Global Tax could improve viability of less populated territories

General Discussion General Discussion
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…without merging Trading Posts and harming the ability to perform arbitrage for dedicated economy players.

One of the best features of the current system is that a player has the incentive to buy materials near where it spawns and is abundant, and transport those materials to remote Trading Posts with the potential to turn a profit on arbitrage for the labor and hassle of moving said materials.

This is really cool, and in general, economy players love this aspect of new world. I have seen the mega-thread about the damage that a merged trading post would do to the economy of the game, but I have also read the dev post/blog about WHY they considered this in the first place.

The issue is that outlying territories do not generate enough revenue to sustain themselves while upgrading any tables or defenses. They are money pits on most servers, and in many ways undesirable to hold. Meanwhile Everfall (and to some degree Windsward, and to an even lesser degree Brightwood & First Light) generate considerably more revenue at reasonable tax rates than the rest of the territories combined.

One way to solve this issue in a clever manner would be if some percentage of the taxes in each town are collected into a global tax that is then evenly distributed between the territories. This tax would be a flat % of the tax that the governor of that territory has set. For instance, if the global tax is 10% and Windsward’s owners set their property tax to 5%, then 10% of that 5% would be put into the global pool.

This creates an interesting dynamic because you may not want to “give away” money to the outlying territories by setting very high taxes in the most popular towns. For instance, if I am in a Covenant company who only holds 1 territory on a mostly Syndicate and Marauder server – but I hold a valuable trade city, I may not want to “share” with my enemy faction friends by setting my taxes very high. I may be more satisfied with a lower tax rate, knowing that some of the money traded in my town is headed directly to my enemy’s pockets.

In general though, a rate of 10-15% of the declared tax rates for each town I would think is enough to cover the basic costs of upkeep for each town and make territories like Morningdale, Reekwater, and Ebonscale more attractive and sustainable on medium-low pop servers.

Source of info: I am a governor of one of those less desirable towns on a low pop server. Our town has just started to finally break even, but compared to the revenue of the central towns, it is absolute money pit and probably not even realistically worth defending. If we didn’t also own one of those money towns to support it, there’d probably be no point. However, with knowledge of what both towns bring in, I estimated that 10-15% range as being sufficient. The player would not even need to be alerted to this money pool, as the tax they pay is still the same as before, whatever the owning company has set.

Thank you for considering our ideas and consulting with the community.

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Sound awfully close to the Canadian perequation. We need to keep the company wanting to get everfall and windward. Giving free money to anyone is never a good idea. Rage wars this is not a peaceful game.

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Still don’t understand why people are so against merged trading posts to benifit all towns.

  1. We can search any trade house already and see every item everywhere.

  2. Once i see the cheapest ones location then i teleport over and buy it all out.

  3. Outpost rush has given us infinite Azoth, i legit teleport everywhere now all the time. Even stock up azoth bottles since they are so cheap now and store them for days i cannot be bothered playing a game or two of Outpost Rush. Luckily that hasn’t come because it’s one of the most fun things to do in the game. Also one of the only things to do after you do your daily chest runs lol.

  4. Now i can go and chill anywhere and do my shopping instead of chilling mainly at Everfall. Straight up gonna go chill at the lowest populated area for faster loading in and out of Outpost Rushes while shopping.

It’s such a win/win in my book that it’s a game changer to me.

Buuut that’s just me, one person among many and not all may like that or do what i do. I just really hope it happens and i hope others see the benifits.

Also Op you want to post this in the feedback area of the forums brother as it will be lost here in general.

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Yup, right now we just have an extremely inconvenient Azoth cost heavy global trade post. And because of this inconvenience all other settlements are dead and deserted.

And providing tax welfare won’t solve the issue that there are too many trade posts to properly function. No, selling overpriced town board materials is not the definition of a functioning trade post.

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OP explain to me how creating ANOTHER GOLD SINK magically makes people want to move to new zones?

This makes NO SENSE! Even if you are providing gold to low pop areas those people still aren’t going to trade there. They are still going to travel to EF/WW to trade.

Why are all these people against a single AH coming up with these non-sense, no solution “solutions”? I think a lot of people are upset their monopolies are about to fall apart.

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I didn’t say this would make people “go to those zones”, I said it would make those zones viable to hold and able to pay their upkeep.

I believe the issue stated by the devs was that some towns make more money than others by dramatic amounts. Explain to me how a global trading post brings people to new areas? It doesn’t. It’s a QoL improvement strictly for players who don’t enjoy using the Trading Post to begin with, which I will admit is most of the playerbase.

Some of us actually picked this game up for it’s unique territorial economy gameplay though, and if there is a solution to the problem of underpaid territories that does not harm that vision, I support that full stop.

Edit: Furthermore, if you read the post, it’s not another gold sink. It’s redistributing some portion of the existing taxes into a global pool to be split evenly between all territories. No one is paying anything extra, some of the money from the big towns is just being stolen and given to the small ones (and vice versa, though obviously the small towns are the winners in this arrangement, but Everfall owners are doing fine.)

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Due to those azoth costs, you must A) earn azoth to port around by doing OPR, invasions, wars, portals, or other azoth activities and B) plan your routes efficiently so as not to waste azoth porting to a town to buy 1 item, while C) going to territories you may not frequently visit in order to obtain items that you desire.

It also allows for D) arbitrage gameplay which many people enjoy, and which is a unique selling point for this game above it’s competition.

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People who are against this change currently benefit economically from the territorial system. For instance, Monarch’s Bluffs has an iron cart. You can buy iron pretty cheap there with buy orders on my server.

People like to do town boards for XP/town rep. You can sell iron somewhere else for twice what you paid and make a profit if you put in the effort to actually move it around. This is a case where my labor is paid for by your desire for convenience. Those who wish to merge the AH simply seek convenience and do not wish to pay another player for that convenience but demand that the game operators provide such convenience for them.

I get it. You think it is dumb to port up to Brightwood to buy that 589 GS hat that just went up for sale. But someone else who worked to get that item and sell it is within their right to make you do so. While you’re there you might notice that there’s PVP at the fort, or you might cycle your faction quests, or any number of things you might not do if you hadn’t been “forced” to go to Brightwood to get that item.

Yes. You can get “infinite azoth” from OPR – but you need to play OPR to get it which takes time (time you could be doing other things) and mental energy of PVPing (even if you play a “pve” role in OPR). This is a fair exchange of time and energy to acquire a resource which allows you to do a thing.

Merging TPs will have massive impacts on how the game operates, and those of us who enjoy trading will still find ways to make money, but it’s just sad that they’re taking such a unique feature and will face rippling effects without really seemingly realizing what will happen.

Enjoy living in one town forever and never leaving for any reason tho. Sounds pretty cool.

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This isn’t just about areas being underpaid. It’s also about areas being underPLAYED. You want territorial gameplay? That’s what the PvP is for!

A global AH finally allows players the freedom to buy houses in whatever area they like without being punished for it. Over time people will start moving away in order to take advantage of faction bonuses and farming advantages when they see that they don’t have to camp EF/WW to sell/buy.

You want economic territorial gameplay? Guess what? NO ONE ELSE DOES!! And even if that was a good idea (which it isn’t) then there needs to be wayyyyyyy more people on each server in order to meet the demands of a system like that.

If the playerbase as a whole agreed with you then we wouldn’t have the problems we currently have. The entire reason why everyone sells in EF/WW is because the vast majority of players disagree with you. Hardly anyone enjoys traveling just to participate in trading.

Your niche gameplay/monopoly is not fun for most people and I’m glad that the devs have finally woken up to see that it is bad game design.

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I’m glad you are able to speak for everyone else. I hope the convenience this change provides you is worth it when you move on to your next game and forget about the 2 months you played New World that one time.

For me it’s the heart of the game, and it will be very sad to see it go.

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Your desire for boring niche gameplay does not override the fact that this change benefits the vast majority and if they don’t change this then everyone will always live in 1 or 2 towns.

You haven’t provided a single incentive for people to ever move away. You just want to keep things the way they are because you personally profit from it and you are behaving very selfishly.

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Killing monsters is boring for some people. Arbitrage is boring for others. New world is special because we both have a way to play it and enjoy the game. I would counter that you too are behaving selfishly in your desire to not spend azoth to acquire distant items. No one is more correct here, I’m just saying the game I was sold for $40 had this feature, and removing it would be shitty to the playerbase who is smart enough to use it to their own advantage. It’s not our fault you don’t like making money in creative ways.

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And it kills other aspects of the game that are unique selling points e.g. territory control and settlement management.

Anyway. I am for global trade posts, but with an added Azoth fee based on distance and weight. I think it’s the best compromise.

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New World is not special for punishing players for not belonging to the faction that owns EF/WW. New World is not special for allowing people like you to gouge others just because fast travel is inconvenient and overpriced.

You are not correct for wanting to take advantage of other players and the devs have already spoken on this. Nothing you have said incentivizes people to move to other zones and establish economies in other areas.

This feature that you defend is opposed by nearly everyone which is why the playerbase circumvents it by congregating in 1 or 2 cities.

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I know Im not alone based on conversations in my circles anyways- but make no mistake- your perception on “the heart of the game” is inconvenience and extortion to others, including myself, and I dont “move on” after a couple of months when I decide to put time into a game. I still have UO, DAoC, EQ2, WoW, GW, GW2, Rift, FFXIV, ESO, and a myriad of failed or private server games I still revisit from time to time and pay subs for. Putting a tax system in players control will be the reason most quit, and personally if I knew how much it could be a detriment to my playtime I wouldnt have bought it in the first place. At this stage I certainly dont/wont recommend it until it changes or is removed. Dont try to minimize your opposition, they make up far more of the playerbase than you want to admit.

2 Likes
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That still doesn’t make any sense to me brother, your telling me you would happily make some items from one location to another for small profit?.

Between my elite daily run and Outpost Rush runs i am banking 1000s and 1000s of gold every single day and 90% of that i am chilling in Everfall watching youtube and Twitch. I don’t understand the effort your putting in. Legit go into Outpost Rush high as a kite and chop trees, mine some ore and summon a brute or two. Not only are you helping your lads esp with brutes but it requires zero effort. The chest per match contains 3 items and if your watermark is high is easy BOE gold. Like legit i come top 15 alot and normally have 0 kills lol it’s so stupid.

Then you also get up to 360 gold per match and 250 Azoth just for one mode. While watching twitch/youtube and chilling in Everfall it’s such a sweet gig. Especially after ya do your hourly elite chest run for the day for the timers.

All it does for me and the reason why i love the shared trade is, i don’t need to chill in Everfall and can go anywhere else and if it has low pop i will park my rear for the quick loading.

I know this might not be up your alley but if you want to bank gold lazy style it’s super chill man. Just requires good water mark that’s it really.

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I don’t think a global tax is necessarily the solution, but I think you have a good grasp of the situation. Particularly, you recognize the problem is about the cost to maintain outlying settlements (and not that the problem is people not “living” in outlying settlements).

The easiest and most direct path to balance is to reduce the upgrade and maintenance fees for outlying settlements.

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People put in that effort because it’s fun and meaningful for them. You prefer OPR, some people prefer doing trading runs (even if that nets them less gold over time). The linked trading posts take away meaningful gameplay for some (arguably, a lot) of people for the benefit of buyers (not sellers).

What your argument basically boils down to is: “you’re wasting your time.”

Unfortunately, when it comes to gaming, that’s a worthless argument. We’re all wasting our time. If we all cared so deeply about our time, we wouldn’t be wasting it on computer games.

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It’s a lazy system that caters to lazy players who want instant gratification at minimal effort/cost.

There’s a point where too much QoL ruins a game. This won’t actually solve any of the problems it’s being proposed to solve and is merely quelling the unhappy masses in a way that doesn’t directly involve addressing the things making those masses unhappy.

It’s like throwing a pizza party for employees instead of raising their wages. They like the pizza, but it doesn’t fix the underlying problems of their job.

2 Likes
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azoth tax for buying distant items is a super interesting idea. spending something like 1-20 azoth depending on the distance of the item would definitely make global trading post work while still keeping territories relevant for their local spawns and specialties. love that idea.

ultimately my main concern is that the economy of the game as it stands is extremely interesting, and unifying the trading post would both increase the patronage of the TP overall but also take away some of that extremely unique selling point of territorial economies.

much appreciated to everyone who participated in the thread, lots of cool arguments for both sides. glad people care about this part of the game, either way.