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Shroud 2020 Vision

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by Chris, Jan 6, 2020.

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  1. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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    lol no!

    Edit: srsly though, what's keeping the players out isn't the vendor system.
     
  2. Alleine Dragonfyre

    Alleine Dragonfyre Avatar

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    Adding... if a Regional Search, with no pricing, is implemented, I will write an entire guide for people to follow, as a person with a minor in Marketing, and 20 years vendoring experience, for people to read and follow if they wish. Yes, it takes effort, however there are options for crafters that don't wish to pursue the marketing end of things.
     
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  3. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    Actually this was his main takeaway:

    "The lesson here is that sometimes features that make things better for one player make them dramatically worse for another. Every time you make a design choice you are closing as many doors as you open. In particular, you should always say to yourself, 'I’m adding this feature for player convenience. How many people live for the play that this inconvenience affords?'"

    I am not a crafter, so of course, I want this convenience because it benefits me and my play style. However, if that convenience came at such a detriment that other players quit (which I am willing to admit is a possibility) then I am certainly against that. I am convinced though, that a middle ground can be found here that is equitable to all types of players. We just need to be rationale and reasonable with our individual expectations.
     
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  4. Paladin Michael

    Paladin Michael Bug Hunter

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    This brought an idea to my mind:
    One person should -sometimes- be able to make peace and clear up with aggression.

    So what about a new skill, like Sound of Silence ? :)
    Could work this way: silent energy floats around (radius 2m). Enemy freeze.
    Loading the skill 5 times transfers (most) enemies to ash (depending on players int and skill lvl), and let them rain down silent onto the ground ...
    May be 'sound of silence' melody could play ;)

    Well, only thing is: we need Intelligence at least of 100, Focus of 500 and Cooldown is 24 hours (or more).
    The sound of silence Skill could be death, chaos or life spell (or a new bard skill?)

    This would be a mighty skill for players who won't follow UT, who are tired of no response on 'looking for group' and to have the possibility -once a day or week- to visit a boss and have a higher chance to killl him :)
    And this skill shouldn't be possible while inside a party ;)
    [Because it is the sound of silence - party members are making to many noises ...]

    Just an idea ;)
     
  5. Paladin Michael

    Paladin Michael Bug Hunter

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    :)
     
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  6. Paladin Michael

    Paladin Michael Bug Hunter

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    Unfortunately, this is the tragedy with so many (good) ideas.

    What about this (just a suggestion):
    Community manager or/and trustworthy Avatar(s) transfers the pros and cons of meaningful threads (like this one!) into an excel sheet.
    And not all devs have to (re-)read through these text walls ...
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2020
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  7. Restless

    Restless Avatar

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    On average how many minutes do you spend fixing bugs each week?
     
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  8. ShurTugal

    ShurTugal Avatar

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    I hear your point friend but I have more faith in the potential of this game and where it can go. I absolutely believe we can compete with the likes of eve, swtor, and the others. We have some things unigue to us that I dont want to change and i dont believe we should relegate ourselves to "nich" status because we are afraid of failure because by doing so, we could very well bring on the failure we fear. It's also not a black and white discussion here between what we currently have vs what the likes of wow, swtor (whos system I am not really fond of by the way) we absolutely CAN find a balance that preserves some of the uniqueness of our current system, allows the small shopkeepers to flourish, and remove some of the eye gouging pain of our current system if we choose and dont give in to the fear of change.
     
  9. Elrond

    Elrond Avatar

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    Very interesting article ..the comments even more so ... Choosing between convenience vs a way of life ( shops designed for different purposes , established market towns designed for selling ) its a tough one .... I believe alot of people ( maybe those not so successfull at selling ) think ''an auction house system like'' might bring them more sales ... which is not very accurate ..it will make you visible but it will not help you sell unless you put in the time , maybe even more then in the system we have now.... youll probably need to check your prices all day long and adjust em to make sure you have best offers on market .

    Depending on the time youre willing to put in and your endurance theres a high chance you might end up selling your goods for not even 25% then your first asking price . Such is the nature of the beast when it comes to AH trading .

    Then there are people who just want to go kill stuff , they dont want to spend more then 5 mins to buy their gear , i can understand their pain and its why im not against a solution that makes things easier for them . Perhaps a compromise in the future can be a 24h delay for goods showing up on search ... and a short travel to the vendor you are buying the item from .

    ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

    Looking at this from an economic perspective sota is a ''buyer market'' for sure and a search would make this very visibile. A buyer market occurs when supply greatly exceeds demand ...That means players who buy ''hold the power''...sellers only choice is to just keep lowering their price until they manage to sell their goods ...eventually if price goes down too much they will quit the game .....or ....an influx of new players will show up to save the day and turn a buyer market into a seller market ... Being realistic which do you think will happen in SOTA first ?

    That said i think we have to fix things in the game ( where overproduction occurs like crafted armor/weapons/food /furniture....) before we can consider a search function .
     
  10. ShurTugal

    ShurTugal Avatar

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    Indeed, lol. What do "veteran players" (like myself) know? Lol. Like many things in life, just cause someone is a veteran player doesn't mean they will agree with other veteran players or be right for that matter. The ole' saying "to close to the forest to see the trees" can very much apply. :)
     
  11. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    Which is exactly where I fall. Yet at the same time, I want folks like yourself to also enjoy the game, make gold and continue to find success as a merchant/crafter. What do you think of the following Elrond?
    • Global Search For Any Item
    • No Price Listed On Items
    • Must Physically Go To Vendor To Buy Item
    In such a global system I can find exactly what I want, but if I want to check who has the best price I will need to physically go to those locations. Would this be equitable to you?
     
  12. Elrond

    Elrond Avatar

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    Assuming the overproduction is fixed

    1. yes
    2. no
    3.yes

    A good reason to hide the price ?
     
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  13. Vladamir Begemot

    Vladamir Begemot Avatar

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    You got me! Or I got you. Now we know. Muahahahah!
     
  14. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

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    Well personally I would like to list the price, but from reading other posts it seemed like many crafters didn't like a system that listed price.
     
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  15. Elrond

    Elrond Avatar

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    The only problem i see with listing price are people who enjoy undercutting everything by 1g..that can easily be solved i think by delaying all listing by 24h..you list something today it shows up tomorrow on the search.
     
  16. Lars vonDrachental

    Lars vonDrachental Avatar

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    I think I mentioned this already some time ago but another idea for vendors would be that your sales get literally visible to reduce the time of the customer to check the offers.
    You are walking an alley with shops to the left and right. There is one displaying some swords, next to it a shop with several fruits in the shopping window followed by another shop displaying some ingots and artifacts.

    The items you see are the items the vendors are selling and the visible stack size could defining the number of items they sell.
    The numbers of visible items could e.g. follow the power of five (5^x) or another number. 1-5 items on sale = 1 visible item, 6-25 items on sale = a stack of 2 visible items, 26-125 items on sale = a stack of 3 visible items, 126-625 items on sale = a stack of 4 visible items, ...

    Each vendor comes with a standard stall…e.g. a table with 4 slots. By clicking at one of the slots or within the vendor menu you can chose what offers are shown.
    Or you can bring your vendors sales into an order from position 1 to x and the top positions are always shown and this way a purchased visible offer might be automatically replaced by the next position.
    Additionally you could craft or buy in the addon store more specialized, larger or fancier stalls….e.g. the current or reworked mannequins could be used as displays of your gear sales, bars could offer drinks direct on the counter, …

    To buy an item you maybe not even have to use the vendor menu. Maybe each displayed item has a price tag either direct visible next to it or in a window if you move your mouse at the item. One left click on the item and a purchase window appears just for this item displaying the price, the adjustable number of items you would like to buy and two buttons “purchase” and “decline”.

    Maybe to distinguish sales and purchase orders the slots could have some kind of color scheme. (e.g. gray = empty, white = sale, black = purchase order)

    Possibly we could do that on our own without a mechanic but in this case we would need a second identical item to show as decoration and also all items would have to be usable as decoration and I think at least for resources this is currently not true.
     
  17. Vladamir Begemot

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    That would be next level, and I think many of us have asked for it repeatedly.
     
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  18. Gageman

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    This seems like a lot of coding for not much result. If we are going to do that much work to not have the most efficient and best system, how about this for a compromise, All commission vendors are linked and essentially a global network and non commission vendors are still stuck in the realm of mercantilism? OR allow each player to chose whether their vendor is included in the global . For the buyers who enjoy the tedium of looking on endless empty vendors, they still can, for vendors who enjoy doll housing their stores and what not, you can. For everyone else who wants to buy their silver and get to their happiness, boom, express lane.

    Thoughts?
     
  19. Lars vonDrachental

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    I actually would see my suggestion as something with a lot result. Searching for items would be way faster because if you would be searching e.g. gold ore you could run down an alley and skip all vendors who are not showing a stack of ore in their shopping window but you may stop if you see something you wasn’t searching for but might need too. Additionally I would say this would enhance the visual appearance of settlements (if done right) if a shopping street would also look like that with merchants promoting their products and not hiding them below their coats.

    I guess you are right about the needed time to code but this mechanic could be used for more than just our vendors. Quest items could be presented/requested this way…for example a global quest of delivering crafted gear to an armory and as avatars are carrying gear to those spot you see the requests disappear one after another. Quest rewards could be offered this way too…maybe even with the possibility to choose between different rewards and you have this way a possibility to take a look at them before you choose...maybe we could even use those slots for our own quests. NPC traders could use this mechanic in their shops and show you this way an item before you buy it…maybe even large scale objects like houses in a miniature version. The devs could share this way gifts/rewards…e.g. on a special day is a slot e.g. on LB’s castle offering to every avatar a special item or the monthly rewards are visibly shown somewhere but just the justified avatars are able to claim them...

    As shown in this thread what is the most efficient and best system is very subjective and I guess your suggestion would need the same time for coding as my suggestion. Splitting the vendors into two types would be the first time consuming work as this would e.g. include to be sure that vendors are not losing current offers because of the change and may need the creation of a global offers to bank and block new offers mechanic during the change. Next time consuming work would be the creation of your “global network” that might sound easier as it is. The following problem arises is that once your “global system” is active nearly no one will use the other vendors anymore…this is a binary choice and you cannot have both systems. I guess that is also a reason why the rare local auctioneers are just accepting a small number of offers of one avatar as possibly everything else would ruin the vendor mechanic for this settlement.
    As a possible result the current hot spots towns could break up as no one would need vendor towns anymore…but maybe they will also stay where they are as with teleportation it doesn’t matter where your to be refilled vendor is standing...but I guess without visiting avatars at least the decorations would be removed and if possible sold as a shop no one is personally visiting does not need any kind of decoration just an empty lot with a vendor. But also the question would arise why we even need vendors anymore…if they are selling in a global network there is no need to have a vendor standing on your lot or even have a lot at all for that purpose....possibly avatars would just settle down in one town and never visit another town again as there would be no need to travel.
    As shown on page 21 by @Cordelayne in the article this also could mean that many of the current merchants will not continue as they would lose their “fun” with the implementation of a global market.
    I guess finding items will be this way easiest but I’m not sure if e.g. the prices will be better as adjusting prices is a lot easier if you can define what customers can see by simply buying instantly all offers not close to your targeted price...and so on.
    Of course it does not have to be this way but once we change there is no way back and I'm note sure replacing one system with the opposite system is the best solution as I personally prefer (if possible and reasonable) to adjusting a system instead of replacing it. Most of the time the new system is not as glorious as it seems to be and has it's own problems. ;)
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2020
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  20. Gageman

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    I am not a coder, so I don't know, but it would seem to me that the global market would be as simple as linking all of the global vendors together, so they can be accessed from anywhere, like an auction house. You buy your item from the vendor, poof you have it. I would guess the challenge would be tracking who sold what and that doesn't really sound nearly as obtuse and difficult as your suggestion, but I really don't know. I love where your head is at and really think that if we had unlimited time and resources and there were nothing else desperately needing attention, your idea would be good. If the goal here is to improve the hugely inconvenient vendor system , then I think my solution does that without taking away your joy of playing vendor.
    I also really appreciate how much thought you have put into this topic, but aside from a few of you that like to doll house your shops, I just dont see it as that much of a detail oriented task for the vast majority of players. They are simply wanting a better and more expedient method of buying or selling their goods. I understand we disagree on this point, Like I am sure you and I would disagree on the things that are important to me. The reality here (as it has been explained to me when they nerf something I care about) was that the dev team has to do the best they can for the majority of the base and really cant spend too much time if they lose a small handful of players. Change calls the tune my friend, your choice is whether or not to dance.
     
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