Dr. McB explains the economy in Path of Exile

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Garr0t wrote:

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b15h09 wrote:

Agree. Playing an aRPG should not entail daily shop maintenance and routinely dropping what you're doing to cater to someone elses needs so that you can scrape a few currency. Design game around global economy, fail to facilitate trade.

This is a design decision. Which is why (well, back in closed beta) an auction house will never exist. It is a meta mechanic which makes the player choose between spending their time playing the arbitrage game, or to spend their time grinding out items/currency in the game. Both ways are a means to accumulating more wealth/power. They are just different approaches.

If trade automates, the indexed availability of good items will have an exponential and highly negative influence on player power (As evidenced by D3, which in my opinion, is ultimately why they removed the AH. There was no reason for them to, as it was a total cash cow), which will trivialize the content and require GGG to retune the game. This would also exacerbate the power gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots', which has plagued the game since Atrizi and it has become quite the white elephant in the room.

While there are discussions all over this board about player choice and how one is to make the most of the game we have all been given, it creates a nightmare for GGG to try to plan game elements for such a dichotomous group of players.

I have read some thoughts on how to bring the power levels closer together (dramatically improve monster AI and mob composition, place more power on the tree to offset gear dependency, revamp damage elements or retune defensive mechanics so the game isn't just about aoe clears and avoiding one shots), and I trust GGG has read them too.

Regarding currency liquidity. I agree, and fundamentally, my personal opinion is that the currency drop rates should be dramatically increased to bring item valuations more in line with actual crafting costs.

From this thread and there's links in my response to general economic theory posts I made even farther back. Follow the rabbit if you dare...

I think what you are missing is discussing why an economy would exist in a video game, especially one like a diablo2 clone with no persistent world.



gaming happens in three stages:

stage 1: noob level, everything is new and daunting. Progress is slow, demand to learn is very high. Very likely to quit in frustration, nothing really makes sense, everything seems to one shot you. As a developer, You want gamers to experience this stage on set, to make learning about the game feel so much more enjoyable, but you want them to progress past it fairly quickly as well, these are your 'at risk' audience to use a higher education term.



stage 2: You understand the fundamental and learning the nuances, your player skill is climbing fast. You are completing challenges that seemed impossible through a better understanding. You 'know the maps' and the angles now, checking the likely spots, heading to the right to find the next area etc. Progress is fast and character growth is rapid, players enjoy the game intrinsically in stage 2 experiences, the game is fun and engaging. This is the sweet spot for the gamer, they Cant Wait to get back to playing.


stage 3: You have mastered the learning curve. All that is left is grinding for negligible changes and extrinsic rewards, .05 seconds faster on your best time trial, looking for that .01% drop chance. The game is obviously enjoyable to you, but you have done just about everything there is to do, the extrinsic rewards need to be interesting to keep you motivated. The inevitable conclusion to successful stage 2 experiences. Gamers will eventually learn the final points of the game, will complete the content.



As a game designer you want to keep your players in stage 2, perpetually. But that is a huge huge demand on the developer, your choices are very limited, produce content and learning curves faster than players can tire of them or the infamous 'Artificial Difficulty'. YOu not only burn yourself out but basically lose stage 1 gamers totally due to fast changes or 'unfair challenge'. Which means you are going to have players enter stage 3. It has to happen. And you need a game/reward structure for your stage 3 gamers. And thus we have ideas like economy. To enrich the experience of gamers that have destroyed everything else. To give them reason to search for the .01% drop, to Grind for it.

A negative about economy is it does allow for players to shortcut the developer desired stage progression. If you get killer gear but know squat about the game, there is a good chance you are still going to do well, but possibly with huge glaring gaps in understanding what is happening and why.

Basically economy exists to give players a reason to play the game above and beyond slaughtering enemies. The players the economy is designed for have slaughtered the enemies, more times than they themselves even found healthily fun. It is to be a reward for continuing to seek out knowledge about the game.

As such, it makes sense that stage 3 players accumulate the economical advantages, it is there to reward them by design, which translates to most likely retaining more players in every stage.