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Economy and Exploiters
Parsalian
Member
After hearing Steven's thoughts on the issue of RMT in his response to TheLazyPeon's question it got me thinking more about the economy overall and cheaters/exploiters in games of recent years like New World. I know that NW is not a prime example of success, but I sank 1k-ish hours into that game and can definitely say that one of the BIGGEST mis-steps they had was the impact of exploits surrounding the market and the impact that had on the economy. The second mis-step (in my opinion) was caving to the player-base complaints that there needed to be a convenient way to access materials in other regions as well as a global market. I'm going to ignore the issue of taxes artificially boosting particular guilds into 1%-er status since that's a completely separate topic, bu I'm hoping that Steven has mentioned something on the topic of economy preservation and exploit preparedness.
Exploits and Shutting down the economy
Does anyone know if there's a philosophy already spoken about in regards to exploits that are discovered? Has any particular remedy or action plan been discussed regarding how those types of situations would be handled? I know there's a million things that are being discussed, but I would be extremely sad to see a similar fate for Ashes if Steven and co. were forced to temporarily restrict trading similar to how NW had to in order to combat duping and other exploits. This quite literally destroyed the game even without the help of other glaring issues.
Localization of markets
NW also started off with a system that I was extremely interested in and happy with -- localized storage/markets. People got annoyed with the time investment to move items between towns and finding things they needed, but it enabled myself and others to actually make a lot of gold simply by selling in optimal locations. More important, however, is that it gave the game real identity and gave the world weight. This whole point isn't so much a question as me IMPLORIING that Intrepid stick to their guns and don't cave to the inevitable mass outcry that there needs to be a global market, that there needs to be a way to access goods in any storage from anywhere. I know this all sounds dumb since the core concept of the game revolves around the isolated nature of each node, but so did NW. Philosophically it's the same principal and they caved and the game suffered.
I don't have too much more to say on the matter but I just felt the need to highlight that these two games (for better or worse) share some fundamental concepts and Intrepid should absolutely learn from the mistakes of NW -- don't cave to the masses and compromise the game at its core.
Steven and team if you happen to read this, I would love to hear you thoughts on both topics (and obviously welcome anyone's thoughts on how the exploit and econ impact issues can be handled).
Exploits and Shutting down the economy
Does anyone know if there's a philosophy already spoken about in regards to exploits that are discovered? Has any particular remedy or action plan been discussed regarding how those types of situations would be handled? I know there's a million things that are being discussed, but I would be extremely sad to see a similar fate for Ashes if Steven and co. were forced to temporarily restrict trading similar to how NW had to in order to combat duping and other exploits. This quite literally destroyed the game even without the help of other glaring issues.
Localization of markets
NW also started off with a system that I was extremely interested in and happy with -- localized storage/markets. People got annoyed with the time investment to move items between towns and finding things they needed, but it enabled myself and others to actually make a lot of gold simply by selling in optimal locations. More important, however, is that it gave the game real identity and gave the world weight. This whole point isn't so much a question as me IMPLORIING that Intrepid stick to their guns and don't cave to the inevitable mass outcry that there needs to be a global market, that there needs to be a way to access goods in any storage from anywhere. I know this all sounds dumb since the core concept of the game revolves around the isolated nature of each node, but so did NW. Philosophically it's the same principal and they caved and the game suffered.
I don't have too much more to say on the matter but I just felt the need to highlight that these two games (for better or worse) share some fundamental concepts and Intrepid should absolutely learn from the mistakes of NW -- don't cave to the masses and compromise the game at its core.
Steven and team if you happen to read this, I would love to hear you thoughts on both topics (and obviously welcome anyone's thoughts on how the exploit and econ impact issues can be handled).
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Comments
What I know is that Steven has said they won't give a slap in the hand to bug exploiters/abusers, so I hope that people who abuse them and people who, knowingly or not, profit or gain from the exploits are severely punished. I also expect Ashes to at least have some basic ML and pattern recognition integrations running all the time to help identify not only dupers, exploiters and bug abusers but also gold sellers and buyers.
Regarding not caving in to the masses/casuals, I agree with you, they mustn't make their game "easier" because of people who are used to having everything handed to them, although they also need to be careful not to make a game too hardcore that ends up having a very small player base.
NW happens to have a lot of parallels to Ashes so it's actually a prime example of a failure to implement these systems successfully
I agree partially but don't agree that 'unknowing participants' should be punished. 1st degree participants (i.e. people taking directly from exploiters) should probably be punished, but definitely have that currency/material removed from their account. 2nd degree and further away shouldn't have much of a response tbh since no one can really know where items came from prior to the player they're trading with.
Either way the punishment isn't really the point of the question. It was more about the dev/economic response. How do they plan to handle issues that could be game-breaking or economy-breaking if left to propagate? It's impossible to foresee every possible problem so I'm not expecting perfection out-the-gate, but I'd like to know they have a plan for the inevitable.
I do agree that the balance needs to be found --- to easy and you ruin your vision, too hard and you alienate players. I don't believe that the implementation of localized content would be 'too hardcore' if people are aware of what they're getting into. Obviously people play games without knowing the details going in, but I'm just hoping that even if the loudest voices are all yelling for fake QoL that really just deteriorates the game's identity we don't see changes moving in that direction.
I would love to know which kind of parallels Ashes and New World have. The only thing I can think of is that NW has localized storage, but you can just spend that blue thing and magically bring stuff to a different city, which Ashes doesn't (and hopefully won't). They are both MMORPGs, that as much as I can think of parallels.
I agree that 2nd degree and further might not know, but they certainly might know and simply be alt accounts, so a investigation (compare IPs, HWIDs, previous interactions, etc.) definitely needs to take place to determine if an account involved on the 7th degree is an alt or not. Injustices aren't good, but lack of justice is just as bad.
It's a difficult question and probably has a complex answer, and especially difficult to find good solutions, and I'm probably not prepared enough to tell you.
Yes, sir.
The parallels that are obvious are the localized storage and markets, but less obvious would be the siege system and NW's wars. Obviously not identical in implementation, but the concepts are actually nearly identical -- declare war and lay waste to claim territory or otherwise inhibit growth. There's a lot more going on in the detail that separate the two games' systems but at a high level the principles are the same or very similar.
edit: it just occurred to me as well that the way NW designed the zones actually parallels in some ways the concept of the ZoI for each node in ashes. You take over a particular town in NW to gain the benefits within the zone (ZoI). Again, largely implemented differently from how it will be in Ashes, but conceptually a definite parallel.
On a related but different note, NW did their gathering professions exceptionally well aesthetically. Holy moly I loved the feeling of gathering materials, the sounds, impact of swings, etc. I hope Ashes' implementation emulates that. It's honestly one of the most pleasurable aesthetics I've experienced in gathering in any game. The actual systems were meh but the feeling of gathering was great.
Yea this is the main issue for me. Any bot/automation program designed to ban people doing this would hit a very large number of players incorrectly if it went after anything past 2nd degree interactions, and even those are likely challenging to correctly identify with certainty. It's just too hard to programmatically identify culprits. Which means that they need a team of people to manually investigate occurrences and that can be a massive endeavor with its own stresses on the team.
Fair enough, I don't expect that it's something easily solved but I appreciate the conversation
New World's markets were isolated by faction, which sounded good but turned into a real pain in the ass after a few weeks (and that game was tiny compared to ashes). Global markets are more convenient but easier to exploit. It will be interesting to see how the devs handle it.
Damn, straight to the heart. Also yea sorry :P
I forgot about the faction separation honestly. NW's decision to have factions at all was hilariously misguided. That was a choice that served no purpose at all. Would have been a much better game w/ no factions and only guilds/towns to dictate conflict, but again that's a whole other conversation.
Totally agreed though, with the implementation of player stalls, shops, and city markets, it's going to be very dynamic economy to say the least.
I gotta say I was pleased to hear Steven speak about the importance for Intrepid having an active role in the monitoring of hacks and exploits.
It is the path forward, moving away from failed concepts. This is why I love how they are incorporating the different system integrations from the crafting, to the Caravan system and/or the node progression, (prerequisites, caps, etc.). Also how personal inventory/storage will work.
In my mind, these are all steps taken to have a stable economy and/or governance that is functional and/or malleable for the player community to steer (for better or worse).
I agree with you @Parsalian, gathering was very satisfying in NW.
Be well, all!
The biggest QoL feature to this type of system is not a "global market", but instead just give me a UI that tells me where my stuff is, so I don't need to manually check each location.
While we are on the subject of economy, I think the most innovative system Albion came up with is the "Black Market". It is a system where the game buys player crafted goods, and either removes them from the economy, or distributes them out into the world as mob drops. This means ALL gear in the game is player crafted, and there is ALWAYS demand for gear. For a game to allow full time crafters, there needs to be gear sinks like this.
The issues occur are that there are basically 2 prior steps of materials and exchanges. So the gatherer wants to make a profit and so does the processor doesn't that mean the crafter receives the short end of the stick having to spend way more on the materials in terms of spending in order to buy the processed materials and then applies that price hike to his created product?
Doesn't this mean for along period crafted items are going to be crazy costly until people undercut into the ground?
I get the want for more player interaction but making it 3 steps might be too much.
You gotta build up your artisan connections (via friends, guild, etc.) to have a prosperous business. If the ROI is your major concern, you could take the route of having alts as labor peons lol - business partners, i mean).
I believe Steven has mentioned that crafted gear is going to be the Top-Tier (Best-of-the-best). In other words, an Artisan will need any and every connection possible to obtain schematics, recipes, reagents, mats, etc.
In my mind, this three step process makes it so that every chunk-of-the-chain is as valuable as the next.
- If you are a gatherer and want more ROI, just research and outsource your mats to a location those mats are scarce or hold on to them until their value goes up. Don't wait too long, because other gatherers will seize that opportunity to gain some coin.
- If you are a crafter and want more ROI, buy from a known associate (discounts, bargains, etc.) or from another region. You can even wait for a time where those mats are of lower market value. Don't wait too long, because other artisans will seize that opportunity to gain some coin.
I would assume that in mid-high tier gathering/processing/crafting level is where the hard choices will come into play. What is the path you want to pursue. Is it satisfying, rewarding and exciting for you? It is all in the hands of the player.
Be well!
I totally understand this concern, since it is very common for the end product in crafting systems to be worth less than the materials to make it. I have the same concern with most other MMO crafting systems. From what I've experienced, this happens when most of the gear is gained outside of the crafting system. Another reason for the increased price in materials, is because players want to level up their crafting skill. So you end up with everyone buying raw materials to level, and no one buying the end gear.
If the crafting system is actually the only way to obtain high level gear, the demand becomes much higher and there should be room for profit for the crafters.
The reward itself may be rather generous (scaling with the importance of the problem/issue/exploit), but will be shared among all who report the issue before measure were started from the side of Intrepid.
This would ensure, that people want to report them, even more so for large niche exploits with high payouts.
This would ensure, that people dont want to share them with other players, as it would diminish their own reward.
and fundamentally it makes sense for somebody to receive a higher reward for something game breaking than for finding a typo in a quest text.
This is big for me. I know Steven mentioned that companies that historically haven't followed through with punishments have basically said that it's now a part of the meta to cheat/exploit/RMT in order to keep up. I hope they live up to this sentiment and perma-ban RMT and exploiters. Frankly I don't see why we need warnings or mild actions at this point. Obviously they need to have a good system of review for this, but after investigations I don't think there should be second chances anymore. It's probably largely the same group of players (give or take) that take these questionable actions in any game they play. It's only when punished harshly enough that they move on to another game instead. I've definitely known people whose philosophy was "why not bot this? If they catch me I'll just play something else. if they don't, I'll be rich."