An idea to bring down AT prices

[Ghost Punisher]

It's interesting you note that AT prices are going up but naq/UU are staying the same. Well, if the market stopped auto-generating turns, then not only would AT potentially become more valuable - but so would naq and UU, because those are the things you can trade with to get more AT. So, relatively speaking, the value of AT could decrease, while teh others increase; prices of all three commodities would fluctuate until eventually a realistic level would be achieved based on supply and demand - obviously times of war would affect these prices.

The problem isn't being able to afford them or not - the problem comes in that they are too easily available and because people are used to that, they go through them, massing, farming, raiding - not really making selective target choices/considering any consequences (because due to the amount of AT there is no need too) - and because they have got used to that, they wantto do it all the time and so that pushes the price up - it will always be that way. If AT were more limited, people would need to be selective in their targets, since consequences could be potentially more dire - single players would not be able to mass whole alliances so easily. It would still be possible, but would be a damn sight more expensive - which is as it should be.

I see you point, I envisioned that the market would balance itself better, but you are right, naq and UU would go up in price as well till it all balanced, which could be a while.

My hat off to you Sir, you have won this argument and made me to realize what could happen.

[Chris M]

In my opinion, the game is getting to hard to play, because so many players have to wait for their own AT's to build...

Man... I remember when we only received 1 AT/turn. You wanna talk about slow... I had to wait almost a full day before I could do anything since my account was too small to make naq to buy more turns.

I remember that too, having to wait 7.5 hours just to make 1 attack!

That is exactly what I was talking about.

oh the good old days

[Boa]

IT IS FINEE..........Do you not see wat happens when we ask for new things?????????????look at up that we get from officers!!!!!all because ppl like you, who are to greedy

[Wolf359]

In my opinion, the game is getting to hard to play, because so many players have to wait for their own AT's to build...

Man... I remember when we only received 1 AT/turn. You wanna talk about slow... I had to wait almost a full day before I could do anything since my account was too small to make naq to buy more turns.

I remember that too, having to wait 7.5 hours just to make 1 attack!

That is exactly what I was talking about.

oh the good old days

Indeed! Days when wars actually were winnable, and days when the alliances with the best tactics and best preparation won. The most powerful on paper didn't necessarilly win if the tactics and preparedness of the other side was better. Funny? That's just like in a real war!

Today, preparedness means nothing, you run out of AT, you buy more from the market. AT should not be falsely produced - it unbalances the game and tips the balance into the hands of the raider / rich masser. Remove falsely produce AT, and there will still be AT available to buy for the raider / rich masser - it just might cost them a bit more - which will force them to attack more selective targets. And it will create a more balanced war fighting system. If you run out of AT, so what, AT are still available, or you just wait until your army 'recovers'.

[Teal'auc of the Void]

Sorry Wolf, as much as I like you, I really don't want to live up the day you don't have way to buy AT's other than from players who generate them. When i want to PLAY this game, yeah, play, not passively waiti for turns to grow and play only when I waited for too long - and to have fun with friends. It does involve AT's most of the time...

If the prices would go up, only the rich people would buy turns, while others would be out dry. I don't want to see similar concept we have in RL here - if you are rich, you can get everything, if you are small and not that rich, you have basically no joy and rather slow growth + low enjoyment. This game has no graphics, and a lot of people would barely log in if they all would have to wait for AT's to generate or to wait till some player would actually sell those turns.

So NO, leave the market as it is.



Teal'auc

[Wolf359]

The point is - the game isn't 'played' now - people come on, they mass/raid/farm, they buy more turns and they mass/raid/farm some more - ad infinitum.

When the game was really 'played', players and alliances had to think about which targets they hit, when they hit, and how they hit - there was planning needed, tactics, some kind of strategy - now there's none.

As for the prices - you miss the point that yes, the prices will go up, and yes, the rich will be able to afford them - but where will they get those turns from?? Perhaps the not so rich?? And since the rich will not really want to sell to each other (for any number of reasons - some rather obvious), then they will have to get them from the 'not so rich' - and it will be the 'not so rich' that to some extent (certainly more than they can now) control the price.

Besides, it is really already only the very rich who can buy sufficent AT from the Market to make a difference.

The game will go on - and with increased player AT generation per turn it should balance out the loss of AT that is automatically added to the market (which apaprently is only added when it gets near to zero because things go funny when it gets to zero anyway). And the way to make it not hit zero is to make it so that it can't go below 1. Therefore since the increased player AT per turn compensates for no longer adding AT to the market when it is running low, there is no overall change in the amount of AT than there already is in the game now (in fact, the average amount of AT in the game at any one time would increase!) - and the best bit is that it now benefits everyone, in terms of AT, equally.

Additionally, since there is no AT (well, 1) on the market, the value of UU/NAQ on the market should decrease (i.e. you get progressively more UU/NAQ per AT that you sell) to encourage people to trade AT (perhaps by a set amount over a certain period of time) - once it becomes a good deal, people will start trading, and more AT will become available again. Isn't that basic economics? You offer more of something you have lots of, to get more of something you have very little of?

Once a lot of people do this, then more AT on the market will increase the value of the NAQ/UU on the market, meaning you now get more AT per NAQ/UU then you did previously - so people will buy them again.

And the beauty is that if people were to just buy them as soon as they appeared on the market, there would be no time for an increaesd amount of AT to stabilise the market, therefore prices would continue to go up. Eventually there would be a point were people would start dumping 1,000s of AT, simply because the return in NAQ/UU would be so good!

It would be like a true market.

The bottom line is - AT are the most valuable commodity in the game - it is a turn based game for heaven's sake - but it means nothing when there is a limitless supply - and it just serves to degrade the game.

The fact that it MIGHT, at times, be harder for people to get more AT than they produce is, fankly, a non-issue - it should be hard, and a high price should be paid if you need them that badly!

Nobody really loses out on this:

- The rich can afford to buy AT at a high price.
- The not so rich can afford to sell at a high price (since opposing big players are unlikely to sell to each other in such a scenario), and then invest in their account with their payment.
- If the rich players, or their friends/alliance mates, then attack the same not so rich players then attack the not so rich players they bought extra AT from, then the not so rich player still maintains an element of control and can choose not to sell to that player again, start selling to the opposition, or simply put his prices up.

The possibilities of enhancing the game are huge, and the downside is very low - for everyone.

[Boa]

Right on

[Teal'auc of the Void]

So Wolf is basically supporting Traders. Guh... hope that it never happends.



Teal'auc

[Wolf359]

So Wolf is basically supporting Traders. Guh... hope that it never happends.



Teal'auc

a rather poor retort to a well rounded argument.

As well as all the other aspects - it will encourage the big players to fight amongst themselves, rather than attacking the smaller ones - because the smaller ones will be their source of AT, when the market is empty. And as the smaller ones grow, they will find themselves having to change their gameplay as they become 'not so small' - it keeps the game dynamic for the individual - not stale, as it has become. And forces players to be a bit more strategic - therefore the ones who are actuall better at 'playing' will become the better players.

[Ghost Punisher]

As well as all the other aspects - it will encourage the big players to fight amongst themselves, rather than attacking the smaller ones - because the smaller ones will be their source of AT, when the market is empty. And as the smaller ones grow, they will find themselves having to change their gameplay as they become 'not so small' - it keeps the game dynamic for the individual - not stale, as it has become. And forces players to be a bit more strategic - therefore the ones who are actuall better at 'playing' will become the better players.

I like your argument, and I am learning as this progresses, but I think my actual first point may have been missed

the inactive make naq, they make UU, and they would make AT's if they were not maxxed out. If their AT's were added to the market, that would eliminate the need for auto generation of AT's by the market, thus keeping the games resources strictly to what the players in the game make, without having to add to the AT amount on the market to keep it going. I just felt it would add a better balance to the game, without the game itself haveing to increase the AT count in the market itself.

I may still be wrong in my idea here, but I was begining to think that thris thread was "travelling" a little of topic

Wolf359, Teal'auc, you both make great points, and I find this argument to be quite infomative. As I said, I have learned a fair bit about the econimics of this game.

Cheers to you both,
Ghost Punisher

[SG]

I would not mind the approach of sending un-generated turns from players to the market and then cutting off the magical turn generation.

I agree with Wolf on most(if not all) points since some people these days are so 'bored' with the game, they run around and mass random people. Now, I don't remember that happening a few years ago when AT's were more rare. Now with all the AT's flying around in the game, updates like the 3AT/30 minute which was suppose to drive prices down but didn't.

Stopping the auto generation would surely cause AT Prices to go up, but in turn the people that cannot afford the prices will be selling them. They will be at the receiving end of the higher prices. Once the smarter people learn that it is more profitable to sell turns than use them that is. For the stupid people.. I guess we can't help everyone >.>

The person I really see losing out are the bigger people that want to attack more often.

[Wolf359]

I like your argument, and I am learning as this progresses, but I think my actual first point may have been missed

the inactive make naq, they make UU, and they would make AT's if they were not maxxed out. If their AT's were added to the market, that would eliminate the need for auto generation of AT's by the market, thus keeping the games resources strictly to what the players in the game make, without having to add to the AT amount on the market to keep it going. I just felt it would add a better balance to the game, without the game itself haveing to increase the AT count in the market itself.

I've kept that in mind - but the way I see it is that in the normal course of the game, you can take people's naq, and you can take people's UU, but you can't take peoples AT - simply because of the nature of the resource - it is the capacity to do something and has no physical presence (which lends credence to another suggestion that AT should not be tradeable - but I accept that that is NEVER going to happen). There also comes the point of how do you determine at what point an account becomes inactive - and how can that be coded.

[Ghost Punisher]

sorry, I forgot that point, this idea would not only cover the inactive, but even the active that don't use AT's and let them max out (whether because it is no longer profitable for them to farm for various reasons, or because they simply don't have the time or ambition to use them).

Out of curiousity, do you know how many AT's the game market generate per turn. I don't, I am just asking.

I could make a very rough estimate ( and just guessing here) that there is 40K inactive players in this game out of 88K accounts, possible more. that could be a generation of upwards, and possible over 120K AT's added to the market each turn, I admit, that is way to many to put on the market at anyone time, so maybe 1/10 of AT's generated by maxxed out players (12K). This would drive the AT's prices down a lot, and create a lot more activity in this game.

Another though I had is what if we tried using the same system they use on Ascended, the higher your rank, the fewer turns you generate. 1 being lowest for very high ranked players, and 3 or even 5 for the really low ranked ones, this gives a better chance for the small to catch up on their own self generated resources while limits the larger to using their income to get more AT's.

If your think that is a dumb idea, go ahead and say so, my feelings wont get hurt, if they were hurt that easily, I would never post

BTW, I would like to add that I am, I feel, a medium sized player, and really would gain nothing from this idea, I am only trying to make it easier for the new players to build and less of them quitting out of frustration

Ghost Punisher

[Wolf359]

From what I now understand (I think I mentioned it above), while there is sufficient AT in the market, the only ones that are added to it are AT that players sell to the market.

However, if the number of AT in the market approaches 0 (and I don't know how close that means), then a sizeable amount of AT are added to stop it getting to 0. Apparently the only reason for that is to stop it hitting 0, because then the maths in the coding goes 'wonky'.

There is a possible fix - as mentioned above.

I still don't like the idea of 'maxxed out' AT going into the market - again it's a non-tangible resource.

As for fewer turns generated for higher ranked players - I don't think you'd get that past most people - but there could be something added so that new players generate more turns in say their first month or so? The downside to this is that it would encourage people to create multi-accounts to benefit from the increased AT - whichever way you play it.

[Ghost Punisher]

From what I now understand (I think I mentioned it above), while there is sufficient AT in the market, the only ones that are added to it are AT that players sell to the market.

However, if the number of AT in the market approaches 0 (and I don't know how close that means), then a sizeable amount of AT are added to stop it getting to 0. Apparently the only reason for that is to stop it hitting 0, because then the maths in the coding goes 'wonky'.

Thank you for that info, I had no idea how that worked at all, I just knew that there is some sort of auto generation

I still don't like the idea of 'maxxed out' AT going into the market - again it's a non-tangible resource.

After observing the market for a couple of turns, and considering it is later in the week when many have used MT's to buy AT's, there still seems to be a sizable number of AT's there, which really is starting to convince me that we don't need the AT's from inactive players. So I would like to officially revoke that idea, you are right and it is not necesary.

But it makes me wonder why AT's still so expensive?

As for fewer turns generated for higher ranked players - I don't think you'd get that past most people - but there could be something added so that new players generate more turns in say their first month or so? The downside to this is that it would encourage people to create multi-accounts to benefit from the increased AT - whichever way you play it.

Agreed, there must be some way to help out the smaller players, I personally have watched to join, 7 players, and seen 4 of then give up out of frustration on how long it takes to do anything when you are brand new! maybe a larger amount of AT's for brand new players that do not even have Market Supporter Status, let alone FSS. (Your account has to be 2 weeks old before you can even get MSS right?). Once they have their SS, they get a normal number of AT's like anyone else from that point on.

Another idea, just a bit off topic, but still to help to little ones, what about a limit, like for raiding, where you can't attack someone to much smaller than you. that would certainly keep the smaller players more protected from the large ones that can afford the UU lose of an attack on a defense.

I am only trying to help the little guy here, I hope everyone understands that. If the size or rank limits are brought about, trust me, I lose a lot of farms.

If anyone else has any other ideas on a way to lower the prices of AT's please feel free to suggest!

(PS, I am loving this discussion, I like to debate, and I really do want the best for the new players in this game, to encourage them to play more, and to see more overall activity Game wide. Thank you for your time Wolf359, this is the most fun I have ever had on this forum, and makes me want to visit more. I hope I am not annoying you though?)

Ghost Punisher