@jerichocross666 said in Doubloon Currency - Developer Update:
Also keep in mind we are talking about doubloons being the issue because we have all this currency and nothing to do with it well how about gold. Like myself I have over 363,555,221 gold and really nothing to use it for besides cluttering my chests with load screens if I want to buy like EVERYTHING and still have plenty left over. How about you add for a limited time for people to covert gold to doubloons. So we have a reason to drain our banks.
Devs please look at this
There's been allusion on twitter that the gold economy is the next to be examined.
But after the mess the doubloon reset has been, it might cause them to reconsider their approach.
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The Primary issue with the doubloon economy, is that earning it was uneven.
Newer players had consistent access to easy doubloons via commendations, where as experienced players were getting too many of them via incidental loot, as opposed to challenges / reaper chests / contested objects.
Older players also had access to voyages that allowed them to make as many doubloon's as they had patience for, buying ashen key, and ashen chests from larinna, and opening the chest and selling it straight back to her, or to reapers. Not an exploit, but an explicit game mechanic that allowed infinite amounts of doubloons.
The variation in playstyles between the way you earnt doubloons: , commendation hunters, the reaper chest hunters, the gift sellers, the isle hoppers, the 'investment' guys
As well as the variation in playstyles of how you spend currency: Some people buy everything, keeping their gold and doubloon counts low, so 'every reaper chest stolen feels like a victory' Some people buy NOTHING hoarding to make number get big, and are extremely choosy about what cosmetics they buy, to not clutter their menu's (WARDROBE WHEN!), some people voluntarily reset their doubloons to care more by buying gold conversions, because they valued having a large gold number despite owning everything, others forsook gold entirely in order to maximise the doubloon count, since it was a 'harder currency to earn' and concentrated on stealing gifts, ashen chests, and reaper chests, the way flameheart intended :P.
But Sea of Thieves isn't about celebrating one play style over another, so when the dev's noticed that it was impossible to make the average player 'care about events' without getting significant FOMO, they looked at ways they could BOTH have the FOMO to keep player interest, but be forgiving enough that players don't feel like they actually missed out on something permanently in a time limited event. A 4th currency for events is the obvious answer, so players can choose the rewards they like, you can control / drain it over time if needed, in order to make sure the events are contested.
However, anyone that's ever experienced a live service game with 4 currencies knows that 4 is too high.
So they needed to reset the doubloon economy and repurpose it, plus it was already fit for this purpose, being the 'commendation money' and the 'reaper chest money'
Anyway, they wanted to reset it without annoying people who worked hard, so they tried to add a consolation prize, but didn't consult players enough before announcing it due to time crunches, plus "If we know there's going to be an outcry, why drag it out through insiders" seems to be the strategy at Rare for anything significantly controversial, since they have a LOT of trouble reading the true feedback that lies beneath the surface level flood of outrage.
So, Gold...
People have been hoarding gold, you can sink it by having cosmetics that are high value, but they turn into cosmetics like the dark adventurer sails which got nick named "Rich Butch" sails, except rhyming.
But do many people bother buying them or using them? you only really need one sail at a time.
You can fix the problem by having recurring costs to operating ships, but then people cry that "Experienced players have an advantage, because they can buy supplies or spears"
You can fix the problem by introducing high costs for captained ships, but that gate-keeps newer players from accessing sovereigns, which is toxic IMO, forcing the new players (rather then the experienced players) to sell slowly and learn where each treasure item needs to be taken, while the experienced players can run, anchor for a minute, and have their entire voyage sold before a ship catches them, ideally sovereigns would be a 'new player crutch' to help new players survive in the world against experienced players, and force experienced players to fight ships that chase them...
Gold is at a point, where a lot of experienced players are sinking people for sport, and leaving the loot in the water, and the problem grows worse daily.
New content is JUICED with loot, compared to the old, making older content not worth doing in comparison if the goal is to level up or spend gold.
Introducing new gold cosmetics just makes it so experienced players need to choose between "gold number get big" and "making menu's even less navigable"
I think the ONLY path forward, is nerfing the loot in all the new forts and events that have been added since fort of the damned, setting some design rules about what the 'maximum gold value' of a standard loot item can be, setting some guidelines on what the 'total amount of loot per event' can be, and raising them intentionally on things designed to be broadcast to other players, FOTD, mega-stashes, and wherever the Chest of Fortune currently resides.
I think it's too late to fix the gold economy for experienced players, but it's not too late to turn this live service game around for new players, or newgen experienced players, and slowly suck the gold back out.
