Money feels pointless currently.

[TheSpoonyCroy]

So let me explain since yes typically video games after you reach a certain point in the game money is more of an abstract concept that the player hordes but currently we are hitting that point so quickly that money loses basically most of its meaning almost instantly.

After you have about 2500ish cash, mechanically you are basically set up for the rest of the game. You can buy a cheap ass apartment to get the benefits of that and you can buy your needed tools like lockpicks, handcuffs, and etc. Yet you can reach that threshold realistically with a single murder case and about 2 side jobs if you aren't being a red handed detective. Like the world feels like its meant to be dystopian but we get that from lore, how grimy and crappy the city but mechanically you don't really feel that pressure. So there may be many things that may need to be done to make it feel like you are being squashed under the heel of a uncaring society. Rent payments for your property, harsher fines and medical bills, citizens having a memory* of the player's actions so if you do ♥♥♥♥♥♥ things to them you may need to pay more to bribe them or make things right for them. The game is fun but it feels like we don't really have any fears in our play through or consequences to our actions.

[Zalugar]

The majority of money so far is buying good apartments then furnishing them, which can get really expensive.

It can also get really expensive when everyone wants 100cr for every piece of info they offer (and each person offers at least 3 sources of info to pay for), and you gotta spend money to eat and drink. You can also get mugged randomly.

So it's not that bad but there could be more money uses, yes.

[TheSpoonyCroy]

but the problem is there are so many easier ways to get some info out of people. Currently the government building isn't that hard to sneak into to search up people's info. Good apartments and furnishing them is a money sink but at the end of the day it doesn't have much of a mechanical purpose besides for fashion. Food is fairly cheap. If you want to know what someone's name is its probably better to kick in their door and just look at their info from their closet or their job. Money should be a grease but the problem is there are just easier and quicker ways to get said information from people since there is very little harm to beating someone senseless and forcefully taking their info.

[Zalugar]

What about the guest passes and passcodes? You can pay businesses for their passcode or to be allowed in and look around.

But the easiest way to get an individual person's info right in front of you is to just search them; everyone carries a wallet with their name and address on it. They won't even get pissed off if you just don't take anything.
Can't search when they're walking, but you can knock them over with a ballistic armor toss and then can search. They don't even get mad (bystanders will, though).

I'm just saying the dev does has many ways to just dump money away, even if there's cheaper ways to do it. Especially if you have a MASSIVE fine and die, that's bankruptcy. Having a rent system would honestly probably annoy more people than not.

[TheSpoonyCroy]

Originally posted by Zalugar:

I'm just saying the dev does has many ways to just dump money away, even if there's cheaper ways to do it. Especially if you have a MASSIVE fine and die, that's bankruptcy. Having a rent system would honestly probably annoy more people than not.

I disagree thematically it just makes sense. It gives people more of a reasons to do more morally bankrupt things. This is probably the most annoying things about games that try to have dystopian settings since they like playing it up but they never commit to it in terms of gameplay. I'm not here to say they have to make it completely crippling but we players should be nudged into a direction even if we can somewhat circumvent part of the problems. Like I need to make rent or I lose my apartment, time to do a quick side job. Even then being bankrupt has no mechanical purpose, so its bad that your number is back to 0 but you are still surviving in the world and continuing on.

Edit: we also have ways to steal and hock things like diamonds and the such. Right now we can easily make a ton of money super quick. I just want money to have a big purpose and be a driving force on some of our actions. I imagine fees for upgrading or installing syncdisks and the such.

[Commander Freedom]

We should have bills, we even have the bank papers saying how much money we spend on the apartment, yet we don't truly lose that money.

And diamonds should be removed.

[TheSpoonyCroy]

Originally posted by Bearded Lonewolf:

We should have bills, we even have the bank papers saying how much money we spend on the apartment, yet we don't truly lose that money.

And diamonds should be removed.

Yeah the diamonds are a bit too abundant.

[EliteForceQc]

Adding a rent per week in fonction to the quality of your appartement and incresing the price of the police item. For now the economy is just a place holder its look like.

[↾Jks⇃ |]

Originally posted by TheSpoonyCroy:

but the problem is there are so many easier ways to get some info out of people. Currently the government building isn't that hard to sneak into to search up people's info. Good apartments and furnishing them is a money sink but at the end of the day it doesn't have much of a mechanical purpose besides for fashion. Food is fairly cheap. If you want to know what someone's name is its probably better to kick in their door and just look at their info from their closet or their job. Money should be a grease but the problem is there are just easier and quicker ways to get said information from people since there is very little harm to beating someone senseless and forcefully taking their info.

I personally don't use the cruncher in government building, because it feels like cheating tbf

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by EliteForceQc:

Adding a rent per week in fonction to the quality of your appartement and incresing the price of the police item. For now the economy is just a place holder its look like.

Rent would probably be the simplest "quick solution" to this whole money thing, but even then... it would have to cost a ridiculous amount to be significant.

I'm not even through my first week of playtime yet, and I've probably made ~35k by now.

Granted, a fair chunk of that was diamonds, which probably don't respawn, but there are no doubt plenty more to find, and even without stealing, side jobs pay pretty well.

I guess maybe something like weekly rent of 10% of what you paid for your apartment, and jobs only give you 10% of what they presently do.

Then money would have meaning...

That still leaves theft, though... I guess we'd have to drop the value of stolen items, and/or make it harder to get away with.

I agree about the economy probably being a placeholder as it is, though.

Certainly looking forward to seeing what direction that takes.

[Kyle]

Originally posted by ↾Jks⇃:

Originally posted by TheSpoonyCroy:

but the problem is there are so many easier ways to get some info out of people. Currently the government building isn't that hard to sneak into to search up people's info. Good apartments and furnishing them is a money sink but at the end of the day it doesn't have much of a mechanical purpose besides for fashion. Food is fairly cheap. If you want to know what someone's name is its probably better to kick in their door and just look at their info from their closet or their job. Money should be a grease but the problem is there are just easier and quicker ways to get said information from people since there is very little harm to beating someone senseless and forcefully taking their info.

I personally don't use the cruncher in government building, because it feels like cheating tbf

i struggle with not using features in the game like this because purposely avoiding them adds a layer of 'i am making it harder for myself for literally no reason', so i generally prefer them to be balanced instead

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by Kyle:

i struggle with not using features in the game like this because purposely avoiding them adds a layer of 'i am making it harder for myself for literally no reason', so i generally prefer them to be balanced instead

Agreed.

Part of the issue for me is I'm never sure where to draw the line, and wherever I arbitrarily might choose, I'd keep second guessing myself.

Don't use government computers? Don't steal diamonds? Don't steal at all? Don't bribe people to let you search their house without issue?

Game balance sets a certain default tone, which I appreciate. There can always be ways to make things harder/easier, but I like having a starting point that feels fair.

[Desiire]

Originally posted by EliteForceQc:

Adding a rent per week in fonction to the quality of your appartement and incresing the price of the police item. For now the economy is just a place holder its look like.

chances are you will have reached rank 10 social credit by the second week, so this is really irrelevant in my opinion. i think the payout for missions need to be a LOT less

[Kyle]

yeah getting 2000$ a day when someone has an income of like 18000 is weird

[DoremianCleff]

Well, other people sleep and eat and have lives and dreams. You on other hand...

[MechaMarshmallow]

I agree that rent should be a thing, and payouts should be lower. The rent because it's a part of the genre, the private detective struggling to make rent is A Thing in noir fiction. As for payouts, the lowest paying job in the game will get you all the equipment you could want from the city hall locker. It so quickly becomes a non-issue that items might as well not cost anything.