- Joined
- May 15, 2020
- Messages
- 4
SUMMARY:
Some features that provide convenience such as trading hubs or bounty boards etc
Inadvertently remove meaningful player interactions that otherwise would have been required.
You can have the best of both worlds and keep both by making sure to have the more involved process of interacting directly with players be more profitable.
This way you get the convenience for players with limited time or who are new, but you still maintain the meaningful depth that most players crave.
This can be achieved with a tax on convenience services.
Then subsidize with that profit to provide rewards to new players, where those rewards can only be acquired through team work.
Its also important to not let the rewards scale. Otherwise large groups will take advantage and dominate smaller groups and factions.
This is possibly inherently provided by the trade tax, as managing all the direct trade of a large faction would be infeasible and so they are more likely to use the
trade services and get taxed. (not sure if this is the case in practice, but the ideal implementation should ideally not scale)
Convenience Vs Cooperation
This game looks really promising and I can't wait to see what it grows into.
However I have seen a lot of multi-player games fall prey to the common mistake
of inadvertently punishing player interaction in the process of trying to provide players convenience.
Where as with some careful consideration both can be provided.
PLAYER INTERACTION VALUE:
Player interaction in multi-player games and especially in MMOs is extremely important as it is the core mechanism that gives rise to engaging player driven content
such as group mining expeditions, player driven jobs such as defend cargo or even help attack as mercenaries and the grander desire to join Factions and even provides motives for grand scale PvP.
And can help elevate the felling of monotony or grind from repetitive tasks.
Needless to say it's valuable and if players buy a game with the expectation to be drawn into a thriving player driven world and end up not finding it, they will inevitably become dissatisfied and quit.
SUGGESTION:
I would like to suggest that player interaction should be financially incentivised by taking it into account when balancing out rewards and treat is as a resource not dissimilar to say ore or fuel.
Such that if a task requires player interaction of any kind, then the effort of organizing a group and working together is rewarded in the same ways as the effort of acquiring ore would be rewarded.
If you don't do this and you provide lots of convenience such as trading hubs and bounty boards etc
you end up cutting out the need for players to organize the processes themselves and loose out on the interactions they would have had with each other
and as a result you are inadvertently punishing players who would like to work together or trade directly by making solo play more profitable.
One simple way to factor in the value of player interaction is to tax the convenience services that circumvent it.
For example adding a 25% tax to any trade done within markets at stations would incentivise players to find their own buyers or sellers
as well as having the knock on effect of providing the necessity to organise the hand-off which may include the need to hire protection further driving more player interaction.
IMPACT:
This allows you to keep the convenience of these services without making players completely dependent on them.
You can use this tax income to further encourage player interaction by subsidizing behaviors that involve player interaction,
this is especially effective when aimed at beginners as getting new players used to interacting and working together early on, will lead to that behavior being more common in the entire player base.
A very simple example may be to provide players a bonus when doing the basic beginner jobs if they are in a group.
If players make 20% more for every player in their group when doing a basic mining job then it's well worth the time and effort to find other players. (cap at 5 players)
Getting players used to the process of grouping up lowers the barrier for entry later on and acts as a player interaction tutorial.
(useful considering not every player will necessarily have much experience in grouping up with random players due to trust issues developed from games that encourage players to kill and betray each other)
IMPLEMENTATION:
The tax and reward percentages would probably need to be flexible as having all players take advantage of the subsidized group work and avoid tax through direct trade would bleed the reserve dry.
Flexible percentages based on the size of the reserve would result in player interaction being encouraged when it's not occurring enough
and would not be incentivise much at all if players are interacting effectively, resulting in an equilibrium.
You don't have to restrict taxation to just money or resource costs. You can also tax through difficulty.
eg: if the beginer jobs requires you to use many tools and switching tools takes time then a group that has each member using different tools
would then have less down time switching especially if the tasks can be performed simultaneously(assembly line), which somewhat makes up for the fact that groups have to share the reward.
eg: mining might require a small blast charge to crack the rock open, then a pick or drill to separate ore from rock and then a mining cart to carry the heavy ore to the smeltery with an operator who has to be up on top of the gantry to access control panel.
The same could be done with say a PvE job that requires players to kill some NPCs, that would be too hard for an individual but possible as a group.
Or by making ship fuel or Warp costs very high, as then the most profitable way to mine would be by taking many players in a single transport ship.
The success of this system would depend on how well it is communicated. Players are not going to trade directly to avoid tax if they don't know its there, and also wont work together if they don't know about the bonus income.
So it needs to be effectively communicated early on.
RESULT:
On the surface this idea may appear to punish solo players and mean that big groups can lord supreme.
However if the benefits don't scale up well then the opposite is true and you can focus the benefits on encouraging modest size groups.
(good for performance by avoiding large player zergs)
For example a large faction will have trouble filling buy and sell trades in person if they are processing large quantities
and will therefore need to rely on the station trade services for the majority of their trade and as such incur the tax.
Solo players will then be able to benefit from this tax by forming small groups with random players due to the incentives from jobs and
as a byproduct become acquainted with other players who will likely want to continue working together and thus protect each other through increased numbers.
So solo players benefit more relative to large factions on the condition that they effectively group up with other players.
FURTHER:
It may also be worth taxing wealth. By having a tax on money, storage space taken up by ships and item banks. And possibly by adding some slow inflation by putting slightly more money into the game that gets taken out by sinks.
(I'm no economist but most countries seem to do this to encourage spending to avoid stagnation that would occur if everyone horded their wealth)
A slim tax of a few percent every year will not be noticeable to a beginner player but will put pressure on large groups if they wish to maintain a large store of wealth.
As a result the desire to grow an empire and become a strong and large force is slowly meet by the diminishing returns caused by income loss of wealth tax.
eg: if you earn 100 a year and get taxed 5% a year, first year you earn 100 and lose 5 resulting in 95 total, next year you go up to 195 but lose 9.75 giving 185.
And so on until an equilibrium is reached around year 22 where you have 2000 and lose 100 tax every year matching your income.
So if groups wish to become larger or more powerful they have to devise ever more ingenious ways of improving their annual income, as apposed to just having been around for a long time.
This makes the catch up requirements for smaller or new groups less overwhelming and also means the larger groups will still be hungry for growth and resources later on as apposed to having no goals and becoming bored (stagnation).
(downside is that taking a break from the game for any period of time is punished and so can lead to feeling forced to play, inuring frustration similar to games that introduce dailies. Perhaps a balance can be struck? 5% lost a year does not seem too aggressive)
Some features that provide convenience such as trading hubs or bounty boards etc
Inadvertently remove meaningful player interactions that otherwise would have been required.
You can have the best of both worlds and keep both by making sure to have the more involved process of interacting directly with players be more profitable.
This way you get the convenience for players with limited time or who are new, but you still maintain the meaningful depth that most players crave.
This can be achieved with a tax on convenience services.
Then subsidize with that profit to provide rewards to new players, where those rewards can only be acquired through team work.
Its also important to not let the rewards scale. Otherwise large groups will take advantage and dominate smaller groups and factions.
This is possibly inherently provided by the trade tax, as managing all the direct trade of a large faction would be infeasible and so they are more likely to use the
trade services and get taxed. (not sure if this is the case in practice, but the ideal implementation should ideally not scale)
Convenience Vs Cooperation
This game looks really promising and I can't wait to see what it grows into.
However I have seen a lot of multi-player games fall prey to the common mistake
of inadvertently punishing player interaction in the process of trying to provide players convenience.
Where as with some careful consideration both can be provided.
PLAYER INTERACTION VALUE:
Player interaction in multi-player games and especially in MMOs is extremely important as it is the core mechanism that gives rise to engaging player driven content
such as group mining expeditions, player driven jobs such as defend cargo or even help attack as mercenaries and the grander desire to join Factions and even provides motives for grand scale PvP.
And can help elevate the felling of monotony or grind from repetitive tasks.
Needless to say it's valuable and if players buy a game with the expectation to be drawn into a thriving player driven world and end up not finding it, they will inevitably become dissatisfied and quit.
SUGGESTION:
I would like to suggest that player interaction should be financially incentivised by taking it into account when balancing out rewards and treat is as a resource not dissimilar to say ore or fuel.
Such that if a task requires player interaction of any kind, then the effort of organizing a group and working together is rewarded in the same ways as the effort of acquiring ore would be rewarded.
If you don't do this and you provide lots of convenience such as trading hubs and bounty boards etc
you end up cutting out the need for players to organize the processes themselves and loose out on the interactions they would have had with each other
and as a result you are inadvertently punishing players who would like to work together or trade directly by making solo play more profitable.
One simple way to factor in the value of player interaction is to tax the convenience services that circumvent it.
For example adding a 25% tax to any trade done within markets at stations would incentivise players to find their own buyers or sellers
as well as having the knock on effect of providing the necessity to organise the hand-off which may include the need to hire protection further driving more player interaction.
IMPACT:
This allows you to keep the convenience of these services without making players completely dependent on them.
You can use this tax income to further encourage player interaction by subsidizing behaviors that involve player interaction,
this is especially effective when aimed at beginners as getting new players used to interacting and working together early on, will lead to that behavior being more common in the entire player base.
A very simple example may be to provide players a bonus when doing the basic beginner jobs if they are in a group.
If players make 20% more for every player in their group when doing a basic mining job then it's well worth the time and effort to find other players. (cap at 5 players)
Getting players used to the process of grouping up lowers the barrier for entry later on and acts as a player interaction tutorial.
(useful considering not every player will necessarily have much experience in grouping up with random players due to trust issues developed from games that encourage players to kill and betray each other)
IMPLEMENTATION:
The tax and reward percentages would probably need to be flexible as having all players take advantage of the subsidized group work and avoid tax through direct trade would bleed the reserve dry.
Flexible percentages based on the size of the reserve would result in player interaction being encouraged when it's not occurring enough
and would not be incentivise much at all if players are interacting effectively, resulting in an equilibrium.
You don't have to restrict taxation to just money or resource costs. You can also tax through difficulty.
eg: if the beginer jobs requires you to use many tools and switching tools takes time then a group that has each member using different tools
would then have less down time switching especially if the tasks can be performed simultaneously(assembly line), which somewhat makes up for the fact that groups have to share the reward.
eg: mining might require a small blast charge to crack the rock open, then a pick or drill to separate ore from rock and then a mining cart to carry the heavy ore to the smeltery with an operator who has to be up on top of the gantry to access control panel.
The same could be done with say a PvE job that requires players to kill some NPCs, that would be too hard for an individual but possible as a group.
Or by making ship fuel or Warp costs very high, as then the most profitable way to mine would be by taking many players in a single transport ship.
The success of this system would depend on how well it is communicated. Players are not going to trade directly to avoid tax if they don't know its there, and also wont work together if they don't know about the bonus income.
So it needs to be effectively communicated early on.
RESULT:
On the surface this idea may appear to punish solo players and mean that big groups can lord supreme.
However if the benefits don't scale up well then the opposite is true and you can focus the benefits on encouraging modest size groups.
(good for performance by avoiding large player zergs)
For example a large faction will have trouble filling buy and sell trades in person if they are processing large quantities
and will therefore need to rely on the station trade services for the majority of their trade and as such incur the tax.
Solo players will then be able to benefit from this tax by forming small groups with random players due to the incentives from jobs and
as a byproduct become acquainted with other players who will likely want to continue working together and thus protect each other through increased numbers.
So solo players benefit more relative to large factions on the condition that they effectively group up with other players.
FURTHER:
It may also be worth taxing wealth. By having a tax on money, storage space taken up by ships and item banks. And possibly by adding some slow inflation by putting slightly more money into the game that gets taken out by sinks.
(I'm no economist but most countries seem to do this to encourage spending to avoid stagnation that would occur if everyone horded their wealth)
A slim tax of a few percent every year will not be noticeable to a beginner player but will put pressure on large groups if they wish to maintain a large store of wealth.
As a result the desire to grow an empire and become a strong and large force is slowly meet by the diminishing returns caused by income loss of wealth tax.
eg: if you earn 100 a year and get taxed 5% a year, first year you earn 100 and lose 5 resulting in 95 total, next year you go up to 195 but lose 9.75 giving 185.
And so on until an equilibrium is reached around year 22 where you have 2000 and lose 100 tax every year matching your income.
So if groups wish to become larger or more powerful they have to devise ever more ingenious ways of improving their annual income, as apposed to just having been around for a long time.
This makes the catch up requirements for smaller or new groups less overwhelming and also means the larger groups will still be hungry for growth and resources later on as apposed to having no goals and becoming bored (stagnation).
(downside is that taking a break from the game for any period of time is punished and so can lead to feeling forced to play, inuring frustration similar to games that introduce dailies. Perhaps a balance can be struck? 5% lost a year does not seem too aggressive)
