Re-Rethinking Gold as a Currency

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Baki wrote:

Scamming and flooding exists in other auction houses without fees. Obviously this is a proof that the required time to try a scam does not prevent this.

I believe this game won't have an "auction house", if you have news on that, I would like to see them. Also games with an auction house and fees also have scams, flooding, and the likes.

indeed, and even people wearing helmets can suffer headinjuries.

listing fees greatly reduce the expected profit from scams and flooding and therefore make it less attractive and therefore reduce the amounts of scams and flooding.

i also do not believe this game will have an auction house. That is why i only mentioned the auction house aspects under "side effects" and used the word "if". Should you have news on it, i would gladly see them.

I like it how it is now.. Every single Game out there has some basic currency, mainly gold (or Game-unique word for it like "Alz"). So this concept is pretty unique and something new..

There wont't be Gold-Sellers that spam the Chat because of that. It's more random to get currency items and they would've to farm a lot to get at least some, so it's not worth it I guess.

Another aspect is, that Items can be bought pretty cheap, if people just wan't a specific orb that others could have more often than other orbs. For example some1 has lots of Orbs of Alchemy and another person has some Regal Orbs, and so on. The Itemseller wants some Alchemy items so he possible will trade with the Alchemy-Orb-Guy and he gets the item, also if a person here had a Regal that should be worth a bit more.. With this current Currency it's also possible for low-level Players or even some that don't own the best Items on Server to trade for some good stuff, just because the own the items the ItemSeller wanted.

On most games you have to spent months with grinding/farming to get some Gold or good items to trade with so you can get the Items you want. Here it's possible to trade anywhere at any time with any item.. mainly Orbs, but it's possible to have them way earlier and be lucky the ItemSeller just wants that Orb you just found. Which makes this System more flexible.

But I would like to have some crumble/transmution function for items, like a little Hammer-Icon in the Inventory with that you can transmute items into it's raw materials, and maybe have luck getting an Orb corresponding to Item's rarity Level.

The current Currency just needs some minor fixes on drops and changes on Orbs, maybe also new ones to make it even better. I just have lots of transmution and transforming orbs that I won't use and they just take space (also if less) in my inventory/stash, I guess I won't ever use them a lot ^^ Why should I turn a normal item into magic one? There are enough magic Items dropped, and the Alchemy Orb turns them into rar ones.. There should be more possible to make magic items also good, else the Orbs for them are pretty useless.

(Btw is there an Orb that also adds a Mod to rar items, just found one for magic items)

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FaceLicker wrote:

Big difference between 'Governments' and 'governing agency'.

Semantics. The value of a RL currency is still based on supply and demand, not a governing agency that dictates its value.

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FaceLicker wrote:

Let's say currency has a drop rate of 10% per drop. So out of 1000 drops, we get 100 currencies. Out the currency drops, 1% are Divine. So 1 in 100 currency drops are divine. If we change every currency drop to gold, in order to keep the same ratio we'd need to collect.. well, it's late and I don't feel like doing that math. Point is, it's a lot of unnecessary balancing.

The drop rates can remain exactly as they are now, but the drops being replaced by a sum of gold that is based on demand. That's not complicated at all.

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SlyRipper wrote:

I like it how it is now.. Every single Game out there has some basic currency, mainly gold (or Game-unique word for it like "Alz"). So this concept is pretty unique and something new..

Just because it's unique doesn't mean it's useful.

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SlyRipper wrote:

There wont't be Gold-Sellers that spam the Chat because of that. It's more random to get currency items and they would've to farm a lot to get at least some, so it's not worth it I guess.

Instead there will be orb sellers. It would be just as random to get gold as it is to get orbs.

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SlyRipper wrote:

Another aspect is, that Items can be bought pretty cheap, if people just wan't a specific orb that others could have more often than other orbs. For example some1 has lots of Orbs of Alchemy and another person has some Regal Orbs, and so on. The Itemseller wants some Alchemy items so he possible will trade with the Alchemy-Orb-Guy and he gets the item, also if a person here had a Regal that should be worth a bit more.. With this current Currency it's also possible for low-level Players or even some that don't own the best Items on Server to trade for some good stuff, just because the own the items the ItemSeller wanted.

So now it is harder to price items, is that what you are saying?
I don't see that as a good thing.

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SlyRipper wrote:

On most games you have to spent months with grinding/farming to get some Gold or good items to trade with so you can get the Items you want. Here it's possible to trade anywhere at any time with any item.. mainly Orbs, but it's possible to have them way earlier and be lucky the ItemSeller just wants that Orb you just found. Which makes this System more flexible.

Why would that change?

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SlyRipper wrote:

I just have lots of transmution and transforming orbs that I won't use and they just take space (also if less) in my inventory/stash, I guess I won't ever use them a lot ^^ Why should I turn a normal item into magic one? There are enough magic Items dropped, and the Alchemy Orb turns them into rar ones.. There should be more possible to make magic items also good, else the Orbs for them are pretty useless.

Exactly, the currenct system has problems with inflation! With the proposed system that would not be an issue, you would just transform your useless orbs into useful ones (and everytime you do so the relative value of the useless orbs lessen, to reflect the fact that they are useless).

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WhiteBoy88 wrote:

It's absolutely relevant. Why would people trade in something that is worthless unless it had valuable backing or a governing agency approving it as currency? This never happens in real life. Even in ancient times when people used seeds or coconuts as currency, they did it because they were inherently valuable. People didn't start trading in worthless stones just so they could have a uniform currency. In modern times, fiat currencies are commonly accepted because they have government backing. Why would the people of Wraeclast trade in a specific item to get the goods or services they want? There has to be a logical reason in the lore.

You might find this interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_money

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WhiteBoy88 wrote:

Again, it is. You're using a currency with no inherent value to purchase something with inherent value.

No, if you make the lore so that you use the gold to MAKE the orbs then it's not a fiat currency.
That would be like saying that trading in seeds is a fiat currency because have no use of the seeds until they have grown.

There is your logical reason in the lore, and there is your intrinsic vale.

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WhiteBoy88 wrote:

Trading is part of the game, so it's not taking away from playing the game. Once we get a proper trading system (there will be one, after all) spamming the chat won't be a requirement.

But should trading really be intentionally slow just to make people spend more time doing it?
Why have currency at all if that's the case? :s

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WhiteBoy88 wrote:

How? The proposed system requires gold to drop directly in place of each orb. This means differing amounts of gold per drop to equal the value of whatever orb would have dropped. It would be harder to balance because you could save up all your low drops and buy a higher orb from the vendor (who presumably has all of them for sale), which damages the economy since there would be no way to restrict the inflation of each orb individually. There would be infinite supply of orbs since the vendor would always have to have them all in stock. Your 9 gold drop is worth a Divine Orb, so the vendor better have it in stock, right? But you don't need a Divine Orb's drop to buy a Divine Orb... You can use 18 Alchemy Orb's worth of drops instead. That's not balance; it's flooding.

Already scrolls and armor shards, and even some orbs, are becomming rather worthless and the reason is inflation. If those could be traded for other orbs via a vendor there would be no inflation.
The price of the orbs would depend on the demand, so it would balance itself, it would not flood or inflate.

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WhiteBoy88 wrote:

Perception. I know what the values are, but it's still more exciting in games to see awesome drops instead of X amount of gold.

X amount of gold can be an awesome drop.

I can just as easily say that it's more exciting to see gold drop than an orb.

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WhiteBoy88 wrote:

As I mentioned above, there will eventually be a trade system of some sort so we don't have to spam chat. Look at the long-term plan instead of what's good right now and what's not.

When that happens it will be infinitely more complex if there are dozens of currencies.

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Sickness wrote:

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SlyRipper wrote:

I like it how it is now.. Every single Game out there has some basic currency, mainly gold (or Game-unique word for it like "Alz"). So this concept is pretty unique and something new..

Just because it's unique doesn't mean it's useful.

That also doesn't mean everything unique is bad! Everything has it's advantages and disadvantages. Mostly I like it, because it's something different to all the other MMOs, it's still the same.. gold gold and gold whereever you look at.

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Sickness wrote:

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SlyRipper wrote:

There wont't be Gold-Sellers that spam the Chat because of that. It's more random to get currency items and they would've to farm a lot to get at least some, so it's not worth it I guess.

Instead there will be orb sellers. It would be just as random to get gold as it is to get orbs.

Nope, or let's say maybe.. Every Game that has a decent community playing will get some Sellers to it that think they can do some profit in it. And it's more random than gold. Mostly Gold drops on every Monster and nearly 100% on most games, you always get some dropped Gold to pick up, that makes it easy for bots, picking up some small area with massive monsters and farm for hours. As far as I know monsters don't respawn, but the instances do reset after 15min, which makes it hard to farm endlessly without playing urself. Bots need to be more complicated programmed, and not worth the effort for that low droprates good Orbs have atm. which makes this system again better than gold.

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Sickness wrote:

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SlyRipper wrote:

Another aspect is, that Items can be bought pretty cheap, if people just wan't a specific orb that others could have more often than other orbs. For example some1 has lots of Orbs of Alchemy and another person has some Regal Orbs, and so on. The Itemseller wants some Alchemy items so he possible will trade with the Alchemy-Orb-Guy and he gets the item, also if a person here had a Regal that should be worth a bit more.. With this current Currency it's also possible for low-level Players or even some that don't own the best Items on Server to trade for some good stuff, just because the own the items the ItemSeller wanted.

So now it is harder to price items, is that what you are saying?
I don't see that as a good thing.

Items don't need pricings or listed in a specific order, that just pretends new or lower/worse players from playing and have fun. If you need to play a minimum of x hours to get at least 1 good item, this sucks.. I don't like items with lot of grinding where u need to spent hours to get gold or whatever to get new item from other people. On PoE you're able to find good items everywhere also with low levels, that fit your needs. With Orbs you can also buy good items for Orbs you have, you don't need to find hundreds of gold, or only regal or alchemy orbs, but you can also trade with other stuff!

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Sickness wrote:

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SlyRipper wrote:

On most games you have to spent months with grinding/farming to get some Gold or good items to trade with so you can get the Items you want. Here it's possible to trade anywhere at any time with any item.. mainly Orbs, but it's possible to have them way earlier and be lucky the ItemSeller just wants that Orb you just found. Which makes this System more flexible.

Why would that change?

Then you don't get the meaning of this part. It will change because you need a specific amount of gold to buy items then. With current system you can buy items at any time, when you have the right Orb the Itemseller wants. And you can find this Orb with any Level. With gold you need some time to get the price for the Item, and others will buy it instead of you. So it changes a lot!

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Sickness wrote:

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SlyRipper wrote:

I just have lots of transmution and transforming orbs that I won't use and they just take space (also if less) in my inventory/stash, I guess I won't ever use them a lot ^^ Why should I turn a normal item into magic one? There are enough magic Items dropped, and the Alchemy Orb turns them into rar ones.. There should be more possible to make magic items also good, else the Orbs for them are pretty useless.

Exactly, the currenct system has problems with inflation! With the proposed system that would not be an issue, you would just transform your useless orbs into useful ones (and everytime you do so the relative value of the useless orbs lessen, to reflect the fact that they are useless).

All systems have problems, even the "allmighty" gold for every damn game ._. How comes this? This game is still Beta, maybe a reason? Everything isn't balanced, yet. Events do effect inflation also, and not only this Currency, but gold, too. I also see some events that made gold nearly useless at that time.. As said many times, everything has his positive and negative effects and this is still Beta so there can be a lot of improvements. Other games are finished/released version that still have problems with their gold systems.. that aren't the best ones..

However, I hope and also guess GGG won't change the current Currency and I pretty much like it like most other players. It's something different than those odd gold system in every game, even the smallest of those. So we can discuss further in here or just accept it, Items as currency won't change in PoE, hopefully :P

About the bots and gold sellers:

They will be there or they will not. The currency system has no influence on that. An existing AH would make it easier for bots because you do not have to trade in person.

The drop rates have no influence. The higher the drop rates the lower the prize per unit, the lower the drop rate the higher the price per unit.

Do you remember D2? Gold was useless there and it was infamous for its bots / itemsellers.

And never underestimate bots. They can do very complex tasks. Some even did baal hell runs in d2.

But my guess is that we will not see any bots in PoE because it will not be popular enough. those bots are mainly used in mainstream games. But who knows, maybe PoE will become very popular?

btw: i edited the title of this thread.

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SlyRipper wrote:

That also doesn't mean everything unique is bad! Everything has it's advantages and disadvantages. Mostly I like it, because it's something different to all the other MMOs, it's still the same.. gold gold and gold whereever you look at.

No one is saying that it's bad because it's unique.
If you like it because it's different and ignoring it's functions then you are making a mistake.

We are trying to discuss the merits of the system.

By the way, what other game has a system like the OP proposed?

You can't use the same arguments against every system with a uniform currency. That's silly. They are not all the same.

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SlyRipper wrote:

Nope, or let's say maybe.. Every Game that has a decent community playing will get some Sellers to it that think they can do some profit in it. And it's more random than gold. Mostly Gold drops on every Monster and nearly 100% on most games, you always get some dropped Gold to pick up, that makes it easy for bots, picking up some small area with massive monsters and farm for hours. As far as I know monsters don't respawn, but the instances do reset after 15min, which makes it hard to farm endlessly without playing urself. Bots need to be more complicated programmed, and not worth the effort for that low droprates good Orbs have atm. which makes this system again better than gold.

When are you going to realise that the proposed system is not like most games.
Farming gold will be exactly the same as farming orbs.

Instance resetting and bot complexity affects the game the exact same way, no matter if you have gold or orbs so that is irrelevant.

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SlyRipper wrote:

Items don't need pricings or listed in a specific order, that just pretends new or lower/worse players from playing and have fun. If you need to play a minimum of x hours to get at least 1 good item, this sucks.. I don't like items with lot of grinding where u need to spent hours to get gold or whatever to get new item from other people. On PoE you're able to find good items everywhere also with low levels, that fit your needs. With Orbs you can also buy good items for Orbs you have, you don't need to find hundreds of gold, or only regal or alchemy orbs, but you can also trade with other stuff!

If a regal orb is worth 100 gold then you have the exact same chance of finding 100 gold as you have finding a regal orb, except that you can get there in many different ways.

You wouldn't have to grind more. There is no logical reason for that.

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SlyRipper wrote:

Then you don't get the meaning of this part. It will change because you need a specific amount of gold to buy items then. With current system you can buy items at any time, when you have the right Orb the Itemseller wants. And you can find this Orb with any Level. With gold you need some time to get the price for the Item, and others will buy it instead of you. So it changes a lot!

With the proposed system you can buy items at any time, when you have the right amount of gold the item seller wants.
And you can find this amount of gold with any level.
The only difference is that now you can find lesser drops and combine them in a much easier way than before.
Why is that a bad thing?

Did you even read the OP, or did you just see "Gold" in the thread title and assumed that it was just a run to the mill gold system?

Why do people talk about "flooding" the auction house as though it's somehow a bad thing? Just sort by lowest unit price. Voila. No need to worry about "flooding" bothering you ever again.