For Cinco - The Current State of Gold

[Xyzther]

Recently the enchantments that allow bonus gold from drops were added to amulets. I like the idea a lot, but it also concerns me because of some effects it may bring. There are only two issues I see with these enchantments: bots & the gold farming maps.

So bots have always been a problem ever since PL could be played on chrome. Every day there are people botting alien oasis etc to get gold for doing nothing. Now with these enchantments, they can be making 3x the gold without putting any more effort than they already were (zero!). Previously, sts has made it where we had to manually pick up gold drops to combat bots. I think this is a good idea, but it can also be extremely annoying for legit players to have to walk all over the place to pick gold up. We will go into my possible solution for all of this later.

Another issue will be the gold farming maps from events, which I assume will be returning. Before the gold enchantment update, gold tier could consistently make 3m+ an hour farming the gold map. This is nice, but now with the enchantments, 10m+ an hour is possible. That much gold entering the game just doesn’t seem healthy for me, and it devalues gold tremendously.

This brings up my idea I’ve had for a while now: increasing gold given from item liquidation at a cost of making gold drops 1/3 of what they previously were. Because items are not automatically looted, bots have a hard time gathering them. If we were to increase liquidation price for items by 5x, or even 10x, this could benefit legit players a lot while putting a huge nerf on bots. An item that was 250 gold for liquidation before is now 2,500 and it is fairly easy to rack those up while farming. Also, by making gold dropped 1/3 of what it was before, bots aren’t making any more money than they were, even with gold enchantments. On top of that, farming the gold farming event maps will result in money gained per hour very similarly to that gained before the gold enchants (assuming the people farming are using ~200% gold enchantments).

This is just a rough solution I came up with, and it can definitely be tweaked. I hope you seriously take this into consideration Cinco, because I and many others do not like how bots are easily making money. If anyone else has some cool ideas or additions/changes to my solution feel free to post them here!

[Fwend]

A agree the gold bot will benefit from this new gold loot % for amulets.

There is no easy solution to combat this problem.

I still feel having gold loots so as the character has to pick them up is an easier solution. And that each person can only see their own gold drop.

By decreasing the gold amount we receive from mobs or treasure chests, still will not stop the gold bots. The bots do not care about the less gold amounts. They can still bot for gold, time and amounts do not deter them, they just run the exploit over their chosen time.

Having to spawn portals makes it difficult for bots to host locked maps.

I do hope STS are thinking about these issues with gold bots. And finding a solution that can be implemented easily with coding for them as well as a solution that will please the PL community as a whole.

[Jilsponie]

I can't say for certainty... But I believe a Nerf of looted gold came with the gold loot enchantment update. Ik running bsm with some guildies I was dropping like 5-7 gold and seemed low compared to even what plasma pyramid was before. By comparison I would assume bsm gold loot would be significantly higher than a l45map.

If this assumption is correct, I would also assume the gold farming maps, if returned would be similarly nerfed in coincidence.

Good things to be asking/finding out about though for sure, as nobody wants too much gold in circulation.

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[Draebatad]

A agree the gold bot will benefit from this new gold loot % for amulets.

There is no easy solution to combat this problem..

There is a perfect solution and the studio has it, it's just a matter of implementing it.

[Xyzther]

There is a perfect solution and the studio has it, it's just a matter of implementing it.

You’ve told me before you hatched the perfect plan to counter bots, but you never said what it actually was. Only simply saying that you’ve sent it to STS. Maybe it’s time to let it out, and if a lot of people in the community support it, STS may be more likely to implement it.

[Draebatad]

No spoilers. It's in the right hands, that's all that matters.

[Xyzther]

No spoilers. It's in the right hands, that's all that matters.

Seems to have been in the right hands for a long time now, they may have taken it from their hands and carefully placed it in the recycling bin by now. By letting us know what it is and allowing us to voice our opinions, you, and other forumers will be removing it back from the recycling bin and throwing it right at Cinco’s desk.

[plpr]

no changes need made.


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[Draebatad]

Don't worry, I'm not.

[Xyzther]

Why is that? Seems so illogical to keep it a secret... If you really wanted bots gone you would share

[plpr]

I actually believe what jil said is probably true. When the gold enchantments were introduced. Gold aquired was probably lowered. While I'm not 100% about this it is probably true
Kinda like putting an item on sale after doubling it's price beforehand.

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[Xyzther]

I actually believe what jil said is probably true. When the gold enchantments were introduced. Gold aquired was probably lowered. While I'm not 100% about this it is probably true
Kinda like putting an item on sale after doubling it's price beforehand.

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That’s true for later maps, but I was running some AO2 maps and got up to 200 gold from normal mobs, so it’s not the case for everywhere

[Congeniality]

That’s true for later maps, but I was running some AO2 maps and got up to 200 gold from normal mobs, so it’s not the case for everywhere

If the gold farming maps are again implemented into this next event, it would essentially destroy what little market PL has left.

This is because everyone will be farming gold at such a large rate, that farming gold isn't even to get an advantage anymore, it is just to keep the currency disparity from growing. It's one thing if farming is rewarding for the player, but when one hour of farming accumulates 10m+, there is an issue because then that 1 hour difference has edged one player to a state so far above the other, that the one left behind can't play the game because of the new prices.

Thus, I would need to farm the gold maps for countless hours, not just to keep in relative viability market wise with all the hardcore farmers, but also with the bots.

In short, if this continues to go through, I will for sure be looking at new games.

Thanks,
Walie

[Waug]

Seems to be bots r not that effective due to random spwning place, it would b small fraction of manual farming.

3x is really high, but it can help in enchantment along with that now some interesting gold sink can be brought like making PvE pets enchantment for PvE only ofc, just an idea.

I feel like something like 4th tier should be a regular map for maybe L30-50+ so that new comers can farm it for basic purposes and 3rd tier map can a premium regular map (for plat)

[x-fun]

Im not gonna get into the bot discussion and only voice my opinion on farming. I doubt that anyone would choose to farm the lower lvl maps even with the new enchantments while you can go and farm for example volta pieces when a single piece of it is worth close to 10m. Now about the assumption of making 10m+ per hour if a gold farming map is released again. While reaching this number you first assume all the players reach the gold tier, to prevent this tresholds can be changed, then you assume all players have succesfully rerolled 300% gold on their amulets, thats a no highest i have seen is around 260% and i believe majority sits around 180-230%, after that you assume that all players are using a mage because with the aoe advantage the only class that can outfarm other at such high values is the mage, other classes make around 2-2.5 unless you are actually trying to save even 1-2 seconds per run, and you assume that after completing all these steps first you expect them to consistently farm the same map at same speed for 2days. While the gold that can be farmed is significantly increased your assumptions are in the end only assumptions because no one will fill all these statements and those who benefit to such degree will be no different than those who already made more gold than majority during farming maps anyway.

Now about the gold getting into circulation and your statement of it losing value as more of it is produced. I must agree that this is somewhat true but its not really comparable to real life where if you for example print so much euros it will lose value against dollars because there is less in circulation, however PL mainly runs with 1 currency and that is gold so its not really losing value against any other existing currency (you cant really use plat for trades so..) but as i said i somewhat agree because more gold means easier access to items thus it being less valuable but while the gold itself may lose value it can easily be countered by an increase in the value of items so it evens itself out. This has already been observed during previous gold farms events. When people farmed enough gold they started to look for items they need or want, demand increaed for those items so in response their prices increased too.

In conclusion i dont think that more gold entering the game is as chaotic as you make it sound and your assumption is way over the charts and bars of reality. If you are unhappy about my post or the situation i suggest we can just limit how often the farming maps come instead of messing with other things.

[Xyzther]

Im not gonna get into the bot discussion and only voice my opinion on farming. I doubt that anyone would choose to farm the lower lvl maps even with the new enchantments while you can go and farm for example volta pieces when a single piece of it is worth close to 10m. Now about the assumption of making 10m+ per hour if a gold farming map is released again. While reaching this number you first assume all the players reach the gold tier, to prevent this tresholds can be changed, then you assume all players have succesfully rerolled 300% gold on their amulets, thats a no highest i have seen is around 260% and i believe majority sits around 180-230%, after that you assume that all players are using a mage because with the aoe advantage the only class that can outfarm other at such high values is the mage, other classes make around 2-2.5 unless you are actually trying to save even 1-2 seconds per run, and you assume that after completing all these steps first you expect them to consistently farm the same map at same speed for 2days. While the gold that can be farmed is significantly increased your assumptions are in the end only assumptions because no one will fill all these statements and those who benefit to such degree will be no different than those who already made more gold than majority during farming maps anyway.

Now about the gold getting into circulation and your statement of it losing value as more of it is produced. I must agree that this is somewhat true but its not really comparable to real life where if you for example print so much euros it will lose value against dollars because there is less in circulation, however PL mainly runs with 1 currency and that is gold so its not really losing value against any other existing currency (you cant really use plat for trades so..) but as i said i somewhat agree because more gold means easier access to items thus it being less valuable but while the gold itself may lose value it can easily be countered by an increase in the value of items so it evens itself out. This has already been observed during previous gold farms events. When people farmed enough gold they started to look for items they need or want, demand increaed for those items so in response their prices increased too.

In conclusion i dont think that more gold entering the game is as chaotic as you make it sound and your assumption is way over the charts and bars of reality. If you are unhappy about my post or the situation i suggest we can just limit how often the farming maps come instead of messing with other things.

Actually 300% on the amulet is 4x gold loot (100 base + 300 extra) so mages would make 12m+ with that much. I used the 10m figure because that is around 225% which is an amount that is fairly easy to get. Moving on to other classes, as a bird I got 2.8m an hour on average over the span of 15-20 hours for the first gold farming event, and by no means was I trying to be efficient at all. I suppose I am giving others too much credit in their efficiency with the gold farming map, but regardless even someone that originally made 2.5m an hour is making over 8m an hour with a 225% amulet which is far too much.

Also my theory is that because the gold enchants, if gold tier farming was added yet again, people would take advantage of it being there and farm far more than they did the previous times the gold farming map was added, I know I would. So with everyone farming for a longer duration, and the gold enchants making gold enter the game at 3x+ the rate, we may very likely see 5x more gold enter the game than it did from either of the previous gold farming events. This would cause the value of gold to be at an all time low. Who knows, Volta armor may then be at 20m. If you’re someone new to the game and you see that the Volta armor is at 20m, how could you possibly afford it? You could of course wait for a gold farming event, but people shouldn’t learn to rely on the gold farming events, as the purpose of them was to just add some gold back into the game and revive the economy. The economy is more than revived by now.

[x-fun]

Actually 300% on the amulet is 4x gold loot (100 base + 300 extra) so mages would make 12m+ with that much. I used the 10m figure because that is around 225% which is an amount that is fairly easy to get. Moving on to other classes, as a bird I got 2.8m an hour on average over the span of 15-20 hours for the first gold farming event, and by no means was I trying to be efficient at all. I suppose I am giving others too much credit in their efficiency with the gold farming map, but regardless even someone that originally made 2.5m an hour is making over 8m an hour with a 225% amulet which is far too much.

Also my theory is that because the gold enchants, if gold tier farming was added yet again, people would take advantage of it being there and farm far more than they did the previous times the gold farming map was added, I know I would. So with everyone farming for a longer duration, and the gold enchants making gold enter the game at 3x+ the rate, we may very likely see 5x more gold enter the game than it did from either of the previous gold farming events. This would cause the value of gold to be at an all time low. Who knows, Volta armor may then be at 20m. If you’re someone new to the game and you see that the Volta armor is at 20m, how could you possibly afford it? You could of course wait for a gold farming event, but people shouldn’t learn to rely on the gold farming events, as the purpose of them was to just add some gold back into the game and revive the economy. The economy is more than revived by now.

My bad on rates i thought they just rerolled the base drop amount instead of adding on top of the base amount so yea i guess its a bit much. Past events i have been making around 2.5m per hour with my bird but not running with a dev and only using 1.5-2x combos so idk how efficient i was and i was worn out because of the actual tier farming or was on vacation so didnt benefit much from those and i see the gold rolls as more of a helper in my case as they can let me still farm while i can take my time off the game aswell but i can see it being concerning even i would put more time into farming just to benefit from it. About new players tho, i think there are so many more issues that has to be addressed before worrying about their endgame sets, i know that i started with the volta pieces as an example but let me speak for it. Low lvl pve is close to being dead since majority has no reason to be over there and game is not really advertised or anything, exp curve is not being altered to give players a quick boost like the game is 8years old how about you halve the exp till like lvl70ish? and there are some good ideas to help making more gold such as liquidation prices of gear drops, totally agreeing with that, since the gold cap changed those values are outdated and should be increased and once a player hits the max lvl i believe they shouldnt be able to just get their hands on the best set in game so easily. The set itself is rare and expensive to even some of us veterans and the value and rarity of it makes the set desirable, easier to sell or trade, more interesting to farm and more satisfying to have. The lvl105 pink sets and elites of lvl100 even the TERME set is still rather cheap as the set itself is around i believe 8m? cheaper than the helmet of volta alone and still good enough to use and people should be aiming for those first and best set should be a luxury. The devaluation with the introduction of new caps always ruins the sets we have always seen it, for example kyraz going from 40m to 4m and etc so i think its better that when we get new gears our sets shouldnt lose all their value. If with the gold in the game their price can rise, then with a new set their prices can go back to what you paid more or less. Yes with new sets they will be more expensive etc too but this talk can go on for so long with consideration of every detail and connection so i will just say that i agree with increasing liquidation price of gears and maybe making them more common drops, maybe limiting gold farms to once a month or every 2-3weeks idk, but disagree with removing them or the enchants.

[Jilsponie]

When I was growing up, we had an exchange student from Japan come be a teacher's helper for a week. Believe she tried telling me my name would be "Maku" in Japan instead of Mark? My common sense dictates my name doesn't change depending on my location.

That being said, an economy is an economy. Be it in Europe, USA, China, or PL. Economics is always base on supply and demand of A) Currency B) goods. When there is an abundance of A then you must give more A to receive B. When there is an abundance of B you will receive less A for it...

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[Basauli]

I have a question with the upcoming event would a level 100 be able to farm? Returning player here needing gold

[Hawkbby]

I have a question with the upcoming event would a level 100 be able to farm? Returning player here needing gold
Yes you should be able to. If they stick with the Honor Sets then yes a lv100 should be fine.

[Basauli]

Yes you should be able to. If they stick with the Honor Sets then yes a lv100 should be fine.

Thanks I'm looking forward to the event as someone just returning

[Cinco]

With respect to the gold inflow, bonus gold loot and gold farming maps - I'm feeling fine about the fluctuations.

As for the bots - I think the best way to deal with them is to make gold loot something you pick up deliberately.

It's not the most fun thing to do but it's going to make it really tough on the gold arming macros :-|

[DivineMoustache]

I find it hard to see how an influx of gold of this proportion would be fine for the economy! As people have stated before, it makes it very very easy for paying customers as well as older customers (people who can do many many events) to separate themselves from the pack, and that's not an environment that will be welcoming towards newer players. I trust the moves you've made thus far but intuition and common sense make it a little unbelievable for me that if this continues, the economy won't be ridiculously inflated.

[Xyzther]

With respect to the gold inflow, bonus gold loot and gold farming maps - I'm feeling fine about the fluctuations.

As for the bots - I think the best way to deal with them is to make gold loot something you pick up deliberately.

It's not the most fun thing to do but it's going to make it really tough on the gold arming macros :-|

Hey thanks a lot, I really appreciate it. In a way this also makes the gold farming maps more fair too. Because we have to pick up the gold, we will be getting less per hour. I’d guess maybe ~5m per hour, so we still get more than before, but it’s not too much where it would it could seriously devalue gold like before. You rock cinco!

[DivineMoustache]

I don't know how feasible this is, but another solution could just be to alternate the location of the portal randomly around the towne every so often. Make it the same distance away from spawn but in a different location, like on separate points around a circle's circumference. That way bots wouldn't have a set location they could go to every time. Might be a lot more effective than making gold loot a drop.

[XghostzX]

and that's not an environment that will be welcoming towards newer players

I really suspect their aren't a whole lot of growing, new players that feel motivated to hit endgame. The updates are heavily biased towards endgame, as that's strictly where the paying customers are (especially when there is talk of a new cap in the months to come... you'd think lv. 110 begins to push it, making it really tricky for new players!) :D I'm not complaining, I'm very grateful, if anything. Cinco must be working his *** off to keep this game thriving for us older players.

[Xyzther]

I don't know how feasible this is, but another solution could just be to alternate the location of the portal randomly around the towne every so often. Make it the same distance away from spawn but in a different location, like on separate points around a circle's circumference. That way bots wouldn't have a set location they could go to every time. Might be a lot more effective than making gold loot a drop.

That’s a good idea, but that would only work for event portals. For gold farmers that do alien oasis maps they can simply just host them. I am 100% on board for the moving portals for next PvE event though, that would solve the bot problem and allow legit players to still have easy access to the event map

[Draebatad]

There could also be a number of gold map layouts. And they could be randomized upon hosting. Can't predict the map layout that way. That'd really be effective at thwarting automation.

[Xyzther]

This is also possible. The gold farming maps could have a portal to enter, and you could choose to go solo or with others (like in the previous amulet events), and from there it could give you one of 5 possible maps randomly (like in the second PvE event). This way even if there are still bots, they would have to enter portals through towne so everyone can see exactly who is botting, and the bots will be exposed.

[Idevour]

I personally dont like the idea of having to pick up the gold big inconvience

[Draebatad]

I personally dont like the idea of having to pick up the gold big inconvience

I think most would agree with you. I do.

[Waug]

I personally dont like the idea of having to pick up the gold big inconvience

Yep indeed , bot is really not efficient, bcz of the 'non fixed' spwn spot, it would be a very small fraction of manual farming , wouldn't worth it.

[Fwend]

With respect to the gold inflow, bonus gold loot and gold farming maps - I'm feeling fine about the fluctuations.

As for the bots - I think the best way to deal with them is to make gold loot something you pick up deliberately.

It's not the most fun thing to do but it's going to make it really tough on the gold arming macros :-|

I agree.

It will take some time to get used to picking up gold loot.

When I tried Dark Legends, years ago, picking up gold loot and item loot was the norm in the game. From being a Pocket Legends player this system was all new to me. But after a few days it became second nature.

STS introduced the gold loot pick up at one time on PL. It was removed because many complained and where not used to this new feature, as well as seeing others loot and not being able to retrieve them.

Ideally if player's can only see their own loot drops would be less confusing. Currently, I noticed that your own loot drops glow with the colour according to the rarity of the drop. Those loot drops that are not yours remain colourless.

[Dolloway]

The answer to combat gold botting isn't to make people pick up gold loot again. Not only is picking up gold loot tedious, this isn't a full fledged solution to gold botting. There are zones that people can bot with infinite mobs that spawn (Lost Valley, Lost Villas, etc.) and their bot will just continue to walk over the gold over time or when they get back to their PC.

The correct thing to do is to make several gold farming maps and randomize which map the player receives when they host an instance or join a portal. Ideally, this would happen for every campaign map, but I know that isn't feasible. So another option is to make spawn points randomized in regular PVE maps in order to throw off the bot.

We can also majorly nerf the amount of gold from mobs in regular PVE maps outside of gold farming zones and for compensation, increase the liquidation value of items by 5-10x as Xyzther previously mentioned.

I truly would rather not go back to picking up gold loot again, especially when it isn't a concrete solution to bots because there are numerous ways around it.

[Xyzther]

The answer to combat gold botting isn't to make people pick up gold loot again. Not only is picking up gold loot tedious, this isn't a full fledged solution to gold botting. There are zones that people can bot with infinite mobs that spawn (Lost Valley, Lost Villas, etc.) and their bot will just continue to walk over the gold over time or when they get back to their PC.

The correct thing to do is to make several gold farming maps and randomize which map the player receives when they host an instance or join a portal. Ideally, this would happen for every campaign map, but I know that isn't feasible. So another option is to make spawn points randomized in regular PVE maps in order to throw off the bot.

We can also majorly nerf the amount of gold from mobs in regular PVE maps outside of gold farming zones and for compensation, increase the liquidation value of items by 5-10x as Xyzther previously mentioned.

I truly would rather not go back to picking up gold loot again, especially when it isn't a concrete solution to bots because there are numerous ways around it.

Yeah I would’ve preferred my idea with not having to pick up gold, but having it nerfed along with buffed liquidation prices, but I’ll take what I can get right now

[Hawkbby]

Yeah I would’ve preferred my idea with not having to pick up gold, but having it nerfed along with buffed liquidation prices, but I’ll take what I can get right now
I support you bb.