Companies diminish the solo player experience

[lost olive]

I’ve played a few white tigers now, with the main goal wanting to be useful and help develop the server as best as I can. As a solo player, like a lot of players, having to compete in the market against companies is really difficult and unenjoyable. This is less of a rant or complaint and more of a question.

Many people have told me companies have their own set backs as ‘they have to develop extra rooms, feed multiple people, operate under the same amount of claims as one person’. On paper, yes, they are all valid points. But my issue goes beyond that. Correct me if I’m wrong, I believed that companies weren’t supposed to have advantages over solo players; they were supposed to simulate one player such as all taking the same skills otherwise they incur additional tax. However, if a company chooses to provide a housing bonus to one person, a food bonus to the same one person, to have that same one person achieve their stars as fast as possible, this is where I become confused.

Having a skill like mechanics or industry, for example, requires the person to eat a specific nutritional value. These foods come at higher costs. So for someone who can source their own materials, such as mining, smelting, mechanics - the act of doing mining becomes as expensive as the act of mechanics.

Even with putting countless hours every day to try and stay relevant with the market, mining as much iron, copper and gold, it still doesn’t yield any competition against a company. I’m not saying I want to be on top of the market as a soloist, I’m saying I want to be relevant and useful to the server as much as possible.

This past run, mechanics and industry was exceptionally competitive and it’s fun to have the challenge. However, when a company can have one member with ‘mining, smelting, mechanics, industry and electronics’ while the other member has ‘mining’ feels entirely unfair.

Not only do companies have an extra person(s) to run around the world, buying the things they need, while one person can continue working, the solo player doesn’t have that luxury. I’m not suggesting that a star difference of 1 or even 2 is an issue, but when one person has 5 skills while their company worker has 1 or 2 feels really unfair. This enables the company worker with the higher skills to be more present in the market with more resources, they are able to produce a significant amount more, they can level up the skill faster than a solo player and they can determine market prices that negatively impact others; such as undercutting.

My question realistically is how/why isn’t there some form of a taxation per skill difference. If the idea is for all company members to essentially be one person, why is it allowed for one person in the company to have all the bonuses and skills while others have nothing?

Again, this isn’t me complaining, I had a very enjoyable run this cycle despite the competition, I’m more so trying to understand if I’m misspeaking or don’t know the full story on the matter. I want the gaming experience for both solo players and companies to feel rewarding and fair.

[smoky lily]

Well, even if there was a taxation per skill difference all it would do is make it so everyone else would share the skills but only 1 needs to do the actual work meaning only 1 needs to actually eat the very expensive food.
I also played solo this run and I gained less experience with the more advanced food because of a lack of variety and balanced in 50+ food than I had when I was only doing jobs with lower that requirement, since the only thing they looked for was the base nutritional value my multiplier with a below 50 nutritional value would be so high that it would give me more experience than the 50+ value so it should be easy for everyone in the company to get the stars while not caring about using them.

At the end of the day the issue will always be the increased of manpower to the same requirements as you said, company members can have people go around and waste their time going to the cheapest supplier of all needed products while maintaining productivity, this skill difference tax just makes it so that people won't be able to join companies in the middle because it makes it so new players won't have as many stars to give as someone that joined at the start.

Honestly, only thing I hated about joining a company was the fact that there's a ton of issues with reputation distribution which is why I didn't do it and this is my first time of playing white tiger.

At the end of the day the companies don't need a tax based on the experience difference because that can be easily placated what they need is a tax on personnel because they are increasing the amount of needs they can tackle at the same time, they can have 1 person dedicated to building the house and procuring the materials for it, 1 person dedicated to finding food for the company and then each extra member that procures raw resources is just increasing the available resources for the people that work on it.

My most recent Issue at this time has been how much I got to walk to cut and get wood back to my base, if I had 1 person cutting the wood and the other bringing the resources back and forth it would be easy to keep production going instead of having to do each of those steps.

[lapis anchor]

Companies will always have a leg up on the solo players because of many reasons. Manpower, simultaneous work, an extra untaxed skill at the start, UBI from afkers, huge LCP gains at the start of the cycle.

We were always told that a company is sort of like its legal person, diverge from the main skills, pay a tax. Well that is not enough, the people in a company should not receive UBI, the company legal person should, and since the company legal person is just 1 person, it should receive 1 UBI, it should also just start with its 16 original LCP.

Many times we see companies exists with 4-8 people who can just bully solo players because of their manpower to create bulk and with that bulk dictate the prices on the market. If a company wants to eliminate its competition by crashing prices it can.

How often do we also see just people logging in and not really playing, just being UBI/LCP people for their company. This wouldn't happen if we finally fixed the legal person only having 1 UBI and 1 set of 16 LCP.

[noble hull]

the current handling of companies is as if all people in the company are equally invested. that is a prime requirement for the statement "all members of a company are looked at as 1 member where the legal person represents".
it makes perfect sense on paper but that's also where it stays, on paper.
even a 2 player company does better than 2 solo players combined. that's the purpose of streamlining and efficiency. produce more than what would be possible if not working together. that's not even calculating the taxes that don't need to be payed inside a company. so not only can that company do more than 2 solo players combining forces by selling to eachother/supporting to eachother, they will also have a lower cost on it.
with how housing score has changed since adobe it's really not expensive to get what you need. and food is indeed only required by the members that do the highest skills.
i'm pretty certain that if someone does the math we'll see that a company taking 1 extra skill to add 1 tier of company tax that tax can be nullified by an efficient company setup.

everything combined a 2 man company is likely at a minimum the value of 3 solo players.
unless the previous mentioned prime requirement is the company goal, it makes no sense to how a company is handled.
i'd probably look into making the legal person the person that holds the food score, housing score and xp multiplier score including usable stars. and that by calculating the average of all the active members. if you have a company where 1 person is the 2 star mining slave and another is the decked out 5 star twink you'd in essence have a company with 3 stars, a food score of 37 average (24 - 50+) and the housing score that will probably be the same.

[cyan ridge]

The biggest advantage I see with companies is how much they can take advantage of virtical integration of supply chains, this is most notable in skills like mechanics and industry. If you can do every step internally because you have people at each different nutrient value doing the work paying the lowest possible food cost someone solo cant compete either doing lower work with high food cost OR paying a tax markup buying lower tier items from other people.

My company took advantage of this, two people were on dried fish diets most the cycle where as only one of us had to eat good food.

The tax brackets at different levels help this, but really, I think there should simply be no tax on any intermediate product to lessen the value multi stage vertical integration has.

[lost olive]

Everyone's input is actually really interesting because it does show there is a disadvantage to the solo player in essence. I don't think it'll be a case where you could ever make it exactly equal between a solo player and a company, but it does really dimish the solo player experience. I liked the idea of the active members having a combined minimum housing value/ nutrition value. While this change isn't so detrimental to a company, if at least makes the system feel a little more fair. Like you said the current handling of companies is as if all people in the company are equally invested. that is a prime requirement for the statement "all members of a company are looked at as 1 member where the legal person represents - how can 'One person' both have a 0 housing bonus and 20 nutritional multiplier and their other company member who is also that 'one person' have 200+ housing bonus and 50+ nutritional multiplier. It really doesn't make much sense to me. If the system is simply 'Yeah, companies do have an advantage and that's how it is', then I will accept that that is the system we have set up on White Tiger.

[smoky lily]

Players in a company are required to be in the same house last I read the rules so housing multiplier is the same for both only food multiplier makes a difference.

Honestly, one other thing I noticed is most companies also hold the mayor and other governamental positions because they have each other voting for the head.

[cyan ridge]

I saw companies rotating who was mp, so they could stack pensions

[smoky lily]

Wow, I didn't even know that was a thing.

Honestly, for me companies should have limited interaction with the constitutional powers.

Unfortunately, most of the issues I have with companies should be dealt on a mod level and less on a server level.

For example one of the things that should happen is you should give rep to the members of a company but then the company reputation is the average of the reps of all members.
I honestly didn't join a company because of how painful it is to give rep to a company, specially when most of the available tools give the rep to their members automatically, instead of the company itself.

[wise kraken]

The euro per item created for a company is far lower then if a solo player made it.

The problem arise when the solo player is depended on the market for their production.

Often goods at the lower tier are overpriced, and stay overpriced.

If you depend on someone else to gather goods for you or to create something. You will always pay a premium.

I will not understand someone trying to go all production as a solo player and expect the ability to compete with people that have a haversting skill.

Going BE>Mech>industry as a solo player without any relationship with other solo players will cause your business harm

Same if one of your provider quits, now you rely on the open market again

I also fear that UBI and VBI effects companies in a possitive way. As everyone as the buy power to over pay for things until they run out of money. Both income as increased over the years but papers have not. People have a higher buying power over goods and naturally money gets filters to people that either have the production first or can sustain it.

I would rather buy my product in a reliable location (with 5 people making it) then 1 person. It is natural for a market to go towards what is easier and can achive their own goals

[oblique wind]

Oooh the UBI and claims limiting to one person is a good idea.

[oblique wind]

Also good ideas to have food score somehow be tied to the average somehow.

Once in a company, our concrete was like 15-25% (edit: memory was wrong. It was 7-10%) cheaper in labor due to having everything possible made by a mining slave who ate sausages instead of the higher food usually needed.

[old skiff]

A company will always have a manpower advantage, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad thing. They are simply investing more time in the game. Having three players spend one hour each (for a total of three hours) when a new profession opens up is only marginally better than a single player spending three hours alone. I don’t think this is an issue that needs to be addressed.

I do believe we should limit the UBI to one per company, perhaps with an additional 0.1 per member to balance it out.

We should remove the company's 'free' 2 stars before they incur a tax penalty. I believe this restricts other players' ability to compete fairly during the first weekend, especially in classic combinations like Campfire Cook-Butcher, Logger-Carpentry, and Miner-Masonry.
Nothing prevents a company from doing this with a 20% tax while still remaining profitable. However, I can't see a scenario where I could choose Carpentry as my first star and enjoy it while managing sourcing hewn logs, and compete against companies that have no company tax.

[wise kraken]

I like the suggestion of xoy

[acoustic moth]

That'll be the case again starting from next cycle.

[acoustic moth]

As with the PM, that is a elected position, so the decision on who holds it is on everyone by candidating and voting. If they receive an office, they have the right to hold it, no matter what any presumed internal planning might be - this looks more like they would all have had an office if they were all allowed to candidate.

[acoustic moth]

They are not, they can rent individually as anyone else can. They share a homestead, but don't need to use it for their housing points.

[acoustic moth]

That is not surprising, they are more people.

[acoustic moth]

I think UBI in the past was limited to one per company - I have no general preference in either way, though the general idea is that any benefits due to being more people are fair game, the tax is only supposed to impede their vertical integration competition, if necessary to a point where selling makes no sense for them. I think it is no longer possible to do that, it simply stopped working at some point, so silibum would need to look at that.

[smoky lily]

Yeah, the only time that more time investment translates into more product is the gathering jobs.
Cause I was able to produce a lot of products with a single crafting table of each and never needed more because my biggest problem was the raw resource input.

[acoustic moth]

I'm fine with removing the two star exception if it currently applies to all companies (which I don't think?). Two-people companies are purposefully supposed to be "advantaged" compared to other, bigger companies. We want to actively incentivize people playing as duos (including for solo players).

[old skiff]

@acoustic moth What is the current stance on the Server rules on burning/removing stars mechanic for solo and companies?

I think how the game mechanic works now gives companies an alternative playstyle that I have not seen been used and I think the already inplaced company tax should deal with most cases so it does not give them an efficiency advantage over their competitors.
But I am afraid the usage will probably create a public outcry of unfair market conditions where it looks like a super abusive thing but in reality it does not do that at all.

[acoustic moth]

What do you mean with burning/removing stars mechanic?

[old skiff]

Abandon "profession" Specialty which refunds your XP but keeps the increased XP requirement for the next level.

[acoustic moth]

If GM's haven't yelled in pain for people misclicking that anymore lately, it likely is still available lol

[acoustic moth]

We are limiting that exception to duo players, as was intended, starting next cycle.

[old skiff]

I think the mechanic is great but i can see the pain in people misunderstanding it and misclicking

[acoustic moth]

UBI was originally intended to be affected by company tax and that seemingly broke at some point.

[runic swan]

Someone did use it thinking it would fix their tax issue but they then went and got another different skill so not really fixing it....

about the removing your skill

[acoustic moth]

Most other criticisms are understandable, but simply based on companies having more people, which is fair game, though. The intent of company tax is to make influence on market limited when multiple players sharing stuff are combined with vertical integration, so they can play that way but not break the market. Companies otherwise having more people and hence organisational advantage is natural to more-people play. The rules are not about prohibiting people to play a specific way, just to prevent any advantages that result from combining natural effects with tactical gameplay decisions to affect the market. I don't see how that could be prevented without severe limitations at playing together, destroying the found balance.

[old skiff]

Wont that create a double tax on them? They get first tax on the UBI and then when they use that income to create a product and sell it and get taxed again?

[acoustic moth]

The idea was that any income gets scaled, so that also applies when they sell goods and use that money to make more.

UBI is just a base income to allow you to do basic stuff without needing market success.

In any case the idea is not to offset advantages gained through simply being more people with all the same skills. Of course solo players have a harder time to be as efficient as five people, but they that is the same in any game and the natural capability for the same output is there when skills are the same as on a solo.

Though there was a hidden buff to solos, as since the removal to collaboration rules the type of contracts solos can make with each other without being forced into a company has vastly expanded and as such their cooperation potential. (And settlements incentivize to make use of that) Of course they can't get a person mining for free, but if the person has the skill in the company, everyone else would also need it to not have a tax. So even if they don't work in that profession they had a star cost for it and instead of five people doing a bit of mining, one does it all alone - which is also within the idea of them playing like they want. When I played as duo with my friend he also always never went out of the mine, not because that is most effective, but because he loves mining in every game and has diggy diggy hole stuck on repeat.

In the end the idea is impact control, not making companies equal to solos, which they naturally aren't. Small benefits like different food needs in a shared environment can't be balanced out without improportionate measures, at least I don't know of any that wouldn't be. Forcing the miner to have the same food requirements in a company as the one that makes high-level stuff also wouldn't make that person equal to a solo player, as a solo player only mining wouldn't need that.

In any case reputation stuff goes back to what it was before the test and the exception will be limited to the target audience of duos.

[noble hull]

as a solo player i prefer to use skills depending on others. which means i rely on companies. having a skill that relies on miners that is not often used in companies is very fun for me. this also puts me in a limited way of play skill wise depending the general playerbase. your plan either works or completely fails and you just go yolo with whatever but that's my own choice.
i'm not sure if it is me and how i've been looking at the game so don't quote me for truth but i seem to notice there is an increase in companies forming over solo play? i have been wondering what the numerical advantages overall are but not bothered enough to actually look at it. mainly for balance reasons without prejudice.
it can probably use some tweaking but seeing i'm not that bothered (i think i can say i feel fairly comfortable with the system) it probably isn't that much.

[smoky lily]

Honestly, the only problematic tree is the mining, smelting, blacksmith tree as it trivializes costs due to the production of their own tools and everyone else's as well as their repair and then only other thing you need is building materials and food.

[oblique wind]

Huzzah, a great step in the right direction.

[oblique wind]

There's a competitive advantage beyond just efficient utilization of capital (housing is easier).

Even without the two star exemption they would still be at an advantage.

There exist several advantages that are anticompetitive, but one cannot compete as a solo player against a company who uses a calorie mule, even with the company tax.

I can list others, but I fear I'll anoy if I go on, as I have made this case a few times ❤️

I'll just link to that thread if people want to read previous discussions https://discord.com/channels/254025510651297802/1248093436687548496

[runic swan]

It was always intended this way. There was a very minor loophole that I never saw. Was taken advantage of but overall it was working as intended for the most part.

[old skiff]

I am not denying that a calorie mule provides an advantage, but I don't believe it prevents a solo player from competing in the market or maintaining a positive profit margin against a company that has one. So, I wouldn't say it reaches the point where a solo player cannot compete.
I would welcome a change that introduces some sort of average food XP for a company. However, it should be implemented in a way that doesn’t negatively impact the company as a whole because one player made a small mistake with food without having a reasonable fix or had to be offline for a few days.

[oblique wind]

That's a pretty glaring loophole, and one I pointed out months ago but was defended at the time.

I genuinely cannot fathom to understand the argument, and it's frustrating, because all the other arguments I disagree with are at least understandable.

How do we reconcile

1. A company with two people with the same skills and X total hours played a day is more than twice as effective/efficient as one person playing X hours, thus companies have an inherent advantage
2. It is equitable to let companies (or just duos now?) avoid the company tax at the start.

[runic swan]

Huh? A duo company gets the exception up to 3 total skills. Thats written in the rules. The law didnt have that so there was a very small chance someone could sit at 1 skill all cycle and try to game it.

[oblique wind]

Nonsensical. The advantage is at the start. The issue there is an advantage at all. How can (2) follow from (1) and be internally consistent?

Or do you disagree with (1)? At least that makes sense

[runic swan]

Willingo, we are talking about the company tax rate.

No idea where you are going with this. This is entirely just a miss trigger in the law. 99% of the time it worked as intended. The 1% it didnt, it rarely occured. This was pointed out. Anything else in this channel i have not been looking at.

[oblique wind]

Ah, so there was a bug? Duo could take 3 unique skills and not be taxed?

[runic swan]

The rule/law is suppose to have the exception in for a size of two companies if the company has less then 2 unique skills. Was always intended that way.

[oblique wind]

I say get rid of company tax entirely actually.

[runic swan]

Not likely to happen.

[oblique wind]

Well that doesn't make sense. Why?

[runic swan]

Company tax acts as a balancing factor. Solo play and group play have inherent difference, with group playing being able to do much more then solo players. Company tax tries to balance that a bit so the power a group and have on the server isnt as high compared to solo players.

Without it, WT will have the issue again where group players will dominate far more then they are. That will circle back to "How to make things fair for both" with a scaling income reduction being the choice.

[oblique wind]

Ok, how about no company tax the first 4 days then

[runic swan]

So a group can jump on the server, have each member take 1 skill of each type, and not get the tax rate? That would allow them to dominate the market for days, harming solo players without them being able to do anything.

[oblique wind]

Hmm, ok, then what about the first 4 skills including self-improvement are tax exempt

I was trying to argue the other side. I stopped trying to push and started trying to pull, but it sems the status quou is still defended. It's a monotonic relationship...

I'll just say this. This is what I read, and this syllogism is nonsensical

1. A company with two people with the same skills and X total hours played a day is more than twice as effective/efficient as one person playing X hours, thus companies have an inherent advantage
2. A company with two people with **two different skills **is even more at an advantage.
3. Therefore, company scaling tax helps offset the unfair advantage.
4. THEREFORE it is equitable to let companies have an early exemption on this rule.

(4) does not follow

I'm passionate about this, because it is unfair, unequitable, and it only serves to make veterans have an even greater advantage, as they are more likely to make companies or know it is a thing.

The two star exemption wasn't even in the documentation until I complained about it being hidden info.

[lost olive]

Wait, companies are tax exempt at the start for the first 2 unique skills? That's rather confusing considering they are already at an advantage? I'm not the most knowledgeable when it comes to the taxes/laws but I'm trying to learn.

My biggest issue, and I genuinely want to try a company at some point, isn't to make companies less enjoyable at all. I would just like to not feel cheated by the system when I have to source everything myself, a good housing bonus, a good food bonus, to then be pushed out of the market entirely because the company who has a mining mule, with no housing or food bonus, can focus all their resources on one person to rush stars as fast as possible.

I did like the staggered release of the skills as it really enabled people to prepare and have a more competitive stance in the market. But in my experience, for example, I went into industry (Mining, smelting, mechanics, industry) when the opposing company was able to do (Mining, smelting, mechanics, industry and electronics) and push me entirely out of the market. If that's just how it is and how it's supposed to be, I'd prefer someone to say it because the clarity would be great for me to know if the solo player experience in late game isn't supposed to be as competitive as a company. And if that is the case, why is someones elses (a companys) gameplay experience more valuable than mine?

[runic swan]

Solos < Duos < Groups. Duos arnt treated the same as groups for just the first 3 skills. After that, they are treated the same. Duos and Groups tend to have a larger difference in game play.

[oblique wind]

There's an important distinction between
A)two people do more than one person
and
B) two people playing X total hours do more than one person playing X hours.

(A) is much less a problem than (B). Even in situation (A), there is simply more product being sold, which naturally entices customers.

Why did you feel that you were pushed out of the market? Were you not making money anymore?

making profit anymore*

My ideal world is where there is enough demand that a solo player can log in, work a couple hours, and still be able to sell their stuff and make money, even IF a company is selling 10x. So long as you get to play your game 🙂

[lost olive]

Because I couldn't source the electrical components quick enough as they were always sold out or massively expensive, by the time I could make one or two 'big' things, the company had one or two of every 'big' thing in stock - I couldn't price match at a certain point as I was struggling to make a profit from it with the amount of effort needed to do my skill

[oblique wind]

Did said company(ies) have extra skills, that is, company tax? Like you have 4 skills but they have 5 skills, pay a tax, but still make the electrical components and just don't sell them on the market?

[lost olive]

I never saw any electrical components from that company on the market

[oblique wind]

Were you buying it at the same price or higher than everyone else on the market? And if so, would you have still made profit?

I'm not trying to "blame" but ask the right questions so people can see intrinsic problems

[lost olive]

I was buying it at the same price as everyone else, but due to shortages, I was buying it at a higher price than I wanted to, to be able to compete on the market. I was able to make minimal profits, but I never had a surplus of money - Almost all the money I earned from my products were spent on sourcing more materials for the same product etc.

The company was able to pay for A LOT of work parties also that I couldn't - so they were also able to work party resources they couldn't personally make - with them having a higher income, they were able to afford multiple work parties across multiple skills; obviously, I couldn't financially compete - This cycle I ended up taking at least 5/6 loans (which I paid back) just to be able to do the gameplay that brought me fulfilment

[oblique wind]

Aren't there some crafting journeys in late-game stuff where profession A makes an item, sells it to profession B, which makes another item, which then sells it to A who makes the final item? So it gets taxed more than once from sales?

If so, then company scaling tax is not enough to offset that

[lost olive]

Yeah the fibreglass I think is like that

[oblique wind]

What stopped you from work partying? If it was profitable for them, it would be for you, too, right?

[lost olive]

I couldn't afford it XD

[oblique wind]

Did your stuff sell?

Is it possible there was a pricing issue? Keep in mind, a lot of profit is often just labor of getting raw resources, so it's possible they outmined

[lost olive]

Yeah, my stuff sold as thankfully some people saw the company was really wealthy and came to me to try and distribute the wealth - However, at a certain point, I was struggling to have a good housing bonus/ food bonus, and I was pretty much operating on demand. Every time I priced something this cycle, 5 minutes later I was undercut. It continued like this for a LONG time until I complained and it kinda stopped.

I even lowered my prices to sell at base cost, just to test the waters, and I was still undercut ahaha

And ofc they could out mine me, they claimed large chunks of the desert, had a mining mule who only had 1 skill and barely any housing bonus - so it was easy for them to have someone mining for iron with minimal cost while I was mining for iron having to continue eating at a 50+ nutritional value

[oblique wind]

You are certainly at a disadvantage, but it would be just about a first that late-game stuff was selling for near-0 profit. Those things have such high margins it is insane.
I don't know how much labor crafting stuff takes, but the mining mule thing really is something nice.

Sadly to make any lasting case here, I think we'd need to come with the receipts of how it was impossible to play the game. If you can show the math involved that shows you litearlly could not make money, perhaps they will reevaluate

But I gave up on the hope that we would nerf companies a long time ago. That's why I only try to target the dumb 2 star exemption

[lost olive]

I don't have the energy to make a formal case tbh - It's a game at the end of the day and I intend to play for fun. I did have a LOT of fun this cycle don't get me wrong. I just was so excited to make it to end game and make some of the exciting stuff and wasn't even able to do that because what remained of the player base had already bought the industry things they needed

It's funny actually because I'd say almost 70/80% of my profits were made selling to the university ahaha

[oblique wind]

yeah. the demand in the game, even with lasers, is just too low. 1 or 2 hardcore players from each profession can supply the entire lasers. The real "difficulty" is the gov affording it.

on a side note, I would prefer people make little to no profit. I hate the click-a-button-make-50 to 100% profit. Even at 0 "profit" you make money by gathering raw resources and contributing

[lost olive]

I was just shocked that basic engineering papers this cycle sold for more than engineering moderns XD

[oblique wind]

Perhaps Dennis will bless me with his viewpoint and clarify this. I think in the previous conversation/thread he had said that 2-star exemption being removed for duos would ruin the gameplay/experience of duo players

Ah, here: #1248093436687548496 message

[wise kraken]

Tbf is your solo ans competing with2 people in the same field. Regarless you'll have struggle keeping up. Reaching out to people or suppliers for deals might help you more then you think

Especially if they play a lot

[lost olive]

I thought you weren’t allowed to reach out for deals as that’s technically collaborative and not allowed?

[wise kraken]

You are allowed to make deals. They just can't be closed to public

People talk all the time about what skill they will use and where they will be located. Cooperation in order to tackle a goal isn't collaboration. If I want to make sure I have X amount of good by this time. I can seek someone to help reach this quota. You can discuss maybe a rebate for offering such a large amount. The problem is if you are doing this in a closed market and not allow other people to also pitch in.

Contracts have always been welcomed on WT. You need to make sure that anyone as access to any deals or orders you might have.

It starts being collaboration if you do contracts base on mutual benefits within a closed market. You are "helping" someone and accepting a lost because of a X factor starts to look bad. From my experience WT wants everyone to have a fair game, just make sure what you do isn't limited or targetting only a few

Company exist so that people can share this "closed market" benefits

[unreal nest]

As in you can ask for a lower price on a product but they will have to change it in their store

[lost olive]

But in that respect then, two people within a company reaching out to others for deals, to which they can be online over a wider spread of time, again is another benefit to a company and not the solo experience ahaha

[wise kraken]

Talking about wps or sales deal?

what exacly is the "solo experience" ?

[noble hull]

just a reminder to read up on the unfair competition law if you feel you are being pushed/forced out the market

[lost olive]

If you read the thread so far, I've given my thoughts and examples to what I deem to be my solo experience, you can gather it from that?

[wise kraken]

"wanting to be useful and help develop the server" has some confliction with competition.
You are stating wanting to feel like you have an impact or you want to succeed in your own goals?
Production and merchandizing is something we all can do. It is part of what we can do on eco.

From what I see you are referring your impact of the market ver people that have more time/man power.

There isn't any competition in a 1 ver 2. You don't go to a boxing match to see 2 dudes fight 1 dude.

If your goal as stated at the start is to be useful, You can be extremely useful to a miner and a smelter. Or the combo. You can't rely on the open market and what people sell things on there. I always see thousands of iron bars, gold bars and coppers sit and rot at the end of the day.

If you need to be on top of the market. If you notice something is selling to high TALK to the seller. Make conversation. It isn't collaboration to convince someone to reduce their prices. (only if they do it just for you). People are afraid of connecting and being a "business man".

A salesman isn't going to make sales by complaining their competitor as more people. Capatilism is a hard game, and an regulated open market is also. You can still excell at it. It is just really hard as you need to do many things compare to "friends" or people that already have that connection and just form a company

I personally do my "part" of the game by tackling the "weak" market. Like if something is selling to high I start talking to people and have fun bringing it down. That is my "part". We all have a part. You might want to tackle so many things, I personally don't even understand how people can do more then 1 proffession as a solo player

I feel this is about wanting to jump in a boxing ring, where you are facing 2-3 people and you want the ref to cuff them up or like give you a sword so that you can have a "fair" match.

I would personally just not take that fight. I would focus on how I can influence the market instead

[smoky lily]

Honestly, last cycle was the first time I played this and only time I felt competitive was when everyone was complaining about oil products so badly they were selling them to 5 euro and then increased the price to 10, and only reason I was able to be competitive in the composites market was because I bought all the oil products at 5 euro from the few people that didn't raise the price, allowing me to sell for cheaper than a company that was producing their own plastic for Composites.

[karmic lava]

I would personally just not take that fight.
Exactly, and this is what I do. I take Gathering/Logging/Mining/Hunter, and that's it. I don't try to take any crafting profession because it's pointless, I simply buy the compagnies production.

Is it a good thing through? I think it's awful personally but with WT it is what it is.

[unreal nest]

I think that cooking is one of the few skills where having more people doesnt always mean it is better as any one cook can then change the economy such as i did this cycle for baking and advanced baking.

[wise kraken]

I think you are missing the point. You can do production, like stated, it is a problem when you try to do production and other skills at the same time.
You are still fighting other people with more time and manpower. So speciallizing is better. You can do Mechanic only and do fine. Or even do industry. The problem is that people want things done for them. You will need to be going out and push your industry. Setting up a shop and following the market... you are just rolling the dice and hoping for good will.

[karmic lava]

That solve the food cost, not the vertical integration benefits (taxe, invisible price fixing, scarcity...) nor the reuse of asset (table & module). And everything else I miss.

I don't have a pratical solution, I just give you the state I feel we are.

[rugged patrol]

I have a few ideas for this. 1. A small company tax on the 2nd star(like 2 to 5%) so they make less per unit, but make up in quantity.
2. Food subtotal be averaged out for company members, increasing cost to a company for taking high end skills. Hopefully food market can handle it.
3. Not getting full ubi for each member, as it helps stack money for them when they need it less.
4. Could we either give companies 12 claims per member, or give solos 20 each? This would help balance out the insane size a company can get day 1, meaning they tend to not need to buy any claims unless farming.
In short, reduce the benefits from having a bunch of people in 1 group, while still giving them benefits from the economics of scale from the larger workforce

[acoustic moth]

I'm still surprised you're making that many thoughts about something I already confirmed to be a politically intended thing the last time we discussed.

Our goal is to incentivize playing as a duo (from both directions) and especially retaining the interest of duos to play and make them able to without too much hassle. We do not consider duo's anywhere as problematic as groups from their typical behaviour already - the more members a company has the more likely they are to have a detrimental group mindset, which is the actual problem leading to all others.

Eco is a game with cooperative intent and WT isn't supposed to sacrifice core ideas of the game to squeeze out the last bit of on that scope barely measurable equality / equity to reach a solo with solos experience. Bringing a friend or partner when starting a new multiplayer game is absolutely common and I value their ability to do so without too much fuss higher than the potential positive effect on economy when they would need to take the company tax hit immediately without the option to have grace time to decide on their second star and grow into the game and the special regulations.

There will never be equality between people that play alone and such that play with more people, as that requires taking the fun out of something as natural as playing with friends and then there still is benefits as long as people play together in any way as any part of being more people is ultimately an advantage when the goal is comparison to a solo player. But that is not our goal.

The struggle is pretty moot, in the end it is not about equality nor equity, neither of that is reachable without making one or the other style of playing feel bad to do for some. People on all sides being unhappy, but the amount of people not wishing to play located at a minimum is the best outcome you can realistically get. Everytime a push is made in a direction, you are again making the game less interesting for some and noone here (including me) is able to show the exact effects in each direction without a year long case study.

But to move into any direction, not only would the change need to be net positive, it may also not overly punishing on one side to keep diversity.

So any reasonable change needs to yield a notable positive bump in happiness for either side, while the negative bump in the other side must be pretty low compared to the other bump. And all that needs to be clear enough before doing it, as we have an established, fighted through balance that led to a general social peace that we're not willing to easily threaten for a little trial and error.

The solo vs. coop struggle has never been in the concept, but always on the meta level and it is everywhere in Eco and outside. Which becomes pretty apparent with it being a server rule as well. It's a different scope with different goals to begin with compared to the ingame concept that works with who is there. This decides who is going to be there.

[karmic lava]

I can understand the "we need to welcome the mentor + mentored" thing but maybe a progressive tax on the numbre of people in the company (in addition to the existing skills tax) would diminish the companies bad effects. It could be very moderate at 2, and ramp up quickly after that.

[wise kraken]

I think the main thing is that it was never about the "solo experience" but how we can all work cooperatively to create a unique experience. Wouldn't hindering or preventing a style of play be bad? If there was a drive to boost solo play. I would rather see a possitve thing happen for that style over hindering other styles

[lost olive]

I mean, it still stands, companies already can massively hinder a solo player, so we're valuing companies over soloists - is essentially what I'm getting at/ understanding

[noble hull]

and that is prevented by law. if you don't take them to court or at least tell a prosecutor, if there is one, to look at it that's on you.
i already mentioned it before in here. read up on the law and use it.

[lost olive]

People keep saying 'read up on the law' or 'It's the law' - I have no clue where the law to read is. I find the discord really awkward to navigate because there's so much to it. Also, which specific law?

[noble hull]

#white-tiger in the stickies. as mentioned before the unfair competition part

[lost olive]

I wasn't sure what you meant by stickies, but I had a look around and found it, so on this server under 'Unfair Competition' there is 'abusing one's market power to impair a competitor's market participation ability' - What would be an example of this? Price gouging?

[noble hull]

yes

[acoustic moth]

No, you just have a different opinion. The current balance already cut multiple people out that no longer play here due to restrictiveness. Solo's already have the lead. I see no special rules for solos at all, while anyone wanting to do something very natural - play with friends - has to read through an additional three page document and follow even more rules + gets taxation to prevent vertical integration benefits from strategic play. You want to add more restrictions to play, not based on strategic options solo's don't have, but solely on the fact that more people are more people, e.g. the very point why those others play the game to begin with - which actively discourages playing with multiple people, something we don't actually want to do. It is reasonable to not allow groups to make use of verticial integration, it is much less reasonable to punish them for just playing with friends, everyone forced to the same skills.

The current balance is that companies need to either all take the same skills or have heavily diminished economic possibilities in favour of economy protection for solo's and that solo's in return live with the natural fact that more people naturally are more people. I don't see too many options to change something here anymore (beyond adjusting the tax on the cases it currently applies to, which is not what people brought up here, as it is about cases where tax doesnt apply) that wouldn't skew the balance notably.

You're still only looking at the concept part, despite my response purposefully having been about the meta part. Any alteration of the deal cuts people out that are no longer willing to play based on the restriction level.

We can easily and immediately get equity, just ban all companies. Then we have many people no longer playing here. But it's (your) fair. We could do that, I'm just not willing to. I want people to be able to play here with friends, as Eco intended. Despite my best efforts to make it look like a real life country, it is actually still a game that people should be able to play in many different ways 😄

I already nailed down what any change requires:
"So any reasonable change needs to yield a notable positive bump in happiness for either side, while the negative bump in the other side must be pretty low compared to the other bump. And all that needs to be clear enough before doing it, as we have an established, fighted through balance that led to a general social peace that we're not willing to easily threaten for a little trial and error."

I can't play here with my friends myself anymore, as the restrictions for them are too much. Once a year I secretly play with a buddy in a duo, otherwise we play on a different server I host or we play something else - I don't play Eco solo, it's boring to me. When I have solo-time I play a singleplayer rpg. When others are here, I want to enjoy time with them. My buddy wouldn't play anymore if the situation for duos would get even worse. And we certainly weren't of the bad ugly company type, given that company of friends founded this server, including all the principles of fairness that are valid though massively extended here. (To the degree that we stopped playing on our own server we paid, to make people as happy as possible with limitations when it still was a private server)

The impact on solos is decisively different depending on how a group plays. But being under heavy restrictions for simply doing what everyone else does in other games without anyone batting an eye is frustrating, especially when it limits your options to play together. That makes people to simply not want to play anymore. Something that is barely regarded at all when people do the natural yearly companies feedback thread.

[noble hull]

an interesting thing i'd like to know is the ratio in continuation of using basic skills between solo and company. i can't imagine many solo players that continue to farm wood or rocks to feed the chain where a company can and does.

[acoustic moth]

Now we could of course just have an additional tax based on amount of people, but I am unsure why any of my friends would be inclined to play when they need to pay taxes just for being 10 people when they sell a few things to get food as we never played with a dedicated food producer, as our goal coming from Minecraft is building big monuments. And all that when we already only sell stuff we absolutely need for basic money to not upset anyone, aside of when people request something to be sold. It's just massive felt hostility.

I would be much more inclined to have a reputation system for company behaviour determining taxation levels compared to that - "good", helpful, self-restricting company gets A+, competetive capitalists get F. On one hand we're supposed to pay taxes to not pull over the market, even when having all the same skills, but at the same time we need to purchase food, as we did all take the same skills. But to do that we need to sell something to get the food. But that is taxed heavily. How are such people supposed to play? Need to buy food due to not vertically integrating but because of heavy taxation based on playercount can't do so without spending major amount of time to produce something to still get enough income (instead of investing the time for what they came for, building), potentially even leading to monopolizing these goods we need to sell many to offset the tax, then being looked at angrily, despite only doing so as it necessary 😄 Of course becomes even better when there is a average minimum food level that everyone needs to eat, because someone makes Ashlar blocks for nice greek builds. Now we need to finance late tier food for everyone.

Not every company is here to have the biggest amount of money on the accounts

[rugged patrol]

While I can agree we don't want to overdo it, a 6 man farming corp gets so many claims it is near impossible to compete after day 3, and full ubi for 6 is very strong when they will naturally have more income. Giving solos 4 more claims, or only getting part ubi for the second person on a company I don't think would be restrictive.

Alternatively, do we need to rethink companies and have 2 different types of town?

[runic swan]

What? Why different towns?

[rugged patrol]

A smaller town radius that could have 100 tax on citizens, shares resources and pays tax as a town? How much of a company rules could be put onto a town?

[runic swan]

Computer towns aren’t allowed

Company*

[rugged patrol]

Is it time to make a 'village' that could use existing systems but could replace the complex companies?

[runic swan]

Companies aren’t complex tho. Adding an entire new settlement level would be writing a mod adding a level that’s outside the base game expected level. It would also require us rewriting the laws and constitution as settlements have specific duties and rights. A company would have far more power this way.

[wise kraken]

I feel town's already provide a huge advantage towards solo gamers. A way for them to aid each other within the context of cooperation

Road development and laws that supplement local area is a big plus to any solo players seeking a location

As you don't need to wait for the feds for a global infrastructure

[acoustic moth]

Well, probably the first time someone suggests to give solos something more than restricting the other side

[acoustic moth]

We do have companies because the idea of towns is specifically not "owning" them 😄

[karmic lava]

There is at least 2 anti-solo bias on WT: food requirement & bad tax.

Food requirement make solo waste good food when they need to put calories on a low requirement job. Companies have a trick they can use to not waste good food by distributing works between player. Solo can't, because you have added a food requirement without adding "side stomachs" where player could resplenish different stomachs with different foods so they could not waste good food. But we don't have that (or any other solution to that). Sadly.

Same with tax, where badly implemented VAT/sales tax (and I doubt we can implement it correctly in Eco with laws) will simply tax everything sold, without substracting the input/investment costs. When companies are verticality integrated (not fully, but at least partialy, in the limit to not be taxed. Sorry Dennis but when you says there is laws to prevent vertical integration it is badly misleading: you can take different but complementary professions inside a companies reducing the need to buy anything to nearly 0, without having any special tax at all) they will be less taxed than a solo that buy everything (at least, more than a company).

I fully understand your point of not making Eco unfun (it should be a game, not a job, and WT is already too much a hasle to play on because of the complexity it already have, even when not in a company) but right know, WT do have problems, and some specificities already here (like food requirement) make other (like companies) worse. The balancing around all of these things is really hard, and I persist to say that most jobs are fondamentaly a waste to take for any solo. I hope someone can find a solution for this, again I unfortunatly don't have one myself.

[unreal nest]

i mean vertical integration will always be there as i could pick as a solo butchery farming baking and advanced baking which will cover all my costs basically this doesnt mean that i dont see what you are saying as in they can take that extra skill different for which they get taxed at 20% i know many people who succeed as solos even though companies may have more money to invest earlier that money and profit is also shared. If you figure out a route to take being a solo can be very fortuitus its not just abpout yourself as well its about getting to know your suppliers for materials and who you are selling the product to. As this can allow you to generate further throughput and even reach better deals for yourself on items.

[wise kraken]

I still don't understand your perspective or goal. It is not like we pocket the euro at the end of the day or getting paid for our time playing. The concept of; "they are more efficient", or "they can avoid certain burden that others have comes natural to being organized/grouped up". baffles me, like why is this so important to your game play?

There is a fixation on Euro efficiency or effort efficiency. Where does this come from? 100% you succeed in any profession as a solo. It is done every, single, cycle. There are solo industries, solo mechs, solo cooks, solo oil drilling.

That fixation over stuff that as 0 impact on what you can do and cannot do only creates a negative tone to your own gameplay. Group play doesn't hurt your play style. What it hurts is your perception over the situation.

No one here is telling you to sell or purchase from other people. No one is asking you to compete against others. We can be supportive on certain playstyles and what people enjoy doing. I just fail to understand as why and what does any of this stop you from playing the game the way YOU want to do it.

Why does someone's else playstyle as so much impact on you?

[acoustic moth]

"you can take different but complementary professions inside a companies reducing the need to buy anything to nearly 0"

To the degree a solo can, indeed.

That is no unfair benefit.

And beyond that, tax hits. And the purpose of the tax is to progressively keep companies away from the market the more they can produce on their own. So the literal point of companies at tax rates of 80-90 or more percent is that they do no longer participate in the market, but can still play.

So when one company again yells how the tax fucks their market play up, that is literally what is supposed to happen.

[unreal nest]

Yea if im im honest there isnt always that big of benefit to being in the company as they have to share those skills and more a less do the same thing whereas a solo has no repercussions for experimenting and trying some other skills, they seem a way just to allow friends to work together collaboratively and even then if one person leaves all that responsibility falls to that other person.

[acoustic moth]

So they can do their stuff, but on their own. Not great, but allows them to play. Just as we want the hermit that doesnt communicate or trade and just builds their home at the rear end of the world to be able to play as well, which is why we have some restrictions on what laws can do to people. (And one reason why there is UBI)

[unreal nest]

I mean in my own proffesion i did manage to outcompete a company but that was my idea of being able to put lower prices and larger volumes but i would have made more from matching the company

[acoustic moth]

And probably other stuff also plays a role, when I look at 400 housing points weylin. But that is because he's good at the excel game.

Also food requirement and company tax have been here for like four years. And it worked well so far, so I'm surprised suddenly its extremely worse with no evident reason.

[unreal nest]

I mean the thing is most these people i see then going into these companies are these experienced players who want to play together with the people they have met playing the game so then its just more experienced v less experienced

[cyan ridge]

Ultimately Torne got forced out of the market because his major completion was more fully vertically integrated, having electronics internally where he did not.

[acoustic moth]

That's the companies you see. Some of them are competetive, others less so. But there is other companies as well, which we can attest to with new players joining WT and bugging GM's for company issues every cycle.

[unreal nest]

that was the company that had someone with 5 skills but then another with like 1

[acoustic moth]

If the company had 0% tax, that means he could have had the exact same skills, though.

[unreal nest]

they were perfectly optimised to outcompete everyone else

[acoustic moth]

If the company didn't have 0% tax, they had a notable disadvantage on the market. One that in the rules says can be adjusted when it isnt sufficient as well. But noone so far has argued that the tax is not sufficient.

[unreal nest]

yeah one had 5 skill one had like 1 or 2

[cyan ridge]

To a degree, yeah, but Shared housing is more material efficent then solo housing, you could argure you could build extra housing and rent it... but its a factor

And the low skill low food muel for a company is the other factor people keep pointing out

[unreal nest]

i mean the highest housing i got to was 100 and i barely ever did housing

[acoustic moth]

Anyone gets bonuses at 2-3 residents, after that there is massive diminishing returns.

Solos can rent out their homes as well, that was the purpose of 2-3 residents.

[cyan ridge]

yeah, but i think companies just building the house collaboratively and keep it all internal, vs a solo having to either rent from someone else, or build extra and find renters, is a meaningful difference.

[acoustic moth]

Yes, a very natural one if you play with friends.

[lapis anchor]

A lot of solos get crushed by companies in the first few days anyways.

[acoustic moth]

I can't offset every little thing that naturally happens because people have friends.

No solo is hindered to play in a company either!?

It is super weird that solos think that companies are the devil and everyone should play alone so everything is perfectly fair into atomic level.

People play the game to have fun - friends are fun.

[cyan ridge]

I like companies, I would never have gotten my two friends to play on WT without them, but I do see them make a few solo people quit every cycle, how it all balences out in what gets players on the server, i have no clue.

[acoustic moth]

We step in where they play to diminish other peoples fun.

[unreal nest]

nah i think companies are fun if 1 person is not on i can ask their other company members to do a task

[cyan ridge]

I think the bigger issue to tackle is not really companies, but strong vertical integration

[unreal nest]

there are definitely a few skills where people do i get annoyed when companies do it but that is how it is

[unreal nest]

any solo could do the similair intergration anyway

[lapis anchor]

Not in the first 3 days

[cyan ridge]

yeah, but if you want to just dabble into say oil drilling, but someone else has oil drilling and glassmaking, you really cant ever sell fiberglass... things like that.

[unreal nest]

i suppose but most i saw were mining companies including the one torne got annoyed at which both went mining day 1

[acoustic moth]

There is a few suggestions that can be looked into, like having diminished paper returns for companies or making them only available gradually over the cycle so they can't plop 100x100. Likely the same for UBI. But things like require an average food is super bureaucratic, which diminishes fun even more if you need to file tax papers because you have friends and also has the odd relation I explained with my personal friend group above, especially when a sole number of employees tax comes on top.

[unreal nest]

buff solos instead of restricting companies if anything

[acoustic moth]

The fact there is some highly optimized companies doesn't mean we can treat every company as if they were highly optimized and would preplan everything in a excel sheet before entering the game.

Maybe additional to the fairness constant a experience constant ...

[lapis anchor]

All I know is, when 24/7 goes Logging + Shipwright, solo shipwright have 0 chance on the market unless we let them. We have inhouse hewn logs, they have to purchase them elsewhere and transport them, cause noone brings anything the first weekend. I dont have to build a house, Stubborn doesn, I dont need to get food, Stubborn does, he just queues Hull planks and goes off, while I clear the surrounding area of trees.

If a solo shipwright wants to enter the market vs a logger+shipwright duo, who are at 0% company tax, its only because they allow them to enter the market.

[acoustic moth]

We already announced that duo exception is only for duos in the future (as I had assumed it would have been all the time, lol). And if you are a competetive duo, so be it, I can't change that. Most duos are not.

[lapis anchor]

We aren't that competitive, we usually are the most expensive so solos can undercut us and play the game, but if we min-maxed, it would be hell for them.

[acoustic moth]

So a D on the fairness scale

[lapis anchor]

Many loggers do quit and right before they do, they ask how we can be so rich and they are so poor.

Honest to god, ive had that conversation a lot.

[unreal nest]

lol

[acoustic moth]

Companies aren't only for the usual well known suspects with thousands of hours of game experience. But we cannot treat the average company you don't even realize exists as a company where everyone immediately knows the name.

[cyan ridge]

Logging shipwrite has to be the most broken duo considering the early need from everyone for hull planks.

[unreal nest]

i mean i have big plans for what im doing next cycle and i suppose most companies plan stuff a lot

[runic swan]

Just to be sure. Dennis, would a law in game beable to treat companies different then non-companies outside of the company tax rate?

[lapis anchor]

Im not saying nerf companies (hard) but I do understand where solos are coming from and that some honestly can not enter a market.

[cyan ridge]

In my reading of the law, no, because companies are an "ethical play style" I was thinking of that.

[acoustic moth]

You are required to do that.

[acoustic moth]

I can't fix every edge case that is highly dependant on organizational ability, game experience and personal competetiveness interest factor.

[runic swan]

I meant any other law the treats a company different then non-companies. Not talking about companytaxrate which is suppose to be applied.

[acoustic moth]

I can of course just ban you two, so the problem is solved, but that seems unfair

[lapis anchor]

You would set us lose on Giant Panda?

[runic swan]

Just trying to see if people can attempt to solve indifferences in game without needing an out of game solution

[acoustic moth]

Do you have the same rules for corporations and self employed people in the US!?

[runic swan]

Dont think so tbh

[acoustic moth]

That might be because they are not equal and hence cannot be treated equal ...

[runic swan]

Gotcha, yall understand that right?

[acoustic moth]

The problem is how to only nerf exactly your use case. A company that either does take a different skill combination, does not have your experience or is not interested in competition should not be nerfed, while you are nerfed.

How to?

[lapis anchor]

Yeah thats a very good question

If you bring exhaustion to Wt, you know Stubborn and myself will be gone 😄

[acoustic moth]

Any added bureaucracy will affect both companies the same. But for you it might be a challenge so you still get best outpout out, but the less experienced company will have much more diminished returns, as they do not. Or might simply no longer play, as their line on bureaucratic stuff they are willing to take to be able to play with a friend is crossed at that point.

[lapis anchor]

Yeah and raising company tax wont do anything, removing 1 UBI wont rally hurt as much.

[cyan ridge]

Could someone make a town called "Solotopia" and pass some law that stated "if action by person in company --- prevent" or some such sweeping law?

[runic swan]

Pervent? I dont think so

[lapis anchor]

Could a PM run an anti-company campaign to make companies have higher taxes?

even the same skill 0% company tax ones

[acoustic moth]

No, that is discrimination.

But of course you can treat companies different where that is necessary because they are not equal to self-employement.

[cyan ridge]

I assumed you had to treat companies the same where possible, so hearing you say otherwise, now im trying to find the line

[acoustic moth]

"They are dirty, we don't play with them" is obviously no application of equal treatment.

[cyan ridge]

But i would think any additional tax, or burden in any way would violate equal treatment.

so what law could be passed that would treat them differently, while not violating equal treatment?

[acoustic moth]

The tax on companies is already determined by the rules, so no. But that doesn't hinder you to adjust any sort of benefits and other legislation based on if they should be treated equal because they are equal or rather not, because they are not.

However there was once supposed to be a variable modifier for company tax settable by parliament, I just think that was too complicated or noone had looked, not sure

The moment I allow people to set extra company taxes we have the same problem in-game that I have just explained for rules.

95% of legislation will be unconstitutional because it fails to discern between companies, given there is a major difference based on their amount of people, behaviour, skills taken and experience.

And if we can't find a good way, I doubt someone finds a good way ingame where the bars are much higher, as I can just magically do what I want with the rules, not needing to follow anything but my conscience.

[lapis anchor]

Yeah very true. Hard to find a solution that is fair and doesnt hurt the party people to the point of quitting.

[acoustic moth]

And it will ultimately do good job to get rid of them permanently, as nothing is more annoying than hence and forth in a notable way without any knowledge what does happen to you just because you play with friends.

Company tax being in the rules means everyone can decide do they want to play under these clear given circumstances, yes or no.

That is already answerd "no" by people, and others answer "no" the moment they realize ingame how it does actually work when not having read the document.

Add on that a freely changable mechanic at any point on top.

Fun, very fun.

But I'm just not willing to burden the average company doe jumping around with friends doing some stuff and likely quitting after two weeks to cut the two extreme optimized companies.

Then as I noted I'd rather have a law specifically targeting people with extreme experience or competetive behaviour.

Which becomes arbitrary, but at least hits the actual problems.

[lapis anchor]

The spectrum of companies is just so wide so when trying to get the super effective ones in line will destroy the casual companies.

[acoustic moth]

Well companies are simply playing with friends. For what reason, how good they are, how much time they invest and how they behave towards others is not categorized in that.

It's just "Friends are with you"

[unreal nest]

i mean the one torne got annoyed at also won the needs help category (hours played)

[acoustic moth]

Also we have had solos that had no issue being better than the average small company of new players or just dealing with themselves as well.

[acoustic moth]

Well, we do at least have some support system for people playing less. But I guess enabling exhaustion is still not seen favourable here either 🙃

[lapis anchor]

That would be a killer on WT 😄

[acoustic moth]

My point I have already made, though. I'm happy to take into account suggestions that understand that this is a very fine line given it is about who is going to play at all to begin with and that understands that companies are not a coherent mass, but currently all company rules apply equally to all of them based on metrics that do not take into account most of the individuality of companies. So suggestions should simply directly take that into account, so it's easier to actually assess them. But a change that impedes the 400 housing company a bit so it itches their challenge scratch and makes solos a bit happier is not worth it, when the less tiered companies get the same rules and are proportionalyl more affected by it due to not having the means of the experienced guys and multiple drop out completely because playing with friends became as fun as the yearly tax paper work with your partner.

(Which for some companies seem to be fun, as working around things is their thing)

The average doe on WT afaik still thinks that stuff here could be a tad bit less complex, though.

[wise kraken]

Would forcing a company to take the same skills be unfun? Ig so

[acoustic moth]

That is what we had before the tax

[wise kraken]

people complained I assume?

[acoustic moth]

No, they just voted with their feet.

I did complain though.

[wise kraken]

Forcing that might help the problem with mixed skills

To my eyes it would suck to be a logging against 5 man logging company. So there is never a win win. I don't think we can really adress this to please everyone

[runic swan]

Forcing gameplay is just unfun

A nudge is fine in my books

like the company tax nudges companies to play with the same skills. Doesnt stop them if they choose not to tho.

[acoustic moth]

I do neither, it also seems people sometimes forget that when they leave this server there is only a few other options that try to achieve the same or the servers that ban group play completely (which has never been our goal when we talk all day about trying to get as many different people on the same server as possible). Anywhere else it's free stomping. So complaining is on a pretty high level.

[wise kraken]

Yeah, but also there is nothing that stops people to be selective to where they want to buy their goods. If you don't support the big company, nothing stops people to talk to there local producers

it is a social game after all

[acoustic moth]

Yes, that's why people voted on their feet and came back when the tax was implemented, as it at least allowed them to play, even if that meant that their market participation ability is rather limited. Later many also adjusted to it and became more fine with not integrating vertically as much. But if you just show them the finger, then they show it back. Force doesn't lead to behavioural change either, typically.

Also forcing that again wouldn't address the feedback here, which is mostly about perceived benefits from just being more people, even with all the skills the same.

[wise kraken]

There is nothing that stops government to help with it either. Like rebate tax if you buy at a lower tier to produce end game stuff

A lot of this stuff could be addressed federally or township

[dawn dew]

I think a lot of this is coming from almost everyone living on the same continent this cycle so everyone was effectively competing with each other instead of having oceans separating more people

[wise kraken]

The big continents didn't help. Honestly if there was more landmass it would also help a lot with local production. As logistics/running to the other side of the world would create a burden

[noble hull]

what i have gathered that the main complaint is, i can of course be completely wrong in understanding, is in regards to these 2 points in the law.

abusing one’s market power to impair a competitor’s market participation ability; trading goods or services or offering rentals for payments notably diverging from fair market value without reasonable justification;

that is something we as players can fix without hurting anyone except the meant target. now i do realise law isn't for everyone but in a way it's first a problem that local or higher governments can address.
problems like that can indeed be solved by talking with the right people inside the scope of the white tiger game settings.

[oblique wind]

I think companies are super close to being perfect. I realize I never proposed a policy.
My proposal
-is a flat 5% tax to companies on top of the company scaling tax
-remove the 2-star exemption.
I don't think these are prohibitive, and are in line with the arguments used to justify the company scaling tax and statements made elsewhere.

[oblique wind]

Except for the 2-star exemption early on when the most fun is had and markets are established. Sorry if I missed it again, but I've not seen an argument for the 2-star exemption, and that's been the only concrete policy proposed here.

[acoustic moth]

#1349376879794327552 message

[oblique wind]

The 20% scaling tax per extra star is sufficient for extra stars. I propose a flat 5% tax is needed to offset calorie mules. It should probably be 10%, but I'll just say 5%.
Edit: Also of course the 2-star exemption removal

[oblique wind]

I don't see the 2star exemption explicitly addressed, so I assume you believe
-removing the 2star exemption would create a hassle and
-that it is not considered to be problematic?

[icy folio]

#1349376879794327552 message

youd be punishing potential "good acting" companies for those bad actors

[oblique wind]

Thanks. Yeah, that's a bad habit of mine, replying as I go down the thread as I catch up. I should read the entire thing before replying.

[acoustic moth]

Sorry, it was all about the 2-star exemption. I don't have the time to repeat what I already said a few times. It's fine if you disagree, but we're not going to change that.

[oblique wind]

The 2-star exemption is necessarily a more complex feature. It's simpler to not have an exemption.

[acoustic moth]

Sometimes I feel like I'm speaking chinese

Come on, don't tell me my post contained nothing about two star exemption, when it was ALL about that

That's not even funny anymore, sorry lol

[rugged patrol]

yeah, the 2 star exemption can't go, else companies become pointless. I would be happy with reducing ubi per person in companies(they need free cash less) and solo players getting 20 claims at start (most solo players outside farming won't go above 20, helps with claim issue and give solo's a little closer in land day 1)

unless, it is possible to prevent people in a company taking different skills 1st 24 hours, so they have to wait a day before they can get their 2nd skill to go hard VI?

[oblique wind]

I realize I can be frustrating to deal with, and I apparently did not read what you said carefully enough. I was looking for key words and not actually digesting it, and then following up with questions to be repeated again. I am sorry and will spend more time reading, as doing otherwise is disrespectful of your time.

[acoustic moth]

All I ask for is reading what I said, I must live with people disagreeing, but you literally said the two star exemption would not have been explicitly adressed while basically everything in that post was about it. That is just so otterly confusing 😄

Also worth to read everything else where there was plenty of insight on how there is a difference between in-concept equality goals and rule goals for having a diverse player base and how companies are very little coherent.

[oblique wind]

I do understand this point better after reading the rest of the thread here. I think any further discussion would require me to bring evidence that the 2 star exemption appreciably undermines the fun of solo players.

On a more constructive note, if I made a web app that updated the out-of-date https://thomasfn.github.io/WhiteTiger/company-income-scaling-sim/ would that be of value?

[oblique wind]

Seeing as how taxes are not usually 20% (Edit: and to be in line with keeping balance), I actually would amend this suggetsion to:
-20% tax per extra star --> 15% tax per extra star
-Flat 5% tax

[rugged patrol]

do players in companies each put down their own tent? or does that disappear when they join the company? wondering if solos could be given a couple more food sources to start with, or maybe a handful of seeds?

[runic swan]

They can only have 1

[cyan ridge]

it forces you to pick up your tent

[oblique wind]

Pretty darn sure you can have people put tent down and grab stuff and then pickup amd join after, as I've done that to get the tools at least. I don't think that's necessarily a problem, though

[rugged patrol]

could putting a couple more food stuffs/seeds be possible for solo players?

[runic swan]

They dont get different spanws as far as im away

They, companies, cant just place more then 1 tent cause that spawns the homestead claim

which they arnt allowed to have

[rugged patrol]

are they able to access the tent and empty it of all normal things?

[midnight charm]

Is there any way to apply a 'tip' when a company member purchases an item to balance the VI they have? So if a logging/carpenter etc company member wanted to buy a boat from a shipwright, or limestone statues for example, they would have to pay 5% extra on the asking price to the gov?

[runic swan]

Wa, mandatory tips?

[midnight charm]

yeh, for company memebers only

[runic swan]

Is not a tip then?

[midnight charm]

since they dont need to go out purchasing goods for prodctuon inside there VI, missing lots of tax, if they want other goods they pay a bit extra for them, as a tax

I used 'tip' just to show its the purchaser paying the tax, not the seller. Its not literally a 'thank you for your service' tip

[noble hull]

"so otterly confusing" i saw what you did there 🤭

[acoustic moth]

Sure

[noble hull]

usually companies pay less for goods and services since they require more. getting them to pay more is an interesting thing to try 😈

don't take it serious unless you really are evil

[midnight charm]

well, they always end up with lots of money, main issue Ive seen reading through stuff is VI allows them to get access to rsources, in bulk, without paying intermediary taxes. So why not force them to pay more tax for goods outside their company?

[unreal nest]

I think we should all pay an extra 50% that goes straight to my account

[noble hull]

there were quite a bit of companies that were as poor as the poorest poor.

[acoustic moth]

But if they do VI beyond what a solo can they already pay company tax ...

[acoustic moth]

Only one homestead can exist to found, often less experienced companies hence only have one set of starter tools unfortunately lol

[karmic lava]

Companies I saw with lot of money also played a lot and had big inventory in their store (which is very attractive to the buyer, less travel to arrive to an empty store :D) so it's not a good point

[lapis anchor]

This happens to Stubborn and myself often 😂

[noble hull]

i think that's what sticks out the most.
solo players with lots of playtime also can afford massive buildings in T5 and whatnot. a company with a few members that have a lot of playtime will stick out. but they are the exception, not the norm.

[rugged patrol]

so in theory if you put a bit more starter food, or maybe some huckleberry seeds in them, it would benefit the solo player more?

[acoustic moth]

No, as experienced can cheese that, just placing the tent, getting the stuff, then removing it.

Before founding

[rugged patrol]

ok, so it can be cheesed. could distribution stations tell solo from company? so only 1 member of a company could access a station?

[noble hull]

through civics it should be possible

although that can still be used before the company is found

[fathom ore]

Do they ? We don’t (me and Elmeye) you’re making assumptions and generalisations because some Companies get richer

[rugged patrol]

what about using credits? each company or solo gets the same amount, and have a small shop that exchanges them for a few extra starting supplies?

could include extra stone tools as an option to help companies, some basic seeds, raw meat etc

[gloomy arrow]

Might have made something work again

[midnight charm]

A solo player cant take carpentry and logging while cutting trees at the speed of 3 and a half loggers immediately, whereas a company of four could do this, while eating dirt cheap food

[acoustic moth]

That's not VI, though.

[midnight charm]

they have no need to buy logs since they are cutting their own supply

[acoustic moth]

As can any solo

[midnight charm]

not the same speed

[acoustic moth]

That's the benefit of playing with others 🤷‍♂️

[midnight charm]

one player with carpentry cant cut logs as effeciently as 3 people logging

and whats the negative to it to balance it?

a tax that isnt being applied at this stage?

[acoustic moth]

There is nothing to balance there, just play in a group as well

Where is that supposed to end? Of course if you play with a friend you have organizational and time advantages.

[midnight charm]

so its ok that a solo player cant compete with organised groups?

[acoustic moth]

But they can 🤷‍♂️

Those slight benefits don't turn the game upside down

Much more relevant in regard to that is if someone is especially experienced and what playtime they have.

Yet noone wants exhaustion or a tax for especially good players

[midnight charm]

I want exhaustion

but I thought white tiger was meant to be an exception to that or something

and tax based on your profit sounds great actually

so if your earning more your paying more like real world taxes

that solves every problem in one

[acoustic moth]

I don't know how the taxation worked last time, but that's typical for a income tax.

[acoustic moth]

Well, the majority so far did not 😄

[lapis anchor]

Lets not get hasty with throwing around the exhaustion setting

[midnight charm]

3hr exhaustion would be nice

[lapis anchor]

I dont want to get other hobbies

[midnight charm]

mandatory siestas for everyone

[runic swan]

Normal tax system is just the sales tax

People can try to do an income one

Thats on them to do it in game tho

[acoustic moth]

That would nerf companies much more than any of the suggestions here - at least those that most complaints here will be about, given people don't notice all the other ones that also drop out like normal players at week 3 but would get disproportinally get hit by any general company measures

[acoustic moth]

Sales tax can also be staggered by amount earned

[runic swan]

yuo

i wanted to try a somewhat anti-vi sales tax but i got pushed back by those who benefit from it the most 😅

[acoustic moth]

Wealth tax and people closing their stores to protest hasn't been there for a while either

[runic swan]

Wouldnt be wealth tax

But yea, havnt seen it in a while. I did it once

Town level tho.

POint being, theres options. People tend to just go for a "simple to write" system that benefits companies more

[midnight charm]

Could you write a law to look at someones Income over a irl 24hr period - UBI/VBI then tax there bank account by a % depending on the total?

[runic swan]

Yes, i prob wouldnt do that tho

[midnight charm]

companies paying you too much I see 😛

[runic swan]

Especially cause i dont see people agreeing on what is an expense as well as knowing what you will be taxed feels better then getting slapped with a progressive tax when you can control it (Not on to do trades yourself).

[midnight charm]

expenses wouldnt matter though would they? your only looking at money into the account, not out, to work out how much tax to apply

[safe merlin]

I initially thought you meant income tax, then I re-read it and saw you meant a wealth tax xD

[runic swan]

Ah

I was going off a income tax

You can wealth tax all ya want

[safe merlin]

you can income tax too, if you wanted lol

[midnight charm]

im confused

[runic swan]

income tax should be a bit more thoughtful. Rule wise you can do it

But it can be harmful if not done correctly

[safe merlin]

An income tax was implemented in the december cycle. It looked at income over the last 24 hours and then charged an progressive tax on the average hourly income.

It had an "expense" deduction - but it was just a flat number. Not trying to figure out how much you actually spent. Think "standard deduction"

For zero-star, it subtracted store expenses from income - but other income like road work was taxable

[midnight charm]

Im imagining a tax like a self employed person would do, where they dont pay tax on their income when they get it, but at the end of the tax year. Except here it would be automated every 24 hrs

I dont know if thats income or wealth

[safe merlin]

It depends. If it just looks at the bank account - wealth. If it looks at the income over 24 hours and is a % of that income - it's an income tax.

The difference is looking at the bank account could be income from yesterday or last week in there that is being taxed "again"

[midnight charm]

ahh, ok. I see. my message earlier was confusing because i said the bank account didnt I

[safe merlin]

ya

[midnight charm]

I meant income tax, and then it takes the money from your bank account every 24 hrs

the amount and % depending on how much you earned in a period I guess. checking every 24hrs in isolation wouldnt really work

[runic swan]

Run for gov and try to push these things.

[safe merlin]

so that's kinda what my law did... you're just looking at changing the period the tax is collected and the period at which it's looked at (i think)

mine collected hourly - rather than daily, and I think it looked at the last 24 hours - but that could be changed to 72 or 96 or some other value

[midnight charm]

Im imagineing someone having a quiet couple days in there shop, then having a booming 24hrs, getting taxed loads, more than if they had spread their sales out

[noble hull]

i liked the income tax. was a good one

[safe merlin]

There was a bit of that - yes, people saw spikes in the income tax and were caught a little off-guard by it :/

[midnight charm]

so yeh, checking hourly would work too, and stop it being a big hit at once,

but I think it needs to be 3 days check minimum

[noble hull]

can use the average income

[midnight charm]

thats what we are suggesting, average over the last 3( maybe more) days instead of the last 24 though

[safe merlin]

^ that's how mine was written. Income over last 24 hours / 24 -> to get the average per hour. Helped smooth it out a little. Could be easily expanded out from 24->72 hours

[midnight charm]

Did you tax different amounts based on thresholds?

or was everyone taxed the same %

[safe merlin]

Yes, it utilized the progressive percent calculation.... I believe I picked the minimum tax at 10% and max at 20% and then divided it into tax tiers based on income amounts

[gloomy arrow]

been there had that tax

[icy folio]

Instead of spending so much time and effort trying to figure out the best way to punish companies have any of the complainers here considered just forming communities (either with each other or those locally around them) to compete with these "unfair" benefits? It seems like Dennis has made it clear here in this conversation that cooperation and community building are key aspirations for the WT model and yet this whole conversation feels like its focused on attacking the enjoyment of others because you dont prefer to play like them.

[mystic bear]

then you just tax any who take a loan

getting money is not bad as long as you use them and not hoad them

last 2 company's I was part of my job was just to cut and move trees and use all the money.

I think I loan 30k or 40k to a town at one point to help them

[fathom ore]

I prefer the idea of wealth and income tax over the let's just tax companies more because they’re a company and I don’t like them type of thinking.

[unreal nest]

I mean that would work as it would force those who have these advantages over the average player whether in a company or not while not restricting just companies

[smoky lily]

I found the loophole custom stat track raw resources gathered like trees limit it to a certain amount and then you solos have the same limit as companies since that tracked stat would be tied to the company instead of each of the company's players.

[old skiff]

That feels just like a targeted exhaustion system with extra steps and it also feels like it goes against what has been stated before that the advantage of manhours a company or a very active player get is is not a problem which i also agree on.

[smoky lily]

It's not an exhaustion system it's an economilogic protection law.

It's to protect the existence and availability of resources across everyone in town.

[old skiff]

I am not denying that it can be both a economial and an exhaustion system. But I think there would be stronger ways to improve the economics like forcing replanting of the trees

Imposing limits on work solely for the sake of restriction feels like nothing more than a system of exhaustion to me. We have restrictions on EP but thats because we have a gamemechanic that punish us if we go above a PPM level. Most of the other resources in the game dont have that hard limit

[smoky lily]

Yeah, I was looking at it as a way to prevent market floods that solo players can't compete with and on the tree side it takes almost 2 days for trees to grow so if a company decides to practically deforest a town leaving solo players to not have ability to compete due to lack of resources around them.

[old skiff]

I retract my statement. I thought I had followed the thread but missed that it was said specifically for the Solotopia case and mistakenly assumed you were making a more general statement.

There are fun ways a Solotopia could implement a community tree farm, where players are only allowed to cut down five trees and must replant them, etc. There could be many different approaches for that town to develop unique playstyles, which could evolve into a very interesting location.

[smoky lily]

So while a solo player is wasting their time getting the raw resources from farther and farther away because of the fast consumption around them the company not only has more people to work on stuff, it also targets independent vertical integration.

[wise kraken]

what is the difference between 2 person company and 1 solo harvesting trees vs 3 solo harvesting trees. Company has nothing to do with what you are talking about. It is just people harvesting trees.

[old skiff]

I could see an argument if the town provide a shared plot, tree farm, mining shaft that you would put a limit for the usage to each economic entity

[smoky lily]

Are you asking me?

[wise kraken]

market flood as nothing to do with company

is it just manpower

same concept if there was the same number of solo players

The fixation of wanting to make stuff "fair" is still silly to me

[smoky lily]

Sure, the difference here is if the manpower is competing with each other or has controlled the market with sheer cooperative manpower because they can out harvest each other.

[wise kraken]

If a Mcdonalds opens up at the corner of the street. Do you think it is Mcdonald's fault that you are opening a budger/fries shop right next to them?

The one that out competes will win the block

[old skiff]

I agree Jnpox on your first point that there has been to much talk about fair competition, the main concern should be is if a company is blocking any other player to take a profession and there has not been any evidence that any company have reached that level of market dominance with VI yet i believe

[wise kraken]

There is also time playing. Someone playing 2 hours a day vs 10 hours will have a heavier impact over manpower

[smoky lily]

Honestly, best way to counteract vertical integration OPness is creating something that looks at profit instead of just income.
And could provide tax rebates based on profit margins.
At the end of the day companies outcompeting solos is the game working as intended.
Problem ends up being solos have a hard time figuring out an economically viable market that there's enough demand or surrender and join a company.

[midnight charm]

could protest the big companies I suppose as solos if they are being oppresive 😂
buy a claim outside and put signs up outside there buildings

[smoky lily]

I could had done that had a ton of signs blocking my inventory.

[lapis anchor]

I also suggest putting a town bell or 2 there.

[smoky lily]

Do I look like 100k+ company?

[storm hull]

Smear campaigns (for example on signs) are shit and ugly and not only affecting the target but also all public negatively. Dont do that.

[cloud cove]

Make companies the same player.
Shared Money, Shared Housing, Shared Skills, Shared Stomach. No Tax, No extra rules. Neither advantages nor drawbacks.

[karmic lava]

Stomach capacity & xp gain would need to be scaled but yes it is a solution that would be very simple and intuitive, much more than what we have now. Have it already been tested?

[wise kraken]

I used to dislike groups or company when i first started. In a reality it doesn't really matter. The way WT does it helps out a lot and I don't really see a need for change

[acoustic moth]

Yes, and it'll not come back.

[cloud cove]

I can see that this might be problematic. How about checking nutrition for the whole company then? Would "only" require law changes