Tweets VII: Tweet Child of Mine

Cyndarin

I remember when you had to grind for hours just to be able to afford the 30g-40g sparkles required to PK with. That wasn't enjoyable, and all it did was make herbalists who monopolized the market rich. I don't know why anyone wants to "overhaul the market" when the gold surplus has resolved one of the major issues Lusternia used to have: cost of entry and maintenance.

It used to be really expensive just to maintain curatives, and that sucks. 

Lerad

I agree with the curatives part. Basic curatives should be more or less easily accessible. A premium on useful items which aren't a "if you don't have this, you can't take part in combat" would be good, however.

The major problem is that a lot of the trades are just fluff. They provide fairly useless items, and there are only a handful of people willing to pay for these. An overhaul of the economy that would be successful, I think, is an overhaul that creates useful tradeskills rather than the glut of not so useful items. At the same time, making the combat essentials be much less difficult to get. Make herbs dirt cheap and easy to harvest, but make things like bookbinding actually useful and create the possibility of a premium for them. Kirigami is one of the examples of such an item, just that it's not actually that premium. But it's useful. You won't die if you don't have it, and yet even the casual player can see the practical use of them, creating demand and the space for kirigami makers to make their products pricier etc. Min-maxers will, of course, always have them on hand - goes without saying. 

But how many other kirigami-like trade items are there? The answer is: not much. Artisan thrones are another example. But what about the rest of the artisan items? The only other "practical" thing would be... pipes? You don't actually need a chest - you could leave it on the floor if you want etc. So much work, so much balance time, gone into making commodities into fancy items that... don't actually have much use? Doesn't really make sense to me. Giving more of those items something that creates a tangible benefit could go a long way, I feel.

Daraius

People buy socks? :-/

Sylandra

For their sock puppets, obviously.

Phoebus

Daraius said:

People buy socks? :-/

They do! 

Falaeron

Thanks to the woes of shopkeepers everywhere being posted here I now have some tawdry clothing

Lehki

Fluff items have their place, I think. We'd need a lot of new ideas if we wanted to fill up every trade with kirigami-ish items in that sweet spot of useful but not essential at a premium.

People mentioning checking the market prices being a pain has kind of inspired me for what my  next scripting projects gonna be, after I'm done with that elections thing.

Rancoura

Lerad said:

I agree with the curatives part. Basic curatives should be more or less easily accessible. A premium on useful items which aren't a "if you don't have this, you can't take part in combat" would be good, however.

The major problem is that a lot of the trades are just fluff. They provide fairly useless items, and there are only a handful of people willing to pay for these. An overhaul of the economy that would be successful, I think, is an overhaul that creates useful tradeskills rather than the glut of not so useful items. At the same time, making the combat essentials be much less difficult to get. Make herbs dirt cheap and easy to harvest, but make things like bookbinding actually useful and create the possibility of a premium for them. Kirigami is one of the examples of such an item, just that it's not actually that premium. But it's useful. You won't die if you don't have it, and yet even the casual player can see the practical use of them, creating demand and the space for kirigami makers to make their products pricier etc. Min-maxers will, of course, always have them on hand - goes without saying. 

But how many other kirigami-like trade items are there? The answer is: not much. Artisan thrones are another example. But what about the rest of the artisan items? The only other "practical" thing would be... pipes? You don't actually need a chest - you could leave it on the floor if you want etc. So much work, so much balance time, gone into making commodities into fancy items that... don't actually have much use? Doesn't really make sense to me. Giving more of those items something that creates a tangible benefit could go a long way, I feel.

Hey, now. Those of us who still write IG make often use of things like desks and chairs. People who still eat might also appreciate the baskets as well, and I'm sure warrior/monk guilds that provide a stock of weapons to their members still use racks. 

Not arguing that more useful items would be appreciated, but I wanted to point out that there is more to Artisans than pipes and thrones!

Tarkenton

Cooking is actually a pretty good example of a skill that's useful through nearly the whole thing. Teas are fairly early, then there's the infused foods,then herofete. Not to mention the fact that an the food can be eaten by pre-80 characters. Granted, platters are the best bang for your buck, but the others aren't useless. Same goes for enchanting, herbs, alch (though post overhaul...).

Cyndarin

It's going to be really hard to come up with that many trade skills worth of fluff. We can't even pull that off with wonder items, they've all bled over to PK and min/maxing. 

I'd like to see trades add bashing only buffs. Like...

Spellcraft can get a new rune that you can etch on any weapon and it lasts for 30 minutes. The rune provides a 10% chance for an extra mini attack vs mobs only. 

Tinkering gets an immovable device that can be destroyed, you drop it in a room and it passively adds a shield every 12 seconds to everyone present (including enemies so it has dubious pk value). 

Alchemists can start making the crit bonus potion (whatever it's called). Make it require a ton of herbs to make.

Herbs can create a pill that adds 1/10 resistance vs mobs only. 

Etc etc etc.

Eldanien

Economy is about money changing hands.  When we diminish that circulation, such as with items that produce commodities, we damage economy.  By commodities, this can mean gems and herbs, but also coin, credits, or anything which is consumed or bartered.  We should encourage money moving from one person to the next, to the next, to the next, with total influx and outflux being tweaked for parity.

I think the single best thing that could be done is to remove manse mines, genies, cornucopia and such.  When you put items in the game that let you bypass a critical portion of the game (economy), it should be looked at very, very carefully.

Nienla

Or add sinks for commodities that help dwindle the huge stockpiles.

Luce

Celina said:

Herbs can create a pill that adds 1/10 resistance vs mobs only. 

Etc etc etc.

Even if none of the herbs ever act as curatives again, I don't think it will ever have a problem being relevant and useful, barring recurring free herbs.

Steingrim

Eldanien said:

Economy is about money changing hands.  When we diminish that circulation, such as with items that produce commodities, we damage economy.  By commodities, this can mean gems and herbs, but also coin, credits, or anything which is consumed or bartered.  We should encourage money moving from one person to the next, to the next, to the next, with total influx and outflux being tweaked for parity.

I think the single best thing that could be done is to remove manse mines, genies, cornucopia and such.  When you put items in the game that let you bypass a critical portion of the game (economy), it should be looked at very, very carefully.

You've skipped the stage of showing that coin is the problem. Credits were already high before the introduction of genies, maps, etc. I don't believe they're the issue. The greater issue is there is very little pressure for people who have been playing the game to use credits as most new items introduced to the game cannot be brought with credits. If there is no point for people like me to buy credits then there are less credits added to the game. Remember that ever single time there's a promo that uses a currency that is not credits then not only is that person not added credits to the game, but that person's guild does not get credits to distribute, nor does that person's org.

Tarkenton

Even without all the comm adding items, orgs had massive stockpiles since they accumulate over time from villages. I generally don't need anyone to do any trade thing for me unless I don't want to waste the time (herbs), or can't do it for myself (tattoos). As of now, the only trades I'm not trans in are tinkering, cosmic spellcraft, alchemy, brew meister. Realistically, I'd have far more gold if I'd sold the credits that I've invested into trades, but self sufficiency holds enough value for me to make it worthwhile.

Shaddus

Some of us only cook food to feed people. Subotai has a spatula and sells platters at a comfortable rate. I'd sell them for less, but people have a habit of buying out my platters and reselling them higher.

Tylwyth

Thul said:

Everiine said:

I finally experienced the insane gold/economy when in one run of the spawns of the Horde in the Hifarae Hills--a midbie area--I walked away with tens of thousands of gold. Spawns were dropping 800-1000 gold. I'd never seen that happen before.

The longer it's been since a mob's died, the more gold it drops. Seren's generally pretty good at making sure those things don't see the light of day. Those sort of amounts generally aren't spammable. Generally.

Rivius said:

It means no one has been hunting spawns in a while, which is pretty rare.

Pfft, it means no gloms gone for their Fingerblade is all.

Xenthos

You don't need to kill spawns, either to get the fingerblade or to stop someone from getting the fingerblade...

Tylwyth

Xenthos said:

You don't need to kill spawns, either to get the fingerblade or to stop someone from getting the fingerblade...

Pft, so?

Nothing to do with my point.

GLom Pulsl down the veil->people  hunt spawns to avoid newbie's dying on the roads.

GLom/seren puts up the veil->people(most people even in glom/seren) forget spawns exist.

Xenthos

That still does not make sense, the spawns on the road have nothing to do with the spawns in Hifarae itself... and Seren teaches their kiddos to hunt spawns like we teach ours to hunt Kepherans.

Tylwyth

Xenthos said:

That still does not make sense, the spawns on the road have nothing to do with the spawns in Hifarae itself... a

So?

Xenthos

Tylwyth said:

Xenthos said:

That still does not make sense, the spawns on the road have nothing to do with the spawns in Hifarae itself... a

So?

So your post makes no sense.

Everiine

Oh, I know that mobs that aren't killed drop  higher gold. I had just not seen the drops that high from specifically spawns before.

And I was using it as an example of how easy it is to flood the game with gold now. Though I remember the solution one time it was being addressed was to double the commodity cost of everything. Warriors nearly had seizures at the time because of how much things now cost, but again the gold flow soon outpaced the costs again.

Cyndarin

Xenthos said:

Tylwyth said:

Xenthos said:

That still does not make sense, the spawns on the road have nothing to do with the spawns in Hifarae itself... a

So?

So your post makes no sense.

When an unstoppable force meets an immovable object....

Steingrim

@Dathag for acting as if novice tasks were of the utmost importance to learn.

Chirbo

x tells you, "//oh are you another retirement alt?"

Please don't ask people this.

Shaddus

Chirbo said:

x tells you, "//oh are you another retirement alt?"

Please don't ask people this.

yeah, that's trashy AF. Tell them to bugger off, or better yet, tell them that no, you buy a lot of credits, and they should have mentored you when they had the chance. Then snub them.*







*Disclaimer: may not be a great idea.

Chirbo

I usually don't take mentors b/c I usually don't hide the fact that I'm an alt who may (or may not) spend money on the game. 

But @!#$%#^ sometimes I play dumb and get a really nice mentor and then feel bad I haven't bought credits yet to tell them how cool they are.

Tarkenton

JEEZE CHIRBO I SAID I WAS SORRY

Chirbo

Tarkenton said:

JEEZE CHIRBO I SAID I WAS SORRY