Hello,
I was just playing the alpha a bit, and I guess I noticed an issue that was a bit vexing.
Basically I have nothing to buy or spend my money on that's useful to me. When I was playing the demo, there were sniper rifles, advanced armors, and things that I could save up for. But it *seems* like (I'm not sure if the inventory gets randomly refreshed if I play longer), what the trader starts with is what he has forever. So if he has a set amount of bullets, that's all you're ever going to get, so make sure you use your bullets wisely; but after that your guns for that caliber are kind of useless unless you hope to find more bullets later.
More generally, if you don't happen to find really useful armor or weapons in your travels, then you kind of have no recourse, and I can imagine that making the game unnecessarily hard for particularly unlucky players.
I feel like there should be some kind of refreshing of their inventory after a certain amount of in-game time has passed. How much I'm not sure...and whether a waiting system should be implemented I guess is up to Stygian to decide.
Agreed on that point, even though I've been lucky enough to find what I wanted in the shops, it's a very sensible suggestion. I'd even go so far as to also suggest a system where you could still (if, say, you don't have enough money yet) put an option on a few items the vendor currently has so that you find them again when his inventory is refreshed (maybe for a fee, or by limiting the amount of options that can be put).
Also as another suggestion, it might be nice if you could allow for an easier way to reload the weapon rather than going in the inventory and manually reloading? It should be possible to just right click on the gun, or maybe double-click it, and then the character would load it with the appropriate caliber.
There is ! It's all in the help screen (interrogation point on top right corner). Basically, you just need to hold SHIFT and then the Combat Utilities bar changes to an Ammo bar where you can choose which bullets to reload your weapon with.
Aghhh I should have read that interrogative screen more closely
. Thanks for pointing that out, ironically I'm now playing a pure melee + psi character, but it will be useful when the full game comes out and I go back to my technologist roots.
Also I agree very much with your suggestion. I was just thinking about it myself actually, because it would make the game fairly stressful if you saw a really great piece of armor or weapon for sale, but you knew that you didn't have any money for it and it would probably be gone by the time you did. So it would be useful to have a fee system in place where you can "save" important items for later.
Although I found out that I can mitigate a lot of the problems so far, because the trader's inventory is randomized just before you talk to him/her. I assumed before that it was the same inventory for each game, but if you quicksave before opening their trading menu, and then quickload, you can see that their stock is randomized with each quick load, allowing you to find what you need.
That said I think it would still be useful to have some restocking in terms of ammo, and health supplies (or maybe implement a way to make ammo, just like you can make armors and weaponry). So far I have been able to get by without much trouble just by scavenging ammo from the people I've killed, and since I'm particularly judicious in my use of ammo I always end up accumulating more than I use. But at the same time it makes me much less willing to use burst mode...although perhaps this kind of decision making is intended.
Also I'm not sure whether the store system was intended to be this way, such that if you really want to get the armor you want, you have to craft it. But I'm not sure if that's too punishing or not for non-technological characters.
I guess the more I think about it, the more there is to think about. So I'll leave it to Stygian, but at least its good to bring it up!
I'm wondering if this might be partly a difficulty issue. If traders constantly got new stock you would be able to go through hypos to your hearts content. I would say a compromise would be to have new stock every time a quest was completed, or every time a main quest point was completed. Not sure how hard this would be to implement, but I agree that the stocks of traders should change over time.
Its true it might be a conscious decision on Styg's part to force us to use our hypos and ammo sparingly and consciously. It could also apply to burst fire mechanics or using your most powerful sniper rifle in every encounter (I think its 12.7 mm). Honestly with my play style I end up having 60 unused hypos sitting in my inventory for emergency, and piles of unused ammunition for emergencies, as I'm very careful in my engagements and try to be as efficient as possible.
But I guess we all agree that it would make the game more engaging, and fun, if you had something to look forward to once you accumulate all of this gear from the enemies you've killed, but don't really have anything to spend it on. I kind of expect that this is something Styg wanted to do from the beginning, but just hasn't had time to implement. I guess the real problem is how you'd implement it to prevent the abuse you're talking about, amongst other issues.
