Trading System

[Omnigamer]

I started investigating the Trading system in this game to try to find efficient ways to get Gordon in a speedrun setting. Turns out that the system is pretty simple overall, so I thought I'd share it.

First off, trade centers work exactly the same way as Rare Finds: they aren't set until after you ask to see them. This means if you check them, they will be locked until the next :00 or :30 mark on the game clock. You can use this to your advantage to influence sales or high prices on certain items by saving then checking. If the stock isn't as you want, reset and try again.

Next up: every item in a Trade Shop's list has only two possible states: either stock high or stock low. Stock high means they have more of that item, and the price drops to match. Stock low means they have less, and the price is higher. Think of it as typical supply and demand. The trick here is that these values are perfectly locked: high stock will always have the same number of items in stock, and the price will be the same each time. Stock low also has a set number for each item, and the price is also constant here. Note on the price however: both the high and low stock prices have a random number from 0 to 10 added to them. This is why they can "appear" different, but the effect is negligible.

Example: You want to buy an Ancient Text in Kobold Village. You save, then check the current stock. They currently have low stock, which is to say 0 Ancient Texts with a price of 1171. You reset, load, and check again. The shop now has high stock, which is 1 Ancient Text for the price of 464. In this example, low stock will always be 0 Ancient Texts priced around 1171, and high stock will always be exactly 1 in stock priced around 464, no matter how many times you reset. These values are set per individual Trade Shop. From my testing, it's a straight 50/50 shot whether you find the shop with high or low stock for any given item.

I'm using a spreadsheet to track the high and low stock values of each store, but it's not quite ready to be posted yet. Needs to be cleaned up and I want to do some mathineering to figure out optimal scenarios first. In the meantime I can give any specific info you'd like.

[Antimatzist]

Very cool! I also always thought there is more randomness to it. If you need some help, I'd be glad to help you with some trade prices!

[BrucePrintscreen]

I did a huge survey of the trading system in the past, with the plan to do a guide which I never found the time to write in the end. Would you like to share infos? THis can spare you efforts

[Omnigamer]

Sure, if you've got the results handy that would be appreciated. I have the high and low stock values for all areas except Crom. Also, does anybody know if the Rockaxe trade shop can be accessed at any time other than after its liberation?

[veeshadow]

Interested to see how the results, not planning for RTA though but yeah resetting for Ancient Text/Crystal Ball is annoying...

[BrucePrintscreen]

I have a few quiet days ahead of me so I will simply finish to type this guide and post it somewhere here for everyone to use. I hope it can be then completed by Omnigamer's own findings!

[Omnigamer]

This has been some time coming, but I finally organized everything enough to make it readable. You can find the trading information on the google doc below. The original excel sheet has some nicer color formatting, but it should still be easy enough to pick through. The last two tabs are just for my own planning/sourcing, but you can read through them if you want.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Also note that I centered the values for the actual towns as best I could, but without larger sample sizes I won't be able to get it exactly right for every item. Listed values have a very small random number component to them, so your range is +-5 from the listed value. For the most part they split things up on multiples of 5, but every once in a while they'll center it on strange values like 8 or 2. It's still close enough and doesn't really have much impact, so eh. The core difference is still there.