Volume I: Markets & Prices

[fellentier]

Link to Volume 1: Markets & Prices (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SPp74-kdAhwUP0XW0vNk5MNbqWxUHBUswtlpb_WLzfY/edit?usp=sharing)
Advanced isn't working for me atm, here is the direct hyperlink to the new adendum: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MoChE7UVs4Syygfzfc1sflRLY0W4vbH8ZqS4MDToWIk/edit?usp=sharing
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MoChE7UVs4Syygfzfc1sflRLY0W4vbH8ZqS4MDToWIk/edit?usp=sharing)
Introduction


I would like to thank everyone that has taken the time to debate their opinion. All sides from all avenues of experience are both welcome, and appreciated. There has been a lot of constructive commentary along the way and I believe that we can further this discussion to create a very useful set of data to pull from. I have edited this first post to now represent a summary of the first six pages so that new readers can get a gist of the types of thoughts and ideas that are being thrown around. Many of the responses are very lengthy, so if you feel that I have misrepresented your post in the following TLDRs, please provide me with a chance so that I can better approach your thoughts.


Summary of Thoughts


ProfessorCat (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?348-ProfessorCat)
"I wanted to start a discussion about the player market, and craft abilities. It's too easy to level craft gear, and that is why it just makes sense to take care of yourself for now. The same is true for most things in the game. The market is still growing into itself. A ton of players have checked out to say "yeah I'm not going to do cheese making because it's too intense to level" Is it any surprise there's a healthy market for stomachs? I'm sure the same will come true for other skills, as the cost becomes so high. --- I'm certain the intention will be along the lines of "oh look, I just spent 600 million on unlocking level 100. It will now be 2 months before I've earned enough experience to even be able to unlock level 110, and now I need a billion."


Aionlasting (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?293-Aionlasting)


"I recall the solution to this panther paradox --- from another game --- If a player too high level killed lower mobs to butcher/skin them in Ac2, the corpse would be 'mutilated' and the higher level player could not gain any craft materials from it. This forced higher level players to fight monsters of equivocal difficulty in order to obtain their crafting materials. This removes the need to eliminate the profability of lower level gained materials while also constraining higher level players to appropriate content for the same materials --- In terms of a 'headhunting' system and 'lateral progression', I do agree there should be something of that nature."

"You could make certain animals drop certain types of skin (instead of making higher level animals drop higher quality [tiered] skins) and simply require more skinning amounts for higher crafted tier gear. You could add complexity and variety by requiring various skins (i.e. panther, tiger, bear, etc... but NOT higher TIER because then we are back to our original problem) or simply introduce a whole new material like tallow, chitten, sinew, bone or w/e you want as long as you avoid making tiered versions that make previous version obsolete. The 'lateral progression' as opposed to 'vertical progression' of things as the author liked to say."



Oqua (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?2667-Oqua)


"I like the idea of diminishing returns with AoE, if you for lack of a better term "try and game the system" however I really do not like the potential blow back it could have on intended designs. "

As a gardening/tailor I knew I was taking the low end of the making money strategy and I was ok with that. I told myself and others that it was removing as much RNG as possible, and removing the possibility that panthers would be camped etc.
---- "I regret my choice to some extent after having seen the numbers laid out in such a manner. When I consider all the work I put in to “make money?” and look at the panthers even a worst case situation, not to mention the fringe benefits of making money by combat, I cant help but feel mislead. A lot of MMO have a “crafting” aspect, its usually just there, part of my draw to PG was the idea that crafting has a purpose and point but more so could compete with the combat enthusiasts as it stands I do not see that. "


sudostahp (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?450-sudostahp)

I'm --- against any changes that restrict player freedoms. That includes restrictions on hunting areas and play styles --- I still feel that loot locking has done more damage to the community than it has benefited the community through balance. Project Gorgon is a sandbox in a sea of themepark MMOs, and the more that design aspect gets watered-down, the further it floats into a sea of mediocre competitors where it just gets lost. --- What we most desperately need isn't a nerf to AOEs --- we need more incentives to grind other areas that offer a similar level of reward. I fully support Ladriel's suggestion to increase loot drop value in later dungeons."

"I don't know if vendor trash is the way to go, but I'm open to the idea."
" --- Let's treat crafters as a business. In order for a business to be competitive, it needs to offer a product that's valuable, rare, inimitable, and the business needs to be organized to produce the product. Allowing crafters to specialize in items with different effects would shift crafting closer to the player market and away from needing to rely on work orders. I think that the "crafting wisdom" idea is a real gem, and I'd like to see it further explored."

​

Aionlasting (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?293-Aionlasting)
"You could make certain animals drop certain types of skin (instead of making higher level animals drop higher quality [tiered] skins) and simply require more skinning amounts for higher crafted tier gear. You could add complexity and variety by requiring various skins (i.e. panther, tiger, bear, etc... but NOT higher TIER because then we are back to our original problem) or simply introduce a whole new material like tallow, chitten, sinew, bone or w/e you want as long as you avoid making tiered versions that make previous version obsolete. The 'lateral progression' as opposed to 'vertical progression' of things as the author liked to say."

Mikhaila (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?2727-Mikhaila)
"I'm going to disagree with your opinion that skinning is the problem, not panthers. You made a perfect build for doing panthers. Panthers have a high population, and a good spot to do AOE with room to run. You spend hours and hours doing it. Skinning isn't the problem. It's the combination of things resulting in a cash cow that many people build towards. You've found a way to maximize it and after months of doing it feel it's a problem. I agree, because if one way to make money is many times greater than anything else, it should be toned down. But do it with a scalpel, and not a large brush. You want to change an entire skill that is not OP for everyone else, just the people farming panthers with AOE builds."


Crissa (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?15-Crissa)

"It wouldn't be so difficult to trigger dense spawns on player engagement, would it? So if there's one player engaging the panthers, they respawn slowly, two, a little quicker, and so on; increasing the density of mobs based upon players engaging with them? That would save server power (not tracking so many panthers while players are elsewhere) and helping bring up the engagement of the second or third player trying to play in the zone? --- The profitability of panthers is directly related to their density and spawn rate. If they're so notably different, that would be the simplest fix. It would also send skin-and-sell across the zones, spreading out the impact and making more zones options for someone trying to do this path. Changing the panthers may solve the three problems you mentioned: That more than one person at the panthers reduces their profitability so much; that panthers are more profitable than other spawns; that panthers are more profitable than other crafts."





"If panthers aren't notably different than other skinning situations... Then yeah, maybe it's skinning. But the simplest is that maybe the place you can round up twenty of the same skinnable mob so easily is maybe outside what was calculated for."


Tagamogi (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?90-Tagamogi)

The proposed AOE change makes sense but I enjoy the existing aoe. There aren't that many places in the game that allow crazy aoe and I get quite a kick out of collecting a bunch of zombies in Kur Tower and aoe'ing them down. And a good laugh when I miscalculate again and the zombies kill me before I kill them, which is pretty frequently. So, game balance-wise, your change is better, but argh, the current system is fun.
"Head-hunting sounds more grindy than fun to me. It's possible it could be fun, I'm just not getting it."
"I also don't get the idea of experience strikes. Experience is generally not something I greatly care about. I enjoy leveling, so getting xp bonuses that shorten the time I spend leveling seems like a backwards fun proposal to me in general."
"Pacifist town, likewise not getting it. It sounds like mostly it would encourage me to afk in game until I meet the time requirements, or to create an alt in order to suck up the town's benefits."
As someone who likes crafting, I feel that crafting in PG is in a very happy spot already. "



Celler (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?582-Celler)
"Don't really see point in touching skin prices especially lower down as it will impact favor returns for new players.I think the Report Ladriel produced is both sound and of value, but frankly feel there are better things for most players to do than farm panthers continually and if there isn't then surely there missing out on much of the game. To me it's like the players that say I have max leather working, I did recipe A 4500 times and recipe B 7500 times, how cools that. To me it maybe a cheap option and they have the lvls but who wants to play a game like that, not me anyways."

Asashoryu (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?1263-Asashoryu)
"Assuming the issue with higher level mobs not being sufficiently rewarding for upgrade costs is addressed, why not add a variation on a trivial loot system instead to mitigate dominant low-level AE farming by grossly over-skilled players. Something of the nature where mob items (dropped loot) and corpses (harvestable loot) have an increasing chance to be forfeited when attacking with a spell or ability >N levels higher than the mob 'level'."

Arundel (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?1161-Arundel)

"--- More grinding spots "

"Make PLAYER merchants goods easier to identify in a timely manner"

"Rewarding feeling from an action = continued motivation to repeat behavior"
"NPC merchants
A whole other issue with NPC merchants as a reliable "backup" measure for this failure in the economy is that player merchants "cycle" items. As more types of items that NPC takes are sold to him, he filters out the items one by one at the top. These items are often not useful at all (one of the few junk items) or have so few uses that they could sit on that merchant, but you may need them in high quantity and just not quite get there in time. This is not by itself a problem and I'm not sure it should be changed - but combined with the other issues listed above it has its own impact. "


ArkadyRandom (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?77-ArkadyRandom)

" ---- powerful characters shouldn't trivialize content. ---- zones could have effective power caps so that it's not the high numbers, but the greater toolset that makes the character more adept in those zones. Say a zone has a power cap of 25. A newer less developed (low level) character would have fewer skills and combat options. Their skills and power would be less fleshed out. A more developed character would have more skill lines, better skills, and they would be operating at their power cap for that zone. Additionally the more developed character would have the gear and procs that give them a veteran edge compared to the "lowbie". They're still going to mow through content faster, much faster, but it's not going to be trivially faster and if they play poorly they'll die."
"In any event, whatever the team comes up with I'm hoping there will be a happy balance between trivializing content and restrictive play. The end result needs to be fun and feel natural, not jarring."









User Comments


ProfessorCat (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?348-ProfessorCat)
"Great article, and great effort on it, @fellentier (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?u=561). I read the entire thing."
Citan (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?59-Citan)
"This is an interesting read, thanks!"
3lfk1ng (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?3350-3lfk1ng)
"I think that it's very thorough and shows how much you care for the success of this title. Thank you for your contribution."
sudostahp (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?450-sudostahp)
"Thanks for the thoughtful post, Ladriel."
Hubris (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/member.php?3525-Hubris)
"=) Great post!"

[ProfessorCat]

Great article, and great effort on it, fellentier. I read the entire thing.

I wanted to ask about a couple points you made. First I agree with the panther issue. That takes a lot for me to admit, because skins are how I make the bulk of my money (though from wolf cave, not panthers) However i see a flaw in the proposed value of the tanned hides. If you purchase a stack of skins and a stack of powder, you would be able to turn a profit without actually having to hunt any skins yourself. You could buy all the pieces and make a couple thousand off the vendor - with little effort. Yes you would dump their favor pool for a modest pool of money, but a cost/profit ratio would still be worth it.

Second I wanted to start a discussion about the player market, and craft abilities. Now I don't know the future plans for cost of unlocking skills, but if it follows in line with the jump from unlocking 50-60 combat skills, and then 60-70 combat skills, then I foresee the market actually being fine how it is. Unlocking 50-60 costs roughly 20k, then 3-8k to unlock each skill. unlocking 60-70 costs roughly 200k, then 15-20k to unlock each skill. If this 10x increase continues (which part of me hopes it does) then you can expect 80 costing 2 million, 90 costing 20 million, etc.

I believe the large price hike makes sense. This is a MMO, and the basis of MMO's are very grindy. Consider I have been playing the game for a year and a half. In that time, I've not only funded my own skills, I can bust out up to 300k in a long day of just selling gear I find while dungeon grinding/leveling combat skills, and usually can get enough money as I'm leveling the skill to unlock all parts of it, including favor from the vendors who train the skill.

If the next time around, its going to cost me 2 million to unlock my favorite combat skill to level 80, then I most certainly will not be able to have all the skills mastered that I do right now. I'm sure this is the intention. Just because you CAN unlock everything, doesnt mean that you can afford it, or that it's worth it.

If this happens in the future, Me offering 200 million for a max enchanted yellow suit is going to be a lucrative deal for two people. 200 million for a level 90 max enchanted gear set will obviously be resource intensive to train a crafting skill to, and likely expensive as well. Maybe that crafter can't afford to unlock combat skills because of it, and It's too late for me to want to level up Leathermaking because I stopped it at level 30.

The point is; It's too easy to level craft gear, and that is why it just makes sense to take care of yourself for now. The same is true for most things in the game. The market is still growing into itself. A ton of players have checked out to say "yeah I'm not going to do cheese making because it's too intense to level" Is it any surprise there's a healthy market for stomachs? I'm sure the same will come true for other skills, as the cost becomes so high.

The low cost of leveling skills at a low level (as there's supposed to be 120 levels, level 70 is still only half way there) this gives players a cheap rout to decide what skills they DO want to focus on, as the higher levels become available.

On a similar note of the exponential increase of gold cost, For those of us who have leveled a skill to 70 (or higher with bonus levels) those last few levels are pretty burtal. I can no longer crank them out in a half hour of efficient farming. As the new levels are released, I'm certain the intention will be along the lines of "oh look, I just spent 600 million on unlocking level 100. It will now be 2 months before I've earned enough experience to even be able to unlock level 110, and now I need a billion."


Please note, all the numbers I'm throwing out are loony toon numbers, that I secretly hope are in the ballpark of how expensive/hard things will become. I want this to be an MMO I can feel accomplished with, and have reason to keep playing for years and years to come. Once I finally unlock my ultimate build, the idea of having a secondary build seems silly. I'd just make a new character, and do it as a Fae, or a Dwarf. Citan has said before that this game is not intended to have only one toon you play. I see my theory fitting in line with most of what has been said, and what I have observed.

[Citan]

This is an interesting read, thanks! I'll be mulling some of this and watching the discussion here. (And maybe commenting in a bit, after this update gets out.)

[Aionlasting]

Please forgive me if I commit the unpardonable sin here as I did not READ the ENTIRE document as the author requested. I did this for good reason though. I recall the solution to this panther paradox or problem from another game... yes... Asheron's call 2.

The solution is that if a player too high level killed lower mobs to butcher/skin them in Ac2, the corpse would be 'mutilated' and the higher level player could not gain any craft materials from it. This forced higher level players to fight monsters of equivocal difficulty in order to obtain their crafting materials. This removes the need to eliminate the profability of lower level gained materials while also constraining higher level players to appropriate content for the same materials. In otherwords, if a player is lets say.. 8 combat levels higher than the monster he engages, then that monster corpse is mutilated and any attempt to butcher/skin the corpse will yield no materials.

Citan would be familiar with this solution. I think a system similar to this would go a long way to fixing this problem, if it is a problem at all.... now.. I will continue reading.

Edit: In terms of a 'headhunting' system and 'lateral progression', I do agree there should be something of that nature. I.E. Credits that could be spent to increase things like inventory space, magic find, resource yields, maybe runspeed , a talent tree of sorts, that wouldn't affect direct power of the player but would allow them to progress in other areas once they have reached their cap. This would be wonderful. I don't know how I feel about having special mobs that need to be hunted or tokens kept in the inventory. All that needs to be done is have all extra xp that goes beyond the cap of the combat skills currently active be put towards a pool that can be used to purchase credits (which become exponentially more expensive with each purchase) and these credits can then be used to purchase those 'lateral progressions' as you put it.

[3lfk1ng]

I saw your post on Reddit and after reading through it, I think that it's very thorough and shows how much you care for the success of this title. Thank you for your contribution. To be perfectly honest, I'm not far enough into the game to understand it's impact, but I've been playing MMORPGs long enough to have seen this issue prior.


The solution is that if a player too high level killed lower mobs to butcher/skin them in Ac2, the corpse would be 'mutilated' and the higher level player could not gain any craft materials from it.

I like this solution but if ever I took up the skinning profession to collect the resources to help guildmates progress in Leatherworking, this would render my assistance ineffective. If anything, it might be a quick solution to the problem if a better solution needs more time in the oven.

[Oqua]

There is a lot to unpack there, but there is one point I would like to raise. I can agree that the Panther problem needs to be addressed. I think there needs to be a tremendous amount of consideration given to how it is addressed. I like the idea of diminishing returns with AoE, if you for lack of a better term "try and game the system" however I really do not like the potential blow back it could have on intended designs.

Consider the main difference between the Panther Problem, and the Mushroom cave, Animal Nexus, catching an unexpected spawn, and stopping at the intersections in Kur Tower. Mainly that the Panther Problem requires a player to invest effort to "game the system" where as many other areas seem to be more of an intended design, and such a change would effect players who are at no fault due to the panther problem.


I will be with holding my comments on the rest of the document, mostly as a hard core crafting/support player my initial thoughts tend to be biased and I want to take some time to ruminate.

Edit: Typo, and clarification.

[sudostahp]

I'm adamantly against any changes that restrict player freedoms. That includes restrictions on hunting areas and play styles, and I still feel that loot locking has done more damage to the community than it has benefited the community through balance. Project Gorgon is a sandbox in a sea of themepark MMOs, and the more that design aspect gets watered-down, the further it floats into a sea of mediocre competitors where it just gets lost. I wanted to get that out of the way up front, because I'm the first to admit that I'm heavily biased.

I'm no stranger to the panthers in Kur, but it's only disproportionately profitable for two reasons:

1) There's a limited player base with the desire and ability to farm there, which allows for periods of uninterrupted solo farming, and;
2) There's no solo content after the wolf cave or Kur tower that's worth farming, so panthers are de facto grinding territory for higher level players needing some cash.

I wanted some numbers, so I farmed some panthers and grew some cotton. I even threw in ProfessorCat's 300k figure (assuming a long day was 8 hours). I was able to clear the panther spot in 4 minutes, 40 seconds. That includes time to kill, loot, skin, and bury. That resulted in 65 quality skins, 34 nice skins, and 3 trophy skins -- I'm maxed in feline anatomy and skinning. I then waited for a full-ish respawn (there's always some stragglers), which took about 7 minutes, 30 seconds. The following reflects the net profit of each finished leather roll, but doesn't take into account the time to craft the rolls.

https://i.imgur.com/46Yrb9p.png

Feel free to download a copy and edit the underlying assumptions here as you see fit.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16A6gHY3rURGLp4RtN3_rDrdG7lJX7jklJYa5QD7zZlo/edit?usp=sharing

The key takeaway is this -- if you have the spot to yourself for long periods of time, farming panthers for skins can be highly profitable, but that profitability diminishes quickly if there are others (and it's rarely uninterrupted). Due to the size of the spawn, one other person hunting in the same area, assuming an even split in character ability, puts profitability on par with selling loot (assuming 8 hours is a reasonably correct assumption).

What we most desperately need isn't a nerf to AOEs or some gimmick related "grayed out" mobs. Both of those options have reaching impacts far beyond overly profitable skinning in a single zone. No, we need more incentives to grind other areas that offer a similar level of reward. We've been waiting for the Rahu Sewers since well-before Gazluk was introduced. Kur Tower and the Goblin Dungeon were the last two "great" dungeon designs in my mind. There's plenty of room in both for solo activity along with group-focused content. We need more of that design for later levels.

I fully support Ladriel's suggestion to increase loot drop value in later dungeons. I don't know if vendor trash is the way to go, but I'm open to the idea.

I also support Ladriel's suggestions around crafting. If I know six maxed leathercrafters, then there's no incentive for me to level it. If I need something made, I can just ask someone. The components are universal, and all of the recipes are fairly common. You can have just about anything made for free by someone if you have the materials. Let's treat crafters as a business. In order for a business to be competitive, it needs to offer a product that's valuable, rare, inimitable, and the business needs to be organized to produce the product. Allowing crafters to specialize in items with different effects would shift crafting closer to the player market and away from needing to rely on work orders. I think that the "crafting wisdom" idea is a real gem, and I'd like to see it further explored.

Thanks for the thoughtful post, Ladriel.

[Crissa]

I'm still not entirely clear on how you manage to train 20 panthers. I can only seem to keep a handful of anything mad at me at once.

[Aionlasting]

I saw your post on Reddit and after reading through it, I think that it's very thorough and shows how much you care for the success of this title. Thank you for your contribution. To be perfectly honest, I'm not far enough into the game to understand it's impact, but I've been playing MMORPGs long enough to have seen this issue prior.



I like this solution but if ever I took up the skinning profession to collect the resources to help guildmates progress in Leatherworking, this would render my assistance ineffective. If anything, it might be a quick solution to the problem if a better solution needs more time in the oven.

Well that's not necessarily true if the higher level monsters could also yield the mats the lower level monsters do. Currently they do not though. Higher level monsters drop higher tier materials. This creates a problem of causing lower level resources to become outdated in higher level crafting and obselete. A problem the author also describes when discussing how Tailoring and its use of cotton gets things right.

To fix this problem you are concerned about, and the one the author describes in his tailoring discussion of ever perpetually increasing tiered resources that make lower level resources obselete, we could implement one of two changes (or more that I have not thought of...open to any opinions on this, just sharing my own).

1) The first change could be to give high level players the option to skin/butcher low level tier materials from higher level monsters and fix the problem you described where you would not be able to help a friend with a lower craft level up (because you would 'mutilate' the low level monsters that provide the materials your friend needs to level up his craft). This solution is sort of a 'hack' of types and not as pretty as what I think the system below that I describe offers. This solution also does not solve the ever increasing tier of resources and the problems it creates as elaborated by the author of the document.

2) The other alternative is the one Ac2 implemented and I think it fixes your concern and the tiered resource problem. In Ac2, the problem you describe never happened because gathered materials were never antiquated by higher level progression. That is, all monsters, regardless of level--but based on their type--could either drop chitin/sinew/bone/tallow. These materials were universally used across all crafting tier progressions, only that higher level monsters dropped more of these materials and higher tier crafting required more of them. This system is similar to how our tailoring system works now in PG. Cotton is universally important and can be acquired by any level player because the tailoring system never makes cotton irrelevant as the player progresses through the tailoring tree. What does change is higher level players tend to acquire more cotton than lower level players because of their higher foraging/gardening skills. Higher tailoring also requires more cotton than lower level tailoring. So no one is punished for progressing through the system and materials are kept relevant and shared between high and low level players allowing anyone to participate and contribute. It creates an economy and need for shared resource that makes sense. A similar system can be implemented for skinning.

2A) You could make certain animals drop certain types of skin (instead of making higher level animals drop higher quality [tiered] skins) and simply require more skinning amounts for higher crafted tier gear. You could add complexity and variety by requiring various skins (i.e. panther, tiger, bear, etc... but NOT higher TIER because then we are back to our original problem) or simply introduce a whole new material like tallow, chitten, sinew, bone or w/e you want as long as you avoid making tiered versions that make previous version obsolete. The 'lateral progression' as opposed to 'vertical progression' of things as the author liked to say. This solves your problem you describe as you and your friend would both be able to acquire those skins as long as you hunted the right animal type regardless of you hunting high level (panthers, or tigers, or bears) and him hunting low level (panthers, tigers, or bears). Trophy skins could be kept as is.

The system (2) I have described above requires quite a reworking of the current skinning system and might be too problematic to implement and/or not at all how Citan invisions crafting but you can see how it solved the issue we currently have and also allowed for a restriction when players of too high level slaughtered low level monsters for resource gain (the 'mutilation' effect). Players would no longer feel the need to slaughter lower level monsters because the resources wouldn't tier upwards as they progressed their crafting and those resources could still be acquired from the appropriate monster type at their own higher level. Very much like our good friend cotton and the tailoring profession of PG.

Hopefully what I wrote made sense and was easy to follow. I'm open to any solution , IF, we find this to be a problem. Personally I'm not a money hungry individual and I only care about council in as much as I need it to progress my skills/crafts. I don't necessarily have an issue with the system of tier progression requiring ever higher tiered resources (shotty skins, nice skins, high quality, amazing etc...)but it does get exhausting trying to keep track of it all and I can't imagine how we can continue this ever increasing tiered level of resources. I do see the problem it causes and the problem is rampant in MMO's today.

[fellentier]

Well that's not necessarily true if the higher level monsters could also yield the mats the lower level monsters do. Currently they do not though. Higher level monsters drop higher tier materials. This creates a problem of causing lower level resources to become outdated in higher level crafting and obselete. A problem the author also describes when discussing how Tailoring and its use of cotton gets things right.

To fix this problem you are concerned about, and the one the author describes in his tailoring discussion of ever perpetually increasing tiered resources that make lower level resources obselete, we could implement one of two changes (or more that I have not thought of...open to any opinions on this, just sharing my own).

... reduced quote size because.. it was long and amazing.

I haven't responded to many of the comments *Yet!* but I wanted to say that I completely agree with everything that you said. The way that tailoring works is a positive benchmark for progression. I made suggestions to help improve the < current > system, but I would MUCH prefer to see what you said become the overall change. It is more drastic, and I try to avoid making drastic suggestions.. But what you said would be my utmost preference. I believe that you should never make prior tiered content worthless, just less valuable in a time consideration to a max leveled character.

Thank-you so much for you valuable feedback, and to everyone else that has made comments so far! My hope was to provide insight with my own unique perspective and to engage a discussion where people could help to begin to elaborate and provide methodology to make this game truly the best ever made. In order to do that though, you have to take the best ideas from games of the past, and also be willing to break the mold. There are many more ideas that I have that I want to write about, but my hope is to keep my commentary limited enough that people can discuss one topic at at time before I drop another 20 page article.

The blunt truth that I see in this game is that it has the programmatic knowledge to apply unique considerations that can set this game a millennia above others through accepting and integrating unique game play measures. This would normally be unacceptable in other games, but due to the unique nature of this game I want to see others, myself, and the developers continue to strive to do what it can to improve and innovate to make this the benchmark of innovation.

Thanks again to everyone so far :)

[Oqua]

I'm adamantly against any changes that restrict player freedoms. That includes restrictions on hunting areas and play styles, and I still feel that loot locking has done more damage to the community than it has benefited the community through balance. Project Gorgon is a sandbox in a sea of themepark MMOs, and the more that design aspect gets watered-down, the further it floats into a sea of mediocre competitors where it just gets lost. I wanted to get that out of the way up front, because I'm the first to admit that I'm heavily biased.


but doesn't take into account the time to craft the rolls.

https://i.imgur.com/46Yrb9p.png




1: Restrict player freedoms? If you look at your own supplied information even a camped panthers is on par with the low end money making strategies. This implies that player freedom is how you do panthers and not your freedom to pick other options.

2: time to craft the rolls? Compared to carding cotton and for context I often use up 3.5 hours on my Flower Arranging buff to card a batch of cotton, where as with Rolls you can simply mash the craft button.

3: it also does not take into account the massive work to make cotton “Profitable?” such as getting the gardening investment, learning Flower Arranging, getting the seeds, leveling Nature Appreciation etc.

4: Given the state of the economy it is not wrong to say that the players who do panthers are able to toss out cash with no regard to its effect on the market, in an effort to power level any and all other aspects leaving the non-panther players to scramble for the scraps from the panther table.

Conclusion: As a gardening/tailor I knew I was taking the low end of the making money strategy and I was ok with that. I told myself and others that it was removing as much RNG as possible, and removing the possibility that panthers would be camped etc.

Now? I regret my choice to some extent after having seen the numbers laid out in such a manner. When I consider all the work I put in to “make money?” and look at the panthers even a worst case situation, not to mention the fringe benefits of making money by combat, I cant help but feel mislead. A lot of MMO have a “crafting” aspect, its usually just there, part of my draw to PG was the idea that crafting has a purpose and point but more so could compete with the combat enthusiasts as it stands I do not see that.

For a setup+time investment panthers simply dominate and with that massive cash flow the fastest way to do any other skill is, do panthers throw cash at your problem.

[sudostahp]

1: Restrict player freedoms? If you look at your own supplied information even a camped panthers is on par with the low end money making strategies. This implies that player freedom is how you do panthers and not your freedom to pick other options.


You're absolutely right. Panthers are the most profitable activity in-game right now if you have them for yourself. The same is true for wolf cave. Skins are profitable. I'm fine with nerfing the value of skins in the interest of balance. I'd even say that I'm all for it. I just don't think that players shouldn't have the option to farm areas. We need more grinding options, but the value of skins is the real problem.



2: time to craft the rolls? Compared to carding cotton and for context I often use up 3.5 hours on my Flower Arranging buff to card a batch of cotton, where as with Rolls you can simply mash the craft button.


This doesn't include the time to craft the rolls since it's not that much of a consideration. I'm totally in agreement that it's pretty inconsequential compared to something like carding cotton.



3: it also does not take into account the massive work to make cotton “Profitable?” such as getting the gardening investment, learning Flower Arranging, getting the seeds, leveling Nature Appreciation etc.


You're right. This doesn't assuming gardening buffs, flower arrangement, or nature appreciation. This is a base level figure. Using other buffs to improve gardening increases time, but would also increase productivity. It does include getting seeds only in the sense that cotton self-replenishes, so that's baked in to the estimate based on how long it took me to grow a sample stack.



4: Given the state of the economy it is not wrong to say that the players who do panthers are able to toss out cash with no regard to its effect on the market, in an effort to power level any and all other aspects leaving the non-panther players to scramble for the scraps from the panther table.


No doubt. The same is true for wolf cave. I'd wager that half of the councils in circulation come from one of two skills: surveying, or skinning. Both are very lucrative methods. I think that panthers and wolves are probably too viable for cash generation, and that the root problem is the skin value and the necessity of higher level solo content. Cotton is still one of the best ways for low-to-mid level players to make money. I don't think the solution is to put players with maxed skills and full gear to make the same amount, but I'm in agreement that the gap is currently too wide.



Conclusion: As a gardening/tailor I knew I was taking the low end of the making money strategy and I was ok with that. I told myself and others that it was removing as much RNG as possible, and removing the possibility that panthers would be camped etc.

Now? I regret my choice to some extent after having seen the numbers laid out in such a manner. When I consider all the work I put in to “make money?” and look at the panthers even a worst case situation, not to mention the fringe benefits of making money by combat, I cant help but feel mislead. A lot of MMO have a “crafting” aspect, its usually just there, part of my draw to PG was the idea that crafting has a purpose and point but more so could compete with the combat enthusiasts as it stands I do not see that.

For a setup+time investment panthers simply dominate and with that massive cash flow the fastest way to do any other skill is, do panthers throw cash at your problem.

I think it would be interesting to see the numbers for "advanced gardeners" -- gardeners that use flower arrangement buffs, that have master carding, and can produce "value-added" goods for work-orders. Keep a log of your time and profits, I'd love to see how they stack up. I'm also curious as to the profit/hour of cotton + barley + corn. That might be a better measure of profitability for high-level players as opposed to just cotton as the baseline.

[Oqua]

I also want to make it clear, because I might not have done so in my previous post, I am fine with a "best" if you have lets say 4 ways of making money efficiently in an ideal comparison it would be lets say out of 10. Method 1: 5 Method 2: 5.2 Method 3: 4.7 Method 4:6 then Method 4 would be the "best" and that's ok I just don't think as was stated above it should be a gap that is so large, where you are comparing a 9 to a 4.

The more I play and the more information I give out to people I more my answers seem to circle back to panthers as a solution to all problems. Trouble leveling alchemy for Battle Chem.....Panther money. Getting snacks that are easy to get en mass.....Panther money etc.

[INXS]

Panthers are what makes this game sorta broken. High number of skins, good number of trophy hides and stomach, it's a diamond mine! People sell skins off, make mega cash on stomach then set up a player vendor with x amount of trophy skins and x amount of work orders just to squeeze more money out. This kind of return for kill should be on a formidable critter out in the Gazluk range. Only thing i suggest is beef up the defense on panthers, want those goodies then better fight for them, they are in a corner of the map,maybe some bad batch experiment from Lomas and slap down a revised Panthers thats going to need more than 2 shot kill.

[fellentier]

1: Restrict player freedoms? If you look at your own supplied information even a camped panthers is on par with the low end money making strategies. This implies that player freedom is how you do panthers and not your freedom to pick other options.

2: time to craft the rolls? Compared to carding cotton and for context I often use up 3.5 hours on my Flower Arranging buff to card a batch of cotton, where as with Rolls you can simply mash the craft button.

3: it also does not take into account the massive work to make cotton “Profitable?” such as getting the gardening investment, learning Flower Arranging, getting the seeds, leveling Nature Appreciation etc.

4: Given the state of the economy it is not wrong to say that the players who do panthers are able to toss out cash with no regard to its effect on the market, in an effort to power level any and all other aspects leaving the non-panther players to scramble for the scraps from the panther table.

Conclusion: As a gardening/tailor I knew I was taking the low end of the making money strategy and I was ok with that. I told myself and others that it was removing as much RNG as possible, and removing the possibility that panthers would be camped etc.

Now? I regret my choice to some extent after having seen the numbers laid out in such a manner. When I consider all the work I put in to “make money?” and look at the panthers even a worst case situation, not to mention the fringe benefits of making money by combat, I cant help but feel mislead. A lot of MMO have a “crafting” aspect, its usually just there, part of my draw to PG was the idea that crafting has a purpose and point but more so could compete with the combat enthusiasts as it stands I do not see that.

For a setup+time investment panthers simply dominate and with that massive cash flow the fastest way to do any other skill is, do panthers throw cash at your problem.

I would also like to note that I left out the large sum of money in my initial post that you make as subsidiary drops unrelated to skins as I see this as a skinning problem more then a panther problem. Truethfully, the numbers on the graph show an inferior rate of kill progression compared the the hover lycan necro build that i made.

Jewelry that they drop is substantial profit.
Stomachs are substantial profit.
Even teeth are quite a lot of profit. On skins alone,maybe 10 hours with my build to make the 800k~ but with all of the other products I could easily push that to 1.3m in that 10hr period.

I didn't want to try to manipulate the problem fr the view point I was making, professions, but if you are looking at panthers Wholeistically, the numbers provided above are not entirely accurate.

[Mechant]

I didn't read the entire thing but if panthers are too OP then limit some of the NPC to have reduced price for skins and problem solved.

[sudostahp]

I would also like to note that I left out the large sum of money in my initial post that you make as subsidiary drops unrelated to skins as I see this as a skinning problem more then a panther problem. Truethfully, the numbers on the graph show an inferior rate of kill progression compared the the hover lycan necro build that i made.

Jewelry that they drop is substantial profit.
Stomachs are substantial profit.
Even teeth are quite a lot of profit. On skins alone,maybe 10 hours with my build to make the 800k~ but with all of the other products I could easily push that to 1.3m in that 10hr period.

I didn't want to try to manipulate the problem fr the view point I was making, professions, but if you are looking at panthers Wholeistically, the numbers provided above are not entirely accurate.

I left out the stomachs I had looted since it didn't make much of a difference. I had looted three stomachs during the cycle. See below for how that affects things. I also left out any extraneous drops since jewelry doesn't stack, so it's an inefficient waste of space. The teeth and tails are going to be even less significant. There's no way that 1) you're clearing the full spawn in less than 4:40 with a lycan necro build, and 2) there's no way that you could make double what the numbers I show in the same period, even including jewelry, teeth, and tails. There will be some variance in builds and RNG, so this is only a sample, but I stand by my figures and I'll put up 100k for evidence to the contrary. 130,000 councils/hour is simply hyperbolic.

https://i.imgur.com/n7OqQyD.png

[fellentier]

I left out the stomachs I had looted since it didn't make much of a difference. I had looted three stomachs during the cycle. See below for how that affects things. I also left out any extraneous drops since jewelry doesn't stack, so it's an inefficient waste of space. The teeth and tails are going to be even less significant. There's no way that 1) you're clearing the full spawn in less than 4:40 with a lycan necro build, and 2) there's no way that you could make double what the numbers I show in the same period, even including jewelry, teeth, and tails. There will be some variance in builds and RNG, so this is only a sample, but I stand by my figures and I'll put up 100k for evidence to the contrary. 130,000 councils/hour is simply hyperbolic.

https://i.imgur.com/n7OqQyD.png

I didn't write 19 pages because I felt like it. I don't make posts to bullshit because I can. I spent three months finding a way to grind kur panthers as fast as possible, then wrote my post. You can disagree if you prefer, but to simply state defacto "there's no way" doesn't change reality.

Utilizing and maximizing profits are the way to reach the highest potential gains. If you understand flight routes, NPC paths, and have proper teleportation bound you can make use of every drop. Obviously tails are worthless, I didn't mention them. Stomachs though make a substantial value over the course of a 100 hour period. Just because you had bad luck in your small test cycle doesn't make them inert. Please consider holistic data, don't attempt to skew it to gaining a personal vendetta to prove a point.

Teeth ARE a large vendor profit as at a 200 per drop and a high drop chance they add a significant small value. The reason you can't seem to understand the amassing of profit is because you are attempting to find something that is simple and easy. I am stating under perfect grinding (not timing, but knowledge based) circumstances, you can attain massive profits. Most players won't achieve this, true. But to those who take the time to learn the ins and outs of every possible profit venue, they will find a very lucrative business far beyond what you stated.

I don't want to discredit what you said for general usage, because that is a well written post that has it's merits. But for the sake of the overall maximum potential, I would like to point to the capacity that the location has.

Please though, I would like to note < THIS ISN'T THE DIRECTION THAT I WAS TAKING ORIGINALLY > The point was to talk about the over powered nature of skinning. It IS overpowered in every way. The current drops from panthers I believe are quite balanced and with productive changes to the values of skins would make the location quite reasonable. The reason I took so long to write the entire post is because I believe all of the factors I listed effect the persistence of the grinding location.

Please do not take what I am saying out of context.



I also want to say this...

I made the build for my own profit because I didn't know how profitable it was before I actually tried it. Nobody told me about it, but I was trying to find my own unique way --- I hadn't played for almost two years after I started three years ago, but wanted to find something new. Back in the day it was farming sunvale faeries, then it got nerfed. Then I moved to Japan. I started playing a few months ago and went en route to find something that would be amazing to do. After reseraching for a while I found panthers to be a unique source. I originally thought they'd drop lemons, not stomachs (that's what they used to drop).

After research and finding out the fastest way possible to kill them I came to my hover necro lycan build. I didn't make this post to boast, I kept all of that out because i'm not trying to describe a way to make money. I made this post to HELP MAKE THE GAME BETTER. That's why there aren't charts and analysis of why you can make l33t cash here. I just, simply, want to make the game a better game. I don't feel compelled to explain in absolute analysis why I did the way I did and how much I made, because I honestly don't want to make that public, I want to see this game become better withotu everyone rushing to abuse the latest mechanic. So please, forgive me of what you consider " 130,000 councils/hour is simply hyperbolic" but I have found out how to achieve this, but I won't be sharing it. Not because I want it for myself, but because I want the problem fixed.

[Mikhaila]

I'm going to disagree with your opinion that skinning is the problem, not panthers. You made a perfect build for doing panthers. Panthers have a high population, and a good spot to do AOE with room to run. You spend hours and hours doing it.

Skinning isn't the problem. It's the combination of things resulting in a cash cow that many people build towards. You've found a way to maximize it and after months of doing it feel it's a problem.

I agree, because if one way to make money is many times greater than anything else, it should be toned down. But do it with a scalpel, and not a large brush. You want to change an entire skill that is not OP for everyone else, just the people farming panthers with AOE builds.

[Crissa]

It wouldn't be so difficult to trigger dense spawns on player engagement, would it?

So if there's one player engaging the panthers, they respawn slowly, two, a little quicker, and so on; increasing the density of mobs based upon players engaging with them?

That would save server power (not tracking so many panthers while players are elsewhere) and helping bring up the engagement of the second or third player trying to play in the zone?

[Tagamogi]

I didn't make this post to boast, I kept all of that out because i'm not trying to describe a way to make money. I made this post to HELP MAKE THE GAME BETTER. That's why there aren't charts and analysis of why you can make l33t cash here. I just, simply, want to make the game a better game. I don't feel compelled to explain in absolute analysis why I did the way I did and how much I made, because I honestly don't want to make that public, I want to see this game become better withotu everyone rushing to abuse the latest mechanic. So please, forgive me of what you consider " 130,000 councils/hour is simply hyperbolic" but I have found out how to achieve this, but I won't be sharing it. Not because I want it for myself, but because I want the problem fixed.

I kind of disagree with that. If you are stating that something is overpowered because it makes too much money, then I want to see how much money it makes how in what amount of time with what requirements, so I can compare it to other money making options. Looking at sudostaph's numbers, he gives about 60K hour for skinning only which is considerably better than the next highest money per hour of 37.5K for looting. So, if you are saying you are making 70K an hour on the panthers excluding skins, then that seems to be more overpowered than the skinning.

I can understand not wanting to share something if you consider it to be an exploit, but I'd suggest at least putting in a bug report to let the devs know, so that someone will have the actual numbers. Also, imo, the nice thing about pretty much any money-making method in the game is that the more people do it, the less profitable it becomes. If we suddenly have 10 people camping those panthers, profits for panther farming will drop drastically.

I'm not sure about the value of skins. I make my money off leatherworking which feels a bit too fast and easy, so if the value of skins would drop, the lw work orders would drop in price, and I'd see a bit less of a profit. Which may not be a bad thing, but I'm still kind of unsure how other money-making schemes compare. I don't want to feel that I have to skip leatherworking and farm mobs instead because that is going to be 3-4 times more profitable... ( I still haven't made it through the initial post because I'm stuck on the concept that anyone would want to farm panthers for hours. I'd probably fall asleep 6 minutes into that.)

[Mikhaila]

Or just decreasing the amount of panthers by 75% period. They don't have a huge niche to fill other than AOE farming. Quality skins? Which having 20 panthers would be fine for if you need those for level 50 armor.

[fellentier]

I'm going to disagree with your opinion that skinning is the problem, not panthers. You made a perfect build for doing panthers. Panthers have a high population, and a good spot to do AOE with room to run. You spend hours and hours doing it.

Skinning isn't the problem. It's the combination of things resulting in a cash cow that many people build towards. You've found a way to maximize it and after months of doing it feel it's a problem.

I agree, because if one way to make money is many times greater than anything else, it should be toned down. But do it with a scalpel, and not a large brush. You want to change an entire skill that is not OP for everyone else, just the people farming panthers with AOE builds.


I feel like you didn't really read what I wrote and just jumped to the comments, previous posts seemed very inline with discussion. This didn't.

My article had nothing to do with retuning AoE for panthers, if that's what you got out of it, then you weren't paying attention. Please don't jump to conclusions or take offense, the point of what I engaged in is for the betterment of the game, not personal benefit. Random thoughts and opinions won't help the betterment of the conversation. I suggest that we return to a direct suggestion approach rather then making lambaste comments about others ideas.

-------
Let us not get political in our descent into opinion, discrediting others is NOT the path to becoming better informed, rather, creating a foundation for oneself to speak from is the path we should take.

-------

In relating to the other comments posted above, the point isn't necessarily the profit per hour. I am going to say this one last time and then move myself away from the thread and let it continue it's coarse and see where it goes from here.

Productive dialogue to help create a better game and improve upon mechanics to make a more immersive and interactive crafting system. If you read the article, any of the 19 pages, you would know that was was the point of what I was trying to make. Yes, panthers were a main part of the first five or six pages, but the main point was to discuss (as the first few posters read and stated very graciously, {I highly appreciate that feedback!!!} that the comparison between tailoring, black-smithing and leather-working is note quite in line.) professions and their impact in relation to the economy and how they uniquely function. This was never supposed to be an ego trip about max profit per hour. I am going to quit debating that notion here and only respond to on-topic discussions. If you wish to continue talking about the max achievable revenue, please do- but I will not be apart of it.

[Crissa]

fellentier The profitability of panthers is directly related to their density and spawn rate. If they're so notably different, that would be the simplest fix. It would also send skin-and-sell across the zones, spreading out the impact and making more zones options for someone trying to do this path.

Changing the panthers may solve the three problems you mentioned: That more than one person at the panthers reduces their profitability so much; that panthers are more profitable than other spawns; that panthers are more profitable than other crafts.

[Mikhaila]

I feel like you didn't really read what I wrote and just jumped to the comments, previous posts seemed very inline with discussion. This didn't.

Yes. It seems like when you disagree with someone the easiest way to dismiss them is to say "you didn't read what i wrote".

I read your essay. I'm always curious about these things. Now do i have the right to disagree with you?

I don't need to discuss your entire post. I don't need to comment on your post. You posted an opinion, I disagreed with it, then got all dramatic for several paragraphs.

You think skinning is the problem. I think you are using a very specific situation to ask for changes in a skill. The skill isn't broken, panthers might be.

Saying "it isn't the profit per hour"....then why spend 6 pages with graphs to show the profit per hour? If it doesn't matter, why focus on it.

[Crissa]

If panthers aren't notably different than other skinning situations... Then yeah, maybe it's skinning.

But the simplest is that maybe the place you can round up twenty of the same skinnable mob so easily is maybe outside what was calculated for.

[Tagamogi]

Ok, I had another go at the opening essay, and made it all the way through... fellentier , you start losing me on page 5, when you argue that the Kur panthers maximize the potential for profit and experience. Skimming slightly ahead, I don't see the experience argument addressed at all. It's a fairly reasonable assumption since you will be killing "lots" of stuff, but you are going to need one high-level aoe skill which will level minimally or and eventually not at all on the panthers. So, if you are trying to maximize xp gain, I wonder if there are other areas that would provide better opportunities.

For the profit maximization, I need a money per hour figure. 1.6 million per week is all nice and well but if it takes 24/7 farming to get enough skins to sell to get that amount, it's not worthwhile. Using sudostaph's 59,385c per hour figure, it looks like it would take about 27 hours of farming to max out the vendors. I assume that time is pure panther killing and does not involve traveling back and forth to the vendors, so I think it would take at least 30 hours actual time. My general attitude there is that if you have 4 characters that are all soulmates with 10 different vendors and that are all capable of farming panthers (or you are willing to spend the additional time transfering items between your panther killer and your sellers) and you are willing to spend 30+ hours in game skinning and selling skins, you are entirely welcome to 1.6 million for your efforts...

So, I'm not entirely convinced there is a problem or what the extent of it is, which makes reading the following sections a bit more complicated. Page 7 and 8 have some very concrete suggestions for changing skin prices which I don't feel are backed up by enough preceding data. My general question is how much money a player of level x is expected to be able to make per hour (with the weekly cap an additional potentially useful piece of information), and whether skinning significantly deviates from this value.

If you are basing your revised leather price suggestions on blacksmithing and tailoring, then I feel that blacksmithing is problematic since it mostly doesn't allow you to create armor. Tailoring seems like it could work. In another thread, we had recently calculated the non-gem cost of a pair of great cloth pants as 832c, using cotton with a market price of 40c. In comparison, the recipe for great leather leggings takes 3 great leather rolls, 1 quality roll and 2 leather strips. Using sell-to-vendor prices for leather and buy-from-vendor prices for tannin, under the old system that's 3*195 + 102 + 12*2 = 711c. Under your proposed prices, that's 3*180 + 115 + 7*2 = 669c, lowering the cost even further. I think that's probably ok - comparing player market prices to vendor prices is rather problematic. Right now, there is not really much of a player market for skins - if the value of skins or leather rolls changed, the player market for skins might rise high enough that the cost of making leather armor would be more equivalent to cloth armor. If not, having leatherworking recipes require more skins would be another option.

( The conversion tables in the essay don't quite line up - crude skin takes decent tannin and quality skin takes quality tannin. That makes things a bit hard to read especially since what is given is the tannin value and not the tannin cost of buying it from a vendor which is 1.5 times its value. Overall, I don't think the value changes look unreasonable, though, I'm just not quite convinced if they are needed or not.)

(Also it would be really helpful if the essay allowed copying so I could quote.)

Increasing the loot value of higher level mobs is an interesting idea. I don't think it is unreasonable as such, but I believe the game is intentionally forcing specialization by making the higher skill levels progressively harder to train. So, if you have a system where the higher level mobs are more valuable than lower levels per time spent to discourage low-level farming, you would need a corresponding increase in skill training costs to make up for the increased money obtained at higher levels by the average, non-farming player. I think.

The proposed AOE change makes sense but I enjoy the existing aoe. There aren't that many places in the game that allow crazy aoe and I get quite a kick out of collecting a bunch of zombies in Kur Tower and aoe'ing them down. And a good laugh when I miscalculate again and the zombies kill me before I kill them, which is pretty frequently. So, game balance-wise, your change is better, but argh, the current system is fun.

For the rest of the essay, my feelings are just that I'm not all that interested in your suggestions. I realize that a lot of time and effort went into them, I just personally don't find them appealing. Other opinions may vary, of course, and I hope I don't come across as too harsh in expressing mine:

Head-hunting sounds more grindy than fun to me. It's possible it could be fun, I'm just not getting it.

I also don't get the idea of experience strikes. Experience is generally not something I greatly care about. I enjoy leveling, so getting xp bonuses that shorten the time I spend leveling seems like a backwards fun proposal to me in general.

Pacifist town, likewise not getting it. It sounds like mostly it would encourage me to afk in game until I meet the time requirements, or to create an alt in order to suck up the town's benefits.

As someone who likes crafting, I feel that crafting in PG is in a very happy spot already. There are silly crafts and money-making crafts and enjoyable things to do at low crafting levels, so I'm a bit confused on why it needs improvement. Ah, ok to allow for progression at max-level... Again, the proposal sounds grindy to me. I craft because I like making different things. Crafting something repeatedly and then destroying it seems pointless to me. Also, your proposed effects aren't bad but seem like they should be another craft, rather than something that is obtained from all crafts just because those crafts happen to be at max level.

[Arundel]

I read some of the information. There are methods of making money that are far higher than panthers and require minimal effort but I won't name them all for obvious reasons. Just trying to give the community hope that not everything is figured out yet by everyone. When I have more time and work stuff isn't driving me crazy I will read through it all as I'm always into money making schemes in games. I prefer lazy methods though or "passive income" as I don't like to spend time grinding. I prefer actually playing with friends or leveling skills.

[Quanzhigao]

There are methods of making money that are far higher than panthers and require minimal effort but I won't name them all for obvious reasons.

Nice try, guy that doesn't want panthers nerfed so he can milk them for money.

[fellentier]

Nice try, guy that doesn't want panthers nerfed so he can milk them for money.

As a bull sage I can't help but comment on anyone who says "milk" properly used in a sentence.

Moo.

[Celler]

Don't really see point in touching skin prices especially lower down as it will impact favor returns for new players.
There are maybe what 10 players that want to farm those panthers to the point of handling the whole pack. My thoughts are frankly let them, if others want to do it so be it, it will just become less lucrative and more annoying.

I like that people can look at what we have and try to find the best way to do something. Then build towards it and get the sense of achievement that entails the first time they can do it without getting there arses chewed off.
So what if one person there can get 300k a day there vendors will run out of cash, assuming they don't bring alts into the mix there are natural barriers that stop them going too nuts.

Been playing with a friend this week that can stand in up town Rahu with Prask and play horrible music and kill 30 damn raks and boss at once, that's broken I'd imagine. But again I'm sure it was fun building toward it and seeing how far it could be pushed.

It's not as if the whole game is dependent on those players that can skin the panthers. There are only so many, when 5 people are lined up waiting to kill them how well will it work then. I would imagine none of the new influx of players is there yet and they are probably about 2 thirds are population.

If it must be changed I'd rather see something simple like those panther corpses pop after 30 seconds therefore not allowing time to loot them all. Than a lets break AOE in the game so you can only hit 4(what 4 why that 1 and not that 1) or worse still an ability that gets weaker after each use.
You will in effect weaken those AOE skills when there not being used AOE but when going through your 3rd rotation trying to whittle down that boss solo or with a weak group.

I think the Report Ladriel produced is both sound and of value, but frankly feel there are better things for most players to do than farm panthers continually and if there isn't then surely there missing out on much of the game.
To me it's like the players that say I have max leather working, I did recipe A 4500 times and recipe B 7500 times, how cools that. To me it maybe a cheap option and they have the lvls but who wants to play a game like that, not me anyways.

On the subject of money making those that think it's cool to sell items they were given freely in mass from events for stupid money make me sad. Why you would expect the poorest players to work days for something you were given for 30 seconds effort is beyond me.

Alt Use
I use my alts/mules around serb I'll pass items between them to help raise favor and gain storage etc.

But to me at least using the alts to vendor stuff repeatably to get around the traders cash caps is not a playstyle I'd use.

I know some use alts to do extra work orders, to me that sucks too.

Also having guilded alt mules getting guild points for doing fuck all and then buying cash bags, I've done it but it feels shitty.

These things seem to go against the way the game was designed. Not saying it's wrong and punishment should happen, what others are comfortable with is up to them.

I do feel though that it should be a one Toon game not a a 4 Toon game, unless there proper used alts.The hoarding tendencies of many,insane amount of useful stuff and frustrating storage tend to make that blurry at times.

[fellentier]

Don't really see point in touching skin prices especially lower down as it will impact favor returns for new players.
There are maybe what 10 players that want to farm those panthers to the point of handling the whole pack. My thoughts are frankly let them, if others want to do it so be it, it will just become less lucrative and more annoying.

I like that people can look at what we have and try to find the best way to do something. Then build towards it and get the sense of achievement that entails the first time they can do it without getting there arses chewed off.
So what if one person there can get 300k a day there vendors will run out of cash, assuming they don't bring alts into the mix there are natural barriers that stop them going too nuts.

Been playing with a friend this week that can stand in up town Rahu with Prask and play horrible music and kill 30 damn raks and boss at once, that's broken I'd imagine. But again I'm sure it was fun building toward it and seeing how far it could be pushed.

It's not as if the whole game is dependent on those players that can skin the panthers. There are only so many, when 5 people are lined up waiting to kill them how well will it work then. I would imagine none of the new influx of players is there yet and they are probably about 2 thirds are population.

If it must be changed I'd rather see something simple like those panther corpses pop after 30 seconds therefore not allowing time to loot them all. Than a lets break AOE in the game so you can only hit 4(what 4 why that 1 and not that 1) or worse still an ability that gets weaker after each use.
You will in effect weaken those AOE skills when there not being used AOE but when going through your 3rd rotation trying to whittle down that boss solo or with a weak group.

I think the Report Ladriel produced is both sound and of value, but frankly feel there are better things for most players to do than farm panthers continually and if there isn't then surely there missing out on much of the game.
To me it's like the players that say I have max leather working, I did recipe A 4500 times and recipe B 7500 times, how cools that. To me it maybe a cheap option and they have the lvls but who wants to play a game like that, not me anyways.

On the subject of money making those that think it's cool to sell items they were given freely in mass from events for stupid money make me sad. Why you would expect the poorest players to work days for something you were given for 30 seconds effort is beyond me.

Alt Use
I use my alts/mules around serb I'll pass items between them to help raise favor and gain storage etc.

But to me at least using the alts to vendor stuff repeatably to get around the traders cash caps is not a playstyle I'd use.

I know some use alts to do extra work orders, to me that sucks too.

Also having guilded alt mules getting guild points for doing fuck all and then buying cash bags, I've done it but it feels shitty.

These things seem to go against the way the game was designed. Not saying it's wrong and punishment should happen, what others are comfortable with is up to them.

I do feel though that it should be a one Toon game not a a 4 Toon game, unless there proper used alts.The hoarding tendencies of many,insane amount of useful stuff and frustrating storage tend to make that blurry at times.


A very eloquent response, I appreciate your effort. I would like to know your thoughts in regards to adding ways to make crafting more interactive. When I wrote the later portion of the article my thoughts were surrounding the game as it existed before steam release. From a more personal perspective, I prefer to garden and I find it very relaxing and one of my favorite games is harvest moon. I found weird situations where I could sell cotton for even 15~ each, veggies were going for vendor price etc - because there was simply no demand. Now, with the large flux I don't believe we will reach that same situation but I do believe that there should be some benefit to various professions that would allow players to engage the skill they enjoy without being entirely dependent on limited market desirability.

[HardRock]

Gonna need to sleep on it before I comment.

[Frei]

From today's patch notes (https://forum.projectgorgon.com/showthread.php?1297-Update-Notes-April-7-2018):


- Adjusted the spawn configurations of certain monsters that could easily be exploited with area-effect attacks. Most notably, Razorslash Panthers (pets of the orcs) now have orcs spawn among them, rather than a vast field of nothing but panthers. These are stopgap measures as we continue to analyze looting rates and monster density scenarios.

[Mechant]

Don't really see point in touching skin prices especially lower down as it will impact favor returns for new players.


It can be configured that the price stay the same but the NPCs will not offer full price but only reduced for skins. So that favor will not be affected.

[sudostahp]

From today's patch notes:

Where are the patch notes? I don't see them, but that sounds like a good compromise.

Edit: Only in launcher so far. Got it.

[fellentier]

Title was changed as requested, Thanks!

[Arundel]

Nice try, guy that doesn't want panthers nerfed so he can milk them for money.

I really hate grinding as I already stated, but I have done some panthers in my time. Its honestly an obnoxious place to be because there is always some tool who insists all the mobs are his or yells at you to leave, etc. I prefer playing in zones that people know a bit less about. I have a grind spot that earns me WAY more than panthers but most can't solo it. I also don't make much money from grinding because it is boring as hell. I prefer leveling skills, exploring, playing the game with friends, and breaking various market/trade skill related things to acquire currency easily (as I already stated).

But believe whatever you want, the more you are distracted by your venomous thoughts the less time you have to focus on discovering other methods of making money beyond pulling a bunch of panthers and 1 shotting them... ah how I love MMO communities: full of people who think they know everything and make my life easier by reducing competition for me. As a final note, I don't pretend to know everything about this game but I'd say I know most of what there is to know for money making and I do know there are several methods of making money far superior to panthers. I could make 200k per day with about 20 minutes of work. Not an exaggeration, I do this daily and usually don't do much else for money making. I'm sure there are people who earn more money with similar methods but I don't need much more than that so I focus on finding new ways of playing the game, new skills to play, new builds for my character, etc. I have more concerns than how I make a few million more per month - its already overkill.

[Oqua]

You know I just could not help but point out the following:

There are a lot of thinly veiled personal attacks in this thread, and I was under the assumption that we debated the quality of ideas/facts rather then the source.

I also noticed a lot of "Panthers are camped" logic coupled with "only a few players are capable of farming panthers"....this seems in opposition

And as a player who detours through panthers quite often I rarely see anyone there, and if we go by the chart its still profitable with several people farming it.

I know it seems moot because of the recent patch but my understanding was the change was temporary until a decision could be reached.

[Asashoryu]

Regarding AE, and its impact on the reward of farming low level mobs vs. level appropriate mobs...

Assuming the issue with higher level mobs not being sufficiently rewarding for upgrade costs is addressed, why not add a variation on a trivial loot system instead to mitigate dominant low-level AE farming by grossly over-skilled players. Something of the nature where mob items (dropped loot) and corpses (harvestable loot) have an increasing chance to be forfeited when attacking with a spell or ability >N levels higher than the mob 'level'.

Arbitrary example follows:

Assume a herd of 'level 20' cows where each will have some associated loot table which governs what can possibly be dropped when killed. Additionally, its corpse can also be the target of 'autopsy' and harvested for its skin, skull or organs.

A player killing such cows with level 20/20 combat skill abilities, would have the full, normal chance of getting loot and harvestable items from them.

Another player killing such cows using one or more level 25 combat abilities might find that 1/3 of the corpses contain useless 'broken', 'burned', 'crushed' or 'shattered' loot (flavor-text variations based on skills used) instead off the normal loot items. Perhaps at this level all the corpses would still remain harvestable, however.

Yet another player starts killing cows from the same herd using level 30 combat abilities. They find that 2/3 of the corpses now contain those useless items, and 1/3 are tagged as too damaged to be harvested. Successful use of the 'autopsy' skill would reveal what powerful skill was used which caused so much damage so the player could adjust their combat skills appropriately, if desired.

Soon after, a fast-running veteran back from a month long hiatus starts farming the same herd with their powerful level 35 combat abilities. They quickly find that the last patch caused *all* of the corpses to now contain useless items and a full two thirds of corpses are further far too mangled to be harvested due to the relatively high-level combat abilities being used.

Finally, a character with the 'Pre-Alpha Tester' title walks by, sees what is happening to the fast-running veteran, realizes that their phenomenal level 40+ combat abilities will simply leave a trail of completely broken and unharvestable level 20 bovine corpses in their wake, and continues on their way... or smartly lowers the level of the combat abilities being use to allow for drops and harvestable corpses.

In summary,

It seems something like this, by discouraging over-powered camping (AE or otherwise) of low-leveled mobs, would encourage level appropriate lateral farming while preserving the sexy 'big boom' capability of level appropriate AEs. By disincentivizing such farming, it would also carry the added advantages of not rewarding high-level players for crowding out lower and mid-leveled players from low and mid-level content, as well as imposing a sort of soft penalty on mismatched skill 'power leveling'.

[Arundel]

You know I just could not help but point out the following:

There are a lot of thinly veiled personal attacks in this thread, and I was under the assumption that we debated the quality of ideas/facts rather then the source.

I also noticed a lot of "Panthers are camped" logic coupled with "only a few players are capable of farming panthers"....this seems in opposition

And as a player who detours through panthers quite often I rarely see anyone there, and if we go by the chart its still profitable with several people farming it.

I know it seems moot because of the recent patch but my understanding was the change was temporary until a decision could be reached.

I'd agree it is fairly profitable for people to even split the area but with decent kill speed even one player soloing it who can do all the panthers in two pulls quickly will be waiting for respawn. With two it becomes a lot of sitting around - and this boredom is I'm sure what provokes some of the toxic behavior. A "good" grinding spot or source of income is completely relative to one's expectations though. When I first discovered panthers - actually I stumbled upon them in my second week of play, not even max level - I was thrilled to see so many melee enemies hanging out together - any veteran MMO player knows what that means in terms of xp and money. I made good money killing them solo or splitting the zone for some time and made some friends that way. But that value may not be good enough to be even close to "best". No general disagreement that they are good even with two - just in general it comes down to one's expectations and I believe most go to the zone hoping to have it to themselves which has become increasingly rare.

As far as thinly veiled personal attacks, it's common for people obsessed with panthers as many believe the panthers truly belong to them or they are the "best" source of money. Typical behavior in MMO's in my experience with players competing even over PvE content. If your comment was in reference to my most recent post - I have nothing further to say to the person who made that comment that provoked my response. In general, unprovoked responses (my post that he quoted was just about panthers in general, I would be just fine if they deleted that pack of mobs entirely) like this are just the kind of toxic behavior I am discussing. Just noting that you are correct that there are a lot of bitter comments any time panthers come up. I think all but one of my harassment tickets I sent in were due to panther drama/harassment by players verbally out there. I moved on from panthers other than as a fun way to get levels on occasion for an off spec.

As far as comments about "very few" being able to kill all the panthers quickly - I'd say nearly anyone I have seen out there can do that. The question is how quickly. When the venom would show up is when you would pull faster than another player out there (75%-100% of the zone in one pull is easy for a good cow build as you have damage immunity to panthers with the right mods and insane movement speed) and they would ask you to leave, if you didn't want to then the next thing was them trying to "tag" or "loot" (old bug) your mobs. It was always kind of funny to watch and produced probably the most toxic behavior I have seen in this game. The comments you mention in this thread are pretty much a result of such behavior. I haven't played in awhile so I wouldn't even know who to address with veiled attacks. Literally the only people I remember are guildmates. We all can agree that provocative posts such as that one are just the kind of toxic behavior that pollutes a good discussion.

I prefer an alternate zone where with proper vendoring I make more per hour. There is also zero competition in it so you can relax and be sure that no one is going to come out and start messing with you and when you refuse to leave begin name calling. THAT zone (and I'm sure there are a few other spots) was what I referenced when I implied "very few can solo it". Panthers could be soloed by anyone who knows how to properly kite. I think I was doing so at level 40 or 50 with fire/ice by tagging, freezing, and nuking. There are many variations of this strategy (BChemistry is fine too). Archery can probably solo it all in one pull with no second spec at level 20 (joke).

TLDR: Panthers good, troll/venom comments are bad, discussion good, panthers are easy.

[Arundel]

Regarding AE, and its impact on the reward of farming low level mobs vs. level appropriate mobs...

Assuming the issue with higher level mobs not being sufficiently rewarding for upgrade costs is addressed, why not add a variation on a trivial loot system instead to mitigate dominant low-level AE farming by grossly over-skilled players. Something of the nature where mob items (dropped loot) and corpses (harvestable loot) have an increasing chance to be forfeited when attacking with a spell or ability >N levels higher than the mob 'level'.

Arbitrary example follows:

Assume a herd of 'level 20' cows where each will have some associated loot table which governs what can possibly be dropped when killed. Additionally, its corpse can also be the target of 'autopsy' and harvested for its skin, skull or organs.

A player killing such cows with level 20/20 combat skill abilities, would have the full, normal chance of getting loot and harvestable items from them.

Another player killing such cows using one or more level 25 combat abilities might find that 1/3 of the corpses contain useless 'broken', 'burned', 'crushed' or 'shattered' loot (flavor-text variations based on skills used) instead off the normal loot items. Perhaps at this level all the corpses would still remain harvestable, however.

Yet another player starts killing cows from the same herd using level 30 combat abilities. They find that 2/3 of the corpses now contain those useless items, and 1/3 are tagged as too damaged to be harvested. Successful use of the 'autopsy' skill would reveal what powerful skill was used which caused so much damage so the player could adjust their combat skills appropriately, if desired.

Soon after, a fast-running veteran back from a month long hiatus starts farming the same herd with their powerful level 35 combat abilities. They quickly find that the last patch caused *all* of the corpses to now contain useless items and a full two thirds of corpses are further far too mangled to be harvested due to the relatively high-level combat abilities being used.

Finally, a character with the 'Pre-Alpha Tester' title walks by, sees what is happening to the fast-running veteran, realizes that their phenomenal level 40+ combat abilities will simply leave a trail of completely broken and unharvestable level 20 bovine corpses in their wake, and continues on their way... or smartly lowers the level of the combat abilities being use to allow for drops and harvestable corpses.

In summary,

It seems something like this, by discouraging over-powered camping (AE or otherwise) of low-leveled mobs, would encourage level appropriate lateral farming while preserving the sexy 'big boom' capability of level appropriate AEs. By disincentivizing such farming, it would also carry the added advantages of not rewarding high-level players for crowding out lower and mid-leveled players from low and mid-level content, as well as imposing a sort of soft penalty on mismatched skill 'power leveling'.

I'm not totally against the goals of this concept but that version of it could be extremely damaging to our economy and likely to the live version's economy. It would mostly require that drops that are primarily from these mobs (bats for guano in Kur for example) are farmed by same level players consistently AND entering the market. You would only be able to get them at a slow pace, or constantly keep "alt skills" at the appropriate level (leading to bizarre tedium), or even more obsessively have to check the NPC merchants in hopes that someone leveling sold the item to the merchant (a perfect example of how failed the marketplace is). The end result is probably a bunch of frustrated players who just can't finish out class skill reagents, professions, make money with crafting. It would have to be a huge overhaul of loot that would most likely result in less diverse gameplay.

I think there are three good alternate recommendations, and I'm sure both have already been made countless times in some variation in our forums but should be interfaced into this discussion (apologies if others have given their version already, but most variations of these arguments differ greatly in reasoning and mine is focused almost entirely on the "more economic activity is good" and "rewarding feelings from purchases/sales/play leads to player satisfaction").

More grinding spots
The first recommendation is to just give people way more good grinding spots. I think that this has been a great deal of the discussion in this thread. The game has only a few good AE spots, very few spots with "hard" mobs that need to be soloed but could still be profitable. Overall I like this games economy and loot drops as of right now more than any MMO but it can definitely be improved a lot. I mention it here as a direct response to suggestions to segregate levels of players within a zone in the current format for our economy. If we are limited to getting certain low level items only from player stalls (if a low level even has one), market board, and maybe NPC's our chances of getting certain items in high demand could be squelched. This leads to very frustrating gameplay. An alternative variation of your suggestion is to do something like what you mentioned and include any such important rare items in drop rates in higher level zones, maybe in quantities of 1-2 per drop to help resolve this issue.

Make PLAYER merchants goods easier to identify in a timely manner
The other immediate recommendation from my end is that they PLEASE make player vendors easier to search. Before you get pitchforks for me dragging it into this thread or resurrecting it, it directly interfaces with all discussions on "best grind spots" or best sources of money. If we had a way to get particular niche items from player merchants or sell them at a reliable pace it would greatly help the flow of the economy and reduce stagnation. Some items just feel awkward on the work order board, and I always felt these types of player stalls were more for "gear" such as armor/weapons. I personally would inject a lot of money into the player economy, daily, as I'd start dumping huge amounts of coin into it as there are many items I find useful but, as I'm sure many high level players would admit, sometimes it is just more profitable/more viable and certainly less tedious to go get the items yourselves and maybe make some work orders and hope they are filled.

I have discussed these issues at length, in game with my guild, for the entire time I have played and the discussion generally yields the same overall middle ground (from what I have seen) - there needs to be something done. I'm personally not a fan of any way that encourages "auction house" botting as I refuse to bot and I have quit almost every MMO I have played due to the constant presence of auction house bots ruining the economy. Other than that consideration I think improving this is really vital when discussing best sources of income.

An excellent example is there may be a particular crafting item that player A is really in need of to achieve his personal goals. He may narrow down his means of getting this to just farming that low level zone because he never gets work orders filled at even reasonably overpriced amounts (you have to break even sometimes) and the player stalls either never have the item or it is like needle in a haystack to find it. Guano is a good example and obnoxious to try to acquire. Cotton is another that can be a real bottleneck at times and the means of acquiring it is tortorous for some. I think most players would much rather try to find their own "preferred" means of making money and then directly dump that cash into the player economy in a timely manner through the work order board or the player stalls (via search function). I find it unlikely that I couldn't spot a bot designed to search for that item repeatedly and buy it and I'm fairly certain that a simple captcha combined with the need to move to that stall would seriously deter that behavior. The developers may know better but I'm sure there is a solution to improve the ease of searching while stopping botting.

Rewarding feeling from an action = continued motivation to repeat behavior

Speaking as a mental health therapist (by trade) - this is a concept in behaviorism which is essentially: how rewarding a behavior is increases the likelihood of it being repeated. Probably anyone knows of this general idea, but I won't go in depth on all the scientific reasons I believe the developers behind why the developers really need to smooth some of these economy issues out, that would take far too much space and this post is already ridiculously long. I really believe that somehow allowing the player merchants to be searched more rapidly (such as with work order boards) would increase sales of items, frequency of items even being posted -since now I can sell it for twice as much as I usually vendored it for because it took me three weeks to sell that junk item (due to how tedious the merchants are to search) and now that one guy who needs it can get it quickly).

It leads to a healthier economy and more satisfied players. I'm as much focused on actually enjoying crafting/merchant play in a game as I am on "how efficient the economy is" and I believe they are of course linked to a high degree. I personally love the player work order boards. They aren't the most precise method but I can drop some coin and get an item quickly. I generally have to overpay to get large orders filled but if you are really into a trade it is worth it.

I love both the feeling that I helped out a low level player (I generally way overpay on craft items to get them faster, and I have been messaged countless times with players wanting to set up one-to-one consistent trades with me due to this) and also that I got a good quantity of that item and thus was rewarded for my best efforts at earning currency. The work order board imo is functional, the player stalls are not nearly so.


NPC merchants
A whole other issue with NPC merchants as a reliable "backup" measure for this failure in the economy is that player merchants "cycle" items. As more types of items that NPC takes are sold to him, he filters out the items one by one at the top. These items are often not useful at all (one of the few junk items) or have so few uses that they could sit on that merchant, but you may need them in high quantity and just not quite get there in time. This is not by itself a problem and I'm not sure it should be changed - but combined with the other issues listed above it has its own impact.



I'm sure there are other recommendations to help more interaction between drops/activities with buying and selling of items. This is just one really obvious one that I felt an overwhelming need to discuss as I believe it is on topic at this point and one of the most relevant discussions to relate to any suggestion of what/where/how with loot/income. I may do a longer write up (essay) on my thoughts as someone who utilizes behaviorism on a daily basis at work in a multitude of ways - but it would be good for the developers and players to further consider not only what is "best" or needs to change for "fair" play but also how much enjoyment we get from linking economy and loot.

I love the charm of seeking out certain items in specific spots. I love how this game allows you to meet people naturally within content. Sometimes I run through a low level zone and help a player out and build a friendship this way. However, we can't be "fed" those items by low level players or mid level players easily. New and mid level players would probably enjoy the game much more and everyone would have more incentive to utilize the marketplace if we had a quick way to buy the items we like.

I believe that the concepts I just discussed and recommended are in sync with the developers' goals for the economy. As it is now with so many player vendors, it's just too tedious to seek out those items (like a needle in a haystack) and since I returned and there is a new resurgence in player merchants it's just exhausting to search them all. Listen, when I spend more time searching the NPC merchants and way overpaying on the work order boards while trying to guess the number of an item that one player out there has (so as to list in an efficient manner)... THAT is when I hit up that low level zone and make it harder sometimes on low level players there (though I try to be considerate).

Summary
High level players, particularly, value their time greatly. They will almost always focus on either the content they enjoy the most or those activities they enjoy which are the most fruitful (in terms of improving their character). Rewarding low level players for just generally exploring the game is essential. Allowing them to sell more of their goods reliably leads to more interactions. There will be more interactions leading to actual friendships, partnerships, etc. when players can reasonably locate people to do business with. I think most players are ok with some "charm" such as running around zones (mounts are said to improve this) in search of deals. Currently most niche items are excruciatingly tedious to locate regularly. This became a longer post than I originally intended. I tried to summarize some of the ways I see all of this interacting. I believe that the developers can maintain the "charm" of the game, which is sometimes a bit tedious, while also really rewarding a player for being a merchant. I certainly know that I ramble and am a bit tangential. We are all passionate about this game and what it represents within the online gaming market (there is nothing else like it now imo). We want it to turn out well, so in my case I poured my thoughts into this and hope that some refinements are suggested by others or it is found to be useful by the developers.

[Asashoryu]

I'm not totally against the goals of this concept but that version of it could be extremely damaging to our economy and likely to the live version's economy. It would mostly require that drops that are primarily from these mobs (bats for guano in Kur for example) are farmed by same level players consistently AND entering the market. You would only be able to get them at a slow pace, or constantly keep "alt skills" at the appropriate level (leading to bizarre tedium), or even more obsessively have to check the NPC merchants in hopes that someone leveling sold the item to the merchant (a perfect example of how failed the marketplace is). The end result is probably a bunch of frustrated players who just can't finish out class skill reagents, professions, make money with crafting. It would have to be a huge overhaul of loot that would most likely result in less diverse gameplay.


I disagree with your assessment on what the end market impact would be.

First, there wouldn't be a need to halt leveling a combat skill as an 'alt skill' under the proposal, but there would be a soft requirement to use mob-level appropriate skills when farming. You'd still be able to run around as a level 70 fire mage, for instance, but perhaps have to go back and use your mob-level appropriate fire magic abilities when farming bat guano drops in Kur to keep from burning up the loot drops and damaging the corpses. Assuming that such a character is benefitting from wearing level 70 fire mage armor, they'll still be more efficient and safer farming said mobs than someone who is fully level appropriate... they just won't be massivly overpowered in a 'one button click to AE kill' sort of way.

Where you see the resulting slow-down of high level characters farming low level mobs as a limitation, I rather view it as liberating high level characters from being economically incentivized to mindlessly farm low level mobs with little challenge or risk. If the slow down in bat guano production (continuing with your example) doesn't correct itself by way of level-appropriate players finding new markets for bat guano in game to reward their effort, then the bat guano supply and demand could always be revisited in the form of recipe demands and mob loot tables.

Player markets/vendors and resultant gameplay would actually become more diverse as a result of these changes, though individual characters would likely become less efficiently self-sufficient as a result.

.
.
.

Regarding your suggestion on player sold goods though, I agree the player market needs to be made more easily searchable.

Ideally something similar to how the storage bookshelf in Serbule functions for storage should be implement to search across and allow purchase of all player vendor and consignment items 'in zone'. Serbule returns from such a "broker" wouldn't need to match similar searches in Serbule Hills or Eltibule, but I shouldn't have to waste a hour running around to several dozen player vendor stalls and NPC consigment vendors trying to find something that might not even be up for sale.

[ArkadyRandom]

I disagree with your assessment on what the end market impact would be.

First, there wouldn't be a need to halt leveling a combat skill as an 'alt skill' under the proposal, but there would be a soft requirement to use mob-level appropriate skills when farming. You'd still be able to run around as a level 70 fire mage, for instance, but perhaps have to go back and use your mob-level appropriate fire magic abilities when farming bat guano drops in Kur to keep from burning up the loot drops and damaging the corpses. Assuming that such a character is benefitting from wearing level 70 fire mage armor, they'll still be more efficient and safer farming said mobs than someone who is fully level appropriate... they just won't be massivly overpowered in a 'one button click to AE kill' sort of way.

Where you see the resulting slow-down of high level characters farming low level mobs as a limitation, I rather view it as liberating high level characters from being economically incentivized to mindlessly farm low level mobs with little challenge or risk. If the slow down in bat guano production (continuing with your example) doesn't correct itself by way of level-appropriate players finding new markets for bat guano in game to reward their effort, then the bat guano supply and demand could always be revisited in the form of recipe demands and mob loot tables.

I don't like this solution. It means players aren't using their characters how they like, they're using the skills within the mob level window. Players would constantly need to shift skills around depending on the zone they're playing in. That means players would need multiple sets of gear depending on what area and what skills they could use. Gameplay becomes much more restricted. It kind of goes against the spirit of the game being open and personalized.

[Crissa]

Players would constantly need to shift skills around depending on the zone they're playing in. That means players would need multiple sets of gear depending on what area...
Which skills have abilities that gate around level?

As far as I can tell, there aren't any abilities that phase out because of level blocking. You have to know all the earlier ones to know the later ones. As long as the level-shifting was automatic, it wouldn't be such a problem, right?

And we already have gear that is better or worse in different areas. Cold gear for the mountains, hot gear for the desert, gear that's better against different damages, gear that clobbers specific monsters...

[Mikhaila]

I don't like this solution. It means players aren't using their characters how they like, they're using the skills within the mob level window. Players would constantly need to shift skills around depending on the zone they're playing in. That means players would need multiple sets of gear depending on what area and what skills they could use. Gameplay becomes much more restricted. It kind of goes against the spirit of the game being open and personalized.

I agree. I would hate not being able to go back into low level zones for certain ingredients. I'd gladly buy them from people and vendors, but don't always see them. Keep the open world open. If I need flesh for cold resist potions and want to quickly run into the goblin dungeon to kill a half dozen mobs, I'm not taking anything away from a character 20 levels lower, and don't feel I should have to use skills far below my level and spend a much larger amount of time.

[Asashoryu]

I agree. I would hate not being able to go back into low level zones for certain ingredients.
It's important to note that no one is actually suggesting this.


I'd gladly buy them from people and vendors, but don't always see them.
There may be a reason why you don't always see said ingredients for sale.


If I need flesh for cold resist potions and want to quickly run into the goblin dungeon to kill a half dozen mobs, I'm not taking anything away from a character 20 levels lower, and don't feel I should have to use skills far below my level and spend a much larger amount of time.
Correct! That is perhaps the main reason why items which are trivially farmable as needed by high level characters aren't often found on player vendors.


Keep the open world open.
Nothing suggested would make the world 'less open', to suggest otherwise is akin to complaining that being limited to combat abilities within 15 levels of a lower level combat skill makes the world 'less open'. It *would* make you less efficiently self-sufficient, however... and that would make for a better in-game economy. (see your own argument against yourself, quoted above)

[Arundel]

I disagree with your assessment on what the end market impact would be.

First, there wouldn't be a need to halt leveling a combat skill as an 'alt skill' under the proposal, but there would be a soft requirement to use mob-level appropriate skills when farming. You'd still be able to run around as a level 70 fire mage, for instance, but perhaps have to go back and use your mob-level appropriate fire magic abilities when farming bat guano drops in Kur to keep from burning up the loot drops and damaging the corpses. Assuming that such a character is benefitting from wearing level 70 fire mage armor, they'll still be more efficient and safer farming said mobs than someone who is fully level appropriate... they just won't be massivly overpowered in a 'one button click to AE kill' sort of way.

Where you see the resulting slow-down of high level characters farming low level mobs as a limitation, I rather view it as liberating high level characters from being economically incentivized to mindlessly farm low level mobs with little challenge or risk. If the slow down in bat guano production (continuing with your example) doesn't correct itself by way of level-appropriate players finding new markets for bat guano in game to reward their effort, then the bat guano supply and demand could always be revisited in the form of recipe demands and mob loot tables.

Player markets/vendors and resultant gameplay would actually become more diverse as a result of these changes, though individual characters would likely become less efficiently self-sufficient as a result.

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Regarding your suggestion on player sold goods though, I agree the player market needs to be made more easily searchable.

Ideally something similar to how the storage bookshelf in Serbule functions for storage should be implement to search across and allow purchase of all player vendor and consignment items 'in zone'. Serbule returns from such a "broker" wouldn't need to match similar searches in Serbule Hills or Eltibule, but I shouldn't have to waste a hour running around to several dozen player vendor stalls and NPC consigment vendors trying to find something that might not even be up for sale.


My argument is more towards actually giving high level players a reliable way to find goods which can be farmed by lower level players as they level up and enjoy the game. Some items have to be obsessively farmed to excel in a craft and this leads to the situations you see beyond just the "panthers" issue. I really don't have any particular problem with your idea I just believe it will confuse the shit out of people and frustrate them, when simpler solutions are available. Again though, its not like I'm saying it couldn't work - I'm just saying the reason for the problem lies elsewhere and its indicative of an overall crisis in the economy. There is an insistence by the developers to overly complicate things at almost every turn. I love the exploration part, the need to go in numerous zones constantly, the fact that the game plays by different rules than the competition - that part is awesome. The part where they lose me is when the intent to complicate or refuse to simplify problems for the sake of "charm" causes tedium which just burns out people who have been playing awhile. I don't want the game to be World of Warcraft (vomit!) but I think we need to be able to do some things in an efficient manner like the work order board. Give us that and I am positive that a variety of players (not just high level) will go and farm up the materials and post them for profit. It just takes forever to find good deals and it makes people tired.

That and as stated before, a higher variety of zones would really help. Both of these issues have been acknowledged by the developers in recent posts and I believe they will be fixed to some extent. I want the game to remain complex but I have to say I think it is tedium to need to keep multiple suits of armor or constantly switch to lower level spells to be at maximum potential. I will be honest too, with any spec I play with proper gear I can skill myself down to the level of say panthers and I still can solo massive amounts faster than a same level player (gear>skill level). Hence why I don't think it really solves anything and the simplest solution is to improve the efficiency that players can find a "niche" in money making and provide those items and sell them fast enough to players that they feel it is worthwhile.

[ArkadyRandom]

Which skills have abilities that gate around level?

As far as I can tell, there aren't any abilities that phase out because of level blocking. You have to know all the earlier ones to know the later ones. As long as the level-shifting was automatic, it wouldn't be such a problem, right?

And we already have gear that is better or worse in different areas. Cold gear for the mountains, hot gear for the desert, gear that's better against different damages, gear that clobbers specific monsters...In that suggestion if a character's skill is too high then they can't use them. They would need to use combat skills from another line. I don't like that idea.

Even in the scenario where you could choose lower tier skills of your preferred line you're still being directed into a gameplay style. And it's still fiddly in that you would need to keep builds ready for each region based on what skills would work in that area.

I'm all for a way to prevent over-powered characters from trivializing content. I actually prefer scaling systems like you see in Elder Scrolls Online, or even a power cap system like Rift employs. I believe content should not be trivialized by rudimentary number bumps. I don't like the gray con system. I would prefer players never trivialize content, but I also don't think they should be restricted through the solution. The system needs to manage that. It's DM territory in PnP gaming and it should be the same in computer gaming.

[ArkadyRandom]

I agree. I would hate not being able to go back into low level zones for certain ingredients. I'd gladly buy them from people and vendors, but don't always see them. Keep the open world open. If I need flesh for cold resist potions and want to quickly run into the goblin dungeon to kill a half dozen mobs, I'm not taking anything away from a character 20 levels lower, and don't feel I should have to use skills far below my level and spend a much larger amount of time.
I agree, but I also think powerful characters shouldn't trivialize content. Maybe zones could have effective power caps so that it's not the high numbers, but the greater toolset that makes the character more adept in those zones.

Say a zone has a power cap of 25. A newer less developed (low level) character would have fewer skills and combat options. Their skills and power would be less fleshed out. A more developed character would have more skill lines, better skills, and they would be operating at their power cap for that zone. Additionally the more developed character would have the gear and procs that give them a veteran edge compared to the "lowbie". They're still going to mow through content faster, much faster, but it's not going to be trivially faster and if they play poorly they'll die.

In any event, whatever the team comes up with I'm hoping there will be a happy balance between trivializing content and restrictive play. The end result needs to be fun and feel natural, not jarring.

[Aionlasting]

Power capping... sounds horrible.

The solution to this problem is so simple.

You streamline the crafting materials such that rather than adding an ever upward vertical tiering of resources we implement a horizontal tiering of resources.

What this means is that instead of going from shoddy skin --> rough skin --> nice skin --> quality skin --> amazing skin etc.. into perpetuity thereby rendering all lower tiers obsolete to higher level players, we add a horizontal level of complexity. So... in this system, Nice skin isn't higher tier of 'rough skin' (rename it, say to 'Soft fur') but rather 'nice skin' and 'soft fur' (formerly rough skin) simply drop from different (not higher level) monster types across all levels. So say a tiger drops 'nice skin' and a deer drops 'soft fur.'

Now a level 70 player kills a level 70 deer, he gets 'x' amount of 'soft fur.' A level 10 player kills a level 10 deer he too gets 'soft fur.' Apply this concept across any crafting resource that is gathered. What this does is it allows the level 10 player to participate in the same economy as the level 70 player and acquire resources that equally valuable to both players. The difference is the level 70 player needs MORE 'soft fur' (Assuming his crafting is equivable to his level) than the level 10 player but both have equal need and therefor are willing to participate in the same shared economy where resources don't ever become obsolete simply because a player has gained in levels. Hell the level 10 player could make a killing off saving his 'soft fur' and selling it to that level 70 player even if he farms less of it per hour because he's lower level. Atleast he has things the level 70 player wants! This makes a very booming economy!

One can add as much complexity to this system without trivializing other resources because there is no upward tiering of resources as in the current system.

For example, let's say I want a level 70 player to have to use more resources to craft his armor. I can do this in two ways. 1, I can make the amount of 'soft fur' he needs be more than the level 10 player, and 2. I can make the level 70 player require additional ingredients, let's say, 'Fluffy wool' and 'Thick hide.'

The huge benefit to this system though is that since 'fluffy wool (Sheep)' and 'thick hide (Rhino)' both drop off monster types rather than based off upward monster levels, both the level 10 player and level 70 player can fight and skin their appropriate leveled sheep and rhino to acquire resources that are equally valuable to both of them. No more out leveling 'older' content.

For this system to work though, one must implement a way that prevents the level 70 player from farming the level 10 deer (or sheep or rhino) because he can kill more of them and faster. To do this, all one must do is implement a system where if the player out levels the monster by 'x' amount of levels, the deer (sheep or rhino) cannot be skinned (or butchered) by that higher level player, i.e. he 'mutilates' the corpse. This forces the level 70 player to hunt monsters of appropriate level.

You can apply this to anything. Blacksmithing? Think about all those simple, basic, good, etc... quality bars that become useless and outdated as a player progresses upwards in the crafting tree. That can be fixed too in much the same way I explained above.

I really think this is the best solution because it keeps all resources relevant regardless of player level and progression and allows players of all levels to participate in the same shared economy with resources that all players , high and low, find shared value in.

I realize not everyone will agree but I thought it was worth re-iterating again because I've seen some strange solutions to the problem that plagues most MMO's and I can't help but find the solution to be so simple.

[Arundel]

Power capping... sounds horrible.

The solution to this problem is so simple.

You streamline the crafting materials such that rather than adding an ever upward vertical tiering of resources we implement a horizontal tiering of resources.

What this means is that instead of going from shoddy skin --> rough skin --> nice skin --> quality skin --> amazing skin etc.. into perpetuity thereby rendering all lower tiers obsolete to higher level players, we add a horizontal level of complexity. So... in this system, Nice skin isn't higher tier of 'rough skin' (rename it, say to 'Soft fur') but rather 'nice skin' and 'soft fur' (formerly rough skin) simply drop from different (not higher level) monster types across all levels. So say a tiger drops 'nice skin' and a deer drops 'soft fur.'

Now a level 70 player kills a level 70 deer, he gets 'x' amount of 'soft fur.' A level 10 player kills a level 10 deer he too gets 'soft fur.' Apply this concept across any crafting resource that is gathered. What this does is it allows the level 10 player to participate in the same economy as the level 70 player and acquire resources that equally valuable to both players. The difference is the level 70 player needs MORE 'soft fur' (Assuming his crafting is equivable to his level) than the level 10 player but both have equal need and therefor are willing to participate in the same shared economy where resources don't ever become obsolete simply because a player has gained in levels. Hell the level 10 player could make a killing off saving his 'soft fur' and selling it to that level 70 player even if he farms less of it per hour because he's lower level. Atleast he has things the level 70 player wants! This makes a very booming economy!

One can add as much complexity to this system without trivializing other resources because there is no upward tiering of resources as in the current system.

For example, let's say I want a level 70 player to have to use more resources to craft his armor. I can do this in two ways. 1, I can make the amount of 'soft fur' he needs be more than the level 10 player, and 2. I can make the level 70 player require additional ingredients, let's say, 'Fluffy wool' and 'Thick hide.'

The huge benefit to this system though is that since 'fluffy wool (Sheep)' and 'thick hide (Rhino)' both drop off monster types rather than based off upward monster levels, both the level 10 player and level 70 player can fight and skin their appropriate leveled sheep and rhino to acquire resources that are equally valuable to both of them. No more out leveling 'older' content.

For this system to work though, one must implement a way that prevents the level 70 player from farming the level 10 deer (or sheep or rhino) because he can kill more of them and faster. To do this, all one must do is implement a system where if the player out levels the monster by 'x' amount of levels, the deer (sheep or rhino) cannot be skinned (or butchered) by that higher level player, i.e. he 'mutilates' the corpse. This forces the level 70 player to hunt monsters of appropriate level.

You can apply this to anything. Blacksmithing? Think about all those simple, basic, good, etc... quality bars that become useless and outdated as a player progresses upwards in the crafting tree. That can be fixed too in much the same way I explained above.

I really think this is the best solution because it keeps all resources relevant regardless of player level and progression and allows players of all levels to participate in the same shared economy with resources that all players , high and low, find shared value in.

I realize not everyone will agree but I thought it was worth re-iterating again because I've seen some strange solutions to the problem that plagues most MMO's and I can't help but find the solution to be so simple.

I'm actually not totally opposed to that concept. As long as skills and levels had an impact. Say a level 70 with 10 skill in skinning or whatever wouldn't get more than say a level 10 with a skill of 50. Some math would have to be done there to not just reward level but skill in the profession. I always like items being randomized with small concentrations of drops being notable on different animal types. And again spreading out the number of areas where you can aoe would be excellent. The concept of aoe pulls will always exist to an extent - it's simply a player grinding as fast as possible. But the idea you have of spreading all the same items (in general) around zones when it comes to items gathered from harvesting them: that part I do like. It would take some careful consideration. I have always loved how in this game I am constantly visiting various zones for my crafting needs - eventually though I started limiting the areas I went to heavily because I could overpay for certain goods and it worked out to be more profitable due to player time = money.

I'd have to think on it more but I generally like this game's approach so far and I think a few small changes could be tried first before radical overhauls of loot/craft systems. I do enjoy though in games where I can gather "end game" or highly needed items early on but can get more later for whatever reason. Stomachs are a good example, finding one when I was low level felt great. I always had my craft skills far above my combat skills since I prefer to max all those (currently have them all maxed now but only a few combat skills maxed) - whereas when I got higher level I hardly cared that much how much stomach I looted I just counted at the end of a grind session. Overall a good idea though and a strong possibility for a way to change this.

I still stand by just adding lots of good AoE spots with smaller clusters (panthers is way overkill) - and also adding more monsters to fight as a group or strong solo/duo that give exceptional loot (beyond those in dungeons). Variety could lead to more diversity in places to earn money and obviously an AoE character wouldn't fare the best against say one hard to kill elite to or special enemy that yields great loot. If a player with higher single target damage or better survivability could fight single enemies in certain areas and earn enough to equal panthers it'd be great. I do have a spot in mind that already exists that is (for me at least) more money per hour than panthers and is never camped. Also crafting obliterates panthers on every possible level in money per hour if you have a lot of skills maxed, have buyers/sellers set up for things to expedite the process, are willing to overpay to monopolize a market, and keep in mind a few concepts: time spent = overall profit since most actions in the game in some way result in money but the time to do so is the important part.

Another important concept is how much of an item you can sell. I can make as much as panthers without killing a mob and in literally 1/20th the time and not nearly the burnout. There are things players haven't found and I am quite certain some veterans have means to earn more per hour than I am aware of. That is what is fun about this game, it's complexity and infancy yield a tremendous amount of options and it takes a very dedicated player to learn new ways to earn money that are unknown to others - yet it is still possible. This is due to the game NOT being simple. In world of warcraft or almost any other MMO (even more sandbox types) people quickly can determine all the best ways to make money. The original poster claims to have done this - and I'm not faulting him for it as it is generally accepted that panthers are the best per hour - but there are other ways. So part of what needs to happen is players having more tenacity in finding odd ways of making money that may not be apparent, finding new grinding spots, making particular niche builds for said activities, and not giving up just cause one simple method of making large amounts is found. The other necessary change is for the developers to continue to diversify where we can get loot because currently many of the zones are just barren. After all it is a beta though - so I'm expecting large changes in the next year.

Finally, as I repeated before - allowing players to sell items in a slightly less obnoxious way would encourage sales and make buyers happier to not have to run around for hours clicking merchants. I'm not suggesting an auction house - but lets look at what the /isearch feature did. I don't know of anyone who hates it - and most are extremely relieved to have it. For myself if I take a break I might forget where I placed an item in my 500 banks the game forces us to use - isearch solved this problem. The same can be said for 300 merchant shops - it is a nearly identical parallel where time spent on an activity directly influences profit (as a multiplier effect). When a player can search them for certain items they are likely to still visit numerous shops per day and see good deals but won't need to do exactly what we had to do with the old banking system which is "search tediously" to make the game "harder".

[Oqua]

Stomach's are a great example where all players can participate in the market, both the low level player finding a jewel but also allowing for the high level player to mass farm by running the numbers.

however if you limit the availability of a skill be it skinning or butchering to a level range then what is my incentive to learn combat skills?

From the perspective of a crafting over combat player PG already has a lot of crafting items where the best method of obtainment is not crafting/gathering/gardening but combat. I dare you to spend an hour attempting to forage for Violet/Dahlia seeds in elt and then compare it to mass killing targets and looting seeds for an hour....

A similar situation occurs with wood, where the chickens in Kur Tower often drop 10 pieces at a time, and given the combat speed foraging for wood simply cant compete.

Further if you limit the ability of combat players to "acquire" resources from kills then from that crafting/gathering perspective what is the incentive to level combat?

Its a difficult situation for sure, there is a massive imbalance between what you can accomplish with combat skills vs non combat skills when applied correctly, and I do not believe that simply applying a negative is the answer. I generally prefer to raise the lower then lower the higher in these types of situations. I can imagine a number of players feeling quite defeated when their combat skill goal got changed and that is quite the blow.

I personally know of several players who worked towards panthers as the goal of their combat skill training and when it was changed they lost a lot of interest in combat skills as a whole. With players able to secretly print money, and a player base that quite honestly is diverse in its ability to discover these methods for themselves the panther change was devastating to say the least.

I do not know what the solution is, there has to be a balance between high lv combat and low lv combat so as not to invalidate either, there also needs to be a balance between what you can do with combat skills and what you can do with non combat skills. As a crafting focused player I do not want to see combat "nerfed" and I think a lot of the ideas kicked around in this thread will do that, although I don't have any substantial solutions to offer myself. I do hope that the chances suggested are looked at from both your perspective, a non-applicable players perspective, and both a veteran player as well as a newer player because often the unforeseen changes can completely defeat a players will to play.

[Arundel]

In direct reply to Oqua: my suggestion for how combat skill level or trade skill level would affect number of an item that is acquired from gathering was a scaling tool and I'd have no idea what scale that should be but just to be fair to both focuses (though I think most people do some measure of both and quickly max both if they spend any time on it). One of my core suggestions has been to diversify means of acquiring items through means of getting them and limiting it completely hurts that. Not sure if that is what you meant in your reply.

Yes, I think boiling the problems with the market down to just one thing isn't going to work. As you described with combat vs trade for means of acquiring items. I think having a diverse way of getting most items is good and can shift things away from too much repetition. Some players just really like being self-sufficient. There are a lot of items that the community is just not producing enough of for professions that are very hungry for hundreds of the same items on a regular basis - but there aren't a lot of ways to acquire them reliably (can name countless examples).

I have simplified my initial suggested changes to first making it easier to search player vendors because I love going to the vendors but would prefer to search by an item I want and find sensible vendors from there. I apologize if I repeat some of the information in my post but I am returning after basically a 6 month break and am recalling gameplay - while also interacting with forum posters - so my thoughts are evolving. I think the concept of rapidly searching vendors while also being careful in establishing multiple ways to acquire most trade skill items - will result in better overall shopping. Personally, I'd have a shopping list of 50 or more items and would end up browsing a lot of merchants wares but it would weed out the huge number with 1-5 items posted or grossly overpriced goods. I do believe even if it is not done now it will be essential after launch if we started having 1000 or 2000 online at once. I also think a lot of lower end machines like mine (which was really high end 3-4 years ago) just won't be able to run the main town then, not sure on the solution there other than what they are kind of doing with rahu maybe (the two work order boards).

The other suggestion I had is more spots to grind and it fits well with Oqua's post - a great counter to the panther dilemma is a lack of great areas to grind difficult enemies or small packs for good profit. Overall we just need more spots. Beyond more geographical locations or mob loot - establishing a variety of ways to acquire at least most items would reduce the feeling of forced gameplay when wanting certain items that the community is not selling or that are "camped" by certain players (this is already an issue with 200 players online, imagine how bad that will be with 2000 and search or no search feature these players will have alternate accounts just for searching the merchants constantly).

Now there will always be niche groups that want things like intentionally making it hard to find items via no means to search, low drop rate, and tedious item management. Their arguments are valid as I had some fun with games like that in the 90's and 2001-2010 era of online and offline games - however I have to say after gaming this long there are just some activities like searching all the merchants which grow to be too much the more vendors there are. I like several other arguments towards modifying the current market and gameplay quite a bit more - most of them don't seem to be that different from mine at their core.

I also like that Oqua pointed out massive imbalances between combat vs non combat though I'm not sure which he is referring to being dominant. At first I believed panthers were best. Then I found another two grind spots with better overall profit rates and almost no "merchant" issues with quick weekly caps being reached. After that I began to find it more fun to make money with crafts (and in some cases more profitable but these are limited) with brief grinding (or leveling of new combat skills) when I accomplish all my crafting for the day or am sick of it.

Money making with crafts mainly consists of spamming low level "prerequisite items" until you literally die of carpel tunnel (I refuse to give in to the auto repeat button!! evil!!) and make an item or items from that. I'd like to see different crafting options like forging a sword or armor over the course of a day or week with quality improving the longer I put into it. Not sure how to do this exactly.

I'd love to see more variations of growing items. For example, I'm sure there is a thread on it, but can we change gardening to have options to allow growing over hours or days but with more yield. Like mushroom farming and maybe limited in quantity like it - but without the horrid repetition of gardening. Again, with gardening (like panthers) I loved it for about 2 weeks and mostly did that because all my guildmates wanted the things I grew and I was gaining experience. Once I maxed it and found more viable ways of making money I hit burnout and quickly shifted to hating the activity and preferring to overpay for foods or farm crops and do other activities. Giving an option to grow them myself at maybe a less profitable way on a farm plot would be great. This would resolve a lot of the problems I hear consistent complaints about with flowers and food items availability.

None of those would be things I'd quit if they weren't changed. I just liked Oqua's suggestion that finding balance and diversifying means of getting items is a key element. Extremes in arguments generally run the risk of alienating as many players as they aid or in breaking the economy. I like the idea of changing the method that we search for items to allow more rapid buying/selling and then see how the economy plays out. I have a gut feeling that if it's implemented properly some of the complaints with panthers being so superior would become less common and the focus might even be on crafting being too good.

There are tons of options posted in this thread and I'm trying to get mine to mesh with them as I haven't played as long (1 year now, only played half of that) and am having to relearn a lot of things as I have been on a break. However, I have all trade skills maxed (except brewing I think) and several combat skills maxed out. I have also done all zones except the entirety of Gazluk which I have only made a few attempts at. I'd also say my guildmates would describe me as knowledgeable and an extreme player who quickly finds solutions if there are any. I'd hope that can turn into useful feedback. By the end of the Beta I'm pretty confident I will know with certainty which crafts and zones yield the best money - but as with the original post there is always something else out there lurking.

I'd love to see the devs respond more in the thread even if it isn't a direct quote but just a general comment on the directions they want to go based on our feedback so we could reiterate our arguments for or against something with that in mind. Like if the devs said "we will never ever make it any easier to search merchants" and gave a reason then I'd obviously find other things for solutions because it would be a waste of time to do otherwise. OK wall of text finished. I always feel that if you have something to say you may as well do your best with it so I hope the devs are really willing to wade through at least a few of my lengthy posts.

[Oqua]

I also like that Oqua pointed out massive imbalances between combat vs non combat though I'm not sure which he is referring to being dominant.

This was done intentionally, my personal bias and beliefs of what is or should be is not relevant. Any massive imbalance between combat and non-combat is, at least in my view, bad for the overall health and creativity of a game.

[Aionlasting]

Oqua,

No one wants to limit the ability of gathering resources to KILLS. At least I don't. The discussion on kills was regarding resources that specifically are acquired from killing, i.e. butchering and skinning. I think you misunderstood me quite a bit.

For example, In regards to metal slabs and blacksmithing, those resources would still be tied to some form of mining/surveying. But rather than tiering vertically through simple, basic, good, complex, amazing etc etc...for surveying, in a never ending skyward fashion that makes lower tier slabs useless to higher players/crafters and leaves behind a vast number of items that can hardly participate in an economy, an economy where lower level crafters/players and higher level crafter/players are completely detached from one another, we remove all that tiering upwards and diversify horizontally. I.e. we create crystal slabs in place of simple, metal slabs in place of good, copper slabs in place of complex, gold slabs in place of amazing, silver slabs... etc.. etc....your imagination is the limit.

So now lower level surveyors and higher level surveyors both can find resources that never phase out of the economy because these resources are not restricted to the player's level. What the player's level affects is the AMOUNT or HOW QUIKCLY they can gather these shared resources. As an example, a higher level players can mine/survey in Gazluk and get 10x the crystal,copper,gold, etc... slabs that a player in serbule hills can (This is just an example). Logically as well if this player is crafting level 70 gear he will need that 10x more than the level 10 player so it makes sense too. What this new system allows is continuity and persistence of resources from lower level players to higher level players and allows the economy to be shared by all players. Content never becomes outdated or useless as the player levels up. Those low level crystal finds back in serbule are still relavent to that same player when He is in gazluk mining crystal, the only different is now he is getting way more of it!

Hopefully you get the idea and that cleared things up for you. If not, please let me know.
Switching gears...

YOU SAID: "however if you limit the availability of a skill be it skinning or butchering to a level range then what is my incentive to learn combat skills? "

I'm not saying we limit the availability of a skill to a level range. What 'mutilation' does is prevent a level 70 player from skinning level 10 deer when level 60-80 deer drop the same craft resource as the level 10 deer. It keeps the player in the appropriate level range (+ / - whatever the developers feel is appropriate) because the resources don't change in the system I propose as a player levels upwards. All that happens is resources are more diversified horizontally.

Playing the devils advocate, why should the incentive to level combat skills be tied to a specific craft? If a player doesn't want to level up combat skills, Is the crafting system really the right place to incentivize that? Shouldn't the combat system and combat skills be incentive enough for a player to level up those skills? Shouldn't game content outside of crafting be a driving factor in why players want to level up? There are many perks outside of crafting that are tied to higher level players. (Housing? Mounts? Maybe unique titles only higher players can get? Unique cosmetic rewards? Who knows, the possibilities are endless but they don't have to be tied to crafting persay).

Lastly, is it so bad if a player wants to focus on being purely a crafter and hunt level 10 deer all his life instead of pursuing the level 70? I mean its their loss too as they will miss out on so much content and theirare many other things that can be gated behind higher combat class levels and overall player levels that crafting does not need to be one of them. I mean theoretically I could level cheesemaking to 60 right now if I wanted too without ever leveling past 20 so long as I can get those stomachs and that milk and run around grabbing cotton in eltibule.

I mean let's say a player decides not to level up? Well guess what? He can't get his mount because mounts are end game content. So now he's running around much slower gathering mats than the end game character. The lower level combat player also doesn't have access to all those nice runspeed modifier abilities that higher level players have access too so he's also limited in his running capacity making his gathering of matts and overall crafting process much slower.

That would be a huge incentive alone to me to level up because as they say, 'time is money.' Runspeed alone will drive players to level up.

[Oqua]

Oqua,

I think you misunderstood me quite a bit.

Hopefully you get the idea and that cleared things up for you. If not, please let me know.
Switching gears...


Honestly I don’t recall talking to or about you or engaging with any of your ideas. I did not comment on your posts or @ you in any way.

Additional Post Script: Honestly once you started talking about a horizontal move with crafting materials I pretty much put the rest of your post on quick scan auto read and did not give it much though. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is a thread and people are free to comment in it to engage with people or make generalized comments or even attempt constructively to change the course of the conversation. Not every post has to be a direct comment on what you want it to be on or a direct reply to what you have posted.

I have nothing constructive to say about your ideas, any of them, so I kept my mouth shut. What I did have to say was a more broad and generalized idea about the differences between combat and non-combat.

[Aionlasting]

My apologies then. I assumed your post following Arundel was in response to he and I.

I don't disagree with anything you said. Hopefully my post contributed to your broader discussion of the differences between combat and non combat in the context of a solution to the current crafting and economy.

[Arundel]

My apologies then. I assumed your post following Arundel was in response to he and I.

I don't disagree with anything you said. Hopefully my post contributed to your broader discussion of the differences between combat and non combat in the context of a solution to the current crafting and economy.

The more I think on it I really like the idea of having much less of a lack of tiers overall (particularly vertical) and having more horizontal tiers. I think it matches with the games overall focus on allowing us (sometimes requiring) to use older items or low tier items(I still use items that dropped for me at level 10, at max level). I think there should be some exception to increasing the number we get (so it's not just a formula for everything where higher skill = x droprate or quantity) and some rarity drops which become much more probable at higher tiers. Just to keep some horizontal and vertical progression. That change plus a huge increase in grouped spawns and "elite" enemies with superior drops could lead to a huge diversity in gameplay styles.

[Oqua]

Adding a more lateral progression for crafting--that just sounds like $L@V@#* With extra steps rick.....


If you look at the game as if exists now, how is adding in more of an incentive for players to camp and overcrowd the already existing areas a good thing? I don't even do panthers and I thought my few necessary combat farm spots were out of the way and yet, as time progresses those areas are continually camped by high level players as well as lower end players. If you give High level players more of an incentive to go after idk spider legs you shift the game from I can just go get those myself to I cant compete with anything close to efficiency so I better get my money and just buy everything I need.

[fellentier]

Thank-you everyone for your heartfelt responses. I have added an addendum that discusses, specifically, market stalls & being able to easily explore what is on the market. I'd post it here, but I don't have picture-linking privileges on these new forums.

Direct ADV linking was crashing for me, so here is the google doc link.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MoChE7UVs4Syygfzfc1sflRLY0W4vbH8ZqS4MDToWIk/edit?usp=sharing