From Rhialto:
Minor fixes
- Stone to Flesh spell now has the right reagents (pixie dust, bone)
- Hero’s Amulet now grants full immunity to fear
Auction tax
I have implemented transaction tax for player-to-player sales, as outlined in my recent post The Tax Man Cometh.
This system is brand-new and may undergo significant changes. It is one of the biggest balance changes in the game in years. Please look out for bugs, abuses and exploits — as usual, there is a Crown bounty for reporting new ones.
Details:
- Buyer still pays whatever price the seller is offering it for.
- Tax is deducted from that price. Seller gets the rest.
- Seller’s merchant skill reduces the tax.
- The current tax rate computation is very simple. It starts at 75% tax for 0 merchant, and each point of Merchant skill subtracts 2.5% from the tax. So at 10 merchant, the tax is 50%, and at 20 merchant (dwarves only), it’s 25%. The tax rates are subject to change without notice.
I have removed some of the restrictions on player transactions:
- There is no longer a requirement that you be within 8 levels.
- You can now auction things you bought from the store.
- You can re-sell things that you bought at auction.
I have added one new restriction: a 24-hour cooldown on reselling items.
At some point I may add new restrictions on buying and selling to particular people in the same day, to cut down on obvious money-laundering schemes. But we need more buyers and sellers before I can do that.
There is still no way to get a refund for an item you buy at auction, so please exercise the usual caution before buying.
Max offer price
The max offer price is now more complicated, but in some cases can allow you to offer the item for more than the shop price.
For now (remember, this is experimental), I’m setting the max offer price based on your level and merchant skill, as well as the value of the item. This is so that a new player who finds a dragon scale mail cannot turn around and become rich from one transaction. Eventually you will only find loot scaled to your level (including legendaries, but they’ll be around your level). But that’s not the case today, so we need it as a workaround for the broken drop rates.
- The max offer price is the lower of two values: the max-offer cap for your level, and the max offer for the item.
- If you don’t trigger the max-offer cap for your level, you can offer it for up to 1x the shop value at 0 merchant, 2x the shop value at 10 merchant, or 3x at 20 merchant.
- The max-offer cap for your level is a bit complex, but varies with the mathematical 5th power of your level. You should normally not hit the cap above level 12-15 or so.
In order to use this system, just type “offer X for max” and it will tell you the maximum amount you can offer it for.
Closing thoughts
I wasn’t able to 100% meet my goal of making it so that selling items to players is always better than selling them to the shop. For cheap items (under 10k or so) you may get more money from the shop, because of tax. It all depends on your merchant skill, level, and the item value. Consult your accountant for personalized tax information. (I.e., try “offer item for max” and then sell it to the shop if you can get a better deal.)
I’m relying on you all to figure out as quickly as possible what all the implications are for this system. Please don’t abuse massive loopholes you find — just report them. Any situation that involves infinite money generation, or overly-easy money transfer, should be reported. In fact any situation that seems dodgy should be reported. Thank you!
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