Steel would still take time and effort to produce. You just wouldn't have to stare at an extraction table for 50 hours to get some.



The insistence of making this game insanely hardcore to the point where it is a full time 8 hours a day job to keep yourself equipped (performing actions that don't even require any input from you for long stretches of time) is more damaging to the game than inflation/deflation could ever be.



Why not make metals more accessible? It's so silly now, everyone just runs around in Incisium, like 85-90% of the active population (all 7 of them) run around with the same armor because metal is not viable because it is prohibitively expensive. What is the point of that?



Diph what do you care about the rush of killing people and taking their loot, if there is no one to kill? I think this is where you would have to make concession or cede your point a little bit, because your point is fully moot if there is no one to kill.



Fuck man, just bring back the population, worry about inflation and the market afterwards, tweak as necessary once you see the long term effects. The market will work it's way out, items will still retain value. Steel will still have a value, a more realistic value even.



Currently the only reason a weapon is worth anything, is because of the artificially inflated price of metal. The only reason metal costs so much is because of bad game design and horrid mechanics. You can not by all rights advocate the continuation of such a system, it needs to be abolished immediately at least for a temporary amount of time, so that you would realistically be able to see the ramifications on the player base, and the economy-- then use that to make the ultimate deciding factor on whether it's a good idea or not to keep it.



My argument is that, an overwhelming amount of the population would feel that the change is positive and in the right direction. This would reinvigorate many aspects of the economy and the game-- and would take away from the grind.



Do you really want to spend an ungodly amount of time AFK refining materials that you have already safely brought in to the guardzone to be processed? What is the point here? I am baffled that any one would even for a second defend such a system. I honestly find it a bit disheartening, that people would rather play devils advocate, rather than logically analyzing the situation from a design perspective.