Should gold have weight?

[draft1983]

Have they even announced that gold is the currency? It'd be cool if it was something different, something related to magic use perhaps?

 

eyeballs and teeth are the way forward!!!

[pseudonymous]

Of course gold should have weight, but only if there is a banking system to manage it.

[Alc Cides]

I hate any posibility to distract me from the game and history. Gold without weight and infinite ammo please.

[Amentep]

I'm neutral as long as its balanced and doesn't distract from the gameplay to deal with changing coins from pockets to balance things around.

[ceider]

I have to choose no on this one. I can see the logic behind weighted currency, but it ultimately just becomes annoying busy work if you have to keep running gold to storage and running back to collect it when you want to buy something expensive. If there is a system like a bank that is recognized in every town and will automatically remove gold from your bank account when you buy something it would not be so bad, I suppose. Otherwise, it's just tedious. And I say that as someone who legitimately does enjoy item/inventory management!

[Eyferann]

i think gold should not have a weight, but instead require you to have a money bag on you in the inventory to store it inside(or else it really takes your inventory space faster). And of course the bigger the money bag the more gold you can store inside. There could be also events where you have your bag stolen from you or ripped(you drop x gold every y steps taken).

[phimseto]

I would support gold having weight ONLY if I had the ability to bank/invest it somehow. Otherwise, gold weight is just a trite, pain in the ass addition.

[Hmm-Hmm.]

The most important thing about encumbrance of any sort is that it should not hinder the game from being any fun.

 

So, whereas I am indifferent on the issue, if gold is to have weight, there'd better be banks or other types of ways to invest money of some sort.

['GM']

I think having a debit card is the way to go. All gold collected is automatically transferred to your account.

[rjshae]

Roman coins had a weight of about 3.5g. That's around 386 coins per kg, or 130 per pound. If they use realistic coin masses then it should only start to matter when the total reaches 1,000s of coins. The weight will provide a motivation to spend some loot on magical bags of holding, but otherwise it's a nit except at high levels.

 

For simplicity, there could just be a cap on the total coins the party can lug around. Or the game could apply a penalty to overland movement rates based on total coinage. In the case of treasure like huge dragon hoards, the game could switch to using gold bars that have significant weight.

Edited September 27, 2012 by rjshae

[Methuseleh]

Some thoughts and a suggestion. First, one if the big gaps in the discussion is: what is a gold coin? This may sound odd, but there is a huge difference between the giant pirate dubloons used by Hollywood and gold coins that were actually used in the real world. I have handled an actual U.S. gold coin from 1893, a $2.50 piece. It was no bigger than my pinkie nail and weighed almost nothing. A sack of dubloons would weigh a ton for not much value while a sack of the U.S. coins would have had tremendous value.

 

Assuming that the gold coins are small and very valuable, there is no real reason to force players to calculate weight for anything other than truly staggering numbers. That problem gave rise in the real world to letters of credit which were cashable only with particular merchant houses. This is cumbersome for game purposes but could be made fun. Suddenly, forgery becomes a very valuable skill!

 

Consider making gold a one-slot inventory item with a fixed weight up to a particular number, say, 10,000 coins. Assume players will have gem bags and scroll cases so gold can be converted to gems / jewelry or to letters of credit, both of which have extremely high value-to-weight ratios. Merchants conducting transactions for more than 10kanything I will cash would have been far more likely to conduct their business by letters of credit anyway.

 

Or... just use a new medium of super-high value currency, say, soul-stones.

[moridin84]

I don't think gold should have a weight. It doesn't add any value while making things more inconvenient.

 

If you are worried about realism or whatever then I think there are better things to worry about. Whether equipment should have weight or take them space and the inventory management as a result of those decisions for example. Though obviously there is another thread for discussing that.

 

Remember Diablo 1 where gold takes inventory space. Was that fun?

Edited September 27, 2012 by moridin84

[Maurdyn]

I'm fine with gold having no weight as long as they don't use the line "It's worth more than its weight in gold" anywhere in the game.

[Merin]

I don't want gold to have weight, but I'm all for it being a toggle (and part of that Expert mode or whichever it fits into.)

[Nonek]

On one hand i'd like everything to have a weight even if it's remarkably negligible, on the other hand i'd prefer it if for once we were not rich as Croesus come mid game. A gold coin should be a rare item used by banking interests and merchant houses because of its high value, while for the most part our protagonist might consider himself well off if he's got a fat pouch of silver marks on his belt.

[Wintersong]

I'd not mind as long as the system is well done. How? I'll let more intelligent people think about it before deciding if it should be included.

 

Hell, I'd not mind to also have different types of coins and not just gold. A gold coin for a peasant is no joke at all . And treasures should be more realistic (too?):

• Wolves dropping weapons or armors? I could accept that maybe the wolf ate some coins while devouring someone but... a longsword? Studded leather?
  
• Every lousy bandit dropping a bunch of gold coins???
  
• Every treasure being tons of gold and some gear? What happened to trader bars? Sculptures? Silks? Gems? Things like gems can we worth lots of gold for very few weight.
  

I know it's a bit off topic but I do think that it can be related to having gold with weight.

[moridin84]

On one hand i'd like everything to have a weight even if it's remarkably negligible, on the other hand i'd prefer it if for once we were not rich as Croesus come mid game. A gold coin should be a rare item used by banking interests and merchant houses because of its high value, while for the most part our protagonist might consider himself well off if he's got a fat pouch of silver marks on his belt.

So say you're killing dragons. Dragons like gold right? It makes sense you'll be getting gold from them.

 

I hope you aren't going to tell me that we aren't going to be fighting dragon and other dangerous monsters, that would be boring.

 

I'd not mind as long as the system is well done. How? I'll let more intelligent people think about it before deciding if it should be included.

 

Hell, I'd not mind to also have different types of coins and not just gold. A gold coin for a peasant is no joke at all . And treasures should be more realistic (too?):

• Wolves dropping weapons or armors? I could accept that maybe the wolf ate some coins while devouring someone but... a longsword? Studded leather?
  
• Every lousy bandit dropping a bunch of gold coins???
  
• Every treasure being tons of gold and some gear? What happened to trader bars? Sculptures? Silks? Gems? Things like gems can we worth lots of gold for very few weight.
  

I know it's a bit off topic but I do think that it can be related to having gold with weight.

In Neverwinter Nights 2 you had people dropping appropriate loot. Wolves 'dropped' leather skins, bandits dropped short swords and leather armour, high-level enemies dropped whatever +X weapons they were using.

 

So you probably don't need to worry about it.

[Tuco Benedicto]

I'm honestly impressed about how popular can be a pointless debate over a trivial feature like this.

Weighted Gold? non-Weighted gold? It seems to be so worthless as a feature that I can't even tell if I'm for or against it.

It just doesn't have any relevant gameplay implication beside adding a minor, additional variable to the inventory.

 

Do you people *actually* care?

Edited September 27, 2012 by Tuco Benedicto

[Jasede]

It should have weight if inventory / weight management are considered integral parts of the game, such as offering feats for increased carrying capacity, heavy but good items that restrict your load, dodge penalties, movement penalties, STR or CON based carry / equip weight limits and so on and so on.

 

Still, it should be something kept for expert mode because today's gamer can't even open a doorway unless it's marked on a compass, has a light trail pointing to it, a tool-tip describing they should go there, an NPC telling them they should go there AND an arrow on the map pointing to the correct direction, as well as an on-screen quest journal that says "Go to the Doorway! It's to the north! Look on your map to find it, then open it by clicking on it!".

 

Oh, and there's a bright yellow outline around the door once you can see it, just in case.

 

Bitter? Naaah...

[Shevek]

In the argument of challnge vs. tedium, I believe gold having weight would fall under tedium. I don't see how adding weight to gold offers challenge. This idea offers tedium in that one must visit a bank to store said gold after every dungeon excursion or trip to market.

[general_azure]

I'm honestly impressed about how popular can be a pointless debate over a trivial feature like this.

 

This is what you get for mentioning a specific discussion on these boards in the kickstarter updates, I guess... instantly brings it back from the dead and every argument is posted all over again =P

[Elthosian]

As long as there are different types of coins I am all for it, it feels somewhat weird to have only one type of coin, I would love to be able to get 100 silver and go to the bank to change them for a gold coin, maybe you could even have different currencies for the different regions of the game to make it even more interesting!

[morhilane]

How am I supposed to walk around with 10,000,000 golds, 10 suit of armors, 30 weapons and 100 potions if everything have weight?

[sanian]

Don't care.

 

If they do add weight for gold though I seriously hope they add a donkey or something that you can drag around with you. After-all, if you know you can't carry 500kilos worth of loot then why would you go to a dungeon or similar without ensuring you can actually move that loot you find. Giving weight to gold but no mules for the transport of goods is half-arsed.

 

So, may be too much hassle. Though now i think about it I wouldn't mind a companion donkey running around with me.

[Stiler]

I do not want it to have weight in my game, however I support the option for there to be a weight on gold for those who wish to play with it as such.

 

Perhaps on their extreme difficulty level (then you can turn gold weight on/off or whatever).