Changes to the Stores & Shopping?

[Lord Fell]

In the "making Angband harder" thread, a lot of discussion about the way stores worked came up. Since that particular thread is pretty wide-ranging, I thought it would be beneficial to start a new thread dedicated to thoughts and suggestions about how stores work.

[Lord Fell]

I modified the store_own.txt pretty heavily, and I thought I'd post that here. List and reasons for changes to follow:

# Maximum number of owners per store
M:B:6

# General Store
N:0
S:250:Ludmilla Sackville (Hobbit)
S:500:Brittany the Shrill (Harpy)
S:500:Snafu the Midget (Gnome)
S:750:Rincewind the Chicken (Human)
S:750:Sandyman the Grocer (Hobbit)
S:1000:Lyar-el the Comely (Elf)

# Armoury
N:1
S:15000:Kon-Dar the Ugly (Half-Orc)
S:20000arg-Low the Grim (Human)
S:20000:Mauglin the Grumpy (Dwarf)
S:25000:Eliglizanda Tanknoddy (Gnome)
S:25000ecado the Handsome (Dundan)
S:30000:Caerin Shieldmaster (Half-Elf)

# Weapon Smith
N:2
S:15000:Ithyl-Mak the Beastly (Half-Troll)
S:20000:Jemma the Axe-Smith (Dwarf)
S:20000:Tarl Beast-Master (Hobbit)
S:25000:Aiden the Blade-Smith (Human)
S:25000:Arndal Beast-Slayer (Half-Elf)
S:30000:Oglign Dragon-Slayer (Dwarf)

# Temple
N:3
S:10000:Ludwig the Humble (Human)
S:12500:Gunnar the Paladin (Dunadan)
S:12500:Brother Urkog (Half-Orc)
S:15000:Bosk the Wise (Dwarf)
S:15000elilah the Pure (Elf)
S:20000:Obdano the Abbot (Human)


# Alchemist
N:4
S:2500:Ga-nat the Greedy (Gnome)
S:5000:Mauser the Chemist (Half-Elf)
S:5000:Pablobax the Brewer (Yeek)
S:7500:Pech Crispy-Toes (Kobold)
S:7500:Wizzle the Chaotic (Hobbit)
S:10000:Vella the Slender (Human)


# Magic Shop
N:5
S:10000:Ariel the Sorceress (Half-Elf)
S:12500:Hakzor the Apprentice (Yeek)
S:12500:Inglorian the Mage (Human)
S:15000:Luthien Starshine (High-Elf)
S:15000:Palindar the Cyan (Dunadan)
S:20000:Buggerby the Great (Gnome)


# Black Market
N:6
S:15000:Birjitte the Schill (Harpy)
S:20000:Sangudo the Easterling (Human)
S:20000:Lo-Hak the Awful (Half-Troll)
S:25000rago the Fair (Elf)
S:25000urwin the Shifty (Half-Orc)
S:30000:Histor the Goblin (Kobold)

# Home
N:7
S:0:Your home
S:0:Your home
S:0:Your home
S:0:Your home
S:0:Your home
S:0:Your home

Changes:
In General Store, I replaced Bilbo the Friendly with Ludmilla Sackville -I think that Bilbo ought to be a sacred character, and not relegated to slinging iron rations at the trading post.

I made Gunnar the Paladin a Dunadan -as I'd added a 2nd Human to the Temple.

I increased the available store owners to 6, to allow for a wider cast of characters, and (since I've added yeeks and harpies to my playable races) to allow for "full representation" of the p_races.

I drastically changed the available purse for each store. I still wanted there to be stingy and generous shopkeeps, but a common complaint is that "I need money, but Ithylmak won't give me more than 5K for my Awl-Pike (Defender)." I also thought it was silly that the General Store had a potential purse of 5K - 30K. There's really not much in the dungeon that the General Store should be paying more than 100g for.

Changes I'd Like to See (but can't code myself):
Making it possible to allow for a random array of store names. For example, sometimes the Magic Shop could be called The Wizard's Staff, sometimes it might be called Rod & Staff Emporium.

Adding buy at and sell at ratios. In addition to having different purse limits, I think something like this would also add character to a shop-keeper. What I mean is that, for example, this entry:
S:250:Ludmilla Sackville (Hobbit):60:110
The 60, means that if an item is "worth" 100 gold, Ludmilla will give you 60 for it. If an item is worth 100, she would sell it for 110. A "normal" shopkeep ought to be 100:100, buying and selling goods at a fair price. A buy-at rate of less than 100 indicates stinginess, and a buy at rate over 100 would actually mean the shopkeeper is generous with cash, or a bad bargainer.

[Whelk]

What's the problem with the way they work now, again? Stuff's too easy to come by? I think at the very least, stat restore potions and Word of Recall should continue to be relatively easy to come by in shops. Making them less likely to be stocked in stores just means folks will slog around the easier levels till they find the potions/scrolls they need anyway. That sounds like making the game more annoying/tedious rather than more difficult.

[Derakon]

There was a suggestion to remove Word of Recall altogether, replacing it with portals -- a portal found in the dungeon would return you to town, while the fixed portal in town would take you to the depth of the last portal you used. The suggestion seemed positively received; it just remains for someone to implement it.

(I suppose Word of Recall could stay as an ad-hoc portal generator, but in such case it wouldn't have to be sold in the town)

[Whelk]

Oh, the portal idea sounds nifty. I think it would be a fine replacement for Word of Recall. Having to find a way to get back isn't bad (just reading a scroll/zapping a rod does seem rather easy), as long as it doesn't require traveling through tens of levels.

[Timo Pietilä]

I modified the store_own.txt pretty heavily, and I thought I'd post that here. List and reasons for changes to follow:

# General Store
S:500:Brittany the Shrill (Harpy)
# Alchemist
S:5000:Pablobax the Brewer (Yeek)
# Magic Shop
S:12500:Hakzor the Apprentice (Yeek)
# Black Market
S:15000:Birjitte the Schill (Harpy)

Which variant is this supposed to be? Those races have meaning, so vanilla it can't be.

[Derakon]

As he mentioned later in his post, this is his personal variant, which adds yeeks and harpies as playable races. Obviously those storekeepers wouldn't be added to Vanilla unless like-named races were also added.

[Timo Pietilä]

As he mentioned later in his post, this is his personal variant, which adds yeeks and harpies as playable races.

Missed that. It was nearly TLDR, browsing thru text that didn't register in my brain.

[takkaria]

Which variant is this supposed to be? Those races have meaning, so vanilla it can't be.

What meaning?

[Timo Pietilä]

What meaning?

Has that been removed? Race affected what kind of prices you were offered. Dwarf gave better deals with other dwarfs than for example elves. Orcs hated everybody. That sort of things. It was standard behavior not so long ago that one shopkeeper offered better deals than other. For example potions can be sold in three different stores (four actually but lets leave BM out), so you could offer potions in each and sell it to best. It was minor feature, but it add some flavor in the game.

[Derakon]

I'm pretty certain that shopkeeper racism has been removed. I've been getting the same price for a given item from all relevant shopkeepers for awhile now; certainly the shop_own.txt file doesn't have any code-friendly indication of the shopowner's race. Presumably it was felt that this largely amounted to further penalizing races that already had low charisma (e.g. nobody liked half-orcs except for other half-orcs) and that the race-relations table added needless complexity.

[Lord Fell]

My Code-Fu is weak... but I'm pretty sure the (race) attached to the name has absolutely no in-play value. You could replace that with (vendor-bot 2000) and the game wouldn't crash.

For the most part, everything I changed in my store_own file was cosmetic. I think the different purse limits are appropriate (although I might still tweak them). I do think that adding Buy:Sell values would give different shopkeepers a bit more character.


There was definitely a fair amount of discussion about how much players do, and should rely on the shops. Semi-Ironman suggestions were made (stores won't buy/restock/etc). There was also an interesting suggestion tying store Restock to experience gain, rather than time.

Personally, I don't like too much hassle for shopping. If I *really* need something, I just don't want to be limping along without it for too long. I think that all Restore Stat potions should be commonly available at the Temple, and uncommonly available at the Alchemist.

[Timo Pietilä]

I'm pretty certain that shopkeeper racism has been removed. I've been getting the same price for a given item from all relevant shopkeepers for awhile now; certainly the shop_own.txt file doesn't have any code-friendly indication of the shopowner's race. Presumably it was felt that this largely amounted to further penalizing races that already had low charisma (e.g. nobody liked half-orcs except for other half-orcs) and that the race-relations table added needless complexity.

It added flavor. Are we in quest of removing all flavor in the game? Because it is not necessary? Are we Vulcans? That doesn't sound like fun to me. Small things like that have impact on gameplay while having no impact on outcome.

[takkaria]

It added flavor. Are we in quest of removing all flavor in the game? Because it is not necessary? Are we Vulcans? That doesn't sound like fun to me. Small things like that have impact on gameplay while having no impact on outcome.

Apparently they don't have an impact on gameplay, because it's been gone for a couple of years and no-one noticed. I'm not opposed to it per se, but at one point there were something like three different factors affecting store prices and it was getting a bit silly.

[Dean Anderson]

Personally - and I realise this is probably a minority opinion - I was disappointed when the "auto_haggle" option was added. I think haggling added a lot of atmosphere to the town...