes)
can you explain? If people play less, their weapons don't degrade as much was my thinking.
Because you have to spend a certain amount of time in town doing maintenance on your gear. That time is fairly static (think of having to go to town and resupply yourself, and then get back to your hunting spot). That cuts into your already limited time.
hmmm so what if dwarves could craft (or you could buy) a repair item of some kind (equating to something like a sharpening tool for weapons or armor patches for . . . armor) so you wouldn't have to leave your hunting spot?
hmmm so what if dwarves could craft (or you could buy) a repair item of some kind (equating to something like a sharpening tool for weapons or armor patches for . . . armor) so you wouldn't have to leave your hunting spot?
does durability become more feasable?
Durability is supposed to be a time/money sink. Don't add it then take away the inconvenience. Just don't add it in the first place.
It's not just the time, it's the added cost. You now have to farm money to keep your equipment up and people with limited play time already have more than enough they have to farm for...
It's not just the time, it's the added cost. You now have to farm money to keep your equipment up and people with limited play time already have more than enough they have to farm for...
Exactly, ok its not totally RPG but it would ruin the economy even more then the situation already is now on all servers.
It's not just the time, it's the added cost. You now have to farm money to keep your equipment up and people with limited play time already have more than enough they have to farm for...
Plus I'd want to punch every dorf in the face for crafting such crappy gear to begin with... :mad:
I dont want to be part of a game where everything is so common that anyone can get it with ease. Adena being worth less just hurts people that buy adena more and helps me more because I actually earn my money by collecting mats and crystals. So in the end its the ebayers that are still losing and the hard working player can still win.
Because you can sell those mats you get for the inflated price, you're ok with inflation? What about the adena drops from a monster?
The entire game experience, particularly the market, has become a symptom of the greater problem. The normal methods of gaining cash as intended by the game's designers have become obsolete, playing the market wouldn't be nearly as profitable as it is now if people didn't think in terms of RL $$ when they look at that S Grade! The economy is inextricably bound up into this cycle, and only strict regulation will increase the value of the adena once more.
Please don't respond to me if its not my post you're quoting :(
Bighands, the problem with Adena sinks is that they simply put lesser players at a disadvantage and further drive the prices up for them. And if you put the "sink" at the level where lesser players aren't affected as much, it won't affect the billion adena fully decked in s-grade and boss jewelry crowd.
The better way is to simply inflate the other way, inflate the amount of materials and recipes available, either through changes in gameplay or outright making the events useful (like a medal system where instead of buying mostly useless stuff, you can buy mats and rare recipes)
Doing what you suggest, increasing availability of mats and such, will actually make the economy far worse than it is now. Here's why:
OK. So we keep the same adena income and sinks that we have now. Let's say we bump up the availability of items needed for crafting across the board.
The short term result:
A glut of materials, which leads to a glut of items. The result is that the common stuff, including items and mats, drops.
Sounds great right? WRONG.
We would end up with a large seperation between common items and mats and uncommon ones. In todays game, we'd see stuff like A grade weapons selling for 15 mil, and A grade helms selling for 500 mil. The cheap stuff would get cheaper and the expensive stuff would get more expensive.
The key to it all is that you can only charge as much for an item as people have. If people are out there that have 500 mil, then you can charge that much for a rare and desirable item. If people only have 30 mil, then you can only charge 30.
In a nutshell, adding more mats and such will just drop the price on the common stuff and cause the uncommon stuff to be even more expensive. In addition it will pretty much kill the people who are making their money crafting the common items now. Hell I know people who make millions off of the manor, and the change you suggest would destroy their income.
With regards to durability:
The way it works is that the Devs look at the game and they say.. well your average player goes out and grinds for say 6 hours before he returns to town. Cool. Let's make it so that weapons have degraded to a point where they are useless at about the 9 hour mark. (9hours of straight killing..) At that point, a person will either have to switch weapons or they will have to return to town and visit the blacksmith.
This is an opportunity to sink raw adena out of the game. Of course, the higher the level of the gear, and the lower it's durability, the higher the cost of repairs.
For an average player, you might find yourself visiting the blacksmith for 2 mins each night at the end of your day, or maybe each day at the start of your playtime. How big of a sink it is could be set by the Dev's. They have to be fairly careful with it, because you don't want to over do it. Essentially for an average player, it's not that big of a deal.
For the super duper hardcore though.. the type of player who grinds 24/7.. this is a HUGE pain. For starters, they either have to come back to town or carry multiple weapons and switch between them. On top of that, a significant portion of their raw adena income is going to be soaked out of them.
I said recipes too, so a-grade helmets would fall in price as well, it would be good overall, since it would allow for regular players to actually gather what they need and those who wants to sink their money into fast buys can do so still.
It works a heck of alot better than what we currently have.
I don't think the durability can be made fair towards everyone if its supposed to "sink" highend money and it would significantly impair regular people who finally make it to a and s grade.
What's the point of having high end sets if everyone is going to have them? So once everyone who hits A grade can afford afull majestic set then you will be satisfied? I would rather quit the game than have that happens. What is the point of anything that you dont have to work for? All of lineage 2 is based on grind, pve grind, gear grind, manor grind grind grind grind. That is Lineage 2 and they arent going to change all the games gear to suit the north american market that doesnt have any patience.
If I wanted easy gear, I would just go play world of war craft...hell, if i wanted an easy mmorpg i would just play WoW but the reason I like lineage 2 is because anything that is great in the higher levels takes a lot lot of work to get. I would rather play lineage 2 for two years and just get my top levels and a grade armor than to play WoW for two years, hit 60 in a month and run instances for the next 23 months.
I dont have anything more to say about this topic. Lineage 2 is a grind and I am just going to stay away from any thread that has a complaint against it being 'too hard' to collect the mats. Hell, if bots werent here at all this problem would still exist except for there would be a lot lot less people who had top gear of each grade.
People here do realize that each grade has varying levels of gear and armor strength right? To 'properly' equip your 61 character doesnt mean full majestic heavy with majestic jewelry and a top A grade weapon but it seems that idea is lost on this forum.
There are alot of ideas that would work in the short term, but very few people are addressing the real issue of what caused this, the farmers.
I think that the original idea for the economic system would have worked very well, having lower levels sell basic mats to high levels, good interaction across the entire player base. However, the problem comes in with SS.
SS speeds up grinding at the cost of effeciency. Now, regular players do have a patients limit, so they use SS because its unbearably slow without. Bots, on the other hand, have infinite patients, they will fight with no SS 24/7, auto delevel, then hunt again. The economy was based on the usage of SS, because any real player would get a brain hemourage if they grinded all the way up with none. So we end up getting huge amounts of 100% profit adena flowing in from bots that wouldnt have existed otherwise.
Now you want to seriously now the only real way to fix this? Ban the farmers and wipe the server, that is the only 100% way to fix an economy thats [censored]'d up this badly. Course people wouldn't much care for that, so just hope they have better anti-bot policies in l3 and deal with it. You could do things like increasing mat drop rates, but that can end up doing just as much damage in the long run as farmers by over saturating gear into the market.
All in all tho, the low adena drop rates just fuel it; It's so hard for legit players to make adena, especially ones without alot of time, that it drives people to ebay. If you could actually spam SS and make money, i bet alot less people would ebay, thus alt less power to the farmers, because lets be serious now, we arn't koreans, they play 24/7 because they have nothing better todo with infinite patients, we do not, whats acceptable there is far and away unthinkable here, we dont wanna devote our lives to making small steps of progress in a game, and that should have been taken into account when the game was released here. The farmers sure took it into account, and now they have done so much damage to the economy that L2 is becoming the laughing stock of MMO's. Why you havnt gotten vicious against them i don't know NC, but while they pay fees like use, your reputation is getting destroyed, with people that havnt played l2 and people that have.
We're experiencing some of the side effects of what I was talking about right now. Common or less desired items continue dropping in price. Rare and more desirable items (A helms) are absolutely stupidly ridiculous in price.
Unless we remove the rare items all together, it will always be that way. The thing is, the more adena that's in the economy, the higher and more ridiculous the prices go on the rare stuff.
The reason I keep talking about durability is because all it really does is soak a set percentage of adena out of people. The percentage is directly related to how much grinding you do. If set up properly, the higher level and more you grind between visits to the blacksmith, the more it takes. That way it ends up severely hitting the 24/7 grinders who are geared up below grade, while it hits your average player way less hard.
Let's cut the BS and describe the exact problem we have right now.
Farmer Crews currently have several, even 10's of billions of adena in their accounts. They also have the ability to farm 24/7 on the key quests to get those super rare recipes, and even the mats required to make the stuff. Now those farmers want people to buy adena from them. So the items they make or get are priced so as to provide incentive to a player to hit ebay rather than use in game means to get the adena to buy the item. The farmer crew says, hey we got this Zaken's earring, how much should we price it for? Well we have 500 mil sitting in the WH.. let's price it at 500 mil. Very very few real players have 500 mil cash, and if they do they aren't likely to spend it on that. The farmers also have enough adena to influence the mat prices. When mat prices get too low, what happens? Players stop ebaying and craft their own stuff. That's bad for business. Wouldn't it make sense to use some of that money to buy up the bones (or other mats), create a shortage, overly inflate the bone prices, and then you guessed it.. drive people to ebay.
This is the crux of the issue: Farmers are 90% unaffected by current Adena Sinks. They therefore control a huge portion of in game adena. They use that adena to create inflation and to sell back to the ebayer, who promptly gives them all of the adena back. Us regular players manage to skim a small portion of the adena off as it passes from the ebayer to the farmer, but then some legit players give that adena back to the farmers.
Unless something is done to reduce the amount of adena the farmers create by farming 24/7 AND reduce the amount of adena they already have available to them, the problem that you see if never going to go away.
Consider this. Bigs and LC's farmer crew: We have amassed 3 or 4 billion adena over the past 2 years of operations. We use 2 bil of it to sell to the players, who then buy items from us, thus giving it back. We use the other 2 billion to work the Bone and Varnish markets, because we know that if we drive the price of those mats up that it will drive customers to us.
My Solution:
Implement a sink that the farmers not only can't avoid, but hits them worse.
Durability.
A weapon goes from 0% to 100%. The cost to repair it is non-linear. ie.. it costs 20 times as much to repair at 0% as it does at 90%. So the longer you go without repairing your weapon the more it costs when you finally do. The idea being that if the average player grinds for 6 hours before returning to town that at the 6 hour mark, the repair cost is fairly insignificant. However if you go 18 hours without repairing, the cost is 10 times the regular player. In addition, low grade weapons and armor that are used against higher level mobs suffer faster loss of durability. I don't know many real players running around at lvl 74 in C grade fighting lvl 68 mobs.. but for some reason, I see it ALL THE TIME. Penalise it.
The ToI BP quest needs to become more reliable in the rewards. Maybe get 1 guaranteed recipe per turn in and if you're lucky you get 3. RB farming has become the easiest way to get the items. You don't need recipes, you don't need mats, and you sure don't throw the dice to craft. But the problem is most RBs stay dead especially the ones that give out the helms.
Now about the mats. In the past farmers would farmer 24/7 the pool all the mats on one toon that will run to town and sell. Now farmers have toons for selling. They make more adena this way. Some have skipped selling mats and sell full items directly.
My Solution:
Implement a sink that the farmers not only can't avoid, but hits them worse.
Durability.
A weapon goes from 0% to 100%. The cost to repair it is non-linear. ie.. it costs 20 times as much to repair at 0% as it does at 90%. So the longer you go without repairing your weapon the more it costs when you finally do. The idea being that if the average player grinds for 6 hours before returning to town that at the 6 hour mark, the repair cost is fairly insignificant. However if you go 18 hours without repairing, the cost is 10 times the regular player.
Your suggestion is based on the assumption that the farmers won't be able to recognize this and adapt. That's just not true. Even bots can be easily programmed to resupply every 6 hours, in fact farmers will be the first to discover at what % durability it's most efficient to repair equipment.
In addition, low grade weapons and armor that are used against higher level mobs suffer faster loss of durability.
This is like shooting a legitimiate player in the eye. While it's true that many farmers wear much lower gear than they should, people who play the game legitimately who are dealing with the pricing set by those farmers are also in this same situation. With a higher durability cost being imposed the only choice such players would have is to buy adena or delevel to avoid losing money on each hunt. The problem is offset now by the fact that you don't 'need' high level gear to continue playing.
In addition, low grade weapons and armor that are used against higher level mobs suffer faster loss of durability.
This is like shooting a legitimiate player in the eye. While it's true that many farmers wear much lower gear than they should, people who play the game legitimately who are dealing with the pricing set by those farmers are also in this same situation. With a higher durability cost being imposed the only choice such players would have is to buy adena or delevel to avoid losing money on each hunt. The problem is offset now by the fact that you don't 'need' high level gear to continue playing.
I totally agree and it would suck to be me in this situation. I've been working on getting my A-grade armor (I have 2 out of 4 pieces). I can't imagine ever having an a-grade helm or weapon. So I should be penalized because I can't afford the ~190 million helm and ~145 million for +4 duals? That's just makes my situation even worse.... :eek:
I would rather have Price Caps than Durability introduced to L2...and given my weapon enchant business, I'm definitely not in favor of caps.
There isn't anything that you can do to the adena farmer that won't reverberate throughout the legit player base with overwhelming consequence. Durability will just slow down xp'ers, it will not slow down farmers who already use multiple accounts and multiple toons on those accounts. Depending on how you establish Durability, they can simply switch toons or switch weapons and continue farming on a rotating basis. And given that they currently may have upwards of trillions of adena and mats on hand, there is nothing to stop them from purchasing or crafting low grade weapons and flooding the vacant starter and mid level hunting grounds with even longer bot trains to compensate. Durability sounds like a plausible response, but my hunch is that the beat would go on.
No it doesn't mean that, but it definetly means that you're going to be at a disadvantage at level 70 in B-grade, or 78 in b-grade.
No amount of moneysinking will make prices go down, those with insane amounts of money will always have their venues, be it castles, ebay, bot trains or whatnot. Even if you make a dent in it, it will always remain just a dent.
Noone is saying "make it WoW easy", but it shouldn't be as crazy as it is now, with so much redicilous "play at the next level" gameplay its not even funny.
I would rather play lineage 2 for two years and just get my top levels and a grade armor
Too bad we don't even have that.
If I wanted easy gear, I would just go play world of war craft
No, you'd do like the majority of players do, swipe that card or "begin combat". :(
In addition, low grade weapons and armor that are used against higher level mobs suffer faster loss of durability.
Oh this would be a very bad idea. This would hurt legit players more than anyone else.
Within days of something like this being implemented the SACU would be equiped with appropriate gear for thier lvl's.
All the legit players who can not afford to have everything in thier grade lvl would greatley suffer. Just think of all those players in A grade using Homu's or Bops or sls duels. Or especially the new players in thier 20's who definatley can't afford D grade gear at lvl 20. This would hurt all of them worse than any farmer.
I would like to see a "SET" maximum value of all ingame items mats, A grade helms, S grade etc by having NPC sell everything at a set high rate, so it is cheeper to craft if you do the work but items unless +++ed will not be able to be sold for more than the store sell price, say for example A grade helms sold for 100mil in shops, ok its alot more than it cost to make 1 but it would stop the nonesence we see now, not only this but it would make Castles and their taxes alot more interesting, as there is more money to be made so more to fight over.
and the Adena after Tax would leave the game
Certain partys doing all the bosses and haveing the only easy access to A grade helms and 11-12 crystals means they can hord them and inflate the prices, if you pm them and ask for 10 maj helms for your clan they reply it will cost this...
they are deliberaty inflating prices by holding items back from the market and in town stores could minimise this.
I would happily loose 100mil adena to a store rather than them
I would like to see a "SET" maximum value of all ingame items mats, A grade helms, S grade etc by having NPC sell everything at a set high rate, so it is cheeper to craft if you do the work but items unless +++ed will not be able to be sold for more than the store sell price, say for example A grade helms sold for 100mil in shops, ok its alot more than it cost to make 1 but it would stop the nonesence we see now, not only this but it would make Castles and their taxes alot more interesting, as there is more money to be made so more to fight over.
and the Adena after Tax would leave the game
Certain partys doing all the bosses and haveing the only easy access to A grade helms and 11-12 crystals means they can hord them and inflate the prices, if you pm them and ask for 10 maj helms for your clan they reply it will cost this...
they are deliberaty inflating prices by holding items back from the market and in town stores could minimise this.
I would happily loose 100mil adena to a store rather than them
This is very accurate to what must be done to control the economy. Remove adena from the system with NPCs.
Yeah, this is why I am saying forget about sinking the "next level" people and concentrate more on helping the others upwards instead.
That is the right way :)
The Damage is already done, no moneysink would affect the money wich is already in the Game.
AND
This Game isnt Advertised as an Asian Style hardcore PVE grinding Game. There is absolutly no reason to grind so much for beeing ready to PvP.
So, make this game easier, by increasing Mat drop and Spoil rate. Make Recepies better available, and then see nearly equal geared Allinces fighting for the Bosses. Soulcrystals and Bossjewelry would be besides Castles, the major Things to fight for, but the amount of Adena made for the Professionals would decline, so we would see less Raidbossfarmers. Why? With C5 evry Alliance could shedule their Raid, so there would be much more competition to them. The Increase of droprate would drive the Nail in the coffin of the Profs.
I would like to see a "SET" maximum value of all ingame items mats, A grade helms, S grade etc by having NPC sell everything at a set high rate, so it is cheeper to craft if you do the work but items unless +++ed will not be able to be sold for more than the store sell price, say for example A grade helms sold for 100mil in shops, ok its alot more than it cost to make 1 but it would stop the nonesence we see now, not only this but it would make Castles and their taxes alot more interesting, as there is more money to be made so more to fight over.
and the Adena after Tax would leave the game
Certain partys doing all the bosses and haveing the only easy access to A grade helms and 11-12 crystals means they can hord them and inflate the prices, if you pm them and ask for 10 maj helms for your clan they reply it will cost this...
they are deliberaty inflating prices by holding items back from the market and in town stores could minimise this.
I would happily loose 100mil adena to a store rather than them
Not only are they holding items back, they are also buying things up to create shortages on specific items.
The effect of people playing the game as a business with that much organization and adena making power have.
As I said before. With 2 billion adena a person could easily create shortages of several different key mats.
Drive the prices up enough and you can create customers for your adena selling business.
Increasing mat availability seems like the answer, but if you remember C2, you might recall what the effect was.
Items became so available on the market that full item prices for anything that wasn't super rare dropped so low that they typically were not worth crafting. This hurt the legit player badly, since there's alot of people out there who were making their money that way.
I can tell you right now what would happen if they increased the mat drop rate. The price on B grade and above recipes would quadruple.. maybe even more. the keymats that are hard to come by would quadruple in price.
Fine, make all of that stuff available too..
Now the market ends up saturated in items. The only sink for items is OEing.. ahhh so it's the enchant scrolls that are now skyrocketing in price.
There will always be something that is rare or hard to get. Whatever item it is will be so vastly overpriced because of the amount of available adena that it will make people want to head to ebay.
So fine.. let's up mat drops, component drops, recipe drops, and enchant drops.
Now, if every single piece of your gear and jewelry isn't +10, then you might as well not bother showing up to the PvP event.
The best part.. all that overenchanting will do what? That's right it's going to sink tons and tons of mats out of the economy, but still it won't sink hardly any adena out.
Instead of this thread, we'll have a thread about :
Everyone has a +10 A grade armor set but me, and I want to buy it but the guy selling it is asking 1 bil for the set.. how do I make money in L2???
Sounds like you guys are off topic, we are talking about the insane prices in game. Not what we can do to get rid of the money in some peoples pockets. This games economy is messed up only because of NCsoft.. they are the sole blame for this and that's because they control drops.
Sounds like you guys are off topic, we are talking about the insane prices in game. Not what we can do to get rid of the money in some peoples pockets. This games economy is messed up only because of NCsoft.. they are the sole blame for this and that's because they control drops.
How was I off topic? I responded to someone's suggestion on how to un-insane the prices in game.
Sounds like you guys are off topic, we are talking about the insane prices in game. Not what we can do to get rid of the money in some peoples pockets. This games economy is messed up only because of NCsoft.. they are the sole blame for this and that's because they control drops.
How was I off topic? I responded to someone's suggestion on how to un-insane the prices in game.
dude it's not personal, I didn't single you out did I?
Sounds like you guys are off topic, we are talking about the insane prices in game. Not what we can do to get rid of the money in some peoples pockets. This games economy is messed up only because of NCsoft.. they are the sole blame for this and that's because they control drops.
How was I off topic? I responded to someone's suggestion on how to un-insane the prices in game.
dude it's not personal, I didn't single you out did I?
Sounds like you guys are off topic, we are talking about the insane prices in game. Not what we can do to get rid of the money in some peoples pockets. This games economy is messed up only because of NCsoft.. they are the sole blame for this and that's because they control drops.
How was I off topic? I responded to someone's suggestion on how to un-insane the prices in game.
dude it's not personal, I didn't single you out did I?
Yes, by replying to me. That's how it works.
goto page 10 and tell me how I replied to you. the person above me is "bighands" someone.
Sounds like you guys are off topic, we are talking about the insane prices in game. Not what we can do to get rid of the money in some peoples pockets. This games economy is messed up only because of NCsoft.. they are the sole blame for this and that's because they control drops.
Relax SirE, this is a ******ed response. The economy in L2 is hands-off. NCsoft leaves us with nobody to blame but players. Drop rates are fine, especially raids. "Youknowwho" is definatively the problem.
Sounds like you guys are off topic, we are talking about the insane prices in game. Not what we can do to get rid of the money in some peoples pockets. This games economy is messed up only because of NCsoft.. they are the sole blame for this and that's because they control drops.
Relax SirE, this is a ******ed response. The economy in L2 is hands-off. NCsoft leaves us with nobody to blame but players. Drop rates are fine, especially raids. "Youknowwho" is definatively the problem.
I knew I was going to get someone with a response like yours. This could end up being lengthy but I will keep it short...
NCsorft predicts the drop rates for everything. there are items ingame like anthras earring that are selling for 1.6B, Top B weapons selling for 43m. If these items drops werent as rare or less rare than they are, we wouldn't be seeing the price gouging that we are. A +10 BoP is 250m. Well let's use the Anthras earring as an example. someone is willing to spend 1.6b for that item, that 1.6b is in turn going to buy other overpriced things and thus repetition. We have as a whole out grown the game and are now in a chronicle were it takes 5,000 of one item along with an additonla 5k of one item to make one thing. NCsoft is still stuck with the C1 mentality when top grade was what B.
when I hit reply I'm replying to the thread not to one specific person. If I wanted to address something you said I would have quoted you. When I'm in the middle of a page reading I'm not going to scroll up to reply without having whoevers name in it just so someone doesn't take it personally.
when I hit reply I'm replying to the thread not to one specific person. If I wanted to address something you said I would have quoted you. When I'm in the middle of a page reading I'm not going to scroll up to reply without having whoevers name in it just so someone doesn't take it personally.
You realize that someone could write a post before yours is done? Anyway, you reply to me (like in the screen shot) I will respond. Especially if you accuse me of something. That's the way it works (whether you like it or not).
when I hit reply I'm replying to the thread not to one specific person. If I wanted to address something you said I would have quoted you. When I'm in the middle of a page reading I'm not going to scroll up to reply without having whoevers name in it just so someone doesn't take it personally.
You realize that someone could write a post before yours is done? Anyway, you reply to me (like in the screen shot) I will respond. Especially if you accuse me of something. That's the way it works (whether you like it or not).
Hey do your thing bro I don't care if you take it personal or not, I told you how I do it, which isn't accusing you of anything in my theory. So back on topic cause this little conversation is going nowhere.
Sounds like you guys are off topic, we are talking about the insane prices in game. Not what we can do to get rid of the money in some peoples pockets. This games economy is messed up only because of NCsoft.. they are the sole blame for this and that's because they control drops.
Relax SirE, this is a ******ed response. The economy in L2 is hands-off. NCsoft leaves us with nobody to blame but players. Drop rates are fine, especially raids. "Youknowwho" is definatively the problem.
Sounds like you guys are off topic, we are talking about the insane prices in game. Not what we can do to get rid of the money in some peoples pockets. This games economy is messed up only because of NCsoft.. they are the sole blame for this and that's because they control drops.
Relax SirE, this is a ******ed response. The economy in L2 is hands-off. NCsoft leaves us with nobody to blame but players. Drop rates are fine, especially raids. "Youknowwho" is definatively the problem.
I knew I was going to get someone with a response like yours. This could end up being lengthy but I will keep it short...
NCsorft predicts the drop rates for everything. there are items ingame like anthras earring that are selling for 1.6B, Top B weapons selling for 43m. If these items drops werent as rare or less rare than they are, we wouldn't be seeing the price gouging that we are. A +10 BoP is 250m. Well let's use the Anthras earring as an example. someone is willing to spend 1.6b for that item, that 1.6b is in turn going to buy other overpriced things and thus repetition. We have as a whole out grown the game and are now in a chronicle were it takes 5,000 of one item along with an additonla 5k of one item to make one thing. NCsoft is still stuck with the C1 mentality when top grade was what B.
So all items should be available to everyone? I should think an Anthras earring would be the rarest thing in game, and worth absolutely nothing. It should be priceless, and it is. Do you understand the value of something that is priceless? It means it is worth whatever somebody is willing to pay. There is no real value, it is exclusive.
Increasing the drop rates on a server doesn't change anything. The PTS is a 10x drop rate and prices are 10x higher there. The issue is the rate of adena removal vs adena introduction. Just like RL currency, it is a matter of how much was printed (amongst other things). It is absolutely ignorant to suggest 10x drop rates change anything. If you want things to be cheaper, they have to be made cheaper by removing adena, and their VALUE therefore doesn't change. L2's economy has been linked to the real world economy via farmers. As long as that persists, no amount of changing drop rates will adjust the economy. Even if A grade were cheaper, then there would simply be a gap between those with +16 A grade, and those without. But then you would ignorantly whine about that because you are as clueless about economics as you are understanding that when you hit "reply" on SirE's post, you reply to him.
Sounds like you guys are off topic, we are talking about the insane prices in game. Not what we can do to get rid of the money in some peoples pockets. This games economy is messed up only because of NCsoft.. they are the sole blame for this and that's because they control drops.
Relax SirE, this is a ******ed response. The economy in L2 is hands-off. NCsoft leaves us with nobody to blame but players. Drop rates are fine, especially raids. "Youknowwho" is definatively the problem.
People either aren't reading the thread or just aren't getting it. I'll try to go a little slower this time.
Inflation (charging insane prices for items) is caused because the amount of adena in the game is continuously rising with little being taken out of the game, whereas items and mats are constantly being removed at a very high rate.
This means that the amount of items stays relatively constant, whereas the amount of adena is continuously rising.
Why are they charging 1.5 Bil for an Antharas Ring? Because they know that someone out there either has 1.5 Bil or they can get it.
Why are animal bones 1800 ea? Because people have that much adena and will pay it.
There are in fact two solutions to the problem of items being so highly priced.
1. Add more items.
2. Remove some of the adena.
You might notice that price cap is not on the list. That's because it won't work, the system would just change to a barter system as mentioned above. ie.. Instead of sticking to the price cap on the Antharas Ring, the guy would simply ask for 5 A grade helms, or something along those lines.
My argument is that adding more drops to the system is not a good fix, becuase it will make the economy worse than it already is, especially for the newer player.
I feel the only real solution to the problem is to remove some of that adena that's laying around.
Sounds like you guys are off topic, we are talking about the insane prices in game. Not what we can do to get rid of the money in some peoples pockets. This games economy is messed up only because of NCsoft.. they are the sole blame for this and that's because they control drops.
Relax SirE, this is a ******ed response. The economy in L2 is hands-off. NCsoft leaves us with nobody to blame but players. Drop rates are fine, especially raids. "Youknowwho" is definatively the problem.
Sounds like you guys are off topic, we are talking about the insane prices in game. Not what we can do to get rid of the money in some peoples pockets. This games economy is messed up only because of NCsoft.. they are the sole blame for this and that's because they control drops.
Relax SirE, this is a ******ed response. The economy in L2 is hands-off. NCsoft leaves us with nobody to blame but players. Drop rates are fine, especially raids. "Youknowwho" is definatively the problem.
I knew I was going to get someone with a response like yours. This could end up being lengthy but I will keep it short...
NCsorft predicts the drop rates for everything. there are items ingame like anthras earring that are selling for 1.6B, Top B weapons selling for 43m. If these items drops werent as rare or less rare than they are, we wouldn't be seeing the price gouging that we are. A +10 BoP is 250m. Well let's use the Anthras earring as an example. someone is willing to spend 1.6b for that item, that 1.6b is in turn going to buy other overpriced things and thus repetition. We have as a whole out grown the game and are now in a chronicle were it takes 5,000 of one item along with an additonla 5k of one item to make one thing. NCsoft is still stuck with the C1 mentality when top grade was what B.
So all items should be available to everyone? I should think an Anthras earring would be the rarest thing in game, and worth absolutely nothing. It should be priceless, and it is. Do you understand the value of something that is priceless? It means it is worth whatever somebody is willing to pay. There is no real value, it is exclusive.
Increasing the drop rates on a server doesn't change anything. The PTS is a 10x drop rate and prices are 10x higher there. The issue is the rate of adena removal vs adena introduction. Just like RL currency, it is a matter of how much was printed (amongst other things). It is absolutely ignorant to suggest 10x drop rates change anything. If you want things to be cheaper, they have to be made cheaper by removing adena, and their VALUE therefore doesn't change. L2's economy has been linked to the real world economy via farmers. As long as that persists, no amount of changing drop rates will adjust the economy. Even if A grade were cheaper, then there would simply be a gap between those with +16 A grade, and those without. But then you would ignorantly whine about that because you are as clueless about economics as you are understanding that when you hit "reply" on SirE's post, you reply to him.
so someone crafting a AOBA buys the materials at 100 per and another person buys for 500, is the item going to cost the same to buy because of the amount of adena in game? no.
Have you played the PTS? 10x drop rates, and the prices are 10x as much too.
Back on topic,
Increasing items doesn't solve the adena problems, it produces enchanting problems. If players have more materials and the same adena, they will simply try to overenchant. Breaking weapons only reduces value in materials on the server again. Total adena influences prices.
There are two supreme laws in economics:
How much do you have?
What do you want?
SirE and Luke.. we got us a live one here, where'd ya find this tool?
In reply to the post I quoted...
It sure did.
Why? Because Mats are taken out of the game at **** near the rate they enter the game.. which is why you dont see anyone sitting in Giran selling 200k of animal bones.
At the same time, there's hardly anything that removes adena from the game.
Therefore, people have a ton of adena, they dont have enough mats.
Stay with me now Kert, because i know you're reading this..
If I have alot of money, and no mats, but I want mats.. what do I do???
That's right, I offer more money than everyone else!!!!
Then the next guy logs in while I'm sleeping, and he sees me offering more money, but he has alot of adena too.. guess what he does..
SirE and Luke.. we got us a live one here, where'd ya find this tool?
In reply to the post I quoted...
It sure did.
Why? Because Mats are taken out of the game at **** near the rate they enter the game.. which is why you dont see anyone sitting in Giran selling 200k of animal bones.
At the same time, there's hardly anything that removes adena from the game.
Therefore, people have a ton of adena, they dont have enough mats.
Stay with me now Kert, because i know you're reading this..
If I have alot of money, and no mats, but I want mats.. what do I do???
That's right, I offer more money than everyone else!!!!
Then the next guy logs in while I'm sleeping, and he sees me offering more money, but he has alot of adena too.. guess what he does..
LIVE server is not PTS not a fair comparison at all.
So at 10x the drop rate and people that have millions upon millions of adena will buy the material at higher prices than just hunting and gathering the materials on there own or in groups. I don't find your theory close to what would happen, 10x drop rates will give everyone enough materials to craft the things that need 5k of that material.
SirE and Luke.. we got us a live one here, where'd ya find this tool?
In reply to the post I quoted...
It sure did.
Why? Because Mats are taken out of the game at **** near the rate they enter the game.. which is why you dont see anyone sitting in Giran selling 200k of animal bones.
At the same time, there's hardly anything that removes adena from the game.
Therefore, people have a ton of adena, they dont have enough mats.
Stay with me now Kert, because i know you're reading this..
If I have alot of money, and no mats, but I want mats.. what do I do???
That's right, I offer more money than everyone else!!!!
Then the next guy logs in while I'm sleeping, and he sees me offering more money, but he has alot of adena too.. guess what he does..
LIVE server is not PTS not a fair comparison at all.
So at 10x the drop rate and people that have millions upon millions of adena will buy the material at higher prices than just hunting and gathering the materials on there own or in groups. I don't find your theory close to what would happen, 10x drop rates will give everyone enough materials to craft the things that need 5k of that material.
Here's what would really happen:
We'd all jump for joy at having tons and tons of mats everywhere, we'd be trading them and buying them and selling them.
Then.. I'd go to buy the recipes I needed.
OH NOES.. what do you mean BOP recs are now 95mil??? And the shafts are 3 mil???
aww but cmon..
OK OK.
So let's say all the recipes drop like candy, and so do the mats.. and everyone has their gear ready when they hit the grade level with no problems!!! WOOT Happy days!!
Except now everyone has their gear and we all still have all those millions and millions of adenas.. What will happen next???
The special stuff (OE'd weapons and armor) will start to go way way way up in price. Since there's lots of cheap armor and weapons around, there might be a slight shortage of enchant scrolls.. so those are gonna go way way up in price.
Do you know why?
Because, if some tool has 2 bil adena, then some other tool is going to make a +10 SOM to sell him. You know what's really sweet.. it's going to suck all those mats right out of the economy when he blows up about 15 SOM's trying to get to +10.
I know, I know.. it all sounds complicated.
It's not though..
The way the system works, it's natural for the mats to be used up. The problem is, there's really nothing to spend adena on that removes it from the game. All it does is move adena around from one player to the next.
The unfortunate thing about this situation is NCSoft had a great basis for attempting to create a player driven economy with an anchor that would prevent destabilization by inflation.... which was crystal value! It was suppose to be the baseline for the entire economy.. Unfortunately we took a rapid departure from this foundation when farmers managed to hook the in-game economy into a physical economy. Once the link was established, no matter how inflated the in-game economy becomes, the physical price of in-game currency is adjusted to ensure the same actual revenue is translated from in-game items to out-of-game currency at a consistent rate. I realize this has been touched on before, but I think not emphasized strongly enough. The inflation is directly related to the lack of value adena has in game. The more everyone has of something, the less valueable it is, the more it takes of that something to pay for an item. Until the link between the in-game economy and a physical currency is broken, I don't believe it is possible to regain stablization of the in-game economy. I feel at best, we could expect a dampening effect by reduction of in-game currency, but not a complete correction.
SirE and Luke.. we got us a live one here, where'd ya find this tool?
In reply to the post I quoted...
It sure did.
Why? Because Mats are taken out of the game at **** near the rate they enter the game.. which is why you dont see anyone sitting in Giran selling 200k of animal bones.
At the same time, there's hardly anything that removes adena from the game.
Therefore, people have a ton of adena, they dont have enough mats.
Stay with me now Kert, because i know you're reading this..
If I have alot of money, and no mats, but I want mats.. what do I do???
That's right, I offer more money than everyone else!!!!
Then the next guy logs in while I'm sleeping, and he sees me offering more money, but he has alot of adena too.. guess what he does..
LIVE server is not PTS not a fair comparison at all.
So at 10x the drop rate and people that have millions upon millions of adena will buy the material at higher prices than just hunting and gathering the materials on there own or in groups. I don't find your theory close to what would happen, 10x drop rates will give everyone enough materials to craft the things that need 5k of that material.
Here's what would really happen:
We'd all jump for joy at having tons and tons of mats everywhere, we'd be trading them and buying them and selling them.
Then.. I'd go to buy the recipes I needed.
OH NOES.. what do you mean BOP recs are now 95mil??? And the shafts are 3 mil???
aww but cmon..
OK OK.
So let's say all the recipes drop like candy, and so do the mats.. and everyone has their gear ready when they hit the grade level with no problems!!! WOOT Happy days!!
Except now everyone has their gear and we all still have all those millions and millions of adenas.. What will happen next???
The special stuff (OE'd weapons and armor) will start to go way way way up in price. Since there's lots of cheap armor and weapons around, there might be a slight shortage of enchant scrolls.. so those are gonna go way way up in price.
Do you know why?
Because, if some tool has 2 bil adena, then some other tool is going to make a +10 SOM to sell him. You know what's really sweet.. it's going to suck all those mats right out of the economy when he blows up about 15 SOM's trying to get to +10.
I know, I know.. it all sounds complicated.
It's not though..
The way the system works, it's natural for the mats to be used up. The problem is, there's really nothing to spend adena on that removes it from the game. All it does is move adena around from one player to the next.
My orginal post on this is that NCsoft is not keeping up with the game evolution, we have C1 drop rates in C5, we have 2Billion adena+ in C4 and had 50m in C1. I'm on NCsoft, doesn't mean I hate the game it means I'm sick of no talk and no action and that someone has got to be more involved with this game at NCsoft then the occasionl board mod coming on giving us some off topic answer.
What you are failing to understand is that if all gear were common, and easily available then it becomes worthless. The price would be low, which sounds good, except for that the vast majority of players makes their money by crafting items and selling them to others. If you take that away, the economy will be in much worse shape than it is right now.
Sure, we'd all be in A grade, but we still wouldn't be able to compete, because the ebayers would all be in +10 A grade that they bought for 2 bil per set, and we'd all be complaining that we don't have the money to get +10 A grade.
On top of all that, the mat market partially auto corrects itself. By this I mean if there were a glut of mats, people would make use of them. They would craft items and either try to OE, or just crush them for crystals, thus draining those same mats out of the market again.
I have seen games where the designers attempt to deal with inflation by making items more common. All it does is make the rare stuff even more insanely expensive, and make people bored. When it gets to a point that everyone has billions and everything they already want, the game gets **** boring.
When it gets to a point that everyone has billions and everything they already want, the game gets **** boring.
Oh, you mean WoW. :p
It's the same mistake all over again.
Maybe in C6, we'll get something like player housing, so that really high level players have something to spend all of that accumulated wealth on that doesn't give them some kind of huge PvP advantage.
hmmm you all seem to miss a few key facts about the MATeconomy vs the GEAR and OE economy ... if you upped the mats to make it so everyone had decent access to craft stuff it would do very little to curb the HIGH end market ... that is also driven by quest and main mat drop.
See I remember a day when the recipe and parts cost more then the mats did to craft a weapon ... and NCsoft has also taken this into account with only having 60 and 70% recipes to help "sink hole"{as you like to put it} adena and mats ...
now lets say bones and varnish went back to 500a each ... now the soulbow I crafted only cost me like 35m ... I am more willing to try to make it OE so in turn run a larger chance of losing said bow and having to try again {{I use a weapon here cause I can get the parts and recipe easy through quests}}
Now I want my Maj set ... have any of you complaining ever even done the TOI BP Quest??? we needed a Nightmare helm and got 3 glove recipes and alot of boot/glove/helm mats .... and that took us about 4 weeks of play .... 1! helm was needed and we ended up buying off the market ...
Increasing the MATS in this game by a margin of 50% wouldnt even phase the market that much ... remember there is still greed and the person who had the kahona's to press ok for that 16th Ench Weap scroll should be proud and yes should be allowed to ask whatever price he wants ... so in reality if the mats were dropped at a higher rate and the manor system was set up to allow all fruit purchase{ie: manor sells 100 fruit system auto sets buy back at 400} the only thing it would do is allow alot of people to have basic or +3 only stuff and you all could still pay and sell your OE stuff for even more then...
Currently with the prices there is no reason to even consider making anything C or D grade even to crush ... I get enough hoplon and armor drops on alts and there is enough in town to buy cheap to make crystals ... and hence also why SoulShots are going up steadily ...
We need to stop asking for the moon ... I do not think the recipes or main mats need a fix they too numerous allready and even having less would make the occasional bloody orchid head even a nice drop where as now it is an NPC item...
JUST FIX THE BASIC MAT DROP RATES ... allow us the wood to build our own homes ... just make us pay out the rear if we want Indoor Plumbing and Electircity :p
Now I want my Maj set ... have any of you complaining ever even done the TOI BP Quest??? we needed a Nightmare helm and got 3 glove recipes and alot of boot/glove/helm mats .... and that took us about 4 weeks of play .... 1! helm was needed and we ended up buying off the market ..
We've been complaining about that all along.. So much that all related threads got locked.
You can search for a "Fix TOI quest" thread.
150 mils for a maj helmet???? what's the superlatif for Insane again ?
Also I've attempted 5 A grade weaps so far. Guess my success rate ? 0/5 ? Bingo !
And a few maj jewels too Success rate ? 4/7 ? OMG I'm nearing the stated %age... well .. not really unless I succeed next time...
Bighands makes a lot of sense, I tend to understand and agree with everything he says and I won't do him a disservice by trying to reiterate what he has already stated but at the same time 420crafter brings up a very valid point in his house and indoor plumbing analogy :)
want NCSOFT to fix the problem of inflation? Introduce weapons degradation. Eventually everyone has to rebuy their stuff. Should fit in very nicely overall with the economy as it stands now. But of course I myself am not a fan of this and would prefer this kind of system not to be in the game at all.
Rather, they should introduce the concept of food. Everyone has to eat. The same principle as striders need food or they starve to death. At the same time of introducing players dependent on food (which would make sense, dont ya think?) they should introduce food crafting/baking/cooking/whatever.
They have a money drain. NPC's. Every item crafted costs gemstones. Every siege golem, every flag, ever castle defense, all these systems eat adena. But it isn't enough, obviously. If farmers are destroying boss jewelry to keep the value up, that's a sign they have too much cash.
Ald is right, as long as there is an "out of game" economy, there will be have's and have not's. But that does not mean there can't be a stable economy despite this. Farmers disrupt things, but so do thieves and scammers in RL.
The PTS shows us a classic example of HOW HARD THIS IS. There is no ebaying on the PTS. All items can be bought from an NPC except enchants. Free cash is handed out. Adena and mats drop at 10x. The differential quickly becomes "who has quest items" and "who has enchants." High level soul crystals and weapon enchants turn into the "super" weapons. They become extremely valuable. NCsoft even introduces more than drop/get crafted (and mind you, the recipes, crystals, mats, you name it, everything but a soul crystal and enchant scroll can be bought from an NPC). So now we have a RAPID introduction of gear and the price goes UP. People destroy the gear CONSTANTLY.
The fact may be simple. Consequence. Has anyone really considered that even if we remove adena, people have thought prices were out of line since L2 beta. The complaining has never stopped. It may be simply our greed and a world with no...consequence. The worst case scenario isn't "I can't pay for food or rent" it is "Ill go play another game." The fact is simple, people take risks before they are ready. Half the WORLD can't handle fiscal responsibility with real consequences. We expect an environment of 50% children to have a stable economy? Europe's economy has been diving for a long time. The oil market has gone out of control (hey that's my business :)). We expect things to be so perfect here? Where people take even more dangerous/foolish risks?
Raise your hands, how many of you have had a clannie blow up his weapon when he can't afford a new one?
How many of you have had a clannie fail a weapon craft after selling his B/C grade weapon?
How many of you have watched players buy brez one minute and complain they can't afford soul/spirit shots the next?
Many people keep screaming at NCsoft, and there are some things they can do to help stabalize things better. Improvements can be made, but I think we must accept that there are limitations to how good things can get.
Personally I think life ore will stabalize the A armor prices...making the parts cost proportionate to their NPC value again (helms less than armor) but the entire set price will only drop 10-20%. Eventually you will have to accept that somebody with an alt dwarf that crafts and shops all day, raids anthras with his clan, and exps with out of party buffers is simply going to have better gear than you. He is putting in the work and there is nothing you can do short of working harder to keep up. In the end, his time is what he's paying, and if it were really worth that much to you, you would too. Frankly, the people that care that much are pathetic in the first place.
I think we can all see that it isnt necessarily the mats but the recipes/key mats that really cost a lot...and guess what? How many parties do you see calling for a BH to join at higher levels? IMO this is a largely player created problem without players wanting to take part in the solution.
Eventually you will have to accept that somebody with an alt dwarf that crafts and shops all day, raids anthras with his clan, and exps with out of party buffers is simply going to have better gear than you. He is putting in the work and there is nothing you can do short of working harder to keep up. In the end, his time is what he's paying, and if it were really worth that much to you, you would too.
From my position as a "part-time-gamer": /signed!
Likely the best summary of the problem I have read in a long time - short and precise.
Bighands, you are right, the increase in Drop and spoilrates would bring the price down on the then more common items, and increase Prices on exotic Stuff.
But increasing Matdrops would open a Way to get the Equipment through farming, wich is in the moment quite impossible, at least for me. I tryed this, but i had to fall back to Vendor bought items.
Overenchanting is just so costly, because no one likes to wait. You could buy Enchantscrolls at the Vendor, so there is a Baseprice. OE ing would then burn the materials and Adena of those who would get it for any price. But people like me, could collect the mats, and scrolls, to build thier equipment.
Thats why i want the drops/spoils upped. Mats i farm wouldnt reach the market at all. Now you would sell them for insane Prices, to buy your equipment wich fuels the inflation.
I say make an NPC to sell base mats. It's simple really.
by having an NPC selling the mats at 4x or higher base value it will stop farmers being able to wreak havok on the economy in order to secure higher out of game assets. Look at the market on crystals... without the ability to get D, C and B grade crystals through npc's the soulshot and crystal values would already have risen to astronomical highs.
Base mats affect the price of every piece of gear from non-grade up to S grade. With an anchor in shops for the value of base mats it might even become viable to craft things lower than A grade again. Sure Farmers will increase then cost of enchants, key mats and recepies but these can also be farmed by the legitimate player and due to only needing certain numbers of parts they are far more desireable. It might even give BH's a stand back in the game. The price of enchants and other things may rise, but at least most people will be able to afford normal gear so that they can hunt / pvp even remotely efficiently.
I come from Erica, where the RL value of adena is probably the lowest around. Heres a snapshot of our economy...
Ori Ore - 90k
Steel - 25k
Coal - 1.5k (down from 3-4k)
Varnish - 3-4k
Iron Ore - 3k
Aincient Adena - 3 to 4a each
EW-A - 12mil
EW-C - 1.8mil
Top B grd weapons - 50-70mil
Doom PA - 18mil
All A grd Plate Armors - 80mil
B grade helms - 10mil
This is really ridiculous, but i'm afraid the whole game is conceived that way and there's not much that can be done to correct it.
I mean, just look at this stupid "you have 25% chance of blowing your weapon when you just want it to glow" rule... Or the prices of teleporting... Or the cost of maintaining a Clan Hall... Everything in this game, from A to Z, is conceived for prices to go insanely high...
I love Lineage II, i really do, but its whole economy system is laughable.
No wonder it's bots paradise, it has been designed for it ! :(
Porting costs, CH funds and so on aren't too bad, neither is the cost of soul ore and crystals via the NPC's.
Weapons and armor are pretty high at the shop with the idea in mind that people will craft these items to sell. The problem lies that the mats to craft these items with have no set value allowing the farmers to drive prices thorugh the roof FORCING people to E-bay adena.
The the mat prices so high no-one starting up can afford to get the gear they need without resorting to online adena buying.
Right, i also forgot about the insane number of mats you need to craft a single simple thing...
No, really, this whole economy is a joke... :confused:
It's too bad, cos like i said i really do love this game, but i'm pretty sure that this is the point that will make me quit when i reach high levels and never can get enough adena to play the game anymore...
IMO Teon has the most farmers and the mat prices in Teon are much lower than in any other servers. Is it cause of the farmers? I think so. I have a feeling if all the farmers are gone, the mat prices will go high up, cause most ppl wont sell them, but keep them for the clan, for themselves etc. I know i know farming is baaadbaadbaaad, and i strongly disagree with selling adena for real life money, BUT i also think that in some ways, the farmers are good for economy.
Like right now:
In Erica - Ori Ore 90K, but in Teon 10K
In Erica - Steel 25K, but in Teon 8K
In Erica - Coal 1,5K, but in Teon 600a
In Erica - Varnish 3-4K, but in Teon 700a
In Erica - Iron ore 3K, but in Teon 500a
Ancient adena in Teon 2a
And so on... But why is that? I doubt Erica has less legit players than Teon, but definetely less farmers. I pesonally like the low mat prices. Tho i hate if they take all the raidbosses away from real players.
So whats the solution? Get rid of farmers and expect everything to skyrocket high? True, they control the market, BUT at least you can buy stuff you want.
Guess ill get tons of ppl replying me now that i agree with farmers, which i dont, but i dont like the solution which will cause everything to go even more expencive.
Mat prices on Erica were pretty low and stable up untill recently on Erica. The prices rose insanely at the same time that the value of Adena online lowered considerably.
The only way to play on Erica atm seems to be to ebay or already have your gear as you've been on the server a while.
Prices of mats would be much lower with real players. Do not let the unmentionables make things seem better. There job is to manipulate the market and control it on a grand scale.
You also have to remember that if real players actually controlled the markets then things would have to be sold for prices that people could actually afford. Hence the lower value on things.
I'm almost certain now that a mat vendor needs to be implemented into the game to allow the price of base mats to stabilise. This would also mean that people would be more keen to actually quest to get key items, or include BHs in parties to spoil those key items.
Rethink entirely this whole laughable economy system :)
Increase drop rates a bit (and make them realistic : a wolf dropping healing potions ? please... why not a mosquito dropping a Dragon Slayer ?), increase quest rewards a lot (hm... no, i'm sorry, just make real quest rewards, bots wont bother making long quests only to get a single item, real players will do it), make teleporting much cheaper, make it harder to get Enchant Scrolls but once you've got them you cant blow up your weapon, kick the *** of all those private shops seating everywhere and put them in their own player-owned houses all across Aden with a "Vendor NPC" in town that will tell you where the items you're looking for are located and what their prices are (yea, kinda of an auction house but without the drawbacks), etc, etc...
...Welcome to Lineage III :p
I think I'll have to join Luke on the bench for the remainder of this conversation. There seems to be a dichotomy of understanding on the subject of economics on this thread, so I will exit [stage left] following this point.
Regardless of what you consider implementing as a fix to the economy (NPC selling mats, higher drop rates, etc) remember that the base of any working economy is the value of currency remaining at a reasonable rate. Example: if you allow the world to use rocks for money, everyone would be a bazillionaire. Instead, gold is normally a base for currency. Why? Because it is rare. Rarity is the means by which you make something valuable. Everyone having open access to everything is the opposite of that.
As a post script, for those that think everyone being a "bazillionaire" would fix the problem, you are not equipped to understand economics, the nature of the problem we face or a rational solution to fix it.
and make them realistic : a wolf dropping healing potions ?
Someone (I believe Sovrath) said something like, think of it in a role-play sense. Perhaps you actually looted that wolf's den and found the item there. Don't think that the mob "spit it out" as it was dying.
Increasing the drop rates would help. But how about halving the mats needed to craft items? The demand for mats would rapidly decrease. The cost to craft would decrease and prices for items would decrease. At least hopefully that's the way it would work out. Although prices for items might remain the same as the prices for recipes skyrocket.
and make them realistic : a wolf dropping healing potions ?
Someone (I believe Sovrath) said something like, think of it in a role-play sense. Perhaps you actually looted that wolf's den and found the item there. Don't think that the mob "spit it out" as it was dying.
Nothing beats Diablo II's realism of a swarm of small wasps dropping a giant full plate metal armor.
and make them realistic : a wolf dropping healing potions ?
Someone (I believe Sovrath) said something like, think of it in a role-play sense. Perhaps you actually looted that wolf's den and found the item there. Don't think that the mob "spit it out" as it was dying.
Nothing beats Diablo II's realism of a swarm of small wasps dropping a giant full plate metal armor.
LOL
I always laughed at that, too. And, how does one carry thousands of little pills that they swallow (I hope they're ****) before each attack?
and make them realistic : a wolf dropping healing potions ?
Someone (I believe Sovrath) said something like, think of it in a role-play sense. Perhaps you actually looted that wolf's den and found the item there. Don't think that the mob "spit it out" as it was dying.
Nothing beats Diablo II's realism of a swarm of small wasps dropping a giant full plate metal armor.
Have you played the PTS? 10x drop rates, and the prices are 10x as much too.
Back on topic,
Increasing items doesn't solve the adena problems, it produces enchanting problems. If players have more materials and the same adena, they will simply try to overenchant. Breaking weapons only reduces value in materials on the server again. Total adena influences prices.
There are two supreme laws in economics:
How much do you have?
What do you want?
This i have to respond to, I played on pts too I set up a sell shop in Dion and started selling c shot at normal server prices, (wth plenty of drops could crunch and oe blow up items np) so alll of a sudden I'm getting pm'd by irate plaers saying "dude what are you doing your under cutiing me,they got the adenda so let's set up a price" I said "Dude I don't like screwing people" and about 4 or 5 more pm's like that till I sold out and decided to go have have more fun (btw i had fun under selling everyone else). But what it boils down to is greed on on most players part legit and other wise some want to be king of the hill and others just want to support their familes. In response to durabilty your just gonna hurt the legit players, ppl who drive humvees don't really care how high gas prices are. Drops and spoils ? NC decided to reduce them in response to the non legit player problem and this when our iflation woes began (think back if you can). Most post I seen so far sound pro nonlegit player or someone who just want to be king of the hill (no more room up here bub move on), but I think some of truley see the root and solution to the problem, It' to make it unprofitable for non legit players so they move on to other mmog's ang give us our game back.
the bottom line is ... I do not mind farming 1-3 hrs to get a Recipe and I can also hire a BH to assist and it is faster most times ...
BUT no matter how hard I try to get the 5k Bones 500 Ori Ore and 3k Varnish ... takes far too long ... and just buying from shops makes the price to craft way too high...
YES adding mats at a higher drop rate or even making them npc available would make the Recipe and Key Mats more expensive, heck it would even prob be the same price to buy all the items and craft it carteBlanch . BUT working to get the recipe or main parts is a good and fun part of the game if I wasnt so worried about spending the 35million adena just on the Basic Mats ...
there can be a point where you just have so much adena you can buy whatever ... and yes then you are in the market for like +16 Arcana Mace or such ... but the commoner would still be able to have atleast the basic ability to outfit oneself to still be in the game
right now people just say "forget about it" go online and poof gear ... so now that plain arcana mace joe schmo bought for 200m isnt really worth anything cause the noob got one too ... but now lets say the arcana was only 100m ... the noob still got it but with your 100m extra you got a +5 or such .
Who cares if ench weapon A goes to 50m a scroll infact I love that ,,, makes a +3 a nice weapon ... I just hate the feeling that I would be payin a farmer{type starts with a B in name} but that is a whole diff issue...
So lets say everyone in HappyVille is a millionaire ... so the bakerA says to himself I can charge 100k per loaf of bread. So he does ... but oops he is not the only person sellin bread ... infact there is no shortage of bread .. so the millionairs dont buy the 100k bread they buy the cheaper bread and try to resell it for 100k each ... BUT again there is more bread made ... hmmmm seems you cant sell your bread fast enough to drive the prices up like they have ... It would be a fair deal to make the BASIC mats drop rates higher in fact if they did the people makin adena for RL market couldnt make the 100m an hr to sell the adena as cheap as they have been ....
I think the easiest/fastest way to correct the market and make it ... reasonably expensive instead of off the wall, would be to give dwarf/scavengers the ability to dis-assemble equipment for less than the total of mats possible from the drop. i mean, think about it... a 1.5m piece of equipment from the store costs as much or more to craft at current market prices. if scav's can dis-assemble, the the total of the mats will never be much more than what you can buy straight from the store, maybe up to double the cost. If say, a piece of equipment that costs 2000 abones to craft returns 1k bones from dis-assembling (more or less based on maybe the scav's skill level), then, the very worst price you would pay is double what they are truly worth.
It's the only way i can think of to put a cieling on the stupidity, without just setting fixed prices. Leaves plenty of room for competitive marketing, without edging out the guy who is on his first char.
In all honesty, even with the manor, the one product that is always a problem no matter how much you manor or how much you spoil is animal bone. Everything c grade and up needs a hella animal bone. I can get enough of everything else in huge excess except animal bone. I have a ton of low c grade jewel parts but at current prices I end up losing 100k per craft or more. I dont care about other mats but they need to readjust a bone or make it drop 4x
WOW just after i posted this i waited for the manor to turn..i was able to turn in all my seeds i had left over from all my times..not a bot in sight! 10,000 animal bones and 7,000 varnish YESSSS!!
Make an NPC, say a scavenger master in the blacksmiths. this dorf sells all the base mats at 3x the NPC value of the mat. Coal = 600a, bone = 600a and so on. This means that to make sales farmers and others can go no higher than 599a on the cost of their coal or bone and no higher than the NPC cost of their other mats.
This then leaves only key mats and recepies for the farmers to drive prices on. This brings back scavengers and player farming to the game. People will find it alot more appealing to hunt certain mobs or group bounty hunters and so on to get their recepies and key mats to make their weapons. Higher level players can also hunt areas to get key mats to sell to lower level players. The economy can become more balanced and players can hunt for their key parts and recepies as was intended instad of them being the cheap items and the key mats being crazy money and insdanely low drop rates.
With the price of mats and such there is often no point in crafting anything below B grade so all the drops new players get are worthless. If the base mat economy was capped by NPC's then the part of hunting for mats to craft with could be brought back and new players encouraged to play the game again. I have so many key mats and there is no point in crafting any due to the fact that they'd cost mroe in key mats than they are worth.
Capping the cost of base mats with an NPC making farmers raise the price of key mats would also have the bonus of the mid grade and low grade armor sets and weapons being used again as people could farm key mats and recepies up as they leveled, going through different sets of equipment as the game was intended. The online price of adena would be foreced to rise and it would become less appealing to people to cheat in such way.
Prices are insane high true and do i care ? Nope !
I tell you why. Back in Open beta/prelude i started a DE mystic but got bored of the downtime then i did a Human knight short time after also in prelude till lvl 24 or 26 dont remember anymore.
My brother did a scavenger that time i started my Human knight he also had a lot more time to play. After i did see the favors of a scav ( my brothers ) back then i did a scavenger too.
Because i did realise that char is the only one that will help me craft my own gear without much costs.
I started to sell wanted recipes and bought also from players materials sometimes.
All that stuff did grow in my warehouse but i crafted already back then some D grade a lot C grade all B grade and all A grade i have so far.
I did also manor as soon as it was implented atm i can only trade in at weekends because of the bad times the manor resets for me anyway i still have not to worry much about materials.
Maybe my playstyle is a lot different like most others ppl playstyle because i do what a Bounty hunter is for farm materials. Plus using my alts for manor too. I play like 4-5 hours a day only on weekends sometimes more.
Sure u can spend a lot money on materials if u need to have it now if u have patience you will get the stuff sooner or later for much less ( for me free or with a little seed cost ).
All that requirers time only and the will to work for your stuff.
Most time i laught at that insane prices and sometimes i also sell
materials ( witch is really very rare ) at a good price when i know i get them back very fast and easy.
Raising mat prices are for me the same efford to get them and more money when i sell em. Beside that i only need money to buy consumeables and some keymats/recipes i can not get myself.
I dont care if someone that played less time then me and has his 2nd subclass now or if someone "plays the market" makes a ton more money.
I like to play like this and it fits for me.
Prices are insane high true and do i care ? Nope !
I tell you why. Back in Open beta/prelude i started a DE mystic but got bored of the downtime then i did a Human knight short time after also in prelude till lvl 24 or 26 dont remember anymore.
My brother did a scavenger that time i started my Human knight he also had a lot more time to play. After i did see the favors of a scav ( my brothers ) back then i did a scavenger too.
Because i did realise that char is the only one that will help me craft my own gear without much costs.
I started to sell wanted recipes and bought also from players materials sometimes.
All that stuff did grow in my warehouse but i crafted already back then some D grade a lot C grade all B grade and all A grade i have so far.
I did also manor as soon as it was implented atm i can only trade in at weekends because of the bad times the manor resets for me anyway i still have not to worry much about materials.
Maybe my playstyle is a lot different like most others ppl playstyle because i do what a Bounty hunter is for farm materials. Plus using my alts for manor too. I play like 4-5 hours a day only on weekends sometimes more.
Sure u can spend a lot money on materials if u need to have it now if u have patience you will get the stuff sooner or later for much less ( for me free or with a little seed cost ).
All that requirers time only and the will to work for your stuff.
Most time i laught at that insane prices and sometimes i also sell
materials ( witch is really very rare ) at a good price when i know i get them back very fast and easy.
Raising mat prices are for me the same efford to get them and more money when i sell em. Beside that i only need money to buy consumeables and some keymats/recipes i can not get myself.
I dont care if someone that played less time then me and has his 2nd subclass now or if someone "plays the market" makes a ton more money.
I like to play like this and it fits for me.
You sir make no sense and are totally blind to the world around you in game.
So you spend X amount of hours farming mats to craft an item. The value of these mats on the market are so overpriced that to craft this item you would be better off buying it from an NPC before crafting it unless it is B or higher grade.
The whole point of crafting has been taken out of the game for anyone below B grade making it hard for new players to start up and taking a big section out of the game. I mean really... without manor, as this is dominated by the farmers who can hand in crops in miliseconds.... how are you meant to hunt untill you have 5k bone and other mats to craft a recepie with a 40% chance of failing? This whole game is designed around the notions of people working together and trading. when trade values are offset by people who play to make RL cash not enjoy the game the game get's tippled into forcing people to either cheat or quit.
We need an NPC to sell base mats at around 3x their value to keep the game market steady. Sure prices on key mats and recepies along with enchant scrolls and AA will rise, but people can farm these easily without having to spend 100+ hours to get enough to craft a weapon that you're going to have grown out of by the time you get the mats to craft it with.
With base mats having a set price and farmers having to turn to extorting recepies, enchants and other items I believe we will also see a ride in "Mid grade" weapon and armor useage as the game was origionally intended. I mean how many people do you see wearing avadon or tallum light... or avadon, zubei heavy, composite, blast plate. No one uses single katana, sword of delusion or any other item really. If it were cost effective to craft these items with the parts you have gained as drops more people would craft and most likely more use them.
In all fairness people dont wear avadon because the circlet mats are a pain to get and the set is useless without them.
Also, people can buy composite at the luxury shop but dont wear it because fp is a lot better. Those are the only reasons. D grade crafting was profitable for jewelry for crystalizing but you are right, c grade is worthless to craft. I have tons of jewelry parts but they need VoP etc so I would end up losing about 100k on each craft. The only useful c grade craft is an fp helm pretty much.
Also, as the game moves on and people level there is going to be a shift in useful craft levels. Since a lot of players are b grade or better the market shifts from d grade and c grade to b grade and by chronicle 10 I can imagine b grade being around a lot less.
With lower prices and the game being easier to get into people might actually start to play more and players would stick to the game for longer.
Look at server populations, look at their economy, look at the gear that is selling on these servers and look at online adena prices.
I'm sure you will find this....
Low RL adena value = High priced ecomony
High priced economy = less players
High priced economy = Less D-B grade being sold, mostly A and S
High online adena value = Low priced economy
Low priced economy = more players
Low priced economy = more D-B grade being crafted and sold
It's simple, if new players come to the game and can't access the economy as there is no point in the crafting or easy way for them to farm then they leave the game or leave the server. The manor system is a joke as only farmers using illegal programs can hand their crops in so that is out of the window.
If the price on base mats were capped then people would be encouraged to craft anything they could to make a profit, prices on items would inevitably fall pushing the online adena prices up again thus discouraging people from "E-baying".
So you spend X amount of hours farming mats to craft an item. The value of these mats on the market are so overpriced that to craft this item you would be better off buying it from an NPC before crafting it unless it is B or higher grade.
The whole point of crafting has been taken out of the game for anyone below B grade making it hard for new players to start up and taking a big section out of the game. I mean really... without manor, as this is dominated by the farmers who can hand in crops in miliseconds.... how are you meant to hunt untill you have 5k bone and other mats to craft a recepie with a 40% chance of failing? This whole game is designed around the notions of people working together and trading. when trade values are offset by people who play to make RL cash not enjoy the game the game get's tippled into forcing people to either cheat or quit.
We need an NPC to sell base mats at around 3x their value to keep the game market steady. Sure prices on key mats and recepies along with enchant scrolls and AA will rise, but people can farm these easily without having to spend 100+ hours to get enough to craft a weapon that you're going to have grown out of by the time you get the mats to craft it with.
With base mats having a set price and farmers having to turn to extorting recepies, enchants and other items I believe we will also see a ride in "Mid grade" weapon and armor useage as the game was origionally intended. I mean how many people do you see wearing avadon or tallum light... or avadon, zubei heavy, composite, blast plate. No one uses single katana, sword of delusion or any other item really. If it were cost effective to craft these items with the parts you have gained as drops more people would craft and most likely more use them.
Nah you missed the point. I did go hunt where the mobs did spoil the mats i needed all the time. For crafting D and C grade that was a long time ago and i dont remember that you could ever buy a brig helmet, assault boots, sages gloves or top D jewles at the npc. Also why spend money on that stuff when i get all for free by spoiling ? Same goes for C grade buy a weapon or armor at crystal shop or from players but you cant get full plate, Divine or Drake armor stuff there. At the time i needed that there was no mammon BS that was C1. The only way to get that was by crafting cheap or buy expensive. I did use composite set then and i also see even today ppl wearing it and using not top grade stuff. Also i dont see nothing wrong to craft all B grade and A grade even some C grade even now because i get/gotten the materials free.
Also on Gustin where i play it is possible to do the manor and because of it and the insane prices new players have it a lot easier then i had it in prelude.
I told a new player how to work with the manor when he was 24. Now he is 32 has top D grade gear and also his top C +4 duals and Full plate set only by doin the manor and because of the insane prices. For him im the big hero because i showed him how it works. As for me i did manor for like 18 hours this week and hope i can trade the crops back on weekend and i will get from the crop i have now 400-500 ori ore that sells for 40-50k each on Gustin.
If you cant do the manor i would say its bad luck then again in prelude and c1 was no manor too and ppl got mats to craft also.
Im sorry that u seem to be to blind to use that prices to your advantage. For me its only a bit more time.
Its just like that either you work for your gear to get it cheap or you buy it expensive.
As i told you in my first post i did realise very soon that only a Bounty hunter is the only way to get your equip cheap.
As it is now u dont even need a Bounty Hunter anymore.
If you dont wanna work for it or spend time on it you have to pay the prices players charge.