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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.
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.
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.
Now Hiring.
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.
I do understand that many crafting professions have mechanical impact - eating food, for example - but it is not necessary to craft food in order to eat it. You can easily find food from NPC shops, on a virtually unlimited basis. Same with generic clothing, which now has a slight mechanical impact. In a pinch, you can purchase generic vials/undeadstuff and jewelry from NPC shops as well, too.
Forging is essentially the only "design" profession that has a true mechanical overlap, but it's not even a crafting profession, it's a Tradeskill. The design element isn't necessary to participate, and it absolutely should be limited by the mechanics of commodities.
If you were to remove traditional commodities from the pure aesthetic of crafting, you would cease having two completely different functions - game mechanics-driven events/systems and fluffy aesthetics - draw from the same pool of resources.
If I were a cityleader, I would feel that opening up commodities for the non-essential practice of crafting would only have disadvantages outweigh the advantages. When it comes down to it, crafting isn't an essential game function. Does it bring many people happiness? Sure. But there is no tangible benefit to carving a really cool wooden statue of Haern when those 30 wood or whatever it would cost would be more mechanically-useful in whatever the upcoming system may be.
If crafting items had some sort of prestige value assigned to them which had some sort of mechanical impact, I might feel differently. Otherwise, there's no difference to a city if its citizens are trawling around in generic grey robes or gorgeous bespoke five-piece outfits with matching accessories.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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