Consumable Currency
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For a game with a player-driven economy, you need money-sinks to at least put a bit of drag on the inevitable mudflation you always get in virtual economies.
One of the most ingenious money-sink systems I've ever come across is the consumable currency system implemented in Path of Exile.
All currency comes in the form of either stackable consumable items, or in the form of stackable fragments that will automatically convert into a complete item once a sufficiently large stack of fragments has been created.
Consumable items are things like scrolls of identify, or an 'orb of alchemy' that increases the quality of a piece of gear from normal to rare - resulting in an increase to the gear's stats.
Every currency item can be consumed to provide a benefit. This gives the currency item an intrinsic value, and also gives players an incentive to destroy their own currency that doesn't feel exploitative the way that taxation does.
I don't know about the ethics of
stealingimitating this idea from Grinding Gear Games, and I don't know how difficult something like this would be to implement in Fractured as it currently stands - and given that Path of Exile's currency system is tightly bound to its loot-based gear system, which may not 'port well to Fractured's crafting-based gear system.But even so, it's a brilliant idea that's I think is well worth
stealingimitating, and may be even more suited to Fractured than Path of Exile due to Fractured's design goal of a player-driven economy and the corollary requirement inventive money sinks.Thoughts?
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Path of Exile has extreme inflation, what are you talking about? Compare season League prices to Standard.
That's because consuming Orbs et al to improve items isn't any different economically from paying gold to an NPC (i.e. consuming it) to improve items.
The main defense against inflation in Path of Exile is that inventory space is limited, thus the speed at which value can be gained is limited.
The real reason for inflation in MMOs is simply because currency has no grounding in reality and therefore is generated rapidly and infinitely. The only counter to this is to monitor the active playerbase size & habits and create / enforce an arbitrary and proportionate cap on how much currency can exist at once.
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@fibs said in Consumable Currency:
Path of Exile has extreme inflation, what are you talking about?
Look closely: I never said PoE doesn't have inflation.
PoE is a grind-based looter. Of course they have extreme inflation. The kind of money sink that would be required to prevent inflation in a grind-based looter would be so punitive as to break the game for anyone who isn't already fantastically wealthy.
The mechanic of getting players to destroy their currency won't make a dent in inflation if massive amounts of currency and gear are continually being created. That doesn't mean the mechanic is ineffective as a money-sink: It just means that any efficacy of such a system insufficient to the task of reigning in inflation on a grind-based looter - but that's an unreasonable standard to begin with.
But for a player-driven economy in a game that isn't a grind-based looter, I think that system might have even more utility as a money sink than it would in a game like PoE. Inflation is still inevitable, but that doesn't mean that inventive money sinks can't be used to put a drag on that inflation.
The trick in my view would be in adapting it to Fractured. Not sure if that would be achievable either in principle or in practice, because the two games have very different designs, and I have no idea how hard it would be to implement.
But if you used health potions, mana potions, speed potions, fragments of scrolls to create skill tomes, and so on as currency, then there's a drive for players to consume them and remove currency from the game. I think that's more interesting than just having an NPC shop that sells these items for copper/silver/gold - particularly in a player-driven economy where you'd expect players to craft and sell those items wherever possible.
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@kairosval said in Consumable Currency:
@fibs said in Consumable Currency:
Path of Exile has extreme inflation, what are you talking about?
Look closely: I never said PoE doesn't have inflation.
Your first sentence is themed on combating inflation. That implies a tone for the rest of the post
But for a player-driven economy in a game that isn't a grind-based looter, I think that system might have even more utility as a money sink than it would in a game like PoE. Inflation is still inevitable, but that doesn't mean that inventive money sinks can't be used to put a drag on that inflation [...] if you used health potions, mana potions, speed potions, fragments of scrolls to create skill tomes, and so on as currency, then there's a drive for players to consume them and remove currency from the game.
As I said, this is not a (new) money sink. Whether you use or trade a health potion is exactly the same as whether you use or trade gold (for a health potion). The only difference is semantic.
I find PoE's reliance on currency items to be extremely unintuitive and unenjoyable for absolutely no provable benefit to the game other than fitting the setting (Wraeclast is a cobbled-together mess of outcasts and doesn't have a coherent centralized government to establish an accepted fiat currency.) It has zero effect on the economy of the game.
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i'm neutral on it. I like that the items are consume and can be traded but people will settle on 1 or 2 items as a trade currency.
I'd like to try a limited supply of resources in alpha.
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Reading comprehension lessons are fun!
@fibs said in Consumable Currency:
Your first sentence is themed on combating inflation. That implies a tone for the rest of the post
Let's review my first sentence from the OP.
@kairosval said in Consumable Currency:
For a game with a player-driven economy, you need money-sinks to at least put a bit of drag on the inevitable mudflation you always get in virtual economies.
This states that mudflation is inevitable, but that it's a good idea to come up with inventive ways of putting a bit of drag on that process where we can.
So my position here is not premised on stopping inflation in virtual economies. The fact that this cannot be done and we can only hope to inventively slow inflation is built into the core of my position.
So it does not follow from this that Path of Exile experiencing a high rate of inflation is in and of itself an sensible objection to the use of consumable currency for the purpose of adding drag.
So why open your comment about PoE's rate of inflation the way you did, given that that sets the tone on your comment to suggest that the rate of inflation in PoE is an issue with my position? It's just confusing, which is why I corrected you on it only to have you complain about my apparent lack of reading comprehension.
What would be a meaningful objection to my position anything that suggests that consumable currency wouldn't put enough drag on inflation to be worth the opportunity cost on the development time required to implement it.
@fibs said in Consumable Currency:
As I said, this is not a (new) money sink. Whether you use or trade a health potion is exactly the same as whether you use or trade gold (for a health potion). The only difference is semantic.
Let's review look again!
@kairosval said in Consumable Currency:
But if you used health potions... then there's a drive for players to consume them and remove currency from the game. I think that's more interesting than just having an NPC shop that sells these items for copper/silver/gold - particularly in a player-driven economy where you'd expect players to craft and sell those items wherever possible.
So the fact that spending gold on consumable items at an NPC shop is similar to using consumable items as currency is already taken into account in my position. Amazing, right? It's almost like I knew what you were going to complain about next before you said it.
I like the idea of consumable currency for two reasons.
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The mostly-player-driven economy is more interesting the fewer NPC cash shops that need to be implemented.
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The mostly-player-driven market is also more interesting if the currency gets an intrinsic value and a rarity value, where the rarity value varies by drop rate in various locations. Because here the local market will determine exchange rates based on those to forms of value, which will be more reflective of the actual value of each of those items than would be achieved by a developer fiat that just specified a fixed amount of copper pieces per item.
In both cases this is something that is afforded to consumable currency but not to NPC cash shops. So while they are very similar, they are also different in a way that is relevant to my interest in consumable currency over an NPC cash shop. So simply pointing to them and saying 'NPC consumable shops are kind of similar' is not in and of itself a sensible objection either.
Yay for reading comprehension!
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how do you have 3 planets with different native resources be valued differently enough that people want another planets resource? I know PoE has one world which makes since that the resources also have value to trade.
Fractured would have to provide the means that demons value beastkin materials more while beastkin value demon materials more then have humans be split between the two. maybe evil human want beastkin while good humans want demon. But i couldn't see beastkin wanting demon materials because it's probably more skulls and blood and things against the beast morals. and that ignores the human planet completely.
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@jetah said in Consumable Currency:
how do you have 3 planets with different native resources be valued differently enough that people want another planets resource?
Easiest way is rarity.
Healing potions are more common in Arboreus, semi-rare in Syndesia, and very rare in Tartaros. So Tararos will value healing potions more highly than in Arboreus.
Reverse that for mana potions.
Then give Syndesia a higher drop-rate on scrolls of identify.
Something like that - specifics aren't really important.
It would basically work like any other resource: A trader taking Crystal from Arboreus and travelling to Tartaros to trade it for poison glands (or whatever) harvested from Tartaros' wildlife, then back to Arboreus, building value every time.
Same thing for consumable currency items.
Probably too complicated to implement that way, but I think it would be neat if they did.
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@kairosval said in Consumable Currency:
@jetah said in Consumable Currency:
how do you have 3 planets with different native resources be valued differently enough that people want another planets resource?
Easiest way is rarity.
Healing potions are more common in Arboreus, semi-rare in Syndesia, and very rare in Tartaros. So Tararos will value healing potions more highly than in Arboreus.
Reverse that for mana potions.
Then give Syndesia a higher drop-rate on scrolls of identify.
Something like that - specifics aren't really important.
It would basically work like any other resource: A trader taking Crystal from Arboreus and travelling to Tartaros to trade it for poison glands (or whatever) harvested from Tartaros' wildlife, then back to Arboreus, building value every time.
Same thing for consumable currency items.
Probably too complicated to implement that way, but I think it would be neat if they did.
That would never work. I assume Fractured will have a lot more items than PoE. For example, you use healing and mana potions as an example, but I am pretty certain that in Fractured, alchemists will be able to make a lot more than 2 potions.
With all the crafting, gathering, etc going on, it's likely there will be hundreds of different items in the game. With that many items, you can't use them as currency unless players are going to do what Guild Wars players did and designate one item as an alternative currency, like ecto in GW.
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@vengu I agree.
I know i don't want to trade 15 items just to get the item i want.
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Making items account bound seems to be the oldest and most effective way to make items rare and keeps the economy from faltering. You can set medium rare items to bind on equip and the most rare or powerful items to be bound once picked up. This allows trading of the semi rare items and keeps a trader in business while not upsetting the dynamics of the game. The thing I would like to see changed is what you do with the ultra rare item after it has lost its use to you. I would like to see a value in its demise yet not so much as to make people want items they could not use just to break them for what ever end.
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It's a sandbox there will not be any kind of bound ;). Items can be crafted only and used/reused by everyone. Items will decay and can be stolen. The market will not suffer.
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(I do not know if what I'll talk about represents the presented situation of the game.)
@Jetah The problem with a global, even if consumable, currency would be the rise in power of planets with less competitive environment. If equipments/players worn out and you need this money to keep them in the field (an easy way to take money out of the system), then a less hostile environment would put less pressure on the economy, leading to a local inflation. If money is transferable from planets to planets, then this money would have a higher value on more pressured planets.
A travel fee on this global currency would help in that the tax could be adapted to the quantity of money present in game on each planet in order to balance it. You are rich and wanting to move ? You can, and you'll be almost as rich as you are here, minus a fee. But then the next one to do the same would pay less taxes and then be richer than you because there is less money were you come from, and so on.
The idea of different items taking the place of a global currency, each of them with a lesser value on their home world, that would help to slow the phenomenon would be a good one in my mind @KairosVal . Bonus point for talking about adding an inventory maximum @FibS , it would limit physically how rich a player could be, how much currency can exists at max, and limit the speed at which the currency would move
Indeed, it would penalize talented traders, and I know players that love to play with huge amounts of money, but at the same time merchants-travellers would be highly valued leading slowly to the development of people specialised in transport.
If players do not want time to be a problem to get their item, but still want some level of realism, a limited form of "Trading Post System" could be implemented as a NPC platform for players to exchange with taxes inbuilt.I do not know what form it could take...limited to region, planets, universe wide, different section depending on which currency you use ?
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@kairosval said in Consumable Currency:
Reading comprehension lessons are fun!
So you suck at writing AND you're pretentious and condescending. Can I get a mute user function, please?
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I like the consumable currency in PoE.
And i think it would very good fitting into the scene of Fractured. But it can just get balanced if every planet produce equal valuable Currency. I can imagine that corn, jewels or ore could be the most valueable ones.
Corn to poduce high valued food, Ore to craft high valuable Armour, Jewels for enchanting.
This System can be widened very much and it can scale with future updates.
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I feel like there are better ways to control global cash flow an inflation. Things like having to pay for land, guild privledges, taxes on businesses in town, etc.
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@dagimir they'd have to limit the amount of resources produced in a given amount of time and have a way to remove them at the same rate.
Actually that would make for some interesting game play.
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@jetah Yeah keeping things limited would ensure that inflation doesnt go crazy.
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@dagimir said in Consumable Currency:
@jetah Yeah keeping things limited would ensure that inflation doesnt go crazy.
think about new spawns being random. a scout with some minor skills in gathering could find where the new location would be. if that information got out or multiple groups scouted the same resource then there'd be fighting around it. those that won could claim it or it's a harvest the resource while people are defending you! it'd be both amazing and stressful!
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@jetah Im all for competitive hunting like that. It was a big part of everquest and it kept rare spawns seeming special because everybody was after them! By the time you got to one it felt so good.
