There's been a lot of talk lately about our economy and the necessary implementation of staking fees/taxes. Since I've been quite active myself on the matter and more than 1 person has requested in-depth explanation of my suggestion, I decided to summarise it here.

As many of you might know, we have a problem with items leaving from the game. This problem will only deepen, because the items are very easy to get, since we have so many high-level players. Lowering the droprates or increasing PvM difficulty are not necessary, however we should add some ways to decrease the amount of items we have.
This topic will only deal with only Staking fees, other item sink suggestions are not welcome here.

Since most of our economy goes through duel arena, this is the best place to start.
Another reason why arena and stakers should be affected by it, is because most of those items end up in their banks. It becomes problematic when stakers suddenly need fast cash, which results in item dumping and price crashes. Because of the item overflow, selling becomes nearly impossible for less rich players, because there are already tons of those items waiting to be sold with prices much lower than they used to be.

Most of the staking fee ideas have only incorporated cash fees, however they do not sink items. If we add cash staking fees, we will only encourage item dumping. That's why I have come up with Dumpbox and Arena Credits (from here on referred to as AC).

The idea behind dumpbox is quite simple: you can deposit items or cash, in order to get AC. The items will be converted into AC according to GE prices. Yes some prices may be off, however you are able to see item value before you confirm the deposit. The chest can be similar Party Room's chest, so you still have an opportunity to take them out before depositing. Only addition what's required is the price indicator for each item, so people wouldn't deposit items, which have almost no value in GE (rarely sold items, e.g. Sigils).
As far as overpriced items are concerned, you shouldn't worry as well. For example, Arcane spirit shield is currently 115M in Ge, while in reality it's max 85m. Such differences would be positive for the market (items are actually bought) and for the stakers as well (they get more out of depositing).

Once items/cash are deposited and converted into AC, they're irretrievable.
Each time a stake takes place, a % of either player's stake pot will be credited from their AC. If atleast one of the stakers doesn't have enough AC for their current stake pot, they're unable to stake that high. They would have to lower their respective stake pots or deposit more items/cash to Dumpbox.
As far the % itself is concerned, I'm aiming quite high. My initial suggestion is 5-10%, which is quite high, but since the problem is quite severe, drastic measures should be applied.
If the situation starts to stabilise we can always lower the %.

The dumpbox is so far the best way to implement staking fees, since it can directly sink items and cash.

The only problem with this idea right now is GE. Prices of rarely sold items can be easily manipulated, so you could get a ton of AC by just increasing item prices in GE.
We could fix this by only allowing certain items to be deposited (for example GWD armours, spirit shields, 3rd age armours, high-end weapons etc). If we limit this to certain items, we could also just preset the prices, which definitely removes the possibility of abuse.
The full list of the named items can be compiled, if this idea has been approved.


To make it more clear, I'll bring an example:

Player 1 stakes 100M cash with Player 2, who stakes 105M worth of items (GE value).
Let's use a staking fee of 10%.
10M will be credited from Player 1's AC, 10.5M will be credited from Player 2's AC.
If one of them has a lower amount of AC on their account, they can't stake that high.

Piss off stakers with this kind of stuff and they'll make sure the economy gets fucking obliterated.

What you fools do not understand is the fact that items in this game are useless. No body buys useless stuff. You don't need 50m gwd armor set because you can buy a 5m void set. You dont need a arcane because you can use an anger weapon that is superior every goddamn weapon in the rest of the game for PvMing. Then there's the ancient equipment that outclass everything in the game, and easy to get. DESPITE the fact they are easy to get, THEY HAVE DEMAND.

If you want more items to have demand, SUGGEST THINGS THAT WILL MAKE THEM ACTUALLY WORTH BUYING AND WORTH USING! Set effects, buffing bonuses, making ancient equipment more expensive to repair... Anything. This economy talk is just bunch of bullshit, because we had way more items back in scape. You could get 10 bandos sets in a hour from banshees on a single account. The difference between bandos then and now is that bandos was THE BEST melee armour set back in the day. Also instead of making bosses harder, make the drops rarer so the gameplay will stay enjoyable. Banking between each kill and getting KC again is the furthest thing from being enjoyable.

There's nothing wrong with the economy, the problem is in the game and its balancing.

another bad idea -.-

Piss off stakers with this kind of stuff and they'll make sure the economy gets fucking obliterated.

What you fools do not understand is the fact that items in this game are useless. No body buys useless stuff. You don't need 50m gwd armor set because you can buy a 5m void set. You dont need a arcane because you can use an anger weapon that is superior every goddamn weapon in the rest of the game for PvMing. Then there's the ancient equipment that outclass everything in the game, and easy to get. DESPITE the fact they are easy to get, THEY HAVE DEMAND.

If you want more items to have demand, SUGGEST THINGS THAT WILL MAKE THEM ACTUALLY WORTH BUYING AND WORTH USING! Set effects, buffing bonuses, making ancient equipment more expensive to repair... Anything. This economy talk is just bunch of bullshit, because we had way more items back in scape. You could get 10 bandos sets in a hour from banshees on a single account. The difference between bandos then and now is that bandos was THE BEST melee armour set back in the day. Also instead of making bosses harder, make the drops rarer so the gameplay will stay enjoyable. Banking between each kill and getting KC again is the furthest thing from being enjoyable.

There's nothing wrong with the economy, the problem is in the game and its balancing.

Really interesting read, thank you! I think the main conflict with ancient items is, that they are too easy to obtain and to maintain.

I'd recommend following changes:

• Corrupt parts drop chances 1.6% --> 1.2%
• Normal parts drop chances: 1.2% --> 0.8%
• Double repair costs
• Corrupt parts charges halved
• Spectral combat power buff

Thoughts on the possible changes?

ًWhy would we suggest the same thing over and over again if Thomy already took a look at it and considered changing it soon ? shouldn't we start with step 2 instead of waiting for this to take place ?

It doesn't matter how hard you try to deny the fact that duel arena is the reason behind this kind of Prices crash, I Quote, " You can get more cash / items in one day at duel arena doing low stakes than you can get doing a whole week pvming ",
seeing people going there with nothing and getting few items then try to sell it for a cheap price to get some ' Fast ' cash is so damn annoying
It doesn't only crash the economy but it makes pvming waste of time, I swear these days you can find people at duel arena more than you can find pvming and at G.E combined ( I would say pking but that won't change anything )

Making the drop more common few months ago to bring more items to the game wasn't a bad idea at all, but keeping it this way all of this time is the bad idea.
Chait bought and dropped over 600 Dfs yet you can still find another 1800 in game( most of them with 3 players / stakers ) imagine what will happen to the price if they ever decides to sell them back to the community.

Few steps should be done to stop this BS, its forcing others to stake just to get some shit to play with

1 - Ancient items changes - Hopefully done in the next update ( which you already stated above ) .
2 - using gambling as a way to sink some items not only an easy way to get rich in few lucky stakes )
3 - Changing the ' Items shown after death ' Timer and limiting the use of G.A / a day ( will be suggested soon )
4 - Changing the GWD kc back to 20 as it used to be before
5 - Making the god damn game harder for high cb levels and a lil bit easier for new comers ( I have no fucking idea why some updates made it harder for new comers to even get some items from Blue dragons )

Otto, I don't know if we had more items in Scape or not, but it doesn't matter, since items were actually sinked in Scape (shorter deathtimers, connection issues, no GA etc).
You are clearly overestimating the uselessness of most items, it's just not true. True, some of the weapons could see some changes, but that's the end of it. There have always been cheaper alternatives for the best sets, that doesn't mean the other ones are useless.
You saying that there's nothing wrong with the market just shows your ignorance. We can keep lowering the droprates, but that doesn't change the fact that we already have tons of items ingame.
I didn't suggest making anything stronger here, so why even mention it?

The same kind of taxations are happening in the real world, brokers/gambling sites take their cut from the bets etc. Why does it make sense there, but for some reason gambling taxation is so far-fetched for you guys here?


Dutch, why is it a bad idea? Please explain.
Also, it's quite ironic coming from you since you were the one, who suggested to me earlier that the sinked items should be released via giveaways.

1 - Ancient items changes - Hopefully done in the next update ( which you already stated above ) .
2 - using gambling as a way to sink some items not only an easy way to get rich in few lucky stakes )
3 - Changing the ' Items shown after death ' Timer and limiting the use of G.A / a day ( will be suggested soon )
4 - Changing the GWD kc back to 20 as it used to be before
5 - Making the god damn game harder for high cb levels and a lil bit easier for new comers ( I have no fucking idea why some updates made it harder for new comers to even get some items from Blue dragons )

None of that makes the GWD items worthwhile of using. Also, making the game harder has been what we've been doing for a while, and see the results: nobody PvMs anymore. Making useless stuff harder to get seems idiotic to me.

You are clearly overestimating the uselessness of most items

I started PvMing with Void on my ironman and now that I third age and bandos I only get less kills per trip at GWD. Accuracy is more important than strength bonus in this game because of the ridiculous defence of bosses. Go figure...

I have a feeling that Thomy wont add this because he doesnt want to lose players, staking after you are cleaned becomes too much trouble and lets be honest people get cleaned alot

It looks like this server reached a point where everything is breaking apart. This could have been prevented quite some time ago, but Thomy surely knows what is best for this server by releasing the updates the way he does. Afterall good footbal players are also good coaches, right? Why would I ask the community for what they want to see getting added next when I already know that I will release dynamic shadows next?

I left the scene some time ago and returned just for the ironman mode. But why can I as an ironman see all the flaws and bugs that this game has within 1 month of playing while Thomy did not see them for months/years. I am also sure that none of this would be discussed today, if I did not open my mouth.

It amuses me how people compare Emps-Scape with Emps-World. Most of you do not know a damn about how Emps-Scape was before it got closed. Do you know what people said when Emps-World returned? They asked me where Kolodion is and why Banshees do not drop Bandos anymore, and and and. Funny how all of these changes were already done in Emps-Scape (a year ago before it closed) and it worked there. Now when everything is breaking apart, you use the same argument (that worked in Emps-Scape) to say why it does not work Emps-World.

Regarding the economy, it is always the about the same thing: Supply & Demand (based on the active players).

The worst case scenario which is also our current situation is that there are not many active players with too many items in the game (supply) that not many people want to buy (demand). Using one example (that was not even true) of how this simple, but also complex formula works, makes me wonder if some of you guys really have the intelligence of a human being or just a cow.

As the author of this topic said, this suggestion focuses on the most popular feature in the game (staking). There are many other ways of how to "fix" the economy and you will need more ways than just one to do it, but this particular one is all about staking.

Basically a staking fee or taxes are needed to get the ball rolling. This was suggested by many players in the last days already. Now it is all about which one is the best way and whether Thomy will add it or not. After all, he knows what he is doing.

Personally I am not a fan of converting items into a cash value that will be used for stakes, but this is the fastest way to get items out of the game because the majority of the player base spends their time staking. Whether this solution is healthy in the long run can be discussed. There should be also a full list of which items are accepted and which are not because I am pretty sure that allowing all items to be converted will mess things up big time.

This could work well, but i see one big problem with using GE prices. They're way too easy to manipulate. For example player X could create a second account he'd give 100m cash to. Then he'd put an offer of 100m for a feather in GE and buy it with second account. Then he'd trade the cash back to the second account and repeat this method till the GE price of feather is in millions. Then he could get tons of AC with only feathers. Sadly, preventing this from happening would be really hard. For this reason using GE prices could not be wise, though it's the only way of having relatively realistic prices for items without having to have someone manually changing them constantly.

This could work well, but i see one big problem with using GE prices. They're way too easy to manipulate. For example player X could create a second account he'd give 100m cash to. Then he'd put an offer of 100m for a feather in GE and buy it with second account. Then he'd trade the cash back to the second account and repeat this method till the GE price of feather is in millions. Then he could get tons of AC with only feathers. Sadly, preventing this from happening would be really hard. For this reason using GE prices could not be wise, though it's the only way of having relatively realistic prices for items without having to have someone manually changing them constantly.

Did you even read?

The only problem with this idea right now is GE. Prices of rarely sold items can be easily manipulated, so you could get a ton of AC by just increasing item prices in GE.
We could fix this by only allowing certain items to be deposited (for example GWD armours, spirit shields, 3rd age armours, high-end weapons etc). If we limit this to certain items, we could also just preset the prices, which definitely removes the possibility of abuse.
The full list of the named items can be compiled, if this idea has been approved.

let them stake. Staker banks usually dont contribute to the economy, they just hoard it, then lose it and the cycle repeats

let them stake. Staker banks usually dont contribute to the economy, they just hoard it, then lose it and the cycle repeats

Actually there's more to it. They prefer to stake cash, all the items have lesser values against cash. If a staker runs out of cash/wants more of it/loses a huge part of the bank, they dump the items to the market in order to get cash fast.
Let's take spirit shields for example. These shield were dumped to market 15-25m cheaper compared to their retail prices. So what was the result of this? Let me explain.
Spirit shield prices crashed, market was is overflown by those shields, they became impossible to sell because of the continuous dump + price decrease. Because of the overflow, the previous sellers (especially less rich players) are unable to sell them, or even if they manage to sell them, they have lost a ton of cash because of the price decrease. You might say that because of the dump, items are more available, however it's just not true: yes they may be cheaper, but because no-one other than stakers can sell items, there's a cash shortage, which results in people not being able to buy anything.
This sort of item dumping with low-ass prices is happening constantly, making life harder for regular players. That's why item sinks are required. And since most of the items/cash go through duel arena, it's the way to go.

If we were to use this idea, which directly sinks items, we would firstly see a price increase for the sinked items. Those items could be sold again, so this creates a market for them again. Market will be much more stable, yes the dumps could still happen, but they're less likely to.

Also this dumpbox idea creates market for such items that are either valued higher or lesser in GE, compared to their regular prices. Arcane spirit shields are currently 115m in GE, but they're sold for 75-80m, so these will be bought in order to get most AC out of the items. The items, which are valued lower than their retail prices, will be more used in stakes, since less AC is consumed.

I'm still gonna repeat this: why would you care if spirit shield crash because they are nearly useless?

If you dont wanna stakers investing in PvM gear, why not suggest adding more old schools?

I'm still gonna repeat this: why would you care if spirit shield crash because they are nearly useless?

If you dont wanna stakers investing in PvM gear, why not suggest adding more old schools?

I agree with the fact that all of the items should have a use in game, but why are you so against demoting staking to a certain point, if it wasn't for staking we wouldn't have lost tens of players, and the economy would have been much better, because even if it is as you say about the items being useless, a ton of players think that bandos+arcane+ etc are the best gear, and the most fancy ones. a for me I do prefer void, not because I knew bandos was that useless, but because I always liked void.
I find it pretty cool to lose stakers, so we don't see people get demotivated so easily when they see a bank of 100b made by no effort, while they still have 100m bank which they worked their arses for it

Quote from: Someone12116 on July 31, 2016, 12:37:33 pm

I'm still gonna repeat this: why would you care if spirit shield crash because they are nearly useless?

If you dont wanna stakers investing in PvM gear, why not suggest adding more old schools?

I agree with the fact that all of the items should have a use in game, but why are you so against demoting staking to a certain point, if it wasn't for staking we wouldn't have lost tens of players, and the economy would have been much better, because even if it is as you say about the items being useless, a ton of players think that bandos+arcane+ etc are the best gear, and the most fancy ones. a for me I do prefer void, not because I knew bandos was that useless, but because I always liked void.
I find it pretty cool to lose stakers, so we don't see people get demotivated so easily when they see a bank of 100b made by no effort, while they still have 100m bank which they worked their arses for it

If there wasn't any stakers hoarding the items, they all would be in the market, which would actually mean they would be even cheaper.