Limited Quantity Items

[Tobias]

I changed a couple of items on NPCs to be "limited quantity", meaning that the NPC that offers them can go "out of stock".

This should be more realistic - for example, Kay in Ashaya brews potions, but it's kind of odd that she could sell you 100s at a time (if you have the money). With the change, she will carry a handful of potions, and if they're out, she won't be offering them until she can brew more.


Game-economy-wise this could also be used to prevent certain items from flooding the market. For example, I never added the better potions to NPC shops because they're supposed to be made from alchemy. That's not going to change - the best potions will only be available from alchemy. However, it does look odd when you get to level 34 areas, and the NPCs there only sell potions for level 20.
With limited quantity items, these NPCs could sell level 30 potions (which are rather expensive anyway), but only a few, and with a long restock time, thus giving someone lucky the option to buy them - but generally not making it a good way of obtaining them.

Or, an NPC could sell common pouches in unlimited quantity, but a rare, better pouch only in limited numbers. Same for recipes.


So, if you see any NPC that has an item in unlimited quantity, and think it would make more sense to limit it (items, such as arrow quivers, which are necessary for playing should not be limited, of course), let me know - either here or using feedback tickets.

[edky]

I don't know about others, but I rarely use healing potions. They don't recover much, and the cool down to use another is atrociously long.

[Tobias]

hmm, I use mana potions plenty - and 950 health (which can be increased with spirit bottles and BD) is about a quarter of your health - so it doesn't sound too bad?

[edky]

Healing potions are basically worthless for the warrior. They are worthless in boss battles, because without constant healing the warrior would have the survival rate of a gnat in them.  They're useless in PVP, because they only allow you to survive one or two more hits - and that seems like a costly way of playing. And they are basically useless for journeying. Often times, it's better just to re-spawn and use candy and food to get back to full health, than waste time using health potions. I mean, health potions are annoying to get and they don't give you much in return. So, really, I can't see any reason why you're trying to clamp down on them. I can easily create a lot of major healing potions, but I rarely use them. I even have a hard time getting rid of them at the AH, even with a very low price on them. On the other hand, mana potion just fly off the shelf.  It's class thing, more than anything else, where magic users get more from mana potions than warriors with health potions.

[Tobias]

I think you misunderstand - I do not "clamp down" on the potions. Before, none of the NPCs actually sold potions (except for very low level ones). Now that certain items can go out of stock, I actually -added- better potions to the shops. Before you did not have the option to buy them at all.

I also do not think you will have troubles getting rid of major healing potions.
The lower level potions - sure. Those could be distilled or sold. But I cannot remember seeing major healing potions in the AH, so either no one tried, or they didn't stay in there long enough.


Healing potions are for very specific situations, which are different than situations where you'd need mana potions. Specifically, mana users have limited ways to get their mana back once combat started, whereas health can be replenished by healers (at the cost of mana). As restoring health is comparatively easy, you wouldn't commonly use healing potions.

Healing potions are more of an emergency item, to heal yourself up so that you can survive a few more hits. Most tanks alas just die without using a potion during boss fights - even if they'd have gotten healed in the next second. It does make a big difference - the time that a healing potion buys you might just be enough time so that you get one more heal from the priest, and the difference between killing the boss or having to try again. It depends on the situation (is the healer just a bit behind? are they casting on you? what's the boss' health / will you be able to do it?), but the use is there.
When playing solo, I can imagine that dying and respawning might just be faster; if you let yourself get that low in health, there's no guarantee you'll actually defeat the mobs, or be able to defeat subsequent mobs. Still, I would say it depends on the quest. If you have to get a specific quest item, and you're very close, then you might not want to respawn.

As for healing - with Burning Determination they will heal for 1.1k. With the 50% damage reduction from BD it is quite something.

Increasing the amount they heal would be an option, but it would make other classes quite tough to kill in PvP. Imagine having gotten the healer of the other team almost down, and suddenly their health jumps right back to full. Then again, it might work both ways.

The cooldown I don't want to touch. It's been two minutes for any and all potions, and it gives them some consistency.