I can get you some math on how many items are in each shop/shelf! Campus Supplies: 91 Tailored Fashions: 149 (+Materials): 60 General Store: 127 (+Recipes): 128 Salon: 146 Arcade: 151 (+Snack Bar): 75 Greenhouse Garden: 69 (+Recipes): 68 And for comparison: Temple of Growth: 63 Faun's Fragments: 35 Nesting Playce: 80 Terrace Hive: 30 Obviously this doesn't account for rarity - see how Greenhouse Garden skews heavily Common so GG commons are very hard to get.

Some scrambled thoughts before I go grocery shopping today: I feel like, with the system the way it is, there's no real way to solve "buying items is getting more and more difficult" beyond "make more potential buying spaces" (more NPC shops, special shelves, split stock between multiple NPCs, etc etc) -- every solution to Being Able To Purchase Items In Shop More Easily has been to add more shelves in some way. The idea of implementing an "extra stock" shelf for any shopkeeper who gets above X number of items could be interesting because it's not specific -- like, the Snack Bar for Piper and splitting the recipes between Robin and Jay were super useful changes, but also required someone to sit down and figure out which things should go in which shelf, how to categorise them, and also required users to notice "Hey, this shop is getting difficult to find items in, let's do some math and compare it to other shops to see how big it really is!" A standard "once NPCs get over 100 items they get a default second shelf (on top of the normal Devoted shelf)" could be something that is set to trigger automatically so that nobody needs to notice and brainstorm new ways to add a shelf when an NPCs stock gets out of control. Having all Hope quests chain more effectively would be one way to handle it -- teaches new folks about quest chaining and makes shop stalking less necessary -- but given how much shop stalking is generally needed in the game as a whole I'm not sure this makes a lot of sense, and also "go through all the quests in hope with a game design eye and resculpt the entire experience" is WAY easier said than done Pack more things (ALL things???) into selection/bundle items -- now that Shady's set this standard, it's on the table -- what if all the windblown patterns were in one "windblown stuff" selection item, what other things were packed into bundles by price ("tier one kitchen tools selection" "basic ingredients selection" "common science kit selection")? Downside of this: harder to window shop since you'd have to check what's in an unfamiliar bundle, uh, on a timer!! And also trying to think of good bundle names for things that just happen to be similar prices lmao. I don't know that this would actually make things less overwhelming for newbies, but in the long run, it would make it easier to get the things you want. The same bundle suggestion but it's a new shelf? So there's a, like, Selection Item Shelf that stocks Just Bundled Versions of everything, for if you know exactly what you want, to make it potentially easier to find a specific thing without making newbies navigate a bunch of bundled stuff. Or the Devoted shelf becomes this, instead of just being a second shelf????? IDK I HAVENT THOUGHT THIS THROUGH I LITERALLY JUST HAD THE THOUGHT And a bit of a more out there idea -- we already have quests locked to reputation levels, and we already have items locked to crafting levels, so what if there was a hidden Tutorial Level, basically, that tied in to both? So while your tutorial level is unmaxed, a smaller number of items are able to spawn in the shops, and the quests are all achievable by a newbie, so that you can get the hang of it. It'd only last like, idk, 5-10 quests (total, not per NPC, it wouldn't matter which NPCs quests you do to raise your "tutorial level"), and once your tutorial level is maxed, everything opens up? I think it would need to be visible/explicit that you're in this kinda easier mode, there'd have to be some kinda banner in shops that's like "You're still learning the ropes, complete 7/10 more quests to access the full stock!" so that if you're trying to buy something you can't access yet, you know why and what to do. I can def see this being controversial for anyone who wants to join and immediately be able to buy like, everything, but it might also have the benefit of making the huge amount of Hope items feel exciting rather than overwhelming, if this huge stash of things you can buy is something you've UNLOCKED? And then, once you have access to everything, you've been here long enough to know you can decline quests and send kith out for items maybe.... IDK THIS IS AN OUT THERE THOUGHT but I figured i'd throw it in the ring as a direction to ponder for "way to make this less overwhelming for new folks" OKAY THATS ALL I CAN COME UP WITH RN I GOTTA GO SHOPPING IRL

Newbie perspective here, and yeah, I agree. I don't really have any suggestions to fix it - a couple of people have already offered a lot - but I can share my feelings on it. It's not the worst system ever designed on the planet, it's just kind of a bummer. I can put up with it, but that's not exactly a glowing review. It takes me full days to finish quests that are meant to be "hourly", and I miss a lot of quest refreshes because the thing I need just does not show up. I think my record for how long it took me to finish an hourly is like, 6 days. And I know I can reject them to try again, but what if the next hour's item also won't show up? Though, I am still in Hope, haven't done any other Remnants yet. So it's good to hear it's a bit easier once I get over there. The shop system is maybe the only part of the site that I would say is lukewarm for me, which by default, makes it the worst part. Hope having so much more items than everywhere else seems like... that shouldn't be the case. I get the idea of, "it goes in the beginner zone so every player can get the new things," but that seems to be making the system really bottom-heavy.

[b][P.][/b] Thanks for the input so far! I'm starting to feel like this isn't a situation with a one-size-fits-all solution, but more of a... bunch of smaller solutions that don't [i]solve[/i] the issue completely but nonetheless make it incrementally tolerable? For example, it would be difficult to find a way to split Piper's shop stock even further without making arbitrary categories, but you can still split Jay's stock into food and non-food, and it'll improve one store even if it can't improve every store.

I also still remember how frustrating questing was at the beginning (and sometimes still is, to be honest). I had to stalk shops for ages, especially until I learned, which rarity each item was. The one thing that made it better for me, was to aquire a reasonable stock of the most commonly asked for quest items, but that is difficult in and of eachself. Honestly, the items that are still the most frustrating for me are tailoring items (especially the rares), even with all remnants unlocked. Unlike with cooking, tailoring sometimes asks for multiples of a single item and since I can only buy one rare per six minute intervall and even with all remnants unlocked, there is by far no guarantie that at least one remnant will have the item I need, if I need more than one it gets frustrating very fast (especially since I have to be very quick to check all shops in the one minute I have). For some items this is set off a little through quests that reward those items specifically (like silk (through the sock hop or also as a return on some of the other sock related quests) or them being semi-frequently rewarded in Elliots or Quintinas dailies (I don't think Dollmaker is giving out rares?), but the single most frustrating item for me is satin. It is a rare, there are a lot of tailoring items that are frequently asked for in quests that need it (the one quest that asks for a strapless dress (forgot who that was), the Dollmaker quest that asks for ballet shoes, bows or bowties (the shoes here) and a lot of the reef stuff also needs satin (all of the shimmertail/fin stuff for example)), but I have so far not found a single quest that semi-reliably rewards it, in fact, as far as I can tell, it is a pretty rare quest reward. If I remember correctly, the remnant that really altered my experience was the Shadow Stage, since they have a few quests that reward a lot of items. So, one solution I could think of would be to add more early quests that reward frequently needed items (especially crafting items) in larger number, to allow players to not have to hunt for every single item needed for every single quest from scratch.

Seconding Tailoring rares - and to a lesser extent uncommons, since there are some patterns that will require up to FOUR of an uncommon item. Most of the time I'm not even buying for quests but for market restocking, and it gets hard doing that even when I sell half of my stock for a single quest. (Satin is also harder to stock than Silk because I can't just buy Silk from Nick, but that's more a me problem IMO.) This being said... I feel like Unmaking was meant to help with the materials issue, but then it's also not as useful just because the lowering of Cooking and Tailoring levels actively impacts what you can buy for other quests in the shops? So I find it a bit harder to justify. (Plus this doesn't help with quests for just, random questing items.) IDK where these thoughts are going necessarily, but... Thoughts I guess.

I cry a little inside every time a quest asks me for a Hope toy, especially rares. Say what you will about Chrysa's event quest, but I'm loving that I now have a stock of rare toys! For the shops though, yeah, apart from adding new shelves or splitting the tasks between NPCs, I'm not quite sure how to handle this. Have Sheeba sell toys as well? Though, one of the most frustrating toys for me has got to be the kith stickers. They take up a lot of slots and since they are so many, it's hard to get the ones you need for quests. I know some people mentioned bundling up some objects and I think stickers could be a good candidate. Another idea I had before learning of bundling them up would be to split the kith stickers between Remnants instead of having Piper sell them all. Have Dizzy sell the Forest stickers, Shay the Reef ones, and so on as they get released (since I'm assuming we'll eventually get stickers for all kiths. As for tailoring (oh my god, SATIN), I've honestly always wondered why Kei doesn't also sell materials?

I'll also mention that pattern bundling does already have some pre-existing instances even beyond just the selection items in Shady's - for example [item]Pattern Pick: Bikini Swimsuits[/item]! I would love to see more of those, and I think that more shop tabs could help a lot, too. That being said, some of these concrete suggestions might need to be copied to the Site suggestions forum to keep from getting lost? Perhaps a summary post of suggested specific bullet points with things like "materials tab for Kei" and "bundle Piper's stickers" etc?

....actually then I immediately wanted that, so I made it XD [url=https://tatteredworld.com/forum_subcategories/12/forum_topics/11841]Improvements to Hope Shop Stocking[/url] Just bundles and new tabs for now, because those are relatively reasonable changes.

I'm not putting this in the suggest thread since it's less immediate and more of a large change, but now I'm wondering about a potential, like... - The shops in Hope stocking more items per hour than other remnants - So, keep the 8 Common 5 Uncommon 2 Rares for other remnants with less items, and give Hope, say... 15 Commons, 10 Uncommon, 5 Rare or something - Then to make it so that it's less immediately overwhelming and hard to check, implement something similar to [b][url=https://tatteredworld.com/forum_subcategories/12/forum_topics/11728]this suggestion[/url][/b] but without the time limit - Set to highlight anything a user needs to buy (so, anything for an active quest, or also maybe anything on a user's wishlist) - (And then have a toggle for visibility since not everyone would want that Obviously that's not a perfect solution, and isn't future proof, but I think... if the issue is known, then it can be easier to keep in mind as an issue and try to avoid later, while it's harder to fix the fact that the shops are already difficult to search through. (I feel like having this set for Hope specifically would also help in terms of newbie experience, since this is the Main remnant and the first users have proper access to? So it would make questing for Hope easier than for other remnants.) Other potential ideas that might make things a little easier, or make things feel less bad, but would be potentially complex to implement: - Moving Cooking Tools as a whole to a new shop tab, to match Recipes. I think right now shops can only have one extra tab, but this would help a.) empty shops like Jay's shop, and b.) make it easier for newbies to stock their Kitchens, especially since the items are already pretty expensive to buy - Rebalancing tailoring patterns to cost more but require less materials. A pattern that costs 400 shards and needs 3 satin costs ~2500 shards to craft, but a pattern that costs 1800 shards and needs 1 satin costs the same ~2500 shards, but with only one rare item needed I feel like there should probably be an upper limit on the number of materials needed for patterns (aside from like, Special ones for events or the like). Cooking I find more forgiveable since you don't need to buy the pattern too, but Tailoring is a huge pain with this. On a similar note: - Rebalance quests that require multiple items to reward [i]more[/i] than the total worth of the items This is an issue with some quests, where it'll say, ask for 1000 shards worth of Misc. items and give you 1000 shards worth of toys. This doesn't factor in the time spent buying items at all - misc. items are cheaper and thus need more shop stalking. It'd be easier to just buy the toy reward yourself. Quests that ask for a large amount of shop stalking should reward extra for how long is needed to complete the quest, to make these quests worth doing at all. Slightly off the rails suggestion, but one that just came to mind: What if there was like... some way for older patterns to be "archived" on site? Not to like, remove them obviously, but like, if after a while older patterns/clothes got removed from questing and shops. Then, make a shop similar to Nick's, where you can buy any of these clothing patterns without needing a restock, if you want to craft that item to wear. It wouldn't unbalance quests because they'd be removed from the quest pool, leaving Andre and Kei's shops easier to search through for quests, but still allowing users to get these items for avatar purposes? IDK if that makes ANY sense but it could be interesting, maybe. (Might be an interesting way to help balance out some of the older site art too - the avatar style has developed a bit since the earlier items like the [item]Lapis Silk Vest[/item] etc. so it'd maybe look good for the newer fancier art to be being shown off more too?)