Economy, how I think it should be

[Khurt]

Hi, 

 

I want to talk a bit about the ingame economy. I see there are already some posts about this topic, but they are pretty old and I really think this argument is one of the most important and one of the most neglected right now.

 

• The state of the art

Actually, materials flow is pretty simple and flat:

 

Buy materials from NPC cities---->craft new ships and modules----->sell to NPC cities or contracts---->repeat till you have the ship you want and enough money to equip it.

 

Also, after some exploration around neutral cities in different places and some "crafting" experience, I can affirm that:

 

-short range trade is pointless: common goods (timber, hemp, ores...) are so common and cheap that you have to use a contract to hope to gain some money. Also, I cannot see why should I buy a good at higher price from an human player when I can simply travel to a near city and buy it from NPCs at base price.

 

-long range trade is not worthing the time: "luxury" goods (iberian meat, dutch spices...) have ridiculous margin profit. Just as example: spices are bought at 180 gold more or less, while they are sold at 200, for a 10% gain. This would be ok if you didn't have to spend almost an hour to reach an NPC city that will buy it with that price.

 

-crafting is way too easy: even at lvl 1 is it possible to craft all components to create a ship and then sell it to the market with some profit. What's the point of selling low grade components if any player can just craft them with no additional cost?

 

• How I think it should be

This is, ofc, an opinion, you can agree or not, but I really think that it would really improve game experience.

 

First of all, the main point behind my idea is to reduce npc trade as much as possible.

To do that, new game mechanics should be implemented

 

Make cities appropriate resources sink

Any economic game is based on a good balance between resources production and sink. An healthy economy should keep pretty much constant the amount of materials in the world. Too much goods result in a value drop that means unbalanced profits between new players that have to invest much money to earn a very few amount, and veteran players that can use much more money to easily lucrate on the goods.

On the other side, a shortage will result in a boring game experience with a lot of players trying to acquire the goods they need.

 

I think, the best way to achieve this, is to introduce city population.
Cities should require some basic resources every day (just like now, but much more systematic): every city should require many type of food, wood, cloths... to simulate every day needs. Goods would be drawn from the market at random times (to avoid abuses) during the day, buying thet from the lowest contract available at the moment. It will still be possible to sell directly goods to the city, just like it is now, but at a lower price.

If city needs are accomplished for some days in a row, population would start increase and so amount of materials required.

 

A system like this will greatly increase both long and short range trade, making them essential to build a prosperous empire. Veteran players with bigger ships would be able to earn money from long range trade, moving big batch of goods from the production zones to "trade hubs" around the caribbean, while newbies with smaller ships and less capital to invest, will be able to gain some money buying from those players in and moving resources in cities around to keep them feeded.

This would also a nice way to balance nations with very different player base: a player that will start in a nation with many other players will find more difficult to trade with cities due to high competition. This nation, to finance its player base, will require to achieve an higher city population, which will be difficult to maintain, while a smaller nation will require much less population.
Neutral players will be able to trade with all cities increasing their earnings and increasing cities wealth, while pirates will be able to damage cities by imposing "naval blocks" and reducing resources available.

Introduce player jobs and raw material production

Actually, raw materials pops out from cities and any player can buy them at fixed prices, craft items and be self sufficient. This kind of system does not encourage player trade and always result in a boring game experience where not only no one buys crafted materials, but also no one sell them, since there's no point in going around to acquire raw materials if no one buys anything.
First of all, raw materials shouldn't be produce from cities, but from players. Players should be able to buy production activity to produce raw materials, while cities should spawn them only if in a really bad shortage that will result in a boring game experience (in a good economy system, this never happen). They would produce an amount of resources based on lvl and position, with some cities more productive on one good than others. The production will be passive and stored in a warehouse with a fixed volume, but the player should pay a "tax" based on amount of goods retired. Basically, raw material production will still be based on "passive npc" actions, but it will require investments from players and some effort to move them to trade hubs.
I want to suggest a new system based on licences. This is also pretty historical.

The main idea is that a player should not be allowed to do anything at the same time.

If a player is allowed to do anything with the same efficiency, then players will become self sufficient in no time and the player trade will die pretty soon.

This can easily be avoided by introducing a licence system.
In my idea, there are 4 main activity, with some specialization under them. Player would be allowed to swap from one activity to another paying for the new "licence", maybe adding a cd for balance reason.
As I said, there should be 4 licences: letter of marque, West Indian company trading licence, land grant and engineering degree.

With a letter of marque, players will receive bonuses in PvP and PVE(more money, more drops...). While the player advance and gain more exp, he will be able to choose "specializations", like as gaining more from killing other nation players, or killing pirates and so on.

With a trading licence, West Indian Trade Company will grant a concession over their monopoly and allow player to trade some "special" resources (ofc player without this licence will not be allowed to trade those resources). When the player lvl up this licence, he will be able to trade different goods more and more expensive and lucrative or trade with some discounts on fewer goods.
With a land grant, player will be able to produce "special" goods that, again, will not be available to other players. With levels, player will be able to choose between different goods or, again, to focus on fewer goods with a discount in taxation.

At last, with an engineering degree, player will be able to craft advanced items not craftable by other players, being able to specialize in equipment crafting or ship making.

Note that all players will be allowed to do anything just like now, BUT with some limitation to encourage players trade.

 

 

With this improvements, I think it is possible to achieve an economy flow more like this:

 

a player produces raw materials and puts them on the market---> another players buys raw materials and crafts things----->third player buys and sells for profit in different places---->last player buys ship and equipment around the map to pvp/pve and sells drops to the market

 

meanwhile pirates gain more and more valuable targets.

 

This is how I think a funny and still simple economy should be.

[Vestinus]

Also would be nice to invest money in buildings!

[Zeekoning]

While I would like the ability to build up cities, I do not see how arbitrarily restricting trade helps traders.  If a player can acquire a good (such as Dutch spices at Oranjestad) they should be able to sell them without buying a trading license.

[Khurt]

why should I buy a slow fluyt with a nice cargo, but few guns, when you and your fast and well armed frigate can do the job as well?

Actually, boarding npc and other players ships is much more lucrative than trade. I think merchants should have some boosts over pve/pvp oriented players, at least in revenues, and the best thing to do that is to restrict trade (aka mercantilism).

Also, it would give some "flavour" at the merchant job and would also be historical since no one could sell certain kind of goods without the permission of the Indian charters.

[Jon Melkier]

Historically Merchants had convoy protection so traders need a guild or community to escort them to their destination safely no trader would wonder off alone with a cargo full of goods would be bankrupt on the first voyage.

[mirror452]

I like the idea.