Best Of

This sounds like intriguing changes and will make shops more interesting. I agree with Alexandria about the city shops, though and would love for them to be considered as well while touching shops.

I don't think we can unring the bell on new guilds without doing more harm than good. Rather than wanting to delete and remake a new system, should focus on how to make them more interesting and enliven them.

It does sometime feels like a lot of the flavor and development of the old guilds was lost, but I also don't think there's anyway to go back either. There's a lot of potential that guilds can do without having to be tied to a particular class.

As Jatius pointed out, mechanics that punish inactive guilds (new currency why?) or rely on consistent patron requests aren't a good way to go. Moving shrines to guilds from orders doesn't even particularly make sense.

I will also say Magnagora has done a pretty good job at making sure people join guilds. Without the burden of trying to allow freedom, we have pretty much everybody guilded. I do think the guilds could use work - but also scrapping them would be a huge step backwards.

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

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.

Afrit said:

This is what it'd look like for Gaudiguch, then just copy the analogs for every other org:

Illuminati (Illuminati and Minstrels)
Templars (Templars and Nunchaku)

Pyromancers (Pyromancers (and their chem variant obviously, which is essentially another class!))

Oh, also to note it specifically this would be rather jarring for Serenwilde.

Spiritsingers and Hartstone both have shared themes such as the Ancestors and the song of the Forest that makes them really nicely sit together. There's also further lore stuff like Aramir that really makes the two classes sit quite nicely together.

edit: Also, while it might be a vain hope, there is the final archetype which would slot in somewhere.

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

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.

Sorry more thoughts. I never change class and have no interest in doing so. Depending how this proficiency/costing plays out, this proposed change would make obsolete: My tam, my third trade, allllll the lessons from 6 other trades (i have 8) and all the trade artifacts that go with them. Add in the trade curios that boost production...this feels like a really big swipe at anyone who actually was already engaging in the market system. A lot of people who have multiple trades don't do it for mechanics and likely don't even bother in having multiple slots open for them, but those like me who had them to be self-sufficient or just indecisive in what craft they feel like engaging in at the time, now have to choose favourites.

Every other part of this proposal feels pretty good to me at a glance (except maybe removing gold drops entirely) but this not only stings personally but I feel like it will have the desired result. How many shopkeepers do we have out there, that are like me and have multiple trades they use to stock those shops? If we are nerfed, are there really that many other people out there willing to stock a shop with their wares? It's hard to find some trades already, like tinkering. Are there really that many tinkers who would willingly stay at that trade to stock a shop? Over other more creative crafts? I know currently I flex it to access the enchants people need. But if they're going to be available in NPC shops anyway, why bother having it? I suspect current shopkeepers who like to flex trades will be hit, and everyone else who never cared anyway will continue not caring because they can just buy what they need from Trader Bob.

What is the incentive for non-creative trades? People wanting unique things will be able to access them in those player-run shops - awesome, but why have alchemy, or herbs? I know a lot of my shop-keeping gold comes not from anything creative but from people who can't find avaricehorn or regulators. Obviously it's hard to know without knowing what the NPC shops sell for but if they're not -significantly- higher there's still no way to make a profit, with now scarcity items always being available.

I'm a bit upset but I hope I'm still making sense. This feels like a backward solution and a big nerf to my enjoyment of shopkeeping. I tend to stock things to fill a need. 99% of my designs are public or in the city cartels - which would be readily available also. So even the trades that are creative likely wouldn't generate income for me unless i start filling my private cartels, which generally are designs only for myself or family, private for that very reason. Please rethink the trade limit/proficiency aspect. Cut the huge lesson costs to make them accessible, strip out the buffs, leave them as fun perks to have if you enjoy making things without having to grind to be -good- at something you transcended already.

my other concern will be trade skills like forging, with the introduction to runes and customization to no-decay items, changing your weapons has become non-existent. Since all weapons deal the same amount of damage unless you have damage artifacts, what's the point to change weapons unless you switch to another specialization?