# Econ-Friday Ranting 08/14/26 > A "Proof" of the Micro-Slots Concept as 'Best Practices' (Part I) Author: Azherae Date: 2026-08-14T09:32:22.000Z If **Complexity** and the related Complaints are [Inevitable](https://www.phoenix-down.info/blog/2026-07-10-econ-friday-ranting/), and 'classic' style MMORPGs with depth aim to treat **Meaningful Choices**, then for those games, certain types of **Knowledge Paths** are also [color='red']**Inevitable**[/color]. It's this theory that cause me to have faith in [Macro-Slots](https://archive.phoenix-down.info/discussion/64234?#506782). [Micro-Slots](https://archive.phoenix-down.info/discussion/64234?#506830), even though I personally believe in them just as much for certain games, are much harder to 'prove from first principles', especially since the people who study MMORPG Economies for 'Classic' MMORPGs for the last few decades all seem to be players (probably the Developers involved just put their effort into the games themselves, their output **is** their 'thesis'). Today I'll attempt the 'beginning' of a 'proof' for why Micro-Slots are also at least 'Best Practices', even if not truly [color='red']**Inevitable**[/color], referencing Elden Ring and, of course, Throne and Liberty. Elden Ring because it shows that something related to them appears even in single-player Adventures, and Throne and Liberty because it's one of the few modern games out there that could reasonably make the claim to be a 'classic-style' **modern** MMORPG (and not just a Classic MMORPG). EVE/Albion Online players will probably also recognize a lot of what I am about to put forward, though. So unlike the previous Micro-Slots Rant, which was aimed at Ashes of Creation where we 'knew the goal' and didn't have to worry about 'proving' it to the Devs, we're starting from the 'pitch to the Board of Directors' level, because as we all know, in the end, you have to convince the Board. ### Elden Ring: Nightreign We need to look through the lens of Nightreign first because it is the 'distilled' version. Players want to progress, and have different experiences. This is why Nightreign isn't 'choose a weapon, fight a single boss, win, get stronger, fight slightly stronger version of the same boss'. We can all accept that a player who picks up this game is not satisfied with that. So the game contains more than one boss. In fact, there's a whole component of the game where the player's skills in navigation and decision making, their skills in 'gathering', in a way, are all tested. They are aware of a goal, they gather things to achieve that goal over a period of time, they face a challenge, they win or fail. Since the goal is distilled down to 'defeat X Boss' and we know that not every boss has the same weaknesses or same strategies that should be used against it, the play loop is 'gather resources of the type needed to achieve the goal, by deciding where to go'. Great care is put into 'making sure that players can choose their preferred method and strategy', then 'identify their options for where to go', then 'encounter challenges when they go'. The game doesn't treat this as 'if you manage to walk over here, you get an item that beats the boss'. I'm sure there are players who ask for that, whether they are just always like that, or frustrated at a boss they don't like, or the challenge level of the game in general. Those players are not the **Target Audience** of Nightreign, so their [color='red']**Inevitable Complaints**[/color] must be treated as lower priority, even if not ignored. ### Elden Ring (Original) Players who want more, who want a longer experience, a 'story', or at least 'a world with Lore that they can exist in', also enjoy the original game. So this game needs 'more' different Reward types. Lore is treated as a Reward along with Loot. Sometimes they're combined. Sometimes the Boss is the source of the Lore and the Loot at the same time, but the Lore is vast, entire Bosses are Optional, entire Playstyles are Optional, entire 'subtrees' of items and upgrades, all optional. This is closer to an MMORPG, and this is where Micro-Slots appear. If your fighting style involves using Freeze Pots against highly mobile bosses, Elden Ring does not simply 'let you choose to have these at the start of an encounter'. 'Unlike' Nightreign, it also doesn't generally 'force you to choose semi-permanently'. Are there people out there who would complain that 'by making them gather up materials to make Freeze Pots, Elden Ring is [color='red']**not respecting their time**[/color]'? Surely, but they at least understand the precise way in which this is happening. If you want to use Freeze Pots, you go get the materials for them. This is the essence of why Micro-slots exist in games. MMORPGs actually offer something 'better' than this in many cases, because in those games, you often **can** just 'decide you want to have X consumable before an Encounter' and have it available without doing any of the activity required to get it, if the Economy is working. Elden Ring and single player games have a different 'benefit' that MMORPGs don't often have the time or resources to use, but could aim for, and this is related to Knowledge Paths again. In Elden Ring if you want to use Freeze Pots and you don't know how to get Freeze Pots easily, you **must** learn this or adapt. The game teaches you via Knowledge Paths and Lore. MMORPGs used to do this, Classic ones still do it, but Elden Ring aims to do this **through** the Lore and the anchors to the world, and this is an art that is difficult for many MMORPGs to achieve, not just in things like 'flavor text', but in much more direct things, which brings us to the example from... ### Throne and Liberty To keep this short for this week, we'll focus on one specific thing in the game, '**Artifacts**'. Artifacts aren't a true Economic Micro-slot, but they exist in the same relative space as Adventurer Progression Slot #4/5 Macro Slot. An Artifact absolutely is a choice, a way to change how you engage with a fight, and a thing that Progresses the character when it is obtained... Yet players have almost no control over them. They're slightly 'Lore Encoded' too. They're not tradeable in any way so they can't disrupt the Economy. They have at least two built-in layers of Randomness in their acquisition, and yet they don't work anywhere close to 'Optimal' in their Knowledge Path even if we compare them to just Elden Ring. The only thing a player can do to 'influence' their Progression for Artifacts is 'know that occasionally, less-RNG Artifact Boxes might be offered as a reward for Ingame Events (of the Monthly kind)' or bought with certain Generic Currency-like reward items'. This is the equivalent of Nightreign not giving you the option for certain playstyles until the end of the run, or of Elden Ring just homogenizing all of its potential build paths for how to actually get certain skills into 'Go to this location and one NPC sells every single one for a common drop currency'. It would **technically** work, and yet not be what many players came for. Many MMORPGs cause themselves other problems by going too hard on the Lore though, the LoreMaster of the game isn't taught how to work with the Combat Designers or the Econ Designers, and without that Harmony, everyone's 'competing' to get their content into the game. Hopefully this is just due to a lack of 'Best Practices' though. In Throne and Liberty, 'Best Practices' for Artifact Acquisition would be for whoever decided 'This Artifact is related to Morokai' (this is basically how that works, each Artifact references one Boss, though not every Boss has an Artifact) to tell the Econ/Progression team "I would like this Artifact to drop from Morokai so that players who want this Artifact but don't have it, can target an activity for acquiring it" (note that this isn't how it works now, Morokai-related Artifacts do not drop from Morokai, not even the semirandom chest). The Econ team could then accept this or push back, for example if they somehow thought this would make something too easy or too frustrating. They could then check with Combat Design who could agree, or reassure them "We already design content with that in mind, it's fine if people don't need to grind or rely on RNG to get that Artifact". Econ Team could then work on the actual numbers if they decided it was okay, and decide 'how many players that go to Morokai can be allowed to get Morokai's Artifact Chance Chest?' (because you still wouldn't be able to get the specific sub-choice you might be aiming for even with all this). Or the Combat Team could realize "We want to add a new ability that anyone can use, about once per Minute, which is in the slot for Artifacts and how they work, so we would like a new Artifact, but the effect doesn't really have a specific boss or concept that we need to tie it to", and then consult the Lore Team or 'Artifact Overseer' to check 'What should we call this effect/which boss should we tie this Artifact to, lorewise? Should we make a new one?'. When this sort of interconnection doesn't happen, Developers are often less efficient, their priorities compete too much and they 'go off to work on their own segments' without noticing the **Blind Spots** where they could build something cohesive, faster. ### The 'Proof', Summarized A Micro-Slot exists as an interaction between Progression, Gameplay Choice, and 'Lore' (really, moreso 'the way the character interacts with the game world that elevates the game beyond being a spreadsheet/botfest'). Econ work begins **after** this in many cases, for an MMO with an Economy (which is why it is easy to find MMOs where this work isn't done, one is emergent, the other is not guaranteed to be). This is why I used a TL example of an item with almost no related Econ, but it's not that the Economy part should be treated as separate, because the Econ Team still needs to know about every Micro-slot, especially in [color='yellow']**10K**[/color] style games. A Micro-slot is not a Handout automatically. Therefore it costs Time to get, just like Freeze Pots, just like 'the right elemental weapon for the Nightlord', and as always... Time is Money.