I'm normally a PvE carebear, but something about Fractured made me keen to try out PvP for a change.
So I googled for 'demon profile picture' and found the one I liked best.
I've actually saved this one to my dropbox. I plan to use it again in the future, I likes it. 
@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.
@severinus said in Will there be a way to change your Attributes?:
I remember playing the same MUD - wasn't it discworld? - and thinking very specifically ahead, which path to go and decisions to make.
Yes! It was!
I could remember the mechanic, but not which MUD it was from.
Wow. That takes me back. Haven't played MUDs since I was in my early teens. Over half a lifetime ago.
Really liked their multiple-node tree-based skill distribution model too.
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.
The mostly-player-driven economy is more interesting the fewer NPC cash shops that need to be implemented.
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! 
So kind of like how in Dragon Age: Inquisition where the same piece of gear could look drastically different depending on which party member was wearing it, except for different races rather than different party members?
I can see that working, but for most armor I'd expect that the devs would focus more on on other areas on the game, particularly given that cosmetic items will be used to alter the appearance of most gear anyway.
@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.
Contract Type: Delivery Contract
Pickup Location: Arboreus Capital City
Dropoff Location: Middle of nowhere in Tartaros
Dropoff Time: Suspiciously tight timeframe that looks like a given player's weekly logon time.
Contractor's Name: Griefer McGankypants
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 stealing imitating 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 stealing imitating, 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?
@darian said in Idea: Ability that allows evil summoners to summon PC demons.:
@kairosval Marvelous little gimmick... have it difficult to achieve... aka getting massive Favor with Babilis, and perhaps completing a really difficult challenge for him would reward you with the ability to summon the 1 daemon but you would need to pay a heavy price... I think gold, other vanity/ or perhaps sacrifice the hearts of defeated PCs. This way you can't really abuse the ability and you're also most certainly evil aligned and considered a criminal throughout Syndesia. Also, the summoning ritual should also involve negotiating with the daemon, Meaning that you can't just summon him on the fly, in the middle of combat. I'd also add a 50% dedicated manna cost for keeping the planar link that allows the Daemon to stay on Syndesia, meaning that while he benefits from the support of another player, the summoner only has half a manna pool for his own spell casting.
Yeah, all of this stuff.
This would be really fun.
Maybe have something on the demon's side to, so you qualify for being summoned. Then the demon can activate or deactivate it as and when they want to use it. Kind of like a 'looking for group' flag, but with in-game mechanics.
Another thing that might be good would be the option to bring in an AI demon if there's no PC demons available.
@prometheus said in Feature Spotlight #5 - Character Creation, Attributes And Resting:
@kairosval said in Feature Spotlight #5 - Character Creation, Attributes And Resting:
It seems weird that the cost of attribute increase for 7 and 8 are both 3, but that the cost of attribute increase for 10-15 is 2 per level. Then the cost per attribute goes back to 3 for 16 and 17, then up to 4 for 18 to 21.
Having 7 and 8 cost three seems like a weird deviation from the rest of the pattern.
I'm not complaining about it. Just curious as to the reasoning.It's to make it more viable to lower a stat below 10, given the penalties for doing so are quite heavy. You made an example of a character with 6 PER and CHA - that's one who would have a hard time doing PvE (can't identify items, has very bad luck) and in PvP would be smashed by any half-decent user of Assassination and/or Illusionism. Doesn't mean it's not a viable character, but very unbalanced
I really want to run up to people and smash them in the face then throw fire at them when they try to run away, so I'm willing to give up something. ^_^
But yeah: I'll obviously tweak expectations and plans as I get access to alpha/beta/release content and start playing.
And yes, that points-per-stat distribution does make it more viable to go below 10, and that does make a lot of sense. Seems really obvious in hindsight.
@morridin said in Idea: Ability that allows evil summoners to summon PC demons.:
I am not sure that demons would actually benefit from this summonings. According to a spotlight they already are better at world hopping than the other races so while the lack of debuffs from the summons could be useful, if the demon is restricted too much to the proximity of the summoner it could be difficult to find demons for the summoning. A mechanicto incentivize the demon would likely be important.
I have two ideas for the incentive for the demon.
First of all, it could be a straight up trade. So the human sacrifices something to the demon, the demon accepts and agrees to serve the summoner for the duration. So payment works.
But also, a demon in Syndesia when there isn't an eclipse will gradually rack up debuffs for being off-world. The idea for this summoning thing is that it would allow the demon to exist in Syndesia without the debuffs (or with reduced debuffs) for the duration of the summon ability, but with the donwside of having to serve the human summoner as an autonomous pet and being banishable.
So it'd be about the tradeoff - gametesting would be important to ensure that the workaround of avoiding the Syndesia penalties wouldn't be grievously abusable.