NPC Shop Crying Thread

[Synthesis]

 Back by popular demand

[Marauder Moe]

I'm undecided.

Certainly it would be nice to have per-person buy limits, but Zalanthas isn't always nice.  Also, I suspect such a system would be moderately difficult to code due to the persistent data required.

Ideally, you should be selling to PCs or PCs should be clearing out the shop inventory for you.  If your goods are so low in demand that PCs won't buy them from you or from shops, should you really be able to sell them?  PC-based economy isn't really ever going to happen, though.

I suspect the best solution is to look at specific goods/shops/jobs and either adjust those shopkeepers individually (higher limits, more frequent VNPs purchases) or add new NPCs like the salt and 'sid buyers.  Seems more rational than blanket changes to the system.

[Synthesis]

But seriously.

Okay, consolidating the playerbase into a single city without expanding the number of available NPC shops was probably a bad idea...but only in that it generates a perception that some people are gaming the reboot system...when really...the reboots are -usually- random crashes, so there's no way to "game" it, other than stockpiling loot and praying you catch it.  I'm going to assume that crashes are more prone to happen when the resident code-monkeys are tinkering, so -probably- there are certain times of the day where crashes are more likely to occur, and thus certain individuals are more likely to benefit from a crash-based economy...but that's all just guessing, and that's all everyone else is doing, too.

I think we should implement a solution that screws pretty much everyone equally:  turn every shop into the "doesn't get reset on reboots and only generates coins on NPC and vNPC sales" type.  All the common things will be perpetually maxed-out at 5 apiece unless you get lucky (which will be randomly distributed and thereby immune to all criticisms except the "high-playtime" argument, since perpetually camping the shop would be the only winning strategy).

[Marauder Moe]

Actually I do definitely agree that shop inventory/cycles shouldn't be based on reboots.  Though, I suspect that maintaining the dynamic inventory between reboots would also be a pretty big task.

Maybe the VNPC purchasing algorithm should skew much more heavily towards items with multiples in stock and stock limits?  (Side benefit: less VNPC buying 1-off items means more interesting items for PCs to buy.)

[BadSkeelz]

This just means people aren't murdering enough of the spam-crafters currently in game.

Edit I mean seriously come on, they're rich in sid and poor in combat ability. Step up your game, people.

[KankWhisperer]

Have every shop save. Have the value of the item also based on how many are in stock. Sure they will buy the scrab shell, but now they only pay 5. They will continue paying 5 until stock goes down. Then you couldn't just make a fortune on a few high end items because the market is now glutted for a while. Encourages people to find different things to sell or hunt.

[RogueGunslinger]

This just means people aren't murdering enough of the spam-crafters currently in game.

Edit I mean seriously come on, they're rich in sid and poor in combat ability. Step up your game, people.

Crafter's don't usually max out shops. There's usually multiple NPC's to buy crafts and enough crafts to spread it out. The problem is mostly for foragers/hunters/gatherers.

[Narf]

I've always wanted to experiment with the idea of a value based economy where you have a gradual reduction in prices as more and more objects are sold, and then a gradual increase in value of those items as they're bought (by PCs or VNPCs).

In this system shopkeeps would buy an unlimited number of object for a reducing price. Then as time wore on, or PCs purchased the items, the value would increase per some invisible counter. Buy one object, counter ticks up 1. VNPC buys an object, counter ticks up 1. Player sells an object, counter ticks down 1. Price is based on where the counter is currently at, and the NPC keeps buying until PCs aren't willing to sell for that price any longer.

[BadSkeelz]

Grebbers, in other words. They shouldn't really have it easy anyway.

Get a crafty friend. Have them sell your crafts for more coin.

Or play a real role, join a clan or murder merchants.

[Narf]

This just means people aren't murdering enough of the spam-crafters currently in game.

Edit I mean seriously come on, they're rich in sid and poor in combat ability. Step up your game, people.

Murder is hard.

[BadSkeelz]

Crimcode turns off at night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxPpaDt9teI

[hyzhenhok]

I think the way it currently works is a fine abstraction of the idea of a saturated market. In an ideal world, the game would have a more dynamic economy and rather than being unable to sell your valuable loot at all, you'd simply be selling it for little because surplus supply suppresses the price. The way it currently works is a bit obnoxious, but roughly approximates this idea.

When it's suggested you should try finding somewhere else to sell your greb, or find different greb to sell, it's not a "this is not a problem" excuse. That's exactly what your hunter should be doing if he's trying to make a living off hawking scrab shells but it turns out the market is saturated with scrab shells. Either he should take his pile of scrab shells to a market where they are in demand and not saturated, or he should try making his living off something else.

Reboots, their necessity and the wonkiness they create with shops is a bit of a separate issue. I agree that someone who's sitting on 5 codedly valuable but in reality market-glutted items shouldn't profit because they log in right after a server reset. One suggestion has been that we find a way to save shops over reboots. Another simple thing you could do is simply slash shopkeeper starting money.

[RogueGunslinger]

Grebbers, in other words. They shouldn't really have it easy anyway.

Get a crafty friend. Have them sell your crafts for more coin.

Or play a real role, join a clan or murder merchants.

So the people who actually go out and hunt dangerous shit down shouldn't at least have it as easy as a salt-forager, or obsidian miner, or dung scraper? Killing and skinning a scrab to sell its parts should be better money than digging for salt or banging up safe obsidian lodes (and it would be if shops weren't always over-stocked). The very idea that Synth had to supplement his characters hunting job with salt-foraging in order to make some coins is pretty telling.

[Clearsighted]

Oh noez, I can't sell my ivory horn, of which there were were approximately ~174 laying around outside the gate.

[BadSkeelz]

Grebbers, in other words. They shouldn't really have it easy anyway.

Get a crafty friend. Have them sell your crafts for more coin.

Or play a real role, join a clan or murder merchants.

So the people who actually go out and hunt dangerous shit down shouldn't at least have it as easy as a salt-forager, or obsidian miner, or dung scraper? Killing and skinning a scrab to sell its parts should be better money than digging for salt or banging up safe obsidian lodes (and it would be if shops weren't always over-stocked). The very idea that Synth had to supplement his characters hunting job with salt-foraging in order to make some coins is pretty telling.

You can kill them for coin, too.

The docs do (did?) say that if you're getting rich via hunting you're doing it wrong. Selling enough raw materials to actually make money implies you're killing more animals than you really should be when it comes to environmental stability (ignoring for the moment that this harsh dying planet is choked to the brim with huge shit trying to kill you).

[hyzhenhok]

So the people who actually go out and hunt dangerous shit down shouldn't at least have it as easy as a salt-forager, or obsidian miner, or dung scraper? Killing and skinning a scrab to sell its parts should be better money than digging for salt or banging up safe obsidian lodes (and it would be if shops weren't always over-stocked). The very idea that Synth had to supplement his characters hunting job with salt-foraging in order to make some coins is pretty telling.

That's more of a problem of the coded "jobs" being too profitable and economically unrealistic. House Jal doesn't seem to understand the point of having a monopoly given how well they pay indie salters.

Obsidian/glass mining and especially dung scraping seem much less popular than salting, hunting and foraging so I don't think there's a problem there even if they are probably too profitable.

[RogueGunslinger]

I liked the idea of setting prices super low when fully stocked. That makes sense to me, and gets rid of most of my frustration, which is lugging around all this heavy, bulky shit hoping to be able to sell it at some point.

[whitt]

So the people who actually go out and hunt dangerous shit down shouldn't at least have it as easy as a salt-forager, or obsidian miner, or dung scraper? Killing and skinning a scrab to sell its parts should be better money than digging for salt or banging up safe obsidian lodes (and it would be if shops weren't always over-stocked). The very idea that Synth had to supplement his characters hunting job with salt-foraging in order to make some coins is pretty telling.

Ever seen a PC in game buying Dung or Salt?

[RogueGunslinger]

So the people who actually go out and hunt dangerous shit down shouldn't at least have it as easy as a salt-forager, or obsidian miner, or dung scraper? Killing and skinning a scrab to sell its parts should be better money than digging for salt or banging up safe obsidian lodes (and it would be if shops weren't always over-stocked). The very idea that Synth had to supplement his characters hunting job with salt-foraging in order to make some coins is pretty telling.

Ever seen a PC in game buying Dung or Salt?

Fair point.

[nauta]

So the people who actually go out and hunt dangerous shit down shouldn't at least have it as easy as a salt-forager, or obsidian miner, or dung scraper? Killing and skinning a scrab to sell its parts should be better money than digging for salt or banging up safe obsidian lodes (and it would be if shops weren't always over-stocked). The very idea that Synth had to supplement his characters hunting job with salt-foraging in order to make some coins is pretty telling.

Ever seen a PC in game buying Dung or Salt?

I bought dung during my Epic Make-a-dung-cookfire Plot of Summer 2014.  It hasn't quite been a year so no IC details, but it was epic.  I actually found it hard to find PC dungists.  I think one dung cookfire, which lasted long enough to cook a few loaves, cost me about four small, and several IG days of preparation work, not even counting the startup cost of interviewing loads of shitcloaks and hunters about how to make the dung thing in the first place.  All told it took about 2 RL months to make the first cookfire.

[Eyeball]

Another simple thing you could do is simply slash shopkeeper starting money.

Why hunt or greb at all.

[BadSkeelz]

To hone your skills for murder.

[wizturbo]

The entire economy is a bit wacky in Arm.  NPC shops shouldn't be adjusted in a vacuum, the entire economy should be tweaked if a project like this is going to be undertaken.

[Asanadas]

I think if you just hyper-increase VNPC purchases from shops, things will sort itself out. Bump up the amount by 2x or 3x to represent the thousands of vnpcs rolling through on errands or other abstract reasons.

[valeria]

In my ideal world, prices would be based on supply and demand. You could totally sell 100+ widgets, but after the 5th the sales price would drop and after a point you'd basically be getting 1 sid a piece.  Now, conversely, the more widgets the shop had in inventory, the cheaper the sales price would be. So by the time it had 100 widgets, your crafter could buy them for dirt cheap. But if you're just using them to craft wangles,the price of wangles is going to steadily drop, too.

I think this would self-regulate pretty well. Are you desperate enough to greb widgets if you can only sell them for 1 sid?  Go for it. I mean, we have weight limits and at some point it won't be worth the dehydration cost of standing in the desert. Or wearing your crafting tools out crafting wangles to sell on the cheap.

It would just require redoing the whole shop code, too. I'm sure it would be a quick and easy fix.