Dev Log #25: Game Economy Changes

[UnLimiTeD]

Maybe we need a packrat Feat?
+30 Weight Limit?
Or +50, -5% sales revenue (stuff gets damaged on transport)?

[Styg]

Yeah, merchants need some more tweaking. I will be going though the categories to make sure all are included somewhere (not necessarily all the time) and I'll probably increase the number of item types that all merchants buy per reset by one, to reduce the random factor.

Pack rat feat is a good idea. Mercantile feats also sound like something that might be cool.

[LazyMonk]

+1 to Unlimited's and epeli's suggestions.

The economy felt really smooth, and i had to shop smartly until the gang showdown where i started to become quite comfortable
with weight of my wallet. Also i was quite happy with crafting 38 advanced mechanical kits with the remains of my fallen opponents.
The price of lockpicks felt a little low to me.

Also, have you considered adding more powerful healing items, more expensive and with some drawbacks?

[joejoefine]

Okay I haven't had the chance to play this game in a while due to school, but from what I see I am getting concerned. At first it was adding energy cells in order to use hacking devices and requiring the player to purchase and manage lockpicks - this really just made the game more of a chore but didn't limit anyone in any meaningful sense of player choice. Then you added weapon and armor degradation, which forced the player to deal with the irritating burden of constantly maintaining their gear, again without any meaningful consequences in terms of player choice/consequence. All of this was done for the sake of the economy, which at the time you said wasn't even working because the amount people could loot was still worth far more than what they lost in taking care of these menial tasks.

So now to actually fix the economy (while keeping all of the other menial tasks above for a reason I don't understand), you've simply made it impossible to sell the vast majority of the things you pick up so that only key items can be sold. Not only that but you added severe weight penalties. I understand some hardcore players really love this, but this is becoming unbearable. Now I have to deal with the headache of waiting *an hour* before I have *a chance* of selling something to a dealer (and from that only from a small subset of items), and I also have to deal with making multiple trips back to the same place if there were some key items there that I missed. You make it sound so easy; instead of the boring drudgery of going back to the same place, why not go on a new adventure? As if this game had easy combat and cheap items - this is one of the hardest RPGs I've played, and the reason why it is doable is because I scour every area to make sure I have enough resources to buy all-important ammunition and repair kits, as well as some left over money to save up for better weapons and armor and other key consumables.

Other games clearly have limitations as well. I played New Vegas in hardcore mode because I thought it would be a fun challenge. What I realized is that the vast majority of the 'small' things you have to worry about (hydration, food, sleep, weight limits, armor/weapon condition) added up to simply being nothing more than a menial chore that I had to deal with - they didn't add any meaningful challenge to the game besides making sure you bought a few meals at the local store where you did your trading. It seems your goal here is to amplify these difficulties to the point where it actually becomes a key game mechanic to only operate with the bare essentials, selling only the most expensive items, and only in limited quantities, to certain traders, at certain times.

The whole joy I derive from RPGs is the prospect that my character gets better; over time he has more disposable wealth, he finds a steady way of making income, it becomes easier to carry goods to and fro (perhaps by travelling with companions or even having a car like in Fallout 2), and of course his overall skills increase. What I observe is the focus in this game is not to make this game about getting better but about constantly making rough choices so that you always feel like you just have enough to make it in the next area. But to me its anti-fun...the greatest part of every game I've played was when you finally get a great spell, an amazing weapon, a new car (Fallout 2), or steal an incredibly expensive item and end up with lots of money.  Yes, in these moments the game feels unbalanced. That is part of the fun.

There are supposed to be great parts to the game where you really feel more powerful or capable in some way, but it seems like your gaming philosophy is to repress this as much as possible.  The game economy is not supposed to be perfectly balanced; people should be able to get rich because there is joy in getting rich...but with your system you have to probably wait days before you are able to sell the requisite items...I just don't understand where the fun is in this.

Maybe it gets better as I'm just at the start of the game, but I'm already frustrated because I don't even know if its worth purchasing traps for collecting cave hoppers anymore, because the guy who sells them only wants to buy 7 units of cave fungi or flowers, meaning I can't really sell my cave hoppers to anyone unless I have the patience to wait an hour for him to hopefully want something besides flowers. And even then he'd probably only want 5 when I have 15 cages. Its just maddening to be honest...when I look at the inventory screens of every other trader I know I'm basically going to be severely crippled in my cash flow and most of my scavenging fun will be useless as no one really wants to buy anything anymore.

I wish I could make my own game...it would be so great lol. In any case it seems you really love the economy as it is barring a few minor tweaks. So I guess I'll be dropping the game, but I wish you all the best in the release. I had some fun during the earlier stages (pre-alpha) at least, so thank you for that .

[LazyMonk]

The whole joy I derive from RPGs is the prospect that my character gets better; over time he has more disposable wealth, he finds a steady way of making income, it becomes easier to carry goods to and fro (perhaps by travelling with companions or even having a car like in Fallout 2), and of course his overall skills increase. What I observe is the focus in this game is not to make this game about getting better but about constantly making rough choices so that you always feel like you just have enough to make it in the next area. But to me its anti-fun...the greatest part of every game I've played was when you finally get a great spell, an amazing weapon, a new car (Fallout 2), or steal an incredibly expensive item and end up with lots of money.  Yes, in these moments the game feels unbalanced. That is part of the fun.

The point of a RPG isn't to get to a point where the games stops being challenging. When that happens its a flaw of the game.
Even Bethesda realizes this and tried to solve this with a very poor level scaling attempt.
A good RPG should be challenging all the way through. If the game becomes too easy, it becomes boring to me.
Blackguards and Expedition Conquistador made a game that is challenging from the beginning to the end. FTL, even if is not a RPG, did this too. That happened in Fallout 2 because you could grind those random encounters.
And there is something odd in getting wealthy in a post-apocalyptic  world just through selling common items and doing some mercenary quests.

There are supposed to be great parts to the game where you really feel more powerful or capable in some way, but it seems like your gaming philosophy is to repress this as much as possible.  The game economy is not supposed to be perfectly balanced; people should be able to get rich because there is joy in getting rich...but with your system you have to probably wait days before you are able to sell the requisite items...I just don't understand where the fun is in this.

And thank Styg for that! I want my experience of Underrail to be fun and challenging through the whole thing. Not just the beginning.

Maybe it gets better as I'm just at the start of the game, but I'm already frustrated because I don't even know if its worth purchasing traps for collecting cave hoppers anymore, because the guy who sells them only wants to buy 7 units of cave fungi or flowers, meaning I can't really sell my cave hoppers to anyone unless I have the patience to wait an hour for him to hopefully want something besides flowers. And even then he'd probably only want 5 when I have 15 cages. Its just maddening to be honest...when I look at the inventory screens of every other trader I know I'm basically going to be severely crippled in my cash flow and most of my scavenging fun will be useless as no one really wants to buy anything anymore.

Wow, wait... what? You are catching cave hoppers for a living? WHY? It sounds like a slow boring inefficient way of making money.
Why not just play through the quests and sell what you find while exploring. Those items like armors and firearms sell really much better.

So I guess I'll be dropping the game, but I wish you all the best in the release.

Good bye.

Now go play Fallout 1 so you can stop referencing the lesser sequel.

[JohnyCrown]

@LazyMonk - Well to be fair I think joejoe has some decent points.  The player should have some feeling of progression or even over-empowerment and/or an opportunity to excel in some gaming aspect instead of the feeling of barely scraping by at all times.   Not saying the game should be a cake walk and being able to one-shot everything to boost the ego or something. 

@joejoe - The economy does need some tweaking (and Styg knows this also) in the players favor but not too much where it takes away from that survival aspect Styg is trying to encourage in the game and which I and several others seem to like at least to an extent (I'll admit I'm not as die-hard about it as some others but it does make an interesting game for the most part.  Remember the game is still in Alpha so I'm sure some of these issues will be addressed.  Even for an Alpha the game is better than some finished games I've played!  So you can be pretty certain the game will be well polished in all aspects before its release and encourage you to keep trying it out upon further releases.  But any feedback at all as long as its given constructively I think in the long run will help the game be better.  Thanks for contributing. 

[LazyMonk]

@LazyMonk - Well to be fair I think joejoe has some decent points.  The player should have some feeling of progression or even over-empowerment and/or an opportunity to excel in some gaming aspect instead of the feeling of barely scraping by at all times.   Not saying the game should be a cake walk and being able to one-shot everything to boost the ego or something.

But the game has that already. Every character i play becomes better, with more tactical opportunities to surpass hostile encounters without the game losing any challenge, and by the end of the alpha i have more cash than what i can spend. From his post i am deducing that he didn't finish the GMS compound quest, and so these points he made were not based on the game but on his suppositions of what it would feel like if he had continued playing.


When i played fallout 2 i had to handicap myself to have fun. I head to wear worse armor and kill my enemies with just my bare hands.
That's hardly a model to copy.

[Elhazzared]

And yet I think we are all forgeting the one thing Joejoefine is pointing out which is actually the same I've kept saying time and time again.

All the things that are done to the game economy doesn't changes any of the difficulty or creates survival elements. It creates a a huge amount of time waste to be able to sell everything. More to the point it also renders stuff like crafting for selling to make extra money useless. Even catching hoppers or maybe even fishing (something I hadn't really thought off before) to gain some extra coins if you really needed, useless.

Like I said. In my experience which was just, clear 2 areas of rathounts and loot whatever is to loot. I can't sell everything. I only started getting some loot and already I can't sell everything. What of when I get to GMS? What when I go to depot A? It will be a nightmare just to sell everything not to mention check every single merchant between home and junkyard... If survival wants to be made, limit the loot, not the sales. That is what survival games do, they limit what you can get, not what you can sell.

Oh and as for games being badly designed because you after a while can kick everyone's ass... Not a single game I've played has made this impossible. Underrail is actually harder than most, but not because you don't get the money or the equipment or whatever. Several enemies with lots of HP and weapons that deal a good amount of damage. You can make whatever you want, this will still be true and you can always go down in a fight no matter how well equiped you are. Yet most of the times you just kick ass with minimal planning. Stealth over there, engange the priority target and either immediatly kill or stun it, proceed with AoEs to clear weaker enemies. Should be good enough... Rare is the ocasion you have to plan further than this. The game is making you have less money, everyone says that even on this new system you should actually gain more than before, it just forces you to leave loot behind or waste too much time trying to sell it. Thisonly acomplishes wasting time and frustating all the players who love to collect all the loot, it doesn't makes the game any harder in any way, shape or form.

[LazyMonk]

And yet I think we are all forgeting the one thing Joejoefine is pointing out which is actually the same I've kept saying time and time again.

Its because it isn't there to prohibit the player of such behavior, but to discourage him.
I know that some of you cant sleep at night knowing that there is some loot out there, left behind on a dark room.
Or even worse, knowing that you wont be able to sell it all.
After i am done with a quest i move on to another, i don't go back to get all that i left behind. Why?
Well because i don't need to. Because i have more than enough, to equip myself and the game has no longer the economic problem it had before version 1.7.0.

If survival wants to be made, limit the loot, not the sales. That is what survival games do, they limit what you can get, not what you can sell.

That's not what survival games do. That's what you would like them to do. Back at Fallout merchants didn't had infinite caps so there was an amount of weapons you could sell. When they were out of caps you could trade for ammo and other things but you would eventually have weapons you wouldn't be able to sell.
I remember having to carefully select what loot i was going to leave back at the Glow, since there was no way i could bring everything with me and there was no way i would go there again.
I am sure many other games limit the amount of what you can sell because its a concept that's is hardly new to me. I cant remember what other games did this, other than the Fallout series, but i am sure there were more.

Oh and as for games being badly designed because you after a while can kick everyone's ass... Not a single game I've played has made this impossible.

Its bound to happen on open world games through power gaming or badly designed level scaling. A feature that removes, at some point, the challenge from a game is a flaw. I can recommend some games to you where such doesn't happen if you want me to.

You can make whatever you want, this will still be true and you can always go down in a fight no matter how well equipped you are

At the point i am at on Underrail Rathounds and Burrower Spawn's do zero damage to me unless they score a critical.

Also keep in mind that these features serve more purposes than increasing the difficulty (or boredom in some cases as some of you would correct me ) the weight system adds to the feeling when you are scavenging, to keep an eye open for good items and leave the useless pieces of scrap metal behind.
The fact that the vendors don't buy everything you want them to buy, and the fact they have their own needs not only makes sense, as it makes the game world more believable. Yes its not perfect right now but it is still work in progress.

I am still puzzled by the get all loot, sell all loot goal. Are some of you upset as well that you cant study
an oddity past its limit? What a waste! Don't limit how many times a player can study such oddity limit the number of oddities available? Its exactly the same thing. You got all you needed from the loot you sold, why do you care about the one you did not and could not because the vendor is stuffed with stuff?

Elhazzared, have you been keeping track of Project Eternity, now called Pillars of Eternity?
Josh Sawyer has a very different approach to games, and i believe he allows the player to
teleport extra loot directly to his stash. While i am not found of this, or other many of his decisions, maybe this game can be your cup of tea.

[Elhazzared]

It doesn't discourages me from picking up the loot, it discourages me from playing at all. Like me, there are many others. Looting is fun, but it stops being fun when it just isn't worth it to pick up everything and sell it.

I didn't played much fallout 1. I played once to get to know the game story but what I played a lot was fallout 2. The first one had a major flaw to it. It was incredibly small, getting to the end was so quick that it left a sour taste. The game was great, but the playtime just left me... Meh, is that it?.. Course this may be derived from having played fallout 2 a lot before I even played the first... Still fallout 2 didn't limited what merchants would buy, just how much money they had and even that was a bad mechanic. I would still be able to sell most of my stuf going through all merchants in a city and if there wasn't a way, a few more stimpacks were always handy for no weight and heals. Especially since I could use an infinite amount of them per turn... I don't know any RPGs that severely limit what you sell like this game and even if there are some (which I have no doubt there are). That doesn't makes it a good mechanic... I rmember in both fallout 1 and 2 I looted everything and I sold everything. Nothing was ever left behind under no circunstance.

Any and all RPGs will just have ways through power gamming to get stronger than the average player will and since dificulty is scaled for the average player you can always get much stronger than your enemies. You just don't have am effective way to prevent this.

And yes, I'm sure rathounds and such cannot do anything. But we have to put things in perpective. Your level and equipment is not for fighting the type of mobs you find early on. I'm quite sure that in the junkyard you are damaged and can die or wherever the appropriate level content is for you at the moment. That is what I meant.

These features don't add difficulty, they add the boredom of selling everything. Even if you don't pick everything up, you are now getting more money than before, if anything it's even less difficult than before, it's just more boring to sell stuff... Also in a supposed scavenging game, you don't pick what you scavange, that doesn't even makes sense. in such a game, anything and everything is important to help you survive. There shouldn't even be such a question as to whether you should take something but whether it's worth the risk to get something. That's how you play scanvenging well.
Also let's not forget here. This is a game. There are things that don't need to make sense in a real world perpective, they need to make gammy sense.

I cannot tell about the oddity, I couldn't care less to be honest as I don't like the oddity system myself. I would never play on that system. I can rspect that the option is there for those who would prefer it! But I wouldn't ever use it myself and here lies the difference. The vendor system is not an option, it's forced on us whether we like it or not.

Lastly, no I've never heard about it but I guess I can go and give it a look.

Edit: I just took a look at it and it appears to be baldur's gate like which means, no turn based combat. Not my cup of tea.

[Fenix]

Don't know what are you all talking about. )
I will not argue long about the economy, I do not know the language adequately.
And I don't know, what economy is designed to do in the game.
Just want to say - my char is right after gang showdown, he barely sold 2 firearm and armor from this event, and he has 7x999 pile of SHARONS, plus 71 sharons, and that's after I bought all blueprints.
Yes, I'm very patient player, so let's say, less patient can get 1\2 of that number - 3,5x999. ))
Yes, I playing Psi-build, who need almost nothing.
Items, that nobody want to bay - footwear, and some craft components, and usual bolts.
Likely later in the game someone will buy these things.
My char has 3 Str, and even in that case I can loot everything in most cases, except animal leather.

the weight system adds to the feeling when you are scavenging, to keep an eye open for good items and leave the useless pieces of scrap metal behind.
The fact that the vendors don't buy everything you want them to buy, and the fact they have their own needs not only makes sense, as it makes the game world more believable.

Agreed. Yes, I forced to do script "check Ezra--->check Kathrine--->check other trading guys", but in this game, with this music IT IS almost meditative process.

Edit: I just took a look at it and it appears to be baldur's gate like which means, no turn based combat. Not my cup of tea.

Try Age of Decadence. ) It's pure turn-based game, with very difficult fights however, the second (or the first) game, which release I was so looking forward to.

I rmember in both fallout 1 and 2 I looted everything and I sold everything. Nothing was ever left behind under no circunstance.

Oh you little liar.  How about Geiger Counter? )

[Elhazzared]

Fenix. My problem is that I cannot leave things behind, it feels dirty to me, it feels plain wrong, in fact if I know I have to leave stuff behind then it completly discourages me from exploring everything because what's the pleasure of finding loot to sell when I can't sell it because I have so much junk that no one will buy even a third of what I find? I just can't play like that, it drives me insane.

You know, going over all the merchants when you are looking for something? Sure, it's sensible that each will have different wares. Going through every single merchant in the game, selling less than a third of your loot, heck possibly less than a 10th if you consider many components that you get in high quantities and that no one wants in high quantities, not to mention the possibillity of not wanting them at all. Just imagine how many hours it will be before everything is sold.

I am actually waiting for age of decadence too but it's one I'll wait for a full release and some more informed opinion on the game. Even then I'll probably wait for a steam promotion cause I want a lower entry price since right now I can't afford expensive stuff.

And I'm no little liar. Nothing under any circusntace was left behind, no matter how low the value, no matter how heavy. If for some reason my carry weight wouldn't allow me to get all the loot at once I'd make multiple trips until everything was sold... Thing is, fallout had reasonable carry weights, I even used to put small frame for the extra agi point because 125 lbs was more than enough. In fact in fallout 2 there was only 3 places that I couldn't brng everything at once... Well tecnicly 4 but one of them doesn't counts... First place was the bandid cave south of vault city, usually took me 2 or 3 trips... Then there was sierra army depot if I'm not mistaken, the army base with loads of super mutants... Last was the navarro naval base... Course one could say the oil platform would be the 4th but that is the end game so it doesn't really counts... Multiple trips, nothing left behind even if it was worth only 1 coin.

[Fenix]

Fenix. My problem is that I cannot leave things behind, it feels dirty to me, it feels plain wrong

Me too! And I collected all junk'n'scrap of a game. )) With 3 Str build. )

And I'm no little liar.

Oh you are! ) Nobody want to buy used Geiger Counter. )

[Elhazzared]

Why do I feel like I'm missing some key detail here?

[Fenix]

Why do I feel like I'm missing some key detail here?

Becouse

I rmember in both fallout 1 and 2 I looted everything and I sold everything.

)