On the pricing of +speed

[Magnate]

@magnate--

Perhaps the thing to do is to break the correspondence between purchase price and selling price. Use the computed price for selling price, but enable a selling price for those things that would be unbalancing if they were inexpensive, like speed rings, boots, and ESP. Even Rings of RPoison should cost a lot, on the principle that you will only buy one if you really need it.

Hi Pete. Instinctively I don't like asymmetry, but I will have a think about whether certain items are too cheap to buy even given the new lower selling prices, and what could be done about it. I'm off for my favourite weekend of the year (sailing on the Norfolk Broads), so I'll mull it over in between tacking and beer ...

[Pete Mack]

@magnate--

Perhaps the thing to do is to break the correspondence between purchase price and selling price. Use the computed price for selling price, but enable a selling price for those things that would be unbalancing if they were inexpensive, like speed rings, boots, and ESP. Even Rings of RPoison should cost a lot, on the principle that you will only buy one if you really need it.

[PowerDiver]

I wouldn't take +3 speed over either of those resists. Even if I had no source of haste, I think I'd still choose rconf..

I even disagree with you on rConf vs rNexus. Given the lack of stat potions, even in the depths a nexus scramble might end my game.

The mushrooms of temp confusion resistance are also relevant. I used one a long time ago, but have managed to hold on to the other two.

[bebo]

Well, if a lot of people agree with you, it means that the power of small speed pvals needs adjusting. But I wouldn't take +3 speed over either of those resists. Even if I had no source of haste, I think I'd still choose rconf.

Very interested to hear others' views on this particular choice.

I would definitely choose rConf over +3speed, unless i have another source between +7 and +9 (ie with both of them equipped i get +10 total)

[Magnate]

FWIW, I am choosing +3 speed over rConf or rNexus in my current game. It's not about the +10% damage from +10% energy [when hasted]. It's about avoiding getting double-moved. I'd choose a resistance if I had +10 speed already. I don't know how you work that into a power algorithm.

Well, if a lot of people agree with you, it means that the power of small speed pvals needs adjusting. But I wouldn't take +3 speed over either of those resists. Even if I had no source of haste, I think I'd still choose rconf.

Very interested to hear others' views on this particular choice.

[Magnate]

I wouldn't allow that anywhere near a release.

Why not? It would solve the 'flow' problem that Eddie mentions. What harm would it do?

[Magnate]

And it is still too high, from a power pricing perspective. I would usually trade any one of those egos for a single +1 to damage. Or for a single !CCW. The main point of single-slay egos in my games is for the selling price, or for testing my squelch code .

[editing] I refer to weaker slays above. Slay evil/undead/demon/dragon are all valuable.

Indeed. I hadn't realised that you thought the weaker slays were still too pricey even though they're cheaper than before. I'm ok with that: 3.8% for Slay Troll, 7.5% for Slay Orc and 12.7% for Slay Giant. Slay Orc is overpriced in the late game, when you no longer blink at orcs, but otherwise they're ok.

I guess I was unclear. Deciding what to carry home to sell ruins the flow.

Well, that problem exists whatever pricing model we use - unless we ban selling altogether (which I'd support).

[PowerDiver]

FWIW, I am choosing +3 speed over rConf or rNexus in my current game. It's not about the +10% damage from +10% energy [when hasted]. It's about avoiding getting double-moved. I'd choose a resistance if I had +10 speed already. I don't know how you work that into a power algorithm. http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=8845

[Storch]

Prices

Angband is a game about killing monsters and finding loot - buying and selling is tertiary to those, and should remain so.

Exactly I care about selling and buing only in the middle game really. At the start I have not enough money, and at the end they do not have anything interesting. Limited use of stores is mainly a consequence of their limited capacity. The number of objects generated in shops is very small compared to number of objects in the dungeon so there is small probability of generating anything interesting.

I think that (Vanilla) stores are used mainly for buying few consumables (healing, restoreation, teleportation), bows, whip or dagger, ring of RPois and something of FA. Thats not that important to make a big issue of this, create economic models etc.

[zaimoni]

Well, maybe *everything* should be priced quadratically. Come up with a table that says what each flag [with pval 1 if relevant] is worth, but then price the object as the square of the sum of the flag values. So an armor with 3 elemental resists would evaluate to value 9 times as much as one with a single resist. A +16 ring of damage would be only 4 times as much as +8, but while bad that isn't as ludicrous as merely twice the price.

This still misses out on rarity issues. Gloves with a single resist are currently quite valuable. But that's still not adequately handled by the current pricing either.

Weapon/armor +'s are the only things with an obviously rational price model (at least through +15).

Base value of a +: 100g
Base cost of an enchant scroll: 150g

why not just use the success rate as the divisor to get the value of +1 through +15? The worst I could see happening is that 32-bit integers wouldn't be up to the task.

[takkaria]

I'm curious if you would consider adding 'value' to an item, so you can look at it and see 'you can sell this for X gold'. It would be pretty useful.

I wouldn't allow that anywhere near a release.

[ChodTheWacko]

... but if you already have +30 speed, they're really not worth much.

By the time you have +30 speed, you have so much gold that prices are meaningless anyway. I somewhat think prices of items should steer more towards the start of the game, where you don't have enough money to buy everything you'd want.

As a person who tends to play mages, speed items are extremely useful in the early game, if only to prevent yourself from getting slowed due to carry weight.

I would like the feature added such that when you examine an item, it says: 'This is worth X gold'. It would be pretty useful, even if it varys from actual store price due to shopkeeper/charisma/black market. At least you know
what the ballpark is.

- Frank

[PowerDiver]

Far too high??? The cost of single-slay weapons (compared with non-ego versions of the same weapon) is now *much* less than previously

And it is still too high, from a power pricing perspective. I would usually trade any one of those egos for a single +1 to damage. Or for a single !CCW. The main point of single-slay egos in my games is for the selling price, or for testing my squelch code .

[editing] I refer to weaker slays above. Slay evil/undead/demon/dragon are all valuable.

Those are quite strong words - tell me how power-based pricing can "ruin the flow of the game"?

I guess I was unclear. Deciding what to carry home to sell ruins the flow. Power-based selling prices are only relevant when you are considering what to take home to sell, so that was the context of my remark.

[Magnate]

There is a class of melee egos, slay animal/orc/troll/giant that are similar. Have you ever saved a weapon because it had one of those egos? I never would, and if they were appropriately priced [the power based pricing is still far too high] I would never carry them unless the item was useful without the ego. However, when they are expensive, then I carry them home and maybe even use them as a swap once or twice on that trip.

Far too high??? The cost of single-slay weapons (compared with non-ego versions of the same weapon) is now *much* less than previously (with the exception of Slay Evil). What's different now is that a slay adds a % to the price of a weapon, whereas it used to add a fixed sum. When you get very big weapons (lochaber axes, executioner's swords etc.) the % turns out to be slightly more significant because of their high base damage, but the vast majority of Slay Animal/Orc/Giant/Troll weapons are now cheaper than under the old pricing system.

Think about monsters. There are some that are worth searching out, because their drop or exp is overly high in comparison to danger or resources required, and many you ignore. It's arbitrary, and playing well is about figuring out which monsters to fight. I see no reason for pricing to be different. Some things are overpriced, and those are the ones you search out to sell. I really do not see a substantive difference in these two situations.

I see a huge difference. Killing monsters for drops remains an issue until DL100. Picking up items purely because of their sale value ceases to be an issue around DL60 for divers and DL30 or so for non-divers - by that point you have enough gold to buy anything.

Besides that difference, I don't think arbitrariness is something to cherish. Andrew Doull rebalanced the monsters so that their xp is never overly high in comparison to their danger level - why should we not do the same with prices?

It may seem strange that I am arguing so much when I think the better solution is to eliminate selling entirely. The reason is that if you are going to ruin the flow of the game, I'd like there to be at least something about it that leads to strategic choices by the player.

Those are quite strong words - tell me how power-based pricing can "ruin the flow of the game"? How many games have you played with it, and in how many of those did the problem occur?

(I presume you mean that you had too little money at some point, but I can't think why this would ruin the game - you ran out of money for consumables, or you couldn't afford something important from the BM? FWIW I've played a dozen or so games with it, and I've not noticed any difference to the flow at all, with the single exception of waiting longer to buy a longbow - which is no bad thing.)

[Magnate]

Well, maybe *everything* should be priced quadratically. Come up with a table that says what each flag [with pval 1 if relevant] is worth, but then price the object as the square of the sum of the flag values. So an armor with 3 elemental resists would evaluate to value 9 times as much as one with a single resist. A +16 ring of damage would be only 4 times as much as +8, but while bad that isn't as ludicrous as merely twice the price.

Eddie ... the pricing model IS currently quadratic! A +16 ring of damage is four times the price of +8. It has double the power, and price is proportional to power^2, so it's four times the price.

Pete was suggesting that the power of speed pvals should be quadratic, and that's not quite right.