Damn it, stop making me rich!

[Twilight_guy]

Would you rather a game provide you with too much or have a deficiency in resources? Let me answer for you, you want a game balanced on the side of too much because a game balanced the other way becomes litterally unplayable if you happen to not get everything as oppose to to becomeing easier down the line and nobody wants to search the land for every last doo-dad to contiue or manage resources hyper judiciously because screwing up once means resetting. Imagine an RPG where one bad battle means having to co reset. I dont care if there are save points every 10 minutes, do you want to reset every-time the game's random number generator throws a 1?

 

[TheCommanders]

I have a brilliant solution to this problem. I'm incredibly paranoid that no matter how hard whatever challenge I'm currently facing is, the next one will be much harder. As such, I may at some point late in the game have near limitless resources, but I'll be too petrified to actually use any of them. For example, in skyrim I'm always terrified too purchase anything with my mountains of cash, because who knows, the next merchant might have something I like better! Ahhh! Or all the potions in pretty much every fantasy rpg ever that I refuse to use because the next boss might require them more. Consequently, I tend to think games are way harder than they are, and end boss fights are almost incomprehensibly easy.

NOTE: This playstyle is not recommended for the sane.

 

[omicron1]

The problem is having the strength of Hercules and backpack space for an entire armory. It makes enemy loot possible to claim completely and, in combination with the high numbers of enemies regularly thrown at the player and the price curve for equipment necessitated by your average player's bulging wallet, makes it nigh-impossible to keep the player from gaining money at a fantastic rate.
Some possible ways to combat this:
* realistic inventory. Keep the player from walking off with an entire army's supplies on his back and you make loot a much less broken idea.
* realistic economy. Why should grocers buy your old armor? Why should smiths be willing to take fifty swords off your hands?
* money drains. Food and repair are good examples of this; mount & blade-style wages another. Balance player power with costs and you may well keep his coffers reasonably low.

At the same time, letting the player gain power for money is a reasonable goal. Just don't make it too easy.

 

[AdmiralMemo]

In Star Trek Online, I've got energy credits out the wazoo, so I can pretty much buy anything I want off the Exchange, except the ultra-rare stuff. I typically force myself to rely on my mission rewards and the drops, though, which makes the game more challenging. Only when I get stuck (like dying over a dozen times on the same mission) do I either loot the Fleet Bank or buy from the Exchange.

 

[Limecake]

I think this is more of a case of the general population that play these games than an actual flaw in the game design.

For example the first time I played through Resident evil 4 I walked through the whole game without much trouble. The second time through I played with my roomate and he seemed to enjoy using all the best weapons when it wasn't the time to use them.

this lead to some interesting scenarios where we literally had no ammo for any guns.

 

[DestinyCall]

Beyond resource scarcity and low value re-sale prices, I wonder if taxes could be a workable way to curb excess loot hording. I'm thinking something along the lines of an occasional mandatory fee incurred by the player that removes a percentage of his current accumulated gold. The idea would be to encourage spending money rather than hoarding it up, with the end-goal of preventing the player from accumulating an overabundance of riches. The game economy should have a decent selection of low and high level cash sinks - stuff that gives minor or temporary boosts, cosmetic changes, and non-gameplay focused items, to spend your cash.

Ideally, the "tax" should be integrated seamlessly into the story or game-play somehow. For example, your character might have a wife and children back home and he regularly sends home part of his income to help his family. You could even have a "magic mirror" or something in your inventory which lets you check-up on your family. Over the course of the game, as you hit certain money mile-markers, the family home could change and improve to reflect the positive effect your contributions are having on their quality of life. This feature of the game could even be integrated into the game's skill tree .. with traits like "family man" increasing the percentage of income sent home each payment cycle or "dead-beat dad" dropping the family contribution. This would allow players to adjust the game experience to their liking, if they find the tax unpleasant or enjoy giving to their virtual family.

Another option in the RPG genre might be including more "basic needs" into the equation, like what was implemented in Fallout NV and certain old-school RPGs. Eating, sleeping, thirst, etc. The timescale of the game world might need to be tweaked so it doesn't get too annoying, but encourages the player to spend money on inns and taverns or buying supplies so you can build a fire. Your character would incur penalties that affect game-play if he neglects basic needs and get a boost to attributes after a good night's sleep. It would still be tricky to balance - you wouldn't want to make it too hard for the player to satisfy basic needs or it would become frustrating and possibly even unplayable. Later on, you could provide higher priced foods/services that would satisfy the character for longer periods of time at the cost of much steeper rates, trading gold for ease of use.

 

[esperandote]

Silent Hill Origins. On my first playthrough i managed to get to the final boss without firing a single shot of the assault riffle (you heard me right, assault riffle in silent hill) and I also had plenty energy drinks so a just stood there in the same spot shotting my assault riffle and taking all the damage the boss threw at me and i just healed and recharged till it was dead. Lamest boss fight ever.

 

[Muspelheim]

Agreed in Skyrim's case... After a while, it's less about having the resources as just using them for the hell of it. I've got a nice flat in Markarth and still more than enough gold for spare horses (mine tend to die alot... *Ruffles Hjalmar VI's mane*) and some good enchants on my armour, if I feel that I need it.
I'm still doing the dungeons and the quests because I feel like it. But I'm more like the eccentric hobby-archaeologist noble now, as opposed to a newcomer carving his name in history against all odds. I still have fun, but I would probably would have appreciated my wonderful d0rf-flat and my horses more if they'd been a bit harder to earn.

But then again, the best rewards for me are the ones I sort of blundered in to. Like Wabbajack, my souvenir from my teaparty with Ol' Man Cheese or my cute Argonian husband. So I'm still not -entirely- sure if it's the scarcity of resources that makes or breaks a game.

In some games, it does. Like Stalker, where a huge part of the atmosphere was about feeling outmatched, with tinfoil armour, a Kalash older than you and desperate for some baked beans. But in other games, hoarding resources is really rather secondary. It's useful to have, but it's not something the experience hinges on.

Of course, in Skyrim's case, a hardcore mode-styled mod would certainly be welcome. Eat to not starve, warm up by fires to not freeze, spend time with your spouse to not misuse your Dremoras... There's fun in that type of gameplay, too, I'm sure.

 

[Epona]

I just don't understand this attitude. "WAH! I made good choices and now the game is too easy, change the game developers!"

You may as well be saying "I leveled up to 99 on Final Fantasy VII and Sephiroth was too easy. WAH!". Well no shit, don't level up to 99 next time.

 

[Savagezion]

ESC > Settings > Difficulty > Master

Here's an idea, drop a load of cash. Give yourself a limit to the amount of money you can have at one time, make a mod?

playing it on the PS3, so no mod, and I don't know what it is, I'm programmed to pick up everything in RPG's, then I repair guns and armour, then pick up spares, and repair them....
basicly my characters all have OCD!

1st world problems....

Game developers probably don't know how to solve world hunger either. While we try to figure that out, how about they work on correcting a problem in their field?

This is a valid complaint against game design. World hunger and child abuse isn't related, its a cop-out tactic.

OT: I agree completely. Most games try to peg the player as the underdog going against the odds, but the games tend to end up having the player have the odds heavily stacked in their favor due to extremely abundant resources and a poor economy model. Unless you are playing an economy style game, the economy hardly ever gets any attention in game design.

 

[Denamic]

Self-challenge.
Put a restriction on yourself and you can have the challenge back.
Like only fight using your fists, never drink potions, be a pacifist and never kill anything that you do not have to kill, etc.
Or play on hardest difficulty and install mods to make it even harder.
Deadly dragons + Master difficulty = death.
Problem solved.

Edit: Oh, right. PS3. Sucks to be you, I guess.

 

[boag]

Step 1: Give money in an RPG weight.
Step 2: ?
Step 3: You're forced to reduce your profit!

Problem somewhat solved.

This is the best idea ever, NV chained you to reality by ggiving ammo weight, I often wondered where the hell was my character carrying the 200 lbs worth of bottlecaps.

 

[fenrizz]

Personally I like being über rich.
More caps than I could ever spend, enough mini nukes to cause a 2nd nuclear holocaust and an nigh eternal supply of stims and chems.

Feels good man.

Spoiler: Pic related

MINE, ALL MINE!

It's good to be king!

1st world problems....

Thank you for your insightful and thought provoking contribution to this discussion.
Original content like this is rare to see on the internet, and I can do nothing but applaud your heroic efforts to contribute positively to this here fine discussion.

Keep up this most excellent work, dear boy!

 

[WanderingFool]

OH! I got an interesting idea...

Make RPG inventory systems like RE4s inventory system. Basically, have your characters strength have a visual appearance in the form of a inventroy grid, with light items take up fewer spaces and big heavy items taking up alot of space. So if your character wears heavy armor, that armor will be in their iventory grid, and take up alot of space. So you cant carry twenty swords on you because you can only fit 3 in you inventory. Various light items, like food, drink, and potions would be stackable in some cases. As for the ingame currancy, like others have said, give it actual weight, so you cant carry mountians of it.

Additionally, dont give the player a "safe place" to store their belonging they are not using. I would call this the Minecraft SMP storage system. You find a chest in the wilds, you loot it. Whats to say that random chest isnt infact someone secret stash? Or you use your lock-picking skill to break into peoples houses and rob them blind. Why not make that happen to you? If you cant carry all the gold, you store it somewhere; if there is a banking system, you store it in a bank where its safe, but where it will actully cost to store it (thus draining ever so slowly your funds). Or you could simply hide it in that old chest you found near that old tree stump near So-n-so-agrad. Its free, but you run the risk of someone finding and taking it (just like you probably did to somebody else. Not even a home you purchased would be safe from NPC theives.

Implemented these could be either a great improvment... or not...

 

[CrunchyRay]

We're almost talking about two different types of games here. Do you want to play an RPG or a Simulation?

In an RPG, your character gets richer, more powerful, and winds up with a lot of stuff. If you're a badass, then things should be relatively easier. At the start, a few measly Draugr are a problem, but once you can cause them to explode with a thought, you feel pretty powerful. The Harbinger-Archmage-Dovahkiin should be able to plow his way through the Legions of Hell. Would you expect any less?

On the other hand you have Simulations. If you want a detailed economy, or to worry about food, holding a steady job or going to the bathroom, then play Dwarf Fortress or The Sims or Railroad Tycoon.

Realistically, nobody could be head of every faction and all the other titles you accumulate in the Elder Scrolls 'verse. The Archmage would spend all his time running the College, not diving into dungeons. For me, once my last Skyrim character got 100 Smithing and 100 Enchanting, I built the awesomest set of armor and jewelry I could imagine. So awesome that my character was virtually invulnerable. After I whacked a few Ancient Dragons to death with three blows of my axe, I declared that I had "won" the game, and started a new character.

I think it would be pretty nice to have a more detailed economy in an Elder Scrolls game, but you'd also need more people floating around. For a country-sized area, the population is really sparse.

 

[Xanadu84]

When you have too much stuff, the game becomes too easy by virtue of rewarding a players success, and the game remains playable and, probably, fun.

When you don't have enough stuff, the game becomes frusterating and unfun up untill the point it becomes unplayable.

Player skill varies, so you have to chose between lots of stuff, and some people being properly challenged, some having it too easy, and less stuff, some find it challenging, others find it a frusterating mess and return the game.

Which do you choose as a designer who wants people to have fun?

 

[Jowe]

What about some sort of dynamic experience, where if your rich, the game has more expensive items. If your very stealthy the enemies get better at spotting you, if your incredibly tanky, the game provides more enemies etc. Something like the L4D of having the overseer AI that changes the experience depending on how well your doing.

Obviously this would be frustrating if it happened an equal amount to how much better your getting, so maybe some sort of option, so you can turn it on if you want it kind of thing.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

well, stop being so good at these games then!

you can just start to suck like the average gamer out there and stop shoving the problem onto the developer, ya prick!

in all seriousness, though, yeah, a lot of games do this, but I find that I'm always short on cash in Mount and Blade, so not EVERY game does it, right?

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I'm almost 100 hours into the game and I think I'm around level 40 something, and I've never had the feeling that I'm rich, and I even steal every last coin I can pickpocket off of every person I see. I don't even pay for training of my skills, I hand over the money for training, pickpocket it back and then hand it to them again to train again, and pickpocket to finish.

I even sell 95% or more of all that I carry from looting enemies. What I'm getting at is that I've never broken 20,000 gold held at one time. If I did, I would pay that 20,000 gold bounty on my head in Markarth. I've sold everything I've felt I can sell and buy all that I need or feel I need, and I haven't felt that I was rich. I've even become a near master blacksmith and I'm still not making enough money to keep up with my purchases.

So, I guess it is a matter of how you play that determines how long it takes to be rich and stay rich.

The most fun I had with Skyrim was in the first 5 hours or so immediately after the game removed the training wheels and set me loose on the world.

What are these training wheels you speak of? Because after I escaped the dragon attack in the beginning, I followed what's his face (don't remember his name) to Riverwood and met his friends and whatnot, he said he would go on ahead somewhere, and I said, "Okay you do that, while I go off and play the game, explore, and whatnot." That only took like 40 or so minutes tops.

Heck, I think I was at least 60 or more hours in before I even set one foot on the steps to High Hrothgar to meet the Greybeards.

As I've said, I'm only almost 100 hours in, though I've been taking a break, and the last actually main storyline quest that I did was where I witnessed for the first time, that one dragon resurrecting another. It's something like only the 7th or 8th main quest. So, in that almost 100 hours, I've barely touched the main story, I haven't even picked a side yet.

Though at last count, I've only killed like 17 dragons.

 

[teebeeohh]

and this is why not allowing you to haul tons of crap around is good. because if you severely limit the stuff you can carry around with you it puts a dent in that curve and if employed right(by making you think about what you take with you from your home to explore dungeon X that will contain enemies of type Y and leaving the rest at home because it is too heavy and will prevent you from taking any significant loot with you) it could to all the stuff you have not make you overpowered but just able to tackle different challenges.
but unfortunately there is this one guy who plays skyrim for half an hour on the weekend and he is the core demographic and publishers think it would scare him away if the they included ways to play the game that resonate more with other kind of players.