A few thoughts on preparations

[Sidestepper]

I think that scout shops and scout boss could be harmlessly added to the game without breaking anything. I can understand why scout altar might not be a good idea. With a modest bit of scumming, it would let you simulate the altar preps, but without the drawbacks.

[Darvin]

It makes sense only when you're still in the middle of the game, when gold cost is a significant factor.

From a mechanical perspective, however, this just breaks down since there's no reason someone who actually cares about generating kingdom gold would go with anything more expensive than the reliable 15 GP fine sword.

Some lockered items are amazing, some crap, so the gold amounts make you think twice about taking your favourite items.

But the gold costs don't represent this at all. Namtar's Ward is a novelty by the time you actually acquire it and costs 100 GP, whereas the Dragonshield is the closest thing to infinity+1 gear the game has and its prep cost is a quite reasonable.

Ultimately, anyone who cares about the cost is going with the fine sword or dragonshield. Everything else has an inexplicable markup that makes the kingdom prep cost unreasonable.

Consumable items like Amulet of Yendor or Sensation Stone are particularly egregious since there is the additional 100 GP reclamation cost.

[The Avatar]

Namtar's ward costs 50 GP. And now reclamation costs are 50.

I can se Scout: Player, Scout: Shop, and Scout: Boss returning, but it's probably too late.

[Fran]

Ultimately, anyone who cares about the cost is going with the fine sword or dragonshield. Everything else has an inexplicable markup that makes the kingdom prep cost unreasonable.

Consumable items like Amulet of Yendor or Sensation Stone are particularly egregious since there is the additional 100 GP reclamation cost.

Dunno, if I'm not playing entirely purist, I like to go into dungeons just with the amulet and nothing else, regardless of its cost. This way, I still have to cope with the dungeon mechanics and can have a spontaneus purist-like game; using the amulet at the start is just like grading the difficulty of the dungeon down by one.
Especially for the harder PQI runs I'm getting the costs are reasonable (still high) as you make a lot more profit than you lose. Don't get me wrong, I'd appreciate cheaper amulet runs, but I don't think its unreasonable to take it over the cheaper preps.
I think it's all about which run you're wanting to do, in the end.

However, I share your opinion about the other items like the wand and the sensation stone.

[The Avatar]

I just realized the bazaar is by far the most expensive and worst prep set.
Shop scroll: costs 8, not that great, but still useful. Good.
Apothecary: costs 33, lost a lot of versatility, but still fine. Probably a little too expensive.
Quest items: costs 44, holds all the best items in the game. Good.
Elite items: costs 55, most expensive prep in the game, despite the fact you'll never buy more than 2 of the new items. Bad.

[Nandrew]

A lot of the current discussion about reclamation fees doesn't seem to take into account the not-bleedingly-recent fee revisions. For shame, folks.

But I'm starting to find complaints about the Bazaar Elite prep rather tiresome. Literally every time this issue comes up, it's not long before someone points out that a good number of players actually *do* quite like it (myself included, yes). This prep will not be changed. If it's not to your personal taste, there's still enough others who make use of it quite regularly to justify its current existence. ( As well as the existence of every other Bazaar prep, as it so happens. )

With regards to some of the other prep discussions, though, we actually now have some data-mining capabilities regarding their relative popularity and will be investigating those some time this week. Honestly surprised to find that people actually like the scouting preps after all, considering that the feedback from the forums when they *did* exist was overwhelmingly negative (and one of the factors in their eventual removal, I specifically remember reporting this consideration to the other guys). Don't know if they'll be making a comeback since we've kinda moved on, but at least we'll have a good sense of the ones which exist now.

[The Avatar]

Yeah. People didn't like Scout: Player and Boss till you removed them, because when they existed Scout: Altar blew them out of proportion.

[Darvin]

A lot of the current discussion about reclamation fees doesn't seem to take into account the not-bleedingly-recent fee revisions. For shame, folks.

I never saw this in the patch notes.

This is the kind of change that people would be unlikely to notice. Most people have long since read the tooltip and are just rubber-stamping the reclamation process.

Literally every time this issue comes up, it's not long before someone points out that a good number of players actually *do* quite like it (myself included, yes). This prep will not be changed. If it's not to your personal taste, there's still enough others who make use of it quite regularly to justify its current existence.

There are essentially two discussions going on here. First, there is the discussion of whether the prep should be there, and the second is that its priced much too high as a preparation.

I totally concur with you that it should stay, but I think 55 gold is a little outlandish.

With regards to some of the other prep discussions, though, we actually now have some data-mining capabilities regarding their relative popularity and will be investigating those some time this week.

I'm curious about this, too. Given the overwhelming popularity of Taurog you guys revealed several weeks back, I think the veterans on the forums are almost statistically irrelevant to the larger masses, so I'm very curious as to what the results may be.

Honestly surprised to find that people actually like the scouting preps after all, considering that the feedback from the forums when they *did* exist was overwhelmingly negative

The only negativity I recall was complaints that they were just way too good. Scout (altar) kind of completely overshadowed all the others.

[Bloggorus]

Using the data is a good way to go, but you have to keep in mind that the results will be waaaaaaay skewed.

No doubt the reason Taurog is so popular is that it's the first god you unlock, and given his relative simplicity the best choice until you start getting to Hard dungeons where a little more finesse is required. This is on top of regular use, even after all the rest of the gods are unlocked (he's still a favourite of mine).

It's going to be had to figure out a way through all those kinds of variables

I'd be interested to see the stats on the god preps, I'd say there will be a huge gap between +1 altar, binlor, GG and everything else

Too many of these threads come down to personal preference of preps, and everyone thinks their favourite should be cheaper than everyone else's. Honestly, unless you're maxing out at 200-300 gold per run, gold cost should NOT be an issue.

[Darvin]

Honestly, unless you're maxing out at 200-300 gold per run, gold cost should NOT be an issue.

When I run a new account, I keep my preparations to a minimum and often just keep to the fine sword and nothing else. The majority of preps are just too expensive and not worth slowing down my unlock progression. Obviously I'll prep Binlor for the labyrinth and other level-specific gimmes, but unless it's really good the costs for most preps is just out of the ballpark for anyone who actually cares about money. With a mature account, I really don't care about costs and just throw money around to do whatever I want.

The big preps for an early kingdom for me are fine sword for the locker, Patches (costs nearly nothing) and Black Market (pays for itself) from the thief guild, magnet fireball (required on certain dungeons) from the mage guild, and various blacksmith/witch items. Generally don't use Bezar, Church, or Alchemist preps until I hit vicious.