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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Node Tax Siphoning
Goalid
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
I have a concern with the node taxes. The point of them is that they can only be spent in order to build up the node, and can't be handed out to the mayor's friends.
But the mayor also probably needs that money to trade with other people for resources. You're a desert node mayor and you need wood to upgrade your town. Shouldn't a mayor be able to make those deals? But if you allow that, what's to stop a mayor from trading 1 million gold for one wood with a close friend? How do mayor's make deals under these game design constraints? Here's some solutions.
1) You have your code somehow determine market prices and force mayors to make deals close to those market prices.
Problems: there is no global auction house. It could be very hard for a computer to determine "fair" prices for specific regions, and given current politics surrounding the node. If a node is regarded very poorly reputation wise, why would I trade with them only for the average market price? They'll have to make an even better deal, which would require more gold to be delt than just the current market value. Also, guilds may try to manipulate market prices temporarily in order to raise the price and siphon out more taxes.
2) Only allow nodes to trade money with other nodes. By doing so, a component of node buildings costs will have to be a gold sink, otherwise gold will just pile up in the node treasury. But anyway, the benefit of this system is that since nodes are only trading with other nodes, no taxes can conceptually be siphoned.
Problem: nodes can only make trades with other nodes, severely limiting their trading partners.
3) Don't consider it a problem. Let people siphon taxes. Some mayor's will be corrupt, and I don't mean turning red. That's just life. Let the players solve this issue.
Problem: well, community solutions might not be enough.
I'm interested in hearing if anyone has any thoughts on the topic!
But the mayor also probably needs that money to trade with other people for resources. You're a desert node mayor and you need wood to upgrade your town. Shouldn't a mayor be able to make those deals? But if you allow that, what's to stop a mayor from trading 1 million gold for one wood with a close friend? How do mayor's make deals under these game design constraints? Here's some solutions.
1) You have your code somehow determine market prices and force mayors to make deals close to those market prices.
Problems: there is no global auction house. It could be very hard for a computer to determine "fair" prices for specific regions, and given current politics surrounding the node. If a node is regarded very poorly reputation wise, why would I trade with them only for the average market price? They'll have to make an even better deal, which would require more gold to be delt than just the current market value. Also, guilds may try to manipulate market prices temporarily in order to raise the price and siphon out more taxes.
2) Only allow nodes to trade money with other nodes. By doing so, a component of node buildings costs will have to be a gold sink, otherwise gold will just pile up in the node treasury. But anyway, the benefit of this system is that since nodes are only trading with other nodes, no taxes can conceptually be siphoned.
Problem: nodes can only make trades with other nodes, severely limiting their trading partners.
3) Don't consider it a problem. Let people siphon taxes. Some mayor's will be corrupt, and I don't mean turning red. That's just life. Let the players solve this issue.
Problem: well, community solutions might not be enough.
I'm interested in hearing if anyone has any thoughts on the topic!
1
Comments
I like the current design where the tax money belongs to the node and not to the mayor. Being mayor of a large node is a powerful position. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The mayors, at least many of them, will be corrupt. Do not allow them to have access to the treasury of the node, to do so will hurt the citizens of the node who paid those taxes.
It is fine not to have a global market, local markets are all that we need. If I cut and sell firewood here in the Ozark Mountains, I can sell it nearby but I cannot sell it in Montana, Maine or Scotland. Global markets for local products are unrealistic...if I want to sell it in Montana then make me haul it there on a Caravan.
Yeah you could extract money via letting guild of the may know and rewarding the highest amount say 10% from AH prices and have ur guild hand them in all at once for the extra amount but tbh it probaly not worth it at that stage. and listing them for 10% higher than AH would also increase ur wood prices in the area cause people would buy the cheaper one and hand in to mayor for extra cash which then drive ur wood market up too which could hurt your node in the long run :P
well mayor cant just withdraw all the gold like new world atleast it can only be used for town, although i beleive they can do bulletin board quests that might be abusable like over rewarding something and have guildes rdy to hand in but there ways to address that i would say
This will allow for the mayor to set priorities on building construction when there are multiple buildings at a time. For example a smith and a alchemy table are q'ed for construction by the mayor, but the mayor wants to prioritize the smith because more people want it, so he puts gold into the construction of the smith which is used up whenever a player deposits the resources given. They will already have standard values for resources provided by npcs so I would expect them to be able to input that a building needs 200000 wood and iron and their standard cost.
Perhaps letting the Mayor even bump up the value by some % perhaps between 1 and 50% to further create incentive, which would be useful during a siege for example when resources will be more difficult to come by the mayor can significantly increase value to a capped amount so more people try to load them up so they can get those ballistas built etc.
Archage? Desert node needs wood - Mayor allocated funds for every turn in, you are paid. Mayor check marks a box that activates an NPC quest giver or a TownBoard that requests wood and shows the payout.
Now Node citizens or outside node players can bring in their wood to this town and get paid + some XP maybe.
Since economies are all localized, Players decide, hey should I sell my wood to this processor for 10g per stack or go to the desert to sell wood for 20g a stack?
maybe 2 competing nodes requesting wood - now are at a bidding war
players can sell directly to other players or turn it into a cargo for node delivery.
Maybe - node citizens gets 100% payout and XP
non node citizens gets 75% requested payout, no XP but that node has the better asking price compared to a gather or other nodes.