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BALLIN': DISCUSSING MONEY AND HOW IT WORKS IN GAMEPLAY
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Feldschlacht IV
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CloseA lot of games, RPG or not nowadays feature money. Or credits, or gold, or gil, or whatever you call your currency. But the big question is; how to acquire money and how to spend it is a major thing that has to be thought about for a big before implementing it. So let's talk about that!
My biggest pet peeve in games with money to get is the lack of being able to meaningfully spend it. Now don't get me wrong, I don't need any groundbreaking ways to spend money, I'm fine with the regular 'buy more stuff' mechanic, but in games where item acquiring isn't linked to money as promently, they fail to replace this mechanic with a meaningful way to spend cash.
FF8 is a pretty egregious of this as it doesn't have weapons/armor due to the Junction system, and there are a lot of items, but they are mostly gained from cards and slaying monsters. This is fine, but the player gets a guaranteed stipend of cash in intervals, and as your SeeD rank rises, you can make serious bank. However as the game progresses there is really nothing to spend it on as weapon modification is cheap and infrequent and stock items never change and are also cheap. By the end of the game you're filthy rich with nothing to spend it on, especially moreso considering the nature of the final stretch of the game.
But this is only one example of games that have a notable money example. This topic is about making and spending money in games (and not just RPGs). Discuss!
My biggest pet peeve in games with money to get is the lack of being able to meaningfully spend it. Now don't get me wrong, I don't need any groundbreaking ways to spend money, I'm fine with the regular 'buy more stuff' mechanic, but in games where item acquiring isn't linked to money as promently, they fail to replace this mechanic with a meaningful way to spend cash.
FF8 is a pretty egregious of this as it doesn't have weapons/armor due to the Junction system, and there are a lot of items, but they are mostly gained from cards and slaying monsters. This is fine, but the player gets a guaranteed stipend of cash in intervals, and as your SeeD rank rises, you can make serious bank. However as the game progresses there is really nothing to spend it on as weapon modification is cheap and infrequent and stock items never change and are also cheap. By the end of the game you're filthy rich with nothing to spend it on, especially moreso considering the nature of the final stretch of the game.
But this is only one example of games that have a notable money example. This topic is about making and spending money in games (and not just RPGs). Discuss!
Arandomgamemaker
1629
I don't like grindy Dragon Quest style ways of earning money. That's bullcrap.
author=Arandomgamemaker
I don't like grindy Dragon Quest style ways of earning money. That's bullcrap.
Me either; but I think a slow money gain can work in a game where money is less of a routine resource the player gains and spends and more of a slow burning 'congrats you finally saved up enough moneybucks to buy this cool ass sword' thing when stuff bought in shops are notable treasures.
Uh like, SaGa Frontier money is pretty hard to get and save up for, but that's mostly because the stuff you buy in shops tends to be really powerful and expensive and most of the item acquisition is gained through battles and dungeon exploration. Therefore once the player saves up enough money to buy a ZeroSword or a SprigganSuit they usually deserve it.
Desertopa
775
I think that too many games just fork over all the money you could really want just for wandering around killing things. Obviously, the idea that wandering monsters and such carry money at all generally doesn't make any sense, and this is a point that's already been done to death, but as a genre convention people generally won't question it. But the idea that anyone with sufficient fighting prowess can come by so much money so trivially is confusing in its own separate way, which I think is often to the games' detriment. Scarcity offers opportunity for gameplay challenges, and makes the game's economy a bit less nonsensical.
I think it's best if the player, under ordinary gameplay circumstances, can buy most of what they want (loss aversion means that if the player can't buy most of what they want, then the frustration over the things they couldn't get will outweigh the pleasure at the things they got,) but not everything they want. Having some tradeoffs involved makes buying things feel like more of a meaningful gameplay choice.
I think it's best if the player, under ordinary gameplay circumstances, can buy most of what they want (loss aversion means that if the player can't buy most of what they want, then the frustration over the things they couldn't get will outweigh the pleasure at the things they got,) but not everything they want. Having some tradeoffs involved makes buying things feel like more of a meaningful gameplay choice.
thatbennyguy
1612
I want to buy upgrades, loot, items and equipment, and I want to buy it now, no buts!
Kentona outlines, in his FUNdamentals of RPGs Part I, the "Treasure Hunter" player type. Typically these guys are turned on by frequently distributed and valuable booty, the process of bargains, making shrewd sales decisions, and organizing their inventory excessively. The game to them is one big shopping mall. It's good if you explain the history of each and every item in the game too, apparently. Basically, people want to collect goodies. They've been hooked on it since Spyro, and they're not going to stop now.
To answer your question, people love acquiring things simply because they love acquiring things. Mankind has the primal instinct, ever since we were cavemen, to love taking stuff and calling it our own. Games can play on this motion by feeding man's selfish desire by giving them whatever their heart's desire is, while placing in front them enough obstacles to justify the illusion that they "earned" it.
Take the Skinner Box. Science proves that a chamber containing a bar or key that an animal can press or manipulate in order to obtain food or water as a type of reinforcement, means that schedules of reinforcement can stimulate the animal brain to provide positive feedback for your actions. Or something. "Getting" stuff for "doing" stuff has been the staple of mankind, and whether it's "useful" or not usually doesn't matter.
Kentona outlines, in his FUNdamentals of RPGs Part I, the "Treasure Hunter" player type. Typically these guys are turned on by frequently distributed and valuable booty, the process of bargains, making shrewd sales decisions, and organizing their inventory excessively. The game to them is one big shopping mall. It's good if you explain the history of each and every item in the game too, apparently. Basically, people want to collect goodies. They've been hooked on it since Spyro, and they're not going to stop now.
To answer your question, people love acquiring things simply because they love acquiring things. Mankind has the primal instinct, ever since we were cavemen, to love taking stuff and calling it our own. Games can play on this motion by feeding man's selfish desire by giving them whatever their heart's desire is, while placing in front them enough obstacles to justify the illusion that they "earned" it.
Take the Skinner Box. Science proves that a chamber containing a bar or key that an animal can press or manipulate in order to obtain food or water as a type of reinforcement, means that schedules of reinforcement can stimulate the animal brain to provide positive feedback for your actions. Or something. "Getting" stuff for "doing" stuff has been the staple of mankind, and whether it's "useful" or not usually doesn't matter.
turkeyDawg
195
I guess a mention could go to Pokemon's really limited money system. In the old games there weren't any trainer re-fights, so the Elite Four was your only money source after the "end" of the game. Most of the items you can buy are unique and incredibly useful, but also often pretty pricey, making budgeting something of a thing.
Also, in Earthbound/Mother 3, you get money for defeating enemies, but its put into your bank account rather than your money on hand. EB explains it as your Dad giving you your allowance or whatever, but M3 doesn't give any explanation as to where the money comes from or why frogs are the ones handling it.
Then again, I seem to be in the minority when it comes to my complete aversion to collecting things or 100%-ing anything. I'm also probably in the tiniest of minorities in my belief that the collect-a-thon craze ruined the platforming genre (though it seems to have gotten better lately).
author=Feldschlacht IVI remember thinking this in LoZ: Link to the Past. I keep finding all these damn treasure chests, but other than a small handful of big-ticket items, there isn't much to spend on. I think a lot of other Zelda games do this too, but my memory is kinda sketchy.
By the end of the game you're filthy rich with nothing to spend it on,
author=DesertopaReminds me of one of my old projects I worked on back in high school. Rather than getting money, you got parts from all the enemies you fought, which you could either sell for money or use for various other things. I guess Monster Hunter games work like that, too, but I've never really played any.
Obviously, the idea that wandering monsters and such carry money at all generally doesn't make any sense
Also, in Earthbound/Mother 3, you get money for defeating enemies, but its put into your bank account rather than your money on hand. EB explains it as your Dad giving you your allowance or whatever, but M3 doesn't give any explanation as to where the money comes from or why frogs are the ones handling it.
author=thatbennyguySure it matters. Useful stuff is inherently more interesting than useless stuff!
"Getting" stuff for "doing" stuff has been the staple of mankind, and whether it's "useful" or not usually doesn't matter.
Then again, I seem to be in the minority when it comes to my complete aversion to collecting things or 100%-ing anything. I'm also probably in the tiniest of minorities in my belief that the collect-a-thon craze ruined the platforming genre (though it seems to have gotten better lately).
author=Des
I think that too many games just fork over all the money you could really want just for wandering around killing things. Obviously, the idea that wandering monsters and such carry money at all generally doesn't make any sense, and this is a point that's already been done to death, but as a genre convention people generally won't question it. But the idea that anyone with sufficient fighting prowess can come by so much money so trivially is confusing in its own separate way, which I think is often to the games' detriment. Scarcity offers opportunity for gameplay challenges, and makes the game's economy a bit less nonsensical.
There are creative ways around this I think. Some ideas are the concept that monsters eat money, or whatever is considered as money. Another is the idea that you sell monster hides to get money in return. Yet another is the idea that slaying monsters coincides with gaining money in an outside account, like Earthbound mentioned above.
author=Des
I think it's best if the player, under ordinary gameplay circumstances, can buy most of what they want (loss aversion means that if the player can't buy most of what they want, then the frustration over the things they couldn't get will outweigh the pleasure at the things they got,) but not everything they want. Having some tradeoffs involved makes buying things feel like more of a meaningful gameplay choice.
I think this is very important. A lot of games give you more than enough cash to buy everything you need at every opportunity to shop, which I think robs the player of having to make hard choices and finding alternative solutions instead of robotically buying everything out every stop.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
I posted an article about handling equpiment upgrades back in December.
Here's the relevant part about item costs:
@turkeyDawg: The entire Legend of Zelda series is one of the worst cases of handling in-game currency I can think of. The only reason these games seem to even have money at all is to limit the number of times in a row you can attempt the shooting range minigame.
Here's the relevant part about item costs:
author=LockeZ
If you hand out new equipment for every dungeon, which is just about the most often that you can possibly give out upgrades in most games, it's going to mean that you have to make them really cheap. It's also going to mean that you have to increase the strength of the monsters by a lot every dungeon.
You don't want the player to always be able to easily afford everything, because if they can always get everything, why do you even have money instead of just giving them these upgrades automatically for free? And if you force them grind money to get everything before moving on, they're gonna get annoyed at the mandatory grind. So typically you want them to be forced to choose which items to buy with their limited funds, but then able to do okay with those choices as long as they choose intelligently.
If your equipment is obtained by a different method than buying it with gold, most of the above actually still applies. The player still has to work for the gear and probably shouldn't be getting 100% of what's available, for the same reasons, no matter what method he actually has to use to get it, whether that's a crafting system, or an arena, or whatever.
For this reason, giving out 100% of your equipment through treasure chests in a linear game is almost always a pretty bad idea. Treasure chest equipment can be a nice freebie, and is interesting when it helps make up for equipment you may have skipped buying or earning, but it's no longer nice-feeling or interesting if you get everything that way. Limit treasure chests to only covering a small fraction of the player's equipment, and give the rest out another way. Equipment that drops from bosses or drops commonly from normal enemies is basically the same - you're getting it automatically as you play through a mandatory dungeon, so it's not that different from a treasure chest.
@turkeyDawg: The entire Legend of Zelda series is one of the worst cases of handling in-game currency I can think of. The only reason these games seem to even have money at all is to limit the number of times in a row you can attempt the shooting range minigame.
Travio
149
author=LockeZ
@turkeyDawg: The entire Legend of Zelda series is one of the worst cases of handling in-game currency I can think of. The only reason these games seem to even have money at all is to limit the number of times in a row you can attempt the shooting range minigame.
Also as a content gate without really directly being a content gate - hide one item you need to move on behind a 200 ruppee cost, then don't let people have more than 99 ruppees until you're ready for them to get that item (which will, no doubt, either make dungeons easier or let them into dungeons).
A lot of it is about balance, too. If you're going to make potions cost a fuckton of money, and enemies take half your health per battle, then you want a fuckton of money just to heal.
I've been seeing this issue in a lot of the games I've LT'd - enemies hurt, healing spells are shit, as are item heals (hence needing more of them), money is slow to accumulate. I can quite honestly say that after quite a few games like that I'd prefer more money than less because otherwise it's so annoying just to get past an area at all. (God forbid you want to save for armour, too. >.<; )
One way to alleviate this and still allow for less money flow is to ply your player with lots of treasures to find. More than one potion in a chest, for example. Or items that allow for multiple heals (who drinks a full jug of potion in one sitting, anyway? And using a whole salve to heal that missing 10 of 20 HP is just ridiculous!)
The big issue is balance, really. You need to balance out damage vs heal vs cost vs availability. It's a tightrope walk but if you're careful you can make it so that it all balances out well. Frankly, a little extra in the kitty isn't going to hurt you - the player feels like they're making some progress by actually accumulating a bit extra. When that happens, have something on the side that they can spend it on if they want - tickets to mini-game central (Gold Saucer!) or a virtual pet you have to take care of (buying food/toys/etc) or items to woo the other characters in your party.
I've been seeing this issue in a lot of the games I've LT'd - enemies hurt, healing spells are shit, as are item heals (hence needing more of them), money is slow to accumulate. I can quite honestly say that after quite a few games like that I'd prefer more money than less because otherwise it's so annoying just to get past an area at all. (God forbid you want to save for armour, too. >.<; )
One way to alleviate this and still allow for less money flow is to ply your player with lots of treasures to find. More than one potion in a chest, for example. Or items that allow for multiple heals (who drinks a full jug of potion in one sitting, anyway? And using a whole salve to heal that missing 10 of 20 HP is just ridiculous!)
The big issue is balance, really. You need to balance out damage vs heal vs cost vs availability. It's a tightrope walk but if you're careful you can make it so that it all balances out well. Frankly, a little extra in the kitty isn't going to hurt you - the player feels like they're making some progress by actually accumulating a bit extra. When that happens, have something on the side that they can spend it on if they want - tickets to mini-game central (Gold Saucer!) or a virtual pet you have to take care of (buying food/toys/etc) or items to woo the other characters in your party.
If monsters dropping gold bothers you just handwave it away with "You salvaged 27 nickels worth of goods from the monsters". Now if you're going to ask about how they drop swords and shit then I've got nothing. 
More on topic, I try a few things to make money valuable. For example, while the Omega Sword may be found in a chest in The Reaches Between Dimensions off in the town of Slewrock is Bob the Vendor selling the Psi Sword for triple a king's ransom. Then there's Lianne in Breeze Port selling the Penultimate Spear and Rick in Yew who put the Magic Axe up for sale. By the endgame you can afford one, maybe two, and you've got to pick based on who's getting the best stuff and the rest of the second fiddles determining their pecking order. What one should the player pick?
I'm also mucking a bit about with consumables. I have a condemned-like status that once it runs out the character dies. The only way to remove this status is:
1) End the fight and the status is automatically removed. There are consumables that delay the timer of the status effect slightly which while cheap in gold can cost a lot of time in harder battles.
2) Die.
3) Use an expensive but entirely purchasable in unlimited quantities healing item!
Relatedly I also have consumables that can replicate abilities (or be entirely new abilities once I decide what they are) where the only cost is having somebody use the item in place of MP/Rage/Restrictions. These items would be quite expensive though and possibly inventory limited, but it's all undecided. Just another idea to avoid huge piles of useless cash burning a hole in your pocket.
More on topic, I try a few things to make money valuable. For example, while the Omega Sword may be found in a chest in The Reaches Between Dimensions off in the town of Slewrock is Bob the Vendor selling the Psi Sword for triple a king's ransom. Then there's Lianne in Breeze Port selling the Penultimate Spear and Rick in Yew who put the Magic Axe up for sale. By the endgame you can afford one, maybe two, and you've got to pick based on who's getting the best stuff and the rest of the second fiddles determining their pecking order. What one should the player pick?
I'm also mucking a bit about with consumables. I have a condemned-like status that once it runs out the character dies. The only way to remove this status is:
1) End the fight and the status is automatically removed. There are consumables that delay the timer of the status effect slightly which while cheap in gold can cost a lot of time in harder battles.
2) Die.
3) Use an expensive but entirely purchasable in unlimited quantities healing item!
Relatedly I also have consumables that can replicate abilities (or be entirely new abilities once I decide what they are) where the only cost is having somebody use the item in place of MP/Rage/Restrictions. These items would be quite expensive though and possibly inventory limited, but it's all undecided. Just another idea to avoid huge piles of useless cash burning a hole in your pocket.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Fuck you Desertopa, you trapped me in TV Tropes for the last two hours.
TheNecromancer
3160
author=LockeZ
@turkeyDawg: The entire Legend of Zelda series is one of the worst cases of handling in-game currency I can think of. The only reason these games seem to even have money at all is to limit the number of times in a row you can attempt the shooting range minigame.
You can buy enemy drop items in a pinch; hearts, bombs, arrows.
You can buy items you can't find; potions, other stuff I can't think of right now
You need to acquire an item at the store; shovel or bow in Link's Awakening
But I guess your assessment is edgier.
How about Mario games? You collect thousands of coins and don't get to spend a single one har har
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
But the new actual major items like the hylian shield and the shovel could have been obtained by solving a puzzle or exploring instead, and it would have fit the game better. Or hell, just replace the shop with a treasure chest. Adding that rupee cost as a barrier doesn't affect you at all if you already have enough rupees (because they're so worthless otherwise) and makes you grind if you don't. It adds nothing to the game, as far as I can tell.
And the ammo you can get by going outside the shop and picking up the rocks in its front yard. That's not meant to be a real purpose of shops; it's just something to fill them up with to help justify the existance of rupees. You can clearly tell that their thought process was "Damn, what else can we do with rupees? We need to add more things that they're used for, since we already have them, and they're so worthless. But it can't be anything good, because you can get infinite rupees for free effortlessly. I guess we can sell other things you can get infinite amounts of for free effortlessly, without affecting the game at all...?"
Potions are legit, and there are other game-specific ways of eating up your money, so admittedly I was exaggerating a little, but... not much.
And the ammo you can get by going outside the shop and picking up the rocks in its front yard. That's not meant to be a real purpose of shops; it's just something to fill them up with to help justify the existance of rupees. You can clearly tell that their thought process was "Damn, what else can we do with rupees? We need to add more things that they're used for, since we already have them, and they're so worthless. But it can't be anything good, because you can get infinite rupees for free effortlessly. I guess we can sell other things you can get infinite amounts of for free effortlessly, without affecting the game at all...?"
Potions are legit, and there are other game-specific ways of eating up your money, so admittedly I was exaggerating a little, but... not much.
thatbennyguy
1612
author=Link_2112author=LockeZYou can buy enemy drop items in a pinch; hearts, bombs, arrows.
@turkeyDawg: The entire Legend of Zelda series is one of the worst cases of handling in-game currency I can think of. The only reason these games seem to even have money at all is to limit the number of times in a row you can attempt the shooting range minigame.
You can buy items you can't find; potions, other stuff I can't think of right now
You need to acquire an item at the store; shovel or bow in Link's Awakening
But I guess your assessment is edgier.
How about Mario games? You collect thousands of coins and don't get to spend a single one har har
Yeah. Collectibles don't have to be useful to be good. They just have to be collectible and shinier than your front bonnet.
turkeyDawg
195
author=Link_2112You spend 100 of them for an extra life, but you don't get a choice as to whether or not you buy it har har
How about Mario games? You collect thousands of coins and don't get to spend a single one har har
author=LockeZIt barely even does that. Shooting range is what, 10 rupees? Chump change. Also, similar to the ammo-items you can buy in the shop if you really want to, who buys health potions when Lon Lon Milk and fairies are infinite and free? Not to mention most Zelda games are so damn easy you barely even need them anyways, unless your going into the Pit of 100 Trials or something similar.
@turkeyDawg: The entire Legend of Zelda series is one of the worst cases of handling in-game currency I can think of. The only reason these games seem to even have money at all is to limit the number of times in a row you can attempt the shooting range minigame.
Rupees are mostly just the occasional obstacle to advance the plot, like the 500 Rupee flippers or paying that guy 300 Rupees to fix the Sky Cannon. The absurdly high prices of these things are pretty much an acknowledgement by the developers that you're not really buying much else.
- - -
A lot of action games reward you with extra money for playing better. Or, at least, better according to their standards. Devil May Cry, Okami, The Red Star, etc. I don't mind it so much in Okami, but in DMC and Red Star, I'm actually not a huge fan of it. Thing is, the system makes it so that people who suck at the game can't buy the upgrades to suck less, and people who pwn the game can buy all the upgrades early on and make a joke out of it. I guess that's occasionally fun, but not worth the opposite situation.
While grinding is an option in DMC, The Red Star is completely linear (and rather short), so if you keep getting crap ranks, or buy the wrong things, you might feel tempted to just start the whole game over - I know this from experience! Turns out the other guns and some of other upgrades you can buy aren't worth the price... It might be better in two-player mode, where its not so critical to max out your strength, but good luck finding two nearby people who actually care about that game.
RyaReisender
200
Getting gold from monsters is actually the best system. While it might not make sense in real life (but we are talking about fictional world here anyway, who says and monster doesn't turn into gold coins when killed there?), it is still the best way to supply the player with an unlimited source of income that's fun to get (assuming the battle system is fun).
Other systems often end up with you having only limited amounts of gold and that sucks a lot. You might spend your gold wrong and then get stuck for example.
And even if they aren't limited because they feature repeatable quests, not everyone wants to do that one minigame over and over again for money.
Having that said, what's also important is how much money you get and how the encounters and shops work.
There are problems I encounter in always every RPG:
1. Can buy all equip in a shop when you reach it - this often happens in RPG. I do two dungeons, do lots of battles, earned lots of gold, then reach a new village with better weapons and I can immediately buy all of them. The whole gold and equip system is basically pointless in these games. The enemies also scale assuming you have the best weapons available in shops.
What's the point?
Shops should rather be designed to be thematic. Like even early on you already have a blacksmith who is well-versed with swords so he offers really strong swords nobody can afford. He also offers weaker axes and clubs you might buy at this point. Later in the game you come back to the shop and buy its best sword.
2. Bought items are not meaningful enough. Often there are quite many weapons in games and the only purpose is that they give more ATK and maybe a bit DEF or SPD bonus but that's it. You will not actually notice much different in combat. More often than not you need 3 hits to kill a monster with the best weapon and also with the second best weapon. Why did I even bother getting the best?
What should be done here is that there should only be a new weapon if it's significantly different from another weapon. Weapon that are just more damage should appear only if the new weapon is at least double as useful. So instead of having 7 weapons with ATK 10-14-18-23-30-37-45, why not just make 3 weapons with ATK 10-23-45? The new 4 weapon slots you have you can replace with more interesting weapon variations like elemental weapons or weapons with lower attack that allow you to act twice or hit all. This way if you come to a shop and see a good weapon and then grind until you can afford it, it will actually feel meaningful, because with the new weapon you can actually visit regions you couldn't survive in before.
3. Too much gold at endgame. Often I end up games with millions of gold and nothing to spend it on except maybe in a secret shop that sells items that boost a stat by 1 permanently and costs 5000000 a piece. Pointless! There should useful ways to spend your gold even in endgame.
Often the problem is also that the best equips and items can't be bought at all because you find them in chests. While that's interesting too it makes shops pointless.
This needs to be combined with make each equip meaningful. You can make for example two weapon that are similar as useful like one very strong weapon with no special abilities and one weapon that does less damage but is of a fire element, then the fire sword can be gotten in a chest but you might also save up for the really strong neutral weapon in that shop.
4. When talking about usable items, gold shouldn't matter at all for them. It's stupid if you need gold for such items when you get the gold from monsters but to defeat them you actually need to use them. It just creates boring grinding.
I just say this - healing items should be super cheap but strongly limited by the amount you can carry. As in... only 9 of each type! Or even less. Or make it so that items automatically refill for free and the only limit is how often you can use them per battle. To increase the number of refill slots now can be very expensive and a useful way to spend money (e.g. pay 50000 gold to increase the number of healing items usable per battle from 3 to 4).
Other systems often end up with you having only limited amounts of gold and that sucks a lot. You might spend your gold wrong and then get stuck for example.
And even if they aren't limited because they feature repeatable quests, not everyone wants to do that one minigame over and over again for money.
Having that said, what's also important is how much money you get and how the encounters and shops work.
There are problems I encounter in always every RPG:
1. Can buy all equip in a shop when you reach it - this often happens in RPG. I do two dungeons, do lots of battles, earned lots of gold, then reach a new village with better weapons and I can immediately buy all of them. The whole gold and equip system is basically pointless in these games. The enemies also scale assuming you have the best weapons available in shops.
What's the point?
Shops should rather be designed to be thematic. Like even early on you already have a blacksmith who is well-versed with swords so he offers really strong swords nobody can afford. He also offers weaker axes and clubs you might buy at this point. Later in the game you come back to the shop and buy its best sword.
2. Bought items are not meaningful enough. Often there are quite many weapons in games and the only purpose is that they give more ATK and maybe a bit DEF or SPD bonus but that's it. You will not actually notice much different in combat. More often than not you need 3 hits to kill a monster with the best weapon and also with the second best weapon. Why did I even bother getting the best?
What should be done here is that there should only be a new weapon if it's significantly different from another weapon. Weapon that are just more damage should appear only if the new weapon is at least double as useful. So instead of having 7 weapons with ATK 10-14-18-23-30-37-45, why not just make 3 weapons with ATK 10-23-45? The new 4 weapon slots you have you can replace with more interesting weapon variations like elemental weapons or weapons with lower attack that allow you to act twice or hit all. This way if you come to a shop and see a good weapon and then grind until you can afford it, it will actually feel meaningful, because with the new weapon you can actually visit regions you couldn't survive in before.
3. Too much gold at endgame. Often I end up games with millions of gold and nothing to spend it on except maybe in a secret shop that sells items that boost a stat by 1 permanently and costs 5000000 a piece. Pointless! There should useful ways to spend your gold even in endgame.
Often the problem is also that the best equips and items can't be bought at all because you find them in chests. While that's interesting too it makes shops pointless.
This needs to be combined with make each equip meaningful. You can make for example two weapon that are similar as useful like one very strong weapon with no special abilities and one weapon that does less damage but is of a fire element, then the fire sword can be gotten in a chest but you might also save up for the really strong neutral weapon in that shop.
4. When talking about usable items, gold shouldn't matter at all for them. It's stupid if you need gold for such items when you get the gold from monsters but to defeat them you actually need to use them. It just creates boring grinding.
I just say this - healing items should be super cheap but strongly limited by the amount you can carry. As in... only 9 of each type! Or even less. Or make it so that items automatically refill for free and the only limit is how often you can use them per battle. To increase the number of refill slots now can be very expensive and a useful way to spend money (e.g. pay 50000 gold to increase the number of healing items usable per battle from 3 to 4).
TheNecromancer
3160
author=LockeZFrom what I remember, you can lose that shield. So it allows you to buy it back. Having an extra way to acquire an item is not a bad thing.
But the new actual major items like the hylian shield and the shovel could have been obtained by solving a puzzle or exploring instead, and it would have fit the game better.
Adding that rupee cost as a barrier doesn't affect you at all if you already have enough rupees (because they're so worthless otherwise) and makes you grind if you don't. It adds nothing to the game, as far as I can tell.The barrier is there so you can't just start a new game and grab the item. And you don't need to grind. You just play the game naturally to get enough rupees, mostly from chests in dungeons and secret caves. There might be a few things you need to do some extra exploring/grinding for, but it's never been a problem for me. So maybe it's how you play the game and what else you do with your rupees. I've never played a Zelda game and got pissed at all the grinding I had to do. Also, I've rarely ever been required to buy something and not have enough rupees by that time.
And the ammo you can get by going outside the shop and picking up the rocks in its front yard.Not in every Zelda game. Especially not with stuff like bombs and arrows, those are more rare depending on the game. Zelda 1 you can't easily find bombs and you need rupees to shoot the bow. LttP I don't think bombs and arrows even come from bushes, just some rocks? It's been a while. The newer games put more ammo in bushes/rocks probably because running out and having to go to a shop is a pain in the ass. Especially in a dungeon.
The reason they would be in a shop is that you may need bombs now, and you don't feel like grinding aimlessly to find them. You can buy them if you are nearby. The fact that you can find them outside the shop, has no bearing on the usefulness of the shop that sells them.
That's not meant to be a real purpose of shops; it's just something to fill them up with to help justify the existance of rupees.That's your opinion which seems to be based on your interpretation of the point of everything.
You can clearly tell that their thought process was "Damn, what else can we do with rupees? We need to add more things that they're used for, since we already have them, and they're so worthless.It might be clear in your mind, but I disagree.
But it can't be anything good, because you can get infinite rupees for free effortlessly. I guess we can sell other things you can get infinite amounts of for free effortlessly, without affecting the game at all...?"If getting infinite rupees in a Zelda game is "effortless", then getting infinite gold in Final Fantasy is effortless too. You get rupees for playing the game normally - killing enemies/bushes/rocks and opening chests(or the occasional Zelda game with an easy minigame). Just like you get gold for playing FF normally - killing monsters and opening chests(and selling stuff). It's the same. And the cost of items is proportional to amount of money you get. 200 rupees for that item compared to 8,000 gold for that armor.
who buys health potions when Lon Lon Milk and fairies are infinite and free?There are magic potions in some games. Yes, fairies are the most useful bottle item and other things are more useful than potions but that doesn't make them pointless. If you don't know where to find fairies, but you know where to buy potions..you buy a potion. If you need something now and fairies are too far away, you can buy a potion. It's a low tier bottle item meant to be cheap and available early on. If games got rid of any item that had a better option then games would be incredibly boring.
Rupees are mostly just the occasional obstacle to advance the plot, like the 500 Rupee flippers or paying that guy 300 Rupees to fix the Sky Cannon. The absurdly high prices of these things are pretty much an acknowledgement by the developers that you're not really buying much else.Another insight to what the devs were thinking. You guys are true game psychics. Those prices aren't absurdly high, they are mildly high. If you play the game naturally without spending all your money on other things, you generally have that much when you reach that point in the game. If you spent all your money on bombs and potions, then yeah you'd have to grind. Just like if you spent all your money on potions and ethers, you'd have to grind to be able to afford armor in the next town.
Rupees function like money in any other game. You collect it by playing the game and use it to buy things big and small. Except you are probably comparing it to RPGs where money is used to buy gear and other extremely useful things. In Zelda you find the most useful things > therefore money is not as useful > therefore it's pointless. Zelda is an action game - so yes, you can beat it without buying anything extra with all that pointless money. You can beat it with 3 hearts too, lets get rid of those.
turkeyDawg
195
Yeah, I don't completely agree with LockeZ on that either. I'm fine with the shops being there, I just wish there was more in them. You get huge lumps of money all the time, but only occasionally spend small amounts at the shops.
Skyward Sword fixes this buy having a lot more optional equipment to sell, in addition to the equipment upgrade shop.
The only reason the "Rupee barrier" seems pointless is because whenever a big-ticket or required item shows up, its usually the only one. Compare this to other action games like DMC, Darksiders, etc where, when you hit the shop, there's a variety of useful things to buy, and they all cost an arm and a leg, at least in the early game.
- - -
Anyways, Twilight Princess actually has a pretty crazy, optional way to blow your cash: The Magic Armor. I think its, like, 2000 Rupees to fund the shop where you get it, then 600 to buy it. Then you put it on and it drains your Rupees in exchange for shielding your health. By the time you actually get this, you'll probably have 15 hearts and four bottles for potions/fairies, but this might still be the thing that saves your ass at the bottom of the Pit of 100 Trials. Cruel irony of it all, though, is that the reward for beating the Pit is infinite access to the best healing item... after clearing the hardest thing in the whole game!
Skyward Sword fixes this buy having a lot more optional equipment to sell, in addition to the equipment upgrade shop.
author=Link_2112I dunno, if a guy asked for half my wallet's capacity for a pair of flippers I might have to wonder what his damage is. But it is completely normal to have that kind of money by that point of the game - I know I did - which is why I make the assumption that the developers intended that.
Those prices aren't absurdly high, they are mildly high. If you play the game naturally without spending all your money on other things, you generally have that much when you reach that point in the game.
author=Link_2112Yeah from what I've seen of the game, you sure as hell can't. Rupees also seem to be a pretty tough grind if you don't know where all the secret stashes are - and God forbid one of those angry old men take your money!
in Zelda 1 you can't easily find bombs
author=LockeZThat's just it, though: Nearly all the equipment you get in most Zelda games is found or given to you, leaving the shops without much to sell.
Or hell, just replace the shop with a treasure chest.
The only reason the "Rupee barrier" seems pointless is because whenever a big-ticket or required item shows up, its usually the only one. Compare this to other action games like DMC, Darksiders, etc where, when you hit the shop, there's a variety of useful things to buy, and they all cost an arm and a leg, at least in the early game.
- - -
Anyways, Twilight Princess actually has a pretty crazy, optional way to blow your cash: The Magic Armor. I think its, like, 2000 Rupees to fund the shop where you get it, then 600 to buy it. Then you put it on and it drains your Rupees in exchange for shielding your health. By the time you actually get this, you'll probably have 15 hearts and four bottles for potions/fairies, but this might still be the thing that saves your ass at the bottom of the Pit of 100 Trials. Cruel irony of it all, though, is that the reward for beating the Pit is infinite access to the best healing item... after clearing the hardest thing in the whole game!
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Zelda 1 does a better job with money.
Scribblenauts is interesting in that money is used primarily to unlock new stages and otherwise only used to buy silly stuff like soundtracks/costumes. Because you can't farm money this actually works fine - every source of income in the game is one time only. Which... frankly is a system that way more RPGs could stand to adopt.
But the catch if you make all the sources of income be one-time-only is that you run into one of two possible problems. If you make it potentially possible to buy everything if the player gets all the possible money, then you need to make a fair amount of that money be optional and harder to get, maybe from getting higher rank successes in dungeons or something. Otherwise you run into the traditional "you can always afford practically 100% of everything" problem and money becomes fairly pointless. And even if you don't mind doing that, it still means you need some clever way of handling the purchase of consumable items.
If you don't make it possible to buy everything, then you end up with a survival game, where the player has to kind of guess (or, hopefully, intelligently discern) what to spend money on. Because if he makes the wrong decision, he's fucked and has to start the game over. He can't just go back and spend some time farming gold to buy the other thing instead. If the player can spend his limited funds on consumable items, which can be bought in as high of quantities as you can affort, this problem becomes much more severe as the chance of buying stuff you'll never end up using is much higher. Fire Emblem games work this way and the end result is that the player feels constantly terrified of making purchases. Maybe that's the kind of game you want! But maybe it's not.
Scribblenauts is interesting in that money is used primarily to unlock new stages and otherwise only used to buy silly stuff like soundtracks/costumes. Because you can't farm money this actually works fine - every source of income in the game is one time only. Which... frankly is a system that way more RPGs could stand to adopt.
But the catch if you make all the sources of income be one-time-only is that you run into one of two possible problems. If you make it potentially possible to buy everything if the player gets all the possible money, then you need to make a fair amount of that money be optional and harder to get, maybe from getting higher rank successes in dungeons or something. Otherwise you run into the traditional "you can always afford practically 100% of everything" problem and money becomes fairly pointless. And even if you don't mind doing that, it still means you need some clever way of handling the purchase of consumable items.
If you don't make it possible to buy everything, then you end up with a survival game, where the player has to kind of guess (or, hopefully, intelligently discern) what to spend money on. Because if he makes the wrong decision, he's fucked and has to start the game over. He can't just go back and spend some time farming gold to buy the other thing instead. If the player can spend his limited funds on consumable items, which can be bought in as high of quantities as you can affort, this problem becomes much more severe as the chance of buying stuff you'll never end up using is much higher. Fire Emblem games work this way and the end result is that the player feels constantly terrified of making purchases. Maybe that's the kind of game you want! But maybe it's not.
