Jump to content

[Op Ed] DoubleJ on the Economy (Again)


Recommended Posts

i agree with everything you said and i think its disgraceful that someone who plants berries on 16 accounts can just buy the shinies a competitive player, who watches replays, breeds, tests and tries to improve (which is a little more time consuming and exhausting than loggin 16 accs a day), will never win.

 

we as gym and npc farming comp people sit between the chairs. berry farmers and "donators" ruin our economy and we cant even buy fkn vanity anymore, because we need that little bit of gym money for comps, which we can then use to try to win non shiny prizes, if we are able to make it in, cause smart staff hosting 32 seat tournaments. the game turned so comp unfriendly in general, its sad to see, but since we dont pay squirtles rent i dont see that change either.

 

thumbs up for the effort tho.

Link to comment

you forgot one vital recommendation jj. the one that, in my opinion, will fix all of our issues

 

Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler

ban togekiss

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Zymogen
Link to comment
46 minutes ago, DoubleJ said:

 

Non-Shiny prizes should be kept to Community Combat events

this... any comp player will already have the Non-Shiny Pokemon's set plus all the other viable ones to go with it. I really don't understand why non shiny prizes are spammed out, I think I speak for most when I'd just prefer to see a buffed $$ prize...

Edited by Lvkee
Link to comment
25 minutes ago, EssDeeCee said:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is that you? 

 

Socialism won't work here either.

Ah, I see the elite are rearing their ugly faces in favor of the 1%. 

 

Did I ask to have the player base yen shared equally? No. Have I asked to limit the overall 'wealth' a player can hold at one time? No. 

 

All I've asked is to fix the economy because it's bullshit right now and to improve the competitive tournament system. 

Link to comment
3 hours ago, DoubleJ said:

Re-Introduce super rare vanity items such as Desu Labcoat, The Electric Storm, Knight Helmet, etc into the Giftshop but prevent them from being traded. This would drastically nerf the value of these items and prevent "pay-to-play" economics from continuing to dominate the game as there will always be a risk to buying and selling vanity items. 

While I’m intrigued about the yen cap, I don’t agree with reintroducing old limited vanities. And that’s not entirely because I happen to have a labcoat that is worth over 1b, potentially even 2b (I leave that argument for value discussion). What’s the purpose of reintroducing them? There’s nothing inherently wrong with having items like these in the game. If I’m not mistaken, we were also promised that limited time vanities would never be reintroduced, so that promise would have to be broken.

 

But, I think my main point that I want to make here is a hypothetical. What if rare vanities just didn’t exist? What would then be better as a result? I’d argue that the yen influx would still be happening, and thus still inflation. You’d still have bad tourney prizes. You’d still have people sitting on Billions. I really don’t see the difference.

But maybe I’m not seeing something or thinking about something in a certain way, in which case I would like you to elaborate. Don’t get me wrong, I would be sad about labcoats being reintroduced, cause I think it’s cool that I can say I’m one of the few owners; but at the same time, I don’t really play anymore, so...

 

It’s also not strange for there to now be a noticeable amount of whales in the game. We’ve been going for what, 8-9 years now? It was really only a matter of time until we saw a community of players loaded with yen. Though, it has been significantly accelerated by a source that I think we are all familiar with at this point.

 

But, I do think a cap of some amount on yen could be cool. Potentially incur more trading and liven up the economy a bit. My concern is that the whales would just use alts as “banks” to store yen excess of the cap. So, I doubt the cap’s feasibility.

Link to comment

@Gilan my problem with Vanities is that it has become "Pay-to-Play" which is something the development team had been against initially and was something that was virtuous for this game. Now these Vanity items are being bought by the tens in order to be sold now and later for yen. I don't think they're the source of the yen influx because there's no way to "create" yen from this but it is an avenue to gain yen from newer players that are stuck grinding just to earn one of these limited vanities. The problem with the inflated amount of yen in game is simply due to the many avenues that are available to create yen, such as berry farming with 23 different accounts, buying Mysterious Gems and reselling Ice/Flying/Fighting gems for more profit and even re-selling hard-to-find but important TM's like Protect. There just aren't enough money sinks to battle this unless you're a competitive player that is stuck using yen to do essentially everything. 

 

Regarding the rare vanities, I appreciate having "extremely hard to get" things in game, but I'd prefer it if these were Pokemon (rare shinies or even... gasp... usable Legendaries) and not something you buy out of a Giftshop for real money. 

 

To answer your question about "caps" and the "whales" there would have to be a fix about using multiple accounts, considering there is a problem with multiple accounts being used to create yen through berry farming. There has to be a way to fix this. 

Link to comment
On 3/5/2019 at 2:35 AM, DoubleJ said:

There are players today who have riches in excess of 100s of millions of yen and are holding vanity items in hopes that their value will go up so that they can add to that number.

That's what capitalism is and there is nothing wrong with it.

 

On 3/5/2019 at 2:35 AM, DoubleJ said:

Players are able to earn yen at rates that are astronomical in today's game

This was already addressed in the latest patch notes in the form of berry nerf and while it didn't fully fix inflation, it's a first step in the right direction. Nerfing berries further isn't the way to go either imo, I believe introducing new yen sinks in upcoming content instead is the best way to balance yen influx.

 

On 3/5/2019 at 2:35 AM, DoubleJ said:

everyday players are hindered from doing much at all, unless they commit thousands of hours to catch up to those who have been around for a year or more or drop hundreds of dollars on Giftshop items that they can "trade quickly

By 'everyday player', are you referring to a casual player/newcomer? If yes, what's wrong with this person also having to commit thousands of hours to catch up to someone who has also been playing for an extended period of time? Besides, how exactly are they hindered? Moneymaking methods are available to everyone equally. If someone wants to drop money and take a shortcut it's their decision and it's ultimately what pays for the servers that we play on. If you have a better idea on how to monetize the game to keep it going, please do share, but this doesn't make the game 'pay-to-win', nor 'pay-to-play'.

 

On 3/5/2019 at 2:35 AM, DoubleJ said:

Put a ceiling on the amount of raw yen a player can have, such as 200,000,000 and purge any excess yen they have now to that value.

3 things are going to happen:

 

1) People will store any yen beyond 200m on alt(s).

2) People will put even more money into limiteds, pumping their price even higher as a result, thus becoming even more unobtainable to the 'everyday player'.

3) High table trades will become very obnoxious, since trading anything worth over 200m becomes impossible in a single trade and people will have to either do multiple trades instead, or trade in things, which is literally what yen is intended for in the first place.

 

I don't see how this fixes the 'broken economy' as it doesn't address the core problem, just forces a needless restriction onto a rich minority.

 

On 3/5/2019 at 2:35 AM, DoubleJ said:

Re-Introduce super rare vanity items such as Desu Labcoat, The Electric Storm, Knight Helmet, etc into the Giftshop but prevent them from being traded. This would drastically nerf the value of these items and prevent "pay-to-play" economics from continuing to dominate the game as there will always be a risk to buying and selling vanity items. 

Reintroducing old limited vanities was previously discussed here quite extensively and it's a terrible idea, regardless if they would be tradable or not. The post on page 1 by @awkways explains why pretty well. This will not 'drastically nerf' the value of these items, it will completely destroy it. Anything that is untradable is objectively worthless, the only value this item would have is the owner's sentimental price tag on it.

 

On 3/5/2019 at 6:08 AM, DoubleJ said:

Regarding the rare vanities, I appreciate having "extremely hard to get" things in game, but I'd prefer it if these were Pokemon

? We already have ultra rare shinies in the game.

Edited by Dazuzi
Formatting
Link to comment
4 minutes ago, Dazuzi said:

=)

 

Agree with a lot of what you said and honestly this is a forum for discussion that may spark a better solution or change by the development team. The idea of accessing alts is something that should be addressed to prevent monetary benefit for players. Regarding the ultra-rare vanities, I'm of the mind to say fuck it and reintroduce them which would be terrible for those who have them in their possession but not for everyone else. I'd say put them in a PvP Box at an extremely hard to obtain rate. It's been done before. And lastly, your last point is redundant as I know there already are Ultra-Rare Shiny-or-Not Pokemon but I figure these are what should be the exclusive items and not purchaseable vanities. 

Link to comment
2 minutes ago, DoubleJ said:

Regarding the ultra-rare vanities, I'm of the mind to say fuck it and reintroduce them which would be terrible for those who have them in their possession but not for everyone else. I'd say put them in a PvP Box at an extremely hard to obtain rate. It's been done before.

This exact conversation already happened in the thread I hyperlinked.

 

3 minutes ago, DoubleJ said:

And lastly, your last point is redundant as I know there already are Ultra-Rare Shiny-or-Not Pokemon but I figure these are what should be the exclusive items and not purchaseable vanities. 

What do you mean by 'exclusive items'?

Link to comment
5 minutes ago, Dazuzi said:

This exact conversation already happened in the thread I hyperlinked.

Cool.

 

5 minutes ago, Dazuzi said:

 

What do you mean by 'exclusive items'?

Not that hard to interpret. You can exchange 'items' for things, stuff, objects for which to use within the game, etc. 

Link to comment

@DoubleJ finally someone who fcking understands xDDD the economy is broken right now. It's a fact. Smth needs to be done. I agree with you on the competitive scene. I'm doing my best or trying to get in there and it's definitely no walk in the park. Comp players spend hours on end to GRIND money in order to buy decent comps and have a chance to win at tournaments. I think the 200mil yen cap is intriguing seriously. Also 100% agree with you thag the game has become ptp. 

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Goku said:

Also 100% agree with you thag the game has become ptp. 

Everything in the gift shop can also be purchased for in-game currency with the exception of amnesia brace. You don't need to spend a dollar to obtain 99% of what RP shop has to offer.

 

You are also not obliged to pay anything to play the game as it's completely free to play, so how exactly is it pay2play?

Link to comment
29 minutes ago, Dazuzi said:

Everything in the gift shop can also be purchased for in-game currency with the exception of amnesia brace. You don't need to spend a dollar to obtain 99% of what RP shop has to offer.

You’re looking at it the wrong way. Their point is that people who spend a lot of IRL money on the currently astronomically-inflated RP items to sell for quick cash have a distinct monetary advantage over others who don’t, due solely to the fact that grinding money the proper way in-game is so slow and inefficient. That is an archetypal p2w situation. Hell, people don’t even need to grind anymore if they’re smart with their vanity investments.

 

When you can gain money at a fast rate over time without even having to do anything in a MMO, you know something is wrong. 

Edited by Zymogen
Link to comment
14 minutes ago, Zymogen said:

You’re looking at it the wrong way. Their point is that people who spend a lot of IRL money on the currently astronomically-inflated RP items to sell for quick cash have a distinct monetary advantage over others who don’t, due solely to the fact that grinding money the proper way in-game is so slow and inefficient. That is an archetypal p2w situation. Hell, people don’t even need to grind anymore if they’re smart with their vanity investments.

 

When you can gain money at a fast rate over time without even having to do anything in a MMO, you know something is wrong. 

But what exactly do you win? You are using real money to buy cosmetics. If you are comp player you just get to buy comps faster and that's it.

Link to comment
On 3/5/2019 at 12:09 PM, BrunoMarin said:

But what exactly do you win? You are using real money to buy cosmetics. If you are comp player you just get to buy comps faster and that's it.

Come on mate, this isn't Fortnite. Cosmetics in PokeMMO are not purely cosmetic - they are tradable here. Therefore, when you buy cosmetics with real money, you are effectively buying in-game currency directly.

 

I'm not talking about dropping £5 and immediately becoming a competitive legend like @Lvkee, I am talking about dropping £5 and selling 6 the dyes for 1.2mil which would otherwise take 2 days to gain through laboriously slogging through gym runs and NPC rematches. I don't care what kind of player you are - be you a shiny trader or a comp player - if you are able to gain more money at a faster rate through micro-transactions, you are presented with an advantage that you otherwise would not have. Whether it's the ability to buy leppas in bulk in order to shiny hunt more efficiently or to buy comps at a faster rate in order to innovate your game, it is an advantage. Gaining any advantage at all from doing nothing but spending real money, is nothing short of unhealthy for this game and MMOs as a whole. Micro-transactions are the Yersinia pestis of the gaming world and we all know it, whether we utilise them or not.

Edited by Zymogen
Link to comment

Limited vanities have increased in value exponantionally in the last year mainly because of following 2 reasons:

1) Playerbase explosion (aka Chinese invasion) -> Demand for the items increases significantly, increasing its price

2) Yen inflation -> More Yen in circulation means that items without static prices go for higher prices.

 

The playerbase explosion isn't something that can be fixed. So Yen inflation NEEDS to be addressed.

Look to where the majority of the Yen is generated (Be it berry to NPC selling, gym leader rematches, e4 runs, w/e) and adjust those methods fairly.

Increase the money sinks from gameplay activities such as shiny hunting to be on par with competitive play.

The main idea is to reduce the amount Yen coming into the game while increasing the amount of Yen going out.

This will make the Yen worth more over time.

It will not be an enjoyable change for many players, because it's going to become more difficult to obtain currency and it will leave your pockets faster.

But in the long run, it's the only way to save the Yen from inflating any further.

 

To address JJ's suggestions:

1) Money Ceiling doesn't work because alts.

2) Reintroducing time limited vanities has no impact on the Yen inflation and would only hurt the credibility of the devs.

3) Lootbox system is terrible, let the player decide which event vanity they want to buy rather than rely on RNG.

4) Increasing tournament rewards is definitely needed, as competitive play is the most Yen-sinking and canon activity of the game.

 

Link to comment

When I said the game is p2w, almost lynched on global

 

You go donate some money

Buy gift shop stuff

Sell them for high price and buy comps

 

What is it called?

-

My only suggestion is making gift shop stuff untradeable ( Called DONATOR Status Ticket but everyone can get it without donation hahahah). But guess what? They know that 90% donators donate to sell gift shop stuff. So that is not going to happen

Edited by Kamowanthere
Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.