Revisit the PD rate increase debate.

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@Rappolt If Admin chooses to implement this, they can decide and implement the idea and THEN announce it was done, giving potential hoarders zero time to exploit this. Problem solved. (Someone could do this now, yes, but it would be pure speculation, and thus any gains made by correctly "calling the market" based on this public info would be fine.)

As for individuals who hold a great deal of PDs versus physical wealth and losing value, the current PD sinks (Sphereing and Srank Specials) will always cause PDs to maintain an objective floor value. It's also a great opportunity to learn the importance of diversification :D
 
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After reading this entire thread, I can't help but think that people who want Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst to be a "modern" game are missing the point of why people even come back to play PSOBB in the first place here on Ephinea. It's to experience the original game that they fell in love with all over again or, in the case of newcomers, the game that they heard but never had a chance to play before.

I can't help but feel a lot of people here are essentially asking for PSOBB to become Diablo 3. There's a reason a lot of Diablo 2 players didn't like Diablo 3. If Diablo 3 is what you want, why not just play that game instead?

Ephinea is marketed in terms of its brand identity to both veterans and newcomers as a server that retains the vanilla PSOBB experience while also adding sprinkles on top...that's literally paraphrased right from the landing page of the game. In my experience as a graphic designer and studying the past of many successful and failed brands out there, a brand is only as strong as its connection with its community it creates. That connection is created the moment that someone sees the front page of this website as well as plays on the server for the first time. In the case of PSOBB on Ephinea, its image has already been set in stone for what it seeks to establish itself as amongst the rest of the private servers out there.

It's not like a large, multinational conglomerate with a massive following of people with different ideals that can flip the switch to suddenly make drastic changes to their brand identity and convince people to follow in their wake. So you're free to suggest whatever you'd like, but keep these things in mind.
 
I really hastily brushed over this convo so forgive me if what I'm saying was already stated. but I wanted to say this. (which I'll preface with im not trying to condescend or be preachy or anything)

One thing that must be understood here is with Vanilla PSO you're dealing with a VERY limited economy. There's only so many items to hunt because of the limited nature of the vanilla game, even more so when certain items are not put into drop circulation (being assigned a drop). That being said, at the same time the items people will want are overhunted, and because of that are overavailable thus leading to a saturation of unspent PD's because a lot of ppl have the stuff they want already. This is compounded by the events churning out some items that woulda been already low value (like 30h zanba, which imo isn't enough to hit anything without a FT. ppl realized this, so teampointing them wont do crap because they're unwanted in the first place) So saturating the market with more "money" no one already wants to spend won't do anything IMO.

There's no unlocks here to create more items to want, making their existence negligible. There's no branching custom item paths on ITEMS THAT MATTER like chainsawd>buzzsawd>texas massacres, there's no custom items otherwise in general to stimulate things. This is why it was so hard and remains hard to make and plan events, quests, and other stuff for Ephinea that won't disrupt everything and why the staff spins in circles come event time because they don't know what the hell to do anymore.

Shorter version: We're greedy little treasure hunters and hoarders, and we're holding onto our shekels. ppl aren't going to spend money because the economy has more PD's pushed through. They're willing to hunt, and the items are over-available in some cases. And in the cases of people not selling those items, they're holding onto them to use themselves. There's probably not much that can be done unfortunately.
 
Sounds like the answer is to change the meta and start adding those nifty custom items. :lenny:
 
Metaldude said:
Sounds like the answer is to change the meta and start adding those nifty custom items. :lenny:
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Well as nice as that would be on a server this great (even just using vanilla item rebalances), it'll never happen. So it's a moot point. What CAN be done is careful planning around events while still giving the players something to be excited about (The ephinea anniversary with MA:E was a great example), and a UPDATED community agreed upon pricing plan and structure, so when trades ACTUALLY occur both sides benefit in a way that matters and makes the trade feel conductive to progress.

I personally don't care as I don't trade, its your guys' deal just saying pumping more PD's out there won't do much. You guys are what makes the game what it is, so you can come to some kind of conclusion that doesn't involve tampering with the games PD balance.
 
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Nikki said:
a UPDATED community agreed upon pricing plan and structure
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Do you mean something like the Pricecheck Guide or am I wrong here, cause the prices on it are 95% accurate.
I really agree that creative (and careful) events are part of the solution, and the other part...well...I guess that's what this thread is for.
also add me on discord kthxlol
 
I feel like they did it already and didn't tell anyone, I have been getting so many pd's since the last topic ;)
 
To respond to the recent posts: Like I said, there hasn't been a near-100%-legit economy in any version of PSO before this. In a way, that's one of the most un-vanilla things about the server. (And it's a GOOD thing.) The speed of overall gear progression is therefore quite a bit slower than anyone expected. I was light years ahead on Scht after putting in the same amount of time. (I also traded a decent amount and a bunch of those PDs were probably duped / hacked by other players, so it wasn't real.) The post-leveling progression on this game is very slow even by 2000-2005 gamer standards. If cheating had been impossible, I don't think anyone would have put up with it back then, either. They would have hit Lv. 200 on however many characters they intended and then quit because it would have taken years to get any further.

Spuz: I have plenty of PDs myself, but this is a matter of general economy, not individual.

Nikki: Boosting the PD rate would increase trades of items that are valued "1 PD or less" and would raise the value of items that are currently depressed. It wouldn't necessarily cause a 200% increase in trading volume, but it would help get values in check. The volume of trading is going to be a function of the number of players and their needs. Getting things valued appropriately for the time spent hunting them is far more important than increasing overall trade volume.

Again: Not bragging or boasting, but most of the people arguing against this haven't hit the progression wall that I and a few others have hit. The only thing I can do right now is wait for amazing hit % gear to drop so I can Sphere it. Right now, PDs are too valuable to Sphere anything other than weapons with a perfect amount of hit %.

In many suggestion topics I've pleaded that well-established players haven't really been getting any love in terms of updates, and a lot of people who don't understand this situation shout the ideas down. It's very sad.
 
I agree with Ade to the extent that the pd drop rate compared to the active player base is pretty low. How to solve this issue(if the playerbase agrees it is indeed an issue) is debatable. Normally I would say Schthack isn't really comparable here because it's economy evolved over time but we're also seeing this evolve over time. So the ideal question here is if the pd rate compared to the active player base doesn't make sense, then at what stage would it make sense? Keep in mind that we range from some casual log on once a week players to the no life hbr-ers like myself who log in 3+times a week to the extreme no lifers who never log off.

Also keep in mind gallons sells addslots for 1pd but not many people do that.

Now the endgame player appreciation/improvements is an entirely different debate and one that should have its own separate thread.(I'm new here so I'd assume there is a locked thread about it somewhere?)


Edit: Should also take into account the subsection of the playerbase who only do hardcore or sandbox
 
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I had the good fortune to attend the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders' meeting this weekend. (They're the fourth largest company in the U.S.A.). The chairman and CEO of the company, Warren Buffet, spoke of the speculative nature of Bitcoin.

Currency traders exist today, but most currencies that are traded are relatively stable, and these traders prosper by generating small profits with slight variances in relative currency value over a long period of time. Conversely, think about a highly speculative currency like Bitcoin: The amount of dollars you paid for that Bitcoin would have purchased a certain number of goods and services yesterday, and would probably purchase [relatively] the same amount of goods and services today. There is no such certainty with the Bitcoin itself (yet). At least, until it stabilizes and stops being so volatile.

Now, this isn't exactly related to the problems of deflation, but it does show the heart of the problem is similar: When a currency cannot effectively represent the value of an item, good faith is lost.

Back to PSO:

Right now, there are so many items that are valued at "less than one PD" that the PD is failing to represent a great deal of transactions accurately. Players have thus resorted to busting down PDs into (X number of HP mats, Meseta, etc.) to account for fractions of PDs.

This would be similar to eliminating all denominations that are below $1. There's a huge range of items that exist from $0.01 to $0.99 that would all be leveled at the same price, and we would be forced to use pieces of gum, pencils / pens, and other various knickknacks when trying to represent something less than a dollar; a very non-ideal and cumbersome situation.

I realize we'll never be able to completely level off this problem with PDs, but increasing the PD rate would widen the range of item values in the "0 to 1 PD" range. Perhaps a 0.5 PD item now would be a 1 PD item in the future, which opens up a lot more trade opportunity without someone feeling like they "lose" the transaction.

(This is more of an addendum to my main argument. I'm always thinking, learning, and listening about finance. Maybe this will help. I don't know.)

I haven't heard much feedback from the server Admins on this revived thread. Any thoughts? (On everything, not just this post.) Thanks.
 
Ade said:
I haven't heard much feedback from the server Admins on this revived thread. Any thoughts? (On everything, not just this post.) Thanks.
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Just because people make a thread or revive a thread in this section doesn’t mean we have to reply or take any sort of action, really.

I’ve been reading this thread and I really don’t have anything to say. I just find the debate interesting. Very entertaining.
 
Sodaboy said:
Just because people make a thread or revive a thread in this section doesn’t mean we have to reply or take any sort of action, really.

I’ve been reading this thread and I really don’t have anything to say. I just find the debate interesting. Very entertaining.
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@Sodaboy Thanks! You are not required to respond, by any means. My apologies if that was the impression. I was just wondering if there were any thoughts. It's okay if you don't have anything to say yet. Thanks for reading it and glad we're providing you some entertainment! (Hopefully the good, non-laughable kind.)
 
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