Hmm, my take on him may have been premature then. I'll have to try that from now on, and see if I still feel the same. Because, by the way, this game totally rocks, and I will play it for some time to come, even before future builds.

And noted in the list

Why not, for an advanced version of the merchants!

What on the list mechanical or hackable Mechanical Merchants?



DarkMeph

DarkMeph wrote:
What on the list mechanical or hackable Mechanical Merchants?



DarkMeph

Hopefully both

You owned me DarkMeph ^^

But yes, I add both in the list.

You can have a virtual beer on me.



DarkMeph

Killing shopkeepers for items would be quite... fun 3



If the mechanical or craftsman shopkeeper is pursued killing/destroying them could yield *resources - but less than potential gain of items if you kept the shopkeeper alive and/or a consequence of that action whether at that point of time or in the future; we don't want the optimal strategy to be killing the merchant to get exactly what you want from the corpse but instead to have a chance at getting what you want or nothing you wanted at all. If a Demonic or previous adventurer type merchant is pursed, the act of attacking him/her/it would yield *resources but could include a hard fought battle against the shopkeeper as the "hand-slap" for the aggressive conduct against peaceful shopkeepers - I'm guessing this is the talked about treason system where shopkeepers go aggro? Of course there could be the idea of different types of shopkeepers that peddle particular item pools - with a rare chance of item crossover. I do like the idea of having to protect these merchants from the dungeon in order to retain their services, perhaps picking a new hero event could include a lost, beat up merchant with no wares but special skills involving dealing with other merchants and such.



Would it be interesting if shopkeepers did not buy items from you at all, such is the case in Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, thus Dust would be more valuable as purchases, Energy consumption and damage to the Energy could not be helped along with lugging back things to the shop and simply selling all your junk that you have accumulated on the floor - reminiscent of Torchlight's dungeon crawling, picking up all the items and selling the stuff you don't need... constantly. Would it also be interesting if some shopkeepers did not sell items but accepted a small fee of dust and items to transmute it into another item: Example 5 Dust + 2 Items = 1 Random Item. This system could depend on types of items imputed to the merchant, such as two weapons + fee = a single random weapon. This also brings up the idea of gambling merchants where there are no items on sale but items to be won through a spin or toss.



I also love the idea of mimics, mimics are great - lovely in Super Dungeon Explorer - and taking my guess from Spelunky i guess the "pug" is a dog or similar themed thing, like a lizard or mechanical thing that will give you a life lick on the way out. I'm also assuming that "pug" = benefit if taken to end of level or along lines of "pug" alive = profit.



I'm liking the general events planned and if i think of anything real *fun I will let you know.



Yet the question remains to what end do the merchants use the dust given to them...

Playing through DotE several times, I felt that there were tons of instances of risk vs. reward being prevalent, making the player really feel like their choices made an impact, and they stood to gain one resource for putting another at risk, etc. (Safe to say that this is a good thing.) However, at least in my experiences with him, I found this balance missing from the Merchant. Bear in mind that I only finished all levels once, and only got to the second level twice, so I might just not have a complete perspective. As such I'll speak from my experience, rather than in absolute terms. And please pardon my run-on sentences.



Since I would typically meet the Merchant only after the first few doors (say, 25% of the way through the level), I felt that I couldn't at all afford to squander what little Dust I had on an item, especially since items can be found anyway. Losing the power to defensive systems would simply put my crystal, not to mention my characters and income structures, at too great a risk of losing further Dust. And by the time I had enough Dust to spare (say, 66% through), the Merchant was gone. (I assume he sticks around a certain # of door-openings? Does he stick around longer if you power his room, or hang out with him? Or does he get attacked?) But even that late on in the level, I'm not sure just how loose my pockets would be, as Dust is still highly useful, if just to power rooms to manage where enemies can spawn from, and thus keep strong choke points, but often to add extra buffer layers of defenses, if not further resource income.



Then at the end of the level, I lose all my Dust. Understandable, especially since having it at the start of the next level would mean having more power than I know what to do with. But I would want the Dust to count for something. I would want a chance to trade it away, which wouldn't be without its risks, mind you! Dust can be extremely helpful for getting to the exit safely, as you can designate no-spawn zones, or keep defenses powered up to hold off the horde coming from more open, dark sections of the level. So I don't think being able to trade just before unplugging my crystal would be too unbalanced. Not trading sooner means my characters were weaker for that much longer, but less Dust still means a tougher exit. There could perhaps even be some inflation if there are few doors left, to keep balance.



The one time I played through to the end, I wound up having a huge excess of Industry and Food, about 400 of each, as I was able to manage power and doors such that one choke point I set up about 1/3 through the level wound up getting the vast majority of monster traffic.



I wonder if maybe the Merchant should ask for Food and Industry in addition to Dust, and ask for less Dust in return. Or there should be an event similar to the Merchant where the player can use excess Industry and Food. One possibility that comes to mind is a Smith, or someone who can upgrade items. But as it is, I feel like the Merchant stands out as the one part of the game missing a solid balance of risk and reward.

The merchant can be killed. So you can opt to defend the merchant until the end or spend dust early.

To me being able to hack Mechanical Merchants is more fun.



DarkMeph

Hello.



I can't understand why merchants would be here, without trying to escape, just like our characters. So, to my mind, merchants should be replaced by machines. These machines would craft items with Dust used like raw material. Il solves some coherence problems : criminals who gently buy items to an isolate merchant , and merchants who stay in this crazy place full of monsters. : D



So, to use these machines, the player could need to power the room first. Until the room is powered at least once, the monsters could ignore the machine. It make it easier to protect than merchants, but on the other hand the player can't purchase any item until the room is powered. It's not really a bad thing to have an easy way to protect merchants. For now, my own experience is similar to PlayerWon : the merchants too far from my powered rooms are rarely used, cause I can't protect them. And for now, it's very hard to buy items before the end of a floor (cause for now, not a single item could have more value than a powered room), when we're about to loose our Dust and we can spend it. So I can only buy items with some lucky, if the merchant is not too far from my powered room, where I can protect him from monsters.



Other idea with machines : crafting an item could not be immediate. It could perform the craft during some turns (= opened doors). During that time, the machine's making some noise, which raise the danger of monsters (monsters who could try to run on the machine to destroy it, just like the actual monster who target the crystal). So, the player need to protect the machine if he don't want waste his precious Dust.



Also I don't know if the upper floors are all part of the ship (though to use moduls, only the ship seems good). Maybe it's still possible to use machines like merchants for the ship floors, and other types of merchants to the upper floors is there are not all part of the ship. But still need to find a good explanation for living merchants (maybe some new creatures of the planet who lives in these caverns and could use Dust for something).



I like the idea of some change in the gameplay depending on the floor. No idea if it's already planed.

Tiphereth wrote:
I can't understand why merchants would be here, without trying to escape, just like our characters. So, to my mind, merchants should be replaced by machines. These machines would craft items with Dust used like raw material. Il solves some coherence problems : criminals who gently buy items to an isolate merchant , and merchants who stay in this crazy place full of monsters. : D

Well, there's supposed to be Endless Ruins within these dungeons and these guys might be looking for a way to pull a profit. Perhaps they also thought others might be doing the same, so he brought some stuff he picked up along the way...which he could sell for a profit of course. This guy is always looking for money. :P "Let's both get rich! Or at least me anyhow."

So, to use these machines, the player could need to power the room first. Until the room is powered at least once, the monsters could ignore the machine. It make it easier to protect than merchants, but on the other hand the player can't purchase any item until the room is powered.

Other idea with machines : crafting an item could not be immediate. It could perform the craft during some turns (= opened doors). During that time, the machine's making some noise, which raise the danger of monsters (monsters who could try to run on the machine to destroy it, just like the actual monster who target the crystal). So, the player need to protect the machine if he don't want waste his precious Dust.

This idea is great. To add to it I thought of these things: the crafting machine could give you a new item of some sort, its strength relative to the floor you are on OR upgrade the quality of an item that you already have. So say you have found a fairly strong weapon but it is grey. Instead of selling it you could put it into this machine for an upgrade to its quality, maybe to green it might cost a bit and a little time (in doors let's say), blue more resources and time, purple, exorbitant cost in both time and resource. Maybe this is mitigated based on the base quality of the item, so that should you find a blue item, it wouldn't cost as much as a grey item to upgrade to purple, and so forth. The balance of cost and time for both options would have to be monitored so that one choice doesn't instantly trump the other, but I think this would be a pretty fun mechanic.

I think it would be cool walking into a room and being faced with a big Endless machine that has interesting interactions - and useful implications.

Well, there's supposed to be Endless Ruins within these dungeons and these guys might be looking for a way to pull a profit.

Yeah, but the place is way too dangerous for an isolated merchant. I mean, look at them when they have to defend themselves against monsters : they don't even fight! They can't defend themselves. Against monsters OR against us. ^^

And they can't be rich if they're dead! : ) It's making no sense to me. ^^



About items quality, I think it's a good idea. Because it would mitigate the full random loot. Actually, to find a better gun than an other, you just have to be lucky. Skill and tactic doesn't help. With an upgrade system the player could have a choice : try his luck like always, or reinforce his itemps. A less hazardous option, but a risky one, and expensive maybe.



So, yeah. But maybe we didn't see the whole item-system for now. The fourth level is a new tileset, so maybe also new items or superior quality items!



Also, to the machine and durable craft, it needs an option to accelerate crafting, because if a player craft an item and there is no enough room to open in the floor to finish the item, he has always a chance to finish the thing (or the game cancel automaticaly the craft maybe).

I do wish the merchants weren't only interested in Dust. Why not make item purchasing a barter system, where you can bid on an item with a combination of science, food, industry, and dust? Dust is obviously the most "potent" resource to bid with, but it's not the only valuable resource. A merchant implies a market--which means everything and anything could be valuable to someone, somewhere.



Suggestions for mechanics:



Let's say you have a mechanical merchant. It needs industry, dust and science to maintain itself. It also happens to have . If you discover this merchant and want , you could cash-money out-the-door purchase it right there and then--or purchase it in installments. Say an item costs 10 industry, 15 science, 2 dust. You pay the dust up-front, then divert "x" amount of your industry and science production to the merchant for "y" rounds. You get the item right then and there, but you take a hit on your production for the next "y" rounds--which, if you aren't ready for a big raid and you end up losing your modules, means you might be unable to rebuild as quickly if you are only producing 5 industry after the merchant takes his dues.

I really like the idea of having merchants interested in more than just dust. Or perhaps merely a sell resources for additional dust option. They could be willing to trade 100 of any resource for a single dust so that there are more ways to A. collect dust and B. use resources.



One problem I am having with merchants involves the process of going to the next dungeon level. Your dust is always reset to 20. Knowing this I just protect the merchant til the end of the level and then spend all my dust to buy them out without feeling like I'm risking anything. The idea of spending dust should feel like a risk vs reward, but instead it feels just like a bunch of free stuff every time I find a merchant.



My proposed solution is that you should keep a bonus amount of dust when proceeding to the next dungeon level that is based on the total amount of dust you ended the level with. The amount kept for the next dungeon level could be 20 + 10% (always rounded down) of earned dust. This would would make some incentive to keep dust in your pocket rather than unload it all on a merchant before progressing to the next dungeon level.



So if you ended a level with 90 dust then you would start the next level with 29 dust. If you ended it with 99 dust you'd start the next level STILL with 29 dust. But if you ended the level with 100 dust you'd start the next level with 30 dust.



It's also just a total kick in the pants whenever I have like 150 dust and then next level it's all gone. It feels weird to see that resource just disappear while all others go with you. Integrating a simple explanation like, "Whenever a crystal is picked up 90% of all gained dust vaporizes," anything cheesy like that would make me feel better and fit right in to my proposed idea.

I'd love to see more types of encounters, or at least some animated ones (I'll explain) because the game has such a rich and gripping atmosphere. A couple ideas:



- some simple stuff, like you open a door and a corpse rested against it falls over. Just little things like that that lend to the sense of harsh urgency in the game.



- In some games, a room will have a hologram(maybe?) of perhaps a special hero you can only unlock by doing a mission. For example: in the first room you find it, they tell you they are in danger, something's pounding through the door or something, the communication cuts out. On some other floor you can come across the "boss" that is trying to break through the door, have a real tough fight with it. If you kill it, you get the new hero. Maybe not too much like this, but I'd love to be able to unlock heroes in a variety of ways, not just the same one over and over again.

I really like fepriest's idea about different types of merchants, or at least using all of the resource types in the economy. Maybe "common" items could be bought with industry or science (makes another use for science other than only researching the tech tree, I typically don't build any science modules until like level 8+ in the dungeon), while "rare" items can only be bought with dust.



Also, maybe some merchants offer "currency exchange" items, e.g. they might trade you 20 Science in exchange for 50 Industry. (similar to how many Endless ruins seem to work, where they just seem to convert Dust into food/science/industry.)

DarkMeph wrote:
how many of these documents did Endless space have?



DarkMeph

Four more general ones and 6 more for the expansion. I like this style with specialising on one topic at a time a lot better.



See /#/endless-space/forum/29-archives

That's mean VIPs, you already mentioned all of what I have in mind =(.



Just a comment then : different tech trees for each game looks really good to me ^^ !



Oh, wait, I found a question : what do the merchants do with the Dust we provide them ? I mean, they have to do something with it, I wouldn't sell useful items for something I don't need. Well, it's really a detail.