Game Balance

Kethaera

It's bad, again. I know there's a back-and-forth that often happens with respect to the powerful orgs, but it doesn't shift very quickly. This means that regardless of who's on top, there are very few occasions when conflict and combat is "meaningful." If I show up to a conflict event with 0% expectation that my side will lose(regardless of what I do) - then there was no reason for me to show up. Nor for most of the people who did, on both sides. It isn't meaningful. Same as for being on the losing side, as I was there too at one point.

I don't believe this is good for the game. The lack of conflict is boring for me, as I know it is for many on the winning side, too. Seeking out more "pk" just means beating people down who already don't bother to defend their territories because they're tired of losing battles. Waiting for the balance of power to shift again is six months to a year or longer of real time. In the meantime, the game isn't much fun and some people leave, potentially forever.

There has to be some solution here. For those on team IHC, honestly: Is this fun? Why? I genuinely don't understand how it could be. Can anything be done about it, and if so, what?

Please be nice.

Yinuish

It's not fun, more people are talking about quitting because Lusternia is no longer fun for them due to conflict.

I don't think there's any solution other than us getting new players, people alting until the sides are more even, or people from IHC getting bored and quitting. Obviously no one wants to see less people playing, but let's be real. That's going to be the most likely 'solution' to the numbers game and then it'll just repeat itself over and over. 

I have no great ideas. I've been trying to work with people one on one but many of them just feel hopeless and that's so hard to deal with in a game where people come to relax. 

Alexandria

I already have two full-time jobs between work and my kids, and the former is a dumpster fire at the moment. I don't have the energy to show up and feel dejected immediately every time anymore. 

Kethaera

Alexandria said:

I already have two full-time jobs between work and my kids, and the former is a dumpster fire at the moment. I don't have the energy to show up and feel dejected immediately every time anymore. 

Alex, this isn't a personal attack. I left the revolt myself because it was boring, and it's impossible not to notice the general feeling about conflict lately on the other side. 

Alexandria

I know it's not. It's a general comment on the status, promise.

Lorina

I have expressed my concerns already. This current state cannot continue. It is too emotionally draining and I am beginning the process of wrapping things up to step away from Lusternia. I have tried for a few months now to help others find some enjoyment, but the collective anger, sadness and apathy that has built up has put too much of strain on me to continue.

It might not look it, but the game is hurting here. Every few days we hear more leaving, and no new blood. It saddens me that this is what the game has become. I genuinely hope solution is found to ease the suffering of so many players. I wish everyone the best.

Yinuish

Lorina said:

I have expressed my concerns already. This current state cannot continue. It is too emotionally draining and I am beginning the process of wrapping things up to step away from Lusternia. I have tried for a few months now to help others find some enjoyment, but the collective anger, sadness and apathy that has built up has put too much of strain on me to continue.

It might not look it, but the game is hurting here. Every few days we hear more leaving, and no new blood. It saddens me that this is what the game has become. I genuinely hope solution is found to ease the suffering of so many players. I wish everyone the best.

Give it a week and we'll see if we can do enough roleplay to make things enjoyable for you. I don't want to see you go because I you. 

Kethaera

Lorina said:

I have expressed my concerns already. This current state cannot continue. It is too emotionally draining and I am beginning the process of wrapping things up to step away from Lusternia. I have tried for a few months now to help others find some enjoyment, but the collective anger, sadness and apathy that has built up has put too much of strain on me to continue.

It might not look it, but the game is hurting here. Every few days we hear more leaving, and no new blood. It saddens me that this is what the game has become. I genuinely hope solution is found to ease the suffering of so many players. I wish everyone the best.

It absolutely does look like that. And what really makes me want to quit too is the idea that in six months we'll have the exact same situation from the other side. I don't understand why, other than that conflict always seems toxic and no one has much interest in playing fair.

Kethaera

But yes, don't go @Lorina, like she says. Someone has to read my newsletter

Alexandria

Kethaera said:

But yes, don't go @Lorina, like she says. Someone has to read my newsletter

Psst, send it to me. I don't know about it at all.

@Lorina do what you need to do. It's been good to see you around again, though.

Kreon

To be honest, the week I was gone for a military exercise I was just getting destroy. Coming back to try and assist, decompress, and lead things for our side then just having it be a one-sided fight just makes me actually think the stress from the exercise was better than this revolt. I'll probably just refrain from putting in effort to fight since work will be stacking up for me with my recent promotion. 

Aeldra

I, for one, am tired to turning my attention to either in game or the forums every day and realizing more people have given up hope and left. I've been on the losing side for I feel like 80% of my time here in the game, so I can not comment on how it feels on the winning side, but ending up with nearly every challenge not only losing ( losing fine ) but being so outnumbered that you don't even get get a -chance- to put your foot down. There have been so many timequakes in the past month where we initially were like "okay, this is though but lets do this" and like a minute after we were in, we realized that this was just the skeleton crew of our opponents. The rest just kept flooding in.

I know I'm sticking around because I have few lovely RP opportunities that I like to explore and enjoy and as long as those people are sticking around, I will be able to  enjoy the game. But conflict wise, I currently see really no point in investing time in improving my defense and offense.

As for solutions for this, I really don't know. Even if we were to do another alliance shift, I don't think it would solve anything for example. We have three orgs now that are severely depopulated. At least during my time, I don't think I've seen more then 1 to 2 people from hallifax in like a month now. My own org (celest) has like 1/5 of what they had when I started playing again half a year ago.

It is pretty damn depressing and I really hope we can pull through this and if someone comes up with a bright solution, I'm very well game to try it.

Sapphira

I completely empathise with the sentiment of being disheartened, and not finding joy in the game.

Real talk here - I know all of you are saying you have no solutions, but this is broken and awful. Don't disagree, it's not great. But what are we on the 'winning' side supposed to do here? No longer engage? Stop logging in? I know that no one on our 'side' is loving having no competition, you find people come running at the first sign of conflict because they love a fight and are desperate for a taste of one. Not because they want to demoralise, not because they want to crush and be masters of the universe, but because pk is a large part of why they play the game, and they will take what they can of it!

I'm sad that people are leaving or considering leaving. I know it's not always skewed - firstly the 'off-peak' timequakes we're as often evenly matched or outnumbered as we are on the up side. Secondly I have also played on the losing side many times and endures round the clock raids and 'off-peak' raids, being ganked any time leaving prime, having no domoths or villages,  being a ghost town, demoralised, beat down and generally just not wanting to even play anymore. I 100% understand where you are coming from - but things did shift. People got better at their skills. People got hungry to learn and do better. New people started to come around. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is, genuinely, what can we actually do to help, and also, hang in there? Please don't give up? 

Aeldra

Sapphira said:

I completely empathise with the sentiment of being disheartened, and not finding joy in the game.

Real talk here - I know all of you are saying you have no solutions, but this is broken and awful. Don't disagree, it's not great. But what are we on the 'winning' side supposed to do here? No longer engage? Stop logging in? I know that no one on our 'side' is loving having no competition, you find people come running at the first sign of conflict because they love a fight and are desperate for a taste of one. Not because they want to demoralise, not because they want to crush and be masters of the universe, but because pk is a large part of why they play the game, and they will take what they can of it!

I'm sad that people are leaving or considering leaving. I know it's not always skewed - firstly the 'off-peak' timequakes we're as often evenly matched or outnumbered as we are on the up side. Secondly I have also played on the losing side many times and endures round the clock raids and 'off-peak' raids, being ganked any time leaving prime, having no domoths or villages,  being a ghost town, demoralised, beat down and generally just not wanting to even play anymore. I 100% understand where you are coming from - but things did shift. People got better at their skills. People got hungry to learn and do better. New people started to come around. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is, genuinely, what can we actually do to help, and also, hang in there? Please don't give up? 

No one is, in any shape, way or form, expecting people on the "winning" side (I hate the notion of sides on the ooc side of things) to stand back and not engage, because that isn't reasonable.

I agree that for a time, off-peak timequakes were still okay, but as is with declining populace, it gets less and less and for the last few I've seen, I was happy if we had like 4 or 5 people coming. I've been in a few of those situations before on this game, but I feel it wasn't quite as bad in a long time. Or maybe I'm just getting tired myself? It's extremely sad if your mindset has shifted to "please no people leaving today" when you log in from the usual "what exciting things did happened while I was not playing?" that I usually had.

Yinuish

Yeah, just want to emphasise that no one here is expecting IHC to 'fix' things. I think there's always idle thought of 'what can we do to help address this imbalance.' It's why I made Yinuish in the first place because I saw they needed people. I think it's one of those cases where there will be a point where things will click and things will improve but I think with the CURRENT state without people stopping logging in and if no one alts etc, it's going to be delayed and there won't be any fight on either side. 

Kethaera

Right, this is not the fault of any one org or player(s). It's a combination of a lot that happened since ascension. My biggest concern is that it's a problem that lingers for a long time before it ever gets better, as it did when I was on the losing side. I don't like that the game, mechanically, rewards conflict that isn't really challenging and that there's no real incentives for people to spread out across orgs. 

But I don't know what the right answer is to that. The only ideas that have come up before were unpopular ones that made just about everyone angry. And no one should feel forced to alt or join an org if that's not where they want to play. I'd do it myself before I told someone else to, and... I don't want to. The imbalance is still a problem, though.

Edit: Added to this, @Sapphira, is I completely understand where the "pkers" are coming from in going to conflict events, too, or in raiding. No one should feel bad for playing a game in a way that's fun for them (provided they aren't breaking the rules or deliberately harassing other players) but if the end result of doing that is fewer people engaging(either side), then there's a problem.

Saran

There's kinda a reality that the game encourages this? (not saying it's actually healthy for the game)
Winning means bonuses, it means villages so you have comms and the like coming in, you have bubbles so you can actually have more than one construct, you can get those nice research powers, it feels good, you get points for orgcredits. Trying to have more even fights is just... kinda inherently negative for the stronger side except for maybe being more fun for the combatants. And really, even if one side asked people to sit out if the fight started going against them... you could just call those people in.


From so much time on both sides, these are the ideas I've had over the years.

• Maybe something mechanical that encourages the strongest orgs to go against each other rather than working together. 
  
  
• Insert a step between winning and the reward for conflict. Kinda like timequakes really. Winning gives anoms, anoms go into research. Because of this you can trade, orgs can make agreements about stuff, and you can create other ways to get them.
  If you could just have additional constructs in your nexus world but there was a maintenance cost that you got from owning bubbles, then you could create other ways to get that benefit so if an org isn't doing so well in flares the leaders could focus more on the other ways and kinda hopefully make it less annoying?
  This, in theory, might also work on the "winning" side in a way? Cause if the non-com methods of acquiring benefits are exploited then, an alliance having every aetherbubble... doesn't actually do anything. 
  
  
• Alliance mechanics could help move to more structured conflict stuff? Like idk, you could make domoth stage 2 take place inside a "domoth bubble" and only five people from an alliance can enter at once. People could tag in or something, death timers might also lock out another ally from entering, etc. 

idk, for me when I was experiencing it, and even just as a non-com, when the state of alliances felt bad I wanted other ways to help my org feel good. Yes, you can rp and write and the like, but having mechanical stuff you can work to and focus on as a positive seems like it could help especially where that stuff is what you'd get from winning.


edit: just to note, was toying with this one for a while heh. so like ten new posts since I started

Yinuish

I can't see that really helping in terms of things, because it'll just mean the same five people making up death squads and that excludes people. 

There's probably a ton of small things we could do to make conflict less 'urgent' such as each org having one village that is always naturally aligned with them and it's only the others that go up for conflict. It would less pressure to try and secure something and making them less screwed when they don't/can't. 

I love combat, but I think timequakes are the -best- way to get that combat itch scratched and we could and should look at other mechanics that are less numbers mean all for the overall enjoyment and health of the game. 

Kethaera

I do like the idea of non-comm ways to help, like influencing villagers in-between ways. Only... actually make it effective. Generally, maybe a push toward conflicts that require/encourage setup that anyone can do? With conflict currently whoever has the most people logged (or can be dragged in from discord) is going to win nearly all the time. If there was something else that could be done to prepare, maybe it'd encourage people not to just wait for those pings.

Saran

Yinuish said:

I can't see that really helping in terms of things, because it'll just mean the same five people making up death squads and that excludes people. 

There's probably a ton of small things we could do to make conflict less 'urgent' such as each org having one village that is always naturally aligned with them and it's only the others that go up for conflict. It would less pressure to try and secure something and making them less screwed when they don't/can't. 

I love combat, but I think timequakes are the -best- way to get that combat itch scratched and we could and should look at other mechanics that are less numbers mean all for the overall enjoyment and health of the game. 

Sure, but on the flip side, as I understand it, at times it really can come down to X side literally just has more numbers and even with that numbers advantage the other side nearly won. It also wasn't intended as a suggestion for every conflict mechanism just a way to give some more structure to some so the impact of imbalanced org populations might be lessened in some areas.

tbh, villages might even just be less important through the economy stuff depending on which way that goes.

There's also another possible path for the "combat itch", individual focus rather than org. Rather than trying to make yet another org level conflict mechanism, maybe an answer is to make something where the only real benefit is personal that way the people participating gain something for entering but your org doesn't lose anything for not?

Kethaera said:

Right, this is not the fault of any one org or player(s). It's a combination of a lot that happened since ascension. My biggest concern is that it's a problem that lingers for a long time before it ever gets better, as it did when I was on the losing side. I don't like that the game, mechanically, rewards conflict that isn't really challenging and that there's no real incentives for people to spread out across orgs. 

Has it ever really gotten better? I was away for a while but it always seems like it's pretty much always been the case, it's just which orgs are actually impacted shuffle around.

Saran

Kethaera said:

I do like the idea of non-comm ways to help, like influencing villagers in-between ways. Only... actually make it effective. Generally, maybe a push toward conflicts that require/encourage setup that anyone can do? With conflict currently whoever has the most people logged (or can be dragged in from discord) is going to win nearly all the time. If there was something else that could be done to prepare, maybe it'd encourage people not to just wait for those pings.

hm, I think the issue with prep to impact the actual combat event is that both sides can generally do it and the more impactful it is, the more likely they will? 

I was more thinking like... claiming an aetherbubble gives your org... idk, bubblum every weave.
Performing a quest in an aetherbubble also gives your org an amount of bubblum. 
Every construct after the first in your nexus world requires bubblum to maintain. (At most equal to what you get from a bubble, or could be less than that)

This way, non-comms can contribute, if you don't win then you can focus on questing. If the winning orgs are also questing they'll likely have lessened need to actually claim the bubbles. 

Maybe there's some kinda theft mechanism so orgs that start stockpiling could be hit somehow.

Yinuish

Saran said:

Kethaera said:

I do like the idea of non-comm ways to help, like influencing villagers in-between ways. Only... actually make it effective. Generally, maybe a push toward conflicts that require/encourage setup that anyone can do? With conflict currently whoever has the most people logged (or can be dragged in from discord) is going to win nearly all the time. If there was something else that could be done to prepare, maybe it'd encourage people not to just wait for those pings.

hm, I think the issue with prep to impact the actual combat event is that both sides can generally do it and the more impactful it is, the more likely they will? 

I was more thinking like... claiming an aetherbubble gives your org... idk, bubblum every weave.
Performing a quest in an aetherbubble also gives your org an amount of bubblum. 
Every construct after the first in your nexus world requires bubblum to maintain. (At most equal to what you get from a bubble, or could be less than that)

This way, non-comms can contribute, if you don't win then you can focus on questing. If the winning orgs are also questing they'll likely have lessened need to actually claim the bubbles. 

Maybe there's some kinda theft mechanism so orgs that start stockpiling could be hit somehow.

Something like this is going to turn bubbles even more into a conflict zone. I've been jumped gathering power on bubbles before. If there's a material benefit to questing on a bubble, it's not going to be something a non-combatant can safely do if they're looking to opt-out of conflict entirely. 

This also ignores why combatants participate in combat. It's not usually because they -have- to, it's because they love combat. Generating an additional feature is not going to lessen them turning up. 

I realise this is just an example, but I think sometimes ideas are being generated based on the idea that people combat because they have to. It's a conflict game and people love the conflict. It won't actually do anything to address the issue, which is simply numbers and the -result- is lessened access to commodities. The suggestion of something like a village is just to remove the malus from not winning, not introducing more mechanics that can cause a conflict point. 

Yinuish

Kethaera said:

I do like the idea of non-comm ways to help, like influencing villagers in-between ways. Only... actually make it effective. Generally, maybe a push toward conflicts that require/encourage setup that anyone can do? With conflict currently whoever has the most people logged (or can be dragged in from discord) is going to win nearly all the time. If there was something else that could be done to prepare, maybe it'd encourage people not to just wait for those pings.

I've always thought that influencing villages should have more an impact than it does. At the moment it's a pointless exercise. But I also think it's just another conflict point while villages 'belong' to orgs while they've been claimed. I mean, some of us are going to do it anyway if it has an impact, but again it's unlikely to be real non-combatants who risk getting caught and killed. I mean, I would 100% influence villages myself. (Also why weakening, eesh. Makes more sense to flatter them to your way of thinking in the meantime) 

Kethaera

Saran said:

Has it ever really gotten better? I was away for a while but it always seems like it's pretty much always been the case, it's just which orgs are actually impacted shuffle around.

Eh. There was a time just before ascension when it seemed like numbers and combat leadership were roughly equal in many fights. It's unfortunate that the ascension fight itself was so unpleasant, both in-game and OOCly, because it had the potential to be a fun and not terribly one-sided fight. But alas.

@Yinuish is correct on the reasons why people participate in combat. I suppose what I'd really like to see is incentives for smaller-scale conflict, 2-3 on one side vs another, but only if it wasn't limited to the same two or three people every time. 

Kethaera

Yinuish said:

Kethaera said:

I do like the idea of non-comm ways to help, like influencing villagers in-between ways. Only... actually make it effective. Generally, maybe a push toward conflicts that require/encourage setup that anyone can do? With conflict currently whoever has the most people logged (or can be dragged in from discord) is going to win nearly all the time. If there was something else that could be done to prepare, maybe it'd encourage people not to just wait for those pings.

I've always thought that influencing villages should have more an impact than it does. At the moment it's a pointless exercise. But I also think it's just another conflict point while villages 'belong' to orgs while they've been claimed. I mean, some of us are going to do it anyway if it has an impact, but again it's unlikely to be real non-combatants who risk getting caught and killed. I mean, I would 100% influence villages myself. (Also why weakening, eesh. Makes more sense to flatter them to your way of thinking in the meantime) 

Yeah, and the other problem is that there is a numbers imbalance, not just a combatant level imbalance. All three IHC orgs have plenty of people, whereas on the other side it's often just Celest. I do think influencing should do more, but changing that probably won't change the imbalance. Even if I did bring it up.

Uzriel

How accurate are the activity scores in CULTURE for judging playerbase distribution?

Right now when I check I'm seeing:
Serenwilde:   14%
Magnagora:    22%
Gaudiguch:    15%
IHC:                          51%

Glomdoring:  15%
Celest:          20%
Hallifax:        11%
Air + SL:                    46%

Saran

Yinuish said:

Saran said:

Kethaera said:

I do like the idea of non-comm ways to help, like influencing villagers in-between ways. Only... actually make it effective. Generally, maybe a push toward conflicts that require/encourage setup that anyone can do? With conflict currently whoever has the most people logged (or can be dragged in from discord) is going to win nearly all the time. If there was something else that could be done to prepare, maybe it'd encourage people not to just wait for those pings.

hm, I think the issue with prep to impact the actual combat event is that both sides can generally do it and the more impactful it is, the more likely they will? 

I was more thinking like... claiming an aetherbubble gives your org... idk, bubblum every weave.
Performing a quest in an aetherbubble also gives your org an amount of bubblum. 
Every construct after the first in your nexus world requires bubblum to maintain. (At most equal to what you get from a bubble, or could be less than that)

This way, non-comms can contribute, if you don't win then you can focus on questing. If the winning orgs are also questing they'll likely have lessened need to actually claim the bubbles. 

Maybe there's some kinda theft mechanism so orgs that start stockpiling could be hit somehow.

Something like this is going to turn bubbles even more into a conflict zone. I've been jumped gathering power on bubbles before. If there's a material benefit to questing on a bubble, it's not going to be something a non-combatant can safely do if they're looking to opt-out of conflict entirely. 

This also ignores why combatants participate in combat. It's not usually because they -have- to, it's because they love combat. Generating an additional feature is not going to lessen them turning up. 

I realise this is just an example, but I think sometimes ideas are being generated based on the idea that people combat because they have to. It's a conflict game and people love the conflict. It won't actually do anything to address the issue, which is simply numbers and the -result- is lessened access to commodities. The suggestion of something like a village is just to remove the malus from not winning, not introducing more mechanics that can cause a conflict point. 

Hm, true, but also just a quick example of what I meant which is just... some other way to get that conflict resource.

There are also some pretty broad and encompassing statements here, sure there are people that love combat, there are also people that absolutely hate it and Lusternia is not a conflict game to them (I've encountered this more so recently than ever before and, really, it seems like when people gush about lusternia is it more centered on rp and lore).

Then there are the people that rest somewhere between that, people that will jump into a fight, people that feel like they need to, all sorts of potential drivers. I have shown up for numbers, because I needed to, even though I don't enjoy it I've defended just to try to be enough of a nuisance that they leave.


So, no, I'm not ignoring why some people participate in combat. The people that love combat are probably going to show up no matter what, but you can theoretically reduce the overall numbers on one side by making it less important to turn up the better you're doing so those people who aren't showing up just because they love it might stop and so the other side has less numbers to fight against.

Mboagn

We should reshuffle the alliances. Better yet, alliances should be more ephemeral and flexible overall.

No amount of mechanics can make this happen, though. It has to come from the players (and better yet, the admins via patrons). Ideally, we're all friends who play this game for fun (even though we get MAD from time to time).  So, even though it might make no sense IC, we should always be nudging our orgs into positions that would equalize whatever two sides happen to be present. Achaea does this mostly by their patrons being very grump grump when their city becomes too friendly with another city; this shuts down hard-set alliances. Lusternia, with its lower population, could settle for very loose 3v3 coalitions.

I've been reading the treaties that bind the various orgs in the game; they all read pretty much the same. And they all need to be thrown out. Ad hoc (in the moment) agreements should take their place.

Right now, for example, Gaudiguch and Serenwilde should break things off with Magnagora. Not because grr Magnagorans are evil and we hates them, but because our numbers and their numbers make up more than three quarters of the active playerbase. We should (theoretically...) be mature enough that breaking off alliances doesn't mean we dislike the players from the other org; it just means that we know it's better for the game.

The patrons would need to be very active in pushing for this, though (at least until the player culture adjusts enough that they can enforce it themselves).

TL;DR - break off hard alliances; admins pls send help


EDIT! Some conflict systems should be reworked a bit so that losing isn't so bad. Right now, for example, not having enough villages would absolutely suck for your commodities because there's no real way to get comms outside of villages.

Yinuish

Uzriel said:

How accurate are the activity scores in CULTURE for judging playerbase distribution?

Right now when I check I'm seeing:
Serenwilde:   14%
Magnagora:    22%
Gaudiguch:    15%
IHC:                          51%

Glomdoring:  15%
Celest:          20%
Hallifax:        11%
Air + SL:                    46%

Someone said the other day the score is based on novices rather than player activity overall but I don't know if that's the correct answer either. 

Also I would say a lot of our problem is that even in Celest as our most active organisation, we have a higher percentage of people who don't do combat, or are playing on their phones as compared to Magnagora. It's not a cut and dried 'people mean activity mean combatants'. That's not saying this doesn't happen in other orgs, just that when I jump across all my characters I have noticed the difference between Magnagora and Celest. 

Nelras

Mboagn said:

Right now, for example, Gaudiguch and Serenwilde should break things off with Magnagora. Not because grr Magnagorans are evil and we hates them, but because our numbers and their numbers make up more than three quarters of the active playerbase. We should (theoretically...) be mature enough that breaking off alliances doesn't mean we dislike the players from the other org; it just means that we know it's better for the game.

Sorry, even as someone on the side that currently has less people, I can't agree with this one. While it is all well and good to say that the alliances should change based on player numbers, there needs to be an IC component to any changes like this. Alliances do not exist solely for the benefit of combat. What you seem to be asking for is for the admins to outright prevent any 'hard' alliances - this would require major RP changes all around, and honestly wouldn't be enforceable. At most, alliances would move from being IC arrangements to solely being OOC, and the whole thing would feel artificial (which it would be). I don't expect anyone to be up for being told, "You are doing too well, go and help <org> instead", even less so when it comes at the cost of RP.

Jolanthe

Mboagn said:

EDIT! Some conflict systems should be reworked a bit so that losing isn't so bad. Right now, for example, not having enough villages would absolutely suck for your commodities because there's no real way to get comms outside of villages.

They also suck with villages. We are completely, utterly riding out on our stockpiles on the idea that the admin can just flip a switch to up production at any time, and I'm not necessarily looking forward to how necessary villages will feel once we get to that point (unless the economic revamp just swerves in a totally different direction). But for the time being, if you can't actively produce it through active player inputs, it is a trickle.