Best Of
Re: Guilds Proposal
As other random ideas...
- Add guildpoints mechanic - Guilds credit incomes have been hit by the introduction of dailycredits and orgpoints, so this would help provide funding.
- Moving shrines from orders to guilds - The territory claiming aspect becomes just part of guilds which provides equal access to all orgs. Orders might keep them as bonus extras or get something else later. Realistically, shrines already require access to optional sub-groups in the game so this is just changing which sub-group.
- Adding orphaned stuff from econ overhaul to guilds - One of the big issues we have is creating new benefits, so scavenging ones that might be deleted is a rare opportunity.
- Ability skins for guilds - Varies from minor to major but letting guilds have customised ability skins could help reinforce identity. Not all classes are created equal for this but setting up something could create additional selling points for guilds as well.
- Some form of guild... skill - Think veneration I guess but designed to work within the context of a guild, comes to the issue of adding benefits because so much exists already but it would basically be a bunch of abilities you get access to with limiters based on your guild rank.
- Adding a guild improvement currency - rather than gold, create a currency purely for guild requests that guilds generate in certain ways that show activity, they might be able to sink gold to get it as well but with all the gains tuned to kinda moderate the rate at which guilds should be trying to get improvements.
Possibly set it up so that patron requests can actually put you into debt for this currency up to some ceiling and you pay them off. The idea here is to encourage guilds to put in requests because the currency is useless for anything else, but also a guild even having a positive value for the currency could be a sign that it's been too long since they've had any kind of update.
Saran
2
Re: Economy Changes Overview
Yesterday I participated in a discussion about the economy proposal on the Official Discord and I'd like to share what I've said here as well. I re-ordered and organised my comments so they make sense alone and also tried to summarise them but ultimately gave up on that because it's the whole of it that should be available to everyone!
You all vastly dislike something costing more than what it does now. I hear you. With a chair it's not a problem, with a throne - it is a problem. You say having to pay more comms will not make anyone want to use inept crafters and you would hate making things at inept proficiency. Alright. Removing the extra upfront cost to what it normally costs is an option to be sure! But please keep in mind the goal here is to make commodities more available too - not only for free if you mine for them yourself, but also through stores that will sell them.
Xenthos says he would like to be able to make a cake whenever it suits him without having to lose all of his proficiency in whatever it is that Xenthos loves to have active (forging?). Xenthos dislikes the idea of having to go find a cook to make him said cake.
Lavinya wants to be able to stock all of her shiny things and dislikes that she won't be able to just do it herself. She could, But the things she makes after a switch will cost more.
Both of these things have the same solution available in the shop system. Not the same solution that you are all used to - ie not switch around at the drop of a hat - but it is there and it is worth considering because it has many far-reaching implications. Xenthos can get himself a cook for his shop. He hires someone, even a newbie. The newbie's work may cost more but it will be available. Xenthos' shop has the upgrade where he can stock patterns to be made on demand. He hops in, puts the cake he wants made and then buys the cake - the cake gets made for him by cooks in his kitchen.
Lavinya can do the same thing. Rather than lose proficiency in the things she cares most about, she gets herself some serfs to hire for the shop that do tailoring or jewelry etc. This is as simple as making a trade agreement. The person does not have to be online, same as above. She no longer needs to switch around. She can stock things from the cartels she owns no matter the trade. The patterns to be made on demand are available on sale in her shop. The things are not hand-made by her. Yes. But the things are on sale in her shop. Better yet, when Lavinya stocks her shop, she would do so from her cartels. The person she hires could have access to the shop and stock things from the cartels they are a part of but Lavinya isn't (cartels will have the option to flag designs as not allowed to be stocked).
You don't need to bribe people or bug people to restock your shop. You have one meeting, agree to be partners, and then you use your hired help whenever. You no longer have to give them 100000 redtint and tell them the exact pattern numbers. You hire them and you decide what is stocked. For anything public or from org cartels, you could also go to the local tailor mob to make things for you as well.
IMPORTANT: We also have an alternative proposal for this posted in the Trade thread. Including it here as well for reference:
Here is an alternative proposal to the "losing all proficiency if you switch" issue.
Have only 2 skills active at a time (as before) but also have the ability to lock the proficiency of 2 skills. In this scenario, you don't lose proficiency in these 2 skills even if you switch out of them back and forth. You cannot gain proficiency in the skill you switch to as one of your actives, not unless you choose to abandon proficiency of the skill you have it locked to at the moment.
That way you could still switch out and make the things you need, but not lose your proficiency to do so. The things you made in the skills you have 0% proficiency in would still be worse than if someone specialising made them, of course, and if possible it would be a good idea to seek out a specialist to help you with the more difficult/advanced things you wished to make. You would not be forced to rely on that though.
On Agriculture and Prospecting:
Their goal is indeed to produce commodities - straight up, not some intermediary comms. The proposal here aims to provide a steady and easy to get supply and no more than the engineered supply (adjusted as needed) so the system avoids flooding the market with endless dirt-cheap commodities. This version of comm-generating skills would not rely on methods such as manse generators did. No need to afk upkeep the mine every hour just so it yields some comms at the end of the day. The goal is to make comms much easier to obtain (make them or buy from npc shops) and remove the excessive reliance on villages.
Both Prospecting and Agriculture will be out there in the world. Each commodity would have a method of procuring it and an environment in which it is meant to 'spawn' (this concerns commodities for which this makes sense, no eggs spawning in the wild randomly). This would include some flags on our side (for areas and specific rooms) that exclude certain places so you don't turn someone's godrealm into a mining hotspot.
While the exact mechanics are still on the table of course, the idea for Prospecting for example would be that veins of metals would spawn in underground locales. Forgers could make pickaxes that would be used to tap into them. You would happen upon a vein out there in the wild and mine it until it is exhausted. Marble, gems, and coal are part of Prospecting as well.
Whether there is enough in each Prospecting and Agriculture to make them full tradeskills was a question that was asked. It taps into something very interesting that might happen with Trade skills. This is a bit of a tangent but related to trade skills as a whole.
In the past Lusternia has not added new trade skills because they had to be "full tradeskills" - that is, have enough going for them to go from zero to trans. Also had to always include combat bonuses (magictomes, splendours, etc) and other things to entice people into investing in them, thereby making it a necessary investment for the meta. I am not quite fond of that setup. Many new things could have been their own skills (Lingualism, Sorcelglass, Instruments) but were stuffed into existing skills instead because they were not large enough to warrant their own skills.
With many bonuses (extra reasons to pick up trades - like trans skills) being proposed to be removed (and/or turned into arties or other abilities), we are no longer quite tied to "a trade skill must be of so and so length". Even less so if these skills do not require a lesson investment.
On being able to tell the 'quality' of goods since Proficiency would influence many things:
Quality is generally decay time/prestige/etc and you should be able to see those before you buy things. No buying of knock-offs. Being able to tell the 'quality' of an item in a shop without probing every single thing might be difficult. The WARES display is only so large and it's already quite packed. But this would be important to have in some form, perhaps a filter.
On aethertrading and aethergoop:
I understand your worries about the notion that aethertrading would go away. After all, so much has been built onto that system since its introduction. We have gnomeweapons, candies, etc. How would one get a gnomeweapon without this? They are immensely useful!
Here's the thing though, their very addition was a very poor bandaid. And then things were built on that bandaid and made things even worse. It's lovely in some ways, lets people break into some equipment, like the aforementioned gnomeweapons, easily. But the whole mechanic is unnecessary, adds "yet another thing" to remember of and be involved in (Lusternia is a steep learning curve for newbies as it is), and is frankly uninteresting. Refine items afk, chase down traders. That is hardly engaging.
We have not elaborated where we're going with this yet. Frankly, the whole plan for goop is in pre-proposal stage. What I can tell you though is that the goal is not to make it impossible for people to buy gnomeweapons without promos. If anything, we would likely switch their cost to credits. Same for anything else relying on this whole system. Goop has gone the way of dingbats in becoming an inflated and hard to control currency that is, frankly, unnecessary in its current format when daily credits exist.
You should never need a promo to be able to purchase something that has become a basic artifact. The whole idea for free to play is that you should be able to get what you want with time and effort without the need to spend money. Whatever happens to goop, it will not include gnomeweapons or other things being exclusive.
While we have not talked specifics with Orael, I do not believe we would just make your stockpiles worthless. This whole economy proposal is suggesting an axe be put to many things. Many things people have spent credits or lessons on. It's painful but may be necessary for some things and for a new balance to be found. But like with many of those other things, we would seek to find a refund worthy of the thing. I honestly am not sure what would be good for your aether things but 1) you would have forewarning, 2) nothing will happen overnight. We're open to suggestions! Maybe some npc would love to buy them up? Maybe they could be handed in to create something else? As for aethercrafting, we really did not get that far. The bottom line on that is that we're not just galloping to delete and devalue things/abilities.
Generally all of aethertrading is, as I mentioned, something of a wrong fork on the road to fix other things. Rather than push onward what I believe to be the wrong path, we should not let sunk cost fallacy dictate how we fix things. It has become its own thing. It will be tough undoing it and all the hooks its got in a lot of places, but I do think we'll be better off for it. We wanted you to know this is part of the proposal right away, rather than reveal it later, even though a detailed plan for how to tackle it has not yet been made. We'll definitely need to work together to make a sensible proposal and unhook all of its claws from things in a way that makes sense and doesn't just delete investments.
On Cooking, Brewmeister, and Alchemy:
One of the things I have mentioned previously is that trade skills had to be of a certain minimum size and that new things would just get stuffed wherever it sort of made sense rather than make new trade skills. We've been impoverished by that because stuffing something into another skillset never results in that thing living up to its full potential.
For example, we have sorcelglass. Outside of being very frustrating to use (for me at least!), it limits us to vials, glasses, cups, and bottles because those are the basic things that can be made via Arts. Sorcelglass changes something that already exists. You need to be able to get these basics first before you can give them some oomph. We could have tankards, teapots, etc but the basic skill to make these would need to be added to Arts - an already overcrowded skillset and not its purpose at all. So it's not been done. Now if this were its own skill, things would be different.
If we divide Cooking and Brewmeister, we open up options for expansion for both. If we combine them, we make it a very inflated skill very fast, one which is unlikely to get more and more things because other skills need it first. I am quite open to just combining them, however. It makes sense and it would be so much easier - cartel wise, skills wise, how it would impact cooks (not losing drinks!). But I wanted us to explore the possibility of trying something different and seeing how you feel about it. I see your cook woes about this solution taking up your two slots and we will definitely take it into account.
When it comes to dev time, we would not be commandeering the SS Rapture to give you all kawhe and jugs. This is a proposed division now but further development much later. Granted, we could keep them together and divide them if/when there's time to work on it. Of two minds on that. Ripping the bandaid while we're doing huge changes might be best. The downside being, the two actives problem of course.
Lorecraft would be phased back into Alchemy. Alchemy is all that would be left behind. Brewmeister, if left to stand alone and if pilfering drinks from Cooking, would be much smaller but with room to improve. But please note the above, not as dedicated dev time on the roadmap anytime soon. It would be a pet project or wait a while for bigger fish to be fried first.
On trans skills/trade bonuses:
Removing these is necessary to divorce trade from having to invest in trade skills to get some magical item that will impact combat. But on the whole, it also helps remove any extra benefit-based reasons for picking a trade other than, hopefully, "I love this" or "I'd love to provide that". We love herofetes and teaceremonies and know they've added that extra something to Cooks/Brewmeisters when, otherwise, the skills are not flashy. But to keep things fair and even across all trade skills, all these extra flavours have to be treated with that same knife.
I think when it comes to all trans items/abilities, we'll need to find a way to re-introduce them. Either as arties or skills, or both. Depending on how balanced they are or if having a few at once would play nicely with balance issues. There's definitely something we can do with them that is not just outright deleting them.
On armour:
I do not believe there is a definitive outline of what happens to all armour types. We did not plan every single part of the proposal down to the last detail because so much of it is still up in the air. What I can tell you though is one idea for Master Tattoo: allow everyone to use tattoos as alternative armour if their skin was prepped the right way by a Tattooist to open up that style/roleplay to more classes. I can't tell you how that would work stats wise though, it's really not my forte.
On the confines of two active tradeskills and proficiency:
We are very much hearing you on the front of 2 active tradeskills are the worst thing since [insert your hated thing here]. We are discussing it and considering the merit and impact of adjustments to that idea. This is not set in stone. Frankly, outside of wanting to expand shops, make it more possible to get things you need whenerver (even if more pricey), skills for trades, a lot of the rest is open to discussion and adjustment. Be it in the form of numbers or other things.
A lot of this proposal hinges on everything working in tandem. Many decisions down the grapevine were made basing on proficiency/no lesson investment/lower self-sufficiency/etc and other decisions would have been made without that. Which is not to mean we cannot make adjustments, but proficiency was the crux of the whole proposal. For an economy to be balanced, 100% self-sufficiency cannot exist I'm afraid. Not without drawbacks, and here quality is the drawback.
One of the reasons for proficiency in lieu of lessons was the concern that people never really recuperate the cost of investment into a trade. You continue to obtain lessons and dump them into a skill but ultimately to play the merchant game was hard and not everyone wants to do it to be a merchant either. Some simply want a creative outlet. Removing the lesson investment aims at removing the steep buy-in cost to even be able to make things you love.
What proficiency is doing is allowing even a newbie to gain access to the entire skill on day one. They can make a ring and a crown. From the getgo this adds a large number of people to the merchant/crafter pool. They might not be as fantastic at it, yes, but they will get there without having to put lessons in. Even if you switch out between the trades you know, you will still be able to make everything every trade offers.
This circles back to proficiency. One of its biggest drawbacks/bonuses is affecting how many commodities something costs. This takes the form of +/-. Let's say the base is that a chair costs 10 wood to make. Any Artisan can make the chair anytime. The one at 0% will need to spend more comms, the one at 100% fewer comms.
You all vastly dislike something costing more than what it does now. I hear you. With a chair it's not a problem, with a throne - it is a problem. You say having to pay more comms will not make anyone want to use inept crafters and you would hate making things at inept proficiency. Alright. Removing the extra upfront cost to what it normally costs is an option to be sure! But please keep in mind the goal here is to make commodities more available too - not only for free if you mine for them yourself, but also through stores that will sell them.
Xenthos says he would like to be able to make a cake whenever it suits him without having to lose all of his proficiency in whatever it is that Xenthos loves to have active (forging?). Xenthos dislikes the idea of having to go find a cook to make him said cake.
Lavinya wants to be able to stock all of her shiny things and dislikes that she won't be able to just do it herself. She could, But the things she makes after a switch will cost more.
Both of these things have the same solution available in the shop system. Not the same solution that you are all used to - ie not switch around at the drop of a hat - but it is there and it is worth considering because it has many far-reaching implications. Xenthos can get himself a cook for his shop. He hires someone, even a newbie. The newbie's work may cost more but it will be available. Xenthos' shop has the upgrade where he can stock patterns to be made on demand. He hops in, puts the cake he wants made and then buys the cake - the cake gets made for him by cooks in his kitchen.
Lavinya can do the same thing. Rather than lose proficiency in the things she cares most about, she gets herself some serfs to hire for the shop that do tailoring or jewelry etc. This is as simple as making a trade agreement. The person does not have to be online, same as above. She no longer needs to switch around. She can stock things from the cartels she owns no matter the trade. The patterns to be made on demand are available on sale in her shop. The things are not hand-made by her. Yes. But the things are on sale in her shop. Better yet, when Lavinya stocks her shop, she would do so from her cartels. The person she hires could have access to the shop and stock things from the cartels they are a part of but Lavinya isn't (cartels will have the option to flag designs as not allowed to be stocked).
You don't need to bribe people or bug people to restock your shop. You have one meeting, agree to be partners, and then you use your hired help whenever. You no longer have to give them 100000 redtint and tell them the exact pattern numbers. You hire them and you decide what is stocked. For anything public or from org cartels, you could also go to the local tailor mob to make things for you as well.
IMPORTANT: We also have an alternative proposal for this posted in the Trade thread. Including it here as well for reference:
Here is an alternative proposal to the "losing all proficiency if you switch" issue.
Have only 2 skills active at a time (as before) but also have the ability to lock the proficiency of 2 skills. In this scenario, you don't lose proficiency in these 2 skills even if you switch out of them back and forth. You cannot gain proficiency in the skill you switch to as one of your actives, not unless you choose to abandon proficiency of the skill you have it locked to at the moment.
That way you could still switch out and make the things you need, but not lose your proficiency to do so. The things you made in the skills you have 0% proficiency in would still be worse than if someone specialising made them, of course, and if possible it would be a good idea to seek out a specialist to help you with the more difficult/advanced things you wished to make. You would not be forced to rely on that though.
On the economy proposal overall:
I would like you all to keep in mind that a lot of the things we're talking about still are tweaks, numbers, small adjustments that have a very large impact on how you view this. These things can and will be adjusted if we implement the proposed system as is and see that people struggle making what they need. This is not a do and done and maybe we'll look at it in 5 years sort of deal.
Also, none of this can be rolled out in one go. It would be impossible to do that. So we can also roll things out and see how they work and what they do or don't fix.
On the whole, we're still working on this and reading your comments. We'll take a few days to mull it over, tweak, see what version 2.0 we could present to you next week.
On the whole, we're still working on this and reading your comments. We'll take a few days to mull it over, tweak, see what version 2.0 we could present to you next week.
Uilani
5
Re: Economy - Trade Revamp
As someone who both doesn't have the time and mental energy to play due to life, I don't like anything about this proposal except for decoupling tradeskills and professions. It seems like when I'm finally able to play again I'll come back to being stripped of all but two tradeskills that I need to ensure I've ground something out for the year, which isn't appealing to me at all.
I learned the tradeskills I have to be able to craft for myself and friends. If I make X friend a gift I like being able to make it and give it to them without trying to find third party people to craft the silly thing. Stocking shops will now become even more tedious. I've had 0 exciting or interesting interactions in 12+ years of IRE when asking someone to restock something for me. It's exhausting and frankly puts me off of the whole system.
I would rather commodities just be deleted from the game and gold costs assigned to each design pattern than a prospecting skillset.
I learned the tradeskills I have to be able to craft for myself and friends. If I make X friend a gift I like being able to make it and give it to them without trying to find third party people to craft the silly thing. Stocking shops will now become even more tedious. I've had 0 exciting or interesting interactions in 12+ years of IRE when asking someone to restock something for me. It's exhausting and frankly puts me off of the whole system.
I would rather commodities just be deleted from the game and gold costs assigned to each design pattern than a prospecting skillset.
Re: Economy Changes Overview
Luce's post, which you've agree'd with, rather explicitly is. Zagreus' post is talking about what to do with these orphaned things afterwards.Eritheyl said:No one is arguing that, finger off the trigger please. I'm just asking you to take guild stuff to a guild thread - we're here for the economy, not the offshoots of what to do with X afterwards. That's all.
My post just saying we might be able to use it in another star map project is not where this line of conversation went off topic.
If these benefits are repurposed within the revamp purely to ensure they're still around we lose the opportunity to do so in other systems which might also benefit. And potentially spend more time on this revamp trying to handle things that could be dealt with later.
Saran
1
Guilds Proposal
Hey all, it's your resident Afrit.
I've been following the economy threads, and recently this cloaking gem thread and I know overall we're trying to get population up. I know the admin have 5,000,000 things to worry about right now but I believe we're not targeting actual retention issues. I'm about to make a post I'm pretty sure most people will find disagreeable, but I accept that possibility <.<
Since I joined the Revelry, there's been little to no reason to actually try and do Revelry things. This really isn't meant to be ragging on the Revelry leadership so please don't take it that way. I know that guilds are suffering for meaning because the original 5 guilds were nuked and then these unestablished, illegitimate guilds were kind of dropped in with little to no admin assistance in making them relevant to the city. That isn't to say I haven't observed that one Celest guild get reworked, then reworked again - obviously the admin over there are -trying- to do something. But it's been 4 years-ish (first Revelry post was 04/25/2017) and the guild still seems to lack so much substance. Again, I'm not trying to be rude; I know volunteers have sunk time into guilds, like for example the new-ish bar and NPC the Revelry recently got. But who actually goes to the Revelry guild hall to interact with that new NPC?
The blame lies in the fact that these guilds have still not made an impact in the game's society overall. You can't give what amounts to a bucket of beige paint to the players (and volunteers, let's be honest) and expect them to paint something vibrant and engaging. I know some of you are going to feel as though your guild is working well, and that perhaps you've accomplished/made memories in them, and I totally respect that, but I have a strong instinct that tells me newbies are getting turned off by current guilds due to their lack of relevance, interaction and interest. So please hear me out.
Instead of these random guilds that the admin expected players to flesh out (except they'd veto a lot of the more creative and interesting things), we should return to guilds that have legitimacy in the lore. I think every org should bring back their original trinity and make it (very nominally) more difficult to classflex around org skillsets, to combat the homogenizing (boring) effect of having every class in every guild.
This is what it'd look like for Gaudiguch, then just copy the analogs for every other org:
Since I joined the Revelry, there's been little to no reason to actually try and do Revelry things. This really isn't meant to be ragging on the Revelry leadership so please don't take it that way. I know that guilds are suffering for meaning because the original 5 guilds were nuked and then these unestablished, illegitimate guilds were kind of dropped in with little to no admin assistance in making them relevant to the city. That isn't to say I haven't observed that one Celest guild get reworked, then reworked again - obviously the admin over there are -trying- to do something. But it's been 4 years-ish (first Revelry post was 04/25/2017) and the guild still seems to lack so much substance. Again, I'm not trying to be rude; I know volunteers have sunk time into guilds, like for example the new-ish bar and NPC the Revelry recently got. But who actually goes to the Revelry guild hall to interact with that new NPC?
The blame lies in the fact that these guilds have still not made an impact in the game's society overall. You can't give what amounts to a bucket of beige paint to the players (and volunteers, let's be honest) and expect them to paint something vibrant and engaging. I know some of you are going to feel as though your guild is working well, and that perhaps you've accomplished/made memories in them, and I totally respect that, but I have a strong instinct that tells me newbies are getting turned off by current guilds due to their lack of relevance, interaction and interest. So please hear me out.
Instead of these random guilds that the admin expected players to flesh out (except they'd veto a lot of the more creative and interesting things), we should return to guilds that have legitimacy in the lore. I think every org should bring back their original trinity and make it (very nominally) more difficult to classflex around org skillsets, to combat the homogenizing (boring) effect of having every class in every guild.
This is what it'd look like for Gaudiguch, then just copy the analogs for every other org:
Illuminati (Illuminati and Minstrels)
Templars (Templars and Nunchaku)
Templars (Templars and Nunchaku)
Pyromancers (Pyromancers (and their chem variant obviously, which is essentially another class!))
Players in the Illuminati guild could flex without restriction between Illuminati and Minstrel, and then the players that want to can go receive permission from the Templars and Pyromancers to flex into other skillsets as desired (so people who are very used to flexibility can still have it). No impact on very invested players, but provides structure for newbies.
I know the kneejerk reaction is probably going to be "no way, we're only going to move forward with our new guilds, no use in backtracking" but I sincerely believe that that's not the right move. Lusternia needs to give itself a break and LEAN on the biggest hook it has, which is LORE. That means bringing back the Illuminati, who fashioned Project Paradox and gave the city a mystic feel, and the Pyromancers, who burned a road through Serenwilde with elemental fire and followed the Seven Sacred Pyres. Guilds that actually did things. Believe me when I say that the Revelry is not the only guild (please don't look at the Goon Squad) that is suffering from a grave case of blandness. We need to give ourselves a leg back up for newbie retention.
Players in the Illuminati guild could flex without restriction between Illuminati and Minstrel, and then the players that want to can go receive permission from the Templars and Pyromancers to flex into other skillsets as desired (so people who are very used to flexibility can still have it). No impact on very invested players, but provides structure for newbies.
I know the kneejerk reaction is probably going to be "no way, we're only going to move forward with our new guilds, no use in backtracking" but I sincerely believe that that's not the right move. Lusternia needs to give itself a break and LEAN on the biggest hook it has, which is LORE. That means bringing back the Illuminati, who fashioned Project Paradox and gave the city a mystic feel, and the Pyromancers, who burned a road through Serenwilde with elemental fire and followed the Seven Sacred Pyres. Guilds that actually did things. Believe me when I say that the Revelry is not the only guild (please don't look at the Goon Squad) that is suffering from a grave case of blandness. We need to give ourselves a leg back up for newbie retention.
Afrit
2
Re: Economy - Trade Revamp
Particularly with like crafting.
I think there's also some consideration to be had that say... 1000 comms in the current context isn't necessarily equivalent to 1000 comms post revamp.
I don't craft artisan things right now because I'd be looking at consuming what feels like a huge amount of comms for basically... minor personal gain.
At 100% proficiency with comms being more accessible than they are right now, even if the raw numbers are the same, contextually 100% would be an improvement over what we have.
Something less than that would be closer to right now as, for example with artisan, you'd hit a point of "what feels like a lot/too much" due to all the variables around those numbers changing.
Like... if comms are twice as available and 0% proficiency doubles the number of comms you need to craft something. 0% proficiency in that context is actually equivalent of right now and 100% is actually relatively halved, the numbers just haven't changed.
I think there's also some consideration to be had that say... 1000 comms in the current context isn't necessarily equivalent to 1000 comms post revamp.
I don't craft artisan things right now because I'd be looking at consuming what feels like a huge amount of comms for basically... minor personal gain.
At 100% proficiency with comms being more accessible than they are right now, even if the raw numbers are the same, contextually 100% would be an improvement over what we have.
Something less than that would be closer to right now as, for example with artisan, you'd hit a point of "what feels like a lot/too much" due to all the variables around those numbers changing.
Like... if comms are twice as available and 0% proficiency doubles the number of comms you need to craft something. 0% proficiency in that context is actually equivalent of right now and 100% is actually relatively halved, the numbers just haven't changed.
Saran
1
Re: Economy Changes Overview
I vehemently disagree with this part of removing them from the game. Trans skills gave flavor, combat help, unique choices, and things people actually wanted in most of those skillsets. I'll try to keep analysis and an alternative idea brief...Orael said:
- All mechanical benefits from selecting a trade will be removed (Trans items and skills that give the trader something)
PVP trans tradeskills
Lowmagic locked
Lorecraft Philsopherstone
Herbs Herblore
Poisons Immunity
Highmagic locked
Spellcraft MagiCrown
Tinkering RoseGlasses
Open to either
Cooking HeroFete
Tailoring Splendour
Tattoos Tattoomaster
Forging MasterArmour
Not too useful and/or non-PVP
Jewellery Tierstone
Brewmeister TeaCeremony
Artisan Prized
Bookbinding MagicTome
---------------------------
Step 1 - Fold armour tradeskills into class skillsets or set as class baselines
Pretty much every combatant has the buffed armour value, so this is preventing a game-wide armour nerf resulting in even more damage stacking. 3 of the 4 open to either low/highmagic skillsets worth having for PVP are armour bonuses. Those bonuses should absolutely be made the baseline for those classes (splendour for any robe wearer, tattoomaster for non-armour monks, and masterarmour for all warriors), and herofete is accessible by wondercorn anyway. If not the skill, just increase the baseline with those classes in mind. A great example of why this must happen is the case of warriors. Warriors cannot wield shield or shield runed items, so a physical class is worse at blocking physical damage than every non-physical class in the game... With MasterArmour it balances out, but without it is obviously ridiculous since classes are designed to be strong against themselves, and certainly not -worse- (notice how the vitals buffs vary based on class).
Step 2 - Unlock all trades/tradeskill trans items to all (could even be moved to a common skillset), but limit to 2 active at once so it's not overpowered. Some of those abilities are quite strong, and losing them is harsh and unwarranted. If you limit to 2 it should be fine, and preserves a system of tradeoffs since you can't have it all.
Simple, safe, no one gets gooseknifed.
Lowmagic locked
Lorecraft Philsopherstone
Herbs Herblore
Poisons Immunity
Highmagic locked
Spellcraft MagiCrown
Tinkering RoseGlasses
Open to either
Cooking HeroFete
Tailoring Splendour
Tattoos Tattoomaster
Forging MasterArmour
Not too useful and/or non-PVP
Jewellery Tierstone
Brewmeister TeaCeremony
Artisan Prized
Bookbinding MagicTome
---------------------------
Step 1 - Fold armour tradeskills into class skillsets or set as class baselines
Pretty much every combatant has the buffed armour value, so this is preventing a game-wide armour nerf resulting in even more damage stacking. 3 of the 4 open to either low/highmagic skillsets worth having for PVP are armour bonuses. Those bonuses should absolutely be made the baseline for those classes (splendour for any robe wearer, tattoomaster for non-armour monks, and masterarmour for all warriors), and herofete is accessible by wondercorn anyway. If not the skill, just increase the baseline with those classes in mind. A great example of why this must happen is the case of warriors. Warriors cannot wield shield or shield runed items, so a physical class is worse at blocking physical damage than every non-physical class in the game... With MasterArmour it balances out, but without it is obviously ridiculous since classes are designed to be strong against themselves, and certainly not -worse- (notice how the vitals buffs vary based on class).
Step 2 - Unlock all trades/tradeskill trans items to all (could even be moved to a common skillset), but limit to 2 active at once so it's not overpowered. Some of those abilities are quite strong, and losing them is harsh and unwarranted. If you limit to 2 it should be fine, and preserves a system of tradeoffs since you can't have it all.
Simple, safe, no one gets gooseknifed.
Zagreus
2
Re: Economy - Trade Revamp
Having read these changes, I found them to be quite disagreeable almost universally. The primary question I found myself asking over and over is "Who wanted any of this?" And I found the answer on virtually all the points you cover in your revamp to be "Nobody." Perhaps you are more out of touch with your player base than you realize. Allow me to cover a number of objectionable issues I found in your proposal:
- "Trades no longer have a lesson cost. Lessons will be refunded." Why? Having to "learn" a trade is reasonable and investing in a trade was sensible. Just the same, whatever, I guess. But the idea of maybe allowing people to trade back for credits seems preposterous, I think at the bear minimum you should be prepared to refund people a considerable amount of their credits since these trades (and their considerable lesson investments) were not cheap to acquire for many of us.
- "Players will be able to select up to two trades. One trade inherently..." yada yada yada. Refunding the skills is good, capping at two trades seems weird - if people want three and want to use 70m essence or 2k credits to get their third why block it at all?
- Proficiency. I'm not even going to quote anything on here, because the idea as a whole is terrible. This is probably one of the most egregious pieces of work on here. Trade proficiency is dumb and the anti-player sentiment wrought throughout the garbage setup for it that you've outlined is personally offensive. "Let's get ride of lessons in trades, oh but don't actually get rid of them, instead we'll shift them to this transient piece of garbage skill I've come up with and they'll be wasted the moment a player decides to try any other trade." I'm here to inform you that the result of this will not be engagement, like you seem to think, but abandonment. Nobody wants to put resources into something they can't utilize regularly. Regardless of your stated "benefits", that system harms the player and the economy far more than it benefits.
- "We will be removing all trade restrictions." Excellent. This should have been done 15 years ago. It makes zero sense that someone can't pick up a specific trade just because they're not tied to a specific class. This is OK.
- "We will be removing most trans trade items." Why? You state mechanical benefits, OK. These mechanical benefits are mild at best, and haven't had a major impact where one of us has gone "If only Zagreus didn't have that damn TOME!" In other words, in real world use, they're negligible at best, so it seems like more work than is necessary to remove items or benefits which provide nice quality of life changes (like the tome for instance, which is so great because it's an efficient way to house one's scrolls). This one seems like a low impact change, but one that also doesn't actually need to happen at all. Sometimes things are different and offer something that somebody may want but they'll have to give up something else they want. That doesn't mean the system is imbalanced, it means there are more than one desirable trade item, so people have to make a damn decision as to which to get. The difficulty of choice is a good thing.
- "Every trade skill will have a way to sell their goods or services in a shop." Excellent. Like eliminating class barriers before, this should've been done a long time ago.
- Prospecting / Agriculture - This, right here, is probably the only change I ever heard anyone in game and out actually clamoring for - the ability to generate comms. I don't know enough on your intended systems, but these right here are the things that people wanted, not any of that other junk (and it is junk).
- Brewmeister - Removing a lot of skills here, any particular reason why you're removing the ones you've listed besides your blanket statement earlier (which hasn't been uniformly applied in your own writeup)?
- Cooking - Why remove herofete at all? You stated before that things that provide benefits to others will remain, herofete specifically is designed around benefitng a large group of people (and specifically can't be used outside a group except under specific circumstances). That doesn't make any sense. Drinks removed to Brewmeister, sensible.
- Enchantment - Disagree with removal of trans-skill. All changes related to proficiency, which should be deleted from this proposal entirely. Allow spellcrafters to turn their enchants into motes for selling in shops which the player can buy. Once a player buys a magical mote, they can use it to cast the enchantment on their weapon one time, at which point chaotic energy dissolves the mote as the enchantment is transferred to the item in question.
- Forging - Master armor removed. I disagree with this, as I do with the removal of any of the trade mastery benefits. Everything else seems to be centered on proficiency, which again, should be deleted. For padding/armor enhance make them available in the form of forging kits which a blacksmith can make for specific enhancements and padding. In game the user receives a kit which "includes all the necessary tools and magical items" to install whatever they want on their own armor. They pop off to the respective forge and use their kit and voila - see a small line of themselves carefully following a set of instructions to install their upgrade.
- Herbs - Disagree with removal of trans-skill. More of the same.
- Jewellery - Disagree with removal of trans-skill. Make a Gnomish engraver, user puts in x amount of gold and their piece of gear, engraver spits it out.
- Poisons - Disagree with removal of trans-skill. Delete proficiency.
- Spellcraft - Disagree with removal of trans-skill.
- Tailoring - Splendor for anyone? What's even the point of trans'ing the skill then? All the tailoring skills should be applicable through a shop. Make a sewing machine item to allow padding/therm/depad/knots/mending. They all require the same basic thing, so might as well make it simple and efficient for players. Get rid of proficiency, such a dumb idea.
- Tattoos - Disagree with the modification of the trans-skill. Sell tattoos in shop on transfer paper, allow players to spend a resource to get them applied (maybe a small gold or power cost). Do not make these tattoos lesser than their tattooist given counterparts - if a trade can sell something in the shop it needs to be the exact same thing you can get from the tradesperson. Splitting like that is a poor idea and will quickly result in the same issue we already have now once people realize it's a waste of their gold. Instead, make it more costly to apply shop given tattoos, so people can still seek out tattooists if they want to save on their resources.
- Tinkering - Disagree with removal of trans-skill. Gnomish mini-whizzer machine, a small gnomish machine consisting of a number of clockwork arms with various tiny tools which you place your miniature in and the requisite gold.. Once activated, player sees a neat little line describing the little arms of the machine moving around and patching this, repairing that, so on and so forth. Spits out repaired miniature to player once done and dumps gold in storeroom.
Cerin
10
Re: Economy - Trade Revamp
Just to toss in my two cents here as well, these changes seem not only unpleasant for crafters and designers, but really convoluted as well. I had to read the initial post several times just to understand what was going on, and I'm still pretty sure I'm still missing a point or two.
Speaking just for myself, creating designs and sets of designs, and being able to craft all those designs myself is really important. I worked hard to be able to have four active trades and others that I can switch between as needed, and it seems like a slap in the face to have all that taken away, refunds or not. Additionally, a very high percentage of those designs are all in family restricted cartels, so this would mean I would either lose access to most of them, or have to invite other crafters to private cartels every time I wanted a new bed.
As far as proficiency goes, I really hate the idea that (even after I decide which of my beloved trades I have to give up on) I'm going to lose access to a large majority of my good designs, all of which tend to require rare or hard to get materials until I spend 20 straight days getting myself back to max through a system that's both grindy and time-gated.
I think the proficiency system does have some merit (and I love the concept of families getting bonuses for literally anything at this point), but it should be something that begins once you trans the skill. After that point, sure, toss in some grinding and time-gates and make it a sort of 'crafting endgame' where the very best crafters make longer lasting items with higher prestige or any number of neat bonus effects (maybe you can craft things with extra enhancement slots, or add ambients, or maybe you get access to rare and previously unknown materials). What it shouldn't be is something that takes us way below what we're currently capable of doing just because we're not grinding every day.
And, just to prove I'm not entirely negative, I do like the removal of restrictions, the updates to shops and what you can sell, and the additional tradeskills (even though Kailanna would never stoop to mining or working a field.)
Speaking just for myself, creating designs and sets of designs, and being able to craft all those designs myself is really important. I worked hard to be able to have four active trades and others that I can switch between as needed, and it seems like a slap in the face to have all that taken away, refunds or not. Additionally, a very high percentage of those designs are all in family restricted cartels, so this would mean I would either lose access to most of them, or have to invite other crafters to private cartels every time I wanted a new bed.
As far as proficiency goes, I really hate the idea that (even after I decide which of my beloved trades I have to give up on) I'm going to lose access to a large majority of my good designs, all of which tend to require rare or hard to get materials until I spend 20 straight days getting myself back to max through a system that's both grindy and time-gated.
I think the proficiency system does have some merit (and I love the concept of families getting bonuses for literally anything at this point), but it should be something that begins once you trans the skill. After that point, sure, toss in some grinding and time-gates and make it a sort of 'crafting endgame' where the very best crafters make longer lasting items with higher prestige or any number of neat bonus effects (maybe you can craft things with extra enhancement slots, or add ambients, or maybe you get access to rare and previously unknown materials). What it shouldn't be is something that takes us way below what we're currently capable of doing just because we're not grinding every day.
And, just to prove I'm not entirely negative, I do like the removal of restrictions, the updates to shops and what you can sell, and the additional tradeskills (even though Kailanna would never stoop to mining or working a field.)
Kailanna
6
Re: Economy - Trade Revamp
By the way, linguistics is the scientific study of how languages work, not learning new languages. The best way to upset a linguist is to confuse the two.Esei said:While I'm not well-versed in trades enough to offer much of an opinion on the rest of it: why would you name a languages skill/miniskill 'lingualism'? It's not, at a glance, a word in English. Why not Linguistics, or possibly just Languages?
(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.