Best Of
Re: Economy - Trade Revamp
I like most of these changes. I think there's some clarification that could help sell it. I think it was mentioned that 'grinding to upkeep proficiency' = practicing the trade once a year? That seems reasonable and removes the thought of 'grinding'. Make one weapon a year, one ring a year, etc.
As long as we are refunded *credits* and not *lessons*, I have no real gripes here.
As long as we are refunded *credits* and not *lessons*, I have no real gripes here.
Synl
2
Re: Economy - Trade Revamp
I think this proposal emphasises the wrong problems with the economy. Currently, it's possible for established players to outcompete new people in all trades, but that's not really because of skillflexing. Skillflexing just makes it easier for an individual to outcompete in all trades, but it doesn't matter to that newbie if it's one person outcompeting them in everything or if it's ten people each outcompeting them in a separate one of their possible choices.
The big problem is that artifacts (and curios) provide drastic benefits that massively warp the profit ratios of certain skills.
The only part of the proposal that addresses this is the vague statement that "The overall goal with proficiency levels is that a trader at 100% proficiency and zero artifacts will be more efficient/effective than a player at 0% proficiency and all the artifacts.". But again that doesn't matter if there's going to be someone at 100% proficiency with all the artifacts producing puritydust at less than a quarter of the cost. You're never going to sell any dust.
Individuals possessing multiple trade skills is a smaller problem than artifacts.
If you do address the artifact disparity, I can understand the idea behind stopping individuals from stocking their shops with every trade at full efficiency. It feels like an awkwardly artificial limitation to force shopkeepers to not just fully stock their own shop but it's understandable. But I don't think it needs to be a dramatic difference. Even a 10% difference in price is enough to make people pick the cheaper shop, or have shopkeepers seek out someone with proficiency to stock their shop, while allowing cartel-owners to sell unique designs from multiple trades without being completely priced out.
The big problem is that artifacts (and curios) provide drastic benefits that massively warp the profit ratios of certain skills.
The only part of the proposal that addresses this is the vague statement that "The overall goal with proficiency levels is that a trader at 100% proficiency and zero artifacts will be more efficient/effective than a player at 0% proficiency and all the artifacts.". But again that doesn't matter if there's going to be someone at 100% proficiency with all the artifacts producing puritydust at less than a quarter of the cost. You're never going to sell any dust.
Individuals possessing multiple trade skills is a smaller problem than artifacts.
If you do address the artifact disparity, I can understand the idea behind stopping individuals from stocking their shops with every trade at full efficiency. It feels like an awkwardly artificial limitation to force shopkeepers to not just fully stock their own shop but it's understandable. But I don't think it needs to be a dramatic difference. Even a 10% difference in price is enough to make people pick the cheaper shop, or have shopkeepers seek out someone with proficiency to stock their shop, while allowing cartel-owners to sell unique designs from multiple trades without being completely priced out.
Esano
3
Re: Economy - Trade Revamp
I have not found any support for the majority of these changes outside of the rebuttals posted here. I see discord servers flowing with opposition to these changes on a whole. That worries me.
I come away asking myself: Why are we taking lessons out of an IRE system? Lessons have been a fundamental currency across all the games that meant permanency and a sense of achievement and completion.
I echo the "Who asked for these changes?"
I echo "Most of these changes do not support the community, and do not encourage new players or content-creating alt characters."
As a new player just shy of a year, I can't say any of this encourages me. I am often away for travel and do not log in every day. Sometimes I go 10 days without being able to sit down to play because work, holiday, or my family are foremost. Yet, I invested in a yearly subscription upfront in order to learn 5 trades and a second class to facilitate my RP prop creation. Tradeskill designing is content creation and a means of meaningful interaction with characters. (Like coming together to source rare comms!) Being told that I -must- make time or else, does not encourage me to invest myself more.
I come away asking myself: Why are we taking lessons out of an IRE system? Lessons have been a fundamental currency across all the games that meant permanency and a sense of achievement and completion.
I echo the "Who asked for these changes?"
I echo "Most of these changes do not support the community, and do not encourage new players or content-creating alt characters."
As a new player just shy of a year, I can't say any of this encourages me. I am often away for travel and do not log in every day. Sometimes I go 10 days without being able to sit down to play because work, holiday, or my family are foremost. Yet, I invested in a yearly subscription upfront in order to learn 5 trades and a second class to facilitate my RP prop creation. Tradeskill designing is content creation and a means of meaningful interaction with characters. (Like coming together to source rare comms!) Being told that I -must- make time or else, does not encourage me to invest myself more.
Vella
5
Re: Economy - Trade Revamp
Kephera demipower will need to be looked at, as currently it boosts your armour to 22% if you have the trade. Which is a mechanical benefit. Also, it's a stealth nerf to acrobatics monks who will lose the extra armour they get from master tattoos (if this is intentional, that is cool, just want to make sure it's intended).
Re: Economy - Trade Revamp
Having read these changes, I found them to be quite disagreeable almost universally. The primary question I found myself asking over and over is "Who wanted any of this?" And I found the answer on virtually all the points you cover in your revamp to be "Nobody." Perhaps you are more out of touch with your player base than you realize. Allow me to cover a number of objectionable issues I found in your proposal:
- "Trades no longer have a lesson cost. Lessons will be refunded." Why? Having to "learn" a trade is reasonable and investing in a trade was sensible. Just the same, whatever, I guess. But the idea of maybe allowing people to trade back for credits seems preposterous, I think at the bear minimum you should be prepared to refund people a considerable amount of their credits since these trades (and their considerable lesson investments) were not cheap to acquire for many of us.
- "Players will be able to select up to two trades. One trade inherently..." yada yada yada. Refunding the skills is good, capping at two trades seems weird - if people want three and want to use 70m essence or 2k credits to get their third why block it at all?
- Proficiency. I'm not even going to quote anything on here, because the idea as a whole is terrible. This is probably one of the most egregious pieces of work on here. Trade proficiency is dumb and the anti-player sentiment wrought throughout the garbage setup for it that you've outlined is personally offensive. "Let's get ride of lessons in trades, oh but don't actually get rid of them, instead we'll shift them to this transient piece of garbage skill I've come up with and they'll be wasted the moment a player decides to try any other trade." I'm here to inform you that the result of this will not be engagement, like you seem to think, but abandonment. Nobody wants to put resources into something they can't utilize regularly. Regardless of your stated "benefits", that system harms the player and the economy far more than it benefits.
- "We will be removing all trade restrictions." Excellent. This should have been done 15 years ago. It makes zero sense that someone can't pick up a specific trade just because they're not tied to a specific class. This is OK.
- "We will be removing most trans trade items." Why? You state mechanical benefits, OK. These mechanical benefits are mild at best, and haven't had a major impact where one of us has gone "If only Zagreus didn't have that damn TOME!" In other words, in real world use, they're negligible at best, so it seems like more work than is necessary to remove items or benefits which provide nice quality of life changes (like the tome for instance, which is so great because it's an efficient way to house one's scrolls). This one seems like a low impact change, but one that also doesn't actually need to happen at all. Sometimes things are different and offer something that somebody may want but they'll have to give up something else they want. That doesn't mean the system is imbalanced, it means there are more than one desirable trade item, so people have to make a damn decision as to which to get. The difficulty of choice is a good thing.
- "Every trade skill will have a way to sell their goods or services in a shop." Excellent. Like eliminating class barriers before, this should've been done a long time ago.
- Prospecting / Agriculture - This, right here, is probably the only change I ever heard anyone in game and out actually clamoring for - the ability to generate comms. I don't know enough on your intended systems, but these right here are the things that people wanted, not any of that other junk (and it is junk).
- Brewmeister - Removing a lot of skills here, any particular reason why you're removing the ones you've listed besides your blanket statement earlier (which hasn't been uniformly applied in your own writeup)?
- Cooking - Why remove herofete at all? You stated before that things that provide benefits to others will remain, herofete specifically is designed around benefitng a large group of people (and specifically can't be used outside a group except under specific circumstances). That doesn't make any sense. Drinks removed to Brewmeister, sensible.
- Enchantment - Disagree with removal of trans-skill. All changes related to proficiency, which should be deleted from this proposal entirely. Allow spellcrafters to turn their enchants into motes for selling in shops which the player can buy. Once a player buys a magical mote, they can use it to cast the enchantment on their weapon one time, at which point chaotic energy dissolves the mote as the enchantment is transferred to the item in question.
- Forging - Master armor removed. I disagree with this, as I do with the removal of any of the trade mastery benefits. Everything else seems to be centered on proficiency, which again, should be deleted. For padding/armor enhance make them available in the form of forging kits which a blacksmith can make for specific enhancements and padding. In game the user receives a kit which "includes all the necessary tools and magical items" to install whatever they want on their own armor. They pop off to the respective forge and use their kit and voila - see a small line of themselves carefully following a set of instructions to install their upgrade.
- Herbs - Disagree with removal of trans-skill. More of the same.
- Jewellery - Disagree with removal of trans-skill. Make a Gnomish engraver, user puts in x amount of gold and their piece of gear, engraver spits it out.
- Poisons - Disagree with removal of trans-skill. Delete proficiency.
- Spellcraft - Disagree with removal of trans-skill.
- Tailoring - Splendor for anyone? What's even the point of trans'ing the skill then? All the tailoring skills should be applicable through a shop. Make a sewing machine item to allow padding/therm/depad/knots/mending. They all require the same basic thing, so might as well make it simple and efficient for players. Get rid of proficiency, such a dumb idea.
- Tattoos - Disagree with the modification of the trans-skill. Sell tattoos in shop on transfer paper, allow players to spend a resource to get them applied (maybe a small gold or power cost). Do not make these tattoos lesser than their tattooist given counterparts - if a trade can sell something in the shop it needs to be the exact same thing you can get from the tradesperson. Splitting like that is a poor idea and will quickly result in the same issue we already have now once people realize it's a waste of their gold. Instead, make it more costly to apply shop given tattoos, so people can still seek out tattooists if they want to save on their resources.
- Tinkering - Disagree with removal of trans-skill. Gnomish mini-whizzer machine, a small gnomish machine consisting of a number of clockwork arms with various tiny tools which you place your miniature in and the requisite gold.. Once activated, player sees a neat little line describing the little arms of the machine moving around and patching this, repairing that, so on and so forth. Spits out repaired miniature to player once done and dumps gold in storeroom.
Cerin
10
Re: Economy - Trade Revamp
i could get behind changing/nerfing/removing trade artifacts and curio rather than forcing people to not enjoy all the trades. Definitely feels like it would better address the reasons people can sell things so cheap where newbies can't, keeping a more competitive market.
Sapphira
1
Re: Economy - Trade Revamp
I think this overhaul has a lot of good ideas. However, there are also some things that I think should be changed/amended or I think they will become overall detrimental. Here are some things that I think should be reconsidered/ changed:
- I don't think we should limit the players into a maximum of two trade skills at a time.
I have multiple trades active, not because I want to make a profit out of them, but because it's easier for me to design things for the trade skills that I know. Relying on another player to make something I designed is not quite the same as making something I designed myself when it gets approved. Not because I want to profit from it or anything, but it gives me that dopamine rush like I worked on something and now I have the end product in my hand (if that makes sense.)
You need to have the corresponding trade skill active to see your design submission in the city cartel, which is very useful if you need to correct something when the trademaster makes a human mistake.
One suggestion I have is not have a limit to the number of trade skills that you have, but you can only be proficient at two of them (I would much rather this proficiency aspect be not there at all, but if you must keep that aspect in the game, then this would be so much better for designers).
I think we have a diverse and fascinating array of trade skills available to us (even you, jewellery) and trying to limit us to just 2 of them is not fair. There is also trades which have mechanically next to zero use but I love the flavour, and I believe these trades will suffer if we are forced to pick and choose which trades to keep. Artisan is one of my favorite trade skills, but there would be no incentive for me to keep Artisan if I have to be forced into keeping Cooking (tied to my character rp) and bookbinding (the only thing that makes my shop not run at a complete loss).
This brings us to...
- Nerfing cooking by removing things to Brewmeister
I believe that this is a terrible idea. First point, "Brewmeister cartels" do not exist in the game and currently all the drink designs are submitted through Cooking cartels. This change will need a lot of overhaul wrt city cartels and such, and I think it's not as simple of a change as it might seem at first glance.
Then there is the thing where us cooks have become attached to certain drinks that we have made or incorporated the drink making as part of our character rp, and the limiting of 2 trade skills plus the splitting of cooking will force us to choose Cooking and Brewmeister as our trades and shut us out of all the other trades.
Cooking is as such not a profitable trade, we only make profit through purity dust and health and balance platters (which don't really have that many customers tbh). Nerfing it even further is not the best idea imo because most of the cooks in game (who rp as cooks) don't take Cooking for their mechanical benefit or profit aspect, but for the rp aspect. Cutting off half of that rp aspect is just frustrating.
I think Brewmeister is a useless skillset as it is and it should be nixed, and its current skills added into Alchemy. I think that merging trades instead of splitting it is the better way to go.
- I don't think Herofete should be removed from Cooking. It is a group buff that is never exploited and is just a fun rp thing in game, I don't know why this one gets the axe.
- I don't like the idea of mobs not dropping gold. One of the complaints that true newbies had was how hard it was to get gold from bashing, with all the competition. If you limit gold generation to quests and shopkeeping, I don't think it is good to newbies.
Not everyone is interested in shopkeeping, and you had already said that one of the main purposes of this overhaul was to let the people who don't want to participate in economy suffer because of it. I don't think shutting out other avenues of income is going to accomplish this goal, it will only have the opposite effect.
I remember at one point we wanted to increase Prime bashing and not just have bashing be limited to linking in Astral. I think this gold drop change is contrarian to that goal.
If newbies have to rely on quest turn-ins, then those quests are going to get swamped by people and it is going to be much more difficult to generate gold.
- I do actually like removing aethertrading, because that was what led to the abysmal prices of sugar and salt in the first place (and it led to a domino effect which has resulted in the pervasive commodity scarcity that we have). However, aethertrading is currently the only way that newbies have access to goop, and goop is important to get bashing and combat essentials.
Therefore, if you are going to remove aethertrading, I think you should also couple it with other goop generation avenues for newbies in game. Maybe it can be incorporated into daily credits. Maybe newbies can gain goop for getting a level instead of credits. Or perhaps quest completions can yield goop. Some avenue that encourages people actively participating in the game.
These are the suggestions I have, if I have any more, I will edit and add them!
EDIT: This change is also going to nerf Catalogues big time if we are limiting people to 2 active trade skills and discouraging trade flexing. It's already hard enough trying to find tattoos through a catalogue because so few have it active, as well as trying to look at some private cartel designs that you no longer have access to. You can only search catalogues if the person has that trade skill active.
EDIT2: I really like the farming mechanic, but I think it should be introduced as separate from trade skills, with trade skills already having limits. Personally, I think it should be a general skillset that you can gain proficiency at only through practice, and leave it at that.
If you are going to introduce Linguistics for language (another good idea. I never understood having to learn bookbinding to learn a new language or tying language to race, especially as it logically should make sense for you to for example learn Dracnari if you have lived in Gaudiguch for centuries.), I think this should also be a separate skill from trade skills. Either a general skill or an artifact skill.
- I don't think we should limit the players into a maximum of two trade skills at a time.
I have multiple trades active, not because I want to make a profit out of them, but because it's easier for me to design things for the trade skills that I know. Relying on another player to make something I designed is not quite the same as making something I designed myself when it gets approved. Not because I want to profit from it or anything, but it gives me that dopamine rush like I worked on something and now I have the end product in my hand (if that makes sense.)
You need to have the corresponding trade skill active to see your design submission in the city cartel, which is very useful if you need to correct something when the trademaster makes a human mistake.
One suggestion I have is not have a limit to the number of trade skills that you have, but you can only be proficient at two of them (I would much rather this proficiency aspect be not there at all, but if you must keep that aspect in the game, then this would be so much better for designers).
I think we have a diverse and fascinating array of trade skills available to us (even you, jewellery) and trying to limit us to just 2 of them is not fair. There is also trades which have mechanically next to zero use but I love the flavour, and I believe these trades will suffer if we are forced to pick and choose which trades to keep. Artisan is one of my favorite trade skills, but there would be no incentive for me to keep Artisan if I have to be forced into keeping Cooking (tied to my character rp) and bookbinding (the only thing that makes my shop not run at a complete loss).
This brings us to...
- Nerfing cooking by removing things to Brewmeister
I believe that this is a terrible idea. First point, "Brewmeister cartels" do not exist in the game and currently all the drink designs are submitted through Cooking cartels. This change will need a lot of overhaul wrt city cartels and such, and I think it's not as simple of a change as it might seem at first glance.
Then there is the thing where us cooks have become attached to certain drinks that we have made or incorporated the drink making as part of our character rp, and the limiting of 2 trade skills plus the splitting of cooking will force us to choose Cooking and Brewmeister as our trades and shut us out of all the other trades.
Cooking is as such not a profitable trade, we only make profit through purity dust and health and balance platters (which don't really have that many customers tbh). Nerfing it even further is not the best idea imo because most of the cooks in game (who rp as cooks) don't take Cooking for their mechanical benefit or profit aspect, but for the rp aspect. Cutting off half of that rp aspect is just frustrating.
I think Brewmeister is a useless skillset as it is and it should be nixed, and its current skills added into Alchemy. I think that merging trades instead of splitting it is the better way to go.
- I don't think Herofete should be removed from Cooking. It is a group buff that is never exploited and is just a fun rp thing in game, I don't know why this one gets the axe.
- I don't like the idea of mobs not dropping gold. One of the complaints that true newbies had was how hard it was to get gold from bashing, with all the competition. If you limit gold generation to quests and shopkeeping, I don't think it is good to newbies.
Not everyone is interested in shopkeeping, and you had already said that one of the main purposes of this overhaul was to let the people who don't want to participate in economy suffer because of it. I don't think shutting out other avenues of income is going to accomplish this goal, it will only have the opposite effect.
I remember at one point we wanted to increase Prime bashing and not just have bashing be limited to linking in Astral. I think this gold drop change is contrarian to that goal.
If newbies have to rely on quest turn-ins, then those quests are going to get swamped by people and it is going to be much more difficult to generate gold.
- I do actually like removing aethertrading, because that was what led to the abysmal prices of sugar and salt in the first place (and it led to a domino effect which has resulted in the pervasive commodity scarcity that we have). However, aethertrading is currently the only way that newbies have access to goop, and goop is important to get bashing and combat essentials.
Therefore, if you are going to remove aethertrading, I think you should also couple it with other goop generation avenues for newbies in game. Maybe it can be incorporated into daily credits. Maybe newbies can gain goop for getting a level instead of credits. Or perhaps quest completions can yield goop. Some avenue that encourages people actively participating in the game.
These are the suggestions I have, if I have any more, I will edit and add them!
EDIT: This change is also going to nerf Catalogues big time if we are limiting people to 2 active trade skills and discouraging trade flexing. It's already hard enough trying to find tattoos through a catalogue because so few have it active, as well as trying to look at some private cartel designs that you no longer have access to. You can only search catalogues if the person has that trade skill active.
EDIT2: I really like the farming mechanic, but I think it should be introduced as separate from trade skills, with trade skills already having limits. Personally, I think it should be a general skillset that you can gain proficiency at only through practice, and leave it at that.
If you are going to introduce Linguistics for language (another good idea. I never understood having to learn bookbinding to learn a new language or tying language to race, especially as it logically should make sense for you to for example learn Dracnari if you have lived in Gaudiguch for centuries.), I think this should also be a separate skill from trade skills. Either a general skill or an artifact skill.
Coraline
9
Re: Economy - Trade Revamp
I can honestly say I'm not a fan whatsoever of these changes. I despise grinding. There's a reason I sell credits as opposed to grinding for gold. I have no desire to shopkeep to earn gold, stocking and pricing is busy work I have no patience for.
If I take a break for a month, few months, etc, I come back and my proficiencies have decayed and work that I have done is taken away from me. Five bucks says an artifact will be introduced to negate this. I will just automate the process of gaining proficiencies, literally turn it on, and essentially afk in my manse while I watch Netflix. Player engagement, this is not.
I currently have seven trades I've picked up in order to assist others, as well as to have a few bonuses from those trades, forging as a warrior being a major one. That's going to be 8,575 lessons I'll need to have refunded. I have literally no use for these lessons, and without a credit refund that's a pretty sour taste in my mouth.
Do I have better ideas? Unfortunately not. There's people who are a lot smarter than I am for that.
That being said, I have canceled my annual membership and will not be buying into any promotions going forward if this is the direction taken. IRE listens to dollars, and mine are going to speak.
Jatius
9
Re: Economy - Trade Revamp
i thought the idea was to allow people to engage as much or as little with the system as they wanted. The trade change cuts me to the cooore. I really enjoyed stocking my shops with a range of necessities that I could make myself. As someone who never changes class, my tam is now completely useless to me as skillflexing trades to do my own work is now going to be a punishment. Are trades also going to be untied from high/low magic? I assume so. As someone who really enjoys the creative aspect of trades, being forced to choose which I want to keep (or be penalised each time for switching) this is very frustrating to me. I'm not sure how making it a grind/must do to stay skilled is the tack anyone really wanted. And of course, if I wanted to be able to take up the new skills of sourcing comms to provide for my crafts, presumably that would also limit my creative outlets.
I'm glad I hadn't yet bought the artifact to give me a fourth trade as planned. I think removing the inherent buffs/bonuses is a great idea, I can even get behind removing aethertraders, but I think those were enough without also taking away the trades from people like myself who like to dabble in all the things, stock their shops sometimes, and design things they can also craft without hunting people down.
The shop changes are great! No more needing to find a person for one charge of a certain enchantment or for tattoos or what have you. Love it. Empower shop keepers! Please don't with the otherhand knock them back with this nerf. I have every trade currently that I can take and the thought of picking up the others is very exciting...except, again, being forced to choose (or suffer everything taking longer/costing more.) That's really unfun. I don't spend hours on hours on my trade, just here and there I like to dabble in different things when stock is low, but in many different trades.
Pleeeeease. Please please. Reconsider this.
Also - i suggest remove brewmeistery entirely and split it between cooking and alchemy as appropriate, it seems silly to remove those things from chefs and have a skillset that literally can only make a handful of things. Especially given it will no longer be class-tied and buffs removed.
And another thought - will teaceremony be added anywhere like the wondercorn? Some of us still made use of them situationally.
I'm glad I hadn't yet bought the artifact to give me a fourth trade as planned. I think removing the inherent buffs/bonuses is a great idea, I can even get behind removing aethertraders, but I think those were enough without also taking away the trades from people like myself who like to dabble in all the things, stock their shops sometimes, and design things they can also craft without hunting people down.
The shop changes are great! No more needing to find a person for one charge of a certain enchantment or for tattoos or what have you. Love it. Empower shop keepers! Please don't with the otherhand knock them back with this nerf. I have every trade currently that I can take and the thought of picking up the others is very exciting...except, again, being forced to choose (or suffer everything taking longer/costing more.) That's really unfun. I don't spend hours on hours on my trade, just here and there I like to dabble in different things when stock is low, but in many different trades.
Pleeeeease. Please please. Reconsider this.
Also - i suggest remove brewmeistery entirely and split it between cooking and alchemy as appropriate, it seems silly to remove those things from chefs and have a skillset that literally can only make a handful of things. Especially given it will no longer be class-tied and buffs removed.
And another thought - will teaceremony be added anywhere like the wondercorn? Some of us still made use of them situationally.
Sapphira
9
Re: Economy - Trade Revamp
Something I mentioned on discord but I think is worth bringing up here is how this system will encourage metagaming alts to get around the trade limits. This could be done in a way that isn't directly against the current rules at the moment.
For instance, if I own a shop and I have cooking and bookbinding. I could have my friend stock it with jewelery and enchantments. But then I could have my friend's alt also stock it with tailoring and forging items.
Another example is if I own a shop with my cooking and bookbinding and my friend has their shop with jewelery and enchantments, we could make a deal that I have my alt stock their shop with herbs and alchemy if their alt stocks mine with jewelery and enchantments.
I can pretty much guarantee a large amount of this will happen.
For instance, if I own a shop and I have cooking and bookbinding. I could have my friend stock it with jewelery and enchantments. But then I could have my friend's alt also stock it with tailoring and forging items.
Another example is if I own a shop with my cooking and bookbinding and my friend has their shop with jewelery and enchantments, we could make a deal that I have my alt stock their shop with herbs and alchemy if their alt stocks mine with jewelery and enchantments.
I can pretty much guarantee a large amount of this will happen.
Uzriel
4
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