Season Three: Economy

Greetings Craftadians!

We're back again this week to discuss Season Three's economy.

These blog posts prior to Season Three will serve as a brief overview of new systems, but should not be taken as a comprehensive guide for what it to come at launch or mid-season. Craftadia's guides will be updated at launch with full details on new content!

Please note that all of the content discussed in this blog post and future showcase blog-posts are subject to change prior to launch.

Economy Upgrades 📝

While many of you will be interested in reading as many specifics as possible regarding these new systems, the following is a list of economy upgrades you can look forward to if you don't have the time to read the entire post:

• New Vendor System
• Sell Wands
• Tax Brackets
• Tax Milestone Rewards
• Virtual Chest Shop Management
• Chest Shop Upgrades
• Chest Shop QOL Changes
• Chest Shop Limit Increases

Let's jump right into some sneak peaks at what we're doing with respect to each section mentioned above!

Vendors 🛒

The Black Market Merchant and Travelling Merchant from Season 2 are being replaced with a new system that strengthens opportunity but retains an element of randomness.

At Spawn, there will now be six vendors:

• Minerals / Ores (1 Random Item)
• Farming (3 Random Items)
• Building Blocks (5 Random Items)
• Nature (5 Random Items)
• Food / Mob Drops (1 Random Item)
• Nether (3 Random Items)

Each vendor will have a different number of random items featured in their shop, which you can buy and sell.

Every three days, every single vendor will refresh their offerings at the same time. During the time period that an item is active within a vendor, there are 12 sell periods each lasting 6 hours. If an item exceeds a 'maximum sell amount' pre-determined by the system, that item will freeze from selling for the remainder of that 6 hour period.

The sell prices and buy prices of items will still be randomized to a degree, but in a much tighter range that keeps earnings somewhat consistent.

Sell Wands 🧙‍♂️

Sell Wands will be making a return with Season Three.

Sell Wands are items that, when right-clicked on a chest, will sell any applicable items inside as long as there are uses available on the wand.

To be clear, Sell Wands will only be able to sell items that are currently in the vendor system (so every three days, sell wands will be able to sell new things). If an item is frozen, Sell Wands will not work on them, and uses will not be subtracted.

Sell Wands will be featured in Vote Crates, Mega Crates, the Store, Quests, and more.

Tax System ️💰

What will inevitably be one of the most controversial things we introduce this season is the Tax System.

Players will be taxed on all income earned based on a tax bracket that resets every month. When you type /balance, it will now list your current tax bracket, as well as how close you are to your next tax bracket. The current (tentative) monthly tax brackets are:

• $0-$500,000 (0% Tax)
• $500,001-$1,000,000 (10% Tax)
• $1,000,001-$3,000,000 (20% Tax)
• $3,000,001-$5,000,000 (30% Tax)
• $5,000,001-Infinity (40% Tax)

We will be conducting internal balance testing and may tweak the above numbers prior to launch. Keep in mind this tax bracket system resets monthly, and that the economy system in general is drastically different to Season 2 (meaning comparisons of how much wealth you have now versus what you would have in Season 3 are fruitless).

We will have time periods where "Tax Free Holidays" are activated, meaning that for the time period that is active, income earned will not be taxed.

This system warrants some further clarification, so prior to posting feedback, please read all of the bullets below:

How do Tax Brackets work?
Let's say for example, that in a month, you earn $1,000,000 (without taxes). This means chest shops, vendors, players, crates, etc. contributed towards you ending with a balance of $1,000,000.

With the Tax Bracket system, $1,000,000 corresponds to a 10% Tax Rate, but every month, you also have $500,000 of tax-free income. This means that you would be taxed 10% of the remaining $500,000, meaning you would end with a balance of $950,000. This resets monthly, so at the start of the next month, your Tax Bracket would be reset from 10% to 0% until you earn over $500,000.

Keep in mind that unlike normal tax systems, Craftadia will collect taxes on all income earned, instantly. This means that if you sell items worth $200,000 at once, and you're in the 20% Tax Bracket, you would instantly be charged $40,000, leaving you with $160,000. This is to minimize complexity and prevent extreme situations of tax evading and debt.

Why are you implementing this system?
Players requested more money sinks with Season 3, as well as a more intricate economy system. This addresses both of those concerns, and will also provide some benefits to players (read below).

What do I get out of this?
The Tax System will have a new "milestone" system that is designed to reward players for reaching global contribution amounts.

Essentially, throughout the Season, all tax payers will be rewarded when specific goals are hit. For example, a milestone could be reached when $1,000,000 in taxes is paid. Once that milestone is hit, we may give all players a spray, add a new area to Spawn, release a specific content update, etc.

Additionally, at the end of every month, players will receive an 'Accountant's Report' item. This item will list your monthly earnings, tax contributions, global tax statistics, and more.

What if players pay me money, forcing me to progress my tax bracket unintentionally?
We're introducing a new system that will require players to accept payments. As a reminder, if you do not want to receive payments from someone in general, you can /ignore them.

This new system will be accessible through /transactions, which will list a maximum of 10 pending transactions. Players will need to accept the money in order to confirm they want to also deal with the tax implications that money brings with it. If a player declines the transaction, the sender's balance will remain unchanged.

What is covered by the Tax System?
The Tax System will consider any situation where your /balance goes up as a taxable situation, unless a Tax Free Holiday is in effect.

What happens if I attempt to bypass the Tax System?
Players found bypassing the Tax System by using alternate accounts or any other means of tax evading will be punished accordingly. Punishments can include a temporary maximum tax bracket assignment, or in more serious instances, temporary bans.

These punishments are manually handed out, so households that have multiple players playing under the same roof will have exemptions given to them. If you've already reached out regarding more Reset Vault slots, we'll have your bypasses setup for launch.

Chest Shop Overhaul ️💸

Chest Shops are getting a truly massive overhaul, featuring a ton of great features designed to give you total control.

New Management Menu 🧰
We're introducing a virtual way to track and manage your Chest Shops. The Chest Shop management menu will allow you to view all of your Chest Shops, upgrade them, toggle on specific unlocks, and add/remove managers.

Upgrading Chest Shops 💎
Moonstones will be used to upgrade Chest Shops, unlocking a variety of new features:

• Ability to add Chest Shop managers (Managers will be able to modify stock, freeze shops, and add advertising time)
• Ability to set a Chest Shop balance (Set aside a portion of your balance to be exclusively used for that Chest Shop)
• Ability to set a Chest Shop maximum sell limit (Selling will no longer be possible once a specific limit is hit)
• Ability to freeze a Chest Shop (Halt all transactions on your Chest Shop)

The base Chest Shop system will work the exact same as it does in Season 2, but upgrading a Chest Shop using moonstones will unlock the above features. If you pick up a Chest Shop, your moonstones will be refunded.

QOL Upgrades 🔨

• Chest Shop Buy & Sell records will be compressed to make them easily digestible.
• There will be an option to change the Chest Shop refresh interval per Shop (for buy & sell notifications).
• Unbreakable Chest Shops will no longer be creatable by placing a block in front of a Chest Shop.

Chest Shop Limit Increase 🔼
We're expanding Chest Shop limits per-rank to accommodate and celebrate all of the new features we're adding:

• Default: 15 -> 22
• Bee: 18 ->  25
• Chicken: 21 -> 28
• Rabbit: 24 -> 31
• Parrot: 27 -> 34
• Guardian: 30 -> 37
• Phantom: 33 -> 40
• Dragon: 36 -> 43

Closing Thoughts 🚪

Two blogs down, many more to go! Please let us know your feedback, and keep in mind that everything discussed in this blog-post is subject to change prior to launch.

We're going to start posting sneak peaks of Season 3 across an increasing variety of social media platforms, starting with our Twitter and TikTok. Please give these accounts a follow for Season 3 news, giveaways, and more!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CraftadiaMC

TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@CraftadiaMC

The next blog post discussing new Season 3 content will be coming next week, stay tuned!