Resolving it by making the game significantly more tedious isn't going to broaden the types of players the game appeals to, though. I think that's been made abundantly clear through comments here- I still am not seeing a lot of support for expanded decay in this thread.
And the actual suggestions, which you continue to ignore, also make attempts to address such concerns to the point that there could be no real difference to players, there could even be a net benefit.
In some cases, it's plausible that addressing profitability could also make some aspects of the current system irrelevant. For example, if the suggested target of just five actually profitable trades could be achieved without needing things such as tear drop sigils, pipetanks, and regulators then they could all just be deleted and their effects just make a part of the game.
Similarly, we could also make things more effective. Typed cubes and an enchantment rift means no more tracking down an enchanter, just buy the enchant you need in shops and attach them, though rift size would need to be considered. Recovering from loss for those who don't have non-decay would then just be a matter of re-linking, just like it would be if your vials decay and, given jewellery would presumably be a "not profit" trade, you could just have a denizen store selling cheap jewellery (if not just a low arts skill just like vials).
You could also possibly rework existing things for accessibility and efficiency. Right now there are four different things that will buff your influence, two of these being tattoo powers and tailoring knots which require tracking down someone with the right skill to acquire them and also if you ever want to swap them out.
But a rework could consider should the consumables actually just be merged so you only need to stock one. Also given you can get more than the cap for influencing from artifacts and the like, all of the trade buffs except wetfold eventually become irrelevant. Moving these buffs out of tattoos, tailoring, and bookbinding can move those towards being "not profit" trades. Consolidating those benefits then into an alchemy potion means they're not lost, maybe you justify increasing the costs of the potion, and it would also inherit wetfolds "always good" bonuses that already exist.
In a similar vein, you have thrones (a lot of artisan lets be honest) which currently require you to go to wherever they are and sit on them to gain their benefit. That bonus could be reworked into something more convenient that can be sold in shops becoming an improvement over the current tedious aspects of the implementation. (I.e rather than having to travel to your throne every single time you want the buff, you could potentially just go to the plex once every few months)
No, forcing decay will not make a "net benefit" no matter how many paragraphs you write... it's pretty simple. Absolutely none of what you wrote overcomes the fact that you're trying to make players do more work to maintain and upkeep their equipment. I'm ignoring it because it's irrelevant to the problem: forced decay is bad.
No, forcing decay will not make a "net benefit" no matter how many paragraphs you write... it's pretty simple. Absolutely none of what you wrote overcomes the fact that you're trying to make players do more work to maintain and upkeep their equipment. I'm ignoring it because it's irrelevant to the problem: forced decay is bad.
It's rather clear that you didn't read it. None of those suggestions in any way mentioned decay (edit: well except for mitigating a known issue for those haven't got it) and the fact is they are just ways that other tedious aspects of the economy could be removed.
Realistically the primary reason why conversation about non-decay is even continuing and distrupting the thread is because you keep bringing things back to it at this point rather than contributing ways that the economy could be meaningfully improved that could limit if not obviate the relevance of even considering non-decay.
Aetolia has some form of craft on demand mechanism where a design sketch can be listed in a shop and then it is crafted the moment a player actually tries to buy it, pulling the necessary comms from a special rift afaik.
This could be significantly more convenient for shopkeepers to maintain a more deverse range of designs rather than needing to craft and stock things on the hopes that a customer will like the design you've chosen. It also means comms aren't actually consumed crafting something that potentially no one ever actually buys.
It could also be neat if this was some sort of contract that a shopkeeper can make with a tradesperson so the items are crafted as if from that tradesperson (i.e the crafters mark, decay timers, prestige, etc are all as if the tradesperson made it themselves). The contracts could even have a royalty where a variable x% of all sales using it would automatically be deposited into a nominated bank. You could also have the contracts have a set time frame and automatically end if the tradesperson is away long enough to become unranked or they retire so that shopkeepers need to find active players to keep their stock up rather than benefitting from a contract with a player that hasn't played in years. Effectively retaining the same situation as right now where you'd need to track down someone or personally craft to maintain stock levels.
to note: In the aet implementation some work more like sorcelglass and put the design on an existing item.
We don't need to be jumping back and forth at each other here.
This thread was just to get a general gauge about where we should focus our efforts, help guide our goals when we're looking at what to exactly do.
As mentioned - we don't have a plan yet, we're gathering data on what is currently happening and functioning. It's slow going, but it ultimately will help us make better decisions by truly understanding and knowing what exactly is out there.
Oh, there's also previously been the suggestion to basically use something like the starmourn implementation/curiomarket.
Basically, give every org a marketplace where anyone can list goods with a fee. This would remove a barrier to entry but you could limit how many things anyone could list at once with upgrade paths to list more stuff. Shops could be factored in like they are with aetherplex listings right now and as part of that upgrade path.
Going a step further, given we have catalogues it might also be possible to add a buy order thing so players could put up a request for a design and then traders could fill it. This could be neat as it would mean while players might need to wait a little bit, others who want to make a profit from trading can jump on these orders. Edit: The curiomarket seems like it indicates that conceptually this could work for helping people get stuff they want
No, forcing decay will not make a "net benefit" no matter how many paragraphs you write... it's pretty simple. Absolutely none of what you wrote overcomes the fact that you're trying to make players do more work to maintain and upkeep their equipment. I'm ignoring it because it's irrelevant to the problem: forced decay is bad.
It's rather clear that you didn't read it. None of those suggestions in any way mentioned decay (edit: well except for mitigating a known issue for those haven't got it) and the fact is they are just ways that other tedious aspects of the economy could be removed.
Realistically the primary reason why conversation about non-decay is even continuing and distrupting the thread is because you keep bringing things back to it at this point rather than contributing ways that the economy could be meaningfully improved that could limit if not obviate the relevance of even considering non-decay.
The very first sentence in that post was a direct reply on the decay issue, unfortunately, and thus it makes every subsequent suggestion look as if it is a way to "provide a net benefit to suddenly making other things decay." Maybe that's not what you intended? It certainly isn't very clear in the text, it all looks like it's chained directly onto that opening sentiment.
If you're actually suggesting these things as alternatives to, instead of in addition to, that's a hugely different matter.
Also, you could probably make every design trade a profit trade simply by adjusting existing aethertraders a bit.
1) Allow all design trades to refine items.
2) All aethertraders will accept any refined items, with a +10% increase in items for that specific trader type.
3) Adjust trader output as desired to accommodate this change (can allow more trades, reduce goop craft quantities a bit, whatever is desired).
Of course, that's predicated on the notion that aethergoop trading is good, and I know that there's some disagreement on that. If it sticks around, though, opening it to more people seems better than leaving it locked as-is.
Also, I note that your suggestions are essentially a way to get other players to hand over their gold that they gathered through other activities - but I'm not sure that it necessarily needs to be that. We have an entire world here full of tens of thousands of npcs who theoretically have their own wants & needs, and for which there could be some form of an opening to build a system around. Why can't the npcs be part of the market, too? They fork over gold for helping them with their quests - why not for bringing them goods and services they need? Crafting skills could, theoretically, be a third kind of advancement system alongside hunting and influencing, if you really want to go overhauly, and make being a merchant actually a real thing.
I'm still not personally convinced that a huge overhaul is needed here, but if you're going to go big, why not really go big and rethink it from the ground up?
1) Make Trader Bob sell finished products. By "finished products", I mean:
vials are sorcelglassed (longer decay time) and have an attached teardrop
kegs filled with potion: health, mana, bromide, slush, ice
caches for steam and dust
pipes are pre-filled with steam and have an attached pipetank
enchanted jewelry are charged to 10 and have an attached regulator (make it available in "basic" [rings, pendants, etc.] form an in the advanced brooch form)
enchantment cubes which are charged to 1000
armor
tailoring knots
influencing oils/perfumes
kirigami, wetfold
Price them appropriately (IE, based on what the admin sees as the 'ideal' price for the commodities used to make each product - although I know that there is a huge disconnect between admin price and player price). Players can still sell the stuff in their own shops, they just have to compete with Bob. A downside to this is that it will effectively create a price ceiling. An upside is that, because Bob will sell finished products (buy them and they're immediately usable), it will hopefully force shopkeepers to also sell finished products (buyers will no longer have to IKEA their stuff every time they need to replace it).
2) Double down on aethertrading as the 'profitable' method for the merchant-types.
Remove the gold gain attached to breaking down goopcraft items
Give all trades a viable aethertrade route (like what Xenthos suggested)
Make the goop gained be unbound (This is optional; if all trades get aether capability, then traders can just sell the unbroken-down goop and the buyers will be the one to break the goopcraft items, and the goop will thus be bound to them)
Crucial: increase the roaming gnome aethertraders to account for the increased demand
Merchanting will, therefore, revolve mostly around goop. The removal of the gold gain means the system is potentially a gold drain (through refining via gold); however, players can continue to trade goopcraft items with each other. The addition of more goopcraft items can even increase this player-to-player interaction since more people will be able to participate (as opposed to now, where you have to be tailor/jeweler/chef).
3) Remove the 'hard' cap on commodity production.
Right now, there is a definite limit on how much commodities can be produced. There is a specific number of cows, rockeaters, spinnerets, forest rooms, etc. that can be harvested. Even village commodity shops have a limit of storage, thereby limiting their tithes. Scarcity is an unfun model; it's like modern-day mercantilism. It looks good on paper but it's lackluster in practice.
The mining/farming models of Achaea and Aetolia are good to draw items from: resource nodes which can be mined (for a gold and time cost). You can mine and farm all you want, but market forces will determine whether you make a profit or not. If aethertrading is expanded, it can even increase the demand for commodities.
The very first sentence in that post was a direct reply on the decay issue, unfortunately, and thus it makes every subsequent suggestion look as if it is a way to "provide a net benefit to suddenly making other things decay." Maybe that's not what you intended? It certainly isn't very clear in the text, it all looks like it's chained directly onto that opening sentiment.
If you're actually suggesting these things as alternatives to, instead of in addition to, that's a hugely different matter.
Also, you could probably make every design trade a profit trade simply by adjusting existing aethertraders a bit.
1) Allow all design trades to refine items.
2) All aethertraders will accept any refined items, with a +10% increase in items for that specific trader type.
3) Adjust trader output as desired to accommodate this change (can allow more trades, reduce goop craft quantities a bit, whatever is desired).
Of course, that's predicated on the notion that aethergoop trading is good, and I know that there's some disagreement on that. If it sticks around, though, opening it to more people seems better than leaving it locked as-is.
Also, I note that your suggestions are essentially a way to get other players to hand over their gold that they gathered through other activities - but I'm not sure that it necessarily needs to be that. We have an entire world here full of tens of thousands of npcs who theoretically have their own wants & needs, and for which there could be some form of an opening to build a system around. Why can't the npcs be part of the market, too? They fork over gold for helping them with their quests - why not for bringing them goods and services they need? Crafting skills could, theoretically, be a third kind of advancement system alongside hunting and influencing, if you really want to go overhauly, and make being a merchant actually a real thing.
I'm still not personally convinced that a huge overhaul is needed here, but if you're going to go big, why not really go big and rethink it from the ground up?
Fundamentally, game economies function by rewarding players for doing things that your game actually wants them to. There are papers, youtube videos, all sorts of resources out there covering this cause it's a pretty interesting and complex topic.
Profit from trade is really just a mechanism for rewarding players for creating and making items available that the game wants and needs players to actually have.
With this in mind, the reason aethertrades haven't really helped, and likely won't, resolve the issue around availability of necessities is actually really simple. Aethertrades don't actually reward you for selling food/jewellery/clothing to people that need it, which is what the economy actually needs players to do.
Instead, Aethertrades reward players for removing large amounts of commodities from the game and converting them into goop and gold. As a mechanism it actively rewards players for contributing to the comm shortage.
The platters I made recently could possibly go in a shop, but it's so much more effective for me personally to refine them and trade them, so why should I stock them? A possible argument might be a bit extra gold, but looking at shoplogs it's maybe 20-30 gold extra a day when I could just go influencing or questing for easily and reliably more profit than that.
For the latter part, it seems like aethertraders fit that definition. They're denizens who have needs and have become part of the market.
The way I've seen NPCs factored in, pretty much across the board for MMOs is: 1) They set up a price floor for the minimum value for any item, which should typically ensure an absolute minimum profit, and; 2) They're a vent if the surplus of any item devalues them to that floor so those items start getting cycled out of the game. Aetolia's production stuff seems to implement some of this as requests that are dynamically generated.
In the end though because interaction with other players is kinda the whole point of an MMO the most profitable route is always trading with other players because that's what the game wants/needs you to do. Lusternia's systems right now need players picking herbs, milking poisons, making cures, providing enchantments, forging weapons and armour, etc and making that all available to people who can't do it for themselves either due to lower/different investment or just a lack of time available.
1) Make Trader Bob sell finished products. By "finished products", I mean:
vials are sorcelglassed (longer decay time) and have an attached teardrop
kegs filled with potion: health, mana, bromide, slush, ice
caches for steam and dust
pipes are pre-filled with steam and have an attached pipetank
enchanted jewelry are charged to 10 and have an attached regulator (make it available in "basic" [rings, pendants, etc.] form an in the advanced brooch form)
enchantment cubes which are charged to 1000
armor
tailoring knots
influencing oils/perfumes
kirigami, wetfold
Price them appropriately (IE, based on what the admin sees as the 'ideal' price for the commodities used to make each product - although I know that there is a huge disconnect between admin price and player price). Players can still sell the stuff in their own shops, they just have to compete with Bob. A downside to this is that it will effectively create a price ceiling. An upside is that, because Bob will sell finished products (buy them and they're immediately usable), it will hopefully force shopkeepers to also sell finished products (buyers will no longer have to IKEA their stuff every time they need to replace it).
2) Double down on aethertrading as the 'profitable' method for the merchant-types.
Remove the gold gain attached to breaking down goopcraft items
Give all trades a viable aethertrade route (like what Xenthos suggested)
Make the goop gained be unbound (This is optional; if all trades get aether capability, then traders can just sell the unbroken-down goop and the buyers will be the one to break the goopcraft items, and the goop will thus be bound to them)
Crucial: increase the roaming gnome aethertraders to account for the increased demand
Merchanting will, therefore, revolve mostly around goop. The removal of the gold gain means the system is potentially a gold drain (through refining via gold); however, players can continue to trade goopcraft items with each other. The addition of more goopcraft items can even increase this player-to-player interaction since more people will be able to participate (as opposed to now, where you have to be tailor/jeweler/chef).
3) Remove the 'hard' cap on commodity production.
Right now, there is a definite limit on how much commodities can be produced. There is a specific number of cows, rockeaters, spinnerets, forest rooms, etc. that can be harvested. Even village commodity shops have a limit of storage, thereby limiting their tithes. Scarcity is an unfun model; it's like modern-day mercantilism. It looks good on paper but it's lackluster in practice.
The mining/farming models of Achaea and Aetolia are good to draw items from: resource nodes which can be mined (for a gold and time cost). You can mine and farm all you want, but market forces will determine whether you make a profit or not. If aethertrading is expanded, it can even increase the demand for commodities.
For 1) this begs the question of why should a player invest in a shop? It addresses your complaints as a customer sure, but why should someone worry about stocking stuff when they can just tell anyone who needs it to just go buy it off Bob? Price ceilings are also a bit problematic, given your 3) it's plausible that the value of things Bob sells could be massively overpriced or equally he could be extremely undercutting even the most heavily invested player.
For 2) I've heard from a player that's been playing for about 2-3 months that they're already kinda finished with goop, it could be worsened from promos in that period, but even doubling it, if that's an accurate time frame making "merchant" revolve around goop wouldn't help longer term retention.
Similarly, my understanding is the plan was always to expand goop items to cover all trades, but it stalled at 5 of 11. If you're expanding, we'd also need 6 more trades worth of goop items. It also seems as though the traders don't already cover alchemy and enchanting as they don't quite work with the model so those along with herbs and poisons might also need further consideration.
3) yeah, active generation is how other MMOs manage it. Eventually it becomes unprofitable to keep generating something so players stop and move on to something else. Also to note though Aetolia's model isn't truly unlimited, there is a cap for how much any one player can generate. Same with their herbs and tradeskills, you can actually only gather so many herbs total in one weave/howling, you can only have two trades. It's mostly relevant because on your own you can't do everything, or at least it becomes infeasible to do so because of the time factor involved so it's more efficient to work with others. (but also that involves them using their limits for you)
Hm. Something like that might not actually be a bad idea. Theoretical spitballing here, but: have a period where villages that revolt can no longer be influenced. Instead you need to complete quests/comm turn ins if you want your org to win it, and the value of those activities is boosted massively. At some point, introduce npcs in each village who provide widgetanium, widgetwood, widgeria root, and widgecite for sale and desperately need widgetswords, widger baskets, widget cordon bleu, and wandgets. Lower the traditional quest points back down, and instead provide xp/essence, gold, and karma for every properly homed widgeranium. (Handing items to villagers made with new skills from materials the village provides). Then, take the big step and have villages "flux" dynamically based on a system like the old village feelings using the new mechanic. Importantly, at some point remove the villages being marked as loyal territory for the controlling org so that org can't just chokehold the village by declaring everyone an enemy if they're caught in the village. Instead the only mechanical benefits villages provide are commodity tithes, and a power stipend. Once villages are thus overhauled, the next step is to add npcs looking for wares in a similar vein to my last post, but treat it like a full quest where you hand the NPC an item, the NPC checks to see how many of its criteria that item matches, and doles out an appropriate reward in gold, xp/essence, and karma, and sufficient points earns a DC tic the first time you cross the threshold each day. Maybe the second as well, or subject it to diminishing returns or exponential rises so it's not just buying DC. Simultaneously, combine creation skills into more condensed categories, such as AB TAILORING GARMENTS to contain TAILORING SHIRTS, DRESSES, PANTS, ACCESSORIES and SHOES, AB TAILORING ENSEMBLES for HIGHFASHION, GREATROBES, etc. with a similar treatment for jewellery, forging, cooking, etc. and remove, move, or make baseline things that intersect with combat like masterarmour, splendours, tierstones, etc. With the extra space, start implementing flourish skills that add cute, non-mechanical fluff to items, but make them worth more to NPCs in terms of one possible reward to the detriment of others, (such as Shimmersilk lining for tailored items that puts a gradient on the item description), others that boost the overall reward, and a few that open new micromarkets via converting commodities into intermediary goods that can always be traded, but give out much lower rewards. Think things like hard tack, horseshoes, aloe lotion, nails, that sort of thing for base tier stuff. Later on add things like staple or foundation foods (mashed potatoes, roux, pie dough), saddles, fishing lures, or disinfectant as a mid tier, and on up to caviar, ermine lined gloves, ceremonial vestiments, paper, or flash powder as luxury goods that still don't earn quite as much as bespoke crafting. Critically, while each trade that gets in on this should have all the tiers, each should also be better or worse at fiddling with rewards. Smithing might earn better gold (you can't really haggle over the price of horseshoes and hobnails when you need them, you either pay or get out of the forge), but only so-so karma from these (Your intermediary has a lot of clients, but you can't really put a maker's mark on a nail), and doesn't have a way to boost experience much (it's always the same items the same way every time, consistency is key with smithed goods). Whereas a chef can earn excellent experience (A lot of room for experimentation in the kitchen since at worst you feed yourself and do a new batch the old way), and okay karma (you were going to throw out those stale loaves anyway, why not donate them?), but nowhere near as much gold (you can't really charge much for good and expect to get away with it for long). While this skill shuffle is going on in the artsy/production skills, the remaining skills get shuffled around, rebalanced a bit, and spread out better. Tattoos is either folded into arts or released from monks' exclusivity contract and allowed to see other classes as long as they don't wiggle their fingers to kill people. Likewise forging and warriors. Herbs and poisons are converted or folded into new skills aimed at harvesting commodities, one for vegetable matter, one for animal products, and a new one entirely for minerals. Each one has both a high and a low magic version if they can't be entirely divorced from it. Brewmeister is either opened to any lowmagic user or unlocked outright, and the same thing can happen there with tinkering and highmagic, with spells specifically from highmagic like pentagram either swapped out for the new versions or just given to their equivalent as needed (so enchanting with pentagram requires the lowmagic tinkerer to have circle, etc. if the coding team doesn't want to code for RUB PENTAGRAM). Brewmeister is also given all of cooking's fluids and patterns, through cooking cartels if necessary. Not sure whether it'd be best to utterly gut and divorce design skills from combat and influencing or just minimize the impact. Maybe keep one or two things per trade but treat them more like sorcelglass where the finished design is just applied on top of an existing NPC purchased base object? Sharply cut the comms used in forging patterns, greatrobes/suits, and poor, poor artisan? Or leave them be as a newbie/returner tax?
In reference to the comm issue. Our biggest drains that I frequently see are research and refining. What if we changed the way refining works, or more specifically what can be refined? Maybe if certain village quests (or maybe even all quests) were edited to give you a type of item upon completion. For example, completing tosha would give you lotus shaped brooch. That brooch along with any other jewelry type item received from a quest could be refined together to create your uniques. This would ease the demand of comms from cities and communes alike.
Note: I’m aware this would not solve the entire problem, but it is an idea I had that was worth mentioning.
In reference to the comm issue. Our biggest drains that I frequently see are research and refining. What if we changed the way refining works, or more specifically what can be refined? Maybe if certain village quests (or maybe even all quests) were edited to give you a type of item upon completion. For example, completing tosha would give you lotus shaped brooch. That brooch along with any other jewelry type item received from a quest could be refined together to create your uniques. This would ease the demand of comms from cities and communes alike.
Note: I’m aware this would not solve the entire problem, but it is an idea I had that was worth mentioning.
Adding in other gameplay loops could be interesting.
It's been suggested before you could have bashing and influencing, effectively, drop loot which seems kinda like this except quests might give more guaranteed loot? You'd make them drop a bit less gold but the idea is that people who aren't interested in trading would sell the loot to other players who would then make a further profit by doing something like this which then generates the gold they use.
Makes different loot drop activities more or less valuable based on how much people do them and if tuned right even though you can personally go through and gather everything you need it's faster and better to trade between players.
What if bob ran a shop which purchased herbs and curatives from players and then resold them at a markup, with the current price determined by stock like a village commshop?
It could help ensure that there's a steady supply by incentivizing players to make them when the stocks are low by rewarding them with an instant profit.
This thread seems to have died down a bit. I'm going to throw a few more musings up here.
First, shopkeeping in Lusternia is actually discouraged for any of the "design" trades because there are frankly too many designs / options. People want something that fits them, so they either design it or consult someone with a full catalogue to have it made on-the-spot. If you do choose to go browsing, the options you find stocked pale in comparison to the full range available. This is, imo, a big reason you don't see a lot of forged goods in shops (yes, the limited availability of forging is another).
How would you fix this? I'd say by adding an option kind of like one brought up earlier: Shopkeepers can sell a design instead of the finished product. Any design available in their own catalogue can be added. It pulls commodities from the shop's rift. A new bin would need to be added to store non-riftable commodities (example: putting 10 crowfeathers in would add "crowfeather 10" to the shop, and it would deplete from this total for every design made that uses crowfeathers). The shopkeeper can assign a price to each commodity, and the final total is based on the sum of all components (calculated & assigned when the design is listed).
This is slightly different than the "skin/sorcelglass" thing brought up earlier in that you're still buying the exact item you want. Make sure to limit the number of slots that a shop can use (so an exclusive tailor shop will have more choices than one that's tailoring, forging, and jewellery), and to prevent listing of an entire catalogue (so different shops will have different options, based on personal choice of the shopkeeper).
This also has the benefit of reducing item bloat because people are no longer pre-making items that just sit around on a stockroom floor, they're only being made when someone actually wants them. Restocking would no longer be restocking designed items, but instead restocking raw comms.
Second, if you want crafting / merchant to be an actual profession (the above change is still more of a personal branding choice than a requirement), make it a way to earn gold & experience both, as an alternate advancement system (just like influencing is). This is something I was getting at earlier. I don't know that there's a great way to make player-sales give exp without being egregiously abused, but you could have sets of NPCs asking for an order of different designs. Fulfilling the order gets you some gold and a chunk of exp - the larger the quantity/variety requested, the more they give. Luce mentioned something along these lines as a gnome-thing, but I'm not sure why it needs to be gnomes. Maybe village comm-shop owners now take orders for the village. For non-village factions, maybe someone (the leader, or some other assigned NPC) starts offering orders instead. Accepting an order locks you into a contract where you're expected to complete it within a timeframe, if you fail you take a malus (same as losing an influence battle). New orders are listed every 40 minutes (approximate shuffle time). Etc. etc. Depending on how you overhaul the commodity input & availability, this would be an option to effectively rethink trading and make being a trader a true calling.
Third, commodity availability. Both of the above changes actually rely on people being able to get commodities. I've said before that I believe divorcing commodities from villages is an important step (I think I've seen it repeated by others too). How do you do this? Close down village comm shops. Reduce or remove tithing entirely (reduction is probably fine, letting orgs still build up some supply passively). Set up caravan(s) of npc traders that roam around on a circuit between villages. They have a maximum quantity supply - when they arrive at a village, any comms that village produces are bought up by the trader. Eg: Arriving at Angkrag will set the metals, coal, silk, meat on the trader to the cap of 500 (or whatever is picked). The price varies; if when they arrived at the village the trader had less than half the stock still on hand, the trader will raise the price. If more than half, the trader lowers the price (down to a set floor for each comm).
Leave org comm shops open; it's the trade minister's job to go talking to the caravans and bring comms home, so that an org's members & newbies have easy access to needed comms. Someone can try to get a deal by going directly to the traders, but they don't need to if they don't want to. Individual merchants might be incentivized to do so to increase their profit margins, or to make doing the crafting quests more profitable. Cap org reserves again so it's more transparent what an org actually has on-hand.
This way you're basically making an "artificial" commodities market where the price is based on supply and demand. If you find that the game is regularly choked out of specific comms, you can raise the cap that the caravan has for that comm type. Adjusting this is relatively easy, compared to the opaque tithing system we have now.
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Obviously, this is all a lot more work than "just give us more comms darnit," but it's a potential path if you really want to take on the extra challenge and make the website blurb actually accurate.
Tithe a portion of the proceeds from shop "made" items to the pattern's set designer - encourages more public designs and raises the standard of quality. Or, if that will spread too much gold around in the low-drain system, come up with a point system a la bardics and artisanals that gives you progressively-building honours for having your designs made popular and widely consumed. Tie this to family honour, artsy fartsy families rejoice. Tie this to ranking to orgpoints like Psychodrama currently is for whatever reason.
(Yes it moves a bit away from the thread's main point, but I think it makes Xenthos' suggestion an even more attractive option for what other improvements can branch from it maybe. And this is the designing IRE, let's elevate it further!)
Crumkane, Lord of Epicurean Delights says, "WAS IT INDEED ON FIRE, ERITHEYL."
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With a deep reverb, Contemptible Sutekh says, "CEASE YOUR INFERNAL ENERGY, ERITHEYL."
This thread seems to have died down a bit. I'm going to throw a few more musings up here.
First, shopkeeping in Lusternia is actually discouraged for any of the "design" trades because there are frankly too many designs / options. People want something that fits them, so they either design it or consult someone with a full catalogue to have it made on-the-spot. If you do choose to go browsing, the options you find stocked pale in comparison to the full range available. This is, imo, a big reason you don't see a lot of forged goods in shops (yes, the limited availability of forging is another).
How would you fix this? I'd say by adding an option kind of like one brought up earlier: Shopkeepers can sell a design instead of the finished product. Any design available in their own catalogue can be added. It pulls commodities from the shop's rift. A new bin would need to be added to store non-riftable commodities (example: putting 10 crowfeathers in would add "crowfeather 10" to the shop, and it would deplete from this total for every design made that uses crowfeathers). The shopkeeper can assign a price to each commodity, and the final total is based on the sum of all components (calculated & assigned when the design is listed).
This is slightly different than the "skin/sorcelglass" thing brought up earlier in that you're still buying the exact item you want. Make sure to limit the number of slots that a shop can use (so an exclusive tailor shop will have more choices than one that's tailoring, forging, and jewellery), and to prevent listing of an entire catalogue (so different shops will have different options, based on personal choice of the shopkeeper).
This also has the benefit of reducing item bloat because people are no longer pre-making items that just sit around on a stockroom floor, they're only being made when someone actually wants them. Restocking would no longer be restocking designed items, but instead restocking raw comms.
Basing this off shops/shopkeepers is a significant downgrade to what I was suggesting.
Mostly because it then requires the shopkeeper to maintain the trades and pushes it more into solo territory. Even if you loop in the people that have permission to operate your shop then you have to let them have access to your shop.
By having it be something that is an agreement between shopkeeper and trader it means that Bob Jr can specialise in Tailoring, buy the artifacts, and make an agreement with Bob who actually owns the Shop.
This would mean people who haven't been able to acquire shops yet could still captialise on the system. Guilds, for example, could let their members list their designs, the Serenwilde bar would likely do something similar. The convenience still exists for shopkeepers it just means they aren't paying a royalty to others so they can keep their full profits.
Second, if you want crafting / merchant to be an actual profession (the above change is still more of a personal branding choice than a requirement), make it a way to earn gold & experience both, as an alternate advancement system (just like influencing is). This is something I was getting at earlier. I don't know that there's a great way to make player-sales give exp without being egregiously abused, but you could have sets of NPCs asking for an order of different designs. Fulfilling the order gets you some gold and a chunk of exp - the larger the quantity/variety requested, the more they give. Luce mentioned something along these lines as a gnome-thing, but I'm not sure why it needs to be gnomes. Maybe village comm-shop owners now take orders for the village. For non-village factions, maybe someone (the leader, or some other assigned NPC) starts offering orders instead. Accepting an order locks you into a contract where you're expected to complete it within a timeframe, if you fail you take a malus (same as losing an influence battle). New orders are listed every 40 minutes (approximate shuffle time). Etc. etc. Depending on how you overhaul the commodity input & availability, this would be an option to effectively rethink trading and make being a trader a true calling.
Rather than reinventing the wheel we could just... look at what other games are doing and take what's actually working from those, particularly with other IRE games it makes sense for our producers/admin to draw on the learnings from them as well.
This suggestion is basically what Aetolia already does with their marketorders system which both players and denizens list things on. The big difference really is that the marketorders system, effectively, requires that the items being traded are freshly made (i.e freshly farmed comms that have never gone into a rift) so they're comms created specifically for that. Not certain on it, so the admin could ask Tiur, but because there's no stage between comm creation and comm deletion in that it seems like you can make thresholds for individual comms to appear. i.e if the game thinks there isn't enough eggs in the game then eggs won't appear in the orders, where if it thinks there's too much denizens start buying them.
If there is a goal of progression we can also look to the other games. The other games have implemented that aren't actually learned through lessons but through alternate means. Hacking and Captaincy along with stuff like Provisioning in Aetolia are all learned by actually using them which then improve your ability to engage in those aspects of the game.
Something unrelated to the mechanical viability of traders and trading as a progression method but that does need to be addressed: Lusternia's technology level is not at all as limited as the design trades are. Magnagora has gas lamps, steam engines, and post-industrial revolution factories. New Celest has enchanted lighthouses that can be seen across the Basin, and several constructs made purely from water, seashells, and coral. Highwater has blessed gruel that makes the eater more humble. And Hallifax has...well, let's just say Hallifax does things with crystal powers we can't do in real life yet but should be able to. And all of that stops the minute you try to design something.
Thematically, I get it, kind of. You don't have any way to force allegiance checks beyond cartel membership, and no way to confirm that the person constructing the mirror of pellucid ice is, in fact, an elementalist capable of shaping and freezing water precisely enough to make the design, but it leads to odd situations like citizens of Hallifax being unable to include memory crystals or displays in our designs in spite of the fact that the city has those things.
I think one way to solve this within the existing system would be to introduce some new commodities that aren't produced by trades, such as enchanterscrip, aquamancyscroll, resonantcrystal, or engineermanuscript that don't really represent a physical item, but represent a contract or specific piece of knowledge to bridge the gap between different craftspersons. Maybe with an optional step to let characters who realistically WOULD have direct access to the specific MacGuffin craft without them. If implemented, these should not be counted as basic comms, obviously, but might flag to the review board/Charites to consider unusual commodities to be basic comms and to allow for otherwise forbidden commodity usage. It would
either be something sold in the related org's commodity shop (or an NPC
specifically for these sorts of comms), or would require someone go to the old guildhall and work with an NPC there to
create each one. So, for example, if you want to make microgastronomical mousse that uses
cloudyessence to have an aeromancer make incredibly fine bubbles as it
sets, you'd include the eggs, the flavour comms, a cloudyessence, and an
aeromancyscroll. The scroll will signal to the review board that
cloudyessence is allowable as a commodity and that aeromancy has been
used to create a dish that a pseudo-medieval chef could not. An aeromancer or aerochem would go to Malimli Fairquillion to create the aeromancyscroll and could sell it or give it to the chef, or alternatively Malimli herself could just sell them, or another NPC in Hallifax somewhere. Then when the item is crafted, an optional check can be
added that ignores the aeromancyscroll if the chef has aeromancy
active. An aquamancyscroll in the design might let someone build artisan furniture that treats water as a basic commodity with a large conversion ratio (ie: a vial's worth of water to the commodity), and be made by an aqua* by talking to their old guild tutor. Or an enchanterscrip AND a dreamlecture can be used to let dream motes repeat specific images in a smooth surface (think LCD picture frame with a short video clip or holographic orrery), with the scrip being purchased at any highmagic-centric guild NPC or created by enchanters, while the lecture is the same from any mage/druid tutor or actual dreamweaver.
Basically, create special comms that let players break normal design rules to match org and skillset themes.
EDIT: Forgot the second half of this concept. If it's possible to instead have crafting check for skills in non-crafting skillsets, it'd be better if the above rigamarole with new commodities could be skipped by just adding flags to the patterns. A new field, SKILLS, can hold up to 4 flags for required attributes, with allowable flags being specific skillsets, orgs, archetypes, or skills. IE: DESIGN 123456 SKILLS aeromancy to allow only aeromancers to complete the craft, DESIGN 123456 SKILLS elementalism enchantment while the design is in a Celest cartel to limit it to only aquamancers and aquachem enchanters, or DESIGN 123456 SKILLS org:revelry pyromancy dreamweaving:beast spellcraft:ignite to only allow Pyromancer Revellers with the Beast ability in dreamweaving and the ignite enchantment in spellcraft to create it. Anyone else trying to craft the item will get an error message saying they "lack the proper skills to create that." with an optional second line to the effect of "You must (have the <skill> skill active)|(be able to use the <ability> ability in <skill>)|(be a member of the (<org> (guild|city))|divine [Dis]Order of <god>))|(be a|an <archetype>)[, and <etc.>] to create such a thing." (So, like, a Mysraian Cantor Glamourist with tinkering might get "You must be a member of the divine Order of Crumkane, and be a mage, and be able to use the cleanse ability in spellcraft, and have the runes skill active to create such a thing." if the design required all of those things.)
Cause guild focused, it'd be neat to loop guilds into that.
Like each guild could have some method to make/access their set of those comms, or even have some special effects linked to guilds which require the design be submitted to a guild cartel. For my easiest example, you could have like... spirit mist in the Listeners which might let you make stuff that looks spectral.
Though, that said. Wishlisty but I feel like it'd be pretty great if guilds, orders, and families could hold designs without having a bunch of pointless extra cartels floating around. Listeners have something like six clans, four of which are cartels which always seemed to be forgotten about back in the day when they belonged to the old guilds. And if you want restricted and generally available designs that can be two cartels for a trade. At a million gold per it's not really worth it when you might have what... 3-4 designs in them?
It'd be pretty great if there was an option to let players transfer designs from their personal cartels to a guilds/etc design library with access managed more like library books.
I very much like the idea of adding special org/guild based commodities that, like essence, allow special effects for crafting. I've always felt like some of Lusternian fashion and ddesigning is... samey, with mostly the same overwrought types of flowy silk robes (or grimdark black leather with gears on) etc. Of course, that's a generalization, there are lots of designs out there and people doing cool cultural takes. Adding in special org-related cultural products would be neat.
I'd have whatever the material is be refined from regular comms via a little quest, with a baseline supply available to members of that guild, but others in the org able to purchase it. Also, I think it should probably be a no-rift, always-decay type material, except when held by the guild in some way. In the most obvious implementation, there would be a "vendor" NPC who you recieve it from, and if they're holding it, it can stockpile to a limited degree and to whom you can return unused supplies. But this could also say... be a natural feature, a mystical hollow that transforms specific corpses combined with... egg comms to make the guildcomm, or something.
Off the top of my head, three for Serenwilde could be...
GuildResource Made ofAppearanceSupernatural Effect Wodewoses "Anima" Animal Product* Movement/lifelike Magic camo, animal aura, appropriate natural effect based on source.
Listeners** "Whisper rock" Stone/Gems HitodamaGhost whispers, iconic auras (Heroic, spooky, sedate, etc.. Sort of like a mini demi-choicelook in the desc.
Sowers "Heartseed" Plant Material Vital Glow Allows the inclusion of living plant material,
*Like leather, bones, ivory, fur... not silk. **Alternately, "Whisper yew"? Wood instead of stone
This would encourage Serenwilders to craft things made from hides, stone/wood, and living plant material, and especially members of those guilds! Folks could also incorporate those features into "modern" Lusternian clothing. like a tweed vest with horn buttons... or a cupcake with a blooming flower on it. I was mostly thinking of tailoring in this rough example, but with some refinement they should work with all or most of the creative trades.
The other piece of crafting in particular is the cartel system, which... I don't like at all really. I've almost entirely avoided interacting with it, because I find it really restrictive and frustrating, while at the same time promoting samey designs as you either have people IN the cartel or out with no other mechanics to manage designs, and the cost/effort of starting a cartel means a lot of folks not seriously IN to crafting just join existing cartels. I would prefer a far more personalized system overall, and think that it would also give more opportunities for cool player interaction for those who want to pursue it, and more autonomy for people who just want to take up a trade and make a few personal patterns, without those two groups having to compete for design space.
Really, once you pick a creative trade and put in some investment, you should be able to make a majority of the types of pattern, and should be able to write at least a pattern for yourself. It's so odd for a new cook to be able to make any kind of muffin or soup, but be utterly unable to bake a single cake! Cooking is the least offensive, as most of the skills are "skill level" in the sense of "dishes" then "delicacies", then "gourmet", but there are still pattern limitations within those skills and other crafting trades are nuts. The crafting skills should have the combat abilities stripped out entirely, be changed to miniskills or talents, and not prevent taking up an "economic" trade, and add a patterns/slots mechanic. Pretty much, give them the Aetolia treatment, where mercantile and crafting skills are separate and follow different mechanics.
I'd then have cartels be "Pattern Libraries", where just like the existing book libraries, you can publish patterns, check them out, or store your extras. They'd also give you the ability to submit more designs, perhaps with some kind of credibility-type mechanic with other members of the cartel to help refine designs before they're submitted all the way - in other words, you could bump a design up the reviewer queue by getting it checked by other players who give it a thumbs up to promote it... but who lose crafting credibility if that design then gets rejecting. Orgs and guilds would be given one of these by default with a ministry or rank priv gating inclusion, outside of the clan system.
So... you pick up tailoring with your daily credits, BAM you can design one pattern and keep up to three patterns indefinitely plus you can make all basic attire (socks, shoes, underwear, shirts, pants, etc.). You can "check out" patterns from a cartel and hold them like a library book or copy them to one of your slots for more designs, and can use public designs. Spend some lessons in the skill, pick up things like mending, thermal, batting, use of special guild commodities, longer base decay times, more design slots/pattern slots, a fancier tier of clothing (splendors, suits, wedding attire?). Perhaps at some level you can pick a "specialization", like better quality items, or more base slots, or some kind of cartel-user upgrade? At Trans PLUS a certain amount of positive crafting credibility from good designs PLUS a bunch of good promotions of other people's designs I'd also open up a low tier of mortal reviewing in that trade, as a further first filter to alleviate the pressure to review designs, hopefully clearing things up for a lot more submissions.
A bunch of this would be a lot of coding work, but some of it could be stepped into gradually. When talking about "The Economy", it's projects like this that are worth that big effort, as they have real dividends in terms of engagement and enjoyment with the game world. A lot of the recurring discussion about "fixing" the economy seems to fixate on the economy existing as a self-contained good and valuable in terms of its ability to coerce players to engage with it. There is design value in adding friction to a game, placing goalposts that can't be immediately reached, that require engagement and investment in the game, and provide a satisfying payoff when achieved. However, it's important to remember that the climb doesn't CREATE the payoff, it's just a part of it - there's no point in adding a bunch of makework for its own benefit. The competitive market is not a universal constant, I promise! You don't need a win condition for it to be a good thing! Working on crafting seems like a great place to focus first, as it's a way for players to generate content for the game, making the game interesting for everyone and engages those players with the game more deeply.
If I were plotting a general course towards this kind of system:
1. Start with backstopping commodities and consumables. Do as suggested and provide a constant source of necessities like clothing, curatives, weapons. I'd run this through each org, so that there's a "Serenwilde Communal Supplies" that dispenses tunics and potions. It'd be neat to allow for orgs to change these around as long as there's an item filling each slot, with a generic one supplied if the nicer stuff has run out. In other words, if I design and make 50 tunics they'd be dispensed to anyone who asks, and once they run out there's a generic "Serenwilde outfit" that everyone gets at baseline. This way, if other things FUBAR the gold economy, you can always get basic enchants and so on, play can continue.
2. Create some guidelines for how guild-comms work, in terms of how they're generated in general, and what sorts of effects are possible. Then, work with Orgs/Guilds through the patron system to develop the unique commodities. I don't think this will require much beyond other patron request type things, and can be ongoing based on interest.
3. First round cartel changes, I like being able to flag patterns as having requirements to make, could work great alongside the guild-comms. Part of the goal would be to increase personal/local involvement in cartels, and not just want to join the biggest ones or buy a totally personal 1-2 person cartel to submit personal designs. Part would be to assess what works and what doesn't for cartels. Of course, you'd need to make it such that no one loses access to their own designs with whatever changes happen, might be good to do a big push towards marking the designer of unmarked designs.
3. Start trimming the cruft from craft skillsets, pare them down to just crafting and offload necessities onto common skills or arrange to remove them. Many can be deleted outright, and most of this operation shouldn't require creating new code, though untangling old code might be a nightmare. Start with the most popular crafts like Tailoring, Cooking, Artisan. Brewmeister is an odd duck and will need special treatment, probably. Decide on moving to miniskill/talent model.
4. Start refining labor skills, the ones that input time and/or raw resources and output other resources. Herbs, alchemy, enchanting. I suggest doing some creative reorganizing of the skills in environment, arts, herbs, enchanting, poisons and other to cobble together a new pool of skillsets from extant skills. I'd throw in two other wrinkles: commodity refinement as a set of skills distributed across the mercantile abilities (or as its own skillset), and mercantile proficiency - like aethercraft proficiency, with bashingfor gold/resources as one of the potential proficiencies. The first will even the field between commodities like herbs and cloth and give players ways to be more self-sufficient in generating the commodities they're chiefly concerned with without adding back in comm mines, the second makes it possible to have bashing for gold not be the forever most-efficient method of getting gold. Some folks will specialize in the getting of gold and be best at that (as always), but there would be benefits to focusing on other things. Also, you can have more mercantile skills, but it benefits you to make a friend who has the second skill rather than just do both by yourself.
5. Change craft skills to a separate model from labor skills, as described above. More independence, less pressure to either invest HARD or not at all, better ability to trade patterns instead of just products, less feast-or-famine in terms of variety.
6. Shift Cartels to library model as described above. More dynamic, more interactive.
7. Work on fixing the value of labor skills in terms of trading/market. With the pressure to make back a big lesson investment and compete on a market with crafting trades removed, it'll be easier to see if there's value in making it work for labor skills, which already function totally differently. This basically would start a new roadmap though, but because of step 1 I think it can wait, and when complete I don't know that a working gold market will really have as much design value as a thriving craft system.
Short of putting license costs and doing it exactly the same, it seems like you could do something similar like...
Create a skill "tradesperson" or something
Have one of the low abilities basically let the player create, submit, and hold designs. (effectively they act as a cartel)
All designs belong to individuals by default, they can be transferred to orgs, orders, guilds, families, etc. The individual can also optionally temporarily allow a player access to a design.
The skill can't be learned through lessons, but instead you have to submit designs as well as interact with other aspects of the economy. Possibly there's even space for every time one of your designs is crafted you get a minor amount of points.
If you limit how many designs an individual can hold permanently then the skill could have abilities which increase that limit.
That skill could also do things like increase how many design listings you could have active in shops. If you have market orders it could gate or increase your ability to utilise that system.
Cartels might not even really serve a purpose as players could just create sharing agreements between themselves, but if needed they could also remain as an upgrade to clans that allow them the same functionality orgs, guilds, etc would have.
It's all stuff that basically exists already so it doesn't seem like it would be particularly difficult to find out if it's working or not. It also means we can draw on experience and knowledge of things that might actually be working rather than coming up with shiny new ideas which might work, but also might mean in a few years we're still talking about the same thing.
How would you fix this? I'd say by adding an option kind of like one brought up earlier: Shopkeepers can sell a design instead of the finished product. Any design available in their own catalogue can be added. It pulls commodities from the shop's rift. A new bin would need to be added to store non-riftable commodities (example: putting 10 crowfeathers in would add "crowfeather 10" to the shop, and it would deplete from this total for every design made that uses crowfeathers). The shopkeeper can assign a price to each commodity, and the final total is based on the sum of all components (calculated & assigned when the design is listed).
This is slightly different than the "skin/sorcelglass" thing brought up earlier in that you're still buying the exact item you want. Make sure to limit the number of slots that a shop can use (so an exclusive tailor shop will have more choices than one that's tailoring, forging, and jewellery), and to prevent listing of an entire catalogue (so different shops will have different options, based on personal choice of the shopkeeper).
...
Just want to chime in and say that I love this idea.
I have a vast catalogue of designs from all over the place, but I rarely get to use any of them. Aside from making shopping more interesting, this would likely also encourage designers to make designs outside of either "things for me" or "things people specifically ask me for."
Could we get some hard numbers regarding village commodity tithing and Commercial government? I think, if we had more data, we could form more concrete thoughts and get more substantial suggestions.
Things like, how are village tithes calculated, what effect does village specialization do (for example, rope for Stewartsville/Delport or silk for Angkrag/Dairuchi), and how does Commercial government boost comm production...
Things like, how are village tithes calculated, what effect does village specialization do (for example, rope for Stewartsville/Delport or silk for Angkrag/Dairuchi), and how does Commercial government boost comm production...
I don't have any information on commercial, but we can talk about some of the others.
"Village specialisation" really just means there are mobs in that village tied to specific commodities, and some sort of conflict mechanism to move them around to affect production. Miners in mining villages, hemp farmers between Delport and Stewarts, vegetable fruit and grain farmers for Estelbar/Acknor, and so forth. While it is hard to control against active player generation in some circumstances, the most that appears to be produced in a village with maximum mob producers is around 250-300. This seems to vary a bit from village to village and commodity and commodity, with Ptoma/Ixthiaxa producing less metals generally than Angkrag/Southgard/Rockholm (with the caveat that geomycus are much easier to move around without getting enemied and don't have an annoying crowning quest to pivot around). All other commodities just seem to be small tithes that tic on occasion and are often times limited for no specific reason - IE, Rikenfriez just doesn't produce eggs. Too cold for chickens I guess.
What gets more complicated is how mob producers function when moved around frequently. They seem to produce commodities based on intervals of how long they have been in that village, and moving them around too much from village to village can reset that timer and slow down production for both villages. The more competition there is moving them around, the less they generally produce for everyone, seemingly. Which, imo, is a rather annoying and frustrating mechanic, and does a lot to stymy interest in conflict based over them in the long run.
Actually, I'll take a moment to clarify on the last part - obviously you'll get more commodities struggling to take back some mob producers than not, but the difference would be, say, if all comm producers stay in village A, it produces 300 units, whereas if there is conflict dragging them back and forth, they will produce 100 units in village A and 100 units in village B. The net production is 200 units being added to the game instead of 300, which is overall less even if it is spread out more. This can also produce the illusion that holding all of the commodity producers isn't quite as worthwhile as it actually is, if you don't get to enjoy them uncontested for that added perspective.
EDIT: Extra addendum - it is probably set up this way so that allies controlling rival villages aren't encouraged to purposefully game producer swapping for maximum results, assuming you could achieve higher outputs through some happy medium of holding/swapping. I have my various dislikes for the set up, but can see how/why it might have been designed this way initially.
If that last bit is true (and I am inclined to think it is), then pingponging comm mobs like ewes/steers/farmers is actually detrimental to comm production.
If that last bit is true (and I am inclined to think it is), then pingponging comm mobs like ewes/steers/farmers is actually detrimental to comm production.
It at least seems to be the case with farmers and geomycus. I'm unsure if animal production might work differently, but that's something that can be looked into between Gaudi/Mag probably.
Villages are a conflict system so it makes sense. You could just trade comms with allies while for enemies stealing stuff from their villages would be denying them comms and you'd have a gain for your side even if the overall number of comms coming in to the game is lower. Even has the element of economies shaping player behaviour by making protecing your villages the most effective choice for comm generation.
That said, from what we've seen with tweaking generation there isn't really a sweet spot. The amount of comms that we need in game has a base line for things like research projects which have regular costs and then a variable which is impacted by how many active players there are, what skills they have (woodchems for one, but also crafted weapon users), how much non-decay they have (i.e less non-decay bigger drain on comms), what activities they want to engage in (furnishing a manse is a big one, but even just writing books regularly), etc.
Even if there was a perfect range for right now, it may end up being insufficient or excessive based on how those variables change over time as well as from future releases that add other considerations as research did. Which is kinda why something like Aetolia's farms could be pretty neat because they should be able to scale up and down based on population and demand.
Villages can be factored in to something like that, you could also change some stuff around so that they don't produce comms for players but instead for orgs. For example, you could make the comms that research requires special comms that are only really useful for that and any other similar stuff like constructs.
Similarly, we also have four/five other games to look at for guidance. My understanding is that after ~20 years of experience Starmourn was not launched only without non-decay but also with comments from Sarapis that it wasn't a planned expansion and it's even harder to get the equipment you need there. Achaea appears to have some artifacts that do replicate some enchants and a way to make armour permanent but scanning the lists there and in Aetolia it seems non-decay is much more reigned in than here. If decay is so detrimental to player experience and irrelevant to a healthy functioning economy you would expect Starmourn particularly to follow Lusternia's example as opposed to going in basically the opposite direction.
Lusternia is reliant on non-decay because it is a bandaid that has been applied to the supply issue with trade items rather than actually addressing the reasons why supply is an issue in the first place. Again, alternate methods for encouraging trade participation have been added, they have not resolved this issue. Aethertrades and goopcrafting don't make it worth my time to make food for shops, for example.
It is okay to speculate when there isn't anything better. However, when I just logged into Starmourn there was exactly one other player. So people aren't exactly beating down its doors for 'crafting done right' (yes, it is off peak for them).
I also can't get on board with non-decay being predominate because of a supply issue. Non-decay exists because some people really, really, really hate games where they have to manage their inventory and it also exists because of Lusternia's pay model, where people pay for convience items.
Comments
In some cases, it's plausible that addressing profitability could also make some aspects of the current system irrelevant.
For example, if the suggested target of just five actually profitable trades could be achieved without needing things such as tear drop sigils, pipetanks, and regulators then they could all just be deleted and their effects just make a part of the game.
Similarly, we could also make things more effective.
Typed cubes and an enchantment rift means no more tracking down an enchanter, just buy the enchant you need in shops and attach them, though rift size would need to be considered.
Recovering from loss for those who don't have non-decay would then just be a matter of re-linking, just like it would be if your vials decay and, given jewellery would presumably be a "not profit" trade, you could just have a denizen store selling cheap jewellery (if not just a low arts skill just like vials).
You could also possibly rework existing things for accessibility and efficiency.
Right now there are four different things that will buff your influence, two of these being tattoo powers and tailoring knots which require tracking down someone with the right skill to acquire them and also if you ever want to swap them out.
But a rework could consider should the consumables actually just be merged so you only need to stock one. Also given you can get more than the cap for influencing from artifacts and the like, all of the trade buffs except wetfold eventually become irrelevant.
Moving these buffs out of tattoos, tailoring, and bookbinding can move those towards being "not profit" trades. Consolidating those benefits then into an alchemy potion means they're not lost, maybe you justify increasing the costs of the potion, and it would also inherit wetfolds "always good" bonuses that already exist.
In a similar vein, you have thrones (a lot of artisan lets be honest) which currently require you to go to wherever they are and sit on them to gain their benefit. That bonus could be reworked into something more convenient that can be sold in shops becoming an improvement over the current tedious aspects of the implementation. (I.e rather than having to travel to your throne every single time you want the buff, you could potentially just go to the plex once every few months)
Realistically the primary reason why conversation about non-decay is even continuing and distrupting the thread is because you keep bringing things back to it at this point rather than contributing ways that the economy could be meaningfully improved that could limit if not obviate the relevance of even considering non-decay.
Aetolia has some form of craft on demand mechanism where a design sketch can be listed in a shop and then it is crafted the moment a player actually tries to buy it, pulling the necessary comms from a special rift afaik.
This could be significantly more convenient for shopkeepers to maintain a more deverse range of designs rather than needing to craft and stock things on the hopes that a customer will like the design you've chosen. It also means comms aren't actually consumed crafting something that potentially no one ever actually buys.
It could also be neat if this was some sort of contract that a shopkeeper can make with a tradesperson so the items are crafted as if from that tradesperson (i.e the crafters mark, decay timers, prestige, etc are all as if the tradesperson made it themselves).
The contracts could even have a royalty where a variable x% of all sales using it would automatically be deposited into a nominated bank.
You could also have the contracts have a set time frame and automatically end if the tradesperson is away long enough to become unranked or they retire so that shopkeepers need to find active players to keep their stock up rather than benefitting from a contract with a player that hasn't played in years. Effectively retaining the same situation as right now where you'd need to track down someone or personally craft to maintain stock levels.
to note: In the aet implementation some work more like sorcelglass and put the design on an existing item.
This thread was just to get a general gauge about where we should focus our efforts, help guide our goals when we're looking at what to exactly do.
As mentioned - we don't have a plan yet, we're gathering data on what is currently happening and functioning. It's slow going, but it ultimately will help us make better decisions by truly understanding and knowing what exactly is out there.
Basically, give every org a marketplace where anyone can list goods with a fee. This would remove a barrier to entry but you could limit how many things anyone could list at once with upgrade paths to list more stuff. Shops could be factored in like they are with aetherplex listings right now and as part of that upgrade path.
Going a step further, given we have catalogues it might also be possible to add a buy order thing so players could put up a request for a design and then traders could fill it. This could be neat as it would mean while players might need to wait a little bit, others who want to make a profit from trading can jump on these orders.
Edit: The curiomarket seems like it indicates that conceptually this could work for helping people get stuff they want
- vials are sorcelglassed (longer decay time) and have an attached teardrop
- kegs filled with potion: health, mana, bromide, slush, ice
- caches for steam and dust
- pipes are pre-filled with steam and have an attached pipetank
- enchanted jewelry are charged to 10 and have an attached regulator (make it available in "basic" [rings, pendants, etc.] form an in the advanced brooch form)
- enchantment cubes which are charged to 1000
- armor
- tailoring knots
- influencing oils/perfumes
- kirigami, wetfold
Price them appropriately (IE, based on what the admin sees as the 'ideal' price for the commodities used to make each product - although I know that there is a huge disconnect between admin price and player price). Players can still sell the stuff in their own shops, they just have to compete with Bob. A downside to this is that it will effectively create a price ceiling. An upside is that, because Bob will sell finished products (buy them and they're immediately usable), it will hopefully force shopkeepers to also sell finished products (buyers will no longer have to IKEA their stuff every time they need to replace it).2) Double down on aethertrading as the 'profitable' method for the merchant-types.
- Remove the gold gain attached to breaking down goopcraft items
- Give all trades a viable aethertrade route (like what Xenthos suggested)
- Make the goop gained be unbound (This is optional; if all trades get aether capability, then traders can just sell the unbroken-down goop and the buyers will be the one to break the goopcraft items, and the goop will thus be bound to them)
- Crucial: increase the roaming gnome aethertraders to account for the increased demand
Merchanting will, therefore, revolve mostly around goop. The removal of the gold gain means the system is potentially a gold drain (through refining via gold); however, players can continue to trade goopcraft items with each other. The addition of more goopcraft items can even increase this player-to-player interaction since more people will be able to participate (as opposed to now, where you have to be tailor/jeweler/chef).3) Remove the 'hard' cap on commodity production.
Right now, there is a definite limit on how much commodities can be produced. There is a specific number of cows, rockeaters, spinnerets, forest rooms, etc. that can be harvested. Even village commodity shops have a limit of storage, thereby limiting their tithes. Scarcity is an unfun model; it's like modern-day mercantilism. It looks good on paper but it's lackluster in practice.
The mining/farming models of Achaea and Aetolia are good to draw items from: resource nodes which can be mined (for a gold and time cost). You can mine and farm all you want, but market forces will determine whether you make a profit or not. If aethertrading is expanded, it can even increase the demand for commodities.
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Fundamentally, game economies function by rewarding players for doing things that your game actually wants them to. There are papers, youtube videos, all sorts of resources out there covering this cause it's a pretty interesting and complex topic.
Profit from trade is really just a mechanism for rewarding players for creating and making items available that the game wants and needs players to actually have.
With this in mind, the reason aethertrades haven't really helped, and likely won't, resolve the issue around availability of necessities is actually really simple.
Aethertrades don't actually reward you for selling food/jewellery/clothing to people that need it, which is what the economy actually needs players to do.
Instead, Aethertrades reward players for removing large amounts of commodities from the game and converting them into goop and gold. As a mechanism it actively rewards players for contributing to the comm shortage.
The platters I made recently could possibly go in a shop, but it's so much more effective for me personally to refine them and trade them, so why should I stock them?
A possible argument might be a bit extra gold, but looking at shoplogs it's maybe 20-30 gold extra a day when I could just go influencing or questing for easily and reliably more profit than that.
For the latter part, it seems like aethertraders fit that definition. They're denizens who have needs and have become part of the market.
The way I've seen NPCs factored in, pretty much across the board for MMOs is:
1) They set up a price floor for the minimum value for any item, which should typically ensure an absolute minimum profit, and;
2) They're a vent if the surplus of any item devalues them to that floor so those items start getting cycled out of the game.
Aetolia's production stuff seems to implement some of this as requests that are dynamically generated.
In the end though because interaction with other players is kinda the whole point of an MMO the most profitable route is always trading with other players because that's what the game wants/needs you to do.
Lusternia's systems right now need players picking herbs, milking poisons, making cures, providing enchantments, forging weapons and armour, etc and making that all available to people who can't do it for themselves either due to lower/different investment or just a lack of time available.
For 1) this begs the question of why should a player invest in a shop?
It addresses your complaints as a customer sure, but why should someone worry about stocking stuff when they can just tell anyone who needs it to just go buy it off Bob?
Price ceilings are also a bit problematic, given your 3) it's plausible that the value of things Bob sells could be massively overpriced or equally he could be extremely undercutting even the most heavily invested player.
For 2) I've heard from a player that's been playing for about 2-3 months that they're already kinda finished with goop, it could be worsened from promos in that period, but even doubling it, if that's an accurate time frame making "merchant" revolve around goop wouldn't help longer term retention.
Similarly, my understanding is the plan was always to expand goop items to cover all trades, but it stalled at 5 of 11. If you're expanding, we'd also need 6 more trades worth of goop items. It also seems as though the traders don't already cover alchemy and enchanting as they don't quite work with the model so those along with herbs and poisons might also need further consideration.
3) yeah, active generation is how other MMOs manage it. Eventually it becomes unprofitable to keep generating something so players stop and move on to something else.
Also to note though Aetolia's model isn't truly unlimited, there is a cap for how much any one player can generate. Same with their herbs and tradeskills, you can actually only gather so many herbs total in one weave/howling, you can only have two trades.
It's mostly relevant because on your own you can't do everything, or at least it becomes infeasible to do so because of the time factor involved so it's more efficient to work with others. (but also that involves them using their limits for you)
Theoretical spitballing here, but: have a period where villages that revolt can no longer be influenced. Instead you need to complete quests/comm turn ins if you want your org to win it, and the value of those activities is boosted massively. At some point, introduce npcs in each village who provide widgetanium, widgetwood, widgeria root, and widgecite for sale and desperately need widgetswords, widger baskets, widget cordon bleu, and wandgets. Lower the traditional quest points back down, and instead provide xp/essence, gold, and karma for every properly homed widgeranium. (Handing items to villagers made with new skills from materials the village provides). Then, take the big step and have villages "flux" dynamically based on a system like the old village feelings using the new mechanic. Importantly, at some point remove the villages being marked as loyal territory for the controlling org so that org can't just chokehold the village by declaring everyone an enemy if they're caught in the village. Instead the only mechanical benefits villages provide are commodity tithes, and a power stipend.
Once villages are thus overhauled, the next step is to add npcs looking for wares in a similar vein to my last post, but treat it like a full quest where you hand the NPC an item, the NPC checks to see how many of its criteria that item matches, and doles out an appropriate reward in gold, xp/essence, and karma, and sufficient points earns a DC tic the first time you cross the threshold each day. Maybe the second as well, or subject it to diminishing returns or exponential rises so it's not just buying DC. Simultaneously, combine creation skills into more condensed categories, such as AB TAILORING GARMENTS to contain TAILORING SHIRTS, DRESSES, PANTS, ACCESSORIES and SHOES, AB TAILORING ENSEMBLES for HIGHFASHION, GREATROBES, etc. with a similar treatment for jewellery, forging, cooking, etc. and remove, move, or make baseline things that intersect with combat like masterarmour, splendours, tierstones, etc. With the extra space, start implementing flourish skills that add cute, non-mechanical fluff to items, but make them worth more to NPCs in terms of one possible reward to the detriment of others, (such as Shimmersilk lining for tailored items that puts a gradient on the item description), others that boost the overall reward, and a few that open new micromarkets via converting commodities into intermediary goods that can always be traded, but give out much lower rewards. Think things like hard tack, horseshoes, aloe lotion, nails, that sort of thing for base tier stuff. Later on add things like staple or foundation foods (mashed potatoes, roux, pie dough), saddles, fishing lures, or disinfectant as a mid tier, and on up to caviar, ermine lined gloves, ceremonial vestiments, paper, or flash powder as luxury goods that still don't earn quite as much as bespoke crafting. Critically, while each trade that gets in on this should have all the tiers, each should also be better or worse at fiddling with rewards. Smithing might earn better gold (you can't really haggle over the price of horseshoes and hobnails when you need them, you either pay or get out of the forge), but only so-so karma from these (Your intermediary has a lot of clients, but you can't really put a maker's mark on a nail), and doesn't have a way to boost experience much (it's always the same items the same way every time, consistency is key with smithed goods). Whereas a chef can earn excellent experience (A lot of room for experimentation in the kitchen since at worst you feed yourself and do a new batch the old way), and okay karma (you were going to throw out those stale loaves anyway, why not donate them?), but nowhere near as much gold (you can't really charge much for good and expect to get away with it for long).
While this skill shuffle is going on in the artsy/production skills, the remaining skills get shuffled around, rebalanced a bit, and spread out better. Tattoos is either folded into arts or released from monks' exclusivity contract and allowed to see other classes as long as they don't wiggle their fingers to kill people. Likewise forging and warriors. Herbs and poisons are converted or folded into new skills aimed at harvesting commodities, one for vegetable matter, one for animal products, and a new one entirely for minerals. Each one has both a high and a low magic version if they can't be entirely divorced from it. Brewmeister is either opened to any lowmagic user or unlocked outright, and the same thing can happen there with tinkering and highmagic, with spells specifically from highmagic like pentagram either swapped out for the new versions or just given to their equivalent as needed (so enchanting with pentagram requires the lowmagic tinkerer to have circle, etc. if the coding team doesn't want to code for RUB PENTAGRAM). Brewmeister is also given all of cooking's fluids and patterns, through cooking cartels if necessary.
Not sure whether it'd be best to utterly gut and divorce design skills from combat and influencing or just minimize the impact. Maybe keep one or two things per trade but treat them more like sorcelglass where the finished design is just applied on top of an existing NPC purchased base object? Sharply cut the comms used in forging patterns, greatrobes/suits, and poor, poor artisan? Or leave them be as a newbie/returner tax?
This would ease the demand of comms from cities and communes alike.
It's been suggested before you could have bashing and influencing, effectively, drop loot which seems kinda like this except quests might give more guaranteed loot?
You'd make them drop a bit less gold but the idea is that people who aren't interested in trading would sell the loot to other players who would then make a further profit by doing something like this which then generates the gold they use.
Makes different loot drop activities more or less valuable based on how much people do them and if tuned right even though you can personally go through and gather everything you need it's faster and better to trade between players.
It could help ensure that there's a steady supply by incentivizing players to make them when the stocks are low by rewarding them with an instant profit.
(Yes it moves a bit away from the thread's main point, but I think it makes Xenthos' suggestion an even more attractive option for what other improvements can branch from it maybe. And this is the designing IRE, let's elevate it further!)
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Mostly because it then requires the shopkeeper to maintain the trades and pushes it more into solo territory. Even if you loop in the people that have permission to operate your shop then you have to let them have access to your shop.
By having it be something that is an agreement between shopkeeper and trader it means that Bob Jr can specialise in Tailoring, buy the artifacts, and make an agreement with Bob who actually owns the Shop.
This would mean people who haven't been able to acquire shops yet could still captialise on the system. Guilds, for example, could let their members list their designs, the Serenwilde bar would likely do something similar. The convenience still exists for shopkeepers it just means they aren't paying a royalty to others so they can keep their full profits.
Rather than reinventing the wheel we could just... look at what other games are doing and take what's actually working from those, particularly with other IRE games it makes sense for our producers/admin to draw on the learnings from them as well.
This suggestion is basically what Aetolia already does with their marketorders system which both players and denizens list things on.
The big difference really is that the marketorders system, effectively, requires that the items being traded are freshly made (i.e freshly farmed comms that have never gone into a rift) so they're comms created specifically for that.
Not certain on it, so the admin could ask Tiur, but because there's no stage between comm creation and comm deletion in that it seems like you can make thresholds for individual comms to appear. i.e if the game thinks there isn't enough eggs in the game then eggs won't appear in the orders, where if it thinks there's too much denizens start buying them.
If there is a goal of progression we can also look to the other games. The other games have implemented that aren't actually learned through lessons but through alternate means. Hacking and Captaincy along with stuff like Provisioning in Aetolia are all learned by actually using them which then improve your ability to engage in those aspects of the game.
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I think one way to solve this within the existing system would be to introduce some new commodities that aren't produced by trades, such as enchanterscrip, aquamancyscroll, resonantcrystal, or engineermanuscript that don't really represent a physical item, but represent a contract or specific piece of knowledge to bridge the gap between different craftspersons. Maybe with an optional step to let characters who realistically WOULD have direct access to the specific MacGuffin craft without them. If implemented, these should not be counted as basic comms, obviously, but might flag to the review board/Charites to consider unusual commodities to be basic comms and to allow for otherwise forbidden commodity usage. It would either be something sold in the related org's commodity shop (or an NPC specifically for these sorts of comms), or would require someone go to the old guildhall and work with an NPC there to create each one. So, for example, if you want to make microgastronomical mousse that uses cloudyessence to have an aeromancer make incredibly fine bubbles as it sets, you'd include the eggs, the flavour comms, a cloudyessence, and an aeromancyscroll. The scroll will signal to the review board that cloudyessence is allowable as a commodity and that aeromancy has been used to create a dish that a pseudo-medieval chef could not. An aeromancer or aerochem would go to Malimli Fairquillion to create the aeromancyscroll and could sell it or give it to the chef, or alternatively Malimli herself could just sell them, or another NPC in Hallifax somewhere. Then when the item is crafted, an optional check can be added that ignores the aeromancyscroll if the chef has aeromancy active. An aquamancyscroll in the design might let someone build artisan furniture that treats water as a basic commodity with a large conversion ratio (ie: a vial's worth of water to the commodity), and be made by an aqua* by talking to their old guild tutor. Or an enchanterscrip AND a dreamlecture can be used to let dream motes repeat specific images in a smooth surface (think LCD picture frame with a short video clip or holographic orrery), with the scrip being purchased at any highmagic-centric guild NPC or created by enchanters, while the lecture is the same from any mage/druid tutor or actual dreamweaver.
Like each guild could have some method to make/access their set of those comms, or even have some special effects linked to guilds which require the design be submitted to a guild cartel.
For my easiest example, you could have like... spirit mist in the Listeners which might let you make stuff that looks spectral.
Though, that said. Wishlisty but I feel like it'd be pretty great if guilds, orders, and families could hold designs without having a bunch of pointless extra cartels floating around.
Listeners have something like six clans, four of which are cartels which always seemed to be forgotten about back in the day when they belonged to the old guilds. And if you want restricted and generally available designs that can be two cartels for a trade. At a million gold per it's not really worth it when you might have what... 3-4 designs in them?
It'd be pretty great if there was an option to let players transfer designs from their personal cartels to a guilds/etc design library with access managed more like library books.
I'd have whatever the material is be refined from regular comms via a little quest, with a baseline supply available to members of that guild, but others in the org able to purchase it. Also, I think it should probably be a no-rift, always-decay type material, except when held by the guild in some way. In the most obvious implementation, there would be a "vendor" NPC who you recieve it from, and if they're holding it, it can stockpile to a limited degree and to whom you can return unused supplies. But this could also say... be a natural feature, a mystical hollow that transforms specific corpses combined with... egg comms to make the guildcomm, or something.
Off the top of my head, three for Serenwilde could be...
Wodewoses "Anima" Animal Product* Movement/lifelike Magic camo, animal aura, appropriate natural effect based on source.
Listeners** "Whisper rock" Stone/Gems Hitodama Ghost whispers, iconic auras (Heroic, spooky, sedate, etc.. Sort of like a mini demi-choicelook in the desc.
Sowers "Heartseed" Plant Material Vital Glow Allows the inclusion of living plant material,
*Like leather, bones, ivory, fur... not silk.
**Alternately, "Whisper yew"? Wood instead of stone
This would encourage Serenwilders to craft things made from hides, stone/wood, and living plant material, and especially members of those guilds! Folks could also incorporate those features into "modern" Lusternian clothing. like a tweed vest with horn buttons... or a cupcake with a blooming flower on it. I was mostly thinking of tailoring in this rough example, but with some refinement they should work with all or most of the creative trades.
The other piece of crafting in particular is the cartel system, which... I don't like at all really. I've almost entirely avoided interacting with it, because I find it really restrictive and frustrating, while at the same time promoting samey designs as you either have people IN the cartel or out with no other mechanics to manage designs, and the cost/effort of starting a cartel means a lot of folks not seriously IN to crafting just join existing cartels. I would prefer a far more personalized system overall, and think that it would also give more opportunities for cool player interaction for those who want to pursue it, and more autonomy for people who just want to take up a trade and make a few personal patterns, without those two groups having to compete for design space.
Really, once you pick a creative trade and put in some investment, you should be able to make a majority of the types of pattern, and should be able to write at least a pattern for yourself. It's so odd for a new cook to be able to make any kind of muffin or soup, but be utterly unable to bake a single cake! Cooking is the least offensive, as most of the skills are "skill level" in the sense of "dishes" then "delicacies", then "gourmet", but there are still pattern limitations within those skills and other crafting trades are nuts. The crafting skills should have the combat abilities stripped out entirely, be changed to miniskills or talents, and not prevent taking up an "economic" trade, and add a patterns/slots mechanic. Pretty much, give them the Aetolia treatment, where mercantile and crafting skills are separate and follow different mechanics.
I'd then have cartels be "Pattern Libraries", where just like the existing book libraries, you can publish patterns, check them out, or store your extras. They'd also give you the ability to submit more designs, perhaps with some kind of credibility-type mechanic with other members of the cartel to help refine designs before they're submitted all the way - in other words, you could bump a design up the reviewer queue by getting it checked by other players who give it a thumbs up to promote it... but who lose crafting credibility if that design then gets rejecting. Orgs and guilds would be given one of these by default with a ministry or rank priv gating inclusion, outside of the clan system.
So... you pick up tailoring with your daily credits, BAM you can design one pattern and keep up to three patterns indefinitely plus you can make all basic attire (socks, shoes, underwear, shirts, pants, etc.). You can "check out" patterns from a cartel and hold them like a library book or copy them to one of your slots for more designs, and can use public designs. Spend some lessons in the skill, pick up things like mending, thermal, batting, use of special guild commodities, longer base decay times, more design slots/pattern slots, a fancier tier of clothing (splendors, suits, wedding attire?). Perhaps at some level you can pick a "specialization", like better quality items, or more base slots, or some kind of cartel-user upgrade? At Trans PLUS a certain amount of positive crafting credibility from good designs PLUS a bunch of good promotions of other people's designs I'd also open up a low tier of mortal reviewing in that trade, as a further first filter to alleviate the pressure to review designs, hopefully clearing things up for a lot more submissions.
A bunch of this would be a lot of coding work, but some of it could be stepped into gradually. When talking about "The Economy", it's projects like this that are worth that big effort, as they have real dividends in terms of engagement and enjoyment with the game world. A lot of the recurring discussion about "fixing" the economy seems to fixate on the economy existing as a self-contained good and valuable in terms of its ability to coerce players to engage with it. There is design value in adding friction to a game, placing goalposts that can't be immediately reached, that require engagement and investment in the game, and provide a satisfying payoff when achieved. However, it's important to remember that the climb doesn't CREATE the payoff, it's just a part of it - there's no point in adding a bunch of makework for its own benefit. The competitive market is not a universal constant, I promise! You don't need a win condition for it to be a good thing! Working on crafting seems like a great place to focus first, as it's a way for players to generate content for the game, making the game interesting for everyone and engages those players with the game more deeply.
If I were plotting a general course towards this kind of system:
1. Start with backstopping commodities and consumables. Do as suggested and provide a constant source of necessities like clothing, curatives, weapons. I'd run this through each org, so that there's a "Serenwilde Communal Supplies" that dispenses tunics and potions. It'd be neat to allow for orgs to change these around as long as there's an item filling each slot, with a generic one supplied if the nicer stuff has run out. In other words, if I design and make 50 tunics they'd be dispensed to anyone who asks, and once they run out there's a generic "Serenwilde outfit" that everyone gets at baseline. This way, if other things FUBAR the gold economy, you can always get basic enchants and so on, play can continue.
2. Create some guidelines for how guild-comms work, in terms of how they're generated in general, and what sorts of effects are possible. Then, work with Orgs/Guilds through the patron system to develop the unique commodities. I don't think this will require much beyond other patron request type things, and can be ongoing based on interest.
3. First round cartel changes, I like being able to flag patterns as having requirements to make, could work great alongside the guild-comms. Part of the goal would be to increase personal/local involvement in cartels, and not just want to join the biggest ones or buy a totally personal 1-2 person cartel to submit personal designs. Part would be to assess what works and what doesn't for cartels. Of course, you'd need to make it such that no one loses access to their own designs with whatever changes happen, might be good to do a big push towards marking the designer of unmarked designs.
3. Start trimming the cruft from craft skillsets, pare them down to just crafting and offload necessities onto common skills or arrange to remove them. Many can be deleted outright, and most of this operation shouldn't require creating new code, though untangling old code might be a nightmare. Start with the most popular crafts like Tailoring, Cooking, Artisan. Brewmeister is an odd duck and will need special treatment, probably. Decide on moving to miniskill/talent model.
4. Start refining labor skills, the ones that input time and/or raw resources and output other resources. Herbs, alchemy, enchanting. I suggest doing some creative reorganizing of the skills in environment, arts, herbs, enchanting, poisons and other to cobble together a new pool of skillsets from extant skills. I'd throw in two other wrinkles: commodity refinement as a set of skills distributed across the mercantile abilities (or as its own skillset), and mercantile proficiency - like aethercraft proficiency, with bashing for gold/resources as one of the potential proficiencies. The first will even the field between commodities like herbs and cloth and give players ways to be more self-sufficient in generating the commodities they're chiefly concerned with without adding back in comm mines, the second makes it possible to have bashing for gold not be the forever most-efficient method of getting gold. Some folks will specialize in the getting of gold and be best at that (as always), but there would be benefits to focusing on other things. Also, you can have more mercantile skills, but it benefits you to make a friend who has the second skill rather than just do both by yourself.
5. Change craft skills to a separate model from labor skills, as described above. More independence, less pressure to either invest HARD or not at all, better ability to trade patterns instead of just products, less feast-or-famine in terms of variety.
6. Shift Cartels to library model as described above. More dynamic, more interactive.
7. Work on fixing the value of labor skills in terms of trading/market. With the pressure to make back a big lesson investment and compete on a market with crafting trades removed, it'll be easier to see if there's value in making it work for labor skills, which already function totally differently. This basically would start a new roadmap though, but because of step 1 I think it can wait, and when complete I don't know that a working gold market will really have as much design value as a thriving craft system.
https://www.aetolia.com/game-help/?what=paperless-crafting-system
https://www.achaea.com/game-help/?id=985
Starmourn looks basically the same though can't find actual documentation
Short of putting license costs and doing it exactly the same, it seems like you could do something similar like...
- Create a skill "tradesperson" or something
- Have one of the low abilities basically let the player create, submit, and hold designs. (effectively they act as a cartel)
- All designs belong to individuals by default, they can be transferred to orgs, orders, guilds, families, etc. The individual can also optionally temporarily allow a player access to a design.
- The skill can't be learned through lessons, but instead you have to submit designs as well as interact with other aspects of the economy. Possibly there's even space for every time one of your designs is crafted you get a minor amount of points.
- If you limit how many designs an individual can hold permanently then the skill could have abilities which increase that limit.
That skill could also do things like increase how many design listings you could have active in shops. If you have market orders it could gate or increase your ability to utilise that system.Cartels might not even really serve a purpose as players could just create sharing agreements between themselves, but if needed they could also remain as an upgrade to clans that allow them the same functionality orgs, guilds, etc would have.
It's all stuff that basically exists already so it doesn't seem like it would be particularly difficult to find out if it's working or not. It also means we can draw on experience and knowledge of things that might actually be working rather than coming up with shiny new ideas which might work, but also might mean in a few years we're still talking about the same thing.
Just want to chime in and say that I love this idea.
I have a vast catalogue of designs from all over the place, but I rarely get to use any of them. Aside from making shopping more interesting, this would likely also encourage designers to make designs outside of either "things for me" or "things people specifically ask me for."
Things like, how are village tithes calculated, what effect does village specialization do (for example, rope for Stewartsville/Delport or silk for Angkrag/Dairuchi), and how does Commercial government boost comm production...
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"Village specialisation" really just means there are mobs in that village tied to specific commodities, and some sort of conflict mechanism to move them around to affect production. Miners in mining villages, hemp farmers between Delport and Stewarts, vegetable fruit and grain farmers for Estelbar/Acknor, and so forth. While it is hard to control against active player generation in some circumstances, the most that appears to be produced in a village with maximum mob producers is around 250-300. This seems to vary a bit from village to village and commodity and commodity, with Ptoma/Ixthiaxa producing less metals generally than Angkrag/Southgard/Rockholm (with the caveat that geomycus are much easier to move around without getting enemied and don't have an annoying crowning quest to pivot around). All other commodities just seem to be small tithes that tic on occasion and are often times limited for no specific reason - IE, Rikenfriez just doesn't produce eggs. Too cold for chickens I guess.
What gets more complicated is how mob producers function when moved around frequently. They seem to produce commodities based on intervals of how long they have been in that village, and moving them around too much from village to village can reset that timer and slow down production for both villages. The more competition there is moving them around, the less they generally produce for everyone, seemingly. Which, imo, is a rather annoying and frustrating mechanic, and does a lot to stymy interest in conflict based over them in the long run.
EDIT: Extra addendum - it is probably set up this way so that allies controlling rival villages aren't encouraged to purposefully game producer swapping for maximum results, assuming you could achieve higher outputs through some happy medium of holding/swapping. I have my various dislikes for the set up, but can see how/why it might have been designed this way initially.
Explorer (80%), Achiever (53%), Socializer (53%), Killer (13%)
Bartle Taxonomy
(test yourself)
That said, from what we've seen with tweaking generation there isn't really a sweet spot.
The amount of comms that we need in game has a base line for things like research projects which have regular costs and then a variable which is impacted by how many active players there are, what skills they have (woodchems for one, but also crafted weapon users), how much non-decay they have (i.e less non-decay bigger drain on comms), what activities they want to engage in (furnishing a manse is a big one, but even just writing books regularly), etc.
Even if there was a perfect range for right now, it may end up being insufficient or excessive based on how those variables change over time as well as from future releases that add other considerations as research did. Which is kinda why something like Aetolia's farms could be pretty neat because they should be able to scale up and down based on population and demand.
Villages can be factored in to something like that, you could also change some stuff around so that they don't produce comms for players but instead for orgs. For example, you could make the comms that research requires special comms that are only really useful for that and any other similar stuff like constructs.
It is okay to speculate when there isn't anything better. However, when I just logged into Starmourn there was exactly one other player. So people aren't exactly beating down its doors for 'crafting done right' (yes, it is off peak for them).
I also can't get on board with non-decay being predominate because of a supply issue. Non-decay exists because some people really, really, really hate games where they have to manage their inventory and it also exists because of Lusternia's pay model, where people pay for convience items.