A world with finite money

[Vanguard]

One of the design decisions I have decided to make with Guardian is that there will be only a set amount of money in any given game.

I will go about this by only generating money when each floor of every dungeon is generated.  Enemies will never drop money, no matter how long or how many of them are farmed, and this will allow me to do a few things.

First, I can put extremely valuable and useful items in the shop without putting the player at the mercy of the random number generator.  I can have powerful artifact items that are in the same shops every time without worrying about the player cheesing a victory by grinding early safe dungeons until they can afford their doomsday weapon of choice.

I've decided that I want criminal behavior on the player's part to generally decrease the game's difficulty (because why would you lie, steal, and kill if you didn't get anything out of it?) and this will be one way I'm going to go about it.  A fair portion of the game's money will be available through various criminal and immoral acts.  Stealing and killing will have much more in the way of long term consequences than most roguelikes, but the player will also have more motivation to rob stores when they carry one-of-a-kind artifact items.

Ideally this will present the player with difficult financial decisions.  Should they buy the best item they can afford now and have an easier early game, or should they take the more difficult route and save so they can buy as many of the top tier items as they can?  Hopefully this will help new players see mid-game content without too much difficulty, and help them prepare for serious runs where they conserve as much as possible.

How does this sound to all of you?

[Krice]

I don't know why many role-playing games have such crappy economy model. Maybe it's just a fix to rpg system that has flaws from the beginning. The basic flaw is make things cost like bananas so you need to get shitload of money to buy them, to prevent you getting too powerful equipment too soon. Your idea sounds like reversed version: create less money so it's harder to buy good equipment.

I guess this problem is related to power items (powerful magical items and artifacts). If you don't have those in the gameplay, you can buy like every item in the shop and still be average fighter and need actual playing skills to survive.

I may sound a little sensitive to this subject. It's because I just started Oblivion and everything costs too much. 2500gp for a horse? Oh, I only have 66gp!

[Vanguard]

Oblivion is a really poor choice of games to base any balance-related arguments on.

That is, unless you're talking about what not to do in order to create a balanced game.

[Krice]

Oblivion is a really poor choice of games to base any balance-related arguments on.

So are roguelikes and the whole high fantasy bullshit. That's why I'm going to model the world (of Kaduria) based on more realistic, like medieval style world. In that world it's possible to get decent equipment without carrying a wagonload of gold coins to the shop.

[Vanguard]

Neither roguelikes nor high fantasy are inherently unbalanced.  You don't have to like them, but any real or perceived inherent problems they have are not balance-related.

Oblivion, on the other hand, is incredibly unbalanced in every possible way.

[Krice]

Neither roguelikes nor high fantasy are inherently unbalanced.

Of course they are. High fantasy is often "balanced" with magic and power equipment, which in turn emphasize power playing, but that's not really the only way to play or design games. I'm sick of power playing and maximizing your fucking stats.

[purestrain]

Neither roguelikes nor high fantasy are inherently unbalanced.

Of course they are. High fantasy is often "balanced" with magic and power equipment, which in turn emphasize power playing, but that's not really the only way to play or design games. I'm sick of power playing and maximizing your fucking stats.

amen!

[Vanguard]

High fantasy, magic, equipment, and stats are not any more inherently unbalanced than anything else, though they may be overdone.

Anyway, this really isn't the place for your crusade against fantasy settings.

Feel free to start a thread where you can express your hatred of them.

[Fenrir]

Of course they are. High fantasy is often "balanced" with magic and power equipment, which in turn emphasize power playing, but that's not really the only way to play or design games. I'm sick of power playing and maximizing your fucking stats.

I'm Fenrir, and I approve this message.

Requesting thread split that we may join in Krice's crusade! Assuming, of course, someone has some constructive ideas on the matter.

ON TOPIC:

One of the design decisions I have decided to make with Guardian is that there will be only a set amount of money in any given game.

Will the total amount of money be the same each game, or will that be random too? I imagine it would be rather annoying to discover that you can't buy something simply because the RNG didn't give you enough cash.

[Vanguard]

The total will be random.  Part of playing roguelikes is adapting to unexpected situations, so I don't want people to feel like being able to purchase the specific set of items they want will always be in the cards.  On the other hand, maybe they'll get lucky and they'll be able to buy everything they want as well as some extras.

What I definitely don't want is someone finding the exact most efficient things to buy and at what point you can expect to afford them and all that and then writing a guide everyone follows forever.

Basically each level will have a minimum and maximum amount of gold that can be generated on it, and the RNG will pick a number between those two values when the level is first generated.

[Etinarg]

Total Money should somewhat reflect the total wealth of the game world.

As long as a game is generating wealth (items, etc.) all the time, also the amount of money should grow, to keep a balance between amount of money, and value of money.

If you increase the wealth of the world only, without increasing the amount of money, each unit of money would get worth more in real life. But not in game worlds with fixed prices. You'll end with a very odd situation where there is big wealth in items, but it's not affordable, because the amount of money is too  small, and the value of the money too low.

[Rya.Reisender]

I didn't even know there are roguelikes where grinding is possible until I read this thread.

[Vanguard]

I didn't even know there are roguelikes where grinding is possible until I read this thread.

You've never played a *band I take it.

[Xecutor]

No money, no problem? No?

[RoguelikeGCS]

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