Alternate feedback: Property Auctioning rule

[Nitro]

Or just ban tosspots who think PvP'ing someone to get monopoly on a quarter is a nice thing to do.

[Good Character]

I-

*Points above* What they said.

Standing by a sign waiting for it to go up? I mean - I wish people wouldn't. I think it's a poor use of time. But you can.

PvPing over a sign? As Curve says - we'll look at it when it comes up. But my gut right now says that we don't want to see it happening. So please report it if you do encounter such.

Say, however, that it's not so watered down as "over a sign". If there is a choice property a group desires and knows is going to go on sale, are we encouraging player agency to fight over properties if the 'defending group', for a lack of a better phrase, puts up warning signs, gives chances to eager buyers to not come close, etc. before PvP is initiated?

[The GrumpyCat]

Well I mean, thats why I wrote 'We'll look at it when it comes up.' I don't want to give any solid ruling until we can look at the situations, case by case, and how often they come up, and so on.

Again, my gut feeling is 'It's cheesy, don't do it.'

[AstralUniverse]

If camping a sign is allowed (as long as you're not mechanically blocking it), then camping a sign with my faction and making this my new temporary hub where I RP is about the same thing. At that point, I'm with my faction, camping a sign, and if someone comes I can just say "walk away if you dont want to trouble bro" because I'm literally sitting there with my faction. If the other side's reaction is something "oh but I'm not afraid of you and I'mma check that sign anyway" they are being dumb. And if the faction is killing them for ignoring the threats, it seems like perfectly legit RP. I think it's a very questionable scenario to happen over a quarter to begin with, but this is what this new system and ruling seem to incentivize.

[Tamir]

not sure if this is a place to put it, but reading the posts and looking at the topic, i think it might be related...

I was wandering, maybe the PRIME shops and houses once released should be placed for an auction, not by the player but by the city or the govermant...
that will be ofc not for all houses and shops, only the PRIME ones.

Make it work something like the land auctions but for shorter time, where each can place a bidding for the property unknowing what everyone else placed, once the timer is off the highest bidder will win and make sure the bidder can't see how many and who already placed a bid, only when it if going to be closed and a min bidding price.

RP wise, the rich will most likly to win the best and prime locations, but that is how it works in RL so i see no problem there, if you are relative new player and wish to get such prime property you can always go out of your head and bid it for 2,000,000 coins.

I belive it will also help remove a lots of gold away from the game lower the economy growing prices as more gold is getting in the players pockets and very few is leaving it.

OOC wise, if a place once released is going for game auction for lets say 3 days from the moment of the release , it will help preventing ppl transfering properties to friends / other characters.

in my head right now it seems like a good idea, but maybe you guys have diffrent point of view and can see flaws in this which i missed?

[Irongron]

not sure if this is a place to put it, but reading the posts and looking at the topic, i think it might be related...

I was wandering, maybe the PRIME shops and houses once released should be placed for an auction, not by the player but by the city or the govermant...
that will be ofc not for all houses and shops, only the PRIME ones.

Make it work something like the land auctions but for shorter time, where each can place a bidding for the property unknowing what everyone else placed, once the timer is off the highest bidder will win and make sure the bidder can't see how many and who already placed a bid, only when it if going to be closed and a min bidding price.

RP wise, the rich will most likly to win the best and prime locations, but that is how it works in RL so i see no problem there, if you are relative new player and wish to get such prime property you can always go out of your head and bid it for 2,000,000 coins.

I belive it will also help remove a lots of gold away from the game lower the economy growing prices as more gold is getting in the players pockets and very few is leaving it.

OOC wise, if a place once released is going for game auction for lets say 3 days from the moment of the release , it will help preventing ppl transfering properties to friends / other characters.

in my head right now it seems like a good idea, but maybe you guys have diffrent point of view and can see flaws in this which i missed?

I very much get where you (and other that have suggested similar auctions) are coming from, and I do love the idea of gold sinks, but here is the issue...


Veteran players, and OOC networks have MASSIVE sums of gold to draw on, spread across a great many characters. Auctioning off prime content would exclude every new and casual player, and give a huge advantage to those who coordinate via Discord. With a decent OOC and IC network of veterans to call upon, a well connected, veteran player would be able to raise millions. A normal player, even one with good IC connections might manage a few hundred thousand.

It's very important to me that new player to Arelith are an as much of an equal footing as possible, and have the opportunity to get started with their quarter, shop and faction relatively soon. Seeing them entirely excluded from a certain % of module content that is gated to veterans, is something I really wish to put an end to. Neither can one say 'Well, they can catch up', because those same people are still grinding out the gold and rare materials, however much you try and raise, they will be far, far ahead.

When on the DM client I sometimes peek into character inventories, to get an idea of just how the market is functioning. You have characters out there with huge stacks of Mithril Dust, rare gems, and adamantine. Only a couple of weeks ago I saw one level 30 character running to empty STARTER dungeon chests with more wealth and rare materials in his inventory than I have seen in 15 years playing here. Stuff like that isn't being hoarded to sell, the market would be very different if they did so, it''s there to hand off to their buddies as needed - to win friends and influence people. A lot of that? It's arranged OOC via Discord, teamspeak, etc. This isn't wild speculation on my part, I know this to be 100% true. And so...I have to redesign the module to compensate for that behaviour. I badly want the game to take place...in game, and the opportunities afforded to characters based upon their in-game efforts, not who they can hit up on Discord.

[Flower Power]

. Only a couple of weeks ago I saw one level 30 character running to empty STARTER dungeon chests with more wealth and rare materials in his inventory than I have seen in 15 years playing here.

It's because there's a lot of low to mid-level dungeons with a massive number of chests. It's not entirely uncommon to go dungeoneering as a low to mid-level PC only to find that your writ location has been cleared out, either both of spawns or of loot, by an epic-level rogue already.

I'd honestly be 100% behind some sort of system that makes chests in areas that are significantly lower than your 'level range' appear empty to you; higher than L10? No more sewer loot for you. Up past L20? Perhaps consider leaving all the chests in the Sibayad Tombs for people that are actually going there for writs or grinding in that level range.

It might mean you'd need to rebalance the distribution of chests in higher level dungeons to make it more worthwhile to visit them, or to add additional epic-level dungeons so that they aren't all suddenly camped 24/7, but it'd definitely resolve the issue of epic rogues clearing out lowbie dungeons every 18-30 minutes, depriving all the people who actually should be going there of their fair share of the reward for going there.

[Tamir]

I see what you mean, i will think of a possible solution and get back to you... i don't allow myself to accept this has not solution.

As for shops in the main location, i don't know if it possible.. but:
if it Is possible, make like a common store where each player (limit to 1 character per account) can offer for sell up to 2 items, you will not pay fixed monthly fee for these but like 5% of the value you demend on each item every week its in the store.

Make each store limited to 20 items like any normal store but with max of 20 diffrent players at same time, and change all PRIME location stores to such stores.
so if i offer 2 items to sell on such store, and one of them sold , someone might see the open space and put his / her own item for sale.

since its the prime location store i would allow someone who has a store in more distant location to use that system aswell but you can't use more then 1 common store at the same time.

This way new players will Always have good location stores to offer their goods to sell, helping them get more founds for better location homes.

Don't know how or if it is possible to be done technicly but i think this is a very good solution for fair opportunity for all types of players.

[Tamir]

Veteran players, and OOC networks have MASSIVE sums of gold to draw on, spread across a great many characters. Auctioning off prime content would exclude every new and casual player, and give a huge advantage to those who coordinate via Discord. With a decent OOC and IC network of veterans to call upon, a well connected, veteran player would be able to raise millions. A normal player, even one with good IC connections might manage a few hundred thousand.

Regarding houses (excluding guild houses here)

Again, sorry i don't know if it is technicly possible... but can you caculate players account founds?
I know that when deleting character for the reward, the system does calculate your totals items + gold value of the character, can it be done on account level?

If so can you adjust home costs based on their greatness of their location instead of same 1st time cost for everyone...
if you can make the cost be like 20% of your total account value, that will be lowered to 15% - 10% anf 5% based on the location of the house.

so if one have account with 10 lvl 30's and each hold around 10mil total net worth the cost of a prime house should cost that player 20mil.
Might need to adjust the math here but i think if this is something possible to be done it could help, especially since i belive the rules states 1 house per account anyway.

make any sence?

[Ork]

I do think OOC coordination of wealth does provide a massive bonus to well-connected or OOC-collusion of friends. A huge hit to this wealth would also be examining the faction bank and settlement funds. A lot of the wealth is tied up in these two arenas. I love enabling players with wealth, items, etc. as RP dictates, but some of y'all get ridiculous with it.

I don't know an answer that makes sense for you IG. I do think that for me, as a casual (long time player), I have STRUGGLED to accumulate wealth recently. I know the writs, the dungeons, the NPC merchants to be successful, but I still barely get enough gold to ensure I have healing supplies for the next go.

I think I can speak for most casual players where I would appreciate an appraisal of how to solve the gold issue because the gold nerf and actions like them have harmed my ability to gain equipment when abstaining from being gold-dumped by these legacy players/factions.

Another thing that would be helpful is closing up the ways in which experienced players generate income. For instance, creating traps to sell to the Tinker in the UD. Or, creating items with low crafting points that sell well to NPCs (i.e. arrow shafts). Or, examining the gold value of items in the module (i.e. flameberry, iceberry, bloodroot stalks, etc.) Shoring up these avenues of gold generation while also limiting/eliminating faction/settlement gold amounts - and then increasing overall gold in the module - would help out everyone that struggles to get a foot-hold on the server.

I would also recommend, as a frequently low-level character, that enchanting with an item value below X should never fail. Failing when you're trying to just get a +1 STR on an item can be devastating to a new character. In order to limit a bunch of +2 skills being applied without fail, it could also only work for the first enchantment on a blank item.

[Anomandaris]

I do think OOC coordination of wealth does provide a massive bonus to well-connected or OOC-collusion of friends. A huge hit to this wealth would also be examining the faction bank and settlement funds. A lot of the wealth is tied up in these two arenas. I love enabling players with wealth, items, etc. as RP dictates, but some of y'all get ridiculous with it.

I don't know an answer that makes sense for you IG. I do think that for me, as a casual (long time player), I have STRUGGLED to accumulate wealth recently. I know the writs, the dungeons, the NPC merchants to be successful, but I still barely get enough gold to ensure I have healing supplies for the next go.

I think I can speak for most casual players where I would appreciate an appraisal of how to solve the gold issue because the gold nerf and actions like them have harmed my ability to gain equipment when abstaining from being gold-dumped by these legacy players/factions.

Another thing that would be helpful is closing up the ways in which experienced players generate income. For instance, creating traps to sell to the Tinker in the UD. Or, creating items with low crafting points that sell well to NPCs (i.e. arrow shafts). Or, examining the gold value of items in the module (i.e. flameberry, iceberry, bloodroot stalks, etc.) Shoring up these avenues of gold generation while also limiting/eliminating faction/settlement gold amounts - and then increasing overall gold in the module - would help out everyone that struggles to get a foot-hold on the server.

I would also recommend, as a frequently low-level character, that enchanting with an item value below X should never fail. Failing when you're trying to just get a +1 STR on an item can be devastating to a new character. In order to limit a bunch of +2 skills being applied without fail, it could also only work for the first enchantment on a blank item.

I love trying to get my first few enchantments off when I've got 10-20k in the bank, and am in lowbie lvls. Scrounging up equipment and deciding if I should risk it is fun. Consequences and challenges makes things more rewarding and have meaning, which, in a game where you can just breeze through everything past a certain point is great. Doing writs makes you "relatively" rich for your power level and I've never had an issue past lvl 10 or so getting what I need (on any build) to navigate the module.

Gold is basically free and infinite, you can farm 100's of thousands of coin easily to become a millionaire with search/appraise/leadership/craft mastery combos. And not to mention do so while gaining xp, without a store and finding other things of value (like crafting resources, runics etc). Not to mention if you find a half decent store location you can make millions of gold if you're consistent, smart and take the time to understand what ppl are buying and for how much (this takes some rp and thinking). This isn't even necessary and many make great use out of temp stalls.

No matter how we modify how PCs can accumulate wealth, some people are gonna know how and some aren't. It behooves the player & character to make friends, ask around to experienced merchants or treasure hunters etc. Changing the mechanics because experienced players know how it works and can use them to make gold, and novice players other's don't, doesn't solve the problem which is fundamentally education/awareness... some people just don't know how to make gold efficiently or how the mechanics work. I'd hate to simplify and trivialize the process more to make getting rich more universally accessible than it already is. A bit of rp solves this completely.

Gold is already too easy to come by it's trivial. The skill pt change made it so now most ppl can reasonably fit in a gold making skill or two. I snuck in craft mastery for free on my sorc because... surprise, it's now more skillful (and my alchemy ouput skyrocketed). Personally I think the added skill points made your average already over-tuned character kit ridiculous, now ppl have fewer trade-offs and don't need to decide if they want to be mechanically powerful and get rich easier.

[Ork]

I disagree immensely with your response. Your assumption is that all players have time to play to the level in which wealth becomes inconsequential. We don't. Your argument against no-fail first enchantment is equally a bad take, but it's not a hill I'll die on. The level of wealth you're discussing and the level of wealth IG is discussing is vast. While certainly, eventually, I can accrue enough gold to purchase more gear for my character, I do not have a multi-million gold faction account that can dispense enough for me to 5% all my items to my heart's content.

Dismissing my claim, a very experienced player with severe low-level characteritis, because your sorc alchemist can make bank doesn't do your argument any credit.

[Anomandaris]

I disagree immensely with your response. Your assumption is that all players have time to play to the level in which wealth becomes inconsequential. We don't. Your argument against no-fail first enchantment is equally a bad take, but it's not a hill I'll die on. The level of wealth you're discussing and the level of wealth IG is discussing is vast. While certainly, eventually, I can accrue enough gold to purchase more gear for my character, I do not have a multi-million gold faction account that can dispense enough for me to 5% all my items to my heart's content.

Dismissing my claim, a very experienced player with severe low-level characteritis, because your sorc alchemist can make bank doesn't do your argument any credit.

Not so much dismissing your claim as sharing my own experience and opinion. Those are different things, we all have our own experiences and perspectives and I respect yours.

Any means implemented to allow "a lowbie" or a more casual player to more easily accumulate wealth, will also be available to everyone else. Thus it won't solve the disparity, which as you highlighted, is largely based on time investment.

I don't cheer when my lvl 8 char loses 20% of their gold vault to enchant something basic to get through dungeons But it does make it exciting for me and a challenge, not something I argue as unfair or too difficult and would ask to change. That's (one of the places) where we seem differ on opinion...

I don't have a multi-million gold faction account to access and make my life easy either. But for those that do, good for them! Most characters I've played end up with at least 300k-500k "organically" just leveling up by level 30. If you want to play lowbies indefinitely, that's cool and totally awesome, whatever you enjoy doing. But you can't expect those lowbie PC's to be wealthy (or powerful) compared to someone who's putting more time in their own character over longer periods of time.

Anyways agree to disagree I guess.. bit of a digression from the core thread topic. Thanks for the discussion.

[AstralUniverse]

I do think OOC coordination of wealth does provide a massive bonus to well-connected or OOC-collusion of friends. A huge hit to this wealth would also be examining the faction bank and settlement funds. A lot of the wealth is tied up in these two arenas. I love enabling players with wealth, items, etc. as RP dictates, but some of y'all get ridiculous with it.

I don't know an answer that makes sense for you IG. I do think that for me, as a casual (long time player), I have STRUGGLED to accumulate wealth recently. I know the writs, the dungeons, the NPC merchants to be successful, but I still barely get enough gold to ensure I have healing supplies for the next go.

I think I can speak for most casual players where I would appreciate an appraisal of how to solve the gold issue because the gold nerf and actions like them have harmed my ability to gain equipment when abstaining from being gold-dumped by these legacy players/factions.

Another thing that would be helpful is closing up the ways in which experienced players generate income. For instance, creating traps to sell to the Tinker in the UD. Or, creating items with low crafting points that sell well to NPCs (i.e. arrow shafts). Or, examining the gold value of items in the module (i.e. flameberry, iceberry, bloodroot stalks, etc.) Shoring up these avenues of gold generation while also limiting/eliminating faction/settlement gold amounts - and then increasing overall gold in the module - would help out everyone that struggles to get a foot-hold on the server.

I would also recommend, as a frequently low-level character, that enchanting with an item value below X should never fail. Failing when you're trying to just get a +1 STR on an item can be devastating to a new character. In order to limit a bunch of +2 skills being applied without fail, it could also only work for the first enchantment on a blank item.

Ah... I really have some conflicting thoughts about this whole gold income speed paradigm. We've moved away from big loot drops and more into crafting and selling weird stuff to NPCs to actually shrink the difference between heavy grinders and players with less time to play, but it favors veterans who know the module. I, as a casual long time player like you, on the same boat with you, thinking "Hmm, so I guess I'll just craft stacks of healing draughts or arrow shafts in masses and increase my income that way". Because as a Veteran player, I know where stuff is and what sells good and where to sell what, so in that sense, the shift from bigger gold drops to alternative gold income sources favors veteran players (regardless of their playing frequency, in this in this equation). If you increase the gold on loot drops, you push the advantage back to heavy grinders in the long run. That may be good or bad in some ways... its a tough one for me.

So there are ups and downs to everything. I dont know what system I like more. The now or the old. I dont think there's a gold problem for casual players but that's only assuming they are not new to the server and they really play efficiently, which they shouldnt be forced to.

[The GrumpyCat]

I mean I think that it's a always going to be a very difficult to make or change the system so that experience as a player + time avaiable to play (especialy the last bit) dot not, at least to an extent, equel more gold.

A person who's been on arelith 5 years and plays for four hours a day is always going to make and have more money than someone who's just joined the game and/or who has only 2 hours a week.

Further more we've got to consider what is done with that time... Do we really want the best houses to potentialy go to folk who do nothing bit circle grind runic/adamantium dungones 5 hours a day every day so that they can afford that big mansion?

I'm certainly not against there being sum disparity in gold involved, bigger houses should cost more sure. But it's making sure that some things remain in reach of the majority of players.

[CNS]

Surely a far easier answer is to let people use the sign to log interest over say 5 IC days and then randomly pick one of the people to be the new owner.

A Process something like the below:

1. Interact with sign, see costs, say you want to purchase, be told how long is left until the 'lottery'
2. Sign keeps track of everyone who selected "I wish to purchase"
3. At the end of the timer, it selects one of the names at random and grants them the property (If you want to get fancy 1 entry per player account rather than 1 per 'character)
4. Cost is withdrawn from bank account, notice they have won (or lost) is queued for their next log in

[AstralUniverse]

Surely a far easier answer is to let people use the sign to log interest over say 5 IC days and then randomly pick one of the people to be the new owner.

A Process something like the below:

1. Interact with sign, see costs, say you want to purchase, be told how long is left until the 'lottery'
2. Sign keeps track of everyone who selected "I wish to purchase"
3. At the end of the timer, it selects one of the names at random and grants them the property (If you want to get fancy 1 entry per player account rather than 1 per 'character)
4. Cost is withdrawn from bank account, notice they have won (or lost) is queued for their next log in

The problem with this idea is that, because you're not allowed to own more than one quarter, then you wont be able to participate in the lottery on more than one quarter at a time, to prevent a scenario that a player just joins the lottery on every single quarter they can find and then accidentally own more than one potentially. Imagine how long it'll take you to actually have a quarter.

[The GrumpyCat]

Surely a far easier answer is to let people use the sign to log interest over say 5 IC days and then randomly pick one of the people to be the new owner.

A Process something like the below:

1. Interact with sign, see costs, say you want to purchase, be told how long is left until the 'lottery'
2. Sign keeps track of everyone who selected "I wish to purchase"
3. At the end of the timer, it selects one of the names at random and grants them the property (If you want to get fancy 1 entry per player account rather than 1 per 'character)
4. Cost is withdrawn from bank account, notice they have won (or lost) is queued for their next log in

The problem with this idea is that, because you're not allowed to own more than one quarter, then you wont be able to participate in the lottery on more than one quarter at a time, to prevent a scenario that a player just joins the lottery on every single quarter they can find and then accidentally own more than one potentially. Imagine how long it'll take you to actually have a quarter.

Yeah that's my concern - though I feel I should mention that I do kinda like the idea in principle otherwise. It's actually rather nifty!

The other small concern - linked to what Astral says - is that often people also want to 'move up' in properties - and again this would lead to a bit of double property ownership - if only temporarly.

[ClockworkRed]

Maybe I am wrong but I think the chances stay pretty much the same when 100 people each enter each lottery for 10 properties or when each one can only participate in one lottery.

[CNS]

Yeah, either.

1) You can only enter one lottery at a time. Enforced through automation (Check if players CD key exists on any current property lottery lists)

Or

2) If you happen to win two properties (I'd imagine the odds are fairly small that not only did two suitable properties hit the market within a small window, but also that you happened to win both lotteries) or the more likely, you own something and entered a lottery for something better, its the same as now, you have to get rid of one of them as quickly as is feasible - ie. the next thing you do as you log in.

We currently let players own two for a very short period, and if you ownd a property under the previous system and saw a shiny new one for sale you could just buy it and then go deal with your old property and get that on the market. I believe its the same now so I don't see how winning two really changes things.

Worst case you have someone that wins two lotteries in very short succession, in which case the biggest downside is one of them immediately goes up for auction again when that player logs back in. Not that big a deal, certainly not compared to the upside.