Discussion: Potential Isk Sink

#1

In a word: Banks.

Each region has its own banking system. Banks become built into citadels and stations, with it being a fueled service on citadels.

Banks in HS charge 2.00% annually, LS is 1.00% annually, citadels an owner-defined % ranging from 0.00% to 2.00% (2 decimal places of precision so that you could charge 0.01% if you wanted to), paid the first of every month. In order to access markets or contracts (anything that ends up in a transaction fee currently), you need isk in a bank within the region.

Transfers between structures can be initiated for a modest fee of 0.1% within the same region, or 0.3% to a different region. Or you can fly it there for free yourself.

Isk can transported via encrypted wallet files, associated with your pod. It isn’t lootable (edit for clarity: but is destroyed) because it’s encrypted and thus useless to any attackers. If you want to carry your isk in your pod, there’s obviously no banking fees for it.

You don’t need docking access to get your isk out, but you do need it to deposit (one must dock). You may not initiate a transfer to a citadel you cannot dock at. The service only needs to be fueled to deposit isk, it can be retrieved or spent in low power mode.

In the event that someone destroys the bank that your isk was in (or it is unanchored), it is treated the same as assets in asset safety. In all cases, a pilot with a deposit will receive notification of every event related to this, so you can make informed decisions about where to put your isk.

The owning corp of the citadel gets 5% of the fees collected. Isk deposit totals are part of the publicly available information on that structure. The interest rate is set once when the structure is anchored and cannot be changed.

Why I think this adds value to the game:

  • It’s an isk sink that has no meaningful impact on people with little wealth. Even at a modest 50 billion liquid wealth, you’re paying a mere 83m isk per month to store your isk in a HS station. Storing your isk at a low interest citadel obviously reduces this cost with an appropriate change in risk.
  • It adds more incentive for structure fights when economic warfare against an actual rival is your goal.
  • It adds incentive to try to attract investment in your citadel

The biggest potential detractor I can see:

  • Players who take a break will potentially end up with all their isk in asset safety. This can be mitigated by offering an asset safety reduction of 5% for every month that your pilot is not training. It could also be mitigated by leaving your pilot in HS, with their isk in their pod.

Thoughts? Good for the health of the game? Bad for the health of the game?

#2

I agree that EVE needs better, bigger and more ISK sinks.

I have no idea why anybody would use the system you propose. If I can carry all my ISK in my pod without risk and without fees, why wouldn’t I? Why would I tie up my ISK at a specific station when I might need it at another station?

There is no benefit to this system, only downsides (as outlined), and it is easily avoided. Therefore no one would use it.

#3

No, there’s absolutely a risk. It goes with the pod, just like implants. Lose your pod, and you lose your isk. Suppose I should have been more specific about that, updating OP.

#4

All right, so then your system becomes all downsides, with no benefits.

While I am out earning ISK, my pod accumulates gankable, loseable ISK. When the ISK piles up, I have to dock somewhere to deposit it. If my local citadel has powered down, or been removed, or blown up, I have to find somewhere else to deposit it. Once deposited, I have to pay to store it. If I fly anywhere and want to buy something, I have to undergo extra clicks and fees to transfer ISK to my location.

I mean, I see what you are trying to accomplish, but I honestly don’t understand why CCP and other people seem to think that making things worse and more frustrating is good for the game?

Here’s a tip: If you want to alter the way things work, and the way people behave, give them something better to do! You don’t create a new sink by making things awkward, expensive, inconvenient and risky. You don’t turn Alphas into subscribers by frustrating them and limiting their options (a CCP side-issue, not directly related to your proposal)

If people are really enjoying something, and there is this one little area that keeps getting in the way of their enjoyment, they will probably pay a reasonable fee to remove the irritant and get on with the enjoyment. But the enjoyment, the positive rewarding experience, comes first, not as a reward after they pay.

If you want to create an ISK sink, you either give them something useful/interesting to do with their ISK, or you integrate a reasonable fee into normal ISK-creation activities so it becomes the cost of turning a profit, or you simply bite the bullet and risk the short term anger of ISK farmers and you decrease the output of the ISK creation faucets.

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#5

To the individual pilot? No, no benefits. It’s not meant to benefit the pilots, it’s meant to benefit the health of the game by reducing the amount of isk floating around. There’s VERY few ways to spin “we’re going to take your isk and give you nothing for it” in a way that an individual player will like. Sometimes what’s good for the game isn’t always popular.

The corps owning said citadels though, they benefit by maintaining an online structure.

#6

â– â– â– â– .
Banks.
Seriously.

I really don’t see how this idea would be welcomed by anyone…

#7

If it doesn’t benefit the players then they won’t want it which means people just won’t play, so yeah this idea isn’t ever going to become a reality, give players benefits and they might care

#8

Afraid I can’t agree with that logic. Consider transaction fees on market orders (or brokerage fees on contracts). Who does that benefit? Nobody. Yet we still see the value of it (although the total measure of effect is certainly debatable) and you don’t see people crying in the forums about transaction fees.

We all know there’s too much isk. There are dudes out there with tens of trillions of isk… hell it’s not even that uncommon anymore. This costs them billions (tens of billions).

The average dude rocking less than a billion isk, even stored in HS stations at 2%, pays out a whopping 20m per year. Per year. The average dude will make that in an hour.

It’s not going to evaporate the isk pool, it’s not even going to be enough to fix it. But it does help with hoarding.

#9

hoarding is the one thing that keeps eve´s market stable right now. What do you think would an ISK hoarder do if hoarding would cost him tens of billions?..he would go shopping and all that quiet sitting, noone hurting ISK would flood the market.

#10

Producing transaction fees along the way. Mission accomplished. That said, people with that much isk don’t even blink at tens of billions of isk. It’s small enough that although it is a lot of isk, they aren’t going to care.

#11

Banks? This is a freaking space ship game. No banks needed

This is what happens when accountants play games

#12

I’m for a CONCORD tax. You want to be safe-ish, then pay a monthly bill. Massive isk sink! :smiley:

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#13

I’d go for a Concord tax. Or a Concord protection license for various levels of corporation that want to operate in high sec.

But of course, if you want to tax safety, you have to decide how you’re going to bill all those people in null sec…

#14

Ha. This is a ballsy proposal.

I really don’t think its going to happen though. Huge pita and is effectively another form of clone updating. And even if it was the right solution now, down the line when it’s done it’s job and there is less isk in the system, it will continue to drain isk in the game. Until we are all VERY risk averse.

I think the best course is to keep nerfing null income or make null more dangerous.

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#15

Or both. People go on and on about the carebears in Hisec, about the hordes of Alpha bots, about the lousy farmers etc… but I honestly feel that it is the current state of null sec that is driving a lot of the problem issues in EVE. ISK farming, overly safe play, huge established alliances making sure that nothing bad happens to them (except the very occasional major war)… that’s not EVE.

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#16

Those transactions fees have existed since day 1 and there are ways to reduce them via standings and skills

And “why” does it need to cost them anything exactly? ISK isn’t that hard to make and nothing seems that expensive, is there something you’re specifically worried about newbros not being able to afford? T1 hulls seem to be selling at about build cost anyway, why exactly does someone else having trillions of ISK affect you directly?

Again, why would this need to exist in the first place

Because i’m not really seeing a “problem”, things that are expensive are supposed to be expensive, what exactly is the “average” player unable to buy that they actually “need” to buy?

You DO need to actually justify why such a pointless system would need to exist in the first place, i don’t see what purpose this would actually serve, people are always going to be richer than you and all this system would do is make people buy items with that ISK to trade instead of keeping the ISK liquid itself which doesn’t change anything at all

#17

And then you get people sitting in NPC corps again, which is against what CCP actually wants :stuck_out_tongue:

#18

I would also strongly consider bumping up the market trading fees for EVE. Market trading is a huge activity, it is all done with near-perfect safety, it is highly profitable, and it has skills to reduce the impact of fees, as well as fee-reduced structures.

I would probably consider doubling the current fee structure, and making part of that a non-reduceable, or only partially reduceable, Concord or Interbus NPC fee that cannot be alleviated even by player owned trading markets. That would create another major ISK sink, the cost would be born only by those who are profiting from that activity, it would reduce the effectiveness and profitability of market bots that can win on the slimmest margins, and it would further separate Alpha traders/bots (with low skills) from Omega traders, who could have the skills to offset some of this.

There would be short term screaming from the big market traders, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few legs.

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#19

I should have mentioned it, but I didn’t want to expand to not potentially derail this valueable thread. *cough*

CONCORD tax works on an individual level. The only ones, who should be getting it for free, should be new players until they’ve reached a certain state, which CCP can detect using the data gathered by the Activity Tracker.

#20

I’m still not seeing a valid reason for this tax to exist in the first place, why does me having trillions of ISK matter to your gaming experience exactly? what are you expecting to buy that you cannot afford