# Econ-Friday Ranting 09/25/26

> A foundational explanation of two distinct types of Errors that Designers need to be able to distinguish between.

Author: Azherae
Date: 2026-09-25T18:25:22.000Z

Since games designed in the [color='yellow']**10K-Style**[/color] don't require Developers to spend a lot of time on the balance of availability of individual items, only on the Micro-Slots, they are more robust against a specific problem that we've seen some Designers and Creatives thinking or worrying about in their 'lifeskill' designs, both for MMORPGs and for the new wave of 'cozy' games.

This allows us to discuss the problems which **do** occur from two opposite ends of yet another spectrum. Econ Design can contain the 'nitpick' style [color='orange']**Individual Error**[/color], where some small thing is explicitly out of place relative to the rest of the obvious system, which players notice but don't always consider overly problematic if left unfixed, assuming that it isn't ruining someone's Niche. It can also contain what I'll call the "[color='red']**Layer Error**[/color]" because I love naming things. A [color='red']**Layer Error**[/color] requires more explanation, but it roughly corresponds to that complaint/worry that players have sometimes about how less invested players won't be able to participate in the Economy at all.

Today's Rant will be bouncing around between references to different games, so if you aren't familiar with them, it may feel a bit scattered. Primarily, the references will be Final Fantasy 11 (maybe), Throne and Liberty, and of course, Ashes of Creation. Off we go.

### Individual Error

The 'most famous' version of the [color='orange']**Individual Error**[/color] in the recent MMO-Attempt Ashes of Creation was the [Static Rarity From Gatherables](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0xsgsgwsa4). The Market Supply for a specific, in-demand set (technically [**Rarity Grade**](https://archive.phoenix-down.info/discussion/67401?page=1#502624) of Materials) was determined by the in-world spawn location of the Gathering Point. This was on a timer. You don't need to be familiar with Ashes of Creation to know what happened here, familiarity with any general MMO Population and just the basics of Player Economic Behaviour knowledge means you already know what happened.

This was only an [color='orange']**Individual Error**[/color] though, because anyone with the knowledge could use it, and allegedly this is why the head honcho in question might have considered this acceptable (it was his design style). It was a question of winners and losers, sure, a thing that would be experienced as something 'out of place', especially since it supposedly did not work the same way for all forms of gatherable, but that **was the point** (allegedly). As players, it could be acceptable and within the scope of the game without being fun for everyone, and those players would complain about **that**, but the reason that this implementation was a failure, was not because it was robbing one set of players of Opportunities (it did this, but that was a different part of the implementation). It was a failure because the [color='orange']**Individual Error**[/color] of having only some structures that worked like this would have resulted in [color='#4b80e2']**Perverse Economic Incentives**[/color], and this is what we saw.

By contrast, we can look at a much smaller one currently active in Throne and Liberty, and we can even imagine that it's equally intentional, to make the point. The player can use Special Resistance Medals to buy certain Food Ingredients (previous source was Instanced Dungeon drops but the rewards for these were invalidated for a potentially valid reason, so the Supply method was changed). There were five of these Dungeon Food Ingredients, with approximately equal sources. There are still five, but one of them has an alternate (slow) source in the Open World, and the other is for some unexplained reason, unavailable from the vendor that sells the other four.

This counts as an [color='orange']**Individual Error**[/color] too, the player doesn't have any logical reason to assume that Beast Fangs are the thing they can gather without ever needing to spend their Special Resistance Medals at this vendor. A player who has been told to use their Special Resistance Medals to buy Ingredients to make specific food to help them in boss fights (that's what they all do) doesn't necessarily expect that the Ingredient used to make Ardent Jelly, the anti-Undead food, is not available this way. For a moment, though, let's assume that this is **entirely intentional**. Most of the new bigger bosses and content in the new Nix Expansion are Undead. By 'not selling this material', the supply can be constricted, maintaining greater 'equality' in performance against the new bigger bosses.

Whether this is intentional or not, it's not **directly destructive** to the gameplay at this time, though the supply will probably 'eventually run out'. Whether it is intentional or not only determines the fix, or how soon the fix should happen. Nix is also full of Undead that would specifically be good sources of the missing Ingredient, in exactly the same way that Starving Sharks are specifically an overworld source of Beast Fangs. This is a 'simple' and 'obvious' enough solution that one could guess at multiple reasons why it works this way or some other way. Changing a droprate would simply be too easy, for anyone to be concerned in the long term.

### Layer Error

Ashes of Creation never actually reached the point of having a clear, obvious example of a [color='red']**Layer Error**[/color]. What that game offers us as 'students of MMORPG Economies' is [information](https://archive.phoenix-down.info/discussion/66516?page=1#499488) about how many people [cared](https://archive.phoenix-down.info/discussion/68680?page=1#509533) (these various [links](https://archive.phoenix-down.info/discussion/65341?page=1#494997) are not specifically important, the number of individual [links](https://archive.phoenix-down.info/discussion/56414?page=1#424091) related to the topic that I could pop up is the important thing, and unfortunately to avoid **any** form of legal nonsense whatsoever, these links don't show the full discussions, not even the ones that are [prompted by the Devs themselves](https://archive.phoenix-down.info/discussion/66791?page=3#500417).).

A [color='red']**Layer Error**[/color] is, at its core, a **Lack of Demand for something whose Supply is baked into the core Gameplay Loops**. This is also why they're relatively easy to see and trigger players into having rapid negative responses. The pattern matching capability of the player who seeks fun, locks onto the thing that the game seems to be telling them that they should **Produce** as a Supplier, and then they realize (or worse, find out later) that this thing has no Demand, usually for 'no reason'.

It's impossible to avoid 'ever having a [color='red']**Layer Error**[/color]' or two, and there's more to it than this, which I'll go into in more detail in some other rant when it is relevant, but for now we'll use a hypothetical one from Ashes of Creation to illustrate why simply compressing the [color='#aa66ff']**Economic Pyramid**[/color] isn't usually the solution. I'll use one that is not generally relevant to/possible in other games, to avoid any sidetracking thoughts, and give other more 'distracting' examples afterward.

If Ashes of Creation contains Sheep, Pigs, Goats, Chickens, Rabbits, and Cows, as Livestock, and attempts to make a Farming or Animal Raising system in which these each provide different 'tiers' of Meat for cooking various dishes, a Layer Error will almost instantly appear. The reason would not be because they applied Tiers, nor would it be because the system is overcomplicated (it would match MineCraft). It would be because the gameplay loop involved in raising these different livestock, in a game like Ashes, would definitely cause at least two of these to overlap in some way, even if every Meat type had its own specific purpose in Cooking, because the number of unique Meat-related effects in the **Combat System** would be skewed (or would entirely drop the uniqueness or usefulness of one).

Whereas by contrast, FF11 or even Throne and Liberty would be able to contain this type of system without creating the [color='red']**Layer Error**[/color]. Even a sufficiently thought-through MineCraft mod avoids the problem, which I can say because my group has made one that does.

Since MMORPGs unfortunately do not often actually make strong effort to fix their [color='red']**Layer Error**[/color] outcomes, my examples always end up being oversimplified things like 'Put the materials through a different Pipeline' but today I can be more specific because I've mentioned a particular one in Throne and Liberty often enough and a related change can illustrate it, so I'll close with that.

Lower level mobs in TL have had some of their drops changed. Their new drops are still basically unnecessary for anyone rushing through the current lowest content, but these drops also now are better suited to being viewed as materials for Furniture, especially in their [color='gold']**Knowledge Paths**[/color], meaning that the other system could be used to fix the missing Demand, especially now that players do not need to level up their Furniture Making for the first levels (an approach any game can take, independently of whether they have Artisanship levels later, there is always a 'Beginner Level' and it can be allowed to be very broad).

So if one simply assumes 'items that drop occasionally from low-level mobs that might be fought anyway, can be used to make Teapots, Furnaces, Cushions, Lamps, Curtains, Fishing Equipment, or other Decorations, as alternate Crafting Recipes', I don't even need to explain what the specific changes were. A player can intuit or visualize how to interact with the world relative to these, the same way they do for certain other gear right 'above' that (in a tier where they are still good in specific situations, builds, or potentially stat-adjusted content). The player then therefore makes a personal decision about whether to engage with this, but doesn't immediately start wondering if all their time spent on current items will eventually become entirely ignored/useless.

Knowing the difference between an [color='orange']**Individual Error**[/color] and a [color='red']**Layer Error**[/color] is one of the key aspects of 'higher level' Econ Design, so this will definitely come up in future Rants.