Server Economy & Gold

[NegInfinity]

if low gold player wants to be more like a high gold player then they should put in the work to be there. its not like there is a limited number of available high gold players that the economy can hold.

put in the work

It is unclear who you're responding to.
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Therefore, Gold-starved PCs need something to offer gold-heavy PCs so that gold remains valuable at all stages.

There's nothing on BGTSCC that gold starved players could possibly offer to rich players.

Typically any sort of economy revolves around one party gathering some sort of ingredients, and the other party buying them and then using the ingredients for some sort of nefarious purpose. Meaning crafting system.

In modern survival games it is very common to have people hunt for crafting materials, for example - animal skins, rocks, sticks, etc.

On sigil there was some resemblance of that system where low level players would hunt for materials and sell them to high level crafters. High level crafters would buy materials and use them to make weapons they'd sell to players.... and using money they got from selling weapons, they would buy themselves a house.

In case of sigil, item transfer is forbidden, and because of this, players essentially act as sinks for equipment. Meaning that once weapon is sold, it would not be used by all future characters of that players, meaning once the player is gone, the weapon would die with them, and future characters would have to pay again.

So, essentially, your choices to make economy running are:

Enable crafting. And possibly forbid muling.

[CleverUsername123]

A merchant that sells nothing but “mystery boxes” for a nominal fee (though more than what you’d get from selling something at maximum Appraise value). What’s in the box? Well, there’s an endless amount of items and no items at all in the box until it is successfully opened, in which then the waveform collapses and the contents become apparent. Or in short, it’s random.

Does it come with a sense of pride and accomplishment?

[Dagesh]

As a player progresses through the server, most of the gold burned occurs in earlier stages. It's when proper gear is gathered that we see gold begin to stack up. Add in another layer of complexity with muling and suddenly we have a lot of warm gold.

Dude, how should I put it... I played here for some time, and didn't ever have a character that had all the gear gathered.

For example, properly outfitted sneak requires multiple pieces of gear each of then going for 300 500 k gold, so you'll be looking at something betwen 1.2 and 2.0 million gold. I don't have even one piece of this.

It is true that you can get basic set of gear for something like 200k for most characters, but past that point there will be massively expensive pieces you'll be looking at for some time probably without ever gathering them all.

If I had to guess, you invested your commodity of time doing things other than grinding for gear and gold. Maybe you haven't had hours to dedicate to that or you'd rather not spend your time that way. No problems there. How you spend your time is for you to decide.

Now consider if there was a different way to make gold than grinding. What if your player was able to provide a IC service that some other player needed. This is what I'm suggesting. Find a way for gold heavy players to receive a service from gold light ones and pay them in gold for the service. This way it's not a gold sink for gold heavy players to make gold worth something but rather a natural spreading of wealth for services rendered.

What I am trying to figure out is this, what kinds of services could a gold light player provide that aren't gear? What could we make of value that might be time consuming, sure, but perhaps a low level could do and someone could get better at as they go as well?

[Dagesh]

So, essentially, your choices to make economy running are:

Enable crafting. And possibly forbid muling.

Crafting seems to be something I keep coming back to but it doesn't have to be the only thing.

As I have said elsewhere, the real commodity on this server is time.

For example, let's say you had a million gold and you could buy all the XP you needed to get to level 30. Would you do it? Some purists would say no. Everyone else (a large majority, I believe) would. Why? Because you have gained yourself time. Instead of doing quests and running Xvarts, Hill Giants, Snake People, you now have reached 30 which provides all the fun feats, spells, and skills we all know and love.

People say time is money. In this case, money is time. Gear is time. RP investment is time.

One thing everyone has on this server as a commodity is time. A low level player, a gold hungry player, and a gold heavy player, they are all under the same commodity of time. The service that a low level/gold hungry player can provide is time. This is why crafting seems to be ideal but it's the endpoint of a number of different tasks:

• Gathering
• Refining
• Combining

If we peel off these layers, we can start to see that there are other opportunities. For example, what if it wasn't wood/ore/whatever that is gathered? What if it was books? What if it was clues to a grand quest (e.g the Cards event).
What if refining wasn't smelting down ore? What if paintings could provide magical protection but they would fade over time?

I think you get the idea. If we break apart the things that take time, we can apply them in creative ways for a player with time but little gold to provide a service for someone who could pay for and use that service.

[NegInfinity]

If I had to guess, you invested your commodity of time doing things other than grinding for gear and gold. Maybe you haven't had hours to dedicate to that or you'd rather not spend your time that way. No problems there. How you spend your time is for you to decide.

I would hazard guess my account net worth should be around 1 milion, maybe a bit more. One of my characters was a gem collector, and high tier gems cost... a lot.

Now consider if there was a different way to make gold than grinding. What if your player was able to provide a IC service that some other player needed. This is what I'm suggesting.

That's what my second half of the post is about.

I'm not seeing any mechanic way to make this happen. There's absolutely nothing a "no gold" player can offer to a rich character. You can always play pretend being a mercenary, but seeing that people can team up with you for free, that's not much point in doing that either.

Anything that could possibly make a rich player start paying to a low player would need to involve DMs and can't really be automated. In essence that would be a MMO-style quests - like "gather 1000 goblin butts to perform a rit to summon asmodeus", or "hire people to defend your guild hall from horde of thieves", or "hire 10 people to man your base, or it will be consumed by elements in one month". In essence those are decay mechanics that continously eat resources.

I'm not even certain if that's the right direction of development.

The closest thing to what you want is dusty tomes. They are currently acting as overpriced loot boxes on the server.

[aaron22]

like your MMORPG method. a high level gold rich toon would not want to spend hours a day trying to gather mats in a cr 8 area. not when he can buy them in bulk for pennies on the dollar. a low level, gold poor toon can grind a few hours for the xp they want and collect these mats to sell for whatever they feel like they can get. the market will not be set as buyers and sellers will create such a market value. a stack of 99 cr8 mats could sell for 1 GP or as much as 10000 depending upon how the market grows. and how much the devs decide to have the mats spawn.

in addition to that. rare mats could spawn that would be wanted to make more unique items that players may want. this would have a market value much higher where 1 could sell for 100 times what the stack value is. also dependent upon the devs to create need and spawn rate.

you could have mats in areas of all cr level and be exclusive to create a need throughout the server and player base.

if you are just a start up crafter you may need to gather your own because your overhead is low but that is the beauty of enterprise.

[NegInfinity]

For example, let's say you had a million gold and you could buy all the XP you needed to get to level 30. Would you do it?

Hell yeah, I would. I hate leveling mechanic here. Probably not to level 30, but somewhere 21+ range, depending on concept.

I think you get the idea. If we break apart the things that take time, we can apply them in creative ways for a player with time but little gold to provide a service for someone who could pay for and use that service.

Dusty tomes, as I already said. They currently act like loot boxes.

The problem is, that most items you could introduce to "make gold flowing" smell a lot like MMO, and may not be a good idea.

"Gather ingridients to perform a ritual", "gather ingridients to make a one shot one time powerful item that will expire if you don't use it". This kind of thing.

While those indeed will stimulate economy, they just smell wrong.

[Dagesh]

For example, let's say you had a million gold and you could buy all the XP you needed to get to level 30. Would you do it?

Hell yeah, I would. I hate leveling mechanic here. Probably not to level 30, but somewhere 21+ range, depending on concept.

I think you get the idea. If we break apart the things that take time, we can apply them in creative ways for a player with time but little gold to provide a service for someone who could pay for and use that service.

Dusty tomes, as I already said. They currently act like loot boxes.

The problem is, that most items you could introduce to "make gold flowing" smell a lot like MMO, and may not be a good idea.

"Gather ingridients to perform a ritual", "gather ingridients to make a one shot one time powerful item that will expire if you don't use it". This kind of thing.

While those indeed will stimulate economy, they just smell wrong.

I agree and this is why I'm trying to get away from crafting. Instead what are the actions embedded inside of crafting that we could use creatively here on BG? That's the sort of question that I think could provide a host of fun and complexity.

On top of that, I'd rather see what people are buying provide some sort of bonus instead of preventing a malus.

[aaron22]

smell wrong or not. we are playing a video game. this is not DnD. it is a video game and things will hold as tried and true methods in a video game.. look at the whole and all the parts that make the whole.. it is more MMO than you may want it to be. the principles are all there.. staring right at you.

now come up with a new idea?.. all for it. im all in on most good ideas. and am wrong on the ones i am not all in on. but a tried and true method that has been tested before and possibly improved on and made unique to our game. sounds good to me.

[aaron22]

how about something like dungeon keys. special keys that open special chests in certain dungeons. high level player would have a hard time turning down a dungeon key like that.

[aaron22]

in addition to this. have the keys be obtained through a quest giver that has a level limit. 100 skel bones to get a special key

the special key could also be a key needed to open the front door so the demand would be very high.

ex. bones key needed to open vault front door.

[NegInfinity]

smell wrong or not. we are playing a video game. this is not DnD. it is a

I enjoyed BGTSCC for aspects that are not normally present in MMOs. That's why I don't like MMO-like ideas. Because you can turn it into a MMO and kill the core thing that used to be good about it in the first place.

I agree and this is why I'm trying to get away from crafting. Instead what are the actions embedded inside of crafting that we could use creatively here on BG? That's the sort of question that I think could provide a host of fun and complexity.

The problem here is that the answer to the question is very obvious and require no deep thinking.

• Crafting exists to provide people with weapons and items they cannot buy themselves from shop.
• Crafters exist because non-crafters cannot spend snough talents to craft and still be good at fighting.
• Crafters buy materials, because gathering them takes time, and because they cannot be bought in the shop.
• The reason why crafting chain exists is because every exchange along the way generate wealth. Person who sells materials gets gold, and crafter that sells weapon made out of the materials, still profits from the exchange despite paying for materials.

So.

• You buy things from a player if their price is better than shop price, or if that is the only way to obtain an item.
• You sell things to a player if their price is better than shop price, or if the store does not buy the item you want to sell.

So, is this information useful? Nope. Because it only indicates that people without gold should have easy access to something that people with gold would want. Which does not result in any useful ideas.

[Dagesh]

I completely agree that no one can ever replicate PnP in a video game like this.

I should say that the part I agree with neginifity is that crafting becomes the regular gold grind found in so many other places. I would rather see something far more nuanced to a player's RP than another gold grind. I am not opposed to crafting and it could add a fun dynamic here but I don't want to see it be something detached from a PC's background for the sake of gold.

how about something like dungeon keys. special keys that open special chests in certain dungeons. high level player would have a hard time turning down a dungeon key like that.

What would be interesting is if certain keys would only drop for lowbies. These keys could not be muled between a player's PCs and they expire after a certain amount of time. However the keys only unlock chests in epic or pre-epic areas or simply level lock the chests for higher levels. That would mean higher levels would have to buy them and lower levels would have no way of getting the goods on their own. That's a great idea.

[Planehopper]

A system that requires ingredients, or distilled/processed/adulterated (adding another step) ingredients to "do things" seems like a good first step. The "things" however have to be carefully considered.

- Components for certain magic. That's a touchy subject. Things like teleport, named summons, or epic spells, however seem like they'd be good fits for this. They arent balance-ruining if they become less common. Teleport (and the summon system) already require gold. Why not change that up some?

- Warding of guild properties. We have ward spells in game, just not in use, but these could easily be made to require some sort of input and/or maintenance components.

- Research for new spells. I know a few have been placed in game. I don't know what sort of cost was involved but if it could spread wealth and sink at the same time that would be nice.


I'd like to see characters be able to use skills to "farm" for rich folk too.

Perhaps a mechanic that allows for the use of diplomacy/perform/intimidate/bluff or the like to persuade NPCs toward supporting a certain action? I don't know. That could be boring, but somehow skills should be used.

[NegInfinity]

how about something like dungeon keys. special keys that open special chests in certain dungeons. high level player would have a hard time turning down a dungeon key like that.

You've essentually rediscovered EA loot boxes. Congrats. "Pay 100 bones and receive broken bottle today".