Author Topic: How to fix food selling in CityRPGs (Read 990 times)

Tendon · May 19, 2016, 03:06:45 PM

So currently in most cityRPGs, a grocer will sell food using the following event:
onActivate > Self > sellFood> [%portionsize][%foodname][%profit]

Using these settings:
onActivate > Self > sellFood> [Americanized][Cake Batter][4]
The result is something like, "Would you like to by an Americanized portion of Cake Batter, for $30?"
A client types /yes, the transaction occurs, and the person is fed.
The client loses $30, and gets fed.
The seller, gets whatever they put in the "Profit" box. In this case, that is $4.
The extra $26 is lost to the wind, or supposedly, is used to buy the ingredients to make the food.

This is a cool system, it makes sense that the seller doesn't get the whole $30. You can't make food out of thin air.

However the problem with this is that some people aren't interested in profit. They'll sell the food for the minimum possible amount. I don't know why, but that's just how it is. I can always find SOME shop selling an americanized portion of food for $27. And if there isn't such a shop, in most cases i'm free to switch jobs and sell food to myself for the minimum price.

This hurts every food seller on the server. If one person sells an infinite resource for the minimum possible profit, all other sellers have to either match prices, or get nothing.

Here is my proposed solution:
Give food sellers EXP for the food they sell. The higher the EXP the less the ingredients cost the food seller while the seller is online.
This means that if you sell food for a long time, you can sell food for cheaper, and still make profit off of it.
The most important part of this in my opinion is that if a seller dies or changes jobs, they lose all exp.
This is so that if a competing seller has shifted 200 units of food, and still has the profit set to 1, you can just- kill them. And reset their prices.

I'm not sure how well this would work on a server with no crime observation system. Right now it's like some omnipotent jerk is always watching and reporting your crimes to the police. So resetting someone else's prices is likely to get you jailed, forcing you to switch to the inmate job, thus losing all exp.

The last thing I should mention is that while a food seller is offline, their experience isn't being utilized to purchase ingredients. So the price would go back up to whatever it would cost a new food seller.

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The Resonte! · May 19, 2016, 03:29:31 PM

it would have to be very fast exp growth so it can actually have an effect

it would be difficult to stay in the same role for hours on end

Tendon · May 19, 2016, 04:00:18 PM

Quote from: The Resonte! on May 19, 2016, 03:29:31 PM

it would have to be very fast exp growth so it can actually have an effect

it would be difficult to stay in the same role for hours on end

Fast exp growth means you can start pulling in profit much faster.
At the same time it means it takes less time to hit the effective EXP ceiling. The point at which more exp doesn't reduce the cost of ingredients.
It also makes dieing or changing job types less of a problem. Reducing the effectiveness of "resetting" your competitions prices.

Another thing to add to just straight up improve any food selling jobs would be to raise the minimum profit margin. I think you can just change the minimum value for that box from 1 to- whatever you want. 5?

jes00 · May 19, 2016, 04:54:35 PM

Quote from: Tendon on May 19, 2016, 04:00:18 PM

I think you can just change the minimum value for that box from 1 to- whatever you want. 5?

Yep. All you have to do is change a couple numbers in the code.

Conan · May 19, 2016, 07:21:59 PM

what if the entire cityrpg server was like arstotzka

survival requires a ton of money (compared to your profits) and if you don't make enough/make minimum without having some sort of side job/black market job you'll die

deters people from selling at minimum and ensures those that do are highly likely/guaranteed to be involved in illicit activity.

purchasing extra land/expanding your business is practically impossible or just straight up impossible

Ravencroft� · May 19, 2016, 08:06:34 PM

You're overthinking it way too much. Keep the old system and remove the ridiculous feature where they name their own prices. Three set prices for three different size portions.

Kyuande · May 19, 2016, 08:11:14 PM

How I think survival should be:

Quote from: Kyuande on December 20, 2015, 01:09:25 AM

So I have some ideas of what hunger can really do instead of you just dying.
Just letting you know the hunger system for percent is backwards, aka 0% is good and 100% is bad.

Additions:
Running will both make you hungrier and thirstier
[0] If you die, you start at 60% hunger/thirst if you died from it.

When you are starving, above 80%:
Max health is capped at 60%
[0] You can no longer run

When you are starving, above 50%:
Health regeneration is stopped
[0] Your stamina (for running) is much slower
Max health is capped at 85%

When you are starving, above 20%:
Your stamina (for running) is slower
[0] Max health is capped at 90%
Health regeneration is slower

Otherwise:
You can run for long times
[0] Max health is not capped
Health regeneration is normal and can possibly accelerate

As for selling, I think the sizes should have a static amount, but the sellers can put extra on it if they want, but not less. It would be a tip because they would still get the profit they made from selling food to people. If the seller wants to make it expensive they can, but the server should at least have a default food store that's normal pricing.

Dannu · May 19, 2016, 10:31:17 PM

That's such a convoluted idea though. What you're saying is you want more sales to equal lower prices for customers. So that's just more incentive to have minimum prices, because not only will you get all the customers, you will achieve a minimum price unobtainable to realistic vendors, the ones you want to benefit.

Tendon · May 20, 2016, 09:44:07 AM

So base EXP off of profit made up to [the minimum possible price for a new seller].
so:
New Player
Ing:26 Profit:1 = Price:27 EXP:1
Ing:26 Profit:9 = Price:35 EXP:1
Ing:26 Profit:18 = Price:44 EXP:1

Experienced Player
Ing:18 Profit:1 = Price:19 EXP:1
Ing:18 Profit:9 = Price:27 EXP:9
Ing:18 Profit:18 = Price:36 EXP:9

If you wanted to go simple, you can use Ravencroft's solution

Quote from: Ravencroft� on May 19, 2016, 08:06:34 PM

You're overthinking it way too much. Keep the old system and remove the ridiculous feature where they name their own prices. Three set prices for three different size portions.

Quote from: Kyuande on May 19, 2016, 08:11:14 PM

How I think survival should be:

That's not a bad idea. And adds some benefits for keeping healthy, instead of hunger just being a renamed death timer.

Rally · May 20, 2016, 09:52:08 AM

My idea a while back was that food vendors could "invest" money into their stores which would eventually translate into more profit at a lower price.

Tendon · May 20, 2016, 11:42:43 AM

Quote from: Rally on May 20, 2016, 09:52:08 AM

My idea a while back was that food vendors could "invest" money into their stores which would eventually translate into more profit at a lower price.

Quote from: Rally

Shop-keeping

As it currently stands, shops in CityRPG consist of a lot and a bunch of evented bricks. That's it, no maintenance required.
When I used to play San Andreas online, I was a part of a Cops and Robbers server called SACNR where people could own stores. It would make them a weekly base in-come, but nobody could buy from your store if you didn't have stock, so I believe that should be introduced to CityRPG. Owning a store is preferable because it gives you a nice weekly income, and extra in-come for selling to players. The only thing is: You need stock. This means you will either have to:

- Import stock from overseas for a sizeable amount of dosh (much cheaper if there are no industrial buildings on the server)
- Visit an industrial warehouse and have stock shipped to your store.
- It is ultimately cheaper to hire a truck driver to deliver stock to your store. All truck drivers are notified when you have payed for stock (assuming you are not importing from overseas) and they will be tasked to deliver the stock from the designated warehouse to your store. Truck drivers receive a large bonus for delivering to player-owned stores.

All purchases from a store will earn the owner a basic profit, so no more vendors stealing all the business by selling their products at $0 profit. Your prices and your profits will be determined by the amount of customers you receive and the amount you invest in your store.

So this idea involves buying stock and having it shipped in large quantities to your store combined with a default profit margin.

Rally · May 20, 2016, 12:09:47 PM

In a sense, the stock management and shipping was part of the larger picture to make more engaging types of jobs (cheaper and more beneficial for all involved to hire a player to ship rather than just buying from the server, essentially). But at the fundamental level the idea was that by maintaining your store, keeping it stocked, investing and promoting it, your prices would lower over time, thus bringing in more business (because like you outlined in the OP, players always hunt for the cheapest). Effort directly translates to profit.

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Author Topic: How to fix food selling in CityRPGs (Read 990 times)

Tendon

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The Resonte!

Tendon

jes00

Conan

Ravencroft�

Kyuande

Dannu

Tendon

Rally

Tendon

Rally