Pricing/claiming discussion

[Cryn]

However, if you allow people to roll on all items that drop, there are more raids run and thus more items in the game.

I'm not sure this is the case. If I need an item that drops from a particular raid, but I know that since the whole raid will roll for it and there is a very strong chance it will be sold, I might well decide not to go on the raid.

Conversely, if I want to generate cash, almost everything in the game does so and I would probably go farm scrolls or something. If I go on the raid I will only get cash if I win a roll, and I'll be rolling against everyone.

The net effect might well be to discourage people from raids or,I suspect, have no impact on it, since people attend raids for other reasons typically.

Also, if someone does in fact just sell everything, they are in effect giving the items they won to someone and not actually taking an item back in return. This actually benefits everyone else as it pushes down the price of everything.

They are not really giving the item to someone. The person who eventually gets the item needs to buy it, and he may well have to take items from someone else in order to generate the cash to do so. It's swings and roundabouts, but in no sense do I believe it will push prices down. Prices generally only go down if the means of production becomes cheaper, and since the means of production (raids) for rare items will remain the same, it is unlikely to cause a price drop. DAoC's economy has historically been an inflationary one, but the inflation is driven by currency being regularly devalued (as gold gets easier to obtain and few sinks existing) so prices at present value would remain driven by supply (how difficult the encounter it drops from is) and demand (based on inherent usefulness of items within DAoC).

Right, I don't see any problem with people who want to accumulate cash as their goal in the game. If one person is a player who wants the loot to rvr and another just wants to see if he can cap out all his chars plat numbers, then both are equally entitled to the item. This assumes that they both participated in the raid to get it. (and complied with the raid leader's rules)

The problem is people who would otherwise NOT have a goal to accumulate cash may adopt one due to cultural factors we are introducing/reinforcing with lootsplit rules. In other words, we might be creating a culture of greed.


One thing I meant to mention in an earlier post, was that I think a big drawback of basing everything in DAoC on cash is that the DAoC marketplace is intrinsically unfair. Casual players literally do not have the same ability to generate cash. Cash is a factor of time to a large extent, so people who play constantly increase the amount of currency around and inflate prices out of the reach of casual players.

Given that DAoC is supposed to be a form of entertainment instead of work, I don't like the "if they don't play enough they don't deserve the item" argument.

Oh well, I guess we could debate this forever. As I've said, I do accept that everybody rolling for everything is an absolutely fair mechanism (at least in the narrow context of the raid). My concerns are all about the cultural impact.

[Lairiodd]

I'm not sure this is the case. If I need an item that drops from a particular raid, but I know that since the whole raid will roll for it and there is a very strong chance it will be sold, I might well decide not to go on the raid.

It doesn't change you chances at all. If you go on a raid and 3 artis / uber loot drop, you can roll for all of them. You then sell the one you get and that goes towards the one you want.

Conversely, if I want to generate cash, almost everything in the game does so and I would probably go farm scrolls or something. If I go on the raid I will only get cash if I win a roll, and I'll be rolling against everyone.

Farming stuff that is needed is good, it will mean more scrolls available. In effect, you are swapping the scrolls for the arti.

They are not really giving the item to someone. The person who eventually gets the item needs to buy it, and he may well have to take items from someone else in order to generate the cash to do so.

First, they aren't "taking" the item from anyone else. They are going on a raid specifically to get a 1/8 (or whatever) chance of winning an arti.

The price of artis is determined by supply and demand. If people run more raids, the prices will come down as supply goes up.

Prices generally only go down if the means of production becomes cheaper, and since the means of production (raids) for rare items will remain the same, it is unlikely to cause a price drop.

The cost of a raid is the effort to get everyone to actually go and then the 1-2 hours, the first part can be the hardest. A raid where you say "everyone can roll on everything" is going to have less downtime to get it set up than one which says "we are doing an <insert class> arti raid, you can only roll if you have a 50 char which can equip the item". This is because you have more potential group maters. All you need is 8 people who are trying to build up money to get an arti who are free, rather than 8 people who want that specific arti.

My personal favourite loot split method is everyone rolls and the person with the highest score gets the first choice and down the list until all the items are gone.

DAoC's economy has historically been an inflationary one, but the inflation is driven by currency being regularly devalued (as gold gets easier to obtain and few sinks existing) so prices at present value would remain driven by supply (how difficult the encounter it drops from is) and demand (based on inherent usefulness of items within DAoC).

If an arti is farmed the price drops. Anything which makes it easier to get a raid together will drop the prices.

On the inflation thing, I agree, but although it is high for a real economy, it is not chronic. Also, the effect is to punish those who horde.

What might be nice would be for arti mobs to drop "artifact fragments", in addion to the arti. If you get enough fragments, you can get an npc to fuse it into an arti. This reduces the effect of 1 arti for a raid of 20. They all get a fragment, and after say 10 fragments, they get an arti too.

The problem is people who would otherwise NOT have a goal to accumulate cash may adopt one due to cultural factors we are introducing/reinforcing with lootsplit rules. In other words, we might be creating a culture of greed.

Tbh, it is not greed to want to get something out of a raid. If you go and spend the same time as everyone else, it is not fair that you can't roll on anything while everyone else can due to the classes you have.

One thing I meant to mention in an earlier post, was that I think a big drawback of basing everything in DAoC on cash is that the DAoC marketplace is intrinsically unfair. Casual players literally do not have the same ability to generate cash. Cash is a factor of time to a large extent, so people who play constantly increase the amount of currency around and inflate prices out of the reach of casual players.

Given that DAoC is supposed to be a form of entertainment instead of work, I don't like the "if they don't play enough they don't deserve the item" argument.

It is not a question of deserve. Why should someone who plays alot not get rewarded for their playtime? Also, need before greed also favours someone with lots of chars even more than just letting everyone sell the stuff. If I have one of each class, then I can roll for everything.

What might be a good idea would be to allow the CM's to buy as well. You place an item on the CM and click buy price. This gives you back the item and a "ghost" on the CM. If someone places the item on the CM, they get the price you set from the CM funds. This allows casual players to use the market system even if they have no house. They would be paying a commission probably. Alternatively, it might be run as a service by a guild.

If you were running a group that was going to get 8 artis, would you accept someone saying "I don't play much, I should be allowed to get the arti even if I only go on 2 of the raids" ? That would clearly be unfair to the other 7. It is the same thing here.

In this instance, the problem is the game mechanic that means that alot of effort is required to get an item. This effort has to come from somewhere. This is a fundamental problem with MMORPGs. If you put in the time, you get the results.

Oh well, I guess we could debate this forever. As I've said, I do accept that everybody rolling for everything is an absolutely fair mechanism (at least in the narrow context of the raid). My concerns are all about the cultural impact.

I think it will help overall as it pushes down the prices. It also shows each person what they need to do to get the item. The fundamental problem with artis is that to get everyone an arti, you need to run the raid 8 times. It is easy to see the raid run once and think "that was easy" or "if only they gave me the arti", its another to put in the time needed so that everyone gets one. This is what they market allows. You compensate others for helping you get what you need, rather than hoping someone will help you out of charity. Charity should not be expected. You should expect to put in the effort needed, and any charity should be a bonus.

[Cryn]

It doesn't change you chances at all. If you go on a raid and 3 artis / uber loot drop, you can roll for all of them. You then sell the one you get and that goes towards the one you want.

In a raid where you roll against other people who "need" an item, you'll roll against a small number of people (say 5 or 10) for one item. This gives you a 1/5 or 1/10 chance of getting an item you need. If you don't need an item you have zero chance of getting anything, but then do you care?

Using the everyone rolls for everything rule in a raid of 50 people, for example, with 3 desirable drops, you get a 3/50 chance of winning an item, which may or may not be of equal or greater value of the item you need.

I realise it is more complex than that. The number of drops and number of attendees are variables, as are loot drop probabilities against market value of items.

At the end of the day though, you end up with a more cumbersome system where some people get more cash than they need, some get less than they need, and everyone gets obsessed with making money. Seems like a system where people just say "I need that" has the potential to be a lot more effective at getting the right items to the right owners with excess or shortfalls, although I do recognise the variable in this case is subjectivity of need, which is a biggie.

The cost of a raid is the effort to get everyone to actually go and then the 1-2 hours, the first part can be the hardest. A raid where you say "everyone can roll on everything" is going to have less downtime to get it set up than one which says "we are doing an <insert class> arti raid, you can only roll if you have a 50 char which can equip the item". This is because you have more potential group maters. All you need is 8 people who are trying to build up money to get an arti who are free, rather than 8 people who want that specific arti.

I really think the reasoning here is off. Motivators to get people to raids include needing an arti, needing another drop from the mobs on the raid, or maybe just helping out. Some people go to get really valuable drops to sell, but that tends to only be in loot-rich raids like ML9 and ML10.

Other than those, I can't see people attending MLs or arti hunts just to raise cash. It's just not how people operate. There are too many alternative ways of making cash.

Raids are not gonna get any easier to organise just because you tell people they can roll for all loot. Hence prices would not fall, either.

It is not a question of deserve. Why should someone who plays alot not get rewarded for their playtime?

They DO get reqarded for their extra playtime. They get the extra entertainment, which is why we log on. And actually they get more XP, RPs, gold and everything else too. I don't object to that, but I DO think it's a problem if as a side effect they then create market conditions that price casual players out of their items.

Also, need before greed also favours someone with lots of chars even more than just letting everyone sell the stuff. If I have one of each class, then I can roll for everything

Depends on how you look at it. For most of my DAoC career I had 1 character I wanted to equip (had another level 50 but didn't want to equip him). This means I rolled on almost nothing. Was I disadvantaged by this? No. Once Peat was equipped, what would I do with other items? Sell them for cash? But what would I spend it on if I don't need items?

Players trying to equip several characters would roll more often than me, but they were not doing me out of items because I had no use for them. That's the beauty of need before greed rules. The only thing that would have made me complain about people rolling for items I could not use would have been a generalised resentment that someone is getting an item when I am not - that's greed

[Lairiodd]

In a raid where you roll against other people who "need" an item, you'll roll against a small number of people (say 5 or 10) for one item. This gives you a 1/5 or 1/10 chance of getting an item you need. If you don't need an item you have zero chance of getting anything, but then do you care?

It balances out. You can either have a situation where you go to many raids and always have a chance to get something or a situation where you go to many raids and every couple of raids you can roll but when you roll you have a higher chance. The number of items is the same in both cases and the total number of people after the items is the same.

All that is needed is that the raid leader says before the raid what the split method is and sticks to it and then both system should work the same. This assumes that all classes are equally represented in the raids on average and that drops are evenly distributed amoung all the raid mobs.

However, enforcing a need before greed system is harder (so there is more likelyhood of hard feelings). Also, as I said it means that classes which don't need any of the drops for a specific raid will be difficult to recruit and IMO can legitimately feel hard done by (though they shouldn't have gone to the raid if the leader said those were the split rules beforehand)

I guess one advantage of the need before greed method is that you are more likely to use an item that you were on the raid that it drops, but it makes it harder to get people to go to the raid. In fact, this is the only benefit I can see. Everything else balances and by allowing people to sell items you ensure that everyone is equally treated.

Seems like a system where people just say "I need that" has the potential to be a lot more effective at getting the right items to the right owners

... if everyone was honest, which they aren't. Expecting people not to be people and try to game the system is unreasonable and just leads to hard feelings.

They DO get reqarded for their extra playtime. They get the extra entertainment, which is why we log on. And actually they get more XP, RPs, gold and everything else too. I don't object to that, but I DO think it's a problem if as a side effect they then create market conditions that price casual players out of their items.

The casual players get all those things too. The "problem" with a market is that it is honest. It tells you how much effort is needed for a specific item in a clearly defined way. It is not the market's fault that artis are rare, it is a game mechanic. The market just tells you that that item is hard to get (or annoying or something)

Depends on how you look at it. For most of my DAoC career I had 1 character I wanted to equip (had another level 50 but didn't want to equip him). This means I rolled on almost nothing. Was I disadvantaged by this? No. Once Peat was equipped, what would I do with other items? Sell them for cash? But what would I spend it on if I don't need items?

or give them away, if you don't want to charge people for them. Clearly, they are more use if actually used. OTOH, if you like collecting artis, then that is fine too.

Players trying to equip several characters would roll more often than me, but they were not doing me out of items because I had no use for them. That's the beauty of need before greed rules. The only thing that would have made me complain about people rolling for items I could not use would have been a generalised resentment that someone is getting an item when I am not - that's greed

They are getting more benefit from the raid than you. That is fine if you accept it, but if someone else said "I want us to sell all the items and split the money 8 ways", that would be fine too and not greedy. Setting the rules before the raid solves those issues anyway.

[Cryn]

The casual players get all those things too.

The casual players get less XP, less money, less RPs. That's the reward for people who play longer.

The "problem" with a market is that it is honest. It tells you how much effort is needed for a specific item in a clearly defined way. It is not the market's fault that artis are rare, it is a game mechanic. The market just tells you that that item is hard to get (or annoying or something)

It's not really to do with rarity. You say that the market is honest, but I would say it is blind. Using plain, unadorned market forces is great if you are on a level playing field. If I wanna sell chairs in real life, I have as much opportunity as the next person. However, if you were to put me into a market where my competitors magically have 10 times as much time to produce chairs than I do, I will not be able to compete. This is the exact problem faced by casual players against people with more time (students, unemployed, etc) in DAoC. If you leave item acquisition entirely to blind market forces, these people will not be able to compete.

... if everyone was honest, which they aren't. Expecting people not to be people and try to game the system is unreasonable and just leads to hard feelings.

It doesn't rely on everyone being honest. It relies on us valuing our sense of community more than the odd little bit of unfairness. We can say I think that most people are honest. So occasionally someone walks off with something they don't need, but balanced against that we get to play in a community where lootsplits are done in a human, personal manner instead of everything being converted to cash then facelessly transacted.

If we were to assume everyone is dishonest, then I would say we would also have to assume that when people sold things they would try to screw each other for every copper, which would equally lead to bad feelings. I reckon for any system to exist without bad feelings it generally relies on most people being pretty decent, since if they are not their actions one way or another will cause people bad feelings.

They are getting more benefit from the raid than you. That is fine if you accept it, but if someone else said "I want us to sell all the items and split the money 8 ways", that would be fine too and not greedy.

This is something we obviously just see differently from each other. If your only reason for wanting something is just because you do not want someone else to get a bigger share is that not greed?

[Sharkith]

It doesn't rely on everyone being honest. It relies on us valuing our sense of community more than the odd little bit of unfairness. We can say I think that most people are honest. So occasionally someone walks off with something they don't need, but balanced against that we get to play in a community where lootsplits are done in a human, personal manner instead of everything being converted to cash then facelessly transacted.

The first thing here to remember is that 'need before greed' if it were to be measured would lead to a binomial distribution. You are either needy or greedy. There is no inbetween, no nice bell curve and what is more the only way to know if there is a need or a greed is if you can see inside each others heads which is a ridiculus assertion. It is a personal decision and not one open to public scrutiny. When it becomes open to public scrutiny such rules always lead to forum flaming as has happened in this instance. Now what is better for the community?

Some seem to claim that there was once a golden age on the server that this rule worked. Others point to the fact that in fact greed was always there even in the epic Galladoria raids. The point I have been trying to make is that you simply cannot avoid the semantics of greed whenever you imply need. As a result you end up with very damaging discussions on the forums. Some people flaming others for selling stuff and so on.

The idea might be very nice, it may even be ethically sound in some respects. It is a mistake to imply that everyone should be bound by it as a normative rule. It is simply not going to work as a way of organising relationships between people who do not know each other. The reason for this is that the people that are on those raids do not know each other and you have statements like some made on this forum on this particular instance which went 'get back to excaliber' and so on. So the pretence of a need before greed remains a big stick for those who are unhappy to beat the crap our of someone esle. That is simply unethical behaviour.

So whilst in the past it might well have worked it seems to me to be a very bad normative rule to use to govern interactions between people who do not know each other. Thats all I am saying. As for all that stuff about the market that is a seperate discussion for me. I would start it by pointing out that 'free for all' is an illusion.

Sharkith

[Cryn]

When I talked about the bell curve, I meant the distribution of greed, with "very greedy" (would roll for too much stuff in a need before greed system) being at one end of the scale and "very generous" (would tend never to roll) being at the other. I think most of us fall in the middle, and hence we can run a need before greed system without fear of too much abuse.

[Lairiodd]

It's not really to do with rarity. You say that the market is honest, but I would say it is blind. Using plain, unadorned market forces is great if you are on a level playing field. If I wanna sell chairs in real life, I have as much opportunity as the next person. However, if you were to put me into a market where my competitors magically have 10 times as much time to produce chairs than I do, I will not be able to compete.

Yes you could. You would just get 10 times less money overall. It doesn't mean that you would get less per chair than the other person.

In any case, this is a separate issue, this relates to game mechanics not running of raids. If the game was setup so that the number of drops was larger the more casual players you had in the bg (or maybe the mobs slightly easier), then the market would end up making it so that casual players got +'s to their rolls (or something), because raid leaders would want casual players.

It doesn't rely on everyone being honest. It relies on us valuing our sense of community more than the odd little bit of unfairness.

You still have the community feel of running the raids etc. Those aren't done facelessly. The lootsplit has never been community building anyway.

I reckon for any system to exist without bad feelings it generally relies on most people being pretty decent, since if they are not their actions one way or another will cause people bad feelings.

I would say it also relies on the system not encouraging gaming of the system. With a system where you can roll on everything, it works for everyone no matter where on the scale from greedy to totally community driven you are.

This is something we obviously just see differently from each other. If your only reason for wanting something is just because you do not want someone else to get a bigger share is that not greed?

It is not that I don't want someone to get a bigger share than me, it is that I wouldn't class someone who won't join the raid unless they get an equal share as greedy. It is just a desire for fairness. Also, I think if someone told me that I was being greedy because I said I wouldn't join a raid that didn't drop anything I needed unless I could roll on everything, I think that it is actually that person who is being selfish. They are putting their "need" (want) for me to be in the raid above my desire to do something else. I guess the problem is that need before greed strikes me as forced charity, which isn't charity at all.

[Cryn]

Yes you could. You would just get 10 times less money overall. It doesn't mean that you would get less per chair than the other person.

If your competitor magically has 10 times your production capacity (remember, the extra capacity doesn't cost him anything) then you cannot compete. He can choose to either produce units cheaper and price you out of the market, or put more time into each piece and make a product you cannot match.

The point here is that market forces are only fair when all players within the market have equal ability to produce cash. If I make 1p a week through my normal playing habits, and someone else makes 5p a week through normal playing habits, I have less spending power. The desirable items will be priced to maximise the return to the seller and will therefore be targetted at the people who have the higher ranges of plats. Casual players will not be able to afford their items.

This is something I can substantiate. Currently, many casual players are RvRing in RoG or with only one or two items of their template. A loot split where they are not competing against the whole raid is often their main chance of gaining an item they need. In the time they have online they cannot generate enough cash to cover today's prices.

[Lothandar]

Am I getting paranoid or did this thread sneak into the general discussion from offtopic?