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A discussion we're having on Facebook, but of course want your opinion on as well. If we are using weight to limit the amount of stuff you can carry, should gold also have weight and add to that little counter?

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(Inspiration for this question came from replaying old SSI RPGs.)


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Yes, as long as the wife keeps track of financies smile

TBH I never played such an old school RPG where money did have weight. It might be fun. It could force a player to trade in gems. I'd love to see things like money paper, money exchange, inflation etc. I wouldn't be surprised if a global financial crisis were present in DC.

So shortly, I don't know. Never experienced before.

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There was a few RPG's where money had weight, IIRC, but I don't recall it being an issue at all, more like just for the sake of the system. Like Morrowind - money do have weight, but no matter what amount you carry it always the same (0?5 if I'm not mistaken). Diablo had a different approach - they had the slot limit (5k? 10k? Twas ages ago) and limited amount of slots which was annoying.

In my personal opinion - no, there is no need. Is your economic system in DoS is out of balance you expect player to drag around bags of gold? There cold be two reason for that: game offers nothing to buy or the prices is so damn high so you had to accumulate money till you finish half of the game to buy something good. Either way it is bad and frustrating.

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I think it sounds like an interesting idea if it is balanced properly and gold can be stored somewhere else. I was always wondering how my character could carry more than 100 000 gold coins in DD. ^^

You could also include some money-weight-related quests into the game. Maybe something like an Ali-Baba quest: Someone offers to tell you a magical word which opens a treasure cave where you can take as much gold as you can carry. Of course, this person wants to have the most part of the money (for sharing the magical word with you) but you can retain X % of the gold you bring back. The problem is that on the way back you have to face 40 thieves whom the gold in the cave belongs to. So you must make a decision whether to leave almost everything behind to be able to take as much gold as possible from the cave (but then loose the fight against 40 thieves) or to take enough healing potions/weapons/armours into the cave to win the fight (but then not be able to collect much gold from the cave)

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No need for it really. There will be enough headaches worrying about items weight etc.

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That's a good question to think about. I don't know. On one hand it does feel a bit silly to be carrying around 25,000 gold coins in my pockets. In Divine Divinity, I think I had accumulated 1,323,090 gold in my pockets by the time I entered the Wastelands. (I was planning on buying a lot of 50,000 gold charms to fill about 55 charm sockets.)

It depends on a few things, like how much weight will it take to buy a shiny new piece of (gender-neutral ;)) armour in a store? Will I become overencumbered walking back from my house or the bank to buy stuff? Will this happen often? Will the cost in gold-weight be so much that I can't even move naked to the store to buy the armour?

I don't think I like the idea of picking up a coin purse halfway through a story dungeon and becoming overencumbered.

One way to solve the weight problem might be to introduce different denominations, so instead of carrying 100 0.01 weight copper coins, I can carry 10 0.05 weight silver coins, or 1 0.10 weight gold coins. It's all the same amount of money, but the denominations will let me get more value per unit of weight. I definitely think that 0.1 weight for the smallest value coin available could be a real problem. There were things to buy in Flames of Vengeance that cost like 60,000 gold. In 0.1 terms, that's 6,000 weight units. Even 0.01 weight units, that would be 600 weight units.

Another way to deal with the wheelbarrow full of gold encumbrance problem would be storing coins in a bank (for a small fee) that allows automatic withdrawals to merchants. Storing them at your house has no fee, but no automatic withdrawls.


So, there are things you can do to mitigate the effects of money with weight, but the most important question to ask is "Will the game be more fun or less fun with weighted money?"

Gamers usually ignore the fact that money weighs nothing, but as soon as it becomes an inconvenience, they'll definitely notice it. On those merits, it's probably simpler and better to have the money remain weightless.

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I want floating money with freakin anti-gravity fields. If you carry too much money, you float in the air.

Seriously, I would prefer spending time managing the weight and space occupied by weapons and armor instead of money. So, I would prefer that it doesn't factor into weight.

Anyway, maybe you could introduce magic bags that reduce the weight of anything put into them (shameless rip off of D&D concepts I know). With such, I may find it acceptable to factor in money weight and other nuisances.

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Does money have weight ? In real life it has weight, but in a fantasy game it can or it can't.
I'm wondering this: like in DD my hero can carry many things in one time if his strength is high enough, but in fact the hero walk around like it's no problem to walk with, let's say, 3 or more Chainmails, 4 big axes or swords ... where did he stack all those things ? On his back ?
Of course this is also "fantasy" world so this IS possible.
I think IF money has weight like in real life, a hero can't carry more than a few "extra" gear items, some potions and food, drink and money and quest items (quest items with or without "weight"?) ...

So imo money having weight is not necessary.


Most Important for me is (and to be short):
IF money has weight, please make it that way so that it increase the gameplay and not vise versa !!


Some possibilities, more lengthened explained & with extra "ideas" included :
1) shopkeepers who sell heavy weight stuff like weapons, chainmails, etc ... a smith for example, have also an extra feature like a bank or the hero can buy a expensive item in "parts" and in the time all parts of money are payed the itme belongs to the hero. I don't think this is a godo idea, but it plop up in my mind so I write it down.
2) Paper money: good idea, but in that case it's also a good idea to make a intresting Quest with it, like some group of bandits who make false paper money and try to bring this in circulation ! It's of course up to the player to discover this and choose which side you want to go : being a thief and try to "use" the false money or inform some guards or a captain about the case ...
3) Gems of high value: change your heavy coin purse or 1 or more Gems of light weight ! And some (but not all!) shopkeepers accept you buy items and pay with a Gem .
4) I also like the idea of the Ali Baba Quest wink Let's have some fun solving money related quest :hihi:
5) With paper money it's nice to read a book and discover a biljet laying between two pages ...
6) Some of the valuable Gems have more than 1 usability : use to buy the more expensive items or use as Gem to improve some equipment item or give it to a NPC who can forge (a smith) it into your armor (or whatever item) to improve the charmquality of that item . Or a wizard who can use the Gem to improve one of your abilities (intelligence, etc ...) or make your weapon more powerful !
6 bis) so thinking about Gems, make sure their are different kind of Gems, each with specific quality(ies), some examples: Gem of Strength(for more strength or stronger items - if items have a "durability"??), Fire Gem (for more fire damage or fire resistance), Icy Gem, Floating Gem (can make your backpack lighter OR your steps lighter - handy for thiefs/rogues to increase Stealth), Gem of Gold (to let a smith make your a golden sword or other item, just to impress a NPC so you can persuade that NPC better - "You're Golden"), Gem of Flesh, Gem of Stone, Cristal Gem, Gem of Rain, etc etc etc ... all Gems have different values and differt qualities and can be used for trading, crafting, improving your stats or gear or ... , using to solve a quest, etc ...

Enough ideas ?


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Originally Posted by Kein
Is your economic system in DoS is out of balance you expect player to drag around bags of gold? There cold be two reason for that: game offers nothing to buy or the prices is so damn high so you had to accumulate money till you finish half of the game to buy something good. Either way it is bad and frustrating.


Imagine the following. Player 1 is not a very hardcore RPG player and merely picks up gold he finds in the world, e.g. after battle. He's a friendly guy too and doesn't ask quest-givers for rewards. He spends most of his money on potions because he's not that good in combat.

Player 2 on the other hand, opens every barrel and crate there is in the world, talks quest givers into giving him rewards, has a pickpocket skill maxed out and robs traders blind, and picks up and sells everything that's dropped after combat or that's just sitting there in the world. He even goes back for loot if picking everything up at once is impossible.

Who do we have to balance the game against? We've had emails of people saying there's not enough money in our games, and we've seen people (like Stabbey here) with millionzadollaz.

We have a system in place that automatically calculates money drops for enemies, and money drops found in treasure, which ensures that the hero is never out of money for, for instance, healing, repairing, upgrading armor on time... But because of the above, we had to tweak it a bit, and the end result is that people who really investigate every square inch and who don't get their asses kicked too much, will be filthy rich by the end of the game.

IMO, there are solutions to this, but they sound so 1988 that no RPG player would want to play that game because they're used to certain things now.


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For some people, turn-based combat also sounds so 1988 that they wouldn't want to play the game. Fortunately, that doesn't keep you from implementing turn-based combat in D:OS.

Money with weight makes the game world more credible, but it is a restriction or an obstacle, and as such, it doesn't make the game more interesting - unless there are counter-measures like valuable (but light) gems, banks, or money caches. If money with weight only leads to a permanently lowered carrying capacity because there's no clever way to store your riches or to reduce their weight, it's a bad idea. If the games offers such possibilities, however, it can become more interesting.

Since you seem to find it difficult to balance the game for casual and hardcore gamers alike, why not offer several difficulty options? Like "easy/medium/hard combat" and "ample/average/little loot". This way, players can choose how challenging they want each aspect of the game to be. And it allows more diversity than just one general difficulty setting: You could do a run with hard combat and ample loot, then one with average combat and little loot to face another kind of challenge. It would add replay value.

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If anyone played older versions of the fantastic Neverwinter Nights mod Tortured Hearts, that used originally have weighted gold so you'd have to buy gemstones with your gold that weighed very little and then sell those when you wanted to buy things. This was a neat idea but it was a nightmare to deal with, I like elements of reality in my fantasy games but at the same time I also like convenience and do not want to have to spend extra time walking around to sell or buy any equipment.

There are reasons to have weighted gold and not to have it. If this is an RPG where you'll go around collecting loot and stuff then I think weighted gold would not be a good idea as it will only cause frustration. If however the game intends to be quite realistic so a character can only carry something like one or two spare weapons and a small number of potions then weighted gold is fine. I think volume is more of a concern than weight, using Neverwinter Nights as an example again, you had so much space there that even if you didn't have a high strength you could still carry loads of light armour and weapons as well as magic bags that could hold even more armour and stuff yet characters didn't require pack-mules. It wasn't realistic but it was convenient for selling things.

I think the only way you can cater for everyone is if you have options like the way you have violence options in games; hardcore players can switch on weighted gold, moderate players have the choice based on their preference and time available I guess.

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Originally Posted by Lurker

Since you seem to find it difficult to balance the game for casual and hardcore gamers alike, why not offer several difficulty options? Like "easy/medium/hard combat" and "ample/average/little loot". This way, players can choose how challenging they want each aspect of the game to be. And it allows more diversity than just one general difficulty setting: You could do a run with hard combat and ample loot, then one with average combat and little loot to face another kind of challenge. It would add replay value.


This seems to me as a good solution. I like this idea.
If possible, why not give players more options to set the difficulty than only "casual, .. , hardcore"

Maybe even more kind of 'settings' to change the difficulty in some way ?


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Is greed = hardcore RPG playing ?
Is loot-centric RPG behaviour = "hardcore RPG playing" ?

Action-RPGs are actually VERY loot-centric - and I fear that being loot-centric has become a STANDARD behaviour for especially younger generations of RPG players - those who simply don't know it any other way.


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Originally Posted by J747L
I want floating money with freakin anti-gravity fields. If you carry too much money, you float in the air.


I now sincerely want to see this in the game. If the player passes the 1,000,000 gold carried mark, I want to see them hover in the air and get "Achievement unlocked: Anti-gravity money! (Carry 1,000,000 gold in your pockets.)"

***

I believe that it’s absolutely possible for Larian to come up with a way to have the money have weight, and still be balanced for gameplay. It’s absolutely possible.

But the key phrase there is “come up with a way”. It will require meetings, back-and-forth discussion, tests, re-balancing, more tests, more re-balancing, over and over again until they get it right.

And all that work will ultimately be for a feature that players will regard more as an irritating annoyance in micromanagement than a positive thing that enhances their experience.

That’s an awful lot of work it will take to produce money with weight, when most players just accept weightless money as one of the usual conventions for convenience, like healing potions and universal antidotes for all kinds of poison.

Larian is perfectly capable of doing all that and making it work… but they should ask themselves if it is really worth it to spend that time and energy on that thing, instead on other things which players would appreciate and notice more.

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Imagine the following. Player 1 is not a very hardcore RPG player and merely picks up gold he finds in the world, e.g. after battle. He's a friendly guy too and doesn't ask quest-givers for rewards. He spends most of his money on potions because he's not that good in combat.

Player 2 on the other hand, opens every barrel and crate there is in the world, talks quest givers into giving him rewards, has a pickpocket skill maxed out and robs traders blind, and picks up and sells everything that's dropped after combat or that's just sitting there in the world. He even goes back for loot if picking everything up at once is impossible.


This is a fake issue because there is no issue at all. This is the reward for exploration and it applies to ANY RPG and I WANT this kind of reward for my thoughtful exploration. Otherwise I'd be pissed that I spent lots of time for nothing. In fact, this will discourage me to explore things at all. Why bother if there won't be satisfying reward in the end?

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He spends most of his money on potions because he's not that good in combat.

Increase potion drop % for him judging on his constant low amount of money? Not really hard to implement and if he will be stocked with potions enough to survive - he could buy something else
with his not so impressive amount of money.

Honestly, I'm not really a fan of such indulgences and TES-like level area generalization (when enemies in particular area has level cap according to your own level so you won't have so much issues fighting them). It destroys the whole point of micro-managment of your hero. What the motivation to invest into development of your hero if it won't be justified later? You have high level due to your clever character development and high dps? Here, we increase level of enemies too! or Decrease if vice versa. Have a lots of money? Bye-bye good chest loot and enemy drop. This is what makes RPG dull and boring to me.

Such kind of concept offers nothing to learn from your own experience on game mechanics. It always suits for your needs. Might as well add button "Finish game". Just my few cents on the core issue of such adjustments.

Last edited by Kein; 11/12/12 03:27 PM.
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We did have difficulty settings in all Divinity games. And we generally balance against "the average gamer playing through" so that indeed the explorer is rewarded. I was just trying to make a point by comparing two extremes that are playing a game where you are pretty free.

And don't fear: we don't like auto-level either.


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Yeah, I understand, just wanted to explain my point. The idea with difficulty settings is one of those '98 solutions you mentioned but it could work well without trying to make something overcomplicated. Other than that I've got nothing.

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The short answer: Hell no.

A longer one: As I said on another topic, I generally like things to make sense, magic systems that stand scrutiny, potions that work with regeneration instead of instant or near-instant effects and may also have negative side-effects, training through use instead of levels or skill points, effective attribute and skill levels dropping proportionally with damage taken (remember Betrayal at Krondor, anyone?), damage areas and effects for each (crawl about if legs trashed, dead if head or torso trashed even if limbs unscathed so overall HP wouldn't be 0...) and so on, but when it comes to the inventory, don't limit me!
Would quite prefer, if not no limits whatsoever a la Gothic, then something like I remember seeing in a game called Evil Islands: Curse of the Lost Soul (nice crafting system there too, by the way), where only the weight of the equipped gear counted, inventory was treated as if stored elsewhere... Unfortunately, there it was REALLY treated as if stored elsewhere and you could only access it at shops, that was a pain, so don't "compensate" like that. Just let people carry whatever they can find, with, as I said, at most just limits on what they can equip. Making money have weight goes in the exact opposite direction of this.
As for the advantage the player who's a thorough explorer, skilled fighter, good planner and frugal with potions and so on gets, well, said player SHOULD get that advantage thank you very much!

No clue what I finished DD with, must have been tons I reckon... I remember finishing Icewind Dale 2 with over a million gold.


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No. Everyone loves to have a lot of money. Many people will be unhappy.
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I don't mind gold having weight, as long as there are banks where I can get letters of credit, like in Daggerfall. Or a donkey to carry all the gold, like Dungeon Siege.

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