Commodities & Crafting

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Comments

  • AishiaAishia Queen Bee
    edited January 2017
    "Hey we all need to build giant superweapons to fight an enemy invasion dump all ur comms in this bucket" etc. I don't think for the most part we place as much value on the theoretical idea of comms we have as we do on the accessibility of them. It's not that cities want to HAVE comms as much as it is that they want to be ABLE to supply/have them. I doubt the stockpiling thing even factors in to the average mindset, it's much more not wanting to run out.
    MorwenTozMarienaLinKerrynLeana
  • That's down to human nature, though. "I don't want to run out of this thing I have because what if something happens and I need it". City leaders aren't going to want to come anywhere near close to selling out of their commodities because inevitably something will come along and they'll need it.

    Kerryn
  • PhoeneciaPhoenecia The Merchant of Esterport Somewhere in Attica
    Just as an aside, if you're a crafter and own a shop, you save a lot on commodities by using crafting shelves and storing comms in the shop cache as opposed to crafting every single item and putting it in your stockroom. If you don't have a shop, you ought to burn through comms MUCH more slowly unless you're taking a lot of commissions for a lot of people.

    Now, if you're a forger, you start running into a commodity problem. It's extremely easy to burn through 100 steel just trying to make a good set of weapons for someone, and every time you smelt something, some of the comms you used originally just disappear as opposed to get fully refunded.
    Leana
  • AishiaAishia Queen Bee
    I kinda wondered if people would buy MORE to keep their shelves fully provisioned but that makes sense too Phoe.
  • PhoeneciaPhoenecia The Merchant of Esterport Somewhere in Attica
    I actually don't keep a lot of comms in my shop cache. A few hundred of each (with the exception of steel) is usually enough to keep a shop going for a really long time. The last time I stocked my shop cache with cloth was maybe 6 RL months ago at 800, and that's only dropped to half right now.

    As far as commodities go, the only real 'problem' ones are wood, steel, and cloth. Wood and steel in particular I can see why they cause problems because they're expensive, and require large amounts for supplying gear for yourself or others on a regular basis.
  • I know I can be dense at times BUT what's the problem with taking some of Antehe's suggestions and running with it. If things fall apart, the sky starts to fall and NOBODY CAN CRAFT, I'm sure Ironbeard will come, lugging sacks of shit to doll out to the cities.


    ApianoraEmelle
  • Xenia said:

    I know I can be dense at times BUT what's the problem with taking some of Antehe's suggestions and running with it. If things fall apart, the sky starts to fall and NOBODY CAN CRAFT, I'm sure Ironbeard will come, lugging sacks of unicorns to doll out to the cities.

    I agree with this statement completely. I mean, if the admin are telling people there is no reason to keep on hoarding, there is a reason. And, if there ends up being a reason the comms are needed and they are all gone, they'd do something to make sure the playerbase aren't doomed.
  • TeaniTeani Shadow Mistress Sweden
    I'll return to the suggestion I made in the first post. Make some RP out of it, seek other crafters out and explain your woes at not finding bolts of quality cloth out there and ask if they know someone you can trade with.



    Apianora
  • I said a few times over the years that crafting, guard and war commodities need to be different commodities. The market is too complex for it to be kept balanced, so why try? When a city is competing with individuals for commodities, but the individuals require hundreds while the cities require thousands, the individuals are going to lose out. That's not to say it can't be balanced, but it never has been (for any significant period of time) so just give up and separate them. Wood for carving vials vs timber for war machines.

    The devs have said cities don't need it anymore, but it is difficult to imagine a war system that doesn't include fighting over commodities, so I'm thinking they are thinking along similar lines.

    MarienaMorwen
  • OleisOleis Producer Emeritus Administrator, Immortal
    We said cities don't need to hoard, not that they won't need commodities. To reiterate my stance from the Town Hall: if we want you to have smaller stockpiles of commodities for the purpose of War, we'll get them out one way or another. Take care of your citizens first.
    You say to Slyphe, "You're so freaking smart."
    [---]
    "^," Slyphe agrees with you.
  • edited January 2017
    Sounds like we are going to have to find people with the time and unicorns to play Economy Simulator to figure this out, and I dont realistically know if anyone really wants to invest that sort of time in a game, but maybe someone finds enjoyment in that, to them kudos.

    Now Hiring.

  • A mini skill for commodity gathering would be nice. 
    Gather raw comms, take them to a city to refine, city gets a cut, player gets a cut.
    Set a city comm storage limit - any excess goes directly to sale from city comm market (sale only to citizens, max price capped so it isn't used as bonus storage).
    More reason to be in a city, more available comm,  no sold out shops.
    EmelleMorwenMarienaZaila
  • MorwenMorwen Under The Sea
    edited January 2017
    @Sibatti - I couldn't like your post a second time, so... Yes, I whole-heartedly agree! That's a solution to the problem. :)
  • EliadonEliadon Somewhere Over the Rainbow
    @Sibatti - Aye. I understand the desire to keep things tied to existing systems, but if something -new- is coming out there isn't that much harm in adding a small bit more complexity by having a separate set of commodities tied to it.
  • MorwenMorwen Under The Sea
    Now that I'm not on my phone...

    My main point in this (which I realize got lost entirely) was the "crunch" on newer people versus older ones. Gold is harder to come by for newer characters and commodities are challenging to find and expensive. I understand that a lot of that is the result of "austerity measures" to try and bleed both commodity and gold/comm reserves that more established players have - but (and not to get terribly political here), like in the real world austerity measures hurt people at the bottom (new characters) a lot more than the people at the top (old characters), who can tank them... For years.

    I don't think that these measures are necessary, or healthy, for a game that is trying to bring new players to it. If the Administration wants to lower the amount of commodities each city has, instead of being austere in approach, it could just tell the leaders that they have X amount of real life months before their commodity reserves get limited to Y amount, so use it or lose it. That might make people complain, sure, but it's already been indicated by the Administration that if/when they wanted the Cities to have lower amounts of commodities they would make it happen anyway. So why not be up front about it? Why pick the slow path of bleeding things dry and making things unpleasant in a game environment?

    I said it already, but I think @Sibatti's idea of separating the commodities used in Craft Skills is a good one. With Brewing and Cooking, you don't run into needing standard commodities already and it does not hurt anything at all. Why not add Tailoring, Jewelcraft, Furniture Making, and Woodcraft to that list as well? You can except out the items like vials and pipes that could still need standard commodities, but change the base commodities for the fluffier items to other things entirely.

    I especially like this idea, because if the push down on commodity reserves ::is:: for the upcoming War System (which, please have an upcoming war system, please!)... Well, that means that commodity scarcity might be part of that system, or else having massive reserves would not matter. If commodity scarcity is part of the system, then the pinning of Crafters against the needs of the Cities actually does not have an end in sight.
    Fezzix
  • TeaniTeani Shadow Mistress Sweden
    edited January 2017
    Since Admin has already mentioned that none of the cities are really that poor when it comes to commodities and even urged cities to tend to the playerbase (crafters) perhaps cities should stop holding back on things, or encourage those who go out trying to trade in more commodities to the city warehouse?

    Even if we keep saying "please separate these commodities" I'm not sure it's going to happen any time soon, and it's far better to actually allow people to function right now (especially since we're beeing pointed in that direction by Admin).

    In short: Cities, listen to Admin and stop hoarding.

    Edited to add: There used to be a time when designs in tailoring and jewelcraft and such didn't have a base comm cost. You could simply switch the base commodity for something else, as long as it was the same number of comms. To be honest, I still find that strange. I think I have a few designs with strange comm costs because of this change (like two gold instead of 1 silver and 1 gold, all because the standard comm was altered from silver to gold or something, and the original design had silver and gold in it).



  • EliadonEliadon Somewhere Over the Rainbow
    edited January 2017
    @Teani : No one is going to stop hoarding until there is an ultimatum. There is no reason to, with the current state of the game's market, aside from citizens going 'BUT I WANT TO CRAFT STUFF'.
  • TeaniTeani Shadow Mistress Sweden
    No reason? Aside from Admin speaking up in this thread saying cities should tend to their citizens and crafters, you mean? I daresay that's a pretty good reason, since there are quite a lot of crafters in the game, and some of the items they craft are relatively useful, like things for enchantments and curatives.

    I feel bad for those crafters who have people in charge of comms with the "no, I'm waiting for the war system that will come soon (tm), screw the crafters"-attitude.



    Rizgar
  • We should wait for class leads, I'll be making a report. Duiran increased all the prices of comms today. Crafts like enchanting have been hit hard with the changes
  • EliadonEliadon Somewhere Over the Rainbow
    Teani said:

    No reason? Aside from Admin speaking up in this thread saying cities should tend to their citizens and crafters, you mean? I daresay that's a pretty good reason, since there are quite a lot of crafters in the game, and some of the items they craft are relatively useful, like things for enchantments and curatives.

    I feel bad for those crafters who have people in charge of comms with the "no, I'm waiting for the war system that will come soon (tm), screw the crafters"-attitude.

    Like I said: the admin can say 'you need to decrease your stockpiles' all they want, but it's not actually going to change anything until they say 'get it down to by now or lose the excess.'
    RizgarRhyotFezzixMorwenLeana
  • Forging is a true commodity hog. Even with the inclusion of smelting, I can easily go through 100 steel and wood to make a handful of functional items. This is using an artifact hammer and dwarven racial. There are far more classes that use various weapons and armor than there used to be, so the demand for forged items is on the rise.

    I have an idea.

    Rather than have mobs drop gold, maybe have them drop their weapons and armor (on occasion) or they just drop 'ruined armor' or 'rusted weapon' items which are sold to village quartermaster npcs for a bit gold or commodities. The village takes a cut of the smelting value, regaining comms to sell in their comms shop or gains the whole value of comms when exchanged for gold. The values would need to be played with and balanced of course.

    This could give Trade minister some work in organising supply deals where the village expects X number of ruined armor or rusted weapons to be delivered in a season and if successful, the city gains a comms discount or a comms delivery. Similar to ylem mist quota. It may just allow cities to be a little more free with their comm sales.

    I make the suggestion and have no idea the amount of work or if something like this is even a feasible undertaking. So I understand if it doesn't gain any traction. It seems that the way the admin currently expect cities to operate their comms, after over 10 years of being used to a certain way, is not going to work without some in game intervention.


    RhyotEmelleAxiusSethTrikalZaila
  • Seems like cities are similar to players in that they don't want to sell scarce resources for an overflowing one. Credits for sale -- Commodities for sale -- Neither seem to be flourishing because lol gold. People have gold, they don't have comms or credits. Cities spend negligible amounts of gold on guards and that's about it aside from the few times where they actually build additions or something to spend big chunks of gold. Once again economies that deal with gold are awkward because we have a severe lack of meaningful gold sinks in the game. Potentially having city comm stocks resupply faster, but with bigger gold hikes on their prices could help both of these situations. Instead of wood resupplying in 2-5 pieces / howling and increasing the price by 20-30 gold a piece, perhaps they resupply with 20-50 per howling and increase price by 200-300 gold a piece. This might make players actually decide if buying out these shops is worth the current price that it's sold at. This does have potential to screw over newbie characters on getting basic equipment, but there are gold caps on the basic equipment such as vials/pipes through NPC shops. Gold is easier to get now than it was when I started and your basic equipment costs are WAY down from then as well, so I don't know how much of a concern this really is. No longer are the days of 75gp moss, 25gp goldenseal, or 150gp health refills. Thankfully those crazy prices are gone and it's easier to get up and going, but having to buy only 13 vials to be supplied, even if you had to pay the NPC price of something like 600 (iirc) gold a piece, means crafted items have more value and cost than the basic 'plain wooden vial'. I don't see cities actually reducing stockpiles by a drastic amount until Admin intervention forces it. You could also just cap the amount that cities can keep in reserves of all their comms to whatever you see as a reasonable baseline. The rest just goes into the city comm shop and is priced per trade minister. If cities are going to price their comms at insane prices that at least gives players some sort of recourse to replace trade minister / leadership in their city if the whole organization thinks that 10k gold per wood piece is unreasonable.
    RhyotLeanaAxius
  • JensenJensen Corruption's Butcher
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CIXxiV8-RVLuuz0PJN_bu1Fh-vS5A5KLgQvv_sRTu_k/edit?usp=sharing

    In the link above, I've been working on an idea for city economics, planning, and development. The premise of it is that all cities, through proper planning and development, can control their own output of commodities, guards, and troops. By linking how resources are created and distributed, and allowing for city ministry management, we could better assign an inherent value to commodities, guards, and troops.

    Assets:
    Assets are the raw resources gained from the territory that a city controls. Currently all cities have equal territory, so their raw resource gain should be equal.

    Buildings:
    All cities have equal space for the construction of buildings. Current lists are a mix of what is already in game, and what I thought a basic city might need to create products and house citizens. Each city would be left to its own devices in arranging a layout, so that all four city's could have varying outputs and stockpiles. All cities would be given equal, yet limited, space to add buildings to.

    "Factories":
    A subset of buildings; once constructed and staffed (if manpower gets adopted), will turn raw resources into useable commodities over time.

    Guards:
    Guards have a more complex initial cost associated with them, as well as upgradeable buildings to increase their max size and reduce training time. I have an idea to mirror this with troops, but I was uncertain how the world's war system was going to work (if come back at all)

    Manpower:
    My roughest idea, and currently undecided if it should be equal across all 4 cities, or if the mechanics should match the theme of each. The basic idea across all cities is that you need to feed, clothe, and provide shelter to your city's citizenry and in turn these people will provide the manpower for your buildings, guards, and troops.

    War:
    Another rough layout of how I think war might work inside this system.



    I've still not come close to figuring out costs of things nor the basic sizes and max sizes of buildings and city layouts. I believe the link provided will allow you viewing access but not editing privs. Please let me know if you have any feedback. Also I'm aware this probably won't get adopted.
    image
  • ok going to chime in here, With the newer players, comms -are- harder to get, that being said you want me to buy credits to take up jewellery and tailoring? I don't know about you, but I'm not spending that and then double that trying to find the commodities to even do them. In my opinion, you are losing out on people spending to get these skills because the lack of availability of said resources. You want to bump up cloth production? I will craft for you and spend to buy myself credits, you want to make wood comms easier to get? Sure I will spend to buy this stuff.

    In the end its really hurting the profits being made on the game versus really effecting me as a player. You want to succeed you have a player base giving you feedback. That being said if there is going to be a haha screw you so to speak its only going to dwindle the player base down that much more. It would be the equivalent of someone saying no it's fine when you have a limb cut off and you are bleeding out.

    So you have a player base saying look this isn't working we need to fix it here are a few ideas, stockpiles -are- likely going to go down but if you make it impossible for people to even get half of what they need for the stuff they are/have paid for its ultimately like a kick in the balls and a hey thanks for the money have a useless skill now, unless you have tens of thousands in gold to make a mad dash. Cities are rationing off purchases, but at the same point, that is still allowing those horders to just horde more by going hey go buy me this, and I will give you such amount of gold. The newer players of course need gold and will jump at it.
    I am not a morning inside four walls. I am the hurricane setting fire to the forests at night when no one else is alive or awake. I live in my own flames sometimes burning too bright -too wild to make things last and so I run. Far and wide until my bones ache and lungs burn..and it feels good.
    Do you hear that?
    It feels good, it feels good because I am both the slave and the ruler of my own body and I wish to do with it exactly as I please
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