no, I should get one. but if you use the Ultima west coast hub portal the portal for the Temple of Commerce is directly across on the left side and from there is a portal to Yeomra’s Workshop. Or I have a portal to the workshop from the Grovidias Te hub.
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Speaking purely for myself here, but…
I find I don’t want to sell goods to people because I would have to ask a lot for it to seem worth not just keeping for myself. Same for baskets; I’d just rather keep my mats rather than pawn them for such low amounts.
It’s a tough economy, for sure. But, it’s also early in the game’s life. Things may need a lot of time to settle.
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Interesting to see how many people thought demand was going to always outweigh supply/knowledge on how to gather/craft efficiently,
Simplest way to explain what’s going on is learning curve of the overall player.
Nothing is rare in the game that’s why we need limited supply items , the demand will follow.
Weekly/monthly events where rare items are introduced to the economy, money from the rich players will trickle down to everyone, even to the lowest tier, then they will start/keep the economy going in a cycle by buying items and moving the money up back to the rich, then new event, and cycle repeats, devs should consider introducing rare hue items/deco/crafting ingredients if an objective is completed, like a world boss and anyone that does hit damage gets the reward, the players that couldn’t play or were offline will buy the items up from the ones that have the items, just have to create incentives to keep money moving from one hand to another.
I just set up a basket buying 100 silver at 100c.
Serp Gate on Lamblis, access through PS Lamblis, Ultima Mall 2nd floor, Chisel Knights Lamblis or Aftashop Arie.
If anyone gets here have a look around and give me an idea of whether my prices need adjusting (buy and sell) as I seem to be getting visitors (some, not many), but don’t sell anything!
I also buy Oortstones at 200c, both at Serp Gate and through my portal to Serpensarindi.
The biggest leak I see in the economy right now is the amount of premium currency handed out for leveling up. It’s net positive to buy another character, level them up quickly, and fund yet another character. You can earn the first 7 levels (and all their cubits) probably without going more than a few plots from your main base, and get a stable of 10 characters in an afternoon.
I’m sure nothing in the game was balanced for players having 10 characters. You can be entirely self sufficient, since it takes only a couple of days on a character to get their respective tenth of the skill pool. So the skill pool concept is moot; everyone has all the skills. But can they easily share them? Yes! Portal hubs mean all your characters are never more than five minutes apart from each other. And as a consequence of the genre it’s trivial to transfer items from one character to another, safely and asynchronously. The objectives that are like “Get a earthyam! Hold a hammer!” are basically auto-completed on characters 2-10 because everyone has some laying around in storage.
This completely collapses the leveling curve. It’s a magnitude easier to do the first 15 levels 10 times than to earn 150 levels once. Not just because the XP requirements are so much lower, but because objectives don’t always consume the items so you can keep “turning them in” on each character.
The longer this sits the more irreparable the economy will become. A power chasm will grow between those who were around to exploit the system and those who weren’t. Everything must then be designed for these player patterns at opposite ends of a spectrum.
IMO devs should patch the game to make the level-up crate contain 3 plots directly, instead of cubits which can be turned into more characters. This is the fastest way to stop the bleeding. From there I would honestly disable the ability to have alt characters and try to buy back these extra character slots from the players. Incentivize them to delete their alts by transferring the cubits, plots, XP, etc onto their main character. This is an attractive deal for the player to consolidate their power yet end up back on the leveling curve; so it is win-win, given the situation. I’ve never tried a buyback idea like this before but I have been stuck balancing a game with players on opposite ends of a power chasm (due to an early economy exploit) and it sucked enough that I would actively try to not be in that situation again.
My advice if they want to drip premium currency into the economy, is to only do it from sources they 100% control. Only thing I’ve seen like that in this game is the daily/weekly rewards. Put the cubits in those boxes and keep alts disabled until they can predict the drip rate well enough to price alt characters without creating an exploit. Giving out alts in a f2p game is like making a deal with the balance devil. If you’re going to offer them, at least get paid Real Money since it will take Real Work Hours to balance the game with them around.
Sorry this turned into a rant, but I am actually a bit worried about this exploit and I think your post hit the nail on the head that we may be seeing a downstream effect of an alt-plosion stressing the game balance in a way no one predicted. Devs can easily investigate this claim to see how bad the problem is and if it’s worth patching.
Only other quick hit I can think of is for the devs to run community events regularly. Something like November is Build With Black Stone Month; with prizes, to create a temporary rush of demand for black stone (e.g.). They don’t need to add new drops and recipes to the game to have an event. They just need to figure out how to temporarily incentivize everyone to want 1 of the existing items, and make sure the demand is great enough to drain everyone’s stockpiles. The player economy will handle the rest.
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It’s funny since I just made some silly calculations and wanted to post about it.
I moved my market, blabla, and made a booboo on the pricing of my Teaching Loafs, was selling them for 279c, hehe, until someone pointed out I was way, way cheaper than any of the others.
We talked, he opened a stall in my market as well, and he was talking about selling diamonds, if I was interested in them for 533c each.
That got me thinking, that is cheap compared to a few weeks ago when they were 1000c but how long does it take to mine a single rough diamond? Not very long at all. Is it really worth around 500c then?
How about my Teaching Loaf? For 1 Loaf (with a mass craft that yields 50), I need:
5,76 Sweet Beans
3,11 Fibrous Herbs
4,15 Barbed Grass
4,15 Rock Salt
4,15 Sap
Which is faster to farm? That little list or 2 rough diamonds? Right, two rough diamonds!
Why are they then sold for the same price (most teaching loafs sell for around the 1000c)?
I made a small calculation what it would cost me if I bought all my ingredients, just used one shop, not the cheapest in everything, but not the most expensive one either. 1 Loaf would cost me 677,22 coins to buy the ingredients! But then it still needs to be made as well, different recipes, different machines, which take time and don’t get me started with pies, making purified butter alone costs 75 minutes!
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Me too. But this is exactly what everyone wanted. The community rejoiced when surface regen got fixed. Every other day was a drama post about how mining on serp was horrible. And then devs fixed the regenerate issue.
How do people not understand that this wasnt coming? And imagine if bomb mining didn’t get nerfed. People want their cake and to eat it too.
The game is just too easy. With alts, there is no need to collaborate with others as there are in other games. I’m someone who wants to join a guild and work with others but I just don’t see the need to given I can do everything I need with a couple alts
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Ya, sadly it looks like gems could easily level out at around 100c with how easily they are farmed.
I’ve already lowered my Exotic Earthyams. They are about as numerous as Waxy Earthyams now if you know where to look. Sweet beans… Lamblis is COVERED with em, wouldnt be surprised to see them at 15c, along with all the leafs.
But this is what many people wanted. I really hope that the new worlds, with Blink and stuff, bring a whole new class of “Super-rares” back. I dunno tho. I just see the same thing happening like “Well, we can’t fight Titans without Blink! And there’s only like 1000 veins on Planet X! Why should I have to look for weeks just to be able to enjoy this new content!?!” Rinse repeat… until the same thing happens
I will say all whit respect so dont get me wrong.
I made already a post about economy. Every price is a monopolized price. They all been set before game lunched officialy.
So the only problem you shop ownerface is the 0% cooperation whit each other and absolutly nothing else. Why dont you stick tougether and stabilize the economy by setting all the same boarders for pricing. Dont be 8:15 think outside the usual box.
Shopowner need to be part of the economy and not lonewolves as bout 70%is atm. If you would group up you can stabilize economy for now.
The game as it is right now gives me all i need as a player. All possibilitys are ready to be grabt. Why change it? Cos your money is not as big as it was. I dont see the point there. Ask yourself this:
Do i fill my baskets on my own? (if yes you got a huge ammount of work)
Why dont i work whit oher people and let em work for me?(a lot players would be interested if it helps stabilize economy for sure)
Shud i make buissnes whit other shop owners? (Maybe they sell what you cant and you what they cant.)
How reasonable are your prices in compair to what shud be fair to low to midgame players. (not in compair to other shops, lot of shops shud be burned down for some prices they have)
If you start to work as a team things can stabilize, your income, my income, decent pricing…
Low ress can be a good start. As an example infiniplex has a good idea work whit him. Synchronize your prices and change economy in an active way. There is allways room for a healthy portion of competition.
Thank you
Pretty much this. You don’t know how much I have to bite my tongue when I see the daily post about how people feel xyz nerf was too harsh and that devs need to give the community a break. I just shut up because like @Greybeard, I know how blunt I can be 
. Oye.
Ps- they need to nerf surface regen. There I said it
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I’m still learning this, and way off in some areas, but from what I have seen in running around in shops to see what is sold and trying to find a fair price, there is a wide range. Go to one store and they want 12,000 coin for a loaf of teaching bread. Go to another one that is asking 2,000 coins. Players are confused, is one gouging or what? Why is a gold fist costing 5,000c on one planet and 550 coins on another planet? Why can I sell to a shop my glue for 4 coin but the shop is selling it for 25coins.
To me, what I think needed to be increased is ores such as coal. On level one planets it is very hard to find coal and almost impossible to find iron. Yet, that is what new players need to mine and build with. They don’t want to use copper for more than a week, they want the iron tools.
I understand what the devs wanted, new players make stone and copper tools. Advance and move to a level two planet or set up a outpost and get iron and more coal. Get better and get iron, coal and some silver from the next level and so on. But, it seems to be a bit out of whack. Part is that new players want things too early. Here, on Steam and in youtube videos you are reading/hearing of how you can get gem tools and get lots of coins from just doing this. And have it by the end of week three or around the level of 25 to 35.
It can’t be done, not for the casual player, who gets frustrated and then quits, bad mouths the game.
As stated, shop owners need to get together and set fair prices and emphasis that you don’t need that diamond hammer by the end of the second week.
Did they cut back on football? Since I don’t get any where we have our base far away from cities we hardly ever get any football. Just this past week I have gotten a total of 60c from football. And I was surprised it was that much.
Well, partly I price my wares by how easy I can get the materials. At first I barely could find sweet beans, then I found other spots to gather them and find them rather easy so I could lower the price of the teaching loafs and pies…
If others do the same then that explains the price differences
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Oh, how wrong you are 
Collaboration is key to moving forward. I’ve hooked up with a couple of people for creative projects to have some different fun in the future, and it’s great to plan ahead. It’s probably people like yourself that will start the guild ball rolling because you see the issues, and nobody addressing them.
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I called it. I said deflation was coming like winter, though I was out by a month.
I was righhht I was righhhht 
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mud for the same price as clay makes no sense, mud is harder to get…
for me it feels like bad behavior if ppl pay the same for ash/mud than clay…
(clay, soil and peaty can be 1 Hit with copper tool, for ash iron (or silver) is needed. wich is a big difference since iron is slower and silver more expensive than copper.
so ash/mud must be worth more than clay…
no offence, just wanted to let you know
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I agree we are in a recession. My shop has much lower traffic and sales with the result I cannot buy much these days. So I am starting to do other things like explore more and build more.
Yet the ultimate problem is that we have no end game purpose for building more things. Sophisticated constructions require diverse supplies and that is what would keep the market afloat.
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Yeah the regen is way too high. Tech is all over the place lol. I am falling all over it on Cardass as i just walk around. I remember in beta the highest tech was a real find, but here its a joke.
The main cause for me is very simple, more simple than regen.
The higher tier planets drop everything, and in larger and larger amounts. There is no exclusive resources to the lower tier worlds, so eventually you have piles of everything. This was a bad design choice and the only way to reverse it now without people complaining is make T7+ not drop everything :D, but new resources for new recipes. Also to introduce a new exclusive drop to T3, and then T4, and then T5. So these planets have some relevance, and also you can’t just farm everything as you go. An alternative I suppose is to have the different T7 worlds have different resources, not just gems, but i’d like this less as I’d have to play with a laggy ping as I went between them.
As far as the economy goes. I am running a hunter. Its not too bad. I don’t mine for coin I almost exclusively hunt. Its not great, but its okay. I am hoping T7 comes out so hunting (and mining) gets another boost, albeit for a short while with the current drop rates and current way resources are on every single world in greater amounts, any new world will have the same issue eventually. Not enough slingbows are made, but a couple of shops keep up with them, Trophy prices have tanked on wildstock, spitters and cuttlefish. So much so I sometimes avoid them, however the sacks are doing okay so there is that.
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Gouging. Yes and no.
Some shops have not altered their prices for a very long time, either because the player is no longer actively running it, or they just haven’t been keeping up with the market, or like you say they are ripping people off. A fourth option is they pay more for ingredients so they sell higher.
On forged goods, some stuff really is worth 20,30,40k+ I said I wanted to buy a 30-40k slingbow the other day and people were saying that’s way too high! I’m saying to myself, not if I can two shot elites on a charged protection build. But hey ho. Serenity did me some 70% crits + 1k damage (or thereabouts) at 20k which were very nice and bought out straight away.
But back on prices some of the baskets asking to buy leaves at 1c for leaves for example could be down to being overstocked, out of touch with the market, just as easily as ripping people off. So I don’t judge, I just don’t sell to em. I mean if I was running a shop again and overstocked I think i’d still keep a basket up too, just lower the value on it. Then you get the shops that clearly have no idea, that price all the beans the same, or all the yams the same, but again its not malicious just a new player testing the waters imho.
I still see a few things going in my baskets because for most stuff I pay a reasonable price but yep nothing seems to be selling. I know some stuff won’t sell because they’re priced for “I could use this but if you really want it” but even reliable, regular sale items at cheap prices have dried up.
I still get about 30-40% footfall I did but maybe 5% sales of late. I think it’s a few things already mentioned and more:
- Player population is down quite a lot (low numbers on portal windows, empty shops, disappearing players from the 'hood)
- Of those that are left, fewer require bought gear because time has passed and with time comes your own resources
- Footfall (the real kind, not coin treats) dropped significantly when Universe expanded and the local portal hub had to rearrange paths to mitigate costs.
- Some market rates are so low it’s just not worth my time to collect X any more.
I still buy from others but each day I see less coin in my pocket and that there’ll inevitably come a time I’m surviving on my 100 coin for being 30 minutes logged in.
Yeah but an overlooked fact it also slows down how quick you gain plots, build or gain XP to go get everything yourself. I understand the people who like to get most things, not that I do myself, but going to a planet just to get one resource they are lacking is a waste of time, especially as resources can all be found on the same world - minus color blocks, gems and gleam. So if you think about it, you might as well harvest several at once.
I am on the other end of this spectrum. I don’t craft potions, tools, I don’t gather stone or anything other than hunting goods myself and my plot gain rate is considerably higher than if I went to get each of these. Its like when I bomb mined in beta, I did that exclusively and I was gaining XP much faster than people trying to do everything. My shop prices for volatile blood for example were really really high, and people were puzzled.
This is only important for those who think speed is important, obviously for the more casual or relaxed player its not a point of consideration.