A concern about self-sufficiency killing economy

Hi guys. Haven't played the game as most around the forum I guess, but would like to vote a concern about the game (and maybe offer a few potential theoretical solutions). Have seen a few of the things I'll write about touched in a few topics but haven't actually seen them combined in one specific topic (if I'm mistaken I do apologize in advance).

The topic is pretty simple yet it may have a lot hidden points that I do not see as do not have the bankroll to try out all the aspects of the game, so if I left out something please do add a point in a reply.


Here is my concern : as players get more and more self-sufficient over time they need less and less gear replacement/upgrades or, in general, help (services) from other players. Saying that, there is an abundance of raw and (potentially) crafted materials on the market which not many players want, as using those to create an end product or service is simply less needed on the market over time. And in general we experience a mark-up flat line on so many things that way.

I reached this discovery, to my surprise, after it's been a few months that the only things I bought from other players were 2 space thrusters, rk-5 and a bit of wire,1 PH-2 (L) ,1 PH-3(L). That's a total of 6 crafted items that I bought in months. As for services used 1 warp to Cyrene cuz I was impatient and 1 daily warp ticket. When that's all put together I had put less then 100ped into game economy (the mark-up paid) in a few months of playing the game. During the same period I have hunted and mined and even crafted a few small items and walked for fruit. For crafting I have bought a few materials but also sold items I made (whips during the new pet releases) so in the end have gained more back then I put into economy (mark-up of mats vs mark-up on whips sold). Now the part that is alarming to the game : all the gear I use for hunting and mining is UL or self-looted. Which means when ever I go hunting or mining I just buy ammo/probes and repair gear at the terminal. In turn hunting and mining generate loot which, when sold, takes away from the economy of the game. In other words for generating loot from mining or hunting I am self-sufficient for my level and do not need to put anything into game economy to do it, but when I finish my runs and sell stuff I take away from game economy.

Now, I'm not much of a crafter, but in crafting that can easily be achieved as well with UL blueprints(khm, explosive projectile bps that most of us hate when we mine/hunt - and I would personally like to see all those burn, but not the point of the topic). In pet taming there are UL whips and a lot of them. In woodcutting nowadays it can also be achieved easily PH-3 UL tool is pretty common on auction and goes for roughly 200ped-ish. As for hunting and mining UL gear is abundantly available (except for mining amps to my knowledge) especially in low-mid level range of play. As far as vehicles go, they rarely break if they can fly (especially if you don't travel much in space) so buying even one vehicle can last you for years.

And here is the root of the problem : once you become self-sufficient in any of the things above listed you can go for years without needing the upgrade of the gear you use. From my example : I have UL hunting gear at par with doing missions about to level 15 mobs. That means that on Arkadia alone I can hunt : 5 puny mobs, Dromia, Wombana, Navi, Halix, Oro, Ostelok, Hadraada, Oratan, Tiarak, Zadul, Madana, Nusul, may have missed something.. Still, at least 17 mission chains to finish before I would need a gear upgrade. Which means without leaving Arkadia I would be able to play for a few years and cycle tens or even hundreds of thousands of ped without ever putting anything back into economy, just running back to repair terminal and trade terminal when needed (if I had that much ped ofc). And in long term, the more players get geared up this or similar way, the more crafters and service providers in game are going to get hurt and mark-up on materials possibly used by crafters and service providers will keep flat lining more and more often.

One of the theoretical solutions : let's not use repair terminal for repairs. Instead let UL items only be repaired by using crafted parts for said items. Real-world example : if battery in your phone dies and cannot keep a charge any longer, you buy a new battery. So let say your weapon breaks, in this case I'll use a riffle as an example. There are lots of parts there that could be made by crafters to repair a broken riffle : scope, trigger, casing, firing pin, barrel, etc... For mining tools, wood cutting tools, whips, armor, vehicles, all could work on the same principal for their own UL versions (also for vehicles to replenish TT value parts could be used). Only two things I cannot really figure out how to do in this example would be blueprints, as they do not decay, but an introduction of decaying tools while crafting would be possible instead (some sci-fi needle and thread (crafted and L) for tailoring that decays while crafting clothes for example), and Mind Force chips (maybe some nano components crafted, no clear idea yet).
This way even tho you have UL gear (for example for hunting) you would still depend on high end or specialized crafters to make repairs to your gear as it decays. In turn crafters would have something useful to make in masses again which would make a lot more materials from hunting and mining more desirable and mark-up wouldn't flat line as often (if ratio and balance are done correctly by dev teams ofc).
The above example could also be implemented for shops and apartments (cleaning supplies, brooms, fixing neon signs in your shops, feeding shop keepers...etc...).

Another theoretical solution in a totally different way would be to make some new and FUN activities for players, that cannot have UL gear. An example of that might be an instance with 10 levels, each level is the same with number and strength of mobs, 10 teams (or 10 solo players) enter at the same time and compete with gear available in the instance for who finishes fastest. Gear should be provided at the start of the instance and removed at the end in that case so it's a fair competition. There would be no loot on mobs in normal sense, but players would pay for tickets to enter and 3 top teams would get to open the chests based on ticket prices and distribution (let's say 43%/31%/21% of total ticket costs and 5% goes to planet partner). In this case tickets for entering would have to be crafted much like Aakas keys used to be. And this is just an example, there could be a lot more fun things, like gladiator type battles, fashion shows, vehicle races, puzzle solving instanced race between teams, treasure hunting from clues provided on a map or some cryptic old journal, more apartment/shop decorations like wallpapers(C,L), ability to hire another player to upkeep your apartment/shop while off-planet (not my idea, but I loved it), add the ability for pet to abandon you unless you play with it often enough and the ability to hire someone to take care of your pet when you can't...and soooooo on..(am just spit-balling ideas atm).

In conclusion : my concern is about players becoming way too self-sufficient over time and not engaging in universe-wide economy as much as they should. Being as is, that this is a RCE = real cash ECENOMY game, no-one should be left out of the loop (by loop I mean not one sided) of engaging economy otherwise it could possibly flat line the fun (and unique) aspects of the game and not just mark-up on items.
(Anyways that's just my opinion and I could be dead wrong.)
Thanks for taking the time to read

 

you are right about some (L) stuff like vehicles not decaying fast enough

but breaking even or comming out ahead takes some serious investing of RL cash 1st
i have been ingame for 11+ years now , and im not at the point yet where i dont need to deposite anymore
(i consider myself a mid level player by now)

i do agree that something needs to be changed because to much stuff has next to no MU left on it
only new stuff they add (for a short time)

personaly i think that is the effect of a way to small playerbase
compaired to the VU where they added the 1st planet partner untill now the total map size became atleast 8-10x bigger , but the playerbase remains roughly the same

this makes it hard to get any descent stable economy going on any of the planets (other then the original astablished planet Calypso)

and UL armor for instance already decays faster then (L) , so the ppl with UL armor already pay more (not even considering the MU they payed to get those parts)

 

I agree with your main premise, that crafting needs to be more integral to the game. There are two things that if MA would do, we would see a big boost in resource demand. First is to stop the dropping of high eco weapons in loot. Second is to increase the rate of multipliers in amped mining to make using amps fun again, because amp crafting uses up a lot of resources. Oh, and ofc remove the explosive BPs... that's a no brainer.

However, you have to think like MA to understand why they want to make hunting less dependent on other professions... they get the most decay from hunters of any profession, so they want to make it really easy for you to go out and hunt... they drop lots of weapons and give you lots of shrapnel and other TT resources in loot.

Ark should be applauded for having events for miners and crafters, not just hunters. Caly run by MA ... their events are just hunt hunt hunt.

 

I've been planning to write a long treatise about this for a while, but still lack the energy to forge it out. Until then, just the essence in short: Dependence, independence... the key in any community is interdependence.

Interdependence, as the word already contains, either works both ways or it doesn't work at all. I hardly ever get the bread-and-butter materials sold on Arkadia. I have to fly to Calypso to put e.g. animal oils on auction and actually find buyers. I cannot be expected to chase Madana tails on demand if that is the only thing anyone here ever wants from me. I don't know where the big businesses here buy most of their basic stuff, presumably from Caly, too?

Until this changes, I will continue my path to independence. Just one more unlimited bigger pistol, rifle, armour set and heal tool and I'm pretty much set for life, or more precisely, until the point where I can use any non-SIB item economically. For the limited items I continually use, I am acquiring the blueprints and skills to make them myself. Sure there will always be desires, but it's really just luxury.

It seems that crafting is seen as the only branch which is associated with always running a profitable business, while everybody else just consumes and can only hope to cut their cost of playing with markup. You cannot profit from the system, only from other players, which means that automatically a majority must consume more than they earn. This is a game for most and serious business for a few. If you are not successful in erecting a network of mutual benefit, what is there left but to seek independence?

That it is possible to do things differently even in smaller communities than Arkadia is exemplified by the positive experience on Rocktropia, which I mentioned on various occasions in both public and private communications with people of influence here. But the nudges have not caused any resonance so far. I feel friendly towards everybody who runs an enterprise here, but I don't know how to say all this without stepping on some toes. Please folks, go for a stint on Rock and ask who this crafter is who lets all the hunters and gatherers queue up every Saturday to unload their wares. And let them hint you at another secret, that there is even a way to sell stackables to the bank if you're pressed for time, and where these go afterwards and what relations make all this work. A functioning economy needs cycles, not dependence.

 

Don't go fucking up stuff that other people spent money on. You are right, UL stuff does make it easier to repair, but usually UL stuff also has sucky stats vs the L stuff. I personally love my UL viper whip because buying L is a pain in the butt. Before taming came back finding a whip was pretty darn hard on auction on any given day. Currently same situation exists on quite a few planets.

Same goes for why I bought my UL tt arkadian gun from another player via auction once it stopped being in the TT (doh, shouldn't have TTed that, just like I shouldn't have TTed that full set of gremlin a few years ago, or that full set of 5b that went with it, or that full set of 6a that went with it, or several of those ul sib guns I tted around the same time since at that time the lowest tt value was 50%, not the 3% that exists today, lol..)... in other words, some of us spent a ton on our UL stuff (if we didn't tt it already), or a bunch of time finding that stuff. Don't go making all the time/money wasted on finding the stuff be worthless... I already have a ton of mostly useless blueprints, which now have markups below the prices I paid on em, mainly because silly people got in to crafting and decided it wasn't for them so sold out at a price below what they should have.

At one point in time, I would have believed you are right, social side of life was important in game, and yadda, yadda, yadda, but over time as you see more and more of what's going on with this game and the underlying social structure, you find that that junk is just a huge facade since there's a bunch of insider info, some folks being favored more than others, a whole lotta brown nosing, and a whole lotta developers that have no clue what they hell they are doing since they bit off more than they can chew and keep getting away with it by biting off more every year, making it look all good when it's not really since there's sooo many bugs, broken stuff, visual glitches, etc. This ain't the same game from 10 years ago.

As far as your oddball instance idea, check out cyrene. They have a bunch of weird ass stuff like the Mario and Luigi instances and Mazes and of course, the hub.

 

Heya, thanks for all the replies.

Would like to point out the UL theoretical solution I wrote would hurt my play style for a bit as well until I get used to paying a bit of mark-up for repairs on UL gear (about 20% of my game budget went into my UL gear), but in the end it would balance out with hunting and mining loot starting to gain a bit of mark-up as well on some of the TT food items. For MA in that case repair profits should remain unchanged tho.
On the other hand I did realize that that solution might be not-popular and that's why I added the second one as well.

Both solutions are theoretical and I'm deffo not a master of economy in any way, just wanted to suggest something that would make the game more engaging into economy, cuz the goal of a lot of players as it sits is to get as disengaged as possible from buying side, but as engaged as possible on selling side (as San mentioned : "path to independence") and that approach does hurt the fun factor of the game, at least for me.

Any other ideas for improving the game are very welcome in this topic, but please if you do disagree leave a constructive idea/comment as well. Purely saying ideas I wrote would fu*k up some players and not offering a better one in turn, seems pointless as we are all aware of any changes to UL gear might do just that. So please if you need to vent that out at least add something constructive to go with it. I tried to shape all ideas to be as painless as possible towards how universe would change if any would be implemented and to benefit all players in the long run (at least in fun/ped ratio, cuz atm looking at looted items after a run and not finding anything with mark-up over 105% just isn't that much fun for me and happens way to often).

Anyways, thanks all for interest in the topic Hopefully it can spark a change for the better

 

sorry for any offense. I guess my point is that the UL Sib issue isn't probably as big of a problem as you think it is. Yes, there are quite a few UL Sib things in game right now, but the actual amount of them is not all that high. I think the majority of that stuff started dropping about the same time for about a year or two, and then stopped being available too often. I could be wrong on this, but last time I tried looking in auction for some UL Sib gear, it was far and few between, at least in comparison to what it was a year or two ago.... unless the auction involved someone from about 5-6 years ago selling out, as the UL Sib stuff from 4 years ago is what they stockpiled.

Want to fix the economy? Get rid of items in hunting and mining loot. Any item, especially those that are useful should be crafted. Hunters will hate that idea since a lot of them rely on the items in loot as a goal. Right now the majority of looted items in hunting loots have better stats than the alternatives that can be crafted. That keeps hunters from relying on crafters... which lowers demand for crafting enormously. Moving to all L items won't fix that problem if more and more L items keep dropping from lootius in hunting loots forever as they have the last 3 years or so.

Want to fix the economy? Stop changing the game every other year. over the years there has been a LOT of game changers, and that's hurt a lot of people that invested in various stuff. That keeps hurting long term players, making them less likely to invest in anything in game. Examples?

Booth markups used to be fairly high since the booth owners didn't have to pay rent. Now every estate in game has no monthly rental fees, making anyone who invested in booths in ancient days feel like fools as the invested in super low item count places that no longer have the advantage they once did. (also didn't help that a promised "upgrade" to fix the problem for booth owners never happened since Mindark couldn't live up to a promise, even after they made most booths in game essentially paperweights for a good year and a half as no items could be put in to any of them for a very loooong time after vu10)

UL old school non-sib stuff once was uber. Now it's not since L Sib stuff with better stats exist.

When tiering came out, originally Mindark's stance was that 2 items should be used as ingredients in the recipie to upgrade the tier level. Later that requirement was removed AFTER many uber items were lost in game due to the requirement... making every one that did tiering back then now feel mighty silly.

At one point in time attachments for any level worked on any level weapon. Then the half damage rule was introduced... killing the eco of anyone who bought high damage amps but didn't own the weapon that did enough damage to support it.

Remember how the 2x0s old damage was great, and then it got shot to hell, killing the eco for tons of people who had a bunch of axes.

What about personal revive terminals that got removed from game?

Miners complain and grumble because crafters don't buy from them as often as they used to since explosives came out, but last time I checked every mining loot in game still has markup higher than any other profession in game. That unbalance is part of why the explosives came out in the first place I think.

At one point in time you needed keys to go to hell, ancient greece, etc. Now you don't.

Every niche in game where anyone that can come to rely on some way to have an economic reason to exist in game changes every few years so that that niche doesn't exist in game any more. Mindark does it for a variety of reasons, but mainly it seems to do nothing but confuse the hell out of people and make them frustrated... what used to work no longer does. That causes player retention to drop like a rock. At one point in time Mindark didn't want to change any stats on anything. These days changed stats is a daily occurrence.

A lot of people don't deposit daily since they get screwed on markup every single day if they buy a lot from other players. Grenaders used to have to rely on hunters to get ammo. Now they don't have to do that as much.

You say you aren't much of a crafter. Try it sometime. Soon you'll realize just how much markup crafters do pay daily. You say there are a lot of UL whips in game. That may be true, but not as many as you think, and only mamba and viper are sib UL ones that I'm aware of. I think a few of the newer school ones are dropping now since I saw one on auction the other day but it had no history on markup screen, so I don't think there are really that many out there, at least yet.

On the topic of flying vehicles, PA's space station is full of pirates... your vehicle won't last long if you want to visit other planets any time soon...

As far as other planets go, Mindark keeps adding more and more events/holidays, etc. to Calypso, but not too many are on other planets. If each planet had their own events, and the number of them were as extensive as Calypso's there would be a reason to be on the other planets. It doesn't help that Mindark's server rental cost is way toooo high, which is why Cyrene and RT lowered monthly server rental cost and downsized the planets enormously recently. There's not a lot of reason to visit other planets since Mindark keeps screwing Planet Partners over. Fix that and a lot of the economic woes in game will go away. Make every planet's loot system independent but rely on some stuff from other planets a little, and that will help too. Right now way too many calypso blueprints drop in crafting loots on non-calypso planets. It's not fun crafting on non-calypso planets when every other bp drop is junk you find on Calypso that you already have three hundred dupes of in your bp books if you've been crafting for any length of time. Also doesn't help that welding wire's bp drops way too often. Move that bp to drop only if you craft in a space station or on monria or something, and that might fix something a little. Seems like for every 10 bp drops about 8 of the drops are welding wire these days.

Self sufficiency isn't necessarily killing the economy. Instead, I suspect it's giving people that've been screwed for eons a reason to play the game more often and deposit more often then they previously did. As you say, even those self suficient people DO eventually have to buy something from others. Just not every hour of every day (well unless you do craft)

edit:
Here's a funny idea that would piss off a lot of folks including myself, but might help with the goal you are trying to talk about in this game. Stop paying peds/pecs as return on investment in deed owners. Instead move payments on cld, aud, etc. to being universal ammo with equivalent tt value of what is being paid in peds/pecs now. That'll force the deed owners to hunt more often... because right now a lot of them just withdraw, which is why a lot of the economy isn't like it used to be or could/should be.

 

Thanks for taking the time to add some thought out ideas
I really do agree with L weapons being moved from hunting loot to only crafting, but not sure if all items moved moved to crafting how would it impact the game? Like shop keepers, beauty and hair chairs(dunno exact name), ESI, mindforce chips...
Also as game sits now, if I was using only L items to hunt I wouldn't be able to get enough to drop just from hunting (especially armor/healing gear lol). I'd say on 3 to 4 L guns spent you loot one back and not always full tt value. For melee I think I looted 1 L sword ever on shared loot event, don't event think some low ones drop from mobs on Arkadia, so either you are "almost" completely dependent on crafters there or you get a UL - which is in a way better state then guns economy-wise, in my opinion. As for L mf chips some last waaaaaaaaaaaay to long and not really popular (I still have a few I looted last winter even tho I sold a few and tried to use up the ones I couldn't sell). So as for drop rates to replenish your weapons it isn't as horrible if you use only L and you would have to depend on crafters for at least some gear. If it was all moved to crafting I think it would be better tho.
I think I'd be a lot more worried if ESI or something similarly rare would be moved to crafting and MA made a few UL bps for or something silly like that. xD The move of all items would have to be done extremely carefully to not overflow the market and make them flat line as well.
As for moving UL items to crafting I'd support that idea if done in a way that would boost the economy, for example : a smuggler fap blueprint could come as L with 1 click available as guaranteed success, but would take ages for finding one (much as finding one from hunting). So the use of mats would jump for crafters trying to loot those kinds of blueprints. (maybe not a very good idea and someone who crafts a lot could have a better one xD)

In any case, I do support the idea of items being moved from hunting to crafting altho I do think materials used should be better organised to not have as much TT food and that overall materials consumption from both hunting and mining could be greater.

As far as changing the game goes, well real life changes constantly, new tech, new laws, new meds, etc... some are better some worse but change is constantly present, why would a game be any different? It's a living universe on it's own, isn't it?

 

Because customers wish to escape from real life for hour or two and expect to have something better here than in RL and are ready to pay for entertainment.
Except masochists but in that case they could get more for their money by paying their dentist for some pain instead depositing here lol.

 

I absolutely agree with Dan. Don't mess with UL equipment. Make existing BPs logical to craft again, not by changing status on UL equipment, but by changing drop rates etc. If it's a choice between making the game a chore and making the game fun, the game should be fun without screwing all the people who've made large investments in top end equipment. The best solution would be the one that adds least new items to the game and relies upon existing game mechanics to balance things.

Also, don't make the mistake of assuming that players who cycle lots of peds using UL equipment (without paying mark up) are not participating in the economy. They may be providing the majority of MAs income, allowing many, many small time players to actually play for free.

 

There are some problems that in my opinion work against creating a community with working shops and for people investing into creating a business.

I will only talk about Arkadia in my point of view as it is where I am a resident and we are discussing this on the Arkadia forum.

Problem 1: Abundant drops of limited weapons/items.

One really fresh example of how this work against the economy is the Gold Rush event. After some trial and research I decided on using the Scott & Barlow LP-6 (L) as this work good with the amp I own and put me in a damage interval that I am comfortable with on the Cat 1 magurgs.

The drop rate of these pistols are so high that I have only needed to shop for another one 2 times during 15+ hours of hunting. I usually get out of the instance after depleting my current hunting setup with 1 – 3 new Scott & Barlow LP-6 (L) to use on another run. If I had a particularly bad run without any weapon drops I can easily pick one up in trade for 105% - 110%.

I know for a fact that the only weapon dealer on Arkadia can not compete in this segment, the only weapon dealer on Arkadia I know of is Kikki. The weapon Kikki can offer is the CAP-4 or if I move up one size CAP-7. It’s not a bad gun for the price Kikki charge but it can not compare against the LP-6 when available. Why? LP-6 have superior fire speed and for me that is a big bonus when I do the Gold Rush when amount of kills is king.

I’m not against hunters getting some drops that have MU. I’m a hunter and get as frustrated over the MU as the next one. But I for one also do not have a problem in visiting shops or the AH for guns and Kikki have a great stock. Can in 99% of the times find what I’m looking for and in the 1% I can’t I know it will be restocked very soon.

So the question is. Why do they add weapons to the loot table that is “better” than the crafted guns and with such a high drop rate?

Would it not be better to work towards helping the comminutes evolve into self sustaining colonies that actually grow and can start to export/import between planets?

I’m sorry if I’m ignorant now and call Kikki the only weapon dealer on Arkadia, (I’m not counting resellers of looted weapons), but is it really a surprise that there is no competing shops when people do not have to rely on crafted goods?

Problem 2: Fashion

I do understand that this is a topic that can not be changed without trampling on some peoples toes. People have invested in hundreds of PED TT value for fashion items. Who thought that it would be a great idea to have clothes with TT values that high. Would of loved to be a fly on the wall on that design meeting.

I’m not saying that all high TT fashion items is bad. Just look at the real world. You need the vanity items for people.

But am I the only one who think that people would start investing in clothers and other fashion items if they where at TT 5 and maybe even limited?

I might be naïve but I really think that the market for both the clothes and the after market texturing and coloring would be much better off if it was cheap clothes available so people would invest in more that one (if that) outfit to use.

Problem 3: What the PEC!

The auction fees are a major income for MA. No one think anything else. But with the current economy we only see 101%-105% markup on a lot of items which makes it hard to use the AH for sales.

It might be items that people want to buy in 5 PED stacks off the AH but no one in their right mind can put it on AH both due to the auction minimum fee and because you can only change the listing price in full PED.

A revamp of the AH system would do some good for both the community and for MA.

Sure, we can shout in the trade chat all day long but in the end we get most of our sales in the AH don’t we?



That’s just my thoughts that I think with some changes would grow a better community and economy I the end. Both for us and for MA.

 

I think the AH setup is wrong for the reasons you state but also because people who have been hoarding items for months to build up enough to sell, will be tempted to sell on AH at below markup just to get their ped back quicker, which then drives down the MU and makes it harder to sell.

I not sure I agree about the fashion items, you do need high price desirable items to increase the cycle of ped, otherwise we would all end up with lots and lots of ped and nothing to waste it on eventually. I had a chat with one person who was working towards a fashion item that was probably going to take a long time and 1000's of ped to acquire, but that is an aspect of the game, setting yourself goals other than endless looting and mining etc etc

 

I fully agree and could of been unclear with "I’m not saying that all high TT fashion items is bad. Just look at the real world. You need the vanity items for people.". Of course we need high value items to dream and work towards. There is nothing wrong with that.
But with the current system new players are forced to run around in the starter items or invest a rather "high" sum to get out of those clothes and still have to sweat or deposit more to experience the rest of the games activities.

It's no wonder the sub fashion professions like texture and coloring is more or less dead when you need to put so much base value in clothes that you rather run around naked and keep the PED for hunting.

If you could get a decent looking outfit for say 25-50PED TT it would be another thing and you could all of the sudden get 2 - 3 outfits that you can play around with and still have PED for hunting/crafting or other activities.

One thing that for me is a bit bothersome is that it is hard to find items that actually look "normal" and not from an 80's sci-fi movie.
With the new graphics engine they could of brought in some hoodies and pants that are so skin tight that they give a latex cat suit a loose look.

I know for a fact that there are very talented people out there that have loads of fun with the steam workshop.
Why not implement something like that for entropia?
If it is too expensive for MA or other partners to implement new vanity items why not let the community help out?
Make a new clothing item (those have no possible way to sway the balance of the game and is no risk to the community) and let the creator submit their work for the community to vote/approve what to be implemented as blueprints in the game?

The options are endless. Just need to get the community involved.

 

well the starter missions on Ark get you the carapace pants and harness plus the IFN mission chain get you the uniform, so it's not hard to get a basic outfit together, and there are low ped items of footware and clothing which can be crafted but the markup on them is so low it's not worth making them, speaking from experience.

So that comes back to the AH problem

 

There are a number of low-cost clothing options available. As someone said, the profit on these is low so you may not be able to find them on auction. You will get a moderately good looking mass-produced outfit . If you want something unique, you're going to have to pay more. I think the cost of clothing in the game is mostly fair. There are a number of items that are too much or too little, but in general, the more you pay, the more unique and or nice-looking item you can have. Part of the reason for this is because of the high cost of coloring and texturing, which is just the way it is.

Creating super excellent clothing for only a few peds would be a big mistake.

 

I would buy a lot more stuff from other players if there was no fee for making orders on the AH. It's usually the stuff that's hard to find that i want to put orders up for in the first place, so with the fee of 1 ped/day i usually don't bother and just go out and gather the mats myself, even though i would rather have just bought it. If the fee was less or was absorbed by the the person filling the order, I would definitely be making more of them and it can really help other players know what they should hunt, mine or craft for profit instead of having to TT all their loot because they can't find a buyer.

As for fashion, there has been a lot of low TT clothes coming out, but the fact that every single item has more than 1 field is what i find really drives up the cost. So even if the TT is only 5 or 7 peds the fact that it has 3 fields as opposed to 1, drives the cost up 3 times higher than it needs to be if you just wanted one design or color on an item. Sure multiple fields has it's perks and i wouldn't want every item to just be 1 field all the time, but there is only 1 item (that i can recall atm) in the entire universe of the game that has only 1 field. This makes a simple outfit that should be cheaper, more expensive than anyone wants to spend on it.
So hint, hint, more clothes with only 1 field please!

 

I do understand your point Niel and I do agree with you. My point was not that we need super great looking items for a few peds.
Just in real life, the more you pay, the more you get. Pay little get basic sweatpants. Pay more get nice looking jeans.
What I was looking to communicate is combined with Kaz post above. It need to be a combination of some low TT + 1 field clothes.
Not saying coats or cool looking stuff. Just say some very basic clothes that you could get in different colors as crafters do level some basic clothing and coloring.

If you say there are low TT stuff available I trust you. I guess the main thing is there is no good way for players to easily find out what clothes could be crafted for low TT and find a crafter and request it. Or maybe I'm just ignorant and lazy who can't find them.

Regarding Kaz mention on the buy orders on AH I fully agree. I have never understood the setup myself.
If they would skip the cost for putting up buy orders (still keep the time limit, otherwise it would be spammed and bog down the AH) I do believe we could see at least a small improvement on sell orders as well to match buy orders.
However, with the current limit with 1 PED increase it can be difficult to meet the buy orders % and it takes a lot of time to min max the stacks to meet the orders and that leads to me usually just TT the stuff and don't bother checking the buy orders at all. It just takes to long time to match the requested price for what it is worth most of the time.

 

One possible solution:
To repair items, you need resources, not pure PED.

Could work like this:
Generic Repair Cube BP I, can use all avaiable resources.
One click takes one 1PED TT of resources

That way every resource, item, whatever you loot, would have a value bigger than TT

 

Kinda why fashion shows ingame could be a good idea We already have a runway on Ark and it could easily be arranged to put on shows, but there could be something devs can do help spread the word about who crafted and colored/textured clothes, like a hologram replay of the show on demand and being able to inspect the holgraphic models for details about which clothes they are wearing, who crafted, textured, colored them. There could also be a player made effort to make a EU fashion web page with all clothes listed, and crafters could put their info (and fav planet) besides the item if they can make the clothing, or mob names and locations if clothing was droped by mobs (don't know of a webpage like this or similar existing). Another cool thing would be to make like a bi-weekly fashion show and stream it on that webpage, with history videos saved on it and ofc crafters and designer names of those that showed their clothes on that show.
This on it's own wouldn't have a huge impact on economy tho? Maybe just help it a tiny a bit, but could be fun

A thing I'd like to address here is the item trading on trust. Would be great if trade window had an option "rent" or "borrow" with limited and unlimited amount of time next to item. For example if you are a clothes designer you could "borrow" clothes to players who would walk down the runway in them during fashion show, for lets say next 6 hours and after that time is up the item should get instantly transfer back to original player. Or you could borrow something to a friend for unlimited amount of time, but if they aren't able to log in the game and you need the item back you could have a deed type thingy to recall your item and after 24hrs it could show up in your storage. (this could work for sooooo many other things and not just fashion shows tho) And this would also mitigate a lot of mistrust between players when borrowing and renting stuff to other players, making a lot of stuff sitting in storage for some have a decent use again Oh forgot to add about rent option : renting an item could create a deed type thingy for the original owner with ped/day written on it and that ped would be transferred to deed owner from player holding the item every midnight MA time, or if transfer cannot be completed item would go back to owner and deed destroyed. That deed could also have a recall on it like unlimited time borrowing. And ofc all items bound by these deeds borrowing or renting would not be able to be traded to other players or trade terminal.

 

You have some nice ideas about a renting system. I would love to have the options available to rent items in a more secure way for both parties. Would open up a lot of possibilities.

Especially for people who are unsure about investment in higher tier gear and just want to try it for a day for example.

Regarding your mention of a collective site of fashion items. I would love to have something to look over other than Entropedia.
I would be happy enough with just a collection of unloclored/untextured items to get an idea of what is out there.
Or is everything really on entropedia already?

A more modern version of entropedia would be great. Might have to look into that myself and see how realistic it is.