Talk:Merchant's house/@comment-4111213-20120221192840/@comment-4102115-20120306023212

Oh sorry, I didn't specifically comment on the "blueprint on the first shelf" suggestion although I inferred it did not hold.

As the previous wikia contributor mentioned - blueprints absolutely can appear on any shelf. With my data-set (much smaller than Ezcry's data set but by a very different collection sequence) - it is still holding true that I get a blueprint piece approximately every 6th scroll purchase, with no new blueprint piece being offered within one cycle of the previous blueprint piece beind sold/returned.

From this, it is clear blueprints will appear on any shelf. If I buy a blueprint and 3 scrolls, next cycle will be 4 scrolls. If I then only buy the 3rd shelf (for eg) the next 2 or 3 (or maybe 4) times, a blueprint will then appear on that 3rd shelf. If I instead just buy the 2nd and 3rd shelf once or twice, a blueprint will then appear on the 2nd shelf. If I buy zero scrolls 2 or 3 (or maybe 4) times, a random scroll will be replaced and on the 2nd 3rd or 4th cycle a blueprint will appear on a random shelf - maybe the 1st, but equally likely on any four.

Like Mancini and Ezcry, it has always held true for me that whenever Leonid returns, when a blueprint is due to appear, it will always appear on the first available shelf - if 4 scrolls were purchased, and a blueprint is due to appear, then the blueprint will be on the first shelf, if only one item was purchased, then the blueprint will appear on that shelf, if 2 or 3 items were purchased then it will appear on the first of those shelves. So only buying the first shelf item will not help whatsoever.

The only time this has not held is when using the 5P refresh stock which obviously processes it differently - Leonid does not go and return, the clock is not even reset to 90mins, so it would seem that the "refresh" button does not return the four items and then bring 4 new items which would place the blueprint on the top shelf, rather it seems to replace the 4 items 1 at a time, so if a blueprint was due to appear after 2 more scrolls were bought/replaced, then it would appear on the 3rd shelf... so by this assumption the theory still holds.

I have rarely done a Refresh, and I did not take note of every shelf item before I did, but I am sure at least one shelf item remained the same. I am not 100% sure tho, and even if it was the case is it because (a) it was randomly replaced with the same item, or (b) is the above paragraph only half-right - does a "Refresh" actually swap out one shelf at a time, but rather than specifically swapping out all 4 shelves, does it do 4 shelves randomly, so it could swap out shelf 2, then shelf 4, then shelf 2, then shelf 3 - such that shelf 1 remained untouched and you miss seeing one item that was swapped out twice? If this is the case I would consider it a bug, but it would not surprise me, and it would make sense as the programmer could have just used the code for swapping out a shelf when no item was purchased and run that code 4 times. Easy. Rather then using the same code for replacing items if all 4 shelves were purchased.