Price System is absurd

[dessoul]

Hi.

 

After i was finishing a quest, where i was able to receive "the most valuable diamond at the west coast" and i was paid like 2000 copper coins for it. After this i was going to the inn, where i paid 150 copper coins for one (!) night. I mean, i hire people for 10 copper per day and pay 150 copper for one single night at the inn? Even it doesn´t matter, if i am a single-person-group or a full packed group with 6 people, i pay this price. 

Then i go to the trader and pay 5 copper for one (?) or a whole pack (?) of eggs. If i pay like 10 copper a day for my staff, how are they able to feed themself with this prices? Eating dirt?

In my oppinion the price system does not make any sense at all! Saleries, prices for goods, rewards and payments for "DIAMONDS" are connected together. But in this game the developers did not spend enough thinking on how this whole stuff works.

[EmilAmundsen]

Price System is absurd

 

Yes, but so what? It comes down to what you want to spend money on. The project was never to create a proper medieval-fantasy economy. When budgeting between making a good story and constructing an economy I'm pretty satisfied they chose the important one over the inconsequensial.

Edited April 12, 2015 by EmilAmundsen

[dessoul]

Its not about a whole economie system. If you would do this, then you would have to install a propper trade-system, etc., too.

Its about the feeling. Its about, if the world makes sense. And in this case, it doesn´t make sense. I got the feeling, that nobody was sitting there for this 5 minute - topic (or maybe even 1 hour) and was thinking about, if the whole system is balanced. Because it clearly isn´t. I played table-top games for a long time and there you have whole price lists for feeding the backround information. And here in the game this price list topic was taken together without thinking, without sense. For me it destroys the feeling. For me it destroys the game.

I can understand it for low - budget companies, where maybe one guy is doing the whole job, or where you put pupils at the computer. But in case of obsidian, which was founded 2003 and has some people sitting there, which use to pay their bills, their mortgages, their taxes, it is embarrassing. Such people should have some sense for, what prices are reasonable.

And in a world, where the average salery for security staff is 10 copper per day, then it absolutly makes no sense at all, to let the player pay 150 copper for a decent hotel room.

 

And i don´t think, this "budgeting between making a good story and constructing an economy" must be taken as a choice. A good story includes some reasonable thinking in prices. Otherwise the backround information don´t add up and the stroy is broken. Especially as you don´t have to construct a economy. Just some reasonable prices.

 

Or does this kind of telling makes sense? "I was hunting down the mighty dragon. I fighted for hours. It was a terrible fight, but at the end i was succesful and was able to pillage his hort. There was a big pile of gold coins. At least two millions rupeen worth. And i was able to pack this whole amount on 10 burros. I traveled to the next village, where i was able to pay the whole rent for one room for one day! I was so lucky!"

[Varana]

First of all: The Hireling prices are broken. You don't pay them per day, you pay them even less. (Week, I think.)

 

Second: Oh sure, they thought about that. But they didn't think how to build a realistic economy.

They thought about how much loot you get, at which price you will be able to sell that, and in light of this, how much money they want to drain from your resources in exchange for which buff. Resting at an inn is a valuable thing for you because it refills your health and spells and can give you bonuses. Therefore, it is expensive. You will probably get hundreds of Xaurip spears: they have to be quite cheap. You cannot raise attributes in this game, but they are important - everything that raises an attribute is therefore valuable and expensive. Your stronghold hirelings aren't really useful which means that they're rather cheap.

That is the reasoning behind the economy. It has nothing to do with a "real" economy and everything with resource management.

 

Now, it's entirely up to you whether you find that appropriate. But it is not lack of thought, it is a completely different way of looking at things.

[Nachel]

I'm in complete agreement with Varana. You can lament the fact that the designers didn't go for a realistic simulationist economy; you can say that what they came up with hasn't been thought through but you cannot claim that it doesn't make sense. It is simply tentatively balanced around what is precious or worthless to you, and not around the acceptable minimal wage in Defiance Bay.

[Rumpelstilskin]

Speaking of hirelings for 10cp per day, I have 3 of those, and my hireling paydays always cost me 150cp (they also seem to happen more frequently than once per 24 hours)

[Nanakamado]

And I agree with both  Varana and OP.

 

The price system is absurd. And probably it have to be absurd. Same was in Tabeltop D&D. It was and is absurd. In Tabeltop RPGs you can always negotiate price system before playing though. Here You have to find some consenus that will be at least "ok" for hundreds of thousands players.

I think It is ok. Xaurips garbage shouldn't cost lot of money, but I think  grimuars and enchanted weapons are way to cheap.

[Depili]

Well, the medieval "economy" was pretty much two-tiered, peasants seldom even saw any money anywhere, it was mostly just trading stuff for other stuff and merchants/nobles were all about showing how rich you were by spending that wealth around, with for example a single dress that costs more than a sizeable town built from scratch. For a modern person that economy would make no sense at all. (One common tactic for a lord to keep his most troublesome lieges in check was to go visiting them often keeping them almost bankrupt from the feasts).

[ruzen]

"so what?"   never heard that one before...

 

The inconsistency about pricing is just another crack which brokes the immersion.

[ksagan]

You're also insisting on literalism. It can make sense, if you're willing to accept that it's abstraction.

 

The diamond isn't worth 2000; that's what you get from the system of pawnbrokers, appraisers, traders, etc. that absorbs all the junk that adventurers bring in, a sizable amount of which is counterfeit (Hell, how do you even know the diamond YOU got was genuine? Maybe you were lucky to get that 2000; maybe the whole hullabaloo was over a counterfeit to begin with).

 

Your hirelings don't live on 10 a day; your keep spirit attends to various duties (e.g. creating indirect incentives to attract combat-ready citizens, purchasing equipment, possibly paying *some* full-time staff, and probably paying a stipend to some farmers/reservists) in order to retain a militia to deal with attacks as they occur. The monetary cost of these duties scales with the military strength you want to have on retainer, and the game abstracts this out to 10 a day per "hireling" (I wouldn't even insist on assuming a "hireling" is "One person", it's a unit of military strength; it could be half a dozen guys with pitchforks, two part-time mercenaries, or HALF of a full-time guard captain/sheriff)

 

An egg isn't 5 cp; that's how much it would cost you to get enough of that ingredient to comprise its share of a recipe, and it abstracts out extraneous details like the time and effort to prepare food and follow recipes, gather the other mundane, common ingredients, etc.

 

Conversely, the inn stays ARE expensive. A day at an inn is not a night at a motel; first of all, it includes meals. The cost of staying at a relatively cheap hotel and eating from the kitchen is more than an individual should make per day. And that's the CHEAP inn stay! The ones that grant bonuses are LUXURY HOTEL ROOMS--that's why you're so alert and well rested the next day, you supped and slept in the lap of luxury.

 

You can choose to believe that a hireling is literally a full-time mercenary, you sold the most valuable diamond in the region for its actual market value, and that an egg is 5 cp. But you already know that the in-game recipes for foods with eggs are skipping some mundane ingredients; so you already know that they're abstracting away some of the extraneous detail to streamline the mechanics and ease your understanding. Why does your suspension of disbelief accept discrepances in the ingredients necessary to cook certain foods, but not the costs of goods and services?