Remove Returning Tokens to HF

[Apocoreo]

Friends, hearthlings, our lands face a dreadful plague. No, not that one. Capitalism.

1. Powerful nations can obtain tokens by selling high q in-game items, or rare ones like meteorite
2. Tokens can be returned to the Hearth Fire and from there persist to the next worlds
3. Tokens can be withdrawn early world, then used to purchase the highest q equipment for sale from day 1
4. This doesn't create power, but allows them to maintain market q levels safety, and attempt to improve from there
5. This also allows them to control market prices from their inception, but over and under pricing goods using tokens - the most valuable currency
6. Nations who succeed in gaining more tokens than they spend during a world, have more for the next
7. Those who have more can spend more for a chance to control the market, especially those that run the markets

Having more people makes you stronger, especially if those people can write bots or exploit bugs. But people come and go, code changes, things break and get fixed. Tokens maintain existing power, and do so across worlds.

Sure, you can always buy tokens from the Store, but the more tokens are hoarded, the more you have to pay, as an individual or group, to match the #1. You see, this problem gets worse with time. Tokens change hands but the hoard is always going to someone.

Yet tokens are how this game is supported. I do not advocate for their total removal, just the removal of the ability to return them to the Hearth Fire. Subs provide an advantage but a match-able one.

Old nations will continue to be powerful at first, still having a hoard of tokens. Any tokens sold, however, will be consumed or resold, rather than banked for the next world. "Use it or lose it". If the devs successfully implement a single persistent world, the problem will remain so long as those with economic pwoer remain active.

Over the course of worlds, we will see tokens equalize between those willing to buy enough for their subs and purchases for the current world, with those who still have their hoard saved up. Advantage can be bought for a single world, or purchased and saved inside the HF in advance, but not carried over between worlds.

I understand this is a big deal for those who already own many tokens. Notice should be given for this change, perhaps for an entire world. This would give people a chance to return tokens to their HF, or use their power to make more one last time, to save for the coming drought.

I believe this lowers the value of the token for those who have many, but increases it for those who don't. If I bought a sub and a dozen tokens now, they'd be piss in the wind, or a short-lived advantage for early next world, so I don't buy them. As a real game-changer, they would be a more enticing purchase for the majority of players, therefore a boon to this game's financial future.

Having progressed far enough, players will, in time, be able to organize themselves into societies, from simple tribes and villages, progressing through republics, nation states and, ultimately, empires.

At least, those are our lofty ambitions.

If that is indeed the mission of Haven, I believe it is corrupted. The token-rich maintaining power ensures every world is an anarcho-capitalist hellhole. Who's on top may change but how they got there does not evolve. This playstyle of total economic domination should remain as one of many possible destinies for the hearthlands, but not its sole fate. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Also yeah, if you got the cash you can still buy them en masse with real money and do this for a world. Also hats are a whole different thing. But I wrote a lot already, let's keep the conversation focused my dudes, and fix one thing at a time.

EDI: I've actually come to prefer this solution posed on page 2:

If my guess is right, what about a smaller change, to make unspent tokens return to the original buyer* at the end of the world? It won't change much for those who buy tokens for actual use, until they do it at the last moment of the world and doesn't manage to use the token before the server goes down.

I think this would have less impact on the game than the destruction of unspent tokens.

* For tokens that already exist at the moment of implementation, I think, it would be better to substitute "original buyer" with "person who owned it at the moment of implementation", so not to undermine previous deals.

[shubla]

Not a bad idea! Would allow to trade for them to get subscription but remove the silliness of only being able to trade tokens.

[Nightdawg]

Nobody sells their highest quality tools for tokens. Nobody.

[Apocoreo]

Nobody sells their highest quality tools for tokens. Nobody.

I've attempted and failed to do the very thing this world I'm sure you meant among the largest factions though, which is absolutely true.

I tried to express that succinctly in # 3 and 4. While it would be foolish to sell your finest product, even your second best or mass producible product can greatly benefit an early world nation. One nation finds the best copper/tin, another best best stone, they trade each other their second best of each product, and attempt a equality arms race in which those without tokens cannot participate in without shelling out real cash. It need not be the most extreme expression of this process to have a massive effect.

[vatas]

This would be a massive change, but I support discussing it.

[jordancoles]

It's busted that someone can go hard and trade meteorite this world, bank 50 tokens in their hf and immediately have infinite trading power in future worlds sitting in their hf on day 1

They could buy them, yes, but the main problem with storing them in the HF is people who trade for them

[SnuggleSnail]

It would be cool if not every single person's HF in my village contained hats/tokens worth an order of magnitude more than the village/all characters that live there combined. Such a large disparity in the value of hearthfire items compared in in game stuff leads to a lot of undesirable player behavior, especially considering low tier players aren't much less likely to have valuable hearthfires.

Seems very unreasonable ask for jorbtar to change their monetization strategy entirely, only for it to be less profitable for them without an alternative, though.

[Apocoreo]

Seems very unreasonable ask for jorbtar to change their monetization strategy entirely, only for it to be less profitable for them without an alternative, though.

Would that be the result though? I guess my biggest question is who's buying the tokens now? As someone just reaching q400, which seems to be the cap at olympus, it seems pointless for my group. If big factions have a lot they certainly aren't buying them, so is it just random hearthlings looking to buy quality upgrades at markets?

I can see it being less profitable initially, tokens may get more common as they can't be banked. I could even see people dumping them in water as a protest (see the dumping of bugged equipment last world, the tree chopping protests however long back). However as hoards run low I think you'll see more people buying tokens to maintain their power or in an attempt to compete. It could be good for the game's monetization in the long run.

An alternative hmm. What if instead of this threads topic, tokens decay after 1.5 years? The decay would persist across characters, accounts, and in the HF the oldest tokens would always be on top of the stack. That still holds to the "use it or lose it" philosophy, but instead encourages tokens to change hands to those that value having a subscription as they decay.

[DDDsDD999]

No one would buy tokens and most people who weren't using PayPal already would now. I'd like it if RMT didn't exist tho

[Zentetsuken]

No one would buy tokens and most people who weren't using PayPal already would now. I'd like it if RMT didn't exist tho

I'm sure people would still buy tokens to make trades, they just wouldn't be used as a default currency.
I can see realms buying tokens to buy stuff from people, like guano and whatnot
I can also see realms still using them as currency a bit, tossing some on alts or fighters who cannot afford, etc.

There would only be a small group of people who would stop buying them out of spite