Currency Value

[Thangorodrim]

I think you have to balance it with what is fun ... if you take out all the money then the game does become much more difficult as you must fight to earn even minor upgrades in your equipment (some might prefer this approach but I am not sure if the majority would like that) ... I think one of the issues with these games is that in the late stages you become so powerful that the money doesn't mean much to you anymore ... it is just an encumbrance

 

since we achieved the stretch goal for a fortress the money could definitely be used to enhance that item so it is more than window dressing ... money could be used to upgrade your castle and retainers ... having larger amounts of treasure in your vaults could trigger special events in the game (bandit attacks, rebellions in the villages, etc) ... if you had the repair function then maybe money lets you upgrade your smithy to do cheap repairs (or your temple to provide healing salves and elixirs ... maybe you could trigger unique special events like a dragon attack if your wealth became too large

 

the other approach is that you use the money to buy some incredible late game item or ability ... something that will give you an advantage in the late game but not overwhelmingly so ... this could be class specific and maybe at a level of finance that you must choose between the fortress options and this ... to allow for different playing styles

 

I would think that both of those items could be implemented without extraordinary difficulty and they would definitely make money more meaningful so that you do don't go to a desert of encounters where hardly any of your encounters result in anything beyond experience ... sometimes players need more of a carrot with meaningful or repetitive equipment and treasure drops

[Pipyui]

Alright, so players are making and carrying around way more money than they know what to do with. Breaking coin into denominations makes distributing wealth across the world easier and more consistant (stunted goblins might carry a copper or two, but elite enemies may carry 2 or 3 gold), but I don't think this would stunt player income or facilitate player expenditure.

 

What if we have tiers of coinpurses? At the beginning of the game, your wallet would only be able to carry a small quantity of wealth. When your party fills this purse, you could exchange the full wallet for a near-empty larger one at a shop. Bigger purses would be available from merchants further along the story path, or in more dangerous territory, so that as you advance the game, explore, and level, you would be able to continue earning greater quantities of coin while also being limitted in how much you could carry at any given time and level. Of course this also adds a little "fun" into deciding when to upgrade your wallet.

Edited October 27, 2012 by Pipyui

[HereticSaint]

While people may not like gold sinks, it's the most reasonable answer.

 

If you look at it from a logical sense, when an adventurer is doing a quest that risks his life he is going to want the reward to be worth potentially losing his life, for anyone but an extremely selfless character this could easily mean earning more than a peasant earns in a year for a few hours worth of work. On top of that, when you kill a person, unless you are in some ridiculous hurry you gain access to all they carry on them and chances are if they are a challenging foe they have valuable loot, and if they aren't then it's just a speed bump meaning it's basically free money anyway. If you kill someone in their home you immediately gain access to all of their most valuable possessions, including items that may have taken several years worth of what a noble may earn if that's who you killed, for example.

 

I'll just restate it, the easiest gold sinks are:

 

- Gambling

 

and

 

- Item upkeep for magical items.

 

Otherwise you have to do things that as a player who wants a game that makes sense are an annoyance, such as making it so when an enemy wearing full plate and having several weapons to choose from as well as fine bolts/arrows/etc only drops a fraction of that, if anything, for example.

[Grand_Commander13]

Gambling is a terrible gold sink; people will only do it if it gives them a net gold gain, one reasonable given the time invested. They'll save scum to force it to be a net positive, but if you disable save scumming they will either ignore it (if it's a net negative) or do it (if it's a net positive).

 

Item upkeep is just plain un-fun. Again, why add in extra gold faucets to the game in the first place? Every piece of gold you take away from the player for something not fun is going to annoy the player. The best gold sinks are fun, like upgrades for the house and the stronghold as well as customizing our followers at the adventurer's hall. Crafting also has promise as a fun gold sink.

[UncleBourbon]

I imagine whatever the case there will probably be some mods to tweak it to your taste - like the mod for BG2 that severely increases the gold required to go save Imoen.

[HereticSaint]

Gambling is a terrible gold sink; people will only do it if it gives them a net gold gain, one reasonable given the time invested. They'll save scum to force it to be a net positive, but if you disable save scumming they will either ignore it (if it's a net negative) or do it (if it's a net positive).

 

Item upkeep is just plain un-fun. Again, why add in extra gold faucets to the game in the first place? Every piece of gold you take away from the player for something not fun is going to annoy the player. The best gold sinks are fun, like upgrades for the house and the stronghold as well as customizing our followers at the adventurer's hall. Crafting also has promise as a fun gold sink.

 

HAHAHAHAHA. You think gambling is a poor gold sink, but crafting is a good one.

 

I really, honest to god hope you are joking.

 

As for upgrades to a stronghold/housing, we are lucky to even have those as an option, so a game that wouldn't have these would then have absolutely no potential gold sinks besides crafting then according to you?

 

Gambling isn't about net making gold. You could easily make items that you can only get from gambling that have near to no vendor value but that are incredibly unique or powerful. Much more fun than, "Gather 5 purple flowers, 5 Xander Roots, combine!" YAY, I understand the vast and interesting world of Alchemy!

[Kiya]

Am I the only person who loves the idea of ending up with piles of gold - making too realistic a monetary system would remove a fun aspect of the game for me.

I love exploring for loot, then being able to sell what I find for piles of cash.

 

This is not a sim - to hell with realism says I

[kabaliero]

yeah, basic gambling doesn't work the way it's supposed to in games

the save\load twitching just turns it into a cash factory

 

gambling like in diablo 2\3 is the way!

assuming!

that there will be an unlimited resource

like respawning monsters (see my poll), re-occuring events, etc

[Pipyui]

Am I the only person who loves the idea of ending up with piles of gold - making too realistic a monetary system would remove a fun aspect of the game for me.

I love exploring for loot, then being able to sell what I find for piles of cash.

 

This is not a sim - to hell with realism says I

 

Well, I do think that giving players too much money is a problem, but more than that I think there needs to be more incentive to spend money. There's no reason to hoard gold and never use it, yet this is what I've done in every RPG I've ever played.

[Nonek]

I'm all for taxes, ranging from property taxes to gate taxes in foreign cities. Also upkeep of equipment, board and lodging when away from home, food and drink when in the wild, sorcerous supplies, tithing to churches, bribes to guards or informants, supplies and equipment for adventuring (pole 10' & hemp rope 50',) wages for companions, books, maps and other rare equipment being extremely pricy, fines for minor crimes, expensive advocates for matters of law and any others the game can think of. I like as many features present as possible, especially if they punish me if I don't take advantage of them.

 

Don't mind if they're only in the hardcore modes however.

[Grand_Commander13]

HAHAHAHAHA. You think gambling is a poor gold sink, but crafting is a good one.

 

I really, honest to god hope you are joking.

Oh my, you're a pleasant one.

 

I already told you why gambling is a bad idea. With crafting, all you need to do to make sure it's a gold sink is make the decision for the crafted item to sell for less than the crafting components cost to buy. This is not that hard.

[Bli1942]

I just don't want it to be too easy to get rich. You shouldn't be able to run through just the main quest and still get rich. I hope to be able to afford good gear/lots of reserve potions etc you should have to do lots of side quests in each town.

 

And I don't want the solution to just be put some optional gold sinks in the game, I want it to be hard to get gold in the first place.

[Nidrolok]

While people may not like gold sinks, it's the most reasonable answer.

I disagree, making currency harder to obtain seems like a much more sensible solution to the money abundance problem. Lowering the income curve significantly would keep things interesting during the whole game and not just the first half or so money wise. Instead of being able to spendthrift so much that you need some kind of artificial hole to sink all your money into you should be struggling to keep your equipment up to snuff even towards the endgame. When you're not able to afford all of the best equipment in the game there are interesting choices to be made and it makes the hunt for gold more rewarding.

 

Making things harder to sell in general would be a good thing. After defeating a gang of bandits you could have gained a small amount of rare metals and minerals but all their equipment would only be useful for crafting or switching to it if what you had were worse. The demand for shoddy second rate leather armours with holes through them and rusty dull blades shouldn't be very substantial. Items of better quality on the other hand would be hard to get rid off since there are so few potential buyers around and plenty of skilled craftsmen that you would have to compete with.

Edited October 28, 2012 by Nidrolok

[UncleBourbon]

Thinking of it, the equipment/treasure taken from bandits might be confiscated/demanded by the law in the area - either for proof of crime, or just government corruption. Maybe give characters a choice of handing in the equipment, or paying a "fee" to the official to keep it. Though this could get annoying.

[JFSOCC]

• Merchants don't buy everything (A smith may buy an extraordinary blade but has no use for one that is below his own craftsmanship)
  

would completely change how people determine what they would bring along when they loot. I like this idea a lot.

I also liked the earlier mentioned idea of loot being in bad shape.

 

because this would actually make a craft or appraise skill useful.

--

 

Inflation sucks. if you can do with 300 gold what you can with 50000, 300 will feel much more valuable.

Edited October 28, 2012 by JFSOCC

[Hassat Hunter]

I rather not want "gold sinks" for the sake of gold sinks. Gambling would definitely NOT work in PE's environment.

If something for money is added to the game as 'gold sink' rather than 'some option we like, which just costs money' you've added the wrong thing to the game, and made it worse.

 

Keeping income rare is definitely a good idea. Finding rampant magic items and selling them for 5000 gold? No-go. An incentive to not go hoard every single item for sale (why do gamers do that anyway, do you really want to carry those 50 1gp items just to sell?) is good.

There are plenty of ways in RPGs that money could be spend without needing artificial gold sinks. Items for sale (consumables, weapons, etc.). Have some powerful unique ones in the store, and surely people want them. They wouldn't be the best. But the best are harder to find (and may need the strength of what you just bought to achieve). Paying NPC's (for identifying, travel, item creation, information etc.) A good night rest/food. Toll for passage. Thieves. House costumisation. Stronghold costumisation. House/Stronghold upgrades. Protection money for the local gang till you become powerful enough to kill them. Property with use.

 

With just some imagination a lot can be thought off that's not just there to be a sink but fits, adjusts and expands upon the game.

 

And for the love of god, no item repair/degradation. I don't mind having to upgrade fallen foes gear to usable state to deter massive loot hauling, but no "your weapon is now 10% strong, better fix it before it breaks permanently"...

[cdx]

Upper post sums up quite well most of the good points in the thread so far. Less gold is better than many sinks. Some sinks that make sense are good though.

 

Just one other thing, also mentioned several times before: copper, silver, gold tiers would be great (just please no platinum!). Would allow for every random critter to drop suitable amount of treasure without flooding the player economy (e.g. a shoddy goblin 2-20 copper, an average mercenary 2-3 gold, a very tough mercenary 20 gold).

 

As for the item degradation: it could work well if there are two or three tiers. Say, first tier of wear is "good condition" (max weapon damage/protection), next is "slightly worn" (3/4 dmg/pr), then "worn" (1/2 dmg/pr) and finally "heavily worn" (1/3 damage/pr (not 1/4)). Items generally should never completely or permanently break. Sword as worn as it could be, would not likely snap and could still kill people no matter how blunt. Also, wear should be very slow but quite expensive to fix (depending on item quality). This way it adds realism (and a sink) without being a major pain in the ass.

[Shdy314]

As for the item degradation: it could work well if there are two or three tiers. Say, first tier of wear is "good condition" (max weapon damage/protection), next is "slightly worn" (3/4 dmg/pr), then "worn" (1/2 dmg/pr) and finally "heavily worn" (1/3 damage/pr (not 1/4)). Items generally should never completely or permanently break. Sword as worn as it could be, would not likely snap and could still kill people no matter how blunt. Also, wear should be very slow but quite expensive to fix (depending on item quality). This way it adds realism (and a sink) without being a major pain in the ass.

Agreed. Also the condition should always just be a descriptor like you said. Don't use a bar to show it as that just drives ocd players crazy.

[Pipyui]

Huh, pleasantly surprised to see this thread make a revival. I know I've been pushing the whole "more incentives to spend, less requirements (maintenance costs) to spend" thing a little less than subtly. Maintenance costs are fine, but haphazardly throwing them around to increase spending isn't the right answer.

There are plenty of ways in RPGs that money could be spend without needing artificial gold sinks. Items for sale (consumables, weapons, etc.). Have some powerful unique ones in the store, and surely people want them. They wouldn't be the best. But the best are harder to find (and may need the strength of what you just bought to achieve). Paying NPC's (for identifying, travel, item creation, information etc.) A good night rest/food. Toll for passage. Thieves. House costumisation. Stronghold costumisation. House/Stronghold upgrades. Protection money for the local gang till you become powerful enough to kill them. Property with use.

 

I like where you're going, but personally think it needs to go a little further. Many RPGs already provide many of these services (albiet at completely trivial price), but they serve no purpose to the player besides novelty value. Carriage has a real cost? I'll walk. Food and rest? I don't understand either of those terms, I'm a restless machine. The other ideas not involving property, with a little creativity, might work, but it'd be a challenge to implement them without irritating players I would think.

 

The short of the cosensus on this thread as I understand it so far is that property and some clever equipment maintenance are, for the most part, commonly agreed upon as legitimate money sinks; and that income needs to be significantly stunted. I'm still trying to ascertain what this reveals in terms of what players would accept and embrace as an economic model, though (basic principles behind money mechanics).

 

Speaking of property...

... House costumisation. ...

 

I'm loving the way you think.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2012 by Pipyui

[JFSOCC]

One way to deal with balancing wealth is by adding upkeep, and investments. (of course, the upkeep should be for something that causes benefit, not "just 'cause".)

[Aldereth]

One way to deal with balancing wealth is by adding upkeep, and investments. (of course, the upkeep should be for something that causes benefit, not "just 'cause".)

 

Kind of a very fine line between "just cause" and actual benefit. I feel that the biggest problem is that money in cRPG after mid-late point of any game is basically useless. It just does not have the same purchasing power as real currency in real life. I would argue the only real currency in any cRPG are actually XP which you can trade for real benefit. Closely follow by equipment as not so "liquid" assets that you trade off at salvage value to upgrade to a better class of equipment.

 

cRPG Money and game world economy up to this point for a non-MMO cRPG thus far were (and still are) just window dressing to help with the immersiveness in the beginning to mid game. After you get to the mid point of the game, its uselessness is obvious and actually break immersion if the player spend but a moment to think about it. Equipment maintainance, Player housing/stronghold, are mere money sink method to dress up the problem. Basically, to create some fluff to cover up this hole. Thus far, I think the investment and upkeep of something useful method is the best cover up in the sense that it doesn'tr require too much management and maintain some semblence of immersion.

 

If single player cRPG want to have money and a game economy that is engaging for the player then I think they need to make money and economy part of the game world. Player action big (as big as plot decision) or small (selling the armor they got off the bandits) has effect in the economy and in turn the game world and the play experience. Then you would give power to in-game currency because they can change the very experience the player is going to get from that play through.