Shop/Market order matching updates

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Rias
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Shop/Market order matching updates

Post by Rias »

Some shop updates today that will hopefully alleviate oft-brought-up woes! Per the changelogs:

Update 1: When ordering items from shops/markets, the order of the specified words no longer matters, as long as each specified word is somewhere in the target's short description. Example: ORDER KEEN SHORTSWORD COPPER would target "a copper shortsword (keen-edged)". The target item's noun also no longer needs to be included, so one might simply ORDER HILLANT UNGUENT to order those tricky jars of unguent.

So the good news is that it's a lot easier to order things without having to determine what the item's noun is and ensuring you put it last. (Those JARs of unguents threw a lot of people off, with "jar" being the noun but people being after the unguent.)

The bad news is that you could type ORDER SLING and end up ordering "a copper sling bullet" instead of "a wool sling". So there will still be some fiddly cases where you'll have to be extra-specific and include words that are in the item you want and not in the near-match you don't want to buy. So for this example you'd type ORDER WOOL SLING to go for that wool sling instead of the copper sling bullet.

While it comes with its own pitfalls and oddities, hopefully this will be considered a step up when it comes to shop order matching. Get a feel for it and post feedback here in this thread if you have any strong feelings on this change!

Update 2: Fixed an unintended ordering syntax change that was causing ordering from shops/markets to require matching case, which was in turn making it tricky to order some things like drinks that have their names capitalized. Case is once again ignored for shop/market order matching.

Case matching was why you couldn't order that Farn's Beer by typing "order beer". You had to capitalize "Beer". But no more! Case is once again ignored for matching. Sorry about that.

- Using double-quotes to surround text for very specific matching cases when ordering from shops/markets is once again supported.

This means you can still be very specific about word order and exact phrasing if you need to when ordering an item to get the exact one you want. Just wrap the exact name of the item in double-quotes and it'll only look for items that match with that exact string in that exact order. Note: It can be a partial match. So "some pale violet hillant" would match "an average small clay jar of some pale violet hillant unguent".
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Marcuson
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Re: Shop/Market order matching updates

Post by Marcuson »

Based on some discussion in the #question channel, it may be time to revisit this update. I understand why the change was made -- players were having trouble targeting unguent jars when ordering from the market, having to wade through dozens and dozens of empty jars first -- but both systems, the present one and the previous one, come with their own problems.

I believe that market ordering was previously more intuitive because it targeted nouns. ORDER SLING would target slings (and not, say, sling bullets). I've noticed an increase in questions on ordering specific items and general frustration at not being order the right items.

Maybe a good compromise would be to bring back noun matching except in cases of ordering jars of unguent. (I looked through the logs for questions over the last few months about ordering from the market, and, until this change in this thread, the question was almost always about how to order jars of unguent.) If any other cases crop up, exceptions could be implemented for them, too.
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Re: Shop/Market order matching updates

Post by nobody »

Marcuson wrote: Wed May 04, 2022 9:00 am Maybe a good compromise would be to bring back noun matching except in cases of ordering jars of unguent. (I looked through the logs for questions over the last few months about ordering from the market, and, until this change in this thread, the question was almost always about how to order jars of unguent.) If any other cases crop up, exceptions could be implemented for them, too.
Seconding all of this except perhaps the specificity around unguent. I've noticed similar issues being discussed, in game and voice chat. I'm in favor of reverting to the prior system because once people learned how to order jars, they typically didn't have trouble with the market, and under the present system even those with a keen understanding of the matching are struggling, or just resorting to iterating through order <item> 2, order <item> 3, etc. until they get to what they need.
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Rias
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Re: Shop/Market order matching updates

Post by Rias »

Per the changelog: Shop/market matching has been moved back to "noun last" matching like all other matching in the game. The last word will always need to be the item's noun. This means, for instance, typing "order wool" will only search for items with a noun of "wool" rather than, say, "some wool yarn" or "a wool tunic" or "a stuffed sheep toy with black wool".

Please report any wonkiness. Market/shop searching code works a little differently than other item matching.

NOTE: To order those fiddly unguent jars, type ORDER UNGUENT JAR or ORDER HILLANT JAR
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Marcuson
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Re: Shop/Market order matching updates

Post by Marcuson »

Thanks for the change! Ordering will hopefully be easier for people. I will note that the "browse search" command now only searches for nouns, when previously (even prior to the November 2021 change), it would also match any term. This, for example, is from July 2021:

Code: Select all

browse search cocoa
(Getting list of market items ...)
You look over the items for sale at the market ...

 =====Dye=====
   an average vial of cocoa dye ......... 500 riln (x1)
   an average vial of cocoa-brown dye ... 150 riln (x6)
It'd be really nice if "browse search" would match all parts of the item and not just nouns.
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Rias
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Re: Shop/Market order matching updates

Post by Rias »

Marcuson wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 11:31 am I will note that the "browse search" command now only searches for nouns, when previously (even prior to the November 2021 change), it would also match any term.
Whoops. That's fixed now.
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artus
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Re: Shop/Market order matching updates

Post by artus »

It seems that in order to order a crystal pendant, you now have to type out pendant in full. I usually ordered pen or something and it didn't seem to target the item. Same goes for order cry pen, and anything other than pendant. The specification can still be abrieviated. Ordering cry pendant does work.
Is this supposed to be a bug?
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Rias
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Re: Shop/Market order matching updates

Post by Rias »

artus wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 7:55 pm It seems that in order to order a crystal pendant, you now have to type out pendant in full. I usually ordered pen or something
Fixed it so it accepts partial noun and is case-insensitive again.
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