Merchant’s Beacon | Patreon Poll #23

Hey Patrons!

As mentioned in the latest weekly, I’m changing up the alchemize spell a bit. With this change it will be a very potent tool for the player to clear out inventory space by converting items to gold or energy on the go.

This leaves the merchant’s beacon in an awkward spot though, as it was also made to fulfill this function. I’m considering just removing it and having shops sell a few alchemize uses instead, but I figured this was a good opportunity to ask for your input! If people are particularly attached to the merchant’s beacon is can probably stick around.

It’s worth noting that the magical porter spell is likely going to be removed or redesigned regardless of the outcome of this poll.

The option that gets the strongest support will be implemented in v1.1.0!

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Please vote for all the options that you like, not just for your one favourite! I allow multiple votes as it means that a higher proportion of people will end up voting for the winning choice.

All patrons are encouraged to share their opinion by commenting and voting, but currently only the votes from Golden+ Supporters are counted when determining a poll winner. Votes from Shattered Supporters are worth double!

Replace the Beacon with Alchemize

The main thing I’m planning at the moment. Shops will stock a few charges of alchemize (at a reasonably low price) that will both help players with inventory management and encourage them to make more charges of their own at an alchemy pot.

Recall that each alchemize charge lets the player turn an item (or stack of items) into gold/energy, as long as that item can be sold or energized normally. The beacon currently allows the player to sell as many items as they want in a single sitting. Alchemize would be sold with a few charges, to help counterbalance the fact that each charge only works on one item or item stack. I’m also likely going to make alchemize a fairly low cost recipe, given that I want to encourage players to use it for convenience.

Sell both Beacons and Alchemize

A possible middle ground option would be to go ahead with letting the shops sell alchemize, but also keep merchant’s beacon around as well. My only worry with an option like this is that the player might be able to just buy their way to recycling all the items they want, as so would never bother making alchemize at an alchemy pot.

Change Beacons to also Convert Items to Energy

The second of two middle ground options would be to keep the beacon but change it to also turn items into energy, as well as gold. This gives a similar result to the first choice while also letting the beacon stick around. The only real problem here is that letting the beacon create energy doesn’t make much sense from a thematic perspective.

Change Nothing

The final option is to just not do anything at all. This would keep the beacon in its current place as something that’s only used for interacting with shops and alchemize would exist separately as something the player is encouraged to make through alchemy.