Merchant Gold

[Hassat Hunter]

So, learned from another thread that merchant gold limit got removed from PoE.

 

And can't help but be dissapointed, seemed like a perfect addition to the game to me. Instead of going to random blacksmith, and apparently them easily having 50000 gold to pay for all your swords of slaying +3, even if storywise he had to sell his son to slavery and the richest person in town had 2000 gold never made sense to me.

Also somewhat helping as a counter to that infinite inventory we got now, so we can easily just gather those 500 armors and weapons you let rot in the IE-games.

 

Discuss!

[TheisEjsing]

I can't recall one game, where I thought: "This vendor gold limit really enhances my experience!". Of all the unrealistic factors you must accept to enjoy computer games, endless vendor gold in a RPG is one up there with no bathroom breaks needed and sharing one bed on the "easy stuff to accept" scale.  

Edited January 29, 2015 by TheisEjsing

[Sensuki]

Yeah glad to see vendor gold removal - it was a left over from another idea and was just causing annoyances.

[Gorbag]

I was actually somewhat worried about merchants having limited gold. I thought of long shopping trecks or, even worse, about TES-like workarounds. TES made me hate this specific mechanic with a passion. So much so that I just stopped picking up any loot altogether (what do I care about this super-duper-daedric armour? I can't use it and I sure as hell can't sell it without spending an hour on that, so it may rot right there for all I care). 

Aside from my personal thing, I guess if you can't drop stuff, you might as well be able to sell it easily.

As for picking everything up, yeah you could do that, but you could also do it with limited merchant gold, it's just more hassle. Personally I've never done this and probably never would. 

[DarkWanderer]

Well - its a good point, however if you had to run over all merchants to sell your loot it would be pain in the ... They could though give gold limit to most merchants, but leave like 3 wealtiest in the biggest cities - which could explain that they have money to buy our entire junk and more... 

[Rhaeg]

I don't mind realism in an RPG, but not the irritating kind. Elder Scrolls has the limited vendor gold, but all it makes me do there is dump money to invest in merchants and spend skillpoints to overcome it. Not because it's a cool thing to do, but because it's irritating when a merchant does not buy back the loot I've been dragging along all the time.

 

I do like realism like day and night cycle and NPCs walking around and having a daily routine - those things at to the overall atmosphere.

 

 

with no bathroom breaks needed   

 

On area transition: "You must pee and poop before venturing forth"

 

[Hassat Hunter]

TES however does not have an infinite inventory as PoE has. TES you needed to carry around stuff you can't sell... here it's mood point.

 

If a certain vendor has no gold there's ZILCH problem with just keeping it all and then try others, whereas in TES you still need to keep weight into account.

 

All in all, a balance to this infinite system seems to get demolished, and I can't help to wonder... why?

[Sensuki]

All you have to do to bypass it in the game currently is close the shop interface and open it again. It serves no purpose other than an annoyance - which is why it's being removed.

[Hassat Hunter]

Are you promoting your "If it has a bug, remove it!" policy again? Obviously that's not WAI.

[Ink Blot]

I can't recall one game, where I thought: "This vendor gold limit really enhances my experience!". Of all the unrealistic factors you must accept to enjoy computer games, endless vendor gold in a RPG is one up there with no bathroom breaks needed and sharing one bed on the "easy stuff to accept" scale.  

Pretty much my thoughts. I find limited vendor gold about as enjoyable as being required to eat food in an RPG, which is to say about on par with dental surgery.

[Nonek]

Notes of credit?

[Gorbag]

TES however does not have an infinite inventory as PoE has. TES you needed to carry around stuff you can't sell... here it's mood point.

 

If a certain vendor has no gold there's ZILCH problem with just keeping it all and then try others, whereas in TES you still need to keep weight into account.

The real problem in TES was that most of the loot I'd normally want to sell cost way more than any merchant in the game has, so carrying it around did nothing to help it, even if I could. I don't know if that was to be the case in PoE (I hope not), but in any case, it saves me the trouble of going from merchant to merchant like a flower girl just so that I can sell the stuff I'd end up selling anyway. 

If picking up every club and rusty dagger in the game and dragging them to a merchant is the player's cup of tea, then I guess it can't be helped. For me, it's not the limited inventory that made me skip that in IE games (I usually buy bags of holding asap for different reasons), it's just that it's... boring and unnecessary.

Edited January 29, 2015 by Gorbag

[Night Stalker]

I am all for the removal of merchant gold.

 

For me limited gold is ok in some sandbox RPGs, but I don't feel it is an integral part of the IE games, where I feel it would be more of an annoyance.

Edited January 29, 2015 by Night Stalker

[Hassat Hunter]

It would make LESS sense to me in a sandbox than a pre-determined conditioned area like PoE/IE...

[Nonek]

Are there practising banks in the Dyrwood, or institutions similar to the Templars whom deal in credit for travellers, if so letters of credit would alleviate any monetary restrictions. Add to this perhaps travelling peddlers, merchant caravans, village fayres and such where one may sell to other sources than the usual shops, and one has a lot more options and availability.

 

Of course personally i'd prefer that we had a limited, realistic inventory, loot that disappeared if left and far less reliance on the tyranny of loot as a gameplay mechanic. I'd rather that what one can carry be a strategic element, and choosing what to carry, what to leave, how to juggle inventory space being a factor and gold being a far more appropriate reward for a quest than an inventory full of scrap.

[Stun]

I can't recall one game, where I thought: "This vendor gold limit really enhances my experience!". Of all the unrealistic factors you must accept to enjoy computer games, endless vendor gold in a RPG is one up there with no bathroom breaks needed and sharing one bed on the "easy stuff to accept" scale.

I agree. Selling sh*t should not be a mini-game.

 

I applaud its removal.

Edited January 29, 2015 by Stun

[Night Stalker]

It would make LESS sense to me in a sandbox than a pre-determined conditioned area like PoE/IE...

 

For me the point is that a immersive RPG sandbox should try to somewhat simulate a functioning world. A part of that world is the economy, and sometimes people run out of currency. It might be a PITA, but for me that is part of the sandbox nature, in an IE type game I just feel it is an extra annoyance.

 

But hey, different strokes for different folks.

[rjshae]

An established vendor probably has the means to obtain a certain amount of additional gold as needed, so the removal of that limitation is not completely  unrealistic. It just skips a step in the economic cycle so you don't have to wait for the shopkeep to run down the street to obtain more money.

[Luckmann]

I can't recall one game, where I thought: "This vendor gold limit really enhances my experience!". Of all the unrealistic factors you must accept to enjoy computer games, endless vendor gold in a RPG is one up there with no bathroom breaks needed and sharing one bed on the "easy stuff to accept" scale.  

 

I always assumed that bathroom breaks happened on transitions/travelling or was part of the resting mechanic, and is easily explained away as such. Sharing one bed was never anything I saw in a proper RPG and was never a thing in the IE games, at least. Either is more easily explained away than "I have no trouble buying 50 of your breastplates, Sir".

[TheisEjsing]

Well Luckmann you're gonna be dissapointed then. In your stronghold, as Josh visited it, there was only one bed where your party sleeps. And you can run around for 100 day/night cycles without traveling or resting if you so desire. And they're all easily explained as design choices.

[Hassat Hunter]

For me the point is that a immersive RPG sandbox should try to somewhat simulate a functioning world. A part of that world is the economy, and sometimes people run out of currency. It might be a PITA, but for me that is part of the sandbox nature, in an IE type game I just feel it is an extra annoyance.

 

But hey, different strokes for different folks.

My point of view:

In a sandbox you pretty much setup the game to never-end. A finite gold source without replenishment would obstruct this never-lasting principle, since in the end you would run on this limitation of gold.

However, this isn't a problem in a IE-type of game, since we here HAVE an end, so there's no trouble with vendors running out of gold, as it's a natural event happening when we're progressing ever closer to the inevitable end.

 

It allows another layer of control to making your adventure... "progressive." This would obviously be unwanted in a sandbox since you're not progressing towards an ending, and the point of the game is also not to lure you towards this. A guided game like PoE however that would make perfect sense. With good reactivity (rather than the bland MMO-type of sandbox) you could even add this in as condition, where there's a reaction if the party drains the economy, or sufficient supplication of certain people might trigger an otherwise not happening encounter of some people who simply got armed on the crap you sold the vendor.

 

Well, that's my point of view anyway, obviously many people seem to disagree here however...

[GreyFox]

I'm glad they removed merchant gold as it wasn't a very good idea anyway.

 

It's one of the annoying parts of Divinity OS (since I bring that up as a positive sometimes) can't stand running around to different merchants just to sell stuff.

 

No reason to be super realistic about petty things like that.....it's a game.....and I don't want to play eat/sleep/drink/sell mini games. Well done OE

Edited January 29, 2015 by GreyFox

[Hassat Hunter]

It was in D:OS?
Can't even remember it... must not have bothered me much then...

[GreyFox]

It was in D:OS?

Can't even remember it... must not have bothered me much then...

 

Yup

 

One good offset they do though is trading value...for example you could trade a sword for a book if they were equal in price(or you could take a gold hit and trade a higher value item for a lower value item).

 

The IE games didn't allow you to trade item x for item y but D:OS does so that could be a helpful feature to minimize the issue.

Real item trading based on value wouldn't be too bad I guess.

[Luckmann]

Well Luckmann you're gonna be dissapointed then. In your stronghold, as Josh visited it, there was only one bed where your party sleeps. And you can run around for 100 day/night cycles without traveling or resting if you so desire. And they're all easily explained as design choices.

 

Well then just pile that up on the growing heap of stupid. That said, I'd still be surprised if there's no additional beds in the stronghold, with the bed just being the trigger for the party to rest.