RuneScape Forum Archive | Death And Taxes: An Analysis

Dec

2021

Mel 624

Posts: 744 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Death Costs: A Matter Of Life And Death

The death cost reduction and GE tax has been a point of contention among the playerbase. While some players have complained about death costs, there are some issues to be raised about how this was handled as well as the general situation with the game economy. There are a number of reasons why the official post explaining the update was unsatisfactory.

The gist of it is that once subtracting daily removed gold, the game is generating around 88,124,773,377 gp per day. Death costs were removing 69,832,758,793 per day. With death costs reduced by 80%, the amount it's removing will be dropped to 14B, adding another 56B to daily generated gold. Without covering for the amount added by the death cost reduction that would be 144.12B of new gold per day.

A small chart briefly listing considered gold reduction options was provided to explain why they chose to go with a GE tax. The estimated gold reduction for a 2% tax is 86.14B, which would reduce daily gold to around 56.98B. They aimed higher than 56B to account for variables such as changes in player trading habits and gold generation a 1.5% tax may not provide enough of a buffer to address.

A lot of the numbers I'll be using here are either directly or derived from the ones given in the update post, in addition to responding to things that were said within it. I linked it above for easy access. How to block a forum user

Death And Taxes: An Analysis

05-Feb-2023 06:36:13

Dec

2021

Mel 624

Posts: 744 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Ironman Gold Generation

Ironman accounts can't trade with other players. They rely entirely on their skills and NPCs to get items. All their gold is game generated but it's also self contained due to this restriction. The lack of mention of ironman accounts makes it unclear if they were separated from the rest of players when calculating the stats being used to assess sources of gold generation and removal.

Distinctions were made between the alch machines and high alch as well as direct gold drops and gold collected through the advanced gold accumulator. Why wouldn't Ironman accounts also be mentioned either as a self contained stat or to confirm their exclusion from the calculations? Lumping them in with the rest of players for this can skew the results in ways that don't accurately reflect the player economy, so a lack of ambiguity on the matter is important. Alchemy would be high regardless of their inclusion but if they are, how much of it's coming from them? Do shops really generate 21.53% (43,287,613,975) of the daily gold or is that mostly coming from Ironman accounts? The playerbase shouldn't have to compensate for gold generation that doesn't enter their economy. How to block a forum user

Death And Taxes: An Analysis

05-Feb-2023 06:36:34

Dec

2021

Mel 624

Posts: 744 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

PvM's Role in Gold Generation

Daily gold generated from monster drops is listed as 14,557,269,208 (7.24%) for drops directly on the floor and 9,545,511,576 (4.74%) through the advanced coin magnet for a combined total of 24,102,780,784 (11.98%). However, this excludes gp generated indirectly from alching combat drops. Alching doesn't exist in a vacuum. The items that get alched have to come from somewhere first, which is why more detailed stats about alch items should've been part of the assessment on what could be done about gold generation.

While not the sole source of alched items, it should be acknowledged that salvage exists solely to be alched or disassembled and lists of profitable alching items tend to be predominantly made up of combat drops.

The Death Cost Reduction

The post doesn't really explain why 80% was the lowest cost reduction considered. Why not 50%? If this is about balancing the PvM gold sink to generation ratio and only gold drops are counted as PvM gold generation then shouldn't the change have aimed for a 24B gold sink to match the generation stats? With the 80% reduction estimating the new sink rate at 14B, PvM gold drops staying the same would actually mean they're generating 10B more than they're sinking. This is without counting how much of the alch gold they're responsible for through the generation of alched items. Since the goal is to get more people bossing, the amount of gold generated directly or indirectly by PvM would presumably increase.

The death cost reduction deficit had to be compensated for in other areas. The amount the deficit equated to shaped assessments on the viability of gold reduction options to compensate for this deficit. Not only is it an issue that extra PvM gold generation is being unnecessarily offset outside of PvM but it's also an extra 10B to clear for the potential solutions to be deemed viable to address the issue without the GE tax. How to block a forum user

Death And Taxes: An Analysis

05-Feb-2023 06:37:27 - Last edited on 05-Feb-2023 06:38:52 by Mel 624

Dec

2021

Mel 624

Posts: 744 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The GE Tax

The gold removed by the GE tax was meant to address the deficit from the death cost reduction alone rather than the economy as a whole. The 80% reduction meant the target gold reduction was 56B. The 2% tax was projected to remove 86.14B, which is 30.14B above the target. The extra gold removal was explained as creating a buffer to account for variations in gold generation from the starting values but the 1.5% tax was 64.6B, which is still around 8B above the target. Was that not a big enough buffer? Was it because a round percentage worked better for price calculations? Shouldn't that have been mentioned when explaining why 2% was selected?

While a buffer to account for reduced gold removal rates from players relying more on in person trades, is to be expected, an actual estimation for how much of a buffer would be needed for this should have been given. Does it seem likely enough players would move off GE to make a 30B buffer necessary over an 8B one? It seems odd that the 86B gold reduction from the tax looks more like it's for the pre death cost 88B gold generation than the 56B caused by the death cost reduction.

What about increased generation from more players doing PvM content with less death losses and generating more gold through drops? Shouldn't part of the burden of buffering variations in the gold generation being compensated for fall on scaling the death cost decrease to account for this? Properly calculating and balancing the PvM gold generation to removal ratio pre and post death cost reduction would have reduced the deficit the tax needed to compensate for, which could have made it small enough to get by on 1%, which would be 43.07B. That's 13B below the 56B target, which could have been reduced by a smaller death cost reduction and other gold reduction options that were dismissed for not being able to cover the whole 56B on their own. How to block a forum user

Death And Taxes: An Analysis

05-Feb-2023 06:37:57 - Last edited on 05-Feb-2023 06:38:29 by Mel 624

Dec

2021

Mel 624

Posts: 744 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Structural Issues With the List of Solutions

The stated goal was to reduce generated gold proportionately to the increase from death costs rather than to solve the entire deficit of generated gold. While calculating how a single option would have to be done to effectively solve the problem is worthwhile, using that as the primary criteria for whether or not it's worth doing as part of the 56B goal is flawed.

Gold generation sources will have to be addressed regardless in order to balance gold generation and multiple partial solutions can potentially add up to meet the targeted goal. Prioritizing targeted economy fixes would reduce reliance on bandaid solutions that could potentially have to be revised should the direct fixes prove effective enough. Even if the GE tax was still deemed necessary to meet the goal, a combination of solutions could have allowed for a lower one than what we got.

While the rejected options in the chart were deemed non viable due to not being able to feasibly be implemented in a way that would meet the target goal alone, there's no information on what a version that could be done would amount to and how much gold reduction it could account for. Listing it that way and then discussing what combinations of those options could be done and why would've helped better explain what was and wasn't viable.

Another thing to clarify would be plans for general economy fixes outside of balancing the death cost deficit. Are we to assume that what was rejected for the death cost issue is discarded entirely or is there something there still of use for general economy fixes? It would be best not to leave players wondering about this. How to block a forum user

Death And Taxes: An Analysis

05-Feb-2023 06:39:20

Dec

2021

Mel 624

Posts: 744 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Alchemy Machines

Alch machines produce 92,237,061,446 (45.88%) a day while high alch only produces 24,735,268,309 (12.30%). Despite this, they were claimed to not be part of the problem. The explanation for why nerfing them wasn't a viable option was too vague to be helpful. What do they mean by making alch machines too expensive to be worth using? What is being defined as the nerf in this context?

Increased expenses would only factor in if the ratio of runes and machine charge per converted item was altered. As long as the amount spent is calculated per item rather than per machine tick, the cost of item conversion should remain the same. Currently this would be as follows:

Alchemiser: 5 fire runes, 1 nature rune, 5.63 machine charge per item

Alchemiser mk II: 1 nature rune, 6 machine charge per item

Calculating per item accounts for variations in quantity being processed when not filled to capacity, so there really shouldn't be any reason that reducing how many items are processed per hour would have an effect on the amount of charge and runes being spent per item. They're still more convenient than the alch spell since they automate the process so you're free to spend your game time doing other things and keep going 24/7 even when you're logged out. There's just no comparison.

Another issue with the reasoning presented for not nerfing alch machines is the double standard it creates in relation to the reasoning for the GE tax. Players trading items, even alch items, is not part of the problem. While in theory players finding the GE tax too inconvenient to make trading there profitable can do so in person, in practice most items wouldn't be worth the extra hassle it would take to actually do that. How to block a forum user

Death And Taxes: An Analysis

05-Feb-2023 06:40:59

Dec

2021

Mel 624

Posts: 744 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

General Stores

General stores generate 43,287,613,975 (21.53%) per day. However, they also remove 22,430,923,734 (19.87%) per day. Once their sunk gold is factored in, that's 20,856,690,241 daily generated gold.

As mentioned in the Ironman section, it's extremely important to know for sure that these numbers are specifically excluding Ironman for the relevant calculations to be useful. To my understanding, shops buy slightly below low alch values so I'm having trouble seeing how it's generating the amounts it is if ironman players are being excluded from the stats.

While increasing shop spending 4x the current amount to cover the death cost reduction was deemed unfeasible, balancing shop buying and spending to get close to a net neutral gold generation would be worth pursuing. A round 2x spending increase would even sink more than it generates.

Since shops also generate gold, another angle to approach would be looking at what players are selling to the shops and why. If those items could be redirected to item sinks or the player economy, that would reduce shop gold generation. This is especially useful if doubling current spending rates is still too high to be easily achieved. How to block a forum user

Death And Taxes: An Analysis

05-Feb-2023 06:41:21

Dec

2021

Mel 624

Posts: 744 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Nerfing Alchemy Values

If reducing alch values by 50% would be considered excessive then how much would be deemed feasible to put into the game? If not a blanket price reduction then why not rebalance item values to be more proportionate to increasing tiers?

Item values currently seem a bit all over the place proportionate to tier progression, which is an issue when their worth for invention is proportionate such as base junk chance reduction and number of potential materials gained. Standardizing alch value along the same lines would ensure their values for alching and invention remain relatively equal while also avoiding absurd increases should future items of the same group be added at higher tiers. Since the item value system is also linked to shop prices, changes here would also affect how much gold they generate when sold in stores. This would have to be accounted for when assessing how it affects gold generation.

Nerfing Alchable Drops

Droptables are currently fairly reliant on items whose main value is to be alched. Reducing the influx of those items by reworking droptables to rely less on them should reduce the amount of gold generated by alching. The tables still need comparable value to be worthwhile, so rebalancing them with things like consumables or items meant to be used in ways other than alching would be a good idea. They already need to be reworked to address the issue of skilling items as combat drops so what's being done to fix that could potentially help address alch item drops too. How to block a forum user

Death And Taxes: An Analysis

05-Feb-2023 06:42:04

Dec

2021

Mel 624

Posts: 744 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Gold Generation Caps

The GE got buy limits added to address economic issues caused by players buying up all the stock of a particular item and manipulating their value. We also have some things players can do that have daily caps such as earning chimes. A possible option to control the rate players generate gold would be to cap the rate they can do it at.

A cap on alchemy would address concerns about alch machine gold generation shifting to high alch gold generation in response to a nerf only applying to the machines. For shops, a cap on the rate items can be sold at would likely be better, though ironman accounts might have to be exempt from this if it's too restrictive on their income given their inability to trade with other players.

Improve Gold Sink Content

While I agree that relying on new content to address the gold generation deficit wasn't viable, I feel the chart format was too limiting in explaining the reasoning against it. As a general economy improvement, existing gold sinks and adjustments to other areas of the economy would be best prioritized before committing to new gold sink content.

Why not have a look at player feedback on how to update the kingdom of Miscellania? The region is due for an update, it has room for improvement and it's a fairly decent gold sink despite how dated it is.

Construction was designed to be a gold sink but player owned houses are too dated to really have the necessary appeal to serve as one. If the houses were reworked and modernized to current standards, it could be useful in that way again.

The Player Owned Port Smuggler seems like another sink that could potentially be improved for more use. Some way to improve stock proportionate to ports progress could increase use while still being balanced.

Travelling Merchant is either untracked or too low, so maybe giving players the means to track his arrival would help increase spending with him. How to block a forum user

Death And Taxes: An Analysis

05-Feb-2023 06:42:35 - Last edited on 05-Feb-2023 07:12:23 by Mel 624

Dec

2021

Mel 624

Posts: 744 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Player Feedback

Despite the passive collection of game statistics, direct player feedback along the process of this update seems to have been lacking. Things like asking players where they see problems in the game economy and suggesting solutions to build a more robust repertoire of potential fixes than what was looked at in the chart explaining the use of the GE tax. I don't just mean stuff posted on reddit or twitter either but on the actual website and forums where people who don't frequent certain social media sites can still easily see it and be included in the discussion.

There should have been discussion about things like what kinds of concessions players are more willing to make for the sake of a healthy game economy. While some of what constitutes a viable solution involves what can be programmed in and the goal that has to be met, things like economy fixes are reliant on understanding how players feel about the available options.

Despite being presented as if the GE tax was the only way, there were options outside of what appears to have been considered. If players were willing to take such options over the GE tax, that's something that could've been polled. Even making more use of the forums and site to involve players in the process to gradually address questions and concerns could've mitigated problems with players feeling unheard in their reservations over how death costs were being handled. Some people would still be upset regardless, but handling it that way would've made players better informed on the situation and feel more involved in getting as good an outcome as could be achieved. How to block a forum user

Death And Taxes: An Analysis

05-Feb-2023 06:43:15

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Death And Taxes: An Analysis