New store inventory management

[Magnate]

Possibly. But Magi and Priests rely on building a decent launcher for surviving the early game. Maybe people who are actually good at playing them don't.

Not any more. With the last ~15 chars I've played using 3.1.1 dev, all but one has found an ego launcher before getting a bought launcher to (+8,+8).

Still I think in order to maximize the chances of pushing these store changes through we should assume that all else remains constant. That includes condensing restore potions, as much as I'd like to see it happen.

I agree with Atarlost that we should do this at the same time as condensing the stat restore potions.

[Pete Mack]

What you mean 'we', white man?

[Magnate]

What you mean 'we', white man?

Heh, I just doin' what I is told .... ;-)

[Donald Jonker]

I agree with Atarlost that we should do this at the same time as condensing the stat restore potions.

Rock on. Make it so.

[PowerDiver]

16.?to_hit
17.?to_dam
18.?enchant_armor

I don't think these are essential items. More like luxuries. If you want a better weapon, find one in the dungeon, don't manufacture it.

I think a better solution would be to make these scrolls dungeon-only but give them a 100% success rate (even for Ringil!)

I don't think they should appear even in the dungeon. The main exception is for some repair_armor_damaged_by_acid scroll.

OTOH, for now, I find them indispensible. The reason is for combining ammo.
I have found it necessary to buy out the alchemist for scrolls to merge ammo in multiple games. If we got a quiver and an unlimited home, so that one did not ever need to merge ammo to save slots, I would happily see them go.

[etaomyx]

Wow, great discussion! I'm glad this idea is being contemplated. My thoughts:

1. I like geometric prices (in particular, doubling), as I mentioned on the other thread. You could track the number of net "forced restocks" per item rather than the final prices or number of items purchased, and compute prices from that, which I would conjecture to be simpler/smaller. When the item gets restocked "naturally", the counter could be decremented. Geometric prices are simple enough to calculate/understand, and make totally excessive buying unfeasible even in the late game, something which linear price increases (for example) would not do. The price index or multiplier for the super-normally priced items could be listed next to the price in the GUI in some way to alert the player.

2. I'm sort of averse to the idea of making special cases (EDIT: aside for ignoring BM) of some items, since I think everyone has a different idea about what items are "essential". I'm for leaving store restocking how it is (minus buyouts) as much as possible, but when the player buys all of a stocked book/scroll/food/spikes/potion/ammo/light item, it is immediately force-restocked. Which is to say, if you can buy it in the town at all, you can acquire as much as you need, provided you are willing to pay the escalating prices. I think differences in the relative importance of items should be incorporated in the frequency/quantity of restocking that item and/or base price, and not the mechanic by which it is restocked.

3. It would be straightforward to modify store_create_random to prefer generating price-inflated items. In this way, the shop's inventory would tend to adapt to the player's demand.

I would be happy to help write some code for these things or related proposals, if it does seem like a good idea.

[Nick]

3. Is it feasible to have no town source of endgame consumables w/ current dungeon generation?

Should FA's ordering system be considered here? This involves most potions (stat potions are excluded) and all scrolls that the player has seen being orderable from a store (at BM prices). It doesn't help ironmen, but I'm comfortable with that

[buzzkill]

This was a ridiculous list of so-called necessities (you just got greedy Donald (really, Detect Treasure, a necessity)

1.!rStrength
2.!rInt
3.!rWis
4.!rDex
5.!rCon
9.?dTrap
10.?phase
15.?ID
20.?light
21.?WoR
22.?Satisfy_Hunger

...and could probably trimmed further.

I also liked this bit...

2. I'm sort of averse to the idea of making special cases of some items, since I think everyone has a different idea about what items are "essential". I'm for leaving store restocking how it is (minus buyouts) as much as possible, but when the player buys all of a stocked book/scroll/food/spikes/potion/ammo/light item, it is immediately force-restocked. Which is to say, if you can buy it in the town at all, you can acquire as much as you need, provided you are willing to pay the escalating prices. I think differences in the relative importance of items should be incorporated in the frequency/quantity of restocking that item and/or base price, and not the mechanic by which it is restocked.

[Atarlost]

There are necessities and then there are things that you might use if you could get them reliably, but if you can't it's better to not have to think about whether you have them or not and justdo without. A lot of the list falls into that second category.

[bebo]

Following buzzkill's trend i would cut the list even more, with a few noticeable changes:

1.!rStrength
2.!rInt
3.!rWis
4.!rDex
5.!rCon
10.?phase
15.?ID
21.?WoR

I would also like to add:

24._TelSelf
25._dEvil
26.!rLvl (what's the commonly used abbreviation here?)

The following

11.?dTreasure   <--->   -dTreasure
13.?mapping     <--->   _mapping

i find absolutely crucial to my style of playing, couldn't live without them - but can be easily replaced in little time with staves/rods found in the dungeon or bought at the store/BM. dTreasure in particular is essential for good diving in my experience.

Regarding

9.?dTrap
12.?dStairs

i rarely play with warriors, so all i can say is that with the other classes i practically never use them - by the time i need them i always have the spells and/or rods and/or scrolls found in the dungeon.

I'm a bit undecided on

20.?light   <--->   _light
23.?dInv   <--->   _dInv

by the time they become necessary you can easily afford the staves, which are very common also in the dungeon, so i don't see the need of having the scrolls guaranteed in the shop. On the other hand they are quite necessary. So either guarantee the scrolls or the staves i'd say.

----------------------

It might actually be possible to reserve a couple (not many) slots of the store's inventory for randomized items (of the appropriate ie relevant type), in addition to the fixed ones. With big price premiums. Sort of like a specialized mini-BM within the store.

----------------------

Since we are talking about radical changes here (btw in favor of merging the restore stat pots in just two; against removing the BM - i find it a fun and interesting aspect of gameplay) i might as well suggest getting rid of the limitations for priests to wield only non pointed weapons - it seems kind of silly and more of a leftover from the old d&d days than anything else. This could lead to the removal of the whole "blessed" ego (since they don't add anything in particular if i remember correctly) and weapons from the temple, giving the coders the option of better placement of items between the alchemist and the temple.

------------------------

PS - please merge the priest dStairs and dTraps spells

[Magnate]

26.!rLvl (what's the commonly used abbreviation here?)

!rExp (ooh, reply must be at least ten characters ... why??)

[Pete Mack]

Actually, the name of the potion is !rLife, which is also its common name. As for Detect Treasure, I agree that it makes a huge difference. Fortunately, the corresponding rod is fairly common; it makes up for the huge advantage that Rogues would otherwise hold with the cl ~12 spell.

[Magnate]

Wow, great discussion! I'm glad this idea is being contemplated. My thoughts:

1. I like geometric prices (in particular, doubling), as I mentioned on the other thread. You could track the number of net "forced restocks" per item rather than the final prices or number of items purchased, and compute prices from that, which I would conjecture to be simpler/smaller. When the item gets restocked "naturally", the counter could be decremented. Geometric prices are simple enough to calculate/understand, and make totally excessive buying unfeasible even in the late game, something which linear price increases (for example) would not do. The price index or multiplier for the super-normally priced items could be listed next to the price in the GUI in some way to alert the player.

2. I'm sort of averse to the idea of making special cases (EDIT: aside for ignoring BM) of some items, since I think everyone has a different idea about what items are "essential". I'm for leaving store restocking how it is (minus buyouts) as much as possible, but when the player buys all of a stocked book/scroll/food/spikes/potion/ammo/light item, it is immediately force-restocked. Which is to say, if you can buy it in the town at all, you can acquire as much as you need, provided you are willing to pay the escalating prices. I think differences in the relative importance of items should be incorporated in the frequency/quantity of restocking that item and/or base price, and not the mechanic by which it is restocked.

3. It would be straightforward to modify store_create_random to prefer generating price-inflated items. In this way, the shop's inventory would tend to adapt to the player's demand.

I would be happy to help write some code for these things or related proposals, if it does seem like a good idea.

You and I have very similar views on this, and as soon as Takkaria has given his views, I'd very much appreciate some help coding this up.

One thing to be aware of is Pete Mack's point that things like !rStr need to ramp up in cost *much* faster than !CCW or ?phase, because of the number needed in a game. But as you say, this can be achieved with the right restocking numbers and cost multipliers.

[Donald Jonker]

This was a ridiculous list of so-called necessities (you just got greedy Donald (really, Detect Treasure, a necessity)

For the record, that was a list of all items currently stocked at the alchemist. (Not items I personally judge to be necessities.) There's a lot there that I personally never buy, but I would be loath to exclude them for that reason alone.

I'm on the fence regarding ?dTreasure, on account of the fact that you usually find the rod. The rod obsoletes scrolls and staves (unless it gets destroyed - which has happened to me more than once) - this may be a bigger problem than store stocking, since you find it so early and reliably.

I'm inclined to agree with Bebo that it makes sense to guarantee stocks of staves instead of scrolls when functions are duplicated. Scrolls are better, and you can switch when you find supplies of them in the dungeon. It would also mean that you would need to find them in stacks to make it worth it. No one's going to devote home space to ?mapping.

[Donald Jonker]

It also just occurred to me that we can transfer ?phase and ?WoR entirely to the General Store.