Here goes another entry to the Goblin Log series, the official format for me to ramble on about game mechanics with extra details the other merchants don't want me to tell you about! This time we're taking a quick look at Concept Cores, which are Gobutiko's effect system for haggling.
A Concept Core is an item you attach to your register that can change what your dice can do in the middle of a haggle. All you have to do is equip them to your shop's cash register and they'll apply to any haggling session you trigger (even when you shop at another merchant's store!). Though you're only allowed to equip 3 cores at any given moment, they're never consumed so as you unlock more of them you'll be able to experiment with different sets freely.
There are 4 different types of Concept Cores:
Attack Cores:
These are effects that revolve around attacking your opponent's composure. Things like increased damage, composure stealing, composure break bonuses, etc.
Geared towards a more aggressive haggling style that aims for quick sessions, sometimes at risk to your own composure.
Recovery Cores:
This one is pretty straight forward, it focuses on maintaining your own composure. Examples include increased recovery, sacrificing specific rolls for a heal, emergency heals.
This is pretty much the turtle play for sustaining longer sessions with some passive affects on prices.
Profit Cores:
A greedy merchant's best friend, these are just what they sound like. Get that price moving at any cost, here you'll see effects like charging your opponent for pip bonuses, sacrificing high dice rolls for a bonus push on the price, pushing the price whenever you trigger a pip bonus.
These focus a lot on sacrificing options for profits.
System Cores:
These have no specific affinity, but instead focus on granting specific situational abilities. Things like: Increasing/decreasing the haggle round limit, additional die rolls, control over the order dice are played in.
Not much to look at on their own, but really shine when paired with other types.
Some Concept Cores are pretty simple, while others might have significant drawbacks
For the most part the effects are automatic, so as soon as you meet their condition (i.e. assigning dice to a specific action) then you'll see the trigger message appear on screen for the effect applied! Each effect will clearly describe what their trigger conditions are when you equip them.
As you unlock more effects, you won't be the only one using them to your advantage. Other merchants and some customers will also be able to use concept cores of their own! You'll get a handy notebook summarizing the effects your customer is currently using so you'll have a chance to decide how to handle the situation or if they just aren't worth dealing with (time is money after all!).
That's it for this entry. If you made it this far, thanks! For the next one we'll take a look at something outside of haggling, maybe in the decoration side of things? Let's see how it goes!