Economy Changes Overview

Orael · April 2021

Here it is, the much-anticipated plan for what we're going to do with the economy.

This plan is large, it's expansive and it covers a lot. It's going to cover more than just this one thread, so please be patient as I write up the proposals for the more in-depth things listed here. This part will give a general overview of our goals, the plans, and how they achieve our goals. We'll also list some miscellaneous things that don't really fit elsewhere here.

Goals

Address the commodity issue.
Ensure supplies are readily available for anyone, especially newbies
Ensure that players can participate in as much or as little as they want.
Make Trading/Merchantile something worthwhile that you can potentially earn money at

Pretty straightforward.

The Plan

This isn't going to be straightforward. Here we'll address a few general points.

Trades - A more in-depth proposal found here: https://forums.lusternia.com/discussion/4422/economy-trade-revamp/p1.

We will introduce two new trade skillsets, Prospecting and Agriculture. These skillsets will primarily generate commodities in various fashion, more in-depth proposals to be linked in separate threads

We will be removing lesson costs (and refunding lessons) on all trade skills. They will instead rely on a new mechanic called proficiency. Proficiency is gained by performing the trade

Players will only be allowed two trade skills active at once.

Skillflexing between trade skills will cause you to lose all proficiency.

All trades will be able to sell their wares/services in a shop.
All mechanical benefits from selecting a trade will be removed (Trans items and skills that give the trader something)

Shops - More in-depth proposal coming in a separate thread

We will be setting up an NPC village of shopkeepers that will have all items/services for sale so anyone can access them
NPC's will sell and buy comms/goods

Players will be able to sell both goods and services from their shops (per the above)
Players will be able to select certain from cartels to sell that will automatically be made for the buyer at the seller's proficiency level.

Villages

Fix current issues with commodity quests, ensure things are more even throughout various villages and standardize how they function to make changes easier and more consistent in the future.
Look at Commercial governments and make it more viable
We will be removing receiving a comm when doing a commodity quest

Misc Changes

Artifact Runes will be free to change and move between items, pliers will be retired. This is to encourage players to change up their items and looks
Aethertrading will be removed, we will consider another way to gain anomalies but we want to remove any mechanical reasons players select one trade over another.
All riftable items will be made to decay outside of rifts (they will not decay in rifts, either personal or shop rifts)
Gold drops from mobs will be removed, Questing gold and turn-ins will still give gold
Org stockpiles will have a cap (200k comms)
Remove Sticky goop as a thing
Potentially retire crucible curios - we may leave this, for now, to see how they work with things.

How these solutions achieve our goals

Goal 1: Adding two additional trade skills that directly generate the commodities as well as shoring up village weaknesses and ensuring that villages are more even and fair in their commodity production should resolve any shortage issues.

Goal 2: Expanding the shop system to include everything from trades and creating NPC traders will ensure that players will always be able to get what they need when they need it. Everything will be available at all times.

Goal 3: See above, having player and NPC shops sell things means that players that don't want to be forced into engaging in the economy can simply purchase from a shop and go about their day. If you want to engage more and design or have special items made for you etc, you can freely engage with others or specialize yourself.

Goal 4: One of the key components to make trading/merchant game playing style viable is needing to have players participate or engage in the economy. An antithesis to this is players being self-sufficient and being able to do everything themselves. By adding proficiencies to trades and encouraging players to specialize in 1-2 trades, we are making it more difficult and costlier to be self-sufficient. By doing so, we're encouraging players to participate in the economy, even if it's just going to a player shop to get what you need and move on. We are not removing the ability to be self-sufficient, but we are not encouraging it either. Additionally, by removing the lesson costs, we're allowing players to start making money right away rather than needing to invest in it, to begin with. Becoming proficient in a trade skill will make it faster/easier/more cost-effective to sell goods and perform services than those that are not proficient.

One note is that the proficiency system does prevent players from realistically becoming all-around merchants that can do every trade skill, which can be considered antithetical to Goal 4. Unfortunately, we do not think there is any way around that, in order to make trading/merchant playstyle worthwhile, we need to encourage players to participate in the economy, whether it's through shops or other means and we are not able to have a situation where players can be the all-around trade guru but not self-sufficient.

Aeldra · April 2021

Orael said:

Goals
Address the commodity issue.
Ensure supplies are readily available for anyone, especially newbies
Ensure that players can participate in as much or as little as they want.
Make Trading/Merchantile something worthwhile that you can potentially earn money at
Pretty straightforward.

These goals sound like a good start and something that could really enhance the game market. I think it probably is a lot more difficult then it sounds, though.

Orael said:
Shops - More in-depth proposal coming in a separate thread
We will be setting up an NPC village of shopkeepers that will have all items/services for sale so anyone can access them
NPC's will sell and buy comms/goods
Players will be able to sell both goods and services from their shops (per the above)
Players will be able to select certain from cartels to sell that will automatically be made for the buyer at the seller's proficiency level.

I love the idea of being able to sell everything from your shop. Tracking down trader with skill X is one of the most frustrating things I can imagine. The only thing where I see this to remain a problem is with skillsets that rely heavily upon designs that you're going to have for quite a while ( e. g. tailors and similar ). It would maybe be great to have a way to leave an order at a shop for something, though I suppose thats something we players can solve. Having the ability to get everything you need ( given well enough stocked shops ) will be a boon for newbies. If am reading this right, this is no longer "looking for a X" call on market for just basic things like getting your hands on an avarice enchantment.

Orael said:

Villages
Fix current issues with commodity quests, ensure things are more even throughout various villages and standardize how they function to make changes easier and more consistent in the future.
Look at Commercial governments and make it more viable
We will be removing receiving a comm when doing a commodity quest

Hm. My main gripe with this is, how village revolts generally are very lopsided to begin with. There's often been a lopsides in villages to a large degree and to who had enough people to claim the majority of them. I understand that the goal of agriculture and prospecting is to make it so you no longer have to rely onto villages as much, but removing the commodity rewards from commodity quests will also now remove the chance for someone from an somewhat opposing org to run the commodity quest if they urgently need anything for their trades.

Orael said:

Misc Changes
Artifact Runes will be free to change and move between items, pliers will be retired. This is to encourage players to change up their items and looks
Aethertrading will be removed, we will consider another way to gain anomalies but we want to remove any mechanical reasons players select one trade over another.
All riftable items will be made to decay outside of rifts (they will not decay in rifts, either personal or shop rifts)
Gold drops from mobs will be removed, Questing gold and turn-ins will still give gold
Org stockpiles will have a cap (200k comms)
Remove Sticky goop as a thing
Potentially retire crucible curios - we may leave this, for now, to see how they work with things.

RIP Pliers, I think we're all glad to see them gone. Not being able to change the design of X just because you had put your rune of Y on it was always been a hassle. Being able to move runes around will be a major boon for flexibility on things.

As for aethertrading being removed, I want to highlight large issues here: It was both a source of goop and gold for a good deal of people who went to use it and especially for new players it was an easy way to get their hands on some basic artifacts that would get them started on PvP as well (relatively cheap way to get a nose, etc ). It also allowed people to get their hands on consumable's more reliably and as such those buffs saw a a lot more use. I suspect that with goop effectively being removed as a renewable resource, you'll see a huge plummet in the use of aethercandies, aetherbuttons and the like and they become once again a thing only to be used by the richest few percent of the playerbase... I feel this is not something that you would want and would suggest considering a replacement mechanic that still allows people to gain goop (just as they can gain dailycredits).

There's a good deal of people who enjoyed bashing for gold, but as most gold could only really be made by tradeins, I don't think that will be a real issue.

Orael said:
Goal 4: One of the key components to make trading/merchant game playing style viable is needing to have players participate or engage in the economy. An antithesis to this is players being self-sufficient and being able to do everything themselves. By adding proficiencies to trades and encouraging players to specialize in 1-2 trades, we are making it more difficult and costlier to be self-sufficient. By doing so, we're encouraging players to participate in the economy, even if it's just going to a player shop to get what you need and move on. We are not removing the ability to be self-sufficient, but we are not encouraging it either. Additionally, by removing the lesson costs, we're allowing players to start making money right away rather than needing to invest in it, to begin with. Becoming proficient in a trade skill will make it faster/easier/more cost-effective to sell goods and perform services than those that are not proficient.

Will make my main comments on the tradeskill thread, but this change fills me with a lot of sadness. Half of my joy of shopkeeping was from being able to provide the items that were around very scarce and I don't see myself being able to do that anymore. I don't argue that it may be a needed change, still this one is going to be rough.

Sapphira · April 2021

So question, how will average joe make gold these days? Tradeins really are a pittance unless you do an awful lot - like all the keph in a run or something, (and good luck finding them alive a lot of the time). Will the new skillsets take up trade slots? Will prospecting/farming earn daily credits? At least at the moment you can pick up a bit of gold while hunting for your dailies, or begging, killing two birds with one stone. Most quests only give out a pittance. As someone who currently has a lot of gold already this is less personal panic and more wondering if actually we're going to make it more costly for newbies to get what they need, or force them to spend a lot of time grinding for comms to sell.

Can't help but feel like a system that was presumably going to be opt-in may become necessary for people, not for trade buffs but for new people who aren't equipped and rich to -have- to sell wares to make money to spend.

Mboagn · April 2021

TBH all of these changes will make life hell for noobies or those who aren't already geared up with all the arties.

Arix · April 2021

if removed, how would crucible curios be refunded?

Jolanthe · April 2021

Aeldra said:
Hm. My main gripe with this is, how village revolts generally are very lopsided to begin with. There's often been a lopsides in villages to a large degree and to who had enough people to claim the majority of them. I understand that the goal of agriculture and prospecting is to make it so you no longer have to rely onto villages as much, but removing the commodity rewards from commodity quests will also now remove the chance for someone from an somewhat opposing org to run the commodity quest if they urgently need anything for their trades.

In my opinion, this can be counterbalanced by having some means and methods of gaining commodities instead outside of villages. The Tolborolla questline to gain silk spinnerets can just allow you to rift those spinnerets if you like (which might have the interesting application of allowing you to circumvent part of the grinding process of that quest if you can just store silk for later or bring it from a village instead). Could generate meat, milk, and eggs in the Gourmet Alley (Is that what we're calling it these days instead? Wherever the place with Crumkane's realm entrance is). Getting gold and commodities at the same time in villages has always been a bit lopsided while also only being particularly profitable for people who are largely self-sufficient and able to make full use of each commodity they produce as well as gold.

Then the only reason to turn in at villages would be to help fill the controlling org's holdings. This would also add a more competitive aspect to things, since players in orgs without villages would still have incentives to do commodity quests - it would just be for themselves rather than rolling into their trade ministry.

Uzriel · April 2021

One thought I had regarding aethertrading and the need for new characters to be able to get goop (gnome weapons for instance are pretty much essential). Rather than trying to find a way to fit in goop generations, maybe all existing ASHOP goop costs could be converted to credits and leave goops as a skin transformation only mechanic. Or even just axe goop entirely and use credits for skin transformations.

Cheliyi · April 2021

As for aethertrading being removed, I want to highlight large issues here: It was both a source of goop and gold for a good deal of people who went to use it and especially for new players it was an easy way to get their hands on some basic artifacts that would get them started on PvP as well (relatively cheap way to get a nose, etc ). It also allowed people to get their hands on consumable's more reliably and as such those buffs saw a a lot more use. I suspect that with goop effectively being removed as a renewable resource, you'll see a huge plummet in the use of aethercandies, aetherbuttons and the like and they become once again a thing only to be used by the richest few percent of the playerbase... I feel this is not something that you would want and would suggest considering a replacement mechanic that still allows people to gain goop (just as they can gain dailycredits).

I also agree with Aeldra on this, aethertrading was basically one of my only ways to potentially gain IG currency for things like gnomeweapons and other aethergoop only items, since I can't really spend money on Lusternia. It would be really helpful if there was a daily-goop system, so that people can still purchase combat items. Either that, or allow most goop-only combat items to be paid for in credits.

Luce · April 2021

Sapphira said:

So question, how will average joe make gold these days? Tradeins really are a pittance unless you do an awful lot - like all the keph in a run or something, (and good luck finding them alive a lot of the time).

I feel like this might be a case of quest and turn-in gold needing a look-over, and also of needing to make sure most mobs have a turn-in. This will make avaricehorn useless, but I don't remember seeing Tinkering in the other thread at all, so it may be on the block as a whole. Gold-from-mobs has always felt a little immersion-stretching to begin with, but also clearing out ALL of the Krokani tower (for instance) never really netted more than turning in one or two krokani so I don't feel like it'll hit all that hard except in areas with mobs that didn't have a turn-in, or whose turn-ins don't automatically give gold.

Dys · April 2021

Muh floor gold!

Though it does mean I'll lose the pang of disappointment I get when astral insanity gold piles aren't real, because there'll almost never be gold on the floor any more.

Saran · April 2021

Luce said:

Sapphira said:

So question, how will average joe make gold these days? Tradeins really are a pittance unless you do an awful lot - like all the keph in a run or something, (and good luck finding them alive a lot of the time).

I feel like this might be a case of quest and turn-in gold needing a look-over, and also of needing to make sure most mobs have a turn-in. This will make avaricehorn useless, but I don't remember seeing Tinkering in the other thread at all, so it may be on the block as a whole. Gold-from-mobs has always felt a little immersion-stretching to begin with, but also clearing out ALL of the Krokani tower (for instance) never really netted more than turning in one or two krokani so I don't feel like it'll hit all that hard except in areas with mobs that didn't have a turn-in, or whose turn-ins don't automatically give gold.

With the new village along with Agriculture and Prospecting, I wonder if there'll be a space for those to be a more profit generating activity.

Like if the floor for their value is high enough that it could be worthwhile and just mine for a bit for pure profit.

Zagreus · April 2021

Orael said:
All mechanical benefits from selecting a trade will be removed (Trans items and skills that give the trader something)

I vehemently disagree with this part of removing them from the game. Trans skills gave flavor, combat help, unique choices, and things people actually wanted in most of those skillsets. I'll try to keep analysis and an alternative idea brief...

PVP trans tradeskills

Lowmagic locked
Lorecraft Philsopherstone
Herbs Herblore
Poisons Immunity

Highmagic locked
Spellcraft MagiCrown
Tinkering RoseGlasses

Open to either
Cooking HeroFete
Tailoring Splendour
Tattoos Tattoomaster
Forging MasterArmour

Not too useful and/or non-PVP
Jewellery Tierstone
Brewmeister TeaCeremony
Artisan Prized
Bookbinding MagicTome
---------------------------

Step 1 - Fold armour tradeskills into class skillsets or set as class baselines

Pretty much every combatant has the buffed armour value, so this is preventing a game-wide armour nerf resulting in even more damage stacking. 3 of the 4 open to either low/highmagic skillsets worth having for PVP are armour bonuses. Those bonuses should absolutely be made the baseline for those classes (splendour for any robe wearer, tattoomaster for non-armour monks, and masterarmour for all warriors), and herofete is accessible by wondercorn anyway. If not the skill, just increase the baseline with those classes in mind. A great example of why this must happen is the case of warriors. Warriors cannot wield shield or shield runed items, so a physical class is worse at blocking physical damage than every non-physical class in the game... With MasterArmour it balances out, but without it is obviously ridiculous since classes are designed to be strong against themselves, and certainly not -worse- (notice how the vitals buffs vary based on class).

Step 2 - Unlock all trades/tradeskill trans items to all (could even be moved to a common skillset), but limit to 2 active at once so it's not overpowered. Some of those abilities are quite strong, and losing them is harsh and unwarranted. If you limit to 2 it should be fine, and preserves a system of tradeoffs since you can't have it all.

Simple, safe, no one gets gooseknifed.

Saran · April 2021

Zagreus said:
Step 2 - Unlock all trades/tradeskill trans items to all (could even be moved to a common skillset), but limit to 2 active at once so it's not overpowered. Some of those abilities are quite strong, and losing them is harsh and unwarranted. If you limit to 2 it should be fine, and preserves a system of tradeoffs since you can't have it all.

Simple, safe, no one gets gooseknifed.

I mentioned this in the other thread but I think instead of this we could fold these effects/items/etc into guilds somehow so that they can be available and we can repurpose them as benefits for guild engagement.

It could mean you have to participate in guilds, but that also helps guilds.

Luce · April 2021

I don't think forced guild participation is a good idea at all. Yes it's unfortunate that guild populations are very feast or famine, and yes, it's unfortunate that there's a pool of people that opt out of guilds entirely, but tying mechanical benefits behind guilds so that players feel forced into a guild for those benefits wouldn't necessarily create more guild engagement, it'll just mean that the apathetic people are apethetic but with overhead now.

Saran · April 2021

Luce said:

I don't think forced guild participation is a good idea at all. Yes it's unfortunate that guild populations are very feast or famine, and yes, it's unfortunate that there's a pool of people that opt out of guilds entirely, but tying mechanical benefits behind guilds so that players feel forced into a guild for those benefits wouldn't necessarily create more guild engagement, it'll just mean that the apathetic people are apethetic but with overhead now.

The validity of mechanical benefits for guilds is kinda a separate subject if you're going beyond ways to potentially repurpose trade stuff.

However, guilds basically have less mechanical benefits to them than a family which is less than an order. But guilds are probably the first of those three a newbie is going to engage in and when they're dead that can lead to retention issues.

Secondly, there are varyings ways things like this can be implemented.

Guilds could get an item or the like that lets their members perform a skinned herofete/teaceremony, for example. Those who opt out can still get fetes through wondercorns while guilds that go for them might have the current benefits of being a cook with a wondercorn if they've got both.

Other ideas have been around being able to craft and share these buffs.
You could create a blessing mechanism that allows guild members to like... bless targets with immunity or herblore.
Everyone can access the benefits by getting someone in a guild to give them the blessing, it's just the channel. If there was a concern about splitting them between different guilds you could also see if just giving all guilds all/most of the blessings and just making them different skins so it's just... a neat thing you can offer org mates.

Eritheyl · April 2021

New things for guilds is fine, I'd make a new thread after you've said your piece here about it though.

Saran · April 2021

Eritheyl said:

New things for guilds is fine, I'd make a new thread after you've said your piece here about it though.

*shrug* threads have been made quite a few times, project is on the star map, and the comments were on how things being lost in the revamp could be reimplemented which becomes an efficiency consideration for the project.

If people want to argue that guilds shouldn't get benefits, you're more than welcome to start that conversation yourself.

Eritheyl · April 2021

No one is arguing that, finger off the trigger please. I'm just asking you to take guild stuff to a guild thread - we're here for the economy, not the offshoots of what to do with X afterwards. That's all.

Saran · April 2021

Eritheyl said:

No one is arguing that, finger off the trigger please. I'm just asking you to take guild stuff to a guild thread - we're here for the economy, not the offshoots of what to do with X afterwards. That's all.

Luce's post, which you've agree'd with, rather explicitly is. Zagreus' post is talking about what to do with these orphaned things afterwards.

My post just saying we might be able to use it in another star map project is not where this line of conversation went off topic.

If these benefits are repurposed within the revamp purely to ensure they're still around we lose the opportunity to do so in other systems which might also benefit. And potentially spend more time on this revamp trying to handle things that could be dealt with later.

Eritheyl · April 2021

ok.

Uilani · April 2021

Yesterday I participated in a discussion about the economy proposal on the Official Discord and I'd like to share what I've said here as well. I re-ordered and organised my comments so they make sense alone and also tried to summarise them but ultimately gave up on that because it's the whole of it that should be available to everyone!

On Agriculture and Prospecting:

Their goal is indeed to produce commodities - straight up, not some intermediary comms. The proposal here aims to provide a steady and easy to get supply and no more than the engineered supply (adjusted as needed) so the system avoids flooding the market with endless dirt-cheap commodities. This version of comm-generating skills would not rely on methods such as manse generators did. No need to afk upkeep the mine every hour just so it yields some comms at the end of the day. The goal is to make comms much easier to obtain (make them or buy from npc shops) and remove the excessive reliance on villages.

Both Prospecting and Agriculture will be out there in the world. Each commodity would have a method of procuring it and an environment in which it is meant to 'spawn' (this concerns commodities for which this makes sense, no eggs spawning in the wild randomly). This would include some flags on our side (for areas and specific rooms) that exclude certain places so you don't turn someone's godrealm into a mining hotspot.

While the exact mechanics are still on the table of course, the idea for Prospecting for example would be that veins of metals would spawn in underground locales. Forgers could make pickaxes that would be used to tap into them. You would happen upon a vein out there in the wild and mine it until it is exhausted. Marble, gems, and coal are part of Prospecting as well.

Whether there is enough in each Prospecting and Agriculture to make them full tradeskills was a question that was asked. It taps into something very interesting that might happen with Trade skills. This is a bit of a tangent but related to trade skills as a whole.

In the past Lusternia has not added new trade skills because they had to be "full tradeskills" - that is, have enough going for them to go from zero to trans. Also had to always include combat bonuses (magictomes, splendours, etc) and other things to entice people into investing in them, thereby making it a necessary investment for the meta. I am not quite fond of that setup. Many new things could have been their own skills (Lingualism, Sorcelglass, Instruments) but were stuffed into existing skills instead because they were not large enough to warrant their own skills.

With many bonuses (extra reasons to pick up trades - like trans skills) being proposed to be removed (and/or turned into arties or other abilities), we are no longer quite tied to "a trade skill must be of so and so length". Even less so if these skills do not require a lesson investment.

On being able to tell the 'quality' of goods since Proficiency would influence many things:

Quality is generally decay time/prestige/etc and you should be able to see those before you buy things. No buying of knock-offs. Being able to tell the 'quality' of an item in a shop without probing every single thing might be difficult. The WARES display is only so large and it's already quite packed. But this would be important to have in some form, perhaps a filter.

On aethertrading and aethergoop:

I understand your worries about the notion that aethertrading would go away. After all, so much has been built onto that system since its introduction. We have gnomeweapons, candies, etc. How would one get a gnomeweapon without this? They are immensely useful!

Here's the thing though, their very addition was a very poor bandaid. And then things were built on that bandaid and made things even worse. It's lovely in some ways, lets people break into some equipment, like the aforementioned gnomeweapons, easily. But the whole mechanic is unnecessary, adds "yet another thing" to remember of and be involved in (Lusternia is a steep learning curve for newbies as it is), and is frankly uninteresting. Refine items afk, chase down traders. That is hardly engaging.

We have not elaborated where we're going with this yet. Frankly, the whole plan for goop is in pre-proposal stage. What I can tell you though is that the goal is not to make it impossible for people to buy gnomeweapons without promos. If anything, we would likely switch their cost to credits. Same for anything else relying on this whole system. Goop has gone the way of dingbats in becoming an inflated and hard to control currency that is, frankly, unnecessary in its current format when daily credits exist.

You should never need a promo to be able to purchase something that has become a basic artifact. The whole idea for free to play is that you should be able to get what you want with time and effort without the need to spend money. Whatever happens to goop, it will not include gnomeweapons or other things being exclusive.

While we have not talked specifics with Orael, I do not believe we would just make your stockpiles worthless. This whole economy proposal is suggesting an axe be put to many things. Many things people have spent credits or lessons on. It's painful but may be necessary for some things and for a new balance to be found. But like with many of those other things, we would seek to find a refund worthy of the thing. I honestly am not sure what would be good for your aether things but 1) you would have forewarning, 2) nothing will happen overnight. We're open to suggestions! Maybe some npc would love to buy them up? Maybe they could be handed in to create something else? As for aethercrafting, we really did not get that far. The bottom line on that is that we're not just galloping to delete and devalue things/abilities.

Generally all of aethertrading is, as I mentioned, something of a wrong fork on the road to fix other things. Rather than push onward what I believe to be the wrong path, we should not let sunk cost fallacy dictate how we fix things. It has become its own thing. It will be tough undoing it and all the hooks its got in a lot of places, but I do think we'll be better off for it. We wanted you to know this is part of the proposal right away, rather than reveal it later, even though a detailed plan for how to tackle it has not yet been made. We'll definitely need to work together to make a sensible proposal and unhook all of its claws from things in a way that makes sense and doesn't just delete investments.

On Cooking, Brewmeister, and Alchemy:

One of the things I have mentioned previously is that trade skills had to be of a certain minimum size and that new things would just get stuffed wherever it sort of made sense rather than make new trade skills. We've been impoverished by that because stuffing something into another skillset never results in that thing living up to its full potential.

For example, we have sorcelglass. Outside of being very frustrating to use (for me at least!), it limits us to vials, glasses, cups, and bottles because those are the basic things that can be made via Arts. Sorcelglass changes something that already exists. You need to be able to get these basics first before you can give them some oomph. We could have tankards, teapots, etc but the basic skill to make these would need to be added to Arts - an already overcrowded skillset and not its purpose at all. So it's not been done. Now if this were its own skill, things would be different.

If we divide Cooking and Brewmeister, we open up options for expansion for both. If we combine them, we make it a very inflated skill very fast, one which is unlikely to get more and more things because other skills need it first. I am quite open to just combining them, however. It makes sense and it would be so much easier - cartel wise, skills wise, how it would impact cooks (not losing drinks!). But I wanted us to explore the possibility of trying something different and seeing how you feel about it. I see your cook woes about this solution taking up your two slots and we will definitely take it into account.

When it comes to dev time, we would not be commandeering the SS Rapture to give you all kawhe and jugs. This is a proposed division now but further development much later. Granted, we could keep them together and divide them if/when there's time to work on it. Of two minds on that. Ripping the bandaid while we're doing huge changes might be best. The downside being, the two actives problem of course.

Lorecraft would be phased back into Alchemy. Alchemy is all that would be left behind. Brewmeister, if left to stand alone and if pilfering drinks from Cooking, would be much smaller but with room to improve. But please note the above, not as dedicated dev time on the roadmap anytime soon. It would be a pet project or wait a while for bigger fish to be fried first.

On trans skills/trade bonuses:

Removing these is necessary to divorce trade from having to invest in trade skills to get some magical item that will impact combat. But on the whole, it also helps remove any extra benefit-based reasons for picking a trade other than, hopefully, "I love this" or "I'd love to provide that". We love herofetes and teaceremonies and know they've added that extra something to Cooks/Brewmeisters when, otherwise, the skills are not flashy. But to keep things fair and even across all trade skills, all these extra flavours have to be treated with that same knife.

I think when it comes to all trans items/abilities, we'll need to find a way to re-introduce them. Either as arties or skills, or both. Depending on how balanced they are or if having a few at once would play nicely with balance issues. There's definitely something we can do with them that is not just outright deleting them.

On armour:

I do not believe there is a definitive outline of what happens to all armour types. We did not plan every single part of the proposal down to the last detail because so much of it is still up in the air. What I can tell you though is one idea for Master Tattoo: allow everyone to use tattoos as alternative armour if their skin was prepped the right way by a Tattooist to open up that style/roleplay to more classes. I can't tell you how that would work stats wise though, it's really not my forte.

On the confines of two active tradeskills and proficiency:

We are very much hearing you on the front of 2 active tradeskills are the worst thing since [insert your hated thing here]. We are discussing it and considering the merit and impact of adjustments to that idea. This is not set in stone. Frankly, outside of wanting to expand shops, make it more possible to get things you need whenerver (even if more pricey), skills for trades, a lot of the rest is open to discussion and adjustment. Be it in the form of numbers or other things.

A lot of this proposal hinges on everything working in tandem. Many decisions down the grapevine were made basing on proficiency/no lesson investment/lower self-sufficiency/etc and other decisions would have been made without that. Which is not to mean we cannot make adjustments, but proficiency was the crux of the whole proposal. For an economy to be balanced, 100% self-sufficiency cannot exist I'm afraid. Not without drawbacks, and here quality is the drawback.

One of the reasons for proficiency in lieu of lessons was the concern that people never really recuperate the cost of investment into a trade. You continue to obtain lessons and dump them into a skill but ultimately to play the merchant game was hard and not everyone wants to do it to be a merchant either. Some simply want a creative outlet. Removing the lesson investment aims at removing the steep buy-in cost to even be able to make things you love.

What proficiency is doing is allowing even a newbie to gain access to the entire skill on day one. They can make a ring and a crown. From the getgo this adds a large number of people to the merchant/crafter pool. They might not be as fantastic at it, yes, but they will get there without having to put lessons in. Even if you switch out between the trades you know, you will still be able to make everything every trade offers.

This circles back to proficiency. One of its biggest drawbacks/bonuses is affecting how many commodities something costs. This takes the form of +/-. Let's say the base is that a chair costs 10 wood to make. Any Artisan can make the chair anytime. The one at 0% will need to spend more comms, the one at 100% fewer comms.

You all vastly dislike something costing more than what it does now. I hear you. With a chair it's not a problem, with a throne - it is a problem. You say having to pay more comms will not make anyone want to use inept crafters and you would hate making things at inept proficiency. Alright. Removing the extra upfront cost to what it normally costs is an option to be sure! But please keep in mind the goal here is to make commodities more available too - not only for free if you mine for them yourself, but also through stores that will sell them.

Xenthos says he would like to be able to make a cake whenever it suits him without having to lose all of his proficiency in whatever it is that Xenthos loves to have active (forging?). Xenthos dislikes the idea of having to go find a cook to make him said cake.

Lavinya wants to be able to stock all of her shiny things and dislikes that she won't be able to just do it herself. She could, But the things she makes after a switch will cost more.

Both of these things have the same solution available in the shop system. Not the same solution that you are all used to - ie not switch around at the drop of a hat - but it is there and it is worth considering because it has many far-reaching implications. Xenthos can get himself a cook for his shop. He hires someone, even a newbie. The newbie's work may cost more but it will be available. Xenthos' shop has the upgrade where he can stock patterns to be made on demand. He hops in, puts the cake he wants made and then buys the cake - the cake gets made for him by cooks in his kitchen.

Lavinya can do the same thing. Rather than lose proficiency in the things she cares most about, she gets herself some serfs to hire for the shop that do tailoring or jewelry etc. This is as simple as making a trade agreement. The person does not have to be online, same as above. She no longer needs to switch around. She can stock things from the cartels she owns no matter the trade. The patterns to be made on demand are available on sale in her shop. The things are not hand-made by her. Yes. But the things are on sale in her shop. Better yet, when Lavinya stocks her shop, she would do so from her cartels. The person she hires could have access to the shop and stock things from the cartels they are a part of but Lavinya isn't (cartels will have the option to flag designs as not allowed to be stocked).

You don't need to bribe people or bug people to restock your shop. You have one meeting, agree to be partners, and then you use your hired help whenever. You no longer have to give them 100000 redtint and tell them the exact pattern numbers. You hire them and you decide what is stocked. For anything public or from org cartels, you could also go to the local tailor mob to make things for you as well.

IMPORTANT: We also have an alternative proposal for this posted in the Trade thread. Including it here as well for reference:

Here is an alternative proposal to the "losing all proficiency if you switch" issue.

Have only 2 skills active at a time (as before) but also have the ability to lock the proficiency of 2 skills. In this scenario, you don't lose proficiency in these 2 skills even if you switch out of them back and forth. You cannot gain proficiency in the skill you switch to as one of your actives, not unless you choose to abandon proficiency of the skill you have it locked to at the moment.

That way you could still switch out and make the things you need, but not lose your proficiency to do so. The things you made in the skills you have 0% proficiency in would still be worse than if someone specialising made them, of course, and if possible it would be a good idea to seek out a specialist to help you with the more difficult/advanced things you wished to make. You would not be forced to rely on that though.

On the economy proposal overall:

I would like you all to keep in mind that a lot of the things we're talking about still are tweaks, numbers, small adjustments that have a very large impact on how you view this. These things can and will be adjusted if we implement the proposed system as is and see that people struggle making what they need. This is not a do and done and maybe we'll look at it in 5 years sort of deal.

Also, none of this can be rolled out in one go. It would be impossible to do that. So we can also roll things out and see how they work and what they do or don't fix.

On the whole, we're still working on this and reading your comments. We'll take a few days to mull it over, tweak, see what version 2.0 we could present to you next week.

Xenthos · April 2021

I want to point out that I see my name used here and I did make a reply in the discussion:

"Both of these things have the same solution available in the shop system." <-- This statement is not actually the case. The problem is that I want to hand-make something, and hand-baking a cake for a friend shouldn't somehow wipe all my proficiency at the forge.

Proposal 2.0 partially addresses it, but it's really not that great - I do think it would be significantly better if 0% proficiency is "status quo" and 100% confers a bonus. Thus, proficiency is incentive to use the shops - you can get something better from someone who focuses on them - but you're not penalized over the current situation if you do it yourself. Positive incentive, not penalties.

Sapphira · April 2021

On the splitting alchemy/cooking/brewmeister - i love in theory being able to expand trades, add new trades (floristry and perfumes when?), but by the same token, knowing that we'd be limited to two slots is exceptionally painful. Especially if we want to make use of the new skills to collect commodities to boost our own craft.

i strongly believe that a lot of current shops are stocked by people who have multiple trades. Proposing punishment for being self-sufficient, finally picking up those elusive once-gated trades and wanting to craft your own things may well end up resulting in a lot of currently well-rounded shops being mostly empty. Most often i would flex a trade to make a certain thing i or someone needed, then make some extra things for my shops while i was there to meet a need. NPC shops filling gaps where items were hard to get is GREAT but i don't see, still, why it is impossible to allow self-sufficiency. People who currently have trades for the trans perk that never respond to market calls looking for items or stock shops because they have no interest are not going to magically develop an interest in stocking a shop or making their services available to people. A lot of trade-flexers are the only reason the system has stayed alive, when you hear how many of us flex JUST to help someone who needs something. Choose the rp or the mechanics (in this case, profit) as it's still very obvious not all trades are created equal in terms of making money. Someone with herbs or alchemy will always make more than an artisan, so someone who enjoys being crafty but likes to make money will have to make a sacrifice, and that feels so backward to making trades freely available to everyone.

Lysandus · April 2021

If the purpose of the proficiency system is to use less comms as you gain proficiency, then may I suggest what we have now be the basis of having 0 proficiency minus the artifacts, curios and demipowers. So if I still want to bake that spice pie, I still need 10 spices, not 50 because I have 0 proficiency. If I want to bake spice pies with half of the comms, I'd grind it. This way, people has access to all the trades without worrying they have to use up 10x more comms cause of 0 proficiency. This is assuming you will still push through with it. I don't like it though but this is the best solution I can come up so far if we are heading towards that direction

This should also solve the issue of players who just want to design and share them to the world without getting hurt by the changes.

Edit: if acquiring spices is still by chance despite the new agriculture/prospector skillsets, no thanks and I'd suggest keep the commodity requirements the same.

Lysandus · April 2021

Also, for the changes to armour, add them as passives based on the class. Warriors get masterarmour, guardians/druids/mages get splendourarmour, bards and monks get tattoo armour. Tailoring Knots and Tattoos can help buff whatever resistances they need along with artifacts

For the loss other trans skills like magictome, herblore, etc. Here are some of my suggestions:

1. Artifacts - it can be done, anyone can buy them via money or daily credits
2. A skill similar to AB Beastmastery Beastmaster, except you can switch anytime for 10 power. Switching to another specialize item/skill will let you lose them
3. Chosen Passives - Mages/Guardians get Tierstone and Magictome, Warriors and monks get Immunity, Druids get Herblore etc. (bad idea but just throwing it out there)

As for goop:

Remove them, convert them to credits. If you still want to keep them, I advise having an NPC give out daily quests by ordering a number of items that rewards you if you fulfil that order for goop.

Jolanthe · April 2021

Lysandus said:

guardians/druids/mages get splendourarmour, bards and monks get tattoo armour

If you do this, could then just roll splendour patterns into the greatrobe category (or if you still want to keep them categorically different, allow splendours to be mended endlessly without ever going tawdry). That way the "splendourarmour" bonus can apply to both greatrobe and splendour patterns alike.

Lysandus · April 2021

The idea behind this is because it shouldn't be tied to an item now, it will look silly if I'm wearing tawdry clothes but it still acts like a splendour robes. We're talking about 25%/18%/16% armor passive or something. Or maybe you can just wear the appropriate item to unlock the armor buff

Saran · April 2021

Lysandus said:

Also, for the changes to armour, add them as passives based on the class. Warriors get masterarmour, guardians/druids/mages get splendourarmour, bards and monks get tattoo armour. Tailoring Knots and Tattoos can help buff whatever resistances they need along with artifacts

A skill that's like "while wearing X type armour, you have Y% reduction" would be neat. For theme it'd also be pretty cool to consider the classes.

Mostly because it'd be kinda cool for Stag followers to be able to wear leather or robes and have them give them same reduction cause stag magic. Celestines being able to choose between robes and forged armour, etc

Isser · April 2021

I disagree with the proposal that gold drops should be removed. This will hurt the new players before all the easy to reach and viable quest turn ins will be heavily used by everyone with better skills and artifacts. Instead tie gold drop restrictions to levels. It is already difficult as a newbie to get gold. PLease don't penalize them. I like to state for the record that not everyone can buy credits and artifacts to solve the problem. Somethings the currency conversion does not work in the player's favor. (USD to their local currency).

Isser · April 2021

I think players being self sufficient in trades evolved as a need because of our low population numbers. It would be harder to find a craftsperson with the trade you need to make a thing who is awake and willing to craft during the times you play. With out low population numbers it's usually boils down to one or two people within each commune. five if you have an unusually high population active amongst that time.

If that goes away, it will be difficult to stock up on basic equipment for new players.

participating within this system should be Opt-in and not forced.

Kerith · April 2021

Isser said:

I think players being self sufficient in trades evolved as a need because of our low population numbers. It would be harder to find a craftsperson with the trade you need to make a thing who is awake and willing to craft during the times you play. With out low population numbers it's usually boils down to one or two people within each commune. five if you have an unusually high population active amongst that time.

If that goes away, it will be difficult to stock up on basic equipment for new players.

participating within this system should be Opt-in and not forced.

That's exactly why they're making it so you can stock everything -- even services -- in shops, so that you don't have to worry about finding someone awake at the same time as you.

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