It helps readability to break stuff up into paragraphs.
I've felt the same thing though with TC pricing (though it's not limited to TC). I pick up treasure maps if they're cheaper than the gold I'd get from them and frequently see them listed for insane prices. (More than you'd get from looting the gold and all other items in total - think like 15K for an expert Trammel map, etc) Whoever thinks I'm willing to *lose* money hunting treasure maps can think again, lol.
My understanding of TC vendors is that you don't pay a fee based on the value of the items inside, yes? You just pay a rental fee? That's likely leading to the overpricing as there's no incentive to price it at a value that it will sell at - set it on there for some insane price and if it takes a year to sell during a drought of that particular item, then fine.
This speaks to the problem I'm noticing with player economy in general. There isn't really much of one. The best way to get ahead currently is to farm for whatever drops the most raw gold. Any gems get stuffed into a pouch and sold to a vendor. Any reagents or other ExEx compatible items get stuffed into an ExEx box to languish as most rarely sell. Any other items get either smelted/chopped for raw materials, sold to vendors, or trashed for tokens.
I'd love to see effort put into revitalizing player economy. Some things I've thought about:
Remove the daily fee associated with items on vendors and do a flat 3-5% fee when the item is purchased (seller pays)
This is a big one. Vendors should probably have a base daily fee that's relatively cheap, but adding items shouldn't increase that fee.
I've been building up a stash of high-priced items (NPS SoP's, etc) that I can't put on a vendor because the fees would eat me alive and the economy is so slow I can't rely on it selling quickly. I feel awkward spamming world chat with sales offers and posting in Discord/Forums to sell stuff seems like a bad thing for engagement - things should be kept in-game as much as possible.
Add a system for breaking down artifacts to gain some sort of artifact currency
This is mostly because I feel bad about trashing so many artifacts. There are a few that people want (SoT, BoneCrusher, Blaze, etc), but I just trash the vast majority of them since there's no build that needs them.
Some sort of system where you could break these down and use that currency to buy other artifacts would be nice. You could even have BC's, etc on there for a very high price. This would give other artifacts a reason to exist and a reason to sell/buy them.
Could even to a Tokuno turnin style thing where you turn in like 10 random artifacts, then get one artifact at random. I'm not a big fan of gambling mechanics, but this would be better than nothing.j
Other thoughts:
* Necromancy reagents need a use. They are currently just vendor trash.
* Organics are pretty worthless now despite the newbie dungeon touting them as a great way to make starter gold.
* There are a lot of collection items from T-Maps that just get trashed. Some reward for collecting a full set would encourage selling them and completing sets.
I could probably keep going, but if I make this much longer I'll have to get a publisher.
