Changes to Gold Drops

Malok

Sooo, I don't know anything about comms, and I wouldn't even call myself an active player in Aetolia at the moment, but I just got done powerbashing a friend of mine through Xaanhal, and upon seeing that mobs that used to give me 80 gold per kill now give me 8 to 12 gold per kill, I just kinda lost all interest in bashing.

I understand all this economy stuff, what I don't understand is how some people lose sight of this being a game, and games are supposed to be fun and rewarding, or fun through being rewarding, and cutting gold drops down to 10% of what they were while nothing else seems to have changed in price is really, really not fun.

I'm gonna go back to my hole now and shake my head and chuckle at this design decision. Good day.

Zsadist

The gold nerf is a relatively new thing. Give it time and let the economy catch up to where the gold drops are at. Economy doesn't change over night, its a gradual thing.

Still loving the changes, btw.

Kehanni

Per the post, the purpose of the changes is to essentially 'break even' - to not be able to turn hunting (and possibly in the future questing) into a moneymaking venture. As a newbie who's used to paying for armour, clothing, comms, etc. with gold from hunting in Achaea this is mildly terrifying. I totally understand wanting people to buy credits OOCly versus ICly, but how are people then supposed to make money to pay for non-credit items that need to be paid with gold ICly (aside from things like shopkeeping and selling credits for gold)? Does that only leave fishing?

Dristin

Kehanni said:

Per the post, the purpose of the changes is to essentially 'break even' - to not be able to turn hunting (and possibly in the future questing) into a moneymaking venture. As a newbie who's used to paying for armour, clothing, comms, etc. with gold from hunting in Achaea this is mildly terrifying. I totally understand wanting people to buy credits OOCly versus ICly, but how are people then supposed to make money to pay for non-credit items that need to be paid with gold ICly (aside from things like shopkeeping and selling credits for gold)? Does that only leave fishing?

We have a high volume of quests in numerous zones that reward more gold. It's simply the specific corpse-style turn-ins that were nerfed down. There are thousands upon thousands of gold in fairly simple quests that just require discovery and waiting for quest items to repop. I'm gradually working on updating older zones to have their quests easier to find, along with some other team members, but it'll take time. Exploration can be fun!

Jensen

Before mobs dropped gold commonly we had to hunt vermin, know gold quests, and play the comms/credits market where you could. It's possible to do, though it isn't as easy as what we just left. I remember it not being fun to rat hunt for elixer/vials costing 300-1200 per.

Ezalor

Vermin hasn't been nerfed and most of the non-bashing quests haven't either. The gold nerf actually shouldn't hurt new players too badly as the vast majority of bashing gold is/was being monopolized by a few power bashers. Just need a way to get the existing hoards of gold out of circulation and things probably won't look too bad.

Trikal

Jensen said:

Before mobs dropped gold commonly we had to hunt vermin, know gold quests, and play the comms/credits market where you could. It's possible to do, though it isn't as easy as what we just left. I remember it not being fun to rat hunt for elixer/vials costing 300-1200 per.

I never really understood why npc gold drops were added, I came back after a long time and was really surprised at how I didn't have to do any of the quests I used to do when I noticed that just bashing Tiyen was way better time spent and got tons of experience too. I used to run plenty of quests that net good gold, and they still exist and I still do them occasionally. @Dristin is adding them to the quest system which makes me both happy and sad because my secret gold quests might be quite a bit less secret but that's still fair. There's so much gold out there in quests that mob drops could be removed entirely and that'd be fine. Credit market prices would drop down after a short while as actual amount of gold able to be gained will come down some and gold will have more value. I'd still love to see something more or what seems to have a better value than the prize bags added for me to want to spend my gold on something other than the credit market. Picking up classes isn't cheap and I see no real reason to buy prize bags as I have all the relic items. The quest nerf on corpse turn-ins are quite harsh, but even back in the day that wasn't much of the income I could generate which was fairly substantial off just doing some quests regularly.

Explore and find quests, they're more than worth the time to do them once you've discovered them. As long as there's no plan to significantly nerf the gold gained from those types of things there's plenty of coin to buy all the things that I'd currently consider needed for most players. That being enchantments/amulets/armor/weapons. Curatives are still able to be bought easily off gold drops from npcs, and they're also stupidly cheap. The fact that as a newbie you can buy health refills for 2 gold instead of 150 makes things like that so much more accessible. You used to have to figure out a way to earn ~20k gold before you could get past novice status just in buying up the required curatives. Almost all those ways of earning gold from 10+ years ago still exist, and plenty of new ones have been added in.

Jensen

Jensen said:

Before mobs dropped gold commonly we had to hunt vermin, know gold quests, and play the comms/credits market where you could. It's possible to do, though it isn't as easy as what we just left. I remember it not being fun to rat hunt for elixer/vials costing 300-1200 per.

What I should have said was I remember it not being fun to rat hunt for elixers costing 300-1200 per.  Considering refills are cheaper now by a factor of 10, and there are more ways to earn gold, I wouldn't worry too much.

Eydis

Um, so I couldn't figure out how to spoiler, soz. *shakes fist at the new forums*

I have my views on the market but most of them have been addressed by @Ezalor and @Larion. Instead, I wanted to mention how as an administrative character with limited rl funds, my perspective on this situation varies from that of the higher rollers. There seems to be this "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" perception that I find to be equal parts confusing and counterproductive. Furthermore, I have concerns regarding the primary gold source in Aetolia being cut down to 1/10th, and then having it explained away with -- at least the way I perceive it -- limited, overly competitive earning potential that will be inherent in leftover income streams.

What I do in Aetolia:
------------------------

I am by no means a "casual player", before the holidays I was averaging 40+ hours on Aetolia doing a frightening (heh) amount of work for the city and the guild. Right now I'm planning the Obsidian Tournament with @Atarah which will host both RP and other events for the Syssin, as an example. Nearly all of my time is devoted to the Syssin and Spinesreach - the rare times that I'm not working on city and guild stuff, I'm growing my design list for my shop, as well as pursuing personal RP goals that I've been working toward since I first made my character (lookin' at you Ilstrem Clan). However, I'm no stranger to going out and grinding for gold.

Perceptions & Misconceptions of the "Casual Player":
----------------------------------------------------------

Let me start off by saying that I agree that the integrity of organizations, valuable game mechanics including gold drops, and other vital parts of the game SHOULD NOT be sacrificed in favor of a player who can only play the game for 20ish hours per week, or whatever. I think there are several different types of people who play the game for varying reasons. I think there has to be a balance struck between all the classifications, all the way from the Administrator, the Combatant/Ylem Fanatic/Hunter, the Merchant, the Newbie/Aspiring Character, to the Casual Player, the Higher Roller, and everyone in between.

Gold Drop/Economy Issues:
----------------------------------

Immersion vs. Accommodation: If the Gods/Admin accommodate the Casuals who aren't as committed to the game, they degrade immersing elements into problematic aspects that work to shove more serious players away. If the admin thought chests were encroaching on immersion, I would understand making some items even more rare but still having them be somewhat accessible, limiting relic credit trade-ins to one or so credit(s), converting some items with credit trade-in values found in chests to modest gold trade-ins instead (similar to the gold delivery mechanic used by the auction), lowering gold drops to 1/2, or even limiting the amount of chests that are available in the shop as someone has already mentioned.

Hell, even doing all of them would've been constructive, not only for players of all interests since the gold sink would exist/there would be more opportunities for non-High Rollers to invest in, but it would also be good for the Admin since getting to endgame or gaining excessive amounts of credits/gold would be much more difficult. Conversely, credit sales would likely go UP since the people already here would feel more engaged, and the economy would still attract people to the game, which would encourage more people to stick around and invest in their characters.

The market wouldn't have suffered such an abrupt change, causing everyone who ISN'T the High Roller to do 10x the work via hunting, or detracting away from their goals in the game to compete for what will now be highly sought after quests. To me, this is pretty simple: limited amount of quests + High Rollers + everyone else + cut in gold drops and limited financial opportunity in chests - ability of most of us to buy enough credits to earn a significant amount + a declining credit market icly = limited opportunities for everyone who isn't a Higher Roller.

My Final Take, Somewhat of a TL;DR:
-------------------------------------------

Speaking as an Administrator and Merchant who has been part of this game for many years, this is my first character to get to endgame. My other characters are lvl 83, and my oldest main is lvl 81. I love to craft, and yet have ever only had one crafting skill under one old main. Now? - I have 5. It wasn't gold drops alone that had me to get lvl 100, get a shop, invest 1,200 city/guild/membership/impulse credits to beef her up this time - it was the economy as a whole, coupled with the opportunity that chests represented, and (rare) active organizations (Thanks for being awesome Syssin & Spinesreach!) despite the conflicted messages the Admin send via accommodating the Casual player for so long. I never wanted to be a Higher Roller necessarily, but I wanted to experiment with multiple crafting skills, own a shop, be an administrator, and pursue personal RP goals. If the economy wasn't great and the opportunities that chests represented didn't exist, I doubt that Aetolia would've tempted me back after two years of being mostly AFK.

A few people have shared similar stories and I think they're valid. Changing the economy to benefit basically no one, including the people with an extreme amount of gold, doesn't give the players OR the Admin what they need from this dynamic...it just pisses everyone off and works against the progress you were all building. I remember typing QW and having to enter MORE to see who was online back then because there was so much activity, even though I was broke as hell, and I very much doubt the newer players know what that looks like in Aet, even during peak time of the day. Moving forward, we need to address all of these problems if we want to not only sustain Aetolia, but to push the game past even its original level of activity.

Jensen

00:22 eastern standard time 1/18/2016

Credits currently available for purchase:
20 credits at 6666 gold per credit.
94 credits at 6800 gold per credit.
11 credits at 7250 gold per credit.
20 credits at 7500 gold per credit.
386 credits at 7800 gold per credit.
36 credits at 9000 gold per credit.
44 credits at 10000 gold per credit.
4 credits at 10500 gold per credit.
20 credits at 11000 gold per credit.
10 credits at 18000 gold per credit.



Don't underestimate undercutters in economics. People always need to push product fast not matter the market conditions. Within two weeks of the scare, lowest price is about 1600 over the old average price.

Larion

ok,  everything else aside,  could we please for a second talk about the utter insanity of dismissing someone who plays 20 hrs/week as a casual that admins should not focus on accommodating?  I know this wasn't your intention exactly @Eydis, but it's not the first time I've seen this nugget emerge. 

People. 20 hrs/week is a $#1+load of time! I don't know what the demographic breakdown of Aetolia is like,  but I have a full time job and 2 kids that occasionally require my attention. I can't think of any other discretionary activity I come close to spending 20 hours a week on, and on some weeks  that includes sleeping. 

Great story Hansel,  but the point that I'm trying to make is that Aetolia should not alienate people who can't commit the equivalent of a full time job to it, especially dye to something as basic as gold generation. I fully understand and expect that as a casual player I'll not be able to develop my character with IC credit purchases - I'm totally fine with that, but it becomes a different matter if I have to spend a substantial percentage of my limited playtime just generating gold for normal gold supplies - enchants,  forgings,  amulets, curatives, because the gold generation portion of this game is not even remotely fun. A game that requires me to spend a lot of time doing non-fun stuff isn't exactly a game that makes me motivated to spend RL money on it. 

Eydis

Larion said:

ok,  everything else aside,  could we please for a second talk about the utter insanity of dismissing someone who plays 20 hrs/week as a casual that admins should not focus on accommodating?  I know this wasn't your intention exactly @Eydis, but it's not the first time I've seen this nugget emerge. 

------> That wasn't my intention, no, and stating that the Casual Players should not be accommodated at all wasn't the premise of my argument. The premise of my argument is that there are people of varying play times other than the person who plays 20 hours or below and the entire game shouldn't suffer from excessive admin intervention that shapes all or most things around that one position. 

People. 20 hrs/week is a $#1+load of time! I don't know what the demographic breakdown of Aetolia is like,  but I have a full time job and 2 kids that occasionally require my attention. I can't think of any other discretionary activity I come close to spending 20 hours a week on, and on some weeks  that includes sleeping. 

Great story Hansel,  but the point that I'm trying to make is that Aetolia should not alienate people who can't commit the equivalent of a full time job to it, especially dye to something as basic as gold generation.

-------> This is a valid position, one that I think should be respected and acknowledged by the admin when they look at the impact of gold drops in the game, which is why I made the suggestions I did in my post, such as cutting them down to 1/2 instead of 1/10, and etc. etc.

--------> I also drew a parallel between this position and mine; I write scrolls, I help to lead a guild and a city, I plan events/stir activity, I run a business, and I do the bulk of the designing for city renovations/other random projects. I also have my own personal goals outside of that, so if gold becomes less accessible to me, it compromises my position too. My work is valuable too and shouldn't be dismissed as me being a more casual player, that's not conducive to a healthy or mindful dynamic either. It seemed like there was this false dichotomy that anyone who isn't willing to go out and spend all, most, or even an overly significant amount, of their time questing, fishing must be a casual player. The way I see it, there are many roles in the game, all of them are important and worthy of acknowledgement if we want to create a dynamic in the game that keeps and retains players, as well as generates an economy that attracts people. 

Larion

Sorry,  @Eydis, I really didn't mean to make it read like my last post was directly in response to you - I actually agree with a lot of what you said. I merely used what was probably a fairly throwaway point for you and used it as a launching pad for my own thoughts on being a time-bound player 

Tenshyo

Trikal said:

Explore and find quests, they're more than worth the time to do them once you've discovered them. As long as there's no plan to significantly nerf the gold gained from those types of things there's plenty of coin to buy all the things that I'd currently consider needed for most players.

Until people start fully automating/afk-ing these as well, these will likely remain as they are. /shrug/

Zsadist

Considering the admin just banned Grawthorg for actively doing a bugged quest for millions of gold, I'm pretty sure they're going to watch someone running quests in circles. I'm also pretty sure they are watching every single bit of gold generation right now. So long as you're active, I'm pretty sure you'll make more gold at less risk than someone afk-questing.

Satomi

Or, Or, if you absolutely must AFK-quest, remain at your keyboard. Admins do poke people who run circuits. When I was grinding for endgame some couple years back, an admin poked my half-asleep RL self through my character and I had barely enough awareness to respond to it, despite my autobashing consisting of a trigger that attacks every time I recover balance (doesn't do anything else. I had to manual move, target, and attack)

Xavin

They can and likely do track gold, and they can and likely do track people who seem to be afk while grinding fishing, quests, or bashing. You have something like....30 seconds to respond if they ping at you.

If you're automating anything, be very, very careful and always, always disable your automation if you need to go afk.

Arbre

They've talked to me once, thinking I was afk fishing.

Serrice

@Arbre is secretly AI. Clever, clever AI.

Lim

Automate the response, silly! Most people don't realise that I'm fully AI. 

Pypo

After reading what everyone has said, I really think that everything was really thought out and well said.

At first I was really agrivated by the change not because I didn't want to do quests, but having a spot to make...REALLY fast cash ((OMG OMG OMG RACIAL RELICS I MUST MUTATE AND COLLECT DEM ALL! ))

However, I really....stopped going into Xannal after a while once I hit 100 and with all the changes to vortex, I really...really felt like this area felt so much more interesting. It feels kind of like guild wars 2 action zone, there is a eccentric feel and theme of war going on here. Your actions change things in the background without being massively significant playing out few ways every day. The gold amount for the amount of effort isn't as much but I find it so much more interesting running the risks for the rewards.

Losing out on the opportunity to make 2k gold from one soldier death in Tiyen isn't much of a loss for me. It was just way too easy to do a run or three and make up more then what you lost and it was SO much faster then questing ((shakes fist at teshen area)) the rewards for this area is 5 gold per corpse and I think really my only complaint was not being able to use fang barrier to protect against denizens using poisons. I have to honestly side with the changes and decisions made, cause yea...the credit market fluctuates and there is hundreds of options ((you can blame me, I am one of those guys putting one credit up for Trillions of gold on the credit market just to be a tease!))

Serrice

So, one, two months out, have the predictions come true?

Zsadist

Credits have stabilized at 6k gold per (personally, I think they could be lower due to the lack of gold income, but w/e... people be wanting dat gold).

Secondly, still loving the gold nerfs because it forces people to be active in order to get the supplies they need.

Toz

Well, most of the people who could have ruined credit market quit playing, so that's...something?

Tenshyo

With it now being a decent amount of time from the changes, I'm... okay with the changes.

I second @Zsadist 's notion of it making people be active.

With the recent addition of quests being pointed out now, and being more visible (and more coming) it certainly makes gold accruing more accessible to the I-Don't-Want-To-Quest inclined people.

Take the Ayhesa quests of Nator, Ephin, and such. I personally like trio sets like this in an area. Could the corpse rewards be higher than 10 gold? I personally think so. Say like, 25 or 30. But this is just me.

Nator gives 100 gold per item you give him, Ephin gives like 500 gold I think for the map.

One can easily make ~1000 gold every... what? 45 minutes?

Trikal

if 1k gold / 45 minutes was what we were looking at I'd probably be upset. Thankfully that's not the case.

Tenshyo

Trikal said:

if 1k gold / 45 minutes was what we were looking at I'd probably be upset. Thankfully that's not the case.

Well no, but I just meant for that specific set of quests, given mob respawns and such

Emelle

I don't know if it's directly related or if there are some other factors, but the Esterport shop auctions are WAY more expensive this time around than they were the last time. Absurdly expensive, for a shop that's going to automatically go back up for auction in four RL months.

Zsadist

People want shops. I've come to learn that people don't buy a shop to make a profit (since its almost impossible to do so). They do it for the RP opportunities and the feeling of owning a shop. But yes, they are quite expensive this time around.

Emelle

No, they don't really make a profit, but that isn't my point -- my point is that these shops are auctioning for about the same it would cost to buy one, which makes it very difficult for more casual players and/or new crafters to break into the market as a shopowner.