Econ-Friday Ranting 10/09/26

WARNING: This will be one of those highly technical rants with a lot of references. Readers who are already very familiar will not necessarily need to read all the links, though.

English Speakers and possibly many others know the ‘adage’ already. “Fast. Cheap. Good. Choose two.”

Software developers have a similar one, and in some situations, so do Economy Designers. Whether your game is 10K-Style or not, whether it’s a game with proper Artisanship/Lifeskills, or just a Loot Grinder, this sort of thing comes up, and each decision made tends to fall under the umbrella of one of the three options: “Fun Playloops”, “Good Itemization/Progression”, “No Bots”.

Today’s games of focus each mostly did ‘choose two’, but they overall tried their best to avoid having to choose, especially within their earlier years (first two or three expansions, depending on how you count a specific one), and so we can talk about what actually happened and worked, and what probably couldn’t have worked. As usual we have Final Fantasy XI, which mostly chose “Fun Playloops” (depending on your grind tolerance) and “Good Itemization”, and had quite a lot of bots for a long time. Then Black Desert Online, which chose “Fun Playloops” and “No Bots” at first and later switched to “Good Itemization” and “No Bots” (from the Economic perspective, BDO isn’t really a game where bots themselves matter). Finally, Throne and Liberty as always, which has currently tipped toward “Fun Playloops” and “No Bots”, though it started by trying to dabble in all three.

Example #1: Tree Mobs Drop Wood

In FF11, this is true, even though it’s actually the game in which it makes the least overall sense, because there’s no indication that Treants are actually different types of ‘regular tree’ yet they drop a variety of logs. This worked because Treants were rare spawns in most areas, and the game has slow respawns, you could not generally ‘go out with the expectation that there would be a Treant there to kill in massive numbers and get lots of Logs’. That wouldn’t have stopped bots, but they had ‘better things to do’. Value of a Log is determined by Navigation, Difficulty, and Distance, for a 30-50% droprate item obtained from one of 3 Treant Spawns with 11-16 minute respawn timers in a large zone, roughly 2 Logs for 10K.

In BDO, this is more or less not true, LifeSkills are a separated path in a way that causes the design to minimize the ‘Consistent Crafting Materials available from fighting Mobs’. This is because ‘grind’ is allowed to be Endless, whereas LifeSkill Material Acquisition is usually tied to Energy. Note that this is a choice, it is not impossible nor terribly unreasonable for the fallen enemy to be ‘looted’ in this way, since it works this way for Boars, etc, but that’s the important part for this game type. So the Itemization is lacking presumably for the usual reason. A Concession made for less ‘intelligent’, less ‘invested’, or easily frustrated players.

In Throne and Liberty, this used to be true, before the update that added Housing, Furnishing, and related Item Crafting, so the only use for the Mystwood that did drop was ‘taking your chance at making a weapon’. The removal of this therefore negated some Niches, but probably happened either because of a restructuring of some Designer’s workload, or the previously mentioned Concession. Note that unlike BDO, since the wood that is available does have more uses, one could theoretically judge the value of Purple-Tier Wood if it currently existed in the game, by comparing with Leather, because like BDO, players do still have to fight mobs to get Leather, and quite a lot of the better Leather sources are subject to Abyss Tokens, TL’s equivalent of BDO’s ‘Energy’. A completely ‘off-the-cuff’ estimation would probably result in 2 Purple-Tier Lumber (not Logs), also being worth 10K (in this case, 10 Lucent). If this drop was limited to the Corrupted Mitran Chief Conflict Boss, it would then depend on how many Logs dropped to each participating player, but the ‘whole outcome’ would probably be similar. This might, however, lead to a different Concession, since MMORPGs have moved away from having competitive aspects in Lifeskills. It would probably work in TL if there were other sources, but it’s likely that a very conservative development approach would be scared away from adding any ‘reward’ that the vocal non-Artisans would not be able to use.

Example #2: Profit From Fishing

In FF11 this is available because of Specialization options, but was originally botted heavily, resulting in the need for various countermeasures, and ‘Fishing Fatigue’. Players could sell Fish directly on Auction to other players as Cooking Ingredients. Value of each fish varied standardly by difficulty of catch, bycatch, required Lures, etc. See link in this paragraph for further detail.

In BDO this is available as an ‘AFK Purse’ activity that costs some Energy. Players do not generally buy or sell Fish. No anti-bot countermeasures are generally in place because the world itself keeps track of overfishing and makes it ‘impossible’ for too many players or bots in one area to profit. The Fish are often indistinct at lower levels and special Fish are generally just sold for Coin directly. BDO is not a 10K-Style generally, and definitely not one when it comes to Fish, due to its extreme build/statistical simplicity.

In Throne and Liberty this is available only through achieving Great Success at cooking Fish Dishes and the occasional very extreme luck. If we follow the usual pattern of treating ‘an item you can’t sell but also now don’t need to buy’ as having its original sale value, most Rarer fish are worth between 5 and 15 Lucent, depending on Supply and Demand fluctuations. Almost all such fish are available only through Famous Fishing Spots which are ‘competitive’ and not constantly available in the world, resulting in absolutely minimal Bot interaction.Rarer Fish that do not come from these Spots are usually worth 1-3 Lu (Blue Grade, generally). Though TL does not have Fishing Fatigue, it limits all characters to 50 easily accessible bait per day (with variance up to ~100 via filleting bycatch). Therefore, the anti-bot measure here is actually the ‘Great Success’ requirement. A character that can make 100Lu worth of Fish, but can only sell 10Lu of it to others, must find a use for the other 90Lu of fish. If they ‘eat them to avoid needing to buy 90Lu worth of fish’, they have made a large profit, but a Bot character is highly unlikely to get this benefit. This is an example of a situation where ‘Choose Two’ was not required due to clever design. To go beyond this Design-wise, though, it might require some additional information.

Example #3: Making Jewelry From Drops

FF11 has a lot of Gemstones in its Itemization, and quite a lot of Metallurgy too. There was even a period where the ‘random item bycatch’ for certain fishing areas were Copper and Silver Rings, which of course led to botting for multiple reasons. This caused an oversupply most of the time for the mid-level Jewelry and Accessories, but it survived for reasons similar to the Logs from the Treants. Slow Supply, slow Demand, limitations on Artisanship. Generally, a good Ring at the mid-levels cost 10-20K, and good rings at high levels were generally 60-100K. Other jewelry/accessories were similar, with differences mostly showing by ‘slot’. Generally, assume 15-20% droprate for the material item, entirely free Trade and Auction options, with low spawnrates.

In BDO this is not intuitive because the wearable Accessory drops immediately, but ‘no one’ wears that version, it is only ‘worth wearing’ when it has been enhanced, in almost every case, and for BDO, Accessories specifically didn’t follow the same ‘rules’ as Armor. Failing to Enhance your armor resulted in Durability loss. Failing to enhance your Accessories resulted in the loss of the Accessories. Value fluctuation and the related ‘Artisanship’ required luck and grind more than anything else.

In Throne and Liberty this is no longer available as of this Rant. For information on how it was ‘somewhat’ available, see Example #1, substitute Gold for Mystwood. See Example #4 for discussions of anti-bot measures that would be involved if it returned in any capacity, and historical data on how it originally worked relative to that. As of now, this is an example of a case where, given the Triad Choice initially mentioned, the Designers chose ‘None of the Above’. Reason given was the usual Concession (but not very directly, so it could be interim, which is why I’m being precise about timeline).

Example #4: Sales of Regular Armor/Weapons

In FF11, entirely freeform, and for many items, completely vital. There are certain items that were only available from Crafters, and there were many of these, even if they were not consistently “Best in Slot”. Oversupply was handled by Artisanship levels, rare materials, and the general robustness of the Econ model. Items that were made for a loss to raise those levels were sold to shops or deconstructed to practice with the reclaimed materials. Eventually, this broke down slowly like all such systems with no Demand Cycle, but alternate uses for lower level items and materials maintained the system for about 6 years before serious degradation. During normal times, top-end gear ranged from 33,000K to 67,000K (so, 67 million) as is standard for this style of Econ design.

In BDO, originally entirely Freeform, though somewhat luck dependent and related to their Worker System, requiring various other inputs and technically in a roundabout way, sometimes Energy as well. Since materials for making gear don’t generally drop from mobs, and when they do, Energy is required, this was a system that lasted until the [color=‘#32CD32’]Concession[‘/color] Phase, and was only ‘effectively removed’ (i.e. no player actually needed to care) when they began very seriously applying Season Servers. This is a situation where the Triad Choice was not necessary in any way, but the fact that BDO became an ‘Action RPG’ altered the value calculation.

In Throne and Liberty, the original system for how to Trait your gear required most players to invest 10x the ‘standard single acquisition effort’, but also consumed up to 10x the number of Armor or Weapons (even if not always the same one). This function allowed the game to have a droprate for ‘first acquisition of item’ that was roughly 10x what most games can use. This system is no longer in place at this time, due to Concessions, further detail about this here, describing a part that actually affects the Triad Choice and is not just a Concession-based design. There are other aspects, but this is where the main issue relative to Bots can be most simply put.

“The least-skilled players of a game are not as effective Economically as any form of Botting Behaviour”.

Unfortunately this truth is seemingly so immutable, especially in the current era, that this change in TL might count as a ‘mistake’, but the stated intention of the related changes was actually an attempt to improve Fun Loops, it just fails from an Artisanship perspective. Therefore this is only a ‘mistake’ in the sense that if it maintains the “No Bots” part of the choice at the cost of the Fun Artisan Loops, but the intent is to have Fun Artisanship at all (i.e. that the choice was intended to trade off Itemization Scarcity instead), it may not work.

Example #5: Someone Might Buy Furniture You Make

In FF11, an entirely common thing, in a way probably obvious from all previous examples. Usual protections from relatively lower demand, etc. High-end furnishings normally cost 45-120K, a value that could generally be worked out from the cost of Materials.

In BDO, available but practically unused for the same reason as Regular Armor/Weapons. Theoretically fun to interact with, practically it was generally not. Value in the earlier days of the game might have been good, but this quickly degraded (there’s some poor Itemization here, not even ‘scarcity’, just generally).

In Throne and Liberty, we have the best ‘technical example’ available. White Grade furnishings, when they sell (and they occasionally do) go for 10Lu, Green Grade is material dependent but often 20-50 Lu since they generally cannot require special materials, and those with higher prices are mostly just those which require more Materials and therefore a bit more Gathering time (prices dropped when Processing Time was reduced and players no longer needed Furniture Crafting levels for the current grades of things, see here for some historical data). Blue Grade furniture prices depend on how many Additives and Rare Decoration/Furniture Scrolls they require. In the case of the scrolls, moreso ‘do they require one or not’. Items that do not require them have prices somewhat related to their Material costs, ranging from 80-100, and items that do require them add 120-180 for the Additives and Scrolls. Extrapolation from this reasoning would imply that Purple Grade Furnishings other than the current ones (which are their own semi-special pathway) would cost one of the following:

Assuming Purple Grade Materials only, large item, no Decoration/Furniture Scroll, current Material Schema: 400-500. Assuming the above but only requiring Rare Decoration Furniture Scroll(s), same Material Schema: 550-700 (plus increments if it uses more than one Rare Scroll). Assuming any system that replaces the Scroll with a rarely-obtained Material from a Boss Selection Chest: 600-1600 depending on Boss spawns and levels of competition.

And so on. Remember that TL can be used as the ‘proof’ because it uses basically just a 10K setup, there is no current indication that the Developers set any prices other than the price floor, they only set incentives, or the Supply and Demand curves (via standard spawnrates and availabilities) and rely on the systems.

In the future, there will probably be some Rants applying this perspective to games like ArcheAge Chronicles and Eternal Tombs, and a small chance of a targeted look at Pax Dei. Any meaningful changes to Throne and Liberty’s Artisan/‘Lifeskill’ paths may also fall under this, depending on what they strip out or restore.