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Just to toss in my two cents here as well, these changes seem not only unpleasant for crafters and designers, but really convoluted as well. I had to read the initial post several times just to understand what was going on, and I'm still pretty sure I'm still missing a point or two. 

Speaking just for myself, creating designs and sets of designs, and being able to craft all those designs myself is really important. I worked hard to be able to have four active trades and others that I can switch between as needed, and it seems like a slap in the face to have all that taken away, refunds or not. Additionally, a very high percentage of those designs are all in family restricted cartels, so this would mean I would either lose access to most of them, or have to invite other crafters to private cartels every time I wanted a new bed. 

As far as proficiency goes, I really hate the idea that (even after I decide which of my beloved trades I have to give up on) I'm going to lose access to a large majority of my good designs, all of which tend to require rare or hard to get materials until I spend 20 straight days getting myself back to max through a system that's both grindy and time-gated.

I think the proficiency system does have some merit (and I love the concept of families getting bonuses for literally anything at this point), but it should be something that begins once you trans the skill. After that point, sure, toss in some grinding and time-gates and make it a sort of 'crafting endgame' where the very best crafters make longer lasting items with higher prestige or any number of neat bonus effects (maybe you can craft things with extra enhancement slots, or add ambients, or maybe you get access to rare and previously unknown materials). What it shouldn't be is something that takes us way below what we're currently capable of doing just because we're not grinding every day.

And, just to prove I'm not entirely negative, I do like the removal of restrictions, the updates to shops and what you can sell, and the additional tradeskills (even though Kailanna would never stoop to mining or working a field.)

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.

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:

I'm not sure if you meant this as a good thing or bad, but essentially, yes. Those of us that have worked RL years to gain multiple trades don't want to lose all that hard work. It also would allow for anyone to maintain 3 trades without losing proficiency. I don't like proficiency overall, but if it's the way we're going, I feel like it needs to be looked at as losing a small amount to change trades. A good point I heard from someone else was just because I bake a cake doesn't mean I forget how to water my plants. So just because I decide I want to make a set of weapons for a novice, doesn't mean I should forget how to sew that same novice a set of clothing. That's my take on it.

Saran said:

Ashipedia said:

RE: Proficiencies and trade flexing

Instead of making you lose all proficiency for flexing trades, you get 1 free trade flex per weave. Any additional trade flexing costs you 10% loss to that trade. I think this is something people like me, who have a ton of trade skills, could live with. I don't mind being locked into 2 active trades at once so long as I can still use trades I've worked RL years for.

That looks like it would let you maintain 12 trades with a single slot as long as you switch one per day and craft one thing from each of them once you do so? In theory, with a second slot you'd be able to maintain all 16 we'd have after the overhaul even with that loss because you could have the remaining four on a three-day rotation which would be enough to recoup the 10% loss.

Given discussions about consolidating the trades which could leave us with just 13 trades after the overhaul, you could maintain all of them without loss by having one in your second slot and rotating the other slot daily. Which seems like... you just need to top up one thing in a shop each day and there is no negative.

Saran said:

There's kinda another question around like... people stocking multiple trades and how things will work. Which is like... how much do individuals covering multiple trades make it harder for other people to actually get into things?

I think Isser ran into the issue a couple of weeks ago where he'd made a bunch of food and couldn't even give it away before it decayed, that's before you're even just trying to sell things where I've had a lot of fun with the apathy of bothering because everything I'd stock for the pixie is well and truly readily available.

That's kind of a poor example, there's little mechanical reason for people to need food, much less buy it. Most people that take cooking take it for aethertrading, they enjoy designing cooking, and giving away food/drinks to people. Mechanically it can make dust and that's it.

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.