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[st33d]

So I've got an in-game-shop.

I buy some quality armour for 100 gold. I immediately decide to sell it back to the shop, and in the grand tradition of RPG shops he's going to grossly undercut me for it. Because we don't want the player to simply cash in every knick knack he finds.

But what percentage of the merchant's sale price do I get for the stuff I sell to him?

Let's stick to 100 gold as the sale price in the shop for whatever item. What amount do I get offered when I try to sell it back to the shop?

[jwk5]

Generally it depends on how easy gold is to come by and how easy it is to find items versus buying them. The easier it is the less the player should get back for selling items. Start with a 50% mark down and adjust from there.

[Hajo]

50% is common in many games.

If you want to go over the top, provide full price if the item was bought but never used, -30% if the player left the shop and -75% is the player used the item.

[SirNiko]

I'm not really sure why there's any need to sell stuff at half price. I'd leave it as selling back as full price, just to ease problems with buying the wrong armor. Otherwise, if the player goes to town and sees +1 armor and +2 armor for sale, they're going to save up directly to the +2 to avoid losing money on the +1. I know I did that playing Dragon Warrior at times.

Now, if the player buys a wand with 50 charges, you don't want them to be able to sell it back with 10 charges and be able to buy a new 50 charger. But that's a unique case.

There's no real reason why a single player game even needs item devaluation by default. It's all based on your goals for the game.

-SirNiko

[st33d]

Not only does it reflect real world trade but if you let the player get full price back on everything, then they will instantly have enough to buy the best armour in the game after getting a hand full of drops.

It means that you can't have many items in the game, you can't have depth of content or variety.

RPGs are ALL about getting the wrong item, about experimentation, about choice and the consequences of those choices.

It's a gamble.

It's watching a D20 dance across the table and come up 20 and going, "FUCK YES!" Knowing that you could have easily just have rolled a one. But you were brave enough to take the plunge.

You were brave enough to place your fate at the mercy of the dice.

 

[Hajo]

Angband has a black market where items which are usually not for sale in town are offered for astronomical prices.

Diablo II allows to gamble unidentified items, which often just is a loss of money.

Both work well as money sinks for rich players.

I think, decisions like "Skip the +1 armor and save up for the +2, accepting a harder time in combat till the money is made" add to the game, and make it more insteresting. It rewards the player who thinks, which is a good thing IMO.

[Destral]

I agree with Hajo. Cheaper, worse armour and more expensive, better armour gives the player a number of choices. They can buy the cheap armor, and hope it's enough, go kill stuff and save up for the better armor, buy the cheap armor and go grind until they can buy the better armour, etc.

Reselling used armour for a fraction of the price reinforces the existence of those choices.

As for how much, like has been said, 50% is about standard. If you wanted to, you could implement a hidden 'usage' stat that dictates how much the vendor gives you for used armour. When you buy it, 'usage' is at 0, so the vendor will buy it back at it's regular price. If you leave the shop, have usage increase by some amount. When the armour is worn, have it reduced by another set amount, and by 1 every time the player goes into battle using it. Then, when selling the armour to the vendor, you can use 100-usage as a percentage for how much the vendor will pay for the armour.

Or something.

[SidM]

Allow the player to "Buy Back" or "Sell" an item which they might've misclicked and sold / bought. (For the same amount you sold / bought it for)

Mass Effect had a shop category for Buy Backs. I thought that was cool.

[BlueSweatshirt]

I only cut the sale-back price in half once you've actually worn or used the item.

[droqen]

I'm not exactly sure where, but I'm entirely certain I've seen 10% sellback price. It's horrible. Also, it really places the focus on "goddamn I better get a nice random drop" because you just know you'll never ever be able to afford anything better than you already have by the time you've saved up enough to buy what you want.

[Soulliard]

To determine how much items sell back for, you need to consider how much wealth a character should have at any given time, and calculate the sell-back appropriately. Half price might work, but you need to do some number crunching to determine the best value.

[Parthon]

Droqen: Diablo 2, it has a 1/8th the price sell back.

It comes down to the economy of the game, and the Player's needs and ability to get items.

If the game is a drop-a-thon then a lower than 50% sell back is mandatory, just to stop the player running around with billions of gold. If the drops are rarer, the sell back can be raised.

It also depends on the player's needs. Are they actually buying stuff with the gold from the shops, or are they mainly hoping for the lucky drop? WoW has a generous 25% sell back on items, but you never actually buy anything from the shops after about level 20. All of your gold goes on buying enchants, gems, skill training, epic mounts and repairs. The price to *buy* the item doesn't mean anything, because the player never actually buys anything.

Unfortunately this is one of those problems that requires more info, and a wider look at the economy. If you do a predicted balance sheet for the player then it will be clearer. The balance sheet should predict what the player will spend per level, and where their earnings come from and how. This will also help you balance the drops too.

Example:
Spending: Training - 25%, Food - 5%, Ammo - 5%, New Armour - 40%, New Weapons - 25%
Earning: Gold drops - 30%, Loot Selling - 40%, Quest Rewards - 30%

So you can see that buying armour and weapons is estimated to be 65% of a player's outgoings, and looting is just 40% of incoming. Now if they need new equipment every 3 levels, and in that time you estimate they'll get loot equivelant to 4 full sets of equipment:
Buyback = ( loot percentage / equipment cost ) / item inflation.
Buyback = 40% / 65% / 4 = 15% .. or about one sixth. This way if they sold everything they found, along with gold drops and quest rewards, they've get enough to replace their armour and weapons.

Of course, this is just rough. Better estimates on gold use and earning ratios would give you a better view on what to put. But if it's just a quick and fast answer you need, this is a good way.

ps. In the example: If a full set of equipment cost 100g then they'd get 400g worth of items over those levels. Selling at 1/6th would give 66g from loot, and ~166g total after gold drops and quests. Of that 166g, 60g of it would go on training, food and ammo, and 106g would be left to buy a new set of equipment. :D

[Core Xii]

Don't let player to sell items at all. It encourages grinding where they go around the game world, hoovering everything to sell.

[droqen]

So instead encourage the player to grind for good random drops?

Or only grant money in fixed locations, and have no drops whatsoever?

(Removing the shop mechanism altogether isn't really something there's a point in discussing here, so I'll leave that point out)

[Parthon]

A design for one game I am planning has a very restricted shop system, but only because there's no money in the game. There's still loot drops, but the player is encouraged to only pick up what they can use. Loot drops are rare as well, so most enemies in the game drop nothing, only the boss-type enemies are reliable. Instead most of the items come from cross-crafting and quest rewards.

There's no direct crafting, but items in the game can be modified by finding other items and swapping the stats on them around.

Of course, this is an diablo style RPG with no levels, no player exp and no money.

[X3N]

I like it when stats/skills modify the value you get, ala Fallout 2.
IIRC in Shadowrun (PnP), you could haggle for a 10% change in prices (winner got the 10% in their favour). The 10% was static, but your stat/skills added dice to your roll, increasing the likelihood in your favour.

But if your game is not so much social focused, it might not make sense to have an arbitrary Charisma stat or Barter skill, ie. pure hack-and-slash where skill points would be best spent on attack capabilities.

Something else to consider is location - have you played Drug Wars? You buy and sell drugs in different zones at varying prices, figuring out how the prices will change based on intuition, randomness and insider information "Speed will be real cheap at the docks in two days".

[J. R. Hill]

If you want to get mad props, implement a barter system.

[jwk5]

Don't let player to sell items at all. It encourages grinding where they go around the game world, hoovering everything to sell.

Actually, that is pretty fun lol...

[X3N]

If you want to get mad props, implement a barter system.

Also in Fallout 2, fyi OP. The barter effected the relative value of each item, shopkeepers items being worth more than yours (iirc, even if they were the same item). And you could use money to count for the value too, of course.