Improving shops

[Mithril]

It seems that what items you can buy in a shop depends in part on what level you are when first entering the shop. This is bad for several reasons.

1. It makes the shop useful only during a restricted range of levels. After a while the shop will become less useful as you level-up.
2. It is weird and counter-intuitive and breaks world immersion.
3. It encourages exploiting this by those who knows this by avoiding going into shops.

There are various way to avoid this. This simplest, at least for point 2 and 3, would be to make the shop level dependent only on the town level and not on the player level when first entering the shop. Point 1 may not be a problem.

[snoop]

A lot more could be done with shops. I was thinking it would be cool if new and better items showed up as some function of how much trade the shop has had with the player in terms of gold spent + items sold. That would make intuitive economic sense and would ensure the shops remained useful to higher levels. You could spend your money and trade your items in stores that matched your character in order to improve your chances of getting useful gear.

That said, the trend seems to be towards making the shops mostly irrelevant once you've got your Transmog going, and that's not a bad thing either; I'm not sure there will be much support for "buffing" shopping.

[bricks]

I'd like shops to restock a little more often. Once before Dreadfell would be nice, though I'm not sure what the trigger should be.

[Mithril]

A lot more could be done with shops. I was thinking it would be cool if new and better items showed up as some function of how much trade the shop has had with the player in terms of gold spent + items sold. That would make intuitive economic sense and would ensure the shops remained useful to higher levels. You could spend your money and trade your items in stores that matched your character in order to improve your chances of getting useful gear.

That said, the trend seems to be towards making the shops mostly irrelevant once you've got your Transmog going, and that's not a bad thing either; I'm not sure there will be much support for "buffing" shopping.

I do not like. It encourages grinding och brings back being a cleaning slave moving everything found in the dungeons by menial labor to a shop. The transmorgofication chest was created to avoid this. Dubious that it makes economic sense also, buying from a merchant may encourage him to increase his stock, but selling may have the opposite effect.

[snoop]

A lot more could be done with shops. I was thinking it would be cool if new and better items showed up as some function of how much trade the shop has had with the player in terms of gold spent + items sold. That would make intuitive economic sense and would ensure the shops remained useful to higher levels. You could spend your money and trade your items in stores that matched your character in order to improve your chances of getting useful gear.

That said, the trend seems to be towards making the shops mostly irrelevant once you've got your Transmog going, and that's not a bad thing either; I'm not sure there will be much support for "buffing" shopping.

I do not like. It encourages grinding och brings back being a cleaning slave moving everything found in the dungeons by menial labor to a shop. The transmorgofication chest was created to avoid this. Dubious that it makes economic sense also, buying from a merchant may encourage him to increase his stock, but selling may have the opposite effect.

Well, I was thinking that the protagonist is not the only person buying/selling in the shops, so some of those high quality items you sell at 10 cents on the dollar are being bought by other adventurers, thus increasing shop profits.

Basically I don't disagree with you though, I hate shopping even in real life!

[belmarduk]

I'd like shops to restock a little more often. Once before Dreadfell would be nice, though I'm not sure what the trigger should be.

I think the best solution to the shop problem is to automatically set all shop inventories at character creation. Afterwards, reset shop inventories at the following intervals:
1. When you complete your starter zone quests
2. When you complete the 2nd tier dungeons

This gives you an opportunity to buy improved equipment before going into Dreadfell without encouraging you to "save" your shop roll until level 18-20. Having the freedom to immediately enter Last Hope and get your alchemist quest without having to worry about what it's going to do to your gear levels is nice.

[Balakirev]

A lot more could be done with shops. I was thinking it would be cool if new and better items showed up as some function of how much trade the shop has had with the player in terms of gold spent + items sold. That would make intuitive economic sense and would ensure the shops remained useful to higher levels. You could spend your money and trade your items in stores that matched your character in order to improve your chances of getting useful gear.

I'm just at the point of trying to get my copy of the game to work. That said, what about shopkeepers who offer quests specific to the kind of merchandise they usually display? Bring XYZ back to them for a reasonable, continuing discount in the future, or for a one time discounted item.

[Mithril]

I'd like shops to restock a little more often. Once before Dreadfell would be nice, though I'm not sure what the trigger should be.

I think the best solution to the shop problem is to automatically set all shop inventories at character creation. Afterwards, reset shop inventories at the following intervals:
1. When you complete your starter zone quests
2. When you complete the 2nd tier dungeons

This gives you an opportunity to buy improved equipment before going into Dreadfell without encouraging you to "save" your shop roll until level 18-20. Having the freedom to immediately enter Last Hope and get your alchemist quest without having to worry about what it's going to do to your gear levels is nice.

Seems like good ideas. The current situation encourages counter-intuitive gameplay by those with knowledge avoiding shops initially. This makes shops less valuable and rewards tactics that you likely cannot figure out yourself but need to read spoilers to grasp.

[cttw]

Maybe the shops should have more items? I find it strange that clearing a single level of any dungeon provides more items than a shop has, even if the shop items are all the same type.

[belmarduk]

From a realism and immersion standpoint either shops should have larger inventories, dungeons should have less loot, or both. But from a gameplay balance standpoint, adding more items to the dungeons would remove scarcity of gear from the equation in determining overall difficulty, which would diminish the value of dungeoneering for gear upgrades. Unlike with random loot you find in dungeons, loot in shops is pinpointed; it's always better than normal quality and sorted by subtypes, so if you specifically need a one handed mace you know what places to look. With the current design, shops aren't guaranteed to outfit any slot on your character, but can provide very nice individual slot upgrades on occasion and usually have one-two pieces of swap in gear which makes victory kits a lot easier to put together, without being game breaking or giving the player the impression that they should just rush to the endgame off of shop loot.

In terms of distributing equipment to the player, I think shops are very successful. I just think the current design encourages scumming them a little too much, as the inventory spawn is incredibly predictable and there is nothing to disincentivize the player from scumming them short of their own morality, as putting together kits for specific dungeons is not really important until you get to daikara or tempest.

[Grey]

I think for gameplay purposes nothing can be more dull than having to shop in the game... Dungeon loot is where it should be at, with shops only filling in the gaps.

[Rectifier]

I agree Grey, but if the newer player activates all the shops at levels 5-10, then they can't be used to fill the gaps in later levels and become frustrated when only tier two items are available even at levels 15-20. This isn't an issue on the Eastern continent because you activate those shops at a high level anyway; but for the mid-level player it can be annoying to pick and choose which shop to activate and when to do it.

For those who have figured out that shops stay at the "level" of the player when activated through asking or otherwise, this mechanic encourages veteran players to avoid shops almost exclusively; and even then only for selling of beginner dungeon loot before they can rush the chest.

Then the question becomes, if we have a feature deemed practically useless by veterans and newcomers alike, should we change it or remove it?
If removed, then towns only serve as quest hubs, which is boring and not very interactive.
Since ToME is based loosely off of Angbands which are defined by having an interactive town or towns, then the current shop mechanics simply need a modification to placate the masses and not be removed as a feature.

[Grey]

ToME has very little tie to Angband, and it's silly to keep in a feature purely for that reason. There are other things that could be put in towns instead though, like individual services that dungeons don't offer. Having towns give the same stuff as you get from killing monsters is dull.

[cttw]

Things I'd like to see in towns:

More sidegames like the arena. Maybe participating in some town competition of who can slay more mice, or who can win a race, with minor rewards.

A tavern where you can talk to the drunks and get tips for dungeons (like equip antifreeze to defeat wrathroot). With the risk that you may occasionally have to fight a drunker drunk.

A place to bet on fights between strange creatures. Maybe the creature could then inherit your luck value, but maybe that would require making luck more decisive in combat to be noticeable.

Assassination quests where you must kill someone in town unseen by any other wandering NPC, and if you are seen you have to face the guards every time you go into that town.

[Mithril]

Another problem IMHO is that there are so many shops now with up to seven towns in the west all having several shops. Lots of running around and trying to remember the items required if you try to be a discerning shopper.

One suggestion is a command which lists all items and prices in all shops visited which would make comparisons easier.

Another could be to use the Butler to go and buy and retrieve items back to the house. That it, it would be possible to buy from all shops visited in the house.

Another would be somewhat fewer shops with each shop being unique in what items it contains. No general shops. Then one need only visit one shop when looking for a particular item.