DDO Economy

[Bjond]

In DDO, a player can hit the plat cap in a few days by simply not choosing to engage with the plat sinks

That's vast hyperbole. I pretty much don't spend plat, loot all chests, and vend all trash. Plat is for pots & scrolls & repairs. I'm not capping every few days, but about every other year.

I'm not moving it all to a haggle bot and using the best vendors, but at most that might double the rate for an extreme inconvenience.

Lack of things to buy is the problem. Let me buy mythic, reaper, & curses at 1M each and suddenly I need 100M platinum every rebuild.

Add augments for build-breaking "mandatory" lines like FOM & True-Sight, but with a twist: can't remove them. That's 2M for nearly every gear set in game going forward.

Gearing is never "done" and things that make it easier have the most value in game. Those are the real potential platinum sinks.

---

The problem with identifying value is that IF SSG adds those features, they'll be Store items so they can tie money directly to the effort. Fixing bugs and upping QoL (like game economy) can't be monetized or accounted directly.

This is (imho) a big reason SSG does not fix bugs, improve QOL in general, and makes predatory changes. They have no confidence in their product. If they did, they'd be trying to sell it to everyone. They'd know and care greatly about QoL and general fun over tightly monetized fun because those drive sales.

Word-of-mouth is huge and it snowballs. It's why I heard of BG3 and why I tried it and why I posted "omg, y'all were right, this is amazing fun!", which was why another 5 or 6 people bought the game and convinced others and so-on.

DDO? I've told friends who asked if they should buy it not just "no" but "hell no" and itterated reasons why if they cared, then asked what they were playing in case it sounded interesting enough to switch.

 

[droid327]

In DDO, a player can hit the plat cap in a few days by simply not choosing to engage with the plat sinks you are proposing.

This is what i keep saying. Your doomsday scenarios keep requiring players not use hypothetical new sinks, which is just describing the problem with the current system. You have to account for robust sinks in a balanced economic system, and that extends the distance to the cap

Your hypothetical player gets to sell 10 items before he's plat-capped.

But in a good economy, no one is selling items just to get capped. They're selling items to get plat because they want to spend plat.

In order to make the current plat cap viable, your sinks would have to be so punitive it would be impossible to play without spending 75 an hour. And no one would enjoy that.

That's why i distinguished between tax sinks and booster sinks earlier, and advocated for the latter

You seem to be missing the undeniable fact that inflation in DDO is not the result of veterans hoarding the stuff for year.

No it's entirely from hoarding, which is the same issue with remnants and event currency that the devs have discussed many times before, and the reason eg that night revels candies decay now.

 

[SpartanKiller13]

Intrinsic value is the trickier part; that means you need adequate currency sinks, so that currency has a use and therefore a base value other than simply trading. That's what we lack in DDO now, and why plat has long become devalued to the point its no longer an effective medium of trade, especially with plat cap. Even without a plat cap, though, inflation will render an unsunk currency worthless (cf D3 before their trading overhaul)

AS has done this a lot better; between augments, saga skips, rerolls, etc - there's quite a few spots to spend AS. But plat, not so much.

I don't have hard data but I suspect far more transactions are buyouts/single bidder as opposed to actual bidding wars. I know in 20+ years of playing MMOs I can count on 1 hand the number of times I bothered to bid on an item as opposed to looking for one with a buyout price.

Not sure if that just means you don't shop much or don't just yolo bid on stuff?

But I have thousands of bigby's and keep ~100 RF pots around, and most of that is from bidding. I've bid on dozens of tomes/filligree/augments as well, like if I see something good go by for 500k/2m I'll chuck a bid on and hope for the best.

Or on the ASAH, if there's a Dreadbringer:MP rare or something up for a good price I'll probably bid on it regardless of buyout status.

-Introduce premium potion vendors who sell special, very expensive versions of existing vendorable potions. Obviously he can't sell mana or healing potions because store. But what about a Potion of Restoration for 100k a pop?

Bigby's, Radiant Forcefield, Titan's Grip, GH, Invisibility, Fire/Cold shield, Minor XP elixirs?

Or adding like Lasting 5 PRR/MRR for plat? Weaker than DD, but many people would run these constantly.

 

[woq]

AS has done this a lot better; between augments, saga skips, rerolls, etc - there's quite a few spots to spend AS. But plat, not so much.

Not sure if that just means you don't shop much or don't just yolo bid on stuff?

But I have thousands of bigby's and keep ~100 RF pots around, and most of that is from bidding. I've bid on dozens of tomes/filligree/augments as well, like if I see something good go by for 500k/2m I'll chuck a bid on and hope for the best.

Or on the ASAH, if there's a Dreadbringer:MP rare or something up for a good price I'll probably bid on it regardless of buyout status.

Bigby's, Radiant Forcefield, Titan's Grip, GH, Invisibility, Fire/Cold shield, Minor XP elixirs?

Or adding like Lasting 5 PRR/MRR for plat? Weaker than DD, but many people would run these constantly.

I'd love if they did this, but previously Turbine and now SSG seem to be quite intent on everything being sold for ddo points rather than plat. Plat is the abandoned stepson. Everything in DDO is monetized and presumably will be monetized, so plat is has no meaning for the devs - why sell for plat, if can sell for ddo points or with an additional step from ddo points with shards?

There's plenty of stuff they could do, but at least when it comes to selling power, they probably don't want to give us more or easier access to power with plat and cosmetics take time and they, too, can be sold for ddo points instead of plat.

I'd LOVE for Bigby's, Radiant Forcefield, Titan's Grip, etc to be plat sourced! Hell, give us rogue hirelings that cost more because they swipe some from the middle and always should've been a thing. But nah, everything is monetized.

 

[SpartanKiller13]

There's plenty of stuff they could do, but at least when it comes to selling power, they probably don't want to give us more or easier access to power with plat and cosmetics take time and they, too, can be sold for ddo points instead of plat.

I'd LOVE for Bigby's, Radiant Forcefield, Titan's Grip, etc to be plat sourced! Hell, give us rogue hirelings that cost more because they swipe some from the middle and always should've been a thing. But nah, everything is monetized.

I mean I'd personally have spend like $40 cash on a Bigby's clicky when they came out, esp if it had a shape multiselector. Still would if it came with shapes.

But no, they had to be consumable, and so I spent millions of plat instead.

If they were more consistently available it'd be a lot easier to convince people of their value, but it's a hard sell when you get 7 green hands for a daily dice and aren't sure if you're supposed to waste them or save them. If you start with 100 of your favorite color though, it's pretty easy to find use in party play (guiding split groups, indicating splits, marking chests/hdoors/traps, etc etc).

And like RF pots, I just straight up have a significant advantage over a new player b/c I've spent a lot of plat over the years (I aim for ~200k each, so the 100ish I've bought for plat is like 24m lmao). But they make off-tanking a lot easier, raid solos, etc etc. Someone trying to get a few right now instead of slowly bidding is at the mercy of the market - whereas if they were listed at 200k at a favor vendor (down to 100k with haggle) you could just go buy 10 of them for a difficult attempt etc.

Saving 2x Titan's Grip pots for hitting a Str lever is a huge hassle as well, whereas if you could just go wander over and buy one when you're short a Str toon (for like LTS) that'd be amazing.

 

[woq]

You know, they could add a new currency that you have to buy with Plat. Call them Orichalcum Coins or whatever, to circumvent 4 million plat cap - each of these costs 1 million plat to make and cannot be made in any other way, and the goodies you buy with them could cost several (more than 4) - and the gold standard for premium goods would go from 1 orichalcum coin and up. So for example you can't buy 4 radiant forcefield pots with 800k plat, but you could buy 5 with 1million, after it's been turned into an orichalcum coin.

Further, you could sell stuff on "Plat" auction for Orichalcum coins.

Something like that could work for extreme money sinks.

 

[droid327]

AS has done this a lot better; between augments, saga skips, rerolls, etc - there's quite a few spots to spend AS. But plat, not so much.

Rerolls for plat would be a fantastic part of an overall increase in plat sinks. At an appropriate amount, of course - maybe like 25k per reroll. That'd suck the plat out of the vets' coffers reeeeal fast and provide an ongoing incentive for them to sell stuff for more plat to feed the reroll machine.

It'd offset AS sinking of course, but those are already fairly well-sunk, and with a better plat economy, the AS economy can (and should) become more niche for truly exceptional trades, and so volume will decrease.

Also really like one-time teleports as an effective and sustainable plat sink. Any quest that isnt already directly accessible from a hub should eventually have a fast-travel-for-plat option, maybe 1k per quest base level

 

[woq]

Rerolls for plat would be a fantastic part of an overall increase in plat sinks. At an appropriate amount, of course - maybe like 25k per reroll. That'd suck the plat out of the vets' coffers reeeeal fast and provide an ongoing incentive for them to sell stuff for more plat to feed the reroll machine.

It'd offset AS sinking of course, but those are already fairly well-sunk, and with a better plat economy, the AS economy can (and should) become more niche for truly exceptional trades, and so volume will decrease.

Also really like one-time teleports as an effective and sustainable plat sink. Any quest that isnt already directly accessible from a hub should eventually have a fast-travel-for-plat option, maybe 1k per quest base level

No thank you on paid transporation to quests. That leads to quest design with annoying access to make $$. The whole thing with the teleports in Stormhorns is like a nail in the eye for people who aren't completely bought in to the whole "monetize everything" thing that some games like DDO have going. Anything that is constantly present reminding you to pay pay pay is bad. There should be tons of ways for people to monetize - in the store. Not constantly accosting you everywhere you turn when you talk to vendors, try to enter a quest, logging in, etc.

If everything tells you to pay and you see more blinking lights of PAY ME MORE instead of gameplay, that's when you go play a game that is about gameplay.

 

[droid327]

No thank you on paid transporation to quests. That leads to quest design with annoying access to make $$. The whole thing with the teleports in Stormhorns is like a nail in the eye for people who aren't completely bought in to the whole "monetize everything" thing that some games like DDO have going.

Quests are already annoyingly designed. Thats one of the big complaints about MD, isnt it? So it'd be a solution to a problem that already exists

Plus, if Stormhorns and Wheloon teleports were plat based instead of AS based, I think a lot of people would consider that less monetized, wouldnt they?

 

[woq]

Quests are already annoyingly designed. Thats one of the big complaints about MD, isnt it? So it'd be a solution to a problem that already exists

Plus, if Stormhorns and Wheloon teleports were plat based instead of AS based, I think a lot of people would consider that less monetized, wouldnt they?

Sure, but I don't think they withheld MD slayer area teleportation access because they were too cheap. If they added paid teleports, they'd be shards, not plat.

I think free teleport if it makes sense or no teleport is fine and don't want their grubby hands anywhere near any of that. I do not have faith in that direction at all.

 

[Tanis]

Rerolls for plat would be a fantastic part of an overall increase in plat sinks. At an appropriate amount, of course - maybe like 25k per reroll. That'd suck the plat out of the vets' coffers reeeeal fast and provide an ongoing incentive for them to sell stuff for more plat to feed the reroll machine.

It'd offset AS sinking of course, but those are already fairly well-sunk, and with a better plat economy, the AS economy can (and should) become more niche for truly exceptional trades, and so volume will decrease.

Also really like one-time teleports as an effective and sustainable plat sink. Any quest that isnt already directly accessible from a hub should eventually have a fast-travel-for-plat option, maybe 1k per quest base level

Plat sinks ain’t the issue

 

[Tanis]

That's vast hyperbole. I pretty much don't spend plat, loot all chests, and vend all trash. Plat is for pots & scrolls & repairs. I'm not capping every few days, but about every other year.

I'm not moving it all to a haggle bot and using the best vendors, but at most that might double the rate for an extreme inconvenience.

Lack of things to buy is the problem. Let me buy mythic, reaper, & curses at 1M each and suddenly I need 100M platinum every rebuild.

Add augments for build-breaking "mandatory" lines like FOM & True-Sight, but with a twist: can't remove them. That's 2M for nearly every gear set in game going forward.

Gearing is never "done" and things that make it easier have the most value in game. Those are the real potential platinum sinks.

---

The problem with identifying value is that IF SSG adds those features, they'll be Store items so they can tie money directly to the effort. Fixing bugs and upping QoL (like game economy) can't be monetized or accounted directly.

This is (imho) a big reason SSG does not fix bugs, improve QOL in general, and makes predatory changes. They have no confidence in their product. If they did, they'd be trying to sell it to everyone. They'd know and care greatly about QoL and general fun over tightly monetized fun because those drive sales.

Word-of-mouth is huge and it snowballs. It's why I heard of BG3 and why I tried it and why I posted "omg, y'all were right, this is amazing fun!", which was why another 5 or 6 people bought the game and convinced others and so-on.

DDO? I've told friends who asked if they should buy it not just "no" but "hell no" and itterated reasons why if they cared, then asked what they were playing in case it sounded interesting enough to switch.

You aren’t playing like those who complain that plat cap is easy and there’s a big variety of styles of play

Someone sitting at cap farming with 5 alt accounts is going to cap plat very quickly

Someone doing TRs without any alts is going to have a different experience

 

[adamkatt]

I looked over the thelanis shardX the other day... people are posting trash loot now... i dont get it....

 

[Bjond]

I looked over the thelanis shardX the other day... people are posting trash loot now... i dont get it....

Is it truly trash? Double-augment "trash" are crafting blanks and Blueshine is valuable, too.

OTH, you can also use the ASAH and the AH as inventory storage by posting high and letting it bounce to the mailbox.