Rename GOLD, redo its art and reduce its drop amount

Feedback and Suggestions
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Hey guys! I read this topic Gold Sink and I decide to post this suggestion because is something I always think on games with his own money system: Why enemies drop big quantities when lower ones can work -probably- better? Never think of post it because I don’t know if it’s interest of anyone, but here we go.

I’ll cover two topics, one about his drop-rate and other about the money itself. And as I always say, excuse my not professional english.

GOLD: Lowering his quantities

I’m not going to talk about gold doesn’t have any value because lacks of use, we all here know that. The game it’s still in beta and I know in a future we -hopefully- will have a lot of ways to spend Gold, making it a valuable currency.

When that happens, the best farmer players will have millions of gold. Manage big numbers is always a problem and more hard to control or manipulate it in terms of balance not only in the money system (Stash tabs value, NPC prices, player to player value), but also when we think in games with players causing “big damage numbers”, creating issues on how to balance the enemies HP, along with other calculations that I ignore (hehe). Being rich with million of golds is the same as being rich with 10.000 gold knowing each activity in game could cost a few coins only.

So as I read on the topic, instead of post in that place about discussing it, I think is better to just suggest to implement this and see what people think: Lower the quantity that can drop from monsters to single digits, as the user Macknum say.

As I imagine it: In Path of Exile (common example, don’t bite me) they don’t have gold but they have many types of currency because they have a use in itself. The common trade currency is the Chaos Orb, who also rerolls the modifiers on a Rare item, that gives value to itself. The thing is, these Chaos Orb doesn’t drop too often while at the same time every map you do drop a lot of other currencies.

Here, while exist things like Runes as equivalent, I think if Gold will have a place it’s better that monsters/treasures just drop single unities of Gold and say “Oh! Gold! Nice!” than just pass over a total amount of 1000 gold distributed in 100-200 quantities, so it will be more exciting to leave a map with 10-20 Gold (with luck) than leave a map with 10.000 Gold, as the same time in PoE you feel nice if leave with 10 Chaos Orb or more (in terms of total currency value, not pure Chaos Orb). That’s my point: The simpler the numbers are, the better for everyone. Numbers I give are example anyway, but the idea is keep them in very very low amounts.

Rename the Gold and redo its art

I know ask things like this is always easy but doing it is another level, so I’ll just mention it.

Gold is valuable in real life due to the properties it possesses and the uses it can have. We can say the same in the Last Epoch world?

Considering this is a videogame and we can use the excuse of “Magic”, I think the Gold should be replaced with something that people (npc’s and the players) across all the eras consider valuable to trade for his “Magic properties”, properties that help doing different activities that EHG may implement in the future: Crafting items, crafting materials, travelling to “X” content, access to ‘Y’ content, etc.

With that change of name (that I don’t dare to suggest) will come with an update of his art. Is not my job, but I can say how I imagine it: Check this random image as an example. The exterior could be gold, the interior could have a turquoise colour (the “magic” part, like an encrusted jewel) with a draw representing Mother Eterra in the middle. Just an example of a non-artist guy.

CONCLUSION

The reason of suggesting this -if both suggestions comes together-, it’s because could give to Last Epoch his own identity on how money works here and not just another game with “Oh, we have money here and it’s gold, the same as the another 100 RPG-Games and we can have millions easily”. Those are my thoughts.

:slight_smile:

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I’ll start off by saying that I absolutely agree with the statements that gold needs a purpose and may (possibly) be too common in its current iteration. I say possibly because if it had a useful purpose, we may actually want more gold. The supply only seems endless because the demand is so low, if that makes any sense.

I disagree that Last Epoch needs a special currency to help it earn an identity. If LE is going to earn its own identity, I would much rather it be through good gameplay, ease of entry, and clever skill interactions than through some currency gimmick. Two examples here…

Grim dawn used “Iron bits” as currency, and most players still refer to it as gold, because its function is exactly the same. Grim Dawn’s identity in the ARPG Genre is currently based on its class mastery system (where you can combine any 2 basic classes to form an advanced class) and through it’s story being quite good compared to it’s competition.

Path of Exile is (in my opinion) is definitely a solid example of how an ARPG can go a different route. I quite like POE’s idea of putting a function to each currency, but that’s not what really defines their identity. When most people think of POE, the first thing that comes to mind is the Passive tree and how every class can be (almost) customized endlessly. Second behind this would probably be having skills as gems (even though it’s pretty much a complicated Materia system from FFVII).

I don’t think they need to rename gold, it just needs to be useful for something besides stash tabs and gambling on an alt.

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Of course, that part is what will come slowly, EHG are aware as far as I know that Gold need more utility, the supply of Gold doesn’t matter if comes in 1-2 or 1.000 amounts if there is nothing we can use it, but as I see it when they implement more ways of spending it, it will better to work with low amounts rather than big ones.

Sure, LE will not gain his identity thanks to his own currency, it’s just a part of the game and what you mention is that will be the true reason for players to remember it (myself include), but it collaborates and sometimes these aspects it matters. I remember Grim Dawn with his Iron Bits but I ended the game withouth using too much of them (I almost don’t use the crafting bench). I don’t remember at all what money use in games like Fate, Torchlight for naming other RPG’s but I assume it was Gold (I’m a right?). Always is gold. Maybe what I imagine is less than “common money using Gold” and more like a token as normal currency, where you can accumulate it in low quantities, simplifying his trade, like the Chaos Orb example from PoE. A valuable token where having 100 of them means more than having 1 million and say “meh”. Yeah, if the game keep this quantities doesn’t mean something bad or important, it’s fine as long as we get ways of spending it, it’s just a PoV of how I would like the currency to be (I always imagine the money working like this, but it ended being gold in big amounts).

Doesn’t mean the Gold should change like I suggest, is just another aspect of the game to be considered if it will be fine in the future, or could have a little change :slight_smile:

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I think a lot of what you’re trying to accomplish is probably covered by runes, glyphs, and to a lesser extent, Affix Shards.

I mean, I probably have less than 150 glyphs of hope, and I use them like crazy. Less than 100 Glyphs of chaos, and probably less than 20 Glyphs of Despair. They all have very specific uses and drop in lower numbers than gold…you just don’t use them at a vendor, and we can’t trade them yet.

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That’s true, the equivalent of PoE currency exist here in form of Runes and Glyphs. Affix shard probably the rarest ones too.

The problem I see it is i’m afraid that these could make obsolete the Gold. With Bazaar the only you could trade for your items is Gold, now that we will have a trade system (still no info) means that, maybe, we could use as common currency the Runes and Glyphs? And what about Gold? Wouldn’t be enough with creating ways of spending it, it will pass to a background instead of be the strong currency, players will trade what is important (craft with Runes/Glyphs) and not the Gold that have value for NPC’s only. That’s what I would want, being the Gold the strong currency of the game for all the players. It’s a bit hard to make this without giving it a specific consuming function like the Chaos Orb have in PoE, but I think it’s more than possible to make it work.

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The entire reason the Chaos orb works as a currency is because it has a desirable function, and certain game elements (adding mods to your maps) require the currency.

All they really need to do is add a few useful things to spend gold on and most of what you’re saying would be fixed in that regard. I’m sure it will happen eventually. It’s also possible gold could play a role in the upcoming dungeons they’ve announced (although it’s probably not a high chance, it COULD happen).

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Yes, what I say. It works as a currency because it have the best balance between being common and useful. It can be consumed instantly when you use over a map/item. Here the money comes in big amounts and doesn’t have that function. I just feel it will be more valuable for the players in small amounts, is not like it’s an important change, but more like an aesthetic decision.

If your point is that the amounts we can get doesn’t matter until we get enough ways of spending it, I agree and that’s what I point on my topic, is something that I think it will happen in a future when the game is more complete. That’s why I left clear that I prefer work with low amounts rather than big amounts as an aesthetic way of spend the money and a simple way of manipulate it for balance purposes on all aspects of the game -like a token as I say-, but obviously doesn’t depend of my taste, if not of EHG team. Maybe they’re fine with the Gold as it actually works and I’ll not object it.

The idea of rename gold is to show us they have they own currency attached to the Lore of Last Epoch (I really like the idea of have money with a representation of Eterra drawn on it) instead of being Gold because yes like the others RPG.

Both suggestions I mention, doesn’t matter at all for the game, as I mention before, is “just another aspect of the game to be considered if it will be fine in the future, or could have a little change” :slight_smile:

Edit: Fixing my text, sorry any bad writing.

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