Stores and other random thoughts

[dhegler]

Overall, I think stores are rather useless once you get to mid-game. At least for me, I wait until the black market has stat gain potions, waste my gold on them, and *maybe* something of interest pops up there. The general store doesn't buy anything back and you can't even buy a lantern anymore. It seems like the main stores never have anything ego+ anymore. Every so often something will pop up, but not as often as old Angband versions. Everyone (except me) now uses the system to buy out the inventory, which seems like cheating to me. If one will allow that, there should be an easy way to auto-buy and squelch.

Ideas:

Maybe once you get to dlvl 30 you have a chance of a "store" vault, which is some form of a black market, temple, magic, apothecary, weapon or armor store with outrageously high prices to spend your gold on. It would have limited inventory.

Make ego items a bit more regular in the normal stores - they are so abundant in the dungeon, where do they all go?

Go back to general store buying items and occasionally having a nice digger.

Other random thoughts as I play:

I am starting to get angry that all the uniques I kill drop crap and I find better "crap" on the floor.

The dungeon layouts, although random, are really starting to get monotonous and uninspiring to me. This is the most I have EVER played the game for a few months in a row, so maybe that's why. I also saw someone post here recently about messing with a constant somewhere to get more interesting levels.

Please make hounds a bit more rare, and some other rarities a bit more common.

The @ scrolling off the screen, leaving portions of CURRENT rooms unvisible stinks. An older version used to scroll the screen less squares, or more frequently, so when it scrolled, you would always have a full room in sight.

On the scrolling subject - why can't targeting work off-screen... For instance I have a macro for OOD "m3b*t" and when something runs away, one character off-screen, it can't find it... This may also be related to the scrolling subject and fixed if the scrolling was changed.

I agree with everyone of late saying characters should get multiple barehanded blows (should be calculated due to MWW for the class, IMHO), especially for character generation.

Warriors should get one extra base blow, or something to make them more able to wield heavier objects and get multi-blows than a rogue, or anyone else. Once you wield weapons over the MWW, all classes act the same, which doesn't make sense to me.

Don't think of these as complaints, just items that I think could be worked better as I play...

The stores thing really irks me now, because that used to be the best part of the game (or at least most fun for me) when I used to play Moria/Angband. Now it is monotonous - read WoR, collect crap, read WoR, sell crap, repeat. I rarely ever buy anything other than the random speed and stat gain potions in the BM.

[konijn_]

I am starting to get angry that all the uniques I kill drop crap and I find better "crap" on the floor.

The dungeon layouts, although random, are really starting to get monotonous and uninspiring to me. This is the most I have EVER played the game for a few months in a row, so maybe that's why. I also saw someone post here recently about messing with a constant somewhere to get more interesting levels.

Please make hounds a bit more rare, and some other rarities a bit more common.

The @ scrolling off the screen, leaving portions of CURRENT rooms unvisible stinks. An older version used to scroll the screen less squares, or more frequently, so when it scrolled, you would always have a full room in sight.

Warriors should get one extra base blow, or something to make them more able to wield heavier objects and get multi-blows than a rogue, or anyone else. Once you wield weapons over the MWW, all classes act the same, which doesn't make sense to me.

Uniques should drop great stuff only in my mind, this supports deep diving sessions where I only pick up/id stuff dropped by uniques.

Dungeon layouts, slippery slope, dare I say 'make it an option?' Similar to the warning_hp option where you can choose different values for the interesting rooms constant. Probably a heretic thought

Hounds, just dive, their frequency will drop.

Warriors, I like the thought, I just keep wondering why we didnt think of this before..

Screen scrolling boundary should be based on the size on the terminal, I have the impression, I could be wrong, that the current boundary is geared towards smaller screens.

T.

[fizzix]

Stores have several useful items that I buy throughout the game, namely.

Spell/prayer books
!CCW, !CSW, Hero
?phase, recall, id
ammo
_teleport, _Id

Also, I've often found elvenkind shields/amor in the armory and I even found a sling of buckland in the weaponsmith last game. The BM is often used for me to buy unid'd items so that I don't waste time searching for them in the dungeon.

Perhaps if you have too much money that you don't know what to do with, you are spending too much time dragging stuff back to town to sell? I think the game is moving away from this strategy being worthwhile. The idea is that it's more satisfying to find something in the dungeon than to buy it from the store.

On crap drops: That's part of the random nature of the game. If you think it's bad, you can alter the edit files so that uniques have DROP_GREAT flags instead of DROP_GOOD. There's no coding necessary, it is a pretty straightforward change, albeit a bit tedious. This will really increase the quality of drops. However, be warned, the game will likely be less fun because you'll be way overpowered. (i've done this experiment) If I was to change one thing to drops, I'd make it so that certain consumables appeared in the DROP_GOOD and DROP_GREAT lists. I made a thread about this a while back, but it didn't seem to have much support.

About Hounds: It doesn't seem like hounds are ever going to be more rare in V. As my Angband skill has improved I seem to have gotten better at avoiding them and they have become less of a bother. (I still think Time Hounds should be scuttled or, at least, native to dlevel 90) However, if you would like to change the hound rarity, the edit files again will help out, no coding necessary. You can change the rarity from 1 to 2 and it will really cut down on the number of hounds you see.

[Magnate]

Anyone reading and responding to this thread should read the numerous other long and detailed discussions on stores and what they should and shouldn't buy and sell, for how much and when. This is a subject that has been discussed a lot since 3.1.1, without any of the proposals making it into the code so far. So it would be helpful if new threads on the same subject aimed to narrow down proposals to a preferred set, rather than expanding them still further. Even as it is Takk is going to have his work cut out tracking down all the ideas and suggestions.

[Pete Mack]

Magnate's right. Stores went the other way in 3.0.9 or 3.1.0 (as in NPP), and it is widely agreed to have been a mistake.

EDIT:
If you want to spend your money, spend it on buying out the Temple for extra !CCW and the Alchemist (for !Recharging).
If you really want to spend it, buy out the BM hoping for extra Stat potions or ?Teleport Level

[Remuz]

I really do not like this advice. Having to buy-out a store seems like an abuse to me, and should not be necessary. Yes, I know it has been addressed before, I was just mentionning it.

Kind of reminds me of a famous abuse in ToME. In that variant, you can 'Z' steal items from stores. With a high enough dexterity, your success rate for light objects is 100%. This sounds bad enough, but the abuse lies in the fact that the reward for a certain mid-game quest is the opening of a jewelry store. You can basically buy-out the store as much as you want, one item at a time, to scum for rings of speeds or (if I remember correctly) randart rings.

[Pete Mack]

@remuz--
the black market (and even the Temple) are quite expensive. You can't afford to buy out the black market much, unless you are already playing in the millions of turns. In which case, who cares? You have so much loot from the dungeon at that point that it doesn't matter having a bit more from the stores.
Same holds to a lesser extent for the Temple--late game average cost is around 15K, so you really can't afford to buy it out that much. (Note that if you do buy out stores, you can't be selling stuff in those stores, so you can't be churning dungeon priest books. Same holds to a lesser extent for Mage books -- if you want unlimited supplies of town books and/or Rods of Teleportation and/or Mapping, you either need to spend space at home, or refrain from selling speed rings &c.)

The only problem I see, possibly, is the essentially unlimited supply of restore stat potions in the alchemist. I admit to taking advantage of this on occasion.

[shawnosullivan]

Kind of reminds me of a famous abuse in ToME. In that variant, you can 'Z' steal items from stores. With a high enough dexterity, your success rate for light objects is 100%. This sounds bad enough, but the abuse lies in the fact that the reward for a certain mid-game quest is the opening of a jewelry store. You can basically buy-out the store as much as you want, one item at a time, to scum for rings of speeds or (if I remember correctly) randart rings.

yup - and the royal jeweler is hardly the biggest theft abuse in ToME. there are speed ring shops in random dungeon towns. people have been known to set up macros stealing out the stores until they get randart speed rings with, say, +14 to speed AND attacks. obviously even the existence of such rings is broken, but i guess ToME has the void, which somewhat mitigates any crazy overpowered game mechanics.

as far as stat gain potions, i think the game should go one of two ways. either make stat gain potions VERY rare (unavailable at the alchemist) and make stat draining itself much rarer (and perhaps place a cap on stat drain in this case - for instance, a stat can only be drained to 75% of its original value). OR simply make stat recovery permanently available as an option from the alchemist in town - 2k gold to restore all stats (or more). at least expensive enough that it still might problematic for the level 13 warrior who got his strength drained by that red naga. the current system encourages relatively frequent store scumming to deal w/ stat drain, which isn't fun or interesting.

[fizzix]

as far as stat gain potions, i think the game should go one of two ways. either make stat gain potions VERY rare (unavailable at the alchemist) and make stat draining itself much rarer (and perhaps place a cap on stat drain in this case - for instance, a stat can only be drained to 75% of its original value). OR simply make stat recovery permanently available as an option from the alchemist in town - 2k gold to restore all stats (or more). at least expensive enough that it still might problematic for the level 13 warrior who got his strength drained by that red naga. the current system encourages relatively frequent store scumming to deal w/ stat drain, which isn't fun or interesting.

Well this is a whole 'nother can of worms. First, do you mean stat-restore not stat-gain? Stat-gain are annoyingly rare enough as is, considering how essential they are for progression in the game.

You could also make stats recoverable over time, wait 10k turns and you gain a point back.

[Netbrian]

Anyone reading and responding to this thread should read the numerous other long and detailed discussions on stores and what they should and shouldn't buy and sell, for how much and when. This is a subject that has been discussed a lot since 3.1.1, without any of the proposals making it into the code so far. So it would be helpful if new threads on the same subject aimed to narrow down proposals to a preferred set, rather than expanding them still further. Even as it is Takk is going to have his work cut out tracking down all the ideas and suggestions.

Okay --

1. Stores shouldn't buy anything. I think Steamband has something in the background that converts junky items to gold -- consider something like that, in addition to just inflating gold drops.
2. Store inventories should be set and infinite, save for the Black Market.
3. Have the black market improve with Recall depth.

I think this is a pretty narrow and simple list, and should help a great deal.

[Magnate]

Okay --

1. Stores shouldn't buy anything. I think Steamband has something in the background that converts junky items to gold -- consider something like that, in addition to just inflating gold drops.
2. Store inventories should be set and infinite, save for the Black Market.
3. Have the black market improve with Recall depth.

I think this is a pretty narrow and simple list, and should help a great deal.

Thank you. I personally like all those, and I think Takkaria is not a million miles from agreeing to no selling. Fixed inventories may also appeal to him, since he is on record as wanting people to find good stuff in the dungeon, not the town. There have been several threads discussing what items should be deemed "essential" in a world of fixed inventories - plenty of scope here.

Your last point is perhaps the least controversial - in fact I think this is how it already works.

[dhegler]

Thank you. I personally like all those, and I think Takkaria is not a million miles from agreeing to no selling. Fixed inventories may also appeal to him, since he is on record as wanting people to find good stuff in the dungeon, not the town. There have been several threads discussing what items should be deemed "essential" in a world of fixed inventories - plenty of scope here.

Your last point is perhaps the least controversial - in fact I think this is how it already works.

I wouldn't mind these... It keep OCD players (like me) from trying to keep their most valuable (not usable!) inventory. I RARELY carry phase door, resists, etc because I'd rather sell for $2000 gold and have a chance at something nice in the Black Market. If that is already how the BM works, I think it may need to be a bit more pronounced.

[shawnosullivan]

Well this is a whole 'nother can of worms. First, do you mean stat-restore not stat-gain? Stat-gain are annoyingly rare enough as is, considering how essential they are for progression in the game.

You could also make stats recoverable over time, wait 10k turns and you gain a point back.

ooph, duh, meant stat restore potions in my post. was hungover while reading the forum :-P
stat gain potions certainly need to be made much more common, yeah.

[Nightmarjoo]

In my two winner games, I used the stores a lot throughout the game. As a warrior and mage, I was constantly buying large quantities of phase door, cure critical wounds (or serious, until I could afford critical). Would always check '2' for boots of speed (until I had +10, if I ever did), and for elvenkind armours with a convenient high resist. Would always check '7' for rare rods, stat potions (haven't maxed a character on all stats ever, I believe), elvenkind stuff, sometimes nice ego crowns, potions of speed (for the warrior), *healing* and life, restore mana (for the mage), certain staves, scrolls of teleport self, level, deep diving, wands of teleport other, and probably other stuff that I forget. From '4' I'd get restore exp (until I had the jewel) too. From '5' sometimes enchant scrolls, identify (for warrior), any recall or phase I couldn't get from '1', stat restore potions. I didn't realize how important double resists were, so I didn't get rFire and rCold potions with my warrior, but I can see that being a constant buy through the game as well. Probably other stuff I forgot too, but my point is, I found the shops very useful through the whole game. I just needed to bring home 3+ holyavenger/westernesse/gondolin weapons everytime I went to town to afford everything, pretty easy.

I spent quite a bit of time after killing Sauron resting 1000 turns at dl1 to reset the stores (didn't even bother buying out the stores) to get heal, *heal*, life, restore mana, etc.

I don't see how you could find the stores useless at all, unless you just want the stores to always have useful stuff without having to scum to reset them, in which case you don't have my sympathy. Really, I don't see how it's possible to live without liberal use of the stores for healing and phase atleast. I've been playing nothing but ironmans for a while now, and haven't gotten far enough to tell, but maybe that's because I can't count on large, replaceable quantities of healing (I don't play priests/paladins).


Someone mentioned putting consumables on drop good and great lists, sure I want more of those consumables to be dropped, but I don't want to miss out on artifacts and stuff to get them, unless I misunderstand your purpose.