PC Trader and economy balance thread

Fixing the In-Game Economy

Hey folks,

There's a serious disconnect between looted item value and bought (trader) item value that ought to be looked at. When you can sell a pistol for 50 bucks but a hunting knife costs 4,000, something's off. To start, I think it'd make sense to price things according to typical buy/sell rates you'd find in real life. A pawn dealer would probably buy something off of you for 40-70% less than it's worth upon resell, depending on your ability to negotiate (barter skill) and the quality of the item. This would mean that the same hunting knife, when it comes time to sell, should be worth about 2,000 bucks--which is still ridiculous. I see that the prices for selling items have been drastically reduced over the past couple releases, but the price to buy has not. I also see that pistols are still way too common in the wasteland. Perhaps some work could be done reconciling item rarity vs. trader prices, and bringing the buy/sell disparity under control? The trader ought to also factor in lesser value for crafted vs. non-crafted items (loot only), and less complex vs. more complex crafted items.

 
i totally agree. and dukes should have a value equivalent to help make the economy more equitable, say every duke is worth a penny or dime. it would make the in-game currency a bit more realistic. selling a level 6 pistol for 60 cents and buying it back for $600 is not a system that will

work. the in-game economy is broken and we shouldnt have to mod in a fix for a core part of the game.

 
I adjusted how economics work with Farm Life. What you spend is what you get back. The current economy just doesn’t make any sense. If you can loot 100 weapons an hour then they shouldn’t be worth much. Just limiting how much you can sell to a trader in a day only breaks multi player.

It would be smarter if it was per player limits selling to a trader. Not per item for all players. Traders shouldn’t want to buy more than couple stacks of anything from anyone unless there was a more complex system for supply and demand.

 
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The economy is hopelessly busted at the moment because of a complete lack of durable currency sinks. There has been some discussion of the topic, but so far nobody at TFP seems willing to admit there is a problem.

There was mention of making Dukes smeltable as at least some attempt to improve, but I don't know what's happening there.

 
You know, was thinking more about this... Back in the day, I ran a Minecraft server and had to come up with an in-game currency system. I ended up choosing an "anchor" ore currency, similar to how gold (used to be) the US standard which backed the dollar. I picked an ore that was somewhat difficult to find and not used for much in terms of crafting (gold), then created a tiered value structure for n-to-gold based on the lesser ores. From this basic system, you could price anything that was crafted from any combo of ores and it worked fairly well.

Since 7 Days relies on basic items to craft most things (wood, stone, iron, clay, grass, etc.) perhaps you could pick a handful of "base elements" and create a similar pricing system. What are the root substances/items that drive the vast majority of crafting in the game? Think, 80/20 rule. Then, come up with a price-per based on relative rarity. Once you have that established, do the math to price items derived from those substances and add a multiplier when skill unlocks come into play (IE. base_substances x tiers_to_unlock = base_value).

Starting from the perspective of, "What are the most basic elemental building blocks to craft most items?", pricing those elements and then working my way up the tree of craftable items really helped me get the economy sorted. Maybe that'll give you some ideas.

 
You know, was thinking more about this... Back in the day, I ran a Minecraft server and had to come up with an in-game currency system. I ended up choosing an "anchor" ore currency, similar to how gold (used to be) the US standard which backed the dollar. I picked an ore that was somewhat difficult to find and not used for much in terms of crafting (gold), then created a tiered value structure for n-to-gold based on the lesser ores. From this basic system, you could price anything that was crafted from any combo of ores and it worked fairly well.
Since 7 Days relies on basic items to craft most things (wood, stone, iron, clay, grass, etc.) perhaps you could pick a handful of "base elements" and create a similar pricing system. What are the root substances/items that drive the vast majority of crafting in the game? Think, 80/20 rule. Then, come up with a price-per based on relative rarity. Once you have that established, do the math to price items derived from those substances and add a multiplier when skill unlocks come into play (IE. base_substances x tiers_to_unlock = base_value).

Starting from the perspective of, "What are the most basic elemental building blocks to craft most items?", pricing those elements and then working my way up the tree of craftable items really helped me get the economy sorted. Maybe that'll give you some ideas.
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I would suggest lead . Every player can get it (mining rocks or looting for example), it an intrinsic value by being usable for ammo (like gold can be used to make jewelry). It does not inflate that much as a resource, but is quite linearly linked to you effort.

You get it pretty linearly - the more you mine without using it up right away like iron ore. You also find it by looting.

Potassium nitrate would also work.

 
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Yea, or hell... Build a new ore, gold, into the game. Make it high-value and tie it directly to currency (coins/dollars), and spread it throughout all biomes equally as a rare substance to be mined (underground only). Don't base any crafting recipes on it, or perhaps only very small amounts for very exotic recipes. Then, you can tier all prices based on that.

 
Are you saying the same goods at a different trader have a difference in price?
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Goods should be fairly price ranged between the traders IMO if they are not already.

Not only that, but they should (as mentioned in other posts) have "main items" they carry in stock. Another idea to have is a disposition implemented with trading. Remember old Morrowind and Oblivion when you could "haggle" with the trader? That should definitely be implemented. Like ASAP. Back to disposition: things you do in game should effect how a trader per say "likes" you / gives you a good/bad deal. For instance: if you

1. Shoot the trader

2. Fail a quest

3. Let zombies into the settlement

4. Cause ruckus/Lollygag

5. Or just straight up give him s*** stuff/don't do quests

He will not like you

Or, if you...

1. Complete quests quickly and efficiently

2. Give him good deals

3. Sell good items

4.Do an array of quests

5. Or even complete higher tiered quests

He will be like Lydia in Skyrim always ready to carry your burdens

Another quick thing to mention is: It will depend on which trader you are dealing with. For example, Joel will be the easiest to get along with as (by looking at his base and his chill attitude) therefore giving better deals initially and being the easiest to get along with. Where on the opposite end of the spectrum, Rekt, will be what he really is; a complete a**hole. This would make him give you worse prices, and be harder to get those good prices from him. Another thing you could implement is: the nicer the trader, the less likely to die from quests.

 
Adding to the trader topic:

I think they should be able to ban you from a particular settlement if you make them mad enough; making it to where you have to do some sort of quest/pay some enormous fee of like 5k-10k in dukes. And going back to what I said about making it "less likely to die from quests" I meant the nice trader would "spawn" less dangerous zombies in their quests, where as a trader that didn't like you/hated you would spawn ferals, dogs, vultures, wights, cops, or even irradiated enemies. Therefore making him somewhat "sending you to your death".

 
Goods should be fairly price ranged between the traders IMO if they are not already.
Not only that, but they should (as mentioned in other posts) have "main items" they carry in stock. Another idea to have is a disposition implemented with trading. Remember old Morrowind and Oblivion when you could "haggle" with the trader? That should definitely be implemented. Like ASAP. Back to disposition: things you do in game should effect how a trader per say "likes" you / gives you a good/bad deal. For instance: if you

1. Shoot the trader

2. Fail a quest

3. Let zombies into the settlement

4. Cause ruckus/Lollygag

5. Or just straight up give him s*** stuff/don't do quests

He will not like you

Or, if you...

1. Complete quests quickly and efficiently

2. Give him good deals

3. Sell good items

4.Do an array of quests

5. Or even complete higher tiered quests

He will be like Lydia in Skyrim always ready to carry your burdens

Another quick thing to mention is: It will depend on which trader you are dealing with. For example, Joel will be the easiest to get along with as (by looking at his base and his chill attitude) therefore giving better deals initially and being the easiest to get along with. Where on the opposite end of the spectrum, Rekt, will be what he really is; a complete a**hole. This would make him give you worse prices, and be harder to get those good prices from him. Another thing you could implement is: the nicer the trader, the less likely to die from quests.
Click to expand...

Adding to the trader topic:
I think they should be able to ban you from a particular settlement if you make them mad enough; making it to where you have to do some sort of quest/pay some enormous fee of like 5k-10k in dukes. And going back to what I said about making it "less likely to die from quests" I meant the nice trader would "spawn" less dangerous zombies in their quests, where as a trader that didn't like you/hated you would spawn ferals, dogs, vultures, wights, cops, or even irradiated enemies. Therefore making him somewhat "sending you to your death".
Click to expand...
Not that it matters but I agree with you. I felt guilty going back to the nice trader after failing a quest, like I held my head low and I almost wanted to lose some experience for it, the other guy I would not care because he is an ass. The idea that a trader may ban you is interesting but this may ruin the game for some who just make a mistake like in Oblivion when I accidentally clicked on an item in a store and got attacked instantly. However if I accidentally shot the guy who is an ass I wouldn't care one way or the other whether he banned me or not. I have done some quests for the nice trader and only him and he is calling me friend now which I never really noticed before which is cool and having him give me better deals for this would be a nice addition.

"A deal is a deal even to a scumbag like you" I would love to use my nail-gun on that jackass. In my somewhat 700-800 hours (I just use a shortcut from the game folder now) I have never tried to shoot that trader, is it even possible? I know I get that pinging sound when I tried to get some berries at the trader base.

 
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The idea that a trader may ban you is interesting but this may ruin the game for some who just make a mistake like in Oblivion when I accidentally clicked on an item in a store and got attacked instantly.
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Like I said though it would have to be under some pretty bad circumstances, not just you shot/attacked him once. I was thinking more along the lines of you repeatedly do things that would make this trader angry resulting in him telling you to leave and the door being locked until you payed a fee, or did a "special" job for him. Most likely one that was extremely beyond your level or just taxing to make you "pay" for what you did. It would be along the lines of: You punch him in the face 27 times and he shouts "Get outta my f***in' settlement you a**hole!" and then you get an in-game message that you are currently banned from this trader zone. Then another message saying "Travel to another White River Settlement in order to regain Trader (insert name here)'s respect".

Once you get there they give you a short dialogue talking about said trader and what they want. You then proceed to either: A. give that trader the Duke's to give to said trader, or B. read a "note" (like the challenges) that the trader had sent out to the other settlements. The quest would then either partake in a multi-step process of multiple POI's or one or two large POI's depending on the tier it auto-generated.

On the note of the Oblivion reference: I completely agree with that aspect. Stealing one FORK. ONE GODD*** FORK should not result in the entire f***ing city guard to attack. So in prevention of that, I think the trader ban should be a multi-step of the trader getting more and more upset with you. Increasing price of merchandise, offering lower quality goods, offering either: A. Much, much harder quests for little reward, or, tiny little piece of s*** POI's and practically giving you nothing in return.

 
Like I said though it would have to be under some pretty bad circumstances, not just you shot/attacked him once. I was thinking more along the lines of you repeatedly do things that would make this trader angry resulting in him telling you to leave and the door being locked until you payed a fee, or did a "special" job for him. Most likely one that was extremely beyond your level or just taxing to make you "pay" for what you did. It would be along the lines of: You punch him in the face 27 times and he shouts "Get outta my f***in' settlement you a**hole!" and then you get an in-game message that you are currently banned from this trader zone. Then another message saying "Travel to another White River Settlement in order to regain Trader (insert name here)'s respect".
Once you get there they give you a short dialogue talking about said trader and what they want. You then proceed to either: A. give that trader the Duke's to give to said trader, or B. read a "note" (like the challenges) that the trader had sent out to the other settlements. The quest would then either partake in a multi-step process of multiple POI's or one or two large POI's depending on the tier it auto-generated.

On the note of the Oblivion reference: I completely agree with that aspect. Stealing one FORK. ONE GODD*** FORK should not result in the entire f***ing city guard to attack. So in prevention of that, I think the trader ban should be a multi-step of the trader getting more and more upset with you. Increasing price of merchandise, offering lower quality goods, offering either: A. Much, much harder quests for little reward, or, tiny little piece of s*** POI's and practically giving you nothing in return.
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Yes, I like this idea, I hope it gets introduced. As far as the two times I failed a quest for the nice trader, I almost wish he would have said something "well you screwed that up didn't you" and I would have felt better about it or losing experience or something. The times I failed quests were because I made the mistake trying to save ammo and using the bow or a melee weapon at over level 100 and getting rushed by green and feral bastards.

 
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I completely agree. There should definitely be more strict guidelines on the quests. Especially when Rekt (the trader in the burnt forest) says "if you f*** this up, I'll slit you godd*** throat" and you're like "oh jeez this guy means business" but nothing happens.

 
I completely agree. There should definitely be more strict guidelines on the quests. Especially when Rekt (the trader in the burnt forest) says "if you f*** this up, I'll slit you godd*** throat" and you're like "oh jeez this guy means business" but nothing happens.
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So its Rekt that is the jackass, I call him S**thead.

 
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