Why is shopping so hard?

[Zarrot]

This has come up on a lot of other forums so I figured I would start a thread here on it.

In real life if I need to buy something within an hour I can usually can find what I am looking for and purchase it. Why then in a world set in the future is it nearly impossible for a person to find what they need? It isn't fun spending 6 hours running from store to store looking for guns, armor, clusters and etc. of the quality and specification you need. It's ridiculous that no matter what I need it's like I am trying to purchase a Playstaion 2 on the day of it's release. (Since we are all gamers I figure we can all relate to that analogy.) There has to be a better way to handle stocking stores. The shopping channels help but you need to be lucky to catch what you need when you need it. I am not even talking about high level items or loot only items. Simple things like finding a Mausser in your quality range or a matched set of armor. The only things that are easy to shop for are nanos and implants because the stores stock set qualities and/or have a full range of all of the items you can buy. Please do something to make this easier I easily waste 5-7 hours a week just running around shopping when I could be having fun playing the game.

I would be willing to accept specialized vendors. For example in there are 8 of each type of shop (basic, advanced, superior) in OMNI Trade, if each one of those specialized in one or two types of armor/weapons and was stocked with a great variety of qualities of those weapons. Even that would be easier because then you would know if I am looking for sub machine guns I go to this shop and I have a good chance to get something in the range I need once you get past the initial learning curve of know what shop has what. Another option would be to let you reroll the the shop inventory like spinning missions. This isn't so unrealistic it would be like searching the web or ebay for a purchase. Neither of these are perfect solutions but I think they are better than what we have.

[Bierbauch]

Well seems this damn war between Clan and Omni need at lot of resources You cant get items over QL125 in shops so its only a problem up to level 100 or so.

When you could get everything easy at low levels the whining not to get items above QL125 would be even worse.

[_________________Zel]

Yeah, the random shop inventory is one of the more annoying aspects of the game. Running all over looking for a cluster, gun. armor, etc. of the right type and ql is just such a boring timesink.

All shops should at least have all their merchandise at fixed ql's as the implant and medical shops do. If at all possible they should change shops so that you can enter the exact ql you desire.

[BoomDoom]

So, I've been back in the game for a about a week and I have a very important question.

When did stores become completely useless? I remember when I was playing before I could, at a whim, decide I wanted a new suit of armor for my character and then just go out and buy it. It might take an hour or two of running between Omni E, Omni T, and Rome, but I could do it. When I got back into the game I contacted an old friend and he dropped a ton of money on me (only fair, I gave it to him when I quit) but he didn't have any equipment for me. I said that wasn't a problem, I'd just go buy some armor (I'm a Doc so I don't need weapons) and I'll just roll out. Piece of cake.

Wrong.

As a 42 level doctor I am incapable of making a full suit of any armor. I'm probably put 5 hours into this endeavor, between shops and the shopping channels and have accomplished exactly zero. I'm currently buying every piece of Omni, Cyber, Bau, Basic Tech, and Forest armor I can find. I'm working on 5 suits of armor just to try and get one!

Is this normal now? Does everyone have this problem or is it just me? The stores almost always have the same thing (not just each store stocks the same thing but all the stores basically do). Has anyone else noticed this?

I'd like to play the game but the character is practically naked. And the fact that I'm really anal won't allow me to parade around in unmatched armor (that part is completely my fault)

[_________________Zel]

The armor shops are fubar. On purpose I think. The selection is very narrow and only changes occasionally after a patch. I read some posts elsewhere saying this was on purpose, but have never seen anything official.

Kind of sad really. People would spend more money to buy their armor and weapons at a shop for convience's sake rather than spend less money camping the terminals to get items for free. Either you camp a terminal (boring) or run around shops for god knows how long (equally boring) looking for what you want, that is if what you want is even avaialable in a store. Shops are really such an underused money sink.

[Arinia]

If you think cluster shopping is bad now, you didn't see it before the tradeskill patch. Now you can be guaranteeed 2 clusters of each kind in every shop (as far as I've seen).

Also remember you don't need exact QL, anything under 10% difference in QL will work together, so 46-54 for that QL50 base will work...

[BoomDoom]

Its that my character can't simply walk into a store and buy basic things. There's no reason why something like a piece of armor or a gun should require so much time to find. A quest item should require a time commitment as well as a level of danger, since its a quest item and in order to be special it needs to be earned. But right now a bowl of cereal should be a quest item since it would take about 5 hours to find the bowl, 3 hours to find any cereal, and it would be impossible to find the brand you wanted.

Every item is a quest, because everything is very difficuly to find. At least in Crappy DAOC I could go to any sword dealer and buy a sword.

[Verdeloth]

The shops in AO...suck...plain and simple. They never have what you are looking for, and if they do, it's the wrong QL. BAD!!!

[Nikki.]

In Funcoms infinite wisdom they decided it was too easy for us to get anything. So they made it harder. So now the fastest way to get armor is through missions. Yet in missions by the time you get a suit you have already outgrown it. Of course this is silly, but Funcom doesnt do logical things it seems.

[supergarr]

The shops are useless. I havnt bought much in the stores for all my characters 39 levels. Just some special attacks and NF

[MrBunny]

Its like thunderdome. only there is no mel gibson. Funcom has to make up its mind what it wants.


Thunderdome where people scavenge for items and parts.

A real corporation where people are actually able to get ahold of what they need.

[_______________Twiad]

Might it be possible to include the Traders profession in the game how it should be? Aren't traders that guys you just ask for something, and within an houre you have it? Why is not anyone playing a trader in a big trader community, who sells his stuff to that ppl, who are running around for houres to get it?

Twiad

[_______________Twiad]

And isn't it the feeling of a real anarchy, of a war, that you simply run in a store and get what you want?

No .. in an anarchy you have ppl, who get the stuff for you on a black market. Ppl, who buy the stuff you don't need [for more than you get in the shops] and sell it to the ones, who need it and who would like to spend twice as much money as in shops, just because they don't need to run around for houres to get it.

[Zarrot]

Originally posted by Twiad
And isn't it the feeling of a real anarchy, of a war, that you simply run in a store and get what you want?

No .. in an anarchy you have ppl, who get the stuff for you on a black market. Ppl, who buy the stuff you don't need [for more than you get in the shops] and sell it to the ones, who need it and who would like to spend twice as much money as in shops, just because they don't need to run around for houres to get it.

That's all well and good but...

/me looks around

I don't see these people wandering around looking to sell or get the stuff I need.

[_____________Xed LRK]

This might sound over-simple, but would be a real God-send for all of us.
Why not allow a player to approach a Armor Shop, enter a QL and Hey Presto! all (Conventional) Armors are available to buy (of that QL).
same with weapons - but not all weapons, we should have some weapons mission only (like some summons are mission only).

Some may say: But this will rend the Armor trade-skills useless, ha ha, what makes you think they aren't already

It would work...but am I over-simplifying the problem?

[________BrontoCowboy]

Originally posted by NikkiDial
In Funcoms infinite wisdom they decided it was too easy for us to get anything. So they made it harder. So now the fastest way to get armor is through missions. Yet in missions by the time you get a suit you have already outgrown it. Of course this is silly, but Funcom doesnt do logical things it seems.

Exactly. And to get armor for your QL, you have to do a mission that's higher QL than your character's level, but since you don't already have the armor...

Helloooooo reclaim!!

[_________________Zel]

Originally posted by Xed LRK

Some may say: But this will rend the Armor trade-skills useless, ha ha, what makes you think they aren't already

It would work...but am I over-simplifying the problem?

Uh, there are no Armor tradeskills
It would be nice if there were, and you could use any armor graphics and adjust the protection levels by adding different materials to the base armor piece.

Oh, and shops suck

[Valoren]

I don't really see the problem... I've never had trouble looking for a single item in the shops, except for a yalmi... But for me it just made me want it more badly... Maybe i was just lucky tho and they always had what i needed...

I don't really see the big deal... If i goto Sears and they don't have what I want I try another store...

Maybe they should make one central store that's like Walmart which has everything now, and it gives you items that funcom thinks you *should* be using for your level... hehe :P or why not when you reach a certain level and it's time to upgrade, the armor you need just drops into your inventory via the fixer grid method... or better yet as soon as you can equip the next armor it just automatically appears and equips itself.... why do we even need shops???

ok ok so i'm being stupid :P

blah it can't be that easy as to be all in one place for you :P

the only thing i will agree with you on, is that if i sell an item to a shop, it should stay at that shop for a while then go into circulation... and not just randomly spawn items...

I actually think it would be better if they spread out items to different cities... like your advanced shops would be in different cities than your basic etc... and some of the uber nanos would be in far away zones... so it would actually make you feel like you accomplished something to get them... which is kind of how it as 125+... this would give reason to actually travel to other places...

But with a yalmi you can travel without fear.... :\ so that kind screws the point... maybe we should have some no fly zones as well... if your in a yalmi big guns shoot u down... i think if a clan flys in omni territory our big omni guns should blast them... not instakill but enough to make it risky... an element of risk should be there... yalmi is 95% riskless... i think that's retarded... but that's another story....