Goblinworks Game Designer
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Yeah, we have the concept of higher-value coins, and that partially mitigates the weight issue. But unless we want to have endlessly improving types of coins, there's still the risk that some of the more expensive items in the game get leashed because they're worth a significant weight of even platinum coins.
Another potential issue is just threading vs. non-threading. That is, why pack up millions of coin, even if it's in a lightweight pile of platinum, when you could trade for expensive jewelry, wear it and thread it, and worst-case for you is that your money takes a little durability damage if you're killed (vs. losing all of it to your killer and the 25% destruction rate). It still creates the newbie trap where only new players travel to market with meaningful amounts of cash, and the rest of the game has figured out how to create a safer fiat currency (just in the form of rings and necklaces instead of rare components).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Threadable coin purses? At least it keeps the trade off decision of not slotting combat stuff alive.
That's a pretty significant change in design, if I understand it correctly. Right now, all bags do is increase your total Encumbrance limit, and a threaded bag doesn't protect anything inside it because there's nothing really inside that particular bag.
I think the current design, that they're in inventory until you "tag home" and then they're untouchable, is perfectly reasonable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Threadable coin purses? At least it keeps the trade off decision of not slotting combat stuff alive.That's a pretty significant change in design, if I understand it correctly. Right now, all bags do is increase your total Encumbrance limit, and a threaded bag doesn't protect anything inside it because there's nothing really inside that particular bag.
I think the current design, that they're in inventory until you "tag home" and then they're untouchable, is perfectly reasonable.
These would be coin purses just to thread coin.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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Millions of gold pieces in a transaction saddens my fantasy setting heart. I'd much rather we start of with an economy of coppers and work our way up to transactions of thousands of platinums.
Top end items in tabletop are valued at 20 million copper pieces. If you bought a 200,000 gp value item in tabletop, even with platinum coins, you'd be spending 400 pounds of coins.
Not to say our economy will necessarily wind up resembling that in any way, but just to note that Pathfinder already has the concept of items worth a mind boggling amount of currency.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah, we have the concept of higher-value coins, and that partially mitigates the weight issue. But unless we want to have endlessly improving types of coins, there's still the risk that some of the more expensive items in the game get leashed because they're worth a significant weight of even platinum coins.
Another potential issue is just threading vs. non-threading. That is, why pack up millions of coin, even if it's in a lightweight pile of platinum, when you could trade for expensive jewelry, wear it and thread it, and worst-case for you is that your money takes a little durability damage if you're killed (vs. losing all of it to your killer and the 25% destruction rate). It still creates the newbie trap where only new players travel to market with meaningful amounts of cash, and the rest of the game has figured out how to create a safer fiat currency (just in the form of rings and necklaces instead of rare components).
Thanks for thinking this through and giving physical coinage a chance, and at the very least creating a hybrid system that still allows this in some fashion, but keeps the worst it could become out of the picture. Is it possible, in the hybrid setup, to have it be that when you purchase an item in trade from a player merchant, that for the recipient of the funds,they are physical until tagged home, as if received as loot? I'm not sure if that would work or even matter, as then all transaction of any larger sort would be done in safe zones near whatever tagging locations are available. May have answered my own question there but it still leaves the door open for some cases.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Threadable coin purses? At least it keeps the trade off decision of not slotting combat stuff alive.
Not to beat a dead horse, but if JUST coin purses operated as an item that contained X amount of coinage (these could have their contents be weightless as bags of holding and whatnot but the bag itself has a weight). They could be threaded, but would only hold so much in funds... I should just stop. This isn't going to happen. Still a fun idea though.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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Lets say that the average cost for a reasonably good item that is not often threaded but is often used (i.e. it will be consumed regularly via destruction) is 1,000 coin. Based on the current rate of coin drop that is not a very expensive item.
Let's say we have 50,000 active players in the game, of which 1% consume this item weekly. That's 500 units being consumed a week, or 500,000 coin of value.
So someone who wants to operate at the top of this market is looking at making multiple-hundreds of thousands of coin valued transactions on a regular basis.
And that's just a fairly low level item.
Let's think about commodities. Right now a steel sword requires 3 steel ingots. Steel ingots require 10 iron ore. So that's 30 iron ore per sword.
Let's assume that 20% of the player population has a sword, and they lose that sword through misadventure once a month. 10,000 swords a month requires 300,000 iron ore to be mined. Will the price of that iron ore be 1 coin? Several? Even if it is just 1 coin, 300,000 coins of value per month are going to be moving through the economy. And that's just for a low-level sword.
You can see that very quickly, at fairly small player populations (compared to Theme Park MMOs) we are getting into the realm where million-coin accounts are not going to be exceptional - they'll be basic capitalization levels for the top end of the crafting, harvesting, and logistics groups.
And that's before we even begin dealing with the effects of warfare, major character-built structures, etc.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Lets say that the average cost for a reasonably good item that is not often threaded but is often used (i.e. it will be consumed regularly via destruction) is 1,000 coin. Based on the current rate of coin drop that is not a very expensive item.
Let's say we have 50,000 active players in the game, of which 1% consume this item weekly. That's 500 units being consumed a week, or 500,000 coin of value.
So someone who wants to operate at the top of this market is looking at making multiple-hundreds of thousands of coin valued transactions on a regular basis.
And that's just a fairly low level item.
Let's think about commodities. Right now a steel sword requires 3 steel ingots. Steel ingots require 10 iron ore. So that's 30 iron ore per sword.
Let's assume that 20% of the player population has a sword, and they lose that sword through misadventure once a month. 10,000 swords a month requires 300,000 iron ore to be mined. Will the price of that iron ore be 1 coin? Several? Even if it is just 1 coin, 300,000 coins of value per month are going to be moving through the economy. And that's just for a low-level sword.
You can see that very quickly, at fairly small player populations (compared to Theme Park MMOs) we are getting into the realm where million-coin accounts are not going to be exceptional - they'll be basic capitalization levels for the top end of the crafting, harvesting, and logistics groups.
And that's before we even begin dealing with the effects of warfare, major character-built structures, etc.
This makes sense and I understand the factors involved very well. Even from the minimal number of factors involved, physical coinage causes an exponential number of problems when trying to move things around on that scale. Without spending too many thought processes on it I was trying to devise out a way around the complexity, but still have the coinage be physical.
Without some serious brainstorming I keep coming up with the same detracting points you and Stephen do. I'm sure there is a way to do it that is workable, and maybe the hybrid model is the closest that will work.....Anyone else have an idea on how it could work?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe if there was a slight tax on moving ethereal coin from one settlement's market to another, there would be some incentive to consider hauling physical coins instead. The tax could not be any higher than the friction/inconvenience cost of using some other object as a store of value.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd like to point out in Runescape there were banknotes, where you go to the bank and could ask for a 10mil note. only weighed the poundage of one piece of paper, but with all that added value.
I don't think we need a fancy conversion process or anythin from coin to gems to stargems to blood of elder beings to etc. coins and bank notes would work just fine. Also you can try disguise, sleight of hand, etc, to hide the bank note during an ENCOUNTER OF THE BLUDDKIND!!!!
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Wagon capacity dependent on type (obviously)
Bluddwulf, you may have singlehandedly ruined my productivity for the rest of the day.
"Wow, the Romans had a technological advantage in wagons? How much technology goes into wagons, anyway?"
Reads part of linked article.
"One-piece fellies? I wonder what a felly is. Better check Wikipedia."
Links open up from Technotronic (who had a member named Felly) to Wheelwright ("Oh, fellies is the plural of felloe, not felly.").
At that point, you might as well have lured me into TV Tropes!
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Goblin Squad Member
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More on topic, I like the idea of PvE-looted coin being physical until you return to civilization. If visiting a tavern POI counts as "tagging base", that adds one more reason for adventurers to congregate there (in addition to wound healing). For those who want to live in the wild spaces, visiting settlements as rarely as possible, taverns that can bank currency would let them avoid cities that much longer.
Banditry against merchant caravans and adventuring parties would have some interesting differences. Merchants are less likely to have combat skills, but they may hire experienced guards. Adventurers will be better armed, have plenty of combat skills, and may be more willing to use them in defense of their looted coins. On the other hand, as most MMO players soon learn, being good at PVE combat and PVP combat are two different skills...
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Goblin Squad Member
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More on topic, I like the idea of PvE-looted coin being physical until you return to civilization. If visiting a tavern POI counts as "tagging base", that adds one more reason for adventurers to congregate there (in addition to wound healing). For those who want to live in the wild spaces, visiting settlements as rarely as possible, taverns that can bank currency would let them avoid cities that much longer.
Banditry against merchant caravans and adventuring parties would have some interesting differences. Merchants are less likely to have combat skills, but they may hire experienced guards. Adventurers will be better armed, have plenty of combat skills, and may be more willing to use them in defense of their looted coins. On the other hand, as most MMO players soon learn, being good at PVE combat and PVP combat are two different skills...
And in many cases, different equipment on in PFO specifically I can imagine even more so when you consider key words.
In EvE you are most likely dead meat if your set up is for mission running and you are engaged by a PvP fit ship, even one of a lower tier or smaller chassis or against a lesser skilled character.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Whether taverns (and other POIs) can bank coins or not, the biggest limiting factor on avoiding settlements will still be the need for advanced training.
If coins must be banked in settlements, then dedicated long-haul wilderness types will juggle their inventory to hold onto the highest value-density loot, and drop everything else. A party deep in a dungeon will probably have to do some of that, anyway.
On the other hand, I doubt many people will be content to sit on piles of XP and achievements without visiting the settlement-only trainers once in a while (at least for the first couple of years).
Edit: Yes, despite GW's obvious focus on settlement gameplay, there are some groups on this board who want to avoid settlements to varying degrees. (Mostly druid- and ranger-focused guilds, as I recall, plus maybe some adventuring and bandit companies)
Edit 2: Not to say that everyone should want to play the way GW wants them to play. If that's your thing, have fun!
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CEO, Goblinworks
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I'd like to point out in Runescape there were banknotes, where you go to the bank and could ask for a 10mil note. only weighed the poundage of one piece of paper, but with all that added value.
Yes, that's a letter of credit, the most basic form of financial instrument.
If we do not have virtual currency, there will be LOC almost immediately. If we do not create LOCs the players will do it. And if the players do it, it becomes opaque to us what is happening in the economy, ripe for abuse, and the source of endless grief and bad feelings.
But the LOC is just a system on top of a virtual currency. There are no coins. Nowhere at Goblinworks do we have a vault full of shiny metal discs. So the effort we would invest in making a LOC system is really just a duplication of work on top of having a virtual currency. It just does not seem like a valuable use of our time.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Nowhere at Goblinworks do we have a vault full of shiny metal discs.I am soo dissapointed right now.
You could always get one of these
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Goblin Squad Member
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What advantage (to PFO) would accrue from making it difficult to earn value in one location and spend it in a distant location?
Realism is not an advantage in a fantasy roleplaying game.
If I take your meaning correctly, one thought on this is how Robinhood operated. If he had only had the possibility to raid tax caravans for the physical objects on the persons instead of the tax funds, as these are all safe and sound (and have no need to be moved at all), then add to that even if you SAD the tax collector, it is cheaper for him to refuse to pay and die (and respawn) than to give up the money, you remove the possibility to remove funds from settlements, and then nations, and fund erosion through this form of economic warfare in transfer is lost. Money is primarily untouchable and you are reduced to just destruction/stealing individuals possessions to distribute to the poor in Robinhoods case. I'm sure there are many other was this could be geared to create advantage through the system of making funds accessible throughout the process.
While I would like to see it, it may just be something PFO can do without as a layer to settlement/nation warfare. We will most likely have a lot of other options. My position isn't built on realism, but on game mechanics that allow economic warfare on a larger than individual level. We could also just burn their POIs to the ground and they have the expense of rebuilding but this would make your "Robinhood" type who steals funds for one purpose or another from the Settlement/Nation level not an option.
Just an opinion.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd like to point out in Runescape there were banknotes, where you go to the bank and could ask for a 10mil note. only weighed the poundage of one piece of paper, but with all that added value.Yes, that's a letter of credit, the most basic form of financial instrument.
If we do not have virtual currency, there will be LOC almost immediately. If we do not create LOCs the players will do it. And if the players do it, it becomes opaque to us what is happening in the economy, ripe for abuse, and the source of endless grief and bad feelings.
But the LOC is just a system on top of a virtual currency. There are no coins. Nowhere at Goblinworks do we have a vault full of shiny metal discs. So the effort we would invest in making a LOC system is really just a duplication of work on top of having a virtual currency. It just does not seem like a valuable use of our time.
So we cut out the need for the LOC. Is it possible to still include a portion of the funds as located (virtually) on the character with the rest in the bank? It doesn't have to have weight or any in game physical representation, but could then still be part of PVP loot, at risk from SADs and so forth. Possibly still have to be transferred on person to other settlements? Or does this again just add systems for no purpose (or value) that will be circumvented?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Everyone is really killing all my ideas for assassinating the settlement treasurer and stealing as much as my team can carry out of the treasury. I guess huge piles of gold and silver, ready for any that can make it past all the guards is just not in the cards. :(
Sorry, Wexel. Them's the breaks sometimes. Fun idea, though. The bounty on someone who got away with that would generate a lot of emergent gameplay.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yep, them's the breaks. I guess I will just have to find my joy in assassinating the treasurer or other reasons. Maybe down the road as more crowdforging comes into play and we see how the system is working past MVP, some mechanics around this could be implemented. Not holding my breath though. ;)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have to admit, the thought of a weightless and non-substantial currency is disappointing.
Loading up on money should encumber you, and there should definitely be the possibility of getting robbed. Using bank notes to facilitate massive transactions is a great idea, one that should incur a cost, be it flat or fraction; most importantly it should still leave the carrier open to the risk of loss.
However, a number of transactions are likely to occur through the use of contract escrows which could perhaps be used to bypass carrying sums of money that could be put at risk.
If things end up with money being effectively out of the system, it will certainly make for a world of slightly less consequence. That said, unless redemption of contracts is made perhaps needlessly complex, players are likely to find a way around putting themselves at risk.
I believe it is a problem that could be handled gracefully, and I do not believe that weightless and insubstantial currency is the solution, but it does have the merit of essentially rolling with the punches, which may be more important at this point.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hmm, how would GW track loans and a secondary barter market?
And assassins could be used to enforce payments on the loans!
"Mr. Darkvengeance said I should keep killing you until your armor breaks if you don't pay up. Why would you go and make Mr. Darkvengeance say something like that?"
*Whack!*
*Respawn!*
*Crack!*
*Respawn!*
Etc.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have to admit, the thought of a weightless and non-substantial currency is disappointing.
Loading up on money should encumber you, and there should definitely be the possibility of getting robbed. Using bank notes to facilitate massive transactions is a great idea, one that should incur a cost, be it flat or fraction; most importantly it should still leave the carrier open to the risk of loss.
However, a number of transactions are likely to occur through the use of contract escrows which could perhaps be used to bypass carrying sums of money that could be put at risk.
If things end up with money being effectively out of the system, it will certainly make for a world of slightly less consequence. That said, unless redemption of contracts is made perhaps needlessly complex, players are likely to find a way around putting themselves at risk.
I believe it is a problem that could be handled gracefully, and I do not believe that weightless and insubstantial currency is the solution, but it does have the merit of essentially rolling with the punches, which may be more important at this point.
I suspect many (if not most) tabletop Pathfinder players already use weightless currency. When I started using Hero Lab, I was shocked at how little money a low-to-middling strength character can actually hold without magic bags. I don't think I've ever seen a judge at a Pathfinder Society table insist on tracking currency weight, for example.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Anecdote: In my group, the only time we have ever discussed how to deal with transporting large amounts of currency was when we were figuring out the logistics of looting a dragon's hoard.
In fact, our hand-waving is effectively identical to the proposed solution for PFO - once we got to town, the money became weightless, bulkless and inviolate.
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Goblin Squad Member
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And assassins could be used to enforce payments on the loans!
Yes, but currently I don't know there will be much call for this and it saddens me. I'm still hopeful that a system can be crowdforged to include more possibilities once the MVP is live. The MVP includes some physical currency and that is better than none. Still feels like cheating honest assassins, bandits, and thieves out of hard earned gold.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...logistics of looting...
One of my brother's favourite stories from his college D&D group was the time they fought their way, over many gaming sessions, to the treasure at the heart of wherever-it-was they had gone. He still laughs about their faces when he presented them with hundreds of thousands of copper coins, and a nigh-mythical and priceless statue, important to the lore of his world...weighing over two tons. There were other, more portable, treasures, too, but those were the two that became legendary among his friends.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...logistics of looting...One of my brother's favourite stories from his college D&D group was the time they fought their way, over many gaming sessions, to the treasure at the heart of wherever-it-was they had gone. He still laughs about their faces when he presented them with hundreds of thousands of copper coins, and a nigh-mythical and priceless statue, important to the lore of his world...weighing over two tons. There were other, more portable, treasures, too, but those were the two that became legendary among his friends.
I have been there man times, too much treasure to carry and by the time you are able to return for me others have moved in to take it. It looks like in PvE we will have this. In PvP we will not. If you fight your way to the heart of the rival settlement, you can burn it but looting its treasury doesn't seem to be an option.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I suspect many (if not most) tabletop Pathfinder players already use weightless currency. When I started using Hero Lab, I was shocked at how little money a low-to-middling strength character can actually hold without magic bags. I don't think I've ever seen a judge at a Pathfinder Society table insist on tracking currency weight, for example.
If my memory serves me correctly, I stopped counting coins toward encumbrance shortly after 2E D&D came out in my games. It was just a headache keeping track of it. I only took notice if the treasure hoard was exceptionally large. I would then make the players come up with a transport plan. However, in my games, the players never got filthy rich.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I suspect many (if not most) tabletop Pathfinder players already use weightless currency. When I started using Hero Lab, I was shocked at how little money a low-to-middling strength character can actually hold without magic bags. I don't think I've ever seen a judge at a Pathfinder Society table insist on tracking currency weight, for example.If my memory serves me correctly, I stopped counting coins toward encumbrance shortly after 2E D&D came out in my games. It was just a headache keeping track of it. I only took notice if the treasure hoard was exceptionally large. I would then make the players come up with a transport plan. However, in my games, the players never got filthy rich.
In my games they didn't either, because they couldn't carry it. Objects de Arte' can weigh so much!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am all for weightless ethereal coins. *puts on old coot/grognard hat*
Back in the days of Everquest 1 we had coins with weight. You would see casters and monks dropping coins on the ground all the time. The casters because they had low strength and would get encumbered quickly, and the monks because they had to keep below a certain encumbrance or start taking penalties.
*takes off hat*
Losing hard earned loot due to an unnecessary game mechanic is a bad mechanic. Not being able to buy something one town over because you are literally unable to walk there due to weight is bad mechanic. The compromise of it being lootable off of your husk before you tag it into the ether is about as good a solution as I can see. There is a pvp window and we can still buy things all over the map.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am all for weightless ethereal coins. *puts on old coot/grognard hat*
Back in the days of Everquest 1 we had coins with weight. You would see casters and monks dropping coins on the ground all the time. The casters because they had low strength and would get encumbered quickly, and the monks because they had to keep below a certain encumbrance or start taking penalties.
*takes off hat*
Losing hard earned loot due to an unnecessary game mechanic is a bad mechanic. Not being able to buy something one town over because you are literally unable to walk there due to weight is bad mechanic. The compromise of it being lootable off of your husk before you tag it into the ether is about as good a solution as I can see. There is a pvp window and we can still buy things all over the map.
If forgotten that aspect of EQ1.
Coin weight, naked corpse runs, horrifying trains, sitting blind in a hot zone staring at a spell book that covered the whole screen. Today's whippersnappers are spoiled brats, aren't they?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am all for weightless ethereal coins. *puts on old coot/grognard hat*
Back in the days of Everquest 1 we had coins with weight. You would see casters and monks dropping coins on the ground all the time. The casters because they had low strength and would get encumbered quickly, and the monks because they had to keep below a certain encumbrance or start taking penalties.
*takes off hat*
Losing hard earned loot due to an unnecessary game mechanic is a bad mechanic. Not being able to buy something one town over because you are literally unable to walk there due to weight is bad mechanic. The compromise of it being lootable off of your husk before you tag it into the ether is about as good a solution as I can see. There is a pvp window and we can still buy things all over the map.
Ha, I was a monk and a caster as well in EQ1, and also remember dropping coins, but I did it more as a handout than because of the weight. I actually liked that aspect of having everything on you count towards your encumbrance but I may be alone in that.
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I actually liked that aspect of having everything on you count towards your encumbrance but I may be alone in that.
You aren't.
If coin has no weight, cannot be looted, and is invisible except in a list or at the shop I will be dissapoint.
There are ways of allowing PvP over cash that don't completely ruin the game, it just may take a while before we figure it out.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Bluddwulf, you may have singlehandedly ruined my productivity for the rest of the day.
"Wow, the Romans had a technological advantage in wagons? How much technology goes into wagons, anyway?"
Reads part of linked article.
"One-piece fellies? I wonder what a felly is. Better check Wikipedia."
Links open up from Technotronic (who had a member named Felly) to Wheelwright ("Oh, fellies is the plural of felloe, not felly.").
At that point, you might as well have lured me into TV Tropes!
Learning is not a loss of productivity. From that example we can infer that benefit can be gained from unexpected avenues. We might be inspired to enhance our lives and increase future productivity by identifying even one way this information can be made useful in our own practical lives. Thus learning is an investment that can pay dividends the rest of our natural lives if only we capitalize upon the knowledge somehow.
From a seed grows an oak.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Honestly, I hope coin stays primarily off the loot table. Players need something to start over with, and getting told they've lost absolutely everything just makes it easier to walk away from the game when things have gone south.
There are many ways to keep it on the loot table without taking all of it, leaving the lootee able to start again, rebuild, and so forth. If funds can reside both in the virtual bank (even if this is universally accessible) and separately, but physically, on each character (This concept currently exists with the hybrid method), then looting funds is still viable.
I'm fairly certain that the hybrid system could evolve into a simple, yet highly functional, method of keeping both elements in the game. It could also become very obvious which path is more meaningful once it is fully implemented.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Honestly, I hope coin stays primarily off the loot table. Players need something to start over with, and getting told they've lost absolutely everything just makes it easier to walk away from the game when things have gone south.There are many ways to keep it on the loot table without taking all of it, leaving the lootee able to start again, rebuild, and so forth. If funds can reside both in the virtual bank (even if this is universally accessible) and separately, but physically, on each character (This concept currently exists with the hybrid method), then looting funds is still viable.
I'm fairly certain that the hybrid system could evolve into a simple, yet highly functional, method of keeping both elements in the game. It could also become very obvious which path is more meaningful once it is fully implemented.
I should clarify, I don't object to the currently presented hybrid model. I think it's a good solution. I just don't want to see a scenario where any coin on your character is lost on death, and the rest is lost if your settlement is sacked. Or where you're expected to make a large amount of your coin vulnerable in order to make transactions.