Prices

[Egavactip]

So I bought some boots of speed +9 just now for around 33,000 or so. yesterday a defender was well over 100,000. Surely this is crazy?

[Estie]

You assume that vendor prices are proportional to usefulnes, I take it. While recently the prices have been modified to reflect that, there are various problems with that concept.

Defenders are very much overpriced, in the sense that I am never tempted to buy one. About the only one using it would be a mage for whom damage doesnt matter, and then the current system adjusts weapon price according to base damage. It is very unlikely that I dont find a defender or better before having 100k+ to spend.

Speed used to be very pricey a long time ago. Similar to defenders, I never bought anything speed simply because I would have enough of it before I could afford it. Currently I occasionally buy speed boots from the armorer, basically whenever he stocks any before I have them and if I can afford them, which is not unlikely at ~30k.

[Egavactip]

I am not *assuming* anything. I am an experienced player. But it is reasonable to expect that prices be in accord with value. And a defender is only useful in an early game situation, because its damage is so low. As soon as resistances are gained elsewhere, if not even sooner, it would be abandoned.

Really, a defender should be somewhere around 10k and boots of speed +9 should be up somewhere around 90k.

[Derakon]

Prices should scale with the utility of the item and the value of the slot it occupies. I thought that item price was based off of the item's power level; if that is in fact the case, then cheap boots of speed suggests that randarts with speed boosts are undervalued.

[Pete Mack]

Item price scales linearly with power. Unfortunately, power is measured poorly for a few cases:
1. Weapons with useful side effects but low damage output are not discounted.
2. Speed and arguably ESP not valued highly enough.
Edit:
That said, defender (+4) is a great swap for a priest prior to finding Godly Insights. You really don't want that drolem to wake up as you pass nearby.

[Estie]

Iirc randart boot generation was changed to have a high probability of having speed, simply because boots are one of the 2 prime speed slots (from available egos) and randart boots without speed are almost worthless.

As for pricing, what happens here is one of the many problems I mentioned above: randart evaluation is done for an endgame situation, while you buy speedboots from shop in the early game. Now the first speed boost is invaluable, but going from +20 -> +30 speed is of small value.

Given that my randart characters use ego speed boots more often than randarts (with properties other than speed), I dont think valueing speed higher would be a good idea.

[Egavactip]

In my own experience, I have never once been able to buy boots of speed from the shop in the early game.

But that is beside the point. Boots of speed should be really expensive to buy because they are prime gear.

[Pete Mack]

It also matters a lot which shop they turn up in. The Black Market is 3x more expensive than the armorer or weaponsmith.

[PowerWyrm]

Originally Posted by Egavactip

So I bought some boots of speed +9 just now for around 33,000 or so. yesterday a defender was well over 100,000. Surely this is crazy?

Speed IMO is underpriced. The Defender has a high value because it has full base, FA, SI, regen, stealth, extra hit/dam/ac. A lot of properties will inflate the object power.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by PowerWyrm

Speed IMO is underpriced.

I concur that statement. I have also seen BoS in shops with very low prices (IMO) compared to other things. You could easily double the prices and they would still be worth buying.