Monitary Value of Items

[GharishTigger]

Hey guys, not sure if I'm posting this topic in the right section of the forums but I have a quick question about the monetary value of items.


A friend and I are developing a game and are trying to come up with a system of currency.  The game we are developing and fleshing out is based on an RPG paper and pen game that my friend I created when we were kids. It's fairly detailed and has a lot of potential but the cost of items and other materials in the game are extremely unbalanced. We plan on using the counting system (1 gold equals so and so silver....... etc.) but I was just wondering if there was a formula or standard that helped balance the monetary cost of items.

 

[Pine Towers]

Do it like in real life in countries with a truly free market: The product cost more the more it is needed/rare.


For example, a potion may heal 100 HP for 10 Gold. But a potion that heals 200 HP won't cost 20 Gold because you heal 2x the HP of a potion for half the time (to heal 200 HP you need two actions - one for each potion), so I would cost it 40 Gold (2x HP, 1/2 action).

 

[Frogboy]

If you are using MV, this might be what you're after.


http://yanfly.moe/2016/01/22/yep-060-more-currencies/

 

[Wavelength]

It's so situational on the game that the only "equation" guidelines I can give you are:

• The amount of gold that the player ordinarily earns as he plays should be more than the total cost of everything he needs to keep progressing through the game
  
• The amount of gold that the player ordinarily earns as he plays should be less than the total cost of everything he wants to achieve power fantasies
  

Do a lot of playtesting, adjust the acceleration of how fast gold income (from monsters, quests, or whatever) and prices scale as the game progresses, and pay special attention to the price of consumable items early on in the game.  There are several "right answers" when designing a monetary systems... and a whole lot of wrong answers as well.