Nightlies embark on long journey towards 3.3

[Magnate]

Every person who comments that speed items are mispriced might count on my side. I don't remember any other opinions being expressed pro or con. I think most people just accept the changes as a fait accompli.

Well, there have been a scattering of remarks over the past couple of years that the pricing system is now much more consistent and coherent than it used to be. Nobody else has said it's worse than 3.0

I reject your first point completely. It is well known that the pricing of +speed has been difficult to balance and anomalous in an otherwise consistent system. So I do not think that observing the underpricing of speed can be extrapolated to a view that the whole system is a retrograde step.

[d_m]

I'm not trying to give Magnate a free pass on this pricing stuff but I think the problem might be overstated.

It might feel like there's a big difference between Boots of Speed +4 lying on the ground on level 21 and Boots of Speed +4 in the Black Market being sold too cheaply, but they are quite similar, except if you don't have 15k gp (or whatever). Certainly in the last few months I haven't seen any speed items for sale but have picked up several that I thought were unusually shallow.

I guess the complaints would make sense if people think they aren't being given enough gold when selling +speed items... but somehow I doubt that's what this crowd is angry about

[PowerDiver]

I'm not trying to give Magnate a free pass on this pricing stuff but I think the problem might be overstated.

What should have a higher price, a whip (1d3) (+0,+7) or a scythe (5d3) (+0,+0)? Is it close? I'll give you a hint as to my position. In all my playing, I have never used an average scythe once I knew what it was.

Should a starting char be able to buy a sling cheaply enough not to worry about it? That's a basic gameplay decision that should not be held hostage to Magnate's randart generation code.

[Timo Pietilä]

Every person who comments that speed items are mispriced might count on my side. I don't remember any other opinions being expressed pro or con. I think most people just accept the changes as a fait accompli.

In 3.2 armor prices are comical. Base AC is valued too high/low (it matter too much), so that even ego with weak AC cost practically nothing (which probably causes the low price of BoS), and non-ego with high AC costs thousands. Wicker shield of resist fire [2,+2] costs less than normal Large metal shield. Robe of Permanence {conf} costs a lot less than Full metal armour of Resistance. Chain mail of resist acid costs less than normal Metal brigandine armor.

(BTW, noticed that rolling {excellent} against full plate armor gives you only resistance, elvenkind or dwarven, no other choices. Is that intentional?)

[Magnate]

In 3.2 armor prices are comical. Base AC is valued too high/low (it matter too much), so that even ego with weak AC cost practically nothing (which probably causes the low price of BoS), and non-ego with high AC costs thousands. Wicker shield of resist fire [2,+2] costs less than normal Large metal shield. Robe of Permanence {conf} costs a lot less than Full metal armour of Resistance. Chain mail of resist acid costs less than normal Metal brigandine armor.

(BTW, noticed that rolling {excellent} against full plate armor gives you only resistance, elvenkind or dwarven, no other choices. Is that intentional?)

Hasn't that always been the case? I haven't changed that, and I don't think anyone else has, since JLE patch at least.

You are right that AC is currently overpriced with respect to other powers like basic resists. It was previously seriously underpriced, so the balance is somewhere in between.

[Magnate]

What should have a higher price, a whip (1d3) (+0,+7) or a scythe (5d3) (+0,+0)? Is it close? I'll give you a hint as to my position. In all my playing, I have never used an average scythe once I knew what it was.

You have picked an example that showcases the importance of treating weapon weight correctly - see ticket #1004 for how long I have agreed with you on this. See also fizzix's AC branch for how we are trying to change the treatment of weapon weight - in future you might prefer to use the average scythe over the +7 whip ...

Should a starting char be able to buy a sling cheaply enough not to worry about it? That's a basic gameplay decision that should not be held hostage to Magnate's randart generation code.

Ok, let's cut the sniping about the randart code as that has nothing to do with this discussion. You can slag that off in another thread.

Should a starting char be able to buy a sling cheaply enough not to worry about it? Define worry. Starting gold is 600gp, and a sling costs about 250gp. I won't re-hash the endless debates about the advantages of missile combat, but investing almost half your starting gold in some form of distance attack seems fair enough. There aren't any attack wands you can buy that cheaply, so it seems reasonably priced relative to other distance attacks. Oil is probably currently underpriced for its effectiveness, but it's also quite heavy to carry around very much, and it's not re-usable.

You can bang on about how much you hate power-based pricing all you like, but until you come up with a patch for a system that takkaria thinks is better, you're going to be stuck with me improving the current system to get rid of your objections one by one. I already have tickets which cover just about every objection you've ever raised, short of moving to a complete supply/demand model (which has been debated and rejected by consensus).

[PowerDiver]

Ok, let's cut the sniping about the randart code as that has nothing to do with this discussion. You can slag that off in another thread.

That was not a complaint about randarts. Even if randarts were perfect, I would not want the choice of whether a new char can buy a cheap sling to depend upon how you value slings in the power valuation code you created for generating randarts.

For the most part, an average sling only has a chance to be interesting on the first trip. Your change means that it is almost never interesting except to take back to town to sell, if you choose to call that interesting.

This is just one specific example of how the new pricing breaks things that were not broken with the old pricing. It is a real difference that affects gameplay far more than whether you get the pricing right on a lance of *slay orc*. Set that at 500 or 5000 and I don't care, because no one will ever buy it. It does not affect gameplay except for selling, and selling only matters in the aggregate rather than the specific. Some prices do not matter, and if you break a price that does matter to fix a price that does not matter you are doing something wrong.

[Magnate]

For the most part, an average sling only has a chance to be interesting on the first trip. Your change means that it is almost never interesting except to take back to town to sell, if you choose to call that interesting.

I don't think I understand why increasing the price of slings has had any effect on this. Average slings are only interesting until you get something better. Usually, this happens on the first dungeon trip, or let's say the first 10 dlevs in case we offend serial recallers. The sale price of a sling doesn't change this. You seem to by saying that because slings now cost 250gp instead of 4gp, they are somehow less interesting or useful. In fact they are precisely as useful and interesting as they ever were - they are simply priced accordingly.

It does mean that fewer people will buy them as a no-brainer for the first trip, because of the higher cost. This is as it should be - the cost now better reflects the value. If they find one in the dungeon, without having bought one, they will be happy (I have enjoyed finding average slings several times recently - in fact I have taken to buying ammo in the expectation of finding one). This is an improvement over average slings always being junk because everyone had bought one (or a better launcher) before descending.

It does mean that people will choose to spend an inv slot bringing them back to sell. That's fine - it's no different from using an inv slot to bring back anything else to sell.

This is just one specific example of how the new pricing breaks things that were not broken with the old pricing. It is a real difference that affects gameplay far more than whether you get the pricing right on a lance of *slay orc*. Set that at 500 or 5000 and I don't care, because no one will ever buy it. It does not affect gameplay except for selling, and selling only matters in the aggregate rather than the specific. Some prices do not matter, and if you break a price that does matter to fix a price that does not matter you are doing something wrong.

I agree with you in principle, but I do not think that the price of slings is broken - but if it is (like the price of low-pval +speed items), it can be fixed without throwing away the entire concept.

While we are here you had better list all the other "important" prices that you think are broken by this system, and I will see if any are not covered by the existing plans for the rewrite.

[PowerDiver]

It does mean that fewer people will buy them as a no-brainer for the first trip, because of the higher cost. This is as it should be

No, that is not as it should be. That's just your opinion, and you are biased by the amount of time and effort you have spent on your obsession with power valuation. You should not be the one making this decision unless you are now the de facto maintainer.

[Derakon]

You should mentally prepend "in my opinion" to every statement of fact made about something that is not itself factual, regardless of what setting you're in. Requiring people to write it out every time is silly.

The way I read this is that Magnate is saying that there should be no no-brainer decisions in the game. Buying a sling used to be a no-brainer, since they were so cheap; now it is not. Eddie, you seem to be disagreeing with this out of hand; I guess on the assumption that the sling should be priced based on its cost of production (it's just a bit of leather tied to some cord, so it shouldn't be hard to make, so it should be cheap). But that gets back into the whole supply/demand economy thing that we've argued about in the past.

Incidentally, Eddie, you're using rather loaded language here -- "biased", "obsession", etc. Is that really necessary to get your point across?

[Pete Mack]

Given flasks of oil that do 21 damage/turn, who would buy a sling at any price?
So the 250GP valuation is, prima facie, wrong. In fact, the valuation of archery is broken (again), because enchantment is no longer available in town. Thus nobody is going to buy an unenchanted longbow at any price, either.

I don't particularly care whether pricing of town objects is done ad hoc or by a sufficiently good pricing scheme, but it seems like the former is a bit easier, since it can be done by a series of simple decisions:
* Should speed by affordable in town?
* Should ESP be affordable in town?
* Should archery @20 dam/turn be affordable in town? @35 dam/turn?

That said, Magnate's focus on pricing has made randart experience quite a lot better. So improved pricing is certainly not a wasted effort.

[Magnate]

Given flasks of oil that do 21 damage/turn, who would buy a sling at any price?
So the 250GP valuation is, prima facie, wrong. In fact, the valuation of archery is broken (again), because enchantment is no longer available in town. Thus nobody is going to buy an unenchanted longbow at any price, either.

I don't particularly care whether pricing of town objects is done ad hoc or by a sufficiently good pricing scheme, but it seems like the former is a bit easier, since it can be done by a series of simple decisions:
* Should speed by affordable in town?
* Should ESP be affordable in town?
* Should archery @20 dam/turn be affordable in town? @35 dam/turn?

That said, Magnate's focus on pricing has made randart experience quite a lot better. So improved pricing is certainly not a wasted effort.

Thank you. I do accept that utility-based pricing is more difficult to do than ad hoc pricing (and creates *way* more arguments, because we can argue about the underlying calculation as well as about the result), but I do think it's worth the time investment.

If there is a consensus that archery is now overpriced (like heavy armour), I have no problem with making it cheaper. It's actually quite easy to do that and test the results in nightlies.

I am now totally convinced that ESP should be a pval-related property (like infravision), but this will take a bit of work.

Btw, when you say "should x be affordable in town" you need to say at what point in the game - otherwise you're saying "should x be available in town", which is a slightly different question.

[Derakon]

I'd guess that most players' budgets follow roughly the following trend:

* Start game: can only afford bare necessities. Phase door, lighting, basic healing potions, ammo.
* Early game: have enough money for some consumables (mostly healing potions) but that's it.
* Early-mid game: can start affording the occasional splurge at the black market or egos from equipment stores. Can buy staves of teleportation. Can't afford stat potions.
* Mid game: Can afford the occasional stat potion from the black market. Therefore money never gets much above 40-50k
* Relevant stats maxed: it's no longer worth worrying about money.

Thus, "affordable in the town" really means "doesn't cost much more than a stat potion from the black market does", since players will be routinely resetting their purses by buying stat potions.

[buzzkill]

Squelching money

Squelching all money makes coin mimics stand out like a sore thumb. I don't have a great solution in mind, but making them non-visible, like lurkers, when money squelching is enabled might help.

[Derakon]

Squelching money and mimics is just a problematic issue all round. I don't think having them be invisible lurker-style is a great solution because then they suddenly pop into existence where you had no reason to suspect anything threatening might be. Not that Vanilla's creeping coins are especially threatening, but if we were to import NPP's set then they would be. On the other hand, as you noted, if all money is squelched then it becomes immediately obvious that you have a mimic to deal with.

On the gripping hand, we could get rid of money squelching, which is AFAICT only really there so that we don't have to deal with screen clutter once money becomes a non-issue (and also don't have to worry about reflexively taking turns to pick up money we no longer need). But it's a nice feature and it'd be a shame to get rid of it.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place, I guess.