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Investing in stores in Oblivion

VenomByte

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Just something I feel deserves highlightiing

galsiah said:
A feature like this could be improved beyond recognition in one day.

It pains me to think about this. We know full well that the existing merchant system could be improved 100x over with a single day of coding, but it won't be.

At best we'll have months spent by modders creating 'workaround' scripts which will only ever half-fix the hard-coded problems.

That, to be frank, sucks.
 

Solik

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This argument is nothing more than different contexts. Bryce is right in that it's a fallacy to claim that Morrowind was a good game because lots of people like it if you use the criteria that Bryce uses to judge "good" games. This is obviously what he is doing. However, he was wrong in calling out that fallacy in the response to "Bethesda doesn't know what they are doing." They obviously know what they are doing; it simply happens to be something other than what Bryce wants them to do.

After all, Oblivion is 2 for 2 thus far in reviews scoring > 9 / 10. That's an appeal to authority fallacy if I use it to say that Oblivion is a good game by Bryce's standards. It's not an appeal to authority fallacy if "good" is quantitatively judged by the number of people / reviewers who think it's good.

galsiah--

Sure, your system sounds good. It would probably be better. What's your point? I could throw out a dozen system replacements for stuff in Oblivion, Morrowind, and pretty much any other game I've ever played, all of which would be considered by a lot of people to be "better." That does not mean that the systems I'm replacing are defaulted to nonsense. Fallacy of false choice.
 

galsiah

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Solik said:
That does not mean that the systems I'm replacing are defaulted to nonsense. Fallacy of false choice.
Well no, it doesn't.
The fact that it's nonsense is a separate issue. Here is a less confused / encumbered version if you like:

It's nonsense. It makes no sense. It cannot be understood in rational terms, but only in "that's the way it works in this game" terms. There is no room for me to imagine I'm in a cohesive world, since the stupidity and unbelievability of the situation will throw me back to reality every time I see it.

Every time I have two items, one worth 1000 and another worth 3000, and I meet a merchant with barter gold 1000, he'll offer me the same for either item, whereupon I'll think "this is insane". My immersion has gone for no good reason, because they didn't take a day to construct a barter system that made sense.

In short: It is nonsense. This is a Bad Thing.
 

WouldBeCreator

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@galsiah: I haven't been following the Oblivion system closely enough, but your latest post doesn't make it sound as batty as it sounded before (or, the element you're homing in or isn't as bad as "investment"). Is it that ludicrous to imagine the merchant saying, "That's a marvelous sword. I can't offer you more than 1,000 gold -- that's all I have -- but if that's enough for you, I'd be happy to take it. If I could offer you more, I would, but I can't. As for the axe, I suppose it's worth close to 1,000, so I'll offer you the same for it." (I mean, it's not driving a hard bargain, but I know when I went rug shopping, I've definitely used the line, "All I have is $133, so take it or leave it.")
 

ANDS!

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Heh. . .if THAT breaks the immersion factor for you - then youre playing the wrong game.

In short: It is nonsense.

What rpg game - not specifically tailored around an economy system - doesnt have this?
 

Solik

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I don't see how that's anything more than a point of view issue. I mean, I have no problem seeing a merchant saying, "Look, I'm not sure I can sell that thing, I've no use for it myself, and I'm not sure I want to be a target for thieves. I'll give you 1000 for it, but I can't do any better than that. Sorry." The fact that a real merchant in that situation might offer me 1300 instead just isn't nearly sufficient to break immersion for me.

It makes me wonder how you've gotten on with no location damage, HP gains at levelup, no penalties for less-than-max HP, no physics, no shadows, lens flares, and repeated stock dialogue if something like this is an immersion-breaker for you.
 

galsiah

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WouldBeCreator:
But it's not just that - you can sell five axes each for 1000 (since the limit is per transaction), but you can't sell the sword for more than 1000, even if it's worth 3000.

There is an argument for not getting 3000 for the sword, since it might be harder to shift, but not getting 1100?? The merchant always has an infinite supply of money - he's just only able to dole it out in chunks of 1000.

In short: total nonsense.

It remains to be seen whether this is exploitable by selling two axes for 1000 each, then trading the sword for the two axes and 1000, then selling the two axes for 1000 each again.
If this exploit is possible, I really do despair at Bethesda's lack of thought / testing. If not, then it might be a smooth system, but still nonsense.
 

WouldBeCreator

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That's fucking ridiculous. Who in the world came up with that idea? What's the point? Why not have a drop-off in value as you sell more of the same type of item, if the concern is people getting too rich too fast?

I don't know if it's really immersion breaking, but it just seems awfully silly.
 

Solik

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How often is it really going to come up? The amount you get for an item depends on your stats and skills anyway, so you're not going to get exactly 1000 for everything unless everything you sell him was worth well over that to begin with.

Adding a couple hundred to that number for highly expensive items is just too trivial to care about.
 

VenomByte

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The point is to please all the people who complained they had to wait 24 hours for creeper to get his cash back. Now you don't have to wait at all...
 

galsiah

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Solik:
Seeing "Barter Gold: 1000", and knowing that this means I can sell axes worth 1000 all day, but not swords worth 3000 is enough to break my immersion. If I weren't shown that, and I found that a merchant would happily buy 10 axes at 1000, but never a sword for 1500 (even if it were worth 10000) would break my immersion.

Utter nonsense just breaks my immersion. If I'm trading, I try to work out how to get the best value for my money. That means thinking about why the merchants offer the prices they do. As soon as I do that I'm exposed to the idiocy.
Most RPGs might not have great economic systems, but perhaps they don't go for such clear nonsense, then advertise it with neon signs.


It makes me wonder how you've gotten on with no location damage
It's an abstraction for combat that importantly: makes sense at its level of abstraction. I can rationalise it by thinking e.g. that was a weak hit / glancing blow, or that hit home / took him off balance etc.
HP gains at levelup
I don't get on with that. I modded it out of Morrowind because it sucked.
no penalties for less-than-max HP
This depends on your view of HP. You can think of each hit before you die as having only a very small effect in itself, so weakening you only slightly. The final blow can be thought of as having "run you through" or similar.
Even if this isn't the case, penalties for low HP can (and have) been modded into Morrowind. I'm not honestly sure whether I'd used them, since I rarely get around to playing. I do plan to start a game and actually use my mod at some point though.

At least there is an excuse for not having HP penalties, if they aren't present: they might harm the gameplay. Realism / cohesion might get in the way of it being an interesting game (though perhaps not - it depends on the player).
There is no similar argument for a stupid merchantile system. It is just bad, plain and simple.
no physics
I'm not forced to use a badly implemented physics system. It just isn't there. I don't really care.

A correct parallel would be a physics system that's implemented quickly and simply, so that players (and developers?) can understand it. All objects move in straight lines, never spinning, and bounce around like they're in a bad pinball machine.

The great thing about this is that it's simple for players to understand (straight lines, and no complex equations involved). Clearly a fully featured physics system would be really complicated to implement - this game isn't a physics simulation, so what do you expect?

I put up with no physics (since it doesn't add much to a game), and I'd put up with having no merchants (if that didn't take away much of the gameplay), but I can't easily put up with either nonsense physics, or nonsense merchants.

no shadows, lens flares
Again: Missing is fine. Implemented backwards / upsidedown / with no object making them is not.
and repeated stock dialogue if something like this is an immersion-breaker for you.
Repeated stock dialogue probably is immersion breaking, but I'll put up with it and get used to it, since there's no clear better alternative.

For merchants / economy there is a better solution: Something that's not utter nonsense.


EDIT:
Adding a couple hundred to that number for highly expensive items is just too trivial to care about.
First it is not trivial, since it is:
(1) Easy.
(2) Adds to the coherence of the game world.

Second it is sometimes important, since an item might cost 20000. You should be able to sell that for at least perhaps 5000 - to an NPC with infinite gold for 1000 items. The difference between 1000 and 5000 is not trivial.
 

VenomByte

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It will still be bearable, so long as Beth has fixed the problem of the player emerging from every single cave laden down with sacks of rare gemstones and exquisite scrolls.

Chances of that, anyone?
 

GhanBuriGhan

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galsiah said:
WouldBeCreator:
But it's not just that - you can sell five axes each for 1000 (since the limit is per transaction), but you can't sell the sword for more than 1000, even if it's worth 3000.

There is an argument for not getting 3000 for the sword, since it might be harder to shift, but not getting 1100?? The merchant always has an infinite supply of money - he's just only able to dole it out in chunks of 1000.

In short: total nonsense.

It remains to be seen whether this is exploitable by selling two axes for 1000 each, then trading the sword for the two axes and 1000, then selling the two axes for 1000 each again.
If this exploit is possible, I really do despair at Bethesda's lack of thought / testing. If not, then it might be a smooth system, but still nonsense.

Just as with character progression you are just too focused on braking the system. A simple fact is that 99% of players will not notice or spend more than 5 seconds wondering about the stuff that has you all riled up. And as you can see by what people here say it can even be rationalized away nicely. Finally keep in mind, that a system that may make more sense may at the same be far more prone to imbalance the game. All in all, I just don't care, I am fine with the way it was in MW, I am fine with the way it's done here. I think its far more important that there are actually things you can DO with the money this time (horses, houses, yes even this stupid "investing") - that is a very important improvement over MW.
 

galsiah

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GhanBuriGhan said:
Just as with character progression you are just too focused on braking the system.
It's not a question of breaking the system, and it's not a question of my focus. It is a question of design.

Rewarding the player for performing absurd and boring actions is bad design.

Can this always be avoided? Perhaps not. It still should be where-ever possible. If you can enjoy games which contain nonsense systems, then that's great for you. However, you're not really roleplaying in the game world in that case - you're roleplaying with the game in a world of your own imagination. I'm not saying that's a bad thing - you probably have more fun that way.

I don't enjoy games that merely allow me to roleplay along as I play them, happily ignoring any blatent flaws, and filling in the gaps with my imagination. For me the game world as described by the game mechanics is the world. It's not a complete description of it perhaps, but it's a blueprint - accurate as far as it goes, with only decoration left to the imagination.

An RPG that allows roleplaying is not really funtioning as a roleplaying game. To be a roleplaying game, it needs to support roleplay. That means not forcing the player to ignore nonsense game mechanics. I don't mean omissions, or abstractions, I mean contradictory nonsense.

By my definition, you're not roleplaying in the game - you're playing an adapted version of it where you ignore the shortcomings / nonsense, and focus on the good parts. But again, I really don't mean this as an insult / whatever. I'm just saying that we have very different approaches. That doesn't diminish your experience - it's just not how I play. If I'm playing P&P, I'm happy to let imagination rule, and for the DM to bend / break the rules all he likes.

In a cRPG, the rules are the game - they aren't equivalent to a P&P rulebook, but rather to a DM's decisions. Ignoring nonsense systems in a cRPG makes no more sense to me than hearing my DM say "The merchant offers you 1000 gold", but ignoring him - since that shouldn't have happened in my view.
A simple fact is that 99% of players will not notice or spend more than 5 seconds wondering about the stuff that has you all riled up.
No need for exaggeration. 90%, perhaps 95% at a stretch, but not 99%.
And as you can see by what people here say it can even be rationalized away nicely.
No it can't. It can be badly explained in ways that make no sense by people who want to ignore it. That's not the same thing.

A merchant who'll buy 10 items worth 1000 for 10000 gold, but won't pay me even 1001 for an item worth 50000, cannot be rationalised. To make any sense of this I need to assume every merchant in Oblivion is mad.

Can you rationalise the above? - Seriously?

Finally keep in mind, that a system that may make more sense may at the same be far more prone to imbalance the game.
Given that the only example of a similar game we have so far is Morrowind, I really don't see how anyone can use balance as an argument and be serious.
The economy of Morrowind was utterly broken. It'd be hard to make things worse even by making random changes just for a laugh. The idea that a well thought out, reasonable, cohesive system would make balance worse, just seems silly.

All in all, I just don't care
Exactly. It doesn't bother you, and it does bother me - and many others. Why not use another system - which equally wouldn't bother you, and would please me. We can both be happy if only Bethesda would take a little time on non-fanboy features (and it really would be a very little time).
 

Drakron

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WouldBeCreator is right on the fact people would not sell their loot for a fraction of the price, at a point in the game everyone used the "secret" merchants (mudcrab and the odd fellow in the orc manor) since if the game tells you "cost: 10000gp" and mechant says "sorry I only have 1000 gp" you feel being being cheated, expecialy when the item goes into sale for more that the listed price.

Many people tried to solve Morrowind economy but the reason it was broken was the easy access to the mid-high grade material.

The end result was people swimming in money just by using the secret merchants or without cash if they refused to abuse the system.

If Oblivion "fixing" is making players spend money in order to not being rip-off by merchants ... well its a particular stupid idea, I am "investing" on not being rip-off.

A real investment system would be allowing merchants to sell your gear with then taking a percentage of the deal so selling a 5000 gp worth sword and getting 4500 gp is not a bad deal when the merchant have a cap of 2000 gp.
 

dongle

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WouldBeCreator said:
EDIT: This fansite, http://morrowind.rpgdot.com/index.php, says there were over four million copies sold. Others list over one million for XBox, which puts somewhere around three million on the PC.
Don't they always say the Xbox MW outsold the PC by like ten to one? I think actual sales numbers are a closely guarded industry secret sometimes.
 

Solik

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All I can say is, your standards are so high, there's never been a game created that would meet what you're requesting. Unless it left everything of consequence out. Which, incidentally, is what has a lot of people frustrated about Oblivion :roll:

Take the HP gain thing. You admit that it doesn't fly with you and that you removed it. Well, that reduces your RPG choices down to... uh... just moddable ones?

If this had been done in Daggerfall, and I complained about it, the response would have been, "Well, at least they tried. They had vision. It's better than not having it at all!"
 

Teb

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galsiah said:
GhanBuriGhan said:
Just as with character progression you are just too focused on braking the system.
It's not a question of breaking the system, and it's not a question of my focus. It is a question of design.

As a RPG design principle, I like RPGs to hide character and item stats from the player. This would force players to roleplay instead of min-max their stat sheets and profit.

For example, if a player does not know the "true" value of an item, selling it for less than it is worth would seem more palatable. He could compare offers between merchants but that should not be as noticeable as comparing the offers to the value of the item.

I would love to see a better virtual economy in an RPG but until then I would like to see RPGs take the first step by having items with hidden values.
 

GhanBuriGhan

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Galsiah

Solik or someone lese did it above: the merchant will have an easier time reselling a cheaper, more common item, therefore he refuses to buy anything above a certain value (except if you give him a ridiculously good price).

And once again, all of you arguing you could do a better system in a day: Name a RPG that did. I didnt pay much attention because, frankly I think this is a very unimportant aspect. But of the top of my hat:
KOTOR - merchant has unlimited money, no bartering, merchants buy everything, very unbalanced, merchants basically useless...
BG - Unlimited money, can't remember bartering, merchants buy selectively, better balanced.
Fallout - can't remember ever needing to buy anything.

So what gives???
 

Zomg

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dongle said:
WouldBeCreator said:
EDIT: This fansite, http://morrowind.rpgdot.com/index.php, says there were over four million copies sold. Others list over one million for XBox, which puts somewhere around three million on the PC.
Don't they always say the Xbox MW outsold the PC by like ten to one? I think actual sales numbers are a closely guarded industry secret sometimes.

Also keep in mind that after the first price drop or so, the game's profit-per-unit changes quite severely, to the point that developers on this forum and others have said that the only sales that really matter in terms of developer profit are made in the first few weeks after release (although that's for semi-independent developers like Obsidian or Bioware). Admixing $10 GoTY bargain bin sales of a game and $50 plus two expansions confuses the issue quite a bit.
 

Drakron

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Teb said:
As a RPG design principle, I like RPGs to hide character and item stats from the player. This would force players to roleplay instead of min-max their stat sheets and profit.

No, it would force players to figure out what was going on.

The principle is the player have to make a informed option because if he is not informed then he is simply making a wild guess and hoping it works

Stats give a idea what is better because there is simply no way for the player to be aware of what is better, a sword being balanced makes it better but without you going to pick it up and check it you have no idea.

What you are saying is akin to having all your senses removed ... would be that "fun" in real life?

For example, if a player does not know the "true" value of an item, selling it for less than it is worth would seem more palatable. He could compare offers between merchants but that should not be as noticeable as comparing the offers to the value of the item.

You are forgetting one thing, if you walk into a store and sell a diamond for 1/10 of its value and someone finds out people will know the store will rip-off people off if they can.

Since stores needs customers they try to keep a good reputation.

Giving it a base price simply removed the "walking around trying to figure out the best deal", nothing really stops you in Fable from going to a store with a lot of cheap diamonds, buy then all and then sell then for a profit in a store were there are no diamonds since they offer a better price.

Problem is that is exploitable, you can raise a fortune that way so game design tries to remove such issues.

I would love to see a better virtual economy in an RPG but until then I would like to see RPGs take the first step by having items with hidden values.

Not going to happen ... unless someone is really dumb, does so and falls in its face and gives everyone another lesson of what NOT to do in RPGs.
 

galsiah

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Teb:
You have it backwards. Hiding the stats is the last step, not the first. For it to be good design to hide a system, that system must first make sense - things should work on an intuitive level, so that the player can "feel" what is happening / is likely to happen, without working out the rules.

Hiding a system that doesn't make sense is bad design. You are just encouraging players to work out your nonsense rules from their observations by working backwards. Hiding nonsense systems makes their shortcomings more frustrating, not less, since the player is left with a "What the hell is going on here?!" feeling for much longer.

I agree with hiding stats in RPGs, but only after the system makes good intuitive sense. On this basis, I think stat hiding in TES games is a long way off. :)

Solik said:
All I can say is, your standards are so high, there's never been a game created that would meet what you're requesting.
I'm fine with games not meeting my standards where it would be difficult or impossible to achieve. Do I expect pinpoint accuracy with character animation / movement? No - because it's not practical. It's not the most important thing to focus on either.

The economy is easy to improve significantly in a day. This would be a very efficient use of delevlopment time. It can be done, and it can be done well and quickly, without a real downside.

Solik said:
Take the HP gain thing. You admit that it doesn't fly with you and that you removed it. Well, that reduces your RPG choices down to... uh... just moddable ones?
No. It means that I think nonsense jumps of HP at "level ups" are senseless P&P relics that need to be removed. It means that cRPG creators should take a lead in doing things in interesting new ways appropriate to the computer medium, rather than sticking with P&P methods because "That's what people like / are used to."
Levels are nonsense. They can sometimes be used in interesting ways, but I think it's always possible to do better. In Morrowind they weren't even used in interesting ways.

GBG said:
the merchant will have an easier time reselling a cheaper, more common item, therefore he refuses to buy anything above a certain value (except if you give him a ridiculously good price).
That is exactly what I meant - it's a bad explanation that doesn't cover the flaw in the system.

This is the problem situation:
A merchant who'll buy 10 items worth 1000 for 10000 gold, but won't pay me even 1001 for an item worth 50000.

Any remotely realistic merchant would jump at the chance to get the 50000 item for 1001 gold. They'd almost certainly pay 10000. The "it's difficult to sell on" explanation does not explain this at all. At best it's an excuse to ignore the problem.

As to whether other RPGs have done better, perhaps some have, perhaps not - I haven't played many. The point is that a much better system could have been designed and implemented in a day. Games wouldn't get very far if new features were only introduced if they'd been done by at least one other game.

Given that TES games are billed as "World simulators" rather than "Story driven RPGs", is a somewhat convincing, simple simulation of an economy too much to ask? The system I outlined took me about an hour to think up and takes one equation to implement. That's not exactly earth shattering in development time or ambition.

It would almost certainly change the balance for the better, as well as seeming reasonably sensible.
 

GhanBuriGhan

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Yeah, but you have no idea if your system eally works in a game. That it looks good on paper means squat.Well, go ahead, mod your idea in, if the CS lets you. It would be fixing something that doesn't need fixing, imho, but I am certainly not against added realism in principle. I am just wondering if its necessary or fair to accuse developers of lazyness, idiocy, or whatnot, because they chose to treat this as what it is: a pretty unimportant subfunction of the game.

As I see it they are trying to balance three things
- the desire to have a realistic range of values in items, including the wow factor of finding something really valuable
- the need to avoid letting a low level character becoming too rich too quick (upsetting game balance, and eliminating interesting long term goals)
- having a wide open sandbox game with random loot.

Their system may not be elegant or realistic, but if it achieves that balance, than I have no problem with it.

Wether the explanation is stupid or not, I don't know. I have seen far worse in many games.
 

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