A suggestion for a couple of gold sinks.

[PurpleXVI]

As it is, outside of the occasional lucky find in the shops early on, my impression is that I, and most people, really only save up gold for the Randart store in the endgame(and the 100 gold necessary for the portal), and otherwise just let our gold pile up. There may be things we need, say, our belt may be horribly outdated, or maybe we've never found a Shield rune or Healing infusion that was worth a damn.

This is because the content of the stores is randomized, and randomized over such a huge variety of gear and quality of gear, that unless you have nothing for a category(and, frankly, not always even then), it's almost impossible to get something you want or need. The Randart store, on the other hand, succeeds almost every time because the power level is always excellent(tier 5) and because you can, by ordering an item from him, ensure that it's always for a slot where you need something.

So what I'd suggest is two kinds of stores...

#1: Inscriptions-to-Order, where you can order an inscription of the type you need, because seriously, it matters so damn much to your chance of success. I'd call that one the most important of the two. Pretty much everything else about your character you have some degree of control over, or alternative option for, but literally nothing else replicates the function of a shield rune or healing/regeneration infusion for most classes.

#2: The Artifact Swap Meet. Lets you swap unusable/unwanted artifacts for another artifact of the same tier(for a fee), which is then marked as "unswappable," so people won't just scroll through all the game's artifacts looking for the ones they want, to function as an earlier-game form of the Randart store.

Frankly I'm not too sure about the second one, the first one sounds more important, but it feels like it wouldn't really work as that great of a gold sink by itself, since people only need so many inscriptions to be kitted out in that realm.

[edge2054]

I like both of these ideas.

[Red]

Another idea, what if you could purchase one specific ego from a shop? So you can buy something for any slot, with one specific ego, and that's the only ego you get. That way, if you have a build that relies really heavily on critical hits, you can guarantee yourself a +crit chance item for any slot, at the cost of any other egoes on it.

[Atarlost]

Another idea, what if you could purchase one specific ego from a shop? So you can buy something for any slot, with one specific ego, and that's the only ego you get. That way, if you have a build that relies really heavily on critical hits, you can guarantee yourself a +crit chance item for any slot, at the cost of any other egoes on it.

More importantly you can get a belt of undeath for the sandworm lair and not asphyxiate so you can dig yourself out if you get caught in a cave in. And be able to autoexplore on waterlogged levels.

[jaumito]

Have Tainted Melinda join your party. When she "dies", she actually goes back to her healing tank (Sher'Tul magic!), where for a 2000 gold medical bill you can bring her to battle-ready status again.

[Doctornull]

#1: Inscriptions-to-Order, where you can order an inscription of the type you need, because seriously, it matters so damn much to your chance of success. I'd call that one the most important of the two. Pretty much everything else about your character you have some degree of control over, or alternative option for, but literally nothing else replicates the function of a shield rune or healing/regeneration infusion for most classes.

Awesome. Solid, balanced idea which helps against bad RNG but doesn't overall inflate power. Very nice.

#2: The Artifact Swap Meet. Lets you swap unusable/unwanted artifacts for another artifact of the same tier(for a fee), which is then marked as "unswappable," so people won't just scroll through all the game's artifacts looking for the ones they want, to function as an earlier-game form of the Randart store.

Decent but ... I dunno. Seems power-creepy in a way, unless it costs as much as the Merchant's artifacts, and at that point it's just the same as the Merchant's artifacts.

Some ideas in the same vein which might be less power-creepy:
- Combine a Rare item with a Purple item or non-Merchant Randart and get a Randart from their combined egos? Results of this and regular Merchant artifacts would be marked "do_not_combine" to prevent further creep.
- Combine two Purple items.
- Combine a Rare and a Gemstone, plus get two random bonus egos slapped on top.

It'd be a nice way of both spending gold and making Rare items relevant in the lategame.

[edge2054]

I imagined suggestion 2 as like a blind draw. So you might trade Tihka's Maul for Summertide Phial, and spend 500g doing it!

An artifact auction house might be neat though. Like Final Fantasy 3 style.

[Red]

- Combine a Rare and a Gemstone, plus get two random bonus egos slapped on top.

Wait, that's less power creep? Rare items (I assume you mean randarts which are dropped by rares, since there is no "rare" item type) are already the best gear in the game, with a bit of luck. Putting a gem is already possible on a couple of slots, but adding two egoes to a randart is vastly empowering a lategame player with good luck, and still a buff even with the worst possible luck.

[Planetus]

I'm guessing he's talking about the kind-fo salmon/pink colored items, as opposed to the orange ones. I know orange is randart, but what are the salmon ones called? They tend to be much less powerful.

[Red]

I'm not sure how many egoes pink items have relative to randarts. If they have three less, then that's fine, but if it's only two, then it's randart+gem, which is more powerful than any randart excepting chestpieces (plus gloves and helms, with prodigy). If that's the case, though, it's probably reasonable. Barring fantastic luck, you'll usually only end up with a good randart at best without Vaulting, so that's not too bad. If pink items have only one less ego than randarts, though, that is defintiely power creep right there.

[HousePet]

Pink items have 1 ego and a few random artifact powers.

[Doctornull]

I'm guessing he's talking about the kind-fo salmon/pink colored items, as opposed to the orange ones. I know orange is randart, but what are the salmon ones called? They tend to be much less powerful.

Yep, the items with pink names which are "rare" dropped by monsters with pink names which are called "Rare".

Pink items have 1 ego and a few random artifact powers.

Bingo. They're weak, they become largely irrelevant late-game, and making them more exciting might be neat.

[PurpleXVI]

I imagined suggestion 2 as like a blind draw. So you might trade Tihka's Maul for Summertide Phial, and spend 500g doing it!

That was basically the idea, yeah, you'd have no choice in what you got, except it would be the same tier, with escalating costs, say... 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000 just as placeholder values. Meaning that early/midgame you could swap tier 2's and 3's hoping to get something more suited to you, but endgame, it'd be the same cost as using the randart merchant. Potentially greater payoffs if there's just that one T5 artifact for your class that hasn't dropped yet, but also potentially more wailing and gnashing of teeth if you get a pair of T5 antimagic shoes as an Archmage.

I was more attached to the first idea, though, this one was mostly just because since I was thinking of gold sinks as it was, I might as well throw out an idea for a second.

[Effigy]

Inscription-to-Order: Definitely a good idea. It could be balanced by making the inscription cost 2-3x the normal price, but let you pick the inscription type and associated attribute.

Artifact Swap Meet: I like this as long as the gold fee is reasonable, i.e. not crazy high but high enough to prevent abuse. Maybe 400 gold per item tier or something, so swapping a T5 artifact would be half the cost of buying a randart from the shop. Considering you need to trade in an artifact plus the gold cost, I think it should be less expensive than the randart store.

Buy item with a specific ego (Red's idea): This is actually a really good idea since it's nowhere near overpowered, but it helps builds with really specific requirements get through an unlucky start.

Combine items (Doctornull's idea): This would be a fun addition, but it does have powercreep potetial since it might become trivial to create best-in-slot items. The cost would either have to be really high, or it would have to be limited to low-rarity items like green/blue/purple. I think combining rare+ items with anything would be overpowered unless it costs 8k+ gold or something.

Good topic! I agree that right now there's not much use for gold in the mid-game. Early game you're buying inscriptions and possibly filling a few item slot. Late game you're buying randarts. But in the mid-game, there's not really anything to spend money on in most cases; you might find a good item for sale after the shops reset, but this is pretty rare.

[HousePet]

Another idea that pops up occasionally is the option to socket gems into items for a fee.