That's a great point Jolanthe, and raises another question that I hadn't considered: What happens to Charity Influencing? It has to stay because it's a quest mechanic.
Adding an idea discussed on Discord in relation to an artifact for proficiency: I'd be willing to even buy 1 per trade. Buy artifact, let's call it a seal, then SEAL ASSIGN TAILORING. Now when I flex out of tailoring, I won't lose it. I'd be willing to buy multiples so I can pick and choose what trades I don't lose proficiency in, instead of a blanket one like aethercraft has. This would allow those of us that have favoured trades to flex out of them without losing all the hard work to build that proficiency and into a trade we don't use as often.
Kill off comms entirely, save for specials like corpses, essence, etc. Debit gold based on number of comms required to craft the design currently. Gold disappears from the system, comm generation is no longer an issue. Charge more gold for lack of proficiency (which needs to diaf but hey, we can see that won't happen).
Mentioned on discord. For comm outlays on designs could design sketches have a line added which will show the impacts proficiency (or lack thereof) would have on the comm requirements.
In the current version, this would be like... designers set the 100% proficiency costs as normal. But there'd be a line on the sketch while designing that shows how much it'd cost to craft with 0% proficiency.
Would likely make it simpler for designers to intentionally avoid making designs that aren't craftable. I imagine the same line when you're looking to craft would show you the costs at your proficiency level.
Here's an idea: why not combine all of Brewmeister into Alchemy/Lorecraft, and all of Cooking with Herbs? Cooking is just looking like it's going to lose in a big way with this proposal (losing all drinks, and losing aethertrading).
Here is an alternative proposal to the "losing all proficiency if you switch" issue.
Have only 2 skills active at a time (as before) but also have the ability to lock the proficiency of 2 skills. In this scenario, you don't lose proficiency in these 2 skills even if you switch out of them back and forth. You cannot gain proficiency in the skill you switch to as one of your actives, not unless you choose to abandon proficiency of the skill you have it locked to at the moment.
That way you could still switch out and make the things you need, but not lose your proficiency to do so. The things you made in the skills you have 0% proficiency in would still be worse than if someone specialising made them, of course, and if possible it would be a good idea to seek out a specialist to help you with the more difficult/advanced things you wished to make. You would not be forced to rely on that though.
Here is an alternative proposal to the "losing all proficiency if you switch" issue.
Have only 2 skills active at a time (as before) but also have the ability to lock the proficiency of 2 skills. In this scenario, you don't lose proficiency in these 2 skills even if you switch out of them back and forth. You cannot gain proficiency in the skill you switch to as one of your actives, not unless you choose to abandon proficiency of the skill you have it locked to at the moment.
That way you could still switch out and make the things you need, but not lose your proficiency to do so. The things you made in the skills you have 0% proficiency in would still be worse than if someone specialising made them, of course, and if possible it would be a good idea to seek out a specialist to help you with the more difficult/advanced things you wished to make. You would not be forced to rely on that though.
As Kailanna kinda noted in response to this.
It seems potentially more user friendly if we have two "professional"/"proficiency"/whatever slots and whatever is in those can gain proficiency.
Then with just free access to all other trades without needing to switch. My suggestion here is having a variation of AB so that AB can show you your professional trades while CRAFTS or something shows all other trades (mostly cause my ab is so long right now)
It would arguably obviate the need for catalogues cause everyone could just make everything so they'd be able to check out all design sketches. And TRADEWHO could work off your professional trades.
Here is an alternative proposal to the "losing all proficiency if you switch" issue.
Have only 2 skills active at a time (as before) but also have the ability to lock the proficiency of 2 skills. In this scenario, you don't lose proficiency in these 2 skills even if you switch out of them back and forth. You cannot gain proficiency in the skill you switch to as one of your actives, not unless you choose to abandon proficiency of the skill you have it locked to at the moment.
That way you could still switch out and make the things you need, but not lose your proficiency to do so. The things you made in the skills you have 0% proficiency in would still be worse than if someone specialising made them, of course, and if possible it would be a good idea to seek out a specialist to help you with the more difficult/advanced things you wished to make. You would not be forced to rely on that though.
As noted in a reply to this: The biggest issue I think most people are having is that if you're not proficient, it's a flat nerf from the status quo. If the base 0% proficiency did not penalize players (instead being status quo), but being proficient still gave a good boost, I think this would sell a whole lot better. You could even get away with leaving trades exactly as they are now and only allowing "proficiency" in one, really - as long as nobody is losing what they've currently got, you're simply adding the choice to get a bonus to other things, it's far more palatable.
The moment you start taking things away is where we start running into bigger issues.
As noted in a reply to this: The biggest issue I think most people are having is that if you're not proficient, it's a flat nerf from the status quo. If the base 0% proficiency did not penalize players (instead being status quo), but being proficient still gave a good boost, I think this would sell a whole lot better. You could even get away with leaving trades exactly as they are now and only allowing "proficiency" in one, really - as long as nobody is losing what they've currently got, you're simply adding the choice to get a bonus to other things, it's far more palatable.
The moment you start taking things away is where we start running into bigger issues.
This is probably why the admin didn't seem intent on changing/nerfing artifacts too (though I agree with Esano that I don't think we can expect much market competitivity to change without addressing the artifacts).
We're already at the point where I can set myself up to get eight portions per batch cooking (with a roll for a lucky sixteen portion batch). How much more can we boost before it is so much that we don't necessarily know what to do with it?
As noted in a reply to this: The biggest issue I think most people are having is that if you're not proficient, it's a flat nerf from the status quo. If the base 0% proficiency did not penalize players (instead being status quo), but being proficient still gave a good boost, I think this would sell a whole lot better. You could even get away with leaving trades exactly as they are now and only allowing "proficiency" in one, really - as long as nobody is losing what they've currently got, you're simply adding the choice to get a bonus to other things, it's far more palatable.
The moment you start taking things away is where we start running into bigger issues.
This is probably why the admin didn't seem intent on changing/nerfing artifacts too (though I agree with Esano that I don't think we can expect much market competitivity to change without addressing the artifacts).
We're already at the point where I can set myself up to get eight portions per batch cooking (with a roll for a lucky sixteen portion batch). How much more can we boost before it is so much that we don't necessarily know what to do with it?
They've said that they are planning on reviewing the disparate trade artifacts to account for things like that - it's on the Discord, buried in a lot of other text. Uilani said she'd post a summary tomorrow (edit: she's planning on posting the summary so that people who are not on the Discord or were not there / don't want to scroll through can keep up to date with things).
Edit 2: She did say that someone else was welcome to post the summary for her before then, but I think my feelings on this are strong enough that it's better I don't try to summarize for her.
They've said that they are planning on reviewing the disparate trade artifacts to account for things like that - it's on the Discord, buried in a lot of other text. Uilani said she'd post a summary tomorrow (edit: she's planning on posting the summary so that people who are not on the Discord or were not there / don't want to scroll through can keep up to date with things).
Aha, just as well! I am already distracting myself too much with just forum conversation, ha.
In all honesty, I think the best way to handle this is a staggered rollout. There are a whole lot of moving parts in this thing, and I think it was made pretty clear in the conversation on Discord that it wasn't planned to all be dropped at once.
What I'd like to see, and what would probably be more palatable for everyone, would be to release things like the new gathering skills, the shop changes, removing mechanical benefits from tradeskills, and the gold drop changes first and follow the impact those have on the economy.
If, after all that, we see things moving in the right direction, but not enough, it might be time to look at limiting everyone's trades (still disagreeing, but just for the sake of argument). But if none of that moves the needle at all, then I don't think taking an axe to everyone's trades is going to help and you'll just be taking things away from everyone without adding any benefit.
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On a side note, I think one of the big reasons this is really hard for me to accept is that designing/crafting has always felt like one of the most accessible outlets for people who are more interested in RP and set dressing and creating instead of endgame, pvp, combat, etc. Now it feels like the RP folks are getting a bite taken out of their half of the pie in order to work on mechanical stuff, but we aren't getting anything RP-related in return.
Please just remove Brewmeister at this point rather than gutting Cooking. Keep the drinks for cooks, Brewmeister is already a lot of combat utility under the shoddy disguise of being a bonafide tradeskill. Hate the idea of losing out on proficiency by being a flexer, I invested credits so I wouldn't need to rely on other people because of the problem created by limited tradeskills in the first place - feels like a slap in the face on that note. Also how are comms from a designer's perspective going to work when it scales on proficiency?
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."
Particularly with like crafting. I think there's also some consideration to be had that say... 1000 comms in the current context isn't necessarily equivalent to 1000 comms post revamp.
I don't craft artisan things right now because I'd be looking at consuming what feels like a huge amount of comms for basically... minor personal gain.
At 100% proficiency with comms being more accessible than they are right now, even if the raw numbers are the same, contextually 100% would be an improvement over what we have.
Something less than that would be closer to right now as, for example with artisan, you'd hit a point of "what feels like a lot/too much" due to all the variables around those numbers changing.
Like... if comms are twice as available and 0% proficiency doubles the number of comms you need to craft something. 0% proficiency in that context is actually equivalent of right now and 100% is actually relatively halved, the numbers just haven't changed.
The bigger concern though is that without those numbers we're left to our imagination, and dealing with trying to conceptualize a lot of other moving pieces, AND having to swallow a particularly bitter pill in the active trades limitations. We're staring down a lot of unknowns in a new system, coming from a system that is so fundamentally broken that we're essentially needing to scrap the whole thing and try again, and one that most of us are already heavily invested in. Yeah, we're all REALLY nervous, and no, I don't think it's unwarranted to be so.
I think it might be useful to know what we're going to see come first, and to know the numbers being used to project things out, but eventually Someone is going to need to pull off the massive mass of bandaids and rubber cement we've had applied to the economy over the years and that's going to sting.
What if the tattoos didn't fade, but their powers did?
Because then people will have to turn for tattooers to renew the powers, but we won't have the hassle of "go through this catalogue of all of these tattoo designs and pick."
And this will make tattooers the coolest of trades because they'll be like "skin artist with semi-permanent buffing abilities."
I just had an idea for the NPCs that are going to sell commodities and base items. Put them in the old Artifact Shops on Avechna's Peak. Have an event where Jeremiah has a grand re-opening to introduce his new wares!
Kill off comms entirely, save for specials like corpses, essence, etc. Debit gold based on number of comms required to craft the design currently. Gold disappears from the system, comm generation is no longer an issue. Charge more gold for lack of proficiency (which needs to diaf but hey, we can see that won't happen).
Gold instead of comms works like Achaea's trade system. I have no problem with that. Achaea seems to have no problem supporting multiclass and multitradeskill with lessons either. Lusternia's trade system reminds me of what MKO had for tradeskills. There, the comm generation and gathering was an issue not the players being able to utilize the comms with tradeskills and artifacts they paid for.
Some parts of this I like. Other parts are making me physically ill at how many lessons, credits for artifacts and buying curios, and the 70 million essence I spent on a second trade. I don't want to even think about how much I spent. Yes, the reason why I have 8 trades is that I couldn't find anyone to commission these goods, but at the same time, I'm not saying yes to someone to make me these goods when I have a trade-ban with them due to political status. Have I bought from a shop that was probably considered trade-ban? Yes, but I don't think they're going to out me for making that purchase because they got my gold (probably at a percentage higher). If I couldn't make what I needed, I would wait until I could find it. I purposely bought a tam to switch between trades easily so people in the trading circle could get these goods. And now the tam is pointless for me because my class is more RP-based than functional-based. As a forger, I do not make a profit, forging can get expensive and I don't feel its fair for the newbie that comes through the portal only to heft out the possibility of large amounts, so I do it all for free because I can and because we were all there at one point. I know the armor has all the same benefit (I think?) but aesthetically why not have a plate and a completely nonfunctional helm if that's what you want to look cool and give your character the personality you really want your character to have.
If we're going to get refunded lessons back on trade skills, I don't want it to be in lessons because now I probably would only have 2 skills instead of all of them.
As someone who both doesn't have the time and mental energy to play due to life, I don't like anything about this proposal except for decoupling tradeskills and professions. It seems like when I'm finally able to play again I'll come back to being stripped of all but two tradeskills that I need to ensure I've ground something out for the year, which isn't appealing to me at all.
I learned the tradeskills I have to be able to craft for myself and friends. If I make X friend a gift I like being able to make it and give it to them without trying to find third party people to craft the silly thing. Stocking shops will now become even more tedious. I've had 0 exciting or interesting interactions in 12+ years of IRE when asking someone to restock something for me. It's exhausting and frankly puts me off of the whole system.
I would rather commodities just be deleted from the game and gold costs assigned to each design pattern than a prospecting skillset.
While it's isn't necessary and more of a "if there's time to work it in at some point".
With the different approach and not having to fill out a full skills worth of abilities it could be pretty nice to consolidate bookbinding books down into basically just one skill. (Specifically... Journal, Textbook, Book, Compendium, Manual, Codex, Tome, and Omnibus.)
At some point in crafting/ownership claiming they can be set for org/personal and their page count and existing stuff would just be whatever it is currently. But there are designs in the "personal" group which could be cool for guilds to use and vice versa which the current separation gets in the way of.
Mostly comes to mind whenever I need a book bound for the guild and I look at the omnibus designs list where there's only like 5 and even just consolidating tomes with it would massively increase the options.
Not sure if it's been suggested on Discord or not, but just in case (and since it is already on my mind):
If goop is done away with, just make aethercandies/buttons/scarves craftable with inflated commodity costs. If you'd rather not do that, replace the goop requirement with needing an auronidion sphere or two (two for the aethersphere, maybe), then have the yield per sphere be in multiples if it is something like rainbow scarves and otherwise not viewed as being as valuable. All of a sudden, auronidion spheres actually serve a trade purpose once again and aren't just glorified powerstones with some better resale potential.
Genies can be changed to yield one (and only one) candy/scarf/button each, with a rare roll for one aethersphere (might need to be renamed at this point to avoid confusion with the auronidion sphere).
Cornucopia can just yield ten credits if it doesn't produce a crystal.
Any other goop sources not considered here?
EDIT:
Also, if you absolutely hate aetherhunting/dust trading, then the aethertrader merchants can stay to offer aurinidion spheres in direct exchange for gold, perhaps fluctuating based on the current price spheres are going for at the trader ships in aetherspace.
I'm actually okay with a lot of this since the changes would be interesting to see. Removing the trades being locked to classes is definitely welcome since I'll then be able to make my own booze for the planned tavern.😁
What I wasn't sure about was the "skillflex to another trade and lose all proficiency" bit. I can understand and agree with some of the frustrations voiced here. Maybe we could have some sort of malus for skillflexing to another trade (such as a 25% proficiency hit the second you confirm wanting to change) instead of completely messing them over by resetting their proficiency to 0. I can just imagine the rage the current plan is going to cause if it is implemented in its current state. Incurring a heavy cost to proficiency for changing trades is probably still going to make people mad, but not nearly as bad as the "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS" fury getting slapped back down to 0 from 100% would induce, I think!
Aside from that, I'd personally like to say thank you. As a player, having a medium where admin and players have a way to communicate (and actually DO communicate) has always been a good thing, at least for me! I look forward to seeing what else is in store!
A giant panda bounds into view, flanked by a gargantuan gorilla clad in golden plate armour. They both salute as the vision fades.
What I wasn't sure about was the "skillflex to another trade and lose all proficiency" bit. I can understand and agree with some of the frustrations voiced here. Maybe we could have some sort of malus for skillflexing to another trade (such as a 25% proficiency hit the second you confirm wanting to change) instead of completely messing them over by resetting their proficiency to 0. I can just imagine the rage the current plan is going to cause if it is implemented in its current state. Incurring a heavy cost to proficiency for changing trades is probably still going to make people mad, but not nearly as bad as the "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS" fury getting slapped back down to 0 from 100% would induce, I think!
A lot of this will depend on implementation, I think.
Ship proficiencies are kind of similar and can be looked at for some perspective.
Ship profs are super, super grindy, and getting even just 1% in pilot seems to require some sort of special witchcraft. Turrets are at least reasonable to hit the max for in a day (if you spend a lot of time aetherhunting), but at least with all of these the only resource you might be expending is power - and even at that, your prof can often go up with skills that only cost balance/time.
It's going to be very different with trades, depending on the trade. Herbs is probably the one example where slow growth/rate of accumulation might feel acceptable, but like, if you use the same model for gaining prof in artisan, no one is going to enjoy that. Still very much stand by my thoughts on thrones and stools in this regard.
Ship profs can't go down until they get to a certain collective height, and even then the bump down is gradual while there is a rise elsewhere. For a full reset of trade proficiency to feel like a reasonable sacrifice (or for us to even care about trade prof at all rather than ignore its existence), we don't want to be grinding out dozens and dozens of objects just to reach the max gain for the day. If it is 10% max per day, then it's just under two weeks to get back to 100% again (less than an IC year) and you should arguably feel/notice some difference along the way even if it isn't the full potential.
This will also probably be where our current baseline comes in. Like if the current commodity costs are meant to reflect the 100% Prof and being at 0% is a flat nerf from the current condition, that will elicit reaction. By the same stroke, if that occurs but commodity availability all around improves with the new trades and village tweaks, then that discomfort might just be temporary. Starting with our current outputs as being 0% would make the whole thing more seamless.
And with all that said, I still think adjusting spatula/hammer might be a good idea for cooking/jewellery, because so long as those artifacts exist as they currently do they just add too much efficiency to really compete without them. Their prof bonuses would need to be really wild to supercede those artifacts, while I think prof will be much more impactful for say, alchemy in its current state.
1)the issue with these proposed changes is that it measures 'player engagement' by counting how many times a player engages with the mechanics of the game.
Player engagement = communication.
E.g RP; helping other players; doing quests together; setting up storylines, being creative.
I can help but see proficiency and the way shopkeeping is structured as a paywall I'll have to climb to get over. I do not like grinding. I enjoy creating content for the game. Putting up this a paywall where I have to throw credits at the problem (or the time to earn daily credits) to buy artifacts or increase proficiency is disheartening. It would make the current quality of life I have as a character IG decrease sharply.
First two trades should be more or less free but anything after the requires an artifact or credits. At 0 proficiency the commodities used should be as listed in the design with occasional failed attempts. at 100% proficiency no failures, a multiplier output and balance recovery time for crafting halved.
I also agree with esei, costs for owning a shop should be lowered.
We could also look at a consignment system, in player run shops. It should implemented system side.
Within the system players are given permission to stock shop bins designated by the owner of the shop as 'theirs'. The profit will be split between the player and owner/shopkeeper. You can choose to have automatic gold deposits or simply retrieve the gold from the shop bin that's been designated as yours. It'll help new players out and encourage player engagement (communication) between players.
Quick reaction from an ancient returning player (honestly feel like a newbie a lot these days but it's also a fun feeling). I have only ever had 1 trade skill at a time and that won't be changing anytime soon.
1. Love separating trade mechanics/combat from the trade itself! And letting people get better at a trade without investing lessons (but still having lessons as an option). Many people don't like that it's time-gated so why not just do away with the lesson limit? Those with means can still learn quickly, and those without just take a bit longer. The decaying proficiency rate sounds too steep though. 2. At the same time, sad that the trans skill perks are being done with entirely. If the trans skill becomes an artifact that can be purchased with goop, I'd feel more OK with that. Ties into my next point: 3. I -looooove- goop! When I first got back and heard about it, I kinda rolled my eyes and thought 'What is this weird-sounding pseudo-premium currency the admins created? Another way to fleece the players?' Boy was I wrong! I love that many special items that used to be gated behind credits can now be gained by goop, and goop can be earned by the players by playing. I would love to see more ways to earn goop, not less, so taking away aethertrading (which I just learned about 2 days ago) also makes me sad!
Finally, I spent a lot of time in Final Fantasy XIV (the MMORPG) in the time I was gone, and I think they've really figured out how to make an interesting in-game, active and player-driven economy. The system is very complex so I won't get into details, but every trade is a legit job that's almost as involving as combat itself.
There are 8 jobs and you can choose to master all 8 simultaneously if you wish (it used to be that you -had- to in order to be viable, and now you don't need to. Specializing gives you some perks for that trade but doesn't hurt your other trades).
With end-game crafting you craft certain items (there is a pre-determined list; it used to rotate but not anymore) and then turn them in to NPCs for special currency. Higher-quality items = more currency. Also the more items you gave to an NPC the more you learned about them. Players -loved- this and the lore it provided.
The special currency allows you to buy cool things for yourself, or special ingredients to craft even better things, or special things that you can convert to profit by selling (because other players need those special things - everything in this system is connected and depends on interaction between trades). Eventually you see a clear pattern/routine emerge and amazingly, it doesn't feel that grindy and is rewarding and satisfying.
They have player numbers to enable all this and every few months new content comes in that shakes up the market, but there may be interesting takeaways there.
This makes me think too if just the shop system itself needs to be made more accessible. One big open market that is completely open to everyone, cross-org, and anyone can list items on it, but limited to like 5 items or something.
Comments
For comm outlays on designs could design sketches have a line added which will show the impacts proficiency (or lack thereof) would have on the comm requirements.
In the current version, this would be like... designers set the 100% proficiency costs as normal.
But there'd be a line on the sketch while designing that shows how much it'd cost to craft with 0% proficiency.
Would likely make it simpler for designers to intentionally avoid making designs that aren't craftable. I imagine the same line when you're looking to craft would show you the costs at your proficiency level.
Explorer (80%), Achiever (53%), Socializer (53%), Killer (13%)
Bartle Taxonomy
(test yourself)
Have only 2 skills active at a time (as before) but also have the ability to lock the proficiency of 2 skills. In this scenario, you don't lose proficiency in these 2 skills even if you switch out of them back and forth. You cannot gain proficiency in the skill you switch to as one of your actives, not unless you choose to abandon proficiency of the skill you have it locked to at the moment.
That way you could still switch out and make the things you need, but not lose your proficiency to do so. The things you made in the skills you have 0% proficiency in would still be worse than if someone specialising made them, of course, and if possible it would be a good idea to seek out a specialist to help you with the more difficult/advanced things you wished to make. You would not be forced to rely on that though.
It seems potentially more user friendly if we have two "professional"/"proficiency"/whatever slots and whatever is in those can gain proficiency.
Then with just free access to all other trades without needing to switch. My suggestion here is having a variation of AB so that AB can show you your professional trades while CRAFTS or something shows all other trades (mostly cause my ab is so long right now)
It would arguably obviate the need for catalogues cause everyone could just make everything so they'd be able to check out all design sketches. And TRADEWHO could work off your professional trades.
We're already at the point where I can set myself up to get eight portions per batch cooking (with a roll for a lucky sixteen portion batch). How much more can we boost before it is so much that we don't necessarily know what to do with it?
What I'd like to see, and what would probably be more palatable for everyone, would be to release things like the new gathering skills, the shop changes, removing mechanical benefits from tradeskills, and the gold drop changes first and follow the impact those have on the economy.
If, after all that, we see things moving in the right direction, but not enough, it might be time to look at limiting everyone's trades (still disagreeing, but just for the sake of argument). But if none of that moves the needle at all, then I don't think taking an axe to everyone's trades is going to help and you'll just be taking things away from everyone without adding any benefit.
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On a side note, I think one of the big reasons this is really hard for me to accept is that designing/crafting has always felt like one of the most accessible outlets for people who are more interested in RP and set dressing and creating instead of endgame, pvp, combat, etc. Now it feels like the RP folks are getting a bite taken out of their half of the pie in order to work on mechanical stuff, but we aren't getting anything RP-related in return.
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I think there's also some consideration to be had that say... 1000 comms in the current context isn't necessarily equivalent to 1000 comms post revamp.
I don't craft artisan things right now because I'd be looking at consuming what feels like a huge amount of comms for basically... minor personal gain.
At 100% proficiency with comms being more accessible than they are right now, even if the raw numbers are the same, contextually 100% would be an improvement over what we have.
Something less than that would be closer to right now as, for example with artisan, you'd hit a point of "what feels like a lot/too much" due to all the variables around those numbers changing.
Like... if comms are twice as available and 0% proficiency doubles the number of comms you need to craft something. 0% proficiency in that context is actually equivalent of right now and 100% is actually relatively halved, the numbers just haven't changed.
What if the tattoos didn't fade, but their powers did?
Because then people will have to turn for tattooers to renew the powers, but we won't have the hassle of "go through this catalogue of all of these tattoo designs and pick."
And this will make tattooers the coolest of trades because they'll be like "skin artist with semi-permanent buffing abilities."
If we're going to get refunded lessons back on trade skills, I don't want it to be in lessons because now I probably would only have 2 skills instead of all of them.
I learned the tradeskills I have to be able to craft for myself and friends. If I make X friend a gift I like being able to make it and give it to them without trying to find third party people to craft the silly thing. Stocking shops will now become even more tedious. I've had 0 exciting or interesting interactions in 12+ years of IRE when asking someone to restock something for me. It's exhausting and frankly puts me off of the whole system.
I would rather commodities just be deleted from the game and gold costs assigned to each design pattern than a prospecting skillset.
With the different approach and not having to fill out a full skills worth of abilities it could be pretty nice to consolidate bookbinding books down into basically just one skill. (Specifically... Journal, Textbook, Book, Compendium, Manual, Codex, Tome, and Omnibus.)
At some point in crafting/ownership claiming they can be set for org/personal and their page count and existing stuff would just be whatever it is currently. But there are designs in the "personal" group which could be cool for guilds to use and vice versa which the current separation gets in the way of.
Mostly comes to mind whenever I need a book bound for the guild and I look at the omnibus designs list where there's only like 5 and even just consolidating tomes with it would massively increase the options.
If goop is done away with, just make aethercandies/buttons/scarves craftable with inflated commodity costs. If you'd rather not do that, replace the goop requirement with needing an auronidion sphere or two (two for the aethersphere, maybe), then have the yield per sphere be in multiples if it is something like rainbow scarves and otherwise not viewed as being as valuable. All of a sudden, auronidion spheres actually serve a trade purpose once again and aren't just glorified powerstones with some better resale potential.
Genies can be changed to yield one (and only one) candy/scarf/button each, with a rare roll for one aethersphere (might need to be renamed at this point to avoid confusion with the auronidion sphere).
Cornucopia can just yield ten credits if it doesn't produce a crystal.
Any other goop sources not considered here?
EDIT:
Also, if you absolutely hate aetherhunting/dust trading, then the aethertrader merchants can stay to offer aurinidion spheres in direct exchange for gold, perhaps fluctuating based on the current price spheres are going for at the trader ships in aetherspace.
Among players, it is 50:1, but the admin rate uses 20:1
What I wasn't sure about was the "skillflex to another trade and lose all proficiency" bit. I can understand and agree with some of the frustrations voiced here. Maybe we could have some sort of malus for skillflexing to another trade (such as a 25% proficiency hit the second you confirm wanting to change) instead of completely messing them over by resetting their proficiency to 0. I can just imagine the rage the current plan is going to cause if it is implemented in its current state. Incurring a heavy cost to proficiency for changing trades is probably still going to make people mad, but not nearly as bad as the "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS" fury getting slapped back down to 0 from 100% would induce, I think!
Aside from that, I'd personally like to say thank you. As a player, having a medium where admin and players have a way to communicate (and actually DO communicate) has always been a good thing, at least for me! I look forward to seeing what else is in store!
A giant panda bounds into view, flanked by a gargantuan gorilla clad in golden plate armour. They both salute as the vision fades.
Ship proficiencies are kind of similar and can be looked at for some perspective.
Ship profs are super, super grindy, and getting even just 1% in pilot seems to require some sort of special witchcraft. Turrets are at least reasonable to hit the max for in a day (if you spend a lot of time aetherhunting), but at least with all of these the only resource you might be expending is power - and even at that, your prof can often go up with skills that only cost balance/time.
It's going to be very different with trades, depending on the trade. Herbs is probably the one example where slow growth/rate of accumulation might feel acceptable, but like, if you use the same model for gaining prof in artisan, no one is going to enjoy that. Still very much stand by my thoughts on thrones and stools in this regard.
Ship profs can't go down until they get to a certain collective height, and even then the bump down is gradual while there is a rise elsewhere. For a full reset of trade proficiency to feel like a reasonable sacrifice (or for us to even care about trade prof at all rather than ignore its existence), we don't want to be grinding out dozens and dozens of objects just to reach the max gain for the day. If it is 10% max per day, then it's just under two weeks to get back to 100% again (less than an IC year) and you should arguably feel/notice some difference along the way even if it isn't the full potential.
This will also probably be where our current baseline comes in. Like if the current commodity costs are meant to reflect the 100% Prof and being at 0% is a flat nerf from the current condition, that will elicit reaction. By the same stroke, if that occurs but commodity availability all around improves with the new trades and village tweaks, then that discomfort might just be temporary. Starting with our current outputs as being 0% would make the whole thing more seamless.
And with all that said, I still think adjusting spatula/hammer might be a good idea for cooking/jewellery, because so long as those artifacts exist as they currently do they just add too much efficiency to really compete without them. Their prof bonuses would need to be really wild to supercede those artifacts, while I think prof will be much more impactful for say, alchemy in its current state.
1. Love separating trade mechanics/combat from the trade itself! And letting people get better at a trade without investing lessons (but still having lessons as an option). Many people don't like that it's time-gated so why not just do away with the lesson limit? Those with means can still learn quickly, and those without just take a bit longer. The decaying proficiency rate sounds too steep though.
2. At the same time, sad that the trans skill perks are being done with entirely. If the trans skill becomes an artifact that can be purchased with goop, I'd feel more OK with that. Ties into my next point:
3. I -looooove- goop! When I first got back and heard about it, I kinda rolled my eyes and thought 'What is this weird-sounding pseudo-premium currency the admins created? Another way to fleece the players?' Boy was I wrong! I love that many special items that used to be gated behind credits can now be gained by goop, and goop can be earned by the players by playing. I would love to see more ways to earn goop, not less, so taking away aethertrading (which I just learned about 2 days ago) also makes me sad!
Finally, I spent a lot of time in Final Fantasy XIV (the MMORPG) in the time I was gone, and I think they've really figured out how to make an interesting in-game, active and player-driven economy. The system is very complex so I won't get into details, but every trade is a legit job that's almost as involving as combat itself.
This makes me think too if just the shop system itself needs to be made more accessible. One big open market that is completely open to everyone, cross-org, and anyone can list items on it, but limited to like 5 items or something.