User:Eleventh Panda/Solutions For Farming

Intro
Many players depend on farming as one of their main sources of income. It is safe, reliable and easy to do. Those three reasons spawned farming bots. Farming bots and over farming inflate the in game economy with cheap gold. The following suggestions (together) are my thoughts on how to make bots useless and give more balance to the in game economy.

First suggestion
First step is to make easy-to-farm monsters (e.g. Hydra, Scale, Minotaur, etc) drop only common, low-level materials and collectables. Yes, no :gold and no equip-able items (I am bold. Keep reading).
 * Instead, you provide an NPC who will hire the player (the party) to hunt the creatures of the area for a fair reward.


 * And similarly to the reputation points system in Night Fall and Eye of The North, a counter will begin incrementing on each kill of that type of monster.


 * Upon return to the NPC to collect the reward, here the NPC test the authenticity of the player’s brain, weather it was biological or electronic.


 * The NPC may ask the player a simple question, such as:
 * “So, these Minotaur, what kind of collectable do they drop?”
 * The player will be asked to select the correct picture of the Minotaur Horn among 3-5 randomly generated pictures of collectables, and also the choice “None of these.”
 * If the player answers correctly, the reward is calculated depending on the effectiveness and efficiency of doing the job:


 * Effectiveness: How many were killed.
 * Efficiency: How long it took (from getting hired to coming back for the reward).
 * The same NPC may not hire the same player for the same job more than once every 30 minutes (30 minutes after rewarding that player or the player quits the job).


 * In the case the player answers the NPC’s question incorrectly, that NPC will not hire the same player for 24 hours.

From that one idea, bots can be rendered useless, unless the user is sitting there, ready to take control when it is reward time. But even so, this idea devalues the worth of time and effort put in to grinding through easy prey. It gives access to easy small cash, depending on your skill or/and team work.

Second suggestion
Second step is to provide Quest-Reward that can be done repetitively to earn gold (real gold. Don’t be cheap).
 * The player can get hired by an NPC (as a quest) to do one of the following examples:


 * Escort a trade carriage from one outpost to another. The less important the goods this wagon is carrying, the lower chance it will be raided by a random spawn of bandits (e.g. few waves of Centaur) and the lower the reward would be.  But in any case, the player will have to follow the wagon even if it takes a detour and clear small fry from its path.


 * Deliver a mail bag. The player, in this case, carries the bag as he/she would an item and has the freedom of choosing the path to take but the reward will be evaluated on time of delivery.  And of course, there would be a chance that a few thieves might try to ambush the player and try to steal that item if he/she drops it.


 * Protect a place of significance or raid the Head Quarters of some bandits. The player (The party) would be hired to stand guard for an amount of time or join some NPC soldiers on a raid, with the reward being calculated on varied objectives (e.g. No NPCs died, no enemies entered the temple, bandit boss killed, etc.).


 * The same NPC may not hire the same player for the same job more than once every 30…60 minutes, depending on the nature and difficulty of the job.


 * As the player completes more and more of the same type of job, his/her reputation with the job-giving NPCs increase, and they will hire the player for bigger, more difficult jobs of the same style with bigger reward (e.g. escorting a diplomat, delivering a secret scroll, etc.).


 * Failing to complete any of these jobs will diminish the player’s reputation a bit and will not allow him/her to get hired for the same type of job by any NPC for 6 hours, for example. (Yes, word travels fast, so don’t suck).

With this method, players may earn a good deal of gold doing one of things they have a knack for, such as delivery duty for runners.

Third suggestion
My last suggestion: Provide JOBS, for the sake of the Gods. Let people have a Craft they can earn a living out of. Something to do with materials and collectables. A service you can provide to other players when you’re not in the mood for hack, slash and burn. Integrate a mini game that requires a tiny bit of skill so you may have a scale for payment.
 * I can think of 2 methods to make this work without the drama of scamming:

One:

 * The player works for an NPC (let’s call him/her Boss).
 * The player goes to the place of work or the Guild Hall’s Work Shop and talks to the Boss.
 * The Boss will show the player a list of items, armor pieces, compound materials, equip-able items’ upgrades, etc. with their level of demand.
 * The player now may sit down and do his/her thing, making a specific item, using materials out of the Boss’s own pocket.
 * Screwing up (not performing efficiently) uses up more materials, which is deducted from the payment.
 * After the item is finished, the Boss will take it and give the player the appropriate wage.
 * Where does the item go? None of your business (it becomes more available at vendors/merchants, in other words it will feed the economy).
 * Making a highly demanded item does not mean the player will get paid more than usual. It only means the Boss will still allow the making of that item for a good while, since it can be sold soon.
 * Using up more materials than required will deduct from the payment and in the case the worker uses more materials than his/her payment can cover, they are suspended from work in that specific Craft for 24 hours.

So how does this help the economy?
 * The Boss NPC is 'buying' materials each time a worker (player) does a job. Now, imagining hundreds of people doing work that uses the same materials, those materials' prices will go up.  Once the cost of making the item is not worth it for the NPC Boss, he/she will stop allowing its creation at their work shop, even if the demand is still high.
 * Here enters a market-governing AI to determine weather to rise the price of items related to those materials, enforce price reduction on materials, or let nature take its slow course.
 * Here enters a market-governing AI to determine weather to rise the price of items related to those materials, enforce price reduction on materials, or let nature take its slow course.

Two:

 * The NPC works for the player (let’s call him/her Agent).
 * The player visits the Agent in an outpost or at the Guild Hall’s Trade Corner.
 * A commission is paid by the player to the Agent to reserve a spot on a first come first serve basis.
 * The agent recognizes the Craft of the player and their seniority and sets them in the appropriate category (e.g. Expert Spirit Binder).
 * Next, the player selects the level and time requirement of jobs he/she is willing to take (e.g. Easy, Medium, All, No Rush, etc.).
 * Now, the player waits to be notified that a job has come his/her way.


 * Now, let’s go to the customer side.
 * People come to the Agent, wanting a specific item made, a certain item upgrade to be increased in level, a piece of armor to be crafted or repaired, and so on.
 * The customer submits the request with the item that needs working on, if applicable, and then, selects ‘how soon’ they want this job done, which specifies the variation in the cost.
 * The Agent calculates the material cost for the job, according to current market statements, adds the appropriate wage for the job’s level and the ‘how soon’ factor and finally presents the customer with total cost.
 * If the customer accepts, we move on to the next step.


 * Here we focus on the Agent.
 * The Agent will now go through the list of players waiting for work.
 * Remember that they are all in line on a first come, first serve basis.
 * The Agent will go through the criteria:
 * Match Craft type?
 * Match job level?
 * Match ‘Rush’ status?
 * Worker is not busy doing a job, now?
 * And finally the Agent will scan the worker’s Storage page for crafting materials and make sure there are at least 80% (for example) of required materials for this specific job.
 * All is good? The player receives a notice of a pending job.


 * Once the job is done, the customer receives a notice and is presented with a bill. Customer pays, worker gets his/her gold.  No scam drama.


 * A worker may reserve a spot with an Agent for no longer than 6 hours, and pays by the hour.
 * For each 1 hour reservation with an Agent, the worker may not reserve again for 2 hours.
 * Meaning that if you hold a spot at the Agent for 3 hours, once your time is up you have to wait 6 hours to make a new reservation. This is to give a chance for everyone to work.
 * If a worker fails to meet a dead line, the Agent will reimburse the customer with part of the agreed payment and will further fine the worker for dissatisfying a customer. The worker may not reserve with any Agent again until they settle their fine.
 * In the case the customer does not pay their bill for 3 days after the job is finished, the worker takes the item as their own.
 * The worker may not lose their spot in the reservation line with the Agent, even after they get a job. They lose their spot only when their time is up or they have a fine to settle.


 * Beyond these two methods, players may freelance and advertise their Crafting services on their own or simply only work for their guild.

Now, by combining these three ideas, people will have several sources of income, farming as we know it will become of little value and bots will become useless.

Additional ideas, related to Crafts: Expertise in a Craft may be scaled as follows:
 * 1) Novice: Gains Craft experience fast and loses it fast as well.
 * 2) Adapt: Gains Craft experience fast and loses it at normal speed.
 * 3) Expert: Gains Craft experience normally and loses it at normal speed.
 * 4) Legendary: Gains Craft experience slowly and loses it at slow speed. (Max level)
 * 5) Grand Master: A prestigious level gained only by completing a hard quest which requires improvising on materials to finish an important job to aid a legendary hero NPC in a dangerous dungeon while your party protects you and helps you out. (Just bonus fun.  Maybe you can get to keep that awesome item for yourself after.)
 * Example: It may take an Expert two weeks of working in game, everyday for an hour, to reach Legendary level. And in turn, it would take a maxed-out Legendary person 3 weeks (in-game time) of no work in that specific Craft to go down to Expert level.


 * A person may have 3 crafts in total. Maximum Crafts to be Legendary at, at any given time is 1.  Maximum Crafts to be Expert or above at, at any given time is 2.


 * Some jobs would require two or more Craftsmen to work on the same piece at the same time. For example: Giving a sword an innate Life Stealing ability while creating it.  Just a thought.