Preserving Economic Viability of New Trade Skills

I'm really hoping that when the new trade skills are rolled out, they include some mechanism to protect them as actual, viable *trade* skills for the portion of the player base that needs to get an actual return from such skills.  If I'm a financially well-off player with an eye to make friends, and move up in my orgs, and there are no serious downsides to providing my trade skill free to others, it's a no-brainer.  Doing *just* that isn't going to mean advancement, but it makes absolute sense as part of an overall approach, and that is always going to be harmful to the actual market (because in Achaea enough of us are artificially "rich" to matter).  I'm not trying to push admin to run Achaea as some sort of charity, but Achaea does have sort of a unique game economy, and having more people who are trying (and succeeding) at making some actual gold tends to make for better and more consistent service availability than my fellow credit whore who is doing it "to be nice".  If this is something enough people care about, the next question is, what's the best way to make it actually work?  How do you make it unattractive for us credit whores to curry "good will" by providing free or nearly free services?  
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  • While I don't agree with the end goal for the reason I stated in the other thread (it's a result of player decisions), looking at it from a perspective of 'how would this be done?' the implementation would be difficult. It's impossible to make it to where someone 'has' to keep gold, so the goal would have to be to discourage it through some method or another.

    I don't have many ideas, and I see flaws in all of these ideas, but this is all I could come up with on short notice:

    A simplified selling/buying system, more readily available than shops. Major problems here: people paid a ton for shops and if this devalues them, all that is lost.

    With or without the above: ways to store services so they can be bought. 'Runestones' for runes, for example. Also, some sort of system where someone can purchase a tailor/jeweller's services, but they are the ones billed (with an extra fee for not being a tailor/jeweller but requesting a design, a fee that goes to the artisan who created the design). Things like that.
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  • Frankly I think cheap or free services do screw up the people that are trying to make money on their skills. I have a poo-ton of credit investment that I could never make back in-game. But I still charge 1500+ per waterwalking despite it costing me 800, because that's how business works. I do generous things sometimes, but when people seek me out for something I specifically can offer, I make it clear that I'm not an errand boy and the cost includes both goods and services.

    If they want a custom tailoring design for only the cost of the design and the comms, they're welcome to buy their own tailoring license.
    I don't think conc/trans/forging/enchantment/venoms(?) should cost the full 200cr that tailoring/jewellery/cooking do, since the latter offer a greater creative impact on the game environment as well as requiring volunteer/admin time to approve designs.
    The class tradeskills should probably go for more like 50cr for a license.
    I like my steak like I like my Magic cards: mythic rare.
  • I do think separating the skills out in the first place will help somewhat in and of itself, whether that was one of admin's considerations or not.  But yes, we're still stuck with things like runes and totems, and equivalent useful things other classes have that aren't technically trade skills.  I can sort of make peace with those, as runes need to be applied quickly (and probably for free) to large groups in raid situations, and totems... well, maybe someday something something.  

    Anyway, back to some sort of attempt to preserve the new skills that *will* be considered trade skills.  Part of the answer might lie in creating artificial costs (in this case not monetary) that would be palatable enough to someone trying to drum up some gold, but unpalatable to most "independently wealthy" Achaeans.  There needs to be a downside to providing the services that is sufficiently annoying to someone who just wants to "make nice" (I'm not trying to be mean, I think nearly all of us do it) and that quite frankly helps makes it seem rather bold to ask for free services.  Unfortunately, I already know that probably wouldn't be enough on its own.  Enough people would be quite content to still provide the free services, and forgo hunting, exploring, or whatever else, because they already do.  

    Another option that could be used with or without the above is to limit the number of "services" a person can provide to others in a given time period.  At least the people giving free services will run out of "charges" and users will be forced to look elsewhere, and hopefully end up reinforcing the idea of services as a thing that is paid for.  This obviously has some cons, but might end up as a lesser evil.  

    Whatever the answer is probably does involve some mechanics, but its ultimate goal is to change what is and isn't socially acceptable when it comes to "freebies".  I totally agree that the second part can't be ignored.  
  • I think self-restraint is pretty much all you need. If you like being a doormat or encouraging newbies to expect doormats, then I guess give free services.
    I like my steak like I like my Magic cards: mythic rare.
  • I've always wondered how the economy of Achaea hasn't completely capsized with the unlimited commodity supply that's currently in place, and the unlimited amount of gold that can be obtained. 

  • I've always wondered how the economy of Achaea hasn't completely capsized with the unlimited commodity supply that's currently in place, and the unlimited amount of gold that can be obtained. 
    Effort vs. reward I'd say, though that is merely speculation on my part.  Nobody (that I know) REALLY wants to stand there watching text forging go by for like 10 hours. So I think what keeps things in check is there's just barely enough people not making stuff, in my example forging, to keep costs somewhat within reason rather than dirt level low.  I'd never expect comm cost for any item from that skillset EVER...now I don't really know anything about tailoring/enchanting/etc. etc.

    Is the upcoming model going to a similar system for tailoring where you buy licenses for your crafting skills though?
  • Best answer so far based on what Tecton said last year: No, you won't need licences for most of them. Likely only the ones where you submit designs (so tailoring, cooking, jewellery) will require licences, much as they are now, I assume because there's also admin time involved in reviewing and approving them. There will be a limit to how many crafting skills you can pick up, though exactly what that number will be hasn't been stated.
  • KyrraKyrra Australia
    Antonius said:
    Best answer so far based on what Tecton said last year: No, you won't need licences for most of them. Likely only the ones where you submit designs (so tailoring, cooking, jewellery) will require licences, much as they are now, I assume because there's also admin time involved in reviewing and approving them. There will be a limit to how many crafting skills you can pick up, though exactly what that number will be hasn't been stated.
    That's kind of lame with the tailoring/jewellery/cooking abilities. Part of why I picked those up is to make my own things, and be able to submit my own designs. If they cut down how many licences you're allowed to own, I've expect a full refund of the credit licence cost plus lessons invested. I never liked that aspect of Lusternia where the tradeskills are so limited, and are restricted further by class.
    (D.M.A.): Cooper says, "Kyrra is either the most innocent person in the world, or the girl who uses the most innuendo seemingly unintentionally but really on purpose."

  • As far as I know the intention is to just stop people from having literally every trade skill possible and not needing to interact with anybody else for anything at all ever. I imagine you'd still be able to pick up cooking/tailoring/jewellery (or just keep them if you already have them, depending on how they do the refunds) as well as one or two of the newly-divorced-from-classes trade skills. The licensed skills may not even apply to the limit, there's really no way to know at this point because there haven't been any concrete details yet, only statements from Tecton on how he thought it would work at that moment in time.
  • And never mind shops. Purely luxury item. The closest you'll get to making the money back is by renting them out, ironically.
    I like my steak like I like my Magic cards: mythic rare.
  • KyrraKyrra Australia
    Xith said:
    And never mind shops. Purely luxury item. The closest you'll get to making the money back is by renting them out, ironically.
    I think shops are more profitable if you're able to stock items with no expense to yourself. And by expense, I don't mean time factored into doing things, but having to pay for things that are otherwise not attainable yourself.

    Things like tuns set people back a lot as well. I think it's a million or two million gold for a set of twelve to cover just one set of curatives.
    (D.M.A.): Cooper says, "Kyrra is either the most innocent person in the world, or the girl who uses the most innuendo seemingly unintentionally but really on purpose."

  • @Xith : You don't understand why we do it for free...
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  • edited February 2014
    Kyrra said:
    Xith said:
    And never mind shops. Purely luxury item. The closest you'll get to making the money back is by renting them out, ironically.
    I think shops are more profitable if you're able to stock items with no expense to yourself. And by expense, I don't mean time factored into doing things, but having to pay for things that are otherwise not attainable yourself.

    Things like tuns set people back a lot as well. I think it's a million or two million gold for a set of twelve to cover just one set of curatives.
    Yeah it doesn't help that those tun shops all price their elixirs at 200 per as well. I priced the single health tun I had at 450 and it still sold like candy for quite a while. It only stopped selling because I'm not a forestal and at one point I ran out of stock.
    People will always return to your shop if you have everything they need. So two health/mana tuns and one of everything else, price up to wherever you want (cause remember, it's a shop) and you will still get every customer you ever had.

    The reason nobody can make their shop investment back is because people make their prices far too low and nobody can compete with someone who values their shop at nothing.

    That being said, I hope there isn't a limit to your number of tradeskills. People who are all-out merchants with shops and services to run shouldn't be limited and have to still buy from others.


    EDIT: Yes, Siduri, it does make the world burn.
    I like my steak like I like my Magic cards: mythic rare.
  • edited February 2014
    From what I can see of 'trade skills' to be divorced from classes we have:
    Concoctions,
    Transmutation,
    Forging, and
    Enchantment

    If those end up the only skills that get divorced from classes, I could see them limiting it to two of the four, and not allowing both Concoctions and Transmutation, for lore reasons..

    Ren, personally, would quickly pick up Transmutation and Enchantment. She'd consider Forging, if the limit ended up being three of the four, which I sincerely doubt.
  • Venoms is also being split off, unless the plan has changed in the last few months. There will probably also be a couple new tradeskills added.
  • Yeah, serps should totally have necklace of purity AND shrugging. 

  • Ah, forgot about venoms. With Five divorced trade skills, and two that I could not imagine allowing you to have both, I could see the limit going two or three. More if they do in fact create new tradeskills.

    Personally, I understand not wanting one person able to milk venoms, forge armour, enchant items, and farm either herbs or minerals. Even though I would love to be able to do everything short of the venoms.
    As @Sarapis said, the essence of being a Merchant, is making business connections with producers willing to sell for less than they would get selling to the public themselves while still making a profit themselves, a la wholesale, then doing the selling to the public yourself. If one person can simply make all of it, it takes out the realness of the economy.

    In Example, Best Buy does not manufacture their Video Games, or Blu Rays, or Music CD's, they buy them in bulk from a Distributor, or from the manufacturer directly.
  • VayneVayne Rhode Island
    Transmutation takes a ridiculous amount of time between extracting, synthesising, and transmutating. Prices for minerals have found a balance naturally between what people are willing to pay and what alchemists are willing to sell for I think, but I think supply far outweighs demand at this point, at least from my perspective. The change in extraction sites multiplied the amount of primes available at any given time times the number of alchemists so that there is now no competition for resources whatsoever.
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  • I can't see any viable way to keep trade skills economically sound while allowing every class to have access to the skill.  This honestly just seems like a bit of a plot from IRE to get more credit sales. 

  • Vayne said:
    Transmutation takes a ridiculous amount of time between extracting, synthesising, and transmutating. Prices for minerals have found a balance naturally between what people are willing to pay and what alchemists are willing to sell for I think, but I think supply far outweighs demand at this point, at least from my perspective. The change in extraction sites multiplied the amount of primes available at any given time times the number of alchemists so that there is now no competition for resources whatsoever.
    Clearly the solution is to recruit more alchemists. Vayne, hop to it!
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  • VayneVayne Rhode Island
    I recruit them left and right!
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  • I can't see any viable way to keep trade skills economically sound while allowing every class to have access to the skill.  This honestly just seems like a bit of a plot from IRE to get more credit sales. 

    I think your problem might be thinking that's currently the case, to be honest.
  • How can this be good for anything, economically speaking? You'll be flooding the market, making prices drop on all trade skill items. Furthermore, you'll be removing people from the market altogether. Why buy herbs when I can just get concoctions and make my own? Plus my enchantments. I'll be set. I just won't make any money off my trade skills. And neither will anyone else.

  • @Tecton how are you going to keep things from getting dirt cheap once everyone starts flooding the markets? 

  • TectonTecton The Garden of the Gods
    As I mentioned above, it's not something we're going to artificially control with price minimums. Anything on our end will be managing and balancing the availability of resources required for all of the new and split tradeskills.

    I'm sure that there will be a lot of fluctuation in the market as soon as the new system comes in, but it will level itself out over time.
  • SkyeSkye The Duchess Bellatere
    edited February 2014
    @Mithridates speaking from experience after autoclass caused a giant influx of rogue forestals harvesting all the ginseng in sight and everyone was doing health refills for practically nothing,* it eventually evens out. It will never be the same price as it used to be, but it sorts itself out after a while.

    *Some idiot, can't remember his name but pretty sure he was one of the hundreds of freshly rogued forestals, had the gall to complain that he was being 'put out of business' after the fact (and celebrating with 'lol f u Oakstone prices!!111!!!'.) Those recommended prices had been put there for a reason even if they were in dire need of reviewing. But like I said, it eventually self regulated even without a price list.

    I would have loved the idea of some kind of cartel RP, fixing prices and what not, but it's so hard to enforce in the game.


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