Game News Age of Decadence Released on Steam Early Access

[Tigranes]

But you ARE going to fix the economy, right? It works in Teron, so I assume...

 

[Lhynn]

I don't see an easy way to fix it. Your brute has all that hard-earned loot to sell. Your merchant is on a salary.

I fail to see how this is a bad thing, or that it needs fixing, you get to keep what you kill, seems perfectly fair and fine to me, especially in that kind of world.
There should be stuff to spend your money on tho, even if just wasting it, like a wide variety of booze or context sensitive items like gifts and offerings to bypass some social checks you wouldnt be able to pass otherwise. (this could already be in the game for all i know, gonna play this weekend.)

 

[Irenaeus]

Fix: Walking around with lots of money should attrack more bandits.

 

[hiver]

There cannot be an actual economy like we have it - in a post apocalyptic setting.

If there was some bartering included that would seriously reduce the problems that "money" creates. But im not sure is that even feasible.

Admittedly my suggestion of making high quality stuff insanely expensive will create a slight problem that character with high crafting may get very rich - BUT... if such a character doesnt have a high trading skill he wont be able to sell that stuff for full prices. And, as far as i understand - high quality materials needed for crafting the best items will be very rare.

Even so - it is much lesser problem then just letting it go unchecked.

 

[Lhynn]

Fix: Walking around with lots of money should attrack more walking loot.

Fixed it.

 

[hiver]

I already suggested beefing up the guild missions and quest with additional small self contained quests.

That would also be a great money sink - if you could pay or hire your guild mates to go with you, or if you could pay them to train you a bit in your background related skills.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Obviously the game needs a stronghold money sink...

 

[Elhoim]

There cannot be an actual economy like we have it - in a post apocalyptic setting.

If there was some bartering included that would seriously reduce the problems that "money" creates. But im not sure is that even feasible.

Admittedly my suggestion of making high quality stuff insanely expensive will create a slight problem that character with high crafting may get very rich - BUT... if such a character doesnt have a high trading skill he wont be able to sell that stuff for full prices. And, as far as i understand - high quality materials needed for crafting the best items will be very rare.

Even so - it is much lesser problem then just letting it go unchecked.

We will try to fix the economy in the next updates. One issue we are having is that metal ingots sell for 1 gold at a min, so if we lower the price at which you can sell your stuff, it will be better for you to just melt everything you get and sell the ingots.

 

[Tigranes]

Healing should cost more than the pittance it does now - it's not like anyone will really get stuck having no cash to heal themselves, because every fight yields some money one way or another and you don't fight trash mobs then get stuck with low HP. Bribery solutions could also cost more, in Maadoran I could pay mobs 1000 gold no problem.

Of course, if equipment and other resources in Maadoran actually scale up and get diversified that might alleviate most of the problem anyway.

 

[Infinitron]

I'm digging Elhoim and Vault Dweller's good cop/bad cop routine

 

[Bilgefar]

Man, this game has one funky economy. Is there any place in Maadoraan where I can buy poisons? There's like a hundred different merchants but they're all either dummies, or sell the same useless bronze weaponry, while I have 5000 imperials burning a hole in my pocket.

Yeah the only major gripe I have is how the economy seems really strange. My dumb, ugly brute of an imperial guard is running around with 15000 gold, but my smooth talking, high trade merchant got something like 2000 gold total in the entire playthrough. I mean, it doesn't really matter since as I merchant I only spent money on paying thugs not to kill me, but still.

I don't see an easy way to fix it. Your brute has all that hard-earned loot to sell. Your merchant is on a salary.

Like I said, gameplay-wise there isn't a huge effect, so I can ignore it for the most part. It's just strange that joining the army will make you mega wealthy but being a skilled merchant will always leave you (relative to fighting characters) quite poor. Especially when the Commercium throws gold around like candy.

I do like the idea Tigranes suggests of making healing cost more. Right now healing after fights is more of a nuisance than a resource sink.

 

[Lhynn]

Spoiler

There just needs to be more opportunities for a merchant to make money. and more stuff to spend money on and voila, you have balance.

 

[hiver]

Healing should definitely be more expensive - depending on seriousness of wounds.
High quality items should be insanely expensive to buy.

You should be able to pay the more advanced members of your guild to train youre skills - that should be very - VERY expensive and give you one time boosts to a single skill. (just like a thief can get a single boost to lockipcks when reading Fengs books)

You should be able to hire a Boatman or a Thief to help you in some small side subquests. That should be Very expensive.

Also, lets have some prostitutes (fade to black - please) and drinking binges and paying for a party and drinks for everyone in some tavern - after which you wake up in a ditch, either robbed or ridiculed and without any friends, as is the way of life in Age of Decadence.

We will try to fix the economy in the next updates. One issue we are having is that metal ingots sell for 1 gold at a min, so if we lower the price at which you can sell your stuff, it will be better for you to just melt everything you get and sell the ingots.

Make material ingots sell only in batches, not individually.
A whole crafted item should always cost more then the material - logic. Of course. So a crafted item needs to be always more expensive then material but there is no need to extremely lower the prices of sold items. Just enough.
So... a batch of say... ten ingots sells for 1 gold? If 10 is not enough then 20, 30 - whatever. Or use weight as a measure.

Then diversify by the type of material. Wood, leather - the cheapest - require largest batches. Then bronze, then iron - steel etc.

Im just throwing stuff out there. Maybe it could work? I have no idea - luckily youll get to deal with that part of heavy lifting while i twiddle my thumbs.


Additionally:
Have ordinary traders refuse to buy super high quality stuff - because they simply dont have enough money?

Make it clear that money isnt really worth that much through the gameplay. You cant eat it, you cant defend yourself with it (great little situation comes to mind: "oh dont kill me! ill pay you money! - edit- Raider takes the money and then kills you anyway to take more, or just because)
- and having large amounts and trying to bribe everyone around gets you a visit from thieves (who steal it!) and boatmen and GRIFTERS and high house centurions and bandits and .... everyone.

Like I said, gameplay-wise there isn't a huge effect, so I can ignore it for the most part. It's just strange that joining the army will make you mega wealthy but being a skilled merchant will always leave you (relative to fighting characters) quite poor. Especially when the Commercium throws gold around like candy.

I do like the idea Tigranes suggests of making healing cost more. Right now healing after fights is more of a nuisance than a resource sink.

Its not strange at all. When you look at that through the setting. A merchant is there to "earn" for the Comercium, not for himself. And he has no access to phat loot.

- also, Comercium isnt just about money, but about power, leverage and influence.

 

[Elhoim]

Make material ingots sell only in batches, not individually.

And then we have the issue of not being able to "sell" less than 10 like we have with arrows.

 

[hiver]

Allow such incomplete batches to be dropped from Inventory. - edit- i mean in the case the players cannot get rid of that as in the case with those buggy quarrels...

- its certainly a lesser problem anyway. Especially if a whole batch would be cheap.

- additionally - dont allow traders to have many batches of material to sell.

- also: reduce the number of ingots you get when you decompose items.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Well, if you weren't trustworthy enough before, why would he talk about it again? He's asking you to go get his money, so he has to trust you fully.

from a player view you are basically requiring players to read a guide beforehand so they know they have to do some arbitrary unconnected things in the right order or be forever locked out of an area and quest. this is hidden jrpg sidequest/ultimate weapon level of bad design. it wouldn't be so bad if you let people pick background options/perks some of which would give out woh points, but it's still meh and a rather stark contrast to the way the rest of the game seems to be designed.

from his point of view, he has this large stack of money sitting around and wants it back. so there comes this guy to the gate, sees there are people waiting, berates the guards about how they let thieves and assassins run on their streets but will leave refugees in need outside and when told that it is the law flatly pays the fee for all the people without much fussing around (apparently doesn't care all that much about money). when he asks about said guy he gets told that nobody really knows him since he is new in town (was in my case, either way, game just started so you had no opportunities to prove what you are made of). he decides not to ever in all of eternity trust said guy again, because as a raider that gave up raiding if there is one thing he knows it's that people never ever change, especially not guys nobody knew anything about who then went on to fulfill every quest honoring their obligations and have a fuckton of woh points.

then there is the alternative. you have this shifty obviously not honorable guy who fusses about and asks all the refugees for money and finally contributes some of his own to get them into town, who has a woh point because he murdered the new loremaster for the old one and is apparently somebody to be fully trusted for life.

that makes no sense whatsoever to me.

let people start with one point in woh and let them lose it in their first quests or something along those lines:
have every woh point count as 1 point, have letting the refugees in by paying for them outright without fussing about count as 1, regardless of how many times you have talked to him, let the old dood offer you his quest as soon as you have 2 points or offer you a miniquest to test you further if you have a single one where you get the opportunity to screw him over (say bring money to merchant guild, offer different possibilities to keep various amounts of said money, maybe one that seems like a crime without victims), if you fulfill that you also get the normal quest.
or do whatever, but either way it's bad currently and kinda reminds me of the time you posted that dialogue with the thieves guild leader that autokilled you during conversation if you pissed him off which now i believe nets you two fights and getting chased out of town without even being able to loot those sweet guard corpses (suckage).

 

[Tigranes]

Don't do it, hiver! Every comment you make delays AOD by another Thursday!

 

[hiver]

Time - and thursdays - are merely an illusion. Quality isnt.

Seriously though, i try to make suggestions that would take the least time - be simplest to implement. And i already got use to them not accepting many of my suggestions - since just getting "my stuff in" is not my intention at all anyway.

I just hope my suggestion can give them an idea, if its not really applicable.

 

[Bilgefar]

Its not strange at all. When you look at that through the setting. A merchant is there to "earn" for the Comercium, not for himself. And he has no access to phat loot.

- also, Comercium isnt just about money, but about power, leverage and influence.

That doesn't make it any less strange that an Imperial Guard will get fabulously wealthy while a merchant remains rather poor. Sure, in the game an IG has access to phat loot, but really only the PC does, none of the other IG grunts have thousands of gold from looting all the fallen enemies of the IG. One would think the Imperial Guard as an institution would get the majority of the spoils of war instead of (only one of) its lowly soldiers.

And yes, the merchant is there to earn for the Commercium, but in real life that tends to mean earning for yourself as well. Large, wealthy organizations generally pay their talented workers very well because that talent is what earns them more money. Even through the lens of the setting of AoD it's confusing as to how a merchant who has proven very valuable to the Commercium is a dirty peasant in comparison to a soldier who is good at killing things. Being a good, talented soldier tends to not make one wealthy unless actually in command.

I'm not even saying merchants should be richer. Again, I never had a problem with money as a merchant. But it seems like phat loot is worth so much money and healing is so cheap that any fighting man worth his salt should be nobility in the world of AoD. Yet that isn't the case.

 

[hiver]

Its not strange at all. When you look at that through the setting. A merchant is there to "earn" for the Comercium, not for himself. And he has no access to phat loot.

- also, Comercium isnt just about money, but about power, leverage and influence.

That doesn't make it any less strange that an Imperial Guard will get fabulously wealthy while a merchant remains rather poor.

No, youre just seeing it wrong. The Merchant will get extremely influential (i hope so but i still havent played the Merchant) while the IG will get wealthy and then waste all of that money on superficial stuff. For a Merchant in AoD the money is just a tool, not the ultimate goal.

Sure, in the game an IG has access to phat loot, but really only the PC does, none of the other IG grunts have thousands of gold from looting all the fallen enemies of the IG. One would think the Imperial Guard as an institution would get the majority of the spoils of war instead of (only one of) its lowly soldiers.

That can change easily with addition of more money sinks, etc.

And yes, the merchant is there to earn for the Commercium, but in real life that tends to mean earning for yourself as well. Large, wealthy organizations generally pay their talented workers very well because that talent is what earns them more money. Even through the lens of the setting of AoD it's confusing as to how a merchant who has proven very valuable to the Commercium is a dirty peasant in comparison to a soldier who is good at killing things. Being a good, talented soldier tends to not make one wealthy unless actually in command.

I think you still apply too much of our reality to it and i dont doubt these things will be handled before the game goes out in full.

Good to bring this issue up in that sense, but i wouldnt worry too much about it.

 

[hiver]

let people start with one point in woh

No, WoH should be earned.

regardless of how many times you have talked to him, let the old dood offer you his quest as soon as you have -

This is the simplest solution.

offer you a miniquest to test you further

Sounds good too but the first solution is simplest to implement. And most internally consistent and coherent.

From a narrative point the old codger has a reason to like you - because you helped him and his family - which should mean he would keep an ear out to hear about you further.

 

[Niektory]

Make material ingots sell only in batches, not individually.

And then we have the issue of not being able to "sell" less than 10 like we have with arrows.

No batches are necessary. Allow selling individual units, but make the price a fraction. Round down when selling, round up when buying (after multiplying by the number of units). This will prevent exploits, and no player is going to be angry that he lost 1 coin due to rounding.

 

[Bubbles]

Or just reduce the value of gold the next time you rebalance prices.

 

[Saduj]

He's an ex-raider. You'll learn more when you do his quest.

speaking of which, it's kinda stupid that when you don't have 1woh when speaking with him for the first time after letting him in he never ever mentions the quest again.
also the quest is not in the superdemo?

Well, if you weren't trustworthy enough before, why would he talk about it again? He's asking you to go get his money, so he has to trust you fully.

But that first quest is one of the easiest to do so most players go and do it as soon as possible to get some SP and a very good armor. Which means they most probably didnt have a chance to get a WoH yet and you do need to talk to him to get that armor - which is very necessary for many builds. In AoD these are HUGE incentives.

It seems it unintentionally turns into a setup that demands player to be telepathic.

Well, atleast in the case of a Thief and a Boatman, as far as i know, since these two builds dont really have a chance to earn the WoH so early. And even so the player would need to know that opportunity even exists - in order to go and purposefully get WoH - to get that quest.

While the game has several moments like this and setups like this - it seems to me this one takes that approach a bit too far and could or should be slightly adjusted.

In the end, i dont think the player should already have a WoH, in advance - people earn that - so someone expecting a person to have WoH since birth - practically - isnt really logical.
I dont see why Aemoas cannot "hear" that you earned WoH sometime later - and thus proven yourself to be trustworthy - which aligned with the fact you helped him and his family to enter the city should be a very convincing argument to trust you.

- in this way the player doesnt loose even the possibility of a quest appearing at all - but its still dependent on WoH.

I don't disagree that meta-knowledge helps in this case but one of the first, easy quests that the game steers you towards very early in all backgrounds gives WoH

Spoiler

When Feng pays you to kill Cassisus, kill Cassius instead of letting him talk you out of it.

[/quote]

 

[hiver]

Yeah sure. I forgot that one. Or wasnt paying attention to WoH score there.
Still, the problem arises because the quest with Aemolas is so easy and gives you such a good reward that mostly its the thing you go and get done first. I usually wait with Feng and Cassius so i can get the eye and the ring. Or to raise some talking skill before doing it.

Its not a problem of "getting it all" - im fine with being secluded from something. Its just that the setup and reasoning doesnt seem that consistent and coherent in the setting and in the narrative of that sub quest.

The option should not just disappear if you dont have WoH the first time you talk to Aemolas. It should become available if you get WoH later on and disappear if you get -1 in it.