This seems to be pretty much universal in RPGs, at the start, you'd be struggling for ten gold pieces, but by the end of the game, whatever you want can be yours and it still wouldn't put a dent in your hoard of gold, but that's not the problem, because I WANT to feel like my efforts have paid off by the end of the game, the problem is that in a lot of games, this happens too quickly. Though in the Elder Scrolls, I'd say the best experience is usually from the early game (By which I mean iron or steel armor level of early, not "A few more gold pieces and I can by that iron dagger and those dirty rags I've been saving up for." early) because you're strong enough to actually DO things and take advantage of the "freedom" the game promises rather than being mauled to death by rats the moment you set foot out of town, but still aren't so strong that you can do anything you want without effort and don't need to worry about finding anything too difficult for you. Though this was more pronounced in Morrowind than Oblivion since the way level scaling worked in Oblivion meant that you never needed to be terrified of rats but even at high levels could still be threatened by enemies, though just removing the late game section entirely would not be a solution as that removes anything worth striving for and the feeling that you've accomplished something later on, but through increasing the difficulty of some things, Bethesda can extend that period of not being able to do everything you want without effort. If I see a good weapon on sale in stores, I want to save money for it, and if I find something else I want to spend my money on while saving my money for something more expensive, I want to seriously debate whether I should get the cheaper thing, thus setting myself back in the proccess of saving money, or if I should hold off on getting it. Basically, to the economy, one should apply the same logic as to other aspects of the game, you should need effort to be able to get the best items on sale, and such efforts should pay off. A good level of challenge with worthy rewards being offered in return is the key to delivering suitably challenging and also rewarding gameplay, this applies to the economy as well.
Good loot should be hard to come by and merchants should only have mid-level to low level items, and should bargain hard, and the players early hopes for getting decent gear should be only as quest rewards, and the like.
The moment you decide that "merchants should only have mid to low level items" you render any attempt to make earning gold difficult utterly, 100%, completely and entirely pointless and meaningless, except maybe in the early parts of the game. What people often seem to forget is that the issue is not simply that gold is too easy to acquire, large amounts of gold are purely cosmetic if there's nothing worth buying with them, therefore, some merchants SHOULD sell high level items for high prices, for the difficulty of acquiring gold to be relevant there must first be things worth saving up that gold for, why should it matter how much gold I have there's nothing to spend it on?
I actually wish there were more RPGs which have items worth buying, which would probably actually make a lot more sense when you think about it, after all, high quality armor and weapons don't grow naturally in caves and ruins, people have to make them, and people who make such items aren't going to go around the dungeons of the world and hide them in locked chests for adventurers to loot, they're going to sell them to high paying customers, you know, the thing that merchants are supposed to do? Now, of course, this may not apply to items that aren't made by normal smithes, like Daedric armors, though even for those things, you could justify merchants selling them by saying that the player isn't the only adventurer who might loot dungeons and sell the loot, and after buying those things, rather than hoarding them, merchants would probably want to sell them to other people who might be interested. Now, obviously, not every merchant should sell high level items, but I'd actually like to see a few merchants selling high priced items that are actually worth their price (As opposed to those overpriced enchanted items some merchants in Oblivion had that were mostly based on low level base items making them effectively worthless by the time you could afford to buy them.) or maybe something like that smith in Tribunal who could make custom armor for you, although in his case, aside from the adamantium armor I'd usually have already found everything he could make in normal loot well before I could actually have him make it, and in any case, such services would likely be less useful when the game has smithing as a skill.
The one thing that really gets me is the price of noble clothing. I understand they didn't want the player to raid a few wardrobes, and end up with 1000s of Septims, but surely clothes for the rich and powerful should be very expensive. Seems stupid to come out of the sewers, sell some rusty armour, and be able to afford 50 dresses fit for a Duchess.
Morrowind handled this better I'd say. While expensive clothes weren't exactly worth nearly as much as high level armors, high quality clothes were at least worth enough to be worth stealing, it was actually profitable to rob nobles, which I hope is something Skyrim can bring back. It's not like this would unbalance the game if it was designed well as stealing things still takes effort, you have to break into a house, avoid getting caught, get the items, and then get out and sell them, combat doesn't have to be the only activity in the game that can have worthwhile rewards.
» Tue Oct 12, 2010 2:23 am 
