Economy Rework + Inflation Solutions

[Estate]

Dear Spacetime-Studio Dev Team & Dear PL Community,

I will let other's speak for themselves while attempting to speak for everyone. I've played this game for almost a decade. It has a special place in my life. Part of the reason why I am in business analytics now, part of the reason why I did my Masters thesis on the psychology of nostalgia. It has been foundational to my life which is admittedly kind of funny. That being said my favorite things to do in PL have been to low-level PvP and to get rich. The most popular PL videos are still the Merch Guides and whether the community wants to embrace it or not, the market, consignment shoppe and just plain "looking cool" have been and increasingly vital part of modern day Pocket Legends. I am here today to attempt to regulate that market. Stop Black Market transactions, deflate gold prices of increasingly rare items and re-stabilize such an important aspect of the game.

Create more gold sinks. If the gold sinks are supposed to be enchanting or event items they are obviously not working.

- Maybe offer a title at the xmas event that costs the max gold cap to unlock called (Affluent) and a badge that is also max gold capped price that's just a dollar sign symbol.
- Maybe let players run their own tournaments in game. 1v1s or 3v3s that start in a locked arena and however much gold is put in, 20% is deleted and the winner or winners is rewarded the rest.
- Maybe you create some NPCs or causes within the game to which players can donate gold. These could be tied to server-wide events or bonuses, like if players donate a certain amount of gold, everyone gets a temporary boost or vanity reward.
- Dare I say gold for platinum in some cases or maybe a limited time (for new char slots, CS, inv and stash slots etc).

Currency Rework

As some players outlined previously, I think the introduction of a new currency would be very helpful. An NPC in towns that exchanges a certain amount of gold (1million, 50 million, 100 million, any could work) for a new currency. This new "coin" could be exchanged back for gold in the event that it was needed by a player. The advantages of this are clear. Trades become more safe for high value items & gold-inflation slows down. Scamming would most likely be removed for these items that cost > the gold cap. This "coin" can cap at 5k and could be used in the CS or in player to player trades.

Farming issues

Second, we need to fix farming. Gold farming is the most common for capped players like myself. Sets and pets that give Gold Loot to farm isle or gold realms are amazing but the idea of gold farming has significantly slowed progression for early game players. 1 million gold nowadays is nothing. New players are not going to naturally accumulate 1 million gold without a lot of work OUTSIDE of PvE maps in Towns begging, selling what little they have (and getting scammed on prices) or unfortunately Black Market dealing to jumpstart their PvE experience. The CS is dead because of this. No sets early game sell for any amount of gold that would be useful to early game players and no mid-game sets are worth farming for capped players that can just farm Isle or Realms. 80% of PvE has been effectively eliminated by inflation. Obviously as more gold is introduced the value of it goes down and thus higher prices for everyone. When players farm gold instead of items, the trading of valuable items diminishes. This has lead to a less dynamic market, as fewer items are being circulated and traded, only ones with higher value (almost every "random" vanity doesn't have a market price and are not worn, used or sold). As late game content is the primary source of gold, earlier game content has become neglected by the players because it is simply not worth it to play. The opportunity cost value is significantly askew.

Here are some potential solutions:
- Encourage crafting again. Enhance the crafting system to allow players to create valuable items that can be traded. This could involve new recipes, materials, or even a revamp of the crafting system to make it more integral to the game's economy.
- Item sinks similar to trade up contracts in Counter Strike. Let's say I have 10 St Patty's Brew Steins from 2017. I can attempt to trade them up to a Rainbow Connection but the rarest item (such as the RC in this example) is always a 0.001% of happening. Be very transparent with what items trade up to other items, do not have the player base accidentally figure out that 10 Red Diamonds trade to a starry variation, make that clear.
- Create special vendors that sell unique, desirable items but only accept gold as payment, untradable.
- Incentivize Item Use over Hoarding: Encourage players to use items instead of hoarding them
- Increase the relevance of mid-game content. Make mid-game content more relevant for capped players, introduce new challenges or achievements, which can help redistribute player activities away from just end-game gold farming.
- !! Converting in-game gold to real-world charitable donations (managed by the game developers). !! (Idk, its crazy but im here for all the ideas)

Economic Transparency

It's not secret that new players and returning players have no idea what items are worth. Even active players probably couldn't tell you MOST item's worth. The community could help but the devs should add a part to the discord or the forums or both that tracks the average item sell price for the consignment shoppe so players especially new ones can have some idea of what every item is worth. This would take a lot of work and would be manipulatable. Here's how to make it better:

- Time-Based Averaging: Instead of calculating the average based on the most recent sales, use a longer time frame for the average price calculation. For example, an average over the past month or quarter would be less susceptible to short-term manipulation.
- Volume Weighting: Weigh the average price by the volume of transactions. High-volume sales would have a more significant impact on the average price than low-volume sales, reducing the impact of small-scale manipulation.
- Exclude Outlier Transactions: Implement an algorithm to identify and exclude outlier transactions from the average price calculation. Prices that are significantly higher or lower than the typical range could be flagged and removed from the calculation.
- Limit the Influence of Repeat Transactions: Design the system to recognize and diminish the weight of repeat transactions of the same item between the same accounts or within a short timeframe.
- Randomized Audit and Review System: Periodically audit transactions manually or through an automated system to check for patterns of manipulation, and adjust the price calculation algorithm based on findings.
- Transparent Methodology and Player Education: Clearly communicate how the average prices are calculated and educate the players about this system. Transparency can deter manipulation attempts
- Community Feedback Integration: Allow players to report suspicious transactions or pricing trends.

Combatting the Black Market

Trading of ingame items for real-world currency is a challenging issue, especially in an aging game with a declining player base and increasing rarity of items. To address this, the devs and community need to work together to create a more secure and engaging ingame economy while discouraging the behavior.

Here are the solutions:

- Improved Item Tracking and Provenance: Implement a system where high-value items can be tracked, showing their history of ownership. This makes it easier to identify and investigate suspicious trading patterns.
- Reward Reporting of Black Market Activities: Encourage players to report black market transactions by offering in-game rewards. Do I hear black community shield?????
- Create an Official Marketplace with Competitive Features: Develop a more robust, official trading platform within the game that offers features competitive with black market sites, such as lower fees, secure trading, and a wider range of items. Middleman NPC etc.
- Player Identification Verification: Require more rigorous verification methods for player accounts, making it harder to anonymously engage in black market trades.
- In-Game Trusted Trader Program: Establish a program that recognizes and highlights trusted traders in the game, based on their history of legitimate transactions. Cool & recognizable badge/title.
- Escrow Services for High-Value Trades: Implement in-game escrow services for high-value trades, where the game temporarily holds the traded items/currency until both parties fulfill their parts of the deal.
- MANY MANY MORE

I'm not amazing at conclusions. The conclusion from the above reading should be that we have a problem. Gold inflation and the market as a whole is suffering. There are solutions to that problem. Let's work together and make a concerted effort to fix the problem.


From the bedroom at my parents house playing Nuris in 2013 to the safety of my own home. Cheers,

- Estate