Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Econ-Friday Ranting (a Reference Post)
Azherae
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Phase 2 is approaching (insert multiple Game of Thrones memes, whichever ones you like)
That means it's time for my group and I to do Econ Testing and give feedback. For this, I need some context on intent, but I don't hang out on Discord and even if I did, it'd be way faster for anyone on the team to read through my many assumptions in one place.
I basically need to know if the Ashes economy is supposed to feel like New World(EVE sorta), or like FF11/Throne and Liberty, to inform our testing approach.
FFXI/Throne and Liberty Method
Henceforth referred to as the 10K form (yes I will goldbold it every time, go gold, go bold).
"New World" Method
Henceforth referred to as the UBI form (this color isn't too biased, right? If people prefer I'll change this from 'UBI' to 'AllTree')
These two things are tested differently, for the sake of any discussion that might happen I'll try to explain why.
The reason I don't play EVE is that I knew for a long time that the Devs were basically just controlling the economy in a way that let them decide winners and losers very directly. Whether they did this or not was not important. They could. So I can't take EVE seriously, it markets itself as an Econ game, a simulator, but the 'stories' are controlled by the devs. Ashes is unclear about this. They have this option, but one might assume that in a game about player built Nodes and structures, they would not want to.
If Ashes uses the UBI form, the goal in testing would always be to 'win the Dev-set econ challenge minigame' and then use the winnings to get more permanent power as quickly as possible.
The reason I enjoy TL is that currently, niches exist and the Devs don't seem to interfere too much except in very global ways (we're seeing a bit of the Amazon Games style creeping in, but the underlying 10K basis mitigates some of this, leading to mostly grumbles rather than hoarding). So you know that basically anything that takes around an hour to get sells on the AH for 10 Lucent. If supply is too high, don't gather that thing, or push it through a different value pipeline (not all of these exist yet, for example Blue Armor Extracts from common farming grounds that should be going through some other pipeline like Furnishings since their 'Dissolve' option isn't at the 'correct' value and can't be set to that value without a UBI style intervention - which would almost certainly be bad for many reasons, I digress).
If Ashes uses the 10K form, the goal in testing would always be to 'find the appropriate activity niche' and then look toward others to build the interconnective relationships, seeking equilibrium and deprioritizing permanent power.
This is because 10K creates a form of economic 'drag' on anyone rushing to do anything not in their niche just because they can.
Since Econ testing is not a priority in Phase I, and the thing I assume Intrepid is testing is their data collection and visualization, this hasn't come up before, but as we move into Phase 2, I/we need to know how to approach it, especially if we're supposed to test the FTUE more than once, and definitely if the iterations don't wipe the server.
An Alpha always acts at least somewhat like UBI if one is trying to 'compete' or even just 'progress well'. I can definitely get my group to not focus on that, but if the game's intended style is UBI, then that would be the entirely incorrect method for testing for what my group is. Basically if we keep trying to play Ashes as if it is a 10K game and ignoring the signs of UBI approach 'because it's an Alpha', but the UBI style is the intended style, a lot of time is being wasted.
idk, maybe it's silly/overstepping/asking too much to be specifically given this answer, or even 'given this answer relative to any specific stand-up of the servers, but I know that IS does take their testing very seriously, so even just a shorthand somewhere (even just for PTR) of one vs the other would really help. We don't care if they change it every test/wipe/reroll request, as long as they give the data somewhere.
I hope that somehow this was clear enough to explain why this is important to us. If not, please help me by poking at it so that I can clarify it. I'm already in 'crossed fingers' mode because I can't just ask NCSoft/Amazon about their intent for TL atm, and I really want to help my group give the feedback we hope Intrepid wants so they're not doubled down on that particular irritation.
There's obviously more to this (there's always more), but it's all minutiae like droprates and player satisfaction feelings which have nothing in particular to do with the underlying 'way we test', so I'll leave it there.
That means it's time for my group and I to do Econ Testing and give feedback. For this, I need some context on intent, but I don't hang out on Discord and even if I did, it'd be way faster for anyone on the team to read through my many assumptions in one place.
I basically need to know if the Ashes economy is supposed to feel like New World(EVE sorta), or like FF11/Throne and Liberty, to inform our testing approach.
FFXI/Throne and Liberty Method
Henceforth referred to as the 10K form (yes I will goldbold it every time, go gold, go bold).
- Everything can be defined in average time units. The economy is given freedom but a control floor of some kind.
- Players trade their 'time' through some medium of currency (or multiple currencies)
- Specialization and complexity focus on personal enjoyment and spreading out the sources of products
- Somehow, somewhere, economic velocity has a cap or a friction point (FF11: AH slots and resources, originally limited per-game-day purchases, TL: basically the same but also a relatively high hard cap on no-lifing it, after a while you burn money)
"New World" Method
Henceforth referred to as the UBI form (this color isn't too biased, right? If people prefer I'll change this from 'UBI' to 'AllTree')
- The currency value of most things is effectively controlled by the Dev Team.
- Players either ignore this or compete to sort of 'win the econ challenge that the Devs have set for this update/season'
- Specialization and 'complexity' focus on hoarding and knowledge (and speculation on the hoards/knowledge of others)
- Economic velocity is capped only by resource sinks and number of participants (for example New World's original low server CCU was part of this)
These two things are tested differently, for the sake of any discussion that might happen I'll try to explain why.
The reason I don't play EVE is that I knew for a long time that the Devs were basically just controlling the economy in a way that let them decide winners and losers very directly. Whether they did this or not was not important. They could. So I can't take EVE seriously, it markets itself as an Econ game, a simulator, but the 'stories' are controlled by the devs. Ashes is unclear about this. They have this option, but one might assume that in a game about player built Nodes and structures, they would not want to.
If Ashes uses the UBI form, the goal in testing would always be to 'win the Dev-set econ challenge minigame' and then use the winnings to get more permanent power as quickly as possible.
The reason I enjoy TL is that currently, niches exist and the Devs don't seem to interfere too much except in very global ways (we're seeing a bit of the Amazon Games style creeping in, but the underlying 10K basis mitigates some of this, leading to mostly grumbles rather than hoarding). So you know that basically anything that takes around an hour to get sells on the AH for 10 Lucent. If supply is too high, don't gather that thing, or push it through a different value pipeline (not all of these exist yet, for example Blue Armor Extracts from common farming grounds that should be going through some other pipeline like Furnishings since their 'Dissolve' option isn't at the 'correct' value and can't be set to that value without a UBI style intervention - which would almost certainly be bad for many reasons, I digress).
If Ashes uses the 10K form, the goal in testing would always be to 'find the appropriate activity niche' and then look toward others to build the interconnective relationships, seeking equilibrium and deprioritizing permanent power.
This is because 10K creates a form of economic 'drag' on anyone rushing to do anything not in their niche just because they can.
Since Econ testing is not a priority in Phase I, and the thing I assume Intrepid is testing is their data collection and visualization, this hasn't come up before, but as we move into Phase 2, I/we need to know how to approach it, especially if we're supposed to test the FTUE more than once, and definitely if the iterations don't wipe the server.
An Alpha always acts at least somewhat like UBI if one is trying to 'compete' or even just 'progress well'. I can definitely get my group to not focus on that, but if the game's intended style is UBI, then that would be the entirely incorrect method for testing for what my group is. Basically if we keep trying to play Ashes as if it is a 10K game and ignoring the signs of UBI approach 'because it's an Alpha', but the UBI style is the intended style, a lot of time is being wasted.
idk, maybe it's silly/overstepping/asking too much to be specifically given this answer, or even 'given this answer relative to any specific stand-up of the servers, but I know that IS does take their testing very seriously, so even just a shorthand somewhere (even just for PTR) of one vs the other would really help. We don't care if they change it every test/wipe/reroll request, as long as they give the data somewhere.
I hope that somehow this was clear enough to explain why this is important to us. If not, please help me by poking at it so that I can clarify it. I'm already in 'crossed fingers' mode because I can't just ask NCSoft/Amazon about their intent for TL atm, and I really want to help my group give the feedback we hope Intrepid wants so they're not doubled down on that particular irritation.
There's obviously more to this (there's always more), but it's all minutiae like droprates and player satisfaction feelings which have nothing in particular to do with the underlying 'way we test', so I'll leave it there.
"Save us, Jake Song!"
2
Comments
If the devs are reactively controlling spawn rates to control an economy, when you aren't seeing enough copper nodes its probably a clue to do something else and not continue searching for copper nodes because they might not be around until the existing copper in the economy gets sunk.
If the spawn rates are set in the game and aren't reacting to the players actions to stabilize the economy, when you aren't seeing enough copper nodes you might as well keep going because eventually the spawns will come back and you might get the fresh run.
It's pretty important to know which one we are dealing with or we are wasting a ton of time assuming systems that don't even exist. This is probably also part of the frustration players have when they say "not enough copper nodes". They don't have any idea about how the spawn rates are controlled, whether people are just farming them or whether the spawns or bugged.
In Rust( a game I've played alot) the spawn rates are a function of the active players in the area. The more players, the faster the spawns. This is why people love playing on high population Rust servers, the spawn rates are super fast and you can gear very quickly. Plus there are more people gathering and stuff so it makes PVP more abundant, and players have more loot when you kill them.
No, unfortunately Caravans are their own whole separate concern. They don't even equate to anything similar in the other games that have remotely similar econ models.
Even ArcheAge has Labor, so the gap is relatively large in terms of how to think about it. If possible, I'd exclude Caravans from any aspect of this question/request since the Econ FTUE can be viewed moreso as a race to being able to Caravan.
If you can't win that race, you're probably doomed as a group given how Caravan payoff works right now.
EDIT: Caravans right now are also definitely outside any early-game immersive/RP flow or incentive that would be reasonable to rely on (to keep consistent motivations between tests if that were necessary) so they're even more outside of the scope of this.
And as for incentives and viability, they're waaay too damn easy right now. With slower node progression, I'd imagine every player in a group can get 1g-worth of glint by the time we can run a caravan, and at that point no one would be able to even kill a caravan, considering that I had almost a full party of lvl13-17 people in standard lvl10+ gear hitting my caravan and it took them good 30min to bring me down.
And a full first caravan from New Aela to tropics gives you ~8g/1.5h, with a route that barely ever has any people on it.
And my general point here is that Intrepid seem to want us to use those caravans and then trade among ourselves. Steven even kinda confirmed it by saying "there's enough copper on the map, yall are just not trading". And if I DID understand what you mean by UBI correctly - this kinda fits that.
Yeah, I know, we're on Vyra too (that's a stretch since obv we're not doing much for Phase 1).
But I'm really really focused on testing, and Economy testing is very hard because you need to sort your incentives in order, or 'have everything ready at once'.
Neither is particularly easy to do.
So while I'm absolutely agreeing that Caravans are a huge 'sign' of UBI style gameplay, what if that suddenly changes or gets rebalanced to bring it closer to 10K?
I'm saying that I don't want to make assumptions, and I definitely don't want my group members making assumptions. It took me like 3 weeks just to get them 'through' all the TL ones because of previous experiences.
Without going into detail, the TL economy has changed meaningfully each of the times we touched it.
I think I told you that originally, Lithographs worked entirely differently than they do now. There's still some leftover 'cruft' in that game that we don't know if they're going to remove or rework. Point is, in a dynamic development environment, testing a complex system, assumptions bad.
So for those tracking, I think we got the answer, though I'm hesitant to 'draw a conclusion from an indirect one', the last Dev Stream indicated that there will definitely be even more focus on Caravans, and that there will be 'Special Commodities' in farther naval ports.
For any remaining '10K' Econ 'fans', Throne and Liberty has moved considerably further in that direction and things are good over there. For the unfortunates who really want Ashes style combat with 10K style Economy, you'll probably have to wait a few more years for something else, my sympathies.
This is an excellent and very well structured question. I really appreciate the effort you put into breaking down the two economic models because this is exactly the type of discussion that helps the community and the devs align expectations.
From what has been shared officially, Ashes of Creation is clearly aiming to lean closer to what you describe as the 10K form, a player driven economy with decentralized control, heavily influenced by player behavior, regional markets, scarcity, supply chains, and social interdependence. Steven and the team have emphasized multiple times that they want the players' actions to be the driving force behind the economy, not developer intervention or seasonal resets.
Systems like local markets, caravans, limited fast travel, corruption penalties, and regional resource scarcity are designed specifically to create friction and force interconnectivity, which is core to the 10K approach you described.
That said, during Alpha and PTR phases, we may occasionally see UBI style adjustments or tweaks, not because that’s the intended design philosophy, but simply for testing purposes, to gather data, check systems, or stress specific loops.
So I’d say your instinct is correct. The long term vision of Ashes is much closer to the 10K economy with natural friction, niches, and specialization, not a developer-handled, controlled market. But during Alpha 2, there may still be UBI like conditions in place temporarily to allow proper iteration and data gathering.
Your structured feedback like this is exactly what Intrepid wants. Keep testing, keep pointing out these foundational economic questions, because this is what will help them refine the balance and keep the economy organic and player driven.
Either way, in terms of the answer 'for the test', it seems that Ashes is aiming to be moreso like ArcheAge for some reason.
We are now heading into Phase 3 of Alpha-2 testing and I 'need the answer to this question' more than ever. Or rather, I need a clarification if the answer isn't UBI because I 'need' to convince my group members that it isn't.
Or y'know, just not, this game is not for everyone. It'd just be nice to know for certain-ish. Since everything is subject to change.
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.
what o-o
Can you summarise what you would propose as a solution to this, based on your preferred applicable systems?
My guess would be something like "you can only mine/process/craft these types of goods in these select areas that aren't Carphin, therefore those areas become known hubs for those types of goods."
Or perhaps by tying certain qualifications to individual, highly specialised, players? Where no one can specialise into everything that's in demand, or even a tenth of all the in-demand aspects of crafting? An example I could think of would be: If you want a piece of equipment with cooldown specialisation, you have to go to one crafter. For defence you go to another. For damage you go to another. Etc. Combine that with not every artisan being a crafter, and you enforce nieches very effortlessly. (The downside being that people will spam alts like crazy, but as you probably know, I would consider that those people's problem to fix within themselves.)
Sure.
Summary Solution:
Make it so that builds matter, low levels and casual players matter, rushing to Adventuring endgame isn't 'most optimal by a mile'. And most importantly for what the Econ team would actually need to do - don't rely on other systems to act as consistent sources of player behaviour.
There's a difference between 'I need people to care about Content Type X or they won't care about Econ Micro Slot A' and 'This is probably an Econ flaw/Missing Micro-slot, but it's fine because Content Type Y will make players behave in a way that negates the flaw'.
The Rest/My Ramblings:
First point is that I don't believe that niches should be solved on the 'supply' side, I believe they should only ever be solved on the 'demand' side for long-term game health. This is a personal opinion, all my data to back this up is anecdotal and extremely biased. That's not relative to my preferences, preference would be 'I don't like games that do it on the supply side', my opinion is that games that do it on the supply side fail at it.
Second point that follows from the first is therefore that it isn't a problem for the Econ team to be solving mainly at all (and therefore it's fine for it to not be working at this stage). I'd focus entirely on 'not making the mistakes', while the other systems with their incentives are worked out.
I believe it was best showcased by a reaction in the main thread:
"I might not get all the gear drops I want even if I grind, I might get 3 of the same thing."
It would be, in my mind, a rookie mistake to take that and roll with it, in any game. I forget the post I made about it, but the whole '3x of one drop' is a problem to solve (in different ways for different games), but not a thing that strongly drives change in economic actors.
For that, you need Micro-slots, which are game-specific. I will probably still write yet another essay on the FF11 version of those for comparison/for anyone who cares and doesn't already understand what I mean by those, but because they're game-specific, I figure they wouldn't be all that helpful even if I brought them up in 'Reference' terms.
See the list of supply-side things below:
Fruit, Inedible Fish, Edible Fish, Jewelry/mechanical 'metal' (can be stone), restorative herbs, debilitating herbs, food herbs, food mushrooms, medicinal mushrooms, decorative wood, structural wood, ceramic/pottery stone, structural stone, wild fiber, grown fiber, wild sinew, grown sinew, scales, fangs/claws, skin/hide, cultivated vegetables, weapon metal, enchanting metal, enchanting reagent, ichors, liquors, random animal organs, edible meat, dairy product, tree/vegetable oil product, grains, dyes, fertilizer, glue, sugar source.
There are nearly no popular Fantasy games with Crafting/Artisanship that don't have most if not all of these. Civilization Games usually have most of them (as Amenities or similar, but they're still there for very similar reasons).
Some attempt to squash them together, players often mod them back in. These are not, by themselves, 'Micro-Slots'.
A Supply Side Micro-slot is 'the form of the above that fits into the Macro-Slot mentioned before' (Progression side). All I have to say about that is that players in my experience seem to prefer that areas are distinguished moreso by lacking a few from the list while sometimes having variants that aren't actually in a different Macro-Slot.
This is related to Micro-Slot incentives:
Having one node be the only node with Medicinal Mushrooms - Bad
Having one node be the only node without any of a somewhat common (think Progression Slot 3) mushroom - Okay
Having a few nodes/biomes semi-realistically lacking most mushrooms in the usual abundance, sometimes altogether - Good.
Demand Side Micro-slots are entirely game dependent down to a specific 'floor', and that floor differs by player, I think. Obviously Adventurers who don't care about Artisanship even being in the game will accept a very low floor, and dedicated Artisans will demand a high one. The skill is obviously in balancing these two things.
For a game made of Nodes, or that is 'supposed to have differences in biomes', hundreds of items 'must' be generated. Some biomes can have overlap in their Grain, for example, and certainly metals, but if you try it with say, Fruit, players I know tune out pretty fast. This isn't a problem, it's mostly unnecessary to 'create less items'. The important thing is to create a comfortable number of Micro-slots (I want to say 'minimum' but that would be easy to misinterpret).
Some FF11 examples (AdvP is 'adventurer Progression, CuC is Currency Consumption, etc):
ArtP1-Wild_Fiber -> Moko Grass, used to make Grass Thread
AdvC3-Reagent -> Slime Oil, used with Beeswax to make Silent Oil.
But Beeswax is actually also ArtP1-Reagent, and drops from bees/wasps throughout the game. Is this sensible? Only sortof, but it's sensible enough for players who don't want to do Artisanship. Slime Oil is ArtP3_Reagent, and as you'd expect, drops from Slimes, again, basically for the entire game.
FF11 has many instances of 'combine ArtP3x1 with ArtP1x3' to make an output item, and combines this with a separation between the two sources. Slimes live in Caves, Bees live elsewhere. The Artisan would need to collect these separately, or consider buying them from adventurers.
Darksteel Ingot - 1 Darksteel Ore, 3 Iron Ore
Velvet Cloth - 1 Silk Thread, 2 Wool (or Cotton) threads
X-Potion - Distilled Water, Reishi Mushroom, Hecteyes Eye, Sage x2
The key cost generated here is 'time', which tends to lead to 'trade'. But it can be used the other way, to control 'rarity'. Darksteel Ore and Iron Ore are often found in the same place, but doing it this way allows Darksteel to be much rarer without automatic frustration. Similarly, for things that drop from mobs, the easy answer FF11 uses is to control the danger level or number of mobs, so that you can find roughly the same number of slimes for each 'level bracket', but they perhaps become easier to find and/or harder to kill. Tradeoffs (there's also the 'more available but only under conditions', which would obv suit PvX more).
The main point of this post therefore is to be able to reference 'the idea that Intrepid will probably make hundreds of items even if there is overlap, but that won't necessarily be a nightmare'. The main difference I see is that they are more likely to need to do them pre-launch rather than as expansions, and that they probably need a lot more 'duplicates'.
By Duplicates I refer to the idea that in FF11, for example:
ArtP1-Wild_Fiber is Moko Grass, ArtP2-Wild_Fiber is Cotton, ArtP3-Wild_Fiber is Flax, ArtP4-Wild_Fiber is Wool, and ArtP5-Wild_Fiber is Silk. There are no duplicates. Each is just 'better' than the previous. This is dealt with by the aforementioned '1 of these, more of the others below' to keep the interconnectivity.
Ashes might not be in as much of a position to do this, and might need to make two separate ArtP(n)-Wild_Fiber for different Biomes, equating Flax and Cotton, for example, and/or Wool and Silk, by biome. But the question of 'can you make an ArtC3-Tier Robe?' is still answered whether you are in Biome A or B, you just make the robe out of the ArtP3-Wild_Fiber available to you, and if you don't like the properties of it, import some.
Specialty items that can 'only use Wool' come after that, and they can put those "out of Adventurers' way". A pure adventurer doesn't have to care about the fact that they 'can't' make Curtains/Tablecloths (ArtC2-Fabric_Decor) out of Wool, and they will probably shrug off the fact that Cotton Socks have no Cold Resistance compared to Flax or similar. It lets them ease into the idea of caring, and lets the Artisans in their area provide their immediate needs.
I still mainly couldn't keep this short, but now it's at least here so I can 'complain that Miraleth doesn't have ArtC3_Furniture despite being full of ArtP3-Decorative_Wood' in a way that makes it easier to ask if it is intentional. Or more likely the opposite, if the game is heavily about Caravans and trade, being able to point out 'this Node will end up superior on every server for Stoneworking because y'all actually put every ArtP3-Structural_Stone here right next to AdvP3-Meat which is used to make ArtC3-Mason_Boost_Food, and no other Node comes close to this optimization level'.
If I color this mess, then it will just be a colorful mess.
One is what do you think the best way to handle the gear in game right now, since they seem to want some gear drops but as you mentioned demand is something needed to make the market go round and with it even being a possibility I don't know if players will stop charging forward to interact with other players systems i.e. artisans.
Second is the thought on how to use common T1 mats function in the market. You mentioned that slimes had a common drop that was used at higher level crafting when combined with other T3 mats. Ashes seems to be confused IMO on how to do this with a recent change being JM low tier gear using all T1 mats just more. I don't think ashes is on the right track this way wanted to ask your opinion on the matter.
Last is the common interaction between adventure players, currency players and artisans in ashes seems very disparate. Like you mentioned adventure players don't want to think about other stuff that deeply and ashes needs more interaction this way. Most of the time if an an adventure wants something they have to gather it themselves kind of cutting out the currency type player's chance to shine. Artisans also barely have any good interaction with the market right now outside consumables. This might be fixed later with more systems to smooth it but the whole of the different type of gameplay seem to need a little more minor interaction.
Just wanted some thoughts on these using your reference.
1. Why don't y'all focus a larger amount of gear progression on things like augmented abilities to keep the stat spread as tight as possible?
a) Can't do it/don't have the skill or tech (FF11, most older games)
b) Value or believe most players value the feeling of getting higher numbers more than builds (WoW, themeparks)
c) Can't figure out how to make the economy work with so many complex incentives, or prefer timesink enhancing grinds (BDO, other Korean P2W, arguably Alpha-2 P2)
d) Feel that rewarding players with higher time dedication is required for retention (arguably Throne and Liberty, but not really clear)
I don't think MMORPGs need to entirely avoid 'number go up' but that PvP MMOs should avoid it whenever they reasonably can.
2. Given the way MMO gear drops generally need to be designed, why don't you use lesser gear as enhancement materials for more powerful gear directly in some way?
a) Going with the approach of absolute dedication to a different Econ type such as 'heavy use of consumables' and/or really want Adventure-focused players to have the option to just always move forward (FF11, WoW, other PvE games)
b) Unwilling or unable to design the open world/mobs/ecology with a generally flatter power curve to support this (Throne and Liberty)
c) Absolute dedication to forcing Adventurers to rely on Crafters/crafting, or unnecessary due to powerful gear-sinks (most Sandbox games, early New World sorta)
d) Just don't believe that gear drops need to be implemented such that even leveling players can get progression gear once or twice per hour of serious play (BDO, a few others)
I think the genre is kinda only now experimenting with how best to handle this new paradigm, so I'm biased toward the success type I see in TL.
3. Why not just make use of more materials from multiple tiers and spread out their availability more to solve the issue of invalidation of old content/Macro Slots?
a) Trying to avoid complexity due to the audience type that you believe your game attracts, or not having the design experience to know which things to put where even if you wanted to (Throne and Liberty somewhat, maybe Alpha P2.5 and apparently P3?)
b) Unwilling or unable to design workable sources and ecology due to the setting of the world or other design constraints (FF14 sorta, most failed, or even not-entirely-failed short lived UE4 era MMOs)
c) Want or need to keep stratification of players based on investment level and time, and/or strongly believe that Artisanship needs to be a long and arduous path of dedication (FF11 result, intended or not, for the crafts where this approach was less common)
d) Higher focus on instanced content and wanting to make sure to homogenize rewards as much as possible to avoid friction or complaints (various 'groupfinder' MMOs, certain times in WoW)
I'm super biased to think that 'suits' are the main reason this happens, I figure they devalue the the dev time involved because 'they can still get most of the money without doing this'.
4. Why avoid or limit robust economy options/opportunities for players to find niches where they excel and feel comfortable?
a) Fear of bots, abundance of caution regarding bots, alts, and other abuses (Throne and Liberty - this is moreso me desperately hoping that's their real reason)
b) Low or minimal incentive to offer players too much of this due to it being an easier way to get them to spend real money in the game Cash shop directly (BDO sorta, many other Korean MMOs)
c) Opposition to RMT or P2W elements to the point where the economy itself must be clamped/treated as a threat model instead of an important game aspect (nothing comes to mind directly but I'm sure most people know of a game like this)
d) Unwillingness to use arbitrary econ limiter clamps such as Labor, Energy, Contract Limits, etc to solve the soft versions of the 3 things above (Ashes of Creation)
I always worry/fear that games flinch at the idea of committing to a good deep economy because they often either rely on consumables (FF11), almost entirely fail to feel engaging because of design or ecology issues (BDO), or end up too exploitable (FF11 again, various bot-ridden MMOs).
I know that the above doesn't really 'answer your questions', that's because I really believe that Developers have to think about what their game can afford to do, sometimes those 'unpleasant options' above really are so important that they are valid answers.
So even if I really really want to see a game where low level gear 'has augments that can substitute for leveling up a skill, or offer a function that is seldom needed at higher levels... where when bandits drop Sheepskin Gloves with Accuracy +5 you can combine them into your own Reinforced Sheepskin Gloves and get that +5 Accuracy in a slot/trait like TL, where drops from older content are applied as materials to uncommon-but-still-useful higher level items, and where there are strong ecology niches and a carefully considered system for limiting the direct benefits of spending 9h a day grinding currency.
Oh wait I already almost have that game...
But that game is not Ashes of Creation, so for Ashes all I want is for them to have answers to those questions that most people accept. Because to me, in all arrogance, many of those answers are terrible, and 95% of 'answers I didn't write down' are also terrible.
I believe good devs can find ways to navigate most other problems, within their intended sub-genre, without constantly shrugging off requests for things to be better.
I want to believe that Intrepid has many good Devs. But as of now, the questions mostly still stand, and aside from the answer to question #4 being known to be 'D', I feel like we haven't received answers yet, so I'm just waiting and continuing to ask them.
What are y'all even doing, Intrepid?
That's the sentiment my group has right now
Surely we missed the Discord/Reddit convo that explained why things are this way, right? Even if it's just the 'it felt better in-house' or 'data indicates most players are happy and engaged' so that those of us on forums who only see the complex negative responses know that those are the feedback minority.
I (personally) can't even say anything because I'm in that camp of 'people whose Alpha-1/Alpha-2 Phase I testing rig no longer can run Ashes for more than 8 minutes (and my more powerful desktop is well... no more available).
I don't want to judge stuff off just Ashes Codex and cherry-picked complaints on forums but they're really, really starting to look less 'cherry picked' and moreso 'corn as far as the eye can see'.
Please just do what y'all said you were going to do? If the person that knew how to do that is gone, and you need it explained, your forumers are explaining it, I'm not even the one saying anything now...
People who grind mobs are 'another type of Gatherer'. Let them be that. Let them go and get 'gatherables' from mobs. If you are worried that those will drop when people kill them, that is what Corruption is for.
If you're worried that they will locust forever, accept that you need to time-limit their Commissions.
Maybe I'm just biased, as a Processor, against this current 'yeah gathering is somewhat low cost but you need to fork over cash to progress'. It boosts engagement, maybe?
I don't want to have to spend my next 2 months desperately hoping that two games I love 'don't see how to let PvP/mob grinding adventurers just be gatherers' (yes, Throne and Liberty might get it right or fix it later, but they, at least, would have a somewhat flimsy and dissatisfying excuse for not fixing it, whereas y'all at Intrepid really do not).
Ugh this really is just another negative rant on the pile, a pile that already seems to be 'best not interacted with'. For that, I'm 'sorry', in the sense that I wish I could channel this energy more helpfully while still staying within your feedback guidelines, but as usual 'on behalf of my group'...
Please explain your vision here, because 'this ain't it'.
(EDIT: Also I'm serious about the 'Discord convo we missed' thing, if anyone has one/it, please provide it)
What I found funny is that even representatives of hardcore guilds like POLAR and AURA, and whoever else was speaking there were quite dismayed by the state of the economy, and required time, resource and gold investment to craft anything.
Few Intrepid representatives quietly joined and listen in, and then Intrepid has seemingly disregarded weeks of negative player feedback in the most recent patch. They are basically doubling down on brainless grind, broken char/world progression and an economy model which has massive inflation issues build into it.
Don't worry guys, we are going to focus on testing the economy in Phase 2
Blown past falling sands…
So, Intrepid didn't 'respond', per se? I'm not saying they have to, I'm just confused.
My heart goes out to whoever is in there fighting for us/the playerbase/the community, I believe I can actually imagine what it feels like to be trying to get things to change from the inside and getting shot down or getting the 'ok we'll work on it but we're not making any official statement' responses.
So if you're in there, whoever you are, Intrepid advocate-for-the-aggrieved, hang on for us.
If anything the last patch lowered the drops in POIs, without addressing the crazy costs of crafting (and in case of the EU server lack of access to crafting stations).
This is certainly a way to ruin play(test)er retention stats.
Blown past falling sands…
I'm not looking forward to this post, have mercy on me. It's too hard to condense down, but I'll try.
Gathering systems are made up of:
Certain combinations of these work better than others. Certain ones work when you don't have specific constraints or desires for your gameplay. A few don't work for anyone.
Most games that want people to enjoy gathering in itself go for high Incidence. It goes somewhat counter to high Exclusivity but actually they can be combined (see/search previous "Darksteel Ore" example in this thread).
Games that want people to just enjoy 'the whole world' can use much lower Incidence. This favors certain types of wandering/exploring gatherer. Some games try to do this by making the world so huge that it doesn't matter. Ashes intends to use the World Manager, MineCraft just doesn't have resources respawn at all, etc. Throne and Liberty's new update uses both depending on where you are, resource cluster areas have almost obnoxiously high Incidence, but there are still a few places where the wanderers can enjoy lower Incidence.
Flow is a related point, how exactly the player moves around when gathering. Flow is hard to gauge as 'high' or 'low' and for myself I only tend to think of it or 'read' it based on how bottable it is for various reasons. For now I'll refer to very brainless/bottable Flows as 'Heavy' and the opposite end as 'Light'. Some players really don't like having to think or consider their path at all, others have reported to me that being able to act like a bot just feels disturbing to them, but they are often forced to do it in games to progress because of the other group (high Incidence + heavy Flow tends to lead to the material costs of any item being quite high).
We might have to come back to Flow later, but for now, bear in mind that mostly Flow is disproportionate in its effect at lower levels, and other aspects take precedence as you go up. As of this post, the last time I was able to play Ashes, Flow was mostly neutral. FF11's is very Light (but shows its age, so it's not actually too hard to bot probably), and Throne and Liberty's Flow is area dependent (but the Housing update spiked Incidence so high that it's made the Flow silly in multiple places).
The Intent would seem obvious. You gather things to sell them or to make things, but this too depends on the game's design. Is it a 'solo MMORPG' (BDO)? Is just the crafting portion like that (TL currently sorta)? Is it supposed to be very interpersonal and dynamic (Ashes)? Is it high variety with a lot of niches (FF11). We can roughly split this into Profit and Relaxation, but those aren't good terms, they're just the quick ones. The point is that there are games and designs where nontrivial portions of the Artisanship has no Profit Intent, and that can be fine, but...
This is the place where most of the constraints exist. A competitive game that allows players to profit by Gathering will always have to worry about bots, and therefore ends up in a space where Heavy Flow+High Incidence is at least risky. Trying to solve this problem by limiting the methodology of profit, I've never seen work, because limits apply to everyone, and it becomes a pattern matching contest to see who can hit the limit the 'best' (Static rarity's Achilles' Heel, in my mind this is 'the reason that failed' even though the actual Intent of having players compete over spots in general is good)
You will always find players who view a gathering system that contains even a medium-strong Profit Intent as Relaxation either way. It is dangerous to design a system for a longterm MMO (of any kind) by 'allowing players to profit' and then basing the designs on it being Relaxation Intent. This is one of the failings of New World's Economy, and a large part of the reason why Crystal Synthesis is 'better' than Processing Queues. Processing Queues lead to all sorts of negative behaviours that the team is already very aware of the complaints of. This is where those complaints of 'clicky but no depth' come from. Brains, amirite?
But even for a solo MMO, there is still an issue that can arise. Because even though I called it Profit Intent, there's still a form of it that is just 'get to the thing I find interesting' or 'make number go up'. It's not that there are no players who like this. In fact, there are many. It's just that they play solo MMOs, or play BDO like one. Appealing to these players primarily requires that you give them a long path of numbers going up, but that often means things must be bloated, leading to the 'not respecting my time' complaint from the other segment of the population (my data indicates 25% of players are the 'number go up' type, around 45% will ignore it until another game catches their attention, and the others are the 'not respecting my time' group, whose interest level depends on the other factors).
Finally, Exclusivity comes in two basic forms most of the time, which I'll label 'Gated' and 'Clamped'. Gated is the basic form Ashes intends to use and FF11 mostly used. You outright are not allowed to do everything. Clamped is what games with 'Labor' and 'Energy' are using. You have a resource you can choose to spend (if this resource is only 'time', it must be carefully scrutinized to make sure it actually Clamps at all. This isn't exactly about outputs nor Niches, though it's closely related.
There's a separate consideration here about a combination of Exclusivity and Incidence but it doesn't need to be brought up in this thread, just know it's about whether hitting the gathering point actually gets you what you want.
I'll now give a Throne and Liberty example as a basic tl;dr for perspective:
While writing this post I have been using their new Gathering and Crafting systems at close to high efficiency but without enjoyment, similar to what people describe in Ashes. Here is the experience...
My Intent is 'Profit'. I want to level my Forging skill. The game is actually neither truly Gated NOR Clamped, only requiring time. I go to Temple of Sylaveth entrance and take advantage of the very High Incidence to hit gathering points for Iron Ore. For direct context this is a small area, I can see all of it, at any given time there are 6+ gathering points of the exact same type (about 25 total potential locations/offsets) and I just run between them.
As my level improves, I get more results from these. The game seemingly is trying to use tiered Micro-Slots with combinations, which means I will always need low quality Iron Ingots, and this will always be the optimal place to get them. All that will happen when I level up is that I will reach 'quota' faster doing this same High Incidence run (as of this typing, I've had a double gathering point, and one player has joined me in the area).
This Flow is not too difficult to bot, so we'll call it 'Heavy'. An AI assisted screen parser would definitely have almost no trouble. But I can't 'do the thing I imagine myself enjoying (Profit Intent) meaningfully without this (to me unfun) High Incidence, Heavy Flow gathering. When I'm done here, I'll go back to town and stand in front of the Crafting Station and click multiple times while basically writing faster, the queue for White Grade is 1m each. Remember that I will probably always need some amount of these.
Aside from the Queue and a currency cost that is basically not restrictive in this game, there is no Exclusivity here. This is fine at low levels but as of the current implementation pass there isn't any further on, just a longer timing Queue. So we go from 'Heavy Flow High Incidence' to 'the same, but now you can't actually process fast enough to benefit from either'. To me personally this borders on 'sickening' (I've got trauma from BDO, and BDO is technically better than this).
As always, the TL example is helpful because I can give a solution that isn't directed at Ashes itself.
TL needs to solve this if solving for my player type by changing Exclusivity and a bit of Incidence, but if one were to argue that there is a core non-subjective problem here, it is 'the ability to Profit without thought or concern' combined with a tragically low Variety, a topic I will probably get around to next week, I guess.
I hope that readers/devs can see why 'run in circles in an area I can see all of to gather 500+ Iron Ore and then afk process it all in 4 minute intervals for an hour so that I can go from lv2 to lv3 Forging' results in the complaints you have seen on the forums lately.
My Iron Ingots are done. Still need to make 10 more for level 3 and probably another 60-120 for level 4 so I have the option to do basically anything else in this system...
Back to Temple of Sylaveth.
You'd have to be able to clearly define 'Player Agency' though...
Disclaimer: My group members have reminded me that I often skip over aspects that are not obvious to a 'layperson' in this space, and this post might do that, so expect edits and maybe even those won't entirely resolve it.
Like, I can say that many people are aware that both heavy grind and low-thought tend to remove Player Agency as soon as competition/advancement requirements are involved, but the definition is complex precisely because players choose different paths for even thinking about their Agency.
But, I guess now that I have put up multiple posts worth of reference and precursor data I can finally take a stab at talking about it...
Player Agency is relative to randomness and complexity if adaptation in response to those factors is possible. If as an Econ Designer one finds oneself trying to lower either, you are almost certainly lowering Player Agency too. Sometimes it isn't even 'real' and the effect still happens. E.g. Throne and Liberty's current conversion of Artisanship Items (this response was a perfectly reasonable and necessary stopgap on a potential path of converting the old system toward a new system).
We went from '4 tiers of Manasteel that can be converted using that 10<->1 system' to 4 tiers of Iron Ore that can't, but are all still called 'Iron Ore', just different grades of Iron Ore. Players are already showing signs of 'not understanding why they need regular Iron Ore once they level up.
I can see a Dev thinking 'but I gave them 4 different Iron Ore instead of four different metal ores/any alloys because I wanted it to be simple and I can't see any way this removes any actual Player Agency'. This is 'true' technically but not psychologically.
Because human minds create connections between input and output of Artisanship here more than many MMO Devs seem to think. Even though it would be more complicated to have Bronze, Zinc, Tin, Iron Ore, as Ashes does, true Player Agency is often only reflected in how much a player needs or wants to interact with the knowledge-base of a system, similar to how this works for Weapon Skill Trees and builds.
This (and the Free Trade econ type, which matches Ashes) is why FF11 was able to 'get away with' not having any levels for the Gathering itself. The relatively homogenous Flow type in the game meant that the thing that was usually changing was danger level and 'difficulty'. If a player decided they wanted to focus on AdvP3-Ore to produce mostly items made from various ArtP3_Alloys, this was fine because AdvP1-Ore wasn't so absolutely better or worse, it was just 'easier' for certain people.
It's fine for there to be less obvious Agency in the T1 of Gathering and 'while a player only has access to ArtP1-Ingot/Alloy', but this shouldn't be accompanied by what we see in these games, restricted Agency in the T1 of the items output from ArtP1-Alloy work. If you are going to have low Agency at T1 gathering (very likely by the nature of most sane crafting systems) then you need to give Crafters more options for products so that they can 'specialize' on one side and 'diversify' on the other.
Then as they level, you can shift it. As the player advances and improves their access to more diverse uses for AdvP1-Ore or ArtP1-Ingot/Alloy by simply adding more, you can add fewer per 'tier', and this makes natural sense in itemization design really often without a lot of work on the part of the Designer.
This is easiest to see in terms of things like Farming, Decoration, and Weapon Stat Enhancement tweaking, but you would see it in Ashes too, and this is finally the explanation for the thing I perceive to be the 'flaw' in the Artisanship categories. By spreading them out so much, even with the low levels, or perhaps because of the accessibility of the low levels, the issue becomes a lack of points of interest or diversity to realize that Agency.
If the Crafter only needs or wants to make 1-3 items within their tier for a certain Craft to be 'satisfied', it doesn't work. FF11 solves this by combining both the 'making of ArtP1-Ingot/Alloy' and the resultant weapons be part of the same Artisanship path, and combining in other paths occasionally.
A Blacksmith in FF11 has a reason to make 120+ Bronze Ingots, other than just leveling, while still having the Agency of multiple options to choose from rather than 'repeat these 2-3 items until you reach next level'. Ashes fails harder here:
The Processor makes ArtP1-Ingot/Alloy hundreds of times, then hands off those hundreds of Ingots to the Crafter, who makes... maybe 3 things? Sure, you can argue 'well the Processor should just also be the Crafter at that point', but that's really my whole point here. It's not even that 'this would prevent interdependence' because that's a cross discipline thing that a Designer can control in all sorts of ways by applying the Micro-Slots.
This 'brainless grind' is not necessary, it is something that Intrepid and First Spark (hopefully accidentally) set themselves up for by creating a basis that leads to it.
And they both have entirely jarring outcomes to fix in the future because of it, looking at you 'Bronze Flowerpot made of 3 Quality Iron Ingots' and 'Longbow that requires you chop down 50 trees'...
EDIT: Remembered the possibly important thing that influences perspective but I don't usually mention:
"In FF11 I could attempt to make a Brass Ingot (level 11 Goldsmithing) at Level 1 (or at worst, 3), and I'd just have a chance of failing and losing materials."
Risk vs Reward(?)
To follow on from Player Agency therefore today I'm gonna rant about Specialization. Today's rant will be much less filtered because it's much less subjective, so though it won't be shorter, it hopefully will be a little easier to follow.
"Without Specialization what you have is not an Economy, what you have is jobs."
Some players prefer for their MMOs to just have/be jobs. This isn't about those players because any functional MMO Economy still contains Jobs, and only the most casual of ThemePark Enjoyers seems to spend any meaningful amount of time being mad that they can't easily do every Job. Changing your Economy for those people is the same as purposely changing your challenging content.
Many other players prefer that their MMOs do not feel like Jobs, even if they don't actually want to have to care about the Economy any moreso than the ThemePark Enjoyers.
But back to Specialization. As usual I have to use an example, today it's an FF11 one because that's the main place to get the required level of granularity to be clear about something. Let's as always talk about Fishing.
FF11's Fishing minigame is made up of basically four parts:
That's a Job. There's minimal Specialization. You could get good at Planning and Adapting for specific individual fish, but skilled players will eventually learn all the Fish Patterns and required plans. Or everyone will target 'the most profitable fish' and learn the ones for those. This is no more than a time/execution gate. Few things are truly ever more than that, but we'll get back to that.
FF11 Bait influences which fish bite in which areas. So you can target specific fish by having the right bait. If your bait is consumable instead of a Lure which stays until a Line Break or Rod Snap, it usually targets better, but there are some cases where this isn't true, genuine Risk vs Reward, where certain fish are really easy to target with the Lure, but also very likely to Line Break or Rod Snap. This affords mild Specialization (because a lot of this bait is limited, either limited supply at Merchant or must be made). This is not enough to make most people see this as something that isn't just a Job.
Real Specialization starts at the Fishing Rod level.
Rods in FF11 have certain properties that interact with the four aspects of Fishing, some make sense, at least one doesn't. Let's start with the one that doesn't.
Certain Rods target certain fish better, like, more of X fish will bite because of it. No idea how the Fish knows what rod you're holding. This largely gets phased out as you improve. It has an effect that in Specialization terms mostly separates the markets of Low, Mid, and High level fishers, low level Fishers don't want rods that are capable of targeting High Level fish, they want to use rods that isolate lower level fish (or rather, they at least benefit from this). High level fishers don't really lose this benefit, but they don't really want to carry around that many rods, nor do they want to spend a lot of time at low level fishing spots (in FF11 there is daily 'fishing fatigue', you don't want to waste catches on unwanted fish).
Now on to sensible things. Rods are roughly split into 'Rods that are Flexible, tiring the Fish faster when you react correctly but giving the fish more leeway when you don't', and 'Rods that are durable/inflexible, which Tire the fish slower but are more forgiving and usually less likely to break'. Some believe that the rod itself also affects how the fish behaves, but statistical modeling for this would be a nightmare. Let's assume it does.
This has many results but for the sake of sanity we'll focus on just three:
There's way more to this system than that once you get into Fish Patterns and 'relative weight'. We're ignoring all that for now. Let's talk Strategies and Reactions! For this we're gonna sort players who Fish into 6 categories. Not players who 'enjoy fishing', that's debatable, and though these categories also are, we're just going with it, Time is Money.
Achievers: The people who catch fish to unlock Achievements and Collections and learn about them that way.
Optimizers: The people who aren't happy until they have worked out the best/most efficient way to do literally anything they touch.
Skeptics: The people who choose to ignore information or argue with the Optimizers about how it isn't worth it to optimize.
Casuals: The people who ignore information because they don't care enough or can't be bothered to understand it.
Haters: The people who actively hate some aspect of the Actual FIshing System (in FF11's case this is usually people who are bad at making money some other way, or low-skill Optimizers, this doesn't count people who are mad that they can't get the rewards fast enough, those are impatient Achievers)
Smitten: The people who love the system for all it is, not 'faults and all', just like, absolutely love all of it for the sake of some otherwise inscrutable reason.
In all arrogance if I was out here setting some kind of 'MMO Econ Design Exam' the essay question would be 'Predict and explain the reactions of the above categories to the FF11 Fishing System', but as this is a 'cheat sheet' not a 'midterm', I'll give them. You can challenge yourself by trying that without reading more though! Sadly it's impossible to know the truly right answers!
Outcome: To catch every fish in the game, you would need to gain experience with more than a dozen different Fishing Rods, or do a ridiculously arduous quest for a 'perfect' one (that isn't actually perfect for anything other than this specific goal, the Devs even half-mock you for doing it!)
Reactions:
Achievers either are happy because they can do something few others can, or upset that it takes long and requires all this work, depending on their position on the Achiever Social Status Ladder.
Optimizers are either happy to have a lot to optimize, or upset that they need to own so many different fishing rods, some of which are hard to get/maintain, forcing them to do even more other things.
Skeptics just try their luck with whatever rod is available and maybe get mad when it's wrong for the task.
Casuals are not even touching any Goal related to this outcome, who even has time to catch every fish?
Haters are usually either mad that the system is 'so complex', usually because it prevents them from being able to pivot easily on a whim into someone else's Niche (again in FF11 specifically this would almost always be people who want this easier/less depth)
Smitten are usually asking for more Fish, but in FF11 there were already so many distinct Fish, Rods, and Habitats, that they mostly just spent more time fishing. In a 'shallower' game e.g. MineCraft they do things like 'make entire Fishing Mods' (Upgrade Aquatic, for example) to get closer to where FF11 is.
What does all that have to do with the Economy?
Economically speaking the player types react differently too.
Achievers want the option to sell and buy quickly, they might be upset if there were no Composite Fishing Rods on Auction, for example, because they 'want to catch a Fish that basically requires one'.
Optimizers are out there grinding and playing the Fish Markets, or complaining about the lack of a Fish Market and therefore this content is wasting the time they are putting into Optimizing it.
Skeptics are either ignoring it and complaining about the cost of Fish, or mad about what they perceive as a lack of gameplay value to all this complexity, once again in opposition to the Optimizers.
Casuals are hopefully fishing wherever the rod they happen to have, is good, but maybe not, and therefore their enjoyment of this content and relation to the Economy is random.
Haters are, as mentioned, mad that they 'even have to do this to make money', and probably even more mad if something shifts in the Economy, e.g. a swarm of Casuals catching fish in their easy profit spot for 2 weeks for some reason.
Smitten are sometimes upset that they are subject to all these Crass Economic Incentives when they just want to fish for the love of it, but often they're too busy filling their Auction House slots too fast.
And therefore finally, 'dealing with them all'. Econ Designers need to choose strategies for dealing with these player types for any System of any arbitrary level of depth or complexity, because different systems simply shuffle around which people fall into which categories. Their goals therefore are usually:
Usually in that order. I can't back that up, there's literally not enough 'research' on the subject yet. The Pain response thing is definitely real though, humans provably experience boredom and certain types of repetition as this, with varying tolerances.
The thing is that FF11 fishing didn't originally have a minigame. It basically didn't do anything with rod 'Flexibility' (this is probably why it had the targeting by Rod). So at some point, the distributions were different and someone put in the care and effort to make a new system. It had a mild Econ effect, mostly on Casuals.
They therefore must have affected the distributions.
Some Achievers would have been happier because with enough skill you could finish the Achievement more quickly.
Most Optimizers would have been happy to have more things to learn and optimize for.
Skeptics now would be pushed somewhat out of the category, the effects of the minigame now making the meaning of certain things more clear. Some would have become Haters, others probably Smitten.
Casuals would be split based on whether they wanted 'afk fishing'.
Haters would probably move to Smitten or Optimizer category if they didn't like afk fishing, but new Haters would replace them because added Complexity always brings Haters.
Smitten swap with Haters depending on some other things, or maybe become Casuals due to not being able to keep up with the complexity or having options they get pushed out of.
But I personally claim that in terms of the Designer's role...
The Econ Structure improved when the minigame was added, because players cared more about the specifics of their Rods and Bait, and more individual Niches were created for certain fish, opening up opportunities for Casuals, especially those with Optimizer mentors.
The pain response was diminished automatically (needing to play a minigame for an activity that has a fatigue limit must be assumed to not increase the Pain response for most players, because the minigame should be tuned to the average player's pain response, at minimum)
Botting would not have become more prevalent, it's arguable if it became more powerful.
Disengagement/hate would have shuffled around considerably.
So this change was overall 'good'. At the time it truly seemed to move more people toward positive, than away from it, while creating new Niches and destroying almost none. Because the Casuals didn't lose their Niche, they lost their 'Job' and only if they didn't focus down or get lucky.
The Achievers weren't targeting Niches in the first place, but they have at least a small chance of discovering one during their Achievement path.
Optimizers are now given a higher 'burden' but because FF11's economy was 10K type, choosing a Niche from among the new ones, or simply benefiting from people leaving your Niche, is positive, even if they don't actually change or accept that 'burden of dynamism'.
Haters and Smitten just got reshuffled, probably with a net increase in Smitten relative to economic activity because the Haters of the old, no-minigame system were probably avoiding Fishing, whereas the haters of the new system not only 'had ways to still do what they were doing but for slightly less profit', but could easily do what the Casuals and Optimizers do, once they calm down from all the 'my stuff is different and I don't like it!'
In a game with Free Trade, this works one way, in a game with limitations on Trade, things work slightly differently because it's much easier to accidentally destroy Niches, especially by making things simpler. Fortunately it's not harder to do with a little experience and it's also not a thing that Intrepid needs to think about unless they eventually hit a future where they must limit Trade to prevent bots, so I'll save my 'lectures' on Niche Destruction for Throne and Liberty fans.
Any preferred colors for all that? I figure we don't need them today. This is the Pre-Stream post, so depending on the stream contents I might rant twice today!
The LiveStream did NOT indicate that this was a thing that would happen, only increased concern about the threat of it.
So, let's talk Casuals. Let's talk 'Casuals in a game not built around them'.
Obviously this is through the lens of 'So you want to make a game with a real Economy, eh?', so I'll be leaving out all the stuff that needs to be considered for the 'players who don't want to have to care about the Economy too personally'. Note that it is not valid to consider these players to automatically be Econ Casuals, though those also exist and are a big part of this. For them, just substitute anything about Artisanship with 'getting specific drops by grinding'.
For people who feel like they know most of this or have read all my rants already, I suggest saving time by search-skipping to 'The Directly Relevant Part'.
Every single person on the Adventurer-Artisan 'spectrum' (not a real thing) in MMOs benefits from some form of Niche existing. If none exist, the tendency for the players who play the most and the most ruthlessly, to be the strongest economically, gets overwhelming.
For Niches to exist even in a game without Fast Travel, there must be some content that some players either don't prefer to do, or in stricter games, cannot do easily (because they spec into something else). This is the equivalent of choosing your Archetype/Class.
If you destroy Econ Niches, it's the same as nerfing one of those relative to a different one and should be viewed with the same concern. A good example of a place this happens 'accidentally' in Player-Character progression is when a player really likes a specific mechanic or way of playing their character, but the Devs consider that style to be 'for low level players' and make it absolutely sub-par as you progress further, dropping the development of 'progression paths' for that character type. A more specific hypothetical example would be if the Summoner's DoT was 'only supposed to be good until you got your Secondary Archetype' (this is not a thing that any recent information has implied, again, it is a hypothetical).
But, obviously Progression in Fantasy games has to feel like, well... Progression. Not just 'Specialization'. That's for really deep Econ sandbox games like EVE. A game like Ashes needs to provide 'temporary Specialization'. Ashes already has a method in mind 'for this' (at least I am fairly sure this isn't me just imagining up some quote or making an assumption, I'll trawl the wiki for it and add it). Social Organizations.
Now, off to the usual other-game example since Ashes' economy is too unstable to clearly discuss it without too much speculation on that end. Going back to Throne and Liberty again because in this case a Modern example is better.
The Housing Update:
This should really be referred to as 'The Early Access/Beta Housing Update' because roughly 80% of what they are aiming for isn't in yet. This isn't 'stuff I'm hoping for', it's stuff that is shown visually implemented in the game and shown off in the initial onboarding (which is presumably near-done) but can't be achieved yet in the game.
In order to do this and not give a massive advantage to players who were hoarding materials, old materials needed to be invalidated. All my previous mentions about Precious Manasteel or whatever are now defunct. Everyone had to start over their Gathering from scratch, even playing field. This was good for Casuals coming in.
Quite a few spawnpoints were reworked, changed, or moved around, negating 'prior knowledge' benefits at least temporarily for veteran players. Also functionally good for Casuals.
But certain Niches were entirely destroyed, and in some cases not replaced at all (as of this 'Beta' patch), and if this is permanent then this is bad for Casuals, or at minimum represents a massive change in the Economic structure of the game which I would bet worsens it slowly over time (but this is an extrapolation based on experience from games that don't match up perfectly).
Some minor lost Niches include:
"The Cloth-Armor maker who hunts on Daybreak Shore for materials" - a justified loss for some, this could have been viewed as 'silly', and it has been somewhat replaced, or rather, it would be, if the Metal you can now collect there instead was still needed to make Metal-Armor. (all sub-materials for Armor Crafting were removed in this update, I won't spend the time on explaining the problem with this, can't yet 'prove' it is a real problem and anyone who has read all this probably has a feeling about why, already.
"The Red Fog Island Hermit" - This niche got hit 3x over, with the removal of gatherables from the Island, the removal of the Bait that best targeted the better fish on the island, and the dramatic shift in 'who is progressing Economically' due to some other changes (like the one above).That last one might smooth itself out... maybe, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
"The Dynamic Event Chaser" - This was already on its way out as the content was invalidated by surges in player power, but there are a lot of small effects that go with the 'jump to Tier 3 gear', the 'loss of Purple Material drops (very rare) from specific Event Mobs', and the aforementioned 'you don't need them anyway'.
"The Mountain Climber/Explorer - This niche is lost for a roundabout reason, and it is technically only temporary, but we'll need to see how badly Time-Casuals are affected. Since there was previously no Artisan-skill requirement for gathering (and it is actually still only applied to some things, so it's not fair to say this is lost entirely), players who just like being 'high' could spend their time to get to such places and pick up a few items. Not unique, but definitely 'low competition' and often those were the areas with more concentrated spawns or at least 'the ability to pick up everything on the path. With the addition of multiple easily accessible, pre-marked clusters, it's economically unviable to climb mountains for certain rare resources at the moment without the required Artisanship skill.
The issue with most of these lost Niches are that they are the ones that 'solo' and 'Casual' players had, and they were only usually 'replaced' by 'Jobs'. Non-Niche, obvious activities and locations. The low variety of materials in the game is moreso 'to blame' for this than the reshuffling or 'forced reset'. If every Mining point gives the same Iron Ore (Quality and Tier must be ignored for this, for various reasons), no niche exists except in combination with some other nearby activity. This 'works' in a funnel sense, you level up 'faster' when you don't have to think about any additional aspects of gathering, just as most players will 'get geared faster' now that no one has to care about Cloth to actually make Cloth Armor.
But Niche Destruction over the long term erodes the Economic Identity of games. Fortunately, short-term shakeups are not overly disruptive to robust Economy games like Ashes or even TL whose 'Econ Level' is still unclear. It's disruptive to player communication across 'thresholds', and has approximately the same effect as the P3 Econ rework, on 'morale', because funneling players who previously had Niches, together, is a form of friction that they can recognize was caused not by shared interests, but 'by the Devs closing off paths'.
The Directly Relevant Part
The LiveStream implication was that higher fishing level means better fish. Makes sense in a 10K game. Certainly makes sense in a game with minimal Free Trade, or low NPC Currency prices for top end items. Since Ashes is not that...
As a lowlevel/Casual/Time Limited player, your issue should not be with the technical value of your product, it should be with the massively higher supply of your product. This is baked into Ashes. Low level Artisans of all kinds will be more numerous than high, for any given skill.
But if the 'technical', 'game-given' Currency Value of high level fish is innately higher, it doesn't matter if no one actually needs those fish for anything. And that means there is no 'Econ Drag' on the top players, and no reason to specialize directly. So we should hope, for 'the sake of the Casuals' that this isn't true. But the 'hint' from the Devs is that if you aren't 'going out to do sport fishing in the open sea' you 'aren't taking as big a Risk' (probably true, depending on Corruption values) and therefore won't get as big a Reward.
I'm not going to go into why this, combined with the general 'Money Printer' systems Ashes has, leads to 'Trickle-Down Economics' and 'necessity of Tax Brackets' and 'worrying about players finding ways to do Tax Evasion'. No matter how I try it will get political a bit.
So for now we'll just leave it at this:
If low level Niche Invalidation is a 'planned/accepted' concept in your game's economy, so is obsolescence so be careful not to miss these, as sometimes, it comes 'baked in' with certain otherwise 'fun' or 'appealing' implementations of systems. Usually they just require more care/time or scrutiny, but your Producers need to time-budget for this to avoid the spiral.
I guess in a few weeks I'll know if the TL side actually spiraled or not, and can add to this more.