Release Note discussion!

[Cabooze]

Maybe make VNPC purchases of wares in shops have a 1/3 chance to occur every ingame hour, in every store. So, when the store is inactive, it can organically regenerate its till-balance even from items that come in an infinite stock. Could fix the issue before it begins.

[tapas]

Each outpost absolutely needs a commodities merchant that will buy an infinite number of everything at basement prices.

As it stands it makes more sense to leave that scrab shell behind because you know you aren't going to get to sell it.

[Delirium]

Each outpost absolutely needs a commodities merchant that will buy an infinite number of everything at basement prices.

As it stands it makes more sense to leave that scrab shell behind because you know you aren't going to get to sell it.

Yep.

[Lizzie]

Each outpost absolutely needs a commodities merchant that will buy an infinite number of everything at basement prices.

As it stands it makes more sense to leave that scrab shell behind because you know you aren't going to get to sell it.

Absolutely. Even a diminishing returns system would be better than the 5-per-npc we have now, I feel.

[flurry]

I'm very interested to see how this change goes. I think it's great that staff are willing to make such a potentially impactful change to the game economy.

I also think shops saving inventory would be a good thing, although then the item limit might be a problem.

I also want to add that one concern I have, related to this coins-saving change for shops, is that some items are priced in a way that a PC would only want to sell the items, and never buy them (regardless of haggle skill). For instance, hypothetically if you have some item of mediocre utility that shops will pay 400 coins for, and then mark up to 800 coins, no PC will ever pay for it. The item's only true function is to move coins out of shops and into PC pockets. I think prices work best if some PC's might be willing to buy and others might be willing to sell the same item. This is totally pie-in-the-sky, but dynamic prices based on PC economic behavior would be really interesting.

[valeria]

Each outpost absolutely needs a commodities merchant that will buy an infinite number of everything at basement prices.

As it stands it makes more sense to leave that scrab shell behind because you know you aren't going to get to sell it.

+1 on diminishing returns, though I would have it go to a set minimum price.

Oh and if the merchants are overstocked, they sell the items for less, too. 

And slowly boost the rate merchants sell things to NPCs until it evens out, so that we aren't stuck with merchants that perpetually have no money.

[Knight of Knives]

Guess your merchants are gonna have to get the other merchants murdered.

*shrug*

[Lizzie]

Idea for diminishing returns:

PER PC trying to sell to the NPC:
1st sale: up to 100% haggle price that they typically will provide.
2nd sale: up to 75% haggle.
3rd sale: up to 40% haggle
4th sale: up to 10% haggle
5th sale: whatever the NPC initially offers.
Subsequent sales: decrease in initial offer by 10% per attempt.

The reverse would apply for PCs trying to buy from the NPC.

Exception: if you don't try to haggle at all, NPC and PC will buy/sell at prevailing rate, set by NPC, for however many of the item he/she has in stock.

[Riev]

I'm for the idea of merchants maintaining their coin through reboots, though ideally I would have a caveat that each merchant has a set number of coins. Call it 500. If they have less, on game reboot, they have 500. if they have >=500, maintain.

Regardless, my concern is that this is either part of a larger push for the economy, or the proposal was not passed by people who actually play this game.

[Harmless]

I think it'd be fine if the NPC selling mechanism was tweaked and improved; if certain merchants were able to sell to NPCs which currently can't due to their later opening hours, and if selling rates were more proportional to what the NPC has for sale

For instance if a merchant has 100 items for sale..and all it does is sell one item worth 30 coins to an NPC..then that did nothing for the whole IC day. Then, randomly, it might sell an item worth 1000 coins to an NPC, and suddenly the NPC has a lot of coin.

I think what this will do is actually worsen the lifestyle of merchants selling to NPCs..now instead of knowing that generally after a reboot you can sell some stuff and make that rent money, you'll be checking over and over and over and or trying to rush to the shops when NPC merchants tend to sell one item to an NPC..that doesn't strike me as fun. if Merchants sold more reliably to NPCs and there was more NPC-NPC economic interactions then it'd feel more realistic and sustainable in my opinion

[Brytta Léofa]

Seems like this won't make much difference. Aside from that recent crash bug, how often have we been rebooting?

I've been fairly satisfied with the rate at which I've been able to sell to shops, though I'm sure there are item x location combinations that suck.

[Brytta Léofa]

"-Ethereal creatures will no longer attack tents."

[Cabooze]

"-Ethereal creatures will no longer attack tents."

lmfao probably a few instances of someone setting up a tent and immediately after, 'something breaks the diamond-embroidered tent'

[Eyeball]

I think what this will do is actually worsen the lifestyle of merchants selling to NPCs..now instead of knowing that generally after a reboot you can sell some stuff and make that rent money, you'll be checking over and over and over and or trying to rush to the shops when NPC merchants tend to sell one item to an NPC..that doesn't strike me as fun.

This, at least for certain types of items.

[Cabooze]

I think what this will do is actually worsen the lifestyle of merchants selling to NPCs..now instead of knowing that generally after a reboot you can sell some stuff and make that rent money, you'll be checking over and over and over and or trying to rush to the shops when NPC merchants tend to sell one item to an NPC..that doesn't strike me as fun.

This, at least for certain types of items.

I've already mentioned this as well: You'll be competing with people that logged out five hours ago.

[John]

Seems like this won't make much difference. Aside from that recent crash bug, how often have we been rebooting?

I've been fairly satisfied with the rate at which I've been able to sell to shops, though I'm sure there are item x location combinations that suck.

We rebooted 10 hours, 35 minutes and 8 seconds ago as of this post

[Kryos]

This seems to upscale and downscale poorly in addition to having a bit of potential abuse based on existing sale mechanics and exclusivity.  But this is the knee jerk reaction since I hadn't even entertained it before reading about it.  And its usually best to observe before writing things off.

[John]

Question: Do we accept that it is absurdly easy to earn money as an independent? Common wisdom seems to be yes. Over the years people have complained or observed this constantly.

Question: Do we accept that money has become so meaningless simply because of it's abundance? Common wisdom seems to be yes. Because it's so easy, the inflation for bribes is huge, or else the bribe is simply meaningless and no matter how much you bribe someone, the victim can bribe more so long as they're an independent.

Question: Are there sources of ways to earn coin that is unaffected by this change? Again, the answer is yes. There is logging, foraging for spice, mining, salting and crafting crap goods in Red Storm.

I can see the potential for good change. I think it's worthwhile testing out the changes and providing feedback based on your experiences with the changes.

[Veselka]

A+ on recent dodge changes.

[Namino]

A+ on recent dodge changes.

https://youtu.be/S02BHmWPZNs

[Eyeball]

Question: Do we accept that it is absurdly easy to earn money as an independent? Common wisdom seems to be yes. Over the years people have complained or observed this constantly.

Question: Do we accept that money has become so meaningless simply because of it's abundance? Common wisdom seems to be yes. Because it's so easy, the inflation for bribes is huge, or else the bribe is simply meaningless and no matter how much you bribe someone, the victim can bribe more so long as they're an independent.

Question: Are there sources of ways to earn coin that is unaffected by this change? Again, the answer is yes. There is logging, foraging for spice, mining, salting and crafting crap goods in Red Storm.

I can see the potential for good change. I think it's worthwhile testing out the changes and providing feedback based on your experiences with the changes.

I'd have muchly preferred to see options added for people to spend coins on. Instead the trend seems to be to keep taking things away (coded power, fiscal power) until there'll be nothing left to do but wait in the tavern for the next catastrophe or play yet again as someone's disposable minion.

[Barsook]

Agreed. I feel many of the items are just props and many of the unique and mastcrafted items get lost. It would rather have more non-materialist things to spend on like music from bards in the taverns or even whores. Heck even NPC hired bodyguards for commoners.  It just makes me to not want to play a coded artisan or a grebbers because money is too easy to make but there is nothing to really spend on expect the everyday things, armor, and arms.

[Namino]

In seriousness though, this dodge thing is an enormously attractive change of course. I don't know if this is how I would have gone about solving the problem, but I clearly don't have access to the code so I don't know how difficult things really are. Thank you for listening to the players.

That being said, Brokkr/Ness: is it possible to alter this flat chance on an NPC by NPC basis? If this flat chance is independent of the agility/defense of the NPC, then you can just slot it in as whatever you'd like for anything, no, unless it's a global variable? You can make it negligible for turaal (who don't need any more dodginess) and make it sizeable for mekillot (to encourage people to tackle bigger challenges).

This change is good in that it solves the false ceiling and makes achievement possible, and either way I'm happier for it, but can we go farther and springboard this into adding risk/reward into the equation?

[Dresan]

Amazing change. Glad defense was looked at as offense always felt bloated

I just hope this small chance is added on top of current dodge chances which seem kinda bad even on high agility characters.

[Vex]

(Nessalin)
-Shops now maintain inventory between reboots.
  -This includes their unique values such as bloodied, dyed colors, and state (damaged armor, aged food, etc...)

Yeesssssssssssss...!

Next, give weapons a damage dealt, material and manufacture (indie vs clan quality) chance to break, up rate of armor damage and it's cost of repair, and ELIMINATE clan "free food" sources. Make nobles/clan leaders servants do some leg work, and be responsible for logistics, and to spend some of that leaders money hiring hunters to get them food. The leaders can decide, what their minions deserve to eat, or not, but also depend on them for there to be food at all. Sweet, sweet symbiosis!

The will pcs consume, and the pcs will provide, and npcs are relegated to support roles, instead of the primary sources. Yes.

The dodge thing is is also nice, too.