Crucible Curios! (also commodity/salt discussion)

First, the current idea is to change the breaking down of aether crafted items as follows:
  • Sugar to break down aethercandy
  • Salt to break down aetherbuttons
  • Sulfur for aetherscarves
  • Mercury for aetherspheres
Next, I would like to introduce new curios. We haven't seen any in awhile and I thought this was a neat idea. But I wanted to present the idea to you guys first in order to get some input so there's no backlash if people think this is actually a bad idea. These would be simple to code so we wouldn't be taking away resources from other projects. It addresses maybe some commodity imbalances among individual crafters who may need certain commodities but have excess of others. It doesn't create new commodities (it actually reduces commodities). It's not meant to be a fix to anything or a bandaid to solve any particular problem, but rather a convenience to players, especially crafters, who want to invest in these curios.

Metal Crucible

  • Converts any of the following commodities to another commodity (in this list): iron, gold, silver, platinum, mercury
  • Conversion is 5:1
  • Limited to 50 comms/game month

Glass Crucible

  • Converts any of the following commodities to another commodity (in this list): grain, milk, fruit, vegetables, sugar
  • Conversion is 5:1
  • Limited to 50 comms/game month

Stone Crucible

  • Converts any of the following commodities to another commodity (in this list): leather, cloth, rope, silk salt
  • Conversion is 5:1
  • Limited to 50 comms/game month

Crystal Crucible

  • Converts any of the following commodities to another commodity (in this list): poultry, fish, meat, eggs, sulfur
  • Conversion is 5:1
  • Limited to 50 comms/game month
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Comments

  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    I kind of like the concept of the curios, actually.  I think the conversion rate is too high to be worthwhile though.  Preferably it would be no higher than 2:1 (that is already a significant wiping of comms).
    Is the 50/month limit by curio or by player?  For example, if you had two crystal crucibles, would your limit be 100?
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  • Limited by curio, I was thinking.
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  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Hmm.  What if you did it so that each curio can only be used 1x per month and consumes 10 comms?  The first time you use a crystal crucible curio, you burn 10 comms and get 8 back.  The second crystal  crucible, you burn 10 and get 6.  Third one nets you four, fourth nets you two, fifth nets you one (and 5 activations per type is your monthly cap).  50 comms burned would get you 21 back if you use all five activations.
    This gives a reason to acquire more than one of each type, possibly.  The rate gets worse the more you do per month, so you would only do it if you are desperate for certain comms, but if you are that desperate you will be significantly lessening the stock of more plentiful things.
    Each type would be separated from the others, so the first use of a crystal and first use of a metal each give 8 back.
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  • Interesting idea, but I think that's a little overly complicated.
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  • I might be tempted by the glass crucible. Maybe.

    Why the glass, and only the glass? Because it has a commodity that can easily be generated by player initiative (milk, and sugar to a lesser extent) and converted into quite a few others that'd I'd find useful as a cook, and otherwise must rely almost solely on for village production to obtain.

    The metal crucible isn't bad either, but all the metals are more on the rarer side as well. Only the mercury can be easily produced by player initiative. Might be more tempting for forging-heavy players.

    Pretty much everything in the crystal crucible isn't too hard to generate by player initiative, so the conversion rate feels overly painful for simple convenience. Everything in there except for sulfur is really only appealing to cooks.

    Stone is mostly textiles, which is the odd one out because cloth and leather aren't too bad to generate by player initiative, while silk is more tedious, and rope is very hard to generate but in general abundance due to underuse. I'd foresee a lot of rope getting burned away with this one, especially for producing salt. Comm conversion here appeals primarily to tailors.

    I understand you're going for themes with the commodity groupings, but if you want more people to have/use these, it might be prudent to spread out commodity groupings. One metal, one food comm, one textile option per crucible or so. This would give more incentive to collect them all, but I'm not sure if that is desired and if the speccing is intended so that people can just go for the one they really want.

    Still strongly recommend a gold cost option for breaking down goop items too, that comes with a loss of the gold reimbursement on breakdown.

  • How are the curios going to be generated/obtained?

    It's a fine idea on its own, but a poor solution to goop craft problems.


  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Enya said:
    How are the curios going to be generated/obtained?

    It's a fine idea on its own, but a poor solution to goop craft problems.


    The way I read this is that the real "proposed solution" here is the first bit (splitting up the breakdown comms by type), and then the converting crucibles can help with that... but the biggest thing that they will do is help out with the "hard to generate" comms that one cannot easily do comm quests for, reducing that stress point that Certain People keep bringing up repeatedly without having to add more raw comm availability or other quests.
    @Estarra I do not see gem comns on the list?  They should slot into the Metal crucible imo, it would help with the "hard to generate something in this group for conversion" concern enormously.
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  • edited April 2019
    Xenthos said:

    @Estarra I do not see gem comns on the list?  They should slot into the Metal crucible imo, it would help with the "hard to generate something in this group for conversion" concern enormously.
    Wood and marble are also notably absent, and I had to assume there were reasons for that. As is steel,  but I think steel is meant to be driven primarily by the present mechanics for it.

    EDIT: And coal! All of them would be better balanced if each received one of coal, marble, wood, and gems, honestly. Or maybe those four could be their own extra crucible.

  • Purposely didn’t include some comms, meant to be an assist for some of the basic comms and the residue comms.
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  • edited April 2019
    Echoing Enya's post - how are we going to get these curios? Given how close it is to May, my first assumption is you were planning on doing it as May's Promos. This I think is a bad idea. If a goal of this is to solve commodity issues, it needs to be a public IG release instead of locked behind a promo. As it also sounds like these are going to be the 'Forging' Curios, I don't see much of an issue with release it both as a chance per Whatever forging skill and as normal credit-priced curio packages

    While I also enjoy the idea, people are just going to convert the lowest cost commodity to whatever failure commodity. Jolanthe said how bad this will be with rope to salt. I agree that the converting rate is too high, and don't think there is enough of a price difference between the related, non-failure, commodities to justify converting them at more than a 2:1.
    Personally, I don't like that they are limited in converting commodities, and think someone should be able to convert more than just 50/month.

  • Yes we’d release it as a promo for May and then in June as artifact packs like other curios
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  • Nelras said:
    I think that releasing these as curios will enable the people who are willing to buy these now to dominate aethertrades, while shutting out anyone who comes later and is unable to get these curios once the promo is over.
    Converting comms is a way to re-introduce salt (and other comms) into the game, but any produced in the current environment will not re-enter the game's economy. They will be horded by a small number of players, who will use them to turn an upfront real money investment into goop. These players would then have no need to purchase any further goop promos, as they would have a supply of the resource that would not be available to other players.
    This also seems like a fair point. That salt and such will be liable to stay in-hand, rather than circulate back into the market.
  • Firstly, I really appreciate the new plan to introduce more comms into the list.

    This would bring down the cost of salt, I think, although not by a whole lot. And all the comms suggested are also relatively rare to get (as far as I know) but is not limited to a profession, which is good.

    Will these curios only be available to buy on the market? Or will it be possible to get curio pieces through doing comm quests? (If not, I think it would be a good idea to be able to have a small probability to get them through doing comm quests)
    You are startled as a lemon meringue pie bounces harmlessly off you after being thrown at you by Mysrai.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Why would anyone be unable to get them after the promo is over?  To quote:
    Estarra said:
    Yes we’d release it as a promo for May and then in June as artifact packs like other curios

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  • As I said, we’d release them as normal curio packs after the promo (think curios go for goop). Don’t really think they should be in quests. BTW, we still need Lusternia to be self-supporting so please understand that promos are necessary to keep us afloat at times.
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  • I meant, like how doing a lot of vermin quests will give you a probability to get the cheese curio, can something like that be introduced? (It can be a small chance so it would still be viable to purchase them)
    You are startled as a lemon meringue pie bounces harmlessly off you after being thrown at you by Mysrai.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    edited April 2019
    I didn't remember if you had converted curio packs to goop or not so I left that out of my post, was going to check later tonight.
    However, if they did get switched to goop, it would be nice to switch them back to credits since people can earn those with dailies (or with credits bought off the website).  10 days would let you buy a big pack of curios, and could end up with more pieces being available / traded (making it easier for latecomers to complete their sets too).
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  • edited April 2019
    Xenthos said:
    Why would anyone be unable to get them after the promo is over?  To quote:
    Even when Estarra did say these would be released in June as packages, there are a bunch of others that didn't get after promo releases. The last curio promo (batons) never got released as IG packages. There are a bunch of other promo curios like bubbles, marionettes, masks, pet (although due to other promos, the game did get flooded with pieces) that also never got released either. You also can't buy the original czigany curios either. I know genies/maps/poteens didn't get release, but those make a bit more sense to be promo-only.
  • I understand the need for Lusternia to stay afloat, however I am of the opinion that this is not the fix to the current comms situation and will in fact exacerbate it.
    If these would be available in curio packs (costing goop) that would be even worse. Then it would be a way of turning goop into more goop, which could then be used to buy more of the curio, and therefore more goop - similar to what happened with crates and coins a while ago.

    Of course, the people who have goop to spend on this, rather than spending real money, would be the ones who would benefit - not the people who need the comms for trades.
    For the people who actually need the comms, this is just making it worse. "Sure, you can have your comms back for the skills you probably learnt with lessons bought with credits, but now you need to pay either money or goop to get them."
  • Er you do realize that these curios reduce comms not generate free comms, I don’t follow how it makes things worse
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  • While it would reduce the total number of comms, it generates more of the comms which are otherwise unavailable/more expensive. It turns a number of a cheap thing into a smaller number of a more expensive thing which is still worth more in total. If anything, it will reduce the available comms of something other than salt and on the salt list by the maximum amount possible each month per curio generating salt. This will mean that there are then more comms that crafters cant use, while providing goop to the people with the curios and quite likely therefore increasing the drain if any of those people use the goop to buy more curios.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Ayisdra said:
    Xenthos said:
    Why would anyone be unable to get them after the promo is over?  To quote:
    Even when Estarra did say these would be released in June as packages, there are a bunch of others that didn't get after promo releases. The last curio promo (batons) never got released as IG packages. There are a bunch of other promo curios like bubbles, marionettes, masks, pet (although due to other promos, the game did get flooded with pieces) that also never got released either. You also can't buy the original czigany curios either. I know genies/maps/poteens didn't get release, but those make a bit more sense to be promo-only.
    Those ones were not promised an after-promo pack.  This one was.  Why are you equating them?
    Or are you just saying you would like packs of the other stuff added too for the sake of completeness?  If so, travel curios need to make a comeback too.
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  • Sorry, just not following the logic that it’s a goop item that generates more goop or will make other comms scarce. Think we’ll just not see eye to eye on that
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  • Actually, something important just occurred to me. Let's review the proposal once more.

    • Sugar to break down aethercandy
    • Salt to break down aetherbuttons
    • Sulfur for aetherscarves
    • Mercury for aetherspheres
    So:

    Cooks will need to get sugar from alchemists if they want to break down aethercandy.

    Jewellers just gemcut to get more salt, without having to trade with anyone.

    Tailors need to get sulfur from jewellers if they want to break down aetherscarves.

    ... and I forgot who makes aetherspheres, and am finding it unnecessarily hard to find this info in the news and changelogs. Still, mercury means they need to find either a cook or forger.

    Do you see the problem here? Jewellery is already the current king of aethertrading. It doesn't need this layering of self-sufficiency that other trades lack when it has brooches as a high comm item for refinement and reaps benefits from the gem comm - the easiest commodity to produce in the game via player initiative.

    This would be an opportunity to not just blunt jewellery's hold over the others by a bit, but create a useful point of exchange. Proposal:

    • Salt to break down aethercandy
    • Mercury to break down aetherbuttons
    • Sulfur for aetherscarves
    • Sugar for aetherspheres
    Maybe they don't thematically make as much sense, but jewellers then need to exchange salt for mercury, and cooks vice-versa. Cooks also get to decide if they want to cook with the salt or use it to break down goop things.

    The one issue there might be quicksilver, and potential for it to short out, but cooks still want sugar for sweets and things too.

  • Xenthos said:
    Ayisdra said:
    Xenthos said:
    Why would anyone be unable to get them after the promo is over?  To quote:
    Even when Estarra did say these would be released in June as packages, there are a bunch of others that didn't get after promo releases. The last curio promo (batons) never got released as IG packages. There are a bunch of other promo curios like bubbles, marionettes, masks, pet (although due to other promos, the game did get flooded with pieces) that also never got released either. You also can't buy the original czigany curios either. I know genies/maps/poteens didn't get release, but those make a bit more sense to be promo-only.
    Those ones were not promised an after-promo pack.  This one was.  Why are you equating them?
    Or are you just saying you would like packs of the other stuff added too for the sake of completeness?  If so, travel curios need to make a comeback too.
    The other specific- trade (cooking, bookbinding, etc) or the spectral trade curios weren't promised either, but they were made available anyways. I was just stating that it isn't unreasonable to assume that curios either don't get released at all as packages or get lost among other projects(in the case of Travel curios).
  • Jolanthe said:
    Actually, something important just occurred to me. Let's review the proposal once more.

    • Sugar to break down aethercandy
    • Salt to break down aetherbuttons
    • Sulfur for aetherscarves
    • Mercury for aetherspheres
    So:

    Cooks will need to get sugar from alchemists if they want to break down aethercandy.

    Jewellers just gemcut to get more salt, without having to trade with anyone.

    Tailors need to get sulfur from jewellers if they want to break down aetherscarves.

    ... and I forgot who makes aetherspheres, and am finding it unnecessarily hard to find this info in the news and changelogs. Still, mercury means they need to find either a cook or forger.

    Do you see the problem here? Jewellery is already the current king of aethertrading. It doesn't need this layering of self-sufficiency that other trades lack when it has brooches as a high comm item for refinement and reaps benefits from the gem comm - the easiest commodity to produce in the game via player initiative.

    This would be an opportunity to not just blunt jewellery's hold over the others by a bit, but create a useful point of exchange. Proposal:

    • Salt to break down aethercandy
    • Mercury to break down aetherbuttons
    • Sulfur for aetherscarves
    • Sugar for aetherspheres
    Maybe they don't thematically make as much sense, but jewellers then need to exchange salt for mercury, and cooks vice-versa. Cooks also get to decide if they want to cook with the salt or use it to break down goop things.

    The one issue there might be quicksilver, and potential for it to short out, but cooks still want sugar for sweets and things too.

    This is a very good point (I'm still not sure if Like or Heart is supposed to bring a post more attention)
    You are startled as a lemon meringue pie bounces harmlessly off you after being thrown at you by Mysrai.
  • Will consider that, jolanthe 
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  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    edited April 2019
    Ayisdra said:
    Xenthos said:
    Ayisdra said:
    Xenthos said:
    Why would anyone be unable to get them after the promo is over?  To quote:
    Even when Estarra did say these would be released in June as packages, there are a bunch of others that didn't get after promo releases. The last curio promo (batons) never got released as IG packages. There are a bunch of other promo curios like bubbles, marionettes, masks, pet (although due to other promos, the game did get flooded with pieces) that also never got released either. You also can't buy the original czigany curios either. I know genies/maps/poteens didn't get release, but those make a bit more sense to be promo-only.
    Those ones were not promised an after-promo pack.  This one was.  Why are you equating them?
    Or are you just saying you would like packs of the other stuff added too for the sake of completeness?  If so, travel curios need to make a comeback too.
    The other specific- trade (cooking, bookbinding, etc) or the spectral trade curios weren't promised either, but they were made available anyways. I was just stating that it isn't unreasonable to assume that curios either don't get released at all as packages or get lost among other projects(in the case of Travel curios).
    The trade-specific ones had someone request their release as buyable packs each time.  I don't think anyone requested baton packs, though.  The other ones are all significantly older, so nobody probably even considered that they could be made into packs after their promos were done (or, in the case of the bubbles at least, even cared).
    This is probably the first time that we have been explicitly promised ahead of time that they would be buyable, so it just puzzles me a bit when people are discussing them as not being acquirable, is all.  It is not like they would go "oh we promised to do it but nah".
    I do think they should be acquired with credits again though.  That is what they started out as, and you cannot buy goop from Lusternia anyways.  Credits are more accessible and the more packs floating out there, the better for everyone.
    Edit: Also the travel curios are a "special case" because they were bought for gold and the new ashop does not support gold buying.  Seems easy enough to fix now that they can assign values to arties directly to the ID instead of being generic.  Make all existing travel packs trade in for no value.  Then add them to the shop.  New packs bought from the shop can be traded, pre-existing ones cannot (they did not want packs acquired via gold to be traded in for other currencies).
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  • I semi feel responsible for this train of thought when I suggested manse machines, so I'm sorry. Going this route isn't going to solve the problems we're being faced with, as it will just drain the market of a few precious resources to build further upon the aethertrading. I'm personally opposed to mercury being an option for breakdown, as there really isn't a lot going around anyway, not to mention you're chancing your coal burning for the attempt, and if it fails, have to wait for the fire to go out which is about 30 seconds. The curios themselves can be useful, but I'd really like to look at the breaking down of goop items, because that's really why this is here.

    Are we unable to just make all goop item breakdown possible by a list of commodities, or as Jolanthe suggested in the other thread as well, just remove the comm cost to also negate the gold earned from the item. The game is already flooded with a bunch of curios that are labeled as "must have" if you're going to have any amount of success, not to mention you're kind of locked out of goop generation -unless- you're one of these three aethertrades, or stumble upon genies.
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