On the subject of Gold.
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Yeah, I remember the days when my armor became butter in Diablo 1. Which had a similar decay system and they did toy around with reduced durability after repair. On nightmare difficulty sometimes just a few hits could smash apart plate. I wasn't a huge fan but I understand the rationale.
I understand what you're saying and agree that gold often results in the problem you outlined. I like this econ system because it's dynamic and it makes sense from a plot perspective. Not surprising the Aussie/Kiwi influence of being exiled to a desolate island/continent and having to rely on a system of barter was favorable to GGG. Makes sense to me too. The balance of keeping things fun and not having to rely on trade or being able to completely avoid it is a difficult balance. Provided you'll have the ability to gain all of your orbs via trading between the various vendors in all of the acts will mitigate most of the issues. I will say having each trade interaction start with "is that for sale? What do you want for it"? To more often than not result in a "whatcha got" response does stall game play but certain gems like jewelers or alchs are becoming the standard of trade. Which goes back to the idea that the economies will develop organically and reach equilibrium without intervention. Death by lag in HC = the most widely told tale to hide the shame of a miscalculated/overzealous death by game :)
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" Because that's the beginning premise of the hypothetical. Also the concept requires understanding of what is meant by metagame limits in an economic context. (In many, perhaps all, games this type of economic bottleneck occurs... which is why it's at the core of the hypothetical) The goal is to devise a system that always allows for you to spend all of your wealth on something that you would want. This is the ultimate goal of any economic system... creating opportunity costs for your wealth. So in order to solve this issue we can think of ways to create such a functional economic system and compare it to existing systems. I'll even start it out by defining that an economic opportunity cost system is divided between: 1. upkeep costs 2. purchases that raise accumulation power 3. purchases that do not raise accumulation power 4. purchases that lower accumulation power An analysis done on a system that has no upkeep and where players only make purchases that raise accumulation power results in a system that will quickly reach the metagame limit and wealth will have no value without an additional sink. Therefore what additional economic features are necessary in type 3 that can slow or prevent this problematic process? What type of economic features could be desirable but that would lower accumulation power? If you have account problems please [url="http://www.pathofexile.com/support"]Email Support[/url]
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Heres an idea of mine, I've had it for a long time but never really got around to typing it down since I've never been against the current barter system myself.
Maybe it has been discussed before, I haven't really stalked the gold discussion threads. But here it goes, as an effort of reaching some kind of a golden middle between those for and against "gold": The way I see it a united currency CAN be implemented in PoE without changing the game basics TOO much: On every occasion when monster would drop an orb replace it with (same goes for npc selling recipes): Orb of Transmutation = 1 Gold Orb of Augmentation = 4 Gold Orb of Alteration = 16 Gold Orb of Alchemy = 40 Gold Etc Etc Ofcourse all the values are just examples based on the current npc exchange rates, every orb should be given a value based on its rarity/usefulness. Now what you do with this gold is go to blacksmith (lets say Tarkleigh or Greust since they fit well as armor/weapon vendors, each town should have such npc(s)) and pay for: Rolling a magical item from a normal one = 1 Gold Adding another affix to magical item = 4 Gold Rerolling affixes of a magical item = 16 Gold Rolling a rare item from a normal one = 40 Gold Etc Etc The result of such system: You get exactly the same "gold sink" potential that the current system has, but you make life so much easier for all those players used to having one common curreny in so many games. Edit: also freeing up players' stashes from currency stacks^^ What do you think? Last edited by nermind#6181 on Mar 4, 2012, 7:08:45 PM
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I've thought about that system a lot.... Biggest issue with that is that the game then sets the relative values between them, as opposed to the players.
The current system provides essentially no basis by which players can easily gauge the value of one orb over another, as they are not liquid commodities. It's a major difference between the two systems which would be lost if you introduced a common currency. Again, this is why I feel that $dollars will become the default common currency, as it appears that most things break down into wisdom scrolls but wisdom scrolls don't build up into anything. I don't think there is a universally desired base currency item that could serve as a common currency... These things seem to be a feature that GGG wants to experiment with and see how they play out using their unique planned trade system. How I think it'll play out is that if you have 10000 orbs of alteration and you want a mirror of kalandra, nobody is going to make the trade... however if you sell 10000 orbs of alteration for $, then someone will sell you the mirror for $. If $dollars didn't exist, I think the system would be a great experiment... but with $dollars acting as a common currency, the more I think about the barter system the more problematic I find it to be... A potential solution is to have the NPCs work more like stockbrokers and the relative prices would fluctuate based on demand. If you have account problems please [url="http://www.pathofexile.com/support"]Email Support[/url]
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" Monsters dropping golden orb things is more fun than just dropping gold and your idea requires the devs to set the relative value of orb functions while the real value to players is determined by players. Instead I proposed pages ago having NPC traders buy and sell orbs for gold and they would be the only source of gold in the game, gold in reality would be IOUs from orb traders. The NPC traders have target stock levels for each type of orb and their prices automatically adjust to try to maintain the target levels. That way player supply and demand sets the relative value of orbs. The traders must have zero or close to zero mark up to not encouraging players to bypass them. The system would give players a quick and easy way to exchange orbs at the going rate and give them a viable currency to use trading with other players for non-orb items. Won't do anything to fix inflation problems, just make life and especially trading easier for the player. |
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{vendors=central bank}: This system makes sense from a theoretical perspective.
Many people are concerned with the illiquid nature of currency orbs. By introducing a $dollar that can be issued/redeemed only through vendors at a rate that fluctuates in accordance with total orbs in league, it can serve a two-fold purpose: 1. Orb exchange rate to $dollars can manage inflation directly as the rate can vary with the total number of that orb type in the world. If there is a league surplus of Chromatic orbs (implying low player demand), it costs more Chromatic orbs to exchange for 1 $dollar. If there is a league scarcity of Fusing Orbs (implying high player demand), it costs less of them to exchange for a $dollar. 2. Players can trade amongst each other using a unified currency that has implicit (though fluctuating) value. Someone who accumulates wealth in $dollars can then redeem these notes with the vendor for the preferred orb type. The process of redemption can further mitigate inflation by introducing a currency spread (you can buy a $dollar for 20 Alchemy; conversely, at the same time, you can buy 18 Alchemy for a $dollar). I must state again, however, that the use of a fiat currency will create a capitalist economy where the opportunity for currency arbitrage will exist. The player population will now have discrete trade value for orbs (I believe this is one of the reasons why orb rarity/drop data is never released to the players)... An astute player can manipulate the economy by flooding and draining the market of a particular orb type to take advantage of the exchange rate. It may necessitate GGG hiring a currency analyst [I'll throw my name into the hat. I'm actually enjoying all this discussion about Wraeclast economy, though I am perturbed that I find this stuff more fascinating than the core game... ;-)] to minimize player arbitrage... However, this still isn't a perfect solution because items (armor, weapons) still don't have a sink. Over time, we will still have inflation. Aside from item decay and more recipes, I can't think of any other way of dealing with this. "We were going to monitor the situation but it was in the wrong aspect ratio."
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Problem is that all games inherit the fiat currency of the american dollar... so there's no way to avoid that or the problems that it creates.
The biggest other thing is the problem that it solves... which is exchange rate between items that have no reliable game exchange rate. Which creates the problem of third party sites being the primary mode of trade. If you have account problems please [url="http://www.pathofexile.com/support"]Email Support[/url]
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" If the NPC traders have significant mark up players will be tempted to avoid using them. You will get players standing next to NPC traders spamming offers (in general chat of course) to buy and sell at slightly better rates than NPCs. The sink which players will try to avoid isn't worth the annoyance it will cause. " I don't see how attempts to drain or flood a market will provide any significant income (or that individuals would have sufficient resources to do it). You can make some money playing the market, buy low sell high, I have done it myself but it relies on predictable market variation. Players tend to buy at the beginning of a playing session an sell their drops at the end so prices tend to peak Friday night and trough Monday morning. There is a bit of money to be made smoothing the variation but it is shared between all those trying to do it. " Orbs have no sink either they are converted to increased item quality. None of this has anything to do with inflation it has everything to do with providing a currency to facilitate trade. I haven't mentioned it recently, but, the foundations for a forum/web site based trading platform/auction house have been built into PoE from the start. I can't conceive how any kind of trading platform can work without a trading currency. How on earth can an auction house accept bids in 30 different single denomination 'currencies' with no defined exchange rates? It is so inconceivable that I can't help thinking the Devs have something up their sleeve, however, you would think that something would be applicable in NPC vendors and they seem to be pressing on with non-currency currency items. Last edited by Fluffy#2706 on Mar 5, 2012, 8:07:19 AM
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" Like the "other" opinions are explained too... once more: I dont said + say, gold is bad - it is not necessary for the way the games mechanics are (actually) intended to work... If the only purpose of a gold currency is to serve for trading, it will quickly raise inflation problems; and if it gets an additional purpose (a sink), it will nothing more, nothing different to the orb currencies now (an item with an inherent value/purpose and a use as trading base, with the additional issue to balance this purpose between too good (too much sinking) and too less use (too less sinking) And, once more - since its addressed by some others: the "real world" capitalist economics has proved over dozens of years, that it not works - money always leads into people without it, and people who have, make even more from it... invited by timer @ 10.12.2011
-- deutsche Community: www.exiled.eu & ts.exiled.eu |
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" Gold has no more to do with inflation than snot has to do with the common cold. Removing snot with a hankie does not cure a cold, it just hides one of the obvious symptoms. |
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