Discussion: Commodity Production, Replacements for Duplicate/Transmute/Devastate

Eoghan

As I mentioned in a comment in the Horde Caravans thread, I'm opening this thread for discussion of commodity production generally, and replacements for the commodity-related rituals specifically.

Commodity production is intended to be balanced to require the towne figurine quest to be run and some outside influence beyond towne production (in the form of caravans and/or inter-city bartering if caravans aren't being run). This is not the case. The largest issue that I see is the ease of producing commodities via the commodity-based rituals, so as a first step toward fixing the issue and bringing it back in line with original intentions, we'll be removing these rituals. Unfortunately, we can't do that until we come up with some new ones!

This thread exists for two major purposes

1. PRIMARILY To suggest and discuss replacements for Aryana Duplicate, Moradeim Transmute and Sukhder Devastate. You can discuss why you think they should remain, but it will have to be an incredibly compelling reason, because at this point I'm pretty certain I'll remove them
2. BECAUSE IT'S RELATED Discussion of commodity production

What this thread is NOT for

1. Discussion of the Trade ministry in general. I know that it isn't most people's favorite thing, but that's a discussion for another time and place
2. Discussion about other rituals that exist (except as reference for balance when replacing the three mentioned above)
3. Discussion of Caravans (see the other thread for that)

Krysaliss

Duplicate/Transmute make my already painful life as a crafter/shopkeeper less crappy. Seeing as it is frequently a challenge to find all the commodities and frequently those commodities are outrageously priced yet required for things people who play the game don't really care about (like tailoring items), this strikes me as a problem not worth 'fixing'. 

Gjarrus

Materials feel laughably bad at producing commodities. Materials turn into comms at 1:1 or worse with a gold charge, from how I understand it. It also doesn't scale to population, whereas the rituals provide a source that does.

1. Increase city production rates dramatically, most easily done by increasing the ratio of mat:comm production. This also boosts the desirability of caravans as a hard PvP/E objective to boost production.
2. Alter the figurine quest to be a smaller boost that can be done by every player. Where caravans would have a higher impact, a few extra materials would cover basic needs for every player if they help out their city.

With that done, I could discuss changes to the rituals, but I'll come back in another post for that.

Sumie

I dunno, I feel like a lot of the damage is already done. People have a large storage of comms already from these rituals which will forever have an impact on the comms market. Taking them away now would only seem to hurt newer people. Their shops will never be able to compete with prices from people with these stockpiles. I've always thought these skills were a detriment to the game, but to take them away you also have to deal with the problem these skills created at the same time

Krysaliss

I was way late to the magic comm production bandwagon and can 100% attest to what Sumie just said. It's impossible to compete with the pricing other shopkeepers who are less lazy than me about it can afford without duplicate/transmute. 

Sumie

Also i kinda miss old caravans. I liked running caravans from cities to townes and back. Had me near top for quest exp before that got broken with cairns

Gjarrus

A ritual PvE attack would be nifty as a replacement. Helps that all 3 of those are fairly low in their trees, too.

Sumie

I also think if that Guard's need to take a different kind of comm. As it is now it would make getting food comms for shops nearly impossible. Since cities obviously want to keep all they can to provide for guards in times of desperation. So i think a new comm should be made named "Rations" which guards would use.

Ozreas

Gjarrus said:

A ritual PvE attack would be nifty as a replacement. Helps that all 3 of those are fairly low in their trees, too.

Snowballing from this and keeping to the concept of the tier 1 abilities in these trees being relevant to commodity generation: why not tie the systems together and make these abilities caravan-specific? Capturing caravans could certainly stand to be made more tolerable. Undeveloped off-the-cuff ideas:

  Aryana: Mollification: Pacifies all caravan-related mobs (including sentries) in the room for 8s. Targetting randomized afterwards.

 Moradeim: Loonacy: Transform all caravan guards into ducks for 6s. Ducks do less damage and are easier to kill.

 Sukhder: Isolation: 50% chance per caravan guard to be scared out of the room in an attempt to isolate the caravan merchant. They will return shortly after and target whoever used the ritual.

Eoghan

As this is a feedback thread started by the administration, please avoid derailing it and making off-topic posts.

Naruj

Consider an event that introduces several new commodities and defuncts the majority of others. Imperian is probably four years too far past the point of being able to 'fix' the commodity and trading market simply by removing Duplicate.

You could pretty easily slim down the trade requirements to 10-12 things that don't currently exist, and seed them through villages. I would then suggest circling back around as your next 'big project' and looking into ways to encourage people to use crafted items again.

Naruj

Related, because it's tied to commodity production:

Consider introducing several 'help the towne' quests that result in some amount of raw production or finished commodities. One of the major issues with Duplicate is that it was 'free'. People were bashing anyway, and Faith was so easy to get, that commodities became a bonus reward. There is nothing necessarily wrong with allowing players to earn commodities outside the Trade system in exchange for time, you just have to gate them appropriately.

Quests would let players directly contribute, help with economy scaling, and let traders earn the things that they need to make niche stuff without spending a fortune. You can also restrict them with a cooldown, townes don't need help constantly, if you want to limit the amount of comms that come out of this method.

Kyraic

I honestly think Imperian would be better off if it sort of just quietly stepped away from the entire commodity system.

Seriously. There's no actual economy with them. No trading between factions, no worries about trade routes or commerce raiding or your mines running out. No worries about crop blights or balancing your resources.

Basically the economic system is missing anything that might make it interesting. It isn't even an effective gold sink. Its nothing but bookkeeping. You go turn a crank that magically turns gold into resources.

Before you go putting all the work into revamping the system, I think it would be worthwhile to ask if the system is worth revamping.

Sumie

I don't know what the best case scenario, but I'm the type that loves to play harvest moon.

So if we do end up with a commodity revamp. Let us have farms to harvest and grow our own food. Mining to go mine our own ores or cutting trees for tradeskills. Basically let townes create the materials a city would use(rations, stone, wood etc) and individuals to make the items required for tradeskills. The comms made by townes would then have carried to the city by a caravan. The caravan would either start when a towne is full on resources or a trade aide could start it early so that players can defend it. Creates a situation where an enemy can starve a city for resources if not done properly.

Krysaliss

@Sumie - I am soooo down for a Harvest Moon esque commodity generating system. 

Kyraic

Sumie said:

Creates a situation where an enemy can starve a city for resources if not done properly.

This never works well in these games.

Basically, this ties the happiness of your noncoms to the skill of their fighters. Imagine if your ability to do crafting was dependent on your fighters ability to keep Septus from stealing your caravans. 

Owyn

@Kyraic I'm pretty sure this kind of logic is exactly what got raiding made useless for a while before they made it what it is now.

Dimitri

Sumie said:

I don't know what the best case scenario, but I'm the type that loves to play harvest moon.

So if we do end up with a commodity revamp. Let us have farms to harvest and grow our own food. Mining to go mine our own ores or cutting trees for tradeskills. Basically let townes create the materials a city would use(rations, stone, wood etc) and individuals to make the items required for tradeskills. The comms made by townes would then have carried to the city by a caravan. The caravan would either start when a towne is full on resources or a trade aide could start it early so that players can defend it. Creates a situation where an enemy can starve a city for resources if not done properly.

I've been in a game that had a system VERY similar to what you're asking. There's two problems with that, people who like to do the monotonous commodity grind are very rare in my experience, and secondly- all it will do in the distant future is generate some REALLY  smart commodity people (looking at you EveOnline) and no one will be able to go anywhere but some city that has everyone enemied just because they hold all the comm cards and are declaring themselves winnarz.
Now Imperian is different from said unmentioned game, multiclassing is possible. So everyone can have a tradesman in their back pocket to prevent the inevitable reliance on those who really like to dig in the dirt (its bad news when they all disappear for one reason or another) and raiding works much better here than it did there.
So... I have my reservations about it, but i'm not against the idea you put up.

Anette

Speaking as someone who actually tries to do the Trade Ministry in Antioch rather than just coasting on a title, the costs of production vastly outstrip the potential net income from the commodities.  A profitable trade ministry is basically only possible if you are selling only to non-citizens, and not upkeeping guards and the other internal drains on commodities like siege and supplying professions.  The game's economy has been imploded for a while, and this very much is at the core of it.  The caravans change might have made it less boring, subjectively, but it also ruined the economy, not to mention the introduction of smelters.

Zerin

Antioch has so many commodities that you shouldn't need to be spending anything, just releasing more for sale.

Dimitri

Any news on what this thread developed into for the devs?

I want to put out the idea to increase the number of commodities you can get out of the caravans if we drop the fancy ritual and aspect powers to increase commodities. They'd be a good way for some cities to supplement their normal commodity flow since each towne seems to have a particular material they're weak in as a whole. Perhaps a portion of raw materials from caravans instead of the refined commodities? I've never done the caravan raid, so I'm not sure what comes of it.

Eoghan

As far as the removal of rituals, it's something that I'm punting down the road until around classlead time.

With regard to towne production and caravans, that was the original intent: townes alone would not be quite enough to meet all of the demands of city production, and caravans would be required to bridge the gap.

Anette

Eoghan said:

As far as the removal of rituals, it's something that I'm punting down the road until around classlead time.

With regard to towne production and caravans, that was the original intent: townes alone would not be quite enough to meet all of the demands of city production, and caravans would be required to bridge the gap.

Sure, but that was the intent for a system developed around a much larger player base.

I think the problem here isn't production, it's pools and the artificial creation's effect on the economy.  Since the smelter and terranium are basically cost-less (excepting for time) there's no way the cities can compete.

The thing with commodity production though is the cost to produce isn't representative of the actual value/use of many of the commodities at all.  I was experimenting with this the other day since getting funds released for the trade ministry in Antioch happens once in a blue moon, and some of the commodities you can make seem disproportionately expensive.  Coal in particular was a real sticking point, but there's a handful of others.

Since this economy has several feeds (town/city production, terranium/smelter holders, duplicate/transmute ritual, just to name the main three), I think it's important to consider the effects the change(s) proposed to one of them would have on the other.  I wouldn't really personally change the terranium or smelters, and Im on the fence with the sect rituals, but wee could probably make Trade ministry less of a PITA IMO.