Feedback: Economy

[asommers]

I'm aggregating all economy posts here.

In order to make things easier to read, I will be also removing any posts in this thread that do not contribute (just add a "yeah", "+1", etc.). You can thank the original post instead if you agree.

-ALS

[snipesog]

Long but worth the read imoThis could be completely misplaced and if so disregard it, however with the recent gold loot nerf if it reasonable to assume you’ll are trying to bring down prices to hopefully help the community. However due to this, the average player that is just returning after many years or ones who don’t spend money and don’t play everyday have had it the worst recently and have not been able to progress and make gold to then buy more gears to progress further. This is mainly due to the fact that while you can farm dune for gold, no one is doing it to help carry these players to atleast some gold. (Think back to Indi, it was always full so you could join at random and get a clear done fast repeat). However now not many players are doing dune becuase it’s not worth the time, and most/ a lot of players don’t even have the gears to do so.

1. All this to say I believe a good solution to the gold inflation issue is to simply buff gold loot back up (doesn’t need to be where it was but just enough where it’s actually worth it farm). Or/ you can additionally make dune mobs not as tanky. Literally the mobs are the hardest part, the bosses are easy.

2. One simple and additional way to reduce blood gear cost or any future gear cost is to add it to the same crate as vanity for an event. We all know people spend a lot during events. Simply adding blood gear to the same pool and making the blood gear rates slightly higher than the vanity will produce more blood gear in the market. More blood gear = greater supply = cost goes down. This may upset people however as people probably want blood gear to stay high price but not everybody can win.

3. And personally I think this is the best option as I believe it will allow for players to return to the game as they have a chance of getting the blood gear or sb whatever, is to maybe once every 6 months implement an event that features blood gear dropping. So it could be just like a normal event maybe u add a vanity to increase profits while also having a chance to drop blood gear by simply playing the game. I can make the drop rate really low, maybe even a 0.1% chance per run to get blood gear. Additionally add an Exiler for 10 plats that doubles your chance of getting the gear. Add an lb like a vanity or it could even be more blood gear yay!

Additionally vanities don’t need to be reduced in price. Due to the gold loot nerf vanities have gone down in value which I think is a good and bad thing. Good: more people can experience the vanity have fun putting on different loads out and just open up more vanities for more people. Bad: the ftp or mostly ftp players who works hard saving hundreds of millions to buy a vanity now just lost hundreds of millions. In my opinion just keep vanities where they are at. If an implementation of more blood gear and a little better gold loot is in the game it will help people to get more gold as they can now afford the blood items to farm gold and thus they can ultimately get the gold to buy their vanity faster.

If the goal of nerfing gold loot was not to bring down prices then you may disregard this, however I think a blood gear / whatever current gear is best would be a good idea and favorable for many ftp players or ones who do not spend a whole lot on the game. Additionally, if players do return becuase they can now achieve getting blood more easily, more players = more people who will spend money. It’s a win win for everyone.

[ThaAnas]

Dear STS,

This thread shows a critical perspective on key changes implemented in recent updates, focusing on the potential negative impact on veteran player and newer players engagement and the long-term health of the in-game economy.
I am playing this game since 2014 and I m also well known but I can not just stand still anymore.

1. Leaderboard (LB) Reward Structure

The observed shift in Leaderboard (LB) rewards from high-value, tradeable items to bound, non-transferable items represents a structural change to the competitive ecosystem.
The primary concern is the diminished incentive for sustained, high-volume competitive grinding. For the top-tier player segment, the tradable nature of previous rewards served as a crucial economic driver and a significant motivator for participation. Replacing these with bound items reduces the extrinsic value proposition of the LB and may lead to reduced engagement in competitive event cycles.

2. Gold Generation and Farming Efficiency

A significant reduction in gold loot drop rates across established farming maps has been implemented. While necessary adjustments are understood, the amount of the decrease gold loot appears to have severely compromised gold farming as a good method of gold income.
For players with substantial investment in high-tier gear, designed specifically for maximizing farm efficiency, the current returns of outcome gold can not process the current updates of achievements. This creates an unsustainable reliance on new content for basic currency acquisition.

3. Achievement Point System (APS) Economics: Pet Mastery

The economic requirements for completing the Pet Mastery APS (leveling specific Pet Shards to Level 7) appear mathematically unattainable under current gold generation rates, fundamentally disconnecting the achievement from its expected in-game cost-to-time ratio.
Based on estimated costs for leveling the required number of Pet Shards across Arcane, Heroic, Mythic, and Legendary tiers, the total estimated investment is approximately 8.56 Billion Gold.




The current requirement of over 2,140 hours of uninterrupted, fully optimized farming pushes this achievement from a demanding long-term goal to a mathematically improbable one for the majority of the player base.

4. Class Balance and Title Milestones

Two additional APS concerns require attention:

300 Title APS: The progression required to reach the 300-title milestone suggests it is only reasonably accessible to players active from the game's earliest years (2013-2014). This balancing decision limits a high-tier achievement to a diminishing percentage of the player base, regardless of present-day activity.

Cursed Dungeon APS (Mage Class): Reports indicate that the Mage class is functionally incapable of completing the Cursed Dungeon APS. If true, this points to a significant class-specific imbalance within the dungeon’s mechanics that must be addressed to ensure achievement access across all character types.

5. Event Vendor Accessibility and Focus

Feedback on the Event Vendor interfaces suggests an over-emphasis on premium commerce. Vendors are reportedly saturated with Platinum-based offers (locked crates, vanities, jewels), which obstruct and complicate the immediate identification of the few new, grindable, in-event weapons and gear.

Conclusion

The confluence of reduced gold generation and the sustained, exceptionally high cost of key progression systems creates a structural mismatch in the game’s economy. This has a direct negative correlation with long-term motivation, as high-engagement players are unable to effectively pursue the progression goals they have been working towards. Personally, if I open the vendor trading system, I feel uncomfortable by scrolling down and see which items are able to aquire in the events. My suggestion is to you, please find someone of you who also plays this game, so at least one can tell how it is and by saying that: I mean one of your devs play it without using the functions of being a dev by just typing 999 999 999 Gold into inventory. Once try a self experiment for 1 month by going on a hardcore mode character and start at the beginning without plats. You guys would learn so much about your own game.

Sincerely,

Sek

[Soghostly]

How is this coming out to 100k gold per 90 seconds? Is this data with a full blood gear party and very high speed running only Dune 1?

I think the time should be closer to 2 minutes average instead of 90 seconds, and with less gold income. Unless someone has 1.6k+ gold loot I don't see how one is averaging 100k/run (assuming not opening chests as this would cause the run to become longer). If you're running pugs and waiting for ppl to reach boss then this time is extended even more.

If a typical player has 1.1k gl they are making 60-70k on average per run. But would love to get your thoughts on if there should be an adjustment on the numbers to get closer to how much gold people are really making.

I do agree with your idea that the devs should start from a brand new account, in regular mode with 0 plat injection, and work their way towards buying gold loot gears/speed sets/starbeast/blood and see how much time it truly takes them because that is what the average player has to go through.

[ThaAnas]

Yes I do not talk about generally, I took my sets for example and descriped it from my personal view. Yes in average I need 1:30 min for dune 1 and I loot 80-105k.

[Soghostly]

Yes I do not talk about generally, I took my sets for example and descriped it from my personal view. Yes in average I need 1:30 min for dune 1 and I loot 80-105k.

I see that makes sense. Thanks for sharing the numbers. Out of curiousity how much GL do you have? I would love to start looking 100k+ on runs but need to know how much GL to reach haha

[ThaAnas]

That has nothing to do with this thread. You are welcome to write me a house message in game, I can show or send you every item. Ign: Sek

[Gravely]

All of the sudden gold farming is being locked behind a steep gear check. That is not good for your general population. I mean if you really only want the strongest players to play the game then I couldn't think of a better way to say that than what you did.

I was excited to be able to loot/craft expansion items at first, then I realized they are useless if you don't balance old gear, so I quit caring about the whole thing.

Gold is not really worth it, the items are not worth it, so idk I guess rely on events till you figure it out. I see no reason to have stomped on gold like you did after letting it run rampant for how long? Comon.

[Soghostly]

The big issue here is that there's no stepping stone up to the Duneveil expansion. The options are to either wait for events that don't require gold loot like Halloween and slowly obtain useful gear over the course of 1 or multiple years, or purchase plat and convert to gold. The second issue is that it's very difficult to clear even floor 1 in a timely manner that makes farming worthwhile if you don't have blood set. Star Beast/Kraken set users (which would be described as mid tier gear) are forced to wait long periods of time or not run at all because their gear does not allow to clear this content in a timely manner.

Couple of ideas to propose:

1) Buff the difficulty a little and gold drops significantly in Duneveil. For floors 2-6, buff base gold drop increasing by the floor you make it to. This will allow higher geared players to continue running Duneveil and encourage them to farm past map 1. Also, buff the difficulty of older content like Hedo and Zodias along with gold drops, but do not buff gold drops significantly. Also slight buff to gold drops in mausoleum so that players with legendary/entry mythics can clear it in a time that makes it worthwhile for them to farm. This should all be a stepping stone. Duneveil as the latest expansion should be the most difficult AND profitable in terms of time spent in the dungeon (pure gold, leaving furniture/vanities out of this).

2) Keep difficulty as is and buff gold drops slightly in Duneveil, and buff gold slightly in Hedo/Indigo/Zodias, keeping difficulty the same.

If the game keeps going as it is now, people will leave because it's nearly impossible to work towards stronger gears without already having some of the strongest gears in the game. You need to have stepping stones that allow dedicated players that are willing to grind, be able to grind lower end content and save up towards the next set of gear/content. Requiring players to pay play to progress will just drive them away before they even have the chance to spend money on the game.

[Yuggernaut]

My concrete opinion for something soon in duneveil/engame needed:

- Everything has become a little more stable after months of overpricing due the hard GL nerf, but,
now if they were going to do something radical to slow down/stabilize things,
they should have also left something as a buffer first.
and I'm referring to Duneveil. Duneveil, in its current state, is not designed to offer gold farming, but rather item farming.

- It could have been good to start the expansion with a portal for gold and Duneveil caves for items. When the portal closed in Duneveil, there were still the "mauso" dungeons to farm good items like the ones to make the Corrupted jewels,
while STS figured out what to do halfway through and the players weren't massively affected, as happened when nerfing 90% of GL and leaving them aimless.

PD: STS wanted to fix the massive gold from Hedoura, but they didn't, because they didn't even drop Arcane Elderwoods,
those things have to be intertwined from now on gold-items drops, meaning portals-dungeons- so that not everyone is waiting for only the portal and vice versa

In this sense, Duneveil came out without a portal and now we can see what's happening, just as if it had been just to come out with a portal without the 5 dungeons of Duneveil, it would have been bad, both things must go together

[Neutrone]

The negative reaction to the gold loot nerf stems from the fact that there are not a lot of ways to make gold. Think back when we had locked grand crates as a primary source to make gold, even after you took them away and made expansion crates useless we still had alternatives. Now, people don't have a lot of alternatives other than events.


​My suggestion? Make old crafting materials relevant again by including them as ingredients in new recipes for events, new expansions, and vendor items. Like what you did with arcanite bar during eggzavier event.


​Literally tell me what you lose from this move:


- ​It creates multiple, diverse ways for new and old players to earn gold.

- ​It increases activity in old, dusty maps and gives people something to farm even when theres no event.

- Speaking of which, this allows you more time to work on events and have more periods where there are no events because people are actually preoccupied with something.

- ​It stimulates the in-game economy (from the buying/sselling of materials).

- ​It helps clear up inventory space by giving old, unused materials a new use.

_________________________________________


Examples of ​How This Would Work


- ​Event Vanities and Gear: Introduce recipes during events that require a mix of the event's new material and older campaign map drops (e.g., 50 orc fangs, a dragonite bar, and some event material to craft a vanity item).

-​Event Heroic Eggs: Introduce a system where arcane fossils can be used to craft event heroic eggs. This incentivizes running Planar Arena and gives F2P a chance to obtain new eggs (besides arcane fossils barely drop anyway ). You can still put them for platinum for those that want to get them easily.

-​Furniture: Include more new furniture pieces that require materials from different, older expansions. You sort of already do this.

_________________________________________


​Bottom line: Stop abandoning old maps and content with every new expansion. Its so wasteful.

[Neutrone]

Another example I forgot to mention was using them to craft gear. You could have 1 important rare material drop in locked crates if you want to make money, and then the rest of the materials need to be farmed in large quantities from maps

[|Ares|]

Change the bind on equip to account bound like you did with ascendant weapons. The "design" here is an overstatement when trying to explain on why you can wear item only once and not do anything else with it. Am I supposed to delete them if I dont like them or I find them not living up to the "powerful gear" standards?

[Elitefarm]

There should be a stronger map in 91 with better gold drops, like Curse Woods, but in groups. Fees to convert your 1B into bars. Locked chests can be sold in the AUC again. I remember that before, energies could be crafted and sold in the AUC. This made things more difficult in LB and caused gold to circulate in the economy, passing from one hand to another. The idea of ascended items was excellent. I myself spent millions doing this in Mage and Warrior, removing gold from the economy and increasing its value. In short, having a lot of gold circulating in the economy isn't harmful, as long as there's a way to spend it. Currently, you farm to spend it on gear, awakenings, and events. How about adding locked chests, crafting, Vantys, padlocks that can be opened with gold, perhaps more account-bound gear with better stats, etc. When you reach the end of the game with your items and gems, there's nothing left to do but accumulate billions and spend them on events. With LB building your house and collecting items, there's nothing left to spend...

[recilencia123]

It was an excellent move the bind on equip, it directly counters loaning weapons and alt abuse in events like temple, well thought out devs ^^

[GajahDuduk]

agree that pet evolution need to be adjusted to current situation

[Tripshot]

Pet evolution needs to be strictly towards pve it absolutely ruins pvp when players think it is funny to troll in pvp zones by instant killing with pet.
Next I think bringing back some of the old way of game play with stacking luck and running kraken mines(map can be something more relatable to now) but can drop 50 keys or 25 keys, jewels and maybe arc awakes or elite awakes but something that has value that is lootable but also is consumed on use similar to how locks were back in the day. This allows the economy to get back on track as gold is being spent on high demand items or selling items for gold instead of gold loot which was increasing inflation.

[iamegirl]

I clean something about economy of the game that is crucial and devs destroyed the two parts, the part that help f2p players i explain bellow...
The gold loot is nerfed in all maps (all maps in rahab elite gives the same gold just adjustable by players gold loot) except duneveil who is map only for elite players and p2p players nor free to play players, gold loot giving the chance for f2p to get something the most p2p gets with money opening crates and selling the unique items to the auction for millions and some very minor part of f2p who open chests with crate keys on who are extremely auper rare to found by opening free elite runner chests very small part of players and this is huge unfair to free players instead the game support mostly if not only the paying players (reasons are known and is something i never met in other online games who support both players (free and paying) ...)
The second part who is destroyed is luck and free awakening gems who work with it along with the removal of equipment finder option who giving us what items drops every map deva somehow removed this useful otion but why really???
The players had two choices either get full gold loot and get huge gold income by rahab maps who is now permanently nerfed or going full luck and farm at mausoleum for free awakening gems created by lootable insence fragments who are now removed permanently for the profit of the devs to gain them by paying with money by the store or lootable only by elite players (pay to play ones) who farm this fragments in their levels with high op equipments and they are the only ones who gain benefits in auction now, general speaking the game has put free players to their fate and with no meaningful porpoise to farm and they are instead waiting for events to gain some profit it's something i never seen in my whole gaming life in no other game so far it's really shameful to the company to make auch choices.... Yikes really

[Yuggernaut22]

I won't speak for the entire player base, although that's all anyone's talking about in town, but,
I will speak for the players in my guild. We're just waiting for an announcement about the economy—in Dune, about any Portal, content not related to events, Gold Loot, etc, anywhere—but an announcement if they're finally going to do something.
And I know you all know that everyone is just waiting for news about that

[J7DR]

Hello Developers — Cinco, Assomers, and the entire STS team,
Good morning.

I will keep this message direct and respectful. There is an important concern shared by a large part of the Arcane Legends community — new players, returning players, and even long-time veterans.

We strongly request that Inventory Slots, Auction Slots, and Stash Slots be returned to the Story Token vendor instead of being locked behind Platinum.

Right now, many new or returning players cannot even list an item in the Auction because they cannot afford the Platinum required to unlock basic slots. A lot of players do not have access to payment methods, and many simply cannot spend real money on the game. Previously, these essential slots were obtainable for free through Story Tokens — something any player could earn daily.

When such basic features become Platinum-only, the game becomes unnecessarily difficult, especially for low-level and non-spending players.

This creates a gap between players who can spend money and those who cannot, making it harder for the community to grow.

We all recognize and appreciate the great work you’ve done with Arcane Legends over the years. Offers such as 4,000 Platinum for $100 give paying players a fair advantage and support the game — that is understandable. But shifting core progression items like auction or inventory slots into Platinum-only purchases makes the game feel restrictive, even for long-time players.

Bringing these slots back to Story Tokens would

help the entire community:
New players could participate in the economy normally.

Returning players could rebuild without financial pressure.

Veteran players would benefit from additional freedom and smoother gameplay.

The game would feel more balanced, fair, and welcoming.

We ask for this not just for ourselves, but for the health of the game and the future of its player base.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and we hope you will consider this request seriously.
Your players truly appreciate your work, and we believe this small change would make a big positive impact.

Thank you very much.