Inflation within your game.

[Soulrender]

I just wanted to ask, how do you guys handle your economy in-game? Because after intense testing my project turns out the economy suffers terrible inflation and I don't know how to decrease it. Well I have an idea, but first I wanted to know what are your approaches to this matter?

 

[SGHarlekin]

Really depends on your game. If you do a classic rpg... The only person who actually has money is the player. So all you do is making prices according to the expected money the player has.

If you feel your player has too much money, give him less?

 

[Soulrender]

I have just dropped gold rewards from enemies drastically and now I'm testing.
If this won't help, then maybe I write a plugin that subtract a certain amount as guild's tax.

 

[SGHarlekin]

I'd recommend using something as a money sink. Having a forced "Guild tax" Just feels icky, unless they get something out of being in that guild of course.

 

[Milennin]

Decrease gold rewards and/or offer more useful things in the game the player can get with gold.

 

[Soulrender]

@Milennin - database already is pretty big and items have high prices, but that tax is not enough said, maybe a better term would be "upkeep costs" and I decreased gold in the database. I'll test the game again and in 4 hours I'll share the result. And thank you for advices.

 

[Andar]

the key to balance is how much worth any given troop drops compared to how much it costs to heal the damage done by that troop.

if the value of the drops is much higher than what it costs to heal, then you got that inflation because the player gets additional gold by grinding random encounters (if your fixed rewards from events and evented encounters already create that inflation without taking repeatable random encounters in, then your entire balance was always broken).


so you can reduce your general playtesting to testing of troops, with a focus on those cases where the drops are too extreme.

 

[Ahuramazda]

I managed to get the inflation for my game under control by allowing the player to either buy or craft stat+ items (attack +1, Defense +1, ect) for a hefty amount of gold... 500k per purchase or 500k +mats for being able to craft 3 at a time. The average gold per battle even at the end game is only ~5000, so it can still take a lot of battles unless you find some rare vendor only items from enemy drops.

Another thought, if you don't mind the idea of stat+ items being buyable is make an even where a NPC sells you said stat increasing items, and make it so every time you purchase one the price increases and have this repeat as many times as you would like.

I mainly bring up stat+ items because in a typical RPG a player (usually) likes feeling like they are getting stronger even after maxing levels out and finding all of or most of the best gear. It gives them something to keep fighting for instead of just trying to avoid battles in any way they can once no more progression can be made.

And as @Andar said above, try to make sure income is balanced kinda towards how much does it cost to heal and/or full heal. If an Inn cost 100g to rest at, but an average battle nets 25g and I can chain 6-7 (150-175g) battles back to back before needing to heal, then there will always be a surplus. Since items that heal HP/MP in the field are such a boon sometimes, don't be afraid to make them cost 2-3x what you would actually want to pay for them. It will make the items far more valuable and make players wait longer to use them and add a bit more strategy to the game other than pop potions back to full life after each battle.

One other last idea--- copy how Final Fantasy 2 did HP/MP Healing for the Inn... use variables to calculate how much HP and how much MP are needed to heal the party back to full and then charge HP*(1g)+MP*(2g) to get the total for resting. Early in the game its very balanced, but it maintains a steady cost throughout the game as everyones stats increase. It isn't a perfect system, but it is an idea to bounce off of you.

 

[Starbird_Resources]

I've always wondered how a char can carry 2,583,984 Gold on their person. Banking can be annoying, but can also be sort of engaging if done the right way. Bank runs, market fluctuations, raids on towns, etc, can all reasonably make gold vanish. Coin debasement (or turns out your gold is all clipped coins, or worse, counterfeit lol) can lower values. Going to another kingdom? Your coin is not current in this realm and the rate of exchange is, let's say, less than fair. If a more modern/futuristic game, just look at the crypto market. Volatility is inherent in market activity. There's always a way/excuse to take away someone's purchasing power if only you look hard enough

 

[BK-tdm]

I've always wondered how a char can carry 2,583,984 Gold on their person. Banking can be annoying, but can also be sort of engaging if done the right way. Bank runs, market fluctuations, raids on towns, etc, can all reasonably make gold vanish. Coin debasement (or turns out your gold is all clipped coins, or worse, counterfeit lol) can lower values. Going to another kingdom? Your coin is not current in this realm and the rate of exchange is, let's say, less than fair. If a more modern/futuristic game, just look at the crypto market. Volatility is inherent in market activity. There's always a way/excuse to take away someone's purchasing power if only you look hard enough

Even though realistic this would enter the "bs" realm of obnoxious gameplay,losing a resource because of a random occurence you have no control or way to avoid will be very very infuriating gsmeplay wise,imagine entering a dungeon and you get a message "your sword broke, oops!" And then remove the player's equipment because yes.
Now imagine you kill a boss at the end of a dungeon and go to the next town to buy your corresponding new gear scaled to the levels you got on the last dungeon just to be told "sorry you need to farm a new currency as that doesnt work here" or "your money is currently worth half because *realistic reasons*
I would accept such "mechanics" from an rts or 4x game but from an rpg i would call bovinepoop and quit soon after.

 

[Andar]

another idea, but probably too late for you to implement:

don't have the enemies drop gold (not unless they are bandits), have them drop logical valuables like a pelt from a wolf, ivory from an elephant and so on.
Then the player will have to sell the items to get money, and the inventory max will automatically limit things without any obvious restriction visible to the player.

 

[Soulrender]

Well, it took me a little more than I expected, but I think (according to your guidance) I fixed the problem. I implemented that tax thing mentioned earlier, but it's not fixed, tax rate depends on party's average level (example: party av. level is 2, then tax rate is 20%). Right now I'm at the end of game and without doing any kind of shopping (even selling) I have ~5000 of each currency (I have 5 in total) furthermore, I placed an event/NPC "Tax Collector" - if player has too much gold ( +2mln gold ) the Tax collector interrogate player, something like in Witcher 3 .

@Andar
That's actually a brilliant idea and no, it's not too late to implement it.

 

[LordOfPotatos]

why not make gold rewards less farmable instead of nerfing them or making the player pay taxes?

you could make battles themselves drop only EXP and make other currenecies a quest reward or earnable through selling rare items, or some other limited activity.

that way the player can still earn resources but he can't farm them at will, so the cost of adventuring itself will keep the player's bank account in check.

 

[Sword_of_Dusk]

The idea that I have to pay taxes in a game kinda turns me off. I'm not keen on having to give up my hard earned cash to taxes simply because the gold rewards from enemies weren't balanced right.

I would strongly consider going with having enemies drop no gold and instead drop stuff you need to sell for cash. Or drop gold rewards across the board and raise prices a bit.

 

[Soulrender]

Actually adding the combined ideas of yours with mine more-less solves for now the problem. Personally, I'm happy with following results:

 

[gstv87]

+1 to Andar's solution.
it is THE way to go.

 

[Tai_MT]

I just wanted to ask, how do you guys handle your economy in-game? Because after intense testing my project turns out the economy suffers terrible inflation and I don't know how to decrease it. Well I have an idea, but first I wanted to know what are your approaches to this matter?

Sorry, I haven't read anyone's post under yours. So, if I'm just parroting other people, feel free to ignore me.

What you're looking for is a "gold sink".

Here's how money is moderated in my game:
1. There is no dedicated healer class. If you want to heal, you need to buy an item to do so or spend money at the Inn.

2. There are no items that multi-target. They are all single target. If you need to heal 3 people, you need 3 consumables minimum.

3. Consumable Items have "tiers". The tiers scale up in cost. There are 5 Tiers that heal different amounts of HP/MP.

4. Inns scale up their cost based on how many people you've got with you. More people means higher costs to stay. It isn't a flat rate either. It's "double plus 10". So, if it costs 10 Gold to stay for a single person, for two it would cost 30. Then three would cost 70. Four would cost 150. On and on, up to 9 characters. No, it doesn't matter if you're only healing 4 of them. All 9 are always traveling with you for story reasons, so they will all stay at the Inn when you do (the other option was they stay at the Inn when not with you and you pay every so much time in order to simulate them living them while waiting for you to return... it seemed stupid to have them do this, and it was more interesting to always have everyone with you, so they could contribute to conversations and such).

I should also mention that staying at Inns has benefits to your party. Some quests given to you by your party members can only be initiated by staying. Some lore and character building only occurs at the Inn, after a stay, where the characters are "hanging out" and "chatting" with each other.

So, if you get really into Questing or Lore... you're basically going to be dropping:
30G (two characters)
70G (three)
150G (four)
310G (5)
630G (6)
1270G (7)
2550G (8)
5110G (9)
per stay.

5. I have "Battle Consumables". A shop called "Sweet Retreats" sells "Battle" versions of all the other Consumables in the game. Why are they "Battle Versions"? They offer buffs for usage. You can use a regular Potion... or the SR Potion, which grants a 25% buff to Attack for 3 turns. These cost twice as much as the original versions of the items. They can also ONLY be used in combat. And yes, even your "Antidotes" have buffs like this. I believe the "Aloe" consumable buffs Agility for a few turns by 25% (I'd need to go look at it again to know for sure).

6. My states are pretty deadly. If you DON'T cure them, you CAN lose the fight. The cost for status curing items is generally very low. They're very "generous". Why? Because you'll want a LOT of them at any given time. If you go into the Poison Dungeon, you should probably expect to bring at least 30 Antidotes. Maybe more. At 15 Gold per antidote, you're not spending that much. But... by the time you leave, that money will have been spent and you'll need new antidotes.

7. Not a lot of chests in my game give free consumables. Or money. You want consumables? Buy them. I don't mind giving you some new equipment or other goodies. But, you go to the store if you want Consumables. You want money? Kill some enemies for it or sell some crap. I'm not giving you cash in a treasure chest.

8. Enemies don't give a ton of Currency upon death. They just don't. I decently restrict how much they give. Generally speaking, the player is meant to "slay" 5 encounters before they can afford 1 recovery item. Efficent and skilled play means they won't need to use that 1 recovery item and their money will stockpile. Or your consumables will. Poor play will result in being perpetually broke.

9. Enemies are designed as "gimmicks" and aren't easily overpowered by just having more stats. There are also measures in place to prevent "over leveling" to make combat a breeze (like say... can't get stats from a level up! Can only obtain stats from completing quests!). If you do poorly with a gimmick, you will be blowing your money. If you've solved the gimmick, then all the money dropped is pure profit.

10. Quests don't reward money. The most you can hope for is a few consumables or some equipment. You can sell the equipment if you don't like it, and make a decent profit.

11. There is a SINGLE SOURCE of a ton of money in my game. Selling Diamonds. There are a lot of Diamonds in the game. There is a quest related to collecting them all. You can't get all the items from the Diamond Collector if you sell even a single one of them. The last trades in the game require 25 Diamonds on hand for each of the items. The items are insanely powerful. But, if you just don't care about those items...

Well, 50,000 Currency can be a nice boon to a player who doesn't care about completionist stuff... or being really powerful at the end.

Not that I don't have ways to drain that money too.

12. There is a final shop in the game. Before the final boss. it is the only one there is. You can trade your money for stats. Pay some cash, get a stat point. If the player doesn't blow all their money right here... I haven't done my job very well.
---
The goal? The player's money is always valuable, they always want to accrue it, they always want to spend it, and they won't have any before the last boss of the game.

 

[M.I.A.]

I do kinda similar to Andar's post.
Gold (or whatever I decide to call it) is the currency. It is kinda hard to come by. It doesn't really drop from most foes, unless the foes are humanoid/mimics/etc. Because.. why would a Slime be carrying gold, really?

Instead, enemies drop Tuft, Horns, Scales, etc., which have a few purposes. They can be sold for Gold, obviously. They can be traded in batches to the Hunters Guild for training (Hunter's skills), and/or some can even be handed over to craftspeople to create armor, weapons, and items.

Most purchasable items are pretty easily affordable as the game progresses, and with a teensy bit of grinding or extra Mercenary Missions (sidequests), one can easily amount enough Gold to get by. Inns and Items do not inflate in pricing much. The Inn in the first town and the Inn in the last town are similarly priced.. based off the "economy" of that town, not the length of the game. Example: the Inn that's in a farm town could be 5Gold.. while the Inn that's in a nice, noble city could be 8Gold.
Items, same thing. Potions in a more witchy town could be 2Gold cuz they are so easy to come by, vs. Potions in more 'civilized' town could be 4Gold. There is a variance that's tied to the lore, not to the game progress/Gold sink.

I want the player to be able to get the things they need with moderate ease and challenge. I don't want the player to feel too broke and required to grind, but I also don't want the player to feel like they are sitting on heaps of Gold.

Hope this helps!
-MIA

 

[akuakudac]

chiming in with a gold limit too!

 

[Anthony Xue]

You may be interested in the "On RPG Economy" link in my signature... it's just a little long to simply C/P here