Figuring out a pricing system?

[abluescarab]

I've never been very good with prices, so I have some questions.

How should prices be determined? Should I figure out what coin drops enemies will have first, so I can price items based on that? How should I price items of the same type? (e.g. wood sword => 10G, copper sword => 20G, bronze sword => 30G, or wood sword => 10G, copper sword => 23G, bronze sword => 31G (random prices), ?) Should I decide on some kind of basis, like 10G is cheap, 100G is medium, and 500G is expensive?

Slightly related: should I give players any starting gold, or just outfit them and make them complete a dungeon or two before they visit their first shop?

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm looking for some ideas on this. Thanks!

 

[Andar]

The most important part is the pricing for the consumables, especially the healing items - prices for weapons can be grinded if too high.


However, the price of a healing item has to be less than the gold drop total in the number of battles where you get the wounds you need the healing potion for.


If you (for example) have a healing item that gives 100 HP, and the player can make three battles before he needs that potion to get back to full health, then the price for the healing item has to be lower than the gold drops from those three battles added together.


If it's higher, the player will loose gold while fighting (that can be a game mechanic if you want, but then you need to include other sources of gold)...

 

[abluescarab]

The most important part is the pricing for the consumables, especially the healing items - prices for weapons can be grinded if too high.

However, the price of a healing item has to be less than the gold drop total in the number of battles where you get the wounds you need the healing potion for.

If you (for example) have a healing item that gives 100 HP, and the player can make three battles before he needs that potion to get back to full health, then the price for the healing item has to be lower than the gold drops from those three battles added together.

If it's higher, the player will loose gold while fighting (that can be a game mechanic if you want, but then you need to include other sources of gold)...

Oo, great ideas, thanks! So I should probably work out the battles before I do the prices.

 

[Narcissus]

I feel like it's not only a matter of how much gold enemies drop or what prices you want to set, but also what items are obtainable outside of shops, (whether repeatable to obtain items, such as battle drops or chests scattered about the map). 

The most important part is the pricing for the consumables, especially the healing items - prices for weapons can be grinded if too high.

However, the price of a healing item has to be less than the gold drop total in the number of battles where you get the wounds you need the healing potion for.

If you (for example) have a healing item that gives 100 HP, and the player can make three battles before he needs that potion to get back to full health, then the price for the healing item has to be lower than the gold drops from those three battles added together.
If it's higher, the player will loose gold while fighting (that can be a game mechanic if you want, but then you need to include other sources of gold)...

This is also important, especially if you go the route of healing items being the primary means of healing.

An alternative I thought of is If you make enemies drop small healing items, and still healing item costs fairly high, it may be possible to  kill a few birds with one stone. With a supply of healing items obtained from battle, a player should value them, as their current supply is somewhat limited unless they want to pay a fair price to get more, while still giving them a net gold gain from battles. It can also be used as an additional gold source, should a player somehow accumulate a few too many potions, and allow them to be sold and focus on that shiny piece of equipment they've been eyeing.

Of course, an easier to balance alternative would be for you to use an inn-like feature with little to no gold costs. Healing items will only be useful when the player is exploring or in a dungeon of some sort, allowing you to price them whatever you want (within reason, of course). Players can safely grind without worrying about how to afford it, the only cost being having to walk back to the inn-like location whenever they need to heal. Depending on how far apart you place these, it may turn out poor if they are too far apart, causing grinding to feel like a real pain. Though, this is not as hard to figure out as the alternative I had mentioned previously, as you can just make them really common. (Or not, though that would increase the value of potions. You'd have to decide on which you'd prefer.)

 

[Eschaton]

Ach!  Money Spiders.  Grinding on randoms shouldn't be as lucrative as questing for actual people who should have actual money.  Having the players talk to NPCs and sending them on quests certainly makes the game world come alive more than going out and grinding on the same repeated troops.  IMHO, the latter kills verisimilitude and willing suspension of disbelief in regards to the game world.

As for the pricing, I think you should price things so that they discourage the player from having 99 healing potions.  If a healing potion is cheap and heals very little, I don't see it having much use in combat or much of a worthy investment.  And it certainly shouldn't obsolesce; the lowly healing potion should be useful on its own from the beginning to the end.

Buying things should be a serious, well-considered investment.  The player should come back from a quest and really think far into what they spend that money on.  Grinding your way to cleaning out the shops is just bad design, in my opinion.

These are my design philosophies for your consideration.

 

[Mouser]

The "true" currency of any game is time. This is especially true in MMO's (where they have economists on staff to constantly tweak things behind the scenes), but it holds for single player games as well.

You have to think in terms of "How long do I want the player to have to play to have the money for 'X'? "

Once you've got that down, you look at the quests, how many random encounters they are likely to have faced. How many random encounters they can 'grind' in a certain amount of time, etc... Then you set your quest rewards and coin drops to give them a certain amount of coins. Price your items based on that number.  You can reverse that, pricing the numbers and then figuring out the drop rate: either way it works out the same, more or less.

Then you playtest and have others playtest and you keep tweaking the numbers until you get something that feels like it's working as intended.  It's an iterative process: each adjustment will get you closer to where you need to be, but fixing one thing may 'break' something else, so you have to keep going through the whole list keeping everything in mind as you make your 'tweaks'. Sometimes you may have to increase gold drops, but then increase the cost of certain items while dropping the price of others at the same time. You have to make sure you don't make quest rewards meaningless (if you want quests rewards to be a source of coin or items - another design decision to make).

This is probably the most mind-numbing yet essential part of the game making process.

In my own game, I found that many players rushed off to fight the first mini-boss without even upgrading to have some basic armor and weapons first, and then were surprised when they got smacked down like flies, so I've got to have the NPC's tell them essentially, "You're equipment sucks - be sure you buy some armor and better weapons before you go hunting big game, killing some of the small game and goblins near the forest can help you get started". Each mini-boss drops equipment geared toward the next so it gets easier from there, but as it was, it was frustrating for the player to try to get the ball rolling, so to speak, because they didn't play the way I had expected - which means I was wrong, never the players; unless the players ask for God-mode or something extreme like that.

 

[Eschaton]

Personally, I want to design my quest rewards to pay for any "one long-term" investment, whether it's a new sword or a bunch of healing potions.

 

[abluescarab]

An alternative I thought of is If you make enemies drop small healing items, and still healing item costs fairly high, it may be possible to  kill a few birds with one stone. With a supply of healing items obtained from battle, a player should value them, as their current supply is somewhat limited unless they want to pay a fair price to get more, while still giving them a net gold gain from battles. It can also be used as an additional gold source, should a player somehow accumulate a few too many potions, and allow them to be sold and focus on that shiny piece of equipment they've been eyeing.

I actually like this idea. It reminds me of some MMOs, like Path of Exile. Health flasks drop frequently, usually with favorable random effects, but they're of lesser value than what you can purchase at the nearest shop.

Ach!  Money Spiders.  Grinding on randoms shouldn't be as lucrative as questing for actual people who should have actual money.  Having the players talk to NPCs and sending them on quests certainly makes the game world come alive more than going out and grinding on the same repeated troops.  IMHO, the latter kills verisimilitude and willing suspension of disbelief in regards to the game world.

As for the pricing, I think you should price things so that they discourage the player from having 99 healing potions.  If a healing potion is cheap and heals very little, I don't see it having much use in combat or much of a worthy investment.  And it certainly shouldn't obsolesce; the lowly healing potion should be useful on its own from the beginning to the end.

Grinding is boring as dirt for me and many other players. It's kind of an ambitious project for me as a first-time game designer, but as a gamer myself, I feel as if I know what players want. I want my world to "come alive", even if it's as simple as adding a crap-ton of quests and alternatives to straight-up grinding.

I also, as a player, find that a game is more well-thought-out when its items don't obsolesce, so I don't have to sell all 10 stacks of Minor Health Potions when I hit 30. I enjoy being able to keep those low-level potions on hand for when I only need to restore a bit of my HP or MP (because I have an unnatural obsession with keeping all my stats at max, just in case).

The "true" currency of any game is time. This is especially true in MMO's (where they have economists on staff to constantly tweak things behind the scenes), but it holds for single player games as well.

You have to think in terms of "How long do I want the player to have to play to have the money for 'X'? "

Once you've got that down, you look at the quests, how many random encounters they are likely to have faced. How many random encounters they can 'grind' in a certain amount of time, etc... Then you set your quest rewards and coin drops to give them a certain amount of coins. Price your items based on that number.  You can reverse that, pricing the numbers and then figuring out the drop rate: either way it works out the same, more or less.

This is a great perspective. I never really thought of it this way, even though I experience this same problem when I'm playing other games. I'll often just skip a tier of items entirely if it's more worth my time to just go to the next tier. That's why games are so difficult to balance.

Personally, I want to design my quest rewards to pay for any "one long-term" investment, whether it's a new sword or a bunch of healing potions.

I considered this, or having actual items as quest rewards that would act as "in-between" items for when a character is too high for one tier of gear and too low for another. I want the player to really consider what they want to purchase with their hard-earned money, which is what makes this process so difficult to me. I don't really have a good concept of how economies work or what would make someone satisfied with their purchase, even if they skipped out on something else.

 

[Eschaton]

As a designer, you can't let your players take anything for granted.  Challenge them.

Also, try and eschew the concept of "item tiers."  Design your equipment so that each piece of gear can be valuable to different players and their personal preferences.  Equipment-based progression in addition to level/stat-based progression and skill-based progression just adds an unnecessary layer of complexity that will most likely detract from the fun of the game and make more work for the designer.

 

[abluescarab]

Also, try and eschew the concept of "item tiers."  Design your equipment so that each piece of gear can be valuable to different players and their personal preferences.  Equipment-based progression in addition to level/stat-based progression and skill-based progression just adds an unnecessary layer of complexity that will most likely detract from the fun of the game and make more work for the designer.

How would I go about doing that? I've already made all armor types available to all classes (so mages can wear that heavy armor all they want, even if it messes with their magic stats).

 

[kerbonklin]

If your player runs straight through a dungeon (no grinding) and does not have enough money to FULLY equip themselves at the following shops, then you're doing it right. One important thing is to limit the player on money so that he/she must prioritize what;s more important to buy.

 

[Eschaton]

How would I go about doing that? I've already made all armor types available to all classes (so mages can wear that heavy armor all they want, even if it messes with their magic stats).

I'll give you a few examples that involve using the damage formula.

Three types of knives.

*One is deadly accurate, but raises the TGR and lowers the EVA of the actor equipping it.  A weapon for reckless high-risk-high-reward players, or players who spec'd their actor for having high defense.

*One deals more damage with lower TGR.  It would work best if players can lower their TGR externally using other equipment or skills.  A weapon for evasion tank builds.

*One hits hard, but isn't very accurate and lowers speed because it's heavy.  A weapon for methodical types, or for people who just want to spam the Attack command.  This could be augmented with actions or skills that augment the actor's accuracy temporarily.

Maybe an individual equip customization script is in order so you can shake things up.  To stay on topic, I'd price the base items close to each other to make the player feel like they have options rather than a linear equipment progression.

 

[Curia Chasea]

I am not sure if I am posting late, but it was like 2 days ago...

Anyway, the general idea I utilize is this:

"I want the players to explore my game and experience the characters and quests."

So you put items and gold required to "Equip the party" in various places between the next big scenery switch. If the next town will have better equipment, the dungeon before it should contain around 60% of it -> the 40% rest should be located around the town in side locations. Monster gold is hard to balance, so I suggest treasure chests and Boss Monster reward Gold as a way to balance this. 

So, let's say we test this. 

You have a starting party of 4 people. The monsters around town should grant around 50~100 gold per battle. The town has a small cavern with a bit stronger monsters AND it contains a Chest with 1500 Gold. The equipment in the town should cost 300 for each weapon, 200 for each armor. That is 2000 each. The chest gold grants this much if you had at least 5~10 encounters. The rest of the gold can now be spent on the Inn and consumables. 

Also, if the player goes into the Boss Dungeon, it should again contain 60% of the cost of the items in the next town you have (easily controlled by Boss Gold). This way there is always this "I need to get some more gold for this new, sick equip" and the Player will check the map around, before heading towards the next boss. 

Recovery items should basically be not gold-efficient. But if you want to make them "feel useful" you can add %Max HP recovery items. Don't worry about their price though too much. 

Anyway, remember to count how many encounters you can possibly have. You can check how many steps it takes for you to get a random encounter and just counting the tiles (instead of fighting all the battles up to the boss) to get a general idea of how much gold can you get from random battles. In order to make sure the player visits the right places and takes the quests, have Encounter Gold grant only 10~15% of the total gold. Chests and Bosses should bring the rest 85~90%.

I hope this might help you a bit. 

 

[abluescarab]

I'm back. So from what I'm hearing, fights are kind of the basis for item prices. You figure out the fights, you figure out what prices feel substantial, you make sure the player feels as if they made a worthwhile purchase, even if they had to give up something to afford something else.

 

[BadMinotaur]

As a designer, you can't let your players take anything for granted.  Challenge them.

Also, try and eschew the concept of "item tiers."  Design your equipment so that each piece of gear can be valuable to different players and their personal preferences.  Equipment-based progression in addition to level/stat-based progression and skill-based progression just adds an unnecessary layer of complexity that will most likely detract from the fun of the game and make more work for the designer.

I have to point out that if your character doesn't level and your entire progression is itemized, that it's perfectly fine to do. (I think you knew that since you said it adds unnecessary complexity instead of flat-out calling it a bad idea, but I felt like standing up for the idea, heh)

 

[Curia Chasea]

I'm back. So from what I'm hearing, fights are kind of the basis for item prices. You figure out the fights, you figure out what prices feel substantial, you make sure the player feels as if they made a worthwhile purchase, even if they had to give up something to afford something else.

As long as the stat gain is higher than +2 to a stat (unless the whole game is a low-stat one) players will generally consider better equips a worthy purchase. 

Anyway - let's talk consumables. 

You should always put a large amount of consumable items into shops. These work as money-sinks in a game and will help you get rid of the gold from sold equips. The player will generally sell their old armors when he gets new ones, so you would have to calculate that into the game pricing. However by adding useful consumables, you will get rid of that extra gold. Imagine a shop like this:

- Armor (new) 1500 gold

- Weapon (new) 2500 gold

- Potion 100 gold

- Fire Bomb 500 gold

Now, like in the previous example, you gave the player 100% gold from previous boss dungeon and side quests + random battles. However his previous equipment sells for a total of +4000 Gold. So this throws off your calculations. If you would calculate the selling gold into your plans, you could screw over players that never sell their equipment (some players collect all armors) or didn't find a required treasure chest (missed it or didn't feel like sidequesting). 

However the next dungeon is an Ice Dungeon. The Fire Bomb is a consumable item that casts an AoE Fire spell that makes the ride to the boss easier. You can only buy 8 of them for the spare gold, but that should be enough to clear some harder fights without the player just breezing through the dungeon. The Fire Bomb will also give the player a short lived relief from grinding. Instead of just going the normal routine of fight commands, he can choose to sacrifice 500 gold for an instant sweep. Of course, due to low gold drops from battles, grinding like this is not cost-efficient, yet a lot faster. 

Anyway, this is my short tip on Consumable items. If you make smart decisions, you can make good money sinks that offer a ton more choices to the player. Additionally you add some extra depth to the game, since you can add some "high-cost high-power" options for the player to consider in fights. And of course - you can control how much extra gold the party has without calculating everything perfectly. 

 

[abluescarab]

As long as the stat gain is higher than +2 to a stat (unless the whole game is a low-stat one) players will generally consider better equips a worthy purchase. 

Anyway - let's talk consumables. 

You should always put a large amount of consumable items into shops. These work as money-sinks in a game and will help you get rid of the gold from sold equips. The player will generally sell their old armors when he gets new ones, so you would have to calculate that into the game pricing. However by adding useful consumables, you will get rid of that extra gold. Imagine a shop like this:

- Armor (new) 1500 gold

- Weapon (new) 2500 gold

- Potion 100 gold

- Fire Bomb 500 gold

Now, like in the previous example, you gave the player 100% gold from previous boss dungeon and side quests + random battles. However his previous equipment sells for a total of +4000 Gold. So this throws off your calculations. If you would calculate the selling gold into your plans, you could screw over players that never sell their equipment (some players collect all armors) or didn't find a required treasure chest (missed it or didn't feel like sidequesting). 

However the next dungeon is an Ice Dungeon. The Fire Bomb is a consumable item that casts an AoE Fire spell that makes the ride to the boss easier. You can only buy 8 of them for the spare gold, but that should be enough to clear some harder fights without the player just breezing through the dungeon. The Fire Bomb will also give the player a short lived relief from grinding. Instead of just going the normal routine of fight commands, he can choose to sacrifice 500 gold for an instant sweep. Of course, due to low gold drops from battles, grinding like this is not cost-efficient, yet a lot faster. 

Anyway, this is my short tip on Consumable items. If you make smart decisions, you can make good money sinks that offer a ton more choices to the player. Additionally you add some extra depth to the game, since you can add some "high-cost high-power" options for the player to consider in fights. And of course - you can control how much extra gold the party has without calculating everything perfectly. 

Thanks for all the tips! I do have one question: I thought money sinks were frowned upon, kind of? I've been frequenting gaming sites for a number of years and I often hear people complain about them. How would I handle that tactfully without pissing off the players?

 

[Mouser]

As a designer, you can't let your players take anything for granted.  Challenge them.

Also, try and eschew the concept of "item tiers."  Design your equipment so that each piece of gear can be valuable to different players and their personal preferences.  Equipment-based progression in addition to level/stat-based progression and skill-based progression just adds an unnecessary layer of complexity that will most likely detract from the fun of the game and make more work for the designer.

I like item tiers when I'm playing. Variety in types of weapons is good: some swords being better at parrying, others at pure damage, others with critical hits, but I want to know when I'm playing that there's better stuff out there, waiting for me to find it. I think I'd get bored pretty quickly with a game that didn't include some sort of item progression (at least for 'standard' combat based RPG's).

 

[Curia Chasea]

I like item tiers when I'm playing. Variety in types of weapons is good: some swords being better at parrying, others at pure damage, others with critical hits, but I want to know when I'm playing that there's better stuff out there, waiting for me to find it. I think I'd get bored pretty quickly with a game that didn't include some sort of item progression (at least for 'standard' combat based RPG's).

Power progression in pure stats VS Battle Option progression. 

For Stat Progression, it usually is good to expand the wealth of stats you receive by utilizing the limited equipment slots. Let's say that you can only equip a weapon, armor and accessory to make this simple. The first shop only offers these items:

Short Sword +20 ATK

Leather Armor + 10 DEF

Bronze Ring +50 HP

For Stat Progression to work properly, the next shop should sell these items:

Long Sword +20 ATK +15% critical hit

Hammer +20 ATK +15% Stun chance

Iron Armor +50 DEF

Silver Armor +25 Def +25 MDEF

Iron Ring +200 HP 

Silver Ring +100 HP +20 MDEF

The idea here is that the player is shown a lot better equipment than he has, however he now has to make a choice. Only one weapon can be equipped, so... Better damage with Critical Chance? Or maybe stunning enemies? Your itemization becomes non-linear, despite the fact your stats get higher with each shop. You can grant extra customization to characters this way by introducing different stats on similar powered items. 

Battle Option progression on the other hand introduces no stat changes, but only extra combat options. Let's say I introduce 3 new items - one grants the Heal Spell, one grants AoE Non-Elemental Damage Spell and the third one grants a buff that recovers 25% of the party MP upon use in battle. This type is great when you want to add depth to a game, however you do not wish for players to grind in order to gain an advantage in battle. 

Both options are of course best when combined. That's why characters "Learn skills as they level up" to have the Battle Option progression, while items get better and receive unique effects. 

One MAJOR tip I have to add here however -> Be sure the player receives all possible combat options not later than 60% into the game. Otherwise players might get "that one cool skill, that is totally useless since only the last battle is left and the Boss is immune to it". When 60% into the game, leave only stat progression. That way receiving a powerful sword makes sense cause you want the best gear for the final fight. And the player will not feel like he wanted this thing sooner, cause "obviously, such sick stats should be this late in the game". 

Thanks for all the tips! I do have one question: I thought money sinks were frowned upon, kind of? I've been frequenting gaming sites for a number of years and I often hear people complain about them. How would I handle that tactfully without pissing off the players?

This is debatable since, depending on the game, a money sink is either used to balance economy in a game or to screw players over. 

Let's say I would add durability into equips that drops as they are used in battle. Repairs can only be done in towns or if you have the right item and both are not cheap. This has no function for the player - its only a hindrance since he cannot grind without coming back now and then and fixing his gear. 

However, imagine using durability with items that have skills. Let's say that durability of the weapon never drops in normal usage, however if you use the skill it bestows (which has no MP cost) the durability drops. This is also a money sink, however the player now treats it as a buff. "The weapon just has its own MP" - the player will think, and treat it as an extra resource in combat instead of a hindrance. And since all party members can equip it, he now can customize the party by giving this extra move to anyone, since it runs on its own resource. 

In both cases you drain away the player money. However one is an arbitrary limiter, while the other is a gameplay feature. I suggest developing money sinks with the mindset of "Does this enhance the gameplay?". 

I could speak more about this issue, but its hard to do so in a void. Perhaps you can name a game and what is the money sink that infuriates the players - then I could give some proper answers as to why the game designers did that. 

 

[Eschaton]

So from what I'm hearing, fights are kind of the basis for item prices.

If combat is the sole source of your player's income, yes.