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Re: CF: alchemy imbalance?



I think this is something to fix.  Any shopkeeper has to figure on
identifying items before resale.  Thus, buying a pile of unidentified
daggers for a couple GP each makes sense since the shopkeeper might
be able to identify in bulk cheaper than the player.  But, no shopkeeper
is going to pay 200 plat for an unidentified item that might be junk.
The shopkeeper would first identify it before paying out big money
especially since identify is not that expensive.

Thus, I argue that the upper limit that shopkeepers should pay for
unidentified items is 3 times the cost to identify the item.

Also, I don't understand the logic of identified items.  If a player
identifies an item then it is identified for all, but how does a
shopkeeper know that a player has identified the items in question?

Seems to me that the underlying theory is that once a player has
identified an item then the game is handling interaction details by
skipping the need for the player to say what the item is and how the
player knows that.  This makes sense from a game playing point of view,
but it could be expanded to be make more sense.  Since being
"identified" is really just what player believes item to be as hence
how item will be presented to others, then player should be able to
identify an item by typing in what the player believes the item to be.
Then shopkeepers (and other players) should buy items based upon what
the player represents, but then get quite mad upon learning that
items weren't as good as player claimed.  So player might be able to
pass off something, but have to hurry to leave before shopkeeper finds
out and tells city guards.

BTW, this reminds that cities or grouped maps (maybe based upon map
directory structure) should have a persistent player status so that
beating up city guards in one map means all city guards are now hostile
and that they are still hostile if the player shows up after the maps
has reset.  Likewise, if a player does good things in a city then the
people remember and player has CHA bonus in that town.  Such a feature
could go a long way to making the world more interesting since the
world would no longer be resetting to vanilla every hour or two.  The
persistant status could also be used to prevent a player from repeating
a quest too often while still leaving the quest for others.

							sdw

> Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 07:35:56 -0400
> From: Hwei Sheng TEOH <hsteoh@cs.toronto.edu>
> X-Sender: hsteoh@dvp.cs
> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no
> Subject: CF: alchemy imbalance?
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> 
> 
> Hi! the recent discussion about alchemy reminded me of a really cheesy 
tactic
> I use to make money for a low-level character, by exploiting a flaw(?) 
in the
> alchemy system. Just thought I'd mention it, in case people might want 
to fix
> this in the next CF release. :-)
> 
> Basically, the flaw comes from the fact that completely random items 
(albeit
> cursed) are produced when you invoke alchemy over a cauldron that 
contains
> junk (ie. random ingredients, not any real formula). So what I do is, 
I start
> with a silver coin, and invoke alchemy over and over, until I get a 
block of
> true lead or a block of fixed mercury. These, of course, will be 
cursed, since
> by no means my ingredients will ever match the real formula for these
> products.
> 
> The catch is, if I DON'T identify them, nobody will know they are 
cursed, and
> shopkeepers seem eager to buy them at a high price... If the character 
has
> enough mana, he can easily earn lots of money (a block of fixed 
mercury, even
> unidentified, gives about 200+ plats or more, depending on your Cha).
> 
> For low-level spellcasters, I found this way ideal for making money to 
buy new
> spells, since the game is so biased against spellcasters that it's 
very hard
> at low levels to find enough treasure to buy new spells.
> 
> I *did* notice that if you ever identify any of this 'junk' out of the
> cauldron, their value is always 0 even if you pray over an altar to 
uncurse
> them. At least this part makes some sense... :-) But *unidentified* 
items,
> especially the true lead and fixed mercury, are worth so much even 
when
> unidentified. In terms of fixing this flaw, shopkeepers should at 
least quote
> a much lower price for these items when unidentified, since they would 
be
> suspicious whether these items are cursed or not.
> 
> 
> T
> 
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