Ways to Remove High-end Items from the Game (To Curb Item Inflation)

Well, its apparent that I simply don't see what all of you are concerned about. I've played almost every game in the arpg genre, and quite a few MMO's, but I am at a loss.

D2's economy is broken (apparently) and the ladder wipes are a "smoke screen" used to cover the fact up. Well, to me, the ladders were wiped to give someone else the opportunity to climb it again... and that's all, never saw any conspiracies at work in the wipe. I never thought the economy was broken either, if you want an item.. you have to be willing to give the other guy what he wants for it... that's all. What I thought this thread was about was the over abundance of rare items. D2 does not suffer from that problem. If it did, Zod runes would be plentiful and Shako's would be all over the place.. but that simply isn't so.

Sorry I misread the comments about EvE. My mistake there.

@Lichalfred

Sorry man, I just don;t see all the other comments about other rpg's... maybe I'm missing something.

You ask me to offer games that DO NOT suffer from this problem. Well, I've never played a game that does. I've never played a game wherein all of the rarest/best items were in abundance and everyone was running around in top-gear. I've never, ever, ever, seen that happen.

Maybe the problem exists in Sacred (I've only played S2 and that game had enough problems, bigger problems, to work out).

It's usually more subtle than 'everyone running around with the best everything.' It's still an economy, but it's not a good economy because of massive end game inflation.

Many gamers play games to get big, and so they don't really take notice at economic disparity. The only way to really notice is to enter a fresh zone (usually a ladder) and then go back to the old economy.

Economies evolve over time, but *all* economies suffer from end game inflation if they don't actively decay end game items...

In chemistry there is a law called Le Chatelier's principle, and it's applied to Economics in a similar fashion.

The point is you shouldn't balance a economy with something that isn't fun. In the end the player's fun is the most important aspect of the game. So ask yourself is this sacrifice worth it? Besides what is to stop players from trading these end game items to the players even with durability. Just because they have to trade more frequently won't solve the problem. If there is this saturation then it will simply just be lessened not completely solved. What you going to do then bind equipment?

See it just escalates. What is more important having a big stash of your hard earned gear and loot or having a perfect economy. That as of right now is impossible to say that it will inevitably fail.

I'm about to write a diatribe it seems, so it's important to keep in mind that I do not actually care what system they use, and this is only for educational purposes:

So, I tried to make this point earlier in this thread: most players don't know what 'fun' is. For those that don't know, fun is actually balance of the struggle, not the other way around. You don't balance based on fun, you get fun out of proper balance.

The clearest example of why fun is balance is in the struggle between what is too hard and what is too easy. If you pushed a button and beat the game, you'd lose interest very quickly. If you moved and died you'd lose interest very quickly. These are extreme examples, but it applies to everything in life and ties in later. If the game is truly more 'fun' if it's easier due to a glut of high end items, then the game wasn't properly balanced to begin with.

That being said, I understand what I hope you mean, and there might be an alternative that is equal for balance but more fun than permanent loss of items.... however I've analyzed a lot of systems and I haven't seen it yet. I hope the POE team can find something.

I should also clarify what I meant by fail... most games have no method to dynamically determine drop rates... they simply set up a percent and let it go, perhaps tweaking it a couple times ever. In such a system with permanent drop rates and no system by which items leave the system, the only method by which items leave is when players quit or if they sit in stashes accumulating dust. The residual gets poured onto the economy. Due to the nature of this system, there is a balance that is setup between the player*hours*drop%-quits-storage and also the ratio of drops/actives. There is always an equilibrium that is achieved, however these values are modified by another rate, which is the rate of wealth accruement. The ratio of d(drops/actives)/dWealth determines inflation and d(player*hours)-d(quits-storage) determines the rate inflation occurs. Decay of items allows them to fine tune these d-values and correct for shifts to ensure a steady state. It's important to understand that these rates ultimately determine how fun the game is, and rely on items leaving the system one way or another.

Usually economies will not totally fail unless the inflation rate bottoms out due to too few players in, too many items dropping, and wealth ends up meaning nothing (even in this game if items can be rolled with all stats provided by wealth items then the wealth items can in theory achieve a value of zero. This is why some item properties should not be achievable without using a wealth item on them.) Usually economies just achieve a new balance, which at some point breaks the balance of the actual game itself... remember fun is in the balance.

So what happens is that while the economy is shifting towards new players, it is actually ruining their gameplay experience, because the game is balanced around characters having specific average things at specific average times. If players suddenly have much more with no compensatory balance change to the game difficulty the situation where the game is too easy can occur.

Most players are not even aware it's happening to them. They aren't aware, and will sometimes swear up and down that they are having fun or even more fun being more powerful... however it's simply an illusion due to perspective. Since they are inside the bubble, they have no perspective by which to compare their experience to, and don't know that with a better balance they'd actually have MORE fun. Playing a game that is too easy or too hard is simply not as much fun as playing the perfect balance. This is why players play similar, but different games... they are testing the balance of the new system, in a game archetype they enjoy. If it's too hard they quit, and if it's too easy they blow through it and quit.

So if you are still following all of this... the fun isn't in amassing a ton of stuff easily... it's in a careful balance between the factors involved with inflation (the math above) and the overall difficulty of the game as they are closely linked. If destruction of items is the only way discovered to keep that balance, then the most fun had for everyone is to preserve balance even if they didn't know it.

Most players think they measure their fun in progress and wealth accumulation, but that's not actually what makes something fun... they are simply analyzing themselves incorrectly. Proof of that is that when you give someone everything they could ever want... they quit, because there is no more game.

The POE team has already identified wealth accumulation as a symptom of problems. So you asked what is more important a big stash or a perfect economy? The perfect economy is more important, because a perfect balance of any system leads to balance in other systems and they are all interconnected.

So I didn't mean that the economies would fail and the game would explode or something, but I did mean that when the curve shifts too much it really hurts the overall gameplay as a whole, which ultimately leads to what I consider overall failure.

For years I asked myself what the fun is, and still I get no clear answer...

Though I definetely know what the fun isn't, as well as all of us do.

@ zeto

I think you made some really good points, and by and large, I think you are correct. However, you can't define "fun" universally for all people.

My brother loves the Dynasty Warriors games, plays the hell out of them, over and over. The game isn't hard at all, he never dies or loses, he plays it simply to escape after work.

Nevertheless, I think you are placing to much emphasis on loot collection as the only means of achieving "fun". When I played WoW and hit (at the time) the lev cap (60) and had cleared all the dungeons, and had all the loot my warrior needed. I still had a blast playing the game by helping others, exploring, sitting in trade chat and being obnoxious.

When I played Anarchy Online and my entire guild was, by and large, lev capped with max gear, we ALL still had fun. PvP, helping smaller guilds, making up our own stuff to do (light roleplaying). Hell, I remember as a kid making up storylines for games like Mortal Kombat in my head and playing through the game.

My point? A game is like any other activity, you get out of it what you put into it.

Blah we're just going around in cirlces.

"

Wittgenstein wrote:

@ zeto

I think you made some really good points, and by and large, I think you are correct. However, you can't define "fun" universally for all people.

My brother loves the Dynasty Warriors games, plays the hell out of them, over and over. The game isn't hard at all, he never dies or loses, he plays it simply to escape after work.

Nevertheless, I think you are placing to much emphasis on loot collection as the only means of achieving "fun". When I played WoW and hit (at the time) the lev cap (60) and had cleared all the dungeons, and had all the loot my warrior needed. I still had a blast playing the game by helping others, exploring, sitting in trade chat and being obnoxious.

When I played Anarchy Online and my entire guild was, by and large, lev capped with max gear, we ALL still had fun. PvP, helping smaller guilds, making up our own stuff to do (light roleplaying). Hell, I remember as a kid making up storylines for games like Mortal Kombat in my head and playing through the game.

My point? A game is like any other activity, you get out of it what you put into it.

On one hand I agree that no matter what, fun is still relative to the individual even if it's based on balance. For the single player game, balance is less important, because you are only balancing it for a single person that cannot interact with other people. In a multiplayer game balance is much more important, because one player can affect another. That being said, here's what I think about playing a game when there isn't more to actually do and don't take it the wrong way... I've been there too ;) we all have probably:

I don't call that fun, I call that addiction. Addiction makes you think something is good when it's not... I've been there as well. I played a crappy 2d isometric hex RPG for many many years, and the only reason why I continued to have fun is because of my addiction to the game... I thought I was having fun doing nothing at all.

It's hard to admit when you are addicted to a game, but if there's nothing left to really accomplish and you are still playing for hours and hours... it's addiction and nothing more.

"

For years I asked myself what the fun is, and still I get no clear answer...

Though I definetely know what the fun isn't, as well as all of us do.

Have to agree with this. There are just too many aspects to clarify what fun is. Not to mention different peoples definition, but i personally think it is not fun to have items degrade so there it is.

So let's pretend that items won't degrade, because more than likely they won't. I've already shown why it's important to have items leave the system so:

What alternatives are there to allow for micromanagement of the rates that items enter and leave the economy?

Things to consider:
1. The item you give up shouldn't go back into the economy.
2. The item should try not to promote a treadmill effect of ever-increasing power... there is only so high the system can ever go.

This leads to a couple basic conclusions.

1. the item replaced must be used in the creation of a new item.. Systems that use this are typically of the variety: broken new item/recipe + old item = crafted new item

2. The item has a reason to be stored forever. Systems that use this are typically those where specific items are needed or desired to kill particular end game targets. But still in this case if you get multiple of the same category you will probably dump others on the economy.

Another option would be alternative advancement by consuming high end items. High level players will then attempt to purchase high end items to use towards advancement credit.

Trading high end items for credit towards unique items from NPCs.

Trading high end items for consumable boosts from NPCs. *this idea is great because the power boost is temporary and doesn't increase the treadmill

Trading high end items for temporary access to new areas or optional bosses.

The trend here is that you trade high end items for either a small increase in power or access to unique content which doesn't increase power, but increases stuff for you to experience in the game.

That's all I have atm.