The Big Change - Tradeskills

Jukilian

I'm not a fan of the months ticking away on these scrolls either, because I was told there was a feature and didn't get told how to use it.

Kresslack

Jukilian said:

I'm not a fan of the months ticking away on these scrolls either, because I was told there was a feature and didn't get told how to use it.

You were told there would be a feature, and lo and behold the feature has arrived. Take into consideration it arrived at the same time a ton of other features in arguably the largest live update Achaea has ever seen. It was understood going into this that some things are going to require clarification and adjustment. With that in mind, I'm confident they're doing what they can to address the gods knows how many bug tickets and messages that have started flowing from the playerbase since this update went through. Be patient.

Melodie

Definitely wish smelting was still a thing. Have a lot of random equipment sitting around and quite doubtful they'll sell. Seems like such a waste to humgii them.

Jukilian

@Malaphus‌

Message #767        Sent by Meletus

1/03/1:34 Greetings! In regard to issue 71339, the functionality isn't supported for the scrolls yet,

 as they are unique, but it'll be added in ASAP!

Kresslack

Melodie said:

Definitely wish smelting was still a thing. Have a lot of random equipment sitting around and quite doubtful they'll sell. Seems like such a waste to humgii them.

One option seems to be try to sell them first before forging new items, but the only people who would likely buy them are those who care about functionality over aesthetics. Also doing that would put a smith behind the competition, some of who likely made a quick decision to abandon all but a small reserve of their original (now standardized) wares in favour of quickly releasing new, more distinctive items while also raising their Forge rank. #Catch22

Bluef

Kresslack said:

Melodie said:

Definitely wish smelting was still a thing. Have a lot of random equipment sitting around and quite doubtful they'll sell. Seems like such a waste to humgii them.

One option seems to be try to sell them first before forging new items, but the only people who would likely buy them are those who care about functionality over aesthetics. Also doing that would put a smith behind the competition, some of who likely made a quick decision to abandon all but a small reserve of their original (now standardized) wares in favour of quickly releasing new, more distinctive items while also raising their Forge rank. #Catch22

There is so much armour out there right now as smiths raise their rank that selling really isn't a viable option. I've given away innumerable suits of armour and shields myself, so I suspect many organizations have an overabundance of donations right now too. This has basically made it so smithing will not be profitable for years to come as these piles of items sit in nondecay stockrooms awaiting sale or usage (and are likely passed over for cooler, more descriptive sets). I understand why it's been taken out, but considering the massive gold sink that the trade skill is, smelting would at least allow people to get a partial return on their initial investments as they rank up.

Shirszae

Obviously, the problem is you people giving things away for free.

Kresslack

Bluef said:

Kresslack said:

Melodie said:

Definitely wish smelting was still a thing. Have a lot of random equipment sitting around and quite doubtful they'll sell. Seems like such a waste to humgii them.

One option seems to be try to sell them first before forging new items, but the only people who would likely buy them are those who care about functionality over aesthetics. Also doing that would put a smith behind the competition, some of who likely made a quick decision to abandon all but a small reserve of their original (now standardized) wares in favour of quickly releasing new, more distinctive items while also raising their Forge rank. #Catch22

There is so much armour out there right now as smiths raise their rank that selling really isn't a viable option. I've given away innumerable suits of armour and shields myself, so I suspect many organizations have an overabundance of donations right now too. This has basically made it so smithing will not be profitable for years to come as these piles of items sit in nondecay stockrooms awaiting sale or usage (and are likely passed over for cooler, more descriptive sets). I understand why it's been taken out, but considering the massive gold sink that the trade skill is, smelting would at least allow people to get a partial return on their initial investments as they rank up.

Not only that, unless it's recently been fixed or changed (not sure if it's a bug), but while all previously forged items have all been standardized, as of last night the decay times seemed unchanged.

Sarapis

I could see putting smelting back in just because it feels so wasteful to feed your excess weapons/armour to humgii, but it wouldn't be at anything close to 50%. It'd be more of a token amount, like 10%, rounded down, which means that you'd not even get anything for smelting a lot of weapons/armor with basic/rank 1 descriptors. 

Kresslack

Sarapis said:

I could see putting smelting back in just because it feels so wasteful to feed your excess weapons/armour to humgii, but it wouldn't be at anything close to 50%. It'd be more of a token amount, like 10%, rounded down, which means that you'd not even get anything for smelting a lot of weapons/armor with basic/rank 1 descriptors. 

Even that would be better than nothing.

Malaphus

Sarapis said:

I could see putting smelting back in just because it feels so wasteful to feed your excess weapons/armour to humgii, but it wouldn't be at anything close to 50%. It'd be more of a token amount, like 10%, rounded down, which means that you'd not even get anything for smelting a lot of weapons/armor with basic/rank 1 descriptors. 

What about adding something like "a piece of steel" or something, so that smelting small items gives you a few pieces (or a single piece even), then you can later forge 10 pieces into a single steel, something along those lines.  At least then you'd get -something- for smelting down small items, even if it would take smelting 10 small  items to get back 1 steel, etc.

Melodie

Malaphus said:

Sarapis said:

I could see putting smelting back in just because it feels so wasteful to feed your excess weapons/armour to humgii, but it wouldn't be at anything close to 50%. It'd be more of a token amount, like 10%, rounded down, which means that you'd not even get anything for smelting a lot of weapons/armor with basic/rank 1 descriptors. 

What about adding something like "a piece of steel" or something, so that smelting small items gives you a few pieces (or a single piece even), then you can later forge 10 pieces into a single steel, something along those lines.  At least then you'd get -something- for smelting down small items, even if it would take smelting 10 small  items to get back 1 steel, etc.

Yes.

Yes yes yes yes yes.

Please!

Morthif

nah defeats the purpose of the system doesn't it? If you need to powerlevel you need to pay the cost

Sephem

The problem is that it's not just those that are power levelling that are being affected. 

Those of us who are not, cannot sell a thing either as the market is so flooded.

Kenway

Greetings! In regard to issue 71346, it appears that a small bit of coordinating needs to be done to properly introduce lacquer, so please stay tuned for it's inevitable introduction! For now, it's sadly unavailable!

Sena

Sephem said:

The problem is that it's not just those that are power levelling that are being affected. 

Those of us who are not, cannot sell a thing either as the market is so flooded.

Part of the problem is that everyone is taking a forging skill (right now, about 15% of the players online have one), and a lot of people are selling weapons/armour for just the comm costs (or less).

Kresslack

Sena said:

Sephem said:

The problem is that it's not just those that are power levelling that are being affected. 

Those of us who are not, cannot sell a thing either as the market is so flooded.

Part of the problem is that everyone is taking a forging skill (right now, about 15% of the players online have one), and a lot of people are selling weapons/armour for just the comm costs (or less).

The only reasoning I can find for this is to blow through the lower ranks and wait until they get a higher rank in order to offer more unique wares down the line.

Kazu

I honestly don't see the problem with a huge surplus of weapons and armour. It makes it much easier for houses to equip newbies or other members after the change. I think that it's better to treat the new forging skills similar to tailoring. Anyone can get a base or simple set for cheap. The real money will come from the later custom words.

Malaphus

Morthif said:

nah defeats the purpose of the system doesn't it? If you need to powerlevel you need to pay the cost

There would still be -substantial- cost; the goal would be just to give you a reason to do something RP-ish with your armour and weapons, rather than just feeding them to a humgii.  Giving fractions of a single comm for small items (and very few full comms for large items) would be negligible in the big scheme of things.

Kyrra

Some orgs were hard pressed to find forgers for armour and weapons to outfit novices with. All these comments about the market being flooded with forged goods just makes me think there's an opportunity there to help people out. Do they not have fancy supply chests anymore?

You also need to factor in the reduced duration on weapons and armour. They aren't going to be lasting for as long, at least.

Sena

I think forging will stabilise somewhat, once the rush of new smiths wears off, the really dedicated smiths become legendary blacksmiths and stop churning out mountains of gear for the experience, comm supplies run low, etc.

I definitely wasn't expecting it to be at all profitable right away when it's still new, so I think it's too early to say yet whether there are any actual problems that needs fixing.

Kresslack

Kyrra said:

Some orgs were hard pressed to find forgers for armour and weapons to outfit novices with. All these comments about the market being flooded with forged goods just makes me think there's an opportunity there to help people out. Do they not have fancy supply chests anymore?

You also need to factor in the reduced duration on weapons and armour. They aren't going to be lasting for as long, at least.

The decay rate wasn't altered for already forged items.

whip194102                            73     175    159        46

whip206364                            73     175    159       170

I've asked about it and am waiting to hear back.

Kyrra

@Kresslack, was referring to the new forged stuff that's saturating the market....

Kresslack

Kyrra said:

@Kresslack, was referring to the new forged stuff that's saturating the market....

Bah, ambiguity is my nemesis!

Theris

Sena said:

I think forging will stabilise somewhat, once the rush of new smiths wears off, the really dedicated smiths become legendary blacksmiths and stop churning out mountains of gear for the experience, comm supplies run low, etc.

I definitely wasn't expecting it to be at all profitable right away when it's still new, so I think it's too early to say yet whether there are any actual problems that needs fixing.

I imagine (hope) that the same will be true for harvesting: once the influx of new harvesters dies down and people's rifts fill up, there might be some plant regrowth. Right now, it reminds me of the old days before transmutation cures.

Tael

The real problem with harvesting is that far, far too many people don't value their time at all and far too many additionally fail to consider the actual economic decision to self-supply.

A ton of people are picking up harvesting because they think of it as "free" or "cheap" cures, ignoring that, especially with the lesson cost, for many of them it would be far more efficient to just buy the cures. Self-sufficiency almost always lures people into forgetting about opportunity cost.

I suspect that the actual difficulty in harvesting (everything being harvested down so much everywhere) will go away in a a couple of weeks or so.

I would be very surprised if harvesting is ever profitable again however. Since a single determined person can supply a pretty huge number of buyers, harvesting costs nothing but time, and so many people have access to the tradeskill now, I suspect we'll end up in the situation where there are enough people willing to essentially work for free or near-free that harvesting will probably never be worth the investment for anything other than RP, self-sufficiency, or because you actually like the tedium of it (which certainly some people do). And all of that makes the decision to pick up the skill to make yourself "cheap" or "free" cures even more mistaken, but I doubt it's going to stop many people.

Forging is a little bit luckier. People might actually approach forgers to get exactly the descriptors they want, which means forgers can, to some degree, set individual prices. The only real risk here is too many forgers treating it like tattoos where it's considered somehow "impolite" to charge anyone anything if they bring the required comms. We'll see whether that happens or not. And I doubt shops will see so much competition that prices will ultimately be driven too close to the cost of comms for forged goods - ten shops in a city might all be selling moss, but it's unlikely that ten are all selling a longsword with the same descriptors.

Kez

While I do wish I could smelt, I'm glad it's not possible because it would just give an artificial boost to those who are trying to level up their forging rank without actually contributing their goods in any way. In the past, smelting served the purpose of "This weapon is crap, so I'll just melt it down and try again," but now that they're all functionally identical, it would be purely to boost blacksmith level. From an RP standpoint, those who forge the most should be those who have a reason to, such as stocking a shop or supplying a military, but functionally, it's always those who have the resources to put a beating on those who don't.

For those who are legitimately concerned about the market, take comfort in the knowledge that those who are flooding it to boost their blacksmith level aren't really getting much of a leg up; they're just getting the descriptors a bit sooner that will make their forged goods cost more to forge and buy. While that may seem like a rich-get-richer scenario, consider that no matter how many people approach them for higher-level descriptors, it's not enough to make up for what they've wasted in pursuit of that. Just forge as you normally would and you'll be fine, and you won't have thrown 7 figures at being able to make pink armour once you get there.

However, I would like to be able to reforge an article using the same descriptors at no cost or gain because even once you know that descriptors 1 and 2 are reversed in the final product, it's easy to get that mixed up.

Also, being able to reforge an article with new descriptors for the cost of the new descriptors would be neat, and probably reduce the amount of unwanted things floating around. That way, I could take my shop full of lightweight, grooved forged goods and change them to something else without the deterrent of throwing away 200 pieces of armour and weapons. But again there would need to be no gain to your forging level to avoid that artificial boost.

Shirszae

@Kez Er, from an RP standpoint, it makes as much sense for some characters to simply practice their craft in order to get better at it. Thats as valid a reason as wanting to stock up a shop or supply whatever. 

Kresslack

Anyone know how to see what level their mastery of a particular descriptor is? Inquiring minds wish to know.

Kez

Kresslack said:

Anyone know how to see what level their mastery of a particular descriptor is? Inquiring minds wish to know.

forging show (descriptor)