Is a dedicated trading system better than a shop system in a dungeoncrawler? Thread

First, I would like to explain what is happening. I am a game designer who is currently deciding on whether or not i should implement a trading mechanic or a shop mechanic.

The trading mechanic i am thinking of is a unique set of items (per trader) that may be traded one by one or all for a set of items the trader requests. The pros i find here is it makes the game a tad more unique, puts a little more difficulty and gives the player more of a reason to explore instead of development solely on one shopkeeper/trader. The cons are, it might become too difficult and i don't want to force players to grind for stuff too much.

The shop mechanics works similarly but uses coin instead of items. The similarities is a unique set of items per shopkeeper to encourage exploration. Sadly, i don't know what forces the player into more grinding, the trading mechanic (which requires players to hunt for items) or the shop (which requires players to hunt for money).

Or maybe i should just give the player an option for both .

Judging from your description, shop system is waay better than trade system. The real problem of trade system lies in availability of items which is usually way lesser than coins. For instance, if you need to trade say snail shell, that means you have to hunt for snails and that also means you can only hunt in specific area. Coins are easier cause you can sell anything you get from dead monster to get coins

If your game has randomly generated dungeon and with randomized monsters, it would be even harder to get specific items and it would force players to hunt for long time. If player could find those items, then great but if not, they would be bored

And getting items would be even more tedious if it has random chance to get certain items

Sadly, i don't know what forces the player into more grinding

From my experience, the thing that encourages player into more grinding is XP system instead of items/coins. With strong enemies lurking in fields or dungeons, any player would want to be strong to survive and thus they grind to get XP and to level up. I've seen some MMORPG players who were willing to grind to gain levels while ignoring any items dropped by killed monsters

However,

maybe i should just give the player an option for both

Having both trader and shop is great idea. You can have generic items in shop and unique/rare items in trader. Related to my statement above, you can have items which permanently increase certain stat in the trader

DarkBloodbane wrote:

Judging from your description, shop system is waay better than trade system. The real problem of trade system lies in availability of items which is usually way lesser than coins. For instance, if you need to trade say snail shell, that means you have to hunt for snails and that also means you can only hunt in specific area. Coins are easier cause you can sell anything you get from dead monster to get coins

If your game has randomly generated dungeon and with randomized monsters, it would be even harder to get specific items and it would force players to hunt for long time. If player could find those items, then great but if not, they would be bored

And getting items would be even more tedious if it has random chance to get certain items

Sadly, i don't know what forces the player into more grinding

From my experience, the thing that encourages player into more grinding is XP system instead of items/coins. With strong enemies lurking in fields or dungeons, any player would want to be strong to survive and thus they grind to get XP and to level up. I've seen some MMORPG players who were willing to grind to gain levels while ignoring any items dropped by killed monsters

However,

maybe i should just give the player an option for both

Having both trader and shop is great idea. You can have generic items in shop and unique/rare items in trader. Related to my statement above, you can have items which permanently increase certain stat in the trader

Thanks! helps a lot!

You can take a lesson from pioneer times and have trading and gold. But certain traders could value certain items more than others. Say a fur trader for instance may give you 20 gold for that Grizzly carcass cause they know how to get the most profit out of it. While say a 'terrible soup maker' may only give you 10 because its meat but they don't really care what goes in their soup. While an Shaman may give you 5 because it has a few ingredients that could be used for rituals, FInally a blacksmith may refuse to buy it because they have absolutely 0 purpose for it.

I suggest this for 2 reasons, 1 to stop price fixing were the same item is valued the same everywhere in the world and 2, to make the player think if its more important to carry the item they have two towns over so they can get max profit, or sell it in the closest town and take whatever they will give you. I mean you most likely already have different types of merchants thought up, it would be fairly easy to assign value to certain items for them.

Players who want the gold will travel more, players who are grinding will just take what they can get. You can design your mechanics so that the player is rewarded both for having/spending lots of gold and for killing lots of monsters in two very different ways (example; passive bonuses vs active abilities)

Thr111 wrote:

You can take a lesson from pioneer times and have trading and gold. But certain traders could value certain items more than others. Say a fur trader for instance may give you 20 gold for that Grizzly carcass cause they know how to get the most profit out of it. While say a 'terrible soup maker' may only give you 10 because its meat but they don't really care what goes in their soup. While an Shaman may give you 5 because it has a few ingredients that could be used for rituals, FInally a blacksmith may refuse to buy it because they have absolutely 0 purpose for it.

I suggest this for 2 reasons, 1 to stop price fixing were the same item is valued the same everywhere in the world and 2, to make the player think if its more important to carry the item they have two towns over so they can get max profit, or sell it in the closest town and take whatever they will give you. I mean you most likely already have different types of merchants thought up, it would be fairly easy to assign value to certain items for them.

Players who want the gold will travel more, players who are grinding will just take what they can get. You can design your mechanics so that the player is rewarded both for having/spending lots of gold and for killing lots of monsters in two very different ways (example; passive bonuses vs active abilities)

Thanks! That's a really nice way of looking at it and adding variety and realism to the design.