AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

As you all know by now, and if you don't, you will, the prices across Amia have changed. From what I can tell, everything is higher. I'm not sure, might just be potions and healing kits. Still, I'm curious what this is about?

There was no IC word or OOC word about changes, no roleplay or lore to support it, it just kinda happened overnight.

I'm humbly requesting this be repealed. If the idea was to drain gold, well, it won't affect epic characters much really, but, having a brand new character, I can tell you it certainly is making levelling difficult. I can only see this punishing low level characters, which, if that was the intent, I don't really understand why.

Thank you for listening.

This was done to remove a few gold exploits. As far as I am aware the impact on the rest of the items shouldn't of been major.

I know nothing of any exploits, but, I will say that the prices Hilrash PAYS are now lower yet you pay more for everything now. Was there really no other way to fix an exploit? I mean.. if this was a lore/IC thing for the economy changing, I'd completely accept that. But... we are literally talking about changing the economy due to someone trying to cheat. Sorry for any snark, it's not intended, just trying to understand the thinking here.

Going through the module there were several merchants that had buy/sell rates that were biased towards certain races and alignments. I went through and normalized the rates through out both modules so that the base mark up and mark down rates are now even. Merchants are still going to modify their prices based on racial preferences, cha modifier, and appraise skill.

When this was done I used the existing average of the stores, so some places charge more, some charge the same, and some charge less.

TLDR, the exploit was probably some shit disturber going around and doing appraise loops.

Was a big issue back on Arelith, where if you had appraise high enough and loaded your inventory up at a merchant that'd sell stuff cheaper then another would buy them; you could effectively acquire endless coin.

Maybe I'm ignorant a f tho, but this would make sense of why Hil'rash would be both paying out less and charging more. If I am right, props for fixing it!

Appraise caps at 20% regardless of race, so no.

There were a few vendors who's sell and buy markup/down were with in 20%. Then if you knew the correct vendors there were some who had lower sell marks than other had buy mark downs.... If you follow that.

msheeler wrote:

There were a few vendors who's sell and buy markup/down were with in 20%. Then if you knew the correct vendors there were some who had lower sell marks than other had buy mark downs.... If you follow that.

Actually that is a little confusing because I read it as a few players knew and exploited something so the reaction was to make everything expensive... regardless of player, character and gold return for lower levels. Or am I not reading it right? Surely the better option was to make potions unsellable after purchase or drop? I regularly find stuff I trash as I can't sell it.

Just seems a big hammer for a little nut really. *shrugs*

After last night's update, I looked again, seems like only a few % points change now, not a big deal, and if it fixed an exploit, so be it. Thank you MSheeler for looking into it!

Example: Pre-change mindblank potion in Khem was 990 gold
Yesterday, it cost 1345
Today, 1071

Selling in prices seem about 10% or less lower than before all this started, so it's a cumulative roughly 20% increase across the board now, but... that beats what it was yesterday! Items that used to cost 25k were 36k. Today, armor that was... 25k, sold yesterday for 36k (I know, I paid it), and today is 29k. So... ehh, still a hike, but, much more reasonable, I'd say.

As a side note... Personally, I thought it was a good thing that different stores paid different amounts, as it is in the real world, I can't see having standardized pricing in Amia/Khem/Runedar/Ruathym being a thing.

Also... it was mentioned that the merchants make adjustments for alignment and charisma? Umm... since when? I've only seen a chart for racial adjustments. Had no idea charisma even played a part? It makes sense, don't get me wrong, but I had no idea it did anything, as I've never experience it that I'm aware of.

All the racial adjustments are fairly minor and you need a pretty specialized character to reap the benefits of the appraise/charisma route.

I am glad everything is better now. Thankfully it just required some tweaking.

That Guy wrote:

I know nothing of any exploits, but, I will say that the prices Hilrash PAYS are now lower yet you pay more for everything now. Was there really no other way to fix an exploit? I mean.. if this was a lore/IC thing for the economy changing, I'd completely accept that. But... we are literally talking about changing the economy due to someone trying to cheat. Sorry for any snark, it's not intended, just trying to understand the thinking here.

Fixing exploits doesn't require ic reason because it entails fixing situations that shouldn't exist ic to begin with*

Yes, there is in fact no other way to fix a buy sell loop other than adjusting buy and sell rates, believe it or not. That is the source of the problem, so that's what you change to fix.

No justification is needed, ever, to fix instances where people can cheat to break the game. If magic missile tomorrow has a bug that makes it do 20000 damage, we'll fix it and never once acknowledge that for a bit a level 1 spell could eradicate armies.

Making random bits of loot unsellable is not only unelegant, difficult to do, makes even less sense ic, but also, it doesn't actually fix the problem, since the problem is twofold: both the buy price and the second price. By changing a few individual items you don't actually fix the cause of the problem.

End of the day, if you demand an ic explanation for why things are more costly, I would remind everyone that formians and an army of orcs and goblinoids have famously devastated trade and settlements on the island recently. Piracy is massively on the rise in the ruathym region, and khem never really ever recovered from anubis and set. A particularly harsh winter as well as other circumstances means the Frozenfar region suffers a great deal. All of these things contribute to cascading price increases.

*yes, I know basic economic says buy low sell high but we're a video game where people arent allowed to make actual infinity gold by portalling back and forth.

(Ps, money should only ever be an issue on amia before level 6 or if you play a dedicated archer. By level 6 you can solo goblins or Darkhold nom matter what your build is, and your money problems are over.)

TormakSaber wrote:

(Ps, money should only ever be an issue on amia before level 6 or if you play a dedicated archer. By level 6 you can solo goblins or Darkhold nom matter what your build is, and your money problems are over.)

... ah well I play just about a full time archer, might explain why I'm not rolling in coin..!! Thanks for the explanation though!

Archers are always going to be the poorest archetype because you're the only class that has to pay high end restocking costs for your every day pew pew - warriors and mages don't do that.

My suggestion (assuming a highish level character just looking for "maintenance gp" or just to get money for, whatever, you know) - get an unlimited ammo bow, there's a bunch of various types, and wander around khem. The mobs drop good loot for selling but aren't so hard as to really even make most epic PCs bat an eye at the damage they put downwind. You could also do the lizardmen or the beastmen, but rpetty much anywhere in KHem is going to satisfy that level rnage and drop roughly +3 tier loot, some of which will sell for gold cap. By using an unlimited ammo bow you get to ignore ammo restocking costs whenever you go to get gold. I basically suggest using the unlimited ammo bow whenever you can, tbh.

If you're a lower level, you can do the same thing with mundane arrows, and going around Darkhold and the West coast of Amia (if you're a bit higher), following the coast from Wharftown on up and fighting the brigands. The west cost has a lot of hilly terrain that benefits an archer vs spawns, and darkhold itself is very simple with only a ghostly visage potion and any source of negative energy resistance, like from one of those lovely random white/yellow items.

These Two Hot Tips should let basically any character, archers included, stay in GP. Does it involve a bit of 'grinding'? Yeah - but there's also another upside to this. The areas I mention are also really popular. That means when you're doing this you're very likely to run into other PCs, to RP with and run along with, so it's not you alone.

I always felt everyone benefitted from everyone having better knowledge of the server, in terms of the mechanics and being able to make their characters function, and for archers, having an easy source of gold is a part of that.

^ Bump.

My dwarf is not an AA so the unlimitted ammo doesn't back quite the punch it does for those elven scum. (Love you Winya pls don't shoot.)
But, it does mean I don't blow literally thousands of GP just doing mundane travel and group exploration.

Hunters bow is unlimited ammo I think, not sure about the stag one though... can't remember off the top of my head. Human archer though also a ranger so I can at least go sword and board even if it is a grind at times.

Beast tend to be the general go to but it does get predictable after a while, not to mention I never seem to leave the place wth much other than the coin I get for each kill. It does amaze me how people can get good return from areas for resources spent, potions, heal kits etc.

Merchant Prices change.. please revert.

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