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Let's list good ideas for IGC sinks

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oOStaticOo
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Let's list good ideas for IGC sinks

Gear Degredation and Charging for Missions* is off the table. Just want to put that up front so we don't have any issues with this thread.

After those two, what else could we use for IGC sinks? Since the new trend, and some people's huge concern, seems to be talking about this.

I'll start by listing a few that I think would be good for the game and wouldn't be too much of a nuisance on the players.

Auction House: Obviously the Auction House is a service, therefore they should be able to take a cut of the IGC used to put up auctions and purchase auctions. The question then becomes, how much? CoX had a 10% cut, they would take 5% when you put the bid up and then another 5% when it sold. Was that enough? If not, how much do we think would be the appropriate amount? 20%?

Crafting: A no brainer here either. Crafting requires resources, and then some way to be able to combine those resources. The obvious route here to go is it costs less for the lower level pieces to be crafted in regards to the higher level resources. So the more Uber you try to build, the more it's going to cost you.

Augments and Refinements: Again, obviously there will need to be a pricing on these as well. Yes, you can find them from random drops during missions and upon mission completion. The trick though is to make it so that that kind of thing isn't too easy to do. So you'll want people to go to the stores and spend IGC to purchase the Augments and Refinements they need to spec out their characters. Again, lower level stuff will cost less than higher level stuff.

Tailor: Let's face it, there will be people that will want multiple costumes. So we will need a shop that can create other costumes for us. We will start out with our one initial costume, but then hopefully have the ability to purchase other costumes to switch in and out of as we see fit. CoX did this and it was used quite a bit. So I would suggest we use something similar as well. As we level, we get quests that will allow us to unlock more costume slots or we can purchase them through the Cash Store as we see fit.

Super Group Bases: I'm sure we will be having these in CoT, so here is a good place to place an IGC sink in. Bases should have rent associated with them. The bigger the base and more things placed in them that require energy, the higher the rent.

Personal Housing: This will hopefully also be something implemented in CoT. So again, much like the bases, rent will be charged on what kind of housing we use. Same premise, the bigger the housing the more the rent.

Transportation: The one thing that somewhat disconnected me from the trams in CoH, was the lack of being charged to use that transportation. I think CoT can use this. We should have multiple forms of public transportation perhaps. Trains, Subways, Buses, and Taxis. Each one having a different amount charged based on how fast it can get you to your destination and how far you have to travel.

Leads: I know that there is a plan to try to incorporate this idea into the game to help develop custom missions that players can craft and enjoy. So one of my ideas for this is to include informants and bribery. You could hire someone to be your personal informant to help you locate leads to help develop new missions. You could also be able to bribe people into giving you information as well.

Gambling: It has been mentioned, and I'll be up front I'm not a huge fan of this idea, and I can see the appeal to it for a lot of people. As long as it only uses IGC I can somewhat get behind this idea. Perhaps we could actually use those Casinos that CoV had to gamble for a chance to win even more IGC. Now obviously the Casinos are rigged for the House to win most of the time. So we could possibly have things like Slot Machines, Roulette tables, Craps Tables, Poker Tables, and Black Jack Tables to gamble our IGC with and play mini games in hopes to win more IGC.

Robberies: Again, not a real huge fan of this idea as already mentioned in a different thread. However, I can see this being a possibility for IGC only. Robberies do happen from time to time. Muggings are also a possibility under this category as well. We could have a Random encounter that a mugger attacks you on the streets, if you are unable to defeat the mugger, you lose some IGC. Same goes with a bank robbery. However, the bank robberies ONLY happen while you are Online. This way you get the chance to prevent the robbery from happening and not losing your IGC, you only lose it if you are unable to stop it from happening.

Mission Creator: People will be able to create custom missions to play. So we can attach a fee to play the created missions. There can also be a fee to store the missions for people to play. Not so much of an IGC sink, but more a redistribution of IGC. Yes the person who created the mission will be charged a fee to store the mission, but then will receive IGC from players paying to play their mission.

That is about everything I can think of myself. So now comes your input. Do you have any other ideas that would be a good IGC sink that people will be okay with having in the game that wouldn't be too abusive upon the players? Also please feel free to comment about any of the ideas I listed above and tell me what you think about them. Should they be used, should they not, or should they be tweaked in some way to make them better?

*By this I mean regular In Game Missions and Task Forces, not Player Created Missions or Guest Author Missions

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

Light's Knight
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Any good sink for me would be

Any good sink for me would be a system that creates a sink for the IGC whales but does not hurt the just starting out guy. Since I can't really contribute other than my first sentence, look forward to reading the spirited debate.

oOStaticOo
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What about Leveling Up?

What about Leveling Up?

Every time we obtain a new level we have to go to a Trainer and pay them some money in order for us to train up to a new level and either obtain more slots or new powers?

Also, once Max Level has been reached, how about some kind of Super Trainer that can temporarily boost stats for a high level of IGC?

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

Light's Knight
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Honestly, the only way to

Honestly, the only way to create a good IGC sink from my point of view. The sink has to do a few things.
1) Not hinder or give the feeling of a job to the casual player.
2) Effective enough to curb inflation and greed of the hard core gamer.
3) Not exploitable or work a around. (Alts)

This is a great problem solving debate to have but ultimately you are putting the human ingenuity of stopping something vs. the human ingenuity of exploiting something (unlimited IGC being that something)

Trying to find a way to limit something that is limitless, is a tall order.

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I am aware of that. I

I am aware of that. I understand that there will be human greed to "Haz evryting!". I also understand the need to make sure that that doesn't happen.

Problem is, people seem to want to talk about this right now. There have been very few ideas really bantered about. Only a few have been, and well those ideas met with very great resistance. (And I'm putting that nicely)

Which is why I'm trying to bring up this topic and hopefully get some useful feedback as to what good IGC sinks people have ideas for that might work and not be too taxing on the players at the same time. Obviously we don't want it to feel like it's a job and sucks all the fun and life out of playing, yet we also don't want there to be NO IGC sinks either. So I'm figuring that maybe if we have a lot of little sinks that aren't too interfering they can add up to make a big sink that seems to be unobtrusive enough that players really don't notice it.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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Leveling up having a cost

Leveling up having a cost associated is good. The maxed out stats boost would be ok but hard to balance. Three communities would be potentially big fans (badgers, farmers, pvpers)

What about color or costume piece access? For some of the weird ones

Also impose a cap on free tailor sessions that a toon can possess at one time. That was an ok sink that got devalued over time. Also, needs base the costume designer - one cost for lvl 20s - another higher cost for lvl 30s .... Etc

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Valid point Static, in no way

Valid point Static, in no way trying to stop debate. It's actually a great exercise in debate. Just throwing out my 2 IGC. Look forward to the ideas thrown and the pros and cons to them.

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I was thinking on the Maxed

I was thinking on the Maxed out stats:

1.) It was a temporary thing for X amount of actual game time. Probably would want to keep it low, mostly beneficial for PvPers although somewhat useful for PvEers as well to help do missions faster.

2.) It wouldn't be a HUGE boost, but just enough to maybe notice.

3.) It would be pay per power to boost, so it's not a one and done thing. If you have 5 attacks you want to boost that's 5*X amount of IGC you spend to boost all 5 of them.

4.) It would also be somewhat expensive to do this. Not so expensive nobody would choose to do it, but not cheap enough that you'd want to just continuously keep all of your powers boosted at Max level.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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So badge raiders would use it

So badge raiders would use it for the hard way badges, pvpers for obvious reasons, and farmers if cost/benefit ratio is right

3 hour real time limit?

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oOStaticOo wrote:
oOStaticOo wrote:

What about Leveling Up?
Every time we obtain a new level we have to go to a Trainer and pay them some money in order for us to train up to a new level and either obtain more slots or new powers?

That just creates an edge case in which someone might be too gimped to get rich and therefore too poor to pay for Training to reach their next level. It's a cul-de-sac situation that benefits no one.

oOStaticOo wrote:

Also, once Max Level has been reached, how about some kind of Super Trainer that can temporarily boost stats for a high level of IGC?

Um ... that does not sound appealing. It just means that being overpowered is a matter of paying up (enough) IGC, which would be a terrible precedent to set.

===

Ideally speaking, you want your sinks to be tied to activities that are not Level specific and which Players are expected to consistently engage in doing anyway despite the presence of the sink. Paying fares for taxi rides is one of the simpler and more obvious examples of this sort of thing. Even if the taxi fare is but a pittance, it is still in a small way draining IGC out of the game's economy and can be a part of the larger tapestry of supply vs demand at play within the game's economics.

This is why putting a sink in place for Mission Creation would make a lot of sense, because Missions are things that Players are typically going to want to do, even if the Mission essentially boils down to nothing more than street sweeping a pizza runs to a phone box on an island north of Talos with nothing but Circle of Thorns all over it. That's because Missions are things that Players DO even after reaching the Level Cap, so there's no real slackening in demand and thus the sink can continue to operate.


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

oOStaticOo wrote:
What about Leveling Up?
Every time we obtain a new level we have to go to a Trainer and pay them some money in order for us to train up to a new level and either obtain more slots or new powers?

That just creates an edge case in which someone might be too gimped to get rich and therefore too poor to pay for Training to reach their next level. It's a cul-de-sac situation that benefits no one.
oOStaticOo wrote:
Also, once Max Level has been reached, how about some kind of Super Trainer that can temporarily boost stats for a high level of IGC?
Um ... that does not sound appealing. It just means that being overpowered is a matter of paying up (enough) IGC, which would be a terrible precedent to set.
===
Ideally speaking, you want your sinks to be tied to activities that are not Level specific and which Players are expected to consistently engage in doing anyway despite the presence of the sink. Paying fares for taxi rides is one of the simpler and more obvious examples of this sort of thing. Even if the taxi fare is but a pittance, it is still in a small way draining IGC out of the game's economy and can be a part of the larger tapestry of supply vs demand at play within the game's economics.
This is why putting a sink in place for Mission Creation would make a lot of sense, because Missions are things that Players are typically going to want to do, even if the Mission essentially boils down to nothing more than street sweeping a pizza runs to a phone box on an island north of Talos with nothing but Circle of Thorns all over it. That's because Missions are things that Players DO even after reaching the Level Cap, so there's no real slackening in demand and thus the sink can continue to operate.

Perhaps the IGC sink for leveling can start out small at first and increase as a person levels. Since more money will be made the higher level they get, the easier it should be to pay that fee?

Say for example:

Level 1: 100 IGC
Level 2: 250 IGC
Level 3: 500 IGC
Level 4: 750 IGC
Level 5: 1000 IGC
Level 6: 1500 IGC
Level 7: 2250 IGC
Level 8: 3000 IGC
Level 9: 4000 IGC
Level 10: 5000 IGC
Level 11: 7500 IGC
Level 12: 10,000 IGC
Level 13: 15,000 IGC
Level 14: 20,000 IGC
Level 15: 25,000 IGC
Level 16: 30,000 IGC
Level 17: 35,000 IGC
Level 18: 40,000 IGC
Level 19: 45,000 IGC
Level 20: 50,000 IGC
Level 21: 75,000 IGC
Level 22: 100,000 IGC
Level 23: 150,000 IGC
Level 24: 200,000 IGC
Level 25: 250,000 IGC
Level 26: 300,000 IGC
Level 27: 350,000 IGC
Level 28: 400,000 IGC
Level 29: 450,000 IGC
Level 30: 500,000 IGC

Now obviously IGC to level ratios would have to allow for this to be capable of being handled as well. Also those numbers could be tweaked as well, I'm just throwing numbers up as an example.

As far as the boosted max level stats go, I fully understand your position on that. I'm not a big fan of it myself, but I am tossing it out there for consideration. It could possibly be something done if done right and handled properly.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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Respecs

Respecs
Hirelings
leveling your sidekick
costumes for your sidekick
Donations to gain faction standing
Pimp my Ride (if you have vehicles let us make them cool)
temporary powers (If jet packs exist, why couldn't I buy one?)

Lin Chiao Feng
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oOStaticOo wrote:
oOStaticOo wrote:

Perhaps the IGC sink for leveling can start out small at first and increase as a person levels. Since more money will be made the higher level they get, the easier it should be to pay that fee?
[...]
Now obviously IGC to level ratios would have to allow for this to be capable of being handled as well. Also those numbers could be tweaked as well, I'm just throwing numbers up as an example.

CoX pre-inventions/pre-market had something like that already: it was called "hey all your enhancements died go buy new ones." It was a big pain in the arse because a lot of times you didn't have the IGC to get everything you needed. IGC earn rate is really hard to nail down, and you'll either put new players in an "always broke" situation or the IGC sink won't be big enough to do its job... and getting both of those outcomes simultaneously is pretty likely.

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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oOStaticOo wrote:
oOStaticOo wrote:

Also, once Max Level has been reached, how about some kind of Super Trainer that can temporarily boost stats for a high level of IGC?

I like this idea a lot. It reminds me of the Empowerment Stations from CoX. This could work very well as a sink because min-maxers would feel like they have to refresh it to maintain maximum performance. It could be explained in-universe as training or a divine blessing or special ammo or whatever. As long as the price isn't exorbitant and the buffs don't make or break character performance, I think it would be very popular.

...

I'm also posting to share an idea of my own. I propose a financial mechanism somewhat similar to bonds when inflation reaches a certain point. The idea is for Titan City to issue bonds that each cost a substantial amount of IGC, and players of characters who contribute get a discount in the Starmart based on how many bonds they own and the total amount of IGC in the fund. When the bonds reach maturity at some set date, investors get a badge plus lifetime discounts for top investors.

As an example, say inflation is rampant. Titan City starts issuing bonds that mature at the end of the month, each costing 5 million IGC. For each bond you own, you get a 0.25% discount in the Starmart. As the fund grows, it gives every investor an additional scaling discount, something like 1% per billion IGC in the fund. At the end of the month, the discount disappears and every investor gets a badge. In addition, the top 50 investors get a permanent 10% Starmart discount, and the next top 200 investors get a permanent 5% discount.

This gives rich players an opportunity to burn lots of IGC to save significantly on Starmart goods and to achieve long-term cash savings. The minimum buy-in would be low enough for less wealthy players to contribute, and the collective discount and the badge would act as incentives. Poor players would not be able to contribute, but they would be the ones benefiting the most from reduced inflation. The system provides something for everyone. The prices and discounts could vary based on the current state of the economy to give everyone the best value.

Does any of that make any sense? If so, what do you think?

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I am against paying to "level

I am against paying to "level" up. we are talking about superheroes here, when did you see spidey run off to a trainer? never. he figured it all out himself. trainers I would like to see not exist at all honestly. when the player levels up...just have some sort of visual/audio queue occur. this leaves it up to the player as to when he/she wants to level up.

not going to touch the others out there as most are being discussed in other threads.

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whiteperegrine wrote:
whiteperegrine wrote:

I am against paying to "level" up. we are talking about superheroes here, when did you see spidey run off to a trainer? never. he figured it all out himself. trainers I would like to see not exist at all honestly. when the player levels up...just have some sort of visual/audio queue occur. this leaves it up to the player as to when he/she wants to level up.
not going to touch the others out there as most are being discussed in other threads.

Understandable. Again, just an idea to toss out there and see how people feel about it or if it can be improved upon.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Respecs
Hirelings
leveling your sidekick
costumes for your sidekick
Donations to gain faction standing
Pimp my Ride (if you have vehicles let us make them cool)
temporary powers (If jet packs exist, why couldn't I buy one?)

All good ideas.

Some of them we'll have to wait and see if they get implemented or not. I know Temp Powers will be. Having to spend money to buy the ingredients needed to build them I believe was mentioned as well.

Donations for Factions would be nice to have. If you want a better standing with a certain group then doing things like donating money to their cause could be one way to help improve your status with them.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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I like the idea of charging

I like the idea of charging IGC for fast-travel options, because it might help mitigate the zone-depopulating effect of such shortcuts, at least a bit.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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The Temp Fishing Power I

The Temp Fishing Power I proposed! http://cityoftitans.com/forum/how-about-fishing-too-crazy

It costs money to purchase, it generates no marketable reward, it is completely optional, those who enjoy it will repeatedly purchase the Temp Fishing Power.

Other temp powers that could also cost ingame currency without returning any might be: Jet Packs, Jet Boots, Single Use Location Specific Pin Point Teleport, Single Use Access Tokens for Places/Events not included in F2P, Portable Chess Game, Deck of Cards

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I think leveling up already

I think leveling up already has its costs. You will need new augmentations and refinements for your powers, even if it is only one new power with one slot. But at certain key levels you will want to replace all of the older ones, because you have access to even better ones.

The temporary boost at max level could also be done by temporary powers you can craft then. And crafting already has its cost...

And lastly the bonds you mentioned, Plexius, they sound like a last resort option and something that should not be relied upon. If you do that too often, you would devalue stars and Missing Worlds Media would earn less money.

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oOStaticOo wrote:
oOStaticOo wrote:

whiteperegrine wrote:
I am against paying to "level" up. we are talking about superheroes here, when did you see spidey run off to a trainer? never. he figured it all out himself. trainers I would like to see not exist at all honestly. when the player levels up...just have some sort of visual/audio queue occur. this leaves it up to the player as to when he/she wants to level up.
not going to touch the others out there as most are being discussed in other threads.

Understandable. Again, just an idea to toss out there and see how people feel about it or if it can be improved upon.

Perhaps instead of IGC for Leveling up. How about you can pay IGC for a XP boost for a time. Pay X amount of IGC for Double XP for an Hour for example. Again make it cost a good bit so it not exploited. Like giving IGC to a low level toon to speed boost the leveling... but then that's the idea isn't it? To Sink that extra cash some way? So if my friend level 50 MEGABUCKS tosses me 10 Thousand IGC to Double my XP during the Powerleveling it still drawing IGC from the system. Maybe an added penalty of only getting half the normal IGC when you Artificially Double XP this way. That way not only do you draw extra IGC from the system you don't generate as much.

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Something that I think we

Something that I think we should consider (since I like thinking outside the box) is the IGC sink from the other end: Why not limit the amount that can be earned in the first place? I'm sure that there will be some sort of hard limit on the funds a toon can carry (CoX used 2 billion IIRC) but that number was astronomical compared to the amount needed to buy most things. How about a limit per account instead of per toon? Helps prevent players from having bankroll toons that just sit on IGC. How about a scaling cost for most things based on the toon's level so a lvl 50 taking a cab will cost a lot more than a level 10? That keeps the lowbies from getting squeezed too hard while draining IGC from those that are most likely to have it. I mean earnings go up as the character levels so why not raise the prices as well?

I'm opposed to charging a fee to level up in any way. I remember with much bitterness the pre-Market days of CoX when I would hit a level and then not have enough Inf to buy all the Enhancements I'd need. Leveling up should make the player feel better...not dread the tax man.

I see no problem with charging extra for the frills like extra costume slots with higher limits. So say we start with our one free costume slot and then we can earn another one doing a mission arc at lvl 10 or whatever. After that if we want MORE costume slots we can buy them with a limit of like 10 or so and a scaling cost. This means those that really like pimping their costumes (you know who you are) can pay and the new players and frugal toons can settle for 1-2 costumes.

IMHO the most basic levels of most things should be free or nearly so while the big bangs and whistles should cost. Bases? Smallest footprint (like solo housing) is free, the rest costs etc. That way players can get a taste of everything without feeling locked out.

I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...

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RottenLuck wrote:
RottenLuck wrote:

oOStaticOo wrote:
whiteperegrine wrote:
I am against paying to "level" up. we are talking about superheroes here, when did you see spidey run off to a trainer? never. he figured it all out himself. trainers I would like to see not exist at all honestly. when the player levels up...just have some sort of visual/audio queue occur. this leaves it up to the player as to when he/she wants to level up.
not going to touch the others out there as most are being discussed in other threads.

Understandable. Again, just an idea to toss out there and see how people feel about it or if it can be improved upon.

Perhaps instead of IGC for Leveling up. How about you can pay IGC for a XP boost for a time. Pay X amount of IGC for Double XP for an Hour for example. Again make it cost a good bit so it not exploited. Like giving IGC to a low level toon to speed boost the leveling... but then that's the idea isn't it? To Sink that extra cash some way? So if my friend level 50 MEGABUCKS tosses me 10 Thousand IGC to Double my XP during the Powerleveling it still drawing IGC from the system. Maybe an added penalty of only getting half the normal IGC when you Artificially Double XP this way. That way not only do you draw extra IGC from the system you don't generate as much.

given there will be a store I would keep this one over there as a boost that a player purchase versus an ingame purchase made with IGC.

...and for the record I am really starting to like "IGC" for the name of the...well...IGC. heh

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A lower IGC cap is a really

A lower IGC cap is a really good idea.
If you don't want too much of it in the game just don't let us have that much.
cap us out at like 5 digits.

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There are ways around a cap.

There are ways around a cap. Most of us who played CoH were major Altaholics. Even if out characters had an Inf cap spread that out with 30 level 50s (more or less) you are talking about a huge amount of Inf.

Buy a bunch of high end enhancements/arguments hop to other character mail some more. When getting near the cap again, mail it to a lower level character or one not so near the cap.

Heck Buy some high priced salvage store it in the bank and resell when low on funds.

Having a IGC cap not that big of a stop to major inflation.

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How about the option to turn

How about the option to turn of IGC gain completely in exchange for a 50% experience boost? That would be attractive to players who already have some max level characters and they could level their new toons faster... but they would not earn IGC to sustain themselves, so leveling them fast and keeping them well equipped would be quite expensive.

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Lutan wrote:
Lutan wrote:

How about the option to turn of IGC gain completely in exchange for a 50% experience boost? That would be attractive to players who already have some max level characters and they could level their new toons faster... but they would not earn IGC to sustain themselves, so leveling them fast and keeping them well equipped would be quite expensive.

That's a good idea Lutan I vote for the IGC reduce, turn off feature.

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RottenLuck wrote:
RottenLuck wrote:

There are ways around a cap. Most of us who played CoH were major Altaholics. Even if out characters had an Inf cap spread that out with 30 level 50s (more or less) you are talking about a huge amount of Inf.
Buy a bunch of high end enhancements/arguments hop to other character mail some more. When getting near the cap again, mail it to a lower level character or one not so near the cap.
Heck Buy some high priced salvage store it in the bank and resell when low on funds.
Having a IGC cap not that big of a stop to major inflation.

30 toons on one server?
Oh yeah we're not going to have multiple servers so yeah I forgot about that.
But if the whole idea is to curb inflation, a max of 5 digits will at least make it impossible to sell anything at super inflated prices.
(in this context, I'm assuming inflation means high prices, even though I know it really means having too much currency in circulation, though caps will help with both problems)
You can also put caps on how much can be stored.

I do like Lutan's idea of turning off currency gain for increased xp gain.

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Mini-games. The PCs pay to

Mini-games. The PCs pay to play the games and win tickets which can be used to purchase various temp powers (fireworks, bubble-blowing guns, perhaps even pets, etc.). These could eventually range from arcades to bowling to a fair ground and/or amusement park.

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Capping IGC isn't a good idea

Capping IGC isn't a good idea. Eventually people will have all of their character capped and will still want more. CoH did that, then opened the cap up.

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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

RottenLuck wrote:
There are ways around a cap. Most of us who played CoH were major Altaholics. Even if out characters had an Inf cap spread that out with 30 level 50s (more or less) you are talking about a huge amount of Inf.
Buy a bunch of high end enhancements/arguments hop to other character mail some more. When getting near the cap again, mail it to a lower level character or one not so near the cap.
Heck Buy some high priced salvage store it in the bank and resell when low on funds.
Having a IGC cap not that big of a stop to major inflation.

30 toons on one server?
Oh yeah we're not going to have multiple servers so yeah I forgot about that.
But if the whole idea is to curb inflation, a max of 5 digits will at least make it impossible to sell anything at super inflated prices.
(in this context, I'm assuming inflation means high prices, even though I know it really means having too much currency in circulation, though caps will help with both problems)
You can also put caps on how much can be stored.
I do like Lutan's idea of turning off currency gain for increased xp gain.

I had 48 characters on Victory and at least 12 on all the other original US servers (and 80+ 50s) on my main account, so 30 is by no means OTT. Caps don't work, people will find ways to store IGC, in CoH this involved bidding on items that didn't exist to store cash on the AH.

Restricting the amount you can pay for an item just means trades get done off market as happened for the level 10 PVP +3% defs, I sold 3 for 4BN each IIRC when the AH cap was 2BN and before converters were a thing.

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Hmmm. Going off of what Darth

Hmmm. Going off of what Darth Fez posted. How about a price tag applied to certain flagged user generated content if CoT ever does an AE system. If a mission is created for farming it gets a hefty IGC price tag. Could also have a IGC price to temporally increase "ticket inventory."

Another IGC sink might be TF/STF replays. They get a 3 hour CD timer but if enough IGC paid (applied to those with a CD) then they could replay the TF/STF within 5 mins of completion. Charging for farming. Also the devs if noticing certain maps are being used as farm maps adding the replay price tag to them as well.

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of course just because people

of course just because people want something doesn't mean the devs have to give in.
people are going to want them to give away or lower the prices on anything they choose to charge for.
and we don't have to allow people to bid on non existent items.

There are times when what people want has to take a back seat to what's good for the game.
and I was under the impression that the goal here was to stop run away inflation.

Limiting the amount players can have will help a lot
even if there are some ways around it
because when they're full they won't get any until they store or spend some.
also having a bunch of alts wont help much since they can't send it all to one toon at once without going over his cap.
If you have 300 alts each with some cash most of that cash is going to be out of circulation

and as I said before, nothing could be sold in the auction house for more money than anyone can carry
because no one would have any way to buy it.

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Themightypaladin, please

Themightypaladin, please refer to minotaur's story about pvp enhancements...

I'd like to propose a rule for this thread. If you wish to trash a proposed IGC sink, you are required to propose another

How's this for a sink? All in game emailed IGC has to suffer a 1% house cut

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I believe this was mentioned

I believe this was mentioned previously, but I'm to lazy to scroll back and find it, but...donation to affect alignment? donating X amount to the police department gains you some "lawful" points...while funding the 2nd Story Thieves Guild will accrue "unlawful" points. it could be X amount of IGC for X amount of alignment points...and this could scale upward the more you want. in addition, this entire thing could be capped, meaning a character can only put in X IGC maximum...whether the character does it all in one go or spreads it out over various levels...the total amount remains the same.

this would allow a lil more control over a characters alignment and provides a nice lil sink for IGC.

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Light's Knight wrote:
Light's Knight wrote:

Hmmm. Going off of what Darth Fez posted. How about a price tag applied to certain flagged user generated content if CoT ever does an AE system. If a mission is created for farming it gets a hefty IGC price tag. Could also have a IGC price to temporally increase "ticket inventory."
Another IGC sink might be TF/STF replays. They get a 3 hour CD timer but if enough IGC paid (applied to those with a CD) then they could replay the TF/STF within 5 mins of completion. Charging for farming. Also the devs if noticing certain maps are being used as farm maps adding the replay price tag to them as well.

How about instead of paying money to play the TF faster, we just make the IGC reward less per run of TF? I think you know my stance on Paywalling content. (Hint, not a big fan of it). CoH did that with the Reward Merits on TF's. You could do them several times, but you'd get less Reward Merits after the first run. I'm also not a big fan of having Cool Down Timers on Missions.

Charging for Farming could apply to the Mission Creator or Danger Room. I believe I already suggested that the Mission Creator missions have some kind of payment to play method already. It's not so much of an IGC sink, but more of redistribution of wealth.

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whiteperegrine wrote:
whiteperegrine wrote:

I believe this was mentioned previously, but I'm to lazy to scroll back and find it, but...donation to affect alignment? donating X amount to the police department gains you some "lawful" points...while funding the 2nd Story Thieves Guild will accrue "unlawful" points. it could be X amount of IGC for X amount of alignment points...and this could scale upward the more you want. in addition, this entire thing could be capped, meaning a character can only put in X IGC maximum...whether the character does it all in one go or spreads it out over various levels...the total amount remains the same.
this would allow a lil more control over a characters alignment and provides a nice lil sink for IGC.

I don't believe Alignment was mentioned, but Factions were. Not sure how Alignment could be worked in to that system, but possibly.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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A fairly big part of the

A fairly big part of the problem with inflation in CoH was just how much a level 50 character could earn. You didn't have to farm at x8+4 to make crazy amounts of cash, and that's before selling/auctioning off your drops. As a way to fight that, I have a radical Idea, what if level capped characters did not receive any IGC (by the way, I am also starting to like that as a name) for defeating enemies or mission completion? Of course, they could still play the market or sell drops to vendors to make cash. If that is too harsh, perhaps the IGC earning could be dialed back, say to what a level 25 character would make from defeating enemies and mission completes.

Another idea, which may or may not work with my first suggestion. What if the death penalty at the cap was assessed against IGC? True, we don't know what kind of death penalty (if any) will be applied in CoT, but imagine what it would have meant in CoH if a level 50 character earned half Inf until their debt was worked off. Even with a tripped out character and knowing how to play the game didn't stop me from face planting in my fair share of ITFs and Incarnate Trials. It may not be a reliable sink, but could work as part of the solution.

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Paying IGC to reset a timer

Paying IGC to reset a timer on a TF would be an IGC sink. I was not suggesting replay badges like DCUO that cost real money. If you reduce rewards from the TF on each play through, your just giving more IGC to said player.

Yeah I will go on record as saying I hate that term "redistribution of wealth"

But to go along the line of your thought process, where would you be redistributing too? The player who created it? If so not an IGC sink.

Don't get me wrong, reducing rewards would curb farming and IGC payments to AE style authors would create some potential for good missions. I am just not seeing the IGC sink portion of them to which you created the thread for.

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To modify your idea syntax,

To modify your idea syntax, Use IGC to pay off XP debt. Your in the hole for 24K in XP debt. Pay out 48K in IGC. Good to go. If at level cap then go along your lines and IGC normally earned would be cut in half till your XP bar was out of debt.

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syntaxerror37 wrote:
syntaxerror37 wrote:

As a way to fight that, I have a radical Idea, what if level capped characters did not receive any IGC (by the way, I am also starting to like that as a name) for defeating enemies or mission completion? Of course, they could still play the market or sell drops to vendors to make cash. If that is too harsh, perhaps the IGC earning could be dialed back, say to what a level 25 character would make from defeating enemies and mission completes.

IIRC, CoH had that for a time. It was before inventions, but basically around level 30 or 35 or so, your rewards would start tapering off, to zero at 50. It didn't sink cash from the folks with a horde of 50s, but it did screw over the rest of us because we couldn't get enough Inf to upgrade our enhancements from about level 37 onwards.

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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Lin Chiao Feng wrote:
Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

syntaxerror37 wrote:
As a way to fight that, I have a radical Idea, what if level capped characters did not receive any IGC (by the way, I am also starting to like that as a name) for defeating enemies or mission completion? Of course, they could still play the market or sell drops to vendors to make cash. If that is too harsh, perhaps the IGC earning could be dialed back, say to what a level 25 character would make from defeating enemies and mission completes.
IIRC, CoH had that for a time. It was before inventions, but basically around level 30 or 35 or so, your rewards would start tapering off, to zero at 50. It didn't sink cash from the folks with a horde of 50s, but it did screw over the rest of us because we couldn't get enough Inf to upgrade our enhancements from about level 37 onwards.

I played since issue 5 and I never encountered this. Are you thinking of running in SG mode and earning Prestige instead of Inf? If I recall above level 30 it blocked receiving any inf while in SG mode for quite a few issues. As I recall with the old broken leveling curve as you were forced to slog through the 30s you had little trouble saving up to buy enhancements.

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syntaxerror37 wrote:
syntaxerror37 wrote:

Lin Chiao Feng wrote:
syntaxerror37 wrote:
As a way to fight that, I have a radical Idea, what if level capped characters did not receive any IGC (by the way, I am also starting to like that as a name) for defeating enemies or mission completion? Of course, they could still play the market or sell drops to vendors to make cash. If that is too harsh, perhaps the IGC earning could be dialed back, say to what a level 25 character would make from defeating enemies and mission completes.

IIRC, CoH had that for a time. It was before inventions, but basically around level 30 or 35 or so, your rewards would start tapering off, to zero at 50. It didn't sink cash from the folks with a horde of 50s, but it did screw over the rest of us because we couldn't get enough Inf to upgrade our enhancements from about level 37 onwards.

I played since issue 5 and I never encountered this. Are you thinking of running in SG mode and earning Prestige instead of Inf?

That's what it was. There were lots of SGs that would get on your case for not being in SG mode.

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Brighellac wrote:
Brighellac wrote:

Themightypaladin, please refer to minotaur's story about pvp enhancements...
I'd like to propose a rule for this thread. If you wish to trash a proposed IGC sink, you are required to propose another
How's this for a sink? All in game emailed IGC has to suffer a 1% house cut

Not interested in PVP enhancements or anything else about PVP
and I didn't trash anyone else's proposal.

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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Brighellac wrote:
Themightypaladin, please refer to minotaur's story about pvp enhancements...
I'd like to propose a rule for this thread. If you wish to trash a proposed IGC sink, you are required to propose another
How's this for a sink? All in game emailed IGC has to suffer a 1% house cut

Not interested in PVP enhancements or anything else about PVP
and I didn't trash anyone else's proposal.

No, you put forward a concern ... And did not put forward another sink idea

As for your dismissal of the Minotaur pvp enhancement sale, it just showed that by using Alts and a person to person trade, both a currency cap and a AH transaction cap can be circumvented

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Light's Knight wrote:
Light's Knight wrote:

Paying IGC to reset a timer on a TF would be an IGC sink. I was not suggesting replay badges like DCUO that cost real money. If you reduce rewards from the TF on each play through, your just giving more IGC to said player.
Yeah I will go on record as saying I hate that term "redistribution of wealth"
But to go along the line of your thought process, where would you be redistributing too? The player who created it? If so not an IGC sink.
Don't get me wrong, reducing rewards would curb farming and IGC payments to AE style authors would create some potential for good missions. I am just not seeing the IGC sink portion of them to which you created the thread for.

My idea for the Mission Creator was to charge the creator of the mission a fee in IGC to house the mission and then turn around and charge other players that wanted to play that mission IGC to be paid back to the original creator of the mission. Hopefully enticing people to make quality missions that were fun to play that they could then make some money off of the missions instead of playing the market if they didn't like playing the market. So basically you would just redistribute the IGC amongst the players using that format with a little bit of it being taken by the game to house the mission.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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Brighellac wrote:
Brighellac wrote:

How's this for a sink? All in game emailed IGC has to suffer a 1% house cut

I like this idea. But I would make it very clear that the Devs can adjust it as they feel/see the need. Perhaps phrasing it as a "going rate" or something similar.

Quite naturally this is because not even the Devs will be able to gauge the effectiveness of any particular IGC sink until they can datamine actual gameplay. Therefore in my opinion this should be communicated to players in game. It needn't be something mentioned several times per session, but neither should it appear once in fine print until an update actually changes it either. Perhaps the "going rate" could be among the things mentioned by a civilian that's clicked on.

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Brighellac wrote:
Brighellac wrote:

No, you put forward a concern ... And did not put forward another sink idea
As for your dismissal of the Minotaur pvp enhancement sale, it just showed that by using Alts and a person to person trade, both a currency cap and a AH transaction cap can be circumvented

I didn't put forward a concern either, I defended my previous proposal.

as for the person to person trading to get around caps if my idea wont work you could've just said that. but I'd still say even if there are workarounds the cap would still help a lot. it just wouldn't be a complete solution by itself.

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TheMightyPaladin wrote:
TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Brighellac wrote:
No, you put forward a concern ... And did not put forward another sink idea
As for your dismissal of the Minotaur pvp enhancement sale, it just showed that by using Alts and a person to person trade, both a currency cap and a AH transaction cap can be circumvented

I didn't put forward a concern either, I defended my previous proposal.
as for the person to person trading to get around caps if my idea wont work you could've just said that. but I'd still say even if there are workarounds the cap would still help a lot. it just wouldn't be a complete solution by itself.

Another thing that happens in this circumstance is that something else gets used as the de facto currency. Stone of jordan in diablo 2 for example.

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I like the concept behind

I like the concept behind charging IGC for posting player-made missions, and then charging admission to those (and giving the creator a cut) in further IGC. Unfortunately, that runs the risk of making certain kinds of mission the "go-to" type and thus the most profitable to produce: specifically, the farms. Even if all one could farm from them were exp, that'd still be a massive enticement.

Perhaps if there were a way to make the price to host and play commensurate with the potential reward?

I do think it will need to cost ONGOING IGC payments to KEEP a mission "hosted." And then maybe an archive that would allow somebody who wanted to play a mission that's no longer "hosted" to pay the hosting fee to relist it.

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Well, this is why I decided

Well, this is why I decided to create this thread. To get some ideas so that you guys could possibly tweak them to make them work for the game.

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Segev wrote:
Segev wrote:

I like the concept behind charging IGC for posting player-made missions, and then charging admission to those (and giving the creator a cut) in further IGC. Unfortunately, that runs the risk of making certain kinds of mission the "go-to" type and thus the most profitable to produce: specifically, the farms. Even if all one could farm from them were exp, that'd still be a massive enticement.
Perhaps if there were a way to make the price to host and play commensurate with the potential reward?
I do think it will need to cost ONGOING IGC payments to KEEP a mission "hosted." And then maybe an archive that would allow somebody who wanted to play a mission that's no longer "hosted" to pay the hosting fee to relist it.

Perhaps have flexible price for posting. Instead of a flat rate you have a deduction for how long the missions are, maps, how many different type of foes, text length (so they aren't all the same for easy farming.) That way you reduce the price to post for creativity. Could even have IGC reward for number of player votes (different categories again to try to have more reason to have more subject matter).

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The truth is that if you

The truth is that if you charge IGC to play player-created missions, that is, itself, a kind of voting. A category-voting system would just become corrupted by the people who sought to manipulate it for whatever ends they had. If pricing of admission or posting is influenced by the category votes, then people who want it cheap would game their votes to get it the cheapest they could.

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In order to prevent ruthless

In order to prevent ruthless manipulation by greedy Players you'd need to have a hermetically sealed system ... and quite possibly not even then!


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The point isn't to prevent

The point isn't to prevent ruthless manipulation. The point is to identify the incentives and to design the system such that ruthless manipulation of it results in positive impact on the game and other players' experiences. (This lies behind the idea of Stars being sellable for IGC on the market, for example.)

It won't ever prevent all malfeasance, but it will reduce the temptation towards bad behavior and, where such behaviors are inevitable, transform them (hopefully) into postive ones.

In this case, we're at thes stage of identifying the incentives and what kinds of behaviors pursuing them might lead to. The big perverse incentive here is "build a Farm mission to maximize XP harvest" and the ease of that vs more in-depth storyline-driven content which might (almost certainly will) give far fewer rewards than the Farm.

Add in the new incentive to maximize the number of people (re)playing the map, and creators are incentivised to make max-reward ones that are done as fast as possible.

The next step is to try to figure out how to either make that work for us, or to change the incentives.

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Would the fees for mission

Would the fees for mission hosting not hurt the IGC poor person who has a story to tell but not the IGC to share?

Has there been an internal set goal of how many sinks will be used?

Granted all things are fluid even after launch in this area.

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Further more if a player

Further more if a player decided to buy into the mission maker package or purchase more slots they are then forced work off their hosting fee just to get their story out there and they had to spend actual money just to get the opportunity in the first place.
Further more if the idea is that player made missions are able to be set in the world and thus ment to feel as seemless as possible, charging a listing and paying fee automatically divorces the player mission from the world. And then we must place in a safeguard that wven the most minimal design result in a poaitive gain for the player otherwise players lose igc for playing the game,

While if that were possible the mission may not be popular it further complicates design and since the most likely scenario is that play through results in a net positive reward for both host and player of the mission it actually doesn't provide an adequate sink. Except for thise wjo hosted a mission and it never got played because it got burried in the listings. Which itself isn't a fair system if misions can get lost in the shuffle. If the net result is that playing UGC is less reward because it cost to play it, then it would be simpler to make UCG rewards automatically return at a lesser rate and avoid the double down of buying into the package and IGC hosting fee model.


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I think the most likely means

I think the most likely means of making player-made missions cost to ENTER would be to lock the leads that "create" the mission behind some sort of IGC paywall. Maybe available only from informants who need bribes or something like that. (This is merely in response to the concern about the separation issue dividing player-made missions from the rest of the game in a narrative sense.)

This would require a more involved design, but what if player-made missions required a number of different components to put together elements that go into them? Each "monster" in a mission requires a drop obtained from similar monsters in the real game, each trap requires some sort of schematic, etc.? "earning" the building blocks of your mission becomes a part of playing the game. Essentially, the mission creator is a game to play, too, not "just" a "creative mode" toy.

(The stand-alone mission designer could be built all by itself, without such efforts, but actually "constructing" it and loading it to the game proper would require all the ingredients. Ingredients your mission designer could formulate a list of to let you know what you need. Designing the mission would thus be a blueprint in its own right.)

It does have a strange dichotomy of a purely creative endeavor on the human player's part costing your PCs' effort and resources, but I suspect we can work with that anyway.

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Conversely, you could do

Conversely, you could do something along the lines of ... the more popular a piece of UGC is to play, the more it costs in IGC in order to play it. That way, there's a sort of "plateau" above which the reason to play someone's UGC has nothing to do with the economics incentive and everything to do with the content incentive. So an absurdly popular "farm" UGC Mission could potentially be self defeating as a IGC generator.

Rig it such that a portion of the "fee" to play UGC goes to the author, while a portion is removed from the in-game economy, and you're on your way. Depending on where the economic threshold gets set for being able to "break even" you could wind up with a variety of emergent Player behaviors with respect to UGC and what it "costs" in terms of IGC to partake in that UGC.


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Depending on how "things" are

Depending on how "things" are coded (factions, destructible world, etc.), there could be IGC cost for a "death penalty" that loosely makes sense.

In short ... Fines

Villains & Rogues would choose between being criminally "fined" every time they are defeated whether by the authorities or other NPCs that "leave them holding the bag", as well as fined for property damages (scaled to level) (Rogues fines may be slightly lower while Villains get slightly better "infamy" to differentiate factions) or receiving an XP penalty until revolving fines are paid off.

Heroes & Vigilantes would choose between being "fined" for law infractions "in the line of duty", as well as property damage (scaled to level) (Heroes being fined slightly less than Vigilantes) or receiving an XP penalty until revolving fines are paid off.

Not sure how it'd be coded (if it even could be with tracking damages) or even received by players but I guess that is why we're discussing these things here.

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Not sure I like the idea of

Not sure I like the idea of being fined. It's like when I'm watching the Avengers movie and the politician is all "Who will pay for this damage? It wasn't our fight!" Why yes! Yes it was! You were just running for cover! (not that I blame him) but when aliens come attacking and no one else can take them down except those heroes. Did they think the military would leave the city in better condition? :p

Same with the powerful supervillain. The point of the superhero, is the regular cops can't take them on easily by themselves if at all.

No not sure I care for the fine that way, only because I think it's going to need to be fair no matter one's alignment or people won't play the alignment they want and rather, they'll play what seems to be the min/max best to play.

While it's getting better in other MMOs, you still see it. "Which race should I pick for this class?" When the race choice makes such a tiny difference, it's only noticeable in the math and not the actual game play. :p

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Honestly, to me and I

Honestly, to me and I understand the thinking, but trying to make Player Made Missions a part of the real world doesn't make sense to me. I see it more like a Holodeck, or a Danger Room. Don't get me wrong, I see where other people are coming from when they say they don't like seeing people all congregated into one building and would rather have them running about in the game world. It just doesn't feel right to me. I never had a problem with the AE buildings. It felt like I was accessing a Holodeck to play missions. I don't know. I mean I get it, but I don't get it. I'd just rather keep all the Player Created Content in one area instead of having everybody running around in the game world, plus it might cut down on the confusion of people asking to join the team thinking regular content was being ran instead.

*edit

Also, I was never in favor of rewarding IGC from User Generated Content. I only expressed the desire for Experience to be a reward, again thinking in terms of Danger Room and Holodeck scenarios where the experience is real but the rewards are not.

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Segev wrote:
Segev wrote:

I think the most likely means of making player-made missions cost to ENTER would be to lock the leads that "create" the mission behind some sort of IGC paywall. Maybe available only from informants who need bribes or something like that. (This is merely in response to the concern about the separation issue dividing player-made missions from the rest of the game in a narrative sense.)
This would require a more involved design, but what if player-made missions required a number of different components to put together elements that go into them? Each "monster" in a mission requires a drop obtained from similar monsters in the real game, each trap requires some sort of schematic, etc.? "earning" the building blocks of your mission becomes a part of playing the game. Essentially, the mission creator is a game to play, too, not "just" a "creative mode" toy.
(The stand-alone mission designer could be built all by itself, without such efforts, but actually "constructing" it and loading it to the game proper would require all the ingredients. Ingredients your mission designer could formulate a list of to let you know what you need. Designing the mission would thus be a blueprint in its own right.)
It does have a strange dichotomy of a purely creative endeavor on the human player's part costing your PCs' effort and resources, but I suspect we can work with that anyway.

There are parts of this that i personally think should be avoided. Particuarly in that UGC becomjng dependant upon player activity in the fame proper reliant on drops to the character which are actually affect the player's account. After all UGC isn't "made by the character" but by the player. Drops to the character (bound or tradable) should always be used for the possibility of advancement of that character.

A similar argument is along the lines of what constitutes a character earned badge and player account earned badge.
Now that being said, I could see character earned badges unlocking account rewards for stuff like UCG design. Defeat Monster X, get the Monster X badge, unlock the Monster X NPC in the mision maker.
We could even work it in with our challenges and achievements system.

Further more, user generated content has more to do with the player creating content and less to do with a particular player character creating content. So now we are saying on one hand you the player paid to access mission creator content but posting said content is dependant upon one of your character's financing said content.

My opinion is this is crossing a line that should be respected by developers.


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Segev wrote:
Segev wrote:

The point isn't to prevent ruthless manipulation. The point is to identify the incentives and to design the system such that ruthless manipulation of it results in positive impact on the game and other players' experiences. (This lies behind the idea of Stars being sellable for IGC on the market, for example.)
It won't ever prevent all malfeasance, but it will reduce the temptation towards bad behavior and, where such behaviors are inevitable, transform them (hopefully) into postive ones.
In this case, we're at thes stage of identifying the incentives and what kinds of behaviors pursuing them might lead to. The big perverse incentive here is "build a Farm mission to maximize XP harvest" and the ease of that vs more in-depth storyline-driven content which might (almost certainly will) give far fewer rewards than the Farm.
Add in the new incentive to maximize the number of people (re)playing the map, and creators are incentivised to make max-reward ones that are done as fast as possible.
The next step is to try to figure out how to either make that work for us, or to change the incentives.

You remember that drop down box I suggested?

XP Farm for Fire
XP Farm for Ice
XP Farm for Melee
etc.

Just link the box to a flag that prevents anything with "Farm" from receiving IGC from users. Or, even easier, have the flag only open a UGC mission to receiving payment in IGC if it is categorized as "story".

There would have to be a review process, naturally.

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Once the player base figures

Once the player base figures out the trigger words, trigger words are avoided. The loot farming mission that have cropped up in STO don't use the word farming and has a note from author not to rate it.

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Charging more for more

Charging more for more popular UGC will also, perversely, encourage the farms more than the "real content" missions. It has to do with ease of creation. Making a monitoring program that would identify "clones" of maps that does more than check for a 100% duplicate will lead to problems with fuzziness of what is "enough" change. Without such a monitoring program, charging for more popular UGC will just mean that the popular UGC gets replicated and re-released under a new name to reset its popularity.

If there IS some sort of reliable means to prevent that, then the farms win again: it's a lot easier to make an efficient farm than it is to come up with new content. When one farm gets too expensive, the next will be ready to go with minimal effort. If high-quality UGC with a marvelous storyline becomes very popular, replacing it would be impossible, and the high price would turn people away from playing it.

Similarly, voting and labeling systems will be abused to create the responses that the players want. At best, they'd get used to grief good content by labeling it (falsely) as a "farm," and at worst, it would be nearly meaningless as the labels associated with high concept or deep plot would be applied to the genuine farms enough to counterbalance any genuine labels of "farm" applied by others.

I think, assuming the goal is to curb farm-maps, that a more useful metric for IGC costs to post or play would be to base them on how much XP the map hands out per play-through, on average. This wouldn't prevent farming, but it would take what is already a behavior that is going to be hard to curb, and at least make it flush more IGC out of the economy. I'd almost say we could shortcut it further by just having a place to spend IGC for XP/levels, but the fiction that it's being "earned" through the farming is probably important.

And again, there WILL be reasons why even those who love playing through the game "normally" will want to "power level," as long as there is content restricted by level or any notion that there's an "endgame" to "get to." If the game changes past a certain level, it will always be something that some players will want to strive for while rushing past the part of the game they don't find as enjoyable.

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At one point I had brought up

At one point I had brought up an idea about NPC mission givers not allowing infinite incomplete play-throughs of given missions in the sense that it's unrealistic to expect a contact to be kept waiting for a mission to be completed for many many tries over multiple years of real time. That idea met with a lot of opposition from some people who claimed that repeat mission farming was their preferred Play Style (TM) and that the devs had no right to try to take it away from them. For the record I still think getting maximum rewards for minimum effort is really everyone's Play Style(TM) but that doesn't mean the missions ought to just hand you the rewards for doing nothing, so there have to be some limits on what can be done and how often etc.

But this discussion raises the question in my mind : Does UGC and the farming thereof fall under that same "Play Style(TM)" umbrella? And if it doesn't, why is that?

It seems to me that trying to regulate UGC is way harder than regulating Dev-generated content in the first place and the only difference between farming dev-written missions and UGC missions is one of scale. The UGC, if designed right, can be more lucrative, but that's really where the differences end.

I'm not fond of farming at all, but if the argument, which was mostly accepted by a lot of poeple, devs included, from what I remember, is that mission repeat farming is a legitimate Play Style (TM), then why are we now trying to stop it in UGC but not in regular content as well? It feels like a double standard to me.

For what it's worth, I'd just make all UGC produce way less XP and other rewards overall to compensate. The legit story-writers of the world have nobody to blame for that but the farmers. Unfortunate as that may be, that's why we can't have nice things. People take advantage. People who like a good story can still write and do UGC, you just have to make it so far from the most profitable thing that it isn't worth the farmer's efforts to try.

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I don't mind farming, I

I don't mind farming, I certainly did enough of it in my time. *However* I will draw a qualitative, if not yet quantitative distinction between farming and exploiting. For the purpose of discussion, let me define a some broad categories of UGC, classifying each in terms of "units of reward". UoR can be IGC, XP, drops, etc.

Cat 1: Generates UoR about as fast as street sweeping.
Cat 2: Generates UoR about as fast as missions.
Cat 3: Generates UoR faster than missions, may require optimizations of build, i.e. Fire focused in CoH.
Cat 4: Generates UoR faster than missions, does not require any build considerations.
Cat 5: Generates UoR much faster than missions.

In general, I would call Cat 1 and Cat 2 normal UGC. Cat 3 would be farming. Cat 4 is verging on exploit. Cat 5 is exploiting.

Now, this is qualitative, I am not defining where the breakpoints are numerically.0

I, personally am OK with Cat 1-3. Cat 4 is questionable, and where numbers really start mattering. I am not a fan of Cat 5, because many players will then feel like they "have to keep up with the Joneses", and ignore other content to play Cat 5.

Anyway, these are my musings, and should not be taken as the opinions of the management of CoT.

Felix

Just my 2 IGC.

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As a general rule, I think

As a general rule, I think the best IGC source-sink system would be one where you have a reasonable ability to earn IGC and a slightly higher ceiling on how much you can spend on things that drain it out completely. So like, you've got some amount of earning potential, maybe no unlimited, but up there, then you have things you want that are voluntary, optional purchases which don't retain IGC value over time, can't be traded for a profit, and sink the IGC completely. This way, when IGC is plentiful, people will spend it more loosely, and when it's more scarce, people will hoard it more. That system, if it could exist at all, would be self-regulating to a large degree, I think.

What I think would be the ideal sink in that scenario I cannot mention here.

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If, or When, the Mission

If, or When, the Mission Builder allows for very crudely made Cut Scenes (pick from 3 predefined camera angles, Front, angled Down, Angled Up'ish, Looking At NPC).. and User Text that the NPC speaks shows up in the Chat bubbles, then you will have the game pick up momentum. ;)

Of course many of the Emotes might work for most biped NPC's for those cut scenes. Mostly. :)

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I think we can all agree that

I think we can all agree that there are detrimental effects to farming. To me, farming is defined as receiving a disproportional amount of reward for the time spent and risk involved. For me, the problem with farming is that it CAN have an effect on other, non-farming players vie the Market and other factors. Some players will want to farm for whatever rewards they see fit and I don't think we're going to be able to change theirs minds on the subject any time soon.

So if we want them to stop why not simply remove the incentive? Player-created missions provide full rewards the first time through only. Subsequent runs net reduced rewards. Not runs per day...runs PERIOD. You can run that Funhouse mission all you want if you like but only the first couple of run-throughs will net as much reward as running through other game content. After that, the rewards drop. The lower limit could be something like 50-75% of normal. That way people who really like a mission for content can play it all they want without breaking the economy. As for clones with new names or other systems to reset the mission, limit each account to three missions published at a time.

Remove the incentive of getting more per minute or less risk and the farmers will go away all on their own.

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Here's a different notion

Here's a different notion then.

UGC offers one and only one Reward type ... TICKETS.
You don't get Drops.
You don't get IGC.
You don't get XP.
All you get for doing UGC is ... TICKETS.

When you've finished doing your UGC, you can "cash out" your Tickets for a variety of Rewards of your choosing ... which can be stuff that goes into Inventory (ie. Drops), or IGC or XP. In other words, it's going to be a Choose Your Own Reward type of deal.

However ... the NPC you're interacting with to exchange your Tickets for those Rewards is an Ebil Marketeer NPC AI ... meaning that the "prices" for the Rewards can fluctuate depending on what other Players are doing and have done recently so as to bring an element of supply & demand into the equation. It could even be something as simple as having a "ratchet" system where after a period of {insert duration here} the Ticket Price of each Reward will drop by one notch, due to low demand for that Reward ... and every time that a Player (anywhere in the game) purchases each Reward, the price for that Reward goes up by one notch. In other words, prices will "float" depending on how often Players are "buying" that specific Reward. If nobody's buying, the prices will come down, but if everyone is buying then the prices will go up. The actual Rewards themselves will remain constant, but the price in Tickets will vary with the demand for specific Rewards.

If you want to institute gambling, this would be the place to do it. Turn in {insert variable number of Tickets} to receive a Random Reward of {insert Reward type}. If there's a broad enough selection of Rewards then the system will achieve a dynamic equilibrium that is inherently self-balancing based on how heavily UGC is played in aggregate by the entire community, rather than relying on the "dedication" of individuals. Consequently, the "market" for UGC sourced Rewards could wax and wane in a way that would be relatively easy for the Developers to datamine and track to find trends, and it would be a system that discourages (rather than prevents) demand spikes, thereby "rewarding" Players who take the longer view and who are willing to be patient, while at the same time "penalizing" Players who lack patience and simply want everything all in one go NAO NAO NAO!!!

So yeah ... Tickets ... for UGC, which then opens up the design space to "moderate" how heavily/quickly those Tickets can be exploited.


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Again, the problem lies in

Again, the problem lies in that incentivizing creating "same map, different name" versions of a mission, over and over again, just to allow players to farm them by doing "different" ones each time.

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Some of the Devs have said

Some of the Devs have said that Max level is not the end game. That they want to encourage alting. Hopefully they can figure out a way to level the field for IGC earned through regular missions. If they can do that, then I propose they make the missions created by players xp only missions. If the goal isn't the endgame, then there shouldn't be as much harm in xp farms created by players. Again, I akin it to something more like the Danger Room from X-men, or the Holodeck from Star Trek. A fun experience, but nothing you can take away from it physically. Just experience.

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I like Red's idea. I would

I like Red's idea. I would personally go so far as to make the "gamble your tickets away" option the ONLY use for tickets that players have. And then the randomized reward table can be set up to give whatever level of payout the devs find optimal.

I think CoX had something like this and the problem was that the payoff you got out of the gamble-tron was high enough to make it a net positive IGC maker for the player. If that problem could solved, I think that's a fine system.

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Segev wrote:
Segev wrote:

Again, the problem lies in that incentivizing creating "same map, different name" versions of a mission, over and over again, just to allow players to farm them by doing "different" ones each time.

This is only true if the number of "slots" a character (or better yet, an account) has to make UGC is set relatively high (like a dozen or more). When the UGC "slots" are set low, the incentive structure you're talking about distorts.

Also, by dissociating the Rewards from the Content Run via use of the Tickets currency, you pretty much blow a hole in the "need" (or even incentive/return) to do the whole Wash, Rinse, Repeat routine of delete/import to achieve the "same map, different name" result. When the only thing you can get out of UGC is Tickets, you pretty much obviate the need to play a shell game with the UGC to be run.

In fact, I'd take things even further such that the NPC Ticket Vendor can accept IGC to sell your PC a "primer" of Tickets (ie. enough to pay the fee for running any UGC content, but not enough to buy a Ticket Reward with) and make the whole UGC system run on Tickets. You pay Tickets in order to play UGC ... and UGC "pays out" in Tickets for completing the UGC, with most (all?) of the reward being conditioned upon Mission Completion rather than just on Body Counts. If you really enjoyed the UGC that you played, you can provide a tip of Tickets to the author of the UGC.

In other words ... think poker chips and pit boss for handling the UGC system. Allow "buy in" via IGC conversion to Tickets as a prevention measure against an edge case of running out of Tickets to be able to do anything in the UGC system. And when it's time to "cash out" your Tickets, the system for doing so is one deliberately designed to be Easy to Modify to guard against the inevitable exploits.


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I'm sorry, Redlynn, that wasn

I'm sorry, Redlynn, that wasn't in response to your, but to this post right before yours:

Comicsluvr wrote:

I think we can all agree that there are detrimental effects to farming. To me, farming is defined as receiving a disproportional amount of reward for the time spent and risk involved. For me, the problem with farming is that it CAN have an effect on other, non-farming players vie the Market and other factors. Some players will want to farm for whatever rewards they see fit and I don't think we're going to be able to change theirs minds on the subject any time soon.
So if we want them to stop why not simply remove the incentive? Player-created missions provide full rewards the first time through only. Subsequent runs net reduced rewards. Not runs per day...runs PERIOD. You can run that Funhouse mission all you want if you like but only the first couple of run-throughs will net as much reward as running through other game content. After that, the rewards drop. The lower limit could be something like 50-75% of normal. That way people who really like a mission for content can play it all they want without breaking the economy. As for clones with new names or other systems to reset the mission, limit each account to three missions published at a time.
Remove the incentive of getting more per minute or less risk and the farmers will go away all on their own.

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Going back to the IGC sink

Going back to the IGC sink discussion, I think any attempt at making missions or other content have a fee in IGC to access them would be met with the expectation that the mission or whatever it is would earn MORE IGC upon successful completion, and thus all you're really doing is, ultimately, handing out less IGC for doing missions and stuff that way. I mean you may as well just eliminate the IGC fee to do a thing and lower the payout at the end instead, right?

And even crafting fees still cause the IGC that you spend to be bound up in the form of a commodity that can then later be traded for IGC (Augments and Refinements), so you're at best burying the IGC, not completely destroying it. It's true some people will put Augments and stuff in powers and leave them there forever, and that does effectively sink some IGC, but you can always make more, and you'll eventually run out of slots to put Augments and stuff into.

What I keep circling back around to is the thought that the only really effective IGC sink would have to be a thing that people WANT to buy with IGC in a "repeat business" sense, doesn't create anything that retains its IGC value over time, can't be traded for IGC later, and is basically used up in some way like a consumable. That way, in lean years, people will tighten their belts and not buy it, whatever it is, and in fat years they'll buy more and enjoy it for whatever it provides them. This would hopefully create the kind of feedback that the markets need and thus some form of quasi-stable equilibrium might be established. You'd likely still have some inflation, but hopefully not HYPER inflation.

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Wait... I though that UGC was

Wait... I though that UGC was suppose to be created by players to sorta Expand / Branch further out from Existing Lore. So this way you could set it up so that existing NPC's could be used as Contacts (travel to them on the open world map) with User Created Chat responses were possible. So it felt like the Game Never Ends when you try other User Generated Content that other players created?
Missions that you built could be used as well (Mission Builder), just have to pick a Door Entrance from any of the existing ones from the Open World Map building doors / cave entrances / etc...

As you explore the Open World Map, door entrances have Red Aura you can click on to pick it as the entrance to a particular mission, or Add more, and the game picks one randomly from the Short List you made, for the player. To make it even easier for you to see All of the available Doors, the rest of the Open World Map can be whited out. Well, sorta gray'ish. :)
ex:
Well, only structures/sewer entrances/certain caves, etc... would be colored that has a Door Entrance.

Same kind of thing for locating NPC's on the Open World Map as well. ;)

Am I way off here?
If not, Tickets B BAD then!

It takes the player out of immersive nature of the Continuation of the world already built by MWM, lore wise.

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Unfortunately there IS going

Unfortunately there IS going to be inflation in IGC. It WILL happen. The trick is to try to control the inflation process as much as you can. If people want to save IGC, they will. In doing so, that will then give them the opportunity to drive prices as they see fit. If you don't give people enough IGC for the things they do, it will feel like a major grind and will drive people away. Give them too much and then inflation will run rampant. It's a very tricky balancing act that I don't envy. You can't just link IGC sinks into consumables. If you do, people just won't buy the consumables until they have more IGC than they know what to do with. Potions (consumables) work great for a little while, but not all the time. That is why I said we need to find a bunch of little things that don't seem like much to the player, yet add up over time to be a good chunk of IGC sink. Right now we seem to be stuck on charging IGC for player made missions. That may not be the best idea. It's AN idea, but we need to try to think of OTHER ideas as well. I listed a few in the beginning to get us started. I'm hoping others can come up with a few that I hadn't thought of, or can possibly expand upon the ones I did.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

RottenLuck
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Think we need a new thread

Think we need a new thread for Player Created Content. Seems there a few confusing or conflicting ideas.

Okay a list of IGC sinks I noticed might have missed a few. Also added a few off the top of my head.

Pay to ride transport, (Taxis. busses, trains,)

Ingame games (gambling halls, video games, sport events)

Costume edits and changes.

Player housing

Bases

Pay postage for items sent via mail.

Pay to post Player created content.

Pay to play player created content.

Did I miss any?

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What if one could purchase a

What if one could purchase a Respec with IGC?

Be Well!
Fireheart

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That seems like an excellent

That seems like an excellent one, fireheart. That also seems like one that could be expensive

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RottenLuck wrote:
RottenLuck wrote:

Did I miss any?

I would say crafting costs are still a valid IGC sink. If you earn currency with the items you craft, that currency comes from other players and is not generated. And furthermore we may be able to craft temporary powers that will likely not be tradable.

Some temp powers might be for sale directly by NPCs.

Then there was the idea to be able to donate IGC to various factions and organisations to gain their favor or change alignment.

And finally my idea to turn off IGC gain for an experience boost would also act like a sink.

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For the sake of clarity:

For the sake of clarity:

UGC = User generated content (like AE missions in CoX)

IGC = In-game currency (like Influence in CoX)

And getting back the IGC sinking again. In real life people earn money at a rate they can generally measure pretty well (salaries, hours worked, etc). Then there's this HUGE world of stuff out there that you could potentially spend that money on. There's practically NO LIMIT to how much stuff you could spend money on, but there is a pretty severe limit on how much money you make (for most of us).

Now, in an MMO, I would like to believe that my toon is rich by comparative standards, so I'm not against the idea of people earning IGC, not at all. I just would like to have, like in real life, a plethora of great stuff to spend IGC on most of which does not amount to an investment which might gain value over time but rather purchases that consume IGC once and for all.

The assumption that providing people with more options of stuff to spend IGC on than they actually have IGC to afford is going to make everyone poor is, in my opinion, not an accurate assumption. Some people may go broke on stuff they bought with IGC. Others might try to save theirs up. That's a personal choice and one I think players ought to be allowed to make for themselves anyway. If a guy decides he's going to stop playing the game in a week or two when he ships out to college or the army, he'd probably blow all of his IGC on frivolous stuff, and that's his right to do that if he want's to. In any event it's not a problem in terms of inflation or the value of IGC at all regardless of what everyone does. The simple fact that there's stuff to consume IGC on is a sink, and sinks are needed. I'd just prefer not to take anything away from anyone against their will (like a tax) but rather I think it would be better to allow people to make purchases they want to make at the cost of IGC being effectively destroyed.

I like the ideas Rotten Luck mentioned, except for the idea of betting on PVP matches (as sport events), that's a sure-fire "fixed match" scam, I feel. Crafting, ultimately, has to be a net IGC earning mechanism for people for it to work right, I feel. The guy who gets a random Augment or something to drop needs to be able to craft it and then make more IGC selling it than it cost to make. I can't imagine a game where that wouldn't be the case. All that really does is move the IGC and Augments around a little, it doesn't really sink anything in the strictest sense of the word. While it's true you might leave an Augment in a power for years, and if so that IGC is effectively sunk, but that IGC can be resurrected later if you need it by unslotting the Augment and selling it to raise IGC if you need to. Things which do not have that ability to sell them off as a backup plan would be better and truer sinks, to me.

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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

What if one could purchase a Respec with IGC?
Be Well!
Fireheart

Enough other games out there do this. It makes sense and it means that "respeccing" is not done in the CoX version of "do hard content to get the respec".

What you can also do is do what WoW did at one point. Now this is only a suggestion but it is a potential route to go:

The more often you respec in a period of time the more expensive it becomes. Now this is only really a problem if you are limited to just one build on a character at any point in time.

If multiple builds are available (like CoX/Wildstar/WoW for example) then I wouldn't go with this increase in cost.

I would also quite possibly make it a scaling cost instead. Small tweaks/changes have a lower cost, whilst a *complete* rebuild from the ground up would be the most expensive option.

So this means that a person who has minimal funds could quite possibly rebuild over a period of time instead of being hit with a large upfront fee.

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If it costs IGC to craft, and

If it costs IGC to craft, and that cost is in the form of something which actually goes to the game (rather than another player), it doesn't matter that the crafted item could be sold on the market for more IGC than it cost to craft: the IGC spent to craft it is sunk. There is less IGC in the world than there was before. That Crafty Cam now has netted +1000 IGC from the transaction (it cost him 500 IGC to make the item, and he sold it for 1500 IGC, for example) does not change that 500 IGC were sunk out of the system. Spendthrift Sam may be out 1500 IGC, and Cam may have 1000 more IGC than he had before, but there are 500 fewer IGC in the world.

So that does work as a sink.

Any time that the profit to the individual comes from getting another player to pay him IGC in excess of the IGC he spent to get the thing he sold to the other player, then it isn't just slowing the creation of IGC.

The problem arises if the player spends IGC for access to something, and then turns around and gains IGC from the game itself in excess of the IGC he just spent. If Mission Melody spends 500 IGC to gain access to a special mission, but the mission generates 1500 IGC for her, Melody has generated a net 1000 IGC in earning her profit. There are now 1000 more IGC than there were before.

That's the distinction, and that's what we need to keep in mind when designing IGC sinks which might nonetheless profit the person who spends IGC on them: their profit must come from other players who wish to buy something from them.

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Radiac
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Fair point on crafting, Segev

Fair point on crafting, Segev, but the item created retains some market value as well, and that has a net-inflationary effect, doesn't it?

I mean, when a toon crafts an item, there's work done there in the form of assembling all the necessary pieces and so forth with the intention that the crafting process provides a value added and allows the crafter to get more IGC than he spent. The crafting process destroys IGC, technically, and the sale of the item only moves IGC from one guy to another, but the item created can appreciate or depreciate in price over time after that. In that sense the item itself could eventually create more "IGC value" than it sank in the form of value added (and by that I mean it would appreciate in price while sitting in a power or inventory bin).

On the other hand, something like a candy bar or sodapop will be consumed and as such the IGC is sunk AND the value added is sunk as well, because the thing the IGC paid for was a temporary thing with no ability to retain value over time.

By way of analogy, in real life a lot of stuff that get's crafted, like cars, loses value over time via depreciation. I would think that if most durable goods only ever appreciated in value then the result would be more inflation (e.g. If a car made in 1940 is more valuable now than it was in 1940, then, ipso facto, the dollar must be less valuable) is that not true?

Because items created in a digital setting, for the most part , are not subject to the sort of wear and tear that naturally effects things like cars and furniture and clothing in real life. The Augment made today will still work "just like new" in 8 years. In a digital world, you'd never have to buy a new car, or a new couch, or a new pair of socks for that matter. In a world where nobody ever has to spend IGC to replace worn-out stuff, they just make as much stuff as they need then stop spending IGC on stuff. Then the IGC starts to pile up and you get inflation. At least that's how I've been thinking about it.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

Segev
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The only impact the crafted

The only impact the crafted item would have would be on the scarcity of said item. If anything, that would have a deflationary effect on the price of that item in IGC on the market.

That is, if there is only one Ultralass Cape on the market, and 1000 players in the market want it, the bidding for it could get extreme. If Crafty Cam and his ilk start producing Ultralass Capes, and churn out 10 of them, the prices will remain high...but the biddign will be less frantic than for the 1. If Crafty Cam actually gets 500 of them out there, then half the people who want one can have one, and the bidding competition becomes much lower.

(I know, I know, I'm explaining basic supply and demand; sorry if I'm insulting anybody's intelligence. I just want to be very clear on where I'm coming from.)

So each Ultralass Cape reduces the amount of IGC in the game (since it costs IGC to craft them), and increases the supply of Ultralass Capes. The demand:supply ratio decreases, so the market price goes down, too.

There's definitely value added. But it's added in a non-IGC item.

You're right, of course, that a demand for consumable items will be much more constant; eventually, barring new players (or new alts), everybody who wants an Ultralass Cape will have one, whereas a Stargazer Crisp that gets used up every fight or few (for whatever reason) that has an effect people want would be re-purchased again and again, sinking IGC each time.

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Radiac
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I agree then that more alts

I agree then that more alts means more demand for stuff, which should reduce inflation.

I personally would probably try to make enough IGC on my first toon to be able to kit out my next toon (at least to some extent) before rolling up that next toon, and I'd continue to play my "level capped and best swag already gotten" toon just to get maximum IGC for the time spent in order to play the market and pay for goodies for other toons. That said, I think people are all over the place in terms of how many alts are enough and when they'd make a new one. Some people are the type that only make one toon, some make like maximum alts day one and play then in parallel.

Altaholism as a form of IGC sinking in and of itself is also limited by how many alts a given account is allowed. Then beyond that there's the question of how easy it is to just swap out Augments etc between toons instead of kitting out all of them separately. I don't expect swapping loadouts to really be all that easy to do though, so I'm less worried about that.

And I don't take offense at the basic supply/demand lesson. I have to think about stuff in terms of concrete examples in order to really think about it at all in the context of this game anyway. So by all means, condescend to me as much as you like :)

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Segev
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I think even if you're

I think even if you're spending your main's IGC to fully kit out your alts, you're still sinking more IGC just by having more places to spend it.

But the best advice anybody has had in this thread, I think, is the advice about having tons and tons of ways to spend IGC. As long as there are more ways to spend it than the rate of growth, sure, there might be things people don't get because they can't afford it, but that means there's room for IGC inflation to grow. And the "rich" will be those who have all they want, not those with nothing on which to spend it. If they ever divest themselves of their excess IGC - whether through the market or by giving it away or whatever - there will be places for it to sink to in the hands of others, rather than just sitting around in an ever-growing pile that's slowly pushed around to change who owns the biggest wave-crest in the money bin.

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