We are too rich

[vanedor]

I feel it is too easy, right now, to become very rich in the game. Money is a problem only at the very beginning of the game. Merchant quests are fun and all, but you will have an easier time killing enemy knights than being a merchant, to become rich.

So, these are my suggestions to make us poorer

1. Make it so you can't pick up armors after a battle. Armor weren’t one size fit all and the battle would probably be very bad to them.

2. Reduce the price of the weapons (A spear wasn’t this expensive to make. Keep good and very high quality weapons up, though. But these, you shouldn’t be able to find them in a random battle) and shield, but really increase the price of the armor.

3. Instead of having the loot screen appears right after the battle, have a message box asking the player if he wants to search the enemy corpses for item of valor or not. If the person says 'yes' then he would remain immobile there for 10 seconds or so; dangerous when there are other group of enemies close. Only after these 10 seconds the loot screen would appear.

4. Greatly reduce the money the merchants have. It shouldn’t be easy to find someone able to purchase those very expensive warhorses. Perhaps not make it as bad as Morrowind, but closer.

5. Make it so you need to have your armor maintained by the smiths. Lack of maintenance would make your armor become tattered, rusty, etc.

6. Increase the wages of the troops you hire. One week is a really long period of time during which you can have several battles. The money you can get from one decent spear you can get in one of these battles is enough to pay a little army for a week.

 

[Ingolifs]

Yeah i do agree that money should have more utility towards the endgame. I think first of all, the whole amount of money everyone has should be lowered somewhat, so that 10 denars is a lot of money. (at one point in history, england was bought for 5000 pounds)

The amount of money you get from loot should be lowered a bit, and the weekly wage from counts increased. High class weapons be made much more expensive, along with high class troops. If you could buy your own land, and fund armies and stuff, that would be awesome.

 

[Hado]

I think the rate at which you get money is perfect, but there aren't enough money sinks.

For example right now you only have to spend money on food and troop wages, which are practically nothing. Once you have your warbow, spirited course and black armor you don't have to pay for anything else and the gold just piles up.

Maybe there should be weapon repairing in the game. The higher the quality of armor/weapon, the more it costs to fix.

Also there should be more sinks for rich players to spend money on..higher costs for elite troops.. expensive explosives (black powder cannons, serpentines, etc used in the 1300's) with ammunition that runs and has to be repurchased, high quality bolts/arrows that run out, etc.
Taxes for the amount of goods you take from city to city or crossing certain areas, tolls for entering certain cities..

Make it so you can't pick up armors after a battle. Armor weren’t one size fit all and the battle would probably be very bad to them.

Not sure if I like this idea at all.. I already find it unrealistic that you can't just loot everyone's equipment. A major part of the fun involved in fighting battles is seeing the loot you find after.

 

[KaL]

The amount of money needed to hold an army should be raised, the money you pay them is laughable compared to the amount you get from looting. The best way to control money would definately be more expensive items, maybe a crafting system would suit here - requiring the finding/purchasing of a number of expensive items and then the cost of crafting to recieve a weapon better then the standard avaliable set but requiring repairs constantly.

If the game does ever get to the point (doubtful) where you can rent/own land, then the costs there would be interesting. It'd be nice to eventually raise a 3rd faction of your own to try and defeat the Swaids and the Vars (though thats off topic so I'll stop).

 

[Lhorkan]

Armour should be pickable, but not wearable. The smiths could re-use the materials and make new armours of them. The money of the merchants is good as it is now IMO. I hated in Morrowind that I couldn't sell my huge collection of glass I looted from the vaults (I edited a merchant's money later, so I could, but anyway). It might not be realistic, but gameplay is more important here. I like the rest of your ideas.

 

[No name]

Hmm.. maybe after a battle, troops involved in it get a portion of the loot, in addition to the weekly sum. Maybe increase money sink by actually buying for the troops weapons and armour. After all, how did the troops get them? That'll make troops more expensive.
Also, maybe troops would need more food, so got to spend money for food.
The 'standing there for 10 sec while looting' sounds interesting and realistic, but might mar the fast action gameplay.

 

[Ingolifs]

Troops do currently get loot after you win a battle, but you never really see it again. Not even on one of your soldiers. It just kinda disappears.

 

[IGTHORN]

I think that the current money system is good. It takes a long time for a beginning player to build up his cash and buy things. Right now I'm around Day 40 and I still need to get more cash because I just blew it all on a black helmet. So I've just done a wine run to try and build up more funds.

I think that you may have found that because you've already bought all the best items in the game you now no longer have anything to spend your money on.

I agree with you on point 5, that equipment should have some sort of upkeep.

 

[Lhorkan]

I started another character a while ago and didn't join a faction, but only hired swadian units and attacked the vaegirs. Manhunting like that makes a lot of money, and you're not busy with boring quests.

 

[Sir Saladin]

I think it would be fun to start the game as some spoiled punk and then piss it all away, no rpg that I ever heard of ever tried that they are too hooked on the rags to riches fantasy. The wizard Aleister Crowley had a big enough inheritance so that he would have been rich his whole life but he wanted more than that and died broke as a junkie. Nobody is perfect. LOL.

 

[BobG]

I think that the second, fifth and sixth suggestions have merit, with the caveat that in the case of troop salaries, they should only start getting really expensive when you get to the high-end units like knights. Rank-and-file soldiers should be cheap, to make them reasonable for new characters.

I don't like the first suggestion because it seems to treat all armor like plate armor. Yes, plate armor had to be custom-fitted to the wearer, but I would think that chain, leather and hide armors would be far more easily adjustable. And you can't tell me that a steppe bandit's furry coat wouldn't fit pretty much anyone! Plus, as Lhorkan pointed out, even plate armor can be broken down for parts to make new armor, so it should still have value. As a compromise, maybe you can say that plate armor cannot be worn until you take to an armor smith and get it adjusted for some nominal fee.

I don't much like the idea of being stuck on the map if you're looting, especially as long as ten seconds. Granted it would give a nearby pursuing army a chance to catch you while your troops are looting, but if there's no one around it would simply be annoying. As a compromise, rather than automatically looting a defeated army, maybe the game could create a "defeated army" marker on the map, which you can then select if you want to loot it; only the game won't let you loot if there's another army pursuing yours and less than one hour's ride away.

I think the amount of money the merchants have is fine as it is. It usually seems to be around 10,000 denar, which isn't all that unreasonable. However, you could have it so that merchants will only accept the goods they themselves sell, so that, for instance, if the armor smith doesn't have the money to buy all of your looted black armor, you can't go sell it to the merchant instead.

 

[powerg8]

I now what you guys are talking about, I have over 2mill and don't even bother to look at prices.

 

[BreadLust]

I think the rate of money accumulation is OK, except that it's a little too difficult at the very beginning, especially for melee fighters.

I'd also like to emphasize just how bad an idea I think it is to have degrading weapons. Do you want to keep track of all the armor and weapons you wear, as well as your heroes? Checking stats all the time like that sounds like a pretty boring way to balance money (if it needs balancing). If it really needs to be balanced, just change some values to make it harder to get, don't add layers of complication that don't contribute to gameplay.

 

[Worbah]

Yeah i do agree that money should have more utility towards the endgame. I think first of all, the whole amount of money everyone has should be lowered somewhat, so that 10 denars is a lot of money. (at one point in history, england was bought for 5000 pounds)

The amount of money you get from loot should be lowered a bit, and the weekly wage from counts increased. High class weapons be made much more expensive, along with high class troops. If you could buy your own land, and fund armies and stuff, that would be awesome.

Yeah, I mean a dagger costs hundreds of gold coins.

 

[Ilex]

I started another character a while ago and didn't join a faction, but only hired swadian units and attacked the vaegirs. Manhunting like that makes a lot of money, and you're not busy with boring quests.

You earn a lot more if you ditched those swadians.

 

[catsoup]

Hey if the player's too rich why not add churches in which he could buy an indulgence (absolution of sins) for a lot of money

 

[Scenix]

Maybe it'd be an idea to put in a cost for when you upgrade a troop - being free is no good - you yourself need to buy new armours for when you upgrade, so why not your minions.

I had about 20+ knights at one point...which cost pittance as footmen to begin with and accompanied by a comical weekly wage.

I think my full on army of about 40 warriors cost at max around 1200 a week.

If I had a full compliment that'd be 40 knights...versus footsoldiers would be a joke they'd need more than 100, maybe 200 to make any headway.

Maybe a limit on amount of soldiers of each type may be an idea.

PS: This is about day 40 or so...I've concentrated on leadership.

 

[LB]

It's not that we make too much money, it's that - as has been said - there aren't any high-end money sinks.

Increased wages for high-end troops, maintaining your own estate, and other associated costs would keep the money down.

Suggested changes to the economic system should be carefully considered so that they don't impact harshly on low-level characters. Buying the equipment for your troop upgrades, for example - Town Watch units wear leather and Padded Cloth armors. Those cost thousands of denars each, and that's just a tier 2 unit that you get after three or four battles with river pirates. It would be near impossible for a level 1 or 2 character to afford equipment for them.

Speaking of equipment, your troops do loot stuff from the field and get a chunk of denars at the end of the battle (notice the "you got 643 denars" messages? The same amount of money goes to Marnid, Borcha, and your soldiers). They can afford to buy their equipment.

 

[Khalid ibn Walid]

I agree with suggestion #5 very much.

You're in battle all the time. Your stuff is bound to depreciate.

Without spending on upkeep, balanced swords should become normal, then chipped and perhaps one day even break (like a crippled horse), reinforced armor becomes simple, then battered, cracked and eventually unusable.

The depreciation should be gradual, adjusting the hp on the stuff downwards according to cumulative battle damage you've gone through e.g. armor declines depending on the damage you've taken in battle, while weapons decline in hit power depending on the number of hits you've given with 0 damage (blunts the stuff).

Perhaps there can also be an upkeep characteristics number (a sharpening & mending skill) that you can invest in (like the wound & srugery stuff) that can curb the gradient of depreciation. Or, for a fee, you can drop the stuff off at a smithy and pick it up later.

 

[VenomByte]

I agree with suggestion #5 very much.

You're in battle all the time. Your stuff is bound to depreciate.

Without spending on upkeep, balanced swords should become normal, then chipped and perhaps one day even break (like a crippled horse), reinforced armor becomes simple, then battered, cracked and eventually unusable.

The depreciation should be gradual, adjusting the hp on the stuff downwards according to cumulative battle damage you've gone through e.g. armor declines depending on the damage you've taken in battle, while weapons decline in hit power depending on the number of hits you've given with 0 damage (blunts the stuff).

Perhaps there can also be an upkeep characteristics number (a sharpening & mending skill) that you can invest in (like the wound & srugery stuff) that can curb the gradient of depreciation. Or, for a fee, you can drop the stuff off at a smithy and pick it up later.

Totally agree with this. It would make much more sense if weapons and armour degraded.

I particularly like the way that shields degrade at the moment, and horses can be crippled. This seems to be the natural extension of that.

I also agree with prices to upgrade troops, and *much* higher wages - and payment should be daily, since it's quite easily for half your troops not to be around a week later...