Balancing the market in TW3

[madrugada83]

Balancing the market in TW3

Fish should cost more inland and is cheaper on the coast. This came out on the PR gig on the E3.

I like the thought of a market system in a realistic manner. Not every merchant has the same stuff, not everywhere are the same prices. In a city where a whole lot of smiths are, the weapons and armors are more affordable because they stay in competition.

Everything fine so far, but there comes the problem: The fast travel system.
So how can you get up a balanced system when you actually can fast travel and buy some fish on the coastline and fork it over in the mountains and make much orens in a short time. If you can make 200 orens in 3 minutes and from a quest you get a 100 and need 30 minutes to get the quest done, thats suboptimal. A player does not have to use this "glitch", but you can. Maybe some of you remember the alchemy boost in Skyrim, which set the balance out of order.

So as a developer, what can you do? Make the prices only vary very little? Geralt only can carry 10 kilo?
Maybe someone has an idea how CDPR can implement that feature without downsides.

 

[Mothra]

I hope this is only a little flavor they add to the game and not a suitable means of income.
I never grinded in TW1+TW2, only did the quests and maybe farmed for some mutagens in TW2 and I never ever had any problems with money whatsoever. If ppl enjoy doing tedious stuff like poker-playing 100000x over and over, I don't care. The same as I don't care if they wanna play the game via fast-travelling back and forth to do some boring stuff like selling goods instead of monster hunting and enjoying the scenery/story.
If the devs want to balance this, it would be very easy to implement that prices for goods just fall immediately after Geralt oversaturated the market with imports.

 

[chiefje]

Well, if we actually need to eat the fish to stay alive, it would cost us 20 fish to fast travel to the coast. Otherwise we'd die of hunger. But I doubt we need to eat in TW3, so maybe it was just an example.

I do like the idea that (just like in the books), for example you get rewarded in gemstones, and you can sell them in different places where you get a different amount of money for them.

 

[Cs__sz__r]

I hope for a Balanced market, but like Mothra I never needed to grind in either game except to get the dark armour. I do like the over saturation idea. Oh and everyone begins to complain of fishy smells.

 

[TheMorbidAtheist]

I'll include this as another reason for not wanting the fast travel system altogether.

 

[Cs__sz__r]

I'll include this as another reason for not wanting the fast travel system altogether.

I still say fast travel should be on a very limited scale. Such as only one place in the three main areas. Because I know the first playthrough I won't use it, but by the third I will.

 

[madrugada83]

I still say fast travel should be on a very limited scale. Such as only one place in the three main areas. Because I know the first playthrough I won't use it, but by the third I will.

After listening to the "behind doors show" on E3, it seems the fast travel system will be the same as in Skyrim. You first have to discover the place, but then its available to fast travel on your map.

 

[Triss_Merigold1]

Everything fine so far, but there comes the problem: The fast travel system.
So how can you get up a balanced system when you actually can fast travel and buy some fish on the coastline and fork it over in the mountains and make much orens in a short time.

I am not sure if i get the full idea of what you were saying. But if you were referring to buying fish from coastal area and then sell it up somewhere over mountains. But again purchase price and selling price have a very high ratio. One can never get profit even if he buys it from coastal area and sell it to mountain. He can simply minimize it's loss but can never make profit from it. As usually something you purchase worth of 200 orens will have selling price of hardly 30 orens. so it cannot do the purpose of having profit from it.

 

[username_3294916]

Don't forget that you have to actually discover a location to fast travel to it in the first place.
I don't know how it will work but chances are that at beginning of the game we won't even reach coast to use the "bug"
And by the time we will get to the coast that price difference won't be that big cause we will have money from quests and hunting.

 

[Cs__sz__r]

After listening to the "behind doors show" on E3, it seems the fast travel system will be the same as in Skyrim. You first have to discover the place, but then its available to fast travel on your map.

I know, sadly.

 

[dragonbird]

Fast travel - OK.
Balanced market - OK.
Both of them in the same game - not OK.

If fast travel is supposed to actually exist in the Witcher world, the "fish cost more inland" argument shouldn't apply, because the guy who runs the inland fish store is going to use it to insta-port his wares from the coast, and because there are going to be a LOT of entrepreneurs who have a lot more free time than Geralt and spend it jumping between towns to take advantage of market price discrepancies.

So geographical constraints no longer impact on market prices. The price of the trip may be a factor, but it should be cheaper to pay the surcharge for one fish than to do the return trip yourself.

And if fast travel is just a game mechanic, and doesn't really exist in the world, then the "encourages grinding" arguments would apply.

 

[Agent_Blue]

And if fast travel is just a game mechanic, and doesn't really exist in the world, then the "encourages grinding" arguments would apply.

That's why turning Fast travel into a in-game mechanic would be the best route, *provided* there'd be some cost associated with it, such as it being hard to secure.

 

[Cs__sz__r]

One thing I've quite enjoyed in replaying DA Origins is their way of fast travel. One of the few things Bioware did not mess up. If CDPR went this route with the exception of making random encounters more interesting I could live.

 

[madrugada83]

I am not sure if i get the full idea of what you were saying. But if you were referring to buying fish from coastal area and then sell it up somewhere over mountains. But again purchase price and selling price have a very high ratio. One can never get profit even if he buys it from coastal area and sell it to mountain. He can simply minimize it's loss but can never make profit from it. As usually something you purchase worth of 200 orens will have selling price of hardly 30 orens. so it cannot do the purpose of having profit from it.

Yeah it has to be this way that Geralt is a very bad seller and only gets much less then the price he bought something. Therefore the minor price differences between merchants are insignificant if it comes to selling. That leads to the next question. Is getting better prices from merchants a skill?

 

[Garrison72]

Geralt is a monster hunter, not a trader. His main income should be earned from completing quests, monster contracts and the occasional Orens or special items he loots. There is the potential for this mechanic to actually dilute the purpose of lore and gameplay, and is indeed one of those pitfalls of making a Witcher game open world.

 

[dragonbird]

That's why turning Fast travel into a in-game mechanic would be the best route, *provided* there'd be some cost associated with it, such as it being hard to secure.

Or you just don't have price variations.

 

[Triss_Merigold1]

That leads to the next question. Is getting better prices from merchants a skill?

Umm, There is no confirmation yet. But as far as i have seen the interviews of our dear CDPR guys, they did mention that our skills will be divided into 3 categories namely magic, swordsmanship, alchemy. Judging from that alone i do not think there will be any such skill. But who knows there could be another branch of skill with term "general" or something else as it was in witcher 2, and maybe it will provide such skill.

But ultimately again even with that skill a selling price will never be higher than buying price independent of where you bought it or sold it.

 

[Agent_Blue]

Or you just don't have price variations.

Which would be kind of bizarre in such a vast war-torn world.

 

[cmdr_silverbolt]

Geralt is a monster hunter, not a trader. His main income should be earned from completing quests, monster contracts and the occasional Orens or special items he loots. There is the potential for this mechanic to actually dilute the purpose of lore and gameplay, and is indeed one of those pitfalls of making a Witcher game open world.

Ah, back up, you said everything I wanted to say till the open world part. How do I get back my +1?

Regardless, I don't think making the game open world implies that it needs to become more asinine with regards to the nitty gritty details. I think the charm of a gameworld is that it isn't too realistic, and the balance should come from adding realism to the parts which benefit the gameplay, but not to those parts which don't do that.

Like Slim mentioned, Geralt's life is not about being a trader, and some players are not playing this game for enhanced economics gameplay. If the game was about business or trading, I would be all for adding copious amounts of elements which affect that kind of gameplay.

But the fact is that the only meaningful interaction we have with in-game markets is when we sell/buy things to get better equipment or other things to help with monster hunting, so it doesn't make sense to make it tough for the player to do this activity when the solution to the problem is very uninspired and boring: grinding (killing monsters) for money.

Seriously, some players would prefer not to waste time grinding for money when they can be role-playing as Geralt monster hunter/investigator or Geralt-on-a-quest-to-solve-problems/get-his-life-together.

I don't mind the kind of realism in the game where the economy of a war-hurt region is negatively affected, but I wouldn't appreciate anything more than that.

 

[Agent_Blue]

Ah, back up, you said everything I wanted to say till the open world part. How do I get back my +1?

Regardless, I don't think making the game open world implies that it needs to become more asinine with regards to the nitty gritty details. I think the charm of a gameworld is that it isn't too realistic, and the balance should come from adding realism to the parts which benefit the gameplay, but not to those parts which don't do that.

Like Slim mentioned, Geralt's life is not about being a trader, and some players are not playing this game for enhanced economics gameplay. If the game was about business or trading, I would be all for adding copious amounts of elements which affect that kind of gameplay.

But the fact is that the only meaningful interaction we have with in-game markets is when we sell/buy things to get better equipment or other things to help with monster hunting, so it doesn't make sense to make it tough for the player to do this activity when the solution to the problem is very uninspired and boring: grinding (killing monsters) for money.

Seriously, some players would prefer not to waste time grinding for money when they can be role-playing as Geralt monster hunter/investigator or Geralt-on-a-quest-to-solve-problems/get-his-life-together.

I don't mind the kind of realism in the game where the economy of a war-hurt region is negatively affected, but I wouldn't appreciate anything more than that.

It's a war-torn time. Prices would have gone berserk, with all the scarcity and extreme inflation. Or would you rather have the economy functioning like a breeze?

And stop changing your avatar once every 12 hours. You go unnoticed and I can't mock your infant drawing skills.