Every time I try to think about how I'd solve a problem with Warframe's design, I get tangled up in the same giant web of other problems with Warframe's design. Warframe is a gigantic snarl of problems and contradictions all stemming from one source, the great schism in its deepest core, that the soul of Warframe is pulled in two opposing directions at every turn because it doesn't know what it wants to actually be, and it's philosophically strange to me that so much of what can be bought with platinum is the privilege of playing the game less.
But I'll try to keep that to some other rant. Here I just want to yell into the darkness that I badly want an in game marketplace.
I want a big ol trade terminal in Maroo's Bazaar that lets a player place ads for items they want to sell, and the ad lingers for a while at this terminal, and any other player can search the terminal for items they want, and it will display all the ads that other players have left for that item and the prices they listed. A buyer can then click on one ad, and spend some platinum, and then receive the listed item in the mail. It can have exactly the same rules as trading with the credit tax and the trades per day limit. Could even use the same limit.
"DE already said they don't want to make a marketplace"
Well I'm trying to change their mind here, obviously. I think this would be a good addition for me, and for other people, and also for DE, and it wouldn't be all that much work for the amount of benefit. I am making this case right now, with this post, not just whining that I don't have a thing I want.
"An auction house would crash all the prices"
I didn't say auction house, I said marketplace and trade terminal. Also, no it wouldn't?
Because, it is a video game. It's not a real economy that has to deal with things like government regulations and taxes and supply chain issues due to The Plague. It's a video game. Everything is controlled by the people who make the video game. DE, you are in control, if you don't want the trade center to tank platinum prices, YOU CAN JUST MAKE IT NOT ABLE TO DO THAT.
Give all items a minimum platinum cost. Bam, done, completely solved, wow that was easy what other world ending problems you got for me?
In fact, you could just set the EXACT platinum price! For everything! You can't tank the price of a Gauss Prime Blueprint if a Gauss Prime Blueprint on the market will always and forever be exactly no more and no less than a specific amount of platinum that you dictate.
What would be the point of that, some might ask. Well obviously the POINT is that I would be able to push a button and receive a Gauss Prime Blueprint without having to engage with a human being, because my crippling social anxiety doesn't let me. I could click the buy button and notify someone I want to trade with them, but every time I try, my entire chest collapses in on itself. I can only write this because I'm absolutely not going to ever come back here to read a single reply.
Yeah why would someone like me want to play escapist abnegation based video games like Warframe for over three and a half thousand hours. Whatever, I'm sure I'm literally the only person in the world who is like this, right?
"There's a huge supply and not enough demand"
First of all a massively more convenient Buy Button would drastically increase potential demand, but I dunno by how much or by how much supply would increase by a massively more convenient Sell Button so whatever.
Either way, yeah the player economy is ALREADY busted, I dunno why anybody would care about a change busting it in a new direction, but anyway, sounds to me like the game needs a better Sink if you care so much about getting less stuff for more platinum. Not a sink for platinum, but for Prime Parts.
Being able to trade prime bits for ducats is good, but Barry can't handle that big a supply by himself without some better stock. My advice would be to add a bunch of consumables to a ducat store somewhere more accessible than Barry. Possibly Darvo, or Maroo, or that other weirdo who lives in Maroo's closet, I forget her name, the one who does the vaulted relics stuff. One of them could sell all kinds of gear for small amounts of ducats. Barry isn't much of a sink because most of the stuff he sells is permanent. I already bought a Prisma Obex, I'm probably not ever going to buy another one. Stuff like those corrupted bombard specters though, those I could buy a bunch of. Except not really, because they're kind of not worth the price. They should be worth the price. But if you make Darvo sell consumable items that are actually helpful, it would be worth it to spend a few ducats now and again, which would go a long way to cleaning out some of the millions of extra prime parts the community has lying around their inventories.
The kind of consumable item you want to aim for is something that is consistently useful to have around, but not in a way that completely removes other parts of the game (unless those parts of the game are already removable with platinum, in which case feel free to charge a roughly equal or greater amount of ducats for the same thing. Like Darvo could sell, say, speed forging tickets that act the same as platinum for speeding up foundry item building, and it would probably be cheaper to buy it with platinum, but it's more convenient to sell some of those dusty old prime bits).
I'd recommend lesser boosts, essentially being able to buy the Blessings that Rank 30 Tenno can bestow in relays. Potentially also a few Build Supplement boosts, like minor boosts to fire rate, reload speed, parkour velocity, or ammo capacity. Another idea, specialty specters. Maybe a handful of MOAs that aren't as good as a Tenno Specter but have some useful ability that can help round out a team or something. Again, minor stuff, like a MOA that has a 5% bonus critical chance aura, or a 25% faster shield regeneration aura. Something that's a noticeable straight up buff to the player's power without any opportunity cost to the player's build, but which isn't going to make the difference between a given mission being challenging and that mission being trivial. The point is that players have something they can fairly consistently spend some ducats on, which in turn means they have a reason to fairly consistently dump some of their prime parts out of the game.
Another concept for getting rid of prime parts and relics, you could go the Guild Wars 2 route and add a Mystic Toilet; something akin to the Arcane Dissolution thing that was recently added. Dump a bunch of relics and/or prime bits into the toilet, get one thing back that you may or may not want. Maybe it could be tied to a means of turning prime parts or old relics into aya and then spending aya on random relics from specific sets, so you could turn like ten relics you don't want into one relic you do want. Or something. Might be a frustrating gamble, but opening relics is already a frustrating gamble, so being able to do that much faster at higher cost would be really appealing to many people with a lot of junk to burn and not a lot of time or patience, especially if it meant fewer relics cluttering up my ship. But I'm getting dangerously close to the Schism and trying to come up with a way to overhaul the entire game, so I'm gonna move on.
"A marketplace would mean fewer people buy platinum so DE would get less money"
Ah yes, the big one. Let's all put on our most cynical little edgelord fedoras and go on the assumption that the reason there isn't an auction house is that it'll somehow mean less juicy platinum money for DE. I don't even mind, it's a free to play game and DE needs money somehow and I want DE to have more money so they keep making this game that I play, so sure let's think like horrible money grubbing weasels.
First of all, an aside, again building on the idea that it's a video game and not a real economy, to everybody who says that platinum circulating between players means DE doesn't get anything, you guys do know where platinum comes from, right? Literally every point of platinum in the economy was put there because somebody somewhere bought it from DE (except the little bits they hand out in like twitch drops or whatever but you know what I mean). In the real world, money is a crazy messy cycle of everybody buying and selling things of value to and from each other, but in a video game that doesn't have to be how it works at all, unless you are EVE Online and you are completely mad.
Video game economies with real money currency aren't cycles. They're pools with an in flow pipe and an out flow pipe. Stuff can circulate in the middle a bit, but there's only one way in, and eventually everything flows out. When someone buys a prime part for platinum, they then use that prime part, right? Like, to build a prime thing? They don't sell the prime part they just bought to someone else at a mark up. At least I don't think most people do that? Platinum is used and consumed, for prime parts which are then used up to make prime equipment, or on cosmetics or slots or boosts or whatever else. No platinum ever comes back out of buying a cosmetic or building Gauss Prime. It's not like a mortgaged house; you don't re-sell it later. Even if it went through a bunch of players first, that platinum originally came from DE, and they already got paid for issuing it. The faster platinum moves, the faster it will reach someone who will spend it on something that takes that value out of the economy forever, which would in turn mean that in order to get the platinum for platinum-only things like cosmetics, some players without the time to play enough to get stockpiles of extra parts to sell will buy more platinum straight from DE.
If it's much easier for the majority of players to make small amounts of platinum through selling instead of real money purchases, it becomes much easier for the majority of more casual free-to-play players to spend platinum on basic stuff like warframe and weapon slots. That's a lot of players dumping platinum out of the economy who otherwise wouldn't be, because remember, again, even if they got that platinum from another player and not DE, that platinum still only exists because someone somewhere already gave DE money. No one is making real money out of platinum (I mean, except through Gold Selling, which they do illegally, and which they're already doing anyway and will keep doing regardless of if there's a Market terminal or not. Also the platinum they get still only comes from DE, they're not hacking the game to generate it out of nowhere). An in game market would make it a lot easier for high paying customers to diffuse their wealth out over the rest of the player base, paying people platinum that they can then dump into other stuff they want. All platinum eventually gets spent on something that nobody gets platinum out of, and the only way for platinum to enter the system is by giving DE money, so I don't know how a market terminal that speeds this up a bit could possibly result in less money for DE.
Not to mention it would still be much more convenient to buy platinum in bulk with those nice shiny 50% off coupons that make it really tempting, whereas I'd need to sell a LOT of prime parts to make that kind of cash, and obviously many players are already perfectly willing to buy huge amounts of platinum even though trading for platinum does already exist. Really doesn't seem like this would be an issue.
BUT, Okay, fine, let's assume that yes, faster flow for players will somehow mean that fewer people buy platinum, I guess because it'll be more convenient to sell stuff. In that case how do we make a market that incentivizes buying MORE platinum, not less? Some people would rather sell stuff to make platinum instead of buying it from DE, so if you can't make buying platinum from DE attractive to those people, then you can make it more attractive to people who want to buy stuff from other players.
The first and stingiest thing that comes to mind is making selling stuff on the market more cumbersome while buying stuff from the market remains fairly simple, like extra up front costs for posting an item for sale. It could normally take like a day or two to post a thing but you can pay an extra 10% or something to do it right away. And/Or, items could be held on the market only for a limited time, say a week, and you can pay extra to increase that time, up to say a month. Like obviously this is just artificial scarcity but so is the foundry taking three days to pump out that loser Caliban, but let's not get into just how obnoxious DE could be so that players will pay them to stop. Again, dangerously close to the Schism.
Another option, platinum purchases could come with other goodies maybe. But not permanent stuff, since you want people to buy platinum packs multiple times. So, again we're back to Useful Temporary things. Timed boosts and consumable items. They could even be the same ones that Darvo sells, seeing as either way a player is taking prime parts/ducats out of the game, or they're putting platinum into the game, both of which make money for DE. Could even make platinum purchases include a little bucket of ducats so platinum purchasers don't even need to grind prime parts in order to buy Darvo boosts or stuff from Barry.
By the way, DE, you could also always just make Darvo sell more things at a time instead of just offering a single Darvo Deal. The amount of stuff in the game has probably more than tripled since the Darvo Deal was implemented. Just saying, another potential platinum sink.
But really I think the biggest way to get people to buy more platinum is to give them a little platinum. People who spend money once are vastly more likely to spend it again. That's not economics, that's basic human psychology. And, people who have spent platinum know how useful it is to have some platinum to spend, and are more likely to buy some the next time they get a coupon as a login reward. Plus, having just a little bit of platinum really opens the game up for newer players. They don't have many warframe slots or rare weapons yet. Early game can be really cramped, and the opportunity to get just enough platinum for a few upgrades would probably help with player retention. I would think you would want as many people as possible to have access to a trickle of this resource, even if they're getting it from other players (because, AGAIN, getting platinum from players is the same as getting it from DE because DE is literally the only place that platinum comes from.)
"DE doesn't want to go through the hassle of regulating an economy"
Welp, too late! DE, you have a player economy, sorry. You ALREADY MADE an economy and you're not regulating it, you're just ignoring it and hoping it doesn't turn cancerous later. And like, it might have? See what you've done is made a really lopsided system. Players get relics all over the place (like SO many relics, oh my god, I am covered in relics), so the supply of prime parts is not just infinite over a long time, but copious. It's not just possible to accrue enormous amounts of prime parts, it's basically unavoidable if you do any amount of relic opening. By the time you've acquired the thing you want, even if you only go after one thing, unless you are VERY lucky you will be basically guaranteed to have a stockpile of extra bits. All of those bits are potentially worth platinum. Every player can potentially sell their prime bits to other players to get platinum instead of buying platinum from you. This is the monster that you already created. It blots out the sun. It's giving me a panic attack just thinking about it. Joking of course, I've already been having a panic attack from several hours ago when I tried and failed to work up the courage to buy a Gauss Prime Blueprint from someone.
But good news, the problem was you all along, DE! The bloated supply of relics and prime parts is because you keep constantly giving players relics and prime parts they don't want. I must defeat the oversaturated market! says DE. No, DE, you are the oversaturated market. And then DE was a relic pack.
But it's good news because if it's something you're doing then you can just stop doing it and that'll fix the problem. There are a lot of ideas swimming around my head about how you could overhaul the relic system (mostly oriented around making it easier to get the prime part you want, but a lot harder in general to get any prime part at all, like making relics only have one prime part, all prime parts are gold tier, and all bronze and silver relic rewards are things like riven slivers, ducats, and (most importantly) void traces, so to get the part you want you just need to get a specific kind of relic, but you'll probably need to invest a lot more void traces, plus maybe a way to grind relics into void traces, and an increase in the amount of void traces you can spend to increase gold reward chance, up to like spending like 1000 to crack open a relic and get every reward it has) but nobody cares so the main point is really just that you desperately need those relic sinks I talked about. Useful slight power boosting consumables that cost ducats, and relic dissolution just like arcane dissolution. If you can suck all that supply down the drain that'll go a long way to keeping things stable, and then you can just make the market a tiny extension of the existing player trading system. Let players trade with the machine, and the only rules the machine needs to regulate everything are fixed prices, which you've also already set because every prime part and every tradeable thing can already be sold for credits or ducats.
You don't have to make some ridiculous stock market nonsense, I just want a table where players can leave the things they want to sell, and other players can buy stuff off the table. You can set a minimum platinum price, or just a fixed platinum price, and base it on the amount of ducats or the amount of credits the item is already currently worth. If there are items you don't want people to be able to sell on the market, then just make those items not market tradeable but still player tradeable. Economies are huge complex terrifying monsters, but this is your game and you hold literally all the cards and they're all full houses. If you don't want this market terminal to make it too easy to get the Carmine Penta or something, you can just not allow Carmine Penta blueprints to be sold on it. Although clearly you don't mind too much since they're tradeable in the first place. So, uhh? What even is it you don't want to need to be regulating? Do you want a player economy or not?? WHAT DO YOU EVEN WANT YOUR PLAYERS TO DO??
And there's the Schism again. I need to take my medicine.
So anyway. We've got a basic idea, and two other additions to offset a potential problem the basic idea might introduce.
One: Give Maroo a trade terminal that players can post items on, and other players can search for and buy those items. And it should be Maroo so you at least have to get to Mars in order to unlock this capability on a new player. The market terminal only allows sales for platinum, and all prices are fixed. The market doesn't fluctuate, no one can be price gouged, nothing can be accidentally sold for a tenth the value, would not affect the markets for anything unless you let it. Just add a tag for "market tradeable" underneath the "player tradeable" one that can likewise be switched on or off for any given item. Optional, prices are slightly marked up on the buyer's side, like a thing is posted for 20 platinum but the buyer has to pay 22 platinum, the seller then gets 20, and the extra 2 is just deleted, so every market trade takes a tiny bit of platinum out of the economy, helping to keep the value of platinum higher, so DE can make money.
Two: Give Darvo a Boost Shop where players can buy two hour lesser boosts just like the Tenno Blessings on Relays, each costing a handful of ducats, like between ten or twenty. This shop could also potentially sell other consumable items, maybe even some snazzy new ones like new kinds of boost or restores or specters or archgun cooldown resets or a deployable pack of Vauban's old tesla grenades I dunno whatever. This will help dump all those useless bronze prime parts out of the economy, reducing the bloated supply, so people are willing to spend more platinum on them, so the value of platinum stays high, so DE can make money.
Three: Give the aya lady Relic Dissolution, allowing players to dump huge amounts of old relics they don't need into the toilet in exchange for a handful of relics that they actually want. This will drastically reduce the bloated supply of bronze prime parts, and also the even more bloated supply of relics, making both relics and prime parts a rarer commodity, so the value of platinum stays high, so DE can make money.
Additionally, none of this would remove the ability for Warframe Market to connect buyers and sellers outside the in game system. If THEY want to sell things for a price different from the in-game market's prices, they can still do that. And trading between players just hanging around dojos or the bazaar can still do that. Those things remain unchanged. And if you think "no one's going to do blah blah if they can do something something," yes they will. You are just incorrect about that, whatever it is you think people won't do. They will. Some always do. Some people still buy things on VHS. Some people don't care about getting the very best price. Like me. I don't care if I have to spend a bit extra if it means I don't have to talk to anyone.
I don't know a lot about real world economics, and it gets really weird when you put it in a video game. I can't predict exactly how altering the economy like this would change the player experience at large, and there's a Nobel prize in economics in it for you if you can.
But, speaking only for myself, it would benefit me a lot, and I believe it would also benefit DE. I'm sitting on nine hundred something platinum right now which I got from buying it from DE. I've also got a gigantic stockpile of prime parts, including multiple complete sets of vaulted prime frames and weapons, and like two dozen riven mods I'll never use. Not to mention the literally thousands of old relics gathering dust. (Like I said, over three and a half thousand hours. I've been here since before bullet jumping existed. Before Endo was a thing. I had to fuse my Serration with other Serrations. I remember when the Ambulas was a MOA that was painted black. My starter frame was Loki. I am a Warframe Longbeard.)
If I were able to easily spend a bunch of my platinum on stuff from other players, those players would then have some more platinum to spend. Some percentage of them would then spend some percentage of that platinum on one time purchases like slots or costumes, and some percentage of them might be more inclined to buy their own platinum later the next time they need a lot.
If I were able to more easily sell my stockpile of prime junk to other people for platinum they bought, I would be more inclined to spend my platinum on various other things that I wouldn't normally be willing to spend a real money currency on.
But I can't do those things. And I'm sure many other people can't either. Maybe they don't like trading, maybe they don't know about it, maybe it's too much of a hassle, or maybe they have crippling social anxiety like me. No idea how many of us there are, since none of us talk to anyone. You might know, though. Check your metrics, see how many free players and soloists there are who WOULD be helping to drain your platinum pool if only it were doable with a few button pushes instead of needing an entire third party website.
Anyway, I guess I'll go back to grinding for Gauss Prime's Blueprint now.
