Market Economy (supply/demand mechanic)

[1313e]

Hey everyone,

I have posted a few ideas before, and have had this one for a while, but unlike the other ones, it is rather big and impactful.
I wasn't entirely sure if I should post it back then, but as I have been thinking about it more and more, I have figured out most of the details.
So, I guess I will be posting it now.


Motivation
There are many different items/products in Stardew Valley.
Some of them, like cooking, are there to be used by the player (as cooking was made specifically to not be massively profitable), while most others are meant to be sold.
Because of this, many players (myself included) will attempt to find out the absolute most profitable way of growing crops (I, for example, actually have a file where I list the best crops to grow on a tile, taking into account seasons; skill levels; professions; money; seed availability; etc.).

Now, while I like doing math to figure that out, it doesn't make a lot of sense realistically speaking, that one is capable of focusing on a single crop (or other product, but I guess crops are mainly used for profits, so I will focus on them) and make tons of money from it.
After all, you would flood the market with the same product, greatly exceeding the demand for that product.
Additionally, crops sold during the season in which they grow would normally not fetch as much as when sold during a different season, for the same reason.
Therefore, I had the idea of introducing something like a market economy, which would be a very high impact game setting.


Proposal
Players have the option when creating a new farm, to enable the use of a 'market economy' (optionally, one could maybe toggle this in Lewis' house in an existing save file? However, this could be abused, so some limitation to how many times it can be changed should be applied. I also have the feeling that would be way too hard to implement.).
In other words, selling prices for products are no longer static (as they are right now), but are determined by supply and demand.
Selling too many of the same product will lower its selling price (to a minimum) for a certain amount of time.
Not selling a product for a long time will drive up the price, potentially exceeding its usual static price, giving players an incentive to focus on this product.
Maximizing your profits with this system would require much more careful planning of the player, having to focus on multiple crops (or just products in general, like artisan goods), which I think would be a very nice added challenge (I, personally, would really enjoy such a thing).

Proposed details are as follows, which might be a bit technical (note that I use an 'X' to indicate a flat rate/number, but this value differs per occurrence and can also differ per product):

• When creating a new farm, players have the option to enable a 'market economy';
• When enabled, selling prices of all products are no longer static, but instead are a specific percentage of their usual selling price (the current selling price becomes the default basically);
• For every product, the game stores a variable (let's call it 'V') with a default value of zero, that is increased by one every time that product is sold;
• Once V reaches above a value X (V > X) for a product, the market will become flooded, decreasing the selling price by X% for every additional X beyond the upper limit of that product, up to a minimum of X%;
• Similarly, once V reaches below a value X (V < X, with X being negative), that product becomes in high demand, increasing the selling price by X% for every additional X below the lower limit;
• Every day, any product that currently has a value of V that is above zero, will have X deducted from it, after which selling prices are adjusted accordingly.
  This does not happen when this product has been sold in the past X days;
• Every day, any seasonal product that is not in season, has its value of V reduced by X;
• Every day, any non-seasonal product that has not been sold in the past X days, has its value of V reduced by X;
• Every day, there is a chance for an event that adds or removes X to/from the value of V of a specific product/type of product (for example, it can apply to a specific crop, or it can apply to all artisan goods).
  This is to somewhat simulate realistic events, like that the player isn't the only one in the world selling products; or that a specific product is just massively popular right now; etc.;
• All vendors in the game (like, Pierre; Willy; and Clint) have a limit of X of how many they are willing to buy of a product (potentially this limit applies to a type of product instead), with the amount sold to them being stored in a variable 'W'.
  The player cannot sell products to a vendor beyond this limit, and must use a shipping bin;
• Every day, the value of W is reduced by X (this may or may not depend on the season and such, like it is for the international market);
• The selling limit of a vendor increases by X every season, up to a maximum value of X;
• Products sold to vendors increase V at a slower rate (for example, V is increased by 0.7 for every product sold to them).
  This is to simulate boosting local businesses.
  Optionally, V could increase faster than usual if the player sells to JojaMart while not having a Joja Membership, or even slower than other vendors when the player does have it;
• The player will sometimes receive mail from either a Pelican Town vendor or the international market, requesting a certain amount of a specific product.
  Selling this product to the associated buyer (vendor or shipping bin) within a specific time limit will net the player X extra gold for every unit sold, up to the amount requested;
• A "Market & Trade" TV channel is added that can be watched every day, that provides the player with the 3 most profitable and 3 least profitable products right now (with profitability being the percentage of the default price).
  This could maybe be changed such that the player can check the profitability of any product (like, the TV channel shows them all, but the player focuses on a specific product while watching).

Below are a few definitions of terms I use:

• Seasonal product: Any product that cannot be logically obtained during at least one season.
  This applies to all crops (as no crop can be obtained during all seasons I believe); most fish; all crafted/cooked/artisan products whose ingredients cannot be logically obtained.
  For example, a Cheese Cauliflower would be a Spring product, as Cauliflowers can only be obtained normally during Spring and Cheese can be obtained during any season.
  Similarly, Truffle and Truffle Oil would be Spring/Summer/Fall products, as the former cannot be obtained during Winter, and thus the latter cannot either.
  On the other hand, a Lucky Lunch would be a seasonal product during no season (I know, sounds weird), as all of its ingredients cannot be obtained during any season (Sea Cucumber is Fall/Winter, whereas a Blue Jazz is Spring and Tortilla is Summer/Fall).
  A Lucky Lunch would therefore always be out-of-season.
  An exception to this rule would be if the Greenhouse has been unlocked: Any seasonal product that can be obtained from the Greenhouse (like crops) become non-seasonal products once it is unlocked.
  This might make things too difficult though or too unbalanced, as it would make the Greenhouse quite a bit less profitable;
• Non-seasonal product: Any product that can be obtained during all seasons, taking the Greenhouse and Garden Pots into account.
  This would apply to most animal products (except Truffles, but they are not classified as animal products I believe); some fish; all artifacts (I believe); all minerals; all crafted/cooked/artisan products whose ingredients are non-seasonal (like cheese; gold bars; or omelets).

The Greenhouse is in a bit of a weird spot, as I am not entirely sure whether it should be included or not for determining what is in season.
Taking it into account will reduce its value by quite a lot, while ignoring it could make it even more profitable.


I know the above is quite technical and would involve an incredibly large amount of work, which is why I hesitated for a long time before posting it.
I therefore spent a lot of time working out the details myself and hoping that there are others that can provide feedback.
Let me know what you think.


EDIT: Apparently, someone else already proposed this a few weeks before I posted this, which I didn't see (Demand mechanic).
My apologies for that.

 

[lilan castel]

I will disable it

 

[Ereo]

I would keep the greenhouse out of it, as it has limited space, therefore extra effort is required to get cheese cauliflower out of season.

What I would like to see added would be a storage system. I think it would be more realistic if vegetables couldn't be stored forever. They should at least loose quality, and some things shouldn't be stored for a season at all (berries, for example).

Maybe this could also add a cold storage building, where cooked food and veggies would stay fresh for longer.

 

[Paul]

Hey everyone,

I have posted a few ideas before, and have had this one for a while, but unlike the other ones, it is rather big and impactful.
I wasn't entirely sure if I should post it back then, but as I have been thinking about it more and more, I have figured out most of the details.
So, I guess I will be posting it now.


Motivation
There are many different items/products in Stardew Valley.
Some of them, like cooking, are there to be used by the player (as cooking was made specifically to not be massively profitable), while most others are meant to be sold.
Because of this, many players (myself included) will attempt to find out the absolute most profitable way of growing crops (I, for example, actually have a file where I list the best crops to grow on a tile, taking into account seasons; skill levels; professions; money; seed availability; etc.).

Now, while I like doing math to figure that out, it doesn't make a lot of sense realistically speaking, that one is capable of focusing on a single crop (or other product, but I guess crops are mainly used for profits, so I will focus on them) and make tons of money from it.
After all, you would flood the market with the same product, greatly exceeding the demand for that product.
Additionally, crops sold during the season in which they grow would normally not fetch as much as when sold during a different season, for the same reason.
Therefore, I had the idea of introducing something like a market economy, which would be a very high impact game setting.


Proposal
Players have the option when creating a new farm, to enable the use of a 'market economy' (optionally, one could maybe toggle this in Lewis' house in an existing save file? However, this could be abused, so some limitation to how many times it can be changed should be applied. I also have the feeling that would be way too hard to implement.).
In other words, selling prices for products are no longer static (as they are right now), but are determined by supply and demand.
Selling too many of the same product will lower its selling price (to a minimum) for a certain amount of time.
Not selling a product for a long time will drive up the price, potentially exceeding its usual static price, giving players an incentive to focus on this product.
Maximizing your profits with this system would require much more careful planning of the player, having to focus on multiple crops (or just products in general, like artisan goods), which I think would be a very nice added challenge (I, personally, would really enjoy such a thing).

Proposed details are as follows, which might be a bit technical (note that I use an 'X' to indicate a flat rate/number, but this value differs per occurrence and can also differ per product):

• When creating a new farm, players have the option to enable a 'market economy';
• When enabled, selling prices of all products are no longer static, but instead are a specific percentage of their usual selling price (the current selling price becomes the default basically);
• For every product, the game stores a variable (let's call it 'V') with a default value of zero, that is increased by one every time that product is sold;
• Once V reaches above a value X (V > X) for a product, the market will become flooded, decreasing the selling price by X% for every additional X beyond the upper limit of that product, up to a minimum of X%;
• Similarly, once V reaches below a value X (V < X, with X being negative), that product becomes in high demand, increasing the selling price by X% for every additional X below the lower limit;
• Every day, any product that currently has a value of V that is above zero, will have X deducted from it, after which selling prices are adjusted accordingly.
  This does not happen when this product has been sold in the past X days;
• Every day, any seasonal product that is not in season, has its value of V reduced by X;
• Every day, any non-seasonal product that has not been sold in the past X days, has its value of V reduced by X;
• Every day, there is a chance for an event that adds or removes X to/from the value of V of a specific product/type of product (for example, it can apply to a specific crop, or it can apply to all artisan goods).
  This is to somewhat simulate realistic events, like that the player isn't the only one in the world selling products; or that a specific product is just massively popular right now; etc.;
• All vendors in the game (like, Pierre; Willy; and Clint) have a limit of X of how many they are willing to buy of a product (potentially this limit applies to a type of product instead), with the amount sold to them being stored in a variable 'W'.
  The player cannot sell products to a vendor beyond this limit, and must use a shipping bin;
• Every day, the value of W is reduced by X (this may or may not depend on the season and such, like it is for the international market);
• The selling limit of a vendor increases by X every season, up to a maximum value of X;
• Products sold to vendors increase V at a slower rate (for example, V is increased by 0.7 for every product sold to them).
  This is to simulate boosting local businesses.
  Optionally, V could increase faster than usual if the player sells to JojaMart while not having a Joja Membership, or even slower than other vendors when the player does have it;
• The player will sometimes receive mail from either a Pelican Town vendor or the international market, requesting a certain amount of a specific product.
  Selling this product to the associated buyer (vendor or shipping bin) within a specific time limit will net the player X extra gold for every unit sold, up to the amount requested;
• A "Market & Trade" TV channel is added that can be watched every day, that provides the player with the 3 most profitable and 3 least profitable products right now (with profitability being the percentage of the default price).
  This could maybe be changed such that the player can check the profitability of any product (like, the TV channel shows them all, but the player focuses on a specific product while watching).

Below are a few definitions of terms I use:

• Seasonal product: Any product that cannot be logically obtained during at least one season.
  This applies to all crops (as no crop can be obtained during all seasons I believe); most fish; all crafted/cooked/artisan products whose ingredients cannot be logically obtained.
  For example, a Cheese Cauliflower would be a Spring product, as Cauliflowers can only be obtained normally during Spring and Cheese can be obtained during any season.
  Similarly, Truffle and Truffle Oil would be Spring/Summer/Fall products, as the former cannot be obtained during Winter, and thus the latter cannot either.
  On the other hand, a Lucky Lunch would be a seasonal product during no season (I know, sounds weird), as all of its ingredients cannot be obtained during any season (Sea Cucumber is Fall/Winter, whereas a Blue Jazz is Spring and Tortilla is Summer/Fall).
  A Lucky Lunch would therefore always be out-of-season.
  An exception to this rule would be if the Greenhouse has been unlocked: Any seasonal product that can be obtained from the Greenhouse (like crops) become non-seasonal products once it is unlocked.
  This might make things too difficult though or too unbalanced, as it would make the Greenhouse quite a bit less profitable;
• Non-seasonal product: Any product that can be obtained during all seasons, taking the Greenhouse and Garden Pots into account.
  This would apply to most animal products (except Truffles, but they are not classified as animal products I believe); some fish; all artifacts (I believe); all minerals; all crafted/cooked/artisan products whose ingredients are non-seasonal (like cheese; gold bars; or omelets).

The Greenhouse is in a bit of a weird spot, as I am not entirely sure whether it should be included or not for determining what is in season.
Taking it into account will reduce its value by quite a lot, while ignoring it could make it even more profitable.


I know the above is quite technical and would involve an incredibly large amount of work, which is why I hesitated for a long time before posting it.
I therefore spent a lot of time working out the details myself and hoping that there are others that can provide feedback.
Let me know what you think.

Overall great idea, the seasonal and non-seasonal thing should only apply in the Pelican Town itself though. Because if you're talking about international market they'll have different circumstances and different environment compared to Pelican Town. And they won't personally request a product with low demand..

and for the greenhouse thing, i believe adding a season tag to crops(the tag can be hidden or shown to players) should solve the problem.
e.g Cauliflower, tags: Vegetables, Spring

 

[Person090]

I would keep the greenhouse out of it, as it has limited space, therefore extra effort is required to get cheese cauliflower out of season.

What I would like to see added would be a storage system. I think it would be more realistic if vegetables couldn't be stored forever. They should at least loose quality, and some things shouldn't be stored for a season at all (berries, for example).

Maybe this could also add a cold storage building, where cooked food and veggies would stay fresh for longer.

That would be a pretty cool idea. That would work pretty well with the introduction of Mini Fridges.

 

[Lappy]

The points brought up here make a lot of sense to me. One thing I don't like in the game is how it turns into growing as many starfruit and ancient fruit as possible, as well as collecting oak resins.

I think having having fluctuating values for items is one way to move away from this model. It could be tricky figuring out formulas that work well. I'm curious to see what the next big update will introduce.

Using something along the lines of this example below, I would also scale large-quantity sales.

• Once V reaches above a value X (V > X) for a product, the market will become flooded, decreasing the selling price by X% for every additional X beyond the upper limit of that product, up to a minimum of X%;

For example, ancient fruit wine normally sells at W gold. But if you sell a whole cellar's worth of wine at once, the value per unit should be less. If you want to mitigate the loss of per-unit value, you can sell say, 10 bottles at a time per week, giving time for the market to rebound.

As for an item like the Lucky Lunch always being out of season (because at least one of its components is out of season at any given time), there can still be fluctuations in its value. To me, the sea cucumber is the bottleneck. Corn and blue jazz can be grown in mass quantities while it is in season (or in the greenhouse), whereas catching a bunch of sea cucumbers is time-consuming and must be done by 7 pm. Yes, you can build a fish pond for it, but at the expense of 25 tiles on your farm for an every-other-day harvest.

I think it would be a pretty big undertaking by CA to calculate what all the numbers would be - item value, rate of decay, etc., But I really like this idea. There should be incentive for players to grow pretty much any crop at any point in the game. But once you finish all the quests, max out friendships, and cook/craft every item, there's little reason to grow many items and a lot of players - myself included - will convert some or all of their farm to starfruit and ancient fruit to max out profitability.

Of course, there are other ways massive starfruit/ancient fruit farms could be discouraged or prevented. But I think the current static economic model favors such farms in the end game and a reactive model would make the game more interesting.

What I would like to see added would be a storage system. I think it would be more realistic if vegetables couldn't be stored forever. They should at least loose quality, and some things shouldn't be stored for a season at all (berries, for example).

Maybe this could also add a cold storage building, where cooked food and veggies would stay fresh for longer.

I agree - produce shouldn't last forever, especially things like berries, eggs, and milk. Lowering quality would lead players to sell extraneous produce to maximize their value, and discourage some stockpiling. But if the value of cooked items (both in terms of gold and +health/energy) was dependent on the quality of its ingredients, that would be greater incentive for players to "use it or lose it" sooner rather than later.

 

[Odin]

This is a really interesting idea, and would definitely make late game more interesting since right now (the way I play) it's just about growing tons of ancient fruit and converting as much of that as I can into wine.

 

[1313e]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.
I am happy to see there are others that agree that the current game economy is a bit too static.

For example, ancient fruit wine normally sells at W gold. But if you sell a whole cellar's worth of wine at once, the value per unit should be less. If you want to mitigate the loss of per-unit value, you can sell say, 10 bottles at a time per week, giving time for the market to rebound.

That is basically what I meant with that description, yes.
The more you sell at once, the less valuable the items become.

Overall great idea, the seasonal and non-seasonal thing should only apply in the Pelican Town itself though. Because if you're talking about international market they'll have different circumstances and different environment compared to Pelican Town. And they won't personally request a product with low demand..

Of course it would only apply to Pelican Town.
However, one can assume that the climate is similar in the surrounding areas at the same time of the year, and they are probably your most frequent buyers.
Implementing a system that takes into account that the other side of the "world" has different climates, would be incredibly difficult.
Would like to see it though.

I agree - produce shouldn't last forever, especially things like berries, eggs, and milk. Lowering quality would lead players to sell extraneous produce to maximize their value, and discourage some stockpiling. But if the value of cooked items (both in terms of gold and +health/energy) was dependent on the quality of its ingredients, that would be greater incentive for players to "use it or lose it" sooner rather than later.

I like the idea that cooked products have a quality associated with them, that depends on the quality of the ingredients.
Could really be an incentive for players to deal with their overproduction better.
Also, there are many products that are capable of being stored for a long time.
Like, jelly/jam for example.

 

[Cthulhu]

I think this is a great idea! I don't know how easy it would be to implement, but if it could be, it would make the game a lot more interesting. Commercial growers have specialized storage for their crops; it might be a bit too "crunchy" to make you buy a separate storage item for each crop, but a "cold-storage box"--or even a cellar area--would be a fun addition. Crops in storage could lose a grade every season, and turn into trash after their no-star season. That would give an incentive to use fertilizer and *not* sell off the best crops, since those would be the ones that could survive into the off-season.

If you did that, though, you'd need to implement some kind of spoilage mechanism for food in fridges or chests. Which makes sense to me; it would cut down on item hoarding, and make you have to work a little harder to fulfil request-quests. However, it would mean that you couldn't hold on to your crops effectively until you build the kitchen addition, since crops kept in chests would spoil quickly--probably in a matter of days, and within weeks for a regular refrigerator.

I think the above sounds like a fun addition, without making things unduly complicated. We'd have to accept that all crops decay at the same rate, likely, regardless of real-world perishability, and we'd have to accept some kind of similar simplified economics for bulk sales, but that's fine--a game should be just realistic enough to be fun, without turning into a micromanaging real-life simulator. :)

 

[SysAdmin]

commenting 4 years after but I found something for 1.6
https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/21414