Yeah so I'll admit the reason why it even came to mind is because of the barter toggle in the merchant UI. The very first time I ever visited a merchant I got excited because I thought "finally a game that actually tries to pull this off!" but then found that it was little more than a redundant sale button. A way to pointlessly gift items by accident, or to raise our reputation with a given merchant, which I guess was the intent. This struck me as lame on two counts though, first because what self respecting merchant wouldn't admire the customer for a good haggle, or judge them for just giving it away like that? (I mean it's almost like they'd respect you less as an easy mark in that instance hehe) And second because it's just kinda confusing for the newb, since it was never tutorialized, and then just defaults to the more awkward and less intuitive of the two 'sale' options.
For gemstones and jewelry I have a couple thoughts there too. For jewels I think these should look cool enough that the PC wants to actually wear them on their avatar (rather than simply seeing them as X amount of gold), and that gemstones should have their own display within a "gembag" menu which shows them off in more glorious detail. Basically where the camera shows a close up on the PC shaking the gems from the bag into their hands, and then we can select a given gem to get the details on it from there. It should also be possible to craft the gemstones into jewelry too, if not as a PC skill then as a feature of at least one merchant in the game. I think it would be cool if we could add gemstones to the hilts and pommels of our weapons or to adorn elements of our armor. Perhaps a group of PCs who are all wearing it on their sleeve would draw the attention of more thieves and cutpurses in the big city? People complain of random encounters, but I mean more like having NPCs/Monsters comment on it, or perhaps greedy enemies demand we hand over the jewels to avoid/provoke a fight. Or someone could try to steal from us and then have to punished accordingly hehe. That kind of stuff.
They could do a lot with it I think since it's such a genre classic but also rarely given a full treatment. I'd imagine something a little bit the way soul gems worked in Skyrim, but extended to all the precious stones so it doesn't feel so generic. Like give me some D&D version of those silly birthstone charts, but handled with more Dwarven or Gnomish or Elvish flare. You know where there's a difference between say Rubies or Sapphires that actually extends into a 'realer' magical or mythological realm in FR. I can picture where a gem like say a Bloodstone might be highly prized among the Goblins, whereas Elves might delight more in Emeralds and Diamonds, just for FR cultural reasons lol. I think the big payoff would be to make jeweled items like lesser Ioun stones or enchanted circlets, but where the PC can actually adorn themselves with the chosen gems they're finding. I like the idea of the PC starting to think about stuff like gemstones and jewelry a bit more like enchanted gear - something that has value unto itself, beyond just transacting it into the gold at the earliest opportunity (with minor tedium). BG1 took the approach of making gems and jewels into a Tetris/inventory management thing like Leucrotta mentioned, and while that worked well enough at the time (especially since the avatar visualization was so limited), it wasn't particularly exciting I don't think. BG3 could do a lot better, and already does do better in many respects, but it still feels like this stuff is an afterthought at best. I'd like them to really delve deep with it. Gems and Jewels should be inherently better than their equivalent value in GP. Not just like GP giftcards that the player has to then jump through some further hoops to exchange for GP, to get what they really want (usually enchanted equipment that looks cool lol). Instead make the Jewels more a thing of more value unto themselves, with a gameplay/aesthetic progress aspect to them in that way.
For the Silver to Gold conversion I imagined it pretty much exactly as others have suggested, where the PC doesn't have to sweat the abacus on that one, and all of this is automated at the point of purchase/sale in the merchant screen. To me having the floor at 1 SP rather than 1 GP just makes everything feel more believable, and I think they could peg the actual conversion into GP there at whatever ratio made the most sense for the gameplay balance. Meaning it could easily be 100-1 instead of 10-1 or 20-1 if needed, to make the scaling work there. Of course that is all a somewhat different subject than how much "money" we're making, or whether we're making too much at the outset, but I think it'd be cool if they gave the whole concept a bit more love. Carrying a dragon's horde worth of gold everywhere we go at lvl 4 is pretty nonsensical, even with an instant perma camp and a giant magical treasure chest. They should at least give us a pack animal like a mule or a donkey. He should be named "Lucius" and we should find him early on, the same way we meet Scratch. Maybe there's a pony named "William" too, for the shorties? hehe and they can both hang out at camp to help us rationalize how we're able to move this much loot around with such ease.
Last edited by Black_Elk; 20/09/22 09:09 AM.
