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Markets, trading, jobs and upgrading systems
DnSpecific
Member
• Realistic market and trade systems
• Jobs and cooperation between players
• Low drop rate in general
• Real time need to upgrade, passive upgrade
• Queues system to upgrade items
Hi! I’m new in this community, I discovered AoC not much time ago looking for MMOs to start playing. I have never played a MMO except for Tera like 8 years ago and some days of Metin2 Classic after spanish Twitch community started a server, but I left because it’s an old game, that’s why I started to look some MMO game that is expected to be launch and start from the beginning.
I have some ideas of how a fun and realistic MMO could be in terms of market, upgrades and trading, I don’t know if some other games have implemented this ideas before or if they can be bad ideas because the gameplay can be injured because so them, so feel free to tell me if they are not really good for a MMO.
One of the most interesting concept I would like in a MMO is a realistic market system based on cooperation between players. The jobs system caught my attention when I saw it on AoC videos, so I have thinking how could both things be connected.
For me every way of trade and buy/sell items should be between players, no NPC market, maybe some very early items like the worst potions to make it viable but from that everything should be created from jobs. If you want to buy potions you have to the player with the alquemist job (I don’t know exactly the existent jobs but I think you understand the example), give him the materials and pay the price.
The price is never set by the game, the price is market by economic movements like in “real life”. If your alquemist sets a really big price you can just go another one and ask him. Like that, you would have to go to a carpenter to buy and upgrade a bow, a blacksmith to sword, a baker for food…
The upgrade and creation system needs real time to be completed and it’s done passively (keeps working afk) so you don’t have to stay 12 hours looking how your character is working, you can leave you shop and it’s done alone. However, there is a queue system, once you start upgrading an item you can not start the next one, so the price in the market will be market mainly by supply of availability and the ability of the “upgrader” to make it.
For example: If you want to upgrade your level 5 bow to a level 6 bow you can only do it in a level 6 carpenter. From that as better you are in the job faster you can do it. Your level 6 carpenter will need 24 hours to upgrade the item (until it’s not done you won’t be able to use it) and will ask you for 2000 gold. Your level 7 carpenter will do it in 12 hours, but will ask you for 5000 gold. Probably the days close to a big guild war would be highly increased, so you will have to prepare, unless you or your teammates (or not teammates but friends) can do it, but with that low time left, he wont be able to upgrade a lot of things.
Supply and Demand
2
Comments
In the MMOs where these have been somewhat tested, they have either failed or led to a change in player behaviour that some people consider undesirable. Not entirely though.
The 'players make everything' market doesn't work very well, but 'NPCs selling things for more than a player would ever need, to make it', does. This leads to Auction House or Player Stall activity, niches for production, and relationships. It can be important to provide the items at some NPC at a high cost, though, for many reasons.
Upgrade and Creation being done while you are not playing the game personally is the cornerstone of crafting in Black Desert Online, but the result is that people literally leave their characters doing Mass Production for entire 3 day weekends while they are visiting family. Whoever can leave the game running the longest, gets the rewards (or the economy collapses in a specific way).
If you meant 'setting the thing to craft without your character there and doing something else', it's not as bad, but it tends to cause the same effect, just slower.
Everything else you implied is already planned in the game or directly related to a planned system (except maybe the Queues). I know a lot of this isn't exactly on the Crafting page in the Wiki and a lot of it comes from different little videos, so I'll just say this.
In the Alpha Test, you currently have to gather quite a few materials to make something, the droprates and gatherable points are lower than even I would expect for a game like this, and you have to take those materials to an Alchemy Table or smithing Furnace.
Snipped for using less space and focusing on points!
In short to your suggestions, yes indeed!
If we just look at the concept of comparing buying an already existing item VS a crafted one, the value is skewed 80 - 20 towards the existing item.
In one MMO, i spent mostly if not all of my hours / gameday gathering materials for upgrading our village. Weeks later when we had enough to upgrade, i often was overlooked, and another building more for raids and pvp was selected...and again, i was back farming resources. Guildmembers mainly did RP and Raids, and very few of us gathered. It took me about just short of 2 or 3 month´s to get my upgrade of choice, even tho i in effect gathered enough supplies on my own to upgrade half the village.
Point to this? Gathering is overlooked, crafting is overlooked, and players want their stuff NOW.
I really support a long waitlist, realistic trade systems etc... Anything that will enrichen and add actual value to crafters and sellers of items. There should be able to be a, no idea what Ashes calls it, but a Tier 1 PVP player, and equally, a Tier 1 Store / crafter.
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/292092#Comment_292092
Some of what you mention is already loosely given in AoC, specifically individual markets and stalls in each node, as well as a larger auction house style system. There should be a lot more market interaction between players given what we all hope the crafting system will shape up to be. I don't think AoC will have NPC sellers with much outside of basic gear and consumables, at least from what I've read.
Read the comic here!
I suggested a system of my own for combating this toxicity, because you are indeed correct. It can become horribly toxic.
In what way is it toxic? Do you mean players scamming others? If so, there are 2 things in Ashes to help with that. First you have the escrow system:
And then of course there is player reputation. Since there is no cross-server gameplay and you cannot become a master in all the crafting professions, player reputation WILL matter. Players will take their business to trusted reliable crafters and traders, so if you start scamming people, you will quickly get blacklisted by the community.
I agree with this.
There needs to be a player market but it will have to be limited in many aspects. Albion online does a good job with regional player markets.
To the point " Real time need to upgrade, passive upgrade", i first thought it´s a good way to make casuals participate in the economy and act sort of as a big treshhold mechanism that can redistribute power/wealth to the broader player base.
But at the end it does end up incentivizing an alt account dynamic where people with the most alt accounts end up having the most ressources (time) to craft. That would also not be desirable for many reasons.
I also think active input should always be at a games center.
At the end i think ashes structure around the node system already is a good fundament for many regional market and player dependencies. It also got mentioned that they draw inspiration for the ressource and crafting system from star wars galaxies, which is probably the pinnacle in those aspects.
Thank you @Wandering Mist for adding to this. May i ask of that last part, as i see it as a very important part of a problem no one can ignore.
The getting blacklisted by the community. I know you cannot say a 100% yes or no to this due to NDA´s etc, but would you say there could be a support or a need of a system that
* Makes sure crafters and traders have the banned / blacklisted player added as well to their business, and said blacklisted player is shut off from any purchases or dealings with the players he/she scammed or harassed?
I don't see the need for a hard coded system to stop "scammers" from trading with other people. This is one of those occasions where it's up to the community to sort it out amongst themselves, not rely on the devs to bail them out.
The concept was to help combat player harassment in or into trades. People have been forced to submit rolls, items in raids or quests,leave resource nodes etc etc, or be targeted from their abusers in both in and off game if they do not do as they say. We all basically have Discord and ways to be contacted once we close the game, so for many some harassments go on even once the game is closed.
I am still very new to the forums, and still to all systems, but i had not heard of that escrow system before now ( not a tester and trying to learn while balancing a pandemic real life as well ) so things may already be implemented to some extent as i see now.
EDIT: I now see the Escrow system will do much of the work for us, and it would have been good to know this before. I am learning all i can daily, and this system is in my eyes a fantastic part of the solution. A toxic player on a ban list cant then logically talk to you about a creation of an item, so already there, 50% of problem solved.
I wouldn't make the assumption that anything in the *alpha one preview* in terms of economy will be as it is in the final game.
Alpha One is slated to officially begin July 9.
The player-driven economy is for sure a major focus of Ashes and something I am excited about. We can agree on that. Low drop rates in general are another thing we can agree on. Cooperation required to craft gear, that is the bread and butter of the artisan system in Ashes and I love it.
The things I can't get behind is time gated crafting and passive upgrade system you propose. I understand that time is an investment and a finite resource, but I just am not a fan of this mechanic in MMOs.
I like the mechanic in games like satisfactory and factorio where the core gameplay loop is optimizing production times. In an MMORPG if I am waiting to craft or repair my gear. Then the game is encouraging me to play or do something else while I wait. What is sad is that I might find something else to do that makes me not want to come back.
Games should use mechanics that disrespect your time in this manner as a very last resort.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
I don't like that part of MMOs where you kill a creature and get the same item over and over to the point you have 127 "Short sword +1" that is not even worth to save and sell because it's value is 1 gold in the shop so you end dropping it.
I think that a key part for the economy and player interaction incentive is that every item in the game is valuable in some aspect and hard to get. Probably you kill a low level wolf and it drops a "Short sword +1" that no one in the server wants to equip, but what about if you can give it to the blacksmith, destroy it and get iron, special wood and rope which are resources not so easy to find?
Every item that you find should be interesting to get. Maybe you are in the depths of the sea, you unintentionally find some seaweed and you think "wow seaweed, I heard that people are looking for it because is the only way to make speed potions, surely I can sell it for a good price in the market".
I wanted to add a little extra incite to this point.
The loot system for Ashes as described by Steven and Intrepid is extremely like Lineage2's loot philosophy on paper. In lineage2, the stars would have to align to for a piece of gear to drop off a non-boss mob. The planets would have to align for gear to drop off a raid-boss.
The idea behind this was that to empower crafting. Every mat in Lineage2 could be distilled into the next tier of mats. This means that with enough low-level wolf pelts, you make something that has the value of end-game armor. Which is great because low-level mobs will always have value. Part of the beauty in Lineage2 was that even if some zones were highly contested and your friends were not online to help you compete for resources in high-value areas. You could find any old mobs and grind them and still be somewhat productive.
Steven has said he wants to do the same thing with Ashes artisan system.
That was exactly how lineage 2 worked.
It is stuff like this quote right here that motivated me to even back Ashes. Having a great economy is one of many reasons why I prefer the persistance of an MMORPG vs just cracking heads in a match-based game like Smite.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.