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How to curb Hoarding
maouw
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
What are some ways that stop players going all-out when it comes to hoarding?
In Subnautica, the very first item that almost all players tried to hoard were acid mushrooms:
Those of you who've played know very well that after about 2 hours (some of us are stubborn) of gameplay, you eventually decide to poop them all onto the floor.
This was EXTREMELY effective at teaching players to only pick up what you actually want.
I think there are 4 things that really helped to drive the point home:
As inconvenient as it is, I believe these limitations could help Ashes' players be more tactical about what they pick up. I think it'll also encourage trade - people will want to get things out of their inventories faster.
On the other hand, it won't prevent players from slaughtering anything that moves for exp.
Any other games that punished you for hoarding?
EDIT: To be clear, I'm not concerned about hoarding for monopolization, I'm concerned about EVERYONE having 300 rabbit pelts and therefore nobody ever trades rabbit pelts.
In Subnautica, the very first item that almost all players tried to hoard were acid mushrooms:
Those of you who've played know very well that after about 2 hours (some of us are stubborn) of gameplay, you eventually decide to poop them all onto the floor.
This was EXTREMELY effective at teaching players to only pick up what you actually want.
I think there are 4 things that really helped to drive the point home:
- limited inventory space
- (most) items do not stack
- other stuff we actually need to carry
- a legitimate cost to increasing storage capacity
As inconvenient as it is, I believe these limitations could help Ashes' players be more tactical about what they pick up. I think it'll also encourage trade - people will want to get things out of their inventories faster.
On the other hand, it won't prevent players from slaughtering anything that moves for exp.
Any other games that punished you for hoarding?
EDIT: To be clear, I'm not concerned about hoarding for monopolization, I'm concerned about EVERYONE having 300 rabbit pelts and therefore nobody ever trades rabbit pelts.
I wish I were deep and tragic
2
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I also would like to note that the moment you find a bag, a backpack, something to help you carry more, should be a magical moment.
I think the early lvling classic wow experience was a good one in this sense but even there I felt like carrying a lot of junk got too easy too fast. Or maybe I just got lucky early on with the bag drops from elites and rares and such.
Would have been cool if the whole game maintained that spirit into the late game, as a norm.
And see no real reason why an mmo should prohibit hoarding. If anything, there's literally a reason TO hoard. You might gather some summer plants that are used in an important recipe and then for 3 more seasons there's gonna be no such plants in the world. And now you can sell those plants at an increased price. And the more you hoarded during summer - the more you can sell and profit.
Obviously others can do the same, but not everyone's a hoarder and not everyone thinks that far ahead. But the ones who do will benefit.
Ah yeah - that's a good point, off-season selling is important.
You don't think paying for extra storage until off-season is reasonable? I think it would increase the price you'd be able to charge, because it would make off-season items even more scarce.
Then you're not going to like this game's system at all because inventories will be small here and you will need mules and caravans to transport any notable amount of stuff, especially resources, for any distance.
As to why.... honestly, it makes people play smarter and appreciate the inventory as a resource.
It makes craftsmen who make bags/backpacks/mules/mule wagons/caravans/ships important.
It also increases scarcity (in a natural and sensible way) which is important for any mmo's economy and immersion, so general health.
When I hear "hoarding" I'm not thinking about a kid who has 20 rocks in his pocket, I'm thinking about this shit
We will most likely be able to carry at least several huge rocks and pieces of wood on us, so there's no real realism when it comes to the volume and size of materials. And considering the absence of that realism I see no reason why I couldn't just put insane amounts of stuff into my freehold. Just pack it up to the damn sky.
And as for scarcity - that's not linked to hoarding in any way. Scarcity just means that it's difficult to come by stuff. But you can still hoard it. You can still keep it in your storage forever and never take it out. And maybe after several months or even years you can collect so much of that scarce stuff that to you it wouldn't even feel scarce. But it would've still taken you a loooong time to get to that point, because you hoarded it instead of trading it away or using it.
Well, I adressed both together, sorry for not having been clearer.
To be fair, the topic was about inventory hoarding.
More realism may not be perfect realism but it is absolutely better than no realism or lesser realism.
The very fact you have to do some notable level of inventory management brings a lot of extra immersion.
And if you can't hoard notable amounts of stuff it means you got to get rid of them either by vendoring them or selling them for scraps meaning you can't flood the market with them later on meaning there will be scarcity which is great for the economy.
Well yeah if 1.500 dudes don't have huge amounts of X and Y and Z and A and B and C hoarded in their storages and inventories, for them to dump on the market whenever the price goes up by .7% it means you will have scarcity, at least notably more of it.
But they won't have you only carrying 3 logs of wood or one rock, because that's what your character would be physically able to carry. That's just bad game design outside of super realistic simulator games. No, it would mean that I'll go looking for more points of storage. And considering that node storage is not linked, I literally have 86 points of said storage (86th being my freehold, with potentially 87-88ths being apartment and in-node house).
A storage limit won't stop my hoarding, it'll only make me move around a bit more. But now instead of carrying everything to one point (that being my freehold), I'll just have stuff in different nodes and will use the caravan system less than I would've otherwise. If those dudes managed to farm up that much rare stuff - they deserve to put it out onto the market at whatever amounts they can. They spent time, potentially money, and had the knowledge of where and when to farm to achieve that amount of rare resources. They deserve to benefit from their actions.
There are a lot of variables here...
Kindof? It's hard to say - coz it depends on how often a node will get destroyed, and how much we manage to recover, and then whether it's better to store everything in one location or spread it out....
Sure they won't, but they won't make it possible/accessible to carry any notable amount either, and that's a decent balance of practicality with immersion.
1. I hope you like running.
2. I hope you got the time to do that running you like.
3. I hope you don't mind losing part of your stuff when getting killed transporting it from node to node.
4. I hope you're okay with losing notable parts of your storages periodically when said nodes get sieged, conquered and looted.
5. I hope you got the money to pay for all that storage, because I doubt it will come as free
To me that sounds like a lot of hoarding prevention, leading to limited hoarding and balanced out scarcity.
They don't deserve to hoarde it = undermine the balance of the game's economy.
I didn't play that game so not sure what you mean.
Do you mean what a player can carry at a time, or available storage in an apartment/house/freehold?
As pointed out, sieges are also a constant danger - though I have the feeling that most will end in a successful defense, after everyone learns what happens/needs to happen, during sieges.
Nothing yours truly has personally seen thus far indicates a lot of potential for the *ability* to hoard stuff.
*Is* that a rock in your pocket - or are you just happy to see me?
Why would not trading rabbit pelts be a concern? Trade is meant to be a win-win. You have something I want (materials), and I have something you want (gold / other). If everyone has all the rabbit pelts they could ever need, and nobody needs to trade for them, then who cares? What problem is this causing?
I suspect the real concern is oversaturating the market with a certain material (pelts), causing a crash in market price. But that implies that these pelts are "too plentiful" and easy to obtain, and likely requires some balancing - probably by increasing the time it takes to skin an animal. Increased time investment means fewer people will take the time after a kill to skin the animal, which means fewer people will have a stockpile of pelts, which means people who DO enjoy skinning / tanning will have a lucrative business for their efforts.
Basically all this.
Even basic economy design relative to expected playerbase would fix this.
And you don't even need to worry about 'early on' because of the way Ashes activities are incentivized. Economically this is a non-problem except if a VERY obvious error is made in itemization.
If it is, someone will point it out. There are enough players who do the economy thing seriously that one will see it.
Hehe, my main interest in player housing is to fill mine with the maximum number of an item yet to be chosen. Currently leaning toward chairs but something smaller might be in order. There are old Skyrim videos of lag inducing cluttered homes.