Should crafting resources be the currency we use?

[TankHunter678]

Although I am sure that in the crixia universe there are something like credits that reapers would get paid with.

However when you think about it, the game is going to be heavily focused around crafting and gathering. So there probably wont be much that players would want to buy from NPCs in the first place. Which would result in those credits building up, and the marketplace would suffer from major inflation over time as all it would do is just shift credits around, without really burning much out of the system. Prices would inflate as the credits lose value.

So why not do what Path of Exile did?

In path of exile every piece of "currency" is something used in its crafting system. You got orbs that turn white items in rares, mirrors that let you duplicate an item, other items allow you to reroll the affix stats on a rare, or just replace all the affixes in one go, or add an affix onto the item.

What this means is that the items get traded... in order to be consumed. The rarest of crafting currency items lets you trade for better and better gear from other players, knowing full well that currency you just traded to them is going to leave the market soon. Its "wealth" that gets used up by someone who crafts hoping to get as much "wealth" from the gear as they traded for the crafting currency item in the first place.

Even low level currency items have a use, ID Scrolls are used to try to find the pieces of gear you need to trade into an NPC for shards or entire currency items. Orbs that turn white items into blue items, or modify blue items affixes are pretty common, and also very common as something asked for by NPCs for gear.

Not to mention that by the last act of the story you can progressively convert low level currency items into the more rarer variants. Allowing you to build up wealth and save space at the same time.


Do you think ember could do such a thing?

 

[Sik San]

Well, credits gonna be much more convinient to store. That's why ppl invented money irl. Otherwise your inventory gonna be a total mess.

Also there is no diff regarding inflation. Rercoures, according to your idea, is just another type of money.

 

[TankHunter678]

The main difference is the rate at which it leaves the system.

Credits only really used to buy something from NPCs, or from other players on the market, take far far longer to get removed from the economy. It just endlessly builds up trading hands.

Resources used in crafting enter the economy then get burned being used to make something. Removing them from the economy.

 

[Sik San]

The main difference is the rate at which it leaves the system.

Credits only really used to buy something from NPCs, or from other players on the market, take far far longer to get removed from the economy. It just endlessly builds up trading hands.

Resources used in crafting enter the economy then get burned being used to make something. Removing them from the economy.

Got your point. I'd agree with that - no traditional money at all. Sounds great for stable economics regarding recycling, but:
1. I can't imagine future humanity using stone age barter relations (Unless Ember could be set in some kind of post apoc place - hello PoE stuff, Fallout caps, you know, I like caps )
2. You can extract materials literally out of the air. You can thump wherever you want 24/7. So inflation is inevitable.

 

[TankHunter678]

I would think that for Reaper teams busy terraforming worlds inhabited by non-sentient creatures there would not be much for them to spend galactic credits on, especially when they can just hand in the materials needed for the printer to spit out what they need.

Something like credits would be for a far more civilized world, and thus better left in trust funds and wired to the bank for when they leave the planet and go back to civilized space.

 

[Sik San]

I would think that for Reaper teams busy terraforming worlds inhabited by non-sentient creatures there would not be much for them to spend galactic credits on, especially when they can just hand in the materials needed for the printer to spit out what they need.

Something like credits would be for a far more civilized world, and thus better left in trust funds and wired to the bank for when they leave the planet and go back to civilized space.

But how about blackjack and hookers? I doubt the printer could spit out hookers

No coins idea is great anyways, it's just need some more polish and thinking. I hope, Mark gonna see this thread and will think about it

 

[Col. Kernel]

Got your point. I'd agree with that - no traditional money at all. Sounds great for stable economics regarding recycling, but:
1. I can't imagine future humanity using stone age barter relations (Unless Ember could be set in some kind of post apoc place - hello PoE stuff, Fallout caps, you know, I like caps )
2. You can extract materials literally out of the air. You can thump wherever you want 24/7. So inflation is inevitable.

Inflation is inevitable, the key to keeping it under control is to have adequate money sinks.

In City of Heroes a character at the level cap could pull in over 1 million Inf (money) per hour just by playing. That's not counting crafting drops. CoH combated this by introducing multiple new currencies to the game. By the sunset there were somewhere between 12 and 20 currencies, each used to buy specific things. Needless to say, this was bad.

The nice thing about using crafting mats as currency is, as has already been pointed out, there are multiple money sinks for it. Buying items from vendors and crafting being the major 2. If certain crafting mats are also used as "fuel" for some things that would be another sink.

Keep it simple, the value of mats would be based on the rarity. Think of it as a Rare mat being a $10 bill, an Uncommon being a $5 bill, and a common being a $1 bill. Allow mats to stack in a separate inventory pane with a limit of 250 mats per stack. Possibly have vendors exchange Commons for Rares at a 100 to 1 ratio with a 10% surcharge. So you give a vendor 110 of Common A and get 1 of Rare A. All numbers are pull from thin air (or vacuum) at this point and should be adjusted for the in-game drop rates. Maybe even have them adjusted dynamically by what's being harvested each day.

I kind of like the barter feel. Puts me in mind of the Gold Rush where inflation was insane and barter was common.

 

[DemonSlayer873]

These credis could be used for many different systems

They can be used to upgrade our frame(s) - you need x for this reso y of that reso and z credits
They can be used for researching - To research this you need x Credits and y Research points or whatever
They can be used to prevent gear breakage - You got this shiny piece of gear on the verge of destruction, you dump lots of credits and reduce its quality a bit but you save the gear from breaking
They can be used for building certan items - Consumables, pets, etc.

You are assuming that credits will be used only as marketplace currency and to buy stuff from NPCs which most likely wont be the case

 

[OgreMkV]

The key to an economy is restricting the amount of currency.

In several of the examples mentioned in this thread, the currency is a problem because there's essentially an unlimited amount of it. The game creates money that gets paid to players (by NPCs or by converting goods to money) without restriction.

The way to prevent inflation and a kilo of chicken from costing a trillion credits is to restrict the amount of money in the system or significantly reduce the rate of money creation. For example, let's say you want a meal to cost 5 credits and good, low-tier rifle to cost 100 credits and a box of ammo to cost 1 credit. So, for every new player added to the server, allow another 1000 credits to enter the system.

With that simple restriction, it becomes a lot more interesting to get that high tier, million credit armor. Now, NPCs can buy materials from players with credits, turn them into cars or vehicles or whatever and sell them to players for credits. The NPCs kind of become a bank. If there's not enough credits in the player's hands, then prices are reduced (system wide). If too much money is in player hands, then prices can be raised by the NPCs. It can be a very subtle change that keeps the money flowing... instead of building up with no effect on the economy... which make the economy meaningless.

 

[Col. Kernel]

These credis could be used for many different systems

They can be used to upgrade our frame(s) - you need x for this reso y of that reso and z credits
They can be used for researching - To research this you need x Credits and y Research points or whatever
They can be used to prevent gear breakage - You got this shiny piece of gear on the verge of destruction, you dump lots of credits and reduce its quality a bit but you save the gear from breaking
They can be used for building certan items - Consumables, pets, etc.

You are assuming that credits will be used only as marketplace currency and to buy stuff from NPCs which most likely wont be the case

And why can't mats be used to purchase all of those things?

We're on the frontier, in the middle of a "gold" rush. Why not draw from the historical examples we already have (California, Alaska) and just go with a "barter" type of economy?

Don't misunderstand me, regular currency is the way MMOs have always run and there's a bit wrong with it, but it's stable.

I just strongly feel that we're in the middle of a "gold rush" type environment and think that a semi barter system (simplified as I outlined above) could work well and give the game an even more unique flavor than it's going to start with.

 

[Sik San]

The key to an economy is restricting the amount of currency.



The way to prevent inflation and a kilo of chicken from costing a trillion credits is to restrict the amount of money in the system or significantly reduce the rate of money creation.

Now, NPCs can buy materials from players with credits, turn them into cars or vehicles or whatever and sell them to players for credits. The NPCs kind of become a bank.

This is pretty controversial. You're talking about restricting ingame unlimited cash generation and at the same time saying that players should sell goods to the npcs for coins. - It's the main source of inflation in games. + It's botters/gold farmers heaven. They just can sell shit tons of trash or mats just to get money from the air.

 

[OgreMkV]

That's the entire point of what I said about when a new player comes into the game, THEN (and only then) add a fixed amount to the economy. Give it to the NPCs, which will cause prices to raise slightly, resulting in more people selling material to NPCs to gain credits.

I do not advocate creating money out of nothing, which is basically what every game that I'm aware of does. I suggest that a fixed economy is both more stable and more effective than an infinitely inflating economy.

 

[DemonSlayer873]

And why can't mats be used to purchase all of those things?

We're on the frontier, in the middle of a "gold" rush. Why not draw from the historical examples we already have (California, Alaska) and just go with a "barter" type of economy?

Don't misunderstand me, regular currency is the way MMOs have always run and there's a bit wrong with it, but it's stable.

I just strongly feel that we're in the middle of a "gold rush" type environment and think that a semi barter system (simplified as I outlined above) could work well and give the game an even more unique flavor than it's going to start with.

That way a player run market will be pointless, why spend reso to buy an item instead of building it yourself?

 

[TankHunter678]

That way a player run market will be pointless, why spend reso to buy an item instead of building it yourself?

Because you could have an excess of resource x, but you need resource y while someone else has excess of y and not enough x.

So you trade them some of your resource x for their resource y allowing both of you to craft what you wanted. Leading to a large chunk of resources leaving the economy system.

 

[Col. Kernel]

The NPCs kind of become a bank.

The barter system does that as well. The NPC accept mats as money, sell the mats offworld for credits, buy goods to sell to the players for mats, and repeat ad nauseum.

Frankly, it's unrealistic for a local mob to drop credits or a rifle or an enhanced electronic trigger package, or anything "civilized" or high tech.

Regarding limiting the amount of cash in the system by the number players, again that's not how to control inflation. For a healthy economy cash must be created, then flow through the system. Outgo must be slightly (~3%) less than income. That much inflation is good for the economy, too much more than that and things start getting wonky. In order to siphon off the extra cash you have to come up with money sinks. Too many money sinks and the players start deciding they won't use some of them simply because it's too big a pain in the neck to micromanage all of that.

That is the beauty of using mats for money. Many of the sinks are already there. If crafters are selling crafted items by an Auction House (AH) they're getting mats in return. So they will consume those mats when they make their next widget. Add in a %5 to 10% transaction fee for the AH and you have a really solid money sink.

In addition to that, if the vendors are accepting mats as I outlined above (Rare/Uncommon/Common) for offworld goods, all the mats that won't be used in crafting (and let's face it, there will be plenty of them) will be vendored with no detriment to the economy and a lot of benefit to the players who don't want to store a bunch of no-value trash items.

The more I think about this system, the more I like it. It's self sustaining, self cleaning, and it makes sense from a point of what you get for drops. Kudos to @TankHunter678 ! Nice idea you have here. I'd like to see @Grummz take a look at this and comment.

Edit: Added that money gets created in a healthy economy.

 

[Col. Kernel]

That way a player run market will be pointless, why spend reso to buy an item instead of building it yourself?

Because not everyone likes to craft. Some folks just want to shoot stuff. Some folks just want to RP. Everyone likes different stuff.

 

[DemonSlayer873]

Because you could have an excess of resource x, but you need resource y while someone else has excess of y and not enough x.

So you trade them some of your resource x for their resource y allowing both of you to craft what you wanted. Leading to a large chunk of resources leaving the economy system.

Thats a good point

 

[Bl4ckhunter]

That way a player run market will be pointless, why spend reso to buy an item instead of building it yourself?

Also supposing a procedural world with limited teleporting you'd want that becouse not everything would be aviable everywhere, i'd rather buy something from someone than go to the other corner of the universe to get the resources to craft something or having to scour an area half the size of nevada on foot to find the rare resource node i want

 

[Col. Kernel]

Thats a good point

I'm sorry, who were you quoting here?

 

[OgreMkV]

That is the beauty of using mats for money.

The problem, of course, is that games also create unlimited materials (and enemies for that matter). Any time some part of the process is unlimited, then no economy based on it will be reasonable.

I don't disagree with your points about the economy. But if materials are unlimited (and used for currency or not), then the problem has just be changed to barter and not resolved in any way.

Before the final, major update to FF, no one could sell anything for a reasonable value, because the market was flooded with cheap materials from players just cleaning out their inventory. Why would you buy 990 grade material for $5 per, when someone was selling 980 grade material for $.03 per?

I know a lot of people just want to get cool guns and blow stuff up, but I think that limited thought into how the crafting and economy works does a lot of damage to a game like FF.

Personally speaking, I'm not really OK with purchased or crafted items decaying over time and breaking. Even our tech now is good enough to keep cars and other mechanical systems running for nearly a century (so far). The only reason people replace computers is because software becomes more and more difficult for slower, lower memory systems to run. So that part doesn't make a lot of sense.

Likewise, an economy based on unlimited materials (and unlimited targets) also doesn't make much sense to me. If new areas are opened up, then they will have more materials and be more dangerous. Over time, the amount of materials mined will decrease and the strength and number of enemies will decrease. Then that area basically becomes "safe", but very, very boring.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I've made my point. Any economy based on unlimited something is going to be a meaningless economy, because someone can always flood the market with massive volumes of materials, currency, or whatever. Unless things (currency, materials, etc) are limited in some way, then you might as well just manufacture a completely fake economy where prices are hard-coded and otherwise ignored.