Take gold coin out of game to fix rampant inflation

An experienced player who has not played for 6 months I was shocked to find the rampant inflation on all servers on my return.

Thinking about it, this is caused not by the inflation of goods, but the DEFLATION on gold coin (in most circumstances). The reason is obvious in so much as whilst most resource is somehow taken out of the game (ultimately via troop loss), gold coin is not. Everyday I produce about 2k coins, in addition adventures drop coin, when multiplied across all players on all servers that is a huge amount of coin entering the economy everyday that never leaves the economy. If the trend continues then pretty soon coin will become worthless and will be unstorable.

The solution is twofold 1. TSO need to STOP dropping coins into the game - it is making the situation worse. 2. TSO need to figure out a way of taking coin out of the economy, so that the remaining coin is worth something, the suggestion here is to do this via the merchant / shop. Surely there must be a useful item that can be dropped into the game that is exclusive to the shop or certain shop items should be buyable with coin.

Suggestions for new drop -
Improved Prov house Buff
1 Day premiums - this is the most important actually - again it could be made quite expensive - say 100k, but it would in essence provide a cap on the value of gold

Existing changed to coin / coin option added

Improved storehouse (would be expensive) maybe 200k (ensuring a lot of gems have already been spent otherwise you cant hold 200k)
Arrows
Assasins
Stop Buffs

If you are a player reading this, whose economy is not set up to take advantage of this, remember that in game coin only has a value as a currency really, I am not talking about disadvantaging ppl I am talking about maintaining a useful currency in game.

I am a level 50 player with multiple imp storehouses, but pretty soon I wont even be able to buy the best items in the game (even if I had the coin) because I couldn't store that much.

Remember if you want to buy an expensive item in the game (such as for example a Witch Tower) which is 40k on my server, if you take gold out of the game the value of gold goes up, and therefore the price of the Witch tower comes down.

Hello, I do feel inflation has got out of hand. But I also hope that with the new loot tables (gold ore tops up being reduced in size) that given some time this could stem the flow somewhat.

I do hope this reduction was on purpose by BB because of the issues around gold coin, It will be interesting to see where we are in a couple of months from now.

It may need further adjustments in due time, I am also hoping BB are up to the task.

while reduction is gold ore drops helps it does nothing to fix the root cause. There are no true gold coin sinks once you've done upgrading all buildings to level 4, say level 45. What they need is something to take high level's coins out of the game, cuz all it does presently is exchange hands.
add some fast gens you can buy for 200kgc or some pop buildings or something. or some adventures you can buy with gold coins, expensive RTTBNs, MLs maybe? i think map frags are silly and adv should just cost coins in the shop..

This problem is unfixable unless you force all the people holding large deposits of gold coins to quit (providing they don't redistribute their wealth). An established level 50 player can generate so many coins in a day just by building a few gold mines. They get plenty of 3x and 4x buffs everyday from explorers to keep their coinages buffed so no matter what BB introduce for gold coins they will soon recover whatever they've spent.

Interesting to read the comments here, but much of the problem with inflation of gold is with the high level players - what about the newer players who are still struggling to get enough gold to upgrade their buildings.

Many don't have enough explorers skilled enough to bring home those highly desirable buffs.

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Originally Posted by meggy

Interesting to read the comments here, but much of the problem with inflation of gold is with the high level players - what about the newer players who are still struggling to get enough gold to upgrade their buildings.

Many don't have enough explorers skilled enough to bring home those highly desirable buffs.

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once you hit 42 and you can start doing RB (and to a lesser extent BK) then coins are no longer a problem. and you can get plenty of coins trading smartly until then.

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Originally Posted by meggy

Interesting to read the comments here, but much of the problem with inflation of gold is with the high level players - what about the newer players who are still struggling to get enough gold to upgrade their buildings.

Many don't have enough explorers skilled enough to bring home those highly desirable buffs.

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Since the changes on 25th November I'd say a new player will find life extraordinary tough, to the point most will either give up or spend a lot of gems (which was probably the point of the changes). Anything a new player can produce easily is heading towards worthless and yet everything he/she needs is getting very expensive. The crisis point probably arrives around the point they need to start buying Noble deeds to increase population sufficiently to do bigger adventures and release building licenses to build a decent weapons chain. Must be very depressing looking in the trade office and seeing Noble deeds are around 4k gc each.

They simply need to introduce stuff you can buy with gold coins for high level players.

For example rare resource adventures in the guildmarket for lvl 45+ that can only be bought with regular gold.
Alternatively they can set up an exchange from gold coins to guild coins and add more adventures in the guild store that can be bought with guild coins.
Or make grout available for gold coins. aka lots of ways to create gold sinks

+1 for the Guild/Gold coin idea :-)

This subject raises it's head from time to time. Unfortunately it's more complicated than the way your all painting it. All the suggestions here will upset some group of players in game.

The rampant inflation is extremely annoying. In my view it is not just caused by excess coins in the game, but the greed of peeps in the TO. In fact it is easy to manipulate trade prices by buying all the stock of an item and then selling for a much higher price - how often have you sold an item and then seen it offered for a higher price by the person who bought it off you?

The current set up of a players setting the asking price in the TO leaves open the possibility to just keep asking more and more for items. I have played several games that have the equivalent of a trade office, but none of them have just had player set prices.



My suggestion would be to change the TO to put a limit on the max amount you can charge for an item, either by having 1) a default seller (ie from the game), 2) a set price for items or 3) a range of prices depending on how many of that item is for sale.

1) there is a default shop keeper that sells & buys items at a set price ie sell copper @21 coins per K and buys copper @20 coins per K. Players can then add their own trades, at any price, but obviously they will only sell items if they are lower than the shop keeper.

2) there is just the shop keeper that sells & buys items at a set price ie sells copper @21 coins per K and buys copper @20 coins per K.

3) items are available in the TO, but also the amount available is shown....the more of an item in the TO the lower the price ie if there is 50K saltpetre available to buy then the price would be 500coins per K, but if only 2K is available then the price would be 650 coins per K. The same would apply to selling; you would get a higher price if there isn't much of a resource available for sale.


Option 3 is my preference as it would allow for higher prices for buying & selling at times when items are in demand like during an event where a certain resource is required

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Originally Posted by Bugglesx

The rampant inflation is extremely annoying. In my view it is not just caused by excess coins in the game, but the greed of peeps in the TO. In fact it is easy to manipulate trade prices by buying all the stock of an item and then selling for a much higher price - how often have you sold an item and then seen it offered for a higher price by the person who bought it off you?

The current set up of a players setting the asking price in the TO leaves open the possibility to just keep asking more and more for items. I have played several games that have the equivalent of a trade office, but none of them have just had player set prices.



My suggestion would be to change the TO to put a limit on the max amount you can charge for an item, either by having 1) a default seller (ie from the game), 2) a set price for items or 3) a range of prices depending on how many of that item is for sale.

1) there is a default shop keeper that sells & buys items at a set price ie sell copper @21 coins per K and buys copper @20 coins per K. Players can then add their own trades, at any price, but obviously they will only sell items if they are lower than the shop keeper.

2) there is just the shop keeper that sells & buys items at a set price ie sells copper @21 coins per K and buys copper @20 coins per K.

3) items are available in the TO, but also the amount available is shown....the more of an item in the TO the lower the price ie if there is 50K saltpetre available to buy then the price would be 500coins per K, but if only 2K is available then the price would be 650 coins per K. The same would apply to selling; you would get a higher price if there isn't much of a resource available for sale.


Option 3 is my preference as it would allow for higher prices for buying & selling at times when items are in demand like during an event where a certain resource is required

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It is annoying being greedy while everything nice being more and more expensive, its in the game.

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Originally Posted by Bugglesx

The rampant inflation is extremely annoying. In my view it is not just caused by excess coins in the game, but the greed of peeps in the TO. In fact it is easy to manipulate trade prices by buying all the stock of an item and then selling for a much higher price - how often have you sold an item and then seen it offered for a higher price by the person who bought it off you?

The current set up of a players setting the asking price in the TO leaves open the possibility to just keep asking more and more for items. I have played several games that have the equivalent of a trade office, but none of them have just had player set prices.



My suggestion would be to change the TO to put a limit on the max amount you can charge for an item, either by having 1) a default seller (ie from the game), 2) a set price for items or 3) a range of prices depending on how many of that item is for sale.

1) there is a default shop keeper that sells & buys items at a set price ie sell copper @21 coins per K and buys copper @20 coins per K. Players can then add their own trades, at any price, but obviously they will only sell items if they are lower than the shop keeper.

2) there is just the shop keeper that sells & buys items at a set price ie sells copper @21 coins per K and buys copper @20 coins per K.

3) items are available in the TO, but also the amount available is shown....the more of an item in the TO the lower the price ie if there is 50K saltpetre available to buy then the price would be 500coins per K, but if only 2K is available then the price would be 650 coins per K. The same would apply to selling; you would get a higher price if there isn't much of a resource available for sale.


Option 3 is my preference as it would allow for higher prices for buying & selling at times when items are in demand like during an event where a certain resource is required

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What your describing here is a single player game.

I would hate to see free trade removed from the game, runescape tried that little chestnut a few years back, didn't pan out very well for them.

If people want to afford the high prices of the items they wish to buy, they need to get as much value for their goods as they can. That isn't greed... just a basic principle of economics and trade... you charge what the market will bear. When the market is full of people who can, effectively, manufacture currency out of thin air, with no regulatory body limiting the total amount in circulation then, of course, inflation is going to be rampant.

Incidentally, I very much doubt BB has any desire to curb the inflation of prices, particularly in regards to items such as watermills, silos, improved storehouses, etc.

Higher prices for those kinds of items in game mean an increased likelihood that (newer) players will be inclined to purchase them immediately with gems instead of making the effort to raise amounts of coin required in trade.

I think it would be a good idea to put things that use gold coins (or gold bars) in production. Military units would have been a good choice. Or "luxury" articles like ornamentalsmith or crossbows, damascene swords, etc. instead of increasing the coal input. Could have been a resource needed for the pvp weapons/units. Or BB could implement entirely new building types. And there could be a conversion tool in the prov house to convert coins into omni refills perhaps (for the granite pit).

Buildings aren't a good choice because those don't take coins out of the circulation, just replace them with something of equal worth.

ETA: another thing could be to introduce upkeep costs to buildings. This could also take care of the inordinate amounts of marble and hwp that higher levels can produce without them having anywhere much to go. They wouldn't need to be high, especially for basic building types on levels 1 and 2, there'd be nothing, but they'd get higher the more advanced and higher level the building is. But no switching over to granite and ewp after level 4; that'd defeat the purpose.

No, on so many levels

No.

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They simply need to introduce stuff you can buy with gold coins for high level players.

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Yup, it is a very easy fix but BB can't be bothered to come up with anything.


So many players whine about the coin thing but these are always those poor players that want the cheapest lootpsot and the the most for thier items.

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Remember if you want to buy an expensive item in the game (such as for example a Witch Tower) which is 40k on my server, if you take gold out of the game the value of gold goes up, and therefore the price of the Witch tower comes down.

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No it will not, the Price of a WT will increase as players who have one and want only coin will have the power, therefore you will be seeing a WT go for 100k+.

Your suggestion isn't new except in the details ...
I remember when the mere idea that there is even something called "inflation" was shred to pieces by the community:

http://forum.thesettlersonline.com/t...coin-inflation!

Ah well, I guess that an Improved Silo costing 85000 coins as opposed to 15000 last year isn't inflation anyways :D

I think the best way to drain off gold would be to go the proven way of large MMO-economies. Add large gold sinks. Preferably vanity or convenience items that don't significantly improve the economy of the people buying them.

Ideas:
Extra building slots at 50k/100k/150k/200k. This would put millions of gc out of the economy very quickly
Extra adventure slot. Allowing high level players to start more than one adventure at a time. Extra server load should be considered before implementing something like this.
Avatar changes. Let me buy a santa hat for my dude. Or let me braid his beard. Whatever- I'd pay good gold for a chance to stand out a bit on the friends list.
Alternate Building skins. Like the "old school" temporary buffs that were added with the anniversary but permanent. The problem with all the current decorations is that they take up space that could be used for production. So if I want to put something nice on my island, I'm not just paying for the decoration. I'm also keeping around a permanent drain on my economy. That runs counter to the purpose of the game (at least the purpose for me), and this is part of the reason why my island looks so industrial. If instead, you introduced alternate skins for buildings to allow us to pick what our islands look like, that'd let us customize our islands without reducing productivity. At a couple thousand gold per building this could quickly drain great amounts of gold from the economy. This would also be advantageous in that it would be a continuous gold sink. Every new building is a possibility for some gold spent.

Start out with the Mayor's house, since that's the most prominent building. Give is 5 different ones to choose from. Then expand, starting with the most common and most prominent (big) buildings. Also let us pay for custom roads. Maybe with streetlamps. Do a holiday theme with coloured lights all over.

Include skins for the settlers themselves. Let me pay 10k gc to outfit them with blue shirts. Another 20k gets them each a hat. 50k and my generals could be riding huge cats.

In short, introduce entirely useless (but not actively detrimental) vanity items at high prices. I know for a fact I'd be susceptible to this, and I suspect I'm on the less interested in decorations end of the spectrum. The obvious downside of these suggestions is that they would require work from BB. And rather than bringing in the gem purchases they'd improve the game as a whole, which doesn't help BB/Ubi's bottom line. So it'll never happpen. Ah well, a man can dream.

Besides Granite and especially Titanium, I find there is surprisingly little inflation. Tools, marble, and gems are worth more, but not that much considering how long the games been out. I think some of the higher prices, especially for tools and marble, help new players as they can mass produce those with little investment and make the gold needed for upgrades which hasn't changed much. With the changes to weapons, failed blocks and high end adventures cost more to recover from, but that doesn't affect newer players as much either. Price priorities change, bread and brew are down, weapons will be going up. Iron went nuts after Halloween but is back close to where it was before.

They really do need to sort this issue. I took 3 months out and watermills went from 2-4k up to 40k plus ! yeah its ok if you have 3-4 gold towers, but again the time will come when gold coins will be pointless. A currency shift will take place, & a rare high end resource will become the new currency, maybe saltpeter or titanium bars. personally, i think granite is leading the charge atm, maybe grout will after that.

Whilst coins are freely available and gems and granite are not the inflation will continue. People will not throw away massive amounts of gc on new trivial things because they remember the old value. BB has made matters worse recently by nerfing the loots, so now granite is even harder to come by, its price has now gone from 3:1 to 5:1 on GC. Inflation is part of any economy game.

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Originally Posted by Baggis

Inflation is part of any economy game.

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+1

removing gold would be worst in game possible ruïns the game IMO

May I refer you here?

http://forum.thesettlersonline.com/t...coin-inflation!

Leave the TO and free market alone. With a game so heavy on economics there will always be fluctuations and even more so as items are added and removed. It's a challange to keep up with shifting values yes, but so it is in real life - as technology changes some things become worthless and some become more valuable. Learn to adapt. There will always be players needing some stone, and always be players needing a BK. Look for the opportunities and they are there (if you know how to read a market). Track the prices, get a feel of what things are going for, anticipate when shifts occur in the game (like weapons gone from ls) and you should be able to guess what's coming.
Free market rules!

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Originally Posted by Xibor

Leave the TO and free market alone. Free market rules!

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Did you even read the thread?

Nobody said run this sql query: "update * from players.storage set amount=0 where item == 'coins';" People suggest that items should be introduced which remove huge quantities of coins from the game in exchange for ingame goods and services - and you reply "Leave free market alone", with the argument "Technology changes". Yeah, guess what: That's the suggestion: Change some things in the game. But you seem to be opposed?
Do you prefer the game to be stale and stagnant as more and more things become obsolete?

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Originally Posted by Baggis

BB has made matters worse recently by nerfing the loots, so now granite is even harder to come by, its price has now gone from 3:1 to 5:1 on GC. Inflation is part of any economy game.

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Getting granite from adventure loots hasn't changed much, yeah one now gives a bit less another a bit more, but overall it still drops quite a bit. The main reason why granite has gone to 5:1 is that high level players now need it as well to do the lvl 5 to 6 upgrades. These upgrades demand a lot of granite, so less will be available for trade (there is your free market ;-) ). If they would have made those upgrades x coins/ x grout instead, more granite would be free for trade and price would drop. People would want coins more...

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Originally Posted by Shelob81

The main reason why granite has gone to 5:1 is that high level players now need it as well to do the lvl 5 to 6 upgrades.

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...and let's not forget all those players who previously didn't bother with cannon/damascene/crossbow chains now trying to amass the huge amounts of granite required to build/upgrade them.

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Originally Posted by Sharpielein

People suggest that items should be introduced which remove huge quantities of coins from the game in exchange for ingame goods and services

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I have no problem with new items being introduced that would be purchased with coins. These should also then be available on the free market. I was specifically refering to the start of the post and the suggestion there be no gold coins at all, which is clearly silly. So it sounds like we just picked up on seperate sub-focus from the thread. If items could be added for the overly rich players to use their coins on that would be great.
The example above by Baggis of how the change to loot has caused people to start to manufacture more weapons which has changed pricing ratio I think is mostly to the point of most of the thread responses. That's what I meant by free market and supply and demand and was against the notion of a built-in inflation by design of the game which some people have suggested. That's exactly how a economic game should work.

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Originally Posted by Xibor

I was specifically refering to the start of the post and the suggestion there be no gold coins at all, which is clearly silly.

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I think you misunderstood. No-one is suggesting removing gold coins from the game entirely.

As thing stands, there are multiple sources that add coins to total in the game but, correct me if I am wrong, only two sources that subtract from that total (moving/upgrading buildings and buying specialists). Both of these methods are inherently limited in scope. What is being suggested is not removing the concept of gold coins from the game, but rather introducing more methods which subtract from the number of coins in circulation in order to bring down the rate of inflation.

Fair enough. The majority of posts now that I re-read them all refer to adding more ways to spend coin. And on this I completely agree. More options is good. In other threads I've seen suggestions to add more specialists to the tavern at escalating costs and smiliar ideas to offter choices for spending. The posts in this thread about trying to cap/control pricing in the TO I think lept out at me more, and is clearly not what most players think.

By all means - more things to spend coin on would be good for many reasons. Let's hope they listen.

Just realized I hadn't replied to my own post.

Brayarg makes a good point in so much as the adjusted gold refills, will make a small difference though i doubt it will be significant.

As for the smaller players commenting, you seem to think that this idea will disadvantage you but it won't. Pro rata, smaller players get quite large coin drops for levelling and quests compared to the bigger players. The problem you have, is that that coin isn't worth very much.

As a number of other players have said having coin sinks (particularly for vanity items) would go some way to restore the value of coin. After all remember coin doesn't really DO anything it is there as a currency and therefore convenience. As some ppl have said if it is not sorted out then some other resource will become the de-facto currency.