Game Economy

Llewelyn · October 2017

The single best thing they could do is make it so the top ships/gear are NOT available for cash. You can get a decent ship for cash, but the best ships, you have to play for and craft.

I liked that idea that great success in shipbuilding would make an enhanced ship, that is the right kind of thinking.

The one thing that for me made the game not worth pursuing is when it got to the point that to have any real chance of success in PVP you had to have one of an endless stream of ever-better super-ships which only came from the bottles (or, prior to OGP, from chests - remember those?) and top get them without spending hundreds of bucks you had to grind in dungeons for weeks to earn billions of ducats.

Which neatly brings in the other thing that ruined the economy - the ability to grind in dungeons more or less risk-free and make unlimited ducats. That however would've been easily solved: make it so that you had to sail back home to Europe to sell the dungeon loot. That's entirely real-world accurate and fits in properly with the trade game mechanic that you have to sail back with spices and, later, Nanban trades in order to realise the massive profits.

Llewelyn · October 2017

There's no reason why you can't have a cash shop with pricing per-item AND a lottery. That way, the people who want a planned price and structure can have it, and the people who want to chance the odds on a lottery can still do so.

In fact, there's no reason why you can't have a subscription game and STILL have a cash shop/lottery - but the items in the shop would need to be lower priced and more items would been to be craftable in-game.

Top ships and gear should still not be cash-purchased by any method. Look at World of tanks, or World of Warships: The tanks and ships are in 10 tiers but you can't buy a tier X tank in the shop. You can only buy up to tier VIII. As a lower level player, that Tier VIII gets you into higher level battles and earns you extra coin, but you want the really good things you have to play for them.

In UWO terms, that would mean learning SB, levelling up enough, making special parts, etc etc. or paying someone who had made the effort to learn to build a ship. Might even be that you could upgrade the cash shop ship in-game.

clemsonfan · October 2017

i think the fix to the nanban and dungeon problems will be fixed with the return of piracy. and improved camo hold nerf. i think this is where piracy can shine also item plunder can help with this too. if you lose items then you have to go back and craft that item again or pay for it in company shops.

i also think that resellers had very negative effect as well as hoarders too. some folks would buy up all the purchase orders they could get just to drive up prices. i get the concept of supply and demand, but the outright market manipulation was also bad.

i am not against bottles, and in complete honesty i did quite well there. i always tried to sell the things i didn't want or need to others for a fair market price that was consensus value. some folks are going try try to sell investment books for alot of ducats in the beginning just because ports will need development.

i think i will try to get quest to for florence rib and sell them myself to players for 1k ea so we can stock up.

i think the cash shop investment bonds hurt. players were racing to be top investor in ports to become mayor for fusion bonus. if we have sy3 now will that negate the need for players to be mayor? i know it will take time for companies to get back to that point but it is just a question.

also if there is a cash shop or bottle there really needs to be a consensus agreed to price for uwc.

i saw some players sell astros for 5m ea then it went to 10m ea. i think it needs to be flat rate that we all as a community can agree on. i know the arguement will be well its my cash i am spending so why do i have to limit my ability to sell for what i want? well 10m astros is hurtful to the ingame economy.

i also think purchase orders and craftable items should not be allowed in cash shop or bottle system. and the return of LSS to ganador- shipwrecks and san francisco would also be beneficial

pieratthe · October 2017

Good idea, clem, don't think anyone has mentioned RIB's yet. We'll need those in droves.

rangerzfan · October 2017

@pieratthe

Sorry, game is reset - get to port hopping in your barca. No RiBs in cash shop. Should have been in the sad Founders Awards, but that would have meant the new host knew the problems with a reset world.

theedgedemon · October 2017

i think for all super popular ships they should do like WoT where tanks have a straight price tag. and said money is attainable in game in events or rewards.

WoT is thriving with such a model and people willing to pay up can fill their dream collections, that however would only work with near unlimited dock/inv ship spaces on each char.

pieratthe · October 2017

i've played WoT almost as long as this game, and you can not compare the too, and i wouldn't say thriving, the server pop is almost half it was 3 yrs ago. used to be 30-40k per day on east server, now with a centeral server for NA (don't know about EU) the pop tops put at 20-25k

theedgedemon · October 2017

20-25k vs uwo 100-500...

pieratthe · October 2017

yea is uwo had 20k daily loggin in, it would be a whole different ballgame

WesDoobner · October 2017

The best idea I've seen yet is the one mentioned by phoenix1492. He brought up the point that since cash shop ships have lower levels required to sail them, it seems backwards to also have those ships be able to be modded more than shipyard ships. It should be the other way around. If you get to the level to sail those ship yard ships that require high levels to sail, they should have more mods available than the low sailing level NC ships.

WesDoobner · October 2017

pierat - why do we need RIBs? we don't need to invest in one certain city, we need to invest in every port we go to. I'll be doing it just to get my court rank up of course, but won't we all do that anyway to increase development? Making the short hops between ports and investing every time seems more efficient than looking for RIBs.

pieratthe · October 2017

Do you know how many times u'll be hoping to get 1m invested in all towns, would be so much faster to just do 1m when u hit the new towns. Now yes at first when u just hitting those close towns, but as we progress and u'll sailing here and there to invest, u'll want RIBs

gd6noob · October 2017

Keeping the Bottle is the worst thing... This lottery crap is bad.. Rare item drop, thats what drop the price when OGP did it.. DGaffs/DStorms were getting over priced towards the final month... SHIPS.. lol.. do you really want to get into this.. IATS, people were selling it at 80B because RARE drops...

Now if you had DGaffs/DStorms in the cashshop at a set price, lots of people are willing to spend money to get UWC to resell it.. Same with ships...

If you do it lottery style, sure if your lucky to get a ship, otherwise you end up with Vig food, MCCTs or some crap you can craft... Thats why I stopped playing the bottle.. last 2 10 pack I bought, nothing but crap that I could have crafted.. and that costed me almost 1000 astros.. could have bought some boosters instead...

rangerzfan · October 2017

If a bottle or chest is used, I hope they keep the high end ships out of it. For a game that stresses sailing, the better ships should come from the SY built by a SB. Getting something that is more of a mat ship is fine, but higher end stuff should be able to be built.

ZodRau · October 2017

@WesDoobner:

Crafters need to invest vast sums of ducats in several certain cities for recipe books that only come from X amount of investment, therefore they need RIBs

@TheNCship problem:

As it stood, NC ships were faster, often more durable, in many cases had 25%+ more cargo capacity, and many more improvements than SB-built ships, with ludicrously low level sailing requirements. Take for a glaring example the SB-built 53/67/18 Tea clipper vs. the NC 26/33/9 Expedition Tea Clipper.

TC 5+0 improvements with max efficient cargo refit 857 vs. ETC 6+2 improvements with max efficient cargo refit 1026. This one was a particular pet peeve of mine.

More cargo for NC ships fine. Lower level requirements for NC ships also fine. More improvements for NC ships not fine. Limit the extra improvements to SB-built ships and people will still buy NC ships for their aides to sail.

WesDoobner · October 2017

I'm not saying we don't need RIBs, just not in the first few weeks while we are trying to get a lot of ports going. Of course RIBs will start flowing eventually, but we can invest and do a lot of other things at the same time while we get started without them.

crazyhunter2003 · October 2017

invest while doing other things.we sail to different ports to trade,to do quest,make discoveries.no need to just concentrate on investing and not do anything else at same time

same will work for SB ,do it while running between ports.no need to just sit outside waiting for ship to be built

Watchkeeper · October 2017

The chance elements of the bottle system almost certainly increased revenue. If you can just buy what you want people probably won’t spend as much. So why not rent ships etc. Perhaps all shop items will ware out after 365 sailing days or similar with an option to refit them in major port after 300 days for a reduced price.

Destry · October 2017

Prices were so high because there were a lot of ducats, not because of the astro bottle. The difference in wealth between veteran/nanban players and new/other players can be decreased by nerfing the nanban profits (and maybe spice profits) to a lower level where it is still the most profitable method of earning ducats. Just not the high level that is currently is.

Additionally, you can avoid the multi-trade fleets by doing the following: double the skill slots, inventory space, ship space, book/captain's binder and vault of every character, but make it 1 character per IP. Roommates/families with the same IP can request for more characters that will occasionally be reviewed. Everyone would be able to access every aspect of the game in that way and it'd be fairer for the people who don't use more than 1 char.

This is all just in theory, of course.

silikryk · October 2017

No ship should be sold through real money, this would bring lots of balance. I would be very happy if the only items to be sold through the shop were SSIPs and XP, Proficiency, Speed etc. boosts, even if this means that they would cost more than usual. This way all people would be playing on the same lvl!

LaBonita · October 2017

For RIBs there are a bunch of easy Crono quests that'll get you the 15thC phase 3,4 or 5 title needed to buy them in Florence.

LaBonita · October 2017

For RIBs there are a bunch of easy Crono quests that'll get you the 15thC phase 3,4 or 5 title needed to buy them in Florence.

mooping1978 · October 2017

In term of business, you need something special to call money from customer pocket. I saw many people complain about rare NC ships/bottle.

If nothing special, why people spend?

I'm the one who spent a lot in this game and still have 300+ ship/equipment/items left in bank which still not collect from opened bottles in many years ago and I would say that very rare NC ship like AFCV, RBTC or ILFS is not easy to get if you're not very very lucky.

Something like Dsails are more expensive than before because not many people throw money in game like 3-4 years ago but people keep using the best thing for their ship mod so demand is more than supply then price is go up that is simple logic.

I don't know what is the best solution but what I know is no any solution that everyone will happy.

Let Papaya do their business and let see how it's going when the game is open and sorry if this comment make someone annoyed. :)

Game Economy

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