UnReal World > Suggestions

Improved trading system

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flibbo:
Hi there.

I've recently been getting into URW again after a rather long pause and there's something that cosistently bugs me, it has from the beginning but for some reason I forgot to mention it in my first forum post where I already gave some feedback.
I've been a gamer a very long time and I'm sorry to say that URW's trading system is probably the worst I have ever seen in any game. I don't mean to be rude, it's just a fact. This is not because there is no currency and it's purely barter based, that part is completely fine - it's all about the interface, the usability and accessability. I'll list the reasons point by point.

1. At no point anywhere does the game ever actually inform you about the trading values of items. The only way you can know is indirectly by "faking" a trade, i.e. offering or taking the item in question and then adding / removing reference items step by step until the trade is accepted, at which point you have the value of the item in terms of the number of reference items (say, arrows). Even then, you still can't be 100% sure if that value is correct, it may be worth a non-whole number of arrows... so then you have to take a lesser value item, like staves, and repeat the process. Needless to say this is slow and tedious and of course you have to then write down what you learned so you even remember. I have a rule of thumb: if you feel the need to make a spreadsheet for a game, then the game is badly designed. The larger the spreadsheet, the worse it is. I have one such spreadsheet for URW that lists values of items in terms of arrows, staves, turnips or meat cuts plus quality modifiers etc. Can you guess how many hours that took to compile that could (and should) have spent actually playing the game instead? Just because the game doesn't list these values anywhere? It doesn't matter that there's no currency, just use squirrel furs as basis, which I believe was commonplace back then, or some other item, I don't care. And those values HAVE to exist at least somewhere on code level otherwise the system wouldn't work at all.

2. Closely tied to nr.1 like I mentioned, you always need to slowly add (or remove) items step by step in a transaction until it is accepted, ideally in as small steps as possible if you don't want to just give loads of your stuff away for free (keep in mind any "gifts" like this if trades aren't balanced add up, your character is going to trade many times). Unless of course, you have the values noted down and can do the math ahead of time... and that's a prime example of something the game should take care of for you.

3. There is no way to just remove one or a few items from an offer you have made, you always have to start over from scratch! This is outrageous, especially when combined with the previous points. How can you even design such a thing in your mind let alone have it be like this or something similar since the early 90s (I assume)? I just don't get it.

4. If you want to know (and of course you will want to know) what items a village has available for trade, you need to go through every single house and look at every single floor tile - and then remember the items of interest in your head, or pick them up and move them to a separate spot. For every single village. Even then, you don't have the information about what any villagers have in their personal inventory that they are willing to trade. Also of course, the "items of interest" can and will change over time. You're not always going to be interested in a woodsman's axe for example, so when you look for something else you need go through everything again? Why not just be able to talk to a villager and say "I'd like to trade" at which point you get a list of all the items that village (and any villagers in it) has available?

What I would like to see is a trading system similar like the ones in Gothic or Morrowind for example, they did both a very good job with that. It doesn't matter that those were AAA that didn't care much about realism like URW does, none of what I mentioned had anything to do with realism, it's purely interface convenience. We need something like a screen with three lists: your inventory, the village's (or other person's) inventory and the list of items that should change owners. At the bottom, show the current value balance - how many more items need to be offered by either side to make it fair, and an indication whether the trade will be accepted as is or not. Of course you need to be able to add or remove items at any time *without* being forced to start over from scratch and the values of items have to be listed somewhere.

I really like this game, I much appreciate its realism and attention to detail, I spent nearly 200 hours with it until now even though my "ancestors" list keeps getting longer... While I can think of several things that could be improved, I believe the trading system should be at the top of the list. It's something that consistently annoys me quite a bit and needlessly so if only the interface was done a bit better. At the absolute bare minimum, we need to be informed about the values of items.

Anyway, just my two cents.
Best regards.

PALU:
UrW isn't geared towards min/maxing, so spreadsheet activities are really a waste of time. It doesn't really matter if you can squeeze out every squirrel pelt's worth of value from every trade, because it doesn't take very long before wealth ceases to be an issue.

I'm not saying the interface can't be improved, only that it's not vitally important.

It doesn't make sense from a realism point of view to walk into a town and ask a random inhabitant for a list of goods sold by every other inhabitant in the town as well as its stores, and have that poor bugger act delivery boy for you.

It can also be noted that the value of items really should differ depending on the individual (and village) you trade with, so prices shouldn't be fixed if realism is the primary driver. However, it would be rather tedious to find the individual who need a new slightly used axe (especially the one who needs it the most, and thus is prepared to pay the most), then the one who needs a new spear, while nobody has a need for a spectacle helm. Thus, the trade system has to balance realism and tedium against gameplay.

flibbo:

--- Quote from: PALU on July 03, 2019, 12:11:24 PM ---UrW isn't geared towards min/maxing, so spreadsheet activities are really a waste of time. It doesn't really matter if you can squeeze out every squirrel pelt's worth of value from every trade, because it doesn't take very long before wealth ceases to be an issue.

--- End quote ---
Completely disagree. Survival is the name of the game and it's hardcore, death is final and there are no reloads. I don't care if in the late game you can afford to flush your wealth down the toilet. Early and mid game you have to maximize your chances of survival and yes that also includes being efficient with your resources. If you are talking about realism (as you do later in your post) then please also mention that there is no way you would waste anything in an actual survival situation in real life. You need to *get* to the late game where you're filthy rich and that alone is reason enough to do trading properly.
Also, let's make this another rule of thumb: if a game tells you "It doesn't matter that this is extremely inconvenient because if you just ignore it and play as you normally wouldn't play then it's not much of an issue" then the game is also badly designed. A good, fun game allows you to play how you like within the boundaries of the game's setting and doesn't penalize you for not doing what you subjectively believe "makes sense". Doing that is just a lazy cop-out of investing the time and effort to do a mechanic properly. Just as I have the right to be more efficient with my finances in real life than other people are, I have the same right to play URW efficiently.


--- Quote from: PALU on July 03, 2019, 12:11:24 PM ---I'm not saying the interface can't be improved, only that it's not vitally important.

--- End quote ---
When you have to spend hours to deal with an inconvenience that only exists because the interface is done badly, then yes it kinda is vitally important.


--- Quote from: PALU on July 03, 2019, 12:11:24 PM ---It doesn't make sense from a realism point of view to walk into a town and ask a random inhabitant for a list of goods sold by every other inhabitant in the town as well as its stores, and have that poor bugger act delivery boy for you.

--- End quote ---
Or you could look at it this way: the game just removes the tedium of actually looking for that person who is responsible for trading, and for other people who are willing to trade what they currently have on them, getting the information, going to pick up the items and wrapping up the deal - yourself. You don't have to interpret it like the poor poor NPCs have to do all the work for the lazy player. Another aspect of a good, fun game is that it abstracts away the tedious and inconvenient aspects without compromising it's setting (which is perfectly possible in this case). Forcing the player to do endlessly repeating, tedious actions just to satisfy an again, subjective sense of realism, is just absurd.


--- Quote from: PALU on July 03, 2019, 12:11:24 PM ---It can also be noted that the value of items really should differ depending on the individual (and village) you trade with, so prices shouldn't be fixed if realism is the primary driver. However, it would be rather tedious to find the individual who need a new slightly used axe (especially the one who needs it the most, and thus is prepared to pay the most), then the one who needs a new spear, while nobody has a need for a spectacle helm. Thus, the trade system has to balance realism and tedium against gameplay.

--- End quote ---
Agree with that last sentence. Somehow this doesn't fit to the rest of your post though...?
Anyway, in the first part what you are talking about is haggling. Haggling is a nice bonus which many games chose to implement and it's fun if done properly (for example it should include a separate skill and/or a charisma stat). I don't think it's necessary for URW. In any case, haggling is built on top of a trading system where every item does in fact have a fixed price - so your business partner can say "what you offer is worth slightly less than what this is worth but I will accept it regardless because I like you, or because you are very convincing or whatever." And like I said, these fixed values obviously already exist in the game at least somewhere on code level, otherwise you just can't have a trading system at all. In code, things need to be precise, you can't have an item be worth one-ISH squirrel fur or something like that. Items have a value, when you offer that value or more, the trade is accepted and that's it. I just want that information to be available to the player.

JEB Davis:
For me, the game is all about role-playing, and my imagination tells me that Iron age villages would not be "convenient" trading centers for any stranger (the PC) who happens to wander by.  So from this aspect I believe the game hits trading just right.

I see learning the values of items (approximately) as part of the "growing up" of the character, who is, after all, a teenager who just left home. Perhaps the teenager should not have much knowledge of exact values of barter items (in my mind anyway).

I do agree that the mechanic of the actual trade could be improved, especially the "start over" part of trading.

Having the game tell the player anything like the value in squirrel hides of a list of items would be just flat wrong, IMHO.  Learning this for ourselves is part of the charm of the game and part of what separates it from the rest of the "pack".

Like you, I did keep a spreadsheet for a while so I could remember values of typical items. But it did become tedious and so I decided to simply quit doing it. Doing that was a liberating experience for me and afterwards I found the game's enjoyment increased.

koteko:
I have to admit it - initially, years ago, I was on your same boat. Instead of manually compiling the list, though, I looked for one (there's plenty available, search on this and the old forums, ask on reddit or discord), then I learned how to extract the values from the game objects and produce my own spreadsheets.

After playing a bit longer, though, I warmed up to the barter system. For me now it's annoying that stuff has the same value anywhere. I was extremely happy when Sami patched the board selling "cheat" recently.

What I really want is dynamic prices depending on village needs. It doesn't have to be by individual, but surely it must be by village (we can assume that they share enough so that they have the same surplus, and the same needs).
So it would make sense to go around from one region to the other, becoming a travelling merchant for example.
Or even just a trapper that hunts somewhere in the summer, somewhere else in the winter, and sells the right furs where most appropriate.

This would make knowing the base prices pretty useless, which helps immersion in how the game is "supposed" to be played.

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