Hello,
Well, demand for almost all resources is dropping rapidly, and as a result prices too on Northisle. Free fall is a pretty good description, and it has coincided with the sever being closed to new players. Firstly i'll state what I think is the obvious, but I may be wrong, so it's best to list the reasons for this:
- No new players joining the server, so a big drop in the introduction of gold coin to the server.
- Player activity on the server decreasing in general.
- Active player base reaching levels where they do not require many of the resources in bulk any longer (building materials mainly).
- Players picking adventures that are most efficient in terms of losses.
- Being able to carry a base level of the more expensive units without losing them/losing few.
- Players in general producing far too many resources for the server's current needs.
- Adventure rewards of high level weapons being too great vs current ability to chose adventures with cheap losses.
Maybe there are a few more people would like to highlight, but I am fairly sure the majority are aware what the issues are already.
The problem this creates is that players will find it very hard to trade. Those unfortunate enough not to have overcome the L4 upgrade hump already will find it very hard to build up enough gold coin to progress their settlement and create a big divide between those who have and those who have not. Players mass producing particular items will suffer the greatest, as they rely the most on a fluid trading environment.
There really is not an option to open up the server for new players, as I assume server capacity in terms of number of accounts has been reached already. I guess inactive accounts could be kicked... but in all fairness BB would be shooting themselves in the foot $$ wise doing so.
So my ideas are based on increasing server demand for most resources, and injecting more gold coin into the economy:
Weekly Adventure
On a set day each week, players (26+) will find their settlement has been attacked by a fleet of bandits. A varying number of buildings will be damaged and require repair before their production can start again. Building repairs will cost tools + building materials relevant to the players level.
The attack will trigger the option to run a random adventure suitable to the players level. The adventure will be one of the less desirable adventures, for which players will have to face losing expensive units if they chose to complete it. Completing the adventure will reward the player with normal loot plus a significant gold coin reward (in line with lootspot prices for the adventure).
With an approach like this, demand would increase and hopefully the stock levels on the server drained sufficiently to help find a balanced price on most items. It may also encourage players to start building Expert buildings, as well as providing a little more encouragement to sample all of the content.
I know some will scream PvP is the answer, well that's not here yet so I thought I would offer a possible solution. Thoughts and ideas are all welcome in this thread!
*Edit to add additional ideas from this thread*
- Introduce AI trading (Dnarag1m)
- Speed up the introduction of PvP (Shelob81)
- Game requires new line of progression other than reaching L50 (Qualan)
- Introduce the option to build tempory buildings on adventure maps (StarCaller)
- Introduce decorations as a resource sink, rather than just an adventure reward/gem item (Gromobran)
- Reduce the number of weapons that drop from adventures and remove the high level resources from low level adventure loot tables (Kotugo)