playing with sell on (WARNING:MEME)

[Sky]

and i thought of this:

when i forgot to check how much the weapon vendor was and i was already CL10 before i sold him anything.

Damn Half-Trolls; i'm not racist, but.







for the serious part of this post, when you start a new game, if the weapon vendor doesn't do 15k or more, suicide and restart. since this is practically mandatory, how about capping every vendor at 15k, instead of having them spread between 5k and 30k?

[HallucinationMushroom]

Love it
....

[Derakon]

for the serious part of this post, when you start a new game, if the weapon vendor doesn't do 15k or more, suicide and restart. since this is practically mandatory, how about capping every vendor at 15k, instead of having them spread between 5k and 30k?

Even if you insist on playing with selling turned on, money is not remotely mandatory to do well in the game. The most valuable stuff you can get from the stores is CCW, WoR, and Phase Door, and they're all cheap.

You're just sour because you know you could be getting more of a largely useless resource if there were a different shopkeeper.

[Sky]

actually, let's look at that statement carefully;

you do not *need* stores do do well, if you are an experienced player who can tell an ettin from an ogre; who remembers which undead drain xp and which ones don't. and so on.

the stuff i have gotten from the market insofar, with this character alone, a shield of preservation, ring of damage +11, Raal's, a ton of pots of speed, a staff of speed, one of banish, at least 5 +CON, a ring of INT +3, a set of seeker arrows, at least +2 DEX, +4 INT (i am already maxed), +2 STR.

(pause)

4 potions of *heal
12+ potions of heal
2 scrolls of banish
1 of Mban
and a rod of detection.

plus several mushrooms of second sight, pots of enlightment, and the scrolls of Enchant Armor that i used to uncurse Wormtongue.

i've slowed down considerably on the consumables, but i must have gone through 200 to 300 CCW, i even bought some plain arrows at one point as i had found a longbow x3 (+12, +27) which did 90+ dmg with a plain arrow.

having FAR more money than what would be available to my character with no_sell is not a small change. Either remove the black market entirely, or nerf it, but there is no comparison between the two gamemodes. I can buy a rod of detection way sooner than if i played with just drops, and have no problem just ransacking the dungeon for cash - as i did, i found a pot of CON i could not afford, WoR down, -K to un-ignore, killed whatever i found, WoR up, sell gear, buy CON.

[Derakon]

actually, let's look at that statement carefully;

you do not *need* stores do do well, if you are an experienced player who can tell an ettin from an ogre; who remembers which undead drain xp and which ones don't. and so on.

Okay, so you don't need money to do well; check. The fact that you have been buying a bunch of stuff does not mean that that stuff was necessary; you could have found equivalent stuff in the dungeon.

having FAR more money than what would be available to my character with no_sell is not a small change.

no_selling was balanced to give you roughly the same amount of money as you would normally have if you made a "reasonable" (intentionally vaguely-defined) number of return trips to town to offload loot. Of course if you are the type to play one dungeon level at a time, WoRing after each trip to offload loot, then you're going to have more money, especially in the later game where the dungeon is replete with valuable-but-worthless items (e.g. branded weapons that are strictly worse than your current weapon).

I mean, you're welcome to play with selling turned on; it's an option for a reason. It's definitely more open to "exploits" than no_selling is. Angband lets you decide whether or not to exploit that, just like it lets you decide whether or not to scum for good levels/items or to grind at 1600' until you have max stats, etc. You just won't get much sympathy when you complain about it.

[Sky]

look, i'm not saying that you are wrong, i'm saying that you are looking at only one playstyle.

imagine that you get a whole bunch of angband players - from the scrub, to PowerDiver. their playstyle goes from panicky to accurate, and no_sell is fine if you are an accurate player, but if you are panicky, then selling is way more OP.
it's not like we're cheating, it's that these regrettable exploits are the only way many people can actually play the game. angband is hard, yo.

i'm sure you'll agree with me on this one thing:
Q: What kind of Angband player are you.
When you are killing a long line of orcs, do you keep the finger pressed on the button, YES or NO.

i'm sure you'll find most people playing angband would answer yes.

[debo]

I 110% approve of that meme.

[Will]

It's a really funny meme but I can't say I've ever bothered to check the race (is that even what we're supposed to check?) of any of the vendors. I can't say I care much as I'm unlikely to buy anything of particular value until I'm actually super wealthy. I've never felt limited by the amount of money I had.

[Derakon]

imagine that you get a whole bunch of angband players - from the scrub, to PowerDiver. their playstyle goes from panicky to accurate, and no_sell is fine if you are an accurate player, but if you are panicky, then selling is way more OP.

A player will have more money if they play with selling and obsessively return to town to offload loot, than they would if they played with no-selling. I do not contest this.

However, I do contest that this makes selling "OP" or even objectively better. The no-selling player will not be burdening themselves with useless (except for selling) items. They will not have to leave slots free in their inventory to carry these items, they will not have to deal with the (statistically substantial) weight of these items. They will be more likely to be carrying items that can actually help them to avoid or win fights, or just to stay alive when unexpected things crop up. A player with selling has to decide if, say, a Scroll of Magic Mapping is better than a Mace of Slay Evil's worth of money. A player without selling does not have to make that choice.

Put another way, you're focusing on what you'd lose by switching to no-selling: the extra gold and corresponding extra items. You're missing what you would gain by switching to no-selling: not just extra time in the dungeon, but also a broader range of abilities derived from the items in your pack. And that can definitely help an inexperienced player stay alive.

[Sky]

if i recall correctly, back when there was CHA in the game, the race of the vendor would check against the race of the player, and depending on how "close or far" you were to them in race, you would get a discount. Half Troll weapon vendor meant you would get less money if you were High Elf or Dunedain; 5000 limit meant you just needed to restart the game, as weapons are your biggest source of income.

regarding the selling, you clean the dungeon when you are ready to go back. few people dive, most clear out levels as they go along, generally several times each. thus the need for many consumables. when you are ready to recall, you drop all your garbage (phase, spellbooks, food, etc) AND your scroll of recall, you pick up all the ego swords you have neatly stacked in one room as you find them, then read the WoR from the ground ... and wait.

since a crappy sword of slay animal will net you 3k~4k, bringing 6 of them up is 20~25k, which is one stat pot, or a rod of detect, or any number of Heal, 4 *Heal, or any number of Ban and MBan.

[Derakon]

few people dive, most clear out levels as they go along, generally several times each.

This is how some players play, but I would hesitate to call it "most". Such a playstyle certainly was more common back in the 90's, though.

20-25k of gold in one dungeon level with no-selling turned on sounds about right for the mid/late-game, honestly.

[Monkey Face]

5000 limit meant you just needed to restart the game, as weapons are your biggest source of income.

It's been awhile since I played with selling on, but if I recall, the shopkeepers tend to change during the game so just because you start with 5000 limit doesn't mean it will stay that way.

regarding the selling, you clean the dungeon when you are ready to go back. few people dive, most clear out levels as they go along, generally several times each. thus the need for many consumables. when you are ready to recall, you drop all your garbage (phase, spellbooks, food, etc) AND your scroll of recall, you pick up all the ego swords you have neatly stacked in one room as you find them, then read the WoR from the ground ... and wait.

I tend to be a level clearer but rarely do a clear the same level more than once (unless I need to stock on something before a final fight like when I wanted to get the Wrath of God prayer book as a priest). I'll still go several levels between trips home, and usually I go home to dump things I want to save for later like ?deep descent (I like to skip from around level 60-95), !healing, !restore mana, etc.

[Sky]

well, i generally do 2 levels per trip, but now i'm doing much, much less.

Derakon, i'm talking 20k per trip early game - CL20 or so. i'll even grab bolts (15 magic bolts is 1.5k), pots of brawn .. @ 1k each. amulets of whatever at 600 each. and so on. the trip costs 200 gp, and you can quickly get gear which would be otherwise way out of depth, or just rare to find - like banishment and mass banishment.

Playing in the 90s meant we didn't know what to do, there were no internet forums (i didnt even have a connection; got a 56k in 1998), and we all thought Deep Descent were squelch items .. like Ring OF Escaping.

Incidentally, you find quite a few of those ring of escaping, and they sell for 4k each ...

[Pete Mack]

But what are you *doing* with the gold, other than accumulate it?

[Sky]

like i said, i buy gear. healing, *healing, banishment (scrolls and staves), gear of speed, spellbooks, mushrooms of second sight, amulets of esp, rods of detection, enlightment, and stat potions. all these way before they become available in normal dungeon diving.

cosidering that, with a warrior, any one of the -thac daggers is good enough as a weapon until midgame, all you really need is a set of armor from the dungeon.

some guy even found a PDSM in the black market ...

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=8095