ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Random is random.

You eventually make it to an impressive town.
You rush to the shops and they all seem to have the same limited stock as that tiny shop
you last visited in the most remote hamlet of somewhere, so long ago.

Wait. You even feel mildly threatened walking around this impressive town!

You look down at the seven worthless healing infusions,
all of them almost identical and you repress a disgusted comment.
The next shop has about five useless belts, no boots. Or gloves.

*Sigh*

You leave the last shop weighting the purse dripping coins and head on...

At least, when random is random, have important locations have better stock (>10 slots?)
and maybe have some random traveling merchant on the map, just as hostile patrols!
He could sell (for a price) THAT thing you've been looking for since starting adventuring...

+1

Important towns have higher tier equipment for sale and use a higher effective character level when generating inventory. For example, when you first start the game, Derth only sells t1 or t2 equipment, and all merchandise is the sort of drops you'd get at level eight. Angolwen, when you complete the quest to open it, sells up to t3 equipment and has an effective level of 25. When you defeat the Master, Derth's level increases to 25 and Angolwen's increases to 35. When you find the Gates of Morning, it's selling t3 and t4 equipment, with an effective level of 40.

I thought shops didn't apply levels anymore? That was removed a few betas ago...

I thought they were applying your level before, and that was removed.

Would be nice to see a bit more variation in shops.
Some sort of bias would be good.
eg.
Derth has cheaper but cruder stuff.
Last Hope is more upmarket but costs more.
Iron Throne is more likely to have masterwork egos.
Irkkk is more likely to have psionic egos.
Shatur more likely to have nature egos.
Elvala more likely to have arcane egos.
Angolwen less likely to have nature egos and will never have arcane disrupting.
Zigur more likely to have arcane disrupting but never has arcane egos.

And there is just ONE late-game shop... In theory, early-game shops are updated too, but I have not noticed anything good appearing there.

HousePet wrote:I thought they were applying your level before, and that was removed.

Would be nice to see a bit more variation in shops.
Some sort of bias would be good.

Yeah, that would be good. Or even some racial/class bias. Say Shatur has better items if you are a Thalore, Derth for halfings, Anglowen for mages and especially archmages, etc.

Omega Blue wrote:

HousePet wrote:I thought they were applying your level before, and that was removed.

Would be nice to see a bit more variation in shops.
Some sort of bias would be good.

Yeah, that would be good. Or even some racial/class bias. Say Shatur has better items if you are a Thalore, Derth for halfings, Anglowen for mages and especially archmages, etc.

Indeed! Some more variety, a bit more choices would be greatly appreciated.
Gates of Morning shops are just as pathetic as Derth ones.

Same quantity of items, more or less same level.

But what really disturbs me is that there are often several items of the same kind
with only slightly different stats. I'm not saying to go for "one of everything"
but at least to avoid "too many of some". Maybe RNG should be told to come up
with no more than 2-3 items of the same kind and then look for something else.

Crim, The Red Thunder wrote:I thought shops didn't apply levels anymore? That was removed a few betas ago...

A few betas ago, they applied your level, meaning that they'd have better goods for sale if if you avoided them like the plague until you'd leveled up a bit. That was removed. Instead, the shops have fixed levels: Derth always has an effective level of 8 until the post-Master restock, at which point its level always rises to 25. In the old betas, Derth's level was whatever level you happened to be when you first entered (or possibly when you first entered a shop); the post-Master restock changed it to whatever level you happened to be when you first entered after the post-Master restock.

+1

Not sure what is the best way to change this
Maybe implement a lot more abilities for weapons? More ego items?

In any case i agree with the post, shops are Dull

Personally, if we are to stick with the shop levels for diversity, I think the number of items generated should be at least doubled, but possibly tripled, and the addon that sorts shop items by type should be merged into main development.