Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Natural NPC Item Drops

    • 1281 posts
    May 5, 2020 12:46 PM PDT

    Something that is important to me is that NPC drop tables are natural or "realistic", whatever realistic means in a fantasy game.

    What I mean is, I don't want to see a rat dropping a bronze breastplate or jewelry, etc., that type of thing. I'd like to see NPC loot tables match what they would be carrying as an NPC say if you were DMing in tabletop.

    This way as a player I can make a more informed decision over what to fight. If I want to get some scrap weapons for crafting, I may fight an orc or goblin grunt. If I want to get some meat or fur for crafting, I would fight a bear or other animal. If I need coins, I would fight against humanoid type races. That type of thing.

    You can get creative with it too. If you want a named bear to drop a cool item, have it drop something like a Great Bearskin that is a cloak or something. As long as it plays into the NPC's persona.

    How important is it to you that the drops from NPC's match the type of equipment/provisions that that would really have? Or do you not care if a random boar drops a 2 handed sword?


    This post was edited by bigdogchris at May 5, 2020 12:52 PM PDT
    • 1273 posts
    May 5, 2020 12:57 PM PDT

    I don't have strong feelings about it but I tend to agree.  A rat dropping a big sword would be odd.  But a rat dropping an earring or necklace would be ok with me, I imagine he swallowed it or something.  

    There's gotta be a way to make mobs attractive though that wouldn't be able to drop anything of value.  I mean, the exp is good, and just having fun is good.  But why choose mob X if it has no chance of dropping anything of value when you can choose mob Y that does have a chance of dropping something of value.  

    I suppose the rat ttails or teeth might be of value to some NPC?  Or the beetle wings might be a collectors item?  I dunno, just thoughts :)

    • 18 posts
    May 5, 2020 12:59 PM PDT

    I'm with you, I like the drops to make sense.  The exception I'll make is, like, dragons.  Because I imagine they may be sleeping on top of the pile of breastplates and swords they've stolen from previous adventurers they've killed, haha.  Joppa (I believe, maybe it was Brad?) spoke about this on a stream long ago where they were fighting in the Tower of the Reckless Magician (the one where Cohh was controlling the Monk).  That you wouldn't see random weapons and stuff dropping off beasts and animals, and if you wanted armor/weapon drops, you'd have to go fight humanoid type creatures.

    Now, granted, that was a couple years ago, so who knows, something might have changed since then, but I would believe that "sensible" loot tables would be important to them throughout time.

    • 1992 posts
    May 5, 2020 2:01 PM PDT

    I remember the stream. I think it was Brad who was telling us that loot tables would make sense for the type of creature. I was happy to hear it, for sure. I think it's also where he was telling us that if you saw the item ON the mob - like armor or a sword - you could get it in the loot.

    I agree with the OP on this. I also expect to see a bit of 'creativity' in the loot tables of ordinary animals wandering the countryside, since there's only so many pelts, claws and tails one person can loot before their group starts calling them 'Stinky' :)

    • 2756 posts
    May 5, 2020 2:58 PM PDT

    It'd be nice to have the drops be more sensible than we've seen in the past, but no big deal.

    • 1479 posts
    May 5, 2020 4:16 PM PDT

    I prefer loots to be realistic enough to be logical and avoid magic items dropping off animals. Now it doesn"t excluse a very rare bear could have a blade sticked in his fur or whatever, but that should remain rare.

     

    My main concern is just what is "usually the case in mmo's" that humanoids dropping coins and useable items they tend to be the main farm focus while all others are not interesting enough, but that make sense as well.

    • 2756 posts
    May 6, 2020 12:08 AM PDT

    MauvaisOeil said:

    I prefer loots to be realistic enough to be logical and avoid magic items dropping off animals. Now it doesn"t excluse a very rare bear could have a blade sticked in his fur or whatever, but that should remain rare.

    My main concern is just what is "usually the case in mmo's" that humanoids dropping coins and useable items they tend to be the main farm focus while all others are not interesting enough, but that make sense as well.

    As much as "Kill 10 bears" 'quests' aren't inventive, it would be totally sensible for a local tanner to pay cash for animal skins, so even though bears may not drop coins, they should be worth killing just the same (or more) than humanoids.

    Almost any plant or animal part could/should be usable by (and thus sellable to) someone, either NPC or PC crafter.

    We should be able to Salvage from animals just like we might Salvage armor parts from humanoids we don't too badly mash during combat.

    I'm hoping we will have reason, other than XP grinding, to kill everything! Mwuhahahaha!


    This post was edited by disposalist at May 6, 2020 12:11 AM PDT
    • 888 posts
    May 6, 2020 12:44 AM PDT

    MauvaisOeil said:

    My main concern is just what is "usually the case in mmo's" that humanoids dropping coins and useable items they tend to be the main farm focus while all others are not interesting enough, but that make sense as well.

    Personally, I would like to see a world where we fought "bad guys" and didn't run around murdering every animal in the forest for no particular reason. Killing every thing I see doesn't make me feel like an adventurer, it makes me feel like a sociopath.

     

    As for the economic concern, I think the way they will balance it is by making most humanoid loot to be garbage quality. It's that or make animal drops valuable, because most humanoids will be wearing clothes/armor and have weapons, which means there will be a lot of loot..But either way, it sounds like there will be a lot of loot dropped (something I don't like about MMOs, because it means wasting more of my limited game time on inventory management).  Most games make sure to have high loot drop rates for the same reason casinos have lots of loud noises and flashing lights--it creates a dopamine hit and is addictive. 

    • 1315 posts
    May 6, 2020 5:24 AM PDT

    This is one of those situations where a really robust crafting system could change game play from murder hobos smashing loot pinata’s to a living game world economy.

    Non humanoid mobs could have a list of possible body parts that can drop in a range of qualities.  All of the drops have some use but the final quality of the product will have some baring on the initial quality of the raw materials.  Very rarely a magically imbued top quality part will drop and those are your sudo item drops.

    An adequately skilled crafter can combine multiple magically imbued ingredients in a standard recipe to create a magically imbued standard item.  The final properties of the item will be based on the magic in the individual ingredients.  If each rare part could be used in many different recipes and each standard recipe could use many different options for each of its material slots you could turn random monster parts into a usable item tailored to your class.

    Notably the total time to farm up all the rare ingredients you want your item to be made from will likely take much longer than just farming a named mob for a specific drop.  This will actually allow for crafted items to be more powerful than dropped ones because the significantly higher time investment to get one.

    • 1281 posts
    May 6, 2020 2:15 PM PDT

    Trasak said:

    This is one of those situations where a really robust crafting system could change game play from murder hobos smashing loot pinata’s to a living game world economy.

    Non humanoid mobs could have a list of possible body parts that can drop in a range of qualities.  All of the drops have some use but the final quality of the product will have some baring on the initial quality of the raw materials.  Very rarely a magically imbued top quality part will drop and those are your sudo item drops.

    An adequately skilled crafter can combine multiple magically imbued ingredients in a standard recipe to create a magically imbued standard item.  The final properties of the item will be based on the magic in the individual ingredients.  If each rare part could be used in many different recipes and each standard recipe could use many different options for each of its material slots you could turn random monster parts into a usable item tailored to your class.

    Notably the total time to farm up all the rare ingredients you want your item to be made from will likely take much longer than just farming a named mob for a specific drop.  This will actually allow for crafted items to be more powerful than dropped ones because the significantly higher time investment to get one.

    It's possible they don't have pieces drop as part of the normal loot table but rather require you to harvest the components. That would give a non-crafters an incentive to spend time learning to harvest even if it's to sell the components.


    This post was edited by bigdogchris at May 6, 2020 2:16 PM PDT
    • 1921 posts
    May 6, 2020 4:49 PM PDT

    For such a simple question, it's a fundamental economic design decision.
    Should drops have any coin value (initially, at the point of looting, prior to mitigating actions)? 
    Should PC's be able to sell drops to NPC's and gain coin, directly, and without limit?
    If the answer is yes to either of those, it's mathematically inevitable that your economy will fail to achieve any reasonable goals.
    Why? Inifinite taps in the face of finite sinks results in runaway inflation.  Every time in the past 20+ years.

    Yet, that's where we're headed. All aboard the inflation train! wooot woooooot! :)
    Here's an outline of a different idea, in case some might be concerned about a lack of constructivity.

    • 768 posts
    May 6, 2020 10:53 PM PDT

    I was waiting for your reply there Vjek. 

    The devs already mentioned something to in these lines. 

    Initially you don't think twice about where the loot comes from, when it presents itself. However, it adds tremendous depth in your game if you design it so to make sense.

    I would question if the majority of players concerns themselves with the origin or the logic behind loot.

    Personally, I hope to see animals and other natural creatures to provide only themselves as loot. No coin, gear, consumables.

    From the moment it's within reason that a creature can carry or otherwise equip extra items on them, the loot table can open up more. This would be: gear, consumables if they themselves require such items.

    When creatures live in a world (lorewise ofc) that puts value on things, you can open up the loottable even more: different quality of items, whatever they are wearing at the time,... (some coin?)

    Unless the encounter itself is legendary or to proportion, I don't expect to loot an extra ordinairy item from a common encounter. Not even if this dropchance would be 1/100. Just think about it a bit more and give that loot a senseable destination or place in the world. 

    Even mobs, foes, and other creatures with reasoning might hide or otherwise obscure items they find valuable. This means, the encounter itself might not render high loot, but in the area or at specific locations linked to that encounter, you possible find a home run of loot.

    bigdogchris said:

    You can get creative with it too. If you want a named bear to drop a cool item, have it drop something like a Great Bearskin that is a cloak or something. As long as it plays into the NPC's persona.

    Place the "Cloak of Great Bearskin" (aka the cloak you want this bear to offer after defeat) on a corpse inside the bears' den? Or in a traphole near the bear? Allow the player to skin or loot the "glistening hide" of the bear after the kill and go the a crafter that has that recipe. (Recipe found by consumption of regional content relating to crafters and such bears?)


    This post was edited by Barin999 at May 6, 2020 10:59 PM PDT
    • 2756 posts
    May 7, 2020 3:18 AM PDT

    Real world economies with experts 'running' them don't work well.

    There should be more ways to control game economies, but the question will (and should) always be: are they fun? It is a game.

    The idea has to be that we have lots of money sinks to match the money gain, no?  The problem is, most people find those money sinks, like in real life, irritating and annoying.

    Taxes. Rent. Repairing and replacing possessions. It's just not fun to want to do something in game and find you can't afford it, so you have to go out and earn in order to progress, like it's a job! And if it doesn't feel like you 'have' to, it's too easy, and inflation runs riot.

    And limiting the income is just as dreary. Loot drops you can't sell? (so is worthless unless you enjoy crafting and forces crafters to harvest/gather everything for themselves).

    I didn't go and read the crafters thread yet @vjek. I'm sure it has some great ideas and there surely are ways VR can do it better than other games have, but I'm saying it must be *very* hard to design controls to an economy without 'ruining the fun' of the game. Loot/treasure is an integral part of the dopamine hit. A game designer mitigates that with 'costs' at their peril.

    • 1921 posts
    May 7, 2020 7:09 AM PDT

    Fun should always be a priority in a game, for certain, disposalist.
    You can give players the looting experience without ruining the economy, but it does require that all loot have exactly zero initial coin value, and/or can't be sold directly for coin, without limit, to an NPC.
    However, that (looting/equipping immediately/selling for coin/etc) is a fundamental part of all the ruined MMO economies so far. 
    There's only one thing necessary to fix it all: an NPC must be involved in the inflation mitigation steps. 
    That's it.  If you're willing to accept that premise, then the sky is the limit with respect to solutions.

    After going through the exercise of reviewing the current & past failures, and attempting to address each point of failure, I think it's possible to make it fun.  I would find it fun, and those in my guild interested in Pantheon would find it fun.
    Yet, I also recognize to date, this team has no appetite for fixing this, they don't see it as a problem (or at least, many years ago when Brad spoke about it on these forums, he didn't) and it's unlikely Pantheon is the game that will distinguish itself via a healthy economy.


    This post was edited by vjek at May 7, 2020 7:10 AM PDT
    • 1315 posts
    May 7, 2020 7:16 AM PDT

    @vjek

    I forget, in the referenced thread, did we end up landing on humanoid only coin drops and a general diminishing return on what a merchant would pay for a specific drop based on its current inventory?

    Then the hope is that you will not need too many cash sinks to keep a fairly low cash balance with the ability to accelerate the diminishing returns if the server cash balance was too high.

    • 1921 posts
    May 7, 2020 7:31 AM PDT

    I believe this is the last part of that conversation, Trasak.  Different thread, same general topic, though.

    • 3852 posts
    May 7, 2020 7:45 AM PDT

    I agree that drops should be generally realistic. Realism in a fantasy universe means consistant with the basic laws and ecosystem of that universe however unrealistic they might be by the standards of a more mundane universe.

    I agree that a primary means of gaining coin and experience should not be wanton slaughter of animals. On the other hand it is trivially easy to throw in hundreds of minor quests each of which make perfect sense for the area in question. Not quests to get us to high level in a few hours as in some current games but quests to give us a *reason* for what we do even if the quest reward is minor. Back before Disney and Bambi animals were most commonly seen as nuisances, threats, and sources of resources, after all.

    • 2138 posts
    May 8, 2020 6:53 AM PDT

    it makes sense to me Dorotea, 

    A bandit should have more coin on them, generally speaking (if they are good bandits), animals just what can be skinned or offals or the rare occasional swallowed small item like the ring mentioned earlier. Semi-sentient beasts different strange items. 

    I would also like to see some consistency like if there is a diseased animal, seeing a larger population of diseased similar animals as you get closer to the course/cause of the disease to "discover" what is causing the disease. Likewise a plethora of undead, or even one undead, what upset that grave or who is raising up the bodies?

    on a side note I would like to see items able to be crafted up or down, like ruined hides into a fine hide or fine hide down to ruined hide. But not things like pristine rat whiskers, I am not sure if rat whiskers need such levels of grading. 

    • 1281 posts
    May 8, 2020 7:24 AM PDT

    bigdogchris said:

    Something that is important to me is that NPC drop tables are natural or "realistic", whatever realistic means in a fantasy game.

    What I mean is, I don't want to see a rat dropping a bronze breastplate or jewelry, etc., that type of thing. I'd like to see NPC loot tables match what they would be carrying as an NPC say if you were DMing in tabletop.

    This way as a player I can make a more informed decision over what to fight. If I want to get some scrap weapons for crafting, I may fight an orc or goblin grunt. If I want to get some meat or fur for crafting, I would fight a bear or other animal. If I need coins, I would fight against humanoid type races. That type of thing.

    You can get creative with it too. If you want a named bear to drop a cool item, have it drop something like a Great Bearskin that is a cloak or something. As long as it plays into the NPC's persona.

    How important is it to you that the drops from NPC's match the type of equipment/provisions that that would really have? Or do you not care if a random boar drops a 2 handed sword?

     

    They've already discussed this very thing, and said that you won't see rats and snakes dropping weapons or armor, as an example.

    • 2756 posts
    May 9, 2020 3:43 AM PDT

    vjek said:

    Fun should always be a priority in a game, for certain, disposalist.
    You can give players the looting experience without ruining the economy, but it does require that all loot have exactly zero initial coin value, and/or can't be sold directly for coin, without limit, to an NPC.
    However, that (looting/equipping immediately/selling for coin/etc) is a fundamental part of all the ruined MMO economies so far.
    There's only one thing necessary to fix it all: an NPC must be involved in the inflation mitigation steps.
    That's it. If you're willing to accept that premise, then the sky is the limit with respect to solutions.

    After going through the exercise of reviewing the current & past failures, and attempting to address each point of failure, I think it's possible to make it fun. I would find it fun, and those in my guild interested in Pantheon would find it fun.
    Yet, I also recognize to date, this team has no appetite for fixing this, they don't see it as a problem (or at least, many years ago when Brad spoke about it on these forums, he didn't) and it's unlikely Pantheon is the game that will distinguish itself via a healthy economy.

    Looking at your linked threads, you look like you've put more thought into it than I have, but the more I think about this the more I think there isn't a fix or doesn't really need to be.

    It's an interesting discussion and there sure is a lot to consider. You seem very sure you've solved it and the devs aren't listening or concerned. I don't want to seem combative, I'm just not so sure of either ;^)

    I have some thoughts and I've just had a conversation with someone who has a masters in Economics. They don't know computer games, so some is maybe lost in translation, but anyway: -

    Inflation is normal in a system where time is invested in an ongoing basis and that time is considered to have worth. In a game, not only do we want that time to have worth, we want it to be presented as an actual reward.

    In real life, inflation is fine, as long as it reflects productivity and progress. Pretty similar in game.

    I'm pretty sure that making loot worth zero coin initially (or not even having coin) makes no difference to its worth, it simply adds a different kind of time 'expense' into the process and/or a different measure to the 'worth'.

    Say there is a sword you want. Let's think of some ways of getting it: -

    You take (on average) 1 hour to kill 100 monsters (each had a 1% chance to drop the sword).

    You take 45 minutes to kill 100 monsters to get 10 sword pieces (each had a 10% chance to drop) and 15 minutes to go to a crafter and get the sword crafted.

    You take 55 minutes to kill 100 monsters to get 100 gold coins and 5 minutes to go to a vendor and buy the sword.

    You take 10 minutes to kill 10 monsters to get 2 sword pieces, you spend 30 minutes to earn 100 social points and 15 minutes to earn 100 crafting fuel and 5 minutes to craft your own sword.

    All these options reward 1 hour played with one new sword put into the game world. Assuming some fiddling with drop-rates, none are different to the economy. Currency makes worth easier to quantify and more flexible to spend, but makes no difference to the concept that a sword worth one hour of someone's time has been added to the economy.

    For every hour anyone plays one hours worth of 'stuff' is added to the economy as their wealth, however that is measured, quantified or valued. Even if you used bartering and the social currency of promised cooperation, you still are earning one hour worth of something every hour and it will eventually translate into a sword, or whatever.

    A lot of added real world complication is avoided by the 'stuff' people want being level appropriate, so it's ok, even, for higher level people to earn more for the hours they play, since they are only interested in higher level stuff and that stuff is more expensive, even from vendors.

    Unless you remove that same worth from the economy, you get inflation. As long as inflation doesn't exceed the worth of the time put in, it's normal.
    To remove one hour of 'worth' from the economy for every hour you put in seems to feel bad, no matter how you do it.

    Your ideas of avoiding coin and spending social currency and/or crafting fuel make logical sense as an alternative to coin, I just think that you are putting in sinks and barriers that most will find no more enjoyable than transaction taxes or repair costs or other simpler sinks in a coin-based system and certainly are quite complex and inconvenient. Also, you're kind of forcing social and crafting play that some don't value as much and, even if they do, don't necessarily enjoy being forced into it.

    It would be interesting to try it, but to do it just avoid RMT (is that such a huge problem?) I'm not sure is worth it and to 'fix' inflation, I'm not sure it would be effective, since it doesn't matter what 'currency' is used, coin, social favours, bartering, etc, inflation can happen anyway unless you add a lot of those negative-feeling sinks.

    Also, what did inflation do in EQ? The only real issues I ever saw was when lots of players got to max level and kept earning money so much that high level items started trading for ridiculous prices because everyone knew the people that wanted them had a ton of money, but to be honest, that wasn't much of a problem to most people, as those selling were also high level and they were preying on each other, and, in the end, it was better to go get the item yourself (which isn't a bad thing to encourage).

    Yes, there was some effect on lower level items too, as those max level folks threw money around twinking their alts, but that wasn't a hugely prevalent problem and may well be addressed in Pantheon by features like scaling of items (making twinking a different prospect) and the progeny system (in part making items re-used rather than sold for twinking).

    Also, as long as things *essential* to play (food and drink, basic equipment, spell components, etc) are available from vendors at prices that players can expect to afford at the level they need them (due to looting monsters of thier level), then inflation can be largely a non-issue.

    I suppose eventually the money paid to lower level players for twink items would mean the cost of lower level essentials would become trivial, but I guess that is where limited money sinks come into play. Nowhere near enough to completely counteract the earnings of a player, but enough to counteract the trickling down max level cash?

    Meh. My brain hurts now! I'm going to stop typing.

    Interesting, though.

    P.S. I won't be offended if someone points out mistakes of issues with my ramblings. Well, I'll try not to be ;^)

    • 1315 posts
    May 9, 2020 7:50 AM PDT

    disposalist said:

    P.S. I won't be offended if someone points out mistakes of issues with my ramblings. Well, I'll try not to be ;^)

    *pounce*

    In all seriousness its inflation is a “Return per hour invested” ratio. At server launch the 35 silver a level 10 can earn in an hour is powerful. A year after launch the 100 “Roenicks” (100,000,000 silver) that a level 50 can farm in an hour makes the 35 silver virtually negligible.

    That cash enters the system and FLOODS it. If instead the level 50 farmed for 1 hour and got 1/100th of their super sword all that cash did not enter the system. Not say that they could not have also picked up 100 gold but the system isn't nearly as flooded with cash.

    The “get pieces and take it to a crafter” bit also encourages player to player interactions and adventurer to crafter dependencies. If you are farming cash to give to a vendor that interaction isn't happening.

    Lastly cash is a tool. It aids in transfer of goods without requiring both parties to want what the other has. We need some form of currency to trade with and if its source is unlimited then yes inflation will happen. One of the things I think is super interesting about Chinese Cultivation fiction is that they usually use Spirit Stones as currency. They have dual purpose, one they are trade currency and two they are basically solidified energy that can be absorbed. No mater what the stones have a minimum value of their energy and will be constantly leaving the system through consumption. Path of Exile does this to a point as well as all the trade currencies are actually item modification consumables.

     

    • 1479 posts
    May 9, 2020 8:20 AM PDT

    Trasak said:

    disposalist said:

    P.S. I won't be offended if someone points out mistakes of issues with my ramblings. Well, I'll try not to be ;^)

     

    *pounce*

    In all seriousness its inflation is a “Return per hour invested” ratio. At server launch the 35 silver a level 10 can earn in an hour is powerful. A year after launch the 100 “Roenicks” (100,000,000 silver) that a level 50 can farm in an hour makes the 35 silver virtually negligible.

    That cash enters the system and FLOODS it. If instead the level 50 farmed for 1 hour and got 1/100th of their super sword all that cash did not enter the system. Not say that they could not have also picked up 100 gold but the system isn't nearly as flooded with cash.

    The “get pieces and take it to a crafter” bit also encourages player to player interactions and adventurer to crafter dependencies. If you are farming cash to give to a vendor that interaction isn't happening.

    Lastly cash is a tool. It aids in transfer of goods without requiring both parties to want what the other has. We need some form of currency to trade with and if its source is unlimited then yes inflation will happen. One of the things I think is super interesting about Chinese Cultivation fiction is that they usually use Spirit Stones as currency. They have dual purpose, one they are trade currency and two they are basically solidified energy that can be absorbed. No mater what the stones have a minimum value of their energy and will be constantly leaving the system through consumption. Path of Exile does this to a point as well as all the trade currencies are actually item modification consumables.

     

     

    Honestly while I see the short term sight of this, but I doubt of it over long term for several reasons :

     

    1) (my usual main argument against drastic anti inflation things) Players play for moderate success at least. If they end up poor and broken all the time because the game is convoluting around trying to control inflation.

    2) If most items are completely useless outside of selling them to other players, they won't feel rewarded for playing and will just unsub. The idea might seem great on paper, but as much as the game will grow old most low level quality items will be unreachable for players of the current content, and players unable to collect it themselves will not be able to make or craft anything because the value of theses items will be thought by high level players as "time spent" which compete with mats from their current level too. Inflation is not necessary to achieve this, because it's the natural thinking of players as much as when they get a better job : Their time is worth MORE.

     

    Because of these two issues (this remain a game and players plays to get a satisfactionnal / hardness ratio that is very different from player to player, and cattering only to the most extrême players from any side will just turn off a big chunk of all), I doubt it is even possible to administrate a game in such drastic ways. There are games who tried this hard and they ended beeing totally worse than niche, probably not solely because of that decision, but because there is a clear line between doing an easy and inflattable game and a pay-to-chore where satisfaction will not be enough to encourage playing and paying a sub.

    I'm totally fine with a niche game, I'm totally not with one that ends up deserted.

     

    Edit: I doubt there is a way to make money finite in a game without having to handle every possible exception of hoarding. People will allways hoard and bank some cash for later use, and some smart players can even manipulate the market and starve their own server in cash doing so, which might kill it or hurt it long enough for players to depart and never come.

    It's not just playing with numbers and theories, every decisions, especially the bad ones, can have a brutal impact on the game and the players to the point it can basically slay the game.


    This post was edited by Mauvais_Oeil at May 9, 2020 8:24 AM PDT
    • 2756 posts
    May 11, 2020 2:25 AM PDT

    Trasak said:

    disposalist said:

    P.S. I won't be offended if someone points out mistakes of issues with my ramblings. Well, I'll try not to be ;^)

    *pounce*

    Eeeek!

    In all seriousness its inflation is a “Return per hour invested” ratio. At server launch the 35 silver a level 10 can earn in an hour is powerful. A year after launch the 100 “Roenicks” (100,000,000 silver) that a level 50 can farm in an hour makes the 35 silver virtually negligible. 

    Yes, but the level 10 guy only wants/needs a sword that vendors for 35 silver (or drops somewhere he can get to) and the level 50 is utterly uninterested in anything that vendors sell and is trading for items that other level 50s have obtained and are charging 10,000 Roenicks for.

    The 100,000,000 silver doesn't 'flood the economy' because rich (high level) people in MMORPGs don't buy/sell the same stuff as poor (low level) people.  They aren't buying houses or land and inflating the prices.  It works the same way as encounters and zones.  There is a level range and, until you are in that level range, you are uneffected, or are effected, but in an appropriate way.

    Even in the real world, rich people don't really effect inflation, no matter how long they have been gathering huge amounts of cash.  Can't afford a Ferrari or a mansion?  That's not inflation, it's because you are 20 years old and work in a shop.  Someone young and poor has never been able to be able to buy a big house or a Ferrari.

    Inflation happens (the undesirable, abnormal type) when the whole economy shifts for odd reasons.  For example, when productivity of the whole workforce is reduced (by a pandemic, say...) then you might see such effects and they may hurt the economy until it settles or is fixed.  The equivalent in an MMORPG might be something like a sudden influx of rampant unchecked gold farming and selling.  As long as VR stay on top of things like that - and there are ways to do so - and they have said they will - then there is little chance of 'unnatural' inflation.

    I did mention twinking, which would have some inflatory effect (on other level ranges, importantly), but twinking and other similar 'features' can be addressed on their own without measures as severe as replacing coin completely.

    I do agree with Vjek that the economy needs sinks and, even though I dislike them, maintenance and repair of equipment could be one thing (if it's not too tedious), taxing of banking, fast travel, high-level consumables, crafting fuel, sacrificing/salvaging expensive items, etc, will help those max-level earners to not upset the economy along with measures that mitigate twinking (item scaling) and similar mechanics.


    This post was edited by disposalist at May 13, 2020 4:46 AM PDT
    • 810 posts
    May 12, 2020 6:42 PM PDT

    I would like to remind everyone that from the sound of things, we can all do harvesting.  Build those giant rat skinned wrist pouches!  Turn that boar meat into delicious food! Use that poison sac to make a more potent poison!

    There are so many great and believable options.  Unless the creature is large enough to literally eat people whole, I don't expect to find a helmet or gold inside it.

    • 1315 posts
    May 13, 2020 4:40 AM PDT

    @disposalist

    The difference between riche people in RL and riche farmers in an MMO though is that in RL riche people collect money in the general population to themselves.  They do not actually create money (well as long as they are riche legally).  When the riche can actually create currency then the amount of silver in the economy continually increases.

    If a group of people set out to generate as much cash as possible without passing any to cash sinks they could easily drive up inflation on the server.  Then when you look at the economy from the perspective of a new player vs an old player twinking the new player has zero chance in being able to purchase a desirable item with their own resources (assuming the supply is limited to say half the demand or less).

    If rewards are much more item or subcomponent based than cash based you create plenty of objects but not infinite cash.