NPC Shop Haggling

myriadium • 26 December 2023 at 6:20 PM

Even though I've been on this site for a while, I've never really given much thought on how the shop haggling system works. In my experience, I've only saved 10-20 EC per purchase, which isn't really worth it imo, since I can get that money back in one feeding session. Now that I'm starting to buy more NPC goods for quests, it's gotten me thinking if anyone has ever sat down and studied the math behind the shops.

Has anyone found a way to save a considerable amount of EC from the shops, or do people not even bother? I've wanted an auto-buy option in the shops for a while, but obviously since it hasn't been implemented, how do people go about haggling to the NPCs? I wonder if rarity or starting price has anything to do with the price limit. Also, I've noticed that for some offers, an NPC would accept it if you submit the offer multiple times, which leads me to believe there's an RNG factor to it?

(Although, it is funny to imagine yourself as a player yelling the same price to the seller before the poor guy is forced to accept your payment)

sapphire12 • 26 December 2023 at 6:23 PM

@myriadium i think @chaotictreat might be able to help lol

Imo it's about 10% ? So a little more than 10 EC if the items are expensive

hikanu • 26 December 2023 at 6:25 PM

I will admit I have thought the thought, but I haven't bothered going further with it. It's a bit of a bother, really, and as you say the amount you save is so negligible you can earn it back with a few clicks. Which is actually often faster and less cumbersome than haggling in the first place.

myriadium • 26 December 2023 at 6:49 PM

@sapphire12 it's probably not 10% of the original price, unless that's for a certain rarity. I tried offering 480 for
Marigolds and Clovers r75 (uncommon) with the original price as 525 (only about 9.4% discount) and the NPC wouldn't accept it. maybe because it's uncommon? since i have some more free time this month I might sit down and go into a haggling war with the storeowners.

@hikanu so realllll it's honestly such a hassle and i would love a user shop-like paying process where i don't have to lift my hand to type in numbers...

heatherm19 • 26 December 2023 at 7:13 PM

I've done *so* much buying from the NPC shops and I have definitely noticed some patterns, although how much of that is 'real' and how much is just random chance I'm not sure. In my experience, the longer an item sits in the shop the lower you can go on the price. So I often refresh every couple minutes and wait for the 'last restocked' time to get at least above 5 minutes. That does mean sometimes an item will sell out before I even try for it but generally that doesn't matter as I'm shopping so often.

Personally I feel like I do save a fair bit of ec with haggling, especially because I buy so much so often. In general anything over 1,800ec I can normally knock about 80-100ec off the price when haggling, especially if waiting until 8+ minutes since restock. And yes, submitting the same offer over and over definitely works a lot of the time, I almost always do that.

hikanu • 26 December 2023 at 7:15 PM

@myriadium That would be amazing.

Though one thing I have noticed when buying several of the same item in a row. The NPC seems to allow higher discounts the more items are in stock. Demands and availablity and all that jazz.

myriadium • 26 December 2023 at 7:52 PM

@heatherm19 @hikanu
woah that's really interesting, i didn't even think of those factors! if the haggling limits are that complex, it's probably not feasible to study every intricacy of it. that being said, even if you can get 100EC off of a travel, i still don't think it's worth it lol.

chaotictreat • 26 December 2023 at 9:59 PM

@myriadium i can in fact help with this
i dont know the exact maths, but ive found that around 96% of the listed price is the lowest theyll accept (prob 95% bc its a nice round number but it takes too long whenever i try). it does normally take quite a few attempts, but i do a lot of my shopping at once and do the calculations automatically so that its easy for me to know the right numbers to enter and then once ive entered it once i just go through them all and click submit over and over again until they accept the price hehe. i think unless you do shopping regularly and a fair amount at a time, tbh i wouldnt bother, its a hassle to do the calculations (unless you do what i do and implement a like. calculator browser extension lmao. note that if you do do this you can NOT make the extension enter the number for you as that is against eggcave rules, i just display it on my screen so i can enter it myself)
and yes there def is some sorta rng factor, since it can take many attempts for them to accept the same price. again, im not exactly sure what or how it works, but my guess has been that the further off your offer is from the listed price, the less likely they are to accept it (therefore the more times you have to offer it to succeed)
interesting about the length of time it's been in the shop for and the number of other items currently for sale, i can't say ive ever noticed those myself but i don't normally notice those factors tbh. if they do affect it thats interesting and the haggling mechanism is actually quite complex then, and i certainly cant be bothered working it out in that much detail! ill stick with my 96% 😋

daisycat • 26 December 2023 at 10:02 PM

@matcha
You might be interested in checking this out. ^^

myriadium • 26 December 2023 at 10:20 PM

@chaotictreat
that's super interesting, thank you for your explanation!! i don't know if i'll bother doing all that because i wouldn't save as much as i would like, but this definitely helps with the curiosity lol.