AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - Balancing shop inventories across all settlements

The shops we have in game need some adjustments to fix behind the scenes issues (like reporting that drow have purchased items in Winya stores).

While at it I would also like to make the shops in all the cities general shops with mundane, standard gear. That all armors, weapons, etc. of the +1 to +3 variety and remove all custom gear which should be saved for the loot bins. All cities and players would then have access to the same items and there would be no favoritism and no complaints that Kohl has the best Melee gear, or Tark the best mage gear and denying some players access to them.

What about, at the same time, having the NPC guards do their job and not let just anyone into a settlement they're not supposed to be able to just waltz into?

I like the idea of fairness, don't get me wrong. Balancing the shops is way overdue, but some places are just better at certain things and it makes sense to find certain things in certain places.

Using your example, it does not make sense for a drow to just walk into winya uncontested.

I'm going to assume that's a case of a misreport from like a duplicated vendor ID or something (idk how that stuff works, heh).

As for making everything mundane I dislike that idea. We could just as easily make everything special accessible. Relying on loot drops is an awful idea because most of the time you find crap you cannot use or wouldn't use. This would just make it harder to find the gear you are looking for. I'd much rather see more access to gear in neutral areas.

Analog Kid wrote:

Using your example, it does not make sense for a drow to just walk into winya uncontested.

This isn't what's happening. What happening is the shops are set up incorrectly and that makes it report wrong, so fixing these shops will fix the inaccurate reports and guarantee that new reports are accurate.

I was thinking that we should move that custom gear to the loot bins, not get rid of it.

I actually kind of like it "unbalanced," if that word is even accurate. I like that there's good bows and swords you can only buy in Winya Ravana, good heavy armor that only Barak Runedar can smith, good palemaster robes that only Tarkuul is sleazy enough to deal in, and et cetera. Making shops sell only generic crap seriously sabotages each settlement's uniqueness, I think. I would suggest that a better solution might be the opposite of the original suggestion: rather than making city shops less unique, make them even more unique and diverse, so that "everything" isn't necessarily available to everyone, but "something awesome" definitely is.

(And Naivy is totally right, I doubt that consigning all the unique stuff to loot bins would make that stuff any more accessible.)

I love the lack of balance. You want paladin gear? Go to Kohlingen. You want mage gear? Go to that city that prides itself entirely off of arcane. Want archery, go to elves. It's standard stuff. Don't throw out reasons to explore settlements and work around your characters limitations. I hate this whole MMO style that's being chucked into Amia what with the Nexus Hub for an epic dungeon and such. The reason it's like the way it is, is not balance, but it's practical from a lore stand point.

Can we please not put balance over lore? RP Server, not MMO.

Okay, I get your points on this matter.

So let me present to you the issues that need fixing -

The niche shops are nice, but over the years we have simply created to many with to large of inventories. Do we limit each shop to no more than 10 items so we can have all sorts of custom shops? Do we set up generic shops with broad access to generic items of all types and varieties?

Broldi wrote:

I love the lack of balance. You want paladin gear? Go to Kohlingen. You want mage gear? Go to that city that prides itself entirely off of arcane. Want archery, go to elves. It's standard stuff. Don't throw out reasons to explore settlements and work around your characters limitations. I hate this whole MMO style that's being chucked into Amia what with the Nexus Hub for an epic dungeon and such. The reason it's like the way it is, is not balance, but it's practical from a lore stand point.

Can we please not put balance over lore? RP Server, not MMO.

I agree with Broldi here.

Amia's a roleplaying server and not an MMO, I'd rather we not over-focus on balance to the point that we can't have distinction in the settlements.

Sure, ensure the basics are availible cross board unless there's a justifiable reason they can't be availible (IE: an outpost with specialized resources) , but please keep the distinction in there.

If computer brain space is an issue (I wasn't aware of that!) then there's a lot of stuff that can be done without sacrificing settlement individuality. Like for example:

There's absolutely no reason that Cordor's weapon and armor shops should sell only +1 stuff while the generic smith at Kohlingen sells only generic +2 stuff and the generic smith at Barak Runedar sells only generic +3 stuff. That's three different shops that could be combined without sacrificing anything at all, and I'm sure that's not the only example.
L'obsul has no fewer than eight shopkeepers with different inventories all standing around within like four feet of each other. I get that it's supposed to be this huge and diverse bazaar, but that seems excessive. Merge or cut some of those guys. (Likewise the three different shopkeepers scattered across the Dale? Maybe that guy whose name I forget with the shop just outside the Hinn Inn retires, and sells his shop to Muck Magus, or something?)
The inventories of anyone who just sells potions and scrolls can be standardized. There's no great reason anyone should have to wander all over the island to find mindblank or stoneskin potions. Why does Jayek in the Dale have a different inventory than "Generic Cleric" in the Temple of Corellon? (This might have been done already? I know it had been mentioned.)
Settlement uniqueness can be preserved even if their shopkeepers' inventories are shrunk significantly. Like, it's appropriate and awesome that Winya Ravana's bladesmith has some great one-handed swords, but he doesn't really need to sell twenty different unique one-handed swords. Purge the ones that nobody buys, and leave just the best or most popular or most distinctive ones. Ditto the other distinctive shops in Kohlingen, Tarkuul, et cetera.
Does Shadowscape really need three different shops that sell different subsets of the same inventory to shadowdancers of different levels? I would argue not. Cut the low an mid-level shops, and make the top one available to everyone.

And so on.

L'obsul definitely needs to be consolidated. The issue with it is that the "better shops" and those that buy at higher rates were simply copied over from Underport. Then each race has it's own niche shop, but when L'obsul was redesigned they were all just popped into /the same area/ with no regard for this. I have always /assumed/ that gnomes get discounts from the beginner gnome merchant etc.. but that may not be the case.

I know for a fact that one of the merchants down there is tagged as the winya merchant. O.o

I agree, I do like that there are niche merchants in Winya, Kohl, Tarkuul... however... why would drow not make fine archery equipment so it is also available to the UD races? Why would the gnomes not have better mage gear?

Those overlapping beginning merchants can still give discounts (if they do) for their own race... so you want better archery stuff from the drow merchant, well you're going to pay a bit higher price than a drow might. You want slings, talk to the gnome, axes find the druergar...

I could see that working but it's a lot of work, especially if you break it down that far. There also has to be a reasonable cap to the sheer number of merchants in the system. We can not have 10 customers merchants in each of 15 different settlements.

It might help if we had an idea of the guidelines you are wanting to stick to.

What I read is we want to reduce the number of items in each shop, /and/ reduce the number of shops.

So say you standardize the +1 to +3 merchants and have the same "standard" equipment in each major settlement.

You are still talking about +1 Armor in what 6 varieties? Then there's belts, gloves/bracers/gauntlets, boots, helms, shields in 3 sizes. Is one merchant going to carry all +1 to +3 or one merchant per tier?

When you start on weapons that's even more varieties...

EDIT: Damnit, don't make me break out my spreadsheets sheeler.

What I was originally suggesting was about 6 or 7 generic shops that were available in all places. These would be tagged something like Generic Weapon Shop so that reports would show the item was bought in a generic shop, rather than a report that has merchants in L'Obsul reporting that they are from Winya.

However, it seems like I am hearing that what the players want is to keep the diversity even if it means that scales are tipped favorably to good PCs or evil PCs when it comes to gear sets, and if shops need to be reduced then they would rather we hand pick the most useful items and just trash the rest to keep the over all store item count (all items from all stores) down. The biggest issue with that is item level caps. A ECL 10 elf simply wont have access to gear in Winya if they sell only the most useful gear (lets face it whats most useful is geared to epic levels). That, to my ears, sounds like what the players are saying works best is generic availability (+1 to +3 gear) in all cities with a merchant that is also found only in that one city settlement selling that settlements special wears.

Does that sound about right?

I'm stuck in the middle when it comes to this. I think it would be a great opportunity if their added to the Pre-Epic loot bins. Because there /could/ be more PC Merchants. Sense a lot of people will lack what materials they need. One cannot simply buy it, they'd have to find a merchant with it, like Rashad the Azure.

msheeler wrote:

I was thinking that we should move that custom gear to the loot bins, not get rid of it.

I'm not a fan of anything that forces me to deal with dungeons. Speaking of, is there a way to get to Amia-A's +4 bin yet? It's still been inaccessible since Illithids were removed far as I know, other than the ridiculous beholders.

I think the subject had already moved past that NC.

Are the Yuan-ti +3 or +4?

Once we are finished making A dynamic ( we are on the final stretch ) then we will be considering what new stuff we can add.

msheeler, I'm wondering if your original plan had covered faction shops as well? For example, Three Steps Academy has access to some of the best Shadowdancing gear and tools, and by extension it wouldn't make sense for it to disappear.

Moving on to your latter points, I think the idea of cities having generic +1 to +3 gear is useful, it means some characters aren't forced to go to ICly restricted areas (some Druids won't step foot in a city, so some of their starting armour being there doesn't help).

On the same token of each city continuing to have a specialised shop, I think it's worth noting /what/ items are deemed as special. For example, Winya has one of the best Longbow shops in the game and the Grove has some of the best Druid gear, Tarkuul with Arcanists and so on, however there are a few neglected areas too. Wharftown hasn't got much if any specialized equipment. Bendir Dale has but a couple of low tier specialized items with the rest of the shops already being generic. Even Kampo's you'd expect to /only/ have a merchant that doesn't sell low-tier gear (job merchants aside).

Yuan-ti are +3, with an epic boss at the end.

I'm rambling a bit, but going back to the whole "Are we counting factions as cities or not" we need to look at what factions are even in the cities to begin with. Cordor is meant to be neutral to all factions and races but is typically a human based city, as such you'd expect a few Human and Half-Elf only pieces of gear to be present. I think encouraging cities and factions to grow should also give benefits of specialized gear! A lot of the current faction shops are in factions that are low population or relatively dead, however I know a good few long-term factions that could benefit from specialized gear merchants!

I wouldn't consider the SD academy a faction, it will persist even with out involved PCs since it supports an entire class of characters. Same would go for the Grove. However there have been player faction shops that sold gear to only those few PCs that belonged to that player faction, like a shop that only sold gear to The Horsemen (not sure if they had one but it was the first name to pop into my mind) I think those should likely get removed.

Make a shop that is all generic +1, +2, +3, (and maybe +4) items of all kinds available in the major settlements, OR, the three major starting cities (Cordor, Wiltun, L'Obsul).

Have a generic necessities store that will be in all places (healing items, buff items, the usual "healer store" we have right now but maybe tweaked to include other adventuring gear like the grenade items, rope, etc.)

All other stores specialty: city-specific, dungeon-specific, race-specific, etc.

If space is an issue, then we should lump together the boring essentials as much as possible to have more flexibility and play room with non-generic stores. As long as the foundation is there (the generic stores) then preference should be given to keeping things interesting as much as possible, even if that means Elves will always get the cooler longswords and bows (for example). That inherently gives each place that has a specialty store more value; it gives them something that is theirs, something that had to be interacted for, traded for, or at the absolute minimum, visited to get.

Just so we don't have any misunderstanding - once a store is made it can be used in any number of places with out any added resource drain to the server. So, if we have a generic 'temple store' that sells all the curing potions and curing scrolls then that one store blueprint can be used by every temple at no additional tax to the server. This means we can easily offer all settlements access to general goods. The issue we face is that we've decided to tweak so many of these that now we have a significantly high amount of shops that are almost, but not quite the same.

msheeler wrote:

The shops we have in game need some adjustments to fix behind the scenes issues (like reporting that drow have purchased items in Winya stores).

While at it I would also like to make the shops in all the cities general shops with mundane, standard gear. That all armors, weapons, etc. of the +1 to +3 variety and remove all custom gear which should be saved for the loot bins. All cities and players would then have access to the same items and there would be no favoritism and no complaints that Kohl has the best Melee gear, or Tark the best mage gear and denying some players access to them.

I am absolutely against shops only having standard +1 to +3 gear and any other gear only available in the lootbin.

Read on Amarice, we've sorta moved onto other ideas.

On general principle, msheeler, if what you're asking is, do people think that preserving a sense of settlement individuality is worth the investiture of some extra computer brain space, then I would vote yes.

msheeler wrote:

The issue we face is that we've decided to tweak so many of these that now we have a significantly high amount of shops that are almost, but not quite the same.

Un-tweak all of them!

Potions are potions are potions, generally speaking. No reason to differentiate between which shops sell misty potions or mindblanks or whatever. A generic healer shop can be the same as any other generic healer shop without losing anything. Specialized healer items, or stuff with settlement-specific lore (like at the Salandran temple maybe?), could be assigned to the location's more specialized merchant.

Just out of curiosity, how much computer brain does it take up to have a merchant's inventory comprise entirely randomly generated items, maybe including yellow-text items? I've been arguing for forever that we have a pretty awesome yet tragically under-utilized system for creating that stuff.

Why don't you do what Yossarin did before with NPCs or loot or whatever it was (I'm too lazy to search).

Let the playerbase come up with new items, descriptions, and maybe even enchantments (subject to DM approval of course). Then pick maybe 5 to 10 pieces for each settlement to have unique, useful pieces for sale. It keeps the RP flair to it, breathes life into previously stagnant merchants, and gives the players something to contribute to, while also not requiring but 5 minutes of dev time adding those items to the palette.

Then the stuff that's currently there can either be deleted (in the event that the items are never bought, which I'd wager is the majority) or added to lootbins.

Everything is freshened up while you can consolidate the mundane +1, +2, +3 junk.

I also agree with Liz on the other stuff. Scrolls, potions, consumables, etc merchants can all be consolidated into one inventory and one merchant tag. Same with the +1, 2, 3 stuff. I bet this would considerably cut down on the bloat. It would enable each settlement to have 1 generic gear merchant, 1 consumables merchant (or maybe just lump them both into one and be done with it), and 1 specialized merchant.

A little off-trend of posts, but how do you intend to handle maximum gold-return for items sold to merchants?

Currently: Cordor returns max 25000 i think, Wiltun 10000, etc.

Would rather not axe the niche stuff from stores. Generic is boring is bad.

Can we just massively expand the white/yellow random items out to these places? winya sells random longswords, Barak sells random Dwarf-Like Things.

Quote:

do people think that preserving a sense of settlement individuality is worth the investiture of some extra computer brain space, then I would vote yes.

Yes. Very much so.

(Basically pretend I just copied Letum's post...)

I don't see why we couldn't add yellow items of the +1 to +3 variety to specialized merchants. While generic gear may be boring I do think it's a staple need to ensure that players have access to gear at a reasonably equal basis. Generic gear is also a good base to work off for mythaling at low levels.

Definitely. Don't think anyone is suggesting we axe the generic, foundation stores - just that we don't gut the interesting stores in the process. Consolidation, reorganizing, but not removal.

For those unaware, the reason the L'Obsul merchants are a hot mess is because they not only kept all the merchants from before the redesign (which included separate gear merchants in the under-utilised svirf and duergar areas) but they took on some from Edonil (not all went to Nec, it seems) as well as those from Underport (of which there were many). It could definitely stand to be consolidated, but I would personally still like to see the same NPCs around if maybe fulfilling some other function. Nostalgia I guess.

Out of curiosity, are those random tiny shops in the wilderness (there's a couple in the UD, I guess that imp in Wyrmhold ruins is already gone, and some others here and there) slated to be messed with or deleted? Though most of them are nothing to write home about.

There's more than one style of random merchant too. The guy at Kampos is different than the one in Nesek for example. It's not just level it's also the types of items offered. You can probably consolidate and make a random merchant with +1 to +3 gear that offers all types - armor, weapons, and wearables. Then just put copies of that merchant in various areas.

I don't know about everyone else but I like the random merchants and the yellow named items.

Also, I'm hopeful you do not get rid of the helmet gnome. Just sayin. I'm fond of that little fella.

maglorine wrote:

Also, I'm hopeful you do not get rid of the helmet gnome. Just sayin. I'm fond of that little fella.

But the "traveling salesdwarf" at Benwick Hollow and the gnome selling potions in the corner of the Nexus Falls map, those can probably get axed.

The Travelling Salesdwarf and the Forest Helmet Gnome both sell pretty vital low level gear. The Travelling Salesdwarf was added to give a low level shop on the north side of the Minmir River.

Don't forget the dodgy looking guy that turns up at night in East Cordor offering some low level but handy rings! *looks shifty* not that i bought anything!

I actually like different racial or regional areas selling some items and gear that you might not find any place else, certainly having everyone sell the same only really leads to people having little reason to frequent some places. OOCly i wanted a lighter shield and ICly set out looking for one, in the end it turned out i needed to sweet talk an elven friend but on the whole the personal quest meant i had to interact with a few people in order to find out if such a shield was on Amia. I rather enjoy the surprise of finding a merchant and seeing something new in that store i haven't seen any place else. To date the loot drops for me have been rather... well you find a lot of stuff that either no use or rather heavy so if you do take it you end up selling it... but why have the gold if all you can buy is low level gear and potions?

RP is king but people do like a little reward for themselves at times to just point out they are doing well and feeling useful!

Grymia wrote:

Broldi wrote:

I love the lack of balance. You want paladin gear? Go to Kohlingen. You want mage gear? Go to that city that prides itself entirely off of arcane. Want archery, go to elves. It's standard stuff. Don't throw out reasons to explore settlements and work around your characters limitations. I hate this whole MMO style that's being chucked into Amia what with the Nexus Hub for an epic dungeon and such. The reason it's like the way it is, is not balance, but it's practical from a lore stand point.

Can we please not put balance over lore? RP Server, not MMO.

I agree with Broldi here.

Amia's a roleplaying server and not an MMO, I'd rather we not over-focus on balance to the point that we can't have distinction in the settlements.

Sure, ensure the basics are availible cross board unless there's a justifiable reason they can't be availible (IE: an outpost with specialized resources) , but please keep the distinction in there.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts.

I don't have that much to contribute beyond agreeing with those who want varied shops. To me, it's what makes the server feel more alive.

Aiseth wrote:

A little off-trend of posts, but how do you intend to handle maximum gold-return for items sold to merchants?

I'm also interested in the answer to the above.

Dunecat wrote:

Aiseth wrote:

A little off-trend of posts, but how do you intend to handle maximum gold-return for items sold to merchants?

I'm also interested in the answer to the above.

I doubt this is changing, wasn't the point of the post sheeler made, I don't think.

I am thinking about that.

Some thoughts on it:

msheeler wrote:

I am thinking about that.

Some thoughts on it:

1) Did Cordor's merchant prices change when their economy was adversely affected during the Arcanum war? If no, then this isn't working as intended anyway.

2) A hub isn't bad, but it does sort of force players into areas they may not wish to (or even be able to) go to. The argument might be made "well, if your elf (just putting a race there for an example) doesn't want to go to Cordor or Brog, they can just sell to Winya" -- but it's ridiculous to expect people to sell for 1/5 of what other places are selling for.

3) This is correct.

4) This is the biggest question. Ultimately, I'm okay either way. Perhaps introduce a wandering merchant who gives the best prices and every so often moves from one place to another, buying and selling goods all over. It would justify them offering the best prices for items. But who knows. It is just an idea. Might also help with #2.

Liz wrote:

I like that there's good bows and swords you can only buy in Winya Ravana...

Broldi wrote:

Want archery, go to elves. It's standard stuff.

The only thing Winya has is its swords, the bow merchant was copied to Kohlingen. But at least the NPC is an elf, and hopefully working with the merchant in Winya.

DerkDerkistan wrote:

msheeler wrote:

2. Setting some merchants to a higher level than others encourages players to use certain merchants more than others. (for example it drives players to Cordor or Brogendenstein as places to sell loot)

2) A hub isn't bad, but it does sort of force players into areas they may not wish to (or even be able to) go to. The argument might be made "well, if your elf (just putting a race there for an example) doesn't want to go to Cordor or Brog, they can just sell to Winya" -- but it's ridiculous to expect people to sell for 1/5 of what other places are selling for.

I have often looked at the gold cap as a sign of how wealthy the merchant is. Winya has a small market group, and thus makes little weath. That said, Mith does strive to sell everything he can in Winya in the hopes it will aid the market. Though if the merchant can't sell the stuff, it won't really increase their spending. I expect it was not considered, but in theory if the merchant that sells bows in Kohlingen, and the one in Winya are connected, one could make the conclusion that the Winyan Bowyer has a larger market to sell to (kohlingen) and thus could have a higher buy price (25k). Given he makes the most popular bow on the islands he is easily the most wealthy NPC in Winya.

That or Kohlingen was just given the best Winya stuff because their special Mary Sue's. I choose to go with the theory of the merchants being connected. Hell, if the two could have shared stores it would be great, as it would emulate the bowyer in Winya selling the crap elves sell to him on the market in Kohlingen!

I think Winya has those spellsword armors that I have not seen anywhere else.

Isn't the Winya bow shop across the bridge unique? It has some things I haven't found elsewhere.

I know that shops unique, you can't get the hide/MS/Spot bow anywhere else for example.

Broldi wrote:

I know that shops unique, you can't get the hide/MS/Spot bow anywhere else for example.

There is an elven man selling that bow in Kohlingen. Not 100% sure the rest of the store is the same.

Nalkanar wrote:

I think Winya has those spellsword armors that I have not seen anywhere else.

For early level yeah, but you can get one in the Gauntlet shop too. The elven longsword is the best longsword before an epic/DC one too.

I'm not upset that the bow shop is in Kohlingen, as long as it is there because it is the wish of the merchant in Winya wanting to expand his market, instead of handing off the good stuff because it's easier than talking to elves for permission to buy.

He's there more because someone simply re-used a higher level bow shop rather than any IC reason. That would be one of the reasons for making more generic shops and then making smaller unique custom shops that are area specific.

That sword is borderline epic and I wonder if it's really too good for a shop and should be something moved to the loot bins instead.

msheeler wrote:

He's there more because someone simply re-used a higher level bow shop rather than any IC reason. That would be one of the reasons for making more generic shops and then making smaller unique custom shops that are area specific.

That sword is borderline epic and I wonder if it's really too good for a shop and should be something moved to the loot bins instead.

Because of all the longswords people use? But i'm biased, because of knife ears.

And it is a shame if the shop has no story behind it, i think it would be rather cool if the story i suggested was right. Otherwise it's just a case of, as i feared, put the Elf stuff elsewhere so people don't have to deal with elves.

Or it could be that the city is meant to be seen as grand and expensive importing good, or perhaps it could be that as one of the few places a bowyer can train and work... selling good bows isn't too much of a stretch? Any high end bow would take my char a life time to purchase and at least ICly wise it pushes her to be better at her craft.

Generally you can find an IC reason for most things I guess the question is wad that reason present when the store was put in?

I agree with you xenos, but I don't think it was any nefarious attempt to get elven bows with out having to go to Winya, just someone needed a bow shop that wasn't +0 or +1 and that one was there to be used.

On that topic though when it comes down to it, I don't thing it's fair to give Winya the best of two weapon categories, long sword and bow, so I suggest we consider changing one or the other when we look at the final spread of weapons and armor for custom shops.

Could always limit the number in the other shops of 'special' items to one which only refreshes after a server reset?

Balancing shop inventories across all settlements

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