Quote:
Originally Posted by Sinkler
1) Reset Era - this eliminates the income gap between the extremely wealthy and the poor. Why is this gap problematic? The poor are unable to purchase guns that allow them to effectively participate in the main of the aspect of the game, which is to neutralize opponents on the GMAP. Of course the wealthy members of the society will disagree with me, but their arguments are purely self-interest and have no legitimacy.
2) Enact effective economic controls that allow for all players to gain enough disposable income to purchase weapons. This, in tandem with the reduction of weapon prices, will allow for newer players to gain access to superior guns. What will this trickle down into?
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I'm neither coming out publicly for or against a reset. I just want to essentially copy/paste what I sent a few players regarding how I see the current state of our economy.
Our current economy and gun-layout allows any player to get a competitive gun in a reasonable amount of time (perhaps 1 week of play). Will they be able to afford the $1.2M Photon Rifle? Probably not. But the Sten is still a great gun for 400k street.
What's more, it's still relatively easy to get up to $1.2M by PKing and other money making means.
This means that, in theory, everyone can get a "God-tier" gun without too much difficulty. We can crunch the numbers here, but I think you could easily make 500k a month just PKing. So, on the surface, if you can get your "God-tier" gun quickly, why is that bad?
To answer, we'll have to ask: what are the pros and cons of everybody getting exactly what they want (cf. Erik's extreme example). The folks who play this game
just to PK, well, they're pretty happy. They can compete and ruffle up their feathers about who's best etc. etc. But for the large percentage of the population who sit at OSL and more-or-less merch all day, getting what they want will be a bad thing. They'll be aimless.
This is where items like the Ares, ARG, Odachi come in. They are rare and give people something to collect or work towards. In fact, because of their limited releases, they will always be something to be coveted, worked toward, and, generally, a reason to keep playing.
Quick note: I see this rarity as the
main function of these guns. I've made this implicit before, but, I'll make it implicit here. I do not, nor have I ever, balanced based on rarity. The Ares and ARG are in the God-tier. They are balanced as God-tier. They are not supposed to be better than that (argue away if you want that they are). Why anyone would pay 5-10M for that when, in theory, you can get other god-tier guns for 1.2M is, well, for
rarity.
So, I really do think our current model is sustainable if and only if we keep releasing rare/unique items (check out recent M4A3 release for an example of a neat little feature) that are not OP and are in line with easily obtainable guns. That way everyone can compete, but there's still an active economy.