What Shopkeepers Don't Want You to Know

[Nioca]

So, I decided to do some digging into the dark and shadowy realm of shops and shopkeeping. Just how do those cheery fellows decide just how badly they want to gouge their customers? So I performed a few tests, and came up with this:

 

Code:

# |  BUY | SELL0 |  60% | 35%1 |  80% | 32% 2 | 100% | 30% 3 | 130% | 27% 4 | 180% | 25% 5 | 220% | 23% 6 | 280% | 20% 

The first column is what the designer set the buy or sell price to. The second is the cost relative to the base cost of the item for purchases. And the third is how much they'll buy it back for.

 

As you can see, selling's a bit of a racket. At best, you can only get 35% of the item's actual value. At worst, you get a meager 20%. That means a 2400 gold sword will only net you, at best, 840 gold and, at worst, 480.

 

Buying, thankfully, isn't quite as bad. At least, not till it gets to the "Exorbitant" setting. That same 2400 gold sword could be purchased for as little as 1440. On the other hand, as it reaches the end of the scale, you could wind up paying as much as 6720 gold. Ouch.

 

I realized that, with this, I could determine a bit more. Namely, the base costs of spells and skills. So, I ran further tests and compiled the results into one massive table.

 

Code:

    # |  X       MAGE SPELL | VALUE      PRIEST SPELL | VALUE      POTION RECIPE | VALUE     1 |  x1      Bolt Fire  |   50          Healing   |   40       Healing Potion|   50       2 |  x3        Light    |   30          Curing    |   40       Curing Potion |  100      3 |  x5      Call Beast |   75       War Blessing |   50       Hasting Potion|  150         4 |  x9      Spray Acid |   75          Terror    |   50       Energy Potion |  200      5 | x13        Haste    |   75       Repel Spirit |   75      Strength Potion|  250      6 | x19         Slow    |   80           Smite    |  100       Graymold Salve|  300     7 | x25      Ice Lances |  100       Summon Shade |  125        Balm of Life |  350      8 | x33     Unlock Doors|   90       End. Barrier |   75       Healing Elixir|  400      9 | x41     C. Illusions|  150      Unshackle Mind|  100       Hasting Elixir|  450    10 | x51       Far Sight |  150      Move Mountains|  150       Energy Elixir |  500    11 | x61       Lightning |  150       Mass Healing |  100       Rogue's Elixir|  550    12 | x73     Capture Mind|  300       Mass Curing  |  150      Strength Elixir|  600    13 | x85      Simulacrum |  300      Radiant Shield|  175        Bliss Elixir |  650    14 | x99     Dis. Barrier|  250        Divine Fire |  200       Restore. Brew |  700    15 | x113     Summon Aid |  200       Control Foes |  200      Protection Brew|  750    16 | x129      Forcecage |  200      Cloud of Blade|  250        Heroic Brew  |  800    17 | x145      Fireblast |  300        Return Life |  300       Invul. Potion |  850   18 | x163    Arc. Summon |  500        Retribution |  500      19 | x181    Arc. Shield |  500        Restoration |  500     20 | x201    Arcane Blow |  500        Divine Host |  500    21 | x221     22 | x243    23 | x265     24 | x289    25 | x313     26 | x339     27 | x365    28 | x393    29 | x421       30 | x451    31 | x481   32 | x513   33 | x545   34 | x579   35 | x613   36 | x649   37 | x685   38 | x723   39 | x761   40 | x801   41 | x841   42 | x883   43 | x925   44 | x969   45 |x1000

Phew. Anyway, most of it should be pretty self-explanatory. However, the first columns might be a little confusing. That's how much the spell's base cost gets multiplied by for that specific level of the spell (or skill). Basically, a buying a level 1 Bolt of Fire will cost 50 coins. That same bolt of fire at level 10 will cost 2550 gold. At level 25? 15650 gold. And that's assuming you're buying at average prices!

 

Basically, the cost for any spell is this:

Code:

(BASE COST*LEVEL MULTIPLIER)

And that cost is then adjusted by the shop's prices.

 

Thankfully, there is a ceiling to the prices. The price of a spell will never exceed 30000 gold. So, theoretically, you could keep buying spells indefinitely (in practice... not so much). Furthermore, the ceiling is apparently determined before the shop's price adjustment takes affect. If the shop has its prices set to 80%, the cost will never exceed 24000. If set to 60%, it never exceeds 18000 gold. This doesn't work in reverse, thankfully, so if the prices are adjusted by 280%, the cost will still be 30000 gold.

 

Now, one last note: as you may have noticed, the table lacks any reference to the cost of skills in a shop. That's because the base cost of ALL skills is set to 150. So Strength, Luck, Gymnastics, Blademaster, First Aid, and all the others go for the same price.

[Niemand]

Some very nice spading work. It's good to have information like this at designers' finger tips.

 

One point that could be clarified: Does the price ceiling mechanism work the same for regular items as for spells?

[Nioca]

I don't know, I didn't check. I'll get back to you on that one.

[Nioca]

Just checked: Yes, items max out at 30000 as well.

[Enraged Slith]

I wonder if sell prices max out too or if the game wont let you set a price on an item to greater than 30000.

 

Nice work, by the way.

[Callie]

Wow, nice.

 

So basically, you can't buy a spell from a shop once your skill in the spell reaches a certain level. Oh well, it's not like any scenarios leave level 20 arcane blow at your fingertips.

[Niemand]

Originally Posted By: Excalibur

So basically, you can't buy a spell from a shop once your skill in the spell reaches a certain level.

No, not at all. As Nioca describes in some detail the game stops the price of spells from increasing to greater than the amount of money the party can carry.

[Callie]

Oh, I was thinking the cap the party could carry was 25,000.

[Lord Iraelithe]

O_O O_O O_O I have no clue what you just said.

[Niemand]

If you have a question, then ask it clearly, please.

 

The piece of information that I think you are missing is that when BoA designers create shops in their scenarios they set a number which determines the pricing at that shop. However, until this analysis, no one actually knew exactly what the settings did, besides the general trend that higher settings made the shop's prices worse. Nioca has now determined quantitatively how the prices depend on the setting.

[Ephesos]

*applause*

 

Useful information indeed.

[Lilith]

I could have sworn there was a chart in the docs somewhere that had this information.

[Niemand]

The docs do contain charts covering the same topic as Nioca's first chart, yes. (I had forgotten that.) However, they do not contain most of the data that he posted as best I can tell.

 

There is, however, a curious discrepancy between Jeff's and Nioca's charts for selling items; Jeff claims the effect of different sell_adjustment values is far stronger than what Nioca shows. I suspect that the documentation may not be in agreement with the software.

[Lazarus.]

The Cookbook had the chart of price adjustment vs buy/sell price. Actually the cookbook has slightly different values, it claims that for 1,3,5 the values are 32.5/27.5/22.5 (so each point decreases sell price by 2.5%) Possibly Nioca tested with a 100 gold item, so he didn't notice the fraction of a percent. Or possibly the Cookbook is just wrong.

 

That's the first time I've seen the base sell price of spells though. Coolio.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Originally Posted By: Niemand

I suspect that the documentation may not be in agreement with the software.

Yeah, that seems to be annoyingly common around here...