NPCs & Enemies [Sprites] A solution for Travelling Merchant's RNG

Peppermint

Peppermint

Skeletron Prime
Imagine that you are somewhere far away from your base when a message appears:
"Riley the Traveling Merchant has arrived!"

You immedeately gaze into your magic mirror to get back home and run to check his wares in hopes to see a Pulse Bow or a Martian painting as a reward for defeating the invasion, but...
...he only sells ultrabright torches, pad thai and dynasty wood. :sigh:

This happens to me everytime. I sometimes get angry and execute the Travelling Merchant, and that gave me this idea.

What if killing the Travelling Merchant made him arrive with completely different wares next time?

I propose the following item:
Traveling Merchant Voodoo Doll
m2pIz90.png

Accessory
Tooltip: 'You are a terrible person.'
Rarity: White
Price: 2
SilverCoin.gif


This doll is dropped by any enemy with 0,5% chance when the Travelling Merchant is present.
Or, alternatively, it could be also crafted with
Guide_Voodoo_Doll.png
Guide Voodoo Doll and
Peddler%27s_Hat.png
Peddler's Hat by hand.


Obviously, you can kill the Travelling Merchant on your own while having this equipped or just drop it in lava.

When you do so, all the items he currently sells are added to a "blacklist". The next time the Travelling Merchant arrives, if he gets a blacklisted item, the game will reroll it until a new item is not in the blacklist. The blacklist clears when Travelling Merchant's inventory finishes generating.

Edit: this doesn't work in multiplayer.

That's my simple suggestion. Thanks for reading, and feedback is appreciated! ;)
 
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madiik said:
This seems abuseable in multiplayer...
Click to expand...

No. Think about it, if I wanted to piss people off in multiplayer then what would I do: destroy the doll only for them to go into singleplayer and buy the items there instead? Or would I just take some stacks of dynamite and blow their house up, potentially wasting hours of work? I think the answer is obvious.
 
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madiik said:
This seems abuseable in multiplayer...
Click to expand...
Actually, you can't blacklist ALL the items, only a couple specific ones, as you can see in the topic itself.
Peppermint said:
When you do so, all the items he currently sells are added to a "blacklist". The next time the Travelling Merchant arrives, if he gets a blacklisted item, the game will reroll it until a new item is not in the blacklist. The blacklist clears when Travelling Merchant's inventory finishes generating.
Click to expand...
If I understand correctly, he will un-blacklist items the next time he arrives.
 
I think it's nice to force the TM to have different items each time he comes around but I don't really see why he should be killed in order to make this happen.

An even better idea in my opinion is to just have the TM sell more items. This'd give a bigger chance to get the items you're looking for.
He has 40 slots in his shop but he often comes by selling torches and some food. Now if the game forced him to have at least 10 items for sale then there'd be a higher chance to get some good stuff.
 
No... Frigging... Support... For... More... Voodoo... Dolls.
I don't know about you but I hate killing npcs.

Well I have another solution in mind.
Did you see one of hi quote? "Meet me behind [Name of Guide]'s house in about three hours, I think I have something you will find very appealing."
He said it and never actually doing anything so let's change it.
Now there's option near the shop/close there will be option "appointment" if you click it then the quote above will appear(and it will be remove from random conversation) and after 3 in-game hours have pass, he will walking around guide's house.
His stock will get increase and guaranteed at least 2 rarely item.

I think this is better, but that just me.
 
I don't see why he has to be killed for this, it doesn't really make sense and seems unnecessary to me. Why not just add an option to send him away, and have him come the next day with new stuff?
 
Or maybe just an option to blacklist from what he's selling, and keep them blacklisted

That could be abused too, so he only sells the stuff you want.
 
Gotcha! said:
I think it's nice to force the TM to have different items each time he comes around but I don't really see why he should be killed in order to make this happen.

An even better idea in my opinion is to just have the TM sell more items. This'd give a bigger chance to get the items you're looking for.
He has 40 slots in his shop but he often comes by selling torches and some food. Now if the game forced him to have at least 10 items for sale then there'd be a higher chance to get some good stuff.
Click to expand...
This is probably an ideal solution but I could see some variation of a blacklist that reduces(not eliminates) the odds of the next spawn generating a certain item. Lets say the player could alt click on merchandise to like or dislike something. Either that or have the extra items be able to be rolled as a particular preference alterable by talking with him.
Sort of like a recommend feature.
Traveling Merchant Asks:You in charge of this settlement Any particular preferences for the stock in the future? I can throw in a few more things that might fit your interests, for a price of course.
"I'm interested in building"-promotes building materials(shingles dynasty wood Rune walls construction accessories etc)
"Could spritz up the place next time"-Paintings and other placeable decorations
"I could splurge on some vanities"-more vanity items will spawn (companion cube would count here)
"Some tough battles are coming up"-ammo box, weapons, armor and combat accessories
"exotic cuisine might be worth the money"
-"Utility never hurts when exploring"-ultrabright torches, cellphone components,sitting duck fishing rod

kinda a best of both worlds if you want to avoid killing NPC's
 
i have a solution look up how much the items cost throw away that money and edit those items into your inventory
 
Peppermint said:
Oh, I see. This just shouldn't work in multiplayer.
Click to expand...
I think that the blacklist should refresh each day and should only include items from the last three kills. Then it might actually work in multiplayer. Yeah, old threads aren't always worth reviving, but I think there may still be potential here
 
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