The Order Of The Hollow Star
Economy & Progression Design — Full Breakdown
Economy & Progression Design — Full Breakdown
Jump to:
The Economy
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Design Goals
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Core Systems
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State-Driven Modifiers
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Design Problems
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My Approach
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Results
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Full Project Page
What Is the Economy?
The Order of the Hollow Star runs on a state-driven, multi-currency narrative economy where player resources, NPC emotions, and world state are tightly coupled. Every economic decision influences both progression and relationship outcomes simultaneously.
The defining feature:
NPC emotional state directly modifies economic value: cost, access, and progression are not fixed, but shaped by how the player behaves.
CORE PHILOSOPHY
Unlike traditional economies centered on optimization, this system treats resources as expressions of player intent. Every spend is a statement about trust, risk, and identity. The economy is not only driven by resource availability, but by how players are perceived by the world around them. Every resource decision carries mechanical impact (progression), emotional impact (NPC trust and loyalty), and narrative impact (branching outcomes). The economy is not only driven by resource availability, but by how players are perceived by the world around them.
The system is structured around three interdependent currencies — Insight (information), Influence (social leverage), and Resources (material capacity) with each governing a different layer of player agency.
CORE CURRENCIES
Insight
→
unlocks hidden dialogue, narrative branches, and reduces uncertainty in interpreting NPC behavior
Influence
→
persuades or manipulates NPCs, unlocks relationship-dependent progression paths, alters narrative outcomes
Resources
→
unlocks upgrades and abilities, performs key actions and rituals, progresses through gated content
NPC emotional states modulate the effectiveness of Influence, while Insight reduces uncertainty in interpreting those states, creating a feedback loop between player behavior, knowledge, and social leverage.
Design Goals
Design Inspiration:
The economy draws from systems where resources are tools for identity expression rather than optimization targets. Disco Elysium was the primary reference: its skill economy makes every resource check a statement about who you are, not just what you can do. Hades showed how NPC relationship states can directly modify gameplay outcomes. The Nemesis System from Shadow of Mordor was the closest technical parallel: 30+ NPC state variables continuously influencing behavior, access, and cost, which directly informed how the emotion system feeds into economic modifiers here.
Emotional Systems Are Economic Systems.
The economy is designed to resist optimization and reward roleplay. Tension between survival and trust, meaningful scarcity under uncertainty, and branching consequences driven by resource use, these are the three pillars every design decision maps back to.
1
Create Tension Between Survival and Trust
Spending resources on yourself costs relationship capital. Investing in NPCs costs personal progression. Neither path is safe.
2
Enforce Meaningful Scarcity
Resources are always insufficient for all paths. Every choice is a sacrifice. Abundance would kill the narrative tension the system is built to create.
3
Prevent Dominant Strategies
Perfect optimization loops collapse narrative intent. The system must make roleplay the most effective strategy, not a liability.
4
Make Consequences Feel Personal
Outcomes should feel like natural results of who the player chose to be, not arbitrary gates. Economic and narrative consequences must be indistinguishable.
One hard constraint shaped every decision: the economy had to feel like a natural extension of the world's logic, not a visible mechanic. Players are not optimizing resources, they are negotiating relationships under constraint.
Core Economy Systems
A. Source / Sink Model
Resources flow in and out continuously, but the system is intentionally imbalanced because there are never enough resources to pursue all paths simultaneously.
Sources (Inflows)
Exploration rewards
Dialogue outcomes
NPC assistance (trust-dependent)
World events and discoveries
Sinks (Outflows)
Upgrades and abilities
Narrative decisions (sacrifices, tradeoffs)
NPC interactions (support, bribes, betrayal)
Progression gates
Scarcity is systemic, not incidental and the system is designed so players can never pursue all paths simultaneously. Forced tradeoffs are the core mechanic.
B. Friction-Based Conversation System
Currencies are interlinked through lossy conversion rates. No conversion is efficient and this is the primary mechanic preventing optimization loops.
To prevent optimization loops, all currency conversions are intentionally lossy and context-dependent.
No perfect conversion path exists. Players must commit to a primary currency strategy and that commitment shapes both their mechanical options and their narrative identity.
No perfect conversion path exists. Players must commit to a primary currency strategy and that commitment shapes both their mechanical options and their narrative identity.
C. Gated Progression System
Progression is locked behind combined thresholds: never just one currency, never just one relationship state. This ensures economic and narrative progression are always interdependent.
EXAMPLE GATE
Unlock Ritual requires: Insight ≥ X AND NPC Trust ≥ Y
Result: no purely economic progression, no purely narrative progression, everything is interdependent.
Result: no purely economic progression, no purely narrative progression, everything is interdependent.
D. Dynamic Pricing System
Costs scale based on player progression stage, NPC emotional state, and world condition, creating a living economy that responds to how the player has been behaving, not just what they have.
| Condition | Economic Effect |
|---|---|
| High NPC Trust | Reduced upgrade costs, better conversion rates |
| High Suspicion | Increased costs, restricted dialogue access |
| Late Game Stage | Scaling resource requirements across all currencies |
| Prior Betrayal | Permanently locked paths, elevated failure penalties |
State-Driven Modifiers
The economy does not operate in isolation, it is dynamically modulated by a separate NPC state system that tracks 6+ emotional variables per character, updated continuously based on 30–40+ behavioral inputs in real-time.
Behavior → State → Economy Pipeline
This creates a feedback loop where behavior shapes state, state shapes economy, and economy reshapes future behavior.
The six NPC state variables tracked per character, and their direct economic effects:
| NPC State Variable | Behavioral Inputs | Economic Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Trust | Dialogue honesty, time invested, promises kept | Reduced costs, better rewards, expanded access |
| Loyalty | Consistent prioritization, sacrifice for NPC | Unlocks alternative progression paths |
| Fear | Intimidation, resource control, power displays | Short-term compliance, long-term instability |
| Suspicion | Avoidance, hesitation, contradictory actions | Increased costs, restricted dialogue access |
| Respect | Demonstrated competence, consistent behavior | Improved conversion efficiency |
| Affection | Attention, proximity, emotional investment | Access to unique narrative and economic outcomes |
Economy outcomes are shaped by how you play, not just what you choose. A player who avoids eye contact, hesitates before dialogue, and prioritizes self-progression will face a fundamentally different economy than one who invests in relationships, even with identical resources.
Design Problems
Three design problems emerged in early prototypes that undermined the system's core intent:
Exploitation Loops
Players found optimal conversion paths and could bypass intended scarcity entirely: the economy rewarded optimization over roleplay.
Mid-Game Bottlenecks
Players ran out of key currencies unpredictably. Progression stalled in ways that felt arbitrary rather than consequential.
Disconnected Systems
Economy and NPC emotions operated independently. Resource decisions didn't carry emotional weight: players optimized instead of role-playing, and narrative intent collapsed.
My Approach
Step 1 — System Integration (Economy + Emotion)
The most significant design shift: merging the economic system with NPC emotional state tracking so they could no longer operate independently.
DESIGN PROBLEM → DESIGN RESPONSE
Exploitation loops
→
Lossy conversion rates with contextual modifiers, no dominant path exists
Mid-game bottlenecks
→
Rebalanced source/sink flow across 8+ playtests, adjusted inflow rates and late-game sinks
Disconnected systems
→
Integrated NPC emotional state as direct economic modifier and costs now depend on trust, access on loyalty, risk on suspicion
★
Core Innovation: Behavior-Driven Economy
Costs now depend on trust, access depends on loyalty, and risk scales with suspicion. The economy became a reflection of the player's relationship with the world rather than a separate resource management layer. This mirrors how Disco Elysium's skill checks feel personal rather than mechanical: the system responds to who you are, not just what you have.
2
Introduced Friction into Conversion System
Introduced lossy, context-dependent conversions to eliminate dominant optimization paths across all currency pairs. No single conversion path could be optimized: players had to commit to a strategy and live with its tradeoffs. This was the key shift from optimization-friendly to roleplay-friendly.
3
Rebalanced Source / Sink Flow
Through 8+ structured playtests (10–15 players per session), adjusted resource inflow rates, increased late-game sinks, and smoothed mid-game scarcity. The goal was maintaining pressure without blocking progression: scarcity should create tension, not frustration.
4
Data-Driven Tuning via UE5 DataTables
Built all currencies, costs, and scaling curves into UE5 DataTables with modular Blueprint systems, enabling real-time tuning during playtests without recompilation. This cut balancing iteration cycles significantly and allowed rapid response to playtest findings across all 8+ sessions.
Results
8+
structured playtests used to tune the economy across 10–15 players per session
30+
NPC state combinations feeding into economic modifiers in real-time
100+
branching narrative outcomes driven by combined economic and emotional state
Early playtests revealed that players were solving the economy instead of roleplaying within it.
BEFORE
Players optimized currency conversion paths
NPC relationships were ignored as inefficient
Progression felt mechanical, not personal
Narrative intent collapsed under optimization
AFTER
Players balanced resources and relationships naturally
Decisions carried emotional and systemic weight
Narrative outcomes felt earned, risky, and personal
Roleplay became the most effective strategy
Key Design Takeaways
Economy can drive narrative, not just progression
Resources are storytelling tools when the system is designed around consequences rather than optimization. The question isn't "what can I afford", it's "what am I willing to sacrifice."
Emotional systems are economic systems
NPC trust and loyalty function as modifiers, gates, and cost reducers. Treating them as separate from the economy was the root cause of every design problem in early prototypes. Once they were integrated, the system became coherent.
Prevent optimization to encourage roleplay
Perfect systems kill narrative tension. Lossy conversions, contextual modifiers, and NPC-dependent costs ensure that the "optimal" path is always the one that reflects who the player chose to be, not a route they calculated.
Scarcity creates meaning, abundance creates indifference
When players have enough of everything, choices become shallow. Enforced scarcity, designed so that every path requires a sacrifice, is what makes identity-driven play feel consequential rather than cosmetic.
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