Best Of

I thank Intrepid for giving something that looks enough like an answer (10K) for the next Phase to mostly-convince my group members.

Econ Friday has rolled around again! To avoid making a new thread especially for another reference post I'll put an Econ Slots thing in this one to go with the above because my group wishes that I explain something from FF11. For those who are happy with the Economy of most MMORPGs of this era, there's no need to read it. For those who aren't, Intrepid has a thread for you. This post is only tangentially related and will lack a lot of context for brevity (I should use an infographic but that's less checkable/editable). The contents of this post are a historical rant about another game and are not about 'what we want to see in Ashes specifically.

Adventure Progression Slot #1:
The first thing you do or goal you pursue. FF11 simplifies this down to 'get some bronze or brass for a weapon'. Throne and Liberty uses 'get some uncommon materials for a new weapon'. In FF11, a 'Free Trade' game, someone can get the Bronze for you and you pay them. Sources: Worms (Bronze and Tin Ore), Goblins, mining, Smithing Guild (limited). Everyone else, to the Auction House! (almost immediately available, physical location in FF11). Some vendors also sell gear for prices meaningfully above what most players would sell them for on Auction.

Currency Progression Slot #1:
The first alternate path. Don't want to fight worms or look up quests? Go gather raw currency! Beastmen drop 10-20 gil each, quests will get you there, you don't need to equip a new weapon until level 7 anyway. By then you can buy some Bronze or a whole premade weapon. Also, technically, get Signet, fight things, get Crystals, sell them.

Artisan Progression Slot #1:
Get signet. Fight anything. Get Crystals. Learn which Crystal is used for the Artisanship you want to do most often, fight more of what drops them. Crystals only drop from things that give you/your group exp and Crystal drops are sorta per mob not per combat participant. Make food, thread and ingots, even a weapon, cloak or hat!

Adventure Consumption Slot #1:
Food! Effort in, delicious food out. Fire Crystals, Rabbit Meat, Currency (to buy salt and marjoram). In FF11 you can craft anywhere so they make you buy or stockpile the spices, to connect you to the world. In TL you can carry huge amounts but can only craft in specific spots. Both anchors work.

Currency Consumption Slot #1:
See above. Also, gathering tools. At this stage in FF11 since only Beastmen drop currency, and it's fairly minimal, the Auction House Taxes are enough to drive the currency inflation down. In TL the Taxes are doing twice the work, deflating the Lucent and partially paying NCSoft. In both games the goal is the highest reasonable Economic Velocity possible to go through that Auction House (FF11 uses Crystals, hundreds of transactions per day, eventually from 40 gil to 200+ gil)

Artisan Consumption Slot #1:
Ammunition and Gathering Tools in FF11. Item Trait rolls/attempts in TL. Crystals themselves are constantly consumed during this process as well, so this completes the 'first loop'.

Materials, currency, and Crystals are all gathered and pushed through the Auction House. Largely unavoidable artisanship products, counterinflation pressure, and decent food boosts. Crystals come and go with every battle and every 'synthesis'. There is no 'Questing Player' component to the Adventure Progression slot other than Currency, and repeatable quests usually have a second 'form' which is less rewarding monetarily.

Adventure Progression Slot #2:
Made yourself some gear or bought it either from others or for exorbitant prices? Push through to level 9 and get yourself some Brass gear! Know a Goldsmith who has been making all those Brass Ingots with no clear purpose until now? Add Brass to your Bronze Dagger and now you have a Brass one (you hope, and maybe not you personally). Go out there and hit more Beastmen! They drop Beastcoins which also melt down to Bronze (but this is rare). This is the level where 'Rare' and 'EX' tags start to appear on a few things. Rare simply means you can only hold one, so even if you want to 'camp' a Notorious Monster (Elite) you can't benefit unless you sell off the previous. Later on, some early game items were given these tags to prevent high level players monopolizing them because ofc they did. Newbies are taking over/assisting your old slot in the Earth Crystal and Rabbit Meat markets.

Currency Progression Slot #2:
Level 7+ is around the point where a few things that could actually be vendored for a few more gil (often about the same as Beastman amounts) drop about 17% of the time from random mobs. But nearly no one wants to vendor those things because everyone wants to use them for their endless need for things like Brass Flowerpots, sword grips, quests, and crafting material stockpiles. Still, you definitely can. The currency drops from Beastmen haven't gone up, but they can be killed more quickly so that helps, you just get less exp. Not 'less compared to your exp to next level. Just less. You're stronger than many of them now and must seek stronger ones.

Artisan Progression Slot #2:
You can grab your tools and venture into more areas where you can actually mine and log and harvest plants, since it's safer now. Or if you're an Alchemist you split your time between gathering things to make stuff with, and gathering the Crystals to make those things, because they are not often in the same place/same mob.

Adventure Consumption Slot #2:
Same as before. The food is better, the ammo is stronger. You can continue to do without it, but you're obviously much less effective. By now you might be carrying a potion for emergencies, these really weren't worth it for anything else, they were barely worth it for what they actually did. So new ingredients go in, perhaps, and slightly more effective food 'comes out'.

Currency Consumption Slot #2:
So many small things you want to decorate your house or prepare to grow plants. You don't want to be that person whose Mog House just has a bucket in the corner, do you? Splurge! Get multiple buckets! (this is a joke, but only because Buckets aren't a gil-sink). Auction House fees are handling most of the rest, as the playerbase advances, so does the Economic Velocity (usually).

Artisan Consumption Slot #2:
Broken pickaxes, broken sickles, broken fishing rods (at least these can be repaired... hopefully). Furniture that is definitely staying in people's houses forever now, and the occasional deconstruction or crafting failure on an upgrade. The rest goes into ammunition. This slot dies off as the playerbase matures, but in FF11 all miners use the same Pickaxes, so never entirely.

Adventure Progression Slot #3:
You're level 11. Time for the big leagues. "The Dunes" (for most, back then). Eventually was streamlined by making the game more Themepark and soloish. But we're talking about the late 00's here. Where you went for the fastest exp. The place you skipped if you found any of the other nine relevant zones to be comfortable/challenging/fun. The dunes are a place of pain, waiting around, and uncoordinated parties, with mostly the same drops as before, and some deeply unprofitable but dangerous enemies. Come back later solo to protect your juniors from them in the deeper areas, they often don't want to fight them in party here anyway! Your gear is coming from the Auction Houses back in your hometown with almost no exceptions. Money is scarce if you only push through here. Other places provide a laundry list of interconnected economic points though.

Currency Progression Slot #3:
New areas, a few new Quests, new Beastmen to get a few coin from, and probably your economic Niche. Assuming you enjoy anything about the game other than 'getting more levels', either someone is going to pay you for it, or you can use it to not need to pay other people (note that Currency Progression slot data isn't about currency faucets, but generally Currency Consumption slot data will be about currency sinks. Since modern games (including TL as of this writing) generally lack this 'economic Niche' concept, it's hard to explain, but just know that yes, many people did find all possible activities for gaining money boring. They didn't want to 'farm' for Beeswax, they didn't want to gather seeds and grow plants, they didn't want to craft, they didn't want to quest. They just wanted to advance, and they needed money. Not sure what to advise about those people, the only thing that ever seems to placate them is handouts or 'afk progression' (bias here).

Artisan Progression Slot #3:
In the old days? The pain point, the bottleneck, the stopgap. Because those who wanted to level stopped bringing back the stuff you needed to level with. You need Zinc and Bronze Ores? Sorry, worms are a threat to someone other than the Tank in party so we're not fighting 'em. You want Fire Crystals? Goblins HURT tho, and Lizards have Petrify. At this point you needed to make friends. Reliable friends. Whether or not you fought alongside them, you needed people who were aiming beyond the absolute basic easiest content, or you'd never have Dhalmel Meat, Fire Crystals, or Iron Ore. Slime Oil? Are you CRAZY? Have you seen what Slimes DO to people?

Adventure Consumption Slot #3:
Same old. Food, Ammunition, Potions... wait... what's that? Silent Oil? For sneaking deep into enemy territory past dangerous enemies that aggro by sound? That sounds great, where can I... Slime Oil, you say? {Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass.} But the 'best' players always had food, a potion or two, and something like this. Mages had to fork out for the spell scroll instead, which is more of a...

Currency Consumption Slot #3:
Mages need better spells, Tanks need better gear. It was a simple time. It was terrible. Yet it mostly worked, or probably moreso everyone who hated it quit. I personally think this method of using this slot this way is so hated that it's almost better to use Progression Currency separately. Throne and Liberty ties all sorts of Progression options to that currency, and you can never take those back (since you can't sell gear you've improved or get the money back for skills you level up). For any worries, Ashes does have a solution! If only we could make sure everyone needed to care about something in their environment, like a 'Node' or something. Perhaps some sort of 'tax'.

Artisan Consumption Slot #3:
You're still buying the occasional thing from a vendor for your work. In fact we're even racing to the limited supply from the Artisan Guild shops. Why is it limited? No, not just to make you miserable, it's to stop that person who attempts to corner and freeze the market, obviously. You know. That person. None of us like th-- oh wait, you're not that person, are you? Whew, good. Anyway, the prices of stuff in that shop go up if they're being bought out first thing every game day (which they are). Better start going to get them yourself, you're strong enough now, right? Some Artisan paths make mostly consumables, others upgrade old things into new stronger things, and of course, occasionally fail. Don't worry, most of those things 'disappear' a bit later.

Adventure Progression Slot #4:
Finally! A hub City! I had to walk fifteen malms to get here! There were Raptors, people! One nearly... anyway, where's everybody at, I need even more gear and even more levels! Oh, we're fighting Crabs... again? But only after Worms? I thought we didn't fight Worms in party because... ok nvm, worms it is. We're good players now... I think. After this we'll go into this dungeonish place and fight more Goblins since we got good at those back in the latter part of the Dunes. (if you followed this path as fast as possible you were undergeared and underprepared, but at least now you had the important thing, access to a hundred or so other people who took a different path and therefore knew things you didn't. One way or another this would lead to some advancement).

Currency Progression Slot #4:
At least now that you're fighting new things, and everyone's spread out a bit, there's less pressure on your niche, even less pressure on the 'people who are just pushing and actually lack a niche'. And that tower IS full of Goblins and therefore Fire Crystals... To be clear, this worked because people did spread out, they just didn't all talk about it. This was level 20+.

Artisan Progression Slot #4:
Finally, you can level and gather things that help your crafting (regardless of if you went to the hub City or not, though you might need to go there to sell things maybe). Or the demand for something you can make went up so you get to craft more, and more specialization points have appeared so you're not competing with literally everyone else.

Adventure Consumption Slot #4:
Finally you can just coast along on mostly cheap food! But now you need to do missions for your country. And that requires you to gather Crystals. You also need a Chocobo License, which is more time-work. And finally, you absolutely must update your gear now. You're out of crabs to bully, if you want to adventure with others, nearly everything has at least some chance to kill you if you don't gear up. This was true before, but this is the real end of the line for almost everyone, you can't get past here in mostly level 7 gear. Not even a purely backline healer should risk that once out of the Crab barrel. So once again...

Currency Consumption Slot #4:
Have you seen what they are charging for better gear in those shops in Jeuno? Are they insane? Good thing you know a guy. Or are brave enough to blindly message the name you see on the sales history in the Auction House to ask them to personally make you some gear. This is the point where it's less Consumption and moreso 'divergence'. The money isn't going straight to a sink, it's spreading out to many others who all still have many of the same sinks, and the Auction House fees are getting up there too, certainly compared to the relative pittance you are getting from Goblins and such, which seems to have barely kept pace, or worse, not at all.

Artisan Consumption Slot #4:
At this point things shift. It's less about a true consumption slot and more about the fact that diversity is now such a real thing that the inputs to the system (which mainly haven't increased as a whole, the same 'number of players' is still here) are 'automatically' evened out with all the necessities. We reached 'Artisan Consumption Saturation' around this point, but we also got 'Guild Contracts' to earn Guild Points for our officially-affiliated Artisanship guild by making things and just handing them over. This was so optional that it could swing from being a powerful sink to 'basically affecting nothing' on any given day, but that's where the 10K economy comes in. If getting your Guild Points is expensive today, don't do it. Optional. If it's cheap because of oversupply. Do it, Remove Supply. The Adventurers don't need to pay attention to if their stuff will sell, they will just relist it for less and it will get bought on the day when the Artisans need it, and off it goes, out of the Economy.

it's also at this point that things start to get complicated beyond what most non-Econ players care about, beyond what some Econ players understand, and where non-Econ Designers start to have to worry that they're going to cause trouble. Because something has created a balance. In FF11 it is a 'self-regulating balance', and one that relies almost entirely on player behaviour (the Guild Item hand-ins are, again, really optional). Beyond here, most people need the Whiteboard. The serious players need the Spreadsheet (or perfect recall memory). The Designers need Spreadsheets and other tools. The explanation would take another essay.

But the above is enough for most people who care to be able to point at a game and say 'this is why this feeling isn't working for me, this macro-slot isn't working right'. And Artisans can point at the Micro-slot that applies to their profession within the Macro-slot and debate if it is failing or if the problem is somewhere else.

For a simple example, one of the biggest complaints of my group about Ashes is that Artisan Progression Slot #3 seems to start way too early. The game attempts to solve this by having Gatherers and Processors, but this doesn't solve anything. Adventurers are going out to level, not bringing back materials for people to craft with. Artisans are going out to get materials that only other Artisans need and not progressing toward more materials. And no one is discovering any personal niches at all.

A similar complaint about Throne and Liberty is that, as mentioned, Currency Progression Slot #3 basically doesn't exist anymore. Since basically the only thing mobs really 'drop' is gear, and the demand for mid-tier gear will always be lower even with the Traiting system, getting drops that you can't personally use doesn't help your financial situation at all even if you specialize. Our entire concept of 'if TL will fix this' currently hinges on the hope that they understand that at least for level 40+ content/areas, they actually need to fix it or they will either bleed off less invested players or fall into that constant invalidation of old gear and content.

Both those examples are huge, 'Whiteboard tier' problems that don't even get into the Spreadsheets that determine 'why only Carphin matters' or 'the complete abandonment of Saurodoma Island'.

But for people who think 'from this basis', the holes are easy to see almost before you begin. We don't need 'treasure boxes' because those aren't a Niche, they're free loot on a hypercompetitive fast-track. We don't need 'a whole new pile of rare gatherables each used to make one cool new item if you happen to be really geared or familiar with the game'.

Both games need 'Things in the open world that you do only because no one else is interested or because you personally like it'. Both games have 'things that you can only do at certain times' which is definitely also an important and fun component of Currency Progression but it's trying to be Currency Progression Slot #4 without the supporting Slot #3. In order to not have everyone pile into X area as soon as Y Condition is met, they have to have something else they would rather be doing, and that 'something else' has to be either 'a different X area with a related/codependent Y Condition' or an actual Niche.

In Ashes this is worse because no Fast Travel. I'm not sure who in this age still believes that geographical distance can create gameplay niches by itself (not even meant to imply that the Intrepid team believes this) but since we know it doesn't, it shouldn't be surprising to us that when the game doesn't have its Niches in yet, 'everyone goes to Carphin'.

FF11 was 'blessed' by either intentional or accidental positive outcomes for this. They somehow hit the perfect storm of niches from the start. This one isn't bias, it's a Whiteboard worth of interconnected minutiae that carried the game's Economy even through the times when a lot of the actual moment-to-moment of it was quite bad.

So Ashes 'has no reason not to go to Carphin/Highwayman Hills' and TL has no 'Avolos spawns at night in Manawastes', both games are early, but by comparison to FF11 the main takeaway on that point is... Not everyone rushed to Jeuno(Hub City), not everyone fought more Crabs (Qufim Island). And we're talking about Adventurers, who did exactly that. They adventured, and they brought back things, and then they (or someone else) also Crafted. And it wasn't 'a waste of their time', not because 'it was perfectly efficient', but because the Economy style meant that there was no such thing as perfectly efficient.

Well, for anyone who actually read through all that, I salute you!

It's just so I can reference things like "Lack of Currency Consumption Slot #4:" in conversation though. Eventually I have to write even more for Micro-slots, because if not here, then I either have to scatter these through stuff with way too much preamble... or give up.

I still want an awesome MMORPG. I don't want to give up.

Keep it up, Intrepid Team.

Ludullu wrote: »

I wish I had the money to pay double for this kind of server, but I'd definitely play on it if it was available.

Normally i would say something like : " An OPTION to disable or activate Shop-Transmogs being visible on other Players and/or oneself would be nice ",

but honestly this should be truly a seperate Server-Type. This is even better. Servers with Shop-Sets and Servers without. Fashion is a Choice. Or maybe simply rags and/or normal Sets.

It might have worked in the 2000s. It won't work now.

I hate skins (edit: and Transmog) in MMORPGs. They destroy immersion and the credibility of the items.

Please, after the full release of Ashes, release a server type alongside normal servers where the in-game shop and all its contents are disabled. Access to such skin-free (edit: and Transmog) shop completely disabled servers would require some kind of premium (T2 subscription).

I would be willing to pay twice the monthly subscription fee for that.

some messy hair/braids pretty pls
CURLY/wavy hair 🙌

(bg3 and dd2 had a huge range of hair color and diverse hairstyles, although bg3 was greater at that in part cuz it was not extremely restrictive, most hairstyles were shared between races as also shared by both genders) i mean even gw2 had a huge range of hair color as well and you could change the color of the hair accessories) [hair under hats - i hate when the hair is nonexistent or they make it short hair]

1970merlin wrote: »

I don't want to play a phase 2.75.

You aren't here to play, you are here to test.

If the state of a test isn't something you want to spend time with, then don't.

Asking Intreid to not get testing data on the things that are ready to be tested just because some things that you want to see aren't ready yet is NOT a reasonable request.

You bought in to essentially being a part of game development. Game development takes time. Be patient.

No. $100 gets you access to Alpha until the game's release, 1 month of RELEASED GAME TIME, and other shit that's on the list.

You do NOT need to pay anything else to test the game.