Merchant Gold

[BlueLion]

I haven't even seen a toilet! Oh where's the immersion. 

[Luckmann]

I haven't even seen a toilet! Oh where's the immersion. 

 

Baldur's Gate 2 had toilets here and there. You could even fish gems out of them at times. But anyway, I always assumed bathroom breaks happened during travel or when resting, so that's still not really an argument.

[Sedrefilos]

I haven't even seen a toilet! Oh where's the immersion. 

With such a lovely natural environment outside and no soul around, who needs toilets anyway?

[Lephys]

The gold-limit thing, like anything else in a game, needs to have a purpose beyond simulation. If, say, the stronghold has some economy/trade mechanics, then gold limitations on merchants would be in order. But, to simply have "you're always going to want to sell some things, and you'll never be prevented from doing so, it'll just be made really, really annoying sometimes because you'll have to jog over to a few other merchants to actually finish it out" is just silly.

 

Without more, that's all it's accomplishing. Annoyance. That's why people hate equipment degradation/durability so much. Even when people don't like it, it at least has a place in survival-type games, where resource and equipment limits are part of the core gameplay concept, but when you take a game and just say "equipment degrades. So, it should do so," that's just an added chore. People poop, but we can assume that's automatically handled "off-stage." Why? Because the act of managing the specifics of pooping isn't conducive to enjoyment, much less pertinent to any of the other gameplay concepts.

 

Maybe if you made an animal simulator survival game, in which where you pooped affected how predators could find you, then the act of pooping -- whether fun or not -- would actually make sense to be controlled and managed.

[ctn2003]

Glade its gone i have bad flashbacks with TES

[Gorbag]

Maybe if you made an animal simulator survival game, in which where you pooped affected how predators could find you, then the act of pooping -- whether fun or not -- would actually make sense to be controlled and managed.

i'll have you know, that if I ever find a pooping QTE in any game, I'll hold you personally responsible.

[Hassat Hunter]

You 2 never played Stick of Truth, have you?

[Nonek]

I'm fine with outhouses being included in the game, adds a layer of verisimilitude and opportunity, for instance we are casing a stronghold looking for a weak point to exploit, we notice a guard nipping off to the loo because of a touch of Vaillian belly, and sneak in while he's gone. Or we are hired to assassinate a well guarded noble, and devise a murder plot somewhat like in the Godfather. There are a hundred and one possibilities, if one is willing to look at them in a positive light rather than seeing everything but alternate conversation and combat as not worth including, because it is not core to the experience.

 

Personally i'd like a game with more detail, more features, more complexity and a positive need to prepare and think about ones strategies rather than just abstract away everything that might cause the smallest amount of work, or even an extra few clicks for the player. There's a lot to be said for having an internally consistent world, filled with hand crafted content, that is awash with details and reactivity, and when the fantastic elements intrude then they seem all the more fantastic for their breaking from the norm.

 

Just my opinion however.

[Sensuki]

Are you promoting your "If it has a bug, remove it!" policy again? Obviously that's not WAI.

 

You read the Josh Sawyer quote I posted in that thread in the beta forums right? They added Merchant Gold for a reason, but removed the reason for adding it and changed it to something else. The function is now defunct.

[Tamerlane]

 

I haven't even seen a toilet! Oh where's the immersion. 

With such a lovely natural environment outside and no soul around, who needs toilets anyway?

 

 

This is Pillars of Eternity man, there's souls everywhere.

[Stun]

Maybe if you made an animal simulator survival game, in which where you pooped affected how predators could find you, then the act of pooping -- whether fun or not -- would actually make sense to be controlled and managed.

That's an excellent idea. Also, they could tie pooping to the engagement mechanic for even more in-game functionality and relevance.

[Jarmo]

Better to have unlimited gold, than a half assed gold-limited system.

 

I'd be all in for a well made system, where merchants have replenishing gold, in realistic amounts relative to their inventory.

You'd have something important and expensive to sell, you'd leave the stuff to them, they'd arrange the credit from some wealthy merchant and resell somewhere else.

So you'd get your money after a few days or weeks, and much less of it because of extra hands and steps involved, all wanting a cut. But you'd get something anyway.

 

Similarly, if you want a full plate and are willing to pay and wait a week, a local merchant would take your money and deliver.

 

And yeah. I've felt limited gold systems to enhance my game experience. Fallouts pop to mind.

On the other hand, I'm all too happy to just cash in my stuff without hassle in Icewind Dale.

 

Do it well or not at all.

 

None of that where you have 20K worth of loot, the merchant has a sword costing 10K you want,

but neither of you have enough money to buy from the other, so a deal can't be made.

[teknoman2]

just think of what TES did in that regard

legendary items that would cost an arm and a leg in Morrowind and were too expensive for any merchant to buy, became as cheap as regular stuff in Oblivion and even cheaper in Skyrim so that any merchant could afford to buy them

better to have merchants with unlimited gold at that point

[Hassat Hunter]

Probably the next TES game, them hollowing them out more and more per title.

Which I think all of us agree is a BAD thing, not a good thing?

[Lord Wafflebum]

I play the Sims as well, so I'm good with needs management. 

 

I want to manage bathroom breaks, cooking and eating, hygiene (bathing in the bay, yes?), managing moods (dungeons are scary, better have a bunny to pet), and picking out the right colors for my stronghold based on my PC's personality traits.

 

Anything less ruins immersion. Anyone who thinks otherwise is 100% wrong.

[Lephys]

That's an excellent idea. Also, they could tie pooping to the engagement mechanic for even more in-game functionality and relevance.

If you move too far from the toilet, it gets an attack of crappertunity.

[Luckmann]

just think of what TES did in that regard

legendary items that would cost an arm and a leg in Morrowind and were too expensive for any merchant to buy, became as cheap as regular stuff in Oblivion and even cheaper in Skyrim so that any merchant could afford to buy them

better to have merchants with unlimited gold at that point

 

That's.. pretty much a textbook example of how to not do it, really. It has nothing to do with merchant gold. In Morrowind, the legendary items and so on weren't meant to be sold. It made perfect sense that almost no-one would be able to afford daedric artifacts.

 

Either way you cut it, it doesn't make sense.

 

If merchants have infinite gold, each merchant for whatever reason is apparently so incredibly rich that they can buy heaps of magical objects, genie's lamps, and extraplanar daemon-armour, yet chooses to live in a hovel, peddling shovelware. As an added bonus, those supremely valuable objects make you insanely wealthy when you sell them to aforementioned infinigold merchant gods.

 

If the artifacts are devalued to deal with the whining children wanting to be able to sell their latest Wabberjockstrap, daedric artifacts and dwemer relics are apparently not really that expensive after all, and a hovel of a house is easily more valuable than the one-of-a-kind reality-bender capable of wiping out entire towns if tried at home.

 

Honestly, instead of incessantly dumbing things down, the preferable method is easily to keep merchant gold limitations and not devalue objects. That way, you maintain the illusion that the objects are of immense power and import, so much so that it is unlikely any single person would be able to purchase it for you at it's real value and the player doesn't suddenly become an infinigold merchant himself.

[constantine]

I am very disappointed that vendor gold limit was removed, it was a nice touch of realism, but it's not a deal-breaker for me.

 

However, I can't help but wonder how much use will gold have in PoE--

 

the player can freely collect ALL loot and sell all of it, so with little effort you can collect lots of gold. Where do you spent all that ? Will vendors sell fine, exceptional, magical variants of weapons/armor and rare materials for crafting ? Will they be expensive enough to justify you gathering all those reaches ?

 

Or maybe gold will be used to upgrade the stronghold ?

 

It worries me if things turn out to be like BG games, where after a point you had little use for gold and got your best gear through adventuring (less apparent in BG2, you could be lazy adventuring and just buy +4 gear at adventurer's mart, thus making good use of gold)

[Luckmann]

I am very disappointed that vendor gold limit was removed, it was a nice touch of realism, but it's not a deal-breaker for me.

 

However, I can't help but wonder how much use will gold have in PoE--

 

the player can freely collect ALL loot and sell all of it, so with little effort you can collect lots of gold. Where do you spent all that ? Will vendors sell fine, exceptional, magical variants of weapons/armor and rare materials for crafting ? Will they be expensive enough to justify you gathering all those reaches ?

 

Or maybe gold will be used to upgrade the stronghold ?

 

It worries me if things turn out to be like BG games, where after a point you had little use for gold and got your best gear through adventuring (less apparent in BG2, you could be lazy adventuring and just buy +4 gear at adventurer's mart, thus making good use of gold)

 

That's kinda my reaction too. I'm really sad to see it go, but it's so far from a deal-breaker that it's not there that it practically doesn't matter.

 

I would really, really have preferred if merchants had a given amount of gold, and some things simply couldn't be sold reliably to throwaway merchants standing by the wayside.

 

The worst thing about the combination of the infinigold merchants and the infinite inventory is that the game will have to be balanced around collecting and selling absolutely everything. For the developers, that's a good thing, because it means that it'll be extremely easy to gauge the general amount of wealth a given player has at any one point (adjusted for difficulty, but that's easily rectified; more mobs? simply lower the amount of gold each drop or increase the amount merchants rip you off). It's also lazy as all hell.

 

For players, it's pretty meh, because there's really no other way to play than the "right" way; if you don't collect everything and if you don't sell it, you're effectively gimping yourself for no reason. When you collect loot, there's really no reason not to instantly convert it to gold right there and then - it's a wonder they haven't thought of the old ARPG mechanic of only awarding gold straight away, and only have "meaningful" loot. A drop of longswords in PoE is basically a stand-in for gold, a temporary placeholder before you go to the mandatory vendor to grind it into delicious gold-pieces.

 

Meh.

[Stun]

 

That's an excellent idea. Also, they could tie pooping to the engagement mechanic for even more in-game functionality and relevance.

If you move too far from the toilet, it gets an attack of crappertunity.

 

Yep, Or as I like to call them: "disembowelment attacks"

[Sonntam]

With the stronghold as a major gold sink I wouldn't worry about having too much money lying around.

 

I personally liked the system in Gothic. You didn't have gold as currency, but ore. Since you were in prison camp it made sense that no ons had too much currency or that one often traded fur/gear/food for items you wanted. If you needed to sell stuff then sometimes it made sense to go to another camp for their traders. Also you could use ore for crafting and you could mine ore.

 

The trading system added a lot to the game in terms of immersion. But the whole system was built around scarce resources as ALL items were scarce: including good gear, maps and magic stuff.

 

I think limited gold in Pillars of Eternity wouldn't add much to the game (except maybe for added annoyance).

[Gorbag]

 

That's an excellent idea. Also, they could tie pooping to the engagement mechanic for even more in-game functionality and relevance.

 

Actually there was something similar in BB278, but OE removed it as per loud backer feedback.

It was an affliction you can get when certain conditions were met, such as a potion of heroism or a barbarian rage wearing off in the middle of the fray or when the character is simultaneously engaged by three or more enemies.

It made the character hobbled until rest and any armour and/or boots the character wears, other than plate mail, gets completely destroyed.

It required a roll against fortitude to trigger and a successful reflex saves the armour/boots.

It also used to trigger every time a character gets knocked out (no save).

Vithracks can cause this at will.

Dunno why they removed it 

[Gfted1]

Im glad the gold limit is gone. Since Im going to literally be carrying every lootable object on the face of Eora, Im going to need a way to offload it.

[Lephys]

Im glad the gold limit is gone. Since Im going to literally be carrying every lootable object on the face of Eora, Im going to need a way to offload it.

That's understandable, but if there were gold limits, you wouldn't be carrying around all those things. At some point, at least. Unless it was never communicated that that was how the game economy was going to work, in which case you might just hold out for some merchant to have infini-gold.

 

Personally, I think the game needs to be designed around selling everything just not being necessary or even prudent, really. That, and around more reasons for looting items other than selling them (like outfitting your stronghold with basic weapons/materials, or to melt down for resources to make other things, etc.).

 

But, that's all been discussed oodles of times, so... *shrug*.

 

I will just say, though, that for things to work like that doesn't automatically mean you have to have some super-ridiculously-in-depth economy manager 5,000 minigame, or some convoluted interface. It could still just be as easy as "take the things, then offload them at town, etc.". Just, what's actually occurring, and when and why you make the decisions would be different. It wouldn't be any harder to MAKE those decisions, or to loot the things.

 

As for the infini-looting thing, you can even represent that. Because it's not really realistic to take a band of 6 people back to the site of a fortress and "single"-handedly loot the whole place in multiple trips. Especially when you're lord of a stronghold/faction/what-have-you. You could just send word (a messenger pigeon or whatever) with the location of that place, so that a team could come with wagons and such and commence operation "Take All The Things!".

Edited February 2, 2015 by Lephys

[Gfted1]

Im not at all worried about breaking the economy in my game. Im usually very miserly about picking stuff up, only picking it up if its better than the other stuff in my bag. Ive never played a game that allowed unlimited carrying capacity so Ill probably strip mine the environment and I just want a convenient way to offload it. I cant drop it (right?), and Im sure as hell not going to run around stashing stuff in containers, so SHOW ME THE MONEY.