Revised Stores

[Shaitan]

How far are we before IR3?

[Demivrgvs]

Lathander's temple is starting to get more unique items than Ribald with Radiant Plate, Mace of Disruption and Periapt of Life Protection!

Just so you know, I moved the plate to Trademeet's smithy, which is called Anvil of the Dawn.

 

P.S I've not been able to look extensively at your Beta 2 version sorry...

 

 

How far are we before IR3?

I haven't reached Mike yesterday but at the cost of delaying a lot of things for v4 I'd say we absolutely have to close v3 within few days. I'm currently doing a lot of small adjustments...I'll try to post most of them tonight to discuss the more "controversial" ones, but for once I'm not completely open to discuss everything because it would delay the release. You'll have to live with few things decided by me and only me (at least until v4, which imo won't be too far because I want to include Ardanis outstanding work as soon as possible).

[Ardanis]

Does it mean there's time till tomorrow to finish off divine scrolls? There're other things that can be done, like ToB stores, re-allocating fences, etc., but I think they're better off to be left abroad for now.

[Dakk]

This project gets the A-grade!

[Demivrgvs]

Does it mean there's time till tomorrow to finish off divine scrolls? There're other things that can be done, like ToB stores, re-allocating fences, etc., but I think they're better off to be left abroad for now.

Indeed there's still time because I need at least one day, but don't feel pressure.

 

If you can handle ToB stores it would be better (remove all those ridiculous +3 weapons please, even +2 ones should be very rare within stores).

 

Few things:

- nice idea to implement "customizable temple services"! aVENGER did that within aTweaks but it does suit this component, it's probably better to contact him to see if checks are needed to avoid complications.

- adding divine scrolls should have a quite low priority imo (e.g. ToB stores are much more important)

- despite having worked to improve its lore Mercykiller Ring should not be available

- Sensate Amulet should not be available within IR (it doesn't have its own bam)

 

 

This project gets the A-grade!

Indeed, and Ardanis is doing even more things than I asked/imagined.

[yarpen]

If you can handle ToB stores it would be better (remove all those ridiculous +3 weapons please, even +2 ones should be very rare within stores).

Again I'm limited to 'yay!' 'woohooo!" comments.

[Ardanis]

One moment. I was under heavy impression it's gonna be a separate component, so I've coded it accordingly, but from the thread in SCS2's forum I figure you plan to merge stores with the main component. Is that true? Cause if it is, then there're checks for IR's main installed - was supposed to be more of a foolproof in case someone will go without the main, than real necessity, but if they're in one then it may backfire.

 

Search for MOD_IS_INSTALLED command, if you need to root them out.

[Demivrgvs]

One moment. I was under heavy impression it's gonna be a separate component, so I've coded it accordingly, but from the thread in SCS2's forum I figure you plan to merge stores with the main component. Is that true? Cause if it is, then there're checks for IR's main installed - was supposed to be more of a foolproof in case someone will go without the main, than real necessity, but if they're in one then it may backfire.

 

Search for MOD_IS_INSTALLED command, if you need to root them out.

No, Revised Stores (which probably needs to be renamed consideing the huge work you did and that stores are by far not the only things it affects) is going to be a separate component.

 

Anyway, if I'm not wrong Mike prefers to temporary release it as a semparate mod (similarly to what I did for the smaller Revised Potions), and then include it within IR v4 after having being playtested a little.

 

In that case items re-allocations mentioned in that topic needs to be mandatory within the main IR component.

 

I'll write you a PM asap.

[Demivrgvs]

New suggested tweak! I don't know if it's doable, or if it's only a crazy idea...but It won't hurt to put it here.

Limited merchant's capacity to buy items from players

Ribald may have 10000gp to spend buying items from charname, but how on earth is it possible that every damn store/fence is ready and happy to pay you any sum of gold for whichever thing you bring them? And why should a merchant buy another item (e.g. a Cloak of Protection) when he already has a couple of them?

 

If possible each merchant should have only a limited amount of gold, and shouldn't be able to buy you tons of items unless you also buy things from him/her.

 

P.S Ardanis, make sure ALL merchants buy items at 30% of their price. I think most of them already do that in vanilla BG2, but if we can't implement the above mentioned tweak this is quite important. If you're going to work on this for BG1 too I think it instead used a 50% value, but it's too high/convenient imo.

[Ardanis]

Limited merchant's capacity to buy items from players

I'm afraid not. In no way ever. At best, I think the total storage capacity can be limited but that's it, and you can always just buy back the junk.

There's depreciation in most stores, but I never liked it and it doesn't work properly anyway.

 

PS And I don't even know how the game remember which items need to be depreciated, and which not. Looking at it in NI and hex I can see no data field supposedly related.

[Demivrgvs]

Limited merchant's capacity to buy items from players

I'm afraid not. In no way ever. At best, I think the total storage capacity can be limited but that's it, and you can always just buy back the junk.

No big deal, less work for us.

 

There's depreciation in most stores, but I never liked it and it doesn't work properly anyway.

You don't like that stores buy at 30%?

[Ardanis]

You don't like that stores buy at 30%?

If you remember, bringing a plate mail to a store will net you 180gp. The next suit will be 150, and all the following will go for 120. That's because almost every store, if not all of them, has the depreciation value of 5% (strangely enough, it doesn't work on gems, I wanted to get to the truth, but still haven't done), that can be applied up to twice for each item filename sold to that store. For reasons beyond me, it clashed in a very strange way with changing the buying mark-up. Also it's possible to sell 16 identical items at once and get the highest pay for each, as opposed to selling them one by one. If you ask me, I'd kill the depreciation feature completely, due to reasons explained.

[Jarno Mikkola]

There's depreciation in most stores, but I never liked it and it doesn't work properly anyway.

You don't like that stores buy at 30%?

That's not the reply he was after... it was a comment to the first subject.

 

Just like this is.

Now, you have to understand that if you go and change the common store pricing, you need to change the sell price, not just the buy one... to where the situation gets complicated, there are already several mods that do this, but they do it in different ways... the item price, the sell price, buy price etc. but you shouldn't expect them to be anyway consistent as they are made according to one state of mind and they might be balanced the situation that is give, but for example you set the standard buying price to 30%, the sell prices might be at 300%, and another mod sets the item price to say 10000, you'll be wondering the greater part of ... to gain that item, and there are costlier items still, like say the SCSII's shadow thieves deal on the most difficult set.

[Demivrgvs]

... If you ask me, I'd kill the depreciation feature completely, due to reasons explained.

Too bad it doesn't work well, I think it's a cool feature. Anyway, I'd probably keep it anyway. If players want to exploit the issue which lets you avoid depreciation if you sell everything at once they'd still have to keep all those items in their inventory for ages, and keeping 3x full plates may not be so fun, especially with IR's weight values.

 

Anyway, the most important thing is to make sure they all buy at 30% imo, epreciation is not so necessary. Actually I may even vote for 20%, because with such value we'll finally don't have to worry about equipping opponents with good items, but if it sounds too much 30% is fine.

 

 

Now, you have to understand that if you go and change the common store pricing, you need to change the sell price, not just the buy one... to where the situation gets complicated, there are already several mods that do this, but they do it in different ways... the item price, the sell price, buy price etc. but you shouldn't expect them to be anyway consistent as they are made according to one state of mind and they might be balanced the situation that is give, but for example you set the standard buying price to 30%, the sell prices might be at 300%, and another mod sets the item price to say 10000, you'll be wondering the greater part of ... to gain that item, and there are costlier items still, like say the SCSII's shadow thieves deal on the most difficult set.

As I said we're only using vanilla's values and making them "consistent", we're not halving/doubling any buy/sell setting. Vanilla's BG2 stores generally buy at 25-40% and sell at 150-160%. There's some exception though, where you could sell at more than 50% or buy at less than 130% (the worst case is Amkethran Smugglers where you could sell at 80% and buy at 99%). If a mod raises buy prices to 300% it's not my fault, I set each and every item price based on vanilla's settings (30% and 150% respectively).

 

I don't mind if for RP reasons some merchant sell at slightly lower prices (e.g. Bernard, the various of merchants you save from some attacks, ...), but it's quite a problem if players can sell at 50% or more in a store (even if it's only ONE store) because it allows to accumulate really too much gold.

[Ardanis]

I don't mind if for RP reasons some merchant sell at slightly lower prices (e.g. Bernard, the couple of merchants you save from some attacks, ...), but it's quite a problem if players can sell at 50% or more in a store (even if it's only ONE store) because it allows to accumulate really too much gold.

IIRC I only set Deidre to buy scrolls at 50%, mostly as an incentive to keep all scrolls in a single place. But you might be right, better to lower it to 35-40.

 

Most of fences buy at 10-15 though, so unless one finds a person that'll pay normally (there's one), they won't get much from stealing shops clean