Economy [Feedback Request] B-Coins and Tax

Trades weren't the sole reason for allowing the coin. The idea, in part (and most importantly IMO), was allowing players to hold >max cash stack without the need to hoard high value items or alts. It was not feasible to increase the limit otherwise.

 

Don't fix what ain't broke.

 

I don't think a change is necessary

I enjoy the options we have when it comes to taxes for these trades. Solid meso taxes one side, b coin taxes the other and cw/ws/auf/items are seen as neutral trades since the taxable event already occurred. Everyone has an option available to them and these preferences usually change based on seasonal events/new content/time of year.

From my perspective meso was largely unattractive because it was in overabundance and had very few uses. With the addition of VL (500M to soul your belt & various crafting) and more importantly the nearly complete removal of hackers (which artificially injected a lot of meso into the economy), meso has a lot more buying power. I believe this played a role in why we saw ws/cs dip below 400m for the first time in years.

I think a change to the b coin system will bear the same problem it seeks to fix, b coin will be unattractive due to both sides not wanting to pay taxes and they will find 'stable' alternatives to use which I imagine will cause ws/cs/items to rise

 

This is a joke. Do not take seriously. I personally feel like the balance change would be a wasted effort.
If you want meso sinks, add more desirable RNG elements to the game.
(e.g. WS/CS or untradeable 1.2x XP coupon lottery)
10m per account and rewards distributed every 100 participants instead of timer-based effectively causes each scroll to remove 1B (in pure mesos) per event from the economy instead of transferring meso value of 400-500m to another player.

 

I feel like this would be a good change but i think it wont be welcomed since the userbase has grown accustomed to the idiocracy that buyers covers tax.

 

I do not think this would solve or improve anything.
In my opinion the systems we use are "fine".

In most games with a disfunctional currency system, like the integer-limit in Royals is hindering many trades. Players just shift to other items as replacement.

Inflation control in this game is deeply flawed and the systems in place to control this are, just like in real life, disptroportionally affecting poor and new players. While the rich veterans are barely paying any tax at all relative to their income and value. (The same can be said for Potions, Tele Rocks, Smega's, Taxi (lol), etc. )

Nonetheless, beside some other items sinks that become comepletely irrelevant once you level up towards the end-game. The Tax-System is what we have, what we dodge. It's a nuisance for having to liquid meso spread over different characters. Having to convert it to assets in order to dodge paying taxes if you want to transfer value to other characters. Wich in it's turn has a function of stimulating trades and removing neglectable amounts of meso from the game.


A while ago OSRS, due to massive hyperinflation and end-game items crashing in price, reevaluated the state of their economy and item-sinks.

Something succesful they have implemented was also implementing a tax system on the Grand Exchange (Their version of a heaviliy government controlled Action House).
They implimented a 1% tax on all trades on the GE, wich was obviously not very popular among the general public.

What made this as succesful as it has been was the following step. All cash removed from the game due to this 1% Tax was added up. Then they went to manually buy items from the GE and destroying them.


Whatever your opinion or fix of the "buyer pay tax"-culture is. In this Laissez-Faire Simulator, people will just find another way to optimise their profits.

The Integer Limit is simlpy way to low to be functional for end-game players and their trades.

I do not see any reason how this would change anything.
While I think it's deeply flawed. I think it's "fine".
Its "fine" for me and all people that are playing this server for some time.
It's not for new players.

 

New players don't have enough money for a 3% tax to be meaningful. If a relatively new player spent their entire net worth on one equip and paid that 3% tax, what would it amount to, a few mil? Two minutes of grinding at coolies? 3% is so small that it only becomes meaningful when you make a large number of high value transactions, which new players are not doing at all.

I love the idea of the taxes being used for something though. I think 100% of taxes paid in Royals should go to public education and infrastructure repair free Chair Gach coupons for staff.

 

lmfao xD.

To clarify. I am speaking of all item sinks in general.
The tax system is disptroportionately affecting lower income households since the rich is easily able to substitute taxable income with untaxed assets like cs/ws/apples/apr/snail shells. Therefor having much easier time spending less on taxes.

On top of that, f.e. I really can't be bothered to save meso on TP Rocks and potions. But if you are lower level, new player then the relative amount spend on these item sinks is significantly more than rich veterans are spending.

In the real world, having a fixed income tax looks very fair on paper (and it is to some degree). However if you factor in opertunity cost and cost of living. It is not.
This could be deducted to merching oppertunities and meso spend on mandetory items such as potions. Additionally, the more meso you have for gear, the more damage you deal, the less time content takes, the less costs you have. Again disproportionately affecting poor and new players.

To not go too far off subject. I think that efforts made to improve Royals' economy should have its focus on new and poor players to increase retainment of these players.

The suggested update improves nothing for anyone.
I would find it a massive waste of time of Royals' resources and not targetting the right audience.

 

Yeah. Not to bash the suggestion, but it just seems irrelevant.
I think a better way to balance the economy and help new players is to add more high end meso sinks like chair gach. Watch the relative value of the meso skyrocket each time chair gach comes out. You make a good point that mesos are the primary currency of the new players and just one of many currencies for established players. By causing this massive deflation of mesos, it would disproportionately benefit newer players, which is good.
Of course if they just left chair gach open forever the novelty would wear off, not to mention the rarity of the rewards. If there were some other methods of mass meso destruction that could help balance things.
Maybe a general server-wide lottery? Scratch-off tickets? A casino? A special gach machine that takes 1b coins per play?

 

having the b coins effectively 1 use prepaid postage stamps style is good for facilitating large trades, i mean the max we can go is 71b coins per trade lelelelel
(how do yall even earn that much to burn in 1 trade)

the main point of using cs/ws/auf is to avoid taxation
i mean if someone were to trade 50b worth of stuff, using cs/ws as payment, they will receive the full amount's worth, and this tax avoidance is pass on the chain of hands until someone decides to sell it
so if the chain goes something like 50b-40b-30b-20b-10b-5b-2b - then the 4cs/ws at the end of the chain is sold, the tax is only ~60m
but what about the taxation? sure the initial purchase of the 50b worth is taxed, but instead of having a 1.5b-1.2b-900m-600m-300m-150m-60m tax chain if bcoins and mesos are used
it becomes
1.5b-0-0-0-0-0-60m
so if yall really want tax
dont change the b coin to have that system of used b coin n whatnot
change cs/ws/auf to untradable, but you can pay 15m to convert a cs/ws to tradable(once) then upon receiving its untradable
then the tax system is fair without any avoidance
this would make the b coin, mesos, high value scrolls as balanced currency

 

If cs/ws have tax added then some other items will likely become currency instead.

 

leggo stacks of apples for trades
problem is that there are not that many items that can be used to do tax avoidance once the big items are hit
imagine bartering in 84RC + 90RC for a 91RC - entirely possible but very unlikely for someone to enjoy having to put up with this trade to avoid taxation
using stacks of 30% wand scrolls (approx 1.3b for 100?), also possible, but unlikely to find someone with 10~20 stacks of scrolls and a buyer who is willing to accept them

 

Yes but then the system is simply trying to be so annoying that people just give in. Annoying the playerbase isn't exactly an ideal solution. If the ultimate goal is to reduce the number of mesos in the economy, there are more fun and enjoyable ways to do that, and if the goal is to make the existing taxation system fair, I would say that it could just be left as-is.
It's a bit odd that sometimes it's the buyer paying tax and sometimes its the seller paying tax, but ultimately it works. I guess its like a sales tax on in-person trades, but a business tax on FM store trades, which kind of makes sense.

 

my stance is that i would like the big ticket items to get taxed (cs/ws), so that mesos become more prevalent in most or all trades, instead of the bartering tax avoidance that we have currently
then the discussions on whether to have the tax prepaid into the b coin or post paid would actually have a larger impact on player satisfaction on trading, and keeping the tax system to sink mesos working more properly - as intended

 

You're assuming that this is what would happen. First, the taxation on goods of flexible value would require frequent intervention from staff to keep it fair, and second, there are a lot of alternatives to CS/WS that would just be picked up instead, like apples, other scrolls, and atk equips.
People would just start trading in 15atk SCG, until you tax that, then its apple stacks, then its TMA earrings, and so on. Adding tax on to specific items only results in driving us more towards a barter economy, not towards a cash economy. It might even result in virtual currencies. Find any limited supply item in the game and assign it an arbitrary value, if enough people cooperate it suddenly becomes a currency.
Never underestimate how far people will go to avoid paying even a small amount of tax.

 

Alternatively, remove taxes from meso trades and implement taxes elsewhere (e.g. NPCing goods )

 

i do not see the need for a flexible taxation on cs/ws, it can be a flat 15mil permanent to push the direction of currency usage towards mesos instead, due to the higher taxes
as for trading in 15atk SCG, apples, whatnot, those items are not in high circulation - imagine trying to pay for 139 ski with 2000 apples + 3x 15WA SCG + 200 earring int + 16int earrings + more stuff
sure it avoids the taxes as per the current CS/WS standard, but that trade will be hella annoying, and there is a lot of liquidation involved after that - which by itself will increase the frequency of meso trades to occur than the current flat CS/WS meta to avoid all the time

as for limited supply items, sure that can be done, but that is more like trying to recreate a cryptocurrency in game, which by itself requires a lot of the community to hop on the bandwagon
frozen tuna = 1b? hmmmmmmmmmm im not too sure about that
most of the item value in game is more or less tied to power levels + supply
why is CS and WS valuable in the first place? because of rarity? not quite as rare as other items like a 111WA ST, but going by % chance of getting a perfect ST, the WS is disproportionally more valuable
because the WS is essential to making ALL powerful and endgame equips
imagine trying to make a +20 auf without using a single WS - that is harder than guaranteeing 3 lottery wins in a row

then what about other high value items currently like chairs? mudkip chairs being used as a currency like a partyhat in runescape 3? send mudkip chairs to the moon?
even though it is rare and in limited circulation - this property makes it valuable but a bad currency, precisely because its not in high circulation
do we see people buying down properties IRL using high value art pieces? maybe something a little more common like stocks? possible, but i'm more than certain that most are paid using cash and loans

trying to avoid tax? get your mudkip chair today! (proceeds to queue behind everybody trying to get one) - but that's hype price inflation instead of actually becoming currency

as much as peeps try to avoid tax, i'm pretty sure if it requires too much effort to pull off or too much waiting, they will go with the fast options

 

But again, you're suggesting a change that would be "hella annoying" without any indication that such a change is actually needed. It's not like these taxes actually go to supporting anything, they just vanish, and if the goal is to destroy mesos there are other ways to do it that are less annoying, so why go with the annoying and arbitrary one? You're trying to fix a nonexistent problem with a problematic solution.
This whole change wasn't about taxing more in the first place, it's an attempt to tax fairer.

 

If the tax is controversial, why not cancel it?