One thing that bothers me about a lot of MMOs is that they rely on too many different currencies to purchase various items.
It's not just newer games either, EQ and Vanguard were both riddled with far too many different currencies for specific areas and quests.
I don't want to grind out tokens or doodads to progress in a specific area of the game ever.
This seems like a very lazy way to do progression and leads to burnout. It also is somewhat immersion breaking to keep track of all these currencies.
The content related to these areas and quests was generally fine and enjoyable but the grind related to collecting tokens was unbearable.
Even among the standard monies I would prefer to see copper and silver dissapear and just have gold and plat to use.
Complexity should be found in the content and character design not in keeping track of how to purchase items in different regions.
How do you like areas that use tokens and what not to drive progression ?
Thanks in advance,
Kiz~
I agree with you about all the different currencies. I really don't like having to collect different tokens for each expansion to buy gear from that expansion. I would prefer that actual currency (plat,gold,silver,copper) retain their value and be used for everything. However, I would also like for plat to be more rare and harder to obtain. If the game is "flooded" with currency too quickly, or ever, then people just want to do away with copper and silver at least as you stated.
Inflation will happen over time of course, depending on what kind of mechanisms are in place to remove it from the game. However, even in classic EQ hill giants could potentially drop 50pp a kill, and people can farm 10k pp or more in a day of farming, which is just silly. Gold, and especially plat, should be more valuable than that. I am probably starting to drift more off topic, but I would like to see far less money in the game. One platinum piece should feel like a lot of money. Instead of the best tradable items in the game selling for 100k pp or more, they should be selling for 10pp. Common things could sell for gold, not even platinum.
I know the numbers are arbitrary, and if there are billions of plat in the game, items are worth more of it, and if there is only thousands of plat, items are worth less of it. Most Asian games that I have played take inflation to an extreme, and things cost millions.
I don't want to end up having to pay a wheelbarrow load of cash for a loaf of bread.
My 2 *copper* :P
I agree that it will be best if the economy at least starts with even the lowest level of money (let us call it copper) having real value and higher levels (let us call them silver and gold, creative, I am) taking significant effort to get. As in the United States for example back when a penny or two actually bought something.
Even in games with no store, inflation is driven by basic game mechanics. If high level gear costs more than low level gear level 50s (let's assume this to be the level cap) need to get much more per item of trash loot and quest reward to keep them motivated than do level 1s. They then give money to lower level "alts" and prices at lower levels are driven up often beyond the ability of actual new players to afford.
This leads to the question of whether this traditional mechanic is necessary or desirable. What would happen if level 50 gear cost the same as level 1 gear and rewards and drops did not increase with level? Supply and demand - once a lot of people hit level 50 there could be greater supplies of raw materials at that level and a level 50 leggings doesn't necessarily take more time to make than a level 1 leggings.
Granted level 50s could kill trash mobs much faster and get a lot of two copper drops but that doesn't have *nearly* the same affect as having a typical level 50 drop worth 80 silvers or 5 gold.
How do you motivate the level 50s? Maybe items that can't be sold to NPC merchants so they don't add money to the economy. I haven't really thought through the options and ramifications but the topic of this thread did make me ponder just how you *can* keep money supplies in the game economy low. Obvious other ways include taxes (why shouldn't Terminus City have an income tax, sales tax, excise tax ....), charges for item repair (why would a repair person fix all your gear for almost nothing), fees for use of transportation facilities, brokers, in-game healing etc, high NPC prices for many things etc.
Yes indeed. too many currencies is a gamebreaker inho. LOTRO has this serious problem. You get different curencies for all the different zones . I believe they need to stick to copper,silver,gold and plat. Period
In eq I did like the fact that money had some weight and you needed to return to a bank to cash it in every so often. You could go to a seller and buy an item and it would take from the lower value coins first. Then you could either sell it back and it would transfer your cash into gold and plat so it was not so unbearable to carry. But it still weighs on you.
I hope VR has the same system. But too many different currencies can really muck up the system. The real problem to me is the gold spammers/sellers. I do hope VR can find a way to keep it out of the game. Nothing is more annoying than constant tells or posts offering to sell you gold ,items and leveling. I liken that to counterfeiting money. It has no business being in the game. It just makes it possible for people with deeper pockets to move right along in game without the real enjoyment of getting there on your own merits.
I would prefer to see faction used as the barrier, but copper/silver/gold/plat to remain consistently useful across the board. So rather than having to farm X amount of X tokens ... you just need X amount of Faction with Clan X to unlock certain items to be purchased from their vendors. I don't mind seeing occasional exceptions with currency. I didn't play Asheron's Call for very long, but I remember when I first started playing, I got myself a few SIK's (Sturdy Iron Keys) I had no idea what they were used for but I did know they were highly sought after. That always felt really cool ... when an item in the game basically had so much value, that players were willing to accept it as a form of payment.
As far as tokens and things like that go, I would love to see a Coliseum that has it's own currency and faction. Faction could be used to unlock various items for purchase, more exotic beasts to fight, better quality stalls to sell goods from, or even some storyline related adventures. As far as the currency goes, it would be exchanged to do battle with monsters inside or play some of the mini games such as betting on horse racing. I am thinking a hybrid coliseum that has the feel of the coliseum from FF3 (SNES) and Bazaar from FF7, but allows players to fight stuff similar to how BCNM's worked in FFXI. It would be a high end zone where something would always be going on. Whether you're playing mini-games, preparing to fight something awesome, or even other players ... I have never seen a coliseum tastefully pulled off in an MMO.
Yes, please don't flood the game with different currencies. Beside the base currency (copper, silver, gold, ...) there should not exist too many others.
Neverwinter was a nightmare having so many different currencies. They are just wasting inventory space and in the end you throw them away, because they become wortheless pretty fast.
What brought about the multiplicity of alternative coins/token/currency was probably many factors, two major ones would more than likely be the selling of currency and inflation. If a player base eventually all become billionairs or can buy the gold, then new gear becomes pay-to-play instead of earned.
I would like to see one monetary currency, if you want to break this down to gold, silver, bronze (or whatever) and two progression currency (call this PN and PO). The current expansion rewards you with new progression currency (PN). When a new expansion comes out PN converts to old progression currency (PO). This way, you can purchase any old gear by doing any old progression, but the newer gear still has that throttle and resistance to make it fun and exciting to get the new stuff.
I am sure VR has this on a flowchart, a whiteboard, or some database to hash out later, but maybe this will be a helpful talking point for when they discuss this topic
Some of the later EQ expansions did this. They added new currencies, which all require new GUI’s. The problem is once people get bored of those zones it makes earning the currencies much more difficult in a group based game. Talk about short-term planning.
I am OK with money having multiple versions (Copper/Silver/Gold/Platinum) because they are all variations on the same basic unit.
I would also be OK with a single non-coin based currency, as long as it is generic enough for everything else that we want a non-coin based currency, thus can be added everywhere in the game it is needed. I do not want five non-coin based currencies.
Niloiv said:What brought about the multiplicity of alternative coins/token/currency was probably many factors, two major ones would more than likely be the selling of currency and inflation. If a player base eventually all become billionairs or can buy the gold, then new gear becomes pay-to-play instead of earned.
I would like to see one monetary currency, if you want to break this down to gold, silver, bronze (or whatever) and two progression currency (call this PN and PO). The current expansion rewards you with new progression currency (PN). When a new expansion comes out PN converts to old progression currency (PO). This way, you can purchase any old gear by doing any old progression, but the newer gear still has that throttle and resistance to make it fun and exciting to get the new stuff.
I am sure VR has this on a flowchart, a whiteboard, or some database to hash out later, but maybe this will be a helpful talking point for when they discuss this topic
I don't ever want to purchase items with tokens of any form, to me it feels like running on a hamster wheel.
There has got to be a better way to do rewards than this.
One example is the LDoN expansion in EQ1 that had its own currency for each of the dungeons. This just made it into a slog if you wanted to get any of the rewards. LDoN was one of the reasons for the decline of my interest in EQ1.
Thanks in advance,
Kiz~
Agreed, my understanding of currency in game was to add more flavor. You never really needed it, all the things you need could be gotten through quests or normal killing,- that quest to kill 10 rats, once the items were sold then you had enough to buy that level spells. That is if the purpose of the game is not to make more plat but to go out and adventure.
Like a high level character that has no idea what their skills or spells do from not having gone through the time consuming learning experience through the steady advancement of levels which was not seen as a bore because of all the places and adventures they saw or went to or learned from.
I don't need this, you do trades? here- take it. Frees up bag space. You know what? while I am there if I see any more I will send it all your way rather than sell to a merchant. (the choice to sell to a player does not exist) Btw look at this dagger I picked up I cant use, can you? great- take it. My bags are full of precious quest things all of which make a story! and I find that is the value provided I complete it and not someone else completing it half way. What is the fun in that? It's like doing the right thing for the right reasons as opposed to wrong thing for right reasons, right thing for wrong reasons, and wrong thing for wrong reasons- like responding to a call for help in finding a corpse and instead you drag it deeper and leave, claiming you couldn't find it. It's what the Police look for: Motive, which defines character.
Now from a hard core RP persective, such projected character from observed motives and behaviors is quite sophisticated- think of the story of the frog and the scorpion (you knew what I was when you took the ride) and admittedly, out of my league. It is "those" people that to "that" sort of thing. I'm talking about the frog (<- meant as a twist) and not the evening news, or the matrix- lol.
In the real world you do have multiple currencies.
Maybe have a currence exchange vendor in which you can exchange copper,silver,gold and plat into the other monies.
The different curreneces would have different values so that you would have an exchange rate and a fee for the exchange.
Liav said:Alternate forms of currency is a good way to make sure that you don't spend 6 months killing the same mob for a specific item while some random person rolls up and gets said item on their first kill.
Some people like gambling with their time. I am not among them.
So everyone just gets on the hamster wheel and puts in their time until they get their reward... Boring.
With this kind of progression everyone ends up with the same gear. Like in Vanguard everyone got that neck from Tehatamani Harbor for doing that stupid grind just because it was the best neck item in the game at that point.
Honestly I don't need every reward I set out to get. I'd rather piece together what I can from random drops and normal quest rewards.
Thanks for the discussion,
Kiz~
I would prefer not to see alternate currencies either. There are ways to deal with the problems that alternate currencies are meant to solve, but they require a lot of forward thinking and planning as well as the willingness to allot time for the solutions to be implemented.
LDoN was built with fewer devs and the idea of making it more "programmatic". It is easier to create a large set of variation through random progression and a set amount of items that don't have any real causality to the given content. GW2 also adopted this approach to their dungeons. It's quick and efficient to implement, but it really leaves the content lacking.
I would guess that VR is well aware of this and has plans on how the current content can evolve into later expansions. This, of course, is highly contingent on the game being successful enough to warrant the needed development. If it is not, then you'll most likely see the same expansion progression as in the past.
Angrykiz said:
One example is the LDoN expansion in EQ1 that had its own currency for each of the dungeons. This just made it into a slog if you wanted to get any of the rewards. LDoN was one of the reasons for the decline of my interest in EQ1.
Thanks in advance,
Kiz~
I understand what you are saying, and what I was proposing is not the above example.
So, let me ask you this: when the player base has accumulated so much wealth and can literally buy anything they want, how do you solve this issue? It cant simply be to raise the cost, because new players would struggle to catch up. The reason the alternative currencies exist is a pseudo reset button. This is a very good thing and often very needed to keep the game fresh for the old people and attainable for new people. So, how do you propose to accomplisht that without alt-currency? (I hope this does not come across snobish, i truely want to know your solution, because if done correctly you may improve a disheartening point for many people).
I don't want to see the alternate forms of currency that games like to use to buy the current flavor of gear for that expansion. We called them token currency. Usually no trade and rewarded you for running an instance or something. I would like to see regional currency.
Lets say instead of a gold piece you have a gold peice for each continent or each major power. Say a Good , Evil , Neutral for example. These currencies are not created equal. Their values will change with the games economy. And they only drop in areas related to their place of origin. As more and more of one currecy comes into the game via mob killing and what not it's value will be less compared to a currency that is not being generated as much.
You can freely trade one for another at any bank in the game or with other players. They are all tradable, just like EQ plat. They are the standard form of currency not some flavor of the expansion tokens. This would also get people to play in otherwise under utilized areas if there is a profit motivator to go there. And an evil town may not give as good of a rate for "Good" currency. Or maybe an in game event causes one city to under value a rivals. There can be alot of things done with this.
I don't want to muck up the UI too much so I don't propose a currecny for each race or every city just enough to make it relevant that there are different ones out there. It would add a whole new dimension to trading and might give an organic reason to have real players trading vs any form of auction house. Or could give the regional auction houses that they talk about real value. Let's say if you set up an auction in the Human city the interface will only allow you to set the price in Good coin. So if you want a certian kind of coin you set up your shop in that area. If you action it yourself in real time you can negotiate and accept any for of currecny you like but with the requirement for you to spend your game time auctioning things. And I know there are people that love to buy low and sell high in gaming economies. Now they can do it with currecny! Anyone that likes that kind of stuff would be in heaven.
Just adds a few more layers to things. Just a thought.
Angrykiz said:So everyone just gets on the hamster wheel and puts in their time until they get their reward... Boring.
With this kind of progression everyone ends up with the same gear. Like in Vanguard everyone got that neck from Tehatamani Harbor for doing that stupid grind just because it was the best neck item in the game at that point.
Honestly I don't need every reward I set out to get. I'd rather piece together what I can from random drops and normal quest rewards.
Thanks for the discussion,
Kiz~
What does a quest reward in Vanguard have to do with currencies? You're derailing your own topic.
Also yes, people put in time to get rewards. Generally a specific reward. How you can label something as general as that as a "boring hamster wheel" is interesting to say the least.
The necklace quest in Tehatamani Harbor involved a version of collecting tokens and every time you got enough you could bump up your necklace in a few stats.
Every single max level player in the game had this necklace because with enough time you could just grind it out and it was the best neck in game at that time.
All players having the same neck because it was available to everyone with enough time invested is a boring game mechanic and I didn't like it.
These tokens are the alternate currencies I'm most annoyed with as almost all games use them as a cop out to make content last longer.
If the necklace would have been a random drop off the end boss of the quest then less people would have it.
Another example would be the Shores of Darkness content where all you did was collect like 1200 of these worm things to get your epic... That was some of the worst content I've ever done in a MMO.
Another offender was LDoN where each dungeon has its own currency... I don't know who thought that was a good idea.
Grinding out tokens so that you can get every reward you want creates a world of homogenized players that all have the same gear and experiences.
I want to set out and create my own adventures not follow the path that grinds out the best gear with tokens.
Thanks again Liav, enjoying the discussion.
Kiz~
I see. I think the issue I'm having is that "many currencies" is kind of general, as there are a variety of subtypes of currencies in game.
Type 1: Mithril, Platinum, Gold, Silver, Copper, etc. - Generally used for player commerce, but has some other limited uses depending on the game.
Type 2: The type you mentioned in this particular post, an item you collect to upgrade or create an item. I would consider the PotA souls and the transient energies and such to fall under this umbrella, as well as the Tehatamani piece.
Type 3: Currency earned upon killing a raid boss (generally isolated to a given segment of content) so that you can purchase items that would otherwise be available on the loot table, allowing you to bypass RNG for some very rare chase items. For example, I kill the boss 100 times to get an item and another guy can kill it once, but I saved up enough of this specific currency to be able to get one specific piece.
I personally don't object to any of these currency types. There are still ways to ensure scarcity.
I don't think it's possible to give every single player in the game a perfectly unique experience, nor is it something that should be sought out just due to how difficult that would be. At the same time, it's not necessarily going to homogenize player's gear and experiences if they can get a guaranteed result from a particular action.
Let's say that you could earn currency from APW raid bosses to eventually purchase items from the loot tables there, but that the rate of earning the currency was so slow that you would likely only be able to do it once or twice in the entire time that APW content is relevant. You still wouldn't have every Bard in the game purchasing a Vercel's mask within their first week of raiding APW, but at the same time it was an absurd disadvantage to not have one for an extended period of time.
I think alternate currencies, if used sparingly, can give players long term goals that they wouldn't otherwise have. I killed Core or whatever it was for that damn overpowered ring upwards of 70 times and I never saw it. RNG is needed to an extent but that was an extremely demoralizing experience that I wish to never repeat. Not to mention that my incentive to continue farming the mob would remain if I had a solid eventual goal to work towards.
If I kill the same raid mob 70 times I almost feel entitled to something of value from it. Maybe I just have an inflated sense of entitlement.
