Mod idea - better economy

[Garrison72]

Mod idea - better economy

I don't know if loot values and frequency are accessible in the modkit, but this economy is the least Witcher like of all three games. Geralt is as rich as a king half way through. It's a fairly big drawbacks for me, and it makes the game feel like a generic RPG and not a Witcher game, where Geralt struggles to make money. What makes this strange is the devs did an interview where they explained why Geralt is always poor, as defined by the lore...but this is 100% untrue. I don't know how they can say that unless they weren't part of the testing team. So, my idea is to reduce loot percentages, making what we do find more valuable. Same goes for herbs which are almost every ten feet in the game. I'm just curious if the modders out there have found this to be something we can access and change in the files.

 

[IrregularJohn]

I concur. Here's a post that I made in a thread about the same issue some time ago.

In-game economy seems screwed beyond measure. I'm at lvl 23 and I have about 23k. In the 1st Witcher game I remember how I could barely scrape enough for the new leather jacket back when a 1000 orens seemed unattainable. Now I feel like a millionaire so there's no point in haggling with folks anymore - I just except their initial offers now. However in the books Geralt was always broke and he took every contract as a chance to earn a bit more coin.

My suggestion is to increase the price of having the gear from those diagrams crafted by blacksmiths and armorers. The prices also could increase in conjunction with the sword/armor level. Plus master craftsmen should charge way more than they do now. At the moment you can craft an uber sword for a paltry sum of 100-150 crowns. Of course you're going to be a walking purse after completing multiple quests. But say crafting a 17 lvl sword would cost around 5000 then it would definitely hit your purse hard and that's the way I think it shoud be - quality gear always cost an arm and leg.

 

[thibaudv]

Me and my team are working on something. It's a big mod though, so we are probably a couple of weeks out. Stay tuned!

 

[Garrison72]

Me and my team are working on something. It's a big mod though, so we are probably a couple of weeks out. Stay tuned!

Cool, I look forward to it.

:victory:



I know some people think it's weird to make getting rich harder, but somehow looting loses its fun in this game once you get to a certain point.

 

[IrregularJohn]

Cool, I look forward to it.

Looking forward to it also.

I know some people think it's weird to make getting rich harder, but somehow looting loses its fun in this game once you get to a certain point.

Not only that but looting in general in Witcher 3 lacks its intent - by the time you get some sword or armour with mysterious sounding name you already have one from diagrams with much better stats.

Plus those smuggler's caches/hidden treasures are a copy-pasted joke - in that last eurogamer interview (from around August 19th) devs talk about how in 2014 on their first playthrough the game felt empty and supposedly that's why they pushed the release date the 2nd time - to fill it with points of interest (those god-awful ? marks). But guess what it's still feels empty and those caches/hidden treasures don't help a bit - I've finished the game with about 60 of them on Skellige and I have no desire to unlock them because there is no point.

 

[Randomdrowner2015]

The reason game-Geralt is not poor is because he has no living expenses and live in a save/load world where he finds loot everywhere, where stealing is rarely reacted on and where time stands still. If there was living expenses and more restricted/less loot, and time was an issue, money would be a harder thing to come by.

 

[Phinnway]

I think the solution is devaluing items looted from the world and turning crafting into a gold sink. When trying to think of ways to do this the method I thought of was increasing the cost of crafting recipes. But I think @IrregularJohn 's idea of charging more for crafting an item makes a lot more sense.

That said, I DO think you need to devalue items looted from the world. Especially crafting materials. Otherwise players will feel pressured to loot them and sell items from their stash when they don't have enough money to buy something.

If there was living expenses and more restricted/less loot, and time was an issue, money would be a harder thing to come by.

So you propose the game should charge a "beer tax" on Geralt's income every 7 in-game days? I jest, I jest.
Honestly though - it would be pretty funny if Geralt suffered a "fatigue" condition after a couple in-game days that could be removed by drinking at an inn or visiting a prostitute.

 

[althrian]

Me and my team are working on something. It's a big mod though, so we are probably a couple of weeks out. Stay tuned!

Yay, give it to me! Looking forward to it.

 

[Brogan80]

Agreed, this system is in dire need of an overall, all-encompassing change to the way the game treats funds and a shift to much more realistic mercantilism and spending.

I'm talking about changing every relevant aspect from looting and what kinds of value you find in the wild (including casual thieving as well as outdoor discovery, and in particular the amount of Crowns, Florens, and Orens) to selling, to crafting, all the way to contract AND Quest rewards in the form of gold.

Currently, it's not fun. It's gets tedious, boring, less challenging. And less exciting.

I think what would be best, now that we know the different game-centric systems that affect money is to develop a mod that coordinates all of these factors - puts limits on how much your find, how much you can steal, how much you can buy and sell things for, how much it costs to craft or buy essential alchemy items, how much gold you get rewarded for at the end of quests, ........ all so that no matter how much harvesting, exploring, and farming you do... you will always need MORE gold to do what's next in the game.

@thibaudv, any update on your mod for the economy?

 

[Richiesname]

Update on Thibaudv's post: We're getting very close to releasing a mod that fixes the economy - and has modules to fix everything else. Stay tuned, everybody!

 

[althrian]

You guys are pretty self-confident. Damn, I'm excited to see what is happening withthat

 

[Arcafonk]

Update on Thibaudv's post: We're getting very close to releasing a mod that fixes the economy - and has modules to fix everything else. Stay tuned, everybody!

Beware of the next patch though. I PM'ed them a big money exploit with the current system, they'll have to patch it out in 1.09/1.10 I think.
(currently lvl 24 / 59k using this, I'm quite addict to it - easy buying stuff is not really making the game better or worse, it's a different exprience. I'm still having problems with crafting materials ).
And no, in case you would ask, I won't post in public something that destroys a part of the game. I would not PM this to someone that can make it public too.

There's a strange thing in this game, the begining is omg everything is so much hard to buy then it's gone (even if I do not use this, well, I could spare collecting relic armor and sell them to obtain more or less the same result).

It's too hard in the begining (repair costs, wow, let's farm hundreds of flower to repair my armor :/) then too easy after lvl say 10-12. Selling armor gives too much money comparing to quest rewards. It should give 10-20% of a regular quest reward, not 100%-200% like today :/

 

[Richiesname]

Why even post that you found the exploit if you're not telling anyone about it? I would have just kept it to myself.

And Althrian: Not self-confident. Confident in my team-mates.

 

[althrian]

[…]
And Althrian: Not self-confident. Confident in my team-mates.

YAY! Bring it on

 

[jj284b]

i think Witcher 1 had best economy of all Witcher games, yet i still had something like 10k at the end of it... In W3 a lot of things that were previously costly, are abundant... dwarven spirit can be found everywhere, so you never need to buy alcohol unless you wanna make some advanced alchemy, which is not that big of an issue late in the game.. same with crafting, you can simply find a lot of things outside, while manufacturing some rare weapons and armor is pretty cheap... i think no armor should be cheaper than cost of raw materials used for its manufacturing... cost of the final armor should be much much higher, and same with swords... and not just that.. actual formulas for armors, swords or even alchemy should cost a lot more.. that would give player something to spend his money on...

 

[Brogan80]

The thing is you can't just change one aspect. All of the dynamics that affect money must be altered, in a coordinated way, in order to create the right balance.

Making 1-2 items more expensive or lowering a quest reward isn't going to do much.

 

[Richiesname]

i think Witcher 1 had best economy of all Witcher games, yet i still had something like 10k at the end of it... In W3 a lot of things that were previously costly, are abundant... dwarven spirit can be found everywhere, so you never need to buy alcohol unless you wanna make some advanced alchemy, which is not that big of an issue late in the game.. same with crafting, you can simply find a lot of things outside, while manufacturing some rare weapons and armor is pretty cheap... i think no armor should be cheaper than cost of raw materials used for its manufacturing... cost of the final armor should be much much higher, and same with swords... and not just that.. actual formulas for armors, swords or even alchemy should cost a lot more.. that would give player something to spend his money on...

I think these things you just brought up are all great points, and believe it or not, all were discussed before making any of the changes to the economy in the School of the Roach's upcoming mod, along with a few other things, such as: Monster hunting should be how Geralt makes the majority of his money, resale value of alchemy supplies, and much more.

 

[Garrison72]

^I'm excite! The only problem here is the timing. Patch1.10 could wipe out a lot of what the mod implements.

 

[jj284b]

i also think food should play a bit more important role somehow. Right now you can just ignore it and restore health via potions. There is no need to buy food at all. Personally i think it would be better if food handled stamina regeneration instead of health, and would have long term effects (let say 1 hour or similar) on stamina regen during and outside of combat, while normal stamina regen would be much smaller than it is right now. This way player would have to "Eat" to keep his stamina regen up, so he can be effective, while being "hungry" would make it a bit complicated for him (no energy to cast signs effectively..)

This food concept then could be extended for all variety of currently available foods, allow player to use alchemy to "cook meals" as certain raw ingredients would not give any or reduced benefit (eating raw meat or raw livers) and player would have to buy certain additional things from shops to be able to cook food (salt, pepper, etc..)

After all, Mr Sapkowski was sometimes quite detailed about food in his stories, which is something that would greatly improve overall immersion of this game.

 

[Richiesname]

i also think food should play a bit more important role somehow. Right now you can just ignore it and restore health via potions. There is no need to buy food at all. Personally i think it would be better if food handled stamina regeneration instead of health, and would have long term effects (let say 1 hour or similar) on stamina regen during and outside of combat, while normal stamina regen would be much smaller than it is right now. This way player would have to "Eat" to keep his stamina regen up, so he can be effective, while being "hungry" would make it a bit complicated for him (no energy to cast signs effectively..)

This food concept then could be extended for all variety of currently available foods, allow player to use alchemy to "cook meals" as certain raw ingredients would not give any or reduced benefit (eating raw meat or raw livers) and player would have to buy certain additional things from shops to be able to cook food (salt, pepper, etc..)

After all, Mr Sapkowski was sometimes quite detailed about food in his stories, which is something that would greatly improve overall immersion of this game.

That game with the huge modding scene even now, years after release, has had a ton of success with these "basic needs" mods, as people call them. SotR has talked about this, but it's outside the scope of this overhaul. It /is/ however, on the list stuff to do for our next project.

---------- Updated at 03:56 AM ----------

^I'm excite! The only problem here is the timing. Patch1.10 could wipe out a lot of what the mod implements.

Let's hope CDPR doesn't do that. They are aware of the system they put in place, though, and did it themselves. So I can't see it being like, say, Dragon Age: Inquisition (where they purposely break mods with each update).

But a patch notes list would be immensely helpful for us. (Cough, cough.)