Everyone knows gold has very little real value at the moment, for anyone trying to buy an item over lvl 500 it's nearly impossible to buy through a player for gold. It's either a real purchase, try and PK, or quest / craft the item yourself. (If you can, hopefully you don't need a replacement after having had your quest only item dropped in pvp)
With the recent fishing fix to higher level items bringing mixed reviews (myself included, one hand yay for trying to reinstate gold value but boo for taking the major way to obtain these items out)
What is really needed is a gold sink. Best way i can think of is to introduce some from of consumable item that disappears on use, has a high demand with a moderately easy way of obtaining. By that I mean don't make it take an hour to make a batch of said items that lasts for like 5 minutes...
By the way I know adding lots of new items to the game will be an increse on both game file size and the server. That's why I feel that lower level items need to be trimmed down drastically. As a newb it sucks to spend an hour trying to find the best gear you can wear then 15 minutes of grinding later there's something already something better.
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*DISCLAIMER* ALL NUMBERS ARE PURELY "FILLER" FIGURES JUST TO GIVE AN IDEA
Although I do think the ranges given are fair
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***INDEX***
1. Consumables
2. Item Stacking
3. Clan Trading
4. PvP Death Rework
5. Conclusion
6. Other Player Ideas
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1. CONSUMABLES
1.a Potions
1.b Charms
1.c Pet Food
1.d Crafting Stations
1.e Resources
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Before anything just a few conditions...
MAKE THESE ALL USEFUL IN QUALITY AND CRAFTABLE IN A QUANTITY WORTH OBTAINING FOR REGULAR USE OR SOLD FOR PROFIT!!!
Otherwise nobody will even attempt them if they take hours of gathering walking and crafting just to last a short time
This condition will be forever referred to as Rule #1 I will refer to it often.
I can't stress this enough, if it takes me over an hour to create an batch of these items and they don't last me at least 8+ hours of grinding, then it's useless. It only takes a couple minutes to stop and heal each time if that already.
Even if you currently stop for 10 minutes per hour in total to heal then that comes up to 80 minutes to create a batch of items approx lasting 8 hours just to be at the same level of healing as stopping currently does. Just sayin.
Let EVERYONE also be able to craft them with the materials. New/Low Wealth players grinding these for gold to sell to Old/High Wealth players is what will help drive this supply/demand economy.
Lastly (but most importantly) the natural recovery of both health and mana (not as much as health, just not infinite) needs to be nerfed. Yeah it's gonna suck, but if it doesn't get changed there's not gonna be a NEED for most of these rending them all pointless. Nobody wants to have to spend gold, but if it's ever to be given value again then it's gotta be forced out of our pockets one way or another.
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1.a POTIONS
Expand on them. Right now the real max is 1k, which being honest becomes obsolete pretty quickly. Idk exactly when I stopped carrying potions but I know it was prolly around the 100-200 range.
Increase the potions to have a 10k, 25k, 50k, and 100k craftable. Also if possible give options to craft; requiring either a certain amount of smaller potions (two 10k for a 25k at 50% chance at 0 craft, two 25k to make a 50k at 50% chance, etc) but also allow them to be made from scratch with a greater, but not guaranteed chance. Remember Rule #1
Btw all of this applies to mana as well, goes without saying.
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1.b CHARMS
Whilst potions are nice for an instant boost of health, they're not really viable as they take up a ton of precious inventory space. If we take away the natural healing we already have we need something that can sustain us for a long period of time. Even a full 80 inventory pack of the 100k potions isn't a viable compensation at high levels to replace the current natural resting heal on extended hunting trips.
Instead of a traditional "uses" item that takes up lots of space and memory (each one requiring it's own seperate ID at use count) I propose a "chance to break" healing item.
Now potions still need to have value as well, so these items will need to be different. Instead of an instant boost of health let them heal a certain amount over time, with a cooldown between uses to prevent them from being too OP. Also just one charm can be active a time, can't activate one type and another in your inventory to stack heals.
I feel a 2-5% break chance on use would be fine. That translates to 20-50 uses on average for each item. If you feel this is too many uses per slot that's fine, just remember Rule #1
As far as healing amounts go, keep them the same as potions but make it heal over a 10 second period then have a 30 seconds cooldown before it can be used again. Or you can lower the healing amount so potions heal best, but if ya do lower the cooldown between uses to compensate. Remember Rule #1
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1.c PET FOODS
We've all been begging for a way to heal our pets for quite some time. This is the perfect to chance to do so. In a rework of fishing (described in resources below) there can be an expansion on fish caught.
Add a few new types of fish, catch rate less common the better quality of food they create.
To make these foods viable to all levels whilst not creating too many and conserve space, create just a few different types that heal based on health percentage.
These foods would be one time use only, maybe 5 types healing 10% (current common fish) 20% (catch rate between common and rare) 40% (rare fish catch rate) 60% (harder than rare fish) and lastly 80% (hardest of them all to catch the fish needed)
Oh yeah... DON'T FORGET RULE #1
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1.d CRAFTING STATIONS
Short and sweet little idea, make little stations that can craft basic resources only (like bars, planks, etc) just to help conserve time at crafting and at the same time make tradeable for gold. No need for different types, just one item that can be used to solely craft basic materials.
They'd be relatively hard to make, as their use would really cut down on resource gathering. However since they're rare they'd need to last quite a while to compensate for rarity and to overall make these a highly sought after and expensive consumable.
You could even possiby make two types for diversity; a single person one that lasts a shorter period of time and one anyone can use that lasts longer to encourage more friendly group resource gathering.
I'd say maybe a 15-20 minute duration for the single and 1 hour duration for the group one would be fine. Not too short to make them feel like a waste yet not too long to make them OP.
Psst... don't forget Rule #1
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1.e RESOURCES
A great way to encourage more trade skill usage is with all these new resources / items (and can use some existing as well to save memory) that will be used to craft all of these items. Remember Rule #1 when deciding what current items will be used in comparison to their drop rate though.
These new resources could be obtained in many ways; dropped by monsters (good time to expand on monster's drop lists) fishing (described later ) or by direct from the source gathering (mining, chopping)
A general idea is maybe raw minerals you concentrate for potions through mining and new trunks to carve the charms out of once theyre made into planks.
MAKE SURE BEST WAY OF GATHERING IS NATURAL WAY LIKE MINING OR CUTTING NOT THROUGH PVM
If it takes 1 min to get from tree/rock, needs to be 10 mins+ from PvM. Remember not everything needs to revolve around combat. To me combat has nothing to do with crafting so if anything they shouldn't drop materials at all... but I'll give in a little and let ya'll have a chance.
I also feel fishing could be a great way to gather resources albeit in a random manner kinda like how they are now with items. Maybe decrease the chance of an actual "item" drop, and increase raw material rates to compensate.
This reduction in the amount of item drops could potentially allow the level restriction to be lifted (at least some maybe?
) as the amount items actually caught would be low comped to fish and resources.----------------------------------------
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2. ITEM STACKING
We all know storing and trading items in mass quantities sucks. The current system for both makes it nearly impossible to sustain a market but the greatest problem is storage. Each individual item (even duplicates) take up a whole inventory slot.
This is why nobody sells basic resources like metal bars, trunks, ores, or stone in large quantities. You can't even GATHER them to begin with because ya can't store them without taking all of your space (even a house only has 100 slots) most people have what 40 between bank and tavern?
This limitation on space is a big factor in what's keeping the game's economy at a slow crawl.
If there was a way when you put items into storage that they "stacked", I feel this would drastically kick-start the economy and encourage people to want to buy and sell raw materials to craft. Either for profit or experience in the trade.
At the same time there needs to way to pull them into your inventory stacked to be able to be traded in greater quantities, but in an unusable form to keep crafting from being too easy they'd still have to put the stacked items back in and pull them out unstacked to use.
Players that couldn't necessarily craft the items could potentially gather the materials, and then sell them to the players that CAN make the items. Afterwards, the crafted items could either be sold to players/shops for gold or used themselves.
Even if you had to force a limit on how many could stack per inventory spot (at least 100 please, preferably infinite like gold but I'd literally settle for a measly 100 each just to get something I'm that desperate to improve storage I've already even bought a house
Without the ability to store and trade in large quantities nobody is going to want try to find a buyer for like 20 bars cuz that's all they can carry, and that's only good for like 1 craft chance at a time. Not to mention what little space they have is gonna be taken until they either find or buyer or just use themselves.
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3. CLAN TRADING
Clan to Clan trades! Like Clan X Lord+ could "offer" to sell like 100 trunks for 5m ea through a new trade house building. This might seem high but until gold gets drained first, prices will obviously be absurdly high for all items because I'd confidently say that 500m is mere pennies compared to the wealth of gold some players and clans have and since most people have gold not resources, e'rrybody will be wanting to buy.
Anyway..
The new building would have low storage, maybe 4-20 depending on the size of the "stack". More slots if each stack limit is lower, fewer if higher. Possibly adding more slots as upgraded.
Lord+ could "offer" 100 trunk for total price of 500m, then it gets stored in the trade house inventory until purchased. Only after an item doesn't sell for 1 week can it be removed.
Clan Y Lord+ would have to visit and tap on Clan X's trade house to see available offers juat like they would any shop, any funds would come out of and go towards clan gold. Would give a reason to donate to clan again, ability to buy materials faster than gather to build faster or help earn your clan gold if needed by helping to sell raw materials. All whilst encouraging more player interaction through trade, shweet!
As far as the potential for abuse goes with players using clan funds to purchase personal items without permission, stealing from clan storage rules apply. Promote your people wisely. I personally have had around 1b in items I had donated to the clan stolen for "backups" of lost items during PvP and tools stolen before by bad members so I know how it can suck.
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4. PvP Death Rework
This idea I could go either way with honestly, but it's something I thought of and would like to hear opinions on. I'm gonna try to keep it basic just to see what people think.
Instead of having a chance to drop an item on PvP death, have it where we have to pay a certain amount of gold to protect your items based on your level (maybe better yet is to base it off the total level of all the gear you're wearing). If you don't have enough gold to cover this cost, 1 equipped item will be randomly dropped and given to the killer guaranteed.
Half of the gold amount needed to keep your items safe would be given to the killer as a drop, the other half given to "Death" as payment for getting to keep your items. Both draining a bit of gold from the game whilst also still rewarding PvP kills.
Obviously a lot of number crunching and balancing would be needed, but keep in mind the ease high levels can kill lower ones. Level difference should play a big part in this to prevent high levels from draining all lower levels of gold by one shotting them everywhere they go. The bigger the gap, the lower the cost for the lower level player.
Maybe start at like 100% for someone your level, then exponentially decreasing based on the level difference between them. If someone below your level kills you, you always pay 100% cost.
Since items are gonna be harder to come by, give a gold option.
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5. CONCLUSION
I know its a lot to read, and tbh I tried to be as general as possible cuz ultimately it's up to the team to decide the numbers and specifics for balancing.
It'll prolly tick off quite a number of people just like the fishing update, but several good I feel will help reinstate the value of gold and just encourage a more vibrant game economy.
There are COUNTLESS ways to create gold sinks and overall economic improvements in the game. I'm just trying to give a few to get the ball rolling on a legetimate way to entice (possibly even force at first) players to spend / earn gold throughout the game.
I respect the decision (although admittedly not THAT happy about it) to remove most of the high level items from fishing. Really sucks it wasn't done sooner before everyone already high leveled got the items they needed, because as it stands now all you have done is just demolished the value of gold even more by making the items already hard to purchase with gold most likely impossible.
If you wanna increase the value of gold, you gotta think small. There are currently 2 groups of items. Game currency (gold) and premium currency (purchases for $) and we all know how those work in games. This might not be the case TECHNICALLY speaking... but anybody currently playing knows what I'm talking about when you try to buy a higher level item.
You just took out the best way to obtain replacement "premium" items for free. Why would I sell my premium valued item thats now even MORE rare for free game currency? If anything you just made all of my premium items much more valuable and gold even more useless bc now even fewer people will accept gold
You have to drain the surplus gold before it'll have a real value again. Until then you're just shortening the gap that players can still obtain items for gold and making it harder for new players.
If you do disagree with my idea(s), please give legitimate feedback rather than just "this idea is stupid and would ruin game". I'd love to see gold have value in the game, I really would. Any other ideas to give gold value again would be greatly appreciated (legitimate ones btw, not ones like sell better pets or houses in game for gold bc we all know that ain't gonna happen)
6. OTHER PLAYER IDEAS
Khmer Many ways to maintain gold levels... charge a daily 'land tax on clans' scaled based on building lvls etc...
If there is too much money in the game created from fishing, FT could easily scale back what items sell for; instead of $600+million for 2k, $100 million for example, that way 2k and other higher lvl items could be fished and used for the intended purpose, increasing player stats and without throwing gold in FT out of whack.
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