Economy in Roguelikes - Part 3: Ideas and Plan

After part one of this series where I laid out my thoughts on economy systems in RPGs and part two where I set out some goals any system should try to accomplish, here is where I'm to lay out my profound revolutionary system (sarcasm), or at least what I'm planning to use in Magecrawl. A bit intimidating of an order to say the least.

Quintessence, a silvery weightless goo of compressed arcane power, is my current idea for the primary currency. The destruction of non-magical items wrought be sentient beings would provide a small amount, with larger amounts coming from harvesting magical items. This allows us to somewhat easily convert items that the player finds that aren't useful into something that is, albeit at a low exchange.

To prevent the hoover problem (needing to pickup every single item for optimal play), I'm planning that items that aren't "masterwork" or would be wrongly sized for the player to be automatically converted to Q. This gives a great fluff reason why many monsters would drop "gold", unlike in many games when you kill a wolf and it drops gold.

Due to the properties of Q, we could have skills that allow the mage to convert it into magical items, recharge wands, or create enchantments. This also could allows us to have "shops" in the dungeon, either areas that have the correct equipment or some other form. This makes more "fluff" sense then a shopkeeper just chilling in the dungeon of doom.

Since it's the mage who is creating and using Q, unlocking new equipment and such can be based upon skills. You can take "Enchant Equipment III" when you hit level 12 at the earliest, as a made up example, or you could delay to take some other awesome skill. There could be skills to increase efficiency in creating or using Q, allowing some builds to be more artificer (awesome equipment, average skills) while others more fireball down the door and blow everything up (who needs equipment beyond what I can find).

Since in essence this system is points based, balancing could be done by changing Q costs and skill level requirements. It allows on average people to get the equipment they need, without reducing the awesomeness of finding just the equipment item you need in a chest. I think it also brings a unique "feel" and "fluff" to the game.

So, that's the idea. I'm at least 2 iterations away from implementing even a basic version of some of the concepts. However, fleshing it all out now gives me something to think about and plan around. Thoughts? Questions?

Economy in Roguelikes - Part 2: Goals

Before I try to lay out what I hope for in Magecrawl's economy, laying out the main goals of what I'm trying to accomplish seems like a good idea. All game design decisions involve tradeoffs, and knowing what problems I really want to solve should highlight why I'm making certain decisions.

• Fun - This is a game afterall, not an economic simulation. If in the end, it doesn't make the game more fun and replayable, it is not work having.
• This is why some "optimal" behaviors, such as vacuuming floors clean of items, should be discouraged via game mechanics.
• Good risk vs reward curve - The game should reward players for risk, and not reward for "safe" grinding or farming.
• Prevent pudding farmings and other such nonsense.
• The rewards should be useful for any character type. It is not fun to traverse the dangers of a dungeon to find that the only useful equipment is not useful to you (Finding a +5 awesome sword when you are a unarmed monk for instance).
• Balanceable - There should never be one always optimal choice. Games are about tradeoffs, and clearly always better choices point toward brokenness. 
• Some systems make balancing easier or more difficult. Some games will be easier or harder due to the whims of the RNG, but on average things should make sense.
  
• Flavor - The system should fit in the existing world, style, and flavor. 
• Ease to implement - After all, I'm currently a one man team. 
• The most awesome system in the world would be great in theory, something I can implement "now" and improve later is better.
  

Economy in Roguelikes - Part I: Thoughts

In games that even roughly follow the RPG template, as the game progresses the player or party increases in power on two axes (axis plural apparently, I love English). One axis is character strength or experience, the other being character equipment and items. As someone who's creating a game, specifically a roguelike, making these areas of the game interesting is critical to my success. I'm going to cover some of my recent thoughts on the second area, equipment and items, in a short series of articles.

Anyone who's played a recent RPGish game has seen the drill. You start off equipped no better that a set of dirty rags and a dull knife and end the game in shiny enchanted plate armor and a +5 sword of awesomeness. This provides both a "carrot" to the player (look at how awesome your equipment is), and a "stick" (get behind on the equipment curve and suffer). In almost every game, the way one goes about this is pretty standard.

• Enemies drop trash items and/or cash that one collects
• Enemies (sometimes bosses) randomly drop items worth keeping
• Unused items can be sold to shops for cash.
  
• Cash can be used to either buy new equipment, gamble for new equipment, or improve existing equipment

There are some consequence to this system, one major one that has come to my attention is what I've seen called the "vacuum cleaner" behavior: Since in roguelike you have one life, people play optimally. Since every item dropped can be converted to cash, which can be converted into power, one should collect every item and return it to town to sell. This is generally boring, so games have come up with "band-aids" to patch over the issue.

• "Town Portal" scrolls, to make return to the market less painful.
• Pack mules or Bag of Holding - Increase amount one can carry, making return trips to sell items less frequent.
• The items enemies drop are low weight and stackable (Final Fantasy XII), also reducing frequency of return trips.
  
• Pets who can return to town and sell items (Seen in Torchlight)
• Transmute spells, which will convert items to cash.
  
• Shops and merchants who are co-located near/in the dungeon at hand.
• Have a time system, either food or a deadline, which punishes players for returning to town more than the item is worth.
  
• Remove the selling system in its entirety (Crawl)

The other half of the issue is returning home to buy better equipment. This almost always follows the Sorting Algorithm of Weapon Effectiveness (read this link). The ways I've seen new equipment introduced into game include:

• As you travel farther from the starting area, or visit new towns, better equipment appears for purchase. 
• As you progress in the plot, items shops everywhere restock with better items
• Many items exist for purchase from the start of the game, but you can't use the good ones due to lack of skill, strength, or level
• Many items exist for purchase from the start of the game, but are priced out of range of all but the most dedicated grinding players

Analysis of these thoughts and my plans for Magecrawl's economy will have to wait for another post. Let me know if I missed something, or your thoughts in the comments.