Npc Buy prices on produce ie players selling to npc

Discussion in 'Feedback' started by Lorddread, Mar 26, 2021.

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  1. Sorgin Txakal

    Sorgin Txakal Avatar

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    If I may be so selfish as to suggest that perhaps seed drops could come from multiple sources, such as also as drops from the butchery/tanning stations and the cooking stations where produce is often processed.
     
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  2. Sorgin Txakal

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    Well, the warning did work both ways. Letting players know that prices of reagents were about to go up on NPC vendors should have been a trumpet sound for player farmers to start growing and listing their crops at higher prices, knowing that soon they won't have to compete with NPCs with infinite perfect yields of produce at wholesale prices. I planted two 5-story basements full of garlic as soon as I heard that NPCs weren't gonna be selling it within the next month or so - not because I have ever bought garlic from an NPC, which I don't, but because I want in on some of this action and I want a reserve in case prices do shoot up to 5-10 per garlic for a few weeks in the worst case scenario of short term hyper inflation due to guilds or select individuals buying out all the player merchants when R89 goes live.
     
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  3. Bedawyn

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    And yes, this is yet another strike against SOTA's offline game. As of last summer (the last time I was able to keep up with the Twitch streams), there still wasn't any official confirmation that they were abandoning the offline game completely, but since it was clear at least two winters ago that that's exactly what was happening, I end up kicking myself every time I start to get complacent about enjoying the offline game. I really wish you guys would just go ahead and state outright in one of the official updates that yes, the offline game is deprecated and will continue to get more and more crippled over time.

    I have no interest whatsoever in being a farmer, either offline or online. But since I do enjoy cooking, it looks like I'm going to have to be a farmer. Still, as annoying as that will be offline, at least it will be better than being online and trying to find player vendors that sell the produce I want at the right prices in the right (small) stack sizes, that I can get to without breaking my roleplay immersion. (Frustratingly, when I was playing online, having a small grocery vendor specializing in small stacks was one of the goals I wanted to reach, but it was financially inaccessible. Now these changes mean such a vendor might possibly make enough of a living to support their lot taxes, which is good, but I don't have online access to attempt it.)

    Even though I'm not online any more, I'm still concerned about the effect this will have on newcomers who WANT to be farmers but who will now be forced to compete against oldbies with large tax-free farms, commission-free vendors, and thousands and thousands of goods backed up in storage. Heck, plenty of people have huge backlogs in storage just from looting, even if they've never tried farming. So I don't see how this could possibly not result in widening the gap between pledge supporters and newer players even further, and it's already too wide.

    On one of last week's NBNN episodes, Jack was talking about something I've been dreaming of since I started playing Shroud: NPC vendors should act the way they used to in old games, and hold onto stuff they buy from players, then turn around and resell it. I'm pretty sure even Moria worked this way, so I don't know why Shroud doesn't. Let each NPC vendor have a small (50 or 100) starting stack size that never respawns. That amount would get quickly swallowed up in the online economy, but would keep the offline player going near forever. Then anything beyond that starting stack, the NPC has to buy from a player character first. This would work both online and offline, and it would benefit both the people who just want to offload their goods without being a full-time shopkeeper (much less combined shopkeeper and supplier) and the people who just want to buy the stuff they need quickly and conveniently, without having to travel all over or live in a cluttered market town. The people who want to play shopkeeper would still be challenged, but attracting customers is the kind of challenge that a shopkeeper game should be providing.
     
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  4. Elwyn

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    The biggest problem with this is that they would have to go into separate stacks based on when they were crafted. When you stack items, ALL of their stats must be exactly the same, that's the point of stacking, it's a shortcut for identical items. You can't spoil half a stack in one day, and then half of the remainder five days later, and the rest another week later. That data is inherently lost upon stacking. On the other hand, then they could have crafter signatures on them.

    Did they make this change to offline as well? I think there is already a lot of difference in what NPCs sell offline. If they've broken offline with this, bug it.
    I can only dream that this would be feasible. And that they'd do it. Along with slow restocking and variable pricing. Right now it's "zero point matter", just like IGG. It appears out of nowhere, and vanishes when used. The demand pricing was a nice idea, but that was back in the day when people still thought Owl's Head was a really nice place to live. I knew instantly that I could go to a random PRT and find an out-of-the-way vendor that hadn't been over-bought.
    Really, it would be nice if too many people buying an item on NPCs would cause the price to go up for a while. There was even a mechanic for that in FFXI, and I can remember people (sometimes me) would buy up the entire stock once it hit bottom price, then craft it and sell to players for profit.
    Moria? That's a single-player rogue-like game, isn't it? This stuff is so much easier to do when you don't have to deal with hundreds of players and hundreds of vendor NPCs, asynchronously, and in real-time.
     
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  5. Anpu

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    I would assume for offline the merchants would still have stuff to buy instead of having to farm? And you get tons of gold offline so the price for them isn’t too much.
     
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  6. Bedawyn

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    I wouldn't assume anything about offline; that way lies disappointment. It's precisely what I meant when I said "getting complacent" earlier. The mutton stew was removed from offline, and I haven't heard any of the devs say there will be an offline exception for this change.

    I don't care about the price points myself, just the convenience of being able to buy what I need when I need it from an immersive NPC rather than having to drudge through an unenjoyable part of the game to get to the part I want to do.
     
  7. Lorddread

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    People seem to be taking what i am saying wrong way i don't care if they change prices but no warning to there buying when there is a warning on there sell price going up is not a good way to do things is all i am getting at.
     
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  8. Elwyn

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    If what you made was something people need, sit on it for a month and it will probably be worth more than an NPC would have paid. If it wasn't what people need, then you were basically exploiting NPC prices to get free money outside the player economy. And it's already been said that such a warning would have caused people to stock up on buying stuff from the NPC that would have killed buying from other players for months.
     
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  9. Lorddread

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    Consider this closed as no real point in continuing it. I was just asking a question as to why it was done that way. The topic is feedback for a reason :)
    If anything the npc sell price should have been the thing no one was warned about if indeed this was to do with helping the player economy as people keep saying it was!
     
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  10. Time Lord

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    My two cents worth from my perspective on the situation of things and I'll bring up one point in all this following rant, highlighting what I think is truly important to consider which has thus far not been mentioned in this thread... (I know Catnip/Poralarium have a plan and that everything will turn out well)

    I am resurrecting this thread, because this issue of agriculture is deeper that what I've thus far read here, yet more importantly, "agriculture is about time & effort but not need", unless we're talking about regs, and mega farms are not needed for anything but regs.

    The Very Fancy Great Big Empty Dustbowls...
    Most mega farms I've seen lately, have been inactive fields of empty planters. They look impressive, but their not doing anything. Their economic impact is still there, but far from enticing many to engage them into production. Quite simply, they're too much effort for most of the rich that own them. Their motive when they are engaged, is to shorten the time it takes to stockpile enough to not have to do it again for a very long time. So, most of those types of players are never in the agriculture game for anything more than regs.

    What's not been mentioned is how UO's Siege Perilous made the switch to a more player driven economy during it's initial opening days...

    "Not Only Price Hikes But Limiting Availability"...
    I haven't heard limiting the availability of things sold by NPCs and sold to NPCs. All I've heard thus far is "cut off", all but regs.

    There are very good reasons to protect regs, "because they are the life blood of our game", and without them, there's very little game left. If regs are turned over to be only sold by players, this means the life of our game is in their hands, and I know too many ways such a move could be intentionally or accidentally turned into "The Armageddon Spell" for real. (The Armageddon Spell was a player created myth in UO that some believed was true <---<<< That's just old trivia).

    So, I'm in favor of player driven economy, but I think "limiting quantity" that are sold through NPC is the way to go for all our agriculture "needs".

    The Tools:

    • Limiting Amounts sold by NPC
    • Limiting Amounts bought by NPC
    • Raising prices
    Through this way of limiting the amounts that NPCs sell (that's total amounts a day, "X number" of whatever sold an hour), The average adventurer can get what they need, and further, at a price that skirts the limits of their usefulness in combat for profit. Yet also, the small operation cook can get what they need in the same limited amounts and high level profit thin pricing, while the small farmer can still sell their crops at a profit to an NPC.

    I know they have a plan, but I just wanted to remind them of Ultima Online's Siege Perilous player based economy encouragement tools.
    (I also haven't found a player yet that's any good at or wants to barter) :( All of the above mentioned tools greatly encouraged bartering when UO's SP first opened, and those who bartered then were the successful, while all other lagged far far behind.

    I hate NPC's thinking that I need their money and I hate being anyone's faming hooker for money.
    Catnip, use the tools, let's encourage a player economy "and let's barter!"

    But no Armageddon if you please o_O...
    A newby's life should not be spent shopping...
    Limit, not eliminate, and raise prices to discourage :)

    [​IMG]

    Also a reminder that we also need U, L and O shaped planters for those who just want to have a nice looking garden.
    ~TL~

     
    Last edited: May 22, 2021
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