Ultima server's economy is really really bad.

[Auli'i]

People who think SogeKing is rich in 2016 

[HHawk4]

1 minute ago, Auli'i said:

People who think SogeKing is rich in 2016 

he's rich in items and spirit. dw.

[Soly]

29 minutes ago, shong said:

Change it to 15 DTs = 25% attribute (or even 20%, just like hit), to make it so that it is generally preferable to use PDs to buy a PS so that a player who wants to add attribute with cash money has to buy 15 DTs (or whatever amount the community settles on...20% is 80 PDs and 30% is 99) to buy 99 PDs from a player (which helps the in-game economy) to get 30% hit instead of 20-25%, and suddenly there will be 1 very meaningful thing you can do with PDs in-game that you wouldn't always rather do with DTs.

Or we remove the possibility of adding attributes with DTs so people stop making up some "exchange rates" out of nowhere

[kajex]

 

23 minutes ago, shong said:

Change it to 15 DTs = 25% attribute (or even 20%, just like hit), to make it so that it is generally preferable to use PDs to buy a PS so that a player who wants to add attribute with cash money has to buy 15 DTs (or whatever amount the community settles on...20% is 80 PDs and 30% is 99) to buy 99 PDs from a player (which helps the in-game economy) to get 30% hit instead of 20-25%, and suddenly there will be 1 very meaningful thing you can do with PDs in-game that you wouldn't always rather do with DTs.

That would be horrible unless PDs dropped more like in other servers (where they are easier to farm).  There should be an easy way to get attributes on weapons.  Currently it's easiest just to donate.  I'd far rather see:

1. A huge limitation on donation trading.  I'm not necessarily saying disable it altogether, but surely no more mass donation ticket trading.  This just fucks up the value of every other item in game for trades.  It's crazy that people just want money, not hard earned items.  This should not happen.  I've been saying this for a while.  
2. Increase the chance of finding a PD in the DAR so it's possible to sphere items legitimately and without cheating by spending money.

I feel that donations should be limited to thanking the ultima server and wanting to keep the lights on.  It has turned into bragging rights.  People come in and don't even hunt, but have every item in the game from trading donation tickets.  There should not be such an unfair advantage just because someone can afford to donate an insane amount of money to feel superior.

We have allowed for in-game redemption of items to add hit before.  It should be entirely possible to get the same loot regardless of whether you donate.  It becomes far more difficult when no one will trade big items without trading for donation tickets.  Frankly the simplest solution to the problem is a full on ban for adding hit with donation tickets.  That's all people trade it for typically.

[mudkipzjm]

13 minutes ago, kajex said:

I feel that donations should be limited to thanking the ultima server and wanting to keep the lights on.  It has turned into bragging rights.  People come in and don't even hunt, but have every item in the game from trading donation tickets.  There should not be such an unfair advantage just because someone can afford to donate an insane amount of money to feel superior.

This.

From very early on I've always thought that we should limit the amount people should donate. There's several people on this server who refuse to hunt and just donate for everything, which in my opinion kills a good half of this game.  It's not that hard to get decent gear either. It might be time-consuming, yes, but not hard. I've donated less than $50 and my RAs are geared to the brim, excluding DM, so it's definitely possible to get great gear without donating your whole wallet.

[ryukin]

17 minutes ago, kajex said:

 

That would be horrible unless PDs dropped more like in other servers (where they are easier to farm).  There should be an easy way to get attributes on weapons.  Currently it's easiest just to donate.  I'd far rather see:

1. A huge limitation on donation trading.  I'm not necessarily saying disable it altogether, but surely no more mass donation ticket trading.  This just fucks up the value of every other item in game for trades.  It's crazy that people just want money, not hard earned items.  This should not happen.  I've been saying this for a while.  
2. Increase the chance of finding a PD in the DAR so it's possible to sphere items legitimately and without cheating by spending money.

I feel that donations should be limited to thanking the ultima server and wanting to keep the lights on.  It has turned into bragging rights.  People come in and don't even hunt, but have every item in the game from trading donation tickets.  There should not be such an unfair advantage just because someone can afford to donate an insane amount of money to feel superior.

We have allowed for in-game redemption of items to add hit before.  It should be entirely possible to get the same loot regardless of whether you donate.  It becomes far more difficult when no one will trade big items without trading for donation tickets.  Frankly the simplest solution to the problem is a full on ban for adding hit with donation tickets.  That's all people trade it for typically.

Then how would you add hit at all? Just said you used to do something in the past, then suggest full on ban for adding hit with no real solution to it. This server NEEDS hit because of the buff to monsters, would you disable the buffs and make the game easy mode? Would you be willing to make a full on list of what items can be traded for hit and fully enforce it? Would you allow hit to be added with PDs?

As you said it dts are basically for hit, so what would dts be for, for those who have saved a mass amount, literally worthless? There are far far easier solutions than creating super complicated situations where backlash could lead to a lot of people leaving the server. The solutions have been said 100's of times and larva has said no (drops year round/add it back to donation list). Telling me that all the dts I have are useless after I just traded good items for it would probably make me leave. 

Edited December 8, 2016 by ryukin

[Auli'i]

Just now, mudkipzjm said:

This.

From very early on I've always thought that we should limit the amount people should donate. There's several people on this server who refuse to hunt and just donate for everything, which in my opinion kills a good half of this game.  It's not that hard to get decent gear either. It might be time-consuming, yes, but not hard. I've donated less than $50 and my RAs are geared to the brim, excluding DM, so it's definitely possible to get great gear without donating your whole wallet.

I gave this guy everything he owns, don't listen to him /s

[kajex]

7 minutes ago, ryukin said:

Then how would you add hit at all? 

Events or donate for yourself. I don't think someone should donate $500 to mass trade money for everyone to have hit added. That's what's killing the server economy. 

Saith has great gear and never has donated. All high hit weapons are from hit mini events. They aren't frequent, but Cyane just did one like in September. Frankly I'd be fine to do more of these mini events and just remove hit from the donation table. This would incentivize trading and discourage mass money trades while helping everyone to gain hit on their gear.

[lildavid07]

6 minutes ago, kajex said:

Events or donate for yourself. I don't think someone should donate $500 to mass trade money for everyone to have hit added. That's what's killing the server economy. 

Saith has great gear and never has donated. All high hit weapons are from hit mini events. They aren't frequent, but Cyane just did one like in September. Frankly I'd be fine to do more of these mini events and just remove hit from the donation table. This would incentivize trading and discourage mass money trades while helping everyone to gain hit on their gear.

Actually @kajex the remix God @Fyrewolf5 has donated once

[Varista]

9 minutes ago, kajex said:

Events or donate for yourself. I don't think someone should donate $500 to mass trade money for everyone to have hit added. That's what's killing the server economy. 

Saith has great gear and never has donated. All high hit weapons are from hit mini events. They aren't frequent, but Cyane just did one like in September. Frankly I'd be fine to do more of these mini events and just remove hit from the donation table. This would incentivize trading and discourage mass money trades while helping everyone to gain hit on their gear.

I always felt like the ultimate goal of donating (and call me crazy here) was to support the server in a meaningful way by keeping it alive rather than giving people mass wealth for spending $50.

If I was to change the donating for hit thing, I'd without a doubt limit it and start giving out hit events more often. A hit event every month would solve this, make it impossible to add hit to weapons with DT's, and then limit the amount of DT's you can spend in 1 month to a certain amount. Nothing over 100?

Or, here's a bolder idea: We could just scrap DT's entirely and then give out some better, maybe more desirable effects to donating, like account wide exp buffs for a month, increased DAR rate for your team, etc?

Maybe you don't have the technology to give certain accounts higher exp rates, but honestly, to me, if I had to chose, I'd much rather just get rid of DT's entirely and revert back to the original currency.

[shong]

1 hour ago, Soly said:

Or we remove the possibility of adding attributes with DTs so people stop making up some "exchange rates" out of nowhere

Obviously I am just pulling numbers out of thin air for conversion rates (just like people did to get 6.6:1 in the first place) and even with 15 DTs to add 25% or whatever, the economy can still easily end up in the same place where people just donate so you're right and I guess my idea is a bit shortsighted. You get my point though, which is just that if there is something that PDs do better than DTs/do something that DTs can't do, PDs stop being "worthless". People will want to trade money for in-game currency, and the result is that in-game currency can then purchase desirable items instead of where we are now with desirable items basically only being traded for DTs (money)

 

Respectfully disagree with a lot of what Kajex said. I personally feel like PDs absolutely fall from the sky on Ultima between the normal drop rate, trading lower level items and IDS/WOI. I feel like I wind up with 2+ stacks no matter how quickly I try to get rid of my PDs. Hit is a necessity but attribute % is just a luxury so taking a while to get your weapon maxed is really not a big deal. I've personally donated $0, and have no intention of donating for items/to buy items from players ever (I would happily donate for a section ID change or something like that, but for me the fun of the game is largely hunting/trading for items so buying them takes some of the fun out of it for me. It makes other people happy so more power to them), but if I had spent money on DTs or had lots of DTs saved up from trading hard earned items and suddenly DTs became a novelty thing, I. Would. Be. Pissed. Like on paper it's an ok idea, but without somehow subsidizing all the people who have DTs already, there is no way to say "too bad so sad, your DTs don't matter any more" without making people very unhappy. Plus I generally find DTs a nice way of trading items worth more than a small handful of PDs. Super convenient way to trade, especially since so many people have more than 1 in-game account  100% agree with him on hit adding events though. I also agree that it's possible to get nice gear without spending cash, which inherently suggests that the DT system is ok as it is, at least as it relates to adding hit. I have like 300+ DTs worth of "good" gear after 4 months here with $0 spent and a few weeks where I basically didn't play so it's not like choosing not to spend money dooms you to poverty

Edited December 8, 2016 by shong

[Soly]

6 minutes ago, shong said:

 (just like people did to get 6.6:1 in the first place)

I was actually was referring to that  

[Berrymilk]

  the DT system was neato for keeping server alive for another 10 years by now. ( :D...?)

 

  If I could donate to end DT system and be in favor of increasing PD rates and having events/GM PD stack trades for HIT% or somethiiing.. I would!

DT should maybe.. only be for anything except for items.. .w. (cosmetic, name change, ID change etc)

Edited December 8, 2016 by Berrymilk

[bloodseeker]

lol, this topic reminds me of my economic lesson. When free market fails to regulate itself, because of monopoly in our case, then the authorities must step in. In other words, the admins must set a reasonable cap on the price of high-end items. That will solve the problem (until black market arises).

[ryukin]

I feel like half of you are missing the point, while all great ideas, larva gets donation to help keep the server alive and also pocket money. There is 0 delusions to that, so removing incentive to get pocket money as a "thank you" for running the server is not going to stop, nor should it, period. Call me empathetic, but put yourself in his shoes. Even though I said it before, would you honestly take away the DT system aka take away YOUR pocket money? No, you wouldn't. And anyone who says so is either beyond rich or lying. So the removal of incentives to donate, removing DTs, won't happen unless by some crazy scenario where he feels he doesn't care for the money anymore. It's NOT unfair that he gets donations for the server for DTs, it's just how this partic server is, and like others commented about other servers those are free for you to go too since they don't do DTs if you hate the DT system. So I implore you to stop with the get rid of or alter the DT system, 99% chance it won't change. 

The bubble happened, and now PDs are worth an all time low. It happens in the real world too all the time. Wait for christmas to be over before you get all your panties in a bunch. Cent/battles were going for 70-80 dts for some reason before summer event, then bam they were going for 30 dts and now 40-45, the price they were a year ago. STA dropped a good amount this year to those who hard hunted it, and now people won't want it as much because it's not as super rare where the same 3-5 people circle jerk it around raising prices. I have my suspicions that it will happen to PGF and dark weps, will it be fix to where it totally used to be? Probably not, but it most likely wont be this 500+ crazyness. 

Edited December 8, 2016 by ryukin