Market updates

[Rias]

Phase 1 market updates now in effect:

First, the market will now only buy up to a certain amount of any particular type of item. In addition to reducing database bloat (so many branches and berries ...) this should also encourage people to vary what they gather/produce. Don't plant only one crop type, don't forage only one type of berry or herb, don't produce only one type of craft over and over. If you do, the market will flood and you likely won't be able to sell it all.

Second, the market will now occasionally reduce stock over time, down to a quantity of 25. Presumably, town NPCs are buying things. The minimum of 25 is to keep at least some of the items available for player characters to buy. Produce, fish, and general food and ingredients decrease faster.

None of the above affects consignment.

Coming in phase 2:
- Consignment requiring a flat consignment fee per item
- Successful consignment paying a percentage of the profit to the NPC tending the market that made the sale
- Consignment expiration date

[Irylia]

First off - I really love this change. It's nice to know that things won't just accumulate forever and it makes it feel like the town is more alive when things you sell get bought up.

I have a slight concern about the numbers on some things, however, with regards to how quickly some things are produced vs how fast they get bought up from the market. I assume you're planning to adjust the cap for things over time and as the game population grows, but currently it seems like some "daily" type activities and their produce are already too much for the market to bear. So maybe either the market should be able to buy up faster, the cap could be raised, or the amount produced and prices might need some adjustment.

Current concerns are:
Crop yields
Butter
Branches

Even with varying the type of crop and the type of tree, these seem like they cap out very quickly. For butter I can just alternate between butter or milk. I imagine when cooking gets implemented this will be less of an issue for the food stuffs, but for trees which can produce 1000s of branches for massive, I'm not sure what the alternative would be unless the number of branches per tree is significantly reduced. I don't see a problem with that, by the way, since the main issue I have with trees right now is I mostly need the lumber and the ratios are a bit out of alignment between the two products considering how much use you get from each.

I'd love to hear how you envision phase one changing over time and look forward to phase two.

[Rias]

Numbers will be tweaked as feedback comes in, for sure. Most foods/product/ingredients will get a higher cap soon, as they're a staple of everyday life that literally everyone needs a constant supply of.

Regarding crooked branches, however - they're honestly little more than a byproduct, only useful for firewood. I don't see a need to increase the cap and have an insane amount of them at the market again (the amount of branches at the market is what sparked this change in the first place), and it wouldn't feel right to increase the buy rate just because a type of item is overly abundant - particularly for ones that have little practical use and therefore little actual value. They were never meant as a dependable or steady source of income. The same goes for barren stone produced by mining. People are going to have to accept that sometimes they'll produce items they just don't have any use for.