Ship trading

Laedha

I'm hoping that a ship trading overhaul can come up on the Garden's to-do list at some point soon. Ships are such a great part of the game, but so many aspects of sailing rely on people having reasons to sail frequently. Hunting and fishing create some traffic, but sea trading used to drive the majority of sailing. I would love to see more vibrant seas, with more opportunities for piracy and fighting against pirates, and I think having good ship trades will create that again without unbalancing the economy or creating a flood of gold. 

The main issue is that 70% of the ship trades are hugely unpopular. People wait around for the attractive trades and do them in droves, and ignore the unattractive ones. (The "attractive" trades are personal gold trades that start and end in the same harbour.) In the last 3-ish years, none of those attractive trades have come up. I'm hoping that's because the Garden is looking into what's happening with trading and maybe they will consider some ideas here!) 

Possible fixes -- What do you all think? Other ideas? How can trades be attractive for people to do and drive sea traffic without generating massive amounts of gold? 

- Update the items people can earn for the item ship trades. Bring back an old mini-pet that hasn't been seen in decades, or an old bazaar item, or a random talisman piece. Add more of an element of chance. Few people do the trades for hats or amulets, occasionally people do the kitten and bird trades, but most people who want those have them and there's not a big market for them. Some of the short trades would see more sailing if there was a chance, even a small one, for a rare item. 

- Remove the ship/personal trade distinction and overhaul the trades to make them all ship trades. That would remove the ability for people to "farm" trades by recruiting people to accept/complete. There could be gold trades more often without flooding the economy with gold. Instead of a situation where people do no trades for five months and then make 500k+ in one month, even it out a little bit.  

- Add some gold/bound credit trades that are higher value and require a strider or galley to hold enough starting cargo. I'm thinking something in the neighborhood of 400-500k trades for spices, gems, or tabac. These should be fairly rare but would be good opportunities for people to make gold and also good incentive for pirates to lurk around those starting and ending ports, which might motivate people in larger vessels to train in ship defence and sail with a crew instead of alone.

- Unrelated to trading, could we pretty please have more ship races?? 

 

Torinn

I just hate how long they take.  I used to do them fairly regularly but now can't be bothered.

Ismay

Honestly, it’s the piracy. 

Laedha

Ismay said:

Honestly, it’s the piracy. 

Maybe some changes could be made so that piracy was still lucrative for pirates but does not mean the trader wastes their whole trip. Like a successful sinking means the pirate "pillages" your cargo and gets like a quarter of what's in your hold, and you have to salvage, but still have your original cargo. 

I agree with you that being sunk sucks, but I also think piracy is a fun and interesting part of the game for some people and something that makes sailing unique and exhilarating. I would not want it to go away, but I do think the consequences of sinking are currently too high. 

Cailin

I agree that ship trades need an overhaul. It's kinda ridiculous that the majority of trades are never touched with a ten foot pole. I think all trades being "ship" is a good idea, but please don't nerf ship trades so that they aren't worth the time. It's hard for me to even find the time to do a ship trade, and I certainly wouldn't do it if the profit was much less than I'd get bashing. I think if ship trades were, on average, roughly the same as a level 80s person could get bashing in the same amount of time, that would be reasonable. 

Mathilda

The biggest issue is that if you get pirated and sunk then your 2+ hour trip is basically wasted. I actually would be interested in doing the crate trades, etc. but the huge risk as stated above makes it not worth the trouble.

Klendathu

I disagree strongly with the "make all trades ship trades" unless the rewards are increased. It's really not worth sailing today's 8 glass for 65k gold trade, starting in Thraasi and ending in Tasur'ke...

16k for the initial cargo, 2k docking fees at Thraasi, 2k docking fees at Zanzibaar, 2k docking fees at Thraasi (again), 2k docking fees at Tasur'ke is a total of 24k, plus around an hour of sailing, so that's 41k potential profit, with risk of sinking and loosing everything. I can shoot five or six seamonsters off Tapoa in the same amount of time for better returns.

Cailin

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Make them "ship" trades, sure, but up the profit so that it's still worth it.

Nazihk

I have three big problems with ships:

• The first is that getting sunk at the end of a trade completely wastes all the time spent doing that trade. In the case of islands like Suliel, Karbaz, and Orilla, that can be a lot of wasted time. Some kind of insurance or other way to ensure that sinking once doesn't ruin the preceding hour of effort would make sailing much more appealing. I don't mind sinking, and I don't mind refloating a sunk ship. What I hate is wasting all that time I just spent trading. There's a lot of trades I would like to do, honestly, for shit like the kitten and such, but it's just not worth it when getting sunk scraps all of that effort.
  
  
• The second is that most ship trades are just totally unappealing from a time/profit standpoint. I don't even mean pure gold profit, I mean that even the little knickknacks and stuff just aren't worth it.
  
  
• The third is piracy. Specifically, it's the way that piracy works around harbours. It is far too easy and rewarding to just camp safely in a harbour and wait for ships to approach. I want to stress here that my problem isn't with being sunk and it isn't with the idea of piracy.
  
  My problem is with "I am sailing to Shastaan, everything is clear, I am 5 rooms out from the dock, Jinsun undocks and opens fire from the safety of the dockside and I can't even realistically win a fight against him because he could just redock. "
  
  To combat this, I would consider maybe giving each harbour a wider docking area, maybe a 10 room radius out of it, and allow a ship to dock in the harbour from anywhere in that area as well as placing a ship that undocks in a random location in that area. The idea here is just to make it harder to gank right at the harbour. I don't have a problem if he waits in the strait betweeen Tasur'ke and Shastaan, or lurking near the entrance. What I hate is how easy it is to blockade the entrance from a position of total safety.

Torinn

What about giving an aggression timer so aggressive actions means he can't redock for a certain amount of time?

Saeva

Nazihk said:

• 
  My problem is with "I am sailing to Shastaan, everything is clear, I am 5 rooms out from the dock, Jinsun undocks and opens fire from the safety of the dockside and I can't even realistically win a fight against him because he could just redock. "
  
  To combat this, I would consider maybe giving each harbour a wider docking area, maybe a 10 room radius out of it, and allow a ship to dock in the harbour from anywhere in that area as well as placing a ship that undocks in a random location in that area. The idea here is just to make it harder to gank right at the harbour. I don't have a problem if he waits in the strait betweeen Tasur'ke and Shastaan, or lurking near the entrance. What I hate is how easy it is to blockade the entrance from a position of total safety.

Wavecall into the dock over his stupid ship.


I'm giving away the easy secrets! Stick around for more!

Laedha

Torinn said:

What about giving an aggression timer so aggressive actions means he can't redock for a certain amount of time?

Problem is that if it applies to all aggressive action, it means that if you're trading and you shoot back to try to buy yourself time, you can't dock either. I'm not sure that's a great idea. If it can be somehow coded in that it applies to the ship that fired the first shot, that might work. 

Also on the attacking from harbours thing, you can wavecall directly into a harbour. It doesn't ask you to confirm and you can jump right over somebody blocking the harbour. Sail with a shield to block the first shot or make them wavescythe before firing, be alert sailing into the harbour and get yourself lined up right as you head in, and be ready to wavecall if you see a pirate cast off. 

Mathilda

Saeva said:

Nazihk said:

• 
  My problem is with "I am sailing to Shastaan, everything is clear, I am 5 rooms out from the dock, Jinsun undocks and opens fire from the safety of the dockside and I can't even realistically win a fight against him because he could just redock. "
  
  To combat this, I would consider maybe giving each harbour a wider docking area, maybe a 10 room radius out of it, and allow a ship to dock in the harbour from anywhere in that area as well as placing a ship that undocks in a random location in that area. The idea here is just to make it harder to gank right at the harbour. I don't have a problem if he waits in the strait betweeen Tasur'ke and Shastaan, or lurking near the entrance. What I hate is how easy it is to blockade the entrance from a position of total safety.

Wavecall into the dock over his stupid ship.


I'm giving away the easy secrets! Stick around for more!

I'm 70% sure that the little whirlpool spell blocks wavecall. One of the spells, at least.

Kayeil

Maybe a questing system involving ships? So at least if you get sunk the quest doesn't get cancelled. I don't know exactly how this would be put together, maybe a set of quests it can cycle through and it picks one each year and the end result is some interesting reward. Also this should not be based on whether other people are trying to complete it, where they can screw yours up because they just started it.

Also, maybe a ship puppy... except one that doesn't die, because the dying kitten was too sad.

Rispok

Context: A while ago there were a few gold same port trades. I made some money for my house. It seemed like it was a bit much, so I asked Ictinus if things were in order. It is my unsubstantiated belief that the next weekend, a test was instituted by the Garden to test numbers and trades. This was the weekends like 2-3 months ago, and the weekend after that, where there were insane gold trades in a row.

Sent by Ictinus 2018/1/11/19:41 Hi there! Thanks for your message, we've taken a look over the specifics and I'm happy to say you're not doing anything wrong/there are no issues here. If any adjustments are made in the future, as with all systems, they would be announced.

Klendathu

Just after the Great Shrubbing, I enquired as to the legality of 'farming' trades, eg single captain sailing multiple cargoes and then getting third parties to accept / complete on one's behalf and was told it was perfectly legal too. As someone who's done this a number of times, it's not as easy as you'd think to find 11 other people to complete a ship trade for you, it can often be the only thing you get done in a gaming session. For that reason, in some ways, making all trades ship only but more profitable would actually benefit me

Laedha

I don't know about MORE profitable overall, but maybe at about the same level, just evened out. I do think that the ability to use a galley and run those short Thraasi incense trades multiple times is a little much. I don't know if you do multiple runs when those come up, and it is completely legal now, but still.... Thraasi-Zanzibaar-Thraasi-Shala-Thraasi is only an hour and a half of sailing and the profit on that in a galley is over 350k. You could do that 4 times in a month if you could get 30 people, and even if you pay them 10k each, that's over a million gold in maybe 6-8 hours. Is that ok? Maybe it is, I don't know. You have to have a galley and a lot of time. (That math is based on the trade being 6 incense for 65k, which is from memory and it could be off.) 

Mathilda

Those kinds of trades are pretty rare, though, so if you average out the span of time it takes between those trades and compare it to, say, regular bashing which you can do almost any day (with no cost of millions to buy a ship, too), it evens out.

With that said, however, I would gladly have per-ship trades if it means the better gold trades come in more frequently.

Tysandr

Can we have more starting/finishing ports?

I hate having just Thraasi/Ta'surke.

Dupre

Galleys get shafted if all deals become "ship"

All deals right now can be done with just a Cutter's cargo space, so you have to up the cargo costs so that smaller ships need to do the route more times vs. larger ships to get enough cargo.

Torinn

What if rewards were based on amount of trade good turned in at one time and the rewards rose or fell a bit to compensate?  So instead of needing 4 gems, you'll bring any gems to them and depending on the number of gems is how much reward you got.  

Laedha

Dupre said:

Galleys get shafted if all deals become "ship"

All deals right now can be done with just a Cutter's cargo space, so you have to up the cargo costs so that smaller ships need to do the route more times vs. larger ships to get enough cargo.

That's true if the deals stay the same, but deals could be added that are only possible with a strider or galley. 12 spices for 350k (96k in starting cargo, can only be done by a strider or galley). 12 gems for 450k (108k in starting cargo, can only be done by a galley).  

Rackham

I wasn't around for the Great Shrubbing, though I've heard of it. And to be fair I haven't been around long at all, but this post is up my alley so I figured I'd throw my two cents.

The trades have been pretty sucky. I really don't have time to do the gold trades that start and end in different harbors. 4 hours of sailing for a few batches of cargo isn't worth the time. . No problem running the route, but the back and forth to complete multiples is way too time consuming to be worth it. I've done a couple item trades and they are neat, but not something I'd run consistently. I like the idea of having more gold trades, however they get balanced. 

Piracy.
Never been a fan of clogging the harbor. It's way more rewarding to FIND people. But with trades being poor, reasons for sailing being few, I understand why it's done. Only reliable place to find people! I think that would fix itself if there were just more people moving out there. 

Wish I had some ideas to throw out, but like I said, I haven't been around that long! I'll let the more experienced folks balance everything. But with the state of the seas, if you are looking to turn a profit, seamonster hunting stands as the most reliable income source. 

Also, hi! I don't post on the forums ever!

Edit : been sunk pulling into a harbor. I know that isn't satisfying at all on the receiving end. Would totally be up for that just.....not being a thing.

Mathilda

I wouldn't mind if windcutters have an advantage in trading...they're already pretty gimped when it comes to seamonster hunting or, god forbid, ship combat (that's not running away).

Dupre

Laedha said:

Dupre said:

Galleys get shafted if all deals become "ship"

All deals right now can be done with just a Cutter's cargo space, so you have to up the cargo costs so that smaller ships need to do the route more times vs. larger ships to get enough cargo.

That's true if the deals stay the same, but deals could be added that are only possible with a strider or galley. 12 spices for 350k (96k in starting cargo, can only be done by a strider or galley). 12 gems for 450k (108k in starting cargo, can only be done by a galley).  

A cutter can still do those, just requires sailing the route more than once.

Kiet

wtf are y'all doing to take 4 hours for a trade deal

Ellodin

Kayeil said:

Also, maybe a ship puppy... except one that doesn't die, because the dying kitten was too sad.

from back in the day:

Releasing one last grumbling wuff, a geriatric sheepdog lies down and and rests his head upon the ground, closing her eyes for the final time.

Kayeil

Ellodin said:

Kayeil said:

Also, maybe a ship puppy... except one that doesn't die, because the dying kitten was too sad.

from back in the day:

Releasing one last grumbling wuff, a geriatric sheepdog lies down and and rests his head upon the ground, closing her eyes for the final time.

       

Laedha

I know a couple of people who are on the verge of selling their ships because they aren't making enough on trades to even cover wage costs on a strider.  There have been almost no gold trades in 5 in-game years.  The bound credit trades are nice but you can't sell them and so you still end up needing to raise gold some other way to pay crew costs. 

@Makarios @Nicola is something in the works with trading? Even if you can't get into what's going on, could you tell us if gold trades will start coming back up with any frequency? 

Nicola

The shiptrades pool picks at random which trade will run, it looks like there was a heavy spate of gold trades around December and January, now RNG has swung the other way. No plans on changes to these at this point in time.

Mathilda

Sell me a wargalley also deepsea fishing for like 1hr should be enough to cover costs for at least an RL day. All the more if you seamonster and dive.