Trades and a suggestion

Arcanis

A simple suggestion I have for trying to help the economy.

Tradeskills provide one of the fun perks a player may gain within Lusternia, but are currently very limited to archetype and Highmagic/lowmagic choices. With the decrease in playerbase over the years, we have seen how these limitations have badly impacted the market, with certain trades being rare if at times nonexistent, and thus the important wares they supply missing from the market. Additionally, we have seen certain trades that depend on upkeeping, such as herbs, having players that feel overburdened. My suggestions are as follows:

Players should not find themselves constrained and limited by their selection of fun trades because of their class. We can however, simply state that certain classes have an advantage (naturally a tracker will have more an advantage in finding venoms than a mage) or simply make it a mechanic (more poison harvested for example).


- Suggestion 1: Open up all trades as selectable choices to a player, a player can then select any trade from the list for free. Introduce an artifact (for this scenario known as License) which will allow a player to pick another trade skill. Afterwards, a player may upgrade this license to pick a third trade skill. A player may only have a max of 3 active trade skills at a time. I know that there currently is an artifact that allows you to select a second tradeskill, but in my scenario, I am attempting to make tradeskills more open, and having to pay 2000 to select from a limited list is not helping the case. If the price is to be kept, it can be made that a second tradeskill is 1000 and a third is 2000 (upgrade).


- Suggestion 2: Introduce several new artifacts, each providing a trade type as if of that class. Examples: A brewer's tankard. An alchemist's cauldron. A poisoner's phial. A cosmic/elemental enchanter's pentacle.



There may be some concern with certain capabilities, allow me to clear up the air on some as well as provide suggestions:

* Masterarmour in Forging is really only possible and usable by those with Knighthood, so it isnt a worry
* Herblore in Herbs can be adjusted to simply increase sparkleberry heal, and no longer speed herb-balance (truth be told..I think this should be done anyway with overhaul)
* Immunize in Poisons can be reduced from a great resistance, to simply give a small increase to resist poisons (I think this would not be an issue with resilience being deleted)
* Im not sure if splendors is that much a big issue, as most combatants get splendors anyway then just keep tailoring as a passive skill, if it is, stats could always be reduced.
* Pukemaster in brewmeistery; from what I understand isnt that often of a proc, but honestly I dont think brewers would really miss the 'slip' effect if it was removed.
* Enchantments provide a problem with cosmic and spellcraft

Enyalida

The problem with the economy is NOT that there aren't enough people with trades. The problem (in short) is a combination of the following:
-Certain trades give combat benefits
-Trades cost so many lessons
-Mercantile trades like herbs work the same as crafting trades
-The cartel system is stifling

Basically, the trade economy is borked because there are loads of people who are trans in their crafting trade for the combat perk, but who have no interest or investment in making a profit - they aren't trades people. These people don't expect to break even on their lesson investment, so they continually undercut dedicated trades folk. Add in only a few serious shopkeepers and you have a totally saturated market that is stagnant AND inflating due to continual gold production (stagflation).

Opening up trades from other classes to everyone is so far from even addressing any of the problems in the trade economy it's laughable.

Lavinya

Everyone can already get a second trade for free. It just takes some work. I don't spend all that much time grinding and yet I managed to buy second trade, and third, and trans veneration. Almost all of it as a viscanti nihilist with their crappy bashing AND influencing.

I agree with Enya. I have all the trades, and I help people as needed, but since I'm not in it for the money, I do it cheap.

Another bigger issue is the myriad of aethermines that made a glut of cheap comms. Unless you can also buy them cheap or have your own mines, you will never match prices. Also harvesting takes forever and is annoying as all hell...but very profitable for the dedicated.

Arcanis

Like I said, if combat enhancements are a problem in trades, they can always be adjusted or heck even removed. My main point is stating how often you will not find someone of a certain trade or even, as recently seen, will not even find a certain  item (like frost refills or certain poisons) available in aethershops.

How many people can attest to asking for, say, a jeweller on market for several days simply for the making of an energy cube?


I agree aethermines were a big hit to the game economy, especially when people developed their aetherfarms and were basically getting comms for free and selling them at whatever price they wished, but I dont see how it can be changed now unless a refund is given and people are changed to only be allowed 5 mines or so.


I considered suggesting that trade skills be placed in a mini-skill category and would cost half the lessons, but that would still not address the problems of:

- unavailability of certain traders and trade items
- Inaccessibility of certain trade skills.


I do not see why trade skills need to be tied to a class (except enchantments since it is tied to skills). I think one should be free to choose the trade they like based on what they find is fun. This is, after all, a game.

Enyalida

Think over my point there: people have trades they don't necessarily have interest in, with no investment in making them profitable. If they don't know you personally, what incentive do they have to stop whatever they're doing to come use that trade for you.

With the exception of perhaps tinkering and artisanry, this is usually the case. I can ask on market to the tune of crickets, but see people I KNOW have the trade I need sitting around. I'm totally guilty of this as well. If I'm not interested in role-playing out a full seamstress scene with you right now, I won't pipe up - it's not my big interest.

Edit: all of the locked trades are locked to a skill in some way, if indirectly.

Tarkenton

Dunno, I think a lot of the trade issues can be solved similar to what was done for artisan. Make cubes sellable in shops (pedestals to sell charges, no pedestal to seek the whole thing). Same with tattoos. Ink it into magic rice paper, APPLY MAGIC PAPER TO ME WITH DIVINUS DAMAGE BUFF, etc. Power cost on tattoos does only matter for weight, not for what powers are gained through it.

As for scarcity, can't help there. If I could flex alchemy, I would, but I'd likely only use it to benefit myself and my friends. As is, the three trades max is a flawed idea, and if it were to go through I'd have a hefty refund of some variety coming my way, since I'm a cook/jeweller/bookbinder/tattooist with needle/poisonist/tailor/artisan/soon to be forger. Not all of those are transed, since I opted to stop at some key skills (great robes, Thrones, miniatures) but they will be eventually.

I think making all trades capable of selling their wares while not requiring that tradesman and customer both be online will go a lot further than the proposed ideas.

Aeldra

Being new to this game and the trading community I can attest to having issues coming by certain things. Also trying to make a living of a trade skill I can say that I think the market channel is part of the problem, at least for me as a newbie. Just because I need to first figure out which faction the person asking belongs to (Don't think my char would do business with the enemy, she's not the kind of person) takes me a considerate amount of time, am often too slow or can't really help even though I would have the relevant skill.

Further on generating business, if your only way to make contact with people seeking your trade is via the market channel, you will be forced to watch the channel for someone asking, only ending up not being able to help them.

Would suggest to think about the following:

- Maybe make it possible to have a more localised market channel

- Maybe allow it for a sort of 'board' for people seeking a trade and people offering a trade to get into contact (I thought the 'ad' thing would offer this, but it appears very dead and not being used for that purpose at all).

For me, generally it turns out that doing other things in the time it takes to successfully contact and hook up with a client yields more income which makes the trade skill a little irrelevant most of the time (edit: meant that in regards of generating coin, which is a motivator for a young character such as mine).

Arcanis

I admit I personally would love to help certain people with my trade when I hear them call on market, but simply cannot based on Org RP (No way would I be caught dead making something for a celestian).


I also admit that the trades avaliable to me (class-based) arent all that interesting. I simply am not an enchanter person. I do however find the tradeskill of Poisons to be rather fun, in the idea of hunting down venomous creatures and milking them. Additionally, I find the tradeskill of brewing to be both hilarious and sophisticated at the same time (tea), however there is no way I will be flexing to a certain class simply to have access to them...

Ssaliss

There are plenty of things that can be done in all areas of tradeskills, yes. Making them more shopfriendly has always been a personal goal of mine, especially when it comes to enchanting. I also have several suggestions for alchemy and herbs, but right now I'm waiting for the overhaul to level out before I start suggesting things that might need changing again because of some change due to the overhaul.

Tarkenton

I think therein lies a key difference. I recognize, at the end of the day, that it's a game. And while making instruments for Spiritsingers, or tattooing Seren folk would be against RP, I want to fight people who are on an even footing preparations wise if I can assist them with that.

That being said, doesn't hurt that I throw out pro Wyrd propaganda the whole time.

Steingrim

Enyalida said:

...I can ask on market to the tune of crickets, but see people I KNOW have the trade I need sitting around. I'm totally guilty of this as well. If I'm not interested in role-playing out a full seamstress scene with you right now, I won't pipe up - it's not my big interest. Edit: all of the locked trades are locked to a skill in some way, if indirectly.

I'm agreeing with you though it might now seem so. I know I've posted on here that there's is a difference between:

market Looking for a tailor
market Looking for a tailor. I can't find a satchel anywhere and I'm not overly picky.

It is like that one line: Never volunteer for anything.

If someone can't be bothered to say what they want on market then they've already wasted some of your time by making you ask. I always assume if the person isn't asking for something specific they want a trades person to sit, hold their hand and explain their catalog. I do too much paperwork in RL to want to sit there copying and pasting descriptions about items I care little about. Perhaps having Master Tradehalls where people can do to do the work in advance would help?

Steingrim

I also want to add, that classflex discourages some of us from helping to fill in on trades. I'm not going to classflex and then be stuck as a bard because someone needs teardrops. I'm also not going to stock as many teardrops since I'd be stuck for longer than is worth it to me to bother with.

If classflex was like the race cameo where I could flex into a class knowing that when the month changes I could flip back I would use that ability to stock wider varieity of things in my shop.

Steingrim

Tarkenton said:

I think therein lies a key difference. I recognize, at the end of the day, that it's a game. And while making instruments for Spiritsingers, or tattooing Seren folk would be against RP, I want to fight people who are on an even footing preparations wise if I can assist them with that. That being said, doesn't hurt that I throw out pro Wyrd propaganda the whole time.

The other thing that probably should be done is the ability to put manse shops 'on the black market' removing the name of the manse owner. Yes, you'd still have the wares, but might relieve a bit of this anst. I suppose it could be coded so that when you add things to the shop the maker's name is removed (or at least when you probe things before you buy them you cannot tell.

Talan

If you have trouble finding tradesmen, ask your orgs. Lots of people who have tradeskills ignore Market chatter, but would be totally willing to help a friend/ally if they were asked.

Cyndarin

Save for Artisans and tinkers (and I just went tinker to deal with it...and vivace is great), I've never had any issue finding anything trade skill wise within a day or two. Or I can ask an ally to go check a shop I'm banned from. I don't understand this complaint. 

For the record, if people don't like you, you will find it harder to get a tradesperson to help you. That's not an issue with the system. Market is an endless twitter feed, 99.98% of which I do not care about. Knowing and asking people directly is infinitely more useful. I think I've used market twice the past RL year...for FFA queues. 

Lavinya

I used to rarely if ever go back to Tinkering because switching trades is one easy thing, but switching between low and high magic first is a pain, and frankly, getting the skillflex artifact just to be able to switch more lessons per day is not worth the cost to me. Any other trade I'll switch for people I like. Sometimes I wish trades weren't linked to high/low magic for this reason though.

I only ever use market for curios and desperation, I'll be honest.

Cyndarin

I wish they weren't linked to high/low because lowmagic is so much better than highmagic. I MISS YOU SERPENT.

Tarkenton

Iunno. Body fuel and gpent together is a lot of fun.

Shaddus

Celina said:

Market is an endless twitter feed, 99.98% of which is Faragan advertising his shop and seeking curios;

Ftfy.

Arcanis

Shaddus said:

Market is an endless twitter feed, 99.98% of which is Faragan advertising his shop and seeking curios;

Ftfy.



You forgot Ssaliss and Tanin's shop advertising. There is also Isluna and her long ad page of curios.

Aeldra

Are the ad pages really used in any way? I've in my short time here not seen anybody use or refer to ad pages (if you don't count those regularly posting on market).

Cadica

Tarkenton said:

I think therein lies a key difference. I recognize, at the end of the day, that it's a game. And while making instruments for Spiritsingers, or tattooing Seren folk would be against RP, I want to fight people who are on an even footing preparations wise if I can assist them with that. That being said, doesn't hurt that I throw out pro Wyrd propaganda the whole time.

#wouldbetatoo'dbyTarkentonagain

Was a fun experience for me responding to the propaganda in character .  And my public thanks for setting aside RP differences to bail me out like you did!

I definitely relate to those who are frustrated at not being able to procure the services they want. However I really do agree with Tarkenton's first suggestion: making all trade services available in player shops would realistically solve most of the issues of scarcity without completely overhauling:

1. Tradeskills

2. Artifacts

3. Lessons

4. Market channel/ad mechanics

And it really should be said that a little patience goes a long way.  We are a small-town community when all is said and done.  We all basically know each other, with few exceptions for newcomers.  "Oh you want a tattoo? Well so-and-so is our communes tattoo artist, try sending them a message..."  I think we can all relate to that situation. When I came back from my long wait it took literally weeks to get a full suit of mail and 2 bashing blades.  And when I found out about tattoos and tried to get those it would take 2 days to get one tattoo at a time because of how long they took people to do and how inconvenient it was for people to stop what they were doing to help me out.  If Tarkenton hadn't bailed me out I'd probably still lack most of my tattoos.

And yet that's the thing about small game communities.  Do we really want to move game mechanics in a way that promotes LESS character-character interaction?  I personally would really love the convenience of having all trade services available in the shops.  But my gut tells me we would be missing out on the opportunities to connect that we are forced into when seeking trade services.  I never would have met Tarkenton and had such a great experience if I could have anonymously searched a shop for all the tattoos I wanted.  I never would have had the fun RP'ing our communes' opposing dogmas.  I never would have felt such deep appreciation for someone from an "enemy" commune who set aside RP to help another human being out because he cared.  Ultimately Lusternia is simply an entertaining medium for building relationships and making friends.  What we do is generally second-row to who we do it with.  So despite my personal desire for the increased convenience of shop mechanics, I really have to suggest things might be best the way they are.  Frustrating at times, yes, but perhaps better for our community-building experience.

Arcanis

@Cadica even current tradeskills that already available in shops, such as poisons and brewing, are found in sparce amounts. Additionally, while I can respect if not commemorate the idea of "small-based community teamwork", it simply isnt realisitic on a game business and functionality concept. So yes, I would have to say if making trade skills more open to players would make 'less interactions' (Of which you yourself just admitted it took you 2 weeks of such to find someone and you also were lucky enough to find an open-minded enemy player (a rarity in itself)), then I would have to go with that lesser of two evils.

Tarkenton

There's a reason I eventually want -all- the tradeskills.  With a tam, it's fairly painless flexing around.  Would be even better if the cooldown dropped to 1 day instead of 3, but eh.

Ssaliss

A thought: How about if we move the tradeskills away from affecting combat? For instance, replace the philosopherstone in Lorecraft with, say, an enchanted vial that never runs out of whatever you decide it should contain. Bookbinding is fine as-is (perhaps with the changes of dropping the DMP from magictome and making it permanent and never use charges instead). Etc etc.

Enyalida

Ideally, that would be combined with changes that would make the non-profit/supply trades (like tailoring, artisanry, jewelry) cost fewer lessons, to defray credit debt. This is how it is done in some of the other IREs, and I think it works very well to promote investment in your chosen trade. For example, Aetolia has three categories of 'trade skill': Mercantile, Trade, and Talent. 

Each player may only have one Mercantille skill active, but they can choose among them freely with no surcharge. These are the 'supply' skills, with which the player has a reasonable ability to make a profit, to recoup the cost of the skillset on the credit market within a decent amount of time. With the exception of forging, these skills do not involve crafting. In Lusternia, this could include Poisons, Herbs, Alchemy, Enchanting, and Forging.

Then there are the Trade skills, which are all of the artistic skills. A player may have any number of trade skills active, but must pay a licensing fee to unlock each trade for 100 credits each. However, once you unlock the skill, you can make all patterns within that trade! Putting more lessons into the (mini)skill makes your crafted items last longer, and unlocks benefits pertaining to the crafting system, including (iirc) peer design reviewing. These are all of the meaty artistic skills, like tailoring or jewelry. 

Finally, there are talents. Talents are unlocked crafting abilities that collectively contain all of what we put into artisanry. Like talents, they are unlocked with credits... it just takes far fewer, as their scope is smaller.

The thing I like about this system (along with the paperless crafting system, which I feel is superior to the cartel system) is that it promotes taking on a crafting trade only if you are particularly interested in that craft, but requires overall fewer credits to craft all of the designs. Being a miniskill, it only costs half the number of lessons to trans, which comes out to about as many total credits once you factor in the licensing fee. Combine that with combat-less trades and designing revamps, and I believe some of our economy woes would be solved.

As I mentioned, paperless crafting is flat better than the cartel system. I think it would be rather easy to convert Lusternian crafting to a hybrid of the paperless crafting system, with cartels providing perks towards designing. 

Daraius

Man but I love the exclusivity cartels can offer. Just wish there were a way to trade designs around.

Ssaliss

Something I've suggested before: Allow cartels to lease designs to other cartels. They'd still be owned by the first cartel, and they'd be able to cancel the lease at any time, but you'd be able to get a lot more designs without joining a dozen cartels to do so.

Enyalida

The kind of system I'd like to see would look something like this:

-Use the general designing paradigm of paperless crafting/crafters guild. 

-- To make a design, you go to the hall of records and submit your design (using the regular syntaxes). This makes a design that is yours ONLY (private).

-- To USE a design, you need to have a copy of it, which you can get at the hall of records.

-- The original designer may set personal designs to be semi-public, so that anyone on the permitted list may copy the design.

-- You have to pay upkeep on personal designs in gold every year, can be set to deduct from your bank.

-- If you fail to do so, the design falls into the public domain, and anyone can craft it.

-- You get a certain number of designs permanently held for free.

Cartels would act as holding pools for designs. You'd be able to deed a design to a cartel, and everyone in that cartel would be able to design it, in addition to anyone you give permission to. Cartels would also be able to set design permissions. As long as a cartel performs general upkeep, all of the designs set for that cartel will default to general cartel use when they drop out of being personal, instead of going full public.

This kind of system would be WAY more flexible than the existing cartel system, allowing for individuals to participate freely in the design process and for more designs to be available for purchase, while also preserving cartels and private designs.

EDIT: Afaik, the other games also have open reviewing: anyone who pays a nominal gold fee is a mortal reviewer, if they care to be. They haven't burned down, I don't really see much compelling reason to keep it so restrictive in Lusternia.

EDIT2: How about making Trademasters of Cartels who have personally submitted enough designs that got through reviewing with no comments/revisions go on a shortlist for mortal reviewing?

Eritheyl

Enyalida said:

EDIT: Afaik, the other games also have open reviewing: anyone who pays a nominal gold fee is a mortal reviewer, if they care to be. They haven't burned down, I don't really see much compelling reason to keep it so restrictive in Lusternia.

Their existing designs are probably a lot worse off than ours, too. Sorry not sorry.

Enyalida said:

EDIT2: How about making Trademasters of Cartels who have personally submitted enough designs that got through reviewing with no comments/revisions go on a shortlist for mortal reviewing?

What do you mean? That they should require fewer reviews, or pass automagically because their earlier designs were passed? I'm not in favour of anything that skews the now-equal weight in the system, giving one designer more relevance than any other.

The system is imperfect, sure - that's because people are imperfect. It can be every bit as frustrating to the reviewers (if not moreso), but some of us try our damnedest, and aren't really all that jazzed by the peanut gallery pushing for change/complication. Anyone who wants to actually help smooth the process over should put in a reviewer application, and spread the love!

Anyways. As for the stuff with revamping the cartels themselves, that doesn't sound all that terrible. Would definitely take some getting used to, but I can see the benefits.

Enyalida

That's the thing... in my experience it's totally and exactly the opposite: Aetolia at least has many more well written designs than Lusternia has available publicly. All in all, I'd rate their designing much more highly than Lusternia's, both thematically and technically. This may in part be due to the fact that the majority of Lusternian designs are lost or locked away, or that relatively few people participate in the system.

It also has to do with the fact that people wear more clothing that aren't robes in the other games.

EDIT: No, I meant that mortal reviewing should be far more open, so that a large pool of people can do it part-time, instead of a small group needing to do the work for the entire game. I suggested fast tracking successful cartel owners as a way to limit the field from being everyone established who wants to do it, though I don't honestly see any problem with that. 

EDIT2: Oh, I see what you meant. No, I didn't mean that successful designers get a free pass on getting reviewed, but rather that they get installled as additional mortal reviewers.