Higher level tools should be expensive to maintain, and they should only increase the damage by a little amount, but make it possible to "penetrate the skin" of higher level monsters.
You might be able to kill a rabbit in 1 second with your magic wand of doom, compared to the 20 seconds it took from a noob using his bare hands, but you still need to spend time finding the next rabbit, and all the extra resources you get due to being faster go to loading more magic or resting to keep your wand powerful.
Help with game economy
Author
I have been mildy curious, whether it is theoretically possible to devalue currency at higher levels in an MMORPG.
One of our economy team mentioned during casual discussion last week how he remembered in Diablo II where players would reach a point in the progression of their character, where gold no longer mattered because the things you could do with it were useless to powerful characters. I vaguely remember this as I have not played the game in over a decade. It was something to the effect that anything that was sold, was useless compared to what was offered from fallen enemy looting and spells.
I reaaaally doubt we would consider anything of that sort, but it is interesting to contemplate a system where low level users utilize currency and vendors, and you eventually progress to a point where you must rely on a barter system between other players.
One of our economy team mentioned during casual discussion last week how he remembered in Diablo II where players would reach a point in the progression of their character, where gold no longer mattered because the things you could do with it were useless to powerful characters. I vaguely remember this as I have not played the game in over a decade. It was something to the effect that anything that was sold, was useless compared to what was offered from fallen enemy looting and spells.
I reaaaally doubt we would consider anything of that sort, but it is interesting to contemplate a system where low level users utilize currency and vendors, and you eventually progress to a point where you must rely on a barter system between other players.
We are not so much concerned with the creation and maintenance of a perfect virtual economy....We are worried that if we don't get the balance right
perfect virtual economy = balance economy
You're contradicting yourself! In a perspective, a perfect virtual economy is a balance economy. It does not have to simulate the real world economy. It only has to have its own demand, supply and equilibrium based upon demand and supply.
devalue currency at higher levels in an MMORPG
devalue currency = Inflation
It is always possible to devalue currency through inflation!
The goal of currency is to prevent the old system of bartering. If you have to barter, then don't use currency in the first place. After all, that's the ultimate goal of currency. In the past, gold for royal, silver for noble & gentleman, and copper for the commoner. Each level of the population use a different currency. The problem with games is that everyone is as rich as Bill Gates once they reach a high enough level. If you want to prevent that from happening, then that is called a "Balance Economy."
Summary
- Gold for Royalty
- Silver for Noblity & Gentleman
- Copper for Commoner
So you would suggest having currency in different tiers?
It is feasible to do it this way -- by simply setting value thresholds that make materials at hugely different price ratios - for example skill level 1- 10 you would buy materials that are cheap and nasty for coppers. For your skill level 11 - 20 you would price your materials at silver and so on. By then implementing a value of something like 1000 copper = 1 silver instead of the generic 100 to 1 -- you could establish a prohibitive threshold tied to the level of the character's own level i.e. when they reach level 10 warrior for example they would access the silver economy via quests etc.
So basically your character's access into different tiers of economy access tied to progression is a viable way of doing it. For a single player this can work quite well - for a multiplayer this however can fail for reasons as covered by
If you do this game as an MMO a player's first alt (assuming same faction, server etc) will pretty much collapse this philosophy unless you constrain the player from being able to outfit his alt with money or gear or making deals with other players to do the same for their alt. Also with real life relationnships between players you often find that one player being more advanced in the game might outfit his/her mate who has just joined the game.
If you do an MMO:
If you really want to have a balance of currency, experience, skill level, and game progression, then you have to make the game so hard that only the best players could even progress to the next level, and combine this with item degrading. That way, if the best posible players trade his item with the second best players as the only way for the second best players to progress. The difficulty has to be formiddable, and if you cannot maintain this level of difficulty, then the economy will run wild. Even the third best of players cannot use the items from the best of players to progress to the next level. And with item degrading, it is even harder for the third tier of players. Thus, they have to wait until the first tier of players progress to a certain level ahead of them as well as the second tier of players. The point is to make it difficult for players to farm the item in any way. Only the best players have to capacity of using the current items they have to fight.
Basically, without these higher level items, lower tier players cannot fight against the monsters. If you make a game too difficult, then players would not play your game, but if you make the game too easy, then the economy will run rampant. Thus, the difficulty of the game, as well as the balance of the economy needs to exist. The reason for item degradation is that players weak players will end up spending higher level items, and the demand for high level items will always be there. These weaker players cannot provide a supply of items for themselves. Only stronger players could maintain a supply of items for the weaker players, causing a bottleneck to leveling up.
Having a bottleneck to leveling up would not be casual friendly, and business is about being casual friendly. That's why casual games have a harder time with balancing their economy. The more casual friendly an MMO becomes, the harder it is to balance the economy.
Single, Multi, or LAN games
It is much easier to balance an economic system that is for a small number of players. However, any game that would allow the masses to come will be much more difficult.
I would say that EVE Online fails when they use a closed economy system. They also have a shift towards being a more casual game than when they first started.
If you really want to have a balance of currency, experience, skill level, and game progression, then you have to make the game so hard that only the best players could even progress to the next level, and combine this with item degrading. That way, if the best posible players trade his item with the second best players as the only way for the second best players to progress. The difficulty has to be formiddable, and if you cannot maintain this level of difficulty, then the economy will run wild. Even the third best of players cannot use the items from the best of players to progress to the next level. And with item degrading, it is even harder for the third tier of players. Thus, they have to wait until the first tier of players progress to a certain level ahead of them as well as the second tier of players. The point is to make it difficult for players to farm the item in any way. Only the best players have to capacity of using the current items they have to fight.
- Top Tier Players - Use Level 1 Items to fight Level 2 Monsters
- Second Tier Players - Use Level 2 Items (farmed by Top Tier) to fight Level 2 Monsters
- Third Tier Players - Use Level 3 Items (farmed by Top Tier) to fight Level 2 Monsters
- Fourth Tier Players - Use Level 4 Items to fight Level 2 Monsters
- Fifth Tier Players - Use Level 5 Items to fight Level 2 Monsters
Basically, without these higher level items, lower tier players cannot fight against the monsters. If you make a game too difficult, then players would not play your game, but if you make the game too easy, then the economy will run rampant. Thus, the difficulty of the game, as well as the balance of the economy needs to exist. The reason for item degradation is that players weak players will end up spending higher level items, and the demand for high level items will always be there. These weaker players cannot provide a supply of items for themselves. Only stronger players could maintain a supply of items for the weaker players, causing a bottleneck to leveling up.
Having a bottleneck to leveling up would not be casual friendly, and business is about being casual friendly. That's why casual games have a harder time with balancing their economy. The more casual friendly an MMO becomes, the harder it is to balance the economy.
Single, Multi, or LAN games
It is much easier to balance an economic system that is for a small number of players. However, any game that would allow the masses to come will be much more difficult.
I would say that EVE Online fails when they use a closed economy system. They also have a shift towards being a more casual game than when they first started.
Author
EVE Online is one of the few MMORPGs that we are going to be getting multiple user subscriptions to for our team to work on over the winter. We do wish to have more of a casual game than what you have proposed with high difficulty and strict level requirements on items. We are all just deathly afraid of making one or more things to difficult (too hard to make money, too hard to find decent items, too hard to level up, etc) which would make the game frustrating and not appealing to consumers. The other worry is that one or more things is too easy which makes that aspect of the game boring, or a joke, or pointless.
The balance doesn't have to be so incredibly strict to maintain 100% balance all of the time, our goal is to just keep one or more aspects from being out of balance enough to have one of those major problems I listed above.
**By the way I am Maximum99 from the development team and I'm fresh out of character development and now getting on board with the social/economy part of the team. The person who had been posting on here for our team was Kammerjaeger and he knows a lot more of the gritty details thus far.
The balance doesn't have to be so incredibly strict to maintain 100% balance all of the time, our goal is to just keep one or more aspects from being out of balance enough to have one of those major problems I listed above.
**By the way I am Maximum99 from the development team and I'm fresh out of character development and now getting on board with the social/economy part of the team. The person who had been posting on here for our team was Kammerjaeger and he knows a lot more of the gritty details thus far.
Just start with high difficulty and restriction, and then loosen this restriction through pre-alpha testing. You have to start from a structured approach, and use that approach. That's the major thing about all of programming and designing. Once the core of a game is finish, then the core loses some flexibility. Of course, the difficulty and restriction just needs to tone down to a ceratin extent that casual players may still play. If the game is too easy, even the casual players find it boring. Difficulty and restrictions are one of the method to control the economy. There may be other ways, but not one that is on top of my mind. But as all of the others have said on this forum, it is not possible to balance any mmo economy. Only for limited multiplayer and single player could have a balance economy. Even real market like EVE Online needs changes overtime.
Let's compare to the real world for just a moment. Mainstream Economists in the real world likes to have as low of an inflation as possible, but it must be an inflation that is enough so that market changes does not bring the it down to deflation. However, we understand that the best economy is a "deflationary growth." However, deflationary growth is much harder to control than an inflationary growth, and that's why the Mainstream Economists wants to have inflationary growth. They take the easy route.
Now, you have a game economy. Inflationary growth or deflationary growth which do you prefer. In an inflationary growth, the monetary system will always expand, in deflationary growth, the monetary system is fixed. A closed economy runs on deflationary growth. An open economy runs on inflationary growth. EVE Online fails the deflationary growth (equivalent to gold standard), and chose to take the inflationary growth (equivalent to fiat currency). All MMO ends up moving towards the fiat (open) system economy that runs upon inflation. The inflation needs to be tame only with the creation of endless higher levels and stronger items through grinding.
Since you're going casual, having strict restrictions is not the goal. Instead, loosen the restriction just enough for a balance. The amount of players leaving the game because they reach skill cap and gets bored vs the amount of casual players that play your game needs to balance out. If the game is too easy, then high skill players will leave the game, yet if the game is too hard, low skill players will leave the game. Set the game at such a bar where it is near the mode, or slightly lower than the median or mean. That way, players will not feel the game is too easy. Also game music influence the difficulty entirely. There was an indie game developer blog article that I've read, and he says that changing the music will change the perception of difficulty after several attempts to adjust the difficulty.
Why the tier currency system just seems to work? It works better if the teir currency system is not fixed. In fact, having the currency system float is much better. In the old times, 10 copper = 1 silver, 1 pound silver = 1 ounce gold. Today, the 1 ounce of gold is over 50 ounce of silver. Of course, the ratio of conversion widening overtime is what happens in the real world. However, making it widen in the game world will just make the lower value currency obselete to high level characters.
The only way for strict 100% balance is to have a single global exchange system that players could access at anytime they want and it is also the only method of trading items.
You must always expect gold farmers in your game. Either they will be illegally gold selling, or they may be players that love to power level. Of course, when Diablo III develop their RMAH, they made every player [above average] become some sort of item farmer. Items always move from the high skill players to the low skill players, making the game easier to make more game income as the game progress. That's because players have access to items above their own level. Item level requirement could offset and help out the economy. Binding items is another way to help the economy. However, those two methods and their variations are what's expected by any developer as many discontent players keep accusing that other MMOs are UO clone, EQ clone, or WoW clone. Features of any earlier MMOs are not worth mentioning.
Minimize the income difference between players of different levels, or limit the overall amount of levels will both help to keep the economy in balance.
No lootable equipment; boss drops materials to craft higher quality items for that level bracket.
Crafting with increase in low level materials. [Tiered Items]
Always require low level materials for crafting [Material Sink]
Make all crafting done by NPC if you need [Money Sink]
Let's compare to the real world for just a moment. Mainstream Economists in the real world likes to have as low of an inflation as possible, but it must be an inflation that is enough so that market changes does not bring the it down to deflation. However, we understand that the best economy is a "deflationary growth." However, deflationary growth is much harder to control than an inflationary growth, and that's why the Mainstream Economists wants to have inflationary growth. They take the easy route.
Now, you have a game economy. Inflationary growth or deflationary growth which do you prefer. In an inflationary growth, the monetary system will always expand, in deflationary growth, the monetary system is fixed. A closed economy runs on deflationary growth. An open economy runs on inflationary growth. EVE Online fails the deflationary growth (equivalent to gold standard), and chose to take the inflationary growth (equivalent to fiat currency). All MMO ends up moving towards the fiat (open) system economy that runs upon inflation. The inflation needs to be tame only with the creation of endless higher levels and stronger items through grinding.
Since you're going casual, having strict restrictions is not the goal. Instead, loosen the restriction just enough for a balance. The amount of players leaving the game because they reach skill cap and gets bored vs the amount of casual players that play your game needs to balance out. If the game is too easy, then high skill players will leave the game, yet if the game is too hard, low skill players will leave the game. Set the game at such a bar where it is near the mode, or slightly lower than the median or mean. That way, players will not feel the game is too easy. Also game music influence the difficulty entirely. There was an indie game developer blog article that I've read, and he says that changing the music will change the perception of difficulty after several attempts to adjust the difficulty.
Why the tier currency system just seems to work? It works better if the teir currency system is not fixed. In fact, having the currency system float is much better. In the old times, 10 copper = 1 silver, 1 pound silver = 1 ounce gold. Today, the 1 ounce of gold is over 50 ounce of silver. Of course, the ratio of conversion widening overtime is what happens in the real world. However, making it widen in the game world will just make the lower value currency obselete to high level characters.
The only way for strict 100% balance is to have a single global exchange system that players could access at anytime they want and it is also the only method of trading items.
You must always expect gold farmers in your game. Either they will be illegally gold selling, or they may be players that love to power level. Of course, when Diablo III develop their RMAH, they made every player [above average] become some sort of item farmer. Items always move from the high skill players to the low skill players, making the game easier to make more game income as the game progress. That's because players have access to items above their own level. Item level requirement could offset and help out the economy. Binding items is another way to help the economy. However, those two methods and their variations are what's expected by any developer as many discontent players keep accusing that other MMOs are UO clone, EQ clone, or WoW clone. Features of any earlier MMOs are not worth mentioning.
Minimize the income difference between players of different levels, or limit the overall amount of levels will both help to keep the economy in balance.
No lootable equipment; boss drops materials to craft higher quality items for that level bracket.
Crafting with increase in low level materials. [Tiered Items]
Always require low level materials for crafting [Material Sink]
Make all crafting done by NPC if you need [Money Sink]
Author
On behalf of the whole team I want to thank all of you for your amazing advice. We have a long, detailed plan written up that we think is understandable to anyone who comes in off the street who has played these types of games before.
We have decided on level (experience) requirements for items to help level the field, a somewhat tiered form of currency, NPC money spending requirements for many things, and a few other more intricate details that tie everything together with the world we are making for this game.
I am also happy to say that we just got our loan out and put 5 programmers on contract for the game, so we'll actually start seeing all this talk, writing, and story-boarding slowly transform into something tangible in the months to come.
Thank you all again for your help!
-Kammerjäger
We have decided on level (experience) requirements for items to help level the field, a somewhat tiered form of currency, NPC money spending requirements for many things, and a few other more intricate details that tie everything together with the world we are making for this game.
I am also happy to say that we just got our loan out and put 5 programmers on contract for the game, so we'll actually start seeing all this talk, writing, and story-boarding slowly transform into something tangible in the months to come.
Thank you all again for your help!
-Kammerjäger
Good luck with your game. If you run into more issues you know where we hide. Might I also suggest you give consideration to opening up a development journal on the Game Dev website to document your experiences as you move on in the development of your team's game. One way to pre-publicise yourself as well enabling other developers/future developers to gain insights valuable to their own personal development as game makers. Again all the best.
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