Salt, the Many-Faced Commodity

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Simple Ideas.

Coraline

Salt prices have become too ridiculous for a simple chef to make food with. It would be nice if an ability/quest to get salt from sea water was introduced, or something else of the sort that would make salt easier to procure.

Ayisdra

Coraline said:

Salt prices have become too ridiculous for a simple chef to make food with. It would be nice if an ability/quest to get salt from sea water was introduced, or something else of the sort that would make salt easier to procure.

One of the Timequake's Guild Project powers is to be able to make trade failures. So, soon, there will be a way for salt to flow.

Makai

And people complained it was a bad idea

Saran

Salt being needed doesn't mean that a timequake power band-aid is not a bad idea.

For example...
Most of the chatter about the issue seems to be focused around salt and not sulfur but they're both a product of a gemcutting failure.
As a result, the timequake power seems likely to result in a glut of sulfur entering the market which may not actually be useful to anyone given people will be generating it in their hunt for salt.
Ignoring stockpiles, depending on the availability/generation of geodes vs the demand for salt the guaranteed failure method could also result in issues with gem availability.

An active generation method, i.e a quest, doesn't have these issues and the generation methods can be tuned up and down by tweaking limiters and rewards on the quest(s). This is before you look at things like availability and the benefits to newer players who could generate comms to sell to people who need them.

Ayisdra

Saran said:

Salt being needed doesn't mean that a timequake power band-aid is not a bad idea.

For example...
Most of the chatter about the issue seems to be focused around salt and not sulfur but they're both a product of a gemcutting failure.
As a result, the timequake power seems likely to result in a glut of sulfur entering the market which may not actually be useful to anyone given people will be generating it in their hunt for salt.

There is already a glut of sulfur, because people are trying to get salt. I easily get 300-400 sulfur (3-4x the amount of salt) per 500 gems. I'm not sure about others, but just looking at the plex shops, there is storage of sulfur by a long shot.

I would rather see a way to convert failure comms into other failure comm than some sort of quest (due to limits on quests like reset time, that only one person can do the quest at a time, etc).

Makai

Maybe another manse machine that make comms? Alchemy lab (whatever it gets called) that lets you exchange 2 for 1 or whatever the ratio gets put to, same usage limitations as the other machines. Not an elegant solution but keeps things basically within the realm of what we already have available.

Saran

Ayisdra said:

Saran said:

Salt being needed doesn't mean that a timequake power band-aid is not a bad idea.

For example...
Most of the chatter about the issue seems to be focused around salt and not sulfur but they're both a product of a gemcutting failure.
As a result, the timequake power seems likely to result in a glut of sulfur entering the market which may not actually be useful to anyone given people will be generating it in their hunt for salt.

There is already a glut of sulfur, because people are trying to get salt. I easily get 300-400 sulfur (3-4x the amount of salt) per 500 gems. I'm not sure about others, but just looking at the plex shops, there is storage of sulfur by a long shot.

I would rather see a way to convert failure comms into other failure comm than some sort of quest (due to limits on quests like reset time, that only one person can do the quest at a time, etc).

It seems like you're thinking more about honours quest, as opposed to say comm quests or the other small quests that are around the place.

You could, for example, make a quest which involves getting a fae bucket which you then playing hot and cold with in salt-water areas to fill it up before you take it back to get the salt extracted. 

Afaik, then it's just a matter of giving the quest giver multiple buckets while limiting how many any one can have at one time or just making it so they can generate them on demand. (Albion and Isotta are examples of this from memory)

The only honours level thing I'd do is either have the honour checked when turning in the bucket to increase the returns or make it a state-change quest. Could have a state that's better for bashing and another that's better for farming salt, or make the buckets available in one state but not the other. (Similar to Lirgansha's state changing)

Saran

Makai said:

Maybe another manse machine that make comms? Alchemy lab (whatever it gets called) that lets you exchange 2 for 1 or whatever the ratio gets put to, same usage limitations as the other machines. Not an elegant solution but keeps things basically within the realm of what we already have available.

To be clear, what you're suggesting here is a band-aid solution to fix an issue (sulfur oversupply) being exacerbated by another band-aid solution (the timequake power)?

If you're suggesting any two comms into any one comm this could lead to other issues, such as people burning comms they don't need (but others do) into scarcity.


As opposed to... just putting in a targeted fix to the thing that's being complained about.

Makai

It would be commodities that are alike, so salt and sulfur, not anything into whatever you want, I thought that went without explaining. While a quest is a good option, it is just generation and in most of those saltwater places, harassable. Salt is only a scarcity because we keep introducing things that REQUIRE as a material for things that otherwise have nothing to do with it. Cooks suffering from the aethertrading and genie gifts is a side effect and probably wasn't even considered when those changed were being implemented. We don't really need a quest that can be monopolized or shoved away from, when the real solution is let sulfur break down goop items as well.

Saran

Makai said:

It would be commodities that are alike, so salt and sulfur, not anything into whatever you want, I thought that went without explaining. 

In context, the other assumption was you were talking about just sulfur to salt. If you're suggesting transmutation based on categorisation then it needs to be specified, because unplanned outcomes can abound. 

For example, I could assume you mean similarity as defined by the rift groupings (the method that likely requires the least work though it wouldn't create a link between salt and sulfur), this would mean that jewellers could convert cut gems back into geodes.

With your suggested 2:1 conversion rate this would mean Jewellers with the hammer would be able to produce infinite uncut gems.

Makai said:

While a quest is a good option, it is just generation and in most of those saltwater places, harassable. Salt is only a scarcity because we keep introducing things that REQUIRE as a material for things that otherwise have nothing to do with it. Cooks suffering from the aethertrading and genie gifts is a side effect and probably wasn't even considered when those changed were being implemented. We don't really need a quest that can be monopolized or shoved away from, when the real solution is let sulfur break down goop items as well.

Transumation is ultimately just generation via a different method, one which consumes other resources. Looking at ideal behavioural outcomes (i.e. a big focus of game design) transmutation promotes self-sufficiency where a quest can be done by the individual but can also promote trade when people perform the quest to sell the comm to others. You can also tweak a quest around much less problematically than, what appears to be, a manse artifact.


The rest of your post is ultimately an example of why yet another band-aid is bad. You mention that the salt situation is a side effect of other things and "probably wasn't even considered".

Which is effectively the same situation as the comms that are being patched by the timequake power.
It's going to lead to even more sulfur, which now there's the suggestion to add transmutation to but what's the full impact of that?
Like, with guaranteed fails on gems I'll have a lot of sulfur, if I burn that all into failures on amalgamating sulfur with alchemy how much sugar to I get per failure there?
If I can then transmute that sugar into sulfur does that mean I have recursion as that would enable me to divert some of that sugar into salt generation which, effectively, means that we have infinite salt, sulfur, and sugar from a single gem comm.

Makai

You're making assumptions, then making assumptions on those assumptions. Each machine has a specific purpose that it does, the original idea I gave was to convert x sulfur into 1 salt. I dropped the idea because I didn't want it either, I said it wasn't an elegant solution. My idea that I just put separately to just let us use sulfur or salt for breaking down goop items would alleviate the massive salt consumption and honestly fix a lot of problems on its own. Also, every change we make is a band-aid, its why they're called patches. Salt is so rare because the current failure chance is based on your skill in Jewellery, getting lower with a higher skill. They took a commodity that had little value except to cooks, and made it the most valuable by implementing salt as a cost. If sulfur is given as an equal cost, then people will migrate to sulfur and allow salt for trading to cooks. I don't see the problem with this.

Saran

Makai said:

You're making assumptions, then making assumptions on those assumptions. Each machine has a specific purpose that it does, the original idea I gave was to convert x sulfur into 1 salt. I dropped the idea because I didn't want it either, I said it wasn't an elegant solution. My idea that I just put separately to just let us use sulfur or salt for breaking down goop items would alleviate the massive salt consumption and honestly fix a lot of problems on its own. Also, every change we make is a band-aid, its why they're called patches. Salt is so rare because the current failure chance is based on your skill in Jewellery, getting lower with a higher skill. They took a commodity that had little value except to cooks, and made it the most valuable by implementing salt as a cost. If sulfur is given as an equal cost, then people will migrate to sulfur and allow salt for trading to cooks. I don't see the problem with this.

Makai said:

It would be commodities that are alike, so salt and sulfur, not anything into whatever you want, I thought that went without explaining.

Based on your comment here you expected that people would make assumptions based on the limited information you provided and are now complaining that assumptions are being made.


Also... I don't think you know what a "band-aid solution" actually means.
It's defined along the lines of "Hasty solution that covers up the symptoms but does little or nothing to mitigate the underlying problem." 

Particularly with games design they can be pretty bad because you're giving players something which can be really good, then you need to take it away because that's not how things should be. They can also open the door to say... recursion as we've seen previously here.


Resolving issues on the other hand involves looking at the bigger context that the issue sits in and then targeting a resolution at the cause rather than the symptoms.

Based on what has been said, if sulfur is so much more available and faster to generate, then swapping the requirement to sulfur might be all that was actually needed, not leaving salt as an option would also lighten the drain on that.

But that's only a real resolution if you look at the expected sulfur generation and consumption rates to see if that'll actually work.
Just slapping on that fix could leave it as a band-aid if the actual issue is the concept of comm generation through crafting failures, which might need to be fixed by adding those comms to village generation instead.

Makai

Village generation is based on raw commodities, whereas I would call things like cut gems (rubies, diamonds, etc), salt, sulfur, mercury, sugar that come from crafting failures to be processed commodities. Salt was a useful processed commodity for cooks and was never an issue to obtain. You talk about underlying problems, and that problem has already been talked about to death, goop crafted items being so plentiful. With all the methods of getting these goop crafted items and the salt cost tied to them, it made any reserves get drained real quick and spike in price. Adding sulfur as a substitute, not outright replacing, alleviates the salt demand and Jewelers now have an actual use for their byproduct like every other trade's failure. Sulfur generation is already rather high and has little to no actual function in game, being seen as a wasted processed commodity. Think of sulfur as chervil in this case, you'd use it instead of sparkleberry, but have the option of still use sparkleberry.

Tylwyth

Well, sulfur is good for shamans but there is maybe one, if you count Forrest, sometimes two. At best, of those.

Saran

Makai said:

Village generation is based on raw commodities, whereas I would call things like cut gems (rubies, diamonds, etc), salt, sulfur, mercury, sugar that come from crafting failures to be processed commodities. Salt was a useful processed commodity for cooks and was never an issue to obtain. You talk about underlying problems, and that problem has already been talked about to death, goop crafted items being so plentiful. With all the methods of getting these goop crafted items and the salt cost tied to them, it made any reserves get drained real quick and spike in price. Adding sulfur as a substitute, not outright replacing, alleviates the salt demand and Jewelers now have an actual use for their byproduct like every other trade's failure. Sulfur generation is already rather high and has little to no actual function in game, being seen as a wasted processed commodity. Think of sulfur as chervil in this case, you'd use it instead of sparkleberry, but have the option of still use sparkleberry.

Just because that's how things currently are doesn't mean they can't be changed, how things are has been pretty regularly been shown to not be good. Given gems are the ultimate source of salt, it could easily be added to the villages that produce raw gems with the explanation that villages have just started identifying those geodes.

You say things have been talked to death but seems unlikely when such obvious issues with the suggestions posed exist and you seem to be reaching for answers to those.

Again, if sulfur is already so underutilised and highly available then you could potentially just swap around the generation rng.

But, really, insisting that it's necessary to have both salt and sulfur as an option for the goop stuff indicates an expectation that the sulfur generation, even with guaranteed fails, would be insufficient cause there's no other reason to not just swap them. Which is a significant indication that the fix is just a band-aid and if you need a bandaid with such a major increase in the availability of the comms then something else is the issue.

Enya

Frankly it would be most simple to solve by taking a few steps back and resolving the underlying problem:

Salt is being used up to dissassemble goop crafted items.
This is happening very frequently now because mechanics give people these items and;
They don't *want* goop crafted items, they want goop. Goop is categorically a better deal than goop items.

Easy fix: instead of mucking around with salt generation or converting comms or whatever, just make the things that generate loads of unwanted goop items that need to be dissassembled give out goop directly. Then there won't be a rush to eat up all the salt in the game to get back to the more useful goop currency - and if people want the goop items they can get them made, same as always. 


This is an issue created entirely by bad fixes to problems no one was having. 

Kistan

The whole jewelry and gnome Rubie thing seems to be broken in that it is just an easy route to profit. i think you have to be at Rubie within 15 seconds to stand a chance of getting the buttons and it is essentially goop for free as you get free gems from gemcutting (that poor rockeater population)  and salt (which you can sell for huge profit) and powerstones. Even the item you get - buttons - makes it easier to get there quicker next time! 

Make it so you can't melt them down? That will sort out the salt problem

Enya

Make the gnomes give out an equivalent amount of melted out goop (plus a little possibly) instead of crafted items, possibly either as you request. [I do agree that this mechanic is an overall bad idea that will hasten bad outcomes and is the exact opposite of what needs to happen re: the economy but that ship has sailed: administration isn't interested. ]


Make genie bottles just give out rare big goop rewards instead of crafted items. This was changed away from lips so that there wasn't passive credit generation, this solution fixes a bunch of problems elegantly and instantly - them spawning goop and then goop uncrafting is a bad patch. 

Drocilla

Good topic, good discussion! Split it away from Simple Ideas so we have it all in one place.

I am not well-versed in the various nuances of the salt economy so the only input I do have is that reading all of this made me think of this: 

Coraline

I think it would be a good idea to introduce salt as a commodity in the villages that you can do commodity quests with. For example, the same mobs that accept rockeaters to give gems can accept another creature (maybe a shark? I can't think of one that is abundant that logically we can extract salt from) and give you salt in return.

Or we would have salted food as a luxury that only the wealthy can afford. A salt revolution is imminent.

Xenthos

Giving goop directly instead of goop items is a good idea to me; if people want goop items they can make them.

Past that though, being able to get the fail-comms more consistently is also a good thing in my mind.

Makai

Perhaps we can make the Aethertraders a toggle like the racetrack has? Let them toggle between the crafted item and goop. That way if the true goal of that individual is to just get goop, it bypasses the need for salt and other fixes. As for why I insist salt and sulfur, is because I am looking forward and trying to mitigate any other problems that may arise. Just outright switching it to sulfur, and doing nothing else, will just cause massive sulfur debts and it skyrocketing. Not sure why it has to be one or the other and can't be both, but I think both of these ideas could solve the issue at hand, to recap:

Aethertraders have a payout toggle like racetrack
Add sulfur as an option for breaking down goop items

Deichtine

Maybe let people use spice instead of salt.

Coraline

Wouldn't that just drive up the spice prices?

Drocilla

*Dune intensifies*

Deichtine

It must flow.

Maybe but spice is a commodity that we have an abundance of and no real use for. Herbalists just get it when farming and we really don't use it for almost anything other than the tiny bit of cooking.

Estarra

I think spice may be a good idea--and Dune is one of my faves!

Also, keep in mind, the traders will probably also trade crafts for anomalies in the future as well.

Makai

Spices have a lot of use already in cooking designs and Lorecraft influence oils. No need to spike those prices and cause the same issue salt is experience. Sulfur is extremely low usage and wouldn't restrict salt or spices....cooking in general.

Coraline

We do have use for spice. I use spices in cooking daily. Please have a solution for salt shortage that also doesn't affect cooks.

Coraline

Sigh, I asked for a way to solve the shortage of salt so that I can use salt for cooking, and the solution for that is to drive the price of spices up (that is used in cooking even more frequently).

I don't even aethertrade goop that often. Wish there was another commodity that can be used for that instead of screwing over people who just want to design and sell food in peace.