Tailor & Fletcher buy/sell prices

[A Handsome Stranger]

These are not true to in-era OSI, and I would like to ask if this is intended.

From Patch8 patchnotes,

Many item price changes. The list of T2A accurate prices is absolutely massive so we will get this done over time. For now, the prices on jewelers are now completely era accurate ...

I have also observed that the shopkeepers lower/raise their prices too fast, but I certainly don't know all of the things that regulate this. On OSI (in 1998-99), one could buy/sell at the best price for 1-3 rounds, then at the next price 1-2 rounds, and then at price-changes every round, until the vendor stopped transacting (ran out of money, bought enough player-made stock, exhausted his current stock); what I've just described is only a general overview and specifics would vary between item-types and shopkeeper-types.

Might I ask that admins investigate this latter allegation; could someone test this on the demo, perhaps?

As a new player here, I am coping with the severely-reduced effort-to-profit ratio these conditions conspire to inflict: I expected to be able to use these trade skills, at newbie skill-levels, to generate "good" newbie-money in order to give my account(s) a financial kick-start ... I've had to do things a little differently, lol: prices on the stuff I sell are so low, and drop so fast, that trying to make any worthwhile money is frustrating. So far as I can tell, the shopkeepers aren't even busy (i.e. I've got no competition, and I'd be even more screwed if I did).

As an aside, I don't recall price-variations from (what I am speculating is) durability, excepting VDP on player-vendors: I am saying that (on OSI, 98/99) if I sold bows to the shopkeeper Blacksmith/Bowyer, he would pay his normal price, or his exceptional price, according to the quality of the item, but the prices did not vary within either category; I presume this is related to the return provided by the getvalue function, but I am sure that such a level of refinement was never live on OSI. Not only is there no reference at all anywhere in Stratics, but players would have used this instead of VDP ...

Anyway, I felt motivated to ask after these specific things.

I'm Stranger (than some).

[Jack]

These are not true to in-era OSI, and I would like to ask if this is intended.

From Patch8 patchnotes,

Many item price changes. The list of T2A accurate prices is absolutely massive so we will get this done over time. For now, the prices on jewelers are now completely era accurate ...

I have also observed that the shopkeepers lower/raise their prices too fast, but I certainly don't know all of the things that regulate this. On OSI (in 1998-99), one could buy/sell at the best price for 1-3 rounds, then at the next price 1-2 rounds, and then at price-changes every round, until the vendor stopped transacting (ran out of money, bought enough player-made stock, exhausted his current stock); what I've just described is only a general overview and specifics would vary between item-types and shopkeeper-types.

Might I ask that admins investigate this latter allegation; could someone test this on the demo, perhaps?

As a new player here, I am coping with the severely-reduced effort-to-profit ratio these conditions conspire to inflict: I expected to be able to use these trade skills, at newbie skill-levels, to generate "good" newbie-money in order to give my account(s) a financial kick-start ... I've had to do things a little differently, lol: prices on the stuff I sell are so low, and drop so fast, that trying to make any worthwhile money is frustrating. So far as I can tell, the shopkeepers aren't even busy (i.e. I've got no competition, and I'd be even more screwed if I did).

As an aside, I don't recall price-variations from (what I am speculating is) durability, excepting VDP on player-vendors: I am saying that (on OSI, 98/99) if I sold bows to the shopkeeper Blacksmith/Bowyer, he would pay his normal price, or his exceptional price, according to the quality of the item, but the prices did not vary within either category; I presume this is related to the return provided by the getvalue function, but I am sure that such a level of refinement was never live on OSI. Not only is there no reference at all anywhere in Stratics, but players would have used this instead of VDP ...

Anyway, I felt motivated to ask after these specific things.

I'm Stranger (than some).

Hi Stranger and welcome to the shard.

The mechanic you're talking about was introduced with patch 32: https://uolostlands.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=426

In particular, the change was in the selling portion of vendor changes:

• Vendors now start to lose interest in buying items when a player sells a lot of the same item to them. At first they will decrease the price they are willing to buy for, and eventually the vendor will stop buying the particular item completely, until the next restock. This will be massive help in combating "afk to riches".
  

Although the buying part of this patch is entirely accurate to what I found out from the demo, the selling part of the patch may have been somewhat lazily researched and be overtuned. This could cause NPCs to lose interest in stock faster. I do however, know that there is a bug in the demo that causes NPCs to only restock 1 of any particular item when you sell multiple lots of it - which may explain why NPCs lose interest in buying faster here.

I'll see if I can find out any additional information about this. If it proves to be too hard, I can simply loosen the restriction.

[A Handsome Stranger]

Hi, Jack.

Obviously my search-parameters found patchnotes for patch8, but did not find patchnotes for patch32 ... my bad.

I wondered if something of the kind might be the case. If I had been here at the time of patch32, I might have pointed-out that you can not craft without resources, and one can not gather resources afk ... that's a trite remark, of course: with multiple accounts and dual-boxing, one can afk-craft what is being actively gathered.

This sort of thing wasn't generally possible on OSI and, so, never became a (big) problem. On OSI, you either crafted at a loss to gain skill, or crafted with no skill-gain in order to make money: that self-regulation breaks down somewhat in an environment of multi-boxing and Razor-scripts.

I understand the reasoning, and the need, but I wonder about the suitability of this implementation as a solution: the cops don't fine pan-handlers in order to curb insider-trading; an afk-factory requires set-up, and set-up players are already rich, regardless. Any solution that is no solution at all merely creates an additional problem.

I wish I had a better solution to offer: I don't. I guess I am saying that I have no expectation of this decision being reversed/reverted, so I will like it or lump it; I'd be happier if the present status quo could be softened a little, though.

What about meta-balance; are all crafts (blacksmithing, carpentry, tinkering, inscription, alchemy) affected this way?

I guess I'll look at patch32. Thanks for the assist.

A Stranger

[Jack]

All crafts are affected the same, to a degree. All vendors have the same mechanic - selling the same item type to them repeatedly causes them to lose interest in buying it completely. The best way to circumvent that is to craft different item types, or go to another city until the vendor restocks. I may get some time over the next few days to look into how tight the current restrictions are on selling, and make it more viable to sell crafts to vendors.

[A Handsome Stranger]

I imagine that what's in-place is the best, necessary, control that can be implemented.

Bowcraft, especially, gets clobbered by this system, as there are very-few item-types available to craft: please think of something to relieve bowyers! Otherwise, money-making-minded crafters should be able to rotate through at least a small selection of (semi-) profitable items, which would reduce afk-to-riches at least a little, if only because the best-return items can not be spammed ad infinitum.

There remains one thing on my mind, and forgive me if I somehow failed to read it: the "starting" prices that shopkeepers offer is also really low; the shopkeeper offers 11gp for unexceptional bows, instead of 23gp, and 12gp for exceptional, instead of 35, which hurts especially when the prices drop so drastically ... Tailors are less-mean, offering 16gp for a fancy shirt, rather than 28, and there are a number of tailor items that could be made to inject variety and maintain the earning of some profit.

And there's also some form of VDP-type-thing in play which shouldn't be: if shopkeeper pricing relied on VDP-style formulae, no one would ever have bothered to isolate VDP in the first place.

There does remain the problem of buying raw materials from the shopkeepers, which would guarantee loss in almost all cases under the current scheme, excepting-only established players with GM craftsmen who are crafting to sell to players. BoDs are only available at higher levels, too. There's a lot of "rich get richer, poor get poorer" to be found in this particular scheme.

At least I understand what's going on. In my personal interests, my bowyer serves the purpose of supplying me with bows "at cost", and my tailor is intended to work only what he readily harvests: marginal income, in some respects, but reliable.

For now, it will have to serve.

Thanks again.

A Stranger.

[Jack]

I'll definitely take a look into this - 11gp does not sound right for a bow, something must have gone wrong.