Traders

[Maelstrom]

27 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

as I side note I do not really know what TOBG is but now that I think on it I think you mean minecraft. For a point of reference, I have never played minecraft nor have any desire to.

You are correct.   We don't hate minecraft as without it VS likely wouldn't exist, but TOBG is our term of endearment for minecraft.  I assumed you played TOBG based on how closely they aligned with villager trading in TOBG.  To show appreciation for minecraft there's three homages to it I know of; one of the music tracks, sometimes Vintage Beef can be found in ruins and very, exceedingly rarely an Ethoslab will spawn when digging clay.

[CastIronFabric]

3 minutes ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

I have marked every single trader I have ever come across in my world with a waypoint on the map naming their profession. For specifically artisan and luxuries traders I am also writing the date of their next restock into the waypoint title. Because I still have 1 poor potential diamond, one poor potential emerald and 2 poor potential peridots at home which are virtually useless aside from selling them, and those two are the (seemingly rare) trader types potentially buying them. If I had the materials to make a book or some other mod for journal keeping installed, I would write down more details. Or if there just was an actually good, performant, realistic mapping mod that allows free-style writing on the map aswell. Every little detail I have at home I don't need to remember, because most things the traders buy are predictable; a random assortment of tools from various metals, clothing and food. As I had screenshotted above there are plenty traders everywhere so if I ever have the need to buy or sell something specific that isn't rare luxuries, I can go on a single 5000 block trip around about 10 traders. I am also playing with Combat Overhaul's "Quivers and Sheats" mod, meaning I always run around with a knife sheath with gear pouch giving me a free inventory slot to always have all my gears on me should I randomly come across a new trader and see a fancy painting or halite.

For this specific playstyle that doesn't see trading a primary part of progression I think the current system is good enough. It could be cooler, for sure, but it works well right now. You can cut some corners with traders selling you stuff, you can surely optimize capitalist tendencies as Maelstrom pointed out but ultimately these traders do not break balance because they are not OP or exploitable and they do not allow you to obtain 90% of all progression items. I also play with better ruins which, as I mentioned, adds a few more "story" locations for which these traders give you quests. The required quest item I also write down in the waypoint's name.

Just to be clear I am not asking if you mark traders and what kind of traders they are. I do that as well.

I am asking do you write down all the items you see for that specific trader (not just that type of trader but that specific trader) that you might want to buy or sell while on your way to get lets say Chalk for example? and then go back as well perhaps when the timer resets. That is a lot of dedication and time devoted to trading for items like clothing and nice looking vessels, that is a lot of travel time over areas you have already been as well.

Regardless, I assume your answer is yes and that is fair enough. I do not, I usually do not have the time to spend nearly a in game month back and forth to get some nice clothing or vessels but to be fair I do not play into super late game. Regardless, I think it can be changed for the better.

[CastIronFabric]

5 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

You are correct.   We don't hate minecraft as without it VS likely wouldn't exist, but TOBG is our term of endearment for minecraft.  I assumed you played TOBG based on how closely they aligned with villager trading in TOBG.  To show appreciation for minecraft there's three homages to it I know of; one of the music tracks, sometimes Vintage Beef can be found in ruins and very, exceedingly rarely an Ethoslab will spawn when digging clay.

what suggestion did I make that is similar to villager trading in minecraft?  

Just as a reference I have zero idea how that system works so anything I said is purely by chance, but what suggestion did I make that is similar?

Edited 19 hours ago by CastIronFabric

[Rainbow Fresh]

5 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

what suggestion did I make that is similar to villager trading in minecraft?  

Not so much a suggestion than your opening statement of how you don't like VS's trading, so you installed a mod that lets you kidnap traders for your personal human vernding machines at home. That is how trading work in Minecraft for every player over the age of probably 8 who has played the game more than once. Can't say if their "Trader rebalance" is finally a thing or not, but back when I last played it there was still one specifically overpowered item you could only get by being really, really lucky - or finding a single villager. Steal that villager in a boat, bring him home. Let him go through 20 years worth of unemployment history by constantly breaking his workstation and placing it back down to reset his trades (as they are locked per villager once interacted with once). Reroll until he sells a Mending Enchantment Book (the thing that makes all your gear never break). Trade. Feed him to a zombie on hard difficulty, cure him back, repeat 5 times, book now costs probably only 1 emerald (Gear equivalent). Done. Repeat as seen fit for every other max level enchantment in the game, aswell as all other resources other villager types can trade.

Turns even the most "you start in an empty void with nothing but a single block to stand on" challenges into normal gameply as you can, between traders and randomly spawning wandering traders (more akin in function to what VS's traders currently are), obtain about 90% of all renewable resources in the entire game through them. No necessarily directly, but through chains of unlocking one item through another.

[Maelstrom]

1 minute ago, CastIronFabric said:

Just as a reference I have zero idea how that system works so anything I said is purely by chance.

That is hilarious how well your comments (or maybe my interpretation of your comments?) aligned with TOBG trading mechanics.
 

1 minute ago, CastIronFabric said:

what suggesting did I make that is similar to villager trading in minecraft? 

It wasn't your suggestion so much as your comments (or how I interpreted your comments) indicated you wanted VS to be more like TOBG.  Then again, there's a lot of people that post a "wah VS isn't like TOBG and I want it to be like TOBG" type comment that I may have assumed you were posting such a comment.  Please accept my apologies for proving, once again, that my assumptions are wrong 9 times out of 8.

[Maelstrom]

8 minutes ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

finding a single villager. Steal that villager in a boat, bring him home.

It got even worse than that.   Just find a village and set up camp. 

1. Kidnap three villages
2. Enslave one as a farmer
3. Traffic the other two into producing more villagers
4. PROFIT!!!

Within a few short hours one could equipped in diamond everything, enchanted to the max without so much as mining more than wood and stone.  Completely and totally skip any time or danger from mining.  Every enchanted book can be obtained from the librarians initial trade offers.

But we digress.

[CastIronFabric]

1 hour ago, Maelstrom said:

That is hilarious how well your comments (or maybe my interpretation of your comments?) aligned with TOBG trading mechanics.
 

It wasn't your suggestion so much as your comments (or how I interpreted your comments) indicated you wanted VS to be more like TOBG.  Then again, there's a lot of people that post a "wah VS isn't like TOBG and I want it to be like TOBG" type comment that I may have assumed you were posting such a comment.  Please accept my apologies for proving, once again, that my assumptions are wrong 9 times out of 8.

I think maybe its time we get back on topic. I have not played Minecraft and that is that, I have said pretty much all there is to say that is directly related to this topic so for now I am done, everyone else enjoy the conversation.

[Chrondeath]

I'm getting dumb ideas that might square the circle here, although they're probably too much effort (maybe as a mod): wandering traders taking commissions. 

I'm envisioning maybe a separation between traders who reside in a fixed location and traders who maybe use the old cart model and actually move between sites, although probably by teleporting and not actual movement, maybe requiring some kind of "cart parking spot" structure to avoid collisions.  The non-moving traders would spawn with one of those and then you'd be able to build your own to let a wandering trader spawn at your base. 

The wandering ones would have higher prices because they're making their money (in theory, maybe also in practice) by doing the "buy low sell high across long distances" things.  Maybe they have an eclectic set of marked-up things from other traders in the area.  The commissions idea, then, is that you would make a request, ask a wandering trader to go visit some specific non-wandering trader that you had previously found, to buy or sell something specific, and the wandering trader would, for a fee / markup, go do that for you, giving you a timeframe in which they would be back.  Maybe let them bypass the stock rotation, maybe not.

That way, there's still reasons to make a big run out to the (stationary) traders and do the trades yourself, because you'll get a better price and you can move faster than the guy with the cart, but you'd be able to delegate the trip at a cost of time and gears.  Feels to me like it would be thematic and balanced but there's probably issues I haven't thought of.

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

but I have atleast found the mention of an official interview with the devs wherein Minecraft-style trading behavior was put as a no-go.

I can do you one better:

Video with timestamp of when the NPC mechanics are discussed. Basically, the devs want to flesh the system out a little more, but also made it pretty clear that they don't want to go the Minecraft route of setting up permanent trading halls at the player's base. Which makes sense, given that the world is supposed to feel wild and sparsely populated, with the goal of players using their wits and doing the work themselves to survive in such a world. It's a quality that Minecraft used to have, but doesn't anymore, since there's a village over every hill and NPCs can be exploited/manipulated easily with no drawbacks.

[CastIronFabric]

10 minutes ago, Chrondeath said:

I'm getting dumb ideas that might square the circle here, although they're probably too much effort (maybe as a mod): wandering traders taking commissions. 

I'm envisioning maybe a separation between traders who reside in a fixed location and traders who maybe use the old cart model and actually move between sites, although probably by teleporting and not actual movement, maybe requiring some kind of "cart parking spot" structure to avoid collisions.  The non-moving traders would spawn with one of those and then you'd be able to build your own to let a wandering trader spawn at your base. 

The wandering ones would have higher prices because they're making their money (in theory, maybe also in practice) by doing the "buy low sell high across long distances" things.  Maybe they have an eclectic set of marked-up things from other traders in the area.  The commissions idea, then, is that you would make a request, ask a wandering trader to go visit some specific non-wandering trader that you had previously found, to buy or sell something specific, and the wandering trader would, for a fee / markup, go do that for you, giving you a timeframe in which they would be back.  Maybe let them bypass the stock rotation, maybe not.

That way, there's still reasons to make a big run out to the (stationary) traders and do the trades yourself, because you'll get a better price and you can move faster than the guy with the cart, but you'd be able to delegate the trip at a cost of time and gears.  Feels to me like it would be thematic and balanced but there's probably issues I haven't thought of.

I know I said I was going to take a pause but I do want to say a few things

I think the travel time as it stands is not unreasonable IF what you can buy and sell is more helpful.

I personally do want to build a large village with traders in said village and I am going to do that, however I think the simplest solution to the traders issue is simply expand what there is to buy, that would not involve much programming at all.

 

[Maelstrom]

Traders have a pretty large inventory of possible items to trade.   From what I can tell it is basically a loot table with some items being more rarely offered than others.

The offers for purchase and sale seem like they haven't changed at all since I started playing in 1.14 and they feel they were a bit of a "I'll fix this later" by Tyron, but he (and the expanded dev team) haven't yet circled back to it.

[CastIronFabric]

27 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

Traders have a pretty large inventory of possible items to trade.   From what I can tell it is basically a loot table with some items being more rarely offered than others.

The offers for purchase and sale seem like they haven't changed at all since I started playing in 1.14 and they feel they were a bit of a "I'll fix this later" by Tyron, but he (and the expanded dev team) haven't yet circled back to it.

It would be helpful in the early/mid game if traders sold more leather or wait, they do not sell leather at all.

Anyway, I really should punt for the day (I will try I promise)

[HalfAxd]

3 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

The smart player brings bronze ingots, forge, anvil, etc to craft said items at the trader's site.

Traders were always fun things to find in the world...  I'd never thought of building a shack next to one far away to mine their wares.

Total epiphany happening on my world now...  thank you