A Gold Sink

**Otukura** · 10-19-2011, 09:03 PM

Does anyone have any ideas for one? Prices are rising, and elixirs no longer do the job, plat lets us bypass this part. I don't really care if things are hard to obtain or not, that's the game. I care about the fact that low level things cost way more than someone leveling can obtain. Something that would just drain gold from the higher leveled players, and keep it to the lower ones. There's hardly a point for many of the low level pinks now, except for twinks. When I was first leveling, a mojo bow would cost 5k. Now it costs 20. A 400% increase, a level 20 could easily farm 5k on his way there, a level 20 can't normally far 20.

Please DO NOT go on about elixirs... I don't want this to turn into a flame thread, and will lock it if it does. I don't think this is STS's fault, it's happened in every game I've been in no matter how amazing the company is, but I do think that STS should try to prevent or impede the progression of this. New players can't play how they once did.

/youspecifiedatagthatwastoolongatagcanonlybe25chara cters

**KingFu** · 10-19-2011, 11:47 PM

Simple. Make the Omnipresent Crown of Dreams available to be bought with gold. Will 5 mil do the job?

**Zeus** · 10-20-2011, 12:04 AM

Rofl at David. STS has the right intention with the crafting. They should make crafting materials pretty rare, so people are forced to buy some to complete a set. This will cause gold to drain fast, in theory. But, the only flaw I see with that is, what happens when people don't need to make crafted sets anymore? Inflation starts again. Ah, the headache of economic problems.

**Otukura** · 10-20-2011, 12:09 AM

Originally Posted by Apollo

Rofl at David. STS has the right intention with the crafting. They should make crafting materials pretty rare, so people are forced to buy some to complete a set. This will cause gold to drain fast, in theory. But, the only flaw I see with that is, what happens when people don't need to make crafted sets anymore? Inflation starts again. Ah, the headache of economic problems.

That's my point, in AO3, we had OL. 3k/run, nice gold drain. 5 minutes of fun too. Now, it just doesn't work like that.

**Ellyidol** · 10-20-2011, 12:18 AM

Originally Posted by Otukura

That's my point, in AO3, we had OL. 3k/run, nice gold drain. 5 minutes of fun too. Now, it just doesn't work like that.

Agreed. Extinct gold elixirs plus difficulty of bosses were the best gold sinks back then.

IMO, today, gold has little to no use to a hardcore gamer. Of course it still has value through buying stuff, but we know that difference in satisfaction from buying versus farming

Heck I started Nuri's with 200k only and minus the pink sales, probably got a mil or two through liquidation alone. No outflow at all.

**YYZ????** · 10-20-2011, 12:22 AM

I thought of this a few days ago. I made a new friend(lvl14). He stated gear is really expensive. So i checked out a few 15, 19, 25 prices. I agree they seem higher than they used to be.

I made a commitment to him that i will supply 1 piece of equipment for each lvl as long long as it is something he needs. You don't always need the very best gear when moving up. He is now at lvl 22 and it has not costed me much but it really helps.

This is one way to help keep things interesting.

**Trollee** · 10-20-2011, 12:24 AM

Perhaps (hopefully) STS has some type of gold sink planned for Mt. Fang and its gear. I can't imagine any type of system that would work (I'm not an economics sort of guy

) but I hope for the sake of new players joining the game that STS implements something. I started playing PL just after the Sewers release and even then found some of the prices for pinks my level well out of reach. On the other hand, there should always be that separation between the gear only accessible by twinks and the gear accessible by your average joe player. An elaborate system is required, and I hope STS manages to come up with something suffice.

**TANKKAAR** · 10-20-2011, 12:52 AM

A few of the issues you have listed can be fixed by simply flooding more Low level pinks into the game.. IMO this will affect 2 things:
1) prices for low level pinks will drop and allow a level 10 to actually afford level 10 gear.
2) money invested by all the high levels will be lost on the twink gear they have bought.

No this isn't exactly a gold sink for high levels but I think everyone needs to remember in any economy there will be the rich and then there will be the poor. It only makes sense that the longer you play the more money you should have. what I really think needs to happen in this game is the fix of the amount of drops as the game progresses. if you think about it as the game gets older so do the players. The rarity of the drops at the higher and newly released levels should remain the same but as the game goes on I really feel lower level pinks should become more common to prevent the type of inflation that we have seen from occurring and making the gear basically unobtainable to lower levels that actually need it which is what we are seeing now.

Either way that's my 2play...lol

**drewcapu** · 10-20-2011, 01:22 AM

When you come up with an ideal gold sink, they'll come up with an ideal platinum garbage disposal.

**Riccits** · 10-20-2011, 01:43 AM

well sewers was a big gold sink. i would be enough to remove all trash drops from nuri and all future campains.

**Corpser** · 10-20-2011, 04:18 AM

perhaps the devs could add a sorta lucky dip e.g you put in 10k and get a random chance for good loot (scaled to your level) so you will get a pink sometimes good sometimes bad just random i reckon this would be awesome just make getting a good one really rare cause i can see rich people abusing this so much!

**AdinoEznite** · 10-20-2011, 05:13 AM

Originally Posted by Corpser

perhaps the devs could add a sorta lucky dip e.g you put in 10k and get a random chance for good loot (scaled to your level) so you will get a pink sometimes good sometimes bad just random i reckon this would be awesome just make getting a good one really rare cause i can see rich people abusing this so much!

i was thinking about something along these lines, but slightly different

especially with the new content coming out STS can hold a raffle of sorts
you pay per ticket, no limit on the tickets

and the raffle winner gets one of the new pinks (predetermined by STS) from MT Fang/winter festival
this raffle can be held weekly or so

later when the maps arent as new, it can be a new vanity or something
basically anything that would get the end game people to spend lots of gold on lots of tickets
but of course theres only one winner

the gold can be payed to an NPC who says what the new item up for the raffle is and what not

hows that sound?

**Ixillicus** · 10-20-2011, 07:28 AM

Here is a gold sink...
20 Plat = 500k, you can buy it once a week. Atleast the players who wouldnt prefer to pay real money for the game would be able to sink some money for something that will get burned up.

**Gluttony** · 10-20-2011, 08:18 AM

Perhaps I don't understand what a gold sink is, but crafting is based on drops and the gold isn't exactly lost but traded. Elixirs used to be a true gold since they were consumable items, the gold you put into them was lost after 5 minutes of play time. Even though recipies are consumable, the gold isn't lost since they are drops and if they're bought from cs then the gold you spent to get it may be lost to you, but another player has it so it's not actually sunk into anything.

As for the other suggestions, they are already implemented into the game in a form of plat sink. Corpser's random loot chance is basically the idea behind platinum item packs. So as Drewcapu stated once the best idea for a gold sink has been identified, even if STS implements it into the game it is only a matter of time before someone from the marketing division realizes the potential to make actual money from the idea and it become a plat purchase only. I think Ixillicus' idea was ok in reverse (but has been suggested numerous times) to allow players to turn gold into plat, but more realistically 500k = 1 plat so a capped player can only get 20 plat per week (maybe change that to month), but again this could cause STS to see a decrease in revenue even if only a bit so it doesn't stand much of a chance to become a reality.

There are a couple of gold sinks in place but the amount of gold is so low that they are not effective: cs listing price, guild charter purchase. What about some new form of quests; you would have to pay a premium to accept them and the end product is a desirable prize, maybe use the hard to acquire crafting pieces or even some of the non set pinks from Nuri's campaign. Maybe even a completely brand new set, much like how cyber set was. Talk to Nuri and she will offer you a quest, kill 1000 zombies in Haunted Symphony and get a para scrap/glyph blade steel and since the item is a quest reward it won't be tradable or sellable. Quests would cost 25k to start for crafting parts (maybe 100k for blade steel), and 250k to start for actual gear. This idea basically makes it so you're buying these items along with a bit of work and the finished product you cannot sell or try to recoup your losses via cs, so once the gold is spent it's gone.

**StompArtist** · 10-20-2011, 08:26 AM

They could make the gear sold by merchants close to good pinks (but not superior) for a large amount of gold. There's your drain.

**Yvonnel** · 10-20-2011, 08:45 AM

Houses. Purchase with plat. Weekly gold rental fee. Upgrades for gold, etc.

Tapatalk'd from my PowerWashed Fascinate

**vaffunculo** · 10-20-2011, 08:53 AM

If people weren't willing to pay the crazy cs prices then items would not cost so much...only way to stop ridiculous prices really is to not pay them..then prices will drop.

**Riccits** · 10-20-2011, 08:57 AM

Originally Posted by Mysticaldream

Simple. Make the Omnipresent Crown of Dreams available to be bought with gold. Will 5 mil do the job?

to farm 5mil i need 1-2 months. to get the money for 500plat i neet a few hours of work

LOL!

**Gluttony** · 10-20-2011, 09:00 AM

Originally Posted by vaffunculo

If people weren't willing to pay the crazy cs prices then items would not cost so much...only way to stop ridiculous prices really is to not pay them..then prices will drop.

I don't think that is what it's about, players have numerous toons at gold cap (-1 from 10M) which means they can pretty much control the market by buying items if they're priced too low and re-listing them at a much higher rate, there is no real way to stop this unless there is a way to regulate the gold a player can amass.

**vaffunculo** · 10-20-2011, 09:10 AM

Originally Posted by Gluttony:454852

Originally Posted by vaffunculo

If people weren't willing to pay the crazy cs prices then items would not cost so much...only way to stop ridiculous prices really is to not pay them..then prices will drop.

I don't think that is what it's about, players have numerous toons at gold cap (-1 from 10M) which means they can pretty much control the market by buying items if they're priced too low and re-listing them at a much higher rate, there is no real way to stop this unless there is a way to regulate the gold a player can amass.

While this is true, eventually it will catch up with them and bankrupt them. I know a few players that lost millions doing that at nuri launch time.