Perspective From The New: Economy Suffers From Little Decay

[Darkmalice 242]

blah blah blah

-1

Edited January 20, 2013 by Darkmalice

[Protunia 735]

-1

Thats cause you know im right!

The no decay ( more and more ) system is failing to make the economy prosper and is leading to stagnation of items.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Protunia

[Anothernoob 102]

Actually I think that higher decay would have the opposite outcome, and I also think that the cause for the "decline" is not the lack of decay.

I'll make a comment on these 3 things first:

Especially hurt are the newbie players. They could be creating low QL locks to replace ones about to break, or low QL subcomponents or other items. Their QL 20 tools, appropriately priced, would have a place in the market.

As it is now, save up for the one or two producers of high QL and you never need buy again.

Just my observation from the 38 days of a new economy and watching it quickly decline due to no outlet for low ql merchandise of anysort save bricks, mortar, and dirt.

I'll start with the 3rd point:

I think that this decline doesn't have to do with decay but with the fact that the active crafters of the new servers keep getting their skills higher and higher. This means that they can make higher ql stuff or if they choose to make lower ql ones it takes them less time to finish them now. And as more and more people with good crafting skills try to get their place in the market the competition forces them to either offer higher ql goods (goods that fewer people can offer) or reduce their prices.

On the 1st point:

The newbies wouldn't be able to do much even in this case. If someone has 80 skill and good tools he only needs to imp the target tool only once or twice after he creates it. The newbie would have to spend hours to make a bunch of 20ql tools that a skilled crafter would be able to make in a few minutes. Such a change could lead skilled crafters to make low ql tools until their prices fall too much again (and the newbies wouldn't have any profit from this). Dealing with high decay would be difficult for the newbies too. It would actually hurt them more as the higher ql tools would be more expensive (for a newbie that would be a problem) and lower ql tools would make it more difficult for them to make high quality items. It would be really difficult for a newbie to make high ql building material with low ql tools if he decides to build his house and fences and he would have to spend too much time repairing them if he decided to use low ql materials that he would be able to make with low ql tools.

On the 2nd point:

I have already changed 4-6 large mauls, and 2-3 sets of tools for leatherworking, carpentry, mining, woodcutting and cloth tailoring and I need to have all these tools improved again (and I'm here for less than 2 years and less than 1.5 year of premium, and for half a year I haven't been using them as I have been mostly active in epic). I would also suggest you to try using horse shoes and saddles on your horse and see how long they will last until they need imping again(especially now that it seems that they all get the same damage despite their ql), if you use your horse a lot it can be a pain or too expensive to improve 70+ ql shoes and saddles too frequently (90+ql ones would be even worse).

About BSBs and FSBs:

Bulk storage is not only good for players who can harvest their crops today and don't have to use them all the same day (I don't know how many people traded cotton wemp and other things before the implementation of bsbs). BsBs also help in reducing the total number of items that the servers have to deal with (at least this is the impression that I got). Removing them would simply make lag terrible and introducing higher decay on items stored in them would make players less willing to spend time making the bins and hauling the bulk goods to their location in order to store them.

People are usually not willing to pay the same prices for tools if they don't last. A high QL pickaxe is a luxury item. If it became a wear and tear item then people would probably stick with the cheap tools they can create themselves or the local blacksmith can create for a dime a dozen.

This is also the reason why high decay would harm trade even for the top ql tools.

You also forget about the effect of similar changes to the playerbase (and the possible number of customers for the in game market). How many people would be willing to spend time and money if they had to repair/improve/replace all their belongings most of the time?

For all these reasons I think that the extra decay is NOT the solution but it would actually make things worse.

[Protunia 735]

All you have to do is make it so things that do not get used stop lasting forever......it's not rocket science.

Same thing that happens with houses or deeds that decay if its not being used decay is sped up to remove the item from the game.

You cannot sit here and say Wurm does not have an over abundance of items that do not decay.

With all the methods that have been put in the game to keep items from decaying and being removed.

You cannot also say this helps the economy in the long run as in the end there will be tens of thousands of items sitting around never being used.

It already happens now probably in the tens of thousands.

Anyhow I was against adding any of this no decay stuff and it got added so now we have to deal with it some how I think.

If the item has not been used in two weeks increase decay more than a month increase decay again.

Get rid off all the anti decay stuff period!!

I already know this will never happen because some will uproar....ohhh my precious...

[Stargrace 603]

All you have to do is make it so things that do not get used stop lasting forever......it's not rocket science.

Same thing that happens with houses or deeds that decay if its not being used decay is sped up to remove the item from the game.

Get rid off all the anti decay stuff period!!

One way of making sure players do not play your game, is make it seem even more like work. If there's no anti-decay stuff, people who take a break due to real life or due to whatever, will come back to - nothing.

How many old players want to come back to absolutely nothing. Take a break for a month because you have a sick relative? Come back and because you haven't logged in for 30 days everything you "own" is gone. Not fun.

Logging in to 'play' a game isn't supposed to be a job. Or work. It's supposed to be something you do for fun. The second you cross that line that makes it more work than fun, you lose people.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Stargrace

[Aeris 3,759]

Things do not last forever. I have a bunch of QL90+ pickaxes in a coffin that I have to imp up on a regular basis. Not even gonna talk about how often I have to imp up the one I have in my inventory, it might scare new players away.

You're fairly new to the game Arch so you might not have noticed yet, but the higher QL an item has the longer it has taken to get there. I do not whip up a QL90 item in a few minutes like it is with a QL20 tool and 30 skill. I'm closer to 100 than 90 in the blacksmithing skill and it takes hours still to improve items to 90.

Another thing which you're missing here is that you usually don't buy items from the people you live with, so you'd either have to walk over to some person in order to get your tool imped or send them via mail. This means you could potentially have to wait for it to get imped back up for days id the timezones and login hours doesn't match. This is okay if you have to do it maybe once a month on a tool or two, but I doubt people would bother if every second day you'd have to send a handful of items for re-imping.

[Shrimpiie 3,665]

I don't know what economy you are looking at, it isn't getting worse and worse everyday, people are always working on projects, big ones, small ones, they require bulk, they need the tools and mats for it, which creates a great demand, just take a look at the freedom market threads, there are new things every day in it. People are always needing new things.

On another note, FSBS and BSBS were not created to save bulk items endlessly, they were created to remove items from the game, as there is a % taken out per month.

[GreenHero 72]

The economy is fine, the complaints must be coming from people not selling enough stuff

[Protunia 735]

Say what you will, but I have seen it time and time again in games...when they have too many items and are peaked they invent new shiney ones to aquire aka as rares. And lately we have this buff to saccing items only to remove them from the data base.

If you are having any problems with item decay there are more than a few easy ways to ensure they never decay at all.

Fsb's and Bsb's only remove a small percentage per month compared to the amounts of Bsb's made each day and items packed into them.

The economy on items is stagnant for the most part and yeah rares/steel items added new life into the item economy some, but eventually that will be over as well.

Then what Platinum items???

It's happening whether you want to see it or not items are being created and stacked in Bsb's or merchants or wrapped or put on alts at such a pace there are too many.

[shadowblasta 142]

hahaha protunia is always against the masses XD not surprised he wants decay back, not everyone has silver to buy new tools all the time im just sad that there isnt a place to store my shield safely to lower decay other than on my person

[EliasTheCrimson 348]

Here's a Wurm economy pro-tip for y'all: Players will always try their hardest to not be reliant on trade with others. You can't force players to trade.

There are two assumptions/myths going on here that I don't believe hold water:

1. Taking away people's items will automatically make them take to the player market to replace them? - Players will do their darnest to avoid buying things from other players, in particular strangers. When a player needs an item investigating the market for a deal and paying out of their own purse is the absolute last resort for many players. Some would naturally turn to the market to fulfill their needs, but players will also lower their standards, barter with their friends and possibly even attempt fulfilling their item needs on their own. Bottom line is: Net losses from increased decay will NOT directly translate into increased market transactions.

2. I'm not making any money the way I imagine I would, the economy must be broken? Self-explanatory.

Edited January 20, 2013 by EliasTheCrimson

[meiyeeer 78]

-1 to more decay, If things decay faster, that doesn't fix the issue, if there is an issue at all. That just makes it more of a necessity to buy higher ql items, since the low ones don't last long enough.

[impendent 13]

The economy is fine, if anything its over active on these two servers

[Jovan 20]

this is why new players should not be allowed to make suggestions. i propose a 90 day probation period on all forum accounts before they can post new topics.

on a serious note. the economy is just fine as it is. you may not understand it yet because your a noob, but once you get some skills up to respectable level, you will. tools and materials sell very well on Inde, you have a problem in pristine because its mostly populated by alts of veteran players, so they know how to skill up the critical skills quickly and be self sufficient/market dominant. its all about product/merchant placement and timing (being on line with material/item when you see someone asking for it in server chat). you can also sell services.

ive played EVE online, for several years in fact. and it does indeed have a very in-depth economy (Jita resident here). but the difference is that EVE online is a persistent single shard hardcore PVP game. even in the "safe" zones you can be ganked for your stuff. Wurm is predominantly a PVE game with rules and mechanics geared as such on most servers. the current rates of decay and damage, as well as corpse looting rules, etc, have been established over YEARS of player feedback and adjustments. just because wurm went 1.0 a month ago does not in any way mean that its a new game.

[Iulianx 90]

The fact that tools eventually need to be imped back up dose not stimulate the usage of a lot of raw materials and its the only thing the running the economy except new players buying stuff. I don't think this is enough and that items that are improvable need to have a limited lifespan, i.e. 500dmg repaired on them.

The decay on raw materials would be stupid because they are used up eventually to make new stuff, unlike tools.

The Food decay workaround is an exploit imo since Rolf specifically increased food decay rate to make it something made on the spot.

[san_tropez 394]

If my old tools to which I feel a certain attachment started to poof, just because some pixel hoarder felt he didn't have enough pixel coins in his virtual bank, I would be rather pissed since I don't care about your economy. Creating a tool is a minimal effort, imping it to 70ql is not. It's fine and dandy if new players feel the need to prostitute themselves for outright pathetic wages, but they should be focusing on building their own community instead of trying to compete with the market from day 1

Also buzzwords

Edited January 21, 2013 by san_tropez

[Kawdzo 68]

I bought a 80ql pick axe three weeks ago. It's now 65 ql. If i want to keep getting high ql returns Ill have to buy a new one soon. This is a very short period of time for wurm.

[Fattox 7]

People sometimes enjoy being self-sufficient rather than feeling the need to buy (yet) more silver just to be able to do basic tasks. Why does it matter if i buy things from another player? It has no positive/negative impact on anything other than someones (virtual) wallet. How is this suggestion of yours of any benefit to anyone except the seller? If someone wants to sell something, they will make something worth buying, and people will buy it! This has been proven by some of our top crafters on Release and even ones who travel to/from Pristine to trade worthwhile goods/services. If you make good stuff, people will come. If your stuff sucks, people won't care. Decay wouldn't change that.

I personally prefer to make my own stuff (along with my townmates)... and i'd also prefer it to stay as it is so that i'm not forced to pay attention to every little item or material in my stocks. It's hard enough gettings things like cotton and wemp without worrying that they will rot as fast as they grow.

Edited January 21, 2013 by Fattox

[Iulianx 90]

So ignorant, in a working economy, unlike wurm, everyone would have something to sell, labor or items, and guess what! everyone is a seller and everyone benefits from this.

[Hordern 2,177]

I'm not in favor of increased decay on everything - been there done that in the case of some things, for example:

BSB's are a saving grace for the new player that wishes to earn some money. Can you imagine making 2k bricks from shards that are decaying around you, then loading up your now decaying bricks and getting them to the person who's buying them and him then using them before they decay? This would collapse the very lucratave market available to new players of bulk item selling which is one of the easiest ways for them to earn reasonable amounts of silver.

[Fattox 7]

So ignorant, in a working economy, unlike wurm, everyone would have something to sell, labor or items, and guess what! everyone is a seller and everyone benefits from this.

Yes, and adding decay would make it so that the very items many people sell (bricks, cotton, etc) would decay before they could shift them or craft with them. Who benefits again, aside from Rolf?

Just because there are some ways around decay (for some items, not all), doesn't mean there aren't things people can't still sell. This sounds more like people who can't compete with the upper tier of crafters want some silver for themselves. I'm not opposed to the little guys getting a cut, but i'm not in favour of changes that force me to pay people for things i can currently manage by myself. If i'm going to pay someone for goods/services, it will be for a skill i lack or something that really benefits me. Not a 20QL shovel, which would probably go for 50c+ if decay was raised and container decay-proofing was removed.

The game is already quite harsh towards new starters or casual players, and now you want to drive them away by forcing them to either play more (to use mats before they decay) or pay more? OK... sounds smart, not ignorant at all.

Edited January 21, 2013 by Fattox

[Archaegeo 136]

First: Raw materials could be protected from decay. It is subcomponents and components that need to decay.

I understand that many of you do not care whether or not players can sell things. You dont give a whit about the economy.

But you should.

Arguing that it would lead to Rolf making more money is an idiotic arguement (you are not an idiot, just that argument). The devs need money to live, just like we all do, and deserve it for their efforts. They also need enought to do new development, hire more staff, etc.

But more so, we lose many new players who do not want to come to a world where their efforts at production have no place to sell till they reach some uber level.

[Hordern 2,177]

But more so, we lose many new players who do not want to come to a world where their efforts at production have no place to sell till they reach some uber level.

You seem to be basing this whole argument on the assumption that no one can make money in this game until they have 70+ in a crafting skill. There are many ways they can earn silver as has already been mentioned several times. I have 73 blacksmithing. Is that because I have been grinding it to sell items? No, I have never sold an item I've crafted. I have 73 blacksmithing because I've used the skill to make/imp things I need or want at the time and it goes up. You don't need to be trying to sell stuff to get your skill to a level where you believe it's needed to sell stuff.

But to go back to the proposal of increased decay, I understand your reasoning to be this:

Players buy high QL items which decay fairly fast > they need to get more of them > demand for items increases > price rises allowing people to sell low QL stuff to the people who can't afford the now much more expensive high QL stuff. [This would in fact just screw over the people with little cash to spend as they can no longer afford decent stuff]

However, I would expect it to go one of these two ways:

Players buy high QL items which decay fairly fast > they need to get more of them > demand for items increases > players make their own rather than have to frequently pay for new ones.

Players buy high QL items which decay fairly fast > they need to get more of them > demand for items increases > Those who CAN produce higher QL stuff make more money than they do now because they continue to sell at the same price, but more people need to buy from them and more frequently.

Edit: Oh, and also the MAIN issue with trying to sell low QL stuff isn't the cheap high QL suff available - it's the fact that everyone can make low QL stuff with very little effort - so they'll do that rather than buy it.

[Stargrace 603]

I understand that many of you do not care whether or not players can sell things. You dont give a whit about the economy.

But you should.

This is a sandbox game. People "should" care about what they want to care about in it. It's a game to be played WHATEVER way a person wants. If they want to play the economy game, they can, if they want to be self sufficient and do it all themselves, they can. THAT is what wurm is about. Making it what you want it to be.

If you want to make coin get creative, put some thought into it, and you will make coin. You don't need game mechanics holding your hand forcing it to be so.

[Protunia 735]

I'm not in favor of increased decay on everything - been there done that in the case of some things, for example:

BSB's are a saving grace for the new player that wishes to earn some money. Can you imagine making 2k bricks from shards that are decaying around you, then loading up your now decaying bricks and getting them to the person who's buying them and him then using them before they decay? This would collapse the very lucratave market available to new players of bulk item selling which is one of the easiest ways for them to earn reasonable amounts of silver.

I disagree completely with this.

New players have to spend way more time wasted doing bricks than a skilled player.

Not only that they get very little skill at all making these bricks, planks, etc. compared to if they would have spent the same 1000-2000+ actions skilling up to make items.....which we have too many of and many never decay at all.

The economy of making bricks is there because people use them up much faster unlike items, and you can argue this, which sit by the thousands and easily made. I can go to one of my traders right now and find many 40-50-60 even 70 QL items sitting there that never go away and have been there forever.

Saying New people can make money wasting time doing jobs that give little skill because the people who can do them 5x faster don't want too does not mean it is lucrative to them. It means that is the only market they have to make any kind of silver at all for the most part. And at a cost of slowing the development of their character to catch up to the 70-90 QL market.

Now if making bricks, planks, etc gave experience like making items and imping them then I wouldn't say anything, because at least its a fair exchange, but the way skilling is set up making those types of items for new players keeps them more like slaves into the only market they really have as an option left.

Just like lately with slate and marble some new players found these items and the older players whined to take them away because they were trying to make more coin off the new resource then they wanted to pay and thought they deserve.

This economy is broken for lower level players period and keeps them slaving away for hours for less coin and less skill. Basically keeping them at the bottom longer.

Edited January 21, 2013 by Protunia