Shop Price rebalancing

[darkgod]

True also, then maybe I should put a cap on store gold as I mentioned, this wont hamper the first levels but will cap the high levels gold incomme

[Grey]

I say try both ideas out in alternative betas, see which people find more enjoyable.

[Repton]

True also, then maybe I should put a cap on store gold as I mentioned, this wont hamper the first levels but will cap the high levels gold incomme

What's to stop people from heading out to wander the wilderness for a bit, before returning to sell the rest of their loot? Plus, most towns have at least four shops..

I think the big issue is that different classes have different needs for money. Fighters spend a bundle on healing potions and scrolls -- and would spend more, if the stuff they wanted was available (e.g. potions of full healing cost 50 gold apiece, but are rare. And if I could pay for scrolls to be fireproofed, I would..). Whereas mages don't need scrolls or potions so much, and get more benefit out of them anyway because of their high magic.

So I think it'll be difficult to get the balance you want across all classes. (maybe mages should have to pay dues to Angolwen )

[Feanor.81]

What's to stop people from heading out to wander the wilderness for a bit, before returning to sell the rest of their loot? Plus, most towns have at least four shops..

Well, a good idea would be add a per shop filter on what can be sold there and what cannot; it doesn't make much sense that potion shops are going to buy from you all that weapons and armors... This plus the gold cap could help limiting somehow the amount of gold you can amass in a single visit to the town.

Still, this system would be easily exploitable; you can simply leave the objects you can't sell lying on the floor in town, and they will remain there until your next visit, when you can pick up again and sell them right away... Or (masochistic way) you can just put the Homer's woodpecker on the '5' key and go smoke a cigarette to wait for the gold cap to reset...

[Zop]

If no selling is implemented, it might be worthwhile to allow ego items to be "melted down" at a certain store/forge to make healing/mana potions.

[Mithril]

I think a lot of people would be surprised at how much more fun these types of games get when you can't sell anything. It makes you realize how much time you spend agonizing over how to pack your bags for the return trip to town. Massively boost gold drops, turn off selling to stores, and it will remove a great weight from our (and our characters') shoulders. Oh, and if we're worried about devaluing certain items which are only really good for selling, then that means those items need to change.

Go for it, Darkgod! We'll be thanking you for years.

Yes, yes, yes! I hate mindless wandering back and forth between dungeons and town just in order to dump items. As well having to, if one must win the game, to scour the levels for every item and drag them all back to town. Made even worse if there are complicated identification requirements that add additional mindless steps to selling every item. Enjoyable time is discovering and fighting. Not doing mindless chores again and again and again. Moving items as a FedEx employee is menial labor and not fun.

As mentioned gold caps can be circumvented and does not solve the fundamental problems of boredom.

Removing much of the encumberance headache is not a problem. It is a major advantage. If some talents are now superfluous then they can be replaced with some more fun ones. Spending talent points on encumberance management is not exciting.

Not sure that I understand the argument that this removes treasure hunting from the game. Finding large gold hordes is the same. If one feels that one must be able to sell items, then how about merchants giving out a mini-teleport device that allows immediate selling of items one finds without having to go back to town?

Regarding the worry of not having enough gold to buy potions or other items. Just increase the amount of gold one will find or lower prices.

[Nevuk]

Why not just add no selling as a birth option?

[Mithril]

Why not just add no selling as a birth option?

If one must drag back and sell most item in order to get good or necessary items then not selling is an illusionary option.

[Grey]

Removing much of the encumberance headache is not a problem. It is a major advantage. If some talents are now superfluous then they can be replaced with some more fun ones. Spending talent points on encumberance management is not exciting.

Well, perhaps the encumbrance tree should be renamed "Item Management". The existing "Efficient Packing" and "Burden Management" should be replaced with something like the follwing:

Potion Expert (passive)
Your knowledge of magical potions allows you to get greater effect from them. You gain +x% effect from all potions quaffed.
x = 10 * Talent_level + (Cu/5)

Item Lore (passive)
Your learning and experience let you automatically identify many items you find. You have a x% chance to identify y value items.
x = 10 * Talent_level + (Cu/5)
y = low, medium, high, very high, all (linked in to the value of items - say low = 0-15, medium = 15-40, high = 40-80, very high 80-150, all = 150+)
Value of items one can identify is based on talent level - level 5 allows all to be identified.

With these two talents and the existing Insulating and Pack Rat talents I see the whole talent tree becoming much more useful to all non-mage classes. I would suggest Item Lore becoming the level 2 talent and Insulating Packing becoming level 3 (since Item Lore is more useful early in the game).

[edge2054]

Removing much of the encumberance headache is not a problem. It is a major advantage. If some talents are now superfluous then they can be replaced with some more fun ones. Spending talent points on encumberance management is not exciting.

Well, perhaps the encumbrance tree should be renamed "Item Management". The existing "Efficient Packing" and "Burden Management" should be replaced with something like the follwing:

Potion Expert (passive)
Your knowledge of magical potions allows you to get greater effect from them. You gain +x% effect from all potions quaffed.
x = 10 * Talent_level + (Cu/5)

Item Lore (passive)
Your learning and experience let you automatically identify many items you find. You have a x% chance to identify y value items.
x = 10 * Talent_level + (Cu/5)
y = low, medium, high, very high, all (linked in to the value of items - say low = 0-15, medium = 15-40, high = 40-80, very high 80-150, all = 150+)
Value of items one can identify is based on talent level - level 5 allows all to be identified.

With these two talents and the existing Insulating and Pack Rat talents I see the whole talent tree becoming much more useful to all non-mage classes. I would suggest Item Lore becoming the level 2 talent and Insulating Packing becoming level 3 (since Item Lore is more useful early in the game).

I like this idea but remember the whole point of the packing tree was to allow slingers to carry bullets. The rest of it was just extra *stuff*.

Maybe drop one of the weight management skills for potion expert (though I'd make this a flat increase to magic for purposes of item use based off percentage of cunning and rename it Use Magic Device).

[Grey]

I like this idea but remember the whole point of the packing tree was to allow slingers to carry bullets. The rest of it was just extra *stuff*.

Well the simple solution to that is to make ammo weigh nothing, same as gems. Not realistic, but then neither is the invented talent tree.

Maybe drop one of the weight management skills for potion expert (though I'd make this a flat increase to magic for purposes of item use based off percentage of cunning and rename it Use Magic Device).

That'd make sense too, with various items like wands being increased by the talent. Would also allow identify scrolls to reveal your whole inventory if you have both high Cu and talent level.

[yufra]

Rather than a time-sensitive gold cap how about something that is more grounded in real-world economy... shop keepers can only purchase items when they have money, and they only get money from selling items. If you purchase something for X gold, then that shop now has func(X) gold available for purchasing. Tweaking func(X) gives allows the amount of inflation available through selling to be controlled. If this and shop filtering (only potion shops purchase potions) goes in then maybe there should be some revenue sharing between shops with other shops getting func(X) gold as well, or maybe other shops can simply buy non-specific items for a further fraction of the purchase value.

[edge2054]

Rather than a time-sensitive gold cap how about something that is more grounded in real-world economy... shop keepers can only purchase items when they have money, and they only get money from selling items. If you purchase something for X gold, then that shop now has func(X) gold available for purchasing. Tweaking func(X) gives allows the amount of inflation available through selling to be controlled. If this and shop filtering (only potion shops purchase potions) goes in then maybe there should be some revenue sharing between shops with other shops getting func(X) gold as well, or maybe other shops can simply buy non-specific items for a further fraction of the purchase value.

My name is Edge and I support this message.

And to add to that; allowing a bit of variance would give it something of a real world flavor. For instance if I spend 20g at a shop the next day when I come back the shop keeper may have between 22 and 18g (10% variance). This reflects the shop keepers own expenses, other people buying from him, etc.

Also, can rogues get a default talent (ala golem making, teleport:angolwen, etc.) that lets them steal? Success ratio could be a function of Dexterity and Cunning vs. Item Weight and Item Cost (bigger items are harder to hide and more expensive items are generally kept in more secure locations).

[Grey]

I'd personally love to see Nethack/ADOM style shops with physical shopkeepers you can attack or pickpocket. Obviously they'd be quite tough and guards would be summoned, but god they'd be fun.

Wandering powerful merchants in certain dungeons and forests would be cool too.

[Mithril]

Removing much of the encumberance headache is not a problem. It is a major advantage. If some talents are now superfluous then they can be replaced with some more fun ones. Spending talent points on encumberance management is not exciting.

Well, perhaps the encumbrance tree should be renamed "Item Management". The existing "Efficient Packing" and "Burden Management" should be replaced with something like the follwing:

Potion Expert (passive)
Your knowledge of magical potions allows you to get greater effect from them. You gain +x% effect from all potions quaffed.
x = 10 * Talent_level + (Cu/5)

Item Lore (passive)
Your learning and experience let you automatically identify many items you find. You have a x% chance to identify y value items.
x = 10 * Talent_level + (Cu/5)
y = low, medium, high, very high, all (linked in to the value of items - say low = 0-15, medium = 15-40, high = 40-80, very high 80-150, all = 150+)
Value of items one can identify is based on talent level - level 5 allows all to be identified.

With these two talents and the existing Insulating and Pack Rat talents I see the whole talent tree becoming much more useful to all non-mage classes. I would suggest Item Lore becoming the level 2 talent and Insulating Packing becoming level 3 (since Item Lore is more useful early in the game).

The constantly repeating identification chore is another thing that distracts from combat and the joy of discovering new items so I support all measure that lessen it. However, Darkgod has hinted at some system in development for this so this talent may be superfluous.