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Suggestion: Vendors

Discussion in 'Release 15 Feedback' started by Poor game design, Mar 14, 2015.

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  1. Heradite

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    I disagree.

    I don't know if this is true. I think it could be a problem but it could also not be a problem. First of all, the player vendor system we see now won't be the player vendor system we see implemented because people will be renting their own vendors.

    Second of all, it's really easy to go to the NPC store first, check the prices, then go to vendors and see if anybody is offering better prices. Frankly, if I have a vendor and I'm offering lower prices and I lose business because the customer went to another vendor first and the system told him that NPCs have a lower price at the store...well that is hurting my bottom line, isn't it?

    We have it easy now because of the internet. We can easily see who has the lowest price and we have a lot of stores that will accept their competitor prices if they are lower (with proof).

    Finally, if players are willing to overpay for an item....then they overpaid. They'll learn better and unlike right now, where you don't know who you are buying from, you can blackmarket them in the future by not visiting their vendor. And that's why I think the game will auto-correct itself: reputations of vendors will be at stake while right now there is no reputation at stake.
     
  2. Drocis the Devious

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    I can see your point of view. But I think we have to be honest with ourselves. When you look at the screen shot in the OP, can you quickly tell which of those prices is a good one and which one is a bad one? What if I tell you that the price for a reagent is historically 16 gold locally and currently 21 gold? (I'm just making these numbers of to prove a point that even when you know the information it's not an easy thing to do in your head, it's cumbersome).

    I'm not sure I see what the point of letting people price gouge chunks of salt. Btw, I'm still not saying we should prevent it, just make people more informed. So how is what I'm suggesting a bad thing? It saves you an unnecessary trip to the NPC vendor, and maybe it gives the scam artists one less avenue to perform their attacks. Seems like a win win to me.
     
  3. Jatvardur

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    Could work, but not sure if I want to see this. I'll outline in the following analysis of your post.

    True, but having the NPC column above is not necessary. I can understand why you want to have it, or why others might want to have it. However, it has been my experience that whenever a game offers a guideline price that sellers are lazy and post items for the guideline price -- even if that price is ultimately not profitable to them. That might sound stupid but it is exactly what I saw in SWTOR: breaking away from the guideline prices was tough since the market came to expect non-profitable sales (they gained levels, or got some of the items for free so didn't care). I wouldn't be keen to see a repeat of that. Granted that the SWTOR market had several problems, which could be inherently avoided in SotA since it will have crafting as a major part of the game.

    In the towns where there is no NPC vendor, will this column be hidden?

    Given that NPC prices will be global (IIRC) then this suggests that player vendors will also tend towards that guideline price on which I am less keen.


    Not true. Markets function this way all the time. Communication is not instantaneous so it takes time for the market to become wise to a scam but it generally always does. In a market, as you probably know, people will pay: (i) what they can afford, (ii) what they are willing to do so. Any arbitrage opportunity that you describe above will eventually dissipate, because that's what happens in situations where arbitrage exists.


    edit:
    I'm aware (afraid) of this becoming a cyclic debate. I will say that your idea has merit but I'm not convinced that we need it. I'd also suggest reading up on arbitrage unless you have already done so.
     
  4. Drocis the Devious

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    I think the difference between this game and real life is that when you goto the store they generally sell things in a way that makes it easy to understand what you're getting. The packages say things like 200 pieces inside and then there's a cost associated with that. It's easy to see that you're getting 200 pieces for X. Any similar products follow that same structure.

    Where as in the current vendor system were doing this...

    150k 200 pieces
    400k 12000 pieces
    540k 15000 pieces
    150k 350 pieces
    175k 230 pieces
    161k 260 pieces
    550 400 pieces
    178k 254 pieces
    100k 103 pieces

    It's not relative to anything and it's confusing. Can we use some simple math to figure out what's what? Of course we can. But is that in the spirit of a good game? Is that how we want to spend our time?

    In real life when you walk into a gas station and all the prices are inflated 25% higher than they would be if you goto supermarket next door, that's your local market. It makes sense. But now imagine going into the supermarket and having 20 local markets shoved into the same area - which is what we're doing here. You're just trying to buy a small package of candy, but there's so many options and the range of prices is so crazy you can't help but wonder "are you getting a good deal or being ripped off?"

    Essentially what people are doing is going to the farmers market, buying up stuff in bulk and then selling it for 50% more across the street at the supermarket. Very clever, but also very bad for the game. Let's make trading a little less of a weasel sport.
     
  5. Jatvardur

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    I did mention SWTOR as an example, that's not real life. :p


    But actually, you make (or at least imply) a good point here. There should be a cost per item in the listing. IIRC, SWTOR didn't have both the cost per item and the total cost of the deal when the game launched but it was a desired feature. That is something that should definitely be added as a separate column (without having to hover over or anything).


    edit:
    Just saw your edit. Let me add this...

    I'm still not inclined to add an NPC guideline price. I'd also not be inclined to fret about the odd price gouging as I expect it to be rare when we consider all deals over all time (i.e. i think it is more likely to be a blip against a greater trend). The game will survive, the odd arbitrage opportunity less so (imo).
     
  6. Heradite

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    Can I quickly tell? No. But I can do research. I'm surprised you want such hand holding Drocis.
     
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  7. Drocis the Devious

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    I know, normally I go the opposite way on things like this. But in this instance I think it's bad for the game, and it's easy enough to make the case we need more information on the vendor screen. Going back to the OP, I bought the Garlic. I already know that it costs me 20 gold from an NPC vendor (I did double check before I took this screen shot) and so I saved 200 gold on something I use a lot of.

    That's a fairly easy calculation to do in your head. But what got me thinking about this in the first place was the Spider Silk.

    14 for 266
    2 for 200
    8 for 170

    What the? You tell me what the best one is without pulling out your calculator or staring at it for 5 minutes. :)

    That's when I realized that I wouldn't be the only one doing this, and we really needed more information to make this game BETTER and not so cumbersome. Don't get me wrong, if they don't change anything I'll still make smart decisions and pull out my calculator and do the math, but do I want to do that? No, I'm just trying to buy a few reagents. How hard should this be?

    [​IMG]
     
  8. Solstar

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    That math was easy, at a glance. (Almost twice the product for far less than twice the price) and I understand your point. But, I don't mind doing the math for price per item.

    I think offering a regional average is better than direct NPC pricing. It can fluctuate but doesn't give exact prices. It can be the a reasonable glance into NPC prices, but direct prices will vary with the local market.

    And, again, not all places should offer the regional average.
     
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  9. Spoon

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    Agreed on the cost per item. It should be there. Needless math is tedious.

    But disagree on average prices or such.
    I think that NPCs and players alike should try to rip us off.
    I think that people have been spoiled by NPCs charging the same globally.

    If I go up to smuggler Harry in Kingsport I expect him to be better stocked than the merchants in Kingsport market. But I also expect his prices to be at the very least double probably more.
    Same thing with the red sash bandit salesman.
    They SHOULD try to rip you off, it's their nature.

    Also with regional resources the pricing should fluctuate.
    Close to a sulphur outs ash source I expect prices to be lower. Far from the source I expect them to be higher.
    From NPCs as well.

    If players got enough gold to not care about such price differences then we 'need' to skim them.

    Just like we have NPC merchants who pay full value for items, and we have merchants who pay half. Right now I also expect the reverse.
     
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  10. Spoon

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    Hmm, a thought here. If you hover over an item, doesn't it show you its "value"?
    Just left the game so won't try it, maybe tomorrow.
     
  11. Jatvardur

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    IIRC, yes. An extra column would help. I'd like to see the price per item AND the total price of the deal. Currently not favouring a column for guide price as in OP tho.
     
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  12. Drocis the Devious

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    Maybe those trading scale (decorations) would give players the additional functionality? I'd like that as a compromise that helps support RP.
     
  13. Heradite

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    Why would I do the math when the game can do it for me? I would drag ONE of each into the "buy" part of the screen and see how much gold it would cost.
     
  14. Drocis the Devious

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    It doesn't work the same as an NPC vendor. If it says you get 14 for 266, then you pay 266 for 14. You can't drag one over to see the individual price because it's all or nothing.
     
  15. Heradite

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    Did you submit a bug report? I hope that isn't the intended design.
     
  16. Drocis the Devious

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    No, I didn't. I assumed it was intended design and instead created this feedback.
     
  17. SmokerKGB

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    You guys are hilarious... Like Spoon pointed out, just do a mouseover and the in-game value is shown for the stack (that's the price an NPC would give for the same item(s)... If the value is "no value", that means it was picked up off a counter or weapons rack... Clearly a scammer...

    As the old saying goes "let the buyer beware"... Putting a column in to tell the buyer the NPCs single price wouldn't really do much, it won't stop scamming from happening...
     
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