Inadequate Economy

[Koltes]

The problem with money in Naval Action is that it is no more than a supplementary resource that is required by ALL elements of the economy, In other words in NA “Money” is some fancy name for some fictional resource that does not exist in the reality.To craft a ship you need the "money resource", to craft a resource itself you need the "money resource", and so on.

In real world money is not a resource, but a medium of exchange and a measure of value that holds its value over long period of time.

Image below shows current economy structure of a sequent character and how it negatively affects the player.

The second image shows that each nation (obviously all nations will be involved on the same level - 4 nations showed only for example purpose) holds the monopoly of some goods that everybody use. These goods are located in permanent national non capturable regions. Each nation has access to the global market through trade hubs allowing trading and exchange of goods for money on a global scale. Each nation will be willing to trade their goods because other nations will be willing to buy. This is quite a contrast to so called "trade NPC goods" that shops only buy until they are overstocked. This is how nations trade and get access to all goods reducing the need for alt usage and abuse. Also somewhat equalizing players with and without alts.
Also note that no nation no matter its size will collapse due to one side of their economy failing. For example conquest or PVP failure will still give access to all resources ensuring nations well being. PVP and Conquest becomes simply independent game play separate from the economy that has no destructive effect on the player base.

Note: For any economy to work the money needs to become inflation resistant medium of exchange. In real life influx of money is done through printing bank notes and careful injection into the economy. In MMO game such influx of money is done through junk loot to sell, rare but expensive loot, lucrative trading, crafting etc.
In Naval Action inflation (in other words devalue of money) is controlled by Death penalties .i.g. replacement of ship and the cost of consumables. The Death penalty unfortunately has lots of effects on the gameplay and cause negativity from the players. It also has negative effect on the PVP itself lack of which in return reduces money sink through Death Penalty.
Another money sink in NA is high setup cost of buildings (workshops and shipyards) and resource gathering.

The access to resources needs to be lowered to reduce its influx into the market, thus keeping their relative value high. The price on gathering resource needs to be also lowered for easier production.
Where NA can achieve money sink if through:
- Consumables (on top of rum, hull and rigs we could also use gun powder for extra charge, double shot ammo, hire special officer who keeps crew happy, pay weekly wages to your crew and/or officers etc);
- Global market fees;
- Player taxation for usage of docks in nation permanent regions (such as Capitals);
- Renting a clan warehouse;
- Renting player warehouse;
- Fast travel (TP between outposts can cost money too);
- High level players could spend huge money on super duper expensive ship customization goodies

All of the above will ensure that money is spent preventing the inflation and keeping its purpose as a measure of value.

With nations monopoly of specific goods our merchants will always be able to engage in the exchange of goods and make profits. It will no longer be NPCs who buys their goods, but the players of other nations.
Getting resources will simply become an expense for the crafter and the cost of the ships will receive global values allowing crafters to actually make money.
Such economy will also allow more player interaction, player to player deliveries, more targets in the OW, this will make pirates survive without the need to participate in conquest etc etc.
 

Edited June 17, 2017 by koltes

[admin]

Your proposal will not work as we have too many nations. And players dont appreciate such system you described.

Try imagining it with ships.
Lets assume for a second that santisima is only available in habana and ocean in France. 
It will of course generate great trading opportunities. But also it will generate a lot of whining. That will exceed the volume from happiness from traders. 

Not going to get done.

[Norfolk nChance]

 

Money is a fluid term, a means to an end in real life as well as Naval Action. Keeping the NPC overlay means the one constant is the Gold (currency not ORE). Koltes plan is logical and is a good solution for going forward.

For the structure to be rigid and at the same time easy enough for the Dev’s to Tweak I suggest five currencies. All local regional transactions will be in that NPC overlays currency. At the four-local trade hubs the local currency is Aztec Gold. And again, all transaction is in Aztec gold.

At each Local Trade Hub (LTH) you will be offered the cross rates on all four currencies against Aztec Gold ONLY. This is important. Different areas of the map will give different cross rates.

The Trader, he travelling across the map to sell some high-priced textile machines may want to hedge himself before arriving at the LTH or regional port and lock in an fx rate.   Likewise, the crafter will need to collect regional currencies to buy the local goods rather than wait for the LTH where the fx rate may make the goods expensive.

The OFFSET is tweaking becomes much easier for the Dev’s here, and their influence is not so heavy handed with less visibility…  1 at 365 type prices shown is a current example that would disappear. The smaller Nations can be given a boost also. Encouraging more players to a smaller a Nation by given that Nation Better Buying Power.

If we return to massive super Nations the OFFSET is to dilute its buying power. You get the picture. It’s (the FX effect) across the board, Oak Logs to Iron Ingots to War Supplies all products goods change from an outsider looking in.

@koltes plan alone stands up well and makes sense without my sloppy scribbles thrown into the mix. My idea makes this plan rigid, and tweaking won’t feel as in your face as at the moment. Yes, this is missing details and examples, but I think I’ve bored enough and don’t want to detract from the OP. If you want to know more than shout….

Oh, and it would mean you’d need to carry part of your wealth around with you obviously…

 

Norfolk nDough

(Brexit in the AoS)

 

[victor]

Just cut harvesting prices of oak, fir, iron, hemp of a good 50% and you'll see the economy ramp up. Much easier.

Edited June 17, 2017 by victor

[Sir Texas Sir]

11 minutes ago, admin said:

It will of course generate great trading opportunities. But also it will generate a lot of whining. That will exceed the volume from happiness from traders. 

One of the biggest problem with just about every game is you will never make every one happy.

3 minutes ago, victor said:

Just cut harvesting prices of oak, fir, iron, hemp of a good 50% and you'll see the economy ramp up. Much easier.

I think if they fix combat rewards would help even more.  Right now the harvest fee's aren't extremely bad, but if you cut them than what some folks are making off those items will reduce and hurt that market.  What we need it means to get other income than just trading. I have gotten pretty much little to nothing most PvP fights I been in.  High Risk and little reward when it should be High Risk and High Reward.   I can get more from PvE solo than I can from PvP.  They nerfed PvP reward down to crap in event to prevent abuse, so now it's not even worth doing it other than for the thrill of the hunt.  So now most folks are just grinding PvE instead of PvPing cause it gives the greater reward and that is helping for every one that is cash broke right now.

[Koltes]

15 minutes ago, admin said:

Your proposal will not work as we have too many nations. And players dont appreciate such system you described.

Try imagining it with ships.
Lets assume for a second that santisima is only available in habana and ocean in France. 
It will of course generate great trading opportunities. But also it will generate a lot of whining. That will exceed the volume from happiness from traders. 

Not going to get done.

Hence why this is monopoly on some important resources only. Everyone should be able to craft anything they like.
Also price of ships needs to be adjusted.

Low rate ships needs to be much cheaper and be more disposable, thus promoting more PVP and price/requirements on 1st rates even higher.

[victor]

19 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

One of the biggest problem with just about every game is you will never make every one happy.

I think if they fix combat rewards would help even more.  Right now the harvest fee's aren't extremely bad, but if you cut them than what some folks are making off those items will reduce and hurt that market.  What we need it means to get other income than just trading. I have gotten pretty much little to nothing most PvP fights I been in.  High Risk and little reward when it should be High Risk and High Reward.   I can get more from PvE solo than I can from PvP.  They nerfed PvP reward down to crap in event to prevent abuse, so now it's not even worth doing it other than for the thrill of the hunt.  So now most folks are just grinding PvE instead of PvPing cause it gives the greater reward and that is helping for every one that is cash broke right now.

Main problem in economy is that after wipe there is NO actual room for a crafted ship market due to crafted ships being too expensive in comparison with IA sold ones: crafters just produce ships for themselves or for the clans they belong to. 

You can either enhance income for players or lower expenses for crafting and harvesting, but the problem shall be addressed now, before the playerbase shirnks too much.

Edited June 17, 2017 by victor

[admin]

1 hour ago, koltes said:

 

Low rate ships needs to be much cheaper and be more disposable, thus promoting more PVP and price/requirements on 1st rates even higher.

that will be adjusted next week 

Regarding monopoly you cant promote trade by monopoly on certain resources - nations play to destroy not to trade
If there is a monopoly forums and steam forums will be overwhelmed by complaints that venetians got something barbarians did not. Or vice versa

[Koltes]

42 minutes ago, admin said:

that will be adjusted next week 

Regarding monopoly you cant promote trade by monopoly on certain resources - nations play to destroy not to trade
If there is a monopoly forums and steam forums will be overwhelmed by complaints that venetians got something barbarians did not. Or vice versa

What happens is we remove NPC goods, so there is no other means to trade. None.
You either sell real resources or ready products. No more junk loot / trade.

The trader wants to trade SOMETHING. All he has at his disposal is the resources that grow in his capital. He needs to make money. Yes he has monopoly on the Fir, but he still needs to pay for Iron which he will never have if he wont buy it from other nation. How does he make money then to buy that Iron? Well it happens that ALL other nations wants to buy his Fir because they can't get it anywhere else.

Today's grunge in regards monopoly like GB's Bermuda Cedar only happens because:
a). There is no global trading for GB to sell that Bermuda Cedar to other players. They want to. They have over stocked with Bermuda, but... nowhere to sell it;
b). Other nations have nothing to offer GB in return - GB can get access to everything without selling their cedar

The goods in monopoly needs to be well balanced between countries, have similar costs to produce, and be in the same need by everybody.
Woods that used in any ship contractions. Rigging. Cloth. Cannons. Consumables etc.

Without Global economy trading hub we cant create player driven economy. We need to bring players together. Remove national fighting and give us clan wars. The game will blow everyone's minds.

Edited June 17, 2017 by koltes

[Teutonic]

1 hour ago, admin said:

that will be adjusted next week 

Sounds good. Some 5th rates  and smaller being cheaper or easier to make would be awesome.

I don't mean to hijack koltes' thread, but is there any discussion for buildings and extracting resources?

Could it only be gold or only be labor hours and not both? Or do you like where it is right now?

 

Going with what @koltes says, I agree that these trade goods from all nations have absolutely no meaning for players other than a pure money making item... which to me just shows the problem that there isn't "enough" ways to make money, or you don't make enough money doing other things.

Edited June 17, 2017 by Teutonic

[Koltes]

2 hours ago, Intrepido said:

I really hope you will change the prices of crafting hull repairs.

Around 28k (without taking into account LH) for 50 repairs kits. 50 repair kits only allow you to repair 4 times in a small-medium vessel. 

I would decrease the harvesting prices around 15-20%. This way crafting would be overall more affordable: cannons, ships, repairs...

Crafting cannons also eats lots of ressources and labour hours. People still buy mediums cannons because of this. If you craft one day a surprise you have to wait for the following day in order to craft cannons and repairs.

People are investing near 500k for medium ships and its equipment. Losing one, usually after being ganked in a mission, is a drama for the player.

 

 

I think overal ticket price for player crafted ships needs to be somewhere among this lines:

7th rate - 15-25k including cannons

6th rate - 35-55k

5th rate - 125-150k

4th rate - 650-850k

3rd rate (entry SOL) - 1.5-2m

2nd rate - 3-5m

1st rate - 7-12m

 

This is how we will see lots of PVP in lower rates as those ships become more disposable. SOLs will be used mainly for its purpose (missions and clan pvp with a support of other ships)

[Daguse]

To help with this I think opening up the market so ship makers directly compete with one another will go a long way. 

We have a trade tool, why not a similar tool for ships. Allow players to "shop" for ship by looking up what ships are for sale and where. This will mean pricing will normalize a lot quicker and players will find the ship they want with a lot less effort.

Edited June 18, 2017 by Daguse

[Fargo]

I think it would help alot when trading wasnt seperated from player economy.

Trading with player goods makes no sense, unless its your intention to support the player market. Too less profit/weight and time. Every item should have a use, and should be produced by someone, somewhere. Then it becomes dynamic, and devs dont have to balance all the npc prices and production rates. When something is demanded, more people will produce it. 

To aim for a global trade of player goods, we shouldnt let only britain produce iron, but it should be a good amount cheaper to produce there. Trading player goods needs to be profitable. Trading for x hours should gain more profit than spending this time e.g. for missions (on average, acting smart). But each nation should always have access to basic resources.

Contract fees are a problem, reducing trade margins by much more than 5%. Its also promoting self supply, clan economy, or avoiding economy in any way.

Also helpful could be the restriction of trade ships, e.g. by perks. More people would sell in production ports or craft there, and more people would set buy contracts in capitals. More trading possibilities and profit/trader.

It would even make sense to devide players into different professions, so nobody can produce resources, materials, cannons, repair kits and ships at the same time. Denying self supply is not favouring clans, but a busy player economy.

Maybe another option to support trading is to promote production further away from the capital. It could effect production rates e.g., when lots of people are producing at the same port. As a side effect it becomes an advantage to own more ports, and traders can buy goods further away from enemy capitals. Less populated nations producing more efficient would gain a little economic advantage against large nations with player count advantage.

Just a few thoughts.

15 hours ago, koltes said:

Low rate ships needs to be much cheaper and be more disposable, thus promoting more PVP and price/requirements on 1st rates even higher.

Are low rate ships so expensive? A 30min kapten fleet rewards you with 60-80k + loot of 4-5 ships. Is spending 1,5 hours playing to afford a 5th rate living for days too much? And your LH income etc adds to this. I got 5 pvp marks yesterday, alone worth a brand new ship. A busy economy also would result in lower prices, fixed rewards would increase relatively. Also people that can afford upgrades for 200k for sure could afford a 300k ship. Ai ships are a problem for shipbuilders, and without shipbuilding, no material market, etc. I think we should try getting rid of ai frigates, before lowering ship cost unnecessarily.

[Pad Seayew]

I can't remember where it was said but wasn't the promise of 1 dura ships the fact that they would be cheaper and easier to produce? That seems like it went out the window post wipe.  I was actually looking forward to that, including ship knowledge which I think is a much better system than the modules.

[Odol]

This has been said before and is being said again.

The economy is broken.  But people dont want to listen because they know everything about everything......

I agree with the OP.

 

[Koltes]

What this proposal mean is that every nation will have something that no other nation have. It doesnt have to be few resources. It will even work with 1 resource per nation. Nations will become known supplier of a specific resources. US deliver iron, Spain gold, Dutch hemp and so on. 

No one can craft anything without engaging in global trading. For any crafter in any nation to craft anything they will have to trade with all nations.

Once again this is not a monopoly on ships, or BPs or trading, but on a specific resource. When a ship is built it requires resources from ALL nations, therefore all nations will engage in trading.

[Koltes]

On 6/18/2017 at 1:29 PM, Fargo said:

Are low rate ships so expensive? A 30min kapten fleet rewards you with 60-80k + loot of 4-5 ships. Is spending 1,5 hours playing to afford a 5th rate living for days too much? And your LH income etc adds to this. I got 5 pvp marks yesterday, alone worth a brand new ship. A busy economy also would result in lower prices, fixed rewards would increase relatively. Also people that can afford upgrades for 200k for sure could afford a 300k ship. Ai ships are a problem for shipbuilders, and without shipbuilding, no material market, etc. I think we should try getting rid of ai frigates, before lowering ship cost unnecessarily.

This is done mainly for low income new players.

[Fargo]

17 minutes ago, koltes said:

This is done mainly for low income new players.

But it affects all players... Increasing low rank income would be the way to go then.

Its dangerous to balance ship cost after low rank income, while some players grind 200k/30min in larger ships. Inflation would really be bad for new players, increasing ship prices but not the fixed combat income. To make lower rated ships valuable for all ranks, incomes must not differ that much, larger ships need higher repair/upkeep cost e.g.

[Koltes]

52 minutes ago, Fargo said:

But it affects all players... Increasing low rank income would be the way to go then.

Its dangerous to balance ship cost after low rank income, while some players grind 200k/30min in larger ships. Inflation would really be bad for new players, increasing ship prices but not the fixed combat income. To make lower rated ships valuable for all ranks, incomes must not differ that much, larger ships need higher repair/upkeep cost e.g.

The idea behind this is not price balance related, but player activity balance related
Let me explain. If we make lower rate ships almost "unreasonably" low cost then people will be PVP in them without fear of loosing. Who cares - they are cheap.
Making higher rate ships lost more expensive than what they are now will balance large ships gameplay making them more a team vessel for RvR, missions and so on 

[Fargo]

9 hours ago, koltes said:

The idea behind this is not price balance related, but player activity balance related
Let me explain. If we make lower rate ships almost "unreasonably" low cost then people will be PVP in them without fear of loosing. Who cares - they are cheap.
Making higher rate ships lost more expensive than what they are now will balance large ships gameplay making them more a team vessel for RvR, missions and so on 

So you want to make them "throwaway" ships? I dont think thats the intention of the devs. Look what happened in the past when 5 dura ships were 3-5 times cheaper/dura than now. People finally left the game, cause easy access to everything removed the motivation to play. People came back to the game, cause its challenging=motivating again. Many people dont even use 3rd rates and higher. We need to balance everything for every rank, not only high rate ships.

A medium to high rank player can easily afford a frigate right now once he got started. Why make ships cheaper for those guys, instead of just making it easier to "get started" for lower rank players?! Also keep in mind that we had a special after wipe situation with high rank players starting in cutters. This was really annoying and time consuming, but should not effect any balancing decisions.

The cost for outfitting a ship is already higher than the ship cost itself for 5th rates and below, maybe this should be addressed instead. Craftable upgrades e.g. could help with that. Copperplating and bovenwind goes for ~200k atm in sweden. 4 pvp marks for bowfigure = ~280k.

PVP activity is affected by lots of things. All combat, rewards, ROE and escape mechanics, ship balancing, etc. I think alot of those are far off from beeing perfect. The meta of uncatchable surprises e.g. is really annoying. Personally i usually dont take a 1v1 vs those, cause i dont want to risk a valuable belle or essex against an imbalanced npc/fir ship. They dont mind going suicide mode to sink a value ship, in the best case for you they escape. You cant win anything, you dont PVP. Also when you sink someone, you want to affect him, not make him simply use the next throwaway ship stored in dozens in his docks. Ofcouse it is difficult to find the best compromise between meaningful PvP and affordable ships, but thats what we should aim for.

 

 

[admin]

On 17.06.2017 at 3:11 PM, koltes said:

Without Global economy trading hub we cant create player driven economy. We need to bring players together. Remove national fighting and give us clan wars. The game will blow everyone's minds.

clan wars is one of the things we considered

[Suricato Rojo]

There is no need of economy as Basic Cutter are free.

 

[victor]

16 minutes ago, Fargo said:

People finally left the game, cause easy access to everything removed the motivation to play. People came back to the game, cause its challenging=motivating again.

How many assumptions in just two lines. People came back to see how the game was after the wipe. We'll see how many will remain here.

On PVP EU during first week after the wipe we had an average of 1150 players (UE prime time), yesterday - three weeks later - we were are around 800. This means that we already lost 300 "returning" players (which is 20% of the total) after three weeks.

It's a bit early to clearly understand which will be the new "stable" player base of the game.

[Koltes]

2 hours ago, admin said:

clan wars is one of the things we considered

 You would make so many happy faces!
Allowing us to go clan wars instead of nation wars! There would be so many more fights and less salt on a global level
Good move!

[Hodo]

1 hour ago, koltes said:

 You would make so many happy faces!
Allowing us to go clan wars instead of nation wars! There would be so many more fights and less salt on a global level
Good move!

There would be MORE salt, and it wouldnt make sense to see British ships attacking British ships because they are in a different clan.