[Think Tank] What Sorts Of Things Can Help Keep Gold Valuable Throughout The Game?

[Abhaddon]

I think a main problem with the economy in DF would be improved with some of the Unleveled World ideas, specifically Unleveled Dungeons and Unleveled Shops. As it currently stands, higher level (and therefore more valuable) items magically become more common from both dungeons and shops as your level increases, which understandably makes the economy less and less stable as you play.

On another note, I think that who you take a loan from should effect the size of loans you can take out, as well as the type of people who get sent after you should you default on them. Loan sharks would likely have in-house "asset management" of varying skill or mercenaries on retainer to send after you. More legitimate financiers would likely turn to the law with varying degrees of success: poorer brokers would likely have the complaint against you recorded and lower your reputation, but could have no active measures taken. Middle-class brokers would likely be treated the same, but could afford to hire some (under-trained and under-equipped) people of negotiable character to find you for them. Wealthy brokers could likely buy enough sway with the local or provincial government to deploy actual guards or soldiers (with actual training and equipment) to search you out.

On yet another note, it does make sense that at a certain level of power your character is essentially no longer bound to the law by anything short of their own moral compass or a sizeable army, so the level of the people sent after you for defaulting should be relatively static for their type.

[imsobadatnicknames]

Kind of a coincidence that I just discovered this thread and I've been working on implementing a mercenary/hireling system using the quest engine, which I guess could make for a decent moneysink when properly implemented.

It basically spawns an npc in random taverns that offers you protection in exchange for 500 gold, and gives you a "mercenary contract" that can be used to summon a mercenary party to help you fight.







I guess the main thing to make it into an effective moneysink would be to severely increase the price (with it costin only 500 gold, players could easily make their money back by looting the mercenaries when they die). Or maybe making it scale with the player's level (which would involve creating multiple, more expensive versions of the same quest that will only trigger when the player is a certain level)

I haven't been able to finish it because I ran into some problems (haven't figured out yet how to make the quest actually check if you have the gold, or actually remove it from your inventory)

[Ralzar]

I haven't been able to finish it because I ran into some problems (haven't figured out yet how to make the quest actually check if you have the gold, or actually remove it from your inventory)

Check out Hazelnuts RP&R mod. The fighters guild quest “Mountain Rumours” does this. I think the trick is that you need to do it in two steps. First accept the quest and then click the quest giver again.

[Magicono43]

You could also make the quest randomly pick the level of the mercenary group, so even at level 2 you could meet some level 20 hirelings, but they would be pretty expensive. I can't wait until this idea becomes similar to Skyrim in this sense, where the hireling/companion somewhat seamlessly follows you around and can even have their spell book/equipment changed and such, but that's probably quite some time and work away, lol.

Glad you have been working on an idea like this though, having followers has always been a cool idea, especially for the weaker characters, or a character who just needs a bit of extra help completing a difficult quest or something, could even make AOE healing spells/heal other on touch or buffs more useful in general, no matter how simple your current implementation is.

[imsobadatnicknames]

Glad y'all like the idea! I think humanoid NPCs are always tied to the player character's level (or at least that's what the Foes table says), so idk how possible randomizing their level could be, it's still a neat idea, I hope it's possible to do at some point!

I guess I'll check out Mountain Rumors then. I tried to figure it out by looking at the code of the quest in Jay H's Questpack 1 where someone offers to sell you a treasure map, but turns out the part that is supposed to figure out if you have the money begins with -- so the game ignores it, and at no point there's any task that takes any money from you, so I'm guessing te "selling" part of that quest is purely cosmetic flavor text :p

I'll keep you updated if I figure it out.

EDIT: Jay just explained it to me in the Custom quest support thread. Turns out the ability to take money from the player was only implemented recently, so I'm guessing that's why it wasn't used in that one quest.

Now that I figured it out, the mercenaries system should be avaliable for download in a couple days at most while I implement the level-scaling price.

[Jay_H]

I tried to figure it out by looking at the code of the quest in Jay H's Questpack 1 where someone offers to sell you a treasure map, but turns out the part that is supposed to figure out if you have the money begins with -- so the game ignores it, and at no point there's any task that takes any money from you, so I'm guessing te "selling" part of that quest is purely cosmetic flavor text :p

Not at all, the map is sold properly:

Code: Select all

_start_ task:
  clicked _qg_ and at least 200 gold otherwise do _fail_
  say 1020
  get item _letter_
  pick one of _item1_ _item2_ _item3_ _item4_ _item5_ _item5_
  reveal _dung_
  place item _sack_ at _dung_

It requires at least 200 gold to do this task. Otherwise if you click on the NPC without 200 gold, it'll do the _fail_ task.

[imsobadatnicknames]

I tried to figure it out by looking at the code of the quest in Jay H's Questpack 1 where someone offers to sell you a treasure map, but turns out the part that is supposed to figure out if you have the money begins with -- so the game ignores it, and at no point there's any task that takes any money from you, so I'm guessing te "selling" part of that quest is purely cosmetic flavor text :p

Not at all, the map is sold properly:

Code: Select all

_start_ task:
  clicked _qg_ and at least 200 gold otherwise do _fail_
  say 1020
  get item _letter_
  pick one of _item1_ _item2_ _item3_ _item4_ _item5_ _item5_
  reveal _dung_
  place item _sack_ at _dung_

It requires at least 200 gold to do this task. Otherwise if you click on the NPC without 200 gold, it'll do the _fail_ task.

Oh... i guess I got confused when looking at it then.

I just checked, in the version I have it says something different:

Code: Select all

-   clicked _qg_ and at least _price_ gold otherwise do _fail_

I guess the code you just posted is from the a later update I first downloaded the questpack like a year and a half ago, so that must be it. Also Idk how I confused the - at the start of the line for a --

[imsobadatnicknames]

UPDATE:
The mercenaries mod is done!

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4019

Thought it'd take me a bit longer to set up the level-scaling, but it was easier than I expected.

Bumped up the initial price to 1000, and it increases by 1000 with every 3 level ups, up until 10000 at level 27.

Of course, this won't completely solve the economy problem, but I do think it's a pretty decent money sink.

[imsobadatnicknames]

After releasing the mercenaries mod yesterday, I've been trying what other things could be done to act as money sinks.
A rudimentary tax system would be ridiculously easy to implement for me. All it would take is a quest that every couple months (or maybe once a year) waits for you to enter a city to fire up another quest that sends you a letter along the lines of "You haven't paid your taxes in a while, you have a week to come to (Palace) and deliver x gold to (local noble) or face the consequences", and if you fail to take the gold there it reduces your regional reputation. With a little extra effort it could even be made to scale with the player's level, to account for the ridiculous ammounts of gold high-level players acquire on a regular basis. That would be kinda realistic and would enhance the idea of most kingdoms in the Illiac Bay area being corrupt, but wouldn't be a particularly fun money sink. (Althought I don think it'd be kinda fun to RP as a serial tax evader on the run lol)
EDIT: Now that I think about it, the same code could be pretty much recycled to create a guild dues system system where every month you have to pay maybe 100 gold or so to any guild you belong to, or get your reputation with them reduced until you eventually get expelled.
The only problem is that it would have to e initiated through some other guild quest.

Something more fun: My mercenaries code could easily be recycled into a system that allows you to rent trained animals/monsters to fight for you. Maybe the higher level you are the more powerful monsters you can rent, but if the animal dies you have to pay an extra fee or have your regional reputation reduced.

EDIT 2: Taxing system is done! Idk if I sould release it as a mod bc it's not exactly the thing of thing most players would want to use, but... here it is.
Once the TXMASTER quest starts running, every three month, you will get a letter like this when entering a city

The money scales with the player's level the same way the price in my mercenaries mod does, and if you don't pay it within a week you get your legal reputation reduced. I had the idea that if you didn't pay they'd sent assasins after you but that'd be counterproductive bc if you kill the assasins you end up with more money instead of less :p

[Regnier]

I think there should maybe be less gold on monsters and in other locations not appropriate for it, and maybe less of it when there is some. You could also charge more for different levels of service in town. A tavern can give you a basic bed for a place to sleep, but theres no lock on the door and no liability for robbery. You could pay double and sleep without risk.
Yes that means getting robbed when sleeping is something to consider, mostly just coin but maybe items...

Acute hearing, high lockpicking and pickpocket skill, maybe stealth too, alerts you and wakes you up. So either pay a premium for a locked door and reimbursement if something still happens or rely on luck or skill.

TLDR Getting robbed in your sleep, fewer gold drops in general, services cost more.