Click here for 'Too Long Didn't Read' at post 2 if text is too big OR read on for more details and examples.
So lately I was thinking about the current economy, and the following issues are at hand:
Why are these issues in our economy?
Due to the fact that more UL items come to the game, their prices drop, a lot of people think this is positive, because it makes UL gear affordable for all. However, is this really as positive as people think?
This is something that has been going on for a few years by now, and MU keeps dropping. If this continues, then eventually we will reach a point where all the stuff will be TT food or close to TT...
This would also mean that, in time, profiting will become impossible, because we get on average 93% TT returns. With MU you can still make profit by hunting smart, but with current evolution, eventually all will be TT food , so that means that all of us will be losing money all the time. (This is not yet the case, don't respond with "you should hunt smart", because I know it's still possible to profit now, I just mean that with current evolution eventually we will reach that point).
We are constantly getting closer to that point, and we see people stop playing due to that already.
So I was thinking about that, how we can fix that.
I think, first of all, there should be less UL gear, but hey, you can't undo what's already done, so that's not an option.
I know some may not like to hear this, but higher MU on UL gear actually would help the economy, because that would also raise (L) gear MU, and due to that also the ingredients MU.
So here is the solutions I came up with, and I wanted to have your ideas:
1. Drop less (L) gear, so that crafting will become more important again, however, don't delete all (L) gear drops!
2. Give UL gear a new advantage, so their MU raise again, which will make (L) gear rise as well, BUT!!! Make sure that the advantage on the UL gear also raises the rest of the economy (crafting/mining/hunting materials)
This second option is what I started thinking about, because at first, this looked impossible to me, but after a little thinking it dawned on me that the solution is so logical and simple... But we never think about it, because we are stuck in habits, because we are used to certain game mechanics.
To compare it with a real life item (a camera):
- You have disposable camera's, this you can compare with L gear. You use it until you made all the photo's you can make with it, afterwards you throw it away.
- Then you have the normal camera's. which you can compare to UL gear. These camera's can be reused all the time. However, in real life, they break as well. And then you have to repair them. But how do we repair them? You don't repair them by glueing money on them (which we do in EU... we just put peds into repairing). No... If the lense gets broken, a new lense has to be made. That costs money, true, but it needs a lense first!
So this made me think of the following idea:
Create a new way of repairing your UL gear.
Make it so that we have 2 options:
1. Repair with peds, like we have now.
2. Repair with repair items. For example, you could make craftable items like "trigger" for a gun or buttons for pants and stuff like that. So you repair the weapon by putting a new trigger on it.
Lets use an example and say that repairing a gun would cost you 100 ped if you repair it on the current way of repairing (with peds).
Then maybe we could repair a gun with metal for example, and it would cost us 50peds TT instead of 100 ped.
Result: The MU of this metal/trigger/... will be a little below 200%. So people buying this kind of repair items will be able to repair cheaper, which makes UL items more valuable again. But at the same time, crafters are able to craft certain items with high MU, which will make crafting more valuable again. At the same time, the basic ingredients for these crafting BP's will raise again, so also mining and hunting become more valuable again.
To make this all even better, we could maybe even use the same blueprints for these repair items, as for (L) gear.
So for example:
I have gun A as an UL edition.
But there is also a gun A as an (L) edition.
Right now, with the current way the game works, to create Gun A (L), you need material X, Y & Z. Those can be made with certain basic mats.
An example: lets say a gun should use some materials called "trigger", "gun barrel" and "gun sleeve".
Right now these would for example be items with a TT value of 40 ped, 30 ped and 25 ped.
What if we would change it into "trigger pieces", "gun barrel pieces" and "gun sleeve pieces"? All worth 0.01 ped each, but stackables. So crafting the (L) gun would require 4000 trigger pieces, 3000 gun barrel pieces & 2500 gun sleeve pieces.
This way it stays the same for crafting the (L) gear, and it's easy for MindArk to change this, because you can change a 25ped crafted material into 2500x 0.01 ped stackable material.
But by doing this, we can then use the stackable pieces for the repairing idea above.
So this way:
- UL guns have an advantage of being able to repair cheaper (allthough it won't be much, because MU will be close to the normal TT repair I guess)
- Still keep the current repair option as well (will be a little bit more expensive, but that way people won't get stuck if no repair items are available on market)
- Crafters can craft an item of 200% MU
- The required materials for those crafted items will therefor also get higher MU
- By using the same items for (L) gear craft as for repair, it's:
1. More realistic
2. Makes the (L) gear get Markup as well
3. Will make the middle products more interesting, because nowadays, the middle crafted items are often unsold on auction, and people who craft an end-product usually craft the inetween materials themselves therefore. But with this change, people would have more chances to sell their middle product.
4. It creates a market for a lot of BP's that are currently useless/unused, because the repairing can be done through already existing BP's to boost them up again by giving them this new use.
5. It will also add some extra depth in crafting: crafters will have to make a choice, will they sell the middle product for repairing, or will they use them for the end product ((L) gear)
What do you guys think of this idea? Feel free to give your opinion, good or bad but Please also explain why you think so. Would be nice to have a good discussion about this, maybe it could lead to ideas for the developers to make this game better.
So lately I was thinking about the current economy, and the following issues are at hand:
- Mining have rather low MU returns
- Hunting has low MU returns on most items
- Crafting isn't possible to be profitable for most items
Why are these issues in our economy?
- (L) items drop from hunting, which compete with crafters
- Too many (UL) items in the game, it used to be for the elite, nowadays a lot of people have UL gear
Due to the fact that more UL items come to the game, their prices drop, a lot of people think this is positive, because it makes UL gear affordable for all. However, is this really as positive as people think?
- If UL gear prices drop, so will (L) gear prices
- If (L) gear prices drop, so will the ingredients MU's
- Results in: both item drops as ingredients drops will have lower MU, meaning hunting becomes less profitable.
- Same for Mining, and as a result, same for crafting.
This is something that has been going on for a few years by now, and MU keeps dropping. If this continues, then eventually we will reach a point where all the stuff will be TT food or close to TT...
This would also mean that, in time, profiting will become impossible, because we get on average 93% TT returns. With MU you can still make profit by hunting smart, but with current evolution, eventually all will be TT food , so that means that all of us will be losing money all the time. (This is not yet the case, don't respond with "you should hunt smart", because I know it's still possible to profit now, I just mean that with current evolution eventually we will reach that point).
We are constantly getting closer to that point, and we see people stop playing due to that already.
So I was thinking about that, how we can fix that.
I think, first of all, there should be less UL gear, but hey, you can't undo what's already done, so that's not an option.
I know some may not like to hear this, but higher MU on UL gear actually would help the economy, because that would also raise (L) gear MU, and due to that also the ingredients MU.
So here is the solutions I came up with, and I wanted to have your ideas:
1. Drop less (L) gear, so that crafting will become more important again, however, don't delete all (L) gear drops!
2. Give UL gear a new advantage, so their MU raise again, which will make (L) gear rise as well, BUT!!! Make sure that the advantage on the UL gear also raises the rest of the economy (crafting/mining/hunting materials)
This second option is what I started thinking about, because at first, this looked impossible to me, but after a little thinking it dawned on me that the solution is so logical and simple... But we never think about it, because we are stuck in habits, because we are used to certain game mechanics.
To compare it with a real life item (a camera):
- You have disposable camera's, this you can compare with L gear. You use it until you made all the photo's you can make with it, afterwards you throw it away.
- Then you have the normal camera's. which you can compare to UL gear. These camera's can be reused all the time. However, in real life, they break as well. And then you have to repair them. But how do we repair them? You don't repair them by glueing money on them (which we do in EU... we just put peds into repairing). No... If the lense gets broken, a new lense has to be made. That costs money, true, but it needs a lense first!
So this made me think of the following idea:
Create a new way of repairing your UL gear.
Make it so that we have 2 options:
1. Repair with peds, like we have now.
2. Repair with repair items. For example, you could make craftable items like "trigger" for a gun or buttons for pants and stuff like that. So you repair the weapon by putting a new trigger on it.
Lets use an example and say that repairing a gun would cost you 100 ped if you repair it on the current way of repairing (with peds).
Then maybe we could repair a gun with metal for example, and it would cost us 50peds TT instead of 100 ped.
Result: The MU of this metal/trigger/... will be a little below 200%. So people buying this kind of repair items will be able to repair cheaper, which makes UL items more valuable again. But at the same time, crafters are able to craft certain items with high MU, which will make crafting more valuable again. At the same time, the basic ingredients for these crafting BP's will raise again, so also mining and hunting become more valuable again.
To make this all even better, we could maybe even use the same blueprints for these repair items, as for (L) gear.
So for example:
I have gun A as an UL edition.
But there is also a gun A as an (L) edition.
Right now, with the current way the game works, to create Gun A (L), you need material X, Y & Z. Those can be made with certain basic mats.
An example: lets say a gun should use some materials called "trigger", "gun barrel" and "gun sleeve".
Right now these would for example be items with a TT value of 40 ped, 30 ped and 25 ped.
What if we would change it into "trigger pieces", "gun barrel pieces" and "gun sleeve pieces"? All worth 0.01 ped each, but stackables. So crafting the (L) gun would require 4000 trigger pieces, 3000 gun barrel pieces & 2500 gun sleeve pieces.
This way it stays the same for crafting the (L) gear, and it's easy for MindArk to change this, because you can change a 25ped crafted material into 2500x 0.01 ped stackable material.
But by doing this, we can then use the stackable pieces for the repairing idea above.
So this way:
- UL guns have an advantage of being able to repair cheaper (allthough it won't be much, because MU will be close to the normal TT repair I guess)
- Still keep the current repair option as well (will be a little bit more expensive, but that way people won't get stuck if no repair items are available on market)
- Crafters can craft an item of 200% MU
- The required materials for those crafted items will therefor also get higher MU
- By using the same items for (L) gear craft as for repair, it's:
1. More realistic
2. Makes the (L) gear get Markup as well
3. Will make the middle products more interesting, because nowadays, the middle crafted items are often unsold on auction, and people who craft an end-product usually craft the inetween materials themselves therefore. But with this change, people would have more chances to sell their middle product.
4. It creates a market for a lot of BP's that are currently useless/unused, because the repairing can be done through already existing BP's to boost them up again by giving them this new use.
5. It will also add some extra depth in crafting: crafters will have to make a choice, will they sell the middle product for repairing, or will they use them for the end product ((L) gear)
What do you guys think of this idea? Feel free to give your opinion, good or bad but Please also explain why you think so. Would be nice to have a good discussion about this, maybe it could lead to ideas for the developers to make this game better.
Last edited: