Begging for coin

[Serissa]

Since the last tweak on drops, my characters don't seem to be making enough coin on trips to pay for bandages and healing potions.  Admittedly, both have high heal skills and tend to use a lot of bandages and a fair amount of potions on all party members.  Two trips to the bottom of Haven with Sala netted about 1500 coins per trip, divided among 3 people.  One trip to Thunder Mountain with Ferrit, almost to the King, netted 800 coins to be divided among about 8 people.  I don't want to complain, but at this rate, I soon won't be able to afford to adventure.

[Xirion]

Well, to be honest I see it similar and so I thought I write a reply to support this.
I understand that the drop had to be lowered. It was quite easy for my Pala to find reall too high amounts of true (e.g.) in the Gloom Woods. I think in the goblin camp around Hempstead as I helped a new PC he found 400 true, which is definately to high.
But I think it would be good to raise the drop -a bit-, maybe just more bandages or potions would be a solution aswell.
Some may say that it is now more neccessary to travell with a cleric
Yes, true... But where can I get one?! Maybe it is because of my Timezone, but I mostly find none. I dont wnat to solo several areas to become rich, I love to go with aparty, even if the party is to strong for the area and the share is not so high in the end.

Others may say, you can craft and sell items
Yes, true aswell... but crafting needs a lot of time, time I dont have anymore or atleast not the amout of time I would need to craft that much so that I would be able to sell enough.

I agree with the team that lowered the drop that it has been too high, but I also agree with Sarissa that it is now to low.

Thanks for reading and maybe considering
>Xirion>

[Masterjack]

 Two trips to the bottom of Haven with Sala netted about 1500 coins per trip, divided among 3 people.  

I remember before V3 when Haven had Ogres instead of gnolls. We used to be able to get 3000 true in one trip to the bottom and back. I just put this in as a reference to show what the changes are like.

Mind you the Ogres........ (deleted)

[Lord of the Forest]

Please no CNR Locations, even not indirectly, thank you.

[Nyralotep]

Even with a cleric the amount of gold dropped is lower than replenishment of healing supplies.  After a 3 - 4 hour trip last night in the Thunder Peaks in a party of 5 I managed to pick up a little over 1600 gold.  Everyone in the party went through more than that just in healing kits to keep everyone alive, which was a cooperative effort.  And that was without having to heal Beasty and his ungodly amount of hit points.

[Dorganath]

I've been planning on increasing gold drop levels. I realized they were probably over-tweaked and too low, especially on the low end.

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

Now, coming from someone with near 200k true (takes a bow) I dont feel the burn, but then again, when I'm trying to get my hands on rare and valuable merchandise like Weapon Enhancements, Special Armors, and/or just supplies for crafting, that 200k slowly trickles away to -0-.  I've taken a break from the epic adventures where you trudge through Haven, the Rift, Thunder Peaks or places like The Mosscrypt *glares at the Unholy Morass spawning DM* Alindor's Demise, and Storans.  So my income is close to 0 if im not selling the Jewelry Shiff makes.

I'm not saying lets make gold as common as grass (can you imagine that? o.0) but I'd like somemore please  

[miltonyorkcastle]

Bah. I like the drop rate how it is now. I'm hoping it encourages more barter and goods trading.

Please please please don't increase the gold drop amount. Sure, crafting takes time, but now bandage-makers have become more important. And you don't have to pay them in gold. Try paying with some aloe leaves, or maybe some corn, or even the iron weapon you were going to pawn. Spend the time walking and talking with a group to gather the mundane herbs and foods for trade.

If anything, the lower drop rates will slow down the daily grind and encourage more interaction to get things accomplished. A trip that could be done with three people and a huge amount of bandages now takes six people and an average amount of bandages. Certainly there are times when you find yourself alone, but isn't it those times that you can do the slow crafting (like making bandages) until someone comes around?

I dunno. I'm just a fan of the barter system, and I'm always in favor of making adventures more challenging.


P.S. My main character Steel has never had more than 30k in his bank at one time, and the average amount of True in his account sits around 3k. At the same time, he has good gear, most of which he payed for not with gold, but with goods or service. The point is, making it as an adventurer can be done without going through 100k True a week. Be creative in how you pay for things.

[Dorganath]

Yeah, I agree milty, but the fact is that there's a whole lot of crafting supplies (tools, containers, etc.) that you can't barter for.

I'm mostly talking about the lower end of things anyway...which will ultimately be along the lines of a full spawn dropping 30 GP instead of 15 GP.

The high end is probably fine where it's at.

[ycleption]

I dunno, I'm sure everyone has their opinion about how big the gold drops should be...
I guess I think drops should reflect that a player should have to work hard to earn enough true to buy decent gear for their level, but that it should be doable without resorting to massive grinding for true. (I'm sure it's a lot easier for me to describe that balance than it is to find and implement it, however)

Milty, I like the idea of bartering in theory, but without a huge economy, it doesn't work as well in practice...
Maybe people in other trades have different results, but the vast majority of tailored things I sell are lower level items (eg. panther cloaks), which I typically sell to people who can't really get anything I would particularly care to barter for.  I've had better luck bartering with lion bags, but certainly not enough that it would make it worth crafting them if I didn't have sales in true as well.
I've tried selling and bartering those +9 bandages, but have had very limited success. The result of which is I don't make them anymore; even at the current drop rates I can earn enough from drops to buy several rolls of the lower end bandages in the time it would take me to gather materials to make a single +9 or +6 bandage.

So anyway... I guess I definitely think that the drops are too low if it starts costing true to adventure.
Except for Shiff. He obviously has too much true and the DMs should monitor him and decrease the drops anyplace he travels

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

Except for Shiff. He obviously has too much true and the DMs should monitor him and decrease the drops anyplace he travels

*laughs happily*  Blame the Mystery Minerals.  I found one that was an Emerald and sold it for 200k....  *snickers*

[AeonBlues]

For the record.  The problem when too many items were dropping was reported a couple weeks quicker, then this issue of not enough coins.

Love you guys.

AeonBlues

[Pen N Popper]

While I don't mind low gold numbers, I am not in favor of making it so extraordinarily difficult for new players and PCs to get established in the world.  

Crafting is expensive unless you choose one without need for tools.  Buying gear means bartering with epic PCs (if you can run across them) or buying the gear from epic guilds (at well established prices).  Of course there is wiggle room in there, but not much without metagaming.

I don't have a solution except to say that putting a damper on new PCs starting out should be avoided if possible.

Good luck!

[Polak76]

Yeah, I agree milty, but the fact is that there's a whole lot of crafting supplies (tools, containers, etc.) that you can't barter for.

I'm mostly talking about the lower end of things anyway...which will ultimately be along the lines of a full spawn dropping 30 GP instead of 15 GP.

The high end is probably fine where it's at.

Lower the prices of the crafting equipment/tools.

I'm in total agreement with less gold means more interaction.  Unfortunately from an economical point of view, one move in one place tips the balance in another.

Now if gold becomes less acumulative from creature drops, healing kits/potions would increase in sales in the market, the price will fall and the demand will increase.  Unfortunately that means the resources will become further scarce.  You'll need to increase the amount of aloe, comfrey, cotton..etc.

I like the changes to Layo.  Longer rest periods have increased the need to have potions, wands and scrolls more readily available.  Now less gold means that potions and healing kits also become more important from PC crafters, thus increasing interaction.

We need to view all these things positively.  At the end of the day the changes are more realistic and benefit Layo.

Anyway thats my little comment.

Cheers,
Polak76

[Dorganath]

My comments above still stand.

I'll respond to a couple of comments from Polak76 as well, because he brings up some legitimate things:

Lowering crafting supplies would be one option, but the thing is that I can change the gold loot drops wile the server is running if needed or by adjusting the database and rebooting.  Readjusting the pricing on crafting materials would take lots of time that we don't really have. We'd also need to reduce the price of things like food that can be bought from innkeepers, etc.

There are 4 gold drop ranges in the game, which correspond to the four ranges for loot drops. Each range has its own math that computes how much gold should drop as well as whether or not it should drop at all.    The math for the low end amounts (that is: how much gold is dropped each time a single creature drops gold) is, I believe, pretty much right where it needs to be.  The frequency at which gold drops is what I'm talking about and what can be adjusted easily.

Prior to V3, the rate at which gold dropped and the frequency that it dropped were just about right, actually. When we went to V3, we put in a new system for loot and gold generation.  It has taken a while to get it worked out right because it works in a significantly different way than the old system worked.

Because of a misunderstanding on my part, gold was dropping 100% of the time.

As you can see, this would make your average adventuring trip extremely profitable, especially in high CR areas.  This was a very unfortunate mistake.  More unfortunate is that it went on for months...with almost no one mentioning it, I'd add.

With the last patch (3.01.1), I now have finite control over the frequencies of drops for both gold and items and such control can be managed at any time without a module update.  The initially-configured numbers for gold drops were estimations that are in retrospect turning out to be a bit too low, especially on the low end, which is the primary source of income for low-level characters.

To give you a concrete example, gold drops for the low end are currently set at about 33% meaning each low CR creature has a 33% chance of dropping gold.  In reality (and to be more in line with V2), they should be dropping at a rate more like 60%.  I think on the high end (which is set much lower), I think rates are probably going to stay the same or be adjusted only slightly.

Let me say I completely agree with the idea of increased bartering and interaction.  When my character was getting started, he did a lot more business by barter than any other method. If I had time to craft, he'd probably still do the same.  

And personally, I think that most of the "well-established" prices in the economy now are too high...some ridiculously so.  To hear people talking about how they're down to their last 200K is just...amusing.  That, my friends, is in the class of "obscenely rich" in this setting.  Even my "poor" character who currently has about 30K in the bank is darn near nobility by the standards of the setting.

Anyway, there's no reason to penalize new characters or to encourage them to grind by making gold so rare they can't stay ahead of consumables.  Gold drops are going up in frequency.  They won't go up as high as they were, but they do need to go up somewhat, at least on the low end.

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

To hear people talking about how they're down to their last 200K is just...amusing.  That, my friends, is in the class of "obscenely rich" in this setting.  Even my "poor" character who currently has about 30K in the bank is darn near nobility by the standards of the setting.

Just to Clarify...  Shiff is not down to his LAST 200k...  Thats actually the most he's EVER had...  he just happens to not be spending it

And to be told Shiff is obscenely Rich is....  Kinda.....  Weird, since it was Clarissa who gave Shiff that 200k....  So who is really the one with too much gold?  *grins*

[miltonyorkcastle]

A heal kit +9 is worth how much? 800-1200 True? More? Why not trade ten of them for a 10-15k item? or 30 of them for a 30-40k item? Granted, Drexia might not need much in the way of gear anymore, but I guarantee you people will take bandages in payment for an item if they have a hard time getting enough gold from monsters to buy them.

But really, when I said barter, I didn't mean finished goods. I meant raw goods. The established guilds love to have someone bring them supplies in trade for gold and gear.

I have to politely disagree with the statement that surviving by bartering can't be done. I think Steel has only paid the full price in True for maybe five items total. And he has a myriad of gear. Steel has paid by performing services, and he's paid by trading goods (mostly ore, but also gems, other gear, corn, and more).

[Dorganath]

@Shiff: That wasn't at you.  I've heard it from others.  There's too much gold in the economy if that's what people are worrying about.

@milty:  When a mining trip goes through 2 picks that cost 50-ish each (I forget the actual number, but you get the point) and only brings in 90 GP, there's a problem....especially considering that a starting crafter has to scrape together 500 GP to buy a crafting badge to be able to turn that ore into something that can eventually be bartered, sold or whatever.  Bartering for raw materials is fine...in many cases (especially ore) it costs money to gather them.  The process of gathering CNR shouldn't really be money-losing excursion. That will only encourage the perceived value of finished goods to go up even more....and we know where I stand on that.

Like I said: Yes!  Let's barter more. But also remember that there are some players who don't play at times where there are a lot of people on the server.  For them, who will they barter with?  And you can't barter with NPC merchants.  Those are fixed costs, and they don't take shiny rocks in trade.

Let me reiterate: I'm not looking to make starting players rich.  We need to make sure though that the rates of gold generation make sense within the costs of crafting, adventuring, etc., as well as the ability of low-level characters to at least support themselves.

[miltonyorkcastle]

Right on, Dorg.

[Dorganath]

As of the time I post this (and with the recent server reboots), gold drop frequencies have been increased on the low and middle end, the latter being only a slight increase.  

Give things about a week or so and give me some honest feedback.