Items - pricing - only pricing...

[serina]

Hi. I just thought about the pricing of items. INT rings inparticular... Please discuss.

At the current rate approximate values for items bought in shop 7:

Int ring +1 = 4.5k
Int ring +2 = 5.0k
Int ring +3 = 5.5k
Int ring +4 = 6.0k
Int ring +5 = 6.5k
Int ring +6 = 7.0k

What if instead we had an exponential equation for calculating prices? X^2 where X = the starting value of the item at the lowest possible bonus. This works well for stat rings and amulets:

Int ring +1 = 2k
Int ring +2 = 4k
Int ring +3 = 8k
Int ring +4 = 16k
Int ring +5 = 32k
Int ring +6 = 64k

This would make their values about right compared to other items. (player shops selling +6 int rings for 192k would be overpriced tho I think) Even the standard +3 INT ring for 24k in a player shop is a ridiculous price.

Rings of damage cannot be priced the same way, but maybe every +2 increase in bonus = exponential.

Ring of Damage +6 = 2k
Ring of Damage +7 = 3k
Ring of Damage +8 = 4k
Ring of Damage +9 = 6k
Ring of Damage +10 = 8k
Ring of Damage +11 = 12k
Ring of Damage +12 = 16k
Ring of Damage +13 = 24k
Ring of Damage +14 = 32k
Ring of Damage +15 = 48k
Ring of Damage +16 = 64k
Ring of Damage +17 = 96k
Ring of Damage +18 = 128k
Ring of Damage +19 = 192k
Ring of Damage +20 = 256k (Warrior would probably price this at around 50 million)

This might also help generate additional cash for "lucky" characters due to the lack of artifact findings.

ZAL

[Billsey]

Remember that the pricing in 7 is only a bit higher than in player stores. If an item has a base price of 1000 (sells for and purchases for 1000 in a normal shop at 18/** CHR), the price in a player store is 3000 and the price in 7 is 3500.

[PowerWyrm]

In my variant, there are no base prices for items with bonuses: a ring of intelligence costs 45 gold (base price for a ring), each extra bonus adds a boost of 200 * (bonus * bonus) to the price. So you get BM/player shop prices of 600 for +1, 2400 for +2, 5600 for +3, 9600 for +4, 15000 for +5 and 21600 for +6.
This is particularly critical for rings of speed. Ring of speed +1 is close to useless, still it currently costs 300k (more?) in BM. And the high +s are real bargains...
The current pricing system is old and inappropriate. Vanilla changed it completely in 3.1.0. I guess Mang will have to adapt it too...

[schroeder]

Well, parts of it we need to adopt...not all of it. For example, it is now not tough to find and buy +10 speed boots from 2/7. They're taking a step to the right side of pricing, but I don't think that they are quite there yet. We mangbanders need to fix our pricing system for ourselves. Pricing is even more important in mangband then it is in angband, so lets start addressing this now, so it can be fixed sooner.

[Warrior]

I have spent countless hours the last ten years fiddling and tweaking pricing, different formulas and models and I think I've found a few good solutions.

The best is this: Basically dissecting existing items in the game to see what they're made of and put a price on each component, such as nether resistance being worth x gold and slow digestion worth y gold and a combination being worth x * z * y. Then put all this into tables and have the game dynamically calculate the proper values of all items (including artifacts). I have most of this done but then started making new items instead of finishing the pricing. As for items that give stats my general idea is that each point is worth the same as the base price of a stat pot and then a modifier for certain situations. Obviously this wouldn't work for rings and I prefer exponential pricing based on a low minimum price like you. However this raises a problem with the rarities of such items and modifying the rarity of items that currently work well (to be honest I think most items have a fair rarity) would mean messing with the very foundation of the game, the RNG and it's mysterious ways. We could introduce more advanced rarities such as an item having a 1/64 (for example) rarity at 500ft but a 1/8 rarity on 3000ft. This could all be very carefully balanced to match our perceived "value" of each depth but that is damn massive work and is not a task to be taken lightly...

[serina]

Stat rings are rarely found with a bonus greater than +4 at a depth down to 2k feet. It's for going beyond 2k feet you really need the stat rings. Later, most characters swap them with speed or damage rings based on preferance. (I know some meleers with many BPR prefer damage rings sooner, so for them the change is hardly noticeable - except for that they'll have something to look forward to when they're finally able to afford the really expensive damage rings from shop 7 instead of being "gear-maxed" around lvl 35-40...).

Finding +5 or +6 stat rings/amulets outside shop 7 is still pretty rare. I don't believe any further tweaking would be required. If prices are changed, the big difference will be that they're gonna be really expensive, and you'll probably have to sacrifice something else if you want these huge bonusses.

Seeing characters below lvl 30 with +5 or +6 stat items will be a rarity. And even fewer of these highly powered rings will exist in player stores, because people wouldn't be able to afford/hoard them at high lvl like it's done now in many cases (I know my +5 and +6 rings disappeared from shops unless I charged a decent amount of cash for them). I think one of my mages sold between 8 to 12 CON rings +6, and supply never ran out, as I was diving at the bottom. (Speed rings still give more cash and are also found in abundance at the bottom)

- edited typos. Hope I didn't forget any. And I agree with Aces post below, and I think my suggestion will fix some of this

ZAL

[Ace]

I think that the availablilty and scumming in shop 7 should be reduced anyway. I think that the best of all items should be really found in the dungeon and not top-side :)

[PowerWyrm]

Then put all this into tables and have the game dynamically calculate the proper values of all items (including artifacts). I have most of this done but then started making new items instead of finishing the pricing.

If you want to check what I have done for my variant, it's here:
http://powerwyrm.fr.tc/PWMangband/PWMan ... 12_src.zip
Check object_value_real() in object2.c, it's the method that computes real prices from base items and extra bonuses/powers. It's quite complex, and not only based on static power/bonus value, but also on interactions between them (for example, a "resistance" armor will be more expensive than simply an armor with resist fire, cold, elec and acid alone). This method simply makes base prices obsolete, since every item including egos and artifacts are priced this way. I know it still has flaws (I don't see how we could come up with a perfect pricing method, unless we decide to examine each item one by one... but that would be a titanic work), but it's a good start.