Idea for extended home / no selling option

[ewert]

Okay how hard would it be to code:

Shops never restock, and do not have initial stock.
Shops have max sell cost (or zero buy/sell cost).

This would give us one extra page for armors, one for weapons, etc. you get the drift! You use what you find in dungeons, and can store for example scrolls/potions in town much more easily. I think having extra page for armor, weapons and genstore for ammo and some other gear, and BM for everything and home that the randart problem of not knowing what might come handy would be solved. My current randart ranger just cleared a "windgust" greater vault. Lets just say I am swamped with semiuseful randarts, OUCH. (I also have a 8d8 weapon found very early with no mods, but I think ring of acid will make Sauron cringe =P, mwahahaha).

I reckon this would be so easy a change to add as an option (Shops act as extended home, in the adult or cheat section), that _I_ will code it if nobody beats me to it. I just would like it to be integrated as an option to vanilla, since I like the current dev pace of vanilla so much that it would be bothersome to have to patch all new versions... Would current devs consider putting this into the nightly dev version for testing, if someone codes it?

[ewert]

Made a megaquick hack, now to figure how to compile it to test it ...

Here's the diff file from 2038, if anyone already has the compiling stuff going on and wants to test if it works, I'd appreciate it. Figuring out how to compile myself now, but at work ...

[ewert]

Erm, it works but not after saving and reloading ... gotta test some more. =P

[ewert]

Okay heh, options hardcoded into savefiles, yummy, and adult was 1 off vs. birth.

This diff is fixed and seems to work.

Basically it just clears all shops, makes them not have any maintenance routines so no restocking. It buys all for 1 gold, and sells for 200, to take care of id/recharge, sort of. And well it is not totally free to store and take stuff. With no selling it might actually matter, heh.

[ewert]

Anyways, this is totally a hack, and I guess would need the angband.exe file posted someplace so other people can try it, since most probably don't have compiling setup on their computers. I now have cmdline svn and compiler, woot.

I'm gonna start some new games with this option set and see how it affects the gameplay (no consumable buying ... but zero need to drop slime molds/torches/oil for a loooong time as no selling for cash either so no need for lots of inventory space ...)

[PowerDiver]

Adding new options is very complicated. I think you ought to change the existing NO_STORES option, whatever it is called. I don't think anyone uses it except maybe for a particularly masochistic ironman game, and your change would still work there.

You ought to be able to keep all of your changes in store.c.

[ewert]

Well the option is working .. but yeah I guess the no-stores option could just as well be it, but playtesting it at the moment.

No ?phase, oil or lighter weapon at start is pretty brutal. Definitely think the starting equipment should be more "veteran player"-like... Orfax has killed me twice already. =P Food/light has not gotten to be a problem, even playing half-troll paladin, but have not even got to dlvl 10 properly, lol.

[PowerDiver]

I think you should leave the general store alone, and add to it whatever is appropriate for starting chars. Perhaps early books, a whip, light armor choices. If you want to encourage ID-by-use, maybe scrolls of remove curse.

Players should be able to start with money only, and buy starting kits from the general store. Let the player choose his starting equipment instead of some developer. Start the game with the @ adjacent to the entrance. Of course, I'm digressing to how I think the standard game should start instead of your option, but IMO it's worth a little consideration.

If you want strong limitations, you could make this expanded general store never restock. Or you could limit money.

Do you plan to remove money drops if the option is on?

[ewert]

Well stores ID and also recharge base staff/wand types, so I'm leaving cash.

Yeah the general store idea sounds really good. This version is just very brute force hack, but it's only an "if" or two away to have general store be it's old self ...

Man, my luck with this last char, wielded a bow from ground and it's HEAVY curse -4str random teleport and drain xp? Wow... just wow.

[ewert]

Okay finally got a char going properly, dlvl 30-31 scumming for some base stats and in desperate need of ?WoR to go store/recharge id staves in town. =P Decided to head up manually, ungh ...

Anyways so far: the general store idea seems definitely needed. It is pretty brutal without ?WoR buyable. I have managed a few trips with found scrolls though. Have needed to drop some things I think were useful, instead of going up and storing some stuff, which is not fun.

Other stuff: Lots of stuff I totally just sold/squelched instantly normally were used 1-30. Wands, staves of (affect) monster were kept around as no need to sell them for cash to buy stuff, which is nice.

I have to say though, the boots I found are insane. Half-troll paladin, and I find pre dlvl30 randart boots of *drumroll* ... +8 wis/speed. Yea baby! =P

[Catwalk]

Excellent ideas ewert! As an oldschool rogue player, I feel that many of the rogue-likes have fallen short of Rogue's appeal. NetHack does a decent job, but even there you fall into the micromanagement trap mid-game. Too much economic freedom leads to boredom easily.

[ewert]

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=10535&ok

This is nice playing like this with randarts. After I found the rod of recall, didn't really feel the lack of shops at all. Of course playing a paladin is easy on even basic consumables ... I do have a stack of CCW and have been leaving them in dungeon lately though.

Attached is the savefile, if it works without the modded exe. Should enable you to load it and see what stuff I have stored in the shops too.

I will definitely continue making this option better, had enough for Morgy ages ago but been hitting all kinds of pits etc due to my quad immunities... =P

Next I think I'll do what PD suggested, make general store have basic stuff, probably non-refreshing too though. So maybe 99 WoR, 99 ?Phase, 99 !CSW, maybe 99 of books 1-3? I agree that all classes should have more "pro-player" starting gear but it's not bad, sort of fun to have to kill stuff / explore to find that first suitable weapon too. Archery reliant chars might find this hard to start though with no plethora of ammo, but I can't say about that as I use archery so little. Definitely no ranger plingplinging though. =P

[ewert]

Okay made a more finished test version, I left general store alone except no-sell. I thought about putting the books in etc., but decided against it. Priest is hit the worst, but ... it gives more meaning to early levels, IMHO, to have to find books 2 and 3. Book 4 is not such a priority anyways. One thing though, an unlucky fire event might leave the char almost helpless... but it IS an option.

Is there anyplace I can post a .exe to easily without fuss? I'd really like for people without compilers set up to be able to test it easily too, I know I would love to test it but would be daunted by the task of compiling it myself from a diff file ...

Anyways, here is the diff file:

[ewert]

And naturally now figured that the wand/staff increase is bit illogical ... lets just say the shopkeeper tries to recharge all staves/wands, just fails on anything but the "basic" ones, and still charges for ingredients.

Well minor issue, will fix at a later date. Now, playtesters please! =)

[PowerDiver]

And naturally now figured that the wand/staff increase is bit illogical ... lets just say the shopkeeper tries to recharge all staves/wands, just fails on anything but the "basic" ones, and still charges for ingredients.

Well minor issue, will fix at a later date. Now, playtesters please! =)

Instead of calling this no selling, I think you should call it no buying. Despite the general store.

No selling is about making money drops useful, because you use money to buy things and you throw away junk you would have carried home to sell. Your change seems almost opposite to that in nature. If this gets popular, it will confuse further discussions about "no selling".

I don't like the idea of starting without the second book. Casters without spells. Ugh. That's cost you 1 playtester, and I doubt I am the only one who feels this way. I am ambivalent about playing without book 3 for sale. Do you want to force priests to play without Orb or mages with no pseudo and no Identify until DL40? It's not uncommon in my games to get quite deep before seeing book 3.