Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback The Game's Economy needs work.

This thread follows on from a discussion in this thread over here. The problem with the economy in the game is the following.

1. There are too many containers and so compulsive looters feel the need to waste a lot of time clicking on all of them.
2. The amount of money that exists within the game relative to the cost of the items you would wish to spend money on is not restrictive enough, which makes money feel worthless.
3. Every merchant is willing to buy every item. From a realism perspective this doesn't make a lot of sense. Why is the weapons merchant buying food.
4. Whenever you rest, merchants replenish their gold. This helps to greatly lower the value of money within the world by making it infinite.
5. It is too easy to pickpocket items off of merchants.

In order to solve these problems, I propose the following.

To deal with excess containers, I would either change many of them so they cannot be interacted with, or, within a room, combine all of the miscellaneous containers into a single "object." I like the 2nd solution more than the first because this fits more with what a DM would do at a table. If there are 100's of containers in a room, a DM would not make you search them all 1 by 1, he would say something like, "you searched through all the containers and found [...]." This would retain the "realism" of there being many containers within a warehouse for example, whilst at the same time cutting down on the clicking dramatically so that compulsive clickers aren't feeling like they are wasting a lot of their time. Note, as multiple containers would essentially be combined into a single container, this also cuts down a lot on the quantity of miscellaneous items.

In order to make both items within the world feel valuable and gold feel more valuable, in my opinion a few things need to be done. Firstly, most of the non magical items need to have their gold value lowered. The net result of this combined with the reduction to the total number of containers above, would reduce the amount of gold that a PC has. Then, the value of magical items all around should be raised, with the value of special magic items like the Magic Missiles amulet needing to be raised significantly. I think a fair price for such an item, should be for example, 20,000 gold. The result of this is that there are a few, powerful magical items (like the amulet) which are highly desirable to the player, which act as an "item to get." Players then have a reason to save gold towards purchasing items, and their currency feels valuable. Finally, in order to discourage gameplay like "gold farming," the refreshing of currency at shops should be untied from resting and instead tied to something like main quest progression. Making these changes should create a much tighter economy, where items and currency actually has a much more meaningful impact on gameplay.

Next, to further discourage picking up everything that isn't pinned down, shops should only be willing to trade in items which they specialize in. I would have merchants that trade in the following.

1. Chemist (potions).
2. Blacksmith (weapons and armour).
3. Jeweler (Jewelry).
4. Grocer (Food).
5. Scholar of Antiquities (is willing to buy some of the more weird odds and ends, for example, paintings and books).

Items like barrels should not be purchased by any NPCs. If a player decides to pick them up, it should be for their own strategic use and not because they wish to sell them. Dividing merchants like this also results in the available gold being split between different categories, so it encourages picking up a more diverse array of items rather than only picking up items in accordance with their value per weight, which is what the game currently encourages.

Finally, to deal with pickpocketing I would firstly have merchants only store a few items on their person, with the majority of their stock being stored within a secured container which is heavily guarded. Every so often the merchant should check on the chest, to ensure everything is still there. If items are stolen, then when he checks on the chest, finding it empty should result in him alerting the guards. The guards should then search anyone found within the general vicinity at the time. A persuasion check can convince them not to search you. After some time, the guards should stop looking. Any non magical items which are stolen, should be able to be sold back to the person who you stole them from, however, any magical items which were stolen, should be identified by the shop as having been their possession and this should result in them calling guards as well as initiating combat. Due to the changes to what merchants are willing to buy which I suggested above, the result of these changes means that unless you intend to use an item, there is much less of an incentive to steal items because its difficult to find a merchant to sell them to. Especially considering all the hoops you would have to go to in order to prevent guards from attacking you after the theft.